Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Who?” Zahide asked immediately.
“Us,” Nick answered, gesturing between him, Zahide, and Lawless.
“What?” Parker asked, a sheen on him, the beginning of a glow that Nick recognized as his magic coming to life.
“It didn’t catch us, not yet,” Nick said. “But the last layers, Zahide, did you see?”
She shook her head, a frown of hesitation scrunching her brows. “No, I was still trying to read the central circle.”
“The spellwork is custom—that means it was designed for the person, not a generalized spell,” Nick explained before Parker could ask. “And you were right, Parker. It does transport, but it transports in a really specific way. A custom way. It was preparing to jump into the three of us.”
There was a moment of silence before everyone began talking at once.
“Are you suggesting the person controlling it is in the building? In the room?”
“What does that mean, ‘preparing to jump’?”
“That is impossible, King. What you’re suggesting is that someone could on the fly create a custom spell. I can’t do that. Can you? Could your father?”
Parker’s voice cut over all of them. “You said ‘it’ was preparing to jump. Are you saying the spell is alive?”
There was dead silence again, and the elevator door dinged open.
Nick knew there were people around them—other members of the CDC, cops, the civilian employees—and he glanced over his shoulder to confirm that his boss was on his way down the hall toward them with every other high-ranked member of the SAPD.
“Yes,” Nick said. “I’m saying that the spell is acting like a parasite.
I noticed three separate names on three circles.
One for me, one for Zahide, one for Lawless.
As soon as the circles got big enough, they’d explode, but by that time, those specific circles would have transported to us.
There’s no way that someone could know we were going to be in the room far enough in advance to draw the circles specifically for us.
Which means that the spell itself is adapting. ”
“The growth,” Zahide said. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s growing exponentially. It started with one victim, now two…”
“I think it’s more than that,” Nick said. “I have no proof, but I think that it jumps before it explodes. I think it’s making a choice of who to jump to, not just picking random victims.”
“What?” Captain Tate said, and Nick swallowed, schooling his expression because there was impossible, there was unlikely, and then there was the reality of what he and Parker faced every day.
There was the reality that Parker could drain circles, something that Nick knew was impossible.
There was the reality that he was married to a fae changeling who would eat Pop-Tarts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he had his way.
There was the fact that Nick’s powers had grown more in the two years he’d known Parker than they had in the decade before that. He was a better alchemist, he was a stronger alchemist, and he was also much, much less likely to discount something just because it had never been seen before.
“The spell adjusts itself to spread,” Nick said. “While we were in the room, it adjusted itself so that it could spread to the three of us next.”
“Are you off your meds? That is straight out of a shitty horror movie. Not even a good one. One of those ones they make for ten dollars with an iPhone!” Falk’s voice rose until he was shouting.
“Does that mean that it’s unlikely it spread to anyone else in the building?” Rios asked. “If it needs a target?”
“I can’t say for certain,” Nick hedged. “Based on the fact that it waited until we were in the room to begin creating the spell that would attach to us, it implies that proximity is important.”
“So it doesn’t spread through blood or air?” Rios asked. “Because it’s getting hot in here without the A/C, and if we could turn it on, tempers would cool.”
Nick licked his lips, his own suit suddenly hotter.
He knew the right response was that they didn’t have enough information, they needed more time to study, but by his clock, they had ten minutes until the circles on Gile touched each other, and his instinct was saying that whatever this was spread that way, not through air or blood.
He glanced at Parker, who was frowning at the door to the interview room, but looked over as soon as he felt Nick’s eyes. One of Parker’s eyebrows quirked, and Nick knew it meant that Parker trusted him to have the right answer.
“I don’t think it does,” Nick said. “The fact that it needed a specific host means it needs a target who’s close.”
“In the same room?” Rios said.
“I believe so,” Nick said. “Alchemy circles can move through matter, but it’s difficult and requires more power than even this has. It also hasn’t been done in the last century.”
“Because the last time it sheared off half a building,” Zahide muttered.
“You’re talking like this thing is alive, like it’s making these decisions by itself,” Falk said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but alchemy requires an alchemist. You know, the person who controls the magic spell.
Right now, I only see two alchemists here, and we’re just taking their word about what’s going on. ”
Parker bristled, pulling his teeth back from his lips.
“Listen here, Captain. I don’t know how many times the Gang Squad has saved the world, but let me tell you that these two have done it, like, three times just this year.
So if you want to pull out your ‘ruler’ and have a measuring contest, I can tell you from personal experience that not only is Nick’s bigger, but he can pull off one hell of a Hail Mary pass.
So, if he says this is a parasitic circle that jumps from person to person like it’s mono being passed around at an eighth-grade birthday party, then he’s right, and you’re the guy that gets killed next in that iPhone horror movie! ”
“Was that a threat?” Falk stepped forward, but before Nick could move, Robin Keating stepped in.
“That was a continuation of the metaphor you used earlier.” She looked at Rios. “If every time my client attempts to answer hypothetical questions, he’ll be accused of a crime, I’m going to have to advise him to stop helping.”
“No,” Rios said firmly. “We all understand that, as an alchemist of his caliber, Detective King is uniquely qualified to help us with this unprecedented threat. And Mr. Ferro is…”
Rios trailed off, frowning, before turning to Captain Tate.
“Ferro’s the guy I want in my foxhole,” Captain Tate said.
“Okay, well, with that metaphor added to the pile, can we poison the parasite? Give him a pill wrapped in bologna like a dog with worms?” Parker looked at Nick, eyebrows raised. “Is there some other way to stop the circles or at least freeze them until you can find a long-term solution?”
“No.” Nick shook his head. “Alchemy stasis spells have never worked that accurately, and there’s no guarantee the magic on him would stop if we put him in stasis.”
Parker’s eyes lit, and he asked urgently, “What about if we froze time?”
“Froze what now?” Falk said.
Nick opened his mouth but closed it, frowning as he considered the implications. “That might work, but it’s not a long-term solution.”
“No, definitely not a long-term solution,” Parker agreed. “But it would give us a few more minutes.”
“As a last resort,” Nick said. “Even if we freeze time, we can’t—”
“Drain the circles, yeah, yeah.” Parker nodded. “Okay, well, last resort. Freeze time. No biggie.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “Parker…”
“Have we tried talking to it?” Parker asked.
A confused silence settled over the group.
“Talking to it?” Rios asked. He turned to Lawless. “Have we tried talking to it?”
“The alchemy circles?” Lawless said, her eyebrows going up. “No. Before they showed up, we were still acting under the assumption that this was a disease. Now that we’re considering it a parasite, there’s a whole other slew of procedures we need to follow.”
“I want to try talking to it,” Parker said. Then, like he was making a statement and not asking for permission in the middle of a major crisis, Parker started walking up to the door, about to unzip the clean room.
“No,” Nick said, grabbing Parker’s elbow. He tightened his hand, remembering the moment of absolute clarity when he saw his own name inscribed on a circle.
“Nick,” Parker said, voice low. “We have to try something.”
“I know,” Nick said. “I know. I just don’t want you going in there. Not when we only have a short amount of time before it spreads.”
“You said it yourself, this thing is alive, and I can talk to things that are alive,” Parker’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Nick was reminded of every time he walked into a room to find Parker arguing with the light in the lamps or coaxing a few more minutes of warmth out of the water in the shower.
“Not from inside the room.” He turned to the captains. “I feel comfortable turning the A/C back on. Parker and I are going to try to talk to the parasite from the observation room.”
“Oh, great! They’re going to go talk to an alchemy circle from the viewing room!” Falk threw up his hands.
“Falk,” Rios said. “Go get the A/C running.”
The command made Falk bristle, and Rios glared at him until Falk grunted, stalking down the hallway back to the elevator.
“King, Ferro, with me,” Rios said, leading the way to the door next to the interrogation room. Tate and Zahide managed to squeeze in, too, but Lawless bowed out, already on a walkie-talkie with the other CDC members in the building.
When everyone was behind the one-way mirror, Rios turned on the lights. Gile was still inside the room, crouched low and tugging at his legs. Zahide’s magic was perfect, though, the sort of precision that Nick knew was straight out of a textbook.
There was never anything sloppy about Zahide’s magic, a trait that Nick admired and tried to compete with at every opportunity.
With the lights on, Gile spun, staring at the mirror, seeing all of them. “Captain Rios. You have to make them let me go. I’m not going down like this. They can’t just leave me here to die.”
“Gile, no one is leaving you here to die. You have me right here, and King and Zahide are our top SAPD alchemists.” Rios clenched his jaw, the first sign of how uncomfortable he was.
“If they’re helping me, they should be in the room with me, not…” Gile gestured and swallowed. “You don’t have a way to save me.”
The realization spread over his expression, his eyebrows going up, his eyes widening, his face losing color.
“We’re going to try to talk to the creature inside of you,” Rios said. “Just relax.”
Rios turned to Parker, his lips tight. Parker cleared his throat. A flicker of gold spun out of him, gone as quickly as Nick saw it. “Hey there.”
Gile squinted, his brows drawn together in a frown.
“Hey, I know you’re in there. I just want to talk.
There has to be something you want, some reason you chose this guy.
” Parker blinked at Gile. “Not that you aren’t a perfectly fine person to choose, but”—his gaze refocused on something in the middle distance, something only he could see—“why this guy?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Gile demanded. “Are you on something? I didn’t choose this. I don’t want this.”
“Come on, I’m right here. You can talk to me,” Parker coaxed. “I’m willing to talk terms. I’m willing to negotiate.”
“Terms?” Gile looked horrified. “I didn’t do this. What the—”
His face went slack, his eyes turning a vibrant green, the sort of glow Nick knew from Zahide when she was in the middle of powering up a strong spell. He knew it from the mirror when he was in the middle of working.
Parker’s breath hitched. “There you are. You ready to talk?”
“I will talk.” Gile’s mouth moved, but his voice was something raspy and strained, air passing through a deserted desert town. “I will only speak with the god killer. Bring him to me. Here. In the room. Then I will talk.”
Gile pulled his feet out of Zahide’s circles, breaking them easily, the green magic shattering into nothing, lingering on the ground in shards of pure power.
He approached the mirror, tapping one finger on the glass. “I see you. Come to me. Now.”