The Collected Christopher Connery (36 page)

“I checked downstairs too,” Arthur explained, twisting
the lapel of his jacket anxiously in his fist. “But he’s not anywhere in the house.
I swear he was sound asleep when I came to talk to you, but –”

Nia held up a hand to quiet him. “That doesn’t matter
right now,” she said with remarkable calm for someone who had been sobbing just
a few minutes earlier. “We just have to find him. If we can get him somewhere
safe, we stand a chance of stopping the transformation, but if he gets away
from us…” She let the sentence hang.

Gail knew what would happen if they didn’t find Xavier,
even if she didn’t want to believe it. Connery part two. Even if he didn’t have
magic, because no matter what was going on with the rest of him, Xavier’s brain
was still a layman’s brain, Gail knew magic wasn’t the only way to hurt people.

“We should split up and look for him,” said Nia.

“What?” Arthur and Gail said at the same time.

Nia rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean split up and do
something foolish. I mean, split up, so we find him faster, find him before he
hurts himself or someone else.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened noticeably. “So you think there’s
a chance that he –?”

“Yes, Arthur. Due to the magic I did earlier, I believe
Mr. Rivers may have temporarily lost control of his senses. But only
temporarily.
If we can find him, it’s possible we can bring him back to
himself, but we have to do it quickly. That’s why we need to split up.”

Gail still didn’t like it. No matter the benefits of
spreading out, it would still make all of them twice as vulnerable if something
went wrong. But she was right. They had to find Xavier and they had to do it
now. If he was still himself, they needed to get him back where Nia could help
him, and if he wasn’t… Closing her heart down tight as an iron chest, Gail
pushed the memories of her friend aside. She would do what had to be done.

Arthur replied only with a tight nod, looking like he didn’t
trust himself to speak.

“Very well, this what I propose. Arthur, you stay here in
the house in case he comes back. Gail, I want you to take a quick look around
the nearby streets, a
very
quick look. If you see him, you can try
speaking with him. He knows you best and you might be able to help him regain
control of himself, but if anything feels off come back to the house
immediately.”

“All right,” Gail said reluctantly. “But what are you
going to do?”

“I’m going to glance around the yard, the toolshed, the
garage. It won’t take long, I’ll likely be back before you are.”

Gail looked at her closely. “And you won’t try tangling
with him alone either, right?”

“Of course not,” Nia replied. “At the first sign of
danger, I’ll come back to the house. Once we locate him, we can proceed
together.”

Gail would have to be satisfied with that. She snapped
her watch on to her wrist and checked the time. “All right, everyone be back
here in fifteen minutes. If someone’s missing after then, the other two will go
looking together. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Nia.

“Deal,” Arthur managed on a shaky breath.

The next few minutes were a blur of activity. Nia and
Gail grabbed their preferred weapons, Nia making sure her pockets were loaded
with spells and chalk while Gail made sure her gun was loaded with bullets.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” Gail asked Arthur,
pulling the smaller revolver she kept alongside her main piece in case of
emergencies.

He shook his head.

“It’s not difficult. You just have to be careful. This is
the safety. Don’t take it off unless you’re planning to put a hole in
somebody.”

Arthur didn’t take the gun. “I don’t know if I –”

“It’s just for show, doc. Connery doesn’t know you don’t
know how to use one and without magic, I don’t think he’ll risk a bullet.” Gail
took Arthur’s arm and placed the little gun into his hand. “Understand?”

Arthur’s fingers curled slowly around the butt of the
revolver. “Yeah.”

“Good. See you soon, doc.”

Gail parted from Nia just outside the front door. She
gripped her hand tightly for a moment, not caring about Nia’s large diamond
ring digging into her skin or the rain dribbling down the hood of her poncho.
“Be careful.” It was a weak parting statement if there ever was one, but what
else was there to say?

“I will,” Nia assured her, her face set in lines of
fierce determination.

Then Gail went one way and Nia the other. As Gail ran
through the drizzling rain to the dark streets beyond Xavier’s well-loved
fence, she had a strange but powerful feeling that come morning, all of this
would be finished.

One way or another.  

Nia went to the garage first. She was trying – oh, she
was trying – to keep on a strong face for Arthur, but as she strode toward the
garage, she felt the horrible futility dragging on her like chains, slowing her
steps to a frightened creep. Oh, there was a chance,
yes, of course,
there was always a chance. If Mr. Rivers could fight back against Connery, Nia
could potentially help him drive the magically imprinted consciousness out for
good. But minds were just such delicate things and, though he couldn’t have
known it, Mr. Rivers’ mind had been undergoing steady erosion ever since
Connery’s body had been grafted into his.

If only I had noticed a week ago. If only I had
noticed when we first arrived, when I first
met
him…
But Connery’s
magic had been too well cloaked and Nia’s mind had been too distracted.

And now it might be too late.

She clenched her jaw tight against the tears that
threatened to blind her. She had already cried enough. She might not be able to
save Mr. Rivers even if they did find him, but there was
something
she
could do to upset Connery’s ugly plans.

The Directors will be angry,
a small voice
whispered in the back of her head as she ducked into the garage and hurried
toward their car, which sat parked beside Mr. Rivers’ now fully-functional
truck.

Fuck the Directors.
She opened the back of the car
and grabbed the large suitcase, hauling it out on to the cement floor. She tore
it open, exposing the cool pale flesh of Connery’s arms and legs. Using a
predrawn spell from her pocket, she created another magical light, this one
floating just above her head. The light was pale and weak in the surrounding
blackness of the garage, but it was enough.

Pressing down firmly, Nia scrawled a circle on one of
Connery’s legs just below the knee. Then with a sharp dash, she triggered the
spell.

A gout of flame flared up bright enough to blind, forcing
Nia to step back with a hand over her eyes. When she finally blinked the red
spots from her vision, she looked down, knowing all she would find was a small
clump ash where Connery’s legs had been. It was finally –

Her breath caught so hard and sudden in her chest that
for a moment she thought she was drowning.

Connery’s legs were entirely intact, the only evidence of
the spell a small black burn where the circle had been.

“What?” she whispered. “But that’s…” Impossible. The
spell should have burned the limbs to nothing, so how – diving back into the
car, she ripped the top off of the hat box and yanked out Connery’s head by the
hair.

Tilting the head back, she pressed the pen against his
forehead hard enough to draw slow seeping blood from beneath the magically
preserved skin. She triggered the spell and for a moment felt a rush of
triumph. The stench of burning hair filled the garage as Nia set the head down
on the cement floor, watching with satisfaction as Connery’s hair began to
blacken and crisp.

Then the fire went out with a dull pop.

 “How?” she breathed, clasping her shaking hands
together. “This is –” Yes, it was impossible, but… but it made a horrid kind of
send, didn’t it? As Connery’s body was brought back together, his magic grew
stronger, protecting each individual part from destruction. Each part must have
contained a segment of a greater spell that was slowly weaving itself into its
full power by simple proximity.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

But just because something was resistant to magic didn’t
mean that it couldn’t be destroyed. Moving carefully around the fallen head,
Nia removed Arthur’s toolbox from the floor of the car. She picked up the
heaviest thing she could find, which turned out to be a wrench so large that it
took two hands for her to hold it. After taking a couple of practice swings,
she walked back to the head.

Getting down on her knees, so she would be sure not to
miss, Nia drew the wrench back over her head and brought it down as hard as she
could.

The wrench struck the concrete with an echoing thud. The
impact sent a burst of shuddering agony up her arms. The pain came as such a
surprise that for several moments all she could do was sit there stunned,
waiting for the feeling to return to her fingers.

As her mind slowly settled back in her body, she realized
what was going on. “It’s just a spell,” she whispered to herself. “It made me
misjudge the distance. All I have to do is break it and then I can crush him to
a pulp.” She lay a hand on the head’s slightly blackened hair. She closed her
eyes, letting the shape of the spell fill her mind and then narrowing in on the
strand she needed to break.

She tried and tried, but with mounting horror, she
realized she couldn’t do it. This was no logically organized collection of
layered spells. These spells were twisted around and woven into each other
until it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began. Each
individual spell touched the others at a hundred trigger points. She could not
break one without breaking them all and she had no
time…

Opening her eyes, she turned sharply toward the far corner
of the garage where Mr. Rivers’ kept an old clanking incinerator for burning
garbage. Yes, that would serve. The protection spells were powerful and
complex, but once Connery was in the incinerator, he would burn. It might take
hours or days, but eventually he would burn. She reached for the head –

“Miss Graves?”

On pure instinct, Nia threw the head into the suitcase on
top of the arms and legs and slammed the lid shut. Then she grabbed up the
wrench before whirling around.

Mr. Rivers, who had stepped into the circle of magic
light from the other side of his truck, took a quick step back. “Sorry! Sorry!
I didn’t mean to scare you. I heard noises out here and thought maybe one of
the kids was messing around.”

“Oh!” Nia looked at the wrench and, realizing how it must
look, lowered it slowly to her side. “I’m sorry, you just – surprised me. I was
trying to fix something.”

“After midnight?”

“Yes, I – it was quite urgent.” Nia’s hands were sweating
and she had to adjust her grip on the wrench handle to keep from dropping it.
He
didn’t come from outside,
she realized
He couldn’t have and
approached her from the angle he did. He must have been hiding in here. The
question then was, why? Was he aware of what was happening to him or was
Connery manipulating him already? “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Rivers? We
were worried about you.”

He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You weren’t in the house.”

Mr. Rivers’ shoulders relaxed a bit and Nia felt a flash
of hope.
He understood! Then maybe he’s not as far gone as I feared. Maybe –

“So your whole family is gifted with repairs, huh?”

“What?” Nia looked down at the wrench again. “No, no, Mr.
Rivers, we were
looking
for you.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

Oh, how I wish that were true.
“Mr. Rivers, what
did you say you were doing in here?”

“I heard a noise and thought it was a kid fooling around,
but there’s no one here but you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s so
strange, I swore I – maybe…” He blinked once, twice, three times and swayed,
banging his shoulder into the side of the car.

Nia dropped the wrench and caught hold of his arm. “Are
you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He pulled away from her and stood
up straight, one hand pressed to his chest.

Not his,
Nia reminded herself.

“I just felt dizzy for a second,” he went on, blinking
hard and rubbing his forehead. “I guess I haven’t been getting enough sleep.
I’ve been having some weird dreams…” He smiled a little sheepishly. “That
reminds me, did your friend like that hat you bought her?”

“I – what? Mr. Rivers, are you sure you’re feeling all
right?”

“Yeah, like I said, it was just a dizzy spell. No need to
worry, Miss Graves.” He smiled at her with such sincerity that Nia’s heart
clenched like a cold fist.
We should have come sooner.

“Anyway, I guess I should go try to get some sleep and
stop hassling you about being awake so late since
I’m
the one falling
all over the place.” Smiling again, Mr. Rivers put his hands in his pockets and
turned to go. “I’ll leave you to it then. Oh, and let me know if I can give you
a hand with your other assignment too. Layered spells can be such pains in the
ass, huh?”

“Oh, thank you, I –” She stopped short. “Do – do you have
an interest in magic, Mr. Rivers?” Before they had explained it to her, Gail
hadn’t even known about the difference between bound and unbound magic – and
she had more experience with magic than the average layman. But perhaps being a
schoolteacher had prompted Xavier to take an interest in magical theory, but...
“How did you know I was dealing with layered spells?”

Mr. Rivers just smiled at her.

Forcing herself to look him directly into his eyes, Nia
said as calmly as she could, “Mr. Rivers, how did you know about the layered
spells?”

Mr. Rivers shook his head with another gentle smile. “How
do you think? I set them myself.”

Nia reached for the chalk hidden in her cuff, but she
wasn’t quick enough. Mr. Rivers’ strong hands closed around her throat and
slammed her back against the car, jarring the breath from her lungs.

Connery – or some fragment of him – regarded her
impassively through Mr. Rivers’ warm gray eyes. “I don’t want to stay in here.”
His voice rose and sank in an uneven rhythm as if Connery was trying to find
his own voice within Mr. Rivers’. “The lack of magic is going to be a problem.”
His fingers tightened meditatively around her windpipe. “If you want to
continue living, perhaps you and I could come to an arrangement.”

Nia slid one hand behind her back, holding the chalk
tightly between her fingers. “Mr. Rivers,” she choked out. “Listen to me,
please.”

“Hm?” He looked up and for just a moment, it was him
again, truly him. He blinked at Nia, uncomprehending. “What –” His fingers
relaxed and Nia pulled in a deep breath.

Then Connery and his punishing grip were back.

“His mind is weak already. With the rest of me so close
by, it’s almost too easy,” he continued conversationally as he dug into Mr.
Rivers’ pocket with his free hand. “Here we are.” He dangled a small key in
front of Nia’s eyes. “Now I don’t have to break a window to get into the truck.
Care to go for a ride, Illuminator Graves?”

Nia dragged the chalk across the car door behind her. The
spell would be smudged and imperfect, but it would hold. Hopefully.

Connery yanked her away from the car.

No, not yet. She wasn’t finished. “Mr. Rivers. Xavier.”

“No.” Strong fingers twisted in her collar as she was
dragged toward Mr. Rivers’ truck. “Just me.”