by Trudi Jaye
She raced down the back steps of the building, trying to make as little noise as possible. Henry met her at the side entrance, pulling her into a quick kiss that had her blood pumping in seconds despite the desperate situation. Lightning surged along their bodies for a second, and then they pulled apart. She gasped for breath, trying to find her rational center again.
“We have to hurry. He’s only given me five minutes. You didn’t tell me he was a persuasion talent,” said Henry all in one breath.
Fee scrunched up her nose. “What’s a persuasion talent?”
“That explains that,” said Henry taking off at a run, pulling Fee behind him. He entered the building where everything was set up. She crashed into his back seconds later as he came to an abrupt halt.
“You didn’t think we’d let you have it all your way, did you Henry?” said David, holding a hand gun directly at Henry’s chest.
Fee took a panicked breath, and looked around the small room. Their escape route was blocked by David, but they needed him out of here for the whole plan to work—unless they were going to kill David as well. Fee didn’t know if she could have another death on her conscience.
But the gun he was holding directly at Henry hardened her resolve. She would do anything it took to survive this encounter, including killing David. He had tried to hurt them on multiple occasions, hadn’t he?
“What are you doing, David? I thought we had a plan?” said Henry, obviously trying to buy them some time.
“You didn’t think we believed you, did you? Falling Leaf might be a Great Witch Hunter, but even he knows that sometimes people can be tricked.”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit.” Henry tightened his grip on Fee, and dragged her in front of him, as if he was forcing her to come around. “You can have her, for all I care.” He gave her an intent look, trying to tell her something.
Even though Fee knew and understood it was part of some kind of plan he was hatching, she felt a burst of fear. He sounded like he meant it. She’d never realized her father had been a murderer all those years. What made her think she could trust her instincts with Henry?
Henry pushed Fee further out into the middle, toward David and his gun, and she gave a small moan. She didn’t know what Henry’s plan was, but being in the sights of David’s gun was more than she could bear. “What made you do it, David?” she asked, more to distract herself than him. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You stole my life from me, you and your kind.”
Fee frowned. “How did I do that?”
“You were right. I had a fiancée. We loved each other, couldn’t wait to be together for the rest of our lives. Then I turned eighteen, and everything changed. I was told of my duty to the Witch Hunters. I was given a mission to hunt you down. They placed tracking magic on me, and set me off into the world. All they knew was that you could make robots and that you’d gone to college. I didn’t realize how long it would take. Even when I met you at Callaghan, five years into my mission, I wasn’t completely sure it was you. Your hair was different, much lighter, your nose not quite the same as the photos I had of you. Your eyes were a different color. You didn’t seem to use magic. So I waited.”
“You waited all that time to make sure it was me?”
“Yes,” spat David. “And while I was waiting, doing my duty for my country, my fiancée found someone else.”
“Oh, David. I’m sorry.” And Fee really meant it. She could see how it had hurt David, how heartbroken he must have been.
“You should be sorry. It was your fault. I would have married her and had children by now. Instead, I’m here with no one. Nothing.” David’s face was a mask of anger.
“But can’t you see? You’ve made another life for yourself. You have friends, Nolan and Eugene. You’re good at what you do,” said Fee desperately, trying to make him understand, when a part of her knew he never would. “It’s not my fault you had to leave your fiancée.”
“It’s your fault, because your evil nature makes it necessary for people like me to hunt you down and kill you.”
“I’m not evil, David. Can’t you see? That’s the point. It’s not necessary to hunt me down, because I’m just an ordinary person who wouldn’t hurt a fly. You know that, you’ve worked with me for all these months.”
Fee could see David wavering for a split second. Then his face hardened, and he aimed the gun at her face.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing you would say. You’re just trying to save your skin.”
“Did you mean for Eugene to be hurt?” asked Fee quietly. “Did he do something against you as well?”
David blinked and took a step back. “He raced up there before I could stop him. The damn fool was trying to save Violet.”
“All that work on Violet. Was that all fake?”
David shook his head. “I enjoy working on computers. That was the one good thing to come out of leaving home. I’ve been able to learn far more than I would ever have learned if I’d stayed there.”
“Doesn’t that mean something? That you’ve expanded your horizons? Do you even still love this girl?” Fee knew the words were a mistake as soon as they left her mouth.
David’s eyes hardened again, and he took a step toward them again. “She is the love of my life. Don’t you dare speak about her.” He levelled the gun at her chest. “Your father wants you alive so he can question you, but I think I might just serve you up cold.”
Fee squeezed her hands tight, wondering what would happen if she just whacked the pistol out of his hand. He didn’t look like he knew an awful lot about using a gun. But at that moment, Henry crashed a large iron bar around David’s head, saving her the trouble.
David crumpled to the floor in front of her, his gun clattering off to one side.
Fee raced over to the gun and picked it up experimentally.
“Don’t point that in my direction,” said Henry holding up a hand as if to protect himself.
“I’m tempted to shoot you after the way you gave me up to him just then,” said Fee, only half joking.
“It was all part of the plan, Fee. I would never give you up.” His words were tossed casually over his shoulder as he pulled David’s unconscious body over to the exit. Fee didn’t know why her heart was beating so fast. He didn’t mean the words in the way she really wanted him to mean them.
***
Henry struggled to get David’s body as close to the door as humanly possible, without him actually being outside it. He was going to have to put something over him to protect him from the blast that was about to rock the small room. He didn’t want to be responsible for David’s death, not when the poor guy was little more than a pawn in a wider game. A stupid pawn, but a pawn nonetheless.
Fee’s father, however, was a target he’d like to take out. Henry sighed. Not something he would be able to work on today. Not if they wanted to get out of here alive.
From outside, he heard the sound of more vehicles arriving in a rush. Hopefully, their other visitors had just arrived.
The sound of a loudspeaker confirmed Henry’s hopes.
“This is the FBI. Come out with your hands up.”
“Is that the agent you called?” asked Fee from where she was waiting for him by the tunnel.
“Sounds like him. He’s a bit peeved about the gun and the badge.”
“How did you even...” Fee glanced to his shirt pocket as a little mechanical face popped up and chattered at her. “Oh.”
“It wasn’t exactly my choice. But he did me a favor in the end, and he was the one who saved me from the Witch Hunters at the hospital.”
Fee just nodded, her eyes huge in her face. She looked dirty and exhausted... but determined.
“It’ll be over soon. Just help me put these shelves in front of David, and then we’ll set it all off.”
They pushed the small wooden shelves over beside David. “Will it protect him?” asked Fee.
“I think so. And if it doesn�
�t... well he probably deserves it for hurting Eugene.”
Fee glanced down at David. “I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he’s just chosen a bad path.”
“Come on. We have to get this done.”
Henry went over to the window, and crouched down. He pressed a button on the old tape recorder they’d found, and it started to play the tape inside.
“We’ll never give up,” yelled Henry’s voice from the tape deck.
“Come out with your hands up, and you won’t get hurt,” said the voice on the loudspeaker, this time recognizably Franklin’s voice.
Henry grinned, and his taped answer came back on cue. “You can’t make us!”
“Come on, let’s go,” he whispered, and half pushed Fee into the small opening in the far wall.
They crawled into the tunnel, and Henry shut and locked the heavy door behind them. The critters, the kleptomaniac and Bing lit the way and Fee started crawling along the tunnel ahead of Henry.
He followed, thinking over the next step in their plan. They made it to a crossroads in the tunnel. “Okay, Fee. Stop here a moment. I need to set it off.”
She paused, half turning to watch what he was doing. Henry pulled out the small remote control they’d fashioned earlier, placing one finger on the solitary button. He glanced up at Fee. “There’s no going back from here. We’re dead from this moment on.”
“Do it,” she whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The tunnel shuddered around them, and bits of earth dusted their bodies. Fee had a momentary vision of the tunnel collapsing, and her breathing became ragged. She closed her eyes.
“Let’s keep moving,” said Henry, the same thoughts clearly running through his head.
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her, and started crawling through the tunnel again. It seemed forever before she saw the little wooden door that marked their exit. She let out a sigh of relief, and her movements sped up until she touched the door, hesitating.
“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked.
“As it ever will be. The others should still be sifting through the wreckage, helping David and trying to find us.”
Fee took a breath and opened the door. Bright sunlight made her scrunch up her eyes for a second and she blindly crawled forward into the small room at the far end of the fairground, in the staff-only section. Opening up her eyes a sliver, she looked around, trying to make sure it was the right room, looking for the supplies they’d stored here earlier.
“Ah, here you are. Finally,” said her father, his smooth voice mocking.
Fee jumped back, but it was too late. Falling Leaf grasped her arm in a tight grip, and he pulled her up and out of the tunnel. Henry crawled out and stood beside her.
“You didn’t think I would believe you so easily, did you?” asked her father. “Your whole plan was a little too predictable.”
“Let go of her,” Henry said softly, his voice menacing.
“There’s no point in keeping her all neat and tidy. She’ll be dead soon anyway.”
Henry moved forward with a suddenness that astounded Fee. He punched her father in the face, and had his arm in a stranglehold until he let go of Fee. As soon as she felt her father’s grip loosen, she pulled away, turning back to the fight.
It was over before it began. Another man, one of the others who had arrived with her father, stepped out of the shadows with a gun pointed directly at Henry’s head.
“Stop now or I will blow your head off,” he said.
Henry paused in punching her father, one arm held ready. He glanced back at Fee and she shook her head slightly. She had David’s gun, but she didn’t know how to use it properly. In this kind of gunfight, she’d lose every time. They needed surprise on their side for them to have a chance.
Stepping back, Henry shook his hand, as if trying to flick away the pain of punching someone in the head. His face was grim, and he was trying to keep an eye on both men at the same time, his gaze flicking between them.
“Not a very well-thought-out plan, I have to say,” said her father. He tutted and shook his head. “I thought you might have more in you than this.”
Fee’s hand tightened into a fist, and she wished she’d taken more of a look at David’s gun. How hard could it be to shoot someone?
“What are you going to do with us?” she asked.
“Thanks to the police who have just turned up, we are going to hide here for a while. Then I am going to take you both with me back to the farm. We have a special ceremony for magic users like you, Wild Feather. Something to get the taint of your bad magic off me.”
“You’ve got your own bad magic all over you,” said Fee. She glanced at the man with the gun. “Do your followers know that you use magic? That you’re far more powerful than I am?”
“They know magic users often try to cause a rift between Witch Hunters, and they should ignore anything they say at a time like this.”
“What if I could prove it?” said Fee, talking directly to the other man now.
His gaze wavered and he glanced over to her father. “How?” he said.
“Silence! You know better than to engage with a magic user,” said her father sharply.
“There have been whispers. Talk of your magic use. If she can prove it...” The man shrugged, his eyes sharp on Fee.
“How dare you!” Without warning, Fee’s father leaped onto the other man, and smashed his head against a metal pole. He grabbed for the gun, and without hesitation, shot the man in the chest at point blank range. Blood splattered out and hit her father, providing a gruesome spatter across his face and chest.
Fee screamed, immediately putting her hand over her mouth to cover the sound. Henry scrambled over to Fee, and put his hand out. “The gun,” he whispered.
She pulled the gun from her jacket pocket and handed it to him, her eyes on her father as he stood over the dead man. Henry had the gun safely hidden by the time her father turned.
“Now we can talk openly, Wild Feather. Yes, I do have power. I have far more than you will ever know in your paltry life. And killing you will give me more power than I can describe.” He smiled, and Fee could almost see the power crackling along his skin.
“You use curse magic?” asked Henry calmly.
“You know of it? Yes, I am able to gather power through the deaths of other magic users. I cannot begin to explain the power I will receive from Wild Feather. She was born with one true purpose—to be the source of my future power.”
Fee shuddered. It had been one thing to believe her father had some kind of belief in a higher power, that he was doing what he was doing for the greater good. To learn that he was simply doing it for power was a whole other lesson.
“Don’t you have to be related or connected to the people you kill to gather power from them?” asked Henry. Fee glanced at him, trying to see if he was genuinely interested, or if this was another delaying tactic. He was watching her father like a hawk. A hawk waiting for its chance to strike.
“It’s true that a greater power is gathered from people I know or am related to. But I have found certain... methods... over the years that have enabled me to gather maximum power from the Witch Hunter experience.”
Fee shivered. “Why are you with them, if you don’t believe in their purpose?” she asked softly.
“It gives me an excuse to kill,” her father answered simply. “Very often they provide the names and places, and all I have to do is turn up.” He took a deep breath, as if smelling roses. “It’s the most wonderful thing in the world, to have minions gathering your kills for you, and then protecting you from the consequences.”
Fee looked at her father as if he was an insect she was studying under a microscope. How had this man raised her? How had she not seen him for what he was?
She shook her head. They had to remember that this man was very, very clever. He’d been hiding in plain sight all these years.
***
Henry stood as clos
e to Fee as he could, ready to dive in front of her if her father decided to shoot her right then and there. The gun in his pocket felt heavy, but reassuring. They had some means for fighting back against this maniac.
Outside he could hear the police and FBI rushing about, trying to find survivors in the explosion. They’d clearly found David, and from the excited shouts, he was still alive.
He’d underestimated Fee’s father, and his abilities. He glanced at Fee. And his desire to get the powerful curse magic from killing his own daughter.
Henry tightened his fist. That wasn’t going to happen. They’d taken precautions in case something happened at this end of the tunnel as well.
The room itself was an old storeroom, filled with the kind of things that were magical to him, but considered junk by most other people. Shelves of machine parts, old engines, broken down bits of the rides, cables, and anything else they’d thought to keep, but had no immediate use for. There had obviously been a hoarder in this particular Carnival.
The tiny explosion they’d planted would tip over several of the shelves on one side of the room; therefore, all they needed to do was get Fee’s father over there and set off the explosion.
Simple really.
Oh, and once the explosion went off, the police outside would come running to this room, so they had to escape before anyone else saw them. Henry’s head was spinning with the many ways this could all go wrong. But they had to try.
“You can stop whatever it is you’re planning now, Henry. My magic will hold out over any puny little thing you have in mind. You can’t imagine what it is like to be a creature of magic. It is so very much more than the mere mortal experience.”
Henry nodded calmly. So he didn’t suspect that Henry was a ‘creature of magic’ as well. Even better. “I wasn’t planning anything.”
