Chapter 21
Blackwell pulled the key from the ignition and several leaves from his pocket. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said, hoping outrage would trump nerves.
He touched his hand to hers, the leaves pressed between them. She could barely hear his murmured “heoloe” over the blood roaring in her ears.
And then—the oddest thing. She felt exactly the same, but she looked as if she had just winked out of existence, from the tip of her nose to her heels and—in between—the camera in her hands. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw nothing.
“My God, that’s disorienting,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s a spell that makes a person invisible only to everyone else?”
“Yes, but as it stops working the moment you move—breathing included—I wouldn’t recommend it. Hang on, I’m going to come around and open your door.”
He was quick about it, waiting for her to scramble out and then ducking his head in, apparently in case anyone was watching.
“Don’t walk near anything you could trip over,” he murmured as they waited to cross Key Highway. “It’s not easy to move around with feet you can’t see.”
“Right.”
“Remember that we can’t do any editing beyond lopping off the beginning or end, so don’t move the camera while it’s filming. Otherwise it won’t look like it was placed there by an employee.”
“OK,” she said, dashing across the road beside him.
“And please keep the camera as close to directly behind me as possible.”
“Because all wizards look the same from the back—check.”
He snorted. “Good luck,” he added in a whisper, and then they were in.
She walked as quietly in his wake as her heels allowed, the noise covered up by his loud footsteps as he strode to the reception desk.
“I need to speak with John Dockett,” he said to the young man behind the counter, the words and unspoken “or else” reminding her strongly of another day six weeks earlier, another counter.
The man took a step backward. “I’m—I’m afraid he’s unavailable—”
Blackwell crossed his arms.
“—but I’m sure he can see you soon,” the unfortunate clerk gasped out, voice going squeaky. “If you’ll just come with me?”
He led them down a hallway and into an office that reveled in its messiness.
Paperwork covered every inch of Dockett’s desk, even under his telephone.
Files that apparently couldn’t fit in the metal cabinets behind the desk were stacked directly on the floor.
And boxes packed to bursting lined the walls.
“Sit the way you plan to sit,” she whispered to Blackwell.
She found two boxes that looked sturdy enough, pushed them a few feet to the left and lifted one onto the other.
On top of this makeshift tripod she laid the camera, but before she could do anything with it—before she could even determine whether it was faced the right way—someone came rapidly down the hallway.
She felt around with invisible fingers on the invisible contraption, invisible heart trying to beat its way up her invisible throat, and had just managed to get the lens angled toward the back of Blackwell’s head when Dockett burst in.
She fumbled for the on switch.
“Now what?” Dockett said, the words coming out like minor explosions.
Where was it?
“Twice in one day—is this really necessary?” he added, rounding his desk. “Oh—you’re ... you’re not the same guy. Are you?”
The switch flipped. As best as she could tell, anyway—this would be the death of her.
“No,” Blackwell said. He’d pitched his voice lower, which made him sound less like himself. More threatening.
Dockett puffed out his chest, reminding her of a tomcat she’d once startled in the forest, but when Blackwell said nothing else, he deflated and sat. “Well ... why are you here?”
“There is some concern you might not handle the situation properly.”
“Is there?” The man’s thin face reddened. “What do you all take me for, a complete idiot?”
Blackwell said nothing. She imagined him raising an eyebrow.
“You wizards are all the same,” Dockett grumbled. “Think you’re so much better than the rest of us peons.”
“A Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic supporter, are you?”
Dockett issued a bark of a laugh. “Not hardly. Those dried-up harpies get on my last nerve. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to wake up tomorrow with a burning desire to have a hundred of ’em fouling up my hotel.”
That wasn’t a confession, but oh, it was close. Please be filming this. Please, please.
“That’s not the nature of our concern,” Blackwell said. “What will you do if reporters start asking questions?”
“I’ll show ’em the contract, of course.”
“Which contract?”
She held her breath. But Dockett merely grinned.
“Why, the one for the 17th and 18th. What other contract is there?”
Blast.
“You’re saying you’re absolutely certain there’s no danger of the original making an inopportune appearance?” Blackwell said.
Dockett frowned. He looked—there was no mistaking it—suspicious. “What are you talking about?”
Beatrix stared at the back of her employer’s head. Would he take this as proof that Dockett, though badgered by wizards, had done nothing to the League beyond preparing a contract with the wrong dates that they had foolishly signed?
Blackwell rose from his chair. Her heart stopped inching up her throat and sank into her stomach.
Then she saw the leaf in his right hand.
“Becuman feohgehāt!” he called out.
The effect was explosive. Papers flew to him from every corner of the office, turning the room into a confusion of white as Dockett bellowed in outrage.
Beatrix had no time to feel relieved—the box she’d put the camera on was literally bouncing.
Paperwork trying to batter its way out? The flaps strained against the masking tape holding them down. The thing was about to blow.
She grabbed both sides of the camera—just in time—and hung on as it vaulted into the air with an overstuffed three-ring binder in its wake.
Then she brought it down, hoping any later viewers—if there was anything to view—would think gravity alone was at work.
In a stroke of good luck, she managed to catch one of the flaps with the camera and balance the thing on the now-misshapen cardboard.
“Christ!” Dockett said, the first intelligible word he’d managed since Blackwell’s spell. “What—what the fuck did you do?”
Blackwell now stood behind the chair, which—she almost laughed—had a tower of papers stacked neatly beside it with the binder roosted precariously at the top. “I summoned all the paperwork in the room,” he said, as if this should have been obvious.
“All right then, why the—”
“I am aware the original contract for this weekend was destroyed. I was sent to ensure no copies are lying about in this pigsty you call an office.”
“You could’ve blistering asked! Come on, you think I want it getting out that I’d screw over a client? I never made any copies of that contract besides the carbon your guy burned—”
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
“—and you’ve destroyed my filing system, you—you—”
Dockett, seeming to recollect that the man he was on the verge of insulting could do a great many things to him with a leaf and a word, came to a sputtering stop.
“There was a system? My goodness.” Blackwell leaned an arm on the chair. “This is what will happen. I’m going to look through these contracts to see if you’re telling the truth. You are free to stay or get back to running the Key, whichever you’d prefer. I can let myself out.”
“I’ll stay,” Dockett muttered.
Blackwell worked efficiently, building a pile of glanced-at papers on the desk. But there had to be hundreds to go through. Beatrix—who didn’t doubt that Dockett had told the truth—watched in an agony of nerves and wished they were out of the room. She desperately wanted to watch the film.
“Good,” Blackwell said after nearly fifteen minutes of this, rising from the chair. “Thank you for your—ah—hospitality, Mr. Dockett.”
“You’re not paying me nearly enough to put up with this shit,” the owner said, looking at the jumble of contracts with a grim air.
“Considering that you’re also getting the League’s money, a bit of overdue cleaning seems a small price.”
Beatrix jabbed at the switch to turn the camera off just before he swung about and strode for the door. Pressing the machine to her bosom, she tiptoed after him, equally afraid her shoes would clack against the floor or that—by moving slowly to avoid noise—she would miss her opportunity to get out.
Blackwell opened the door before she got there. But he must have anticipated as much, because he held it wide and turned back to Dockett.
“Give my regards to Garrett the next time he stops by,” he said.
Her heart stuttered.
“Garrett?” the owner spat.
“Wizard Garrett. Your original contact.”
“He didn’t tell me his name,” Dockett said peevishly.
“You don’t say.” Blackwell smirked. “Maybe he managed to wriggle out of the assignment. Tall, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, dark green coat?”
“I don’t know,” Dockett muttered. “All you wizards—”
“—look the same. So I’ve been told.”
She poked Blackwell, perhaps slightly harder than necessary, to signal she was on the way out.
She minced along one edge of the hallway until he caught up, then jumped directly behind him and lengthened her stride so her shoes hit the ground in time with his.
When he pulled the hotel’s main door open, she dashed by him with a whispered “all clear.”
“Oh God,” she murmured once they crossed the little highway to Schoen’s Sugar and she judged it safe to have a conversation. “My respect for spies has increased exponentially.”
Blackwell grinned. And if it didn’t exactly do for him what a grin did for certain other wizards, it did create the illusion that they were partners in this. Allies.
“I thought that was fun,” he said. “Well—except for the slog through the contracts. Though it made that bastard even more infuriated, so all in all I count it a plus.”
Once they were both seated, he plucked out a few leaves. “Give me your hand,” he said, probably not recollecting the effect his orders had. For a short while this evening, she’d forgotten, too.
“Bemelde,” he said, and she snapped back into view.
The seats in his car had never before seemed so close together. She slipped her hand from his and glanced at the camera to avoid looking at him. It appeared no worse for all it had been through.
“Thank you, Omnimancer,” she said. “This was—very good of you.”
He shifted but said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t know what to say.
“How am I to repay you?” she asked, not liking that he had this to hold over her, and liking even less how grateful she felt to him.
He cleared his throat. “Just ... believe me when I say I have no ill will toward you or your sister.”
Her voice momentarily failed her. She forced air into her lungs and said, “I’ll try.”
“Good,” he said. “Let’s find a more distant parking lot and see how the film turned out.”
Perfectly, that was how it turned out.
Every important word was audible. Dockett was clearly identifiable; Blackwell was not.
And the camera’s airborne moment as the papers burst out worked so well that Blackwell couldn’t tell she had anything to do with it.
Even the off-center framing of the film was all to the good, making it look as if the camera truly sat unattended.
“Oh,” she said as the projector clicked off with a sigh. “This is a thousand times better than any proof I’d hoped I could get.”
“Now what? Back to Ellicott Mills?”
“No—that is, if you could spare a bit more time. I’d like to show this to the Star first.”
He glanced at his watch, frowning. “At nearly eight o’clock on a Friday night? Surely they’ve all gone home.”
“The reporter I want will almost certainly still be there.”
Indeed, she was.