The Collected Christopher Connery (35 page)

That night, the storms returned with a vengeance. The old
house quivered with every crash of thunder, as if it was moments away from
breaking into splinters. One of the generators came off the worse in a
confrontation with a bolt of lightning, and they were forced to replace the
downed electric lights in the house with candles. Nia supplemented the
candlelight with glowing magic spheres, but the house was still dark and
chilly.

Xavier called around nine and asked if he could come
home, fearing the rains might leave the roads impassable the next day. Nia
wrung her hands a little, but was forced to admit that since nothing had
happened for several hours, Xavier might as well return home.

“What does it mean?” Gail asked from the bed where she
was sprawled out, trying to read by magic light. “That nothing happened, I
mean.”

“I don’t know.” Nia paced to one end of the small room
then immediately crossed back to the window.

“Maybe something happened that we didn’t notice. Is that
possible?”

“I don’t know!”

Nia had been pacing the floor for close to an hour.
Xavier had come home about fifteen minutes earlier and he and Arthur were
making dinner with clever use of the kitchen fireplace. Except for the knocked
out lights, everything was pretty comfortable, which was clearly driving Nia
absolutely bananas.

“Something should have happened,” she said, sitting down
hard on the edge of the bed. “I did everything right. If there was any of
Connery’s magic around, any at all, it should have revealed itself.”

Gail shrugged. “Maybe it’s not here.”

“But it
is.
I can’t locate it precisely, but I can
feel
it’s here.” She looked sharply over her shoulder. “And, no, before
you ask, I am
not
imagining it and even if I were, that wouldn’t explain
Connery’s magic-addled underling being here. The enchantment keeping him
functional would have broken once his job was done.” Her bright accusing eyes
focused on Gail. “So after the spell broke, leaving him in the final stages of
magical degeneration, how on earth would he have travelled any great distance
from the final hiding place?”

“You caught me,” said Gail, turning a page of her book.
“I found him across town and brought him over here when you weren’t paying
attention. I actually had him in my pocket that first day we came to Gracetown
and let him out when we stopped for lunch.”

Nia aimed a half-hearted swat at her elbow, hitting the
book instead. Then she sighed and dropped her chin on to her fists. “It just
doesn’t make any sense.”

No, Gail had to admit it didn’t. In the moments before
Nia triggered her spell, Gail had been bracing herself for the world to turn
upside down. And then – nothing. No screaming phones, no impossible labyrinths,
no floods wearing fathers’ faces. At first, she thought maybe there was
something sinister going on below the surface of her layman perception, but Nia
and Arthur had seemed equally perplexed, which spoiled that theory.

“Maybe the protection spells are just really good?” she’d
offered, but when Nia had begun tearing through her books and notes, she
figured that wasn’t it either.

Tomorrow, she would probably be a bit annoyed that she
was still working this damn case, but for now, she couldn’t bring herself to
feel anything but relieved that they hadn’t been pitched headlong into another
of Connery’s fucked-up funhouses.

The storm was bad enough.

Another blast of wind sent the windows rattling. The rain beat like a
thousand tiny hammers on the slanted roof. To distract herself, Gail leaned
closer to the glowing sphere on the bedside table. Sure, almost everywhere had
magic lights these days, but seeing a carefully covered lamp was different than
this seemingly wild glow of magical energy.

“Are they dangerous when they’re like this?” she asked Nia, cautiously
poking the light with her book to see if it would burst into flame.

“What? Oh. No, of course not.” Nia picked up the magic
light and tossed it between her hands, leaving a trail of rainbow light in the
air behind it. “They’re just a more primitive form of the lights you find all
over.” She glanced up at the dark electric lamp hanging from the ceiling.
“Well, almost all over. Here.” She held the shining ball out to Gail.

When Gail hesitated, Nia added, “It won’t hurt you, I
promise. It’s like the protection spell, entirely external.”

Gail carefully plucked the sphere from Nia’s palm. It was
surprisingly cool against her skin and had a texture somewhere between glass
and water right before a hand breaks its surface. She rolled it around her
cupped palms while Nia watched her with an indulgent smile. Gail didn’t mind.
It was actually nice to see some magic that wasn’t ugly or tedious. “Can you
break it?”

Nia’s brow furrowed. “No, you can only dispel it, but why
do you ask?”

“Because,” Gail said with a grin, “catch.”

The sound Nia made as Gail tossed the ball – underhand
and gently enough that a toddler could have caught it no problem – probably
would’ve shattered the sphere if it were really made of glass. She did manage
to catch it though, only fumbling it a little before clutching it to her chest.
“Detective,” she said with a reproachful glare.

“What?” Gail laughed, opening her book again. “Aren’t you
supposed to be prepared for anything?”

Nia sputtered delightfully for a moment before she got
out, “Not for having things
thrown
at me, thank you very much.”

Gail shrugged. “It’s a rough world out there, princess.
You’d best get used to it. It only gets harder from here on –” Her offering of
wisdom was interrupted by Nia pouncing on her and sitting on her stomach. “You
know, you’re heavier than you look.”

“You – are – terrible,” Nia said in a serious voice that
was often interrupted by very unthreatening giggles. “And extremely
unprofessional.”

“Yeah, well, the fact that I’m letting you sit on me
during a job should’ve probably clued you in to that one.”

That sent Nia into such a fit of giggles that she had to
hide her face in Gail’s chest until she could recover herself. Then she lifted
her head and smiled. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For distracting me.” She sighed, pushing hair out of her
face with one hand. “This is just – frustrating. I know Connery is
right
here,
but I can’t get to him and I don’t even know how I’m going wrong.”

Gail knew that feeling well from her own work. “You’ll
figure it out. Give it time and then you’ll hit on the right answer all of a
sudden, just like you always do.”

Nia sat back a little, settling on Gail’s hips rather
than her stomach. “Like I always do? It sounds like you have a rather high
opinion of me, detective.”

“Hm.” Gail reached up to twine her fingers in Nia’s soft
hair. “I guess you could say that. You know, when it comes to magic. In
everything else, you’re pretty hopeless.”

“Hopeless?”

“Did I say ‘pretty hopeless?’ I meant ‘hopelessly
pretty.’”

Nia snickered. “Very smooth, detective.”

“What can I say?” Gail murmured as she drew Nia down for
a kiss. “I’ve always had a way with the ladies.”

The magic light lay forgotten on the floor, dutifully
illuminating a dust bunny. The storm raged on outside. Sometimes, when the
thunder boomed, the whole house seemed to tremble in its foundations.
Rationally, Nia knew the house was steady as a rock, but even she had to admit
that she sometimes thought it might just blow away in the wind like scattered
garbage.

Nia lay propped up on the pillows, Gail’s head on her
chest. The other woman’s eyes were closed and she was breathing deep and slow
as if she were asleep, but Nia could feel the tension in her muscles every time
the thunder crashed outside.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly, running her hand
over Gail’s hair.

“Yep.”

“Are you sure? I thought –”
Why am I pushing? Do I
want
to upset her?
“I just thought maybe you would like to put the radio on
or – something.”

Gail tilted her head up, so she could smile crookedly at
Nia. “Can’t listen to the radio without electricity.”

“Oh. Yes, right.”

Gail stretched up to kiss Nia’s jaw. “I’m
fine,
princess.
I’m better than fine. I’m downright content.” She settled her head back on
Nia’s chest and closed her eyes again.

“But are you certain?” Nia couldn’t help asking.

“Never been more certain. Now, go to sleep.” A few
minutes later, perhaps only to prove a point, Gail seemed to slip into true
sleep, her body relaxing against Nia’s.

Nia lay awake a little longer, wondering if Gail’s dreams
were pleasant ones and if she figured into them at all. Eventually, she sank
into a doze, waking sometime later to Gail grumbling about it being “cold as
iced tits in here” as she pulled Nia more securely into her arms. In that brief
moment of consciousness, Nia wondered if Arthur and Mr. Rivers were passing the
chilly night in the same way and for once, the thought carried no anxiety.

A soft tapping roused Gail from a deep and dreamless
sleep. The eye of the storm had apparently passed over them and outside
everything was quiet and still. She lay still a moment longer, wondering if she
had only imagined the knocking, but then it came again, the tiniest rasp of
knuckles on wood. Rolling over, she grabbed her watch off of the nightstand,
squinting at it in the dim magic light. It was well past midnight.

“Who is it?” she called softly, not wanting to wake Nia
who slept peacefully beside her.

“I need to talk to Nia,” Arthur said through the door. A
pause. “To you both.”

Gail didn’t like the sound of those words, especially not
when combined with Arthur’s low, almost frightened voice. He might as well have
sounded a siren and told them to hit the deck. “All right, doc, just give us a
minute.” She reached over and gently shook Nia’s shoulder. “Hey, princess,” she
said when Nia’s eyelids fluttered. “Your brother needs to talk to you.”

“Arthur?” Nia murmured sleepily.

“Yeah, he sounds upset about something.”

Instantly, Nia was wide-awake. She slid out of bed and
into her discarded dress before Gail could even get out from beneath the
blankets. “Just a moment, Arthur!”

When they were both fully clothed, Nia opened the door
for Arthur. As soon as he got into the room, he closed the door tightly behind
him. Only then did he turn to face them – well, face was probably the wrong
word. He couldn’t seem to pull his eyes off of the floor and his hands were
driven so deep into his pockets that it looked like he wanted to crawl inside
them entirely.

“What is it, Arthur?” Nia asked with a touch of fear in
her voice. “Is it – oh!” She hurried over to him and pressed a hand to his
chest, but he pushed it aside.

“No, that’s not it. It’s – Do you know where Connery is
yet?”

Nia sighed heavily. “No, against all rules of logic and
decency, I don’t.” She tugged fretfully on her skirt. “I suppose I should write
to the Academy again before –”

“Because I think I do.”

“ – they decide to remove me from – what did you say?”

“I think I know where he is.”

Gail could only stare as Nia burst into an explosion of,
“What? How? Where? When?”

Arthur swallowed hard. Then he looked at Gail. “Remember
when I asked you about Xavier’s scars?”

What the hell does that have to do with anything,
“Yeah,
but –”

“I think we weren’t talking about the same thing. I meant
the scars he has here.” He lifted a hand to his right shoulder, then his left.
“And here.” Then he touched his collarbone before settling his hands on his
midsection. “Here. They were so faint before that I barely noticed them, but
now – now they look – Nia, they look
fresh.
I asked him what happened,
but he said he couldn’t remember.” His throat jerked as he swallowed. “He
hardly seemed to recognize them. It’s like he’s – he’s…”

It was like someone had dropped a cold stone into Gail’s
stomach. “Shit, Arthur, you can’t – you don’t think…” But it was clear by
Arthur’s face that he could and he did. Nia’s almost inaudible whispers of, “Oh
no, oh no, no, no…” made it clear that she was coming around to the same idea.

“Is it possible?” Arthur demanded. “Could someone do
that?”

I hope to god the answer is no, but I don’t think I’ll
be that lucky.

“I – ” Nia seemed to shrink away from Arthur’s desperate
gaze, drawing her arms up around herself. “I – yes, Arthur, yes. It would take
a long time to prepare the spells for a layman’s use, but once they were
enscorcelled and given their instructions… Yes, for a magician of Connery’s
skill, it would be entirely possible, especially if other spells were used to
keep Xavier alive when –” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, I’m such an
idiot. The spells were right all along. I just didn’t understand what they were
trying to tell me.”

Arthur leaned back hard against the closed door. “But I –
but I don’t understand – is – Xavier
isn’t
Connery. He just isn’t.”

“Of course he’s fucking not,” Gail snapped. “He’s a
school teacher for fuck’s sake. He plays in a
band.
He’s – he’s – he’s
fucking Xavier. How are we even having this discussion?” She knew her voice was
too loud, but wet fucking hell, this was impossible.

“No. No,” said Nia. “Not yet, but oh, he’s Plan B, or
maybe Plan C, or Plan – I don’t know, but a fall back, a contingency plan.”

“A contingency plan?” Arthur said quietly.

“A fall back for
what?”
Gail added less quietly.

Nia’s fingers twisted in the pleats on her skirt. “A fall
back in case no one came looking. If Arthur’s right then Connery is – he’s
incubating in Mr. Rivers. There will be spells, spells designed to trigger
after a certain amount of time.” She pressed her hands over her face. “How did
I not think of this earlier?”

“Why would
anyone
think of this?” said Gail. “This
is – it’s –” She looked to Arthur for help, but all of his attention was
focused on Nia.

“What will the spells do to him?”

“If I had to hazard a guess…” Nia paused for a second as
if she was hoping one of them would tell them she didn’t, but when the room
remained silent, she continued. “If our assumptions are correct, Mr. Rivers’
must have been attacked at least a month ago. His brain would have been kept
alive by magic while his body was reconstructed using an… unnatural addition.
This piece of Connery was likely imbued with magic containing a record of
Connery’s memories, not all of them, of course, and not perfectly preserved,
but preserved well enough to reconstruct a man at least similar to who he was.
He must have thought partial resurrection was better than being gone forever.”

Gail could not –
would not –
believe this. “And
Xavier just forgot this happened to him?”

Nia answered with a helpless shrug. “The mind often
represses traumatic memories, though magic was likely involved as well.”

“But why Xavier? Of all fucking people, why
him?”

“How could I possibly know that?” Nia asked in a small
pleading voice. “Convenience? Mr. Rivers’ being in the wrong place at the wrong
time? Or perhaps Connery picked him because he somehow knew he was connected to
you, Gail. I don’t
know.
I couldn’t possibly know.”

Twisting her braid in her fist, Gail bit down hard on all
the words she wanted to say. Most of them were profane and none of them were
helpful, but fucking hell, this was
Xavier.
Her buddy Xavier who
wouldn’t even kill a rat he found in his kitchen.

Arthur stared at her in horrified silence and Nia
continued reluctantly.

“It’s impossible to know exactly how long it will take
for Mr. Rivers’ mind to consumed by Connery, but the odds are not in our favor.
Not only does he currently possess a greater – portion of Mr. Rivers’ body than
Mr. Rivers does, but his magic will be strengthening Connery’s personality even
as it erodes Mr. Rivers’.”  

Gail pressed her hands to her temples. “And the scars?
Arthur said they got worse.”

“Not worse, just more visible. They concealed themselves
in order to prevent anyone, including Mr. Rivers, from realizing what had
happened.” Nia laughed, a dry humorless sound. “And I revealed them. This
afternoon, I tried to expose Connery’s magic and it seems I succeeded.” She
laughed again, running her hands roughly through her hair.

Arthur was holding himself tightly with both arms. “So
Xavier will…”

“Become Connery, or at least a man so similar as to be
nearly indistinguishable. He certainly won’t be himself anymore. He could fight
the influence for a while, but over time, his mind will be subjugated to the
point of technical nonexistence.” Nia’s voice had turned cold and flat as if
she were just a recording of herself.

 At that moment Gail hated Connery so much she
thought she’d be sick from it. She wouldn’t wish the sort of fate Nia described
on anyone, but
Xavier?
Of all the greedy, vicious, heartless people in
New Crossbridge, Connery chose fucking Xavier? Xavier who’d been cooking meals
for them every day despite them being less-than-welcome guests and who’d spent
the last week or so smiling at Arthur like the doc’s simple presence had turned
the dank rainy season into a bright fall morning? She didn’t think she’d seen
that kind of smile on Xavier’s face since before Eric Wayne had gone and fucked
up his life. And now Connery was going to fuck it up again.

Nia was staring at the floor. She had taken up the pearl
necklace laying on the bedside table and was twisting it so tightly in her
hands that it was a wonder the pearls didn’t burst off the string. “I need to
think. There must be something…” Her eyes shot up to Arthur again. “Where is
Mr. Rivers just now?”

“He’s sleeping,” Arthur answered. “I made sure he was
before I – before I came to talk to you.”

“Good. The first thing we have to do is get him somewhere
safe. I think it would best if I explained the situation to him. It will be
upsetting, but it may help him remain in control for longer. Arthur, will you
go wake him, please? Bring him back here.”

Arthur nodded mutely and left the room.

The moment the door closed behind him, Nia’s shoulders
began to shake. She gritted her jaw, but a weak sob ripped out of her anyway.

“Hey.” Gail hurried over and took her by the shoulders. “Keep
it together, princess.”

“It’s just so terrible,” Nia breathed, wiping her
tearstained face with the back of one hand.

Gail couldn’t disagree.

“And it may be hopeless too,” Nia admitted through her
tears. “There’s a chance that I can banish Connery’s magic from Mr. Rivers, but
doing so could just as easily obliterate Mr. Rivers’ consciousness right along
with Connery’s. If Mr. Rivers can’t hold on, I fear that –”

Gail gave Nia’s shoulders a light shake. “Do what you
have to do. If there’s a chance to get Connery out, then do it.”

“But Mr. Rivers –”

“Will want you to try. Ask him yourself, but I already
know Xavier would rather risk anything than let Connery take him over. Okay?”

Nia gave a tight nod then wiped her eyes roughly. “Okay.”

When the door creaked open again, Nia clamped on a
serious but cautiously optimistic expression. The only signs of her fear were
her red-rimmed eyes. Unfortunately, Gail couldn’t bring herself to look
anything but fucking horrified.

The good news was that her lack of acting didn’t end up
being a problem.

The bad news was that Arthur had returned alone.

Xavier had disappeared.