17
It was another three days until Terrance got a new Inquisition assigned to him.
This one was west, within the inner wall. That meant he couldn’t stop by the jail to pick up a prisoner; the route was too long to accomplish without suspicion. To perform a rescue he would have to walk out west until out of sight, loop around far enough north or south that he wouldn’t be spotted, pick up the prisoner to the east, retrace his steps back to the west, and then carry out the mission. Far too long a trek, especially for a target so close. Even if nothing went wrong, he would be delayed by at least half an hour, as opposed to the fifteen minutes or so he would be delayed when going north or south (which he could spare).
So he went straight there. Slowly, because he wasn’t looking forward to it.
Who would he kill this time?
Nine out of ten were adolescents. The one he had saved the other day was on the young side of that range. The rest were adults, usually ones who had known their power for quite some time but kept it hidden until it was required. There were slightly more men than women, but not enough to make a big deal out of it.
He paused before the house to study the magical signature. Although emissions were all concentrated around the nose, eyes, and mouth, the whole body took on a slight glow, and each person had a slightly different set of patterns around them while they dissipated magic. A faded magical signature could still be seen when up close, but it wasn’t bright and obvious to other mages like a fresh one was. The stronger the magic and the longer they used it, the longer it took for the signature to fade, and thus the more time there was for an Inquisitor to track you down. However, an Inquisitor could reach anywhere in Nordheim within an hour, and they could track even the most minimal magical usage for two hours or more. There was no escaping.
The magic usage itself was a bright spike, visible to all mages who happened to be looking in that direction- or, if it was strong enough, felt by nearby mages or seen by those without magical powers. It wasn’t blocked by buildings or walls, although it got weaker with distance and it could be obscured by other magical signatures.
This person’s signature was still large and bright when he got to the house. They must have done something big.
It was a middle-aged woman. Her child in her arms, crying. Around her were the bodies of three larger men, whose throats had been crushed.
Terrance wanted to throw up. He’d have to kill this person.
She saw his cloak, knew what was about to happen. Put down the child and told it to run. Then grabbed a knife.
Terrance grabbed magic. Older ones were more dangerous- they’d usually known about their powers for a while, had done some studying, and were in control when they decided to use them. They usually had a reason, something to fight for.
Holding the magic felt good, felt like coming home. He could finally feel complete if he would just… use it.
The woman grabbed magic as well, although her hold on it was laughable compared to what a fully trained Mage could do.
Enhancing your body was one of the easiest and most efficient ways of using magic. You were faster, tougher, stronger- and whoever pulled on more magic had the advantage. Terrance pulled a trickle into his body, and was glad of the months he had spent training his willpower. Everything in him wanted to grab as much of the magic as he could. Instead, he just took out a little more power than the woman was taking.
Still, he pulled out his knife.
She knew she was outclassed, dropped into a natural defensive stance. She had just killed three men, and…
Terrance dropped the knife, dropped the magic… and missed it immediately. He was panting from resisting it.
“Stop,” he said.
She hesitantly slowed her pull on magic, but kept the knife up. “I know what you’re here to do.”
Terrance looked around. No onlookers, good. The magical spike just now could be explained by him taking on three attackers, one of whom was a magic user. That one he would spike. “There’s another way. I can save you.”
“Yea. You can leave and not come back.”
“No. If I do that, they’ll just send another... and punish me. But there’s another way. A safe house. And then you can help me bring down the Mages' Guild.”
She laughed. “Right. You should work on your story a bit. I can see your fucking cloak.”
“We both know I could kill you right now. Easily. It’s not even close.”
“I could scratch ya before I go.”
“Or you could trust me, and not die. Not make your kid an orphan.”
She dropped her guard, but kept the knife in her hand. “What about my husband?”
Right. Some kids had fathers. “We’ll send the kid to him, so he knows both what happened and what we’re going to say happened. But I only have so much time before the other Inquisitors get suspicious.”
He told her as much of the plan as she needed to know. Told her the passcode to the safehouse, since she wouldn’t have a prison guard uniform to identify her. The kid would be sent to where the husband worked to pass on the messages.
Now that she trusted him, he used the device to cleanse her. Thank goodness he kept that on him and not in the guard’s uniform.
Terrance set about arranging one of the intruders. The guy wasn’t alive, and there was no actual magic to cleanse, so the order didn’t really matter- all that mattered was that it looked good. He sliced through one of the arms, bringing it off at the shoulder joint.
The woman was still there, watching him.
“You’re not going to want to watch this,” he said.
She shook her head. “Is this what you’re supposed to do to me?”
He nodded.
“Then I should watch.”
When the last spike went, in all three of them left, never to return.
“I heard you had a battle,” said Johanna. “Big magical spike.”
Terrance hadn’t told anyone outside his group of Inquisitors, and those records weren’t publicized. “Rumors going around?”
“Just to me.”
So she was keeping track of him. She was sweet, in her own way. Her own weird, kind-of-evil way.
Terrance hoped evilness wasn’t one of those things carried in the blood. His own kid being half-evil… he shuddered. But there was hope, since Johanna herself wasn’t nearly as evil as her parents.
“What else are you tracking?”
She shrugged. “Want to feel the baby kick?”
“That far along?”
“He doesn’t do it too often yet, so it’ll take a bit of luck right now.”
“He?”
“I have a feeling.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see.”
A thought crossed his mind- what would happen to the baby when the Mages' Guild fell? Johanna wouldn’t be on the front lines- it would be mostly Inquisitors dying, and even if they dipped into the other Departments they wouldn’t send a pregnant woman or a new mother. Things would look hopeless for the Mages' Guild long before that, and he would be killing first those most likely to ignore the death of innocents.
And then, no one would ever have to die by an Inquisitor’s hand again.
Johanna moved closer and pressed her body against him. In a more gentle way than normal; pregnancy really was changing her. “You thinking about the future?”
“Something like that,” said Terrance.
“Our baby’s gonna be strong. I can feel it.”
“Yea?”
“Yea,” she said. “And he’s going to rule this world.”
Things were slow for the Inquisitors. Not many people using magic, getting cleansed. So it wasn’t until the next week that Terrance’s turn finally came up again.
Eastern. Perfect.
He went through the same steps as the first rescue operation, except this time he didn’t have to go nearly as far out of his way to get the criminal he was about to sacrifice. The only thing harder was the crowds — they
were thick enough to stay solid even around a dirty criminal.
All of a sudden, working his way through the crowd, Terrance smelled something familiar. The girl in front of him… that hair. It was a bit more ragged than he remembered, but…
She turned around. Gasped.
He almost let go of the criminal.
She had a black eye, and her arms were bruised. Her dress was rough and torn. Behind the holes, more bruises.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“I thought you joined the Mages' Guild.”
“I did. Still there. Long story. You…” Her eyes dared him to say more. “Frederick said you were happy.”
“I am,” she spat. “Don’t I look happy?”
He wasn’t sure what to say. She was covered in bruises. If he hadn’t known her so deeply, he wouldn’t have recognized her.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“You don’t look happy.” His voice was dead and neutral from the shock.
“Well it’s better than you ever did for me! I gave you everything, and you were always in your books, always making your plans! And I knew about that girl at the Guild! You didn’t even bother to hide it, you just thought I would stay, forever. And then when I left, you didn’t say a word. You bit your tongue. Concentrated on your work. Because it’s always more important than me.”
“He… he beats you.”
“At least he pays attention to me!”
Terrance stood dumbfounded. This didn’t make sense in the slightest.
Frederick had said she was happy.
“I had a baby,” she said.
She looked at him expectantly. After a while he got the hint. “Whose is it?”
She shrugged. “Nicolas thinks it’s yours. It’s from the between time when a lot of things were happening.”
“The between time?”
“I loved you, but I knew you were going away. And you were seeing someone else too…” Then she started crying. “I protect him, when I can. I protect our baby.”
Terrance held her, as if by instinct. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay…”
She looked at him through her black and tear-stained eyes. “Can you come back?”
“The plan is working, Anne. It’s really working. We’re saving people, and then we’re gonna fight back, and then… then things can go back. We can finally…” He trailed off and looked around.
“What is it?”
“He’s gone. The guy I was escorting…”
“Was he important?”
“Oh fuck.” He frantically scanned the crowd.
“Was he more important than me?”
Terrance breathed deep. Let it out. Spotted the criminal at the edge of the crowd.
It was a wild chase, and it took a couple minutes, but Terrance had all the advantages.
The rest of the operation went without incident.
He saved a girl.
“You told me she was happy.”
Terrance and Frederick were at the same bar as always. Frederick was two deep, but Terrance hadn’t even bothered to get a drink or sit down before confronting his friend.
“Who?”
“Anne.”
“So you ran into her.”
“She was covered in bruises, completely battered. And she has a kid.”
“She thinks it’s yours.”
“And the only thing you told me was that she was happy.”
Frederick set down his beer and got serious. “I did it for your own good. Hers too. She can make her own goddamn decisions, and if you’re too busy to see what’s under your own nose, then, well… I support you.”
“What the hell! You call this support?”
“You want your revenge, I help you get your revenge. Fight the storm. You ignore your girl? I help you ignore your girl. I knew you didn’t want to know. Every little thing you did and said told me you wanted her out of your life, one less complication. Your Mage girl was so much more useful to the plan, so I let you have her without worrying about what’s happening over here. I never really did take to Anne anyways.”
“Fuck. I gotta… is it too late to take her back? She acted like she would do it. I don’t even see Johanna as much these days, so…”
“Listen. You’re saving the world, right? Hundreds of people are counting on you. Thousands, if you think about the future. You threw Anne away for a reason, right? You going to try and salvage her at the cost of thousands of lives?”
Terrance finally sat down, motioned to the bartender. “Something strong.”
18
The three rescues were reading in Wile’s basement, devouring texts on magic and city structure.
“So this is our army so far,” said Terrance.
Wile grinned. “Looking lively already, isn’t it? And that woman, Natalie… she can manage these kids something else. Haven’t been bothered upstairs in the shop since she came here.”
She kind of looked like Anne, but older.
And not battered.
Terrance pulled himself back to the present. Focus. Frederick had said it best: it was her or the world.
“What’s our training schedule look like?” asked Terrance.
“Lots of studying, since that’s easy to schedule. Magical theory. Psychology. City maps, of course, and they go on runs through the city to test their knowledge. In pairs, and never in the part where they grew up or have people they might know— that would be too risky.”
“Good so far.”
“We have grappling three days a week, cleared out a space on the floor for that. Once we get more people we’ll rotate, have the old hands teach the new ones while our volunteer keeps training the best ones. Swords two days a week, using sticks and the same space.”
“Good.”
“And your magic lessons, whenever you get around to it.”
“We still need a space- I don’t want to bring an Inquisitor here, and I don’t want to practice somewhere we might draw attention to ourselves. Can you check if any of our contacts have an abandoned building or something like that? Something on the outskirts of the city is best, so it’ll take them longer to reach it. And I want a second cleansing device, just in case this first one fails.”
“I’ll take care of finding the space. Finding another cleansing device is your deal.”
Terrance nodded.
The boy looked up from his reading. “Does this mean we’re going to do magic soon?”
“I think so,” said Terrance.
“Hans has been bothering me about that ever since I arrived,” said Natalie.
“Better you than me,” said Wile.
“Not that I blame him. Once I felt the pull of magic, it took everything I had not to go back to it. Is it like that for everyone?”
“We spent weeks training how to not fall to it,” said Terrance. “And sometimes Mages still fall.”
Hans scrunched up his face in determination. “We’re going to overthrow the Mages' Guild soon, and the day after that I’m going to run around and use as much magic as I can until I collapse. And then I’m going to sleep and do it all over again.”
Terrance briefly wondered what that would do to a body. He made a mental note to check with some of the old-timers in the Department of Great Works- they didn’t work often, but when they did they would often channel magic for hours at a time.
“And how’s Isabella?” She was the newest one he had rescued- the one for whom he had once again abandoned Anne.
Isabella tried to disappear into her book. She looked about fifteen, bashful and frail of body but sharp of mind. Those were just the first impressions- Terrance had barely spoken to her before he sent her packing to the safe house. How long until the names all began running together?
“She’s still getting used to things,” said Natalie. “And she thinks her boyfriend is going to find someone else if he thinks she’s dead.”
Isabella turned away and burrowed even deeper into her book.
&nb
sp; That fear was tiny compared to everything else he had to deal with, but it was valid. “Wile, can you see what we can do about that? Without compromising security, of course.”
“Yea, yea. First you leave and make me work double, then you make me organize a rebellion. You’re gonna kill me, Terrance.”
“We can bring in someone else.”
“No, no, I can have her write something and then send a runner with the message. We told Natalie’s husband, so it’s only fair.” They knew several kids whose older siblings had been killed by the Mages' Guild and who were willing to do their part. It was a risk giving the locations to so many who hadn’t fully developed, but blood ran strong, and the brutality of the Inquisitors’ methods helped ensure their loyalty. They only gave runner positions to those who had seen an Inquisition with their own eyes.
“Read it first to make sure she’s not giving away any secrets.”
“Will do.”
Terrance scanned the room, checking for any loose ends, and made his preparations to leave. He was almost up the stairs when he heard, for the first time, Isabella’s voice.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Thank you for everything.”
The luck couldn’t hold.
He’d gotten lucky the first time he was sent west on an Inquisition, but he couldn’t count on a lucky situation every time. Not unless he was willing to grab someone from the street as a substitute, and doing that in broad daylight would be tricky to say the least.
So that’s how he found himself in this nice quiet house, murdering a girl of sixteen.
He took off her head first so she wouldn’t suffer, but that didn’t stop the parents from suffering. Didn’t stop the father from running at him suicidally. Terrance merely tripped the man and dragged the girl away from the spot of that quick battle, making sure to keep the man in front of him.
The man made another run at him, and this time Terrance gave him a solid kick to the solar plexus. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
The man gasped on the floor, but spoke as soon as he had caught some breath. “Who… made you… hurt… her?”
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