“Okay,” I said. “Can we run?”
“Good idea,” Yejun said.
We ran. The stain on the wall animated, frame by frame, each time we passed it: the bloody hand, the screaming mouth, the shape of knees and feet, the stains left behind by somebody first standing, then crawling along beside us. And the mouth got larger and larger, and the light started spinning clockwise, just like us.
Brynn’s breath grew labored and Yejun panted and Amber hummed as she darted lightly along. But we didn’t reach a camera bag and the hallway didn’t end, and I was almost certain somebody was running beside us. When Brynn stumbled and fell, I spun to catch her and held her while she caught her breath.
“You’ve trapped us here,” I told Yejun as he leaned against the wall opposite the stain and wiped sweat away from his face.
He gave me a sharp, angry look. “We had to run forever in the forest, too.”
“We weren’t trapped in an endless hallway where a stain on the wall was about to turn into a monster and eat us. I don’t understand how you’re doing magic to track down a bag anyhow. I don’t understand why people would or wouldn’t teach you and I don’t understand how you stole the damned moon. Are you sure your magic is reliable?”
Yejun glared, his eyes bright with anger. “Go to hell,” he said, then walked over to the stain and put his hands against the bleeding eyes that had appeared. He pushed, hard, until the stain widened under his hand and blood started dripping down the wall. Was it his? Was it the walls?
Then a brick fell out of the wall and gashed Yejun’s forehead open. “No,” he said furiously. “Get out of the way.”
I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or the hallway. I didn’t have a chance to find out, either, because the building then collapsed around us.
-fourteen-
I dreamt. It was the kind of dream where your subconscious punishes you for avoiding its calls by making your memories more intense and vivid than reality ever was.
The sun beat down on the rooftop, cutting through the haze of smoke from hillside fires. It glinted off the twisted metal form of an insectoid monstrosity looming over me. My blood dripped from its claws. I’d fought it for what seemed like hours, but I couldn’t beat it. I wouldn’t be able to save my new friends. Because that’s who it wanted. Every time it knocked me back, it turned away, turned toward the children who had brought it to life.
They’d wanted to make somebody who frightened them go away, and they had. But it’s tricky with little kids and lots of magic and terror. Monsters under the bed are scary enough without the power to bring them out of your imagination and into the real world. When you’re still learning to do things like control your bladder and hop on one foot, managing the unbound power of a fallen angel can be especially rough. Sometimes, it tries to kill you.
I should have been able to save them. They were powerful but unfocused. I was powerful and I was trained to fight. I wasn’t good for anything else. I should have been able to take their bad dream apart and put it back to bed.
But I couldn’t and I didn’t understand why. It flung me across the rooftop and I somersaulted to land on my feet. My shadow stretched out beside me, all the power I’d called to me distorting it into the shape of a wolf. My dogs were gone. My shadow and I lunged, grabbing the monster by one of too many spindly legs. It turned away from the children yet again, brought one of its claws whistling down on me. As the metal sliced through my arm, I gritted my teeth and hefted the monster away from the children. I’d tried throwing it off the building, but it had too many legs; it could cling and climb and return again and again to try to destroy its creators.
I knew what I had to do. But I was as afraid as the kids were. I didn’t want to give up the freedom I’d won. But if I couldn’t save them, it was a fake freedom. It was a lie, and I’d have to live with how I failed them to hold onto a lie forever.
I didn’t know everything my father was capable of. He had powers I’d barely guessed at. I knew distantly that the celestials were all cut off from their largest workings by the Hush, but I’d never really internalized it. Love died and the sun set at my father’s hand. He’d be able to deal with this metal nightmare. All I had to do was ask for his help. All I had to do was admit that I needed him, just like he’d always said.
There was no time left. My blood was everywhere and my muscles ached and I could feel the broken bones screaming in my right foot and my vision blurred. I needed help. I couldn’t do it alone. I was a failure without him.
I screamed for him to save me.
The dream changed, went backwards.
“Catch me, Daddy,” I commanded and flung myself off the swing. And he caught me, and smiled past me at my mother. He told me I was his beautiful baby girl. But I wondered why his smile was warm for me and so very cold toward Mommy. Later, I’d overhear—
No.
No.
I wasn’t going to have this dream. I wasn’t going to let my brain punish me by showing me again and again and again how young and stupid and sweet I’d been. I was never going to be what my mother thought I should have been, not since I was conceived. I was his daughter, and her daughter, and that combination only made something brittle and nearly useless. A fighter who refused to defend herself. A monster who cowered like a puppy.
I woke up, clawing my way out of the confusion and self-loathing of my dreaming thoughts.
I wasn’t buried under tons of rubble, to my bleary surprise. I was curled on my side on a hard surface, my head tucked against my chest and my hands dug into Nod’s fur. Grim lay nose to tail at my feet, while Heart nestled against my back. I could feel the open air above me and smell the stink of nearby asphalt. The wind moaned and my stomach growled.
I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Yejun sat across from me, legs crossed, watching me impassively. We were both on concrete and a strange, high light streamed from somewhere above. He had a long cut across his forehead that nobody had cleaned, and the backs of both his hands were slashed and gory. Brynn was curled up and asleep nearby, while Amber was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t like not seeing her any more than I liked her glowing eyes. She was monster spawn, after all, no matter how much she seemed like a human.
My gaze was drawn back to Yejun. He was backlit by the stormy sky behind his head, and it shadowed his eyes. I thought the stormlight made everything but him seem a little unreal. Even Brynn looked more like a painting than a real girl.
He slowly raised his eyebrows at me. “Welcome back.”
I stared at him a moment more, marveling at the way the light made him look like something out of a movie. Then I realized I’d been silent and staring too long and blurted, “What happened?”
“This is the final layer of the onion,” said Yejun. “I tore through all the others. Since you were so sure I’d led you into a dead end.”
I flushed. “I was afraid.” He still looked super-real, like everything else could wash away and he’d remain. I concentrated on Nod’s fur in an attempt to make my eyes adjust to wherever we were. Nod pressed close to me in response. None of the dogs liked it here, and they all had bad memories of the magic that had torn down the layers of Backworld.
Sardonically, he said, “Are you less afraid now?”
I automatically looked around. It occurred to me that maybe the unreality was the place we were in now. We were in a city, which at least matched the previous concrete hallway motif. But my first impression was that it was a dead city. We sat on a cracked sidewalk with an empty four-lane road to one side and an abandoned five-story building to the other. The bottom floor was a storefront with empty windows. Similar buildings lined the street on both sides, varying in height or façade or windows, but they were all of them empty. There was no graffiti. The pavement was cracked, but no grass poked up through the fractures. No trash blew along the gutters.
After looking around for another minute, I revised my opinion: dead implied previous life, and it didn’t look like this city had ever
been alive. It didn’t smell like it, either. It wasn’t new and shiny like a model city in advertisements. It wasn’t worn down enough to be a ruin. It was... strange. Strange was better than the fear I’d felt in the endless hallway, I told myself. But I shivered as I said, “I like the open air. There’s lots of directions to run. Is Brynn okay?”
Yejun said, “She fell asleep while waiting for you to wake up.”
I glanced at him, then looked away from his too-vivid dark eyes and scooted over to check on Brynn. She seemed fine except for a couple of big bruises on her hands and arms. She shook her head and mumbled as I prodded her, but refused to wake up. Then Heart nosed her way in and started licking Brynn’s face. I left her to finish the job and turned back to stare at the pavement near Yejun.
“Where’s Amber?”
“Wherever Ambers go, I suppose,” said Yejun. When I gave him a confused look, he explained, “She went racing away across the rooftops once the scenery settled down.”
“That’s a little worrying,” I said. “Um, so not everybody passed out?”
Yejun shrugged, his eyes never leaving me. “Just you.”
I shifted my weight uneasily, listening to Brynn struggle against her furry alarm clock. “Your magic is so weird. You do these incredible, strange things I’ve never even imagined and you say you don’t even know magic.”
“I said nobody would teach me,” he corrected and paused.
I didn’t say anything as I stared at the pavement. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.
After a moment, he went on anyhow. “Nobody wanted to show me anything. But every wizard who came to gawk at me had charms. I gawked back. I didn’t know how to do what they did, though, so I had to try things out on my own.” He paused again, waiting through the long moment until I looked at him. His mouth twisted into a sneer as I did. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who gets sick from my magic. Most people barely notice. But you’re special.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, my face hot and my hands cold. Nod licked me. The wind picked up, blowing the strange concrete and plastic scents of an unpeopled city into my face.
He sighed, as if I’d annoyed him. Quickly, I pushed the subject back to him. “But why wouldn’t they teach you? You’ve got some amazing gifts. Weird, but amazing.”
Yejun shoved himself to his feet. His shirt was torn across his ribcage, letting me see a flash of skin as he stretched. “Waste of time. They thought I’d die before I grew up. They thought if I knew magic, I might do some damage on my way out.”
Appalled, I said, “They told you that? How old were you?”
“Nah, they told my parents when they started showing up when I was five or so. But my family already—” and he cut himself off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back. It’s over.”
I looked down at the pavement again. One of the cracks looked like the letter Y.
I wanted to talk with him more, I wanted to understand him better, but somehow we kept running into walls. And I just couldn’t push him on his family. Do unto others and all, and I certainly didn’t want to talk about my family. If he felt like he could get away for good, that was great. I was sure he had what it took to make it on his own.
Brynn made a small noise that told us she was finally awake, for which I was profoundly grateful. Then she said, her voice rusty, “I was dreaming about your friend. Jen. What happens to her if we pull this off? Does she stay undead?”
“I have no damn idea,” said Yejun. “Cat must think so, because if she’s going to vanish when this is over, I think he’d be a little more upset.”
“Oh,” said Brynn, digesting this. “So where are we, did you figure it out?” She pushed Heart away and stood up, rubbing her cheek where her arm had indented the skin. Then she subjected me to minute inspection before flashing a bright smile.
Yejun shook his head. “Just that we’re at the heart of the onion. I can’t contact Jen or Cat. It just doesn’t connect. Or it does, but there’s nobody on the other end.”
“Maybe we’re too far away?” Brynn gave me an inquisitive look, as if I could answer the question.
“Maybe,” said Yejun, but doubtfully. He didn’t look at me at all.
I searched my memory. “I don’t think charms that connect two people—if that’s what you even have, no clue—are limited by distance. But they can be blocked.”
Brynn’s eyes sparkled. “Not limited by distance? Not at all? Instant communication? My brother is going to love that.”
I hedged uncomfortably. “Well, all charms use some kind of power. They might require a lot more power across long distances.”
Brynn didn’t seem fazed by this warning, but Yejun frowned. “Jen and Sen mostly used these little battery-like power sources. I have a couple for the charms they gave me, but it’s not how I work on my own. I wonder...” He fished a couple of what looked like D-cell batteries from his pockets. I recognized them from my time in California.
“What are those, M-cells?” Brynn asked. “Get it? M-cells? For magic?” She snickered.
“Why don’t you go back to sleep, kid?” Yejun told her. “What do you do, AT? You have some charms. How are they powered?”
I startled a little, remembering. “Oh, yeah, I guess I do. I don’t really use them much. They’re very small, not the sort that can really hurt me if they use my personal energy, especially since I’m a nephil.”
Yejun’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Uh, well. It means I’m faster and stronger than you, and the same energy that makes me faster and stronger feeds the charms.” I wondered how he’d react to me stating the truth so baldly. My father’s pack always hated the idea.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, looking satisfied. “Mind if I borrow some?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
He gave me a teasing smile, shocking in how unexpected it was. “Can I borrow a cup of nephil magic? I’d really like to check in with Jen, and if we simply don’t have enough power to make it work, I bet you can help.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Can you do that? I mean... just do it?” Something nagged at my memory. Something somebody had told me once about powering strong Geometry magic with intrinsic nephil magic. It was okay with weak charms, but strong charms... But Yejun was grinning at me and that made it hard to concentrate. I kept feeling like I’d done something right, or I was about to.
“Give me a minute.... Yeah, yeah, pretty sure I can. I just need to—well, can I?” He held out a hand to me.
I hesitated, glancing at my dogs, then asked, “Can you limit it to just a cup?”
“Absolutely,” he said, his eyes fixed on mine. “This would be a lot smaller and gentler than what I did before.”
“Um,” began Brynn, then fell silent, sighing and sitting down again.
I should have looked around. I should have weighed the benefit of getting Jen’s advice about the creepy city versus the risk of ending up flattened by exhaustion. I should have made the decision rationally, set up safeguards, explained about my dogs, worried about being sick. But instead I just thought about how much I treacherously, dangerously, wanted him to like me. That smile was so brilliant, and his eyes were dark enough to drown in.
I reached out and took his hand. His was bigger than mine, and warm. His fingers were very gentle as they laced with mine. “Does your hand hurt?” he asked softly.
My muscles twanging like a taut wire all the way from my neck to my toes, I shook my head. “It’s all up here, anyhow.” I touched above my ear.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” Then his gaze went far away and his free hand moved through the air in a complicated dance.
At first it didn’t seem like anything was happening. I wondered if he saw magic the same way I did. Most people had the Sight as a charm, but he didn’t, I was sure. I could look and see, I realized. I’d avoided the Sight since meeting him, because I didn’t want to be distracted or sickened—but if I w
as just standing here, letting him do his thing, shouldn’t I watch and learn? Maybe I could understand.
But then I started to feel what he was doing. I closed my eyes against the growing nausea, the twinge of a headache. For a heartbeat, I felt like he was moving things around me in quadruplicate. Four points of view on the same thing, and none of them were the same. How could I not be sick? Then he caught at my intrinsic magic, at the power I’d inherited from my father. He started drawing on it as he sent out the seeking aspect of his communication charm. And I remembered, too late, what I’d heard about powering charms directly from intrinsic magic.
-fifteen-
I have no idea what my father was before he became what he is now. They say that the celestials were the caretakers of the world, each one devoted to nurturing some aspect of Creation. I can’t even imagine some nurturing thing he could have done, because what my father does now is break things. Bodies. Hearts. Minds. Relationships. Ideologies. All of those at once, if he can. He’s the wolf in Grandma’s bed and the patron saint of turning on those who love you.
I don’t know what he used to be, but sometimes I wonder if his power is as twisted as he is. He’s taught me how to break things, but it’s not my core, magically speaking. Maybe it would have been, if, at the age of five, I hadn’t found a dying puppy and saved his life by mingling my magic with his soul. I don’t really know. But ever since then, I’ve had a connection to dogs. I can feel what they feel. I can empower them, then do what they do. My own dogs are special, of course, but I can get along supernaturally well with any dog. In a very real, life-changing kind of way, I’m part canine.
And my father, the wolf in the bed, only minded the veneer of domestication. He only liked dogs when he could teach them to bite the hand that fed them. A daughter who was a wolf inside was just his style. After all, there’s a word for a person who is part wolf and part human, especially when all they know how to do is destroy things.
Yejun’s charm to borrow a cup of power activated and it pulled my magic forward, from the back of my mind where it was normally under my conscious control. The rush of power wrapped around me, turning on me, taking over my mind.
Wolf Interval (Senyaza Series Book 3) Page 14
