by Colin Sims
Right then, Cassie managed to hook her leg between his feet and knock him over. His hand released hers and she scrambled to get away. Rosewood floated back to his feet without using his arms. His eyes were glowing red again. “I will enjoy this!” He smiled and advanced on Cassie with long strides. I couldn’t move a muscle to help. She backed away, but not fast enough. His hand came crashing down on her wrist and yanked her to her feet. I was surprised to see Cassie do nothing in return. It was like all her strength had left her. Rosewood’s free hand collided with her stomach so hard I could hear it. She doubled over, gasping for breath. Without warning, he kicked her in the ribs, sending her rolling toward the roof’s edge. He caught her before she went over, only to lift her by the neck until she was dangling above him.
“You see, François!” he boomed over his shoulder. “There is no creature that can match a wizard! I own this building, do you see? It is under my control. None of this half-breed’s pathetic skills will work here. Here she is nothing! He threw her toward the Orbis and she crashed into the tea table. She didn’t get up. Her body lay crumpled and unconscious in a twisted heap.
My heart practically exploded. “Rosewood, stop!” I screamed, but there was nothing I could do. No spell. No ace up my sleeve. I was pinned and dangling over my worst fear. I wasn’t a superhero. I wasn’t a spy. I was just a random guy out of his depth. I was—as Rosewood had put it—nothing. And that’s what being helpless is all about. It forces you to confront just how much “nothing” you truly are.
Rosewood picked Cassie up by the throat, her body hanging limp. He punched her across the jaw once, twice … I lost count. I couldn’t breathe. Her lips were smeared with blood and her cheeks swollen. Rosewood beamed with pure delight, exposing rows of newly sharp teeth. Cassie, I noticed, raised her head a little. The blood made it hard to tell, but I could’ve sworn her lips curved upward a little.
And that’s when I saw it.
There was something in her hand. It glinted in the fading sunlight. Metal. And on the side … a little snowflake.
Rosewood glanced down. Cassie’s weak grin widened as he leapt back in shock, dropping her. I could almost hear him wondering where the grenade had come from. I suppose he’d have to ask Q about that. It exploded before he had a chance to jump away. It was all over in a heartbeat. Rosewood and Cassie were now solid statues of ice.
It was almost like she’d planned it from the start. She’d known the whole time about the grenade tucked away in a micro-disc. She’d just been waiting for the right moment—a moment that I needed to finish.
With Rosewood turned to ice, his spell keeping me aloft disappeared. I hung suspended for a half-second before plummeting straight down. My hands caught the roof’s edge. I kicked wildly against the side of the building as I scrambled to pull myself up. The sheer size of the drop pulled at my feet like a vacuum. I clawed my way back an inch at a time, thinking I was going to pass out from sheer terror at any second. When I finally finished, I stood on the helipad, doubled over and panting from the adrenaline. I was so rattled I couldn’t even think. All that mattered was the blood pounding in my temples and the desperate need for air.
Yet somehow, I saw it anyway. It lay at my feet like destiny itself and glinted in the pink-grey light—a two-shot Derringer with one shot left. I picked it up, I walked a few paces, and I aimed. I set the sight square on Rosewood’s chest. His statue was beginning to glow, like it was trying to break the spell. I cocked the hammer and met his icy eyes.
At the beginning of this story, I told you that I was not from France. I told you that I didn’t speak French. I told you I was embarrassed of my name and grew up with dorky parents. I told you I was average. I told you I was nothing.
Then I met a girl and learned that I was wrong. I am François Lemieux. I speak French, of course I do, damn it! What do you think my parents spoke all those years? I am French. I am a wizard too. But most of all, I am in love. So au revoir, Monsieur Rosewood! Vous êtes une merde! This is for Cassie Chu!
And I pressed the trigger.
A lot of things could’ve happened after that. The bullet could’ve missed. It could’ve ricocheted off the side. It could’ve dinked against the ice and done nothing. But it didn’t do those things. It hit Rosewood center mass like a freight train. His statue exploded into a thousand icy shards leaving his head to drop straight down, shattering on the cement like your aunt’s favorite vase.
I won’t lie. It was immensely satisfying.
But there was still the Orbis. Only a couple minutes remained on its timer. I ran for the big red button. I punched it with my fist, only to discover what it feels like to get zapped with fifty thousand volts and fly backwards. I landed hard on my butt and groaned. As I got back to my feet, I was hit by a renewed sense of panic. I was screwed. We all were. Rosewood had placed a powerful defensive ward around the bomb. There was no way to disarm it. And with only one minute, fifty-two seconds left, the opening of the portal was inevitable. I didn’t know the first thing about wards. I didn’t know how to create them, and I definitely didn’t know how to erase them. If only there was someone who …
Oh.
Galileo’s telescope. It lay right next to the broken tea table. I ran for it and put my eye to the lens.
McFadden—bless the son of a bitch—was waiting for me inside the cathedral.
“There is little time,” he said sharply. “If you wish to cancel a ward, you must first learn which ward you are canceling. Understand?”
“How do I know which ward it is?”
“Damn it, François! Use that thing between your ears and think! You must go back in time, do you see?”
“Vigilia Temporis?” I asked.
“Yes! But quickly!”
I formed the Imago and began doing the Canti. It took me four tries to get it right. I left the Solitar and cast it. The swirly cloud appeared and the window at its center showed Rosewood forming a spell. I zoomed in to watch his fingers. Quickly, I went back inside the telescope.
“I’ve got it,” I announced, still holding the cloud in front of me.
“That is step one,” McFadden said. “Step two is to learn which ward he is making based on the Canti. You need to watch closely.”
“Why?”
“The only way to cancel a ward is to cast the same ward on top of it. There are hundreds of variants, so you cannot simply ‘guess.’ You must learn the exact one. Now get to it. Time runs slower in this place, but it does not stop. You have minutes at most.”
I re-watched Rosewood perform the Canti for the ward. Then I watched him again and again. The guy was fast. His fingers flew over the Imago in a blur.
So imagine this: Some madman has his finger on the button to destroy the world—maybe he’s an eccentric president with the launch codes—and he tells you, “Here. Take a look at this YouTube video of a concert pianist playing Mozart’s Fifth Concerto. Now, you have precisely ‘a few minutes’ to learn to play it yourself. If you don’t, or if you fail to do it in time, I’m going to press the button. Go.”
There was no way I could learn a spell that complicated just by watching another guy’s hands. It was impossible. No one, least of all me, could do something like that. There was no point in even trying.
“There is no choice, François.” McFadden’s voice came from above as I kept my head down. “It is a difficult task, I grant you, but the most important ones always are. You cannot give up. A great many people are depending on you. Do your best. Keep your chin up. Try your hardest. If you can do that, son—you can do anything.”
Screw it.
I raised my hands and formed another Imago. The image of Rosewood’s hands played beside me as I studied each tiny movement of his fingers. At first, I felt another wave of frustration, as I couldn’t make out a single note.
Then I spotted one.
His right index finger pressed inward and I knew it was an Omega. Then I watched the other fingers, one by one. A Delta here. An Epsilon there. I
was piecing it together. I tried over and over to mimic each movement. Some of them I could do, others I couldn’t. Still, I tried. I could feel the clock winding down. Minutes had passed. The timer on the bomb was likely down to seconds. I needed to master this spell, and I needed to do it now.
“François, listen to me,” McFadden said softly. “You have learned many spells these past weeks, yet I fear you have not considered magic.”
I looked up.
He poked my chest with the head of his cane and held it there. “Magic, my dear boy, is more than just a word. It is more than just a spell. Do you not see? It is that which makes us believe. Believe in the impossible. Believe that there is something more than just what is. That is what this moment requires, François. You must believe for the very first time since you encountered the uncanny that magic … is real.”
This was my last chance. I closed my eyes and did the Canti blind. One note after another—each one leading to the next. I heard music. It moved right through me and played across my fingertips. Wherever my thoughts were coming from, it wasn’t my mind. There was something else—something from somewhere far away. When I opened my eyes … the spell was formed.
Outside the Solitar, the Orbis was down to three seconds. I cast the ward. I prayed. And I pressed the big, red button.
A second later … I didn’t die.
The next breath I took felt like my first in five years. It was glorious. I’d done it. I didn’t know how, but I had. I’d formed an impossible spell in an impossible amount of time. The clock had stopped with one second left. The world had just gotten a second chance. Then, as if on cue, the cavalry arrived. A large BPI helicopter appeared overhead and touched down.
I ran to Cassie’s statue and stopped her from blowing over. When I saw her start to tilt, I nearly had a heart attack. A swarm of dark-suited agents emerged from the chopper and went straight for the Orbis. Another man followed them, but came running for me instead. It was Professor Steinberg, freshly rescued from wherever Rosewood had left him. His hair was wild. His eyebrows were massive.
“You did it!” he exclaimed over the whir of the rotors.
“How do we help her?” I shouted back, motioning to Cassie. “She blew up an ice grenade!”
Steinberg stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. His eyebrows furrowed so severely it made my hands shake. He was giving me the look that a man gives when something terrible has happened and nothing can be done.
“Professor!” I shouted. “Please!”
He studied Cassie a long moment. “Wait,” he said sharply. “I am detecting a strange hue here.” He then looked at me. “Is your friend entirely human?”
“She’s half succubus,” I said.
Steinberg’s shoulders suddenly dropped. He let out such a sigh of relief it overpowered the beating of the helicopter. “Oh, thank goodness,” he breathed. He then flashed me a wide, bashful grin. “In that case, the solution is quite simple.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“All you must do is kiss her.”
“That’s it?!”
“There is a good deal of magic in a kiss, you know. A lesson we all learn eventually. Now help your friend before she melts.”
I stood in front of her, leaned up a little, and put my lips to hers. They were solid and cold for only a second. Then, as I opened my eyes, they were alive and warm, and Cassie Chu was back.
And then … we kept kissing.
She rushed forward, pushing me back until we were both on the ground. We rolled until she landed on top and started tearing my shirt off.
I’ll admit the situation was getting a little embarrassing. But Cassie—obviously—didn’t care. I caught a few looks from passing BPI agents as they hauled off the Orbis. I tried to stutter an excuse about my girlfriend being a “succubus and what can a guy do?” but Cassie kept bringing my attention back to her. Then her hand slid down to my waist and … Jesus Christ, was she unbuttoning my pants?
“Cassie, uh, are you …?” I tried to ask around her kiss, but she literally growled into my mouth. Her hand then moved to her own pants and started working them down. I guess that was my answer. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I didn’t really have a choice. Cassie and I were going all the way.
Chapter Eleven
Bond, James Bond
I told you earlier about noticing cringe-worthy moments as they’re happening. We all have them. I’m sure you’ve had a few yourself. Maybe you asked a girl to a dance once and then noticed that a flap of underwear was sticking out of your zipper? (No? Okay, that’s mine.) The point is those moments have a tendency to stick with you forever. The trick is to realize that they’re not so bad. Often times—if not always—the most embarrassing moments of a guy’s life make for his very best stories.
After Cassie and I finished on the rooftop of the U.S. Bank Tower—in full view of a dozen BPI agents who I hope were automatons and not real people—we spent the next few days never leaving a series of hotel suites, rooftops and foreign palaces. It wasn’t all just rolling in the sheets, though. We occasionally ordered room service, and I showed her several of my favorite movies.
She thought they all sucked.
Which was fine because that led to some fun arguments, which led to some fun other things.
There were also several more embarrassing moments, including the one where the President of the United States caught us in the Lincoln Bedroom, and we spent the next few minutes running naked through the White House getting chased by Secret Service agents. (We got away, but only after running across the street to another building.)
Our epic tryst finally ended, however, when Cassie got a cryptic call from the SIA. It told her to report to the London headquarters “with all possible speed.” It also told her to come alone.
It was now the next day, and I still hadn’t heard from her. I texted her several times, but they bounced back with a message saying, “Unable To Deliver.”
I was starting to seriously worry. The only other person I could call in the Magic Community was Q, and he told me—in no uncertain terms—that she was probably fine and that I shouldn’t be a pussy.
So, all I could do was wait. And since waiting is best done in the company of others, I joined my roommates for a video game tournament of Duty Bound. (What else could I do? It took my mind off things.)
“Eat that!”
I blinked in time to see my character get hit by a bunker buster. Brian whooped in delight, as for once, he was thoroughly winning.
I sighed and tossed my controller to Buckner, who caught it with a wide grin.
“I’m surprised the young man can stay upright,” he said. “He’s been at it for three straight days with that girl. I mean, damn!”
“I never said that,” I said.
“Shoot hotrod, it was written all over your face. You didn’t need to say nothin’. Speakin’ of which, how come you’re lookin’ all worried? Did she move on to greener pastures already, or what?”
I shrugged. “I texted her, but she hasn’t texted back.”
“You call her?” Buckner asked
“No, just text.”
“Well ain’t you a Don Juan for the ages. Call the girl, you dumbass. Tell her you love her.”
“You want me to tell her I love her?”
“Chicks dig it when you say that, man. They go all crazy.”
I chuckled and checked my phone again. Still nothing.
“I say the whole thing is bullshit,” Brian announced, still angling his controller like it would help his character move faster. “You two are the only ones who have seen this mystery girl.”
“Man’s got a point,” Buckner agreed. “You need to bring her around. We gotta meet her. And maybe steal her away if possible … She’s way too hot for you anyway.”
“If she texts me back,” I said. “And I wouldn’t recommend stealing her. You’ll hurt yourself.”
I hadn’t told any of them she was a succubus, so they didn’t k
now what I meant by that. Thus, Buckner just laughed. “Will you look at that?” he said. “Our boy’s finally grown some cojones. Atta boy, Frenchie. You keep that girl close.”
I was about to roll my eyes when I heard a beautiful sound—the soft ping of a text.
I literally dropped my phone and then scrambled to pick it up and … yes! A text from Cassie. It looked like this:
007Girl69: You! Come outside!
Before I could react, a hand snatched the phone from my grip.
“Is that her?” Buckner exclaimed and looked at the screen. “Holy shit, it is, ain’t it? 007Girl? And 69? I like her already!”
I jumped to my feet. “Dude, I gotta go.”
“Fuckin’ eh right you do.” He tossed the phone back. “Go get ‘em, hoss!”
I was halfway out the door as I heard Brian saying, “I’m still calling bullshit. Why didn’t she come up?”
I grinned as I flew down the stairs and burst out the front door. I’ll admit I felt a little childish for being so excited to see her, but I couldn’t help it. Plus, I was relieved she was alright. After the whole Rosewood thing, I didn’t trust the SIA at all.
When I got to the curb, I skidded to a halt. Cassie wasn’t there. Instead, there was an eerily familiar silver Rolls Royce with a uniformed chauffeur standing outside. He bowed mechanically and opened the passenger door.
“Hello sir,” he said with an equally mechanical voice. I noticed a well-concealed hinge near his jaw. “You are requested in London. Please come with me.”
“Where’s Cassie?” I asked.
“Agent Chu is awaiting your arrival, sir. I have instructions to bring you to her location.”
“I’m not getting in that car.”
The automaton blinked in confusion and I heard the whir of gears inside his head. Then, after a pause, he said, “Sir, please come with me.”