by Devon Monk
I was full, every inch of me stretched and thrumming with magic, his magic. There was no room in me for more. But that didn’t stop me.
My head swam. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I drank and drank and drank. He did the same.
Zayvion’s grip loosened slightly.
I pushed down and away, broke free. I wove a spell for Hold. Cast it blind with all that magic I held inside me.
He froze. Long enough for me to cast Shield, something strong enough to surround me and keep him from touching me physically again.
Zayvion lifted his hand and muttered a word. Hold shattered like cheap glass.
So not fair. I didn’t know the magic words he knew.
He chanted, drawing magic in multicolored ribbons out of the floor, singing it into a jagged ball in his hand, which he then threw at me. It hit my Shield and broke into bits that scrabbled over it like spiders trying to climb ice.
He followed it up with a wave of darkness that clung to my Shield, blinding me.
Fuck.
I’d have to drop the Shield to see. And he’d be waiting for me.
Think, Beckstrom. What did I have at my advantage? Not my father’s memories or skills. Certainly not Maeve’s training.
No, all I had was the magic inside me and a knack for Hounding. I also had a burning determination not to fail myself, not to lose my memories, my life again. Not even for Zayvion Jones.
I took a deep breath. Calmed my mind. Then I called to the magic in the well beneath the room. To hell with fighting fire with fire. I needed some napalm.
I dropped the Shield.
Zayvion threw everything he had at me.
Pain—hot, slicing, deep—shook me. I screamed, but couldn’t hear the sound over the spell he threw.
An explosion of lights blinded me again, and all I could taste was pine, mint, and blood.
He meant to kill me. He really did. I don’t know why I hadn’t believed it before. Zayvion had proven himself to be a dangerous man, a killer, a Closer. And now it was me he was going to end.
Screw that.
The magic from the well poured into me, and I knew I could hold it—could claim all of it for myself, keep it in my body and my bones.
So I did.
The pain disappeared. Everything around me suddenly slowed. I watched, from somewhere above myself, as magic spun from my fingers, from my soul, from the inexhaustible well beneath the earth. I was wrapped in ribbons of light and color and shadow. I was living, breathing magic, and I could make magic do anything I wanted it to do.
I didn’t aim the magic at Zayvion. I aimed it at all the other magic users in the room.
No glyphs, no words, no songs. Just my need for magic to do as I desired. Gold threads followed my thoughts and sank deep into the chest of each user. Some of them were able to disengage, to turn the magic away before it knocked them out. A few fell.
And that’s all I needed.
I threw magic at the walls. At the Wards. Magic users scrambled to reinforce them so I didn’t blow the walls out and bring the whole building down on our heads.
That is what I call a proper distraction.
Now to deal with Zayvion.
Zayvion wove a glyph like a massive net and threw it toward me slowly; everything was still running in half-time.
I knew that the moment he released the spell, he would be overextended. Vulnerable. I could take him down. Take him apart. I could tell the magic to wrap around his heart, his brain, and squeeze. It would stop him. I wondered if it would kill him.
Was this test worth that? Was it worth ending Zayvion’s life to save my own?
I had never been good at these kinds of decisions.
Zayvion told me once that I was not a killer. I remembered that now. Remembered him laughing, remembered him reaching out to me as a bullet tore through me. Strange, the things you think of in the last moments of your life.
I walked over to Zayvion, letting the net he cast glide over my head, then continue on to land somewhere behind me. I stood so close to him, I could feel the heat of his body.
The memory of his smile, of his body, strong, warm, naked, against mine flashed through me. He had been there for me, more than anyone but Nola. If I had the time, I would mourn the loss of that, the loss of him.
I placed my hand on his chest. Even though I was fast, too fast, and all the world was too slow, I know he felt my touch. His body tensed.
I am not a killer. Not if there is any other choice. And I was making another choice. A choice for both of us.
I reached into his mind. Just like he told me Soul Complements should not, because once Soul Complements touched mentally, they would not be able to let go. And now I understood that.
Oh, baby, it felt wonderful to be touching him like this. It felt right.
Zayvion arched his back in pleasure, and I felt his pleasure under my skin as if it were my own. Sweet loves, this was good.
I felt him laugh inside my mind, inside my mouth, echoing through me, as if we were one person, not two. Joined. Soul Complements.
I gloried in it. Never wanted it to end.
But I am a stubborn woman.
“Tag,” I said. “You’re it.” Then I knocked him unconscious.
Zayvion crumpled at my feet.
And somebody threw a lead coat over my shoulders. All the magic in me, all the magic I was pulling out of the well, pumped out of me in a heartbeat.
I was suddenly emptied.
Whoa.
I lost my knees, fell on my ass next to Zayvion, who stirred, already waking up. Gotta love a man with stamina.
Maeve stood above us. She didn’t look happy. I didn’t know what her problem was. We were both still alive. Wasn’t that the point of all this?
“I am going to remove the void stones,” she said like a traffic cop telling me which way to go and how. “You are not going to draw upon the magic in the well. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” Weird, but my voice came out all breathy, like I was exhausted or something.
Maeve removed the lead coat, and I got a look at it. Not a coat, but a blanket with tiny, round, black river rocks sewn into it. Void stones, like the one she’d put on my lap. Smart woman.
“This was not a test to see if you were Soul Complements,” she admonished.
Zayvion moaned, swore. And yes, Maeve was angry at me, but I couldn’t help but grin as Zayvion blinked up at me and realized where he was. Namely, flat on his back on the floor.
He moaned again. “I can’t believe you did that.” He dropped his hand on my knee, and levered to sit.
“Hey, I was supposed to use anything and everything to survive, right?” And even though I was smiling, a sick sort of dread gripped my throat. What if I had done permanent damage to him? What if I had done permanent damage to us? What if I had failed the test and now they were going to take all my memories away? My life away?
Zayvion’s hand was still on my knee. “They’re not going to take all your memories away.”
“Did you hear me think that?” I asked.
He nodded, and in my mind I heard him say, Loud and clear.
His voice in my mind was not at all like my father’s voice. His voice was familiar, comforting, warm.
Are you always going to be able to hear my thoughts? I thought.
We’ll have to find out.
He pulled his hand away from my knee. We were close, just inches away from each other, but we were not touching.
“Think something,” he said.
I thought how maybe I’d like to get the hell out of here.
He shook his head. “I didn’t hear you. Can you hear this?”
I listened, strained to hear him in my mind. Nothing.
“So only when we touch?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. But he didn’t sound very sure of it.
There had been a lot of noise going on around us. A lot of people hurrying here and there, a lot of magic being used, but I hadn’t be
en paying attention to it.
Then Shamus strode over and crouched down next to us.
“You two done? Because we have a problem here.” He pointed at the far, dark side of the room.
The room was in chaos. Magic vibrated in the air. Even without Sight, I glimpsed the afterimages of spells being cast, of magic being used. A hell of a lot of magic. By a hell of a lot of people.
And no wonder.
A hole, easily a yard wide and tall, and getting wider and taller by the second, was burning into the air, like a light-bulb burning through a filmstrip.
“What?” I said.
“A gate,” Shamus said. “It opened when you tapped into the well. Fuck if I know why, but we haven’t been able to close it.”
“Here?” Zayvion said. “Impossible. It’s too Warded, too safe.”
“Yeah, well, your girlfriend there wreaked havoc with the Wards. Nice going, Beckstrom.” Even though I was pretty sure I’d done something bad, Shamus didn’t sound mad. The boy loved trouble.
“Not possible,” Zayvion said again as he stood.
“Looks pretty damn possible to me,” Shamus noted.
I got my feet under me and managed to stand too. The magic inside me was small, and I felt emptier than I had in a long, long time. Maybe even a little light-headed.
The hole on the other side of the room sizzled and flashed, lighting the room like a flare.
“That’s your cue, Closer boy,” Shame said. “Go. Fix.” He shoved at Zayvion’s shoulder.
Zay strode away from me, toward the hole. Between one step and the next, between one blink and the next, he became a man of black flames, silver glyphs blazing against his body.
I had seen him like this before, but I had never felt him like this.
It was as if I walked with him, felt the crushing weight of dark magic and light magic war through my body, tug at my control of sanity, singing of pleasures within my reach if I succumbed to its siren call. Shamus had said Zayvion could use all the kinds of magic, and now I believed him.
No wonder he was so disciplined, so calm. It took an amazing amount of concentration to keep sanity and reality in perspective while dark magic sang its song. Zayvion stopped, lifted his hands, and wove a spell that looked a lot like the net he’d thrown at me, only more solid.
He incanted something, or at least I thought he did. Everyone in the room was chanting or humming or singing. Well, except me.
Blocking spells, Warding spells, defensive spells; magic users moved as far from the burning gate as they could, casting their magic at the walls, the pillars, the inn itself to repair the damage I’d done. They supported the inn and guarded the well of magic that pushed up and up from the earth and rolled beneath the floor.
They, the Authority, worked to contain the magic, to support the room, and not let a lick of magic escape these walls.
Zayvion stood alone before the gate. He twisted at the hip and threw the net. Magic flared in me, wanting to leap to join his spell. I inhaled, cleared my mind, and held tightly to the magic that rushed up to fill me, afraid to let it merge with Zayvion’s.
We might be Soul Complements, but we had not yet cast magic together. Now seemed like a horrible time to find out what would happen if we did.
The net closed over the gate, damping the mercury-gray light that poured through it, but the gate was still growing, still burning.
Then a voice rang out, a man’s voice from the other side of the gate.
“I will not be denied.”
Oh, no. This I did not want to know. There were things, people, on the other side of the gates, in death? Angry people?
Within the gate stood a dark figure of a man. Magic fluctuated across the gate and obscured the huge shadowed figure, but I could make out his hands held to either side, elbows locked, as if he could force the gate to open faster. As if he could walk through that gate and into our world.
No, no, no. That was not good.
A small part of my mind refused to believe what I was seeing. Sure, I’d seen stuff like this before—in horror movies. But this was real. This was now. I could taste the copper-hot burn of magic, could smell the sweat and fear in the room, could hear the people around me swearing, chanting, angry, calm.
This was really happening. And this was really, really bad.
The man yelled and shoved the gate wider. Now I could see behind him, slashes of fangs, bloody red eyes and claws, just like the Hungers we had hunted in St. Johns.
The man tipped his face so that shadows and magic hid his features. Except for his eyes. Blue as a summer sky, his eyes were familiar. I scoured my memory, but could not think of where I had seen those eyes before.
“Life and death are mine to wield. Light and darkness.” The man flicked one hand, and as if to prove his point, dark magic, a solid tentacle of blackness, whipped out and rammed into Zayvion like a wrecking ball.
I yelled as Zayvion flew across the room. Shamus was already running toward Zay and reached him before he hit the ground.
“Sedra,” the voice called out. “You will bow to my will. I will walk between life and death. Immortal.”
The tentacle of darkness that had knocked Zayvion down whipped through the air and plunged into Sedra’s chest.
The ice queen stiffened. She took a jerky step toward the gate. Her jaw was set, the bone there straining against muscle and tendon as she took another involuntary step.
“No,” she mouthed. She lifted one hand, traced a spell, and a shot of light pierced the man’s chest.
Several people around her cast magic, trying to break the rope that held her.
Nothing worked. Dark magic forced her forward, toward the gate, even as the light seemed to force the man to lean against it to keep his feet.
Okay, here’s the deal. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I mean, really. If this was how they always gave tests, it was amazing anyone survived.
But even though I didn’t know what was happening, that didn’t mean I was going to stand around while people were hurt.
First, stop the dude in the gate.
Right. Like I had any idea how to do that. And since I had no idea how to stop him, the next thing I could think to do was to save Sedra from his grip.
Zayvion stood again. I felt his anger, felt the calm Zen that kept his mind clear. He wove an intricate spell in the air with one hand and sang that lullaby waltz. Shamus was beside him, a bright shadow to his dark light, his hands extended in a hell of a Shield spell.
They looked good together. Like they had done this sort of thing before.
Another man joined them, Victor. Tall, lean, fit, dark-haired. Older. He took the place to Zayvion’s right, and fell into rhythm with his chant, sang with him, building a spell that licked with silver light.
While Sedra marched toward the gate.
I felt Zayvion hold his breath. He and Victor threw the spell at the same time. It skittered over Sedra, past her, a wind of silver and gray, a shatter of glass that tore into the gate and burned into it like a maelstrom of silver embers.
The man in the gate looked away from Sedra, as if noticing other people in the room for the first time.
“Victor, and your favored student. Why have you betrayed me?”
“Mikhail,” Victor said. “Let Sedra go. You cannot cheat death. No man is immortal. It violates the true ways of magic.”
“True ways?” Mikhail snarled. “Do you think you follow the truth? You follow the enemy among you. Light cannot be separated from darkness. I was a fool to assume the old ways could withstand the change. This—” He pulled, and the rope tightened on Sedra. She yelled, and stumbled forward again, but still didn’t do so much as raise a hand in her own defense. “—This is what comes of truth. Lies. Deceit. Betrayal.”
He gestured with one hand, tracing an arc from his left to his right. The burning, shattered glass tearing holes in the gate extinguished like a candle in a breeze.
“I will have what is rightfully mine.�
� Mikhail spread his fingers, as if throwing seed upon the ground.
The Hungers behind him burst through the gate, claws scrabbling upon dark stone. And they ran straight for me.
Chapter Eighteen
Great. Just what I needed. Slathering hell beasts from the other side of death out to kill me. And me without any magical kibble.
I was so freaked out, I was flat calm. I wove a spell for Shield and cast it, while checking in to see if maybe my dad was still in my head and awake, and might want to give me a hint as to what else I could do to save myself.
No luck. Dad was silent as a tomb. Those beasts hit my Shield with the force of a Mack truck.
Plan B would be good right about now. Really great, as a matter of fact.
I concentrated on feeding magic into the glyph, to keep the Shield strong. The beasts tore at it with fangs and claws, sucking at it, draining it.
I had maybe four or five seconds before they broke through.
Zay told me throwing magic at them wouldn’t work. I traced another glyph to shield me, and buy me time to think.
The nightmare in front of me sliced in half.
Zayvion was there, his machete in hand, carving through the creatures. Beyond him, I saw Victor wielding a sword that burned with silver flame. Shamus clapped his gloved hands together, and when he pulled them apart the Hunger in front of him exploded into black fire in midleap. Shamus held his arms wide, his mouth open, and drank the fire down.
Jingo Jingo was more subtle, wading out among a knot of Hungers and grabbing them with his big hands, sucking the magic out of them with his touch alone.
Kevin moved through the room like a tai chi master, each circle of his hands, each flowing movement pouring out a wavering, glossy impact of magic that tore the Hungers in half.
Chase was there too. And what did you know, she had an ax in one hand and a hatchet in the other, magic trailing behind each strike like electric acid.
Fuck this damsel-in-distress bit. If I survived this, I wasn’t signing up for self-defense classes, I was signing up for battle training.
More and more of the beasts poured out of the gate, a black wave of muscle and fang. So many, they filled the room.
My Shield broke; Zayvion pressed the machete into my hands and pulled a glass-bladed whip from out of thin air.
