I let out a breath.
And I jerked my attention down to Max.
He was lying there, his eyes pressed open but his body unresponsive.
I collapsed forward, locking my hands on his shoulders. I tried to shake him. His body was rigid. “Max?” My voice ticked up high. “Max? What the hell did that door do to you? Max?”
No reply.
Then his eyes started to move. This way and that. This way and that. It was like he was in REM sleep or something.
I fussed over him for about a minute until I finally pushed up. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do. I tried to push healing magic into his chest, but either I was too weak, or his body simply wouldn’t accept it.
As soon as I’d arrived, my brain had decided to connect back to the house, and once more I felt the foundations. They were weaker, but they were still holding on.
I stood there, staring down at Max as I tried to figure out what the hell I should do.
Time was… not on our side. It was flowing through my fingers with every second, disappearing and taking my every opportunity with it.
At that thought, I suddenly shook my head. “What were you thinking, Max? How come you didn’t sense there was something wrong with that door?”
He couldn’t answer. But maybe I could answer for myself. Maybe there hadn’t been anything wrong with that door to begin with, but as I’d wasted time, one of the warlocks had cast some kind of remote sleep spell on it.
I brought a hand up, slammed it over my face, and practically sobbed into my palm.
But I couldn’t waste time, could I? I had to find some way to wake Max up. But it didn’t seem to matter what I tried – he was out for the count.
“What the hell do I do?” I asked the room.
The room couldn’t answer.
“How do I find the best way out of this?”
The room still couldn’t answer. Worse? My magic couldn’t answer, either. For at that question, it simply gave a confused, muddled response that sent a cold wash slipping down my stomach as if I’d just swallowed ice.
“Answer me. Please, answer me.”
It didn’t matter what I demanded. It didn’t matter what I did. My magic wouldn’t answer me.
So was it safe to conclude that there was no best way forward?
Just before I could give in to despair, I reminded myself of the suspicions I’d formed back in that tunnel. The same suspicions that had seen me grind to a halt.
Despite the fact I was a budding sorcerer, I still didn’t even understand finding magic, opportunity magic especially. And despite the fact it defined the entire prophecy, I simply couldn’t comprehend how you required an opportunity finder to locate the seven sets.
I ground to a stop.
The only reason you would require an opportunity finder not a locator was if you had to create something, right?
I stared down at Max. I brought my hands up and looked at them.
Did I need Max to find the hidden sets? Did I need him to destroy them?
Or was this the best place for him?
I took a step back, almost banging into the coffee table behind me but righting myself at the last moment and standing straighter than I had before.
I kept staring down at my hands. They wouldn’t give me an answer. But they would give me context. They would remind me what I could do.
At the very base of the hidden sets was opportunity. The ability to create something from nothing – to give a witch more forms of magic. And, ultimately, to give them the power to decide who had magic and who didn’t. Well, in many ways, magic was nothing more than opportunity. It gave you power, and the more power you had, the more you could do.
So the hidden sets were the ultimate opportunity finders, weren’t they?
But more than that, they were the ultimate tool to get rid of free will. For if you got to decide who got what, you got to eliminate chance.
I stood there for several more seconds, staring down at Max. Though I still didn’t exactly know what was wrong with him, I could tell one thing – it didn’t matter what kind of healing magic I tried to pump into him, he wouldn’t wake. I could even take him down to the sorcerer healing pool, but it wouldn’t matter.
“It’s time to do it on my own, isn’t it?” I asked breathlessly.
Though I could have easily turned around, run from the room, and tried to find Josh, I knew there was no point. He’d be knee deep in battle somewhere, and if I was stupid enough to bother him, we could lose the entire house.
No. It was time for me to take matters into my own hands.
I stood there nervously for several seconds pumping my hands in and out as I stared at Max, my eyes wide.
… Had I betrayed him? Had I caused this?
I waited there on the spot, actually teetering back on the tips of my toes as if I was bodily shifting back and forward through my argument.
Finally I forced my hands to open.
I chose to believe in myself.
Max, for whatever reason, had been wrong. When he’d assumed that the hidden sets were through that door, he’d failed to figure out that there was some kind of booby-trap on it.
Which meant this was down to me.
And yeah, maybe when Max woke he would never forgive me. But no, that didn’t mean I couldn’t try.
I squeezed my eyes closed, pressing the skin as tightly as I possibly could as if it were a lemon I was trying to juice. “I’m sorry, Max. But I’ve got to trust in myself. I’m so sorry,” I added. I finally whirled on my foot and headed toward the door.
As I did, I finished the thought I couldn’t tell him out loud.
Did I trust him? Yes and no. I trusted Max – the underlying man, the one who’d been affected his entire life by the prophecy hanging over his head. But did I trust the prophecy?
No, I did not. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen the words of it – it was that it simply didn’t make sense. I could not conceive of a prophecy that took away one’s free will that existed alongside my ability to choose. You had one or the other. You could not have both.
“So there will be some way to break this prophecy,” I concluded once more.
That thought settled in me as I threw myself into the corridor.
As I did, I continued to pay my utmost attention to the building.
It was straining, struggling under every attack. I swore I could feel Jason’s magic swirling around it, somewhat like a storm trying to push in through every crack.
“I’m not going to lose to you,” I muttered under my breath, clenching my teeth hard. “I’m not going to let you lose to yourself,” I added for some reason.
… Because I couldn’t deny that just like Max, Jason was trapped. Trapped by the words of some stupid ancient story. For what was a prophecy other than a story? A story that people chose to believe, and in believing it, they chose to make it real through their actions.
There was something in that thought. Something critical to the situation.
I buried it in my consciousness and strode forward.
I reached the second-floor landing, whirled on my foot, and headed straight to the door I knew would lead to the courtrooms.
I settled a breath deep in my chest, tilted my head back, half closed my eyes, and tried to tell myself this would work. This would not get me in further trouble. I would not sacrifice everything. “This is the only thing to do,” I muttered to myself one last time, then I thrust a hand forward, locked it on the handle, and yanked the door open.
It was time to get back into the fray.
Chapter 7
The archive room was just as dark as I remembered.
This time, I didn’t hang around in the doorway.
Max’s warning rang in my mind. If I was stupid enough to face any agents when I walked out of one of these magical doorways, they might be able to figure out what kind of spell I’d cast, then they could call through and warn Jason. Then the rest would be history. Painful his
tory.
So I ducked forward quickly, shrinking to the side as I closed the door.
It gave an audible click as it shut. One that I swore shook right through my stomach. Because it was one that signaled that the game was once again on.
I spun around on my foot, keeping low as I headed toward the closest shelves. I pushed my back against it, controlling my breathing as I narrowed my gaze and kept my senses plucked.
I had no idea if anyone was in here, but the more I waited, the less I heard. Finally it gave me the confidence to push forward.
I shoved away from the shelf, keeping a hand on it to anchor myself. I tilted my head up and noted that the lights hadn’t turned on yet. Probably they’d been blown after the magical battery had been released.
I frowned as I tilted my head down and faced the channels in the floor.
They obviously hadn’t been reset yet. Though there were a few magical flickers of white light here and there, it was nothing compared to the veritable sea of magic I’d faced earlier.
I knelt down, and though it was probably suicidal, I shoved my fingers right into one of the channels.
I wasn’t stupid enough not to protect my hand. I allowed a deep blue crackling charge of magic to spread over the fingers before I pushed them into the channel. It was more than enough to protect my hand from the latent charges of magic. That being said, there weren’t that many of them.
… Which made me frown.
Casting my mind back to only a couple of hours ago when Josh and I were here, I remembered the light being intense and the magic wafting off those channels being far more intense.
… That meant something, didn’t it?
“I wonder if it’d been a while since they’d bothered to clean out the battery?” I muttered to myself, keeping my voice low nonetheless, even though I was confident no one was in the room.
That thought struck me. It was important somehow.
I got back down on my knees again and pushed my fingers through the channel. This time I didn’t even bother to protect my fingers with magic. And even though they got a little toasty, I didn’t yank them back. I frowned hard. Then finally I closed my eyes. “Take me to where you wish to take me,” I told the magic. As far as finding things went, it probably wouldn’t work. I mean, it was about the most amorphous command I could give.
But either it was the pressure of the situation, or the fact that I now knew that I was on my own, but I soon found myself pushing forward.
I stood, and with my eyes still half closed, I walked softly and slowly through the archive room. Before too long, I found myself stopping in front of a specific set of shelves.
I opened my eyes fully, believing I would be back in front of the shelves where I’d found the case file from the case Sandra had been working on.
And that? Brought the frigging case file back into my mind, front and center.
Believe it or not, I still hadn’t looked at it.
“Idiot,” I said as I finally got down on my knees, shoved a hand into my pocket, and pulled it out. I’ll admit to you easily that my hand was shaking. Because it felt exactly like I was about to open a door I would not be able to close. A door into the truth of this situation. If I didn’t like what I saw? Tough. I wouldn’t be able to un-see it.
I placed the Manila folder in front of me, and I finally opened it.
The first thing that struck me was this dense sense of power. It was like being struck by a wave – a tidal wave that didn’t simply have the force to obliterate everything in its path – it wanted to, too.
I took several seconds to absorb it, several seconds to build my natural defenses against it, then finally I pressed forward and started to leaf through the photos and notes.
I’d been right. Jesus Christ, I’d been right. It was about Peter Mercure. Some plucky new prosecutor had found enough evidence to link him to the head of the X Gang.
And that plucky prosecutor?
Olivia, of course.
I’d been right again – according to the file notes, evidence linking Peter to the X Gang had come from a certain journalist’s investigations. Sandra McIntosh, to be exact.
I kept shaking as I kept reading.
The trial had been run in secret – closed off with no one but the immediate prosecutors, judges, and lawyers involved.
And the reason it had been run in secret? National security.
Though that fact was written on one of the court forms, it wasn’t explained anywhere.
I found myself pausing as I tapped my finger over that sentence. My fingers shook.
“National security? What the hell does that even mean? Granted, Peter works in security, but he’s not in the frigging army. How the hell does this all connect?”
I kept glancing through the case file. What I looked for was any evidence of a plea bargain. Evidence that Peter had made a deal – that he’d given away something of importance that had convinced the authorities to bury his case and set him free.
That’s when I came across a single name. Paul Knights. I didn’t know the name, but I didn’t need to search hard to figure out who it could be.
Max’s dad. Jason’s dad, too.
Paul Knights, as the head of Internal Affairs, had made some kind of deal, sweeping in at the height of the trial and getting Peter off. He’d buried the case, throwing out all charges and requesting that all records be destroyed.
But if he’d requested that all records be destroyed… what the hell was I holding?
I sat there shaking for a little, completely confused by what I had in my hands.
I simply didn’t understand…. But before that thought could sink too far in, I found my head tilting to the side. Specifically, I looked up at the shelf beside me.
It didn’t take too long to realize what I was doing.
Before I’d sat down to look at this file, I’d come over here because my finding magic had pushed me here.
So there was something behind me.
I stood quickly, shoved a hand out, locked it on the shelf, closed my eyes, and once again let my finding magic take control.
Before too long, I found myself stopping in front of a whole box of files.
I pulled them off the shelf, set them down, and started searching through them. But that’s when I stopped. I felt a familiar charge of magic. A charge of magic that seemed located in my bones now. It was that familiar to me. After all, it had caused so much frigging trouble over the last 24 hours.
And what was I talking about? That same frigging charge of magic that had seen me activate that spell in the lady’s bathrooms at the restaurant. The same charge of magic that I’d activated in the theaters, too.
The tracking symbol.
I was so excited, I started to shake. I dumped the files out of the box and started to run my hand over the side of the box. I closed my eyes, opened my heart, and allowed my memory of the tracking symbol to push through my chest.
At first, nothing happened, but then, here and there, I started to feel faint traces of power. I slammed my hand against them, clenched my teeth, and really pumped my magic out of me. Finally, I felt the tracking symbol grab hold. This time, however, I did not let it take hold of my magic and sap out as much as it wanted. I wasn’t an idiot. I was on my own here, and I really couldn’t afford to a) have some kind of magical reaction, or b) be completely drained dry.
So I held onto the majority of my magic, only giving it what it needed to activate.
Finally I saw that symbol appear on the inside of the box. I leaned right down, getting as close as I dared as the magic crackled and sparked.
The last time I’d done this, a string of letters and numbers had appeared – the very number of the case that was now laid out neatly at my feet.
This time?
“Whoever finds this, finds the truth,” a voice rang out into the room.
I wasn’t expecting it, and despite the fact I was trying to keep quiet, I yelped. I immediately clamped a hand over my
mouth. It didn’t matter. Hell, I imagined there was no one in the courtrooms. The place would have been shut down like the rest of the city.
“… Ah, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Two and a half years ago, Peter Mercure was found to be the head of the X Gang. But he was let off the hook by the then Director of Internal Affairs, Paul Knights. Despite the fact we had overwhelming evidence that Peter Mercure had run criminal activities through Madison City, we were not allowed to prosecute. At the behest of Internal Affairs, we had to destroy all evidence. I chose not to,” Olivia said, her voice punching down low. “And I retained my files, hiding them in the archive room.”
“Why did you hide them in the archive room?” I asked, even though it had become abundantly clear that Olivia’s voice was a recording.
She didn’t need to answer, anyway; I figured it out. I really doubted anyone ever audited these files. It would take way too long. Hell, I doubted, considering how much dust was over everything, that anyone came down here full stop. And considering the batteries obviously hadn’t been discharged in ages, it meant people hardly used this room. So the chances of Olivia’s file being found accidentally were obviously low.
“I hid the files here to take advantage of the magical battery. Magical files are hard to hide, considering their power. I had to hide them, though. You see, these files have a perfect imprint of Peter’s magic. You’ll need it when it comes time to taking him down.”
I sat up straighter as I listened, my eyes opening wide as I realized how important her statement was.
I still didn’t quite understand what a magical imprint did, but I could fancy from the tingles rushing through my stomach that it was important.
“You must hold onto these files,” Olivia said, her voice grating down low. “Because they’re the only thing that’s going to save Madison City.”
“From what?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“Many won’t believe what I’m about to say. I just hope that whoever finds this believes in my words.”
Forgotten Destiny 5 Page 10
