Chris Moriarty - The Inquisitor's Apprentice

He kicked Edison just hard enough to make sure he was unconscious. Then he hefted the inventor over his shoulder and started walking back into the heart of the fire. Sacha’s body followed against its will, and he could see Antonio moving jerkily beside him.

When they got back to the stage, Morgaunt dumped Edison in a heap. With a careless flick of his hand, he forced the two boys to sit beside Edison. And then he took Antonio’s knife and sat down to wait as comfortably as if he were in his own library.

The fire raged around them. They were at the heart of the conflagration, pinned between the canvas backdrop and the heavy red velvet curtain. The curtain was a tattered fringe of blackened rags by now, and the backdrop was a translucent web of fire that shed smoldering cinders onto the stage with every puff of overheated air. Sacha’s lungs felt like they were on fire too. He wondered how long it would be before the smoke lulled him into a final, helpless sleep.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, more because he felt compelled to say something than because he expected an answer.

Morgaunt grinned. Or rather the fireman’s mouth twisted into a cruel grimace that looked utterly alien on his honest Irish face. “Inquisitor Wolf, who else?”

“What if he doesn’t come?”

“He will. He’ll come charging to your rescue just like the little do-gooder he is. And if he doesn’t we can just sit here until we burn to death. It’s all the same to me. Actually, I think it could be quite interesting. Haven’t you always wondered what it feels like to be burned alive? No? But then of course you’ll be dead when it’s over, so you won’t remember it. I imagine that will make the experience educational.”

“But what’s the point of killing me if you can’t frame me for killing Edison and use that to run Wolf out of the Inquisitors Division?”

For the first time ever, Sacha saw a look of surprise on Morgaunt’s face.

“But killing you is the point,” Morgaunt answered when he’d regained his composure. “You mean you really haven’t guessed? Has Wolf kept you in the dark that completely?”

Sacha stared, open-mouthed, as Morgaunt continued.

“From the moment I heard about the boy who could see witches, I knew you were a danger to me. And when I saw your Inquisitorial Quotient test, I knew you were even more dangerous than I’d imagined. A Mage-Inquisitor who can actually see magic? That would be a disaster worse than ten Maximillian Wolfs! No, Sacha, from the moment you went to work for Wolf, there were only two possible outcomes: I would control you, or I would kill you.”

Morgaunt paused. he looked down at Antonio’s knife, still in his hands, and seemed surprised to see it there. Then he gave a rueful shrug of the fireman’s broad shoulders, set the knife down on the floor beside him, and turned back to Sacha.

“I admit, I was quite taken with the idea of using your dybbuk to bring Wolf down. I even hoped your dybbuk might be a sort of dry run for doing one of Wolf. But as you’ve had reason to discover, the dybbuks of Mages aren’t exactly the most biddable of magical beings. I thought yours would be more manageable since you haven’t come into your powers yet. My mistake.” Morgaunt gave Sacha a peeved look that would have been almost funny under ordinary circumstances. “I should have known what I was in for the minute the wretched creature stole your mother’s locket.”

What did Morgaunt mean about I.Q. tests and the dybbuks of Mages? And coming into his powers? Sacha couldn’t make sense of it, so he focused on the only thing that did make sense to him: his mother’s locket.

“You mean you didn’t plan that?” he asked. “then how did it end up in Edison’s lab?”

“I took it away from the dybbuk and had Edison plant it in the lab before you arrived. I was rather proud of that idea. Though I paid dearly for it in the end. It only made the dybbuk more suspicious of me. You’ve got a nasty, sneaky side to your character, Sacha. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Sacha stared at Morgaunt. he felt a rising panic in his chest. It had begun the moment Morgaunt spoke the word Mage . And it had only gotten worse as he realized how completely he had played into Morgaunt’s hands.

Morgaunt turned away for an instant to check the doors. Sacha glanced at Antonio — and Antonio nodded toward the knifed lying forgotten at Morgaunt’s side.

“Keep talking,” Antonio mouthed.

He was right, Sacha realized. even if they couldn’t distract Morgaunt enough to get hold of the knife, they could still give Wolf and his rescue party a better chance of taking Morgaunt by surprise.

“So … uh … how did you summon the dybbuk?” he asked.

Morgaunt turned back to him with a mocking grin. “Good try,” he told Sacha, “but that is what we Wall Street Wizards call a trade secret.”

Sacha case around desperately for another question to ask. “Uh … what about Edison?”

“You disappoint me,” Morgaunt said scathingly. “I knew you had to be a romantic fool to work for Wolf. But I didn’t think you were a hypocrite, too. Seriously, Sacha. how much do you really care about Thomas Edison? He’s a dreadful anti-Semite, you know. For me it’s just business, but he actually believes that claptrap.”

The smoke was becoming unbearable. Out in the main section of the theater, a heavy rafter groaned and shattered. It hit the floor with a terrifying crash, pulverizing two rows of seats and lighting up the wreckage like a bonfire.

“Well, I don’t want him to die, ” Sacha protested weakly.

“Why not?” Morgaunt asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “Because you don’t want him dead? Or because you just don’t want to have to feel guilty about it?”

Sacha didn’t have an answer to that.

“Of course, there is another way out,” Morgaunt said, quite casually. “You could hand yourself over to the police and confess to having set the fire yourself.”

“What?” Sacha yelped.

“It’s what the dybbuk would have done if it had succeeded in killing you. Your stubbornness on that front has caused me a great deal of inconvenience. Still, I think the situation is salvageable. And if you examine all your options, you’ll see that it’s by far the most humane solution. Wolf will be disgraced, of course. But at least he’ll be alive. And what’s more, I won’t be forced to make an example of your unfortunate family.”

It was odd how Sacha saw the full force of Morgaunt’s personality only now, when he spoke through another man’s body. A less honest man would have flattered Sacha. A less honest man would have pretended that Wolf wouldn’t be fired in disgrace. A less honest man would have told him all about the power he would give him and the wonderful things he would do for his family. But Morgaunt didn’t stoop to that. He just laid out his plans, logical as clockwork, and made Sacha see that he had no choice but to follow them.

Sacha searched desperately for a way out of the trap. Morgaunt waited for him to think the problem through with the patience of a chess player who has worked out all the moves and knows with mathematical certainty that he will win no matter what his opponent does. When Sacha opened his mouth to give Morgaunt an answer, he still wasn’t sure himself what he was going to say.

And he never did find out. Because at that moment Lily Astral burst into the theater at the head of a rescue crew that included Inquisitor Wolf, Philip Payton, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, and half a dozen plainclothes Inquisitors.

A cool breeze seemed to waft into the theater with them. Sacha felt his head clear and his breath come easier. Suddenly Morgaunt’s ruthless logic seemed much less convincing. But Morgaunt was far from finished.