by Eva Ashwood
One of the guys behind him spoke up, his voice low. “What the fuck, Farrell? You didn’t say she had magic.”
Droopy-Eye furrowed his brow. “I… I didn’t think she did.”
“Yeah, well, she fucking does!” the guy practically screamed. “What the shit? You said this would be an easy mark!”
Excuse me, what now?
My temper flared at the implication that I was just a weak little girl, and my magic flared right along with it.
I leapt to my feet, then thrust my right arm out and watched in shock as a torrent of magic surged forward, wrapping itself around the leg of the man who’d called me an “easy mark”.
Woah. Fucking cool.
Shooting him a toothy grin, I yanked my arm back, pulling his legs out from under him. He went down hard on the asphalt, his head bouncing against the dirty, unforgiving surface. The big guy lunged for me, ignoring the blood still streaming from his busted nose. With a wave of my left arm, I used the magic flowing out of me to wrap around his neck and lift him up in the air. He tried to grab at it, but his hands went right through. I could feel resistance as I lifted my arm, but I was able to bring his body higher, moving him to hover about fifteen feet over a nearby dumpster.
Shit. Now how do I let go?
A second after I had that thought, my long tendril of magic released him, and he dropped like a stone into the dumpster.
The two guys still standing turned tail and attempted to run. It was a smart move on their part, but I was still pissed off enough not to let them get away with it. Maybe whatever magic was flowing through me was doing something weird to my brain, because I felt almost high. A giddy sort of energy filled me, like I’d drunk several pots of coffee in quick succession.
I stomped forward, sending my magic toward the two fleeing men and wrapping it around their waists. I wasn’t even quite sure what I was doing, but it looked like my magic held them suspended in space, unable to run any farther. I moved toward them, stepping over the first victim of my new unforeseen talent, who was still sprawled on the grimy asphalt. His eyelids fluttered as he let out a low groan, but I didn’t even spare him a glance.
Holy shit. What the hell is going on with me?
There was something different about me, as if there was no fear anywhere in my body. The anger had faded too, leaving just a sense of peace… and power. I didn’t need anger, and I didn’t need fear. Not with all the raw magic coursing through my system.
When I neared the two men who’d threatened to jump me, I yanked my right arm back, using the magic emanating from me to drag Droopy-Eye backward, then grabbed him by his collar with the same hand. His eyes were open wide—well, as wide as possible—and his teeth chattered in fear.
“Please, let me go. We didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a little fun,” he sputtered.
I clicked my tongue against the back of my teeth and shook my head. “You really need to pick better hobbies, dickhead.”
Using the strength the magic was gifting me, I tossed him up in the air and then caught him with the current of spiraling lights. In all fairness, I hadn’t been entirely sure I’d be able to catch him before he hit the pavement, but I’d been willing to take that risk. He let out a high-pitched shriek, his arms pinwheeling uselessly in the air, but I held him suspended as I pulled the last guy toward me. I stopped him about a foot away and tilted my head to the side, sizing him up. He didn’t look as scared as the others had. Instead, he looked angry.
Through gritted teeth, he let out a stream of curses. “You fucking magic users are all the same! You think you’re so much better than the rest of us. What, you’re just gonna attack me while I’m bound like this?”
The magic wrapping around his waist began to crackle and sizzle as my anger infused it again. I brought him a little closer and leaned in, my face just inches from the side of his. “I know what you were planning. I know what you wanted to do to me, what your version of ‘fun’ entails. How many girls have you done that too?”
His head snapped toward mine, a sneer contorting his features. “Don’t flatter yourself, little girl.”
I didn’t have to be psychic or magical to know what men like that did to women like me—and even worse, to women who couldn’t protect themselves like I could. The cracking and sizzling of magic got louder and louder as my hand curled into a fist. Pulling it back, I punched him as hard as I could in the stomach. His feet left the ground, and he slammed into the brick wall behind him, knocking chunks of it loose. They fell alongside him as he crumpled in a heap, wheezing as his chest heaved.
My anger intermingled with a heavy dose of disgust, and I gathered the saliva left in my mouth and spit on him. “If you survive this, and I ever see you try to hurt another woman again, I will pick you apart one piece at a time.”
The whimpering of the guy I was still holding in the air drew my attention, and I scowled, shaking my head.. I knew exactly which one he was in the group. He was the new guy, the one looking for friends, the one that hadn’t actually seen anything bad before but didn’t want to look like a pussy. Carefully, I lowered him back down to the ground, keeping my gaze frozen on him.
I released the magic from his waist and swept my arm in a wide arc, using my magic to backhand him. The colors burst and swirled as they slammed into his face, knocking him to the ground. He gasped and coughed, struggling to rise to his hands and knees. Hurrying forward, I leaned down on one knee and whispered in his ear.
“You need to learn how to choose your friends better. Now you know what happens when you mess with the wrong person.”
Grabbing him by the tuft of hair on the top of his head, I smacked it against the asphalt, knocking him out. As I stood back up, I breathed slow and deep, keeping my eyes closed. When I opened them again, I watched as the rivulets of light retracted, retreating back into my body. My mind went clear again, and I looked around me. There was blood on the ground, blood on the wall, and the sound of wheezing coming from three of the four guys. The one in the dumpster made no sound at all.
The reality of what’d just happened slammed into me so hard I almost fell over. I choked and retched, bending over and putting my hands on my knees.
What the hell did I just do? How did I do that?
I’d never wanted magic. And I’d never shown any sign I had magic until tonight. Anxiety was bubbling up inside me again, and I had a sudden flash of fear as I thought about what could’ve happened—what I could’ve done with magic I didn’t even understand. I loved a good fight, but I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, and I could’ve easily killed those four men.
I was starting to lose control of my emotions again, and I sucked in a breath through my nose. The low lives around me weren’t dead, thank fuck. But I needed to get the hell out of here.
Gripping the envelope I’d shoved into the pocket of my leather jacket, I took off down the alley, leaving them there. I jogged all the way back to my apartment, keeping my hood up and not even looking around at the people I passed. My hands shook as I shoved the key in the door, finally getting it open and slamming it shut behind me. I put the chain lock on, flipped the deadbolt on the door, and wiggled the handle as if I was running from something.
But the something I was fleeing had come from inside of me, where I hadn’t even known it existed.
I stood there with my back against the door for several moments, catching my breath and calming my nerves. I turned my hands over in front of me, but there were no remnants of the magic I had seen. With shaking knees, I walked to my bedroom, yanking off my boots and throwing them into the corner. It had been far too long of a day, and I had no idea how to explain what’d just happened.
“Just get some sleep, just get some sleep,” I repeated to myself over and over again. “You’ll wake up in the morning, and you’ll be fine.”
Maybe one of the dark mages in the audience tonight had put a curse on me or something. Most of the audience loved to see me fight and win, but there were a few who hated that the Ringmaster had
let a woman fight. Maybe some mage had bet against me and been pissed when he’d lost?
If it’s a curse, I fucking hope it wears off soon.
No new magic was leaking from my fingers, and the giddy, strung out feeling had left my body, leaving behind only exhaustion. I climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up over my shoulders. My body relaxed, and even though I was still in shock, I began to drift off to asleep.
As my eyes closed, a slight tingling feeling moved through my arms and hands again, and when I forced my lids open, I saw a soft light emanating from my skin just like it had in the alley.
Ah, fuck.
A wave of fear came over me, but the exhaustion was more than I could handle. I had never felt so tired in my life, as if I’d used up all but the last shreds of my energy in the alley.
I tried to wake myself up, to stop the magic that was flowing out of me, but before I could even move, blackness pulled me under.
Chapter Three
Morning light peeked through the cracks in the broken and grimy blinds that hung on the only window in my downstairs apartment. It was the window on my front door, which led to the short flight of steps up to the street.
I sat at my kitchen table, my head down, a bowl of cereal in front of me. I didn’t feel any better.
Dammit, I was supposed to feel better this morning. It was all supposed to be fixed.
I’d passed out before I could do anything about the magic that’d started radiating from me again. When I’d woken up with a start sometime around ten a.m., I had checked everything in the entire apartment, but nothing seemed to be out of place. Wherever the magic had gone, whatever it’d been doing while I slept, it had left no mark.
Sinking my spoon into the bowl, I raised a heaping bite to my mouth. It was crunchy and sweet, but I barely tasted it. I had tugged my jet black hair into a rough ponytail and thrown on a different sweatshirt and a pair of leggings when I’d hauled my sorry ass out of bed. My favorite jeans were soaking in the sink, the water red from the blood that had soaked into the fabric when I’d broken that man’s nose.
I chewed and swallowed on autopilot, trying to wrap my mind around what had happened the night before. Magic had been around me my whole life, so seeing the bright lights that were the hallmark of it wasn’t actually all that shocking. But the fact that the lights—the magic—had come from me?
That was another matter entirely.
From what I knew, you were either born with magic or you weren’t. The ones who were born with magical abilities were the direct ancestors of the people who had been gifted magic by the gods thousands of years ago. Then again, since I’d come from a non-magical family and had been busy just trying to stay alive for most of my formative years, I hadn’t paid much attention to the ins and outs of magical society.
And I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to do now.
Was it safe for me to tell someone? What would I even say? Oh yeah, I was walking home last night and these four guys attacked me, so I whipped out some magic and beat them to a bloody pulp. Who knew?
With a deep sigh, I rested my spoon in the bowl and rubbed my face. This was starting to feel like some sort of incredibly vivid nightmare—one I couldn’t seem to wake from. Although I still held out hope that it’d been some temporary blip, some spell cast on me by an angry mage, I didn’t know where to go or what to do with it.
And even though I’d used it pretty effectively to fight last night, I didn’t really know how to control the magic. So I couldn’t just go walking around Boston. It wasn’t like the colored lights were hard to see when they decided to take over my body, bursting from my fingertips.
Sighing, I heaved myself to my feet and rinsed my bowl out in the sink. Then I stood there for a second, contemplating my next move. I was supposed to head to a training session with Vin around noon, but I wasn’t sure it was a very good idea.
A sudden loud knock reverberated through the apartment, and I jumped about two feet off the ground. Pressing my hand to my chest like it would keep my racing heart from crashing through my ribs, I let out a long, shaky exhale. Dammit. I wasn’t usually skittish, and shit didn’t usually take me by surprise like that. This strange new development had knocked me off my game.
Pulling myself together and sharpening my focus, I walked quietly across the apartment and pressed myself to the wall by the door, craning my neck to peek through the blinds. There were four people in black coats standing outside the door, crammed into the little stairwell that led up to the street. Two of them were women, their hair pulled back neatly at the nape of their necks, and the other two were men, middle-aged, with stern looks on their faces.
I pressed away from the wall and backed up a couple paces, raising my voice. “Who is it?”
They didn’t answer, just pounded on the door again. The ancient wood rattled in its frame, and I had a sudden fear that if they knocked hard enough, they’d break down the door without even meaning to.
Not that I’d let them know that.
“Tell me who you are, or I’m not opening the door,” I called, my voice hard.
No response.
My heart working its way up my throat, I crept forward and peeked through the blinds again. The guy in the front noticed the movement this time. He stepped up and flipped open his badge, holding it close to the window. It wasn’t a normal cop badge, and it had the sigil in the center that represented the magical community.
Nerves bound my stomach into a tight knot. If I didn’t open the door, they probably would break it off its hinges—on purpose. Swallowing hard, I unlatched the deadbolt and unlocked the door handle. I pulled the door open as far as the chain would stretch and shifted my gaze around at each of them.
“Aria Banks, we would like to have a few words with you about the incident you were involved in last night,” the man in front said sternly.
Nope. No way. Uh uh.
Adrenaline surged through me, my fight-or-flight instinct taking over. I rarely chose “flight”, but I was considering it now. I’d never trusted magic users, and just because I seemed to have suddenly become one of them, it didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy toward the people who gathered threateningly outside my front door. I was certain that at any moment they were going to wave their hands and poof me out of existence. If I let them get the drop on me anyway.
So I concentrated on the same feeling I’d had the night before and flicked my wrist, pulling the magic from my fingertips. Then I placed my hand behind my back, hoping they wouldn’t notice the magic tendrils I was gathering.
“I don’t have anything to talk to you about,” I said firmly. “Nothing happened. I have to go. I have training, and I have to get ready for it.”
As I tried to shut the door, the tall man stuck his hand out and stopped me. “If I were you, I would put that magic away right now.”
What the—?
I flicked my gaze down at myself and realized my entire body had taken on the subtle glow of a magic user. Dammit! I hadn’t been glowing like this when I’d eaten my breakfast, but even with my hand hidden, there was no way these officials wouldn’t know I had magic.
For several long heartbeats, we stood at a standstill.
Make the first move, Aria. Don’t wait.
It was a lesson Vin had instilled in me over and over, and it’d saved my ass in more fights than I could count. I barely had a clue how to control my strange new powers, but I felt certain that if I didn’t make a move, this man was going to make one instead—and he was probably much stronger and more skilled than I was. If he was a mage and worked for magical law enforcement, then he’d likely had his powers his whole life.
The only possible advantage I might have in this fight was the element of surprise.
Springing into action, I jumped back and threw my arms out, pouring magic from my fingertips. The guy in the front, the obvious leader, side-stepped and let one of the others use their magic to open my door. The chain snapped, and the door flew wide
open.
I tried to gather and harness my powers, attempting to replace some of the moves I’d done the night before. But compared to my unexpected guests, I was nothing more than a novice. The leader swiped his arms through the air, knocking aside a thick tendril of magic that whipped toward his leg. He put his arms up, and an intense energy pushed against me like a thousand pound weight. I tried to use my own powers to counter it, but I didn’t know what fucking muscle to flex.
How the hell do I control this?
The group marched in together and pushed the door shut behind them. The deadbolt had been ripped clean out of the frame. With a gesture from his other hand, the leader rotated me around in a circle. It felt like I had a rope wrapping around my arms and body, but I couldn’t see anything. He wasn’t hurting me, but he was definitely trying to restrain me. One of the others grabbed a chair and put it behind me just as I lost my balance and plopped down.
Within the space of less than a minute, they had disabled me.
The leader stepped forward and dropped his chin in a nod, watching me intently. “I’m sorry I have to do this. I know you don’t understand what’s going on right now. My name is Oberon, and I’m here to help you. We are all here to help you.”
I shook my head, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the invisible rope around me. “What are you trying to protect me from?”
The man called Oberon smiled, unbuttoning his suit jacket. “From yourself.”
“From myself?” I scoffed, irritation flaring. “I don’t need protecting. I wasn’t the one who got hurt last night.”
Then I stiffened. If I could’ve slapped a hand over my mouth, I would have.
Keep your godsdamned mouth shut, Aria!
Oberon lifted an eyebrow. “I know you’re smarter than that, Aria Banks. We work for the Magical Compliance Enforcement Agency. Our job is to monitor all magic that is performed inside the city, especially when it comes from someone like you. And up until yesterday, you had never manifested magical abilities, is that correct?”
