by Ariel Hunter
Where was I? How did my vision come true? Panic rushed through my body, my face flushing with heat and my entire body trembling, not just from the vacuum of my caged magic.
“Ahh Marnie, sweet, trusting, naïve Marnie. I’m not the Collector. I’m just the go-between, in your case. A job for which I am paid handsomely.”
“You did this for money?” I asked, in a rasp.
He stopped pacing, tapping his hands on his crossed arms as he looked at me, then brushed his fingers through his mustache. “Mostly, yes. And power,” he said simply, as if those answers weren’t tearing me apart. “Your powers will be so much easier to harness now that they are packaged neatly and you can’t use them to cause any problems. We can thank the Council for that. Thank you, really, since it was your decision. Now that you can’t access your magic and use it against us, we have no reason to manipulate you further.”
My Uncle peered in at me and the eyes of the man that I looked up to so much . . . they broke me. Disgust and despair tumbled in my stomach. How was this happening? Was he possessed? Was he under an enchantment?
I wanted to believe that. I really did, but I couldn’t.
“I’m your niece.” Would pleading the family card work at all? “You don’t want to do this—”
“Kiddo, blood means nothing to me. You sealed your fate when you chose to take on your magic.”
“You can’t mean that. You helped raise me.” I stared at him, realizing my words were falling entirely empty to him and that the more I spoke, the emptier they seemed to me too. “I’ve been like a daughter to you, I know I have been. Please, let me go.” My words hardly seemed to be heard by him.
He straightened up and smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. “The Collector is the answer to a question that you don’t even know to ask yet. He will abolish the witch council entirely and remake our world. And if he doesn’t? Well, I still got paid.”
Nausea made me light-headed. I reached for my purse, suddenly needing the comfort of someone more rooted in reality, even if it was my little lizard. It was nowhere near me. The purse wasn’t in my cage. I tried not to look alarmed, though I wasn’t sure my uncle would have noticed, and figured he wouldn’t care. I glanced around the immediate area, but the mist was so thick. It was hard to see any more than five feet out from my cage.
My body still felt cratered, empty. I rolled my shoulders back and took another deep breath. Had I felt so weak before my magic was revealed just those few months ago? Had the pink magic really made me so much stronger? Did humans feel this weak all the time? Or was it just the harshness of the magic’s loss that I was feeling so strongly right now?
No matter. The fact that I was defenseless now was the truth. I didn’t have any weapon, no sparks at my fingertips, and not even a little lizard who might bite my attacker.
The family card wasn’t going to work. My uncle was clearly detached from who he always appeared to be to me. What other tactic could I use?
“What if I wanted to work for the Collector? To end the council too?”
“Your worth is in your magic.”
“That’s it?” I asked, stunned. “No consideration? You’ll just hand me over to be part of the collection without a second thought, even when I offer you an alternate way?”
My uncle seemed to focus back on me for a moment, considering. Then he waved his hand and shook his head.
“You don’t have the capacity to do the work we do otherwise. He needs you for your power. Nothing more.”
I needed a different approach. This clearly didn’t work.
“So, the Collector paid you to bring me here. What if I paid you more to release me?” Maybe that angle would work. Callan would pay, right? And then track my uncle down and imprison him for-fucking-ever.
My uncle stared at me and laughed. “Every good businessman knows not to renege on a deal. I’d just be putting a price on my head.”
“You’re already putting a price on your head,” I snapped. He clearly wasn’t letting me out of here, which meant I had no reason to keep this up. “You think Callan won’t find out? That my mom won’t start to wonder?
My uncle’s eyes narrowed.
He coughed then stepped back into the mists, shrouding himself from view.
“Why don’t you just sit tight here? The Collector has some business to attend to. He’ll see to you shortly.” He teleported out.
I had to wonder how much of my teen years with him had been a lie. Had he ever truly loved me? How long had he been plotting this?
Whatever the answer was, it was going to help me out of here and that was my priority.
As his teleport spun away, the mist cleared by the rock outcropping that he had been standing near. It looked like there was a little control panel on it. Could that possibly be the way out of here?
Not that I could reach it, hanging in this cage with heated bars and no magic. Not that my magic had been all that helpful before, which had been my rationale for getting rid of it, right?
Like an idiot . . .
I needed some light. That was what I needed. Light and some wind.
I needed to summon some light to me.
“Gairm thugam solas,” I murmured the incantation to call Callan to me. Nothing happened. I didn’t feel any pull on my soul, didn’t feel any twinge in my body as if the call were working. Did Callan know I was missing? Would he be looking for me? Would he just assume my uncle had taken me somewhere safe from the gala? Was my mom safe from whoever was attacking Beltane? Was the attack also engineered by the Collector?
I huffed in frustration and tried again. Come on, Callan. “Gairm thugam solas.”
Still nothing.
My magic connection was really gone. It was in a cage.
And so was I.
But Zilla wasn’t. Where was that little monster?
“Zilla,” I hissed. “Zilla?”
I heard the tiny skittering of his claws on rocks and my heart skipped a beat. “Zilla, where are you, little guy?”
A light breeze cleared, and I saw the glint of red and blue shining on the rock outcropping right by the control panel. His golden eyes gleamed at me and he cocked his head one way and then the other.
“Hey, there you are. Now go hit the buttons until one of them lets me out of here.” I leaned forward to watch him through the mist.
Zilla reached out one of his little claws and poked a button on the control panel. With a snap, a sizzle, and then a grinding whine, three of the bars on my cage slid apart, leaving a gap big enough for me to slide out.
So much for thinking he would be useless.
Zilla: 1. Marnie: 0.
Chapter 20
I gathered my dress high up on my legs so it wouldn’t restrict me. I slid, as carefully as possible, out of the cage. It was hanging about five feet in the air. Not too high of a drop. I was glad I was wearing wedge-style heels with this fancy dress. Much sturdier.
Zilla watched me, then sailed down to cling to my bare shoulder, his claws biting a little bit into my skin as he landed. I ducked down in the mist, peering through it as best I could. A sizzle and snap whined above me and the bars of the cage folded back in.
Didn’t matter, though: I was free.
Thanks to my little Godzilla.
I brushed the scales along his back and smiled at him.
“Thanks, buddy.” His golden eyes gleamed. “Any idea which way we go?” Naïvely hopeful he might have more tricks up his sleeve. No dive.
My heart was thudding as I decided the best way out was any way that just led me away from the hanging prisons.
The mist cleared in front of me as I slipped through it, waving my hand in front of me to part it. We wound our way in a slow path. It was only clearing a three-foot space in front of us. The air was chilly as we walked. It had been much warmer surrounded by the heat coming off the bars in my cage. My bare arms and the thin material of the dress didn’t give me much warmth.
My foot rammed into something and I reali
zed it was another rock outcropping, just like the one that had held the control panel with the button Zilla had pushed to free me.
A creaking of chains sounded overhead. I waved my hands wildly above my head, seeking some type of clarity in the frosty, gray air. Were there more cages?
A light breeze blew inward, and the mist cleared. Three cages were suspended overhead. One of them was slightly crooked, jolted awkwardly to the side, so that the occupant was forced to lay in a crooked, painful shape in his unconscious lump to avoid the sizzling, heated bars. His brow was furrowed as if fighting off agony even as he slept. His robes hung loosely off his sunken, malnourished body. There were bruises on his face, but I still recognized the visage, the square jaw, the thick salt and pepper hair . . .
“Holy shit.”
It was my dad.
I knew it. A decade might have passed, and he was looking a lot worse for wear, but that was my father hanging from the cage after all these years.
“Ronan.” I leaned into the cage, my heartbeat picking up. The eyes beneath the lids fluttered a little. “Ronan McTavish.”
My dad moaned and tried to move. His eyes fluttered open, widening in awe.
“Lila—you finally found me—” His eyes closed again, with a ragged breath, his hands falling off his chest, one hand rolling dangerously close to one of the sizzling rods. I nudged it to the side, squeezing it gently, my heart gripped with tears that he had mistaken me for my mother.
“Ronan . . . dad. You have to wake up. I’m here to rescue you. Or well, I’m here and I plan to rescue you.”
Zilla squeezed my shoulder. His golden eyes were looking toward the control panel. I squeezed my dad’s hand again, a bit harder, piercing my nails into his palm. His eyes bolted open.
“Lila?” He shook his head, pulling his hand back to his chest. “Wait . . . you’re not . . .”
“No, I’m not Lila.” I moved to the control panel. He pulled himself to his knees. “I’m going to let you out. Can you stand? Can you get out of the cage once I open it?”
He nodded, looking at me warily. “Are you . . .”
I held my hand over the button, focusing on the more important things at play. “Ready?”
He nodded and slid himself close to the door of the cage. I pushed the button. The same snap, sizzle, and whine happened, and the bars disappeared. My dad moved to the side. I rushed over to him, holding my hands up, so he could reach down. I supported him as he dropped the five feet to the ground out of the awkwardly positioned cage.
As he landed, he wobbled. The cage rocked away, and the bars slid back into the position. I held him steady for a moment. He was taller than me, but I weighed more than him. He was so malnourished. What the hell had the Collector been doing to him all these years? He had disappeared when I was fourteen. My uncle had always hinted that he had been having an affair and had run off on my mom, though my mom had always seemed unwilling to accept that, just saying he had disappeared on a mission for the Council. Official Council position was that he was Missing-in-Action.
Apparently, he had been part of the Collector’s collection.
I steadied him. He put his hand on my shoulder. His blue eyes were starting to clear, and he looked at me intently.
“Marnie.”
I nodded, the same tears pricking my throat that leapt to his eyes. He patted my shoulder awkwardly, looking from me to the lizard.
“You’re so beautiful. How . . . how old are you now?”
“I’m twenty-four now, dad.”
“Twenty-four . . . so many years . . .” He staggered to the side, and I caught him. He put a hand to his head. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there . . . I have failed you.”
I shook my head, wanting to reassure him, still in awe that he was alive, but not understanding how it was possible for him to be so weak. “It’s not your fault.”
He brought his eyes back to me. “What magic are you?”
“I’m pink. It’s a mixture of red and white. But—”
“Hmm. Is it powerful? Is it more white or more red?”
“It depends. I have been able to do some really powerful things with it.” I couldn’t keep the pride out of my voice. “But it is really inconsistent and wild. It is difficult for me to control.”
“That’s why you’re here.” This seemed to rattle some immediate critical thought and urgency entered his tone. “He wants your magic. But you can get us out of here. I’m too weak to cast much of anything these days. I don’t know if I can. But you . . . you’re strong.”
I lowered my eyes and shuffled my feet. “I can’t use my magic right now, dad. I caged it.”
“You did what?” My dad’s eyes showed complete mystification, as if I had said the sky was made of gumballs. Something that completely didn’t compute.
“It was too difficult; too dangerous. The Council caged it. Earlier tonight. I can’t access my magic. It’s caged.”
“But you have your familiar still. That’s what he is, right?” He pointed to Zilla. “You’re a Seer?”
I shrugged. “Yes, I was going to learn. I don’t know why Zilla made it through the caging process. But my magic is gone. I can’t do anything.”
My dad shook his head. “Okay. Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll think of something. Let’s keep moving.”
I nodded and squeezed my dad’s hand.
My dad . . . God, what would my mother think? Had my uncle betrayed him too? Had he been the one to bring him to the Collector all those years ago?
“Are you strong enough to move quickly?” As I asked the question, I wondered the same about myself. I had started feeling a bit recovered, but the blankness inside me was still profound. He nodded, and we began pushing through the mist.
“Don’t look up,” he murmured as we passed under more cages. I took a deep breath but obeyed him. We could come back for the others. We just had to get my dad and I out of there right now. If we escaped, we could come back and apprehend the Collector — and my Uncle Wyatt — later.
“I don’t know how long I’ve been here. He moves us occasionally, but right now, I know that we are in a deep cavern on the side of the ocean. We just have to get to the entrance. Once we can see the ocean, I might be able to teleport us,” my dad said, breathing a bit heavily, behind me. We skirted around another rock outcropping with a control panel. We had passed under at least ten cages.
A shiver ran through me.
Just how big is the collection?
We turned a corner and the mist struck us hard in the face, painting our bodies with moisture, chilling me to the very core, seeping through my thin dress. The sound of waves crashing echoed through the entrance and a new level of chill bounced off the walls as the gaping avenue of a stone walkway opened up around us.
Zilla gripped my shoulder, suddenly at attention, golden eyes peering into the darkness before us while at the same time a strong sulphur smell struck my nostrils.
No. Motherfucker.
Someone had teleported in.
We must have tripped a ward.
“Dad, can we teleport from here?” His hand was tense in mine. He was mustering all the orange around him that he could. It was like he was holding two lighters in his hands, mainly empty, sparking feebly without butane to pull from.
“He doesn’t have the strength you might remember he once had, Marnie.” The voice came from the shadows to the left. It echoed rhythmically with the waves lapping at the cave mouth. I couldn’t place it, though it was familiar. It had a singsong quality, like many voices all together. It was a collection, magnified and enhanced magically. He was disguising it right now, making it intimidating.
A shadow passed before the mouth of the cave and started walking toward us.
“I’ve drained him of his powers. He is part of my collection. One of my most prized pieces, actually.” The singsong quality of the Collector’s voice started to narrow.
“You’ve had him long enough and I’m no use to you. I don’t have
access to my powers anymore. They are bound by the Council. Only they can release it.” I put myself between my dad and the Collector. Zilla was gripping me steadily tighter and tighter. Blood trickled down my shoulder from his claws, making me wince from the pain.
“Oh, and you don’t think I have the capability of unbinding your magic for my own purposes? Quite the contrary. Putting it into a cage just made what I want to do with it easier for me.”
The shadow stepped nearer. My dad was unsteady, his one hand fiercely clamped in mine, but his other hand striving to reach around me as feeble orange sparks fired at the fingertips.
“Your father was just as gullible and naïve as you when his brother captured him all those years ago. It wasn’t the first betrayal of your family. I’ve been using your uncle as a spy due to his seat on the Council for many decades. See . . .” The shadow grew closer and I could see his ice-blue eyes, his curly blonde hair. Trent Brecker smiled at me. A chill ran through my entire body. “I told you I had great sway with the Council, Marnie. You just didn’t believe all that I was capable of. But you’ll see. They always do, in the end.”
Chapter 21
I spun around as I heard footsteps behind us. Three more magicians were walking up behind us, cloaked in dark, hooded robes. Red magic whirled around them, whipping ropes that I knew, in that instant, they were going to bind us with.
My immediate reaction was to flare pink sparks from my fingertips and fling magic at them, trying to knock them back from us. I thrust my hand out and willed with all my soul that magic fire at them—
Pain flooded my body, ricocheting up my nerves, seizing my arms in a fiery grip that pummeled me to my knees. I grabbed my head in my hands as pain rushed to my head and overwhelmed my temples, pounded through my eyeballs, and ripped at my cheeks.
Was I crying blood?
I peeled open my eyes, feeling my dad’s arms wrap around me. No. There was no blood. Just the extreme sensation of agony that should have been accompanied by bleeding from every fucking orifice.
