Magic 201

“Good morning, sir, how is my favorite Warlock Mentor?”

“Kid, I ought to report you for cruelty to Mages. Me. Jeffery has more questions than a prosecuting attorney. The kid is sharp, though. He connects the dots faster than I did at his age.”

“Great. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. When you were working with Jeffery, where was Paula?”

“She was in her office, and we were downstairs in the longue. Why?

“I’ll get to that in a second. What do you think of Jeffery’s relationship with Paula?”

“Solid, so far. It’s young and they both blush like teenagers. They had breakfast with us yesterday and they were both kidding a little. I think Paula was a little sore. I noticed that she sat down carefully. Jeffery was all over her. Aha, Young love.”

“Good. Cause I have a couple of questions I want you to think about. Is here any way to measure the effect of a battery with respect to a Mage? And is there any way to determine if an enslaved person has accidently become a Mage?”

Silence for a few moments. “Why, Hank? What do you know?”

“Ok. I was reading some of Abigayle’s notebooks that Pat sent over to me and I came across a few notations that she made regarding her breeding program. She was looking at building the ultimate battery for a Mage. But she had some difficulties. A couple of her experiments had to be “terminated” because they became full Mages. The Geas still held, but she was afraid that they would become independent. She killed two of the “Olsen” line who became mages by accident because they were too near a Layline.”

“SHIT. I knew the woman was an evil bitch, but if I had ever had any evidence of her doing that sort of stuff, I would have killed her a century ago. You are worried about Paula?”

“Paula and Jeffery. How do they seem to you?”

“Totally in synch. More so than any couple should be after just a month. Scary in synch. They were knocking boots Sunday and last night, and Monday they were finishing each other’s sentences when we were talking about the manuals you left behind.”

“Peter, this may be important. How far in the books can they read?”

“Shit. All the way to the back pages. They both showed me that Monday. This is kind of scary, isn’t it?”

“Peter, this isn’t something you have to talk to the council about yet, is it?” I asked.

“This development isn’t. Jeffery’s emergence I already told Reggie about. I had to explain that I was going to mentor him. Shit. This means that Paula possibly could be a Power Mage. And as studious as she is, once she starts studying, she is going to be a knowledgeable person in short order. Shit.”

“Well, I guess it’s a good idea that her office is right next to yours at 1030.” I thought out loud.

“Shit. Hank, I have to figure out how to evaluate them separately. Or together. Holy cow, two emergents in one weekend?”

“Where’s Jeffrey now?”

“He’s at the office, he took a DAT personal leave yesterday. I know he is working on closing the H Lambert case. Which he says is simple at this point. At least he can change it to inactive, not pending. That means it’s now a cold case and in five years they put it in permeant storage. Nothing ever closes without legal action.”

“Well, catch up with him later and see if you can get some idea of how things are going with Paula. I don’t want her to be a train wreck if they break up.”