Geek Syndicate
underneath the cloth. “I used to feel that way, you know I did. They were my family too.”
“You left.”
“And I came back.”
“When they were dead. When it was too late to help anybody.”
Marv found he couldn’t see Magpye’s eyes any more. The pale, milky orbs were almost devoid of colour, another of the mysterious changes that had come over the boy Marv had
once known as Able Quirk, but it was more than that. He didn’t see the dead, or hear them
like Magpye did, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t remember them. The circus had been
his home too, once. Marv, the great magician, the master escape artist. He’d pulled his
greatest ever escape without even knowing it, leaving the circus just a few weeks before
it was burnt to the ground, the entire crew murdered.
“I helped you, didn’t I?” he asked weakly.
“Yes, Marv, you did,” replied Magpye. “And you’re still helping me now. Let’s face it,
if I stop, what else are we going to do?”
“Live?” suggested Marv, his tone glib.
“As ghosts, maybe. Hiding down here in a tomb? We may as well be dead.”
“But we’re not. We’ve got a chance. I’ve got friends in LA, a few friends in Vegas... we
could start over.” Marv gripped Magpye by the shoulders, tightening his grip, “Everyone
who goes up against the Kings ends up dead, kid. Everyone knows that. What happened
here, what happened to us? They’ve done things a hundred times worse. They own this
city, and nobody is taking it from them.”
“I am.”
“Bah!” scoffed Marv. “Well, at least use that secret passage of yours,” he said, heading out
of the room. “I don’t want Marissa any more upset than she is already. And don’t think
you can come back and haunt me if you get yourself killed out there.”
But Magpye didn’t answer. As he closed the door, Marv heard the unmistakeable sound
of Able Quirk zipping up his mask, and he knew that any vestige of the boy was gone in
an instant. Inside the mask, there was only Magpye, and Magpye only wanted one thing.
Magpye was going to kill the King.
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