Except for the attack when they'd tried to go to Freeport Games, the Cabal students' bluster had barely reached the level of the darkest internet message boards.
But this conversation was different.
Rather than attack Arcanium, which was a suicide mission for this group of fourth years, they'd figured out that Isabella's parents lived in the city, on the east side of the ninth ward, and planned to take them captive, forcing her to come out to them. Isabella's parents had no ability with magic. She was the only child of their six kids that had exhibited the talent, which was not uncommon. The science behind why certain people had access to faez and others didn't was largely unsettled.
Pi had to stop them. She'd prepared for this possibility—not the kidnapping specifically, but that she might have to leap into action at a moment's notice—leaving out a pair of jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and her magical leather jacket, along with a few potions, protective charm bracelets, and a couple of packets of exploding powder.
She left without informing Aurie, who would only slow her down. She considered going directly to Isabella, to warn her not to fall for their trap, but knew that wouldn't work either. Isabella would want to save her parents, and Pi wasn't prepared for what she would have to do to stop her.
The only problem was she had no reliable way to leave Arcanium without being spotted. If the attack had happened during the day, she could have used the pizza guy trick, or called Violet for a ride, but it was 2:54 a.m., and none of those things would work.
Pi went to the roof and outside the garden dome, then scanned the surrounding buildings for one close enough that she could reach it through magic, or a magic-assisted jump, but Semyon had chosen this spot wisely, and the moat around the building created separation, and even if she could get across to the other buildings, it was doubtful she could make it across the city in time.
The phone kept buzzing with conversation. Sunil was the leader of the little group, which involved an Alchemist, two Assassins, and two Coterie mages, whose names she didn't recognize, indicating they were younger. She sensed he thought this trick might get him back in everyone's good graces after letting her and Aurie get away last month. He was already telling the others how much he would be able to help them once they'd accomplished the task, as if it were a school project and not kidnapping and torture. It was driving Pi crazy not to respond to his idiotic, and clearly disingenuous, influence peddling.
His latest text read: [I'm going to introduce you to some important mages after we do this!]
They were meeting at an all-night diner near Isabella's parents' house in twenty minutes, which didn't give Pi much time to get there. She thought about just leaving Arcanium, daring them to come after her, but that would only drag more Cabal students into the fight. One against six was already going to be terrible odds.
When the floating candle-like gondola approached overhead, Pi had an idea—a stupid idea, she decided, but an idea nonetheless. The gondola was headed towards Arcanium, albeit at a distance of a hundred meters above the Hall, and even in the slight direction of the ninth ward.
She looked around the roof for something she could use to propel herself up to it, but the opportunities were pretty thin. There was only another twenty seconds before the gondola would pass overhead and be out of reach.
When she pulled the packet of explosive powder from her inside pocket and weighed it in her hand while simultaneously weighing the idea she had in her mind, she knew what she was going to do was irrevocably stupid.
Pi touched her charmed bracelet for luck, set the explosive packet on the ground, and placed the soles of her boots on top. If she missed, the landing was going to be messy.
At the precise moment the gondola passed over Arcanium, Pi jumped into the air, formed a concave force shield beneath her feet, and steeled herself for impact.
The packet detonated when she snapped her fingers, throwing her straight up. The acceleration shoved her chin into her chest, rotating her forward. She was headed right for the gondola, but her body was tilted, facing downward, so she'd have no way to grab the loading rail that went around the bottom. Pi leaned into the spin, doing a full flip, coming around right as she went past the gondola, overshooting it by ten feet.
Inside the gondola were a couple of identical pale-haired fourth years in robes, who pressed themselves against the window as she shot past. Seeing that she was going to plummet back to the earth, Pi used a pulling spell on the gondola, which failed to move the vehicle, but since she was untethered, shot her towards it. She hit the glass and barely got her fingers around the metal rod before her weight wrenched the sockets in her shoulders painfully.
Hanging from the bottom of the gondola, Pi had no way to open the door or use her hands to create a spell that might help her. She'd come all the way up, but hadn't thought about how to get inside.
The window opened, and twin pale heads were stuck out.
"'allo down there. Have we got a hitchhiker tonight?"
The guy sounded like the Swedish chef, making her laugh, which wasn't good considering her situation.
"Can you help me up? I can hold on for a while longer, but I'd rather ride in the gondola."
The twins looked at each other. The second one said, "But you're not allowed in the gondola, and we don't want to break the rules."
Pi gritted her teeth. "I'm a fourth year, you knuckleheads, otherwise how would I have managed that stupid trick. Let me up. I needed to get somewhere fast, and this was the best way."
When no answer came, Pi started figuring how she might lever her legs onto the rail and pull herself up. Then a pale rope came slithering down the side of the gondola. Pi grabbed hold, testing it for strength, then put both hands around it.
The rope pulled upward, and upon cresting over the lip of the window, she saw the rope was the hair of the twins, grown magically longer.
Finally on her feet inside, Pi wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans before offering her hand to the twins.
"Thanks, guys," she said.
The nearly albino twins were familiar to Pi. She remembered them from her Merlins at the beginning of her first year. They'd been playing mock Five Elements against each other while waiting for the tests, and then later, had joined Violet's team during the anti-gravity battle in the bug room. They were cute, in an androgynous way, and she wondered if they had supernatural heritage.
"Very sorry. We don't like to touch. I'm Arvid, and this is my brother Björn."
"You're from Oestomancium?" she asked, pointing at the pins on their robes showing a circus tent made of bones.
"It is okay," said Björn, "you may call it the Weird Circus."
"I'm Pi."
They both nodded.
"We know," said Astrid. "You and your sister are famous in the Halls. Very sorry we did not recognize you hanging from the gondola."
The Spire at the center of the city was passing them on her right, which meant she had a couple of minutes before the gondola reached the outer wards. Pi examined the control panel.
"How do you work this thing? Is it like a glass elevator kind of thing and I can change directions?"
The twins took position on either side of her, which was unnerving, only because it was like being surrounded by human mirrors.
"The elevator once sent on its heavenly journey cannot deviate," said Astrid, or Björn, she couldn't tell.
"Where is it headed?"
"A gondola station near our Hall."
Pi pressed her face against the glass, trying to ascertain their direction. "Ninth ward, right?"
"Eighth," they said at the same time. Stereo weirdness.
"Shit," she said, checking the group text for status. She did some quick math and realized she'd be late if she rode the gondola to the station. "I need to get off, like soon. It's an emergency."
"There's no way to change our destination," said the twin on her right.
Pi moved back to the window. "Then I'm going to have to jump, or somethi
ng." But when she looked out into the darkness, seeing how far below her the streets lay, a pit of vertigo opened inside her. A car passing below didn't even look like a toy, just a tiny bug crawling across the ground with lighted eyes. It was a lot farther than she'd thought.
The twins huddled on the far side of the gondola, speaking quietly to each other.
"Great," she muttered to herself. "They're having a Weird Convention."
Pi looked back out the window and started going through ideas, hoping one of the soul fragments had a spell that might work. When she heard creaking, like old wood warping, and a low moaning, Pi paused, thinking about all the horror movies she'd ever watched, with the sinking feeling in her gut that she wasn't going to like whatever the twins were doing.
When her curiosity finally got the best of her, she learned she was right. Arvid, she thought, was stretching his arms, growing them outward like silly putty. It might not have been so bad, had his eyes not been rolled into the back of his head in either ecstasy or agony. Björn was crouched on the ground like a mushroom, his hair growing into a coil at the center of the gondola. It looked like he was churning butter with his head.
"I hope this isn't a weird murder fetish thing," she said.
Arvid opened his eyes briefly and said, "We help you get down."
When they had completed their bodily modifications, Arvid was a human scaffold attached to either end of the gondola, while his legs had wrapped and entwined around Björn.
"Throw the hair out the window and climb down."
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel. The fairy tales had it all wrong," she said as she slipped out the window, after a spell to strengthen her grip.
Swinging beneath a gondola that was riding on invisible wires, while hanging from human hair wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever done, but it was pretty close. When she got about twenty feet above an apartment building, Pi dropped, hit the roof hard, and rolled into the forward motion.
A quick check on her cell phone told her she had a few minutes to spare if she hurried. Pi waved to the twins before vaulting down a set of metal fire stairs that rattled like an earthquake.
A potion from her jacket provided an energy boost, allowing her to run the six blocks to the all-night diner without breaking a sweat.
When she arrived, Sunil and his cohorts were filing from the diner, headed towards Isabella's parents' house, which was only half a block away.
Pi watched from the shadows. She had no intention of letting them get close to the house, but one against six would be tricky. She had to find a way to tip the odds in her favor. There was also the question of how lethal she wished to be. Pi had no doubt she could kill the six of them before they could react, but then what kind of person was she? But trying to take them out without killing them would open her up to major risk. It sucked fighting fairly, especially when your enemy wasn't going to. Pi could hear Aurie's lectures already about how sinking to their level makes sure they win, even if you defeat them, by destroying the thing that you're trying to protect. But what if there's no other way?
Pi zipped up the front of her leather jacket. She wasn't prepared to go that far, yet.
Using Ashley's memories, Pi layered an enchantment on herself, being careful to hide the anchors in case one of them had faez-seeing glasses on. The spell was a nasty bit of business that would only work once, so she had to make it count. It also assuaged her concern about attacking first.
Pi jogged to catch up to them when they were crossing the street.
"Hey, you shit-for-brains cockswaggles, where do you think you're going?"
Sunil turned first, gesticulating as he conjured his response. The others followed his lead, using the most basic spells of the Five Elements. The sharp smell of faez hit the air like an impending rainstorm as energy crackled from the six Cabal students.
Pi prepared a flashy spell of her own, full of menacing flame and screaming shadows, something that might have come from a demon's mouth. The spell was all show and no impact, but she didn't want them to think about their response to her sudden arrival.
The spells didn't hit her simultaneously, but they were pretty close. She wasn't even entirely sure what they were, but a color storm of magic ripped through the air, buckling the pavement between her and them. The girl Assassin, wearing thick black glasses, was the only one that pulled her spell, which told Pi she hadn't hidden her reflection spell enough.
Five spells hit her like a freight train, then rebounded, heading directly back to their casters. The mages were blown off their feet, screams and curses filling the city street.
The remaining mage pulled two knives from a hidden pouch and threw them at Pi before she could react. Her reflection shield was spent, and even if some had remained, it wouldn't have stopped the physical blades from seeking her throat.
One blade bounced off her leather jacket, while the second sunk into her thigh. Pi had little time, as the Assassin girl came running with a katana as tall as she was in her hands.
With the knife sunk into the meat of her thigh, Pi transformed a disc of metal into a shield to block the sword blow. The girl came at her relentlessly, grunting and swinging.
Half limping, Pi kept the shield between her and the girl, the blows ringing off the metal time after time. Each step drove the knife further into her thigh, until she managed to grab the handle and yank it out.
Pi nearly blacked out from the pain. She blocked a low sweep, which forced her to bend her leg.
The other mages were stirring. If they joined the fight, she was done.
When the Assassin mage brought the sword down for an overhead strike, Pi folded the shield around it and the girl's arms. Pi pushed her away, and she fell to the street with a clatter, trapped.
Pi put a numbing bind on her wound, and limp-sprinted the other way. Her jeans were soaked with blood, but she had no time to spell the wound closed.
As she cut across the street, a car went past, the passenger's wide-eyed stare almost comical in its exaggeration. She hoped to Merlin that the guy been drinking so he wouldn't go to the cops.
The mages were about half a block behind her, and catching up. Pi found an idyllic park nestled between the buildings, and she slipped into an exquisitely shaped stone pagoda with sweeping gold and crimson painted roofs and wooden railings. It looked like something an artistic Stone Singer had created for wedding pictures.
Pi crouched behind the wall and placed no-look enchantments overtop herself. She wanted to fix the wound in her leg as the blood loss was making her dizzy, but she couldn't risk detection.
"I think she went in here," said Assassin Girl, standing at the entrance to the park.
Pi wished she'd broken the girl's glasses. She probably saw the traces of faez in the park.
Her pursuers entered the park carrying magelights that spread their illumination across the grass, turning the area to daytime.
"Spread out," called Sunil. "We have to find that little bitch."
Crawling around the inside of the pagoda, Pi fixed explosive packets to the support structures. If she blew them at the same time, they could provide a last-second distraction while she sprinted out.
When she was finished, she tried to figure out where the mages had gotten to. Pi was peeking over the rail when a blade was pressed against her throat.
"Move and I bleed you like a pig," said Assassin Girl.
She had a bit of a country accent, and Pi gathered that the threat was real, and filled with experience.
Pi nodded slowly to show she was cooperating.
"She's over here!" yelled Assassin Girl.
While the others approached, Pi tried to think of a spell that would solve her current predicament, but nothing came. The soul fragments were completely silent.
"Not a good time to disappear, gang," Pi said under her breath.
"What?" asked Assassin Girl.
"Nothing."
When the others arrived, Sunil placed bindings on her arms and legs, suspending Pi between two
concrete pillars like an "X." Then he put a spell on her throat that kept her from speaking.
"Can I borrow that knife?"
Assassin Girl shrugged, handing it over to Sunil.
"Keep an eye out, make sure no one sees what's happening here," said Sunil.
The corners of her eyes creased while her lips pursed with thought. She finally shrugged and jogged into the darkness of the park.
When Sunil moved up close, she saw his right eye was bloodied from the spell rebound. A lingering rage lurked behind them.
She had fifty pithy things to say, but no way to say them, since he'd silenced her. Which was probably a good thing, because she'd probably get herself killed with a comment.
"Video this," said Sunil. "We're going to send a message to the sister."
A mage in back, shorter, with a dark complexion, said, "We've got her. Why get the sister?"
"Cause clearly this one's not in Arcanium, or she wouldn't be able to use magic. Come on, Darrell, use your brains for once," said Sunil.
Sunil leaned down, examining her thigh wound while the others watched. He stuck the tip of the blade into the cut and wiggled it back and forth.
She nearly blacked out. Her mouth opened, sweat forming on her brow, but no sound was produced. When he pulled the knife out, she panted.
Sunil examined her face, leaning in so close she could smell his hot breath. He smelled like fast food and diet soda.
"I don't think that's good enough," he said, looking back into the cell phone being held up as a camera. He held the knife up for the video, then jammed it into her shoulder.
Blacking out would have been a relief, but that never came. The tip of the blade impacted her bone, the flesh splitting as he pressed against the hilt. If he'd used magic, her charm bracelets might have absorbed some of the impact, but she had no protections against physical damage.
Gathering of Shadows Page 5
