Page 32

CHAPTER 32

W hen I saw Siobhan the following morning, I asked her about the cats.

“Anything unusual?” she replied. “No, I never noticed anything about them.” She stared off into space for a moment, then said, “The tabby and the calico don’t act any different than my grandparents’ cats. Sima, however, sneaks out. I come to work sometimes, and she’s sitting by the door, waiting for someone to let her in.”

“She follows me sometimes,” I said.

Siobhan nodded. “She’s walked me home a couple of times. She just shows up, then disappears when I get to my grandparents’ house.”

It was a day that I normally spent at the Guild House, training with Captain Le Pen. The Master hadn’t set any limits on my leaving the house, so I got dressed, told Frau Buckner where I was going, and headed out.

The captain wasn’t there. I was told that he worked nights, leading the Enforcer patrols, and was off duty during the day.

I stopped by Luka’s office, but he was in a meeting. Then, I checked Master Noah’s, only to find he wasn’t there either. His secretary was also absent, though the door to his inner office was open a little. I stuck my head in and didn’t see anyone at first—until I noticed a pair of feet on the floor. I took a step into the room and saw the rest of the body that had been hidden by the desk.

It was Master Noah, lying face down, his eyes were wide and empty. There were at least three wounds in his back, and blood was soaking into the carpet. The handle of an athame, similar to mine, protruded from between his shoulders. I didn’t need to check if he was alive.

As I left his office, Master Otto came up to me.

“Hello, Kaitlyn,” he said.

“You need to look in there,” I said, motioning to the door. “Master Noah has been murdered.”

He didn’t react as I expected. He tried to look surprised, but he didn’t pull it off. He shielded, then went into the office, and I followed him.

“Oh, my. That is very serious,” Otto said. I agreed with him, and thought Master Noah would also.

“Can you come down to my office? There’s something we need to discuss.”

Again, not the reaction I expected.

I followed him and sat in a chair in front of the desk while he closed the door.

“Shouldn’t we call someone?” I asked.

“Yes, I will. This is the type of behavior I wanted to talk to you about. We’ve had a complaint, a rather serious complaint, about you,” he said as he sat behind the desk. “Master Noah planned to talk to you about it, but I guess you weren’t receptive. You seem to think you’re a law unto yourself. I don’t know what you were used to in the American Wild West, but we are civilized here.”

He took a deep breath. I was completely lost. His boss, I assumed his friend, was lying dead two doors away, and Otto wanted to talk about Queen City?

“You and two of your friends are accused of attacking several Enforcers and Knights Magica who were on a joint peacekeeping patrol in the Altstadt . Several people were seriously injured, and three were killed.”

I stared at him, unable to believe my ears. Luka and Master Adolphus knew about the incident, and I thought they had accepted our version of events. Otto was bringing this up while Master Noah wasn’t even cold yet, less than twenty feet away?

“What do you have to say about these charges?” he asked. “I am told that this is not the first occasion of bullying you’ve displayed, but murder is far beyond what we can tolerate. I assume Master Noah spoke to you about this, and I think your response tells me all I need to know.”

I blinked at him like an idiot, my head spinning like a top. “He was dead when I found him. But you think that three of us—one just a school girl—attacked an armed force of fifteen grown men? Is this a joke?”

He gave me an affronted look. “I assure you, the Guild does not consider this a joking matter. We expect more civilized behavior from our apprentices. I’m not sure what to do about this, but at the very least, we need to assign you a different mentor. Obviously, Master Adolphus has been lax in supervising you.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “let’s get a truthsayer to listen to Hans’s and my side of the story, and to Roland and his buddies’. And while we’re at it, maybe someone can investigate who murdered Master Noah. You can stick that bloody complaint up your arse. I’m outta here.”

I stood, whirled about, and tried to open the door. Some kind of magic—a ward possibly—held the door firmly shut. I shielded and turned back to Master Otto.

“You don’t have the authority to hold me here,” I said.

“Oh, but I do. As an apprentice, you fall under my authority. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to let a girl as wild and violent as you are roam loose around the city.”

One thing for sure, I was far too young and untrained to challenge a master mage. But I wasn’t really sure how aeromancy could be used in the small enclosed space of his office. I also wasn’t in a hurry to find out. I decided that maybe I should just settle down and wait until Colonel Sorento and Master Adolphus heard about the issue.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” I said.

“Good.” He touched a button on a box on his desk and said, “You can come and collect the prisoner.”

“Wait, prisoner?”

“Yes. I’m arresting you for murder.”

A knock sounded at the door, and then it opened. Several Enforcers, including a couple of Roland’s friends, came in. One was carrying spelled shackles.

I figured that drawing a sword would only make the situation worse, so I retreated until my back hit a bookcase. I had enough confidence in my woven shield that I doubted anyone could break through it.

“Don’t you think you should call Colonel Sorento?” I asked.

“We will inform him that you’ve been apprehended,” Otto said.

“Should we inform Marshal Ch?apowskithat we have her?” one of the Enforcers asked. Ch?apowski was the commander of the Knights in Zürich, and I couldn’t imagine what legitimate reason he would have for being involved in Guild business.

The guy with the shackles advanced on me, only to run into my shield.

“Drop your shield,” he ordered.

“Gee, let me think about that one,” I said. “Tell you what, get hold of Colonel Sorento or Master Adolphus. Have them come over here and supervise this arrest. I don’t think I trust any of you.”

“Lower your shield!” Otto commanded. “Don’t make me break it.”

“In your dreams.”

I figured we were at an impasse. I hoped someone would come looking for me—otherwise, things might get a little hungry. But I certainly had no intentions of dropping my shield, let alone allowing them to put those null-magic handcuffs on me.

Otto and one of the Enforcers had a discussion in the corner, then sent one of their men off. An hour later, he came back with Nikolas Müller, another man, and a woman. Müller’s face and head were heavily bandaged, including a bandage completely covering his left eye.

The other man drew my attention. People described my aura as a chaotic rainbow. That man’s was more ordered, though less so than Master Adolphus’s, and the colors were subdued instead of vivid. A spirit mage. He was shielded, but his shield wasn’t woven. He looked to be in his early forties. The woman with him had the weirdest aura I’d ever seen. It showed three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow.

“What’s the problem, Kaitlyn?” Müller asked.

“They seem to think they can gang up on me. I’m not acknowledging their authority, but they won’t let me leave.”

“I think there’s a misunderstanding here. There was an altercation a couple of days ago, and it needs to be investigated.”

“Fine. They know where to find me, but I’m not letting anyone throw me in a Church dungeon. I’m entitled to a defense.”

“Of course you are. A legitimate defense. But until my brother and the other men you harmed are out of hospital, we need to keep you somewhere safe.”

I didn’t reply. He shook his head.

“Look, since you won’t stop interfering with legitimate attempts to keep the citizens of Zürich safe from the monsters attacking them, we have to assume you’re collaborating with the supernaturals.”

“Call Master Adolphus. I won’t surrender to anyone but him or one of the people on the Guild Council. But I’m about sixty seconds away from blowing the top off this place and walking out of here.”

He gave me a deprecating smile. “I think you overestimate your power.”

The spirit mage stepped forward.

“You know that Adolphus and the Council keep you under wraps so you can’t learn your true power. All that balance crap they feed you is to keep you from understanding your place. You could rule someday, instead of being their pawn.”

I shrugged and reached for the ley line and let its power fill me with magic. Once, I overloaded on magic in Queen City and killed a gang of vampires who were attacking me. Masters Elias and Adolphus had warned me about doing that again, but now I was older and more powerful than I was then, and I had a lot more control. Rather than the panic reaction that triggered that incident, this time I overloaded on purpose.

“What’s she doing?” the woman asked, her voice rising in alarm.

The room exploded, and the ceiling crashed down on us. I saw the dismay on Müller’s face and the horror on Otto’s face before the dust obscured everything. I was the only thing still standing. I picked my way through the rubble and stepped into the sunshine to freedom.

I ran, glancing back only once. There was a huge hole in the side of the building, three stories of rubble, and no one was chasing me.