Chapter 53
MAGGIE
I motion Ortiz toward a chair. It’s one of those solid ones they have in hospitals and care homes, impossible for a sick person to fall out of, or knock over, and I cuff one of her wrists to the heavy arm.
‘Are you even a serving officer?’ she spits. ‘I don’t believe for a moment you’re acting with authorisation. I’ll have you for this.’
‘I’m more than happy going freelance to detain a suspect in a potential kidnapping. Harper Fenn is here, isn’t she? Are you going to do to her what you did to Luka – your own son?’
‘He wanted to be rid of it.’
‘Really? So desperate to be rid of his magic he ran away to join the witch separatists?’
Ortiz hesitates. Takes the slightest of indrawn breaths, before deciding to say nothing. So I ask where Harper is.
‘All the volunteers are in rooms along this corridor. Dr Delacourt keeps the names of trial participants confidential; they’re assigned a letter.’
‘I really don’t have time for this. Where’s Harper Fenn?’
‘The furthest room is assigned to Participant 1-F. You might want to start there.’
‘That’s better. I’m sure someone will be along for you once things have calmed down.’
I put the key to her cuffs on top of the strip above the window blinds, where she won’t be able to reach it herself, then race to the end of the corridor.
All the other doors have inset glass observation panels and normal handles as you’d find on any hospital room.
Only this door’s window is shuttered, and it has an extra lock, telling me instantly this Delacourt is shady as fuck because this room was deliberately built for potentially resistant participants.
It makes sense, because I’d bet a lifetime’s supply of donuts the witches of America won’t be queueing up for a dose of whatever she’s cooking up.
Her magic-killer would be used for convicted magical felons in the best-case scenario.
I shudder to think of the worst case. Government mandated mass magic eradication, if some crackpot with an agenda gains power? It’s not impossible.
No one’s around, Lachlan’s drawn all the attention down to the main building, so when I can’t smash off the lock at 1-F, I simply shoot it, swing the door open – and there she is.
Harper. Wearing a hospital gown, lying under a thin coverlet, utterly unresponsive.
The sight makes me want to heave. What the hell have they done to her?
There’s a clipboard hooked over the end of the bed with stats taken on the half-hour, timed from 7 a.m. through to the most recent, at 9:30 a.m. I see she was given intravenous Propofol just after 8 a.m. A large dose, which at least explains why she’s insensible.
Then soon after that, at 8:18, a shot of a drug I don’t recognise, with a batch number inscribed alongside.
It must be Delacourt’s experimental magic-killer.
Have we arrived too late? Cop life tends to dry up your tear ducts, but my eyes are blurry now as I tear off the sheet and stuff it in my pocket in case it’s any use.
Harper is limp and warm in my arms, breathing evenly as I race with her down the corridor.
I can’t get her insensible body over the razor-topped wall, so the only way out for us is through the front.
I shoulder my way between huddled staff massed in the lobby area, scientist-types peering around stressed security guards, plainly uncertain how much of a threat Lachlan poses.
In front of the door are Delacourt and Barr.
Beyond them, Lachlan stands with something in his outstretched hand.
At first I think it’s a gun, then realise it’s a phone.
He’s livestreaming this whole confrontation.
There’s no chance now my presence here will go unnoticed by my higher-ups back home, but after what I’ve seen, I no longer care.
‘I’ve got her!’ I shout the minute the automatic doors slide open for me. ‘Lachlan, I’ve got her.’
He looks up as I dash forward. Harper is cradled in my arms, her head lolling limply against my neck. I hadn’t thought about the optics of it, but she almost looks … dead.
Frey lets out a piercing cry, drops the phone and runs to me. He gathers Harper into his arms and his horror is so apparent I choke up.
The world needs to see this. I snatch up the phone, turn it on him, and keep filming as he lays his daughter tenderly on the ground and checks her over. He swipes with the back of his hand at his eyes as he tests her pulse, her breathing. I can see his throat bob as he swallows down hard.
‘What have you done to her?’ he howls, and I hope he forgives me as I zoom in to catch his anguished face. ‘My girl!’
Then it gets worse.
Sarah and Naomi must have been following Lachlan’s livestream, because they hurtle to a stop behind us.
Sarah’s cry goes right through me. It’s that of a mother animal seeing her young felled by predators, and I’m suddenly relieved the walls here deaden magic because Sarah Fenn looks ready to hex every person here to the ground.
I keep filming. This needs to be seen.
‘She’s still breathing,’ Lachlan tells Sarah. ‘But in here’ – he nods to the walls – ‘I can’t tell what they’ve done. Take her and go. You’re the Moot now. You need to keep your hands clean. I’m looking forward to getting mine dirty.’
Sarah nods. Slight thought she is, Harper isn’t easy for her to carry, but grief and rage give Sarah strength, and she lifts her daughter, staggers – then flees.
I pray to heaven she can still detect Harper’s magic, or there’s no telling what she might do.
But for now, Lachlan is an avenging army all on his own.
‘Naomi, take over filming,’ he instructs. ‘Maggie, cover me. This place is an abomination, not fit to exist, and I’m going to fix that.’