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In a brick garage in SODO, a few blocks from the stadiums, was Locke’s car. Agent Lebeaux pulled off the cover that had been hiding it away, and there it was, looking the same as it had been on the video, except that someone had put air in the tires to move it. Even the fine film of dust on the car still remained. In the garage around the car, pieces of paper had been pasted to the walls, runic spells asking for invisibility, for protection, for clarity. Elliot would have never thought to look for the car here. No one did, not the Lockesmiths in the forums. Now she knew why.
“The car was stored here the same day it was found,” Agent Lebaux said, setting aside the cover. “As far as we know, no one has tampered with the car, or the building.”
“As far as you know,” Elliot said.
“Contents of the car were simple,” the agent continued, ignoring Elliot. “Bag for work, bag for gym, some papers related to work, some mail from home, necessary papers for driving. We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
Elliot circled the car. She looked for… well, she didn’t know what. But she was sure she’d know it when she saw it. She looked at the scratches on the outside of the car, how the dust had fallen, anything that might stand out.
Agent Lebaux watched her from a comfortable distance. “You’re finding what we all found,” she said as Elliot started another lap around the car.
“What did you find?” Elliot asked.
“Nothing,” the agent said. She shrugged. “It was worth a look, but there’s nothing to see.”
Elliot ignored her, but her ears dropped all the same, a little in frustration, a little in shame. She thought she’d find something if she looked hard enough. “Is this why you’re here?”
Agent Lebeaux nodded. “Pretty much. DHS says jump…”
“Do you go around outing witches other places?”
“That’s complicated,” the agent said.
“Hmm.” Elliot narrowed her eyes at the cop, and then looked back to the car. She thought about feeling magic, like she had felt with Z, and Meryl, and the nerd. And this car, it felt more like the nerd than her friends. Structure. Angles. Intention, but the kind of intention with weight behind it. And it felt so tangible, like she should be able to reach out and push the magic around.
“I get sent places,” the agent said, “because strange things happen there. Who do you think was in Chicago when Mothman was flying around?”
“Okay, we’re going to talk about that later.”
“I go where they tell me to, and find what I can find. I don’t out witches. I‘m not interested in scoring points like that.”
“So how’re you the only one?” Elliot tested the dust on the car with her fingers, watching it stick to her and fall away, and the way it… this was nothing. She frowned and cleaned her hand off on her jeans.
“I’m the only one they could catch,” the agent said in a low voice.
Elliot looked up, her ears perked. The agent watched dust motes in a stray sun beam, until the sun was taken back by the cloudy sky.
“I’d wanted to be a detective since forever. There were crimes out there and I wanted to solve them! It’s such a romantic notion, isn’t it? You don’t think about how awful the force can be because when you’re a kid you’re taught not to see it. And anyway, the FBI was way more attractive. But that was when I was a kid. And then I started noticing how different I was from the other kids.”
Elliot hadn’t counted on this. She looked around. Had the room changed? Why was this happening all of a sudden? She looked up, and made eye contact with Agent Lebeaux. Crap.
“We’ve studied witches, in the DHS. Did you know that?”
“What, no. How could I know that?”
“Yeah, right. Well, after collecting thousands of testimonies, we’ve found that magic can be present in kids as early as three or four. And like, present in a lot of kids. And a lot of the time, by the time they’re tweens, it’s gone. It’s like they forget. But the weird ones, they retain it for longer. Some of them even mature into adult witches.”
Elliot froze. She darted her eyes around the room. “I don’t know what to say to this…”
“I’m trying to have a moment with you,” the agent said.
Elliot started to laugh, and she faltered. “Wait, are YOU-?”
Agent Lebaux closed her eyes and folded her hands together. And then she drew them apart, a ball of light between them. She floated it over the car.
“Since I was a little kid. I always could make dark places light, among other things.”
Elliot’s tail twitched behind her. “They caught you…”
“Just a simple cop from a town outside a big city. A kid with a dream of becoming the world’s greatest detective. And oops, I made the mistake of showing off a little magic trick at a crime scene. Next thing I know I’m in the back of an unmarked van and being hauled in front of the head of Homeland Security. I was given a choice: work for them or go to Gitmo.”
“That’s not fair…” Elliot said.
“No, it isn’t. Not to me at least. But I can make it fair.” The agent idly batted at the air, and the ball of light began to drift away from the car. “I don’t out witches. Unless they’re hurting people, I don’t say a word about them. No one needs to know. That’s how I’m fighting this.”
Elliot looked away. Her eyes fell on the car, bathed in the light of the agent’s sphere. And for a brief second, she saw a shimmer on the surface of the car.
“If there was a black light for magic, could you do it?” Elliot asked.
“Absolutely,” the agent said. She twirled the ball into non-existence, and waved her hands over the car. Around them, the spells on the walls illuminated, their magical paths bright and unavoidable on the paper.
The car glowed.
There was writing all over it, like she had seen on the body. Magical writing that felt structured and calculated.
“Holy shit,” the agent said. She took out her phone and started to take pictures of the car. “I never thought of this.”
“I think there’s spells on it for that. Or there had been.” Elliot pointed to where she had wiped dust away, a magical path broken by her finger.
“This is good work,” the agent said. “You want to be a detective? You could be my sidekick.”
“Absolutely not.” Elliot leaned over the trunk of the car, the glowing magical writing almost too bright to look at. “What does it mean?”
“I’m taking pictures so I can study it,” Agent Lebaux said. “That should answer some serious questions.”
The gears in Elliot’s head turned hard. This was way more than she had ever expected, but she also couldn’t go tell the Lockesmiths about it. What would she even say. “Hey guys, I just saw The Car In Question and it’s cover in magic, probably from a new Unknown Source!” She certainly couldn’t post pictures of it online.
She looked up, and met the gaze of a pale skinned human with his face up against the garage door window. She let out a yelp, covering her mouth instantly, and falling behind the car. The agent looked up, putting a hand on the butt of a very real gun hidden under her blazer.
“He shouldn’t be able to see us,” the agent said.
Elliot peeked out from behind the car, just in time to see the human look away. He looked like he was talking.
“The spells will keep him from seeing anything except an empty garage.” The agent said. “Also, is that your guy?” She pointed.
Elliot stood. The pale skinned human turned to the figure next to him and said something. By the look on his face, he was pissed, and he stormed away, leaving behind the nerd.
“Yeah, that’s the guy,” Elliot said. She watched him carefully. He looked sad, and a little discouraged. Had he just been chewed out by the human? Was that his boss? She hated to admit she felt a little bad for him.
“I wonder if they felt the magic here,” Agent Lebaux said.
“I think he’s a wizard.”
“Maybe they both are.”
“Don’t like that,” Elliot said.
They watched in silence as the nerd collected himself, watching the human go, before he himself went on his way. They held their breath, and when he was gone they exhaled.
“That takes care of that.” The agent waved away the magic light. “We should go. I shouldn’t be bringing people here in the first place.”
Elliot nodded. She put her backpack on and let the agent open the door for her.
“Same time next week?” The agent asked.
Elliot rolled her eyes, and started off into the city.
[g]