Disclaimer/AN: Characters from The Sorcerer's Apprentice are owned by Disney. As is about 2/3 of Florida. Coincidence? I think not.
There isn't enough Abigail Williams fic out there. Drake appears to have a small, but passionate cadre of fans, but I'm sure he'd love to have more. There will be only canon pairings in this fic; I'm going for a brother-sister dynamic with Drake and Abby, not romance. But everyone will make an appearance at some point.
Early morning sunlight slanted between the velvet curtains of Drake Stone's penthouse apartment, glanced off a finely-wrought candelabra on his bedside table, and pooled on the floor beside his custom-made heart-shaped waterbed. The quilted coverlet had been pulled aside and the crimson satin sheets yanked off the mattress and shredded. They were currently twisted around their owner's wrists and ankles, and shoved into his mouth as a crude gag. Drake, fortunately, was out cold, and had been out cold, blissfully unaware of this rough treatment.
He was mostly under the bed, shoved as far into the cramped space as possible, only a shoulder and the trailing end of sheet-ropes sticking out.
Footsteps clicked down the hall, paused at the door, and were accompanied by a soft noise of disgust. A girl entered the room. Dressed in a simple brown gown with a wide collar, her dark hair tucked under a white cap, she was a dull contrast to the opulent red, gold, and brocade black of the room. Petal pink lips were set in a sneer as she took in the décor, and then she noticed the form under the bed. Rolling her eyes, she clenched small fists around a fold in the unconscious man's jacket and tugged. She wasn't strong enough to drag him out completely, but when most of his upper body was in view, she knelt and untied the gag.
"Wake up," she said evenly, shaking his shoulder.
He groaned and shifted slightly, "Nnh…little bit lower, love…you know how I like it."
She recoiled slightly, then scowled and gave him a resounding slap across the face. That did it. His eyes flew open and his shoulder jerked as he tried to raise a hand to defend the growing red mark she had left on his cheekbone. "Ow! What the bleeding hell was that f—who are you?"
Realizing he was bound and stuffed under his own bed, he began to struggle, half-panicked. "What happened? Where's Horvath? The last thing I remember…"
She was tempted to slap him again. "You talk too much. Try to push your way out of there and I might be kind enough to untie you. Horvath is gone. He betrayed us both."
She stood and made her way over to the window, peering down at the street below. Cars moved slowly along far beneath them. People walked along the sidewalk calmly. No screaming, no terror. To her, it was an inauspicious sign.
Drake stared after her a moment, then wriggled out from under the bed with an effort. "You're the girl, aren't you? The one from the Grimhold."
"Very astute." She didn't turn to look at him, and something about her tone reminded him of Horvath. He frowned, annoyed, and searched his memory for her name. "Abigail. Abigail Williams."
"Yes. And you are…?" She turned to stare at him coldly. In truth, his name meant nothing to her, but she supposed she needed him for now.
"Nggh!" He kicked his way free of the bed, then fought his way into a sitting position. "Drake Stone. He didn't even mention me?" He knew Horvath wasn't exactly his friend, or officially his master for that matter, but somehow he felt a little hurt.
It must have showed on his face, because the girl gave him an incredulous look. "No. He did not. But then I wasn't free for very long before he stole my power and my amulet."
Drake's eyes widened, then fell to his hands, bound in front of him. "My ring! It's gone!" He swore and tried to twist free of his bonds.
"Oh, for heaven's sake." She came over and untied his wrists grudgingly. "Of course it's gone, idiot. He used you. He used us both."
Drake scrambled to undo the sheets around his ankles, trying to collect his thoughts. "…he said something about some Haitian spell, and then he came up behind me…"
"The Parasite Spell," she moved to the doorway and folded her hands in front of her, nodding.
"That's not in my Encantus," he stood and stamped a little, trying to restore the blood flow to his numb feet.
"The Encantus contains the spells of Merlin and some of the spells of Lady Morgana. The Parasite Spell was invented much later on, in Hispaniola, by the sorceress Felicia Inmaculata. She coaxed secrets out of an old Arawak shaman and blended them with what she already knew of magic." Abigail turned and exited the room, her heels clicking down the hallway. She had already explored the penthouse and knew her way around well enough.
Drake stumbled after her. "Wait, what? How do you know all this? You're, what, twelve?"
"Fifteen," she corrected him with a faint frown, and stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. "And I know because Felicia was my teacher. Briefly."
"Right. Well. I didn't have one for very long, either," he muttered, following.
She stood by the sink and gestured around her. "This place," she said. "It's all for you? I assume it's not Horvath's; your portrait is all over the walls."
It was true. Hanging on the kitchen wall was a life-sized poster promoting his most recent show, and the 'Magic of Drake Stone' 2010 calendar. The current month's image was of him shirtless, chained and hovering over a cauldron of bubbling water, his expression stoic and confident. He smiled. "Yeah. Had it a little less than a year. There's people here off and on. Fans, groupies, entourage. But it's all mine."
"It's vulgar," she said. "Excess is unbecoming in a sorcerer."
"Look here," he scowled, "no one's making you stay. In fact, since I didn't invite you in the first place, why don't you just jump on your broom and go?"
"Do you want to die?" She turned and tilted her head to look up at him. He was more than a foot taller than she.
He hesitated, not sure whether to process this as a warning or a threat. "What are you getting at?"
"The Parasite Spell is lethal," she said quietly. "If not stopped or blocked. If you want to see your next birthday, you'll have to get your ring back."
He stepped back, then moved slowly to the kitchen table and sat down, staring at her in wordless shock.
"Just as I will need to retrieve my amulet," she went on, "because I have no intention of dying. And as little as I like depending on you, you obviously have money, contacts, and know the city better than I. Whereas I seem to have a better grasp of magic." She sniffed disdainfully.
"Wait," he said. "If Horvath wanted us dead, why did he just leave us? Why not kill us outright?"
"Because," she rolled her eyes. "He didn't want us dead. The Parasite Spell relies on the victim continuing to generate magical power for the holder of his or her talisman. Once we die, he loses the boost he gained from us. But the inevitable result of having one's power drawn away across great distances is wasting death."
"Wasting?" He didn't like the sound of that.
"Excruciating, drawn-out, anguished death as body systems are deprived of resources and fail one by one," she clarified helpfully, then added, "I'm hungry. Show me where the food is so I can have breakfast."
"No," he said. "I'm not done with the topic at hand yet! What do we do? How long do we have?"
"We have a fortnight, give or take. And our best recourse will be to hunt Horvath down and take our things back. But I'll need to do some more research. Food. Now."
Drake stared at her, then realized he was hungry, too. "…all right," he said weakly and got up. "Normally I have Bob around to do this."
"A servant?"
"Mnn…sort of." He got out plates and glasses, then opened his refrigerator. "Milk? Cranberry juice?"
She peered under his arm. "Milk. Thank you. I'm capable of doing my part with chores as long as I'm living here, but I'll need time to acclimate."
"Aw, no need for that, love." He got out the milk and poured a little into a glass for her. "I have staff. Gave them the week off because Horvath said they were all going to die anyway, but I can cancel it." He got a few more things out of the fridge, then closed it and rifled through a nearby cabinet for bagels. "Come to think of it, why hasn't the world come to an end yet? Place should be crawling with undead Morganians."
"Oh, you finally noticed?" She smiled unpleasantly. "Obviously, he's failed. Perhaps even with our power the old man didn't have it in him to release Lady Morgana. But I think it more likely the last remaining Merlinians interfered."
"Balthazar Blake is still around," Drake frowned as he handed her the glass. "And kicking. And he's got an apprentice."
"The Prime Merlinian, yes. Horvath said so. He had me abduct his little girlfriend as a hostage. Pretty, I suppose, but excitable." She drank her milk with relish, then wandered over to the island counter and perched on a stool. "I don't know how it all turned out. But whether Horvath is alive or dead, we still need to reclaim our talismans. I don't know about you, but I hope he's still alive. I would like to kill him personally."
He stuck bagels in the toaster, watching her in his peripheral vision. "Remind me to stay on your good side."
She broke into a sudden, sunny smile. "Oh, do."
He turned to regard her thoughtfully as the bagels toasted. Cute kid, actually, now that he got a better look at her. Big brown eyes, dimples, smooth skin and shiny hair. Hard to believe she was wicked enough for Blake to hunt her down and lock her away.
"So what did you do?" he asked her.
She raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"
"Other than the Lady M herself, there were only three of our kind in that doll. Horvath, Sun-Lok, and you. From what I hear, most of the time Balthazar Blake ran into a Morganian, he killed them. Now, it makes sense that he'd want to put Horvath away. That's personal. And I hear Sun Lok had some crazy invincibility spells, for all the good it did him. But you I don't get, unless he has a soft spot for little girls and just couldn't bump you off."
The colloquialisms threw her. She tilted her head at him, frowning, then started as the bagels popped up out of the toaster. He glanced over his shoulder and turned to retrieve them, putting them on two plates and spreading them generously with herbed cream cheese.
"It…may have been partly that," she said slowly, watching him. "But I suspect it was also, in a sense, personal. You do know that Blake was tortured in the Inquisition?"
He shook his head. "Hadn't read that one. Honestly, I'm not all that up on magical history and theory. Couldn't be bothered."
She wrinkled her nose, disapproving. "I see. Well, he was arrested as a heretic and a warlock, along with a couple students. I understand it was all very messy." She waved a hand dismissively. "Obviously he lived, but witch hunting became a bit of a sore spot, and I touched off a little trouble in Salem."
Drake nodded slowly. He wasn't all that up on American history, either, having only been in the country a few years. But the events at Salem tended to stand out as slightly lurid and larger than life. How many people dead? A dozen? Two dozen? He couldn't recall. "Bored?" he asked.
"Not exactly." She rested her chin in her hand. "It was an experiment in human behavior."
He piled lox on the bagels and slid a plate over to her, plopping himself on a stool on the opposite side of the counter. She prodded the bagel cautiously, not entirely certain what type of food she was being presented with, then picked it up and took a bite. Her eyes widened and she nodded in approval, chewed, and swallowed. "Very good. Thank you, Mr. Stone."
He stifled a smile, amused. "Drake."
"Is that proper?" she frowned. "I'm sure conventions have changed, but…"
"Nevermind that," he took a bite of his own bagel. "Go on with your story."
"Ah. There isn't much more to tell. I wanted to see how easily I could turn a neighbor against a neighbor." She ran her fingertip over the rim of her glass. "It was easy, so easy. My God in Heaven, people are fickle. All I did was give Betty a few nasty dreams, and the next thing I knew, the people around me turned into monsters."
She looked up at him and smiled. "That's all morality and love are worth, you see. They're pretty words we use to deny all the ugliness we carry around inside. Just a little push and it all comes pouring out."
He stilled at her words, a little chilled. To him magic was a way to rise above the rabble, to get the things he wanted, and part of him didn't care who he stepped on, on the way up. That was what made him a Morganian: ruthless ambition. But she was talking about something else. He didn't have a name to put to it.
He must have stared too long, because she frowned at him. "What? You disapprove?"
He raised a hand defensively. "I didn't say that. I was just thinking."
"Well, stop thinking." She resumed eating with dignity. "You'd do the same. Any of us who bear the Lady's name would."
He struggled for a way to change the subject, and hit on the most obvious thing in the world. "Not about that. I was thinking you're going to need a change of clothes if we're going to walk around Manhattan looking for Horvath. The whole corset and bustle thing isn't done anymore."
"Corset and what?" She shook her head. "I don't understand half of what you say, Mr. Stone, but I can certainly alter my own clothing however you see fit."
"Not on your life, Abby." He grinned. "I can call you Abby, right?"
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Great!" He ignored her. "We'll get you set up like a real girl of the 21st century. And then…"
"Then we'll kill Horvath?" she suggested.
"I was going to offer you a tour of the city," he said reproachfully. "But we'll get to that, too."
"You aren't taking this seriously at all," she said.
"'Course I am." He got up to get himself some cranberry juice. "But you've got to have a laugh, haven't you? If you can't have a laugh, you might as well be dead."