Stand Your Ground Hero (The Accidental Hero Book 2)

by Paul Duffau

  In his room, he powered up his computer, logged in, and switched to private mode, blocking the usual tracking systems. It made his search slightly more secure, but he missed having access to Jackson’s network, with its overlapping layers of security.

  Mitch typed in the title, hit Enter, and got zero hits. He double-checked his spelling. Zilch, again. Someone had done their magic on the web, he thought with a wry smile at his pun, and erased any easy reference to the dissertation. With a heavy sigh, he tried the name “Edward Bai,” expecting to get the same result. Instead, he got a dozen different hits. It wasn’t as rare a name as he’d thought. He refined the search by including “physicist” in the terms. This time, he got one name. A few clicks and he amended the thought to one dead guy. From Seattle. Not even a cause of death.

  Mitch sat back and thought.

  Not enough data . . .

  Next, he decoded the title, putting it into terms that made sense. M-theory he had heard of, and mathematical proof was self-explanatory. M-theory was a unifying structure that brought competing ideas of superstring theory into agreement in surprising ways. Like most modern concepts in physics, it postulated more than the normal three dimensions that everyone took for granted, having eleven total. It was one of the hottest areas of research in physics. A quick dip into the mathematics left Mitch drowning.

  “Strong anthropic principles” appeared to be a weird branch of physics, or maybe philosophy, that suggested the universe could not exist without observers. One particular variant sent a shiver down his back: "Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being."

  He stared at the entry on the wiki page. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain an alarm was going off, but he could not find the reason why. He grimaced and got up. It was too early to catch Mercury, but if the door was still locked, he’d just lurk for a while.

  In the garage again, he fired up his car and listened to the rumble of the engine warming. Right now, he needed to get gone, and then make some sense of the random bits of information. He hit the door opener and waited until the door was all the way up before stomping the accelerator. The car gulped gas, choked on too rich a mixture, then hurtled forward and pinned him to the seat. Mitch made a mental note to tweak the carb as he executed a hard cut of the wheel. Centrifugal force slammed him into the door. He grabbed second gear and hit the street, laying rubber. The shocked expression on sourpuss Mrs. McFurkin, the neighbor, freeze-framed in his memory as acrid smoke trailed behind him.

  He’d catch hell for that from his uncle, but the rush was worth it. It just wasn’t fast enough to get away from the sense of impending danger.

  The shop door, glass as dirty as ever, swung open on silent hinges. Mitch closed it behind him and took in the heady odors that permeated the air. There were never any customers in Mercury’s magic emporium. He had long since stopped ogling the odd tags, reminiscent of Shakespearian spells. He diverted from his usual path to Mercury’s living quarters to check out the weighty leather-bound tomes on the left wall. The revelation that Mercury, or Matthias, whichever name was actually his, was a professor upset the image he had of the man. The books, which he had ignored before, took on new meaning; if he knew what Mercury read, it would tell him a lot about the wizard.

  He ran a finger down the spines, taking note of the subjects. The books on the top shelf appeared old but the subject matter was current, from Darwin to Advances in Genetics, Volume 97. Interspersed on the next shelf down were books on spells and potions. These were genuinely old, the leather cracked and faded. One particularly thick edition bore a silvery script with the single-word title Incantaraus. The letters glowed as they stole all the light from the smudgy windows, and Mitch put two fingers on the top to pull it from the shelf.

  A blue flash delivered an electric shock like a stun gun. The muscles in his arm spasmed his hand off the book.

  “Well, okay,” he said to nobody, rubbing his thumb over the tingly fingers. “That’s one way to mark it off-limits.” He moved down to the next row and pulled at On the Origins of Man, face scrunched as he waited for another jolt. It slid out and the books to either side slouched over to fill the space. He put it back.

  He meandered away, around the center display cases, until he reached Mercury’s door. He rapped out three fast knocks and waited. Getting no answer, he tried the knob. It turned smoothly in his hand. Mitch cracked the door open two inches and announced himself. “Yo, Mercury?”

  Through the gap, he could see the armchairs turned in at an intimate angle, empty. He stood there with all the decisiveness of a tomcat staring out the door to a rainy day. More books lined one wall inside the magician’s sanctuary, and two earthenware cups hung on a mug tree beside a kettle. The large window with its constantly changing scenery looked onto a nighttime scene with an impossibly large moon. The fireplace radiated a cold and unwelcoming draft.

  He glanced at the cups, at the chairs. Why did a single man who didn’t invite company have two chairs? Because he had a partner. Who? Good question.

  Mitch settled into the right-hand chair and adjusted the legs until he faced the door. He didn’t know how he’d pull it off, but Mercury was going to give him some answers today.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Mercury plunged through the doorway, saw Mitch, and halted with a pointed finger. “You have a habit of touching things that you ought not.”

  Mitch checked the finger and shifted his stare to Mercury’s face. Standing, he stepped into the chest of the older man, locking on Mercury’s vivid green eyes. “Sticking a finger in someone’s face is rude.” He held his voice down, but the underlying anger tinged the words like dye on white cloth. “You want my help, it’s time to give me some answers—”

  “Or what, Mitch.”

  Mitch steamrolled over the wizard’s response with questions. He ticked them off his fingers, one at a time. “First, who’s your partner inside the Family? Second, why hasn’t the Family eliminated me? Third, who was Edward Bai to the Family? And lastly,” Mitch drew a deep breath, “did the Family kill him for discovering a mathematical basis for magic?” Mitch encapsulated the word “magic” in air quotes.

  At the mention of Bai, Mercury’s eyebrows furrowed. At the indirect hint of Bai’s thesis and its implications, Mercury reverted to his grayed granite expressionlessness, but Mitch could see the man’s mind working, gears meshing to spin a tale.

  A tinkling bell sounded from Mitch’s right. He diverted his gaze from Mercury to a mirror positioned over the kettle. The clear reflective surface had been replaced by a murky fog.

  “Wait here,” commanded Mercury, and stepped away to the mirror. The indistinct vapors coalesced into the features of a man, but Mitch couldn’t make out details with the wizard’s broad back blocking his view. Mercury nodded at a muttering of conversation.

  “You might as well,” he answered the voice in the glass with resignation. He turned to Mitch. “How is it that two teenagers can get into so much trouble so fast?”

  Chapter 18

  The flames in the fire flickered and fled at the gust of wind that preceded Kenzie as she barreled through Harold’s door and into his private space. A pot simmered over the fire pit, and Harold stood over it, swishing a spoon through his latest concoction. The elderly instructor turned and flinched at the look on her face.

  “You knew and you didn’t tell me! You were my real father’s advisor—”

  Harold inscribed a hasty spell, but Kenzie batted it away with a blast of raw power, unconcerned with the repercussions.

  Kenzie saw anger glint in Harold’s eyes. Good, she thought, that makes two of us. “You lied to me.”

  “Never, though I despair of ever teaching you a modicum of control,” said Harold. He pointed. “Now, sit down and shut up for a minute.”

  The sheer bluntness of the words stopped Kenzie in her tracks.

  Harold advanced on her, a scowl etched around his eyes, which had taken on a flinty steadiness. “Sit.”

  She
sat in a heap in a carved chair and crossed her arms to hide the tremble of anger. “You knew my father.”

  “I know your father,” he replied, perching opposite her on a moss-coated boulder. “Raymond Graham has raised you since you were this high”—he held his hand a foot from the mossy floor—“at great cost to himself. And, yes, I knew your biological father. He was a fine young man and a brilliant theoretician who died entirely too young.”

  “Who killed him?” Kenzie asked through tight lips. “Was it because he took my mother away from the Family?”

  Harold rocked back and lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve been busy.”

  “That doesn’t answer me.”

  “Hmm,” he equivocated, “no, it doesn’t. You have my word, though, that no one in our Family did anything to harm him once Elowyn decided to leave.” He broke the air of animosity with a rueful smile. “Not that anyone could have stopped her. Your mother was, shall we say, strong-willed.”

  The muscles at Kenzie’s shoulders eased from their tensed readiness to fight Harold. He smiled at her, and she took a deep, cleansing breath—

  The old son of a . . . !

  She clenched her eyes shut and located the tendrils of magic emanating from him, a caress of magic that the masterful wizard had slipped past her to deflect her from asking more questions. She lifted a finger and snapped the spiderweb of strands like an axe flashing through a cotton thread. Kenzie reopened her eyes. In a voice as frigid as steel in winter and backed by her magic, she asked, “Who killed them?”

  Sweat beaded on Harold’s brow, and he stood on quaking knees. His hands performed a complex pattern to neutralize the pressure that Kenzie exerted. “A moment,” said Harold in a shaken voice, “please?”

  Leery of tricks, Kenzie dropped the intensity, but not so much as to let him go. In a part of her brain that stayed detached from the raw edge of emotion, she noted that this was no mere compulsion spell she was using. She was touching the magic directly, merged in a powerful synergy that she hadn’t known was possible. In her heart, she thrilled at the idea that she could mainline magic without the cumbersome theatrics of hand-waving spells. She floated on it, clouds of magic with wave after wave of possibility, and marveled.

  While she was partially distracted, Harold had stumbled to his washbasin. He poured water into it, made an odd motion that Kenzie didn’t recognize, and spoke, urgency carrying over to her through the fog of magic. “I have a situation here with McKenzie.” A pause. “Of course, she’s asking questions.” Another pause. “The magic is trying to consume her.”

  The fearful words shocked Kenzie from her reverie. She lost control for just a fraction of a second, long enough for the magic to return to raw potential. She saw with sudden clarity the explosive energy swirling around her. Frantically, Kenzie gesticulated as though clearing the air of a putrid smell. For a brief instant, the power that she had summoned formed a threatening spectral shape, then it blew away on an unfelt wind. She could hear it mock her as it dissipated. Her whole body shook in a nervous reaction, and she felt amped up like an adrenaline junkie.

  “McKenzie, follow me, please.” Harold stood holding a door that a moment ago did not exist. “It’s time you received some answers.” He waited. “Please, my dear?”

  Still quivering, she rose and followed him to the oaken door. Light streamed through it from the other side. “What did I do?” she asked. Her voice wavered. Did she really want to know?

  She stepped past him and lurched to a stop, staring. Mitch stood in the middle of the room, confronting an older man. Her head pivoted around the space. Kenzie quivered in shock at being transported from the Glade to . . . what was this place? A library, the detached part announced.

  Mitch, for his part, looked as surprised as she felt. His blue eyes widened as he caught sight of her. He recovered faster than she did. With an appreciative glance up and down, he said, “Like the robe.”

  Kenzie glanced down. The green flow of her Glade clothing hadn’t reverted to mundane jeans and a blouse automatically as it did whenever she left the Families’ sanctuary. She wrapped her arms around herself, gripping the muscles of her biceps through the thick fabric.

  The man next to Mitch pivoted to face her.

  “Matthias!” She sagged back, and Harold steadied her elbow. Mitch’s wry expression shifted to worry, and he hurried forward.

  “Hello, McKenzie,” said Mercury.

  Mitch inserted himself next to Kenzie, delivering a chilly glare at Harold. “Come on, sit down,” he said to Kenzie. To Harold, he said in a gruffer tone, “What did you do to her?”

  Kenzie craned her neck to answer for Harold. Staring into the frigid blue, she answered, “Harold didn’t do it, I did it to myself.” She leaned into him. “I think.” The frost left Mitch’s expression, eyes warming from glacial blue to the azure of a summer sky. Kenzie shook herself, stared at Mercury. “Did you know my father, too?”

  “Funny, I had a similar question,” said Mitch, setting her on the cushions of a chair.

  Kenzie straightened the lines of her robe. A wave of lassitude was threatening to overtake her. She shook her head and yawned.

  “Using magic in the manner you did extorts an enormous energy cost.” Mercury pointed to the counter. “Mitch, there’s some snacks and chocolate in the right-hand cabinet. Fetch it, would you?”

  Kenzie spied Mitch’s reluctance. “I’m fine, I don’t need anything.” A rumble from her stomach reduced her words to a lie.

  Harold stepped in. With evident familiarity, he popped the door open, grabbed two bars of extra-dark chocolate, and brought them over to Kenzie. “You can trust my brother, Kenzie.”

  “I can’t even trust you,” retorted Kenzie. “You’ve lied to me my whole life. Everybody has.” She took the candy, peeled back the wrapper, and made a face at the first bite of the mildly bitter taste.

  “And yet every person in this room has put his life in the path of danger to keep you safe. Meanwhile, you disparage us and our intentions and caterwaul like a two-year-old who isn’t getting her way.”

  The rebuke stung. There was truth in his accusation. She bit back an angry response.

  Mitch didn’t. Kenzie caught a glimpse of his face twisting in anger. He strode to Harold, leaned into the wizard and, counting off on his fingers, said, “Nice. The lady gets attacked out on the street, Lassiter threatens to blow her leg off with a high-powered rifle, does shoot her with a tranq dart, she gets blitzed at home by one of you wizard types, her mother is developing some sort of tech, code name MAGE”—Kenzie gasped, and then snapped her jaw shut while she figured out how Mitch unearthed MAGE—“that everybody wants, and you think she shouldn’t be allowed to think that maybe the rest of you have a few problems.”

  Thankfully, Mitch shut up and spun away from Harold, his mouth still working, but lips tightly compressed as though the remainder of what he had to say would irretrievably set fire to bridges they might need.

  Uncomfortable silence reigned with too many truths suspending themselves in the tense atmosphere like bombs waiting to drop.

  Mercury broke it with a sigh. “Let’s start over.” He glanced at Kenzie, green eyes aglow with compassion. “You know me as Matthias, Harold’s brother. That is surprising, as I would have thought that the Family would have eradicated every mention of that name.”

  Kenzie closed her eyes. She couldn’t accuse them of lying and then not confess her own crimes. “They did. I found your name in a dossier in my . . . father’s safe.”

  “I assume you mean Raymond. His safe?”

  Kenzie nodded confirmation.

  Her admission elicited a warm smile. “Audacious.” Mercury continued, “I go by Mercury now, which is how Mitch knows me. In associating with me, you are violating the rules of the Family, as I have been banished.”

  “Why?”

  “The pat answer is I made the mistake of telling the truth. The longer answer involves the politics amongst the various Families, specifically th
e hechiceros.” The incomprehension on Kenzie’s face must have showed. Mercury peered at her. “Hechiceros is what we called the Spaniards. You know them as the Rubieras.”

  Kenzie checked Mitch’s face for his reaction to these revelations. His features were impassive. “How much of this do you know?” She failed to keep the accusation out of her voice.

  Mitch knelt next to her and looked into her eyes. “Some of it. The part about the Spanish wizards I pieced together, but I didn’t know about Mercury being Matthias and part of your Family until your dad jacked me up. The Rubieras are not nice people, if Hunter is any indication. He seems to be bent on world domination, which would sound crazy except all this magic stuff does. Or did.” He looked to Harold. “Was Edward Bai Kenzie’s biological father?”

  Startled, Harold glanced to Mercury, who chuckled. “I told you he puts patterns together. If you want his trust, you’ll either need to tell him the truth, or nothing.”

  Harold twisted his lips into a grimace. “Yes,” he said, the admission made under duress.

  “Did Bai develop the mathematics underlying your system of magic, which is really energy manipulation at a level that most people cannot achieve?”

  Startled again, the wizard smoothed his black robe and turned away to look out the window. “Yes,” he said in a strangled voice. Kenzie felt a moment of sympathy for Harold. Mitch's knack for drilling in for information bordered on psychic.

  “Did the Families eliminate him for that discovery?”

  Kenzie stiffened beside Mitch, waiting for the answer.

  “No.”

  A great weight lifted from Kenzie. Mitch glanced at her, reached out to take her hand. His fingers wrapped it like her father’s used to when she was a child. He gave a gentle squeeze. “That’s something.” Turning back to Harold, he asked, “Is the MAGE project an artificial means of creating magic, an electronic means to manipulate magic?”