A group of laughing women headed toward me, and I inserted myself into their center, pretending to ask for directions so I could join their little gang for a few minutes. While one woman was trying to give me directions to the Coliseum, I slipped my jacket off and let my hair down. I wished I had thought to bring a disguise charm, but hindsight is so reliable about pointing out where your plan could have been better.
I lost myself in their group as they headed back the way I’d come, and when I reached the hotel, I slipped out of their group and into the deep shadows of the columns that lined the entrance to the front courtyard of the villa. I waited in the darkness, watching to see if anyone else entered behind me.
After a few moments, I walked across the old brick pavers to the glass doors, feeling blissfully alone. The floor of the lobby was an expanse of glowing travertine marble, the ceiling was filled with crystal chandeliers that glittered with a warm glow, and gorgeous flowers flowed from enormous urns set upon marble plinths. The pale pink of the marble floors transitioned to white plasterwork on the walls, inset with marble panels that swept upward to ornately carved moldings where the wall met the ceiling. The ceiling was painted with cherubs and clouds in warm shades of pink and sepia, echoing the work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.
Further in, velvet sofas and chairs in blush colors created private conversation areas around glass topped tables and faux columns that were little more than two-inch protrusions lined the plaster walls. An enormous crystal chandelier glittered above the hand-carved and gilded front desk, suspended beneath a golden dome that echoed the swirl of the star shape in the center of the floor.
Even with all of that splendor, I couldn’t miss Kai leaning up against an enormous pillar that soared toward the vaulted ceiling. He had his ankles crossed and the faintest smile on his face.
“You found me.” He said when I crossed the floor toward him. His voice was hushed and relaxed. “It’s not quite as impressive as the airport, but wait until you see our room.” He whispered, kissing my cheek.
Relief flooded me and I blinked. I’d been more worried about having a real fight with him than I had about the three people who’d been trailing me. I laughed, covering my emotional state with a smart remark. “You liked that airport a little too much.”
“No, I just liked experiencing it with you.” He placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me down a long corridor. At the end, he turned left and led me deeper into the interior of the villa. We walked down another deserted hall before Kai pulled me into an alcove. We pressed our backs against the door and waited.
I’m pretty sure I held my breath, but after what seemed like an eternity, Ka’Tehm’s blue head appeared through the wall opposite our hiding spot. He winked at us, and Kai turned to me with a grin.
“All clear.” He said, taking my hand and leading me to a service elevator.
We rode up three floors, walked down a carpeted hallway that could fit a semi-truck, and Kai opened the door to a suite with Venetian plaster walls in a shade of gray almost identical to the suit I wore. He turned and smiled, looking pleased.
“Again, I match the room,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Just like that restaurant in New Orleans.” He said, smiling. “That was sort of our first date, wasn’t it?”
“Not really.” I reminded him. “That was an outing that made me swear off of you for a pretty long time.”
“I was called away unexpectedly.” He said, giving me a long look.
I tilted my head to the side. “Was this all a setup?” I asked, unable to control the urge. “Did you orchestrate this whole thing?”
Something shimmered in his eyes, and he gave a slight shake of his head. “Are we talking about this room or something else?”
“You tell me.”
“Are we really fighting?” He asked. There was a perplexed smile on his face.
I opened my mouth and closed it, thinking about my answer. “No, I’m edgy because parts of this aren’t making sense to me.”
Kai raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean this?” He asked, pointing between us, “Or this?” He made a wider gesture that encompassed the whole of the hotel, city, and continent.
I shook my head to clear it a bit. Thoughts were swirling around inside my brain, but those could marinate until another time.
“Work stuff. Sorry,” I breathed, waving away my bad mood. I looked around the room, taking in the opulent surroundings. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”
Kai grinned. “I’ve been told I’m impulsive and a bit over-the-top.”
“Whooo?” Basir said from the balcony. Somehow he managed to make that vocalization drip with sarcasm.
I looked at Basir and crossed my arms. “Does it feel weird to you, too?” I asked him. He flew in and landed on the back of a chair, regarding me with half-closed eyes. I continued, trying to explain my question, “The magic around here. I never noticed it before, but it’s weak.”
Kai sat on the edge of the bed and rested his forearms on his knees. “Tell us about it.”
I closed the windows and tried to set a privacy ward. It was even harder to do three floors above the ground. I held up one finger and walked to the wall next to the balcony, pulling a thin current of energy from the stone facade of the building. I hauled the thread into the room and charged a bit of magic into it, so it glowed with a pale green color. I held it out to them.
Kai looked baffled. “What’s it supposed to look like?”
Basir swiveled his head to Kai and widened his golden eyes in shock.
Kai shook his head and smiled. “Okay, so not like that apparently. Help me here; this is all bizarrely new.”
Basir and I exchanged perplexed looks. “How can that be?” I asked.
Kai seemed to take a deep breath and thought about his response. “I didn’t channel through the elements like witches do. I just was magic. Every bit of me was made up of that energy, like all of the primary and secondary elements people like you channel were wrapped into every atom inside me with a few extras that ordinary humans probably can’t access.”
Looking at him and holding that sickly current of earth energy in my hand made me feel inadequate and sad. I turned my gaze to Basir, and he laid one ear tuft back against his head. He snapped his black beak like he was chewing on that bit of information, and he tilted his head to the side.
“You said I circulate magic,” I looked at Kai, and he nodded. “Can other people besides me draw power from other witches or magical beings?”
Kai nodded. “It’s possible, but probably at lower levels than you are capable of.”
“There were people in that meeting who had more power than this could account for,” I looked at the sickly thread in my hand. “I can’t explain why I think that, but there were at least three people who were seriously trying to conceal their magic.”
Basir looked pointedly at the pale green strand and picked up one foot, pantomiming dropping something.
I dropped the current and wiped my hand on my suit. “Could one of them be channeling through the jinn?”
Kai sighed heavily. “That’s pretty much the purpose of jinn. They’re the easiest entities to pull power from because their physiology is close to human, but they don’t have the same barriers. When they’re not directly linked to a human, they don’t even have a solid form.”
The Guild had the whole line of crap about all members being equal and being bound to maintain that balance. Yet, a few of them found a way to get more power. Human nature being what it was, it wasn’t a big leap to assume that other members would have looked for a way to claw their way to that same level of power so they wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.
“At least one member is drawing power through a jinn.” I concluded.
Kai shook his head. “Revise that sentence a bit. At least one member is enslaving a jinn.”
Well, that got ugly fast.
We were locked in silent contemplation of that for a few mi
nutes when Basir looked at the wall and pointed one wing toward the plaster, looking at me with a serious expression and waving his wings around as if gesturing to the entire room. Kai whispered a laugh. “Good idea. Let’s see everything you can pull out, not just the earth magic.” He said to me.
I placed my palm against the surface of the wall and focused on pulling everything toward me. When the currents made contact with my palm, I flinched, and they disappeared again. It took me a few tries, and I was shaking with the effort when I finally opened my eyes to a writhing white mass of energy that seemed to slither around itself like a ball of mating snakes in my palm. Tiny sparks shot from ragged ends that sputtered out, shedding dull gray granules in my palm. “That’s odd,” I said.
“Can you show us what each one is?” Kai asked, coming closer and looking at the undulating mass in my hand. “Separate them?”
“Who.” Basir agreed.
I looked at the currents and used my other hand to try and tease them apart. I poked my finger into the tangled mess, but the currents just skittered away, breaking and reforming into a smaller mass. The pile of dust in my hand grew.
“Interesting,” Kai said, watching as the currents shattered and regenerated. “They’re brittle.”
“Very.” I agreed. “When I pull out just an earth current, it’s like I have to reinforce the weak spots, so it doesn’t just break.”
“What else is in there?” Kai looked at Basir, who lifted his wings and waved them around in a large circle before holding them out at his sides.
“You think it’s all of the primary and secondary elements?” Kai concluded. “Is that normal?” He lifted his eyes to me.
I felt like that was a question I should be able to answer with certainty, “I’ve never been aware of anything other than the earth energy, but it’s probably normal. To channel magic, we would need all of the elements at our disposal depending on how we harnessed the power.” My brain was starting to hurt. Figuring out the magical entanglement while concentrating on holding it all was a monumental effort.
“Go ahead and drop it,” Kai whispered. “Put up a ward, and we’ll work through this together.”
I closed the curtains, and Kai pulled the small table over next to the bed. Basir stayed on the back of the chair, and when Kai lifted it from behind him, the owl let out a startled hoot and flapped his wings to keep his balance. He swiveled his feathered head all the way around to glare at Kai.
“I was trying to help you, but you could have moved, my friend,” Kai said, earning a swat from one of Basir’s wings.
Kai sat on the bed, I pulled up the other chair, and Ka’Tehm floated out of the bathroom and landed on the table, blinking at us.
“Magical mystery,” Kai explained to the blue beaver. Ka’Tehm blinked once and landed next to Kai, placing his blue paws on the edge of the table.
I pulled a thin ward up around us, leaving the rest of the room open. It was all the energy I felt I could muster. Before we started, I cast a cautious glance at Kai. “Are there going to be consequences to this? For you, I mean?” I didn’t want the Spirit Council Kai answered to punish him even more.
“She worries more than anyone I’ve ever met,” Kai said to Basir with an eye roll.
Basir blinked once and fluffed his wings out, settling them higher on his back and letting them slump in a gesture of burden.
“If I didn’t care we wouldn’t be here.” I said, widening my eyes.
“She cares,” Kai whispered to Ka’Tehm, who raised one blue paw, which Kai quickly high-fived before turning back to me with a serious look. “What else can they do to me, Ari? Extend my banishment?”
“Remove your knowledge.” I offered.
“That’s unlikely. Doing that would mean I could never go back to being what I was, and eventually, they will realize that they need me. They’re not one hundred percent sure they’ll last a generation without me, so they won’t risk their own destruction.”
I wanted to ask what would happen to us when they realized they needed him, but I went with, “So how do we go about figuring this magic thing out?” Masterfully avoiding the more complicated discussion that we would have someday was another of my special talents.
Hesitation flickered in his whiskey-colored eyes before he shut down whatever thought went through his mind. “Well, we could start with you hauling up some of those snapping currents again. Maybe the four of us can figure them out together.”
Yes, that was so much better than discussing the fact that we both knew our relationship wasn’t going to last without some sort of miracle. It was much easier to untangle magical currents than the whole relationship mess.
I pulled the currents up from the floor and felt sweat bead around my hairline. The effort to drag a tiny handful of magic up was astounding, but after a few minutes of intense concentration, I managed a cluster of snapping energy that felt disgusting in my palm. I shuddered.
My three companions watched.
“Separate it,” Kai whispered.
I blinked in confusion.
“Cut it off from the source.”
I sighed. He told me to do things all the time but never gave me instructions on how to do them. I contemplated the strands and drew heavily on the earth current, channeling it through myself and weaving it into a thin translucent wedge that cut through the other magic. When I’d sealed the handful of currents inside a sheath of earth energy, I dropped the wriggling ball of magic in the center of the table and let the rest of the currents retreat to wherever magic lived. I rubbed my hands on my jacket again, marveling that they didn’t leave a greasy splotch on the fabric.
The iridescence inside the ball shifted and blended, fading out to white then surging with brighter colors that spanned the spectrum. Energy popped and snapped off the ends of the severed currents, sending sparks pinging off the earth-powered covering I’d made. A faint sprinkling of dull gray dust began to gather at the bottom of the ball.
“How’d you do it?” Kai asked, smiling and pointing at the neat package.
“Earth wrapped, with a cushion of air inside,” I replied.
“How’d you get the air?” He looked at me, and I saw pride etched on his face.
“I have no idea,” I said automatically.
He laughed and shook his head. “So, what about the individual pieces?” He leaned back and swept his hand out, indicating the ball that was bouncing a bit on the table, vibrating from the energy contained within.
I picked up the ball and concentrated on separating the strands by color, teasing them out. It was rather like trying to separate spaghetti that had been left to stick together, but eventually, I figured out that by wrapping each filament in a current of air and a sheath of earth magic, I could keep the strands completely separate.
“Whoooo,” Basir said, sounding impressed.
“Now, do something spectacular,” Kai said, giving me a challenging look.
I looked at the neatly arranged currents and noticed the blue strand seemed to glow a bit brighter than the rest. I plucked out the current and looked at Kai. “Water?”
He lifted a shoulder and shook his head, looking perplexed. I scanned the other pieces and noticed one that was more turquoise and shimmery.
“No, that one’s water,” I said, pointing to the one on the table. I couldn’t feel anything besides the earth coating so I dropped that, leaving the cushion of air. The current seemed to spark a little brighter without the protective barrier, but I still couldn't get a feel for what it was. I sent a jolt of power through my hand, dispelling the air current and the blue rod snapped back against my finger.
The moment that thin string hit my flesh, magic pinballed around my synapses, my eyes rolled back in my head, and I went down like a sack of potatoes, sliding sideways out of the chair and onto the floor.
When I opened my eyes, my whole body tingled and Kai’s eyes slowly came into focus.
“Well, that was spectacular,” His laugh sounded nervous but he r
emained leaning over me, stroking the side of my face which stung a little like maybe he’d lightly slapped me a few times to bring me around. “Next time I’ll be more specific.” He tried to make it sound light, but the concern that was etched at the corners of his eyes made me wonder how badly he thought I’d been injured.
My body seemed paralyzed and magic pinged wildly between every empty space inside of me, vibrating. “Electricity.” I croaked. Or maybe it was electromagnetic energy, heavy on the electro, but either way my brain was too scrambled to finish the sentence. I struggled onto my elbows, but none of my limbs seemed to work right.
Kai pulled me up and sat back on his heels, steadying me with his knee behind my back. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never actually stuck a fork in the toaster, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it would feel like.”
“Interesting.” Kai helped me to my feet and smoothed my hair down. I could feel the static discharging and I reached a finger out and saw it spark against Kai’s chest, causing him to flinch.
“That’s for thinking it was funny,” I said.
“If you could have seen it, you’d understand.” He kissed my cheek, getting another shock as a reward. “Can you discharge that, please?”
“No. I like it.” I said, poking him again, this time under his earlobe. He jumped back and gave me an evil look.
“Keep it up, witch. I have ways of getting even.” He said, staying just out of reach as I reached for him again.
“Whoooooooo whoooo,” Basir said, looking pointedly at the energy on the table.
“The boss says we need to get back to work.” I sighed. I stood and stepped onto the balcony, pushing the left over charge of electricity from my body into the concrete ledge. My theory was it would be dissipated by the rebar that strengthened the structure without causing damage. The lightbulb on the dresser popped and blinked out. So much for theoretical magic.
Resistant Magic (Relic Hunter Book 5) Page 7
