The Inquisitor's Apprentice (32 page)

The fireman's mouth twisted into a cruel grimace that looked utterly alien on his honest Irish face. "Inquisitor Wolf, who else?"

"What if he doesn't come?"

"He will. He'll come charging to your rescue just like the little do-gooder he is. And if he doesn't we can just sit here until we burn to death. It's all the same to me. Actually, I think it could be quite interesting. Haven't you always wondered what it feels like to be burned alive? No? But then of course you'll be dead when it's over, so you won't remember it. I imagine that will make the experience a lot less educational."

"But what's the point of killing me if you can't frame me for killing Edison and use that to run Wolf out of the Inquisitors Division?"

For the first time ever, Sacha saw a look of surprise on Morgaunt's face. "But killing you
is
the point. Has Wolf really kept you in the dark that completely?"

Morgaunt paused. He looked down at Antonio's knife, still in his hands, and seemed puzzled to see it there. Then he gave a rueful shrug of the fireman's broad shoulders, set the knife down on the floor beside him, and turned back to Sacha.

"From the moment I heard about the boy who could see witches, I knew you were a danger to me. A Mage-Inquisitor who can actually
see
magic? That would be a disaster worse than ten Maximillian Wolfs! No, Sacha, you were a marked man from that first day in Mrs. Lassky's bakery. Of course, you would have been far more useful to me as an employee than a corpse. That was the point of the dybbuk. But as you've had reason to discover for yourself, the dybbuks of Mages aren't exactly the most biddable of magical beings. I thought yours would be more manageable since you haven't come into your powers yet. My mistake." Morgaunt gave Sacha a peeved look that would have been almost funny under ordinary circumstances. "I should have known what I was in for the minute the wretched creature stole your mother's locket."

What did Morgaunt mean? Sacha couldn't make sense of it, so he focused on the only thing that did make sense to him: his mother's locket.

"The
dybbuk
took it?" Sacha asked. "Then how did it end up in Edison's lab?"

"I took it away from the horrid little beast and had Edison plant it in the lab before you arrived. I was rather proud of that idea. But I paid dearly for it. It only made the dybbuk more suspicious of me. You've got a nasty, sneaky side to your character, Sacha. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Sacha stared at Morgaunt. He felt a rising panic in his chest. It had begun the moment Morgaunt spoke the word
Mage.
And it had only gotten worse as he realized how completely he had played into Morgaunt's hands.

Morgaunt turned away for an instant to check the doors. Sacha glanced at Antonio—and Antonio nodded toward the knife lying forgotten at Morgaunt's side.

"Keep talking," Antonio mouthed.

He was right, Sacha realized. Even if they couldn't distract Morgaunt enough to get hold of the knife, they could still give Wolf a better chance of taking him by surprise.

"So ... uh ... how did you summon the dybbuk?" he asked.

Morgaunt turned back to him with a mocking grin. "Good try, Mr. Kessler, but that's what we Wall Street Wizards call a trade secret."

Sacha cast around desperately for another question to ask. "And what about Edison?"

"You disappoint me," Morgaunt said scathingly. "I knew you had to be a romantic fool to work for Wolf. But I didn't think you were a hypocrite, too. Seriously, Sacha. How much do you
really
care about Thomas Edison? He's a dreadful anti-Semite, you know. For me it's just business, but he actually believes that claptrap."

The smoke was becoming unbearable. Out in the main section of the theater, a heavy rafter groaned and shattered. It hit the floor with a terrifying crash, pulverizing two rows of seats and lighting up the wreckage like a bonfire.

"Well, I don't want him to
die,
" Sacha protested weakly.

"Why not?" Morgaunt asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. "Because you don't want him dead? Or because you just don't want to have to feel guilty about it?"

Sacha didn't have an answer to that.

"Of course, there is another way out," Morgaunt said, quite casually. "You could hand yourself over to the police and confess to having set the fire yourself."

"What?" Sacha yelped.

"It's what the dybbuk would have done if it had succeeded in killing you. Your stubbornness on that front has caused me a great deal of inconvenience. Still, I think the situation is salvageable. And if you examine all your options, you'll see that it's by far the most humane solution. Wolf will be disgraced, of course. But at least he'll be alive. And what's more, I won't be forced to make an example of your unfortunate family."

It was odd how Sacha saw the full force of Morgaunt's personality only now, when he spoke through another man's body. A less honest man would have flattered Sacha. A less honest man would have told him all about the power he would give him and the wonderful things he would do for his family. But Morgaunt didn't stoop to that. He just laid out his plans, logical as clockwork, and made Sacha see that he had no choice but to follow them.

Sacha searched desperately for a way out of the trap. Morgaunt waited for him to think the problem through with the patience of a chess player who has worked out all the moves and knows with mathematical certainty that he will win no matter what his opponent does. When Sacha opened his mouth to give Morgaunt an answer, he still wasn't sure himself what he was going to say.

And he never did find out. Because at that moment Wolf burst into the theater.

Morgaunt was ready for him. He drew down the flames that crackled overhead—just as Sacha had seen him draw magic out of thin air back in his library—and flung them straight at Wolf.

Wolf didn't seem to have a clue what was coming at him. To Sacha's horror, he had even taken off his glasses. Did he think he had time to wipe them on his tie and think things over before protecting himself?

Then, at the last possible instant, as the fireball hurtled toward him, he looked up.

He worked no visible magic. He just stood there with a blank look on his face, watching Morgaunt through eyes as flat and bleak as a winter sky. But Sacha saw—he saw it all, with the second sight that he now understood was a curse as well as a talent.

Morgaunt staggered under Wolf's assault, but he didn't fall. Again he made the gesture he had used to call down the flames. But this time he called on the power of the gathering crowd outside the burning theater. Their fear and panic surged through the air like electrical current. And Morgaunt twisted it, perverted it, made it his.

"Don't," Wolf said, so quietly that Sacha barely heard him above the roar of the fire. "There are powers in this city you don't want me to awaken."

But Morgaunt just laughed.

"I'm so sorry," Wolf said—and he seemed to be speaking more to Sacha than to Morgaunt. And then he began to work a kind of magic Sacha had never seen before.

Space rippled and flowed around Wolf, just as Sacha had seen the streets of New York ripple and flow before the Rag and Bone Man appeared. Suddenly a phalanx of ghostly forms stood beside Wolf. Shen was there: a sort of sunlight-through-clouds echo of her that was the absolute opposite of a shadow. And there were other bright shadows, towering over Wolf like giants, their faces strangely familiar, as if Sacha had known them all his life without ever quite realizing it: the Rag and Bone Man, straddling his ancient horse like a rider of the apocalypse; a tattered, worn-down beggar whose face seemed to change from moment to moment so that he looked like every panhandler Wolf had ever given money to; a pale woman in white whose face was the saddest thing Sacha had ever seen.

But whatever powers Wolf had called upon, they weren't enough. Morgaunt's stolen power was stronger. And it grew stronger still with every person who joined the growing mob outside the theater.

Wolf stumbled. He dropped his glasses, and they shattered with a crack like a gun going off.

Instinctively, Sacha stepped forward to help—and realized that he could move again. He glanced sideways and saw the same realization in Antonio's eyes. They looked at each other for no more than a split second. Then they both lunged for the knife.

Sacha reached it first. He snatched it up and stabbed at Morgaunt. But Morgaunt jerked away at the last second, and the blade cut through empty air. Then Sacha felt Morgaunt's powerful hand close over his, crushing his fingers and threatening to wrench the knife from his grasp.

Antonio tackled Morgaunt, trying to help Sacha, but Morgaunt threw him off with a great heave of his shoulders—and Antonio flew through the air, landed in a heap, and lay still.

Sacha struggled for the knife. His vision tunneled down to the glinting steel blade. His fingers went numb, and he knew he couldn't hang on much longer.

Morgaunt began to twist the knife in Sacha's hands, driving it relentlessly toward his throat. Closer and closer the blade came, until it was only inches from Sacha's face. In desperation, Sacha did the only thing he could think of to do: He clamped his teeth on Morgaunt's hand and bit down as hard as he could.

Morgaunt screamed. He wrenched Sacha into the air and slammed him back down with a bone-jarring thud. Sacha's head swam and his knees buckled...

Then Wolf was upon them. He forced Morgaunt's head around so that the man had no choice but to stare into those bleak and colorless eyes, and he unleashed a power colder and more terrible than anything Sacha had ever imagined.

Suddenly Sacha didn't ever want to see magic again. He knew now why ordinary people hated and feared the Inquisitors—and why ordinary Inquisitors hated and feared Wolf. And he knew that after tonight, no matter how long he worked with Wolf or how much he came to trust him, he would always be terrified of the man.

Sacha saw the exact moment when Morgaunt admitted defeat. One instant Morgaunt was in possession of the fireman's body. The next he was gone, and the fireman was crumpling to the floor with a dazed look on his face.

For a moment Wolf stood over the body, blazing with magic like an avenging angel. Then he seemed to fade and shrink right before Sacha's eyes until he was only his everyday self again, as dull and gray as dishwater.

He knelt over Sacha. "I'm sorry," he said. "You shouldn't have seen that yet. I knew you weren't ready, but I didn't have a choice. Are you all right?"

Behind Wolf, other rescuers had arrived to gather up Edison and Antonio. Someone seemed to have placed a protective spell on the theater; there were no more falling rafters, and the flames had a glossy distant look, as if they were burning behind glass.

"Say something, Sacha."

"Morgaunt—he told me—he said I'm—like you." He couldn't even make himself say the word
Mage.

"Do you believe him?"

"But I can't do magic!" Sacha protested. "I've never done magic!"

"Haven't you?" Wolf's voice was gentle, but it cut through Sacha's words, silencing him. He thought of how Shen had shown up just when he needed her. Of how the Rag and Bone Man had saved him again and again. Of the times he'd felt the city move and ripple around him. Had those things only happened to him? Or had he somehow
done
them?

"Then I'll stop! I can—"

"You can't. You don't have a choice. I learned that the hard way when I was your age. The only choice you have is whether you control the magic or the magic controls you."

"Why didn't you
tell
me?"

"Because you weren't ready to hear it. And I was afraid that being able to see magic would make it even harder for you. I was right, too. Look at you."

"I'll be all right," Sacha muttered.

Wolf looked at him gravely, started to speak, and then stopped himself. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He reached out a hand to help Sacha up—but Sacha flinched away from it and buried his head in his hands. Wolf stood over him for a moment, waiting for Sacha to look up. Then he sighed and walked away.

When Sacha finally raised his head, Lily and Payton were there. They helped him to his feet, and the three of them followed the rescue party through the flames.

Somehow they made it out of the burning building—straight into a street carnival. Sacha had known there was a crowd outside, but he'd had no idea just how big it was. More people were arriving every second. Hucksters were selling hot dogs and roasted peanuts. Some enterprising fellow had even stationed himself by the gate to the hotel grounds with a sign that read
ADMISSION TO THE BURNING RUINS 10 CENTS
.
The fire might have begun as tragedy, but it was rapidly turning into melodrama. The death of the Elephant Hotel had become a genuine Coney Island event.

A squad of Inquisitors led the rescue party down the steps and cleared their way through the crowd. Flashbulbs popped and flared. Reporters shouted questions from every side. The next thing Sacha knew, he and Lily and Antonio were shaking the mayor's hand and being ushered past a gauntlet of newspaper reporters into the terrifying presence of James Pierpont Morgaunt.

"Congratulations," Morgaunt drawled. "You've saved the day."

He reached for Sacha's hand, and flashbulbs sparkled in his diamond cuff links like dying stars. Morgaunt's grip was alarmingly strong. Sacha tried to pull his hand back, but he only managed to flutter his fingers in Morgaunt's grasp like a butterfly caught in a collector's net.

Morgaunt's steely eyes bored into him. "You've played the part of a hero," he said in a voice so level and forthright that only Sacha heard the laughter behind his words. Morgaunt was enjoying himself. He was daring Sacha to accuse him, just as he'd dared Wolf before. He liked knowing that Sacha knew what he was and couldn't do a thing about it.