Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection

by Anya Merchant

  “…Victor.”

  “Eventually, he started using it for his own gain. He took control of a police officer and someone who worked at the bank. They were just soulless husks after a while. They stopped being actual people.”

  “How did you know for sure?” asked Kiara. “That he was using his aura on them?”

  “I didn’t,” said Victor. “Not right then.”

  Kiara weaved her fingers through Victor’s.

  “And then… He took control of our neighbors. An entire family. There was a girl my age that I’d grown up with, Ella. A girl that I…”

  A hard lump formed in Victor’s throat, and it took all of his willpower to force it down.

  “I could tell instantly when it happened,” said Victor. “She just wasn’t there any more. Her body didn’t belong to her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” whispered Kiara. Victor let out a pained, sardonic chuckle.

  “It gets even better,” he said. “When I confronted my dad about it, when I started yelling at him and letting him know how far gone he was, he took control of me.”

  “Victor…”

  “I’ll never forget it, Kiara,” he said. “It’s like staring out the window of a car, or a plane, that’s going somewhere that terrifies you. I still went through the motions, going to school, lying down in my bed, but none of it was me. I was a prisoner, staring out through two little eye shaped peepholes.”

  He paused and shifted his legs. The concrete felt even colder than it had before.

  “After a while, probably at least a few months, he decided that he needed to push it further.” Victor shook his head slowly from side to side. “He injected me with the nanites. It’s actually pretty terrifying to get them against your will, for the record.”

  “And then…?” whispered Kiara. “Did you…?”

  “Nothing happened,” said Victor. “A couple of days went by, and I guess he thought that his control might be contaminating my abilities. He brought me down into the basement, duck taped my hands behind my back, just to be safe, and then…”

  I did it. I have to face it.

  “I burned everything. My dad’s research, the house… my dad. I didn’t know what was happening. I was so angry, and I didn’t care. But it wasn’t an accident, Kiara. I wanted him dead. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Kiara leaned her head back against his and slowly caressed her fingers into his hand.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You didn’t know how to control it.”

  “I don’t think that was the case,” said Victor. “I wanted him dead. I really, really did.”

  “And this happened when you were eighteen?”

  “It started when I was eighteen,” he said. “I left the house with only the clothes on my back and my dad’s bag. When I checked the date on my phone, I realized that I’d been under his control for… longer than I’d thought. I got on a bus to Undercliff City, and that brings me up to about a month ago, when I found your sister.”

  Kiara shifted, turning so that she could get an arm around him. Victor felt the cold steel of her shackles through his sweatshirt, but it wasn’t enough to dampen the comfort the hug provided.

  “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever told,” said Victor. “I’m a murderer.”

  “You aren’t a murderer! You didn’t have a choice, Victor.”

  “We always have choices.”

  Kiara was silent. Victor felt her body shiver against his.

  “And Lucy doesn’t know any of this?”

  Victor let out a sigh.

  “She loved my dad,” he said, softly. “She loved him back when he wasn’t so far gone. I could never tell her. She’d never understand.”

  “…Okay.”

  Neither of them said anything for several minutes. Victor’s thoughts swam with deeply suppressed emotions, the floodgates opened by finally telling his story. Kiara’s presence was the only thing keeping him from drowning.

  “Kiara,” he whispered. “I-”

  A metal door on the other side of the room scraped open, letting painfully bright light into the room. Both of them flinched and instinctively pushed back from the doorway as a silhouetted figure stepped into the basement.

  “Hello,” said Father Auggie. “It’s so good to see the two of you again.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Victor’s body ached in a dozen different places as he stood to his feet. His hands were cold, and his legs were almost numb below the ankle, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the temperature or lack of blood flow.

  “Oh please, you don’t have to stand up just for me.” Father Auggie walked into the basement, flicking a switch on the wall and bathing the room in light that was far too bright.

  Victor squinted through the pain and looked around. Large wooden support beams segmented the basement. The walls seemed as though they were in the middle of a renovation, with exposed sections of insulation and particle board.

  Both he and Kiara were chained to the same support beam in the back left corner of the room. Across from them was something that sent a chill down Victor’s spine. A large wheeled table had an assortment of torture tools on it, carefully lined up side by side like something out of a dentist’s office.

  “It is very fortuitous that the two of you found your way to my church,” said Father Auggie.

  “You bastard.” Victor spoke through gritted teeth, feeling his emotions cycle to anger on all channels. “What the fuck have you done to us?”

  Father Auggie nodded, his head turning slightly on the diagonal as if acknowledging something.

  “I was hoping the injection would have the intended effect. Mind you, I don’t have as much experience manipulating nanites. I was… assured, however, that it would be enough to pacify the two of you for a short time.”

  “You’re a dead man,” whispered Victor. “You made a mistake by bringing us down here.”

  “I didn’t come down here to threaten you. I just want to clear the air, and I hope we can even come to an understanding with each other.” Father Auggie held his hands out to either side, as though trying to assure them both of his intentions.

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Kiara. “What reason did you have to kill those women?”

  Father Auggie stepped a little closer, almost coming within range of Victor’s shackled reach.

  “Every flower must bloom,” he said. “If a flower doesn’t bloom, it cannot be allowed in the garden.”

  He’s lost his mind.

  Victor surged forward, pulling against his shackles. He came within half a foot of Father Augustus before the cuffs dug into his wrists and refused to yield. Father Auggie took a few steps back.

  “My entire life has been devoted to helping people,” he said. “I’ve done everything to guide my flock forward. I’ve failed people before, lots of them. I’ve done my best.”

  “That’s how you justify it?” Victor was surprised by the anger he heard in his own voice. “That’s how you justify playing around with these people, killing them when they don’t do what you want?”

  “I’m helping them bloom,” said Father Auggie. “I’ve been given this tool for a reason. And I intend to use it for good, on a large scale.”

  He smiled at them. It was the smile of a man with faith and conviction, and it made Victor want to throw up.

  “Agnieszka, Kevin.” Father Auggie looked out the door for a second. The violet woman, still naked, walked into the room. The shaggy man followed behind her, and each of them stood on either side of Father Auggie.

  Shaggy and Violet. The sidekicks from hell.

  “Hold him while I prepare him for conversion,” said Father Auggie.

  Victor took only a single step back as the two biosplices approached him. Shaggy was the first one to reach out for his arm. Victor whirled, improvising a spinning roundhouse kick and turning out of the man’s reach at the same time.

  His leg collided with the side o
f Shaggy’s abdomen and essentially did nothing. Shaggy lurched forward, knocking him down onto the cement floor. Victor reeled back and punched him once, twice in the face, both blows serving as little more than a nuisance to the bioenhanced man.

  “Let him go!” screamed Kiara. “Don’t do this!”

  Victor continued to struggle, but Violet grabbed his ankles and helped Shaggy hold him down. Father Auggie unshackled Victor’s chains from where they connected to the wooden support, and then the two biosplices dragged him over to the torture cart.

  “Hold him still,” said Father Auggie. Shaggy pinned his arms down and Violet held his legs. There was little that he could do to struggle.

  Father Auggie played with the tools on the torture table, picking up each one and then setting it back down. Finally, he pulled out something that Victor almost didn’t recognize at first, plugging it into a power strip underneath the cart.

  “You used fire against one of the members of my flock,” said Father Auggie. “Before you can accept my gift willingly, you need to understand what you’ve done, and ask for forgiveness.”

  He nodded to Shaggy, who reached down and pulled Victor’s sweatshirt and t-shirt up to his neck.

  “Stop! This is insane!” Kiara’s voice was shrill with worry. She threw herself against her bindings, trying desperately to pull free and reach Victor across the room.

  “I won’t give in!” shouted Victor. “Go ahead, do your-”

  What he was going to say was lost in the air as the tip of the soldering iron pushed into his chest. Victor let out a breathless scream. His body surged, trying to thrash its way away from the pain. Shaggy and Violet held his arms, and there nowhere for him to escape to against the hard concrete floor.

  “You must repent your ways,” said Father Auggie. “This will be a reminder to you, one that will remain as a scar across your chest.”

  Victor could barely hear him over the sound of his own screams. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before, so intense and compelling that he forgot everything, who he was, where he was, and anything else other than the agony.

  Kiara was sobbing in the other corner of the room and thumping her chains against the concrete in protest. Something slapped Victor’s face and he twitched, realizing that he’d passed out from the pain for a split second. Father Auggie’s smile was upside down as he leaned back into his field of view.

  “You need to pay attention to earn forgiveness, Victor.”

  The soldering iron pressed down again. Victor let out a primal howl and felt his toes cramp up and contort from the pain.

  I’ll do anything. I’ll say anything.

  He opened his mouth to give in and then stopped himself at the last second.

  No!

  “No!” He shouted, the word mangled as his voice pitched in and out of focus. “I won’t! I won’t!”

  “You will!” Father Auggie lifted up the soldering iron for a glorious second and then pressed it down again. Victor screamed until he was out of breath and then felt the gentle embrace of unconsciousness take him once more.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Please, Victor…” Kiara’s voice was on the verge of cracking from fear. “Please, wake up.”

  Victor blinked his eyes open. It was dark in the basement again. His chest was on fire, and he didn’t want to move.

  This is just a nightmare. I must still be asleep.

  “Victor, please,” whispered Kiara. “Don’t leave me here alone…”

  He forced himself into a sitting position, wincing as the pain from his burns echoed through the rest of his body. Kiara immediately grabbed his hand, but it took a couple of seconds before he could fight off the pain for long enough to speak.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “What… happened?”

  “You passed out,” said Kiara. “That evil asshole kept going after you wouldn’t wake up. Victor, your chest...”

  Kiara delicately placed a hand on top of his sweatshirt, over the burns. Victor immediately flinched back.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Victor took a deep breath, and from some deep, inner reserve, felt his mental faculties sharpen and focus on the task at hand.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said. “Immediately. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks us.”

  “What can we do?” asked Kiara. “Without our nano auras, we can’t fight them.”

  “Then the solution is simple,” said Victor. “Is there a way for us to get them back? He injected us with something, but the strength of the auras can fluctuate, can’t it?”

  Kiara went silent for a moment, thinking. Victor tapped his fingers on the concrete, the movement a necessary one to keep him distracted from the pain.

  “Do you mean what I think you mean?” asked Kiara.

  “Well, we need to strengthen our auras, and get control over them again,” said Victor. “It’s worth trying, if it means we get a chance at escaping. I think it could work without us even having to go all the way.”

  Kiara turned her head toward him in the dark, and Victor couldn’t be sure, but he thought that she was glowering at him.

  “I thought you were talking about taking a nap,” she said slowly. “Are you… being serious?”

  “Kiara, our lives are on the line. I’m dead serious.”

  What? Is she afraid that I’m conning her into death row sex?

  “I mean… I guess it could potentially work.” Kiara spoke in a soft voice, one that suggested that she might be blushing a little in the dark.

  “We don’t have any time to waste! Come on!” Victor reached out a shackled hand and groped one of her breasts. Kiara let out a surprised, offended gasp, and if it wasn’t for the ever-present company of his pain, Victor would have felt ridiculous and stupid.

  “Jesus, Victor,” she said. “At least let’s start off slow.”

  Victor rolled his eyes.

  Who is the prude now?

  He put a hand behind Kiara’s back, slowly slipping it around her side and down to her thigh. She responded with almost identical movements, letting her own hand slide closer and closer to Victor’s crotch.

  The burns on Victor’s chest were painful, but it had faded to a dull ache. He got the feeling that it was either a really good sign, or a really bad one.

  “Kiara…” Victor let his fingers trace their way underneath her shirt. She had a sexy flat stomach, and shivered slightly as he touched her bare flesh.

  Again, she did the same to him, letting her palm caress his abdominal muscles. Victor’s cock stood to attention, his hormones soldiering on despite the circumstances, or maybe even because of them.

  “You’ve thought about this before…” Kiara’s voice took on a mockingly accusatory tone, and she deftly unbuttoned Victor’s jeans and slipped her hand into his boxers. “Haven’t you?”

  She let her fingers wrap around Victor’s hard cock and he felt a jolt of powerful, primal lust shoot through him. The circumstances were what brought it about, but there was no need for them to pretend. The tension between them had been building by the minute over the past few days.

  This would have happened eventually.

  “I think you’re the one who has thought about it before.” Victor let one of his fingers slide up the outside of her panties, causing Kiara to shiver slightly.

  “You’re deluding yourself,” purred Kiara. She began stroking him with gentle movements, limited by the constrictions of his clothing. Victor leaned in closer to her, close enough to whisper into her ear.

  “I don’t think I am,” he said.

  Kiara turned her head toward him. It was impossible to make out her expression in the darkness, but Victor could see the fire in it, just from her body language. He leaned forward, bringing his face in toward her, and kissed her.

  It was as though the starting pistol for a race had gone off. Kiara leaned into him, and Victor shifted to wrap his arms around her, letting the chains clank against the concrete as their need overtook
the circumstances. Victor groped at her breasts through her shirt, feeling their size and shape, and moved his lips against hers as the kiss kindled flames of intense arousal.

  “Oh…” Kiara pulled back, taking a few deep, horny breaths. She pulled at the waist of Victor’s jeans and he took the hint, reaching down to pull them off with clunky movements. Kiara’s came off easier, and he laid both garments down into a makeshift mat on the concrete.

  It was impossible for them to take their shirts off due to the chains, but it wasn’t necessary. They were teenagers, and they were horny enough for it to be irrelevant. Victor pulled Kiara tight against him, leaning down on top of her and kissing her passionately.

  His cock strained against the fabric of his boxers. He ground it against the silken fabric of Kiara’s panties, dry humping her as he held her waist with one hand and her breast in the other. Kiara let out a soft moan and shuddered.

  “This… is only a one-time thing,” she whispered.

  “Of course.” It was as much of a lie as Victor had ever told, though he didn’t mean it to be. Kiara was undeniably sexy, though the amount of arguing he’d done with her over the past few days had kept him from admitting it. They were starting a fire that he wasn’t sure he would be able to put out.

  Victor leaned in to kiss her, and was taken aback by a quick movement by Kiara. She buried her face in the nape of his neck, and all but wrestled him underneath her using what felt like a martial arts move.

  He smiled up at her feistiness, and then his jaw dropped open. Something, soft wet, and warm ran across the shaft of his cock. He could feel Kiara’s hand on his stomach, and just barely see the silhouette of her head leaning over his hard erection.

  No way…

  He felt the sensation again, this time spiraling up along his dick’s sensitive skin. Kiara was giving him head with slow, sensual movements. It was pure ecstasy, and Victor felt muscles in his body that he didn’t know he’d had tensing up with excitement.