Shattered by Magic

by Rebecca Danese

  “You’re a damned traitor, Clarence!” Jer shouts as Cross grabs him roughly and pushes him towards a door at the other end of the room. “You took us in, made us believe in you. But you’re no different to the politicians and government bastards you told us to hate. I can’t believe I thought you were going to save us,” Jer spits, his eyes alight with fury.

  “On second thought, Cassie, keep these ones here,” he says dully, as though Jer accused him of nothing more than mildly inconveniencing him. “I think I’d like to show Jeremy exactly how I plan to save us all. The other captives will just have to wait for company.”

  “The others?” I speak for the first time since entering the room.

  “Your backup. Louise is about as subtle as a panther at a dinner party, Curtis. Between her and Kai, they nearly demolished the entire woodland. She and that other agent gentleman put up an excellent fight, but the two of them weren’t going to be any match for the kind of power I have now.”

  Fear and exhilaration run through me. That means that Gus and Pru hid themselves well and that Miss Banks, Edward, Plague, Bubble, and Gloria are still at large. But I don’t want to think about what it took to stop Lou and Steve. Lou alone is terrifying when she’s angry.

  “Marco,” the Duke addresses him, and I glance over to see him looking deathly pale, blood dripping through the bandage on his wrist and through his fingers that clasp it. “I’m afraid you seem to have cut an artery in your altercation with Cassie. You must be more careful, boy, or you’ll bleed out in my lab before you can see a healer.”

  Marco says nothing but sways a little on his feet.

  “Do you have a healer here?” I ask him sharply.

  “Not anymore, but I’m sure you do,” he grins felinely.

  I look back at Marco, who seems to be about ready to keel over any second, scarlet dribbling down his arm and soaking his jacket. My shoddy first aid hasn’t stopped the bleeding, and a trail of droplets have followed us all the way from upstairs. Damn, I should have paid more attention in the ATU first aid classes.

  Jer puts an arm out to steady him and shoots me an alarmed look that seems to say, “Do something.”

  “I can see your dilemma, Curtis. Call David out of hiding and put his life at risk, or leave him out of it and hope that Marco doesn’t die. It’s a tough call.” He tuts and gives me a feigned grimace. “I assume David is the poor man you roped into this mess and that he’ll be the one to come to your rescue. He’s always getting himself into trouble on your account, doing your bidding, isn’t he?”

  “He’s my friend,” I say through gritted teeth. If I radio David, I have to make sure that Beryl, Mumbe, and Dr. Lindhurst stay behind. How do I get the message across without revealing that I have more aces up my sleeve than the Duke knows?

  “Yes, yes, your friend. All very lovely, but your stupidity will get all of your friends killed if you aren’t careful. Your closest friends are already in trouble on your account, aren’t they?”

  I ignore him, concocting a concise request in my head. Marco loses his battle with gravity and passes out, Jer catching him before he hits his head. I swear and run forward to help, my first instinct to feel for a pulse as Jer lays him down gently. It’s there, but it’s weak. Marco is going to die, and it’s going to be my fault. My eyes are stinging with the truth of it.

  “Bloody hell, just do it, Curtis!” Jer curses. “Call for backup before it’s too late.”

  I look at Crossley, but he’s no help. He stares devotedly at Cassie, waiting for her next order like a faithful servant.

  “You’ll let me heal Marco without hurting anyone else further?” I ask the Duke skeptically.

  “Of course. I don’t want anyone’s death on my conscience,” he says slyly. “At least, none that aren’t part of the bigger plan,” he adds, and I don’t miss the meaningful look he gives me.

  I don’t trust him, but I can’t wait any longer.

  “David, this is Curtis. Do you read me?” I say into my radio, pretending it hasn’t been switched on this entire time and fiddling with the buttons uselessly. There’s a moment’s pause, and then David’s voice crackles to life in my ear.

  “Reading you, Curtis. Do you need help?” Always precise and to the point.

  “The Duke has Marco, Jer, and me. Crossley is...incapacitated, and Marco is losing a lot of blood. The Duke has allowed me to let you in to heal him, David,” I say, repeating just his name in the hopes that he’ll come alone.

  “Very well,” he replies, and I look to the Duke for confirmation.

  “Cassie, have your pet here take Marco to the front entrance, and let David in. Stay with them, and take them to the cells while I have a little chat with these gentlemen, won’t you?”

  Cassie nods, ordering Crossley to throw Marco over his shoulder.

  “If anything happens to him, I’ll kill you,” I say to Cassie, who almost doesn’t bother replying.

  “Not if I kill you first, little Normal,” she says airily as they cart my friend out of the room, leaving Jer and me in the empty lab with the Duke.

  “So what, you teamed up with the Magic Circle because you ran out of members of the Society who were willing enough to help you?” Jer seethes.

  “Ah, yes, the old Magic Circle-Society rivalry. It was fun while it lasted, Munday running his team of hooligans, me with my more sophisticated group. But factually, it made sense with Munday working for me to have his henchmen at my disposal. For the greater good and all.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “You rarely do,” the Duke retorts.

  “No, I mean, you hate Munday. He ruined your life. Stole your wife and made her invisible. How can you work with him? With the people that tried to destroy our city? Downing Street? And with Cassie, the woman that brainwashed your son?” I ask, the fear ebbing and the anger taking over, giving me fuel for the fire.

  Edward’s behaviour when we first met him, and back when he rejoined the Magic Circle, makes so much more sense when Cassie is entered into the equation. How many times did she brainwash him? And how can the Duke be okay with it?

  “So many questions,” he replies, sounding almost bored.

  “Necessity is a peculiar thing, nephew. There’s an old saying, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ In this particular situation, I’ve had no choice but to put our differences aside for the greater good. Once I’ve solved the Augur problem once and for all, Munday is dead to me.” He shrugs.

  “You didn’t have to do this, to go down the route of drugs and experiments and trying to change people. There’s always another way,” I say defiantly, edging towards him.

  “I tried the other way, Curtis,” he huffs, throwing his hands up in frustration. “While Edward was a child, I tried for years to convince politicians and royalty to accept us. I resurrected my ancestor’s claim to a duchy to move myself into the right circles. Anything to gain traction in the higher society. I even worked to place a healer in every hospital in the country. I travelled the world, finding Augurs that would be able to make a good name for us.” His voice elevates with the pent-up frustration of being foiled at every turn.

  I remember reading that he’d gone off-grid somewhere in the research that the reporter, Avers, had done. He was building up the Society, by the sound of things.

  “I tried to stop Munday at first. Well, you know. You were there,” he adds, casting my mind back to Parliament Green last December. “I always intended to use the Society as a means to solve the problem. I gave the government the perfect proposition—Augurs at their disposal, with a skillset that any governing body could use. Instead, they sicced their rottweiler, Miss Banks, on us, and sent us underground,” he huffs. “You think that I’m evil, Curtis, but all I’ve ever tried to do is save my people.”

  “But now you’re working with Munday.”

  “A means to an end, that’s all.”

  He sounds so reasonable it’s almost easy to forget that he experimented on Ella, killed
her parents, and threatened his own son’s life to gain Tilly’s cooperation.

  “And you’ll kill him when this is over?” I ask carefully.

  “Oh, should I not admit that in front of two of the ATU’s special agents?” His tone is mocking, but I can sense him carefully watching me, waiting to see if he can get a rise out of me. “I assume that Tilly has been working with you to reveal our location?” He asks, trying to sound nonchalant, his icy blue eyes shining.

  His eyes are too bright, I think to myself. An effect of the drugs he’s taken to bring his powers back, perhaps.

  I say nothing.

  “Your silence speaks volumes, Curtis. I knew that if Edward wouldn’t cooperate with our plan, it was unlikely she’d follow through. They’re all so short sighted. She always had a soft spot for your side of the family.” He sighs and shakes his head.

  “You mean her side of the family. She’s my aunt, after all,” I reply.

  “Indeed. It was the only thing, other than her cure, that would ever get her to stay,” he says quietly, and I wonder how many times he had to threaten her with Edward’s life or the cure to force her hand into doing his bidding.

  A pang of sympathy for her catches me off guard. I spent so many weeks hating her that it’s taken me being in the presence of someone I despise even more to put that into perspective.

  “Tilly won’t help you move the drugs, Clarence. Why do you think we’re here?” I sneer.

  He chuckles, and the sound is unnerving. “Oh, Curtis, I don’t need her to move the formula. As soon as I became privy to her betrayal, I put my alternate plan into motion. I can assure you that the shipment will arrive at its destination, with or without Tilly’s help.”

  I give Jer an uneasy glance, and he frowns, wanting to ask the question forming in both our minds: What plan is this?

  I send off a silent prayer to any deity that might be listening, begging for Miss Banks and Edward to have found the shipment and to be setting fire to it as we speak.

  “Speaking of your failed heroics, I assume you came all this way to rescue Ella,” the Duke says, examining his nails and speaking as though he has all the time in the world.

  “And if I have?”

  “Well, then I’d have to say you’ll be disappointed. She isn’t here.”

  The frustration is tangible, but I try to swallow it down. “What have you done with her?” I ask, clenching my jaw and leaning on my back foot, my body preparing itself to leap at him, even if my mind tells me it’s a terrible idea.

  “Me? I haven’t done anything with her. She volunteered to oversee the transport of Air into the city,” he replies, grinning. “She’s been quite cooperative since you two have been separated, I must say. Ella quite agreed to my solution for the Augur problem, and in fact practically leapt at the chance to aid the research. The success of the formula depended entirely on her, so it makes sense that she’d want to see her hard work pay off.”

  “Promise me that if you see a way out, you’ll take it.”

  That’s what I asked her to do for me. Is that what this is? This was the only solution for her?

  Part of me wants to believe it, while the other wonders if, somehow, I was deluded about all those months we spent together. In my head, I painted a picture of Ella, the perfect woman. The damsel in distress and the saviour of all Augurs. The mother of my child. How much of that was made up by my heart filling in the gaps and showing me what I wanted to see? But underneath the worrying idea of how naive I’ve been is her smiling at me, laughing at my jokes, her golden hair spilling onto my neck as she rests her head on my shoulder. Waking up next to her. That was real. I know it more than anything else. My chest throbs with the familiar pain of missing her, and I change tactic.

  “Does she know you’re responsible for the death of her parents?” I ask, catching him off guard. He narrows his eyes and purses his lips, making him look as though he’s eaten something sour.

  “Why would you think I had anything to do with that?”

  “I have the evidence, Clarence. Everything. Your science journals, your experiments, and the fact that you wanted to exploit Ella the moment you met her—when she was a child.” As reasonable as he sounds, there’s no denying what I’ve read, and in his own hand, no less. He robbed her of her childhood, ruined Jer’s and Lou’s lives, and destroyed countless other families. My fury rises with a kick of adrenaline, and something stirs me to end this right now.

  “Does she know?” I inch towards him, my hand moving towards my pocket without even really thinking about it. My voice takes on an edge that even I don’t recognise, and my body begins to tingle with rage. “Does she realise that you and Munday worked together, testing her, experimenting on her for days before she was rescued by her mother and father, only to be orphaned by the man who claims to have saved her?” I’m only inches away now, my fingers closed around the switchblade in my pocket. The knife that he gave me. The very same blade that I stabbed Munday with. If I’m fast enough, I could catch him now and end all of this. But that would make me a killer.

  He senses the moment of hesitation in my tirade and lunges for me, his glowing fingers clasping around my throat just as I pull the knife out of my pocket. I flick it open, but he squeezes my windpipe, his glowing hand searing hot against my skin. I try to speak, but all that comes out is a gurgle. I swing the knife in my right hand, but he blocks it with his left, and it clatters onto the floor uselessly. He lifts me off the ground, and my hands grasp his, my skin singeing as I touch him.

  “Stop!” Jer calls out, lunging towards the Duke, ready to bowl him over, but the Duke bats him aside with his fist as easily as if he were nothing more than an insect.

  Dark spots cloud my vision as I thrash and kick, trying to gain purchase on something before I choke to death. Either I’m hallucinating, or he’s growing in size.

  “YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME?” the Duke roars in my ear. “You are nothing but a weak, pathetic Normal. I’ve tried to explain everything in such a way that your simple mind could manage, but still you don’t see that what I’m doing is for the greater good of Augurs. As you were family, I thought I’d let you live and leave you out of this. But you insist on trying to ruin everything, Curtis.” He drops me, and I hit the floor like a sack of bricks, gasping for air, my lungs burning.

  “So, instead, I’ll kill you. But only after you’ve seen the wonders of what I’m doing, and all the good you’ve been trying to stop.” He dusts his hands and looks down at me with disdain. “You forget, nephew, that in this story, you are the villain, and I am the Augur trying to save my kind.”

  Jer groans from somewhere across the room, and I crawl towards him, but the Duke steps on my arm, crushing it under his weight. I cry out hoarsely, but he only laughs, pushing more weight down. Fragile bones and tendons grind together as he digs his heel in, and the sound that comes from my mouth is feral. Whether I’ve benefitted from David’s healing in the past or not, the agony is unbearable. I use my other arm to try and push him off me, but he’s heavier than I could have expected, and he only lets up when he hears something snap. With a final cry I feel the cold numbness of something breaking.

  “Of course, a few broken limbs won’t stop you from seeing my plan come to fruition,” he stomps on my hand, crushing bones and digging his heel in as I bite my tongue until it bleeds to stop myself from giving him the satisfaction of hearing me scream again, but still a muffled cry comes from my throat. Relishing in the knowledge that he’s ruined my knife-wielding arm, he picks me up by the back of my neck, as if I’m nothing more than a rag doll, and drags me across the lab.

  Pain courses through my entire right side, and I’m sure I’m about to black out from it. Bruises and cuts never seemed to hurt after I’d had so much healing from David and Beryl, but apparently no residual magic in my nerve endings can compete against this. The edges of my vision blacken as the Duke half drags, half carries me towards the door.

  I feel a rumble from somewhere bene
ath us.

  “Right on time. Kai has instructions to demolish this building as soon as we’re safely out of it. Destroy the evidence, as it were. I’ll keep you alive long enough to get you to London, Curtis, but I’m afraid your friends will have to find their own way out.”

  “No,” I croak, my eyes darting across the room to where Jer struggles to get up. My skin burns with his touch, and I’m sure my vocal cords have been squeezed dry, but I still try and shout for Jer to move.

  “Jer! Jer get up!” I screech, sounding like a dying bird. His hand finds purchase on a stool, and he hauls himself up shakily, blood seeping from a cut on his forehead. “Get out now, while you still can!” I cough on the last word as the Duke hauls me out of the lab and down a corridor while I struggle futilely in his grip. The building feels new, every corridor spotless, every wall freshly painted. And he’s prepared to tear it all down.

  Every movement he makes sends pangs of alarming pain through my arm. I’ve broken enough bones in the last few months that I know this means it could be fractured rather than broken, but I recognise the telltale coldness spreading through my lower arm that only a break can bring. If only I had Beryl or David here, I muse. I must be delirious if I think it would be a good idea to have them around now. They need to be as far away from the place as possible, before the building becomes a crater.

  “Your Grace,” I rasp, hoping that calling him by his title might encourage him to listen. “Please, my friends are in here. If you bring the building down, you’ll have more deaths on your hands. You said you didn’t want to risk any more lives than you had to. They’re Augurs, just like you. Please, Uncle.” The pain of speaking is almost too much, my throat scraping with every word.

  The Duke stops right at the entrance of the building and lifts me up so that I’m eye to eye with him. His pupils are dilated, the ice-blue in his eyes shining.

  “Hmm, I did say that, didn’t I?”

  The rumbling continues while lights flicker above us, in the foyer. A man and a woman stand at the door like sentinels, stepping in line with the Duke as he walks past them. The man waves his hand and the doors open ahead of us, while the woman raises her arms, and I find myself being lifted from the Duke’s grip and carried on an invisible platform over the ground. I try to roll off it, but it only moulds around my body, steering me through the entrance and into the woods beyond.