Cursed

“What is wrong with you?” I shouted. “Could you be any more annoying?”

“You have no idea what this thing can do, do you?” Martin’s voice was mocking. “Come on, take a look.”

I glanced carefully around the corner. Martin was holding the gun in his right hand and in his left was the monkey’s paw. “Second wish,” he said, grinning at me. “First one gave me protection from magic. Now I’m protected from everything else.” He shook his head at me. “Seriously, man. You had this thing all this time and never used it? How stupid are you?”

I ran through the futures of me emptying a hundred shots at him a hundred different ways. Useless. I didn’t know how the monkey’s paw was protecting Martin but I couldn’t see a way through, and I felt a chill. Drawing away magical attacks was one thing, but bullets? Was there any limit to what that thing could do?

But if bullets didn’t work, maybe getting in close would. I crouched, ready to spring. Martin could only have a few more bullets in that gun. As soon as he stopped to reload …

“Two wishes,” Martin said. His grin had gotten wider and there was something manic about it. “Time for number three. I’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re wishing for your IQ to break double figures.”

Martin laughed wildly. “You think I’m a joke, don’t you? They all did! You, Belthas, everyone! Because I’m not a mage. Well, now I will be! But you won’t!”

“I—” And too late, I saw what Martin was going to do. My eyes went wide. “Oh, crap. No, you nutcase! Don’t—”

Martin lifted the monkey’s paw above his head. “I wish for all the powers of the mage Alex Verus to be mine!”

I’d been spreading out my magic, trying to watch all the possibilities. I’d been focusing on Martin, looking to see what he’d do next, looking into the futures of different ways I could attack him and the consequences of each, and finally keeping an eye on potential dangers at the back of my mind with my precognition, all at the same time. As Martin said the last word, I felt a surge of power from the monkey’s paw and just that fast, it was gone. The lines of glowing light in the darkness vanished into nothingness and the only sight I had was my eyes. For the first time in ten years, I couldn’t see the future. The shock was so great I couldn’t move. I stood frozen, staring.

Martin stood with the monkey’s paw held high. The corridor was silent but for the distant sounds of battle from above. Martin was gazing past me, that manic grin frozen on his face. As I watched, the grin slid away until he was just staring. His brow furrowed in confusion, his expression changing slowly into a mask of horror. His eyes went wider and wider until they bulged out, turning his good looks into something twisted. His gaze swept over me blindly as he looked around and began shaking his head, slowly at first, then more violently. “No,” he muttered. He covered his eyes, staggering sideways into the wall. “No, stop it. No, no. Stop it. Stop it! STOP IT! STOP IT!”

“Alex!” Luna called from behind. I could hear the rattle of keys.

I didn’t answer. There’s no way to understand what it’s like to see the future, know it, rely on it, then have it snatched away. It’s not like being blind—it’s like being deaf. You can still see, still watch things as they happen—but you don’t have the context anymore, the extra information that makes it mean something. Someone talks to you and you don’t know what they’re saying; something could be happening behind you and you wouldn’t know what. So much of my life goes into controlling this talent I have, focusing and using and directing it. Now it was gone, an emptiness where there’d been a whole world.

Martin had started screaming, wordless and breathless. He was stumbling blindly back and forth, bashing into the walls; his fingers dug into his forehead as if he were trying to claw his eyes out. I knew I should do something but I couldn’t think. Looking into the future was such a reflex that I couldn’t stop doing it, even though there was nothing to see. Luna was calling to me but I couldn’t hear her over Martin’s screams. There were too many things at once and without my magic I couldn’t keep track anymore.

The scrape of metal reached my ears over Martin’s screaming, and I looked up. The door I’d left ajar back at the entrance to the basement was open, and one of Belthas’s guards was standing there, one I’d seen before. He had a submachine gun pointed down at the floor, and he was wearing a red baseball cap. He saw me and the gun came up.

Reflex and survival instinct got me moving when my conscious mind couldn’t. I dived past Luna’s cell and around the corner as bullets raked the wall beside me. I heard the chatter of fire for another second, then the sound of running feet and silence.

I snatched a glance around the corner, trying to spot where the guard had gone. Nothing. Without my magic I felt slow, stupid. Had he gone left or right? I lifted my gun and aimed awkwardly, leaning out into the corridor.