by Abbey, Kit
“She suspected that Jude and Caspien were planning something, but she didn’t tell anyone.”
Rowan’s head snapped back around to stare at Daisy in a motion that was almost compulsive. Her eyes were wide, and her jaw clenched.
“She cried when they turned Caspien,” Daisy added.
Rowan exhaled sharply, her eyes still intent upon Daisy. The little girl stared back calmly, her hands resting gently in her lap.
“What are you?” Rowan’s voice was uncertain, which was something William had not heard in it ever before.
Daisy made no reply.
William had known for a while now that he was going to do something stupid. The idea probably first entered his mind when Horace knocked Gwen out, but it wasn’t until he saw the
black and white sign of the music store that he’d known for certain. The William who had spent his days in there had been a good person. He didn’t want to think that that William was gone forever. And so, he had to do something. It was stupid and it was probably going to get him killed, but he didn’t have a choice. Well, he did. He could do nothing, and allow Grey Corp to keep Daisy from her mother. And the guilt would fade, until it eventually wouldn’t bother him at all.
And William was sure that a guy who could be faced with this situation and feel nothing was not a guy he wanted to be.
William thought about his sister, and he thought about poor Sarah who’d killed herself a hundred years ago.
Kirk’s Bentley was edging past a cafe. William stared at it and began to ready his thoughts. He was stopped by Daisy’s small hand on his arm.
“Wait,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Wait for what?” said Rowan, who was still staring at her. William hesitated, and in that moment a young couple left the café and wandered slowly down the street.
“Now,” said Daisy.
“Now?” asked Rowan.
William Illuded the road under the Bentley’s tires. It warped and lifted sharply, sending the car flipping through the air. It landed on the café’s outdoor tables, where only seconds before the young couple had been standing. The traffic on the road had been moving so slowly that there was minimal reaction to this. The cars in front of and behind the Bentley moved easily from barely moving to not moving at all, and the milling pedestrians stopped and stared in shock.
The reaction inside the Mustang was somewhat more volatile.
At the sound of crunching steel Rowan finally snapped her attention away from Daisy. She spun around in her seat, took in the scene for a few seconds, and then spun back again. But it was William, not Daisy, who served as the subject of her attention this time.
“What have you done?”
William didn’t answer. In the time it took Rowan to turn to look at the accident and turn back again, he’d Illuded a baseball bat. He hit her with it. The car was small, and he wasn’t able to get much momentum going. By rights, the blow should have done little more than stun her. But Rowan saw it coming, and attempted to twist back around in her seat, and because of this movement the bat caught her right on the temple.
She slumped, unconscious or close enough.
William, still not quite believing what he had done, turned to Daisy. The girl had already undone her seatbelt and was clamouring into the front of the car.
“You need to take me back to my mummy,” she said, tugging at the handle.
William supposed he did. In for a penny, in for a pound as his mother used to say. He followed Daisy out onto the footpath, pausing only to reassure himself that Rowan still had a pulse. A crowd had gathered around the crashed Bentley. William grabbed Daisy’s hand and, fighting the urge to vomit or maybe faint, he tugged her firmly in the opposite direction, towards the train station.
Chapter 42.
Gwen’s reaction upon their return was to hug her daughter tightly and then throw a clock radio at William’s head. William Illuded it into a feather, and it drifted harmlessly to the floor. He regretted that he couldn’t transform Gwen’s anger with as much ease.
“You took my daughter!” she yelled, hurling a heavy candle stick at him.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled back, after Illuding the candle stick into a ping pong ball.
The daughter in question sat on the couch, watching the fight with her hands neatly folded in her lap.
“You’re sorry!” A stack of DVDs turned to jelly beans in mid air. “You took my baby! You took her!”
“Well, I brought her back again didn’t I!”
“And you think that makes it alright? You fucking bastard!” The footstool very nearly hit him before it became a green balloon. “You come to my work and you trick me and you take my daughter and you think sorry is gonna cut it?”
“I didn’t know, alright!” William dodged a solid photo frame without bothering to Illude it. “They just told me you had something they wanted, and they needed me to put a tracking device on you, I didn’t know it was your kid!”
“So, what,” she threw the DVD player, he Illuded it, “you always just do what you told, no questions?”
“I trusted in Grey Corp,” said William.
“Fuck Grey Corp,” Gwen replied, “and fuck you.”
William didn’t feel there was anything he could say to that. They stood in tense silence.
“Tracking device?” Gwen eventually asked. “What do you mean, tracking device? They don’t work… I mean-”
“Surveillance doesn’t work because of her, yeah I know,” said William. “I took an electric bug and made it alive.”
“You made… You made it alive?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s just an illusion of life, but it was enough to get around whatever barriers it is that Daisy puts up. You know how it all works.”
“No, I don’t.” Gwen stamped her foot. It must have made her feel a little better, because she stamped it again. “I don’t understand any of this! None of it! All I know is that Grey Corp, god damned Grey Corp, wants to take my baby away from me!”
Gwen looked like she was about to cry, which made William feel even worse. “I brought her back though,” he offered, feebly.
“I don’t understand Grey Corp,” she went on, ignoring him. “I don’t get what you do, or how you do it, or why you do it, and I don’t know what you want with my daughter!”
“She’s what they call a well,” said William. “They need her to feed the thing that gives us our powers, but I don’t think it will hurt her.”
“You don’t think they want to hurt her?” Gwen laughed harshly. “My God, you were willing to kidnap a kid without even knowing if she’d be ok?”
“I told you,” snapped William, “I didn’t know anything! Grey Corp doesn’t tell me anything! I just have to trust them.”
“My God,” repeated Gwen. “I don’t know who’s worse, you or the rest of them. At least they actually know why they’re doing what they’re doing.”
“Look,” said William, “you can hate me as much as you like, but later, ok! I don’t know how much of a head start we have here; Rowan and the others could be here at any second. So we have to go, alright? We have to get of here!”
Gwen regarded him silently, mismatched eyes narrowed. “We?”
“Yes, we! Grey Corp will be after you two now, so we have to get as far away from them as possible. Come here, I need to get the tracking device off you.”
Gwen didn’t move.
“Come here, damn it! We haven’t got much time, and we’ve already wasted plenty arguing.”
She slowly crossed the room. William studied her for a few seconds. ‘Where are you?’ he thought.
Gwen gasped as the tracking bug suddenly wriggled out from the cuff of her jeans.
‘This being alive this really grows on you,’ it announced.
‘Then I’m sorry about doing this’. With a thought the illusion of life was removed, and the electronic bug was nothing more than an electronic bug once again.
&
nbsp; “Ok,” said William. “Ok. Alright. We should get out of here then. How much fuel is in your car? It doesn’t matter, I should be able to Illude some if it’s out.” He turned towards the door, and then turned back when Gwen and Daisy made no move to follow him. “Come on! We have to go! Grey Corp knows how to find you!”
“Right,” said Gwen, “because of you.”
William said nothing.
“Because you put that bug on me, and because you can see her when no one else can. If it wasn’t for you Grey Corp wouldn’t have found us in the first place.”
“Yeah, ok, that’s true and all, but right now we need to hurry up and get out of here.”
“No,” she said, “not we. This is all your fault.”
“Look-”
“No. You look. You brought Daisy back and for that I won’t hurt you, but we are leaving and you are staying here.”
William was quiet, and they stared at each other for a moment. “I doubt you could hurt me,” said William eventually, “even if you tried.”
“No,” said Gwen, “probably not.”
Another short silence.
“Are you going to stop us from leaving?” she asked.
William thought about it. “No.”
Gwen nodded, and then gathered Daisy up in her arms. William watched in silence from the doorway as they got into an old, beat up station wagon and drove away. The lights of the city made the stormy sky glow, and there was a sticky, humid wind. Gwen’s car had only been gone from view for a few minutes when another car turned onto the dead-end street.
The headlights were bright, and William couldn’t see anything beyond their glow. But he didn’t need to be able to see to know that the car moving quickly down the street was Rowan’s red Mustang.
Chapter 43.
Rowan got out of the car and stood leaning on the door. The headlight were still on, and they gave her skin a washed out pallor.
“You really are the stupidest kid I’ve ever met,” she said.
She was jostled by Lucy climbing of the Mustang. Kirk got out of the passenger side, of Horace and David there was no sign. William wondered if they were dead. “Where is she?” demanded Kirk, limping slightly as he made his way up the driveway, “where is she, damn you?”
“Where’s who?” asked William.
“Fuck you!” Kirk stood at the foot of the veranda stairs, glaring up at William. “Do you have any understanding of what you have done? We need the well!”
“Well, well, well,” said William. “What a pickle.”
He was inappropriately amused by the situation There was a certain giddiness that came with messing up so colossally that there was no point even trying to fix things. It was lessened slightly when Kirk stormed up the veranda steps and backhanded him across the face, sending him sprawling.
William saw there was a cat crouched underneath the ratty couch. He returned slowly to his feet.
“Do you think,” said Kirk, “that because of your power you will not be punished for this? Do you think your paltry talents are anything compared to the well?”
“My powers might be paltry,” said William, rubbing his cheek, “but they’re enough to get me away from you three.”
“You’re not as great as you think you are,” said Lucy. She had a very nasty cut on her arm.
“Mr. Grey has been contacted,” said Kirk, “he knows what you’ve done. We’re to bring you in, and he didn’t say you needed to be alive.”
“How careless of him.”
“This isn’t a joke William,” said Rowan.
“What you have done…” Kirk shook his head, “Grey Corp needs the well.”
“You wouldn’t even have found her if it wasn’t for me.”
“That’s true,” said Kirk. “Tell us where she is now and we may well spare your life.”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to kill you,” said Kirk.
“I’d like to see you try,” said William. “My powers are stronger than all of yours, and we all know it.”
Kirk didn’t reply, but a very efficient looking shotgun appeared suddenly in his arms. William immediately tried to Illude it into something less bullet filled. Tried, and failed. It was though there was an invisible bubble surrounding Kirk, a bubble that William’s thoughts could not pass through.
He pushed against it with his mind. It wobbled under his touch, and William was confident that he could break through in a short amount of time. But when you’ve got a shotgun aimed at yourself, time is not something you have. Not even a short amount.
Kirk grinned. “You have not yet received any instruction in Illuded shields, have you?”
“No,” said Rowan, still standing by the Mustang, “he hasn’t.”
“Well now, isn’t that shame,” said Kirk, “you’re going to die.”
“No,” said Rowan, “he isn’t.”
Lucy’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell gracelessly to the ground, a syringe protruding from her back. Keeping the gun carefully trained on William, Kirk turned slightly to see what was going on behind him. Rowan casually lifted a hand, and the action sent Kirk flying. He slammed into the side of the small house, and fell to ground in a heap. He lay unmoving.
William had not seen that coming.
Rowan stepped over Lucy and walked up the driveway to the foot of the stairs. She looked calmly up at William, and he looked somewhat less calmly down. “We’re even,” she said. “Whatever I owed you for saving my life, I owe you nothing now.”
“Seems reasonable,” said William. “So, I guess I’ll just be going then? Is Russia nice this time of year, do you know?”
Rowan smiled and climbed the stairs. “No, William. I don’t think you understand. Like usual.” And before he had time to react she was holding an Illuded baseball bat, and that was about the last thing he remembered.
Chapter 44.
When he woke up he was stretched out on a comfortable couch. It was the same room in which Mr. Grey and Nobody had tested him months before, with the tree painting on the wall.
Madeline was sitting on a cushion on the floor, humming quietly to herself. The tune was familiar, but William couldn’t quite place it. Mr. Grey and Nobody were standing in front of the fireplace, which held a fiercely crackling fire. It was very cosy.
William groaned, and sat up. Madeline stopped humming, but no one said anything. He looked out the window. It was early morning, and gloomy. The river was choppy and agitated and a handful of sullen cars were crossing the bridge. It looked like it was about to rain. William hoped it would. He loved being in front of a strongly burning fire when it was raining outside. He did not love the looks Mr. Grey and Nobody were giving him.
“Your behaviour has been unacceptable, Mr Black,” said Mr. Grey.
“I had such hope for you,” said Nobody.
“Will you help us recover the well?” asked Mr. Grey.
William tried to answer, but his voice was rough and broken. He settled on just shaking his head. Nobody sighed. He looked very old and worn.
“Very well,” said Mr. Grey. “Do it now.”
William was going to ask them to specify exactly what ‘it’ was, but before he got the chance Madeline reached up and placed a wrinkled hand on each of his temples.
And then there was a great deal of pain.
And then he was unconscious once more.
Chapter 45.
Wlliam is lost and confused. He feels like he’s trapped inside a never ending dubstep track. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
Chapter 46.
William wakes up. His vision is blurry, and his head hurts. And he is cold. Something is wrong.
Chapter 47.
William wakes up. His vision is still blurry, and his head still hurts. And he is still cold. Something is very, very, wrong.
Chapter 48.
William woke up. His vision was still blurry, but he could make
out a person shaped form kneeling a little way away from him.
“How’s the head?”
William tried to sit up and failed spectacularly.
Chapter 49.
William woke up.
The figure was still there, crouched on the other side of some wobbly black stripes which after some fierce concentration he identified as bars.
“Are you back with us?” the voice was amused. “How’s the head?”
“’Urts,” William managed to force out.
“Well, that’s to be expected.”
The voice was familiar, but his brain was refusing to dredge up a name.
“’M’cold.”
“I brought you a blanket,” said the voice.
The blurry person shape reached through the bars and settled a blanket over William’s form. It was soft, but didn’t much lessen the feeling that he was lying on a block of solid ice.
“You’re an idiot,” said the voice.
Ah, so it was Rowan then.
William tried to form a reply, but instead he lost consciousness once more.
Chapter 50.
William woke up.
He felt better. He was still colder than he could ever remember being, and something he couldn’t quite identify was still very, very wrong. But his vision was no longer blurry and his head didn’t hurt so much and he could sit up without drastic consequences. He was in a cell, with a concrete floor. Beyond the bars he could see a concrete hallway, lit by flickering, buzzing florescent lights. William decided that this depressing and cold (seriously cold) little cell was a place he’d rather not be.
He focused on the bars and attempted to Illude them away.
Absolutely nothing happened.
He tried again.
And again, nothing.
What is was exactly that felt so wrong inside of him was starting to become clear. William Illuded wildly and desperately, but whatever power he’d had inside of him was gone. “Well,” said William, shivering, cold and miserable. “Fuck.”