by King, R. L.
All of them, including Papa.
“Papa?” she asked again in a small voice. “What’s—going on?”
“I’m sorry, Princess,” he said, and in a strange sort of way he sounded as if he really was. “I’m afraid things aren’t going to quite work out like you thought they would.”
“What—are you talking about?” she asked, backing away. “Papa, what’s going on? Who are these people?” Her gaze flew around the room, looking for another exit, but there weren’t any. Just the one behind the woman and the boy.
The boy answered. “You’re going to be part of our plan,” he said with an unwholesome smile. Something in his expression suggested wrongness, and pleasure. It made Anna’s skin crawl worse than before.
She tried hard not to panic. She really did. But she was ten years old, in a strange place in a country where she’d never been before, and her beloved Papa was suddenly acting like a stranger. All of those put together would make it pretty hard for anyone not to panic.
She screamed, dropping her stuffed Mickey, and ran for it.
She only got a few steps before her feet left the ground and she hovered in midair, still screaming.
The woman, the boy, and Papa looked on wordlessly, their faces going slack as they drank in her fear.
Chapter Six
Trina “Trin” Blackburn loved it when a plan came together. Especially a plan complicated enough that it had more than a reasonable chance of failure, even after all the careful effort she and the others had put into it. The decision to carry it off at a crowded location like Disneyland hadn’t been unanimous by any means, but Trin had assured the others that she’d arranged everything with utmost care. The boy, who went by the “host name” of Sam, had even contributed a few good ideas to the plan and helped her set it up; he had marshaled the soldiers they’d need to make it work and made sure they were in the right place at the right time. The only time when something could have gone wrong was during the switch, and that had gone off so perfectly that Trin wondered why she’d even bothered worrying about it.
The Others might have impressive power and abilities in their various hosts, but nothing beat magic when you were trying to get something done under the noses of a bunch of clueless mundanes.
She hadn’t enjoyed spending the better part of a day following the target and the kid around the park accompanied by the designated soldier, but her abilities with illusion had made it easy. Nobody looked around at “normal” things at Disneyland anyway: everyone was too busy taking in the rides and the bright colors and the costumed characters. Especially the children. They never saw anything but the things the park carefully steered them toward. And as for the parents—they were too busy riding herd on their hyperactive offspring to pay attention to a couple of strangers in jeans and T-shirts who weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary.
Trin began to think that the man would never go to the bathroom: maybe he was so paranoid about letting his daughter out of his sight that he was exercising some superhuman ability to control his bowels so as not to have to leave her waiting. But no, finally at lunchtime he’d left her sitting at a table with her pile of overpriced souvenir crap and hurried off to the nearby restroom.
Trin shifted herself to invisibility and entered first, along with the soldier. They waited patiently, the soldier pretending to wash his hands, until the target entered. Now they just had to hope that he used one of the stalls instead of just a urinal, which would have made things more problematic.
They were in luck, however: the man entered a stall, and a second later the soldier, followed by the invisible Trin, entered the one next to his. The soldier sat on the toilet, drawing his legs up until he was perched precariously on the seat. Then it was a simple matter for Trin to use her magical ability to drain him completely, reducing his body to ash that fell neatly into the toilet. The Other formerly inside him, able to remain alive for only a few seconds without a host, darted to the next stall and took up residence inside the target. The entire exchange was completed in less than five seconds.
Smiling an unseen smile, Trin gathered up the soldier’s clothes and shoes and stowed them in her daypack. She flushed the toilet and watched the ashes of the former host swirl neatly away. She liked this plan, because not only did it get them what they wanted, but it also allowed her to stock up on power by draining the old host. The Other soldiers, as a rule, didn’t care what befell their host bodies as long as they had somewhere else to go when forcibly ejected by the host’s death. The soldier would be equally satisfied inside this new host, and this was not the first time Trin’s black-magic ability to fully drain a victim and turn them to ash had worked to their advantage by allowing them to eliminate problematic former hosts without a trace. Unless another mage was nearby to pick up on the death energy (and even that was by no means a certainty: they’d have to be looking for it unless they were close by), there was no way that the mundane authorities would ever find any sign of the former Adam Darden, age twenty-four. He would simply become another missing-person statistic in a cold case file somewhere.
She drifted out of the stall and waited for the target (now the soldier) to exit his own. Then the two of them left the bathroom. Around them, men and boys moved quickly to complete their business and get back to their day at Disneyland; not one of them noticed anything out of the ordinary, even when a couple of them brushed against someone who didn’t seem to be there.
Afterward, the target headed back to the kid, and Trin left the park to go to the secondary location where he would bring her later. Preparations had to be made, so the soldier had been instructed to remain with the girl at the park for at least another couple hours to give them time to complete them. Trin and the others didn’t know when the two would arrive, exactly: the soldier’s orders were to play things by ear, to let the host be the guide about when he could get his daughter to leave without arousing her suspicion. Once they arrived at the warehouse, Trin and Sam would take over.
As it happened, Trin’s newfound power, taken from the soldier’s previous host, was already earmarked. She would need most of it in order to put up the wards around the small office at the warehouse. Black mages, as a rule, weren’t good at things like wards. Their power wasn’t designed for it, just like white mages’ power wasn’t designed for spells requiring fast, violent energy. Not that they couldn’t do it; it just required more study and a larger expenditure of magical energy, and even then the results would never be as good as those of the “right” kind of mage for a task. Even with all the power coursing through her from the murder, Trin knew the ward wouldn’t last for long: probably a few days was all she could reasonably expect without refreshing it. That was fine, though: if this took even a single day, they were doing something wrong. All the ward had to do was conceal the girl from any prying magical eyes long enough for them to implement the third and final stage of the plan. It was a good solid ward, and it had to be: if anything went wrong at this stage and the new target brought others in on the game, it would have to withstand the effects of other mages trying to pierce it.
Trin didn’t think the target would, though. The danger was too high, and the possibility of something tragic occurring was too strong. No, she’d play along. She wouldn’t have a choice.
The soldier and the girl arrived a couple hours later, the girl walking confidently in next to her “father.” Trin could tell she was nervous, but she trusted her father enough that it wasn’t until she was inside and surrounded before her suspicions finally became too much to ignore and she allowed her fear to show. Trin, Sam, the soldier, and the others hiding inside the warehouse drank in the exquisite emotion as the little girl at last realized there was nothing she could do and that something had gone terribly wrong. Trin held her suspended in the air and let her hang there for several minutes as the terror sluiced off her in waves. They’d have to get her under the wards soon, but there was no reason not to take
a small reward for how well their efforts had paid off so far.
Trin and Sam exchanged tight smiles. They still couldn’t stand each other, and she knew he’d rather they didn’t have to spend any more time together than necessary, but even so, things were going well. True, this was only the beginning: they still had a long way to go and many variables that could steer the plan down the wrong paths, but for now, everything was performing exactly as expected.
Chapter Seven
Pia Brandt was running late.
The last seminar on her schedule had run over its allotted time, and had been so fascinating she hadn’t looked at her watch until the speaker finally wrapped up his talk and surrendered the podium. By then it was 5:30, and Pia was supposed to meet Mark and Anna back at the hotel room at 5:45 so they wouldn’t be late for their dinner reservation.
She hurried across the street, hoping she could still make it. The hotel was only a block away from the venue where the symposium was being held; if she hurried, she might be able to reach the room on time.
She was sure Mark would scold her for once again losing herself in “that weird stuff you do” and forgetting what time it was, especially since he and Anna would have to leave Disneyland much earlier than she knew her daughter wanted to in order to get back in time. She was glad they’d come along, because she always enjoyed opportunities to spend time with her daughter—between her work at the University and her own magical research, she often didn’t have a lot of spare time for Anna—but she also reluctantly had to admit that she would have gotten more out of the symposium if she’d come on her own, and not have to keep track of anyone else’s schedules. It was only Anna’s deep love for Disneyland that had made Pia relent.
Of course, that meant Mark had to come along, too. That part, Pia wasn’t so pleased about. She and Mark had been drifting apart for the past couple of years, and had both accepted the fact that their marriage was limping along on borrowed time, mostly because neither of them could bear to disappoint their beloved daughter. She was about the only thing the two of them saw eye to eye on these days.
Nothing definitive had driven them apart: no abuse (other than the constant sniping at each other whenever they were tired or stressed), no infidelity (Pia herself didn’t have time for such dalliances, even if she’d been interested, and she was reasonably certain Mark wasn’t getting anything on the side, either), no money troubles or disagreements about how to raise Anna. No, it had simply been a matter of two people who, over a long period, came to the reluctant conclusion that they no longer loved each other.
Still, Mark was a good father and he doted on Anna, so that was a strong point in his favor and probably the largest reason why they were still together. Every time Pia thought about calling her lawyer and initiating proceedings, she’d think about how much Anna’s life would be disrupted if her parents split up, and decide that maybe she could put up with things for a while longer. She just wished Mark wasn’t so touchy all the time. She suspected it had to do with his discomfort with her magical abilities—possibly even jealousy—but any time she tried to bring up the subject, he would change it. He simply refused to discuss it.
Ah, well. They were on a holiday now, and she owed it to Anna to keep things light. If Mark could do it, then so could she. She took the elevator up to their floor, wrestled her key-card from her purse and swiped it in the door. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she called in German, expecting to see the two of them waiting impatiently for her.
The room was empty.
“Mark? Anna?” she called, even though they had a single room with a rollaway bed for Anna and she could see all of it. She checked the bathroom, but it too was undisturbed. The neatly made bed didn’t look like anyone had touched it since the maid had been in; she saw no sign of anything they might have purchased at Disneyland, and Anna’s beloved backpack was nowhere to be seen. That meant they hadn’t been back to the room yet.
Pia slumped into a chair with a sigh. Here she had hurried back so she wouldn’t be late, and they were the ones who were late. They’d probably run into traffic coming back from Disneyland, or simply forgotten about the time. She was sure they’d be there soon—they might miss their reservations, but that wasn’t so bad. There were plenty of restaurants around the area, and Anna would probably be delighted to eat at some disreputable American hamburger place.
Her gaze fell on the small box on the pillow on her side of the bed, with a folded piece of the hotel’s stationery sticking out underneath it. Curious, she went to it. Had the maid left it on the bed? Maybe it was a little box of chocolates or something, compliments of the hotel. She slid the note out (it said Open this first in German on the front) and unfolded it.
It contained only a few brief printed lines, also in German. She stared at it, mouth open and eyes wide. A shot of ice water crept down her spine. The note read:
You are being watched. The phone will ring in a moment. Answer it, but do not speak to anyone else. If you want your husband and your daughter to live, do not disobey. Do not open the box yet.
Shaking, she let the paper fall from nerveless hands. She glanced at the window; the curtains were open, letting in the early-evening sunlight. She quickly closed them and switched on the light on the nightstand, then crossed back to the bed, sank down onto it, and eyed the box. It seemed sinister now.
The harsh electronic buzzing from the phone on the nightstand forestalled her temptation to open it, despite the note’s warning. She looked at it for a moment, afraid, then picked up the receiver with a shaking hand. “Y-yes?”
“Pia. It’s me.” The familiar voice sounded tired, and had an odd edge to it.
She gasped. “Mark?”
“Yes. Please listen, Pia. It’s very important.”
Oh, dear God. “What’s going on, Mark? Anna—”
“They have Anna. They have me, too. They’ve told me they’ll kill us both if you don’t cooperate.”
Cooperate? What did he mean? What could she possibly have that some kidnapper would want? They weren’t wealthy, and neither of them had any connections to wealth or power through relatives or friends. “What—how—”
“Listen,” he said patiently. He sounded exhausted, or perhaps in pain. “You need to take a taxi to the restaurant where we had reservations. Wait at the street corner, near the traffic light. Someone will pick you up there. Do what they tell you, and they promised they’ll let us all go free after.”
“But what do they want, Mark?” she demanded, her voice shaking. “I don’t have anything—”
“Just do it, Pia, please. If not for me, do it for Anna. She’s all right, but she’s very scared.”
Pia closed her eyes, overwhelmed with fear for her beloved daughter, and even for her estranged husband. How had this happened? Why had it happened? And then something occurred to her. She was a mage. If this was somehow related to that—mages could fake things like voices, if they had the expertise. “How do I know it’s really Mark?” she asked, her voice less shaky now. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of horrible trick?”
There was a sound on the other end that might have been a sigh. “Open the box, Pia.”
The pit of Pia’s stomach chilled as she picked up the small box. Her hands shook so hard she could barely keep hold of it. With gentle fingers she pulled up the top flap.
She had to jam one hand into her mouth to keep from screaming when she saw what was inside. Tightening her grip on the box, she stared with wide, frightened eyes at what was nestled in a piece of wadded-up toilet paper.
It was a finger. Not just any finger, either.
A finger she recognized.
Neatly severed at the third joint, it still wore the unusually carved wedding ring she had given him twelve years ago when they had gotten married. It also bore a distinctive crack in the fingernail, left over from when he’d accidentally whacked himself with a hammer while tr
ying to build a dollhouse for Anna. It had never healed right. There was very little blood, only a small amount staining the toilet paper around the severed end.
“Pia? Did you open the box?”
She took a couple of centering breaths. “Oh, Mark. They—they cut off—”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a little husky. “I’m all right, Pia. It hurts, but they fixed it up so it’s not bleeding. They said to look at it your way, so you’d know they aren’t lying.”
Pia knew what he meant by that, of course. She shifted to her magical sight and examined the aura surrounding the finger. It was weak and fading—in a few more hours it would be gone completely—but right now it glowed with the medium shade of cyan blue that was so familiar to her over the years—as familiar as his voice, or the color of his eyes, or the way his forehead crinkled when he laughed.
Moving with slow deliberateness, she closed the box again, shutting the gruesome trophy away from her sight. “Why, Mark?” she whispered. “Why are they doing this? Who are they?”
“I don’t know, Pia.” There was a muffled sound, then he came back on the line. “I can’t talk anymore. Please—do what they say. Go now. Take the note and the box with you. And don’t tell anybody. They’re watching you, Pia. If you tell anyone, they’ll kill us.”
She took a breath. “All right. All right. I’m coming. Tell Anna I’m coming.”
“Thank you, Pia.” And then the line went dead.
For a few moments, Pia could do nothing but sit there on the bed, shaking, trying to get her mind to work properly. She was supposed to be a genius, both in her mundane field and her magical one. She’d always been known for her quick mind. So where was it now? She felt like her brain was packed in the same toilet paper that encased her husband’s severed finger inside the small box.
