Splinter (The Machinists Book 2) Page 4

  Many words like crosse or newe used additional silent letters that he was unaccustomed to, while others used vowels interchangeably or based on their position in the word. Even the word the was abbreviated strangely. He wasn’t transcribing—he was adapting, translating, and it gave him a headache.

  Even so, the very things that made the book difficult to transcribe helped him date it. The English language didn’t have standardized spelling until the mid-seventeenth century, so the book must have predated that. By how much, he had no idea. His next step was to cross-reference many of the names and locations to get a better sense of the era. Unfortunately, without the books in his library, he didn’t have many sources.

  His mind wandered to the library again. Had it survived the collapse of the manor? Had it been discovered? His body ached at the thought of dirty police hands mishandling his books. He loathed to imagine the secure concrete facility where the books and artifacts would be stored and catalogued, far removed from the hands of the people who could use them, who needed them.

  But for the time being, the library was out of his reach. So his focus needed to remain on the computer on his lap. Every book he’d been able to transcribe lived a digital life on its hard drive. He needed to back them up, store them, and maybe even send them to other Families for safekeeping. As long as the remaining McCollum books lived solely on his computer, they were at risk.

  He hit Save—just to be safe.

  Liam’s computer chimed, and it took him a moment to realize why. An email. He saved the document one last time and quickly pulled up his browser. He’d received a Google Alert. Concerned about being on the wrong side of a statewide manhunt, Allyn and Jaxon had asked Liam to track any news that named Allyn or Kendyl by name. Liam clicked on the link. The YouTube video was poor in quality, with a grainy picture and washed-out color, but Liam knew instantly what it was. By the time it ended, he was covered in cold sweat.

  Chapter 4

  Allyn huddled with Jaxon and Leira in a semicircle around Liam, who had pulled up a chair in front of the rickety bedside table Jaxon used as a desk. The room was tight with the four of them, and because Liam had insisted they close the door, it was also growing hot.

  The video, which had no sound, had been taken from the dash-mounted camera of a vehicle driving down a lonely, narrow road devoid of streetlamps. The faded yellow center line was nearly impossible to make out, and sometimes, it disappeared entirely under a thin fog. Thick, uncultivated trees lined the road to one side, while the other was a wall of exposed rock with leafy foliage growing through the cracks.

  Allyn leaned in closer, his insides twisting into a knot, nearly overwhelmed by a powerful wave of dread and familiarity.

  As the car rounded a tight corner, flashing blue and red lights reflected off the guardrail. It’s a squad car. The car straightened, and a new light streaked toward the camera. There was a bright flash, and Allyn lost all sense of direction. The world flipped and spun as if the video had been taken from the inside of a carnival ride, then finally, the vehicle lurched and came to a rest on its side. A single headlight shined across the narrow road toward the trees, and only a few feet beyond the tree line, the ground fell away abruptly.

  “That’s where Lukas ambushed us,” Allyn said. He felt three pairs of eyes turn to him. “But that isn’t how the attack happened. I—”

  A dark figure stepped into the frame. Dressed all in black and moving with lithe, snake-like movements, the man moved in front of the headlight. His already-pale skin was washed out in the poor video quality. It wasn’t Lukas.

  “Who is that?” Allyn asked.

  Nobody answered.

  Bright-orange balls of flame—little more than white circles of dancing light on the monitor—formed in the man’s hands. Something streaked toward him. He met it in the air with one of the balls of light. There was a bright flash, and when the image reappeared, the magi was on the ground, dazed. Struggling to regain his wits, he shuffled backward as another man stepped into frame. This man was dressed in full white battle attire, and he moved with a quiet confidence.

  “Graeme,” Allyn said.

  Liam shifted in his seat. Allyn wondered what the young man was thinking. His father had only been gone for four days, and Liam hadn’t had a chance to heal. Allyn remembered the anguish of seeing pictures and videos of his mother in the weeks and months following her passing. He even sometimes choked up to this day, years later—some wounds never healed entirely. And Liam wasn’t watching a video of a birthday or Christmas morning. This was his father fighting for his life.

  Graeme knelt over the other man, seeming to talk to him. Allyn found himself straining his ears in an attempt to hear what they were saying, though the video had no sound.

  Graeme and the fallen magi went on like that for nearly half a minute. Graeme visibly grew increasingly agitated as the conversation wore on, until finally, he stood, wielded, and—

  Allyn looked away, his skin suddenly clammy. He knew what came next—more death. When will it end? By the time he looked back up, Liam had paused the video. Graeme stood, staring straight at the camera. To those who already knew him, he was unmistakable.

  “Where did you find this?” Allyn asked.

  “It’s everywhere.” Liam punched the Escape button, and the video shrank to a small window on the monitor.

  Allyn laughed bitterly. YouTube?

  Circling the total views, Liam said, “It’s been viewed over fifty thousand times since this morning.”

  That sucked the air out of Allyn’s lungs. Fifty thousand views? Fifty thousand fresh eyes were watching something play out among a race of people they hadn’t previously known existed.

  Allyn rubbed the back of his neck. “Who uploaded it? The police?”

  Liam shook his head. “I don’t think so. Look at this.” He circled the name of the YouTube user who had uploaded the video.

  “J.P. Niall,” Allyn read. “Am I supposed to know who that is?” He looked to the rest of them, hoping to see an expression of recognition.

  Jaxon narrowed his eyes but didn’t look away from the screen. “I doubt any of us do.”

  “I don’t know why,” Liam said, “but I feel like I’ve seen it before. It’s… familiar.”

  “Another magi maybe?” Allyn asked.

  “There isn’t a Niall Family,” Jaxon said.

  “Was there ever?” Allyn asked. “Whoever uploaded the video could have referenced an old Family name, something only we would recognize, to get our attention.”

  “Who would want to do that?” Leira asked bitterly. “We’ve been disavowed.”

  “Then maybe they’re not trying to help…” Allyn said.

  “Lukas is dead,” Liam said.

  Lukas. Allyn couldn’t prevent the nightmare from returning. His throat constricted against the sudden smell of burnt hair—and he couldn’t tell if he was going to retch or suffocate. He stepped away from the group, looking for space. When he didn’t find it, he closed his eyes and forced himself to take long, steady breaths, counting each one.

  One.

  “The Hyland Family is still out there,” Jaxon said.

  Two.

  “Darian?” Leira said. “I thought he was dead.”

  Three. Allyn opened his eyes and turned back to the group. None of them so much as gave him a puzzled look. They probably thought he’d moved away to think.

  Four.

  “His body was never recovered,” Jaxon said.

  The implications hung in the air. The heir-apparent to Lukas’s movement might not only be alive; he might be active. That complicated matters.

  With a dry tongue, Allyn licked his lips. “We’re missing something. It’s police footage, and only they should have access to it. If Darian uploaded it, how did he get ahold of it?”

  “Someone could have removed the dash camera before the police arrived,” Liam said. “Or… it could be a police trap to lure us out.” He added the last bit with a crooked smile as if to suggest he didn’t believe it.

  “That doesn’t feel right, either,” Allyn said. “It’s too convoluted. Too unconventional. The police wouldn’t dump evidence straight onto YouTube. They would release it through official channels—TV, news websites, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s not true,” Liam said. “I’ve seen requests for help on social media.”

  Allyn looked at Liam, bemused. When did he become the expert on police procedure? “You’re right. But this is different. This isn’t a picture of a missing teenager floating across social media. This was uploaded straight onto YouTube without even a description. Don’t you think if this was the police looking for help, they’d include some sort of contact information? At least an email or a number to call if you have any information?”

  “I suppose,” Liam said, though the tone of his voice suggested he still wasn’t convinced.

  “Either way,” Leira cut in, “the longer we sit here talking about it, the more people are watching it. Can you take it down?”

  Allyn agreed with her. Unlike most of the videos on YouTube, this one had an air of brutal authenticity, which was probably the reason it was drawing so many viewers. Because it was taken from the dash cam of a police car, a small number of viewers had no doubt already accepted it as genuine and had been convinced that real-world magic existed faster than Allyn would have expected them to. Faster than he had. If there were enough believers in the audience, the questions would reach a tipping point. People would come looking, and the magi’s ability to hide in their shrinking world would disappear. r />
  A few comments poked fun at the video’s “poor special effects work,” but those were few and far between. To most, the video was entertainment, and they were impressed with the quality of the work. Most importantly, regardless of whether the police had released the video or not, it was still evidence, and it was only a matter of time before someone within the department made the connection. The video had to come down.

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Liam said.

  “Why?” Leira asked.

  “Well, on a normal video, yes, I could do it. But with something that’s gone viral like this…” Liam winced. “It’s been linked to and embedded onto thousands of other sites and social media pages. It’s spread too far. And it’s not slowing down.” As if to drive his point home, Liam refreshed the page. In the time they had gathered to watch it, the video had been viewed more than fifteen hundred more times and shared more than one hundred times.

  “What happens if you remove the original video?” Allyn asked. “Remove it, and the rest will disappear too, right?”

  “The ones that link back to this original video will,” Liam said. “But people try and capitalize off viral videos, piggyback off their viewers. These other videos”—he dragged the cursor over the Suggested Videos link on the right side of the screen—“aren’t simply embedded or linked to the original. They’re copies, recreations, videos of people watching the video.”

  “What are you saying?” Allyn asked.

  “I’d have to go in and remove them one by one.”

  “How many are there?” Leira asked.

  “Best guess? Hundreds.”

  “So you’re saying it can’t be done,” Allyn said.

  “No,” Liam said. “It can be done, but it will take a very long time. And what happens when every video involving real-world magic mysteriously vanishes from the Internet? Won’t people notice that, too?”

  Allyn pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then what do we do?”

  “I can remove the original video,” Liam said. “That will slow the process down and make it harder to find the others, but it won’t stop the spread.”

  “Do it.”

  “Wait.” Jaxon knelt beside Liam. Allyn realized that the man had been quiet for several minutes. “Can you trace it? Find out where it originated from?”

  “Probably.”

  “Give it a try.”

  “Now?”

  Jaxon nodded.

  Liam minimized the screen and set to work.

  “What are you thinking?” Allyn asked.

  “Whoever posted this video is obviously trying to capture our attention,” Jaxon said. “We should find out why.”

  “Even if it’s the police?”

  “We need to know who we’re contending with,” Jaxon said matter-of-factly. He turned back to Liam and watched as the young magi toggled through multiple screens, his hands a blur. The room remained quiet for several minutes. The others were probably like Allyn, afraid to interrupt, fearing they might break Liam’s rhythm and slow down the process.

  “Almost there,” Liam said, never breaking stride. Liam’s abilities had grown with his confidence. He’d always had skill with electronics—that much had been clear during Allyn’s first encounter with him—but Allyn believed there was little Liam couldn’t accomplish anymore. The only binds that held him back were of his own making—his limits were truly the limits of his imagination. Unfortunately, on the surface, Liam’s abilities looked like nothing more than skill—even Allyn had trouble distinguishing between the two—and that was how they’d gone unnoticed for so long to begin with. When the time came, how would they convince the other Families that these newfound abilities were real? Allyn’s magic was obvious magic, but Liam’s…

  “Done.” Liam leaned back in his chair and placed his hands on the top of his head.

  “Who is it?” Jaxon asked, leaning over Liam’s shoulder. “Is it Darian?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam said. “All I could pull was an address, but the video didn’t originate from the Hyland Estate.”

  “Where did it originate from?”

  “Here.” Liam pointed at the address hidden among the rest of the computer code.

  “There’s no way…” Allyn said. “There has to be some kind of mistake.”

  “No,” Liam said. “I traced the IP address back to the Internet provider, then cross-referenced it with their user database until I found a match. That video was uploaded by that user from that address.”

  Allyn shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jaxon asked.

  “That’s my address,” Allyn said. “That’s my condo.”

  Chapter 5

  Special Agent Richard Maddox strolled through the charred remains of the manor. Much of the white stone, blackened by smoke and flame, still stood, but the roof had collapsed, leaving the smoke-stained walls standing like ghosts, lost and alone. The fragile remains of half-burned belongings crunched under his feet, covering his polished black boots in gray ash and soot. The smell of smoke hung in the air, oppressive and clingy. He and his partner had spent the last two days at the manor, and Maddox hadn’t been able to get the disgusting scent off himself either time. He was beginning to think that he would forever smell like a campfire.

  The sun slipped past the trees behind him, and long shadows stretched over the grounds, peeking through the manor’s ruins like timid fingers. Large stadium-like lights had been erected around the perimeter of the manor so that the arson unit and other crime scene investigators could work into the night. So far, they had turned up very little. An accelerant had been used on the walls, and the manor had gone up in flames in an instant. But according to the reports of the officers on location, the manor had been clear when they’d arrived. A large number of people had returned—and died—at nearly the same time the manor had been torched. None of it made sense.

  His standard missing persons case was rapidly growing more complex. What had Allyn Kaplan, a young, well-to-do attorney with no family, been doing there? Why had he kidnapped his twin sister to begin with? The officers who found Kendyl had said that she was bound and gagged, but they also said that Allyn had surrendered himself peacefully.

  Most kidnapping cases came down to one of three things: power, money, or sex.

  Maddox had eliminated sex from the equation immediately. Neither Allyn nor Kendyl had a history of sexual harassment or abuse. Money seemed easy to eliminate, as well. By all accounts, Kaplan was an up-and-coming lawyer at one of the most prestigious law firms in the Northwest. According to the partners at Clarke, Poole, and Associates, Kaplan was making well into six figures per year with an impressive benefits package. And while most recent graduates were buried under student debt, an inheritance from his mother had paid for most of Allyn’s education. On the other hand, Kendyl was dead broke. The part-time barista at a trendy northeast coffee shop spent more money on her private art studio than she did on rent. If money had been the motive, she would have kidnapped him.

  That left power. Maddox struggled to justify that too, but other elements seemed to click into place. Theresa Kaplan had died when her children were just teenagers, and without any other family to go to, Allyn had taken charge. He had a history of thriving while in power. That was one of the attributes the partners at Allyn’s firm had loved about him—he didn’t get nervous or rattled. If he saw a problem, he found a way to fix it. Perhaps a conflict between the Kaplan siblings had caused Allyn to assert the same authority he’d acted upon earlier in life. That didn’t feel right, either. Allyn had taken on a parental role, and while parents are prone to acting irrationally, they don’t kidnap their misbehaving children.