The Magic

by Donna Augustine

  But I needed to get him alone. I’d never fought a Dark Walker who didn’t have the mist around him. All of the ones I’d fought had been ill. I didn’t know how I’d fare against one in prime shape, which seemed to be the case here. If I could get him alone, it would be best. But if I couldn’t, I’d take my chances anyway.

  Loretta, who’d been silent this whole time, walked over and laid a small black box with buttons on the table beside him.

  “Is the channel set up?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That’ll be all for now.”

  I watched as Loretta walked from the room. This was too easy. Things didn’t go this easy. Maybe he thought I wasn’t a threat, but we were going to see soon.

  “I have something you might want to see before you try something foolish.”

  He picked up the box and the wood panel over the fireplace slid back, revealing a screen with a moving picture in it. I remembered seeing these things at the Cement Giant. They’d used them to spy on the girls without having to be in the same room. There was no sound, but there was a woman eating at a dining table in a room that looked like it had been designed for this house.

  I split my time between looking at him and the screen.

  “Do you recognize her? It’s been a while, but they do say a child never forgets their mother,” he said.

  I turned back to look at the woman again as she continued to eat. It was her. My mother, who had handed me over to monsters when I was four, was in the same house as me. I guessed “they” were finally right about something. Figured it had to be now.

  “What’s she doing here?” My tone was cold enough to form icicles.

  “I’m not keeping her against her will. She enjoys the benefits of friendship I offer.” He held up his hand as if he needed help counting. “We go way back—about fifteen years, to be precise.”

  Fifteen years ago I was being dropped of at the Cement Giant. “Does she know I’m here?”

  “Yes. I told her you were coming.”

  I looked back at the screen. She certainly didn’t look bedraggled. The opposite. I’d never spoken of it, but all those years after I’d known my father had passed, a small part of me had worried she’d been destitute, a beggar barely surviving, and that was why she’d never come for me. This woman didn’t look like she’d struggled a day in her pampered life.

  I dragged my eyes from the screen, afraid of what feelings I might reveal if I kept looking. I couldn’t think of her right now. It was a chess move to make me act foolishly, and I was already down a queen.

  “Why did you bring her here?”

  “I don’t believe in leaving anything off the table.” He leaned forward in his chair. “This is how it’s going to work. I know you’ve been digging around and I know you’ve figured some things out on your own. You were always a smart girl, according to the reports. You know I’m really the one in charge of Newco. I need something from you, and in return, I won’t kill everyone you know.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  He stood, walked over to a side table, and poured a glass of wine. He didn’t bother to offer me one. “Even as a young girl, you’ve had a unique ability. I want you to use that ability to help us.”

  “Us?”

  “My people. I know you’ve always denied knowledge of us, but I think we’re past that point, don’t you?”

  “Then what are you?”

  He took his glass, returned to his seat, and sat back. “The Earth’s rightful owners. We were here way before you and we’ll be here after. That’s all that matters.”

  “So much for being upfront. Do you want to share what exactly it is that you want me to do?”

  “You are going to find something for me. You help us and your friends, family, and everyone else will be left alone.”

  “What is it you want me to find, and what if I don’t?”

  “You’ll know what it is when I’m ready. If you don’t do it? I know how many people you have on your farm. I know everything about them. I know about the little girl, the young man you are always with, and I know about him.” He watched me over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of his wine.

  My hand moved to the knife at my hip while he watched me.

  “You might be able to kill me. Might. But I’d think on that decision.”

  It wasn’t a bluff. I wanted to kill him. My adrenaline spiked at the mere mention of slaying him right now. In front of me was the creature who could wipe out humanity, literally with his little finger. No one knew the number of humans alive, but we all knew that humanity was teetering on a cliff and one small breeze might be enough to send it crashing to its end.

  “If you did, you’d seal your fate and that of every person you’ve ever cared about. Killing me won’t end this. My kind know what’s at stake. They know all about this meeting. They won’t stop hunting you…ever.” He placed his glass down and, for the first time, his polite act slid away. “They’ll scorch the earth you stand on, and everyone around you will burn right alongside of you just for knowing you.”

  The facade was down, and I wasn’t sure it would be put back on or if it mattered. As I sat there, face to face with him, I knew evil. It leaked out of him until I felt soiled from merely being in his vicinity.

  But worse than simple evil, there was an insanity I could see glimmering in the eyes of the creature who sat in front of me. He’d do as he said. He’d do worse just to get something from me that I didn’t even know if I could deliver.

  “What if I can’t find this thing you’re after?”

  “You can and you will.” He leaned back again and started laughing. “You’ve already done it before. I’ll need you to come here until I’m finished with you.”

  I kept my lips pressed together, refusing to ask him what it was I’d done, and my hand remained at the hilt of my knife.

  Not only could I not kill him, I’d have to help him. I needed time. The more time I could buy, the better the chance I could figure something out. I was as stuck as badly as if I stood in set cement. I didn’t know why I’d believed when I was finally free of the Cement Giant that life would get simpler. Having something to lose sure complicated things.

  “I need a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll give you until tomorrow.”

  He wasn’t going to give me what I needed, so I came up with an amount I figured he’d swallow.

  “I’ll come in a couple of days.” I stood and walked to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving, and if I see any of your people near my land, I’ll take that as you breaking the deal.”

  I didn’t wait for his response as I gave him my back and walked to the door. It was either that or kill him now and take my chances. If it were just me, I’d have taken the gamble and run my blade across his throat.

  But it wasn’t.

  “I’ll be in touch. Don’t forget to say goodbye to your mother on the way out,” I heard him call. That was when I knew for certain he’d been telling the truth about their friendship. She wouldn’t leave with me even if I offered.

  Still, I found myself looking into rooms as I left until I found the one she was in. I paused in the doorway, and she looked up from where she was sipping from a teacup. If she recognized me, it wasn’t showing, and I didn’t know what to say to the woman who’d left me.

  Then she spoke. “Dahlia.”

  I still stood there, speechless.

  “You’re causing all sorts of trouble. You should do what Zarrod wants.”

  “Goodbye, Mother.”

  She shook her head and went back to eating.

  Chapter 9

  No one tried to stop me as I walked out of the place. A servant in the hall opened the door, and I kept my eyes focused on the entrance. The car that had brought me here was still waiting in the drive, and the driver got out and opened the door as soon as he saw me.

  I climbed into the back and rested against the leather se
at as the car started and the driver looked at me in the rearview. I gave a nod and he pulled away from the house.

  I was good and stuck. Whatever Zarrod wanted, it couldn’t be good. I knew that. But if I didn’t find it, he’d kill everyone, including my mother.

  I looked at the window of the room she’d been in as we pulled away, watching to see if she would look out. It was empty. There was no last-minute run to the door, or cry of outrage. She didn’t care and neither should I.

  I held it together until the driver brought me to the gates of Newco. I got out of the car, still wondering if they would let me walk back through them. Wondering if at some point they’d shoot me and finish this off.

  The car stopped and I opened the door before the driver did, but he still came around and met me, shutting the door before he stopped and said, “You aren’t alone here. You have friends in Newco.”

  I looked at the driver. He was fairly stout and looked like he could throw a punch. Did he have a headcount for all these friends? I saw Dax on the other side of the fence, Croq standing beside him, and decided it would have to wait. Dax looked too still. Still could be a very bad thing.

  “Thank you,” I said, and took a step forward, and watched Croq do the same, but not before he looked hesitantly over at Dax.

  The chain link fence was twenty feet in front of me, guards with machine guns in front of it. Beyond it, Dax stood beside his bike. I knew Tank and Lucy were in the woods with some others, guns pointed at the Newco soldiers.

  Fifteen feet away and the gates still hadn’t opened. I kept walking. I was crossing this border even if I had to scale the fence. I stared at Dax, hoping he’d take off into the woods. If I got shot, as long as he was okay, I’d make it.

  As I got closer and closer, I looked to the woods and then back to him. I saw his slight nod. That was good. We were on the same page.

  Croq was looking at the guards, who should’ve slid the fence open, and I wasn’t sure how long he was going to hold it together if they didn’t start moving. As much as I wanted on the other side of this fence, he wanted to be where I stood. Then I was standing in front of the closed fence, Croq staring at me from the other side.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if he expected me or the soldiers nearby to answer.

  One of the guards’ radios made a screeching noise before I heard Zarrod’s voice come through. “You leave with my permission only. Don’t forget that.”

  I saw Dax; I saw his body tense as if he were about to burst forward, and not toward the forest’s cover, the way he was supposed to. I knew I was down to seconds before the shit hit the fan.

  The soldier holstered his radio and then was nodding for the fence to open.

  “What was that about?” Croq asked as it slowly rolled open.

  “I think somebody might’ve felt disrespected,” I said, leaving it at that as I walked through the small opening.

  I didn’t run, but I headed toward Dax with determination. I climbed on the bike behind him and we kicked up rocks as we took off. Like a distant time in my past, I couldn’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder as we sped away, but this time I knew I’d be coming back.

  Dax cut into the forest, and it wasn’t too long before I heard the other bikes roaring nearby. It was like déjà vu when we drove through the row of hills. The first time I’d come here I hadn’t known the hills were really houses that were left over from the Glory Years and the forest had reclaimed. I remembered this place well. The first night I slept outside of the Cement Giant in fourteen years had been here.

  Our bikes slowed and Dax waved the others on. I watched as Lucy and Tank went in one of the hills and the others went to a hill nearby.

  Dax grabbed my hand before I could follow Tank and Lucy inside the house mound.

  His gaze ran over me. “I’m okay,” I said.

  He wrapped his arm around my back and threaded his hand into my hair, his mouth covered mine, and all I felt was heat and I didn’t care why.

  Maybe it was the recent near-death experience that drove the frenzied feeling I had, or maybe it was just him. There was something crazy about how he soaked into me, made me want him more and more each time I was near him. It had been too long since I’d felt him. And then he was letting go.

  And I let him. Hands that were about to grip his shoulders dropped to my side as I tried to find my footing.

  Okay, so did he still want to have sex with me or not? What the hell was this? Why was everything so damn complicated?

  He looked at me and I saw words forming—something important, from the looks of it—and wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what they were. Did he want to talk about us? What he wanted?

  “Lucy and Tank know about Bookie.”

  What? I was just trying to wrap my head around whether he wanted sex and he had to drag me right back into reality?

  “You told them? Lucy has the biggest mouth ever.” This was nearly as bad as soggy bacon every day.

  “They had to know. She won’t say anything,” he said.

  The way he was looking at my lips, I could’ve sworn he was going to kiss me again. Then he ruined the moment by making a motion for me to go into the house mound.

  Lucy and Tank were waiting inside, sitting by a small fire, a stream of smoke drifting up and out of the hole in the roof.

  “You better not be mean to Bookie,” I said to Lucy, who was piling some more sticks onto the fire.

  “Why would I be mean to Bookie?”

  “You treated me like a pariah for being a Plaguer, but dying and coming back is no big thing?” Who was this person? Couldn’t be the Lucy I’d met.

  “I’m nice to you now. How much do you want from my life?” She broke a couple more branches for the fire while she made a face that clearly said she thought I was being dramatic.

  “What happened?” Tank asked as Dax came to stand beside where I’d kneeled down, trying to warm my hands with the heat of the flames.

  “He thinks I can find something for him. He wants me to keep coming back, and I don’t know how many times.”

  “Find what?” Lucy asked, and I was very aware of Dax’s full attention on me.

  “Didn’t tell me, but I gather it’s pretty important to him.”

  “And he thinks you can find it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that I was uniquely suited to. He said if I do this, he’d leave everyone at the farm alone. I don’t do it and he’s going to sic the whole army on us.” I took a piece of jerky Tank handed me while I waited for Dax to finally say something.

  Lucy poked at the fire with her stick. “Sounds easy enough. So you’re going back?”

  “If it’s something so simple and easy, why doesn’t he want us to know what it is he’s looking for?”

  I leaned my elbows on my knees and put my fist in front of my mouth, so as not to repeat exactly what Dax just said. I couldn’t very well agree with him when I was going back.

  Dax stepped a little closer to the fire, and I could make out his features clearer. “My sources say he had an older woman staying there with him.”

  I wrung my hands. This was one of those questions he already knew the answer to. “He’s got my mother.”

  Lucy stopped shoving the logs around with her stick to turn and say, “So what? Didn’t that bitch leave you to rot?”

  Had to love Lucy sometimes. Always willing to say the unspoken thought. There was no denying the truth of it, even if the words left a bruise.

  No one said anything to the contrary, and all eyes were on me.

  It wasn’t as if I could defend her. But still, would I be willing to do nothing knowing it meant my mother’s death? I had no doubt that was the message Zarrod was sending.

  Lucy was rolling her eyes, as if she didn’t see the problem. Tank’s stare was fixed upon the fire in front of us. Dax was the only one looking at me, but I couldn’t decipher an opinion, one way or another.

  It wasn’t like I was going to admit that
some small part of me had hoped she’d one day beg my forgiveness for what she did, she’d move to the Wilds to be with me, and…

  I wasn’t sure what came next but watching her bleed out on the ground, killed by my enemy after I didn’t do what Zarrod requested. Yeah, I couldn’t remember that ever being part of the daydream.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said, dodging the subject to not admit to foolish feelings. “Did you get anything from Croq?” I looked at Dax, knowing he was the only one that would’ve been capable of getting information from someone like him.

  “He’s the one that dug up Bookie.”

  “Why?” I asked, more surprised than Dax seemed.

  “Wouldn’t say, and I couldn’t break his neck to get the information. He didn’t say anything else of worth, but he was nervous, and I don’t think it was for your welfare. He was eyeing the sun and fidgeting like he thought he might be sacrificed.”

  “Mr. Sensitive is going to have to get past his case of nerves,” I said. I grabbed a nearby stick and poked at the fire now that Lucy had stopped.

  “What do you mean by that?” Dax asked. His voice was too quiet.

  I probably should’ve put a little more thought into my joke. He obviously didn’t think it was funny, and it wasn’t the best time for kidding around.

  I looked up. Tank and Lucy were looking anywhere but at me. Dax was doing the opposite.

  “You agreed to go back?” Dax asked, and I could feel his stare boring into me.

  “Of course I did. There was no choice, unless you want every Dark Walker descending on the farm, along with the Newco army.”

  “You agreed.” His voice had dropped low, almost like a growl. How did he growl words?

  And why was he repeating this? Didn’t I just say that? “Are you willing to have everybody pack up and leave the farm?” I asked, knowing the answer well enough that I didn’t need a reply.

  “I can’t believe you agreed.” Not so much a growl, but I wasn’t sure if it was an improvement.

  “Yes. That’s what I just said.” Sometimes I really felt like I was missing some of the finer points in supposed civilized conversation.