15 #3
“The Syndicate is very curious how you and Alex broke through the veil, but this? This is even juicier. I never expected you to have such vivid memories of that man. The Syndicate will be more than pleased.”
Albert stepped closer, but he never reached me. Instead, he stopped about three feet in front of me, completely frozen but shaking as if trying to break free from invisible chains.
“Don’t touch him!” The blurry form of a young man in a puffy jacket stepped into the stairwell. I couldn’t make out his face, but the short brown hair and thin frame, along with the recognizable voice, told me exactly who it was.
“A-Alex? What …” My voice trailed off as a wave of dizziness overwhelmed me.
His gaze never leaving Albert, he spoke to him, “Whatever you’re after, you can tell the Syndicate they’ll never get it. They’re done messing with me and Theo.”
Albert cringed as Alex distorted the space around him, the barrier Alex erected shrinking smaller and smaller, suffocating the phantom.
“You think these party tricks will stop me?” Albert wiggled, trying to free himself from Alex’s magic. Alex pressed his hands together, struggling as Albert pushed against the invisible prison walls he had constructed.
But Alex was too weak to contain Albert, and when his magic fizzled out, Albert easily broke free. I was stunned speechless when a ghost with a hatchet in her hand arrived on scene, her Victorian garb floating in an invisible wind.
“Lizzie Border? What the …” I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I had hit my head too hard and I was hallucinating. Lizzie was a ghost, unable to manifest a physical form strong enough to move a piece of paper, let alone wield a hatchet as she sliced through the air, lunging at Albert.
“She’s borrowing magic from me,” Alex answered, as if the simple explanation made perfect sense.
Albert’s confidence faltered against the madwoman. I could envision Sam Bellamy burying his sword into Albert’s chest, Emily Dickinson stabbing a pen into his neck, and Sam Adams shattering one of his beloved beer bottles over his head.
“We have to go after him!” I tried to stand up, but I tilted to the side and fell over.
“Let him go, Theo,” Alex warned. “You can’t do anything in your state, and the rift wardens will be here any minute. Let’s get you back to the house and patch you up.”
“What about the woman—” The stairs were empty. She was already gone, the only thing left her abandoned bag of groceries. Albert’s hold on her must have snapped when he’d run, and she’d wasted no time scampering out of harm’s way.
I slung an arm around Alex’s neck as we followed Lizzie down the hallway and back out into the courtyard out front.
“How did you know where I was?” I touched a finger to my forehead, the tip coming back sticky with blood.
“You ran out of the house without telling anyone. I had this … unsettling feeling that something was wrong. My magic wanted me to follow you, so I did. Sorry it took so long for me to get here. I couldn’t keep up with your scooter, but when I arrived at the cemetery, I heard the commotion and found your friends in the parking lot. They told me you were inside.”
“Friends?” That was right. Alex also had a magic rooted in death. Not only was he connected to the phantoms through the veil, but he could see ghosts as well.
Alex struggled to support me, the young teen still malnourished and weak from his years of being kept prisoner. “Stay here for a minute.” He grabbed my jacket and slowly let go of me so I could sit on the steps. “I’ll go grab your scooter.”
Once Alex had disappeared, I stared down at my hands in disbelief. My magic had never responded like that before. It hadn't felt out of control exactly. It had felt angry. Like something inside it was pushing back against me, lashing out at anything it perceived as a threat. Hungry for retribution.
Was it Caspian's magic? Or was it something else?
My stomach tightened as I pushed up my jacket sleeve. The silver threading through my veins had mostly faded now that the magic was gone, but faint traces still lingered beneath my skin. They pulsed weakly in the darkness, a reminder that the corruption hadn't left.
I shoved the sleeve back down when a seething voice caught my attention. I followed the sound to see Alistair berating the Boston Strangler in a discreet spot near the side of the building in an alleyway.
“You failed, Albert. I asked you to find out what Theo knows about Alex and his magic. How are they connected? We need to know what we’re dealing with here!” The glow of Alistair’s silver chains around Albert was hard to ignore.
“I … I know, but the kid has way more powerful memories that could be useful! That Caspian guy you mentioned earlier … he has this memory about some spell array—”
“Caspian?” Now he had caught Alistair’s attention. “Hmm, perhaps you aren’t as useless as you appear.”
My gut twisted with poison. So they knew about my magical connection with Alex, but not exactly what it was. And even though Caspian was gone, I had his grimoire documenting his life’s work on questionable spells and arrays … but even more worrisome, I also apparently had his memories.