“Hey,” I said. “Rental property. Not my fault.”
“You asked for my opinion,” he said. “And by the way, cute haircut.”
Shame just shook his head. “Fine, don’t tell me. We have bigger problems to solve.”
“Like what?” I asked. We were in the main room, and everyone was there, Maeve, Hayden, Zay, Victor. And Collins, who was passed out on the couch.
“Like that.”
Chapter Thirteen
“What happened?” I asked.
“Victor Unclosed him,” Maeve said. “He was fine for a bit”—she glanced over at Victor, who stood against one wall, arms crossed over his chest—“…and then he wasn’t.”
What I wanted to do was panic. Instead, I assessed our situation. Zay was in a chair, not moving much, his eyes still half-lidded from pain. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He was hot with pain, tight. But I think me being there helped some, so that’s where I stayed.
Hayden was pacing toward the hall and back. Maeve stood behind Collins’ couch, keeping an eye on Victor and Hayden.
“I assume there’s been a disagreement?” I asked.
“He wouldn’t listen to sense,” Hayden said.
“It’s done,” Maeve interrupted. “Let it be.”
“No, Maeve. I won’t.” Hayden came toward me and I once again was reminded that I never wanted to get in a fight with the man.
“Victor did this.” He pointed at Collins. “Intentionally.”
“What’s wrong with Collins?”
“He’s in a coma. Likely just as broken-brained as Cody. That man won’t be worth squat to anyone once he wakes up. If he wakes up.”
“He’ll wake up,” Victor said softly, his voice a little rough as if he’d been running hard.
“Maybe in a year,” Hayden said. “You didn’t Unclose him, Victor. You brutalized his mind.”
“Is this true?” I looked at Victor, who gave me a steady gaze. Then I looked at Maeve.
“It was… harsh,” she agreed. “But I am not a Closer. The complexities are beyond me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That Victor, whom I’d always counted on, who always went into any situation with levelheaded thinking, had let his anger destroy our chance of finding out how to cleanse magic.
“Tell me you didn’t do that,” I said as I paced over to Victor. “Tell me you didn’t just destroy the one man who knows enough about magic technology to cleanse the wells, to find a cure, to save us.”
“I didn’t destroy him. He’ll wake up,” Victor said. “He will have enough use of his mind to be advantageous to us. To serve our needs.”
This near, I could see that Victor’s eyes were bloodshot, and he was a sick sort of pale. Pain radiated off him in a hot, nauseating wave.
“Did you brutalize his mind?”
“You don’t know what he once was, Allie. I refuse to restore him to that again. Refuse to let loose another monster in our midst. I made… choices.”
“Did you brutalize his mind? Break him like Cody has been broken?”
“You know I’m better than that.” He drew his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and I noted it was shaking.
He noticed it too, caught my gaze, and folded his arms again. More than just paying the price for a spell, he was emptied out from the effort of doing magic at all. His knees were locked to keep him leaning against the wall, and even so, his entire body was trembling slightly.
“I know you were better than that,” I said.
“And I still am. Hayden may not think so. Apparently”—he flicked a glace at Maeve, then looked back to me—“neither does Maeve.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Maeve said. “It was harsh. I didn’t say it wasn’t effective.”
“Can you wake him up?” I asked.
“He needs time. It was… harder on him than I expected.”
“We’re running a little short on time,” I said. “How long does he need?”
“Several hours.”
I closed my eyes and took a step back. We didn’t have several hours. I wasn’t even sure if we had an hour left. Stone was winding down and we had no idea what that would do to the Life well sample. We needed to go to wherever Collins had stashed the tech and then, I assumed, set it up, run tests, wait for results, check our accuracy, and try to come up with ideas of how to make a cure.
“We don’t have several hours,” I said. “I don’t even have—Jesus, Victor. Wasn’t there an easier way?”
He just gave me a calm Zen look and said nothing.
I took that as, no, there wasn’t an easier way.
That wasn’t getting us anywhere. I needed a new option. “Are there any spells that can test the sample magics? Magic that can test magic’s purity?”
Maeve shook her head. “Not that I know of. Magic isn’t supposed to be able to be poisoned in the first place.”
“So we just went to all this work, wasted all this time, and we have nothing we can do with what we have?”
Stone, Dad said hesitantly.
What about him?
He might be something we can use to test the magic. Might even be something that could give us a basic set of data we can use to filter the magic.
Stone’s a magic filtration device? I’m not buying that.
I’m unsure. However… He paused, and I could feel him poring through a hundred possibilities.
Images of tech, experiments, theories, flashed behind my eyes—his memories that were too fleeting for me to catch. What I did get from them was more than a little boggling. I hadn’t really realized just how many things my father had tried to do with magic and technology, nor how many outcomes that had resulted in.
I think that Stone being an Animate—a device that runs on magic—might be something we can… modify. We would just need some basic equipment. Things that might be here. Things Collins may have used on Davy. Medical instruments, he added.
Who can run the tests?
I could.
He didn’t add any more to that statement. Didn’t beg me to trust him, didn’t order me to believe. Just waited for my decision.
Since I couldn’t think of any way this plague was to Dad’s advantage—
It’s not, he said.
—I decided.
“Fine. New plan. We test the magic ourselves using the tech Collins has here, and Stone.”
Stone, who had sat himself down next to Zayvion, huffed at the sound of his name.
“Is it strange,” Shame asked, “if I’m the one who has to tell you you’ve lost your mind?”
“Dad said he can do it. Might be able to do it,” I corrected. “And unless someone has a better idea?” I waited, but no one said anything. “Then this is what we’ve got, and we’re going to use it. Maeve, how’s Davy?”
“Sleeping last I checked.” She glanced at her watch. “About half an hour ago.”
“Terric, Shame, help me gather the equipment,” I said. “Medical things Collins might have used on Davy. Has anyone done a thorough search of this place?”
“I have,” Hayden said.
“I need a room to set up in, something we can Block in case what we do triggers a spike in magic.”
Or an explosion, Dad added matter-of-factly.
“Or an explosion,” I passed along.
“He has a lab,” Hayden said.
“Who?”
“Collins. Here. Don’t think he wanted us to see it, but while Victor was tearing through his brain, I took a stroll.”
“Hayden,” Maeve said. “Enough.” And this time she was clearly as annoyed by the bickering as I was. “Leave this be. When you next Unclose someone, you can do it the way you see fit. Now show Allie the lab. Allie, I’ll check on Davy and make sure he’s comfortable.”
She turned and, with her cane, walked down the hall to Davy’s room.
Hayden watched her go, and frowned. “This way.”
I brushed my hand down Zayvion’s b
ack. “I’ll be right back.”
Zay didn’t say anything, but his hand caught mine at the last moment, our fingers linking, before he let me go.
Hayden strode through the arched doorway at the far end of the room, and then to a hallway, with a metal door at the end—a metal door he opened.
Below us spread the bulk of the warehouse. I just gave it a cursory glance. Concrete floor, scaffolding and empty shelves at one side; large equipment that maybe had something to do with repairing ships, or maybe cutting lumber, cluttered up the other half of the place. It all looked long unused, stuck in storage, just like Collins had said.
I didn’t know why Hayden thought this was such a great place to do magic.
Look up, Dad said.
I did so. “Oh,” I said. The ceiling was pitched by iron-and glasswork in a gothic spiderweb that was breath catching.
Hayden was in front of me, Shame and Terric behind me. They paused, glanced up.
“Don’t make them like they used to,” Hayden noted as he continued to another door.
“Did they always make buildings this beautiful?” I asked. “I mean, this was just a warehouse.”
Hayden swiveled his head to look down at me over his big shoulder. “Do you know what kind of magic you can do in a warehouse like this? A lot. And this was back in the days when there was still a lot of crazy experimenting being done. Thanks to your dad and things like this”—he nodded up toward the ceiling—“the Authority was balls out to keep people from frying themselves into steaming piles of dust.”
He’s exaggerating, Dad said. Warehouses like this were very useful in finding out what level of magical information was most beneficial to the populace.
“I don’t think my dad agrees with you,” I said.
“He never did. Had a thing about letting people push the limit of what they could do with magic. Didn’t care if it went too far. Said it made for good data. I think it just got people killed.”
Hayden shouldered the door open, stepped in, and flipped on a light. “Will this do you?”
I walked in behind him. “Well, so much for Collins’ story about this being a temporary setup.”
The room was big enough to park half a dozen cars in, but sterile white, the walls worked with glyphs fed by sophisticated and high-yield Refresh spells. Tables of equipment marched off down the center filled with lots of medical, and not-so-medical-looking, devices.
Shelves, check. Computer screens and monitors, check. A couple white-sheet hospital beds with restraints primly folded on top, roger that.
And the place stank of magic, the cloying, rotted-meat smell. Collins had been doing magic in here, running experiments, very recently.
I walked between tables and saw iron, lead, glass, and plastics, put together into shapes both familiar and strange, some of which I could see the use for, and others I wish I hadn’t.
Did he really used to torture people? I asked Dad. Not that I had to. These devices made it clear just what Dr. Collins’ specialty was.
Yes.
Do you see anything here you can use?
I believe so. I’ll still need Stone. And a clear table for equipment.
“This will do,” I said. “Shame, could you go get Stone for me? Terric, Hayden, let’s see if we can clear a place for what we need to do.”
“What do we need to do, exactly?” Terric asked.
“Follow what my dad says.”
“And then what?” Terric asked.
“And then I’ll let Dad use my hands and see if we can’t come up with ideas for how to filter or cleanse magic.”
Terric loaded his arms with something that looked like a miniature engine made out of stained glass, Tiffany-style.
“Don’t think Zayvion would think that’s a great idea,” he said.
“Zayvion isn’t on his feet yet,” I said. “Which is why you, Shame, and Hayden will be here. If anything goes wrong, you can take me down and take care of it.”
“Think letting your dad use magic through you might knock you out?” he asked.
“I don’t think he’s going to use magic,” I said. “I think he’s going to use this tech.”
Magic through the tech. You should be all right. I should be able to insulate you from it.
“He doesn’t think it will be a problem,” I said.
“Did I ever mention,” Hayden asked as he swept several small, delicate amulets off the table and into his palm, “that I’ve never trusted your father?”
“I can’t see how our failure would help him in any way; do you?” I asked.
Hayden placed the amulets on a shelf, gently and carefully arranging them. He shrugged. “No. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a plan.”
“He always has a plan,” I said. “Besides, I can take him.”
He gave me an appreciative nod. “There, I agree with you. You’re tougher than your dad ever was.”
Dad didn’t say anything. But there was a strange feeling of… I don’t know—amusement? pride? confusion?—from him.
Cat got your tongue? I asked.
I don’t have a tongue, he said as he modified his emotions to cool and calm.
“Can you check and see how it’s going with the gargoyle roundup?” I asked Hayden.
Hayden headed toward the door. But he didn’t have to bother.
Stone clomped into the room, moving much better than when I’d last seen him.
“I think the shock of getting bitten is wearing off,” Shame said. “And what did I tell you, Stoney? Look at all the cool things you can stack in here.”
Stone paused just inside the door and looked around the room. When his gaze landed on me, I saw a spark of fear in his eyes.
“It’s okay, Stone,” I said. “Come over here, boy. I won’t let you get hurt.”
He padded over to me, cautious, his ears back. I rubbed his head, then knelt down and rubbed his muzzle. “We need to get this magic out of you.” I touched the Passage spell. “And we need you to help us with some other magic. I promise to buy you a new set of blocks when this is done. You want blocks, boy?”
For the first time since I’d met Stone, his ears did not perk up at the sound of the word “blocks.” He just growled softly. He sounded worried, and wary.
Yeah, well, that made two of us.
“Let’s get this done,” I said.
I stood, and looked up as Zayvion, Victor, and Maeve all stepped into the room.
Chapter Fourteen
I was a little surprised to see Zayvion walking, but he slowly strolled over to a bare part of the wall, where he leaned, his arms crossed over his chest, his head resting against the wall. At least someone had helped him clean up the blood on his face.
“We’re all still on the same side, right?” I asked.
Victor paced through the room, his hand resting on shelves, tables, countertops, taking in all the instruments and devices. “And you ask me why I won’t give Collins back all of his memories. Can you see what he has done with the memories and the skill he currently has? Giving him more of what he once was would be putting deadly weapons into the hands of a madman.”
“This isn’t about Collins,” I said.
“I agree,” Victor said. “This is about protecting the city, protecting the innocent from the ways of magic that will harm them, kill them, cause them pain. Which has always been our vows as members of the Authority. That has everything to do with Collins.”
“I don’t care what you did to him right now. He’s done what I’ve asked him to do, and I’ll cut him a check for it. This”—I opened my hand to indicate the room—“is a terrifying stash of tech to have stockpiled in the middle of the city. And right now, I don’t even care what he was doing with it. All I care about is testing the magic and hoping to hell that information gives us something to go on to save Davy and all those people dying in the hospitals. I will do damn near anything to see that it gets done right now.
“So if you want to talk me out of using all the resource
s at my disposal,” I said, “including Collins, then you better leave the room. Because so help me, I will call on the devil himself if that’s what it takes to save this town.”
Victor pressed his lips together and considered me, as if calculating how well I had learned a lesson.
I did not have time for school. Or arguments, or men who wouldn’t listen. I turned back to the empty table.
What do you need, Dad? I asked.
I wouldn’t let Victor hurt you, Dad said with the kind of quiet power that gave me chills.
So not what I need to hear from you now. Do not hurt Victor—for that matter, don’t hurt anyone in this room. Understand? Now tell me how to test the magic.
It would be faster if you let me speak through you.
We’d done that before. Still, old habits of not trusting him made me hesitant.
Allison, he said. I promise not to harm your friends.
That wasn’t what I was really worried about.
I didn’t want him to shove me into the back of my brain again and make it so I couldn’t see or feel my body. I didn’t want to be trapped, boxed up, hidden away. I hated small spaces, and hated feeling helpless.
And since he could still use magic, and I couldn’t, letting go of the control of my own body seemed a hundred times more dangerous this time around.
I said I’d call on the devil himself. I wondered whether I already had.
“Dad is going to run this experiment. I’m going to let him share my mouth with me,” I said. Wait. That sounded wrong. “I mean, he and I will both be talking and I gave him permission, so don’t throw magic at me, okay?”
“For Christsake, Beckstrom,” Shame said. “It’s your show. We got that. Put wheels on it and get it on the road.”
I didn’t look over at Zayvion. I was pretty sure I knew what he thought about me letting Dad control my body.
I mentally stepped to one side of my mind, and felt my dad’s presence rise beside me, then take a step in front of me.
I could still see out of my eyes, could still feel my body, my hands. Could still hear. But there was sort of a fog, just the lightest haze over all my senses.