Sorceress, Interrupted - By A. J. Menden Page 0,19

staring at the still-unconscious Joseph. The rest of the Elite Hands of Justice had returned home. Edgar was back in jail.

“He teleported in,” I said. “Opened a portal and plopped himself down.”

Wesley frowned. “He’s not supposed to be able to do that. We thought we had this place locked down for magic-users outside the three of us.” He was referring to himself, Lainey and me. “Oh, and Cyrus,” he said as an afterthought.

“That’s right, I’m still a part of this dog and pony show,” Cyrus grunted.

“I think that right there is your problem,” I said.

Wesley gave a small smile. “Cyrus?”

“Hey!”

“No,” I said, ignoring the Virus’s protest. “Well, yes but no. I mean the reason the spell isn’t working right is probably because you’ve got too many loopholes. A strong enough magic-user could manipulate those. You need to go ahead and lock it down all the way. At the very least, make it so you and only you can teleport in and out.”

“They’ll be giving up their favorite babysitter,” Cyrus said. “Like you’re going to take the bus here, Fantazia.”

I glared at him. “No, but if I teleport in and out on the ground floor, down near the Cuppacino, and Wesley locks off the top floor, it’ll give this place better security. The ground floor is public, but it has all of those high-tech security measures that Mindy put in place, like automatic body scans and ray guns and I-don’t-know-what-all else.”

“That’s a good point. We’ll look into doing that,” Wesley said. “But now back to the matter at hand.” He eyed Joseph.

“He said he needed protection right before he passed out,” I said.

“Any indication as to what he needs protection from?”

I shrugged. “He was in the bar the other day, saying there are rumors going around that something or someone is going around draining magic-users of their magic. The less powerful ones,” I added.

Wesley frowned. “Interesting.”

I felt a brief tingle of remorse that I hadn’t alerted the EHJ to possible wrongdoing in the city, but it wasn’t really my job. I’m not on one of the world’s premier superhero teams. I just own a bar. “Someone’s always slapping someone else with a binding spell. Hell, you did it to Syn before one of the Dragon’s cronies dropped him onto that flagpole.”

“I’d love to shake that person’s hand,” Cyrus muttered. There had been incredibly bad blood between him and the other villain, as I remember.

“I didn’t think much of the information at the time,” I continued.

“But it worried one of the Brothers of Power.”

Wesley stared at me, and I couldn’t help but bristle a bit under his gaze. It was like he was lecturing me with his eyes about being an irresponsible person. This was a look a parent would give a teenager for doing something incredibly boneheaded, and I resented it. Like he had ever given me that look when I needed it. He’d forgotten who I was by the time I was a teenager doing bonehead things like running off with that soldier who immediately dumped me for a vestal virgin in the next town. He wasn’t there then, and he wasn’t there when my heart was really breaking, so he wasn’t allowed go all lecturing and paternal now.

I glared back at him. “It’s not my concern what worries the Brothers of Power. I’m not their mother, and they don’t pay me to act as their bodyguard.”

Wesley kept frowning, and turned back at Joseph. “Television’s eaten his brain,” he muttered.

I surely hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

Wes looked up. “Hmm? Oh, just something Edgar Ragde said. I thought they were just the ramblings of a mentally ill man, but . . .” He trailed off and shrugged. “The only way we’re going to know is to wake Joseph up.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

Wesley just ignored me and started mumbling under his breath in Italian, casting some sort of diagnostic spell. His hands hovered over the unconscious Joseph’s body. He was doing something other than raising the man to consciousness.

“I’m surprised you didn’t think of that,” Cyrus said to me. I shushed him with a look.

“Our friend’s concern was reasonable,” Wesley announced when he was done. “His magic has been depleted, and not from trying an overpowered spell. His human willpower has also been taken.”

That really wasn’t good. Taking someone else’s magic to boost your own was bad enough, but taking willpower was worse. Magic-users tapped into their own will to power spells. If someone was tapping into someone else’s willpower to