Rogue Magic

by McKenzie Hunter

  Keeping his distance, he watched me with acute interest, a conflicting smile that was both cruel and enchanting playing at his lips. Raising a brow, he said, “Do you wonder what happened to the cat? Did your intervention help anything, or is he now struggling to stay alive?” Self-satisfaction danced along the planes of his face. “Here you are, one half of any chance he has to survive if the arrow didn’t miss. What a quandary to find yourself in.”

  He walked with leisurely, graceful steps, enjoying every moment. Splitting my attention between him and my environment, I tried to find the border of the ward while listening to everything around me. I paid close attention, listening for the sounds of padding steps to make sure one of his creatures wasn’t around. Nothing. It was just the two of us.

  “What do you want?” I asked, venom lacing my words. I couldn’t indulge him. One on one, I knew I wouldn’t be able to best him with magic. He was stronger and more experienced and wore the knowledge with arrogance. He started to inch closer to me.

  “You’ve opened the way for more Legacy to come forward. You think that will work to your advantage—it won’t.” Cruel confidence inched over his face, kindled by my irritation. “The odd thing about magic and science: It’s peculiar how they interact. Who would have thought that a virus the humans had been working on for years could be cured with the blood of a Legacy and an ignesco? Savannah, how eager she is to help. I felt it when I was there in her mind. She’s a sweet woman; I see why you like her. She’s rather enthusiastic, isn’t she?”

  The mention of Savannah’s name and the mocking reminder of what he’d done to her ignited anger in me that wasn’t easily controlled. Magic shot from me like a cannon and he went back several feet. The edges of the ward wavered, and I saw where that world ended. Before he could come to his feet, I hit him with another blast of magic. I went on the offense and attacked, forcing him to focus his energy on me and not on maintaining the ward. Sparks of magic twirled around my hands, electric, prickling at my fingertips; it shot from me and wrapped around him in a cocoon of vibrant colors. I concentrated, holding the binding around him, moving farther away from him toward the ward, waiting for it to waver and fall. I kept my magic trained on him, refusing to divert any of it to break the ward.

  “You get out of here, and then what, Anya? You try to reverse what I did to Savannah? It’s highly unlikely that you can. You are a murderer to her. Her hate stems from her memories of your brutality and cruelty. Visions of you ruthlessly and needlessly killing the people I loved, while making me watch. And now she’s sought safety from you. The shifters won’t let you near her. She’s afraid, and your attempt to undo what I did failed. She’s more afraid of the things you’ve done than any memories I could give her. She doesn’t trust you, Lucas, or Gareth. Do you think she will be so willing to help now? With all the attacks, I’m sure there isn’t much of the antidote left.”

  My yanking at the magical threads around him pulled a yelp from him. “I’ll undo whatever you’ve done to her.” My assertion had more confidence than I felt. The tighter the binding wrapped around him, the more confident I became.

  “Oh Anya, you fight so diligently, for what? The humans have turned on you. We might not have the Cleanse, but they’ve started a purge. They’ll start with the obvious supernaturals and then go after those humans who have any magical DNA. The only ones left will be us—the way it should be.”

  “Who’s behind it? You know, don’t you?”

  I cringed at the sound of his ominous, dark chuckle. He’d always been misguided, but now he seemed excessively cruel, calculated, and heartless. Or perhaps he was always that way and the person he’d formerly presented had given me the impression he could be reasoned with.

  “After I healed from your cat’s attack, I made it my mission to find out who it is. The odd thing about humans and radicals is that they will work with those they despise if it furthers their agenda. All I had to do was make sure they wouldn’t fail again. I suspect the next attack won’t have a plucky little blonde and her Legacy partner making an effort to save the supernatural world. You’ll never get her to help. The poor woman is just wracked with nightmares and memories of all the cruel acts of the Legacy, you especially. She won’t go near one, and the way I left her the last time has her terrified of all other supernaturals except shapeshifters. If Gareth is alive, how will he make the ones harboring her comply? Force? The Shifter Council is a force to be reckoned with. Shall he use the Supernatural Guild’s magic wielders to get them to drop their vow to protect her? Of course, their magic doesn’t work on them, only ours.” Conner’s eyes danced with satisfaction.

  I let the threads fall and punched a ball of magic into his chest. He expelled a sharp, short breath. His cough mutated into a dark crow of laughter.

  Curling into himself, he guarded his chest against my magic. After several moments he spoke, his eyes still alight with anger and spite, and the emptiness of a man who had nothing to lose. “Would being with me be so bad? Bad enough to warrant what you have now? Does it warrant having me as an enemy?”

  “You have me as one, too. If the past is any indicator of what is to come then you know how things will turn out. I kicked your ass before and I have no problem doing it again.”

  Gray eyes clouded with anger as he came to his feet, shooting magic I hadn’t been prepared for. Hit hard, I went back several feet and crashed on my butt. He was standing over me before I could get up. His foot came down hard on my ankle and I howled in pain. I rolled out of the way before he could do it again. When his magic hit me from that close, it was excruciating. A rainbow of colors flashed before me. I blinked several times and when my vision cleared, I lurched up. Or at least I tried. I was pinned to the ground, Conner standing over me. He was magic; it wafted off him like heat from the sun, intense and unrestrained.

  “Let me go,” I said, struggling against the hold.

  “You do realize in the end, if you’re not dead, I will have you. But you will be pursuing me. What do you think will happen when all the supernaturals are gone and the only ones left are the Legacy and Vertu? They will wonder about their fate, too, and those who remain will be looking for a way for preservation. I will be the answer.” He leaned in even closer, his lips inches from mine, and I vowed to bite them off if he touched me. My thoughts must have shown on my face because he inched back just a smidge.

  “You won’t last very long,” he growled before he disappeared. Able to move again, I got to my feet and walked to the edge to the vast area. I knew he was near, observing me in the space of his design. Darker than what it was on the other side, or what it had been when I’d left. I had no idea how long I’d been in his little world. Quickly, I moved toward the edge of the wavering ward and pushed my finger into it. Colors of pink, blue, and teal came off it. It seemed so innocuous, but I was sure it was anything but. Concentrating, I called in a great deal of magic, afraid to use so much that I’d be too fatigued to defend myself against Conner if he showed up again. I weighed the pros and cons. I needed to get out of there and make sure Gareth was okay, and if he wasn’t I’d have to somehow convince Michael to get Savannah to the hospital.

  I pushed, and it wavered, extending to its limit and then rebounding with a snap. I called on more magic, stronger, more virulent. It was like using dynamite when a sledgehammer would do, and I felt like something was detonating in me. My body hummed and warmed and I yelled in pain as the magic ripped from me. The ward fell with such a powerful force it rebounded into me. I hit a tree a couple of feet away.

  “Good luck,” Conner’s jovial voice whispered in the air as I ran. I looked around the area and had no idea where I was. I hated when he did that. My phone had survived the fall and I pulled it out of my back pocket and started to call Gareth. Hang on, give it a few minutes. Five minutes became ten. After several calls to his phone went straight to voicemail, I gave up on reaching him and accepted that the arrow hadn’t missed. My next impulse was to call Savannah. Exhaling a breath
of resolve, I called Kalen instead. It took him thirty minutes to get the location that my phone indicated as my whereabouts.

  Blu was with him. She was always with him. One chance meeting and they were now joined at the hip. “I’m so glad you are okay,” she said, opening the door.

  Giving her a tight smile, I slipped into the backseat of the work SUV, which didn’t look like the type of vehicle anyone would use to haul most of the junk we found. It was functional but far from utilitarian—Kalen considered a fully loaded luxury SUV a “work” vehicle.

  “Have you heard from Gareth?” I asked hopefully. He and Blu were friends and he’d introduced me to her.

  Her thick, coarse ringlets were pulled away from her face with a decorative silk scarf, giving me an unobstructed view of her face. I could see her jaw tense and her eyes close. “He, Mason, and Victor are at the Isles, along with nine other people who were attacked on the street in Forest Park,” she said softly. Blu’s voice, which was usually wispy and light, was now heavy and strained. It took several moments for her tense scowl to melt.

  “Chaos and discord,” Kalen said quietly, focusing on the street.

  “Discord?”

  “People are afraid. Rumors about the Legacy are surfacing. There’s talk that the SG isn’t able to control the supernaturals and with Harrah’s…” Blu’s voice drifted off. The tension that tore through the silence swelled. The heaviness of guilt was getting the best of me. I was to blame for some of the things that had occurred. I should have let Harrah live; she could have fixed this mess. Sometimes deals with the devil had to be made. That was also what Conner was doing, and he was kicking my ass.

  “Can you take me to the Isles?” I asked.

  Kalen made a noise of disapproval. “I think your first stop should be the Shapeshifter Council to try to convince Michael to bring Savannah to the hospital. They don’t have enough serum to treat everyone, and the shapeshifters are being…well, shifters. They’ve built their wall of protection and no one is able to get through to them.”

  “And you think I can? I don’t have the best negotiation skills”—I looked around the SUV—“and I don’t have my ‘play nice’ sticks.”

  “I don’t think your sai are going to help you as much as your magic.”

  Kalen had the look of a betrayer and I had a feeling that the person he’d betrayed was himself. It cast a dark shadow over his face. He was suggesting that I take Savannah by force if necessary. My eyes met his in the rearview mirror.

  Flashes of my interactions with Savannah ran through my head, and I tried to cling to them for the levity they evoked because things were going to take a turn—a bad turn—if I had to use force to get her. Even though I’d fought a shifter Tracker and won, I wasn’t so sure how I’d fare against a group of them.

  “I’d like my sai,” I said softly. They were probably at the SG building. Or at least I hoped they were.

  Sai sheathed to my back, we went through the same security check Gareth and I’d experienced at the gate of the castle-like home. Michael and his welcoming party, a group of ten shifters, met me outside. Giving the small pack a quick once-over, I gathered I was working with a bear, a couple of felines, and definitely some wolves. Great. The moment I got out of the car, some of the guesswork was solved for me. Several had shifted to animals in the short time it took to approach them. There was a leopard, a cheetah, two wolves, and a badger. I wasn’t expecting the waiflike redheaded man to shift into what was essentially a stocky weasel with anger issues.

  At their not so subtle display of aggression, Kalen and Blu started to get out of the car. “Stay, I have this,” I advised them over my shoulder.

  Haughtiness flitted across Michael’s features and his brows arched in dissension. “Really.” His eyes immediately went to the pack of people and animals next to him.

  “I didn’t come here for a fight,” I said softly. Diplomacy, Levy, you can do it. If you can practice it with a sociopathic megalomaniac, you can do it with a few well-intentioned jackasses. But they were wearing that jackassery with special pride, as if there was an award involved or something. I felt like I was in a nightclub with the various glows of shifter rings in front of me.

  “Believe it or not, I’m helping Savannah. If she comes out of this and knows that people died because of her, she’ll never forgive herself. She’s not in her right mind. I respect the promise you made to protect her and I don’t want to cause you to violate it, but you have to talk some sense into her. Explain to her that people will die. If nothing else, that will change her mind.”

  Michael emerged from the jackass assembly, maintaining an air of arrogance and staunch confidence that annoyed me in the same manner it had when I’d first met Gareth.

  “Her fear of you is odd, Ms. Michaels. I can’t figure out how a woman who once lived with you has such an extreme fear of and hate for you. I’ve never seen anything like this. I consider myself a person who can hate with a passion like no other.”

  Is he actually bragging about being a master of hating people? Who brags about that?

  “It’s magic and I’m trying to figure out a way to reverse it, but I’m pleading with you to get her to the Isles to give blood.” I sucked in a breath, pulling a lot of my pride in with it, too. “Michael, I have a feeling that if anyone can convince her to do it, you can.”

  Groveling didn’t taste like chicken—more like rolled-up mud that had been sautéed with sewage. I wasn’t a fool; threatening to kick their asses wouldn’t help. Plus, I doubted I could. The angry, fat, bushy-tailed weasel looked like he was itching for a fight. All Michael had to do was give the signal and the feisty rodent would probably attack the hell out of my ankle. I had to use my words to convince them to find the goodwill to help.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Isles was exactly how I’d expected it to be when I walked in. Panic, worry, and poorly suppressed anger coursed over the faces of most of the staff. Dr. Patterson, the physician we’d met after the attack at the Solstice festival and whose name I had to find out because referring to him as Dr. Condescension seemed rude, was waiting at the entrance. I hadn’t had a chance to change or clean myself up and purposely avoided the mirror. I could feel the bruising on my arm and a hurried brush of my hand over my hair was all I needed to know it was a mess. Looking presentable was the least of my worries. There were so many bigger priorities than grooming. Get to Menta Island, find the Culded plant, stroke Michael’s ego enough to convince him to let me cast a spell on Savannah, deal with Conner, and find the people responsible for the virus. The latter was probably going to be handled by the SG and the FSR but I wanted to see the person who was behind it. That was a total lie. I really wanted to see what they looked like after I smashed their face into the ground. So, looking presentable to offer blood to save people wasn’t anywhere on the list.

  Dr. Patterson waved at me absently as he kept his eyes on the entrance door, probably waiting on Savannah. I suspected he remembered we were friends and thought we’d arrive together. Frustration lay heavily over his features. It had to be difficult to be a defenseless mage. Between his magic and medicine, he probably always had answers, and now his options were reduced to depending on the assistance of two random people. One from a group reviled and thought to be extinct and the other a peculiar woman with an obtuse magical ability. An ability I was sure he’d had to research based on the look he’d given Savannah when she’d told him what she was when we’d worked to heal victims of the Solstice festival attacks. When a look of reproach fluttered along the lines of his face, I wondered if he was thinking about his last encounter with the vivacious blonde who was just short of doing her “I told you so” dance but had forced some modicum of decorum for his benefit.

  “She’s coming,” I said, sprightly, thankful he wasn’t a shifter. Unfortunately, the woman next to him was, and she shot me a look of censure. I wasn’t going to modify my statement. Hope was all I had, and it was placed on a stranger: Michael.

  “F
ollow me, at least I can get your offerings.”

  My brows rose at his suggestion. Who speaks like that? It’s okay to say, “Let me take your blood,” Dr. Highfalutin’.

  Highfalutin’ or not, he was obviously grateful for my “offerings” and spent most of the time he drew blood thanking me. Something he likely didn’t do often. I was a special case. The idea to tell him that Elijah was in town and could help popped into my head, but he really couldn’t help without Savannah. Ignesco. It was a matter of time before they were on the “hot new supernaturals” list. A magical booster—a talent that I viewed as laughable at best—just seemed so innocuous. She couldn’t perform magic, borrow it from others, or do anything other than help those with magic. How was that even a thing? But it was, and her ability had saved a lot of lives. My heart clenched. There had to be a time when thinking about Savannah and her absence from my life wouldn’t cause such heaviness in my heart. This was dangerous—I’d always believed that if necessary, I could leave. Go AWOL and start over without a second thought, and maybe a couple of years ago that would have been the case. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I was thinking about that and the list of things I had to do—make sure Gareth was okay, find a cure for Savannah, find out who was responsible for the attacks, locate more Legacy and Vertu—as I navigated through the hospital to find the room where they had Gareth. My emotions rolled off me so strongly that Gareth frowned when I walked into his room.

  Based on the scowl, he was running on pure anger. “Who pissed you off?” he asked, making an attempt at a half-smile. He failed. It didn’t quite make it to his eyes.