Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection

by Anya Merchant

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  Yeah, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s come to this, too.

  “Victor…” Kronenberg sounded tired. “Stop and think about this for a second. What you’re talking about is-“

  “Illegal?” Victor smiled. “I’m aware. I’m going to try to make sure nobody gets killed. I’m not like her, Kronenberg.”

  Kronenberg sighed.

  “Alright,” he said. “It’s called Greystone Security. It’s headquarters is located on Battery Street. But Victor… I’m going to hold you to that. Don’t hurt anyone.”

  Victor closed his eyes and slowly nodded.

  “I won’t,” he said. He hoped, more than anything, that he’d be able to hold to it.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I think the disguise is a little unnecessary,” said Ella.

  On the way downtown, Victor had made a stop at a second hand store to pick up a few things. The teenager manning the cash register looked as though he was half asleep, and didn’t seem to recognize him.

  After replacing his blood stained jacket, and adding a wig, a baseball cap, and glasses to his head, Victor looked, well, still a lot like the person in the wanted segments on the TV news. But it was harder to recognize him, and it turned it into something that took more than a single glance.

  He scoped out the security base from afar, slowly looping around and watching for people entering and leaving. The promise he’d made to Kronenberg still loomed large in his mind. It would have been easy to smash inside, make a scene, possibly injure people in the process and possibly draw Annette out.

  No. I need to go about this more intelligently than that.

  Victor wanted two things. Number one was to give Annette a scare. She was used to his normal, relatively sane mode of operation. She was used to him talking when he could, and only fighting when he had to. Victor wanted to push her, to make her stop and consider what she’d done.

  The second thing was a better sense of what Annette was trying to hide. The murders that she’d framed him for didn’t add up, and with the original facility in ashes, it was impossible for him to get answers from the most likely source. Victor wanted a way to trace Annette’s hired muscle, to get a sense of their activities, and see what stood out.

  The Greystone Security building was squat and unremarkable. Victor had to check the address twice to confirm to himself that it was the right place. It was two stories high, and totally unremarkable, at least given that nature of the business of the people working inside.

  Victor waited for a few minutes, watching the front entrance. Several people wearing the same boring black suits that he recognized from Annette’s guards walked in and out. He adjusted his baseball cap over the wig, checked both ways for cars, and then walked across the street.

  The building’s lobby was empty save for a rather sweet looking receptionist behind the front desk. She smiled at Victor as he walked toward her, politely ignoring his strange appearance.

  “Hello,” she said. “Can I help you with something?”

  Victor smiled, trying to match her level of cheerfulness and failing.

  “What time is it? It has to be close to lunchtime, right?”

  “It’s 10:13,” said the woman.

  “Hmmm…” Victor shrugged and gave her a knowing look. “Maybe you should take your lunch break early today, then?”

  The woman opened her mouth to say something else, and then shut it. She looked up at something over Victor’s shoulder. He turned around to see a flatscreen TV on the wall, currently showing a news broadcast about the Undercliff Police Department’s most wanted man.

  Victor tapped on the front desk with the knuckle, drawing the woman’s attention back to him. He took off the wig, hat, and glasses, and tossed them to the ground.

  “Go get some food,” he said. The woman nodded slowly, and then flew out of her chair in a burst of movement. She was out the door in seconds.

  Ella appeared in the air next to him and Victor grinned at her.

  “You’re the big bad wolf, all of the sudden,” she said. “It’s kind of hot.”

  He winked at her and hurried around to the other side of the desk. The computer the girl had been working at was password protected. He swore under his breath, wishing that he’d gotten her to bring up the information he needed before pushing her out of the crossfire.

  “Hey!” A gruff, male voice came from the door behind him. “Who the fuck are…”

  The voice trailed off. Victor slowly stood up from the computer, taking his time as he turned around. He put a hard expression on his face, and as forced as it felt, it seemed to have the desired effect. The man just stared at him, too surprised to draw his gun from its holster.

  “What’s your name?” asked Victor. The man didn’t answer, and Victor took a step toward him.

  “Hey! S-stay back!”

  “What’s your name?” Victor locked eyes with him. He saw the man’s expression flicker to life as he went for his gun. Victor was faster, binding his diamond aura in a blast of force and knocking it out of the man’s hand.

  “D-Devin,” said the man. “Devin Richardson.”

  “Devin.” Victor walked over to him and set a hand on his shoulder. “I’d like you to help me find some information.”

  Two more men walked in through the front door, and both of them were faster to the draw and more confident with it than Devin had been. Victor managed to pull the same trick with the diamond aura on the first to take aim, but the second managed to get a shot off. He double bound his auras, using his azure aura to block the bullet with a shield of ice and knocking the man’s gun free with his diamond aura simultaneously.

  The men turned to run, but Victor poured energy into his azure aura, sapping the energy from them. They were strong, and it took a few seconds to render them unconscious.

  “What…” Devin was shaking his head and staring at him. “What the hell did you just do?”

  Victor flashed a wolfish grin at him.

  “You don’t want to know.” He ran a hand through his hair slowly, villainously. “Now. I need you to help me find out what I need to know.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Devin was shaking his head before Victor had even finished explaining what he needed. He looked scared and surprisingly young. He was probably older than Victor was, but his eyes revealed a life unmarred by hardship. He was too green to look his age.

  “Devin,” said Victor. “I need to know the assignment of every Greystone Security employee. And you need to help me with it. Are we clear?”

  “That’s… no.” Devin closed his eyes and turned his head away from them. “You’ll kill them!”

  Victor frowned. Ella was still materialized in the lobby and he rolled his eyes at her.

  Maybe I overdid it slightly with the supervillain act.

  “Alright then,” he said. “I’m going to have to do this the hard way, then.”

  Victor used his diamond aura to snap one of the discarded guns on the floor into his hand. He pulled Devin, who was a few inches shorter than him, into position as a body shield.

  “I’m sure your friends upstairs are already pulling out the heavy weapons,” he said. “Let’s go say high to them, shall we?”

  “They’ll kill us both!” cried Devin.

  “God, grow a spine, man,” said Victor.

  There was a single staircase leading up to the second floor. Victor immediately discovered that holding onto a hostage and walking up steps were not two things that went well together. Luckily, Devin was terrified enough to be forgiving of the occasional moment of lost control.

  Victor paused in front of the door at the top of the stairs.

  “Open it,” he said to Devin.

  Devin reached his hand down to the handle, turned it, and pushed. The door swung open, and Victor saw about a dozen men standing on the other side of it, all of them armed to the teeth. Nobody said anything for the tensest, longest second of Victor
’s life.

  “Hi,” he finally managed, breaking the silence like a rock through a tempered glass window. Most of the men began speaking, or rather, shouting at once. Victor was contemplating the idea of abandoning his plan when one of them shouted for silence, and got it.

  “Who are you?” asked the man in charge.

  “Victor Anders, Undercliff City’s newest bad guy,” he said. “And you would be…?”

  “Roger Jenkins,” said the man. “Now let Devin go, and let’s all sit down and have a nice, friendly chat about things.”

  Victor laughed.

  “As much as I’d love to play along, I’m here for one thing and one thing alone.” Victor tensed his finger over the gun’s trigger. “I need to know where you’ve been assigning your men, Roger.”

  “I can’t tell you that unless you let Devin go.”

  “I will,” said Victor. “After you tell me.”

  “Victor, if you don’t put that gun down, you aren’t leaving this building alive!” Roger slowly began to raise his voice. “My men know how to shoot. They won’t miss!”

  Victor held his free hand out to the side, as though preparing to surrender, and then gave it a hard flick as he bound his diamond aura. Roger’s gun flew out of his hand and he let out a sharp cry of surprise.

  “Jesus fuck!” He grabbed onto his wrist, and his hand trembled. “Don’t shoot! Don’t… just, hold on.”

  “Can we talk now, Roger?” asked Victor. “I can do a lot more than that. All the rumors you’ve heard about me are true.”

  The man had a frustrated, borderline furious look on his face.

  “They’re going to kill you,” he said. “Whatever you’re trying to do, someone is going to stop you. This city is stronger than you are.”

  Victor grimaced internally and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

  He thinks I’m evil. Which I guess, is fair enough.

  “Look, I don’t want to kill Devin,” said Victor. “I don’t want to kill any of your men, or for that matter, anyone.”

  “You incinerated a car full of them,” said Roger. “You expect me to believe anything that you have to say?”

  “You care about the people that work for you,” said Victor. “I respect that. Now do them the favor of getting them through this alive by telling me where Annette’s been assigning extra security lately.”

  Roger was silent. Victor could see his thought process through his eyes. He did care about his men, and that made what he was doing feel a lot worse than it should have.

  “Promise me that you won’t hurt them,” said Roger.

  “I promise,” said Victor. “But if they open fire on me, all bets are off. If I were you, I would reassign them ASAP.”

  Roger nodded.

  “There’s a building in the south part of town, 256 Canton Drive,” he said. “I don’t know what’s there, or why it’s so important. But I have ten men guarding it right now, more than we typically send to a single building.”

  Victor eyed him warily.

  “Are you lying to me, Roger?”

  “No.”

  “If you are, I’m not going to go after you,” said Victor. “I’m going to go after your family.”

  It was the emptiest of empty threats, but Roger didn’t know that. From the way he stiffened as Victor spoke, he could see that it had the desired effect. It made him feel grimy to say the words out loud, but he needed to be sure that he wasn’t being duped.

  “256 Canton Drive,” repeated Roger. “Now… Are you going to let Devin go?”

  Victor nodded and pushed the man forward. Devin took only a single step before throwing himself to the ground. Roger’s men opened fire, as Victor had been expecting them to. He bound his azure aura and created a barrier of ice. It wasn’t enough to stop all of the bullets, but the ones that managed to make it through would have missed anyway.

  Victor stepped back into the stairway, took the steps down three at a time, and then threw himself into flight with his diamond aura the second he’d made it out the front door.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was harder for him to fly without being noticed during the day. He saw police cars speeding down the street toward the Greystone Security building only seconds after he’d left. As much as Victor wanted to immediately follow up on his new lead, it wasn’t a risk he could willingly take.

  He flew up to the cliffs and landed on top of a mid-level over cropping. Victor realized that he was starving, and began to wonder about the last time he’d eaten. Ella appeared behind him and began to rub his shoulders gently.

  “You’re pushing yourself too hard,” she said. “You know, it’s not too late for you to disappear, start a new life in a new country.”

  “Come on, Ella,” he replied. “You keep bringing that up as though you think it’s something that I’d actually consider.”

  “Hey, come on.” She leaned her head down, letting her forehead rest against the top of his head. “I’m worried about you.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  Victor was considering the various ways he could go about grabbing a bite to eat as a wanted man when he heard Lucy’s voice through his nano connection.

  “Victor? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “You’re taking a big risk by getting in touch with me, Lucy.”

  “Victor you have to stop this!” she said. “The news… the way they’re reporting it…”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s probably far less than flattering.”

  “Victor, please,” she said. “This isn’t going to end well.”

  Lucy and Ella, both making the same argument, for once.

  “Hey, do you know of any places to grab a bite near the cliffs?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything. It took Victor a minute to realize that she’d disconnected from the conversation. He sighed and stood up slowly, scanning the streets near the park down below for restaurants.

  He ended up going with a small food cart selling kielbasa on a bun. He dropped down in mid-flight, making no attempt to hide his abilities from the man. Victor didn’t have any money on him, but the man pushed one of the sandwiches into his hand before he’d said a word, and then immediately slammed the window in his cart closed.

  “Jeez,” said Victor. “I’d be offended if I wasn’t so hungry.”

  He scarfed the food down in record time, wiped his hands on his jeans, and then took to the sky. It only took him a couple of minutes to make it to 256 Battery Street, which was a rather plain looking three story building surrounded by empty parking lots on either side, and an abandoned movie theater across the street.

  Victor scanned the area for prying eyes, and then dropped into a run on the sidewalk in front of the building. There wasn’t a sign out front, or any labeling on the building itself to suggest why it was there, or what it was for. He glanced around anxiously as he walked over to the red door and pulled it open.

  It was pitch black inside. Victor bound his onyx aura to his senses and found himself in what appeared to be a very recently abandoned research facility. The floor was segmented off into cubicle workstations, each of which had a computer and various personal knickknacks on the desk.

  Victor frowned, suddenly getting a bad feeling from the place. He walked forward, shaking his head from side to side as he scanned the place over.

  This doesn’t feel right.

  He heard a noise outside, and then another. Only the fact that Victor was binding his onyx aura let him make out the sounds of at least a few dozen feet carefully creeping across the concrete. He glanced back over at the door, and then made his way toward the center most island of cubicles.

  “He set you up,” whispered Ella. “They were probably here working right up until Roger tipped them off.”

  “Dammit,” he muttered. “That kielbasa sandwich might have cost me the information I need.”

  The noise outside lessened for a moment, as though the entire group had t
ensed up, readied itself for a climactic moment. Victor ducked underneath one of the desks, feeling a bit foolish as he slid the chair in after him to complete the hideaway.

  The door slammed open. Victor could hear the safety clicking off guns and heavy boots hitting the polished concrete floor, and the room’s overhead lights flicked on. Rather than putting any sense of urgency or fear into him, it just gave him a headache.

  “Come out, Victor,” called Captain Amanda Brookes. “It’s over. Don’t push things any further and endanger your life, or the lives of others.”

  Victor didn’t say anything. He sat as still as he could and waited, wondering if any of them had brought thermal vision goggles with them.

  “We have the place surrounded,” said Captain Brookes. “There are two military grade helicopters on their way to the scene. You aren’t getting away this time.”

  Victor listened to the sound of her voice. She was slowly approaching his hiding spot. He wasn’t sure if it was luck, or good instincts, but either way, it was exactly what he wanted.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” whispered Ella. Victor shrugged at her with his eyebrows.

  He waited until Captain Brookes was within a dozen feet, and then made his move. He bound his diamond aura to every object he could see through the limited view he had from under the desk, and in a singular explosion of movement, he knocked everything up into the air, including the desk he was under.

  Captain Brookes was facing away from him and whirled around a half second to slowly to stop him. Victor grabbed her gun, pulled her in front of him, and pointed the barrel of it at her head. Shots echoed out, but as he’d expected, the men were aiming at what they saw first, which was all of the junk he’d knocked around.

  “Hold your fire,” said Victor. “Or I put a bullet in your captain’s head.”

  Sixteen men dressed in flak jackets and balaclava’s froze in place. Victor was standing at the center of a jumbled mess of flipped desks, broken computer monitors, and scattered papers. Strangely, his attention wavered from the situation at hand, instead focusing on the smell of Captain Brookes’ perfume.