This isn't very good. And it is in no way finished. More some ideas that refuse to gel. Maybe it will get there one day. Maybe it won't.

 

Miguel watched the other approach. Tall, middle-aged, dressed well, confident. Too good to be just another security guy. An amateur, or management.

“Miguel?” The other held out his hand. “I’m Sebastian, but most guys call me Frank.”

“As in French, or truthful?” Miguel shook hands. The guy had a well practiced shake.

“Ah,” the other smiled, “we’re going to get along well.”

Famous last words and all that shit. Miguel’s job was to keep the kooks under control. He had no idea what this guy did. He only knew that the Olympic venue was so expensive to build that they’d rent it out to anyone.

“This isn’t your typical sporting event. Outside threats mostly come from people who identify as hardcore Christians. Inside threats from rambunctious fans are the bigger problem. Spotting those before they get out of control is paramount.”

Frank handed him a heavy notebook. It contained lists of the competitors, the guests, the events, and an allowed list of spells.

A list of VIP guests was not unusual. But to have, as this implied, a list of all guests was interesting. An allowed list of spells had to be something unique to this group, as he’d never heard of that sort of thing before. Wasn’t sure what they meant by that.

 

“Spells?”

“Pertains to the guests. Of course the competitors have access to a much larger range of spells as pertains to their competitions. We just do a block if someone gets a little rambunctious.”

“A block?”

“Yea, the basic block spell generally does the trick. If not, I can port them to a holding zone.”

“I’m not a wizard.” 

“Don’t have to be. See. Hold your hands like this.” Frank made a triangle by touching his index fingers together and then his thumbs. “Focus the view on the perp, and say, ‘stop.’

He shook his hands and stepped back. “Here, I’ll do a whistle spell, and you try blocking it.”

Miguel saw nothing, but all of a sudden, there was the sound of someone whistling. Frank wasn’t moving, or apparently doing anything, but when Miguel looked at him, he felt an odd tingling.

He did the thing with his hands, looked through the triangle at Frank, and said, “Stop.”

The whistling continued.

“Say it like you mean it,” the other said.

That riled him a bit and he said the word more forcefully than intended.

The whistling stopped.

“Good. I knew you were a natural.”

“Natural what?” Miguel had been called many things in his years as a security man.

“Almost everyone has some ability to do magic. I’m not saying you’re a high wizard-class, but you’d do well enough if you wanted to take up the study.”

 

###

 

Miguel watched as the third watch filed into the staff room. He’d given this presentation twice before, so some already knew what to expect. That may make it easier. Or harder.

“As you may have heard, there’s going to be a third Olympics this year. After the regular and para-olympics, we now have the magic olympics. This is going to be a smaller event… fewer venues, fewer participants, less audience. So, if you want to sit this one out, you probably can.”

“Do we have to decide today?” the woman in the third row asked.

“Naw. End of week is fine. Training will start next week. Each of you will be paired with an agent provided by the event organizers—”

“So we are training them to replace us.” There were negative growls and comments throughout the group.

“Not at all. As I said, this is the Magic Olympics. Your partner will be responsible for security related to the performance of magic while you do what you have always done.

 

###

 

Training went smoothly, more or less. Miguel was glad to see the end of it. Everyone learned the block spell although the ability to perform it varied widely. They learned to recognize what spells were allowed for audience participation. About half could identify when a spell was employed; half of those could identify the perpetrator. 

Frank seemed to think that was reasonable. He expected the guards’ skills to improve once they had real audiences in the arenas. Miguel wasn’t as confident, but he had to admit that his skills were improving day to day. Besides the block spell, he’d learned the peace spell and how to make his flashlight work without batteries. He wondered if it would work with his kids’ toys.

 

The biggest fear wasn’t in the venues. Frank’s people could manage that. Already there were people beginning to gather and the participants hadn’t even arrived. This morning a group set up an encampment outside the main gates. So far, they were just praying, but Miguel doubted that was their only purpose for being here.

The apparent leader and his two security guys had been around for weeks. Not with their followers, if that’s what they were, but as part of the audience for the para-olympics. With too much interest in inspecting all of the doors, which was how Miguel spotted them in the first place. He’d had his people noticing them in all sorts of interesting locations, but so far, they hadn’t done anything that warranted escalation. Some folks were just harmless kooks. With a crowd of followers growing by the day, they might be something else.

“Ah, so you know about Reverend Storm,” Frank said.

“Didn’t know his name. He arrived a few weeks ago.”

“He and his groupies show up at a lot of our public events. They’re mostly harmless.”

“Mostly?”

“Well, if you get too close, they’ll attempt to convert you, or try you for witchcraft.”

“So, kooks, or homicidal maniacs.”

“I blanket them with the peace spell a few times a day. That’s usually enough.”

 

 

 

The crowd outside the gate doubled the next day, and again the day after. Mostly, someone with a loud speaker babbled at the crowd, to which they responded with “Amen.” By the third day, the crowd attracted a crowd of its own. The curious and the press.

As Frank predicted, some of the bystanders were converted and joined the rest in chanting their “Amens.” 

The press conducted interviews and shot lots of video. It was becoming a circus.

Frank and his cohorts sent peace spells over the crowd hourly. 

Miguel watched the crowd grow and scanned the media. So far the reports were mostly about how such a peaceful crowd was gathered to protest. They didn’t seem to want anything but to be heard. He wondered if they could keep it that way.

 

 

 

“Ah, now that’s cheating,” Frank said.

There was a new figure on the dais with Reverend Storm. He was not leading prayers or saying “Amens.” Miguel could feel the magic coming off him.

“Cheating?”

“Well, if you are praying to save our heathen souls because magic is the antithesis of God, then why would you have a powerful wizard in your midst countering our spells?”

“What? Why would he do that?”

“That’s Adami. He has a reputation for creating chaos for the fun of it.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s odd to see him here. He’s not a fan of sporting events and rarely leaves Los Angeles. And he absolutely hates evangelicals.”

“So whose side is he on?”

“No one’s. He is a force unto himself. I’ve got to talk to Stirtad.”  Frank walked off.

He stopped and turned.

“If Adami does anything, scream the peace spell at the top of your lungs.”

“Scream?”

“Sound carries better that way.” He turned and hurried off.

Into every event a catastrophe must fall and Miguel felt this was going to be it. From his post, he watched Adami. He put out the word to keep eyes on everything, especially the more obscure ways into the facility. He felt that nothing was going to be enough.

Miguel stayed away from the competitors and judges. Now that he was sensitive to the feel of magic, being too close gave him the heebee-geebees. Frank said he’d get used to it, but so far that wasn’t happening. He counted the days until the event was over and the wizards cleared out.

 

Frank returned an hour later. The group outside prayed and obstructed traffic, but little else. They watched it for a few minutes.

“Walk with me,” Frank turned toward the housing district.

Miguel followed. He felt like yelling and bashing something. These wizards, though, were the most extreme pacifists he’d ever seen.

They arrived at Miguel’s apartment.

“Get some sleep.” Frank opened the door.

“But—”

“It’s under control. It will be at least ten hours before anything happens.”

Miguel doubted that he could sleep. He did realize that the stress was getting to him. Usually it took a bonafide crisis to reach this level of anxiety. So far, this had been an easy event. It was the fear of the unknown—and there were a lot of unknowns with this group—that had him down.

“Do you take anything to sleep?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“Good. Good. I can put a light sleep spell on your bed. You’ll sleep for at least six hours, but be able to wake in an instant should the need arise.”

He doubted he needed any help to get to sleep. But the idea of being to wake at a moment’s notice was interesting.

“I do it for myself all the time. But it won’t work if you don’t accept it.”

Miguel felt he was being given an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Yea. Just let me call Dan first. Make sure he’s got the coms.”

“Sure. And I’ll be gone before you’re done with the call.”

That was an easy promise. It was impossible to spend less than fifteen minutes on the phone with Dan.

 

 

Miguel woke feeling better than he had in weeks. He put on a fresh suit and left the apartment. 

The good feeling lasted about ten feet past his front door. Something was off. Impossible to say what, but he could feel it in his bones. He walked slowly to the com center, watching everything.

About halfway there, it hit him. He saw none of his people. Nor did he see any of Frank’s. He got out his phone and started dialing the guys he knew were currently off shift.

It took Dan a few rings to reach his phone.

“Dan, it’s Miguel. Have you been out lately?”

“Duh, you woke me to ask that?” He sounded groggy.

“Call your people and have them meet me at C-4. Tell them to take the back ways. Something’s up.”

“We’ll be there in five.”

C-4 was a private area near the com center used by security. Com center personnel could watch the area, but only by shifting one of the monitors off another view.

While he waited for his team, Miguel scouted the com center. He heard voices that he didn’t recognize.

Dan arrived with four of his comrades.

“I sent Pat with a detail to the backup center,” he said.

“Good thinking. The com center is compromised. At least three, but there could be more.”