Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set

by Stephanie Fazio

  I passed my phone to Graysen, since he had lost his after his arrest and hadn’t seen any need for Yutika to make him another one.

  Graysen dialed the number Smith read from his screen. I listened with half an ear as Graysen told Pruwist about the recording.

  “Thank you,” Pruwist said from the other side of the line when Gray had finished. “We’ll keep the public informed as soon as we know anything.”

  “Sure you will,” Smith muttered.

  “The good news is that the Super Mags have been found and reinstated in MagLab,” Pruwist said. “So that’s one less thing to worry about.” He let out a tired chuckle.

  It took everything I had not to snatch the phone out of Gray’s hand and shout myself hoarse at Pruwist. If I thought it would get Pruwist to do what I wanted, I would.

  “Dr. Pruwist, we need to discuss detaining the Super Mags,” Graysen said in what I had always thought of as his badass lawyer voice. “They have rights—”

  “Galder, I appreciate your concern,” the interim Director interrupted.

  I didn’t think I imagined his condescension.

  “I assure you they are being well-cared for,” he continued. “And, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, the Super Magics are incredibly powerful. They are young and don’t yet understand the full extent of their power, which makes them a danger to themselves and anyone around them. We’ll need more time to sort all of this out in a way that keeps everyone safe.”

  My blood boiled as I thought about those children back in their glass cages.

  Every night since we had discovered what was happening in MagLab, I’d fallen asleep with that image in my mind. I’d woken up in a cold sweat, dreaming about mine and Gray’s babies stuck inside those cells.

  And now, Pruwist was as good as saying the Super Mags…our future children…didn’t deserve basic rights. I saw red.

  “They’re still human beings,” Graysen said. His voice was steady, but his fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

  Pruwist dismissed Gray with some assurances that the Alliance would look into the matter further as soon as Remwald’s murder had been solved.

  I had to bite my tongue to keep silent.

  “And Valencia?” Graysen asked.

  “Still missing,” Pruwist replied. “Give us a ring if your Techie finds her first.” He chuckled again. “And tell that talented Magic that there’s a job waiting for him at the Alliance if he wants it.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Smith said loudly enough that Pruwist would be able to hear.

  My anger made way for a sliver of pride. Smith might be prickly, but he was loyal and principled to the core.

  When Graysen hung up and passed back the phone, he must have seen I was on the verge of losing it. He leaned forward and smoothed the crease between my eyebrows with his thumb.

  “We’re not going to let this go,” he told me in a low voice. “But we can’t do anything until whoever killed Remwald and Jenny Yang are arrested. It’s going to take some time.”

  I bit back a retort. Graysen and I had already argued about the Alliance a thousand times before, and it was still a bit of a sore point between us. Graysen believed in the law and that the machine of the Alliance would dispense justice if given enough nudges.

  I was more of a brute force kind of girl. I didn’t like waiting around for a bunch of old Nats to decide whether I deserved equal rights. I’d rather just go out and get shit done.

  “So, what now?” Yutika asked, nibbling on her pen. “Do we just sit and wait for the Alliance to bumble their way through the evidence?”

  I shared a knowing look with her. It went against everything we stood for to just hand over our intel to the Alliance. But we weren’t private investigators, and tracking down murderers had been a one-time thing for us.

  Or so I’d thought.

  “We have this,” Michael said, holding up the blood-encrusted cell phone he’d taken from Jenny Yang’s house.

  He held it out to Smith, who grimaced a little as he wrapped his hand around the phone and dried blood flaked off. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat.

  Anyone who didn’t know Smith would think he was sleeping. We knew better, and so we stayed silent while he worked.

  “This is why I tell you people to get rid of your phones,” Smith said a few minutes later. “She had a voice assistant set up on her phone, so I got every word of her last conversation.”

  He opened his eyes.

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” Bri asked.

  “There are ways to crack a phone without having it in your hand,” Smith snapped. “I’m telling you people to get rid of those things. At the very least, we should come up with a code language in case anyone’s tapping your lines.”

  “Smith,” I said, pointing to the phone to bring his focus back. “Tell us about Jenny’s last conversation.”

  “She was talking to a Nat, telling him they needed to meet right away and that he had something she needed. She told him to wait for her in his house.”

  “Does this guy have a name?” A.J. asked.

  “Mallorie,” Smith replied. “I haven’t had a chance to—”

  “As in William Mallorie?” Graysen’s eyebrows shot up.

  Smith tapped a few keys on his laptop.

  “Seems about right,” he confirmed.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “He was one of Remwald’s defense lawyers,” Graysen replied. “He was at the trial today.”

  “Maybe he’s the one behind the courthouse attack,” Smith said, looking somewhat thrilled by the possibility of another government cover-up.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Graysen said.

  Smith crossed his arms. “Oh yeah, because it’s totally outside the Alliance’s wheelhouse to deceive all of Boston.”

  “MagLab wasn’t the whole Alliance,” Graysen argued. “It was Remwald and a bunch of Alchemists on his payroll.”

  “Unless it was more far-reaching than that,” Smith shot back. “Which we all know it was, even if some of us are too stuck up our own—”

  “I have a thought,” I interrupted before their conversation got any more heated. “Since the cops are busy processing Remwald’s body, we could go have a talk with Mallorie. See what he knows.”

  Graysen and I locked gazes. I braced myself for a fight, but after a short hesitation, he nodded.

  I opened my mouth to say more, when my attention caught on Smith’s laptop. The image was frozen on Remwald’s crumpled form outside the abandoned building.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “What’s what?” Smith looked from me to where I was pointing.

  “That shadow.” I tapped the screen.

  The others exchanged a confused look.

  “I don’t see a shadow,” Graysen said.

  “Sweet pea, it might be time to get your eyes checked,” A.J. told me.

  I would have thought everyone was messing with me if it wasn’t for their puzzled expressions.

  “Do you seriously not see that?” I squinted at the hazy shadow.

  It was faint, but there was definitely a human-shaped shadow leaning out of the open doorway.

  “Someone make a note to call an ophthalmologist,” A.J. said before reaching over to feel my forehead.

  I swatted his hand away.

  “I’m not crazy,” I said defensively.

  Was I?

  “Let’s go talk to Mallorie,” Graysen suggested, giving me a worried look. “We’ll see if the Alliance detectives find evidence of anyone else inside that building.”

  ✽✽✽

  William Mallorie was a Nat, so I illusioned all of us to look like Nat police as we piled out of the van. We stood in front of a beautiful brick townhouse.

  Sir Zachary pranced ahead, attached to his new, courtesy-of-Yutika extendable leash. I was pretty sure the diamonds on his collar were fake, but with Yutika, one never knew. I illusioned Sir
Zachary to look like one of those bomb-sniffing police dogs, so we had a plausible excuse for bringing him with us…besides A.J.’s concern that the dog would be lonely at home by himself.

  Animal illusions came less naturally to me—both transforming animals to look like humans and vice versa—and I had to concentrate to keep all of our appearances from slipping. I wasn’t exactly sure why animal illusions were more difficult. I’d always theorized it was because my magic came from me, and I was human. It was less natural to build my magic around creatures rather than people.

  Not that I would ever refer to an animal as a creature in A.J.’s presence.

  I focused on my illusions, knowing Graysen and Michael would take charge of the interrogation part of this visit. I took the small earpiece Yutika handed me and wedged it in my ear while she clipped a mike onto my shirt. Both would let me communicate with Smith while he stayed in the van and monitored his computers.

  A plump woman with a frazzled expression and diamond stud earrings answered the door.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Mallorie,” Michael said. “We’re here to speak with William.”

  Michael wasn’t even looking at me, and yet, I felt a tremendous calm seep through to the core of my being. I knew it was only a fraction of what the woman standing in front of us was feeling. When Michael stared right at a person and Whispered, there was no one who could resist him.

  I’d always thought his magic was the scariest of all of us.

  “Oh, thank heavens.” Mrs. Mallorie clasped her hands as though she was praying. “I wanted to take him to the hospital, but every time I tried, well—he refused.”

  Mrs. Mallorie ushered us through an elegant living room and into a spacious kitchen.

  “Holy crap,” Bri muttered under her breath.

  Gray and I exchanged a look.

  William Mallorie, prestigious Alliance lawyer, was sitting at the kitchen table wearing a bib. He held a baby bottle in one hand and was sucking his other thumb.

  We’d gotten mixed up in some pretty crazy shit over the last few years, but this one took the cake.

  “Don’t mention anything about the hospital,” Mrs. Mallorie said in an anxious whisper. “He gets hysterical.”

  Something very much told me that I wouldn’t want to see William Mallorie hysterical in his current state.

  “Mr. Mallorie?” Graysen sat down in the chair opposite the lawyer, who was gnawing on the corner of his bib. He made a gurgling sound and then fixed his attention on the bottle of milk in his hand.

  Mrs. Mallorie frowned as A.J. took a china bowl out of a glass cupboard and filled it with water for Sir Zachary. She opened and closed her mouth, and then just shrugged.

  I guessed that when your husband was gurgling and drinking baby formula, you had to pick your battles.

  “Is it PTSD from the courthouse attack?” Mrs. Mallorie asked Graysen.

  “Uhhh,” Gray said. We all looked at Michael.

  “William Mallorie,” Michael said in a smooth, commanding voice.

  The lawyer’s gaze snapped up. A string of drool slipped between his parted lips.

  “Dada?” the grown man asked Michael.

  “Holy Toledo,” A.J. said, smacking his palm to his forehead.

  “He’s been like this ever since he got home from the attack,” his wife said. She hurriedly wiped at the drool before it landed on her husband’s Armani suit. “He hasn’t said anything that isn’t baby talk.” She pressed her hand to her mouth and turned away before composing herself. “He thinks I’m his…his mother.”

  “I’m beginning to think it’s something about us that draws the crazies,” Yutika observed.

  No arguments here.

  “Can you tell us what happened after you left the courthouse?” Michael asked William.

  “No.” The lawyer slammed his bottle on the table.

  “What do you know about Remwald’s escape?” Graysen asked.

  “No.” Mallorie’s lower lip started to quiver.

  “Don’t upset him,” his wife begged.

  “What can you tell us about Jenny Yang?” Michael asked, fixing his unblinking stare on Mallorie.

  The other man’s lip stopped trembling. His expression transformed to utter devotion as he stared at Michael. Then, his attention caught on Yutika, who was sketching on her pad.

  “Gimme.” Mallorie stretched out his hand.

  “You want this?” Yutika offered the lawyer her drawing.

  “No. Gimme.”

  The lawyer’s eyes started to well.

  “Your pen,” Michael said.

  “Oh.” Yutika handed it over.

  William Mallorie gurgled happily and took the pen. I was afraid he was going to try to eat it, since that seemed the direction he was heading. Instead, he uncapped the pen and started to draw on the expensive wooden table.

  When the ink didn’t stick to the lacquered surface, the lawyer gurgled in displeasure and dug in.

  “William, stop that now,” Mrs. Mallorie said, giving his shoulder a little shake.

  Her husband ignored the order as he began carving into the table with the pen.

  I read the letters and numbers Mallorie was carving out loud for Smith’s sake. Graysen was staring intently at the letters. A.J. took out his phone and snapped a photo of the table.

  It was just a jumble of letters and numbers. Scrabble had never been my thing, but I didn’t see any obvious way to rearrange the text into something meaningful.

  “Useless,” Bri muttered.

  “I don’t know,” Graysen said, frowning in concentration. “There’s something about this that seems…familiar.”

  “Gaga,” said Mallorie. And then he started to cry.

  While Mallorie’s wife calmed him down, Michael inclined his head at the other room.

  “We’ll be right back,” I told the lawyer’s wife, who was shushing her husband. The man was shaking his head back and forth fast enough that he was going to give himself vertigo. He banged his bottle on the table until milk came spurting out of the rubber top. It looked like he was about three seconds away from a full-on temper tantrum.

  The six of us stepped into the other room where we were out of sight of the Mallories.

  “His mind is…wrong,” Michael said in a low voice.

  “You think Jenny Yang wiped his memories?” Graysen asked.

  Michael shook his head. “His thoughts aren’t gone. They’re warped. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “Could this really be some kind of intense PTSD?” Bri asked.

  “No.” Michael didn’t elaborate, but he was confident enough that none of us questioned him.

  “I tried every permutation and got nothing,” Smith said into my ear.

  Lovely. Another dead end.

  “Can you people help me, please?” Mrs. Mallorie called in a slightly hysterical voice from the kitchen.

  We hurried back into the other room, only to find William Mallorie lying on the tile floor. He was cuddling a throw pillow to his chest and bawling.

  Michael knelt down on the ground next to the lawyer.

  “Relax and go to sleep now,” Michael said.

  In two seconds flat, the lawyer was snoring.

  “We need to find out what his connection is to Jenny Yang,” I said.

  “And what the deal is with those letters and numbers Mallorie wrote,” Gray added.

  Michael shook his head. “We’re not going to get anything else out of him. If I force him, it’ll break his mind.”

  “Too late for that, I think,” Bri observed.

  “I swear I’ve seen that sequence before.” Graysen frowned. “I just can’t remember where.”

  “What do we do now?” Yutika whispered as Mrs. Mallorie attempted to squeeze a pillow under her husband’s head.

  “Let’s get out of here,” A.J. hissed. “Sir Zachary’s getting upset.”

  The dog, who was sniffing around the kitchen, seemed to be the only one who wasn’t concerned ab
out the infantile man. But I didn’t argue. I had no interest in being here when William woke up.

  This was just too weird, even for us.

  “Cops hit a dead end with their forensic investigation into the courthouse explosion,” Smith said into my ear. “Seems the bombs were made out of regular household ingredients and couldn’t be traced back to anyone.”

  Well, that was useless.

  “But,” Smith continued. “The autopsy on Remwald just came in.”

  “Why didn’t you start with that?” I demanded, barely managing to rein in my impatience.

  I could tell from the extra-surly tone of Smith’s voice that whatever the medical examiner had uncovered, we would be left with more questions than answers.

  CHAPTER 8

  Everyone was talking at once.

  We were back home, sprawled across the couches and bean bag chairs. A.J. had made popcorn with vegan butter for us and peanut butter treats for Sir Zachary while we debated what to do about the latest information we’d gathered.

  We all stared at the image Smith had projected onto the wall. Even though it was warm in the room, I shivered at the sight before us.

  Remwald was stretched out on the pavement with his limbs splayed at unnatural angles. The part that drew immediate attention was the expression on his face. Everything from his open eyes, to the grotesque contortion of his mouth, conveyed terror.

  Smith grabbed a can of grape soda—the only drink I’d ever seen him consume—from the cooler next to the couch. He pulled his poison scanning wand from the pocket of his sweatshirt and methodically hovered it over every part of the can. He popped open the tab and poison scanned the top again. Then, once he was satisfied it wasn’t going to kill him, he took a long glug.

  Smith flicked his hand, and the image of Remwald minimized to make room for the autopsy report.

  “Cause of death: probable cardiopulmonary arrest,” Yutika read out loud. “What does that mean?”