My body shook under the strain. She was wrapping her will around me. I felt myself unraveling, retreating further and further into the center of myself.
The light of my sisters waned.
I had to win. I would win. I had to know who the invisible puppeteer was, pulling all of the strings behind the scenes. I had to meet Caesar, because if I failed, he would keep sending people after my family. I had to know.
More chains spun out of the darkness, trying to contain me.
No. You won’t bind me. You can’t control my mind. I’ll be free.
I pushed. I had to win.
The first chain snapped, breaking. Then another and another.
Nobody controls me except me.
The chains broke. The other glowing figure screamed. My magic reached out and gulped her in a single swallow. The cavern exploded around us, shattering.
I opened my mouth and let my magic speak. “How do I open this door?”
“There is a panel on the left side,” Olivia Charles’ wooden voice replied from some hidden speaker. “The code is 31BC.”
The year the Roman Empire was born.
Rogan opened the panel and entered the code. Something clanged within the wall. It slid aside a couple of inches and stopped.
“Why didn’t the door open?” A low gnawing ache began within me. My magic still wasn’t at one hundred percent after I had drained myself down to nothing shocking David Howling. I was about to run out of power.
“I’ve disabled the mechanism from the inside.”
“We’re out of time.” Rogan raised his hand. “Are you clear?”
I let go, pulling my magic back to me. “Yes.”
The section of the wall trembled. Hairline cracks split it with a thunderous snap. The separate chunks of the wall shivered and streaked between us in a controlled starburst, revealing a small room. Inside it within an amplification circle stood Olivia Charles. Her gaze fastened on me. “You!”
“Me.”
Her gaze shifted to Rogan. “Enjoy your pitiful triumph. It won’t last.”
I reached out and looked into her mind. Crap.
“She’s been hexed,” I said. “She has what we need, but it will take a lot of time to pull it out.”
“How much time?” Rogan asked.
“Days.” It would take me that long to regenerate enough magic to take her hex apart.
“No,” Cornelius said in his eerie voice, his word suffused with emotion. “She murdered my wife.”
Conflict churned in Rogan’s eyes. We needed Olivia. We needed her badly.
The muscles on his jaw locked.
He’d promised.
Rogan opened his mouth. “I stand by my word. She is yours.”
“Let her go,” Cornelius told me.
I released her. Another moment and I would’ve lost my hold.
Cornelius looked at Olivia, his face pale. “You took Nari’s life away from her. You took my wife away from me. You took the mother from my child.”
Olivia sneered at him. “What will you do, you pathetic little man? You’re not even a Prime. Will you summon a litter of puppies to lick me to death? Go on. Show me.”
“When my grandfather came to this country,” Cornelius said, “he took a new name, one that would be familiar to his new countrymen.”
Olivia crossed her arms on her chest.
“Our real last name isn’t Harrison. It’s Hamelin.”
A low sound like the noise of a waterfall came from behind us, insistent and oddly disturbing.
“We’re not named for the place where we were born. We’re named for the place where years before Osiris serum was discovered our ancestor became infamous for his magic.”
Cornelius opened his mouth and sang a long wordless note. A black wave burst into the room. It shifted and moved, charging forward, not uniform, but made of thousands of tiny bodies.
Olivia Charles screamed, terror raw in her voice.
Cornelius’ voice rose, commanding and beautiful. It reached right into your chest, took your heart into a cold fist, and held it still. The wave surged between us and swarmed Olivia, burying her body. She shrieked and flailed, but the rats kept coming, thousands and thousands of them, until she became a swirling mound of fur. There was nothing I could do but stand there and listen to her being eaten alive while the Pied Piper of Houston sang like an angel, mourning the love of his life.
I sat in my office and watched the correspondents on Eyewitness News lose all cool over a still shot of Olivia Charles’ skeletal remains. How they had gotten it, I had no idea. Houston PD had that scene wrapped up tighter than a straitjacket. By the time we exited the building, my sisters were gone and the majority of the fortress guards with them. SWAT found them later, wandering through the brush, weeping, and telling stories of the girl and a thing that stole her. Nobody could adequately describe the thing, only that it was huge and monstrous, which was just as well. We’d dodged the bullet.
Lenora demanded Rogan’s and Cornelius’ presence for a debriefing and mounds of paperwork. I wasn’t invited, for which I was grateful. I went home, hugged my sisters, ordered pizza, and fell asleep on the couch before it arrived. It was afternoon now—I had slept straight through the morning and would’ve slept longer, but Grandma Frida got worried and put ice on my face to make sure I “wasn’t in a coma.” It was time to settle with my client, who was due to walk through my door at any minute. He’d spent the entire day today moving out.
I hadn’t heard from Rogan. No calls, no messages, nothing. It was less than twenty-four hours without contact, but I had the most unsettling sense of déjà vu. He couldn’t disappear on me again.
As if on cue, Cornelius walked through the door separating the office from the rest of the house and knocked on the glass wall of my office.
I clicked off the broadcast on my laptop. “Please, come in.”
He came in and sat in the chair.
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
He thought about it. “Relieved. The anger is gone. All I have left is grief. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad that you’re relieved.”
“If I can ask, why the change of heart?” Cornelius said. “You were adamant before that you didn’t want to contribute to the killer’s death.”
“David Howling sent a death threat to Matilda.”
Cornelius sat up straighter. “Why was I not told?”
“Because it was designed to throw you off balance. I was concerned about your mental state. You weren’t sleeping and you kept carrying mysterious sacks into odd places.”
“They were grain sacks,” Cornelius said. “Rats need a lot of food to grow from a mischief to a swarm.”
“Mischief?”
“That’s the proper term for a group of rats. A pack of dogs, a murder of crows, a mischief of rats. They are misunderstood creatures. In reality, they are intelligent colony animals. Studies have proven that rats will feed caged companions before eating, themselves, for example. But people have an instinctual fear of them, so I kept the exact method of my revenge to myself. And no, I wasn’t unhinged.”
“It was my call and I made it.”
He nodded. “Please continue.”
The light of my sisters waned.
I had to win. I would win. I had to know who the invisible puppeteer was, pulling all of the strings behind the scenes. I had to meet Caesar, because if I failed, he would keep sending people after my family. I had to know.
More chains spun out of the darkness, trying to contain me.
No. You won’t bind me. You can’t control my mind. I’ll be free.
I pushed. I had to win.
The first chain snapped, breaking. Then another and another.
Nobody controls me except me.
The chains broke. The other glowing figure screamed. My magic reached out and gulped her in a single swallow. The cavern exploded around us, shattering.
I opened my mouth and let my magic speak. “How do I open this door?”
“There is a panel on the left side,” Olivia Charles’ wooden voice replied from some hidden speaker. “The code is 31BC.”
The year the Roman Empire was born.
Rogan opened the panel and entered the code. Something clanged within the wall. It slid aside a couple of inches and stopped.
“Why didn’t the door open?” A low gnawing ache began within me. My magic still wasn’t at one hundred percent after I had drained myself down to nothing shocking David Howling. I was about to run out of power.
“I’ve disabled the mechanism from the inside.”
“We’re out of time.” Rogan raised his hand. “Are you clear?”
I let go, pulling my magic back to me. “Yes.”
The section of the wall trembled. Hairline cracks split it with a thunderous snap. The separate chunks of the wall shivered and streaked between us in a controlled starburst, revealing a small room. Inside it within an amplification circle stood Olivia Charles. Her gaze fastened on me. “You!”
“Me.”
Her gaze shifted to Rogan. “Enjoy your pitiful triumph. It won’t last.”
I reached out and looked into her mind. Crap.
“She’s been hexed,” I said. “She has what we need, but it will take a lot of time to pull it out.”
“How much time?” Rogan asked.
“Days.” It would take me that long to regenerate enough magic to take her hex apart.
“No,” Cornelius said in his eerie voice, his word suffused with emotion. “She murdered my wife.”
Conflict churned in Rogan’s eyes. We needed Olivia. We needed her badly.
The muscles on his jaw locked.
He’d promised.
Rogan opened his mouth. “I stand by my word. She is yours.”
“Let her go,” Cornelius told me.
I released her. Another moment and I would’ve lost my hold.
Cornelius looked at Olivia, his face pale. “You took Nari’s life away from her. You took my wife away from me. You took the mother from my child.”
Olivia sneered at him. “What will you do, you pathetic little man? You’re not even a Prime. Will you summon a litter of puppies to lick me to death? Go on. Show me.”
“When my grandfather came to this country,” Cornelius said, “he took a new name, one that would be familiar to his new countrymen.”
Olivia crossed her arms on her chest.
“Our real last name isn’t Harrison. It’s Hamelin.”
A low sound like the noise of a waterfall came from behind us, insistent and oddly disturbing.
“We’re not named for the place where we were born. We’re named for the place where years before Osiris serum was discovered our ancestor became infamous for his magic.”
Cornelius opened his mouth and sang a long wordless note. A black wave burst into the room. It shifted and moved, charging forward, not uniform, but made of thousands of tiny bodies.
Olivia Charles screamed, terror raw in her voice.
Cornelius’ voice rose, commanding and beautiful. It reached right into your chest, took your heart into a cold fist, and held it still. The wave surged between us and swarmed Olivia, burying her body. She shrieked and flailed, but the rats kept coming, thousands and thousands of them, until she became a swirling mound of fur. There was nothing I could do but stand there and listen to her being eaten alive while the Pied Piper of Houston sang like an angel, mourning the love of his life.
I sat in my office and watched the correspondents on Eyewitness News lose all cool over a still shot of Olivia Charles’ skeletal remains. How they had gotten it, I had no idea. Houston PD had that scene wrapped up tighter than a straitjacket. By the time we exited the building, my sisters were gone and the majority of the fortress guards with them. SWAT found them later, wandering through the brush, weeping, and telling stories of the girl and a thing that stole her. Nobody could adequately describe the thing, only that it was huge and monstrous, which was just as well. We’d dodged the bullet.
Lenora demanded Rogan’s and Cornelius’ presence for a debriefing and mounds of paperwork. I wasn’t invited, for which I was grateful. I went home, hugged my sisters, ordered pizza, and fell asleep on the couch before it arrived. It was afternoon now—I had slept straight through the morning and would’ve slept longer, but Grandma Frida got worried and put ice on my face to make sure I “wasn’t in a coma.” It was time to settle with my client, who was due to walk through my door at any minute. He’d spent the entire day today moving out.
I hadn’t heard from Rogan. No calls, no messages, nothing. It was less than twenty-four hours without contact, but I had the most unsettling sense of déjà vu. He couldn’t disappear on me again.
As if on cue, Cornelius walked through the door separating the office from the rest of the house and knocked on the glass wall of my office.
I clicked off the broadcast on my laptop. “Please, come in.”
He came in and sat in the chair.
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
He thought about it. “Relieved. The anger is gone. All I have left is grief. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad that you’re relieved.”
“If I can ask, why the change of heart?” Cornelius said. “You were adamant before that you didn’t want to contribute to the killer’s death.”
“David Howling sent a death threat to Matilda.”
Cornelius sat up straighter. “Why was I not told?”
“Because it was designed to throw you off balance. I was concerned about your mental state. You weren’t sleeping and you kept carrying mysterious sacks into odd places.”
“They were grain sacks,” Cornelius said. “Rats need a lot of food to grow from a mischief to a swarm.”
“Mischief?”
“That’s the proper term for a group of rats. A pack of dogs, a murder of crows, a mischief of rats. They are misunderstood creatures. In reality, they are intelligent colony animals. Studies have proven that rats will feed caged companions before eating, themselves, for example. But people have an instinctual fear of them, so I kept the exact method of my revenge to myself. And no, I wasn’t unhinged.”
“It was my call and I made it.”
He nodded. “Please continue.”
