The crimson witch

sergeant.
        “Now wait a minute,” Jake said.
        “You-shut up!” the cop snapped.
        “You can't talk to me like that!” Jake snapped back.
        “I just did.”
        “What'll I book them on, chief?” the desk sergeant asked.
        “Uh-” He looked them over. “Book the girl on a charge of indecency in public. That dress hardly covers anything.”
        “God damn it, now-” Jake began.
        “And book him on swearing in public. Is there a law about swearing in public?”
        “Somewhere. Real old,” the desk sergeant said. “We used it when we wanted to hold that robbery suspect a few months ago. Remember?”
        “Use it again,” the chief said.
        “I demand to make a phone call,” Jake demanded.
        “In time, in time,” the chief said.
        “I don't see why you had to book us, either.”
        “To hold you until they can get here.”
        “They?”
        “This is far out of our league, sonny. Far out. The FBI is on the way.”
        Jake groaned.
        
        Cheryn had been taken to a different room to await the coming of the Federal men, and Jake could imagine how boiling mad she was, ready to blow, surely. He had thought she was going to use her magics on the police matron when the fat woman had propelled her through a door into a detention room. But she was obeying his orders to keep her Talent under wraps. It was a good thing, too. If anyone ever found out what she could do, any future privacy they might hope to have would be a dream of ashes. The cops that reported being lifted into the air and having their faces slapped by their own hands would not be believed. It would be assumed that the confusion and the excitement at having found a real dragon had gotten them so mixed up that they couldn't be counted on for rational reports. But if Cheryn demonstrated the power once more, then someone would connect the incidents and the game would be lost. So far she was behaving herself. He just hoped the matron didn't use any other rough measures with the girl.
        As he sat in the bare room, much like a cell, he began to be more and more afraid. They had called Abrams, and the lawyer was on his way, though doubtlessly confused about the talk of intelligent dragons that filled the conversation. Turnet Munitions could put its entire resources into the case if Jake felt like making it do so. They would certainly get off without much trouble. It was the dragon that he was worried for. What would the FBI make of that?
        He was about to find out.
        The door opened, admitted a short, muscular, well-dressed man in his mid-forties, closed behind him. He stood, looking at Jake a moment, shaking his head at the sight of the long hair and beard. Finally, he came across the room. “My name is Conners. I'm from-”
        “The FBI,” Jake finished, refusing to shake the proffered hand.
        “How-”
        “The old man outside, the one that plays around the edges of the law, let it slip.”
        “No matter,” Conners said, pulling up the only other chair in the room. He swung it around and sat down backwards on it, crossing his arms on the back. He tilted his hat back on his head to give himself a jaunty-look that, somehow, didn't go with the rest of his features. “Suppose you tell me what this is all about.”
        “Suppose you tell me,” Jake said, “why we're being treated as criminals. I don't have to talk until my lawyer arrives.”
        “Very knowledgeable about the law, aren't we,” Conners said nastily. He pushed open his coat to expose his gun. It was intended to send shivers down Jake's spine. It did, too.
        “I don't want trouble,” Jake said.
        “Fine, fine,” Conners said, smiling. A crocodile smile. “We hoped you'd be a little more cooperative. I'm glad to see you're coming around. It's the smart thing. Really, it is.”
        “What do you want?”
        Conners took his hat off and twirled it on one finger, ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth. “Just the story. Where'd the damn dragon come from? Was there anything in this report about policemen being levitated, anything else that might tie in?”
        Jake shivered inwardly. Maybe, if they accepted a dragon in the Twentieth Century, they would accept stories of levitation, too. He would have to lie around that, play for time until Abrams arrived. He could tell the basic story about the worldlines, which this man might