One of the cops smiled at me. “You can put me down for three boxes of the strawberry cream cookies. My wife can’t get enough of them.”
I pretended to take down the cop’s information, holding the cookie form to the side so he wouldn’t be able to see that I wasn’t actually writing on it.
I gave the policeman a little salute and hooked my arm through A.J.’s.
“Let’s start at the other end of the hall and work our way back,” I said, adjusting my natural alto voice to sound like it matched the age of my illusion.
We marched down the hall like two good little Girl Scouts on a cookie-selling mission. I knocked on the door to Eleanor’s unit.
No answer.
A.J. and I exchanged a look.
A.J. made a subtle motion with his hand. A second later, a deafening crash came from the elevator bank.
“What the—” one of the cops began, reaching for his weapon and heading to investigate.
The three other cops followed as more glass-shattering sounds came from the elevators.
“A.J.,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “What if someone was in there?”
A.J. gave me an impatient look. “I only messed with the one that was out of order.”
I hadn’t even noticed there had been an out-of-order elevator.
“I take it we’ll be using the stairs to get out of here, then?” I asked A.J.
He winked at me.
While the cops were busy investigating whatever A.J. had done to the elevator, I banged on the apartment door.
“Open up, Eleanor,” I ordered.
No answer.
“Your life depends on it,” A.J. added.
Nothing.
I tried the door, which was locked. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” A.J. declared.
I jumped back as the handle popped right out of the door, leaving a circular opening in the wood. I peeked through the hole. Seeing nothing except a dimly-lit hallway, I pushed the door open.
I kept our Girl Scout illusions. Hopefully, Eleanor would forgive two little girls breaking and entering. As added security, I gave us pigtails, chubby cheeks, and button noses…in my opinion, the trifecta of cuteness.
We crept down a musty-smelling hall past a bedroom, which was dark and empty. Dust moats swirled in the sunlight that managed to sneak past the drawn blinds. That was when I heard a voice, and the buzz of something electronic. Sir Zachary let out a low growl.
“In there,” A.J. whispered, pointing at the next room.
We crept forward together. I prayed whoever was in the other room wouldn’t hear the tinkle of Sir Zachary’s dog tags.
“Didn’t know,” a woman’s voice said. “Didn’t ask.”
More machine buzzing.
We stopped outside a tiny room that was set up as a study. Eleanor Ridley was standing at a shredder, which was the source of the buzzing sound. She was shredding one document after another.
Tears were streaming down her face. Her mascara and heavy foundation were running, giving her a demented clown kind of appearance. Her hands shook so badly she missed the shredder with the batch of papers she held.
I stepped into the open doorway and looked around, searching for whoever she was talking to. Eleanor was so intent on her shredding that she didn’t notice me.
Aside from Eleanor, the room was empty. There were no closets or doors behind which someone might be hiding.
And yet, a prickling sense of unease raised the hairs on my arms. It was familiar…a feeling I was coming to recognize. It was an awareness of something just out of reach. It was—
“Kaira.” A.J.’s fingers dug into my arm.
“Ow! What?” I hissed.
He bugged his eyes at me. And that was when I realized we weren’t illusioned anymore.
Cursing myself for being so distracted I lost my focus, I threw our illusions back over us. Except, it didn’t work. The magic that was as natural to me as breathing was nowhere inside me. I couldn’t do anything to change our appearances.
I can’t, I mouthed, as A.J. and I pressed ourselves against the wall to try to stay out of view.
Panic bloomed in my chest as I tried and tried to reach my magic. My palms were sweaty and I was starting to feel lightheaded. And still, my illusions wouldn’t come.
The only other times in my life I hadn’t been able to access my magic were when I’d been in the same room with Valencia’s Shield brother, and when I’d been face-to-face with the only other Animate Illusionist whose power rivaled mine.
But Valencia’s brother wasn’t here, and Remwald was dead.
A.J. pointed behind me, where he was levitating a flower vase off a small table. Whatever was going on, it was only affecting me.
I was about to try again when Eleanor Ridley screamed.
A.J. and I ran into the study in time to see the woman drop to the floor. She began to roll, not seeming to notice when her body slammed against the desk and wall.
“Put it out, put it out, put it out!” she yelled.
She didn’t even notice A.J. and I were there. She was making horrible choking sounds and clawing at her skin as she rolled.
“Eleanor,” I began.
“Water!” she shrieked.
A.J. and I looked at each other.
“Honey, you aren’t on fire,” A.J. said. “You know that, right?”
If Eleanor heard him, she gave no indication. She was slapping at her arms and chest as she continued to roll.
“Put it out!” she begged. “Water!”
I knelt down and grabbed hold of Eleanor’s arms so she wouldn’t be able to whack herself against the wall again. “Eleanor.”
Eleanor stopped screaming and went still. At the same moment, I felt something brush against me. Not something…someone.
There was the distinct rustle of fabric and warmth of bare skin. But when I looked up, there was no one.
“Sir Zachary!” A.J. called.
The dog had somehow managed to slip out of his collar and was trotting back into the hall. I shifted my full attention on Eleanor Ridley’s unmoving body.
“A.J.,” I croaked.
The woman before me wasn’t passed out like I’d assumed. She was dead.
CHAPTER 18
Kai, are you okay?” Graysen’s voice demanded over my earpiece. “Talk to me, babe.”
“We’re fine,” I managed. “But Eleanor’s dead.”
“Get out of there and call the police,” Graysen ordered. “Whoever killed her might still be around.”
A.J. was in the study with Eleanor Ridley’s corpse. I could hear him describing everything we’d seen to the others, but I wasn’t really listening. My attention had caught on Sir Zachary, who was standing by the door that led out of the apartment. His head was cocked, like he was listening.
I went over and pushed open the handle-less door. I stepped into the hallway, my heart thundering in my chest. The hall was empty.
I looked down at Sir Zachary. He returned my gaze and wagged his tail. I reached for my magic, and a second later, the dog beside me transformed into an illusion of Grandma Tashi.
Whatever hold had been on my magic was gone.
“Kaira,” Graysen said. From the frustration in his voice, I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d said my name.
“I’m here,” I said. “And you don’t have to worry. The murderer’s gone.”
“How do you know?” several voices asked at once.
I took a breath, hardly able to believe what was about to come out of my mouth.
“Because I think the murderer is some kind of Illusionist.”
✽✽✽
“Have you guys left yet?” Graysen demanded.
If I didn’t say yes, I knew he was going to drive over here just so he could throw me over his shoulder and carry me out, caveman style. Not that I had any intentions of staying in an apartment with a dead woman.
“On our way,” I told him.
Since there
were already cops in the building, and I didn’t think it would be long before they noticed Eleanor’s busted door, I didn’t call in the murder. I tried to make sense of what had just happened as I headed for the stairs.
We’d been right here, and the woman we’d been trying to protect had died anyway. And we were no closer to knowing what secrets she might have been guarding, or why the murderer was after her.
I stopped halfway down the hall when I realized A.J. and Sir Zachary weren’t with me.
They appeared in the apartment’s doorway a second later. Sir Zachary was carrying his collar and leash in his mouth. A.J.’s hands were empty, but a garbage bag full of shredded paper floated behind him.
“Smart,” I told him. I’d been so wrapped up in Eleanor’s inexplicable death and the phantom in the apartment, I hadn’t been thinking about anything else.
Whatever she’d been shredding just before her death had to be important.
“I got you, girl,” A.J. told me.
Even though his smile was bright, his face was deathly pale. We were both shaken from watching a woman die right in front of us. There had been nothing we could do to save her. Worse, it seemed like she was being tormented by illusions before she died.
I had no idea what kind of Mag could create illusions powerful enough to cause that kind of psychological damage…or why no one else could see them. At the moment, I didn’t even want to think about it.
We snuck past the elevator bank, where the cops were still preoccupied. Through the dusty window, I saw that one of the elevators had crashed through the wall and was dangling half-in and half-out of the building. The Out of Order sign taped to its door flapped in the breeze.
“What a mess,” A.J. noted as we passed a rubbernecker who had ducked out of his apartment to see what was happening.
We got in the car and just sat there. Sir Zachary was panting in the sun-warmed interior, but the heat was the only thing that kept my teeth from chattering. I glanced in the rearview mirror at the bag full of paper shreds.
What had Eleanor been trying to destroy, and why had it been worth her life?
As we drove home through stop-and-go traffic, the rest of the Seven peppered A.J. and me with questions.
“I felt him or her,” I said again. “There was definitely someone in that study besides Eleanor.”
I told them how I had gotten the same sense when someone knocked into me at the courthouse, and then again when I saw the shadow after those two Mags jumped Gray and me in the alley.
“But Illusionists can’t make themselves invisible,” Graysen said.
“The murderer could have made themselves look like a fruit fly,” Bri suggested. “Maybe with everything else, Kaira and A.J. just didn’t notice the murderer.”
It was possible. With the way Eleanor had been screaming, I wouldn’t have noticed something as insignificant as a bug. And it would make sense why I’d felt someone brush against me when I couldn’t see them.
Illusions were just that; no matter how small a person appeared, they still took up the same amount of space as their natural body.
“If this murderer really is an Animate Illusionist,” Smith said, “that would mean he’s even more powerful than you are. Otherwise, your presence would have cancelled out his illusions, too.”
Since I was a Level 10, there was no way there was an Illusionist more powerful than me. Unless—
“Is the murderer a Super Mag?” Graysen asked.
For several seconds, no one spoke while we tried to absorb that possibility.
“That would only explain why we’ve never seen him,” Michael said. “It wouldn’t explain how he killed the Mags and broke William Mallorie’s mind.”
Good point.
Aside from Eleanor’s screams about a fire only she could see, there was nothing to indicate what had killed her. There had been no burned skin or blood. She’d simply been alive one minute and dead the next.
Jenny Yang had killed herself, but I’d gotten the sense that there was something else at work that was forcing her hand. And then there were the mysterious circumstances of Remwald’s death.
“Maybe there’s a group of Super Mags working together,” Yutika suggested.
“Or maybe it’s a single Super Mag with multiple abilities,” Michael said.
“You know,” Bri said thoughtfully. “This might tell us the murderer’s motive. Maybe Smith was right—”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Smith grumbled.
Bri continued, “Maybe the Board of Peaceful Resolutions had something to do with MagLab. The murderer might be going after the members to get revenge for what’s been done to the Super Mags.”
“I don’t think so,” Graysen said. “If that was the case, then why aren’t they going after the MagLab Alchemists? With the exception of Remwald, none of the Board members were involved.”
“That we know of,” Smith said darkly.
A few seconds of silence passed while we digested this new information.
Traffic eased up. Sir Zachary pressed his nose through the partially-open window and made cute snuffling noises. I smiled at the wet nose-smudges he left all over the glass.
“There should be an easy way to test our theory,” Graysen said into my earpiece. “We could check out the Super Mags’ files and see if any of their magic might explain all of this.”
“I just reviewed the security tapes from outside MagLab over the last twenty-four hours,” Smith said. “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah, but if he’s really that powerful an Illusionist,” Yutika said, “you wouldn’t see him leave.”
“True,” Smith conceded.
“I can’t believe you were able to access those cameras,” Graysen told Smith, sounding impressed. “Pruwist said they installed the best security equipment on the market over there.”
“I can’t believe you think any security system could keep me out,” Smith retorted.
“Fair point,” Graysen replied. “Once we’ve got the murderer in custody, will you help me steal the Hope Diamond?”
“Ooh, that’ll go great with your Turks and Caicos eyes,” A.J. said approvingly.
“I don’t think he meant to keep it for himself,” Bri observed.
“I don’t think he actually meant to steal it in the first place,” I said, a little flustered at the direction this conversation was headed.
Clearly, we were all a little loopy from our recent ordeal.
“I’ll see what I can do to access the Super Mags’ files,” Smith said. “Then, we can go through them and narrow down suspects.”
I heard unfamiliar male voices come across my earpiece as someone on Graysen and Michael’s end spoke to them.
“Okay, we’re about to go into our meeting with Pruwist, now,” Graysen said into his mike. “We’ll talk to you all after.”
The Seven’s chatter on our earpieces went quiet.
“What do you want for lunch, munchkin?” A.J. asked as we stopped at a light. I started to respond before realizing he was talking to Sir Zachary.
Typical.
“He wants your southwest salad with extra tortilla strips,” I said.
A.J. laughed and covered Sir Zachary’s snout with kisses.
We were almost at the turnoff for our street, when a thought occurred to me. There was something I’d been meaning to do. For the first time in the last week, I could do it without Gray being the wiser.
I glanced over at A.J., who was scratching Sir Zachary’s ears and talking in baby talk to him. I glanced at the clock on the dash. It was eleven-thirty in the morning. Most people would be at work now, but with everything going on in the city, all Alliance officials were working remotely unless their physical presence was needed.
I reached up and switched off my mike, motioning for A.J. to do the same.
“Mind if we make a stop?” I asked.
“Ooh, I love clandestine meetings,” A.J. said, wriggling around in his seat in anticipation.
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“You’re not coming,” I told him.
“Party pooper,” A.J. huffed.
I parked a few houses down and left A.J. pouting in the car. As I climbed the steps to the narrow townhouse, I glanced across the street. The sight of my family’s house eased some of the tension in me. The red brick and blue door looked bright and cheerful in the midday sun.
I turned my back to my family’s house and rang Joseph Galder’s doorbell.
I didn’t have to wait long before Gray’s dad came to the door.
His eyes narrowed when he saw it was me.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Just five minutes of your time. Please.”
Gray’s dad sighed. And then he opened the door for me.
Joseph Galder was dressed in a suit with his tie knotted, even though he likely wouldn’t be leaving the house today. His hair, which had been more brown than gray back when I was in high school, was now fully white. He had lost weight off a frame that had been broad and strong like his son’s. He also had a stoop, which I knew he’d developed after he lost his job and his dignity.
Because of me.
I perched on the edge of the leather couch in the TV room. This house was almost as familiar to me as my own, although it felt wrong without Gray here. I’d had my first make out on this couch. I’d been sitting on this same cushion the first time Gray told me he loved me. I’d almost lost my virginity on this couch…until our brains had flipped back on and we’d gone upstairs.
“What can I do for you, Kaira?” Joseph asked.
I snapped back into focus and my reason for being here.
“Mr. Galder,” I began. “I want you to know how deeply sorry I am for what I did to you. I—”
“It’s done,” Joseph replied stiffly.
I shook my head. “I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I wouldn’t blame you if you spent the rest of your life hating me. But please don’t punish Graysen for a decision I made. He loves and respects you, and he needs you in his life.”
“I can’t abide the choices my son has made,” Joseph said, looking at me.
I felt my temper rise and tamped it back down.
Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Page 45
