Cold Case Of The Witch: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (School of Necessary Magic Raine Campbell Book 5) Page 2

  “So, juniors, huh?” Sara said after she pulled away. She brushed a few stray strands of red hair behind her ear. “Sometimes, I still feel like that freshman who had to deal with Paige turning her nose up at me because I’m a kitsune. So much has happened since then. It’s crazy to think about it. I don’t even recognize freshman Sara. She might as well be someone else.”

  “I didn’t even know I had magic until right before I came here,” Raine said, a wistful smile on her face. “At least you knew about your potential.”

  Evie smiled. “I missed baking with Tori and the pixies. Every time I made something this summer, I thought of them and what they’d say. I like being home, but I also like being here. Is it weird that this feels almost more like home sometimes?”

  “No. I feel the same way.” Although Raine loved Uncle Jerry, if they’d let her stay in the school over the summer, she wouldn’t complain. Part of growing up was finding her own place in the world, and she’d found that with her magical friends. She understood they wouldn’t all go on to the same lives after school, but the bonds they forged there would persist. She’d make sure of it.

  “I feel good about this semester. Really good.” Raine moved to take a seat at her desk. As silly as it was, she’d even missed her chair during the summer, even if it didn’t smell magical. “I think it’ll be our best semester yet.”

  “There’s a major unit on magical paintings they’ll discuss in art history this semester,” Sara said. “I’ve experimented a little with it, but it’ll be nice to get some more ideas and feedback. I can’t grow without critique.”

  Evie glanced at her friends. “Is either of you excited about Charlottesville?”

  Raine shrugged. “It’ll be nice to be able to visit both the kemana and the town, even if we have to take the jitney there.”

  Sara rubbed her hands together, her eyes full of anticipation. “And driver’s ed. That’ll be fun.”

  Evie looked down and sighed. A nervous expression settled over her face. “I don’t know. Am I the only one who is worried that Professor Powell is teaching it? Why have the dark magic professor instruct us in driver’s ed? I think I’d feel better if Professor Hudson taught it.”

  “It’s not like he’ll teach us a bunch of anti-dark magic driving techniques,” Raine replied and chuckled. “Maybe he’s the only one who wants to teach it. What, do you think it’ll be something like ‘Ultra-defensive driving: the life you save may be your own’ and ‘How to steer when your car is blasted with fireballs?’”

  Sara laughed. “That sounds useful, especially with our luck.”

  Evie shrugged. “You never know what Professor Powell might do.”

  Raine considered the possibilities. Sara was right. A little extra driving training could be useful.

  Maybe she could convince Professor Powell to teach her some fancy magical driving techniques. The FBI might not be involved in as many high-speed chases as city police, but it couldn’t hurt to have a few tricks up her sleeve in case a bad guy was ruthless on the road.

  “You know what?” Raine began. “I actually—"

  The door flew open and Christie barreled in without a suitcase, having arrived hours earlier than the others. She rushed over to hug Raine, Sara, and Evie in rapid succession before any of three girls could even begin to process that she’d arrived.

  “It’s great to see you all again,” Christie rattled off. “I told my dad before I got on the train how much I missed you all. Don’t get me wrong. Home’s great. Lots of fun, but I have the most fun here. It’s senior year for me.” The blonde girl clapped with real enthusiasm. “I can’t believe it. Honestly, it seems like yesterday I started here.”

  “It’s great to see—” Sara ventured when she thought the other girl had paused for breath.

  “Oh!” Christie interrupted. “I forgot to tell you. It’s super-exciting because it’s my senior year and all that, but that’s not even the coolest part.”

  Raine waited a few seconds before she tried to speak again. “What’s the coolest part?”

  “I’m joining Yearbook Club this year.” Christie clapped again and spun. “It’ll be super-fun. You all should join, too. It’ll be even more fun if you’re in it. We could have the best time. You could help make my last year the best year ever. Doesn’t that sound great?”

  “I don’t think I have enough time,” Evie replied softly with faint regret in her voice. “I’m sorry. Between baking, classes, and my other extracurriculars, I’m too busy.”

  Sara nodded her agreement. “Same with me. I practiced painting a lot this summer, and I talked about maybe doing that as a career at home, and my parents didn’t shoot the idea down. I think they don’t care about anything else now that my magic is fully in. Go figure. But that means I need to put in even more time to prove to them it’s important to me and not only a hobby.”

  “That’s great, Sara,” Raine said. “I’m out too, Christie. I have—”

  “That’s okay,” Christie said with a bright smile. “We all need to have the best experience we can. Oh, wait. Oh no.” She pointed to a nearby clock. “It’s time for me to help with the freshman tour.” The witch threw the door open again and hurried outside and her speed knocked a few stray papers off Sara’s desk.

  “There goes Hurricane Christie,” the kitsune said with a laugh. “It’s actually comforting to come back to school and see how some things don’t change no matter what year we are in.”

  The other two girls laughed softly.

  “Yearbook, though.” Raine closed the door. “That sounds fun. It’d be interesting to see them actually cast all the spells that go into making it. I never thought too much about it. Uncle Jerry was impressed when I showed him mine for last year. He also laughed about how someone had scribbled ‘FBI Trouble Squad Leader’ under my picture.”

  Evie shrugged. “Why not do it, then? I know you’ve cut back on some of your extra-curriculars to concentrate on FBI training, but since you’re not doing the Student Council this year, I’m sure you could slip Yearbook in if you wanted to.”

  Raine shook her head. “No. I’ve got to double down on the FBI training, and here’s why.”

  She quickly explained what Agent Connor had told her.

  “Wow.” Sara looked impressed. “So you’ll not only be the first non-hidden witch in the FBI, you’ll be the youngest.”

  “As far as I know.” Raine nodded quickly. “From what Agent Connor told me, because of both my magical background and ‘my practical investigation experience.’” She made air quotes around the last phrase.

  Sara laughed. “So he’s put ‘fought strange wizards, druids, and crazy magical game faeries’ on your resume?”

  “Pretty much.” She didn’t want to admit how good the idea made her feel and come off as arrogant to her best friends.

  Evie looked concerned. “Does that mean if we don’t end up in trouble during the next couple of years, that’ll hurt your chances?”

  Raine shook her head. “After everything we went through in the first couple of years, I doubt it.”

  “Do you think we’ll have an easy semester?” Evie asked and her tone suggested it’d take a near miracle.

  “Who knows? At least I didn’t see any weird glasses on my way in, but between driver’s ed and trips into town, I’m sure we’ll run into something exciting. Not Maeve or Raven Clan exciting, but interesting.”

  “If my family didn’t trust Headmistress Berens so much, they might have pulled me out of the school,” Evie said softly.

  A little confusion settled over Sara’s face. “I think my family’s almost happy that some of this stuff has happened. My grandma said something about how things being ‘too orderly’ might have been why it took a little longer for my magic to fully come in.”

  “She makes it sound like we've been at some factory for the last couple years and not a magic school,” Raine replied and shook her head in disbelief.

  Sara nodded toward the door. “Let’s fi
nd the guys and have some dinner. We should figure out when we’ll take our first trip into Charlottesville. I think we should head out on Sunday since school starts on Monday.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Raine agreed.

  She and Evie moved toward the door. Dinner would be safe enough and a good place to discuss their town plans. Besides, she’d even heard from Agent Connor that they would have a PDA agent staying on campus that semester. That would all but guarantee a safe semester.

  The only thing Raine couldn’t figure out was why Agent Connor always seemed so annoyed when he mentioned it.

  Chapter Three

  Mara pursed her lips as she sat behind her desk in her office. Bruce sat across from her and her tension was mirrored in his face. She would have preferred that Xander also be at the meeting, but he had been forced to work on last-minute preparations for the start of the semester, which included overseeing the inspection of their new driver’s ed equipment.

  “Agent Liana Oliver will come to the school on Monday,” Mara said. “I’m still not thrilled about this, but I understand there’s little we can do about it. I want to make it clear once again that I appreciate your efforts, and I know that if you had your way, she wouldn’t be coming, Bruce.”

  He nodded. “I tried to pull all the strings I could on my end, but the PDA’s never been thrilled with my presence here—or their lack of presence—from the beginning. That, combined with the incidents in recent years, made it inevitable. I’m not any happier about an outsider coming in than you are.”

  The headmistress raised an eyebrow as the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile. “An outsider? I thought you were here to keep an eye on suspicious and trouble-prone magicals.”

  “Now you sound like one of the students who spread those rumors about how I’m here on the hunt for dark wizards.” The agent laughed. “It’s not like I’m not here as an official government representative, but I didn’t come in here all that suspicious.”

  Mara shrugged. “I never believed you were here to find something wrong with us, and I think I understand how you feel, but it’s hard to be sure. A lot has happened in your short time here.”

  Bruce shook his head. “I was always here for Raine, first and foremost, and never to investigate any of you. So I’m not violating any ethics here by advocating for the school on your behalf. I simply want what’s best for Raine and the other students. My time here has enabled me to see how complicated a magical training situation can be, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think the government has fully caught up with some of the realities of magic. That makes for sloppy and inefficient responses to problems. I’m actually surprised, sometimes, that the government agencies have kept things as under control as we have.”

  “Does that sloppy and inefficient response also extend to the PDA?” Mara watched him curiously.

  “Yes. If anything, they’re even worse because maintaining control isn’t simply a matter of eliminating criminals and terrorists. It’s also about ensuring that law-abiding magicals don’t feel unfairly threatened and then lash out.”

  She nodded slowly. She didn’t disagree but she needed to hear the FBI agent’s reasoning. The continued cultivation of allies—especially ones she already considered friends—wasn’t a bad idea. “Oh?”

  “The PDA, back when it was still the Paranormal Defense Force, had different fundamental goals and I don’t think they’ve adapted for the modern realities of a post-open gate era.” Bruce mimed pointing a wand. “After all, magic was something to be hidden, and if it wasn’t hidden, it was a threat that needed to be dealt with.”

  “And you think they still think of it as a threat?”

  The agent nodded. “I might have a lot to learn about magic, but one thing I do understand is governmental bureaucratic inertia. The fact that Raine will be the first overt witch in the FBI when it’s already been decades since the gates opened is proof of that. The PDA, by its very nature, is focused on the whole ‘defense’ part of their name. That means they’re set up to look for trouble. Everything looks like a nail to a hammer and all that.”

  “They’re not totally wrong. Not all magicals are good. We’ve seen that at this school, and I know I’ve seen it in my life.”

  “Sure, but the way the government and law enforcement need to deal with that is by updating our strategy. If we stick to the same way we’ve always done things, it’ll be pointless. Law enforcement needs to engage the magical population so we can work together to take down the actual criminals.” Bruce tapped the side of his head. “I thought I had a good understanding of the world of magic before coming here, but I’ve learned a lot. It’s opened my eyes. The path to the future will require flexibility so we can continue to blunt the efforts of the worst of the people who are out of control. It’s one of the reasons I’ve supported keeping Raine here despite the incidents.”

  Mara smiled. “I appreciate your support of our school and mission. And let me make it clear that I very much agree with your stance.” Her smile faded slightly. “When we talked on the phone a couple of days ago, you said you didn’t know much about Agent Oliver. Is that still the case?”

  Bruce shook his head. “I’ve managed to learn a little more about her—enough that I’m not sure how she’ll react to this place. In some ways, she’s better than I could have hoped for and in others, much worse.”

  “I see. Could you elaborate on that?”

  He gestured around the room. “She’s very no-nonsense and has a solid reputation as an investigator if rather uptight and overly by-the-book.”

  “That’s not terrible. It describes a few professors at this school.” She shrugged.

  “Sure, but I also found a few other things that made me worry about how she’ll react to the School of Necessary Magic in particular.” A grim look settled on the FBI agent’s face.

  “Such as?”

  “She’s argued strenuously in the past in internal agency reports against anything that she feels is supportive of ‘hidden magic.’” Bruce folded his arms over his chest. “The train, schools like this one, that sort of thing. She feels it’s a vestige of the pre-gate past and actually makes things worse, and she’s even gone so far as to suggest that people who heavily support hidden magic directly contribute to magical crime by, and I quote, ‘fostering an atmosphere of secrecy not unlike the Omertà code of silence associated with the Italian Mafia.’”

  Mara laughed. “I’ve been called many things in my life, but no one’s ever suggested I might be a mobster. I almost like it.”

  “Now, let me be clear. I hope she won’t come in here and accuse random professors of being magical criminals, but she will come in here with the assumption you have something to hide.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “But I do have something to hide—an entire school filled with young people still learning to control their magic.” She sighed. “Magic might be an everyday sight in some cities like LA or New York, but there are still many places where most people might go a long time before they actually run into magic or a magical face-to-face. I suspect that if the people of Charlottesville knew there was a magical school here, protesting might be the least of our concerns. Even if they couldn’t defeat the wards and glamors, actual dangerous magicals could use it as an opportunity to either hurt those people or weaken the school.” She shook her head. “Turner’s presence and efforts on this land prior to the school makes this location uniquely suited to our needs. It’s not as if we can simply pack up and leave.”

  She didn’t let the worry that gradually built in her heart show on her face. When she’d started the school, the government had been in firm agreement that it should be hidden. If they changed their mind, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

  Bruce nodded. “I understand and I agree. The way the other kids reacted when Raine’s powers first manifested is proof enough that we, as a society if not a planet, still need a few more years before we fully wrap our heads around what it means to be a magical planet aga
in.”

  “But you said this Agent Oliver has an otherwise upstanding reputation? If she’s uptight and by-the-book, I can work with that and use it to help her see why it’s far less trouble for both the magicals and non-magicals for this school to be hidden. It’d be far worse if she had some sort of vendetta against the school.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know about that. Sometimes, a self-righteous person convinced they are correct can be far scarier than someone who holds a petty grudge.”

  “We all want the same thing,” she replied with a light shake of her head. “We want to make sure the students are safe from malignant outside magical influences. I’m sure we can reach some common ground on that.”

  “I hope, for everyone’s sake, that you’re right.”

  Chapter Four

  Raine almost laughed as they walked up the street toward the movie theater, a light stream of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and cars on the roads. It was the teens’ first free trip into town, and their plan was to see a movie.

  Philip was the one who suggested it. He pointed out that it wasn’t like they enjoyed the huge screen experience during their Movie Club nights.

  There was nothing odd or unusual as they continued on their way. Nothing strange about Cameron beside her or William and Evie to his side. Sara and Philip chatted quietly behind them while Adrien walked ahead, a faint tension in his shoulders. Other than the presence of an elf, they could have been any other group of teenagers going to see a movie.

  Every once in a while, someone glanced Adrien’s way, but no one said anything rude or even looked all that upset. They mostly seemed curious.

  Although the students weren’t allowed to draw attention to the school, there was no rule that stated that they had to conceal the fact they were magicals. Admittedly, it was far easier for the non-elves to pull that off.