Max began to shake his head, but he stopped and looked at me. I got the impression that he was using his opportunity magic. Slowly, he nodded. “I think it does. But we’ll need more. I think I… underestimated how many forces Jason has on this. They called in the Army, too. I doubt we’ll be able to run through the city streets, trying to find where they’re keeping the sets. We’re going to have to remain under cover at all times.”
“How much time do you think we have left until Jason breaches the house?”
I could tell Max had to put a lot of thought into this. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and breathed in deeply. “I’m sensing that opportunity narrowing, but it still exists. We have time,” he concluded with a harsh breath.
I sighed, walking over to him. “So what happens now? Should we both sit down, stare at the view, and try to use our combined finding magic to locate the sets?”
“We should head back to the house and check on Josh,” Max concluded. He pocketed the phone. He walked toward the nearest door and closed it. Then he nodded at me.
My attention was caught by the comatose agent on the floor. “Shouldn’t we do something with them? I mean, try to make it seem as if they… triggered a booby trap or something?”
Max appeared to hesitate.
“It will buy us more time,” I concluded. I shifted back into the corridor and dragged the two remaining agents back into the lounge room. I didn’t need Max’s help, and once I’d arrange them, I tried to concentrate on finding a way to make it seem as if they’d all accidentally been caught by a magical booby trap.
“Though you have been able to learn many different types of magic on-the-fly,” Max counseled, “fabrication magic is extremely hard. You’ve also never seen it being practiced.”
“Just tell me what I have to do,” I said with a stiff breath.
Max sighed. “I can only step you through what I know of the process. Obviously I’ve never cast a fabrication spell myself.”
I shot him the kind of look that said I was ready.
“First you must bring up in your mind a perfect three-dimensional blueprint of the object you’re trying to fabricate. Think of your brain like a 3D printer.”
I made a face. If I’d had trouble before when Max had tried to explain how map compressing magic worked, my current expression told the world there was no damn way I was going to be able to create a perfect 3D image of an object I’d never seen in my mind.
Max took a breath, and the exact pitch of it told me he was about to tell me not to bother. Then he made a face. A determined one. His eyes flashed as he looked into mine. “You’re the sorcerer of the prophecy, Bethany. If—”
“I can’t do it, no one else can? Can you at least look up the blueprint of the device you want to create on your phone?”
“That would not be recommended. I imagine by now that Jason has tapped my cell phone, as he has tapped yours. And before you suggest we look it up on the agent’s cell phone, his would most definitely be tracked. And considering we will no doubt have to fabricate the destruction of it, it will look suspicious if seconds before it was apparently destroyed, it was used to look up the instructions for a fabrication spell.”
He had a point. My shoulders descended with a sigh.
Why did everything have to be so hard?
“Don’t give up hope.”
“That’s easy enough for you to say. You don’t have to—” I stopped before I could tell him he didn’t have to do anything.
Max arched an eyebrow. “Though I may appear passive, I’m here to help,” he reaffirmed. Then, all of a sudden, he pushed a hand toward me.
I stared in confusion at his fingers. Though, on any other day, I would happily accept Max’s warm grip if he offered it, I had just insulted him, and maybe he wanted to arm wrestle me to prove his point that he wasn’t pathetic after all.
But that, of course, was not what he wanted to do. “Take it, Beth, and I will try to guide you through the spell.”
I frowned at him. My mind ticked over the possibilities of what he meant. It locked on Jason. “I think Jason did a similar thing with me when we were in Constantine’s tunnels looking for one of the hidden sets. How does it work? And do you have a perfect working blueprint of a device in your mind? Hell, come to think of it, we haven’t even decided yet what kind of device we want to fabricate.”
“Trust my opportunity finding magic,” he said, voice gravelly. “It will help us find a way.”
With that promise ringing through the air, I had no option but to push my hand forward and place it into his.
I swear reality became smaller as my fingers clasped his. What did I mean by smaller? All the irrelevant things in the world seemed to slip away. Nothing else mattered anymore but Max, his proximity, and his promise.
Max didn’t say anything for several seconds, and I could feel with my palm aligned against his that he was pushing all his concentration into his magic, trying to find the best device for us to fabricate.
… Which raised a question. How close was opportunity finding magic to locating magic?
Somehow Max appeared to know what I was thinking. He cleared his throat, the sound soft as he obviously didn’t want to distract himself too much from his task. “When we are aligned,” he said that word so gently, I wanted to slip into it, “our magic… mingles.”
Really, mingles? Guests at a party mingled. Two witch’s power, however, would combine.
I didn’t point that out.
I just concentrated on keeping the door of my heart open.
Without warning, Max brought his hand up, pressed his thumb into my cheek, then covered my eyes with his palm.
My lips wobbled open. “What are you—”
“Don’t become distracted. I’m pushing my magic into your eyes. It will allow you to follow the spell. Trust our connection and follow it,” he added as his voice dropped down a notch.
Though I usually hated it when my magic took charge of me, it felt… nicely spontaneous this time. It felt, in other words, like I was actually following my heart.
And I’d never been the kind of woman to follow her heart. If you wanted spontaneous, Susan was your pick. I was cut and dry and logical. I was the kind of person who had to think to find. Which was kind of ironic, considering I was a finder now.
Before too long, I suddenly felt my hand shift up of its own accord. I didn’t grab Max’s hand back from my face. That would be sacrilege. Having his fingers and palm pressed across my eyes in the gentlest way possible was one of the nicest sensations of my life. It managed to push away the fear of this situation. Jason could’ve come barreling into the room and started a fight, and I would’ve just sighed happily.
What I brought my hand up to do was to cast a spell.
Max was right, I’d never even seen a fabrication spell, but somehow, slowly I started to see one forming in my mind.
The hand holding my magic began to move of its own accord as it followed a set of instructions revealing itself to me through my consciousness.
I didn’t dare open my eyes to see what I was doing. Do that, and I would break my concentration. I’d also probably freak out at the fact that I was creating something from nothing, using nothing more than the thoughts and energy of my mind to make something real.
“That’s it, you’re doing it. Keep concentrating. Not much longer now,” Max encouraged.
I set my entire mind to the task of following the instructions I could see playing over my consciousness. Then finally, I felt something clunk into my hand.
Max took a heavy breath. “You did it,” he said, voice twisting high with excitement.
It took me a while to gather the gumption to look down into my hand. I blinked one eye open to see… a remote. Yep, that’s right, a TV remote. Though I hadn’t been consciously following instructions to make a specific device or ornament, I’d kind of hoped that I would make something powerful like a magical talisman. Something you would believe could have a booby tra
p.
A deep frown marked my lips as I looked up at Max. “I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I guess I wasn’t paying sufficient attention.”
A small smile spread across his lips. “You were paying perfect attention. And this is the perfect fake object. You’ve already imbued it with a booby trap spell,” he added as he took it from me gently.
I blinked wildly. “I have?”
“While I was touching you,” Max said, his voice hesitant on the term touching you, “your magic was a conduit for mine. This is what I imagined,” he added.
Thank God. So the remote debacle couldn’t be pinned on me. That being said, as Max shifted the remote this way and that, he looked mighty pleased.
So it didn’t take too long before my mind ticked back to the fact that I had created that. Out of frigging nothing.
I brought my hand up and stared at it.
Max walked over to the TV. The remote was fake – I knew that. I hadn’t just blacked out or anything. So why the hell did it work on the TV?
Because it did work on the TV. Max turned it on. Then he glanced over at the three comatose warlocks. He walked over, got down on one knee, and placed the remote in the hand of the warlock who’d spent all his time on his phone.
Max spent several seconds arranging the rest of them, then when he appeared satisfied, he nodded at me. “That’s done. Let’s go.”
I hesitated as he headed for the front door. “Don’t you need anything from here? I…” I paused before saying a change of clothes. It wasn’t just that I imagined saving the world could get messy. One glance out of the plate glass windows of Max’s penthouse apartment, and it was obvious it was going to rain soon.
And judging by the swirling clouds, it would be a hell of a summer storm.
“All I need, I already have.” Maximus C. Knights did something strange. He walked over to me on that statement and plucked my hand up, holding it firmly in his.
I wasn’t usually the kind of lovey-dovey soul to walk down the street hand-in-hand with someone. I’d always found handholding kind of awkward, to be honest. But as soon as Max slipped his palm against mine, I felt it once more – our magic mingling. Our histories intertwining. And most importantly, our destinies finally bringing us to this point.
Max led me over to the main door out of his apartment.
He nodded at me firmly.
So the next bit was all down to me, ha?
Fair enough. I was the bounty hunter, after all.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I reached forward, clasped hold of the handle, concentrated on Max’s mother’s house, and opened the door.
Chapter 6
I closed my eyes as we walked through. Then, with a wince, I opened one to see that I was indeed back in the house.
I let out a rattling sigh.
The door was still open, and Max quickly pulled my hand from the handle and closed it.
Then he opened it once more experimentally.
I expected it to lead back to Max’s house. It didn’t. It led to a drawing room.
When he caught me frowning at him, he shrugged. “I’m not a sorcerer, and I have no hope of controlling a mapmaking spell. That’s why you’re here, after all,” he added.
I arched an eyebrow. “I thought I was here to keep you safe?” I didn’t add until the end of days. That would make an otherwise light conversation raw. Plus, I’d made my peace with the situation. Because I’d decided what I would do. I would find a way to save Max. I’d found a way out of every other dire situation I’d faced, hadn’t I? So why would this be any different?
“My mistake. I didn’t mean to cheapen your input. Now, we must check on this house and ascertain how much more time we have.” Max went to walk forward.
I stood my ground, closed my eyes, and centered my attention first on the floor, then the walls, then the ceiling.
Sure, I felt a bit sheepish asking all the wood and stone and brick and steel how it was, but I’d done weirder things today.
Max opened his mouth, but I could tell he paused as he realized what I was doing.
I didn’t know how the house would answer, but soon enough I got an impression in my mind. An impression of an embattled building, but one that was nonetheless holding up to volley after volley of attack.
I opened my eyes as a gasp parted my lips.
Max paled and took a quick step toward me. “What is it? Has Jason found a way in?”
I shook my head. “That would have triggered Josh’s irritating alarm system, anyway,” I reminded Max. “The house is… holding up for now. It’s hard. Jason and his warlocks are throwing everything they have at it.”
Max wouldn’t look at me for several seconds. Then he shook his head hard. “Which means we still have time. We must take it.”
Max turned, walked into the corridor, and headed toward the nearest closed door.
He shifted toward it.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “We need to be smarter this time. We can’t just appear in random buildings in Madison City, hoping that we’ll get closer to the books.”
“I know that. I was simply going into my wardrobe for a jacket,” he pointed out. “Looks like it will rain,” he added.
I stared at him, open-mouthed.
“Before you say I could’ve gotten one back in my real house, I have a nicer jacket here.” With that, he opened the door, walked inside, and entered a massive walk-in wardrobe.
I peered around the door. You know those fancy movies where they show young CEOs with their massive walk-in wardrobes with suit after suit and glass cases of watches?
Yeah, that was Max.
He disappeared for a moment, then came back in a suit jacket.
He’d also grabbed a new watch, and he was changing it as he reached me. He threw his other watch carelessly on the carpet.
“Why are you frowning at me like that, Miss Samson?” he asked.
“Because it looks like it’s going to piss down, and you’re in a dinner jacket.”
“Firstly,” he tugged his lapels down, “this is not a dinner jacket. It’s a day jacket. And secondly, this suit has magical properties that will help me ward off not just the rain, but will give me a little defense if I’m attacked by magic. Not much – nothing compared to what you can create – but something.”
I still thought it was kind of weird that we were running around while he looked like he was a suit model, and I looked like I was a bikey. But whatever. The world had seen weirder things.
Once he was done, he walked out and closed the door. He turned to me. “You’re right. We have to do this logically.”
“So why don’t we go to Internal Affairs next?” I asked as I crossed my arms in front of my chest, a frown marking my lips. The reason I crossed my arms was not that I was being defensive – but rather because I was trying to control my natural anxiety at that statement.
My whole life had been marked by the existence of Internal Affairs for the past several months, ever since I’d met Jason. So yeah, I’d imagined what it would be like to see their Head Quarters. And now I knew about Max’s dead dad’s sorcerer memory protecting the joint, there was even more reason to be worried. But at the same time, I wanted to get this done. No matter what it took, I repeated in my mind. No matter what it took.
“The hidden sets won’t be there,” Max said with some authority.
“How do you know?”
“Because my dad was more careful than that. He would’ve kept them somewhere hidden, off-site, so that if anyone got the desire to raid Internal Affairs, they wouldn’t be able to find them.”
“And if they couldn’t find them, then Internal Affairs would presumably get whoever raided them in a lot of trouble and use their sets against them. Got it. Your dad was a pretty meticulous thinker,” I added.
Max didn’t appear to know what to do with this comment. He eventually sighed. “My father was meticulous in every way. But trust me, that was not a good thing.”
&n
bsp; With that opaque comment, Max began to walk through the house.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” I asked as I trotted behind him.
“I can’t figure out where to go next. We do not have enough information on where Internal Affairs could be keeping the sets. So I’m going to rely on my opportunity finding magic instead.”
I nodded. I should probably have taken the opportunity to voice my concerns, though. You see, there was a certain fact that had been kicking around my mind since Max had told it to me outside his office. An opportunity for one might not be an opportunity for another. Unless you were a particularly selfless soul, when you searched for opportunities, you might find you ended up taking from others in order to give yourself what you wanted.
I pushed that thought from my mind and decided to help Max. I began to concentrate. I half closed my eyes and really fixed my attention on my opportunity finding magic. It might be a lot weaker than Max’s, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t getting in my own way. Blame it on all of the battles I’d just fought with Josh. Blame it on the fact he’d showed me how to fight without second-guessing myself.
I was finally trusting in what was happening inside me. But more than anything, I was trusting in my ability to decide what to do next without exhaustive, unnecessary deliberation.
Max walked ahead.
We were still on the second-story landing. Abruptly, I stopped. I found myself turning toward a door beside me.
“Beth? Why have you stopped?” Max asked as he tilted his head toward me.
Without even thinking it through, I reached forward, latched a hand on the handle, concentrated, and opened the door.
I had no idea where the door would open to.
But I recognized the place.
“The courtrooms?” I stuttered.
The door led back into the archive room of the courts.
It was dark, and the automatic lights hadn’t switched on – possibly because I hadn’t technically entered the room. I could still recognize the cavernous room with shelves all lined up on either side.
Max reached me. Without a word, he took the door off me and closed it.
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