The Specter Key (8 page)

“There’s something else that’s a bit hot in here,” Bran said, nodding toward the oven.

Larak blinked, and, spinning around, he leapt forward with his oven mitts. Out came a solid black, bricky loaf of bread—amid a stream of curses. “Blasted ovens!” he roared. He tossed the pan onto a cooling rack and fanned the smoke toward the window, coming to the counter. “You’re here for the Friddsfeast, I’m sure. Everyone’s wanted my Friddsbread.”

“Only the best,” Bran said.

Larak snorted. Bran covered his mouth and went on breathing in the smoke; his eyes were beginning to sting, and he felt a little dizzy.

Bran felt Nim jerking about in his shirt pocket. He quickly turned to face the wall, fearful that someone might see but instantly disregarding it: the smoke would cover almost anything.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, pulling his pocket open. He couldn’t see much in the dark room, but she thrashed about, and he dug his hand in quickly.

“Are you all right?” he said, setting her in the palm of his other hand. She went limp for a second, and for a terrifying moment Bran thought that she had suffocated to death. But then she rolled over, jumping to her feet.

“There, now are you OK?” Bran said urgently, but she didn’t look at him. Instead, she shook her head, and Bran noticed that her eyes were glowing.

It wasn’t the usual green he had seen before—not the brightness or happiness that had been there. It was something behind her eyes, like a storm that was beneath her pupils, fierce and violent. Seeing this sent fear through him.

“Wait!” Bran hissed as Nim flew straight for the wall. She hit against it a few times like a trapped fly. Bran stumbled forward to catch her, thinking the smoke might have hurt her. But she leapt out of his reach and found the open door, zipping outside.

“Come back!” Bran called, loudly this time because he really didn’t care who heard anymore. There was terror in his veins—not for himself if she was seen but because something was so clearly and gravely wrong. As he dashed out of the bakery he caught a glimpse of her rushing ahead of him.

Please, don’t get out of sight!
he thought. He saw her looking about for a moment, confused and lost, unnoticed by the crowds of people passing on the sidewalks below. It gave Bran just a second to leap onto his bike, hearing Larak calling out after him.

Nim shot off at full speed. Bran pushed on the pedals to follow her.

Watched

No matter how fast Bran pedaled, Nim flew faster. She went sporadically, dashing from one way to the next, never stopping for breath, the green glow behind her eyes always present. It seemed as if madness had overtaken her.

Bran wasn’t really watching where he was going and narrowly missed hitting a few people. He couldn’t lose sight of her—not in the city. Even though it was only a few minutes, it felt like hours before Bran saw her make a final turn, and he realized where he was.

“Here again!” he gasped, out of breath but still pedaling. He saw the Nigels just up ahead.

“Wait, Nim, please,” he pleaded, but she had gone deaf to his voice. He plowed right through the crowd on the sidewalk, causing people to jump out of the way and shout at him. He dropped his bike in front of the Nigels as Nim struck against the front door. He thought that he finally had her, but she found an opening in the mail slot and popped through it.

Bran darted up to the door and blew through it.

“Come back!” he commanded, but the echo of his voice was like a slap. He was struck to silence by the sheer emptiness of the place. The old man was not at the desk. The record player was still on, though it had gotten stuck and was skipping.

“Hello?” Bran called, stepping forward, barely catching sight of Nim as she flew around the corner at the top of the stairs. He started after her but skidded to a stop.

The old man was there—slumped over the desk, unmoving.

Bran’s eyes widened. “H-hello…” he said in a hoarse whisper, terrified at what he was seeing. The record continued, skipping against the man’s right hand. Bran grabbed his arm and jarred the record so that it stopped. He began to shake as he pushed the man forward onto the desk again, searching for a telephone to call the police. Out of the silence that had overtaken the room, there came another sound: the soft strains of a music box coming from upstairs, and Bran recognized the melody.

“Nim…” he breathed, rushing for the stairs and up to the hall. He came around the corner, his shoes pounding against the wood. He heard the song come to a sudden halt, which made him run faster. He saw the door to Ten ajar and, without caring what happened, burst through.

“Nim!” Bran hissed. She flew at Bran and began circling his head as she had before. He tried to grab her, but she was too excited, finally stopping in front of him. There was a smile on her face, and the stormy greenness behind her eyes had once again subsided.

“Nim, what’s going on?” Bran demanded.

The smile disappeared from her face. She tilted her head as if she didn’t understand what he had asked, blinking as if she didn’t know where she was at all. The moment her eyes looked at her surroundings, she shot toward him, grabbing onto the shoulder of his shirt in terror.

“Why’d you bring me back here?” Bran asked. He wasn’t so much angry as terrified. He wanted to call the police. He felt as if eyes were watching him from every corner and at any moment someone might leap out at him. He let his eyes sweep the room and saw that nothing had changed since yesterday—except for one thing. Across the room, beside the bed, Bran saw the faint glimmer of light: a television.

His eyes had caught a glimpse of the video playing, and the movements were so familiar that he instantly recognized it. He inched toward the screen. The video was filmed from an odd angle, slightly crooked but very clear. Bran could see what was happening.

“Look, we don’t want to hurt you,” he heard his own voice say in a low volume. It was he and Astara in that same apartment, the window slats casting dim light across their faces. He watched, enraptured by the image; it was as if an invisible camera had followed him in there. The blood in Bran’s fingers felt like it was draining away as he watched with wide eyes. He felt violated. Nim had stopped on his shoulder and was watching the screen with him.

“It’s got everything…” Bran gasped. He tore his eyes from the screen, scanning the room but too afraid to move. He could see no cameras, though there were plenty of places that one could have been hidden. Just as that thought crossed his mind, there came a bright sound from behind him that caused his eyes to freeze: the music box. Nim leapt into the air and shot behind Bran, but Bran froze in terror. He could feel another presence. Someone had entered the room.

The song played slowly, the sound of the metal wheel turning like the screech of a rusty hinge to Bran’s ears. The song reached the end.

Standing there, leaning against the frame of a door to another room, was a man.

His hair was dark and long but turned back off his forehead, making him appear hardly more than thirty, though the small flecks of gray suggested he was perhaps far older. The man’s face was a few days unshaven, and his eyes piercing and so dark they almost seemed black. He was tall and hardened like a soldier, though he looked amused. As Bran stared at him he only stared back, the music box held between his hands and Nim clutching onto the man’s right shoulder, her eyes a wild, animal green again as she crawled robotically up the man’s black coat.

“Look at that,” the man said, his voice warm and sardonic at the same time. “Looks like Nim brought the prize in after all.”

Nim looked back at Bran over her shoulder, still clinging to the man’s coat. There was no recognition in her eyes, and she bared her teeth at him. When she smiled, it was the same smile as the man held: as if Bran had fallen right into their trap.

“Looks like she’s just dragged you along with her,” the man said. He started in Bran’s direction, and Bran tensed up, ready to spring for the door, but the man only passed him to set the music box on one of the side tables. He opened it and turned the wheel, and Nim rushed forward and into the box again, and the man closed it and set the lock.

“Nim here is a troublemaker,” the man said. “Not so much unlike yourself, Bran. Perhaps that’s why she’s gotten attached to you so quickly.”

“Who are you?” Bran demanded. There were so many emotions at once: anger for being led into a trap, brokenness for whatever had happened to Nim, fear for what the man was going to do to him. Bran knew well that there were many undesirable characters in the world who wanted him for the powers he had inherited from his mother. The man only looked at him once and then shook his head.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to ask me questions, Bran.”

“I can ask you whatever I want,” Bran said, the anger within him winning out over any fear he had. He knew that with magic, he could escape this man, if he was merely a mercenary or someone who had been sent to kidnap him. But if this man was a mage—Bran did not know how to tell either way—then it could become messy.

“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to kill you?” the man asked abruptly. It was said in such a blunt manner it felt like the man threatened people every day, as if shooting Bran and hiding the body would be no different than turning off the television.

“I’ve had close scrapes with death before,” Bran said, trying not to let his voice waver.

“Not as close as here with me,” the man replied.

“So you are going to kill me?” Bran asked. “Like the man, downstairs. You killed him too?”

The man gave a slight laugh and moved for the other table, on which had been scattered piles of papers the day before but which was now mostly cleared off. There were a few things left, which he gathered and put into a thin, leather bag, next to which was a dark sack that looked to be filled with something thick.

“That man isn’t dead,” he replied. “He’s only unconscious for about ten more minutes. Just enough time for me to leave this place with no money in the cash register.”

He shrugged. “Unfortunately, he hit the panic button, and the police will be here in about the same amount of time, if they can draw themselves from lunch long enough.”

Bran was appalled at how natural it seemed to this person, talking to Bran as if he had known him for all his life.

“Who are you?” Bran hissed again, his voice demanding an answer. The room went very still at his words, but he did not back down.

The man looked to his bag, drawing from it a single videotape. He approached Bran slowly, and Bran forced himself not to shrink away.

“Take a look at this,” the man said, holding the tape out. Bran hesitated, so the man reached past him and punched on the VCR, exchanging the tapes himself. The screen shifted.

“Watch,” the man insisted, gesturing to the screen. Bran didn’t want to, but he finally turned to look. The video fizzled to life and began to play.

On the screen, Bran saw stacks of boxes and crates, all lined up. The angle was from above, like something perched on the top of a roof support. It took Bran a few seconds before he realized he was looking at the back warehouse of Highland’s Books, before the fire.

Bran saw himself on the screen, walking in through the darkness, looking wary. Out of the corner of the screen, there came a hand that grabbed Bran from behind, and in a flash of motion, he had spun about, swinging his hand out and throwing the person into a stack of crates behind him. In a second, he was thrown off his feet as well, and Bran realized what this was.

“You,” the man said, “at Highland’s Books, meeting the girl named Astara.”

He punched a button on the remote control, whizzing backward, and the scene shifted.

“We’ll go back more,” he said. “Highlights of the day before?”

Now it showed the park, right in the middle of the Duncelander Fair, just as it had been months before. The scene cut to the second when Bran leapt in front of the huge truck coming toward Rosie: his hands came up, and a thin, translucent blue wall appeared. The truck hit against Bran on the screen, nearly throwing him back.

In his shock as he watched, Bran slid down to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Ahead a bit?” the man asked, and he punched the button before the scene finished. It changed to show Bran being led through the side door of Farfield Tower with Joris and the men around him.

“A bit more?” the man asked, skipping to another time. The scene changed angles, watching through the window of an office, at the very second that Baslyn shoved Bran through the glass and into the rain. Seeing it happen all over again sent pain through Bran, as if he was reliving it.

“Want to see more?” the man asked. “How about Shambles closing the door? How about you and Astara running down the stairs? Or do you want to see something different, perhaps Joris and Elspeth at the van, just as the bombs go off? Or maybe you at Adi’s house, when—”

“What do you want!” Bran suddenly shouted, jumping from the bed and turning on the man, his hands in fists now, ready to fight. He had seen enough to know this man could be the most dangerous person to him in the world—even if he had no intention of killing him there.

“Are you going to show it all to the police?” Bran said, backing away. “Are you an officer? Have you been watching me all this time?”

The man said nothing. Bran was breathing fast, anger built up inside of him; how stupid he had been letting someone watch him that closely and not once even suspecting it. If one minute of that tape was to ever fall into the hands of a police officer—even someone in the Magic Investigational Police—it would be over for every person he knew.

The man stepped forward, and Bran inched back into the corner.

“No, stay away,” Bran hissed. The man narrowed his eyes and then took another step closer. Bran backed away by instinct, but the man only reached for the television and ejected the tape. He slipped it into his bag.

“Never,” the man said, “ever, ever, ever think no one is watching.”

He turned. “We are always watching.”

“I want to know who you are right now,” Bran said through clenched teeth, not afraid anymore, because he had had enough of being afraid. He came forward, but the man didn’t move, calmly zipping his bag. The man looked up.

“Are you going to Comsar me?” he asked sharply. “Why don’t you throw a bit of magic in with your words and try to make me tell you then. Magic seems to have served you and Emry quite well, hasn’t it?”

The man’s words hit Bran like a train—this stranger even speaking of his mother was an insult.

“Don’t you dare talk about my mother,” Bran said. The man seemed to shrivel under these words, drawing back slightly.

“Your mother,” he spat, and his calm voice became interjected with anger, though he tried to hide it. “Look at where she is now. Dead. Because of magic. You keep up with it and maybe you can follow in her footsteps.”

“My mother died trying to save me,” Bran said. “You know nothing of her!”

“Your mother died when the magic caught up with her,” the man shot back. “It does to all of us mages one day or another. She was just on the wrong side when the killings begin.”

He zipped another pocket on the bag. “As for my name, I’m Thomas, though most people just know me as T.”

Bran recognized it instantly. He remembered months before, when he had stolen Joris’s silver cell phone, that someone by the name of T had called, just before Shambles had first shown up at their house.

“I know what this is now,” Bran realized. “You’ve been following me ever since my mother left, and you told Joris where to go. Didn’t you?”

Thomas nodded without remorse.

“Unfortunately, I am that person,” he said. “But I’m someone worse than that, Bran. I’m also your father.”