Chapter One
“I found something!” Gillian squealed when her sister picked up the phone. Instead of sharing her excitement, Amy sighed. Loudly.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Amy asked, “Where are you this time?”
“I’m hanging out near a town called Magic in New Mexico. Cute, right? Only it’s a cover. They have some kind of cloaking system that makes people think it’s a just a quaint little town, but there’s all kinds of weird stuff going on here. I can see it with the new anti-masking glasses I engineered.”
Another sigh echoed across the connection. “Gil, you can see it because you’re a witch. We’re witches, sweetie, and you just need to come to terms with that.”
Not this again.
Gillian Hohenwald loved her family more than anything in the world, but they were all nuttier than fruitcakes. Well, almost all. Her father had been a rational man, a skeptic, and he’d instilled that into his youngest daughter. Magic didn’t exist. No matter how much her mother, aunts, and sister droned on about the merits of spells, divination, and paranormal woo woo, it was all a load of crap. There was a perfectly reasonable, scientific explanation for what her family and the hordes of people who watched those ghost and monster hunter “reality” shows believed, and Gillian was on a mission to prove it.
She propped the phone against her shoulder so she could check her equipment for the twentieth time, cringing at the sand and grit dusted across the metal and plastic surfaces. She hoped it wouldn’t jam the delicate internal electronics. Maybe she should take them back to her van for a few quick adjustments and a cleaning.
But first, she needed to deal with her sister.
“I’m on the verge of uncovering some next level, sci-fi grade secret technology that will explain this so-called magic nonsense you keep trying to ram down my throat. Come to terms with that, sis.”
Discovering the town of Magic had been a huge leap forward in Gillian’s quest. The town was sitting on a gold mine of hidden technology for stealth, and its residents were just so secretive, evasive, like they had something to hide. Amy clearly believed they were hiding their paranormal powers, but Gillian knew better. This close to Roswell? The town had to be a smokescreen for some kind of covert government repository of advanced military tech. Or maybe a private sector operation with a government contract. Either way, they didn’t like outsiders asking a lot of questions. Genius, really, the way they played the sleepy little small town role. It was the perfect cover.
“I get it,” Amy said gently. “I know what Dad told you, but I saw what Mom could do.”
Gillian’s chest went tight, and she had to blink a few times in spite of the arid climate. It wasn’t fair. Amy remembered so much more about their mother. She’d been older when Mom died. Gillian only got a flash of memory here and there. Then again, when it came to memories of their father, Gillian and Amy were on equal footing. They both knew their father’s views on magic and his wife’s delusions. That Amy followed their mother’s path was a source of contention between them, as was Gillian’s decision to follow their father’s footsteps and prove scientifically, once and for all, that magic was not real. If she could do that, she could save her sister and aunts from living lonely, isolated lives as community eccentrics and frauds.
Or from being attacked. It had happened before, and the memory still haunted her.
Amy’s voice brought her out of her musings. “I know what I can do. You can do it, too. That’s how you get all of those devices you build to do what you want.”
“You can’t just magically grow plants any more than Aunt Begonia can magically calm animals or Aunt Millie can bake perfect cupcakes through enchantment,” Gillian said. “Those are skills. And my designs are a product of skill, intellect, and hard work.”
“Of course you used your smarts to make those gadgets and gizmos,” Amy said. “You just enchanted them, too, like I enchant my orchard, like Aunt B charms horses, and like Aunt M enchants her confections. She even makes gluten free stuff taste delish!”
Whatever. Gillian paused to wipe a few stray locks of hair and more than a little desert sand from her face before adjusting her specialized glasses, the ones she’d designed and fabricated to detect secret technology mistakenly identified as paranormal or magic.
Enchanted my ass.
She’d designed the eyewear herself, in secret, of course. The government would probably kill to get their hands on her prototype. Not only did the nanosensors give her excellent night vision and detect movement and heat with advanced, military-grade precision, but she’d spent countless hours in her laboratory tweaking the design until the detectors could also reveal whatever sort of camouflage technology the powers that be were testing in the world around her. The town of Magic had proven to be the perfect location for further testing and refinement.
“Gillian? Hello? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
Talking to Amy was getting her nowhere, and besides, she had work to do. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call back later, okay? With any luck I’ll be able to tell you what they’re really hiding out here. You’ll see. There’s no such thing as magic.”
Before Amy could protest, Gillian ended the call and shoved her phone into one of the many pockets of her cargo pants. Then she ducked behind a patch of juniper trees so she could keep an eye on the strange anomaly shimmering several yards away. She’d noticed it a few days ago while surveying the area around the town. At first glance, she could have easily dismissed the disturbance in the air as heat haze, but it persisted long after the sun set. And her glasses revealed it as something more. Barely visible air currents seemed to undulate and then swirl into some sort of vortex. Was it breech in the city’s cloaking device? A teleportation system? Some small-scale experiment to manipulate the weather?
The only way to find out was to observe.
She’d been at it on and off for several days, spending most evenings watching the anomaly after scouring the town for evidence of advanced technology that could be mistaken for magic. The signs were all there—a glimpse of odd dress or strange apparatus disguised as an extra appendage, people vanishing or appearing out of thin air, hushed conversations and sidelong glances from folks who seemed a bit too toothsome or hairy—but they remained just out of reach. She’d come close a few times, but the citizens of Magic were as clever and perceptive as they were evasive. It was almost as if they knew what she was up to. Honestly, she’d expected a confrontation with men in black suits and high security clearance by now. Instead, she’d only received sidelong glances and looks of confusion whenever she asked questions. Still, no one tried to stop her from exploring the nooks and crannies of the town.
And no one seemed to be guarding this anomaly, at least no one she could see, even through her specialized lenses.
All of a sudden, the anomaly swelled and the swirling air currents sped. Something was happening. Gillian used the eye-tracking interface to start recording through the built-in camera. Keeping her gaze locked on the anomaly to keep it in focus, she knelt on the rocky ground and felt for another one of her “gadgets,” as her sister called them. This one was a customized trap of her own design, one that could be launched from a distance and incapacitate a large man or animal. Well, it would probably work on a man. She hadn’t been able perform any human testing in an ethical way. But it had worked on everything from cows to coyotes. And assuming the anomaly was, in fact, some kind of experimental technology, it stood to reason that someone might show up to guard it or operate it.
And if that same someone spotted her snooping, she intended to be ready.
A warm breeze rustled through the scruffy grasses and juniper fronds, loosening bits of stray vegetation and carrying them toward the anomaly. Great God, bits of dry leaf and juniper needle debris were being sucked into the vortex like some kind of strange tornado funnel cloud. And once the debris entered the vortex, it vanished!
Before she could brace herself against the tree, light flashed from the anomaly, and a man walked through. It was as if he’d stepped out of thin air and into the desert. Oh, this was huge! She’d discovered a secret teleportation device and documented its use. And what a man! Tall and well built, he could pass for military if not for the blond hair that brushed his shoulders and the shadow of beard growth along his strong jaw. Maybe he was a mercenary.
He had the moves of a warrior and the looks of a Nordic god.
The man’s head whipped left to right before gazing over his shoulder, his movements graceful, if wary. He had the bearing of both predator and prey, or maybe a trip through the teleportation device had screwed with his physiology or brain chemistry. Then again, he didn’t appear disoriented. His dress was odd, though. Instead of a Hazmat suit or a camo, he wore something that looked like buckskin pants and a long shirt. Or maybe it was a robe. It looked a bit like an old-fashioned dressing gown with intricate patterns embroidered into the fabric.
Unlike a robe or dressing gown, however, it wasn’t open in the front or belted, though the neckline was low enough to give her a glimpse of what appeared to be a fine man chest. On closer inspection, she identified the garment as a tunic. What kind of man wears a tunic in this day and age? Good grief, what kind of man wore buckskins? Had he time traveled?
He filled out the tunic nicely with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, and she’d bet her last paycheck that those tight buckskins hugged a fine ass. Oh, yeah, definitely some kind of military or mercenary man. She needed to quit ogling him and get busy figuring out who he was and what kind of secret technology had brought him here.
She also needed a closer look. Zooming in with her glasses, she spotted something strange on his skin. No, wait, there was something strange underneath his skin. A series of intricate silver lines and swirls flared and twisted beneath the flesh covering his arms and chest, almost like veins, but not in the same pattern. It undulated like a living tattoo. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. She had to know more, especially if the covert operations hidden by Magic extended beyond teleportation and cloaking technology.
But she couldn’t very well just walk up and question him. He didn’t appear armed, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. Good grief, the man had to be almost twice her size. Still, she couldn’t let him get away. Kidnapping wasn’t part of her plan, but she could be flexible. She’d definitely let him go if and when he convinced her he wasn’t a threat to civilian or conspiring with an evil organization to destroy the planet.
Yeah, that worked. It wouldn’t really be kidnapping, then. She’d just detain him for a while, like a citizen’s arrest.
Before she could change her mind, she stepped out from behind the cover of trees, hit the button on her immobilization gadget, and launched her trap.