Modern Pantheon: Ghost Read online

  Chapter 9

  From the case files of Special Agent L. Garrison

  Supernatural Investigations Department:

  Name: Lance Ruben

  Occupation: Investor/Trader/Entrepreneur/Gambler

  Threat Level: High

  Mr. Ruben came up as a person of interest during my investigation of the Warehouse incident, which occurred in a warehouse owned by a subsidiary of a company funded by a company that he owns. He keeps his financial situation purposely obscure and hard to follow.

  Mr. Ruben resides at a penthouse in Saint Paul. Roughly four-hundred people live in that complex, but there's still a lot I don't know about it. For one, all residents speak a foreign language I can't recognize, and while I have no proof to back this claim, the resident’s confrontational demeanor gave me the impression they were involved in organized crime.

  He (or rather, various organizations he owns and operates) also donated billions of dollars to the Cane Industries research and development department. Specifically, he's interested in something called "Project Zeus" although I have yet to get a straight answer from Cane Industries R&D as to what that project actually entails.

  As it turns out, police reports confirmed James’s story. We spent a few hours at Lara’s office, where I jumped at the chance to use free Internet. When the afternoon began turning toward evening, we decided to leave.

  The drive only lasted about thirty minutes, which was about thirty minutes shorter than when I drove to the Minneapolis earlier that day. The Cane Industries Headquarters shot up high above the Mississippi, not quite lost in the forest of slightly shorter buildings. I presumed Lara knew her way, because she just drove right there, down one ways and through traffic as though she learned how to drive in downtown. If it were me, I’d be a whirlwind of curse-words.

  Eventually, we’d driven into the Cane Industries Headquarter’s underground lot, and stopped in front of the Valet, who’d taken the car form us. Lara and I cautiously walked inside.

  “Ever been to something like this?” I asked as we headed to the elevator, simply to break the silence.

  “I’ve had a lot of cases, but never something that led me to a party like this.” She slipped her keys into her small, navy handbag that matched her dress. Another maroon-vested man awaited us at the elevator. When we stepped in, Lara said, “Upper Ballroom, please.”

  “Invitation?”

  She had it ready and in hand. He gazed at it and nodded before giving it back.

  He turned a key on the panel and pressed the button for us, which was always my favorite part of an elevator ride.

  “Tommy?”

  “Yes?” I looked at her as she brushed back a lock of hair.

  I still hadn’t gotten used to seeing her in the silky dress. With the light shade of lipstick and dark eyeliner, she seemed a lot different.

  “You, ah...” she began, looking up at me carefully. “You be careful tonight.”

  I cocked up my eyebrow to her, but left it at that. The elevator doors opened a few seconds later and we stepped out together, scanning the room in a nervous wonder.

  In Minneapolis, I doubted there was a single building that was simply a blocky square, and the Cane Industries Headquarters was no exception. The uppermost floor was a massive pyramid, cut in half from corner to opposite corner.

  From an internal standpoint, the entire room was a right triangle. The ceiling sloped inward until it reached a point in the center of the hypotenuse. We were in the indoor triangle, while a massive, open balcony comprised the other half of the structure. The central wall had a movie-theater sized LCD screen, currently flashing the blue and white Cane Industries Logo. As for the room itself, it was the kind of place I’d have imagined Frank Sinatra performing. The white stage along the central wall circled around a short podium. The angled ceiling above reflected every light in its glossy, windowed surface.

  But the most intimidating factor in all of this was definitely the people. I was dead wrong about Lara’s dress. ‘Sexy’ as I initially found it, it was actually among the tamest of them in the mix. Most of them were clearly custom made, sparkling like daylight and fitting to their bodies like they were painted on. The woman nearest us wore a burgundy dress, slit to show off her side almost to her hip.

  “Wow.” Lara said beside me, echoing my feelings.

  “You made it,” Cameron said over the polite murmurs of the crowd, somehow popping up from the nearest table of hors d’oeuvres. “Good.”

  “Nice party,” I told him.

  “Yeah? Well this side of my family is a pretty tame bunch,” he smirked slightly, as though telling me some subtle joke. “I see you got the formal ware without problem.”

  “You may take that out of the bill,” Lara said quickly.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s a bonus,” he said, walking us inside. Cautiously, Lara slipped her hand into my elbow as we walked deeper into the formal chaos.

  “You think anyone will be suspicious that a couple of P.I.s are here?” I muttered quietly to him.

  “Only if you tell them what you are. Even the Canes don’t know most the people around here. If anyone asks, just be vague and say you’ve got an interest in investing in Cane Industries, but I doubt anyone will. The only reason the turnout is so good is because everyone’s looking to snoop around for information on Emmitt’s death, anyway. Usually, we only get the board and their families to come. So, you met with James?”

  “Yeah.” I said, shaking my head. “He’s not the guy. At least, that’s what I think. He’s not directly related to Daddy Cane – never was. He gets nothing out of the murder.”

  “Yeah?”

  Lara spoke up before I could elaborate. “Excuse me Mr. Cane, but I have–”

  “Cameron,” he corrected her with a pleasant smile.

  “Cameron. I have a question that I just feel I must ask,” Lara asked briskly.

  “Go ahead.”

  “What is your interest in this case?” she asked in the tone of an accusation.

  “My interest? I thought that was obvious,” he said.

  “Still, I want to know.”

  “My uncle was murdered, and the police aren’t helping,” Cameron said.

  “And from the sound of it you’re hardly in contact with the people involved of the case. You didn’t know that James was adopted.”

  He stopped walking and faced her. “You know, Lara, the tone of your voice makes think I’m a suspect.”

  I’d already been fired once, and wouldn’t let it to happen again. I choose to jump in. “I’m sorry, Cameron. That’s not what we believe.”

  A subtle smile appeared. “It’s okay. I pay you to investigate, and you’re just looking from every angle. You’re right. I hardly know the rest of the Canes, but Emmitt and I have a history. To elaborate, I can tell you that my grandfather is the brother of Fredrick Cane, the victim’s father. Which means that Fredrick is my great uncle, and his kids, Emmitt included, are my second cousins. Honestly, I doubt James and Daniel even know who I am, but Emmitt helped me out of a few years ago.”

  Swirling his Champaign as we walked, he leaned close. “Whereas this side of the family has enough money to make wallpaper made of nothing but Ben Franklins, my other side didn’t have it as well. As a freshman in high school, my dad got caught embezzling and spent the next five years in the Federal Penitentiary. That’s why I know Uncle Emmitt, as I erroneously call him. He reached out to me and let me live in the Cane Manor with him until I was eighteen. He paid for private boarding schools, clothes, food, everything. We hardly share blood, but he is my family, and after the kindness he offered me, the very least I can do is uncover the truth behind his murder. So, that is why I came to you.”

  The two of us just stood there for a second, while Cameron waited for her to respond.

  She nodded a skeptic’s nod.

  “So, you don’t think James is the one,” Cameron said, gracefully changing the topic.

  “I c
hecked with his alibi before I came, and it checks out.” Lara said. “He spent the night in jail after starting a fight in a bar. He did mention a suspect, though. Kelly Freidman. Ever heard of her?”

  “His wife?” Cameron said, peering around the crowd, as though searching for her. “Why her?”

  “Because she ran, and because I think she had a reason to hate him. James gets thirty grand, but only if he divorces her. Meanwhile, Kelly ran off the day before the murder. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in it only for the money. When she found out James wasn’t getting anything, she killed Emmitt and ran.”

  “I hate to throw a wrench into your plans, but she didn’t run very far. She’s here. I saw her earlier – red dress. Attractive, but plain. Hard to miss. I only met her once, and only for a minute, but she seemed the type.” Cameron said. “That’s her, over there.”

  I glanced over towards the podium, where a woman in a dull, red dress gripped tightly onto another man’s sleeve with dirt-stained nails. Whereas everyone else in the majestic crowd seemed eager to show off their best attire, she appeared to have begrudgingly dragged her only, barely suitable dress from the closet. “That’s Daniel she’s with – the other brother.”

  Digging tighter into Daniel’s arm, Kelly yanked Daniel around, spinning him as a strict disciplinarian would a worried child. He pulled nervously away, stepping away as she frantically persisted toward him.

  Ten feet away from them, a man in a large tux spoke into his collar. I caught Daniel offering a worried shake of his head toward the guard, but a pair of burly men shoved rudely through the crowd, toward the feud.

  “Looks serious,” Lara said. “You thi–”

  “Goddamn it, Thomas!” Bree said, completely rebelling against the timid atmosphere of the otherwise quiet room. Her tall heels clicked angrily toward me. Paul Ingram, the replacement me, tried to keep up as she raged. The caveman in me couldn’t help but notice that Bree looked simply spectacular in her dress. It was a lot simpler than most, and far less showy. Sure, the sleeves were long and loose. The skirt draped down past her knees, making it the longest dress in the place. Bree always had a bit of a seventies flare about her. She stood out like an acoustic guitarist at an electronica concert, but I liked it.

  But despite her attire, she may as well have been an advertisement for a dominant, law-enforcement agency anyway. The velvet material was cop-uniform blue. Her strawberry blonde flowed behind her as she walked, which showed off the soft, yet currently angry jaw line. “I told you to stay out of this.”

  Lara and Cameron shuffled back in unison, leaving me to face her alone. “Did you? I must have ignored that. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “Your mere presence here is enough to arrest you. If you had any brainpower at all you would have–”

  “Already told you, Bree.” I stepped closer, showing off what I hoped was an equally angry face. “When I find out the truth, I’ll let you in on it. Hell, I’ll even give you credit. How does that sound?”

  “This is a private party. How’d you even get in here?” she demanded.

  “He’s here by my invitation,” Cameron said.

  “And who the hell are you?” She turned to him.

  Cameron met her gaze and withstood it without so much as a twitch. Summing her up, his mouth gave a half smile a polite nod.

  “Thomas, go home. Now,” Bree said.

  “I haven’t even had a glass of wine yet.”

  Her eyes flared at me, as anger poured out of them. “You know what? Grab him,” Bree said to Ingram. “Thomas, you’re under arrest.”

  My companions reacted simultaneously. Cameron stepped in front of Ingram. Lara, in a flare of navy brilliance stepped between Bree in I. Staring at Bree over Lara’s head, I saw my step-sister jab her finger into Bree’s chest “Listen, bitch. We’re here for the same reason you are, and we haven’t broken any laws. Get over it.”

  Bree bit her lip, suffocating in frustration. Ingram stood before Cameron, rubbing his hands together nervously as Cameron calmly said, “she’s got a point.”

  With a face as red as her hair, Bree spun and walked away.

  The moment they were out of earshot, I exhaled. “Great – the last people I wanted to see. How the hell did they get in here?”

  “Laws? Arrest?” Cameron shrugged. “You sure you don’t have something you’re not telling me about this case?”

  I just stared dumbly for a second, but Lara fumed toward him instead. “Mind your own business.”

  He kept a smile off his lips, but his eyes glinted in amusement. “But needless to say, I think it’s clear that I’m not the only person interested in my uncle’s death.”

  Lara didn’t answer, and I didn’t dare answer for her when she was this annoyed, so I shifted my attention back to Kelly Freidman. She was in the same place, glaring up to the stage. Daniel, however, was not. It only took me a second to find him behind the podium, the focal point of the room.

  “Your lady-friend seems to be leaving,” Cameron said, nodding at the opposite side of the room. I glanced over, and Cameron was right. Bree was right next to the emergency exit on the far side of the room. She stopped, just outside it, however.

  “Ladies and gentleme–,” the nervous voice of Daniel Cane pounded through a loudspeaker. A squeal of feedback cut off the end of the phrase, and continued as he tapped the mic a few times.

  Something about the area made my instincts buzz. Maybe it was just the dim lighting and an atmosphere that I was unaccustomed to, but something here was emanating power. It grazed my skin, like vapor in a sauna, except with an ominous chill. I glanced at Kelly Freidman hoping it was my imagination bringing about the unsafe dread as I activated my Vision. Thankfully, it had no obvious effect.

  “Guests, welcome. I’d like to, ahh, thank all of, um, you for coming. This of course is the Cane Industries bi-annual ceremony.” I felt empathetic pain for the guy as I continued scanning the crowd. His words squirmed out through is lips as awkwardly as his over-gelled hairstyle. “We run this for our investors and, umm, all of you who helped Cane Industries have another record-breaking year on so many levels. Fi-Fiscally, we’ve, grown a full thirteen percent in the past twelve months, and, none of this could have been possible without the aid of people like you. Yet as you all know, this is offset by a tragedy. But through this, err, tragedy we wish to introduce a...”

  A muffled pop sent a tangible wave of power through me. Enough so that I could feel the effects ripple through all my senses, even those that weren’t magically in-tune. Pure energy reverberated through my body like I was inside a massive subwoofer.

  But worse than that was the light that accompanied the waves of power. Completely dominating my vision, its massive intensity dried my eyes. As quickly as I could muster, I deactivated my vision, but the abrupt surprise was enough to keep me staring at nothing but the after-glow, blinking. Cursing silently for not having a decent weapon, I felt my ring grow cool around my finger. Lara gripped my elbow tightly as I blinked away the spears in my eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Lara asked. “You okay?” It took me a second, but I still heard Daniel’s nervous stammers in the background.

  “You didn’t feel that?” I half-shouted, wondering why Lara wasn’t panicking. “Don’t activate your vision!”

  Being able to attune your senses to magic is a nifty trick, and extremely useful once you learn how to do it. Some mages, even the best of them, never master the exact methods, and I’ve only touched upon the talent. However, there’s a definite downside to using the Vision. It’s not seeing Magic so much as it’s blocking out the Equilibrium, like looking at a single star, rather than the night sky it resides in. The equilibrium keeps things in balance, and prevents one star from glowing too brightly.

  To summarize, I opened up a hole in my defense, and someone poked it.

  I thought I’d gone blind. The only thing I could see, or couldn’t see, was darkness. It took me a second to be able to
focus on a few flickers of candlelight. That’s when I realized that someone cut electricity to the building. But soon, even the dim candles flickered out as the magic blew past them like a gust of wind.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Lara. “See anything?”

  “What am I looking for?” Cameron asked. “Never mind. Found it. There’s a ghost.”

  “Ghost? Same one that killed Gregory?” I asked.

  “Large and hairy?” he asked.

  “Same one,” I said.

  Nearby, someone gasped. A second later, someone let out a muffled scream, as though they didn’t quite know what it was they were seeing. Still blinking, I focused on a luminous glow behind the fading red circle in my vision.

  The ghost was back, and this time the killer was getting cocky.

  “Thomas, do something!” Lara said.

  “Like what?”

  “Work together?” she suggested. “Summon it ourselves and overpower the caster?”

  “The only way we could overpower him is to pump more juice into the spell than the bad guy. That ghost only appears with the intent to kill, so best we could do is change the target.” I told her, quickly.

  The ghost hung silently, his head a few feet higher than the rest of the crowd. One silvery hand was upraised and shaking, straining in effort. Near Daniel, several objects lifted from the two nearest hors d’oeuvres tables – a couple of butter knives, a two pronged fondue fork, and the heavy pot of chocolate that simmered on the edge of a boil.

  “Lara!” I said. “What’s the name of the Gregory’s daughter?”

  “Bett– Thomas, no!”

  “Hey asshole!” I pointed at the ghost as I stepped forward, mentally opening myself up to the ghost as I empowered my words. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m the one sleeping with Betty!”

  The ghost stopped hovering toward Daniel, who stood hunched behind the podium. Slowly, menacingly, he turned its intense stare to rest squarely on me. Baring his teeth in a feral snarl, the ghost speared directly through the parting crowd, whipping toward me. His groan, full of both anguish and murderous intent, chilled the room as he reared toward me.

  The fondue pot, too far from me to make a difference, simply dropped. Searing chocolate sprayed across the rest of the treats, ruining most while making others even more delightful. Someone howled in pain as the hot liquid splattered across them.

  By now, an aisle parted as people shoved their way frightfully out of the maddened ghost’s path. Bringing to mind my most practiced spells, I empowered my ring and focused the energy within.

  “Ventus Pulsis!”

  A wide wall of particles hardened into a crystalline barrier, which blasted directly into the ghost. His mats of hair flourished up behind him, but it didn’t even slow his approach. Instead, he made a fist with one hand and twisted.

  I bit down in pain as my finger popped like chicken bone under a hammer.

  I tried to redirect it by ordering it to attack me – not that guy standing right here, but me. While this allowed me to pour a lot of my own will into the ghost, thus taking control, it also opened me up to a direct assault, which he exploited through my ring on my hand. Grasping my pounding hand against my chest, I mentally revoked permission.

  “It’s her!” Lara said, sprinting past the ghost and toward the door.

  “Huh,” I said, stepping forward. I followed her gaze to see Kelly Freidman hurrying away. A piercing, monotone alarm should have sounded as she burst through the emergency exit, but since there was no power, there was no alarm.

  But before I got further, the ghost stopped right in front of me. He had his mouth open in a vengeful wale, casting echoes through the dark chamber. My panicking mind tried to calm down enough to consider my options. Squeezing my eyes shut and thoroughly regretting my plan, I charged forward toward the exit on a crash course that took me directly through the ghost’s chest.

  Death itself made contact with my skin. My every nerve prickled. My skin seemed to want to curl into itself. But other than that I got through just fine. Gregory Scythe’s terrifying bellow momentarily died.

  But just as Lara got to the exit, Bree caught her in a sidelong tackle, throwing them both over the chocolate-covered hors d’oeuvres table.

  “Thomas, stop!” Bree shouted, shoving Lara away as she pulled a slender wand from her purse.

  “Go!” Lara shouted, throwing her small body into Bree’s arm. Bree gripped Lara by the hair along the side of her head as I passed, and twisted her body in a way that thrust Lara to the ground, but I didn’t have time to see if Lara recovered.

  “Go!” Cameron also shouted, heading to Lara’s side. To my enormous surprise, he ripped Bree’s wand from her hand the moment he got there, whipping it over the crowd and across the room. “Find Kelly!”

  Then, I spotted Ingram, pushing two women out of his way. My brain decided to stay and make sure any innocents didn’t get caught in the crossfire. My instincts, meanwhile, were afraid of Ingram. Instincts took over, and I bolted toward the emergency exit, after Kelly Freidman.

  With an afterthought, I touched my ring to the door’s handle when I got to it and said ‘three seconds,’ in Latin as I thought of a spell that would make the handle red hot. Then, I flung myself out the door.

  The ballroom was a vision of perfection. However, the staircase was a drab example of mediocrity and gray dullness. If it weren’t for one entire wall being a slightly reflective window, it’d be completely unremarkable. The emergency stairwell was a square, spiraling staircase that led all the way to ground level.

  I stopped only to look down the center of the staircase, which dropped nearly endlessly.

  Someone only a foot behind me howled painfully into my ears, “You have no right!”

  I jumped like a kid in a haunted house. The ghost of Gregory Scythe wafted through the door, still snarling in anger. However, one advantage to such a dull room was a complete lack of ammunition to throw at me.

  I started sprinting down the staircase, trying my best to ignore the pulsing pain in my finger.

  Kelly Freidman’s footsteps echoed up from a couple floors down. Her heels clicked in a stead, high beat. Running down after her, trying to ignore the frustrating pain of my finger, I shouted, “Kelly, stop!”

  She slammed her weight into the floor below us, but it was locked. As I rounded down the first of several stairs, noting a big, number fifty-three as I went.

  Rather than following directly, the ghost hovered down the hole in the center of the stairs, pointing at me as I ran. A floor later, the clicking stopped, but a second later a softer shuffle of bare feet against concrete replaced it. A floor and a half later, I saw discarded high-heels.

  Then, back at the top, something outside the door pounded against the searing handle, but halted before going on. I grinned at my moment of success.

  “Stay away from me,” Kelly shouted up the staircase.

  Back at the top, the door squealed loudly, then tumbled inside. If he kicked it in, he did it like a pro, because I heard the door crack against the railing above. Then, it clattered up and over the railing, where it dropped like an anvil down the square center of the staircase. With a hefty swish, the door slid down through the ghost without him even noticing.

  “Mr. Amberose! Under Imperium Law I order you to surrender!” Ingram stared down over the railing, holding a slender rod in one hand.

  “You have no right!” Gregory shouted.

  I only glanced between floors, but as I did a line of white-hot fire speared toward me in a line. It wasn’t as fast as a bullet, however, and I was well past it before it hit the ground and hissed into concrete floor behind me. However, when I reached the staircase below, I saw it already began melting through and had to dodge as bubbling drop of melted building.

  “No right!” The ghost howled in its berserk rampage.

  “Oh, get over it!” I shouted back.

  Ingram added his rhythm of stomps to the mix.

&nbs
p; Forty... As I ran, I couldn’t help but regret that I didn’t have the money for a membership to a gym.

  Thirty... Time had worn me down months ago, and my lungs sent chilled needles through my windpipe to let me know it. The worst part was that Kelly didn’t seem to be slowing. Nor was Ingram, or the ghost, who howled his signature phrase again a couple more times. I knew I couldn’t keep it up, but forced myself not to stop.

  Twenty...

  Maybe I was dizzy from twirling around each and every floor while a ghost hovered beside me. Maybe it was the fact that my muscles felt like rapidly evaporating whipping cream, but I fell down and rolled to the nineteenth stairwell, and spent the next two stairwells nursing a battered elbow. Worst, I wasn’t any closer to Kelly than I started.

  Ten... By this time, all three of us were beginning to slow. My legs ached, protesting with each new staircase. I hated each new step, but knew I couldn’t stop. I knew I had to outrun the Guardians. Ingram already showed me that failure would be fatal.

  Five. Four. Three.

  Finally, at the second floor, Kelly shoved a door open below and sprinted through it, holding her own side. My knees and ankles had knives in them, and my vision blurred, both form exertion, and from rounding so many corners. With my chest nearing its breaking point, I held my right, non-damaged hand forward and shoved the door open after her, finding my path leading to an open hallway.

  Minnesota was cold in the winter. In order to combat this cold, there’s an entire skyway system that connects most buildings in downtown Minneapolis. In some ways, the skyways are like city streets; fast food chains, flower shops, cafes and convenience stores are on just about every corner – the difference between Minneapolis and, say New York, is that here they’re one floor up. At night, however, the entire system shuts down. Some routes are still open, but all are deserted aside from the occasional cops on patrol. Kelly Freidman was in a full-out, wheezing down the center of the wide, glass-sided tunnel over an empty road.

  “Kelly, sto-aye!” I said, yelping at the sight of my twisted middle finger. It leaned sideways at a thirty-degree angle.

  She stopped at the end of the hallway and turned back. “I’m not Kelly – leave me alone!”

  The ghost flowed past me and between the two of us, his scorn gleaming on his bluish face. The panes of glass began to vibrate as I felt another deadly chill come about. “You...”

  A second later, the door opened again. Ingram stepped out.

  “...Have...”

  For such a small man, Ingram was certainly menacing. He held his focus wand at his side as he stepped forward in his rumpled tuxedo. His eyes twitched angrily as he shouted, “Thomas Amberose! Surrender your focuses and stop running, or I will kill you.”

  “Listen to him, Thomas!” Bree warned from Ingram’s side. It took me a moment to realize she’d taken the elevator and beaten us down.

  “...No...” the ghost continued.

  Around him, the glass vibrated dangerously. His locks of transparent hair flowed behind him as though in some kind of menacing hurricane. His very essence was–

  “Dissupo!” Ingram said with a flick of his wand.

  The ghost faded anticlimactically.

  My footsteps slowed as my lungs heaved a final breath before giving out. I looked back for only a second, and knew that there was no way he’d miss. By the time I turned back toward Kelly she was gone.

  I’d been a Guardian for three years. I knew that he was serious in his death threats. Maybe I could dodge him going down a circular staircase, but not in a confining hallway. The bastard probably wouldn’t lose sleep over it, either.

  I’d just have to explain the truth. I wasn’t guilty, and the proof made that obvious. Turning around and holding my hands up harmlessly, I said, “Fine. You got me.”

  Chapter 10

  Ingram walked slowly toward me, his weapon held toward my chest. “Your Foci. I want them.”

  I gritted my teeth, because I knew what was coming. Mages tended to make notes of the foci of others. It’s good to know what someone can use as a weapon. Since I worked with Bree in the past, I was certain they’d know all of mine. “And your staff – where is it?”

  “About the ring,” I said, avoiding the sight of my crooked finger. “I’ll offer an oath of truth, or disenchant it. But as you can see, I don’t really–”

  “Not good enough. Give me the ring.” I stared at his gray eyes as he licked his lips.

  Clenching my teeth, I readied the power in my ring and focused the chill in my finger. The cold made it numb, and as I cupped my hand around the ring I noticed an unintentional side effect; the heated ring became slightly bigger and more malleable. Still, it felt like I’d exposed my finger to the tracks beneath a roaring train. Determined as I was to hold any pain back, a heinous groan still escaped my lips as I ripped it off my finger.

  Every frantic beat of my heart pulsed through my hand. Blood beat in my finger like my own, internal hammer. In the same motion as taking it off, I just chucked it aside, hoping it’d land in some cranny for him to scope out later. He didn’t even bother to look as he grabbed me harshly by the elbow and ushered me forward.

  Bree took the other side, covered lightly with streaks of chocolate, and a slender aluminum wand in hand.

  “Bree, you saw me up there,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”

  Judging from the ice in her stare, I figured she wasn’t convinced.

  “And Ms. Mercer?” Ingram asked.

  “Got away,” Bree said, her lip raised in distaste.

  “But she’s innoc–”

  “Quiet!” she said, striding quickly over. “Let's go.”

  Ingram grabbed my arm and shoved me back toward the building where it all began. Although I expected to go back toward the door, Bree started down the right hallway, so I figured there was an elevator to the underground parking garage nearby. It wasn’t long before we were in that elevator.

  The second the doors closed on the three of us Ingram said, “This man has friends in high places. They could free him if we let them.”

  She stared at me and bit her lip. “I know.”

  “Maybe I’ll get off easy and they’ll make me quit my job again,” I added. It was totally worth Ingram’s punch to the ribs.

  “He was resisting arrest,” Ingram said. “We could still kill him.”

  Bree met his eyes, as though considering.

  The Bree I used to know would never consider any kind of murderous action. Before, the thought of being arrested brought about fear, but it was an uncertain type of fear. A fear of the unexpected, for I knew the Imperium wouldn’t kill me. They’d take away my magic, maybe. Or, at worst they’d exile me from America and Europe, but not kill me. But when Bree looked at me with eyes I no longer recognized, I wondered how much, if any, of the old Bree was left.

  “Seriously,” I argued, “I know you’re mad at me for what happened to your brother, but the Bree I used to know would never even consider doing what he’s suggesting.”

  The elevator doors opened, but not one of us moved for several seconds. Then, she shoved me forward and said, “We’re going to get the judges to declare his sentence.”

  Bree passed me then, as Ingram jabbed me with his thin, foot long wand. To hide it, he took of his jacket and held it over the weapon.

  This isn’t the end, Thomas – Think! You can get out of this.

  “Bree, I’ll give you my oath.”

  “Oaths can be deceiving. Especially if you had time to prepare.”

  “Which you did,” Ingram said behind me through his thin mustache.

  Oaths were the simplest spells of all – essentially, they were a spoken or written agreement between two people. But like a polygraph, it’s only accurate most of the time. In general, they always work the same. The person giving the Oath says that if he speaks a lie, he gives the interrogator the ability to bypass all magical defenses and directly influence his or her mind and body with magic.
/>   “Besides,” Bree said with all the rage of a bear. “I know they don’t work on you.”

  My fists clenched involuntarily, sending another spike of pain down my finger. During my trial after the warehouse incident, I’d given oath after oath, and I always gave the same answers – the truthful answers. Honestly, I didn’t clearly remember a span of roughly twenty minutes. Not many believe this, since amnesia was about as rare in magical circles as in everyone else's.’ However, that’s the story.

  I happened to know that Bree drove the kind of large SUV that entirely contradicts her liberal characteristics, so I assumed the four-door car we came to was Ingram’s.

  I saw Bree actually smirk for the first time in a year as she said, “You know the drill. I’ll be in here.”

  “Ahh... My favorite part of getting arrested,” I said, throwing as much sarcasm into my voice as possible.

  She didn’t respond as she walked around to the driver’s side of the car and got inside.

  Boy did I hate getting captured by the Guardians. Not only were they good at falsely accusing people of crimes, but they were also good at detaining them. My least favorite part of detainment was checking for Foci.

  A focus could be anything. Wands, Staves and Rods, were the best for combat, since they had an obvious direction made into them. Point and shoot. If security is around, however, something like a staff can be pretty hard to justify. Jewelry was the second most common because it’s small, durable, often made of a single element, and doesn’t make you stand out in a crowd. However, you can program magic into anything. A shirt button, perhaps, or even fabric; if it was never alive, it was fair game.

  I pulled off my tux jacket, mentally promising Cameron I’d pay back every cent to the renter. Then came my shirt. With a cautious glance around the empty parking lot, I did the rest until I was cold and naked. Apparently, they’d expected to make an arrest since they parked on the lowest level, away from all other cars. “I hope you’ve got a spare suit in the car.”

  He shook his head just enough to answer as he opened the back door for me. As I turned to get in, he gripped my bad finger. Pure reaction thrust my elbow back into his stomach, but he was expecting it. He put more pressure onto my hand as he kneed me in my already bruised ribs. Finally, he shoved me headfirst into the back seat, and although I tried to throw my arms in front of me to cushion my fall, the part that slapped onto the leather seat first was my face. I yanked, but my wrists were bound by a pair of handcuffs.

  “Watch your fingers,” Ingram said with a smile as I struggled to turn onto my side and sit up. The door slammed just as I got my foot inside, and he jumped into the passenger seat up front. Ten seconds later, Bree had the car in motion.

  “Don’t use your magic,” Bree warned as she pulled back. “The cuffs will just get tighter. Wouldn’t want a pair of broken wrists, would you?”

  At this late hour, the parking lot was mostly empty. Sadly, I didn’t have the fortune of a manned pay station. Not that it would help, since they’d probably just magic up some way out of any trouble. The back windows were fairly dark, so it was unlikely that anyone would see me in anything less than sunlight anyway. That put my chances of being rescued by a passing stranger down to a very low percentage.

  I ran through my limited options. Above all, there was one I had to avoid at all costs – I could not under any circumstances, stay in their detainment. The Imperium is corrupt. The Judges of the Imperium don’t like me. And worst of all, they already had me pinned as the bad guy. The friends they mentioned only had so much sway, which they’d exerted during the warehouse incident. They both seemed convinced I was the bad guy, which meant that the evidence wouldn’t save me. Therefore, I had to escape.

  I realized Lara was still out there. She’d never had the aptitude of a battlemage, but she was one of the smartest people I knew. Maybe there was a chance she’d solve this thing before they kill me. Or maybe she’d have a tricky way to get me out.

  Or maybe she was elsewhere, panicking as she tried to think of her options. Smart could only get you so far if you can’t apply your knowledge in a pinch. I decided that no matter what, I needed more time.

  A naked backside feels extremely strange on leather. Especially when you’ve built up a sweat by running down fifty plus floors. “You never answered my question yesterday, Bree. How have you been?”

  “Be quiet,” Ingram said.

  “You really can hold a grudge, can’t you?”

  What I needed was some way to get out of this car. As I felt the leather, I knew it simply wouldn’t do. Animal hide wasn’t as immune to magic as an animal would be, but it was resistant.

  I pored through the few spells I knew by rote. At best, I could start the leather on fire. Not very helpful when there’s nothing between it and your bare ass. Then, I felt a cold bit of metal. I nearly broke into a smile as I realized it was the seatbelt hook.

  I remembered Bree’s warning about the cuffs. Apparently, they’d clamp at the first sign of magic. I ground my teeth as I tried to think of a way around it and realized something important. Handcuffs lack both brains and the senses required to detect magic. Sure, if my magic brushed up directly to the magic in the cuffs they’d react, but it was simply impossible to make them detect magic elsewhere.

  Ingram stared at me, careful to keep his gaze well above the belly button while he kept his focus rod aimed at my chest. What I needed was a distraction. Even if I could make the seatbelt hook into a focus, it wouldn’t do me any good with the magical equivalent of a flame-spraying gun aimed at my chest. I needed a distraction big enough to focus Ingram’s attention away from me for just a second.

  “You know, this leather feels weird on my ass,” I shuffled a bit to the side to clarify my point, listening to the squishy, squeaking sounds. Ingram rolled his eyes, and I grabbing the metal head of the seatbelt as he did.

  They didn’t notice. Good. “I didn’t summon the ghost, Bree. I swear it on my magic.”

  “Good for you,” she said.

  I had an idea. A horrible, destined to fail idea.

  I ran it through my mind, trying not to focus on how insane it happened to be. So it might kill me, but what else is new? And even if I did survive, it was all but proving to them that I was guilty. It was insane beyond reason, and even if it distracted them enough for me to make a daring escape, I’d only be throwing myself into more imminent danger.

  But then again, I’m probably going to die if I just sit here.

  We were nearing the bridge over the Mississippi River, which would lead to the highway. If I were to have any chance of escape, I would have to free myself while still in this city. Preferably, before I even got to Bree’s house. So, I stared into the road ahead as I focused my mind.

  I thought about the ghost, and about Gregory Scythe. I envisioned his scraggly locks of grungy hair, and rage that accompanied his every essence. I thought about his insane desire to protect his daughter, and hatred that surely filled his soul. I took a moment to simply let that image solidify in my mind’s eye. Then, keeping that all in my mind I willed myself to entirely believe my next thought.

  Gregory Scythe is just outside of this car.

  I felt the spell work immediately as the air in the car dropped several degrees. A fine mist simply appeared to obscure the street, blocking out even the nearby streetlights. Bree straightened her back, but Ingram was facing me, oblivious to what was in front of us.

  Yes – it worked. His mystical glow illuminated the fog like a second moon, even through the dark fog. The problem was, I hadn’t accounted for all the extra power. Apparently, the new witnesses gave extra fuel for the spell. The dozen or more new believers equated to a lot of spiritual spinach.

  Staring ghostly eyes forward, they locked murderously with mine as the bumper of a nearby car launched toward us and pounded into our car’s windshield.

  Ingram flinched and stared forward as I focused my entire brain on the metal seatbelt. Thankfully, it was
of one of the alloys I knew. Pushing physics aside, I grabbed the plastic end of the hook as I touched the metal to the cuffs. Throwing more magic into the seatbelt hook than ever before, making it colder than anything I ever had, I refocused the temperature to approach absolute zero.

  This time, a plastic jug holding a gallon of milk simply flung out of the mist. It came from who-knows-where and simply exploded across the windshield, covering it in blinding, white cream. Bree squealed on the breaks as I felt condensation freeze the bands around my wrist.

  I ground my teeth against the jolts of pain. It felt like I’d thrown my wrists over an open flame. Knowing I’d held the metals together for long enough, I yanked my arms apart. Like they were made of brittle taffy, the cold metal chain shattered apart at the center link. I grabbed Ingram’s thin wand before anything else. The second I shoved it away from my face, it sprayed another bout of flame, melting a hole in the glass behind me.

  “Stren–” he began, but I grabbed his nose and twisted, three stooges style. It’s hard to finish a verbal spell when someone’s gotcher schnoz. Besides, Streinuus is Quazi-Latin for activate. Since I still had the bands of the enchanted cuffs on my wrists, they could probably still clamp like the jaws of a snapping turtle and end my plight for freedom before I was out of the car.

  The car jerked madly as something hit it near the rear end. Our vehicle slid diagonally to the side, and for a few seconds it wobbled as though entertaining the thought of flipping onto its top. Without my seatbelt, I was thrown onto my side, where I landed on what felt like a white-hot poker.

  It’s strange – when things get cold beyond the point of human tolerance, touching them feels more like a burn than anything else. Howling in sudden pain, I realized I was sitting on the car’s frozen buckle.

  Even in my bout of panic, it only took a stray thought to revert it back to normal temperature now that it was a focus, but I doubted I’d be able to sit for a week, assuming I live through this.

  Just as I recovered composure, the car shuffled in the opposite direction as Bree struggled for control. I slammed against the back of Bree’s seat in my struggle to prevent myself from face planting down behind the driver’s seat.

  Ingram turned back to me, so I used the one advantage I had – I lifted my legs and thrust my heel toward his face. He put up his hands and blocked it, but my second kick knocked into his temple, and he spun woozily before slumping against the dashboard. His weapon fell somewhere between the seats. I knew I wouldn’t get a better chance, so I tried the unlocked door, cursing as I realized the child protection lock was on and keeping me in.

  “Damn it, Thomas! The hell do you think you’re doing!” Bree shouted as a hefty rock sprang off the windshield, leaving a spider web of blinding cracks.

  “Kelly Freidman summoned the ghost – not me. The ghost exists because a bunch of people believes it does. Google a man named Gregory Scythe, and you’ll see. Let me go and I’ll prove I’m innocent.”

  “You’ll die out there alone!” Bree said, glancing out at the maddened ghost.

  “I didn’t think you’d care about that,” I shouted as I grabbed the focused seatbelt hook.

  I didn’t know that many spells on the fly, but a blast of force was one of them. With my ring I could have done it the first try, but with two quick blasts I blew the door of the car cleanly off its hinges. It flew without grace into a lamppost and crumbled to the ground loudly. “Stop the car, Bree!”

  I sat up and met her eyes in the rear-view mirror. She looked terrified, but not for her own life. If I had to, I’d jump out of the moving car, and she knew it. It was, after all, a fate better than a trial with the Imperium.

  Ingram pushed himself slowly up, and my time was up. With an effort not to look down at the road as it sped by I readied my legs to spring out.

  Before I could, Bree slammed on the breaks, launching Ingram into the dashboard again.

  I didn’t take time to regain my composure. The last thing I heard before stepping barefoot and bare-assed onto the sandy pavement was Bree swearing at me.

  Overall, it was my best escape ever. I still had the ghost charging after me, and there was no doubt that the flame-throwing pyromaniac would join the fray in a heartbeat, but I was alive. Oh, and I was still naked, but you just have to deal with life one problem at a time.