“She used a goddamned spell, Malek. Can’t leave transmogs in the field. It’s policy.”
“I understand, Charles, but if you’ll just—”
“No.” King hammered the table, sending folders and pens leaping into the air. “Listen up, rookie: I’m not ‘Charles.’ To you, I’m Director King. And there’s no ‘just.’ I told you, I’m calling it.”
“Need I remind you the bounty on Foxcroft is twenty million,” Malek said coolly. He absently fingered his watch, twisting a dial around the face. “And Scotland Yard is offering thirty million—pounds, not dollars. I’m willing to bet some interested parties might even venture a bid higher than that. If you and I find him before The Agency does—privately, quietly—it could be quite the profitable venture.”
A calmness overtook King’s graveled voice. It sounded like a strained attempt to collect himself, avoiding a full-blown screaming fit. “I’m going to make this crystal clear: I’m not a bounty hunter, and I’m sure as hell not a mercenary. What you’re suggesting is treason. We’re not going into business for ourselves, and we’re not cutting this girl loose to serve our own purposes. I’m calling this in, and then you’re going to face a disciplinary hearing.”
Malek twisted the watch again.
Click. Click. Click.
“A hearing won’t be necessary,” he said evenly. “You’re going to allow Calista to go about her business as if this inconvenient little run-in had never happened. And you and I never had this conversation.”
King’s eyes trailed down to Malek’s wrist. “Wait, are you actually trying to use that shit on me?”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Malek pushed himself away from the table. “This room is warded against Fox Tech, isn’t it?”
A nasty vein danced on King’s forehead. “Forget the hearing. You’re finished, pal. I’m taking this straight to the Secretary. When he hears about your attempt to use techno-alchemy on a supervising officer, he’ll nail your balls to the wall so fast your head will—”
King’s sentence came to a stuttering halt when Malek threw open his jacket, reached under his armpit, and pulled out his gun with a fluid, elegant motion. Malek’s expression never changed. And King’s head whiplashed like a high-speed collision when the bullet sailed through his skull.
A spatter of crimson painted the wall behind him, and a drop dotted Calista’s cheek. The Director’s rotund body pitched back in his chair, teetered, and then righted itself. He was still seated, sagging off-kilter.
The shell casing bounced off the floor, and Calista screamed. It was the same moment that Malek was thrown violently against the wall, pinned by four sharp tendrils.
The spires had lanced their prey so suddenly that Calista didn’t feel the burning sensation that warned they were about to unleash. Malek’s arms twitched, legs swaying limply like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.
Oh god. Not again. Calista fell to her knees, sobbing, clutching her chest to make sure her soul hadn’t tumbled out. Her tattoo refused to retract, and she didn’t know how to make it.
The horror shuddered through her like an electrical current. I can’t take this anymore, she thought. The death, the dismemberment … she couldn’t continue to bear witness to this perverse carnival of destruction. She felt responsible for it; like she was the catalyst, inviting chaos to rain down, swallowing everything around her. She wanted to vindicate her mother and avenge her friend, but was it worth losing herself in the process? She’d stumbled into a pit that seemed endless, like she could continue this downward spiral into oblivion, never making contact with solid ground.
It hurt that badly. To know it was over.
She couldn’t clean up this mess, and she couldn’t hide what she’d done. But she wasn’t even sure that’s what she did want. Maybe the safest place for her was a dank, remote prison cell, or better yet, some sci-fi containment device the government had no doubt constructed for when a freak with a murderous tattoo goes on a killing spree. Maybe she wasn’t so different from the North Valley Killer.
Calista forced her stinging eyes shut. “I am not a murderer,” she whispered. She said it again, louder, and once again, louder still, increasing her volume to a deafening roar. She pounded the tiled floor with both fists until she thought her knuckles would shatter from the impact. “I AM NOT A MURDERER!”
“No, you’re not,” said a strained voice, but with the most pleasant British accent. “Though you’ve most definitely slain my custom-fitted Armani.”
When Calista’s eyes snapped open the inky tendrils retracted into her back, releasing Agent Malek from the wall. He landed on his feet with surprising dexterity, she thought—especially for a corpse.
“I don’t know why I even bother anymore.” He frowned at the inoperable damage to his jacket. Three of the spikes had impaled his chest, tearing ragged holes in his suit, while a fourth severed his jugular. The wound had mended. The spurting blood that pumped from the gash ceased instantaneously, like the swift counter-clockwise turn of a faucet. She’d read about healing spells in the grimoire, but this was something else entirely; there were no sigils involved, or ink, or blood, or a single word he needed to incant. Malek regenerated in real-time and the pain never even registered on his face.
She glanced at the dead man in the chair. He was missing the back of his cranium, eyelids stretched wide. The bullet hole between them was vanishingly small, especially considering the horrific exit wound.
“Why did you do it?” Calista said. She wasn’t sure why she asked the question.
“I had to make a split-second decision.” Malek knelt to collect the shell casing and scoop his gun off the floor. “Eliminate a murderous scoundrel, or allow him to take you into custody. Not the most difficult call I’ve ever made. And believe me, he’d have killed you. Not directly, but taking you in would have assuredly been a death sentence.”
“What … what did—”
“Listen,” Malek interrupted. He tucked his weapon into his holster and pocketed the casing. “I’m sure you’d like to prattle on about your feelings, and I wish I could oblige. Although time, as it happens, is of the essence.”
She hugged herself, unable to tear her eyes from King’s body. She hoped it would spring back to its feet as well. “You shot him. In the face.”
“Wonderfully astute observation. The Hawthorne Academy is doing a smashing job. Although I wouldn’t have had to shoot him if you’d unleashed that sigil of yours a few moments earlier. It would’ve made for a much tidier crime scene. Now I’m going to have to dispose of King’s body and report that he was absent when I arrived.” He folded his arms, shaking his head at the corpse with tragic disappointment.
“You wanted me to kill him?”
“Of course,” he said offhandedly. “Well, not you, exactly, but your sigil. I could’ve painted this as a rogue transmog attack, and it would’ve fit the narrative quite nicely. Why do you think I was saying those dreadful things about your mother? Inexperienced transmogs tend to lash out under stress.”
Malek circled the table, and with a swift kick he knocked King’s body from the chair. It flopped to the grimy floor and rolled, landing face down. He pulled out the seat and offered it like a waiter at a restaurant.
Bile rose in her throat at the notion of taking the dead man’s seat. She shuffled back a step.
“Suit yourself.” Malek reclaimed his place, seated as casually as when Calista had first arrived. “I always suspected you were in league with Jackson. He was the original target. He met other Scriveners online, but spells are usually traded in person, or through the mail. Some unusual parcels sent to his address raised a red flag at Langley, and things went badly when we attempted to bring him in.”
“You killed him?” Her hands flew to her mouth.
“Not me. It was another agent, and I assure you it was unintentional. Look, we only have about …” he turned over his wrist and checked his champagne-colored watch, “nine minutes until local law enforcement arrives. Even in this
neighborhood, there’s an excellent chance someone rang the police after hearing the gunshot. This body can’t be here when they arrive, and neither can we, so I must insist we stick to a few essential details.”
Malek plucked a gold badge from his inside pocket and clanked it on the table. His sticky red thumbprint smeared the shield. “I’m part of a small division within the CIA called ‘FATHER’: The Federal Authority of Transmogrifed Human Expression Research. You wouldn’t have heard of us, and yes, the acronym is atrocious. But you, my dear, have been transmogrified.” He gestured grandly with both hands like he was presenting her as a prize on a game show. “And as such, it is my sworn duty to get violent creatures like yourself off the streets. Truth, justice, and all the rest of it.”
“But … you murdered your boss instead of arresting me.”
“Again with the excellent observations. You are correct: up until this point I thought you’d lead me to Nolan Foxcroft—the man who created, and then destroyed, the Morpheus data farm in Gravenhurst.”
“The one on top of the ley lines,” she said.
“Yes, Mister Foxcroft discovered something incredible: when technology was built on top of two converging lines, it was amplified, enhanced in ways that science alone couldn’t explain. The Agency had him design a brilliant new contraption with all sorts of mystical bells and whistles, code-named ‘Morpheus.’ Once Nolan’s work was complete he apparently grew a conscience, because he began plotting to destroy it. With the help of a lovely network security admin to whom you bear a striking resemblance, he melted it down and ran, leaving quite the mess behind—along with his accomplice.”
“He abandoned her?”
Malek stole a quick glance at his watch. “No one knows for sure,” he said, picking up the pace. “What we do know is that he’s in the wind, and he’s the only one who can mend the tear.”
The quarantine zone in Arizona wasn’t the result of a terrorist attack—a dirty bomb detonated by radicals, irradiating a quaint rural town. It was a government screw-up. Politicians with too much power messed with forces they didn’t understand, and it led to a disaster they couldn’t contain. Now they’re mopping up.
“The leak caused by the meltdown isn’t a chemical,” Calista said. “It’s something else.”
“Precisely. A veil separates our reality from another—a world operating with a different set of rules: gravity, thermodynamics, even light. In this parallel world, matter is manipulated with a stroke of ink or a dash of blood. When the Morpheus data farm melted down over a convergence point, that veil was pierced. And now, as a result, some of us can do this …”
Malek twisted his fingers, stiff and deliberate, like he was configuring an invisible Rubik’s Cube. A burst of orange phosphorescence blazed from his palms, dancing and twisting at his command.
She gazed at the light show, lips parted. “Magick is spilling from their world into ours.”
“Magick has always existed, but in measured doses. Throughout history, Scriveners have been few and far between, and they’ve been quite selective about their apprentices. It kept a rather tight lid on the concept. The meltdown changed everything. Prior to the Incident, yantras and mystical tattoos were nothing more than a regrettable fashion statement, but when the convergence point in Gravenhurst tore open, certain designs were activated.”
Calista rubbed the heels of her palms into her lower back. “Activated?”
“The event turned otherwise normal people into what The Agency calls, ‘transmogrified human expressions.’” Malek clapped his hands, snuffing out the light show. “Transmogs are able to channel magick, even without previous training or experience. Some have a measure of control over their sigil, but many are slaves to their impulses, wielding magick like a gun without a safety latch. FATHER Division was assembled to stop them.”
“And Nolan Foxcroft can fix things?”
“FATHER has one objective: keep magick under wraps by any means necessary. As long as the flow of magick continues, innocent people will continue to die—and The Agency will continue to force monsters like me to hunt other monsters. It’s why I need Foxcroft to shut off the valve for good.”
Calista’s mind was in danger of blue-screening, seizing up from the tidal wave of information. She was still in the process of wrapping her head around the amorphous concept of magick, but being ‘transmogrified’?
A million more questions blistered through her synapses. “Wait,” she said, “You said my mom’s co-conspirator would try to reach out. But why would this Foxcroft guy contact me?”
Malek stood and flattened out his jacket. “I’m afraid we don’t have time,” he said curtly. “We need to—”
“No!” Calista shouted. “I have a sigil on my back that I can’t control, my best friend was burnt to a crisp, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next. Tell me why Foxcroft thinks I’m the key to freeing my mother from prison.”
“The police are almost certainly on their way,” Malek said plainly.
She pulled out King’s seat, planted herself in it and folded her arms. “Fine. I’ll ask them when they show up. Maybe the cops will give me some answers.”
“Oh for the love of … look, they don’t have any information. Do you think the bloody CIA briefs every local officer, security guard and janitor about policies surrounding magick?”
Calista folded one leg over the other.
“We need to hurry this along,” Malek said, motioning towards the door.
She stared at the wall. “Move me.”
A moment ticked by.
“Fine,” Malek said, breathing out the word like smoke after a long drag of a cigarette. “You were bait.”
“Bait?”
“I dangled you, hoping Foxcroft would bite. I released some loosely encrypted information on the dark web, knowing full well he’d be keeping an eye on any intel with keywords related to North Valley or your mother. The Agency calls it chicken feed: genuine but harmless data designed to elicit a response. In the file, I inferred that a young man had cracked the code on a blood ritual that might free her from prison.”
Malek reached into his breast pocket and extracted his cell. After a few swipes he extended the device for her inspection. It was a photo of Jackson’s room, where a map was mounted above his desk. A pentagram was fashioned from red yarn, held in place by tacks, and inset was a photograph of a young girl with platinum blonde hair and striking blue eyes, looking bored and slightly disheveled. It was Calista’s yearbook photo.
“That … that’s me,” she whispered.
“It is,” Malek replied.
“Holy shit.”
He nodded in agreement. “Holy shit indeed.”
“So you released the truth … I’m the key?”
He shrugged. “Every decent lie is eighty percent truth. I ripped this photo from Jackson’s wall before The Agency could show up and log it into inventory, but yes, Jackson thought you were the key. Or at least theorized it. His spell was pure Blood magick from what I could gather, involving both your blood and your mother’s. It was an entire ritual, and likely an unachievable one. I surmised that if Jackson believed it, Foxcroft might believe it, too.”
“And my sigil?”
“When Foxcroft mends the tear, the power will be cut off at the source: everyone who has been transmogrified will have their normal lives restored. Your sigil will revert to a regretful fashion statement, no more harmful than your ridiculous earrings. But in the meantime …” Malek made a little twirling motion with his index finger.
If he wanted to kill me he’d have done it already, Calista thought. Showing him the sigil couldn’t hurt. She turned her back and hugged her shoulders. A burst of cold shot through the ragged hole in her sweater, and then, a sudden prickling of heat, like the warm bulbs of a tanning bed. Malek instructed her to keep still, and the room reflected with a sharp neon-orange light.
The light snuffed out. “That should do it,” Malek said. His manner was all business; a doctor
finishing a routine check-up with a patient.
Calista turned to face him. “What should do what?”
“A trick I picked up in Romania called a Blocare Ward. I used it to bind your tattoo, so now you won’t have any more uncontrolled outbursts. I know you came here for answers and I wasn’t able to provide them all, but at least you won’t be skewering any more unsuspecting victims. So, swings and roundabouts.”
Caging her sigil was the next best thing to having it euthanized, she supposed. But she had more pressing concerns. “What about my mom?”
“FATHER Division only exists because it operates in the dark; they’ve trampled every civil liberty and broken every law to keep their mess in Gravenhurst a secret. To keep magick a secret. But it’s not enough to simply blow the whistle ourselves. We have to expose the Agency: drag them into the light, kicking and screaming, telling the world what they’ve done. We can’t do that without Foxcroft. He doesn’t just have the power to shut off magick—he has enough evidence to bury the entire agency. When the dust settles, I’ll have my freedom, and so will your mother.”
She was overwhelmed, but there was so much more she didn’t know. “But what about—”
“No more questions, Calista. I need to work.” He took her elbow and ushered her to the door. “There are transmogs running amok in North Valley, and The Agency believes at least one attends your school. Someone violent, with considerably less self-control than you. Scriveners have a way of finding each other, and if that happens, use this.” He dug into his pocket and extracted a brass ring the size of a bracelet.
“What does it—”
“It’s technoalchemy,” Malek explained, cutting in. His words were coming out faster, and he nudged her towards the exit as he spoke. “Created by The Agency using Foxcroft’s leftover research. Cuffing a Scrivener will activate a ward that renders them powerless, and The Agency will be alerted. It can only be used once, so choose your moment.”
He snatched her jacket off the hook and shrugged it over her shoulders, zipping it up like a frustrated parent dressing a child for school. “Can’t have you walking around with your sigil on display.” To complete the effect, Malek pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed it with his tongue and scrubbed the bloody spatter from her cheek. “We never had this conversation. You never saw me, and you never saw Director King. As far as anyone is concerned, you know absolutely nothing.”
The North Valley Grimoire Page 19
