Heists and Homicides

by Lily Webb

  At last, the other side of the pit came into view and though I wanted to run the rest of the way, I didn’t dare risk it. I’d made it this far by being cautious, and it wouldn’t pay to be anything other than that now. I glanced over my shoulder and sighed in relief when I didn’t see Ash or Xander behind me, though that didn’t mean they weren’t there. The flames could easily have swallowed them the same way, blocking them from view.

  When my feet met the stone landing on the other side of the fire, I let out the breath I’d been holding and charged for yet another set of stairs that wound down further into the darkness. I had no idea if the voice I’d heard that led me through the fire was part of the trap or if it was something else entirely, but it’d helped me, there was no denying it.

  I grew dizzy and winded as I huffed down the stairs, a set that was much smaller this time. I entered a room that seemed to be completely submerged, though the wetness didn’t touch me. It was like walking through an underwater tunnel at an aquarium as I wandered the lengthy, narrow stretch of the pathway.

  Glittering in a light that seemed to have no source, objects I couldn’t identify drifted trapped in bubbles above me. Creatures I’d never seen in my life zipped overhead, half fish, half human. Did mermaids exist in Moon Grove too, or was it part of the illusion? Better question, was this an illusion at all?

  I reached the end of the path and came to a locked door. No matter how much I turned the knob and tried to shove it open, it wouldn’t budge. Then it occurred to me that there must be a key somewhere in the scene. The only problem was that I had no way to get to it.

  Cautiously, I walked to the edge of the aquatic dome and stroked a finger along it. To my amazement, the wall of the dome rippled as if I’d dragged my finger across the surface of a lake. It wasn’t a wall at all — I was in an air bubble of sorts. After making sure there was nothing waiting to snap my hand off in the water, I got brave and decided to push things.

  I took a series of deep breaths and plunged my hand into the wall, then pulled back inside just as fast. Water dripped from my fingers and I chuckled. Squinting, I looked up to hunt for the key that had to be hiding somewhere. But there were hundreds of bubbles floating all around, and there was no way I’d be able to find it before Ash and Xander caught up to me.

  “Pay attention to the light,” the disembodied voice from before whispered and I jumped. Helping me once could’ve been a coincidence, but twice? Still wary it was a trap, I stayed close to the door as I scanned the bubbles floating all around me.

  Something bright caught my eye directly above and I gasped when my eyes focused on it: an old iron key with three prongs. But it was several hundred feet up in the water. I was never the world’s greatest swimmer, and could barely hold my breath for more than thirty seconds at a time. How was I supposed to get to the key before I drowned?

  That was probably the point. If only I knew some sort of spell to let me breathe underwater, but I didn’t know if such a thing existed.

  A sound like glass shattering tore through the tunnel and I whipped my gaze to the end to find a trickle of water pouring in. How was that possible? If I was isolated in a pocket of air, it shouldn’t have been able to crack.

  But crack it did, and water gushed inside, quickly filling up the tunnel. Panicked, I retreated from the rushing water while trying to think of what to do. Within seconds, the water had reached my knees; I didn’t have much time left to think. With my heart hammering, threatening to choke me before I even went underwater, I took a series of deep breaths and on the last one I threw myself shoulder first into the translucent wall of the tunnel.

  I tumbled through the water like a ragdoll. Seaweed and other underwater flora clawed at me as I rolled. The bubbles of air scattered and I almost screamed when I realized I’d lost track of the key.

  But movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention and I panicked when I turned upward to see a mermaid zooming toward the key, its tail fin cutting through the water like butter. I had to get there before the mermaid did, but I didn’t stand a chance.

  Desperate, and without thinking, I kicked my legs and flailed my arms as hard as I could. I moved through the water at what felt like a glacial pace, all while watching the mermaid get perilously close to the key. A surge of adrenaline coursed through me.

  Still kicking and flailing, I cried out when the mermaid’s arm extended, mere feet away from the only thing that could save me. I reached for it myself, as if it would make any difference, and remembered I was holding my wand. I wasn’t sure if magic would work underwater, but it was my only shot.

  “Devoco!” I gurgled, spilling bubbles from my mouth. At first, nothing happened, but just as the mermaid began to close its fingers around the key, it shot through the water like a torpedo in my direction. The mermaid flipped around like an Olympic swimming champion and kicked its powerful fin to chase after the key.

  Tugging my wand through the water as if it would make the key move any faster, it kept coming, the mermaid just behind it, and I realized I needed to get closer to the door if I was going to open it without being caught by the mermaid and drowned.

  I pushed my arms backward, never taking my eyes off the key, hoping I was moving in the right direction. Like a heat-seeking missile, the key followed me, intent on getting to my hands. I kept kicking and pushing through the water backwards until my spine collided with the door, which murmured its disapproval.

  The key stopped just in front of my face. I snatched it and whirled around to jam it into the lock. With my lungs screaming for air, I turned the key and rammed my shoulder into the door, but it didn’t budge. Terrified, I glanced over my shoulder and saw the neon yellow, slitted eyes of the mermaid hurtling toward me, its hands reaching for my throat.

  Screaming out the last of the air in my lungs, I kicked the door as hard as I could and it flew open, sucking me inside along with the water. I rolled across a cold stone floor, and when I sat up in a puddle of water, the door was gone along with the mermaid, replaced by a solid stone wall.

  “What the…?” I choked as I sucked down heaving gulps of air.

  Opposite the wall, there was nothing but darkness. No stairs, no pillars, nothing. The black was so complete that it seemed to be alive, breathing along with me as I heaved.

  “Hello?” I asked and my voice echoed out into infinity throughout the darkness, never bouncing back to me. I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there, but I had to keep moving. It wasn’t likely that Ash and Xander were far behind me, assuming they’d survived their underwater trial as well.

  I forced myself to my feet, my robes squelching and sopping as I walked to the edge of the darkness. It retreated like a scared animal as I reached out to touch it. I took another step forward and the darkness moved with me so I was never outside the light.

  With a new sense of confidence, after having survived fire and water, I strolled forward into the darkness, knowing I could never fully prepare myself for whatever waited inside anyway. With my eyes closed, I stood for a moment, trying to sense what was around me, but nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes and lost my breath when I realized the darkness had wrapped itself around me. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand in front of my face when I held it up. Amazingly, my wand had survived along with me and hadn’t gotten broken in the fall I’d taken into this room. I beat it against my leg, desperate for it to do, well, anything that would help.

  “Why can’t you just light up or something?” I snapped and as if it heard me the tip of the wand ignited, beating back the shadows, which screeched like a wounded demon as they retreated. The light wasn’t much, but it gave me a radius of about three feet where I could see all around me — but there wasn’t anything but the stone floor that came into view.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I sighed, staring at my wand and the blindingly bright point of light at its tip. “Wait a second, are you what’s been talking to me?”

  No answer came, so I shrugged and
tiptoed further into the darkness. After what seemed an eternity, I stopped in frustration. How had I walked this far and not come across anything? I considered turning back, but wasn’t sure what good that would do me either. If anything, it would just get me further lost in the blackness.

  A low rumble shook the floor and rattled my heart in its rib cage. I jolted and looked all around, but saw nothing. Where had the noise come from and what was it? I held my wand high to cast its light as far as it could reach and screamed when a scaled tail slithered from the light into the darkness.

  The rumble returned, increasing until it became a roar and a gust of air forced me to the ground, sending my wand scattering. On hands and knees I desperately clawed my way back to it and had just wrapped my fingers around the wood when what sounded like beating wings filled my ears and forced me onto my stomach.

  Something massive soared overhead, the air coming off it like that of a helicopter, and I didn’t dare look. Instead, I laid there trembling, not at all sure what it was stalking me in the darkness.

  “Move,” the whisper said. It hadn’t led me astray yet, so I jumped to my feet and started running as fast as my legs would carry me. Stone floor and walls flashed in the light from my wand as I sprinted and my voice choked as tears seized me.

  A new roar tore through the seemingly endless hall I ran down and I ran faster, my heart pumping so furiously I feared it might give out. A blast of air licked at my back and I screamed when I looked over my shoulder to find a black and green dragon with its mouth wide open, revealing hundreds of teeth as tall as I was, each of them so sharp they could’ve torn through flesh and bone.

  I kept running, even as a spark of light appeared inside the dragon’s mouth. It couldn’t have been more than thirty feet away from me, and if it unleashed a stream of fire, it would cook me to death on the spot. Desperate, I ran even faster, despite the screaming of pain in my muscles and joints.

  A wave of heat gushed through the tunnel and a scream formed in the back of my throat as I anticipated the searing fire from the dragon to rake over me, but the scream was stolen from my mouth when I shot over the edge of the pathway. Air roared in my ears as I tumbled, head over heels, and the fire from the dragon’s mouth flashed somewhere in the blur.

  “Fly, Zoe,” the voice commanded and as if on autopilot my brain snapped into action. “Volito!” I screamed and whimpered as my body jolted to a halt in midair, nearly knocking the wind out of me from the force.

  When I regained my sense of what was up and down, I looked overhead and shuddered as the dragon’s scaled, horrific body glided over the hole I’d fallen down. When it passed, a speck of light took its place, but it was impossible to tell how far away it was. I glanced down and saw nothing but blackness. Given the choices, it was obvious what I needed to do.

  I willed myself upward and amazingly, my body moved through the air as if it was designed to do so. The speck of light above grew larger with each passing second and I zipped through out of the hole and past the dragon again without it noticing I was there.

  I climbed for what seemed like forever until finally I rushed into blinding light and found myself in a cavernous room crowned by stalactites and stalagmites. In the center, suspended in midair and gleaming in a single beam of light, a heart-shaped necklace taunted me. Its golden chain glinted in the light and the vivid ruby-red center seemed to call to me.

  Merlin’s Heart. It had to be. And now that I had evidently learned to fly — maybe Professor Tempest’s humiliation was worth something after all — all I would have to do was float over and take it.

  But somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d almost died since descending into the bank’s vault, so there was almost certainly something protecting the necklace, and some sort of trap that would trigger if I managed to get to it.

  “Take it, they’re coming,” the whisper said, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Did it mean Ash and Xander were hot on my trail? Did they know about the mermaid and the dragon and the darkness all along so they were prepared for it? Or were they just as surprised as I was?

  I decided not to wait to find out. I lurched forward and soared through the air toward the necklace. As I approached, I reached out to grab it and breathed a sigh of relief when my fingers closed around the golden chain — and nothing happened. The necklace hummed in my hands, vibrating magical energy as I held it.

  “Zoe!” Someone shouted and I turned in the air to find Ash and Xander standing at the lip of the cave, their wands drawn and pointed at me. How had they ended up here without me noticing? Maybe the vault had several different paths for intruders to follow?

  “Give it to me! Evanesco!” Ash called, and before his magic could steal the necklace from my hands, I pushed upward, zooming higher toward the source of the light. I had no idea what waited at the end of the increasingly narrow tunnel I was barreling down, but it had to be better than whatever waited for me at the end of Ash’s wand.

  “Stop!” Ash screamed and I glanced down. Both he and Xander were right behind me, zipping through the air the same way I was. Panicked, I willed myself to move faster and clutched Merlin’s Heart like my life depended on it.

  “Interficio!” Ash shouted and I barrel rolled through the air as a killing curse barely missed me. It zoomed past and disappeared in the light that continued to open like a mouth waiting to swallow me. My heart screamed in my chest as I pushed my body and my magic to their limits, zigging and zagging to dodge the spells that Ash and Xander flung from behind me.

  And then I came tumbling out through the vault door and crashed into the marble floor, where I rolled for several feet until something hard and sturdy stopped me. Panicked, I flailed to get away.

  “Zoe? Zoe! It’s me, it’s okay,” a familiar voice said and when I looked up I almost started crying. It was Heath, surrounded by FBI agents in their black robes and just as many medics.

  I clutched the necklace to my chest, still not sure I could let my guard down — what if this was another one of the vault’s tricks? — until Heath crouched down and rested a hand on my shoulder, his warm eyes searching me.

  “They’re right behind me, they’re coming, you have to stop them,” I blurted, crazed.

  “Who’s coming?”

  “Ash and Xander, they’re the robbers, they're murderers,” I said. “They’re going to kill me for this necklace.” No sooner had I gotten the words out than first Ash and then Xander rocketed out of the vault door — and into the magical netting the FBI agents had weaved in front of the entrance.

  “No, they’re not going to kill anyone,” Heath said. He stuck his hand out for the necklace and I handed it to him, never more grateful to be free of something in my life. Heath threw his arms around me and held me as I struggled to come to grips with everything.

  Against all the odds, I was safe. The necklace was too, and Ash and Xander were never going to be able to hurt anyone again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stepped outside the Moon Grove Messenger’s offices and basked in the glory of the afternoon sun. It’d been almost a week since my ordeal in the vaults of the bank, but sometimes when I closed my eyes I still felt like I was trapped inside its darkness.

  I shook the thought away and walked north on Crescent Street to head home, happy to be calling it quits on the end of another long week. After news got out about the incidents in the bank, I’d had to work extra hard to make sure the secret of Merlin’s Heart didn’t leak out to the wider press.

  It was easier said than done, though. The story we ended up running with was that Xander and Ash were after the extensive amounts of money locked in the vaults of the bank, and nothing more than that. Still, people found it hard to believe there had been such a confrontation over something so insignificant.

  I was just glad it was over.

  My phone buzzed in my bag as I walked, and when I pulled it out I froze. A number I didn’t recognize appeared on the screen
and I wrestled with whether or not I wanted to answer it. In the end, as usual, my curiosity won out.

  “Hello, this is Zoe Clarke,” I said.

  “Hi, Zoe, it’s Heath,” Heath’s warm voice carried across the line, as welcoming and friendly as the setting sun in the sky.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low. I hadn’t spoken to him much since we caught Ash and Xander, though I knew that was on purpose. People might think it suspicious if he and I stayed in regular contact, and he probably had a lot on his plate anyway.

  “Yes, everything’s just peachy, all things considered,” he said. “Are you busy? I’d like to meet up with you to go over everything. I know we haven’t had a chance to do that yet.”

  “I was actually just on my way home from work. Did you want to meet now?”

  “Would that be okay?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I said. I’d wondered for days what would become of the necklace and the thieves who’d attempted to steal it. If anyone would know all the juicy details, it was Heath. “Where can I find you?”

  “Meet me over at number seven on Moonbeam Lane,” Heath said and I racked my brain to try to remember where that was.

  “Wait, isn’t that house abandoned?” I asked. Raina lived in number three, and until recently her sister, Circe, had lived in number twelve on the same street. I’d walked past number seven several times, but it was always overrun with weeds and generally neglected.

  “What better place to talk about top-secret things?” Heath asked and I saw his twinkling eyes in my mind.

  “Are you already there?”

  “I am.”

  “Okay, I’m only a few blocks away, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.

  “See you shortly,” he said and hung up. It was more than a little bizarre to me that he’d want to meet me in an abandoned house, but I understood the need for secrecy. After all, we were dealing with a cross community magical emergency until recently, and aside from the Council and Raina, I was the only one who knew about it.