Hemorrhage

by SA Magnusson

  Back down on the street, I climbed into the clean, white sedan—obviously a rental—and looked around. The last time I’d been here had been the day that Aron had died. I barely remembered anything about my ride other than the fact that Gramps had ultimately dropped me off at the ER rather than bringing me back home. “I still wish I could push them off,” I muttered as Gramps pulled into traffic.

  “I wish the same,” he said.

  He navigated through the streets, heading toward the river. I wasn’t surprised that he did so, and was even less surprised when I noticed the archives in the distance, though he rolled past the driveway leading up to it rather than heading down that road. I was thankful for that. I wasn’t sure that I had it in me to visit the place where Aron had been lost. We continued down the street until we reached a slightly smaller house than the archives, though it was set on a similarly impressive-looking lot situated over a bluff on the river. The city splayed out behind it and we pulled up a wide driveway. My heart began to pound a little harder as we did.

  It was stupid. I already told Gran that I wasn’t going to sit by and let the council make me feel a certain way, and I wasn’t about to allow the council to forbid me from using my magic, and that they would answer for what they’d done, but there was simply something about the council that I had always feared. I struggled to shake that feeling now.

  I had to get it out of my head. I couldn’t go into this fearing the council. They were powerful, yes, but they also weren’t all powerful, and clearly were fallible.

  Keeping that in mind, I forced my heart to slow as we pulled into a roundabout in front of the building. It was Tudor style, and full of peaked arches. The lawn was perfectly manicured with stripes running through it from the mower. A garden ran along either side, small boulders forming a perimeter around the edges. Even though it didn’t appear nearly as large as the archives, there was something about it that was equally, if not more, impressive.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked as we pulled into the massive driveway.

  “This is Sharon Ogilve’s.”

  “And she’s one of the council members?”

  “She steers the council.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means that she is something akin to the head of the council. The council of mages doesn’t have a leader, not per se, but there is one in spirit. Sharon serves in that role. She steers the council, setting the agenda, and because of that, she sits slightly ahead of the others.”

  “And we’re meeting at her home?”

  “This was her choice.”

  Gramps stopped the car and I sat, fidgeting for a moment. I took a few steadying breaths, pushing away all the fear that threatened me, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. I needed to push past it, to deal with it, and be ready for whatever it was that they might try with me.

  As tired as I was, I still had to function. My training in residency had prepared me about as well as anything could for functioning with sleep deprivation, but the last week had been brutal, between my call and the magical attacks. I was in a much more difficult place than where I would liked to have been when confronting the majority of the council.

  And yet, I had to tell myself that I had met members of the mage council before. Not only my grandmother, but I had helped Finnaster, and other than his age and apparent power, there wasn’t anything particularly compelling about him.

  Gran glanced over at me and I nodded.

  I got out of the car and headed up the wide steps leading to the enormous house. Gran and Gramps stood on either side of me, and they motioned for me to be the one to knock. When I did, I waited a moment, ready for whoever might appear before me.

  When the door swung open, I nearly collapsed.

  I had been ready for anything, or so I had thought. I had steeled myself for meeting members of the council, for dealing with their accusations, and even to rebuff them if they claimed I shouldn’t—and couldn’t—use magic.

  I hadn’t been ready for Aron to be the one standing in front of me.

  21

  “What? How?”

  He was dressed in a tight T-shirt and jeans, and his skin was pale, much paler than it had been the last time I’d seen him alive, but he stood in front of me, breathing. What I didn’t understand was how.

  “You may enter,” he said.

  I frowned at him, expecting more, but his brief response troubled me. What was going on? Whatever it was had some reason. Did it have to do with the council?

  Gran pressed on my back and I hurried into the room, unable to take my eyes off Aron.

  He was alive.

  I had hoped that my magic had been enough. I had wanted nothing more than to have saved him, but I hadn’t expected that it would work. How could it have?

  And if he had survived, why hadn’t he come and found me before now? We could have used him in the fight against the vampires. He had known what we were facing.

  “Keep moving, Katie,” Gramps said.

  I glanced over my shoulder at them, not able to even contemplate what was taking place. Seeing Aron had taken me aback and threw me off.

  “Did you know?” I asked Gramps.

  “I knew that something was up,” Gramps said. “I was trying to figure out what it was.”

  “How did you know something was up?”

  “Because of the summons. There was an urgency to it that is unusual for the council.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything unusual about the council summoning someone.”

  “The summons itself isn’t unusual. It’s the fact that they would send both your grandmother and me out in search of you.”

  Maybe the council had learned what we’d done with the vampires. I had rescued all those injured dark mages, but I’d also killed the vampire, forcing the runes onto him. And I felt no remorse. I couldn’t.

  I paused in the entryway of the home. It stretched up overhead, a two-story grand entryway, and a staircase circled off to the side, leading to a balcony overhead. Hardwood floors stretched out and gave a cold sort of energy to the building. There were no decorations along the walls, nothing that detracted from the strange energy.

  Aron waited with his hands clasped in front of him. Was he intentionally trying to appear standoffish… or had something happened during the healing that had made him this way? It was possible that he hadn’t fully recovered, and that despite every intention on my part to save him, using that energy, that magic at the end of his life, had somehow done something.

  “You will wait here for Councilor Ogilve.”

  As I stood there, staring at him, trying to come up with the words I needed to say, a woman wearing a deep maroon robe started down the stairs. The robe was all lovely velvet, and a gold chain hung around her neck, a symbol upon it that I couldn’t quite make out. She walked slowly, deliberately, and magic pulled along my spine, practically demanding that I look up.

  It took a force of effort to resist the urge to pull upon my magic, and effort to avoid using it and wrapping myself in a shielding, but doing that would only further whatever plans they had for me. Besides, I needed every advantage now. They couldn’t know that I detected her magic. Not yet.

  “Is this her?” she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Gran stepped forward. “This is our granddaughter, Kate Michaels.” She positioned herself slightly in front of me, the placement almost possessive, or maybe it was protective.

  “Why is it that you have not brought her before the council before?”

  “Don’t push this, Sharon,” Gran said.

  I smiled to myself. At least I had Gran on my side, and she would be a powerful advocate, especially when it came to someone like this, someone who had an unknown agenda. Councilor Ogilve had planned for this, and she was using Aron to unsettle me, and either Aron didn’t know what was going on, some post-death amnesia preventing him, or he was fully aware and being careful so that he could protect me.
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br />   Considering the blank expression on his face, I suspected it was the former. As much as I wanted Aron back—and I did—there was simply something about the way he stared off into the distance that didn’t carry the same liveliness he once had.

  “I would advise you to caution, Councilor Michaels. You aren’t here on behalf of the council. In this, you serve as her advocate, and nothing more.”

  “Don’t worry. I know exactly what role I have here,” Gran said.

  I touched her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  Sharon looked past Gran at me. “You aren’t given permission to speak.”

  I smiled. She reminded me somewhat of the old-school physicians, the kind who felt that students and residents didn’t have any place other than to sit back and marvel at their intellect. I didn’t have a whole lot of tolerance for that at work, and that was a place where I had to put up with it.

  I wouldn’t put up with that here.

  “Listen, I don’t know what authority you think you have over me, but I’m not a child that you simply get to tell when she can or can’t talk.”

  Sharon stared at me. Magic began to build and I wrapped myself in a shielding. There was no way I was letting this woman place some sort of paralytic—or similar—spell upon me. It was bad enough when the Dark Council thought to use it on me, and they had done so often enough that I hated it. The mage council was supposed to be different—better.

  “You are an unregulated mage. You are at the mercy of the council.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. I stepped next to Gran, ignoring her pointed look. This wasn’t going the way Gran had expected, but then, it wasn’t going the way I had expected, either. Aron was here. Alive. And something had happened to him.

  “I’m no mage. Mages use spells and while I might not know exactly what I am, I can tell you with certainty that I am no mage, dark or otherwise.”

  Sharon’s spell continued to build. She targeted me with it.

  It slipped over my barrier, parting harmlessly.

  “Try that again and you and I will have a very different outcome. I’m here willingly, but I can also leave willingly.”

  Magic began to build from her again and I shook my head, turning. “I’m not staying if she’s going to continue to attack me.”

  The spell faded.

  “She can detect the use of magic?” Sharon asked.

  “If you’re talking about me, you may as well talk to me,” I said. “And yes. She can detect the use of magic. And no. It’s not a spell that I’m using. So if you intend to continue to try and attack me, I will know, and as I said, I won’t react well. Ask my grandparents what I’ve done and what I’ve faced and survived. Or ask Aron, if you’re willing to remove whatever you’ve done to him.”

  I looked at him, but he continued to have that blank expression on his face.

  Sharon watched me for a moment before finally nodding. “Come.”

  I hesitated. There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to ignore her. Who was she to think that she could demand I go with her and simply have me follow?

  At the same time, she had answers that I wanted. Not only about the runes—especially if I could learn something about what had happened with my mother—but about whatever had happened to Aron. I glanced over at him, but he stared with the same empty expression that he’d had before, leaving me wondering just what had happened to him. If I didn’t have to worry about holding onto a barrier, I might use the wave of magic to sweep over him and see if I could detect anything, but I didn’t dare remove my barrier, not until I knew what exactly they might do to me.

  Sharon headed down the hallway, glancing back every so often to see if I was following, and Gran nodded. The farther into the building I went, the more uncomfortable I was. Whatever would happen next would be in a place where I would have much less control, not that I had much the way it was. I followed, holding onto my shielding, and watched Aron’s back as I went, wishing there was a way to get his attention, to find out what he’d been through.

  She stopped in a massive room with a huge wall of glass windows. Light spilled into the room and the river was visible through the windows. Aron had told me that the council chose to be close to the Mississippi because of the ley lines, but it surprised me that her decoration was as plain as it was. No wall hangings decorated the walls. The furniture was simple, a gray fabric, and comfortable rather than formal.

  She stood in front of the windows, staring out at the river.

  “You aren’t what I expected,” Sharon said.

  “Really? And what did you expect?”

  “I thought that you might be more accommodating.”

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “You grew up with Veran and Cyn Michaels. They would have taught you to respect the council.”

  I refused to sit, keeping my attention on Aron. He stood off to the side, a disinterested expression on his face. Had rescuing him from death turned him into some sort of zombie?

  He might hate that I had done so if that were the case.

  “They taught me to fear the council rather than respect it,” I said.

  “Are they not the same?”

  I laughed. “You can’t be serious. Fearing and respecting something are quite a bit different. I feared what the council might do if they ever came after me. I feared having magic burned off of me, my mind erased, and the emptiness that would follow. I lived in fear of everything that had to do with the council. Respect never really entered into it. Partly because I wasn’t a part of it, but partly because I wanted nothing to do with it.”

  “You didn’t want to understand your magic?”

  “Did you call me here to interrogate me? If that’s what this is about, then I have no reason to stay other than for you to answer my questions. I have worked on behalf of the council over the last year, doing more than any councilor I have seen other than my grandparents. Don’t talk to me about respect.”

  Magic built from her and I hesitated, holding on to my connection to power, but she didn’t send the spell at me. Instead, the spell went toward Aron, sweeping over him.

  “You are the one responsible for saving the archer?”

  “I didn’t think that I had, but I wanted to.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not really sure. He was holding a barrier and someone shot through it.”

  “A bullet shouldn’t pass through a barrier held by one of the archers.”

  “That’s what he thought, too, but it did. I don’t know if they were using some sort of rune magic on the bullets to allow them to shoot through it or if it was something else.”

  That still didn’t explain why mine had held and Aron’s hadn’t.

  “What rune magic?”

  “That’s why we were here. Or there, I guess,” I said, motioning toward the archives. “Aron was helping me understand some runes that I’d seen tattooed on a few patients of mine. The same runes used by the vampire families to augment their familiars. The Siren family decided to get greedy and made a play for power.” I fixed her with a heated gaze. “We stopped them,” I added, wondering if she even cared.

  “And you believe the council complicit?”

  “Not all,” I said, glancing at my grandparents, “but some. And if they didn’t necessarily encourage it, they certainly looked the other way. The vampires only targeted dark mages. They claimed they had an agreement. It sounds as if the council didn’t mind the vampires helping to remove the dark mages.”

  The councilor studied me for a while, leaving me wondering if she was going to question what I’d said. “What sort of runes?”

  “Oh, the usual. You know how rune masters can be,” I said.

  Sharon turned to my grandmother. “Is she always like this?”

  “When she feels threatened,” Gran said.

  “I will have the council investigate.”

  “Great. Because let’s investigate the crime we’ve committed.”

  �
��Your grandparents will be involved.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  “What more would you have done?”

  “You need to bring the Dark Council in. Truly bring them in. Fortify the connection between them. Make them a part of the treaty. That will stop the vampires.” And then we would finish off whatever else they did as a violation of the treaty.

  “You don’t know what you ask.”

  “I know more than you realize. I’d start with Barden. He’s incredibly powerful and the reason we stopped the vampires.” I felt Gran’s gaze burning on my back. I wouldn’t implicate Ariel.

  Sharon nodded. “It will be considered.”

  “That’s not acceptable. You need to do more.”

  “As I said, it will be considered.” Sharon glanced at Aron. “You saved him.”

  “I thought I hadn’t, and now that I see him, I’m still not sure that I did.”

  “He is slowly coming back around,” she said. “The effect of what happened has taken quite a bit out of him and he hasn’t returned to himself.”

  “What do you mean that he hasn’t returned to himself?”

  “There is a disconnect, though it’s not one that I am familiar with.”

  “What sort of disconnect?”

  I lowered my shielding, no longer thinking that I necessarily needed to hold onto it. If Sharon were planning on attacking me again, she would have done it by now, and even if she did, I thought that I might be able to throw up a new barrier in time. Shifting the focus of my magic, I turned it toward Aron and let a wave of it wash over him.

  I didn’t detect anything unusual about him.

  When he had been dying, there had been a sense of the void, an emptiness, and that was no longer there. I didn’t detect a spark, or anything that suggested magic coming from Aron. Could I have used up his magic in my attempt at saving him?

  “I mean that he is here, yet he is not here. A part of him is here and another part—”

  “Is gone,” I whispered. That was the strangeness that I detected. And if he was gone, was there any way that I could help him? Was there anything that could be done to bring him back?