by Lucy March
Whatever was going on, it was time to get all cards on the table. He wanted something, and it was past time I knew what that was.
“Knock knock.”
I glanced up from the cold, untouched vending machine coffee in my hands to see Liv standing in the open doorway of my mother’s room. The bed was empty; my mother was out getting an MRI so they could look inside her brain.
“Hey,” I said.
She sat in the visitor’s chair next to mine. “It’s past one. You need to eat. Leo and Tobias went down to the cafeteria for food.”
“Not hungry.” I went to the bathroom, dumped the coffee into the sink, and tossed the cup in the garbage. “Actually, I need to head out for a bit. Can you keep an eye on things here?”
Liv blinked in surprise. “They’ll be bringing your mom back soon…”
“Maybe, but they’re going to have no idea what’s wrong. Desmond is the only one who knows what’s going on. I need to go see him.”
I started toward the door, but Liv got up and stood in my way.
“Desmond did all this? You’re sure?”
I nodded. “Pretty sure. He gave a potion to Clementine Klosterman, and now she’s Speedy Gonzales with pink light around her hands.”
Liv’s brows knit. “Who’s Clementine Klosterman?”
“She used to work at Treacher’s IGA. I sent her to Betty to get a job at CCB’s, where you and Tobias can keep an eye on her. And, oh yeah, would you and Tobias mind keeping an eye on Clementine Klosterman for me?” I gave a weak smile. “I know. I’m sorry. I should have called you. It’s just that a lot has been happening.”
Liv nodded. “Yeah, it has. Okay, so, what’s your plan? You’re just going to, what … go ask Desmond what he’s up to? What if he’s dangerous? What if he does something to you?”
“He’s already done it,” I said. “What’s he going to do? Make me more of a firestarter?”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
“Then wait until after dark, when your power is in. You can set him on fire.”
I shook my head. “I can’t control it.” Not yet, not without Leo, I thought, but I couldn’t think about that now.
“Then wait and take Tobias. He can stop Desmond…”
Our eyes met, and Liv’s flickered away. Tobias’s power, the ability to stop any movement—a pumping heart, for example—was rare and incredibly dangerous. It had gotten him taken away from his family at the age of thirteen after he accidentally killed a school bully, and he hadn’t used it since. Most of the time, we didn’t even talk about it. We pretended he was just another magical, like Liv or Betty, making ceramics into squirrels or creating blueberry muffins out of thin air, but he wasn’t. And there were people watching who knew it.
Which made what I was about to ask for even harder.
“Hey, I’ve got a favor to ask, but—”
“Done. What?”
“Wait until I’ve asked,” I said, meeting her eyes. “It’s a big one.”
She crossed her arms and gave me an expectant raise of her eyebrow. “What is it?”
I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my pocket and handed it to her. “This is everything I know about Desmond, which isn’t much. His last name, his address in Niagara Falls. I did some basic GoogleFu, but nothing came up, which makes me think that maybe he changed his name or something.… I don’t know. But there’s something there, something in his past, and I think if I know what it is, it might help.”
Liv’s brow creased as she glanced over the sparse notes I’d hastily scribbled on the back of a Wegmans receipt. She looked up at me, worry in her eyes. “Christ, Stace. You’re usually the one I go to when I can’t find something on the Internet. I don’t know what I can do that—”
“Actually, I was…” I hesitated, barely able to get the words out. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything through public channels. I know Tobias had some contacts in the magical agencies.”
I couldn’t look at her. I knew what I was asking. Tobias was floating nicely under the radar of the magical agency that had taken him away from his family when he was just a kid. Asking him to get in touch was risking them taking notice of him again, and if they did that … who the hell knew? Magicals like Tobias disappeared into thin air all the time, and no one ever saw them again.
“You can say no,” I said, “but he’s causing some real damage here, and I have to ask.”
She raised her head to look at me, determination in her eyes. “Done.”
Part of me wished she’d said no. “Liv…”
“Stop it.” She tucked the paper into her pocket. “He’ll be careful.”
I released a breath. I’d gotten the asking out of the way, and had expected it to be the hardest part, but it wasn’t. Letting her take this risk for me was even harder.
“You know, maybe don’t do anything for a little while,” I said. “There are private detectives in Erie, they might be able to—”
“Shut up,” Liv said, and that ended the conversation. I wanted to hug her, to say thank you, but I couldn’t. How did you thank your best friend for risking everything that mattered to her because you screwed up? I just stared at the foot of my mother’s empty bed.
“I gotta get going,” I said after a long silence.
“Be careful.”
I looked up and our eyes met, and once again, it was me and Liv, in the center of a crazy magical shit storm. We’d come through last summer, but the cost had been way too high. And here we were again: another summer, another magical catastrophe threatening to take another chunk out of us all.
The only difference was, last summer hadn’t been Liv’s fault. She hadn’t asked for any of it. Me, I’d been practically begging for it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and looked away.
We were quiet together for a while, and then she said, “Start amassing your canned goods now. Next summer, we’re holing up in an underground bunker.”
* * *
I called Grace and Addie on my way to their B&B, and by the time I got there, Addie was looking fierce outside of Desmond’s room, a thick broom handle in her hand.
“He’s inside,” she said when I got there.
I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Good work, soldier.”
She nodded, pulled on a thin chain around her neck, and produced a key from inside her shirt. She slid the chain over her head and unlocked the door.
“This doesn’t unlock from the inside?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. It does. That’s what the broom handle was for.” She opened the door. I stepped in and almost felt like laughing. Everything was flowers and ruffles and a four-poster bed with the frilliest canopy allowed by New York State law.
Desmond was sitting on the floral Queen Anne chair by the window, an open book in his hand. When I entered, he smiled.
“Well, if it isn’t the indomitable Stacy Easter,” he said, putting the book down as he stood to greet me. “It appears I’ve been made out as the villain of this piece. Kept under lock and key in the tower, awaiting judgment.” He nodded toward Addie, who glared at him as she shut the door behind me. The lock clicked over and Desmond smiled. “It’s actually quite adorable.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, digging my fingers into my own arms to keep myself from going for his throat. I needed him talking now, and punching my thumbs into his larynx, as gratifying as that might be, wasn’t conducive to my goal.
“You got me, my mother, Diedre Troudt, and Clementine,” I said. “Anyone else?”
“I can’t say for sure,” he said.
“I haven’t used any other purple vials,” I said, making my guess as to how he did it; the slight rise of his eyebrows confirmed I was right.
“Well, then … no,” he said. “No one else should have been affected.”
I moved forward. “Addie? Grace? If you’ve done anything to them, I swear to God—”
He laughed, and the sound of it grated on my spine. “You t
alk as if I’m some sort of monster.”
“No, I talk as if you’re the entitled asshole who put my mother in the hospital. What the hell did you do to her, anyway? For that matter, what did you do to all of us?”
His eyes lit with what I can only describe as the glittering illumination of pure crazy, and with a voice almost too quiet to hear, he said, “I proved it.”
“Proved what?”
“I believe you call it magic,” he said simply.
“I believe I call it fuck you,” I said, just as simply. “My mother is in the hospital.”
He waved a hand in the air. “Don’t fret. Her brain is just overworking itself, trying to re-create the chemical it needs to make the ‘magic.’” He put air quotes around the word, and the gesture made me want to slap him. “Just mix some liquid in one of the purple vials I gave you and administer it to her.”
“I checked the purple vials,” I said. “There’s nothing in them.”
He smiled, face beaming with pride. “Nothing you can detect. But trust me, the vials are coated inside with a very fine water-soluble powder. It dries, invisible, undetectable, and then dissolves into any liquid to which it is introduced. Fill a purple vial with water, and have her drink it. In a few hours, she’ll be fine.”
“She’s not going to be fine,” I said. “She glows. I’m setting things on fire. Deidre Troudt is manifesting bluebirds. The cashier is moving like the Flash. I don’t need a temporary fix. I need a cure.”
He watched me in silence for a moment. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
I sputtered for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about? Yes, that’s what I want. And once that’s done, I want you out of my town.”
Desmond stood, looking even taller and thinner than usual, and more foreboding. It was then that I noticed his eyes; it wasn’t so much a coldness there as an emptiness. How had I not seen something missing in him earlier? I had chalked everything up to cool British reserve, but this—this was something else. This was an absence of any feeling whatsoever, and it was creepy as hell.
“Stacy, think about it. You have power.” He moved closer to me. “You have passion. Spark. Heat.” He took a lock of my hair in his hand, twirling it around his finger, and I could smell the faint whiff of celebratory whiskey on his breath. “People would kill for what you have.”
I clenched my fist and thrust it as hard as I could up under his solar plexus. He let out a whoof of air and fell back onto the most feminine bed in the world, chuckling. “Oh, I do so enjoy you, Stacy Easter.”
I advanced on him. “Give me the cure or so help me God, I’ll remove your manhood with dull scissors right here in this room.”
“Darling, this room has your work half done already.” He leaned back on one elbow and winced a bit, which I found slightly gratifying. “Besides which, I haven’t got a cure.”
I felt ice trickle down my spine. “You’re lying.”
“Well, yes, but it’s just so rude to refuse to give it to you outright. I am British, you know.” He pushed up from the bed, holding his hand on his gut as he advanced toward me. “You’ve got quite a hook there.”
I held up my fist. “Take one more step and you’ll feel it again.”
Before I knew what was happening, he’d grabbed my wrist and pushed me against the door, his body lean and strong against mine. I struggled, but his grip on my wrist tightened, and I cursed as the pain shot up my arm.
“I’ll allow you to strike me exactly once,” he said in low tones, his eyes cold on mine, “and you’ve used up your grace. Now, are we going to handle this as civilized people, or is this going to devolve into bloodied fists? Because you do know the win goes to the person willing to get bloodiest. Are you certain that person is you?”
There was a knock on the door, and Addie’s voice came through, muffled. “Stacy? Stacy? Are you all right?”
Desmond released me, the threat still present in his eyes. I shifted my head, keeping my eyes locked on his, and said, “Everything’s fine, Addie.”
“Are you sure?” she called. “I have a broom. I’ll stick it right up his back end.”
Desmond chuckled. I took a breath and said, “It’s fine.”
There was some shuffling outside the door, but then Addie quieted down. I pushed myself away from the door and crossed the room, sitting casually in the Queen Anne chair. Desmond sat again on the bed and faced me.
“So what now?” I asked.
He smiled. “Now we negotiate. I give a little, you give a little.”
“Fine.” I rubbed my wrist, which was still throbbing, and beginning to bruise. “Give a little.”
He sighed. “The purple vials are coated with a mix of chemicals that activate the limbic system in the brain.”
“And what does that mean?”
He gave me a condescending look, as if to say, You poor stupid girl. I ground my teeth and let it go. I had bigger fish to fry.
“The limbic system is the emotional center of the brain, but it’s also the magical center of the brain, in people for whom that genetic code is switched on. Your friends Liv and Tobias. That sweet old lady from the waffle house. Betty, was it?”
His eyes glittered; he knew exactly who she was, although it was sure as hell I hadn’t told him she was magical. He was playing his cards slowly, one by one, to let me know that he had a much better hand than I’d thought. He wanted me to be intimidated, but hell if he was going to get that from me.
“Yeah? So, what about those people who don’t have the magic genetic code switched on?”
He smiled, although his eyes still held that hollow emptiness that I was just now realizing they’d always had. “I switched it on. You are looking at the most powerful man in the world, darling.”
I wanted to shrink down into my chair, but I would be damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me sweat. “Not so fast, Optimus Prime. It doesn’t work like natural magic. It’s traveling, from day or night to all the time, and it’s making my mother sick.”
He shrugged. “Well, this is still in the trial stage, so there are quirks to be worked out, but I must say, I’m quite pleased with the results we’re having.”
My heart pounded in my chest, fear sending a cold prickle over my skin. “Let’s revisit those quirks.” I swallowed. “Exactly what is going to happen to us?”
He held my eye for a moment. “I can’t be entirely sure. Everyone is different, and this is the first time I’ve worked with this exact mix of chemicals. Some people can go on for quite some time without manifesting serious symptoms. There does seem to be a connection to how hard they push the magic. Those who resisted the power and used the vials regularly lasted for as long as three, sometimes four months.”
“Lasted?” I said, my throat choking on the word. “What do you mean?”
He held my look, his own deadened and emotionless.
My breath stopped in my chest, and I had to force it out. “Are you telling me that I’m going to die? Because I have to say, that really changes my motivation not to kill you right now.”
“But you forget,” he said, “I have the cure.”
“Or maybe you’re just saying you do so that I won’t kill you,” I said.
He shrugged. “That does sound like something I would do. I think for the moment, you’re just going to have to take it on faith, until we’ve finished our negotiations.”
I ran my hand over my face, took a breath, and said, “Okay. Tell me what drinking from the vials will do for us.”
“Readministering the original cocktail has a stabilizing effect. The non-magical brain isn’t working so hard to re-create the chemicals it doesn’t have the natural capacity to create, and so it relaxes, and doesn’t abandon the rest of its duties, which seems to be what happened before.”
“Abandon its duties?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“The brain is a beautiful thing,” he said, a glint of fascination in his eyes. “It keeps us breathing, ke
eps our hearts beating. Makes us want, makes us feel. Everything you see around you … buildings, vehicles, books, wallpaper … so much beauty, so much imagination, so much magic … all because of the human brain.” He looked at me, and got back to the point. “When the brain neglects its duties, when it can only focus on one area of its function, the body naturally suffers. Breathing stops, or maybe the desire to eat. Some find it unbearable and bring things to an end at their own hands.” That emptiness took over his eyes again, and he seemed to be gazing at something only he could see. “It’s sad, very sad, but knowledge is the key to the advancement of man, and it must be pursued. At all costs.”
I took in a deep, shaky breath. Jesus. “So, that’s what happened to the women you’ve done this to before? They’re all dead now?”
He seemed to pull out of his memories, and focused again on me. “Not all of them,” he said coolly. “Every trial has been different. There are some from the early trials who simply sneeze whenever they see the color blue. As I tinkered with the formula and dosages … well.” He shrugged, not a hint of guilt or regret in his expression. “It is because of them that I now have the cure, which reverses it all. They are heroes; they sacrificed all for the greater good.”
“No, they were sacrificed,” I said. “Different thing.”
He met my eye. “You say potato…”
“Why women?” I said. “Why not men?”
“The effect on men is … different. My theory is it’s because men tend to have a less developed limbic system.” He waved a hand in the air. “At any rate, I’m finding my best results coming from women at the moment. And your mother has been my most successful subject by far.”
My stomach turned sour at the tone in his voice, but I tried to keep my expression flat. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“Oh, your mother is what this is all about. She’s spanned the gap from day to night. She controls the power. No one has ever done that before.” He let out a greedy chuckle. “Your mother is the reason I’m still here. She is … exquisite.”
I asked the next question with as light a tone as I could muster. “Why do you think she’s been able to do that? What is it about her that makes her so special?”