Crimes Against Magic (32 page)

"So why not destroy them too?" I asked.

"Because they don't exist anymore," she said with a smile. "The six other books are lost to the annals of time. But the Homer epics were too popular, and removing them from circulation would have been impossible. But they contained something more dangerous than mere tales. Information.

"You see, Homer wrote the stories with help. He thought he was writing fantastical tales based on fact, but whoever helped him, and we don't know who it was, told him the exact details of why the war took place and what really happened.

"Over the centuries, Avalon realised what the books contained and went about getting them removed from circulation. Peisistratus, a Greek Tyrant during the sixth century BC, was charged with this task. He changed the stories, outwardly saying that he wished for them to be more consistently in line with one another, but in reality he was changing the story to omit anything that Avalon wanted to be censored. That is why copies such as the one you stole are so rare. They were mostly destroyed thousands of years ago."

"So these books, poems, contain the entirety of what happened at Troy. And you, along with Avalon, don't want that information getting out?"

"Avalon stopped caring a millennia ago, when they believed every original copy was either in safe hands or destroyed."

"So what really happened in Troy? And how does that relate to what's happening now?"

The woman got up and rang a small brass bell that sat on a nearby table. A young girl came through the doors seconds later. She was one of the two I'd seen at the end of the corridor outside. "Can you fetch us some tea, please."

The young girl glanced over at me, and her eyes held a sadness that made my heart ache. Then she vanished. "Do you recognise her?" the woman asked.

I shook my head. "Should I?"

The woman ignored me yet again and waited for the girl to come back with the tea. When she returned, she carried a large tray, containing a red tea-pot decorated with pink lotus flowers and two small bowls, that matched the pot. The woman helped the girl set everything on the table. Then the girl turned back, giving me a final sorrowful glance, before leaving the room. 

"She knows me," I said to the woman. "Is she your daughter?"

The woman poured some tea into each of the bowls and passed me one. The fragrance was intoxicating. "Troy first, questions later."

I motioned for her to continue as I blew on the steaming hot liquid. 

The woman nodded and sipped her tea before beginning. "In the years building up to the war, King Priam was one of the most powerful men in the known world. Troy was rich and bountiful, and Priam enjoyed showing that wealth off at every occasion.

"Another thing he enjoyed showing off was his daughter, Cassandra. In the story as you know it, she's cursed by the God Apollo with visions of the future that no one believes. But in reality, King Priam believed every word. He would get her to tell him every morning; what he should expect of the day. And then at parties, he would drag her out to give the guests something to talk about." The woman looked suddenly weary and there was real emotion in her voice as she spoke. 

"So she wasn't cursed then?" I asked and drank my now warm tea.

She shook her head. "Not that I'm aware of. Cassandra's mother was from a very special bloodline and passed the gift of foretelling on to her daughter." She drank her own tea and poured herself and me some more. "Priam continued to show off the power wielded by his own flesh and blood, for years. Cassandra was paraded about, telling fortunes until she could barely stand from the visions. And then one day Agamemnon was present, and King Priam decided to give the Mycanae King his own private reading, away from the ears of his other guests. 

"Cassandra was fourteen at the time, still a child in today's eyes. But back then, old enough for many to have asked Priam for his daughter's hand. Something he had always refused. Agamemnon was not so easily dissuaded, and after the vision, Cassandra was all he wanted."

"What did she see?" I asked.

"Death, fire. The destruction of Troy at Agamemnon's hands, King Priam dead on the steps of the city. Psychics cannot lie, and Priam was furious with what he'd heard. He removed Cassandra back to her room at once, ending the party in a violent temper. And, all the while, Agamemnon had already begun to plan and plot. He wanted the girl for his own, but he couldn't just invade, or attack. It would be suicide. So he thought of a way to get what he wanted, something that took time. It also allowed him to establish why Cassandra was so powerful."

"And the answer was?"

"She was one in a million. Her abilities far exceeded those of a normal psychic. One of her power comes along rarely, but it does happen. Agamemnon discovered this, and so he went to war. 

"He arranged for Helen to seduce Paris. He knew full well that Helen was hard to resist, and that Paris was never one to turn away a beautiful lady, no matter whom she was married to. And it worked even better than he'd hoped, when Paris and Helen actually fell in love. The young idiots gave Agamemnon the perfect excuse to go to war."

"Why didn't Priam know what was going on?" I asked. "I mean, his daughter was a powerful psychic."

"After Agamemnon, he never asked for another vision and barred anyone else from hearing them under pain of death. Cassandra saw everything that was about to happen; the horse, the death of her brother Hector, but no one was allowed to hear it. Troy was destroyed because of King Priam's foolish pride."

"So Troy
was
still destroyed?"

The woman nodded. "Burnt to the ground, its contents pillaged, its people raped and murdered until there was nothing left to give. Even Cassandra didn't escape the Greeks' fury. She was found by Agamemnon as Ajax the Lesser raped her on the steps of Athena's temple." An expression of utter loathing washed over her face. "The story suggests that Ajax the Lesser was eventually killed by Athena and Poseidon for this act. That isn't what happened. Agamemnon, in a rage, had him skinned alive. He conjured the tale of the gods' vengeance as a way of keeping his men in line."

"So, Agamemnon got what he wanted, a powerful psychic. That doesn't explain how it links to what's happening now."

"That's because I haven't gotten there yet," she snapped. "The voyage back to Mycenae was long and difficult. Agamemnon's own daughter died on the trip, she'd stowed away when they'd first set sail and had served as a nurse during the war. But when they finally reached home, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, hated that not only had her daughter died during her husband's war, but that he'd brought home a young, beautiful woman to be by his side always. 

"Clytemnestra had already begun an affair with her husband's cousin and was trying to figure out how to remove Agamemnon from power. The idea of having a psychic around didn't go over well. Although Agamemnon was human, Clytemnestra was a sorcerer. Not a particularly good one, in fact if anything she'd have been utterly average, but she was determined, and eventually figured out a way to turn Cassandra to her advantage. So she arranged her husband's murder and set her plan into motion."

 "And that plan was?" I asked.

The woman smiled slightly, obviously enjoying my need for information. "She realised there were blood magic spells that, when used on a psychic, had interesting results. So she sacrificed some of her people and placed a blood magic curse on Cassandra. With enough death, even an average user of magic can perform incredible spells, and she had more than enough.

"Unfortunately, her remaining children, both sorcerers themselves, hated their mother for what she'd done to their father and murdered Clytemnestra and her lover. But Electra found the dozens of scrolls left behind and deduced what her mother had been trying to do. Clytemnestra was breaking one of the rules of magic—she was trying to re-create the Fates."

It was possible that my jaw dropped open—it's hard to remember, as my brain had been turned to a kind of mush by the news. "As in, the three Fates of Greek mythology?"

The woman nodded. "Clytemnestra would have needed to wait years for Cassandra to have a child, and then a grandchild. But she was a sorcerer, so it wasn't as if she didn't have the time. Or would have, if not for her murder. But the plan was already set in motion. Except it didn't take a few years, it took a few thousand before three of the same bloodline were found, who were not only psychic, but capable of surviving the blood magic ritual."

My mind raced and I barely noticed the door opening, as both the girl and woman from outside walked into the room and stopped. I looked up and immediately recognised one of them. Age-wise, she sat comfortably between the other two, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. "You were at the tube station in Whitechapel," I said. "You brushed past me."

She nodded. "I needed to touch your hand, just enough to start the ball rolling. My name's Grace." 

"
You're
the Fates," I said.

"My name is Cassandra of Troy," the woman who had been telling me the story said. "And you..." Cassandra walked toward me and placed one slender hand on my cheek. "You need to remember who you are."

Chapter 33

Ten Years Ago.

"You should just kill him and be done with it," a man said. His voice held the hint of fear in it. I was curious who was speaking, but I didn't want to open my eyes and give away that I wasn't unconscious anymore.

"That's not your decision though is it," a second man commanded. His tone made it clear that he wasn't used to people refusing his order. 

"He's dangerous," the first man exclaimed. "You're being personal."

There was a noise of flesh striking flesh and a grunt of pain. "Do not argue with me," the second man said. "He's tied to a table, with runes inscribed into it. Nathan Garrett is at my mercy. And I need to know what he discovered. After that, I intend to rend the flesh from his bones. Now leave." 

There were footsteps on the tiled floor, and a gust of air when a door was open, and then silence.

Unfortunately it didn't last. "You can open your eyes, I know you're awake," the second man said.

I did as was asked and stared at the man who stood by my feet. He hadn't changed a day since I'd last seen him, in fact no matter how many times I'd seen him he never changed. "Hello, Mordred," I said. "You should really listen to your friend."

"Employee," he corrected with a sigh. "He might want to think of himself as a powerful and dangerous man, but he's nothing but a bloody fool. He wants to call himself Achilles, can you believe that? Achilles? Proud, arrogant asshole. But he's a good bullet sponge, and does as he's told, for the most part. Gargoyles are rare, so if it doesn't work out I can always sell him for parts."

"You want to know where the Fates are, I assume."

“I'm going to rip the information out of your head. And then find out who you told about them. Achilles is scared that some friends of yours will come rushing through the front door to try and find you. But you didn't tell anyone, did you? You don't trust too many people these days, that's what I heard."

I turned my head to look at the thick rope holding me against the table. "The rope's a little old school, isn't it?"

"I didn't exactly have time to do anything else, and besides the runes will stop you from trying to kill me." He picked up a large bowl and placed his hand inside, drawing it out a second later and flicking the liquid it contained at me. 

A deep, white, rage built inside me. "A sacrifice," I said as Mordred flicked more warm blood at me.

"A secretary from upstairs, made the mistake of saying hello to me in the lift. Well she won't be doing that again, although I understand some people upstairs are pissed off. She was a good secretary." He upended the bowl over me, drenching me in sticky redness. 

"I will kill you," I said. 

"I'm going to lobotomise you, and then I'm going to torture you to death. It'll be good. For me anyway, not so much for you."

I glanced over to the large window behind my captor. "How high up are we?"

Mordred looked at the window and back, a smile plastered to his face. "That's your escape plan? Jump through a window?"

I shook my head. "You're going to let me go."

Mordred laughed so hard, he had to put one hand on the nearest wall to steady himself. "And why would I do that?"

"Because killing me like this nets you nothing. You've wanted me dead for over a thousand years. I know you. I know how your twisted little mind works. You want to beat me, to look me directly in the eyes and know you're my better."

Mordred stopped laughing. "I'll live with just knowing you're dead, and I'm not." He raised his hands above me and began to chant, as black glyphs appeared on his palms and arms. 

Pain racked my body, and I screamed, desperate to break free, to stop the barrage of torture that was inflicted. Then suddenly, the agony stopped. 

Mordred stared down at me. "I've done enough that in about ten minutes you'll forget your own name. I want to see that fear of not knowing what's happening, before I crack your mind like a walnut. Then when I'm finished, I'll untie you and gut you like a fish."

"Mordred," I whispered. "I'll always be better than you."

His rage exploded and he dove for me, his hands around my throat, choking the life from me as he screamed obscenities in my face. Part of my mind panicked, but the part that knew what I was doing, smiled. And I kept that smile on my face as Mordred's turned bright red with hatred. 

"I fucking hate you," he screamed.

"And I know you." I positioned the blade of the sword cane I'd removed from Mordred's belt to cut through the rope. I'd almost succumbed to the darkness, when the rope gave way and a surge of magic rocked through me.