Shanna Swendson - Don't Hex with Texas

I heard a car drive up in front of the office and whirled to look. It was a relatively new, bland sedan that was probably a rental. My heart started racing. Maybe he’d stopped to secure accommodations and then freshen up before meeting me at the store to get the scoop, and this was the only motel in town. The only other lodgings were in a bed-and-breakfast in an old mansion near the square.

Unfortunately for both Nita and me, the man who got out of the car was neither young and Indian nor Owen. He was just another middle-aged traveling salesman type who must have pissed off someone in his company to get assigned this cruddy territory.

I shook my head at my own silliness. Why was I still getting excited to see a rental car when I was fairly certain it wasn’t going to be Owen? Deep down inside, I supposed I still hoped that he’d insist on being the one to come investigate because he wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see him.

Nita didn’t have a monopoly on romantic fantasies, it appeared.

While she checked the salesman in, I arranged our lunches on the desk behind the counter, then picked up one of the many magazines she kept in a nearby basket and flipped through it. It was one of those regional tourist magazines they put in hotel rooms, with a few articles about local attractions, a calendar of events, and a lot of ads. The articles were the same in almost every issue, so I went straight to the ads, hoping to find something interesting to do in there. What I saw was more than interesting. It was downright weird.

On the page full of ads for area private schools, there was one that said, “Can you read this?” Since I could, I kept reading.

If you’re one of the few, select people who can read this ad, you may have special abilities! With theright training to develop your natural talents, fame and fortune are practically inevitable!

It reminded me of those ads that said if you could draw a turtle cartoon, you could get training to illustrate children’s books. Except this ad didn’t ask for anything other than the ability to read it. I leaned closer to the page so my necklace practically touched it, and then I felt the faint vibration from a very weak spell. The ability they were looking for was magic, I was sure. The ad must have been veiled so that only people with magic powers—or the complete lack thereof—could read it. I had a feeling I knew where our local wizard must have come from. Someone around here was training people to use magic.

Nita sent the customer off on his way to his room, then we settled down for lunch. I left the magazine open on the desk, the ad clearly visible. “What do you think of that?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of the ad in question.

She leaned over and squinted at the page. “‘Miss Rochester’s Academy for Young Ladies,’” she read.

“‘Training girls in social deportment for a refined way of life.’ You have got to be kidding. I am so glad my mom never saw anything like this when I was in high school. If she thought she could have shipped me off to a private school to teach me to be demure, she would have.”

If Nita couldn’t see it, the ad must have been veiled, and this also meant that Nita was neither magical nor magically immune. “It sounds kind of Victorian, doesn’t it?” I said. I finished my lunch, then made excuses about getting back to the store. “Mind if I take this?” I asked, picking up the magazine.

“Why? You think you need to learn social graces?”

“No, there’s an article I thought Teddy would be interested in.”

“Sure, take it,” she said with a wave. “I get a stack of them every month. The idea is to give them away.”

Once I got into investigation mode, it was hard to stop myself, so on my way back to the store, I detoured by the courthouse square to see if anything was going on. It appeared to be the kind of day that put the “sleepy” into “sleepy little town.” Not much of anything was stirring, especially not a robed wizard. The statues remained reassuringly still.

Then I took another look at the roof. There were gargoyles on part of the courthouse, but I didn’t recall ever seeing any on this side. I tensed as a gargoyle unfurled its wings and soared down to ground level. That was certainly something I’d never seen the courthouse gargoyles do. It was, however, something I’d seen gargoyles do often enough in New York, particularly this one.

“Sam!” I cried out and ran to hug him. I had to bend a little because gargoyles aren’t generally that big, and he folded his wings around me in a hug. I realized then that I’d never touched him before. He had an odd texture, simultaneously rocky and leathery. “I’m glad they sent you,” I said when we broke apart.

“Hey, wouldn’t have missed it for the world, doll. Besides, who’d you expect them to send other than their top gumshoe?”

“I’m glad they sent the best.”

“What appears to be the deal?”

I explained quickly about the things Mom had seen and what I’d observed. When I finished, Sam nodded. “Okay, looks like I’ll be staking out the square here for a while, get an idea what the perp’s up to, and then I can figure out what to do about it.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ve also found something I want to check out.” I told him about the magazine ad.

He made a whistling sound, like the wind blowing across the top of a Coke bottle. “That’s not good.

You think that’s what our local wizard is up to?”

“Could be. There’s a Web address, so I’ll go look it up, and I’ll keep you posted on what I find. Want me to stop by on any particular schedule?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m officially on the case, so you can stand down. I’ll find you if I need you. This place ain’t a tenth the size of Manhattan, and I can find you there.” Actually, the incorporated landmass of the town wasn’t too much smaller than Manhattan Island, but I knew what he meant.

“Okay, then. Let me know if you need anything. Oh, and remember that you might have to be careful.

People are more likely to notice little oddities and ask about them here than they are in New York.

News spreads fast. Plus, my mom’s immune, and I think my grandmother might be, too. I have other relatives around, so there’s no telling how far that trait spreads.” It would be ironic if this town turned out to be the nonmagical capital of the world from being the home of more immunes than any other place. That would actually explain a lot about how boring the place was.

“Got it. Now shoo so I can get on with my stakeout.”

Once I got back to the store, it took me awhile before I had time to look up the magic school. We were busy with customers, and then even when the afternoon rush died down, I kept having family members pop into my office. They finally got busy again with their own work, and I pulled the folded-up magazine out of my bag, then typed the Web address into my browser.

It took the site forever to load, which made me wonder how much bandwidth magic required. The initial page looked a lot like the ad, but instead of the contact info in the ad, there was a button to click on if you could see the ad and wanted to know more. I clicked on it, then waited for the next page to load.

When it came up, the Spellworks logo was at the top of the page. My stomach did a backflip before tying itself into a square knot. That company was our enemy, and that meant Phelan Idris was behind whatever was going on in town.

Ihad to hold my breath while I read so I could concentrate, and moving my computer’s mouse was difficult with my hands shaking. The Web page said that if you could read this site, you had magical powers—which wasn’t entirely accurate, as I very well knew, but I didn’t expect them to explain the concept of magical immunity in their initial “magic is real” paragraph. There had to be something else in the site to weed out people like me. It went on to describe all the benefits of having magical powers, including the usual stuff like wealth, influence over others, and making the world work the way you wanted it to. Of course, there was no mention of learning the proper context for using your power, but then a code of ethics wasn’t something I’d expect to see in a sales pitch, so I didn’t count the ethical lapse against Idris this time.