00 Mayan Thief (The FBI Paranormal Casefiles) Page 3

  There were hundreds of strands, and at any one time, I could only dismantle a couple of them. Beginning from the top, I freed Augusta’s head and neck and then slowly worked my way down. Sweat dribbled down my forehead as I controlled my magic with precision. Each cut needed to be perfect. It seemed to take hours, but really it was minutes before we could see the difference.

  “Good job, Cleo,” said Dubey in his gravelly voice. “She is breathing easy already.”

  I dared not make a single mistake. If I touched the cage itself, it was likely to collapse around Augusta and bury her in a furious, fiery magic. She might burn or worse. Ingenious magic, really. But I couldn’t afford the time to admire the sheer beauty of it. Any moment Augusta’s strength might fail and she might touch the cage.

  If she did so…

  I couldn’t even complete the thought.

  Kneeling down, I kept cutting the strands. Everyone around me stood still as a statue, perhaps sensing the need for me to concentrate. Two hours later, I sighed, stood, and stretched my arms. I was sore and tired. “It’s alright. You can move now, Augusta.”

  Augusta’s gaze took in the cage that was slowly dissolving right in front of her eyes. The silver beams appeared to melt and fall down on the floor, making small puddles that slowly got smaller and then disappeared from view. “Couldn’t you have worked a little faster, girl!”

  She took a tentative step forward.

  I snapped my fingers that were aching with the effort. “Never a happy word, is there?” Suddenly, I couldn't bear it anymore. Striding forward, I gripped Augusta in a tight hug. “Damn! You scared the hell out of me, woman! Don’t ever do that again.”

  Augusta patted me on the back. “I will keep it in mind next time we are attacked.”

  “So what happened? And why did it happen?” said Colonel Sanders as he tapped his fingers on his jaw in a contemplative manner. “We will have to investigate this matter carefully and with a great deal of thought.”

  “No need.” I freed myself from Augusta’s grip. “I know someone who might have some answers.”

  Jeremy cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

  The blast of frigid cold wind that hit Bryan right on his chest swept him along as if he weighed nothing and carried him right to the back of the room where the young man was impaled on the wall. “He knows something and he is going to tell it all.”

  “Cleo! Stop it.” Augusta’s admonishment didn’t bother me. “How do you he knows something?” she demanded.

  My hand was raised, and my energy kept him glued to the wall even though he struggled with all his might to free himself. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that someone went to all this trouble to steal significant artifacts from museums all over the country, and suddenly, we find that our museum is also targeted?”

  Colonel Sanders’s head swiveled as he studied his surroundings. “What museum?”

  “We have a small museum off the foyer upstairs that is used to house important things. It’s been breached.”

  Colonel Sanders’s face flushed a bright pink. “Why have I never been informed that there is a museum in our building?”

  Augusta pushed forward. “Oh, never mind that.”

  He raised a finger. “Don’t you dismiss me, Madam. I will have you know…”

  “Shh!” Augusta told him. “Cleo, how do you know that Bryan had something to do with it? He is FBI, for Pete’s sake.”

  As if the FBI was unassailable. “We were out investigating a theft. Sure as hell those thieves knew that you were short of members. They attacked when this place were vulnerable.”

  “I’ll have you know that if I wasn’t taken by surprise, I could have single-handedly dealt with the lot of them.” Augusta bristled. “We don’t need you to protect us at all times, Cleo. All of us are quite capable of doing that.”

  “Oh, man! I didn’t mean that.”

  How the hell did I get embroiled in this insane discussion?

  “Stop haranguing that young man right now.”

  Augusta’s command brooked no argument. Even though I didn’t want to, I removed the spell. As soon as my arm straightened and the icy blast that held Bryan in place melted, he stood and shuddered. Striding forward, he came right in front and pushed his face next to me. Even though I was mad, I’d no choice but to admire his courage. “I don’t care if you are the queen of witches, if you do something like that again, I am going to make you regret it.”

  Taking a step forward, I glowered. “And just what are you going to do, Special Agent? I am going to freeze your sorry ass to the wall again right now.”

  He gnashed his teeth. “I would like to see you try.”

  “Oh, really. Why don’t I then do it?”

  As I raised my hand, it was caught in Augusta’s firm grip. “Stop it. We are not going to have any more spells. Back off, both of you, or I will kick your sorry asses turn by turn until you can’t sit. Now! I mean it.”

  While I was more than a match for Augusta’s power, I’d no intention of going against her. She would kick my ass. “Ask him as to how the thieves followed him right to our doorstep.”

  “Don’t be silly. Why would I lure anyone here and then take you away on a pretext? It makes no sense.”

  “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  Augusta clapped her hands hard. Our attention turned to her. “It could be a coincidence. Maybe we had already been targeted. And his arrival simply matched with their timing. Think about it! It was a well-executed visit. Dubey, Shelley and Jeremy were with the students. Myra and Mark were in the garden outside. I was the only one inside the building. Jonathan and Ness are away for a month on a job. It is quite possible that the attackers were simply too lucky in choosing their time.”

  I huffed. Coincidence, my ass! I was pretty sure that the handsome, young man who glared at me with as much mistrust as I aimed at him was at fault. Whatever anyone said, I wasn’t ready to trust him as yet. Not when Augusta was imprisoned despite her many years of expertise. It was clear that the thieves had inside knowledge of the place. They knew the time when people were not present in the main building and timed it rather too perfectly.

  They were a step ahead, and I’d to match them fast.

  “Would someone please tell me as to why I was not informed about the museum?” said Colonel Sanders in a loud voice.

  “Oh, dear!” Augusta slapped a hand to her forehead. “In the library. Right now. Everyone!”

  Without argument, everyone shuffled off to the library. Colonel Sanders walked behind us, muttering to himself. “Don’t know what people are thinking imagining themselves in charge of this place. It’s only my prerogative.”

  “Oh, shut up! Will you?” Augusta put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Now sit!”

  He huffed and sat around the conference table that graced the library. Even though I took a seat, my attention was focused on Bryan. As far as I was concerned, his presence here on this very day was too big a coincidence to be dismissed.

  I was going to keep an eye on him, just in case - and also, I planned to kick ass of the thieves who dared to attack us. They would regret this day; I would make sure of it.

  Chapter Four

  The attack was well coordinated and timed to perfection.

  Augusta gave all the details. There wasn’t much; no one except her saw something or heard something, and what she saw was also marginally useful. Unable to sit still, I stood and paced the room. Annoyance licked my insides. The certain knowledge that the thieves were probably laughing at our incompetence irked me more than I could explain.

  “Will you please sit down and listen to what I am saying?” barked Augusta.

  Huffing with annoyance, I pulled a chair and flopped down on it. “Fine.”

  “I was filing the paperwork that needs to be delivered to lawyer for the court case when I heard a sound.”

  “What paperwork?” said Jeremy. “Why don’t I know about it?”

  “Because you don’t need to
know about it.” She glowered at him. “I believe dealing with the paperwork is my responsibility. In any case, it’s a minor matter. Some idiot has filed a case stating that this land belongs to him. All I have to do is submit the original document to the court, get it attested, and the lawyer will do the rest. Now, may I continue with my tale?”

  Jeremy leaned back. “Please do so.”

  “Someone came in from outside,” Augusta continued with her tale. “It occurred to me that I didn’t hear the door open. So I looked up and there they stood, the three of them. They were wearing masks on their faces. Before I could blink or move, I was suddenly caught in that spell.” She shuddered. More than fear, I could see that she was devastated that she didn’t catch them in time. It was hard to trick Augusta, and the fact that they could do so with such ease was alarming. “I think…one of them used a cell phone to take a picture of me. Then they went out of my line of vision, and they were gone for about twenty minutes before Jeremy and Mark walked inside, saw me, and raised the alarm.”

  Putting my elbows on the table, I leaned. “So you can’t identify them at all?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure that the museum has been breached?” said Jeremy.

  He disrupted my train of thought. “I helped set up that spell. It’s broken,” I answered in a clipped tone. It would take a long time to trace the magic they used and then identify the mages who could do such kind of work. I would have to send feelers out to all my contacts to see if they heard something. An operation like this took much planning.

  Someone out there knew something, and I would find out what it was.

  My home was scared, and the fact that they breached it was annoying. Merely kicking their ass wouldn’t suffice; I would have to think of a suitable punishment.

  “Maybe we should go and check as to what was stolen?” said Bryan as he tapped his fingers on the table. “I mean, isn’t that the first thing you guys need to be worried about?”

  “The museum doesn’t contain anything significant,” Jeremy assured him. “It’s just ancient artifacts. Most of them have been stored there because they would be dangerous to humans if they came across them. Necklaces that have been cursed, skulls that bring the dead to life, that kind of thing.” Jeremy waved a hand in dismissal.

  “Bring back the dead?” Bryan looked as if he had swallowed a canary. He gulped and shrank back in his seat. “For real?”

  That man needed to be sent back to a safe zone before he had a heart attack. I turned my attention back to Augusta. “They took a picture of you?”

  “Yes. God knows what they are planning to do with it.”

  “They might upload it to YouTube,” said Mark, tongue in cheek. “Would you be able to live down the humiliation?”

  “I will have you know…”

  What she was about to tell them nobody knew because Colonel Sanders chose that moment to jump out of his chair. “Enough chitchat. I am going to investigate this matter. You will all get my report on it by tomorrow morning.”

  I watched him leave the room. “Good.”

  Although one couldn’t discount his ability to unearth evidence that would prove to be useful, right now I was glad that he was off on a mission. I needed to conduct my own investigation and preferred to do it on my own, at least for now.

  “Do we have any Mayan artifacts in that museum?” I asked Jeremy.

  He tapped his fingers on the table. “We might have some. Does it matter?”

  “Let’s go take a look.” I stood. “Augusta, why don’t you go and rest for a while?”

  “I am not an invalid,” said Augusta with a loud snort. “Don’t treat me like one.”

  I nearly smiled. Augusta’s bark was worse than her bite, and if she was well enough to yell then surely she had recovered from the shock of her brief but terrifying imprisonment. “Let’s go, Mark, Jeremy, and Agent Bryan.”

  If Agent Bryan was surprised by the invitation, he didn’t show it. He followed us. “Are you of the opinion that this attack has something to do with the cases we have at hand?”

  “Yes, I do.” I turned a corner, climbed up the staircase, and stood at the entrance of the first room on the right. As I suspected the seal was broken. This invasion of my home, the only home I had, was so personal, so intrusive, that it left a hole in my gut. For a moment, I nearly reeled – but then I pulled myself together. I’d been through worse, and no one was going to pull me down. Walking over, I examined the first display. It was intact. “The lost ring of Count Cooper. He killed seven people with it.”

  “How?” Bryan stared at the gold ring that contained a single blood-red ruby as big as a fingernail. “Does it contain potent magic?”

  “The ruby slides to the side and there is a cavity underneath. He simply filled it with arsenic, poured it in their glass of wine or whatever it is that they were having, and viola…the perfect murder. In a big hall, filled with glittering and twirling lords and ladies, who would notice that he poisoned his enemy.”

  “Poison?” He grimaced. “Why have you saved it?”

  “It’s valuable and would fetch a good price at the auction if we were ever in need of cash,” said Mark. A thin, bespectacled young man, he was a formidable fire mage and an avid archeologist.

  “Mark found it at a site he was excavating. One of his first finds,” I muttered as I stopped at another intact display case. “Now this one here, it contains powerful magic. The gold strand of death. Anyone who wore it was found strangled to death in the bed without any signs of forced entry into the house.”

  Bryan peered at the thick chain of gold links. “How does it work?”

  “The spell simply comes to life when the wearer is asleep. Hundreds of mages have tried to remove the spell and failed. The chain can’t be broken, doesn’t tarnish, or gets scratched. It can’t be melted. Potent. Dangerous. Deadly. It’s the perfect murder weapon.” There was a glint in my eye as I turned to look at him. “If you ever want to get rid of a girlfriend, we would be happy to lend it to you at a reasonable price.”

  “No thanks,” he said.

  “Cleo. Be serious,” said Jeremy as he sidled past me and took a look at an empty gold and red pedestal in the far corner of the room. “The statue is missing.”

  I recalled the statue. It was perhaps a foot long stone statue of a Gukumatz, the Mayan god of the four elements of air, water, fire and earth. The statue had the torso and feet of a man and the head of a serpent that wore feathers on its head. “When did you see it last?”

  “A month ago when I came in here to clean,” he said.

  “Was it valuable?”

  “It was priceless to us.” Mark looked as if he was ready to burst into tears. “The only Mayan stone statue of the Gukumatz god that was recovered intact from the ancient ruins. It contained traces of their magic. The worth of the statue can’t be measured. Maybe in a market it wouldn’t fetch much, but to us…to us mages to know that magic existed so long ago…I mean that’s just…”

  He appeared incapable of finishing this thought.

  “It was a magical statue?” asked Bryan.

  “It was actually used in their rituals. Traces of blood were found on it, indicating that it had seen sacrificial rituals. I can’t believe they took it.”

  Bryan looked distinctly pale. “Blood? Rituals?”

  “Don’t faint now, dear. You are likely to break something valuable in here,” I said before he made a nuisance of himself. “What else is missing?” Quickly, we surveyed the room. Two other things missing. Both were Mayan. A ten-inch statue of a fertility goddess and a stone tablet that contained a spell. “Were they priceless also?”

  “The spell has been written down in hundreds of books. It’s just a routine spell used to bring rain. The fertility goddess, well, it’s hard to say.” Mark rubbed a hand over his face. “It wasn’t magical or unique. You can find many like it in other museums.”

  The mystery behind the thefts baffled me. Sure, the thieves chose Mayan
artifacts but surely it wasn’t for money. If that was their objective, there were other expensive things they could have stolen. “Do we have any more Mayan artifacts?”

  “No,” said Mark. “They took all three of them.”

  “Alright, then. Let’s seal the room for now.”

  Bryan took out his phone. “Would you mind if I took pictures for my own record?”

  I grasped his hand in as steely grip. “Certainly not. This is a private collection and we don’t want any records of it.”

  “It’s just for the FBI,” he protested. “I will make sure that records are classified and marked as the highest priority.”

  After snatching the phone from his hand, I snorted. “Classified, my ass! Highest priority? The FBI’s highest priority items are seen by no less than a thousand people.”

  I thought he might protest, but he merely shrugged as if he agreed my assessment. Once we got out of the room, I handed him the phone. For a moment, I paused at the door so I could seal it. Since the original spell was shred to bits, I could no longer duplicate it. I’d created it with Shelley. I would have to come with her later to make it stronger. Of course, the damage was already done. The thieves disappeared with three valuable items that could never be replaced.

  There was only thing to do and that was to find the culprits, kick their sorry ass, and recover the property. Bold as those people were, they made a tactical error by attacking the farmhouse. Now, it was personal. And I never let my enemies get away with a mere slap in the face. When I found them – and I would do so sooner or later – I was going to make them beg for mercy.

  “What now?”

  “Now we go to Orlando museum as planned to see what was stolen from there and to survey the scene. Why don’t you go and make all the arrangements of our flights,” I ordered Agent Bryan. “In the meantime, I am going to study the foyer and collect any traces of the spells they used. We will see if we can identify them through their magic.”