Magic at the Gate

by Devon Monk

  It was Mikhail who answered. “The magic you carry will not be used for destruction at my hands.”

  “I don’t know that. I have no guarantee of that.”

  “The risk is yours to take,” he said. “What do you want, Allison Angel Beckstrom?”

  Zayvion. I wanted Zayvion. The whole world could go to hell for all I cared, as long as I could touch him again, hold him, be with him again. Alive.

  It was selfish of me, greedy. But it was true.

  “Don’t,” I said, torn between anger and need. If I’d had tears, I’d have been a sobbing mess. But there was no crying in death. Good thing. It forced me to keep thinking past the pain. And I knew what I had to do.

  “I want the truth,” I said. “If you want my magic, you’ll let me cast a Truth spell and you’ll answer my questions.” Everything came with a price. That was how magic worked. It was time for the world-crushing, magic-hungry maniac to pay up.

  He scowled, shoulders tensing. His hands, still clasped, went white at the knuckles. Not so much a sad guy now, he looked furious. I thought he was going to say no.

  “Done.” He held out his hand, palm tipped upward.

  Old Dad inhaled. Even he hadn’t thought Mikhail would agree.

  I wasn’t sure Truth would work in death. It took blood to cast it, and I hadn’t seen a drop of blood since I’d been in death. I sure as hell didn’t know if Mikhail would bleed. But it was the best I could do. Breathing was getting harder. Shadows closed in on my peripheral vision as I walked over to Mikhail. Stone was moving a little slower too, his head cool under my hand as if he was running down.

  There wasn’t any time left for second chances.

  I stopped in front of Mikhail and worked on clearing my mind. It took me longer than I’d like to admit, but after a few verses of my “Miss Mary Mack,” song, my thoughts finally slipped from fight or flight to something more meditative. I set a Disbursement out of habit—I decided on muscle aches.

  Mikhail waited the entire time, his hand open.

  When my mind was clear enough, when the panic was more than a breath away, I slashed my left palm and placed it back on Stone’s head. Then I quickly drew the blade across Mikhail’s palm.

  No blood from either of us. Instead, a dim red light drifted from my hand, lifting like smoke, while a bright white-blue poured from his hand in an icy stream. I caught and mingled the ice and smoke along the blade of the dagger and used it to draw the Truth spell into the air between us.

  The spell blazed to life; a geometric glyph burned in the air. The connection was made.

  “Are you going to use my magic to harm those I love?”

  “No.” The word rolled through me, soft as a cat pressing and stretching. I knew he was telling the truth.

  “Are you going to use my magic to harm or kill innocents?”

  “No.” Again, the truth.

  “Are you going to use my magic to destroy the world?”

  A slight hesitation this time, and a wash of possibilities rushed through my head like math equations I couldn’t solve. “I have no desire to destroy the world.”

  True, if a not exactly what I had asked.

  “Will you help me open a gate to life and let me take Zayvion’s soul through with me if I give you my magic?”

  “Yes.” And that too was true.

  Holding the concentration necessary to support the spell was exhausting. No wonder my dad had looked so sick after casting only three spells.

  That was all the truth I could endure. Literally four questions worth. Any more and I’d pass out. I drew a circle around the glyph with the tip of the blood blade, then slashed through the spell, breaking it. I did not pass out. Go, me.

  I tipped my chin, stared straight into Mikhail’s eyes, and forced myself to say it before I could change my mind. “I came here to bring Zayvion home. I know the price I have to pay. I’ll give you my magic, but I don’t know how.”

  Relief washed across his face as he closed his hand, dampening the light from his palm. It was strange to think that the devil might have been worried that I would say no. What did he have riding on my agreement? I hadn’t thought to ask him what he planned to do with the magic. How stupid could I be?

  Fear returned, thick, nightmarish. I had no idea if I was doing the right thing. I wanted to grab Zayvion and run. But there was nowhere to go.

  “You will clear your mind and recite a mantra,” Mikhail said. “You will reach into your chest and withdraw the flame that burns there.”

  I nodded calmly as I walked back over to Zay. A part of my mind was screaming.

  “And the gate?” I asked without screaming at all.

  “I will open the gate first. Once the gate is opened, I will break magic’s hold on the guardian.”

  “No. That’s not good enough. I want something more than your word on this.”

  He scowled at me. I scowled back. I was not going to back down. This was too important. I wasn’t going to screw it up on a technicality.

  Dad swore under his breath.

  The corner of Mikhail’s mouth quirked up. “You do not know what you ask.” He strode to me, every footfall echoing through the room. It was as if he were made of heavier stuff than anything else in death. As if he was a part of the pillars that held the earth to the sky.

  “I give you my seal.” He caught my left hand in his own and pressed his thumb into the cut on my palm.

  A sweet warmth filled me. Something bit deep beneath my skin and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. I gasped at the pain, and at the pleasure. I jerked my hand out of his hold.

  My palm was just my palm. A slight shadow smudged the point where his thumb had been, but the wound was gone. I might not be able to see anything there, but I knew that magic, Death magic, curled there, planted like a seed beneath my skin.

  It was more than a guarantee—it was a part of him. I knew he was telling the truth—that he would free Zayvion and open a gate, as if he had just worked a much stronger Truth spell on me.

  And it was the only guarantee I was going to get.

  I put my hand back on Stone, took a deep breath, and recited my “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,” song again, trying to push aside the terror at what I was about to do.

  I stared at Mikhail. He waited, didn’t move, didn’t send the Hungers that shifted at the edges of the room like shadows stirred by the wind to jump, to attack.

  Okay, here was the part where it got tricky. I was supposed to reach into my own chest.

  I sheathed the dagger so I didn’t accidentally stab myself, and then pressed the fingertips of my right hand against my sternum. I pressed deeper. My fingers sank into my chest like they were sliding through soft sand.

  Ew, ew, ew.

  But I didn’t let it break my concentration. Didn’t look away from Mikhail’s eyes. Blue, like Cody’s. Filled with a curious intelligence, sorrow, and hope. Very human. Almost likable.

  Yeah, well, if the devil went around looking like a monster, he’d never be able to pay his rent.

  I continued pressing inward. I didn’t know if I was doing this right, but Mikhail seemed calm, the weight of his seal on my palm somehow giving me the awareness of his approval.

  I was up to the “elephant jump over a fence,” part of the “Miss Mary Mack” jingle for a second time when my fingers brushed something soft and smooth and warm inside me.

  Later, I was going to throw up. Right now, I gently got my fingers around that warmth.

  My magic. My small magic. The one secret, sacred thing that made me me. The little bit of magic I knew was always there for me. The one thing no one could take away from me. The one thing magic had never harmed.

  I felt like I was giving away the most precious part of me.

  I drew it out of my chest—still no blood, no feeling of flesh and bones. Just the brush of warm sand falling away from my hand as I drew the magic out of me.

  I couldn’t help it. I looked down at the small magic.

&nb
sp; It looked like a rose. A translucent pink rose that pulsed with a blush of magic. It glowed in my hand and sent a wave of light up the ribbons of magic that wrapped from my fingertips to the corner of my eye. Ebony thorns rode the stalk of the rose, each like a blade, curved and tipped with red. Beautiful. Strong. Fragile.

  Me.

  I didn’t want to let it go. I didn’t know what would be left of me once this was gone. I didn’t know what I would become.

  A single tear hit my palm. I had been wrong. You can grieve in death.

  “It must be soon, Allison,” Mikhail said. “There is no time left for you.”

  I nodded, or at least I thought I did. I was feeling strangely numb and drifty. It was hard to remember what I was supposed to be doing. I wasn’t even sure how long I stood there, staring at the magic of my soul.

  “Give the magic to Mikhail,” Dad—one of him—said. “I’ll help you get Zayvion safely home.”

  I looked up at Zay. Silent. And me with no strength to touch him and find out what he thought about all this. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping, or dead. There was nothing he could do to help me make this decision. Or to change what I had done.

  Pay the price. Was Zayvion worth giving up my small magic? Hells, I’d have given up more if Mikhail had asked. I loved him. And love could make a person do crazy things.

  I held my hand, my magic, the single pink rose, out for Mikhail.

  “I give it to you willingly in exchange for Zayvion Jones’ soul returning with me to life, and into his living body there.”

  Something sparked in Mikhail’s eyes. “You have taught her well, Daniel.” Then, to me, “I accept this magic. In return I will open the gate into life, and do all within my power to help you return Zayvion Jones’ soul to his living body and make all right again between our worlds.”

  I swallowed. Honey. I tasted honey. There had been a spell in those words. Something I could not focus on, because I was having a hard time deciding how many more breaths I got before I blacked out.

  Mikhail’s fingers brushed my palm over the seal beneath my skin. His hands were warm, which surprised me, and gentle. He lifted the rose from my hand.

  I whimpered at the sudden loss, the absence, the raw hole that prickled and hurt deep inside me.

  “Open the gate,” I said.

  Mikhail could not seem to take his gaze off the rose. He nodded, absently, which worried me, and he held the rose with reverence, which I tried to ignore.

  “You will need a vessel to carry his soul,” he said. “Time rides against you. Choose a vessel for him. Now.”

  I didn’t even know what would work. The dagger? My pocket? No one had told me I’d need to bring a bottle to this genie party.

  “He can enter your mind and soul,” Old Dad told me.

  My heart thrilled at that. A perfect solution. Exactly what I wanted. Zayvion would be close to me, really in my mind, not just talking to me there. We would be one.

  And that was one of the most dangerous things that could happen. Just like Leander and Isabelle, we could lose ourselves, lose our individuality and go insane.

  It wasn’t something that happened only in legends. Chase, Zay’s ex-girlfriend, and her Soul Complement, Greyson, weren’t exactly sane anymore. A vision of Chase flashed behind my eyes—of her reaching out to give magic to the man-beast that Greyson had become as they fought magic users, fought my friends, killing them, killing the people they had once cared for.

  I couldn’t become that. Wouldn’t lose who Zayvion and I were apart, just for us to be together. I was trying too hard to keep us alive.

  “No. I can’t let him in me.”

  “Then let Stone carry his soul,” New Dad said.

  “He can do that?”

  “It is possible,” New Dad said. “The Animate holds magic.” He paused, stared at Stone as if he could see his inner workings. “There is magic in him. And room for more.”

  “Will it hurt him? Hurt Zayvion?”

  “I do not think so. It will need to be a short transfer, though. The Animate wasn’t made to carry the weight of a soul for long. Zayvion will need to be returned to his body within thirty minutes. Perhaps less.”

  “Has anyone ever tested this?” See? Even confused and worried, I could ask good questions.

  “There are histories of experiments where Animates have held souls,” he said, “albeit only briefly.”

  “Tell me Zayvion will survive. Tell me his soul will survive.” I needed to hear it. Those words, from that man.

  “If he has the willpower and stamina. Yes.”

  I didn’t need to hear any more.

  “Do it. Let’s do it.” My mind was swirling with questions. How close to his body could they open the gate? How much stamina did Zayvion have left after all this time in death? How many ways could this go wrong?

  Thousands.

  Dad—Old Dad—spoke. “I will need to be in your mind to free Zayvion.”

  Thousands plus one. I just couldn’t catch a break.

  I locked gazes with Old Dad. He wanted back in my head, wanted to possess me again. I knew he’d try to work this to his own benefit. He never did anything, not one single thing, without thinking it through and meticulously securing the avenues to his own success.

  Giving up my magic wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to ride me, force himself into me, use me.

  “No.” I didn’t have a lot of air, but I had plenty enough for that word.

  “Time,” Mikhail said, “is nearly gone.”

  What, did the guy have an hourglass somewhere around here sifting out the last grains of my life or something?

  Stone clacked, sounding more like a watch winding down than my happy singing vacuum cleaner. He nudged my hand, and I realize I’d been leaning pretty hard on him. Okay, maybe time was running out.

  New Dad walked over, his hands extended and open, palms up.

  “Once magic is finally put right, I will leave you and your mind forever. Until then, please do the right thing.”

  I opened my mouth to add hell no to my reply.

  Too late. Surgeon-quick, he stuck his hand in my head and did something fiddly that felt like fingertips pressing a key code on the inside of my skull. I tried to step back, to jerk away, but was frozen. Not even Stone moved.

  And then Old Dad was no longer standing across the room from me.

  Old Dad was back in my head, a familiar, scratching weight I could not shove away.

  I still had the katana. Almost got it through New Dad, but New Dad backed away fast.

  I wasn’t as good with the sword one-handed and half-dead.

  “You bastard,” I whispered. “Get the hell out of my head.”

  New Dad gave me a blank stare. “I can’t.” New or not, he was my father, through and through.

  A moan, low, soft, turned me to Zayvion. Mikhail was near him finishing a spell that left a fine mist in the shape of a Canceling glyph hovering in the air around Zay. The silver glyphs against Zay’s skin were no longer stretched and nailed to the floor. He was free.

  Zay blinked, moved his hands, fingers posed in a Ward spell.

  Got to love a man whose first instinct is to fight.

  “Go to him,” Mikhail said.

  I was already on my way. I sheathed the sword, because with my current dexterity, I’d probably behead us both, then looped my arm around his waist to support his weight as he took a step forward.

  The contact hit me like lightning.

  Vertigo rushed over me. I fell. Into Zay. Or maybe Zay fell into me.

  Allie, he breathed.

  I inhaled, gorging myself on the luscious textures of him, filling my mind, my body, and my soul. He stretched through me and waves of pleasure followed. He was worried, joyful, sad.

  This is forbidden, he whispered.

  I don’t care.

  I wanted this, needed this, needed him to know I loved him. If I could just hold him closer, run to him faster, breathe in his breath, we cou
ld have everything, life, death, and all magic, at our fingertips. I knew it was true, reveled in the knowledge. Joined as one, we could make everything right in the world.

  Zayvion, I called, my voice, my thoughts echoing through me, through him, through us.

  Pain filled me, a hammer shattering the middle of my brain.

  Inside my mind, my father’s voice rang out like thunder. Let go, or he will die.

  I couldn’t let go. I wouldn’t let go.

  And I didn’t.

  Zayvion did. He pulled away, pulled back. Pushed me when I grasped at him, slipped between my fingers as I tried to hold him.

  No, I whispered. Don’t leave me.

  What have you done? he growled, primal, angry, painful in my mind. Do not touch me.

  He yanked, out of me, out of us. Yes, it hurt. Holy loves, it hurt.

  I gasped, sucked air, sobbed out a moan. Opened my eyes, just my eyes.

  I was on the ground. Stone stood above me. Stone was covered in black fire. And there was an angry intelligence shining out from those eyes that was not his.

  I lifted my hand, amazed I could do that much, and touched Stone’s snout.

  “Zay?”

  Stone growled and jerked his head away from me. He stepped back.

  Which meant I couldn’t breathe. Except I could. Enough to fill my lungs and roll onto one hip. I felt like every rib was bruised. Why could I breathe?

  A moth-wing flutter snapped at the back of my eyes.

  My dead dad was in my head—and having him there allowed me to breathe. I was now neither fully alive nor dead. And I had almost done the one thing I’d sworn I wouldn’t do—become so much a part of Zay, I lost myself. Holy shit.

  Mikhail did not seem to care about any of this.

  He sang. I thought I’d heard glimpses of that song, in my dreams, in my fevers. It tugged at me. Made me sad and hopeful. But as soon as each note faded away, it was lost to me. The song brushed over me like a slow wind and left no echo behind.

  He cast a glyph, and even though magic was visible, I could not follow the pattern he wove.

  The rose in his hand, my rose, my magic, pulsed, sending tiny chains of ribbons into the spell he wove.