Aspen paused a couple more times to double-check she wasn’t being followed, scaled the condominium’s fence, and ducked into the un-landscaped courtyard. She doubted they had any sort of security. The worst she’d have to worry about were nosy neighbors.
She found a window to one of the condos, blocked off by plywood. She pulled her knife and set to work jimmying it off. One nail pried. Now the other—
She heard the soft breath of air as someone landed behind her.
“We’ve really got to stop meeting like this,” Isak said.
Then his spell blasted her inside.
The Temporary Truce
Aspen was already pushing herself up as she hit the cold concrete. Splintered wood clattered beside her. She skidded through the next doorway just as Isak leapt through the window.
“I have to say, you’re not an easy person to track down,” he said. His footsteps echoed as he stalked the empty space, looking for her. “No magical signature, nobody who knew who you were. Wasn’t like I could ask Lucien, either.”
“Do we really have to do this now?” Aspen said wearily. “I’ve kind of had a bad day.”
“A bad day for you is a good one for me.”
Aspen picked up some bits of drywall and threw it his direction before sprinting into the next room. Behind her she saw the glow of magic light up beneath his feet, caught the flash of runic symbols circling his hand a second before a spell lifted her off her feet and sent her rolling into the next condo’s kitchen. She scrambled around to the other side of the counter.
“That’s right, keep using magic!” Aspen yelled back at him. “Just let me absorb it.”
Isak chuckled. “We both know there’s only so much you can take. Want to find out how much that is?”
“No thanks.” She waited until he drew closer then sprinted straight for him. Isak had time for a grunt of surprise before her knife was just cleaving the hairs of his eyebrows. He twisted his body and used her momentum to toss her behind him. He swiveled, the ground beneath his feet glowing again. Aspen was hurled against a far wall. Her breath was shoved out of her lungs. Her necklace glowed bright green, then faded, taking some of the magic.
Then she remembered. He was a druid. He drew power from the literal contact with the earth. No contact, little to no power. And the higher they were from the earth’s surface…
“Done yet?” Isak said, stepping into the room. He looked disappointed, maybe a little sad. “I did warn you.”
Aspen shifted her weight to her back leg, moving her body so that it covered her hand curling around a chunk of concrete. “Such a gentleman.”
She hurled the concrete. It glanced off the arm he brought up to block, buying her enough time to slip through the next doorway to a living room. She needed stairs. This place had to have stairs.
She threaded back to the main hallway separating the unfinished rooms before coming upon an open shaft where the elevator would go. Stairs wrapped around it to an open floor above. Behind her came the pounding of angry footfalls.
“You’re resourceful,” Isak called. “I’ll give you that.”
“Oh, just you wait,” Aspen muttered.
The second story was just as unfinished as the first. Whereas before she was happy with the open space to provide her cover, now she was finding it increasingly difficult to get away from Isak. She had to admire his persistence. Incredibly annoying, but admirable.
She paused long enough to listen below. Isak’s steps had paused only momentarily at the foot of the stairs, as though he were on to what she was doing. But, almost as quickly, he started up them. Aspen grinned. An opponent’s stupidity and stubbornness: two of the most potent weapons in her arsenal.
She leaped away from the edge of the stairway as dangerous light flared beneath the spot where she’d stood. The blast took out the lip of the stairway, scattering chunks of concrete and twisted rebar, but Aspen noticed it lacked the usual ‘oomph’ the prior attacks had.
“Weak magic is better than no magic,” Isak said, as though reading her mind. “I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t help you.”
Aspen kicked over a couple boxes of nails and screws onto the floor before leaping across to the next set of stairs. She was rewarded by Isak’s curse a second later.
“Really? Nails and screws? Is this Home Alone?”
“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first,” Aspen shot back.
Third floor. She knew the roof was only one more up. Should she risk exposing herself for that possibly small amount it’d weaken his powers, or stay here under cover?
“You know this is breaking the rules, right?” Aspen said. She threw her voice against an opposite wall, causing it to refract in every direction. “They said no interference with your opponent.”
Isak’s laugh came back just as broken and scattered. “Like you weren’t planning to come after me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Oh, sure. Not even to lay a few traps for me?”
Okay, he got her there.
“Besides,” Isak said. “You really don’t strike me as the kind of girl who cares about rules, Aspen.”
She was pretty sure he was on the same floor now. She heard his scuffling of feet, felt the subtle shift of air that came with the presence of another body in her space.
“I know Lucien was helping you,” Isak said. “We figured it wouldn’t be long.”
We. Xavier. The scumbag.
“Lucien was helping me escape. It wasn’t part of the assessment.”
Isak stopped moving. Aspen knew the more she talked the easier he could zero in on her. But maybe this was the distraction she needed.
“Escape?” Isak said. “I asked if you wanted to leave the assessment. I gave you an out.”
“I wasn’t escaping the assessment, idiot.” Had he really not heard?
Taking a deep breath, Aspen grabbed a calking gun and hurled it at him as she sprinted from cover. Isak batted it aside. “Not this time!”
The ground came to life beneath her feet. Aspen suddenly felt lighter. Her toes were scraping grit, then weren’t touching the ground at all. Somehow, Isak had stolen all the gravity from the area immediately around her, causing her to float in place. She tried to breast stroke out of it, but the laws of physics had ceased obeying her.
“You are really annoying,” Isak said. “First you want in it, then you don’t, then you do. Why on earth are you even trying to be a Mage?”
“Did you ask your master like I told you?”
“Xavier’s got nothing to do with this!”
He raised his other hand. His fingers began bending inward. The pressure surrounding Aspen grew, closing in on her. “With you gone, I can finally take my place. I can change this city for the better.”
Aspen’s other hand fumbled under her jacket. “Whatever you have to tell yourself.”
Isak’s hand stayed up, but he’d stopped trying to crush her. He wasn’t quite looking at her, but staring into the space beside, as if he couldn’t bear looking at the person he was about to kill. Or didn’t want to do it at all.
Praying whatever gravity bubble he’d put around her didn’t have the same effect on her gear, Aspen aimed the point of the grapple at the nearest I-beam and fired. The line wound its way around and secured, and with another tug she was being pulled out of the bubble with an audible pop! The world suddenly made sense again as she painfully skirted across the ground and slid toward the next set of stairs. She sprinted up them.
The roof was just as empty as she’d feared. Only a pile of steel beams and a few excess pieces of insulation had been left here. Nothing that would protect her. Seconds, she only had seconds to find some way to incapacitate him long enough for him to listen to reason…
A couple of industrial construction lights had been parked around the outer edges of the roof, connected to a single generator placed in the middle.
That would do.
Isak followed less than a minute later. C
rouched where she was, Aspen could see his eyes narrow on the loudly rumbling generator she’d started. His hands clenched and unclenched, unsure whether or not it was a threat.
“Aspen…?”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and flicked the lights on. Even closed, the sudden blaze made her irises water. Isak cried out in surprise. He stumbled back, nearly tripping over his feet. Aspen drew her knife and pounced. Her knees hit his chest and brought him slamming to the ground. Her knife pressed against his throat.
“Now, I want you to listen to me.”
Isak blinked a few times until his blue eyes adjusted and locked onto her. Rather than being nervous, he broke out in a grin. Why had she expected anything less?
“Looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Lucien was helping me because I got framed for something. The Heads of Ember’s Landing were all murdered this morning.”
Isak’s forehead wrinkled. “Did you do it?”
“Of course I didn’t do it!”
“Then I believe you.”
Aspen hesitated. “You do?”
Isak managed to shrug beneath her, lifting her entire body up and down in the process. “You could barely beat me. There’s no way you took out some of the top Vamps and shifters all by yourself.”
She pressed the knife harder into his skin. “You’re not exactly in a position to provoke me.”
Isak stared unflinchingly back. “And yet here we are.”
“I didn’t murder them, because they weren’t murdered like normal. They were sucked dry. All their magic was gone. Stolen.”
The slight startled jerk of Isak’s neck made his blood flow beneath her blade. “What did you say?”
“Oh, dragon spit. You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“You’re a horrible liar.” She leaned over him, prepared to put more pressure on the knife. “What did you see?”
“The same thing that you did, but not in the same way you did.”
Aspen wrinkled her nose. Okay, that made zero sense. Isak apparently thought so too.
“It’d be easier to show you,” he said. “But since you’re going to kill me…”
“Why shouldn’t I? You were just trying to kill me.”
“Maybe I changed my mind.”
“You mean maybe me putting my knife to your throat changed your mind—”
With one powerful buck, Isak grabbed her wrist and twisted the blade out of her hand, twisting himself along with it until Aspen’s back slammed against the ground. Isak pinned her arms to each side.
“While normally I’m not opposed to a girl being on top of me, the knife was killing the mood. Now—just stop fighting for one second. Give me a chance to talk without you driving that adorable blade into my throat.”
Aspen paused as she brought one leg up, ready to kick him. Hopefully off the edge of the building.
“Yes, I’ve seen something similar,” Isak said. “And yes it’d be easier to show you. But if we’re going to keep fighting then it might as well wait.”
“This can’t wait,” Aspen argued.
Isak gave a half-nod as if to say, then the next logical step would be…
“Maybe…” Aspen muttered, not believing she was saying it, “we can help each other. For now.”
“You think we should give up the assessment?”
Aspen took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe she was saying this, but…“This is big, Isak. Bigger than the assessment. If whatever this is keeps up, there probably won’t be a Mage’s spot left to fight for.”
Aspen waited while Isak thought this over some more. With his hands pinning her he couldn’t cast spells. And he was a bigger idiot than she thought if he believed he had her beaten for good.
“The Bond shouldn’t have a problem with that,” he finally said. “So…temporary truce?”
“Then we can go back to trying to kill each other later. Promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He didn’t move.
“Get off me, Isak,” Aspen said.
“Right. Sorry.” Isak scrambled up and backed away. He warily eyed her knife as Aspen scooped it up. She pressed the button on the handle to stop the blood leaking from Isak’s cut, then reluctantly stowed it in its sheath. She slapped away his offered hand up and stood.
“Don’t start getting chummy. Temporary only.”
“Shake on it?” Isak said.
“Thanks, but shaking with you hasn’t turned out well for me.”
His smirk was back. “Fair enough. I promise not to try killing you until we figure this out.” He hooked his thumbs through the loops of his jeans and leaned against the pile of steel beams. “You’re lucky I wasn’t really trying back there.”
Aspen scoffed. “Like I said, you’re the worst liar I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m serious. I was just going to scare you, really. But you fight so dirty I got kind of carried away in the moment.” He grinned. “You don’t play by any rules. I kind of like it.”
Aspen had no idea what to make of that, so instead she busied herself with making sure the rest of her gear was in its proper place, ignoring her thudding heart. “You going to keep chit-chatting or are we going?”
Isak jerked his head. “Follow me.”
They made their way down from the roof (“I knew I was screwed when you headed up,” Isak said. “Meant you’d figured me out.”) and after meandering back to one of the more commercial districts, Isak hailed a cab. Aspen kept a suspicious eye on him as they bundled in the back. He might not have been the tallest, but the stupid guy was so broad his shoulders were pressing into her without meaning to. Or maybe he meant to. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to piss her off like that.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“Hell’s Kitchen, Riverside park,” Isak said.
The cabbie grunted as he pulled into traffic. “I could give you some more romantic spots than that, my friend, but you’re the customer.”
Isak snorted. Aspen tried ignoring the heat creeping up her cheeks. She glanced a couple times over at Isak as they drove. For as paranoid as she felt, he seemed the exact opposite. He had one elbow casually propped on the windowsill, peering at the muddled lights they passed. His other hand rested on his thigh. He wasn’t fidgeting. His wasn’t constantly glancing her way. How could he act so calm? How could he not be worried she wouldn’t try to off him right here? Not that she would. Maybe she would? A half hour ago she was ready to, but a half hour ago he was ready to blast her to kingdom come. Now she had almost no desire to, and she wasn’t sure he did either.
“Don’t you think this is weird?” Aspen blurted out.
Isak peeled his gaze from the window and rested it on her. The movement seemed to make him swell in the cramped back and she tried to subtly put some space between them. His intensity was freaking her out.
“What’s weird?”
“Us. You. Me. Teaming up. We were just trying to kill each other a little bit ago.”
Aspen caught the cabbie’s eyebrows raise in the rearview mirror the same time one of Isak’s did.
“This truce was your idea.”
“I know. And I still want to do it. For now. But…doesn’t it bother you?”
“Bother me?”
“How can you be so calm about it?”
Isak continued to peer at her for a long moment while the cabbie tapped nervously on the steering wheel.
“I’m calm because I trust you. To a certain extent. I don’t believe it was all your idea to take part in the Council’s assessment, and because of that I feel like you just want to get out of this alive rather than see me dead. And I agree we need to help each other, so until then I trust you won’t try to kill me.” The side of his mouth curled up. “Will you?”
“Not yet.”
“Then there you go.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Aspen said.
“And look where that got you.”
“That got me alive.”
Isak shrugged, which Aspen somehow found more infuriating than him arguing with her. “Whatever you say,” Isak said. “You do what you think is best, and I’ll do what I think is best. We’ll see who’s standing in the end.”
“Aaaand we’re here,” the cabbie said, pulling a little too abruptly into a spot on the waterfront. They got out and Isak pulled out his wallet.
“Hey,” the cabbie leaned out the window, “you weren’t really talkin’ ‘bout killin’ each other, were you? It was a lover’s spat sorta thing?”
Isak smiled and handed him the money. “Have a good night.”
“Times Square!” the cabbie yelled after them as he drove away. “Take her there! Salvage what ya got!”
Aspen took a look at where they’d ended up. “Why’d you bring us here?”
A sidewalk cut through a small grassy space bordering the churning water of the Hudson. Street lamps illuminated derelict benches and overturned trashcans.
“This isn’t where we’re going,” Isak said. “We’re headed to the Necropolis.”
Aspen wrinkled her nose. “The undead’s borough?”
“One of the entrances to it, yes.”
“I thought Xavier’s borough was Brindle’s Spire, not the Necropolis.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not my problem. Right?” he added, looking at her. “Finding the Heads of Ember’s Landing dead isn’t my problem either, but I still care.”
Aspen grumbled a few choice words Isak’s direction as they started walking. They were alone. Across the water, the shoreline of New Jersey glittered, the buildings’ refractions chopped up in the dark water. Her thoughts randomly drifted to Lucien once again. He still hadn’t found her yet. He’d said he needed to whip up a particular spell to pinpoint the necklace, but maybe there was something wrong. Maybe the talks with the shifters hadn’t gone quite according to plan. The borough’s residents she’d run into seemed to have even more animosity towards the Mages than even she’d realized.
“What’s the matter?”
Aspen looked over to find Isak frowning at her.
“Why do you ask?”
“You had a weird expression on your face. Like you were constipated or something.”
Mage's Apprentice (Mages of New York Book 1) Page 14
