half-lich 02 - void weaver (30 page)

“And Nyx? She stole one of yours and it didn’t seem like she had gotten any
weaker
from doing so.”

“Hunting her down will be my responsibility also,” Isaac said, stepping forward.

“
Ours
,” Alice said, correcting.

“Ours,” he echoed. “The magistrate has given me full use of their resources.”

“We are also elevating you,” said a male praetor with a booming, deep voice which contrasted with the soft female’s voice like night and day.

“Elevating me?” Isaac asked, turning to face the bench.

“Henceforth, Tribune Moreau, you shall be appointed the title of Champion of your house.”

Alice’s heart soared, but she said nothing.

Isaac turned to look at Jim, who smiled at him and nodded. Isaac then turned to look at the bench again. “With all due respect, praetors, I am not deserving of this title.”

“It has been determined that your actions have been selfless and heroic,” the praetor said.

“Perhaps, but Jim’s actions were also. I would like the title to go to him instead. Were it not for his bravery, his quick thinking, and his intellect, we would not be standing here today. House Pluto needs more mages like Jim.”

Jim nodded. “Thank you,” he said, “But I can only accept the title if the magistrate decrees.”

The praetor nodded. “So it is, Champion of House Pluto.”

He smiled, bowed, and said “Actually, I have something I would like to add.”

“Indeed,” said the praetor.

“Alice, I have something for you.” He made a gesture with his hand and one of the mages—because Alice assumed they were mages—sitting on the semi-circle benches stepped down and approached. He handed two things to Jim. The first was a box, and the second was something that Alice hadn’t seen in a long time.

Jim came forward with the items in her hand, and Alice didn’t know if she was going to pass out from the joy of seeing what was in his hands or pass out because of the pressure of standing there. Either way, she felt faint. Her heart was beating and her eyes were starting to well up.

“What… what is this?” Alice asked.

Jim smiled. “The teleportation spell I used back at the cavern, the one I thought hadn’t worked until it finally did, took me back to my library where I had
this
.”

He handed Trapper’s plastic husk to Alice. She took it and felt the material beneath her fingers. It was no more than the camera’s frame, but it was there—black with a red stripe running across the top. But there was something different about it. The red stripe didn’t just say Trapper; a number 2 had been drawn on with acrylic paint. From the other box Jim was holding, an old shoebox by the look of it, he produced an old Polaroid Instant Camera identical to Trapper, only this one was white, and probably hadn’t been used in years.

“No way,” she said. “I mean, thank you, but… what’s all this for?”

Jim pushed his glasses up to his nose and smiled. “I knew Isaac would make it. I knew we all would. So as soon as I arrived, I dug this old thing out of my storage unit and painted the number two on the camera. Okay, maybe I didn’t know we would all make it, but I’m superstitious. I did it for good luck too. Anyway, Isaac and I, between the two of us, I think we can build you another camera using the insides of this one, and the frame of your old one. That’s why it’s Trapper
two
. Assuming you still want to catch evil spirits, that is.”

“How else am I going to spend my evenings?”

“I’m sure you’ll be busy enough.”

Alice put the box, and Trapper’s frame, down and hugged Jim tightly. “Thank you,” she said into his ear. “I mean it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“Very touching,” the female praetor said, “But there is work to be done still. Tribune Moreau, you are to present yourself tomorrow for testing.”

“Testing?” Alice asked.

Isaac nodded. “I consent. My magic is not dangerous to you so long as I don’t touch you with it, but I consent. I thank you for your help tonight. We have done a good thing here.”

The four praetors nodded. “In that case, we are dismissed.”

Isaac walked Alice and Jim out of the courtroom. In the corridor, Jim made his goodbyes and went his own way. When asked what he would do for the rest of the night, he said he was going to have a shower and sleep until Sunday. Alice didn’t blame him. It had been a
long
day. But she had a long night ahead of her, too; a night with Isaac.

An oaken door at the end of a marble corridor led Alice and Isaac onto a city street she didn’t immediately recognize. The door behind her shut on its own with a clang that didn’t match the size and thickness of the door she had just walked through a moment ago. When she turned to look, the door she saw wasn’t made of oak at all, but of metal, and the building it belonged to was a simple redbrick thing with boarded windows and graffiti. In the alley next to it, two homeless men talked over a drum fire. Distantly, Alice heard police sirens drifting away into nothing.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Exactly where we need to be,” he said.

As Alice took the small set of steps leading to street level, her stomach started to twist again. Had that been teleportation? The world hadn’t distorted, her vision hadn’t receded like it had last time, and she hadn’t experienced that moment of weightlessness, something had happened. Whatever it was, it hadn’t sat well with her, but when she saw her Mustang sitting a couple of cars down, the weird feeling in her stomach evaporated almost immediately.

“This isn’t where we parked,” she said as she walked up to the car, “But I’m done trying to figure your kind out.”

“Good, because they’ve not started trying to figure you out.”

Alice grinned as she approached her car. She hopped in silently, stuffed the key into the ignition, turned it, and the car grumbled to life.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked.

“You know,” Isaac said, “Let’s go to my place. There’s one more thing we have to do.”

CHAPTER 30

The Final Chapter

Alice hadn’t been to Isaac’s place in over two years, but she knew the way. And besides, there was no way she was going back home tonight. She had worked hard to clean the floors and throw the bedsheets out in the time between Isaac’s return and dusk, when they left to bury Raegan’s body, but she would sooner stay in a hotel tonight than go back home. Going back to Isaac’s place was an even better alternative, even if she didn’t have any fresh clothes to change into.

As they drove through the dark city streets, watching late night clubbers shovel greasy food into their mouths, listening to the soft, soothing jazz tune floating out of the radio, and smelling the asphalt and the car exhausts, Alice mused about how little the world knew of what had just happened. A couple of hours ago, they had done battle with an entity so powerful a whole cabal of mages couldn’t take her down, and while she was still on the loose, life went on in Ashwood just as it always did.

Something to be happy about
, she thought as they rolled up to Isaac’s apartment complex.

Alice pulled the mustang into the parking lot next to the apartment building. The lot sat behind a gate with twenty-four hour guards working shift rotations. Isaac seemed to know them, and they let Alice in. This was the first time Isaac had spoken since he had gotten into the car, and he hadn’t even been speaking to
her
.

In all the time Alice had known him, she had learned two sure things about Isaac. Number one, he was as persistent and industrious as a beaver working to build its lodge in the fall. He never gave up on his goals, never balked in the face of a challenge, and never let something stupid like limitations get in his way. The second thing she knew about him with all certainty was that he also never got weird or awkward about anything; needless to say, the silent drive was making Alice progressively more nervous.

The longer the silence had gone on, the more worried she had gotten. The more that happened, the less able she was to let herself relax after what had easily been the longest 2 days of her life. Sure, Nyx was still out there and she had stolen a brand new suit to wear—one with all the bells and whistles she could have wanted on it—but if she knew what was good for her, she would be in hiding, and far, far away from Alice.

Isaac led Alice through the parking lot, into the graffiti-less building and up the elevator to the third floor. Isaac’s apartment was two doors down, and it didn’t seem like it had changed since she had last been here. The floors were laminate wood, the ceiling was low to provide the illusion of warmth and coziness, and there were more bookshelves than chairs and tables. That Isaac was a man who enjoyed to read wasn’t something to argue, but it seemed like his extensive library had multiplied tenfold since the last time she had been here.

Alice followed Isaac inside, circled the living room, and when she couldn’t take it any further broke the silence.

“So,” she said.

Isaac removed his jacket and hung it on a coat hook behind the front door. “So,” he said, flashing a perfect, winning smile.

“You’ve been quiet this whole time. Aren’t you going to say anything? I’m kinda going crazy here.”

Isaac turned the dial back on his smile and let it settle into something less than Cheshire cat, but the light in his eyes remained. “I’m sorry for the silence,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure what I had to say next was… perfect.”

“Perfect? Why do I get the feeling you’re going to lecture me about something?”

“I’m not. I promise. I just understand some things are still… delicate.”

Delicate between us, Alice thought. He wants to talk about us.

Of all the things that could have been about to happen, this had certainly been in the top three. The other two items of potential discussion included a lecture about the perils of the Void and a reassuring talk about how Nyx will be dealt with, about how he’s a Void Weaver now and she’s going to learn more about her powers than she ever knew.

As Alice thought about it, she decided talking about us was probably the best of the three.

“Alright,” she said, unzipping her leather jacket. She removed it and set it, folded, over a dining chair. “Let’s talk,” Alice said.

Isaac nodded and gestured toward the sofa. Alice approached and sat down, melting into the soft cushion and sighing all of her muscular tension away. She hadn’t realized it back at the graveyard, or even at
mage HQ
, as she called it, but her body was aching all over, particularly around her abdomen. The aches, she knew, would leave, but the pain around her stomach would only get worse.

“Better?” Isaac asked, joining her on the sofa.

“Yeah,” she said, “I need a good bath now.”

“I have bath bombs.”

“Bath bombs? Are you serious?”

“Lavender, honey, cinnamon…”

“You’re like a woman, you know that?” She smiled at him, and smiling helped keep her mind off the steadily growing pain in her stomach. It was a dull throb now, but in a couple of hours…

“When we were in the forest,” Isaac said, becoming serious, “With Raegan. We spoke about some things.”

Alice nodded. “We talked about your mom,” she said, “And about your dad. About you.”

“And about us.”

“Yeah, about us.”

“We had what some might call a rocky start, only what happened to us wasn’t something either of us had any control over.”

She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. You already said enough. I know why you pushed, why you wanted to know so badly. I get it.”

“I know you do. We have both come a long way since then. You have become someone I not only respect more than the officials in my society, but someone I admire greatly.”

“I feel like you’re buttering me up for something,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

Isaac’s eyes softened and he cocked his head. “I would like for us to… try again.”

There it is, she thought, and no sooner had the thought formed in her mind than her cheeks flushed with warm blood and her breathing began to quicken. It wasn’t like the walls were closing in or anything. Ever since the night at the museum—no—ever since she had kissed him for the first time since their reunion, Alice had known they would get here. To this point, this crossroad from which there was no turning back.

She had been so happy to see him when he stepped through that portal, and he had been so… passionate and tender with her, so caring and gentle. Ever since then, she had known what road she would pick when the moment presented itself to them. There was only one road to go down—the road with Isaac in it.

Alice licked her lips and swallowed to moisten her throat. “I want that too,” she said.

Isaac’s dark eyes lit up, and for a moment she could almost see into those deep brown pools, could almost reach the happy place he had gone to. His aura was a pulse of warm sunlight on a cloudy day, radiant and inviting, but Alice did her best to shut it out. She didn’t want to feel it, didn’t want to know any more about what Isaac was feeling than what he was showing her.

“We can make it work this time,” Isaac said, “I know we can.”

“I don’t doubt that,” she said, trailing off. Then she said, “I think I’m ready to tell you.”

“You still don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to. I haven’t told anyone about my scars and… maybe getting this out in the open will help.”

Alice hadn’t thought she needed any help, not with the scars on her back at any rate. They were scars, and they had healed. They had left a crisscrossed landscape of broken tissue behind, but they had healed. But sleeping dogs are never best left alone. Sometimes you have to poke the dog with a stick and deal with it on your terms, before it wakes up and bites you in the ass when you least expect it to.

“I had a dream about them yesterday,” Alice said, “About the scars, I mean. Before I left the safe-house, I dreamt I was being chased by the thing that cut me up. After Nyx stole me across to the Reflection, the first thing she did was take me to the surgeon. When he cut me to the point of death the first time, Nyx fed me a soul. The soul kept me alive and knitted my wounds; it was a reprieve. But it didn’t last. The surgeon cut me again, and again, and again. Being on his table was like a constant droning dial tone of pain.”