“It’s an old Star Trek trick,” I said slowly, trying not to move. “In the book, one of the crew was infected with an alien virus. They use the transporter beam’s pattern buffer to restore her to an earlier state, before the infection. It’s a complete deus ex machina, but—”

“You waved your hand, and he fucking disintegrated!”

“I what?” asked Will. “I’m sorry, who are these people? What’s going on?”

The EMT who’d been checking Will rose. “Isaac just saved this man’s life, Officer.”

Will blinked. “You did?”

“It was pretty cool, yah. Also, for what it’s worth, your body is like an hour younger now.” Smudge was pacing in his cage. Smoke rose from his back, and his attention was fixed on Blackwell.

“Officer Blackwell.” Nidhi’s voice was sharper, more authoritative, with an emphasis on officer. Stressing his role and responsibilities. “Isaac is no threat. Helping those people took a great deal out of him. Look how his hands are trembling. He’d probably fall and break his nose if you weren’t holding him upright. In the meantime, there are other people who need help.”

She was exaggerating, but not as much as I would have liked. Pulling a potion or ray-gun out of a book was one thing. Shaping raw magic and belief had a bigger price tag.

Blackwell glanced toward my hip. “That thing in the cage. What the fuck is it?”

Great. Not only was he freaking out about magic, he was probably arachnophobic, too. “His name’s Smudge. He’s harmless. Mostly harmless. He probably just wants some candy. I can—”

“Don’t move! Keep your hands where I can see them!”

“Daniel Blackwell, drop your weapon and back away now!” Rowland raised her own gun. “Nobody wants to do this, Dan. Think about Lisa.”

“But he—Did you really cure him?” Blackwell stared past me toward Will. “Or did you kill him and replace him with . . . with whatever that is?”

It was a fair question, one science fiction had struggled with pretty much since the first story about teleportation. And there was no way in hell I was going to get into that discussion with Officer Twitchy.

“My first experience with magic was a sixteen-year-old client,” Nidhi said, her attention fully on Blackwell. “He’d been complaining about hearing voices. None of the medications I prescribed had helped. I was afraid I’d have to have him committed. It turned out he was magically gifted, but nobody realized it. He’d turned to reading to escape the stress of high school. He was so desperate to escape the real world, he connected with fictional ones. The romance novels he’d been going through had convinced him he was the son of a Scottish lord. It’s called Type Two Partial Libriomantic Possession. His accent was terrible.”

Blackwell appeared to be listening. “What happened?”