I’ve had the same thought, and I hope to hell that the others aren’t in serious trouble. We’ve planned for this, but it doesn’t make me feel any less uneasy.
“Cross, give the signal,” I command, tapping my earpiece and bringing it to life.
Crossley nods and whispers into his mic. “Bravo, Charlie, Delta, this is Alpha team. We are inside. I repeat, we are inside. You are good to make your move. Over.”
He repeats the message a few times but shakes his head when we get no response back. Our radios are all on the same channel. If something had happened, surely someone would have thought to radio?
“Alpha, this is Charlie team,” Lou’s voice comes over the radio breathlessly. Jer’s strained expression relaxes slightly. “We ended up in a one-on-one with Earthquake, but we’re on our way. ETA fifteen minutes. Over.”
Crossley acknowledges her and decides that that’s as good as it’s going to get, pointing towards the corridor as a sign that we should make our move.
Tilly said Ella’s room is on the floor above us, and the best way to get there is the fire escape. I push down the trepidation I feel about seeing her and steel myself. Whether she wants me there or not, she’s going to be grateful that we got her out, and I have to content myself with that thought.
We take a right at the end of the corridor and find ourselves face to face with man pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Crossley uses the element of surprise to jab an elbow in his face and a knee in his groin and hits him with a round of tranquilliser before he can open his mouth to sound the alarm.
Grateful that I didn’t have to engage in any hand-to-hand combat just yet, we manoeuvre the sleeping man so that he’s tucked out of sight behind a corner. He doesn’t wear any kind of uniform, but his ID card clipped to his shirt tells us that he’s a guard of some sort. I snap the card off his chest and pocket it, heading straight for the fire exit before anyone else turns up.
Edward explained that the fire exit is rarely used, the main stairwell and lifts being located in another part of the building, so we should be undisturbed unless the alarm is sounded. So far, so good.
We take the stairs up one level and quietly emerge into another set of corridors. The space is quiet—too quiet.
It takes me a moment to recall what Tilly said about Ella’s room: “Hers is the south corner room that faces the rear of the lab building. You’ll know it because there’s always a guard sitting outside.”
We round each corner cautiously, taking it in turns to peer around walls and make sure the coast is clear before signalling the others to follow. Just like a proper SWAT team, I muse.
It takes a few minutes to find the guarded room. I put my head tentatively round a corner, gun raised, but pull back abruptly. A plump Augur with a bored expression, shuffling a deck of cards and making them levitate above his head, sits on a wooden stool outside the room at the end of the hall. Luckily, his eyes are on the cards and not on the corridor in front, otherwise he would have spotted me.
I make a frantic gesture to the others, and Crossley signals that he and I will go first, him taking out the guard and I, the cameras. He counts three silently on his fingers, and we step out of hiding and into full view.
I hoped to surprise this guard just like we did the last one, but his reaction time is much quicker. His levitating playing cards fly towards us, and only when the first one slices me on the cheek do I realise that he’s using them as a his own form of weapon. I bat the others away with my hands and make a run towards the security camera, pushing it out of sight of Ella’s door as Crossley shoots off two darts at the guard. The first one bounces harmlessly off his uniform and clatters to the floor. The second catches him in the fatty tissue of his neck.
He yanks it out in irritation and lunges for the closest person, which happens to be me, bowling into me and knocking us both to the ground.
I roll away from him and try to regain my stance, but he grabs my legs and pulls me back down underneath him, pinning me to the floor with his weight.
“Cross!” I shout for help as loud as I dare. The guard doesn’t miss a beat, choosing the moment to levitate his stool across the corridor and straight into Crossley, fixing him against the far wall with its legs. He waves his free hand, and the floating playing cards swerve around in midair and swoop towards us, ready for another round of painful paper cuts. But before they can reach me, Jer dives towards the guard, jabbing another tranquilliser dart into his neck and finding a vein this time rather than blubber. It takes a moment for the drug to take effect, but when it does he collapses on top of me, crushing me under his weight. The stool clatters to the ground, as do the playing cards, and from underneath the dead weight on top of me, I see Crossley put his hands on his knees and catch his breath.
“Little help.” I gasp, trying to pull myself free.
Jer lets slip a chuckle before he and Marco heave him off me, and I gasp for air.
“Wish I’d taken a picture before I let you out of that one,” Jer jokes, and I hit him on the arm gently.
“Marco, do us all a favour and see if Ella’s in there,” I say, taking a deep lungful of air.
He walks over to the door and tries the handle first, finding it locked. The guard no doubt has the key on him, but rather than go to the trouble of searching him for it, Marco pushes his head through the door and pulls back out a second later, shaking his head.
“Nope. The place is deserted.”
My heart sinks. Of course it couldn’t be that easy, but a little part of me had hoped I might catch a break. If we rescued Ella, she’d be able to help us do the rest of the job, and we could go home before the real ATU catch up.
“Plan B, then. Meet up with Bravo team and destroy the drugs, hoping to find her along the way,” Crossley says, turning his radio on.
“Wait,” I interrupt him, leaning over the prone figure of the guard and searching his pockets for a key, which I come up with on my first attempt. “I’m going in there. I’ll catch up with you guys.”
“What for?” Crossley asks, perplexed.
“I just… I don’t know. I need to see where she’s been all this time. It’ll only take a second. I...” Running out of explanations, I wave them off. “I just need to do this.”
“We don’t have time,” he insists.
“Curtis, what good is it going to do you, eh?” Jer asks gently. “What good is it going to do the mission just to go in there and torture yourself?”
I ignore him and unlock the door, stepping into the room that has held my girlfriend captive for two months. I don’t know if I can even call her my girlfriend anymore, but in my head she still is.
The furniture is very Duke-like. The furnishings are expensive. The four-poster bed looks recently slept in, and the antique chest of drawers is messy, spilling open with clothes drooping out and onto the floor.
Ella was never messy when we lived together, I think to myself.
Everything in the room and on top of the various cupboards is unfamiliar to me, bought for her by a man with too much money and too much ambition, wanting her to feel at home in a place that is anything but. I touch things—a jumper, a scarf, her pillow—thinking that, somehow, I’ll feel a bit of Ella in them, but none of it has her in it. It’s no different than being in a stranger’s bedroom.
“Cur, we have to go,” Jer says from the door, poking his head round the door but not stepping inside, as though he’s afraid to disturb.
“Coming,” I say, giving the room one final glance before I leave. Something catches my eye just as I do. The tower of books on the nightstand are all titled except the one at the bottom, which looks familiar. How would Ella have gotten hold of her diary? The blue-and-gold covered notebook used to sit in our bedroom in Beryl’s house, and my heartbeat picks up a notch when I open it. Photos of us spill out onto the floor. I scoop them up and shove them back in, slipping the diary into my backpack before leaving and closing the door behind me.
There’s only
one explanation for it, and next time I bump into my aunt, I intend to question her as to whether or not she’s been running errands for Ella without telling me. Another tiny sliver of hope slides under my skin, like a splinter from a smooth surface: unexpected and unwanted but hard to remove. Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.
“Let’s go,” I say to the others, overtaking them and pulling my gun back out of my belt, ready to fire should we meet anyone else along our way. I pretend I don’t see them give each other worried glances as they fall into step behind me.
The corridors are mostly deserted, and when we pass other rooms, Marco peers in, each time giving us the all-clear signal.
“So many cells but only one prisoner,” Crossley mutters.
“That means that either the tests were so successful that everyone is already out, or they went so badly that they’re all dead,” I reply bluntly.
No one passes comment on that.
Marco steps into the last cell on the block and back through the wall moments later, his face ashen.
“What is it?” Crossley asks, trying the door handle of the cell to no avail.
“I-I think I found out where they were keeping Edward,” he replies weakly.
“Show me,” I say, taking his proffered arm and letting him drag me through the wall with him, the cold concrete passing through my body as though I’ve stepped through a wall of nothing more substantial than icy air.
The first thing I notice is that the walls are black rather than the whitewashed space Ella was in. If there was furniture, it was used as kindling. Piles of ashes lay in spots around the room, and the bed is the only thing that is in one piece—barely.
White writing in places near the bed catch my eye, and I move closer to read some of it. “I WILL BURN YOU ALL” is written largest of all, and that’s when I see that the walls aren’t painted black; they’re scorched with hand marks beyond recognition.
The theme is repeated throughout the room, with names occasionally scratched into the burns. CASSIE. THE DUKE. CARLTON. GILES. KAI. The Duke is scored in dozens of times, as is Cassie’s, along with several names I don’t recognise but assume are members of the Magic Circle that Edward has taken a disliking to.
“Christ. This is...”
“Appalling?” Marco ventures.
“I was going to say terrifying, but yeah.”
“He can’t have been in his right mind when he was doing this. I wonder what someone has to go through to want to kill their own father?” Marco says, almost to himself.
I have to agree with him. The hate that radiates from the walls is tangible. “Tilly said he took the recovery from Cassie’s mind-control pretty hard. Between that and his father probably trying to inject him with Air every five minutes, he was in a pretty bad place.”
Our radios crackle to life in our earpieces.
“Alpha team, this is Charlie team. We’re in the building, heading to the lab as we speak. Kai destroyed the forest, and Bravo team had to take an alternative route. Tilly is with them. Over,” Lou’s voice comes through.
Marco and I nod at each other, and he pulls me out of the room and back into the corridor.
“We should go back, take the fire escape route back down, and meet up with them. Sounds like they’ll need the extra hands,” Crossley says, turning on his heel and speaking into the mouthpiece as he marches back up the corridor the way we came.
“Charlie team, we’ll catch up with you. Get to the lab ASAP—”
The rest of the command is cut short as a hand reaches around the corner and grabs the back of his neck.
“Cross!” I shout, running towards him, tranquilliser gun raised, Jer and Marco just behind me.
The owner of the hand that has paralysed him steps out, and the shock of red hair is unmistakable.
“Cassie?” I ask, trying to understand what a member of the Magic Circle would be doing here.
“Hello, Curtis.” She smiles as though genuinely happy to see me. “I was wondering when I’d see you again.”
“Cassie, let him go,” I say, raising the gun and hoping that my aim won’t let me down.
“Why would I do that?” she asks, whispering something in Crossley’s ear and causing his eyes to lose focus completely. He raises his own gun and points it straight at me.
“I’m fairly certain your boss’s aim is going to be better than yours, Curtis, so why don’t you put that down and come with me willingly? Or would you like me to tell your friend here to shoot everyone and then himself?” She murmurs something else to him, and Crossley turns the tranq gun around and points it towards his neck. Maybe she doesn’t realise they aren’t lethal, but I don’t want Crossley hurting himself either way.
“Cassie, please. Leave him alone. I’ll come with you,” I say, to the instant protests of Jer and Marco.
“You can all come with me. And just to make sure no one tries anything funny, let’s make sure that your special agent here is devoted to me for the time being.”
She turns Crossley’s head towards hers and places her lips firmly on his, kissing him long and hard so that her lipstick smears across his mouth.
“You’ll protect me, no matter what happens, or your friends will die,” she says in a low, seductive voice. It works immediately, as though she’s cast a spell on him. She lets him go, and his blank eyes turn to us, gun raised and pointing back at me.
Marco takes a step forward, and Crossley shifts the gun over to him.
“Nope. Don’t even think about it,” Cassie says, and Crossley pulls out a knife from his belt so that he has a weapon in each hand. His mouth moves silently, and I try to make out what he’s saying, but he’s too quiet. It reminds me of something though… The zombies in the hospital! Cassie must have given her death-kiss to hundreds of people in an attempt to create an army to find Ella. I still don’t know how they were snapped out of it, but I hope it isn’t permanent.
Marco inches forward again, and I try to stop him, but when I reach out, my hand passes right though him. He’s using his power.
“You don’t want to hurt me, Cross. I’m your friend, remember?”
“Marco, don’t. He can’t really hear you,” I warn, hoping he doesn’t do anything stupid.
Everything happens in a blur. Marco raises his own gun, Crossley’s fires straight at him, and the dart passes through and clatters against the wall behind him. The knife lashes out and catches the only part of Marco that must still be solid - his shooting hand. He cries out, losing his power, and Crossley smashes a boot into his stomach with the full force of an ex-army soldier that’s used to battering down doors with his foot.
Marco crumples, clutching his wrist, and I dive over him before Cross can do any more damage.
“Stop!” I call before Jer can join the fight. “Cassie, we’ll come with you, just stop him!”
Cassie clicks her fingers, and Crossley stands to attention, knife dropping to his side, Marco’s blood still dripping from it onto the floor.
I pull off my backpack and fish out a wad of bandages before she can complain, wrapping Marco’s wrist as best I can as he coughs air back into his lungs.
“Thanks for trying, mate,” I whisper to him, “but let’s leave the heroics until later, eh?”
“Easy for you to say,” he rasps in reply, staggering up with my and Jer’s help.
“There. Now, boys, time to go and see some of our mutual friends,” Cassie says in a sing-song voice, turning on her high-heeled boots, leather coat flapping behind her all the way down the corridor.
“Come along, special agent man,” she adds, and Crossley follows like a puppy, only turning back at us to threaten us with his weapon once more.
“This is just great,” Jer mutters sarcastically.
“Actually, maybe it is,” I say under my breath so that Cassie won’t be able to hear.
“How so?”
“Well, now there’s no sneaking around. We’re legitimate prisoners.”
“Trust you to find
a silver lining in all this,” Marco says, wincing with the pain in his wrist, blood seeping through the bandages already.
We could really use a healer round about now. As an afterthought, I reach down and open the channel on my radio, so that everyone still on the comms will be able to hear us. It’s a long shot, but it might work.
“So, Cassie” I say loudly so that she—and anyone else listening— can hear, “where are you taking us now that you’ve already incapacitated two of my team?”
“To see the Duke, of course,” she replies, flicking her hair theatrically as she turns to me, her green eyes glimmering. “He has some very big plans for you, Curtis Mayes. Very big indeed.”
I swallow my fear and follow behind the brainwashed Crossley, putting an arm around Marco to prop him up.
“Is this going to work?” he whispers in my ear.
“I hope so, mate,” I reply, trying to sound confident. “I hope so.”
CHAPTER 16
“I know you are family, Curtis, but you are the biggest pain in the arse I have ever encountered.” The Duke looks at me stonily when we emerge into a room which looks vaguely familiar. The lab that Tilly teleported me into yesterday, when Munday was still putting together the formula, is bare of equipment. The counters and workbenches are still there, but the vials, centrifuges, microscopes, and the drugs themselves are all gone. I’m not sure what fills me with dread more: seeing the Duke in person again, or the fact that the thing we’ve come to destroy is nowhere to be seen.
All those feelings of anger and hatred, the numerous threats I’ve made in my mind against him, the thoughts of ending his life as soon as I set eyes on him, all of it vanishes when I see the faint glow around his fingers. He has his powers back.
Jer sniffs the air and gives me a warning nod. The loathing is being replaced by fear. Fear for what he’s done to Ella and what he can do to us—and to the Augurs that I call my family.
“Put them with the others,” he says to Cassie, who instructs Crossley once more to do her bidding.
“Fight it, Cross. Fight her mind control,” I beg, but he only scowls at me, his blank eyes devoid of emotion.
Shattered by Magic Page 21
