“I have no idea why she went,” Nicole said, “but you might be interested to know that I think I found out where the Armory is.”
“Wait, what?” If Nicole had found the Armory, then we could steal or coerce the information we needed from Sadie in person.
“Yeah, I mean I can’t be sure, obviously, but I took everything that you told me about it and some things that I gathered from Alex, searched through property records, and I think I’ve narrowed in on where it is.”
The CCS had searched for months for the location of the Armory with no luck. Turns out all we needed was my best friend and an Internet connection. “Show me.”
Nicole grabbed her laptop, and we all sat on the sofa, Nicole between me and Alex, and Millhook next to me, leaning over to see. When Nicole entered her password to unlock the home screen, Millhook pointed with one hand and tapped me on the shoulder with the other. “See, see, I told you, you need a special key to get onto the interwebs.” Then he looked at Nicole. “She didn’t believe me when I told her.”
Nicole nodded. “You’re right, Millhook. Only I can get on it because only I have the password.”
At first, I thought Nicole was just trying to keep Millhook off of her computer, but given the look in her eyes, I realized that this was her way of staying part of the group, of being needed. Alex went along with it. Of course he would know how to use the Internet. He may spend most of his time as a panther, but he wasn’t oblivious. The fact that he cared so much about keeping Nicole included when she so obviously wanted to be, made me love him even more.
“I’m sorry, Millhook. I should’ve believed you.”
“Damn straight.” Millhook sat back on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest with a smug expression on his face.
“I think it’s right around this area.” Nicole pointed to a spot where the Rockies jutted into Canada. The satellite image showed nothing but trees.
“There’s nothing there.”
“Of course you can’t see it. Remember, this is Casper we’re talking about. He wasn’t stupid. He probably either hid the Armory itself with magic and made it appear like nothing but trees when satellite images were being taken, or he hacked in and replaced the images himself, which I wouldn’t put by him.”
She had a point. Casper had been both a magical and computer genius. Really, being the young billionaire founder of the largest gaming empire in the world seemed like underachieving for someone of his abilities. “So what makes you think this is it?”
“Well,” Alex said, “I was able to give her a little bit of information about where I was when I left the Armory. I also knew where your car was parked while you were there. I figured the Armory had expelled me somewhere far away, but it wasn’t too far since I could get back to your car.”
“Yeah, so I took that information, along with the fact that you were able to reach the Armory via helicopter from the Magical Games headquarters, and that gave me a range of area to work with. A large area, but it was at least something. I knew it was in Canada, so I started searching out purchase records. Magical or not, Casper had to purchase it at some point. Now, he wasn’t stupid enough to do it under his own name, but there are only so many abandoned forts that get sold to private entities. In fact, in this area, there was only one. I figured it had to be our place. Given the longitude and latitude on the purchase record, it puts it right here.” Nicole tapped on the screen.
I squeezed Nicole’s shoulder. “You are an absolute genius. It’s no wonder that out of the two of us you’re the one getting a college degree, from MIT no less.”
“Eh, it was really nothing, just time-consuming.”
“It’s not nothing. You just found the location of the only person who can tell us what was in that cave in Scotland.” Now I just needed to figure out how to get inside.
Three
My gut said Nicole was right about the location of the Armory. We could teleport there, but the real challenge was getting inside and to the information we needed.
“So we know where the Armory is,” Alex said. “What do you plan to do with that knowledge? We can’t exactly waltz in there and ask Sadie to please tell us what she found in Scotland. Let’s not forget, the last time we had contact with anyone from the Armory, I killed Sadie’s sister.”
It had been purely in self-defense during the same fight in which I killed Casper. Neither action would endear us to the denizens of the Armory. “True, but they don’t know that. The only witnesses to the fight are in this room or dead. Sibelius didn’t have time or means to let them know what had happened before he killed himself. They can suspect that we had something to do with her disappearance, but we don’t even know that they’re sure she’s dead.”
Alex shook his head, his eyes narrowing in disagreement. “That’s a dangerous way of looking at things.”
“We need to straighten out exactly what it is we know and what we don’t know,” Nicole said. “That’s the only way we can make an informed decision as to what to do next. Here, let me get a document started. We’ll write down everything we know and what we still need to figure out. I’ll put down that we think we know where the Armory is, we know that Analise is dead and Alex killed her, but we don’t know exactly how much Sadie and Mikael know about that. We also know Sadie was at the cave in Scotland before we were.” She typed on her laptop. When she finished, she looked up. “What else?”
I paced around the living room as I spoke. “We know that Councilor Gareth was the mole in the Council. He somehow got a golem in order to control a CCS agent and get a list of all CCS personnel. I’m speculating that Mikael, Sadie’s brother, was the one who got him the golem. I feel pretty sure that he at least made it, whether or not he was the one to get it to Gareth.”
Millhook joined in. “We have to assume Sadie shared whatever she found in Scotland with Marguerite. Even if she didn’t, Marguerite has your memories now, so she’d know to go to the cave in Scotland, and she’d feel Sadie’s magic there same as I did. I don’t take your aunt as the sort to take no for an answer when she demands information.”
“So if we want to know what was in that cave in Scotland, we have to get to Sadie,” I said. The key was to find the weakness in Sadie’s motivations. “Everything Sadie and Mikael have done is with the memory of their parents in mind. They were operatives for the Directorate and were killed. That’s their weakness. We need to exploit it. We need to do whatever is necessary to stop Marguerite.”
“Do you know anything about how their parents were killed? Maybe we could use that,” Nicole said.
I searched through my memories of my time at the Armory. “Casper said a sorcerer assassin killed them. He mentioned something about them looking for artifacts on Earth. I don’t know how much of that is true, though. Casper had a vested interest in stirring animosity between mages and sorcerers. Given the triplets’ relationship with Casper, we don’t even know for sure that their parents worked for the Directorate or if they worked for him.”
“Can the freaky lady at the CCS find out for us?” Nicole asked.
“If they were on the CCS’s radar, yes. That’s a big if.” An idea dawned. Casper had lied and manipulated everyone around him. So had my mother. So had Marguerite. Perhaps I could do the same, level the playing field a little. But in order to be that cunning, I had to know as much of the truth as possible. “I’ll ask Ess to get us any information she has. What if Casper lied to them about how their parents died? We may be able to convince them that they’ve been fighting on the wrong side all along.”
“And what if he was telling the truth? Or what if the CCS had them killed?” Alex asked.
I considered that possibility. “It doesn’t really matter if they did or not. The real question is, can we plant a seed of doubt in their minds?” My mind went back to several conversations with Sadie and Mikael. The way they acted. Their interest in my talisman. Sadie had even mentioned that she wanted to study it to find out where it had come from. They hadn’t known t
he truth. “Looking back, I’m sure they didn’t know that I was a pidge or that my talisman had my father’s magic in it. However, they knew they were never planning to have me integrate into mage society completely. They wanted me to work for them, and they were willing to let me believe that I was going to go to the Council and get my talisman registered. But that was never their plan. So, they know Casper lied. They aided and abetted it even. There’s plenty here to work with. That seed of doubt may already be planted, it’s just up to us to exploit it. They want to avenge their parents. All we have to do is convince them that we’re the better option for that. Their allegiance was always to their family.”
“And you think you’ll be able to lie to them convincingly? Now we’re going far beyond just hoping that they don’t know that I killed their sister. This is a big gamble to take on your ability to manipulate people,” Alex said.
“Well, I had to have inherited something from my mother. She seemed to be able to do it well enough. I’m hoping I won’t really have to lie to them. I think there’s enough with the truth to get us what we want, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes. We’re all working for something bigger now. We can’t forget that.”
Nicole typed everything I said. When she finished, she looked at me. “Is there a way you can steal the clue from the Armory?”
“If we had more time, I’d say we should try to spy to get the information or steal the clue. Those options take too long. I’m unfamiliar with how Sadie would have stored the information or where she would have put any physical object she acquired. It would take too long to infiltrate the Armory, find the information, and steal it without being detected. Our best option is to try to get Sadie to give us the information herself.”
Alex shook his head. “I tried and tried to get back in after I left. I couldn’t even find it. Simply narrowing it down on a map isn’t going to help if we can’t see it right in front of us. And even if we did see it, how are we going to get inside?”
Nicole sighed and rolled her eyes. “That was you working on your own. Now we have Kat who’s been trained by the CCS and Millhook who knows more about magic than any of us. Working together, we may find a way inside.” Nicole looked between me and Millhook, wanting us to weigh in on the issue.
“I think I’ll be able to find it,” Millhook said. “Getting inside’s another matter altogether. I should be able to detect the magic, but I don’t know if there’ll be anything I can do about it ’til I see it.” He looked at me, his eyes asking if I felt confident I could breach the Armory’s defenses.
My first inclination was to laugh. Of course I couldn’t get into the Armory. Then I reminded myself that I had abilities now, and it wasn’t bragging to acknowledge that. Months of training at the Covert Council Service and passing the most difficult trials in the history of the CCS was proof that I had some skills. I needed to stop thinking of the denizens of the Armory as being so much more competent than me with magic. They had said it themselves: my talisman was more powerful than any they had ever seen. I knew how to tap into that now. Furthermore, I’d been specifically trained to use that magic to spy, to get into places and conversations where I wasn’t wanted. “I won’t know until we get there. It’s entirely possible that I’ll be able to get us in, but we have to remember that my mother likely helped Casper enchant the place. With Millhook’s help we have a better chance. That’s only if we can identify what defenses they’re using and know a way to get by them.”
“It sounds to me like it’s worth the chance,” Nicole said. “We can teleport to the closest hotel we can find and then search for the Armory itself. If it takes a while to find it, it might be more convenient for us to be based somewhere closer.”
“That’s a good idea. Show Millhook where we’re going, and he can take us there. I don’t think my first time teleporting other people should be over such a great distance, especially to someplace I’ve never seen. While you’re doing that, I’ll message Ess.” I fished my communication orb out of my pocket and whispered Ess’s name to it. It only took a second or two for her face to appear.
“Yeah, what do you want?” Ess asked, her tone as frazzled as her hair.
“Sadie Lipukin, the mage whose imprint—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know who you’re talking about. What do you need?”
“We need everything you have on her, her brother Mikael, her sister Analise, and their parents whose names we don’t know. We’re specifically looking to find out how the parents died. The CCS may have been involved.”
“Sure, I’ll get you everything we have. If the CCS knows it, you will too.” Ess’s face disappeared.
Alex wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and gave me a gentle hug. “She’s not the most pleasant of people, is she?”
Pleasant wasn’t a word I’d ever use to describe Ess, but she did appear more frenzied than normal. It only took a moment to realize why. “In a situation like this, they’ll call everyone in from the field offices to reorganize. She’s got to hate having that many agents around potentially messing up her precious archives.”
“And how are you doing?” Alex turned so he was in front of me, where his eyes could meet mine, and I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings. “You really up for this?”
“Of course I am. This is what I’ve trained for. It’s my job.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I know you’re capable, but your experience at the Armory and the way you left was traumatic. Normally the CCS wouldn’t have you doing a mission that was so personal in nature.”
“Everything with the CCS is personal. My aunt is the leader of an organization that is doing everything in their power to start a war that would in all likelihood wipe out my people. And my mother created her fair share of work for the CCS. Every mission is personal.”
“I understand. Just remember that we’re all here for you; we’re all rooting for you. You said you couldn’t talk to anyone in the CCS, but that’s not the situation anymore. I know I’m not going to be much help to you. My magic is pretty worthless in this situation.”
I squeezed his arm in reassurance. “Your magic has saved my life multiple times now.”
“You know what I mean. Millhook is far more talented than I am, as are you. But I can take care of you, if you just let me. So will you let me?”
The look in his eyes, the sincerity in his voice, the months we spent apart trading only letters, it all exploded in a rush of butterflies in my stomach and a smile flirted with the edge of my lips. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”
Millhook broke the moment. The imp had impeccable timing.
“We found a place here that says they’ll keep the light on all night for us. That’s the one we’re going to. So grab your stuff and gather round. I’ll get us there quick, and we’ll go sneaking around and see what we can find.” Millhook jumped into the center of the room and rubbed his hands together, waiting for us to join him.
“Millhook, I think it’ll take Nicole a couple of minutes at least to get her things together,” I said.
Nicole jumped off the sofa, leaving her laptop behind and yelling behind her, “Nope, got everything ready and waiting.” She emerged from her bedroom with a packed duffel bag and two backpacks, one of which she threw to me and one to Alex. “I put these together on the off chance that something like this would happen. Always be prepared, right? After last time, I figured there was a good chance this could become a regular thing in my life.”
Nicole really had been looking forward to something like this.
Four
The hotel room was like countless others Alex and I had shared while on the run from Casper. How strange that we were now running in the opposite direction, back to the Armory. That wasn’t the only difference. This time we had Millhook and Nicole with us. It was nice to have their friendship and support.
Nicole set up her laptop on the desk. “So do you guys want to go now or wait until dark?”
“The cover of
darkness won’t help any. They’re either going to be able to see us or not. And since I’m the only one who can see at night, it’s best that we go during the day,” Alex said.
“Are you coming along too?” I asked Alex. I thought him staying behind might make it easier for Nicole.
“I was planning on it. Why wouldn’t I?”
“There’s not much point in you going too. Millhook and I can camouflage ourselves to a certain extent and hopefully get away without them knowing we were ever there. If someone saw you, they might recognize you, and I’d rather Millhook and I be entirely focused on the Armory instead of needing to cloak you as well. You can also help Nicole research the triplets. There’s probably a record of them, and now that she has their last name, it’ll be easier to find something.”
“I have no problem staying, as long as you promise that you’ll actually port back here at the first sign of trouble. You can always make another go at it, but only if you survive this attempt.” He maintained eye contact with me until I nodded.
“Agreed. Does that sound good to you, Nicole?”
She’d been typing something on her computer and quickly glanced back at me in acknowledgment of the question and then resumed her typing. “Of course. I mean, I don’t absolutely need him here, so if this is all just a big ruse for him to keep me company, don’t bother. But I understand that I have to stay. I would clearly just be in the way there.”
Nicole was so much more practical than I was. If I had been in her situation, I’d insist on going along, and I’d probably get myself killed. It was always nice to have friends who were smarter than you.
“Esstrasa.” My communication orb floated in front of my face. Perfect timing.
“Accept.”
“I have the information you need. I would have had it to you quicker if it weren’t for all these agents swarming around. Don’t know why they all feel the need to be in the crypt. There’s plenty of other work to do. If there’s not, they can go twiddle their thumbs somewhere else. The last time people were here who didn’t need to be, a list of all CCS personnel was stolen and the entire organization fell apart.” Ess turned her face so that only her widened right eye stared at me.
[The Elustria Chronicles: Magic Born 04.0] Magic Hunted Page 2