Series Summary: Five magicians are brought together for a once in a lifetime opportunity: to become a part of a magical secret society called The Eye. But what happens when two of them are exes who never expected to see each other again? Having to work together towards a common goal, will they be able to put aside their issues in order to achieve what few magicians have done before them?
So I’ve just finished Young Sherlock (which is 100% my new hyperfixation) and I really, really need some x reader fics that revolve around these three. Sherlock, Moriarty, Mycroft… I’ll take all of them to be honest
My reaction to Benedict talking to Sophie at the end of episode 4:
“If you wish me to leave, I will. But the truth is, I stay away because you consume me. My eyes search for you in every room I enter. My heart beats when you are near. The reality of you has become more tantalising than any fantasy could be, and one I cannot live without. I meant it when I said you deserve better, and I am determined to give it to you and more. Sophie..”
Summary: The Horsemen get a deeper insight into The Eye.
Warnings: first person POV
Word Count: 1.9 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
The next morning (or should I say, a few hours after our show), the six of us are heading to the Greenwich Observatory at the request of Li and Bubu. Since we’ve yet to come down from our high of pulling off one of the best shows we’ve ever done, we decide to have a bit of fun on the way.
“The wheels on the car go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the car go round and round, all day long!”
Danny turns to face us from his position at the front and gives withering looks to Jack, Lula, Merritt and I. “Guys, c’mon. It’s starting to get annoying now.”
Instead of answering him, the four of us continue to sing. “The wipers on the car go swish swish swish, swish swish swish-“
With a groan, he turns back around and tries to block us out. Dylan shouts over us to tell him, “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”
Five minutes later, the silver SUV comes to a stop outside our destination.
“Oh thank god for that,” Danny says.
“How dare you insult our delightful and dulcet voices,” I playfully reply.
“More like tone deaf and pitchy.”
“Hey!”
As the six of us get out of the car, Li comes out of the building to greet us. “Hi guys! Good to see you all. Come on in.”
He leads us to a locked door with a sign that reads ‘closed to the public’ and after opening it, we’re led into a large opulent room, where Bu Bu is waiting for us. “Good morning, and welcome. I’m proud of you. All of you. I have a lot to show you - come.”
I’m the only one who sees Dylan quietly split away from us and make his way to a door at the other side of the room. I’ve got a feeling that something is waiting for him specifically in there, so I turn my focus back to our group. The five of us then proceed to follow the woman as she leads us deeper into the space.
There are tables situated all around the room with various different kinds of things on them, but one immediately grabs my attention.
When I get closer to it, I see that the entirety of its surface is covered in black and white photographs - and we’re the subjects of them.
Turning over my shoulder I call on the others. “Guys, you might wanna come and see these.”
Once they all join me I can tell that they share my shock and curiosity, with Jack even murmuring, “Woah.”
Merritt picks up one and says, “This is a picture from a show I did on a cruise a while back.”
Taking a closer look at it I remark, “Yep, you can definitely tell how long ago it was because you still had some hair back then.”
While the others snicker at my words, McKinney sends a half-hearted glare my way. “You’re lucky I like you Y/N, otherwise I’d be hypnotising you to do something crazy right now, like making you act like a monkey for the rest of the day.”
“At least I’d be the prettiest monkey you’ve ever seen,” I respond, which causes him to laugh and shake his head.
“Wait. These are from my show eight years ago when I did my rabbit trick,” Lula tells us as she shows us the photos in her hand.
“Was the hat supposed to have that much fur on it?” Jack asks.
“Uh, not really. Let’s just say that even though the trick worked, it wasn’t a pretty sight,” she answers.
Continuing to look at the images in front of me, a few of them catch my eye. They’re of someone I haven’t seen in a long time.
Henley.
I get a pang in my chest looking at them because they take me back to the moment that she told us she wanted to leave the group and by extension, The Eye. It was a shock, but I completely understood why considering everything that had happened. It was weird not having her there for a while, but we eventually came to terms with it and a silver lining that came out of it all was Lula, who’s been a great addition to our magical group.
I’m snapped out of my thoughts by Danny saying, “Y/N. Look at these ones.”
As he points them out to me, I quietly gasp at what I’m seeing: pictures of when I was his assistant and doing shows together, the both of us performing as solo acts near the beginning of our careers and even some during our year of hiding.
“This is actually insane. I mean, some of these go back years,” I mutter.
“They really have been watching us,” he comments.
We all then take our time going to different parts of the room. There’s a table with a small model replicating the Octa stage, which is also accompanied by a tablet showing a clip of our show before it was hijacked. A TV screen showing Arthur, Walter and Chase getting arrested and taken away by the police. Partition screens spread out within the room with pictures of us doing our shows last night in London and news articles covering our New Year’s Eve comeback pinned to them: ‘Horsemen Strike Again’, ‘A Show-Stopping End To The Year’ and-
“No way!” I exclaim.
Four heads turn in my direction.
“What is it?” Lula asks.
Instead of replying, I point at a specific article with the headline ‘A Magical Reckoning: Magicians Expose Insurance Magnate Once Again.’
I can see the moment it clicks for all of them and I can’t help the smug grin that appears on my face.
“Looks like giving everything a nickname has finally paid off,” I comment.
Something must grab Merritt’s attention because he walks over to a nearby table and says, “Well what do we have here?”
After reaching him we take note of what’s in front of us - blueprints of the lab we visited in order to steal the chip as well as CCTV pictures of us both entering and leaving the security perimeter.
I soon feel Lula lightly nudge my side. Just as I’m about to ask why she did it, I see something in my peripheral vision and when I look towards it, I gasp and my jaw almost drops to the floor.
The guys clearly hear my reaction and look up as well. There, standing in front of the five of us, is the man from the Macau science centre pouring a cup of tea.
He looks at all of us then remarks, “Now I know why you look so familiar. You’re The Horsemen aren’t you?”
With a wink, he walks away from us towards wherever he’s headed, leaving us in complete and utter shock.
“Oh my god!” Lula says incredulously.
“He’s part of The Eye?” Jack voices.
It’s then when I realise something. “That means he knew exactly what we were doing in the lab and let us get away with it. That’s insane.”
“We need to tell Dylan. Where is he anyway?” Danny asks.
“I saw him go over there after we came in,” I respond, nodding towards the slightly ajar wooden door nearby.
When our group gets closer, we hear a familiar voice coming from inside the room. “It’s your game now. You play it however you see fit. My suggestion however, is that you find yourself a successor.”
After entering the room, we realise that it belongs to Thaddeus Bradley, with Danny addressing him, “Hi, so umm… well, obviously we have a few questions.”
“By few I think he means five million,” Merritt adds.
With a cheshire cat grin the elder magician tells us, “Well, good luck to you all,” before walking towards the door.
“Oh come on! Don’t leave us hanging like that!” I say.
Lula attempts to reason with him too. “See, that’s not fair. Not even one?”
Just as he’s about to leave the room, he turns and comments, “Oh by the way - pay no attention to the curtain,” pointing his cane somewhere behind us.
Looking in that direction, we notice that there is in fact a curtain hanging nearby. Quickly making our way over to it, Dylan pushes it to the side to reveal a door. He turns the knob, pulls it open and we discover that it leads to the top of a very tall spiral staircase. All of us look over the railing to try and see what’s at the bottom of it, but because we’re so high up it’s difficult to make out.
Jack, Merritt, Lula and Dylan begin to run down the stairs but as I go to follow them, Danny grabs my hand. “Wait.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“Before we go down there, I just want to say thank you.”
“What for?”
“Putting up with me for the past year.“
“Danny-“
He cuts me off by adding, “I know it hasn’t been easy for you Y/N - I mean, between me feeling frustrated at doing nothing and the mood swings that have come along with it, I haven’t exactly been a great person to deal with. Or a good boyfriend.”
I soften at his words. “Hey. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It was a long year for all of us, not just you. I can’t speak for the guys, but I had days where I felt like that too - I was just better at hiding it. As for saying that you’ve not been a good boyfriend, no person or relationship is perfect. But as long as you keep treating me right and love me as much as I love you, you’re doing a good job.”
When I finish talking, I see some of the tension leave his body. “I can do that.”
“Good. Cause if you don’t, I’ll kick your ass or get Merritt to hypnotise you to do something humiliating. Or maybe both actually. Yeah - definitely both.”
Danny laughs before remarking, “You’re really quirky sometimes, you know that?”
I can’t help but scoff. “Look at who’s talking control freak. If I have to put up with your quirks, you have to put up with mine. Now how about we join the others? They’ve probably noticed that we’re not down there yet.”
Almost on cue we hear McKinney shout, “Hey lovebirds! If you’re done being all mushy and lovey-dovey or whatever it is you’re doing, get your asses down here!”
After chuckling I say, “You heard the man. Better not keep them waiting.”
While we make our way down the stairs, Thaddeus Bradley’s words from his video post a few months back replay in my head:
Are you listening Horsemen? When you emerge, and you will… I will be there, waiting. Mark my words, you will get what’s coming to you - in ways you can’t expect, but very much deserve. Because one thing I believe in, is an eye for an eye.
At the time I thought he was talking about revenge, but now after everything we’ve been through, I realise that he was talking about us and The Eye. He told us what was going to happen without explicitly stating it - it was all about perspective. I guess what they say is true: the closer you look, the less you see.
As for what the future holds for us, who knows? But one thing I do know for certain is that I don’t care how long we have to wait until our next show or until the next nefarious individual emerges who needs to be held accountable for their actions. As long as I have Danny and my fellow Horsemen by my side, everything will be okay.
A/N: And that’s a wrap! Hope you’ve enjoyed the series. I will be doing one based on NYSM 3, but that probably won’t be ready to go for a while (it will definitely be coming though). I’ll post an update when most of the parts are completed and then I’ll start posting them.
Summary: Justice is a dish best served with a little bit of magic.
Warnings: some swearing, first person POV
Word Count: 3.8 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
We are here in London on this New Year’s Eve and the crowds are out in force. Locals and tourists alike are getting ready for the party of the year. A video gone viral from the infamous Horsemen magicians has surfaced, with them promising to make a grand reappearance. The question on everyone’s lips is: will it end with their arrest on national television, or some sort of vindication? Who knows where they’ll show up, but we do know wherever or whenever that is, people will be watching.
After the news report ends, Dylan switches the TV off and turns to us. “Okay guys, this is it. Time to put our plan into action and take down Walter and Tressler once and for all. If we pull this off, they’ll both be in handcuffs by the time midnight comes around and won’t be able to take advantage of anyone anymore. Do you have your earpieces?”
We nod in confirmation before he continues. “Good. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be able to give you a heads up. Before we go, I just want to say that I’m proud of you all. Things have been rough recently but you’ve adapted and came out stronger on the other side. It proves that I couldn’t have chosen a better team of magicians if I tried.”
“Don’t get all mushy on us now Dylan,” Merritt says.
“I mean it. You’ve come a long way since we first met. You bring out the best in each other and work together like a well-oiled machine, which is how I know that we can do this. Alright, let’s get going and end the year with a bang.”
“Yeah, let’s expose Walter for the evil son of a bitch he is. It’s time for ‘A Magical Reckoning: Part Two’”, I comment.
McKinney shakes his head before asking, “What is it with you and giving everything a nickname?”
“Why not? It makes things sound more exciting and fun.”
“Wait, why part two? What was the first one?” Lula voices.
Jack answers her question by explaining, “New Orleans when we screwed over Arthur.”
“Oh. Yeah that makes sense.”
“I also called it Operation Robin Hood though. Maybe I should call this one Operation Lazarus because of the whole bringing someone back from the dead thing, or-“
Danny’s voice cuts off my sentence. “Hey guys? If you’ve finished your discussion about names for our show how about, you know, we actually go and perform it? We won’t be done by midnight at this rate.”
“Why do I feel like I’ve been told off by a teacher?” Lula whispers to me.
“Don’t take it personally. He gets snarky when he’s nervous.“ I respond.
Merritt chimes in by asking, “How can you tell the difference? He’s basically like that all the time.”
“It’s like you said in Macau: I’m the Danny whisperer. Plus it also helps that I’ve known him slightly longer than the rest of you and have been living with him for the past year, so…”
Clearly getting agitated at our antics Danny snaps, “Guys! The clock is ticking. We need to leave now.”
“Maybe we should listen to him before steam starts coming out of his ears,” Jack murmurs, which causes me to let out a snort.
I aim my next words at Danny when I remark, “Relax control freak. We’re leaving.”
After approaching my boyfriend I turn to the others and say, “Good luck. Not that you’ll need it, because we’re the best damn magicians out there. Let’s give people a New Year’s Eve to remember and one that Walter and Arthur will never forget.”
With that, we all go our seperate ways: Jack and Dylan head to Greenwich Market, Lula to the Cutty Sark and Danny and I make our way to the Royal Naval College. Merritt’s going to draw Chase out for another part of our plan that will hopefully work because if not, it could throw a spanner in the works. It’s time to do what we do best - entertain and amaze.
******
Danny and I take the quiet, empty side streets to avoid being spotted and when we approach our destination, we put our hoods up to keep us disguised from the people walking on the sidewalk and from the rain pouring down on us. Once we reach the stairs leading to the College, I stop him and give him a quick kiss.
“What was that for?” He asks.
“Think of it as a good luck charm. Now go and do your thing magic man.”
When Danny gets into position and removes his hood, the spotlights that line the path behind him switch on and project blue light towards the sky. The reaction is immediate: people stop in their tracks, crowd around him and begin cheering, myself included.
After the noise has died down a little bit he announces, “Well, I guess you found me! Now I have a confession to make, I’ve been told I have some control issues.”
While people laugh at his statement, he looks over at me with a knowing smirk which makes me scoff and do the same.
He continues by saying, “I’ve learned that it’s really, really hard to control people, so I’m going to try to control something that’s a lot easier than people. I’m going to try to control the weather. It would be a little difficult to make it rain right? That would be something only God can do. I’m going to do something that God can’t do. I’m not just gonna make it clear up, no. I’m going to make it actually - stop.”
As soon as he moves one of his hands forward, the rain stops falling and freezes mid air, stunning the people around us.
“Can God do that? No, I don’t think so. What about making it go up?”
“Moving his hand again, the raindrops float upwards, making the crowd gasp in shock and awe.
“Or how about making it just go insane?”
He then proceeds to make the rain go all over the place: up, down, left, right, much to the joy of the audience.
Dylan’s tense voice comes through my earpiece. “Y/N. Atlas. You need to get out of there now.”
Once Danny stops, the rain goes back to normal again and he says, “Was that an act of God? No. That was an act of me, the strobe lights and rain machines. I hope you guys were paying attention, because you’re gonna need to know all of that for the final.”
He then goes to fall back onto the pavement, but ‘disappears’ before he can make impact, leaving only his jacket behind.
I soon feel someone grab my hand and I turn to see Danny standing there with a small smile on his face. As we quickly distance ourselves from the Naval College and make our way towards the meet up point I tell him, “You did good out there Mr. Control Issues.”
“You caught that huh?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly subtle. Do me a favour though - it’s bad enough that you’re a control freak, don’t let that little trick give you a God complex too. If your head gets any bigger your neck’s going to break with all that weight.”
“Hey! I don’t think other girlfriends insult their boyfriends like this.”
“That’s because I’m not like other girls Danny,” I remark with a smirk.
“No, you’re not. That’s what I love about you.”
I get a warm feeling in my chest at his words. “Careful Danny, you keep saying things like that and people will think you’re going soft,” I say jokingly.
“Maybe I am. Only with you though. Now c’mon, we better get to the rendezvous point, the others are probably waiting on us.”
******
When we run into the courtyard, Dylan and Jack are already beside the motorbikes. “Again? How did we get found out again?” Danny yells in their direction.
Once we get to them Dylan replies, “It’s fine, it’s fine, we’ll just cut to the finale.”
After Danny and I get on our motorbikes I ask, “Where’s Merritt?”
“I’m here!” he shouts as he comes to join us.
Jack then questions, “What about Lula?”
The woman in question answers as she runs towards our group. “I’m right here! What the hell happened?”
“My god damn brother happened!” McKinney responds.
“Don’t worry about it, we just gotta get to the destination. Lula, can you handle that thing?”
She answers Dylan’s question by saying, “I can ride it. Have you asked Y/N that question or just me?”
“Good point.”
“Let’s go!” Jack shouts before speeding off ahead of us. A couple of SUVs choose that moment to turn into the courtyard, with a guy shooting at Jack. While attempting to avoid getting shot, he loses control of his motorbike and falls to the ground.
As he takes cover from the gunshots Dylan tells us, “Jack’s down. We gotta get him.”
He and Danny drive off to grab Jack, with Lula and I following close behind. Dylan manages to get him on the back of his own motorcycle, but as we’ve almost reach the exit, we’re stopped by more armed men getting out of the cars and pointing their guns at us.
Shit.
I soon see Merritt’s motorcycle fly through the air and land on the ground, with him getting thrown off it in dramatic fashion. After taking his helmet off he yells, “Those things are really dangerous!”
🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨
The six of us are then shoved into the back of a black truck where Walter, Arthur and Chase are already waiting for us, like two evil villains and their idiot henchman. After it begins to drive away Chase remarks, “Okay, feeling anger, fear, anger, fear, more anger and more fear. Oh! Full house!”
Art shuts him up by saying, “That’s enough. So nice to see you all again, but since we’re such old friends, let’s skip the formalities. One of you has something we require, so give it over.”
Silence envelops the van until Walter breaks it. “Really? Nothing at all?”
I then put my hand in my jacket pocket and snark, “Oh! Now that you mention it, I do have something for you. It’s um, it’s right here,” then proceed to pull my hand out to reveal my middle finger.
“Think you’re funny do you?” He sneers.
“I know I am. Whereas you, you’re stupid if you think we’re going to just hand over the stick to a sociopathic asshole like you.”
Walter goes to lunge for me, but is stopped by Art placing a hand on his shoulder.
Feigning innocence I remark, “Awww, did I hit a nerve? If I’d known you had feelings to begin with, I would’ve hurt them a lot sooner.”
Before he has a chance to say anything, the truck stops and after the doors are opened, I notice that we’re in an airplane hanger with a private jet sitting to the side. While the six of us make our way onto the plane, torchlights get shone in our eyes, temporarily blinding us.
As the door closes behind our group, we all get shoved into seats by Walter’s guards and once the plane takes off, Walter stands up and starts to talk. “You know, you make it almost too easy. I mean, even your hilarious attempts to make yourselves unpredictable just follow the same pattern each time, set up, set up, set up - big reveal.”
He stops beside Danny and says, “Which tonight was going to be stroke of midnight, middle of the Thames, tell me if I’m warm?”
He glares at Walter in response.
“Well, there will be a big reveal and it will come now,” the sociopath adds.
Art, who’s been quiet up until this moment, looks at Dylan and demands, “The stick dear boy.”
“No.”
“Fine. Start with her,” Walter orders, gesturing to Lula.
Everything soon turns chaotic: a guard approaches her and points a very large and sharp knife in her face, which makes Jack jump up and try to come to her rescue. Instead, he’s pushed back down into his seat and all of us start shouting at Danny.
“Give him the card!” Merritt exclaims.
“Give it to him Atlas! Kind of in a life or death situation here.” Lula pleads.
Jack then tries to reason with him. “Come on man. Just do it.”
Danny makes the case containing the stick appear out of thin air and into his hand. Walter practically grabs it off him and opens it to inspect its contents. “Let me have a closer look.”
He then puts the stick into a weird looking machine and while it does whatever it’s doing Dylan says, “Okay, I owe you an apology.”
“Leader, you should’ve planned an escape okay?” Danny snaps back.
“This is the both of us.”
Scoffing he sarcastically responds, “Oh it’s the both of us.”
A clearly exasperated Jack comments, “Guys come on, stop.”
Danny soon turns his annoyance onto Jack, “You! To save your little girlfriend!”
“He had a knife to her head Danny! What was he supposed to do? Sit there and watch her get hurt? You’re being such an ass right now,” I snark.
“Yeah. In case you forgot, I’m a Horseman too you dick!” Lula bites back at him. Facing Merritt she asks, “What’s your deal man?”
“Look, they’re not going to get blood all over the seats. They’re probably gonna throw us out of the plane.”
“Oh really?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just have to say congratulations and thank you. It’s real,” Walter tells us.
The shock is clear on all of our faces at his statement.
“Wait. It’s real?” I whisper to my friends.
Addressing his guards Mabry orders, “Bring them through.”
The six of us get forcefully pulled up and taken to the middle of the plane. When we’re all there Art walks to an ice bucket, takes a bottle out and says, “Côte Du Marisule champagne. It’s the most expensive bottle on earth - 1.2 million dollars. I saved it just for this occasion.”
“Honestly, same bottle, Liquor Shack, 700K.” Merritt remarks.
“Hey. You got what you wanted, so does this mean that you’re letting us go?” Dylan asks Walter.
“Knowing what you know about us? No. Chase, what shall we do?”
With a smile too smug for my liking he responds, “Toss them out.”
He then presses a button that opens the door, causing strong gust of air to enter the plane.
“Get your last words in quickly everybody!” Walter shouts as the guards lunge towards us and drag us closer to the door, but we’re not going quietly, yelling and protesting all the way.
They get Merritt first and before they have the chance to throw him out he turns around and tells us, “I just wanna say, I came into the world with the wrong family, but I’m leaving with the right one. I love you guys!”
When he gets in front of Chase the prick says, “This is how I kicked you out of the womb!” before doing exactly that.
“No! Merritt!” Lula shouts.
The guards don’t hesitate to throw Dylan, Lula and Jack out until it’s only Danny and I left. “I love you Danny. Forever and always!”
Chase suddenly grabs him and says, “A lot of brain, but not enough brawn,” before shoving him out the plane.
“No!” I scream.
I hear Walter laugh behind me so I turn to him and shout, “I hope you rot in hell asshole!” spitting at his feet for good measure.
I then get unceremoniously pushed out of the plane and land on a massive inflatable beside my fellow Horsemen, who are grinning and laughing at the fact that those idiots played right into our hands.
After being helped off by Danny he remarks, ‘“I love you forever and always?’ That was a bit dramatic don’t you think?”
“Not really. I had to act as if I really was going to die and I know it was over the top, but it’s still true. Even though you drive me crazy sometimes,” I tell him, before giving him a kiss on his cheek.
I approach Jack and compliment him. “Well done street rat! Looks like you chose the right time to succeed at hypnotism.”
Thanks Y/N/N. I can’t believe it worked either.”
“Guys, let’s get ready and give them a surprise, shall we?” Dylan says to us.
After quickly putting our mics on and our stagehands set a few things up for us, the power, rain and wind machines get switched off, putting the hangar into darkness. Once the six of us get onto the left plane wing, we all take turns looking through the nearby windows to sneak a peek at Arthur and Walter, who look at us as if they’re seeing ghosts.
While they jump up from their seats and make their way out of the plane, the walls of the hangar fall down to reveal that we are on a platform in the middle of the Thames, in front of Tower Bridge, with five minutes to go until midnight, which should give us enough time to explain how we pulled off our big finale.
Huge crowds surround us on both sides of the river, cheering and clapping in delight, our image being projected onto a massive screen fixed to the bridge by a camera pointed directly at us. When Walter, Chase and Arthur eventually exit the plane Danny addresses Walter directly. “You should feel pretty good about yourself man. You predicted it correctly - the Thames, stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year!”
He tries to run away, but is stopped in his tracks when a spotlight gets shone on him and a camera records him. Danny continues by saying, “Thank you very much London! We would like to acknowledge not just our old friend Arthur Tressler, but his young and very brilliant son Walter Mabry, who has performed one of the greatest feats of illusion even we have ever seen: he has, amazingly, brought himself back from the dead!”
“But before he did that, he revealed someone and we think it only right to give him a proper introduction.” I tell the crowd. “He is our friend, leader and the person who brought us all together in the first place - Dylan Shrike!”
The man in question - who has been standing to the side to let us have our moment - makes his way across the wing, getting pats on the back from us as he goes until he stops beside Danny and I.
He then begins to speak. “So normally, only the magician, his assistant and a few trusted stage hands know the secret of a trick. But tonight all of you people around the Thames here - and since we’re streaming live, everyone around the world - already knows everything. Only these fellows here are the ones left behind in the dark,” gesturing to the three douchebags at the bottom of the plane.
“Let’s see how closely you were watching our shows,” I add.
Jack goes first. “Remember when we were playing Find The Lady? I said that we used a barry trap, some classic switches and a few duplicates. Well, that’s how we switched the driver of the truck, which took us to a duplicate hangar where we used your need to rush and your fear of being seen do the work for us.”
“So the airplane, how did we get it to ‘fly?’ Lula asks.
“Well we used fans, lights and rain machines,” Danny supplies.
Jack then continues, “Obviously all of this was reliant on us getting ‘caught’, but we needed to make sure that you would do exactly what we needed you to do once you did catch us.”
Merritt makes his way down the stairs attached to the wing. “My brother Chase, who was technical advisor to the losing team, he taught us that it’s all about blind spots… and surprises,” patting Jack on the shoulder with a smile.
Walking towards the trio watching us, he stops in front of his twin and says, “If all of this is kind of confusing to you, I can maybe catch you up on it later. Probably see you in what, three to five?”
While the audience laughs in response, Merritt hits Chase in the groin and tells him, “Tit for tat bro!” before coming back to join us again.
“Basically, we gave them every hint and clue to what was about to happen, but they were clearly too preoccupied with catching us to pay attention. It’s like a great magician once said: the closer you look, the less you see,” I tell the audience, exchanging a knowing smile with Danny in the process.
“We showed them everything, including how you kidnapped us to steal the very thing that is your pocket right now,” Jack comments.
We all watch as Walter checks his jacket pocket, but comes up empty.
“Uh oh. Did you lose something?” I ask rhetorically.
From next to me, Danny makes the stick appear in his hand and says, “Whoops!”
“You know, this thing here, which you said you could use to adjust markets, manipulate governments and spy on whomever you choose,” Merritt explains.
“Also, you could, as you said, control the public from outside the grid,” Lula adds.
Dylan continues by telling the audience, “These men destroy people’s lives, spying on the world, robbing you of your right to privacy, and they do that by hiding in the dark. So, in the Horsemen tradition, we’re here to expose them, tonight. They - like all of us - are finally stepping into the light.”
“Thank you everybody! We are The Horsemen and we will be back very soon!” Danny shouts.
At that, the countdown to midnight begins, with the crowd chanting, “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”
As Big Ben chimes and fireworks light up the sky, I pull Danny towards me by the lapels of his coat and give him a passionate kiss. When we pull away I whisper, “Happy New Year Danny.”
“Happy New Year Y/N,” he replies before taking my hand in his.
Looking over his shoulder, I can’t help but giggle at the sight before me. He has a confused look on his face as he asks, “What?”
“Seems like you’re not the only one getting a New Year’s kiss.”
Turning around, he looks on as Jack and Lula kiss and lets out a chuckle of his own.
Merritt’s voice snaps them out of it as he states, “Guys, we’re on the clock. We need to go.”
It’s then when I take note of the police boats speeding towards the platform, which are probably bringing FBI agents straight to us.
The six of us then rush off the plane wing and head towards the other side of the platform to make our escape, revelling in our achievement of helping to put three criminals behind bars by using our unique brand of karma. What a perfectly satisfying way to end the year.
Summary: The plan was supposed to be simple - exchange the stick for a trip back home and get far away from Macau. But even the best laid plans can go awry…
Warnings: some swearing, first person POV
Word Count: 3.3 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
It’s not long until we get dropped off at Taipa Marketplace. When we reach an outdoor cafe near the outskirts of it Danny turns to us and says, “Alright, why don’t you guys wait here and I’ll come back and get you after I’ve dropped off the stick, okay?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply before he makes his way deeper into the market, obviously eager to get to the agreed upon spot where the meeting will take place. After we’ve all sat down at a table Jack voices, “I still don’t like this.”
I sigh heavily then respond, “Neither do I, but you know what Danny’s like - once he gets an idea in his head, it’s pretty hard to talk him out of it. You guys saw what happened when he suggested the tracking bracelets last year. I ended up compromising with him because he was so adamant about us wearing them.”
“Yeah, because he’s got control issues,” Merritt points out.
“He may be a control freak, but I think deep down you know that it’s just his way of making sure that all the bases are covered so that nothing bad happens to us. His heart is in the right place, even if the way he acts sometimes doesn’t show it,” I reply.
Lula chimes in by commenting, “Y/N’s got a point. Danny telling Walter that we’d steal the stick for him stopped us from being killed on the spot. He put our safety first when we were too busy ignoring Walter’s threat and telling him to shove it.”
“I guess you’re right. I’m just worried about Mabry finding out about this whole exchange we’re doing with The Eye, you know? He really wants that stick so if he finds us before we have the chance to get out of here, we’re toast,” Jack tells us.
That’s basically the exact same issue I’ve had since Danny first proposed his plan. Walter is different from Tressler in the sense that he knows what we are: thieving magicians who have hidden motives behind our actions. This means that he’s less likely to be caught off guard by us because he has probably already considered the possibility that we’ll double cross him. I just hope that by the time Walter realises we’ve betrayed him, we’ll be on a plane back home.
It’s then when I see someone running towards us. As they get closer to our group, I realise that it’s Danny. He left us barely ten minutes ago so his reappearance means nothing good.
My assumption is proven right when he approaches us with a panicked look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
After hesitating he replies, “Everything.”
I stand up and say, “What do you mean by everything? Spit it out Danny.”
“It wasn’t The Eye I’ve been contacting - it was Walter. He was the man in the blue hat.”
I knew it. I knew something was off about all of this. Here was us thinking that we were outsmarting that son of a bitch by trading the stick for our freedom when we’ve played right into his hands instead.
“What the hell?” Lula exclaims.
Jack drags a hand down his face before murmuring, “Damn it.”
“It’s not just that,” Danny adds reluctantly.
“There’s more? How can this get any worse?” I remark incredulously.
“Dylan’s here.”
Those two words cause the rest of the group to practically jump up from their seats and start shouting over one and other.
“What happened?”
“Where is he?”
“How did he find us?”
To that Danny answers, “I don’t know, but I think he’s in trouble. He saved me from getting beat up by Walter’s thugs and made sure I had this,” proceeding to take out the card with the stick still attached to it from his pocket.
“How do you still have that?” I ask.
“Dylan pretended to take it off me before he shoved me through a door away from himself and the others. We need to go and try to figure out what’s happened to him.”
The five of us then make our way to the entrance of the market, but stop in our tracks when we see a safe being transferred from Iong’s onto the back of a truck.
“What are they doing?” Jack wonders.
“Those are Walter’s men,” Danny states.
Merritt then comments, “Whoa. That’s Lionel Shrike’s safe. What the hell do they want with that?”
“We need to follow that truck,” I say.
“They must have Dylan. We don’t have much time,” Danny tells us.
Once we’ve hailed a cab, the five of us jump in and go after the truck, hoping that we get to Dylan before it’s too late.
******
After following the vehicle to the shipyard, we hide behind some nearby containers and watch as the group of men take the safe onto a large rusted ship, where we see Walter, Dylan and-
“Who’s the third guy?” Merritt asks.
Focusing on the mysterious individual, I slowly begin to pick out little details: they’re tall, on the older side if the grey hair is any indication and wearing an expensive looking suit. As I put the pieces together, I feel the blood draining from my face. If it’s who I think it is then this is bad - really bad.
I turn to the others and utter, “I think it’s Tressler.”
“Holy shit!” Jack whisper shouts.
“What’s he doing here?” Danny questions.
“God knows, but judging by the fact that he’s up there with Walter it can’t be anything good,” I reply.
A few minutes later, there is movement on the ship as we see Dylan being forced into the safe before it’s hoisted up in the air, dangling precariously over the water.
“They’re not gonna do what I think they’re gonna do right?”
Before I have a chance to respond to Lula’s question, we all watch in horror as the safe is suddenly dropped into the water, creating a big splash before it begins to sink. I can’t help the gasp that comes out my mouth and out of the corner of my eye, I see Jack move towards the water but he’s stopped by Danny placing a hand on his chest and shoving him back.
Jack expresses his frustration by snapping, “What the hell man? Dylan’s stuck down there drowning to death, we’ve got to do something!”
“I know, okay? But we need to wait until Walter and Art are out of sight. We’re not going to be any help to Dylan if we get caught too,” Danny says.
After watching the two men get off the boat and make their way into the shipyard, the five of us run towards the edge of the water. Danny hands the chip to Jack before addressing us. “I’m going in. I’m the reason he’s in there in the first place so I’m going to get him out.”
My voice wavers slightly when I tell him, “Just be careful, alright?”
With a nod in my direction, he dives in and starts to swim towards the general location of the safe. Now it’s just a case of waiting to see what happens.
It’s not long before Danny surfaces with an unconscious Dylan in tow, dragging him onto ground in front of us. We all crowd around him, noticing how unnaturally still he is. Just as we’re about to assume the worst he begins to cough up water, causing the five of us to let out a collective sigh of relief.
Jack goes on to say, “Jesus! You scared the hell out of us man.”
“Are you alright bro?” Merritt asks him.
After Danny helps him sit up Dylan expresses his gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Well, this is the least I could do,” Danny quietly replies.
No, there’s a hell of a lot less you could’ve done.”
“That was not an option,” I tell him.
Merritt then comments, “You took a bullet for us. It was huge.”
“You really did man,” Jack adds.
Turning back to Danny Dylan reiterates, “Thanks for pulling me out. Seriously.”
“You got yourself out, we did the easy part. Literally in my case, I was just standing on the shore while Atlas jumped down and got you,” Lula discloses which makes Dylan laugh in response.
“Hey you guys - something’s not right.”
Jack’s comment causes us all to look at him. “What’s wrong?” Danny asks.
Jack peels the chip off the card and states, “It’s fake.”
“What? No, it can’t be. We got it straight out of the core itself, how can it be fake?” Lula muses.
“You’re telling me that we busted our asses to get something that isn’t real?” Merritt comments.
I go over to Jack and after taking a closer look I say, “He’s telling the truth. This isn’t the stick, but it’s a really convincing replica.”
“I can’t believe this. How could this happen?” Danny wonders.
The whole situation is escalating very quickly so before we end up in full-on panic mode I suggest, “As much as this sucks, we need to get away from here and find somewhere we can regroup and think of a plan.”
“Where can we go? Walter has eyes everywhere and has pretty much all of Macau in his pocket,” Jack remarks.
Our attention is drawn back to Dylan as he tells us, “I have an idea.”
🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨
By the time we arrive at Iong’s, Dylan has told us everything: how he made a deal with Thaddeus Bradley to help find us in exchange for getting out of jail, that Li and his grandmother gave him a watch that ended up helping him escape the safe and the cherry on top was the fact that Walter is Tressler’s son. It kind of makes sense the more I think about it. He clearly wanted to hand us all over to his father like a present wrapped in a neat little bow but because of Dylan’s sacrifice, we luckily escaped that fate.
While the others get settled at the large table in the centre of the room, I join Danny on the steps nearby. I’ve barely sat down before he begins to speak. “I’m sorry Y/N. I should’ve listened to you about trusting Dylan and-“
“Yes, you should’ve, but as much as you might want to, you can’t go back and change the past. What matters now is that you learn from your mistakes and be better going forward okay?”
“Okay. I suppose you’ll kick my ass now?”
Confused at his question I say, “What?”
“You said you’d do it if anything goes wrong with this whole stick situation.”
Oh, that.
“I did. But I’m not gonna do it.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because you saved Dylan and are pretty much the reason why he’s sitting over there right now and not dead at the bottom of a river. You made things right in the end. I know you’ll beat yourself up over everything that’s happened, but I want you to know that you’re a good guy Danny - I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you if you weren’t,” I reply.
I give him a quick kiss on his cheek before standing up and heading towards where the others are discussing the issue at hand.
“No, I had the stick. The actual stick, I swear. It was in my hand, in the lab and then I put it in the little case thing and I gave it to Atlas.” Lula states.
“Right, which I then gave to Dylan. Is there any chance that you could’ve misplaced it at any point?”
“No. I took it from you then slipped it back into your coat when I pushed you out,” Dylan answers.
“Either way, we’re left holding a whole sack full of nada.” Merritt comments.
To that Jack says, “Yeah, but they’re going to come after us as if we do have something.”
“No. Okay, I agree that somebody got the better of us, somehow, but I don’t agree that we have a sack full of nada because we’re all here. That’s a sack full of something.”
I address the guys by looking at each of them in turn. “Lula’s right. Our current situation is less than ideal, but we’ve still got each other and we’ll deal with it all together by working as a single organism.”
Lula continues by remarking, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! Listen, we all know that Walter is not going to stop until he gets that chip and we’re the only ones that even know that he’s alive. We can’t just walk away - that’s not what The Horsemen do.”
Danny gets up from his position on the stairs and comes to stand beside me before telling us, “There’s a quote. It’s actually by the magician that made me want to do this in the first place. ‘A magician’s greatest power lies forever shrouded in his empty fist, and-‘“,
“‘The very idea that he can convince the world that he is in fact carrying with him a secret,’” Dylan completes.
“That’s Lionel Shrike.”
“So what are you saying? That we should pretend to have something we don’t?” Jack muses.
After looking down at a card in his hand Dylan asks, “What is Walter’s greatest fear?”
“Being seen,” I answer.
“What does the stick do?”
“It can unencode anything. It can open a back door into any computer on the planet,” Lula responds.
“Including his,” Jack adds.
Danny nods before stating the conclusion that we’ve reached. “Right. We not only make him think that we have it, but that we’re going to use it to expose and destroy him.”
Putting his card on the table Dylan says, “We need a plan, but we don’t have time.”
“We have each other, and there are six of us.”
“But we also need supplies right? Not to mention resources and probably more than six people,” Lula notes.
She’s right. When we were doing our shows last year we had help, whether that was from Dylan trying to keep the FBI from catching us or The Eye for providing us with the resources we needed to pull everything off. There’s not much six people can do by themselves.
As we all try to think of a solution to our problem a voice calls from behind us, “Do you really think you don’t have help?”
Turning around, we see Li and his grandmother walking towards us. “Of course she speaks English,” Danny mutters from beside me, which causes a smile to appear on my face.
After they approach us, the elderly woman then picks up Dylan’s card from the table before continuing to speak. “Do you know why The Fool is the most powerful card in the tarot? Not because the person who draws him is a fool - he’s a fool because he’s a clean slate, and therefore can become anything. You were chosen. All of you.”
“Not because of who you are, but because of who you might become,” Li continues.
“When you say ‘chosen’, are you… are you part of The Eye?”
It is his grandmother who answers Merritt’s question. “Yes, we are part of The Eye. You’ve each doubted our existence, wondering if we indeed were watching. We are, we always have been.”
While most of us are stunned into shock Danny laughs then says, “This is the best magic shop in the world. You know what she’s saying right?”
Dylan responds by commenting, “Yes, that now we have resources and help,” looking to the woman he adds, “Thank you.”
Taking a cup of tea off the tray he then asks us, “So… who’s in?”
“I’m in,” Danny immediately answers before doing the same.
“Me too,” I say, before taking a cup of my own.
Lula, Jack and Merritt don’t hesitate to join us.
“Yeah, I’m in.”
“Alright.”
“Let’s do this.”
******
After spending some time brainstorming with Li and his grandmother (who we discover is called Bu Bu), we finally settle on a plan of action. All that’s left to do now is to record a video that will hopefully coax Walter out of hiding and provoke him enough to come after us. Once the five of us are ready, we begin the recording.
Jack starts off by remarking, “Not long ago, we were tricked. I was exposed and brought back from the dead.”
“So we thought that it was only fitting that we do the same thing to the person who did it to us,” Lula continues.
“Midnight. New Year’s Eve. London. We will be performing a series of shows that all connect to our big finale, so pay close attention to each trick,” Danny states.
Merritt then adds, “So leave the kiddies at home and get ready for something wild because we too will be bringing someone back from the dead.”
I finish by saying, “In front of the largest stage in the world - the actual world.”
After the recording ends, we upload it to YouTube and within the first hour, our clip reaches over a million views and draws the attention of every major news outlet out there. If the world has taken note of it that quickly, then chances are that Walter has seen it too.
Almost as if he’s reading my thoughts Jack asks me, “Do you think Mabry will take the bait?”
“Definitely. He basically told us that he likes being off the grid because he can do whatever he wants. We’re threatening to ruin that for him so he’s not going to just sit by while we attempt to take away his anonymity,” I reply.
“Plus with Art being implicated in this whole thing as well, he’ll want to stop us to make sure that he doesn’t get humiliated a second time,” Danny comments.
“You think he would’ve learned his lesson after New Orleans, but I guess we’re going to have to remind him what The Horsemen are capable of. After the shit he and Walter pulled with Dylan, I’m going to really enjoy taking them down. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. Karma’s about to come and bite them on their asses hard,” I remark.
Lula looks shocked as she wonders, “What is happening right now?”
“Wait for it,” Jack tells her.
I continue by ranting, “Slimy assholes like Mabry need to be put in their place. He seriously thinks that after kidnapping us and threatening to kill us that we’ll give him what he wants? I don’t think so. By the time we’re through with him, he’ll wish that he never made himself known to us. I can’t wait to wipe that smug, self-entitled smile off his stupid face.”
With an amused expression on his face Jack states, “Badass mode activated.”
“Who needs an attack dog when you have little miss spitfire here? Hell hath no fury like a Y/N scorned,” Merritt adds.
“She’s right though. The whole point of The Eye is to use magic and illusions to even the scales of justice. We need to make an example of them both in order to show the world who they truly are and to stop them from taking advantage of and controlling people from the shadows. They’re going to get what’s coming to them,” Danny voices.
As I exchange glances with the four of them, I think about what we represent. The Horsemen are viewed as the harbingers of the apocalypse and symbolise the day of judgment and reckoning, which is exactly what New Year’s Eve is going to be for Walter and Arthur. We will be judge, jury and executioner over their crimes and ensure that they get what they deserve in typical Horsemen fashion. What we’ve got in store for them both is our most ambitious plan yet but I know for a fact that it’s going to be amazing, show-stopping and something they definitely won’t be forgetting in a hurry. This year is going to end with Walter’s humiliation and be the comeback we deserved before his sabotage interfered with it. Mabry thinks that science beats magic? Well, he’s about to be proven wrong in front of the entire world. Time to settle an old score before New Year.
Summary: It’s the moment of truth for The Horsemen to carry out their heist.
Warnings: some swearing, first person POV
Word Count: 3.4 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
A card.
This whole endeavour rides on how well the five of us can throw and conceal a card on our respective persons. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be using a playing card to steal a highly sophisticated piece of technology, I wouldn’t have believed them because it sounds totally ridiculous and outlandish. Yet here I am, about to do just that in a couple of hours. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so worked up about it all.
After getting some last minute practice in, the five of us go shopping (much to the reluctance of the guys) to get new outfits for our heist because we’ve been wearing the same clothes for almost three days now and we also need to look the part if we’re going to pass as Pike’s entourage.
Once we get back to the hotel we all split up to get ready, with Lula and I heading into one of the bedrooms. After Lula closes the door she says, “I know I probably shouldn’t say this because of the whole ‘kidnapped by a sociopath and threatened with death unless we steal a computer chip’ situation we’ve got going on, but that shopping trip was so much fun.”
“It definitely was. Don’t think the guys would agree with us, but they don’t understand the importance of looking good while participating in criminal activities.”
The both of us then spend the next half hour getting dressed, doing our hair and applying makeup for our finishing touches. When I’m done I turn to Lula and ask, “How do I look?”
Taking in my appearance she then replies, “Put it this way, I don’t think security personnel are supposed to look as hot as you.“
“Well, you look too good to be considered a bimbo and Jack will definitely do a double take when he sees you in that.”
“I hope so. I already know he’ll be looking good in that suit he’s got. Not that he doesn’t look good all the time, but he’ll be extra good looking and I want to look good too, you know?”
I must take too long to answer because she comments, “I said good too many times didn’t I? God, I’m so nervous.”
After walking over to Lula, I place a hand on her shoulder and attempt to reassure her. “This is your first heist Lules. Of course you’re going to be nervous, but it’s completely normal to feel that way. I’d be worried if you weren’t.”
“How are you able to stay so calm?”
I laugh at her question. “I am far from calm right now, I’m just getting better at hiding my nerves. Okay, I’m going to give you the same piece of advice that Danny gave me over a year ago: you’re not alone in this. You, me, and the guys are a team. In fact we’re more than that, we’re The Horsemen - badass magicians, magical Robin Hoods and master thieves. We can do anything we set our minds to. Now come on, we better get out there before we give Danny an aneurysm for taking too long.”
Almost on cue the man in question shouts, “Are you both ready yet? We need to leave soon if we’re going to intercept Hannes in time.”
The both of us giggle before I open the door and answer, “No need to panic control freak, we’re ready.”
As we make our way over to the guys Merritt remarks, “Nice of you to finally join us. We’ve been waiting forever for you ladies.”
I roll my eyes at his words. “Forever is a little bit of an exaggeration don’t you think? Besides, it takes time to look this good,” gesturing to myself for emphasis.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of work that goes into looking like a bimbo,” Lula adds.
“Alright we get it, the both of you don’t just wake up looking like that. Since we’re all good to go, how about we do this thing? Don’t want everything to go to hell before we even get started,” McKinney comments.
The five of us head down to the casino and luckily we don’t have to wait too long until Hannes and his entourage make an appearance. We then implement the plan that we discussed yesterday: Merritt isolates Pike from his group in order to hypnotise him and Jack quickly takes his place, pretending to be the gangster. He then leads the entourage to a number of security guards who stop and search them, finding what I presume to be stolen items that Jack has planted in their pockets before he walked away.
With that, we all make our way towards the entrance of the hotel, where Hannes is waiting for us in a sleek black car and as soon as we all get in, we begin our journey to the science centre.
******
Once we arrive, the five of us get out the car and are met with an English man who walks towards the vehicle to greet the gangster. “Hannes my old friend, so glad you could make it. I knew you had a soft spot for an old-school bidding war. How have you been?”
After Pike makes eye contact with Merritt he robotically replies, “I trust my people implicitly. What they say goes.”
“But I’m sure you’d like to see it for yourself, hold it in your hands, check the build quality?”
Instead of answering the man, Hannes rolls up his car window.
“Or not, also fine.”
Turning to face us, he then introduces himself. “Allen Scott-Frank, head of the Macau Science Centre at your service. If you’d like to follow me.”
As we enter the security perimeter he tells us, “You’ll have to remove all your metal - watches, rings, et cetera. Excuse me for asking but where might I have seen you before?”
We all stop in our tracks and subtly exchange worried glances with each other. The last thing we need right now is for us to get exposed before we get anywhere near the stick.
“I don’t know, probably one of my many symposiums,” Danny quickly supplies.
“The book jacket! I have to say Dr. Michaelakis, I’m a huge fan.”
“Oh, thank you so much. Which book? There have been so many.”
Allen looks towards Lula and asks, “Does Hannes’ chippy always talk for you Doctor?”
Why is he calling Danny ‘chippy’? Wait… he doesn’t mean Buffy, does he? That must mean that he’s the bimbo and Lula’s the doctor. Oh my god, this is hilarious.
While I struggle to hide my grin, Jack coughs to hide his laugh before clapping Danny on the shoulder and saying, “Sorry, when you say ‘chippy’, you are referring to Buffy here, yeah?”
“Of course,” is the man’s reply.
“Oh, Hannes prefers the term floozie for all his boy toys,” Merritt adds, making it that much harder for me to hide my amusement at this turn of events. Damn you McKinney.
Turning back to Lula, Allen comments, “By the way, I got your email Dr. Michaelakis. You had a query about our ability to maintain quantum coherence at room temperature without the use of dilution refrigerators or error correction. Do you care to elucidate?”
Okay, he might as well be speaking another language because I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. In fact, I don’t think any of us do, so I don’t know how Lula’s going to answer him without giving us away. How she deals with this is going to be interesting.
She nods her head in response. “Yes, I did send that email. I did, I sent it. So what gives?”
Clearly confused Allen says, “I’m sorry, what gives?”
“I think what she’s trying to say-“
Lula cuts Danny off by stating, “Actually, the grown ups are having a meeting Buffy.”
She then takes a wad of gum out of her mouth and asks, “Would you hold onto that? Thank you,” giving Danny no choice but to take it.
Walking closer to the man she tells him, “Now every seventh grader, even the dumb ones, know the second law of thermodynamics. All ordered systems tend towards disorder. Dis. Order! So I’m going to ask you one more time sir - what gives?”
There are a couple beats of silence before Allen replies, “Well, it’s actually topological quantum order. The emergence of quantum effects on a macroscopic level so that is in fact, what gives.”
“Thank you.”
After taking her jacket off and handing it to him, she struts through the security gate, which chimes to signal that she’s in the clear.
I can’t believe what just happened. I didn’t realise that Lula was an expert in that kind of thing but if she isn’t, then that was one damn good bluff and she just saved our asses from being kicked out of here.
The guys and I then go to the side to remove any metallic items on our persons. While taking off my necklace and rings I hear Merritt mutter to Danny. “You know, Buffy isn’t a bad name for you. You know, buff, firm, taught-“
“That’s good. Did you just find a thesaurus somewhere?” Danny interjects.
“Nubile,” McKinney adds, before whipping Danny’s ass with his belt and I can’t help but laugh at the uncomfortable expression that appears on Danny’s face at the action.
Merritt and I then walk through the detector successfully, but the sound of an alarm makes me look back to see what’s happening. Turns out Jack’s been stopped by the security guards for some reason. He gets searched by one of them and they find his wallet in his pocket. He then gets made to walk through the gate again, with it going green this time.
Danny goes after him and gets the all clear and when they come closer Jack asks him, “The stick’s metal, how are we going to get it out?”
“I don’t know,” is Danny’s response.
“I’m sure we’ll think of something, but let’s focus on actually getting the stick first,” I whisper to them both.
The doors in front of us open to reveal the clean room and the large core at the centre. As we walk into it Allen tells us, “This is the housing. 820 qubit miles of digi-synaptic resonance. But of course what sets us apart from anything else on the planet is the processor, which we playfully refer to as the magic broomstick.”
“Broomstick?” I voice.
“Yes. It has the power to clean the contents of any computing system on the planet and then magically sweep them into your bin.”
“Oh broomstick. That’s funny,” Lula comments.
“Take a look, vet it however you like and tell Hannes that we’ll be taking bids on Monday.”
Right on cue, Merritt ‘sneezes’ then says, “Oh my god, I must be allergic to something in here.”
“What could you possibly be allergic to in here? This room is hermetically sealed,” Allen discloses.
After sneezing again he replies, “That’s it. I’m allergic to hermetic seals.”
“That does happen unfortunately,” I state.
Our English friend turns to the guards and tells them, “If we could get him away from the computer please, just until he’s recovered.”
While they’re distracted, I watch as Lula subtly takes the plastic clip out of her hair and puts it on her shoulder for Jack. After taking it from her, he then makes his way around the side of the core in order slip under it to extract the chip and replace it with the hair clip. It’s now up to us to distract the others long enough for him to complete the task.
“We’re sorry. We couldn’t get his medicine into the country,” I say.
“This happens to him sometimes. It’ll pass,” Danny adds.
Lula then comments, “Allergies, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Well, something you can do Doctor,” Danny remarks.
As Merritt stops his sneezing fit and begins to walk towards us, Jack quickly reappears and pretends to find the data on the screen very interesting.
Allen then looks at him with an expression far too suspicious for my liking before he orders the security personnel, “Search them please.”
We express our disbelief by yelling:
“Didn’t we just do that?”
“Are you serious?”
“What the hell man?”
The five of us then get split up and taken to different parts of the room to get pat down. I end up standing between Jack and Danny and because of my close proximity to the former I hear him say, “This is completely unnecessary,” before he takes off his suit jacket.
Once I’ve taken off my own, I keep an eye on him as he moves the card without the guard noticing. He then throws it to the side towards me and I manage to catch the card, moving it to the back of my hand so the security man allocated to me doesn’t suspect anything.
Putting my hands behind my head, I move the card into the hand closest to Danny and look over to him, noticing that he has his arms outstretched. Good, that’ll make it easier for me to get it to him.
While the guard is focused on patting my legs, I slowly bring my arms down to my sides and throw the card in Danny’s direction. The man then makes his way up to my torso and looks at my bandeau top. Knowing what’s running through his head I snark, “If you even think of doing what I think you’re about to do, I will kick your ass.”
My words cause him to step away from me slightly. Grabbing my jacket off him, I put it back on and add, “Good choice.”
I look in Danny’s direction just in time to see the card slip out one of his trousers legs onto the floor, with Lula quickly stepping on it to hide it on the sole of her boot.
Pretending to trip into one of the security guards, she covertly lifts the card off her shoe. She goes to throw it to one of us but because we’ve still got a guard standing next to us, we all subtly shake out heads to tell her that we can’t catch it right now.
I watch as Lula gets searched and when the guard gets near her chest she pushes him away and shouts, “Hey! I can do that myself. We just met man! Handsy, handsy, handsy.”
She proceeds to take off her bra and shows it to him before sliding it on the floor away from her, making me smile and shake my head at her antics. Trust Lula to do something like that.
The guard must be looking at her chest because she whistles to get his attention and says, “My eyes are up here man. How do you like it?” then slaps him on the ass to slip the card under his belt.
Merritt then takes the card off the guard as he walks by him and stands beside Danny with his arms outstretched. After Danny mirrors his action, he imperceptibly moves one of his fingers to pull on the string attached to McKinney’s sleeve, which makes the card jump into his hand. Just when I think we’re off the hook, the head of security starts shouting in a foreign language, causing the guard near Danny to push him towards the wall with his hands up and back to us.
Exchanging looks with my friends, I can see that they’re wearing similar expressions to me: one of panic, fear and dread. Shit, this is not good. Not good at all.
“Turn around,” the man orders.
There is a moment of hesitation before Danny does as he’s told, standing still as the head guard gives him another pat down. When he fails to discover anything, Danny shoves him away and comments, “You can’t trust anybody these days can you? I’m good.”
“They’re clean,” the security man declares, making me quietly sigh in relief. That was way too close for my liking.
Allen then tells them, “Do your final checks and get them out of here.”
After getting the card off Danny, Merritt makes eye contact with me and throws the card in my direction. The transition isn’t as smooth as the others were because I clap my hands when I catch it, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. I try to style it out by slowly clapping and sarcastically remarking, “Well done guys, good job on finding absolutely nothing. I told you we didn’t have anything.”
A guard has bent down slightly next to Jack, so I flick it onto his back and he hides the impact by patting the guard on the back and taking the card himself. “Thanks pal, appreciate that,” he says, before walking away from the guard and towards the four of us.
When we’re walking out of the clean room, he throws it back towards us. Danny, Lula and I fail to grab it, but luckily Merritt manages to catch it in his hat. The four of us go through the security gate successfully until McKinney is the only one left.
“How do we help Merritt?” Lula quietly asks.
“Beats me,” Jack answers.
While we get our stuff back a plan pops into my head. I whisper to Jack, “The guard still has your wallet doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
I look at him pointedly.
“Oh right,” then walks towards the guard.
I turn to Danny and whisper, “Go to that metal plate over there and when you see the guard give it back to Jack, hit it with your belt. Lules, get ready to catch the card.”
As the both of them get into position, Jack addresses the guard. “Sir, I think you still have my wallet. Remember I gave it to you when I came in? It would be nice to leave with it.”
He gives Merritt a tiny nod and when the mentalist quickly glances at me, I mouth the words ‘skipping stone’ to him.
When the guard returns Jack’s wallet, Danny does what I asked him to do which draws everyone’s attention to him and away from Merritt. He then throws the card through metal detector towards Lula, who catches it with her coat. The gate’s alarm gets set off, but no one suspects anything untoward as they all think the cause of it is the wallet.
Once the alarm stops, Merritt walks through and gets the all clear.
After we’re out of the security room, the five of us practically run to the car outside and make our getaway. “Holy shit. We actually pulled it off,” I say in disbelief.
“That was cool but super nerve wracking at the same time,” Lula voices.
Jack turns to Merritt and tells him, “I gotta say man, that trick shot you did back there was pretty good for a guy who couldn’t do it a day ago.”
“Thanks Jacky boy.”
“Yeah, ten out of ten for execution McKinney. I knew you could do it,” I add.
“Alright. Let’s go to the market so I can get this to The Eye,” Danny comments.
“Whatever you say Buffy,” I remark, causing the other three to break out into laughter.
“Really Y/N?”
“What? Did you seriously expect me to forget about that? Don’t worry Danny, I still love you - even if you are a bimbo,” I reply, which makes Lula, Jack and Merritt laugh louder. I even notice Danny unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile before letting out a chuckle of his own.
My mind soon focuses on the next stage of our plan. Danny’s going to visit this mysterious blue hat man by himself which I really don’t like but because he’s so stubborn, he refuses to let us go with him. There’s definitely something about this whole situation that isn’t sitting right with me. It’s like the sword of Damocles is hanging above our heads and I’m just waiting for it to drop and hurt us all. That’s the last thing I want and despite my negative outlook on the situation, I really hope that by the end of tonight I’m proven wrong - for all our sakes.
Summary: After agreeing to Walter’s proposal, it’s up to the magicians to plan and prepare for their heist.
Warnings: some swearing, first person POV
Word Count: 3.4 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
This whole situation is insane.
Twenty four hours ago we were all in New York, getting ready for our magical comeback. Now, we’re in Macau because some self-entitled, not so dead guy wants us to steal a high tech piece of spyware. It all sounds like the plot for a Hollywood blockbuster but unfortunately for us, it’s our current reality.
We’ve just finished breakfast when someone knocks on the door to our suite. The five of us then hear a muffled voice call out from the other side, “Room service!”
Before anyone has a chance to answer it, the door bursts open to reveal Chase and a couple of guards. “Rise and shine muchachos, time for your little field trip to the abracadabra shop.”
It seems like only one twin got all the brain cells in the McKinney family because as well as looking stupid, he sounds it too.
After exiting the room Chase walks ahead of us, giving me the chance to turn to Merritt and ask, “Did your mother drop him head first on the floor one too many times when you were kids or was he just an insufferable dick from birth?”
He chuckles before answering, “A little bit of both.”
“You know, he may have taken everything from you, but you’re definitely the better man. By a long shot might I add.”
“Thanks Y/N.”
“Anytime McKinney.”
We all get into an SUV similar to the one that we were in last night and it’s a short journey from the hotel to the centre of the shopping district. Once we begin to walk through the hustle and bustle of it all, we make sure that Chase and Walter’s goons are far enough behind us before we begin to speak amongst ourselves.
“I still don’t like the fact that we have to steal something for that narcissistic man boy,” Merritt says.
“Do you like that we’re the laughing stocks of the magic world and the fugitives of the actual world? Walter is right, we have nowhere to go,” Danny responds.
“But we can fix that,” Lula states.
“We can, can we?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, so you’re officially part of the team now?”
“Excuse me?”
I slap Danny on the back of the head for his rudeness. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Being an asshole,” I reply.
Unimpressed by our exchange Jack comments, “I’m sure this is what Dylan meant when he said that we should work as-“
“A single organism? Yeah, that is a fairytale that Dylan tells himself and tells us.”
I respond to that by saying, “I think you’re forgetting how fairytales work Danny. They might not be perfect, but they always have a happily ever after, so do us all a favour and get that Dylan shaped chip off your shoulder and start believing that we can become an effective team. I have faith in us, you should too.”
It’s not long before we find the shop we’re looking for - a smallish building with a sign above it that reads Iong’s Magic Shop.
As all of us walk in, I take note of the various products on sale here: plastic wands, packs of cards, flash paper - you name it, they’ve probably got it. Danny walks ahead of us and hits the bell on the counter to signal our presence to the guy standing behind it and an elderly woman sitting in the back watching TV.
“Hi, how are you? Um, we need some things custom made. Actually, by tomorrow, we’re kind of in a rush and… you have no idea what I’m talking about do you?”
In response, the old woman throws some nuts at the guy’s head to get his attention and scolds him in Mandarin, making him remove his earphones and take notice of our group. As he walks towards us he says, “Welcome to Iong’s. My name’s Li, not Bruce Lee.”
A toy snake suddenly flies over our heads, clearly having been hidden in his hand. He then grabs a pair of thumbs and starts to play with them, pretending that they’re coming out of his ears and throwing them in the air, making me giggle at his antics.
The sound draws the attention of Danny who turns to me with an unamused expression on his face. “Seriously Y/N?”
Smiling I reply, “What? It is pretty funny. You’ve got to learn to lighten up a bit.”
The both of us turn back to Li as he states, “Twenty dollars.”
“Twenty dollars?” Lula repeats incredulously.
“Listen, we’re kind of in a rush-“
Danny is cut off by Li saying, “Ten dollars.”
“No.”
“Two for one?”
Clearly having had enough of him as well, Jack pulls out his wallet and tells him, “Okay, just give us the thumbs, yeah?” handing him a ten dollar bill as payment.
Feeling mischievous I remark, “Well would you look at that. Jack Wilder paying for something instead of stealing it? Has hell frozen over or something?”
“Shut up Y/N/N,” he replies, before playfully shoving me away from him.
Danny attempts to get back us on track. “So we need a Keplinger holdout and roughing fluid, a Sanada gimmick, sleeves, tracks… this is all in plastic though, if you can.”
Li turns to the elderly woman and has a conversation with her in Mandarin.
“Is there a problem?” Danny asks.
“My grandmother wants to know why plastic? Plastic is cheap.”
Addressing the woman he then comments, “Sorry. We need plastic because we’re going through a very sensitive metal detector, okay? So plastic - nothing. Metal - woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! It detects.”
I can’t help but cringe at Danny’s attempt at mimicking an alarm. The secondhand embarrassment is real.
The elderly woman replies to him in Mandarin. “What did she say?”
“She said just because you are talking slowly and moving your hands, doesn’t mean that she can suddenly understand English,” Li answers.
Just as I’m about to apologise for Danny’s ignorance, Lula beats me to it. “Yeah, so sorry. He’s racist,” which causes me to snort with laughter.
My attention is then drawn to Merritt as he shouts, “Guys, we’ll be right back.”
“Okay kiddies, the chaperones are watching you. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t enjoy,” Chase remarks.
As soon as they leave the shop Danny asks Li, “Can I use your phone? It’s kind of important.”
“Sure.”
After bringing the phone to him he adds, “On the house.”
Jack and I walk over to Danny with the former questioning, “Who you calling?”
“I’m arranging to hand over the stick.”
“So that’s how we’ve been contacting The Eye? You’ve been doing it on your own?”
Sharing a look with me Danny answers, “Maybe.”
“Oh god. Dylan’s not gonna like this.”
“I’m not really concerned with what Dylan likes, okay? I’m doing this for us.”
Before Jack has a chance to say something else I tell him, “Come on J. You know he won’t change his mind on this, might as well leave him to it.”
With one final look at Danny, the both of us then make our way over to Lula, who’s who’s struggling with a finger trap.
“What is wrong with this thing?” She asks.
“Relax, it’s just a kids toy,” Jack states.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but I can’t get out of it.”
“Here, let’s me just pull this off-“
“Owwww!” she exclaims.
“Sorry, sorry. Jesus, this thing’s really stuck on there huh?”
After plenty of twisting and pulling, the trap finally comes off.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Happy to help.”
Looking at them both, I can’t help but think that they’d make a great couple. There’s clearly chemistry there, so I think it’s time for me to do a little match making.
I grab their attention by commenting, “You know, Jack is very good with cards. Maybe he could teach you something while we wait on Danny?”
Lula turns to him and says, “That would be pretty cool actually. I’ve always wanted to learn more about that kind of stuff.”
“Yeah J, help her out - you are a great teacher.”
He clearly senses an ulterior motive behind my suggestion, but instead of calling me out on it he sighs. “Fine.”
Lula smiles at his response. “Great! Where do we start?”
******
For the past five minutes, I’ve been watching Jack throw cards at Lula like it’s my new favourite pastime - they look so cute together.
When she fails to catch the last card he states, “That’s 0 for 52.”
“It’s a perfect score.”
As she goes to help him pick up the cards from the floor she asks, “So… what about girls or relationships?”
Jack groans in response. “Look, it’s not something I’m proud of, but every girl I get close to I end up taking their trust and then their wallet.”
“For me it was my bracelet,” I interject.
I can see Lula’s shock when she looks at me. “Really?”
“Yep. It’s actually how we became friends in the first place. I do have to say that he is pretty trustworthy, with the guys and I at least.”
Turning her attention back to Jack she says, “Huh. So you take their wallets?” holding Jack’s wallet in his face before dropping it in front of him.
“You ever take their belts?” she continues, showing him the aforementioned item before it joins the wallet on the floor.
“Or how about some peanuts from the hotel bar? Not sure why you took those.”
After dropping them beside the other things she remarks, “I’m sorry, did you think that I was like those other girls? Oh Jack.”
Once she gets up and walks away from him, I go over to my best friend and notice that he’s got an expression on his face that’s a mixture of amusement and shock. “I don’t know what the hell just happened.”
With a smirk I answer, “I do. You just met your match street rat.”
Clearly finished with his phone call, Danny comes over and tells us, “Okay, so there’s a marketplace down the street and I’m meeting a man with a blue hat. He’ll get the stick to the right people and get us home. Jack go grab Merritt okay? We’ve got a lot to do. Maybe put your belt on before you go too.”
Embarrassed, Jack tries to explain himself. “Oh no, it’s not… Lula took it off me and-“
“None of my business,” Danny states.
I then head after Danny and ask, “So that’s it? We steal the chip, hand it to this mysterious guy and we go home?”
“Basically, yes.”
“Don’t you think this whole thing seems too easy? As much as I despise him, Walter’s clearly an intelligent guy, especially if he helped to create what we’re stealing. What if he already suspects that we’re going to double cross him and is going to kill us before we can get it to The Eye? I’ve got a bad feeling about this Danny.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders and tells me in a soft tone, “Y/N, you’re creating a scenario that hasn’t happened yet and probably never will. Instead of focusing on the what ifs, let’s deal with the things we can control. We’ll handle this whole situation like we did with our shows last year - one step at a time. It worked out well for us then and I know that it will work for us now.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Satisfied with my answers he then says, “Okay, let’s get Merritt and Jack and head back to the hotel to get started on this. We’ve got a lot to cover before our heist tomorrow.”
With that, the both of us make sure that the supplies will be taken to the hotel when they’re ready then we get Lula and leave the shop to meet up with the others. It’s time for the real work to begin.
🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨
Once we’re back in our suite, we make ourselves comfortable on the sofas and Danny puts a blueprint of where we’re breaking into onto the TV.
All of us listen as he begins to speak. “Alright, so the lab is made up of two distinct layers - the security perimeter and the clean room. The stick we’re looking for should be in this core,” gesturing to a large square in the centre of the room we’ll be entering.
Danny then continues, “So we’re gonna have to get underneath, extract it and replace it with a decoy.”
Lula will be wearing a plastic hair comb that will help us with this part of the plan. It’s small enough to avoid being noticeable and because of the material it’s made of, it will get through the metal detector no problem.
“Now, we’re about to get to the chip. This is the thing about the chip - it’s very thin and luckily it’s similar in size and weight to a playing card, so we’re gonna have to brush up on our cardistry.”
Jack and I groan at the same time. “Oh god,” I mutter.
“What? Am I missing something?” Lula asks.
“Jack’s been trying to teach Merritt how to throw cards since we went incognito and it’s not been going great,” I explain.
Merritt attempts to defend himself. “Now come on, I’ve made some improvement.”
“No you haven’t. You’ve made as much progress as Jack has at hypnotism, which is zero.”
“Hey!” Jack exclaims.
“Sorry J, but it’s true.”
“Guys! Can we get back on track please?” Danny says frustratedly.
Lula whispers to me, “Is he always this… uptight?”
“When it comes to planning and strategising, yes. Yes he is,” I respond.
Either not hearing us or choosing to ignore it all together, he carries on with his explanation. “So, how do we get in? Hannes Pike. He’s the son of a South African gangster. He’s RSVP’d with what looks like a couple of members of his security detail, a doctor to vet it I guess, and somebody named Buffy. Apparently he travels with a different bimbo every week.”
“Hmm, I wonder which one of us is going to play the bimbo?” Lula voices.
“Well, I mean, you and Y/N are-“
“If you value your life McKinney, do not finish that sentence,” I snark.
As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. Only Lula or I can be Buffy. We just need to figure out which one of us is going to be her. It’s not long until I think of a solution.
“Hey Jack, hand me that deck of cards would you?”
After he does Lula asks, “What are you gonna do with them?”
“You and I are going to cut this deck. Whoever gets lowest card is the arm candy. You go first.”
She picks up some of the cards and shows the one at the bottom, which is the ten of spades. I then do the same, except mine is the queen of hearts.
“Looks like we’ve got our bimbo,” Merritt states.
Danny sounds annoyed as he remarks, “Now that’s been settled, can we please get back to the plan?”
“He looks like he’s gonna burst a blood vessel or something,” Lula mutters.
“That’s probably because he is if we don’t let him get on with it,” I whisper back to her before saying more loudly, “Carry on, oh glorious leader.”
Sending me one of his unimpressed looks, Danny then goes on to tell us, “Okay, we know roughly when Pike will be leaving the hotel to go and view the chip, so we’ve got to get to him before he has the chance to. Merritt, you’re going to subtly isolate Hannes from his entourage and hypnotise him to ensure that he waits in the car while we go into the science centre. Jack, for a moment they will think you’re Hannes, so lead them out and keep them busy. Then our time is ticking to infiltrate the lab and get the card to the market, where I’ll hand it off to The Eye so we can all get the hell home.”
When he puts it like that, it all sounds so simple and straightforward - get in, get out, job done. But there are a few factors that can make the difference between us succeeding and failing tomorrow. At least we can try and control one of them right now by improving our cardistry skills.
Looking at all of them I state, “Alright then. Now that all the details have been ironed out, let’s get to work.”
******
The five of us have been practicing for a couple of hours and we’ve slowly but surely managed to go from basic techniques to the more complicated ones. However, there is still one person who’s struggling with it all.
Lula and I are standing next to each other as we watch Merritt have another failed attempt at throwing a card towards us.
“That was actually pretty good,” she comments.
“No it wasn’t,” is Merritt’s response.
I attempt to make him feel better by saying, “It totally was! It might not have went far enough for us to catch it, but it went further than the last one. You’re getting better McKinney so don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”
“I haven’t got it in a year, how am I supposed to get it in a day?” he muses.
Looking over at the other side of the room, I see Danny and Jack discussing something and I come up with an idea.
“Maybe you just need to change your technique. I call this trick the skipping stone - watch this.”
After grabbing a card, I throw it and it skims the floor before flying upward towards the guys. Just when I think I’ve caught them off guard, Danny catches it at the last minute while still looking at Jack. How in hell has he done that? He must have a sixth sense or something.
Speaking of, he then looks over in our direction, clearly trying to figure out who the culprit is. The three of us then proceed to point fingers at each other.
“Don’t look at me,” Lula states.
“Do you honestly think that I did it?” Merritt utters.
I sigh before telling him, “Fine. It was me, but I was just showing them both a trick shot.”
“So catching me off guard had nothing to do with it then?” Danny comments.
To that I remark, “Well, that would’ve been a bonus.”
As I begin to turn back to Merritt and Lula, I see Danny throwing the card towards me in my peripheral vision, so I stretch my arm up and catch it before it goes over my head.
Jack lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”
“Really Danny?” I ask.
“What? I was just showing Jack a trick shot,” is his response, using my own words against me.
If the smirk on his face is anything to go by, he knew exactly what he was doing. Asshole. A loveable one, but still.
I return his smirk with one of my own and playfully glare at him for good measure.
“Why do I feel like I’m intruding on something?” Lula questions.
“It’s probably because we are. I never thought throwing a card would count as foreplay, but I guess I was wrong,” Merritt answers.
Turning around to face him I say, “Alright, I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that McKinney, so get your mind out of the gutter and get back to practicing - we need to be on point for tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am,” he mutters, before going back to his original position and trying to throw a card again.
For what seems like the hundredth time, it flutters to the ground a couple of metres from Lula and I’s feet and I can’t help but internally groan at it. We’ve definitely got a lot of work to do and it’ll be tight, but I’m confident that we’ll get there.
A short while later, the supplies from Iong’s get delivered and brought to the suite so we spend the rest of the day preparing everything and making sure that it’s ready for us to use tomorrow.
Once that’s all done, we call it a night and attempt to get some rest. We need to be sharp and focused for our heist and can’t afford to make any mistakes because our lives might depend on whether we get the chip or not. Hopefully by this time tomorrow we’ll be on our way back to New York, far away from the unstable sociopath that is Walter Mabry and we’ll all live happily ever after. That’s not too much to wish for - right?
Summary: Following their swift exit from the Octa launch, The Horsemen find themselves in a different country. Why are they there and who is behind it?
Warnings: some swearing, first person POV
Word Count: 3.6 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
“Wait, what are you saying? How is this possible?” Danny says.
A man at a table in front of us with his back towards us begins to laugh before remarking, “I believe in your particular parlance the word is magic.”
Once he finishes speaking, he turns around to reveal his identity. The guy is basically a carbon copy of Merritt, except with hair.
I then hear Lula mutter to Merritt, “That guy looks exactly like you. He looks exactly like you.”
Turning to me she asks, “Are you seeing this right now?”
“Yeah. It’s freaking me out a little bit.”
There’s a sharp and slightly bitter note to McKinney’s voice as he states, “Chase.”
The man in question replies, “Must confess, it’s like what I heard about meeting The Rolling Stones - they’re a lot shorter in person.”
“Remember I told you about the guy who screwed me out of everything? This is my twin brother Chase.”
So this is the asshole who double crossed my friend? I hate him already.
Walking towards Chase, Danny asks, “Wait, did you do this?”
Almost immediately after he stops talking, the five of us are grabbed by who we can only assume are Chase’s henchmen and every person in the room stands up and aims a gun at us. The dick has the audacity to laugh before commenting, “As you can see, my boss don’t mess around.”
“I do not understand what is going on right now. At all,” Lula voices.
Merritt’s twin then goes on to explain, “Okay, let me break it down for you. You jumped off a rooftop in New York and you landed in Macau - AKA the Vegas of China - and presto change-o, don’t you just love it? The greatest magicians in the world are the object of someone else’s magic trick. Isn’t that poetic?”
We all stand there unamused and I send him the most venomous glare that I can muster. Unsatisfied by our silence Chase states, “You know what? I’m not gonna let you guys yuck my yum. Shoo shoo, or mushu, whatever.”
While we practically get dragged out of the restaurant he calls after us, “You know what they say: what happens in Macau… well, I don’t know the rest cause it’s in Chinese.”
Our group then gets taken to an SUV and while Merritt, Danny and I get shoved into the back, Lula and Jack get pushed into the the row of passenger seats in front of us. After sitting next to Danny he asks, “Are you okay?”
I take his hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m fine. Well, as fine as I can be for someone who just got kidnapped and ended up in China.”
From opposite us Merritt says, “I just want to know why we’re even here in the first place.”
It’s not long before McKinney’s evil twin joins us by sitting at the front next to the driver. Looks like we’ve got him for company - great. Just great.
******
As we drive away from the restaurant and towards wherever the hell we’re going, Chase turns around to face us and begins to speak unprompted. “It’s all about blind spots, when you’re staring straight at something and not see it. Why? Blind spots. We learned that together, didn’t we bro? Did he tell you that we were partners once?”
Our blank expressions give him his answer. “No? I didn’t think so. The Mini-McKinneys.”
He then starts to sing. “Chasey and Mer-Bear, gonna make you scare bear! Ma ma magical McKinneys!”
“Kill me now,” I mutter.
This guy must really like the sound of his own voice because he continues to talk. “Then one day when we were twelve, Virginia von Welsheim had a very nice party down the street. I had a little tum tum and couldn’t go, Mer-Bear did it on his own and got a taste of the solo thing and uh… kicked me to the curb.”
Jack audibly groans and says, “Oh god.”
“Chase, you win! I concede. Just tell me how you did it,” Merritt exclaims.
“Delivery guy, came to your door about a month ago, little ‘za?”
“za?” Danny echoes.
“Pizza,” Merritt supplies.
Jesus. What kind of idiot speaks like that? This one apparently.
Chase carries on his story by telling us, “When you opened the door, I hypnotised you and what my little womb-mate did next was download all of your private information and my employer had all he needed.”
The four of us turn to look at Merritt with Danny saying, “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
Facing Chase he asks, “How did you know where to find him?”
With a sly smirk on his face the douchebag responds, “That’s a very good question Atlas,” then instead of elaborating, he pretends to lock his mouth and throw away an imaginary key.
By this point we’re driving towards the entrance of a hotel and when the SUV stops in front of it, we all get out with evil McKinney shouting, “Just follow the guards and they’ll take you to my boss. Been fun playing cat and mouse with you broski - meow! Have fun at The Sands!”
With a final laugh, he speeds off and the five of us make our way into the building. As our group follow the guards through the casino Merritt tell us, “I am so, so, so sorry.”
“Yeah, you should be. Don’t ever accuse me of betraying us again, okay?” Danny snarks.
I don’t like his tone so I say, “Stop it Danny.”
“Y/N, he downloaded all of our personal information!”
“Did you miss the part where he was hypnotised by his asshat of a brother? It’s not as if he did it of his own free will and sabotaged us intentionally. He said he’s sorry so drop it.”
Once we enter the elevator, we stand in tense silence. It is soon broken by Lula voicing, “Do you guys ever think that The Eye is watching this? You know, maybe this is even what they want? And at the exact right moment, they’re gonna swoop in and we’ll be like, ‘yes! Thank god you’re here! Thank god! Just in the nick of time Eye!’ and then we’ll just celebrate and it was all worth it in the end?”
None of the guys acknowledges her words, but I turn to her and quietly mutter, “So not the time Lules.”
The elevator dings when we reach our destination and as the doors behind us open, we all turn around and see a man in a white suit standing at some floor to ceiling windows with his back to us, playing with cards to the sound of obnoxiously loud rock music. Finally turning to face us he says, “Ta-da! So happy to be working with you.”
As he switches off the sound system he adds, “Please come in.”
At his words, the guards near us shove us into the very lavish penthouse suite. Taking a closer look at the man’s features, I wonder why he looks a bit familiar, then it hits me.
Addressing Lula and Jack I whisper, “The guy kinda looks a bit like Harry Potter if you squint.”
“Oh my god. He totally does,” Lula responds.
“Yeah, I see it,” Jack adds.
“How are you working with us?” Danny asks.
“Well, as much as a magician who pulls a rabbit from a hat is working with that rabbit. We’ll be working together, yes. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m-“
You’re Walter Mabry. You died a year ago,” Jack interjects.
Oh, that explains why I know him. Well, I still think he looks like Harry Potter.
“Yes, an idea I got from you Mr Wilder - fake your death and the world puts its guard down. I’m able to control quite a few companies, including my old partner Owen’s, as a consortium of so-called anonymous share holders.”
“And that’s violates how many SEC laws?” Lula questions.
“I believe it breaks all of them.”
After letting out a sarcastic gasp she deadpans, “All of them.”
Walter continues by saying, “You see, you all want an audience, need one desperately. It’s quite sad really, hence my ability to nab you. I on the other hand, want the opposite of that. I just want to be - and I am - 100% off the grid. You know why?”
“Because the grid is for actual human beings,” Danny comments.
“No, because in a world of total surveillance, the only true freedom lies in not being seen. You can’t control the grid from within the grid. Follow me.”
When none of us move he repeats himself more forcefully. “Follow me.”
The guards push us forward again and just as one lays a hand on me I push it off and snap, “Hey! I can walk just fine on my own.”
Going over to a table of treats, Walter looks at Lula and states, “You pulled a hat out of a rabbit, that was very colourful.”
“Almost eight and a half years ago, so no need to bring that up.”
“We can’t all be held responsible for our adolescent personas, can we Magicolio?”
I feel Danny stiffen beside me and when I glance at him, his face has turned red with what I can only assume is embarrassment. “Magicolio, that was almost fifteen years ago,” he reasons.
Walter then goes on to say, “Don’t get me wrong, I love magic. Like you and many others who were not getting any sex in high school, I dabbled with it, but unlike you, I was able to transition upward towards actual magic - science, you may have heard it called.”
I mutter to Jack and Lula, “Looks like someone’s bitter that he didn’t get his Hogwarts letter,” making them quietly laugh.
“So, would you like to know just how I got you here?”
“We know how you did it,” Merritt tells him.
“No you don’t.”
To that Jack replies, “Yeah. You stole our files for the show, then obviously hypnotised us.”
“Stop. No seriously, stop.”
Continuing the explanation Merritt states, “The strobe was a combo of binaural beats, as well as-“
Slapping both hands on the side of McKinney’s head Walter shouts, “I said stop! You might not be having fun, but I am.”
“You have an unusual way of showing it,” the mentalist remarks.
“You must’ve had a really crappy childhood if you think this is fun.”
Ignoring my comment, Mabry steps away from Meritt and begins to speak again. “So, how did I do it? Easy. You see, magicians like to control other people’s perceptions. In your heightened state of agitation, you saw the simplest cues - black tube, roof, and your minds filled in the rest. The tube you meant to go down was twenty feet to your right. Come and sit down, there’s no one standing in your way.”
For the third time since we’ve gotten here, the guards push us again, this time towards the large couch in the middle of the room. After Jack and Merritt sit down and I situate myself between Danny and Lula, Walter continues to spiel his spiel.
“Anyway, once in the tube, yes you’re right - blah blah blah, the strobe contained UV letters pulsing the word ‘sleep’, and that combined with the sound put you into an instant alpha pattern. From then on, it really was just fun and I can assure you, you don’t know what happened.”
He squeezes himself onto the couch between Jack and Lula and points a remote at the TV in front of us. We all watch as some text pops up that reads ‘Our Trip to Macau’. Walter then proceeds to show us a number of pictures that he took while we were passed out on his plane: all of us lying on top of each other while he flips us off, the five of us and him lying on the floor covered in playing cards, then some of him with each of us individually.
“That’s really creepy. Really, really creepy,” I mutter.
“Aw man! The first time I flew on a private jet and I was asleep through all of it,” Lula voices.
“You could always ask for the pictures as a souvenir,” I suggest.
“Alright, that’s enough. So why are we here then? Besides you getting to show off how adorably clever you are,” Danny comments.
“Well to start with, the man you stole from last year, turns out I had invested quite a lot of money in some of his companies, so a lot of what you stole was in fact mine.”
Sharing a look with Danny, I know that we’re both thinking the same thing - he’s talking about Tressler.
“Good news is, it’s very easy for you to pay me back. I just need your skills.”
Standing up again, Walter stops beside the TV and tells us, “Owen and I were like The Beatles, if The Beatles had been-“
“Elfin?” Danny supplies, causing me let out a loud laugh.
Unamused by us both he says, “Geniuses.”
“Pretty sure The Beatles were geniuses,” Lula remarks.
“Like them, we had a dream: could we create actual, genuine magic?”
“I’m guessing one of you achieved that dream and it wasn’t you?” Merritt theorises.
“That is what he would like you to think. My vision was the perfect blend of elegance and technology, but Owen wanted it for himself so he humiliated me by exposing my private files to the board of directors and convinced them that I am unstable.”
“You? Unstable? I never noticed,” is my sarcastic reply.
“Did you take pictures of him while he was sleeping?” Danny adds.
Walter then tells us, “He had me kicked out of my own company and now he goes around taking credit for a chip that’s not just the key to one computer, but every computer system on the planet. It can unencrypt anything - crack the defense firewall, manipulate markets and spy on anyone. Now it’s being sold to the highest bidder.”
“If you’re so rich, why don’t you just buy it?” Jack asks.
“So he gets the money and the pleasure? No. Besides, why would I buy it when I could have you steal it for me? It’s being previewed in two days to the various suitors, which will include your targets, a crew lead by a South African gangster.”
In a poor attempt of a South African accent Lula repeats, “A South African gangster,” which makes me smile.
“How your team gets past security that’s up to you, but once you do you just need to inspect it and steal it.”
“That’s it?” Danny dryly remarks.
“Come on, this is perfect for you isn’t it? You’re magicians and thieves.”
“What makes you think we would even consider doing this?” Jack questions.
“Wait, I had a reason. What was it? Oh yes. You see, back home you’re all wanted criminals but here, I control the police, the casinos, the media… I can give you a new life out of hiding. And if you don’t I’ll have you killed.”
We all sit in shocked silence before I stand up, walk towards him and retort, “Listen up you psychotic little prick. You can threaten me all you like, but I am not doing a single damn thing for you.”
Jack soon joins me and backs me up. “I agree with Y/N, I’m not stealing anything for you, not unless Dylan tells me it’s okay.”
“Really? Dylan is where exactly?”
Lula answers Walter by telling him, “It doesn’t matter. I’m with them, so you can go ahead and kill us because I’m not gonna steal for you either.”
“Strikes me that a consensus seems to be forming Walter and we’re calling your bluff,” Merritt comments.
“Actually, we’ll do it.”
The four of us suddenly turn our heads towards Danny and exclaim, “What?”
“We’re in Macau, the oldest magic store in the world is here. We’ll get the supplies we need and we’ll do it,” he explains, then gets up to shake Maybry’s hand.
“Thank you, it should be fun. My men will escort you all to your own suite a couple of floors down and Chase will take you to the magic shop in the morning.”
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We then follow the guards back into the elevator and begin the journey to the room. I can feel Danny looking at me, but I refuse to acknowledge him because I am so angry at him right now.
“Y/N-“
“Don’t. Just don’t,” I snap back at him.
We arrive at our suite and as soon as the guards leave and shut the doors, I finally let my anger boil over. “What the hell was that Danny? I must’ve missed the vote where we decided that your presumptuous ass would start making decisions for us because if I remember correctly, we were all shoving his threat back into his face!”
“Did you forget that Walter said he’d kill us if we didn’t do it Y/N? I chose the option that would keep us alive!”
I scoff then say, “If Dylan was here he would’ve been on our side, not yours.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Dylan isn’t here right now. He’s on the other side of the world, which means that we’re on our own - whether we like it or not.”
Lula tried to cut in by saying, “Um, guys, I think-“
Merritt places a hand on her shoulder and tells her, “You’re new here so let me give you some advice: whenever these two get into a fight like this, it’s best to not get involved unless you want your head bitten off.”
“Shut it McKinney!” I snark.
“Like that,” he mutters.
Lula seems to get his point because she responds, “Okay.”
“I get it, but we’re supposed to be a team Danny and make decisions together. Instead, you go full steam ahead and commit us to something that has risky and dangerous written all over it. What made you say yes anyway?”
He answers me by stating, “I have a plan.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Even if we get this stick for him he’ll never let us go, so we can’t trust Walter and his false promises of a new life for us. Look, The Eye has a history in Macau and right now, they’re the only ones we can trust. If we can get it to them, they can clear our names and get us the hell out of here.”
“That’s all well and good, but how exactly are we going to contact them to drop off the stick?” Merritt asks.
“Don’t worry about that. I know a way.”
He must talking about the method he’s been using to contact The Eye on his own. He promised me that he wouldn’t talk to them again, but I guess he’s going to have to break it in order to make sure we get out of this whole thing unscathed.
“I still don’t like this Danny,” I tell him.
“Yeah man, it is pretty risky,” Jack says.
“It’s nothing we haven’t done before. We robbed over three million euros off a bank. Stealing a computer chip is nothing.”
I go to argue with him but find that I can’t because he’s right. A small computer chip pales in comparison to the numerous bundles of cash we stole from the bank in Paris, so with a heavy sigh I concede. “Fine. I’m choosing to trust you on this Danny, don’t make me regret it. Oh, and one more thing: if any of us get hurt or worse because of your ego and superiority complex, I will kick your sorry ass into the next century. Are we clear?”
I watch him visibly gulp before he answers, “Crystal.”
“Good. Just because I love you doesn’t mean that I’ll give you a free pass if anything goes wrong,” then give him a quick kiss.
“Okay, am I the only one confused about how it’s went from World War Three to a love fest?” Lula asks.
“Oh, we’re used to it by now. You should’ve been there for the year we spent planning for our shows - they argued pretty much every day for like, seven or eight months. This is nothing compared to that,” Jack tells her.
“Y/N is our resident Danny whisperer who keeps him in check when he gets like this and because he’s so whipped for her, he takes it like the lovesick puppy that he is,” Merritt adds.
Looking between the both of them I comment, “You guys do realise that we’re both standing right in front of you and can hear everything you’re saying about us, right?”
“Yep, we know.”
With a smile I state, “You’re unbelievable McKinney.”
“I try my best. So… Magicolio, huh?”
Danny groans then says, “Of course you’d remember that.”
“You’ve got no room to talk, Mer-Bear. What kind of nickname is that anyway?” I remark.
“Hey, we’re talking about Danny right now. Let’s not get off topic.”
After ordering room service and finally getting something to eat, we all hit the hay because we’re so exhausted. Being kidnapped, flown halfway around the world and threatened by a sociopathic rich dude does that to you.
As I lie in bed next to Danny, I struggle to fall asleep due to the various thoughts running through my mind at what’s ahead of us - how are we going to steal the chip without anyone noticing that it’s missing? What if The Eye doesn’t help us with this? What if something goes wrong and we get caught? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Summary: The Horsemen are about to make their big comeback, but someone else has a different idea…
Warnings: first person POV
Word Count: 1.8 k
Previous Part | Series Masterlist
After meticulously planning every detail, it’s the day of the launch and I’m feeling a mixture of emotions: on the one hand, I’m excited to finally get back to doing what we do best. At the same time, I’m pretty nervous because this is our first mission since 5 Pointz and even though we’ve been practicing over the past year, I’m scared that I’ll mess something up and ruin anything. It’s a real rollercoaster.
Dylan’s already in the hall where the show will be taking place and Jack’s also in the building pretending to be a security guard, so Danny, Merritt, Lula and I all head into Octa HQ through a service entrance.
As we’re all walking along the corridor, I hear Jack’s voice through my earpiece. “We’re all good, I’m heading to the control room.”
“Alright, thanks Jack. Y/N, go. I got Owen landing right now.”
“On it.”
While the others go off in different directions to do their part of the plan, I head up towards the reception area, where I see Case and his team entering right now. Once I take out our contract from my briefcase, I run up to Owen’s side and say, “Mr Case, Charlotte from legal. I just need your signature for release.”
He barely looks at the document before he picks up the pen and signs on the dotted line. “Thank you.”
After I get far enough away from him and his entourage I sneak into a nearby restroom and swap my formal disguise for my far more stylish performance outfit. Taking a quieter and more secluded route towards the backstage area, I hear the guys through my earpiece.
“Atlas, stooge has left the building.”
Danny replies to Jack by stating, “The circuit board is ours, I’m heading backstage.”
Now all that’s left to do is for Lula to cause a distraction in order to give Merritt the opportunity to hypnotise Case, then we’re all set to do this thing.
Reaching my destination, I put on my mic and I only need to wait a couple of minutes before I hear Merritt and Lula coming to stand next to me. McKinney praises her by saying, “Nice job lady.”
“Thanks.”
Wanting to find out more I ask him, “What did I miss?”
“Let’s just say that this girl has a twisted mind.”
“Okay, you can’t just say something like that and leave me hanging. Now I really wanna know.”
“I pretended to saw my hand off as the distraction. There was a lot of fake blood and I even threw a fake hand into the food as I ran away to really sell it, you know?” Lula nonchalantly responds.
I chuckle then state, “That’s… definitely something.”
Jack and Danny join us with the former commenting, “I’m actually nervous and I’m not even going onstage.”
“You know, I’ve heard that if you’re nervous, it can be really helpful to picture each other naked,” Lula suggests.
“Actually, it’s picture the audience naked,” Danny counters.
“No, this is new. This is a new science. So I don’t know, we should try it.”
Jack turns to her and comments, “Not the right mood.”
“Guess that leaves us three,” Merritt tells us.
To that Danny quickly voices, “What? Picture each other… no, no thank you.”
“Hard pass McKinney,” I add.
“Look, I admit from the neck up there are issues but from the neck down, the David.”
We’re snapped out of our conversation by the a woman announcing, “Now, here to explain more about the new next-gen cell phone, Octa CEO Owen Case!”
Merritt puts a finger to his ear and begins to speak, all of us listening as Owen echoes them back to the audience. “Good morning Octa-lites. I’ve made the claim that Octa 8 is pure magic, but the truth is, that’s just one of those things I say, when in fact I mean something else. What else do I mean? Well, here to fill you in on some of my fabulous lies and hypocrisy and to perform some more of the most dazzling feats of magic you have ever seen - they are the world’s greatest magicians, here to expose me for the fraud I truly am. Ladies and gentlemen, here are The Horsemen!”
The four of us each burst through hidden doors that bring us out onto the stage to a room full of rapturous applause and cheers. Danny addresses the crowd by greeting, “Hello New York!”
“It’s great to be back,” Merritt states.
“We hope you didn’t miss us too much,” I remark.
Danny draws attention to our additional member by commenting, “Have you met our newest Horseman, Lula?”
While the audience clap in appreciation I ask her, “Feels good right?”
With a huge smile on her face she replies, “Feels pretty good.”
Once the room quietens down Danny tells them, “Okay, we want to talk to you about your privacy. What does your privacy mean to you?”
“Because apparently to Owen Case it means absolutely nothing,” Merritt adds.
Lula then continues by declaring, “No, actually it means less than absolutely nothing. You see, he hasn’t just mocked your privacy, he’s scorned it.”
“Right, and we’re not just talking about the things that you already agreed to when you signed - probably without reading - the terms and conditions of Octas 1 through 7…”
As Danny continues to speak, I hear Jack’s voice in my ear saying, “Dylan, the FBI is here.”
“Alright, don’t worry about it. Go to plan C4,” Dylan replies.
I exchange glances with my fellow Horsemen and going by the subtle panic in their features I know that they’ve heard it too. Trying not to think about what’s happening outside I say, “Before we start the show, we had Owen agree to a few terms and conditions of our own, so everything that he once considered private-“
Before I can finish my sentence, my mic unexpectedly cuts off and Danny takes over from me. “Yeah, everything that he once considered private is now-“
Danny’s mic soon stops working too and the room is put into darkness as the power goes out. Suddenly, a loud screeching noise rings out throughout the space and a digital face appears on the screen behind us. A garbled, robotic voice then begins to speak.
“As The Horsemen like to say, magic is about controlling perception. You see them as champions of the truth, but are they? Or is that just another one of their illusions? So, since they clearly love secrets, let’s reveal some of theirs.”
I hear Dylan’s voice through my earpiece. “Danny, everyone, get off the stage. Abort! Jack, go with them, I’ll see you at the meet up point.”
As the four of us flee the stage, the anonymous digital entity continues to talk. “Do you recall the death of Jack Wilder? What if I told you he’s not just alive, but he’s actually right here?”
Before heading backstage, I see flashing lights in my peripheral vision and when I look over in their direction, I see that Jack has been discovered, but he keeps moving away from the crowd and towards us.
Shit, this is not good. Not good at all.
Just when I think it won’t get any worse we all hear, “Now for the big reveal. There’s a sixth Horseman and he’s the biggest criminal of them all - FBI agent Dylan Rhodes.”
I stop in my tracks. No no no, this isn’t happening. This is all just one horrible nightmare and I’m going to wake up any second now.
Danny must notice that I’m not behind him because he comes back to get me. “Y/N, we’ve got to go.”
“But Dylan-“
“We’ll be no help to him if we get caught. Let’s go!”
He then grabs my hand and drags me along with him. Once we climb up the ladder and get onto the roof, we start running towards the chute that we set up for our escape. “We’ve got to get to the chute! Go!” Jack yells.
“Who are those guys?” Lula asks.
“Who cares? Come on!” Danny shouts.
As we stop to get rid of our mics and earpieces Merritt questions, “How the hell could this happen? I thought Dylan had everything under control.”
“Yeah well, apparently he didn’t,” Danny replies.
McKinney’s tone is accusatory as he retorts, “Maybe you’re the leak Dan, where have you been sneaking off to?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t you dare insinuate that I had anything to do with this.”
“I’m not insinuating, that’s-“
Fed up with their bickering I interject by telling them, “Guys, you can play the blame game later. We need to move - now. Let’s get to the truck.”
Approaching the chute, I go down first and land in… a laundry trolley?
It’s not long before the others arrive too - Danny falls on top of me then Jack, Merritt and Lula fall into trolleys on either side of us. As I take in our surroundings, I realise that we’re in a restaurant kitchen.
What. The. Hell?
When I glance at each of my fellow Horsemen, they look just as confused as I feel. After we all get out of the trolleys, Jack asks what we’re all clearly thinking. “What the hell is going on?”
“Wasn’t there supposed to be a truck?” Lula counters.
“Where the hell are we?” Danny questions.
One of the chefs then comes up to us and starts yelling in a foreign language. We don’t need a translator to work out that he wants us out of the kitchen. Another couple of cooks begin to shove us out of there and as they do Danny asks Jack, “Did you mis-run the tube?”
“No, I put it in the truck. I know I did!” he answers defensively.
“Really? Because we’re not in a truck right now.”
Merritt weighs in by saying, “Somebody must’ve moved the tube. Were we above a Chinese restaurant?”
“There’s something wrong. Very wrong,” I state.
Once we’re out of the kitchen, we find ourselves in the main part of the restaurant, with people seated at tables and eating all around us.
“Okay, why are we here?” Danny wonders.
“Why am I frickin’ starving?” Lula asks.
“Yeah, I’m weirdly starving too.” Jack responds.
I make my agreement known by remarking, “Me three.”
“This makes no sense,” Merritt voices, before heading in the direction of the exit, presumably to see where we actually are.
“At least, and I know it’s not much consolation, but apparently we’re now surrounded by Chinese food, right?” Lula says.
McKinney comes back and tells us, “Guys, I think where we are right now they don’t refer to it as ‘Chinese food’, it’s just called ‘food’.”
No, he’s not saying what I think he’s saying is he? Are we in… China?
Summary: It been a long year for The Horsemen, who have been in hiding since completing their initiation to join The Eye: they’re down a member and have been practicing their skills to ensure that they are ready for what happens next. Tired of waiting for something to happen, Danny has been contacting the secret society behind everyone’s backs, which proves to be the catalyst for an unforeseen chain of events that places them on an unexpected path… (sequel to Magical Connection)
