by T. S. Snow
"We need to go to my apartment. I know how to catch the double agent. Or, at least, I have a pretty good chance of finding out who it is. I just need my tech from my apartment," I whispered.
“Yeah, I kinda got that from before. My question is, how?” Well, she wasn’t shutting my idea down, so here went nothing.
"Before they exploded my damn apartment with me inside of it, I developed a virus and a program to read it. The virus made it into the resistance's headquarters and into their mainframe. I can't tell you how, but just trust me, that's how we found one of their HQs, even if it had been emptied before we captured them because of the fucking worm who gave them a heads up. And I have a program with a log that I left running before I went poof. The log should have every location the infected METs have been activated during the last two weeks. I need access to it, I'm hoping to pin down the asshole based on his pinged locations and use that information to track him. I’m hoping whoever they are, they used their METs at AMIA or maybe at the Academy, then I’d just need to keep an eye on that specific user until they activate their MET again.”
"Can't you access it from here?"
"Well, considering we don't even have any damn WiFi, no. My computer will also be turned off, laptop out of battery. I need to go there. Besides, there’s the matter of my safety measures in the wards, which I honestly thought would be more useful against trespassers and nosy engineers than actual bombs and attempts on my life. But, basically, you'll need me to go inside, so I can't just send you there. Very few people could enter without me right now, and since we don't know who is actually after me..."
I trailed off and looked at Blair, begging her to just let me go. I needed to do this, I needed to be useful. I understood why I needed to "stay dead", but some things in life were worth the risk, and honestly, catching whoever was betraying AMIA was bigger than me. It could potentially save hundreds of lives because I didn't trust the resistance to not escalate their attacks even more than they already had. And they clearly had no qualms about killing innocent people, even ordinary humans, in their hopes of achieving their goals. And what if they became ambitious and attacked the Academy? How many kids would die just for having magic?
If you asked me, they were worse than the Necromancers. Because at least the Necromancers didn’t pretend to be nice while trying to take power; they hadn’t promised a better life, a better opportunity for those low on the totem pole. Tumba had just gone out there and killed everyone to amass his undead army and try to become the only ruler of New York.
The resistance claimed to want equality, but so far the only thing they’d done equally was to kill both members of the Arcane families and innocents. Even servants and humans had been offed in their play for power.
Speaking of Necros, I really wanted to ask Blair some questions about Necromancy. Not that I wanted to like go out and practice the dark arts or some shit, but if she grew up with her mother and she got to see how it worked, she might be the only person alive on this side of New York who had any knowledge. And knowledge was power.
Me? I wasn't after power, I was just nosy as hell.
And who knew? Maybe I could find a way to resurrect dead tech. That would be fun.
I could go all Dr. Frankenstein with my robot army.
Okay, maybe now I get why Necromancy is so damn dangerous.
"Please, Blair. They tried to kill me. Hell, they killed my best friend. I have to do this. No, I need to do this. You're an Illusionist, right? So you can cast an Illusion spell on us both. We'll be fast. In and out. Nobody has to know we were even there," I begged. I needed her to be okay with it, and I was willing to do just about anything. But I refused to stay hidden and safe when everybody else was at risk.
I may be a great many things, but I was no coward.
They messed with the wrong opossum.
"I knew you were trouble the minute I laid eyes on you, girl. Fine, we're doing it, but we're doing it my way." Blair smirked and it immediately made me look at her warily.
“Wait. Why does it have to be your way?”
Blair looked down at her nails as if she wasn’t at all bothered by my question, but the glint in her eye made me hold my breath.
“Why, because it’s either that, or I’ll just have to tie you up until Futhark gets here, and then he’ll get quite the present. I bet Loverboy will be thrilled.”
Fuck it.
"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" I mused out loud.
"Where's your sense of adventure, girl? C'mon, if we're doing this, we'll need backup, and I know just the person to call," Blair pulled a phone out of her cleavage and started typing on it.
Because, of course, what better place was there to hide a phone when wearing leather clothes than one's boobs?
I'd take comfort over badass any day.
"I thought you were the backup. Besides, we're not supposed to call anyone or ask for help. I'm "dead" remember?" Yes, I did the air quotes when I asked it. Don't judge.
"My way or no way, remember? Besides, I may like to color outside of the lines, but I'm not completely insane. We need someone to be our eyes and ears outside your building, just in case they set up a trap of their own. I'd also like to be warned if anyone approaches the place while we're there, wouldn’t you?"
Why the fuck did she keep insisting on making me take help from others? Couldn’t she see I was better off doing shit my way? I’d already relented and let her come with, going against my every survival instinct. Now she wanted to involve even more people? Why not just fucking wait until Blaze arrived and invite him, too?
I pulled at my hair with more force than necessary, and immediately regretted the action when it hurt.
We were losing time with this bullshit. We had to get a move on, now.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Blair beat me to the punch.
"Alright, he's going to meet us there and set up some extra illusions to make sure we're undetected. Let's go."
"Wait, who's he?" I had a bad feeling about this.
"Why, my little brother, of course. Who else was I going to call?" Blair said this as if the answer was as natural as coding in Java.
"Andres?" I screeched. "You called Andres Illudere to help us?"
Blair raised an eyebrow in what I was starting to notice was her signature move. "Do you have a problem with my baby brother I should know about?"
didn't know why but the thought of Andres being anyone's baby anything had me laughing. The man was six foot something, a womanizer, and just downright flirty. There was nothing baby-like about him. Not one little bit.
Unless it was his baby making abilities.
Better stop that train of thought before it becomes contagious.
"Nope, no problem. Let's go, time’s wasting." I shook my head, but I was still laughing.
What the hell, I was already screwed, anyway. What was one more Arcane heir thrown onto my plate?
At least we weren’t relying on Michael Manteis for help.
No way would I have agreed to let Minute Man have my anything. Not even for all the money in the whole world. Not even for a life-sized BB8.
17
Charisma
"Seriously? Is there anything about you that isn't completely badass?" I stared at the Harley in front of me gobsmacked. I should've seen that one coming, really. But for some reason, I'd still been surprised when I laid eyes on the monster bike parked in front of the ugly ass house. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't seen a helmet nor anything that would suggest she rode a bike.
But I should've known better.
Blair gave me an amused smile. "You gotta stop flirting with me, girl, or else I might start to get ideas, and then what would happen to Loverboy?"
I blushed.
"I'm not... I wasn't... It's not... I wasn't flirting," I stuttered. "Not that you aren't, you know, completely hot," I vaguely waved my hand in her leather-clad direction as if to illustrate my point. "It's just... Dicks. I like dicks," I blu
rted.
Blair full-on belly laughed while I just dug an even bigger hole for myself.
Way to go, Charisma. You're killing it.
"You're so adorable," Blair said, before putting on her helmet and straddling the bike. "Hop on, we have places to go and rules to break."
Taking a deep breath to pep talk myself into following through with it, I followed her lead before I could overthink things, like the fact I wasn't even wearing a helmet because apparently Blair never gave anyone a ride.
"Unless you want to fall right off the minute I take off, you should probably put your arms around me, girl. Don't worry, it’ll be our little secret," Blair yelled over the sound of the engine, and I quickly hugged her like my life depended on it.
Because the way the day was going, it probably did.
I'd never ridden a bike before, or even been a passenger on one. My self-preservation instincts wouldn't let me, and as much as I'd always thought they were hot as hell and pretty damn awesome, I'd just never had the opportunity to ride one. Now, as I felt the wind blowing my hair everywhere and saw the landscape slowly changing from the quiet, rundown part of the suburbs we'd been at to slowly becoming overtaken by the more familiar surroundings, and building upon building, with an insane number of cars and people everywhere, I started to relax. My death grip on Blair loosened and I just enjoyed the feeling of flying.
It was as close as I'd ever gotten, and it felt amazing.
A car swerved into our lane out of nowhere, and Blair pulled off an action movie-worthy maneuver with the bike that had me holding onto her even tighter than before.
Fucking hell, that had been close.
I took it all back, this riding a bike thing was suicide. Somebody tap me out!
"Sorry," Blair yelled, the wind making her words muffled and almost incomprehensible. "Fucking New York drivers!"
Instead of trying to answer, I closed my eyes and focused on trying to come up with a solution to a flying spell. It was one of the big challenges of Magical Engineers everywhere, since to this day no engineer had managed to come up with a viable code that would allow for more than a ten feet leap. There were too many variables involved, and the number of commands on each activation circle required would mean that the user’s magic would run out in seconds.
Yes, I tried to solve impossible magical problems when I was nervous; it was a great distraction.
A not so gentle pat on my hands had me opening my eyes, only to realize we'd stopped a couple blocks away from my apartment.
"You okay?" Blair asked, turning her head so she could look at me.
"Yeah, sorry, got distracted," I replied, before dismounting. I tried to resist the urge to kiss the ground I was now standing on. "Are we walking the rest of the way?"
"It's safer that way, we can play pedestrians and, if it comes down to it, it'll be easier to shake anyone who tries to follow us, before we come back here and grab the bike." She took her helmet off, her dark curly hair falling all around her face as if protesting the temporary confinement.
"Alright, now, what do you want to look like?" Blair pressed a couple of buttons on her leather cuffs, which were either covering her MET or were the actual MET, and an activation circle appeared right before her Harley became an ordinary bike.
Huh, cool trick.
I opened my mouth to say just that, but before I could, she grabbed my arm. "Oh! I know!" she said, and before I knew what was happening, she was pressing more commands into her MET and Blair grew taller, her hair vanished, and where she had been standing, I saw a scrawny looking teenage boy.
What the fuck? That was so cool!
"C'mon, quit gawking. You look just as bad as I do," she commented. Well, at least her voice was the same.
I wondered if I could fix that... Maybe I could play around with some wind magic to distort the sound of her voice when under that illusion so it would be more unique.
"Earth to Charisma." Blair snapped her fingers in front of my face and I blinked out of the nerd zone. Right. We were on a mission.
"Sorry, I was just wondering how to tweak your illusion so it could be even better," I commented.
Teenage boy Blair raised an eyebrow in a way that just made him look constipated.
"Oh?"
"You know, the whole eyebrow thing isn't nearly as effective when you look like a pimple-faced teenager," I pointed out.
Blair huffed. "Whatever, I still look better than you do. I've at least survived puberty, you look like a human crispy crunchy chocolate."
I raised my hands to touch my face, half expecting to feel the constellation of pimples she'd mentioned, but all I felt was my own face.
Right. Illusion. Duh. That was just dumb, Charisma.
Teenage boy Blair smirked before he checked out his phone.
"Okay, Andres is in position. Let's go. He's ready to set up an illusion when we reach the building so nobody will know we snuck in."
"How will he know who we are?" Could he see through the illusion? No, no mage could see through another illusion, not really. At least, a truly strong one. Weak illusions had an almost ghostly look to them, but Blair's seemed solid enough, as if she truly was a teenager. I could only hope that mine was as remarkable as hers.
It made sense, too, considering her power level rivaled Andres’s. Or, at least, that was what I’d read from her.
Blair just smiled. "Trust me, he'll know."
Well, alright then. Keep your secrets.
I quickened my step and Blair kept pace with me. We passed through building after building as if we were on a mission, which, I supposed, we were. It wasn't until we turned the corner and I got my first glimpse at my apartment that my steps faltered.
"Shit," I cursed, completely shocked at what I saw.
"It's not as bad as it looks, really. Most of the damage was on your floor, and your living room and the corridor had the worst of it. But because your living room faced the front of the building and there were some structural pillars in place..."
She trailed off, but I could fill in the silence just fine. And even if I hadn't been able to, the huge, gaping hole in the middle of the building would've clued me in.
It was a miracle I'd survived that blast.
"Stop thinking about what could've gone wrong and keep moving before we attract attention."
How the hell did she know what I'd been thinking?
I stared at Blair, more than a little freaked out about the fact she'd seen inside my head, but she ignored me and just kept moving, which left me no other option except to follow.
"We'll have to go in through the stairs. Once we're there, I can give you half an hour, forty minutes tops. More than that and my illusion will start to fail. Whatever it is you need to do, you better do it fast. No daydreaming."
I just nodded. "Got it, let's go."
We entered the building as if we belonged there, ignoring the police tape that was blocking the entrance as if they were nothing but part of the decor. Thankfully, the stairs were still standing, even if I cursed living on the seventh floor at every single step I took on my way up.
Next time, I was getting an apartment on the first floor. Fuck this shit.
Stairs were just evil.
"Remember, Charisma, we have half an hour. In and out. Just... try not to let the state of the place affect you too much. Focus on the mission at hand, you can break down later," Blair hesitated for a second longer, looking at me as if she was second-guessing her decision to go. "Ready?"
I nodded, even if it was a lie.
I was as ready as I'd ever be.
18
Charisma
I was wrong. There would never have been any amount of preparing that would’ve made me ready for this.
My apartment. My beautiful, beautiful apartment was nothing but a gray pile of rubble. There was a gaping hole where the floor and walls used to be, and I wasn’t even gonna get started on everything else.
Don’t look, Charisma. Don’t think about i
t. Focus on the mission. 007 the hell out of this.
Blair tried to block most of my view as we carefully made our way through what was left of the building towards my office, but it was impossible not to see the aftermath.
How on earth had I survived this? The Goddess must’ve been feeling pretty damn inspired and decided to intervene because I very much doubted I’d still be here otherwise.
Carefully holding onto Blair’s arm so I wouldn’t accidentally trip on anything and ruin the Goddess’s blessing by offing myself, we finally reached the office door, which did look weirdly untouched considering the state of the rest of the place.
Huh, I better try to remember all the coding for those wards because the next place I got, I was going to ward the entire apartment.
Well, if I ever got my magic back, that was.
As if she were aware of the direction of my thoughts, Blair squeezed the hand I had on her arm. “C’mon, clock is ticking, Charisma.”
“Char,” I said, my voice weaker than I would’ve liked. “You can call me Char, Charisma is a parents-only curse.”
I took one last, long breath and reached for the door, hoping like hell that my ward would still accept me even though I had no magic. Although it should since I keyed it to my blood like a creep instead of just my magic signature. But who knew with this thing? Maybe my lack of magic would affect my blood in some other way. Huh, that was definitely worth investigating and researching.
Oh fuck. The wards!
"Shit. Blair, there's a teeny-tiny problem." I smiled sheepishly at her but the frown marring her features—or, you know, the teenager face she was sporting—told me she wasn't buying it.
"Spit it out. What's wrong now?"
"Well, you see. Erh... I, uh, I kind of... lost my magic."
Blair's eyes widened almost comically and all the blood left her face.
"What?" she screeched.
"It's temporary. I think. Well, I hope to fuck it is, anyway. But. Uh. That means while I'll be able to enter the office, you won't. You see, I don't have any way of granting you passage."