Chapter 2: A Deal Made
Rain was pelting at the windows as Tod Fischer crept up the rickety wooden stairs, muffling any creaking that would have eked out into the damp autumn air. Upon reaching the next landing, he crept down the hall to the door at the end. Drawing a curious, eloquent looking stick from his coat pocket, he pointed it at the lock and whispered, "Alohamora,"after which the door immediately unlocked with a small click.
Sliding like a shadow into the room, he whispered curious words again.
"Aparecium. Accio scarab stone!"
A small jewelry box rattled at the side of the dresser, and out burst a pin shaped like a scarab beetle, set with a handsome green stone. Tod caught it, slipping it into a moleskin bag around his neck. As he looked up from the dresser, he caught the sight of eyes behind him, watching from the figure on the bed, now clearly awake and realizing that he was about to be robbed.
All at once Tod ducked as the figure from the bed threw an arm out and a red jet of light missed and all but destroyed the dresser. Tod rolled right, sprang up and yelled "Petrificus Totalus!", pointing his stick at the figure, and immediately after pointing it at the one dingy window. "Reducto!"
Glass shattered, rain and wind blowing in, along with a small dark ball, no larger than that used to play pool. It began to hiss and black smoke came from it, enveloping the room in darkness. Tod leapt for the window and out with confidence, where two men who looked remarkably like one another cushioned his fall with sticks of their own.
"How'd it go?" the one asked, throwing a leg over a Honda motorcycle, while the others did the same.
"Mr. Selwyn woke up and might have cracked his head open on the end table when I stunned him, but I'm not about to go back and check," Tod explained.
"But you did get the piece right?" The other man asked, his bike roaring to life in the little alley, scaring a few cats from behind the dumpster.
"Of course I did. I don't have a 100% success rate for nothing. In fact here," he said, tossing the moleskin bag to the second man. "You take it, since you're the fastest. I think that guy was waiting for me, so we better split."
"Who would know we were coming after this scarab talisman? You think it's a trap?" asked the first man.
"I don't know Takeo, but I really don't want to stick around and find out, which is why I want you and Daisuke to carry the talisman. It will create more confusion."
Slicking his hair back, the man identified as Daisuke nodded and revved the engine, leading the other two bikes as they rolled out of the alley and into the pouring rain. Curiously, they did not seem to get wet, as if a shield around the motorcycles kept them dry and protected. Once toward the edge of town, and the lights of Seattle fading behind them, Takeo looked over at the two others and who nodded back in a silent, understood question. With a quick glance to make sure no one was around, Takeo pressed a small blue button on the dash, and the motorcycle lifted from the ground like a bird taking flight.
Cold air whipped through Tod's black locks, but the shield charm held to keep them dry as they pressed into the clouds and above. Tod saw the red jet of light in his rearview mirror, and rolled just in time to dodge it. Two figures on broom sticks erupted from the clouds, blasting with abandon at the three motorcycles. Rolling his bike, Tod caught Daisuke looking back at him. Regret filled the other man's features just before dragon flames roared from the back of his and Takeo's bikes and they disappeared into the clouds again.
Tod leaned hard, spinning the bike as he took a dive through the cloud back and back into the weather below. Heart hammering, he gritted his teeth, concentrating on flying as jinxes flew past his head. As far as he could tell, it was just one of the flyers behind him now. The angry sea churned below him, and pulling hard, he flew the bike so close to the rocky cliffs that he could feel the rain as it bounced off the dirt. Turning hard into an alcove, he was immediately met with the other flier. With a gasp he wrenched the bike up, but the other flier was ready, throwing a jinx that sent the bike careening into the trees.
Leaping at the last second, Tod hit several branches on the way down, and heard a crack as a sharp pain jolted up his arm until at last he landed on the rain softened earth.
"Protego!" he breathed, holding the stick up as the two fliers dismounted and threw several hexes at him, their robes of grey billowing as they approached him. His shield held, but barely.
A woman of curly blond hair, so barely kempt it appeared to be exploding from her attempt at a pony tail lowered her hood. Seeing her companion do so, the other flier did as well to reveal a young man about Tod's age with swept back orange hair and freckles. He did not know the second person, but he knew the first, and it caused his heart to sink a bit.
"Lower your wand Tod of the Crystal Coyotes. You are cornered, and you will be coming with us," the blond woman.
Tod saw he had no chance; he was too injured to escape and there was no challenging this woman. He thought of the peruvian instant darkness powder he had in his pocket, but he was already his with an anti-apparition charm, which put escaping out of the question. That and he could feel the pain radiating up his left arm, his back wet with the trunk of the tree he was leaning against. Reluctantly, he lowered his wand.
The young man took it. The woman came over, holding her broom in one hand, and hoisting Tod painfully up with the other. In an instant Tod felt a familiar squeezing sensation.
Tod stumbled as they came out in front of a large square building in a city he didn't recognize. Out from the side, between it and another large square build sprang another, pushing both buildings aside to take it's rightful spot. This one was limestone with heavy iron doors, and Tod could not figure if it was to keep others out, or certain people in. In his most estimable opinion, it was an auror outpost. America was too big to simply apparate every criminal back to New York, so there were outposts all over to contain criminals until they could be transported.
Holding his injured arm gingerly as they entered, Tod looked for an exit, but could find none. Limestone became granite, and several intimidating fellows in robes mulled around, guarding a single winding staircase that lead upstairs. There were no windows. Driven by the woman down a long dark hallway, they came to a small room which contained a table and two chairs opposing one another, no windows or mirrors present. Her quarry slumped into a hard chair as she disappeared for several moments, leaving Tod alone with his thoughts of imminent demise.
It wouldn't be so bad, dying, he decided. He hadn't been afraid of that fate in years. It was the rotting away for years that would worry him. Cooped up with nothing to read or do. To Tod it truly was a fate worse than death.
The woman returned with a glass of water and set it in front of him. "You must be thirsty," she said casually. Tod could almost believe that there wasn't veritaserum in it. They locked eyes, sizing one another up as they had not been able to out in the rainy night. Tod could see images of 3 small girls and a bumbling middle-aged man, and something so dark…
Breaking eye-contact, the woman pulled out his wand, inspecting it in her fingers, as if enjoying a rose. "Cedar? 12 ¾ inches.."
Tod nodded.
"And the core?"
"Dragon Heartstring."
"That's fairly uncommon in America. Who was the maker?"
"Gregorovitch."
"Do you have a permit for it?"
Tod shook his head, a smirk appearing on his lips, despite his pain.
The woman smiled back, apparently in on the joke. "Of course not. Silly question. You're Tod of the Crystal Coyotes. Most wanted wizard in the United States. Why would you be following the rules?"
Clearing his throat, Tod forced himself to relax. "And you are Mallory Graves. The last of the Graves. Head Auror. Apparently married to a no-maj from what I can see, with three little girls."
"I will have do add Ligillimens to the list of your attributes," Mallory said as if adding to her grocery list. Despite her light tone, Tod felt his insight to her immediately cut off. Apparently she knew occlumency. "Did one of your friends take the talisman? If you still had it on you it should have set off the magical item detectors when we walked in."
Tod avoided the question. "I'm surprised you were tracking it. It isn't worth that much and its powers are not all that impressive in my opinion."
"Then why were you taking it?"
"I was being paid to. I would imagine that by now you have figured out that the things I go after, the jobs I take, they require a deft hand, not brute force. This particular talisman required my skill set to get to, but the more I think upon it, I feel that you were behind this job. You set me up to catch me. It is why you let my partners go free right? Be cause your goal was never to retrieve the talisman; it was to capture me?"
She grinned her Cheshire grin at him. "Exactly what I expect from you. Smart, cunning, crafty. You are very good at hiding. Your defense spells surprised even me with their strength. The auror in the bed was a bit too obvious wasn't it though?"
"That was not the first curse I would have thought of if I had found someone wandering into my room. He obviously premeditated it." Tod shifted his arm painfully, unable to stifle a soft breath at the aching sensation. "So now you have me, and I'm injured. When will my execution date be?"
"Execution? Who said anything about an execution?"
The smirk fell from Tod's lips. "I'm wanted dead or alive. How on earth would I be able to escape the execution chamber?" The idea or rotting in a cell seized on his heart again like a frost.
They locked eyes again, and Tod could see the crashing wave of darkness in her, but this time he knew it was because she wanted him to see it. The gears of his mind clicked. "You're cursed…how many people know?"
"As of right now? One, including yourself."
"Why let me see it? Surely you know that I am not a healer."
"It's not a healing I am seeking from you," she began, resting her heart-shaped face onto her hands, regarding Tod fondly. Even for her young age, she had smile lines around her eyes. "I am looking for someone with a very specific skill set. I have done my best to contain this curse, but I know that eventually it will catch up to me. I fear the person who has cast this on me may soon be after my girls. They will need protection when I am gone."
"Why not ask one of your Auror friends? They practically worship the ground you walk on anyway." Locking eyes again, Tod saw a very clear picture of the bumbling man and connected the dots. "The stigma of Rappaport's Law. No one knows you're married. No one knows you have children, because you married a no-maj."
It was if all the sunshine had briefly left her face, and she darkened. "I never would have been able to carry on the family name, or come as far as I have had anyone else known. And if anyone had found out I had small children, with all the people I have executed or sent to prison, they could have been used against me. I fear the people who cursed me already know."
"But why me?"
"Because I know your brother and-"
"I'm nothing like my brother!" he interrupted, a fierceness in him roaring to life.
"-and I know you will do it if it keeps you out of prison," she finished, her illuminating smile back. She had cornered him again.
Taking a few deep breaths, embarrassed for his outburst, Tod concluded, "So I hide and protect your children, and you won't give me life in prison?"
Turning his wand over, she offered it to him. "Do we have a deal?"
Reaching out with his non-painful arm, Tod grasped his wand.