James Patterson - The Gift

W ITCH & W IZARD

T HE G IFT

JAMES PATTERSON

and Ned Rust

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

NEW YORK BOSTON

For Jack, who got me started, after I got him started.

J.P.

For Ruth, for laughing at the right times.

N.R.

ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS:

WISTERIA ROSE ALLGOOD , leader and last hope of the pernicious Resistance that has destroyed our peace of mind and diverted so much of our citizenrys efforts and resources, has been apprehended and will be PUBLICLY EXECUTED in the COURTYARD OF JUSTICE at ONE OCLOCK this afternoon. Still wanted for collusion, conspiracy, and experimentation with the dark and foul arts is her brother, WHITFORD P. ALLGOOD .So decreed by The One Who Is The One, this two hundred thirty-fifth day of the first year of the New Orders Ascendancy.

Whit

LISTEN TO ME. We dont have much time.

My name is Whit Allgood. I guess youve heard of me and my sister, Wisty, and of the crazy stuff thats happened, but heres the thing: its so much worse than you think it is.

Trust me when I tell you that these are the worst of times and that the best of times are little more than a distant memory. And no one seems to be paying attention to whats going on. Are you?

Paying attention?

Imagine that all the things you love most in the worldand probably take for grantedare now banned. Your books, music, movies, art all snatched away. Burned. Thats life under the New Order, the so-called governmentor brutal totalitarian regimethats taken over this world. Now, with every waking breath, we have to fight for every freedom we have left. Even our imagination is at risk. Can you picture your government trying to destroy that? Its inhuman.

And yet theyre calling us criminals.

Thats right. Wisty and I are the offenders in that unhappy propaganda piece brought to you by the New Order. Our crime? Engaging in free thought and creativity. Oh, and practicing the dark and foul artsi.e., magic.

Did I lose you? Let me back up a bit.

One night not so long ago, my family was awakened by soldiers storming through our home. Wisty and I were cruelly torn from our parents and slammed into a prisona death camp for kids. And for what?

They accused us of being a witch and a wizard.

But, the thing is, it turns out the N.O. was actually right about that: we didnt know it at the time, but Wisty and I do have powers. Magic powers. And now were scheduled to be publicly executed, along with our parents.

That particular ghoulish event hasnt taken place yetthough it will . I promise those of you who crave suspense, adventure, and bloodshed that you can look forward to it. And you will, if youre anything like the rest of the brainwashed citizenry of our land.

But if youre one of the few whove escaped the N.O.s clutches, you need to hear my story. And Wistys story. And the story of the Resistance. So when were gone, theres someone left to spread the word.

Someone to fight the good fight.

And so we begin with the story of another public execution: a sad and unfortunate event, an accident, as luck or fate would have it. In a phrase that I hate to use under any circumstances: a tragedy.

Whit

HERES WHAT HAPPENED, to the best of my shattered ability to recall it.

I do remember that I couldnt have been more lost and alone as I wandered the streets of this gray, crowded, and forsaken city. Where is my sister? Where are the others from the Resistance? I kept thinking, or maybe muttering the words like some homeless madman.

The New Order has already disfigured this once beautiful city beyond recognition. It seems like a decaying corpse swelling with mindless maggots. The suffocatingly low sky, the featureless buildingseven the faces of the nervously rushing people flooding around meare as colorless and lifeless as the concrete under my feet.

I know the general populace has been efficiently brainwashed by the New Order, but these citizens seem a little too hushed, a little too urgent, a little too riveted to the scraps of propaganda clutched in their hands like prayer books.

Suddenly, my eyes spot a word in bold letters on the paper: EXECUTION.

And then the huge video displays hanging above the boulevard light up, and everything becomes clear to me. Every pedestrian stops and stands stock-still, and every head turns upward as if there has suddenly been an eclipse.

On the video screens, a hooded prisonersmall-framed, frail-lookingis kneeling on a starkly lit stage.

Wisteria Allgood, blares a bone-chilling voice, do you wish to confess to the use of the dark arts for the wicked purpose of undermining all that is good and proper in our society?

This cant be happening. My heart is a big lump in my throat. Wisty? Did that voice really just say Wisteria Allgood? My sisters on an executioners scaffold?

I grab a slack-jawed adult by his dismally gray overcoat lapels. Where is this execution happening? Tell me right now!

The Courtyard of Justice. He blinks at me irritably, as if Ive woken him from a deep sleep. Where else?

Courtyard of Justice? Wheres that? I demand of the man, throwing my hands around his neck, nearly losing control of my own strength. I swear, Im ready to throw this adult against a wall if I have to.

Under the victory archdown there, he gasps. He points at a boulevard that runs off to my left. Let me go! Ill call the police!

I shove him and take off running toward a massive ceremonial arch maybe a half mile away.

You! Wait! he yells after me. Dont I know your face from somewhere?

He does. Oh yes. And so would everyone else, if they took the time to notice that there was a wanted criminal running loose in their midst.

But his fellow citizens eyes remain glued to the screen. Theyve got an insatiable appetite for malicious gossip of any kind and, of course, an equal taste for senseless death and destruction.

Even when the falsely condemned are kids. Just kids.

I can hear a distant roar now. The sound of hungerfor justice, for blood.

I forge ahead into the pathetic herd of lemmings. Im not going to let them take my sister from me. Not without a fight to the death anyway.

I round a corner, and then, across the top of the crowd, I see Is that my sister, Wisty, up on the stage? Shes hooded, dressed all in black, but standing now. Proudly. Brave as ever.

A manif you would call him thatis on the stage with her. Hes leaning on a crooked stick, his wickedly sharp black suit hanging strangely motionless in the wind thats begun to howl through the civic square. His angular face is glowing with smug self-satisfaction, as if hes just devoured a potful of whipping cream.

I know him; I despise him. The One Who Is The One. Quite possibly the most evil individual in the history of humanity.

Are there minutes or seconds left before this hideous execution? I have no way of knowing.

I knock people aside as I barrel through the thickening, or should I say sickening, throng. I can see a line of well-armed soldiers holding everyone back from the platform. If I can knock one of them down and snatch away a gun

I look up at the stage just in time to see The One raise his knobby black stick and shake it menacingly at my sister. He has a look of absolute triumph.

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