Not so for Sam. Sam had had all the pieces. It had been so obvious—Delia’s allegiances so clear.
But Sam hadn’t done a damn thing about it. Hadn’t wanted to accept the truth.
Now James was lying there, alive but unconscious, and with all his healing spells exhausted, the only thing the paramedic could do for him was call into his radio comm with increasing urgency.
And it was all Sam’s fault.
Chapter 21
“YOU TOLD ME IT WAS HARMLESS. LIKE GIVING BLOOD!”
Delia’s head was swimming. Her breaths were coming quick and shallow. She’d never teleported such a long distance before—had no idea it was even possible—and the version of herself that had appeared back at the compound felt like it was more than a few pieces shy of complete.
“I never said that,” Isaac said, his mask up over his head as he paced around the office, muttering curses under his breath. Grace had been forced to lie down immediately upon arrival, the effort required for the teleportation spell taking nearly all she had to give. Hank had run to the bathroom, presumably to throw up, and Delia had a feeling she might be doing the same very soon.
“Mr. Grender said it, then, and you agreed,” Delia said. “I trusted you. You said we weren’t going to hurt anyone.”
“And we wouldn’t have, either, if your little friend hadn’t gotten in the way. It was his spell that hurt everyone. Don’t you see? What the hell was that, anyway? How did he know how to do that?”
“He didn’t,” Delia said, exasperated, sad. “He’s like Grace. It all comes from him. He, like, wills it into being.”
“That’s not how Grace’s magic works,” Isaac said, and for all the contempt in his voice, he may as well have said, You don’t know anything.
And maybe she didn’t.
Oh God, what had she done?
What had she done to James?
She’d told them about convention. She’d helped them with the planning. She’d helped with the spell. And all for what? Because she wanted to be powerful? Because she wanted to be the best?
Delia may have had a lifetime of being forgotten, but this was not how she wanted to be remembered.
“There’s no coming back from this, you know,” Isaac said. “The police will be after us. The Keepers will be after us. We’re in it now. Our only way out is through.”
With a loud, harsh bang, the door behind them flew open, and Hank barged into the office, his normally placid face twisted up with almost ecstatic glee. There were trails of magic coming off his fingers, rising up like ten tendrils of electricity, each a different color. Stranger still, he was six inches off the ground, hovering there like some kind of angel decked in plaid.
“It worked!” he shouted. “It worked! It worked!”
Chapter 22
WHEN SAM WAS THIRTEEN, HIS GRANDPARENTS HAD passed away within a week of each other—his grandmother from lung cancer, and his grandfather, seven days later, from heartbreak. That was actually what the doctor said at the time—that the official cause of death was a broken heart, although he had a longer name to go with it, to make it sound more official.
That week had been one of the worst in Sam’s life, especially because his mother, as an empath, had felt the death of her parents so acutely that her grief had been like a contagious disease, overwhelming for all in her vicinity. Sam would never forget the sight of her, sobbing over her father’s deathbed in the Friedman Hospital ICU. He would never be able to dissociate that memory from the antiseptic smell of the floor; he thought of it sometimes when he washed his hands.
The Savannah Memorial Hospital smelled even stronger than the Friedman Hospital, which wasn’t surprising, since it was so sprawling and high tech in comparison. What was surprising was how immediate and visceral Sam’s reaction had been when he entered the hospital, running right past the automatic doors, followed closely by Amber. He’d broken down before he even made it through the lobby. Amber had been forced to pull him up by the shoulders and drag him the rest of the way to the receptionist’s desk.
Thank goodness for Amber.
While Sam hadn’t been able to get two words out, Amber had not only figured out how to get to the emergency room where the paramedics had taken James and Denver, she’d convinced the receptionist that she and Sam should be allowed security clearance to go find them. It helped that the hospital was utterly upside down, flooded with injuries mostly related to freak falls but some of them from strange residual magic.
“Can you hold yourself up from here?” Amber asked.
“Yes, sorry.”
They found Denver quickly, because Denver was sitting up straight on the edge of a gurney, along the wall closest to the entrance. He looked dazed but all right. Sam was relieved to see that his leg was no longer bent at an irregular angle.
Before Denver even registered their approach, Sam enveloped him in a hug, careful to avoid his leg.
“I’m so relieved you’re okay.”
“It still tingles where the doctor worked his magic. They said they want me to stay here for a little bit longer so they can be sure the bone is setting properly. Mostly I’m worried about what my mom’s going to do to me when she gets here.”
“How could your mom possibly be angry at you about this?”
“It’s more that I’m afraid she’s going to break more bones when she hugs me. She was in a panic on the phone. It sounds like this is on the Atlanta news.”
“I can imagine,” Amber said. “Our parents are on their way, too. Hey, did you see where they took James? The receptionist said a room in the back corner, but this place has multiple back corners.”
Solemnly, Denver pointed to a room clear on the other side of the operations desk. “I think it’s that one. I didn’t see them take him in, but doctors have been going in and out. It has to be him.”
Amber immediately took off for the room, and with an apologetic look back to Denver, Sam followed her. They got all the way up to the door—through which they could see James lying on a bed, hooked up to a frightening number of machines—before a nurse came running around the desk to stop them.
“Hey! Can I help you?” he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear he was less concerned with helping them than he was with keeping them out.
“We’re friends of his,” Amber said.
“Sorry, but it’s medical professionals only for now. For his safety as much as anyone’s.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Sam said.
The nurse chewed his lower lip, like he knew more than he was allowed to share.
“We’re still trying to figure it out for sure.”
“Does he still have his magic?”
The nurse narrowed his eyes.
“What makes you ask that?”
“I think I know the people who did this to him. At least, I know what they were trying to do.”
“Wait right there,” the nurse said. “I’m going to get a doctor, and you can tell them all about it.”
The nurse took off in a brisk, hospital-friendly speed-walk, fast enough to confirm Sam’s fears that whatever was afflicting James had them seriously concerned.
Sam and Amber exchanged terrified glances.
“I still can’t believe Delia,” Amber said. Back at the hotel, Sam had frantically explained as much as he could to her and Ms. Berry. He’d followed Ms. Berry back to gather Amber and all their things, figuring that whatever happened tonight, they’d probably have to leave straight from the hospital. He’d had to tell them both why they shouldn’t waste their time knocking on doors, looking for Delia.
“The problem is, I can believe it. I just don’t want to.”
“Why did their spell only affect James like this, though? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“My theory is, whatever spell he did protected the rest of us, but it left him vulnerable. I guess it’s also possible their spell didn’t work at all, and James’s spell did all the damage. But that’s not how it felt in
there. It felt like we were caught up in an undertow, flowing against the main current.”
“That’s awfully poetic,” Amber said, and for a second, Sam thought she was taking a dig at him. But then she added, “James says that’s why you’re so good at magic. Your associations are so strong.”
Sam felt his heart flip over. James was a good friend. Maybe Amber was, too.
“He’s going to get better,” Sam said, though he was picturing Death.
“I hope so.”
The nurse came back with not one but three doctors, and Sam explained everything he knew and felt. They treated him like a case they were studying, asking probing questions from a cool distance, curious but almost uncaring, wanting to know more about these True Light people than anything.
“How is this going to help James?” Sam finally asked, growing exasperated.
“We’re not sure yet,” one of the doctors said. “But this helps point us in the right direction for a counter curse. His symptoms are consistent with those of someone suffering from a diabetic coma, which supports your theory in a way—his body needs magic. Unfortunately, magic is not something we can supply like insulin. If it’s true what you say, that these people have a spell to transfuse magic like blood, they may be the only people on the planet who do.”
Which was exactly what Sam was afraid of.
While the doctors went back to call their colleagues and search their databases for anything that might help them, Sam turned to social media, to see what the world was saying about what had happened in the Chatham Ballroom tonight.
Right away, he found reports that the three people he’d seen apprehended had since been arrested and named, though no one had gotten a motive out of them yet. In the mug shot associated with all the stories, the leader of the pack had a name Sam recognized—Albert Grender. So maybe that was a silver lining. Mr. Grender was in custody. He couldn’t hurt anyone else.
But reading about the four fugitives police were seeking, and knowing that one of those fugitives was Delia, was about as far from a silver lining as it got. It was a horror for which there was no metaphor.
Sam was still caught up in the spiral of news stories and random comment threads when two very loud voices erupted through the doors of the emergency room, announcing the arrival of James’s parents.
“—and if I have to ask one more time, you’re all going to be sorry.”
That was James’s dad.
“Where’s my son? Where is he?”
That was James’s mom.
Benji trailed behind and between them, looking miserable and scared. Sam tried to keep his focus on him when, at almost exactly the same time, like two predators catching a scent, James’s parents looked up and spotted Sam and Amber standing outside their son’s room.
With curt nods and nothing more, James’s parents brushed past their son’s closest friends and went to stand beside James’s bed. The nurse who’d tried to stop Sam and Amber started to speak, to issue them the same warning, but James’s dad barked out, “We’re his family,” in such a scary voice that there was no arguing with it. Benji was openly crying beside James’s bed, and that sight, even more than the smell, was bringing back all of Sam’s memories of his mom and his grandparents.
“What’s wrong with him?” Benji said between tears.
“We don’t know yet, sweetie. The doctors are still trying to figure it out.”
“’Course we know,” Mr. Dawson said. “It was magic that did this to him, like we always said it would.”
That only made Benji cry harder, and it made Sam’s blood boil, too. It wasn’t untrue, strictly speaking, but it didn’t feel fair, either.
“You mark my words, Benji. Ain’t nothing good can come out of getting mixed up in the stuff. This is why we don’t let you run around with those kids from the rec center. It’s to protect you. So you don’t end up in a hospital bed like your brother.”
“Just so you know,” Sam said, stepping into the room and trying his best to keep his voice from shaking, “James saved a lot of people tonight. With magic.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Dawson said, and it was clear he didn’t like being challenged. Amber put a hand on Sam’s arm, trying to pull him back out into the hall. “So, what, magic doesn’t hurt people—people hurt people? The only way to fight magic is with magic?”
“What? No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d feel that way. A boy like yourself. So why don’t you mind your own business?”
“Tom—” Mrs. Dawson said in warning.
“No, Sandy, I am sick of standing by and pretending that our son isn’t putting his life in danger every time he tries to bend his spirit around some blasphemous act. Far be it from me to tell other people’s children what a life of piety looks like, but no, ma’am, our son will not be forsaking God any more if he wakes up from this.”
Sam could feel Amber tense beside him. Clearly, they each took this as a personal dig.
“Your son will be eighteen in less than two months,” Sam said. “When he wakes up, you won’t be able to control him forever.”
Mr. Dawson’s jaw actually dropped and stayed there. Mrs. Dawson said, “You’ve said your piece. Now we’d like some time alone with our son, if you don’t mind.”
And what was Sam supposed to say to that?
Sam barely remembered the trip back to Friedman. Denver’s words proved prophetic, and not only for him. All of their parents, when they arrived, wrapped them up in such violent hugs that they nearly required the services of the ER doctors.
The news reports must have been very dire indeed.
Apparently, Sam’s parents went back to see James’s before leaving, and somewhere along the way home, they asked him about Delia. But Sam only put that together based on what they said the next day—as it was happening, he registered their movements and questions with the kind of sleepy, confused distance he’d always imagined he would experience in a dream.
He’d barely come out of his trancelike state when he found himself driving to the True Light compound on Sunday evening.
With their leader and two acolytes arrested, Sam wasn’t sure if anyone would even still be there. If they were, he wasn’t sure if he was planning to beg for their help curing James or to get revenge in the most spectacular way he could think of on the spot. He figured he could decide when he got there.
There was one problem, though. Getting there was turning out to be more difficult than it should’ve been.
He’d reached the road James had shown them that first day, and he drove along it exactly as he had before. But even though he kept his eyes trained out his passenger side window, he wasn’t seeing the open field or the compound at all, and before he knew it, he had reached the turnoff to the fairy-tale forest where they’d looked for the book as a group. That was odd . . .
Sam turned around and made the drive in the opposite direction. Again, he drove right past where he remembered seeing the compound, and again, there was nothing. He made it back to the main road a full minute before he expected to.
The compound—and the land it sat on—had simply disappeared.
As soon as he got home, he texted Amber and Denver, strongly requesting—begging for, really—an emergency meeting of the Fascinators.
They responded right away, without hesitation. It was like they’d been waiting for just such a rallying cry. When they showed up at his house, it was clear Sam’s mom thought they were all there to work through the trauma together, and in a way, that was true—Sam’s mom must have felt it.
“I’ll put some pizza bagels in the oven,” she said with a worried frown.
Sam, Amber, and Denver trudged down the steps to the basement in silence. Sam considered his first words carefully, determined to put up a calm, leaderly front. The club’s line of succession left him as acting president, after all.
He took a deep breath.
And another.
And another.
Amber spoke tentatively.
“Our pastor said this morning that they’ll be moving James to Friedman Hospital sometime this week. Sounds like whatever counter curse those Savannah doctors tried didn’t work, and so they’re saying he might as well try to get better at home.”
“Do you know what they’re going to try next?” Denver said.
“I don’t. It didn’t really seem right to ask questions, since everybody was staring at me like I was the devil just for having been down there, too.”
“I have an idea,” Sam said. He held up a thick stack of papers. “The first week of school, Delia gave us this syllabus she picked up from a class at Pinnacle. Applied Magics. I don’t think she thought I would actually read it. Maybe she did. Who knows. Anyway, a lot of what’s on here is incomprehensible, but not all of it. And there’s a thing here, something she thought we could use to find the book, that says if you know the words, components, and associations of a spell, you can work out a counter spell.”
“Arnauld’s Axiom,” Denver said.
“Wait, how do you know that?” Sam said.
“It was one of the Tennessee convention categories last year.”
“All right, then. Anyway, I’m betting this is what the doctors in Savannah were trying to figure out, only they didn’t know the spell that the True Light people had done.”
“And you do?” Amber said, a hint of excitement creeping into her voice.
“Not exactly. But I know who does.”
“Delia, you mean? President Traitor?”
Sam grimaced. Even if he was thinking the same thing, and even if this hardly made sense, he wasn’t sure Denver had earned the right to be mad at her.
“Do you even know where Delia is?” Amber asked. “I thought you said she disappeared.”
“I’m willing to bet anything that they’re back at their dank warehouse, planning their next steps. But here’s the thing. I tried to go by there earlier, and their compound is gone. Like, vanished-without-a-trace gone.”
The Fascinators Page 21