by Allie Therin
“Mrs. B.”
She patted his hand. “I’ll be careful if you will.” She leaned out the window. “That goes for you too, dear,” she said to Jade, who’d stepped down from the back seat. “And for the young man who’s apparently hovering around here on something called the astral plane.”
Jade inclined her head in acknowledgment. Rory followed her silent steps through the gate and into the park, trying his hardest to keep his tennis shoes from sounding on the pavement as she led him to huddle behind the closest booth. His skin was covered in goose bumps as the wind sent the booth awnings flapping. The rides seemed unnaturally still, casting eerie shadows across the park.
Zhang shimmered into view beside them a moment later. “They have Ace at the Wonder Wheel.” His expression was troubled. “And they heard our car arrive.”
Rory’s eyes widened. “Ace—”
Jade grabbed his hand. “I know you’re worried, but you must stay back,” she whispered. “You must let Zhang and I handle the rescue. Ellis and Gwen will have a plan—”
A scream was wrenched from Rory’s chest as agony shot through him. He staggered and toppled forward, palms scraping the pavement as he fell. His face contorted as he cried out again in pain, blood burning, like someone had reached right into his core and wrung his soul like a wet rag—
“Rory!”
Jade lunged for him, but Rory was pushing up to his feet, stumbling forward in a half run to the looming Wonder Wheel. This was Arthur’s pain, they had Arthur, they were hurting Arthur—
The pain vanished just as a bigger body slammed into Rory. He went flying across the concrete, smacking the wooden counter of a shooting gallery before crashing to the ground. Before he could stand, there was a boot on his chest and a gun in his face.
A mobster in a suit sneered at him. “Stay down, freak.”
“Get off—” Rory’s words were lost to the shattering of glass and explosion like a bottle rocket. He twisted his head just in time to see a plume of purple smoke erupt at Jade’s and Zhang’s feet.
The smoke billowed unnaturally around them, thicker than fog, not drifting free into the air but wrapping around them like a cobra. Jade clutched at her throat as coughs began to rack her body.
A figure stepped out of the shadows. “Say goodbye, astral walker.”
The soldier in the double-breasted coat. Ellis.
Zhang’s eyes were wide as his astral image began to dissolve along the edge like paint splashed with water.
“Zhang!” Jade rasped, one hand still on her throat, but she reached for him. But her hand passed through only air, and then Zhang was gone. She whirled to look at Ellis. “What have you done?”
“We found a stash of potions in Ace’s jacket. Gwen was real impressed.” Ellis pointed to the smoke still cloaking Jade. “Purple one dispels magic. Useful blue one knocked Ace right out for the trip. And of course, we got something special for later.” He pulled out a small vial full of bright orange liquid, flashing it. “Wouldn’t mind having you tell me where you two got them.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Jade said sweetly, as her eyes blazed. “See how far you get.”
Ellis smiled. “Lucky for us, we don’t need you and Ace to talk. We got your little civilian for that.” He looked at two armed gangsters and jerked his head toward Jade. “Lead cuffs are for her. And don’t fuck around,” he snapped. “She was a spy in the war and she’s telekinetic. The moment her magic returns, she can use her thoughts to strangle you with your own necktie.”
The gangsters exchanged a look.
“And as for the subordinate...” Ellis stepped close to the shooting gallery, his boots near Rory’s head. “Didn’t want that dispel smoke on you, did I? You might be something special.” He crouched down. “What’s your magic, sugar? You get men off with your mind?”
Rory nearly choked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to figure out why Ace is slumming with you.” When Rory sucked in a breath, Ellis smiled like a jackal. “Yeah, I know his secret. I don’t care that Ace’s got a taste for men, but it used to be good taste.”
Rory tried to sit up, but the gangster jammed his boot into his ribs. He winced and glowered up at Ellis instead. “I’d like the power to strangle you with your own tie right about now,” he said, through clenched teeth. “You hurt Arthur.”
“Oh, I didn’t do that.” Ellis leaned close. “But you’re about to meet the girl who did.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The mobster’s fingers were leaving bruises in Rory’s biceps as he dragged him to the Wonder Wheel. Just in front, two more gangsters were frog-marching Jade, whose hands had been cuffed behind her.
“Keep her nice and far from Ace,” Ellis said, from the platform. “Search her. Don’t look away, don’t lower your guard, don’t lower your gun.”
As Rory was forced up onto the platform, he heard Jade suck in a breath. He looked past her and saw a slumped figure in black and white, cuffed to the base of the wheel near the lowest passenger car.
“Arthur!” Rory began to fight. Arthur was too pale, listing to one side. “Let me go—Ace—”
“Yes, it’s you.” Rory’s head snapped toward the woman’s voice. The pretty girl from the visions was only a few feet from Arthur, her near-yellow eyes fixed on Rory but never reaching his face, darting all around his outline instead. “It’s your magic I saw and I see now.” Her lips curled in a dangerous smile. “And what perfect magic it is.”
“Gwen, how could you?” Jade snapped, as the guards pulled her to a post several feet from Arthur. She glanced at Arthur, then back to Gwen with narrowed eyes. “Arthur is our friend. He doesn’t even have magic to defend himself!”
“You were hardly going to turn off that telepathy and chain yourself to a post,” Gwen said.
“You could have just come to us,” Jade said sharply. “We’ve only ever wanted to help.”
“You did help.” Gwen’s gaze went back to Rory. “You’ve found a psychometric.”
“Psychometric?” Ellis let out a low whistle. “Talk about a lucky break.”
“Take your break and shove it,” snapped Rory, rage making his mouth reckless. “What happened to Ace?”
“Did they not tell you?” Gwen came closer as the mobster held Rory in place. “I can do more than see auras—I touch them. I know you felt the echo.”
Echo? It had been agony in his core. Had Arthur had it even worse? Rory’s jaw tightened. “If you hurt his aura, why’d I feel it?”
“You don’t know?” She tilted her head. “You don’t, do you?” she said in wonder. “A feat of incredible subordinate power and you’ve managed it on accident.”
“Managed what?” Rory demanded, stomach roiling. “What’d I do to Ace?”
“You wove your magic into his aura.”
Rory stared. “Nah,” he said hoarsely, aware that he had the eyes of everyone on the platform. “That’s balled up, I can’t’ve. I don’t have that power—”
“How do you think you found Ace?” Gwen said. “You’ve anchored your magic to him, claws so deep you could find him at sea. In fact, if I may speak plainly—” she glanced at Ellis with a smile “—you couldn’t have made your claim more clear with a ring on his finger.”
Oh no. Rory swallowed hard. “Did I hurt him?” he said, his voice a near whisper.
“No,” she said sweetly. “That was me.”
Rory clenched his fists. He looked at Jade, where the guards were locking her cuffs. “What do you want?” he said, tugging uselessly against the strength of the two guards holding him.
“Hold your horses.” Ellis stepped forward and began to pat Rory down with practiced efficiency. “We got one more guest.”
Guest? Who—
No.
Footsteps approached. A moment later, a white-faced Mrs. Brodigan appeared on the
platform, her hands in the air. A man with a gun was behind her, the gun between her shoulder blades.
Outraged, Rory opened his mouth, but across the platform, Jade beat him to it. “How dare you?” She was angrier than Rory had ever seen her. “She has no paranormal powers, no knowledge you want, no quarrel with you—”
“She runs an antiques shop that’s a front for a paranormal,” said Gwen.
“And she drove y’all here,” said Ellis. “You should have left her somewhere safe.”
Rory yanked against the mobsters holding him, trying to take a swing. “If you hurt her—”
“It’s your call, sugar. You get to decide the fate of everyone on this platform.” Ellis jerked his head at the henchman with the gun on Mrs. Brodigan. “Chain the old bird next to Ace. He should be coming ’round any moment.”
Mrs. Brodigan was still sheet-white, but she kept her chin high and didn’t speak as the man jabbed her with the gun and got her walking again.
Rory clamped down on his anger enough to get out words. “What do you mean, my call?” he said to Ellis.
“Simple.” Ellis slowly drew the Venom Dagger from his belt and held it up, the blade flashing in the light. “You have a nice dream about me and my dagger couple weeks back? Did you see it work on a sailor?”
The sailor Ellis had stabbed, who’d frozen like a statue before Ellis had kicked him into the ocean. Rory’s blood went cold. “Don’t use that,” he said, breath coming too quick.
“Don’t make me.” He pointed at the thin, narrow box Gwen was pulling from her pocket. “We have the Argonaut Amulet. You’re gonna use that psychometry of yours to figure out how to unlock its magic. If you don’t, I take my time killing everyone up here, starting with your handsome beau.”
Rory began to tremble. “But I never scried that deep into a relic. I dunno how.”
“Then you figure it out,” Gwen said. “Or I’ll be the one to kill Ace, and I’ll make his previous pain feel like a tickle.”
Rory’s chest clenched. “If I go into a relic on purpose—I might not come back.”
“We’ll take that chance,” said Ellis.
Rory screwed his eyes shut. But they had Jade, and Mrs. Brodigan, and Arthur.
He didn’t have a choice.
* * *
“If I go into a relic on purpose—I might not come back.”
“We’ll take that chance.”
Arthur heard the voices first, from a distance, as he slowly came back to aching consciousness. He squinted at the platform as he tried to force his eyes open, feeling bruised to his bones, his lungs, his heart. Christ, Gwen didn’t pull punches. “Ellis—”
“I’m not sure you ought to be trying to speak, dear,” said a familiar brogue to Arthur’s left. “You sound dreadful.”
Arthur screwed up his face in confusion. “Mrs. Brodigan?”
“I’m afraid they got me too.”
Outrage bloomed over the lingering pain, and he forced his eyes open to take stock of the situation: Mrs. Brodigan, chained to the same beam as Arthur, trembling despite her brave words; Jade, cuffed and guarded several feet away, her face perfectly neutral as it only was when she was truly furious.
And Rory, still in the borrowed waiter’s uniform, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists as he stared at the box in Gwen’s hands.
“Rory!” Arthur yanked at his chains as Rory’s head snapped in his direction. The vulnerability in those eyes went straight to Arthur’s heart. “Don’t touch that relic. Whatever they’ve threatened, it doesn’t matter, don’t do what they want—”
“Ace would throw himself on a sword to protect a kitten. He doesn’t care what happens to him,” Gwen said to Rory. “But you, with your magic chains in his heart, you care. Scry the relic or I will kill him.”
Rory bit his lip, then tore his gaze away from Arthur.
“Rory, no!”
But Rory was opening the box.
Gwen’s eyes fluttered. Rory’s movements turned awkward, too slow, as if he were reaching for the amulet through molasses. But he got a hand on it and lifted it from its velvet bed.
“Waves lapping the beach.” Rory’s voice sounded millions of miles away. Behind the glasses, his eyes were wide and blank. “Stars over tide. The full moon rises. He doesn’t understand its power.”
Damnation. Arthur yanked at his chains again. “Rory, come back—”
Ellis popped into view just beside Arthur. “Stop your fretting. Scryers always talk nonsense.”
“He’s never scried a relic—”
“He’s got grubby paws right in your aura. Gwen says he could find his way back from China.”
Arthur yanked at his cuffs. “If he doesn’t come back, I might kill you.”
Ellis snorted. “You can’t even see me unless I let you.”
“Then I’ll kill you,” came Jade’s dry voice, from across the platform.
Ellis twitched. “Now see, Ace,” he said lightly. “Jade is scary.” He disappeared again.
Mrs. Brodigan cleared her throat. “Friend of yours?”
“Once upon a time.” The invisibility was annoying, but Ellis couldn’t hide from Jade, and Arthur could track his movements by watching her eyes. It was at least a distraction from seeing Rory so lost to the amulet and beyond Arthur’s reach.
The platform was silent and tense for several minutes, save for Rory’s nonsensical murmuring, until Arthur’s anxiety nearly choked him. “Is Rory okay?” he whispered to Mrs. Brodigan. “Can you tell? You’ve seen him scry for years.”
“Knickknacks and watches, nothing like this.” Mrs. Brodigan grunted, perhaps testing her own cuffs. “But he’s a scrapper. He won’t let them have you.”
“I don’t care about me!” Arthur started, but Gwen was striding back over.
“He’s taking too long,” she said, then thrust her hand into the air by Arthur’s heart and made a hard twist.
Arthur gasped for breath as sudden fire scorched through his limbs and bones with searing agony.
But far worse was the cry of pain that echoed around the empty park.
“Arthur!” Rory crumpled to the ground, the amulet falling from his hand and clattering against the wooden platform. He rolled on his side, hand outstretched in Arthur’s direction. “Stop, stop hurting him—”
Gwen abruptly pulled her hand away. Arthur slumped in his chains, aching like he’d been sacked by Harvard’s entire defensive line and breathing like he’d run a marathon. His head lolled as he fought to stay conscious, his drooping eyelids leaving only a crack to watch as Gwen dropped to a crouch at Rory’s side. Ellis popped out of the air, towering over both of them.
Gwen leaned over Rory. “Tell me how to unlock it.”
Rory’s hand was shaking as he rubbed his face. “Blood,” he said hoarsely. “Blood of two paranormals mixed with the ocean at high tide.”
Ellis and Gwen exchanged a look. “The Venom Dagger,” said Gwen. “You two fought first.”
“I was bleeding, so was Philippe,” said Ellis. “His magic killed a room full of guards when I stabbed him. Maybe it was blood and death that unlocked the dagger.”
“And blood and high tide will unlock the amulet.” Gwen smiled. “The tide is in now. Let’s go see the ocean, Rory.”
“No—” Arthur forced his shaking arms to try his chains again. Rory looked so small as Ellis hauled him to his feet. “Wait—”
Ellis shoved Rory at two of the guards. “Take him down to the beach. He tries anything funny, shout.” He smiled his jackal smile. “We’ll start shooting up here.”
“Let him go—” Arthur’s demand went ignored as two gangsters followed Gwen, yanking Rory in the direction of the boardwalk. Arthur slumped against the beam, head falling back as he swore. Useless.
“My word,” Mrs. Brodigan suddenly said loudly to their g
uard. “Did your tie just move by itself?”
The guard grabbed for his throat. Ellis jerked his head toward Jade in alarm. She gave him an unimpressed look. “Wasn’t me.”
Ellis’s Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. “Everyone, on her,” he snarled, pointing at Jade. “She so much as twitches, you shoot.”
The gangster hurried over to Jade, leaving Arthur and Mrs. Brodigan somewhat alone. Arthur let his heavy head tilt in Mrs. Brodigan’s direction. “I beg your pardon for my language, Mrs. Brodigan, but what the hell?”
“Can you reach my hands?” she whispered urgently.
Arthur strained against his cuffs, trying to make it look like he was working out the painful kinks Gwen had left behind. He stretched his fingers out behind his back until they brushed Mrs. Brodigan’s. “Yes. Why?”
“Because I’m a harmless old bird,” she said, as something small and metal pressed against his palm, “so they didn’t search me.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Meaty fingers dug into the back of Rory’s neck as Gwen’s two gangsters dragged him across the boardwalk at a pace that had him tripping over his own feet. “Geez, where’s the fire?”
One of the mobsters snorted like a bull. “Not our problem you’re short.”
The wind was ice cold, the full moon bright white as they marched Rory along the wooden planks lit by iron lampposts, past the line of boarded-up trinket shops and ice-cream parlors to the boardwalk’s steps down onto the beach. Coarse sand slipped into the sides of his sneakers as Rory was hauled toward the ocean. In all his dreams of seeing the sea, it’d never gone like this.
Gwen was several paces ahead, the amulet’s box gripped in one hand.
“How’re you holding that lead like it’s nothing?” Rory demanded.
“I don’t give a toss about a stinging hand when I’m so close to regaining control of my magic.” She stopped at the edge of the black waves and turned to look over her shoulder. The wind blew her long curls away from her face, her eyes colorless in the moonlight. “Join me.”
One of the mobsters shoved Rory between the shoulders, sending him stumbling forward into the water’s edge. Rory cursed as the icy water came up over his sneakers, soaking his feet.