"No," she finally said, willing strength into her voice. "I had to give it back when I left. It was military property. Besides, only another mage can use a hexed weapon. Why would you even want to—"
She understood then why he wanted a hexed blade: the same reason anyone did—to kill a mage. Does he have his own mage to use it? She remembered the hard glint in his eyes when he had spoken about Nathan. He couldn't possibly be that bold. Killing the commander of the Home Guard would bring an army down on him.
"Even if I had one, I couldn't give you a hexed blade. Marshal would hang me, friend of the family or not."
"Well," he said, smiling and raising his palms as if it was of no importance. "Then I guess there's nothing further to discuss, is there, Jester?"
"Nothing," the other woman said.
Angie's hopes sank, but Nightfall was a price she couldn't pay.
"Jester will show you out." Mads glanced away. "Come back if you change your mind."
Chapter 5
Angie stalked out of Hurricane Joe's, past a new pair of strippers, and into the still-sweltering summer night. Her disappointment welled; her anger brimmed. So close, she had been so close. She had walked three blocks before she realized she was alone and not paying attention to her surroundings. She paused on the main avenue, breathing deeply, forcing herself to be calm. Emotions could get her killed. The Horse Cops were gone, the main road lit by gas lamps but deserted. She needed to get a grip—and right goddamned now, or she would end up in the sewer.
Angie ran her fingers over the baton in the small of her back, her gaze sweeping her surroundings, especially the dark alleys and side streets.
Why had she imagined it would be that simple to get a rare drug like Cloridine? According to the FDA study, the experimental drug had an eighty-percent success rate, with some subjects remaining lucid and episode free a year or more after ceasing treatments. It was exactly what she needed to get back to the unit, to prove she could still function. Hell, maybe Char could even find her a new shade. Then she could be a mage again, and everything would be as it had been. She swallowed, a heavy weight settling over her. She should have known the price would be too high.
Well, she mused. At least you’re alive, Angie.
She'd find another way. Maybe give the group meetings another shot. If she were being honest, she barely did more than show up and listen to the others. Right now, though, she needed to get home. It was past midnight. Going out had been crazy foolish.
Her emotions held in check by cold fear, Angie came to the side street she needed to take. It was dark and silent. She drew the baton, holding it in her right hand, hidden against her leg. In the dark, no one could see it, and she could extend it to its full length with the flick of a button. As quietly as she could, she hurried down the street, her senses on alert. Get home, then worry about your messed-up life.
Her mind raced like an out-of-control colt, bucking and veering wildly. How much did Mads know about her? Anything was too much, but he almost certainly knew where she lived. He could easily guess the path she'd take to get home. Fear snaked through her as she looked behind her, seeing nothing but darkness.
Calm down, she admonished herself. If he wanted to do anything, he would have done it in his bar, not here. A man like Mads could make just about anyone vanish in Sanwa City. If he was really considering moving against Nathan, he'd have killed a nobody like her without a second thought.
Another, more frightening possibility occurred to her: If he suspects I still have Nightfall—and clearly, he does—why not just send someone to steal it, like when I'm away meeting him, for example? That was a much more likely scenario. She picked up the pace, desperate now to get home and check on the precious side-sword. Maybe he doesn't suspect I have it, she told herself. Maybe he was just fishing. Maybe he thinks I can just make another one.
Most civilians were clueless about the true nature of mages, and that was by design. People believed all kinds of crazy shit—that mages could read minds, turn invisible, control the elements. What mages could really do, especially the combat mages, was impressive as hell, but they weren't superhuman. Angie, among others, had long suspected that Char and the other Fey only taught as little magic to humans as they had to, mostly just enough to stop them from killing themselves and to be useful to those in power like Marshal.
Human mages learned two spells, just two: Shockwave, a burst of kinetic force that could break down doors and send opponents reeling, and Shutter, the ability to move oneself near-instantly a foot or more from where they were standing. The strongest combat mages could break through walls or shift their location by as much as a couple of feet—a huge advantage in a fight.
But the true power mages possessed was their shades. Once a mage bonded with a shade, they became almost invulnerable to threats. Shades—long mistaken for ghosts, spirits, demons, or poltergeists—were entities of pure energy that needed to consume mana to thrive but couldn't touch it without a mage. When a mage and a shade bonded—in a secret Fey ritual—they created a near-perfect symbiotic relationship. The mage drew in the ambient mana, and the shade consumed the lethal aftereffects of magic use. Faster than human thought, a shade could recognize an incoming threat and create a magical shield to protect its host. Bullets, shrapnel, clubs, and knives, all were useless against a mage—well, not useless. Shoot enough bullets at a mage, and the shade would run out of mana trying to create shields. The trick was not letting the mage kill you before that happened.
When she saw her dilapidated apartment building just ahead, its front door lit by a single gas lamp that created a pool of orange safety around it, it was almost a surprise. Her mind had wandered again.
Get a grip, soldier.
She picked up her pace, hurrying to the heavy, steel-band-reinforced front door as she fished her keys out of her pocket with her left hand, trying to look in all directions at once. The building was a dump, the air reeked of garbage that had been uncollected in the alley for too long, and its thin walls shook during storms, but the landlord kept the lock oiled and well maintained. Some things were way more important than others in Sanwa City.
Her hand shook as she tried to insert the keys, so she forced herself to slow down, but just before the keys slipped into the lock, she felt the unmistakable presence of mana in use. The lamp nearby went dark, and her keys scored across the metal. Her chest tightened with fear as someone rushed at her from the alley to the left of the building, heavy footsteps drumming—at least two attackers, almost certainly men by the weight of the steps.
They had been waiting for her.
A surge of adrenaline coursed through her, activating her fight-or-flight response. She spun back the way she had come, bolting from the attackers, her right hand extending the baton to its full length with a near-silent snick. She was fit, fast, and frightened—there was no way they were going to catch her.
Someone burst out of the other alley to block her, two more dark figures. They had been in both alleys, at least four of them! Before she could change direction, she collided with them. It was like hitting a wall, and she flew back, smashing onto her back on the pavement.
Long hours of training with Char kicked in without conscious thought. She snapped her legs out, executing a kip-up, a martial arts maneuver to jump back on her feet. As the first attacker reached her, she slipped to the side, lashing up with the baton. She hit an outstretched arm, smashing into a man's elbow. He howled in pain as the baton struck bone and fell to the side, grasping at his arm. The other attacker ran into the first, falling forward, and she brought the baton down on the back of his head with a satisfying crack. He too, fell, but she was already sprinting forward, the fingers of another attacker behind her grasping at the fabric of her hoodie, but she spun, hitting something with the baton and eliciting a howl. He didn't let go, though, so she slipped free of the hoodie, letting go of the baton so it didn't become entangled in her sleeve, and bolted, more than willing to trade a weapon for space to run.
>
The fourth attacker grasped at her arm, catching the bicep. Just before she wrenched her arm free, she felt the attacker using magic, the energy flowing into her arm and up her shoulder.
The realization was like cold water in her face: the fourth attacker was a mage!
She only made it half a dozen steps before her legs gave out beneath her and she fell forward, skidding on the sidewalk. How was that possible?
They reached her in moments, and one of them kicked her savagely in the ribs. She felt bone crack as the white-hot lance of pain shot through her side and into her lungs, stealing her breath. Another of them, a huge man, flipped her onto her back and put a knee on her chest, putting his entire weight onto her, crushing the breath from her. Her vision dimmed.
"Not here," a woman with a Hispanic accent hissed. "Drag her into the alley."
Miraculously, the weight lifted from her chest, and she gasped for air as they picked her up by the feet and armpits, carrying her into the dark alley. She knew she needed to scream, to call out, or they'd kill her, but she couldn't do more than wheeze for air. Her broken rib spiked with pain with every step they carried her.
"Calypso is out cold. Bitch cracked his skull," a man said in Spanglish, the common dialect in the Democratic Republica Mexicana del Norte, the new country-state that had formed in the old northern part of Mexica between the Commonwealth of Cascadia and the Aztalan Empire further to the south.
Norties, god help me, they’re Norties. Her fear surged. They had finally come for her, the hated Angel of Death.
They dropped her roughly and painfully to the pavement behind a full dumpster, flies buzzing madly amid the stink of rotting garbage.
Someone slapped her hard and then slapped her again even harder. Her head rang. In the darkness, she made out only their shapes and the glint of moonlight on the knife point near her eye. There were three of them. The smallest, the woman, knelt before her with the knife. The men stood on either side.
"Listen up, Cascadian concha," the woman hissed, her face so close to Angie's that she could smell the onions and cabbage the woman had had for dinner. "We don't want you. We don't care about you. Tell us where the wolf bitch is, and we'll let you live. If not, things are going to go very, very badly for you this night."
"Gonna go badly anyway," a male voice snickered in Spanglish.
Wolf bitch? Her mind raced, trying to understand what she was asking. "I ... who?"
The woman drew her knife back and then punched Angie in the nose, breaking it. Pain so intense it took her breath away shot into her skull. Blood flowed into her mouth, coppery and bitter. Equal parts terror and pain battled for control of her mind.
"Erin fucking Seagrave, concha. Where is she?" This time she held the knife against Angie's throat, the blade biting into her skin.
Angie tried to draw back but couldn't, focusing on remaining perfectly still, breathing slowly. Her thoughts cascaded about her. Erin? Erin Seagrave? How the hell would she know? She hadn't seen Erin since leaving the Home Guard six months ago, and even then, they had barely been more than acquaintances. The Seagraves were notoriously insular, having little to do with anyone who wasn't family. "The Bunker ... where else?"
The woman sighed, but she didn't sound unhappy, she sounded excited. She drew the knife back. "Have it your way, concha, but it's going to get messy."
"She'll scream," one of the men said.
"Of course she will. Cover her mouth," the woman answered. "Besides, nobody's going to get involved in this neighborhood. Hold her down."
"With pleasure." The man who had spoken, the big guy who had knelt on her earlier, sat atop her, putting his knees on her arms to pin them in place. The man leaned forward and placed a heavy hand against her mouth, stealing her air.
The woman brought the knife to her face. "Here's how it's going to work," she purred, holding the tip of the blade before Angie's eye with one hand while gently smoothing Angie's hair with the other. "I'm going to start with your ears and then your nose."
Angie tried to beg but couldn't, not with a hand over her mouth.
"I'll leave your lips for last. Did you know you can still talk without your lips? Well ... maybe ‘talk’ isn't the right word. Beg would be more correct."
The man atop her snickered, as did the other standing a bit farther back, watching the alley entrance.
"Let her speak," the woman said, and the man pulled his hand from her mouth.
Angie gasped. "I don't know where Erin is," she pleaded. "I haven't seen her in months." Angie's heart pounded so hard she feared she'd pass out. A part of her wanted to pass out.
The woman sighed. "The right ear first, I think."
The man covered Angie's mouth again, and the woman leaned over, gripping Angie's ear and placing the knife against the cartilage. Hot pain flared through her when the blade bit into her skin, blood pooling down the side of her neck. Her terror gave her strength, and she ripped her right hand free of the man's knee and knocked the woman back onto her butt.
"Blessed scales! Hold her still, asshole," the woman snapped. "She's half your size."
Angie placed her palm against the man's chest. He must have been wearing a button shirt with the top buttons undone, because her palm touched his oily skin and hairy chest.
What happened next should have been impossible, something no one should have been able to do—although it had happened once six months ago. The man’s life force flowed from him and into her, filling her body with wild mana. She couldn't see his face, but she heard his choked inhalation, felt his body go rigid. Then he fell over, releasing her.
He was dead. She had killed him, just as she had killed the other six months ago.
She just didn't know how.
The woman scuttled back on her hands, still sitting on her butt. "She can still cast!" she yelled, fear in her voice.
The third man came at her, pointing something at her face—a pistol!
Once again, she reacted by instinct, casting Shockwave, throwing everything she had into the spell. When she had been a student in Char's school, the best she had ever managed was to shatter a piece of thin plywood, far less than what the others could do. Nathan had once even knocked over a tree as wide as her leg, but she had been too weak to do anything useful.
This time her spell shredded the man standing before her, literally exploding him into paste and mist before smashing through the wall of her apartment building just behind him, taking down at least ten feet of wall.
She stared in shock, raised up on her elbows. Blood dribbled down her face, but it wasn't hers. Dust filled the air, choking her. She heard panicked screams of alarm followed by the pounding footsteps as the last attacker, the woman, bolted away.
Just before she passed out, she heard whistles and the pounding of horses’ hooves.
Chapter 6
When Angie woke, Nathan was peering down at her, leaning forward on a chair in a room with cream-white walls that wasn't her apartment. Thinking was hard, her brain struggling to process information. "Wha..."
"Morning, sleepyhead," he drawled, a sparkle in his blue eyes.
His short blondish-brown hair looked messy, as if he had combed it with his fingers, but she knew it was by design; he liked looking a bit unkempt, figured it was part of his charm. He wore his uniform, the digital camouflage pattern of the Home Guard, a lieutenant colonel's insignia on his collar. He wore his hexed katana on his hip, an authentic Japanese heirloom that distinguished him from every other mage she had ever seen. The lieutenant colonel's insignia was new, as was the neatly trimmed dark beard. The beard only made him even more handsome, giving him a sense of gravitas beyond his twenty-seven years.
"Why are you here?" she asked, her voice weak, her mouth surprisingly dry. "Where is here? What time is it?" She pushed herself up on her elbows and then froze as pain shot through her skull and the room spun.
She closed her eyes again as he rushed forward, catching her head and gently lowering it again to the pillow.
"Whoa, Angie. Take it slowly. The nurses didn't want me in here at all. Don't give them cause to toss me out. I promised Marshal I'd check on you. You're in the city hospital, and it's just after ten a.m. You've been asleep for"—he pulled a dented old watch from his pocket and glanced at it—"about nine hours."
It was her father’s watch. She reached for it. “That’s—”
“I know whose it is, Angie,” he said, smiling with his eyes as he placed it in her hand. When she took the watch, he kept her hand trapped between his, his grip warm and reassuring. “I was holding it for you, silly.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, her throat dry.
When he finally let her hand go, she strapped the watch back on. She was in a hospital bed in a small room with two doors. The scent of chemical cleaner wafted through the air. One door led to a dark bathroom, the other to a hallway. The hallway door was partially open, and a nurse walked past, pushing a cart. The room was dark, but bright sunlight stabbed through the closed slats covering the large window behind her. There was a white-out board bolted to the wall with her name written on it as well as numbers—vital signs, she guessed.
Then the memory of the attack rushed over her like a wave, and she gasped, pulling away from Nathan, her fingers flying to her right ear. A bandage covered it, but the ear was still there. She wore a hospital gown with only her underwear on beneath it, and someone had tightly wrapped her ribs in bandage. As she touched the bandages, she winced in pain. Her nose hurt as well, a dull throbbing, and she touched it gingerly, feeling the bandages and tape covering it.
"Am I ..." Her eyes flashed wide. "Nathan, I used magic!"
"You're okay," he said. "You weren't stabbed or shot. You have a cracked rib, and your nose is broken, but the doctors set it, and they taped your ribs. And that's all they can do. Trust me, I've broken most of my ribs at one point or another. No biggie." He grinned his handsome grin, the “aw shucks” grin he gave the ladies that inevitably peeled away their underwear. But she wasn't having it, not this time. She had to make him understand.
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 6
