The Warlock's Curse (37 page)

Briar shook his head thoughtfully, exhaling acrid smoke through his nose. “I’ve heard of lots of consortiums. Consortiums, conglomerates, syndicates, trusts ... don’t have much use for any of ‘em. What kind of consortium did she mean?”

Will shrugged; he had no idea. Of course he’d heard of business consortiums too, and if anyone was likely to be in one of them, it was that slick Atherton Hart fellow she’d gone up to see. But it was difficult to imagine why a doctor in a mental asylum would be scared of a business consortium.

Briar was silent for a long time, obviously contemplating Will’s situation. He drew his glass of beer close to himself.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Will,” he said, turning the glass between his palms. “Telling someone you love them is a funny thing. It can make things a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, depending. But there’s only one thing worse than telling them. It’s not telling them at all. That’s the only advice I got for you. Sorry.”

It wasn’t any more than Will already knew. But it was good to have a friend offer it to him. Nodding gratefully, Will raised his hand for another glass of beer.

By the end of the night Will and Briar had both drunk far more than they should have, and they had to lean on each other heavily as they staggered back to Dr. Gore’s. Their path was lit by the glow of the almost-full moon, multiplied by the light of moonlight towers. The streets were ghostly bright.

When Irene found the pair of them collapsed on her doorstep, she sighed with indulgent disdain, crossed herself quickly, and let them in, directing them to the receiving room, where Will took the couch and Briar climbed onto the examining table.

The next morning Will felt much better, despite a hangover of monstrous proportions. Not wanting to wake the still-snoring Briar, he let himself quietly out of Dr. Gore’s house, emerging into the wan cold light. He started back toward Fort Tesla, glancing quickly at his watch. He had plenty of time to meet Grig, and with luck, his mentor would never even suspect he’d been gone.

The activities of the night before seemed a strange blur to him. He remembered that there had been a voice in his head ... but that seemed unreal now, as if it was just a story he’d been telling himself. He couldn’t even remember what the voice had said—he knew it had made sense at the time, but all he could remember now was harsh guttural gibberish. He laid it all down to sheer exhaustion. He’d been working so hard on the schematics. But now, he realized with a sudden thrill, that was all done with. The schematics were finished. No more late nights. He could live like a normal person.

Without Jenny.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Could he really have fallen in love with her, he wondered? But the answer came to him instantly, so obvious it made him snort at himself. Sure, who wouldn’t? Who
couldn’t
fall in love with a girl like that?

Briar was right. He had to tell her.

As Will made his way up Woodward Avenue, he stopped before a storefront with holiday decorations more cheerful than most, the front window draped with chains of colored paper and strings of popcorn. It was a jewelry store—this much he ascertained from the display of rings and necklaces—small, and not particularly grand. They didn’t charge him much to set the silver dollar his father had given him into a necklace, and they did it while he waited.

Then, standing before the shop in the rising sunlight, he opened the little purple velvet gift box in which the jeweler had nestled the newly-set necklace. The silver gleamed in the orange and crimson rays of dawn. It really
was
incredible, he realized. But it wasn’t incredible for all the strange and detailed reasons Jenny had given him. It was incredible because Jenny’s eyes had lit up when she looked at it, and her breath had been taken away in wonder.

He clicked the velvet box shut and slid it into his pocket. He would tell her on Christmas Eve. Surely she wouldn’t leave him before Christmas. He would give her the necklace and tell her that he loved her. And he wouldn’t care if she laughed. Actually he knew that he would care, very much, but he tried not to think about that.

Will reached the Winslow Street Apartments just as Grig was stepping out the front door, pulling on his leather gloves. They were accustomed to meet on the apartment’s front steps for their workday walk to Fort Tesla, so Will didn’t understand why, when Grig caught sight of him, his eyes filled with alarm.

“Are you feeling well, Mr. Edwards?” Grig touched his arm with concern. “You look ... peaked.”

“Fine, Grig,” said Will. And it was true. He
did
feel fine. The little velvet box in his pocket made him feel fine. But as they walked to the Compound, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby window and was shocked at how haggard he looked—his cheeks hollow and sunken, his eyes ringed with dark circles.

But with the little velvet box in his pocket, Will found that his workday at Tesla Industries went very quickly. He was impervious to Roher’s sallies and squeaks. As he bent over a soapstone workbench, wiring up an important subsystem of Grig’s Tri-Dimensionator, he imagined giving the necklace to Jenny; he imagined each of her possible responses in exquisite or excruciating detail, depending on the nature of the response. His reveries were so complete, in fact, that when three strange men came into Building Three around lunchtime, he was one of the last apprentices to notice.

When he finally did look up, he saw that all the other young men were frozen in watchfulness; pens hovering over papers, places in books held with still fingers.

Building Three did not get many visitors, for Grig liked to keep the projects they were working on a matter of strict secrecy even from the other groups on the Compound. But while visitors were not unheard of, none had ever provoked such a response.

The men were all very large and strong-looking, and they all bore the same official Tesla Industries insignia that the apprentices did—except these men’s badges read “Security.”

The visitors strode across the large workfloor, coming to a stop before Roher’s desk. Roher looked up at them. The squeak of his chair fell silent. Every apprentice in the room seemed to hold his breath.

“Mr. Max Roher?” one of the men asked crisply.

Roher nodded assent, but did not speak.

“We are here to escort you from the premises. It has been determined that you have violated the terms of the apprenticeship contract you signed.”

Will watched with dark satisfaction as all the color drained from Roher’s face.

“We have received a report that you have been maintaining unauthorized contact with one Miss”—here he consulted his notes—“Greta Zuffenhausen. Having verified the accuracy of this report, it has been determined that the only recourse is your immediate expulsion. Please come with us. You are to take nothing with you. Your personal belongings will be collected and sent.”

Roher stood slowly. He looked around the room, his fat face stricken.

Will smiled to himself. He did not think of himself as a mean-spirited person, so he wasn’t quite sure what compelled him to call after Roher’s back, as he was being escorted out by the three men:

“Goodbye, Blockhead!”

After they left, the room was deathly silent. All the other apprentices turned their eyes to Will. Will was surprised to find that their gazes were uniformly hostile. He glared back at them before returning to his work. None of them had liked Roher any better than he had! What were they all so angry about? Court came over to his desk and roughly gestured for Will to follow. Once they were outside, Court thrust his face close to Will’s, his eyes bright with fury.

“
You
did that?”

“Hell yes I did!” Will snapped back. “You know how he was always digging me! And you yourself were the one who told me about his little flirtation with Greta whatever-her-name-was!”

“I didn’t mean for you to use it to get him kicked out!” Court yelled, shoving Will backward. Will stumbled, but caught himself.

“Court!” he blurted, shocked.

“You were supposed to tell
Roher
that you knew,” Court said. “It would have gotten him off your back. But for God’s sake, you weren’t supposed to rat him out to
Tesla
.”

Will swallowed hard. Shame contended with anger, and anger won. “Well, he broke the apprenticeship contract!” he barked. “He deserved what he got.”

“We’ve
all
broken the apprenticeship contract, Will!” Court yelled, then quickly clapped his hand over his mouth, anxious at having yelled it so loudly. When he continued, it was in a quiet intense hiss: “Have you
read
that contract? It’s impossible
not
to break that contract! One bite of meat and you’ve broken the contract! One night in the sack with your wife and you’ve broken the contract!”

“They took that part out of mine,” Will muttered.

Court’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that’s right. Because you’re so
special
. Because being held to a contract is for other people, for people you don’t like.”

“Look, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Will said finally. The words sounded petulant even to him.

Court shook his head and stared at him.

“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you? Roher will never work again, Will. Tesla will ruin him. There won’t be a university or a high school or even a goddamn
kindergarten
that will consider him now. All because you couldn’t take a few tacks on your chair.”

Then, turning on his heel, Court was gone, disappearing back into Building Three. And Will realized that he had lost his only friend at Tesla Industries.

None of the other apprentices spoke to him after that. Not at all, not even when he addressed them directly. And it was clear that none of them intended to do so again.

Fine
, Will thought acidly.
To hell with all of them
.

Later that day, when Grig finally returned to Building Three, he looked worn down. He did not return to work on his Tri-Dimensionator, as he was accustomed to do, but rather called all the apprentices together.

“We’ve all had a very upsetting day,” he said, his voice quavering. “I would be guilty of great disloyalty to Mr. Tesla if I were to defend Mr. Roher’s actions. But I must say, I will miss him. He was a young man of exceptional intelligence and insight, and I am very sad that he has thrown away, with one foolish indiscretion, what promised to be a brilliant career.”

Walking back to his desk, Will stumbled over an outstretched foot. It was Court’s.

“Blockhead,” Court hissed at him, before returning to his work.

Later, walking home with Grig, Will wasn’t sure what he should say. Grig would certainly know that he’d been the one who’d written the letter to Tesla, telling him of Roher and his blonde-braided girlfriend. Will had signed his own name to it, sent it through the interoffice mail, unsure if a letter from a lowly apprentice would reach the notice of the great man. But clearly it had. And clearly the great man had taken it seriously.

They walked very slowly through the slanting evening light. Grig kept clearing his throat, as if he wanted to speak about the events of the day but was having a difficult time doing so.

“Mr. Edwards,” he began formally, then softened. “Will. I want you to know that I blame myself.”

Will had been expecting anything but that. “What?”

“I allowed Mr. Roher to bully and abuse you, and for that I apologize. I know how he treated you when I was out of the office. In some ways, I thought it would help you. It gained you the sympathy of the other apprentices. Mr. Courtenay, in particular, would never have taken you under his wing had he not felt you needed a friend.”

Grig was apologizing to
him
? It made Will feel unutterably low.

“I care very deeply for all my young men,” Grig continued. “For all his flaws, there was much to admire in Mr. Roher. And no small amount of genius.”

There was a long silence between them as they came to the front steps of the Winslow Street Apartments.

“In the end, however, you behaved just as Mr. Tesla would have. Strictly, and with respect for the rules. Mr. Tesla is a great admirer of the rules.” Grig paused. “But just between you and me, Will, while Mr. Tesla has most of the qualities it takes to make a great man—I do not believe he has all of them.”

Will blinked. Tipping his hat to Will, Grig said before vanishing inside:

“Good night. I will see you in the morning. As usual.”

Will stood there for a long time, staring at the closed door. Then, quietly, he went inside and climbed the stairs to his own apartment. Letting himself in, the first thing he saw was Jenny, sitting on the couch facing the door, her face pale.

“Oh William, you’re home, thank goodness!” She rose swiftly. “You didn’t come home at all last night! Where were you? I was worried sick!”

“I was just out,” Will said softly. “Walking.” Breaking the contract, just as Roher had, but in an infinitely more flagrant way. And in a way infinitely more disloyal to the woman standing before him. He couldn’t tell her about following her, about seeing her with Atherton Hart. He felt terrible about it now. Dirty and sneaking and unkind. With his thumb, he stroked the velvet box in his pocket, as if to reassure himself that it was still there. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”