AN: See? Not dead. Just procrastinating until next week is over.

The Heir Series by Cinda Williams Chima has been an ongoing recommendation to the Urban Fantasy community (well, one that I've been making). Read them. Enjoy them. And please geek out with me when The Enchanter Heir comes out.

(I should also be studying, but I'm pretty sure that I know how the Cold War ends.)

I hoped that I made this understandable if you haven't read any of the Heir books.

Disclaimer: I wish I was Cinda Williams Chima or Jim Butcher. Even half of either of their writing abilities I would love to have.

Title: A Wizard Crossed.

Word Count: 2K

Summary: The large-nosed wizard glared down at me. "Red or white?" I had a feeling that he wasn't asking me about my preferences for wine.

The town was weird.

And when I said weird, I meant that there was a freaking magical net over the picturesque college town. I leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree, placed my hand flat over my eyebrows to give me a better view, and squinted as I looked up to check again. Weird, still. I mean I'm sure that not every Midwest town had a ward surrounding it.

Then again, I could be generalizing.

I grabbed my notes from my pocket and reread them to make sure that I haven't missed anything important, like someone crazy powerful enough to protect a small population. Paranet had told me earlier today that there were strange occurrences at a close town called Trinity. Everything was normal, according to the practitioner, until about a year ago was when things went supernatural. Flashes of light, strange disappearances, and very strange people were allegedly moving in. Also, she had added in her shaky phone call, it looked like there was a major fight a few months back.

I did what any PI/consultant to the Chicago Police Department/Warden of the White Council would do; I donned my favorite coat and went to go find a Way to get myself to Ohio. I popped out of a tree later and found myself near spooksville.

The ward was different from what I was used to seeing. It had an iridescent quality, blurring the image of the town as if I was standing further away. I tried to reason with myself that the practitioner didn't noticed the ward because maybe she wasn't strong enough. It already took me some high-ranking wizard senses to just see the vague outline of the spellwork.

Great. Just what I needed. A possibly hostile town filled with magical users.

The Council was going to up my pay for this. Even if this wasn't on their time.

I stuffed my notes into my pocket and I pulled out my backpack to get Bob out. "Take a look at this," I told him when the orange lights flickered inside the eye sockets.

Holding him up, he made 'Hm-hm' sounds as he addressed the situation. "Gotta say, boss," Bob said. "I haven't seen anything like this since the medieval era, maybe longer. Man, you should see this like I can—it makes your wards look like papier-mâché. This is what the Merlin would probably use. It's so shiny and professional. And it moves!"

"Thanks," I said dryly. "Need I remind you that it was your input that I used to recreate the wards back home?"

"And looked how well that turned out for when the zombies came marching in? A little advice about the undead wouldn't have killed you to listen to back then."

"Bob," I sighed. "Is this really the time to critique my work?"

"It's always the time," he said. Even though the skull couldn't make any facial expressions, I had a good feeling that was grinning inside the bone house. "Have you thought about just walking in? Just to see how it goes?"

I brought the skull down to eye-level. "Hells bells, you want me to walk through a ward, and into a town filled with unknown enemies?"

"Say that you're selling Girl Scout Cookies. I'm sure that they'll love that."

I glared.

"Fine." The lights fluttered as if he was blinking. "You go waste precious time. I'll be napping; this sunlight is really ruining my lovely mood. Go wake me once an epiphany strikes your empty head." The lights went out.

I expressed my annoyance maturely by cramming the skull inside my backpack. Screw him, I was going to find a way inside and figure out what was going on. I was a wizard trained under DuMorne and Ebenezer. I've fought spiteful faerie queens, bloodthirsty monsters, and insane warlocks. I could get through someone's fancy ward, dammit!

Ten minutes later the ward trapped me. Caught like an unfortunate fly in a spider's web, I have learned a valuable lesson in never taking Bob's advice ever again. Up close, the magical barrier had turned out to be a finely made network of translucent cords. They weren't that thick, but they were clumped together so that there were barely any spaces between them. There was no way of telling how thick it was, but there was a way of finding out.

One fuego later and a broken stick; that turned out to be a bad, bad idea.

After that spectacular plan, the broken cords had reached out and grabbed me before I had a chance to react. Pulling me in, the shock had made me drop my staff, and soon I was too far away to reach it.

"I hate you, Bob," I shouted, tugging on the tight cords around my wrist. There was another over my forearm, and a third wrapped around my ankle. "You will be tasting sunlight after this!" I kicked and tried to maneuver myself away from the web, but the cords fastened harder, and more came withering out to keep me still. If there was some giant, magic-enhanced spider, then I was going to come back as a ghost and haunt the practitioner that sent me here.

"Merde!" a voice shouted behind me. I struggled to move my head, but my new cord-buddies obstructed my view. "What the—who are you?" The speaker sounded young. And human. I craned my head to get a good look at what (hopefully) wasn't going to be a Harry-eating spider.

My stomach plummeted at seeing a youthful face of a boy with a tangle of dark hair. Christ, the kid looked younger than Molly. He warily eyed me, stepped away at what could be a safe distance. He clutched something that was around his neck—I could make out of what looked like a cross of some kind. His other hand reached out in my direction, fingers splayed, and a spray of faint lights sparked off his fingers. He circled around me, passing seamlessly through the ward as the cords hissed and made room for him to move.

I did my best to look as unthreatening as possible. I waggled a pair of my trapped fingers in a measly gesture of a wave. My stretched smile felt too forced. "Hey, kid. You think you can lend me a hand?"

"Why should I?" His voice gained a certain tone of authority that didn't suit well with his age, but a hardened tone came with his words. "How should I know that they didn't send you?"

Well, that could be interpreted in many ways. 'They' could mean the Council, but they didn't sent me over. 'They' could also mean a very real and powerful threat that I could help stomp out. Or 'They', knowing my luck, could actually be the good guys and I was in enemy territory. Again.

I jerked my head to the cords that bounded my arms and hands. "How about you cut me down and we can talk things out? I'm a harmless wizard, see?" I waggled my fingers as proof.

The collective power in his hand grew in size. His gaze and stance were steady. His hardened eyes reminding me too well of other supernatural folk that had faced some bigger fish in the sea. Sure, he was young, but the look he was giving me suggested something made him grow up too fast. "No way," he said. "You're going to stay right there."

I was going to make a great comeback, but another person showed up to steal my thunder. The new guy was almost as tall as me, the same coloring as the kid next to him, and a large nose that dominated his face. He clasped a hand on the kid's shoulder, the ring on his finger reflected oddly in the light. "Seph, go home."

"But, Dad." The kid's shoulder's slumped and the magic dissipated into the air. "I can handle this."

"It doesn't mean you should." His dad raised his head to look at me squarely in the eye. I looked away in fear of getting an unknown Soul Gaze. "Tell your mother that I'll be late for dinner." The kid made a noise of protest but was silenced under the glare that only a parent could make. He ran off to home and left me alone with his daddy-dearest.

With his son gone, he stood up straighter and a very menacing look crossed over his features. I wondered how often he practiced it in front of the mirror each morning. It took dedication to look like a threat.

"Hi," I said. "Come here often?"

"Wizard," he said. He looked down and picked up my discarded staff. He gave a brief, admiring look at the carvings and held it tightly in his hand. "Only one of them would be foolish enough to enter this sanctuary."

"Gosh," I said in trying to distract him. I hated it when people touched my stuff, and that was my third staff that I made this year. I have no time to make a fourth. "Here I was going to give you three guesses, but you're good, Sherlock."

He made no attempt of being annoyed by my razor-sharp wit. Instead he twirled my staff and made several slow-moving gestures with it, trying it out. To add insult to injury, he cast a gout of flame with my own weapon and set the fire out with a few spoken words of Latin.

Okay. I was dealing with another wizard.

Perfect.

The large-nosed wizard glared down at me. "Red or white?" I had a feeling that he wasn't asking me about my preferences for wine.

"I'm more of a brew guy, to say so myself," my mouth ran off. "Nothing like a good brew on a hot—"

His hand suddenly gripped my throat and it burned. Fingers wrapped tightly around my neck, the touch burned through my skin, making me let out a strangle yelp. Holy hell, I did not see that coming! "Are you here to harm anyone in Trinity?" he said after mercifully letting my neck go. "Are you here to harm my family or anyone else here?"

I gasped for breath. I could feel the imprint of his hand still wrapped around my neck, and it wasn't pleasant. My burned hand throbbed in a similar memory. "Jesus, watch where you put that thing."

"I'll ask you again," his voice grew lower and a nimbus of light grew between two fingers, quickly gaining intensity. He raised his hand, looking as though he was going to sock my face next. "Who are you and why are you here?"

"I'm a PI from Chicago," I said truthfully. "I heard about some weird occurrences and I decided to check things out."

He did not believe me. "Red or white?" he asked next. "Which one told you to come here?"

"Listen, buddy, I have no clue what you're talking about. In my right pocket there's my license and I.D. You can check yourself to see that I'm telling the truth."

The wizard weighed his options of either blasting me or to find out that I was harmless. He let his glowing hand down and I let out a breath of relief. "One move," he warned.

I could already tell that we were going to be the best of friends.

Go me.