That’s when I felt the press of magic against me. A muffled explosion vibrated under the soles of my feet. I looked around down the hallway, but other than the nearly silent bang, you could have heard a pin drop. What I was feeling wasn’t the typical barrier against evil that so many businesses and houses have. This was a spell. “I think we have a problem,” I said, turning back to Jamisyn and Sanchez.

The principal’s face was frozen in position, mouth open. But no, not precisely frozen. I experienced what a thousand hummingbirds probably see every day. Everyone in the school was running in slow motion. Principal Sanchez and Officer Jamisyn were moving. In fact, I would bet they believed themselves to be moving at normal speed. But watching them was similar to the “hyperfocus” I get when the vampire inside me wants to come out and hunt at sunset. Their movements were a crawl.

Except this time, it wasn’t me. It was broad daylight—the fact made more evident by the bright sun that was beating down on my sunscreen-slathered skin and making it sting.

I slid back into the school. I needed to confirm my suspicions. There was a window set into the door of the first classroom, and I stopped and peered in. Sure enough, the kids inside were half out of their seats, ready to pick up their pencils and notebooks.

This was not good.

Jamisyn opening the door must have triggered the spell. Or maybe it was me, stepping over the threshold. I raced from room to room in the first hall, my heels echoing in the silence. Every class was the same.

At first I thought that time had slowed, but a glance out the window showed cars moving at normal speed and pedestrians briskly walking down the shaded sidewalks. It was just the people in the school who were moving slowly. The reason for the spell came to me in a flash that made bile rise to my throat.

Maximum damage.

If nobody could get away from a bomb or a killer, everyone would die. It would be, sadly, child’s play. I wasn’t exactly sure why I wasn’t affected. It could be the vampire blood, that I was outside when the spell started, or maybe the protection charm disks I had in my jacket. Either way, I knew now why Dottie had insisted that I went to the school when I’d wanted to stay under the covers and pull the pillow over my head.

The flash of red on the wall caught my eye and I chuckled at the irony of it. Most every kid who has gone to a public school has wanted to do it. Heck, most every adult has, too, including me. I made a fist and smashed the thin glass on the front of the fire alarm, then pulled the lever down.

Bells shattered the silence and echoed down the halls so loud it made my head throb. Out on the street, one or two people paused, but when nobody ran out of the school, they moved on, probably figuring it was a fire drill. In the distance, I could hear a phone ringing, only because it was a counterpoint in pitch.

That was good, because without a call from the office, or anyone answering when the dispatcher called, they would send an engine. Now I just needed to get the attention of the general public.

Principal Sanchez had been right. Because I didn’t know what sort of danger I was getting into, I’d put on every weapon I could easily find on short notice. One of those wasn’t precisely a weapon. It was a distraction, a defense. I raced down to open the windows facing the street, pulled two “smoker” charm disks from my inside pocket, and threw them hard against the nearest locker. The smoke is black and thick, a screen to disappear behind with a client in tow. But the smoke doesn’t clog the lungs or sting the eyes, which is the nice thing about magic. It billowed out of the windows with me waving my arms to help it along. Now there was something to match the bells and people would come.

I raced back to the door and carried Principal Sanchez out, hoping that once I got her past the threshold, she would be out of the spell’s influence.

It worked. “Each of us … what?” She blinked repeatedly as she realized where she was—on the sidewalk, probably a dozen steps from the front door. The fire bells were ringing loud. Smoke was billowing out of the windows and people were running toward us. “Oh, my lord! Fire!”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to meet my eyes. “Listen to me. There’s a spell on everyone in the school. Probably tripped when we opened the door. There’s been an explosion in the basement. I can’t sense any fire, but I’ve got the fire department coming to get the kids out. We need to find out whether you can get back in the school without being affected by the spell again.”

Some spells are like that. If you can break away from the influence, often it won’t reaffect you. Without another word, she pulled away from me and raced back up the steps. I followed her in case she needed to be brought out again. But she didn’t slow down, so I’d been right about the spell. She looked in door windows, as I did, finally realizing I wasn’t lying. “I’m sorry!” She yelled it at me to be heard over the bells.

Everybody says that after the fact and I find it more than mildly annoying. I had to struggle not to frown or growl, because this was not the time for recriminations. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to get the kids out!”

She propped open the first classroom door and started to untangle the first child from her chair. I shook my head no and pointed toward the teacher. “If we get the teachers first, we’ll have more hands!” I was already tired of shouting, tired of the noise that was making my head pound. Sanchez nodded and headed toward the front of the class, where a slim, older woman was staring at the clock and pointing, with a piece of chalk, at the door.

Like a lot of schools in the district, Abraham Lincoln was built on a single story and every classroom had a fire door that opened directly onto the playground. As principal, Sanchez had a key. The first thing she did was unlock the door and prop it open. It was the smart thing to do. She must have been a firefighter in a previous career, too, because she picked up the teacher like she was a cardboard cutout and tossed her over one shoulder before heading out the door. I did the same to an older brunette girl sitting in a chair in the corner. I was guessing she was a student teacher or a college intern.

More people had arrived because of the smoke and were being directed by Jamisyn, who either had gotten away himself or must have been pulled out by a passerby. Sirens in the distance were getting louder. I set the girl down and shook her lightly to clear her head. While I was explaining what had happened to her, I spotted movement near the end of the building.

I had turned, taking a couple of steps in that direction, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head and was surprised to see Terrance Harris, one of the Santa Maria de Luna cops. He was a recently arrived Haitian immigrant, a level-six mage. He’d been brought in to be part of the magical enforcement squad. I’d met him once before, at a Christmas party. He nodded toward the school, but I noticed that he was looking at a point near the rooftop of the building, on a ledge. I followed his gaze. I didn’t see anything. “I knew when I saw you over here that this wasn’t just a building fire. You set off smoke bombs because of the curse, didn’t you?”

The distinctive accent didn’t distract me. Instead, the words made me look at the unobtrusive middle-aged man suspiciously. “What do you know about it?” He looked like he was off-duty, because he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but it seemed awfully convenient to see a powerful mage at a place where an equally powerful spell had been cast. That “they always return to the scene of the crime” thing is mostly true.

He pointed at the ledge. “I can feel it. The source of the spell is up there. It’s a powerful one. I’m thinking it was done last night and set with a trigger or timer. It’s too complicated and too public for someone to have done this just now.”

Could I trust him? Would either of the mages I knew be able to tell me all that about a spell just by encountering it on the sidewalk?

Actually, yeah, they would. Bruno could for sure, and probably Creede, too. Bruno was a level nine. Creede an eight plus. So maybe I shouldn’t shortchange Harris. I turned to ask him if he could tell anything specific about the curse but was distracted when I spotted more movement in the place that had caught my attention a moment before.

A basement window was being opened … from the inside. Okay, that just screamed sneaky. There were plenty of exit doors; why crawl out of a window unless you were up to something?

I gestured silently toward the dark-skinned man emerging from the open window. He was trying hard to use his camo clothing to blend in with the shadows. Terrance followed my gesture and started heading that way, pulling what looked like an actual carved wand from a holster on his belt. I don’t know a lot of witches or mages who use wands, although I’ve seen them for sale in weapons stores.

Harris shouted, “Police! You in the window. Freeze. Don’t move!”

Crap. I’d been hoping for a little more … subtlety. I know there are laws that say they have to give that warning. It just seems like it gives the bad guys an edge when you can’t sneak up on them. The man in the window pulled down on his cap and it became a face mask, just in time to keep me from getting a good look at him. As I expected, instead of not moving, he started moving faster, kicking to get out of the window before we could get to him.

Go figure.

Terrance raised his wand and twirled it in a fast circle before throwing power at the masked man. “Glacia!”

I knew that spell, which was, literally, “freeze.” It should have stopped the guy cold in his tracks. Except that I was right about him being a spellcaster. He threw his hands sideways and deflected the magic. Toward me. Then he took off running down the street.

A wave of ice cold hit me and made my muscles tense. But there’s a reason I spend serious money on protection charms. It only took a second for the medallion around my neck to heat and push away the cold. I didn’t wait to have something more serious hit me. The best defense is a good offense. I put a hand inside my blazer, extracted a charm disk as I ran, and brushed my fingertips over the raised lettering to be sure I’d drawn the one I wanted. Pouring on the speed, I hit the guy from behind with a flying tackle. We tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs and dirt. Before he could utter the next curse, I stuffed the charm in his mouth and slammed his jaw shut. The Speak No Evil charm is specially made for spellcasters. For the next hour, he wouldn’t be able to say anything that could be harmful.