Gods of Chaos (Red Magic)

by Jen McConnel

  After I emailed Mom back, I tapped my fingers, not sure what to do next. Something Marcus had said yesterday niggled at the back of my mind. Didn’t he have a sister who practiced something called Blue magic? My limited experience with Red magic had made me question the balanced concept of the world that I had been raised with. If there were more than just four types of magic, what might I be up against?

  It seemed like the only gods interested in acts of chaos were the Red patrons I had encountered so far. I knew that Green gods were generally related to nature and the earth, like my mother’s patron, Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest. White and Black patrons were always harder to pin down. At Trinity, we mostly focused on the Greco Roman pantheon, and since they were a farm-based society, many of their deities practiced Green magic. There were a few who weren’t ever identified in my classes as having any correspondence to one of the three magics—I remembered now that Hecate had always been described as being above the divisions of magic.

  Suddenly, with a flash of intuition, I realized that I knew exactly how to get Marcus to listen to me without messing with his free will. I pulled up an Internet search engine and hit a few keys. In a moment, I had a photo and an address on the screen in front of me. It was time to expand my plans, and even though I felt a twinge of guilt at what I was about to do, I reminded myself of what was at stake. If Marcus didn’t help me, I had a feeling that we’d both be vulnerable to Hecate. I was ready to do anything to stop her, and I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed Marcus; I couldn’t afford to be picky about how I got his help.

  ***

  I found the school easily: it took up a full city block, and the old brick building pulsed with magic. It reminded me of Trinity, and I felt a pang of longing as I sat down on the curb across the street to wait.

  I didn’t have to wait very long; the website had mentioned older students having off-campus privileges for lunch, and the sun was high in the sky when I got there. Soon, girls in blue uniforms began trickling past me, laughing and joking. I scanned their faces, hoping that I would recognize her.

  A girl with hair that was such a dark brown it might as well have been black emerged from the gate. She was walking slowly, carrying a book in one hand, her finger tracing the open page as she moved. Her lips moved silently, and I smiled. She was older than the picture I’d found, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but I was certain that was her.

  “Isadora?” I stood up quickly and approached her. She paused and looked up, curious.

  “It’s Izzy. But yeah, that’s me.”

  I stuck out my hand. “I’m Darlena. I’m a friend of Marcus.”

  She eyed my hand without moving, and then looked into my eyes. “No you’re not.”

  Taken aback, I didn’t know what to say. She went on, seemingly oblivious of my surprise.

  “But you’re like him, so I guess you won’t be too bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Surprise crossed her face. “You don’t know?”

  Confused, I shrugged. “What did he say about me?”

  She giggled and flipped her hair. “He didn’t have to say anything, silly. It’s obvious you’re a Red. What are you doing here?”

  Dumbfounded, I stared at the girl. She laughed again.

  “I only have an hour for lunch, so you’ll have to talk fast.” She continued up the street, and I rushed after her.

  “If you know what I am, aren’t you afraid of me?” I didn’t want to ask that question, but this girl had caught me so totally off guard I’d forgotten what I’d planned to say.

  She shook her head. “Nah. I’m used to Marcus. If he isn’t dangerous, I don’t see why I should be afraid of you. Of course,” she smiled slyly, glancing at me, “he stopped teasing me the more I learned about Blue magic, so I guess that’s some assurance.”

  “But what’s Blue magic?”

  Izzy gaped at me, stunned. “Seriously? You don’t know anything, do you?”

  I bristled. “I know plenty about White and Green and Black magic.”

  “And Red?” Her question irritated me.

  “Of course.” I thought I sounded confident, but she smirked as if she knew that I was lying. This girl was strange: maybe she did know.

  I shook my head, irritated. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  She smiled impishly. “Which one?”

  Resisting the urge to strangle her, I said, “About Blue magic.”

  She fell silent, a serious expression on her face. When she stopped walking, I crashed into her.

  “Sorry.” She gestured to the food cart in front of us. “I always grab my lunch here.”

  At first I was annoyed at her change of topic, but then I shrugged. Maybe if we ate together, she’d be more willing to help me. I forced a smile. “What do they have?”

  “Falafel. I love it. Want one?”

  “I guess.” Growing up with a vegetarian mother, I’d tried just about every non-meat food at one time or another, but I didn’t remember what falafel tasted like.

  “I’ll order for you if you pay.” Her smile had returned. “And then we’ll talk.”

  Fishing around in my pocket, I dug out a few bills and she nodded, grabbing the money deftly and skipping over to the food cart.

  I hung back while she ordered, watching her. I still hadn’t figured out how old Marcus was, but his sister couldn’t be more than fourteen. For just a moment, I felt guilty about my plans to use the kid, but I tried to shake it off. I didn’t mean her any harm; I just wanted her to help me get her brother’s attention. He might be willing to ignore me when I was just another Witch, but if I was his sister’s friend, maybe he’d listen. It was a long shot, but I was desperate.

  Izzy glanced back at me once, almost as if she could read the confused swirl of emotions in my mind, and I forced a smile and waved at her. She grinned back and turned her attention back to our food. Her braces flashed as she chatted with the tired-looking man at the food cart, and when she headed toward me I noticed he began to stand a little straighter and smile. Was she using magic to charm the guy? I almost asked when she got back to where I was standing, but something held me back.

  The pocket sandwich she handed me was pleasantly hot in my hands, and I chewed carefully, afraid of burning my mouth. While I figured out what to say, Izzy took a huge chomp of her lunch and began talking around the food.

  “So you want to know about Blue magic.”

  I nodded, chewing thoughtfully. The falafel tasted like unfamiliar spices, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. “What is it?”

  She rolled her neck twice and took another bite. “Well,” she paused to swallow, glancing at me, “it’s Water magic.”

  That made sense. Mom and Dad were Green Witches, and I’d always associated them with earth. Ever since declaring Red, I’d felt my own elemental pull. “Like Red is Fire magic?”

  “Yup. Just like that.”

  “Okay.” I looked at her expectantly.

  She sighed. “It’s hard to explain to someone else! Have you ever tried to explain Red magic to a non-Red?”

  I thought about Rochelle and Justin. “Yes. I didn’t do a very good job.”

  Izzy laughed mildly. “Right. Well, it’s the same for me right now.”

  I thought for a minute. “If it’s Water magic, what kind of things do you do?”

  “I could mess with the weather, if I wanted to.” She glanced up at the gray sky pressing down on us. “But I usually don’t. I mean, if I change the weather pattern here, who knows what else I’m affecting?” Her words made her sound much older than I thought she was, and I studied her face, wondering if she’d be easy to manipulate. Maybe I had made a bad choice to use her to get to Marcus, but I had to see if it would work.

  “My folks are Greens. I think they’d kill me if I ever did anything to the weather.”

  Izzy laughed. “Marcus doesn’t seem to mind. He messes with the sun all the time.” She paused and looked at me, intrigued. “I thought it
was a Red thing.”

  I shrugged. “I guess Reds can be different.” My voice was sharp as I thought about what Marcus had said to me yesterday, and I struggled to get my anger in check. There was no way I wanted to reveal to the kid that her brother didn’t want anything to do with me; I needed her help.

  Even though she fixed me with a stare that made me squirm, she didn’t push me. She finished her lunch and continued. “Blue governs Water, which is elementally connected to things like love, creativity, and self-knowing.” She glanced at me sideways. “What does Red govern?”

  Surprised, I answered, “Chaos. I thought you knew that.”

  She shook her head. “Marcus doesn’t talk about his magic much.”

  I nodded. That was something I understood only too well. “Red is Fire magic, like you said. That means it controls things like chaos, passion, and raw energy.”

  Izzy leaned back. “So it’s a very active magic.”

  I snorted. “Very.” That was an understatement.

  “So is Blue.” She laughed at my confused expression and went on. “It’s a different kind of active, of course, but just think about the ocean. Would anyone call it calm? Besides, water beats fire.”

  I shook my head, starting to see her point. “Why did you choose Blue?”

  “Why did you choose Red?” she shot back.

  “I—” I stopped. I didn’t have an answer for her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “That’s okay. It’s just not that easy to explain, y’know?”

  I nodded and changed the subject. I knew I should try to bring the conversation around to Marcus, but I realized I was genuinely interested in knowing more about Izzy. “Do you have a patron?”

  Her eyes danced. “Of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Not a lot of the Witches at my old school did.” I paused, debating how much I wanted to tell her. “I don’t think my best friend had one.”

  If Izzy noticed that I’d said “had” instead of “has,” she didn’t let on. “That sounds like a weird school. We’re encouraged to swear to our patron as soon as we choose our magical path.”

  “What kind of gods practice Blue magic?”

  She stiffened her shoulders. “The best kind.”

  “I’m sorry.” I realized I’d made her defensive. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t know. I get it. Sorry I got ticked.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “My patron is Isis.”

  I thought for a moment. “The Egyptian Goddess?”

  Izzy nodded. “Queen of Heaven, Mistress of Magic, and Goddess of Ten Thousand Names.” She stood up straighter as she recited the list, and I felt a subtle shift in the air around us. For a moment, my face felt warm, and I thought I smelled the desert.

  I took a step back and the illusion dispersed. “Impressive.”

  She laughed. “She really is. She’s been like a mother to me.”

  “How does that make your real mother feel?” I joked.

  Izzy looked away abruptly. “I have to get back to class.” She started walking back toward the school.

  I followed her, surprised by how quickly the hour had gone by. “Can we talk some more?”

  She looked at me, sizing me up, and again I had the sense that she was older than me. It was hard not to fidget as her eyes fixed on mine, and I smiled at her. It wasn’t like she could read my mind or anything.

  “I guess,” she said after a moment. “Where?”

  I thought about it. It seemed weird to go back to my hotel, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else in the city where we would have privacy to talk. “I’m staying at a hotel uptown.”

  She grimaced. “Ugh. Boring.”

  “Well, what did you have in mind?”

  For a moment, she scrunched her eyes shut, thinking. I wanted to laugh, but I kept my expression still. Finally, she looked at me with a smile. “Can you handle cemeteries?”

  I stared at her for a minute. “Seriously?”

  She grinned. “Well, I’m not following you back to your hotel, so why not?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.” I’d never made a habit of hanging out in cemeteries, but if that’s where Izzy wanted to meet up, I wasn’t about to give up the opportunity. I was certain she’d be my key to Marcus, even though we’d barely talked about him. And if I was being honest, I sort of liked talking with her.

  She tapped her nose with her index finger. “Can you find Greyfriars?”

  I nodded slowly, thinking back to my guidebook. “Isn’t that one of the most haunted places in Edinburgh?”

  The girl winked. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid of ghosts?”

  Sandra’s voice echoed in my mind, asking the same question, and I shuddered, pushing aside the memory. “No, but I don’t want to be one just yet.”

  Izzy smiled. “It’s safe. Trust me!”

  I smiled back at her, ignoring the flicker of guilt caused by her words. “Okay.” I trusted her, but could the kid trust me? I wasn’t sure.

  After meeting Izzy, I headed back to my hotel to think. I lay on my back on the bed and stared up at the crackly ceiling. What did I want to get out of this trip? I thought about Marcus; it was obvious when I met him that he had a strong grasp of Red magic, but he was impossible to read. Could he actually mean what he said, that he didn’t want to align with me? A little voice at the back of my mind whispered that surely he must want to shake off Hecate’s control, too.

  I used to think Reds were kept apart because of the magnified chaos we had the potential to cause together, but recently I had begun to wonder. What if we were really kept apart so we didn’t challenge any of the Red deities? The gods I’d met were jealous of other magics, and carefully guarded themselves and their devotees with something approaching fanaticism.

  Not for the first time I wondered if the training I’d received at Trinity had been flawed. What if the things that I thought were laws of magic were actually just the laws of the narrow-minded faculty at my school? And why had the decision been made to only teach three magics? Most people at Trinity didn’t even know there were any other forms of magic—I’d been one of them until Hecate showed up.

  Shaking off my thoughts, I stood up and stretched. I had three hours before Izzy had promised to meet me. That should give me enough time for a shower and some food, I thought, heading for the small bathroom. While part of me was looking forward to hanging out with Izzy some more, I felt awkward. I knew I needed to use her to help me get to Marcus, but now that I’d met her, that idea felt a little sour. I liked Marcus’s sister. She was a neat kid, and I had really enjoyed talking with her that morning. Maybe it wasn’t fair to involve her in this mess.

  I looked at myself in the steamy mirror. “All’s fair in love and war.” I smiled sadly at my reflection.

  ***

  Even though I was on time, it wasn’t Izzy I saw when I walked up to the gate at the graveyard.

  Marcus didn’t look thrilled to see me. That’s an understatement; actually, he looked like smoke might start coming out of his ears at any moment. His jaw was clenched, and even from a distance, I could see the dangerous spark in his eyes. His presence set me on edge, but I didn’t want him to know that. I squared my shoulders and tried to brush past him, but he grabbed my arm.

  Jolted by the electricity I’d felt the first time we met, I lost my composure for an instant. Red sparks started dancing on my skin as I resisted the urge to lash out at him. A strange look flickered across his face, and he let go of my arm with a grunt.

  “What are you doing here?” He growled the words, but I noticed he didn’t touch me again.

  “Here at Greyfriars, or here in Scotland?” I wanted to sound jaunty and unafraid, but my voice shook slightly.

  “Take your pick. But more importantly, why did my sister call me to tell me she’d met another Red Witch this morning?”

  I swallowed nervously. “She told you?”

  He no
dded. “I followed her here. She’s inside, waiting for you.”

  I started to scoot around him. “Then I better get going.”

  “Not so fast.” He shifted, blocking the narrow sidewalk.

  “You said you didn’t want to work with me. So why are you here?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t trust you any more than you should trust me. Would you leave me alone with your sister?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have a sister, so I can’t tell you what I’d do.”

  Marcus nodded, staring at my face intently. “I don’t think you mean her harm.”

  “I don’t!” I rushed to assure him. “Nothing like that.” I didn’t mean to hurt her, but I did mean to use her; I hoped Marcus couldn’t read my mind, but I felt a small thrill of triumph. Meeting Izzy had already brought me back into contact with Marcus. My plan was working!

  “You don’t mean her harm,” he continued as if I’d never spoken, “but you’re still raw, Red. You’re more likely to cause harm even when you don’t mean to.”

  The question that popped out of my mouth surprised us both. “How long have you been a Red?”

  His gaze turned wary. “Why?”

  “Izzy said something this afternoon that made me wonder.” That and his condescending tone whenever he talked to me. No one I knew in America declared their path before puberty, but both Marcus and Izzy seemed incredibly knowledgeable about their different magics for their ages.

  “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just say I’ve been a Red a lot longer than you.”

  Defiance sparked in me, and I glared at him. “How do you know?”

  “You declared, what, half a year ago?”

  He laughed at my startled face. “If you weren’t so new to this, you would never have come here. And if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have collapsed the vault.”