Enchantress Under Pressure

by A C Spahn

  He clasped my hand. “I probably sound like a caveman. Woman, mine! Other guy, bad!”

  “Well, you do drag logs around for a living.”

  He laughed softly. “Better than goofing around with small shiny objects and calling it art.”

  “I’ll have you know plenty of our customers trade me money in exchange for those shiny objects.”

  “Maybe one of your classes should be a magpie support group.”

  “Good idea. I’ll have you kill a mammoth to feed everybody.”

  “Me man. Me hunt beast. Have big stick!”

  Kendall snorted. “That’s what she said.”

  Across the room, my phone rang.

  All three of our heads whipped toward the sound. I tried to calm my suddenly racing heart. When had my ringtone become an automatic reason for panic? I hurried over and saw Axel’s number on the screen.

  Then again, maybe my panic was warranted.

  I answered. “What happened?”

  “We need you.” Axel’s tone brooked no delay. “The fleshwriter escaped.”

  Chapter 17

  AXEL MET ME and Desmond in the lobby, where he was speaking quietly with Cassie. The woman sat behind the reception desk, looking numb. Axel broke from her and crossed to hurry us to the elevator. A faint drum of magic washed over me, fading in seconds. I shivered. Magic shouldn’t appear around so many Voids. It was like I didn’t know the rules anymore.

  “Something wrong with your girlfriend?” I asked, to take my thoughts away from whatever illness plagued the metaphysical world.

  Axel glared at me. “She’s not. And she’s fine.”

  “Did Vince hurt her on his way out?”

  “No.”

  “Did he hurt anyone?”

  “Yes. Guards. Some medics.” He hit the button for the tenth floor.

  “Is Doctor Richards okay?”

  “Bruised. She’ll live. Some didn’t.”

  Guilt flickered through me. Not that I could have done anything to protect those people, but Vince was only here because of me. I hated the idea that he’d injured anyone. Especially Dr. Richards, one of the few Voids who’d been overtly kind to me. “How did he escape?”

  Axel didn’t answer. Desmond slipped a hand into mine as we stepped out into the prison level.

  The door into the cellblock was blown off its hinges, lying twisted halfway down the hall. A hole gaped in the wall near the stairwell, letting in seawater air. Ash scented the room, and scorch marks shone on the ragged hole in the stone. “Bomb,” Desmond said quietly. “Placed inside. Otherwise there’d be rubble on the floor.”

  Axel grunted. “Good eye.”

  Desmond straightened at the compliment. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

  Another grunt.

  We followed Axel to Vince’s cell, which stood open and empty. No signs of forced entry here. Everything was impeccably tidy.

  “Thoughts?” Axel demanded, jerking his chin at the open door.

  With a supreme effort of will, I made myself step into the cell. It wasn’t like they were going to close the door on me, but the threat of confinement sent bugs racing through my nerves. My magical senses tested the air, reaching for any hint of power drumming nearby. More faint whispers of magic brushed near me, then faded too fast to catch. Feeling them here was wrong. So wrong.

  “It looks like the door was unlocked,” I said. “Did the guards say what happened?”

  “Killed,” Axel said.

  “How?”

  “Gunshots.”

  “So there are no witnesses to how he got out.”

  “No.”

  “What about security cameras?” asked Desmond.

  “Wiped,” said Axel.

  “Kendall might be able to recover the data, if you ask her.”

  “Later.” Axel shifted his wait. “Well, enchantress?”

  I blew out a breath and turned around. Axel loomed in the doorway, nearly filling it. The sight made the bugs skitter through my gut again, but I affected an unconcerned tone. Above Axel’s bald head, the security camera’s enchantment line stood intact. It should have absorbed those stray beats of magic I sensed. Why was nothing working right? “I don’t think Vince did this on his own. Even with magic, he couldn’t have defeated all the guards. Someone helped him escape. Shot the guards, let him out of the cell, and probably blew that hole in your wall. He wouldn’t have survived the jump to ground level, so they must have brought him an enchanted object to help with that, too.”

  Axel watched me closely. “You’re sure?”

  “That he had help? Positive.”

  “He didn’t escape with magic?”

  “No.”

  Axel didn’t move from the doorway. I couldn’t see Desmond at all, but I heard him shift his weight, as if tensing. “Axel,” he asked, “what’s going on?”

  The big man’s eyes never left me. “You were in one of these cells once.”

  Chilly fingers flickered on my skin. “I remember.”

  “You couldn’t escape.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Maybe you’re keeping a strategy in reserve.”

  For a long moment I didn’t understand. When I did, my mouth fell open. “You think I’m lying about how Vince escaped? That I know how he got out and I’m not telling you because I want to be able to do the same thing in case you imprison me again?”

  Desmond swore. “Axel, that’s idiotic. She has more reason than anyone to want to catch this guy. She wouldn’t withhold information.”

  Axel glared over his shoulder. “You started regaining trust here. Don’t blow it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Desmond’s right. I wouldn’t lie about this. Vince is too big a threat. Besides, I don’t have to worry about you people imprisoning me again, right? Right?”

  Axel gave a noncommittal grunt, but his face smoothed over, seeming satisfied. “Didn’t think so. Had to check anyway.”

  “I’d tell you if I felt anything significant. But there’s barely any magic in here. Granted, there shouldn’t be any at all, but ...” I trailed off as Axel’s eyes turned feral. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “You said there wasn’t magic.”

  “I said there wasn’t enough for Vince to escape without help. There are little bits here and there, but–”

  Axel reached up to the security camera and yanked it straight out of the ceiling. He shoved it in my face. “Is this broken?”

  “It is now,” Desmond muttered.

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” I said. “There were flashes of magic in the morgue when the dead boy’s enchantment started bleeding off.”

  “We don’t have these in the morgue.” Again he pressed the security camera toward me. “Is it broken?”

  Unsure what to make of his intensity, I let my fingers rest lightly on the red line marking the device’s enchantment. It drummed beneath my touch, a steady, strong thrumming of the magic it had stored away. After the near-silence of the Void building, the sudden booming of the magic was like walking into a rock concert.

  “It’s working fine,” I said, yanking my hand back. “So far as I can tell.”

  Axel swore and dropped the device. “But you still sense magic.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Any is too much.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the cell. Desmond chopped Axel’s hand away from mine and interposed himself protectively between us. Axel paid no attention. Instead he seized Desmond’s elbow, reclaimed mine as well, and pulled us both down the hallway. “Hurry.”

  “What’s your problem?” Desmond demanded. “Where are we running now?”

  Axel didn’t turn. “Psychiatrics.”

  I stood outside Maribel’s secured ward, feeling like a fool. Of course the Voids would panic at the notion of magic infiltrating their building and defeating their anti-magic security measures. Even in small amounts, magic could be used for destructive purposes, particularly by someone who wasn’t careful. And the
y thought they had an insane enchantress locked up in their psych ward.

  Maribel was in human form today, and clothed, standing on the bed with her back leaning against the wall. She bumped her head rhythmically on the padded surface, humming a popular hit from last year off-key. Her ears kept shifting between pale flesh and golden fur, her voice warbling with periodic purrs. Every so often, she went completely still, as if she’d been paralyzed for a few seconds. In those moments, fear swam in her eyes.

  Not an enchantress. Not dangerous. Just another victim. Another casualty of magic. More guilt swamped my veins. So many secrets I had to keep. So many lies.

  I stood before the cell, letting my senses explore the area. The room’s security camera still had its red line, and now I knew for certain it marked an enchantment for absorbing magic. Axel stared up at it, eyes hard, as if it were a Void who had neglected its duty. He loomed over my shoulder, keeping right behind me as I tested the air.

  “I only sense a little magic here,” I finally said. “Not enough to do any major enchanting. Maribel is no threat.” Not that she would have been, were there more magic around.

  Axel finally dropped his gaze from the security camera. “Get rid of it.”

  “Right now? You want me to craft an enchantment right here?”

  “You know she just recovered from a car accident, right?” Desmond added.

  “Tough,” said Axel. “You’re with us to do magic. Do magic.”

  I sighed, but lowered my purse to the ground. Desmond knelt beside me, helping organize the craft supplies I might need from my stuff. “Do magic,” I muttered under my breath. “He makes me sound like an imbecile.”

  “Me enchanter. Me do magic,” Desmond said in his caveman voice.

  I snorted, grateful for the laugh. Desmond’s hand covered mine as we both reached into my bag again. “Are you okay to do this?” he asked.

  “I should be.”

  “Don’t should on yourself.”

  “Did Kendall give you that joke?”

  “As a free sample. I mean it, Adrienne. Is this going to endanger you?” His dark eyes stared holes through any facade I might attempt.

  I sat back on my heels. “I’ve felt fine for days. I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

  “What happens if you can’t?”

  “Then surround me with as many Voids as you can and hope their presence drives the magic out of this room.”

  “Hope.”

  “It’s the best I’ve got.”

  “I don’t like risking you on hope.”

  “I don’t love it, either, but this is the whole reason the Union keeps me around. To deal with magic for them. If I refuse ...” I glanced at Axel standing on the other side of the small room.

  Desmond understood. His fingers squeezed my palm. “Be safe.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Everything was ready, the art supplies from my purse laid out, Desmond ready to run and grab anything else I might need. This was ambient magic, so it shouldn’t have any predispositions. I’d set aside a few materials for the enchantment I hoped to craft: a bottle of perfume, a red silk thread, and a silver beaded earring to make a sweet-smelling piece of jewelry. Simple and easy, and hopefully not too taxing on my strained metaphysics.

  With a deep breath, I informed the room, “Here goes.” Then I pulled in all the magic I could reach.

  It wasn’t much, little snippets here and there, from corners and cracks between floor tiles. I pulled it to me, until it kadumed in my head, a light pounding on the inside of my skull. It ached slightly more than it should for so small an amount, but otherwise I seemed to have fully recovered from my injuries. The raw magic obeyed easily, uninfluenced by the imprints of another’s will. I smiled. This would be a simple practice enchantment to prove to myself I was back in action.

  Laying my hands on the perfume and thread, I sent the magic in, steeping it in the bottle’s essence. Cast fragrant aromas, I directed it, aiming for pleasant words that would shape the enchantment as I wanted. Be bottled flowers, stoppered springtime. Mist the air with pleasing scents wherever you go.

  The magic began to take on its purpose, growing vibrant and cheery. It danced along the ribbon into the earring, a channel of power flowing out of me. Just before I released the last of it, I felt a faint drumming behind me. One last bit of magic lingering in the ward. I reached for it, intending to include it in my enchantment. To my surprise, it resisted my call. It felt stuck, snagged on something. That had never happened before. But then, magic had been behaving oddly. Once I dealt with this, maybe I could figure out why.

  I gave a sharp tug on the resistant magic. It came loose and flowed into me all at once.

  And I screamed.

  This wasn’t raw magic, untainted by another’s hand. This magic had form, purpose, and there was a lot of it. It pounded inside my skull like a thousand timpanis, trying to bang my bones loose from the inside. Distantly I felt my fingernails gouging my scalp, my empty lungs straining to inhale and scream again. The enchantment I’d nearly completed shattered, and the magic rebounded at me, heightening the drumming pressure. Fragrant aromas, it cried, bouncing around in my skull, questing to fulfill the purpose I’d given it. My nostrils filled with the scent of perfume, so cloying I choked.

  The new magic screamed in counterpoint, Stop! Stop! Stop! It was harsh magic, angry and afraid, seeking to seize and hold fast anything that crossed its path. My limbs felt cased in iron, my muscles unable to move. Two magics, two purposes, vied for purchase in my body. I struggled to make sense of them, to sort them out so I could channel them away. Fragrant stopping, aromas halting, stopstopstop smelling so nice, so pleasant STOP no more fragrance ...

  Someone’s hands landed on my shoulders. I wrenched myself away, afraid any more stimulation would push my tattered mind over the edge. Bottled endings, springtime frozen, stoppered stopping stop wherever go ...

  Through it all, the magic pounded inside, KADUMKADUMKADUMKADUM.

  I can’t separate them. The thought crystalized in my head amid the cacophony, a single solid point in the constantly shifting chaos. I could not separate the two magics. Either I channeled them together, or I kept fighting them until they drove me insane and exploded out of me in random blasts. I needed a way to combine the two purposes, a focus that could tame all the magic and direct it toward a single goal.

  Fleshwriting was the easy answer. When fleshwriting, the enchanter’s own thoughts focused the magic, directing it however they wished. But in my current state, trying to keep my mind focused might prove impossible, and the magic could backfire. Many fleshwriters had lost their sanity in situations just like this. I needed an external focus, something safer than my unreliable mind.

  My hands fumbled across the tile floor, feeling for the perfume bottle. Haze crowded my vision, flashes of color amidst the black and white spots of pain. A man’s voice spoke somewhere nearby, the words unintelligible. Where was the bottle?

  Finally I found it, where the cool tiles met unyielding metal doors. I must have kicked it across the floor while wrestling the magic. I yanked out the bottle’s stopper and brought it to my nose, inhaling the sweet perfume lingering on the inside of the glass. Stop enemies, I chanted, forcing the magic into the glass stopper. Stop them with scent. Stop, stop, stop.

  The magic moved, sliding out of me a little at a time, not completely persuaded by its new purpose. But the pressure lessened enough for me to speak. “Handcuffs. Gun.”

  There was some arguing between male voices, none of which I understood. I clung to the bottle stopper, holding the magic within it while resisting the urge to surrender to the tempest raging in my skull. Just a little longer. A little longer, and I could release the magic. A little longer. A little ...

  Metal was pressed into my hands, two hard rings joined by a chain, and a heavy handle ending in a smooth barrel. Blindly I tightened one end of the handcuffs around the gun’s trigger guard, then closed the other around the bottle stop
per. Hopefully the rigid metal would be able to channel the unwieldy magic without losing control of it. Stop enemies, I continued to chant. Stop them with scent. My entire body ached as I let the rest of the magic flow out of me, focused on the bottle lid and channeled through the handcuffs. As my thoughts cleared, I continued the enchantment, reining in my control of the magic. Stop enemies. Surround them in aromas. Cage them in a choking cloud. Subdue with scent.

  My added words gave the magic clearer purpose, and it moved more easily. The last of it surged through the handcuffs into the gun, and the enchantment took hold. Pain vanished.

  I collapsed on the tile floor, sucking air into lungs I hadn’t realized were refusing to breathe. Two Desmonds knelt before me, wavering as my vision refocused them back into one. “What happened?” he asked, cradling my head in his lap. “Are you all right?”

  “Something went wrong,” I mumbled. From my fetal position I could see Axel bend to pick up the handcuffs and the enchanted gun. The perfume stopper had shattered when I dropped the items. The rest of the bottle lay in pieces in the corner near one of the cell’s metal doors. My tongue felt heavy, but I needed to speak. “Axel, be careful. The gun ... it’ll shoot a cloud of nice-smelling gas.”

  He frowned at the weapon. “How dangerous.”

  “No, I mean ... the gas ... it’ll stop enemies. They can’t walk through it. It’s a perfume, but it’s a weapon.” Crap. I wasn’t making any sense.

  Desmond frowned. “Enemies can’t walk through it? Like it forms a solid wall?”

  “Or kills them,” Axel said.

  “I ... I actually don’t know.” With my brain feeling raw, I couldn’t completely recall my intent as I made the enchantment. “It might do either of those things. Or both.” At the two men’s frowns, I added, “I didn’t have a lot of control.”

  “Why not?” Desmond said, stroking my hair out of my face. “It seemed to be going okay, but then you just freaked out.”