Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels)

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Bullshit.

  Really. It’s nothing. I just . . . I don’t know what the hell you’re doing with me. The humiliating words came hopping out of me without my permission. I couldn’t stop them.

  Instead of answering, he tightened up on me, trying to see for himself what I was thinking. Luckily, we hadn’t reached the point of mind reading. Here’s hoping we never did. He might find out for sure what a total nut job he was sleeping with.

  Explain, he said finally.

  We don’t really have time—

  Price gave a mental sigh that I felt all the way through me. Let’s get this over with, then. Rest assured, we will talk about this later.

  As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much to talk about. I mean, I had a little bit of an inferiority complex regarding him. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to hold on to him with all my might. I wasn’t going to go all self-sacrificing and tell him to find someone who better deserved him. She might not even exist, and if she did, I’d probably kill her in a jealous rage. So I’d have to step up.

  It’s really not that big a deal, I said.

  I’ll decide that for myself.

  Fine. Since that settled it, I turned my attention back to shutting off his power. Concentrate on the flow of magic.

  I felt it circling through him and pouring in from outside. As I saw it, there were two problems. Teaching him to quit drawing power was one. The second was whether or not everything he’d controlled at that point would collapse. I had to help him manage both.

  After I finished a null spell, if it was activated, it worked independently of me. I didn’t know if Price’s magic would do the same. Given that he didn’t know what he was doing, he might have the capacity, but might not have built the spells that way. He might need to constantly feed them. If they were spells at all and not just shaped wind that would dissolve as soon as he let go. That’s when I remembered that my body was still hanging in thick air a few feet away from Price. If that cocoon failed, I’d fall about six or seven feet, maybe a little more. Mentally I shrugged. It was just bones and bruises. I’d survived worse.

  I pushed my senses into his again. I felt his energy tremble and then surge against me, like a key into a lock, like he was coming home. He needed me. That revelation made my heart swell Grinch-style.

  I let myself go, concentrating on the current of his magic. It was like riding a river of flames. Price’s exhaustion was palpable. I don’t know how he’d held on this long without collapsing. His desperation hammered at me. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Didn’t want to hurt innocent people. The idea drove him to the edge. It was a vicious circle. The more he feared, the higher his panic and desperation flared, and the more he feared.

  It stopped now.

  I pulled him along with me, weaving the threads of our spirits into a tighter, finer cloth until I couldn’t imagine how we were going to manage to separate. I’d figure it out later. One catastrophe at a time.

  I sought the center of his power. I’d always known where to find mine and how to simply do a little mental twist to open the spigot and turn it off. Mostly it wasn’t hard. Except when I was channeling power from another source. Then I had to wait for it to run out and hope my strength held out. That reminded me. How long had I been channeling Price’s power back to him? I didn’t feel the exhaustion that I should. That was bad. Separating from my body had made it impossible to judge my own health. As soon as it hit my brain, I tucked the thought far away from where Price might pick up on it. Then I hurried.

  The heart of someone’s power is just the place where you connect to it. Where it gathers inside you. I like to think of it as a reservoir. All you have to do to tap it is open up a floodgate. Maybe you open it a crack, maybe you fling it wide and let it all go at once. From what I could discover about Price, he’d opened his as wide as it could go. Instinct had given him the ability to control the power he released, but he needed help closing it up and tying off the magic so whatever he’d created wouldn’t just disappear. At least I hoped. He was another species of talent altogether, and I had doubts. Big ones.

  When I came to the place where his magic lived inside him, I found out how right I was. There was no lake of power. Instead, it was as if Price was made out of magic. More than that, he drew more in from the outside. From the air and the wind and the shifting pressures and the jet stream and gravity—I had no real idea. But it flowed into him through his skin and coiled inside him, shining bright, like a faraway galaxy.

  Ignoring the fact that I had no idea what to do, I dug in. I’d told Price to fake it. Fake it till you make it. Maybe I should have that tattooed on my ass. It was fast becoming my motto.

  I reached out through our closely bonded spirits. I made myself not think. Thinking right now was my enemy. I wanted to feel. I wanted Price and me to be completely in sync. I needed to find that hidden instinct that told him how to manage his magic. The only way to do that was to get beyond thoughts.

  The trouble with not wanting to think, which is perfectly doable otherwise, is that random little thoughts burst into your head and insist upon staying there. I ignored them the best I could, and tried to feel Price’s toes. Silly trick, but the physical was always a dodge for the mental. I became aware of his physical aches and pains. Some of them really hurt. I pretended I couldn’t feel them. I floated on his being, letting his senses tell me things.

  What are you doing?

  I about jumped out of my skin when Price spoke. His skin. Whatever. I’d not forgotten he was there, obviously, but I’d been so intent on my goals that he startled me. Searching. Can you be quiet? I’m close, but I have to concentrate.

  Can I help?

  I’ll let you know.

  His tension rose around me, and his magic churned higher, responding to his emotions. Are you being careful?

  No. Of course I am. Now, just relax and let me work.

  Telling someone to relax mostly pisses them off, and Price was no exception.

  Seriously. Relax if you can.

  You make it impossible.

  I make you that hot, do I?

  You twist me into knots and make me want to strangle you.

  I could feel the instant he remembered that he actually had tried to strangle me. Guilt washed over him. Over us. It sent me spinning. I could barely think. All I knew was that smothering shame and remorse. It was so not helpful.

  I felt myself being torn away from the source of his magic. Panicked determination speared through me. I flung my magic out in a desperate effort to reach my goal. It wasn’t enough. Bleak anguish pulled at me. It wasn’t just about me. His mother. His brother. The people who might die. Who might be dead. The destruction. He was sinking down into a quagmire of magical overload and self-hatred, and like a drowning man with a lifeguard, he was dragging me down with him.

  I launched everything I had toward his magical core. I let go of everything that kept me grounded. I stretched, pulling taut like a rubber band, strung between two opposing forces. I refused to give up. I was too close.

  I wrapped myself around the magic I was feeding back into Price. It seared. I boiled and charred. I rode the flow into the swirling galaxy of magic within him.

  I could feel Price now, more than ever before. This joining was like nothing I’d ever felt. It was beyond orgasm, beyond words. I touched him in primitive ways. Everything I was lay open to him. It was divine. It was the closest thing to touching stars that I’d ever experienced.

  Now everything was easy. I worked totally by instinct. I guided him to that inner knowledge to control his power. I showed him how to feel what it was like to consciously direct his magic, to control how much flowed through him, to turn off the sweep of incoming power. As he learned, the bleakness in him receded, and his confidence and strength returned. No one likes to be helpless, but for Price, it was like
death. Like Samson having his hair cut off. It was betrayal by his body and by everything he thought he was.

  I felt his relief and his joy and the surge of gratitude just before I died.

  Chapter 17

  I’D NEVER DIED before, so I didn’t know how it was supposed to go. I recognized it, though. The heat of my spirit cooled, and the colors of my trace faded to gray. It felt papery and thin. A husk. Oddly, I didn’t feel much different. My spirit separated from Price’s like ash blown on a breeze. The spirit world dug hooks into me. Nothing hurt. I didn’t feel anything. I wondered if something had happened to me, like a heart attack or a bullet. Or had I just forgotten to breathe?

  Even as those questions rolled through me, realization began to hit home. I had died. The big buh-bye. Gone off the earth. Never going to go home again. Never going to talk to my family or be with Price or go to the diner and hang out with Patti. I wasn’t going to help Arnow; I wasn’t going to find Touray. I didn’t have to worry about the Kensington blood in my veins. Part of me thought that last was funny. How bad was that going to piss off Vernon?

  Words and thoughts tumbled through my head—or whatever passed for a head when you’re dead—and I embraced them. Underneath was a morass of feeling so dark and so awful that just knowing it was waiting made me want to run.

  But there’s no running from death. No running from the loss, from things unfinished, things unsaid, and things undone.

  I’d failed.

  That one thought echoed through me, growing and aching. I went free-falling into a pit of grief and a thousand other whirling emotions. Reverberating through it all was the fact that everything was over. I was too late for anything I had left undone.

  I sank under the waves. Down and down. It’s not that I gave up; there was no giving up. There was no trying to save myself. No fighting back. There was nothing to do at all. Game over.

  What would happen next? Would I go to heaven? Would I stay in the spirit plane? Or maybe I was going to hell? Did heaven and hell even exist? Maybe I’d be reincarnated. Maybe I’d stick around and watch over my family for the next millennium. Watch over Price.

  The idea drilled a fiery hole through my heart. Not that I had one anymore. Still, it hurt. To think about watching over him as he grew older, found another love, had children, became a grandfather . . .

  If I could have, I would have wept. Wasn’t death supposed to be a release of some kind? A trip into bliss and forgetfulness? But no. The truth was I didn’t want to forget. That idea was so much worse than having to watch Price go on without me. My memories were all that I had left of myself. If I lost them, I lost me. I’d be erased.

  I was so bogged down in the thorny tangle of emotions that I didn’t notice the gray of my trace picking up a tinge of green.

  Something jolted through me. I jerked like a fish on the end of a line. Was I getting dragged into the afterworld now? I yanked back, decision hardening in my mind before I could even think it through. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to be that creepy ghost haunting my family and lover. I’d watch out for them.

  Again the jerk, and something else. Sensation, almost physical. But that was impossible. Unless—

  I wasn’t dead yet. Not all the way, anyhow.

  I pulled myself up out of the pit of despair. It was like climbing up a cliff without a rope. Except I actually had a rope—my trace. It still felt papery and thin as a hair, but a slight suppleness had returned. A hint of sap hiding in winter-parched bark.

  Returning to my body was like crawling into a pine box. It felt splintery and rigid. Instead of bliss when I passed through my core, it was ash and jagged glass.

  I fitted myself back into my flesh. Instantly I became aware of pressure on my chest.

  “God damn you, Riley. Don’t do this to me. Fight. Come on!” Price’s voice sounded ragged.

  Abruptly, the words cut off as he pressed his lips to mine. He pinched my nose shut and blew air into my lungs. My chest expanded, and it hurt. I made a sound that was barely a sound. He heard. He lifted away.

  “Riley? Baby, look at me. Please, open your fucking eyes.”

  That didn’t seem like a lot to ask, yet I couldn’t obey. A rhino seemed to be sitting on my eyelids. Without a word, Price went back to blowing breath into my lungs, then switched back to chest compressions.

  I’d been in pain before. I’ve broken bones, been battered and bruised. But this? This was like standing still while Muhammad Ali used me for his personal punching bag. I felt broken ribs grating and bending. I curled my fingers and lifted my hand, pushing at Price’s shoulder. If you could call the butterfly tap a shove. Still, he stopped. He caught my hand and lifted me up against his chest. He pressed a bristled cheek against mine.

  “Come on, baby. Don’t run out on me. You still owe me two weeks.”

  Dampness splashed onto my forehead. Tears. I struggled to open my eyes. I managed a sliver. Price pulled away and grasped my jaw in a gentle grip.

  “Come on, Riley. I need you. I love you. Fight for me. For us.”

  I managed to open my mouth a crack and made a whimpery sound. He heard.

  “That’s it. You can do it. I’ve got you. Take a breath.”

  That’s when I realized I hadn’t breathed for myself. I sucked in and instantly started coughing. Then crying, because my chest hurt so damned bad. At the same time, pure, undiluted joy exploded in my skull, sending sparks dancing through my blood. A storm whirled in my heart. Price held me, crooning things that I couldn’t hear. I didn’t care. He was here. I was here. We were both alive.

  But not free. Not yet. And my family? The people in the FBI compound? Price had cocooned every last one of them, and because he hadn’t set them up as separate spells, he was still supplying the energy to keep them intact. We weren’t out of the woods yet.

  My joy quieted as reality intruded. It didn’t go away, though. I don’t know if it ever would. For seconds or minutes, I’d lost everything. I was never going to take my life for granted again. Even excruciating pain in my chest made me want to laugh. Even agony was so much better than being dead.

  I caught my breath. Price pulled me against him, putting his arms around me tightly and burying his face in my neck. It hurt, but I didn’t care.

  “I thought you were gone.”

  He sounded tortured. Just like I felt.

  “So did I.”

  “Don’t do that again.”

  Like I could promise that. Instead, “We have to find the others.”

  He let out a breath and then stood, lifting me in his arms. They shook, whether from exhaustion or emotion, I couldn’t tell.

  “I can walk,” I said, though I wasn’t actually that sure.

  He sniffed and nodded, his face a grim mask of dust, blood, and streaks of mud where his tears had tracked. “I don’t want to let go of you.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to let go of him. But he wasn’t going to be able to carry me either.

  “We’ll have time later,” I promised, though we both knew chances were better than good that I wouldn’t be able to keep it.

  Wordlessly, he bent and set me carefully on my feet.

  I took a step, and his hands tightened as I started to sag to the ground. I locked my knees and pushed myself back upright. Biting my lower lip, I took another step, then another and another, until I was walking unaided.

  Dust still hung thick in the air, though the winds had stopped.

  “You okay?” I croaked. I tried to swallow, wishing for water or anything wet. My throat felt scratchy and sore and swallowing just made things stick together. I coughed. My chest and ribs protested with an instant starburst of fire. I wrapped my arms around myself and doubled over.

  Price caught me against him and stroked my head and back. “Easy, now.”

 
I let myself enjoy his touch for fifteen seconds or so, then pulled back. As I did, I sucked up some of the dust off his clothes. I coughed and sneezed at the same time. The resulting pain sent me to my knees. Price lifted me to my feet and steadied me. By then I was whimpering and crying and getting really annoyed that I was wasting the water of my tears when my throat was so damned dry. The air was still and frigid, and the tears froze on my cheeks and crusted my eyelashes.

  Price was swearing, an unending string of profanity, growing more creative and vulgar as he went. If I could have, I would have joined him. I couldn’t catch a big enough breath for that. Instead I made myself stop crying and shuffled forward. This time he held me around the waist, and a good thing, too, or I’d have face-planted more than once.

  “What’s that?” I asked, when a rattle of rocks broke the silence. Price didn’t answer. More rocks, louder this time, clattering together. I waved at the dust in the air to clear it, which did no good at all, much to my unreasonable irritation.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are your cocoons still working?”

  When Price didn’t answer, I turned to look at him. His mouth twisted with concentration.

  “Price?” I prodded. “Are the cocoons still working?”

  He nodded. “I don’t think I can last much longer, though.”

  “Let’s hurry, then.” I sorted through my family’s trace, finding Jamie’s and Leo’s. If we could find them before Price’s magic failed, they’d be able to reinforce the rubble and then dig people out.

  They were together, probably in the torture chamber where the FBI had held Price. We had to get to them. I stumbled and tripped across the field of rubble, twisting my ankles and holding my arm across my chest to help keep the bones from moving. It didn’t help. I fought through my cloud of agony, doing my best to just ignore it. I couldn’t let it distract me. Anyway, pain was temporary. Fucking awful, but temporary. I kept telling myself that as I dragged myself across the remnants of the compound.