The Uncanny Raven Winston

by Tammie Painter

  Alastair’s gaze flicked over my shoulder. From the corner of my eye, I caught Tobey. The King of the Idiots must have decided being behind the door wasn’t for him and had entered the room. Alastair returned his attention to me, his face showing some surprise, but mostly heartfelt pain.

  "Cassie, it’s not what you think. Do you really not believe me?"

  "I believe what I see, and that is you betraying me at every step of the way. First with Vivian— No, what am I saying? You started all this long before Vivian. Of course, then there was Olivia, and now you’re here having a chat with the Mauvais. Everything you’ve done has been to hurt me, to bring me closer to him. Well, good job. I’m here."

  I darted a glimpse at the Mauvais. He was making no move to approach us despite this being a perfect time to attack.

  "No, that’s not how it was. I came here because I caught your scent on the lock of the file room. I found the slip of paper on the floor with this address. I came here hoping to—"

  "Claim your reward?" I cut in.

  The Mauvais, who’d been smirking over our little spat, barked out a laugh at that.

  Alastair shifted to face me more directly. The move turned him away from the Mauvais. Only then did I realize why the Mauvais hadn’t bothered to attack me, hadn’t even bothered to take a single step forward. Alastair had been holding the Mauvais in place with a variant on the Shield Charm. But when he turned to face me, his focus on the spell broke.

  The bark of laughter was still echoing in the vast room when the Mauvais walloped Alastair with a Shoving Charm hard enough to send Alastair flying into the support column behind him. It was only by dumb luck that the blow hit him in the gut, doubling him over and making it so only his back, not his head, hit the concrete support. Still, slamming against the column did knock the wind out of him.

  "Do something," Tobey shouted. "He’s getting away."

  The Mauvais was jogging through a doorway into what must have once been a connecting office space. A powerful urge to chase after him filled me, but that was probably exactly what he wanted. Instead, I ran over to Alastair, checking to see if he was alright. I was mad as hell at him, but he was going to explain himself. After which, I might just kill him myself.

  Gasping for breath, Alastair looked up at me. "I didn’t betray you. I’ve never wanted to betray. I wanted to stop you."

  "So he could get away?"

  "No, because you can’t fight him." He shifted to sit up and rolled his shoulders, the motion making him do little more than wince. Clearly nothing important was broken. "Don’t go up against him. Let HQ handle this. Please."

  "I’ve fought him before."

  "Shut up for two minutes, Cassie." I jerked back from the sharp tone I’d never heard from him. "He has the watch. If you fight him, he’s going to pull your magic straight into the gears. All of it. And he will use it. Someone else, not you, needs to take him down or we’re all doomed."

  "Are you able to get up?"

  "Almost." The instant he answered, his face registered his mistake. I stepped away from him. He tried to grab me, but I jumped out of his reach, and before he could conjure a Binding Spell, I raced off in the direction the Mauvais had gone.

  I didn’t have to race far. Devin Kilbride stood in the adjoining room, waiting then grinning as he went through the formal bow and stance as if we were preparing to spar.

  "Thought I’d give you a last moment with lover boy. If it makes it any easier, I’ll let him live after I kill you."

  "Screw you," I said and gave him the hardest magic wallop I could muster. Go big or go home, right?

  The Mauvais staggered back, but then floated off the ground to keep himself from falling. I hit him with three more spells. The blows had some effect, but I had underestimated my opponent. I had expected him to still be weak. After all, I’d taken the major part of his magic when I’d pulled the watch’s power into me. He should have barely been able to levitate a feather. But somehow he was full of magic. He was far stronger than he should have been and my attacks weren’t doing anywhere near the damage they’d done when I’d used them before.

  There had been worries about someone in HQ passing the Mauvais power, delivering him magic like a Dominoes pizza. But who? Alastair?

  Wait, hold that train of suspicious thought, a Flaming Arrow Curse is coming at me.

  I launched a Shoving Charm to knock the fiery projectile off course, then threw another one right at the Mauvais. It was only then I realized, in addition to not being knocked back by my spells, he wasn’t blocking them. Once you knew how, it didn’t take much to throw up a Shield Spell, but the Mauvais had done nothing other than shift to take my magic hits in the least vulnerable spot possible. If I aimed one at his head, he leapt and twisted and took it in the shoulder. If I aimed for his heart, he turned to take the hit in his side.

  Don’t get me wrong. My attacks were hurting him, but it was like a muscle cramp rather than a broken limb. After a quick grimace or grunt, he pushed through the discomfort and grinned at me like a demented Cheshire Cat.

  I always hated the Cheshire Cat. Not that there’s many likable characters in Alice in Wonderland, but that cat just irked the hell out me. His broad, toothy smile, and smug manner reminded me too much of Foster Father Number Two when he was preparing for another round of Let’s Beat Cassie.

  So, when I saw that same smirk on the Mauvais’s face, I magically lashed out over and over, wanting with pure ferocity to knock the grin straight off his face, wanting to push him out the window he stood in front of.

  The Shoving Charm and other attack spells were getting me nowhere. I was just about ready to try a new tack when someone, or rather something, grabbed hold of arms and yanked me back.

  "Cassie, stop!"

  I squirmed, I writhed, I kicked, but Alastair had me caught in the magic netting of his Binding Spell.

  "I will kill him and then I’ll kill you," I screamed.

  "Stop fighting him," Alastair growled, moving in front of me to put himself between me and the Mauvais, but angling his body to keep us both in his line of sight. "It’s exactly what he wants."

  "Don’t tell her now, Allie," the Mauvais chided. "The tank is almost full." Reaching inside his shirt, the Mauvais tugged on a chain. Hanging from it was the watch.

  "Don’t you see?" Alastair said. "Every bit of magic you’ve thrown has been the watch’s magic. His magic. You’re pouring magic back into the damn watch."

  The Mauvais flicked his arm, but Alastair threw up a Shield Spell and the curse exploded in a cascade of sparks against it.

  Despite my scowl and my fuming desire to bite Alastair’s head off, he leaned in and whispered, "Whatever you’ve discovered, I swear I have only ever wanted to protect you. Someone’s given him magic recently, but it’s not been given in a way to make it stick." Another curse smacked against Alastair’s shield. "He’s not going to be able to fight for long unless he can keep pulling power from you. So if we’re going to fight him, you need to find your balance."

  I nodded and he let me go. I took a deep breath and with surprising ease given how tired I had grown, I threw the membrane around myself to keep any more of my magic from flowing into the watch.

  Alastair dropped his shield. The second it was gone, I launched myself at the Mauvais.

  49 - SHOW DOWN

  DESPITE EVERYONE’S CLAIMS that he’d been magically weakened, the Mauvais was proving himself pretty damn strong both in the physical and in the magical sense. Even as he deftly deflected the attack spells Alastair sent hurtling toward him, the Mauvais broke through my membrane. Then, snatching hold of my left arm so viciously his nails dug through the sleeve of my sweater, he yanked me closer to him.

  I was too near the watch, and it was far worse than Banna’s magic vacuum. The timepiece was sucking my power from me like a liposuction machine wreaking havoc on the fat lady at the circus.

  The st
ripping of my magic wore on me. I wanted to give up, to crawl into a corner and sleep. Every exhausted instinct told me not to touch the watch. Without the membrane and without the focus, energy, or time to make a new one, there existed the possibility of the watch draining me on contact.

  But as quantum physics had taught me, there was also an opposite and equally likely possibility.

  I closed my hand around the watch. The Mauvais, too surprised by my actions, didn’t react quickly enough. The Zen textbook had been right: Magic does flow like water. And magic now flowed from the watch into me, amplifying my power, giving me the strength I needed.

  Charged with this new boost, I gave the Mauvais the most vicious magic head butt I could muster. The force of it drove him back, yanking the watch chain tight until it snapped.

  The Mauvais staggered, but unfortunately didn’t tumble back and out the window. Using the same gravity-defying trick Professor Dodding had shown me, my opponent quickly regained his footing then propelled himself over me.

  I spun around, ready to attack. But the bastard had landed behind Alastair and Tobey and instantly threw a Binding Spell around them. Magic slammed against my fingertips and I shrieked with the unexpected pain as I barely held back the force of the Stunning Spell I’d been about to use.

  Tobey struggled, but couldn’t move his arms. Alastair, even though he could only move his hands, fidgeted desperately.

  "Give me the watch," demanded the Mauvais as he circled around me. He was no longer amused. He no longer smirked. He wanted me dead.

  "Don’t do it, Cass," Alastair warned. With his unbound fingers he dug at his pocket, looking for all the world like he had a bad case of crabs but couldn’t quite reach the itch.

  "Leave them out of this," I said, because that seemed like the appropriate superhero response to the villain’s wicked demands.

  "I will, if you give me the watch."

  The Mauvais had now made his way back to his original spot in front of the window. Tobey and Alastair, unwillingly moving with him, were tugged along by their magical restraints like dogs who’d been poorly leash-trained.

  "Give it to him," Tobey gasped, his voice pitched high with panic.

  Alastair stopped fumbling with his pocket. "Hit me, Cassie. Hit me with a spell as hard as you can and then run. Do it," he goaded. "All that anger you’re feeling toward me. Send it my way. Go on. You know you want to."

  The Mauvais screeched at Alastair to shut up. Tobey shrieked in pain and stiffened as the Mauvais’s anger tightened the magic bindings. From somewhere in another room I heard a woman’s yowling cry.

  I can’t say how I knew. Call it instinct. Call it a bond that can never be cut. Call it wishfully delusional thinking. But I knew that sound had come from my mother. Despite having never met her, despite having no memory of her, I knew that cry of agony had been made by the woman who had given birth to me.

  "Cassie, ignore that," Alastair insisted. "Hit me and go."

  "Give me the watch and you can have Mommy. You can have Daddy. You can even have both your little harem boys here."

  The Mauvais was a jerk and pretty damn evil from what I’d learned, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t fall for the drain-the-watch trick again. My hand tingled as magic flowed between me and the timepiece like one of those machines that cleans a person’s blood. In and out. In and out.

  My magic was filling the watch, charging it back to full capacity. But the watch was also replenishing the magic within my cells with unnatural speed. My exhaustion vanished as the power grew and expanded within me. Free refills, anyone?

  "What’ll it be, girl?" the Mauvais asked, showing no strain as he maintained the Binding Spell on Tobey and Alastair.

  I could hand the watch over to the Mauvais. He’d be distracted by it just long enough for me to use my supercharged power to take him out with a rapid-fire attack.

  I would have my parents. I would have Alastair. And I’d even have Tobey. I didn’t particularly care for Tobey, but Mr. T seemed fond of him.

  "He’ll kill us the minute you give him the watch," said Tobey.

  My gaze darted to Alastair. I couldn’t read his face beyond the intensity in his eyes.

  "Can you really trust someone who used to be on my side?" the Mauvais taunted. "But wait, maybe it’s you he can’t trust. After all, that was quite the kiss you gave me the other night."

  "Cassie?" Alastair said, agony ringing through that single word.

  A strange blurriness took over the Mauvais’s face. When it cleared, there were two Tobeys.

  "The BrainSweeping Charm on him did wonders when you two were in the file room together, especially since I convinced him to take a few absorbing capsules with him to those little meetings. It would have been nice if you’d stuck a little closer to him like he asked, but they pulled in enough.

  "The capsules made their way into my hands, and well, I felt good enough to play with my favorite Morphing Charm. So yes, that night, that was all me. Confounding you kept you from picking up my scent. And let me tell you, there’s nothing like lip-on-lip, tongue-on-tongue action to get a true magic boost. Now," he growled, "the watch."

  "Cassie," Tobey pleaded.

  "Don’t do it, Cass," said Alastair. "We’ll be okay. Knock us out and run."

  From beyond the room, my mother whimpered. The sound tugged at something deep in my chest.

  I raised my hand, holding up the watch, dangling it from its broken chain. I extended my arm forward.

  "Good, girl," said the Mauvais as he stepped toward me.

  50 - INTO THE DARK

  AS THE MAUVAIS reached out his hand to take the watch, he was momentarily off guard. He’d fallen for my ruse. Really, it’s hard to believe this guy had ever been a threat to humanity.

  I projected my most feral Shoving Charm at him. It was so strong, it knocked me back like the recoil from a Smith & Wesson. As I caught my balance, I watched the Mauvais shoot backward toward the window. Wild elation charged through me. He would crash through the pane of glass and end up splattered on the pavement below.

  But my joy was short-lived. Because not only was the Mauvais falling back. Tobey and Alastair were too.

  I always thought that thing where people talk about the world slowing down during intense moments was just something thrown into books so the author could draw out the scene and add in a bunch of impossible stuff. I don’t know, maybe it was because I was a Magic, maybe it was because I was being trained in altering physics, but time truly did slow as I watched the three men.

  The Mauvais still had his Binding Spell around Tobey and Alastair. I cursed myself for not realizing the bond hadn’t been broken before I lobbed my attack. Tobey’s eyes were wide open in full panic mode and looked like, with one hard smack, they might pop right out of his head. But Alastair. Alastair knew what was coming. Meeting my eye, he ordered me once again to hit him. He then twitched his fingers, drawing my eye to them for the briefest moment.

  Pinched between thumb and forefinger was a small, capsule, pulsating red. An empty absorbing capsule.

  If I threw my magic at him, he could catch it. He would have a dose of the most powerful magic the Magics had known: the watch’s magic, my magic, and the Mauvais’s magic all in one handy package. He could take my magic. He could use it to bolster his own power. He’d have a fighting chance against the Mauvais.

  Or he could take it and deliver it to the Mauvais, strengthening him for more devastation.

  Which was it?

  To trust or not to trust? That is the question.

  Alastair was falling backwards by now, but in the strange slow motion my eyes remained locked on his. The dahlias, the shy glances, that kiss, all flashed through my mind. Especially the kiss. Shoop shoop. This was the man who swore he’d only ever wanted to protect me. This was the man who had stayed close to me regardless of my suspicions of him, regardless of the accusations I’d thr
own at him.

  I nodded. Warm relief filled his deep blue eyes. This time I held nothing back, I hurled my magic at him so hard, I flew back and knocked into the wall behind me.

  I remember the sound of breaking glass and the impact of my body against the wall driving what felt like every molecule of air out of my lungs. The room spun and went dark.

  * * *

  A repetitive clacking sound chattered in my ear. Something cool and hard rubbed against my cheek. I raised my hand to brush it away and my fingers met the smooth, pliant feel of feathers. Then the bird hopped onto my chest and cocked his head at me as if wondering what this foolish human was doing on the ground.