In short, it was an illusion. A way of making someone believe they were seeing something that wasn’t really there. I actually had more than half the battle won already, given the physical appearance of the toy. But, casting a glamour involved affecting someone’s will, and while I wasn’t so white-light as to have a problem with that, I did seem to be having issues controlling my own will at the moment, much less someone else’s. Applying magick to the situation just seemed like a very bad idea, especially magick born of anxious energy. Of course, everything about what I was planning to do fell smack into the middle of the bad idea category, so it probably didn’t matter.

At one point it even dawned on me that some of the most notorious serial rapists and killers in recent history had used this very trick to gain the trust of their victims. This type of musing wasn’t new to me. I’d had thoughts like it before. In fact, I often wondered if my unfettered psychic connections to both the victims, and at times the criminals themselves, were doing irreparable damage to my psyche. This was, however, the first time that such contemplation left me afraid that due to that possible damage, I might be becoming just like them.

I sighed and tried to forget about the knot of fear that my wandering brain had just created in my already churning stomach. I had enough to worry about without tossing that in on top of it.

The time had been pushing 3:45AM when I shut off the car, and by now I was sure to have been sitting here for a solid fifteen minutes, maybe even longer, prepping the phony badge and trying to work up the courage to actually use it. I looked across the lot at the office. It was dark except for the pink neon glow of the NO VACANCY sign in the window. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I hoped that it just might work to my advantage.

I took one last sip of my coffee and swallowed hard before settling it into the cup holder and getting out of the vehicle. Though the temperature had been mild earlier, and I am certain that it hadn’t suffered any significant change, I felt a damp chill run the length of my spine. It hit me like a rush of excitement in fact, and that worried me. However, I pressed on across the quiet lot.