The Black Veins (Dead Magic Book 1)

by Ashia Monet

  (He must be suffering from blood loss or something because that’s absolutely ridiculous.)

  The bird moves about a foot before it freezes. It starts to caw, the sound sharp and alarmed and desperately shrieking. Its feathers flap, knocking through the walls. Probably because its body is being raised into the air.

  And there is Jay, teeth gritted with the weight of the bird against his back, rising to his knees like Atlas himself.

  The Guardians absolutely lose their minds, cheering at the tops of their lungs as Daniel claps even more emphatically.

  Blythe shrieks, “Hercules who?!”

  “He should be carrying the weight on his legs, not on his back,” Caspian says.

  “Throw it!” Antonio shouts. “Throw it!”

  Jay screams as he pivots his weight forward. The bird catapults, its round girth crashing through the brick walls, bursting wide open into the night.

  The whole tunnel shakes. As if it’s going to collapse.

  “Oh fuck, we gotta run!” Blythe tries to shift Antonio’s weight in her arms—but he is extending his wings. “No, Antonio, don’t—”

  “Too late,” he says, teeth gritted. “Caspian, grab Daniel!”

  Antonio hooks one arm around Blythe’s waist and the other around Cordelia’s—and he soars.

  The only time Blythe has moved with her legs off of the ground was on a particularly daring rollercoaster—and flying with Antonio feels exactly like that.

  She chokes down her screams, wrapping her arms across his body—the complete opposite of Cordelia, who is openly yelling her throat raw.

  They are approaching the exit at the speed of sound. “Bro, you better be behind me!” Antonio yells as they rush past Jay.

  Despite just throwing a gigantic Calling creature, he is barely even out of breath. “I’m good!” He promises.

  A blast of air hits them as they fly from the tunnel. Antonio is losing altitude, the ground rushing closer and closer until Blythe’s body rolls across it.

  Honestly, falling isn’t anything new at this point.

  In front of her is a small, stone staircase (good thing her head didn’t land on that). She pushes up to her elbows, staring up at the entrance of the prison, foreboding and grey.

  They’re here.

  Cordelia sits up bolt right, eyes wide. “She broke free!” she yells. The scarred woman.

  Blythe would be more invested if blood wasn’t trickling down Cordelia’s nose.

  “Cords—” There must be too much compassion in Blythe’s voice, because Cordelia glares.

  “I can handle this,” she insists, hastily dabbing the drops away.

  Caspian races out of the tunnel, a screaming Daniel in hand. Jay is right behind him. The mortar and brick collapses into the tunnel on his heels.

  The bird swings its heavy body upright. “You’re kidding me,” Blythe groans.

  It has barely bleached out a shriek before Jay runs for it. He digs his hands into its oily feathers and scales up its body like an expert, straight to its neck.

  The bird twists, swinging itself to the side—but a pair of roots grab it by the wings, pulling taught.

  Jay leans backward just enough for his watch to slip into his fist and grow into a Bloodsword, its dark palor indistinguishable from the night sky.

  He plunges the blade into the flesh of its neck—and the bird shrieks. It flails helplessly against its prison of roots.

  Jay jumps down, sword sawing through its body as gravity carries him to the ground.

  The bird melts in large, thick globs of formless black puddles. It sways and caws, a moving, melting carcass, until its head slips off, and the body turns into a still, dripping mountain.

  Jay steps back, chest heaving as he catches his breath. “I don’t—I-I don’t know how I did that,” he says, his words coming out much too fast. “I didn’t even—a-and there’s this ringing—”

  “Jay, breathe, it’s okay,” Blythe interrupts. He turns to her, eyes wide.

  “That ringing?” She asks. “That humming, the feeling that every single cell in your body is supercharged with energy? That’s magic. That’s what it feels like. You’re okay.”

  Jay takes a moment, assessing himself and the world around him. Blythe smirks. “Still don’t think you’re a Guardian though, huh?” She teases.

  He smiles a bit. “I dunno, man,” he says. “I drink a lot of protein shakes.”

  Baby steps.

  “Did anyone see what I did?” Daniel asks. “I held that bird down. It was quite a spectacle.”

  “I would say I saw it, but I honestly wasn’t paying attention,” Caspian answers. “I can pretend like I did, if that’d make you feel better.”

  Daniel deflates with a sigh. “Lies just aren’t the same.”

  Jay turns to Antonio. “You flew. Are you okay?”

  Antonio musters a smile. He is still lying on the ground, barely pulling his torso up. “I kinda had to. It’s ok though, I think as time goes on they’ll…heal…”

  His voice trails off as Jay rushes to kneel beside him and inspect the cuts along his arms.

  “Ideally, we should wrap these up,” Jay mutters. “They’re not incredibly deep but they can still be infected…”

  “Jay!” Blythe blurts as he takes grabs his shirt collar. “It is state law that you keep that shirt on, we need to walk into this prison with as little distractions as possible!”

  “You were going to take your shirt off for me?” Antonio teases. “Dude. At least take me out to dinner first.”

  “Just thought I’d show you what was coming after the main course,” Jay replies.

  “Oh my Gooooooood, you’re corrupting my sweet boy and turning him into you…” Blythe whines.

  Jay pouts. “I’m not your sweet boy?”

  Cordelia groans, tossing her arms at her sides like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Are all of you forgetting we almost died? And that woman just broke free and could conjure more of God knows what after us?!”

  The Guardians fall silent as they stare at her.

  “I, personally, was celebrating the ‘almost’ part of ‘almost died’,” Jay says.

  Antonio nods. “Yeah me too.”

  “Dying’s not even that bad,” Caspian adds. “Or that hard.”

  But Cordelia is right. It’s a miracle all six of them aren’t trapped beneath the tunnel’s pile of collapsed bricks and debris. That could have gone infinitely worse—and just because they managed to scrape by this time doesn’t mean they’ll manage it next time.

  And they haven’t even gotten into the prison yet.

  “No, she’s right,” Blythe says. “We need to head in. And we need to be on high alert when we do.”

  The prison doors fly open. The chill in the air sends goosebumps up Blythe’s spine. In the doorway stands a tall man with a hat shielding his face.

  Whiteclaw.

  “By all means,” he says. “C’mon in.”

  A blast of wind hits Blythe like a speeding truck. The air is sucked from her lungs, and her head hits the hardness of the ground so hard, everything goes black.

  Cold restraints hold Blythe flat against a hard, stone wall. She can’t move. At all.

  Her vision is blurry, but she can make out a large space, the prison cafeteria most likely, except the round metal tables are bare and the only other objects present are the wall of security monitors in the back of the room.

  Whiteclaw stands in front of them, surveying their screens as their light silhouettes him, his back to Blythe.

  The monitors display an array of rooms inside of the prison. One of which shows a group of teenagers who look suspiciously like the other Guardians, in a cell that is too small to fit all of them. Jay is not with them, and they barely seem conscious.

  “Your friend did a number on Tahira, didn’t she?” Whiteclaw’s words bounce off of the concrete walls. “She’s laid down in her room. Probably’s gonna stay there for till her head clears. God knows how long that’l
l be.”

  Metal restraints press against Blythe’s wrists, her ankles, her shoulders and torso. Blythe fights against them. They do not budge.

  She is tired of being tied up, tired of being separated from the Guardians, tired of being stuck in situations just like this.

  “Where’s my fucking family?!” she growls.

  Whiteclaw doesn’t even face her. “I figured we could go through some basics before we got straight to business,” he says. “First of all, you can stop fighting for your life. We aren’t gonna kill you.”

  “You almost made me throw myself off a roof.”

  “Still on about that roof thing?” Whiteclaw pulls out a cigar. “Here at the Trident Republic, we operate under Walden’s orders. And Walden Oliver doesn’t kill people. Unless, of course,” he says, flicking his lighter. “He has a damn good reason.”

  Blythe turns up her lip at this cocky man and his arrogant nonchalance. “And what reason could I give him?”

  “I’m not him, so I’m not gonna pretend to know, but I imagine ‘not cooperating’ is one of them. And let me just say, we’d hate to kill you. You’d be much less use to us six-feet-under.”

  Those words give Blythe pause. Specifically, the word “use”.

  “You look surprised, love. Let me clear it up,” Whiteclaw pauses, billowing smoke into the air. “The roof incident? Publicity stunt. Whole world heard that song, love. Wasn’t nothing but a message to the Sages. Tellin’ them to get their asses in gear and take us seriously, showing we had some magic on our side that would make ‘em tremble.”

  Blythe’s heart thunders in her chest. Because she knows where this is going. Oh, does she ever know where this is going.

  “Naturally, we couldn’t actually let them take you to Frost Glade. That’d defeat the purpose. But the question, then, was what could make you want to come here? Now, don’t go congratulating me on all this, I don’t think of the plans, I just carry ‘em through. This was all Evangeline and Walden. They figured: Ether’s the strongest Element. Gotta be the strongest Guardian. So what if we took the Guardian of Ether’s family right in front of her and dropped a couple clues that she’d get them back in Electric City?”

  This has never been about her family. None of it. The Trident Republic wanted her. They strung her family along to get her to come running.

  And she did. She left Washington. She left Katia, the woman sent by her allies, who was only there to protect her. To run right into the Trident Republic’s arms.

  Whiteclaw flashes a smile. “No hard feelings, right?”

  “Fuck you,” The words bubble up, hot, from deep within her. “Fuck you.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Whiteclaw sucks his teeth. “I told you, cooperation is encouraged. You won’t get your family back otherwise.” He pauses, taking another drag. “Let me show you something.”

  Whiteclaw moves toward the security desk, presses some buttons.

  Three of the screens spring to life. Two of them show ornate rooms decorated with plush rugs and polished furniture.

  The first is a bedroom. Blythe gasps. Tears spring to her eyes, and she blinks them away, because her mother is on the bed, eyes closed against the pillows, and beside her is her father, paging through a novel.

  On the second screen is a living room with a large TV and a white leather sofa. Two little girls play on their knees, dolls dancing in their hands. Lily and Lena.

  Blythe has not seen their faces in a lifetime. They look so happy, so peaceful. And they’re alive.

  “Your family is in good hands,” Whiteclaw’s voice shatters her tranquility. “Of course, those first few days, they fought it tooth and nail, but like caged animals often do, they accepted their fate.” His eyes lock on hers. “But everything could easily change.”

  He presses another button. Blythe’s heart seizes. Nothing happens, not at first.

  Large men in bulletproof vests charge into the rooms. Her parents bolt upright with a start. The men snatch them to their feet, forcing them out of the room, out of the camera’s view.

  The twins are seized so easily; Lena’s mouth opens wide with a scream Blythe cannot hear.

  Blythe breath hitches. “No! No!”

  She glimpses another figure in the hall, not in white, but in normal clothes—more people in the house? More kidnapped prisoners?

  “Why are you hurting them if you want me!?” Blythe screams. “I’m here! Why—”

  “No one’s been hurt,” Whiteclaw interrupts. “Not yet. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries and explain too much, but…” He pauses. “Walden wants to make a deal with you. In exchange for your cooperation, he will free your family.”

  Blythe’s blood goes cold.

  It isn’t because the Trident Republic is holding her family hostage to turn her into a pawn, or a living weapon to win their stupid war, or to make her fight against the Black Veins and the Sages themselves as a twisted ploy, because to them she is simply a Guardian and not Blythe Fulton, not her own person, not someone who has her own fears and dreams and would never want to be even tangentially involved in this sick mess.

  But because, more pressingly, Walden Oliver, the leader of the Trident Republic and the man Katia said she was breaking her back to protect them from, is going to be here.

  Even with the Guardians at her side, Blythe cannot expect to fight him and win.

  “Did I not mention that bit?” Whiteclaw asks, coy. “Walden Oliver will be here soon. And he will explain what he expects from you in order to return your family.”

  The third monitor displays an all-white space that looks like a mix between a cell and some sort of vehile. Her family reappears inside, shoved in by the Trident Republic militia. A door slides down from the ceiling, trapping them in that small, cramped space. Lily cries as Lena clings to Jamal.

  I’m so sorry, Blythe wants to say. You never deserved this. I’m going to fix this. I can fix it.

  Movement flashes in another screen. The Guardians are talking adamantly, trying to break through the bars.

  Whiteclaw’s back is to the monitors. Blythe can’t let him turn around. He can’t catch what they’re doing. They need time.

  “I saw your house on the way here,” Blythe blurts. “Some lady told me about what happened.”

  Whiteclaw pulls the cigar from his mouth, watches the end smolder as its smoke curls into the air. Silence.

  “It doesn’t feel good, does it?” Blythe goads. “Losing people you love.”

  Whiteclaw’s voice is harder than she’s ever heard it before— it is the first time he is not laughing at her through his words.

  “You’re sixteen years old, little girl,” he spits. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Over Whiteclaw’s left shoulder, a monitor shows someone running through the halls, someone with long black dreadlocks.

  Rocco said the Hoffmans were allied with the Trident Republic. Maybe they didn’t put Jay in a cell because they didn’t think they needed to. Maybe they expected him not to care.

  “I know that everyone in the Trident Republic thinks they’re an underdog,” she says. “That you get a free pass to ruin as many lives as you want because yours got screwed over.”

  “Don’t start talking about shit you know nothing about,” Whiteclaw growls. “You may have walked through the wreckage for ten minutes, but you don’t know the goddamn half of it.”

  Jay has reached the Guardians. The guards outside of the cell are collapsed on the ground—probably Cordelia’s doing—which leaves Jay free to rip open the cell door.

  The Guardians swarm out, pausing to speak silent words before running down the hall and out of every camera’s view.

  “Tell me,” Blythe goads.

  Whiteclaw falls for it, narrowing his eyes and furrowing his thick brows. “Evangeline called Walden and I down to the labs. She’d barely been there for an hour with the stone and she was starting to tell us about it when your soldiers came in. We hadn’t been prepared for an infilt
ration. Not at fucking all. And they ripped the stone straight from Jellie’s hands, kicked her on the ground like she was a fucking dog when she fought back. It happened so fucking fast, so goddamn fast—they were in and then they were out, leaving thousands of dollars’ worth of damages. They’d stolen priceless information and data.

  “We thought they’d breezed through the city and came straight for the lab. Then we looked outside. They were going through the streets like an infection, destroying anything they could touch. I watched one of our men get thrown through a hospital so hard that the entire building collapsed. Do you know how many patients were in there? How many pregnant women, newborn babies, people with routine fucking surgeries? Your news calls it an attack, but what happened here was a fucking massacre.

  “I saw them in the streets near my house. And I knew Dizzy was there, I knew it. She probably didn’t even realize what was happening, and she sure as hell was the exact opposite of a trained magician. I bolted out as fast as I could, as fast as I fucking could, and…” his voice trails off. “I couldn’t get there in time. As you can see.”

  He exhales, long and slow. “Maybe that’ll paint the fucking picture for you.”

  Blythe stares at him, steeling her voice against the horrors he has thrown at her.

  “It does,” she says. “And you’re right. I’m a sixteen-year-old girl who doesn’t know shit. And I’m restrained against a wall while you hold my family’s murder above my head. Because there’s nothing wrong with that at all. And that makes you the hero.”

  Whiteclaw stares off at the wall. “Wait till you grow up. You’ll do a lot of things for the people you love.”

  “So, because someone hurt your family, you harm mine.”

  Whiteclaw is silent. “Didn’t expect you to understand,” he mutters.

  A knock interrupts the conversation. It is the first time Blythe notices the door on the left side of the room.

  Whiteclaw sets down his cigar, rolling his shoulders back as he goes to open it. Jay looks up at him.

  “The hell are you doing here?” Whiteclaw asks.

  Jay punches Whiteclaw across the face. Blythe hears a crack as his body drops to the floor like a sack of flour.