Read Online Undercover Magic by Judy Teel - Free Book Online Page B

Uncle Ben be okay.
    The faraway mist in her gaze fractured and she looked down at me, suddenly lucid.
     Apprehension skated across the nape of my neck. I didn't need to know this. I needed
     to stop her before it was too late. The words froze in my throat.
    "My brother died, dear. He buried him in the backyard and never told me. He never
     told anyone." The button popped off in her hand and she looked at it, startled. Bemusement
     crept across her face again. "He was so small. Too small for such a big responsibility,
     wasn't he?"
    "Yes, ma'am." It had been unfair of me to come, to make her relive the night that
     had crushed her sanity. It was wrong to know the truth. Guilt pooled under my ribs
     like a lead fist and I felt suddenly drained.
    Mrs. Hallford dropped the gold button into the window box and gently closed the sash.
     As she turned away, peace resettled over her face. She was back where she belonged.
     Away from the pain.
    I stared at the empty window. The reflection of the setting sun splashed across the
     glass like blood and I remembered the promise I'd made to Falcon's uncle the night
     I'd brought him home, cut and bleeding, his insides torn up from the beating he'd
     taken.
    I turned away and headed for the street that ran behind the house. Glancing up, I
     saw Mrs. Hallford in the window again, watching me.
    "I'll always keep him safe," I whispered as she turned away.
     
    *  *  *
     
    When I met up with Falcon for the night's work, I kept my mouth shut about what I'd
     discovered. He had his reasons for keeping his uncle's death secret and they were
     good ones.
    How he'd managed to keep up the ruse that his guardian was traveling the world finding
     stock for his store was something I'd have to figure out eventually, but right now
     it was low on the list. From what Chiwa had said about the shipments, I suspected
     that he had a small team of loyal adventurers scouring the globe pretending to be
     Uncle Ben. After what I'd uncovered that afternoon, my new policy with Falcon was
     that ignorance was bliss.
    Tonight his skill at recreating believable identifications had worked another advantage—that,
     and the universal truth that nobody liked doing the dirty work. With the school's
     real janitor out sick—as in off enjoying the free drinks pass he'd unexpectedly won—the
     contract janitorial service we were now supposedly a part of was welcomed with open
     arms.
    The Rhea School for Practitioners looked like what it was—an old elementary school
     that had been converted to serve aspiring young practitioners. The halls smelled like
     chlorine. The room we'd just come out of had not.
    "What are they teaching these kids? That was disgusting," Falcon complained, scrunching
     up his face behind the huge mustache he wore like he was considering getting sick.
    I curled my fingers into my palm to keep from scratching under the hot, itchy blonde
     wig I wore and settled for pushing my fake glasses back up the bridge of my nose.
     "When herb-based spells go bad it ain't pretty."
    With lazy deliberation, I pushed a mop bucket trolly complete with mop down the empty
     hall. "Never encountered one that smelled like a pile of fish died in a pot of garlic
     and rotted for two weeks though."
    Beside me, Falcon, lugged two buckets full of what appeared to be cleaning supplies.
     Unlike me, he wasn't able to resist scratching under his black, tightly curled wig.
     "When have you ever been around anything like that?"
    "I've smelled dead bodies. I can extrapolate."
    Our disguises might be uncomfortable, but the tan jumpsuits we both wore were perfect.
     Not only did they fit over our regular clothes, but they had a lot of pockets. Once
     we'd cleared security at the entrance, we'd made a pitstop to the janitor's closet—one
     of the few unmonitored spaces. After we'd extracted our gadgets from the false bottoms
     Falcon had glued to the buckets that afternoon, we were loaded for snooping.
    "At least that security