DeVries smiled thinly. “Perhaps, but I suspect my recovery is disappointing to so many more,” he said. “I appreciate your calling this meeting on such short notice. Now that I am improving, this matter needs to be dealt with before any more lives are lost. I’ll remind you that these have been wizard murders, primarily, and so we have a special interest in seeing this handled. My colleagues and I”—he gestured toward Burroughs and Hackleford—“we believe that we have identified those responsible.”
“By all means, enlighten us,” Mercedes said. “We can scarcely stand the suspense.”
DeVries seemed unruffled. “If you’ll recall, we came before the full council back in the fall, to report that eight wizards had been murdered not far from here, in Cleveland Heights.” The wizard paused. “A massacre, if you will.”
The usual wizard blah blah blah, Leesha thought, reading a similar response on the faces of the rest of the task-force members. A flicker of movement caught her eye, up on the stairs to the gallery. Was somebody eavesdropping? Leaning forward, she focused in. Nothing. She finally decided it must have been shifting shadows from the bare-limbed trees outside.
Her attention was drawn back to what DeVries was saying. “Since the last time I was here, there has been an attack on gifted preschoolers in downtown Cleveland, which, fortunately, did not result in loss of life; and, of course the attack right here in Trinity on Halloween in which I was gravely injured and three lives were lost.” He paused. “I want to apologize to all of you for some of the things I said the last time I came before council,” DeVries said.
That got everyone’s attention. A wizard—apologizing? You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
“At the time, I believed that members of the underguilds must be complicit in the ongoing murders. In particular, I suspected that members of the full council might be involved in protecting these responsible. Now, I realize that this probably isn’t true.”
“Whoa,” Jack murmured, nudging Ellen. “I feel so—I don’t know—redeemed.”
“Once we opened our eyes to new possibilities, we quickly realized that the most likely culprits are those with a long history of terrorist activity, who still carry a grudge against the wizard guild.”
“And so, your theory is...?” Seph said impatiently.
“We believe Gabriel Mandrake and the survivors of Thorn Hill are at the center of a conspiracy to murder the gifted,” DeVries said. “Wizards in particular.”
“The labrats,” Sylvia Morrison said. “I knew it.”
Mercedes gave Morrison a look, and then turned back to DeVries. “That is a serious accusation,” she said. “Is it only a theory, or do you have some proof?”
Morrison seemingly couldn’t restrain herself. “How much proof do you need?”
“Some, as opposed to none,” Mercedes said dryly.
DeVries ticked his arguments off on his fingers. “It’s widely believed that the facility at Thorn Hill was being used to develop powerful magical weapons until something went wrong. Many of the survivors have accused wizards of somehow engineering the accident. The Weir murders began ten years ago—not long after the disaster, and have continued since sporadically. The killings have disproportionately targeted wizards.”
That doesn’t prove anything, Leesha thought. I got my braces off ten years ago, too, and it had nothing to do with Thorn Hill. Or the Weir killings.
“Maybe so,” Seph said. “But if these killings are being carried out in revenge for Thorn Hill, then why have some of the slain been Anawizard Weir? The killers seem to be very good at what they do. I can’t imagine that they would make that sort of mistake.”
Mercedes cleared her throat, fingering the bracelet on one bony wrist. “After the catastrophe in Brazil, there were some who believed that dispatching the survivors was the best solution. There were members of several guilds involved in so-called ‘mercy killings.’”
“Can labrats even read Weirstones?” Hackleford asked. “Does anyone really know?”
“That doesn’t really matter,” Leesha said. “We can’t go accusing anyone of a crime without witnesses.”
“That’s been difficult,” DeVries said, “since until recently, the killer or killers have left no witnesses alive. Indeed, that’s what we believed the last time we came before council. But now we know that’s not quite true.”
“If you’re talking about the preschoolers, we did interview them,” Leesha said. “So did the police. Many of their stories were so wildly different that we didn’t know what direction to take the investigation.”
“My Olivia was a witness,” Morrison said. “She has a very good memory. And when you and your friends were attacked, what you saw was consistent with her testimony. Down to that one particular labrat. Kinlock. It seems that whenever he shows up, the zombies are close behind.”
Unless it’s the other way around, Leesha thought.
DeVries looked as if he’d prefer to have a little less support from Morrison. “More important, it turns out that there was a witness to the slaughter in Cleveland Heights who survived,” he said. “Emma Greenwood.”
“Emma Greenwood?” Jack cocked his head. “Who’s that?”
“You know her as Emma Lee, but her name is actually Greenwood,” DeVries said. “She’s been living under an assumed name. She came here from Memphis, where she’s being sought for questioning in a murder.”
Murder! The word blew through the sanctuary like gossip through a small town.
Leesha came to her feet then. “I don’t believe that,” she said, clenching her fists so the nails dug into her palms. “No way.”
DeVries ignored her. “The Cleveland Heights murders took place in her father’s house, and her father was one of those killed. Emma, however, survived, and again disappeared before the police arrived.”
“Something’s not right,” Fitch murmured, at Leesha’s elbow.
“Her father was one of the dead wizards?” Madison asked.
DeVries shook his head. “No,” he said shortly. “Sorcerer. Emma may or may not have been involved in the killings. But she was there, and so was Jonah Kinlock.”
“And you know this how?” Jack said, wearing that familiar skeptical expression.
“Emma told me,” DeVries said.
Leesha snorted. “Why would she confide in you?” she asked.
“If you’ll give me the chance to explain, I’ll—”
“Jonah went up against eight wizards all by himself?” Ellen’s voice was laced with a hint of admiration. Maybe envy.
“He may have had help,” DeVries said. “We just don’t know. But the more we are learning about these magical aberrations, the more we’re understanding how it is that they’ve been so successful at slaughtering us.”
“Is that where the zombies come in?” Morrison asked breathlessly.
Maybe it was the mention of zombies, but Leesha thought she heard something—what sounded like a stealthy footstep overhead. Once again, she peered at the church balcony, festooned with greenery and red satin bows. Saw nothing.
She leaned toward Fitch. “Did you hear somebody moving around upstairs?”
He shook his head. “This place makes a racket in the wind, though. All this talk about zombies doesn’t help.” He squeezed her hand. “You okay?”
Leesha nodded.
“Let’s back up,” Mercedes said. “I’m still hearing accusations, but I have yet to hear any evidence.” She shot a warning look at Morrison to prevent another outburst.
“It’s difficult to know where to start,” Hackleford said.
“Start with Halloween,” Madison said.
DeVries nodded. “That’s actually a good place. The night of the party, I went outside to get some air.”
As, apparently, did half the people at the party, Leesha thought.
“I walked down towar
d the lake. When I got down to the water’s edge, I heard somebody crying. It seemed to be coming from the gazebo. I went in to see if whoever it was needed help, and saw that it was the girl you know as Emma Lee. A member of the band from the Anchorage. A labrat. When she heard me come in, she looked terrified. Then she saw it was me, and seemed—well, she seemed relieved.”
Not a common reaction to wizards, Leesha thought.
“I asked her what was wrong, if I could help, and she said nobody could help her and to leave before I got hurt. She was literally shaking. I asked if somebody was hurting her, and she wouldn’t answer, just kept after me to leave. That’s when Kinlock showed up. When he saw us together, he attacked me.”
“Attacked you how?” Mercedes asked.
“He slammed into me, knocking me down. I tried to immobilize him, but it didn’t even slow him down. It was like it didn’t work on him. Emma tried to help me up, but Kinlock ordered her up to the house and told her to wait there for him. She asked what he was going to do, and he said it was something he should have done in the first place. And, she said”—he swallowed hard—“she said, ‘You’re going to kill him, aren’t you? You’re going to murder him, just like you murdered my father, just like you murdered his sister, just like you tried to murder me.’”
At this, the brushfire of conversation in the room was extinguished. This had the ring of truth. The wizard’s expression, his voice, the specificity of his language suggested that those words had been engraved on his heart.
“Emma was obviously afraid of him,” DeVries continued. “She was all covered in my blood. But she—”
“Whoa,” Leesha interrupted. “Where did all the blood come from?”
DeVries looked momentarily stumped. “I don’t know. I guess my nose was broken, and I hit my head. Anyway, she still stood up to him. She told him not to kill me, and told me to leave. And I did.”
“He let you go on Emma’s say-so?” Mercedes looked up from her note taking.
DeVries nodded. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to leave Emma there, but I—I did.” His voice faltered. “He came after me, though, and caught up with me in the woods. My first clue was when he stabbed me in the back. I tried to run, but I fell, and he came after me and cut my throat, and then stabbed me through the chest. He would have made sure he finished the job, I think, but he heard somebody coming toward us, calling his name, and ran away.” He looked up at Madison. “I think it was your sister. I tried to call out to her, to warn her, but I guess I passed out.”
Madison folded, like she’d taken a hard punch to the gut.
“Why would he try to kill you in a place where he was so likely to be seen?” Leesha asked.
DeVries stared down at the table. “He was angry. I’m not sure he was thinking clearly.”
Leesha looked around. None of the other members of the task force seemed inclined to ask more questions, so she forged on. “I have a few more questions,” she said. “Was Kinlock carrying a weapon when you saw him in the gazebo?”
DeVries frowned. “I don’t remember seeing any sort of weapons—not while we were inside.”
“What was he wearing?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know—his usual. What he was wearing onstage. You saw him.”
“Which was—?”
“Jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, I guess. And those leather gloves he always wears.”
“Is there a point to all this?” Hackleford demanded. “This isn’t a formal court. Why are you cross-examining him?”
“I just want to get a few things on record while they’re still fresh in his mind,” Leesha said. She looked at Jack, who was taking the official notes. “Did you get all that down, Jack?” She turned back to DeVries. “How much time had passed after you left the gazebo before you were attacked again?”
“I don’t know. I was kind of stumbling around. Not long.”
“Okay,” Leesha said, “so moving along to the attack: what was your attacker wearing?”
“I think he’s already answered that question,” Burroughs interjected.
“No, I already asked what Kinlock was wearing,” Leesha said. “Now I’m asking about the person who stabbed him in the woods.”
DeVries seemed to be struggling to keep his temper. “Like I said. Jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, gloves.”
“What Kinlock was wearing in the gazebo.”
“Yes. It would have been,” Rowan said through gritted teeth, “since it was the same person.”
“And what Kinlock was wearing onstage, before the break.”
“Probably. I did not pay a lot of attention to the band.”
“So anyone who saw the band would know what Kinlock was wearing.”
“I suppose so,” DeVries said, his voice low and tight.
“Now we’re out in the woods. What did your attacker stab you with?”
DeVries thought a moment. “It happened really fast. It seemed like it was some kind of—of sword, or dagger. When he stabbed me in the back, the blade went clear through my body.”
The members of the task force murmured to one another. There was plenty of blood in the woods, but no weapons had been found.
“And Kinlock was alone, right? Out there in the woods?”
“He was alone,” DeVries said. “At least, I didn’t see anyone else.”
“So he must have been carrying that big blade in the gazebo.”
“I suppose so, yes. The point is—”
“But you didn’t notice him carrying a sword or a dagger or any kind of weapon in there?”
“No,” DeVries said. “I did not. Maybe he had it hidden out in the woods somewhere. Maybe he had a magical sword that shrinks and grows. All I can say is that it was extremely sharp, and he knew how to use it.” He fingered the puffy scar on his neck.
“Why are you giving this witness such a hard time?” Morrison said. “He’s just trying to tell you what happened.”
“I’m uncomfortable with this rush to judgment,” Leesha said. “Isn’t it possible that he was set up? Jonah Kinlock saved my life a few weeks ago—and Emma’s and Fitch’s. He probably rescued the Montessori children, too, if we can believe your own daughter’s testimony. I think that should count for something.”
“It seems to me that we need to question this Emma Greenwood or Lee or whatever she’s going by today,” Burroughs said. “It seems to me, with the proper persuasion, she would—”
“She was supposed to be here,” DeVries said. “She promised to come and testify. The problem is not a lack of persuasion.”
What’s going on between those two? Leesha wondered, looking from one to the other. Some private dispute?
“Why would she speak up now, after all this time?” Seph asked. “Why didn’t she tell all this to the police?”
“I can’t say for sure,” DeVries said. “With her history, you can imagine why she didn’t want anything to do with the police. I think when she discovered I’d survived the attack and intended to testify, that encouraged her to speak up herself. But now she seems to have disappeared.” He shot a look at Leesha. “Apparently, Ms. Middleton hasn’t seen her lately either.”
“I don’t know that we can say she’s disappeared,” Leesha said. “Last week, she packed up a few things and left me a note saying that she was going to be staying at school for a few days. I haven’t been able to reach her since then.”
“Did she say anything to you about—about all this?” Mercedes asked. “Did you know she intended to testify?”
Leesha shook her head. “She never said anything. She was a very private person. She kept things to herself.” Leesha stopped, realizing that she sounded like the kind of person who gets quoted in the newspaper about a killer or a victim. “I just can’t believe that Emma would be involved in murder. She—she’s the most honest person I’ve ever met.” r />
“Clearly.” Burroughs snorted. “She’s a runaway with a rap sheet who has been lying ever since she got here. How much credence can we give to your opinion when you don’t even know her real name?”
Leesha eyed Burroughs. She couldn’t help wondering if there was some history between this bully of a wizard and Emma. “Everybody has secrets. I know her well enough to trust that if she’s using an assumed name, she has a good reason for it. As for Jonah, I don’t know him that well, but why would he have rescued us if he’s in on this scheme? I never had any indication before now that Emma was afraid of him.”
“Could that have been why she decided to move into Trinity?” Mercedes asked thoughtfully. “Could it have been because she was afraid of Kinlock?”
“She said she wanted to learn more about mainliners,” Leesha said.
“Mainliners?” Seph cocked his head.
“That’s what savants call members of the guilds,” Leesha said.
“Maybe she wanted to find out our strengths and weaknesses,” Hackleford suggested.
“Where do you think she is, Leesha?” Seph asked. “I mean, assuming she’s not being held captive at the Anchorage. Any theories?”
“If I had to guess,” Leesha said, “I’d guess she went back to Memphis. Remember when she came with me and Fitch to that hearing? She’d do almost anything to avoid getting up in front of people and testifying.”
“It would help to have someone here from the Anchorage to answer these allegations,” Seph said. “We can speculate and guess all we want, but none of us knows the truth of this. And it seems unfair to accuse them behind their backs.”
“I don’t think we can afford to wait,” DeVries said. “I’m worried that if Emma isn’t already dead, she may soon be. The best case scenario is that she’s being held prisoner, probably somewhere in the Anchorage complex.”