“And?”
“A lightning-quick investigation,” Hiro said. “They said it was a gas explosion and closed it out by the end of the day. Erika pushed for more information, but the feds pushed back. Hard, from what I hear. They told her to back off in no uncertain terms.”
“Well, that’s only very suspicious,” Jason mused. Clearly, the destruction was caused by the astral event that sent him hurtling into another reality, but why were people covering it up? Were there people out there who knew about magic and spent their time hiding any manifestations of it?
“Why come to me?” Hiro asked. “I’m flattered, but why not your parents or your sister?”
“Like I said, I’ve been out of contact. I need to know what I’m walking into before I make my grand reappearance. I figured you could help me and would be more willing to take ‘please don’t ask’ for an answer.”
“Of course I’ll help.”
“Is Erika living in Mum and Dad’s house now?”
“She is,” Hiro said. “You went by?”
“I took a look but didn’t go in. Where are Mum and Dad living? Don’t tell me they moved to Tasmania too?”
Hiro made an awkward expression.
“Sorry, Jason, but your parents divorced a year ago. I’m not really sure of the details, but your father bought a large property as a landscaping project and he’s been living in a little cottage on-site. Your mother moved up to Castle Reach.”
“Damn,” Jason said.
“So, what do you need?” Hiro asked. “Some cash? A place to stay while you get organised?”
“They would both be great,” Jason said. “I’ve been working, but they didn’t pay me in Australian dollars.”
“You can’t do a currency exchange?”
Jason lightly placed a large gold bar on Hiro’s desk with one hand.
“I was hoping you could help me move it,” Jason said. “Obviously, I don’t expect market rates.”
“Jason, you know that real gold is heavy, right?”
“I know.”
Hiro leaned forward, grabbing the bar with one hand. Then he used the second and hefted it heavily off the table.
“Jesus, Jason,” he said as he placed it back on the desk. “What have you gotten caught up in? I’m meant to be the shady one.”
“I haven’t been doing anything criminal,” Jason said. “Except secretly leaving the country, I guess. And importing unregistered gold. Okay, maybe a little shady. I’ve been doing security work. In Africa.”
“You were paid a bar of gold to secretly leave the country, and what? Be a security guard?”
“Security contractor.”
“A mercenary? Jason, do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”
Jason laughed.
“Uncle, you’re smart enough to know that I’m skirting around the edges of the truth. I don’t want to hide anything from you, but if I told you what was really going on? That would make what I’m telling you now seem as extraordinary as eating a microwave dinner and going to bed early.”
“Jason, seeing you eat a microwave dinner would be extraordinary. Your sister would burn you with hot coals. Why don’t you try me?”
Jason shook his head. “I’m not looking to lie to you, Uncle Hiro, but I need to give things more consideration before I start telling anyone anything.”
Hiro let out a sigh.
“Alright,” he said, standing up. He moved behind his desk, took a money clip from a drawer, and tossed it to Jason. Then he tapped his fingers on the gold bar.
“Leave this with me and I’ll see what I can do. It’s not my area, so I’ll have to ask around. Just so you know, I may get asked where it came from by people I can’t keep the answer from.”
“That’s fine,” Jason said. “I can handle people.”
“Not these kinds of people.”
“Yes, Uncle Hiro. Those kinds of people.”
Hiro looked at his nephew. There had always been an insecurity buried under Jason’s layers of lunatic wit, but no trace of that remained. There was an almost domineering confidence in the way he carried himself, sitting in the chair like a king on a throne. In his line of work, Hiro had developed a good instinct for dangerous people. Those instincts screamed at him right now.
“I’ll have Taika take you somewhere you can get some sleep,” Hiro said. “I have a townhouse I keep for important guests. Do you have a phone?”
“No.”
“I’ll see you get one. A laptop too. Ask Taika for anything else you need, and he’ll see to it. Just don’t ask Growl.”
Jason stood up and held out his hand.
“Thank you, Uncle.”
Hiro shook Jason’s hand warmly.
“You know, I’d like to hear what really happened some time.”
“You will,” Jason promised, “but I’m not sure you’d be glad once you did. Some secrets change you forever.”
5
IT WOULD BE WEIRDER IF MAGIC WASN’T RESPONSIBLE
Annabeth Tilden was woken by her phone.
“Damn it, Anna.”
So was her wife, Susan. Anna snatched the phone off the nightstand and stumbled into the bathroom, closing the door before turning on the light and answering.
“What?” she answered grumpily.
“Director, I was going over the grid feed for the night and I found something. The monitoring agent passed it off as a glitch, which is why I’m only seeing it now, but I took a closer look. I think it warrants investigation.”
Anna groaned but nodded to herself.
“Alright. Run me through it, Keti.”
Ketevan wasn’t in the habit of making unfounded leaps. Anna placed a lot of trust in her analytical abilities.
“We got a hit on the grid on the Mid North Coast, but it definitely wasn’t an event. It was incredibly localised and lasted for less than a second.”
“That sounds like a random reaction spike. What makes this different from the ones we see all day, every day?”
“Two things,” Ketevan said. “One is that there was an almost identical hit in France at the same time. The other is the strength of the reaction. The grid registered it as being above category five.”
“There is no above category five.”
“Yes, Director.”
“There’s only been the one category four and the Poms needed a Brimstone missile to deal with it.”
“Yes, Director.”
“Actually, they needed several.”
“Yes, Director.”
“Alright,” Anna said. “Send an investigation team. If there’s something there, look into it personally.”
“Shade,” Jason whispered. “Bring the car around. Make sure there’s room for our hefty new friend.”
Several shadow bodies discreetly separated themselves from Jason’s shadow as he made his way outside, where Growl was taking over from Taika on the door.
“It’s not like we’ll get a lot of traffic just before lock up when it’s coming down like this on a weeknight,” Growl was saying. They glanced out as the rain continued pouring down on the street.
Jason nodded a greeting at the pair of huge men and held out a hand for Growl to shake.
“No hard feelings, mate?”
Growl clasped Jason’s hand in his own meaty paw and shook it.