by Devon Monk
Victor looked over my shoulder. “Let her go,” he said to Zayvion.
I couldn’t feel my body, couldn’t feel Zayvion touching me. I pushed at the walls surrounding me. Nothing budged. Trying to think calm thoughts when all I could picture was throttling my dad did not make using magic any easier either.
“What about the disks?” Zay asked.
Right. If we left the disks down by the open gate, a gate we could assume was allowing more of the Veiled through, we would be up to our asses in the un-living, disk-powered dead.
“Mr. Flynn should be able to help me retrieve those,” Dad said. “He carries the crystal?”
Victor nodded once. “We used to be friends, Dan,” he said, striding into the fray. “Don’t make me regret that. Shame!”
Dad turned and I could see the battle.
We were not winning. There were still five Veiled standing, Truance, Frank, Pioneer Guy, the thirtysomething blond Lauren, and the 1950s woman. Two of them were holding the other disks from their fallen comrades in their hands.
And they were warping magic, sending it out in ways I’d never felt magic used. Dark, mutated. It reminded me of the Veiled in death. This was broken magic. Disks that had been broken on the anvil of the wild-magic storm and now were wielded by the undead.
Not a pretty combination.
Shame fell back from the line of magic users who stood equidistant around the room, containing the Veiled but unable to break their defenses. Victor spoke briefly to Shame, then took Shame’s place.
Shame jogged over to me.
And stopped like someone had just slapped him in the face. “You must be Allie’s dad.”
“I am. We cannot let the Veiled get their hands on any more disks. And we can’t break the barrier to physically retrieve the disks below. Do you know where they are kept?”
“I’m not going to tell you until you let Allie go.”
“There is no time—”
“Then make it snappy.” Shame returned my dad’s gaze with a deadly nonchalance.
Options. It looked like my dad was running out of them.
“This could be our death,” Dad said.
“That won’t be anything new to you, will it?” Fearless, that boy, facing down my dad. Even from the back of my own brain, I could feel Dad’s approval.
So unfair. When I faced down Dad he hated me for it. When some stranger did it, he got all warm and fuzzy. Bastard.
Dad took down the walls that surrounded me. I rushed out of that small dark space, letting anger cover up the screaming claustrophobia that had been eating at my sanity.
“You bastard,” I said.
He ignored me. “Where are the disks?” he asked Shame.
“In the east safe.”
I could feel the calculations go through his head, my head. Our head. Whatever.
“You carry the stone in your body.” He wasn’t asking Shame. “It shares many of the same properties as the disks. I am going to put my—Allison’s—hand on your chest and charge it with magic.”
“Then what?” he asked.
“Then I will cast you, body and soul, down to the lower level. I’ll try to put you in front of the safe and leave enough magic in the stone for your return.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. Yes, with my own mouth. Hey, what did you know? Dad really was sharing the body.
Shame grinned. “Hey, girl. Think he can do it?”
“Yes.” I hated admitting it, but my dad really was that good.
Shame nodded. “Do it.”
Dad put my hand—my left hand—on Shame’s chest. I could feel the rush of cool flame fingering down into the crystal join with the hot flood of magic Dad pulled out of the room, and into my body, my bones.
Dark and light magic? Maybe. I was too close, too entranced to tell.
It felt good, felt right to give magic to Shame like this. It felt like this was how magic should always be used.
And from the expression of bliss on Shame’s face, it was clear that this blend of magic did not hurt him.
Dad gathered more magic, pushed it through me until I was full, so achingly full, I didn’t have room to breathe. Even the hollow space where my small magic had once held fast was stretched, filled, warm, heavy. It felt so right.
He spoke one word. Magic rushed out of me fast, too fast, taking the ache and pleasure with it and leaving me cold and empty. I cried out.
Shame disappeared.
Terric, across the room, yelled. Not in pain or pleasure, but in anger.
And everything seemed to slow. Dad filled half of my mind, more than that, filled me, touching me everywhere magic touched me. We were more one person than two, a reality that made me want to scream.
But he was very, very focused on Shame, on his heartbeat, which he felt through the blood bond Maeve had cast. On his body, and his magic, both of which he felt through the crystal that he fed a careful stream of magic into, giving just enough so the crystal would remain full, and not enough to burn Shame alive.
Great. I hadn’t known that was a possible outcome. But freaking out about it right now would do none of us any good. So I chanted my mantra, staying calm, supportive. Not fighting my dad, nor the magic he wielded.
Trusting him. With me. With my magic.
It was the only thing I could think of doing to help Shame survive.
Someone screamed. I glanced at the fight—was able to move my head since Dad was focused on Shame breaking into the safe below us.
Nik was down, writhing on the floor. Hayden stood above him, fighting the Pioneer Man, but unable to stop long enough to do anything for Nik. Sunny was also down, a pale pile of limbs slumped against the wall.
The Veiled combined their magic and blasted a hole into the floor.
Everything went white—too white.
The room flooded with watercolor people.
“Out, out, out!” Hayden roared. He bent, picked up Nik like he was a child and put him in a fireman’s hold as he headed for the stairs.
Joshua ran to Sunny, and pulled her up into his arms. She looked like a broken rag doll, blood smeared down the side of her pale face, fingertip burns everywhere, just like the rest of us.
“Move,” Maeve said. “Everyone out!”
Everyone moved, ran for the stairs, hacked their way through the watercolor people who swarmed up the stairs in a tangled mob of holy-shit-we’re-going-to-die.
Victor helped Maeve. She’d lost her cane in the fight, but wielded daggers and Blood magic.
Me? I stood there toward the back of the room. Thinking calm thoughts as the monsters reached the top of the stairs, pulled themselves up and out of the hole in the floor. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this. But I wasn’t going to leave Shame behind.
Zayvion was suddenly beside me, casting Shield after Shield to keep the monsters at bay, each Shield weaker than the last.
“We have to go,” he said.
“I’m not leaving Shame.”
“How much longer?”
I didn’t know. Dad had fallen into such a deep concentration, I couldn’t reach him.
“I don’t—” And then my mouth was no longer mine.
Dad spoke a word. Shame appeared in front of us, a heavy iron and glass box under his arm. Blood and burns covered his hands and much of his shirt.
The Veiled howled.
“Open it,” Dad said.
Shame hesitated. Looked like he was going to pass out.
The monsters were closer. Much closer. Zay’s Shields barely flashed up before they fell.
I touched the box, knew immediately what spell would break the seal. I cast a quick Unlock and the lid of the box flew open.
The disks inside pulsed with a palatable magic. Dark, rich, smelling like burned blackberries and too much sugar. I licked my lips and swallowed down the flavor of them.
The monsters in the room screamed.
My dad spoke another word.
The room seemed to press in h
alf, closing in on me with sharp, complicated folds like the world had become an origami creation and I was nothing but colored paper.
And then we were outside. I hurt from head to toe, my skin fever-hot, a crippling headache stabbing down my spine. Black ashes, fine as feathers, fell from the sky to settle into a perfect circle around our feet. The oily tang and copper burn of spent magic, of spent disks, filled my nose.
Shame exhaled. “That. Was. Awesome.” The box of disks in his hands was filled with smoke and slag. The disks were destroyed.
I tried to respond, but Dad had control of my body now, and I could not fight my way up through the pain to take over.
He walked over to the front of the inn, just as all the rest of the Authority ran out the door. Yes, they looked surprised to see Shame, Zay, and me already outside.
“Move,” Dad said.
And they did.
I didn’t know if he felt the same pain I felt—
—Yes, he said, I do.
Well, now I knew he could hear my thoughts. I wondered what he was doing with my body and as soon as I thought it, I knew we, I mean he, was going to trigger the traps and lock down everything that was in the inn.
I could still see through my eyes. The solid Veiled ran past the windows toward the door.
Dad lifted his hands above his—I mean my—head and sang a very soft song. At first I thought it was nonsense, but then I recognized the hush-a-bye song my mother used to sing to me when she tucked me into bed at night.
Magic coalesced out of the air over the inn, magic seeking magic, and joining in a beautiful lace knotwork that glimmered gray, silver, plum, in the predawn light.
Dad pulled my hands together, then apart, my left, marked with death, pointed at the sky, my right, marked with ribbons of color, pointed at the ground.
Magic pulled through me, easy as a thread through the eye of a needle. Magic from the ground, magic from the sky, caught, wove together, and locked down over the inn. Before the Veiled could reach the door, before the monsters could break free.
I expected an explosion, a deep thrum of closing, ending, the rattle of gears locking into place. But this spell might as well have been cast out of the roots and limbs of the trees that surrounded the inn, might as well have been worked into the soil and the rocks and the rain.
Seamless, natural. And yes, beautiful. I’d never seen magic used in such an organic fashion, as if it were indeed a natural part of the living world.
I didn’t expect that kind of beauty, that kind of grace, from my father.
Then he was no longer at the front of my mind. He fell back, exhausted beyond endurance, nothing but smoke, a shadow.
Released from his control, I stumbled, fell to my knees, the damp gravel pricking my palms. I hurt like nobody’s business. I sat there for a second or two.
Zay rested his hand on my shoulder. “Can you stand?”
I looked up at him. He didn’t look much better than I felt. He was breathing through his mouth like he’d just run a marathon. Dark blood trailed down his temple, and fingerprint burns pocked his neck.
Yeah, I knew the feeling.
“Want me to carry you?” he asked.
Yes. No. Yes.
No. I told him I could stand on my two feet, and I would. No matter how tired and hurt I was. I didn’t waste breath or strength answering him. I pushed myself up onto my feet. He held his hand out for me. I took it. There was no amount of pride that would save me from looking like a fool if I ended up falling flat on my face.
Even the low light of dawn made my eyes hurt. But Zayvion gathered me to him, and I wrapped my arms around that ratty coat of his, clutching the back of it in my fists so he couldn’t disappear, fall away, go away again. I held him, alive and whole, against me and inhaled the pine scent of him, peppered by his sweat. He was too thin beneath those layers, thin enough that I could feel the tremble of exhaustion in his muscles.
Didn’t we make a pair?
“I haven’t seen that since Mikhail ran the show,” Hayden said. “Very, very nice, Beckstrom. Not even a Hound would think there was anything magical going on here.”
“The gate is Closed,” Victor said with grudging admiration. “As you said it would be. So, too, the well.”
“The Veiled?” Terric asked. “Is there a time limit on the disks? Will they simply run out of magic and stop living?”
“I don’t know,” I said, turning my face to the side so I wasn’t talking into Zayvion’s chest. “Dad sort of . . . blacked out or something.”
“It won’t matter,” Victor said. “We won’t let this sit that long. A day, maybe two. The Lock will hold until then; it’s ingeniously fed from the latent magic in the river and soil. The Veiled are held in a stasis. A long sleep. It’s very . . . poetic.” There was that admiration again. “Maeve, is there still an Aversion set up at the top of the road?”
“It’s underground, but we can trigger it,” she said tiredly. “It should keep the curious away for a week at least. I can say the inn is undergoing inspections. I’ve already called the staff and told them they have a paid vacation for two weeks.”
These people thought of everything. But then if you ran a business and practiced secret magic on the side, you’d pencil in some time for disaster planning.
The crunch of tires over gravel made me groan. I didn’t know who was coming, hoped it wasn’t Stotts, but figured there was no way I would get that lucky. We had just thrown a god-awful amount of magic around.
“Allie?” Victor said.
I pulled away from Zay, not too far, and squinted over at him.
Nik sat on the ground, his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. Whatever spell had caused him pain was gone now, but he was covered in blood and bruises and burns. Sunny didn’t look much better, but the blood was wiped off her face, and she was conscious. None of us had come out of this unscathed. I’d never seen so many magic users look so exhausted, bloody, and bruised. I wondered where the doctor was. Wondered if anyone had called 911.
But the noise, the car—correction, cars—coming down the driveway, were not Stotts and his crew.
Four cars stopped. And out of the lead car stepped Davy Silvers.
“Heard you’d need a ride to someplace safe. We have food, beds, and Dr. Fisher standing by at the den.”
Three other doors opened. Sid, Jamar, and Jack all stood next to their cars.
My Hounds. Come to the rescue.
None of the Authority stepped forward. I could tell Victor was weighing the options of the situation. We all still had our weapons out, and were clearly wounded from magic. Four Hounds meant four people to Close. I didn’t know if all the Closers combined had enough energy to put themselves to that task.
Screw it. If there was one kind of person who knew how to keep their mouths shut, it was the Hounds. My Hounds, at least.
I tugged free from Zayvion. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a cup of coffee. Davy, Jamar, Sid, Jack, I’ll make introductions of all my friends once we get to the den, if that’s okay. You will keep your mouths shut about all this, right?”
“About all what?” Jack asked. “I have room for four.” He opened the back door of his car.
“I can take six,” Jamar said.
That was all it took. We divided up into cars, Hounds helping the bloody, exhausted, dirty secret magic users into their cars.
Just as we turned around and headed back up the access road, I saw Pike, ghostly and pale, raise a hand in hello, or good-bye, before the sun crested the hills, and flooded the world with the gold, healing light of dawn.
Chapter Twenty-five
We traveled in a loose caravan to the den, skulking off to lick our wounds while the morning sun gave a nod to spring.
Zay and Sunny and Joshua were in the backseat. None of us said anything, and Davy didn’t ask anything. But once we reached the den, Get Mugged already bustling with traffic and energy, I looked over at him.
“P
ike?” I asked.
“Yeah. Said you had a fight on your hands. Thought you might need our help. Sorry we got there too late.”
“Only four of you came? Where’s the love?” I said, trying, and failing, to make it sound like a joke.
Davy got it though. “We didn’t think it’d take more than four Hounds to handle anything you could throw at us.”
Joshua in the backseat chuckled. “I like your attitude. It’s wrong,” he said, his voice always more gentle than I expected. “But you have guts.”
Davy glanced in his rearview mirror. “I don’t think I’m the only one.”
He parked. It didn’t take long for us to shuffle into the elevators. Even I didn’t walk the stairs, though Shame made faces at me while we rode the elevator.
And just like Davy said, the Hounds had outfitted the den to receive wounded, to hold meetings, and to sleep. Every bunk was made and ready, the air smelled of garlic and bread and tomatoes, and I realized I was starving.
Casting magic, that much magic, made me hungry. But first, I wanted some meds to cut the pain.
“Dying of headache here,” I said. “Anyone got pills?”
A chorus of rattling filled the room as every Hound pulled out a bottle of pain pills. I started laughing. Bad idea. It made my head hurt worse, but I couldn’t stop.
Zayvion took my fingers and pulled me gently toward an open couch, and I sat. He flopped down next to me. Sweet hells, I had never been so tired. I leaned my head on the back of the couch and closed my eyes. Just for a minute.
I woke up when the doctor gave me a shot.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Same as I gave you earlier. Should take care of the headache. And anything else.” I caught a quick glimpse of the needle she’d used. It was glyphed, and made of finely turned glass. I bet the needle itself was silver and some kind of spell was worked into the molecules of the drug.
The relief was almost instant. I was still sore, the burns on my arms, side of my neck, and chest still tender, and I knew my body was still enduring a lot of pain, but it was down somewhere around hurt instead of agony.
“That’s so much better already. Thanks.”
