The North Valley Grimoire

by Blake Northcott

  Calista explained the situation to Kaz: that she’d lured Parker into the gym, an epic fight ensued, and—with some help from Malek’s Blocare Ward—she’d harnessed the power of her sigil. Sure, the training wheels were still on, but it didn’t matter: she’d done it. And moments later she’d conjured Elemental magick for the first time. She began working with ink-based sigils like she’d been doing it her entire life, starting with palm-sized disappearances and short-range floatations—just the basics. She ran through the fundamentals with ease, and as she reached out to light a candle with a snap of her fingers, she was struck with a realization: she no longer needed someone to bestow the title of ‘Scrivener’ upon her. She felt like she’d earned it.

  As her confidence grew, her temptation to delve into Blood magick gradually waned. At one time she yearned to surrender, drifting into its all-consuming current. She’d dreamed about it.

  While Blood magick had left her anxious and wired, taking weeks to drain from her system, Elemental magick had no such aftertaste. No hangovers, no withdrawal symptoms, no sugar crash after spiking to dizzying heights. The spells left her cleansed and energized, and even—lord help her—optimistic.

  Kaz nodded and smiled, listening to Calista bloviate about feelings she could barely articulate. It was polite of him to be there as a sounding board, but he didn’t get it. How could he? As a transmog she was an instrument that magick flowed through—a conduit, a lightning rod. Now, as a Scrivener, she felt like the storm that brought down the lightning. If words to describe the sensation existed, she couldn’t find them.

  Either way, it felt cathartic to tell someone. It’s not like she could wax poetic about magick with anyone else, least of all Beckett. She’d convinced Kaz it was best to stay the course: keeping her preternatural powers, and the grimoire, under wraps. At least until they knew who to trust.

  One day after school, Beckett arrived at Calista’s door. He kicked the snow from his boots, piled his jacket and scarf atop the mountain of clothes by the entrance, and came in for hot chocolate. His whimsical grin was nowhere to be seen. He looked somber. Wounded, maybe.

  “Everything okay?” Calista blew the steam from her cup. She’d yet to change out of her school uniform.

  He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I need to ask you something.”

  “It’s just me. Shoot.”

  “I ran into Whitney Covington in the hall.”

  She froze mid-sip. Nothing that starts with the words ‘Whitney Covington’ ever ends well.

  “She said you wanted to date Parker. You wrote him a note and went to meet him, alone, and … well, she seemed pretty convincing.”

  Calista plunked her cup on the coffee table and waited for Beckett to do the same. She reached out and took his hands.

  “I would never lie to you, Becks.”

  “I hope not.” His gaze trailed along the floor.

  She squeezed his fingers until their eyes met. “There is something going on with me, though. Something I can’t tell you about.”

  “All right …”

  “And I don’t want you to think I had any interest in that knuckle dragger. Believe me. He was a disgusting pervert, and he was—”

  “Wait,” Beckett interrupted. “Why are you talking about Parker in the past tense?”

  Calista paused, rewinding the sentence inside her head. “Did I?”

  “Just now, you said he ‘was’ a pervert. Do you know something about his disappearance?”

  “No.” She blinked hard. “I mean yes, but … I don’t want to lie to you.”

  He yanked his hands away. “You don’t want to lie, but you don’t want to tell me anything, either.” His voice grew thin and agitated. “You sneak off with Parker, then he vanishes, and now you’re acting really weird. What’s going on?”

  “Can I just ask you to trust me? There’s a lot going on, and I don’t want you dragged into it. It’s not safe.”

  “Safe?” Beckett swallowed hard and leaned into the couch.

  “I’m doing a bad job of explaining this.” There was no way she was going to hit the eject button on this conversation without lying, and at the same time, she couldn’t reveal what had happened that day in the gym. Even if she could, where would she start? My mom is a government traitor? I beat Parker half to death and sent him away to get waterboarded in an off-grid black site? Or maybe use the blunt approach: I know magick! Wanna see me melt a doorknob?

  While she searched for the right combination of words that would end the disastrous interaction, a series of raps came at the door. It was usually the superintendent or a neighbor—anyone from outside the building would have to be buzzed in. Though not today.

  She excused herself, crossed the room and peered out the peephole. A slender teenage girl with a blue ponytail was clutching a pizza box. She wore silver reflective sunglasses and was gnashing enough gum to produce a baseball-sized bubble.

  “I didn’t order a pizza,” Calista called through the door. “Try Mister Kilmer in nine-oh-seven, he orders ten a week.”

  The girl stared directly into the peephole, flipped open the box and exposed the inside of the cardboard lid. The instructions appeared in bold black marker:

  MAPLERIDGE MALL FOOD COURT

  ONE HOUR

  DON’T BE LATE

  “M’kay,” the delivery girl chirped. “Thanks for the tip.”

  She spun and bounded down the hall, yanked open the garbage chute and dropped the box inside.

  Calista returned to the couch, sat next to Beckett, and wondered how she was going to explain this away. The room was deathly quiet, except for the sound of her social life flat-lining.

  “She cupped a hand over his. “I know you have questions, but I’m going through some … changes. Things that—”

  “Things you can’t explain?” he offered, picking up her thread.

  “Right! Exactly.”

  “And you feel like no one in the world has ever experienced what you’re feeling. Like you’re alone.”

  “Kind of.”

  “You can tell me. I’m all ears—literally. Check these out.” He brushed his hair aside and pointed to the side of his head, revealing his larger-than-average auditory system.

  She couldn’t help but chuckle. “You trust me, right?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. It was an admission he seemed slightly ashamed of.

  “Then please, give me some time. I promise I’ll tell you everything when this is over.” She winced when she realized that asking for time was tantamount to asking for a break. It was one step shy of, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’.

  “Time.” He nodded slowly, grimly. “Sure. I can do time.”

  With nothing left to say he went to the door, shrugged on his jacket and slipped on his boots, aggressively avoiding eye contact. He was halfway out the door when Calista tugged his sleeve.

  “Are we good here?” Her eyes filled with the same bitter regret that flooded her heart.

  “I’m good.” He placed a quick kiss on her cheek. “Give me a call when you are.”

  Mapleridge Mall was a ghost town. In the world of retail, it was a typical snowy weeknight in January; with Christmas in the rearview it would be another month before the crowds returned, outfitting themselves for decadent spring break vacations. Until then, the polished marble corridors were sparsely populated with the ambling elderly and new mothers pushing strollers.

  Calista reached the top of the escalator and spotted a handsome man in a midnight suit, highlighted with a scarlet tie. He sat alone beneath the soaring arched skylights that canopied the food court. She slid into the seat across from him.

  Malek glanced at his watch. “You’re late.”

  “I’m not your personal assistant,” Calista reminded him. “I don’t work for you or The Agency. I didn’t have to show up at all. And you’re welcome, by the way—it was a piece of cake fighting a homicidal maniac all by myself.”

  “You were expecting a gold sticker and a pat on the hea
d?” He gestured grandly at the row of eateries behind him, each crowned with a glowing neon sign. “Or perhaps you’d like an ice cream cone since you feel congratulations are in order? You disobeyed me. I explicitly instructed you to stay away from magick, and away from this investigation.”

  “Well a ‘thank you’ would’ve been nice.” It’s not like it would have killed him to at least be polite, if not grateful; she was doing his job, after all, and getting none of the recognition.

  And she wouldn’t have said no to ice cream, but wasn’t about to press the issue.

  “Thank you,” he said flatly. “Very, very much. You’re a wonderful deputy and a credit to your community.”

  His eyes shifted, scanning for eavesdroppers. Across the court a mother was breastfeeding a newborn under a pastel pink blanket, and an elderly woman in a hairnet was wiping down tables. Neither gave off the vibe of an undercover agent.

  Satisfied, Malek refocused his attention. “While we’re on the subject, how were you able to apprehend Parker Ashton? I realize our time is limited, but I simply must know.”

  “I was suspicious of a bandage on his wrist, so I met him in the school gym. Then he jumped me. The sigil burst from my back and I couldn’t stop it, but then I remembered your ward. I screamed, and the tendrils froze in place. After that, I felt so much more powerful—more in control.”

  Malek looked genuinely puzzled. “My ward?”

  Was his hair gel seeping into his brain? Calista thought super spies were supposed to have photographic memories. “Yes,” she said sharply, “the Blocare Ward. The one you used to bind my sigil.”

  He reached into his breast pocket and plucked out a cigarette. “Ah, right, you’re referring to this.” He placed it between his lips, glanced around to ensure he didn’t have an audience, and snapped his fingers. An orange flame sparked to life, like a match striking the side of a box, and the tip of his cigarette began to glow. He indulged in a long, lingering drag.

  “That’s all you did?” Calista said. “You warmed up the skin on my back with a spell you use to light your cigarettes?”

  “Yes, it’s part of what I did, but the spell was a distraction. What I really did was inform you that you could, in fact, control your abilities. And you believed me.” Malek waved his cigarette in a little circle as he exhaled. He held it European style, like a dart. “So tell me, how did it feel?”

  “How did what feel? To watch my sigil nearly kill someone? Again?”

  “No, my dear. How did it feel to know you had control. To be certain.”

  The lady in the hairnet must have noticed the hazy cloud gathering around their table because she waddled over, shouting in Portuguese. She rapped her knuckles into the table, bringing their attention to a tiny No Smoking sign embedded in the surface.

  Malek breathed out a loud, dramatic groan. “Every. Bloody. Time.” He took a final drag and exhaled out his nostrils, eyes closed to savor the moment. He relinquished his cigarette, and the woman took it in her blue plastic glove. She stormed off. “Is there anywhere in this insipid country that doesn’t have one of those signs?”

  Calista’s eyes widened. “Can we get back to how you lied to me?”

  “Every decent lie—”

  “Is eighty percent truth,” she said. “I know. I’ve heard that one before.”

  Malek radiated a special brand of confidence that both reassured and frustrated in equal parts; he was so effortlessly sure of his methods that she couldn’t help but admire his sheer gall. Beneath way too much hair product and his two-thousand-dollar suit, the guy clearly had substance—maybe a streak of genius. The clothes and the hair and the dry wit might all be a ploy; a cleverly crafted disguise to lure others into a false sense of security.

  “I’d love to sit here all day discussing the finer points of magick theory …” Malek continued.

  “But this isn’t a social call,” Calista sighed. “I get it.”

  “There’s a mole within The Agency,” he said. “A hunt is underway, and we’re all under a microscope: myself, Aphra, the entire division. Someone has been accessing classified files at the Pentagon. The same someone who recently rummaged through an evidence locker containing Nolan Foxcroft’s belongings.”

  “Wait, his belongings?”

  “Everything he left at his desk before he fled the country,” Malek explained. “I haven’t the faintest idea what was taken, though, and I don’t have the clearance level to access an inventory list—even my informant is clueless. But whomever it is, it seems they want the same thing we do.”

  “Maybe that’s good,” Calista said. “Maybe they want to find Foxcroft and get him to close the rift.”

  “Possibly, but I’m not willing to take that chance. We have to assume the mole is dangerous. And if they’re searching for Foxcroft, that same road might lead them back to you.”

  Calista thought back to Parker’s last words, right before the FBI dragged him from the Principal’s office. “Parker said something to me: ‘we’ll get you’. Do you think he could’ve had an accomplice?”

  “They raided his house,” Malek said, “along with his locker, his car, and his family’s vacation home in the Hamptons.”

  “And?”

  “The Agency came up empty. Parker was the one who killed the shopkeepers, that much has been confirmed, but there was no evidence he had a partner. If he was working with the mole, we haven’t found a connection.”

  Calista wasn’t convinced that Parker had pluralized a pronoun by a slip of the tongue. It was a deliberate threat. It meant something.

  She glanced around. “The government is all about secret torture, right?”

  Malek shrugged. “Yes, of course.” He was leaning back in his angular plastic chair, pretending to be more comfortable than he actually was.

  “So can’t they, you know …” She made a violent stabbing motion with her hand, “stick him with hot pokers until he talks? Or electrocute his junk with a car battery?”

  He let out a caustic laugh. “You’re a dark one, aren’t you? Yes, he’ll most definitely be questioned, and the interrogation will be thorough, to say the least. But the government moves at its own pace, and it could be weeks before he’s properly questioned. There’s a backlog of high-value detainees to sort through, and I’m not expecting a report any time soon. My new director could expedite the process, but in the meantime, we have to assume anyone could be working against us. Up to and including your darling Beckett.”

  “I’d know if he was a Scrivener,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Is that so?” Malek was more condescending than usual, one eyebrow arched to perfection. “The same way you knew your mother was innocent? The same way you knew Jackson was a Scrivener? People have secrets, Calista. They live lies, conceal their intentions. It’s impossible to truly know someone.”

  She had the sudden urge to impale him with her sigil. She knew it wouldn’t kill him, but the thought of destroying another one of Malek’s custom-fitted suits might give her a small measure of satisfaction.

  “Apparently getting to know someone isn’t so tricky for you, though, is it?”

  “Meaning?”

  Calista tapped her forehead. “You hack people’s minds. Aphra said you’re controlling her.”

  “Aphra is a weapon,” Malek said, his cool indifference giving way to a more somber tone. “When pointed in the right direction she’s quite effective, but she has no control over her summonings. They drive her mad. We were paired because The Agency needed a reliable hex, and someone powerful enough to keep it in place. Let’s just say there were no other volunteers.”

  “So what,” Calista said, “you think about keeping her summonings under control, and it just happens?”

  “It’s a little more complicated. And it requires a talisman.”

  Her eyes flicked to Malek’s watch, peeking from beneath his crisp white cuff. The champagne-gold timepiece was inlaid with a circular crystal, rotating counterclockwise. He
re-adjusted his sleeve, tucking it back under the fabric.

  “If there’s anyone we should be worried about,” Calista said, “it’s your lunatic of a partner, not Beckett.”

  “I told you,” he said, firmly but not unkindly, “she’s well in-hand.”

  “She threatened me,” Calista shot back. “And she practically admitted to killing Jackson.”

  “She did no such thing. It was her summoning.”

  “So it was her!” Calista hammered her fist into the plastic table, sending a shotgun-loud bang echoing through the mall.

  The breastfeeding mother glared at them from across the food court. Malek replied with a conciliatory wave and a stilted nod; everything is fine, ma’am, nothing to see.

  Pivoting back towards Calista, his eyes grew intense, voice leveled out to a deadly serious monotone. “Let me ask you a question: did you kill that tragically dressed teacher in your computer lab?”

  She stared back at him, chest heaving.

  He didn’t wait for a reply. “Allow me to rephrase: how much was you, and how much was the sigil? I imagine you’ve asked yourself that question more than once. Surely by now you’ve come to realize magick is, in part, a reflection—it mirrors a Scrivener’s truest self. Yet you take no responsibility for that teacher’s death, because you believe you lacked control.”

  She parted her lips, but nothing came out.

  Malek went on. “A summoning is nothing like transmogrification, and in essence, it isn’t even magick; it’s a remorseless creature that is inexorably fused with Aphra. She can’t restrain it, she can't remove it, and it can't be killed without killing her in the process.”

  The gravity of his words were almost too dense to cognize. She wanted to despise Aphra for Jackson’s death—to blame her, to punish her. But Aphra was a victim, cursed with having to share body and mind with something noxious and violent. And then she’d been cursed a second time. Under Malek’s hex, Aphra really was a marionette dangling from strings, never sure if her thoughts or actions were truly her own. It was no wonder she’d gone crazy.