Chapter 1
The first time Alex sensed the magic, it took him by surprise. Even though he was a mage born to a family of mages going back generations it had never happened to him before. It was like walking through a whiff of perfume, barely there, pleasant, familiar yet alien. It wasn’t part of his skill set to sense the ability in others. Yet feel it he did, and in a blink, it was gone again with no sign of where it had come from or who possessed it. He stood in shock while humanity moved around him, at 8:34 on a Tuesday in mid-January.
He sensed it again the next day, right as he walked into the building. He normally drove himself to work, but the day before he had ridden with his grandmother on her way to a shopping excursion with a dear friend. The incident had been so unusual it had piqued his curiosity, so he decided to use a driver for his morning commute. He turned around to try to see where it had come from, but as before it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Throughout the next couple of weeks Alex would occasionally sense it. As he didn’t keep regular office hours, he found it hard to pinpoint, but he experienced it most often in the mornings.
By the third week, Alex was determined to try to figure out where it had come from. He had stopped driving himself to the office so he could walk through where the sensation was always felt between the curb and the door. He asked his grandparents if it was possible that he had picked up a new skill. They asked him if he was able to feel anyone else’s magic.
“No.” Alex said. “And it’s damned irritating that I can’t figure out who it is.” They didn’t offer any suggestions, stating they would need more to go on before suggesting a conclusion.
It was there again the next morning. Shaking his head, he walked towards his building where the doorman caught his attention. “Good morning, Mr. McLeod.”
“Good morning, Frank.” Alex pulled off his gloves. Alex stood six feet three, with broad shoulders, long legs, dark hair that curled when it needed cut, which was frequently, storm grey eyes and the lightly tanned chiseled facial features of a Greek god.
“Can’t your security company do something about the vagrants? They are becoming a nuisance.” Frank complained.
“Oh?” Alex looked to his right, three people huddled over a grate from which steam emitted. They were dressed in layers of whatever they could pile on to keep warm in the frigid weather. One was wearing a bright pink scarf that stood out from the rest of the person’s apparel solely because it was clean.
“I’ll ask, but unless they start actually harassing people, I don’t see what the problem is. Are they staying far enough away from the entrance to not bother people?” It was a conversation they had every winter. The homeless loitered around the steam vents outside the building and Frank complained about it.
“Yes.”
“Well, if anything changes, let me know.” Alex went inside. He walked through the lobby of the building, his mind back on the mysterious magic. A few minutes later he was in his office on the 18th floor looking through the mail his administrative assistant, Jasper, gave him. Jasper tried to minimize the force of a sneeze.
“Jasper, you are feeling alright?” Alex asked.
“Yes, sir. Sorry.” Jasper was sixty. He stood at 5’9” and with a muscular upper body, his ebony face was framed by close cropped hair that fought the inevitable battle with the silver hairs of aging. Jasper had served in the military before retiring and coming to work for the McLeod family. He had worked for Alex for 5 years.
“These aging bones are feeling the cold and that weather front moving in. Also, Tiffany’s got a new candle thing in her office. Smells like a flower shop threw up. Makes me sneeze every time I walk by.”
Alex smiled at his assistant’s quip as he glanced through the stack of mail and messages. McLeod Holdings was built around commercial real estate and managed several properties in the city as well as around the surrounding community. Alex’s great-great-grandparents had begun the business during the heyday of the industrialist years in the late 19th century with a single warehouse near the Genesee River. George McLeod had opted for modest properties, or those being sold when someone fell on hard times.
During the Great Depression McLeod Holdings survived thanks to wise investments and George’s mistrust of the volatile financial environment. Alex’s grandfather still managed a bulk of the business along with a board of directors. Alex’s parents had died in a car accident when he was 7, and it was expected that he would eventually take over.
At 32 and the sole heir, Alex oversaw McLeod Security, one he had founded as well as the IT department and management of the building he was in. He had started to take over some of the other responsibilities now that his grandmother had retired, knowing that it was just a matter of time before his grandfather did as well. The security branch provided security for the family and its businesses, a range of security options for its other customers, and sometimes for the government, especially if someone in the magical community was involved. There the company acted more as a liaison with law enforcement service in partnership with the Council of Magic.
In the middle of the 19th century, a series of councils were formed to act as a self-governing body for the magical community and to act as a liaison between them and the rest of the world. Even though they were rare, representing about five percent of the population, magic users were often viewed with distrust or fear, even so most were no more a threat to society than anyone without the ability. Alex’s grandparents and his only living family sat on the Northeast Council of Magic, serving in one of the six such councils in the country.
“Why don’t you take your vacation early? It’s supposed to be even colder for the next few days. Get some rest before that big trip.” Alex looked at the clock on his desk. He had a video conference with the council in fifteen minutes.
“Are you sure you don’t mind? Sheila has been bugging me to go shopping for clothes and to make sure that the boiler won’t blow up when we are gone.” Jasper picked up the discarded mail for disposal.
“Isn’t your son going to be checking on the house for you?”
Jasper answered. “Yes, and feeding the dog, but you know Sheila. No one needs to worry when she’s on the job.”
“Start your vacation in the morning. It’s just an extra two days.” Alex said with a smile. His admin was taking his wife on a month-long cruise to the Mediterranean for their 30th wedding anniversary.
“Thank you.” Jasper said with relief.
The agenda for the video conference revolved around the U.S. military’s never-ending quest to recruit magic users. Alex had served in the Army. Although it had helped him hone the skills that would serve him well in the private sector, he’d left after his initial term was up, feeling more like a two-legged piece of artillery than a soldier. The council was on the fence about more overt involvement, a matter that frustrated Alex and his grandparents, who would prefer the world to be more aware of the magical community, just not necessarily as military muscle.
There was a history of incidents in the past where magic users had been forced into service or used in experiments against their will by non-magic or mundane governments. Of course, the magical community had a history of using the mundane for similar reasons, including an individual that Alex’s company had just finished helping to shut down. Alex sat through his meeting, then spent the rest of the day in meetings with Damian Blatt, his chief of security for the family, and local company holdings.
Alex sensed the magic the next morning at about the same time as the others, right before he entered the building. It was snowing, tiny icy flakes whirling thickly with the brisk wind, so he couldn’t see the faces of anyone passing by, bundled against the near blizzard conditions.
Solving mysteries or puzzles was something that Alex loved doing. He’d always enjoyed the challenge, and the more tricky or mysterious, the more determined that he was to solve it. This one had gotten his attention. He’d not had something pique his curiosity like that in a long time.
#
Claire Bean felt the cold blowing through her ancient parka, her scarf, her sweater, two t-shirts, and bra as she stepped off the bus. None of them were thick enough to hold off the single degree temperatures or the wind that made it almost impossible to breathe. She was glad that she only had four blocks to walk to work, wishing as she often had over the past few weeks that there was a safe, warm place to stay closer to work, especially during harsh weather. She’d yet to find it. Her job was just far enough off the main transit lines where blocks long walks were a necessity. She’d found nothing better despite moving four times since she’d arrived in Rochester, N.Y.
They were there waiting for her, as they had been for as long as she had exited at this bus stop. As cold and miserable as she was, she knew they didn’t have what she had, a job and a bit of money in an old mayonnaise jar. She’d been without a roof over her head enough during the past year and a half, so that she empathized with their plight.
Even though her job didn’t make much, it did make enough for her to scour the bins at thrift shops and purchase scarves, hats, and gloves for the homeless who gathered over a heat vent by her bus stop. Sometimes it was one or two people, sometimes it was a family with children. Sometimes it was a group of teenagers so thin it made her heart ache to see them.
The first few days she’d seen the people huddled over the grate; she’d walked by trying not to draw any attention to herself. She soon she found she simply could no longer ignore their pain as she passed. That night, she stopped and bought her first knit hat that she gave to an elderly man.
As she placed it into his hand, she felt the pain the cold was giving his arthritic joints. She gave him a tiny boost, just enough to take the edge off the pain, but not enough for him to notice anything, or that would sap her own strength. The next day, she noticed that he had brought a friend. She’d brought a pair of mittens and reduced the craving of the woman’s heroin addiction.
Today, she’d given the lime green stocking cap she had purchased to a pregnant woman on the bus whose stomach made it impossible for her to close her stained coat. The people waiting at the vent watched as she got off and walked towards them. Everyone had hats, however a girl of about fourteen had no gloves. Her skinny hands were red and shaking. Claire took off her own gloves, a pair of cheap knit mittens with a popular cartoon dog on them and handed them to the girl. Sensing the discomfort of a sprained ankle, she pushed, ever so slightly, the girl’s healing process then quickly eased the pain. She smiled at the girl, squeezing newly mittened hands with her own colder ones, then turned to begin the last dash for work.
“You! It’s your fault they are here.” Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the building. Claire saw that it was a middle aged, burly man in a uniform, the building doorman.
“Let go of me!” Claire tried to pull away, but he had a good grip on her parka. “What do you think you are doing?”
“You are responsible for those vagrants gathering. They are waiting on you, every day. They leave as soon as you’ve gone. I’ve been watching.” he accused.
“What’s going on here?” Claire turned towards the new voice, then looked into storm grey eyes set in a handsome face that looked down at her with curiosity.
“This overzealous doorman seems to think that giving a homeless kid a pair of gloves is some type of personal affront. And if he doesn’t let me go, I’m going to be late for work.” She tugged harder against the grip on her parka. A seam in the shoulder parted, causing the doorman to lose his hold. Caught off balance, Claire stumbled into the other man.
“Are you okay?” The tall man said, his hands on her upper arms as he steadied her.
He was close enough that she could smell his aftershave, a mix of cedar and bergamot. He was also much bigger than she had first realized, towering over Claire who was herself five seven. Claire backed away realizing that he had power, lots of power, feeling his magic swirling like a tightly wound spring. He looked wealthy, confident, and dangerous. That she had drawn the attention of someone like him, someone with powerful magic, made her leery.
“I’m fine.” She gave a quick glare at the doorman as she backed away, then made her escape, running to try to catch the light before it changed.
Alex watched her go. He had found the mysterious source of magic. He had not expected to find it in a woman with mesmerizing emerald hued eyes and an ugly, threadbare parka, who had given her gloves away on a morning where the temperatures hovered in single digits. Damian, his head of security, would find out where she went, then Alex would be able to learn more about her, and how she worked magic the way she did. He smiled at the memory of her eyes all the way to his office.
Damian had recently hired someone who was one of the best trackers Alex had ever seen. He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Feel like a bit of hunting?”Chapter 20
