by SA Magnusson
If I could learn how the different spells felt, maybe I could know what type of magic was being used around me. The only one I really knew was the paralytic, and that was only because the person using it had a particular sort of signature.
“It’s ready,” Aron said.
I took a deep breath, focusing my magic. I had performed this spell only once before, and that was when I had been connected to the magic within Solera’s pool. I’d never tried to do it on my own and didn’t know if my magic would even be strong enough to pull on this.
A beam of light began to grow from my hands. It was purple, and laced with a dark shimmer, and shaped like a sword. Like a demon sword.
“Kate—”
The light coming off the sword was enough for me to see the shooter. His eyes locked onto mine, but he focused on the sword. “Can you make it so that he can hear us?”
Aron breathed out but nodded.
“This is your only chance to take off. If you want to survive the night, you will go,” I said.
He raised his hands and pointed the gun at us. When he pulled the trigger, there was a soft cough, nothing more than that, and certainly not what I expected to hear from a discharging gun.
He must have some sort of silencer the way they did in the movies. There wasn’t even a flash of light, nothing that would tell me that he had fired. The only thing I had was Aron and his soft grunt.
I looked over and Aron had fallen to the ground. Blood seeped along his chest.
“Aron?”
“Kate…” His voice was weak.
And I didn’t even have time to check on him.
Rage filled me. I leapt forward and the shooter brought the gun toward me. I pushed on the power coming through the magical sword and a lance of light burst from it, jumping from the end of the sword and hitting the shooter, slamming him in the chest. He collapsed and I reached him, sweeping toward him with a hard kick. His head flew up and I brought my knee up into his belly, and he crashed to the ground. I took a moment to kick one more time, making sure he was fully down, before racing back to Aron.
Blood poured from a wound on the left side of his chest. I pressed my hands down on the wound, pushing out with my magic. As I did, the slow creep of cold began along my spine.
For a moment, I thought it was magic but realized that it was the other.
“No,” I said.
Aron coughed and looked up at me, sadness in his eyes. “Don’t,” he said.
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“You can’t do anything,” he said. Each word came out slowly, and at the end, he coughed again, blood bubbling from his lips.
The bullet would have had to have pierced his heart, and even in the ER, there wouldn’t be anything I would have been able to do.
Not without magic.
“How did it get past your barrier?”
“It. Shouldn’t.”
I wrapped my magic around the injury, trying to seal it off. It was different than when I had treated the most recent patients, and at least with this, I thought I had an idea of where the injury was, but there might not be enough time.
“Can’t you heal yourself?”
“Limits.”
He couldn’t say anything more. My mind started to race, going through various treatments, any way that I could keep him alive, but I didn’t know anything.
Worse, I was exhausted. The effort of holding the barrier while the shooter had been targeting us had taken far more out of me than I realized. Even if Aron hadn’t failed with the barrier, it was likely that I would have sooner rather than later. And now here he was.
“I need to get you to someone who can help. You said there are members of the council around. Why aren’t they coming?”
“Don’t. Know.”
He grabbed for my hands, which were pressing on his chest. He squeezed, less strength in them than there should be, and looked up, meeting my eyes. “Be. Strong.”
He breathed out, and a painful cold surged along my spine.
Death coming for Aron.
8
I grabbed Aron, hoisting him off the ground. It took most of my remaining connection to magic in order to lift him, and even then it was difficult. I wasn’t sure what I intended, but I couldn’t leave him here, not near death and bleeding out. There might not be anything that I could do, but we were so close to the Mississippi River, a place of power, connected to the ley lines. There had to be something I could do with them.
I glanced over at the shooter, who remained motionless. I wanted to bind him, but more than anything, I wanted to see if I could do anything to help Aron.
I had to leave him—and the others.
When I reached the car, I pulled open the passenger seat, setting him down. Cold had an icy grip on my spine and nausea began to work through me. It wouldn’t be long before he was gone.
I jumped across the car, leaping into the driver seat, and slammed into drive. Jamming on the gas, we rocketed forward. Aron didn’t moan or make any sort of sound. More than anything, that troubled me.
I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. I couldn’t tell if his heart still beat. The cold along my back became almost unbearable, but I wasn’t about to give into it.
I drove past the archives, shooting along the driveway.
A bluff led down toward the river.
Shit. It would be a difficult climb, but what choice did I have?
I slammed the car into park and raced around it, grabbing Aron from the passenger seat, cradling him in my arms. He was enormous, and without any connection to magic, there would’ve been no way for me to lift him. Even with my magic, I didn’t know how long I’d be able to hold onto him. I staggered forward and found a staircase leading down toward the river.
I took the stairs as quickly as I could, pulling on every bit of magic that burned within me. For so long, I had kept my magic bottled up within me, buried beneath a knot that sealed it off from the rest of the world. I completely loosened that knot, allowing me to reach for every bit of magical power that I could.
Even as I did, I wasn’t sure that it would be enough.
Cold burned my insides. Nausea rolled through me.
With that came power.
If I drew upon that power, I would be drawing the last reserves from Aron. I had seen that with the Great One. I had used the death of Torn to defeat the other Great One, and I didn’t dare draw upon Aron’s magic. Not now.
The temptation was there, though. As I descended the stairs, my thighs burning, my magic beginning to fade, I needed something to draw upon.
The river lapped along the shore, tantalizingly close.
I staggered, nearly dropping him, and managed to reach for it.
It was there, only a few steps away.
Cold pinched my spine and then began to depart.
“No!”
I lunged toward the water, splashing in it. As I did, I pulled upon my magic, pushing away that of death, the power that surged through me with Aron and his passing, pulling upon the power flowing through the river, the ley lines that powered all of Minneapolis. I should be allowed to use that magic.
I refused to not be allowed.
For a moment, I felt a hint of resistance, but it passed. Power flooded me, reminding me of the day I stood in the circle in the basement of the basilica, similar to the power I felt when drawing upon Solera’s pool, but not quite as potent.
It would have to be enough.
I let that power fill me, and I poured it into Aron. He was nearly completely submerged, only my arm propping up his head and neck keeping him above water, and I pushed magic into his wound, wrapping around the emptiness I detected. I didn’t know what else to do. I needed to seal off that emptiness, close it, but more than that, I needed to somehow push life back into him.
Could I use the ley lines and power of the river?
Water was a restorative. It should allow me to help him, and if I could draw on it, if I could reach for that powe
r buried within the river, I should be able to help him.
It felt as if I were pouring more and more magic into him, dumping it into an emptiness, a void that reminded me of what I had done when trying to save Mr. Jimenez.
This wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same. With him, he had an underlying medical diagnosis I wasn’t able to cure simply because I didn’t know how to use my magic. With Aron, I understood what happened. It was damage, and if I could seal it off, if I could close off the wound, and if I could restore his magic enough for him to take over, he should be able to return to me.
The cold continued to squeeze along my spine, growing weaker with each heartbeat.
I ignored it.
Power hovered just out of reach. It was a tantalizing temptation, but if I grasped for that power, I would be taking from Aron.
I delved deeper within myself, connecting to the flow of the river.
I could feel it stretch out around me, I could detect where the power of the Mississippi lingered, drifting toward that of the St. Croix, coming together with the Minnesota River, all of it creating the natural energy lying beneath the city. It was an ancient and powerful entity, and standing within the water, I needed to be able to reach for it.
I was reaching for it.
That realization came to me as I understood that I was pouring magic that came out of the flow of water, magic that I didn’t have otherwise, and pushing it into Aron. I continued to attempt to seal off the wound, but the more energy I dumped into it, the less likely I thought it would work.
This was hopeless.
I knew about hopeless cases. In the ER, there are plenty of times when you get exposed to patients who you want to help, who you feel as if you should be able to help, but regardless of your knowledge or skill, there simply isn’t anything to be done for them. Like what happened with Mr. Jimenez.
Aron was a hopeless case.
No!
But I didn’t have enough magic to save him. I didn’t have enough knowledge to be able to do anything that would help him. Even my medical knowledge wasn’t enough. No surgeon would be able to restore him.
I wasn’t about to give up.
More and more power flowed from me, drawing from the river, heading straight into Aron. The cold continued to clutch my spine, the icy grip that I attributed to death. Aron’s magic remained just out of reach, the temptation to draw upon it to heal him with it.
Could I use it in that way?
All I needed was a jolt of power, a little more magic than what I already possessed, and I thought that I might be able to seal off the emptiness, but if I drew upon what magic I would gain from his passing, it seemed as if it wouldn’t work.
What I was doing wasn’t working, either.
I took a deep breath, attempting one last time to use the magic flowing through the Mississippi to help him, but it was becoming painfully obvious that wasn’t enough. Maybe even Solera’s pool wouldn’t be enough. It was possible that nothing I might do would be enough to help Aron, not at this point.
I wouldn’t accept that as an answer.
The strange magic that came with death hovered.
I didn’t know what would happen if I attempted to use that magic to try to save him or whether it would simply deplete him faster, but without any other options, I decided to try.
I grasped for it.
As it had when I had fought with the Great One, the sense of magic flooded into me, filling me with power. It was nothing like I’d ever experienced before, and I quickly used that extra magic to connect to the power flowing around me with the ley lines. Magic exploded from me, and through a force of effort, I directed it down toward Aron. There was the emptiness, and it seemed to be an increasing void, but as I poured magic into it, that void began to fill and the emptiness had an ending.
Calling upon this much magic gave me the opportunity to wrap it around him, to seal it off. I continued to push energy into him, but there was nothing more that I could do.
Power faded from me.
Either I had used up the rest of the magic I drew from Aron or hopefully he wasn’t dying.
The chill left my back, but it often did that when someone died.
I dragged him out of the water and barely had any energy to get him onto the shore. It was rocky here, and I collapsed next to him, looking down to see if he was breathing. I couldn’t tell, so I rested my head on his chest to listen for any heartbeat, but didn’t hear one. I checked a radial pulse and then looked for a carotid pulse, but neither were palpable.
He was gone.
It was the only explanation. As much as I wanted to deny that he had died, I could no longer ignore everything that I saw.
I had failed him.
I lied next to him, my eyes flickering closed. I don’t know how long I lay there, darkness of night all around us, but after a while, hands grabbed me, and they started to lift me.
I thrashed, thinking of the shooter, but heard a soft murmuring voice.
“Katie, relax.”
I blinked and looked over to see Gramps lifting me off the ground. “How are you here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gramps whispered.
The sky had started to lighten, and I realized that it was morning. My entire body ached, the effort of all the magic I had been using too much for me.
“Aron is—”
“I know what Aron is,” Gramps said.
I started to sob. There was nothing else that I could do. “I tried, Gramps. I did everything I could. I even used the magic from his dying, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Shh, Katie. Just relax.”
He guided me up the stairs. In the growing lightness of the morning, the archive building gleamed. Where had help been last night when we needed it? Where had the council been when we had been attacked?
Nowhere. They had left us and hadn’t come when Aron had needed them, abandoning their archer when he needed help. This wasn’t the kind of fight he was trained for. He was meant to fight demons, not men armed with guns. And even then, he should have been able to survive it, but he hadn’t. It was her fault, not because of anything failure on his part.
Gramps guided me to a strange-looking sedan and lowered me into the seat. He climbed into the driver’s side and closed the door. “I need to get you home, Katie.”
“No. I need to go to the hospital. I’m already late for rounds.”
“Katie, you can’t—”
I shook my head. “I need to go. There are people counting on me.”
And they were people I could help, not like Aron.
Whatever else happened, I was determined to ensure that I did everything that I could to finish my residency. My grandparents might not understand, and even Aron didn’t really understand, not when he thought that I could have simply stayed within the magical world, but then, I couldn’t. How could I, when that wasn’t my calling?
Then again, these days, I wasn’t entirely sure what my calling was. Was it medicine, or was it magic? Sometimes I didn’t know the difference. I had been pulled so often into the magical world that it was difficult to know.
At the same time, I enjoyed medicine. It was an outlet, a way for me to escape the part of me that I didn’t understand, a place where everything had a reason, even if I didn’t know it at the time.
Only, the longer that I was in medicine, the less I felt I really knew the reasons.
We stopped in front of the hospital. I must’ve drifted off because I didn’t remember the drive.
Gramps grabbed my hand as I started to grab for the door handle of the car. “Katie, take the day off. Call in sick.”
I shook my head. “I can’t call in sick. There is no sick.”
And I had done it before, so doing it again wouldn’t look good, certainly not to a trauma attending.
I trudged into the ER, pausing at my locker to change into scrubs, stuffing my still-damp clothes into the back of the locker before throwing on my white coat and stethoscope and maki
ng my way up to the surgery floor.
The day passed in a blur. There were traumas that came in, though none of them carried with them the sense of death, so I was spared a reminder of what had happened to Aron. Most were minor traumas, if they could be considered that. There was a car accident, and it involved a splenic rupture. One man had fallen off his roof and had landed on his back, fracturing several bones in his spine, but there hadn’t been anything for us to do other than monitor for lung contusions. Another had been a knife wound, someone stabbed at his office cubicle during a skirmish, but other than a mild nick of his intestines, he would recover.
I didn’t remember signing out. I barely remembered the walk home, dressed once again in my clothes. I ignored the stench from the river, surprised that there was no blood on them, though the time I spent in the water had likely washed that away.
And I staggered up the stairs toward my condo. I could barely keep my eyes open, fatigue so thick that it felt as if I wanted nothing more than to sleep for days on days. What was worse, I didn’t have any real time to recover. Tomorrow would be another day, followed by a day of call, and not only did I have to get in early, I’d be up all night. Even though I only had a few more days of this rotation, it was almost more than I was able to bear.
I sunk into the couch, letting my eyes drift closed, but each time I did, visions of Aron drifted back to me. I was helpless to save him.
More than anything else, that was what troubled me. I should have been able to do something—anything—but I hadn’t. I had failed him.
It was my fault we had gone to the archives, and it was my fault that I had released the barrier, thinking that I could go after the shooter. I didn’t even know if the shooter and his buddies were caught by the council or whether they had recovered and managed to run off. Probably the latter. I’d been out for the better part of the evening, collapsed in the Mississippi, barely able to get up, and Gramps hadn’t said anything about them when he had come for me.
It took a moment for tears to come to me, welling up in my eyes, streaming down my cheeks, leaving me shaking. It was my fault.
I cried for a long while, unable to push away the memory of Aron’s face as life faded from him. I wasn’t able to forget about the fact that he had no pulse when I had reached for him, pulling him free of the water. I couldn’t lose the memory of the fact that he hadn’t breathed after I carried him down from the car.
