A Hero at the End of the World (9 page)

“
The Void
by Lord Ralph the Ravager. It’s his manifesto.” Sophie licked her thumb and used it to flip to a section of the book she had dog-eared. “According to him, the basis for Zaubernegativum is that the universe has infinite energy.”

“I don’t think science would agree with him,” Oliver interjected. “What’s that law, that matter can neither be created nor destroyed?”

“That’s thermodynamics. Listen to this: ‘By using an intermediary, such as totems, we’ve created a barrier between ourselves and our true magical power. This barrier is rapidly decaying our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. The Ancient Egyptians, knowing this, limited the use of barrier-less magic to the ruling class. However, the Ancient Greeks began the use of totems, falsely believing that they enhanced and focused magic, a practice continued by the Romans.

“‘The truth is, any form of magic other than Zaubernegativum has contributed to the breakdown of society. Much like the modern era has realized the Greek theory of medicine was incorrect, we must cure ourselves of the way we believe magic works and rid ourselves of superstition.’ I’m almost impressed by this.”

Some of what she had read sounded like what Oliver remembered from their lesson on Zaubernegativum in school, although the majority of it sounded like utter bollocks. He unwrapped his baguette. “Sounds like a nutter.”

“Oh, he is. But it’s still fascinating.” Sophie flipped ahead a few pages. “The next chapter’s all about how to create permanent incantations using ‘barrier-less magic.’ Can you imagine, not having to put a time limit on your spells? I can see why someone might be seduced by this—honestly, if I was in your position, having to channel my magic through a totem...”

Defensive, Oliver curled a hand around his totem. “Better than dying at the age of seventy like someone from the Middle Ages.”

“Both my grandparents are well into their eighties, I’ll have you know.” She looked up for the first time and seemed to notice her sandwich. “Oh, is this for me? You know I’m a vegetarian,” she added a moment later, her mouth full.

She finished her baguette in a few bites, while Oliver was still picking at his.

“I don’t see how this will help us catch Gardener Hobbes,” he said as she turned the next page.

“Don’t you think we should be looking more closely into Ralph the Ravager? I still think, based on this and our meeting with Doctor Barath yesterday, that he may have been optimistic in thinking that he would be able to absorb the energy of nine people. But I wonder if it’s possible for the Sazzies to have developed new spells that the Government isn’t aware of. He certainly
claims
to have discovered the secrets of the universe.”

“He can claim whatever he wants,” said Oliver. “That doesn’t make it true.”

Someone behind him pointedly cleared his throat.

Oliver glanced back over his shoulder. Kaur was standing there, six feet of hair grease and body spray, a file tucked under his arm. He seemed to be gloating about something.

“What do you want?” Oliver asked flatly.

“Is that anyway to greet the man that might have just solved your case for you?” Kaur asked with a smirk.

“Oh, please,” Sophie murmured, going back to her reading, but Oliver shot up straight.

“What are you on about?” he demanded.

“I’ve been working on my case, you know, the one with the chickens,” Kaur said in an undertone. He patted the top of his file. “I found something that might help yours.”

Sophie peered at them from over her book, suddenly looking intrigued. “What does an attempted human sacrifice have to do with chickens?”

“Something
evil
,” Oliver said boldly. He paused before looking at Kaur. “Um, right?”

“Something interesting, at least,” Kaur replied. He turned away. “Are you coming or not?”

Oliver hardly had to think about it. He scrambled after Kaur to the lifts. The doors were nearly shut when Sophie slipped through, throwing Oliver an annoyed look.

Once the doors had closed completely, Kaur swiped his ID card before hitting the button for the top floor.

“We’re going to the Watch Tower?” Sophie asked, her voice lifting with surprise.

“I thought a visual aid might help,” Kaur said.

He winked at her and seemingly ignored the way she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Oliver glared daggers into the back of his greasy head.

The lift climbed forty-one more stories, up to the hundredth floor. There was meant to be a team of wardens responsible for maintaining the air-pressure enchantments at a constant rate across the building, but Oliver’s ears nevertheless popped painfully. He rubbed the right one, grimacing.

The bell chimed once they had reached the top. The lift’s doors slid open to reveal an empty, narrow corridor that led to a single closed door.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” Oliver asked.

“I’m a Second Class agent,” Kaur said dismissively. He waved them along. “Just follow me.”

The door opened up to a winding staircase, which became narrower and narrower as it spiraled upward until they were forming a single queue, with Kaur at the lead. Once at the top, Kaur pushed open a second vault-like door and led them into a dark chamber. It was completely empty except for a single crystal sphere suspended in the center: the Closed Circuit Hlidskjalf.

A chill went down Oliver’s spine.

A wonder of modern magitechnology, the Closed Circuit Hlidskjalf was the reason for the confidentiality agreement included in every Home Office employment contract. Revealing its existence to anyone who hadn’t signed the agreement brought on swift punishment: a vicious spell that left its subject permanently mute, immediate summons to the disciplinary committee, and, unless there were some really good mitigating arguments, life imprisonment. Oliver had read that the Americans were on the cusp of creating their own version of the mechanism.

Although Oliver had never even seen it before, since only agents at Second Class or above were given training, he knew the basic principle behind it: it was simple applied alapomancy. There were two types of enchanted mechanisms in the world: those that were dormant, whose power could be leeched from them, and those that were active and needed to feed off the magic of others. The CCH was an active device; in order for it to work, the user had to wake it up with a spell. Even from just inside the door, Oliver could feel it trying to suck in power, as though something inside of him were being pulled toward it. Unconsciously, he reached up and clenched his fist around his totem.

The one design flaw of the CCH was that, as opposed to the sentries, who kept watch on the British public and reported crimes as they happened, the mechanism only projected an image of a scene after the fact. But unlike the sentries, it took snapshots of everywhere at once. It used a stonking amount of energy.

Oliver stood just inside the doorway, hesitating. Inside, the tower was ice cold. His flesh broke out into goose bumps, he could see his own breath, and he could hear tiny clicks coming from Sophie as her teeth clattered. There were no windows or other doors, and it was too dark for him to see what was above their heads. All he had was the sense that the chamber was vast.

“You’re not scared, are you, hero?” Kaur asked smugly. He closed the door and the room went completely and horribly black. “Go on now, it won’t bite.”

Though blinded, Oliver scowled in his general direction before taking a single step forward. The moment his foot touched the floor, a drop of light glowed inside the sphere, which began filling with a luminous silver liquid as if a tap had been turned on.

“Show off,” Kaur muttered, the gray-white light slowly creeping up his face. He looked at Oliver oddly. “Most people pass right out after turning it on; it’s why we’re required to have at least two agents here at activation.”

“I can’t help that I’m bursting with power,” Oliver replied loftily.

“This is fantastic,” Sophie said. She turned to Kaur. “Does Agent Yates know that you’re letting us walk all over your crime scene?”

“Nope,” replied Kaur. He smirked. “I thought you might owe me one. Now, watch this second spell. Abrams may have turned it on, but here’s the proper show.”

He walked toward the sphere, which was now completely full. It looked solid and heavy, but it remained suspended in the air, radiating just enough light for them to see each other; everything else, if the room could have held anything more than the sphere and their shivering selves, was still hidden in darkness.

“
Ágief mē thæt sihth Wodenes
,” chanted Kaur. His voice bounced off the walls.

The glowing sphere hummed. Oliver’s stomach did an involuntary somersault.

Kaur recited a serial number off of the file he was holding. Without warning, there came a sudden flash of white light; Oliver flinched back, covering his eyes with his hand. When he lowered it, the chamber—which he could now see was an enormous, circular room—was filled with the interior of a pub. The vision laid out before them looked real enough to touch, from the rickety wooden tables to the pint glasses to the patrons, but it was like being surrounded by ghosts: every person and object was drained of color to the point of being almost transparent except for a thin, shimmering outline that was the same silver as the CCH.

Oliver spun around, looking at the frozen faces of yesterday’s witnesses.

“Look at that,” Sophie said in a hushed voice. She was staring up at the ceiling.

He followed her gaze and saw that the domed ceiling of the chamber was covered in a bas-relief of tendrils and knots. A three-headed dragon was carved around the widest part of the dome, with each head shooting up toward the cupola, separating the ceiling into three sides. When he turned his head, different parts of it seemed to glitter.

“Over here,” said Kaur. The way he clutched at the totem around his neck told Oliver that pulling up the snapshot had used more magic than he would’ve liked. Even though he must have been exhausted, Kaur walked purposefully through the images as if they weren’t there. They didn’t seem affected, but watching him left Oliver with a funny feeling.

He and Sophie followed Kaur into the far corner, where three chickens of various monstrous heights were disrupting the pub-goers’ evenings. Some people were suspended in the air, as they’d been jumping back at the precise moment the CCH had taken the snapshot, others were gazing at the chickens with expressions ranging from confusion to fear, and even more hadn’t even seemed to notice.

“I was taking the names of everyone involved in the incident when Louise Gardener Hobbes’ came up,” Kaur explained, walking around a hovering pint of beer that had been on its way to the floor. The real pub’s staff had no doubt had to put in a long night cleaning up the mess.

He pointed to a table in the corner, where the mostly transparent form of Louise Gardener Hobbes was sitting with two men around Oliver’s age. She was glancing over her shoulder at the crime scene in disbelief, her pale, thin eyebrows arched into two peaks.

But it wasn’t Gardener Hobbes that caused Oliver’s breath to stick in his throat.

“I don’t understand how this helps us,” replied Sophie, though Oliver could barely hear her over the rushing in his ears.

“Abrams said she was the leader of a cult,” Kaur argued. “I know how you and Abrams feel about cults.”

“She’s not the head of a cult of chickens!”

“She’s only part of why I’ve brought you here. See, the handsome one’s her son, Archibald Louis, but the other man, well, now, that’s the interesting bit.”

Kaur pointed to the image of a man that Oliver was staring at. “Am I right, Abrams?”

Whatever the expression on Oliver’s face was, it must have been horrible, because out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sophie looking at him in alarm. “Oliver? Who is he?” she demanded.

He swallowed thickly, finally tearing his eyes away from the familiar bespectacled image. It had been five years since they’d seen each other, but Oliver knew that face like he knew the back of his own hand.

“That’s Ewan Mao,” he said. “My best friend.”

Chapter 9

I
can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” Archie asked, his first words in nearly an hour. Ewan found he had almost missed his sardonic drawl.

Since Louise had left with Ralph the Ravager, they had been sitting at the table in silence as Ewan struggled to come up with a plan to get Oliver to meet him. Plucking ideas out of thin air had never been his strong point. So far he had considered kidnapping him, which he dismissed not only because Oliver could beat the stuffing out of him, but also because he didn’t know how he would get him all the way to Hampstead Heath, and blackmailing him into meeting him there, which he had vetoed because the worst thing he had on Oliver was that time he had cheated on their French test.

Ewan buried his face in his hands. “How am I going to do this?” he moaned. “I can’t just ring Oliver after all this time and say, ‘Hello, friend who ruined my life, fancy a pint? Shall we go for a stroll by ourselves through this empty, wooded area?’”

“Well, maybe not phrased like that,” Archie said. “But if you told him that you’ve been thinking about him...”

“Nope, it’s too awkward. Besides, he was the one who broke off contact, that git. Always thought he was better than me.”

“I’ll do it,” said Archie.

Ewan’s head snapped up. He gaped at him. “You will?”

Archie shrugged. “How difficult can it be?”

He wordlessly stretched out his hand, and a telephone flew from a mahogany corner table and landed, a little clumsily, in front of them. A dull cream color, it was one of those old-fashioned telephones with the turn dial, yet it seemed well modern compared to the rest of the Victorian furniture in the room. In a state of shock, it took Ewan too long to realize that Archie was picking up the receiver and spinning the rotary dial, but hearing the dial tone spurred Ewan into action.

Ewan grabbed at him, but Archie, who turned out to be much quicker than he looked, twisted away, dragging the phone along the table with him.

“You can’t just—” Ewan began, rising out his chair to lunge at him. His palm slapped painfully against the tabletop as he missed: Archie had leaned back far out of reach.