“Good morning, Magics and Naturals,” the judge said as she settled herself. “Calling the case of the People of the City of Boston versus Edwardian Remwald and Valencia Stark.”
Something cold and wet dripped onto my head. I looked up just as it began to rain…inside the courtroom.
The lawyers hurried to close their laptops and protect their notes. There were a few surprised shouts from the pews behind our table. Others, who had clearly been expecting the outburst, whipped out umbrellas.
Valencia’s handcuffs rattled as she got to her feet. She raised her hands and pointed at Gray.
“Graysen Gald-ah, you’re a dead Nat walkin’,” she shouted in her heavy Boston accent. “Down with the Nats. Down with the Alliance!”
The cry was echoed by the other UnAllied sitting in the courtroom. The tension in the air was so thick, it felt like sitting in a pressure cooker.
I forced my expression not to betray any hint of anger. Just because Valencia had threatened Gray before, it didn’t mean I was immune to her words. My overstimulated urge to protect my loved ones flared to life.
“Valencia Stark.” The judge pointed her gavel right at the Rain Maker. “I will not permit threats or rain storms in my courtroom. Sit down and shut your mouth, or I’ll throw you out and we’ll conduct this trial without you.”
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started.
I flicked droplets off my hair. A.J. was going to be furious when he saw the rain spots on my clothes.
Graysen leaned back against his seat, his eyes shining. He was in his element and loving every second of this. And he looked sexy as hell with his wet hair and shirt plastered to his chest.
“Everyone be seated,” the judged ordered. She turned to the bailiff and said, “Bring them in.”
The door at the side of the courtroom opened once more. A guard came through first, followed by six scared-looking kids. All of the Magics in the room, including me, sucked in a collective breath. The sudden influx of so much power felt like walking into the middle of an electrical storm. It was invigorating and slightly intimidating at the same time.
They were Super Mags, children of Mag-Nat couples who had been caged in MagLab. Remwald had been breeding them to serve as his soldiers for the war he planned to wage against the Nats.
Breeding. Like they were nothing more than animals.
The children all had shaved heads and were wearing Alliance-issued sweats. Their skin was the kind of pale that came from never being allowed outside of MagLab. Their eyes were red-rimmed and they were too thin—a consequence of the magic-dampening poison they’d been forced to inhale through the air to keep them from escaping.
A choked sound escaped my lips before I could stop it. Graysen put his hand on my leg under the table.
We were both thinking the same thing: our children could have ended up like the rest of these Super Mags. I could have been locked in one of those cells where they kept the pregnant mothers. And Gray would have been killed.
My eyes stung.
I forced a smile as I made eye contact with one of the kids, wanting to offer a little comfort. He met my gaze with a fierce expression that bordered on belligerent.
“Shh, it’s okay,” another one of the Super Mags said in a high-pitched voice. Her face was turned down to the dog cradled in her twiggy arms.
The dog’s white-tipped tail wagged as he looked from side to side. Clearly, he was far less intimidated by his surroundings than I was.
I was a little jealous.
“Why is there a dog here?” one of the lawyers sniffed.
“It was the only way the child would agree to testify,” another lawyer replied. “I believe the dog was interned in MagLab with them.”
The dog was mostly white, with a black band that went all the way around his midsection. He had a black patch over one eye, as well as one black ear. When the little girl deposited the dog on the pew next to her, the dog promptly curled into a ball and went to sleep.
Graysen waved at one of the kids—the one he’d talked to when we broke into MagLab. The boy visibly relaxed and even offered Gray a shy smile in return.
My pulse picked up when I got a closer look at the lanyard the boy was wearing. It read:
Subject: 00391
Race: Super Magic
Primary Magic: Memory Reader, Level 16
Secondary Magic: Intellect, Level 14.
It was a rule of nature that all Magics only had one ability. The Super Mags had two and sometimes even three abilities, and all of their levels were well above ten.
All Mags could sense the presence or absence of magic in others. It was how we could tell whether someone was a Mag or a Nat, while Nats could only identify us through trackers.
Our ability to sense power was why every Mag in the room was now trying to catch their breath. I couldn’t wrap my mind around so much magic existing in a single person. I didn’t know whether to be envious or scared out of my mind.
All of the kids wore their own label, denoting their abilities and levels. They didn’t even get names…just a number.
The secret of Super Mags’ existence, and how they came into being, was one that had been guarded long before Remwald’s time. Mags who knew about them felt threatened by their superior power. Thus, they’d started the rumor about DAMND long before Nats even knew magic existed.
Remwald had been the first one to come up with the sick idea of using the Super Mags for his own gain.
Graysen leaned over the table and asked Dr. Pruwist, “What’s going to happen to the Super Mags after the trial?”
“Magic and Natural police have locked down MagLab,” the interim Director replied. “They’re monitoring the situation and caring for the children until the new Director is elected.”
“That’s not until November,” I cut in.
That was five months away.
“I assure you the children are being well cared for, Ms. Hansley,” Pruwist told me.
“Do you consider imprisonment caring for them?” I demanded. “They’re kids. They need homes.”
If Ma was here, she’d pack all of the Super Mags up in her car and dare anyone to try and stop her.
I opened my mouth to say more, when someone bumped into my shoulder with enough force that I almost fell out of my chair. I turned, only to find there was no one there.
Graysen cocked his head and mouthed You okay?
I looked around again. The aisle was still clear.
With a little shrug, I turned my attention back to the judge. She was reading out the list of crimes Remwald and Valencia had committed. It was a long list.
“Finally and most significantly,” the judge said, sounding a little out of breath, “for the detainment of one-hundred Super Mag—”
“One hundred and one!”
The Super Mag girl who had been holding the dog stood up and pointed an accusatory finger at Remwald.
“He—he locked a poor puppy up in MagLab for his entire life. The puppy never did anything to anyone, and Director Remwald tortured him!”
There were some murmured voices, and one of the older Super Mags pulled the little girl back into her seat. The dog in question opened one eye, thumped his tail, and then fell back asleep.
I glanced at Remwald, knowing better than to expect to see remorse written on his face. What I saw made me sit up straighter. The ex-Director’s face was drained of color.
I had no idea why torturing a dog would finally get to the man’s conscience when poisoning and imprisoning children hadn’t.
I didn’t have any more time to consider Remwald’s strange reaction. The judge was saying my name.
As the only Animate Illusionist powerful enough to prove Remwald was a Magic rather than the Natural he’d pretended to be for his entire career, my testimony would come first.
I started down the aisle. A ripple of movement caught the corner of my eye.
Remwald lurched to his feet.
A tremendous boom made t
he ground beneath me tremble. Then, the back wall of the courtroom exploded.
CHAPTER 4
Chunks of brick and stone blasted inward. Screams and plaster dust filled the room. I stood frozen in front of the witness box, not understanding and having no idea what to do.
“Kai!”
I turned just in time to see a splintered board hurtling through the air. It was headed right toward me. Before I could duck, someone barreled through the dust. I recognized Gray’s profile a millisecond before he crashed into me, throwing me to the ground.
He cradled my head as we went down. I felt his body jerk as the board struck him, but before I could speak, another sound cut through all the others.
My stomach clenched at the pop pop pop sound of gunfire.
I shouted something—tried to push Gray off me. He just curled himself tighter around me, shielding my body with his own.
“Get Valencia out!”
“UnAllied, protect her!”
“Kill the Nats! Destroy the Alliance!”
I heard the voices in the background, but they were meaningless. I was frantic. We had to get away from here. If Gray got shot—
A hoarse scream made it past my lips at the sound of bullets striking something solid.
“Kaira, Graysen, come on!”
Bri.
Gray rolled off me. Bri was standing over us, her body in full titanium. Her skin pinged as a bullet struck her and bounced off.
My petrified brain made sense of the fact that the Boston police and UnAllied were having a shoot-out…in the middle of the courtroom. The exits were clogged with people who were desperate to escape.
I tried to illusion us to blend into the crowd before I remembered that Remwald’s presence blocked my magic. I couldn’t protect us. We were completely exposed, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Gray and I scrambled to our feet while Bri covered us.
“Oh God,” I gasped, catching sight of the blood soaking into Gray’s collar.
“Just a scratch,” he shouted over the pandemonium around us. “Come on!”
We clasped hands and hurried after Bri as she carved a path through the melee.
There was another thundering chorus of gunfire that had me flinching. I remembered only too well what it had felt like to have one of those bullets lodged in my stomach.
The memory of blood and pain crashed over me. My legs turned to lead.
Bri and Graysen didn’t share my paralysis. Bri leapt forward. She grabbed an UnAllied man who was pointing a machine gun at us and hurled him across the room. Graysen picked up a fragment of brick and threw it at another man with a gun.
“Kill the Nats! Destroy the Alliance!”
The chant was growing louder than the screams. UnAllied and courthouse security were tangling in the center of the room…and we were in the middle of all of it.
Bodies on the ground—some moving and some…not—were trampled by those who were trying to escape.
“Remwald!” Gray shouted.
Graysen started after the ex-Director, whose handcuffs were gone. At that moment, Remwald’s gaze connected with mine. Even in the midst of my panic, I registered that there was something wrong with Remwald. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. His movements were jerky, like he wasn’t in control of his own body.
Before I could wonder any more about his strange behavior, something else caught my attention. The Super Mags were trying to escape with everyone else, but they were too small and weak from the poison still coursing through their systems. Some of them had fallen, and no one was stopping to help them.
“Graysen,” I called.
He glanced at Remwald. Then, he doubled back to help me drag the kids behind a pile of ruined chairs. At least they wouldn’t get trampled before we could find a way out of this disaster.
Gray had a kid in each arm and was ferrying them out of the stampeding crowd’s path.
I tried illusioning us again out of habit. To my surprise, Graysen’s appearance transformed without even a flicker. Because Remwald was gone.
I didn’t try to search for the ex-Director. Right now, all that mattered was getting out of here alive.
All at once, the gunfire cut off. All of the guns lifted into the air and hovered overhead.
Relief swept through me.
“About time you showed up,” Bri called to A.J., who was waving his hands over his head like he was doing an interpretive dance. The guns moved with the motion of his hands, the metal barrels twisting themselves into pretzels. The useless weapons fell back to the ground, some of them hitting UnAllied on the heads on their way.
“Sorry for the delay,” A.J. said. “I was in the powder room.”
I quickly illusioned Bri and A.J. before anyone got a good look at them.
The courtroom’s main doors burst open. More police poured in. Some of their vests said Boston Mag Police, while others said Boston Nat Police. Both were blocking the exits and indiscriminately handcuffing everyone they could get their hands on.
There were more screams as the Nat cops struck out with batons and Tasers. The Mag cops’ handcuffs appeared out of thin air and locked themselves around unsuspecting people’s wrists.
Some of the police split off to chase down the Super Mags who weren’t hiding behind the chairs. The cops arrested them along with everyone else who hadn’t already made it out of the courtroom.
“You have to go,” I shouted at Bri and A.J.
If they were brought into custody, the cops would realize they were unMarked.
No sooner had the words left my mouth, a Mag cop tackled Bri. She fell to the ground with a hard thunk. The cop dug his knee into her stomach as he raised his fist to punch her in the face.
The cop was a Combat Mag, and if he wanted, a single blow from his fist could crush a person’s skull.
I heard the cop’s bones crunch as they came up against Bri’s titanium skin. Bri’s soft laughter was overpowered by the cop’s agonized cry.
A.J. was distracting the rest of the cops by lifting their handcuffs and weapons just out of reach. A.J. let the items drop low enough for the cops to think they might be able to reach them. Then, he used his telekinesis to lift the objects back into the air before the cops could snag them. If the situation wasn’t so dire, I would have sat back and watched the cops jumping up and down like little kids reaching for a cookie jar.
I illusioned the four of us to look just like the cops in the room, complete with uniforms. We wouldn’t stay on the winning end of this little game for long, though. There were too many police and UnAllied, and we were as likely to get caught in the crossfire as we were to get out of this mess.
“Give my friends some room, please.”
Michael’s voice was so quiet it shouldn’t have been audible through the rest of the pandemonium, but it cut through all the other sounds.
Cops, UnAllied, and innocent bystanders gave us a wide berth. I quickly transformed Michael’s appearance so he looked like a cop, too.
“Where’s Yutika and Smith?” I asked.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the unmistakable whirring of a helicopter filled the air.
“Attention, attention,” a familiar voice called through a megaphone. “Calling the Seven.” Yutika giggled. “Hey, that almost rhymed.”
“Bri, western wall,” Smith’s gruff voice said into the megaphone, cutting off Yutika’s laughter.
Bri strode over, swatting at the cops in her way like they were annoying insects. She punched a hole through the wall that bordered the exterior of the building.
A.J. helped, lifting desks into the air with his mind and thrusting them at the wall until a hole opened up and exposed the helicopter hovering just outside.
“Sweet,” Bri said.
For several seconds, we all just stared. I had seen Yutika create everything from thousand-dollar bills to a school bus. But for some reason, it never occurred to me that she could create a helicopter…that actually worked.
“Um,” Gray said, as Yutika gestured to us from the pilot’s seat. “If she’s as bad a pilot as she is a driver….”
We had no choice. More cops were pouring into the room. Everyone else had already been restrained; we were the only ones left. Illusions only went so far, especially when two people who looked like cops were blasting a hole through the building.
“Stay back,” Michael commanded the cops when they got too close. “And don’t shoot.”
The cops lowered their guns and shuffled away, looking puzzled and somewhat enamored.
Bri went first, leaping through the new hole in the wall. She grabbed the helicopter’s open door and swung herself inside in a move that would have made an Olympic athlete jealous.
Come on, she mouthed, even though the words weren’t audible over the whirring rotor.
She held out a titanium hand. Michael, Gray, and I exchanged a skeptical look.
“Don’t worry,” Smith called through the megaphone. “I’m controlling this thing.”
Michael’s face slackened with relief. He stepped through the rubble and jumped.
Bri caught him and hauled him up as though he was as light as a feather, even though he was easily twice her weight. Gray nodded at me to go next. That was when I realized A.J. was missing.
I looked around. The helicopter’s propellers whipped my hair, making my skin sting as the course strands slapped across my cheeks.
“Where’s A.J.?” I yelled, but my voice was lost.
I turned to go after him, but Graysen pushed me toward the hole in the wall.
“Go!” he shouted.
I was about to refuse, when A.J. emerged from a pile of splintered wood and plaster. He was covered in dust and clutching a shaking dog in his arms.
A.J. ducked around a pair of cops who weren’t buying his illusion. They grabbed for him, just barely missing.
A.J. tossed the dog to Bri and then jumped through the wall himself. I went to the opening in the wall, knowing Gray wouldn’t let me be the last one. I kept hold over our illusions as I glanced down at the street below. I’d never before realized quite how high eight stories was.
The helicopter hovered as close as it could get to the building, but that still left a good six-foot gap between the wall and the chopper.
Mag Subject 6 (Mags & Nats Book 2) Page 3