We drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. There were a lot of things that we had to discuss. Ronan didn’t say anything, but I knew that he wanted to help me. We both decided to stop in the Broken Shoe. If Paul was locked up I had a feeling that no one would look for us there. And the pub was still central.
Ronan agreed, probably for my sake. I hadn’t eaten properly in over two weeks and I really needed to heal.
An hour later he parked his car, that he apparently rented out in Brixton, out in the alley and then we walked a short distance to the pub. The message on the door stated that the Broken Shoe was temporary closed. We used the back entrance to break in. It felt odd knowing that the retired Watcher wasn’t waiting for me there.
The space upstairs was small and in the end I took Paul’s bed and Ronan told me that he was happy with the sofa. We talked over a few things, but we were both too tired to come up with any solid plan, so we went to sleep.
After I lay in Paul’s bed, my tears started. I didn’t want to cry, but I felt like everything had fallen apart and there was no way out of this. I told myself that tomorrow I had to come up with a new plan or a solution. It was that or I didn’t want to wake up at all.
“You shouldn’t leave the pub. Too many people are looking for you right now,” Ronan said when I showed up in Paul’s tiny living room in the morning ready to conquer the new day. I tried to ignore the fact that my head was throbbing with pain and my muscles felt ridiculously stiff. Ronan had given me some magical paste for my back, and that helped with the pain.
It was going to take a while before I’d feel like myself again. My magic was still gone and I refused to think that I would never get it back. For now I was just a human girl that needed to heal, at the same time I was ready for anything.
“I have to find out where Ricky and the rest of the team are being kept,” I said, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus. “You know that I won’t be able to sit around. This will drive me absolutely insane.”
It looked like Ronan went out this morning, because there were some groceries in the fridge and a freshly brewed coffee.
“Some demons in the area have set an award for your head, Maxine. If you want to go out you have to change your appearance,” Ronan said, and my jaw dropped. I couldn’t bloody believe it. I was only gone a few weeks. Things were looking bleak for me. This was the time when I needed to rely on my magic regardless and that bitch had taken it away.
“I changed my appearance in order to get into the palace. Ricky had brewed a specific potion for that,” I told him.
I also had to get in touch with Cyril, hoping that he was still in Rodriguez’s good books. He hadn’t been in the meeting with Nameless and the rest of the group, and he was the only other person that I trusted.
Ronan offered to get the ingredients that we needed. Shortly after that he left the pub. I hated that Alexis had forced me into hiding. She really had managed to screw with my life big time.
I switched on Paul’s TV and started changing channels, looking for something to do.
“Maxine Brodeur is armed and extremely dangerous. If you spot her call this number immediately,” a handsome reporter was saying and for a second I thought that I was seeing things.
My face was plastered across the main news channels. Ronan wasn’t exaggerating when he said that everyone in London was after me. Now I had no other choice. I needed to change my appearance.
It was a miracle that I had managed to escape last night. That must have really pissed her off. I knew that if it weren’t for Ronan the human police would have been scraping my parts off the rail track.
I sighed loudly, and started brushing my tangled hair. That way I was able to clear my head. The pacing wasn’t helping me anymore.
Rodriguez most likely used his influence from the palace to get to Zachary’s boss too. Nameless must have reported to Alexis that the detective was helping me all along.
Ronan was right: I couldn’t even think of going out of the pub as real Maxine Brodeur. Some of my clients had always been loyal to the agency, but the media had put me in such a bad light that now it was going to be very hard to prove that I was innocent.
It took Ronan two hours to come back with everything we needed. He said Ricky’s apartment seemed in order, but it was too risky to go back there. I was itching to get out, to head straight over to the palace, but Ronan convinced me that it was another suicide mission. Alexis was still pretty much alive, and that was exactly what she was expecting from me.
“It will take me a few hours to prepare this potion. Have you got any idea who you want to turn into?” Ronan asked, unloading all the stuff on the table in the kitchen. My stomach tightened when I thought about all the people that I had met and interacted with. Emma was the first choice, but she was most likely locked up too.
“Paul’s barmaid. She works for him from time to time. He should have a photocopy of her ID somewhere,” I said, knowing that this made perfect sense. After that I could easily move around London undetected.
I had a slight panic or anxiety attack when I went downstairs to fetch that ID. My hands started to shake and I felt like my chest had cracked open. I hated seeing the pub empty, hated the fact that I couldn’t get out. Paul had been building his business for years and now it was my fault that it was falling apart.
By the time I went back upstairs I was drenched with sweat and my breathing was laboured. This had never happened to me before and I really needed to get myself together. My friends were counting on me. Ronan was brewing the potion on the kitchen work surface.
“Ah, we might have missed a very important detail, Maxine,” Ronan said, staring at the tar-dark liquid that was bubbling slowly away.
“What is it?”
“You are no longer a mongrel, which means that the potion might not work,” he pointed out and I was ready to scream. I didn’t think about that, and in a way Ronan was right. What if that potion wasn’t going to work?
“We don’t have any other option. I need to get to Ricky and Paul somehow,” I said, feeling stupid. Of course, there was no guarantee, but I had to try it.
We waited a few hours until Ronan was done. Then came the moment of truth. I didn’t want to drag this along, so I drank it as soon as the potion was cool enough. My heart pounded in my chest waiting for something to happen. Minutes started to drag and I knew that without this I was pretty much screwed.
Alexis had taken everything from me—my magic, my hope and now even my dignity.
“Maxine, we have to come up with some—”
“No, this is going to work. Alexis hasn’t won yet. This is happening. I’m not human,” I cut him off, shaking all over and pacing around. I kept telling myself over and over that maybe there was another option, another way out of this. More time passed, and anger shifted into disappointment and resentment.
Sour sadness blocked up my lungs and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
My magic was gone, probably forever, and I knew that I would never accept it. Ever.
Chapter 23
“For flames were scattered around among these tombs. The pits were therefore so intensely fired, no tradesman needs his iron half so hot.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my palms. I was ready to start pulling my hair out in frustration. There was only so much that I could take after everything that went on in the past several weeks. The potion wasn’t going to work, and the dreadful silence was making me queasy.
“What am I going to do now?” I asked, my anger evident. I needed to see Ricky, hear his encouraging voice. There was nothing wrong with Ronan; we just weren’t very close. It’d been over two weeks since I had been locked up in that cell by Alexis and I had no idea what happened with Zach and Emma. For a start, who was looking after her daughter?
“This complicates things, Maxine. Maybe if I …”
Ronan trailed off without finishing his thought, so I looked up
wondering what the hell was wrong with him this time. A moment later he smiled brightly, scratching his jaw.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The potion is beginning to work. Your appearance is changing,” he said and I instantly shot back on my feet and ran to the mirror. He was right—my skin became darker and my hair was shorter too. It took over half an hour for the potion to take affect. Paul’s barmaid’s mother or father must have been black. I didn’t care, she could have been from the moon if that meant that I could become her for a day.
Maybe everything wasn’t completely lost yet. There was still a chance to make things right, to clean my name. I had to get in touch with Cyril. Only Ricky, Emma and Zach knew that he helped me to get into the palace—other than Alexis and Rodriguez—and he was the only one that knew what happened to my crew.
My clothes didn’t fit me anymore. Paul’s barmaid was shorter and much fuller. She was very pretty and she was a mongrel like me, although her magic didn’t just transfer over. I wished that Ricky’s potion could work like that.
“Great, because I was ready to give up,” I said, feeling relief. “We need to hurry. I have a million things to do.”
Suddenly I was pumped with new energy, ready to take back my dignity. Ronan looked slightly hesitant. I really had to get used to having him around. It’d been so long since we worked together.
“I don’t know, Maxine, you’re taking a great risk. You’re still a human and the potion might lose its effect sooner than you think.”
“I have to take my chances. I’ll take some more with me. There is no point wasting time,” I said, packing whatever was necessary into my backpack. Ronan wanted to temper my excitement, but I wouldn’t let him crush my spirits. I was done being miserable. My face was plastered all over London, but there were other more pressing matters.
Ronan poured a bit of my potion into a small bottle and we headed out shortly after that. It was a busy morning, and humans as usual were in a hurry. My old mobile was gone. Alexis must have confiscated it when she caught me in her chamber. We went to the phone booth and Ronan called Cyril’s office.
Then I took over and Cyril sounded tense, but he asked me to meet him in Angel Station. He told me to get a quarter past twelve tube, and apparently we were going to talk in there, so no one would suspect anything. He was obviously taking a lot of precautions, or maybe things had gotten out of control when I was caught. I had no idea what to think, but what mattered was that he agreed to talk. I had never mentioned Cyril’s name during the meeting with Nameless, but Rodriguez had always been careful.
I was astonished that my picture was on the front cover of most papers and the headlines were really making me mad.
Prince’s mistress is still on the run!
Armed and dangerous. Stay away.
I mean come on. The media as usual was blowing things out of proportion while the real killer was sitting in the palace right under their noses.
Other demons were noticing Ronan; his energy was still pretty strong. No one was paying any attention to me, and that was working in my favour. The spell held on, at least for now. Walking around London with a potion in my system that might not hold for too long was a risky business.
I suspected that Rodriguez and Alexis were alive and well. I was ready to bet that he had made some sort of deal with Berith and now the Watchers were after me too.
We went down to the station and then took the tube to Angel and then waited for the quarter past twelve tube. I kept glancing back and forth, hoping to see Cyril, but he must have been traveling from the other station.
The tube was crowded, and it took me a while to find him. There was a Watcher in our car, glancing around. Cyril sat with other passengers, reading a paper. No one knew how I really looked, and I had to let him know somehow that I was Max, without attracting too much attention to myself.
“You asked me to meet you here, Cyril. You showed up in Doomed Cases once and accused me of conspiring against Lucifer’s faction,” I said, in a hushed voice. He didn’t lift his head or indicate that he had heard me but continued reading the paper.
“I’m being followed. Rodriguez doesn’t trust me anymore. My assistant was arrested the other day. It’s just a matter of time before he cuts me off,” Cyril muttered. “It’s good to know that you’re all right after Alexis had you locked up. No one knew where she had taken you.”
A young boy around seven years old was staring at me from the opposite seat. I suspected that he was just a nosey human.
“I need to know what happened to Ricky and Paul,” I said, and Cyril turned the page of his paper. I saw my own face and my heart skipped a beat. Alexis wasn’t wasting any time. According to the article that Cyril was now reading I was being officially charged with the murder of Prince Arthur.
“They are being kept in the old steel factory by the embankment. They are waiting for a trial. Rodriguez has deep pockets and some agreement with Berith. Zach and Emma were sent to psych in the Royal Infirmary. You just have to pass over medical staff,” Cyril said, still not lifting his eyes on me. Warmth spread down my abdomen. It was his energy or maybe the fact that I was finally getting some solid information.
I swallowed hard thinking about Emma and Zachary. They were placed in a mental institution. Well, that made sense. Both Rodriguez and Alexis wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t try to help me again, so they had them locked up in the insane hospital.
“All right, I’ll get them out,” I said, clearing my throat. I had to find a way to get my magic back.
“How did Alexis manage to take your magic away?” Cyril asked.
“Don’t know. It was a hell of a few weeks. I’m working on getting it back. Take care of yourself, Cyril,” I told him and then got up, heading towards the other side of the car where Ronan waited.
This news complicated things a little bit, but I was confident that I could get Zachary and Emma out first. Rodriguez must have found out that Zach didn’t have the relief licence, so he acted upon it. Emma became a problem for him too, so it was probably easier to get rid of both of them.
“Come on, I think we should get out of here.” I nudged Ronan when the train stopped at the next station.
I waited until we were out on the street to tell him about Zach, Emma, Ricky and Paul. We stopped in the nearest bakery for a coffee. When I was a mongrel, I never had regular meals, but those days were long gone. Now I was always hungry and I couldn’t think on an empty stomach. We sat inside while I polished off some pastries, at the same time talking about my plans.
“We need to go to Andrew Dostojevsky,” I finally said, and then told him what I had in mind. Ronan was most likely aware that we couldn’t ask demons for help. Maybe there were other demons in London that were still loyal to me, but I couldn’t be sure. Getting Emma and Zachary out of psych should be pretty straightforward, but breaking into the old steel factory required the help of one of the biggest scumbags in London. I bet that place was guarded by both demons and humans hired by Rodriguez.
I once played poker with Dostojevsky and I had managed to win quite a lot of money from him. He was the head of a gang in East London. I never really paid any attention to the gangs on the streets, but Andrew had a soft spot for me. He asked me out a few times, but I always said no. He just wasn’t appealing enough and at the time I still longed for Arthur.
Ronan and I agreed to head to the hospital in the night, and we needed to rent out some uniforms to look legitimate. Ronan could use his demonic abilities to tamper with humans if that was necessary.
In the end of the day we needed to be ready in case anything went wrong. There were demons that worked in such a huge hospital and I was certain that Rodriguez stationed a few Watchers around.
My mentor kept in touch with a few key demons around the city, but no one had heard from Nameless. I had a feeling that he went back down to the cross-worlds, because he knew that his father was after him. He had burned bridges with too many people. r />
“As long as we don’t bump into any demons, I think we won’t have any issue with getting Zach and Emma out,” Ronan said.
“Yes, this should be easy. You will need to convince the nurse that Emma and Ricky are being transferred out to a different facility,” I said as we tried on the uniforms back in Paul’s flat.
This was it. Now there was no going back.
It was the first stage of this rescue mission.
“I need to find my son, Max. We are connected by blood, but he needs to pay for what he did,” Ronan said, when we were walking to his car.
So much had happened that I didn’t really have time to think about Nameless Thief. Ronan was planning to take care of him. I had no idea what that meant, and maybe it was easier if I didn’t find out.
The Royal Infirmary hospital was located on the other side of the city. We drove to the main station in East London and then took a tube. I was worried that something might go wrong. Zachary had stuck with me for a long time and he most definitely wasn’t crazy. My daughter had been in the back of my mind quite a bit too. Hot soaring guilt filled my gut every time I wondered if she was happy with Matilda. I knew that my warlock friend was looking after her, but it was my turn to take on the role of mother.
I really hoped that everything went smoothly today. It had to.
We headed straight to the psych ward that was located on the top floor. Ronan asked me to be quiet when we got to the lift. He was gathering his energy. Tampering with human emotions and thoughts was very draining and I needed him to be focused.
Shortly after that, the lift opened up and we found ourselves at the psych reception desk. A dark-skinned nurse looked busy writing on her clipboard. The potion in my system was making me more receptive to anyone around. I felt agitated, my heartbeat unsteady. This wasn’t the best time to go back to my normal appearance.