"Anna?" I called again. "Ms. Ash?"
No answer.
I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.
"That can't be good," I told Mouse. "Here we go." I quietly opened the door, giving it a gentle push so that it would swing wide and let me see inside the darkened apartment.
At which point the trap sprang.
For traps to work, though, they need to catch their target off guard. I had my new and improved shield bracelet ready when greenish light flashed in the dark apartment and rushed swiftly toward me. I lifted my left hand. Bound around my wrist was a chain made of braided strands of several metals, silver predominant. The metal shields that hung from the bracelet had, in its previous incarnation, been solid silver as well. They had been replaced with shields of silver, iron, copper, nickel, and brass.
The new shield wasn't like the old one. The old one had provided an intangible barrier meant to deflect solid matter and kinetic energy. It hadn't been made to stop, for example, heat. That's how my left hand got roasted practically down to the bones. It had been of only limited use against other forms of magic or energy. If there hadn't been a war on, and if I hadn't been spending so much time drilling Molly in the fundamentals - and therefore getting in all kinds of extra practice, myself - I would never have considered attempting to create such a complex focus. It was far more complicated than almost anything I'd done before. Five years ago, it would have been beyond me completely. More to the point, five years ago, I wouldn't have been as experienced or as strongly motivated.
But that was then, and this was now.
The shield that formed in front of me was not the familiar, translucent part-dome of pale blue light. Instead it flared into place in a blurring swirl of colors that solidified in an instant into a curving rampart of silver energy. The new shield was far more thorough than the old. Not only would it stop everything the old one had, but it would provide shelter against heat, cold, electricity - even sound and light, if I needed it to. It had also been designed to turn aside a fairly broad spectrum of supernatural energies. It was this last that was important at the moment.
A globe of green lightning sizzled over the apartment's threshold and abruptly expanded, buzzing arcs of verdant electricity interconnected in a diamond pattern like the weave of a fisherman's net.
The spell fell on my shield and the meeting of energies yielded a torrent of angry yellow sparks that rebounded from the shield, scattering over the hall, the doorway, and bouncing back into the apartment.
I dropped the shield as I brandished my staff, sent a savage torrent of power down my arm, and snarled, "Forzare!"
Unseen force lashed through the doorway - and splashed against the apartment's threshold. Most of the spell's power struck that barrier, grounded out, and was dissipated. What amounted to less than a percent of the power I had cast out actually made it through the doorway, as I had known it would. Instead of delivering a surge of energy strong enough to flip over a car, I delivered only a blow strong enough to knock an adult from her feet.
I heard a woman's voice let out a surprised grunt at the impact, and heavy objects clattered to the floor.
"Mouse!" I shouted.
The big dog bounded forward through the doorway, and I went in right behind him. Once again, the apartment's threshold stripped away my power, leaving me all but utterly unable to wield magic.
Which is why I'd brought my .44 revolver with me, tucked into a duster pocket. I had it in my left hand as I came through the door and hit the main light switch with my right elbow, bellowing, "I have not had a very good day!"
Mouse had someone pinned on the ground, and kept them there by virtue of simply sitting on them. Two hundred pounds of Mouse: is an awfully effective restraint, and though he had his teeth bared, he wasn't actively struggling or making any noise.
To my right, Anna Ash stood frozen like a rabbit in a spotlight and my gun tracked to her immediately. "Don't move," I warned her. "I don't have any magic at the moment, and that always make me really, really ready to pull the trigger."
"Oh, God," she said, her voice a rough whisper. She licked her lips, visibly trembling. "Okay," she said. "Okay. D-don't hurt me please. You don't have to do this."
I told her to walk over to Mouse and his prisoner. Once she was standing where I could watch both of them at once, I could relax a little, and though I did not lower the gun, I took my finger off the trigger. "Do what?"
"What you've done to the others," Anna said, her voice thread "You don't have to do this. Not to anyone."
"The others?" I demanded. I probably sounded at least half as disgusted as I felt. "You think I came here to kill you?"
She blinked at me a few times. Then she said, "You came here, broke down my door, and pointed a gun at me. What am I supposed to think?"
"I did not break down your door! It was unlocked!"
"You tore apart my ward!"
"Because I thought you might be in trouble, you twit!" I hollered. "I thought the killer might be here already."
A woman let out a couple of choking gasps. After a moment, I realized that it was the person Mouse had pinned down, letting out breathless laughter.
I lowered the gun and put it away. "For crying out loud. You thought the killer was coming for you? So you laid a trap for him?"
"Well, no," Anna said, now looking somewhat confused again. "I mean, I didn't do it. The Ordo... we hired a private investigator to look into it. It was her idea to trap the killer when he came here."
"A private investigator?" I looked over at the other woman and said, "Mouse."
My dog, tail waving gently, backed off right away and trotted over to stand beside me. The woman he'd been holding down sat up.
She was pale - not the sickly pallor of no time in the sun, but the color of the living, healthy skin of a tree beneath the outer bark. Her lean face was intensely attractive - more intriguing than beautiful, with wide, intelligent eyes set over an expressive, generous mouth. She had a slim build, all long legs and long arms, and wore a simple pair of jeans along with a black Aerosmith T-shirt, and brown leather Birkenstocks. She propped herself up on her elbows, a tendril of wheat-colored hair falling to almost insolently conceal one eye, and gave me a wry smile.
"Hello, Harry." She dabbed her fingers at a little bloody spot on her lower lip and winced, though there was still amusement in her voice. "Is that a new staff, or are you just happy to see me?"
And after my heart had skipped a couple of beats, I blinked and said, in a very quiet voice, to the first woman I'd ever everythinged, "Hello, Elaine."