I nudged Gray. “You big softie,” I murmured, unable to keep a smile off my face. “I love it when you do illegal stuff.”
Gray was about to respond, when the Pyro spoke.
“I guess we’ll let you live. But if you get in our way….” He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he brought a ball of fire to life on his palm.
“Noted,” Yutika said, putting up her hands in a show of submission.
The Pyro gestured to the other kids. They all turned and began to disappear into the hazy cloud of smoke.
“Wait,” I called. “Where are you going?”
“Far away from grown-ups,” a girl called over her shoulder. “Somewhere we can live without being locked up and told what to do every minute of the day.”
“Come with us,” I said, trying to tamp down the desperate feeling that was taking root inside me. These kids couldn’t just wander around Boston. They might be the most powerful Mags alive, but they were still kids with no understanding of how the real world worked.
I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if they were found running around in their Alliance-issued sweats on the streets of Boston.
“We can keep you safe,” Graysen told them.
The rest of my friends nodded encouragingly.
“Grown-ups lie,” the Pyro snarled. “Now get outta our way before I make you look like that.”
He pointed at MagLab, which was now just a pile of smoking embers.
I could tell from the fierce expression on his face that he wasn’t bluffing. I didn’t try to stop them again, even though my every instinct was screaming at me to do just that.
Some of the kids seemed more reluctant than others, but they all followed the Pyro.
“Come back,” I called. “Please.”
Some maternal instinct I’d undoubtedly inherited from Ma was desperate to protect these children.
The kids ignored me.
The smoke folded around the kids, hiding them from view. I wasn’t sure if it was a result of the fire or if one of the Super Mags was somehow making it hide them.
“What do you know about the ghost?” Graysen shouted.
He might as well have been talking to empty air. All of the kids were gone.
I was about to sink down to the ground in defeat when two small figures doubled back through the smoke. It was the Memory Reader and the Animalist.
“You want to know about the ghost?” the Memory Reader asked, his eyes fixed on Gray.
“Yes,” we all said at once.
His gaze roved over all of us, as though he were reading some invisible text scrawled across our foreheads. His attention finally landed on Smith.
“MagLab’s Memorizer never saw the file you were looking for, since the ghost wasn’t kept with the rest of the Super Mags. Remwald didn’t tell many people about his existence, but I knew because, well—”
He pointed to the laminated badge pinned to his shirt, where the words Memory Reader were printed.
“00391, come on!” a voice called from the fog.
The Memory Reader walked over to Smith. I tensed, but the boy just reached up and pressed his fingers to Smith’s forehead.
“What’s he doing to you?” Bri demanded.
“Shh,” Smith replied.
He and the Memory Reader closed their eyes. Smith was frowning in the way he did when he was deep in concentration.
“Got it,” Smith muttered. “Thanks.”
“Gotta go,” the boy said, taking the Animalist’s hand and starting to tug her after the others.
“You should come home with us,” Graysen told the two kids. “We promise we’ll treat you right, and you can leave any time you want.”
I could see the indecision and even a hint of longing on their faces. For a second, I thought they would agree to come with us. But then, distrust prevailed.
If Michael could use his magic and give them just the barest hint of a nudge, they would have come with us without a second’s hesitation. But his magic was being as erratic as mine.
As much as I hated to let the kids go, I couldn’t blame them for their wariness. I also knew if we chased them down and tried to force them to come with us, it would only confirm their every suspicion.
So, we had no other choice than to watch as the kids disappeared into the foggy morning.
“Wait up,” Yutika called, sketching madly.
The two kids turned back, although they left enough distance between us that I could tell they were poised to run.
Yutika produced two stacks of hundred-dollar bills, two pairs of sneakers that looked like they would fit the kids perfectly, and a plush toy unicorn.
Both of the kids stared at the armful of gifts in Yutika’s arms, their eyes wide as saucers.
“Go on,” Yutika encouraged. “They’re for you.”
“A present?” the little girl asked in a reverent whisper. There was a hungry look in both kids’ eyes.
Yutika nodded.
“Plenty more where that came from,” Yutika told them as the kids snatched the gifts.
“We’ve gotta go,” the little girl said, giving the Memory Reader’s sweatshirt an insistent tug as she clutched her unicorn.
A.J. sniffled. “Goodbye, Sir Zachary,” he told the dog, whose wagging tail thumped against the Animalist’s leg.
My own heart jolted at the thought of losing the dog that had already become part of our family. At least Sir Zachary would be able to protect the kids, who would be hunted by every cop in the city once their escape was discovered.
The little girl shook her head. “He wants to stay with you. But if you ever need to talk to us, tell Sir Zachary and he’ll come find me.”
“Why would they need to talk to us?” the Memory Reader asked the little girl.
She just shrugged. “Thanks for my unicorn,” she told Yutika in a soft voice that just about broke my heart.
“Hang on,” Gray said. “Do you know why our dog can breathe fire?”
The Animalist looked at the Memory Reader.
“Remwald did experiments on him,” the boy said. “I think the Director put some of his own DNA into the dog.”
A.J. made a small sound of protest.
“I guess that explains the barking fire addition,” Yutika said.
“If Remwald wasn’t already dead…” A.J. made a fist and shook it at the sky. “I’d get Sir Zachary a lawyer and sue the ever-loving crap out of that animal abuser.”
The little girl giggled and squeezed her unicorn to her chest.
“Dogs aren’t covered under the Alliance’s Report of Laws,” Graysen pointed out.
Neither were the Super Mags. But that seemed beside the point at the moment.
“What else can you tell us,” Michael began.
“00391 and 00466, move it!” the Pyro shouted.
The two kids looked at each other, and then they ran off before any of us could get in another word. Neither of them looked back.
It was only once I could no longer hear the light tread of their new sneakers on the asphalt that reality came crashing back. With the fire and the Super Mags, I’d forgotten about the reason we’d come here in the first place.
The ghost. He’d led us here, and yet, we hadn’t so much as glimpsed him.
Out of habit, I reached for my illusions. When they came without effort, tremendous relief filled me, which was chased by panic.
If I could illusion—
“I can Whisper again,” Michael said in a low voice.
The seven of us exchanged a look.
“Confirmed,” Smith said grimly. “Our killer disappeared. And he abandoned the truck, which means we lost our chance to track him.”
CHAPTER 30
By the time we got back to Older Smith’s house, we were exhausted, dirty, and demoralized. We all showered and put our pajamas back on. We settled ourselves around the kitchen table and picked at our unfinished pasta. It was late morning, but with the hours we’d been keeping and the
heavy drapes that kept out the sunlight, we had no idea which end was up.
We kept our voices low so we didn’t disturb Older Smith, who had fallen asleep sitting up in a rocking chair in the dark living room.
A.J. used his telekinesis to clean up the kitchen. Dirty dishes gathered into a stack that stayed perfectly balanced as it floated to the sink. Bubbles began to fill the air as the soap dispenser and sponge did a little dance. The dishes lined themselves up and politely waited their turn to be scrubbed down. The whole process was mesmerizing to watch.
Smith sat facing away from the rest of us. He had in a new set of earbuds—courtesy of Yutika—and his eyes were glued to his computer screen.
I was about out of my mind with impatience when Smith came out of his Techie trance. He closed the laptop carefully and set it on the floor. He removed his earbuds one at a time and twisted around in his chair to face us.
“Out with it, Smith,” I ordered.
Smith shook his head, like he was just realizing all of our attention was on him. Then, he cleared his throat.
“Mag Subject 6.”
“Beg pardon?” A.J. asked.
“That’s what Remwald called him,” Smith said. “The Memorizer didn’t give us the details of his file in the restaurant, because he never even knew Subject 6 existed.
“I think Remwald kept him isolated in some other part of MagLab where no one else went. That’s why only that Memory Reader kid knew about him.”
I was still trying to consider what it must have been like for one of the Super Mags to be isolated from everyone except Remwald, when Smith continued.
“The Memory Reader showed me enough that I was able to dig up more about Subject 6’s parents, since they were regular citizens.”
“Were regular citizens?” Gray asked.
Smith nodded. “They’ve both been dead for almost twenty years.”
Smith flicked his hand. Images and documents began appearing on the wall, bathing all of our faces in an eerie electronic glow.
I stared at the information projected on the wall.
Mag Subject 6 was the sole survivor of the first batch of Super Mags. His parents were a Nat and a Mag. They’d been discovered by the Alliance when his mother was three months pregnant.
I had to glance away from the summaries of the in vitro experiments that were done to Subject 6 before I lost my dinner.
“What good is it going to do us to know all of this stuff?” Yutika asked. “I mean, why do I need to know that his father was into pottery and fished? Or that Subject 6 likes to draw?”
“It’s good to have a complete picture,” Smith replied. “You never know what’ll be useful at some point.”
“Well, his sketches aren’t bad,” Yutika said.
I glanced at the file pages she was referring to, and my stomach knotted further. Every one of the sketches was of Subject 6’s parents. From what I had already read, I knew Subject 6 had never met either of his parents, which meant he was working off pictures he’d seen in his file.
I didn’t want to feel sympathy for this man. Whatever Remwald and the Alchemists had done to him, Subject 6 was still a murderer and had destroyed people’s minds. He was the cause behind all of the chaos in Boston.
My attention kept going back to the images of Subject 6’s parents. They were an average-looking couple. His mother was slightly overweight and graying around her temples, even though the file said she’d died at age thirty-two. She had pale blue eyes, a round face, and a mole at the tip of her chin.
Subject 6’s father had a receding hairline, skin a shade darker than mine, and a slight paunch.
The father had been killed while Subject 6 was still in utero. The mother had been murdered just after she gave birth, when a complication made it clear she would never bear children again.
I didn’t realize I was swaying in my chair until I felt Gray’s arm come around me.
“Okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Mag Subject 6 is a Level 12 Invisible and Level 13 Mind Melder,” Smith recited without looking at the wall.
“Invisible?” I asked, a little dazed. There was no such thing as an Invisible….
Smith nodded. “It’s a kind of physical illusion, which is why your magic doesn’t work around him.” Smith jerked his chin in my direction. He continued, “The Alchemists were doing all sorts of experiments on that first batch of Super Mags. Subject 6 was the only one who survived.”
I sat there, dumbfounded.
Aside from Remwald, I’d never encountered either an Animate or Inanimate Illusionist whose powers even came close to rivaling my own. The thought of a Super Mag sharing aspects of my power, and using that ability to destroy our city one Alliance official at a time, sickened me.
For the first time in my life, I had a glimpse into the helplessness many Nats felt in the presence of magic.
There was an Illusionist…no, an Invisible…terrorizing both Mags and Nats. And I was powerless against him.
That realization scared the hell out of me.
“What’s the deal with the Mind Melder part?” Graysen asked.
“It’s like a crossbreed between Whispering and Energy Manipulation,” Smith said. “Subject 6 can read a person’s thoughts and implant ideas in their minds.”
“Jesus,” Michael said.
“He can also probably numb our ability to sense his magic, which is why we don’t feel that surge of power when he’s around the way we do for other Super Mags.
“And I thought Whispering was scary enough,” Bri said with a little shudder.
“William Mallorie,” Michael said.
In response to the questioning looks we gave him, he clarified, “That explains why he was acting infantile. Subject 6 did something to his brain.”
“And there are still three Board members left for him to turn into vegetables,” Smith said.
“Is it possible to scare someone to death?” Michael asked in an abrupt change of topic, cutting off the other side conversations that were going on.
We all turned our attention on him.
“Yes,” Older Smith’s gruff voice came from the other room.
The seven of us started, not having realized he was awake.
Older Smith came into the kitchen and leaned against the wall.
“If a person gets scared enough, they can have a cardiac arrhythmia.”
At the daft looks we all gave him, he clarified, “The heart stops properly working as a pump, and blood no longer gets to the brain.”
“What would that look like on an autopsy?” Graysen asked.
“Nothing,” Older Smith said. “If the Medical Examiner was a Level 10 idiot.”
“Well, he does work for the Alliance, so I’d wager yes on that,” Smith said.
Smith and his dad shared something that was almost, but not quite, a smile.
“Assuming yes on the idiot part,” Graysen said, “would the autopsy show the cause of death as being probable cardiopulmonary arrest?”
Older Smith nodded. “It means they know the heart stopped, but not why.”
We all looked at each other. That was about as close to proof as we would ever get that Subject 6 was our phantom killer. He’d murdered four Mags, turned one Nat’s brain to mush, and was after the final three members on the Alliance’s Board of Peaceful Resolutions.
“I guess we know why Kaira and Michael’s magic doesn’t work around him,” Yutika said.
“That’s probably also why Kai could sense him when the rest of us couldn’t,” Graysen said.
“Some kind of Illusionist sixth sense?” Bri asked.
Gray shrugged. “Something like that.”
It made sense, except for one part that still nagged at me.
“I felt Subject 6 when he came into the courtroom, right before he blew it apart,” I said. “He was also in the alley when Gray and I got attacked.” I looked at my friends. “Why did he let us go?”
And then, thinking back to t
he alley fight, I added, “He didn’t just let us go. He saved us from those UnAllied.”
“He’s only going after the Board members,” Michael said. “Whatever he’s after, it’s clear he’s got an agenda.”
“It’s obviously tied to the Magical Reduction Potion,” Bri said. “Maybe he’s trying to track down the Agent S to destroy the potion before the Nats can use it against us.”
I thought about that. There was no greater threat to Mags than a potion that could deprive us of our magic. If Subject 6 was on a mission to destroy it, we’d owe him a debt of gratitude instead of the inside of a courtroom where he’d be condemned to execution.
And we were going to get him killed.
Unless….
We were the only ones who knew about the connection between Subject 6 and the murders. If the killer’s only goal was to destroy the Magical Reduction Potion like we suspected, and the Board of Peaceful Resolutions was somehow involved, the murders would stop once the Board was annihilated. We could just abandon our search and forget everything we knew.
The idea tempted me far more than it should have.
Pruwist would either revoke his deal when I failed to uphold my end of the bargain, or his mind would get melded and a different Director would be elected. Either way, the result would be the same. I’d need to disappear again.
Except this time would be different, because everyone in the country now knew my life story. I’d have to disappear so thoroughly that no one would be able to find me.
Coldness filled me at the thought of leaving my family behind. I thought about holidays, birthdays, and the anniversary…all without me.
How could I do that to Ma?
And then there was Gray. If he came into hiding with me like I knew he’d want to, he would lose all chances at a normal life.
Unless I left him behind.
It was unbearable to think of abandoning Gray when I’d only just gotten him back. My chest tightened.
“Kaira Hansley, I know that look.”
I looked up to meet Graysen’s fierce gaze. His turquoise eyes were bright with anger. His chest rose and fell, and his hands were balled at his sides.
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