Charmfall

by Chloe Neill

  I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t know exactly what the flash of color meant, but if he was willing to show off his magic, he must have known who I was.

  A chill ran through me. But it was too late to turn back now. “Kind of the wrong gender to be at St. Sophia’s, aren’t you?”

  “This is none of your business,” he growled. Lisbeth cast a bored glance in my direction, and then looked away again. She seem almost hypnotized, like she was in some sort of magic-induced stupor.

  “Actually, it’s precisely my business. You’re too far from your sanctuary, and I’m not thrilled about that.” Sanctuaries were Reaper headquarters. Adepts had Enclaves.

  His eyes flashed again, and this time he stood up. Lisbeth, her body limp, slumped on her seat when he moved. The boy took a step toward me. He was still five or six feet away, and I wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to stay right here, but I began to feel out my own power just in case.

  I was either really relaxed or totally getting used to my magic, because I hardly felt the pull of power at all. But there was no mistaking his. His eyes flashed red again, and he took a menacing step toward me, one hand outstretched. Reddish light began to dance along his fingertips. “I’ll give you one chance to run away and forget that you saw anything.”

  I glanced to the side to make sure Lesley was safely around the corner, and called my power up. I could usually feel the energy as I pulled it up through my feet . . . but this time there was nothing. Not even a tingle. Of course, I was standing in front of two non-Adepts and facing down a really angry Reaper alone. I chalked it up to nerves and kept up my bravado.

  “The thing is, St. Sophia’s is my school, and I don’t appreciate bottom-feeders using our students like protein shakes. I’ll give you one chance to run for the gate. If you make it before my firespell hits you, you win.”

  His eyes widened at the mention of firespell, and I could all but see the gears turning in his head. My powers had been triggered by a shot of firespell from Sebastian Born, a Reaper, so word had traveled about me and my power.

  “Yeah, I’m that girl,” I admitted. “So take your magic and run.”

  My voice was all bravery—but he wasn’t afraid. He held out his hands. Little bursts of red lightning now shot among his fingers.

  “That really doesn’t look promising,” Lesley said, stepping out from around the corner.

  “No,” I agreed. “It does not.” I moved over and back a little, giving my firespell a clean path. Hitting Lisbeth wasn’t going to help the situation.

  “I think you have the order of things confused, you bratty little anarchist.” He used his magic like an exclamation mark, throwing out his hands—and a red snake of energy—in our direction.

  Lesley screamed; I threw her to the ground as the magic flew above our heads, a hot streak of power. I glanced up and watched as it hit a metal garden angel a few yards away . . . and turned it to solid stone.

  My chest turned cold with fear. Being turned to rock was not going to help me meet my graduation requirements.

  “Stay here,” I whispered to Lesley, and stood up again. “That was rude.”

  “You deserved it, troublemaker. Maybe you should spend a little less time planning parties and a little more time practicing.”

  All right, I’d had enough. I focused my energy and thrust out my hand, waiting for the sheet of firespell to fly through the air.

  But nothing happened.

  My heart pounded, my palms suddenly sweating from fear. This wasn’t possible. I had firespell—I’d had it for months now. I’d done the same things I’d always done, prepared the throw the same way I always had.

  Maybe I was just nervous—maybe fear had made me mess it up somehow. My heart pounded, and I tried frantically again, throwing out my arm and hoping firespell would burst from my hands and fly toward him. . . . Again, there was nothing.

  My stomach spun, panic beginning to seep through and shut off my brain. I was too scared to think, and for a split second I had no idea what to do.

  And then Lesley called my name. “Lily! He’s gonna do it again!”

  I looked up from my hands to his. The magic was beginning to bubble around his hands again.

  I shook off the fear and decided I was a fighter even if I didn’t have firespell. I’d made it nearly sixteen years without it, after all.

  I grabbed my messenger bag—dumped when I’d hit the ground—and slung it at him. He threw up a shoulder to block it, but it was heavy and landed on his arm with a thud. He stumbled backward a few feet, giving me enough time to reach out and grab Lesley’s suitcase.

  I ran toward him, swung the suitcase, and nailed him in the head.

  He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “What in God’s name is going on out here?”

  I looked back.

  Marceline Foley, the headmistress of St. Sophia’s, stood in the open doorway of the building where classes were held. She had a perfect bob of blond hair and always wore a suit. Today the suit was crimson red, and it matched the color in her cheeks. She looked furious.

  She might have been angry about the commotion I’d caused—and the assault I’d just perpetrated. But there was something that would anger her even more.

  “He’s a Reaper,” I said, putting the suitcase on the ground. “He was working on Lisbeth.” I pointed to the bench where she still sat, hunched over the arm.

  “Oh no,” Foley said, running in her skirt and low heels to the bench. She sat down beside Lisbeth, gently moved her head, and looked into each of her eyes. “Weak,” she said, “but she’ll manage.”

  Foley looked back at Lesley. “Go to my office. There’s a number on speed dial—it’s the first one on the phone. Call it. Tell the man who answers that I need him.”

  Without a word, Lesley nodded and ran for the door.

  Foley stroked a hand over Lisbeth’s face. She knew all about magic and Reapers and Adepts. Her daughter had been one, but she’d died in the line of duty.

  “It was bold of him,” she said, then looked over at me. “To be out in the open.”

  “Maybe they’re working on infiltrating the school. They’ve tried to take Scout’s Grimoire—her book of magic—before.”

  “I remember.”

  “I tried to get him away from her.” I shivered involuntarily, thinking of what I’d seen—the Reaper actually stealing her soul, one wisp at a time. “He was already in the middle of it.”

  “So I see. Why did you hit him with a suitcase? Why not use your own magic?”

  That was my question, too.

  3

  I barely paid attention to the school as I passed back through it, from the dome in the main building, to the Great Hall where we studied, and then on to the dorms. I ran upstairs to the suite I shared with Lesley, Scout, and Amie and unlocked the door.

  I knocked on the door to Scout’s bedroom, but didn’t bother to wait for an invitation.

  Scout wore black pajamas and sat cross-legged on her small bed, an open book in front of her. Her hair was blond on top and dark underneath, and it was currently sticking out of her head in a million directions. She looked a little like a Goth pincushion, not that I was going to tell her that.

  Eyes wide, she yanked off a pair of earphones. “What’s wrong?”

  “A Reaper was outside—on campus—attacking Lisbeth Cannon. He was just sitting there, drinking her. And when I tried to firespell him, my magic was gone. It doesn’t work. At all. No firespell at all. And then Foley came, and she called someone, I don’t know who, and Lisbeth was unconscious.”

  “Whoa, slow down.” There was concern in her eyes, but also confusion. She patted the bed beside her. “Sit down, slow down, and tell me exactly what happened.”

  I filled her in on the Reaper’s
attack and what I’d tried—and failed—to do.

  “He broke through the wards.”

  Scout had put wards, magical guards, on the giant door in the school’s basement that led to the tunnels. The wards were supposed to keep Reapers at bay, but the Reapers had at least one wardbreaker whose job was to break through those protections. Daniel Sterling, the leader of our Enclave, had recently helped Scout strengthen the wards to keep the wardbreaker out, but maybe that still hadn’t been enough.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Maybe she just let him in through the gate. It definitely looked like they knew each other.”

  “Maybe,” Scout said, but she didn’t sound convinced. She unfolded her legs, then hopped onto the floor. “Let me see your back.”

  I stood up, lifted up my T-shirt, and showed it to her.

  “Your Darkening is still there,” she said.

  “I’m still me,” I said, pulling my T-shirt down again. “I’m just me with nonfunctioning firespell. What about you? What was the last magic you worked?”

  “Uh, I turned off my alarm clock this morning.”

  “With magic?”

  She blushed a little. “It’s a new kind of spell. Hardly magic at all. Like a little appetizer-type thing. I was testing it.”

  “And it worked?”

  “If you’re not still hearing talk radio played at jet-level decibels, it worked.”

  “Your alarm is set to talk radio? Why?”

  “Because I hate it,” she said simply. “And that makes me want to turn it off faster.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but it also was not the point. I wiggled my fingers at her. “Try something now. I want to know if it’s just me.”

  “But I feel fine,” she said.

  “So did I before the Reaper popped in and my firespell was completely ineffective.”

  She looked at me for a minute, probably trying to figure out whether I was really hurting or just getting upset about nothing. She must have decided to trust me, because she walked over to one of her bookshelves, which—like the rest of her room—was packed with stuff. She picked a small, glossy lacquered apple from one of her collections and put it on her bed, then stood back.

  “Do I need safety glasses for this?”

  “Are you going to poke your eye out just standing there?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then, no. Watch and learn, newbie.” Scout blew out a breath and tucked her chin in to her chest, giving the apple a concentrated stare. Her lips moved with some silent spell, and I watched and waited for something to happen.

  But nothing did.

  Frowning, she shook out her hands and shook her head. “I’m probably just tense or tired or something,” she said, and then tried again, her expression fierce and focused.

  Again, nothing.

  “I don’t understand. I did everything right, the same way I always do it. How could it not work?”

  “Probably for the same reason mine doesn’t work.”

  “This is bad,” she said. “We need to call Daniel.” She dug into her messenger bag and pulled out a phone, then frantically typed out a text message.

  I nibbled on the edge of my thumb, the tension in the room high while Scout texted Daniel and we waited for a response.

  I hated waiting in situations like this. The anticipation killed me. Trying not to dwell on it, I pulled out my own phone and checked for messages.

  There was one waiting for me—from my parents. I didn’t hear from them as much as I wanted, and sometimes getting their messages hurt as much as not hearing from them. It was like a reminder they were only partly connected to me anymore. They were far away, and little bytes of data weren’t the same as getting a good hug—or just knowing they were there.

  Heck, I wasn’t even really sure where they were. They could have been working in a building next door for all I knew.

  The text was from my dad: “HAVE FUN THIS WEEK AT THE DANCE! BUT NOT TOO MUCH FUN! WE LOVE YOU!”

  Like I said, sweet and sad at the same time. I tucked the phone away again and when Scout’s phone beeped, I jumped. She looked at the screen, read the message, then glanced at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The magical blackout—it’s not just us.”

  “The Enclave?”

  “Worse,” Scout said. “All the Adepts in the city.”

  “Awesome,” I sarcastically said, ’cause it totally wasn’t.

  * * *

  Daniel instructed us to meet him at the Enclave, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Enclave Three was located in the underground tunnels. So to get there, we had to sneak through the school from the dorms to the main building, through the basement to the door that led to the tunnels, and then through those tunnels to the Enclave.

  Was it weird that the tunnels were actually starting to feel like home? I mean, I’d walked through them, laughed in them, and firespelled my best friend in them. They weren’t exactly cozy, but they also weren’t as uncomfortable as they had been before. Not awesome, but not horrible.

  When we reached the giant wooden door that kept the Enclave safe from the things that roamed the tunnels, we knocked and walked inside.

  The mood was not good.

  Enclave Three was a vaulted stone room built into one of the tunnels. The walls were covered in mosaics, but the room was mostly empty except for a round table that Daniel had added so we actually had a place to sit and talk. Now we were the Adepts of the Round Table! Somehow, Scout never found that funny.

  The rest of the Adepts—Paul, Jamie, Jill, Michael, and Jason—were already seated around the table, waiting for us to begin.

  Paul was a magically enhanced warrior. He was tall, with dark skin and curly hair. His girlfriend, Jamie, was a witch with fire power, and her twin sister, Jill, had comparable skills with ice. The twins were slender, with long auburn hair and pale skin. They were identical, so there was something ghostly about them when they stood side by side.

  Jason and Michael sat side by side, both staring at their cell phones. Along with Scout, we made up the Adepts of Chicago’s Enclave Three. Well, the “Junior Varsity” squad, anyway. We got the nickname because we were all still in high school.

  Daniel, our Varsity Adept, was nowhere to be seen. He was our recently appointed team leader and a sophomore at Northwestern University. He got full varsity status because he was in college.

  He was also the kind of hot that needed two syllables to pronounce. Hah-awt. Tall, curly blond hair, blue eyes. Very easy on the eyes, and a total doll as far as I could tell. And I was doubly lucky: I loved to draw, and Daniel was my studio art teacher at St. Sophia’s.

  Daniel had replaced Katie and Smith—last names unknown—our former team leaders. They were the Adepts who’d been willing to throw Scout to the wolves, who’d refused to help rescue her when she’d been taken by Reapers. They’d been coming to Enclave meetings less and less lately, not that I was going to complain. I wasn’t a fan.

  As we took seats at the table, Michael immediately gave Scout dopey eyes, and Jason gave me the intense ones. I took the chair next to his and squeezed his hand.

  “Where’s Daniel?” I asked.

  “Not here yet,” Paul said. “He’s on his way.”

  “You’re okay?” Jason whispered.

  I nodded. “I’m fine. I’d been working on decorations for Sneak. On the way back to the dorm, one of the other decoration committee girls was being used by a Reaper for fuel. I tried to firespell him, but nothing happened. I managed to knock him out, and that’s when Foley showed up. Foley’s our headmistress,” I added for the rest of the Adepts.

  Jason’s expression tightened at the admission I’d been in trouble, and then it went a little fierce . . . and protective. That sent a little thrill thr
ough me.

  “Scout tried her magic,” I continued, “and it’s not working for her, either. That’s when she called Daniel. What about you?” I scanned him up and down, as if that glance would be enough to tell me whether his magic had been affected. “Are you okay?”

  “I can still change,” he said, but he didn’t seem thrilled about it. If the blackout wasn’t affecting him, maybe having a “curse” wasn’t all bad.

  “It’s not magic exactly,” he added, “so I’m fine.”

  “Which means the blackout is only affecting magic,” Michael said. “The other Enclaves are having the same problem. But given what Lily saw, it doesn’t look like Reapers are having the same trouble.”

  “The Reaper’s magic worked,” I added. “And there’s a new stone angel on the grounds to prove it.”

  “Free landscaping for all,” Scout muttered.

  “Maybe he just got in one last lucky shot,” Michael said. “I can’t read anything.” He looked sad, and even his curls looked a little droopier than usual.

  “No ice for me,” Jill said.

  “And no fire, either,” Jamie added.

  We looked at Paul. “I couldn’t even beat up a puppy with magic,” he said, “not that I’d want to.” But then he grinned cheekily and flexed his biceps, which weren’t bad. “But I can still use my own talents.”

  “Show-off,” Scout said with a wink. “And that brings us full circle.”

  “So none of us has magic,” I said.

  “It’s like nightfall, but with charms,” Michael said. “You know, the sunset of our magical careers or something. Total charmfall.”

  “Charmfail,” Jason coughed.

  “In addition to the charmfall or charmfail or whatever,” Jill said, “a Reaper was draining a human out in the open in the middle of downtown Chicago. He was outside, and it doesn’t sound like he was trying to hide it.”

  Reapers were usually behind-the-scenes types. They snuggled up to otherwise happy teenagers and sucked their energy a little at a time, leaving behind a depressed kid and not a lot of answers for parents and friends.