The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XIV

"I would only have something to be afraid of if you were loose, girl. Thankfully, you're all comfortable and cozy in here. No thaumaturgy for you."

She mutters something inaudible, her voice scratchy from disuse.

"What was that?"

"I said, I don't have to use thaumaturgy to hurt you." And she lunges her head forward, sinking her razor-sharp canines into his hand. He shouts and tries to pull away, as if expecting her to let go, but she holds on stubbornly, releasing him only when he strikes her across the face. A pair of puncture wounds ooze blood onto his pristine royal purple robes, and he retreats to the other side of the cell, bumping into her brother. He turns around and thrusts his hand into the boy's face, careful this time to keep his distance. "Heal me."

"Why would I ever do that?" His voice was smooth and cold.

"If you value your sister's life, you will," the man answers, whipping a knife out of his pocket and levitating it toward the girl's neck. "I have more, and my companion twice as many. If you try anything when I take the silk off, your sister is dead. Understand?"

The boy just nods as the silk atop one of his manacles unties and falls off seemingly of its own accord. Before the man can even look at his hand, the wounds are gone. He nods appreciatively, then twists his face into a sneer as the silk reties.

"Impure interbreeders. You just think you're oh so good, don't you? Well, guess what, you're not in charge anymore." For good measure, he slaps the boy's face with his good hand, an ugly ring gifting him with a cut across the cheek which matches his sister's.

The man's companion has moved on to the parents, near the door, examining their faces. "Kill the twins," he suggests without turning around.

"No. I don't want to kill them. I want them to rot in prison for the rest of their lives."

"Very well. I wouldn't mind killing the parents, though. They seem to be of no use."

"Go ahead."

The boy squeezes his eyelids shut, but can't block out the sound of two bodies hitting the floor.

Dakota jerked awake with a start.

Why do we have to go through this?

☙❧

Galena was the last to enter the DIAO building when the group returned from Eugene, but the first to notice a coin-sized hole in the front window. "Hey, Janelle, do you know anything about this?"

"It wasn't there before," she answered, walking over to inspect the edges. "In fact, you know what, it looks like it was made by a glass cutter."

"Why just make a little hole and then leave?"

"I don't think whoever it is just left. In fact, I'm worried they took something."

"Janelle!" Evan roared from inside the building. The two of them rushed inside and into the lab, where Evan stood pondering the counter. "Did you move that key over the weekend?"

She looked mystified. "No, I just left it right here."

"Maybe they took that," Galena realized, noticing a second small hole in the window of the lab door.

"What?" Evan seemed puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

"Diane!" she screeched, running out into the hall and towards the front office. "Diane, we need to see the security feed!" Galena rushed into the office, the door banging behind her.

"Diane, there's been a break-in. They took the key. Where's the feed?" She looked wildly around the office as if expecting the feed to jump out of a corner.

"Calm down, Galena, the feed won't go away if you wait five seconds," Diane answered, seeming a bit alarmed herself. "I'll pull it up, just hang on a second." She began tapping the computer screen, opening the camera footage.

"Too late," Derek's voice shouted from somewhere in the building. "Lillian's here."

☙❧

Lillian was seated at the end of the table looking expectant when Rolf entered the conference room. Everyone else- with the exception of Erica- looked significantly dejected. "What's wrong?"

"Break-in," Derek said shortly. "Tell you later. You'll hear about it too, so don't start complaining," he addressed Lillian, who had, in fact, been about to start complaining.

"You know that key you gave us?" Lillian nodded, and Galena continued. "That's what we think was taken in the break-in today. But basically, we found some fingerprints on the key, and they were the fingerprints of a young boy who was arrested for vagrancy about forty years ago. A boy who looks like the man who gave you that key in the first place. And possibly one of the two people who survived the Thaumatogenesis. We went to-" she cleared her throat- "exhume the body earlier today, and we found nothing except the case of a hand mirror that we think was the same one he was carrying when he was arrested."

Lillian looked mystified. "How is that even possible?"

Galena shrugged. "It's not, which is why we think there must be some thaumaturgy involved. Oh, and your blood test- nothing. AB positive, in case you were wondering, but nothing out of the ordinary."

"How about the DNA test?"

"We won't get results on that for a couple weeks, but I'll let you know when we do. Do you want to maybe help us figure out the break-in?" Janelle asked anxiously.

"Sure," Lillian replied easily, rising from her seat to follow Diane out the door and into the front office.

Lillian slumped into one of the large padded JOLO-brand office chairs, adjusting her position uncomfortably over the brand name stitched into the seat, while Diane opened the feed with a series of clicks and fast forwarded to the first sign of motion. On screen, a glass cutter carefully cut a small circular hole in the front window. When the tiny piece of glass fell to the ground outside the building, a white blob began to wriggle its way through the hole and into the building, causing Diane to make a face. When the blob finally made it all the way in, it unfolded and Lillian noted with a good deal of relief that it was a wadded-up latex glove and (thankfully) not a large slug- the video wasn't of exceptional quality, so she hadn't been able to tell.

"Telekinesis," she muttered as the glove floated toward the door and started fiddling with the lock, eventually managing to open it. A figure outside the window watched it anxiously until the door opened and he could walk in.

It was the man who had come to Lillian's door.