by L. EE
If the magic becomes too deeply imbedded in the brain, extraction, and therefore recovery, may prove impossible.
But there was no time for worry; now was the time for work. With a swipe of her finger, she broke a small hole in the border of the circle under Gail’s head. Then she did the same to the circle around Arthur, taking care to keep the gaps as close to parallel as she could. Finally, she knelt beside the center circle. This was the most difficult part. The first two circles could actually handle the transfer themselves, but with no mediator, the magic would be ripped from Gail’s mind with such violence that it would leave her permanently brain-damaged if not dead. And though Arthur was a magician, such a sudden influx of magic could seriously injure him as well and would certainly shatter his binding.
No, Nia would have to carefully regulate the speed of the transfer. She could not allow Gail’s mind to suffer more than it already had and she could not allow Arthur’s binding to break. While he wouldn’t be blamed for the breakage under these circumstances, it would still have to be redone and Nia had no intention of making him go through that horror again.
When she triggered the mediating circle, she immediately felt the air around her come alive with magic. It was an unsettling sensation that reminded Nia too much of the brief bursts of energy she sometimes felt when she woke too suddenly from a bad dream – instinctive, impulsive magic, unbound and uncontrolled – but intellectually, she knew it was different. This magic might have been felt free, but in actuality, it was trapped within the circuit of circles. Nia just had to make certain it followed the correct path.
So she closed her ears to the tight, pained breaths coming from Arthur and the ominous silence from Gail and focused on feeding the magic through the circuit. It seemed to take an age, a slow and painful age, but finally the magic trickling from Gail slowed until there was nothing left to remove. There would be a little residue left behind, of course, there was no avoiding that, but the magical content of Gail’s body was now well within healthy parameters. Many laymen possessed latent magic in amounts too small to be utilized. Gail had simply joined their ranks.
When she was sure there was no more magic coming from the detective, she interrupted the circuit by breaking the center circle at several points and scribbling over the center. As soon as that was done, Arthur slumped to his side, clutching his chest.
“Arthur? Arthur, are you all right?” Nia pulled his hands away and replaced them with her own.
“Did it break?” he asked through heaving breaths. At this distance it was painfully easy to see the fear in his eyes.
“No.” Nia’s heart swelled with relief. “No. It weakened it a little, but it didn’t break.”
“Will they have to –”
“No. Weakened is not the same as broken. Your magic is still bound. I see no reason to perform an unnecessary procedure.” Nia didn’t know if the Directors would feel the same, but it didn’t matter. Arthur had never been a flight risk. The Directors had no reason to test his binding and only by deliberate test would they be able to tell that there had been any change.
“Are you in pain?” she asked him.
He shook his head, though the way he was clutching at his heart suggested otherwise. “No, I’m all right. I just need to rest for a minute. Thank – thank you, Nia.” When Nia saw relieved tears sliding down his cheeks, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his, hating how grateful he was that she hadn’t hurt him.
He let her hold him for a moment then laughed a little and shrugged her off. “Check on Detective Lin.”
Gail. Nia crawled to where Gail lay against the door. The detective still hadn’t moved, but her chest rose and fell regularly and when Nia touched her cheek, she found it warm.
Those were both good signs, but the true test would come after she regained consciousness.
“Detective,” she whispered. “Detective, are you –” The train lurched around another bend and Nia fell on Gail’s outstretched arm.
“Ow!” Gail tried to jerk up, but the combination of her own weakness and Nia’s weight knocked her back to the floor. “Geeze, what the hell?”
Nia struggled to her knees again and peered into Gail’s face. “Detective? Are you all right? Do you know where you are and why you’re here?”
“Yeah,” said Gail slowly. “I mean, I think so. We’re in the subway tunnels to get Connery because for some reason you still think that’s a good idea and now I’m – I’m on a train.” She trailed off as her eyes moved slowly from the ceiling to the seats beside her. “Okay, I admit that has me a little stumped.” She reached up and rubbed her head. “There was a – a cow or something. I was trying to find its brain because it was going to do – something.” She smiled a little wryly at Nia. “I take it I was pretty far gone, huh?”
“Actually, I believe you were on the right track – no pun intended – though the magic caught up with you. Arthur and I managed to remove it, though. You should be fine now.” Nia managed to keep her voice steady despite the memory of blood running down Gail’s face. Speaking of which… She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and tried to clean the worst of the blood from Gail’s cheeks and chin.
Gail laughed and took the handkerchief herself. “I’ll do it.” She pushed herself up until she was leaning against the row of seats and scrubbed her face hard with the thin cloth. Then she looked over at Arthur who was lying on his back with his hands folded over his stomach.
“You okay, doc? You look almost as bad as me.”
“The difference between me and you is that I can see you,” Arthur replied, “so no, I don’t.”
Laughing, Gail wiped the handkerchief a little harder across her face. “Asshole.”
“But are you sure you’re all right?” Nia asked fretfully, watching Gail closely for any sign of permanent damage. “You looked – not well. I was worried.”
Under the circumstances, Gail’s normally charming sardonic smile was a bit infuriating. “You were?”
Nia huffed out her annoyance. “Yes, of course, I was. We didn’t –we didn’t know and – I feared that –” It seemed the harder Nia tried to untangle her tongue, the more knotted it became. “I wasn’t certain we would…”
“How long am I going to have to lie over here?” Arthur called. “I wouldn’t complain except the floor is really filthy and I don’t have any bandages to count.”
“What are you on about, doc?”
“I’m just saying that –”
“Oh, Arthur, will you –” Nia’s interruption was interrupted when the train rocked so violently that for a moment, she was certain it would tip on to its side and kill them all. She grabbed hold of a handrail while Gail and Arthur both scrambled to keep from sliding across the floor. When the shaking finally stopped, they were all clumped together in the center of the aisle.
“So,” Gail said after a moment. “I take it that Connery is a little upset that we’ve made it this far.”
“Yes, so we had better hurry and finish what we started.” Nia got to her feet, but when Arthur and Gail tried to follow suit they swayed and sank back to the floor.
“Damn.” Gail rubbed her trembling legs. “I feel like a baby learning to walk.”
“Apt metaphor,” said Arthur, leaning back against the seats and rubbing his chest.
Nia considered pointing out that it had more specifically been a simile, but she decided that the type of the comparison was irrelevant when the meaning was that neither Arthur nor Gail would be able to accompany her to the first car.
She would be on her own.
Before the fear could take root, she gathered her things, explaining what she intended to do. “And please don’t argue,” she added as Gail’s mouth opened. “You’re both clearly exhausted and won’t be able to cross to the next car in your current state, not even after I apply another slowing spell.”
Gail scowled. “Fine. But as soon as we feel up to it, we’re coming after you.”
“I i
magine I’ll be finished by then, but I trust your judgment.” And even if she didn’t, she couldn’t very well say so given her own earlier actions. So, not giving herself time to dwell on what lay ahead, Nia squeezed Arthur’s shoulder then pressed a quick daring kiss to Gail’s cheek before hurrying to the car door.
The slowing spell took longer to work this time. Nia could feel the train pulling ahead, like an animal straining against a harness, but the shriek of the wheels finally softened to a dull roar. Knowing she didn’t have much time, Nia pushed the door open and immediately began to cross. The tie vibrated under feet like it wanted to snap apart, but before it got the chance, she heaved herself into the first car.
For a few seconds, she stayed hunched over on the floor, catching her breath. As much as she had tried to remain calm for Arthur’s sake, those steps through the screaming darkness left her heart racing.
But this was the front car. There should be no more crossing after this. She would find Connery, bring the train to a stop, and –
Her thoughts stopped dead as she looked up. Where she had expected to find the subway control panel she was confronted instead by the severed head of an animal. A bull, she realized distantly, it’s a bull’s head.
Though she knew it was impossible, the bull looked like it had been freshly butchered, blood seeping from the ragged hole in its neck and long black tongue lolling from its mouth. She even thought she could smell animal musk mixing with the smell of decay. Only the beast’s eyes were missing, rotted away to empty holes.
Nia covered her mouth and nose to block out the stench. Connery had to be here somewhere. She didn’t have time to be deterred by parlor tricks, no matter how ugly or foul-smelling. She took a step forward, trying to see if the control console was hidden underneath the animal’s head. She thought she saw a tiny red light blinking at her from beneath a flap of darkly furred skin.
As she reached toward it, teeth closed on her arm. She screamed and jerked back. Large square teeth ripped free of her sleeve and flesh. She stumbled away from the console, grabbing desperately for the wall to keep from falling backwards through the door. She could feel blood running down her arm and over her hand.
The eyeless bull’s head ground its teeth on the bloody cloth it had torn from her dress. It chewed until a flurry of cloth fell from its lips to the floor. Nia watched in terrified fascination as the bull’s tongue slid out to catch the scraps of cloth clinging to the corners of its mouth.
Then its mouth opened wide on a shrieking cackle as it jumped to its feet. No, not its feet.
The bull’s head teetered on a pair of human legs, capering from side to side. The long tongue flopped obscenely from between its teeth as it giggled.
Gail was right. Connery was completely mad.
The eyeless bull head turned toward her as if hearing her thoughts. “Hello,” it chirped before lunging.
Nia’s hand moved to her pocket for a spell that would stop that – that – that thing, but the pain of the bite slowed her reflexes. Before she could grasp the paper, it was on her.
Then its head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter. She automatically stepped backward in a vain attempt to save her already filthy dress and thumped into something warm and solid.
Gail’s arm slid around her shoulders, giving Nia a glimpse of a black pistol in her hand. “You okay, princess?” Her voice was steady, but her free hand was braced against the wall to keep them both upright.
“Yes, I’m fine,” answered Nia. “How are you?”
“Fine as sunshine!” Gail replied with sarcastic brightness. Together, she and Nia limped a little farther into the car. At such close range, the bullet hadn’t left much of the bull’s head behind, just a pair of furry ears and a glint of teeth to show what it had been. The legs lying beside it were spattered with blood, but otherwise undamaged.
“And here I thought it was a metaphor,” said Gail. When Nia gave her a questioning look, she tilted her hand to display the faded words on the back. THE EYELESS BULL SEES HER. Well, this was an eyeless bull and it had seen her. And bitten her. Nia winced as every twitch of her fingers sent a jolt of pain up her arm.
“Well shot, detective.”
Gail smiled at her. “No problem. Now, is there anything else we have to do to – uh – take care of this thing?”
“Yes, I’ll do it.” Nia pulled reluctantly away from Gail and knelt beside the remains of the bull head. More blood soaked into her dress where her knees pressed against the floor. As she began drawing a circle on the floor, Gail knelt beside her, holding her gun in both hands.
Nia drew as quickly as the pain in her arm would allow, careful not to let any of her blood spoil the spell.
“Geeze, princess,” Gail said softly, staring at Nia’s arm. “It bit you?”
“Yes.”
“Shit, Nia, you should –”
“I’ll heal it in a moment.” Nia triggered the spell and the legs fell loose from the remains of the bull’s head. Suddenly lightheaded, she sagged backwards and would have fallen to the floor if Gail hadn’t caught her.
Gail gently stroked a damp lock of hair back from Nia’s forehead. “How about you heal yourself now before you pass out? I’m gonna guess that thing’s mouth wasn’t all that clean.”
She had a point. Fighting the haze in her head, Nia reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of spells. They threatened to fall through her numb fingers as she shuffled through them, but she finally found a healing spell. Thank goodness she had replenished her predrawn spells before coming down here. It was perhaps the one intelligent thing she had done all day.
“Do you need any help?” Gail holstered her gun, so she could put her other arm around Nia’s waist.
“No, I’ll be all right.” But that didn’t mean Nia wasn’t happy to lay her head back against Gail’s shoulder as she pressed the spell to the wound on her arm. The spell quickly knit the skin together and burned away any infection. It wasn’t strong enough to completely erase the teeth marks, but the bleeding stopped and it no longer hurt.
“Well, it looks a little better.” Gail ran her fingertips over the pink, ridged skin.
Nia shivered.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Jumping, Nia sat up and saw Arthur standing in front of the now closed door, one hand on his hip and a playful smile on his face.
“Nope, nothing, doc,” said Gail. “Though I wouldn’t recommend coming over here unless you want to ruin your shoes.”
Arthur took a step forward. “What do you – hell!” He jumped back, nearly slipping in a thick puddle of blood. “What is that?”
“Disgusting,” Nia supplied, which made Gail laugh.
The train lurched violently to the side. Arthur fell to his knees as Nia gasped and grabbed Gail more tightly. Connery’s legs rolled across the floor until they bumped against Nia’s own. She was certain this time the train would derail. She could see it in terrible detail. The train would scrape along the wall, sending up a shower of sparks before slamming to the ground. The other cars, driven by their inertia would pile into the first car. There would likely be fire.
Then, miraculously, the train seemed to right itself, but no, not entirely. It was still skidding and bumping over the tracks. Too fast, much too fast.
“We need to stop the train,” said Gail. “Otherwise…” She didn’t have to finish.
Arthur was already at the blood-stained controls.
“Will that work?” Gail asked. “Don’t we have to stop it with magic?”
“No,” Nia replied vaguely. She had done too much magic that day; it was hard to keep her thoughts in order. “In fact, the magic might cause – well, a chain reaction which would –”
“I get the picture,” said Arthur through his teeth. “This shouldn’t be too difficult, but everyone hold on anyway.”
Gail squeezed Nia more tightly.
Arthur held absolutely still for another few seconds, clearly waiting for someth
ing, then he pulled back hard on a lever. The wheels screeched and the floor bucked beneath them.
Falling to his knees, Arthur clung to the console, reaching out for something. Nia stretched out an arm, as though she could catch him with one hand if he fell.
Then the train dragged to a reluctant stop in a dimly lit station.
46
Nia Graves
When the train came to a stop, Arthur slammed his hand down on a button and the door – well, one of them at least – screeched open. Not wasting any time, Gail got to her feet and pulled Nia up with her.
“Come on, doc,” she said as she snatched up one of Connery’s legs. “Grab a leg and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Arthur obeyed her and together they squeezed through the half open door, hopping over the gap between the train and the platform. Nia felt a little dizzy from over-using her magic and was grateful to have Gail’s arm around her waist to keep her from slipping down into that dark space. She had the unsettling feeling that it might turn out to go on forever, leaving her to fall and fall past an endless series of train doors.
I may need a little rest, she thought as she stumbled gratefully on to solid concrete. She glanced back at the train, but it was dead, a rusted corpse train slumped on the tracks.
“Look.” Arthur pointed toward the stairs. “This way’s open.”
He was right. This station was also closer to the surface, because the gray square of light was much larger here. Nia thought she could feel a touch of breeze against her face.
Gail turned to grin at Nia. “It’s about fucking time. Is it safe now? Are we all set to go?”
“Hm?” Nia had to think a moment before she understood what Gail meant. “Oh, yes, everything feels fine. The magic is gone.” In fact, it had been gone ever since she had separated Connery from the bull’s head, which explained why the train began having trouble. Returned to its own devices and unprotected by magic, it was in no condition to be running at such speed.