Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

“How can you do that?” I countered. I could see my allies out of the corner of my eye, falling into position behind me. Sam and Cylia were to my right, Fern and Megan were to my left, and this was all going to end so very, very poorly, and there was nothing else we could have done. Having a duty to the cryptid world means having a duty to the human race at the same time, and to the people who blur the line. People like Sam, who had one human parent and one yōkai parent. People like Emily, whose humanity was unquestioned, but whose abilities were preternatural at best.

People like me, who should have had fire in my fingers, instead of cold ashes.

Her eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re throwing your future away.”

“You used your magic to hurt people who never did anything to you. What right did you have? Luck isn’t a toy.”

“Don’t you sound like the pious little killjoy?” Emily shook her head, giving our group one last look before she raised her hands to the level of her face, palms turned outward, showing us that they were empty. “I surrender.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I said, I surrender. I give up. You win. I am your prisoner.” Emily sounded almost bored, like she was reading a script someone else had written, and which she didn’t think much of. “You can do with me as you like, and I’m assuming that what you’d like is for me to unlock the elevator and take you up to have a little chat with Mr. Brightman. Am I correct?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, exchanging a glance with Sam. Every alarm bell I had, and a few I would have said I didn’t have, was ringing. But we needed to get to Colin. We needed to end this.

Sam nodded marginally. So did Fern. All right. I turned back to Emily.

“All right,” I said. “Take us to your leader.”



* * *





We left Sophie asleep in the lobby, where she’d hopefully wake up, assume she’d dozed off from overwork, and go home believing our entire encounter had been a surreal dream. It wouldn’t help when the next day found me missing from the Lowry complex, but it would at least keep her from charging up the stairs, looking to stop whatever bizarre nonsense was going on. She didn’t deserve to be hurt by this.

No one did. That was really the problem. No one who came to Lowryland, whether they were looking for a temporary escape or for a whole new life, deserved to be hurt by a group of irresponsible magic-users who thought that being able to do something most people couldn’t somehow gave them the right to do whatever they wanted. Sometimes people did things that they deserved to suffer for, like licking bees or using poison ivy for toilet paper. The world is not infinitely merciful. But this place was supposed to be an escape. It was supposed to be a fantasy that anyone who could afford a ticket was allowed to be a part of, unjudged, unharmed, without fear. Emily, Colin, and their little cabal had taken that away.

Also, they had taken away my magic, and as soon as I got it back, I was going to set all their arrogant asses on fire. No matter how much I’d wished the flames away when they were making my life difficult, they were still mine, and no one got to take them from me. Ever.

The theme from Mooncake played in the elevator as we rode slowly through the length of the building, reduced to pastel blandness by whatever process is used to create ambient sound. I twitched, unable to calm my nerves. Emily didn’t help. She studied her fingernails, ignoring the rest of us, calm and unruffled and perfect in her iced lilac business attire. She didn’t look like she’d last five minutes in a fight. She didn’t need to. She was a routewitch, and she had her own tricks.

Belatedly, it occurred to me that an elevator was its own form of transport, a box that moved like a ship on the sea. Could the cables pulling it along be considered a road, if I cocked my head and squinted? She’d already managed to twist her magic enough to use it as a weapon when it was never meant to be. Were we running along a road in the company of a routewitch?

As if she could hear my thoughts, Emily glanced my way and smiled, stretching her fingers straight before lowering her hand. “When this is over, remember that you asked for it,” she said sweetly.

The elevator dinged. The doors opened on the large, mirrored room where Colin had conducted my first lessons. Emily motioned toward the opening.

“After you,” she said.

Sam shoved her out of the elevator. She stumbled into the center of the room, stopped, and turned to blow us a kiss. That was all the warning we got. It wasn’t enough.

The elevator doors slammed shut, and we fell.





Twenty-one




“Gravity doesn’t play favorites.”

–Enid Healy

Locked in an elevator, plummeting to our dooms, which was not exactly the plan

MEGAN SCREAMED. FERN’S FEET left the ground as she bled off density—the standard sylph response to unexpected stress—and she promptly slammed against the elevator roof. Cylia backed into the corner, pressing her hands flat against the walls and bracing herself. It wasn’t hard to believe that if we hit the ground, she would be the only one of us to miraculously survive. Seeing all her friends die might even be enough bad luck to counterbalance her lack of injury.

Sam grabbed my wrist with fingers that were once again too long to be human and dusted with a thin covering of fur. I looked up at him, and despite the grim situation we were in, it was almost comforting to see his transformed face. It’s amazing how quickly we can find a new normal.

“Annie,” he said, voice tight. “What do we do?”

We were still falling. Physics said we shouldn’t have still been falling. The Public Relations building was five stories from the outside, and the room where Colin had been doing my training had been at least fifteen stories up, and if either of those things were true for the elevator, we would already have hit the ground. Emily could be using routewitch magic to bend the distance the elevator traveled, giving us an extra amount of “down” and letting us gather more speed as we approached terminal velocity. The impact would hurt a lot more this way. But maybe it was a good thing. It gave us more than just farther to fall.

It gave us time.

“Boost me up,” I commanded.

Sam didn’t hesitate. He let go of my wrist and grabbed my waist, hoisting me to the ceiling where Fern bobbed like a frightened blonde balloon. I flashed her a quick, razor-thin smile.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, pulling two knives out of my shirt. “When I say ‘push,’ push.”

Fern nodded mutely. The whites showed all the way around her irises, broadcasting her terror to anyone who cared to look. Megan was still screaming—and under it all, the faint, soothing theme from Mooncake continued to play. Right.

This wasn’t the time for subtlety. Ramming the point of one knife into the lock on the hatch at the top of the elevator, I shoved the other under the edge, pulling it to the side until it nested against the latch that held the whole contraption in place. Most elevator access hatches aren’t designed to prevent people from breaking into them, since most people aren’t tall enough—or don’t have a convenient trapeze-artist boyfriend to offer a boost. I slammed the heel of my hand against the wedged knife, and was rewarded with a popping sound. Grabbing the other knife more firmly, I twisted hard to the left. This time, the pop was louder, and accompanied by a snap.

“Fern!” I yelled. “Push!”

The sylph reached around me and shoved. When nothing happened—probably because she weighed virtually nothing, and thus had no leverage behind the motion—she took a breath, shoved again, and fell as she yanked all the density back into her bones.

I heard her hit the floor with a crunching thump, like a bowling ball dropped on hardwood. I couldn’t look down to see whether she was hurt, or whether she had punched a hole straight through the bottom of the elevator. I was busy levering open the crack she’d created, using both my knives to pry the wood apart. Once the opening was large enough, the knives vanished back into my shirt and I gripped the edge of the hatch, pulling myself onto the top of the elevator.