Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
When the room was clear, McArdle still hadn’t moved, her arms still, her face pale. Sweat dripped from her forehead.
“I have kids,” she said. “Can you… can you get my phone and let me record something for them? A goodbye?”
Tears sheened her eyes, but she swallowed and swallowed again, and when she looked at Nick, they hadn’t spilled over. “Please?”
Avila was at the door, hesitant, and Nick said, “You stay out. Tell the captain what we found out—there’s evidence of the circles before the explosion.”
Zahide nodded sharply at Avila. “Go.”
“Don’t you dare get killed,” Avila said to the room at large. “Or I will call Laurel and make sure none of you get into the good afterlife.”
She closed the door with a definitive click, and Parker’s face scrunched. “Wait, is she implying there’s a hell? Or, like, a cut-rate afterlife? A Payless afterlife?”
“Zahide, door. I’ll draw a shield spell in case we need it,” Nick said. He began sketching as Zahide stalked over to the door, tapping two circles on her jacket.
“Parker,” Nick said. “You need to go. This is alchemy.”
“Oh, right, so you can get yourself killed? Like hell, Nicholas King.” Parker glared at him. “Which, apparently, Laurel knows how to put us all in!”
“Focus,” Zahide said sharply. “Where is your phone, McArdle?”
“Jacket pocket,” McArdle said. She was still illuminated, her skin almost translucent, clothing invisible, but Zahide found the phone and inputted the password McArdle gave her.
She hit Record just as McArdle started crying.
“Guys, I love you. Mommy loves you so much. Be good, okay? Be whoever you’re going to be and work hard and… ”
“No,” Parker said, his own voice cracking. “No, we are not doing this. This is not happening.”
When he looked at Nick, it was with such determination that Nick knew they were going to be fine.
It was the sort of expression Parker got when he was going to do something stupid and heroic and brave.
It didn’t stop Nick’s heart from beating double time when Parker reached out and grabbed McArdle’s shoulder.
“Hey, sorry about this. I haven’t done it in a couple of years and never with a person, so… uh… Try and relax.” Parker reached out, and Nick’s racing heart stopped.
When Parker touched McArdle’s arm, the magic began to drain from the circle. The glowing green faded, and he and Zahide were both shouting at the same time.
“Parker, don’t! Stop!”
“You imbecile! You are going to get yourself killed, along with blowing up most of the building!”
The green faded from the circle on her arm, and Parker thrust his hand up into the air. The florescent lights exploded with color, the brilliant shades lighting the room like a sunset.
“You are the most beautiful stars I’ve ever seen,” Parker said, his words slurring. He slumped over, and Nick was too slow to catch him. Nick was always too slow to stop Parker from doing foolish things.
He dropped to his knees, his fingers searching for a pulse at Parker’s neck.
It was there, thready and irregular, fading quickly.
He fumbled for his notepad, dragging it out and scribbling so fast that the circle wobbled.
Nick gritted his teeth, forcing his hand to be still, forcing himself to draw the same way he always did.
“Check her!” He didn’t look up from his notepad, his voice as calm as he could make it.
When he threw the spell over Parker, he held his breath. Parker would be fine. Parker was always fine. Parker had died and come back twice, and Nick had only had to bring him back once himself…
Parker gasped, his eyes going wide when the spell hit his chest, shocking him enough that his whole body convulsed. With pupils blown wide, he turned to look at Nick and said in a raspy voice, “Ow! Was that necessary? I feel like I got kicked by a really angry horse. A hangry horse.”
Nick slumped forward, his hands finally giving in to the tremble he could feel in his arms. “Parker, I have told you about draining magic out of circles! Zahide has told you!”
“The next time,” Zahide said darkly, her focus on McArdle, checking every bone for hints of any other magic, “I will bind you to the floor before you even think of doing anything so stupid.”
“I mean, I knew you had my back,” Parker said, and the smile on his face was so open, so true, that Nick shook his head. “You always have my back, Nick.”
Grabbing Parker’s face between his hands, Nick said, “Parker, I need you to listen to me very, very carefully. That could have blown you up. Not because of whatever it was but because draining magic out of a completed circle is suicide. Do not do it again.”
“That’s the thing, though.” Parker leaned back on his hands.
He watched as Zahide moved down McArdle, checking even her toe bones.
“I don’t think it was completed. I’ve seen your circles, and I know what a finished one looks like.
The magic, I mean, I can kind of feel it.
This didn’t feel finished. It was getting there, but something was missing. ”
“It wasn’t finished?” Nick said. He frowned, raising his eyes up, remembering the photos that Rictor had taken.
“Zahide, what if it was a combination of circles? What if those were the only ones that survived, but together, they were only part of a spell, as though we captured a moving circle and froze it in one moment.”
“That isn’t how moving circles work,” Zahide said. But she frowned.
“What if it was?” Parker asked. “So, correct me if I’m wrong. A moving circle is basically a way to have several different elements of a circle going at the same time?”
Zahide sighed, starting to correct him, but Nick knew Parker was going somewhere with this. He nodded. “Basically.”
“So, what if it wasn’t several spells going at the same time, but the spells were actually shifting together, like one of those old-fashioned code breakers you got in a cereal box?
Everything was shifting.” Parker tried gesturing with his hands, and Nick frowned, struggling to understand what he was talking about.
“Am I good?” McArdle said unsteadily.
“Yes,” Zahide said. “You’re clear of any magic, but you should probably stay here. Whatever Ferro did, we can’t be sure that the circles were the cause of the explosion.”
“That’s the thing,” Parker said. “What if the circles are, because they’re constantly shifting, and when the person died, we’re only getting whatever the last thing they froze on was, and also… uh, well, the person is mostly goo, so we’re only getting a few circles.”
Nick nodded. “If we combine the circles from the two scenes, you might be able to get an explosion, but you’re missing a lot of elements, and we can’t tell what the purpose was or how they actually got on a person.”
“You said earlier it might be an infection?” McArdle said.
“Yeah, but if the circles are the cause, not just a side effect… alchemy isn’t contagious. It’s not something that you can catch.” Nick shook his head. “We’re missing something.”
There was a knock on the door, and Avila called through, “Are you safe?”
“We’re good,” Nick called out. “Keep everyone out for now. We need to tell the CDC how to check for the circles. Zahide, can you write something up?”
“Yes.” Zahide nodded, walking over to the door and informing Avila she was about to email a detailed explanation of how to check for circles.
“Okay.” McArdle closed her eyes, breathing in deeply a few times. When she opened her eyes, she frowned at Parker. “You think that the circles are actually changing rather than quickly shifting through spells like a moving circle would.”
“Yes!” Parker nodded. “So, for example, in one iteration, they say one thing, then they all shift, and they say something else.”
“That might explain how they’re moving,” Nick said. “If one of those iterations is transportation spell.”
“You don’t sound certain,” Parker said.
“Because what you’re talking about hasn’t ever been done and is impossible,” Nick said.
“The amount of magic it takes to move a single spell between locations is… a lot. To move it between bones without burning through skin, clothes, the person even being aware? I can see maybe the spells are all moving, and at any given moment, the combination of them form different variations, but then to add on a level of transporting between people? That’s too much magic, too much precision.
Alchemy like this is supposed to be left alone, and someone would need to direct it moving between people. ”
“So this is set it and forget it, microwave until the ding spellwork. It can’t move on its own.” Parker frowned. “Then I’m at a loss.”
“I wish I could have studied it more,” Nick said. He immediately looked up at McArdle. “Not that I’m not happy you aren’t dead, but what Parker’s talking about and what I assumed from the other bodies is that there would be more circles involved. What was on you was small, and…”
Nick remembered what Parker had said. He looked at Parker in surprise. “Incomplete. Maybe you weren’t fully infected. Or maybe you didn’t get infected as badly as the other two victims.”
“The CDC is going to check everyone in the building,” Zahide said, coming back.
“We’re trying to figure out how it spreads,” Nick said. “But I can’t get past how it works.”
He described what Parker had suggested and his own inability to accept that something so complicated could also have a transport feature.
“King is right,” Zahide said. “Anything with a feature like that would need someone to direct it, and most alchemy spells aren’t designed to be directed. Not from afar. There’s a reason King and I need to touch our spells before moving them.”
“Zahide! How often have we let impossible stop something from being real?” Parker grinned, but Nick could see the desperation in it.
He got it. Parker wanted to know how it worked, how it spread, because the not knowing meant that it was out of Parker’s control, that he was a bystander. If there was one thing Parker hated, it was being a bystander.
“Parker,” Nick said. “Zahide and I will figure it out. If there’s another victim or another person infected here at the station, we’ll find out how it spreads.”
Parker’s shoulders slumped, but when he looked at Nick, it was as though he was reflecting back all the faith that Nick had in Parker. It was still shocking, still incredible to Nick, that Parker, who’d saved the city too many times, believed with absolute confidence that Nick could do the same.
Parker looked at Nick like he was the sun, and Parker just revolved around him. It was too much to take, especially when Nick knew who Parker was, knew the goodness that lived in him, the kindness and the profound empathy that made him do stupidly suicidal things.
“Elaine,” Nick said. He found McArdle staring down at her phone, her breathing still carefully controlled. In. Out. When he approached her, she looked up.
Her eyes were clear, and she had all the professionalism he would expect from a senior detective.
“How did I get it? Yeah.” McArdle frowned, then described in detail how she’d been called to and arrived at the scene. She wasn’t first, she wasn’t last on the scene. She’d interacted with the senior tech who’d exploded, but nothing of interest had happened.
There wasn’t anything unusual in her description.
“What about today?” Nick asked. “Did anything happen today?”
“Not really. I got in early to prep for the interview with Ferro. I went into the break room, got my coffee, interviewed Ferro until we found out that something was going on, and then he ran out. We sheltered in place, got called in here.” She shrugged.
“Let me write down everything I remember just in case it shakes anything loose.”
“Good idea,” Nick said. “Did you see anything unusual with the tech?”
“Yesterday? No. Other than that he was kind of a creep. But that’s a lot of people, you know? Major Crimes, we see a lot of creeps.” McArdle exhaled, puffing her cheeks up for a second. “I bet it’s the same in Paranormal Crimes.”
“Yeah,” Nick twisted his lips. “Same in—”
Someone pounded on the door. “Zahide! King! They found another one!”