Blood Storm Magic

by Jayne Faith

  Clearing my throat, I tried again. “I took care of the arch-demon, and the magical specialists closed the rip,” I said.

  “Nice, that must have been something to see.” She pulled the towel from her head and began finger-combing her damp strawberry blond hair. “Maybe there’s hope for permanently closing all the rips.”

  I pushed off the edge of the sofa and stood. “Eh, the magic is apparently not developed enough to handle bigger ones. Experts are saying the new techniques can’t be scaled up. The Boise Rip and the Manhattan Rip aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

  Some of the interdimensional tears were permanent, the original and biggest of them being located in New York.

  “Well, one can hope,” she said in her typical sunny-minded fashion.

  Yeah, except the best chance for ending the rips permanently seemed to require murdering my brother. At least, that was what Jacob Gregori and the Order of Mages claimed. Apparently, Evan possessed the precise type of magic that made him the one and only ideal conduit for channeling the power that would seal the rips. Jacob had claimed my parents had me for this aim, but I hadn’t come out quite right for the job. Evan had.

  I started toward the kitchen to get a pot of coffee started but paused in the arched doorway.

  “Lagatuda was there,” I said, watching her for a reaction.

  Her fingers paused in her hair for a split-second. “Was he?” she asked, her disinterest a bit too forced for me to believe it.

  “Aw, c’mon, I know the two of you have been talking,” I said teasingly.

  Her mouth dropped open, and she gave me an affronted look. “Have you been spying on me?”

  I laughed. “No, I can tell by the look you get on your face whenever he texts you.”

  The living room was too dark to see for sure, but I would have bet she was blushing.

  “I’m still technically married, Ella,” she mumbled. By the way she said it, it seemed she was trying to remind herself rather than me. “I shouldn’t have contacted him at all when he gave you his card.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not gonna be married for much longer,” I said. I leaned against the doorway, watching as she folded the towel that had been wrapped around her head. “It’s okay, you know. You and Keith are done. There’s nothing wrong with talking to another man. There’s nothing wrong with being interested in another man. You deserve happiness. Besides, it’s not like you’ve been out on a date with the guy. A little harmless texting is okay.”

  “I don’t know why a man like Chris would be interested in someone like me, anyway.” A little smile played across her lips, at odds with her words. “Pregnant, broke, and not quite divorced.”

  “Um, because you’re amazing,” I said, turning into the kitchen. If I didn’t get some caffeine in my system very soon, I was going to fall over. “Your circumstances don’t change that basic fact. If Lagatuda sees that, more power to him. I say enjoy it.”

  “What do you think of him, really?” she called from the bathroom.

  I hesitated. No one was good enough for Deb, in my not-at-all-humble opinion, but I supposed I had to be at least a little bit realistic about the fact that she wasn’t the type to stay single. After a childhood spent in foster care, she craved close bonds and had always dreamed of having a large family.

  “Honestly . . . I guess you could do worse,” I said grudgingly. “I suppose he can’t be a complete idiot if he likes you so much. And unlike your soon-to-be-ex, he has a real big-boy career with a decent paycheck. He gets points for that.”

  Deb’s husband had constantly chased the lure of an easy fortune, blowing all their money on get-rich-quick schemes that never panned out. He’d even taken her beloved Honda that she’d driven since we first met in high school and sold it. So, in terms of financial responsibility, just about any man was a big step up from the pyramid scheme addict she’d married.

  “I’ve never heard you speak so glowingly of a man,” she said with a giggle. “Seriously, that’s like a ticker tape parade, coming from you. High school marching bands, Rockettes, washed-up pop stars on floats, big balloon cartoon characters, the whole works.”

  “I’ll still murder him in his sleep if he does anything to hurt you,” I growled.

  She laughed again. “Aw, don’t you go and get all mushy on me. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m being dead serious when I say Chris and I are just friends, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. I’m having a baby in a few months. I don’t have time for dating.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said lightly. I knew she felt conflicted about even some innocent texting with Chris when she wasn’t divorced yet, but her growing feelings for Chris were clear.

  “So, you thinking about getting back on the dating horse?” Deb asked.

  The image of Caleb Montgomery, with his sparkly green eyes and one-dimpled grin, sprang to my mind.

  “Nah,” I said.

  “You hesitated.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Did too. Who is it?”

  “Nobody,” I said. “I’m not ready for that.”

  She let it go, and I got a pot of coffee going, opened the back door so Loki could bound out into the yard, and then poured myself a cup before the machine had quite finished its brewing cycle. Scalding my tongue, I drank half the mug before my hellhound-doodle scratched to come back in only a minute later. He looked up at me expectantly. The gargoyle that liked to roost my tiny yard was absent, so there was nothing fun for Loki to antagonize out there.

  “Dude, you don’t expect me to play fetch, do you? We both know you’re not really that kind of dog.”

  He wagged his tail and gave me a doggy smile, tiny licks of hellfire dancing in his dark pupils, and I cracked a grin and ruffled the top of his shaggy head.

  Once the caffeine started to kick in, my thoughts returned to Damien and San Francisco. He’d never mentioned any friends or other connections to that area, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. In the past couple of months, I’d realized I didn’t know him nearly as well as I’d assumed.

  Part of me was itching to take off and start searching. But I couldn’t just go to the Bay Area and wander around with my minor demons, hoping to catch a glimpse of him or Evan. Damien wasn’t stupid.

  Instead of my usual impulsive reaction, I needed to try to glean some info first. And I planned to start with Damien’s loft. I’d recently checked to see whether he’d kept his lease, and as far as I could tell, no one new had moved in. He’d left town in a hurry, using his mage magic to teleport right out of Lynnette Leblanc’s house with Evan. I hoped Damien had been in too big a rush to take anything from his loft because I planned to tear the place apart looking for any hint of where I might find him.

  Then I’d head for San Francisco. I didn’t have mage magic, but Rogan had taught me how to use the in-between to instantly move long distances. I wouldn’t even have to book a plane ticket.

  “Ella?” Deb appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Anybody home?”

  “Sorry, what?” I’d gotten more absorbed in my thoughts than I’d realized.

  “The coven meeting tonight. I’ll swing by and get you after work, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, carefully neutral.

  Deb and I belonged to a coven led by Lynnette Leblanc, a powerful and manipulative witch. I’d never intended to end up in such a group, but she’d used her verbal magic on me when I needed a favor from her, and I’d unwittingly found myself roped in. Deb had been ecstatic about my membership—she had been trying to get me to join for ages—but in the months I’d been part of the coven, I’d discovered just how dangerous Lynnette was. I wanted Deb out, and of course I wanted to leave as well, but for the moment we were both bound to the group.

  Things had taken an interesting turn in the past few weeks, though. Lynnette had gotten herself in trouble with a dragon oracle and had to give up one of her most prized magical skills as punishment: her exorcism talent. Around the same time, my own magical ability h
ad been amped up by a spell Damien created before he turned mage, and I’d become far more powerful than she was, in terms of pure magical aptitude. I wasn’t yet very skilled with my newfound power, but the dynamic between me and Lynnette had shifted. She seemed torn between resenting my magical strength and an itching curiosity about the spell behind the phenomenon, no doubt so she could try to use it on herself. Because there was really only one thing Lynnette Leblanc cared about, and that was power.

  In her quest for power, Lynnette had secretly started harvesting magic from around small rips that she was opening. She’d attracted the wrong kind of attention for it, which ended up getting one of the witches in her coven killed. The tragedy was actually what had opened a spot in her coven that I ended up taking.

  It wasn’t the only reckless thing Lynnette had done, but somehow she never seemed to get caught. In fact, losing her exorcism magic when she crossed the dragon oracle was the first time she’d had to pay for her actions.

  I hoped it was only the beginning of her downfall, which couldn’t come fast enough for my liking.

  In the meantime, I was keeping a close eye on Lynnette and trying to chip away at Deb’s faith in the coven leader. It was slow going, though. Deb was often too trusting by nature, Lynnette was a charismatic leader, and the tight-knit coven fulfilled a large part of Deb’s longing for family.

  As soon as Deb left for work in my pickup, I went to the kitchen, plugged the drain, and filled the sink with about two inches of water. Then I closed my eyes and let go of the realm of the living, turning to the presence of the reaper inside me and allowing us to reach for the in-between. Deb was aware of my ability to use the in-between to teleport, but I never did it in front of her. This was the trick Rogan had taught me. And that was probably why I always did it alone. He’d shown me how once he’d returned to his reaper form, only hours after he’d been possessed by a new form of hellspawn and then died for it, finally releasing him back to his home in the in-between. It had been the last time I’d seen him in any form, and so somehow the thing he’d shown me felt private, almost sacred.

  Sensing an adventure, Loki popped into limbo land a second later, the mist of the gray place billowing away from him as he shook his spectral hellhound form and then looked up at me expectantly.

  Again, I pulled my attention inward, this time to my mind’s eye. I pictured the interior of Damien’s loft, and specifically the large bowl of water I’d left on the counter last time I’d been there.

  There were a couple of catches. You had to know your destination well enough to picture it in detail, and there had to be water there. Water was the thing that connected the two locations. Beyond that, I didn’t have a clue how it worked.

  Holding Damien’s kitchen in my mind’s eye, I reached into the sink of water with my bony reaper’s hand and trailed my fingers across the surface. It shimmered and then clarified. And then I was there, standing with Loki in the in-between version of an expensive downtown Boise loft.

  I changed my focus to the human-Ella part of me, and the in-between dissolved away, sharpening into the colors and forms of the living realm.

  With a slight shiver, I looked around at the abandoned loft where Damien and I had spent hours planning out our new business venture, sparring on his practice mats with various weapons, and just shooting the shit. But that was the past. That Damien was gone.

  “Okay, boy,” I said to Loki. “Let’s see what we can dig up.”

  Chapter 5

  I DIDN’T KNOW whether Damien had returned to his loft in the time since he’d disappeared from Lynnette’s guest room with my brother. I’d come to Damien’s place right after, hoping to catch him, but with his mage power he could transport himself anywhere in an instant, and of course he hadn’t been there.

  Damien’s laptop was gone, but he’d left the one he’d bought for me—a business expense, he said, and because he didn’t want to share his. I almost smiled, thinking of the time we’d spent hunched over the kitchen island scouring the supernatural contract job listings.

  I didn’t really want anything from Damien, but I’d finally caved and taken the laptop when I realized I did need it for work. Getting it out of Damien’s loft had required an interesting little dance between realms and some running around. I’d unlocked the loft’s front door, gone down to the lobby and hidden the laptop behind a planter, then hurried back to the loft to re-lock the door and use the in-between to transport myself to a nearby location where there was a small fountain. From there I’d walked back to the lobby to retrieve the laptop. All so I could get in and out and keep the loft’s door locked.

  Yeah, my life was really fricking weird these days.

  I went to the modern, minimal desk that was set up against one of the large windows. It had a slim center drawer that held a few pens, a package of business envelopes, and a pad of sticky notes. The only other drawer, large enough to accommodate file folders, contained an unopened package of printer paper and a small notebook.

  My pulse jumped when I picked up the notebook, but flipping through it revealed it hadn’t been used. I tossed it back.

  Did I really expect Damien to have left me easy clues? He wasn’t sloppy, and he wasn’t stupid. But there was a part of me that still held onto the idea that in his transition to mage some things might have slipped his mind. Zarella had warned me that if Damien took the offer of mage power, he wouldn’t be the same person afterward. The old Damien was neat and careful. But maybe the new Damien wasn’t quite as meticulous.

  I went to the kitchen and systematically opened every drawer and cabinet but didn’t find anything interesting. I rummaged through the freezer, which contained a bag of mixed vegetables, half a dozen frozen dinners, an open box of ice cream bars, and a half gallon of mint chocolate chip. The fridge was empty except for condiment containers.

  There wasn’t a lot in the way of décor, but I peeked behind everything on the walls, moved all the furniture, and rifled through cushions. Using the tip of my pocket knife, I pried up all the vents to see if he’d hidden anything in the ducts.

  As I moved around the main living space, Loki followed me, peering at the things I touched and sniffing everything that was in the reach of his nose. But after a while he lost interest and jumped up onto the sofa.

  I skipped the guest bath, as there were no cabinets. Last, I went into the master suite.

  The bed was neatly made, but the hamper was overflowing. I started with the nightstand and went through the entire room but didn’t come across anything significant. Ditto for the bathroom.

  I flipped on the light in the walk-in closet and went straight for the stuff on the shelf over the clothes rods. First, a set of three suitcases, all empty. Next, a plastic tub, one of the big ones people use to store Christmas decorations or craft supplies.

  It was heavy, and I had the sense even before I opened it that if there was anything in the damn apartment that would help me, it would be in there.

  I lifted the lid, and on top a family portrait stared back at me. It was a framed photograph, eight by ten, displaying a man, woman, and three tow-headed children ranging in age from about six to ten years. I knew the adults—I’d seen them at Gregori Industries. They’d stood with Jacob and Damien and peered at me through glass as if I were a monkey at the zoo. They were Damien’s parents, mages of the legendary Stein family. The youngest child in the picture had to be Damien—even at that age his wide blue eyes, straight brow, and high cheekbones betrayed how handsome he would be. The other boy and girl were obviously his siblings, but I realized he’d never even mentioned their names.

  One conversation came flooding back as I held the picture frame. Damien had told me that his family used to have a portrait like this taken every year, but they did two versions. One with the full family. The other that excluded Damien, because he was the only one of the Steins who wasn’t a mage.

  A pang gripped the center of my chest as I remembered his face as he’d told me the story. It wasn’t th
at he’d been sad or angry that had left such an impression on me, but that he’d seemed so matter-of-fact. He described something that was horrible to me but to him was simply normal. He’d been treated as a second-class citizen in his own family, and that was just his reality from the day he was born. It was the thing that had driven most of his decisions as an adult, his obsessive quest to increase his own magical aptitude. His longing for acceptance was what had driven him to take Evan. It was what had brought me to be where I was at that very moment, digging through his private things while Damien held my brother captive somewhere in San Francisco.

  I set the photo aside and began to dig through the box in earnest. There were framed diplomas and more family portraits, which weren’t any help in my quest. I piled them next to me. Then I got into more random items. A mug with a picture of the Statue of Liberty. A seven-year-old playbill from a theater in Chicago. A plastic food storage box labeled “photos” with several memory sticks in it. A well-thumbed copy of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. A few souvenir art books from famous museums in Europe. More small trinkets from various locations. A shoebox stuffed with vintage baseball cards from the 80s and 90s. A stack of letters rubber-banded together. I checked the postmarks, but none were from California, and I didn’t have the patience to read through all of them.

  I paused to turn each item in my hands, realizing again how little Damien had spoken of his past.

  Toward the bottom of the tub, I uncovered a loose stack of pictures. The top one was of Damien a few years younger than he was now, smiling and leaning into a good-looking guy with medium-dark skin, fashionably short stubble, and deep brown eyes. A piece of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Golden Gate Bridge took up much of the background.

  My interest pinged.

  There were more photos taken on the same day, judging by the same clothes they wore. Most of the pics were close-cropped selfies. In one, the dark-haired guy was planting a kiss on Damien’s cheek. My former partner’s eyes sparkled, and his white teeth gleamed in a broad smile. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him display that kind of beaming happiness.