Matt had chopped Harrow’s body into four separate pieces, exposed it to a Niven’s Wheel and then arranged for the pieces to be buried in different containers. One had been dropped to the bottom of the sea, one had been launched into space using a kinetic spell that should have it halfway to Jupiter by now, one had been buried under a nuclear test site and the fourth had been stored in the labs, where the mage-researchers were studying it to see how Harrow had rendered herself effectively immortal. Although she might be regretting it now, Caitlyn thought to herself. No one could imagine how she could reconstruct her body from four wildly disparate locations.
“Anywhere,” the Chairman repeated.
“Anywhere,” Caitlyn confirmed. There were hundreds of thousands of places of power in the world, ranging from the obvious to the subtle. Arlington Cemetery hadn't had thousands of years of history when Harrow used it to stage her return. “We might see the next one appear in Africa, or China, or Russia...”
The thought made her scowl. Harrow’s attack on Washington and then her capture of New York had sparked a major diplomatic incident. The rest of the world was angry at the United States choosing to keep Golem’s existence – and that of the Thirteen – a secret, although the anger was mixed with a touch of sly amusement that it had been the US that had suffered worst because of the secrecy. Besides, comparing Golem’s knowledge to what Calvin had passed down to Mindy, Caitlyn suspected that Golem’s teachings hadn't been as useful as he’d expected. The clay-man hadn't known the basics of magic, nor had he been able to teach them very well. A great deal of knowledge would simply have to be reinvented.
But that raised another problem. What if China or Russia made a deal with the next one of the Thirteen to appear? Or, for that matter, one of the smaller rogue states? She couldn’t see North Korea hesitating to sacrifice thousands of its citizens in exchange for vast power. The United States had warned them of the dangers, but no one knew what would happen if they were given the opportunity to learn from the Thirteen. If they were given the opportunity.
She settled back in her chair and concentrated on answering questions. Congress was having problems coming to terms with what had happened, not least because the entire country was shell-shocked and demanding answers. And because there was a strong feeling that magicians – and the Changed – were more trouble than they were worth. Calvin had successfully blackened the name of every other magician, including ones who hadn't known that they were magicians yet. At least one magician who’d come into his powers had been battered to death before he could learn to control them.
“You have gone on the record as stating that we should take a mild view of any incidents when magicians discover their powers,” a different congresswoman said. “And yet these incidents often include murder. Should we really take such a forgiving attitude?”
Caitlyn scowled. Politics. “We have carefully researched the family and educational background of Calvin Jackson,” she said. The NYPD had done most of the legwork, aided by prompts passed down from the Mage Force. Caitlyn had carefully not told them that they came from Mindy’s conversations with her brother, prior to his ghost’s disappearance during the battle with Harrow. “None of it makes pleasant reading. He was bullied for years by his peers before his powers unlocked themselves and he lashed out at them. We cannot term his first action as anything other than self-defence.”
“Three children died,” the congresswoman protested. “How can you be so...callous?”
“Three teenagers with a reputation for bullying just about everyone,” Caitlyn said. At least some good had come out of the situation. Fairview High School’s principal had been forced to resign, while the remainder of the teachers had been reprimanded for failing to spot the signs of extensive bullying. The NYPD had interviewed a number of other students and discovered that they’d all known what was going on. They just hadn't bothered to do anything about it. “The problem is that Calvin believed that he had nowhere to go.”
He’d been wrong, Caitlyn knew, but it was easy to see why he might believe that he was completely alone. Moe and his cronies had been popular; Calvin was the weird isolated loner who kept himself to himself. Moe’s bullying was tolerated because he was a sports star – although he was penny ante compared to the really big names of sport; Calvin was considered an expendable victim, precisely because he was unimportant. Right now, every other new magician would be watching to see which way the government jumped. If self-defence became a crime, they wouldn't come forward. And even without Harrow’s training, a new magician could cause a hell of a lot of damage before being brought down.
Five days after the Battle of New York, a magician had started using his powers to rob banks and shops. He’d been a petty criminal before coming into magic and he’d just continued committing crimes, rather than trying to make something of his life. He hadn't been very Genre Savvy either; a police sniper had shot him down the moment he’d had a clear shot. The remains had been cremated and then scattered in several unmarked graves, just to be sure. But the next one might be smart enough to put up wards against bullets.
The Congresswoman snorted. “And you would forgive them their crimes?”
“We appear to have already forgiven the crimes of their tormentors,” Caitlyn pointed out, mildly. There was a law against using magic to humiliate people, but there was no law against humiliating people without using magic. Caitlyn knew that law wouldn't last; human nature simply wouldn't allow it. Why should a tormented victim hold back when he had a chance to lash out at his tormentor? “We don’t seem to hold bullies to account for their crimes. That will have to change.”
She shook her head. “We cannot tell – yet – what separates a magician from a regular human,” she concluded. “That means that we cannot choose who is to be granted magical powers. We need to make use of the ones who appear – and that means taking a forgiving attitude to their first magical actions.”
Caitlyn smiled as the conversation moved on to a different topic. The media had picked up on just how Calvin had been treated, prior to becoming a magician, and had blown it out of all proportion. Hopefully, the thought of being burned alive – or turned into a snail – would deter bullies in the future from bullying helpless victims. Or maybe she was just being optimistic. Bullies rarely bothered to consider that their victims would find a way to retaliate.
Time would tell.
***
“I’m afraid we don't know how Golem was created,” Jorlem admitted. “And besides, all of his fragments seem to be completely drained of magic.”
Matt nodded, staring down at the baked clay and ashes that were all that remained of Golem. Harrow had ripped him apart, even if in doing so she’d weakened herself to the point where she could be killed. They’d tried putting the pieces together with new clay, then searching for spells that might have survived Harrow’s attack, but nothing seemed to work. As far as they could tell, Golem was very definitely dead.
“Thank you for trying,” he said, finally. Few of the early studies of Golem had shown any clue as to how Enchanter had created him, while later research had been pushed aside by the struggle to defeat Harrow. Golem himself hadn't said much about how he’d been created; in hindsight, there had been a great deal Golem hadn’t told them, either through ignorance or through withholding information. “I guess we’ll have to bury him.”
Jorlem gave him a sharp look. “We could still use his body as a research tool...”
Matt shook his head. “You shouldn't,” he said. “You might as well cut up the body of a soldier for medical research. Golem died to save the modern world.”
“Not all of it is grateful,” Jorlem pointed out. “There are quite a few nuts out there complaining about the creation of artificial life.”
“Ignore them,” Matt said. He shook his head. “Can you have the remains transferred to an urn? I want to see if we can get permission to bury him in Arlington.”
“I could see them having problems with that,” Jorlem
pointed out. “But he did die to save the country. And his home is deep underwater.”
Matt nodded. The Navy had finally dispatched a mission to where Atlantis had been, deep under the Atlantic Ocean, and the mermaids who’d done the first survey of the area had located the remains of the city. In many ways, the discovery had shocked historical researchers, many of whom hadn't believed in Atlantis, but it had also galvanised interest in researching the long-lost time of magic and monsters.
The survey work on Atlantis had barely begun, but one researcher had identified a mystery that was puzzling everyone. Atlantis should never have been able to exist in the middle of the Atlantic. It didn't seem to have been based on a tiny island, or a volcano – and it should have needed an island at least the size of Nantucket to survive. Larry Niven, still working with the brainstorming trust, had suggested that Atlantis had been held on the surface by magic and had fallen under the waves when the magic had finally run out. A Niven’s Wheel might become an immensely destructive weapon if used on such a target, if they ever managed to make a Wheel powerful enough to influence an entire city. Or maybe a spell with the power of a baby nuke had destroyed Atlantis. There was no way to know for sure.
Matt pushed the thought aside, looking over at Jorlem’s pile of research notes. Hundreds of researchers were pushing the limits of the possible, studying mana and its uses – and trying to come up with defences that could be deployed against the remainder of the Thirteen. Others were coming up with even stranger ideas about the relationship between mind and mana, a handful even wondering if the Thirteen might have been right to believe that they could jump into godhood. And one even believed that space was full of mana and all they had to do was build a spacecraft and fly into orbit to gain unlimited power...
It didn't help that one well-known proponent of junk science had already started to claim that mana came from the sun, and that the destruction of the Ozone Layer and global warming was responsible for the return of mana. Matt had suggested writing out a long explanation – complete with heavy sarcasm – about why that couldn't possibly be the case, but Caitlyn had pointed out that it was a waste of time. Some people just never listened to reason.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he said, finally. He was due to travel to Chicago tomorrow to interview another prospective magician for the Mage Force. “But we owe him a proper ceremony after everything he did for us.”
“Definitely,” Joe Buckley said, as he stepped into the office. “I just came to say goodbye.”
“They’ve called you already?” Matt asked. “Lesage moves quick, doesn't he?”
“Yep,” Buckley said. “Apparently, Team Six is going back on the hunt for terrorists in Afghanistan – and they want a werewolf to help.”
Matt had to smile. Werewolves were very good at tracking people, particularly people who didn't have the power or imagination to cast spells to prevent easy tracking – and Joe was almost indestructible to boot. He could easily imagine a werewolf slinking after a Taliban attack force, following them all the way to their lair and then crashing in to tear them apart. Or, perhaps, calling in an airstrike and watching them all die in fire. The Mage Force could have used Buckley, but there were four other newly-created werewolves now. And he had wanted to go back to the military.
He held out a hand. “Good luck, Joe,” he said. “Just be careful who you bite. We don't want terrorist werewolves among our enemies.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Buckley assured him. “If they could stone a little boy to death for making a chair dance across a room, they’ll never bother trying to keep a werewolf alive.”
Matt rather doubted that – terrorists had been claiming credit for the disaster in New York ever since Harrow had been defeated – but he held his peace.
“And come back alive,” he added. “The doctors want to do more tests.”
“More tests?” Buckley asked. “I’d sooner die.”
***
“See?” Mindy said. “That’s how you turn someone into a toad.”
The frog sat on the ground, blinking owlishly at her. It had been another magician, one of the older ones who had volunteered for government service, until he'd annoyed Mindy to the point where she’d tried a spell Calvin had suggested to her. The mana level on the base was quite high and the spell, somewhat to her surprise, had worked perfectly. Looking over at the scientists who were trying to monitor mana and its effect on the universe, it struck her that they looked to be in absolute disbelief. They didn't seem to even believe their own eyes.
“But he was a big guy,” one of them was protesting. “What the fuck happened to the rest of his mass?”
He looked over at Mindy. “How did you do it?”
Mindy hesitated. In truth, she didn't know – which, as Miss Reynolds had pointed out, might be why she’d succeeded. Fireballs were easy, but actually transfiguring a person into something a great deal smaller was much harder to understand. Calvin could probably have put it all into words, but Mindy had to settle for shrugging – and the knowledge that none of the others were likely to complain again about having to study with a kid. She might be eight years old, yet she knew more about magic than anyone else. Apart from the remainder of the Thirteen, of course. They still haunted her nightmares every time she slept.
“I just did it,” she said, finally.
“Very good,” Miss Reynolds said. Only someone who knew her well would have detected the brittleness in her tone. “And can you turn him back?”
Mindy grinned at her. “Of course,” she said, and reached out with her mind. There was a blinding flash of light and the toad became a human again. “See? I can turn someone into a toad.”
“And you don't have to kiss him afterwards too,” one of the other students muttered.
After the class was finished, Mindy wandered through the base until she finally reached the tiny graveyard. Calvin was buried there in an unmarked grave, she knew; the country was hardly likely to provide him with a proper funeral, even after he’d sacrificed his afterlife to bring down Harrow. Their parents had apparently already been resettled somewhere in California, without ever expressing a desire to see their children again. But Miss Reynolds was a better mother than her natural mother had ever been.
There were a handful of ghosts hanging around the graveyard, but none of them looked familiar. Mindy ignored them as best as she could – one piece of advice from Golem had been to ignore the dead, or they might stop ignoring you – and quietly said her prayers for Calvin’s soul. It was impossible to believe that everyone became a ghost when they died, if only because the entire planet would be covered in ghosts. But no one seemed to know what happened to human souls that went onwards. Countless religions existed to suggest answers to that question, yet no one really knew.
Officer Coombs – who’d told her to call him Matt – had said that Calvin had lived badly and died well, which had struck Mindy as faint praise. But he was right and Calvin himself had admitted as much. And now Calvin was gone completely. She knew that everyone else lost their loved ones when they died – and she’d been lucky to be able to speak with Calvin’s ghost – but it still hurt. And she knew that the rest of the Thirteen were out there, waiting for their own chance to return to the world of men. Calvin had warned her that she would have to help stop them.
Shaking her head, she turned and walked away from the graveyard. It was time to return to work.
Epilogue
Tehran, Iran
Day 55
She was going to be married.
Hamideh lay on her bed, trying to come to terms with what her father had decided for her. She was going to be married, not to someone she liked or even someone she knew, but to a man who was one of her father’s political allies. It didn't matter that he was older than her father, or that he had been married twice before; her father wanted to cement the alliance between them in the oldest possible way. Hamideh had protested, and then screamed, only to discover that it was useless. She was going
to be married.
She’d feared that it would happen one day, no matter how hard she studied or tried to carve a career out for herself. Indeed, the only thing that had kept her father from marrying her off earlier had been his determination to ensure that his daughter would receive a good match. And, on the face of it, it was a good match. Her intended husband was wealthy, politically powerful and generally seen as untouchable. But she didn't want to marry him.
There had been no man in her life. Iranian girls knew to be very careful when they made contact with men, for the religious police might catch them and beat them – and she knew just what her father would say if she was caught with a man. She’d never dared respond to any flirtations, but now she wished she had. If she'd given up her virginity...her father would probably have sent her to America to have her virginity surgically replaced. Or Japan, or somewhere else where she might have made her escape...
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