Elemental Thief

by Rachel Morgan

  Lawrence sighed. “I thought I might see her—” he nodded at Ridley “—but you’re an unpleasant surprise. I thought you were in hospital.”

  “You can give me the flash drive,” Archer said, “or I can put a bullet through you and then take it.”

  “Fine, fine,” Lawrence drawled. He removed the flash drive from an interior pocket of his jacket and slid it across the table. Archer let go of Ridley just long enough to grab it, then caught her as she swayed.

  “Next,” he said, “we’d like to know where Ridley’s father is.”

  Lawrence raised his hands, palms facing up. “I wish I knew. He attacked my guys and fled. Almost killed them both.”

  “That’s … a lie,” Ridley managed to say. Her father was one of the gentlest people she knew. He wasn’t capable of almost killing anyone. Especially not two muscled men with guns.

  “The truth, Lawrence,” Archer said, raising the gun a little higher.

  But the mayor’s son only smiled. “Threatening to shoot me isn’t going to help,” he said. “If I’m dead, I can’t exactly tell you anything, can I.”

  Fury burned inside Ridley’s core. Though it made her want to hurl and caused bright spots to dance in front of her eyes, she managed to force a tiny bit of magic out. She slumped forward, grabbed the edge of the table, and sent fire rushing down the center of it and up Lawrence’s arm. He cried out, his chair skidding back slightly. Then he grabbed a napkin and managed to smother the flames. “Bitch,” he gasped. He slapped the napkin down and glared at her. “I hope you’re suffering for that. Not nice, is it. Breathing in arxium particles.” He pushed his chair further back and stood. “Good thing I had my trusty anti-elemental air freshener handy. Oh, and look. It’s the guys I pay to keep me safe, finally come to check if everything’s okay.”

  Archer swung around, but someone in a suit stepped onto the balcony and knocked his arm aside. The gun clattered to the floor. Someone else shoved Ridley onto her knees, while the first guy wrestled with Archer until he managed to get both of Archer’s arms behind his back.

  “Move a little bit this way, please,” Lawrence said, his tone impatient. “We don’t need anyone inside getting worried about what’s happening here.” The one bodyguard pushed Archer closer to the table, while the other dragged Ridley against the trellis so she was out of the way. Looking up through her haze of dizziness, she realized she didn’t recognize either of them. Were the other two guarding her father somewhere?

  “Well, isn’t this lovely?” Lawrence said, rubbing his hands together. He walked around the table and picked up the flash drive Archer had dropped on the floor. “You’re both here, and I have the flash drive—” he placed it on the table “—and this special envelope.” He moved his side plate, picked up a large yellow envelope Ridley hadn’t noticed before, and placed it beside the flash drive.

  “You’re going to kill … all those people … who use magic?” Ridley asked, leaning her head back against the vines trailing down the trellis. Archer shoved backward against his captor, and the bodyguard twisted Archer’s arms further behind him until he groaned out loud in pain.

  “Me?” Lawrence said. “No, I won’t be killing anyone. I don’t like to travel that far. And other people generally do my dirty work, remember? Nope, I’m just passing on the information in order to better my position in the society.”

  Ridley figured he had a pretty good position in society already. It didn’t get much better than being the mayor’s son. Well, unless you were a Davenport.

  “Just let me explain things to you,” Archer said, struggling against his captor. “Let me tell you about them. They’re good people. Magic isn’t this huge threat that has to be—” The guy restraining him grabbed the back of Archer’s head and smacked his face down against the table. Archer slumped to the floor, groaning as he clutched his nose.

  “Archer,” Ridley mumbled, trying to crawl toward him. “Are you—”

  The other guy grabbed her and dragged her back. The world swirled around her again, but it wasn’t as bad as when she’d first breathed in the spray. She seemed to be recovering faster this time than at the mayor’s house. Maybe because her heart was racing along at such a high speed this time, getting rid of the arxium faster. Was that possible? She had no idea. She’d never heard of this stuff before.

  It didn’t matter how it worked though. All that mattered was that she reach a point where she could use magic without her stomach wanting to turn itself inside out. She’d have to be quick when she did it. She didn’t want to give Lawrence a chance to use that spray again.

  “You know who I’m meeting here tonight, don’t you?” Lawrence said to Archer. He walked closer, planted one shoe against Archer’s chest, and kicked him down onto his side. Archer coughed, still clutching his nose, and Ridley saw blood drip down his hand. “Oh, it’s going to be delicious indeed to hand you over along with—”

  Before Lawrence could finish, a dark shape flashed downward, landing in a crouch on the table: A man, hooded and carrying a knife in each hand. The bodyguard beside Ridley launched away from her, but the man on the table was already whirling around, his knives glinting in the light. One struck Ridley’s guard in the chest, while the other embedded itself in Archer’s guard’s neck. Both guards slowed, stood still for two or three seconds, then fell. Horrified, Ridley watched magic curl lazily away from each knife and vanish.

  Holycrapcrapcrap. This was the person who’d murdered the stranger in her alley. It must be. With the oversized hood pulled completely over his head, she still had no idea what he looked like. No way to identify him if he managed to kill anyone else here tonight and get away without being caught.

  The man turned toward Lawrence as he drew another knife from a sheath at his hip. “This time, you’re dead,” he said in a gruff tone. The knife flashed through the air, but Lawrence had already dodged, and the knife struck the glass pane behind him before hitting the floor. The man let out a low laugh at the sight of Lawrence’s wide eyes and pale face. “Oh, you got lucky. So did you,” he added, looking down at Archer. “But not this time.” He reached behind him, and Ridley watched as he swiftly pulled a gun free from beneath the hem of his hoodie.

  “No!” she shouted. She launched forward on hands and knees, fire racing away from her glowing blue hands and up the leg of the table. The man leaped free and landed just past Archer. The gun swung Ridley’s way as he turned fully toward her, and she finally saw his face.

  She stopped breathing.

  “Shen?”

  30

  “Ridley?” Shen said. “What—how are you—why are you here?”

  “Why are you here?” Ridley demanded, managing to climb to her feet despite the world still swaying around her. The flames she’d sent running up the table leg fizzled away, and an entirely new kind of nausea filled the pit of her stomach. “Oh, watch out!” she shouted as Lawrence lunged for the gun. Shen swung his arm around and elbowed Lawrence in the face. He fell back against the railing, his head smacking on the glass as he let out a yelp.

  “I don’t … I don’t understand,” Ridley said. It was as if the world had tipped upside down and she was looking at everything from entirely the wrong angle. Her best friend wanted to kill people, and the guy who represented everything she hated was the one helping her to right her wrongs and find her father. “Did you … were you the one … Did you kill that man in the alley?”

  Shen’s grip tightened on the gun. His eyes moved to Ridley’s hands, where the blue beneath her skin was fading away now that she was too shocked to focus on her magic. His eyes rose to meet hers, and there was no sign of surprise in them. “Yes.”

  “But you weren’t there. You were somewhere else. Doing a delivery or—”

  “He was there,” Lawrence said, rubbing the back of his head. “I looked up and saw him on your roof. That’s why I had no problem telling Archer’s lawyers to comb through the drone footage from the area and stick his face onto the original video.”r />
  “That was your idea?” Ridley asked.

  “I should have killed you then too,” Shen hissed, pointing his gun at Lawrence again. Archer moved as if to get to his feet, and Shen swung the gun toward him.

  “No, wait, please,” Ridley said. “You don’t need to kill anyone here.”

  “I know you’ve tried to kill me before,” Lawrence said to Shen, his voice oddly calm given the situation. “You probably don’t know that I saw your face that time, but I did. Never knew who you were, of course, so I couldn’t go after you. But I recognized you immediately when I saw you in the alley on top of that roof.”

  Ridley’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two of them. The effect of the arxium particles she’d breathed in had just about worn off. She could probably turn herself to air now. She could try to take Archer with her and get out of here before Shen hurt either of them. But she was so confused, and her feet seemed rooted to the spot, and she just needed to know. This was her best friend standing here with a gun, and she needed to understand what had led him to this point. “Shen, what’s he talking about?” she asked. “Why would you have tried to kill him before?”

  “Because he killed Serena,” Shen said, squeezing both hands around the gun and pointing it at Lawrence again.

  Lawrence’s expression didn’t change. “I will neither confirm or deny that accusation, but either way, what’s it to you if I had anything to do with Serena Adams’ death?”

  Shen ground his next words out between his teeth: “I loved her. And you killed her because of magic.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you killed the stranger outside Ridley’s place,” Archer said. He’d risen to his feet now, and his hands were raised at his sides. His nose was swollen, and blood covered part of his upper lip and chin.

  “I was trying to kill you!” Shen shouted. “But you moved!”

  “What a terrible tragedy,” Lawrence deadpanned.

  “But why?” Ridley cried. “Just … why? I know we’ve never liked the Davenports, but why would you want to kill one of them?”

  Shen gave her a pleading look. “You have to trust me on this, Rid. You don’t know who these guys are. You don’t know what they’ve done and what they’re capable of. As soon as I saw Davenport was back in the city—that he was in your shop—I had to do something. I had to get rid of him, to make sure he’d never go near you ever again.”

  “Hang on,” Ridley said quietly. “Did you put that note in my window? The note telling me to stay away from Archer?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to risk you being anywhere near him like you were before at the library.”

  “The library? That was you? Frickin’ hell, Shen, you almost shot me!”

  “No! Ridley, I would never. I was aiming past you. Aiming for—”

  “And how was that even possible?” she continued. “You’d only just been released. You wouldn’t have had time to get there.”

  “I did have time.” He looked at Archer again. “It was the first thing I did after I got home.”

  “Goodness, you have messed up priorities,” Lawrence said. “The cops free you, and the first thing you do is get hold of a gun and try to kill someone? Did you like jail so much you wanted to go straight back?”

  “I did it then because my family thought I was at home. No one would ever suspect my involvement.”

  “But they must have noticed you were missing for …” Ridley trailed off as she remembered what Meera had said. “They thought you were in the bathroom the whole time,” she murmured.

  “Never noticed I was gone,” Shen said. “Neither did they notice when I snuck out in the middle of the night to blow up that car. Too bad he wasn’t in it.”

  “I was just about to ask if that was you,” Archer muttered.

  Instead of answering, Shen twisted one arm and glanced at his watch. “This needs to be done.” He swung the gun back to Archer, and then again to Lawrence, as if he couldn’t decide who to take out first. “I’ve wasted enough time already.”

  “I’m happy for you to take your time,” Lawrence said.

  “Shen,” Archer said carefully, “you’re about to make a mistake.” He kept his hands raised as he took a step toward Shen. “You already made a mistake when you killed the man outside Ridley’s place, but you don’t need to make things any worse. Whatever you think you know about me, it isn’t true.”

  “Sure,” Shen said bitterly. “Anyone would say that with a gun pointed at them.”

  Ridley moved a tiny bit closer, almost close enough to put her arm on her friend’s shoulder. “Shen, just … just think of your family. Your parents and your brothers. And Meera. Everything’s going to change if you do this. Your life will never—”

  “My family understands. They know what’s at stake, and they know I’m only doing what has to be done. They’ve looked out for you too, just as I have.”

  Ridley shook her head, confusion mounting upon confusion. “What are you—” But a gunshot cracked through the night, and she jumped, squeezing her eyes shut instinctively. With her heart banging against her ribcage, she forced her eyes open. Across the balcony, Lawrence slid down to the floor with one hand pressed against his chest. He tried to gasp out a few words, but then his hand rolled to the side and he became still. From his wound rose a wisp of magic.

  The next second, the gun was trained on Archer. Before she had time to think, Ridley rushed in front of Archer and raised her hands. “No, please don’t!”

  “Ridley, get the hell out of the way!” Archer hissed.

  “He’s been helping,” Ridley told Shen. “He’s been trying to save all those people who use magic.”

  Shen’s eyes narrowed, but not before she saw the confusion—and the hurt—in his eyes. Then he threw a glance over his shoulder. Was someone coming out here? Surely people must have heard the gunshot. Shen looked at his watch and muttered something. Then he swung the gun away from Ridley and shot the glass pane instead. Once, twice, three times, until finally it shattered. “Get out of here, Rid,” he said as he lowered the gun. “Air, water, whatever. Just get away quickly.” She barely had time to register what he was saying—that he knew what her magic could do—before he was running toward the shattered hole in the glass.

  “No!” Ridley shrieked, lunging after him. But her fingers clutched at empty air. He jumped, sailed right through the opening, and fell into the night. Ridley threw herself against the railing, one hand stretched out, magic lifting instantly from her body. But looking down, she saw Shen clinging to one of the larger scanner drones, zooming away from Brex Tower.

  “What the hell?” Archer said as he reached her side and looked over.

  “Hey!” someone shouted behind them, and Ridley made sure to pull her magic back within her before turning.

  “Down!” Archer shouted, and the next thing she knew, he’d pushed her to the floor as another gunshot sounded. She scrambled toward the table before looking up. The newcomers were a man and woman, smartly dressed and each holding a gun. More of Lawrence’s bodyguards?

  And then … was that a man in a blue masquerade mask? And a beanie? He raced onto the balcony, pulling magic from the air as he went. He moved his hands—a conjuration too quick for Ridley to see—then tossed magic at the trellis. It immediately duplicated itself, the second one sliding to the side to cover the doorway. The woman bodyguard aimed at the masked man, but Archer, who now had a chair in his hands, yelled and swung the chair at her. She cried out and fell against one of the trellises.

  As the masked man spun his hands in a new conjuration and aimed magic at the other bodyguard, Ridley’s eyes landed on the forgotten flash drive on the table—and the envelope beside it. The envelope that apparently contained a letter with her name on it. In two quick strides, she was at the other end of the table, grabbing hold of both.

  But a hand smacked down on hers. It was the woman, on her feet again on the other side of the table. Acting on instinct, Ridley set her magic free as her though
ts turned to fire. In an instant, flames engulfed her body. The woman yelled and snatched her hand away, sending cutlery and two side plates clattering to the floor as Ridley reminded herself not to panic. I’m not burning. I’m not in pain. I’m not covered in fire, I am fire.

  Archer tackled the woman, but the masked man yelled at him to get out of the way. He seemed to be doing two conjurations at once: with one hand, he kept the other bodyguard at a distance, while the other hand performed a series of complex, intricate finger movements. Archer launched away from the woman, and the masked man swung both arms up and then outward, pointing at each bodyguard. Then he clenched both hands tightly into fists.

  Both the man and woman halted. Their hands clawed at their throats, and they appeared to be trying desperately to breathe. Ridley looked away, not wanting to watch. Remembering she still held the flash drive and envelope in her burning hand, she let her body return to normal. Both items were fine—things she held onto when becoming the elements always seemed to return to normal—so she zipped the envelope up inside her jacket and pushed the flash drive into a pocket.

  And that’s when both bodyguards fell to the floor. Had they suffocated? Ridley didn’t want to know. The unknown man—in the mask that looked both ridiculous and oddly familiar—lowered his hands to his sides. Behind him, the trellis shook, and Ridley became aware of people shouting on the other side of it. The masked man jumped over the fallen bodies and shouted, “Get us out of here!” as he reached Ridley.

  And that voice—that voice!

  “Archer!” the man yelled, reaching behind him with his hand. “Quickly!”

  Archer launched over the bodies and grabbed the man’s arm. “The flash drive?” he asked, looking around.

  “I’ve got it,” Ridley answered. And as the trellis rattled harder and cracked down the middle, she let her magic swirl around them and become the air. A breeze lifted them, and they spun away over the top of the glass pane.