The Inquisitor's Apprentice

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. Admission to the Burning Ruins 1 °Cents

WHEN SACHA opened his eyes, the dybbuk was gone. he looked down at his chest and saw blood. then he looked up and saw Antonio standing over him, clutching a kitchen knife.

“I didn’t mean to cut you that bad,” Antonio said. “I only meant to chase out that … thing.”

“By stabbing me? And if you had that knife, why didn’t you use it when you were actually trying to kill me?”

“I remembered something my mother said about pain driving out evil spirits. And I was going to stab you, but it seemed kind of … well … unfair.”

Sacha stared at the other boy, dumbfounded. Then he burst out laughing. “You followed me all the way here in order to kill me, and then you didn’t want to use a knife because you thought it wouldn’t be fair? That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“I’m silly?” Antonio asked incredulously. “I’m not the one who just offered to let that thing eat me for dinner in!” He shuddered. “Do you think it’s really gone?”

“I don’t know,” Sacha admitted. “I hope so.”

He lifted his shirt gingerly and tried to see where all the blood was coming from. It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. The knife had skipped along his ribs, and though the cut was long and ugly, it wasn’t deep. He obviously wasn’t going to die of it. It just felt like he was.

“I don’t want to scare you or anything,” Antonio said, glancing over Sacha’s shoulder. “But I think we should leave.”

“We can’t!” Sacha struggled to his feet. “Morgaunt won’t just give up because you chased the dybbuk off. He’ll have a backup plan.”

“Uh… I think I already know what it is.”

Sacha followed Antonio's gaze and saw that the spotlight operators had now left their posts and were moving around behind the painted canvas backdrop.

“What are they doing?”

Antonio gave him a pitying look. “What do people usually do with matches and kerosene?”

The flames began to catch and swell, licking their way up the backdrop. As Sacha watched, he realized that this was just a diversion — Morgaunt was rearranging the chessboard so that Wolf would have no choice but to make the moves he’d planned for him. But it didn’t matter. The theater was a firetrap, and it was packed to the gills. Any decent human being would race to save the innocent bystanders from the flames — even if it meant leaving Morgaunt free to commit some other crime. There was only one thing to do, even if it was exactly what Morgaunt wanted them to do.

He raised his head, cupped his hands around his lips, and shouted, “Fire!”

At first no one noticed. Then the band stopped playing. Then Sacha saw the white circle of a woman’s face staring up at them. Her mouth opened, and her eyes grew wide with terror, and she started screaming.

It took a while for the people around her to react. The audience was still too focused on Houdini’s mortal struggle. But now the licking flames were beginning to eat at the backdrop. A few more people caught sight of them, and then a few more. Gradually they stopped worrying that Houdini was about to drown and started worrying that they were about to get burned alive.

Onstage, a fireman grabbed the ax next to the Water Torture Cell and smashed the plate glass, freeing Houdini — and several hundred gallons of water, which actually came in pretty handy under the circumstances. Houdini rose to the occasion. And so did Edison, in his own decidedly odd way. In seconds, Houdini had cast off his manacles and begun pushing, dragging, and carrying people toward the exits. Edison, on the other hand, had eyes only for his etherograph. Instead of running for the exit like everyone else, he tried to save his precious prototype.

All the while, Sacha and Antonio were making the slow, painful climb down to safety. Antonio reached the bottom first and helped Sacha down the last few rungs. Finally they were both standing on solid ground. They turned to find their way out through the rising flames — and found themselves face-to-face with a burly fireman in full battle dress.

“This is no place for kids!” the man exclaimed. “Let’s get you out of here!”

Sacha went limp with relief, half collapsing against Antonio. But then, right before their horrified eyes, the man changed.

There was nothing you could put your finger on, no clear moment when the man stopped being himself and became someone else. But Sacha could see the magic flaring and spitting around him. There was no mistaking that steely blue flame — or the hard-as-steel voice that emerged the next time the fireman opened his mouth.

“Come along, boys!” Morgaunt sounded almost cheerful — and Sacha didn’t even want to think about what would make a man like Morgaunt cheerful. “I’ve got a job I need your help for.”

He marched off, and Sacha and Antonio were forced to follow him, though Sacha couldn’t have said for his life whether it was magic that compelled them or sheer physical terror.

“Is that Morgaunt?” Antonio whispered.

“Yes.”

“And he’s the one who summoned the dybbuk?”

Sacha nodded.

“Then I guess it’s him I should have been shooting at.”

“Where is that gun anyway?” Sacha couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. “It could really come in handy right about now.”

Antonio looked shamefaced. “My mother took it. She wanted me to stay home and cry like a girl instead of doing what a proper son should.”

“And right she was,” Morgaunt interrupted, shocking both of them. “Your father was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got caught in the machinery. Only a fool would throw away his future to avenge an accident.”

Morgaunt stopped speaking to clear his throat. It was painful to hear his voice coming from the fireman’s body. It forced its way out of the man like a grindstone relentlessly pulverizing every obstacle in its path.

“Ah,” Morgaunt said as they turned a corner, “there he is.”

They had found Thomas Edison, alone and defenseless, desperately trying to drag his etherograph to safety.

“Can I help you with that, Mr. Edison?” Morgaunt’s voice sounded enough like the fireman’s voice to fool anyone who didn’t know better, and he was already reaching out to relieve Edison of the unwieldy etherograph.

“Careful!” Edison told him. “Grab hold of it here, at the base. and watch out for—”

But Edison never got to say what he wanted him to watch out for. As he bent over the machine, Morgaunt raised the fireman’s ax and hammered the flat of it down on the back of Edison’s head, knocking him senseless.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Morgaunt said in a satisfied tone. “That man talks enough to kill a horse.”

He kicked Edison just hard enough to make sure he was unconscious. Then he hefted the inventor over his shoulder and started walking back into the heart of the fire. Sacha’s body followed against its will, and he could see Antonio moving jerkily beside him.

When they got back to the stage, Morgaunt dumped Edison in a heap. With a careless flick of his hand, he forced the two boys to sit beside Edison. And then he took Antonio’s knife and sat down to wait as comfortably as if he were in his own library.

The fire raged around them. They were at the heart of the conflagration, pinned between the canvas backdrop and the heavy red velvet curtain. The curtain was a tattered fringe of blackened rags by now, and the backdrop was a translucent web of fire that shed smoldering cinders onto the stage with every puff of overheated air. Sacha’s lungs felt like they were on fire too. He wondered how long it would be before the smoke lulled him into a final, helpless sleep.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, more because he felt compelled to say something than because he expected an answer.

Morgaunt grinned. Or rather 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 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,” Morgaunt answered when he’d regained his composure. “You mean you really haven’t guessed? Has Wolf kept you in the dark that completely?”

Sacha stared, open-mouthed, as Morgaunt continued.

“From the moment I heard about the boy who could see witches, I knew you were a danger to me. And when I saw your Inquisitorial Quotient test, I knew you were even more dangerous than I’d imagined. A Mage-Inquisitor who can actually see magic? That would be a disaster worse than ten Maximillian Wolfs! No, Sacha, from the moment you went to work for Wolf, there were only two possible outcomes: I would control you, or I would kill you.”

Morgaunt paused. he looked down at Antonio’s knife, still in his hands, and seemed surprised 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.

“I admit, I was quite taken with the idea of using your dybbuk to bring Wolf down. I even hoped your dybbuk might be a sort of dry run for doing one of Wolf. But as you’ve had reason to discover, 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 about I.Q. tests and the dybbuks of Mages? And coming into his powers? Sacha couldn’t make sense of it, so he focused on the only thing that did make sense to him: his mother’s locket.

“You mean you didn’t plan that?” he asked. “then how did it end up in Edison’s lab?”

“I took it away from the dybbuk and had Edison plant it in the lab before you arrived. I was rather proud of that idea. Though I paid dearly for it in the end. 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 knifed 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 and his rescue party a better chance of taking Morgaunt by surprise.

“So … uh … how did you summon the dybbuk?” he asked.

Morgaunt turned back to him with a mocking grin. “Good try,” he told Sacha, “but that is what we Wall Street Wizards call a trade secret.”

Sacha case around desperately for another question to ask. “Uh … 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 pretended that Wolf wouldn’t be fired in disgrace. 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 Lily Astral burst into the theater at the head of a rescue crew that included Inquisitor Wolf, Philip Payton, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, and half a dozen plainclothes Inquisitors.

A cool breeze seemed to waft into the theater with them. Sacha felt his head clear and his breath come easier. Suddenly Morgaunt’s ruthless logic seemed much less convincing. But Morgaunt was far from finished.

As the rescuers dashed into the theater, 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 was defenseless. He 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 shirttails and think things over before protecting himself from Morgaunt?

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

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

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

But however terrifying Wolf’s magic was, what happened next was worse.

Morgaunt again made the gesture he had used to call down the flames on Wolf. But this time he called down the power of the gathering crowd outside the burning theater. Sacha could feel their fear and panic surging through the air like electrical current. He could almost taste it.

Wolf countered Morgaunt’s new magic. Where Morgaunt had seized the power of unknowing and unwilling people, Wolf drew on a very different power. It rippled and flowed around him just as Sacha had seen the streets of New York ripple and flow before the Rag and Bone Man appeared. And suddenly Sacha could have sworn he saw Shen standing beside Wolf. Except this was a sort of sunlight-through-clouds echo of Shen that was the absolute opposite of a shadow.

The other forms that began to glimmer around Wolf were stranger still. They towered over him like giants, their faces strangely familiar. Here was the Rag and Bone Man, straddling his ancient horse like a rider of the apocalypse. Here was a tattered, worn-down beggar whose face seemed to change from moment to moment so that he looked like everyone and nobody. And here was a pale woman in white whose face was the saddest thing Sacha had ever seen in his life.

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

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

Instinctively, Sacha took a step forward to help him — and realized that he could move again. In the heat of the battle Morgaunt must have forgotten about him. 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. An instant later, Morgaunt had hold of the knife too, crushing Sacha’s fingers and threatening to wrench it from his grasp.

Antonio ducked past Sacha and grabbed Morgaunt’s other arm. Over his shoulder, Sacha caught fleeting glimpses of Wolf and his ghostly helpers. They were taking advantage of Morgaunt’s distraction, making more headway against him now that Sacha and Antonio had joined the fight. He could hear TR urging them on, and see Payton and Houdini edging around the theater with Lily in the hopes of outflanking Morgaunt. But would it be enough?

Suddenly Morgaunt gave a great heave. Antonio flew through the air, landed in a heap, and lay still. Sacha struggled for the knife, gritting his teeth to hang on despite the punishment Morgaunt was inflicting on him. He felt his fingers go numb and knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. Then 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: he bit down on Morgaunt’s hand as hard as he could and hung on for dear life.

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, and he knew he could only hold on for a few more seconds…

And then Wolf was upon them. He forced Morgaunt’s head around so that the two men were staring into each other’s eyes. Then he unleashed a power colder and more terrible than any magic Sacha had ever seen before. Sacha saw the exact moment at which 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 minute 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, Sacha could see the other rescuers gathering up Edison and Antonio and the fireman. Someone seemed to have placed some kind of protective spell on the theater; there were no more falling rafters, and the flames had a glossy, distant look, as though 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?”

“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?

“Fine! I just won’t do it anymore! I can—”

“No, 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.”

“You could have told me!” Suddenly Sacha felt bitter and ill-used. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because I knew you weren’t ready to hear it. And I was afraid that your 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.”

Wolf 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 1 °CENTS. The fire might have begun as a 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 could possibly have caught the hidden meaning behind his words.

But to Sacha the innuendo was unmistakable. 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 damn thing about it.

“I–I just did my job,” Sacha stammered. He tried again to get his hand back, but he might as well have tried to pull it out of a bear trap.

The faintest hint of a smile glinted behind Morgaunt’s eyes. “Inquisitor Wolf is lucky to have such a loyal apprentice.”

“Th-thank you, sir.”

Morgaunt’s smile broadened. “Pentacle Industries could use a fellow like you. Someone who has the guts to take risks and isn’t always looking over his shoulder, afraid of his own shadow.”

Looking over his shoulder? Afraid of his own shadow? Morgaunt’s choice of words couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

“I’m not interested,” Sacha snapped, starting to lose his temper.

“I bet I could make you change your mind,” Morgaunt said with a wicked gleam of laughter in his eyes. “Shall I try?”

Good God, what did that mean? Sacha thought of his family and his mouth went dry with terror.

Morgaunt let go of Sacha’s hand, releasing it so abruptly that Sacha almost fell over backward.

“Don’t look so worried, Mr. Kessler. If you insist on being a policeman, I suppose I’ll just have to resign myself to it. For now, anyway.”