Consort of Pain

by Eva Chase

  I held out my hand as Gabriel hopped down. Seth grasped it and slid the rest of the way to the pavement with Gabriel bracing his other arm. Seth tested his balance on his feet and then pulled me into a massive hug.

  “You’re okay,” he said.

  “I’m okay?” I said. “Look at you. Get over here. I’ll patch you up as well as I can. You could have a concussion.”

  He grimaced, but he walked with us to the side of the road. I knelt beside him, studying the wound. I’d studied plenty of healing spells—they were some of the most generally useful magic any witch could learn, so my tutors had spent a lot of time on them—but I hadn’t needed to cast anything major in the short time I’d actually had my magic. And you always had to be careful when manipulating someone’s body in any way.

  I murmured a few focusing words under my breath and moved my fingers through the air over Seth’s temple in a delicate dance. Seal the skin, ease any swelling, numb the pain. The aches in my own body started to throb as I spun the careful spells. Gabriel might have saved me from the worst of the impact, but I’d banged myself up a fair bit.

  When I finished, Seth’s skin was still bruised, but the cut was closed. He touched the spot gingerly and gave a hoarse chuckle. “It hardly even hurts. I’d say it’s like magic, but it actually was magic.”

  “If you can make a joke like that, you really must be feeling better.” The urge gripped me, and I had to lean in to kiss him. “Don’t you ever get bashed up like that again,” I ordered him, my hands cupping his face and my nose brushing his.

  He ran his thumb over my cheek. “I’ll do my best.”

  I straightened up and glanced over the other guys. They all looked a tad dazed, but that wasn’t exactly surprising after what we’d just been through. Damon had taken that burn from the magical net, and his left elbow looked bruised. Gabriel’s arm was scratched where it must have collided with the window, but nothing deep. Ky and Jin seemed to have made it out pretty much unscathed.

  I motioned Gabriel over. “You don’t have to—” he started as I took his arm, and I silenced him with a pointed look.

  “Tell yourself you’re doing me a favor,” I said. “I’m going to be distracted as long as any of you are bleeding.”

  He laughed. “All right, fine. But we don’t know if more of those Assembly assholes might be on their way, do we? We should get out of here fast.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. My gut tightened as I worked a spell to knit his skin. When I stepped back, my spark was still blazing merrily inside me, but nowhere near as hotly as before.

  I wasn’t worn out, no, but I was already on my way there. The tightness in my gut turned into a heavy stone that sank even deeper.

  “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “What do you mean?” Ky asked.

  “The whole idea of running away and finding some place to hide out… I don’t know if we can ever get far enough ahead of them to put down roots somewhere.” That dream we’d only just talked about had shattered like the car’s windows. I swallowed hard. “And I know for sure I won’t be able to keep this up indefinitely. I’m not omnipotent, as much as I’d like to be right now.”

  “Well, we’re sure as hell not letting them win,” Damon said.

  Gabriel nodded. “What did you have in mind, Rose?”

  He watched me with that assured calm he never seemed to lose—except for that one moment a few days ago when he’d broken down and admitted to me how broken he felt. He’d said he believed in me. Was he really that confident, all the way through, that I could get us out of this?

  I had to believe that he was. I had to believe in me. The guys I’d brought into this dangerous witching world didn’t have anyone else to see them through it.

  “If we can’t keep running,” I said, “then the only other option I can see is to fight. Whatever ways we can. Scare them, hurt them… Expose them to the rest of witching society if we can. If we can’t, at least make them believe they’re better off letting us go live our lives than keeping up the fight on their end.”

  “I’m all for that,” Jin said. “How do we get started?”

  “That’s the big question.” I let out a halting laugh. “Before we can strike back, I think we need a better idea of who we’re dealing with. Where they’re vulnerable. What proof we can gather.” I glanced down the road. “You know, there was a witch in New York City I talked to—Margo Elands. She’d researched some of the less-known witching history and gotten in trouble with the Assembly for talking about things they wanted to keep quiet. Maybe she’d be able to help us.” She might have something on them she hadn’t wanted to use herself. Her life wasn’t on the line.

  “New York’s a long way away,” Seth said.

  “I know. But there’s also…” An odd sensation stirred in my chest, like hope and anxiety twisted together. “My mother’s family is out there. I haven’t seen them since I was a little kid. I don’t know how much they even remember me. But they didn’t like my dad. Maybe they had some idea what kind of person he was. They might help us against him and his allies too.”

  “New York it is, then,” Damon said with a clap of his hands. “We’d better get moving.”

  Seth glanced at the toppled SUV. “On foot?”

  I looked down the lonely highway and bit my lip. We’d purposely been sticking to more isolated roads, but now that could be a problem. No one had passed us since the crash. It could be a long way to the next town.

  “It’s still on the road,” I said, nodding to the SUV. “Do you think the five of you could manage to push it back onto its wheels if I add some magic to the mix?”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Gabriel said. “The engine might be a problem.” He nudged Damon. “Was it still running when we tipped?”

  Damon shook his head. “I remembered what you said. As soon as I could tell we were going to crash, I switched it off.”

  “That gives us a better chance. Come on.”

  He motioned us all over to the sideways roof of the SUV. The guys bent down and fit their fingers into the best holds they could find.

  “On a count of three,” Gabriel said. “Three, two…”

  I was already moving, shifting magic through me and toward the car. As Gabriel said, “One!” and the guys heaved at the frame, I shoved at it with a force of my own.

  The SUV lurched upright, settling onto its wheels with a heavy thud.

  For a second we all just stood there, breathing hard. I peered at the windows while Gabriel started inspecting the tires. The glass all along the left side of the car was shattered, but the rest were fine.

  “I don’t think I can meld the glass back together.” I toed the shards on the ground. “But I can put up a simple illusion that’ll stop anyone from realizing they’re broken. It’s warm enough that it shouldn’t matter having some air come in, right?”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Ky said.

  “The tires look okay,” Gabriel said. “The real question is whether that engine is going to start.”

  He lifted the hood and looked it over. “This isn’t the happiest looking system I’ve ever seen. But maybe…” He reached inside, twisted something, fiddled with something else. Then he pulled back, shut the hood, and held out his hand for Damon to pass him the key.

  My throat tightened as he hopped into the driver’s seat. If this didn’t work…

  Gabriel turned the key. The engine sputtered—and then thrummed to life. My shoulders sagged in relief.

  Knocking the last few slivers of glass away from the side window, Gabriel leaned out his elbow and turned to grin at us. “Everybody back in! Let’s see what New York has in store.”

  Chapter Ten

  Kyler

  The moon was full overhead, the night air cool on my skin, when Damon and I swapped off spots at the front of the SUV with Seth and Gabriel in the wee hours of the morning. I peered up at the gleaming circle against the near-black sky. “Well, that’s not ominous or anythi
ng.”

  “I don’t think we need any omens to know we’re in a tight situation,” my twin said, but he managed to sound a little wry.

  “True. Very true.” I looked him over. “You’re feeling totally okay? No headache, fogginess, or dizziness? Ringing in your ears?”

  Seth shook his head at me as he got into the driver’s seat. “Why do I have the feeling you’ve been scouring the internet for symptoms of a concussion? I’m fine, Ky.” He glanced back at me to catch my eyes. “I promise.”

  I held up my hands. “Hey, I had to ask. The last thing we need is you out of commission.”

  Rose was still dozing in the middle row of seats, her jacket bunched under her head. When I slid in next to her, she roused enough to reach over and squeeze my hand. I squeezed her fingers in return. The sight of her, tired and probably a little frayed but able to relax for now, made my chest fill with so much affection that I almost thought it would burst.

  I’d have liked to snuggle up with her and fall into my own doze, but instead I pulled out the stolen phone. Rose had worn herself ragged protecting us. I’d better do my bit to protect her.

  Damon sank into the seat next to me. “What’re you doing with that thing now?” he asked, keeping his voice low. Jin was sleeping in the back. The car rumbled as Seth hit the gas.

  “I’m still working on finding a back door into the Assembly’s server,” I said. My thumb skimmed over the touch screen. “I’ve tried a few things that didn’t work out, but I’ve got another strategy that I’ve made some progress with.”

  He snorted. “I thought you could hack your way into anything in two seconds flat.”

  “Not quite,” I said with a laugh. “Getting into the phone wasn’t hard. And it’s been used to access at least one level of the Assembly’s database before. But they cancelled her user account as soon as they realized the phone was stolen, it looks like. So I’ve got to carve my own way in.”

  “Hmm. Yeah. I wouldn’t know where to start. Haven’t really had time to play around with computers a whole lot.”

  Because he’d been busy getting in trouble in class and then working sketchy jobs to keep afloat after he’d dropped out of high school. Yeah, I guessed my honor roll, college graduate self must look pretty privileged to him.

  We’d all suffered some when Rose’s dad had fired our parents from the Hallowell estate staff as punishment for the friendship we’d formed with her all those years ago, but my and Seth’s parents had found their feet pretty quickly. Whenever I’d seen Damon’s mom around town, she’d always looked run down and sad. And his dad had run off years before that.

  He hadn’t sounded pissed about it just now, but a prickle of guilt ran through my gut anyway. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Damon raised his eyebrows at me. “For what? My lack of computer skills?”

  Oh, hell, I was probably going to put my foot in it. But I’d already committed.

  “I just mean—back then. All the stuff you were going through. I wish I’d reached out more. I mean, we used to be best friends, all five of us… We didn’t have to drift apart. I should have tried harder.”

  Damon blinked at me. He ducked his head, his spiky coffee-brown hair drifting to shadow his eyes. “I guess I can’t say I was doing a whole lot of reaching out myself.”

  “You were having a hard time,” I said. “I knew that. I wish I’d done more. That’s all.” I paused. “Although maybe it was for the best in the end, because if you hadn’t gone off and made those new friends of yours, you wouldn’t have picked up all the nifty breaking-and-entering skills we’ve found so useful.”

  I wanted to take the words back the second they’d spilled from my mouth. Yeah, that didn’t sound at all insensitive or anything. Damon’s head jerked up so he could stare at me, and I gulped. His mouth twisted.

  Then he started to laugh.

  The sound was catching. In a second, I was laughing too. The comment hadn’t even been that funny, but it was a relief just to feel like we could laugh about something in the middle of all this.

  “You do have an interesting way of looking at things, Mr. Brainiac,” Damon said when he’d caught his breath. “I guess that’s for the best too. Get on with your fancy-pants hacking.”

  He leaned back in his seat, letting his eyes drift shut. As I tapped into the interface I’d been using, Rose stirred at my other side. “What’s so funny?” she murmured.

  “Nothing really,” I said, still smiling. “Nothing worth waking up for, anyway.”

  She made a dismissive noise. After a swivel of her hand, her body went unnaturally still for a moment. When I glanced over at her, wondering what spell she’d cast, she nodded.

  “I can’t sense any magic at all anywhere nearby. I don’t know how much range I have, but I think the way I’m checking now, I’d know if they were close enough to really hurt us.” She sighed. “I guess tonight’s attack was their big effort.”

  “They’re regrouping,” I suggested.

  “We’ve got to assume so. I don’t think they’re going to back down yet.”

  It’d be easier to know if I could get into this damn server. My fingers flicked over the screen. A little code here. Massage a password there. Chip away at the walls around the network until I had a hole just big enough to weasel my way in.

  I’d broken into a whole lot of secure databases in my time: banks, government, you name it. Just for kicks, though. None of them had really mattered.

  Breaking through these layers of security, on the other hand, could be a matter of life and death.

  I squinted at the screen, tapping out another sequence on the touchscreen keyboard. This wasn’t exactly the greatest phone I’d ever worked with either. But—hey! Was that an opening?

  My spirits shot up. My fingers dashed over the screen as if the crack I’d discovered might close at any second. I shoved it wider with another line of code, and—bingo! The lowest level of the Assembly’s private database spilled down the screen. My mouth stretched into a grin.

  Ha. They might have magic, but they didn’t rule the internet, that was for sure.

  My excitement must have radiated off me a little more strongly than I’d intended, because Rose shifted again, tipping her head against my shoulder and looking down at the screen. “Is that good?” she asked, looking hazily at the interface.

  “I just got into the low security level of the Assembly’s network,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to access the super secure areas from the phone, but we’ll have access to their basic records now.”

  She scooted a little closer, her expression becoming more alert. “That’s great! I don’t even know what we should look up at this point, though. The faction that’s hunting us will have kept all their records separate.”

  I nodded. “I’d probably have to be physically in their building to have much chance at those.” Even sitting in the coffee shop across the street a few weeks ago, they’d shut me down before I’d grabbed more than a couple of files. But we could use this entry point in other ways. “I know the names I saw on the form I dug up—the one where they approved the murder of that witch and her lover. And we know your father and that Frankford guy are involved too.”

  “And my stepmother,” Rose said. She winced. “Or at least she was.”

  Because Celestine Hallowell had recently become the victim of another highly suspicious accident. This faction of the Assembly had used a supposed car crash to cover up things they didn’t want getting out before. What were the chances she’d just happened to get hit, right after Rose had sent her running from the estate? Right before she’d been supposed to carry out Mr. Hallowell’s dirty work, binding Rose in that corrupted consorting?

  But that didn’t mean her name wouldn’t be useful. “Right,” I said. “I can cross-reference those names with any of the witches you think we could turn to for help. See if I come across any connections between them, good or bad. So we can be a little more sure that they’re not under the influence
of this group in any way.”

  “That’s a good idea.” She looped her arm around mine in a gesture so comfortably familiar another pang of affection shot through me. “The first person I figured we should talk to is Margo Elands. I texted her from the burner phone you got me back when I was trying to figure out whether I even could kindle my spark properly with consorts who weren’t witching men.”

  “She’d heard about other witches doing that?” I said, my eyebrows rising.

  Rose shook her head. “Not any time recently. Just, like, a legend sort of thing. From what I read, she dabbles in the more obscure or questionable areas of witching history. And she’d seen a few of those etchings like the ones in the tower on my property—pictures of witches with multiple consorts. Apparently she’d mentioned those tidbits of history in the wrong company, and it got her fired from a job with the Assembly. She owns a New Age shop on Staten Island now.”

  “She definitely sounds like someone who might be on our side, then. Let me see what I can find on her.”

  I started a search of the database looking for any documents in the vast array that contained both Margo Eland’s name and any of the witching people we knew were part of the conspiracy.

  “I’m not seeing anything about her in the database,” I said. “Let me try regular old Google too.” They might be witches, but they had real lives in the real world that could intersect in different ways.

  Nothing came up there either. “Ms. Eland seems clean,” I said. “I mean, we’ll still want to be cautious, but I don’t see any reason to worry about her somehow being involved with that shady faction.”

  “Yeah, that seemed pretty unlikely anyway,” Rose said.

  I looked at her. “You were thinking maybe we could contact your mom’s family too, right?”

  “Yeah.” She hesitated. “I’ve never even talked to them before… My dad always made it seem like they disowned us because they weren’t happy about the marriage. I figured they were all snobby jerks. But now I’ve got to wonder if he pushed them away because they knew something wasn’t totally right with him. I’m not even sure… What if he did something to my mom like he meant to have happen between Derek and me? What if he was controlling her magic?”