Chapter 25 #4
On the other: I, Peter William Blackwell, vow to work on my assigned project to the greatest possible extent of my abilities, as rapidly as possible, until those supervising me declare the assignment to be complete.
I further vow to take no actions intended to prevent the completion of that assignment to the satisfaction of those supervising me.
Then it occurred to him—the one way he might still get Draden under a Vow. He held out a hand and said, “I need a pen.”
Draden handed him one. Peter drew a line between “no” and “actions” on the vice president’s contract and wrote “direct or indirect.” He drew another line after “I further vow not to order anyone else to take actions intended to harm her” and added “in any way, and vow I will proactively tell anyone likely to harm her that I will ensure the stiffest possible prosecution if they take such actions. Finally, I vow to follow through on such threats if any harm to Beatrix Jane Blackwell is nevertheless carried out.”
He handed it back to Draden and frowned at the contract they expected him to sign. The words flickered until he blinked, hard, to force his eyes to focus.
“It needs an end date,” he said.
“No,” said Draden, not looking up from the other contract.
“I’m not signing something so open-ended. What’s to keep you from altering my assigned ‘project’?”
Draden gave him a look of pure exasperation.
“Fine. I’ll clarify it. But you have to clarify that my only obligations regarding ‘anyone likely to harm’ your wife are people specifically working on my behalf.
I don’t want to be compelled to run off to your little town if I get word that someone there is plotting to keep her from”—he waved a hand dismissively—“winning a pie-baking contest.”
Peter glared at the man. Pie-baking contest, indeed. “Fine.”
They exchanged their contracts, altered them and exchanged them again.
The new language on the paper Peter was expected to sign specified, in long, elegant handwriting, that the assignment was “to increase the explosive scope of Project 96 to a five-mile blast radius.” His stomach clenched.
Five miles? The explosion they’d tested behind his back was a mile and a half.
“I don’t think it’s possible to get an explosion of that—”
“I’m not changing it,” Draden said. “Or anything else. Do we have a deal?”
Peter schooled his face into an expression he hoped gave nothing away.
“Yes,” he said. “You first.”
Draden raised an eyebrow. He took both contracts, copied them out on blank paper, and brought them back to Peter to look over.
The contract for him to sign was identical to the revised version.
The vice president’s had an extra sentence, and he could feel the blood draining from his face as he read it: This contract is contingent upon Peter William Blackwell taking a Vow to Gerald Anthony Morse; otherwise, it is null and void.
Shit, shit, shit.
He had no idea Vows could have contingency clauses. Martinelli would have known that—Martinelli had known so many things he wished he’d asked about.
Draden thrust a pen at him. “Sign.”
Mechanically, he did. Morse was already setting down demarcation stones in overlapping circles. He couldn’t think of a way out. Refusing at this stage—even if he promised to work on the weapon—seemed like a very bad idea. But what would they do when he couldn’t complete his Vow?
Draden stepped into a circle. Peter positioned himself in the other one, thinking of Beatrix. Nine months ago, she stood in the interlocking circles to make a Vow similar to the one he now faced—to work against her will for someone she despised.
As he watched Draden cast the spell and eat the pomegranate pips, Peter wondered how much of this current hell was something he’d set in motion by leaving the Pentagram and refusing to come back.
“Now your turn,” Draden said, snapping him from that miserable thought to the original one—that he couldn’t see a Vow through.
Draden stepped out of the circle. Morse stepped in and grabbed Peter’s hand, letting him feel the protection spell before dropping three leaves in his palm. A warning: Don’t bother.
Peter looked at the fuel in his trembling hand, blood racing through his veins, and thought of the test he passed against all odds at thirteen.
It was obvious what he had to do: Believe.
Believe with all his might that he could cast this spell.
And why not? He hadn’t tried to work any magic for, what, two days now?
For all he knew, he just needed that extra time.
He cleared his throat. “Ic gehāte!”
Nothing happened.
“Ic gehāte!” he called out again, willing a spark of magic to rush down his arm. “Ic gehāte—Ic gehāte!”
No response.
“See, Morse,” Draden drawled from the corner of the room, where he was leaning against the desk, “this is what you get when you rough a man up and leave him tied to a chair for hours. He fails to … perform.”
That assumption was better than the truth. But the dark amusement in Draden’s voice—and the double entendre he clearly meant—made Peter’s face flush hot. Morse said nothing, his own face a blank.
“How about some food and rest, then?” Peter snapped.
“Keep going,” Draden said, waving a hand. “It’ll take eventually.”
So Peter kept trying, with the same lack of results. He said the spellwords over and over, weak with fatigue and despair—the threadbare hope he’d managed to wrap around himself utterly gone.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Draden said finally, whatever enjoyment he’d wrung from the scene wearing thin. “Pathetic. Wrap this up, Morse.”
Peter caught a flash of red in Draden’s hand. The vice president teleported out with a pop.
The next moment Morse caught his casting arm in a painful grip, dragging him into the other circle, putting them toe to toe. God, how tall was the man? Bigger than Garrett, surely—
“When he tells me to wrap things up,” Morse said, barely above a whisper, more words than Peter had ever heard him utter, “he doesn’t care how.”
Peter swallowed. “I’m not doing it on purpose. This day has been—”
“Do you know what I think? I think that has nothing to do with it.” Morse stared down at him.
Peter’s heart foundered, less at the look than at the track Morse was on.
“I followed you for weeks and didn’t see you work a single spell.
You ran at that wizard who attacked you.
It’s as if you came out of that coma a typic. ”
“What? No,” Peter said, panic making his voice shake.
“And it occurs to me,” the wizard said, still in that unnerving whisper, “that it’s very interesting, your one condition for accepting the omnimancing job. Brewing is done without witnesses. Someone else could be casting the spells for you in that house of yours.”
“That’s a patently ridiculous—”
“Someone,” Morse went on inexorably, “like your wife.”
As soft as they were, the words seemed to echo in the room.
What could he do?
Befuddled—act befuddled. He tried to arrange his facial muscles accordingly and had no idea if he succeeded. “Perhaps it’s escaped your notice,” he said, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears, “but my wife is a woman.”
“The Pentagram has a copy of the report about women. It shouldn’t have been filed where you’d have access to it, but it was, and you came across it at some point. Didn’t you.”
“What report?” Only Morse’s grip on his shoulder was keeping him on his feet. “What are you talking about?”
“You know all about it. And you conspired with her to break federal law.”
“I never—”
“You threatened everything, everything, by teaching her.”
“You’re not making any sense! Women can’t do magic!”
Morse leaned closer, his exhalations tickling Peter’s ear. “She has leaves in her pockets.”
“Because she’s my assistant. I’m always asking her to hand me the proper number so I don’t have to count them out.”
“This has happened before, you know. Every so often a wizard gets the bright idea to teach his wife, or his mistress, because who’s going to find out and my, wouldn’t the sex be good.” His lips thinned. “Do you know what I do to those people?”
The question hung in the air. Peter stared at him in horror. Whenever he’d imagined getting caught, he pictured a closed trial and prison time, perhaps with Vows to ensure silence. But clearly …
“I kill them,” Morse said slowly, enunciating each word.
Every muscle in Peter’s body was trembling. The shaky sound of his own breathing echoed in the deathly quiet. “I’m telling you,” he said, “I can’t cast at the moment because you’ve put me through the worst day of my life. Give me food and a bed and try me again tomorrow.”
Morse glared at him. Peter forced himself to hold his gaze, heart thudding in his ears.
“Fine,” the wizard said.
That solved nothing, of course. Merely bought a little time before the inevitable disaster.
Morse dragged him over to the telephone. Again he spoke just one word into the receiver: “Ready.” They stood there for upwards of a minute, Morse holding the phone to his ear, waiting for something. Then Peter heard a faint answer in return: “Ready.”
The teleportation came on so fast that his head spun. He had the impression of a dark hallway. He smelled more than saw the puff of leaf smoke that was Morse casting another spell, heard the creak of a door opening and stumbled into more darkness as Morse pushed him forward.
Someone groaned and cursed.
“Go away.” A male voice, hoarse. “It’s the middle of the blasted night.”
Peter’s heart seized up. It—it couldn’t be.
“I can’t work on your wretched weapon if you’re depriving me of sleep, you philistines,” the man added.
“Martinelli?”
A small light switched on. Martinelli, alive, slouching on a bare cot, stared back at him.
“Oh hell,” his former deputy said. “They got you, too.”