Broken by Magic

by Rebecca Danese

  “Plus, the buzz is amazing,” adds Victoria, before almost falling off her chair. Ricky catches her.

  “Sorry, she’s had three of these,” he says with a nod to the spiked glass of juice.

  “Here, this is for you.” He hands me the tiny vial, and I leap back as if it’s hot.

  “Why are you giving it to me?”

  “Because I need some bright things like you to promote my merch. This one’s a freebie, but if you want more, I’ll do it at a discount because you’ll tell all your friends how great it is.” He smiles and slips the vial into my pocket before I can protest.

  “There you are,” Agnes chides from behind me, and I try not to jump again.

  “Sorry, I, er, made some friends.” I gesture to Ricky and the completely out-of-it Victoria.

  “So I see.” She looks between the two with her signature unimpressed stare. “Well, sorry to break up the fun, but we’re meeting some people.” She takes hold of my arm and tugs me away before I can say goodbye, but when I turn back to wave, Ricky has a look on his face that reminds me of a fox entering a henhouse: ready to make a killing.

  “I thought you were going to keep a low profile,” she scolds me like a child.

  “I was trying to, but I didn’t realise you were taking me into an Augur juice-rave club,” I complain.

  “Well, that’s not important now. I’ve found our friend, but we have another problem.”

  “Don’t tell me, they’re surrounded by Normal-detecting Augurs, and I have to keep a distance?”

  “No, but he is accompanied by two people that already know you’re a Normal,” she says, lowering her voice.

  “What? Who’s here?” I snap my head round to see if I can make out any familiar faces, but it’s just a sea of dancing bodies as far as the eye can see.

  “Marco and Giovanni.”

  Crap. I had wondered where Mr. Gregorio’s nephews had disappeared to after the restaurant fire. It seems they didn’t get further than a shady club in East London.

  “You don’t think they’ll just keep their mouths shut about me being a Normal, do you?”

  “Unlikely, considering I’ve broken all the rules by bringing you in here. This is supposed to be the one place that Augurs are completely safe and away from judgement,” she sighs. “For some reason, I didn’t get a vision of this.”

  “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to leave.” I shrug and turn to go.

  “Oh, no. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” She grabs my sleeve and tugs me back. “I’ve had a dozen visions of you leaving and getting into trouble, so you’re staying close.” She taps her foot impatiently until something comes to her.

  “Why don’t I just sit in a nearby booth within your line of sight, but with my hood up?” I point to my jacket. It’ll look a bit strange maybe, but I’m sure that weirder things have happened in a place that is constantly full of Augurs. Agnes nods her agreement, and I follow her to the farthest edge of the dance floor, where tables and booths line the wall. Through the artificial smoke I can make out a crowded table with people laughing, and I pull my hood up over my head so that my eyes are shielded. I get that feeling of unease in the pit of my stomach as Agnes breaks away from me to sit with them, and I find an empty table nearby. My back is half to them, and only if I pretend that I’m looking at the entrance can I make them out of the corner of my eye. I’m perfectly within earshot when I hear Gio’s surprise.

  “Agnes? What are you doing here? Is Ella with you?”

  A pang of jealousy hits me. I knew that Giovanni had a soft spot for her, but I didn’t realise that he was so open about it.

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?” Agnes replies coolly, and I feel a little smug at how she responds.

  “The important question,” another voice interjects. It’s not Marco, so it’s got to be the guy I don’t know.

  “I’m here to see you, Lorenzo,” she replies, and I fight the desire to see how Gio responds to the rebuttal.

  “What did you climb out from your hiding place to find me for? I hope you’re not on one of my Dad’s errands?”

  “No, actually. He has no idea I’m here, and I haven’t seen him for months,” Agnes explains. She’s ordinarily abrupt in her manner, but there’s something different about the way she speaks to him.

  “You didn’t come all the way here to see the club. Not after all these years,” he states rather than asks.

  My mind races. Who is Lorenzo, and why did Agnes come all this way to find him? The fact that he’s with Marco and Gio should give me a clue, and I suspect, although I can’t see him, that this might be Mr. Gregorio’s estranged son that I’d replaced at the restaurant but had never personally met.

  “No, Enzo, I didn’t,” she replies. Is it just me, or does she sound more tense?

  “So, what’s this all about then?” he insists.

  “I need to find out if you’ve been approached by the Magic Circle,” she says, masking the little emotion in her voice. She can be quite terrifying when she wants to be, and I wonder if the boys at the table are feeling as uncomfortable as I am.

  “What, that pack of psychos? No, thank God.” Lorenzo scoffs, and Marco and Giovanni seem to make similar noises of disapproval.

  “Good, then I’m not too late,” Agnes says cryptically. I’m guessing one of her visions must have ridden on the outcome of whether Lorenzo and Edward had already met.

  “I have a proposition for you, but I’d prefer to discuss it somewhere more private.” She lowers her voice, and I strain above the din to make out the words.

  “Fine, Agnes, I’ll hear you out. But my boys come with me. Can’t get better than my office,” Lorenzo says, and I can see them getting up in my peripheral vision. Just as I think I’m going to be testing my skills of following someone without being spotted and somehow stay close to Agnes without anyone seeing me, I see them walk to the back of the club and through a hidden door, leaving me alone with hundreds of Augurs.

  CHAPTER 5

  Heeding Agnes’s warning about not wanting me to be left by myself, I try to slink to the back of the club myself. I’m momentarily surprised to find there’s no one guarding it, but I convince myself that in a club full of people with magical abilities there’s probably not much point.

  The small placard says ‘PRIVATE’ and I wonder what Lorenzo has to do to have his own office here. Evidently, he doesn’t work in security, or he’s rubbish at his job, because nothing stops me from opening the door and following them up a concrete stairwell one flight above. I’m met with only one option when I reach the top: another door, this time with a ‘MANAGER’ plaque. I dismiss the thought that Lorenzo is chums with the manager. He must run this joint. Voices from within barely get through the door, and I have to put my ear right up to it to hear Agnes talking.

  “Edward is planning something big, and we need your help, Lorenzo.”

  “My help? What’s a nightclub owner going to do for you?”

  “You have influence. You give these people refuge and a place to feel safe. I know they’ll listen to you if you convince them that they need to,” Agnes practically pleads.

  “Seen it in one of your visions, have you?” I recognise Gio’s voice.

  “Why are you attacking me, Giovanni? We’ve known each other for years.”

  “And that’s why I know you work for him.” I can almost hear him sneering.

  “The Duke has been out of the picture since December. None of us has any idea where he is.”

  “And Ella? Why isn’t she here with you?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute if you’d stop being such an ape and let me finish,” Agnes almost raises her voice. There’s silence, and I hope that none of their powers involve being able to zap people where they stand. I still can’t believe I worked with Gio and his brother for months with no clue that they were Augurs.

  “Edward tried to recruit Ella. He flushed us out of hiding, and now she’s trying to get as far away as
she can from him before he can kidnap her—or worse—for his master plan.”

  “And you don’t happen to know what this plan is, do you?” Lorenzo asks.

  “I’ve only seen the outcomes. The city in flames, Augurs and Normals homeless, millions dead.”

  “Why would he want that?”

  “So that he can control the city? I don’t really know if that is what he wants, but it’s the outcome if he gets his hands on my sister. I imagine that someone has convinced him that there needs to be some kind of new world order, that there needs to be destruction before Augurs can get back on top.”

  “Sounds like Munday, doesn’t it?” Lorenzo says.

  “It does. Which is why I don’t think that he intends to burn down the entire city. I think that my visions indicate he loses control and it all blows up in his face.”

  “And you need me why, exactly?”

  “Come on, Lorenzo. Water beats fire every time. But apart from your talent, there are individuals just downstairs in your club that would be instrumental in helping to put a stop to Edward.”

  I imagine all the ravers downstairs, hopped up on nothing more than vegetable juice, and how much collective power they must have between them. That would probably put a stop to any revolution.

  “So, you want me to convince a bunch of people who come to my club to stop a disaster caused by a nationally known terrorist group?”

  “Yes.” Even I know that Agnes doesn’t really get irony. If she does, she hides it very well.

  “They’re just people, Agnes. Ordinary sons, mothers, brothers, sisters, just trying to escape for a few hours from all the crap on their doorstep. It’s not that I don’t think they would help, but I don’t know if I’d want to ask them.”

  I want to burst in and tell him to man up, but Agnes does the job for me.

  “Lorenzo, if Edward succeeds, and my vision comes true, all of these people will be dead anyway. By not getting their help, you’re condemning us all.”

  I think I hear another voice from inside, possibly Marco’s. He speaks very little in general so it’s hard to tell, but whoever it is murmurs something to the otherwise silent room.

  Too late I realise he must be coming to the door, and my reaction time is slow. Rather than open it, he walks through it, a power I didn’t know he had, and he practically leaps out of his skin when he sees me.

  “What the— Curtis? How the hell did you get in here?” he asks angrily. But before giving me the chance to reply, he’s grabbed me by the arm and is dragging me back into the office with him. The peculiar sensation of passing through a solid object is dwarfed by Agnes’s fury and the others’ surprise.

  The office has one-way glass on one side and on the floor, and I panic that I’m going to fall through and into the club below if Marco doesn’t let go of my arm, but for now he seems to have his mind on other matters.

  “I found him outside the door,” he says grimly.

  “Curtis? What the hell? How did you get in here?” Giovanni asks.

  “You know this guy?” Lorenzo, a tall, blond and tanned Italian with green eyes and an impressive beard stands behind the desk and studies me.

  “He’s the Normal that your dad employed after you left,” Marco says bitterly. I knew Marco wasn’t fond of me back then, and I get the feeling this isn’t going to work in my favour right now.

  “He’s with me,” Agnes says frankly.

  “You brought a Normal into my club? I should kick you out right now—“

  “Or you can realise that the situation is so bad that I had no choice,” she interrupts him mid-flight. Giovanni stares at me, obviously a hundred questions burning behind his eyes, no doubt including how, and where, Ella is.

  Lorenzo paces. “It’s our law, Agnes. The only law that applies here: no Normals allowed. How can I possibly let you walk out of here with him and not make an example of you?”

  “It’s disrespectful,” Marco says through gritted teeth.

  “It’s life or death,” Agnes retorts. “If you don’t believe me, have Giovanni use his power on me. He’ll see what I’ve seen and maybe he can share it with you. Or are you too stubborn even for that?”

  Gio looks hesitant for a moment, but a nod from Lorenzo prompts him into action.

  “You don’t have to,” Marco buts in, but Gio gives a wave of his hand and steps towards her. He places a hand on each side of Agnes’s neck and rests his forehead on hers in a strangely intimate gesture, which explains his hesitation. I wouldn’t want to get that close to Agnes either.

  As his eyes close so do hers, and I notice that every expression on his face is mirrored by hers, as if they are somehow connected. Marco finally lets go of me to stand next to his brother, seemingly ready to pull him out of whatever trance he’s put them in. I feel like I could use the distraction to slip out and leg it to the nearest exit, but the thought only briefly crosses my mind. There’s no way I can leave Ella’s sister here, even if she can handle herself. For starters, there aren’t many places I could go, although home and seeing Mum would work for a short time. A wave of guilt washes over me at the worst time. I haven’t even managed to tell her I’m back in London yet.

  Both Agnes and Giovanni make a strange noise, like someone being strangled, and a tear runs down each of their cheeks. Marco is just about to pull him out of it when they separate with a gasp.

  “It’s true,” Gio says, breathless, wiping the moisture from his cheek. “It’s all true. We’re going to die if we don’t do something.”

  “Show me,” Lorenzo insists, but he’s not having any of it.

  “I can’t. Enzo, believe me, you don’t want to experience what I just saw. What I just felt.”

  “I need to know, Gio. Now, show me,” he insists, making his way around his large desk to take his cousin’s face in his hands. Almost forcefully, Lorenzo pushes his forehead down onto him, and they lock in much the same way that Gio did with Agnes.

  By the time both Lorenzo and Marco have seen Agnes’s vision, I’ve decided I can skip the recap. I don’t even want to know the devastation that the Magic Circle could potentially cause, and if it’s as bad as Agnes says it is, that’s enough for me.

  “Believe me now?” Agnes says grimly.

  “God, yes.” Lorenzo slumps into his leather desk chair and pinches the bridge of his nose.

  “And all that other stuff you showed me?” Gio says, looking at me as he asks her.

  “I need your help with that too,” she replies. “Lorenzo, the sooner you manage to convince others to side with you, the better. If we can stop this before it starts, then at least we’ll have prepared.”

  “I’ll get on it. You do what you need to, and take the Normal with you,” Lorenzo says as if I’m not even there. I open my mouth to protest, but Agnes hits me on the arm.

  “Ow!” I say, rubbing the spot.

  “Oh, come on, you big baby. We have work to do,” she says, and leaves without saying so much as a goodbye to our reluctant hosts.

  We take the stairs back into the club, thread our way through the sweaty bodies, and Agnes pushes a button on the exit door, a signal for the doorman to do his job, I’m guessing. Supposing I’ll never get the chance to go in again, I give one final look at the daytime rave club before the wall seals itself behind me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the visions you’d had?” I ask when we’re a few blocks away, and I’m certain we weren’t followed.

  “You have a tendency to overreact. I didn’t need you flapping around, adding to things as a distraction,” she replies, walking as quickly as her short legs will allow.

  “Oh, nice. I’m glad to see you have so much confidence in me,” I say sarcastically.

  “I don’t,” she replies, completely ignoring my sarcasm. I sigh and try my best not to lose my temper. “We need to get back to Ella and convince her to leave town.”

  My heart tries to take off with excitement when I hear that.

  “You mean it? You’ll hel
p me get her away from London?” I reply excitedly.

  “I’ll help Ella get away, yes. At this point we’ve no choice. If someone gets their hands on her, and she can’t beat them, we’ll all be screwed. You can’t come though,” she adds.

  “What? What do you mean I can’t come?” I stop in the middle of the pavement outside an abandoned shop, the windows smashed in and graffiti everywhere.

  “Curtis, trust me. You’ll have more on your plate than you can comfortably handle very soon. If I take you back to Ella now, you’re only going to convince her to stay.”

  “You’re joking, right? You do realise that I’ve wanted nothing more than to get her away from all this since the moment I found out about her? Of course you do. You know everything. The all-seeing, all-knowing Agnes who thinks she knows what’s best for everyone,” I say, my voice rising. If we were anywhere else, I’m sure people would stop to stare at two people having a fight on the street, but here it seems commonplace enough that folk just walk by.

  “Control your temper,”Agnes says quietly.

  “Why? So that you can calmly convince me to stay away from your sister? No. Agnes, I don’t care what you do or say, I’m coming with you, and you’re taking me to her,” I say adamantly. I feel the heat rising in my face, and I clench my fists to try and keep my cool. It’s not working.

  “I can’t force you to do anything, you know that. If I could I would. But I know that if you stop Ella from leaving London you might as well sign your own death warrant.”

  “You don’t know everything, Agnes!” I shout. The sound of my own voice echoes off the buildings around us, and this time someone does stop to stare. Instead of retaliating, she stares at me, her expression neutral.

  “Do it,” she says. I’m confused for a moment until I realise that she’s looking behind me. I swing around to see Giovanni marching up to us and only a few feet away. He looks at me with worrying determination. I hold my arms up to protest, but he clamps his hands onto the sides of my head.