Magic to the Bone

by Annie Bellet

  He shot at me. He attacked me with magic. He turned invisible and made me practice sensing spells and my otherworldly awareness techniques, or whatever the hell I was supposed to be developing. He drilled me in the use of the magic dagger, as well, which was kind of awesome. The Alpha and Omega would turn into a sword at my command, light and responsive in my hand. We never fought directly with it, though. Too much risk, since it was supposed to be able to kill anything.

  Not a sorcerer, however. Ash was fairly sure of that. “I’d have a hell of a time regenerating from whatever it did, I imagine,” he said when I asked. “It would most likely destroy everything but my heart’s essence.”

  “So if I stab Samir with it, I’ll still have to eat his heart?” I looked at the dagger resting in its sheath. I had to admit that as much as I wanted to kill him deader than dead, I wasn’t looking forward to giving his memories a permanent home in my brain. At least now that I was whole, I didn’t have ghosts like mind-Tess lurking anymore. I didn’t even want to think about what a horror show it would be to have Samir living on as a strong presence in my thoughts. Ick.

  I trained. I slept. I ate. I fought. Sometimes, just for a little while, I turned into my dragon-cat form and flew, letting it all fall away for a precious, stolen moment.

  “It’s time,” I said one night. I had been putting off saying so, but I could tell that Ash knew. I’d never be totally prepared. “I have to get back to my friends. Time is passing. Even days could be the difference between them surviving or not.”

  “Sit down, Jade,” Ash said. He motioned to the rug in front of the fire.

  His tone was deadly serious, and it scared me enough that I sat without making any smart-ass comment about not being a dog. He sat as well, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knees. His mostly unlined face looked harsher, older somehow.

  “There’s one final thing I have to explain to you,” he said, meeting my gaze with troubled eyes.

  “You are freaking me out,” I said. “Just say it.” My stomach churned like it was full of acid and bees.

  “You cannot, under any circumstances, kill Samir.”

  “The fuck you say?” I fisted my hands on my knees and glared at Ash. “I’m killing him. What the fuck has all this been for if not that?”

  “You must defeat him, I agree. But you cannot swallow his heart. Destroy him with the Alpha and Omega, trap his heart in a container—anything but eat it.” Ash leaned forward, emphasizing his words with a curt gesture.

  “Why?” I asked. Killing Samir was the entire focus of my existence at the moment. This made zero sense.

  “Two thousand years ago, a Seal cracked, leaking magic back into the world in greater and greater quantity. I believe that crack was caused by Samir. His pattern is tied to the Seal. If he is destroyed, it could break the Seal, which could be enough to nullify the Oath entirely. Magic would overflow the world, the time of humans would be over, and the gods and demons and all the creatures of magic could return.”

  That sounded pretty bad, sure. Yet… there was a lot of uncertainty in what Ash was saying, despite his deadly serious tone.

  “You are saying ‘could’ a lot,” I pointed out. “So you aren’t sure?”

  Ash took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “I am not sure. I am sure enough, however, that I will not let you go without your promise, Jade. Destroy him, but do not kill him.”

  “What, you want some magical oath from me?” I got to my feet and paced away from him. I wanted to punch something. Samir had to die. I didn’t want to end the world, though. It seemed too stupid and yet so fucking fitting of the RNG of my life that something I wanted would have consequences like this. Never lucky.

  “No,” Ash said. “Your word will suffice.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head as he started to speak again. “That’s the best you are going to get.”

  Ash stared up into my face and nodded slowly. “Don’t think too long,” he said.

  I knew what he’d seen in my expression. I trusted him. I trusted the vision I’d seen on my hunt for my magic. I knew all too well the long-reaching and terrible consequences of fucking with super-powerful magic. I’d made the mistake once, though for a damn good cause. If a magic apocalypse could be avoided, I would do what I must.

  I walked out into the night and drew a deep breath of fresh air. I would leave in the morning, though it was probably silly to delay. I wanted one more night to marshal my thoughts and get ready to return to the real world.

  Not killing Samir? Would destruction of his corporeal form and keeping his heart locked up in a box like the one he’d made for Clyde, his apprentice, to stuff me into be enough?

  Not for Harper. I could hear her angry words in my memory, her white-hot determination on getting revenge for Max. And I almost felt relief along with the pang of deep loss. She was dead, and I’d never forgive myself for leaving her behind like that.

  But if she were alive, she’d never forgive me if I didn’t kill Samir.

  “Sorry, furball,” I whispered into the darkness. “I hope you will understand, if you are watching from some afterlife. I’m so sorry.” I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks and went back inside to make my father a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

  Harper crouched under the dubious cover of a stunted fir tree and watched the muddy, frozen dirt road that led away from Samir’s base of operations. She’d argued for a position closer to the house, but with Junebug’s return, she’d lost that position to the far stealthier owl. Watch their movements, wait for an opportunity to perhaps sneak in. That was the brilliant plan—or really, compromise—they’d arrived at.

  At least they were doing something. Yosemite had argued with Harper that they had to free the unicorn, though the druid had confirmed it wasn’t one of the unicorns in the Frank’s usual group. Ezee, Levi, and even Harper’s mom thought it was a terrible plan to go back to the farmhouse. Harper could grudgingly admit they had a point. Nothing good had happened to her in that place, and it was crawling with mercenaries they didn’t have the firepower or numbers to fight head-on.

  Not to mention that bastard Samir. He alone was enough to make anyone think twice about attacking.

  “He doesn’t have the dragon blood, right? So the unicorn is captured, but safe,” Ezee had argued.

  “We don’t know what he has or doesn’t have. He found another unicorn. What? You scared of a little fight?” Harper wanted to fight something, someone. Do something. Weeks of lurking in the woods, watching and waiting, wasn’t getting her any closer to avenging Max. They were a mere annoyance, and barely that, in Samir’s side. Not even a thorn. More like a tiny splinter.

  “There might be alternate things he could use to raise Balor,” Yosemite had interjected, stepping physically between Ezee and Harper. “I am not good with the language yet, but my book has some passages that might say more.”

  “Which we could read if Jade were here,” Levi had said softly.

  “Our knight in magic armor isn’t here, and I don’t see her riding up anytime soon,” Harper shot back. “There’s just us.”

  “She is right,” Alek had said, surprising Harper most of all. “We cannot wait while Samir becomes a god. We will watch them more closely, but we have to be more careful. Junebug said they are more active in town, no? So we wait. If Samir leaves, perhaps with cover of darkness we can get the unicorn out.”

  There had been more arguing, but it was clear nobody had their heart in refusing. As scared and tired as they all were, Harper realized, they were all feeling the same frustration of inaction. Wylde was under siege in a quiet, deadly way, and nobody was stepping up to save their home. It was up to them.

  Engine noise rumbled in the distance. Harper pressed herself as flat as her fox body would go. One of Samir’s SUVs appeared after an agonizing minute, followed by two more, and both of the trucks with the huge cages in their beds. Harper tried to remember how man
y vehicles the mercenaries had in total. Five? Six? This was most of his forces moving out. No horse trailer, so it was likely the unicorn was still in the paddock.

  She stayed hidden until the vehicles had rounded the bend and turned onto the road heading into Wylde. Then she counted to one hundred, lifting her nose and tasting the air. No smell of wolf or man, only mud, pine needles, and the lingering traces of exhaust fumes. All was quiet.

  “He’s definitely gone,” Junebug said. “He was in the second vehicle. He’s not hard to pick out; all the others seem to kowtow to him. Even though I can’t see faces from that distance, I can read the body language.”

  “See? He’s gone. Only one car remains. Most of them are gone. This is go time.” Harper paced through the snow, kicking up chunks with her boots. By Junebug’s count, there couldn’t be more than a half dozen of the mercenaries left to guard the unicorn. They’d never have a better chance.

  “I don’t like it,” Ezee said.

  “Me either,” Levi echoed. “Harper, think about it,” he added as she glared at the twins. “He has his prize, something that you took from him, and he just goes off to do whatever in town, leaving barely anyone there to guard? This has trap written all over it in letters fifty feet high.”

  “Perhaps,” Junebug said. She laid a hand on Levi’s arm. “But he did something first to the paddock with the unicorn. It’s not just fencing now, but a dome. The silver wire almost looks like chain link. Even if we got the halter off, the unicorn wouldn’t be able to jump out.”

  “And why make it so much harder and more protected, with magic, no less, if it is a trap?” Harper added. She folded her arms across her chest. Levi had a point, but some risks had to be taken. Thwarting Samir’s plans was the next best thing to killing his ass. She could do one, even if she lacked the power to do the other. Harper refused to be helpless.

  “We do not know how soon they will return,” Ezee said.

  “Which is why we go now,” Harper said. “We have to do something. Alek?”

  She looked at the big tiger shifter. The former Justice had his head bowed, his pale blue eyes fixed on some unseen point in the middle distance.

  “I will go,” Alek said. “Harper is right. If there is a chance to stop him, we must take it.”

  “There’s more trouble with this plan,” Yosemite said. “If you go now, I cannot come with you.”

  Harper glared at the druid. “Why?”

  “The confluence,” Ezee said, comprehension dawning on his face.

  “Oh, shit,” Harper said. Yosemite had mentioned that he might have a chance of reaching into Faerie and contacting Brie and Ciaran, but he had to wait for a special day and time. Magic was too stupidly complicated. Harper wished spell-caster types could button-mash in real life. It would solve so many problems.

  “At dusk. It may be my only chance for a while. If I could let them know what is going on, perhaps they can come home more quickly.”

  “There will be, what, one or two on patrol? Maybe four in the house?” Levi asked. His expression gave Harper hope. He was thinking, planning. He’d come with them.

  Of course he would. Alek had spoken. They still followed what he said, even she herself did for the most part. He was the alpha, in the end, Justice or not. Harper figured now would be a poor time to start resenting that. She was exhausted, that was all. Tired and full of hate for the one man she had zero chance of killing. Feels bad, man.

  No time for riding the pity train to Sad Town. Harper gave herself a mental shake as Alek started outlining the plan.

  Junebug would watch the road in and be prepared to try to signal if the cars were returning. Harper and Alek would go in from the west, killing the sentry there and using the fact that there were few windows on the rear of the farmhouse as cover for getting across the open ground. Ezee and Levi would hunt down the sentry on the other side and be prepared to run in as a distraction if Harper and Alek needed it. Rose was going to stay behind with Yosemite in his grove and keep guard. Harper was happy about that last, though she knew her mother wasn’t.

  “This isn’t the time for heroics,” her mom told her, pulling Harper into a hug.

  “I have to go. I know how to get that wire off,” Harper said, squeezing her mother back until she felt like her arms would pop.

  Not that there was much trick to it. Grab hold, ignore the horrible burn, pull. Harper wasn’t about to share that detail yet. She wanted to be in the thick of things. Alek was huge and tough and shit, but he couldn’t be allowed to have all the fun. Or take on all the danger. Harper prayed that Samir hadn’t put any serious whammy on the fencing.

  Torch that bridge when you are over it, she told herself.

  Harper pulled away from her mom and smiled in what she hoped was a brave way. Then she reached for her fox and shifted, following the giant white tiger into the woods.

  Round two, motherfucker, she thought. She was going to be a damn thorn, not a splinter, if she had any say at all.

  The sentry wolf was walking his normal route. It wasn’t Gamer Guy, as Harper had nicknamed her reluctant benefactor. She felt thin relief at that as she looked at his corpse. This wolf hadn’t stood a chance against Alek, not when Alek was hunting and ready. The tiger had snapped the wolf’s neck to where it hung at a sickening angle even in death. There was barely any blood, just a tinge of its scent on the air. That was good. It wouldn’t give them away.

  Harper was used to activity in the clearing around the farmhouse. Dusk was falling, the tired winter sun sinking behind black spears of pine and fir. Her breath puffed out from her nose as the air chilled to below freezing. The snow had started to form a thin crust, and crunched beneath her paws. The sound was faint, something unlikely to be heard from the house, but it still made Harper jumpy. Nothing moved in the clearing except the dimly seen white form inside the wire dome.

  Junebug had reported correctly. What had been a paddock made of silvered barbed wire was now a cage of the stuff, the silver wiring glowing faintly where it curved upward and formed a latticelike dome. There were still gaps in the fencing, especially between the bottom wire and the snow-covered ground. Harper could get in the same way she had before, just going underneath it. Tiger-Alek wouldn’t fit.

  To get the halter off, she would have to shift. After that, she had no plan.

  Didn’t matter. No plan survives contact with the enemy, she told herself. Harper would do what a gamer did best; improvise and try not to die. Life, on Hardcore mode, she thought with a twinge of bleak humor. No do-overs. No save files.

  Harper hung back at the edge of the woods, waiting with Alek while he took in the silent scene. Just one SUV left. A few lights in the windows, though the bathroom window she had escaped out of, twice, was dark. She met Alek’s gaze and he gave a soft huffling grunt.

  They moved in a line, small red fox and giant white tiger, crossing the open ground between the woods and the house with low, quick strides. Alek held himself back for her, Harper knew, letting her stay on his tail, using his bulk to clear the snow. They were going to leave a hell of a trail, but it didn’t matter. There was no hiding they had been here now, not with a dead wolf behind them.

  She wondered if Ezee and Levi were all right, but immediately pushed that worry from her mind. They had their job to do and they would do it. The brothers would look out for each other, and Levi’s wolverine was more than a match for a wolf, even a shifter wolf.

  Harper reached the edge of the house behind Alek. Still no noise, no movement. She smelled nothing out of the ordinary, but not many ordinary smells either. Snow, mud, Alek’s tiger scent. Fainter smell of wolf and human. And horse. Which was odd, because unicorns didn’t smell like horses exactly. Without waiting for Alek, Harper slid around the side of the house. No one was on the porch. No sounds of movement from inside.

  Alek slunk out into the open ground by the paddock, his huge white form obscenely visible against the muddy, churned-up ground. Harper watched as he circled the house. He s
eemed like he was just asking to be shot at, but nobody tried.

  The house appeared abandoned. Alek snarled, moving back to Harper where she crouched beside the porch.

  Okay, she admitted to herself. It’s maybe a trap. But there was still a unicorn. She could see the white body moving inside the paddock. She couldn’t see if it had a horn from here. She had to get closer.

  Ignoring Alek’s warning snarl, Harper ran for the paddock. She was almost to the fence, ready to duck beneath it, when she heard a woman yell out, “It’s a trap, stop!”

  Harper froze. It was a voice she recognized, a voice that she had started to despair of ever hearing again. Jade had returned.

  “So I just have to click my heels together and think of home?” I looked at Ash with as much skepticism as I could muster given that I was a dragon, in a pocket of unreality, talking to another dragon. Still, teleportation seemed kind of dangerous to me.

  But… I wanted to be back with Alek and my friends. I wanted to know they were all right. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Samir again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel ready. I guess part of being a big damn hero is that you do things anyway, no matter how scared you feel.

  “Visualize a place you know well. It will be the quickest way back,” Ash said.

  We were standing in the open field by the cabin. I looked around and sighed. It would be so simple to stay, to put things off another week or two. Time wasn’t passing much outside here, or so Ash said. Would another week mean the difference between winning and losing? I had no way to know.

  “Everywhere I knew is gone,” I said. My shop was burned. The Henhouse B&B was burned. I had no idea if Alek had his trailer with him or where it would be. Had he left Wylde? If my friends were smart, they would have gotten the hell out of there. But no, the druid had said they were hiding out in the River of No Return wilderness. “If they are in the woods, how will I find them?” I vocalized my worries.