Chapter 49
SARAH
The sun rose a couple of hours ago, and we’re on our way to the border.
Yes, the border – they’ve taken my girl to Canada, we think. To evade US regulations, perhaps. Or for deniability. Not for any good reason. Canada’s a proudly pro-witch country, so whatever they’re doing, my guess is it’s under the radar.
Naomi’s at the wheel, a couple of her Moot colleagues with us.
Maggie following in her car. I’ve been trying to call Lachlan all night, but the number I have for him simply rings off.
He uses so many burner phones he may not have this one anymore, or the number may have been compromised and discarded.
So when my phone rings with an unknown number, his is the last voice I expect to hear.
I answer, imagining melodramatic scenarios like an ultimatum from Michael Whitman that I give myself up in exchange for Harper, or a call from the Homeland Security department about this ‘coup’ at the Moot.
But it’s Lachlan, and I wonder if the goddess communicated my desperation about our daughter to him through some witchy ether that connects all her children.
Except plainly she didn’t.
‘What the fuck, Sarah? You’re the new Moot President?’ I check my watch: 7:05 a.m. Our press release has hit the morning newswires, then. ‘And what are you claiming about Luka Ortiz? He’s safe at my base, with Harper. That kid’s obsessed with magic, he’d never agree to give it up.’
‘And you’re at your base, are you?’ I ask, more coldly than I thought myself capable of.
‘Lachlan, neither Luka nor Harper are safe. He’s now a wreck, stripped of his magic, barely able to get out of bed.
And Harper will probably be next because they’ve got her too.
Fuck you, Lachlan, she was supposed to be safe with you. ’
‘What?’
And so I explain. Walk him through the events of yesterday.
How Harper is unlocatable, but we’ve worked through the night to get a read on where Ortiz or Okoye might be.
It turns out you can’t Command a scarf, but a member of the Moot team with more skill than I have in location magic forced the vaguest reading out of Ortiz’s little piece of silk, enough to get North.
Their scrying link to Okoye was more precise – Montreal, with a visual read on a suburban area.
‘Maggie’s got Chester trying to figure out where that might be, and we’re on our way there since precision with the reading improves with proximity. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.’
He sounds abashed, for at least a millisecond. Then it’s all anger and action.
‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. I though she – both of them – were secure with my team. But Montreal? I know who that’ll be. Delacourt. Fuck, I didn’t know her research was so advanced.’
‘Delacourt? What don’t I know, Lachlan?’
And he explains. His Redhaven networks have been tracking scientists they suspect of conducting witchcraft suppression research.
One of them was at Mount Rowan Hospital but was recently let go for reasons that weren’t clear.
She’s now consulting for a global pharma company and has set up a lab on Nun’s Island, south of Montreal city.
‘Hold it,’ I bark, and give Naomi that location and tell one of the Moot team to let Maggie know. ‘Okay, I’m back. Nun’s Island. What’s Delacourt doing there?’
I don’t really want to hear the answer. My insides have all iced up. Lachlan’s voice is shaking as he tells me.
‘She’s recently been greenlighted for Phase 1 randomised control trials of “interventions for the management of magical presentation” – she’s a magic-killer.
The first phase will be a mix of magical and non-magical volunteer subjects, testing for adverse reactions.
We’ve been planning action to take out her Montreal facility, but then fighting the Registration rollout swallowed all our resources. ’
Fury and fear render me speechless. I’m clutching my phone so hard it’s a miracle it doesn’t shatter. If any scientist thinks she’s going to experiment on my daughter, I’ll burn her lab down. And if Ortiz wants to kill our magic, I’ll throw her on the damn fire.
‘We’re about four hours from Nun’s Island,’ Naomi says.
‘I’ll get on my bike,’ Lachlan says in my ear. ‘I won’t be more than an hour behind you; should be less. We’ll get our daughter back, Sarah. And we’ll stop this sick “research” for good.’
As he ends the call, part of me is raging that he and his Redhaven crew were disrupting anything as trivial as Registration centres, when labs are out there researching magic-killing technology.
This Delacourt could have been firebombed out of a job before she ever had a chance to get her hands on Harper.
But the larger part of me knows I owe him an apology.
I’ve considered Lachlan an alarmist. An extremist.
Now I see I should have joined him years ago.