by Colin Sims
I redoubled my efforts.
From a floor below, I heard explosions and shouts. Wherever Cassie and Rosewood were, it sounded like an epic battle. Then, in a sudden explosion, they both crashed up through the floor. It was like a landmine had gone off a few yards away. The wood splintered and burst in all directions. Rosewood floated upwards, surrounded by a giant, lightning-infused Imago. I figured it was the vastly more advanced version of Force Bubble. Both his hands were zipping with sparks of energy and his eyes glowed red. Cassie jumped to meet him, still defending herself with the shield. All of Rosewood’s spells bounced right off it. She lunged with the sword, but his force field was just as impenetrable. It was then that Rosewood disappeared in a blink, and then reappeared right next to me. My arms locked at my sides and he pointed a glowing finger at my head. A spark of energy released and stopped a millimeter from my temple. It hung there, suspended, buzzing like an angry bumblebee.
Cassie froze.
“Put the weapons down,” Rosewood ordered her in a changed voice. It sounded deeper and inhuman like he was channeling it from somewhere else.
I felt like an idiot. Cassie probably could’ve beaten him if it weren’t for me. Now, she was slowly kneeling and setting her sword and shield on the floor. Once they were out of her hands, they flew away as if kicked by an invisible foot.
Rosewood’s voice suddenly went back to normal. “Jolly good,” he gasped, a little winded. “I must say, Cassandra. That was rather a nice workout, what? I’ve trained you quite well, if I do say so myself.”
She spat at him.
“As eloquent as ever!” he said, beaming. “Now, it appears we have a bit of a situation, don’t we? I have your boyfriend with a ready spell aimed at his head. I also have the professor here, who will likely die unless I help him. So! I’ll make you a deal. A two for one, if you will. I’ll revive Steinberg and I’ll let your precious imbecile go free. In return, you stay right there, you don’t try any funny business, and watch as I leave the way I came in. How does that sound?”
“Don’t do it,” I told Cassie, but she never broke eyes with Rosewood.
“Do it and leave,” she said coldly. “Then I’m coming for you.”
“Ha! If ever there was an empty threat! I dare say, Cassandra, I may actually miss you when this is all over.”
“Just let him go!” she shouted.
“As you wish. But if I see you move, even slightly, they both die. Is that clear?”
Cassie nodded, fuming.
“Wonderful.” Rosewood formed a new Imago and began doing a series of lightning fast Canti that made me realize just how much of an amateur I truly was. It was like watching a professional violinist after taking lessons for a single day. The skill-level was practically magic in and of itself. Rosewood then cast the spell at Steinberg, whose back arched dramatically as he drew in a massive gulp of air. His eyes flew open as he clutched at his chest, heaving with heavy breaths.
Rosewood grinned and used a cantrip to levitate the professor’s body a few feet off the floor.
“I suppose that does it,” he said cheerily. He continued to face Cassie as he floated backwards with Steinberg trailing in front. He was heading for an emergency exit only a few yards away. The door opened automatically as he moved. I saw grass on the other side but couldn’t recognize any landmarks. Then Rosewood flashed us a final, radiant smile. “In case you were thinking of following,” he said. “That would be ill-advised. The ward on this particular door is quite nasty. I designed it myself. Ta!”
And then he was gone. The door closed and the spell hovering next to my temple disappeared. Cassie and I were alone.
• • •
A few minutes later, we were zipping down the streets of Florence on Mary Lou. We hadn’t wasted any time in going after Rosewood. (Except for a few seconds for Cassie to smash my Solitar with her foot, and then a few more seconds for us to make out. That was it.) We shouted back and fourth as I weaved the Vespa between cars. Cassie had a theory that her former mentor was headed back to LA. She said she’d seen a picture of the downtown skyline on his desk a few weeks earlier. Now, for some reason, she was a hundred percent certain that LA was where he planned to detonate the Orbis Lux. The blast wave alone would destroy a good chunk of the city and everyone in it. Then—if that wasn’t bad enough—the resulting portal would open a door to the apocalypse. I pictured some sort of evil sorcerer flying through with an army of Fire Demons at his back. So basically, we only had time to guess right once. And since I didn’t have any better ideas … Los Angeles it was.
When we arrived at our backdoor, Cassie hopped off with the keys. She’d just reached out to put one in the lock, when her entire body flew backward in a sudden jolt of electricity. She hit the pavement, somersaulted twice, and then landed on her feet. (Possibly the coolest thing I’d ever seen.)
Mary Lou fell on her side as I ran over and asked if she was alright.
“I’m fine,” she said, glowering. “He put a stupid ward on the door. I bet they’re everywhere in this city. Fuck!”
“There’s gotta be another way,” I said.
“Sure.” She chuckled darkly. “An airplane?”
“I don’t think that’ll make it in time. What about other backdoors? Is there anything outside the city?”
Cassie was already a step ahead of me, digging her phone from her pocket and dialing.
“Q?” she said. “No, shut up. This is an emergency. I’m in Florence and I need the nearest backdoor to LA. But listen. It has to be outside the city.”
A pause.
“Yes, Italy! Why would I be in Florence, Ohio?!”
Another pause.
“I don’t care if they have good donuts! Just find it! I’m serious!”
I backed off a couple feet to give her some space. It seemed a wise move.
Cassie paced back and forth like a tiger for a minute until she stopped and listened. “Where?” she said. “Bologna?? That will take hours! No, I’m not yelling!”
She hung up. “Come on,” she grumbled. “We’re getting gas and then riding a million miles to stupid ‘Bologna.’ Fucking crap.”
I didn’t say anything.
A million miles later we arrived in the great Italian city of Bologna, which I’ll admit, I’d never heard of before. Seriously. It was a big city too—full of landmarks, culture and centuries of history. But what can I say? I’m an American. When I first heard the name Bologna, my only insight was that it sounded like baloney. That’s the truth.
Either way, there was no time for sightseeing. We were only in the city for a few minutes until we found our backdoor. Cassie told me to stand back and then tested it with her fingertips. No explosion. We burst through on the Vespa and arrived in LA. It was late afternoon and the traffic was out of control. The entire city was gridlocked, and even on Mary Lou, it was hard to maneuver. Cassie explained that Rosewood needed to detonate the Orbis on top of a building because it needed the altitude.
“The U.S. Bank Tower is the tallest building on the West Coast,” I shouted over my shoulder. We were currently in West Hollywood, which put DTLA about two miles and thirty-eight hours away. Give or take. I could do my best to shave that time with some clever scooter maneuverings, but not by much. Luckily, Cassie had other plans. She told me to take a sharp left down an alley behind a movie theater and then several more turns. We arrived at a dead end.
“Wait here,” she said and hopped off. She ran toward the wall and passed straight through it. A few seconds later, a pair of headlights emerged to the tune of a low, grumbling engine. The car was vintage, yet looked brand new. A Dodge Super Bee, if I wasn’t mistaken. The door popped open and I got in.
“How many cars do you have?” I asked.
“Lots.”
I don’t need to tell you that over the next few minutes, Cassie made a handful of traffic violations. If I thought she’d been driving recklessly before, now she was like a vehicular wrecking ball. There was one instance wher
e she angled our trajectory to use a smaller car as a ramp, thereby flying over several other cars—including a tractor-trailer—and then landing right side up. In another maneuver, she took a page straight out of The Dark Knight, and started hopping across rooftops. And as far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything “magic” going on. She was just that good.
It took about ten minutes before we screeched to a halt at the base of the U.S. Bank Tower. I hadn’t been able to talk while she was driving, but as I opened the door and stepped out, I reminded Cassie that Rosewood needed a special key to arm the Orbis.
She frowned and popped the trunk to select from a wide array of toys. (Guns.) “That’s why he took Steinberg with him,” she growled. “Rosewood’s good enough that he can perform an Invisible Enchantment.”
“So?”
“So I don’t know if you noticed, but the professor isn’t too bright when it comes to security. I’ll bet you he put the key in a standard safe at the Magic Bank. All Rosewood has to do is enchant him and he’ll go retrieve it. No one will know the difference.”
“Oh,” I said. “Shit.”
“Yes. Shit.”
I looked at her. I didn’t want to ask my next question, but I had to. There was no way around it. I stepped closer and touched her elbow. “Cass … about Rosewood … how are you doing with that?”
She zipped her final weapon into a holding disc and slammed the trunk. “Look,” she said. “I’m going to be really, really, really pissed off at some point—but not right now. We need to stop him first. Then I’ll worry about everyone in my life up till now being a bastard. Okay?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Now kiss me,” she ordered.
So I did. (It lasted a bit longer than I would’ve expected, too.)
Cassie kept her forehead pressed to mine and whispered, “To hell with Rosewood, okay? It’s up to you and me to stop him. Deal?”
“Ready when you are,” I said.
She pulled back with her first grin since Rosewood betrayed her. “I knew I was right about you. An actual good guy. Now let’s do this.”
We trotted over to the Bank Tower’s grand entrance. It was a giant glass façade that opened into a spacious atrium. When Cassie reached for the door, however, she once again fell victim to an electric shock. Her body flew back a good twenty feet—yet she still managed to do the somersault thing. I didn’t bother asking if she was okay since I saw the look on her face. Her eyes were narrowed to thin slits and her lips formed a grim line. A rocket launcher appeared and she hefted it onto her shoulder, biting her lip in concentration. She was about to pull the trigger when I ran in front of it and shouted for her to wait.
“Get out of the way!” she barked, waving impatiently.
“He’s on the roof, right?” I said.
“What?”
“Rosewood. He’s going to detonate the bomb on the roof.”
“So?”
“So I can get us there. Besides, the whole building might be booby-trapped. I can levitate us both to the top.”
The rocket launcher disappeared and Cassie stepped closer. She looked down at me with a triumphant smirk. “See?” she said. “I knew having a sidekick would pay off. Let’s do it your way.”
“We’re going to have to talk about the word ‘sidekick’ at some point, but okay.”
I formed a quick Imago and did the Canti for BL. The Ignis zipped around my fingertips until I snapped my fingers and it exploded between Cassie’s chest and mine. After that, we were a pair of weightless astronauts. Our ascent was slow, steady and straight up. Cassie and I held hands to make sure we didn’t drift apart. And for a few seconds, the whole thing was going quite well. At our current speed, we’d get to the roof within a couple minutes. But then I made the mistake of looking down and saw nothing below my feet. The pavement was falling away. Thirty feet. Forty feet. Fifty feet.
Now, it’s been well documented that I’m not a big fan of heights. Things like Ferris wheels, roller coasters and tall buildings scare the crap out of me. Yet even with all those things, my feet would still be on solid ground—not hanging by nothing like a cloud, and rising higher and higher with no way to stop.
Panic began to set in.
My forehead—which didn’t care that today was a nice afternoon with a cool breeze—started dripping. My heart rate went through the roof.
Cassie noticed my body tensing and gripped my hand a little tighter. “Look straight ahead,” she said. “That’ll help.”
“It’s too late.” My whole body was shaking and I couldn’t breathe. “I already looked down. I’m done for. Just forget about me.”
I noticed her roll her eyes. “Look, we’ll be there soon. You have to distract yourself.”
“With what? I’m afraid I left my chess set at home.”
“Not chess,” she said.
And then we were kissing again.
I’ll admit: It distracted me. In fact, it did such a good job that I was startled when we ran out of building and started floating up past the crown-shaped roof. Luckily, Cassie was on it. She quickly fired the grappling hook from her Q watch and tagged a nearby safety railing. It jerked us down until we were standing on the roof’s helipad where, sure enough, we found Agent Rosewood and the Orbis Lux. Rosewood looked like he’d been waiting for us. He was sitting pleasantly at a little round table with a flapping tablecloth drinking a cup of tea. The Orbis, meanwhile, sat a few yards to his left. It looked totally exposed, and the giant red “disarm” button was calling to me. If I made a mad dash for it …
“So good of you to join me!” Rosewood shouted, and half stood from his seat. He gestured good-naturedly toward the two empty chairs opposite his own. “I confess I was rather hoping you’d make it! One does not wish to witness such momentous events as these by oneself. ’Tis always better in good company.”
My muscles tensed as I thought about charging the red button. Cassie caught me by the wrist. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “He’s ready for us. Nothing is what it seems anymore. Understand?”
I nodded.
“It’s not too late to call this off!” she shouted over the wind to Rosewood.
He just smiled and held up the China teapot.
“Come sit,” he said. “We have a few minutes before the bomb goes off. Why spend them so angry?”
Cassie and I shared a glance and then sat down. Rosewood poured for both of us. He was quite good at it too, not spilling a single drop despite the heavy wind.
“So,” he said, raising his voice as he sat back in his chair. “There’s something quite thrilling about the end, isn’t there? The finality of it! All our fates are sealed and it’s too late to do anything. I dare say, if there was ever a time to ‘enjoy the moment,’ it would be now, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You can still disarm the bomb,” I said.
Rosewood cocked an eyebrow. “Can I?” he asked. “I suppose that’s a rather philosophical question, isn’t it? After all, I’ve come all this way. I’d judge myself a bit mad if I backed out now. Besides, what would I do afterward? Languish in a magic prison? Get banished to some God-awful plane? No. I do believe my choice has already been taken, François. Sorry.”
“You could stand up and fight me,” Cassie challenged. “No magic. No weapons. Just you and me.”
Rosewood looked puzzled. “And what—may I ask—would I profit from such an adventure?”
“You’d learn what it’s like to get your ass kicked, which is what’s going to happen in two seconds anyway.”
“Ha! Such bravado! Well done! I suppose if you truly wish to ‘take a swing,’ then I suggest you—”
Cassie took a swing. Hard and fast.
There are some things that when they happen, they don’t look natural. For example, when you see a YouTube video of a bulldog riding a surfboard or a cat singing a show tune—they either look staged or in some cases, photoshopped. So when I tell you that Rosewood’s hand moved in such a way that didn’t loo
k natural, you’ll have some idea what I mean. The movement was so quick; it looked like his hand teleported from one place to the other. It caught Cassie’s so easily I flinched. Then he squeezed until she screamed.
I jumped to my feet and remembered the two-shot Derringer in my pocket. I yanked it free and pointed it at his chest. His hand continued to crush Cassie’s until she dropped to her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Whatever spell he was using, it was powerful.
I looked to Rosewood, who was grinning manically, and I pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped forward, the gunpowder exploded, and then the Englishman turned to me with a curious, knitted brow. The bullet had bounced off his suit lapel like it was nothing.
“I do say,” Rosewood said, amused. “Where did that little thing come from? You certainly are full of surprises, aren’t you François?”
Another squeal came from Cassie, and I screamed for him to stop hurting her.
“But what if I enjoy hurting her?” he asked. “Perhaps you should try it yourself. It’s rather gratifying.”
I did the only thing I could think of. I made a quick Firebolt, but Rosewood simply flicked his wrist and the flame extinguished.
“Please, François,” he chuckled. “You’ve done so well. Don’t start embarrassing yourself now, I beg you.” He gave another wave and the Derringer flew away as well. It landed on the edge of the helipad. Rosewood then cocked his head, still squeezing Cassie’s hand, and regarded me curiously.
“I just remembered,” he said. “I do believe you are afraid of heights, yes? Cassie confided in me as much a few days ago. Is it true?”
“No.”
“Oh, of course it is. You’re not a very good liar, you know.” He made a fast gesture and my arms were instantly pinned to my sides. He then raised a palm and I floated backwards until my feet left the roof and I was staring straight down at a thousand foot drop.
“I imagine that would be quite scary!” Rosewood called out to me as the wind beat against my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh, none of that!” he shouted and my eyes opened on their own. “I tell you, François! I feel extraordinary! Don’t you as well? One cannot help but feel an overwhelming sense of ‘seize the day’ at a moment like this! The world is but minutes from a new future! You will be dead, of course, and so will Cassandra, but I—I shall be the right hand to a new emperor! Is it not marvelous? Simply marvelous?!”