eyes. When the fog is present, its easier for the Council to operate and for magical creatures to move about the city.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she said. “It’s the perfect device for maintaining a curtain between our worlds. It can be summoned at any time, especially if the Council has called a general meeting at its headquarters.”
What Elsa said made sense. Things that look odd in the shadows are probably easily explained away to humans. The fog obscures light. It muffles sound. I remembered my peyote-induced trek through Golden Gate Park, and how foggy that evening had been. Perfect for hiding a half-dressed woman running toward the sea.
“Huh, it’s a brand new world,” I said, only half-aware of how true my words were.
Before I knew it we were standing at the foot of the Music Concourse, gazing up at the tower of the de Young Museum. By day, it’s the fifth-most visited museum in the country. By night, it is the headquarters of the Council. We looked across the plaza at the building sheathed in copper, gleaming in the evening light. According to Elsa, the fog was not quite thick enough to use the portal so we walked to the side of the museum, passing Pan’s Island and lily pond, where I’d spent the night. We continued to walk, bypassing the normal side entrance reserved for museum members. Instead we made our way along a sidewalk partially obscured by ferns. Almost immediately we were facing what looked to be a solid wall of copper. Elsa placed her hand on the door. The area beneath her palm began to glow.
“Fingerprint recognition,” Elsa explained matter-of-factly, as the outline of a door appeared, then clicked open slightly to let us pass. Once inside, Elsa turned left toward a bank of elevators. “We’re going to the top of the tower,” she said, as she pressed the button on the wall.
I scanned the surroundings as we entered; the museum’s lobby looked exactly the same as it did in the daylight. The elevator, which was taking us up twelve floors to the observation tower, also looked the same. I wondered whether the museum’s iconic top-floor viewing deck would also be unchanged. I was, I realized, slightly disappointed. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe I’d watched too many Star Trek episodes, but in my mind I had conjured up a different world. I’d imagined a series of rooms with glowing flat panel screens featuring rotating, three-dimensional orbs that depicted far-away destinations and tactical information.
When we arrived at the top of the tower, however, my imagination was rewarded by the sight of a room full of several flat screens mounted to the walls. A dozen men and women were seated at desks, hunched over laptops and iPads, their mobile phones within arm’s reach. At first glance, it could be an office anywhere in the world. Except it wasn’t.
I looked up to see Gabriel walking across the room toward us.
“Bonsoir, Elsa, Olivia,” he said as he grasped my hand to shake it.
“It looks so normal,” I said, gesturing at the scene before me.
Gabriel nodded. “Modern technology almost makes witchcraft unnecessary at times. We can track people and issues far easier than our predecessors.”
“How is this possible? Do you pack up at the end of every evening?” I asked.
Gabriel smiled. “There is not much to put away, and what is on the walls is enchanted. Humans cannot see the panels as they stroll through the deck during the day. The rest is portable. Thanks to wireless technology, our offices transport easily and, for the most part, are paperless.”
“Is the museum aware of your presence?” I asked, imagining rumors floating through the city about the de Young’s haunted galleries. “What happens when people here work late?”
Elsa and Gabriel exchanged a knowing glance. This is where they begin to bind you with their secrets, I thought to myself, the way they fold you in.
“They know,” Elsa said. “The museum knows we are here.”
“It’s true,” Gabriel said, seeing my raised eyebrows. “The museum spent a fortune to build this magnificent copper building. Copper, as you may know, is an ancient metal dating back to the Romans. It is a very important metal in the supernatural world. You are standing inside a building that has the ability to conduct energy back and forth between individuals and the spirit world. It acts as an amplifier for our thoughts, for sending and receiving psychic communications. Can you imagine? No better building could be constructed for our purposes.”