Magician Rising (Divination in Darkness Book 1)

by Renée des Lauriers

  His arms tensed, and he scowled. He turned back inside with the pizza boxes. Before the door shut, he shouted, “Then starve.”

  Jun rushed back to the Crust Mobile, clutching the cash to her chest.

  Get out of here.

  Before her thoughts could get any worse, she shook her head, turned the key, and started down the road. The hours went by in a blur and by her last delivery she was completely drained. Alexa was still at the register when she returned the keys to the van.

  “You okay?” Alexa asked.

  Jun started and hid the motion by running a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I’m good now.”

  “What happened?” Alexa asked, raising a perfectly waxed eyebrow.

  “Nothing. Just got this bad feeling about a customer.” Jun sighed. “He didn’t even do anything. Something just felt off.” Really, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Just sat near her in class and ordered pizza. Oh, and glared at her classmates and wrote about them in his murder book. But there wasn’t anything criminal about that.

  Alexa hesitated for a moment, considering her. “You know, I wouldn’t take any chances. Trust your instincts. You don’t want to realize that you were right and you should have listened to yourself. Here, take this. For if he bothers you again.”

  From her purse with the little gold chain, she took out a black tube with a bright yellow label. Mace.

  Jun opened her mouth to protest. Mace was contraband, and she had her scholarship to think about. The words died when she saw the seriousness in Alexa’s eyes.

  “Hey, thanks,” Jun said instead.

  The bold warning labels had her second-guessing her decision as she placed it in a side pocket of her brand new teddy bear bag, but knowing it was there also put aside some of her worst fears. Most likely it would sit there for a week collecting lint before she’d return it.

  “Don’t mention it. And let me know if that asshole tries anything. I got your back, girl.”

  Jun smiled. Alexa wasn't half bad. “Right back at you. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  It was quiet as she walked toward the library. Mist surrounded the lampposts, and the air was cool in the fading light. Jun walked briskly, avoiding the trees and staying clear of the shadows stretching across the lawn. By now most of the night classes finished and there were only a few students left on campus. The same was true for the library.

  As much as it had been an excuse, she told the truth to Bailey about working on the essay that night. Jun grabbed her normal spot in the back near the wall-length windows. This corner was secluded, with bookshelves to one side and a wall to the other. Jun sank into the plush armchair, the soft microfibers brushing against the back of her knees, before she pulled the table a smidgeon closer and got to work.

  It was nearly impossible to focus in the dorm, what with Suzie sighing heavily and firing loaded glances her way. Either Jun was typing too loudly, or turning pages too indecisively, or taking too much of her side of the room, or whatever complaint of the day Suzie had.

  She wouldn’t be bothered here. She laid out her books carefully until her textbook, notebook, and her favorite pens were arranged just so. All right, perfect. While twirling her pen in her finger as she brainstormed the first three words of a killer intro sentence, she noticed Evan walk in. Though they attended the same courses for almost four years now, she’d never talked to him outside of class. She doubted he even knew her name.

  He took a vacant table, and Jun turned her attention back to her essay. She was reworking the thesis, absently staring vaguely into space, lost in thought, when a shadow passed by the shelves. She thought nothing of it until he removed a few books just one shelf away from her and she saw him through the gap, separated by a thin row of books.

  It was the stranger, Nikolai. Three times in one day? How could that even be a coincidence? He scanned outward across the library where the other students worked.

  What was he doing here? If this were anyone else, she would say that he was just looking for one of his friends.

  Remember, you have to trust your instincts.

  Jun took a deep breath and looked back to her essay before Nikolai could notice her staring.

  Before she could focus on writing, she heard the vibrations of a phone.

  Jun reached for her pocket, cringing in horror. But her screen was blank.

  “What? I’m busy,” Nikolai muttered softly. Jun doubted she would have been able to hear him if she wasn’t so close. “Campus library.” He paused. “I have eyes on them now. This one hates Cartwright more than the others.”

  Nikolai’s voice got even lower, more threatening. “I don’t know if he could have caused the quake. I’ll let you know when I find out.”

  Did I hear that right? Caused the quake?

  Was this some kind of terrorism? Some geological warfare or a bomb? She didn’t know how it could have been. Jun had experienced an earthquake once before, and the campus earthquake felt like an earthquake.

  There was no one in here that was anywhere near Cartwright at the time of the earthquake. The only one anywhere near him at the time was herself. But if that was what they were looking for, then that would lead them straight to…

  The words swam together on the page as her heart pounded.

  Just walk away. Now, before it’s too late. Get up. Get up. Pretend you’re in the wrong place.

  Her pen dropped out of her shaking fingers, and the clatter as it fell to the desk was loud as an alarm.

  How many words had she written? Four or five? That suddenly seemed like enough for the day. Jun gently closed her books and slipped them back into her bag, moving slowly, and absolutely not looking anywhere near Nikolai.

  She snuck away as fast as she dared, knuckles clenched white on the straps of her bag.

  Jun had nothing to do with the earthquake, but if Nikolai was searching, his path led straight to her.

  5

  The room smelled sharp of sweat and cleaning supplies. It made Nikolai’s nose sting, and he wiped the perspiration beginning to drip down his face. The treadmill was set to a brisk jog.

  Hunched over and elbows flopping, Evan worked out on the mat a few yards away.

  Three days. Nikolai had spent three days following Evan and had gotten nothing but a headache. The guy had about as much magical ability as a wet noodle. Plus, he had terrible form. Shadowing Evan was a waste.

  There had to be something he was missing.

  His phone in the cup holder vibrated. Nikolai slowed down and took the headphones out from his ears. It was a text from Roman.

  How’s the lead going?

  Nikolai stopped running completely. He used the sports towel hanging around his neck to dry his hands. Nikolai took one hard look at the back of Evan’s head. He knew in his gut it wasn’t him, but then what wasn’t he seeing?

  Roman didn’t like to be kept waiting. His phone vibrated before Nikolai had the chance to reply.

  See any more signs?

  Nikolai typed back. I have eyes on him now. Nothing yet.

  He was tempted to admit that this lead had gone nowhere. Of the names he’d written down in his notes, Evan was the most vocal about hating Cartwright. Which wasn’t enough to prove he was the magician, and the other names that he’d followed were much the same. In essence, his strongest lead was a dead end. But Nikolai was so sure he’d been on to something when he’d picked the Business Analytics class.

  All right. Give us his name and dorm. We’ll test him.

  Nikolai crossed the gym to the wall lined with weights and turned his workout music on. The burn of his muscles eased some of his frustration. While lifting dumbbells, Nikolai sent over Evan Campbell’s personal information and typical schedule that he’d acquired these last few days.

  He had enough. Nikolai headed back.

  Students hung around campus, fooling around. One group was practicing their choreography routine. They were around his age, but their lifestyle was alien. One kid couldn’t keep his pose a
nd fell to the ground, laughing. So this was what people meant by the college experience. From what he’d seen, Nikolai wouldn’t say he was missing out.

  Of course, the major exception to this was college food. He was in fast food heaven. His teammates probably thought the same since they kept ordering out each night. It was odd that they hadn’t tonight. He’d returned to find the apartment empty. By now, the others usually had ordered something. Nikolai frowned. Maybe they were eating out without inviting him; he wouldn’t put it past them.

  The fridge only had some leftovers and ketchup packets, and Nikolai ate two slices of pizza cold. It was Pistachio’s. No one else ordered artichokes, olives and banana peppers. The only other food to eat in the kitchen was the unopened bag of spoiling apples on top of the fridge. He took three with him to the sagging sofa in the living room and sat down, opening his bag and pulling the essays out.

  He’d skimmed through the essays nearly a week ago when he’d first gotten them, but now he tried to read them with a critical eye. Immediately, he ran a hand through his hair. If he wanted to comb through paperwork, he would have taken a desk job. The content bored him to shit. Nothing stood out. He flipped back through the pile to Evan’s, whose paper was a solid page shorter than the class average. Filled with typos, too—that was supposed to be ‘assess’ unless Evan really was talking about the clients’ asses.

  Nikolai thumbed through each paper. The familiar thought that he was missing something tugged at him. But this was useless. He didn’t quite know what he was looking for. The professor hadn’t even had time to mark any of the papers except one. On Bear’s paper the professor wrote 15 minutes late—that just seemed pointless to him.

  Nikolai dropped the papers back into his bag when his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen.

  428 Oakvale Ave.

  A spike of excitement got his blood pumping. Finally, they were going to do something. Nikolai unlocked his suitcase, taking out his knives. He tilted one blade so that the light reflected off the sharpened edge. He felt at home as they slipped into hidden sheathes.

  The address was in walking distance, and his GPS took him to a “For Sale” sign on a quiet residential street. It was a ranch style house with chipped paint. Renovation work didn’t quite hide all the traces of fire damage to one side, in the blackened columns.

  No point in walking up to the front window to check. He knew there wouldn’t be anything to see. Nikolai walked around to the back, letting himself in through the unlocked fence. A window had been left open for him, and he pulled himself up and swung into the house.

  He knew something was off from the smell. There was a hint of iron. It cut through the everyday scent of fresh paint and chemical cleaners in the dark, vacant rooms. Nikolai paused to release a knife, holding it at the ready.

  He didn’t have to ask them where they were. There was no sound quite like the sharp slap of fists pummeling flesh. He followed the noise, drifting in from a small room to the left. Roman and David were standing over a hog-tied figure while Pistachio leaned against the wall, texting.

  Purple rings formed around swollen eyes, the bruising just visible under the blindfold. Nikolai could tell at a glance one or possibly both of his arms were dislocated. A puddle that was a mix of blood and mucus, tears and teeth sank into the beige carpet around his face.

  Tied and beaten—it didn’t matter. Nikolai recognized Evan immediately.

  “Took you long enough.” David straightened up and rolled the sleeves of his jacket newly adorned with splotches of bright red. He then looked down at his shoes and swore. “Got blood all over my new boots. You take a turn.”

  “No more,” Evan sobbed directly into the carpet. Spittle bubbled with each slurred word. “Please… no more. I don’t know what you want.”

  Nikolai didn’t move. His grip on the handle was tight enough to feel the thudding of his pulse.

  “Come on. He’s not going to break himself,” Roman said.

  “Looks plenty broken to me.” Pistachio didn’t take his eyes off his cellphone screen.

  Seeing Evan like this and knowing it was his own fault, Nikolai felt the guilt stab him, swift and gutting.

  “It’s not him,” Nikolai said, his voice detached. “It’s not Evan.”

  “What are you talking about, of course it’s him. Maybe his face looks a little messed up, but it’s the Evan kid,” Roman corrected him.

  “You know what I meant,” Nikolai snapped.

  Roman shrugged. He squatted down and pulled Evan’s hair so his face wasn’t pressed into the carpet. “So you said you had nothing to do with it?” He tightened his grip on Evan’s hair. “That can’t be true. You had to have done something to make my friend here suspicious of you.”

  Evan looked barely conscious, but the groan sounded like a no.

  Nikolai’s lip curled at the challenge in Roman’s tone. “He was too interested in Cartwright’s death, it didn’t seem normal. So I followed him long enough to realize he was harmless. I had the situation under control. You didn’t need to step in like this.”

  “But you still alerted us. Agreed that he needed testing.” Roman narrowed his eyes.

  Nikolai held Roman’s gaze, refusing to admit that if he’d known this would happen, he would have kept his mouth shut. “I thought that the rest of the team might be able to find something I missed. You could have waited for me.” Why did this feel like somehow it stopped being about Evan?

  With a grunt of disgust, Roman released Evan’s hair. He looked over to Pistachio. “You got this?”

  Pistachio nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Roman took his leave, pausing to clasp Nikolai on his shoulder on the way out. “Next time, do a better job picking your target.”

  “It’s no big deal, man.” David gestured down to Evan on the floor as he followed Roman out. “We were all getting bored out of our minds anyway.”

  Nikolai waited until he heard the window ledge slide and the thud as they left the house before he turned to Pistachio and asked, “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Pistachio was still glued to his phone.

  “No.” Nikolai dropped the stoic act. “This is my fault. I want to know what’s going to happen to him.”

  Pistachio peeled his eyes away from his phone and gave him a hard look. “Got a guy coming. He should be here in another ten minutes or so. Ex-army medic. He’ll be able to get him stable. Then we’ll drug him and send him to some rehab facility in Reno. We’ll be long gone before he gets out.”

  Nikolai ran his hand through his hair. Finally, Evan’s loud shuddering breaths were giving way to unconsciousness. “Are they always like this?”

  “It depends.” Pistachio looked down at Evan, considering. “Today was actually rather mild. I’d say Evan is lucky to still be breathing.”

  By the way he said it, Nikolai could hear in his tone that there were probably quite a few unlucky people. Nikolai had to be sure. “If I hadn’t said anything, would Evan be beaten to death?”

  “Probably.”

  Nikolai let that sink in. They would have killed an innocent man.

  This shouldn’t have been a surprise to him. Of course, if it meant catching the magician, some sacrifices were necessary. His father’s words echoed back to him. “Let me ask you a question. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? Most people would say that he should be killed as a baby, but let’s be honest. How many of them could do it? You have to be stronger than everyone else. You have to make the hard choices, because no one else is going to.”

  Killing one magician meant saving thousands of lives. It had to be done. But he never quite imagined taking a civilian’s life. “You knew he wasn’t the magician?”

  “Not at first, but it became obvious quite quickly,” Pistachio said.

  “Then why didn’t you stop them?”

  “It’s not so simple.” Pistachio sighed. He flattened back the curly hair he ha
d in a topknot. “Roman should be the one telling you this.” He shook his head, a wry smile forming. “But we can’t afford to be too careful. We’ve got to keep moving and catch this guy before the next earthquake. Before the entire campus goes down.”

  Nikolai held his tongue. As he was new to the team, he couldn’t go off on them and start saying their logic was fucked—it was possible to find the magician without casualties, if they were smart about it. He wouldn’t say anything; he would just have to do it.

  “If you don’t feel you’re up for this, tell Roman you want out.”

  “No, I understand.” And he did. He’d always known there were ugly aspects to this work. Hands would inevitably get dirty, but that didn’t mean he had to do things their way.

  “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a high score I need to beat.” Pistachio unlocked his phone.

  Evan was unconscious, his body too still for comfort, when Nikolai stepped out.

  He needed to think. He let the cool air clear his head as he started walking.

  In the muted light of dusk, the campus was quiet. These dorm buildings and classrooms were filled with innocent people—and the magician who could kill them all.

  Catching the magician couldn’t wait. Yet, Evan was innocent. Why wasn’t that obvious to the others? He didn’t return to their shared apartment till the first rays of dawn.

  There was little to discover in the next few days. He read the pile of essays enough times that the business facts started to actually make sense, and yet he learned nothing else from them. His old notes pointed to dead ends. By now, the construction work on Cartwright’s office had cleared away any remaining evidence. He’d examined the newly built floor, searched through the old man’s desk, and found nothing of interest. Only papers, books, and framed photos of dogs. Whatever trail there might have been was wiped clean, which left him with very little.

  But he wasn’t ready to give up on the Business Analytics class. He got there early when Tuesday rolled by and sat way in the back. It was more important than ever to pay attention to every detail. But Nikolai didn’t have to go looking for new events unfolding, not when they were parading right in front of his face. One guy Nikolai had initially dismissed as non-threatening walked toward him. Nikolai sized him up as he approached. Decent musculature, simple yet expensive clothing. Bailey, his memory supplied. Bailey Allen.