half-lich 02 - void weaver (7 page)

“I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed to watch proceedings. Do you really think he would have kept this to himself?”

“I don’t think he did. Not this. He would have pushed for them to investigate even if he himself was being held in custody.”

“According to what I’ve heard—and here it is too,” he said, pointing at another article in a different paper, “He hasn’t been cooperative. I don’t know what that means, but if I know Isaac, he may have kept the details about her name quiet.”

“Why do you think that?”

“For the same reason he’s kept details about your involvement quiet, I guess; he wants their backup, but he doesn’t want them prying.”

“He’s probably not going to get what he wants. I don’t have to be a mage to know that’s not how things work.”

Cameron picked one of the newspapers up and read it while Alice looked through others for more information on Isaac’s case. It surprised her just how much coverage the event at the museum had captured. There was a total of four different articles written in four different editions of the Ashwood Standard, each following the case as it progressed.

One of the first articles mentioned the cover-up at the museum, and an incident involving
Tribune
Isaac Moreau. As far as Alice understood it, a Tribune was responsible for the humans in his district, and Isaac had exposed them to danger by allowing humans to enter his museum, despite knowing of a potential attack. According to the magistrate, Isaac put his job before the safety of his humans. In a way she guessed they were right, but at the time the call was a tough one to make.

Would Nyx have acted that night if the museum had been empty, or was it part of her plan to expose herself only when Isaac and Alice’s attention was divided between humans and her?

The rising wail of a police siren stole her concentration and she perked up, her body taut and alert. The siren slowly receded as the car sped off in a different direction, but Alice couldn’t relax. Her back was stiff, her skin tightly stretched over her muscles and bones.

Cameron picked up one of the copies of the Ashwood Standard from the bottom of the pile and read it. This one had today’s date. “Shit,” Cameron said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“He’s going to trial. Tonight.”

“Trial? What trial?” Alice took the paper and read. “Holy shit… Isaac is being charged and tried tonight.”

“Charged? With what?”

“It says… endangering the public, reckless destruction of magistrate assets, and an unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation. It also says they’ve determined at least one other mage was involved, but that Isaac has denied this.”

Alice hadn’t realized it yet, but she was shaking. It wasn’t until Cameron put a hand on her shoulder that she noticed how her bones were trembling. She shrugged her shoulder out from under Cameron’s hand and marched across the room, with purpose, toward her desk. Alice may not have Trapper anymore, she may not have powers, but that didn’t mean she was defenseless or that she didn’t have any weapons.

She
had
a weapon.

Her Glock, as well as a number of other esoteric items, were kept tucked away in a drawer behind lock and key. Though she owned a license to carry a concealed pistol, she never took the pistol out of the drawer because guns, in general, were messy. Trapper was clean. It snapped a shot of a human and
poof
, the human was dust. Guns left bullet casings, blood, and corpses around, and that just wasn’t clever.

Alice opened the drawer. Inside was a Glock, a wooden stake, a .38 special filled with silver bullets—there were only three left now—and a small white container. She grabbed the Glock, stuffed it into the gun pocket of her leather jacket, and also took the white container, deciding to leave the wooden stake and the gun with the three silver bullets behind. After that, she slammed the drawer shut, locked it, and began to head for the door.

“Woah,” Cameron said, rushing to intercept her, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To do what I have to do for Isaac.”

“With that?” he asked, gesturing with his head. “You really think you’re going to be able to get Isaac out of the hands of four
praetors
and a whole bunch of legionnaires with the pea-shooter you’ve just slipped into your jacket?”

“I have to do
something
. I don’t feel good about this. He’s lying for me, and he’s going to get into trouble for it. I won’t let him do that.”

She went for the door again but Cameron held her firmly, both hands on her shoulders, eyes locked with hers. “Listen to me,” he said, “You’re not going out there. Without my help you’d never get to him in time, and even if you did, there’s nothing you can do. You understand that we’re
mages
, right?”

Alice stared at Cameron for a long moment, losing the battle against her own swelling emotions. The thought of Isaac lying for her, and potentially being exiled—or worse—in order to keep her secret was tearing her in two. Isaac had come to her aid when she had asked him for help, and now it was up to her to return the favor.

And yet… he had told her not to get involved. In a text message on the night he was arrested, his exact words to her had been “
Whatever you do, don’t try to help me.”

Don’t try to help me,
she thought, recalling the message.

Breathing was becoming difficult. Each inhalation seemed to have a smaller capacity for air than the last. Again she wriggled out of Cameron’s hold, walked a number of paces away from him, and focused her efforts on breathing normally. With oxygen came calm, and with calm came cohesive thoughts, untainted by emotion.

Isaac had told her not to help him, which meant… what? Maybe he had things under control—an ace up his sleeve. He must have. If he knew he was going to be lying to the magistrate, or withholding the truth, then why would he allow himself to be captured without having an ace in the hole to fall back on? Isaac was a clever man and she had to trust he knew what he was doing, but she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from thinking about his trial if she stayed put.

Finally, she said, “Fine. I won’t get involved.”

“That’s the smart play,” Cameron said. “We need to see how this is all going to go down, and we need to stay out of it. We can’t help Isaac if the magistrate sets its sights on us.”

She shook her head. “You’re right.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

“The only thing we can do. We’re going to go to Kasey’s Diner and start asking questions.”

Helena was a corpse that had been moved a long time ago, and Nyx hadn’t been mentioned in the papers once. This meant the mages weren’t involving themselves in what happened, or they didn’t believe Isaac’s story. Whatever the case, it meant the scene of the crime—the diner—hadn’t been touched by the magistrate and the trail wasn’t as cold as she had thought it was.

So long as there were breadcrumbs for her to follow, she would follow them.

CHAPTER 6

Breaking the Law

It’s… a teleportation spell.

The writing and rune work were consistent with the most complicated spells which drew on a great deal of power from the Tempest, but it was the numbers that gave the spell away for what it was. They were coordinates on a map—latitude and longitude. Without a globe handy or any reference chart, Isaac had no way of exactly pinpointing where this particular teleportation spell would take the caster, but he suspected it was pointing somewhere inside of Ashwood.

If he were to use the spell, it could lead him anywhere—maybe even into a trap. And without his Guardian to guide him, who could say what might happen to his body? His mind? His soul? In any case, the point was moot. He had no magic. His bangle had stopped glowing the moment Isaac had committed the spell to memory. Lucky for him his memory was photographic, but without access to magic the image he held in his mind was about as useless as sandals in a marsh.

Unless
…

A cold shiver crawled up his back the instant before someone knocked on the door, loudly, forcefully. When he turned, his heart started to thrum hard against his chest like the drums of war. He knew who was out there, understood full well who was on the other side of that door by the way in which he had knocked. This wasn’t a request to be let in—Legio Logan could walk in whenever he wanted.

This was an announcement. A declaration. A
threat
. The prelude to war.

Isaac steeled his nerves. The front door swung open a moment later, and Logan and two of his legionnaires came spilling into the room; a crime boss with his thugs. Isaac stiffened but maintained his wall of composure. He smiled, cocked his head to the side, and said “Legio Logan—what an unexpected pleasure.”

“Shut up,” Logan spat. He crossed the room in three hard strides and squared up to Isaac so their faces were close enough to kiss—or head-butt. “Who was in here?” he asked.

“In here? Me.”

“Cut the shit. Someone was in here a few moments ago. I want to know who it was, and I want to know how they got in.”

Jim
, Isaac thought,
what have you done?
“I can assure you,” Isaac said, “I have been on my own this entire time. The last person to walk through those doors was you.”

Again Isaac took advantage of the fact that Logan couldn’t use his magic in here. Whatever powers of deduction he had were purely mundane, and this leveled the playing field somewhat. But there was something in Logan’s infernal eyes that suggested the question was more of a formality than anything else, because before Isaac knew what had happened, Logan was on him.

Logan grabbed Isaac by his collar and shoved him hard against the window, but Isaac put his hands out and stopped himself from going through the glass or even cracking it. The crows that had been perched on the windowsill cawed in protest and fluttered away into the night. Isaac’s heart was pumping hard now and adrenaline was filling his veins, clouding his composure.

“You have no right to touch me,” Isaac said.

“And you forget your place,” Logan said, his voice a scratchy growl. “You’re lying, and I know it. If you want to make this difficult for the both of us, fine. Lie. But if you come clean now, I’ll let you off easy.”

“I have nothing to lie about.”

“
Bullshit
. You’re lying to me right now, you lied about someone having been here earlier, and you lied to the praetors in the courtroom. You may be able to fool them, but you can’t get past me. I can
smell
the dishonesty on you. Now I’m going to ask again, nicely. Who was here earlier?”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed and he made a quick scan of his immediate vicinity for anything he could use. A lamp shade? A kitchen knife? Neither of these objects was in immediate range, and any move or action on his part would be easily countered by Logan or either of his cronies. Isaac may have outclassed Logan and his legionnaires in the wits department—at least that’s what he suspected—but he was fighting in a physical arena here… and he still outclassed them.

Fighting them, however, was still a risk—a big one, at that. There would be no going back from here if he fought them, especially if the room was bugged and anyone could review the footage on request. They would see Logan asking Isaac to confess, and then Isaac fighting back. Naturally they would come to the conclusion that Isaac was indeed hiding something—otherwise why would he risk engaging the Legio Prime in combat?

But Alice…

“I won’t say anything to you,” Isaac said, having made up his mind.

As soon as he said the words, Logan’s fist came flying. Isaac’s left hand jerked up and blocked Logan’s hand as a disciplined, but primal, instinct took over. Isaac chopped into Logan’s throat with his right hand and sent the big legionnaire staggering away a few steps, coughing and panting. The other two cronies made as if to move in on Isaac, but Logan stretched his hands out to either side and stopped them.

“That’s how he wants to play it,” Logan said between coughs, “Fine. I’ll give him what he wants.”

Isaac cracked his neck from side to side. He then casually rolled the right sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow. “You probably don’t know this about me,” Isaac said, “But before I went to University I did a brief tour in the Royal British Navy. My father was a Commodore. He had thought I needed a little toughening up when I was a lad and had suggested many times before he died that following in his footsteps would give me exactly what I needed.”

“We’ll see how tough you are,” Logan said, and he charged with his fist held high.

Isaac swept to the left. Just as Logan’s fist sailed across his right cheek, Isaac grabbed his wrist and twisted it. Logan cried out, and Isaac jabbed him in the ribs before releasing the bigger man who then continued to stumble forward a few paces.

“I never wanted to enlist,” Isaac said, “I did it because I thought it would be a good tribute to his memory, but I disagreed with my father’s idea that I needed toughening up. Do you know why?”

Logan composed himself, drew himself up, and turned to face Isaac. “Tell me.”

Isaac rolled his left sleeve up now. “Because I had already been boxing for years.”

“I’ve never met a Brit who could fight before.”

“I’m right here.”

A pair of arms wrapped themselves around Isaac’s midsection. The legionnaire to his back, a man, wasn’t as strong as he thought he was, but Isaac cursed himself for not being aware of his surroundings. Logan grinned, then charged, his eyes filled with venom and fire. Isaac struggled for an instant, and then he put his heel into the foot of the man behind him, and he was released. When Logan’s fist came again, Isaac had only a split second to act.

He ducked, and Logan’s brick of a fist bashed into the other legionnaire’s cheek. Isaac took advantage of the confusion to kick the back of Logan’s knee, sending the bigger man down to the floor. With a hard right hook, Isaac managed to turn Logan’s face and cause blood to fly out of his mouth, but Logan turned his head up to look at Isaac again and spread his bloodied mouth into a wide grin.