Aphra was standing, too. A few rags were all that remained of her dress, hanging loose like a poorly conceived mummy costume. She untied Kaz, who was shaken but unharmed.
Calista freed Beckett from his chair. He was pale, but conscious. Her tourniquet had staunched the cut on his wrist, but the gash was nasty, a few inches across and still leaking.
No one was unscathed, but there was nothing that stitches, some ice packs, and a few hundred years of therapy couldn’t fix. Except, maybe, for Beckett. This was his introduction to the world of magick: a grindhouse horror film, culminating with his flaming history teacher tumbling to his death. His eyes were saucers, bottom lip quivering, clutching his knees to his chest. Malek knelt and took his arm, tending to his wrist with a somatic gesture. Glowing green motes drifted to the wound and sutured it closed. Beckett didn’t bother looking down.
The pentagram was in ruins: white and red, spattered with sticky black tar (or whatever Aphra’s summoning had bled) and wax from overturned candles. Degray’s meticulously constructed masterpiece now resembled a toddler’s art project. Some of the candles remained upright with their flames reaching skyward, and lightning-infused clouds continued to swirl overhead.
Calista staggered towards the core of the star, where the wax and gravel and magick had coalesced into a whirlpool—it was a shallow sink of deep burgundy water, continually circling a drain. It acted as a high-powered magnet, but instead of summoning metal filings, it gathered blood. Any drops that were inside the perimeter of the now-ragged pentagram were lurching forward, rolling into the mixture.
Whatever this ritual was supposed to be doing, it was still prepared to do it.
She reached into her collar and ripped off her necklace with one swift tug, snapping the delicate chain. Her fingers quaked. She dug her thumbnail into the locket and popped it open.
The photograph of her mother stared back at her, wide-eyed, and optimistic, and everything she wanted to be. This was what Jackson had been doing, locked in his bedroom for months. It’s what he’d meant this teleportation spell to be used for all along, and he’d given his life to see it through. This ritual was custom made to set Julia Scott free.
She reached into the pentagram and plucked out the pocket watch, bobbing gently in the swirling mixture, and replaced it with her necklace. The candles flared, possibly acknowledging the trade.
“You don’t know what this is going to do,” Malek warned her. He’d thrown his jacket around Beckett, who couldn’t stop trembling.
He was right, she didn’t know. Spells go haywire all the time, and there was no evidence that whatever Jackson had conjured up was actually going to work, whether they got the ingredients right or not. He was gone, and he’d left a dangerous, half-baked spell behind, never getting the chance to iron out the kinks. But she knew exactly what was going to happen if she left her mother in prison, and that was an alternative she couldn’t live with.
Kaz came to her side. Before Calista could ask him for yet another favor, as if she hadn’t asked enough, he was dragging Degray’s hunting blade across his palm, wincing as his skin peeled open. He clenched his fist and let the blood drain into the pentagram. Sacrifice number three was being offered.
Winds intensified, swirling from the clouds like a low-powered tornado. A few pebbles lifted from the rooftop. Their hair whipped their faces.
Aphra scraped her matted locks away. Her glassy eyes met Calista’s and she extended a shaky hand towards Kaz. He passed her the knife. With a quick slash she opened her palm, offering the pentagram another fresh stream in penance.
Lightning rained down in jagged blue tines. That was four.
“Think about this,” Malek shouted over the rising wind.
In recent months, she’s thought of little else. Taking down The Agency—if such a thing were even possible—would take years. Julia was far too fragile, and had already endured more than she could handle. If that day ever came and she was released, the person who emerged from prison would be little more than a battered shell of the woman who raised her.
Aphra handed Calista the knife. She sliced deep into her palm, starting below her thumb, cutting horizontally like opening a letter. When the first drop splashed into the swirling pool at her feet, the rooftop shook violently, buckling their knees. The lightning ceased, and the rushing wind died to a breeze. The candles snuffed out.
The world plunged into darkness. Everyone stood very still, waiting for the grand finale—for this spell to culminate in some star-spangled conclusion that would live up to Degray’s hype. No one made a sound. And nothing else happened.
Calista fell to her knees. Kaz fell with her, pulling her tight to his chest. She didn’t expect the ritual to work—at least not completely—but she wasn’t prepared for how crushed she’d feel when it failed.
Her sadness glazed over with fear when a harsh buzzing rang out. It was horrible and all-encompassing, like a million angry hornets. Was this a backlash for their attempt at harnessing Blood magick? Had they not given enough? Or were the measurements off; this entire ritual was tacked together using a combination of the grimoire and Jackson’s leftover bedroom notes—maybe Degray had screwed it up.
The buzzing was too loud to bare. Everyone slammed their palms into their ears, eyes forced shut. The blaring built to a crescendo. Calista felt pressure on her chest, like she was being slowly crushed in a trash compactor, squeezing the air from her lungs. Then there was a pop, and the sound snapped off.
Calista’s eyes cracked a sliver, still adjusting to the darkness. A new silhouette appeared in the pentagram, curled in the fetal position. She crawled over and wiped her bloodstained locks aside, squinting at the confused woman staring back at her. “Ignis,” she whispered, re-lighting one of the half-melted candles by her knees. The gauzy orange light flickered off her mother’s face.
“Callie …?” Julia said foggily, squinting back at her daughter. “My god … you’re filthy.”
Section B—understanding modern sigils:
Sigils go by many names: emblems, symbols, logos, icons, brands, tattoos. Essentially, they're all the same thing. They're designs meant to elicit a response.
Police wear sigils on their chests to exude authority. A clothing company puts a sigil on a shirt to build brand loyalty. Sigils are plastered on business cards and football helmets and album covers and currency and flags around the world. They’re ubiquitous. And whether you realize it or not, they’re influencing you.
– FATHER Division Agent Handbook
30. Bridging Gaps
THROUGHOUT THE WINTER MONTHS, rendezvous in The Pit had been brutal, teeth-chattering affairs. The faintest whisper of heat barely escaped the rusted grates, and joints stiffened from cold metal chairs.
Now, during a sweltering day in June, Malek longed for the bone-chilling January debriefings. The windowless flat, it turns out, was also air conditioning-less. Not overly surprising. If The Agency were any thriftier with their safehouse budgets, they’d be meeting in a cardboard box by candlelight (a sentiment he’d shared with Charles King; Malek correctly assumed his complaint had fallen on deaf ears).
He shifted in his seat, readjusting his tie. It was so bloody uncomfortable being this fashionable, but it would be worth the trade-off—that is, if the other half of this meeting would bother to arrive.
By the time Amanda Cho strolled through the door with her armed security escort she was a half-hour late, coffee in-hand. ‘Running things with precision,’ indeed. She passed the cup to one of her guards. Her bulldog, huffing and snorting with exhaustion, lagged behind. It shuffled in and collapsed beneath the table.
“Agent Malek,” she said cheerfully, peeling off her jacket. The lining stuck to her sweat-slicked arms, revealing a white blouse that clung to her like she’d just finished a marathon. She was baking as much as he was, but would never acknowledge it. “It seems like congratulations are in order for eliminating the mole.”
“Are they?” He made a show of tugging
back his cuff and goggling at his shiny new watch. “And only four and a half short months after the fact.”
“We had a lot of clean-up to do,” Cho said, unapologetic. She took back her cup and pulled up a seat. Her guards flanked the door, standing at rigid attention.
He lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted attempt at a shrug. “Reports to write, papers to file away in little gray cabinets. I’m sure it was time and energy well-spent.”
“I noticed The Agency cleared you and your partner of all wrong-doing.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone, swiping her finger down the surface. “While your methodology is questionable, I can’t argue with results. Now that the mole hunt is officially over with, we can return to business. I have some follow-ups.”
Follow-ups? Now? The battery of Q&A sessions he’d been subjected to before the hearing were ridiculous, though not uncommon, he supposed. It felt like this inquisition would never end.
Malek let out an exhausted sigh. “Before Aphra and I could be cleared I was interrogated, brow-beaten, gently prodded, and asked to fill out a questionnaire using one of those dreadful little pencils they give you during miniature golf. Which will it be today?” He laced his fingers and cracked them overhead. “I fear I might have a touch of carpal tunnel from that last session.”
“This will be more of a recap.” Cho tapped a button on her phone and slid it across the scarred metal table. A red light blinked and a clock set in motion. “Tell me what happened on the rooftop, and start from the very beginning, Agent Malek.”
It was the moment he’d been waiting for. It’s why he opted for a pocket square that morning, and left his ivory shirt buttoned to the nape of his neck, silk paisley tie knotted to perfection (suffocating as it was).
“As of this morning,” he informed her, “I am no longer an agent.”
She raised her sculpted eyebrows. “Really? I didn’t realize early retirement was an option for … your kind.” She was all smiles.
For the time being.
He reached into his breast pocket and, with no small measure of satisfaction, extracted his badge. It was pristine, shimmering beneath the stale yellow bulb. “As FATHER Division’s newly appointed Director, I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to be addressed as ‘Director Malek’ or simply ‘Mister Director.’ They both have quite a pleasant ring, don’t they?”
Cho pressed her lips into a thin line. She gave the badge a cursory glance but didn’t bother inspecting it. Instead, she reached across the table, stopped the recording, and pocketed her phone. “So congratulations really are in order. I’d heard rumors they were filling the position, but I didn’t know things had progressed so quickly. Or that they’d made such a hasty decision.”
Malek adjusted his tie. Totally worth it. “Rumors do turn out to have a sliver of truth now and again.” He tried to mask his smugness, but failed spectacularly.
As a senior-level director at DARPA, Amanda Cho wielded a wealth of authority, though she now lacked the power to demand answers from Malek. Acting without operational oversight, FATHER Division’s newly-appointed, devilishly handsome director could go above her—something he planned to do at every available opportunity.
“For my own edification,” she said, struggling to maintain her composure, “what can you tell me about the blood on the roof of The Hawthorne Academy?”
“It was all in my report. Degray thought he could perform a ritual—some kind of teleportation spell to acquire Nolan Foxcroft. As the Director of Advanced Biological whatever, I’m sure you’ll read all about it soon enough.”
Cho pivoted in her chair and dismissed the security detail with a wave of her hand. She waited for them to step outside and close the door before continuing.
“But where did Degray get the ritual?” she asked, hushing her voice. “Was it real? Could he have actually pulled it off?”
The brilliant white smile that Malek shot across the table was wildly unprofessional, but he couldn’t contain himself. “I’m sorry, but I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any specific rituals. I’d love to tell you more, truly, but I’d require written permission from the Secretary himself.”
“So there’s no grimoire?”
Malek chuckled. “Pardon me?” He threw an arm over the back of his chair, feigning a comfortable recline. “You mean some mystical almanac filled with arcane rituals, passed down from one Scrivener to the next—including a teleportation spell? That sounds a little preposterous, doesn’t it?” He reached into his jacket and extracted a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Cho.
She declined with a stiff nod. “If teleportation isn’t possible,” she persisted, “then how do you explain Julia Scott?”
“The fact that she vanished from your maximum security prison without a trace? That is a tad dodgy, isn’t it? Though if she’s anywhere in the vicinity, I’m sure we’ll catch up with her.”
An embarrassing loss for the Agency, no doubt. He would love to have seen the gobsmacked prison guards as they threw open Julia’s cell to find it empty … but better still, it would’ve been positively brilliant to see Cho’s expression when she received the frantic call from the warden, explaining that one of her newly-renovated, DARPA-approved facilities had been breached.
“So,” she said flatly, “Mister Director, now that you’re calling the shots at FATHER, what’s your next play?”
He snapped his fingers, and a burst of flame caught the tip of his cigarette. “We’re remaining in North Valley for the time being. I have some assets in the field who are yielding incredible results. No need to muck up a winning formula.”
“No, I suppose not.” She smiled, tight and forced, the seams of her lips deepening into unsightly grooves.
“We have some leads to follow up on,” Malek continued, waving his cigarette in a flourish. “According to the Diviners, there are still a few transmogs at large. We’d hoped to get some intel out of Parker Ashton and learn their identities, but the lads in South America were a little too vigorous during their interrogation. He doesn’t remember his own name, let alone anyone else’s.” Twenty minutes into the proceedings an aggressive mind-reading charm went awry, and the prisoner had lost the use of his temporal lobe. It was the first and last time that magick would be permitted during questioning. The black site team was instructed to return to the classics: car batteries and fingernails. “At any rate, it turns out this entire region is a mystical hotbed. We’ll be sticking around for quite some time.”
“And focusing your efforts in North Valley has nothing to do with Calista Scott?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t divulge information about my assets.” He took a lingering drag. “However, if you speak with the esteemed Mister Secretary, I’m sure we can set up a meeting, and the three of us can discuss this in wonderful detail. Perhaps over brunch at my new country club? The mimosas are to die for.”
“I don’t need to remind you that the priority is Foxcroft. To bring him in, unharmed. You might have operational control, but that directive comes right from the Oval Office.”
He nodded compliantly. “Of course.” An absent flick of his thumb sent a trail of ash tumbling to the floor. “You need Mister Foxcroft so you can seal up the rift, naturally.”
She returned the nod. “Naturally.”
“And apprehending him has nothing to do with mining any more magick from the other side of the rift?”
She took on an exaggerated air of confusion. “Are you suggesting DARPA is purposely keeping the rift open in order to further our nation’s military ambitions, all while endangering the lives of American citizens?” Cho tightened her smile. “Preposterous.” She pushed herself away from the table. Her chair scraped the tiles with a rusty squeal. “I have other appointments.”
Malek dropped what remained of his cigarette and twisted it beneath his heel. He stood and followed Cho to the door, offering to assist her with her jacket.
“I’m pleased that the mole was eliminated,” she said reluctantly. “I
t was solid work. However—”
He shrugged the jacket over her shoulders. “How did I know there’d be more to that sentence.”
“I’m not fully convinced there isn’t another mole or two within FATHER Division. I’m going to keep a close eye on your results in an informal capacity. Just to ensure things are done by the book.”
Malek pulled open the door. “I’d heard a rumor to that effect.”
“Rumors turn out to be true from time to time. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Wait a moment,” he said, just as Cho’s foot crossed the threshold. “What is it like? Having Q clearance?”
“You’re a director now,” she said with a note of exasperation. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Oh please, just a hint. I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to travel out to Arizona. Paint me a picture.”
She knew exactly what he was asking. He wanted to know what the portal looked like—the dimensional rift in Gravenhurst. A tiny plastic badge on the end of a lanyard was in his future; a three-by-two-inch key that unlocked a secured room the size of a warehouse, where magnetic superconductors worked tirelessly to prevent an ungodly tear in the fabric of space and time from widening even further. Agents gossiped about it endlessly, the way conspiracy theorists gossiped about alien spacecraft at Area 51.
Cho held up a single digit to her security detail. They nodded in acknowledgment as she stepped back into The Pit, shutting the door behind her. “You know what they say: a claw mark in the air, seeping a pulsing blue light? It’s true.”
I knew it. “What else?” Malek had asked Cho for details only because he knew it would irritate her, but now he was genuinely interested. He couldn’t believe she was indulging him.
“It breathes,” she said. “Air comes in bursts, sometimes tropical warm, sometimes freezing cold.”
“Fascinating.”
“But it wasn’t the waves of energy or the temperature that struck me.”
“Really?”
The North Valley Grimoire Page 32