The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles) (41 page)

T
he theater was set up like a nightclub, with comfortable plush seating around small tables. Sound and lighting equipment had been pushed into a corner to free up more floor space, and the chairs brought in close together. Gabriel Mandrake had done everything possible to make it less like an interrogation and more like a conversation.

Leesha was surprised to find a small group waiting for them. Gabriel Mandrake, of course. She also recognized several members of Fault Tolerant—Rudy Severino, Natalie Diaz, and Alison Shaw. There were four more people she didn’t know. But no Jonah Kinlock.

“Welcome back to the Keep,” Mandrake said. He embraced Mercedes; Mercedes hugged Natalie, and then introduced Leesha and the rest of them.

Leesha relaxed fractionally. It was all kumbaya so far. Maybe she’d worried for nothing.

“I was disappointed to learn that Madison Moss isn’t with you,” Mandrake said. “I understood that she would be coming.”

“She won’t be participating in the interview,” Seph said. “The Halloween murders are still hard for her to talk about. But she’s very much interested in the outcome of this, so she’s supervising the campus search.”

Mandrake’s lips tightened. “Patrick tells me that a number of you have already deployed to the other buildings.” He paused. “Actually, this may work out well.” He motioned Patrick closer, they exchanged a few quiet words, and the assistant took his leave.

“What about Kinlock?” DeVries asked. “Will he be joining us?”

“Not immediately,” Mandrake said.

“And Emma?” DeVries persisted.

“As I’ve said before, I don’t have any idea where she is,” Mandrake said. “For now, it’s just us.” Their eyes locked briefly.

“Who’s Emma?” a woman asked, touching Mandrake’s arm.

“Emma was a student here for a brief time,” Mandrake said. “She may or may not have been a witness to the murders at McCauley’s.”

That’s odd, Leesha thought. You’d think everybody here would already know that whole story. And the woman—she looked too old to be a student. Her voice was hard to understand, like someone who’s had a head injury, an impression reinforced by the fact that her face was oddly devoid of expression. The hairs on the back of Leesha’s neck stood up. If Fitch were there, she would have said,
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

“Let me introduce those who
are
here,” Mandrake said. “All of them are Thorn Hill survivors. This is Lilith Greaves,” he said, touching the shoulder of the woman who’d asked about Emma. He introduced Natalie, Rudy, and Alison; then the ones Leesha hadn’t met before: Mike Joplin, Charlie Dugard, Thérèse Fortenay, and Brendan Wu.

Charlie Dugard looked familiar. Where had she seen him before? And Brendan Wu was also older than the others, maybe middle-aged. If he had any Asian blood, Leesha couldn’t see it. What an odd mix of people, she thought. She’d also been told that none of the Thorn Hill survivors had made it to adulthood. Mandrake hadn’t said a word about their roles at the Anchorage.

It was also odd that Mandrake would want so many people present for this kind of conversation. Leesha guessed they knew what topic was on the agenda. Maybe. They seemed tense, on edge, especially the members of Fault Tolerant, who’d been present the night of the murders.

Alison, for example. She looked stylish in jeans, boots, and a brilliant teal sweater, her hair streaked with the same color. But she twitched and fidgeted, not meeting anyone’s eyes, as if she wished she were someplace else.

“Please,” Mandrake said, gesturing toward an array of food on the sideboard. “Help yourself to refreshments and then have a seat. We’ll be here a while, so you may as well make yourselves comfortable. When your colleagues arrive, they’ll be welcome to join us.”

When everyone was settled, Leesha woke her tablet to bring up her list of questions. Odd. There was no Internet—no signal at all. She would have thought that this place, of all places, would have been totally connected.

“We’ve developed a list of questions as a starting point,” Leesha said. “I’ll start, but some of the others may—” She looked up to find Mandrake shaking his head. “What? Is there a problem?”

“Let’s hold off on questions for now,” Mandrake said. “In the interest of efficiency, we’re going to share with you the history of Thorn Hill, and how it relates to what we do here at the Keep.”

Mercedes and Leesha looked at each other. “Would you care to explain?” Mercedes said.

Mandrake sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Have you heard of a process known as Truth and Reconciliation?”

Seph cleared his throat. “Isn’t that what was used in South Africa after the end of apartheid?”

Mandrake nodded. “It involves allowing the victims of genocide to confront those responsible and have an honest dialogue about reconciliation—which is the only way to find a way forward.”

“We came here to find out the truth about what happened on Halloween,” DeVries said, “and to determine who is responsible for a decade of killings. We didn’t come here to talk about Thorn Hill.”

“Maybe not,” Greaves said, “but we did.”

“I’m a little confused, Gabriel,” Mercedes said. “Are you suggesting that someone here is responsible for what happened in Brazil?”

“Not directly,” Gabriel said. “But indirectly, perhaps.” His gaze singled out DeVries. “And in a global sense? Definitely.”

“This is a waste of time,” DeVries said, his voice low and furious, flame flickering over his skin. “I agreed to this because I hoped for an honest effort to resolve this and bring the guilty parties to justice.”

“We share that goal,” Greaves said. Her voice was thick, and somewhat difficult to understand.

“If you think you’re going to be able to use what happened at Thorn Hill to excuse the murders on Halloween, you are mistaken,” DeVries said. “Madison Moss’s twelve-year-old sister should not pay the price for a tragedy that was likely the result of carelessness and hubris.”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that,” Mandrake said. “It’s really a very interesting story. Please.” He motioned toward DeVries’s seat. “Sit down.”

Leesha could almost see the wheels turning in the other wizard’s head. If he stayed, he might learn something, and at the end of it, he’d take action, depending on what he heard.

DeVries slowly sank back down into his seat, his eyes wary.

Leesha looked at Seph, who’d been gripping the arms of his chair like he might spring out of it. She saw him relax fractionally, and guessed he might have reached a similar conclusion—that there was no harm in listening, and they might learn something.

“We’ll begin with the premise that appearances can be deceiving,” Mandrake said. “I introduced the others as Thorn Hill survivors—and they are. But there are differences among them. Let me explain.”

Jack found what was left of his team on the fourth floor, huddled together in a laundry room—they were down to three—Morrison, Highbourne, and Hudson. Two wizards and a seer. Morrison almost brained Jack with a mop handle before they got things sorted out.

“Somebody in a ski mask shot at us down on the third floor,” the wizard explained. “We’ve been trying to reach the command post, but it doesn’t seem to be getting through. I thought we had permission to search in here.” She looked betrayed.

“I thought we did, too,” Jack said. “Either somebody didn’t get the memo, or we’ve got freelancers joining in. Scavuzzo and Hackleford are both dead.”

“Dead?”
Morrison said, looking like this was
not
the operation she’d signed up for.

“I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but Hackleford killed Scavuzzo, and I killed Hackleford.” He told the others what had happened.

“Wizards were trying to kill you?” Highbourne looked baffled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What about the person who shot at you?” Jack asked. “Was he or she gifted?”

“We didn’t get a good look,” Highbourne said, looking embarrassed. “We ran. We came up here and hid.”

“Smart move,” Jack said, squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t pick a fight you can’t win. I don’t want to lose anybody else. I’m going to pass out a few weapons that might even the odds, depending on who we’re up against.” He distributed the weapons he’d taken from Hackleford.

Morrison held the gun flat-handed, like it was a grenade. “I don’t know anything about guns,” she said. “Can’t I just flame them or use a killing charm?”

“If it works, have at it,” Jack said. “Should work fine on wizards. Not too sure about savants.”

Morrison looked at Jack. At the gun. Lifted her chin and said grimly, “Show me.”

“Short course,” Jack said. “Don’t point your gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you’re ready to shoot. Make sure of your target and what’s beyond it. Shoot two-handed—one hand steadying the other.” He watched as she demoed it back to him. She did reasonably well. “Okay, this is the safety. Leave it on unless you’re ready to shoot. And don’t shoot if any of the rest of us are in front of you.” Morrison nodded, flicked the safety on, and tucked the gun into her waistband.

“All right,” Jack said. “We’re not going to hunt down whoever’s shooting at us. I’m assuming that they know all about guns, and that puts us at a disadvantage. Remember: they are not here to defend the building. They are here to kill us. Our plan is to avoid them, get out, and get help.”

Hudson was looking at the building floor plan on her tablet. “It’s better to use the stairs, right? If we go right and then left, we should be able to take the stairs to the ground floor and go out through the back door.”

They descended the stairs, Jack in the lead, Highbourne taking the rear, the two wizards in between. At the foot of the stairs, Jack motioned the others to the side, and tried the stairway door. Locked.

“Can’t we shoot it open?” Highbourne asked.

Jack shook his head. “That works in the movies, not so much in real life. Besides, it’s a steel door. The bullets will probably ricochet and kill us.”

“And it’ll make too much noise, right?” Morrison said, examining the hinge side of the door. “Stand back,” she said. Extending her hand, she ran a thin line of wizard flame along the hinges, sweeping up and down until the metal softened, then melted, running down the side of the door until it hung loose in its frame. Jack managed to wedge his fingers into the opening and pried it open a few inches. Waited. Then pried it open farther. Nothing. Stuck his head out for a look-around. And was met by a withering volley of gunfire.

Jack jerked his head back in. Swore.

“What about those little bottles you had?” Morrison said. “What’s in them?”

Jack shook his head. “I’m thinking some kind of poison. Since we don’t know what it is or how to use it, we might end up poisoning ourselves.”

Hudson was studying the floor plan again. “There’s a side door that lets out into the alley alongside the building. Can we get out that way?”

“Depends on whether they’re working with the same intel we are,” Jack said. “Let’s try it.”

L
eesha didn’t buy
everything
Gabriel Mandrake was selling. Maybe he was a principled philanthropist, but he gave off some slick hustler vibes, like he couldn’t help but present himself in the best possible light. She knew the type—she’d
once been a hustler of sorts herself. He might be telling some of the truth, but he sure wasn’t telling
all
of the truth.

Still, she tried to keep an open mind as she sat through his description of the founding of Thorn Hill, his claims that it wasn’t a terrorist camp, that the so-called massacre couldn’t have been a tragic accident since there were no toxic chemicals in use at the commune, his conclusion that it must have been a genocidal attack, carried out by someone who wouldn’t hesitate to murder children. Alison talked about the “mercy killings” carried out by mainliners after the fact. Natalie shared her experiences as a healer, the ongoing heartbreak of losing family members and friends to the long-term effects of the poison.

Greaves didn’t say much, but seemed intent on Rowan DeVries throughout the speeches, as DeVries grew more and more impatient. He leaned toward Leesha. “Don’t you think this is just a delaying tactic?” he hissed.

Leesha shrugged. “Maybe. I guess we are learning things we didn’t know before.”

All this time, Seph had been listening, keeping his opinions to himself. Now he spoke up. “Isn’t that uncommon—wizards using poisons?”

“Ask DeVries about his father,” Greaves said. “He was very ecumenical when it came to murder. He employed sorcerers to make poisons for him.”

“What do
you
know about my father?” DeVries said, obviously startled.

“I used to work for him,” Greaves said.

DeVries stared at her. It seemed he had finally lost his footing. “What was your name again?”

“Back then I went by Gwyneth Hart,” Greaves said. “Gwen.”

“And...you made poisons? For my father?”

Greaves shook her head. “Actually, I worked on another project. Your father was interested in modifying Weirstones, in creating designer Weir. I worked on that—experimenting on unwilling subjects—and I hated it. I fled to Thorn Hill to get away from him. There, I became a different person. I took a new name, started a new life. I hoped your father would never find me.” She paused. “Apparently, he did.”

DeVries wasn’t buying either. “You think the connection between you and my father proves he was responsible for Thorn Hill?”

“I think it proves that he was familiar with and a frequent user of poisons,” Greaves said. “I think it proves that he was a despicable man.”

“But you
survived
?” DeVries said after a long pause. “I thought the survivors were all children.”

“That depends on how you define ‘survived,’” she said. She turned to Brendan Wu, who took the floor, and told them about shades.

Leesha could tell that speech came hard for him—for both Greaves and Wu. When she looked closely at him, and at Lilith Greaves, she could see the resemblance between their flat, expressionless faces and the way they moved and the zombie-like creatures who’d nearly killed her that night in the Flats.

Somehow, it was this most far-fetched claim that she found most convincing—that a sentient remnant of those who died persisted after death. Maybe it was because she’d had direct experience with what they called hosted shades the night of the attack. Or maybe Wu was just more credible than Mandrake. This was the first explanation she’d heard that made sense. Well, it was the
only
explanation she’d heard.

Not everyone was convinced.

“You expect us to believe that you”—DeVries pointed at Brendan Wu and Lilith Greaves with his first and middle fingers—“that you are actually Thorn Hill victims inhabiting stolen bodies?”

“Not victims,” Greaves said. “Survivors. And whether you choose to believe it or not, it’s true.”

“A body is not just a costume that you put on,” DeVries said. “I mean, how does that even work?”

“I don’t know.” Wu shrugged. “Could it be...
magic
? Ya think?”

Leesha smothered a smile. She could see the spirit of this boy shining through his ill-fitting body.

“Do you have any proof?” DeVries asked, looking around, like he was humoring people at a séance. “For example, are there any loose shades in here right now?”

“Not loose shades,” Alison muttered, scowling. “
Free
shades.”

Mandrake motioned to Severino, and he walked around, passing out small flower pendants made of silver. “Put those on, and you’ll be able to see them,” Mandrake said.

Leesha slid the chain over her head so that the pendant rested on her chest. When she looked up, she saw them. They were everywhere, like gossamer petticoats or spiderwebs or pulsing, transparent jellyfish in the air. She couldn’t help hunching down in her chair, covering her head with her arms.

“They won’t hurt you,” Mandrake said. “They
can’t
hurt you, unless they inhabit a body. As of now, they’re not strong enough to inhabit someone living—only the dead.”

“I suppose this
could
be the real deal,” DeVries said. “They could be restless spirits, spooks, shades, or whatever. Or this
could
be a sefa that causes hallucinations.” He tapped the pendant with his forefinger.

“I, for one, believe them,” Leesha said, straightening a little. “It’s ironic if we as practitioners of magic can’t consider the possibility that there is a kind of magic we’ve never seen before. Still, there’s something I don’t understand. I was attacked by a group of zom—hosted shades one night in the Flats. I was with two Anaweir friends, but it was clear that they were coming after me in particular. Why is that? Is it a matter of revenge?”

“Leesha’s right,” Seph said. “We’ve been talking about the connection between the mainline guilds and the disaster at Thorn Hill. Is there a connection between Thorn Hill survivors and the Weir murders?”

The Thorn Hill survivors looked at one another, as if hoping someone else would pick up the ball. Mandrake looked a little greenish, like he wished he could end the conversation right there.

Finally, Greaves spoke. “Yes,” she said. “Hosted shades have been responsible for most of the killings.”

This was met by shocked silence.

“There is an element of revenge in it,” Greaves continued matter-of-factly, “because most Thorn Hill survivors blame mainliners for their situation. But there is an element of justice as well. The only treatment for us, the only thing that offsets the damage done to us at Thorn Hill, is blood magic.”

“Blood...magic,” DeVries said. “You mean the energy that’s freed by the death of the gifted.”

Greaves nodded. “Originally, shades killed in order to obtain fresh host bodies. Weir, Anaweir—it didn’t matter. More recently, we’ve killed to obtain the blood magic that allows us to inhabit one body for an extended length of time, to fully occupy it and use it more effectively. It’s also therapeutic for those of us who still have our original bodies.”

Well, we wanted the truth, Leesha thought. “I was with you up until now,” she said. “I’m totally sympathetic, but that’s just not going to work for us going forward.”

Seph McCauley’s face had gone pale, his eyes blazing gold-green against the pallor. “So...what you’re saying is, Thorn Hill survivors killed Grace Moss and two other people in my backyard in order to collect blood magic.”

Wu and Greaves looked at each other. “You’re talking about the killings in Trinity,” Greaves said.

“Jonah asked me about that, remember?” Brendan said to Greaves. “He thought we were responsible for the killings on Halloween.”

“Isn’t that what we’re here to talk about?” Seph’s voice rose. “You killed a twelve-year-old girl so you could patch yourselves up. A girl who was two when Thorn Hill happened, someone who had no idea she was even magical until two years ago.”

“I’ll be the first to say that I don’t control more than a fraction of the Thorn Hill survivors,” Greaves said. “It could have been shades that did the killings. But not anyone under my command. It wasn’t us.”

“This is a waste of time,” DeVries said. “It wasn’t zombies who attacked me on Halloween night. It was Jonah Kinlock. So where is he?”

“Yes,” Alison said. “
Where is he?
What have you done with him?”

Leesha looked from Alison to Mandrake, feeling the tension that crackled between them.

“Jonah has another commitment,” Mandrake said, giving Alison a look that said that she was talking out of turn.

“Like what?” Alison said. “What could be more important than this?”

Mandrake and Greaves seemed to be having trouble coming up with an answer.

Alison stood. “I have something to say,” she announced, her voice trembling a little. “Ms. Greaves, you said that you left Mr. DeVries’s employ because you didn’t want to experiment on unwilling subjects, right?”

Greaves nodded warily. “Right.”

“But when you got to Thorn Hill, you started right back in, didn’t you?” Alison said. “You—and him—” She pointed at Mandrake. “You started trying to turn us into something we’re not, and we never had a chance to say yes or no.”

“Alison,” Mandrake said, visibly shaken, “what are you doing?”

“Truth and reconciliation,” Alison said. “Isn’t that what this is? So here’s the truth: we were experimented on without our consent.”

“You’re confused,” Mandrake said, licking his lips, sweat beading his forehead. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do,” Alison said. “And you do, too.”

“I should have known that this meeting would be too stressful for you.” Mandrake looked at Natalie for help. “Natalie, can you and Rudy help Alison back to her apartment and sedate her? Once we’re done here, we can—”

“No,” Natalie said. “No, I can’t.” With that they all stood, all the younger survivors of Thorn Hill. Natalie, Rudy, Charlie, Mike, and Thérèse.

“See, we’re all in this together,” Rudy said. “Back then, we were too young to consent. Well, now we’re older, those of us who’ve survived. We’re old enough to decide. But you just keep on using us, don’t you?”

“
Using
you? Is that what you think?”

“Your mistake was giving us the blood magic,” Natalie said. “It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, to get us all on board with the new plan, to demonstrate the benefits. But there were...unexpected side effects. Like clearheadedness.”

“Jonah had it right all along, didn’t he?” Alison said.

Mandrake turned, speaking directly to Seph. “She’s heavily medicated,” he said. “She’s been declining for some time, and has developed a paranoia that—”

“I
have
been heavily medicated,” Alison said. “We all have. All those trips to the dispensary, all those therapies. You still hoped to create that perfect assassin.”

“What kind of experiments?” Mercedes asked. “What was really going on at Thorn Hill?”

“They were creating magical mutants,” Rudy said. “So we could defend ourselves against wizard oppression. After the massacre, Gabriel tried to carry on.”

“I was trying to keep you alive!” Gabriel looked at each of them in turn, but couldn’t seem to find any allies.

“But you weren’t the expert on Weirstones, were you?” Natalie said. She jerked a thumb at Greaves. “Lilith Greaves was. She was always better at this than you. So your experiments weren’t all that successful.”

“Meanwhile, the undead survivors of Thorn Hill were causing problems,” the one called Charlie said. “Making it more likely that your secrets would come out. So you sent us out to put them to rest permanently.”

“Jonah caught on,” Natalie said. “He kept asking questions about why we were doing what we were doing. He kept trying to get at the truth behind Thorn Hill. Worse, now shades under Lilith’s command were killing the gifted, seeking blood magic.”

“So you needed a scapegoat,” Alison said. “You needed a sacrifice that would take the pressure off of you, so you could keep your secrets a little longer. So you set Jonah up. He was supposed to take the blame for the murders at McCauley’s. The double bonus was it would shut him up. But somehow, he managed to slip through the trap you laid for him.”

“Hang on,” Seph said. “What are you saying?”

“You’re blaming the wrong person,” Alison said. “Jonah didn’t kill those people on Halloween. I did.” Tears pooled in her eyes, spilled over, and ran down her cheeks. “I am so very sorry.”