by Alex Steele
“I’ll give Bootstrap permission to look into it. I wanted to avoid it, but it looks like we can’t.” Dragging a hand down my face, I turned away from the view of destruction and started picking my way back down the hill of broken concrete.
Swift followed, a heavy silence sitting between us. This was how it had been for the past week. Clipped conversation, then silences filled with worry. And guilt, perhaps. She had been unsettled after learning that her parents had killed mine. The issues with my magic only made it all worse.
“Just ask,” I said finally, annoyed by her reticence.
“Have you heard any more voices or...anything?”
“Yes.” I hopped down a longer drop into the remnants of an elevator shaft.
“Yes? Don’t say that casually like it’s normal!” she objected as she hurried to catch up.
“I talked to it. It’s definitely not normal, and I know that.” We made it to the bottom and I paused, glancing back over my shoulder at the building I’d worked in for over a decade. Seeing it like this was still surreal. There was a lot of history beneath the rubble. A lot of memories. “I’m just trying not to overreact.”
“Have you talked to Sakura about it yet?” Swift asked, dragging my attention back to her.
“No.”
“You need to take this to her. I’ve never heard of anyone’s magic talking. That’s like...my tea kettle standing up and singing. It just doesn’t happen.” She put her hand on my arm, some of the anger leaving her voice. “There’s something else going on. We need to figure it out.”
“I will talk to her.” I brushed past her, not in the mood to be pestered. Voices in my head were the least of my concerns for once. “Tomorrow.”
“You can’t just—” Swift stopped mid sentence and looked over her shoulder, brow creased. “What was that?”
“What?”
“That noise and a wave of magic. There’s a group of magisters that way.” She pointed down the street that led to the Rune Rail.
I felt it too then. A strong wave of magic and the distant roar of shouting. “Come on.”
We broke into a run, racing toward the growing pulse of magic. Something was wrong.
Four
We rounded the corner and, for a moment, I thought there must be another attack. A splash of fire crawled over a shimmering magical shield. Angry shouts blended together until they were just noise amidst the sounds of fighting.
Black robed magisters pushed against the crowd, marching forward inexorably. Quick flashes of light zapped into the crowd. A man fell here, a woman there. They were struck down faster and faster as the magisters advanced.
A flag hoisted above the chaos caught my eye. The symbol on it — a stylized bird wreathed in flame — was strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
Swift tensed, seemingly debating whether to charge in or stay put. “What the hell is going on?”
“I have no idea. I thought everyone was falling in line with the Mage’s Guild.”
A sudden, booming blast hit the crowd and knocked everyone down at once. Swift jumped in front of me, shielding us both from the shockwave with a bright flare of magic.
With the protestors down, the magisters descended on them like carrion. Binding spells arced through the air. About half the crowd managed to get up quickly and scattered, disappearing between buildings. A small group started running toward us.
“Do we stop them?” Swift asked.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Follow my lead.”
She nodded, tensing for a fight, but I pulled her aside as they drew near and let them pass by. One of them met my eyes and a strange shiver passed down my spine. They looked at me like they knew me.
“We’re just letting them—”
I took off at a run, chasing after the protestors. As soon as they rounded a turn, and we were all out of sight of the magisters, I cast a spell similar to the one the magisters had used to suppress the riot. A sudden, aching twinge ran through my body. It took all my restraint to pull back the power of the spell before I flattened the person I’d aimed at instead of simply stopping them.
One of the fleeing protestors hit the ground as golden ropes of light tangled around his legs, but the spell just missed the others. A young woman with long, red hair slid to a stop, turning back to help her friend, but he frantically waved her away.
“Just go!”
She tensed, clearly debating what she should do as Swift and I closed in. “I can’t leave you!”
“The cause is more important. GO!”
Swift made it to the downed protestor and the woman finally turned to run after the others. I let her go. We only needed one of them to get some answers.
I released the spell and grabbed the guy by the front of this shirt and slammed him into the brick wall. He was young. Not even twenty if I had to guess. Older mages have something in their eyes that makes their age impossible to hide.
“What were you doing here today?” My arms shook a little as my magic stayed near the surface, threatening to overwhelm me. Like flexing a muscle, I began forcing it back into my chest. Ever since the magic came out during the final attack on Moira, it fought my control more and more. The exhaustion from last night’s training session wasn’t helping either.
“Rocking the boat,” the kid snapped back with a cheeky grin.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to need more details than that.”
The kid’s eyes strayed to Swift, his cheeky grin only growing. “They say you’re a bit of a rebel. Daughter of the Lord High Chancellor gone rogue.”
“Who says that?” Swift asked, crossing her arms.
He shrugged as well as he could while being pressed into a brick wall. “Everyone that’s paying attention.”
Swift cocked her head to the side, looking at him curiously. “Is that what you think you’re doing? Paying attention?”
“Somebody has to. Most people are sheep, but we’re not.”
“What are you then?” Swift asked, taking a couple of steps closer.
“It’s not time for you to know that yet.”
“Excuse me?” I moved my forearm to his throat.
He finally tore his gaze from Swift. Madness blazed in his eyes. “Threaten me all you want. I won’t jeopardize everything we’ve worked for just to satisfy your curiosity. We’re protesting tyranny and lies. That’s all you need to know.”
Swift huffed out a sigh. “What’s your name?”
“Jebediah Tane,” he replied happily.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that your real, legal name?”
He nodded. “I don’t lie.”
“Alright. Let him go, Blackwell.”
I looked back at Swift in irritation, but she simply crossed her arms and stared me down. She was serious. She wanted me to just let this asshole go without getting any answers.
“Fine.” I stepped back and Jebediah straightened his shirt with a smug look. It was real tempting to smack it off his face.
“Until we meet again,” he said with a salute before turning and running after his friends.
I waited until he was out of earshot before turning to my partner. “Why did I let him go?”
“Because he’s going to contact us.”
“Oh? And why would he do that?”
Swift put her hands on her hips. “To recruit me, and maybe you too. You saw the way he looked at me and talked about how I’d gone rogue. He thinks I’ll support his cause.”
I looked down the now deserted alley. “I don’t trust him.”
“Neither do I. But he isn’t the sort you can threaten answers out of. I think he’d delight in dying for this cause, whatever it is.”
“What about the girl?”
Swift pursed her lips. “She might be more easily persuaded to share information. We should have Bootstrap try to track her down too.”
I nodded, glaring once more down the alley. This riot didn’t bode well for the future. The Mage’s Guild wasn’t what I’d c
all...understanding. People that spoke out too strongly got silenced. They always had.
Five
In the week since the attack, we’d managed to pull together some semblance of order in Moira. Unfortunately, that order was being maintained by the Mage’s Guild.
I passed my badge over the scanner and the door slid open with a hiss. The IMIB’s temporary headquarters was in the Mage’s Guild tower. A shining, white beacon of corruption built in the center of the highest level of Moira.
The glare of artificial lights lit our way through the busy atrium. Black-robed magisters were everywhere, partly as guards, and partly as a show of strength. The rumor was that there were some very important visitors coming today and they needed to be reassured that Moira was safe.
Perhaps that explained the timing of the riots. If someone wanted to undermine their authority, or make them look disorganized, that was a good way to do it. The only question was who had planned it, and why. All the people that were arrested and hurt were a high price to pay just to embarrass the Mage’s Guild.
I picked up my pace. Walking through here made my skin crawl no matter how many times I did it.
A group of magisters turned into the hallway ahead of us. They’d had the run of the show since the attack, growing more smug with every passing day. My mind flashed back to the confrontation we’d had with the Lord High Chancellor and his right hand man — Marshal William Atticus. The Chancellor’s influence could be felt everywhere. Atticus seemed to have taken a personal interest as well, which I liked even less.
“This way,” Swift said, grabbing my elbow to redirect me toward our office.
Calling it an office was generous though. All IMIB agents had been shoved wherever they could fit. Conference rooms, meeting halls, and...closets.
Swift unlocked the door to our ‘office’ and flipped on the light. A single, rickety metal desk took up the majority of the space. A worn swivel chair sat behind the desk and a folding chair in front of it. I’d stolen the second chair from a supply closet down in the basement just to have somewhere to sit.
I kicked the door shut behind us and plopped down in it with a sigh. This place felt like a cave. The single lightbulb above us put out a weak, yellow light that wasn’t enough to even read by.
Swift traced out a lighting rune and sent an orb bouncing into each of the four corners of the ceiling. The extra light simply made the dust more obvious. She looked around and shook her head. “They could have at least cleaned it.”
“No point in putting effort into people they’re planning on getting rid of,” I muttered, scuffing my heel against a piece of carpet that was peeling up.
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“With Director Harland gone, the IMIB is severely weakened. She had the bulk of the political power, and the other councils trusted her to be fair.” I shook my head. “It’s just a matter of time now before the IMIB disappears into the Mage’s Guild.”
“Until then, we have work to do.” She pulled out her tablet and sat down, the chair creaking ominously as she leaned against the backrest. “Bradley left us a case before he was arrested. I think we should finish it.”
I was surprised at the pain that comment brought on, but she was talking about him like he was already dead. In some ways, he might as well be. It was possible we’d never see him again.
“Alright, let’s do it.”
“A guard was killed at a Mage’s Guild controlled storage facility for magical artifacts in North London. After the murder, a spate of burglaries at five different storage facilities were connected to the case. Some of the stolen items weren’t even discovered missing until they went through the inventory again and turned up short. Whoever is doing this was careful to be subtle and avoid discovery — until the murder of the guard.” She sent me a few files with a quick swipe. “This is the list of the magical artifacts that were stolen. The information on most of the things in the storage facility is pretty limited. Often they only have the names, which are ridiculous at best.”
“Ridiculous why?” I asked in confusion.
She tapped the file open on her tablet. “Bracers of Willful Misintent. Hallowed Sacrifice. Nightmare of Tourmaline.” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Need I go on?”
“No, I get what you mean. Did the storage facility even know what they did?”
“The research division in Magical Artifacts would go through testing things with lower magical values, but it was risky. Some of them were...explosive. It was hard to justify testing anything.” She let out a sharp breath. “So much crap was made during the war that was tricky or just plain evil. You never know what you’re going to get when you find something from back then.”
I shook my head and opened the file so I could scroll through the list. “What did our suspect take the night they killed the guard?”
“Box 394, containing seven items, and box 705, containing five items.” She frowned. “That’s odd. These artifacts were all identified and measured.”
I scratched my jaw as I scanned the list of items and what they did. “And they would all sell well on the black market. They’re almost all very useful.”
“It’s like the burglar had a shopping list going in.”
“Where could someone get that information?” I asked, setting my tablet down and resting an elbow on the edge of the desk.
“That’s a good question.”
“They have to have someone on the inside, or a way to access whatever system stores this information.” I pursed my lips. “I’m sure Bootstrap could get ahold of that information, so they may have a hacker themselves.”
“We should follow up on both options. I find it a little suspicious that the theft went unnoticed for so long, but I don’t want to rule out a simple hack.” She opened a video file and flipped her tablet around so we could both see the screen. “This is the only video surveillance they have of our suspect.”
The video showed a large warehouse full of shelves stacked all the way to the twenty foot ceiling. It was fairly dark inside with no sign of life at all. After a moment, one of the shadows seemed to move. A box slid off a shelf, then disappeared into the shadows as well, as if a cloak had been thrown over it.
“That’s a type of shadow magic you don’t see everyday.” It was hard to follow the thief’s progress even knowing where he was. “Whoever this is, they are perfect for this kind of job.”
Swift nodded. “Yep.”
A guard strolled into the room, hand resting casually at his belt. The shadow moved steadily on, about to round the same corner the guard was headed toward, as if they had no idea the guard was there. Sure enough, the shadow stepped into the path of the guard and they collided.
A figure flickered into view, then disappeared again, never solid enough to make out any distinguishable features. The guard stumbled back, arms pinwheeling as he tried to regain balance. His back foot caught on the edge of the shelf and he fell. His head hit the sharp corner of a forklift, then the ground, and his body went limp immediately. Blood spread out from the wound, but I suspected he was dead before he hit the ground. It was just bad luck that he’d fallen the way he had.
The shadow hesitated at the edge of the room, then moved quickly away.
I sat back and shook my head. “If that accident hadn’t happened, they could have kept doing this for ages.”
She set her chin in her hands and looked at the screen thoughtfully. “When they ran into the guard, they freaked pretty bad. That speaks to inexperience, which is surprising given the coordinated way these burglaries were carried out. I’m thinking they aren’t working alone. Either they were hired or recruited to do the actual stealing, while someone else is the lead on this.”
“Then we need to find our shadow so we can get to the people behind this. If we only catch this person, whoever is pulling the strings will just find another way to continue.”
Murray and his ledger flashed through my mind. We’d failed then, only catching the n
aive kid the real criminals had used up, leaving them free to continue hurting people. That still got under my skin. I didn’t want it to happen again.
A sharp rap at the door interrupted us.
Lopez stuck her head in. “Have y’all seen Danner? He was supposed to be here this morning but never showed.”
Swift waved her inside. “Nothing is running on time right now. Also, there were riots on this level. I wouldn’t be surprised if they temporarily halted the Rune Rail.”
“Damn.” Lopez shut the door behind her then leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. “It just feels wrong. The Rune Rail was supposed to be the one thing that worked exactly as intended. This place is going to hell in a hand-basket.” She shook her head as she shifted restlessly on her feet. “Did you hear who was coming today?”
“Big council meeting, right?” Swift asked absently, scanning through something on her tablet.
“Not just them.”
We both looked up at that statement.
“Who else?” I asked, worry growing in my gut.
“Big wigs from all the businesses that have an interest in Moira.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. The Mage’s Guild has always spent a lot of effort wooing them. They have a lot of explaining to do about how their impenetrable security failed.”
“Still…” Swift said, fingers tapping thoughtfully against the table. “They don’t grovel. If they’ve brought them here, it’s because they want something from them. They’re going to twist this to their advantage.”
Lopez blew out a breath and shook her head. “No doubt about it. Speaking of, any news on Bradley’s trial?”
“No,” Swift answered, letting her head fall back against the chair. “Absolutely nothing. No one is talking. No one even knows who is taking over for Harland as Director yet. Or for Bradley as Chief.”
“It’s not looking good, though,” I added. “I was able to visit Bradley yesterday, and he wasn’t hopeful at all.”
