Full Circle
by Laura Boeff and Birgit Staebler
Theoretical sciences.
Experimental.
Extraordinary.
His mind raced trough
the words his master would use. Brilliant. Yes, maybe even that.
His poor master. Wrong, it was wrong what
had been done to the man. Did anyone care? Did
anyone seek justice?
No. He was alone in
that pursuit.
Alone.
Again.
He sucked in his lower
lip and finished the shipping sticker. A perfect duplicate. Perfect!
His master would be proud. He would never
admit it, but he was sure the older man would have
been. His master had been a man of few
words, but he knew, behind those snide comments, and
occasional brutal attacks, his master
had cared. Had cared for him. And now he was alone.
Without his master's presence, but not
without his guidance. Ah, that he understood. Revenge.
Revenge was important. Important that
people didn't forget you, run you over without a second
thought.
Revenge had been very
important to his master.
And now to him.
* * *
A soft, feminine voice
echoed through the breadth and length of the Magic Express. A
mammoth two story train that was both
home and workshop to Electro City's greatest magician
and his partner/apprentice. Said apprentice
currently being stretched out on the living room's red
couch; snoring.
"Cosmo."
"Hummmm." It was not
much of a response as Cosmo shifted, trying to hide beneath a
throw pillow.
"Cosmo," Angel, the
owner of the soft, feminine voice called again. With slightly more
volume.
"Hmmm," Cosmo returned
again, still trying to ignore the AI.
"Cosmo, the mail has
arrived," Angel explained, neither annoyed nor angry. She was use
to dealing with Cosmo, in all his moods.
His current mood was
sleepy.
Peeking out from beneath
the throw pillow, Cosmo let his eye slide over the empty living
room without much enthusiasm. Man, what
had he been thinking last night staying up to the wee
hours with Ulene and the gang? Ugh. Coming
home at the crack of dawn had not been a bright
idea. The eye dropped shut again. Ace
had known of course. Cosmo had warned him that
everyone had planned for quite a celebration
for Hotchkis' birthday. But the reality had far
exceeded their expectations. Way far.
Ace had briefly checked
in on him. Not a hard task given that Cosmo had never actually
made it to his bedroom. He remembered
sitting on the couch, that was about it, till Ace had
tapped him on the shoulder. Amusement
had been clear in his partner's face as Ace kindly
reminded him that he had an interview
for SensaNews and would be gone part of the afternoon.
Cosmo had actually managed to nod, maybe
comprehending one word in three, before drifting
back to his pleasant slumber. Now he was
awake. Sort of. Cosmo assumed that being conscious
mentally counted as awake. The rest of
his body hadn't quite come to, but he didn't begrudge it
the nap.
Mail.
Angel had said something
about the mail. He moved again, rolling onto his back as the
throw pillow bounced forgotten to the
floor. Light shafted down bright and cheerful through the
skylight above, giving a warm wash to
the living room/library. If it wasn't so damn bright to his
tired eyes he might just have enjoyed
it.
Mail.
Damn, that meant it
was past noon. Ace would be home soon and he knew the first thing
the magician would want to do was start
his daily magic lesson. No matter how tight the
schedule, Ace always made sure Cosmo kept
up on his practices. Not that Cosmo minded, not at
all. He might have despised his magic
at first, despised it with a passion, but now, under Ace's
guiding hand and his own determination
he was getting the hang of it. He wasn't good. No, not by
a longshot. But, he sure had improved.
Mail.
Damn, why did that
word keep popping up? Oh yeah, Ace was expecting something. A
part placed on special order so they could
finish the newest prop for Ace's upcoming show. A
sequential laser array. Very big, very
dangerous and very incomplete without this last part. Oh
well, duty called. He was the one helping
put the whole thing together after all. The part dealt
with the computer control system and where
computers were involved, he was king.
Shoving himself upright
Cosmo scrubbed his hand vigorously across his face, trying to
push away the remnants of last night party.
Ugh, if he felt like this he could just pity the guys
who'd really been drinking last night.
He counted himself lucky for keeping himself to a three
drink minimum. That had been Ace's suggestion.
As the older man pointed out, few things could
be more dangerous on the earth than a
drunk magic user. Dangerous indeed, given his
somewhat random casting abilities.
'Oh well, time
to earn your keep, guys,' he informed his legs. Muscles actually obeyed
his brain's command to move and Cosmo
got himself upright, stretching massively.
Mail, shower, lunch
then work. In that order, no deviations, he promised himself as he
trundled through the Express' halls, heading
for the lower side entrance.
Beside the lower hall
door was a small recessed panel that had a matching opening on the
exterior. Their mailbox as it was. Cosmo
opened it and was slightly pleased to see the small,
brown box amongst the thick wads of letters.
Generally fan mail, sometimes bills, sometimes
threats, but that was usually Ace's stuff.
The box was his. Well, his to deal with at least.
Snatching up the stuff Cosmo headed back
upstairs. He paused briefly to toss the mail onto
Ace's desk in his study then moved on
to his own room with the box under his arm. Shower,
lunch then work, he reminded himself,
resisting the urge to open the box and check out the
contents. He knew if he did, the shower
and lunch would be forgotten. Cosmo could very rarely
resist his urge to work on the computers.
Very rarely.
* * *
"I am very sorry for
the minor delay, Mr. Cooper," Mr. Hawkins assured for the fifth time.
Ace arched an eyebrow
at him.
"Minor?" he queried
sarcastically.
Mr. Hawkins offered
a weak shrug. The man was the on floor supervisor for the set. Small,
rather mousy, hardly the type one would
imagine for the job. Perhaps that's why he did it. It was
hard to be mad with a man like him. It
just made you feel... guilty.
'Well, for the first
two delays maybe,' Ace thought ruefully.
"A few minutes more,
Mr. Cooper, I promise," Hawkins said with his best smile, hands
aflutter. Ace took in a deep breath and
looked down at the man, not hesitating to use his height
to impose a little discomfort in the supervisor.
"Mr. Hawkins, while
my time is not priceless, it is valuable to me," he pointed out, trying
not to lose his temper. A few minutes
indeed! This interview was already an hour and half behind
schedule.
"I understand, Mr.
Cooper, but technical difficulties." The mousy man shrugged. "Please..
a little more patience."
Ace pursed his lips,
then finally nodded. Technical difficulties huh? Probably some ego tiff
going on about who got interviewed first
and by whom. Ace was not an arrogant man, not in the
least, but he could not say the same about
others in the entertainment industry.
"A few more minutes,"
he rumbled.
Mr. Hawkins fairly
beamed. "Thank you, Mr. Cooper," he gushed before bouncing off to
the next disaster on his list. Ace watched
him go, rubbing back his dark, white streaked hair. A
few more minutes.
He held little faith.
"Oh well." he muttered,
looking about for someplace quiet to hide himself. He considered
calling Cosmo, to warn his partner of
his delay, but then dismissed it. Ace's lips quirked into a
grin as he remembered the condition he'd
left the teen this morning-- barely cognitive on the
couch. Cosmo had warned him the party
would go late, but he doubted the young man had had
any idea how late.
No, he wouldn't call.
There was still the very real possibility that Cosmo was still asleep.
There was no real reason to wake him.
Only the laser array required attention at the moment and
that needed one more part and a few minutes
of his partner's time. Hardly an emergency
requiring rousing the young man.
Still...
Ace was bored. Annoyed
and bored and very close to fed up. A few more minutes, he told
himself. This had been Will, his publicist's,
idea anyway. Not the end of the world as far as he
was concerned if he were to miss it. So
Ace found a quiet corner and sat upon a stack of packing
crates. He pulled out a deck of cards,
shuffling them easily, from one hand to the other, letting
them flick without thought between his
fingers as he watched the controlled chaos around him.
* * *
"Much better," Cosmo
announced to the world in general as he stepped out of his room,
pulling on his glasses. Amazing what wonders
a shower could work on the human body.
Pulling the still damp
red hair up from beneath his headband, Cosmo concentrated on
fluffing the unruly locks into their typical
upright position. The box still rested under his arm as he
headed for the kitchen.
'I will not open
it, I will not open it.' The thought had been rolling around his mind as
he
sat the box down on the table. Shower,
lunch then work. He was halfway there.
Scrounging around the
fridge Cosmo finally unearthed some leftovers. He eyed the
contents of the Tupperware box uncertainly.
Neither Ace nor he were master chefs. They were
both bachelors after all. While Cosmo
could and occasionally did cook, both were more skilled
with ordering take-out. However, take-out
seemed to have the incredible gift of becoming an
unrecognizable mess when viewed the next
day. In the end he shrugged. Nothing so dangerous
the microwave couldn't kill. Popping the
mystery food into the kitchen's small wall unit
microwave, Cosmo hit the timer pad and
leaned against the counter to wait. He glanced at the
box.
No, he wasn't going
to open it.
Nope.
Not yet.
"Yeah, right. Who are
you kidding?" Cosmo laughed as he gave in and retrieved the
package. Okay, so he was a freak. He smiled
as he pulled out a small pocket knife to cut the
tape.
"Only you, Cosmo."
Yeah, he was the only
person he knew that could get excited about building a prop. Well,
more than just a mere prop. But still...
Oh well. It was what he could do, what he was good at.
Computers, electronics. Ever since Ace
had given him the chance, Cosmo had dived through
anything he could take apart and learn
from. Build, destroy and rebuild. Whether it was a
computer program or the toaster -which
he had coincidentally disassembled and rebuilt three
times during a stint in his sixteenth
year- Ace had tolerated it all. Well, except when he didn't get
things back together quite right. But,
even then, he hadn't been mad. More, just... aggrieved.
Cosmo chuckled as he
remembered one of those trade mark looks, popping open the box.
Yeah, he'd given Ace some serious headaches
in those early days. Kind of did still. Though not
so many.
He hoped.
"What the...?" Cosmo
frowned as he pulled out the packing paper. He shook his head as
he stared at the boxes contents.
"Man," he muttered.
This was most definitely not the XTS Control board they had ordered.
"Great, this is just great."
They needed to get
the laser working so they could do the test runs. Ace would never
consider using the trick until they'd
thoroughly debugged it, and neither would Cosmo till he was
sure the magician wasn't going to be fried
by one of his creations. Cosmo studied the shipping
label, then shook his head again.
"Great, just flipping
great." Now he was going to have to track down the original order!
Man, this he didn't need. And just what
the heck had they been sent? All that rested in the box
was a giant metal marble. Perhaps an inch
in diameter. A dull, pewter color and apparently
flawless. Cosmo pulled out the ball and
rolled it around in his hand.
"Looks like an overgrown
ball bearing," he muttered darkly to himself. Either way, it still
wasn't the part they needed. Not by a
long shot.
Cosmo sighed. "Damn."
Then frowned. Red brows drew together curiously as Cosmo
looked into his hand.
He felt.... something.
Strange. Different.
There was a pop, then
a crack. Then Cosmo screamed. Blue-white electricity leapt over
his hand and up his arm as his whole body
stiffened under the assault. It burned through him.
Hot, arching tendrils of energy slashing
across every nerve and stabbing straight into his brain.
With odd clarity he felt his hand spasm
on the ball reflexively as another scream wrenched from
his throat, pain rising up like a gusher
around him as the world whited out.
* * *
Home at last.
Thank God.
Ace didn't exactly
leap out of the Racer as it settled in the vehicle bay of the Magic
Express. More of an energetic shuffle,
he thought amusedly. Who knew an interview could be so
taxing?
Well, he chuckled,
it hadn't been the interview that had been taxing. Simply the wait. And
the excuses. And the chaos. And and, and,
and....
"Oh well," he sighed.
He was home. That was what mattered. Surely Cosmo would be up
by now and that part should have come
in. After magic practice they could spend the rest of what
was left of the day working on the array.
Ace smiled, as he always did when considering Cosmo's
practices. It still awed him just how
much he enjoyed teaching. Guiding. There was a magic all
it's own in helping Cosmo reach his true
potential. A deep satisfaction that he was making such a
great difference.
He chuckled.
'Ahh Anna, wherever
you are, I'm sure you're smiling,' he thought warmly of the woman
who had taught him. Yeah, she would smile.
He only wished she could have met Cosmo. Yes, he
would have liked that. But... No, he would
not dwell. His day had been rough enough as was.
"Angel, is Cosmo up
yet?" he called, looking up slightly to the empty air above him. Ace
wasn't sure why he had developed that
habit when addressing the trains resident AI. It just
seemed, appropriate.
"Yes, Ace. He is in
the kitchen," Angel reported, then added uncertainly. "Though I believe
there is a problem."
Ace cocked an eyebrow.
Problem?
Why didn't he like
the sound of that?
"I registered a strange
energy discharge and Cosmo has ignored my inquires into it."
He was already heading
down the hall, the kitchen being at the end. Catching the open
door frame, Ace slid to a stop.
Problem. It was an
understatement.
Cosmo was standing,
wedged in a corner of the room, trembling visibly. He cradled his
right hand against chest, his left rubbing
at the opposite arm, as if trying to banish a sever chill.
His whole body vibrated with his ragged
breathing, the short, gasping pants echoing in the small
room. Zina was there, rumbling and nudging
him in the leg with her broad forehead, but he didn't
even seem aware of the large panther.
The young man's face was pale, eyes wide, almost
haunted as he stared at a distant point
on the floor.
"Cosmo!" Ace exclaimed,
frozen in the doorway.
Cosmo jerked, then
looked at him. He twitched, frowned, then twitched again.
"Ace?"
It was an honest inquiry,
as if he was uncertain of his partner's identity. His lost gaze
matched the hollow tone of his voice as
he took in the older man's appearance. Ace felt his heart
clench in fear as he hurried to the young
man's side.
Cosmo simply stared
at him, trembling.
"Cosmo, what happened?"
Ace demanded softly, as he gently caught his friend's twitching
left hand. It was ice cold, muscles tight
and quivering. Clutching madly at nothing, as if trying to
catch the insubstantial.
"Can't feel it," Cosmo
muttered softly, his stare vacant, looking beyond Ace. "Can't feel..."
he repeated, rocking slightly with the
words.
Ace pulled the cradled
hand away from his partner's chest, Cosmo putting up no
resistance as he pulled it free. He let
out a small gasp. There was no missing the burn mark in
the center of his friend's palm. A perfect,
round patch of seeping, scorched flesh, black and
charred at the bloody edges. It had to
hurt like hell, but none of it seem to be registering as
Cosmo kept rocking back and forth, the
spastic twitches coursing through his lean frame.
"What happened, Cosmo?"
Ace entreated again, with a little more force.
Cosmo blinked, looked
at him and let out a small, desperate sob. "Can't feel you. Can't
feel." He broke away, staggering across
the room, shaking his head madly. "Can't feel," he
repeated again and again. "Can't feel."
Ace just stopped him
from colliding into the table, getting a protective arm around the
unsteady man.
"Shhh, calm down, Cosmo.
It's going to be okay," Ace said softly, the teen leaning against
him, muscles jerking erratically. He looked
around, then up at Ace, looking completely lost. As if
he wasn't quite interacting with the real
world.
"It's going to be okay,
Cosmo," Ace assured again, trying to sound more confident than he
felt at the moment. The empty, confused
gaze shook Ace to the core and his gut knot painfully
with worry. "You have to tell me what
happened," he pressed gently.
Cosmo blinked, eyes
going distant again. He let out a small groan, face wrinkling in pain.
"Empty," he whimpered. "Can't feel."
"Can't feel what, Cosmo?"
Ace urged. "What can't you feel?"
Cosmo looked up at
him, looking utterly lost and miserable.
"Magic," he whispered.
The word unleashed
an avalanche as another cry tore form the young man. He spasmed
against Ace, shaking his head madly. "Can't
feel the magic, can't feel you. Empty. Everything's
so empty inside," he groaned, screwing
his eyes shut.
Ace gasped. Couldn't
feel his magic? Couldn't sense him?
Dear God.
"Easy, Cosmo, easy,"
he whispered gently as another sob tore through the young man.
"Gone. So empty. Can't
think straight. Can't feel right. Everything's messed up, Ace. Can't
feel you, Ace," he rambled madly. "Hurts.
Empty inside."
"Calm down, Cosmo.
You have to calm down," Ace insisted, tightening his hold on his
apprentice, trying to offer comfort as
well as warmth. Cosmo was indeed in shock. Though a kind
he never could have conceived of. Couldn't
feel his magic? Ace shuddered. Could it be true?
"Come on," he said,
guiding Cosmo toward the door. His partner went without resistance,
muttering to himself miserably.
"Can't feel you, Ace.
Can't feel."
Damn. Cosmo had obviously
lost his empathic link to his partner. Ace knew Cosmo found
it disturbing enough to shield against
him -or vice-a-versa- but to have the link completely
removed... Ace knew that the empathy had
simply become a part of the teen's existence. That to
Cosmo, it simply was. Part of him as much
as a part of Ace. The emotions he felt having
become as much of a part of himself as
his own. Now that link was gone, along with the magic?!
Ace himself could not conceive of the
consequences, but they were obviously very negative.
"Easy there," he said
softly, offering nonsense words to the shocky young man in his arms,
letting his voice comfort where words
could not. They rode the lift up to the second level and Ace
steered Cosmo into the library. The teen
simply went where he was guided, muttering softly,
seemingly unaware of the world around
him. Lost.
"Sit down. There you
go." Ace got Cosmo onto the couch. Cosmo sat there, still rubbing at
his chilled skin, shuddering. Ace knew
he had to get the young man warm. To fight the effects of
the shock. "Angel increase room temp ten
degrees," he order curtly, pulling off his cape. He
wrapped it around his friend's shoulders,
Cosmo unaware as he did so.
"Yes, Ace. May I be of further assistance?"
she asked earnestly.
"Not yet, but be ready
to call an ambulance," Ace muttered, crouching in front of his
partner, touching one knee. "Cosmo?"
Cosmo looked at him.
It was a sad sight. The gray eyes were wet, bewildered. Lost. Like
Cosmo.
"I can't sense you,
Ace. Nothing," he stressed, left hand clenching tight. Shook his head,
breath hitching as he started rocking
again, the mad trembling increasing. "All gone. Everything.
Gone. I can't feel the magic. I used to
be able to feel it. In me, in you..."
"Easy, Cosmo, easy.
We'll sort this out, I promise," Ace assured firmly, taking the
clenched hand in his own, letting his
fingers knead at the tight muscles.
Cosmo looked at him.
Blinked, a frown deep across his face.
"I miss it, Ace. I
don't feel right without it. Empty," he whispered.
Ace nodded, brushing
the red hair back gently. He could only imagine what his young
friend was describing. Did not want to
imagine it in truth. Ace was always aware of the Magic
Force. It was always around him, flowing.
Part of him and his world, in both body and mind. Even
when he had been drugged once he could
still feel the magic, even if he could not reach it.
Cosmo's senses were different, but no
less linked to that temperamental power. All magic
wielders were aware of their own magic
at the very least. Cosmo more so, aware of his own
magic as well as Ace's through the link
that was now gone. Empty did not seem like a fit enough
description.
"We will sort this
out, Cosmo. We will!" Like hell if he wasn't going to find out what had
happened.
Cosmo shuddered hard,
body slumping against the couch back suddenly, his head rolling
back. Ace leapt up, worried that he had
passed out, but Cosmo was still awake, looking into the
distance again, staring far beyond the
spanning glass ceiling above the living room. Ace slumped
down beside his young friend, brushing
back the fiery hair.
"Just rest, Cosmo.
Okay? Just rest," he said softly. He kept speaking, meaningless things,
but just offering a calm voice for the
young man to latch onto.
Ace felt a thread of
sweat roll down his back and pulled off his jacket. Angel had gotten the
heat up and that was good. His partner
was still shocky, but the trembling was easing. Slowly,
beneath the encasing protection of his
cloak and the soothing touch of his voice.
"Just rest. It will
be okay, Cosmo."
Cosmo turned slightly,
looking at him, the eyes finally seeming to see him for the first
time.
"Promise?" he rasped
weakly.
Ace nodded, never breaking
his gaze. Offered a reassuring smile.
"I promise."
Cosmo let out a little
shudder, head dropping against his chest.
"Can't feel it, Ace.
Miss it. Just so empty. Alone," it came out almost in a whimper.
Ace gathered the young
man against him reassuringly. It was one of Cosmo's worst fear:
being alone. And to his way of seeing..
feeling.. he now was.
"You're not alone,
Cosmo," Ace stated firmly. "You are not alone." He stated that fact
again and again, keeping close, only leaving
long enough to retrieve a first aid kit. In that time
the change had been startling. Cosmo had
been somewhat calm when Ace left, sitting quietly on
the couch, rubbing incessantly at his
arms. A nervous gesture that seemed to replace some of
what he had lost. That had been how Ace
had left him. When he returned, the young man was
standing, pacing, moving furtively between
one door, then the other, trembling badly, muttering
softly to himself. Lost again. Desperate.
Once again not recognizing Ace upon his return.
Cosmo had not be understating
the fact. He was having trouble interacting with the world
around him. Badly so. Ace could only pray
the condition would improve with time. Little time, he
hoped, till he solved this mystery. Ace
knew Cosmo related to the world around him through his
magic more than he did, but that extent
had never been fully realized before. Withdrawal. It was
the only apt word for it. Cosmo was going
through withdrawal. So Ace would treat it as such.
"You with me here?"
he urged gently as he tended the burn. Ace would have liked to take
Cosmo to the hospital, the burn was second
degree, possibly third, but in his state...
No, Cosmo would not
do well. Would hate it and possibly him for going. So he tended the
injury to the best of his ability. The
first aid kits, liberally distributed about the Express, were well
stocked. His profession was not the safest
of careers.
Cosmo nodded slightly,
trying to hold his hand still for his partner. "Yeah, here," he
whispered desperately. In time Ace had
calmed him down and recognition had returned. He kept
him bound up tight in the warm cape, trying
to help Cosmo tie himself closer with his presence.
"Good. Does this hurt?"
Ace nodded to the hand.
A quick, negative shake.
"No. Kinda numb all over," Cosmo admitted. "Sorry."
Ace smiled gently,
patting his friend's hand. "Don't be. This isn't your fault," he assured,
finishing binding the burn.
The moment he freed
the hand it went back to rubbing against Cosmo's arms. The
desperate twitching made his gut clench.
What had happened and
how had it been done? It was his one burning thought.
Only a step below the
other thought careening in his skull.
How do I fix this?
"Cosmo," Ace called,
the teen forcing his attention on him. He offered a smile at the effort.
"I need to know everything
that happened. Do you remember?"
Cosmo nodded, the motion
almost spastic.
"Yeah, kind of remember....
Package arrived, thought it was the part. Something was in
there," his voice drifted as his eyes
glazed over.
Ace touched his arm
worriedly. "Cosmo, what was in there?" he pressed, letting his hand
wrap around one slender wrist, offering
a grounding point.
Cosmo frowned. "Small...
round.. in the kitchen." he whispered distantly. "In the kitchen.
When.. when I touched it.. held it. Felt
something. Then.. then."
Ace wrapped his arms
around his apprentice as Cosmo's voice cracked, becoming a sob.
Then the change had happened. Then Cosmo
lost his magic and his link. He didn't need to hear
it. He was seeing the results.
The small, pewter globe
was right where Cosmo had said it would be, right in the middle of
the floor in the kitchen. Ace knelt by
it, hearing an unhappy hiss from Cosmo, but went no
nearer. His partner stared at the small
object with almost an abject hatred, leaning against the
door frame unsteadily.
Ace hadn't even thought
of leaving his friend behind, even though he should be resting.
Currently, Cosmo was too messed up to
be left alone for a moment.
"You want me.. to get
the gloves?" Cosmo asked softly.
Ace shook his head.
"No, no need," he sighed and waved his hand over the small ball.
Blue light danced around the small globe
as it disappeared in a glittering shower of sparks.
Safely transported to Angel's console
scanner. No fuss, no muss. Ace glanced up to his partner
as the spell finished and felt a strange
pang of dismay at Cosmo's complete lack of reaction.
Nothing. One of Cosmo's strongest abilities
was his emotional and magical link to Ace. The
Relocation Spell, one of the more powerful
ones, would register in the young man's perception.
But not so much as a twitch.
God.
"Angel, did you receive
the metal ball?" the magician called out, trying to bury the feeling
of dread.
"Yes, Ace. What do
you wish me to do with it?" Angel queried curiously.
"Everything. I want
every possibly detail noted and analyzed. Give me a complete
breakdown on the object." He stressed
every word heavily.
"Yes, Ace. Scan beginning,"
Angel assured softly as Ace shoved himself up.
'Please,' he thought
to himself, 'let the answer be found.'
Cosmo watched as Ace's
hand moved over the sphere. Nothing. Complete nothing. He
willed himself to feel the magic. Strained
his perception for the least glimmering of echoing
Magic Force. Nothing. Complete nothing!
He stifled the sob that wanted to break free. Gone.
Empty.. Damn it! He didn't want to feel
like this. Not now, not ever! He saw Ace looking at him,
watching for his reaction and the sob
nearly broke free again. What could he say, do? He felt
nothing. Even before his own magic had
started breaking through, Cosmo had always sort of
been... aware, of Ace's magic. Kind of
felt the tingle of it, even if he wasn't consciously aware of
it. But even now that was gone...
His arms locked tighter
around his torso, clutching hopelessly at each other. With a rough
swallow he shrugged miserably, unable
to look at his friend, ashamed at how much he missed
his magic, that he wasn't handling it
better, taking it like a man. But damn it. Empty, no link. So
damn empty.
"If anyone can find
something..." he murmured, still not able to look at Ace. No connection,
no connection with his friend and partner,
and that was worse than not feeling the magic. A
whole hell of a lot worse.
"Angel will," Ace finished,
offering a small smile.
It was meant to comfort
and Cosmo appreciated the gesture, but that was all it was, a
gesture. The magician came over and gently
took his elbow, steering him about. Cosmo didn't
really mind, he was thinking a touch more
coherently. Only a touch. But Ace's presence, his
nearness... If it wasn't for that Cosmo
knew what would happen. Lost, empty and messed up
again. No, he didn't mind Ace guiding
him down the familiar halls that were strangely wrong to
him now.
'Please,' he prayed
fervently as they went. 'Let Ace find the answer. Please!'
Ace watched Cosmo from
the corner of his eye as they made their way to the computer
room. The teen was quiet, seemingly concentrating
on their route but apparently a touch more
with it. For now.
"Angel," he called
as they entered. "Scanning pallet please."
"Yes, Ace," Angel confirmed,
voice slightly distant, part of her AI self concentrating on the
task of scanning the sphere.
Cosmo looked at him
uncertainly as the yellow lights traced a section of floor and the table
scanner rose silently.
"We need all the information
we can get, Cosmo," he explained gently, hope blossoming
ever so slightly as understanding glittered
in the haunted gray eyes of his apprentice
"And Angel has all
my medical records," Cosmo murmured. "Smart thinking, Ace."
Ace accepted the compliment
with a nod. If anything physically had been altered in his
young friend, it would show up in comparison
scan.
"Here," he said as
Cosmo laid down, Ace offering a supportive hand as the teen leaned
back, staring up at the ceiling.
"Nice view," Cosmo
joked weakly. "Solid black, real cheerful." The ceiling. The one part of
the room that was neither lit nor painted.
Not a fact Ace had noticed till now.
"Nothing wrong with
black," Ace quipped. "It's one of my more favorite colors." That
brought a small quirk of a smile to Cosmo's
lips as he closed his eyes.
"Thanks, Ace," he sighed
softly, the eyes slitting open briefly. "For trying to cheer me up."
Ace rested his hand
on Cosmo's shoulder with a light pat. "We will find the cause, Cosmo.
I promise," he returned, sincerely, firmly.
Cosmo nodded, eyes
dropping shut again. "Yeah," he sighed, not sounding wholly
convinced. "Yeah."
With a last pat Ace
retreated to the console, taking a seat, pausing as the door opened
and allowed Zina entry. The large cat
had been hovering at the edges, unsure what to do given
Cosmo's suddenly altered state. Ace was
little better off than the cat, as he activated the
scanner. Angel was busy enough with the
scan of the sphere, he could handle the comparison
scan well enough on his own.
Zina wandered over
to him as the green scanning beam slid over Cosmo's prone form,
then back again, the young man total ignorant
of it. Ace gave the cat the briefest of glances as
the scan finished. A sad smile came to
his face as the panther strolled over to the scanning pad,
sniffing with almost disdain.
Then, with an effortless
leap, she launched up and landed silently beside Cosmo. Cosmo
jerked in surprise as the scanner rocked
from the large cat's landing.
"Hey girl," he chuckled,
reaching up and scratching one ear.
Zina rumbled and purred
and then promptly lay her head on Cosmo's chest, making it very
clear that she expected his full attention.
Ace smiled. Zina's
timing was perfect. It would give Cosmo something other than his own
condition to think about as the computer
started correlating the information. Zina at her motherly
best. Even after all these years the panther
still treated Cosmo as her first child.
He frowned as the comparisons
started rolling through.
Normal. Normal. Normal.
Whoa!
Ace felt his breathing
hitch. There was a change. Two of them to be exact. One registering
in Cosmo's nervous system; the electrical
impulses far lower than they should be. The other was
in his brain. Also showing a declined
electrical output.
The magician
frowned. Was that all it took to shut down the young man's grasp of
magic? Ace shivered. It was an entirely
frightening prospect, that. To have such an intimate
portion of yourself ripped away. But how?
Still the how had to be answered and Ace wasn't
entirely convinced that these two changes
where the lone causes.
"Ace?"
Ace jerked, looking
up as Angel formed. Cosmo turned toward the luminous purple
hologram, still petting the purring cat,
but no longer smiling. Waiting for the bad news. So was
Ace.
"Yes, Angel. What have
you found?"
Angel pulsed. "The
ball is no longer a threat, Ace. It was a capacitor, carrying a single
electrical charge. There are, however,
odd energy residuals still present. While the ball did carry
a normal electrical charge, there are
signs it also contained a second energy source as well."
Ace frowned "Can you
identify it?"
Angel pulsed, shrunk
and grew. Not a good sign. "The closest reference I have to the
residual energy source would be one of
your own energy discharges, Ace. No other power source
matches."
Ace stiffened and Cosmo
gasped.
Magic? Magic mixed with technology?! It
was not unheard of, but rarely worked. Mostly
being an experimental pursuit for some.
An experiment gone right.
"What triggered the
device, Angel?"
"Uncertain. I have
found a small control chip inside the sphere. It was damaged in the
initial discharge, but apparently the
trigger device was the proximity of a certain energy
wavelength."
"A wavelength similar
to the ones Cosmo and I radiate?" Ace asked dreadfully.
"Yes, Ace."
"Do you know of anyone
else with such energy signatures?" Ace went on.
"Yes. Kate Morrigan
also emits such a wavelength, Ace."
Ace closed his eyes.
Magic users. The sphere was aimed specifically against a magic
user.
"Ace?"
Ace forced himself
to look at Cosmo and the desperate gleam in his gray eyes. The scans
gave them an idea of what was happening,
but still left too many questions. Such as, was the
effect permanent, and who had fashioned
the ball?
"It was.. meant for
you.. wasn't it?" Cosmo rasped slowly.
Ace flinched and his
hand tightened into a fist. Yes. Cosmo's magic was a closely guarded
secret. More people knew of Ace's abilities.
And not all of them were friends. This little
damnation was a trap. A trap for him and
Cosmo had become it's unwitting victim.
Cosmo lay on the scanning
pallet, mind working furiously as Angel gave them some more
facts to work with. It was all he could
do, not to fall into the emptiness inside him now.
"That's not all...
It couldn't have been all," he muttered to himself, frowning.
Ace gazed blankly at
him.
"Ace...!" Cosmo suddenly
rasped, struggling off the pallet. His mind was almost whirring
and clicking audibly with his thoughts
racing so fast. The magician was at his side in a heartbeat.
"Think, Ace... someone
made sure this thing would work against you and only you," Cosmo went
on trying to hold a coherent thought.
Why was it so damn hard, why couldn't he think straight?
When had the magic and the link become
so much a part of his world?
"But... but, there's
a reason," he managed, shivering. "It took your magic.... my magic...
magic in general, but it didn't kill."
Another dark thought. Thank God, he was still alive. Or was it
really something to be thankful for?
Ace frowned, unconsciously
wrapping an arm around him but it did not help. He wasn't
cold just... messed up.
"You're thinking that
the trap is only the beginning," his partner said thoughtfully.
Cosmo nodded madly,
red hair flicking about. "Yeah... more.. You have to, have to.."
Damn, it was hard to think!
"Easy, Cosmo," Ace
said softly, trying to urge him back onto the pallet. "You need to rest."
"No!" he snapped irritably.
Resting wasn't going to get his magic back or more importantly
the link. "No! I don't need rest!"
He shoved off Ace's
arm and glared up at him, feeling a distant pang of guilt at the hurt in
his older friend's eyes. Damn, Ace was
only trying to help. If he had the link he'd have known
that. Big *if* at the moment.
"Whoever the guy is
who sent the package, he'll believe it has worked. He'll believe you've
lost your magic, dude."
"But I still have it,"
Ace said almost inaudibly, as if he was afraid that the mere reminder
would send Cosmo back into shock again.
Well, he wasn't too far off with that.
"Pretend you lost you
magic, Ace. Pretend. It's what he thinks," Cosmo explained,
surprisingly calm despite his erratic
trembling. "It's our only chance! We have to play-act."
Was he making sense?
Was his brain really working or was he spouting gibberish?
"Pretend..." Ace murmured,
brow dropping thoughtfully. "Of course! Then we could draw
out our culprit. If he believes that I've
lost my magic..."
Cosmo nodded, excited.
"Then he might try
to come finish you off, Ace. Then we can catch him."
Ace rubbed at his face,
staring at no point in particular. "We need to start getting an idea
of who would send me this globe."
"Maybe.. Maybe start
with our own security video. Make sure it was the mail carrier that
delivered it," Cosmo ventured slowly.
Ace nodded. "Good idea.
We should also go over all our *negative* fan mail."
Negative fan mail was
their little file for threats. Some major, some minor, but all
recorded. Not that anything had ever come
of any of them. Most public figures received some
hate mail after all, but right now, any
lead could matter.
"I can take care of
that, it's late enough already," Ace sighed. "And you need sleep."
Cosmo frowned. "Ace.."
Ace raised his hand
at the protest. "Cosmo, you've been through enough already. Please, I
would like it if you'd try to get some
rest." He held one shoulder firmly. "I can get things started
here. Right now though, I'd think it'd
best if you take it easy."
Cosmo shivered, rubbed
at his arms, face becoming a permanent frown. "I... I'd rather
stay here." Cosmo shrugged. "Just... just
not alone, Ace. I.. please?"
Ace looked critically
at him and knew he couldn't argue. The desperation and fear were
just too plain on his friend's face.
"Only if you lay down.
I mean it, I want you to rest," he countered and Cosmo flashed a
weak attempt at a smile, pointedly flopping
back onto the pallet.
"Can do," he murmured,
Zina nuzzling closer.
Ace nodded and went
to the control console to set to work.
* * *
The sun shone above
the high trees, fingers of light piercing through the leafy canopy
overhead, lancing toward the ground.
Birds flew through the warm, summer air, insects buzzed,
and the cloudless sky seemed like a
painting. People milled on the green grass, gathering around
an ugly tear in the ground, a deep,
dark hole.
Black.
Fathomless.
Sucking up the light.
He stood next to
the hole, feeling distant and still very much real in one. People passed
him by, muttering to themselves, and
he thought he heard prayers.
Prayers....?
He raised his eyes,
blinking as he discovered a priest. The man was dressed in the
ceremonial robes of his church, his
voice droning through the warm air.
Insects buzzed around
him.
Sweat broke out
on his back, a trickle running down between his shoulder blades.
More people appeared,
their formerly colorful clothes turning a dull gray, then black. They
mourned, standing around the hole in
the ground, whispering, crying, holding each other. One of
them was a woman he recognized. Red
hair was tightly bound, stuffed beneath an elegant hat,
the black dress hugging a shapely figure.
"Mona?" he asked,
voice a mere whisper.
The woman stretched
out one hand that suddenly held a white rose. Tears were in her
eyes, her face stricken by grief. The
rose turned black as it tumbled into the open hole.
Grave.
Grave?!
The people seemed
to disappear in a haze, the sky clouding over with the fog rising out of
the ground so fast that it stole his
breath within a second. Shadows moved, the voices whispered
nonsense words, and he became aware
of something missing.
He looked around.
He was alone.
It was getting colder.
Numbness permeated
his body.
"Ace?" he whispered.
His body ached with
the loss of something he had not yet been able to define.
Ace was gone.
All he had ever
felt from Ace was gone. The link...
He gasped.
"Ace!" he screamed
into the fog.
The shadows coalesced
into people and he was suddenly face to face with a slender
woman. Her dark hair was shot through
with gray and her gray eyes seemed to pierce right
through his soul.
"Have you seen him?"
she asked.
Wrinkled hands clutched
a bronze staff with a yellow stone on top of it. The orange-yellow
light it spread was diffuse in the
fog.
"What...?" he stuttered.
"He is gone. Where
is he?" she demanded.
He stumbled back
and collided with someone else. He jumped back, gasping loudly. The
shadow behind him was nothing but a
black mass, quickly swallowed in the fog.
"Ace!" he cried.
But Ace was gone.
The link was gone. He was alone.
The fog closed in
around him and the whispers rose to a crescendo. Coldness seeped into
his very soul, ice freezing his breath.
Alonealonealonealone......
"Ace!!"
He woke with a start,
crying out a name, trashing in the already severely messed up bed.
Drenched in sweat he fought invisible
demons, screaming as they fought back.
Ace.... the link....gone...alone!
"Ace!" he cried, his
voice muffled by the pillow, tears streaming down his face.
No Ace. No magic. All
gone. The link.....gone.....
So alone.
Cosmo struggled against
his blanket, trying to get up, movements uncoordinated as the
cold of the missing link seeped through
him, permeating every cell.
So cold.
Alone.
He managed to get out
of the bed, knees weak, breathing labored.
The magic was no more.
All he felt was the nothingness inside, the ice forming in his soul.
Cosmo stumbled toward
the door, his mind a mess, thoughts running into each other and
making no sense. There was a faint pain
coming from his hand, but he was too confused to
actually think about what it meant. The
pain inside his soul was far greater.
Yearning.
Needing.
The link. The magic.
Ace.
The door slid open,
the
darkness of the corridor before him. The blackness beckoned to
him, calling, whispering, and he smiled
faintly. Darkness, oblivion, no more pain.
Stumbling feet took
him into the corridor where he fell against the cool, metal wall. He
sobbed softly, shaken by the emotional
upheaval inside, wrecked by the nothingness that spread
further and further.
"Cosmo?"
The voice drilled into
his mind, jerking him around. "Ace?" he whispered, voice barely
audible.
A shadow fell over
him and his knees gave way.
Ace didn't know what
exactly had woken him, but he hadn't slept all that deeply to begin
with. Or long. Having sorted through the
threat file to find nothing conclusive and the security
video showed no one but their regular
mail carrier. Cosmo had given into sleep late and, almost
experimentally, Ace had relocated him
to his bedroom. The teen hadn't so much as twitched
during the magical transfer. It only drove
home the fact of what had happened as he readied his
young friend for bed before retiring himself.
Troubled by dreams he wouldn't call nightmares but
which were far from pleasant either, he
had woken at intervals. This time, though, something
nagged at his mind. A cry from outside
in the corridor made him jump out of the bed in a flash.
"Angel, lights!"
The lights flared,
blinding him briefly, but Ace didn't care. He knew the way by heart. As
he
ran out, he caught sight of his friend
slumped against the corridor wall, shaking badly.
"Cosmo!"
Cosmo turned his head,
the corridor night lights reflecting off the tear-stained face.
Oh, god!
Ace sank down beside
the badly shaking teenager, touching him gently. Cosmo flinched,
wide, glazed eyes flickering over Ace's
face.
"Ace?" he rasped, sounding
hurt and despaired.
"I'm here, Cosmo. Everything
is okay."
"Alone," he whimpered.
Ace's heart contracted.
He wrapped an arm around the trembling shoulders. "No, you're
not alone."
Cosmo didn't seem to
hear him. He suddenly clung to Ace, fingers digging into the robe
Ace had thrown on, sobs wreaking through
his body.
"Alone!" he cried.
"Gone. Magic..... you.... the link..... can't feel it!"
"Shhhh," he whispered,
rubbing the teen's arms.
Cosmo sobbed uncontrollably.
"I know I never wanted it," he hiccuped. "But it's totally
gone now. All. I want it back. Cold....
feel so cold....." His teeth started to chatter.
Ace held him tightly,
praying that Cosmo wouldn't go into complete shock. He knew how
much Cosmo had fought against the magic
inside him, how much he had tried to suppress it
when it had surfaced, but it was an integral
part of him. It was him. Even before it had surfaced
as the ability to wield the power, it
had been him. Now.... now all was gone and it left him empty.
Ace couldn't even imagine what it meant,
what it was like not to feel the warmth the magic
represented, the silent caress of the
power against his senses.
Cosmo quieted down
after a while, but he was still clinging, still shaking, and Ace held on,
unminding where they were. After a while,
the trembling eased as well, but he continued rubbing
the bare arms and Cosmo's back.
"Cosmo?"
The teenager flinched.
"It's okay, I'm here.
You are not alone."
Physical contact could
never replace the link, the magician knew, but it was at least a
partial anchor. Cosmo looked up at him,
blurry, tear-filled eyes searching his face, and pain
lanced through Ace. And the fervent oath
that he would find whoever had done this, as well as
the cure. Now he smiled at his scared
friend.
"How about we go back
to your room?"
Cosmo flinched violently.
"No," he breathed. "Can't...."
Nightmares, Ace thought.
Terrible, terrible nightmares.
"My room," he then
decided and Cosmo hesitantly let him pull him up. Knees weak, he
almost fell again, but Ace caught him
easily.
The bedroom was still
lit up and the light spilled into the darker corridor like a beacon. It
was 3:16 a.m., the night stand clock told
him as Ace helped Cosmo down on the bed. Cosmo
was staring ahead, hands curled into fists,
hugging himself tightly.
"Do you think you can
sleep?" Ace asked softly.
Emotionally exhausted
eyes sought his and his whole insides clenched at the despairing
expression. Cosmo was not dealing with
this. Not at all.
"Don't leave?" he begged,
almost sounding like a small child.
"I won't. I'll be here."
Cosmo gazed at him,
trying to find a lie, which slightly hurt Ace, but Cosmo was severely
disturbed.
"Trust me," he added
gently.
"Trust you. Always,"
Cosmos whispered fiercely.
Ace squeezed his shoulder
and urged him to lay down. He flopped into bed, tugged the
blankets over his shivering body and huddled
miserably. Ace sat next to him. The bed was large
enough for him to sleep in as well, but
he wasn't tired anymore. His mind was awhirl with anger,
pain and shared emotional suffering, and
Cosmo needed the sleep.
"Sleep," he advised.
"I'll be here. Promise."
The teenager went back
to sleep only slowly. Ace sat by as promised, watching him, saw
the lines of pain smooth out one after
another, listening to the regular breathing. It was close to
five am when he dared rise, and he walked
into the living room, rubbing tiredly over his face.
Sleep was out of the
question.
"Angel, inform me when
Cosmo wakes," he ordered.
"As you wish, Ace,"
the AI answered.
***
The sun was just kissing
the horizon when Ace came back out of the shower. He had used
the guest shower since his bathroom was
connected to his bedroom, and that meant disturbing
Cosmo. Hair damp, dressed in only his
pants and shirt, his bare feet made no sound on the
carpeted floor. It was still too early
to call Vega or anyone else, so Ace switched on his personal
computer and went through his mail. Nothing
spectacular. He then sent out several mails
himself, rearranging today's and tomorrow's
schedule so he had free time. He left a note in
Vega's mailbox that he needed to talk
to him.
After that he walked
into the computer center, coffee in one hand, and looked at the dull
silver sphere that had started this. It
was locked behind an energy field, no threat any more, but
Ace didn't want to take any chances. He
would have to hand the sphere over to Vega so the
police could take it apart, but Angel
had done her own examinations. He read through the prints,
but they told him nothing new. All he
read were the components, what metal and plastic had
been used, and a whole list of possible
companies producing this particular component. None
had any serial numbers.
Great.
Maybe the police lab
could tell more.
Ace sighed and sipped
at the already cooling coffee. Whoever had done this, he had tried
to hit him. Long list, he thought wryly.
Blackjack? Possible,
but it wasn't his style. And after the incident with the bracelet, the
crime lord had left him thankfully alone.
Sunnyboy? Equally possible,
but Sunnyboy was rather out of the personal mail bomb
business. They hadn't had a serious encounter
in months.
Ace's brow furrowed.
He had so many enemies, most of them small time criminals and not
really bombers, but everyone was a suspect.
Faceless? Not her style
either. After their last encounter she had disappeared and not
resurfaced. And she never actively went
after her enemies if they left her alone.
So who?
Someone who knew about
his magic. His true magic. That left him with pretty few
possibilities.
Another magician?
Very possible. Yago
was in prison, but he would have Angel check on him. Other show
magicians didn't know about his real powers.
His friends knew, of course.
He sighed. All this
revolved around someone he knew, someone who knew him, and
someone who hated his guts. And who knew
about magic.
"Angel," he called.
The softy glowing prism,
the holographic representation of Angel, materialized next to him.
"Yes, Ace?"
"Compile a list with
the following parameters, please: known magic users I know or have
been in contact with, criminals who I
ran into or apprehended and who have knowledge of time
bombs correlating with the device, and
generally criminals with technological know-how that
would let them build such a device."
"Yes, Ace," the AI
confirmed and set to work.
Ace rose and walked
by the kitchen, dropping off the empty mug, then proceeded toward
the bedroom. It was now close to 6:30
am and he wanted to check on Cosmo.
The teenager was sleeping
soundly, face almost free from pain and nightmares. Ace
smiled softly and tip-toed out of the
bedroom again.
The next hour flew
by as he distracted himself with more 'mundane' stuff, and he sent a
mail to Kate, asking for her help with
the problem. Maybe she knew of a reference, a prior
occurrence of something like this. Ace
himself had never heard of any magician ever losing his
magic. It was unheard of. He would never
have thought it possible himself. Now it had happened
-- and it had happened to Cosmo of all
possible candidates.
Guilt raced through
him like wildfire. The package had been addressed to his name.
Cosmo had opened it, of course, thinking
it to be the prop they needed, and he had been hit. Ace
clenched his teeth and refrained from
flinging something off the desk. Wouldn't help the least,
not even his temper.
Angel presented him
with a rather short list of possible suspects around 7:45 am. He
sighed as he went over it. Really not
much to go on. A few names sprang to mind though.
Jimmy Hagen. He was
in a closed mental home. He knew about Ace's magic tricks and
Ace harbored a suspicion that he knew
a bit more, but in his mentally completely unstable
condition, there was no further questioning
possible. But he wasn't a candidate for the tech stuff.
Then there was James
Calen. Ace suppressed an angry snarl. The man who had killed
Anna. Who had kidnapped Cosmo. Who had
nearly killed him. And who was permanently in a
home as well because magical backlash
had destroyed his mind. The man had had the
necessary technological knowledge to create
such a sphere, but not in his current condition.
With a sigh, he placed
the papers on the table. "Angel? Check on Cosmo, please?"
"Cosmo is still sleeping,"
the AI reported.
The magician looked
at the wall clock. Shortly after eight. He might be able to reach Vega
now. He needed the sphere examined by
professionals and if he presented the case as an
attack, the police would get working --
whether Friedrichs liked him or not. An attack on a publicly
known and well-liked figure was never
to be taken easily.
"Ace! I just read your
mail," Vega greeted him. "What's up?"
Ace told him. Slowly.
In detail. Adding what he had already done to find the perp. Vega's
face, which had been cheerful, had turned
to stone right after the first few words about an attack.
Now the brown eyes were full of suppressed
anger and shared suffering.
"I'll come over and
pick up the ball -- except if you want to bring it here yourself?"
Ace shook his head.
"No. I can't leave Cosmo. I'll see if he is in any shape to leave the
Express, then I'll call ahead."
Vega nodded understanding.
"I'll be here." With that he signed off.
Ace leaned back in
his chair and sighed deeply. After a minute he rose and walked toward
the bedroom. As much as he trusted Angel
to call him, he also wanted to be with his young
friend. If there was another nightmare....
Cosmo had tossed around
a bit, the covers were rumpled, and he was mumbling to
himself. Ace sat down on the bed, careful
not to disturb him. But it was enough. Cosmo's eyes
flew open and he gasped, "Ace!"
The older man carefully
touched one bare arm. "I'm here. I'm fine. You are fine."
Cosmo's chest rose
and fell quickly, eyes madly dancing over his features. "Not fine," he
whispered hoarsely. "It's gone."
Ace sighed silently
and squeezed the arm again. "But we will find a way to bring the magic
back."
"I don't care about
the magic!" Cosmo hissed. "The link....."
A sad smile graced
Ace's lips. "The link was created through magic, Cosmo." He patted
the arm. "How about you take a shower
and I'll see if I can make a decent breakfast?"
No quip about his missing
culinary skills. Not even a smirk. Cosmo just nodded dully and
laboriously got out of bed. Ace felt his
heart clench and he ignored the stabbing pain in his soul
as he watched his partner shuffle into
the bedroom's single shower. Then he turned and went into
the kitchen to see if he still had some
pancakes and syrup.
When Cosmo finally
emerged from his shower, dressed in his usual clothes sans jacket,
Ace had managed a stack of blueberry pancakes
with syrup, as well as orange juice and coffee.
As he looked at his friend, he barely
refrained from biting his lower lip. Cosmo looked so wasted,
like a drug withdrawal victim -- which
in a way was true. Cosmo was suffering from magic
withdrawal. His hair had lost its defiant
bounce, his skin was paler than normal, the eyes dull, and
he massaged the injured hand without even
being aware of it. He ate his breakfast, but without
enthusiasm, and Ace felt murderous thoughts
rise to the forefront again. If he got his hands on
the man who had sent this package....
"Ace, you have a call,"
Angel suddenly informed him. "It's Dr. Morrigan."
Cosmo looked up, surprise
in his dull eyes. "You called Kate?" he asked, voice shaking a
bit.
Ace nodded. "If anyone
might know of a similar occurrence, it's her. Angel, relay the call to
the study. I'll be there in a moment."
Cosmo followed him
like a pale shadow, and Ace sat down in his chair, switching on the
vid screen. Kate appeared a bit frazzled,
as if she had just woken. Given that she, like him, had
those nights where she rather worked on
something than slept, it was not uncommon. She
smoothed her russet hair back and gave
him an odd look.
"What the hell happened?"
she asked.
"And good morning to
you, too," Ace said with a smile.
Kate grimaced. "I don't
know if I could call this morning good when I find such a mail in my
box. What happened?"
Ace told the tale the
second time this day, watching Cosmo out of the corner of his eyes.
The teenager was absolutely still, sitting
in the second chair, appearing as if far away. He wasn't
used to Cosmo being a pool of stillness.
Even throughout their meditations, Cosmo was active.
That was also the time Ace could kind
of feel Cosmo's presence with him, vibrant and alive,
never at rest for long, spreading energy
through the magical continuum. Only then. Ace smiled
briefly, then it turned into sadness.
Kate's face grew serious from the first minute on, then
scrunched up in deep thought.
"I have to say that
I never heard of anything like that before. But I'm not a walking
encyclopedia, even if some say I am,"
she teased, winking at Cosmo.
He tried to smile,
but it came out all wrong.
"I'll look it up, Ace,
but I would appreciate the medical scan from Angel, as well as the
report on the ball. Magic can take magic
away, block it for a while. A friend of mine in Oxford
experimented with that for a while. But
a mechanical device? Whatever this thing emitted, it
targeted the right centers of the brain
and nervous system. Do you have an idea who it might
have been?"
"No," Ace confessed.
"Probably a magician or someone who knows about me and my
powers. Someone who doesn't know about
Cosmo, which is everyone but our friends."
Kate nodded slowly.
"I'll get on it, but don't expect a miracle."
"Thanks, Kate."
She smiled, then the
screen went dark. Ace swiveled the chair and looked at Cosmo, who
returned the look with a rather hopeless
expression.
"We will find a solution,"
Ace said softly.
"Yeah," was the completely
unconvinced answer.
He dredged up a smile.
"I wanted to drop by Vega and give him the sphere for
examination. We have to do an official
report to get it into the labs, but that won't be long. Think
you are up to it or do you want to stay
home?"
"No!" Cosmo blurted.
"Not alone!"
Ace inhaled softly.
"I won't leave you alone. You are not alone, Cosmo!" he insisted.
"I am," the younger
man whispered. The good hand touched his chest. "Empty and alone.
All gone."
Ace rose and walked
over to him, crouching down in front of the trembling teen. He
touched his knees. "You are not alone,"
he repeated. "Never."
"I feel so.... dead,"
he moaned.
"You aren't. Neither
am I. We both live and we will get through this!" Ace insisted.
Cosmo tried to pull
himself together, but his hold on his emotional balance was frail.
"We'll go and report
the attack, nothing more. I also want you to get your hand examined
in case the burn infects. Nobody will
know about the magic. Okay?" Ace felt like talking to a
child.
Cosmo nodded slowly
and rose as he did. They left the Express half an hour later, the ball
still in a safety container, and were
on their way to the precinct.
* * *
"Out of my way, guys!
Out of my way!"
"Date of birth?"
"How many were there,
ma'm?"
"Hey, Kel! You still
owe me breakfast!"
"Get your hands off
my discs!"
"I just looked at her
and suddenly she hit me!"
"Greg! Phone!"
The precinct was busy,
but Ace wove his way through the crowd of officers, plain clothes
and criminals, Cosmo in tow. The teen
was silent, too silent for Ace's liking, and he kept closer
than usual to Ace. If he could have, he
would have grabbed a piece of his cloak or taken his arm,
just to reassure himself that he wasn't
dreaming. Ace was so wishing this was just a bad dream,
but it was the cold reality. They arrived
at Vega's office and slipped inside, the hubbub from
outside dying down as Ace closed the door.
It was a busy morning and it promised to be even
worse in the evening.
Mareen LeSage, good
soul of this place and more than just a secretary to Vega, looked up
and smiled at him. "You can go right in,"
she told them. "The lieutenant is waiting."
Ace nodded his thanks
and ushered Cosmo into the small office next to the secretary's.
Vega was busy scribbling notes as they
entered and glanced up briefly, gesturing at Ace and
Cosmo to sit down. He finished his notes
and then closed the folder, shoving it aside. His eyes
wandered over the silent red-head and
worry creased his features.
"I called Forensics
already," he told Ace. "Feretti is making some room for the examination
of this device. You know you have to file
this, right?"
Ace nodded. "We are
ready to do that."
"Good. Where is it?"
Ace held out one hand,
made a gesture, and the safety box materialized. Through the
non-conducting, transparent plastic, Vega
studied the ball.
"Looks harmless enough,"
he rumbled.
Ace's features were
stony. "It's far from it."
"I'll get it right
down to the lab. You give me your statement and sign it." He eyed the still
silent Cosmo, frowning at the bandaged
hand. "You seen a doctor yet?"
Cosmo mutely shook
his head.
"We're going there
after we're done here," Ace supplied.
"Okay." Vega gingerly
took the box and put it on a sideboard.
Ace filled out the
complaint, let Cosmo sign it, and then followed Vega to the lab.
Manuel Feretti was
a small, dark-skinned man of Hispanic ancestry, with a shock of dark
hair and a beard shadow. He was dressed
in plain clothes over which he wore a lab coat, and his
almost black eyes were hidden behind wire-frame
glasses.
"Tell you more about
that thing in two hours," he said, nodding to Ace but not giving him
much of a second look.
"Call me on the cell
phone," Vega told him as he signed the appropriate papers.
"Will do." With that
the lab technician walked off.
"I'll be out talking
to a few people because of another case this morning, Ace, but I'll let
you know about the results the moment
I have them," Vega promised as they went back.
"I'll be at the Express."
They said good-bye
and Ace walked back to the Racer, Cosmo as silent as the whole
time.
"How do you feel?"
he asked him.
"Cold," Cosmo mumbled.
"So cold....." He hugged himself.
Ace stopped at the
Racer, which was parked in a side street next to the precinct, and
looked at Cosmo, who didn't even meet
his eyes. If there was a spell to undo what had been
done, Ace would not have hesitated to
call it. Whatever the cost. But right now, he was
powerless to do anything. Except be there
for his friend. He touched one slim shoulder and
Cosmo looked up quickly. He saw tears
in the large, gray eyes, tears of emotional pain and
desperation, and it tore at him even more.
Without hesitation,
Ace hugged the slender teenager to him, wrapping his arms around Cosmo
as a sob tore loose.
"I want it back so
badly," Cosmo whispered. "It's not there, you're not there....."
"I am here," Ace insisted,
tightening his hold, letting the cape fall over Cosmo. "I am here
and I won't leave."
"Not the same," Cosmo
breathed.
No, it wasn't the same,
but it was all he could offer.
"We have to get you
checked out by a doctor," he told the teenager. "We'll see if Amanda
is at the ER and has some time. Then we'll
go home." He detached Cosmo, who went only
hesitantly, and held the blurry gaze.
"And we will find a way to undo this."
"What if it is permanent?"
Ace inhaled deeply.
Yes, what then? The possibility existed. "We'll deal with that when we
get there," he then answered.
* * *
The hospital was crowded
as always, but Dr. Amanda Beckett was thankfully not on duty in
the ER. She rarely did shifts there anymore,
having acquired a new position as chief surgeon in
the trauma department. Ace had asked the
nurse on duty if Amanda was in and she had called
the doctor. Now they were in one of the
treatment cubicles, Cosmo sitting on the examination
table, Ace close by. He had briefly told
Amanda what had happened and she had frowned at him.
"You should have come
right away, Ace. Burns like these are not to be taken lightly." She
carefully palpated the reddened, burned
flesh.
Cosmo winced slightly
but didn't say a word.
"I know," Ace sighed,
"but it didn't look too bad," he lied. "We filed a report with the police
this morning as well. Lieutenant Vega
has the report."
Dr. Beckett dabbed
at the wound with some disinfectant, drawing a hiss from her patient.
She then grabbed a roll of bandages.
"I know you have your
share of experience with all kinds of injuries, Ace, but how about
you leave it to the professionals? I wouldn't
try to saw someone in half either." She flashed him a
grin.
Ace returned it.
Amanda taped the bandages
and looked at her work. Cosmo now sported a brightly white
bandage all the way up to his wrist, partially
immobilizing his hand. "You have to change this
every day. No showering without some kind
of waterproof protection. I'll prescribe a burn salve
you should apply liberally each time you
rewrap it. Understood?"
Both men nodded, Cosmo
without showing much enthusiasm.
"Anything else? Scrapes?
Bruises? Broken bones?" she teased lightly.
Ace laughed. Amanda
could almost be called a personal physician, she had treated them
both so often.
"Thankfully no. But
what this thing did was enough."
"I'll say. I'll send
the medical report to Lieutenant Vega."
Ace nodded.
They left the hospital
a little while later, driving back to the Express.
* * *
Cosmo felt alone. Completely
and utterly alone. He knew Ace was still there, alive and
well, he could see it, but he couldn't
feel it. The link was gone.
Forever....
No, no, don't think
like that. Maybe it's not gone. Maybe what this device did can be
undone.
Dream on, the
nasty, dark part of him whispered.
He huddled into the
back of the Magic Racer, feeling miserable, being miserable, longing
and yearning for the magic to return.
Ace was trying to relay his closeness, that he was still there,
but Cosmo knew it would never be the same.
They arrived at the
Express without him even noticing. Only when the car settled down
with a gentle thud did he wake from his
thoughts. Ace looked at him, compassion in his gray
eyes, wanting to help but unable to. Cosmo
climbed out of the Racer, trudging after Ace,
unconsciously shuffling closer. As if
by pure closeness he could feel part of Ace. But not even a
spark rose from the dark pit that was
his inside.
"Hungry?" Ace asked.
Cosmo shook his head.
No, he didn't feel hungry.
Afraid, yes. Desperate.
Terrified.... All but not hungry.
A hand touched him
and it took all not to cling to Ace like a frightened child throughout
a
thunderstorm. Oh god, but it was how he
felt. Like a child in a big, ugly, cold world. Ace relayed
his support through his eyes, his touch,
tried to keep him in the present. Cosmo didn't want to be
in the present, in this reality. It hurt
so much.
"I want to go by the
mental institutions where two suspects are currently held," Ace said as
he buttered a sandwich.
Cosmo nodded. "Okay."
He had no energy for anything more lengthy.
"Coming along?"
It was a simple question,
but it resulted in a violent lurch of emotions inside Cosmo. Not
alone! God, not alone! Don't leave me!
He didn't know if he had spoken it out loud, but Ace could
clearly read it in his eyes. The older
man smiled calmly.
"Take a sandwich along,"
he advised. "You might get hungry."
Cosmo sighed, both
relieved and annoyed, the first different emotion from the fear rising
today. He wasn't hungry! Still, he grabbed
a bag of snacks, much to Ace's frown, and they were
off again.
* * *
The Tayler Home was
a large brickstone building in the middle of a wide field of green
grass, tall trees and little clumps of
bushes. A high fence was around the whole compound,
guarded by electronic surveillance and
human guards. Throughout its existence, Tayler Home
had been expanded, the latest addition
a glass and steel wing that looked more like a modern art
museum piece than a hospital wing. People
milled on the grounds, most of them patients with
their visitors, the nurses and doctors,
as well as a few psychologists. Tayler Home was a mixed
home, for both the light cases and the
worst.
James Calen was one
of the worst. The man was awake, but not really conscious, his
mind wiped out by a magical overdose.
He had been placed in the high security ward because
though he was nothing more but a living
shell, he was still a criminal. A murderer.
Ace's eyes were hard
and cold as he looked through the transparent wall that separated
him from the monster who had killed Anna.
In the two years that had passed since that day, he
had tried not to think of him, not to
envision the evil laugh, the absolute darkness of the other's
soul. Calen had kidnapped and tortured
Cosmo, he had killed Anna LeFrez, he had tortured Ace
and nearly killed him as well..... All
because of some silly jealousy. Now he had paid for his
crimes. Dearly. The utter price. His sanity.
"There have been no
changes," the doctor who had introduced himself as Marek Dukakis
explained. "He doesn't react to outside
stimuli, he can eat and drink when urged, but otherwise,
Mr. Calen is completely unresponsive.
He hasn't left this room except when his nurse takes him
for a stroll. We frequently run brain
scans, but all his higher functions have been shut down. The
body does what is necessary to live, but
beyond that...." He shrugged.
Ace studied the frail form in the bed,
the blond hair cut and washed, the features lax and
lifeless. A far cry from the man he had
met. A vegetable. Cosmo was at his side, face just as
stony, also recalling the events from
the past.
"He hasn't been out
of the institute?" Ace clarified.
"No. He is allowed
to have visitors, but to be honest, Mr. Cooper: Mr. Calen is unable to
do
more than just exist. If left to his own
devices, he'd starve to death."
Ace nodded, then turned
to the stocky man. Dukakis was rather young, with a round face,
a black mustache and dark eyes. He was
at least two heads shorter than Ace and radiated a
bouncy air. Suddenly he frowned.
"Visitors? Did he have
any?"
"Oh, yes. A young man
comes here once a week. He's a friend of Mr. Calen and he takes
him out into the park, talks to him, reads
to him. Nothing shows any effect, but the effort is
laudable."
Alarm bells started
ringing. "A friend? Do you have a name?"
"I'd have to ask the
nurse. He's pretty well known by now."
Dukakis led them to
the main nurses' desk of this wing. A tall, dark-haired woman was
busy with the computer, but she smiled
at them when the men stopped at the station.
"What can I do for
you, Dr. Dukakis?" she asked.
"Lori, do you know
the name of Mr. Calen's visitor? The young man who comes here
frequently?"
She nodded. "Thomas.
Brian Thomas. Nice guy. Shy, a bit on the pale side, but very
devoted."
"Do you have an address
where we can reach him?" Ace wanted to know.
"No. He comes here
to visit, but he isn't next of kin and never asked to be listed as such."
Lori looked apologetic.
Ace nodded slowly.
"Thank you."
They left again, Cosmo
still too silent, Ace brooding over the facts. Calen couldn't have
sent the device. The man was unable to
do anything without help. So if he was behind it, he had
had help. From Brian Thomas? And maybe
he was wrong. He climbed into the Racer and drove
back toward the City. He had more leads
to check.
Yago was still in prison,
now a high security facility, along with several other criminal
candidates. Ace had even tried to check
up on Faceless, but the woman had disappeared off the
face of the earth. His last stop this
day was the Gray Prison Building on the other side of Electro
City where Jimmy Hagen was in. He was
in the psychiatric ward, which was no different from the
other cells, except that the medical personnel
was also trained as security guards. Ace and
Cosmo passed several security barriers
and finally got through to the head of the psychiatric
ward. It was a fair-haired, tall man with
a full beard, sparkling blue eyes and laugh lines visible
around his eyes. He introduced himself
as Ulf Gartner, speaking with a slight accent. He was a
psychologist, responsible for currently
forty-five men and women.
"Mr. Hagen is a rather...
difficult man from time to time," he now said, smiling slightly. "His
magical tricks make it hard for us to
keep him locked in any of the normal cells. He has quite a
repertoire. We keep him in the electronic
surveillance cells."
"Have there been any
visitors? Can he leave the institute?"
"Yes to the first questions,
no to the second. The court order was quite strict in that regard.
He can't leave the facilities. He might
be mentally not in the right frame of mind, but he is
dangerous. He lives in the past a lot,
talks to his dead grandfather and such things, but he has
moments of lucidity."
"And the visitors?"
Gartner shrugged. "Family.
We have to keep track of who visits. Mostly his mother and
sister. I think he was engaged before
he went criminal, but the fiancee has yet to show."
Ace looked thoughtful.
"Thank you for your time, Dr. Gartner," he then said.
"Any special interest
as to why you needed these questions answered, Mr. Cooper? I am
well aware of your history with Mr. Hagen,
but...." He left the sentence unfinished.
"Something has occurred
lately that might have involved Jimmy Hagen -- if he were able
to leave here. Or were in the right frame
of mind to do."
Gartner frowned. "Mr.
Hagen hasn't been outside this institution since he was brought
here. Visitors are closely monitored and
no one is allowed to leave without proper searches. Our
prisoners are not allowed to give anything
to their visitors."
"I understand. Thank
you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
"Another dead end,"
Ace sighed as he was inside the Racer again, glancing at Cosmo
through the rearview mirror.
Cosmo shrugged. "Might
have an accomplice who doesn't visit."
"Possible. Right now,
our only real lead to look into is Brian Thomas, but it's hard to get
information on such a generic name."
The teenager nodded.
"I could ask Vega to
send a plainclothes officer to stake out the place..... but that might
take way too long." He gnawed his lower
lip.
"Uh, Ace?"
The magician looked
at the rearview mirror, "Yes?"
"You know you have
a rehearsal tonight?"
He nearly slapped his
forehead. Damn, he had nearly forgotten! With a wry smile he
steered the Racer away from the prison
and back to the City.
"Thanks for reminding
me. I think Ronchello would throw a fit if we didn't show."
Cosmo grinned, a real
grin for just a second, as Ace mentioned the assistant manager of
the Ring Theater.
The Racer sped through
the streets.
* * *
The signaler was dead.
Stone cold, marvelously
dead.
He smiled.
The trap had gone off.
The signal had died the moment of discharge. Cooper had gotten
the package.
His smile widened,
caressing the small black box in his hand. It served no purpose now.
None save to remind him that another step
had been taken in his plan. His plan for vengeance.
Redemption. His master would be pleased.
Oh so very pleased.
If it worked.
He glared at the thought.
Of course it would work! His machines always worked. It was his
gift, his genius. The machines, the special,
magical machines. It would work! And if not. Well..
not like he would survive the encounter
with Cooper if he had failed. A fitting punishment then,
for his lack of success. Totally fitting.
Now what? It was the
next point for him to concentrate on. What would Cooper do now?
Would he cancel his show? Maybe, though
he rarely used true magic in them. But would he be
able to go on after a loss like that?
Probably. Cooper let very little stop him. And that would work
to his advantage. Would give him the chance
to confirm what he knew had already happened in
his heart of hearts.
That the sphere had
worked.
Hummm... What would
it be like? What would that do to a magician? To lose that most
precious of contacts. Especially having
the powers near you for almost the entirety of your life?
He smiled again.
Hopefully it was painful.
Very, very painful.
Pocketing the black
box he pushed himself up. There were things to do, places to go.
He chuckled.
Traps to set.
* * *
Rehearsal might be just
a test run, but it was to be taken seriously and everyone did. This
was the last great run before the actual
show and everything had to work smoothly. What didn't
work was immediately checked. Lights were
tested and moved into another position, props were
arranged, and last minute changes applied.
Right now the audience consisted of the janitorial
staff who had some free time, as well
as some of the backstage people who weren't needed. The
setting was just like throughout an actual
show, except for the missing audience of kids and
adults.
Cosmo was working backstage
as usual, his demeanor slightly better than this morning,
but he was a far cry from his old self.
For the sake of the backstage workers though, he played
his role. As always he had an eye on the
lights, the props, the cues. He ordered the stage hands
around, his position easily accepted by
all the senior members who had known him for years
now, he kept an eye on what was happening
on stage, and he checked the program running the
show in the background. All in all, Cosmo
had enough to do to keep his mind off his personal
problems for the next hours.
As he waited for some
of the hi-lite rigs to be moved into a better position, Ace heard
something above the soft whirring of the
automated rig. He looked up, frowning. A creaking. A
groaning. Like metal that was being stretched
beyond its abilities to hold. There was a tinkling,
like glass, and then the groaning came
again. Louder.
Loud enough to be heard by the people
around him as well.
Someone screamed.
Ace saw the hi-lite
rig just above him sway dangerously, then there was a sharp snapping
sound and the left side of the whole rig
fell down. It careened over the stage, swinging on the
remaining support cables like a pendulum,
coming toward Ace. The magician jumped out of the
way with lightning reflexes, hitting the
stage with a hard thud that drove the air out of his lungs.
He pressed himself to the hard floor,
feeling the whispering sound of the rig swinging only inches
past him.
"Ace!" someone screamed
and he recognized Cosmo's voice. "Ace, get out of there! It's
gonna give!"
The creaking was there
again, louder, strained cables unable to hold the weight of the
swinging rig. A cable snapped and the
rig plunged a bit further toward him as it swung by once
more. Ace rolled away, the cloak catching
in a jagged piece of metal, tearing. He stumbled,
running toward the edge of the stage.
For a moment he considered a relocation spell, but that
would have required at least a second
of total calmness -- and he was past calm. Initiating a
spell was no choice.
And then the last cables
gave way. The rig came down with a loud crash, glass and metal
splinters flying everywhere. Ace felt
something cut his neck and he jumped, landing on the hard
floor. Behind him, lights exploded and
metal tore into the stage. A cacophony of screams, booms
and crashes washed over him, then there
was only the noise of people demanding order, yelling
for security and an ambulance, and the
hysteric voices of some of the more agitated spectators.
"Ace!"
He blinked, his vision
blurred and danced. Something bright came into view and it cleared
up slightly.
"Cosmo?"
"Are you okay?" the
teen demanded, helping him up, placing a steadying hand on his arm.
His eyes darted worriedly over his older
friend.
"Yeah, I think so."
Ace touched his neck and the white gloves came away stained with
blood. "Mostly."
Cosmo anxiously looked
him over, more worry in his eyes. Ace turned and looked at the
stage, trying to ignore the orderlies
and security helping to calm everyone down, ushering them
out of the theater. The stage as such
was buried under the main rig that carried several tons of
lights secured to heavy metal beams, usually
used to add to the show. Glass splinters littered the
area and debris lay everywhere. What props
had still been on stage were flat as pancakes. He
had wanted to mothball some of them by
the end of this season, but well, Ace thought dryly, dark
humor rising, that was one way of telling
him to get new stuff.
A cold chill passed
through him. It could easily have been him. Very easily. Ace climbed
back onto the stage where more security
was already closing off the accident site. He felt blood
trickle down his neck from the cut, but
he didn't care. The rig lay in ruins and he stepped
carefully around it, eyes scanning over
the remains.
"Mr. Cooper?" It was
George, one of the security men he knew more personally. His niece
was a great fan of Ace and he had brought
her along on several occasions. Ace had made the
little girl's day when he had showed her
around and performed a few tricks for her. "Are you
okay?" He eyed the blood stains.
"Yes, I'm fine, thank
you, George." Ace stared at the rig.
"We went over it just
last night! It was all in order," another voice wailed. It was one of the
stage hands, a lanky guy named Zed. He
was scurrying around the rig remains, shaking his
head. "The rig was new!"
Ace felt Cosmo close
by, hovering, worried and trying not to crowd. On top of being
suddenly alone in his mind, cut off from
Ace and his own magic, he now had to deal with this
accident. Not good. Not in his condition
anyway.
Ronchello, the assistant
manager, had appeared, reassuring everyone that the police was
on the way, that an ambulance had been
called, that steps were taken. He fussed around Ace,
but the magician just smiled, and then
went off stage and into his dressing room, Cosmo on his
heels. When the door of his personal dressing
room had closed, Ace shed the cloak. Red stains
were brightly visible on his shirt and
there was a long gash on his neck, as well as several
smaller cuts on his cheek. He wiped the
blood away with a towel, wincing.
Cosmo felt shock settle
deep inside him. No, this hadn't been the first stage accident. Yes,
they had gone through worse. But he had
absolutely no feeling of Ace inside him and because of
that, he was extra jumpy. When the rig
had come down, Cosmo had frozen inside, terror
spreading through his veins, seeing Ace
getting crushed by the rig.
Then his mind had flown
into action, going through what he would call instinct. He had
tried to get to his magic, access the
power that would let him help Ace. And he had come up
empty. Nothing had been there. Nothing
at all! Just the emptiness inside, the terrible,
devastating cold of being alone.
He had been unable
to help. Totally useless.
The moment was burned
into his mind. Now he got out the first aid kit and opened a bottle
of iodine. Ace had sat down on the couch,
pressing a wad of paper against the larger cut on his
neck, looking thoughtful.
"Here, let me," Cosmo
offered, worry overriding the impassive, cold feeling for a while.
Ace hissed as he dabbed
at the cut, cleaning away the blood. It didn't look too bad, but it
was painful. Covering it with a band-aid,
Cosmo then stepped back and closed the kit.
"Thanks," Ace muttered,
rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"You think it was an
accident?" Cosmo asked.
The magician looked
up. "I hope so. But I want to know the moment a report is done.
Somehow, I don't think Zed screwed up
that badly."
Cosmo nodded. "Really
good roadie. One of the best."
That out of Cosmo's
mouth was more than a compliment. Cosmo always had a close eye
on the stage hands and helpers, and he
had kicked more than one butt because the guy had
been too superfluous or lazy.
"I know." Ace closed
his eyes. "We have to wait."
A knock on the door
startled them both.
"Yes?" Ace called.
The door opened and
the familiar face of an EC police officer appeared.
"Hello, Sergeant Masterson,"
Ace greeted the man, kind of an old friend from prior
encounters.
"Mr. Cooper." He nodded
at Cosmo as a greeting. "I'm the investigating officer for the light
rig incident. Can I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure. Come in."
Cosmo kept in the back,
as if trying to be invisible, and Masterson shot him a quick look,
then concentrated on Ace.
The question-answering
session was quick, professional, and Masterson was done faster
than Ace would have thought. The officer
closed his notebook, smiling briefly.
"Thank you for your
cooperation, Mr. Cooper. I'll let you know what we find out."
Ace smiled back. Masterson
had worked with Vega, and Ace, long enough to know that
whatever came out of it, Ace was highly
interested.
"Thank you, sergeant."
When the door had closed,
Ace turned and looked at Cosmo. His young friend's eyes were
drooping and despite his condition, the
agitation and the fear he felt, he was drop-dead tired. No
surprise after a night filled with nightmares
and barely any deep sleep. The few hours in the
morning hadn't made up for it.
"Let's go home," Ace
said softly.
Cosmo head came up
and for a moment there was fear in his eyes. Home, yes. Alone in
his bedroom......? They had to deal with
it when they got to the Express.
* * *
Yes!
It took all his
self-control not to cry out in jubilation as he went about his business.
But
inside he was soaring.
Perfect!
The light had fallen
on cue and Cooper had nearly been struck. It had been the closest of
close calls for the magician. And he had
not come out of the incident totally unscathed. That,
more then anything, told him what he needed
to know.
The sphere had worked.
Cooper was without his magic. He had no doubt now.
He'd seen Cooper before
dodge a falling prop or a pyrotechnic going off accidentally. Had
watched in a way no one else had, never
letting himself be distracted by the carnage besieging
the stage, but eyes always on the man.
The magician. And it was the only way to see. The small
shift in his body as suddenly he was far
enough away to be safe. Or the minute hesitation in a
falling object as levitation gave him
the split second he needed to be away.
Neither had happened
this time and he knew Cooper had ample opportunity. He'd rigged
the light to fall in just such a way as
to allow the man a moment to wield his magic and dodge all
injury.
And he hadn't!
Oh, he could almost
dance. His master would be so proud of him. He knew it, even if he
didn't speak that pride aloud.
No magic! Cooper was
a cobra without the fangs. Ahhh.. for all his plans, for all his
dreams to come true. It was a heady moment,
one he dare not display as he moved down the
aisle. No, he could not display his joy
though he celebrated in his heart.
One step closer
to justice.
One step more.
* * *
It was close to midnight
when Ace parked the Magic Racer in the vehicle bay, locked it
down and climbed up the stairs to the
upper level. Cosmo followed, visibly tired, but stubbornly
refusing to budge from Ace's side. Zina
came to greet them, rubbing along Ace's legs and then
giving Cosmo her complete attention. Ace
smiled secretly as he watched Cosmo pet the black
panther, Zina purring at extra strength.
She accompanied him to his room and flopped down at
the foot of his bed, making it clear where
she wanted to spend the night. Ace nodded at her,
knowing she understood.
"I'm just around the
corner," the magician told Cosmo. "You are not alone."
Cosmo nodded, biting
his lower lip. "I know. I see it..... but the feeling...." He sighed
shakily. "You are not here." And placed
a hand on his chest.
Ace gave the slender
shoulders a hug. "I am. I always was." He smiled.
Cosmo couldn't really
return the smile, but he tried.
"Sleep," the older
man advised.
"Will try."
Zina rumbled something,
as if adding her opinion to it, and Ace gave her a smile. Then he
left the bedroom, the door sliding shut
behind him. For a moment he simply remained, listening
to the silence, the only sound the barely
audible hum of the air-conditioning system. Finally he
walked back into the living room, not
yet ready to go to bed. First he wanted to check his mail,
sort through what he had found out today,
and then see what might come out of it.
Shedding his cloak
and jacket, kicking off his shoes for comfort, Ace sat down and went to
work. There was no mail from Vega, except
a short note that Feretti was working on the sphere.
Kate had not come back to him concerning
blocked magic abilities, but that was no big surprise.
She had a lot to work through and compare.
It was way too early to expect a report from the
accident in the police files. Ace sighed
and scribbled some notes on what they had found out
today. After a while he leaned back, rubbing
tired eyes. He felt mentally exhausted, but his body
was far from it. Adrenaline still surged
and ebbed through him, part of it from the near miss, part
from all the events together. He touched
the bandaged cut and winced. It hurt.
"Ace, you have a call
from Dr. Morrigan coming in," Angel suddenly informed him.
Kate? At this ungodly
hour? Then again, why not? She was a night owl.
"Hello, Kate," he greeted
her as the vid screen lit up.
She looked at him over
a stack of papers, frowning slightly as her gaze wandered over the
numerous cuts that hadn't been there a
few hours ago.
"Hello, Ace. What happened?
Played catch with Zina and lost?"
He chuckled. "No. Part
of a light rig nearly fell on me during the show."
She blinked. "I know
why I didn't get into show biz," the younger woman then said,
expression completely straight.
He laughed briefly.
"Accident?" Kate wanted
to know.
"They are still looking
into it."
"Ah. Why I called.....
I dug up some things on your request, but don't set your hopes too
high. Some is good, some is rather useless."
"I'm listening."
"Number one: blocking
magic or making it disappear completely through magic. It is
possible, but.... big *but*..... the spellcaster
has to be a mage, not just someone dabbling in the
arts. It's complicated, draws on your
energy reserves like a magnet, and you either have to be
close to the victim or touch him. What
I have here from Angel's first analysis, this is a normal,
mechanical device, but with magical residue.
The problem I see is encapsulating the magic as it
has been in your case. No one has ever
found a way to make a spell time-delayed, inside a
non-magical object. No one!"
Ace nodded. He knew
magical devices existed, were spread far and wide, but they needed
a kind of focus to pour the magic in,
and that was usually some kind of stone. Not just any stone
either. It had to have certain qualities
and those stones were really hard to find. There had been
nothing like it inside the sphere.
"Number two," Kate
went on. "Mechanical devices blocking or destroying magic without a
magic spell involved. Completely unheard
of. I went through the most known and best tomes, did
cross-references on the database a friend
of mine keeps, but came up empty. Of course, there
might be something obscure mentioned somewhere
I have no access to, but generally speaking:
impossible."
"But this device did
what you think is impossible."
"I know. Then again,
maybe not. We definitely know the sphere emitted a stream of
energy in some time-delayed trigger fashion.
Possibly two according to what Angel found. That
still bugs me. Either way, it first detected
and then reacted to the presence of an energy field, a
magician's energy field, then shocked
him. That leads me to the assumption that the damage
was created by a shockwave racing through
the body, possibly severely disturbing the brain."
Kate played with a pen. "Magic is still
nothing but myth to most, but the people I know have gone
far and wide to actually look into it
and find out where it comes from and why only certain people
can access it. It has to do with hormonal
changes in early childhood, a receptiveness of the brain
in areas lying dormant in more than 99.5
% of the human population, and the ability to adjust
your body to the new energy field around
you. If this field and the receptors can be messed up,
you might not feel the magic anymore."
Ace thought about it,
let it roll around in his head. "So someone who knows this created
the device," he finally said.
Kate nodded. "Most
likely. And," she smiled slightly, "it also tells me something else. Say,
Ace, is Cosmo catatonic in any way?"
"No," he answered slowly.
"Just very messed up, very disturbed, feeling alone."
"Which I think proves
my theory. Think about it: the link connects both of you
empathically. He can feel you through
this bond and knows you are alive. When severed, Cosmo
goes catatonic, drawing in on himself,
for all purposes, almost dying himself."
Ace was uncomfortably
reminded of a prior incident, nodding slowly.
"Now he doesn't. Tell
you anything?" Kate prodded.
"The link still exists?"
Ace hazarded, realization dawning.
"In a way, yes. Cosmo
can't feel it, can't access it, but his body knows it's still there. And
somehow, his mind does as well. Subconsciously.
His consciousness is unable to grasp it. I
would put it along the lines an anesthetic.
Your body knows the effected part is still attached, the
nerves are still there working, sending
signals that your brain is receiving. It's just that your
conscious perception of those signals
has been blocked. Chemically. Or, in Cosmo's case, by the
globe's discharge."
Ace's mind worked in
leaps. "So... he can't access it, but the magic and the ability are still
there?"
"I don't know for certain.
Do you have any brain scans from prior hospital stays?" Kate
wanted to know.
Ace grimaced. "Too
many to like it, Kate." His and Cosmo's medical history were in
detailed files inside the main computer
banks, all incidents, from small cuts to the really serious
injuries. And he had the brain scans from
two incidents, one where Ace had briefly 'died' and
Cosmo had been catatonic.
She smiled humorlessly.
"Let Angel run a comparison. Let her check for similarities and
for differences. If I'm correct, we might
have a chance -- if the messed-up brain energy field can
rearrange itself."
He exhaled softly.
Okay. A ray of hope. Not much, not very strong, but there.
"Thanks," he said,
feeling tired again. "This is the best news yet."
Kate gave him a close
look. "So, what's up on your end of the research front?" she wanted
to know.
Ace told her. He relayed
where they had been today, that there had been nothing really
helpful surfacing, and how he was hoping
that the police investigation of the ball would give them
more information. Kate listened intently,
never interrupting, and Ace was reminded of how much
she was like Anna in that regard. His
teacher had been able to listen to him calmly and serenely
when he had spilled his personal problems
and troubles, and she had always been ready to lend
an ear even if he didn't ask for advice.
"You think Calen or
Hagen have accomplices who sent the device?" she now asked.
"That's what I don't
know. Both are not in the right frame of mind to come up with such a
complicated plan. Calen is mentally dead.
His body lives, but he hasn't spoken or done anything
out of his own motivation since...." He
stopped.
"I understand," Kate
said softly. "And Hagen?"
"He's insane. Talks
to the ghost of his grandfather and has a lucid moment or two. His
psychiatrist didn't mention any revenge
rants. The man is totally self-absorbed in his own world."
She chewed on her lower
lip. "And Calen's visitor?"
"Maybe the only friend
he ever had." Ace grimaced. "If he truly had one."
"Say, Calen was a techno
mage. He did a lot of techno-based magic...."
Kate raised her eyebrows.
"I thought of that
as well, but I don't believe he had an apprentice of any kind. Calen was
too self-absorbed."
"Probably. I'll let
you know in case I dig something up that might help."
"Thanks, Kate. For
everything."
She gave him a smile.
"Think nothing of it. And get some sleep. You look horrible."
"Yes, Ma'am."
The screen went dark
and Ace was alone with his thoughts. His worries and hopes. One
hope. One desperate hope.
* * *
Cosmo had woken early.
He had had little real sleep, but the nightmares had not torn at
him like last night. Maybe it had been
Zina, curled up close to him, giving him the comfort he
craved. Maybe it was his body adapting.
No!
He didn't want to adapt!
He angrily stared at
his reflection in the mirror, removing the last beard stubble with a
razor.
"Don't want to adapt,"
he told his mirror image. "Never!"
There was no answer.
He hadn't expected one. Dressing, he walked by the kitchen and
grabbed a bottle of orange juice, then
listlessly went into the main room of the Express, the living
area/library. Ace must have worked late,
judging from the cloak and jacket on the couch. He
peeked at the papers strewn on the table
and read the notes. A frown creased his features, hope
warring with the darker emotions inside
him that warned that hope was dangerous. Kate thought
that maybe this was not permanent? Well,
she hoped.
Hope.
One word -- so much
in the balance.
Cosmo sank on the couch,
sipping on the juice, thinking. It sounded good, but so did every
other theory. He sighed.
"Angel?" he called.
"Yes, Cosmo?" the AI
answered and materialized her holographic form.
"Do you have anything
on the comparison run of the brain patterns?"
"I am still compiling
information, but I have a preliminary report if you want to read it."
"Sure."
The vid screen lit
up with the information and Cosmo intently read over every single word.
Most of it was medical jargon, techno-babble
for doctors, but he got the gist. Yes, there were
similarities between the time Cosmo had
been at the hospital after the link had been severed.
And no, it was not the same as today.
But no, it also wasn't his normal brain pattern.
Cosmo shivered.
Not the same as the
separation last time. Oh god.... thank you! He clenched his hands
around the bottle. He remembered the cold
from that experience only too clearly. It had shown
both him and Ace just how closely they
were connected, that Ace's fate was in direct connection
to Cosmo's.
So empty
So lonely.
Catatonic.
He wasn't catatonic
now. Something had blocked his link, the connection to Ace, and the
magic. Blocked it good, but hadn't severed
it.
Cosmo inhaled deeply,
trying to concentrate on the report. There was a lot he didn't
understand, but he didn't ask for Angel
to translate. What he had read was enough.
Hope. There was hope.
Somehow the block had to be removed!
Emptying the bottle,
Cosmo walked aimlessly through the Express, feeling nervous energy
course through him. They had no lead who
the perp was, they had nowhere to go. All they knew
was that it had been aimed against Ace,
that it had been someone with the knowledge of his
magic and the technological know-how.
And all their suspects were either in prison or mental
homes. Really not much to go on.
Ending up in the lab,
he suddenly saw something on the table that made him nearly choke.
But only briefly. He pulled himself together,
stepping into the lab, facing the terror.
A box.
The box.
The box the ball had
been in.
Cosmo grit his teeth,
angrily suppressing the fear. He wouldn't give in to it! Ace didn't need
him as a quivering mess! He needed a partner
he could rely on.
Looking the box over, the teenager tried
to find any clue, anything at all, to help them with
their search. Ace had only dropped off
the device as such in the police labs, not the packaging.
He turned the box over in his hands, thinking
furiously. It was a normal box. It was used
everywhere, could be bought everywhere,
nothing special at all. It had been sent by normal mail,
as the stamp told him, and the sticker
from the post office had been printed.
Cosmo looked at the sticker.
It had a tracing number.
As all packages, the tracing number told the office where it had
come from and where it went, how much
it weighed and who had to pay for it. Maybe.... maybe
he could find out where the package had
been sent from!
With new energy, he
almost ran into the main computer room, activating the control
console with a flick, then setting to
work. It was easy to get into the post office mainframe. Even
easier to get to the tracing program.
He entered the fifteen-digit tracer number with its additional
six letters, then waited.
As the computer worked,
Cosmo looked at the package again, running his fingers over the
white sticker. He frowned as his finger
tips caught on the left upper edge. The sticker hadn't been
glued on correctly, part of it not very
adhesive to the surface, and he played around with it,
experimentally tugging at the paper. It
came off after a few tugs and Cosmo felt his blood run
cold.
"Shit!" he whispered.
Beneath the sticker
from the mail office was another label. The sender was a prop
supplier, the receiver the Ring Theater.
* * *
"I'll be damned..."
Ace hissed turning the box to read the half damaged label better.
Cosmo watched him and
didn't miss the slight cast that came over the magician's face,
felt his heart clench when no echo of
the surprise reached his mind. He shuddered and tightened
his grip on himself. He would not break
down, he would not break down... It had become his own,
silent mantra.
"Ace, the box was used
to send stuff to the Ring and whoever sent you the sphere, he
used a box that the Ring threw away! He
was there! In the theater and he stole the box!"
Cosmo paced in agitation,
nervous energy radiating off him like another aura. "He was
there. Dude, he was there!"
"I understand, Cosmo,
but that doesn't get us any closer to the identity of the man." Ace
leaned calmly against the large granite
globe, watching his friend pace.
"No, but it tells us
that the guy got into areas he shouldn't have been able to!" Cosmo
hissed angrily. "He might even have rigged
the accident!"
"We don't know that.
The police report is not yet finished. Sergeant Masterson's
investigations haven't finished yet."
"Damn the investigations!"
Cosmo exploded. "The guy can get everywhere in the Ring!"
Ace rubbed his neck,
wincing as he caught the cut areas. "You said you ran a check on the
mail?" he tried to steer the conversation
to another topic.
Cosmo glared at him,
clearly aware of it, but he went with the change. "Yeah," he
muttered. "Angel, display trace results."
Angel lit up the screen
and Ace read over the information. The package with the number
matching theirs had been sent on its way
at a small postoffice shop. The address was
somewhere in the outskirts of Electro
City in a normal enough neighborhood. Medium income
houses, two-kid families....nothing special.
Damn!
"You have to cancel
the show tonight."
Ace looked up, startled
from his thoughts. No, that was the last thing he could do. He
shook his head slowly.
"No, Cosmo. I won't
cancel the show," he said simply.
Cosmo flinched, good
hand clenching into a fist. "Like hell you won't!" the teen snarled.
"This perp has access
we can't track. He's after you, Ace, and the best place to get you is at
the
show!" Cosmo glared out-right at him,
trembling with barely suppressed emotions.
"That is exactly why
I won't cancel," Ace told Cosmo calmly, watching the young man
compassionately.
His partner's fear
and dread were too clearly apparent in his face. Cosmo was trying to
hold himself together. Trying not to lose
what little self control he had, but it was nowhere near
easy
"If our attacker is
going to make his move, it's a good chance it'll be there, Cosmo. We
have to bring him out into the open."
"Not at the risk of
your life!" Cosmo countered hotly. "Damn it, Ace, now's not the time to
play hero!"
"It might be the only
way to catch him, Cosmo. I will not waste the opportunity!"
"But you'll risk wasting
you life?"
"If I can help you,
yes."
Cosmo froze, eyes wide,
a definite shudder tearing through his body. "No.... no..." He
backed away.
Ace took a step forward, worry gripping
him at the young man's sudden change. The anger
had turn to dread in the blink of an eye.
"Cosmo?" he called,
reaching out and catching one arm.
Cosmo flinched, stared
at him and grabbed his arm back. "Please, Ace, please cancel the
show," he pleaded softly, the desperation
in his eyes reaching his voice. "I've already lost you
here..." The bandaged hand touched Cosmo's
chest. "I can't lose you here." Then the hand
reached out and touched him.
Ace felt his heart
clench at the raw fear in Cosmo's wide eyes. He had lost him mentally,
the teen would not be able to survive
losing him physically. Ace knew that through the cruelty of
prior experience.
Quietly he rested his
hands on both shoulders, held the young man firmly.
"You won't lose me,
Cosmo. I swear! But we must not cancel the show. Cosmo.."
He tried to catch Cosmo's
gaze, but the teen dodged him. He urged him to look up at him
with a small shake of the trembling shoulders.
Fear, soul deep fear was in those eyes as they
skittishly rose. He dug up a reassuring
smile.
"Cosmo... Our attacker
will make his move sometime. Maybe at the show or maybe
anywhere else. He will eventually try
to kill me, if that is truly his intention, which I believe it is. At
the theater though we have the high ground.
He'll be on our playing field and it gives us the best
chance to find him, or find out more about
him," Ace argued gently.
Cosmo licked his lips
the shuddering worsening and dropped his head.
"Ace..." He shook his
head. "No.. you have to stay safe."
"And let you suffer?"
The face lifted, eyes
haunted, but set. "Yes. If that's what it takes."
Ace sighed and smiled
sadly in the face of Cosmo self-sacrifice.
"The price of my safety
would be too high then, Cosmo. Please. Trust me on this one. We
have to draw out our attacker. Your attacker.
"
With a small squeeze
he sought Cosmo's blessing as the young man stared again at the
floor.
"Please, Cosmo."
"Doesn't matter what
I think, does it?" he spat bitterly, refusing to meet his eyes.
Ace took a deep breath.
"You know it does, Cosmo. You're opinion always matters to me,
but that doesn't mean I agree with it."
Cosmo was silent, breathing
a touch ragged, then his shoulders slumped. "There's got to
be another way..."
"If one pops up, I'll
take it. Until then..." Ace tightened his hold. "Will you back me up?"
That jerked Cosmo,
the teen's eyes rocketing up to him, hurt shining in the gray depth's.
Ace felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn't
meant it to seem like he doubted his partner.
"Of course I will!
You know that I ...."
Ace stopped the desperate
words with a raised hand. "I know, Cosmo, I know. I'm sorry,
that didn't come out quite right." He
smiled apologetically. "Will you give me your blessing to try
and draw out our attacker? That's what
I'm asking."
Cosmo sighed and nodded.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't like it, but I'll back you up." Then an attempt
at a smile "Can't let you get your butt
knocked off in front of the cameras. We'd never live down
the bad press."
Ace laughed and drew
Cosmo into a quick, strong hug.
"Don't worry, Cosmo.
I will be careful. I promise."
Cosmo's arms locked
around him, the teen almost burrowing into his embrace.
"I know, Ace, I know...
Just, I.."
Ace tightened his hold
as the emotions rocked through his young friend.
"We will find out who
did this, Cosmo. We will find the cure," Ace promised. The promise
he made to himself every time he saw the
pale shadow of a man Cosmo had become. Cosmo
nodded shakily, hesitantly breaking away
from him. With a heavy gulp he looked at him, the
barest glimmering of hope shinning in
his eyes, behind the shadow of apprehension, dread and
emptiness that had taken over the once
lively gray eyes.
"Hope so, dude... hope
so.."
* * *
The evening show went
off as planned. The Ring Theater was sold out to the last place
and people were still trying to get tickets.
Ace Cooper's magic shows were the attraction in
Electro City and people even had annual
cards, able to come and get treats at each show for
lower prices. Tourists streamed into the
area, chatting with the locals. Kids swarmed all over the
rows, calling, yelling, laughing, Exasperated
parents picked up discarded programs, carried
popcorn and generally tried to keep an
eye on their offspring. Programs were sold, as well as
posters, mugs, T-shirts and assorted other
merchandise.
The show started at
8 p.m. as planned. There had been no afternoon show today,
it being Friday. Ace went through the
acts with precision and professional ease, which he didn't
show the crowd though. Each trick had
been rehearsed a thousand times, but it was dangerous
nevertheless. Zina played her part, taking
the applause, basking in the calls of encores and awe,
and Ace did his best to keep his mind
on the job and not on his suffering young friend. There was
no room for that throughout the two hours
of high performance. Right now he was Ace Cooper,
the magician. He could be the private
person later on.
The accident report
from Sergeant Masterson had come in just before the show had
started, and it had said clearly that
the support cable on the left side of the rig had snapped
because of age and over-use. Zed had protested
vehemently. He had changed all old cables just
the last week. He had checked on the rig
in question a day before. Ace believed him. Zed was a
reliable worker. But if Zed had secured
the cables and had exchanged the old ones for the newer
ones, who had changed the hi-lite rig
cable back?
The second act, also
the last one for tonight, contained elements of his prior road show.
Ace used fire and ice to amaze the people,
freezing and then liquefying Zina, creating a burning
phoenix that soared over the rows. They
cried in fear and surprise, applause thunderous in the
dome structure. He sent the bird up into
the rigs, where it dissipated into a myriad of sparks,
showering over the rows without harming
anyone. More applause shook the theater.
Ace bowed to everyone,
as did Zina, and more calls for encore could be heard. He smiled
and used the trap door lift to disappear
beneath the stage. The massive underground structure
that not only housed the props and controls,
but also all the dressing rooms, greeted him.
"Great show, man!"
Cosmo called, giving him a thumbs up. There was a genuine and very
relieved smile on his face. Nothing had
happened. "I'll shut down the program. Be right with you."
"Take your time," Ace
said.
Cosmo not attaching
himself to him like a leech was a small step forward. Ace had noticed
that whenever Cosmo was intensely occupied
with something other than the link, he managed to
ignore his situation. But this never lasted
long.
Ace continued to the
dressing room, passing by the numerous doors with similar rooms,
some smaller, some unused, all for the
stars and starlets of the Ring Theater. His own room was
rather spacious and it was only his. After
such a long time of running his spectacular shows in
Electro City, he could call part of this
place his home. As he closed the door after himself,
contemplating that this show had gone
off as smoothly as he had hoped, that no one had
dropped anything on him, Ace caught sight
of something smeared on the large mirror in front of
the dressing table.
'Revenge'.
He stared at the black
writing on the reflective surface, standing totally still. His own mirror
image stared back, obscured partly by
the writing.
Someone had been here.
In his dressing room.
He took a step toward
the mirror.
And something exploded.
Ace shielded himself
instinctively with his cape as heat washed over him, driving him
deeper into the room, away from the door
where the fire was starting to lick along the walls. The
door that was his only escape.
Fire bomb! Set off
by his entrance! And it spread damn fast!
Coughing, Ace tried
to go for the door, but the searing heat drove him away again. His
eyes stung and his lungs ached as he tried
to find a way out of the smoke-filled room.
Relocate!
The rational part of
his mind screamed at him to use his magic and get out of here.
Something small and
rather weak argued that this trap had been set for him by the man
who believed he couldn't use magic any
more. If he escaped through magic....
He knew he was beginning
to feel the effects of the smoke and heat. He was disoriented
and the churning powers inside him, wanting
to break free, called by his emotional distress, were
no great help. The fire had spread through
the dressing room, eating away the wallpaper, licking
at whatever burned.
Connecting door.
Ace's blurring mind
yelled at him that there was a connecting door to another room, one
Cosmo sometimes used to throw his gear
in. It was hidden, not very easy to detect, because one
wing of the large mirror of the dressing
table swung over it.
It was left of him,
he thought. He stumbled over into the general direction, half blinded by
the thick smoke.
As he reached the little
side door, which was unlocked, the front door suddenly exploded
inward knocking Ace to the floor. Ace
lay stunned briefly before feeling the burning debris which
had slammed across his lower leg. He used
much of his strength to shake his leg free, feeling
rather than seeing burns he had received.
He struggled for breath, coughing violently as he
managed to get to his feet. He was vaguely
aware of someone shouting to hold on as his
coughing continued.
Cosmo?
No magic. Don't use
magic. If he watches.... he knows there is no way out. Except the
connecting door.
The thoughts droned
on, almost drowned by his survival instincts. Almost collapsing in the
other room, he was dimly aware of the
fire spreading, then there was a loud hiss and foam
spread out quickly, battling the snapping,
crackling flames.
"Ace!"
He looked up, right
into the soot-streaked face of his younger friend. "'m okay," he rasped.
Well, mostly.
Firefighters popped
up in his limited field of perception. More foam and water was spread
over the now ruined room as they tackled
the flames. The Theater paramedic who was always
on duty throughout show walked up to him.
He knelt down, running a professional eye over the
soot-covered magician.
"I'm fine," Ace coughed.
"Just inhaled a bit of smoke."
"How about you let
me decide that?" the paramedic said. His name was Robin Witlet and
he had treated Ace's stage accident injuries
numerous times in the past.
Ace sighed silently
as the man went after his duty. His gaze flickered over to the now
extinguished fire. The dressing room was
a total loss. Nothing irreplaceable had been inside.
Cosmo hovered at his side, fidgeting,
hands clenching and unclenching, until Ace touched one
arm. The teenager flinched and shakily
looked at Ace.
"I'm fine," Ace said
softly.
"Mostly," Robin added,
smiling. "You have a few light burns. Nothing a burn salve can't
take care of. The smoke inhalation might
trouble you for a while, but it should pass. I'd really
love to get you to a hospital...."
Ace started to protest
and Robin lifted his hand.
"... but I know it's
a lost cause. So take it easy, okay?"
"Deal." Ace smiled.
The paramedic packed
up his things.
They were on their
way back half an hour later. This time, Cosmo was driving.
* * *
Unfair.
It was totally unfair!
How..? How!? Damn!
He gnashed his teeth.
Impossible. How had Cooper survived? The bomb was perfect, the
placing was perfect. Hell, he'd even written
the note on the mirror three times to make sure it
was perfect. And still Cooper survived
unscathed. Not by magic, but by shear luck and folly that
his assistant had been there to haul him
out.
Damn! He had failed
his dear master once again.
Again.
He was not pleased.
Not at all. Time was quickly running out. Spinning on his heel he
hurried toward the exit. This he had not
expected. He'd planned for the first trial run and the final
trap, but not this...
Bad, a bad oversight
on his part. 'Take nothing for granted' his master said always. And he
had. Had taken for granted that the fire
bomb would rid the world of Ace Cooper and justice
would be exacted for his master. It hadn't.
Fast, had to move fast,
time was not on his side. But how and where to get Cooper? Not at
his home. To in the open and very secure.
Here again, at the theater?
Humm... that would
depend on Cooper, whether he canceled the later shows or not. If not,
it might be with the false belief he wouldn't
be attacked a third time.
What to do? What to
do?
With a heavy sigh he
left the Ring theater, hands clenched into fists.
"Forgive me, master,
for my failure," he whispered softly to himself.
"Forgive me."
* * *
Cosmo watched as Ace
sat on the couch, trying to read his friend. It wasn't really difficult,
even if he had lately relied on the empathic
component a lot. But when it came to Ace, Cosmo
knew him best. He had seen him through
all kinds of emotional ups and downs. Ace liked to hide
behind masks when something became too
personal, but his eyes were windows to his soul, the
most expressive parts, and Cosmo knew
where to look.
Right now, what he
saw didn't help him with his own troubles. His own fear. His own
desperation. After the last accident,
the fire, Cosmo was feeling his strength shred, felt his sanity
go to pieces, and there was no superglue
to help him. Ace, the stronger of them at the moment,
was suffering from his light injuries
and the stress of the last two days as well. He looked cruelly
tired, his face pale and the cuts from
the rehearsal accident were a stark red against the skin.
Cosmo knew he was leeching on Ace, drawing
on his strength. The magician was only too willing
to share, to help, but it ate at him.
He couldn't keep them both above water any longer. He was
going down.
Cosmo drew a shaky
sigh. He was turning into a burden. He didn't want to be a burden!
Ace wearily rubbed
his hand over his face. He had showered and changed his clothes,
now sitting in 'civvies' on the couch,
not his usual formal wear. His injuries weren't really that
bad, but in Cosmo's current condition,
even a papercut was spiraling toward a massive trauma
wound. The burns were nothing but reddened
skin, the cuts not even worth mentioning, but each
new wound took its toll. Each new wound
told Cosmo that yes, there was still a madman at large,
out to kill Ace.
The fire had scared
him. Terrified him. The show had gone so smoothly, Cosmo had
allowed himself to relax, and then.....
He swallowed.
It had been coincidence.
Luck. Fate. Whatever. One of the helpers had taken over the
computer because he needed to check on
some of his own programs, and Cosmo had gone to
see if Ace was ready to leave. That was
when he had smelled the smoke and seconds later the
fire alarm had gone off.
Fire.
He had started to run
then, unminding of the smoke, the danger, the yelling firefighters
already rushing in. The Ring Theater had
a bunch of really well trained fire fighters for each
show, and they were fast. He remembered
calling Ace's name, cursing the missing magic, fear
seeping into his veins, freezing him.
He had fought free of the terror, but it had waited patiently
until the adrenaline shock had subsided.
Now it crept back and he had no defenses left.
He had almost lost
Ace. Again. Ace had promised to be careful and on stage there had
been no incidents. But later.... Why hadn't
he thought of that?! Why had they both thought the
guy would attack on stage?!
Cosmo felt his insides
clench painfully.
So close. So close!
"Cosmo?"
The voice startled
him and he looked up, Ace's clear gray eyes studying him.
"Are you okay?"
Was he okay? No. He
never would be. Never. The link was blocked..... He shivered.
"I'm fine. No problem,"
he answered.
Cosmo's voice was utterly
quiet and Ace looked sharply at his younger friend. True quiet
was not a normal state for Cosmo. Even
when he was in one of his more relaxed states, he
never seemed to stand still. Stillness
was not his thing. There always seemed to be an aspect of
him that was either animated or tense,
depending on the situation. So when Cosmo was truly
quiet, it was cause for concern on Ace's
side. Cosmo was fighting for his last shred of strength at
the moment, coming closer and closer to
the end of his emotional rope, and there was nothing
that Ace could do to help. This situation
was threatening to break him into pieces.
He was not fine. Far
from it.
"Cosmo, please....."
Cosmo shook his head,
rubbing over the bandaged hand. "Leave it, okay? I'm fine." He
gave a little snort. "We should have seen
that coming as well!"
Ace briefly closed
his eyes. Yes, maybe. But he had thought the guy would like to hit him
in public, make it more spectacular. He
had never really considered the possibility of a private
attack outside the Theater or off stage.
"And we still don't
know who he is!" Cosmo flared briefly, then sank back again.
"No, but we are getting
closer."
"You are getting closer
to
being seriously injured or... or...." The teenager stumbled.
Killed, Ace added silently
for himself. "I know." By god, he did. "I'm not planning on letting
him get to me again, Cosmo. If I have
to blow the cover and use magic to do it, so be it. I won't
play target indefinitely."
Cosmo suspiciously
wiped over his face, hunching a bit. "Yeah. Good."
"We should work on
the facts we have gathered so far," Ace continued. "We have the box
that came from the Ring Theater. No one
could have taken it out of the garbage truck, only out
of storage. For that this person needs
access and the knowledge where the boxes are kept."
"Janitorial and cleaning
stuff," Cosmo supplied, brows drawing down.
Get him to think, distract
him from the problem, Ace thought.
"We know where the
package was sent off from, though the person in question might just
have driven into another part of town
to throw possible investigators off his track."
Cosmo nodded. "If he's
smart, yeah."
"The fire bomb was
placed in my dressing room by someone who had access to these
levels as well."
"Like the storage area."
"Exactly."
"Janitors and cleaning
personnel." Cosmo's eyes lit up
Ace smiled at the rising
spirits. "So I think we should check them out."
"Will be quite a long
list, dude, but maybe we can narrow it down. Former criminal activity
and such."
The magician nodded.
"That was my idea."
Cosmo jumped up. "I'm
on it!"
"It's close to midnight,
Cosmo. Maybe we should sleep over this first."
"Ace, you have a visitor.
Lieutenant Vega is here," Angel interrupted and Ace raised both
brows.
In a way he had expected
this visit, though not in the middle of the night. Then again,
Vega had the same odd hours as Ace worked
sometimes, and with the fire and all, he had surely
not felt like waiting with his visit.
Vega walked into the
living room, radiating barely contained anger, clutching a folder in
one hand. His brown eyes seemed to be
ablaze.
"Are you out of your
mind?"
The angry question
hung in the room. He had been asked the same question from the
same man a hundred times in his life,
Ace thought with dry amusement. And there was always
the same answer: "No, Vega, I'm not. I'm
just reasonable."
"Reasonable?" Vega
sputtered, staring at him as if the magician was sprouting horns.
"First someone drops
a rig on you, then your dressing room goes up in flames, and now you
refuse to cooperate! That's not reasonable,
that's pig-headed!"
"I don't refuse to
cooperate. I just don't want to scare the guy away. We are getting closer,"
Ace explained.
The police had asked
his statement and he had said he didn't know what might have
caused the fire and he had omitted the
scribbled word on his now destroyed mirror. He just didn't
want to involve the police, except Vega.
"You are getting closer
to being killed, my friend!" Vega snapped, worry most prominent
on his features. "He sent you some kind
of nifty device that should have blocked your magic and
hit the kid instead. Now he attempts to
end your life! And you don't want to leave it to the police!
You can't go on as if nothing happened!"
The cop sighed deeply, trying hard to calm down. "Ace,
I have a first word on the fire bomb.
It was really professional, unlike anything an amateur can
cook up, and it had some extras that made
the fire guys on the scene scratch their heads. It's
now on the way to the lab to be examined.
The guy was a professional!"
"Like the rigged sphere?"
"Like that. Feretti
is running in circles over that thing. It's state of the art, it has
components unlike any other 'bomb' and
he found several things he can't explain."
Vega pulled out a folder
and threw it on the table. That had been the reason for his visit to
the Ring Theater: the report on the sphere.
That he would come to the scene of a crime, well, he
had not expected that. Now Ace was being
stubborn as hell -- again! The paramedic had found
nothing but smoke inhalation and a few
light burns. He would have loved to send Ace off to the
hospital, but the magician had refused,
much to the chagrin of Cosmo and Vega. Now he sat
comfortably on his couch, smiling at Vega
with barely hidden amusement. The lieutenant had the
wish to strangle him.
With a sigh he shook
his head. "Ace, you are making my life hard. The police can help!"
"Help drive the guy
away again."
"He tried to end your
life twice now!"
Ace shook his head.
"Once. I think the light rig was just a kind of trial run. Think about
it,
Derek: he believes I'm powerless. He believes
I have lost my magic abilities."
"And that makes him
dangerous!" Vega insisted.
"It makes him careless."
Vega rubbed his forehead.
"You are responsible for every white hair on my head and soon
for the loss of them all!"
Ace laughed softly.
"You are exaggerating."
Vega glared at him.
"Watch me shed."
Cosmo, who had hung
back throughout the argument, grinned slightly, and was promptly
the next victim of Vega's glare.
"Okay, so you have
a plan?"
"Kind of. I want to
run all the data we have through Angel. Whoever managed to get into
my dressing room, he had to be from the
Ring Theater. No one else can get into the basement
and into the dressing rooms all that easily."
"Janitorial staff,"
Cosmo suddenly pitched in.
Vega frowned, looking
from one to the other. "Kindly clue me in?"
"Cosmo inquired about
where the package came from and we found the post office it was
sent off from. The box as such is from
the Ring Theater," as explained. "The sticker from the
post office was stuck onto the original
addressee, which was the Ring Theater."
"Ace, the Theater gets
all kinds of packages every day. The old boxes pile up
everywhere."
"Not really, no."
Ace proceeded to tell
him how they had discovered that the boxes were folded and piled
by the janitorial staff to be disposed
off later by a company that crunched them into neat little
packages for recycling.
"Since the garbage
men destroy the boxes while feeding them into the trucks, the box had
to be taken out of the storage room. Only
the janitors, as well as the manager and the assistant
manager have the keys."
Vega frowned deeply.
"And the janitors have access to all dressing rooms."
"Exactly."
"So you think it was
one of them?"
"Possible. Angel is
cross-checking addresses, personal history and such."
Vega sighed. "You still
have no idea who might be behind this?"
Ace shook his head.
"None. Apparently someone seeking revenge, from the writing on the
mirror. Someone who knows about magic,
has a lot of technical tricks up his sleeve, and
someone who hates me a lot."
"The last one kinda
narrows it down," Vega muttered sarcastically.
The magician smiled
wryly. "Yes and no. Not many know about the magic part. That helps.
Still, all who do or might are in prison
or worse."
The cop rubbed a hand
over his face. "Why is it never easy when you are concerned?" he
asked rhetorically and rose. "Ace, be
careful. Let me know what you find out. No stunts. Okay?"
Ace nodded. "No stunts.
Promise."
Vega gave him a critical
look, then transferred his look at Cosmo, jerking a thumb at Ace.
"Watch him, kid. Closely."
Cosmo smiled. "Count
on it."
Satisfied, Vega left.
Ace just groaned and rolled his eyes. He looked at Cosmo, who had
retreated again. Not physically. Mentally.
His eyes held a shadowed expression and he sat
almost hunched, shoulders drawn closer.
He absently rubbed over his bandaged hand. They had
to change the bandage, Ace reminded himself
briefly, then he leaned forward, elbows resting on
his knees.
"Cosmo?"
Cosmo's eyes flickered
up, then down again. "'m fine," he mumbled.
Fine. Right. Not. Ace
sighed to himself, then a thought struck him. He blinked as his mind
presented him with something rather outrageous.
Something possibly foolish, but.... but it would
help. At least for a while.
"Cosmo?" he tried again.
No reaction. Cosmo
had his eyes almost closed, arms wrapped around his body as if cold.
"Cosmo, I want to try
and touch your mind."
Cosmo's eyes flew open
and he launched from the couch, backpedaling unsteadily.
"No, Ace! That's too
dangerous," he gasped, clutching at his arms, shivering.
Ace rose and approached,
but Cosmo still backed up so he stopped. "Cosmo. You are
going through serious withdrawal. I want
to help," Ace offered gently.
Cosmo shook his head,
red hair flying. "No, Ace. It's too dangerous. Last time you tried
you were knocked out cold," Cosmo hissed,
not looking at him.
Ace licked his lips
as he watched the young man fidget across from him. "Cosmo, you've
lost your empathic feed to me," he tried.
Cosmo snorted softly.
"Dream come true, eh, man?" he chuckled depreciatively.
Ace sighed. "Cosmo,
I know I've given you a hard time in the past about your link, but I do
find it a comfort to know it is there.
That someone is always watching over me, even if I do
complain about it from time to time."
Ace approached again
and this time Cosmo didn't retreat, watching his feet as Ace put his
hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently.
"I want to help, any
way I can. If reaching out to touch your mind will help, then I will do
it,"
he stressed desperately.
Cosmo trembled and
rubbed at his arms. "Ace.." he muttered. "Ace... I..."
Ace caught his chin
and lifted it looking deep into the glazed, feverish gray eyes of his
partner. "We will find the cause, but
until then I have to do my best to take care of you, Cosmo.
We're partners. Friends. I know you wouldn't
hesitate to do the same for me. Please?"
The trembling worsened
and Ace waited, face neutral. Cosmo was caught between his
desire to keep Ace safe and his need to
feel the emotional resonance of his partner in his mind
again.
"Ace.." He shook his
head miserably.
Ace sighed and caught
one elbow, guiding his distraught apprentice to the couch where he
sat him down. He sat beside him, hand
still on his arm.
"Let me help, Cosmo,"
he urged.
Cosmo looked at him
briefly, eyes darting away in shame. "Wrong, Ace. I feel like a junky,
man. It's wrong!" he snarled. "It's not
right, man. I shouldn't... I shouldn't need your thoughts like
this, Ace... No. I.."
"Cosmo," Ace interrupted
firmly. "A junky chooses to be one when he picks up the needle.
You were never given that choice. The
magic brought this gift out. Made you aware of more than
the normal human mind. It is not sick
or deprived, it simply is. It is a part of you, of who you are."
"No, Ace... I.. Damn,"
Cosmo muttered. Ace reached around him, offering a hug. For a
moment Cosmo resisted, then gave in, sinking
at his side.
"It's not wrong, Cosmo.
It simply is. That's why it's not getting better. Even a junky can
recover, you can't. Your empathy is simply
too vital to your existence. Why do you think you
accepted it so easily? I can not conceive
how you can go through life not just dealing with your
own emotions, but being burdened by mine
as well."
"Not a burden, bro,"
Cosmo whispered.
Ace nodded. "Just my
point. To you it isn't a burden. It just *is*. Nothing more. As natural
as breathing comes to me, empathy comes
to you. And just as I will die without air, you will keep
suffering without the link." Ace tightened
his hold. "Please. I want to help you, Cosmo. You need
the help and I'm offering, no strings
attached."
A fist clenched desperately
as Cosmo shivered in his arms. He held on quietly, patiently.
Cosmo shuddered and took in a deep breath.
"I... It's hurt you
before... If it hurts you, Ace.."
He looked up and Ace
tried not to be startled by the raw need in his partner's face. Worse,
much worse then Ace had expected. Cosmo
had been hiding his suffering well. To damn well.
"You're mental defenses
are tied into your magic, Cosmo. Without one, the other does not
exist. I'm not saying it will easy. Or
that I can even succeed. It was rather a fluke that time I did.
But I want to try."
Cosmo bit his lip,
looked down, then up, then down again. "If it hurts, you stop okay?
Promise!"
Ace was silent, then
nodded slowly. "Okay," he relented. "Here, relax."
Ace arranged Cosmo
against the couch, uncertain exactly what would happen. The teen
went willingly, falling back, trembling,
eyes nervous but needing.
"Promise, Ace," he
reminded shortly.
Ace smiled. Even fighting
his own pain, Cosmo still put him first. "I promise, now relax.
Just breathe," he urged, voice lilting,
smooth.
Almost instinctively
Cosmo reacted to that tone in his voice, the one he used during the
more difficult moments of magic training
and the feverish eyes slid close as Cosmo tried to just
breathe. The trembling eased a touch,
though it never had actually left completely since this
nightmare had started.
"Breathe. Good...good,"
Ace whispered as he let his own eyes close, slowly drawing the
magic in, letting it ripple through him.
It answered his call and he started shaping it to his will. In
his mind he relaxed, drew in and opened
his awareness. Without the link in place he would have
to reach out. Bridge the gap. Anna had
told him some could do it. Though it was never easy,
especially those who weren't gifted with
mind magic's as Cosmo seemed to be. But, he had to
try. So he willed the magic into a thread,
a tendril of power, and brought to mind his last
experience, the last time he had reached
out to Cosmo's silent mind. Remembered the unique
feeling of his friend's own mind. Focused
his perception on the body of his partner and directed
the power out to connect them.
A gasp ripped from
his body as connection was made. The world tilted sickly as Ace willed
it to still as he found himself once again
in an alien landscape. Feelings, emotions, not his, yet
familiar trickled in at first, then with
growing clarity as he steadied the magic force around them.
Cosmo's defenses did
not react. His mind was not attacked. It never came and relief
mixed with dread washed through him. Relief
that his mind was not ripped to pieces and dread
that the fact it wasn't pointed to the
damage done to Cosmo. But those were not the only
emotions he felt. There was more, much
more.. fear, dread, worry, anger, hurt... It was making
him nauseous the rapid fire speed that
the sensations hit him. How the heck did Cosmo survive
this? Ace bit back a whimper at the mental
deluge. How? On a day to day basis no less.
Ace briefly considered
throwing up a shield, but it would cut off the connection completely.
No.. unsettling and difficult as it was
he had to keep the path clear. It was the only way. Whether
it made him ill of not.
"Ace.." it was whispered
and Ace opened his eyes slightly, still in control of the magic as
he looked at Cosmo. The teen wasn't shivering,
breathing still slightly labored, eyes closed.
Ace took it as a good
sign. He had no real way to know if Cosmo was receiving his
emotions. He simply assumed he was, since
Ace was receiving Cosmo's. His hand rose
unconsciously and Ace gently took it,
fingers wrapping loosely around it.
The warmth grew in
his mind and Ace closed his eyes again trying to focus on the positive
emotions lost amongst so many negative
ones. Dear god, so much information hitting him so
quickly. The world was quickly becoming
an emotional rollercoaster around him. He wanted to
draw back. Wanted to desperately. It was
natural, to try and flee the sensations pouring
dizzyingly over his mind, to fight the
presence intruding into his thoughts. He couldn't fight it
though. Forced himself to relax and let
it happen, though he felt his gut clench nauseously.
"Ace... okay?" Cosmo
asked softly, worry tingeing his voice. "Feel you.. upset."
He smiled. Cosmo felt
his emotions. Now that he was sure, it was a weight off his chest.
"I'm okay, Cosmo,"
he whispered.
"Ace?"
"Okay, Cosmo."
Ace willed his emotions
into form, giving them a definite shape. Ace forced himself to
relax a touch more, strengthening the
bind and letting his love and caring shine in his thoughts,
concentrating on the most positive emotions
he felt toward his young partner and attempting to
ignore the negative ones this spell was
causing. It was too much for the teen to resist anymore,
the need just too desperate. Ace bit his
lip as gratitude burst through his mind with an answering
love and loyalty that almost side swiped
him with its intensity. His body trembled, fighting the
emotions on top of channeling the magic
required.
Damn, this was hard!
Ace forced his attention from the rising discomfort to try and study
the event shifting within his own mind.
Being in Cosmo's mind. His feelings. It was so damn
strange.
Dear Lord, how could
Cosmo handle this so easily?!
Ace let out a small
gasp as the magic force surged suddenly. The power was becoming
hard to control, the energy required to
bridge their minds tremendous, one step below calling the
entirety of the Magic Force to him. It
was becoming harder to maintain the spell. Sensing this
surely, Cosmo thoughts echoed worry, concern...
And gratitude. Acceptance.
Ace understood the
silent blessing for him to depart. He felt tremendous relief at that and
slight guilt for feeling that relief.
He tried to draw away delicately but the transition was as sharp
as night and day and Ace gasped. He could
swear he heard an audible *snap* as he rocketed
back into his own mind. The world still
a momentary blur as Ace severed the ties to the Magic
Force and let the energy go back to rest
as a shudder tore though his body.
"Thank you, Ace," Cosmo
said softly.
Ace opened his eyes,
chest heaving from the exertion and saw the young man slumped
against the couch, eyes closed, breathing
easy. A peace that had been gone too long settling
over his friend. The gray eyes opened
slightly, sleepily.
"Thank you."
Ace squeezed the hand
still in his grip. "Sleep, Cosmo," he urged gently, helping Cosmo
stretch out on the couch.
A slight nod answered
him as the eyes drifted close again. It took no more then a moment
for Cosmo's body to completely relax,
a peaceful sleep claiming him for the first time in days.
Ace sat there quietly,
feeling exhausted and disturbed, but pleased. It was hard to let his younger
partner willingly into his thoughts, had
been hard to feel the teen's emotions in turn, but he had
done it. Had done it without knocking
them both on their butts as a the result.
Ace smiled and pulled
off his cape, tucking it around his smaller friend. He hurt
abominably, a headache announcing its
presence with growing fury as he slumped down in the
easy chair. But he accepted the pain.
Would accept it again if need be. As long he achieved the
desired results. Ace's smile widened a
touch. The results were right in front of him and they were
good.
* * *
Another short night,
another early morning. Ace felt like he had run a marathon, mentally
and physically. Emotionally he was even
worse. He swallowed the negative emotions rising
inside him at the thought of what still
was: Cosmo without his magic and the empathy. No time
for that. Just no time. It was hard to
reign in his sometimes overprotective streak, but he gave it
his best shot.
Dragging his protesting
body under the shower he stood there for a long while, letting the
water pound onto his muscles, feeling
them relax only slightly. Last night's experiment had left its
marks. Not only had he fought a murderous
headache for most of the night, but now he was also
suffering from an abused body complaining
more than necessary.
Cursing under his breath,
he finally exited the shower and toweled himself off. Dressing in
his pants and pulling on a T-shirt, he
proceeded into the kitchen.
Coffee.
It was the only coherent
thought right now.
Coffee and aspirin.
The headache was no
longer pounding, but there was enough left to remind him to take it
easy. He had overcast just a bit and was
thankfully not suffering the effects of a migraine. It
would be more than just uncomfortable
with a real backlash.
Cosmo was still sleeping.
It was only six a.m. and the teenager needed his sleep. Ace had
long debated whether to get him into his
own bed or to leave him on the couch. In the end he
had decided that the couch would probably
leave him with a bunch of corded neck muscles, so
he had dragged him off to his room. He
wasn't even sure that Cosmo had been truly aware of
what was going on. He had been too beat.
Watching the coffee
gurgle as the coffee machine did its work, Ace allowed himself a
smile. He might be suffering backlash
from the spell, but it had been so worth it. Cosmo's mind
was momentarily at peace and even if the
effect was temporary, it was a relief for his friend.
Ace's smile widened and he poured the
coffee into a mug. The black liquid appeared thicker than
usual. Piling more coffee than necessary
into the percolator had turned it into a lethal beverage
for everything that had the misfortune
of drowning in the mug. With the mug in one hand, Ace
went into the living room.
Suddenly there was a soft beeping noise.
Someone was calling. As he found out a second
later, it was Mona.
"Ace, I..... Oh, did
I wake you?" she asked.
Ace smiled. "No. I
had little sleep last night, Mona." Usually he never looked that tired.
"I heard about the
incident at the Ring..... are you okay?" Worry laced her voice and Ace
wished Mona hadn't heard about the fire.
He didn't want her to worry about him. Then again, she
knew his profession and his 'hobby'.
"I'm fine. Inhaled
a bit of smoke, have a few bruises, but otherwise I'm fine." He gave her
another smile.
She didn't seem convinced,
but she wouldn't be Mona if she would be easily fooled by his
soothing explanations.
"I also called to see
if you are free tonight or tomorrow," Mona finally said.
A million thoughts
raced through his head, all coming to one conclusion. He had no time.
He couldn't leave Cosmo alone and because
of the unknown assailant, everyone around him
was in danger of being hit as well.
"I'm sorry," he finally
said. "I'm a bit busy at the moment."
Mona frowned almost
imperceptibly, but she nodded. "I understand."
"Listen, I'll give
you a call when things quiet down around here," Ace added, almost
desperate.
"Is there anything
I can help with?"
"No!" He stopped, aware
of his rushed denial. "Mona, I.... it's something personal. Very
personal. It's....."
She shook her head.
"It's okay, Ace. Just call when you have the time."
The screen went dark
and Ace felt like banging his head against the wall. Idiot! He was
definitely not tracking well. Not at all.
He fell into the armchair
and glared at the table. A folder glared back. It was the folder
Vega had left last night. It was still
laying on the table. Ace picked it up, leafing through the
forensics report.
He rubbed at the residual
sleep in his eyes and stared at the sheets of paper before him. It
took actual minutes for him to distinguish
the neat print from its pale blue background, but as the
coffee worked its magic on his system,
his mind started to get with the program.
Taking another sip,
Ace grimaced and stared at the cup. How much had he put in the
percolator anyway? With a vague gesture,
the sugar cup appeared on the coffee table and he
graced his mug with a sweet little cube.
That should help.
Ace allowed himself
to slouch a bit as he read the forensic team's finding. Interesting
construction. Titanium outer casing with
ceramic composite interior, protecting the microfiliment
wires that were sandwiched between the
layers, crisscrossing the entire circumference of the
sphere. The microfiliments were gold.
Pure gold. The most conductive material on earth. The
perfect delivery system for the electrical
charge
'Of course,' Ace thought
bitterly, reading on.
Okay. Small control
chip-- still relatively intact. A sensor generally used in the electrical
industry to monitor energy fluctuations
in power lines, altered to detect a wider band of electrical
impulses.
'Of course,' Ace thought
again.
A second data chip
being added to the first. The second chip was beyond recovery, but the
report hinted at what Ace suspected: energy
field analyzer. Calibrated to an energy field that the
lab was unfamiliar with but Ace knew a
magician radiated. With that linked to the first chip, it
would recognize a magician in a heartbeat.
And had.
Ace forced back the
rising anger. His strained emotional and physically state was making
the emotions all the more biting and dangerous.
He was unaware of his fist clenching at the
paper in hand, the paper crinkled in his
tightening grip. Feeling the magic gurgle around him,
answering his fragile emotional state,
Ace finally snapped out of the rising tide of dark emotions
with a sigh of annoyance. He didn't need
that as well. Bad enough to be abrupt with Mona, worse
to let his magic get overpowered by his
emotions.
Taking in a deep breath,
and letting it out slowly, Ace forced his mind to still, let himself
slip for a moment into a relaxation exercise,
distractedly feeding off the built up magical energy
by levitating the sugar cubes in the table
top container. It helped, and soon Ace felt safe to
continue. While one finger played idly
with the little white squares, making them bounce and
weave around each other, he returned to
his reading.
Okay, one chip totally
destroyed, the other one with a partial ID number salvaged. The
sphere itself a custom construction requiring
meticulous engineering and metallurgy skills and
some form of access to precession machining
equipment. Not cheap stuff either. Even if their
attacker had only a small shop set up
in their home, it would still be a sizable investment.
Not ruling out that
their attacker could be 'attackers'. Plural.
Ace sighed and tucked
that thought aside. They were having a hard enough time finding
one man, let alone multiple.
Ace, still playing
with the sugar cubes, delivered a second one to his coffee and took
another sip as he flipped the page. Electron
Microscope test results? Ace raised an eyebrow at
that. Damn. Vega must have pulled in some
serious favors to get the sphere looked at this
meticulously. Ace smiled faintly. He knew
he had poor Vega at the end of his rope on this one.
He was going to owe his older friend big
time once this business was done with.
If it was ever done
with, the dark voice of doubt whispered.
Ace snarled at it and
shoved the thought aside. They would find their attacker and they
would find a cure for Cosmo. There would
be no other alternative acceptable to Ace. None!
Once that was settled,
Ace took another sip of his coffee and continued his reading.
"What?!"
The sugar cubes went
bouncing pell-mell as Ace gasped, the coffee cup in his hand hitting
the table hard and sloshing the black
liquid over its lip and onto his hand. But Ace didn't notice
as he reread the report to make sure it
was right.
-Microscopic traces
of quartz. Found imbedded in the sphere interior, suffering molecular
disruption from electrical vaporization.-
Ace made himself release
the coffee cup in hand and shook the droplets of bitter brew
from his fingers.
Damn.
Losing himself in the
silence of the living room, Ace considered the ramifications of those
two sentences. So, his first hunch had
been right. That it had taken more than purely technical
means to steal away Cosmo's magic. There
was no doubt now. Forensics couldn't come up with
any reasonable explanation why the quartz
fragments would be necessary to the electrical
device and they never would, because that
stone had nothing to do with science. Nothing at all.
But....
It had everything
to do with magic.
* * *
"Quartz?" Kate asked,
frowning. "There was quartz in the sphere?"
Ace nodded. "Forensics
has no idea why there would be traces of a gemstone in the
device, but it's there. Microscopic particles.
The lab ran quite some tests and those particles
showed up throughout the last run. They
nearly overlooked it because there isn't much left of the
original stone. Looks like it was destroyed
when the sphere discharged."
She snorted. "Do you
know what it takes to destroy a quartz crystal?"
Ace didn't really want
to ponder it. It told him just what kind of power had surged through
Cosmo.
"Any idea why he'd
put a quartz stone into the device? I found some articles on the
magical qualities of gemstones, but nothing
definite."
Her forehead scrunched
up in thought. "This could change everything. Perhaps the initial
electrical charge wasn't so much meant
to hurt Cosmo as it was to destroy the stone." Her brow
furrowed further. "That would explain
the residual energy reading Angel had. Destroying the
stone would, theoretically, release the
magic stored inside in a single burst. Depending on the
amount stored, whoever was on the receiving
end could be caught a large magical discharge."
"Enough to overload
or block another magic users powers?" Ace asked.
"Maybe," Kate
blew out a soft breath and shrugged slightly. "I'm not really good on the
magic stone side of life." She turned
to her computer and typed a few commands, then
grimaced. "But my computer knows a whole
lot about it. Clear quartz crystal is attributed with
protection, healing, psychism and power.
If abused, the crystal can be used for the opposite."
"Destroying instead
of healing," Ace translated quietly.
"It also says something
about a Chakra here. Huh, lemme see." She typed a few
commands again. "Sending it to you. There's
a lot to read. I'll see if I can extract what might be
of use from all of this information."
She sighed.
"It's greatly appreciated,
Kate."
"Yeah, yeah." She waved
him off. "How's Cosmo?"
Ace's face darkened.
"Holding on. Not getting any better." He sighed. "He's so quiet, Kate.
It's so unlike Cosmo not to talk or to
move around, ceaselessly doing something or other..."
"You will find a way
to undo this, Ace," Kate told him, full conviction in her voice. "Maybe
his body will unravel his messed up energy
field all by its own. Sort through the magical
overload."
"But how long will
it take?"
Ace thought of the
weary smiles, the defeated hunch of Cosmo's body, and he felt
murderous anger rise inside. He compared
the Cosmo of now to the usual Cosmo, the one who
seemed to have an edge to him, a restrained
motion that could burst free any time, and the
anger darkened more.
Kate had no answer
for his question and he gave her a good-night nod. Ace switched off
the com and looked at the inbox of his
email. Kate's little mail sat in the folder and he opened it.
"Magic stones. Chakra,"
he read. "A Sanskrit or Indic language word for spinning wheel or
vortex. The word used to describe the
invisible energy centers of multicolored flowing energy.
The centers which balance, store and distribute
the energies of life throughout the human body.
Chakras are the conductors of energy.
The first or root Chakra deals with the physical body and
the 'root' of all others. A good Balancer
is needed here.'
Quartz was one of the
stones mentioned to be used for first Chakra use.
Ace stared at the screen.
Stone magic was not his forte. To be completely honest, he had
never used a stone to enhance his powers.
He didn't need them. He had read about the
possibility for lesser magicians to use
stones to channel their powers, but that was about it. He
sighed. So their man was using stone magic.
With technology. It either meant he wasn't really
good at magic, or he was so good that
he stored his powers inside a conductor and encased it all
with the latest in technology. Either
way, he was dangerous.
The name James Calen
sprang to mind again. Calen had worked with technology to make
up for his rather mediocre magic skills.
But Calen was locked up in a mental home! And there
was no magic left in him; at least none
he could access. He was still a channel for magical
powers, but he couldn't reach, let alone
control them.
Ace glared at nothing
in particular. The most likely suspect was also off the list because he
was a vegetable.
But he had had a visitor.
The magician sighed.
This was getting him nowhere, except much closer to a permanent
scowl etched into his face.
Deciding that some
breakfast would be nice, he rose and walked off into the kitchen.
Cosmo would wake throughout the next hour,
he guessed, and busying himself with something
other than the current crisis might even
get his thought processes starting again.
* * *
Cosmo yawned. Man, this
was boring. It took his mind off the missing link, but it was still
boring, and there was no end in sight.
His sleep had been dreamless, close to restful. He had
Ace to thank for that. Man, did he owe
his partner big time. Mind magic's were supposedly his
forte, not Ace's. It was dangerous what
Ace had done. It was insane! And he felt guilty for
needing the gift the magician had offered.
And grateful that his friend was nuts enough to try that
spell in the first place. Way nuts! Smiling
slightly at the thought of his sometimes overgenerous
and undercautious friend, Cosmo now put
his slightly clearer state of mind to good use. Even if
what he was doing was boring him to death.
He sat at the computer
control console in Angel's main room, going through the collected
data, entering new reference material,
waiting for the computer to give him a new list. Cosmo
was running cross-references on possible
suspects, namely the janitors and cleaning personnel
of the Ring Theater, and it was a dull
job. Not only did the Ring employ hundreds, no, they also
worked in shifts, were part-time workers,
or had different areas of access.
There was no way he
could narrow the search down to only men or only women. Though
there was still the nagging reminder that
James Calen had received visits from a young man,
they couldn't singularly hunt for younger
men. Maybe Calen had had a friend.
Yeah, right!
Cosmo snorted. The
man had been an arrogant SOB who didn't even know the definition
of friendship, totally self-centered,
and completely absorbed in his revenge plans.
Still, no way Cosmo
would simply delete part of the suspects because they didn't fit the
description 'young and male'. Too chancy.
They might be wrong. What had helped was the fact
that the people in question worked with
different areas of access. Not all janitors had access to
the lower levels of the Theater because
each one worked in a specific area. There were actually
classifications. One group was responsible
for stage stuff, others for back stage, again others for
the outside of the building, again others
worked the lower levels. The Ring Theater was a
monumental construction.
Cleaning personnel
had been erased from the search pattern immediately. They didn't
have access cards for the garbage areas.
At least not for the storage facilities for the boxes and
things. They unloaded the picked up garbage
in a shaft that ended in the lower levels. No access
other than that and Cosmo doubted anyone
would willingly jump down that shaft to grab a box.
After three hours of
work and cursing, he finally came up with a rather thinned out version
of the prior list. The names on the list
were people who regularly worked when Ace was on stage.
It was an idea that had struck him while
entering parameters. The perp had to have watched
Ace, either throughout rehearsals or the
show. Anyone could get into the show if he had tickets,
but not all could watch rehearsals. Next
had been the access card level. Deleting the
management from the list, he now had ten
names. If he then ignored the one on vacation and
the fact that two of those printed were
women and one was a man in his fifties, he was looking at
a manageable task.
"Angel, find and print
the personnel files on the list," he ordered. "Include the picture."
"As you wish," the
computer answered.
Okay, more reading,
but at least it was a great advantage to the over sixty names he had
had before. Angel delivered the file ten
minutes later and he grabbed the stack of paper. He
wandered into the living room, briefly
wondering why there were sugar cubes all over the place
as he settled down on the couch and went
over the first prints.
Ace wandered into the
living room, slightly surprised to see Cosmo going over a stack of
papers. He'd just put the kitchen back
into a semblance of order and caught up with some of the
more mundane chores while Cosmo sorted
out the personnel files. Curious, he came over and
peeked over one shoulder at the results.
"Anything yet?"
A slight shrug.
"Narrowed it down to seven people so far that meet our criteria." Cosmo
held up the file he'd just been scanning.
"Just started getting a better look now."
Ace studied the picture and dossier
of one Jeffrey Taylor. Married, no children, worked
full time...
"It's a start,"
he offered halfheartedly setting the file aside. Jeffrey didn't strike
him as the
man they were looking for. To stable,
good work history... Sitting down Ace divided what was left
and started going over the files with
his partner.
"Ace, what if
nothing shows up?" Cosmo asked quietly, not looking at him. It was a
thought that had gone through Ace's head
but he didn't let it reach his voice.
"We'll find something,
Cosmo, don't worry,"
"Yeah, but.."
Ace stilled the
rising negative tide with a pat to one shoulder.
"We will." His
complete conviction answered the wavering belief in his apprentice and
Cosmo offered a grateful smile forcing
himself back to his reading.
"Man, now what?"
Ace chewed his
lip thoughtfully, then collected the files into a heap.
"Let's get a
second opinion." At Cosmo's confused glance he elaborated. "Let's talk
to
Fritz Fitzhugh. He's the head of personnel
at the theater. If anyone can tell us anything useful
about these workers, it'll be him."
Fritz Fitzhugh
was surprised, to say the least, when they showed up at his door.
"Certainly, Mr.
Cooper, I'd be more than happy to help," he said, pulling a chair in for
Cosmo as Ace sat. "But do you really think
it was an employee who set the firebomb?"
Ace smiled at
Fritz's worry. The man was truly unhappy with the thought that someone
he might have hired would turn out to
be a deranged killer.
"It's just a
possibility, Fritz. We're not jumping to any conclusions, just trying to
gather
information."
Fritz seemed
slightly relieved. It was no great secret Ace's crimefighting habits and
it
was not at all unexpected in the theater
staff that he would investigate his own attack.
"I understand,"
Fritz said, taking his seat.
"And, I trust
you'll keep this under wraps. I don't wish to disturb the theater staff
with my
own investigations," Ace added with a
charming smile.
Fritz nodded
enthusiastically. "Of course. No, not a word will leave this room I assure
you."
Ace nodded, satisfied.
"Cosmo."
Cosmo leaned
forward, laying out the stack of files.
"I just need
to know anything you know about these people."
First was Jeffrey
Taylor.
Fritz took it.
"Oh, Jeffrey. Yes, we just hired him. He's been here for about three weeks.
Handling the concessions right now,"
"His file says
he works for janitorial?" Cosmo piped.
Fritz nodded.
"Yes, he was hired for it, but Jeffrey hurt his back two days after starting.
Doctor's orders restricted him from heavy
lifting so we moved him to concession. He'll be there
for another week."
Ace nodded and
pulled the file away, setting it into what he already marked as the -not
suspect- pile. Another one was offered
to Fritz.
"Oh, Bryce, nice
kid. Shy as all get out, but a good worker."
"Any problems?"
Ace asked lightly.
Fritz shrugged. "No,
no.. very dedicated. Took us awhile to sort out his schedule. Insisted
on Wednesdays off and all but begged for
the evening shift jobs." Fritz laughed. "Not the most
popular shift during and after the shows.
A lot of cleanup, but the overtime's good."
Ace nodded and
put Bryce into the still suspect pile. Yet another portfolio dropped in
front of Fritz.
"Oh yeah, Rick.
Been a little trouble with him," Fritz sighed. Ace raised an eyebrow and
the head of personnel continued. "Remember
back when we had that string of petty thefts?" Ace
nodded, a few of his lesser props had
gone as well. "Well, the word on the grapevine is that Rick
had something to do with it. Not enough
information to press charges, but I'm keeping an eye on
him."
"What days does
he work?"
"Rick? Oh he
pulls the Thursday to Sunday shift. He's part time."
Ace nodded and
that file went into the still suspect pile.
It went on like
that till there were four files in the no longer suspect pile and three
in the
suspect. The last being a Jerry Ringer
who'd had no particular points against him, but had been
working during every incident.
Ace smiled and
stood, handing one stack to Cosmo and keeping the other for himself.
"Thank you, Fritz,
for all your help," Ace said holding out his hand. Fritz took it, shaking
it
firmly.
"More than glad
to oblige. I swear I'll keep this under wraps. I just really hope it isn't
one
of our people causing all this trouble."
Ace nodded and
sighed. "So do I, Fritz. So do I."
* * *
Ace had spent hours
brooding over the selected few suspects, but he was getting nowhere,
except closer to a headache. All of them
were suspicious. One way of getting an answer as to
who might be the main suspect would be
to ask the nurses and doctors at the Tayler home. He
rubbed his eyes and sighed. He really
didn't want to go back there. Being so close to Calen did
something inside Ace and he didn't like
it.
An hour later he had
a solution, though not a very willing one. Derek Vega had dropped by
to see how he was doing, how Cosmo was
faring, and one look at the magician had told him
more than anything Ace could have said.
And they got talking.
Vega listened to his
friend's words, then sighed silently. He should have expected
something like this happening sooner or
later.
"Ace, this is a shot
in the dark!" He shook his head, sorting through the papers. "Even
people like Calen can have visitors."
"Not people like Calen!"
Ace retorted angrily, feeling his anger rise. "The man had no
friends, Vega! He was an arrogant snob!
He had no associates except those he used!"
"Ace.... it's not impossible
to think that...."
Ace's temper flared
again, a rare occasion, but when it did, it flared well. "He is a killer,
Vega!" he snapped. "He killed the woman
who meant more to me than anything in the world at
the time! He killed my friend and teacher!
I know the man better than anyone! He had no friends!
Ever!"
Vega watched the younger
man, calmly met the sparking gray eyes, sighing softly after a
while. Ace suddenly dropped his eyes and
buried his head in his hands.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"I didn't want to snap."
The older man smiled
warmly. "I know." He looked at the collection of printed pictures
again. "Okay, listen, I can handle the
questioning of the nurses and doctors. They might be more
open toward a police officer than to you,
who, despite your fame, are still a civilian."
Ace looked reluctant,
very reluctant. Vega understood the drive behind his friend's
behavior, but he also knew that for one,
Ace was already busy keeping his business life, his
private life and the current crisis under
control; and second, he didn't really want him to go back
to the place where James Calen was held
at. Once had been enough. He had seen that in Ace's
eyes. And the explosion just now had added
the rest. Ace was likely to go off on his own and
hunt down the suspect if the nurses identified
one of the pictures.
"It's not a police
case," Ace now started.
Smack him over the
head. With a mallet. Big one. Would be the best, Vega thought,
putting just enough of that thought on
his face to make Ace see it.
"I'm not here as a
police officer," he said. "I'm here as a friend. Let me help as a friend."
"Derek...."
"And it's what I'm
really good at," he interrupted whatever argument would have come
next, grinning.
Ace snorted.
"Hey, it's what all
cops are good at. Running around and asking stupid questions." Another
grin flashed over his lips.
"Okay, okay, I give
up." The magician smiled.
"Good. I was running
out of peaceful arguments."
Ace rolled his eyes.
Vega picked up the pictures and slipped them into his coat's pocket.
"I'll call you when
I find something. Don't do anything I wouldn't," he then advised.
"Yes, sir," Ace said,
slight amusement in his voice.
Vega scowled, then
left. Some footwork was good, he thought. Spending the morning
cooped up in his office was not his favorite
past time, and he had some actual police work to do
outside the precinct anyway. He could
slip in the visit to the Tayler Home without a problem.
* * *
Vega walked through
the cool but brightly lit main corridor of the Tayler Home, feeling
slightly uncomfortable. Not because of
who he knew was here, Calen, but because of the whole
setting. It looked modern, clean and well-kept,
but it was a mental home. People with mental
disorders or the criminally insane were
here. He had had his share of run-ins with mentally
disordered people, criminal or not, and
thinking that the nurses and doctors here had to interact
with them day by day made him feel slightly
unwell. He had less problems visiting a prison
facility.
"Lieutenant Vega, this
is Dr. Dukakis," the young woman who had guided him along the
corridor introduced him to the head doctor.
They shook hands and
Dukakis shot him a questioning look. "What can I do for you,
Lieutenant Vega?"
"I'm investigating
into a case of rather high classification," Vega lied smoothly. "I can't
tell
you the details, but I need to ask you
and maybe some of the nurses a few questions."
"Of course." Dukakis
looked a bit mystified. "What do you want to know?"
"Someone has been visiting
Mr. James Calen frequently. This person is the possible
suspect in a criminal investigation I
cannot tell you more about. I'd like to ask you to look at
some pictures and tell me if one of the
people is him. I'd like the nurses to do the same."
Dukakis frowned. "Mr.
Calen and his visitor? People seem to be very interested in them
lately."
Vega smiled without
humor. "It seems like it."
The doctor scowled
as Vega refused to reveal more. He simply took out the pictures Ace
had given him and showed them to Dukakis.
When he looked at Bryce Sanderson, he frowned.
"That guy looks like
him, but I can't be sure."
"What can you tell
me about him?"
"Well, Mr. Calen's
visitor comes in once a week, always the same day: Wednesday. He
stays for about three to four hours, he
talks to the patient, sometimes takes him outside into the
gardens. I don't know his name. I think
Phyllis once mentioned his first name. Brad. I think it was
Brad."
"Who is Phyllis?"
"Nurse Phyllis Vermont.
She is the head nurse and knows almost everyone here." Dukakis
smiled.
"Is she currently here?"
He looked at his watch.
"I think she is off duty right now, but we might still catch her in the
nurses' lounge."
He led Vega down more
corridors and into the nurses' private lounge, a small room with
two tables, a couch and some chairs. Three
nurses were present, two talking animatedly over
some pictures, another one looking around
the fridge.
"Phyllis?"
The woman at the fridge
looked up. "Oh, hi," she greeted him curiosity crossing her
features as she discovered Vega. She closed
the fridge's door.
"Phyllis, this is Lieutenant
Vega of the Electro City police. He wants to know more about
Mr. Calen's visitor."
The two other nurses
watched them curiously their talk forgotten for now.
"Brian?"
Okay, so much for 'Brad'
or 'Bryce', Vega thought dryly. Now he nodded. "If that is his
name. Do you think you could identify
him on a picture?"
She frowned. "Of course.
He comes here ever Wednesday at ten a.m. sharp. He stays till
after lunch time, then leaves again. Pleasant
young man. A bit on the shy side, but he thawed
after a while. He's very dedicated to
Mr. Calen, talks to him, reads to him, but he never talks
about himself." She shrugged. "I first
thought he was a younger brother or something, but Mr.
Calen has no siblings or any next of kin
listed. I don't know where they know each other from, but
you couldn't ask for a more dedicated
visitor."
Vega made mental noted
and pulled out the pictures again. "Would you please look at
those pictures and tell me if you recognize
him in them?"
"Sure."
Phyllis slowly shuffled
through the pictures, looking at one for a longer time. She tapped
on it. "That looks like him. He has shorter
hair now and is a bit thinner, but that is him."
Vega looked at the
picture that showed Bryce Sanderson, janitor at the Ring Theater. He
was a young man, maybe in his early twenties,
with longish, brown hair, watery blue eyes, a thin,
pale face, looking like he was not at
all happy.
"Did he ever talk to
you about anything in his personal life?" Vega asked.
"No. As I said, he's
very shy. Barely got out his name when I first asked him."
"Was he required to
leave his full name and address when he visited Mr. Calen?"
Dukakis shook his head. "No. He isn't
next of kin and never wanted to be listed as a
contact in case of a problem. He said
he's only visiting."
Phyllis nodded in agreement.
"The kid is so self-absorbed, it's scary sometimes. I think he
once mentioned his name. Thompson or something.
I'm not sure. Is he in trouble, Lieutenant?"
"I'm sorry, I can't
tell you, Mrs. Vermont, I hope you understand. It's still an open
investigation."
She didn't look pleased,
but she accepted it. "Well, I hope he's not in trouble. He's such a
nice kid."
I hope he isn't the
perpetrator either, Vega thought, looking at the picture again. Bryce
Sanderson or Brian Thompson looked like
every mother's favorite son, someone who would
never do anything wrong, just listen to
his mom.....
He thanked both the
nurse and doctor and left the home. He briefly thought about running
by the precinct and employing Ms. LeSage
to check the names against the picture, maybe find a
file, but then decided against it. No
need to accidentally run into Friedrichs. The captain surely
would have something or other to complain
about, then demand to know what he was working on
and how the cases he had were going. As
if he couldn't just look into the files.
Vega sighed and shook
his head. No, better contact Ace and see what was up on that
front. He activated the com inside the
car. Ace was on the line almost immediately and Vega
relayed the information as he drove through
the thin traffic. Ace's voice held a hard edge he
didn't like.
"Ace, promise you won't
do anything," he said, voice holding a threat. "If this guy is the
one responsible, it's a police matter.
No vigilante stuff."
He could almost imagine
the smile on Ace's lips. A very humorless smile. "Vigilante. Vega,
please...."
"Ace, promise!" he
insisted.
A sigh. "Okay, I promise."
Why am I not convinced?
Vega thought wryly. He should have gone over to the Express
and told Ace face to face. This way he
could have made sure that the magician didn't run off
half-cocked, stop him. Who was he kidding?
Stopping Ace when he was determined to do
something was impossible.
Vega shook his head.
What had he ever done to deserve this?
"Listen, I'll come
by in maybe an hour or two and we can talk about what to do next, all
right? This kid isn't necessarily the
guy in question. He is simply Calen's regular visitor."
"Who happens to work
at the Ring. After my shows or throughout rehearsal," Ace
commented. "And there is nothing simple
about visiting James Calen."
There he goes again.
Vega couldn't blame him. Anna's death had weighed on him as well.
He had known the woman as long as Ace.
She had been a kind, warm-hearted person, and he
had liked coming to visit. She had understood
Ace's problem, had taught him to handle the
magic, had guided him, raised him in many
ways..... and Calen had taken this away from Ace.
He had brutally murdered her.
"Ace, you promised."
"My memory is working
fine, thank you, Vega," the magician answered sarcastically.
He sighed deeply, audibly.
"Behave," was all he said, then shut off the com.
***
Ace stared at the dead
com line for a second, then rose swiftly and walked into the
computer center where Cosmo was still
working on cross-references, trying to further narrow
down their search or even come up with
new possibilities. Their trip to the Ring Theater had
given them a bunch of little tid-bits,
but nothing really downright useful. Now, that had all
changed.
Ace took the printed
versions of the personnel files and shuffled through them. Cosmo
gave him a quizzical look.
"Got a lead?"
"Possibly." He found
the sought-for printout and slapped it onto the console.
Cosmo looked at it.
"Bryce Sanderson?"
"The staff at the Tayler
Home identified him as Calen's visitor." Ace's voice held a cold
note.
"Isn't he the guy who
always takes of Wednesday mornings? Insists on working the
evening shifts?"
Ace nodded. "And he
is one of the three who regularly work throughout rehearsals or after
my shows, which means he could watch me."
He stabbed at the address printed on the paper.
"Riverview Apartments."
"That's halfway across
town from where the package was mailed from," Cosmo said.
"So he's smart."
"Maybe... Here." Cosmo
held his hand out and confused, Ace dropped the file in it. Cosmo
rifled through it and pulled out a page.
"What are looking for?"
he asked.
"Just an idea, Ace."
Cosmo studied the printout then attacked the keyboard.
"Dare I ask?"
Cosmo chuckled. "Well..
it struck me that our perp is pretty smart like you said. Now, if
you were trying to kill someone, you would
get hired at their place of business under a fake name
right?"
Ace nodded slowly.
"Yes, it'd only make sense."
"Yup," Cosmo
agreed. "And if you're really smart, you'd have a fake address to go right
along with that fake name."
Ace blinked and
almost smacked himself in the forehead. Of course! That would be an
almost infantile mistake giving a fake
name and a real address when you were determined not to
be found.
"So what's your idea?"
"I noticed that when
anyone gets hired they copy their drivers license for records. Now
faking an ID is easy. Most people like
to use the real thing and doctor it. The Bureau of Motor
Vehicles uses special holographic paper
and the stuff's a pain to duplicate. Overlaying the false
info is easier..." Cosmo stammered to
a stop when he noticed Ace giving him an odd look
"And dare I ask how
you know this?" Ace queried with a raised eyebrow.
Cosmo blanched. "Uhm..
ehrr.. I..." The eyebrow crept higher and Cosmo finally let out an
annoyed snort.
"Let's just say I know
how and leave it at that," he muttered setting back to work. Ace kept
giving him *the Look* but then relented
and patted him on the shoulder.
"You were saying,"
Ace prodded.
Cosmo let out another
snort. "Saying too much," he muttered darkly, then sighed, leaning
back in the chair. "Basically, changing
your name and personal information: address, age, height,
blah, blah, blah is easy. What most people
leave alone is the pin number at the bottom. One,
because most people don't even know what
it's for, and two, the only time anyone references it is
if you're arrested."
"And this means...?"
"This means when
I get my butt into the BMV's files, I can track the pin number to the
original undoctored file which should
have Bryce's true address." Cosmo shrugged. "It's worth a
shot."
"Damn straight it is,"
Ace decided. "How long will it take?"
Cosmo grinned as the
screen flashed. "Already done."
"Some days you amaze
me, Cosmo," Ace whispered as he studied the BMV files.
"Only some days? Man,
I must be losing my touch," Cosmo muttered and Ace would have
smiled but he found it. The address he
was looking for.
"Brian Thomas. Sunset
Terrace."
A little sigh. "We
check out his address then?"
A gleam Cosmo didn't
like was in Ace's eyes, but somehow, deep down inside, he had the
same feelings rising. "Exactly."
* * *
The afternoon had started
out with light rain. Strings of water fell endlessly from a slate
gray sky, the ground muddy, puddles forming
on the street and sidewalks. Electro City had a lot
of sunny days, but today, nothing of that
showed. Ace had parked the Racer two blocks away
from the apartment block where Brian Thomas
lived. It was a neat, rather new block, consisting
of six stories, containing four apartments
on each level. The lawn in front of the building was
trimmed, the bushes cut back, and the
building supervisor had taken great care of planting some
flowers.
Sunset Terrace was
one of the medium income communities of Electro City. Families
lived here, either in their own houses
or in rented apartments. Clean, neat, no extraordinary
crime rate, shops along the town center,
playgrounds for the kids, police patrols throughout the
day. The people who lived here either
worked in the City or had their own little shops, doing
office work, going to work from eight
to five. All so normal, outside the glitz and glamour, away
from the filth and poverty of other suburbs.
Walking up to the block
where Thomas had rented a two room apartment, Cosmo
wondered if they were right. Brian Thomas
fit in a way, but why would such a normal person try
to kill Ace? He was a janitor, he had
a normal income, no family, lived in a good area, had a little
savings account. From the data in the
computers he had only one parking ticket from three years
ago with a bike, was five years older
than Cosmo, and had never really stood out. Normal,
normal, normal.
Ace sought out the
right name plate and rang. No answer. He rang again. Again no
answer. Frowning with annoyance, he looked
at Cosmo, who simply shrugged. Getting into the
apartment block was easy. Magic had a
way of convincing even electronic locks to open. Brian's
apartment was on the fourth floor, a corner
apartment, overlooking Sunrise Park, a small
assembly of trees, a children's playground,
and a tiny pond. Ace stopped in front of the wooden
door, looking at the number. 45. Fifth
apartment, floor number four. He rang the bell and waited.
Again no answer. They had come here to
confront the man, but since he wasn't here....
"Maybe he went away
over the weekend," Cosmo mumbled.
Possible. He wasn't on janitorial duty.
Ace shrugged and did a little magic again, and the
door swung open.
"You know, that's breaking
and entering," Cosmo said conversationally as they stepped
inside.
"It is, my accomplice,"
Ace said with a grin.
Cosmo grimaced, then
stopped, jaw hanging open. "Oh, man!" he whispered.
The apartment was literally
stacked with books. All the walls were crowded with shelves
containing hundreds, if not thousands,
of books. It smelled of books! They seemed to suck in the
meager gray light coming through the window.
The rain beat against the window panes, streaking
it with water, making the outside world
appear blurry and unreal. With the wan light and the dust,
the brown and faded books, it was like
peering through murky water.
A couch was crammed
into the living room, but there was no TV screen. Between the
books sat a tiny stereo system and Cosmo
went over to it, checking the CDs. The kid had taste,
he thought with a grin. Then he looked
at the books.
Science. Electronics. Mechanics. Engineering.
Magic.
Magic!
"Ace, dude...." Cosmo
said, then discovered that Ace had already grabbed a book as well,
frowning as he read the label.
"Magic," the older
man said.
"Yup."
Ace walked along the
shelves. "Lots of books on magic. And all kinds of sciences." He
picked up a little globe made of black
stone streaked with yellow.
Cosmo peaked into the next room, the bedroom,
and whistled softly. It was a regular
engineering lab. More shelves were on
the wall and a long-stretched table was underneath the
hanging shelves. On it were all kinds
of little things. A model car. A motherboard from a
computer. Tinkertoys. Completed models
from other vehicles. Tools. Construction plans.
"The guy seems to be
a regular mechanic," Cosmo said. "Look at that stuff!"
Ace nodded and checked
the rest of the books. All magic, all paranormal, all science.
Brian Thomas was interested in magic,
he worked on toys, he built stuff.....
Cosmo wandered around,
aware that he was snooping, invading someone's privacy, but if
Brian Thomas was their perp..... A wave
of anger rose and he quickly squelched it.
The kitchen was small,
compact, and more or less neat. A cleaned glass and a bowl stood
upside down next to the sink, apparently
rinsed before leaving home. All was cleaned, but looked
used, and the kitchen shelf was stacked
with canned food and instant products.
Bachelor, Cosmo thought.
Neat bachelor.
He walked back into
the living room and found Ace next to the largest shelf, book in hand,
staring at the page he had opened.
"Ace?"
Something was wrong.
He didn't need empathy to tell that. Ace stood stiff as a statue, face
a mask, his fingers digging into the thick
leather binding.
"Ace?" he called again.
A muscle jumped in
Ace's cheek and there was something burning in the gray eyes that
made Cosmo shiver. An emotion he had rarely
seen in his older friend. Hatred. Absolute hatred.
He peeked into the book, trying to see
what had disturbed Ace, and then his eyes fell on the
scribbled notes. One name sprang forward.
James Calen.
He hissed softly as
memories rose unbidden once more.
The book had belonged
to Calen!
"It's not the only
one," Ace broke the silence, voice so tightly controlled, Cosmo barely
even recognized the tone.
Ace placed the book
back into the shelf with utter care, the muscle jumping again. Cosmo
couldn't really know how hard it was for
his friend to be reminded yet again of the those events,
but he could try. Damn the lost link!
Blocked, another part
corrected.
Okay, blocked.
He inhaled deeply.
"So the stuff here
belonged to Calen?"
"Apparently," Ace answered,
voice rough.
"And how did Brian
get it?"
Burning gray eye met
his. "That I'm going to ask him face to face!"
Cosmo replaced another
book and walked along the long row of ancient books, intermixed
with pocket books, magazines and copies
in ring folders. He ran his fingers over the leather
backs and stopped as he came upon a larger,
thick leather-bound book that was at the end of
row of magazines. It had nothing printed
on the thick back and out of pure interest he grabbed it.
Cosmo frowned as he saw that it was sealed
by a strap lock. Easy to pick, his mind told him. The
book was covered by an undisturbed layer
of dust. No one had read it, though all the other books
showed plenty of use, not a dust particle
on them.
Cosmo was about to
try his luck at picking the lock when he discovered something else.
There had been a picture crammed between
the magazines next to the empty space. He pried it
out and felt his stomach contract. The
picture showed James Calen, his arrogant face set into a
sneer that was probably intended as a
smile. He stood outside the house that had now been
destroyed. Next to him stood a lanky,
skinny boy, maybe Cosmo's age. He had brown, tousled
hair, was dressed in a baggy shirt and
pants, the sleeves falling over his hands. All about him
screamed 'nerd'. He was smiling shyly
into the camera.
"Shit," he whispered.
Ace looked at him,
glanced at the picture, and for a moment, his expression could have
frozen hell over. It was frightening to
see the change and if Cosmo hadn't known the magician as
well as he did, he would have taken a
step backwards. Magic arched over his fingers and he
whirled around, the cape moving with a
snap behind him.
Shitshitshit!!
Cosmo hesitated a moment,
then slipped the picture into his jacket and followed his
severely agitated friend. Ace was striding
toward the Racer, shoes beating the concrete with hard
clacking sounds, each step looking controlled
and painful in one. His hands were clenched into
fists and if looks could kill, the greenery
would have withered and died. Rain beat down on him,
the rain fall having increased while they
had been inside. Cosmo had to run to keep up, and
even without the ability to sense magic,
he could feel the shift in the air around Ace.
Magic was drawn into
him, churning, called by the emotional upheaval, only held in check
by his years of controlled training. Wounds
had been torn open again and though Cosmo had
been part of the events back then, an
integral part because his kidnapping had been the trap to
lure Ace in, he had never known Calen
as Ace had known him.
"Ace?" he now asked
softly, wishing he could help.
Ace exhaled explosively
and suddenly a blast of magic tore out of him, shivering across
the wet pavement, making the puddles evaporate.
Steam rose around them and Cosmo was
glad that at this time of the day, everything
was deserted. Ace screwed his eyes shut, tremors
racing through his body. The teenager
carefully touched the older man, wincing as magic
remnants tickled him.
"You okay, dude?" he
asked softly.
"Getting there," Ace
breathed. "Sorry. I.... this was a bit too much," he whispered.
Cosmo grinned wryly.
"Understand that completely, man." His own feelings were starting
to mix now, his fear and anger at what
had been done to him rising.
Thomas was responsible.
He had done this.
Ace leaned against
the car, unminding of the rain that had slicked his hair and was running
down the cloak. He rubbed a hand over
the wet skin. "We should leave," he said wearily.
Cosmo could only agree.
He jumped into the Racer, grimacing at the feeling of his damp
pants. The canopy closed, keeping the
increasingly dense rain away. Ace started the car and
they drove off.
"What now?" Cosmo asked.
"Now we find Mr. Thomas."
* * *
Finding Brian Thomas
proved to be harder than anticipated. He wasn't exactly the kind of
person to have many hangouts or to frequent
bars. He worked at the Theater, he came home, he
stayed home, he went to visit Calen once
a week. And that visit had already been paid for the
current week. Nevertheless, Ace had asked
Angel to patch him through to the mental home,
asking if Brian had dropped by again.
The answer had been a negative. No, he hadn't shown up.
Ace's gut was churning
with the emotion. Anger, frustration... dread. Brian Thomas had
something to do with James Calen. He wasn't
just a well-meaning visitor to a permanently
mentally ill patient. Calen had had no
real friends, of that Ace was sure, so Brian's visits were a
rather disturbing fact. Who was he? There
was little doubt in Ace now that he also had something
to do with the globe that had stolen Cosmo's
magic. Closer to none actually.
His eyes flicked to
the mirror and his apprentice. He had seen Cosmo's own reaction to
their discoveries, though the teen controlled
them better. Just a little. But it was a blow to them
both. A disturbing blow.
"Watcha got?" he asked
suddenly, noticing for the first time the leather bound book Cosmo
had in his possession.
His partner looked
up for a sec. "Not sure," Cosmo admitted. "Hang tight, and I'll have this
open in a sec." The teen proceeded to
pull out his lock picking tools.
"You should have left
that, Cosmo. I don't want to tip Brian off," Ace admonished, trying to
tame the seething anger bubbling beneath
the surface. He felt his magic gurgling with his raw
emotions and really didn't want to deal
with it right now. For once, he was glad Cosmo couldn't
feel his magic. This would be rather disturbing
for him to sense.
"I think it's important,
Ace," Cosmo argued, working at the little strap lock.
"Why?"
There was a muffled
click and the flimsy leather strap fell back as Cosmo looked up with a
slight smile.
"It was dusty," Cosmo
told him. "All the other books were clean and obviously well read,
but this one was dusty and locked." The
grin got a little larger. "Curiosity got the Cosmo."
Ace chuckled softly
at his partner's attempt at humor. He had to admit, he was curious
now as well. Cosmo was right, all the
other books had been clean and dust free. Why wasn't this
one book? What made it so special?
Cosmo opened the book
carefully, a frown wrinkling his brow as he flipped through a few
pages idly. Ace tried to keep one eye
on the road and one on the mirror waiting, for the verdict
"So, what is it?" he
asked lightly, but Cosmo was silent, the frown becoming all but a glare
as the teen grew dangerously silent, jaw
clenching. That wasn't good.
"Cosmo?"
"It's Calen's journal,"
Cosmo hissed softly, turning another page. "It's his personal journal."
Ace flinched and barely
suppressed a snarl. "What does it say?" he asked, voice tightly
controlled. Cosmo read a little.
"Damn, this bastard
wrote down everything," Cosmo rumbled. "I mean, everything. Even
his.. his plans to..." Cosmo's voice took
on a definite tremble as the teen stared at the written
words.
Ace flashed his partner
a worried glance. The magician wasn't the only one shocked by
this sudden turn of events. Cosmo had
been in Calen's hands personally during his attempt to kill
Ace.
"Anything about Brian?"
Cosmo licked his lips
and started flipping through pages. He stopped suddenly, frowned
and leaned slightly closer to the book.
"Yeah, Ace... yeah,
there is," Cosmo rasped, then looked up at him, their eyes meeting in
the mirror. "Brian Thomas was Calen's
apprentice."
It was as if the world
seemed to stop existing as Cosmo focused on no more then the little
scrawled documentation before him.
.... my apprentice,
Brian Thomas....
He felt cold. Just...
cold. It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did, but still, to
see
it.. in writing.
"Cosmo?"
It took Ace two times
calling his name to get his attention. When he realized the older man
was talking to him, he flinched and looked
up.
Distantly, he noted
they were stopped, Ace having pulled off the road and looking
worriedly at him from the front seat.
He wanted to say something reassuring. Wanted to just say
something, but he couldn't. He just..
couldn't. That son of a...
Cosmo gulped convulsively.
Brian Thomas. There was no more doubt. But Calen's
apprentice? It was the last thing he'd
ever expect. "I never sensed him, Ace," it came out in a
whisper. "He never registered to my senses."
"He might not be a
true magic user," Ace said simply.
Cosmo let out a snort.
"He's Calen's flippin' apprentice!"
"What does it say about
him in the book?"
Cosmo looked down and
gulped again. He tried to hold the massive tomb steady as he let
his eyes scan. The earlier shock and nausea
started to drift as curiosity took over.
"May 1st. Have made
the proper adjustments to the labyrinth. Brian has set up the
monitoring system and assures me he
can tie it in all smoothly to the computer control. We shall
see, we shall see."
"Go back, see if there
is anything about how they met," Ace prompted.
Cosmo nodded and flipped
back, paused, flipped a few more pages. "Let's see....
December 12th. It has only been a week
and I find myself less able to tolerate his presence. If
Brian did not have his uses, I wouldn't
tolerated his presence in the least, much less have spoken
to him that fateful day three weeks
ago. But, it is for good of my cause I suffer. The best of
causes and one I eagerly await completion."
"So, Calen did not
look favorably on Brian," Ace murmured.
"Yeah, there's more.
February 21st. Behind schedule. We are behind schedule because
Brian's first attempt has failed. I
made it very clear to him such failures are not tolerated. No, not
tolerated at all. It goes, without
saying, that Brian has redoubled his efforts and assures me he
shall not fail again. He'd better not."
Cosmo looked up at
Ace seeing his own anger and confusion in his friend's face. "If Calen
was such a bastard to him, why did Brian
hang out with the loser?" he asked slowly.
Ace pursed his lips
thoughtfully.
"From what we know,
Brian is a loner, never really fitting in with anyone, fascinated with
magic, incredibly talented in mechanics
with no real direction or goal. From our interview with the
head of personnel, it sounds like Brian
has rather low self esteem and self confidence. It would
make him the perfect target for Calen.
Someone he could control, manipulate and put to good
use. Calen believed in the viability of
mixing magic and technology. With Brian's genius he could
see that idea come to fruition."
"Yeah, but why would
Brian put up with this dude? He's an ass, Ace!" Cosmo blurted.
Ace took a deep breath.
"I would like to believe that perhaps Calen paid him well, or
coerced him into it. But, from the regularity
of his visits to Calen in the institute, I think Brian saw
him as a friend."
Cosmo snorted. "Dude,
James Calen was no one's friend!"
"No," Ace agreed. "But
what we read and what he told Brian could very well be two
different things...."
"...easily
manipulated. A few kind words are like candy to the boy, his eagerness
to please
almost laughable. His intelligence
is amazing, but he has no cunning, or drive, to back it up.
Ahh... but that is where my guidance
comes in. And he serves my purposes so well and so
willingly. Laughable, it is laughable,"
Cosmo read suddenly, having never really stopped scanning
the pages as they talked.
Suddenly, he wondered,
what would have happened if he had met James Calen before
Ace. Would their magics react as they
had between him and the magician? Would have Calen seen
his natural talent with computers as a
resource worthy of exploitation? The cold shiver that
danced over his skin reminded him of just
how lucky he was to have his friend.
"Man, and I didn't
think my opinion of James Calen could get any worse," he murmured.
Ace smirked darkly
at the sentiment. "Neither did I. Neither did I."
"So, what now? We still
have no idea where he is."
Ace nodded, frowning
thoughtfully. "First I want to call Vega and get him to come over to
the apartment, secure everything. We have
the proof we need to get the police going on this."
"You want them to have
the journal?" Cosmo asked.
"No!" Ace said sharply,
then closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. "No," he repeated, much
calmer. "Not the journal. But we have
enough evidence to at least get Vega involved again."
Vega would know how
to tweak it that he got a search warrant, Ace knew. His old friend
was quite resourceful when it came to
that.
"I also want to call
the Theater, see if Brian appeared there, even if it is his day off."
"Shot in the dark,"
Cosmo muttered.
"Better than doing
nothing."
Ace eased the Racer
back onto the street, ordering Angel to call the Theater. Much to his
chagrin, Brian had not come to his work
place. So the boy had disappeared for the day, but they
had enough evidence now to know what they
were facing.
* * *
Night had fallen once
again and just like last night, Ace had trouble falling asleep. He sat
at his desk, going through his daily personal
mail, looking over the schedule for the next week,
signing bills and agreements to various
show-related things, but nothing tired him enough to let
him fall asleep. The day's events kept
going around in his head, making it difficult to relax, even
if his mind was exhausting itself with
the facts.
The journal was lying
on his desk and he had leafed through it, feeling sick of what he read
there. All of Calen's life after Anna
had been written down. His hopes, his dreams, his pathetic
attempts to gather more magic, and his
growing hatred of his former teacher and fellow students.
Ace had not managed to read all of what
the other magician had written down, especially out of
the time when he had planned on his murder
of Anna LeFrez. But he had reread whatever had
been noted about Brian Thomas, and the
sadness inside him rose again. Brian was so much like
someone else he knew.
Like Cosmo.
Young, hurt, idealistic
sometimes, wanting, needing, seeking someone to look up to......
Brian was an orphan, as much as Calen
knew about him, and extremely self-conscious and shy.
Calen had not tried to help the boy. He
had exploited his talents, had promised him great things,
only to use whatever Brian developed for
his own purposes. And he had promised to teach him
magic. But from Calen's own writing, Brian
had not an ounce of magic talent in him, just the
almost magical ability to fuse magic and
technology.
Ace sighed deeply.
This could so easily have been Cosmo. The thought frightened him,
making him wonder how many more boys and
girls like them were out there, misguided, under
the control of evil.
Shaking his head, he
rose from his desk, deciding that maybe some TV would tire him out.
Tomorrow was another day and he needed
all his wits about him. Brian would be at the Theater
tomorrow, working his everyday job, and
they would seek him out, confront him.
Vega had promised to
get back to him throughout the evening about the search warrant
and the call had come in an hour earlier.
His friend was hard at work convincing a judge that they
needed the warrant in the morning, that
they had enough to make this loophole tight, that the
suspicion was based on more than theories.
Ace had given Vega every detail that was not
connected to an illegal breaking and entering,
had woven a story about Brian Thomas and
James Calen that didn't mention magic
or being an apprentice, and for now all they could do was
wait. If they were lucky, and Judge Morrone
was in a good mood, they'd have the warrant
tomorrow morning.
And if they were really
lucky, they'd have Brian Thomas under arrest as well.
* * *
Electro City was rather
empty and quiet on a Sunday morning, most of the people still
asleep at seven a.m. Usually, so was Ace,
but he had had a bad evening to start with and little
sleep after that. Cosmo had been awake
quite early as well, much to Ace's surprise.
"Can't sleep," he had
simply said while nibbling at some toast.
Ace accepted it. He
couldn't sleep either, and for Cosmo it was even worse.
Now they were weaving
their way through early morning traffic, which was light and barely
an obstacle, arriving at the Ring Theater
faster than normal. Brian Thomas' work shift began at
six, so it was a good guess that he would
be here now. Ace had called ahead anyway and the
guard on duty at the personnel entrance
had confirmed that Brian had logged in with his key
card, that he was here, and no, he hadn't
seen him since.
Ace had a show here
tonight, but he wasn't required to appear till about two hours before
the show. It wasn't unusual for him to
come anyway, to rehearse, to go over details with the
people in charge, or to drop off Cosmo
because his assistant wanted to double-check settings
and programs.
Ace pulled into the
parking lot behind the Theater and nodded at the guard, smiling.
"Split up?" Cosmo asked
quietly.
Ace frowned uncertainly.
He wasn't really happy about the thought of Cosmo running into
Brian Thomas alone, but then again, his
friend wouldn't do something stupid. Cosmo did have a
temper, but also was too intelligent to
be drawn into his fury like that. And there was the fact that
they would find the guy faster if they
split up.
"You go in the front,
I'll check backstage," Ace said. "Be careful."
"Yes, Mom," Cosmo joked,
though it fell kind of flat. His heart wasn't in it.
Ace grimaced, then
they separated.
***
He cowered in on corner
of the security room, shaking. Cooper was coming here. He was
coming... here. He had called, asked for
him, and now he was on his way!
How did he know?!
Brian Thomas swallowed
several times, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
How? How? How?!
Where had he gone wrong?
Where had he left clues? The sphere? No, no, there were no
fingerprints. Nothing of the sphere could
be traced. He had made sure to send the package off
from another mail office. There were no
traces!
Brian screwed his eyes
shut, willing his body to stop trembling.
Cooper was coming for
him.
He knew!
Suddenly his eyes snapped
open. He was coming here.... into the Theater... his territory.
Why..... it couldn't
be more perfect!
A slow smile spread
over his features. He still had a chance to take him out for good.
Cooper didn't know that Brian had some
of his toys here.
Triumph lit up his
features and he darted out of the security room, a place he had tapped
into months before, a room where he had
spent hours reviewing tapes recorded by the cameras.
As he quickly walked
to the backstage area to get what he needed, he caught sight of a
problem. The guards. Sundays, since the
Theater was closed until much later, there was a thin,
spread-out security detail. One at the
personnel entrance, one for backstage; the main entrance
was closed and there wouldn't be any foot
patrols. Who broke into a theater anyway? It wouldn't
prove to be a real problem, Brian thought.
None at all.....
* * *
The Ring Theater was
silent. Except for the security guards, no one was in. The janitors
would be busy in the sublevels and the
cleaning personnel was already gone. Yesterday had
been opera night. Ace had wanted to attend,
had even had tickets, but he had given them to
friends. With the whole situation, he
didn't feel like appearing publicly anywhere except in his
shows. The cleaning personnel always went
to work right after the shows, getting the stage and
seats ready for the next day. The janitors
would then take care of the rest.
Making his way to the
backstage area, Ace scanned for anything suspicious. Everything
seemed normal though, but he was wary.
No chance he would let his guard down now.
Suddenly, he saw something
lying on the floor ahead. It was a body!
Ace knelt and felt
at the backstage guards throat, relieved to find a pulse. From the lump
forming on the back of the man's head
he was going to wake up with one doozy of a headache.
But he would wake up.
Teeth clenched,
Ace glared out into the dim backstage, the lighting at its lowest setting.
When no show was going on, the theater
became an eerie, macabre and dark place. A place
with a would be killer running amongst
its shadows. Cautiously, Ace rose and started away from
the guard station.
"Cosmo?" he called
softly into his com.
"Yeah?"
"Backstage. I
just found a guard, unconscious. I think we're getting close," Ace reported
softly, eyes moving constantly. Scanning
and seeking.
"I'll be right
there," Cosmo returned, anger mixed with dread, tingeing his voice.
Ace nodded absently
to himself. It was what he was feeling. Anger at what this young man
had done to them both and dread for what
he could still do. He froze at the soft sound. A...
skittering?
Years of experience,
and just plain good instincts, sent Ace lunging sideways as the
chattering hiss exploded across the backstage.
Small darts, driven by compressed air, zipped by
him, embedding themselves in a tight pattern
in the wall behind him.
Ace kept low,
eyes focused on where the darts had come from. For a second he spared
the ones in the wall a glance, distantly
noting the odd discoloration along the barbed lengths.
Poisoned.
It seemed there
was nothing Brian wasn't willing to try to seek his revenge. He felt a
strange pang of pity for the young man.
In a way, Brian was very much like Cosmo. Brilliant,
misunderstood and easily influenced. How
would it have been if Cosmo had been Calen's
apprentice? Ace felt a cold shiver dance
through him. That, was an awful thought. He drove it
from his mind. Now was hardly the time
to be musing. Not with a disturbed and emotionally
driven apprentice seeking his head on
a platter for his comatose master.
There was silence,
then a soft scuttling, then silence again; straight ahead of him. Ace
knew the backstage by heart. Even in the
near dark he knew what was in front of him, which,
honestly, wasn't much. This part of the
backstage was mostly a temporary storage area for props
being used in the most current shows.
Ace had equipment here himself.
He leapt forward,
tucking and rolling as the soft hiss of half a dozen darts shot free,
peppering the floor where he had been
as he came up behind another box. More little thumps
struck the box's far side, but no more
than that.
Okay, he had
a triangulation. Given the angle the darts where imbedded into the floor,
and the wall behind him, it put his shooter
about four feet off the ground and center in the hall.
Given the small size of the darts and
the accuracy of their grouping his shooter had to be fairly
close. No more than five yards, otherwise
the darts would never hit their target with any degree
of consistency.
Pulling the magic
staff from his cape, Ace smiled grimly. While a small part of him argued
he should just pull a relocate and bash
his opponent into dust, another part told him not to: to
hide his magic, to keep the ruse up just
that much longer. He couldn't say he liked that idea.
Magic was him, he was the magic, using
it was as natural as breathing to the magician, refusing
its power in a time of need was almost
antithesis to everything he was. But there was logic as
well. The longer Brian believed he was
powerless, the better. It would give him the edge if the
time arose and so far, the confidence
that Ace was magically disarmed had made Brian careless.
Ace jumped and
he heard distant, soft footsteps behind him. Cosmo. His partner had
arrived and would make his way up the
hall. Ace frowned. He was not disarmed, but Cosmo was.
He had to clear the way now. Ace exploded
from his hiding spot, the magic staff flying as the
hiss of airborne darts tracked his every
movement. Spinning madly, Ace trusted his aim as the
small barbs buried into his cape even
as he hit the ground with a grunt.
And his trust
was well founded. There was the sound of impact, wood on metal, and a
crash followed accented by the small popping
of electronics blowing.
Satisfied, Ace cautiously
pulled the darts from his cape, studying one little projectile with
barley in-check anger. This had gone on
long enough. It was ending here. Tonight. One way or
another.
Cautiously, Ace
slipped forward, ears trained to the slightest noise as he moved stealthily
along. It was with a sense of foreboding
he found the small robot laying on the floor by his staff.
It sparked, a sizable dent in its metal
chassis, one clawed foot still twitching like a dying bug. His
eyes never left the machine as he retrieved
the staff. He had seen this creation before, though
larger. In James Calen's mansion. And
the damage they had done to his body had taken months
to heal. He suddenly gave into a fit of
fury and brought his foot crashing down on the small
machine, feeling sick satisfaction as
it collapsed beneath his heel.
Soooo... Brian
had something to do with that as well. Given the boy's mechanical genius,
it left little doubt in Ace. Brian had
had some part in arming Calen and his cursed mansion.
Magic gurgled and hissed around Ace and
he imagined he felt it asking to be used.
To seek revenge.
He shuddered.
No! Revenge was
the last thing magic was meant for. Ace felt his stomach turn at the
thought alone. And how much he wanted
to give into it. To take revenge, for his suffering, for
Cosmo's.
For Anna...
Ace gulped and
forced himself to relax. Forced himself to clear his mind.
No. Brian hadn't
killed Anna. Hadn't kidnapped Cosmo. That had been James' doing.
Brian was not without blame, and had committed
his own atrocities, but it was not with a cold and
calculating heart. It was out of misguided
sense of loyalty and skewed perception of right and
wrong.
Feeling the magic
retreat to an angry background murmur, Ace felt confident enough to
move forward again. Yes, Brian would be
brought to task for his crimes, that, Ace would make
sure of, but no revenge.
* * *
Cosmo pressed
himself against the door, peeking into the hall that led to the backstage.
He saw Richard slumped down by his desk,
his overturned stool lying haphazardly beside. The
anger that had never truly left him since
finding out Thomas was the one who had cost him his
magic and link began to turn and grow
shaper, more focused. He liked Richard. The older man
might appear to be a hard nosed pain in
the ass, but he was really a big softy who knew the best
jokes.
Slipping silently
beside him, Cosmo assured himself that Richard was still alive, though
he had little doubt Ace hadn't done the
same.
"We'll get the
bastard, Richard," Cosmo hissed. "Don't you worry."
He was about
to move forward, down the hall, when he paused. Looked down with a frown
wrinkling his brow. And studied Richard's
gun. Then took it, checking to see if it was loaded. It
was, and a grim smile crossed his face
as he shoved it inside his jacket. Anything. He wasn't
going to let anything happen to Ace. He
couldn't. Ace wouldn't like it, him being armed, but
without his magic to back up the magician,
it was his only choice. And, in his heart of hearts, it
was the choice Cosmo wanted as the anger
started a slow burn in him. Brian was here.
Somewhere. The little perp who had destroyed
his life, had ripped away what was most precious
to him, was trying to kill his partner
and best friend, was the bastard born apprentice to James
Calen, was here somewhere.
And Cosmo was
going to find him.
* * *
Ace paused at
the stage's edge. He felt the hair along his neck bristle and trusted his
instincts enough to know he was walking
into what would undoubtedly be a deadly trap. But he
had had enough of this cat and mouse game.
They needed to find Brian now. Where he was and
what he was armed with. The best way...
well.. easiest way, was to draw him out.
"Cosmo, you there
buddy?"
"Yeah bro, where
are ya?" Cosmo's voice came through in a worried whisper.
"At the stage."
"Hang tight,
I'm right on your tail."
"No, wait...
I need you to lock down all the doors to the theater proper."
"Ace, that won't
shut down the emergency exits."
"I know, but
we need to keep Brian in here and that will improve our chances. Once you
get the doors shut, go to the emergency
exit closest to the light gantry ladder. My money is that
he's taken to the high ground," Ace explained
softly, eyes darting over what he could see of the
stage. What he saw was empty, somewhat
eerie in the dim theaters night lighting.
"What are you
going to do?" Cosmo demanded warily.
Ace smiled darkly. "I'm going to draw
him out."
"Like hell!"
Even though it was a whisper, Ace heard the desperation behind those two
words.
"I'll be okay,
Cosmo. I'll use my magic now. There's no reason to keep up this charade,"
he said soothingly, knowing just how worked
up Cosmo was. "You have to be strong for me,
Cosmo."
The silence following
was deafening and Ace knew he had struck a nerve.
"I'm not mocking
you, Cosmo, or trying to shame you," Ace explained softly. "We're
partners, we trust each other; trust me
to be okay so I can trust you to be okay."
There was another
silence, then a deep sigh through the com.
"Okay. I can
do it, Ace," Cosmo said slowly.
Ace felt a hint of
pride at the conviction that came through and smiled faintly. "I know you
can, Cosmo," he assured.
"I'm on the doors,
Ace," Cosmo declared, then in a softer voice. "Be careful."
"I will, Cosmo,
I will."
With that he let his
arm dropped and forced himself to take a deep breath and do nothing
more than count the passing seconds, to
give Cosmo the time he needed to shut what doors he
could. Then, Ace Cooper did what he had
done a thousand times before.
He stepped out on stage.
And ran for his life
as a dozen lancing beams of light sluiced down on the stage, leaving
little burning pits in their wake. It
was an almost unconscious reaction as his hand flew up, the
sharp edged cards spreading out in a deadly
pattern up at the light rigging. There was a crack
and a brief explosion of light from the
catwalk above and, in that flash of illumination, Ace caught
sight of movement. He didn't hesitate
a second longer to find out what Brian's next trick might
be. This was ending now.
"Brian, give
yourself up! We know who you are and everything you've tried to do and
why," he called out. It was probably a
futile attempt of negotiation, but Ace had to offer it.
Silence was his answer.
Almost
Ace felt a shiver
dance up his spine at the soft scuffling. What now? How many of those
damn toys did Brian have?
"Ace, doors are
shut," Cosmo's voice exploded over his com.
Ace flinched, the teen's
unexpected communication capturing his attention for a fatal
second. He gasped as he was suddenly propelled
against the stage, a stinging pain exploding
across his chest, tearing a cry from him.
Chest throbbing,
Ace rolled forward as two more shots slammed into the floor. Plastic
slugs, propelled more than likely by compressed
air like the darts. Prototypes. Brian was more
than likely using working prototypes against
him. As before, the shots came from above. It was
what had probably saved him from having
every rib broken, though it felt like he had just taken a
sledge hammer to the chest. The distance
was taking some of the kick out of the shots, turning
them from fatal to only damaging.
But damaging
was bad enough.
"Magic Force,
reveal the power within!"
The light exploded
around him and Ace savored it. Being forced to refrain from the use of
his magic had been an absolute misery
upon the other trials he had been forced to endure these
last days. Its wild caress was a welcome
friend as his fist slammed against his chest bringing to
life the signet that represented him.
Ace didn't bother
to dodge as he heard another salvo loosed his way. He twisted, cape
whipping about him as the world exploded
into glittering dust. The catwalk for the light rig swayed
slightly as he exploded back into existence
in the dark rafters of the Ring Theater. There was an
audible gasp as Brian spun about, control
pad in hand. For a moment the young man did nothing
but stare at the magician's sudden appearance
on his roost. For a moment, Ace was stunned by
the simple normalness of the young man.
Brian was everything you didn't expect in a would-be
killer. Frantically, he started working
the keyboard, Ace catching sight of a small robot halfway
between him and Calen's would-be apprentice.
It jerked and moved sluggishly as he furiously
worked the portable controls.
Not the most
successful prototype, Ace mused distantly, watching its unsteady
movements. Brian had been caught off guard
by their sudden pursuit and it showed in the
haphazard defense the young man had called
up against them.
"Stop this now,
Brian!" Ace ordered with no uncertainty in his voice.
Brian flinched, seemed
to think about it, then returned to his keyboard. With a snarl of
irritation Ace shifted, widened his stance
and drew in a deep breath as he lifted and brought his
hands before him.
Energy gathered for
half a second in his palms and exploded out in a sharp rush of power
that lanced at the slothful robot. The
explosion cracked amongst the rigging as the magical
energies tore the little mechanical to
smithereens, sending broken parts raining to the ground
below.
Stunned, Brian watched
the scattering debris fall. "No..." he whispered, shaking his head.
"No...."
Ace took a step
forward and Brian jerked, looked at him in a panic, the control pad falling
from his hands.
"It's not fair,"
he murmured. "It should have worked. It should have worked!"
Brian turn and
ran down the catwalk, the metal structure bouncing wildly under his feet.
"Brian!" Ace
shouted, giving pursuit.
Not that there was
far to go up here as Brian found out, reaching the riggings end, colliding
into the safety rail there. He stared
at a lost over the dark precipice, then spun back on Ace.
"It's over, Brian,"
Ace told him simply.
Brian faced him, tried
to look brave but Ace saw the hint of fear in his wide eyes. "Go
ahead. Go ahead and kill me," he snarled.
Ace just shook his
head. "No, Brian. Revenge is never the way."
"Liar! I've seen
what you did to James," Brian sneered.
Ace flinched at the
memory. Yes, he had hurt Calen. More than he ever imagined himself
capable of doing. Not intentionally, but
the fight had been to the death and Ace simply had won
by fluke.
A painful....
deadly fluke.
"Calen brought
on his own fate, Brian," Ace sighed softly. "He abused his abilities and
paid for that transgression in the end.
He brought on his own misery."
"Liar!!" Brian
wailed. "You were just jealous of him!"
"Was I? It was
he who hunted me down. He who sought my death. Does that sound like
the actions of a man defending himself,
or those of an egotistical psychopath out to prove his
own superiority?"
"Don't you dare
talk about him that way!"
Ace was silent
for a moment, watching the blind loyalty playing across the young man's
face. But there was more than trust and
indignation in that desperate continence. There was a
deep sort of truth, fighting to get free.
"James Calen
thought of only himself. No one else. Not you, not anybody. He was the
center of his world. Then and always."
"Liar!" It was
a sad wail.
"Brian.. no!"
Ace gasped as
the young man leapt up on the rail, pushed off and went sailing into the
dim theater heights. In a heartbeat he
saw the Brian's target. Guide lines for the riggings, tied off
to the walls. If he reached them he could
slid down to the floor below.
If.
Ace watched as Brian
reached out for the ropes, hand yearning for their support. It
seemed he would reach them, fingers outstretched.
Then gravity took over.
There was a coarse
cry of surprise as Brian started to tumble to the hard floor below.
There was no hesitation in Ace as his
hands rose, swept out and seemed to catch an invisible
weight. Below, Brian's descent stopped,
his body floating. Ace caught sight of his shock as he
stared up at him, realization flashing
through his face as he found himself safely cradled in Ace's
magic.
Gently, Ace lowered
Brian, keeping him safe till the young man's feet touched the ground.
Then he let his arms drop and watched,
Brian staring up at him. It seemed for a moment his
young assailant could not decide what
to do. Run.. or admit defeat.
In the end, he ran,
and Ace sighed in annoyance. What was it going to take to get Brian to
surrender? He didn't want to hurt the
boy, he really didn't. But he sure as hell wasn't going to let
him waltz out of here either. Tired and
sore, Ace leapt, caught the edges of his cape and
parasailed down to the floor below in
pursuit.
* * *
Cosmo had nearly
died right there and then when Ace had been knocked back on the
stage, the magician's cry reaching even
him at the doorway he'd just entered. He was already
moving when Ace got unsteadily to his
feet. The relief that his partner was alive had nearly been
overpowering as Ace summoned the full
magic force to him.
Unconsciously, Cosmo
felt his mind reach out to form the shield to protect himself, only
then remembering the futility of the action.
That had cut him-- cut him to the quick just how
wrong it all was when he felt nothing
of the magic force's wild power as Ace became the
Magician. Then he was gone in a swirl
of his cape and explosion of glittering dust as more shots
hit the stage.
Cosmo's eyes
went up to the riggings, that being where the shots came from. Distantly,
he heard Ace shout and it was followed
by another explosion as metallic debris rained down,
pinging off the stage.
Grimly, Cosmo smiled.
Teach the bastard.
He held his breath
as there was more shouting above. There was nothing he could do at
the moment and it was driving him nuts.
Muscles twitched with the mad desire to do something!
Anything to get this scummy little perp!
Eternity seemed
to pass and Cosmo briefly wondered if Ace had gotten him. Then there
was a blur of movement and the teen's
eyes shot wide as he caught sight of Brian leaping out to
the guide lines.
And missing.
He felt a strange
sense of satisfaction as the young man fell with a cry. But his
satisfaction was cut short as Brian was
suddenly caught in a levitation and carefully lowered to
the floor below.
Fury seared through
him. Not only at Brian's physical appearance before him, but the
cruel reminder of the forces he was no
longer sensitive to as Ace worked his magic.
Nothing. He felt
nothing! It wasn't fair!!
For a moment,
Brian stood there shakily, looking up. Cosmo had to admit, it almost
looked like he was going to give up. But
the moment passed, fear flitted across the young man's
face and he made a run for a door.
Cosmo snarled. Damn!
That was an emergency exit. One of the doors he couldn't seal,
and on the other side of the theater to
boot. But it didn't lead directly into the main hall, it led to
a side entrance that had only one way
out.
The gun that he had
tucked in his jacket was in his hand without conscious thought. With a
smile that held no humor, Cosmo spun about
and started through the halls of the Ring Theater to
cut off Brian's escape.
* * *
Brian was running
rather blindly, mind swirling. He had no idea what to do know. He had
run out of options.
He had failed.
Again.
That, and he was trying
to sort out what had just happened. Cooper could have let him
plummet to his death. It would have been
the easiest way for the magician to get him out of his
hair. There would be no questions. No
recriminations.
Yet..
Cooper had saved
him.
Why? To prolong
his agony? To drag out the hunt?
Strangely, Brian
didn't think so.
He let out a
frustrated snarl as he burst into a small side hall. For a moment he turned,
trying to get his bearings, then headed
toward the hall that would lead to the lobby. It was just too
confusing right now. He had to retreat,
think about what had happened and what to do next.
Just as he came
out of the small access hall Brian cried out as he was physically tackled
to the ground. His head smacked against
the hard tiled floor and only distantly was he aware of
being jerked up as something cold was
shoved against his temple.
"You're not going
anywhere, asshole!"
* * *
Ace slid into the access
hall and never let up his all out run till he reached the adjoining
hall. There he came skidding to a halt.
"Cosmo..."
Ace felt the blood
rush from his face at the sight of his partner. Cosmo had a brutal grip
on
Brian's hair, pulling the young man back
with a pistol shoved against his temple.
"We're just talking,
Ace," Cosmo snarled, finger tensing on the trigger.
"Cosmo, put the gun
down," Ace urged softly, warily approaching.
Brian's eyes darted
to him, then up toward Cosmo. It was hard to read what was going on
in the former apprentice's eyes. Defiance,
uncertainty... terror.
"Just do it.
Just end this farce and strike me down," Brain hissed with wavering bravado.
"Like you did my master."
Cosmo laughed
coarsely. "Master? Calen? That guy hated your guts."
"Liar!"
"Cosmo."
"Shut up, Ace!"
Cosmo leaned down,
lips against Brian's ears. "You had his journal all this time. Never
read it once, did you? Why is that?"
"It.. it was
his.. he..." Brian stammered.
"Cause you knew
what was in there. Cause you knew you would find the truth in his own
handwriting," Cosmo went on tauntingly.
"How he loathed your very existence. How you were
only useful for your mechanical skills.
How he thought you beneath his notice, your only
redeeming feature being how you could
blend magic and technology."
Brian sobbed.
"Liar."
"Huh. Right!
Want me to recite some passages? I read the whole damn thing. Face facts,
Brian, James Calen was a bastard son of
a bitch and he hated your guts!"
"Cosmo, enough of this!"
Ace moved forward, but Cosmo snarled at him, jerking back and
taking Brian with him.
"Stay out of
this, Ace," he warned softly.
"No, Cosmo. I
will not allow this."
"Stay out of
this!"
"I... I... He
was my friend," Brian went on. "He had to like me."
"Had to? Try
tolerated your existence. He used you, dude. And you let yourself be used.
Believe whatever you like, but Calen was
no one's friend," Cosmo laughed cruelly.
"He... he...,"
Brain stammered. "He was all I had."
"Pretty pathetic
then, bud." Cosmo snapped. "How's this sound? June 6th. Well... the
brat's done it again. Loath as I am to
admit it, he has his uses. Actually managed to bring the
computer online. Not quite like I wanted
it. The insufferable fool still keeps trying to give it a
"personality." But only a little longer.
A little longer and I will rid myself of Cooper and have no
need for that sniffling excuse of an apprentice."
Cosmo leaned
a little closer.
"Yeah, he liked
you a whole lot. Well enough to be planning to get rid of you the moment
he offed Ace. Some loving friend you picked."
Brian was a trembling
mess, lower lip quivering at the raw facts Cosmo presented. Ace
saw the denial warring with the truth
the young man had always known, but couldn't accept.
Didn't want to accept, given his lonely
existence.
"I deserve to die,"
Brian whispered at last. "It would hurt less if you killed me."
"Oh man, I am so tempted,"
Cosmo snarled, Ace paling at the raw hatred plainly visible in
his young friend's face. He felt his gut
clench at the sight. Cosmo had a temper, but he had
moved beyond anger to all out rage. He
had to stop this now.
"Cosmo," Ace said softly,
gently, putting his fear into his voice. Feverish gray eyes
flickered up to him, then back down, fury
in their depths.
"He's no better than
Calen, Ace. No better," Cosmo rumbled, the gun quivering in his grip.
"Don't kill him," Ace
ordered firmly. Cosmo shook his head, an odd smile coming to his
lips.
"Not yet I won't. Not
till he tells me,"
"Tell... tell you what?"
Brian stammered uncertainly.
"You're little globe.
How it works," Cosmo all but growled.
Brian blinked and shook
his head. "It didn't work. He still has his magic."
"How does it work?!"
Brian cried out as
the gun drilled into his temple.
"Cosmo!"
Enough was enough!
But Ace did not leap forward. Instead, he walked, slowly, calmly and
laid a hand on Cosmo's gun arm. The teen
looked at him, pain, hurt, fear, anger all burning in his
face.
"No, Cosmo. This is
not the way. This is not your way," Ace told him calmly.
"Ace..."
"Put the gun down,
Cosmo. For me."
"But he.."
"I know what he did.
Don't let him, or Calen, bring you down to their level." Ace felt
lightheaded with the furious pounding
of his pulse in his veins as he waited. The trigger fingered
tightened, released and tightened.
"No!" it was an animalistic
snarl. Then Cosmo addressed Brian. "Not till I get my answers."
"We will get your answers,
Cosmo. Brian will talk to us."
"Like hell! He's Calen's
little alter boy. You think he'll talk to us? Really?" Cosmo snapped
in disgust. "The guy is scum, bro. Be
doing the world a favor spreading his brains all over."
Brian shuddered and
closed his eyes, trembling.
"Look at him, Cosmo,"
Ace ordered softly.
Cosmo frowned and made
a rude face. "Why should I?"
"Look at him," Ace
repeated simply. Cosmo hesitated, watched Ace with misgiving, then
slowly his eyes dropped down to the trembling
young man beneath his hand. Seemed to lock on
with morbid fascination
"All he wanted was
someone to be his friend. Does that sound familiar? He just wanted
someone to care. He just had the misfortune
of finding Calen. Look at him, Cosmo, and tell me
he isn't suffering, won't suffer for what
he's done."
Cosmo shuddered, gaze
wavering. Ace was silent as he saw his partner swallow
reflexively.
"Ace.. I need the answers,"
Cosmo argued in a small voice. He looked back at him. "I
need them..."
Ace nodded. He knew
just how desperately Cosmo needed his magic back, and
understood the lengths he would go, even
if it cost him everything he believed in, even if it
meant selling his very soul.
"And we'll get them.
But not like this, Cosmo. Revenge is never the right way,"
"I... I'll tell you...
but it didn't work.. did it?" Brian looked up at Cosmo, realization dawning
in him. "You?"
Cosmo tightened his
grip and pressed the gun deeper. "Just tell me," he hissed.
Ace's heart skipped
a beat. Brian had figured it out. Right now that could be a very bad
thing.
"It did work..." he
mumbled, a slump coming to his shoulder. "It does hurt..."
Cosmo's hand smacked
against the back of Brian's head brutally, Ace flinching at the
sudden attack as Cosmo caught Brian's
hair again, pulling his head back. He felt his heart
breaking at how close Cosmo was to losing
everything. Dear god, he had to stop him now!
"Didn't ask you to
analyze anything, just tell me how it works!" Cosmo screamed in the
man's ear.
Brian curled up in
himself, tried to, but Cosmo's grip on his hair was too strong. He looked
up pitifully to the enraged teen.
"I'm sorry."
That, Cosmo did not
expect, and Ace saw him physically flinch back. The unexpected
apology seemed to suddenly diffuse some
of the overpowering anger in his apprentice.
"I didn't mean to hurt
you. I wanted... I wanted to hurt Cooper....." Brian stammered.
"Like I hurt you?"
Ace asked, kneeling before the young man.
Brian couldn't look
at him, but nodded. "You took him away from me..." Brian murmured.
"But I never really had him, did I?"
Ace felt incredible
pity as Brian looked at him for the answers. "No. I'm sorry, but Cosmo
is
telling the truth. Calen only used you
for you technical skills."
Brian shuddered
and a tear rolled down his cheek. "I.... I.. just wanted..." He gave up
miserably.
Ace knew what he had
wanted. Someone to care for him. Just like Cosmo had at one
time. Brian just had the misfortune of
finding James Calen.
He looked up at his
friend and caught and held Cosmo's gaze. The teen was trembling, the
deep seated anger warring with his own
natural compassion. Slowly, Ace touched his arm, let his
hand slid down Cosmo's wrist and to the
gun. He didn't put up any resistance as Ace gently
eased it from his fingers. Cosmo looked
at him, choked back his own sob and took a step back,
releasing Brian. The young man didn't
move, just sat there and stared, his world crashing around
him.
Ace simply tossed the
gun aside and stood, arms going out and about his partner. Cosmo
fought the embrace even as the older man
enveloped him.
"I.. I need to know,
Ace," Cosmo choked. "Is there a cure?"
Ace nodded, looking
down on him compassionately. "I will keep my promise, Cosmo. I will
find a cure to this," he promised softly.
"But I won't let you kill to get it. I won't let you damn
yourself to get the answer." Then he tightened
his hold. "Trust me."
Cosmo took a
shuddering breath and relented, his arms coming tentatively around the
magician, slumping against him weakly
as he returned the hug. "I'm sorry, Ace. Sorry I lost it," he
murmured remorsefully against his shoulder.
Ace hushed him gently.
"I understand, Cosmo. It's okay." He released the teen and held
him at arm's length. "I do understand."
"I'm sorry," Brian
mumbled. They turned to where the young man was watching them,
wretched and pathetic looking. "I never
meant to hurt anyone else. I'm sorry."
Ace turned, cautiously
keeping Cosmo behind him. His younger partner might be okay at
the moment, but Ace did not want to push
his luck.
"Brian, how do you
undo the damage the sphere caused?" he asked simply.
Brian swallowed and
looked at his hands. "You don't..."
"No!!!"
"Cosmo!" Ace spun and
caught him, latched on and held him tight.
"Wait.. wait...!" Brian
gasped as Cosmo stared at him horror struck. "You can't undo it, but
the effect isn't permanent," he went on
hastily. "It.... the block should wear off. That's why I
moved so fast. I.. I didn't know how long
it would last, but it should wear off."
"You hear that, Cosmo?"
Ace whispered urgently, feeling the young man's heart beat
heavily in his chest. Cosmo was hyper-ventilating,
looking ready to faint, the first shock barely
easing off enough for Brian's hasty explanation
to seep through.
"Your magic will come
back. It will..." Ace went on, repeating the fact as Cosmo slumped
against him, weak with the emotional upheaval.
"It will..."
"Will it?" Cosmo asked
in a small voice, almost afraid to believe.
"Yes," Brian declared.
"I don't know how many days it will take. The sphere was a
prototype. I only had one stone to use
so it's never actually been tried before. But, according to
all my research, the block should dissipate
as the magical energy that generated it leaves your
system. I couldn't be sure of the exact
amount of time since every mage dissipates magic at a
different rate. Given how powerful you
are, Mr. Cooper, I suspected it would only be days till you
overcame the block. I.. I never accounted
for you having an apprentice." He swallowed and his
eyes dropped down as he laughed depreciatively
"Calen was right. I could never get anything
right."
Ace sighed at the sad
sight, but could offer no comfort; his own apprentice needed him
right now, needed his strength a little
longer. Now that everything was in the open, Ace felt a
tremendous relief wash through him, followed
by an equally tremendous weakness. The hell they
had survived the last several days wearing
his own reserves down.
"Cosmo?" He urged the
teen to meet his eyes. "You okay?"
A slow nod was his
answer. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks, bro." The hand on his arm tightened
and Ace saw his own physical and emotional
exhaustion mirrored in his friend.
With a reassuring smile,
Ace slowly released Cosmo and waited as the young man
managed to keep standing on his own two
feet, though he swayed.
"What will you do with
me?" Brian asked in a timid voice.
"Good question." Ace
knelt down. "Contrary to what you've been told, I'm not a man who
seeks revenge. You will have to face up
to what you did, Brian. What you did to Cosmo and me,
but it will be up to the courts to decide
your fate."
Brian nodded slowly,
then let out a little snort. "A lie... Everything he told me was a lie,"
he
muttered, swallowed and wrung his hands
together. "A lie.
"I'm sorry, Brian."
"Why?"
"That he did lie to
you, and so many other people. Sorry that you too, were a victim."
Brian shrugged. "I
let myself be one."
Ace could only nod.
Brian wasn't evil, but extremely messed up and misguided. Quietly,
he called in Vega. It was time to let
the police take over and clean this mess up. Brian was not
even aware as he stood up and retreated
to Cosmo. The young inventor seemed to have drawn
in to himself, as if trying to escape
the nightmare of his own making.
Ace could only
wish him luck.
* * *
It was over.
Most of it anyway.
Ace sat in the living
room, feet up on the couch table, staring at the ceiling through
half-closed eyes. As much as he wanted
to relax, his body and mind still refused to. He had
performed the shows of the last two days
like on automatic, as charming as always, but still more
or less automatic. Cosmo had been backstage,
handling the controls, but he had been missing
his usual enthusiasm as well. They had
come home right after that, declining to go out for a
drink, and Cosmo had disappeared into
his room without a word. Ace didn't blame him. This was
getting harder and harder for him, especially
since Brian had told them that the effects would
wear off after a while.
But what was 'after
a while'? How many hours, day, weeks.... months? Ace shuddered to
think about having his magic taken away
from him ever. What if this took weeks? Cosmo would
slowly go off the deep end. Right now
he was managing okay, but watching Ace do his magic
and being unable to feel it, to grasp
it, it was taking its toll. For all his protests that he had never
wanted it, now he was suddenly shown what
it meant to be without. It was a terrible way to
suddenly become appreciative of what had
been before.
Mona had called once,
but he had been brief and almost dismissive, regretting his tone of
voice immediately. He had to call and
explain the situation to her. He owed her that much.
"Anyone in there?"
a voice suddenly asked and Ace snapped out of his reverie.
Vega stood before him,
smiling, and Ace found himself answering the smile, though less
enthusiastic than normal. "Hey, Vega."
The cop sat down, placing
a thick collection of folders and a rather large package onto the
table. "I thought I'd drop by to let you
in on what's happening at the moment."
Ace sat up, taking
his feet off the table. Suddenly he was all ears. Vega made himself
comfortable and tossed him a folder. It
was of medium size, with lots of computer printed paper,
some black-and-white pictures, as well
as some handwritten notes.
"The official report."
Ace read over the first
few pages. He knew police reports inside out, knew where to look
on the complicated and confusing forms,
and he found that everything had been put down rather
clinically. Brian Thomas was accused of
several severe deeds, most of them ranging around
bodily attack, then there was thievery,
possession of unlicensed weapons and some more. Ace
looked up.
"Unlicensed weapons?"
he asked.
Vega shrugged. "Just
making sure we have everything down. And what else would you call
those attack robots? This report draws
a watertight picture, so in case he gets a good lawyer, he
won't slip through because of an error
on our part. If he manages to somehow get out of the
severe bodily harm accusations, we can
always throw the rest at him."
Ace understood. He
read on. Brian's apartment had been searched top to bottom and
everything had been confiscated. They
had secured all his toys and he books, had found more
plans for even deadlier machines, as well
as simple children toys, in one of the drawers
underneath assorted tools. Ace scanned
over the list of confiscated things. Someone had made
the effort to list every single book.
He frowned.
Vega, apparently aware
of what he was currently studying, smiled grimly. "Whatever binds
Brian to magic, the real stuff, is not
on this list, Ace."
"Come again?"
Vega indicated the
box. "Little present from an unknown friend." He smiled again. "I know
you don't want suspicions to bubble up
to the surface, and I know Brian won't spill anything about
real magic, unless he wants to end up
in the loony bin. This little package contains what links
magic and Brian."
Ace stared at his friend.
"You stole it?"
The older man looked
mock shocked. "Stole? Ace, please, I'm a police officer. I removed
evidence, labeled it, filed it, but the
file was lost somehow. I gave it to the police pound, as is the
proper procedure, and it was archived
for later." A sly grin appeared on his lips.
"But since there is
no official list, no one will ever search for the box," Ace continued
slowly.
"And if they do, it
will take them years to find out that it was lost in the bureaucracy
because someone mislabeled it." Vega shrugged.
"We don't need it for the court anyway."
"Vega.... I .... "
Ace didn't know what to say. What his friend had just told him he had
done.... there were no word of thanks
enough for it. Vega was effectively covering Ace's tracks.
Vega waved it off.
"Forget it. I have. Take the box and do whatever you want with it."
Ace nodded, smiling,
trying to relay his thanks. He quickly scanned the rest of the report,
ignoring most of the pictures, that showed
the apartment and Brian himself. The official reason
for Brian's attack was revenge for Ace's
involvement in hospitalizing James Calen. Brian, a
student of Calen, had targeted Ace Cooper,
but his first attempts injured Cosmo. Following up on
his unsuccessful attempt, he was finally
caught when he had set up another trap at the Ring
Theater. Charges would be pressed, but
a mental evaluation of Brian Thomas was needed
because of his unstable mind. He was currently
held in the psychiatric high security ward.
Finally he closed the
folder and placed it on the stack. "What else did you bring?"
Vega smiled. "All the boring details about
the ongoing investigations. Nothing you have to
concern yourself with. Just take this
box somewhere safe."
Ace reached out, touched
the magic and drew it to him, then concentrated on the box. It
disappeared in a shower of golden sparkles.
Vega raised an eyebrow, then smiled. Ace didn't say
anything.
"How is Cosmo?" the
cop finally asked.
"Not getting better,
not getting much worse," was the quiet answer. "Brian said the effects
would wear off, but he didn't say when.
Cosmo is yearning for that day, but we don't know if it will
be tomorrow or next week."
"Or next month," Vega
said softly, nodding.
Ace sighed deeply.
"I pray it won't be the case. I truly pray."
Vega scratched his
beard. "Are you up for a coffee?" he asked.
Ace sighed. "Double,
extra strong, and I'm with you."
His friend laughed.
"The sort where the spoon melts, right?"
He chuckled. "Something
like it." Ace got off the comfy chair and stretched, feeling
hardened muscles protest. "Angel?" he
asked.
"Yes, Ace?" the computer
replied, a diamond-shaped likeness of the AI forming not far
away from the magician.
"Is Cosmo awake?"
Usually, Ace didn't
check on Cosmo through Angel, but if his friend was sleeping, then he
didn't want to disturb him.
"One moment, Ace."
Angel flickered once, then she said, "Yes, he is asleep."
"Tell him Vega and
I have gone out for a coffee, Angel," Ace instructed.
"As you wish."
Both men left the Magic
Express and took Vega's car for a change, since Ace felt too tired
to drive and Vega thought it would be
less dangerous to all the other drivers if he was at the
steering wheel.
* * *
Cosmo wandered out of
the shower feeling pretty much as he had the last few days.
Miserable.
Zina was at his side
in an instant and he smiled faintly, hunting up some clean clothes. He
managed a pair of old jeans and a purple
shirt, dragging them on without thought. He'd slept last
night without nightmares but waking as
always was a bad dream in itself. Cold... cold where there
should have been warmth. Silence where
there should have been the soft hiss of magic. And
loneliness where there should have been
a presence that was as familiar as his own face.
Time. It was all a
matter of time now. He clung to that fact. Clung to it like a drowning
man
at sea. Brian had sworn the block would
fade as the magic that had created it dissipated from his
system. But not fast enough. No way fast
enough!
Heaving a tired sigh,
Cosmo trudged out into the hall. He'd managed to sleep.. mostly,
fitfully, but the nightmares had not come.
Perhaps hope was holding them at bay. It was all he
had right now.
Hope.
Man... How many times
had he wished he could be rid of his magic? How many times and
now...
'Be careful what you
wish for...' he mused darkly
Should get something
to eat. It was a rogue thought. He had little appetite. If Ace didn't
make him eat, it was unlikely he would.
Thinking of his partner made Cosmo stop and frown.
"Angel, where is Ace?"
"He went out with Lt.
Vega for coffee forty one minutes ago, Cosmo."
Cosmo didn't quite
control the flinch. Ace had left. He was alone.
No.
No! He wouldn't freak.
The world wasn't ending, even if it felt like it to him. The magician
had more than earned the respite. Taking
a deep breath, letting it out slowly, Cosmo forced
himself into a form of calm.
No.
Patient, he just had
to patient. He had to stand on his own now. Soon... the magic would
come back. Soon, he hoped.
He hoped.
Zina gave him an encouraging
murph, head butting him toward the lift. Demanding his full
attention.
"Okay, okay. I get
the hint. Someone wants their breakfast," he chuckled as the cat looked
critically at him.
"Come o..." Cosmo gasped
and doubled over. He felt.. something, shoot through him. Zina
gave a low meow as Cosmo stumbled, hand
rising to his chest as another stab tore through him.
He wasn't even aware of floundering into
the wall, resting there, hand on his chest. He felt his
heartbeat, faster than it should be, beneath
his palm. Wondered what was hitting him.
Exhaustion? Probably, but could it...?
Could it be?
'Please, please
let it be coming back,' he prayed silently, waiting.
At first, there was
nothing else-- then another stab that elicited a cry from him as he was
momentarily overwhelmed. Zina definitely
wasn't happy as he slid hard to the floor, but Cosmo
didn't care. He was feeling... something.
'pleasepleaseplease...'
Another bolt
of power went through Cosmo and he cried out. It hurt, and it didn't. Truth
was, he didn't care either way.
He *felt* something.
"Cosmo?" Ace appeared,
frowning as the teen looked up. The young man was on the
floor, wedged against the wall, smiling
oddly and holding a hand to his chest. Then he gasped
and doubled over.
"Cosmo!" He knelt
beside him, fearing the worst as a tear trickled over Cosmo's face. The
magician clutched at the trembling shoulders
and urged the young man upright, worried sick. But
Cosmo smiled, smiled with the profoundest
relief.
"I feel it, Ace,"
he gasped, wincing as another tremor tore at him. "Feel it..."
Ace gasped, then
looked anxiously. "Your magic?!"
A shaky nod.
A hand thumped against his chest. "Warm," Cosmo declared weakly.
"Warm."
Ace couldn't
help but smile. Warm. The term Cosmo always used to describe his partner's
living presence. The touch to his chest,
the gesture that went with that description. A strangled
cry made him jerk and Ace held on as the
teen shivered.
"Cosmo? What's
wrong?"
Cosmo, breathing
labored, swallowed heavily. "Hurts. Coming back in little stabs. Sort of
like when your arm falls asleep," he confessed,
then grinned. "Don't care! I don't care. It's coming
back, Ace. It's coming.. urk!"
"Easy there,"
Ace hushed him as Cosmo doubled over again. He held on as tremors
racked the teen. Held on tight even while
he grinned. "What else do you feel?"
"Nothing yet.
All kind of fuzzy, but man... " Cosmo looked at him. Looked at him with
a life
the gray eyes had been sorely lacking.
"It's coming back!"
Ace hugged him
and held on through another tremor. "Come on." He pulled his young
friend up. "Might as well be comfortable
if you get to go through the pins and needles of your
magic coming back," Ace murmured happily,
leading Cosmo to the living room couch.
"Man, don't care
how it feels now, as long as it comes back," Cosmo chuckled, flopping
down. He looked at Ace and smiled. The
emotions weren't there, not yet, but the warmth was
and it made all the difference. All the
difference in the world.
He rested, the
stabbing pains seeming to cease for now. He worried slightly about that.
But, it was a start. A start.
"Think... think
they've stopped," he explained, feeling tired despite the night's sleep
he
had just had. But man, oh man. He couldn't
help but grin.
"Well.. how about
you stay here for now?" Ace suggested, trying not to look worried that
all of his senses hadn't returned. "Just
in case."
Cosmo nodded
and sighed, reveling in the warmth, hand rubbing at his chest without
thought. "Here's just fine, dude. Here's
just fin..." He wheezed, twisting, folding in on himself a
hot wave seem to lance through as another
stab hit him "Or.. maybe it's not over," he laughed.
Ace wasn't sure
whether to laugh with him or not. Cosmo's magic was returning, not
easily, that was apparent, but returning.
He did offer a reassuring smile as another tremor hit his
partner, then another.
"Oh man.." Cosmo
gasped, hands tightening into fists.
"Cosmo?" The
teen looked suddenly pale, body stiffening.
"Oh God, Ace,"
it was a choked whisper as Cosmo sucked in a hard breath.
"Cosmo!" Ace
cried as Cosmo screamed, arching up. Ace gasped as he felt the magic
force come to life, fairly roar around
the young man as, for the first time in so many days, the
magic responded to the fledgling magician.
Ace grabbed Cosmo,
held on tight as his body spasmed hard. Gasping breath the only
sound as a last, violent seizure hit the
teen, leaving he slumped weakly into Ace's embrace.
"Oh man... now
that's a rush," Cosmo mumbled weakly, looking up at Ace.
Worry, definite
worry, tinted with fear and joy. Cosmo laughed. He felt it all now. All
of it!
All of it!!! The magic force was a whisper
of power around him, undulating and turning with the
excitement. A shiver danced along his
neck as Ace's familiar mage aura registered and the link
fairly glowed. Glowed with forgotten life.
"Cosmo?"
He looked at
his friend, worn out, but happier than he thought possible.
"All of it, Ace.
I have it all back," it was a hoarse whisper and Cosmo felt like he'd just
run
a marathon. But who cared? It was back.
His magic was back! If he didn't feel like crap, he'd be
celebrating. "Back."
Ace hugged him
and smiled. "Congratulations, Cosmo. Congratulations!"
Cosmo grinned
and chuckled, closing his eyes against the pounding headache starting to
creep up as he simply floated in the magic
and the link. It was back. All of it. Cosmo couldn't
imagine feeling any other way. Feeling
anything but the magician he was. Nothing.
"Think... think
I'll take a nap," he murmured, realizing his eyes were determined to stay
close. A chuckle answered him and warmth
through the link which he kept wide open. Man, Ace
was going to have to threaten his life
to get him to throw up a shield anytime to soon.
"Good idea. Here,
I'll help you to your room."
"Nah.." Cosmo
happily fell over. "Couch is fine." It was a comfy couch after all.
More warmth flooded
him, tinged with slight worry and amusement. He focused in on it,
the warmth, the rush of power around him.
Dear God, his world had been so silent. He hadn't
realized just how silent his world had
been without the magic. Not any more though. Not
anymore!
Something soft
was draped over him and Cosmo's skin tingled with the caress of silk and
power. Ace's cape as the older man tucked
him in.
"Thanks, bud,"
he mumbled, sleep catching up to him waaay to quickly.
"No problem."
It was the last coherent words Cosmo heard as he gave into the darkness.
Darkness touched with the life and light
of his magic. For the first time, in what seemed a
lifetime, Cosmo's dreams were good.
