Shattered by Magic

by Rebecca Danese

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, and I mean it, too.

  He nods again, a moment of appreciation for my sympathy. I hear him take a deep breath, and when he opens his eyes again, I notice the swelling has come down a bit. Maybe quick healing is his power.

  “Needless to say, you aren’t the only person who wants to see Munday finished once and for all,” he utters ominously. He clears his throat, and his expression returns to the unperturbed countenance that comes with the Butler job description.

  I look at him for a few silent moments, but I don’t think questioning him on his loss is going anywhere, so I change tack. “Why’d you call me here, Mulberry? It obviously wasn’t to talk about your personal life.”

  “My apologies for the digression, Master Mayes. I had only one purpose for calling you here—you, specifically. I have a message for you.”

  “From the Duke?” I sneer, allowing my anger to rise at the audacity of it.

  “No, from Miss Cooper.”

  My grip on the gun tightens, slick with the sweat from my palm.

  “Ella gave you a message for me?” I ask quietly, suddenly wishing that Crossley couldn’t hear everything right outside the door. Mulberry nods.

  “Indeed. Her exact words were, ‘Curtis, don’t come for me. Don’t look for me. I need to do this on my own. Get out of London while you can. Just forget about me.’”

  “You’re lying!” I scream, the end of the gun finding its way to his temple before I can stop myself. My breath shudders in my chest as I fight against my temper. If Crossley is concerned, he makes no move to stop me.

  “Far from it, Master Mayes. I have the note written by her hand in my undershirt, but I memorised it in case it was confiscated.” He nods down in an invitation to try and retrieve it. “I promise I shan’t harm you. I am the messenger, after all.”

  “Why am I not filled with confidence?” I say disgustedly, but I put the candle on the table and keep the gun to his head all the same. Only when I reach down past his collar do I realise my fingers are trembling. I don’t want to touch him, but I have to see it for myself. Just under the hem of his undershirt, a small piece of paper, soggy with sweat and tinged with blood, pokes out. I retrieve it, stepping back and using the candlelight to read.

  Fear grips my chest. That’s Ella’s handwriting.

  Curtis, don’t come for me. Don’t look for me. I need to do this on my own. Get out of London while you can. Forget about me.

  No ‘I love you.’ Not even an ‘I miss you.’ This may be Ella’s note, but it sounds nothing like her.

  I feel the bile in my throat rising as I face the possibility that Ella has been brainwashed or worse. If the Duke has access to Air himself, he might have gotten Ella addicted, which would make her more susceptible to control.

  But surely, surely this is fake. I can’t believe that Ella would suddenly fall out of love with me, even if we have been separated for two months.

  Mulberry looks irritatingly smug as I read it again, a thousand scenarios running through my head. “What did he do to her?” I ask through clenched teeth.

  “Nothing, Master Mayes. She wrote this entirely on her own cognisance. She evidently realised that you are not good enough for her. You are a Normal, after all.”

  I hit him over the head with the butt of the gun before I realise what I’ve done, but he only lets slip a dry, bloody chuckle.

  “For someone who’s the minority here, you Augurs are pretty cocky,” I rasp, feeling like he deserves another whack over the head just because he’s here.

  “You know, acting the part of the deserted lover doesn’t suit you, Master Mayes. You should be thankful that the Duke allowed you anywhere Ella in the first place.”

  “That wasn’t under his control.”

  “Oh, but of course it was. The fact that Ella fell in love with you was admittedly a coincidence—and one the Duke wasn’t best happy about. An Augur and a Normal together is horrendous. The only reason the Duke allowed you into the Society was because of your relationship to your Aunt. You’re lucky he didn’t send someone to have you disposed of the moment he found out about you both.”

  I fail to mask my alarm. I didn’t think the Duke would have it in him to murder someone, let alone his own nephew, but there’s a lot I don’t know about my uncle, apparently.

  “He wouldn’t,” I say, scowling at him.

  “You don’t know him as I do, Curtis. You don’t know what he would or wouldn’t do, given the chance.”

  I can only see half of his grin in the dim light, but the glimpse of blood-stained teeth sends a shiver of disgust through me.

  “You know what, Mulberry? I don’t know what kind of sick game this is or how you got Ella to write that note, but if you weren’t being locked up here for the rest of your days, I’d get you to send her a message straight back,” I spit.

  “Indeed? And what would you say? Purely out of curiosity, of course,” he adds, trying and failing to look innocent.

  “I’d have you tell her that I am never ever going to stop fighting for her. Even if the Duke had her forget all about me.”

  “Master Mayes, a word of advice, if I may. If the only thing you are living for is the love of another person, you do not deserve that person’s love.”

  “What is that, a riddle?”

  “It’s the truth.” He fixes me with a gaze so profound that I find myself struggling to hold it. “Now, do you have the time?”

  “Why? You got somewhere to be?” I joke, turning to leave. “Thanks for nothing, Butler,” I call as I walk towards the door.

  “Master Mayes, tell me, how much do you know about Air?”

  I stop and turn, sensing that what he’s about to say might be important.

  “Enough,” I reply, walking back to him slowly. “Enough to know that it’s addictive, mind-altering, and makes Augurs a hell of a lot more dangerous.”

  “Hmm.” He seems to agree. “But did you know there is more than one form of Augur Enhancing Drug?”

  “I never really thought about it. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Master Mayes, it has everything to do with why we’re here. It is the entire reason I’ve managed to be captured in the first place.”

  “What are you talking about?” Without realizing, I’ve stepped closer to him, only the metal table between us.

  “There are dozens of configurations for the drug, and thousands of outcomes and reactions. Every human alive will produce a slightly different result.”

  “You mean Augur. Normals can’t take Air,” I correct him.

  “Indeed. Air is fatal for Normals, did you know that?” He leaves the question hanging while I puzzle over it. Thankfully I’d never had the urge to try any myself. “Did you know that there’s a batch of Air which lasts up to eight hours?” he continues.

  I didn’t know that, but I shrug in reply. “And?”

  “And,” he says, turning his face back towards the light, “I might’ve taken a dose less than eight hours ago, right before you attacked me.” His bad eye has completely healed, as have the cuts and bruises on his face. Only the remaining dry, brown blood stains indicate he was ever hurt.

  “What the—”

  He leaps to his feet and breaks the handcuffs as if they were made from nothing more than paper, knocking the chair over as he stands. I raise the gun instinctively, but he bats it out of my hand, and it flies across the room into one of the dark corners.

  “Crossley!” I yell, but Mulberry is too fast for me to react, hitting me over the head with a fist that feels like a sledgehammer.

  “Crossley, he’s escaping!” I try to shout at the top of my voice, but a kick to the gut drives the air out of my lungs, and darkness clouds my vision, sending me to the cold floor of the cell. I fight unconsciousness as I hear a gunshot outside the room, followed by the sound of scuffling. I crawl towards what I hope is the direction of the exit, the candle having rolled away and fizzled out somewhere. As I reach th
e doorway, my hand closes over something. A foot.

  “Crossley?” I croak, gasping for breath. Is he dead? God, I hope he’s not dead. Sensing motion in front of me, I reach out into the blackness, and an arm slips through my grasp.

  “He’s alive. Don’t fight, Curtis. I’m not here for you,” Mulberry says, just as I hear a jangling sound. Through the fog of pain and breathlessness, I register that they must be the keys for the cells. What the hell is he doing? I scrabble around for something I can use as a weapon, and eventually my hand closes around Crossley’s gun. Great, what exactly am I going to shoot at? In the darkness, I might hit something hard, and the bullet ricochet might kill me.

  My thinking is too slow, my movements sluggish. I listen carefully for the sound of motion so that I can aim at something. I hear a door unlocking and scraping open ahead of me, then another.

  “Come on, boy, we need to get out of here before the alarms sound,” I hear Mulberry whisper to whom I suppose must be Kai. The sound of handcuffs breaking and then finally a lot of keys jangling is followed by a loud and heavy scrape. He’s opening the door at the end of the corridor. Why the hell would he set Munday free?

  “No!” I shout, pointing the gun at the main source of noise and praying I hit a target. The tiny spark of gunpowder igniting as I squeeze the trigger gives me a time to catch a glimpse of three figures diving into the cell ahead. The bullet didn’t hit anything important, by the sounds of things, so I adjust my aim slightly and wait until I hear them re-emerge. The noise of feet makes me shoot instinctively, and I hear a grunt, which I hope means I found a target. I let off three more shots, all the while watching the horror of Carlton Munday being heaved out of his cell. He would look like an ordinary, unkempt, unshaven prisoner if it weren’t for the eyes. They’re entirely and unnaturally black, like two pools of tar set back in his skull. I manage to fire once more before the chauffeur raises a boot and kicks me in the head, and everything goes dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I don’t believe it,” Jer says from our living room sofa, head in his hands. Lou paces around, shouting random swear words. She’s already used all the ones I know and has invented a few more, by the sound of things.

  “I know. He wanted us to capture him so that he could be put in the Augur cells next to Munday,” I say, wincing as David finishes healing one of my ribs, which apparently snapped during my altercation with Mulberry.

  “Kind of clever, actually,” says Marco, walking into the room with drinks for everyone. “I mean, it’s diabolical but clever. He takes Air at the apartment right before you nab him, waits until they have no choice but to send you in, while the drug is still working its magic, and then he uses the opportunity to take all the other prisoners with him. Short of walking through walls, it’s the only way to do it.” He smiles, for some reason finding the situation funny. The fact that he can walk through walls himself probably has something to do with it.

  “But why take the evil bastard with him?” David says, moving on to the bruise on my face. I can’t help but eyeball the big pin on his lapel. Ironic really, that the government-issued pin badges that licensed Augurs have to wear is a big A inside a circle. Ever since magic users have had to apply for licenses, David has been wearing it, but I don’t like that it reminds me of the symbol that the Magic Circle used to use.

  In an effort to stop Normals from rioting outside Parliament, and to try and dampen down violence in the streets, the House of Commons and the Prime Minister passed even harsher laws against Augurs. Only those holding a license can use magic—full stop. That helps healers and a handful of government workers, plus Augur prison guards and doctors, maybe, but no one else right now. We have the incident at Hampstead Hospital to thank for that.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? I get the feeling it has something to do with the drugs. That was about the only thing that Mulberry said that hinted towards useful intel. God, I should have listened to Agnes.” I lean back in my chair and try to block out the pins and needles feeling running through my body as it works with David’s magic to repair itself.

  “How many times have we all told ourselves that?” he says, smiling and patting me on the shoulder. “You’re all done. I dread to think what Mulberry would have done to you if you were anyone else, though. I always suspected his ability was reading minds or something, not that he was secretly a kick-ass strong man,” David says, gratefully taking a cup of tea from Marco.

  “Well, whatever his real ability is, the Air made him that way. He said it himself, everyone has a slightly different reaction.”

  Lou stops pacing and joins us on the couches, still clearly irritated but enticed by the prospect of food. I look outside at the darkness and realise it must be gone midnight. It’s been a long day, and tiredness is fighting its way over me.

  “What about Ella? You really think she’d tell you to keep away after all this time?” Marco asks. I hate that he puts it so casually and not like every word of that message has hammered its way into my heart, leaving me lost and confused.

  “I…I don’t know. I can’t believe that she’s in her right mind if she wrote that. It doesn’t make any sense.” I look up at Lou, who responds with a sad grimace.

  “You’re right, Cur. It makes no sense at all. If there’s one thing we all know, it’s that Ella loves you.”

  I smile, but there’s no feeling behind it. The note Mulberry gave me is burning a hole in my pocket, and I’m afraid to look at it or even touch it again, but the words are indelibly imprinted in my mind.

  Last year, before things became particularly insane, I made Ella swear to me that if she could find a way out of this, she would. In turn, I promised her that, if things got too crazy, I would run as far as I could from them all. Looks like we both broke our promises. I want to think that she’s trying to protect me and that she hasn’t developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, but if Mulberry is telling the truth and she really did write that note without any kind of mind control, then why hasn’t she used her abilities to blow them all up and get out of there?

  I groan internally, my constant self-doubt getting me nowhere.

  “Miss Banks is going to be in the doghouse, don’t you think?” She changes the subject, folding her legs underneath her and leaning into Jer, who still looks pale with the shock of the news but is slowly recovering.

  “If she’s still got a job by tomorrow,” he mutters, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on steepled fingers. I can see he’s trying to process everything and that something is troubling him.

  “What’s on your mind, Jer?” I ask, watching his expression change.

  He looks from me, to Lou, to David and Marco. “If Miss Banks is suspended, or even fired, I just don’t think that’s going to spell good news for us. I mean, what we’ve had going these past couple of months has benefitted the ATU, sure, but there’s been a certain amount of unspoken agreement that we don’t get pushed around like normal agents.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Lou quips.

  “He’s right, though,” Marco chimes in. “I think we’ve been pretty lucky. If someone else takes over from Miss Banks, they might want us to use our abilities for something a bit more unsavoury.”

  “Well,” David says, placing his hands on his knees and getting to his feet, “as my mum says, ‘never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.’”

  “God, I love that woman.” Lou grins.

  “Even when she’s not in the same room as us, Beryl manages to impart her wisdom. Give her our love when you see her, won’t you? And thanks for coming by,” I say, giving him a grateful handshake. David and his mother have done more for me and my family than I can ever repay, but I’m not taking it for granted.

  “Don’t mention it. You should all get some rest—doctor’s orders. There’s no knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow, particularly now we have one of the most psychotic Augurs in town running free. Rather you lot than I.”

  “Tell Mumbe we miss him,”
Jer says as David heads to the door.

  “Ah, he misses you too. He won’t admit it, but he’s a real softy at heart.” He grins and takes his leave.

  “Maybe they want Munday dead?” Lou suggests after the door closes behind David.

  “Mulberry certainly wasn’t happy when he talked about him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d broken out just to kill Munday himself,” I say, thinking about the girl he lost.

  “I think it was his niece,” Jer says, looking at Lou for confirmation.

  “Oh yeah. Florella, I think her name was? She was an Ethereal; she could turn herself into other forms of matter,” she explains. “Only heard about her though, never met her. Munday must have killed her.”

  “Well, I reckon he knows something that they need. Otherwise why wouldn’t Mulberry have slit his throat the moment he got that cell open?” says Marco, coming to the conclusion before I managed to.

  “I think you’re right.” I yawn, concluding that we need to follow Doctor David’s orders and get some sleep. My suggestion is met with agreement from everyone, and I figure there’s not much more we can say that won’t be said tomorrow anyway.

  My room upstairs is filled with reminders of Ella. Her photographs are pinned to the walls, and her clothes that were sent from where we were staying in Hertfordshire are in the drawers. Her Nikon film camera, with the lens I bought her for Christmas, sits on the chest of drawers, unused since January. I pick it up, as I often do, and put my hands around it, as if I’m trying to absorb her through the object that she loves so much. I put my long fingers in the place where her daintier ones would go, imagining that little buzz I get when she touches me. The film counter still shows one shot left. I remember her saying she was looking forward to finishing the film and getting it developed, as she’d taken a lot of pictures over Christmas that she wanted to see. My heart aches as it always does when I think of all the little memories we’ve made and the hole that’s been left by her absence. Like losing a limb.