That jogged something in my memory. Between one thing and another, I’d completely forgotten about Sandra’s case file. My eyes widened as I pointed toward Josh’s jacket. “Do you still have the case file? Have you even had a chance to look at it yet?”
Josh paled, answering my question for me. He shoved a hand into his jacket, rummaged around, then pulled out the file. There was no way it could fit in the physical space allocated to it, but then again, magic, you know.
Now wasn’t the time to open it, but I could see he wanted to sink to his knees and finally find out the details of the case that led to his sister’s murder.
He handed it to me.
His expression changed. There was no longer any charm and wit and humor. This wasn’t Josh shaking my hand and asking me to come back to his employ. This was Josh asking me for one final sacrifice. “I’m not going to put this on your shoulders—” he began.
I took the file from him, and as I did, I pressed his fingers into the back of the Manila file. I smiled with all my worth. “Josh McIntosh, I am still in your employ,” I said, emphasizing the word still. “And until all government-held witch contracts are reviewed and the government itself is cleaned of Internal Affairs and all other dodgy operators, I will remain by your side. This is an active case,” I said, emphasizing the word active. “I will do everything I can to track down every single lead and to finally solve this.” My voice rang out on the words solve this.
Josh smiled at me. It wasn’t a strong smile. Nor was it a charming smile. Nor was it the smile of an arrogant bastard who always thought he was in control and could do whatever he wanted. It wasn’t even the smile of that man I’d met all those months ago in the testing office. The one who’d stolen my phone, grabbed me by the arm, and insulted me incessantly.
This was the smile of the real Josh McIntosh. The guy who’d been beaten two-and-a-half years ago when his sister had been murdered.
So I gave my own smile. It wasn’t the overcome, flustered smile of the Beth Samson who’d found out she was a witch two months ago. It wasn’t the smile of the waitress who’d always had simple dreams.
It was the smile of a woman who’d lived a roller-coaster of fate and danger and who was still alive.
And she was still alive because she’d chosen to live for other people.
I nodded at Josh. Then I took the case file from him. I frowned. “How—”
“Before you ask for some kind of satchel to carry that in while you run around the city trying to save everyone, it’s time for you to learn pocket magic. Now,” he grabbed his jacket, pulled it open, and pointed to the pocket on the inside, “imagine that there is a huge storeroom inside your pocket. It’s kind of complicated, but you have to take that image of the massive storeroom and condense it until—”
I closed my eyes, opened my heart, concentrated on Max’s kiss, and pushed the Manila folder into the pocket of my jacket. Though I’d left my leather jacket in the courtroom after the incident with the battery, Max had found me another in his mother’s wardrobe. It was sturdy, and it fit me a hell of a lot better than the one Josh had bought for me.
It also seemed to respond far more readily to my magic. For I pushed the Manila folder in without that much thought.
I heard Josh splutter. I opened an eye and grinned at him. “I’m a sorcerer, remember?” I gestured expressively.
He flopped a hand at me. “You’re no fun to teach anymore. I liked the Bethany Samson who had no idea what she was doing.”
“Really?” I arched an eyebrow. “Because I don’t think she’d be much use to you right now.”
He conceded my point with a shrug. Then he pointed at the door. “Good luck, bounty hunter.”
I smiled widely at that and nodded at him. “Good luck, Senior Bounty Hunter,” I emphasized the word senior.
Josh seemed to love this, and he tipped his head back and laughed riotously. “That is going on my card.”
“You don’t have business cards.”
“Then I’m getting them after this. Considering all the bullshit I’ve gone through at the hands of the government, they can pay for them.”
“It’s good to have dreams,” I said as I actually snapped a salute.
Josh pinned his feet together, brought his stiff arm up, and snapped a salute far better than mine. He nodded. He turned.
I stood there, lingering for a few seconds as I stared at my partner.
Then I turned and walked through the glass doors back into the drawing room beyond.
So this was it, ha?
Time for the final chapters.
I closed my eyes, walked through the drawing room, and headed for Max.
Chapter 4
It didn’t take long to find Max, because it didn’t take long for Max to find me. Josh was right, and he was looking for me.
I reached the corridor outside the drawing room, and I heard Max’s thunderous footfall.
He came shooting up the stairway, looking for me. When he saw me, his face ran through a gamut of expressions. His cheeks twitched, his eyes widened, and his eyebrows fell. He stared at the ground for half a second, then looked directly at me.
My stomach stiffened as I recognized the Max from the past. I could almost feel skirts around my legs being buffeted by an insane wind.
I wanted to push forward and kiss him, but now really wasn’t the time.
“It’s ready, isn’t it? You now need my sorcery skills to bring the city to the house, right?”
Max nodded once. “… For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone else could do this.”
I winced at that. “I’m not sure if that’s much of a vote of confidence. I think you overestimate my skills,” I said weakly as I fell into step beside him and we walked back down the corridor. We reached the stairs and took them.
He touched two fingers to the balustrade and turned as we descended. “You do yourself a disservice. If anyone else were in your position, they would have fallen by now.”
I opened my mouth to say that was nothing more than an assumption. But it was an assumption from the country’s greatest opportunity finder, wasn’t it?
That fact really struck me as I turned to Max. “Were you always waiting for an opportunity to tell me the truth?”
He looked straight ahead. “An opportunity that never came. Things kept twisting out of my control. But if it weren’t for your skills, like I said before, we wouldn’t be here. You would’ve fallen long ago.”
“… I get that you were waiting for an opportunity, but wouldn’t it have been easier to fess up to me in the beginning?”
“You mean after I saved you from that warlock in the bottle shop? You would’ve preferred that I would’ve settled two hands on your shoulders, turned you around, and told you that you were the legendary sorcerer from a prophecy that talked of the destruction of the world?”
I bit my lip, conceding that he had a point.
He shrugged and scratched his neck. “As I’m sure you already understand, there are significant limitations to opportunity magic. The future is not set in stone,” he emphasized that point with a harsh breath. I swear his body emphasized it, too. As we reached the end of the stairs, he turned and looked right at me. His muscles were stiff, the outline of his strong form stark. The lighting hadn’t changed, but Max himself seemed more real, because everything else seemed irrelevant.
I found myself swallowing quietly. “If the future is never set in stone, how can you trust your opportunity finding magic?”
The weirdest smile spread his lips. “You find someone to trust,” he said. “You find somebody who can generate the opportunities you want,” his voice dropped low and became raspy, “and the opportunities you need. And you put all your force behind that person. All your power, all your trust,” he said, his voice becoming nothing more than a low whisper on the word trust.
Slowly and jerkily, I nodded. You know how before when I’d seen Max I’d wanted to throw myself at him and kiss him? Yeah, we
ll now I really had to battle with that desire.
It brought my mind back to the battles I’d had with Jason when I’d thought I’d been promised to him.
They hadn’t been like this. Though I’d felt a clear connection between myself and Jason, it had always been one of tension, not ease.
With Max, it felt like my life was just beckoning me to slip ever-so-easily into a relationship with him. It seemed like every second was an opportunity to kiss him and get closer.
Maybe Max knew what I was thinking, because he tilted his head to the side, and a strange look appeared in his eyes. The smallest smile pressed across his lips, too, as they curled ever so slightly into his cheeks. “I won’t be leaving your side,” he suddenly explained.
I had no idea what he was talking about, and I shook my head. “We… neither of us knows if we’re going to get through this situation—”
“I mean I will be accompanying you to Madison City.”
“What?”
“Once the spell is set and you have overlaid a map of Madison City onto this house, I will accompany you. I will, after all, have to find the hidden sets.”
Though we’d planned a lot, we hadn’t yet planned this stage of the mission. For some reason, I thought I’d be going on my own. I’d thought it would be far too dangerous to take Max to the city. But now it hit me. That was the whole point of Max. Yes, technically I was a finder too, and I was a locator – which he wasn’t. But the Zero Prophecy clearly stated that I was the sorcerer and he was my finder, and I needed him to locate and help destroy the sets.
That’s when something hit me. A memory from the past.
One I’d either pushed away completely or forgotten because of circumstances.
All thought of capitalizing on the situation and kissing Max left me as it felt like my face would fall off. Disappointment and plain fear swelled within me.
At first Max’s face opened with fear and his lips parted, then he stopped. A knowing look welled in his gaze as he stared from me and glanced at the floor instead. “I’m afraid that part of the prophecy is set in stone.”
“You mean you have to die? You mean finding a way to destroy the hidden sets has to kill you?” I couldn’t keep hold of my voice – I couldn’t make it steady. It wavered up and down, pitched high and low, sounding like a hand shaking as it desperately tried to hold onto hope.
Max looked away again. “Those are the words of the prophecy.”
“I don’t care what the words of the prophecy are. It’s been wrong in the past. It promised me to Jason, only for it to turn out that I wasn’t even the finder.”
“The prophecy wasn’t wrong – the people who interpreted it were wrong—”
I suddenly clicked my fingers and looked at him desperately. “That’s it. So how do we know that we’re not interpreting it wrong again?”
“Because it was clear. I won’t be able to find a way to live through this. I will have to die in order to destroy the sets.”
“I don’t care what it says. There will be another way. There is always another way.”
“Beth—”
I shook my head as hard as I could, and I could feel my neck muscles twanging. I didn’t slow down, though. This was the most important moment of my life. “You just told me that nothing is set in stone,” I let every single word drive from my lips as if they were blows trying to tear down Max’s argument. “And I believe you. Nothing is set in stone. The future can always change.”
“But the prophecy—”
“If you have an exception to free will, then you do not have free will,” I stated flatly. I was hardly a philosopher, but I’d always had a bent toward logic. It simply didn’t make sense that you could have a prophecy that concluded the future would have to end one way while at the same time pretending everybody had the choice of how their lives would end up.
Maybe this point struck Max, because his mouth opened, but the move was weak. He also tried to shake his head, but again the move was weak. He looked up at me, his brow compressed. “This prophecy comes from ancient times. From the sages who knew more about magic than we could ever hope to find out. It was my own father who found this prophecy and brought it to light. And even though there was much to hate about him, without his efforts, we wouldn’t know what’s coming. And to ignore what’s coming is simply foolhardy.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, Max. Either the future is free, or it is not. And I choose to believe it is free. And I will find a way to save you,” I said. As I spoke those words, I swore they came from some part fundamental to myself. The part who’d forgotten her destiny and had only remembered it recently. That woman who’d stood at the top of the castle, watching chaos push down. The woman who’d turned and kissed Max at the last moment.
That woman was still inside me.
And her desire to save Max was blossoming through my heart, faster with every second.
Max looked at the ground again, then shook his head sharply as he tilted his chin up to gaze at me. “None of this matters right now – we have to get to the sets.”
“This is the most important thing,” I said as I pointed a finger stiffly at the ground. “I’m here to save you, Max. And I have every intention of doing that.”
Max wouldn’t look at me. He shrugged. “Then you can try,” he said in the strangest voice. “But right now, we must take the opportunity given to us. We won’t be given another. I believe Jason has already reached the house. The attacks on the premises have changed. Though Josh can hold him off for a while and bolster the house’s defenses with his own power, we really need to set that map spell.”
I ground my teeth together. I wanted to continue fighting with Max, but I could appreciate now that there was no point. He would just fob me off. In telling me I could try to find a way to save him, his words were clearly meant to placate me. He didn’t believe in them.
How the hell was that possible? How could you hold that you had free will in one hand, then believe in a prophecy that guaranteed your destruction in the other?
Screw this, I thought to myself, the words reverberating hard and loud through my mind.
Screw this!
I curled a hand into a fist, tilted my head up, and looked right at Max. “You know what, Max? I sense an opportunity. And I’m going to take it.” I turned from him and continued down the corridor.
It took him a few seconds to push away from the balustrade to follow. “… Beth….”
“I will find a way to save you,” I whispered under my breath.
Max wouldn’t look my way.
Chapter 5
Finally we reached the room Max had been using to set up the spell. I hadn’t gone inside it yet, and I expected it to be some grand hall, or maybe some well-equipped magical laboratory.
It was not what I got.
The door opened to a bedroom.
There was a nice bed, some wardrobes, and some other expensive furniture.
There was also a poster of a warlock rugby player on the wall.
I frowned at it. “What—”
Max cleared his throat. “This was my room as a kid,” he muttered. “I didn’t have time to take down that poster. My mother used to take me here as a child without my father and brother knowing.”
I’d never heard Max sound more awkward.
I almost began to laugh, then I realized something. I was in Max’s bedroom.
No, it wasn’t like he’d invited me to bed. Still, this was really awkward.
Evidenced by the fact that Max had the slightest blush coloring his cheeks.
I could’ve made a joke about the poster, but I chose not to. I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants and stared down at the collection of magical goods arranged on the carpet.
I’d assumed that to cast a spell like this Max would’ve had to gather some of the most powerful magical objects in the world.
What he had was three candles, a compass, a great big box of colored markers, and a massive illustrated Atlas of Ma
dison City.
He rolled up his sleeves, got down on his knees, and placed his knuckles on the illustrated atlas. He turned to me, gesturing for me to kneel beside him.
I cleared my throat and complied. I frowned at him. “What exactly do I do?”
“In order to overlay the map of the city onto the house, you have to find,” he emphasized that word, “the most appropriate way to compress the map of the city over the map of the house.”
I frowned, indicating he’d lost me already. Which was hardly a good sign. We were meant to save the world, and I couldn’t get through one slightly complicated sentence.
Max sighed. “Think of it this way – you have to decide which door in the house you want to lead to which building or street in the city. One way to overlay each map will be more advantageous than the rest.”
My frown curled a little. “So you’re asking me to look for an opportunity?”
He nodded. He brought up a finger. “Before you suggest that I do that, considering I’m the more skilled opportunity finder, I’m not the sorcerer. This will require your complete mental concentration. You will have to not only find a way to set the maps on top of each other,” he brought his hands up and planted them together like a sandwich, “but you will then have to start imbuing them with magic. You will not be able to lose hold of your concentration for a second. Do that, and we’ll have to start the spell again. We don’t have time to start the spell again,” he warned.
I pressed my lips together and whistled through them, wincing as I did. “So, no pressure, then?”
Max didn’t laugh at my joke.
“Beth, I will accompany you to the city,” Max repeated. “But unfortunately, for this part—”
It was my turn to roll up my sleeves, the leather of the jacket bunching easily. “I’m on my own – I get it.” I somehow managed a smile. Sure, it didn’t curl my lips that much, but it was there. And that’s all that mattered, right? I settled my hands on my knees and glanced over at the atlas. “So what do we do with all these candles and markers?”
Forgotten Destiny 5 Page 5
