Magical Seclusion

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  Shetz was a shrew. I only got a discount off him because twice a year I took a trip to his garden and let my magic give it a boost of life. In a few weeks, I’d have to go west again to pay him a visit. I hated going there. He lived in a small village with people just as shrewd as he was. They all specialized in something and made a fortune off their goods.

  And they lived in a valley, surrounded by beasts they’d managed to tame. If they didn’t want someone there, their beasts kept them away, often by turning them into a meal.

  “You look like you want to drop a massive boulder on his head right now,” Ami said.

  “That would be too kind.”

  I went back to mixing, giving my movements a little extra oomph to take out my frustrations. I didn’t like Shetz, and he thought I was a hoot. Every time I had to see him, there was a risk of one of us getting killed—him because he pushed my buttons too much or me because he defended himself. Best bet, I’d be torn apart by one of the beasts. There was a hawk-like one the size of a horse that liked to stay close to him.

  Ami whistled.

  “What?” I asked, looking over at her.

  “I looked up that aether stuff. You’re right, it isn’t a joke. It also isn’t cheap. It’d clean me out for just one flower. I was thinking it’d be something slow at eating the magic, but this stuff can break it down in a matter of hours. How did I not know this?” She sounded exactly how I had when I first discovered its existence. Amazed. Dazed. Disbelief.

  I grinned big. “I know right?”

  She eyed the canister “Is it important to break down the magic?”

  “It’s one of my precautions. This device is going to have so many on here that even I wouldn’t want to try to find a way around it. Collected magic can be dangerous. Even more so if it’s collected from strong beings. I don’t want there to be a risk of it being utilized and the best way to do that is—”

  “To break it down within the device instead of needing to release it into the surrounding area.”

  I nodded. “Exactly. I thought about it for a while. What to do with what was taken. Do I grind it into the earth, release into the air? Make it create something like a stone we could destroy? They all seemed risky. And I can’t just leave it in there.”

  “Boom.” She used her hands to add the effect of something exploding. “It’ll build until the device can’t hold it and then it’ll create a city-sized crater.”

  “Worst case scenario.”

  Ami remained thoughtful as she went back to reading up on the plant. I kept mixing, my wrist beginning to ache.

  Once the mixture was smooth and thick, I poured some of it into one of the canisters and then rolled the cylinder around to coat the inside. When it was finished, I put it down and sighed. As soon as the mixture dried, I’d do it again. Layers. This device was all about layers.

  Ami was grinning down at her phone now, properly distracted, probably with some guy. I smiled. Maybe after this, we could head out and have some fun. I wasn’t in the mood for a dance club, and on a Sunday, they weren’t as fun. Maybe we could hit up a show, a burlesque one. We hadn’t been to one of those for a while and sometimes, a girl just needed some glitter thrown at her and a man with his junk ready to break loose.

  I opened my mouth to ask Ami if she had any ideas when a sharp pain attacked my head. I screamed and grabbed it, collapsing to the ground.

  Ami yelled for me, but I couldn’t see anything past the hot white pain. The magic around me whooshed, expanding outward, away from me, as if something sucked it out. My limbs turned to jelly and for a moment they didn’t listen to me.

  Something had sucked away the magic in the room. I still had mine, but the magic in the air completely disappeared.

  “Laila!” Ami said, hovering over me, my head in her lap, her hands on my shoulder. Her gray eyes were wide and panicked, skin white. “Can you hear me?”

  “Did you feel that?” I croaked.

  She nodded. “Someone just did something very big and very bad. We need to get up. I need to see what happened.” She didn’t wait, instead, hauling me to my feet. She was a lot stronger than she looked. Disoriented, I tried to find my legs, but needed to lean against Ami as she moved us toward the door. Her face was grim, eyes hard, as the security expert came out to play. Right now, she wasn’t Ami, my best friend. She was Ami Collura, Biomystic Security’s security expert, ready to kick ass.

  Just as we reached the doors, alarms blared, and she swore under her breath as she pulled out her phone.

  My own buzzed, and I dug it out of my pocket, glancing at the screen, my sight blurry. I held it closer to my face to get a better read.

  Code Black. This is not an emergency. Code Black.

  “Fuck!” Ami said over the screaming alarm, and glanced around, biting her lip.

  “Let’s go,” I yelled, trying to talk over the female voice now reiterating the text message in a calm, professional voice. I tried not to think about what Code Black meant. Intruders had broken in. A Code Black meant to hide and wait for a BMS meathead to escort you out.

  “No, stay here. I’ll go. I need to help clear the floors.”

  “I’m going,” I snapped. “Don’t waste time right now.”

  I pulled away from her and forced my limbs to work. I was fine. I’d be fine. And I could help. If intruders were in the building then they were strong. The good and bad news was that it was Sunday. There weren’t a lot of people around. Fewer people to protect, but that also meant fewer people to defend against whoever was getting in.

  I gathered all my thoughts, needing to think clearly, needing to make my point. “That hurt because I was connected to the ward and they tore right through it. Each person attached to that ward now knows someone powerful or a group of powerful people just destroyed a level A ward. You’ll need everyone you can. You know I can help.”

  “You’ll get in the way. You don’t know the protocols.”

  “And you’re still wasting time. We need to go.”

  She groaned, mumbled something, and then shook her head. “Stay with me, don’t slow down, and if I say run, you fucking run. This isn’t a fucking joke.”

  “I understand.”

  “And stay out of the way.”

  “I will.”

  She swore again, ran her hand through her hair, and then glared at me before taking off at a sprint. I chased after her, glad I’d taken up running. We went for the stairs, going all the way up four flights of stairs to Level B3, where the first set of security offices were held.

  Ami went over to a room and slammed through the door.

  “Fill me in,” she snapped.

  Henzie was there with four guards.

  One of the guards stiffened and turned, expression closed, leaving the others to huddle around a screen. When the door shut close, the alarms muted so no one had to yell at each other in the office.

  “A large group has broken in. They came from the back and threw something at the wards, tearing it down in seconds. They’re now working through the first set of doors. The employees on the ground floors are currently being herded out through the front. Everyone else is in lockdown.”

  Ami nodded. “Activate protocol. Get who you can out and once they are gone, put this place on lockdown. No one in, no one out.” She turned to me. “Laila, teleport out. Take Henzie with you.”

  I went to shake my head.

  “Laila, do it. You’ll distract us.”

  My shoulders drooped. “Fine. But I’m coming back. I can at least teleport more people out if need be. I know this place well enough to go where I’ll need to go.”

  She considered it for a moment and smirked. “That’ll be perfect. We can get everyone to safety without risking them running into the intruders. For now, take Henzie and get out. Once we locate everyone, I’ll let you know where to go next. How many times can you do it?”

  “I can teleport them to the park, far enough from here to be out of danger, but short enough so I can do the tri
p at least four times.”

  “We got a woman who fell,” one of the guards pointed out. We moved to the screen where we saw a pregnant woman on the ground, holding her stomach. That couldn’t be good. And why was she even here?

  “An administrator,” Ami said out loud, as if hearing my thoughts. “She’s putting in overtime this weekend to prepare for her maternity leave.”

  “I’ll grab her on my way out,” I said and grabbed Henzie.

  Henzie’s eyes went to Ami’s, before turning back to me and nodding to let me know he was ready. I focused, magic moving around me and then it turned into a breeze of fresh air. Henzie was by the woman before I got myself oriented. I went to her too, ignoring the buzzing against my skin.

  “On two,” Henzie said.

  I nodded.

  “One… two…” We lifted. The woman bit back a scream, her neck growing red with strain, eyes screwed shut.

  “My water broke,” she gritted out.

  That couldn’t be good.

  “Your baby really knows how to choose its timing,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. She groaned and tried to grab her stomach, but we held her arms to give her support on her feet.

  “Teleport?” Henzie asked, looking around the woman to look at me.

  “On it,” I said and paused as someone ran by us, his elbow bumping into me, sending pain into my ribs. The man startled me enough to disrupt the move.

  “Asshole,” I muttered. He could have at least offered to help, but his desperation pushed him to run to freedom.

  He made it within five feet of the gate when he fell to the ground, curled up, and screamed, the sound a wail of agony before his body poofed into ash. A breeze blew and carried the ashes toward the gate, and then I saw the shimmer.

  “Shit,” someone whispered. I wasn’t sure if it was Henzie or me. All I could do was stare at the spot where the guy had disintegrated. Ash floated slowly to the ground. No, not ash. Parts of him. He… he was and then he wasn’t. I shook my head, trying to break the daze. How?

  Someone else went running by me, desperate to get out. She jarred me out of my thoughts.

  “Wait!” I called out. “Wait.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to see that again.

  She wasn’t going to stop, and it took me a moment to realize why. There was a popping noise behind us. Someone was shooting.

  I ignored the doom at my back, needing to face the current one in front of us. Before she got too close to the border, I threw my magic out, quickly imagining an invisible ward, right in front of where the man had gone down. The woman hit it and fell backward. My temporary ward disappeared the moment she was on the ground.

  “It’s a ward,” I called out and her head whipped to me, eyes a glowing blue. I recognized her as one of the other labbies.

  “What’s going on?” Henzie asked.

  I gritted my teeth, trying to keep my thoughts flowing, pushing back the fear trying to hold me in place. I needed to stay focused. “They put up their own ward. We aren’t going to make it through. If we approach it, it’ll burn us alive.”

  The woman’s eyes widened as she heard me. She glanced at the gate again and at the people there waiting. It was the first time I’d noticed them there. Their mouths were moving, but none of what they said made it to us. The ward wasn’t letting them. They stood about five feet from the gate.

  We were trapped.

  We couldn’t get out, and they couldn’t get in.

  My eyes met with nearly black ones, acknowledging the towering Black Dog. If I were on the other side, no doubt I’d feel his fury. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his muscles straining against his skin. He was holding on by a thread and any moment he was going to burst from his skin and let his hellhound out.

  I shook my head before noticing the others around him. Davies. Venni. Rhett. They all looked the same, with murder on their face and fury at not being able to do anything. They weren’t going to get in anytime soon.

  I blinked back tears, frustration bubbling up. They were right there, not even twenty feet away, and yet there might as well have been a chasm between us. They couldn’t help us. We were on our own.

  Dirt kicked up a couple feet away from me and the pregnant woman screamed.

  “Shots fired!” Henzie yelled, projecting his voice so anyone around us could hear.

  More dirt kicked up, and I drew on my magic, pulling it around me like a cloak before transporting us back into the building. The tears nearly fell when I saw fear and desperation flash across Dwight’s face before we disappeared.

  “What the hell is going on?” Ami snapped once we appeared.

  “New ward,” I said in a soft voice.

  “Shooter,” Henzie added in. He helped me lay the crying woman down on a nearby couch. I stepped back, trying to get myself under control. I was fine. Shaking my hands, I tried to collect myself before the panic overwhelmed me. I was okay.

  The man’s ashes flashed through my mind. He was dead. How many others?

  “Shit.” Ami glanced at the screens and pointed something out to the guards. “We’re going into official lockdown, send out the message. We’re going to Level B2, to the main security room. Once we’re in, shut us down completely. Those assholes are going to have to work to get inside. Henzie, since you’re here, you’re going to be our eyes. We need a roster of every single body in this building and their locations. I need you to also start identifying the intruders. Laila, come with us. Your teleportation is more important than ever now. We have some of the charm bags on hand, but those are useless after two uses. Come on. Ben, you’re with me too. The rest, stay here, lock the doors, and keep that woman safe. She can’t be moved right now.”

  We scattered, gathering supplies and waiting by the door. Ami now held a gun and she shared a glance with Ben, who nodded. He didn’t have a weapon on him, but by the way the light reflected off his brown eyes, he didn’t need one. His hands would do just fine.

  “Once this door is open, we run. They’re still at the back, working on another door, so we should be fine, but let’s not tempt Fate right now. We need her for later. This is going to be a long, drawn-out battle. They came prepared and got us with our pants down. Now move!” She shoved through the door and sprinted down the hall with the three of us on her heels. When she stopped, we stopped, and when she signaled it was clear, we were at it again.

  This happened all the way up to B2, and the entire time, my heart pounded. Fear filled my veins, and my heart didn’t like that, pounding twice as fast as it should have been, adrenaline surging through my limbs, demanding that I keep moving. I focused on breathing and keeping my feet moving.

  When we finally reached the room lined with monitors, Ami slammed the door shut and my eyes met with Alijah’s.

  He was here too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Since seeing Dwight, Venni, Rhett, and Davies on the other side of the ward, tension had coiled deep inside of me as every cell within me screamed and lashed out at the separation from my men. The feeling of isolation had wrapped thickly around me knowing they were here, but separated by a ward that would turn me into dust if I dared to approach it. They were close, in yelling distance, and yet they couldn’t do anything.

  Seeing Alijah loosened it a little. Even though he was still mad at me, there was comfort in having him here. Ami and Henzie were with me, but it wasn’t the same as seeing the tiger shifter. He didn’t hesitate, coming to my side.

  “You’re okay?” he asked, eyes scanning my body, nose flaring as if scenting for injuries.

  “I’m fine,” I said, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze. “I’m fine.”

  At least, I thought so. I could also be in shock. Shock was a thing. Numbness was a clear symptom. So was shaking, clammy skin, and rapid breathing.

  I held my hand out in front of me. I felt numb, but my hands weren’t shaking. My breathing was elevated, but not by much. I wasn’t nauseous or cold. My hands did feel a little clammy.
/>   I couldn’t tell.

  I could have been in shock and I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t tell.

  “Laila?”

  I shook my head and forced a small smile. “I’m fine. We need to figure out exactly what that ward is or we’re trapped.”

  “And those guys are powerful,” Ami said. “We’ll need to do a sweep of the building, get everyone in a secure location.”

  “We also need to figure out why they’re here, what they want,” Alijah said.

  Ami blew out a breath. “Okay, one thing at a time. I don’t need everyone running all over the place. Our first priority is the concern for everyone’s safety. Henzie, get on the feed, find our people. I’ll do a sweep with a small team. Once they’re through that door, let me know. That’s our cue to get back here.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Henzie asked, frowning as he stared at Ami. “I can locate everyone through the computer.”

  “Unless they’re in the blind spots, which is what I expect them to do,” Ami replied. “Ben, Clayton, you’re both with me. I’ll be back. Alijah, stay here as back-up. Let me know when they break through.”

  “Wait,” Henzie called out, but Ami was already out the door. His frown grew bigger and etched deeper lines into his face.

  “She’ll be fine,” I said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “She outranks me,” Alijah said. “That says a lot. She’s good at her job. Don’t discount her hard work.”

  That shut Henzie up as he went over to a computer and began pounding keys as he got down to work. I stared at him for a few moments, connecting dots that weren’t there before. Holy shit. He was crushing on Ami and now he was worrying over her. An incubus in love. I didn’t know it was possible. He was as much of a playboy as Ami was a playgirl. His curly dark brown hair, masculine face, and the intensity in his brown eyes made it easy for him to pick a woman up.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he practically growled out.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like I’m a puzzle. I’m not. I’m a living being, Laila. I’m capable of loving someone just as much as the next person.”