Lillene

Enjoy!

“Not allowed?” Blaze frowned at Russ. “You can enforce that?”

“If we catch it,” Russ admitted. “We try, and I like to think that something this overt is always caught eventually, but sometimes they go for entirely too long. Once upon a time … it was only a few years ago when each of us had to cover multiple states. Now we’re training people who never had any idea magic existed. It’s not easy and it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, catch-up always does. The man who tried to trick people out of their homes is going to be in a lot of trouble, as is the person who made the cufflinks.”

Serenity’s mouth twisted at that. He hated hearing the answer “if we see it, we’ll do something about it,” and that was exactly what Russ’s response sounded like. Unfortunately, that was also the best he could do; after Legion told him what happened, he checked his Planetary Sovereign menu in case he’d missed some way to deal with mind control. Unfortunately, he hadn’t.

Serenity shook his head. None of that helped here. “The plan is for us to wait outside while you talk to the enchanter?”

Russ chuckled. “If by talk you mean “walk out in handcuffs,” then yes, that’s the primary plan. If there’s resistance, well, I didn’t ask you to do anything, but the entrances are …”

Russ walked them through the floor plan and where they thought everyone was, but everyone knew that plans might have to change. They were in the middle of a discussion about possible hidden areas when Russ stopped and held a hand up. “There’s someone coming.” Russ seemed to listen for a moment, then relaxed. “It’s Quincy. I wasn’t expecting her yet; they must have gotten to the judge when he wasn’t too busy. She’ll have the warrant, so it’s time to head out. Remember that if everything goes to plan, you’re there to look for anything else magical; it should all be covered by the warrant.”

Serenity was pretty sure this wasn’t how it was supposed to work, but it wasn’t like he knew anything about police procedure other than what he saw on TV. Maybe there was some kind of exception for experts? It was definitely true that Blaze, Ita, and Serenity were all experts in dealing with magic, at least compared to almost anyone on Earth, so that made more than a little sense.

Quincy was a mature woman, probably in her later forties, but the first thing Serenity noticed was that she wasn’t wearing the NYPD uniform Serenity expected. Instead, her jacket clearly identified her as FBI. She didn’t waste time; after a brief round of introductions, she got straight to the point. “They’ll be heading in to take Mr. Dean into custody soon, so we should get moving. If you three can follow in your car, we’ll lead you there.”

The group arrived after the lead officers had already entered the building. Russ grumbled about “gloryhounds jumping the gun” but he was careful not to say it anywhere where anyone other than Serenity, Blaze, Ita, and Quincy could hear. Quincy didn’t say anything, but her eyeroll and blatant look at the sky were clearly meant to express her feelings. Serenity wasn’t certain if she was directing them at Russ or the “gloryhound,” but her overstated motion did make Russ chuckle.

The enchanter’s workshop was in a small industrial building; it seemed to have two front doors, one labeled Dean’s Enchanting and the other labeled Big Apple Shirt Co. Given the names, they were probably not part of the same business. The UERT officers still had the shirt company doors covered; they were obviously not leaving it up to chance. Just as obviously, they expected trouble.

Whatever they expected, it wasn’t what happened. A little over five minutes after Serenity arrived, a pair of police officers walked out of the building with a man in handcuffs between them. 

Serenity paid more attention to the enchanter than the police. He was fairly average in height, maybe a couple inches on the short side, with sandy brown hair and pale skin that looked like he hid indoors all summer. His jeans showed some burn marks, as did his arms; Serenity guessed that his enchanting threw off sparks and he didn’t have a good ward up to protect himself from them. Other than the burn marks, some of which were clearly recent, there really wasn’t much to notice about the man. He felt to be low Tier Two, which seemed to be fairly common now, and he wasn’t wearing any magical items.

Serenity called Russ when it was obvious his future father-in-law wasn’t getting out of his car. “When should we head inside?”

“Give them a few minutes to clear out,” Quincy suggested over Russ’s speakerphone. “It’s easier to search a site with fewer people around, fewer distractions.”

“Seems reasonable.” Serenity doubted he’d be bothered by their presence, but if it would make Russ more comfortable, there was no reason to hurry.

Naturally, shortly before they decided it was time to head inside, a distraction arrived in the form of a SUV with NYPD UERT stenciled on the side. It was odd to see one arriving when the others were leaving, but it all made sense after Lancaster stepped out of the vehicle. He headed over to the van Janice, Serenity’s assistant, was driving. 

Serenity hopped out of the passenger door and walked around to meet his friend. They hadn’t talked in a while, but the occasional letters Lancaster sent spoke of a man who was busy but content in his new position. He grinned at the policeman. “What’s the head of New York City’s UERT doing here?”

Lancaster raised both of his eyebrows. “I could ask the same question about the Hero of Denver.”

Serenity rolled his eyes. “I thought that stupid name went away a year ago.” He could see that Russ and Quincy had also headed over towards Lancaster.

Lancaster shook his head slightly. “Things like that never quite go away. It’s better than being known for finding the worm plague.” There was a note of something regretful in Lancaster’s voice; did others talk about him and the hegemon worms?

Lancaster waved a hand towards the building. “I assume you’re here to look for anything we might have missed?”

“You haven’t had time to look yet,” Russ stated as he reached a comfortable speaking distance. “But yes, that’s the plan; we’ll look through each room for anything tying him to either the Solomon vase theft or Mr. Michaelson’s real estate scam.” 

Russ paused and took a long look at Lancaster. “You look uncomfortable. What aren’t you telling me?”

Serenity couldn’t see what Russ saw, but there was a good chance that no one else could see what Russ saw. There was also a good chance that Russ already knew whatever information he was trying to get Lancaster to say. Russ was a telepath, after all, a natural one. He had to work to keep others’ thoughts out of his head unless they knew how to shield; it was one of the things he’d said he liked about Serenity: Serenity didn’t project his thoughts most of the time. 

Lancaster sighed. “You’ll find out soon anyway. I just didn’t want to bring it up in front of Serenity, since he’s not on the inside.”

“I can move out of earshot,” Serenity offered. He didn’t mention how much he could enhance his hearing with Aide’s help; they didn’t need to know that. If it was important, Russ would probably tell him anyway.

Lancaster nodded, so Serenity retreated to next to his van. That was close enough that a shout would be easily understood but far enough that normal conversation would be hard to make out without enhancement.

Lancaster waited until Serenity stopped moving away before he spoke softly to Russ. “Mr. Michaelson has agreed to give up his client in exchange for a reduced sentence.”

“Client?” Russ spoke loudly enough that Serenity could have heard him even without Aide’s assistance, but his next sentence was quieter. “He wasn’t just trying to flip them for the money?”

“Not according to him,” Lancaster whispered. “He’s trying to get out of as much as possible, but I’m pretty sure we can find his client without his help, now that we know to look; he’s apparently not good at hiding his financial tracks.”

“No better than he hid his supplier? It’s like he didn’t expect to be caught.” Russ looked tired for a moment before his smile returned. He raised his voice enough to easily be heard. “We should get to clearing this place out. Serenity, come on back.”

The inspection of the enchanter’s workshop was, in a word, disappointing. It was far less interesting than Emery’s in Takinat on Asihanya; almost everything was modern and most of it was easy to understand. There were a few pieces of equipment that made Aide ask if he could absorb them, which Serenity turned down with a promise to consider buying one if Aide found something similar that was affordable. Most of it, however, was basic hand tools.

Unlike Emery’s, very few of the tools were enchanted. Serenity pointed out the few that were, but they held enchantments that were clearly shoddy; he could see the mana leaking off of them. They were nothing like Emery’s tools. Of course, she was Tier Eight and probably made her own; she knew that better tools meant a better product. In this shop, that was clearly not the case; when Serenity pointed out the enchanted drill, Aide pulled up a website that offered an identical model. Serenity doubted that making your own tools was necessary, but making sure they were decent quality was and these definitely weren’t.

It continued like that as they went through the other rooms. Serenity found a few partially complete items sitting on a table in one of the workrooms, but other than that there were only a half-dozen badly-made enchanted tools until they reached the back of the building, near the shipping dock. 

When they entered that room, Serenity froze. There was something familiar in the room. He looked around until he found it: sitting up on a high shelf was a familiar-looking vase. He pointed it out then proceeded to check the rest of the room.

He found three completed items and an illusionary wall that hid a set of shelves that held an unassuming set of boxes. Red would have to look over the items, complete and incomplete, to see if they were made using the ancient techniques, but Serenity didn’t need her help for the wall. It was almost identical to the illusions he’d found at the museum the Solomon vases were stolen from.

When they checked the boxes, Serenity heard one of the very few times Russ ever swore out loud. The boxes held some of the other artifacts that had been stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They’d been in New York City the entire time; they simply hadn’t known where to look. 

That was the end of their search, fortunately, because this opened an entirely different can of worms. Yes, they’d been looking into the location partly because of a connection to the Solomon vases, but it was indirect; they hadn’t expected to find the other artifacts. As far as they could tell, none of the missing artifacts were anywhere in the building other than behind the illusionary wall, which raised the possibility that Mr. Dean didn’t even know they were there. 

Serenity was glad he wasn’t going to have to be involved in questioning the enchanter.

Lillene

Serenity is going to regret that promise to Aide. He’s going to have to look at everything Aide found and balance reviews against functionality against what he will get out of it and what Aide will get out of it…