Hemorrhage

by SA Magnusson

  The nurse nodded and I stepped out into the hall, letting out a shaky breath.

  I might have healed the internal wound, but I hadn’t used magic on the incision. The fact that he had already healed as much as he had suggested it had come from him.

  Magic.

  Now there wasn’t just one magic user, but two.

  What had I come across?

  3

  I was exhausted, having been up most of the night evaluating patients in the ER during my call shift. The patients on the floor had been relatively quiet, and thankfully I hadn’t had that many phone calls from the nursing staff overnight. That wasn’t always the case. Some nights were far busier with questions about fevers or coughs or sometimes even more significant injuries. My ER training helped quite a bit in those situations, but each time the pager went off, I struggled to fall back asleep. It was my curse with call. I’d wake up and wouldn’t be able to drift back to sleep, regardless of how much I might want to.

  And now I sat on my sofa, wanting nothing more than to drift off to sleep but finding myself unable to do so. This was the curse of post-call. Instead I left the TV on, nothing more than Friends reruns. I wasn’t old enough to watch when it first aired, but I enjoyed the reruns. It was mindless TV and just the sort of thing I needed.

  The usual issues with coming off call were compounded with the questions racing through my mind. There was something more to the gang than what I had seen. Not only had the shooter had access to magic, but I was convinced the victim had it as well. Could there be a gang of hedge mages?

  When it became clear that I wasn’t going to sleep, I changed into jeans and a comfortable shirt and sat thinking. There were times like today when I wished I had a car.

  Jen had said she wasn’t working. I scrolled through my contacts until I got to her number and dialed. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey. What are you doing today?”

  “Why aren’t you sleeping? I thought you were on call last night.”

  “I can’t sleep. There’s something going on and it just won’t get out of my mind.”

  “Something magical?”

  Jen was my only friend who knew anything about the magical world, and she knew it simply because she had been accidentally exposed to it. Had I any other choice, I doubted I would have revealed my connection to it to her, but she had learned of it when I had saved John, the shifter who was second in command of the Iron Range pack.

  “It has something to do with that and with what happened yesterday.”

  There was a pause on the line. “You need me to drive, don’t you?”

  “You know me so well.”

  “Fine, but if I’m driving, you had better be ready for a night of wine and reruns.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll stay awake.”

  “Who said anything about you staying awake?”

  I hung up and headed out of my house. I made sure to lock the door, but didn’t have any way of sealing it closed like Aron did when he came by. It probably didn’t matter. There was enough magic around my home to create a natural barricade, and unless someone really was focused on breaking in and getting to me, they wouldn’t be able to do so.

  I looked at the doors along the hall as I made my way through, pausing when I reached Marvin’s. Of all the people who lived in my building, he was the one I knew the best, but mostly because he made a point of checking in on me. He was harmless, an older man who worked for the post office, but who also liked to think of himself as something of the neighborhood watchman. Thankfully he hadn’t seen half of the attacks on my condo that had happened in the time since I started using my magic.

  The door across the hall opened and an older woman wearing a Spandex running outfit popped out, earbuds in place and her phone in hand. She flashed a wide smile when she saw me.

  “Mrs. Marbles. Going out for a run?”

  “Oh, Kate, I’ve learned that I need to keep active, otherwise I get bored and start causing trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble do you cause?”

  She winked at me. “The wrong kind. Or, maybe the better answer is the right kind. Where’s that friend of yours been? You know the one: big guy, lotsa muscles. He’s fun to look at.”

  Mrs. Marbles? Gross. “He’s been around, but he’s been a little busy with work.”

  “You don’t want a man who puts work before you all the time, Kate. You need someone who’s willing to put you first.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  Mrs. Marbles jogged off, reaching the stairs and starting down.

  I sighed. It had been a few weeks since I’d seen Aron, and while he had been busy with work, the fact that he and I had begun spending any time together was something of a surprise. Most of the time, the council kept him pretty busy, and seeing as how my grandmother served on the council, I knew better than to object, but it was hard to not have any time to spend with him. I still wasn’t sure what was taking place between the two of us, but it was more than a friendship.

  If it were up to Jen, Aron and I would’ve consummated our relationship the very first time we met, but I didn’t date the same way Jen did. There were times when I wished I could, but I needed an emotional connection. Maybe it was stupid, but I’d always been that way. Seeing how Gran and Gramps interacted, the obvious affection they shared, made me long for something similar. I wasn’t sure Aron was it, but he was certainly more than anyone had been in a while.

  I reached the street and only had to wait a few minutes before Jen pulled up in her Volkswagen. She grinned at me as I hopped in. “Was that old lady running from your building?” she asked, pointing down the street.

  I nodded. “That’s Mrs. Marbles. She’s harmless.”

  “Harmless? She looks like she’s out on the prowl. The old dudes in your building better be ready.”

  “Maybe if she and Marvin could hook up, I wouldn’t have to be harassed by him quite as much.”

  “That guy? I thought you got a kick out of him?”

  “I do,” I said, pulling the seatbelt into place. “He’s just lonely.”

  “So are you.” She flashed a smile. “Where to now? And why are you wanting to do this rather than get some sleep? You know you’re going to have to be back early tomorrow morning.”

  “All too well.” When on the surgery rotation, I had to be in way earlier than I did for most of my ER shifts. My twelve-hour ER shifts started at six in the morning or at night, but for trauma surgery, I had to get in and start rounding well before that, usually around five o’clock, so that I could have it done by the time the attendings got in. “I don’t know that this can wait, though.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s just it, I’m not sure. The guy who was shot nearly died and I had to use my magic to save him, but when I went back to examine his incision, it was mostly healed.”

  “And you don’t think your magic did that.”

  “It shouldn’t have. My magic stopped the bleeding, but it shouldn’t have healed his incisions.”

  “Could it just be your residual magic remaining within him?”

  If it were mage magic, I would say that wasn’t how things worked, but my magic wasn’t mage magic and it didn’t work the same way. Maybe that was all that it was. Maybe some residual spell lingered within him after I had used my magic to save him.

  If that were the case, then there wasn’t anything to do other than simply stop worrying and try to figure out a way to get some sleep, but I didn’t think that was entirely the case.

  “Where are we going?” Jen asked.

  “The same place you went with me before.”

  “Back to that creepy warehouse?”

  “It’s not going to be so in the middle of the day,” I said. “Besides, you seemed to like Barden when we were there the last time.”

  Jen flashed a smile. “He was interesting. A little old, but not too old, if you know what I mean.”

&n
bsp; “I always know what you mean, and he was definitely too old. He looks like he’s in his forties, which means that he’s probably in his seventies or eighties.” It was possible he was even older than that. Barden was a powerful dark mage, and his connection to his magic might be enough to keep him looking much more youthful than I realized.

  “You say that as if it matters. I’ve seen you with your little boy toy. He might look like he’s in his twenties, but he’s probably in his fifties, too. And you think I’m the one being gross? I’m just interested in somebody who might have a little experience.”

  I shook my head. “You know he’s a mage.”

  “Even better. I bet he has some sort of spell that he could use on me. I’d like to see how he’d use that spell. Maybe he’d keep me tied up with it.”

  “You should really keep your fantasies to yourself.”

  “If I keep them to myself, how will you know what kind of guys to introduce me to?”

  “I don’t plan to introduce you to many people like this.”

  “Wait—you want to keep these people from me? You’re the one who introduced me to that hot shifter, and now you won’t even let me go and see him anymore.”

  “You could go see him if you want, but I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get back.”

  “And why not?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure what happens when you mate with shifters.”

  “Mate? We’re not animals.”

  “He is a shifter,” I said.

  Jen only grinned. “Yeah. He sure is.”

  We were heading west, making our way toward the warehouse section where the Dark Council kept their headquarters. I’d been there a few times, enough that I knew how to find it, though I didn’t know if they had changed anything in the time since I’d been there last. In addition to being the headquarters for the Dark Council, it was also something of the headquarters of Barden and his underground network. I still didn’t know what he did, but the computing power he had there left him well connected.

  “Why are you going to Barden and not to Aron?” Jen asked.

  “Because I don’t want to bother Aron with something like this.”

  Jen glanced over at me. “Oh, really? That’s it?”

  “Well, maybe not entirely. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks, and I’m not sure what he’s up to. It might be that he’s off chasing down demons somewhere and me calling to him will only distract him from what he needs to be doing.”

  She swiveled toward me, her eyes going wide. She ignored my pointing back at the road. Aron might be able to get away with driving like that, but I doubted that she could.

  “Demons? As in real life demons?” she asked.

  “They aren’t quite the same, and I’m not even certain he should be hunting them anymore.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but is it because you sympathize with demons?”

  “Because I’m not sure that demons are what the mage council believes. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s off, and I’m not going to bother my grandparents for something like this unless I find out that it’s something to worry about. Besides, Barden and his mages are here in the city.”

  “So you’ve decided to go to them with your question about whether this gangbanger is some sort of mage?” She’d finally turned her attention back to the road, much to my relief. “Do you think he’s a dark mage?”

  “I can’t tell. His magic doesn’t have much power. He could be untrained—what my grandparents always called a hedge mage—or he could be part of the Dark Council. Either way, Barden would know. He’s been plugged into the city a long time.”

  She looked at me askance before shrugging off my comment on Barden’s age. “Maybe I could learn how to be a dark mage,” Jen said.

  “Don’t joke like that.”

  “Why not? If their magic is different from yours, why couldn’t I learn how to use it?”

  “It’s more than their magic is different from mine,” I said. “The mage council still isn’t altogether thrilled with the fact that the Dark Council exists.” I motioned for her to turn and started to focus on my magic. We were getting close.

  “I thought you proved to them that their type of magic is connected to this Veil.”

  I wasn’t sure I had proven anything. I had tried to convince my grandparents that the magic the dark mages possessed was connected to the Unseelie fae, but that required the mage council to believe their magic was somehow tied to the Seelie fae. I wasn’t sure I had been successful.

  “As far as I can tell, they would rather just pretend none of that is real.”

  She pulled off the road, veering toward the warehouse section. The steady creep of magic began to itch along my spine. It was regular and rhythmic, and I didn’t need to be able to detect direction for me to know where it came from.

  “What is it? You all of a sudden tensed up.”

  I smiled to myself. Jen knew me well. There were times when I wished I could hide things from her, but I had to admit that it was nice having someone like her back in my life, someone who understood that I was connected to magic, even if she didn’t really understand what that meant. The short period of time I had with Derek, time when he was aware of my connection to magic, had made working in the ER a little easier. It certainly had made my connection to magic easier.

  “Nothing more than detecting the presence of magic.”

  “It’s like that with you? You just start to notice it?”

  “When it’s powerful enough, I can. And the dark mages are no longer trying to shield what they’re doing. They don’t care if they’re caught.”

  “How did they hide it before?”

  “I’m not really the person to ask, but I think they used a variety of spells to conceal their presence. I think part of the reason I’m able to detect it is because I don’t have the same type of mage magic. They attempted to conceal from mages, not from… whatever I am.”

  And from what I could tell, knights of the mage council needed to perform a spell in order to detect other magic being used. It wasn’t the same sort of connection to magic that I had, a connection that basically allowed me to work as something like a radar detector for magic.

  We pulled to a stop in front of the warehouse. It was a nondescript building with no signage, nothing that would indicate what this place was. Had we not been here before—and had I not the same connection to magic—I doubted I would ever have picked out this building as a place of mage power.

  When we came to a complete stop, I climbed out and waited for Jen. There was no activity on the street around us, something that wasn’t uncommon when magic was used. Magic worked to prevent other people from noticing it. Most of the time, that came as a sense of general unease, though as someone who could use magic, and was therefore not deterred from it in quite the same way, I didn’t know if that general unease was felt the same for mage magic versus Dark Council magic. And that was not even accounting for how it would have been felt with my sort of magic.

  At the metal door, I paused to knock.

  “You don’t want to break in again?” Jen asked, grinning at me.

  “I’m not sure they would take too kindly to it, especially in the middle of the day.”

  “I don’t know, the one guy, what was his name? Darvish? He didn’t seem to mind you being there.”

  “Darvish isn’t too fond of me.”

  “Why? Did you kick his ass?”

  “We fought a little, but I’m not sure I could take credit for kicking his ass.” Darvish might be more skilled at martial arts than me. I was too focused on my ER training to train in karate like I wanted. And the more I got exposed to the magical world, the more I wanted to train and figure out just what it was that I could do with enough experience and time spent training. Having seen Darvish fight, I knew I would be reasonably skilled—all magic users had a certain power to them, and I was no exception—but Darvish had more of a fluidity to his movements, and that was w
hat I would like to develop.

  As much as I tried, and as skilled as I was, I still didn’t have that same fluidity. Mine was more about power, and I pushed some of my magic out through my attacks in order to exact that power.

  The door opened and a dark-skinned woman stood watching us. She wasn’t someone I’d ever seen before, though I only had limited experience with the Dark Council. It had to be more than simply Darvish and Barden, though they were the dark mages I had the most experience with.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Barden.”

  “I’m afraid he isn’t available.”

  “No?”

  I could feel the sense of magic deeper within the warehouse, and there was one particular spell I had felt before.

  The paralytic.

  It had been a while since I’d felt the effects of it, and of that I was thankful. The spell left me feeling helpless, anxious, and though I might have some way of burning through it and escaping, I didn’t like that it came down to that.

  The fact that I felt it within the warehouse suggested that Barden was here.

  There was a distinct characteristic to each magic user, and Barden was no exception. I was still unable to easily pick out one user from another, but I was aware of when magic was thrown around, and when I had been exposed to a mage often enough, I began to know who was using magic.

  In this case, I was able to detect Barden and his use of magic.

  “Barden is here, and you can let him know that Kate Michaels and her friend are here to visit.”

  The woman studied me for a moment. “Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you ask Barden about which mage was with him when he faced the Great One. Or maybe you ask Barden about which mage was helpful in forging the treaty between the mage council and the Dark Council.” I crossed my arms over my chest, meeting the woman’s dark eyes. “Or maybe you just stand there and I will blast my way past you.”