Trigger Magic: Hidden Coven Series, Book 3

by Kim McDougall

  Colonel Donner’s commands switched from battle tactics to triage. Jane stepped over a body and turned to the rift. The head of her staff blazed blue as she began to chant. A sudden wind blasted through the field, and then the air hung heavy like pressure before a storm.

  “Lord and Lady, hear my call!” Jane plunged her staff into the rift. The hole shattered, then crumpled around it, closing with a loud pop. Jane studied the space where the rift had been.

  “Is it closed?” Abilene asked. She swayed on her feet but looked otherwise unharmed.

  “It’s patched,” Jane said. “I don’t know how long it will hold. Long enough for us to find a permanent fix, I hope.” She turned to me. “What did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the end with that iron? You hurt him somehow.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said shakily. “I stabbed him with it.”

  “You did more than that,” Abilene said. “You flared fire magic at the same time. I sensed it. You pushed aether up the iron. It was amazing!”

  I shook my head, not wanting praise when people lay dead because of my mistake. Hurting the demon didn’t make up for that.

  “And the crater?” Jane arched her eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “I had pent up aether. Needed to release it.” I didn’t want them to know I drank demon aether. I had enough suspicious looks in the village as it was.

  Jane stared at me as if her glare could make me confess my sins. Another couple of seconds and it might have. Then a knight limped by with a dazed woman leaning heavily on his arm. He asked about housing for the wounded and Abilene left with them to set up accommodations.

  Jane watched me with her thin lips and near-black eyes. Colonel Donner chose that moment to inspect the rift site. He ran his hands over the space where the hole had been and nodded.

  “Nice work, Mistress.”

  “It’s not permanent. We’ll need to ward this area until I can find a way to close it for good.”

  “What about the other creatures that came through?” I asked.

  “We’ll hunt them down,” Donner said. “I’ve already called in more knights.”

  “But they’re stuck on this side of the ward, right?” That would make rounding them up easier.

  “Not necessarily.” Jane frowned. “The ward lets animals through. And we’ve never dealt with creatures from another realm. No telling how the ward will react.”

  I sighed. My body ached from a dozen wounds. It would be dark soon. “I guess we’d better start hunting then.”

  “Leave it to the knights,” Jane snapped. “You’re coming with me.”

  The core pulsed with energy. Dark tendrils of its magic sought me out as we came into the clearing with two tall cairns. The core’s eager magic could easily overpower me, and I was already weak from battle. I acknowledged the probe but didn’t invite it to connect with me and the tendrils withdrew.

  The sun hid behind a cloud, plunging us into shadow and I shivered.

  Thankfully, we weren’t visiting the core today. Jane thought it would be a good idea if I met with Siranda, the coven’s seer. I wasn’t convinced of the rationality of this plan. The last time I met Siranda, she foresaw—with much screaming and clawing—that I would kill her.

  I’m not a murderer. I don’t even kill spiders when I find them in my house. But my ineptitude with magic, coupled with a deep reserve of aether that I was only beginning to grasp, left me with the real possibility that my actions might one day cause a death.

  I already had. Twelve witches lay dead in the practice yard because I’d opened a portal to some demon hell. It wasn’t a big stretch to believe I would be the cause of Siranda’s death. So the prospect of facing her again left me with mixed feelings. She scared the pants off me, and her self-imposed living situation disturbed my peace of mind, but if she could shed any light on our current situation, I would face those discomforts.

  Gavin met us at the door to Siranda’s cairn with a frown and a bandaged head wound on his bloodied and dirty face.

  “Don’t upset her.” Gavin was protective of his seer.

  “Sure. That’s like telling the red flag not to bait the bull.”

  “I mean it, Bobbi.”

  I held up my hands in submission.

  “I have no plans to antagonize her, but I can’t help it if she hates me.”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Jane said.

  Inside the cairn, Siranda slumped against the sloping wall. Huge dark eyes peered through greasy hair hanging in her face. She stared at the plastered walls and ceiling that writhed with animated drawings in glowing reds and purples. She frowned as if considering something important, lifted a hand and touched the low ceiling where it curved into the wall. Another figure erupted from her fingertip to dance across the plaster. The constant movement of the drawings ebbed and flowed like a tide.

  I’d seen Siranda’s unique brand of magic before, but it still left me queasy. I stayed behind Gavin, hoping Siranda wouldn’t see me, but Jane grabbed my arm and pulled me front and center.

  The seer blinked and smiled. “You are the crooked man.”

  Her words provoked a memory, but it faded before I could grasp it.

  “What?”

  “You are the crooked man!” She rose like a specter, her voice filling the small space. Gavin stepped forward and trapped her clawing hands before they struck me. He made soothing, clucking sounds and Siranda wilted against the wall.

  “Can she tell us anything about the rift?” Jane asked.

  Gavin tried to calm her. Siranda muttered and cursed, rubbing her hands together as if they were cold. He laid a blanket across her legs. She fussed and tossed it aside. I was struck by Siranda’s similarity to his mother, Stacy. Gavin spent much of his time easing two women who would never be at ease.

  “Siranda, do you know how to close the rift? Can you see it?” Gavin’s tone suggested a father urging a toddler to eat her vegetables.

  Siranda whimpered and pulled her lanky hair. We waited a long minute. The drawings on the walls jittered, and my stomach turned sour.

  “She can’t help us,” Jane finally said.

  Siranda threw back her head and laughed, a good old witchy cackle that raised the hair on my arms. Her eyes latched onto Jane and the formidable witch actually took a step back.

  Siranda’s voice fell into a husky, masculine tone. “Forsooth, the cry of the banshee be thy touchstone.”

  Jane paled and fled outside.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Gavin shrugged. “You’d better go see. I’ll sit with Siranda for a moment.”

  Outside, I found a remarkable sight: Jane Smith unnerved. I didn’t think it could happen. She was always so calm and unflappable. Even when she lost her shit, she did it with panache. I’d seen her kill a man, stab him in the back a dozen times, but she looked formidable doing it. The woman standing in the last bit of sunlight was diminished. And scared.

  “What did Siranda say?” I asked.

  “I thought we had more time.” She shook her head, then turned a dark stare on me. I saw her resemblance to Quinn in those nearly black eyes.

  “It was a line from a grimoire.” She leaned against the stone wall. “Part of the spell we used to call Koro.”

  Lord and Lady, and all the gods I can muster. Why did everything come back to Koro?

  “Can he use the rift to come through?” There were rules about demons manifesting in our world, complicated rituals and laws of magic that were logical only from a twisted perception.

  “I don’t know.” Jane looked thoughtful. “The berserker isn’t a full-blood demon. He’s more of a mongrel. I’m not sure if a full-blood could even exist in our world. Our magic is still too weak. But if he does come through, his very existence here will shatter our natural laws.”

  For years, the ley-lines had been swelling, spilling magic through cracks in Earth’s crust. This excess power allowed witches and other supernatural bein
gs to flourish, but would it sustain a full-blood demon? I learned to accept that anything was possible.

  “Aren’t the demon realms endless?” I grasped at straws now. “Just because there’s a door doesn’t mean it opens in Koro’s world, right?”

  Jane nodded. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

  “Henry’s a good teacher.” Neither of us remarked on my ill-spent week trying to learn magic under Jane’s tutelage.

  “It’s true. The demon realms are vast, even endless perhaps.” Her eyes took on a far-away look as if she remembered things best left alone. “But we have no idea how demons communicate with each other. Or what kinds of magic they have protecting their realms. For all we know, your little rift could have set off a cascade of reactions.”

  We let that idea gather momentum for a few minutes. Then Jane did an about-face.

  “Do you have any idea why Siranda called you the crooked man?”

  “No, but I feel like I should.” The echo of a sing-song voice rang in my mind, just beyond my reach.

  “It’s probably more of her ranting,” Jane said. “But her message to me was clear. Siranda thinks the answer to closing the rift is in the grimoire.”

  “It’s a mistake to take Siranda so literally,” Gavin said, coming from the cairn.

  “It’s not a mistake.” Jane’s lips were planted firmly. “I’ve been researching ways to close the rift all day and the only lead I have is that grimoire.”

  “But where is it?” I asked.

  “Your mother had it last,” Jane said. “As far as I know it perished in the fire.”

  I closed my eyes and felt faint. This day just kept coming back to sucker punch me. I didn’t need to ask which fire. Only one had changed my life. When I was six, my parents and younger sister died when our house burned to the ground. Only I survived.

  “Do you think it’s worth going back to the old house?” Gavin asked. My family lived in a stone cottage in upstate New York. Today, people would say we lived off the grid, but back then the grid was less important to everyday life.

  “Paragon agents searched the entire property,” I said.

  “But the agents don’t have your memories.” Jane’s regal composure returned. “Hannah knew how important the grimoire was. If she hid it on site, she would have made sure you could find it. It’s your legacy, after all.”

  “You think I should go look for it?” I wasn’t crazy about that idea.

  “I’m coming with you.” We all turned at the sound of Quinn’s voice.

  Chapter Eight

  Medication

  THE EDGES OF QUINN’S VISION DARKENED.

  He leaned a hand on the cairn, trying to make it seem casual. No one needed to know what it cost him to walk from Jane’s house. He felt like a truck had been sitting on him for two days. He’d come through the practice yard and seen the destruction firsthand. While the head of security slept, the coven had almost been destroyed. He’d be damned if his weakness would stand in his way again.

  “Get me up to speed, and we’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  “You will do no such thing.” Jane crossed her arms. Now that his mother knew about his illness, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. Bobbi looked like she’d been mauled by a bear, but the pity in her eyes told him he looked much worse.

  Taking a deep breath, he prepared his arguments. He would take every precaution. The vestals could charge his roach amulet tonight so he’d have an aether reserve. They’d stop at Emmett’s for directions to the old house and get a swig of his aether boosting tincture.

  None of those safeguards would sway his mother.

  “I’m going, and unless you plan to shackle me to the bed, you can’t stop me.”

  He might have swayed a bit as he spoke.

  Jane glared. Gavin looked away, but maybe—just maybe—he saw a spark of gratitude in Bobbi’s eyes.

  They arrived at Emmett’s farm before sunrise. Molly, Emmett’s new wife, took one look at their haggard expressions and insisted they stay for breakfast. She tempted them with fresh muffins and hot beverages until they gave in.

  “Someone ransacked the tack room in the barn on Sunday,” Emmett said as he filled his plate with fruit. “I’m still cleaning up the mess.”

  “That’s the same day I was attacked at home.” Bobbi picked at her food.

  “You think there’s a connection?” Quinn piled jam on his toast. He needed the sugar boost.

  “I don’t know. But it wasn’t a mundane who broke into my house and store. And he was looking for something specific.”

  “William Fain broke in here last fall too,” Emmett said. Bobbi flinched at the mention of her would-be rapist’s name. Quinn suppressed the urge to reach for her. Bobbi hadn’t recovered from her last encounter with Fain, and Quinn’s failure to protect her stood like a glass wall between them. She didn’t need him imposing his desires on her right now. It might make him feel better, but he could wait.

  And what if she never turns to you again? The little voice in his head asked that question a lot lately.

  “We thought it might be about the grimoire then,” Quinn said. “But we can’t be sure. All we have to go on is a vague reference from Siranda.”

  “You think this is a wild goose chase?” Emmett asked.

  Quinn shrugged. “I’ve travelled farther on less of a hunch. It won’t hurt to check things out. If we find the grimoire, great. If not, we’ll find another way of sealing the rift.”

  Emmett grunted. “I’m sure that between Jane and the Paragon mages, they’ll find a way.”

  Quinn was relieved that Colonel Donner and his knights offered to stay on at the coven until the rift could be permanently sealed. A security officer who fainted in battle wasn’t much use to anyone. The knights would do a better job of beating anything coming through the rift. That brought up another nagging thought. The symptoms of his illness were affecting his performance. Maybe it was time to pass the job of security chief to someone else. Long ago, he’d vowed not to let this disease rule his life, but neither would he let his pride endanger those in his care.

  Bobbi’s fork clattered to the table.

  “I’m so sorry.” She pressed her hands to her eyes and took a long, shaky breath. “This is my fault. All of it.”

  Molly bustled over from the stove. “Nonsense!” She knelt by Bobbi’s side and grasped her hands. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I opened the rift!”

  “It was an accident.”

  “And what about Koro? Somehow, this is all about him. He won’t ever stop looking for me. I should go away…”

  “None of that talk,” Emmett said gruffly. “I knew about Koro when you came to us as a child. I didn’t hesitate to keep you with us then, and I won’t do it now.”

  Molly nodded in agreement.

  The kitchen filled with silence broken only by the scraping of forks while they let Bobbi find her composure.

  “What can you tell us about the grimoire,” Quinn finally asked. Jane already gave them a description of the leather-bound tome, but he wanted to hear it from Molly too. Grimoires, especially the really old ones, could take on odd characteristics. It wasn’t unheard of for one to shift its appearance for different people.

  Molly’s eyes closed to slits as she remembered. “It was a long time ago. Jane and Hannah handled it the most. Honestly, it gave me the creeps. But I remember the symbol burned into the leather cover.” She took a small pad and pen from the pocket in her apron and drew a rough triangle with wavy lines. “Like three intertwined snakes with the head of each curled around the tail of another and an eye in the middle.”

  Quinn and Bobbi studied the image, and then he tucked it in his pocket.

  After breakfast, Emmett wrote out directions to the old house that lay deep in the woods at the foothills of the Adirondacks.

  “There’s not much left,” Emmett said, “just the stone foundation and chimney.”

  It was a long sho
t. They all knew it. But they had to start the search somewhere.

  Bobbi turned to Molly. “You’ll take care of the Woolery for me? We may be gone for several days.”

  “No worries.” Molly smiled.

  “I’m sorry I left you with a mess to clean up. I guess I panicked.”

  After finding her store in ruins, Bobbi had locked the door and left for the coven without a word. The old crones in the knitting circle were probably jonesing for their yarn fix.

  “I’ve got it covered,” Molly said. “Just get this done and be safe about it.”

  They rose to leave, but Quinn pulled Emmett aside.

  “Could I have a bottle of your tincture?”

  Emmett’s bushy eyebrows lowered.

  “You have another attack?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Come with me. I’ve been working on something better.”

  Quinn followed him, leaving Molly and Bobbi to pack a cooler with food. In a backroom, Emmett had set up a laboratory. The equipment was antiquated—bunsen burners, beakers and an old microscope—but spotless.

  “I decided to get back to my alchemy,” Emmett said. “I’ve been tinkering, and I think I found a better solution than the tincture.”

  The old med-mage listened to Quinn’s heart, took his blood pressure and peered at the whites of his eyes.

  “The attack was bad, wasn’t it?” he asked. Quinn shrugged. “Save your macho courage for the ladies, boy. Tell me what happened.”

  Quinn sighed. “I tried to close the rift after hours of battle magic practice with Bobbi.”

  Emmett shook his head. “Lord and Lady save me from young men who think they’re invincible. Hold out your arm.” He nicked Quinn’s forearm and let a few drops of blood fall into a crystal cup. The liquid turned pink, then faintly purple.

  “You’re nearly dry again.” Emmett prepared a syringe. Quinn flinched when he injected it into his bicep, but warmth spread through him, much faster than the oral tincture.