Magic Currents (Cursed Angel Collection)

by Jayne Faith

  I peered at him out of the corners of my eyes as I ran food and drinks out to the tables. True to his word, he sat there with the newspaper spread out on the bar, two shot glasses that Theo replenished periodically, and a basket of chips. I hadn’t seen Lorenzo glance my way even once, though I somehow felt sure he’d notice if I tried to leave the Lead Feather.

  When the crowd finally thinned for the afternoon lull, I untied my apron and plopped it and my order pad next to Lorenzo’s currently empty shot glasses. I was impressed he was still upright and apparently engaged in the paper.

  “You’ve got thirty minutes until I’m back on shift,” I said curtly.

  I so much would have rather sat by myself, nursing a tall glass of cold tea and a fried chicken sandwich.

  He folded the paper and slid it aside. “You might want to sit down,” he said, lifting his chin at the stool next to him.

  Reluctantly, I sat down on it, careful to keep my legs angled so he couldn’t accidentally brush against me. I flipped my fingers in a rolling, get-on-with-it motion.

  “I’ve seen your ability with water, sweetie,” he said, for once keeping his voice low enough to show some discretion. “What about serpents? Can you call to them and force them to obey your will? Do you ever catch a scent of brimstone?”

  I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. It seemed I’d completely misjudged, assuming this man was sane at all. Maybe all the alcohol had pickled his brain. Even after all of the shots, his speech was clear and unslurred. It would take an incredible tolerance to still appear so sober. At least if he tried to out me as a witch, I could point out his insanity.

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” I said. I started to slide off the stool, thinking I’d rather stand and keep it between me and him. “This was a mistake. You need to go.”

  He closed his eyes and grumbled some colorful cursing under his breath—not at me, but as an expression of frustration with himself. When he looked at me, his intensity of emotion made me pause my escape.

  “Please, let me start over.” He took a slow breath in and out. “You know the story of the original Demon Lord’s death?”

  I crossed my arms and gave him a long, hard stare. But seeing the almost pleading look in his eyes, I softened slightly.

  “There was an uprising,” I said. “A witch and a warlock managed to kill the Demon Lord, but they failed in their goal—the Demon’s death didn’t break the curse of gluttony. The original Lord’s half-human son took over the Watchtower, and as his father had taught him, he continued eating the hearts of witches to fuel his immortality. To this day, we remain under demon rule and under the curse of the Watchtower, and the people of The Colony lived miserably ever after, blahdy-blah-blah.”

  By the time I finished, my tone was thick with bitterness.

  He gave me a wry arch of one brow. “Happen to know the warlock who starred in your little tale?”

  “Considering it was a century before I was born and he was killed in the whole mess, no, I don’t know the warlock.”

  I tightened my arms across my midsection, hoping he got to the point soon. I really should have grabbed something to eat.

  “Actually, you do,” he said slowly, with heavy emphasis on each word. He jabbed his thumb at the middle of his chest.

  I snorted a laugh and let my arms drop. “Okay, now I’m sure of it. You’re insane.” I turned, scanning for Peter, and caught his eye. I gestured at Lorenzo. “It’s time for this gentleman to be on his way.”

  Peter set down the glass he’d been filling from a tap and wiped his hands on his apron as he stalked toward us. He stood across the bar from Lorenzo. “I’ll need you to settle your bill now and then find another bar to patronize,” Peter said. He planted his hands on his hips and actually summoned up an impressive level of authority. “And if you bother Vicki again, we’ll get the constable involved.”

  Lorenzo gave Peter a dismissive flick of a glance, and the warlock’s eyes settled on me. “You could be the one,” he whispered, quietly enough that his words wouldn’t reach Peter’s ears. “I think you are. And if I’m right, your destiny and mine are entwined whether you like it or not.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, to accuse him of mental instability again, but hesitated.

  A memory rushed back to me. It was the moment when my magic had come in. I was a week past my fourteenth birthday. A warlock of the Underground had been summoned already, and he waited along with my mother, both of them watching me with anxious intensity.

  I’d moaned as the unfamiliar rush of power seemed to saturate my brain, pressurizing it uncomfortably.

  “Coil it up,” my mother had whispered. “Just like we talked about, Victoria.”

  I struggled with the magic, trying to rein in the swirl. It was like trying to catch a dust devil in my hands and crush it into a ball.

  Mother and the warlock waited breathlessly while I grappled with my magic. The warlock couldn’t put the charm in place—the one that would mask my ability from Hunters, as well as all other warlocks and witches, and keep me safe—until I’d controlled my first surge of power.

  I’d focused so hard that sweat sprang out over my entire body, and finally, I’d pulled it in and pressed it down until I was able to release my connection to it.

  The warlock had worked quickly, creating the charm and securing it to me in a matter of a minute or two.

  But before that, when I’d still felt the torrent of magic around and in me, I’d sensed a dozen different, unfamiliar sensations. Visions had filled my eyes—images of snakes moving sinuously, curling themselves into figure eights over and over. And I’d smelled a wild, strange aroma that I somehow knew had emanated from the Watchtower. It was sulfurous, fiery, and musky. Later, I’d asked my mother about the smell.

  She’d looked startled, and then extremely unhappy. At first, she’d refused to answer my questions, but she’d finally relented.

  “Brimstone,” she’d whispered with obvious reluctance. “But the charm will prevent you from sensing it again, so just put it out of your mind.”

  Brimstone . . . snakes . . . water magic.

  I watched dumbly as Lorenzo tossed a gold dollar on the bar and stalked toward the door, all the while swearing under his breath.

  It was too random and specific to be coincidence, but there had to be another explanation. The only warlocks who lived beyond the normal lifespan were the ones who worked as Hunters in the employ of the Demon Lord and won his favor, and with it the hearts of witches. Lorenzo was no Hunter. I wasn’t sure how he knew those details about me, but there was no way he was who he claimed he was.

  I stood there, conflicted. In spite of the craziness, I couldn’t completely dismiss what Lorenzo had said about my magic.

  I was so deep in thought, for a moment my brain didn’t register that the hue of the air was shifting. It was becoming tinted with red, as if a fine mist of blood had drifted in.

  “The curse!” someone shouted. “The curse has been activated!”

  People began calling out. A chair tumbled noisily to the floor as a man jumped up. The sound of glass shattering came from the kitchen.

  I froze stupidly for a moment, and then whirled around, aiming to run into Peter’s office and lock myself in there.

  I was just about to dart into the hallway leading to the office when someone blocked my way.

  I pulled up short, frozen with horror. It was Peter. His irises burned red, and foam collected in the corners of his mouth. His nails had extended into black razor-like claws, ready to rip a live, beating heart out of someone’s chest so he could devour it. The mist had already possessed him, turning him into a twisted, demonic creature.

  I tried to scramble back, but smacked my hip on the edge of the bar. The impact threw me off balance, and I pitched into a bar stool and fell to the floor.

  Peter leapt with an inhuman, preternatural movement. I desperately struggled to get out of the way but got tangled up with the stool.
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  All I could do was scream in terror as Peter bore down on me.

  Chapter 5

  STRONG HANDS SWUNG me up off the floor and out of the path of Peter’s attack.

  Lorenzo plunked me roughly on my feet and then shoved me behind him as Peter came down hard, crouching like an animal on the spot where I’d been just a split second earlier.

  I stood there, dumfounded, as a disc of pure white light formed in Lorenzo’s hand. He flicked his wrist, flinging the disc at Peter’s chest. It made a curious reverberating whir as it flew, and then it exploded like a lightning grenade.

  I reflexively squeezed my eyes closed against the painfully bright light. Blinking spots out of my vision, I discovered Peter collapsed on the floor. Whether dead or just unconscious, I didn’t know. Lorenzo tossed discs of light at three others in the pub who had been possessed by the cursed vapor. Like Peter, they crumpled to the floor and stayed there.

  The blood mist was still heavy in the air, and a few people screamed as two more patrons were overcome by the vapor, transforming before our eyes and letting out animalistic growls. Lorenzo took them down, too.

  With his knees bent in an agile half crouch, he spun around with another disc in his hand, as if he expected attacks from all sides. In spite of the danger surrounding us, I couldn’t help watching with fascination. He moved so powerfully yet gracefully, like a trained fighter.

  Half a minute passed and there were no more warning growls. The mist was beginning to dissipate.

  Lorenzo straightened, and the disc of light he held winked out of existence.

  As people began to realize the danger had passed, everyone turned to stare at Lorenzo. Some began to murmur.

  “What warlock magic was that?” someone called from the far corner booth.

  “Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said a man who’d been nearest the bar when Lorenzo started his light-slinging show. Instead of sounding grateful that Lorenzo had saved everyone, the man’s tone was edged with suspicion. “Just who are you, anyway?”

  Lorenzo looked down at me. “Cover your eyes tightly when I say so,” he mumbled.

  “If you could all gather around, I will explain everything,” he called to the room in a tone that was at once soothing and commanding. “Please, come closer so I don’t have to shout.”

  People moved tentatively forward, but no one approached too near.

  “Now,” he muttered at me.

  I squeezed my eyelids shut and pushed my palms against them for good measure, and again the strange whirring noise filled the room. Even with my eyes closed, I somehow sensed that Lorenzo was doing something with light again. A second after, a smell I could only describe as deliciously fresh, like after a hard rain, filled my nose.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “You’re clear.”

  When I opened my eyes, the patrons of the Lead Feather were looking around with dazed expressions.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  He scanned the room as people began righting chairs and gathering things they’d dropped. “I made them forget what they saw.”

  Remembering Peter, I ran over and crouched next to him. He’d collapsed on his chest with his head turned toward me. His eyes were closed. Lorenzo followed and stood next to me. I touched Peter’s shoulder, but he didn’t respond.

  “Oh God, he’s not dead, is he?” I asked.

  Lorenzo gave Peter’s leg a little tap with the toe of his boot. “Nah, he’ll wake up in a minute. He’ll think he passed out in the confusion.”

  Sure enough, Peter groaned and shifted around.

  Remembering the girls, my heart dropped a few inches in my chest. I rose and started to brush past Lorenzo. “I have to go make sure the children are okay.”

  Then I stopped and turned. I owed him more than that for what he’d just done. “I still think you might be insane, but I will hear you out. Thank you for saving me.”

  I hurried from the pub and out into the street, where others were rushing to check on their loved ones, too, now that the danger had passed.

  I tossed a glance up at the Watchtower. The Demon Lord had just murdered a witch for her heart, so he could extend his immortality and his cursed reign. Each time he took a witch’s heart, the vapor crept in from the wall of mist surrounding The Colony, and it spread until it permeated from border to border, even out in the open ocean where fishing boats were kept within the boundary. The wall of mist that imprisoned us would immediately infect anyone who walked into it. But the vapor that crept into The Colony infected people at random, turning them into blood-thirsty animals. And each time, there were deaths—both deaths of those attacked by the possessed and deaths of the infected themselves when the innocent were forced to defend themselves.

  I’d never seen so many possessed in one room as I just had in the Lead Feather. It probably meant that multiple witches had been sacrificed so that the gluttonous Demon Lord could share the gift of immortality with others, maybe his most loyal followers and almost certainly his cambion children, who were part human like him. If not for Lorenzo, the pub would have been the scene of a bloody massacre.

  As I sped through the streets, I passed a tragic, but all-too-common sight. A man, his hands covered in blood, stood pale with shock next to a corpse with a mangled wound in its chest. The victim was a gray-haired woman, but that was all I could tell in one quick glimpse before averting my eyes. The man wailed a heart-rending cry, and I briefly squeezed my eyes closed, as if that could block it all out.

  This was the terrible tragedy of the blood mist. When the possessed returned to their senses after they’d killed, they sometimes went mad with the grief and guilt of what they’d done. People who took a life under the influence of possession weren’t prosecuted—they couldn’t control their actions, and living with what they’d done was more than enough punishment.

  Death crews were already moving through the city, and would find scenes like the one I’d just passed. They would take care of the bodies and try to wash away the blood.

  Tomorrow, the newspaper that Lorenzo had been reading would not report the death toll, or even mention the killings. The witches sacrificed in the Watchtower would not be named. Any official acknowledgement of the tragedies borne from the Demon Lord’s gluttony was forbidden.

  But the Underground would keep track. It kept registries of the witches who were taken by Hunters, and of the citizens killed when the blood mist came.

  I reached the neighborhood school where all of my charges studied. Other parents and caretakers were also hurrying up the crumbling cement steps and into the brick building. By some strange quirk, the blood mist didn’t infect children—there was no record of possession of anyone under the age of twenty-three—but their teachers were vulnerable, which endangered the children.

  My heart pounded painfully in my chest as I raced inside. The headmistress stood in the main hallway, with some parents crowded around her while most ran to their children’s classrooms.

  “. . . no attacks within our walls today,” the headmistress was saying.

  I let out a long breath, and my shoulders sagged with relief.

  Knowing that all of the girls would appreciate some comfort and reassurance—even stoic Sang-Hee—I went around to their classrooms and briefly embraced each of them. Karen and Kira both cried as I held them. They’d lost their father to a blood mist attack, and they both had nightmares about the same happening to me.

  Chelle would be fine at home. She wasn’t in danger of being infected, and locked away in the flat alone, she was safe from attack.

  By the time I headed back toward the Lead Feather, the death crews had finished their work and people moved through the streets almost as if nothing had happened. Pale faces and quiet voices were practically the only signs that anything amiss had taken place.

  As my fear and adrenaline drained away, anger filled in the hollowed-out space in my gut. For centuries under the rule of the Watchtower, the people of The Colony had suffered these tragedie
s over and over. So much blood, so many witches killed, and so many orphans . . .

  Recalling Lorenzo’s words, his claim that he’d been part of the one and only attempt at bringing down the Watchtower, I couldn’t help the small tendrils of hope that spread through me. Hope that he was telling the truth, that there was a chance the curse could be broken.

  When I returned to the Lead Feather, the place was nearly empty. Not unusual for this time of day, but I couldn’t help wondering if patrons had fled with the sense that something strange had taken place here, even if they didn’t remember the details of Lorenzo’s magic. Perhaps the aura of strangeness hung over the place, keeping people away.

  Peter was sitting at the bar and mopping at a cut on his forehead.

  “Children all okay?” he asked when he saw me. He looked a bit glassy-eyed, but obviously had no memory of his possession.

  “Yes, thank the stars. There were no possessions at the school.” I stepped close and pulled his hand away so I could examine the cut. “That needs a bandage. Don’t move. I’ll go get the first aid kit.”

  I found the pouch of ointments and bandages hanging from a nail in the kitchen, brought the entire thing to the bar, and began digging around in it.

  Using a clean napkin with some alcohol from an amber bottle in the kit, I dabbed at the cut.

  “It’s not deep,” I said. “But cuts on the head tend to bleed like hell.”

  I had him hold a piece of gauze over the wound while I wrapped a bandage around the top of his head like a sweatband.

  “Who was that man?” Peter asked. “The one bothering you earlier?”

  I paused my work for half a breath. “I don’t really know,” I said, thinking quickly. “He said his name is Lorenzo.”

  “What does he want with you?”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “We’ve crossed paths a couple of times, and he seemed to think it’s important that we speak.”