by Jamie Davis
“How certain are you that it will work?” asked Winnie.
“Depends on how long I can work without interruption. It’s an electrical device. Send enough charge into it for long enough, it will overload and shut down.” Tris looked at Cait. “I saw two guards and a few technicians. Can you neutralize them and keep any reinforcements off my back long enough for me to get it done?”
Cait nodded.
Winnie continued. “I’ll deal with Kane, Morgan, and the constable. If I can distract them, that should buy you the time you need.”
“Alright,” Cait agreed. “I’ll go first. Stay behind me so you don’t get caught in my offensive spells. I’m going to take out the guards and techs as quickly as I can, but you don’t want to get ahead of me. It’s time I put that army chanter training to good use.”
“I’ll go after you, then. Tris, you wait ten or fifteen seconds, then come out once they’re distracted or otherwise dealt with. That should help you get to the control panel unnoticed by anyone else who might be watching.”
Tris nodded. Cait gave her a feral grin, then turned to the door. She was gone almost faster than Winnie could see, probably having enabled some sort of speed charm to improve her odds of surprise.
Winnie jumped to her feet and followed before the door swung closed, focused on the three figures on the catwalk. Two guards were flung backward and crashed against the wall. Cait’s blurry figure turned and barreled into a group of lab coats. The technicians went down like bowling pins.
Winnie ran toward the catwalk stairs, screaming her sister’s name. “Morgan!”
She ran up the stairs, two at a time, keeping her eyes on the trio. Morgan seemed shocked — she looked like she’d been crying before their arrival. Winnie didn’t care. She watched her sister hiding behind the constable. Victor squared himself, offering cover for Morgan as he drew his Taser and leveled it in Winnie’s direction.
She topped the stairs and ran down the catwalk, opening herself to the euphoric flow of Sable magic, feeling the pure rapture as it filled her with power. Newly energized, even after her sprint up the stairs, Winnie reached out with one hand and flicked it in the air, toward the weapon. Victor grunted as the Taser was yanked from his hand and sent flying over the railing, where it smashed into tiny pieces on the floor below.
From the corner of her eye, Winnie saw Tris enter the room, then cross the floor to the control panel. Constable Holmes turned to look — she couldn’t afford for him to see what her friend was trying to do.
“Hey, Red Leg. Step away from my sister. We need to talk.”
That did the trick. Holmes growled and started towards Winnie, drawing a collapsible baton and extending it with a flick of his wrist.
Vibrant energy coursed through her. Winnie felt like a god.
Holding out her hand, she built a wall of force between her and the charging constable. He slammed into it at a dead run, not seeing the slight shimmer before him.
Victor’s head bounced off the unseen barrier like a child’s rubber ball against a brick wall. His legs folded, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed to the catwalk’s cold metal grate.
Winnie smiled and stepped over the officer, approaching her sister.
Morgan backed away until she bumped into Director Kane, unyielding behind her. “Winnie, please. I didn’t know they were doing this. I only wanted you to stop breaking the law. To stop being so perfect all the time.”
“It’s too late for those excuses, Morgan. Look at those people down there. You’re as responsible for what’s happening to them as he is.” She gestured to Nils Kane behind her.
He grinned but said nothing, watching the conflict between the sisters as if he were watching a TV drama.
“So you spied on me? You became one of them? I have no use for you anymore, Morgan. Now you’re going to know what it feels like to have your life drained.”
Winnie had never felt stronger. Her body was alive. And though she knew it was wrong, she wanted to feel the raw power that would come with hurting her sister.
And it was so deserved.
She raised her hands, lashing out at Morgan, her flows landing tiny cuts all over her sister’s body, gradually increasing the severity of her attack. Each time Winnie drew blood, she inhaled Morgan’s life force, further fueling her euphoria and craving for more.
Morgan wept and fell to her knees, crying out, begging for Winnie to stop.
Kane looked down at the cadet like a pile of human refuse at his feet, then up at Winnie. His sadistic grin somehow grew more fiendish. He waved a hand in the air. “Enough.”
Winnie felt her energy flow go from all the power in the world to a memory of nothing in the space of an echo. Then she fell to her knees on the catwalk.
She had been drinking from a fire hose and was now dying of thirst in the desert.
What had he done to her?
Then she remembered: Nils Kane was a chanter, too.
“You’re a powerful young woman, Winnie. It will be such a waste to siphon your energy.” The Director of Magical Containment stood over Winnie on the metal grating. “I don’t suppose you’d consider joining me and becoming a member of the Assembly’s protégées? Room could be made. All you have to do is ask.” Kane smiled.
“You’re a murderer,” Winnie said, looking up to meet the Director’s eyes. “You betray the magic within you by hiding your true identity. You’re a chanter, and I’ll never surrender to you.”
Winnie had to buy more time for Tris and Cait to finish shutting down the machine. She looked down to the room’s floor, hoping to gauge their progress.
Her heart sunk. Cait was sprawled on the floor, getting pummeled by Red Legs. They were repeatedly striking her with their clubs. She was bloody and bruised, unconscious or inches away. Tris was on her knees, hands cuffed behind her back.
Kane looked down, following Winnie’s gaze. He laughed. “My dear, dear Winnie. Did you think I was unaware of your plan to come here? I have all the Assembly’s resources at my disposal, along with my own ample abilities. We were prepared for such an effort.”
“Why let us get so close to succeeding?” Winnie asked, refusing to believe the monster before her.
“I wanted to see if Artos was right, if you were the manifest of his beloved prophesy. The one who will restore magic and balance to the world.” He laughed again, mocking her confusion. “He never told you, did he? Just like him. He’s a purist, you know, believes it will all happen without intervention. But I’ve proven the old man wrong. You’re powerful, that’s true, but an untrained child compared to someone like us. Now I’ll prove Artos wrong once and for all. Soon I’ll control all the magic. You see, that’s the only way to save the world. What’s a few thousand people to save the world? Don’t you see the worth of such a sacrifice?”
“So you’d kill us all to have our magic for yourself?”
His smile widened. “Why, of course I would, my dear.” The Director looked behind her and nodded.
Winnie turned just in time to see Victor’s baton.
There was a blinding flash of pain, then blackness and nothing.
CHAPTER 47
Winnie woke, confused and unable to move.
She was in a semi-reclined position and, in an instant of pure terror, realized she was strapped to one of the Harvester’s chairs.
She looked to one side and saw a pile of bodies. They hadn’t even bothered to cover them, throwing them all in a heap like a mountain of rotting autumn leaves.
Winnie looked the other way, toward Cait and Tris, who were strapped in similar chairs. Tris was sobbing, tears streaming down her face. Cait was so limp, it took a moment for Winnie to be sure she was breathing. Her face was a mess of cuts and bruises from her beating by the Red Legs.
“Good, you’re awake.” Director Kane stepped into view. “I wouldn’t want you to sleep through this. I understand from the screams that it’s quite excruciating. It seems that the more you fight, the more painful t
he process becomes. Between you and me, I hope you fight. I’m going to make sure your young friend, Mr. Barber, watches the show to learn the error of his ways.”
Kane gave her a wicked grin and gestured to the side. Winnie twisted in her restraints and saw Constable Holmes holding a thrashing Danny. His hands were cuffed behind his back but still he tried to escape. His eyes were on Winnie, filled with worry and pain.
The Director turned and pointed to someone else. Winnie followed his finger to a pair of large Red Legs holding Joey between them.
“We don’t need him any longer. A failed experiment who no longer serves our purposes.” He waved to the guards.
Winnie cried out as a third guard came up behind Joey and slipped a thin line around his neck, pulling backward to tighten his grip. He placed a knee against the boy’s back for leverage, choking the life out of Joey as his comrades restrained him.
Joey slumped to the floor, lifeless. Director Kane chuckled and motioned to someone she couldn’t see. The machine hummed to life. Again, she struggled, pulling on the straps at her arms and legs.
He saw this and smiled. “I’ll stand over there, watching you die, my dear.” Kane pointed to where Danny was held by the constable. He leaned down and whispered, “I don’t think I want to be too close when this thing is operating, for reasons we both understand.”
He walked away. Winnie looked left and right, searching for a way out. She thought about using magic, but the second she embraced the flows, they were leeched away from, drawn upward into the inverted dish aimed at her head.
Winnie felt a stabbing inside her mind and gasped at its force. Trying to pull her magic back from the machine only made everything worse. She cried out, hearing similar yelps from Tris, two chairs away. Thankfully, Cait was unconscious. She’d be fighting the hardest if she was awake.
Intense pain forced her to vent a long, keening wail as she struggled for life.
A pain in her gut caused Winnie to stop. She called out, “My baby!” as she felt her unborn child’s life force wink out like a candle unable to stay lit in a storm.
Her child was dead and she would soon follow.
Morgan called out to Constable Holmes. “Stop it, Victor! She’s pregnant. You’re killing her and the baby!”
Morgan pulled at the constable’s strong arms, pleading with him.
Danny resumed his fight. The Red Leg struggled to hold them both at bay. Winnie didn’t have the strength to tell them it was too late. Too late for her and too late for the baby.
She began to surrender. She couldn’t fight the awful machine. Winnie had to welcome the end; that was the only way to dim the impossible agony.
But then something occurred to her. Winnie looked up, willing herself to stop screaming long enough to mutter the words that would enable her magical sight.
Now she could see the flows diving into the dish above her.
Instead of resisting, Winnie pushed at the machine, using her ability to twist and invert the flows until they flipped inside out.
On a normal charm, this would cause the magic to be nearly invisible. The hum increased in pitch. She doubled her efforts, drawing in magic, twisting and melding the flows, forcing them into the receiver dish above. The more she pushed, the higher the pitch. It still hurt like nothing Winnie had ever experienced.
She pushed on, finding reserves she didn’t know she had.
The Harvester’s hum turned to a high-pitched whine.
Director Kane’s voice, coming from somewhere: “What’s wrong? You there, you’re the lead scientist. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, sir. Something is overloading the machine. We’re trying to shut it down. We cut the power, but it’s running on its own without a power source.”
Winnie focused harder, pouring every ounce of energy and magic into a final push of thick, ropy flows, twisted in on themselves, forced into the receiver.
There was a horrible popping sound, then the acrid stench of smoke filled the room.
Winnie might die here, but at least she might have found a way to destroy the machine on her way out of the world.
Filled with rage, Winnie screamed, forcing the last ounce of energy from her body into the Harvester.
Victor’s bellow was barely a whisper. “Director, we need to leave. I don’t think your pet scientists will be able to shut this down. The machine will explode and kill us all if we don’t leave immediately.”
On the periphery of her vision, Winnie saw the Director, the constable, and Morgan all leave, dragging Danny behind them. She kept pushing, even as the machine slowed its draw on her magic.
An explosion on the other side of the room.
One of the holding tanks meant to contain magical energy ruptured. The machine stopped drawing energy out, then reversed direction.
Winnie was spent, wide open to the massive power surge returning like a slingshot.
The pain was bad before, but this sent a jolt to every nerve in her body. Winnie screamed until she passed out.
Her final thought was satisfaction, blurred as it was through the haze of pain.
Winnie would be leaving the world forever, but at least she would take Project X on her way.
CHAPTER 48
Winnie looked around from her spot on the soft grass and saw more trees than she’d ever seen in one place. A strange thought occurred to her: this must be a forest, though the forests had been gone for years.
How curious.
She sat up and looked from side to side. She lay next to a lake in a small clearing at the edge of a forest. She wondered how she had gotten here but, in a strange way, she was not afraid of this place. Winnie relaxed, because she knew it was safe.
An hour or mere minutes later, Winnie saw a woman emerge from the lake at her feet. She didn’t swim or walk or wade from the water. Instead the woman floated up until she stood atop the surface, drifting forward until she reached the water’s edge.
The woman was dressed in flowing white robes, entirely dry despite having been immersed in the lake. And yet, that didn’t seem strange in this place. Just the way it was supposed to be.
“Guinevere, my darling child. It has so long since we foresaw your birth. I had forgotten what a beautiful child you would be.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Winnie bowed her head without knowing why. It seemed proper in the presence of such an extraordinary woman. “May I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“How do you know my name? Only my mother calls me that, and only rarely.”
“There are many answers, as there often are in life. I know everyone here in this place, and I was present when the oracle prophesied your birth and named you. We know you for who you are.”
“And who are you?”
“I am known by many names. I am sometimes called Brigid, or the Dawn Maiden, and by others, once, the Lady of the Lake.”
Winnie didn’t recognize her by any of those names. She shrugged.
Someone in the distance might have called her name. She looked around, seeing the forest but no other soul. “Is this Heaven? Am I dead?”
The woman, Winnie decided to call her Brigid, laughed, a pleasant sound that brought a smile to Winnie’s face.
Brigid answered, sort of. “You have so many questions and I have little time. I have come here to meet you between our worlds, to tell you to seek the lost talisman and return what was lost. Only then can you right the wrong and heal the world as you know it.”
The distant voice repeated her name again. Winnie looked over her shoulder. Again, she saw no one. She turned back. Brigid was drifting back toward the center of the lake.
“Wait. Why me? How will I recognize this talisman? I don’t know what to do.”
“Guinevere, it must be you, because you are the once and future queen. You exist in the past and the future. Trust that you will know the talisman when you find it, and have faith in your companions.”
Brigid was sinking back into the lake
as she answered, her head dipping beneath the surface after she uttered her final response.
Then Winnie was alone. There was no evidence of the lady’s presence, not even fading ripples on the lake. Winnie wondered if she’d imagined the encounter.
Again, her name in the distance.
She was jerked back and found herself staring up at the bright sky.
The voice got louder.
———
“Winnie, you have to wake up. I can’t carry you both on my own.”
Winnie opened her eyes to see Tris standing above her.
The room was filled with smoke. Lights flickered overhead.
Winnie looked to the side and saw that she was still lying on one of the exam chairs in the room with the Harvester. She realized immediately that the hum was gone.
Winnie remembered again what had happened, ending with the explosion.
“How did you get free?” Winnie asked Tris.
“The explosion knocked my chair over and snapped the arm right off. I unstrapped myself. But I need your help. Cait’s in bad shape and the building’s catching fire. We have to get out of here or we’ll die. Can you stand?”
Winnie realized she was no longer strapped to the chair. She sat up. The room was in shambles. Parts of the catwalk had collapsed and were dangling. The Harvester had split open in the center. Shards of metal and wiring peeled back from the opening. She looked to the right and saw Cait’s bruised and battered body still sprawled on her chair. Tris was working on freeing her limbs from the straps.
Swinging her legs down over the side of her chair, Winnie stood on unsteady legs, catching herself on the edge of the chair as her balance settled. Tris was moving Cait to a sitting position, trying to wake her. The tall blonde pushed at Tris, fighting to lie down.
“Winnie, I need your help. Get over here.”
Feeling slightly steadier, she took one of Cait’s arms and pulled it over her shoulder to help lift the semi-conscious woman. Tris got on the other side and did the same. Together, they held her up and started towards the stairs. Winnie closed the door behind them, trying to block out the thickening smoke and heat from the spreading fire.