Industry & Intrigue by Ryan McCall Page A

it was someone of authority at Warded Spirals
and as the details began to fade from the diary entries she reached
a point in the entries where it appeared as if Kyle had forgotten
the entirety of the abuse. Had he suppressed it due to trauma or
had his mind been altered with magic?
    There was certainly an indication of
mental alteration by the sudden change in style of Kyle’s writing.
Combine that with the memory loss and it suggested a mage highly
skilled in mental magic. It was a place for her to start
anyway.
    She contemplated whether she should tell
the watch or not. She doubted that it would help. They were set on
it being a suicide and writing it off. In addition the Dunn family
would not want details like this to be made public, as concerned
with their reputation as they were.
    They had the power to order the watch to
bury the incident if they wanted. No, she would keep this to
herself for now. Once she had hard evidence on who was behind this
atrocity, she would decide what to do.
    She pulled out a fresh piece of paper and
began writing down a suspect list along with identifying details
she could take from the diary. Based on the sexual acts Kyle had
described, his abuser was male, ruling out a good portion of
suspects. Forty percent of all mages of master level and above were
female.
    Powerful mental magic-that ruled out a
few more. But there were still plenty of mages that used it outside
of the mind discipline and she didn’t want to automatically assume
a teacher or master of mind was responsible. There was something
else, Kyle had mentioned details of the Circular Tower.
    The only way students or low level mages
were allowed in there was with direct oversight from the higher
mages. If someone had taken him there they had to have a lot of
authority. She began writing down names of everyone she could think
that matched the pieces of evidence.
    There were ten names on
her list,
she would have to proceed carefully here. Each of them was a
powerful figure and if she was caught asking the wrong questions
she could land herself in hot water. For now, it would be best to
look for further clues outside the school, like his drug
habit.
    Clearly his memories had come
back to him and he had used tarcaine in order to drown out the trauma;
the person who sold him the drugs could know something. It would be
safer than asking questions at the Center.
    She remembered the watch
officer, Sergeant Moreland, had been interested in the man she had
seen Kyle with. Tomorrow after classes she would head to the
Justice Branch and see if they had information on him.

Chapter 7
     
    The man next to her rested his head back
onto a pillow, sighing with pleasure. “That was wonderful,” he
said. She let her own head fall down on the pillow next to
him.
    “ I aim to
please ,” she
replied and she ran her finger over his lips as he turned to look
at her. Her soft, brown hair hung over her head and the pillow and
sweat beaded on her forehead. She slowly sat up and left the bed.
She could feel the man’s eyes admiring her naked
backside.
    She pulled on her clothes, when she was
done she looked like an inconspicuous peasant girl, instead of the
sultrily-dressed prostitute she was playing. She splashed a bottle
of liquid over her hair and face and she felt a tingling as the
glamor washed away. Her hair began to grow shorter, rising to below
her ears and the color changed to light blonde. Her features were
changing as well, her eyes sharpening and her lips becoming less
full. She had a long scar running from below her temple to the side
of her chin. When the effect had ended she was a different
person.
    The man tried to say something but all
that came out was a mumble. She looked over at him. He was
straining to move himself, but he was still in the same position.
“Ah,” she said “you can strain as much as you like Mr. Trent, it
won’t matter. That poison initiates a state of complete body
paralysis.”
    She walked over to the bed