One of the agents sat down at her computer and started calling up directories. Others fanned out through the apartment.
After a quick run-through of her more recent sins, Judith relaxed. There was nothing in the apartment which was the least bit incriminating. Then she looked at the search warrant and nearly burst out laughing. A national security case? Get real!
Then she stopped laughing and started worrying. She hadn’t done anything, but what had the people in the other world been up to? Wiz was apparently in some kind of trouble and you never knew what Danny was going to do. There wasn’t anything illegal here, but the laws didn’t anticipate contact with alternate worlds where magic worked. If someone halfway competent had even a hint of a suspicion something like that was going on, the stuff in this apartment would be enough to blow it sky high. Whether that would mean jail or years in protective custody as a "vital resource" she didn’t know, but she wasn’t eager to find out.
Pashley moved to her desk and Judith’s heart caught in her throat. There, lying on top of the stack of unpaid bills and unanswered mail, was her documentation for the magic compiler for Wiz’s world. With its mixture of programming and magic that book alone would be enough to give the whole show away.
"What’s this?" Pashley demanded, hefting the book.
"That’s the design document for magic in my novels," Judith told him as blandly as she could. "Do you want it?"
Pashley knew all about seizing writer’s notes after his experiences in North Carolina. "That won’t be necessary." He turned to put the document back on the desk and missed seeing Judith slump in relief.
The agents went through the apartment like a polite hurricane. They always said "please" and called Judith "ma’am," but they were relentless and unstoppable. After turning the place upside down, taking her computer, boxing up all her disks and tapes, photographing everything (including the dishes in the kitchen sink and the bra hanging on the bedroom doorknob), giving her a carefully itemized receipt with serial numbers, and making an appointment with Judith to come in for questioning "with your attorney present if you desire," the agents finally left.
"Hit me," Wiz said glumly to the demon crouched on his work table.
The demon in the green eyeshade, gaiters and violently checked vest gave Wiz a toothy grin before flipping down a ten. That made twenty-three and Wiz was busted out. The demon gathered the cards in and shuffled them. Then he cocked an eyebrow at Wiz, waiting for the signal to deal again.
Wiz slumped back in his chair and sighed. It was still early afternoon, but it was not a good day. Not that that was unusual. The townfolk had learned by now that "their" wizard wasn’t available before noon, but as soon as noon arrived there was a small line of them on his doorstep, demanding to see him.
He had tried refusing to see anyone, but that meant either being a prisoner in his house or being stopped on every street corner by someone with a long, incomprehensible tale of woe. So he had gone back to seeing a few people every morning, even though there was nothing he could do for most of them.
This morning’s crowd had included a farmer who wanted him to find the pot of gold his grandfather was supposed to have buried on the farm, a lovesick young man who wanted his beloved to notice him and a nervous middle-aged woman who apparently expected him to guess what she wanted since she never did get around to telling him.
Meanwhile, in spite of the building urgency he was at a complete and utter standstill on the dragon problem. He tried to tell himself he was too overcome with distractions to focus on it, but the fact he was playing blackjack rather than working told him how accurate that was. The truth was he didn’t have even a notion of how to begin.
Wiz knew from experience there was a hierarchy to working on a software problem. There was hacking, there was programming, there was playing, there was doodling and there was what a British friend of his rather inelegantly described as "code wanking." He had been reduced to code wanking days ago and now he had lost his enthusiasm even for that.
He sighed and looked over at the demon. The demon leered back and riffled the cards suggestively.
"Busy, I see." Wiz turned to see Malkin standing in the doorway.
"Not really. What’s up?"
"Message from Ol’ Droopy. He wants to know how you’re coming."
It took Wiz an instant to identify "Ol’ Droopy" as the mayor and somewhat longer to formulate an answer.
"Tell him things are progressing at a satisfactory pace."
"So I see. Anyway, you can tell him yourself. I’m not your messenger. He just stopped me on the way back here."
As she moved Wiz noticed a slight bulge in her tunic.
"Wait a minute! Did you steal his chain of office again?"
"Naw. Did that once, didn’t I?" She reached into her tunic and produced a wide leather belt with an ornate gemmed buckle. "I do wonder how far he’ll get before his breeches fall down, though."
Wiz groaned. "One of these days you’re going to get us all thrown right back in jail."
"That’s all right," Malkin said cheerfully. "I’ve still got the keys hidden away."
Wiz groaned again.
"Besides, you’re a fine one to talk. With your messing about with dragons and the Council you’re likely to get us staked out on The Rock."
"Well, why do you stay, then?"
Malkin smiled in a peculiarly sunny fashion. "I want to see what’s going to happen next. Hanging around here is more fun than a mummer’s show. Besides, it gives me a base of operations, so to speak."
Wiz thought about what that last meant. Then he decided he didn’t want to know. He also remembered why he had never had roommates. Then he thought of the rats in the psych lab. The more he thought about them the more sympathy he felt.
"Of course, if you want me to leave…"
"No, no. I need you for background resource. But try to be a little more discreet, will you?"
Malkin draped the belt over her shoulder, buckle resting on her breast. Wiz noticed it hung nearly down to her knees behind. "Oh, I’m always careful," Malkin said cheerfully. "You have to be in my business."
With that she was gone. Wiz sighed again and turned back to the demon, who raised a pair of scaly eyebrows and riffled the cards. Wiz dismissed him with a gesture. Somehow he’d lost all his taste for taking chances-any more chances.
Judith wasn’t the only one upset by the FBI raid. If she was annoyed, the mood in the Wizard’s Keep verged on panic.
Bal-Simba frowned when a breathless Jerry and Danny told him, in alternating choruses, what had happened.
"How serious is this?" the big wizard asked when his visitors finally reached a stopping place.
"Pretty serious," Jerry told him. "If thekeep.org goes off line we lose our communication link to Wiz." And probably all chance of finding him, he thought. But he saw the look on Moira’s face and he didn’t say that.