by Jamie Davis
A uniformed butler stood on the other side in a black coat and tails. He looked like something out of an old-time movie. Winnie found herself surprised that the wealthy truly lived like this, having a lifetime spent believing that was fantasy captured on film.
“Miss Harriman, you and your friends may come in. His Honor is aware of your arrival and will join you all shortly in the reading room. If you’ll follow me.”
Winnie nodded and, with Danny beside her, led Meredith into her grandfather’s home. They passed a broad marble staircase spiraling upward from the grand entrance hall, then they entered a sprawling, wood-paneled room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and several chairs for reading scattered around the room.
The butler left and closed the door behind him. They were alone in the aptly-named reading room. This was much easier than they’d planned. Their original scheme was to talk their way past the servants, then confront the judge with their evidence. Instead, they had been escorted into the home without any trouble, and the judge was coming to meet them.
“Something’s not right, Winnie. It’s like he’s expecting us.”
“That’s crazy. How could they possibly know we were coming? Relax. Maybe Meredith always drops in with friends and needs some sort of bail out. Maybe this is a sign that he’ll will be ready to deal with us.”
The door opened behind them. They spun around, Winnie almost allowing Meredith to fall. She was able to steer the stumbling girl to a chair. She left her seated there — Meredith wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.
Justice Harriman entered, then the butler closed the door behind him. He was tall and powerful despite his age. He had to be at least seventy, but didn’t look more than fifty-five or sixty to Winnie. He was wearing a dark business suit and a deep crimson tie, as if he’d just come from the office.
Winnie started to speak but the Judge beat her to it.
“I see you brought my inebriated granddaughter home. So, what is it that you would like in return? Money, a pardon, something more?” The judge glanced at Danny, but directed his question to Winnie.
She cleared her throat and plowed forward with their plan. “Your granddaughter is more than drunk, sir. She was caught trying to use a powerful charm on my friend. She was planning to empty his accounts and disgrace him before leaving him destitute, or worse. There’s evidence that this isn’t the first time she’s engaged in such activity. She may even be guilty of murder, killing the person who sold her the charm in question.”
The judge shook his head, looking from Meredith then back to Winnie. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I would think that the embarrassment of exposing her exploits and the list of her victims would reflect poorly on you, sir. We thought that you would be amenable to a trade of our evidence for some cash and information.”
“What information?”
“Agree to the trade and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m entitled to know the full price of what I’m buying. Open-ended contracts are for fools.”
“We want access to everything you know about the Assembly’s plans for Project X.”
“I see … and that’s all you wish to know?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” The judge turned towards the door.
Winnie relaxed. She couldn’t believe he agreed without a fight.
The judge opened the door. “I believe that is the information you wanted to hear, Constable. You may take them and my disgraceful granddaughter now.”
The old man stepped aside and a flood of Red Legs burst into the room. Constable Victor Holmes entered behind them.
Winnie and Danny didn’t even struggle.
This had all been a trap.
CHAPTER 34
Winnie sat, cuffed on the judge’s reading room floor.
Her mind cycled the same question, in all its infinite forms: How had this all gone so wrong? Winnie couldn’t figure out how the Red Legs had gotten ahead of them.
Meredith was cuffed and taken from the room first. Danny was next. Now Winnie was alone with Constable Holmes and another two Red Legs. She looked up at him, wondering what he wanted. He’d been perusing something on his cell phone for the last five minutes without breathing a word to her.
“Where have you taken my friend?” Winnie asked.
“Oh, Mr. Barber? He’s being taken back to our headquarters. Blackmail is a serious charge, as is trafficking in dangerous charms like that ring we found in your possession.”
“That ring belonged to the Harriman girl, not us.”
“I don’t think so. It was in your possession, not hers, and I’m sure she’ll deny any involvement with your little scam once she comes around from whatever it is you did to her.”
“She’ll have no lasting effects.”
“So, you admit to casting a spell directly on her. That was forbidden even before the passage of Resolution 84.”
“I admit nothing. If she was under the effects of some sort of magic, those effects often wear off with time.”
“Don’t play games with me, Miss Durham. We have been watching you and your so-called crew for quite some time. We followed you here. Your hubris in how openly you’ve been operating worked against you. Now we can take care of your entire operation, including closing that cursed shop.”
“That shop is a legally licensed business venture — ”
“Being used to launder illegal profits. No doubt you felt like you were deceiving us with your pitiful attempts at subterfuge. Now we have everything required to put you away for a very long time. You and your mother, of course.”
Winnie strained at her cuffs, trying to rise from the floor.
The closest officer kicked her back down to the floor.
Winnie glared at the constable. “You leave my mother out of this.”
“Sadly, I cannot. Your mother is part owner of an illegal venture. She must be arrested and processed.”
“You know she has nothing to do with this.”
“I know nothing of the sort. She could be the criminal mastermind behind this whole sordid venture.” The constable crouched low and looked Winnie in her eyes. “Unless you’d like to share an alternative source of your marching orders.”
Winnie gritted her teeth and returned the Red Leg’s stare. That’s what he really wanted: Artos Merrilyn. They wanted him locked up with irrefutable evidence of his involvement in illegal activity.
Winnie thought: could she give the constable what he wanted? Artos had suggested the target, but he hadn’t been involved in any of the planning.
“I might have the evidence you want, but you’ll never get it if you so much as look my mother’s way.”
“You’re in no position to bargain, Miss Durham. I hold the high ground here. You will dictate nothing. You sick, twisted chanters are all the same, thinking you can lord your deviance over the rest of humanity. You’re not human like the rest of us. You’re sub-human, and your kind must be culled from the herd before you infect more of us with your amoral ideas and illegal charms. Tell me what I want to know and maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll be generous and not have your mother strip-searched.”
His spittle sprayed her face. Winnie wanted to kill him.
She closed her eyes, shivering at his hatred. He was insane. She knew that now. He didn’t just want to enforce the law — he was out to destroy all chanters. She couldn’t cooperate with this man. He would either pick up her mother, or he wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to stop him. He would do whatever he wanted. The best thing she could do was hold out and wait for Artos to send help.
He was her only hope of getting away from this man and his hatred.
“I’m afraid that there was no one else involved in this crime, Constable. Do what you want to me, but you’ll not find anything different, because that’s the truth.” Winnie hoped her brave front fooled him enough to send her to jail. Once there, Artos would learn of her situation.
The constable loomed over Winnie, fists clenched in rage. S
he was sure he would hit her. But then, his breathing slowed and he straightened.
“Very well, Miss Durham. You’ve chosen your lot. We’ll see how your crew responds to our questions.” He looked at his officers. “Remove her from my sight. I’ll deal with her after she’s processed.”
CHAPTER 35
The officers weren’t gentle with Winnie as they took her out to the police van for transport back to headquarters, but they weren’t brutal either. She’d made the correct choice for now — at least some of the performance she’d witnessed had been exactly that: an act.
The ride to headquarters in the back of the police van took forever. There were no windows so Winnie had no way to check their progress. There was only a dim dome light mounted in the ceiling and covered with a wire grate to protect it. She sat alone on a bench mounted on the van wall, her handcuffs attached to a ring set on the back of the seat.
The van eventually stopped, then the doors opened to the interior of an underground garage. Several Red Legs officers stood at the rear of the van, holding wooden batons as the driver detached Winnie’s cuffs from the bench.
“Step down,” he ordered.
Winnie stood and walked to the back of the van. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back so she couldn’t steady herself, and it was a big step down. No one would help her, so Winnie jumped down on her own and fell to her knees, rolling onto her side on the cold concrete floor. A few officers laughed. The driver kicked her.
“Get up, you chanter bitch, I don’t want to touch you any more than necessary. Your stink will take days to get off.”
She found her feet and stood with some difficulty. The kick at her thigh would surely leave a bruise. For the first time, Winnie wondered if she could get out of this as swiftly as she’d imagined. They had driven a long time. Were they even in the downtown Red Legs headquarters? She was disoriented and knew little, if anything.
Once on her feet, one of the guards, a woman, jammed the butt of her baton into Winnie’s ribs, pushing her toward a nearby elevator. She stumbled, grunting in pain and almost falling again. Recovering her balance, Winnie started walking towards the elevator, flanked by the baton wielding guards.
They took her up two floors to another windowless hallway that opened into a bank of large holding cells with floor to ceiling iron bars set in the walls. Her heart sank as familiar voices called out to greet her. Tris, Cait, Danny, and Joey were huddled in one of the cells.
“We’re glad to see you,” Joey said. “When they didn’t bring you in with Danny, we were worried something else might have happened to you.”
The guards pushed her against the bars while they unlocked the cell. Her handcuffs were removed, the door was opened, and Winnie was shoved into the cell, stumbling and nearly falling to the floor. Danny caught her — a small comfort to feel him holding her, but small comforts were all she had.
Rough hands pulled them apart. Two guards yanked Danny from the cell and slammed the door behind him. Winnie rushed to the bars, watching as they pulled him down the hallway and back to the waiting elevator, kicking and screaming and trying to return to her.
“Where are you taking him? He didn’t do anything wrong. He was only keeping me from falling down on the floor.”
Winnie watched the doors close, hearing Danny shout her name a final time.
One of the guards turned and sneered. “There’s been a mix-up, chanter. Turns out he’s innocent. They’re letting him go.” He saw her shock and started laughing. “Did you think we’d let one of us stay in there under the influence of your witchcraft? He’s done nothing wrong; people up the food chain said he was important. So we let him go. Won’t be so easy for the rest of you. We have plans for you.” The guard pointed at Joey. “Just ask the boy.”
It sent chills down Winnie’s spine. If they stripped her magic, they’d take all she had left. There would be no chance to save her mom without magic. It was Winnie’s only skill.
Danny was gone, and her friends were all captives. She hadn’t counted on all the others getting pinched, too. It was too much to handle.
A hand fell on her shoulder. Winnie turned to see Cait standing beside her. Tris was coming closer, too.
“They got us all back at the shop,” Cait said. “They were waiting inside. Somehow they got in without tripping any of the alarms, though I’ve no idea how they could have done that without someone telling them our passwords. It was a magical system and should’ve been foolproof. They were on us as soon as we opened the door. Nothing we could do. They put us in cuffs then trashed the place. They knocked over whatever they couldn’t take or break. They even hung signs in the windows that read Illegal Sable traders and put crime scene tape across the doors after they pulled us out.”
Winnie looked around. “Did they get Morgan?”
“No,” Cait whispered. “She said she had to get home. Maybe she wasn’t on their radar like me and Tris?”
Winnie looked at Tris and saw the despair in her eyes. “Winnie, what are we going to do? They said they’re contacting my boss and revoking my Tech’s license. Can they do that? How can they do that?”
Winnie could only shake her head. She noticed Joey sitting on a bench in the corner, his legs drawn up in front of him, chin resting on his knees. He looked resigned with a bottomless sorrow. She could understand; he’d been here before.
Winnie turned back to look past the bars to the elevator. They said Danny was innocent, and that they were letting him go. Cait was right: someone had given their passwords. A chill rolled through her. She looked at the elevator doors again, then turned back to greet her captivity.
CHAPTER 36
Forty-eight hours later, Winnie Durham walked out of the detention center on the outskirts of Baltimore and looked around. The sun was bright, searing her eyes after being locked inside for two days. Lawyers had filed for their release. The others had been let go hours before. Winnie was the last.
Squinting, she saw a familiar black limo nearby, its wheels to the curb. Mr. Gunderson stood by the rear door, waiting. He nodded, as if picking Winnie up in front of the station was no different than picking her up for a night on the town. She considered chiding him but decided against it, saving her angst for another.
“Is he inside?”
“He is.” The older man opened the rear door. “He’s waiting for you.”
Winnie climbed into the back and settled on the long seat opposite its long occupant. She waited for Artos to speak, not trusting her boiling rage.
“Winnie, my dear. It’s good to see you unharmed. After what happened to your cousin, we were most concerned that something similar might happen to you.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Yes, well, it took longer to arrange a release for you and your friends than we anticipated. Our initial efforts were focused on determining your exact whereabouts, and to ensure that no unusual medical procedures were ordered by senior members of the Assembly.”
“So I guess I should be happy they didn’t cut into me like Joey?”
“I should say so. No one said that was on the table, but I got the feeling it was in their original plan. Good thing we could prove your innocence.”
Winnie was surprised. “How did you do that? We were guilty. I saw and heard the evidence Constable Holmes had against us myself.”
“Turns out, most of that evidence had to be thrown out when it was revealed the justice had a conflict of interest with his granddaughter. Seems that one of her earlier victims was the grandson of a rival judge. There were other apparently politically motivated targets as well. Justice Harriman was in on it the entire time, egging his granddaughter on. We presented that evidence to his opponents, and what they had against you was thrown out as illegally secured and therefore inadmissible. If you weren’t a chanter, you’d be lauded a hero by some. As it is, all charges against you have been dropped.”
“Why did you need us to run this blackmail scam if you knew all of this? We were picked up a
nd roughed up by the Red Legs. It was awful, Artos.”
“Because, my dear, I suspected there was a mole in your organization. And this was a way to kill two birds with a single stone. If you were successful, we would have had the justice over a barrel, right where we wanted him. I didn’t wish to see him disgraced. I wanted him working for us. On the other hand, if I was correct in my assumptions, you would be caught and we could expose the person who revealed your plan to the authorities, and specifically, to Constable Holmes. He was successful in his endeavor to close your shop. There was no way I could stop him there.”
“What?”
“Yes, I’m afraid your little side venture there is out of business. But never fear. I have plenty of work for you now that you don’t have to worry about repairing random charms for wealthy snobs who looked down on you.”
“I don’t want to work just for you. I made that clear in the beginning. That shop was my livelihood.”
“It was holding you back, my dear, keeping you from realizing your true potential.”
“How do I know this isn’t what you were after all along? You say one of my friends turned us in.” Winnie’s voice turned icy. She spat her words like daggers at Artos. “It makes just as much sense if you did it yourself.”
He laughed. “I told you my feelings on the matter. I would have been better off without you locked up and with Harriman in my back pocket. No, my money is on that attractive young man you’ve been seeing. He isn’t one of us, and doesn’t truly understand who we are. You don’t know him as well as you think.”
What Artos was saying did make sense. Danny had been released almost immediately after their capture. The guards had been deferential to him when they’d taken him from the cell, while mocking her and the others. A lick of vomit soured the back of her throat as Winnie considered all that she’d given to him — that he’d taken away.
“Goodness, my dear, are you going to be ill?” Artos waved toward the front of the limo. “Gunderson. Pull over.”