by SA Magnusson
“Do we know why?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not now. The postmortem will tell us more, but what I’m concerned about is that you were too slow in working her up. You’re an ER physician, Dr. Michaels. You should have recognized the symptoms.”
I could only nod. I should have. Instead, I’d been focused on the magical cause for her symptoms and might have missed an opportunity to help her medically.
“Do better.”
“I will,” I said. It was all I could come up with to say.
After cleaning up, I made it through the rest of my shift without much incident, and when I reached the resident lounge, I hurriedly changed into my other pair of shoes, switching out of my scrubs and into clean ones for my walk home.
Jen caught me on my way out. “Christ, Kate, you look like hell. Was it that kind of day?”
“Two codes. Neither survived. I just might go home and—”
“Drink?”
I laughed. “A drink wouldn't be all that bad.”
“I wish I didn't work tonight or else I’d be over there with you.”
“I'm sure I’ll be up for another the next time neither of us works.”
“Which isn't all that often, these days,” Jen said.
“No, but it'll get better in time.”
By the time we reached our third year, we would have a little bit more flexibility with scheduling, which would give us more freedom. Both of us looked forward to that day.
“Who's on?” Jen asked.
“I don't know who's on tonight, but I had Allen here today.”
“Allen? I'd like to ask him how he's doin’.”
“He's an attending,” I said.
“Just because he's an attending doesn't mean that he's not attractive. And Johnny has been silent lately.”
“Probably wedding plans,” I said.
Jen tucked her hair behind her ear as she took a step back, watching me for another moment. “Something else is bothering you.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to go into what had happened with Derek. If he was fine and returned to work, no one would have any reason to say anything else. If something had happened to him and he didn’t return to work, there would be plenty of stories about it, which made the fact that I had been working with him today even worse. There already were plenty of rumors about Derek and me, regardless of truth.
“Nope. Nothing more than a bad night’s sleep and a shitty day. Nothing that a glass of wine, maybe a soak in the tub, and reruns won’t fix.”
“Sounds like a pretty good evening, if you ask me. The only thing that would make it better would be adding someone else to the bath.”
“I don’t really want to take a bath with you, though I suspect that would be more than appealing to Roberts.”
Jen laughed, throwing herself on the sofa. “You might be surprised. I’d be fun in a bath.”
“You’re not really my type.”
“These days, I don’t exactly know what your type is. When we were in school, I thought I could pick them out, but since getting into residency, you’ve been hard to label.”
“I’m more focused on getting through each day. The rest can come later.”
“You still need to have a little fun.”
“What makes you think I don’t?”
She sat forward. “With who? Most of us think you and Derek should just stop playing around and get it over with. Hell, you could even use a call room here if you didn’t want to take him back to your place.”
“He’s just a friend.” My voice choked up, and I couldn’t help it. “I’m going to head home,” I said.
“Get some sleep. I’m off this weekend and saw you were too. Maybe we can catch a movie. There’s that place on the west side where they serve wine with the movies.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said.
The walk home was cold and I didn’t pay much attention to anything around me, certainly not as much as I should. Master David would be angry if he learned how little I focused on my surroundings, but it was easier to just shut down and hurry along the street toward my condo. By the time I got near, I wanted nothing more than to shut the door, drop onto my couch, and maybe drift off if Lucy would let me. She’d probably sit on my head and force me to give her attention. It never failed that the nights I most wanted to sleep were the nights she most wanted the attention.
A man followed me far more closely than I was comfortable with, sending me hurrying forward. It was probably nothing, but seeing as how I was no longer certain whether I was completely safe in my neighborhood, I decided it didn’t matter.
When I reached the end of the block and turned the corner, he was nowhere to be found. Maybe it had only been my imagination. Not a mage. If it had been, I would have felt the use of magic.
My building loomed in the distance.
As I neared, I again felt like I was followed.
I increased my pace and crossed the street. It would give me a chance to look to see if anyone followed. I reached a condo complex beside mine and climbed the steps, disappearing into the shadows of the entryway.
My tiredness made it difficult for me to reach for magic if it were necessary. And it probably wasn’t. It was probably nothing more than exhaustion making me jumpy.
The man I’d seen continued along the street, paying no mind to the fact that I had crossed the street.
I let out a sigh. What was I worried about?
Taking another look along the street, I hurried down and continued on my way toward my building.
That was when I felt magic.
It was unmistakable. A surge of tight cold that traced along my spine and something else, a stirring of a familiar sense, one I didn’t think I should detect.
I was close to my home—so close.
But if there was another dark magic attack and I went into my condo building, it was early enough that others would be alerted to it. It was far too easy to imagine what Marvin might do were he to realize there was an attack in the hall. He had a good heart and would come out to see if he could intervene. And die.
Taking off in a sprint, I hurried into the alley between my building and the next. It was dangerous, but if there was going to be an attack, I’d rather keep it off the street. And from here, I thought I could still slip away. A side entrance to my building led down into the parking garage. I could run through there, head for safety…
The sense of magic burst along my spine again.
It was close.
I pressed up against the building. The alley was just wide enough for the two dumpsters at the end of it. It stunk, and I didn’t want to be here any longer than I needed to be. Reaching deep into myself, I tried to finesse my connection to my magic, but it didn’t come.
If there was a mage attack, I would be helpless.
Waiting was the hardest.
Moments passed and there was nothing more.
Was it only my imagination?
The dark mages wouldn’t return so soon, would they?
Unless they were after something. They had known about me, and they had wanted something from me, though I didn’t know what that might be other than my probable connection to the demons. That would be reason enough to come after me.
But then, Gran had made certain that the only person who had known what I had done and what I was had been destroyed. Lexy wouldn’t come after me again.
I lost track of time. When no attack came for me, I headed back out to the street and to my building, unable to shake the feeling that I was missing something.
11
As I approached my door, I felt the cool tingle from magic working along my spine.
Was it on the other side of my door?
Could that be what I had detected?
I stared at the numbers on my door, the paint that looked fresh but didn’t smell as if it was, and the doorframe that had been broken into a few days ago. All of it had been magically repaired, almost as if there had never been an attack. The ent
ire hallway was like that. There was no damage, which meant that whatever I detected hadn’t forced its way in. That should reassure me but for some reason, it didn’t.
I couldn’t blast my way into my home, even if I could draw on the necessary magic.
There were protections on my home. Aron had placed them, so I didn’t think there should be a mage on the other side of my door, but there was the sense of magic. Why was that?
It might only be Gran and Gramps. They had proven themselves able to get into my condo, even when I didn’t want them to. And I doubted any protection Aron placed would be too much for them to overcome.
Refusing to cave into fear, I unlocked my door and smelled food cooking on the other side.
Gran and Gramps didn’t cook. They were happy to pick up fast food. Even when I’d been a kid, they hadn’t cooked. We were more the microwave meal kind of family. Because of that, I hadn’t grown up with the most well-developed palate, but I could heat up anything in the microwave.
“Hello?” I stood in my doorway, ready to run if there was anything dangerous here. The sense of magic persisted, though I didn’t know why or where it came from. If it was from Gran and Gramps, why were they using a spell?
“I hope you’re hungry,” Aron’s deep voice called from the kitchen.
I blinked, shutting the door behind me.
“Aron? What are you doing here?” He stepped into the door leading to the kitchen wearing one of my aprons. I had only two, and neither fit a man like him. This one had been something of a gag gift from Jen and had the saying, “All this and brains too,” scrawled across the front. “You cook?”
He flashed a smile. Dressed as he was in the apron, a fleck of flour on his cheeks, I found him more attractive than I ever had before. “Before joining the knights, I had been something of a chef. I never lost my love of good food, and I thought you could use something better than those frozen meals stacked in your freezer.”
When he turned away, leaving me staring after him, I didn’t know what to say.
“Come on. We can talk while we eat,” he said.
I followed him into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. He’d even set it, which had happened before a total time of never, making it look as if we were in a restaurant. Where had he gotten the candle that he’d lit?
He set a plate in front of me and I started eating, my hunger taking away my manners. Aron took a seat across from me and ate more slowly and deliberately. When I was done, I leaned back in my chair, staring at my empty plate.
When Aron had claimed to be something of a chef before joining the knights, I hadn’t expected that he would be a chef.
“That was amazing,” I said.
“With as quickly as you devoured it, I hoped you were pleased, but since you barely looked up while eating, I wasn’t certain.”
“Is that your kind way of saying I’m a glutton?”
Aron wiped his hands on a napkin and dropped it back into his lap. “I wouldn’t make any such claims. Would you like another helping?”
As much as I thought I could eat seconds, I thought that if I did, I’d end up with stomach pains and I’d probably pass out. “I’m fine. I’d also be fine if you want to pack it up for me to eat later.”
“Of course.”
I sat there while Aron cleaned up, stuffing the leftovers into a plastic tub and then into my fridge. When he was done, he joined me at the table, sitting across from me. He’d taken off the apron and was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that emphasized his build.
“Now that you’ve eaten, would you care to share with me why you sent for me?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to rehash it, but at the same time, I had asked Gramps to call Aron for me. I just hadn’t really expected him to come; at least, not this quickly. “I told you about the magical attack I’d seen at the hospital?”
“The one where you believed the young man had dark magic burned off by the council?”
“That’s the one. His mother came into the ER today.”
“I thought you couldn’t share with me when people came in. There was some regulation against it.”
“There is, but with this, I think you need to know. She had been attacked the same way as him. Well, maybe not the same way, but near enough.”
“What did you detect?”
“There was magic, though I wasn’t able to determine what the intent behind it could be. It was an attack, and it caused her pain, but she didn’t tell me what it did to her.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she died before she was able to.”
Aron stiffened. “If this was the council burning off dark magic, it wouldn’t be fatal.”
“I’m aware of that, which was why I was concerned.”
“It could be the Dark Council keeping one of their own from meeting with the mage council,” Aron said.
“Would they do that to their own?” The power used on Tony—and Ms. Jones—had been significant. And with what I knew of dark mages, I couldn’t put it past them.
“It’s possible. They might want to prevent anyone from sharing too much, especially with the current atmosphere.”
“You make it sound like a storm front.”
“It is,” Aron said softly. He watched me a moment. “There’s something else.”
I took a breath. Hopefully my grandparents would figure out what had happened to Derek. Maybe it would be nothing more than he’d gotten sick and had gone home, but I didn’t think that was the case. If it were, he would have answered his phone or called me back, or he would have done something that would have let someone know what had happened to him.
“There’s a mage with some ability who works as a nurse in the ER.”
“This is the same one who helped me when I was attacked?”
I nodded. “He disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“After the attack. I… I don’t know what happened to him, which makes me worried.”
Aron sat quietly for a moment. “This disappearance, combined with the attack on your home last night, is disconcerting.”
“My grandparents think it’s all part of the Dark Council.”
“It could be, but the Dark Council would have no reason to be harming rogue mages,” he said.
“Rogue? The same way they believed that you were rogue?”
“You know I was not.”
“I know it, but you tossing around the idea that there are rogue mages is a little funny. Anyway, how do you know these were even rogue mages?”
“You mentioned they knew about magic and mages, and from what you’ve said, they have some ability to use magic.”
“I’m not sure how much magic they have. It’s more about the magic that was done to them. Why wouldn’t that be something the Dark Council would do?”
“The Dark Council is interested in power, but they’re also interested in normalizing the use of their magic. That’s the reason they fight with the mage council. They’re vying for control.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“You don’t have dark magic, regardless of what you believe. Your magic might be different, but it’s not what you think.”
How much did Aron know about my magic? With what we’d been through, I thought he knew pretty much everything about it, especially considering how I used the demon sword. It had revealed who—and what—I was, that would be it. “What if it’s part demon?”
Aron leaned forward. “We went through this following the attack. Just because you can handle the sword doesn’t mean that you’re part demon.”
“It makes it more likely.”
“There are plenty of people who have the ability to hold a demon sword.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s more than just holding a demon sword.” My grandparents didn’t want me sharing this, but I was the one who had asked Aron to come help, so I had to be willing to open up to him, even if only a little. “Wait here.” I went back to my room and grabbed the sword
, bringing it out into the kitchen with me.
When Aron saw what I had, he jumped to his feet. “You shouldn’t have kept that.”
“Probably not, but this is what I wanted to show you.”
“I’ve seen a demon sword, and this one in particular is dangerous.”
“Because it belonged to a powerful demon?”
“The sword? No, but it is more strongly connected to their magic.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I pulled on my magic, reaching deep within me and relaxing the knot that held it in check. While using the sword, it was easier—much easier—than it had been when at the hospital, even with as tired as I felt. Power surged up through me and the sword began to glow with the deep purple light that was nearly black. “When I’m holding the sword, I have a different connection to magic. Stronger. It’s as if the sword augments my ability to reach my magic.”
I looked up at him, half expecting him to wrap me in a powerful spell—maybe a paralytic that would prevent me from moving. I was worse than a dark mage, especially if I was part demon.
“And you fear that your ability to augment your magic with this sword means that you’re part demon.”
“I’m not the only one who fears that,” I said. “My grandparents are concerned about that too. They didn’t say it, but they recognize the kind of magic I have, and they said my mother attempted to work with arcane powers.”
“There are more arcane powers than only the demons,” Aron said.
“What?”
He nodded. “If that’s been your concern, it need not be.”
“What other arcane powers could there be? And what other reason would there be for me to be able to use a sword like this? “
“There are many powers in the world that can use a sword such as that,” he said.
“I seem to remember that everyone was surprised by the fact that I was able to hold it.”
“That was when we believed that you are a mage. Most mages haven't learned to handle a demon sword. It's something knights are trained to do, but even the knights don't have the same expertise as the archers.”
I looked down at the sword, thoughts rolling through my head. Ever since meeting Aron, my fear had been that my secret would be exposed and the council would realize that I was a dark mage and come after me, attempting to burn my magic off, not only changing me but possibly destroying my mind in the process. Since then, I had come to terms with the fact that I was probably half demon… but what if I wasn't?
