Peter gaspedas he came out of the jump, muscles still stubbornly nonfunctional. A cavernously large space rose around them, gray and industrial. Next to him, the wizard gave a grunt—the first noise he’d heard the man make—and he realized with a start that Rosemarie wasthere, kicking and punching at what looked like absolutely nothing.
“You rotten, evil—” she choked out, but the rest of it was cut off as they teleported again, no spellwords coming from the wizard’s mouth. Impossible. And yet it worked. They were at the edge of a cliff, scrubby grass under their feet, and?—
A croak of a scream shrilled from his throat as Rosemarie tumbled over the edge, shoved by unseen hands.No!Nother, too! They remained there, horribly, until she hit the far-off ground below, either because the wizard wanted to be sure of his handiwork or enjoyed watching people die. Then they jumped back to the empty building, Peter staring in glassy shock at the floor.
He rose up perhaps an inch—another spell he couldn’t hear—and the wizard, hand on his back, propelled him forward through the vacant space. A warehouse, Peter’s mind supplied. As if that were the detail that mattered when Beatrix’s entire remaining family had just been murdered.
Her entire remaining family except him, anyway. But it was only a matter of time. They wouldn’t have made him appear to be Lydia’s killer if they intended to keep him alive. They would kill him, too.Now, let it be now.
The wizard opened a door and pushed him inside. A small room, some sort of office. To one side, a desk with a telephone. In the center, a single, empty chair.
With no warning, the man he could not see stripped him with another silent spell, pieces of clothing slithering off one by one. Peter hung in the air, knowing this should upset him but too numb to register strong feelings about it, as invisible hands pulled all the leaves out of his pockets. It wasn’t as if leaves would help him. It wasn’t as if a strip search made this horrifying day noticeably worse.
When it was over, his clothes wriggling back onto him, the wizard shoved him into the chair and bound him to it. Unseen ropes cast by an unseen hand on the orders of unseen people who’d decided that Lydia Harper should no longer be alive.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the eerie sight of the telephone handset rising up, seemingly of its own accord. He heard thejig-jig-jigof the rotary dial engaging.
“Here,” the wizard said, and hung up.
Peter readied himself for something imminent. For people to appear. For a staged arrest attempt with cameras rolling that would end with him shot for “resisting,” perhaps.
But minutes dragged by. Nothing happened.
That was worse.
After a while, he remembered that Marbella Draden had warned them this would happen. She’d told Beatrix her sister was in danger. She’d insisted that Garrett’s pretendassassination attempt did not mean a real one wouldn’t come.
He should have believed her, especiallygiven who she was and what she knew. Instead, he’d told himself she was unhinged. He hadn’t given it a second thought.
If he’d simply said they ought to put the strongest possible protection spell on Lydia—and never mind that all the people shaking her hand would feel it—she would still be alive. If he’d recommended it for all four of them, Rosemarie might have survived, too. God Almighty,why hadn’t helistened?
He sat in silence on the hard chair, Lydia and Rosemarie’s murders replaying in his head, the deadening shock giving way to an overpowering tsunami of horror, rage and guilt.
“You fuckingcoward,” he yelled at the wizard, and the words actually came out, both audible and intelligible.
He received no response. He tried to turn his head, found he could, but barely, and decided to continue moving one of the few muscles he had complete control over.
“How can you live with yourself?”
Silence.
“Youkilledthem! Is this routine for you? How could you follow an order like that?”
Still nothing. For all he knew, the wizard wasn’t even there, had managed to silently slip out. But he was confident the man was still in the room. And he was almost certain that man was Morse.
His neck pulsed, his heart racing with a fury he could do nothing about. “Was it Draden? Didheorder you to killLydia? That’s my bet, because a man who would cover up the rape of his own daughter would stoop to anything at?—”
The blow came without warning, knocking him backward. He stared at the ceiling, dazed, still strapped to the chair but back horizontal and legs up in the air. It took a moment to taste the blood in his mouth. It took a few seconds after that to notice the deep ache that suggested a broken tooth.
The office door opened.
“What’s this?” A smooth male voice. “I thought the instructions were quite clear.”
The answering “yes” sounded livid.
Smooth voice heaved a sigh. “Well? Fix it. And show yourself, please—talking to thin air drives me crazy.”
The chair swooped back into place, the movement so dizzying that Peter retched.
