Enchanter's Echo

by Anise Rae

  The obey charm was hellishly sensitive to have activated from his pocket. But it was done.

  Bull held out his hands. “As it happens, we have an opening. You’ll have to earn it though. Since you’re...you know…”

  Edmund stiffened. Bull had recognized him.

  “…a complete stranger and all.” He bared his lips. Perhaps it was meant to be a smile. “But don’t worry. It won’t be bad.”

  Bull apparently had a unique definition of the word. Edmund hadn’t trusted Bull’s words then, nor had he trusted them as they’d marched to the metallist’s shop, nor as the gang had gathered and the initiation began and continued without end. Night fell. A new day dawned. At least Edmund thought that was a new day coming. Perhaps something had fallen loose in his brain from one of the blows to his head and now he was seeing light where there was none. He was still standing though.

  He had his brother to thank for that. The two had spent much of their childhood fighting each other, testing one another. When Vin had gone off to the army, Edmund had kept up his training. He could still hold his own with his brother, that is, until Vin would get bored with the fight and take him down. But Edmund never made it easy for him.

  He eyed all twenty-two gang members, wondering which one was next. They’d watched every minute of his initiation—from being tossed against the trash towers to fights at the far side of the metallist’s shop, and more fights here in front of the shop. Edmund suspected the locations had been carefully timed to keep him out of Aurora’s sight.

  The gangly kid to his left scrunched up his nose. “Bull, tell me again why we’re still doing this to him? I, uh, can’t remember.” It hadn’t been hard to figure out the boy was the lowest rank in the gang, but the kid wasn’t stupid. He’d recognized Edmund from the start, obvious from his wide eyes when he first caught sight of him. But the kid had stayed silent, reading his leader’s signals.

  “If Miss Aurora told you he’d be a good ganger,” the kid continued, “then she might not be happy about us beatin’ the vibes out of him. You know how nice she likes everybody to act.”

  Edmund knew Aurora hadn’t told Bull anything about him, though it had made for a cunning excuse on Bull’s part.

  “Initiation, Keene,” Bull growled. “Focus.”

  “Well, I’ve been focusing for a day.” Keene ticked off one finger. “A night.” Finger two. “And now a day again.” Finger three. “And I’m ’bout out.” Of course, the kid had two more fingers left.

  Goddess help him if this initiation went on for two more fingers.

  “If my initiation had gone on this long, I woulda croaked dead vibes ’bout ten fights ago. Not even dipping me in the mark’s power woulda revived me.”

  “He’s only fought eight, Keene.” Standing next to the fire in the burn barrel, the oldest gang member spoke with a patience and respect for the kid that everyone else seemed to lack.

  Eight fights? Was that all? A mash of fists and takedowns blurred together too much to remember, but he knew he’d come out on top every time. He’d paid for it though. His right cheek throbbed, his left pinkie finger might be broken, and his right knee was screaming. He didn’t have a ninth fight in him, despite the three...or was it four...rests they’d given him, including some kind of food that hadn’t registered as anything familiar to his taste buds.

  Bull sauntered inside the circle of gangers. For all his bulk, the man moved as light as a fencer. He yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

  Edmund held his ground. But, damn, this was going to hurt. He was in good shape, muscles lined his body from regular training and workouts, but Bull had rips and cuts on his torso that Edmund hadn’t known were possible.

  “What was your name again?” Bull cracked his knuckles.

  The jig was up. Truth be told, the music had never even started for this jig. The obey charm apparently had a life span the length of a nanosecond or so. Way too short to have cost him so much. Edmund had yet to determine Bull’s game, but figuring out the rules as he played was Edmund’s specialty.

  “The name’s Mundie.” It was close enough to the truth to count. “With all due respect, your memory appears short.”

  “Just checking on ya. Making sure we hadn’t rattled anything loose in there.” Bull clamped his hand down on Edmund’s head and shook it. “So it’s like Monday or something?”

  Edmund shrugged. “I was born on a Monday.” Truth. “My mom struggled to keep track of her kids.” Truth. But his brother had been born on the same day. Twins were usually like that.

  “Huh. So who’s your brother? Tuesday?”

  He shrugged away Bull’s question.

  “So Monday. You got a last name.” Bull hadn’t managed to wring it out of him yet. And he wouldn’t. “You gonna tell me what it is?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, Edmund’s right cheek re-detonated in a fiery pain. The punch came so fast Edmund hadn’t seen it. The hit forced him to the left and he went with his momentum, escaping the next fist in the process. He took Bull down at the knees. The big guy landed on top of him, leaving Edmund flat on his back with the thickest arm in the Republic against his throat and knife-sharp pebbles cutting into his back. The parking lot was rockier than it looked.

  “You want in?” Bull’s eyes were black pits, but his teeth gleamed.

  Blasted hells, what he’d give to wipe that smirk off Bull’s face with a flash of vibes. Wouldn’t take much, but it would break every rule in the junkyard as concerned initiations. Instead, he kept himself busy trying to find air. It was an all-encompassing activity with Bull’s mass on top of him. “I fulfilled…requirements.” He gasped through the little space left in his windpipe. “Took down eight of you. Rules say two.”

  “You know the rules, do you? How’s that? Aurora sure as fuck didn’t tell you.”

  Edmund knew everything about this territory. It was his. “I earned my spot.” The soundless words managed to communicate his sense of unfairness. “You’re breaking the rules.” Dark splotches danced in front of his eyes.

  “You’re special, Monday.”

  “I’m beginning to think—” big pause for gulping air “—maybe you don’t want me.” Another hoarse gasp. “All this is just to beat the shit out me as the young man so aptly put it.”

  “Oh, I want you. We need someone who can use the word aptly and all those other bullshit fancy words. You’re an expansion pack for our vocabulary. I just had to be sure, Monday, this is where you want to be. The junkyard gang defends the most important land in the territory. Some might think the fucking fortress on the other side of the city ranks as the shit. But it isn’t. This territory can’t function without the towers, yet we are the lowest of all the warrior mages. We’re dirt. Lower than farmers. You join with us, you’ll be like us.”

  “Maybe I’ll elevate your social status,” Edmund gasped.

  Bull tightened his arm. “With your mere presence?”

  He choked against Bull’s arm. “With my impressive vocabulary.”

  The other man smirked. “Be my guest. But it’s not too late. You can walk out. Now. No harm done. No repercussions.”

  “Bull,” the older man spoke up. “I think he wants to be here. Let’s finish this and get back to business. For some reason our girl’s got a line of people out her shop door. Think we ought to see to it.”

  Bull tilted his head at Edmund. “Back to the business of guarding the heart of the Pipe. That’s the destiny you’re binding yourself to.”

  He already had actually. He was born destined to guard the entire territory. “I want in.” His rough gasp was mostly intelligible.

  “Then you’re in.” For a moment, Bull’s eye brightened with excitement. That glimmer likely meant nothing good for Edmund, but so long as he didn’t die, he figured it would turn out all right. Worming his way out of trouble had always been sheer pleasure.

  His arms shook with the exertion of pressing against Bull’s beefy h
old. “Forgive me for asking, but if I’m in, why are you still trying to kill me?”

  “Sheer pleasure.”

  Edmund almost lost his grip at the phrase. This was the second, maybe third, time that Bull had repeated Edmund’s thoughts. Holy hells. Bull was a mind mage. That was why the obey charm hadn’t seemed to work. He hadn’t activated it after all. Bull had read his mind about joining the gang and offered to make it happen. Why?

  The black spots dotting the edges of his vision merged together just as Bull jumped up and yanked Edmund to his feet. Three quick pants of air stopped the black mass from encroaching further on his eyesight.

  “Two lines, Thorn.” Bull’s words were met with shouts of protest somewhere to his left.

  “Sure thing, boss,” the old man replied.

  “Two fucking full lines? He’s gonna be our Second?” One man had the balls to protest aloud. “I’m the Second. That’s not fair.”

  Second. This had gone better than he’d hoped.

  “Whine to your mama, Haines. Not me. He took you down. He took Jet down. He even took Potter down who was about to jump line for your job.”

  “Yeah, he even took me down.” The mocking voice belonged to Keene.

  “Shut up, Keene. Of course he took you down.” Haines spat, oblivious to the sarcasm in the kid’s words. “He has to work his way up.”

  “He just did.” The kid’s tone went flat.

  Smoke drifted to Edmund’s bloodied nose. Thorn was stoking the burn barrel at the outside of the circle.

  Bull stepped in front of him, blocking his view of Thorn. “Vow to protect the dark. To keep the shadows safe, to defend the sanctity of the Towers, to guard the health and safety of the territory.” Heavy power swirled through the ritual words.

  Edmund repeated after him. He knew the vow word for word. It was good business for a future senator to know who was responsible for what around his territory. Being appointed Second—he’d expected to start at the bottom—meant that he could order some of them to guard Aurora directly.

  “Protect all the good that dwells on these lands through the forbidden forest.”

  Through the forest? That was different.

  “I swear to the Goddess to protect all the good that dwells on these lands from here through the forest.” I swear to protect Aurora.

  “Or die a dishonorable death. And I will gladly render that to you. As would any here who witness your violation of this vow.”

  “Wait. We can kill him, too?” Keene interrupted the spiel. “Not just you? That’s not how it goes.”

  Haines scoffed. “Not you, Keene. You couldn’t kill him if he was tied down and an X marked the spot.”

  The smell hit Edmund first, the sharp tang of metal, as if he could already smell his own blood. Thorn raised the brand from the fire barrel. Compared to the pain that was coming, everything before had been little tickles.

  Bull smiled. “You’re so sworn. Now don’t move, pretty boy. Aurora’ll be mighty pissed if she has to make you a new eye, too.”

  The glow perched in the air, closing in on him and frying his eyesight. It smacked his face with a sizzle. A mass of pain seared his skin, his mind, his very being. Edmund’s bones froze, even as his muscles liquefied with the heat, but he didn’t move. Thank the goddess he didn’t move. The old man was so damn close to his eye.

  The scent of burning flesh—hot, crisp, and sickening—drowned his nose. It swirled into his lungs, stirring up a wave of nausea so strong he couldn’t swallow it down. All he could do was live with it. Live with the pain.

  A pat on his cheek sent knives through the burn. It was his only clue that the brand was complete.

  “Holy vibing darkness, he didn’t move,” Keene said, his voice audible over the shocked chatter of the other gang members. “Has anyone ever just stood there?”

  “Shut the hell up, Keene. I don’t think you’re even allowed to talk about him anymore. It took three guys to hold you still for a shitty dotted line,” someone answered.

  “Has anyone ever just stood there?” Another man spoke, awe in his tone.

  “Everyone, meet our new Second.” Bull’s hard voice silenced the gang. His hand landed on Edmund’s shoulder.

  He swayed.

  Bull continued. “Spread the word in the Pipe. Tell them a new protector has been marked. You can call him Monday.”

  Edmund sensed Bull’s spell as it fell down around him from head to foot, but he could do nothing to stop it. If it had been something less innocuous than a sound spell, he’d have been in trouble. Shit, he had to get his head out of this fog of pain.

  “But I’ll call you Rallis.” Bull’s words bounced around.

  “Why?” he slurred. “Why let me in?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? The heir obeys me now.”

  “I obey the vow.” Edmund formed the slow words within the desert his mouth had become.

  “Good enough. You guard from here to the last tower. No farther. And one more thing, you hurt her, you’re dead.”

  “Is she the good I’m protecting? She needs it.” The brand screamed for him to rip it off, but he didn’t dare lift a hand to touch it.

  “Maybe she won’t want you, now that you’re not so pretty. Two raised black lines. Forever marking our heir.”

  “Only two until I get the third.”

  Bull gave that slim, badass smile. “By all means. Prove yourself worthy of the last line. I look forward to it.” He dissolved the sound spell. Energy disbanded and fell away in strips of power to the ground. A messy cleanup. He shrugged. “We can’t all have the power levels of the founding families.”

  Thorn stepped up and handed mugs to Bull and Edmund.

  Behind him, Haines cursed and stomped off into the night.

  Edmund stared down into the black liquid. Goddess, what was this?

  “Oil,” the Bull answered his unasked question.

  Thorn laughed. “It ain’t oil. It’s beer.”

  “Tastes like oil.”

  Thorn shrugged. “Coats your insides with the dark just like we contaminate the light.” He raised his glass. “To our new Second and to the dark.”

  To catching the bastard who’s trying to destroy my land. To protecting her for the rest of my life.

  “To the dark,” he said. No more avoiding the fact that he was one of them.

  Now it was written on his face.

  Chapter 9

  Aurora opened the diner’s door, casting a silence spell on its bell. She didn’t need anything heralding her arrival. Hiding was the name of the game today.

  Three days ago, the afternoon edition of the Dispatch contained an article about her repair shop, resulting in a pandemic of broken appliances across the city. The victims had been rushed to her doorstep by their curious owners under the suddenly watchful eye of the gang. Even now, Thorn sat at a table by the door, having followed her in.

  She slumped into her usual booth, fighting the need to lay her head on the table to rest. She’d been working non-stop to catch up on the backlog. Plus, the promise she’d given Edmund meant she’d examined every customer with her mage sense, an exhausting process. Who wanted to look at the world with constant suspicion?

  Izzy arrived with a cup of coffee. Her friend tsked. “I knew that article was bad news the moment I saw it.”

  The article and its infinite customers weren’t the worst parts. That honor went to the fissures that kept appearing. Yesterday morning, she’d had to ask Thorn to check in appliances and hand out receipts while she dashed madly around the Drainpipe repairing the Rallis bond. She’d been at it ever since, working at the shop between fissures.

  It would have been more efficient if she and Edmund had trekked around together. But she had to keep her shop afloat among the flood of customers and Edmund had to do…well, what did an heir do? She frowned at the loneliness she had no business feeling.

  For whatever reason, their paths had merely chased e
ach other, one never catching the other. He’d tracked down new fissures and relayed directions to her through his calling charm. She’d gone out alone, sometimes trespassing through private property to get to the fissures, often at houses or businesses of people she knew, as if their culprit knew she’d be fixing them. But that was impossible. And what would she have said if she’d gotten caught? Edmund would have spun the perfect lie, but that wasn’t her style. Plus, she’d missed him keeping her warm one hand at a time.

  “You all right, darling?” Izzy put a hand on her arm. “That article really got to you, huh?”

  “I can’t even bring myself to open the shop this morning.”

  She didn’t have the energy to.

  If the fissures continued at this rate, repairing the mark would become her full-time job. With one rip in the bond after the other, her confidence in their victory had wilted under a steady drizzle of fear. They couldn’t fail. Edmund’s life was at stake. Everything was at stake. She rubbed her face, wishing she could lean into his arms…just for a moment.

  “You poor girl. Maybe you should ask the heir to sweep you away from all this.”

  “Ha.” Her bitter laugh surprised the people at the table next to her. “He’d sweep me away so thoroughly I might never see the Pipe again.” That is, if he ever had time to appear.

  “And that’s a bad thing, how?” Izzy asked.

  Instead of answering, Aurora took a sip of coffee. Sweet and hot on her tongue. Ambrosia.

  The bell on the diner’s door pealed again.

  “Careful with that stuff,” the waitress warned Aurora. “I put a little something in it. It should keep you going until about mid-afternoon. After that, expect to collapse face down in a toaster. So make sure you’re not driving after one o’clock, just to play it safe.”

  “No driving after one o’clock?” a woman chimed in.

  Aurora shifted her gaze to see Lady Rallis prowling forward and calculated how fast she could escape out the back door. She glanced at Thorn. His eyes were wide, helpless to protect her against Lady Rallis.