Magic on the Line

by Devon Monk

  There are Mute spells in the walls, floor, and ceiling around us, Dad said. But there are also sensors on each cistern that will trigger this event. Quickly.

  Dad showed me which three I’d need to press, all at the same time.

  I pressed them.

  And was blown back off my feet. I hit something solid with my back and screamed, then threw my arms in front of my face to ward off the blast of light.

  No, not light. Magic.

  Magic gushed out of the cistern like a broken fire hydrant, flying in all directions, cutting, burning, burrowing into walls and ceiling with squid-like tendrils.

  And inside all that magic were the Veiled. Caught in a trance, drunk on power, the Veiled rose by the dozens, wide mouths open, gulping down magic and becoming more and more solid.

  Shit.

  I got to my feet, yelling at the pain that shattered through my spine as I did.

  “What happened?” I yelled at Dad as I limped over to the platform.

  He hesitated just half a second. But in the half second I could see the thousands of possibilities that rolled through his mind. The master control panel, he said. Someone wired it to open the cistern if it were accessed. Someone sabotaged my technology. Dad was raging.

  “Who?” I yelled. The Veiled hadn’t noticed me yet. I couldn’t see Zay or anyone else on the platform. They were trapped behind a protection wall of a spell that looked like it’d been built to withstand the apocalypse.

  Good thing too.

  Dad bit off the name like it was a curse: Bartholomew Wray.

  It made sense that the head of the Authority would have access to the master control panels of the cisterns in the city. But Wray couldn’t have approved this. Releasing the Veiled, pouring this much poisoned magic unchecked into the city would kill so many people. This had to be an inside job. Someone angry enough at Bartholomew to want him to fail.

  Just a couple hours ago, I was on that list. Might still be, but I’d never do this.

  “I have to stop it,” I said. “Can I override the break here? Can I shut this cistern down?”

  Not if it’s been opened at the master control. It has to be shut down there first.

  “Where? Where’s the master?”

  Not here. Too far to get to in time. That protection around the platform won’t hold for long.

  Which was a problem. Already the Veiled were turning my way, as if noticing a nice dessert to top off their feast. Other Veiled were starting toward the platform, clawing at walls, heading toward the tunnels. They were very soon to be a shuffling, hungry mass of bitty poison loose on the streets.

  Holy shit.

  We have to stop it, close it. Now.

  Dad ran through possibilities again, and I was almost drowned in the flood of options he sorted. I didn’t know why he was suddenly so open to me, but I didn’t care. I just hoped he had an idea that would work.

  There is a disk, an old prototype, he said in a rush. I set it as a monitor. For fluctuations in the crossover flow and ebb from the wells to the networks. If it hasn’t been tampered with it’s on the north wall. And behind that was his anger and righteous indignation that anyone would massacre his inventions.

  Which way is north? I asked.

  That way. He nudged the back of my eyes, which felt really weird. Behind the platform, away from the cistern and Veiled.

  Good enough.

  I ran. Where? I thought. Up, down?I could really use a hot/cold right about now.

  I didn’t have to ask. It was hanging at about head level, a beautifully wrought iron, lead, and glass frame plate thing with two double crystals in opposite corners. The crystals were pinkish blue, just like the one I’d found on the shelf in his office back in his labs, the one that was now currently in Shame’s chest.

  I tugged it off the wall, distantly registering the ridiculousness of it being hung up by nothing more than a nail and some wire.

  Now what? I asked him.

  Remove the bottom crystal. There is a button you can push.

  I did so and the bottom crystal fell into my hand.

  Put that in your pocket, you’ll need it for your return.

  Return? I thought this was going to close the cistern, I said.

  This is tied to the master control. It will take you there, and you can shut this down. You’ll need to trigger it much like the disks. It is crude, far less refined than the disks since it’s an earlier version and may be ... uncomfortable.

  Don’t care. What spell do I use?

  Light.

  Okay, that didn’t make any damn sense, but I wasn’t going to argue.

  I dropped the extra crystal in my pocket and pulled out the gun, taking the safety off. I didn’t know what kind of situation I’d be dropping into at the master control. Better to go shooty end out.

  I hugged the framed crystal to my chest.

  Let me draw the glyph, Dad said. There’s a better chance that my using magic won’t knock you unconscious. Then, gently, Please.

  Yes, I said. Do it.

  He pushed forward in my mind and motioned me back. I didn’t like being that far out of control of my body, but I understood he was trying to put distance between me and the magic. I could still see out of my eyes, but I couldn’t feel my body, my arms, or any of the rest of me.

  Dad drew the glyph with the point of the gun, and magic rushed into it like water following a streambed.

  What did you know? He did draw Light.

  A thunderclap shattered the world. I felt something heavy wrap around me like a thick blanket between me and the spell. It was Dad. My dad, protecting me from the backlash of magic.

  And then I was standing in an office. An office I recognized, facing a familiar desk with a familiar man behind it.

  Bartholomew Wray.

  “Hello, Daniel,” he said. “I was wondering when you’d answer my calling card.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dad immediately fell back from the control of my body. He’d taken the brunt of the pain. I hadn’t expected him to do that, to jump between me and magic, to keep me safe. Although I stung from head to foot like I had the worst sunburn ever, I was clear-minded, and not at all sick.

  “Where’s the master control for the cisterns?” I asked, ignoring his comment.

  “Why?”

  “The cisterns have been booby-trapped,” I said. “Magic and the Veiled—both tainted—are gushing out of the cisterns and will hit the streets any minute. You don’t even need to get anyone together to investigate it. All you have to do is look out that window. People are dying and more are going to die. The Veiled are going to bite them, infect them, possess them. And if we don’t use the master control to shut down the filters and close the cistern, you’re going to be blamed for Portland tuning into a hellscape.”

  He glanced from my face down to the gun in my hand and gave me a very thin smile.

  “I think you can put that down now, Ms. Beckstrom. You’re not going to use it. We both know that.”

  I lifted it. “No. We both don’t know that. Where are the controls?”

  “Why don’t you ask your father?” He smiled when I didn’t say anything. “Or don’t the two of you talk anymore? He never was fond of you, Allie. Not since you almost got him killed.

  “I can still see it. Him standing there, you all but dead, bleeding in his arms. You were so small. And he was so very, very desperate. He made me promises, Allison. Promises that he would not continue to develop technology and magic and bring his advances to the notice of the Authority. Promises that he would side with me and stand against the Authority approving of the masses ‘discovering’ magic. Promises that would have made me head of the Authority. Promises he did not keep.”

  My dad betraying someone was not news to me. But I had no idea what he was saying about me being hurt when I was little. When had that happened? And why had Dad gone to Bartholomew? What could Wray have done to help me that my dad couldn’t do?

  All questions that
needed answers. But not now. Not yet.

  “I don’t give a damn about what he promised you years ago. People are dying. Right now. Where are the controls?”

  “Over there.” He gestured to one side of the room.

  The controls may have been there once. Now there was a podium that looked a lot like the control panel back at the cistern. But it was burned down to slag, like a very small, very precise bomb had gone off in the middle of it.

  “You see,” Bartholomew said, “I believe there should be a full and total changeover in the Authority. And not just Portland’s Authority. In how the organization is run worldwide. I believe the best way to begin that is to kick the support out from under the people in power, so we can start fresh.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said with a lot more calm than the horror that was creeping down my spine. “You can’t let hundreds of men, women, and children die. If we don’t stop the Veiled, and the poisoned magic pouring through every network and line and storm rod out there, you will have the deaths of thousands on your hands.”

  “My hands? No. Not at all.” He leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful frown on his face, as if we were discussing the state of the weather.

  “It is Daniel Beckstrom’s cistern designs that have failed. It is Daniel Beckstrom’s network of lines and conduits that have failed. It is his technology that has failed. And these deaths, tragic though they are”—he shook his head with mock gravity—“will be the beginning of the real change. Magic will be outlawed. It will be deemed too dangerous for any to use. And then it will be back in our hands. My hands. The hands of the Authority. That has always been the right way, the true way.”

  Dad had gone so angry, he was silent. The kind of silence I’d experienced from him only a couple times in my life. Usually right before he destroyed someone.

  The horror that had crept over me while he was talking was fading, leaving behind nothing but hatred.

  “Ah, perhaps you are beginning to understand what your betrayal has cost you, Daniel,” he went on. “I have everything you love. Your business, which I have torn apart from the inside out. Your daughter here, alone and I believe wanted by the law, and your beautiful young wife and her technology. In time, I may raise your son. Boy needs a father.”

  Dad lashed out in my mind. But there was nothing he could do. No way he could harm Bartholomew or make him stop what he had already done.

  “I even have your city,” Bartholomew said. “I am the head of the Authority, not you. Your bid for that position was destroyed all those years ago. When your unexpected and unwanted daughter forced you to make deals. Deals that strangled your plans, your power.

  “Such a funny thing, fate. You are dead, killed by Sedra and her men, and I have made my damned—” He seemed to catch himself on that outburst and tugged a smile into place instead, his voice lowering. “—damned slow rise to the top. To a position of power. Real power. I am above you, Daniel Beckstrom. I am the one who will decide who will have magic and how it will be used. And if this entire city falls for my need to prove that I am right, so be it. It is just one town.”

  I raised the gun. Aimed at his head. “Tell me you’re going to do something to stop the massacre out there.”

  “Why would I do that? Their deaths serve my purpose and the greater purpose of the Authority.”

  For a moment, everything seemed perfectly clear to me. He was killing innocent civilians. He was killing Davy. He was killing Zayvion, Shame, Maeve, Victor, and Hayden. That had been his plan all along. Destroy the Authority, destroy the technology, destroy Portland. So he could have power over us all. Power over magic. Power to decide who could and couldn’t live. Power to rebuild the Authority in his image.

  “Allison, put the gun down. I’ve read your files,” he said softly. “I know you’re not a killer.”

  He was right. I wasn’t a killer, though I’d ended two other men’s lives—Lon Tragger for killing Pike, and the convict, Jakob Single. But I’d fought them, magic-to-magic, blade-to-blade. They’d had a chance to defend themselves. I didn’t think I could squeeze the trigger while staring into the eyes of another human being.

  Dad? I asked.

  This is your choice, Allie, he said with a gentleness I did not expect. Your life and your decision. I’ll stand with you no matter what you do.

  I wasn’t a killer. But Bartholomew was. He was killing my friends. Killing hundreds of people. Killing everyone in Portland, if that’s what it took. The police didn’t believe me. The other members of the Authority didn’t believe me. There was no one to stop him. Except me.

  “It’s not in your makeup to kill,” Bartholomew said.

  Maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe he was wrong about me.

  “People change.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  The gun had a hell of a kick, much more than I’d expected. The bullet left streamers of magic behind as it raced to his head.

  Hit him in the middle of his forehead. Right above his shocked expression. His neck snapped back and his body filled with a dark red flash of light. The spell on the bullet burned him from the inside out.

  Then he wasn’t smiling anymore. He wasn’t talking anymore. He wasn’t breathing anymore.

  A small part of me was screaming, terrified by what I’d just done, the decision I’d just made. Too bad. I closed those emotions away behind a thick wall. I would deal with them later. What mattered now was shutting down that cistern.

  I walked over to the master control. It was destroyed.

  Bartholomew’s men would be here any minute. I was surprised they hadn’t already burst through the door.

  Do you have another option? I asked Dad.

  Dad was quiet. Surprised.

  I grabbed hold of him in my head and squeezed until he noticed. Then a little harder until he knew I was not fucking around.

  Is there any other thing here that will close the damn cisterns?

  Dad stepped forward in my head and looked around the office. Take the box on the bottom shelf.

  I jogged to that side of the room and picked up the little metal box. Felt like it was made of lead.

  What is it?

  But Dad didn’t have a chance to answer. The door burst open and two of Bartholomew’s goons stood there, spells at the ready.

  Magic is fast. Bullets are faster.

  I fired off two shots, missed.

  The goons ducked behind either side of the door. They’d throw magic any minute.

  The crystal, Dad said. Put it in the frame.

  I crouched down behind the desk and the burnt husk of Bartholomew’s body. My hands were steady as I tugged the crystal out of my pocket and snapped it into the bottom of the frame. The top crystal was blackened and shattered. Must be good for only one trip.

  The window behind me banged open.

  I pivoted with the gun.

  Stone stuck his head into the room, ears back, teeth bared. Angry gargoyle.

  What the hell was he doing here climbing on this building?

  “Go,” I said. “Go home.”

  Stone dropped down next to me and took a step toward the door and the goons. They’d kill him and grind him into gravel.

  Fuck this. I caught his back leg and held on.

  Cast, I ordered Dad. Now.

  I stepped back, he stepped forward. He cast Light. Thunderclap. Pain. Light.

  And I was crouched near the platform by the cistern.

  There were hundreds of Veiled now. So many, they filled the room. Claustrophobia clotted in my throat and I gasped to get a breath down. Zayvion, Shame, and the others were no longer trapped on the platform. They were on the floor, doing battle, killing Veiled, but not as quickly as they rose out of the cistern.

  They couldn’t hold out much longer. I could feel Zayvion’s exhaustion and pain roll through me like an undertow, pulling at my strength. His movements were still strong, his spells hard and fast, but he couldn’t do this forever.

  Hayden was in the thick o
f it with Zayvion, wielding a broadsword and chanting. His voice bellowed a deep bass over the screams of the Veiled he set on fire with every slice of his blade.

  Maeve was standing with her back to a wall, bleeding from both hands and cutting down the Veiled with magic in one hand and her whip in the other.

  Victor was beside her, lightning shattering off his katana as he killed Veiled after Veiled, clean, concise. He was covered in sweat, and his arms shook.

  Shame was swearing. Every spell he drew, every glyph he set loose upon the Veiled pounded like a hammer of his anger and hatred. The crystal burned black and hot from the center of his chest, and his eyes burned dark with death.

  The control panel, Dad said.

  Stone snarled and tore into the Veiled that rushed me. They struck him like a swarm of bees, sucking at the magic that powered him. Stone slashed with claws, fangs, and wings, shredding them into blackened ribbons of magic that fell to scorch the floor. But with each kill he was moving slower. The Veiled were draining him. And soon he’d be nothing but a statue.

  I ran to the control panel.

  I thought you said it couldn’t be shut down here, I said to Dad.

  We’re going to override it. With force. There. He indicated the far right glyph. Shoot it.

  I took aim. Fired. Missed. Heard Shamus yell. Didn’t risk looking over at him.

  Deep breath. Concentrate on where I needed the bullet to hit. Fired again. Hit it this time.

  A flash of red—the same flash of red that had devoured Bartholomew—flooded the room.

  Veiled screamed and burned and were gone. The gout of magic pouring out of the cistern slowed to a thin stream, then stopped completely, as if a door had been slammed against it. Red magic fell to the floor like ruby hail.

  The cistern looked like a piece of art again, metal and glass, angle and curve. No magic.

  It was suddenly very, very quiet in the room, except for the sound of our breathing.

  I turned away from the control panel. Everyone was looking at me.

  Stone paced over and stood beside me, his wing caught up on my shoulder, his ears still pitched back as if he expected a fight.