“Orcs?” Malek interrupted with a scathing laugh. “This isn’t a sodding video game, you stupid git.”
“Well screw me for being cautious!”
They continued to trade barbs while Calista inspected the knob. This is it. Time to rip the curtains wide and see who was pulling the levers.
Kaz and Malek’s bickering stopped dead when she threw open the door.
Venturing an exploratory step, her boot clanked metal. If the stair had turned to quicksand or swallowed her whole, she wouldn’t have been surprised. She leaned forward, putting more pressure on the ball of her foot, allowing the stair to support her weight. It felt solid enough. Another step followed, and she gripped the railing so tightly her nails peeled a layer of paint from the surface. The door at the top of the staircase was ajar, revealing a rectangle of moonlit sky. And then she heard a guttural sound, low and muffled. It wasn’t a word, but it was a human voice—terrified, crying for help. She knew who it was.
She raced up the stairs like a sprinter from a starting block, leaping two at a time. The screams at her back were muted, barely registering; Kaz begged her to slow down, Malek shouted her name.
When she reached the top step he came into view: Beckett, bound to a chair, chest heaving, sweat-slicked hair matted to his forehead, a stream of blood trickling from his nostril. His glasses were cracked, and a gag was pulled tight around his mouth.
She couldn’t compartmentalize anymore. Her compartment had burst open, spilling logic and reason into a syrupy mess that drowned all rational thought. She ran to him.
Reaching out to tear his gag free, she read his eyes like words from her grimoire. They stretched wide, stricken with fear—though it wasn’t fear for his own life. It was fear for hers. She could almost hear them crying out. They weren’t saying ‘help me.’ They were screaming, ‘watch out.’ Or maybe, simply, ‘duck.’
Too late for that.
Something solid hit the back of her head.
She waded through a pool of delirium, ears ringing, vision chalked with streaks. Her shotgun slipped from her fingers. She collapsed.
Eyelids fluttering, gravel biting her cheek, she made out a silhouette. It was a man clutching a baton. He loomed over two more bodies splayed across the roof.
Kaz and Malek were down. Unconscious. Maybe worse.
And before she was separated from her senses, she heard a cackling laugh.
Agents are authorized to use any available blade, firearm, explosive, or Fox Techno-alchemy™ should a mission require it.
No price is too high in the pursuit of stopping widespread magick proliferation. No sacrifice too great. And as an Agent, you will have to accept that there will be sacrifices.
– FATHER Division Agent Handbook
28. Greater the Triumph
CALISTA’S EYELIDS FILLED with lead. She willed them to open, but they flatly refused—an apparent side effect of being knocked senseless. Hearing was her first sense to return.
“Sorry to make you run the gauntlet downstairs,” someone said, “but I had to weed out any party crashers. I hear those self-reflection charms are a bitch.”
The distant, tinny voice that rattled her inner-ear was oddly familiar. Despite being lost in a post-concussive haze, she could swear she’d heard that same manic cadence before.
When her eyes finally agreed to crack open, she spotted her substitute teacher standing a few feet away. Mister Degray was clad in black, his powder-blond hair concealed beneath a wool cap. He brandished a short wooden club, like a mall security guard might carry, rapping it into his palm. His gap-toothed smile stretched ear-to-ear.
“Oh, and sorry about the …” He swung his club with both hands and clicked his tongue, knocking an invisible baseball out of the park.
Warm rivulets ran down her neck, streaking her spine. Since Degray had used the back of her skull for batting practice, she wanted to check the wound, but her arms were frozen. She was sitting upright, strapped to a chair, wrists bound behind her, legs tied at the ankle. And so were everyone else’s.
Five chairs were arranged in a circle around the rooftop, each dotting the tip of a pentagram. The design had been drawn with chalk, probably the same used to line the football field. It was wide—maybe twenty feet across—occupying the better part of the roof. A ritual was about to take place, and she was one of the elements. Aphra, Kaz, Beckett, and Malek filled out the ingredient list. They were bound and gagged with white cloths, just like she’d been, and her grimoire laid open at her feet, pages fluttering madly in the freezing wind.
“I have to thank you.” Degray cackled with laughter for no apparent reason. “Without your book, I would’ve never pulled this off.”
She mumbled, prompting her teacher to reach out and tug her gag loose.
“How …” she coughed. She was still seeing double.
“How did I know about your grimoire? I didn’t. Not exactly. I’ve been in deep cover, monitoring Malek and Aphra as part of an agency-wide mole hunt. Which is ironic, since I’m the mole.” He tip-toed around his pentagram, careful not to disturb the skillfully drawn lines. “After these rookies botched the Carter operation, some of Jackson’s teleportation spell was left in his bedroom. Just rough sketches and partial calculations, but from what I could tell it was some next level shit. The type of work you only see from Magnus level Scriveners.”
Her head pounded, a thousand tiny drummers knocking her brain around the inner walls of her cranium. Teleportation?
Degray went on. “Back at The Agency there was water cooler talk about a finished version of Jackson’s spell, but that’s all it was—talk. There’s never been an actual, recorded instance of a successful teleportation, so most of us wrote it off. Color me an optimist, but I had faith it was out there. And if the spell did exist, I figured someone in North Valley might start poking around, researching decryption. So I went online posing as a code-breaker to see if anyone from the area would ping me. A longshot, but sometimes a bet pays off.”
She would have smacked herself in the forehead if she could have. She’d kept the grimoire secret from nearly everyone, but she’d scanned and Emailed a few pages to someone before Christmas—a cryptologist who claimed he could crack any code. It was before she had any inkling of what she had in her possession.
“You’re him,” Calista said. “The Russian.”
He flung the baton aside and pantomimed a jump-shot like he was on a basketball court. “Three points for Scott! I am the Russian. Glad we only chatted online. Imagine if you’d asked for voice confirmation? My Russian accent is atrocious!” He laughed, endlessly amused by his observation. “Those pages you gave me were hot. I learned all sorts of spells to enhance my strength and cast wards. Then it was only a matter of time before I could get my hands on the grimoire and set up this little soirée. Raiding the school lockers turned up empty, so I waited for the right moment to check your apartment.” He pointed overhead. “Moon phases need to be just right.”
Calista glanced around the rooftop and the gravity of the situation began to sink in. Whatever Degray was about to teleport to this location no doubt came with a hefty price, and she was part of the currency.
“You know the drill.” He gestured vaguely to the pentagram. “Some of the more reality-bending enchantments require an exchange that few are willing to make. A tricky part of this one was getting the five sacrifices here of their own volition. Aphra was easy: one threatening call and I knew she’d come running, caution to the wind. She’s never one to sit on the sidelines. Beckett took a little more nuance. A couple texts from a cloned number did the trick, though. He thought you were interested in a candle-lit rooftop reunion. Not a complete lie, I guess?” He cackled again. “Once I had Aphra and Beckett, I knew getting the rest of you would be a lock. The key is sending an invitation without giving orders: you decided to come. I didn’t force you.”
“Ignis!” Calista shouted. She flexed her fingers, expecting pillars of flame to erupt from her sigil-cove
red palms and blast apart her bindings.
The pillars refused to come.
“What is that, Latin?” Degray turned and mugged to the others, spreading his hands wide. He was playing to a muted captive audience, and loving every moment of it. “Look, Scott-comma-Calista, I didn’t come here unprepared: your book gave me everything I need, including a kick-ass binding spell. The roof is sealed, which means no Elemental magick is allowed. Spout as many dead languages as you’d like, kiddo. You’re wasting your breath.” He sauntered to the center of the pentagram where a circle of black candles were arranged, dripping globs of wax onto the graveled rooftop. He reached in-between and extracted a silver bauble, dangling from a chain.
She squinted at the object. “Is that … a pocket watch?”
“Bingo. Swiped it from an evidence locker. Nolan left it in his desk.” He dropped it back in place, encircled by the candles. “When the wax completely covers it, the fun begins. It’s a slow process, but believe me, the payoff is worth the wait. Whatever filthy little hole Foxy is cowering in, it doesn’t matter: he’ll be zapped right here, and I’ll have my bounty.”
“Bounty?” she said. “This is about money?” Keep him talking, she thought. Talking is better than slaughtering her and her friends.
“More or less,” Degray admitted. “I’m going to sell him to a terrorist network, but please don’t think I have anything personal against your old man. The way he stuck it to The Agency was a thing of beauty—would’ve done it myself if I was a tech geek like him. I hold him in the highest regard.”
Her thoughts careened into each other—it physically hurt to think. Her old man? It couldn’t be … the affair that Malek had suggested between her mother and Nolan Foxcroft was hard enough to digest, but this …
Degray squatted at Calista’s feet, studying her expression with a bemused tilt of his head. “Your face is doing some really screwed up shit, you know that?” He clapped his cheeks. “You didn’t know? The biggest traitor in the history of our country is your dad, and Malek kept it a secret?” He danced in place like he was barefoot on hot coals, laughing until his voice went hoarse. After tiring himself out, he staggered towards Malek, tiptoeing around the lines of his pentagram. Degray sat in his lap, draping an arm over his shoulder like drinking buddies in a pub. “I’m impressed. Charles King said you were a terrible agent, but you royally shit the bed on this one.” Degray re-adjusted Malek’s gag, and, just to be annoying, straightened his tie.
He glanced back at Calista. “Your dad didn’t leave because he caught your mom engaging in some after-hours shenanigans with a colleague. He left because the daughter he’d been raising for ten years wasn’t even his. Don’t you get it? You’re the final piece of this puzzle. The pièce de résistance. The blood running through your veins is the same that runs through Foxcroft’s—that’s the only way to teleport him. Coupled with his watch and the rest of the sacrifices, it completes the ritual.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “H-how can you be sure?”
“I’m not.” Degray gave a comical shrug. “It’s not like I can run a paternity test. But I’m a gambling man, and this feels like a safe bet. All the evidence points to Nolan being your daddy, and if I’m right, I spend the rest of my life living like a king.”
“And if you’re wrong you’re a fucking mass murderer!” It felt cathartic to shout. To be furious. It made her feel less claustrophobic, somehow—less bound by her shackles. She couldn’t fight with magick or fists, but she could fight with words. Uncorking her rage was like pulling the lid off a boiling kettle.
Degray dismissed her with a playful wave of his hand. “You’re being a little dramatic, kiddo. In the grand scheme of things, what’s the difference? Five dead, five hundred, five thousand? Numbers on a spreadsheet. Footnotes in a history book.” His tone was genial, as if this were just another afternoon lesson. “And yes, all of this is a gamble, but I have a suspicion it’ll pay off.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a battered paperback novel; 70s era pulp with a sword-wielding barbarian on the cover, flanked by a curvaceous woman in a tiger pelt bikini. “One of the items left behind in Foxcroft’s desk. Nothing special, right? Some light reading to decompress between coding sessions. Funny how this made it into evidence and no one bothered to flip through it.” He thumbed the book open, reached inside and extracted a slightly faded Polaroid. Calista remembered the day it was taken: it was the third grade, and she’d yet to grow into her dusty pink ski jacket; gold ringlets draped her shoulders, cheeks bee-stung from a day of sledding. The photo brought it all back. And Foxcroft—a man she’d never met—had kept it safe for almost a decade.
The heat of fresh tears streaked her face. Keep it together, she told herself. Time is running out. The candles had sunk considerably and were in danger of drowning Foxcroft’s watch, which meant phase two of Degray’s plan was set to begin.
Foxcroft might be her biological father, but he was so much more: he was the man who could weaponize magick on an industrial scale. If she didn’t act fast, he’d be in Degray’s custody. And if that happened, there was no way this evening was ending with witnesses walking away … assuming any of them survived the ritual.
She wrenched her arm. The bindings bit deep into her wrists. She extended her middle finger and flicked it, trying to feel what was holding her in place. Smooth, cold metal—handcuffs. Now if she could only manage a key.
“So you’re giving up Foxcroft for a paycheck?” she called out. “You’re okay with starting a war?”
“Grow up,” he sneered. “The war has already started. Thanks to your mommy and daddy, all the convergence points are primed to pop like warm champagne. Crashing Morpheus didn’t just tear the fabric—it pulled a thread that runs through every ley line. Magick is leaking all over the world, and all the wrong people are going to take advantage. We’re on borrowed time.”
“Maybe Foxcroft can close the rift for good?” She twisted harder in an attempt to squeeze her hands out of the cuffs, but only managed to rub them raw.
Degray tiptoed around his pentagram, taking a closer look at the candles. “Close it?” He laughed like it was the most preposterous notion he’d ever heard. “No one wants to sew up the hole they ripped open, kiddo, least of all The Agency. If anything, they want him to tear it wider so they can stick their grubby little mitts inside and scrape out every secret imaginable.”
“So you don’t care what happens to your country.” She was hoping to strike a nerve—possibly buy a few minutes until he started the ritual.
“I was a patriot,” Degray said. “I wasn’t one of these pathetic transmogs they forced into recruitment; I volunteered for this, to become a more effective soldier.” He unzipped his jacket and hiked up his black t-shirt, exposing elaborate runic symbols that crossed his ribcage, spilling onto his abdomen. The design was completed with an ornate cross beset with a jewel, like the hilt of a medieval sword. “I was ready to see this through to the end, and make sure the rift got sealed. That tear is the biggest security threat in history, and I wasn’t going to let it happen in my own backyard.”
“So what changed?”
“They lied,” he said hotly, jabbing a finger at Aphra and Malek. “The Agency used me, just like they used them. Their goal was to keep a lid on magick until they could figure out how to harness it. In the meantime they had us wipe out transmogs to keep the cover-up going. Then I found out what I’d been fighting for the entire time: Project Morpheus. Why monitor calls and texts when you can see right into the minds of your citizens? If Foxcroft hadn’t melted it down, The Agency would be reading our thoughts as easily as they read our Email.
“Since this happy accident, I don’t think they even care anymore. The rift opened a whole new world of possibilities, and policing the use of deadly spells will be the next industrial complex. The Agency will be doling out multi-billion dollar defense contracts like candy canes at Christmas, and that’s just the beginning.” He rapped his wrist. “Like I said,
kiddo—borrowed time. Even without Foxy, they’ll eventually find a new techno-alchemist, and then the gloves will come off. Imagine a necromancy spell that unleashes an army of the undead on your enemies? Or a mind-altering charm dropped by a fleet of drones? When that shit-show begins, I’m going to be elsewhere.”
A frigid gale swept the rooftop, sending a shiver down Calista’s blood-streaked spine. “So this is how history is going to remember Mason Degray: as the coward who sold out his country.” She could barely keep her teeth from chattering.
“My country? I could care less about these artificial borders anymore.” He gestured around to everywhere and nowhere. “I’m doing what every great patriot has done: I’m improvising. When the convergence points blow, only the most powerful are gonna make it out unscathed, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that money is power. It might not buy happiness, but it does buy options. Like the option to build a fortified castle on some remote corner of the planet. Along with my very own grimoire and some wards to keep me off the radar, I’ll kick back, pop open a cold one, and watch the world turn to ash.”
The last sentence Degray uttered was scathing, like barbed wire on exposed flesh. It was as if he’d gain some perverse pleasure in knowing he fired the starter pistol that kicked off the apocalypse.
“So,” he said with a clap of his hands and a quick glance at the depleted candles, “this has been a fun chat to kill some time, but it looks like we’re finally ready for action.”
He strolled back towards Malek. From across the rooftop Calista spotted a glint in Degray’s hand; moonlight shimmering wickedly off sharpened steel. A knife. It wasn’t ceremonial or ornate, just a common hunting blade with serrations below the edge. He pressed it to Malek’s wrist and glanced back at her. “According to Jackson’s notes we need a gradual, steady flow, so let’s get this pentagram filled, shall we?”
The North Valley Grimoire Page 30
