Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy)

by Lucy Leiderman

  “Let’s go out,” I told him.

  It was more of a statement than a suggestion.

  “Walk?” he asked.

  “No, out out.”

  He stared at me.

  “It’s Friday,” I told him.

  He continued staring. “You mean to one of those dark places where people meet?”

  What he was describing sounded a lot more ominous than the restaurant I had been thinking of, but my nap had given me a lot of energy so I went with his train of thought.

  “Sure. A club.” I waited a bit, and then added, “Besides, we might find who we’re looking for there.”

  Guilt flared and I hoped Kian didn’t know enough about clubs to realize you probably wouldn’t find a teenager in one.

  To my immense surprise, he agreed. Excited, I ran to get some make-up on. The desire to be in a crowded room with loud noise, dim lights and uncomfortable shoes had never taken over me like this before. But I had never had Kian before. The prospect of going out on my own was unappealing. A small part of my mind complained that I was being selfish, but I pushed past it.

  I wanted to go out and act like a grown-up. I reminded myself that I had basically been cooped up in a hotel room with Kian for nearly three weeks. So this was what cabin fever felt like.

  I found the one dress I had taken and smoothed it out with my hands. It was simple and black and I had bought it for a veterinarian dinner my parents were honoured at the previous year.

  The low neckline of the dress, ending at a V just at the limit of appropriateness, was still too low for me. I had to remind myself not to tug on the dress as I applied my make-up and started trying to arrange my hair on top of my head. It was never a skill of mine.

  Kian came into the bathroom dressed in a nice shirt and pants that I didn’t know he had. I was beginning to wonder about the magical properties of his little suitcase. He was dressed completely in black, and it made his eyes shine. He frowned at the blush I was using, and then shrugged, accepting it.

  “No one used to wear black,” he said, commenting on my dress and his own clothes. “The colour was considered only for mourning.”

  “Now it is considered for slimming,” I told him.

  Chapter Twelve

  It felt a little surreal to be preparing for a night out with Kian. We stood side by side, looking at our reflections in the mirror for just a moment before he moved behind me and began to take out the bobby pins I had stuck randomly into my hair. It all seemed arbitrary to me, and I guessed that I looked ridiculous.

  Kian laid the small metal pins onto the counter and began braiding my hair intricately from the top of my head. His fingers felt nice in my hair, and I leaned back into his hands before I caught myself and gave myself a nice mental scolding. When he was done, my hair was interwoven in a pattern I could not follow and pinned to the back. Its pale sandy colour made me look sophisticated, for once.

  “How did you do that?” I asked. I hadn’t thought braiding was one of his talents.

  Kian shrugged, smiling.

  Hm, I thought, what else don’t I know?

  We went out and got hot dogs, yet again, then spent the evening walking around until it was time to choose a club.

  “You know, no one knows for sure what’s in those,” I told him as he downed his third hot dog. I had been a human pocket for him, carrying his drink and napkins.

  “I’ve probably eaten worse,” he said absentmindedly.

  Loud music, flashing lights, and fancy cars that seemed to go around in an endless loop brought us to the nightclub area of Manhattan.

  We found one that was just the right mix of intimidating and exclusive and got into line behind a velvet rope. Everyone around me looked considerably older. As we approached the security guard, I was feeling more nervous.

  “Uh, Kian?” I tried to whisper. We were surrounded by people.

  “Yes?”

  “I may need you to work some magic on the guards.”

  He looked at me suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Well …” Am I wringing my hands? I’d never done anything like this before. “They may not think I am old enough to come in.”

  I knew he had realized that I was taking advantage of him, but I only had a second to feel guilty because we were at the front of the line and my heart leapt up into my chest. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

  The balding man at the door was about a foot and a half taller than me, and twice the width of Kian. I imagined him holding me in a headlock while waiting for the police to arrive because I was underage. I gave him my driver’s license and Kian gave him a passport. I waited in silence for the worst. But he looked us over and gave us back our IDs.

  With my heart hammering in my chest, we moved into the club, where red velvet curtains surrounded pedestals on which scantily clad men and women were dancing much closer than would be allowed at my old high school.

  I felt the red flush into my cheeks before I trained my eyes to avoid the pedestals. On a stage in the centre, surrounded by people sitting on bongos, a fire breather inhaled and swallowed flaming swords.

  “I’m going to look around,” Kian said, leaning in so that I could hear him. His breath smelled sweet, and again I had to give myself the mental scolding. “Maybe we can find another here. The magician said you’d be drawn to be nearer to him or her.”

  I watched him walk away, feeling slightly guilty. I had hardly been drawn to this place and was already regretting coming. Even with my new abilities making me cocky, I knew I didn’t belong here. But Kian still had not put two and two together. Teens wouldn’t hang out here. No one my age was in the vicinity.

  I made my way to the bar, partly because I did not know how to dance and also because I was wearing heels and my feet were already killing me. I had brought the only nice pair of shoes I owned and now I remembered why I had never worn them. I sat staring at the bartenders moving quickly behind the bar, and the thousand or so bottles they had to choose from.

  A few minutes passed as I watched the fire breather. A bartender came over to me with a pink drink in a small glass.

  “Sorry, I didn’t order this,” I yelled at him over the noise. I’m also underage, a voice yelled in my mind. The music was like a steady beat in my chest. It was monotonous and I couldn’t tell when it rose and fell. How did people dance to this stuff?

  “It’s from him,” he called back to me and pointed to a man sitting four people away.

  I stammered and had the drink shoved into my hand before the bartender sped away. The man who was now eyeing me with a faint smile was blond, with a square jaw and almond-shaped eyes. His best features were that he had no noticeable features. I could see how he would be found attractive, but to me he was bland. He was also at least ten years older than me. I smiled politely, not knowing the etiquette on such things, and accepted the drink.

  It tasted sweet and I stupidly assumed they hadn’t put any alcohol in it. My only previous drinking experience was at the aforementioned uncle’s wedding. Soon, Blond Man had come over, sat next to me, and ordered me a second drink.

  It turned out his name was Neil and he was a photographer. The more drinks he got me, the more I became interested in lenses and light and angles. I let him talk my ear off about cameras — he even had a fancy one with him — while I enjoyed the warmth in my stomach and the buzzing in my ears. The alcohol went a surprisingly long way towards shutting out the horrible music, which I could feel beating through my seat and the floor. Time passed by as if I floated on a river.

  I think on drink number five or six, a hand snatched the pink glass away before I could have any. Testosterone exploded in an instant and my blond friend, Neil, was out of his stool, puffing himself up like a peacock.

  “Hey man, what’s your problem?”

  I didn’t have to guess who was behind me. We had spent so much time together that I could feel him like a temperature change.

  Kian ignored Neil and rounded on me. “How many of these have y
ou had?” he asked me angrily.

  “You know this guy?” Neil asked at the same time.

  In my state, the two questions were too much to handle. I wobbled up from my stool and looked at both of them. They were quite opposite to each other, but both stared at me waiting for their answer.

  “Neil,” it took extra thought to form words, “thank you for the drinks. Your camera is lovely.” I emphasized my point with a nod. “Kian, just enjoy yourself for once!” I waved my arms at the club around us and smacked a girl in the head by accident. “Sorry!”

  She glared at me but didn’t think I was worth the trouble. I was okay with that.

  My first idea was to join the pedestal dancers, but on second thought I realized there were not enough pink drinks in the world to make me do that. Instead, my eyes fell on the sticks of the fire breather, who was taking a break on the side of his stage.

  I made my way over there with surprising speed and got to his sticks before he could protest. I also managed to beat Kian, who was on my heels. I climbed onto the stage, knowing that Kian wouldn’t follow me. He had shown me over the past weeks that he did not like attention, and now I used that against him. A small bit of guilt sprang up again, but I quenched it down with drunkenness.

  “Gwen, what are you doing?” he yelled.

  “Don’t worry! I’m having fun!” I yelled back. “Like you should be. Tomorrow we could be ensnarled!”

  “Enslaved,” he yelled.

  “Whatever.”

  The sticks felt sticky in my hands and were wrapped in some kind of black cloth. I unwrapped it until I could hold just the metal. It still felt hot in my hands from the earlier show.

  The fire breather finally noticed.

  “Hey!” he yelled, setting down his beer and climbing up to the stage.

  He saw Kian yelling at me too and told him, “Don’t worry, the lighters and fluid have been put away. They’re harmless. But your girl is going to burn herself holding the steel like that!”

  Kian did not seem reassured.

  I pleaded with him. “Please can I try them?”

  Somewhere off to the corner of my vision a flash went off. Neil had his camera out. The fire breather noticed and acquiesced.

  “Fine, but I’m not lighting them, so don’t even ask,” he said to me.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the magic flowing in my veins but it pulsed and wanted out. I felt the energy flow through my hands and into the metal sticks, and suddenly they were aflame.

  The fire breather cursed in ways I won’t repeat and jumped off the stage in shock.

  “Drop them!” he was yelling. “Drop them!”

  Neither the sticks nor the fire were hot to the touch. I enjoyed trying to flip them around like I had seen him do. The whole club just fell away and I was alone with my fire. This thing that had nearly consumed me on several occasions was now manageable.

  I felt proud of myself, and it burned the alcohol out of my system. My head was clear and I loved every moment of it. Kian had talked about having magical talent. I knew this was mine.

  “Gwen, watch out!” Kian’s voice brought me back to the present. I dropped the sticks and jumped back just in time to avoid being sprayed with smelly white foam from a fire extinguisher. Two security guards stood over the smoking fire sticks, not looking pleased at all. Behind them, the fire breather groped comically at his short hair, yelling.

  I quickly scrambled off the stage and Kian and I were shown the door. We were asked not to return in the near future. I protested when a large security guard gripped my arm and handed me my shoes, which I didn’t remember abandoning before climbing onto the stage.

  Outside, I shied away from Kian’s inevitable fury. We were on a mission, and I had been an idiot. We walked for a while in silence before I realized I was starving. It was nearly three in the morning.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked sheepishly.

  “No,” Kian answered, but it was an angry no.

  “Yes you are.”

  He stopped me in the middle of the street and put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re young, and I can’t be angry with you for idiotic decisions. You are allowed to make mistakes and have fun. The least I can do, after taking your youth away from you with this journey, is to allow you that.”

  I frowned at him. “Wow,” I said, “that was incredibly reasonable.”

  “Yes. Well, in the future I’m going to have to forcibly drag you out of any establishment where you’re accepting drinks from a stranger. He could have been dangerous! He was a complete stranger feeding you a mysterious substance. It could have been poison! Not to mention that you legally cannot drink alcohol in this country! Which you failed to mention, by the way. It was also stupid to show your magic in front of all those people. I just hope they’ll think it was some fire-related accident!”

  So much for reasonable, I thought.

  I knew he had a point. But so did I. He had taken away any chance I had at a last bid for teenage freedom and stupidity. I was only trying to claim a little back.

  At three in the morning in New York City, there was a surprising amount of restaurants open. I was insanely hungry. I had given up on my shoes and carried them in my hand while I walked barefoot on the sidewalk, which Kian kept reminding me was a terrible idea.

  It’s strange how in a city, with a light every few feet, it’s possible to forget that the sun has set. We wandered around because I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to eat. Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks.

  You’re crazy.

  The words rang clear as day in my ears. It was a young, male voice. And I knew him.

  No way! You don’t know what you’re talking about! another male voice argued.

  I stood stock-still, afraid the voices would come tumbling out of my head if I moved too quickly.

  The X-Men are mutants, they can take any shape they and they can be anything because they’re mutated. That’s the whole point.

  Yeah, but newer issues depict them as some kind of novelty hybrids, apart from the initial main characters who could actually have talents that can be considered evolution!

  It’s a mutation!

  But it’s supposed to be evolution, too. Having fairy wings because they’re cute isn’t a mutation. Evolution says we’ll get stronger and adapt to our surroundings. How do dragonfly wings make you stronger? If I touch them, the oil from my fingers will make them too heavy to fly with!

  That only applies to actual dragonflies!

  No difference!

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Gwen?” Kian’s voice interrupted the argument.

  I had been listening intently and only then realized that Kian had walked on ahead without me. He came back looking puzzled.

  “I think I’m hearing people talking,” I said.

  What would have sounded insane to anyone else made Kian’s eyes light up with excitement.

  “We might be near someone!” he said. If he were anyone else he would have been jumping up and down. “Which way?”

  Trying to drown out the argument, which still went on even though I had lost track, I followed the voices like a hound on the trail of a fox. Several times I made us turn around and go back, and we ran into two dead ends.

  About twenty minutes later, I knew I had found the place. Nearly running, I felt my body being pulled to an all-night coffee house. Like a puppet on a string, I felt dragged along, certain that I no longer controlled my feet. I hadn’t believed Kian when he told me I’d just know, but I did. This was it. The next one of my kind was in here.

  My bare feet made no noise on the pavement as I ran across the road and skipped to avoid stepping on painful pebbles. I felt like a fish on a hook. The voices had shushed in my mind but had been replaced by a pulsing need to reach whoever had been speaking.

  Before I even got to the door, my imagination caught hold of me. I thought of how good it would feel not to be the magically impotent one anymore. I co
uldn’t wait to actually feel like I knew what I was doing, as it became someone else’s turn to learn they were on their second life and had to escape power-hungry magicians.

  We entered the coffee shop where about twenty young people were sitting in armchairs and at wooden tables. They were drinking coffees and either reading or chatting. A few faces were staring at computer screens. No one was arguing about anything. I looked around, but I couldn’t guess whose voices I had heard.

  Am I in the wrong place? Am I too late?

  The shop was decorated to look like a wooden parlour room, and I felt the grain of the wood panelling on the walls with a finger as I walked around suspiciously, eyeing every customer. Kian was hot on my heels and I could practically feel him breathing down my neck. I finally snapped at him when he asked, “Is that him?” for the tenth time.

  “Will you please just give me a moment?” I whispered furiously.

  He shrugged and backed off, but only a little bit. He still followed me around. I wondered how long it would take before people would notice that we were circling like vultures. I would have given up and left but the dragging feeling on my insides, which was acting like a compass, would not subside.

  I walked up to the cash register. “Can I get something with a lot of caffeine?” I asked the barista.

  The buzz in my head was turning into a warm, fuzzy feeling. It was lulling me to sleep.

  “Espresso?” the guy at the counter suggested with a smile.

  My eyes widened as I recognized the voice. Kian saw my face and gawked at the teen too, who, now that I noticed, looked to be exactly my age.

  We were, of course, not very subtle.

  “What?” The teen stepped back, looking ready to run.

  An all-night café in New York City must get its share of crazies, and I had just turned into one. When neither of us said anything, and the silence became awkward, I turned to Kian.