by Linsey Hall
Had it gotten brighter? My skin prickled, a sickly wariness turning my stomach. Was that the portal? Was it giving off even more weird magic?
I focused on the investigators, trying to ignore the nerves that crept along my spine and keep my magic under control. It didn’t take much, as long as I didn’t actively use it, but I needed to be extra wary.
“And you say Dr. Garriso just fell through? And then it shut?” the taller male investigator asked.
“Yes,” Madam Astrix said. “Though as it was described, he was sucked in.”
“Hmmm. Portals don’t do that,” he said.
The woman investigator raised her hands. Silvery light flowed from her fingertips, disappearing inside the portal. She said, “And this is clearly a portal.”
“It’s residual at this point. Failed magic,” the tall man said.
No. It didn’t feel failed. Something was off about it.
“So you don’t think it is anything more than a portal created by stupid thieves intent on stealing from a place that cannot be stolen from?” Madam Astrix asked.
“While that is possible, I doubt it,” the woman investigator said. “But we will retrieve Dr. Garriso. We’ll have to call in a Transporter to see if they can get through the barrier. In scenarios like this, their unique power helps them cross the closed portal.”
“Excellent. When can we expect them?” Madam Astrix’s worried gaze darted to the portal. “Dr. Garriso is not used to such hardship. He is a scholar.”
That was the truth. He had a brilliant mind and a cunning wit, and I’d no doubt he could handle himself in a fight, but only if it were an even fight. And you couldn’t count on even fights in this world.
“It shouldn’t be more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours,” the tall man said. “We’ll call in a transporter, but we only have two and both are on jobs right now. But they will come right away.”
I had to stifle a growl as my skin heated. A whole day? Maybe more?
“Is there nothing else you can do?” Madam Astrix frowned.
“Not at the present, though we can send our findings back to the Order and see what they have to say. We’ll also stay and monitor it for changes. It should close on its own as the magic fades. A week, maybe a bit longer. I’ve seen the like before.”
This was such bull.
The female investigator stiffened, her head jerking toward me. She sniffed, her nostrils flaring.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
Shit.
The heat on my skin wasn’t just anger. It was the invisibility charm fading. We were near the end of our hour. She’d be able to see us any second. I met Aidan’s gaze. He was thinking the same thing.
“The lights,” I mouthed. I wanted the cover of darkness as we fled back into the museum.
He nodded.
My magic reached out for his, calling for his Elemental Mage powers and finding the chill of ice. I breathed deeply as I embraced it, cold air in my lungs, and tried to control my power so they wouldn’t sense me. I raised my hand and threw tiny bullets of ice at the lights in the ceiling, small enough I hoped they wouldn’t see them.
They raced through the air, tiny pinpricks of ice, and shattered the bulbs.
I grinned. Damn, I was getting good at this.
Aidan did the same, blowing out the rest of the lights.
Darkness crashed. The investigators and administrators shouted, but I didn’t stick around to hear. I spun and raced into the darkened museum, my back now protected, Aidan at my side.
My breath heaved and lungs ached as I pushed myself faster, praying they wouldn’t get to a light and see my hair. The red was pretty distinct. Not to mention, Aidan wasn’t a subtle guy.
We streaked for cover along the wall, racing behind the looming statues toward the narrower hallway I knew lay at the other end. Footsteps pounded behind us as we darted into the dark hall.
Aidan spun and flung out his hands, sending a streak of power at the hall entrance. A thick wall of ice formed, glittery and blue even in the dark.
“That should take them a second,” he said. “But no time to waste.”
“Agreed.”
We turned and sprinted down the hall. Shouts sounded on the other side of the makeshift wall. As we neared the door at the end, I called upon my Mirror Mage power and accessed Aidan’s gift of the wind. It filled me, a cool breeze that brought joy in its wake. A torrent gusted from my fingertips and blew the door outward, breaking whatever lock had kept it closed.
“Nice one,” Aidan said as we sprinted into the dark night. “I hardly sensed your magic at all.”
“Thanks—” I panted, too exhausted to do anything but run. We raced across the grass and around the old library, then dove into Aidan’s car.
“Take the back way.” I dragged the seatbelt on.
“Not my first rodeo.”
I laughed and wheezed at the same time, peering over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming.
No one.
I leaned back against the seat, gulping air. “I really need to work on my cardio.”
Aidan laughed, his breathing short as well, and drove us away from the museum.
“What bastards,” I said as we passed through the business district. It’d taken me two neighborhoods to catch my breath. “Waiting a whole day?”
“Not everyone has a Transporter on hand.”
“No.” I reached toward the communication charm that hung around my neck. “But I do.”
I pressed on the silver pendant to turn it on. Comms charms were basically magical cellphones. Though I had a cellphone, I preferred this. No roaming charges.
“Del?” I said.
A moment later, her voice came through, along with what sounded like a fight. “Cass? What’s up?”
“I need your help.”
“Sure. I’m still dressed for business.”
Which meant leather instead of pj’s, if I knew Del. She had two modes: full throttle and couch.
“Can you meet me at my place?”
“Sure”—the sound of a scuffle interrupted—“stay down, you bastard!”
“You busy?”
“Just finishing an impromptu job.” A pained grunt echoed though the comms charm. Sounded masculine, so likely not Del’s. When she said she was still dressed for business, I guess she meant she was still doing business.
“Be safe,” I said.
“Almost done. Meet you at your place in thirty.”
“Thanks. Good luck.”
I pressed the charm again to turn it off. A few minutes later, we pulled back onto Factory Row. P & P was hopping, more of the late-night crowd having shown up for Connor’s fancy cocktails. Laughter echoed across the street as the door opened and someone ducked inside the party.
Aidan parked, and I jumped out and crossed the street to the green door beside Ancient Magic. I ran my hands along the edges to unlock the protection spells, then pushed the door open as Aidan joined me. He followed me up the three flights of stairs, past Nix’s place on the first floor and Del’s on the second, until we reached my landing. In addition to the shop on the bottom floor, we rented the whole top three floors of the building, over twelve thousand square feet combined. One floor for each of us.
I pushed open the door to my tiny apartment. About fifteen percent of my floor was living space, and what there was was crappy. But it was home. The good part, my trove, was hidden behind a secret door in my bedroom. That was where my priorities lay and my paycheck went.
The quiet of my apartment crashed around me. It’d been so go-go-go since this afternoon that nothing had had a chance to hit me. And the familiarity of this place—the battered furniture, the faded wallpaper, the empty PBR can on the coffee table—made me think how much about myself was no longer familiar.
Suddenly, I was exhausted. I sat on the couch and tried to keep the sigh from heaving out of me. “We’ll wait for Del here.”
Aidan joined me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Aidan tugged me against his side, and I melted into him. “I believe both of those statements, but there’s a hell of a lot more you’re not telling me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ve got to trust me, Cass. I want more than just a date with you—which it looks like we’ll never get a chance to have—so we’re going to have to start sharing our dark secrets without it.”
“Didn’t we already do that?” We’d had a pretty good heart-to-heart last week.
“No, we told each other about our tragic Lifetime-TV-movie-childhoods. I’m talking about whatever it is that made you not call me back while I was away and whatever this guilt is that you’re feeling over Dr. Garriso.”
“Shouldn’t I feel guilty? I got cocky with my magic and was reckless. I should’ve gone for something different. Fire. Lightning.”
“There’s no way to know what would have worked better. And I think you’re reaching with the guilt.”
“I just feel so out of control now. My magic is getting better, and I love it. Like, really love it. But I’ve been changing.” I reached for the dagger strapped to my thigh and fiddled with it, a nervous habit. “It’s like using my magic ignited the FireSoul part of me that I’ve been ignoring. And now that it’s awake, I don’t like what I’m finding.”
“What do you mean?”
My mind flashed back to a week ago, when I’d last killed and stolen another supernatural’s magic. Sickness twisted my insides. “I didn’t tell you what happened when I stole the Shifter’s power back in Turkey.”
“Then tell me now.”
“It’s like something came over me. This enormous hunger to take her power. Like an addiction. It’s not that I have a problem stealing powers from bad people—I can use it to fight the Monster that hunts me—but it’s the fact that I was compelled to do it. And that I liked doing it. Shouldn’t that be wrong? Shouldn’t I be more in control?”
“I don’t know.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But I do know that power can be addictive. It’s basic. It’s survival. It’s hard to fight that kind of pull when you have access to it.”
I glanced up at him. His jaw was set, and he stared toward the door.
“Sounds like you know something about it,” I said.
“Yeah, a bit.” He reached up and rubbed a hand over his face. “The Origin has a lot of power. But it can twist a person. I told you about my father.”
I nodded. Madness ran in his family, spurred on by the immense amount of power that the Origins possessed. Aidan’s dad had ended up killing two other Alpha Council members. Aidan had had a rough childhood with a murderer for a father.
“But it’s not just that. There’s something more basic to the pursuit of power. At least, the kind I think you’re dealing with. When I first started shifting into a griffin, it was this enormous surge of power. I was the strongest mythical creature—besides dragons, which no one can shift into—and could terrify or kill whatever I wanted. The griffin knew this. When I shifted, I wasn’t entirely myself. The griffin held the reins too. Like your FireSoul. The magic part and the human part trying to live in harmony. It took me a long time to get it under control.”
I shivered, the image of Aidan in his griffin form sharp in my mind. He was terrifying in that form, though beautiful. “So I was right to be afraid of you in your griffin form.”
“Not anymore. The griffin urges are still there, but I’ve banked them so far down that I’m in control now. You will be too.”
“How?”
“Practice.”
“Always practice.”
“Always. But it means the urge to take other supernaturals’ magic isn’t really your fault. It’s the FireSoul in you. Part of you, but not all you.”
“But what if it takes over? Makes me try to steal good people’s powers?” I didn’t say the worst part. That to steal them, I’d have to kill. That was my biggest fear. Killing when I didn’t have to, just to take the power.
He reached an arm around me and squeezed me to his side. “You won’t. You’ll fight it. The power is seductive, but you’ll find your way to the other side.”
I hugged him, breathing in his forest scent. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
“I’ve got a few years on you.”
“Not that many.”
“Then I’m just a genius.”
I grinned up at him, then raised my head to kiss him.
A knock sounded at the door.
“We really need to find a few minutes when we’re not running for our lives or someone else’s,” I muttered. “Because we cannot catch a break.”
“Agreed.” The heat in his gaze burned me.
Reluctantly, I pulled out of Aidan’s arms and stood. “Come on in, Del!”
The door opened, and Del stepped through. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her blue eyes stood out starkly in her pale face. More blood splattered her black leather jacket, visible only by its gleam and my keen eye.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” I said. “Finish beating up whatever demon you caught?”
“Yeah. That’s what I get for thinking I was on a break. Claire needed help with a particularly iffy job, so I volunteered.”
“Ready to volunteer again?”
“Born ready.” She waggled her eyebrows.
I laughed at the awful joke, punch-drunk from exhaustion. I’d been in how many fights or run-for-my-life situations today? I was going to need to sleep for a week when this was over.
“So what do you need?” Del asked as she sat in the chair by the window.
The memory of our task sent Dr. Garriso’s face into my mind’s eye. Worry followed. I paced in tight little lines as I told her about the investigators and the portal. “So I need you to take me through. Tonight. The Magica are too slow. We can’t leave Dr. Garriso there for another day.”
“Agreed. Shall we get Nix?”
“Yes. More help, the better.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Del stood. “Lead the way.”
“Thanks.” I’d never doubted she would do it. “Now we need a plan to get past the Magica.”
4
Getting past the Magica turned out to be easier than I’d expected. Connor had just enough ingredients left to make invisibility potion for the four of us, and Del transported us straight to the portal entrance. It was a short distance from Factory Row, so it wasn’t a big drain on her transportation magic. She’d still be able to get us through the portal and back out, thank magic. I really hadn’t wanted to sneak through the museum again.
Once had been enough for me, thanks.
When we appeared in front of the portal, all of my muscles tensed. The two guards leaned against the wall, their gazes on the portal, and one of the Magica investigators stood by the entrance, a phone pressed to his ear.
The air felt strange, as if it were thicker. I shook it off. Probably getting paranoid. Being invisible wasn’t as fun as I’d expected.
None of them looked our way. My shoulders relaxed slightly. Thank magic for Connor’s skill with a cauldron. I turned back to Del. The portal glowed purple on her face as she reached out to touch it. Her hand stopped just before passing through.
Still closed.
She nodded and reached out for our hands. I clasped hers and Nix gripped her other. Aidan’s hand folded around mine. A second later, I felt the familiar pull of the ether.
Within the space of a breath, we appeared on the other side. The air was hot and humid, then dry and cold, flashing back and forth. We stood in a desert, golden sand stretching out around us. Then the vision wavered.
Suddenly, we were standing in a jungle, green foliage spread out around us and animals screeched in the distance. Enormous leaves rustled overhead and the jungle air felt like hot soup. The ground was spongy beneath my feet. But none of it looked quite solid or real. At times I thou
ght I heard laughter or voices, as if there were people nearby. Then it was gone.
A second later, we were standing in an abandoned city. Cold wind whipped through the empty streets. Skyscrapers soared toward a sunless sky, and eerie quiet descended. Paper blew across the street in front of us, and an old brown sedan sat forsaken. It looked like a movie about the apocalypse.
But worse, the feel of dark magic washed over me, a horrible prickly sensation. My stomach turned.
“The Monster,” I whispered.
Del’s hand tightened in mine. “I feel it.”
“This is his place,” Nix said as the scenery around us wavered, turning back to desert and then to an icy hellscape. The snow glittered white under the light of a non-existent sun.
Where the hell was the light even coming from?
“What is it?” Aidan asked.
“I have no idea.” I shuddered, the cold streaking through me. “It’s not real and it’s not anywhere on Earth. This magic is too strange. Too strong.”
“I think it’s a waypoint between Earth and the heavens and hells,” Del said. “I’ve read about these places. Nothing is stable or solid.”
“Oh, great. So we’re not on Earth.” That had never been on my travel itinerary before. For good reason. “Let’s find Dr. Garriso and get the hell out of here.”
My skin still prickled with unease, an undeniable sense that the Monster was near. Whispers teased at my ears, snippets of conversation I couldn’t quite grasp. As if there were people in a room just next door.
I tried to force my heartbeat to calm and closed my eyes, focusing on Dr. Garriso. I called forth my dragon sense to find him, filling my mind with images of his face and everything I held dear about him.
His support, his conversation, his knowledge.
The familiar sense of direction tugged at my middle, pulling me left. Relief filled me, a balm that drove away some of the horrible prickly feeling of this place. I wouldn’t be able to find him if he weren’t alive.
I pointed. “That way.”
My boots crunched in the ice as we set off. My leather jacket did me no good. My skin was so cold it almost burned.
“Fake Antarctica was not where I expected to end up,” Nix said.
