At six in the morning, I knocked on the infirmary door. My hands were shaking, so I balled them into fists and kept them behind my back.
When Krieger opened the door and greeted me with a bright smile, I found myself at a loss for words.
“Good morning, Doctor,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“Ah. Miss Merlin! Punctuality is something I value in people! Come in,” he replied, stepping aside.
I walked into the infirmary. The white neon lights glowed overhead. Combined with the pristine walls and metallic details, it generated a brightness to which my eyes needed a few seconds to properly adjust.
In the middle of the room was the infamous Reading chair, complete with its leather straps. I couldn’t ignore the flashbacks—my first time in this room with Adley de la Barthe, Alton, and Wade, and that big-ass syringe that could easily be used to stab and kill a medium-sized mammal.
As if sensing my raw nerves, Krieger shut the door and chuckled. “Relax, Miss Merlin. I promised I would make the process less painful for you. I intend to keep my word.”
“I take it you, too, experienced the monstrous jab, huh?” I replied, stopping in front of the chair.
“Absolutely. It scars you for life,” Krieger muttered. He walked over to one of the tables on the right. It was loaded with a variety of weird-looking instruments, copper bowls, and glass bottles filled with herbs and crystals. Next to them was a large, open notebook and a long-necked desk light. By the looks of it, that was Krieger’s workspace.
“How is your magical detector work coming along?” I asked, nowhere near ready to sit in the chair. I was equal parts excited and terrified—not of the needle this time, but of the result. This was it. My one chance to find out whether I was really a Mediocre or not. Assuming, of course, that the first Reading had been wrong or incomplete.
“Quite well, actually. As I said before, Adley had done most of the research work. I’m simply following up on all her theories, putting each into practice. I’ve managed to identify a magical’s energy signature, and I can scan it with a device I built, based on Adley’s notes,” Krieger replied, pointing at a remote-control-looking gadget on the table, alongside the notebook. The device was wide open, its cables and circuits spilled out under a magnifying glass. “I’ve managed to compare the energy reading to blood samples from the same magicals, and I’ve identified the markers to follow for a proper Reading.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “That’s quite some progress.”
Krieger beamed with pride. “Yes, it is. However, I’ve yet to figure out a way to customize the device and make it function like the Reading bowl. This is where magic and science truly intertwine, and it’s a massive headache.”
“I’m sure you’ll crack it.”
“Right. I don’t give up easily. There are some passages in Adley’s book that I don’t quite understand, but our libraries can surely shed some light. The magical detector won’t happen tomorrow, though.” He sighed.
“Well, you strike me as a pretty sharp tack, Doctor. You’ll figure it out soon enough,” I murmured.
He stared back at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. A minute passed in awkward silence before he spoke again. “So, are you going to stand there like a deer in headlights, or will you sit down and let me do the Reading?”
I laughed nervously and gathered the courage to sit in the chair. I kept my hands in my lap, eyeing the leather restraints. Krieger took out the copper bowl with its hieroglyph etchings, along with a square tin box and a… hypodermic syringe. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of it.
“That looks much better,” I said.
Its stem was made of stainless steel, with runes engraved on one side, but the needle was short and extremely thin. It was nothing compared to its predecessor, the elephant tranquilizer. He placed them all on a small table, which he wheeled over to my side, and proceeded to mix the Reading ingredients in the bowl. From what I could tell, this was slightly different from my previous Reading.
Krieger combined a variety of powdered crystals and crushed herbs in the middle of the bowl, then picked up the syringe and smiled at me. “This won’t hurt a bit,” he said. “I had this made to order in a Washington craft shop.”
“Yeah, I get that… What’s up with all the paraphernalia, though? Adley didn’t use that before.”
“Ah. These are all amplifiers,” he said, pointing at the bowl’s contents. “They’re meant to… let’s say, zoom in on your blood. There would be no point in doing a similar Reading again. We’d get the same results. We’re digging deeper this time.”
Thankful that this didn’t require any leather straps, I put my forearm out, allowing Krieger to draw my blood through that slim, nifty-looking syringe. I barely felt the pinch, and it was over before I could say “Abracadabra.”He released the blood into the bowl and mixed it with a sterling silver spoon, whispering a spell. Within seconds, the dark crimson liquid flashed white, then swirled out across the hieroglyphs, drawing an intricate mandala pattern in the process.
I had no idea what I was watching, but Krieger was dazzled by the entire display. The flash faded away, leaving behind the dried blood swirls and lines. The final result made him grunt, while I held my breath, on the edge of my seat.
“What… Um, what does it say?” I asked.
He cackled, as if he’d just uncovered the secrets of the universe. “I knew it!”
“What? What did you know?”
“It makes sense now. Why it slipped past the first Reading…” he muttered, scratching his beard and virtually ignoring me. “No one would’ve looked twice, had they not known who your parents were, at the time. After all, Mediocrity births Mediocrity, but excellence would never—”
He stopped himself, then raised his head to look at me.
“What?” I snapped, close to breaking into a cold sweat.
“Miss Merlin, have you ever heard of a Dempsey Suppressor?” he asked, his tone eerily calm. I shook my head. “It was invented by Richard Dempsey, one of America’s finest preceptors of Charms and Hexes back in the 1800s. It’s a tiny little thing, a charm of sorts, able to suppress a magical’s energy and completely distort a Reading. Dempsey crafted it as an experiment with the intention of using it against dangerous magicals.”
“Okay. I’m guessing it has something to do with me?” I asked, rather rhetorically.
Krieger sighed, then put a hand on his hip and gave me a pitiful half-smile. “Miss Merlin, you have a Dempsey Suppressor in you.”
“Seriously?”
Chills trickled through my veins as I tried to wrap my head around this revelation.
“The Dempsey Suppressor is a hidden, dirty little secret of the upper echelons in our magical society. They’re not crafted by just anyone. The knowledge behind them is reserved only for certain individuals. Given the conditions of your birth and your noble bloodline, I can only draw one conclusion from this. Your father, Hiram Merlin, former director of the New York Coven, implanted a Dempsey Suppressor in you shortly after you were born.”
That assessment felt like a punch in the gut. I took several deep breaths, trying to imagine how that would’ve come to happen. I decided to voice my thoughts, hoping that Krieger might be able to assist me in formulating a complete reasoning.
“I was in my father’s care until the age of three, after which I was dropped off at an orphanage here, in San Diego…”
Krieger nodded once. “Yes. I think your father wanted you to be as normal as possible, despite your magical heritage. I suppose he wanted to keep you off the radar and out of the coven’s sight,” he explained. “The Dempsey Suppressor is certainly doing its job, Miss Merlin. There is power inside you, more than one usually finds in a witch, I should add. But it’s toned down. Muffled. Which is why you were initially labeled a Mediocre.”
“My father used a… Dempsey Suppressor to hide me from the covens… Adley de la Barthe said that, given my limited abilities and Chaos, I’d maybe get to do one Purge in this lifetime,” I murmured, remembering my first Reading. “Since she’d thought I was a Mediocre. I guess she was wrong. I’m not a Mediocre after all.”
“Oh, you are anything but! Miss Merlin, you are one of the most powerful magicals I’ve come across in my lifetime, and, trust me, I’ve done a lot of Readings before you. If we could find a way to remove the Suppressor, we would unleash your full potential.”
“Wait. If?” I asked. “What do you mean, if?”
Krieger shrugged. “The Dempsey Suppressor, in addition to being a highly complex and rarely approved charm, is also meant to be permanent.”
My stomach dropped. I slumped in the chair, as if the burden of ages had suddenly been released on my shoulders. Nevertheless, I wasn’t ready to resign myself to living a limited existence. My very soul was on fire, eager to discover the full extent of my power. I needed it now, more than ever, with Katherine Shipton lurking around.
“You said you use it on dangerous magicals. I suppose you’re referring to those imprisoned in Purgatory,” I said. “But didn’t Dempsey think of a way to undo it if, say, the magical in question was proven innocent?”
“Well, the Suppressor is only applied after a sentence is laid out,” Krieger replied. “It’s not impossible to remove it; it’s just tedious. You see, it’s a very small object, about the size of a fingernail. It’s implanted in a bone and, as the tissue regenerates, it’s difficult to detect. It often doesn’t show up on X-rays. I would recommend starting there. But then there is the question of how to remove it without harming you, physically and magically. It’s tamper-proof and requires a certain surgical skill to extract it without triggering its tamper-proof mechanisms. Dempsey thought of everything when he devised it, I’m afraid.”
“What if I push myself? In training, I mean, and with my Esprit? Wouldn’t I ever be able to break it?” I asked.