Night Awakens: The Awakened Magic Saga (Soul Forge Book 1)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  “I’m sorry,” Red said.

  “For what you said or how it came out?” I asked.

  “Both.”

  I didn’t dare take my eyes off the front of the house. “Then why’d you say it?”

  It took him a couple of minutes to answer—so long I wondered whether he would. “It’s like I told you on the porch—you’re different than I remember. I’m still attached to the memory of you. I didn’t realize how much.”

  “Blaming me for something I can’t do anything about is dirty pool,” I said. “I keep telling people that I’m not that little girl anymore. No one wants to believe me, even someone like you, who can see clearly enough to tell the difference.”

  “Guilty as charged.” He sighed. “I’ve had magic all my life. Like you said, I can see the magic in other folks. Mostly, people don’t use it except in little ways, to help the people they love, to help themselves. Mostly, they just go on living their lives. Assassins and angels don’t rain down on them. They don’t have those kinds of enemies and they don’t have to make the kinds of choices you did back then, and still do.”

  “What’s your point?” I asked.

  “I thought I lived apart from the normal world because of my magic. I had no idea what apart actually meant.”

  “And?”

  “It scares the shit out of me,” he said, a raw edge to his voice.

  Hearing him say that didn’t make me less pissed, but honesty like that deserved to be returned. “Me, too.”

  “After all this time?” he asked.

  “Especially,” I said. “I didn’t used to have anything to lose.”

  He was silent a moment, swiveling in the chair. It squeaked under his weight. “That apology isn’t enough, is it?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  No surprise that he had feelings about what had gone down today, about being inducted into a world he had no idea existed. Friends in danger, life in danger, maybe-we’d-all-die-before-the-sun-came-up danger. And for what? To become a pawn in some epic battle between good and evil, or assholes who pretended to be good or evil, but only wanted power?

  “I need to know whether you’re gonna walk away, or whether you’re planning to stick with us,” I said.

  He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll stick with you until the end.”

  “And after that?”

  “Will there be an after?” he asked.

  “No promises,” I said.

  “Night?”

  “What?”

  “I heard every word y’all said after I went upstairs.”

  “Eavesdropping?” I’d have done the same. “Now you know what happened to me after I left your house, and how I ended up with Faith.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, in a different tone than he had a few minutes ago.

  It rankled. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  “I don’t need your approval or your condemnation, either.”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m not judging.”

  “Then what are you doing?” I asked. “I wish none of it had happened. I wish I’d grown up different. I wish I’d had a chance to become something else. But I didn’t, and the only thing that keeps me sane is understanding that what I experienced made me who I am. And because of that, I can help people. I can protect them.”

  “I wish I could say I understood, but I can’t ever really stand in your shoes, can I?” he asked. “But I trust you. I believe in you.”

  No one had ever said that to me. My breath caught in my throat. “Why?”

  “I can see it in you,” he said. “Goodness. Strength. Determination. Love.”

  “Your magic shows you all that?” I asked.

  He didn’t seem to have heard me. He seemed distracted.

  “You listening?” I asked.

  “I think there’s someone down there,” he said. “I just saw something move near the top of the fence, so fast I almost missed it. Whatever—whoever—it was, they disappeared into the shadows on the side of the house.”

  That sounded right. If we hadn’t had so many people watching, we’d never have seen even that much.

  I allowed myself to close my eyes then for a moment. I reached out with my magic and found the image of the possible intruder in Red’s mind, turning it over from every angle and coming to the same conclusion he had. I sent my magic out further—just enough to touch the minds of Faith and Corey and Sunday. I sent them a mental warning.

  I looked at Red and lowered my voice. “Stay upstairs. Keep an eye out for our visitor. Guard the girls and get them out if you need to.”

  He nodded. “Be careful.”

  I took the stairs quickly, careful to stay to the inside of the steps, avoiding creaks and groans that would announce my presence. Even before I reached the landing, I knew that the back door was open. A mass of cold air rushed down the hall. The scuff and squeal of shoes on tile traveled with it.

  I launched myself toward the kitchen. Sunday had turned off the lights, the better to see an intruder. What light penetrated the window above the sink made it possible to see at all. Sunday and the Order operative were shadows in the dark on the far side of the kitchen island, between it and the sink. He’d grabbed her from behind, his arm around her neck in a chokehold. She elbowed him in the gut once—twice—turning in anticipation of what she knew I would do.

  She hadn’t heard or seen me coming, but she knew I’d be there.

  I came in low, sliding on my knees, my grip strong on the hilt of the knife. I slashed the backs of his calves.

  He loosed his hold on Sunday, staggering backwards into the sink. Sunday cried out and went down in a heap, feeling the floor in front of her.

  I grappled with why, the reason flashing through my mind at the same time Sunday shouted. “Mirror!”

  The Order’s man had the power to mirror others’ magic back to them. Anything we sent out, he’d send right back. Unless we’d taken the time to build a defense against that. And we hadn’t. We’d known he was alone. We’d known how he was traveling and when to expect him. We hadn’t known the flavor of his magic.

  Sunday had tried to blind him. Now, she couldn’t see.

  If I tried to slip into his mind, he’d have the keys to mine. He could make me do anything he wanted, including kill at his whim. He could kill me by making me believe I’d died, as I’d done to countless others.

  He looked at me, hazel eyes framed with thick, brown lashes. A sable Mohawk crowned his head, huge, round opal studs like eyes in the lobes of his ears. He was short—maybe five-five—stocky, and dressed all in black. He carried no weapon. Why would he need one? His magic would defend him unless he was knocked out, and if he lost consciousness, he was dead anyway.

  He flashed me a half-smile. His legs were cut up. His blood slicked the floor. And still he smiled.

  I closed my mind to him. Walled off my magic. And pivoted to slash him again.

  He kicked me in the chest, stealing my air. I gasped as I hit the tile on my back, the blade flying from my fingers. I skidded into the kitchen island, clocking my head on the pine.

  I shook my head to clear it in time to catch a glimpse of Sunday standing upright, her suddenly useless eyes closed. She had some blind-combat training because everyone trained against their own power, but she didn’t have real-time experience. She wasn’t going to be able to fight him well if she couldn’t see him. Maybe, bare minimum, defend herself.

  She heard him coming—the quick intake of breath, a displacement of air, a creak of the floor—and rounded on him, landing a solid right hook on the side of his head. He fell to his knees.

  How? The same way she’d known where I would be a moment ago. Her intuition was ramped high. She could feel him coming before he struck.

  He braced with his left arm, leaning over low—out of the range of her fists. He swept her legs. She went down like a bag of bones.

  I scrambled to my fe
et as he lunged for her, grabbing at her, grappling his way on top of her, hands going for her throat.

  I scooped up the nearest weapon to hand—the skillet on the cooktop. I brought it down on the top of his head with everything I had. Struck him with enough force to feel echoes of it through my arms and shoulders.

  He blacked out. Crumpled to the ground, blood smeared around him, blood seeping out of him.

  He wouldn’t be out long. Couple of minutes, max.

  Sunday shoved him off of her and pushed to her feet, panting.

  “Lucky,” she said.

  “I don’t know why.” It didn’t feel right.

  She reached for my arm, wrapping her fingers around it and holding on tight. “I know what you mean.”

  “We need to take care of him now,” I said.

  She nodded.

  Footfalls sounded behind us. I whirled, breathing hard, frying pan at the ready. And then lowered it.

  Faith was in the front of a line of people running down the hall, Corey on her heels and Red bringing up the rear, yelling for them to come back.

  “What about stay upstairs did you not understand?” I asked him.

  “The part where you asked me to protect the girls,” he said.

  I raised a brow. “They made a break for it?”

  He nodded.

  “Take them out of here,” I said.

  Faith shook her head. “It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “He’s not dangerous anymore. You don’t have to kill him,” Faith said.

  Because she knew now what I’d been. I might have changed, but I would still do what I had to do, even if it meant taking a life.

  “Leaving aside the fact that he’d have killed all of us as easy as breathing, he’s hurt Sunday,” I said. “His magic took her sight, and she won’t be able to see again until he’s dead.”

  Faith shook her head. “No.”

  “Red,” I said, “we need your help.”

  For a second, I wondered whether he’d agree. But the moment passed, and he walked over to us.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Help hold him down in case he regains consciousness. And if he does, then knock me out fast.”

  Red knelt on the operative’s left arm and leg, pinning him down.

  Sunday took the right. “You don’t have to do this, Night. You can just put two rounds in his brainpan. You can cut his throat. There’s no risk in that.”

  I lowered my voice. “Not here.”

  Not in front of my daughter. Not in front of Corey.

  I let my power flow freely, letting it take me over, hearing Red ask Sunday what the hell I was risking, not quite hearing all of her reply to him, but knowing what she’d say: as long as the operative was out cold, I could work on him, but if he came to while I was killing him softly, he’d turn the tables on me in a heartbeat.

  I slid into the operative’s unconscious mind, bringing a mental blade with me that looked and felt just like the one knocked from my hand when he’d sent me flying across the floor. The stone corridors of his mind were darkened, but he’d left a trail for me to follow—footprints that glowed a phosphorescent gold. I found him in a lonely room at the end of the line, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a dimmed mirror. Under normal circumstances, I understood, it reflected magic around it so brightly it would hurt to gaze directly into the glass. No longer.

  What’s your name? I asked.

  He showed me that half-smile again. Does it matter?

  Not really, I said.

  Get it over with.

  The words were filled with bravado, but I caught something off in his expression.

  Everyone knows your name, he said. They whisper it when the mentors aren’t listening. You are a legend.

  Legends are dead, I said.

  But not you, not yet. Not the great Black Rose. You are the best of us.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  I hope you live a long life, he said.

  Some kind of quake had shaken the bedrock of the Order and cracked it open for him to say that.

  One last request, he said. Make it quick.

  I stepped behind him and sliced through his jugular, pulling away as the blood spurted. In his mind, in his heart of hearts, he bled out, the stone room fading around us.

  I pulled back into my body, back into the kitchen with Red kneeling on my left and Sunday on my right. Back to the sound of Sunday’s sharp intake of breath, her pleasure and gratitude as her sight returned.

  And behind me, a different sound, as Faith cried.

  I could feel my body shake—it felt like someone else’s body for a second, and then I took control, battening down against the wave of anguish that threatened to crash over me at the sound of Faith’s sobs.

  Corey spoke, her voice just above a whisper. “He’s not the only one the Order sent.”

  I turned to look at her, my gaze raking Faith’s tear-stained face and settling on Corey’s bold features, her skin corpse-pale and her hair bloodred.

  “I can see him,” Corey said. “He’s standing behind you, Sunday, and he’s talking to me.”

  Sunday growled. “Why didn’t he talk to you, Night? You were in his mind.”

  “He did,” I said. “He called me a legend. He wished me well.”

  Sunday stared. “What the fuck?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything about another operative,” I said.

  “Because he was spelled,” Corey said. “The people who sent him bound him to secrecy, just like they bound him to follow his orders to the letter, because they suspected him of sympathizing with you.”

  When I’d been a part of the Order, we’d heard stories about others who’d tried to escape, how they’d failed—or how they’d succeeded, but only for a matter of hours or, at most, days. We’d considered those people fools and traitors. If that line of thinking had been self-serving, who could blame us? All we knew was that without the Order, we’d be dead.

  The mentors—the ones assigned to us, and the mysterious ones we heard about but never saw—they kept us safe. They gave us purpose. They didn’t need to indoctrinate us to earn our loyalty. If they punished us, it was because we were unworthy. We deserved it, and we accepted our fates.

  What had changed to shift that one fundamental thing about those who belonged to the Order?

  The one who’d come to kill me had been the same as me. He’d felt something like I had on the night when I’d disobeyed orders, taken Faith, and run. The Order had bound him in ways that were never considered necessary before. They’d stolen the one thing that had kept all of us in line before: honor, trust, the tattered remnants of free will.

  “He’s free from that binding now,” Corey said. “He says the other guy that’s here was sent after your known associates.”

  “Most of my known associates are in this room,” I said.

  Corey bit her lip. “Not all of them.”

  Ben and Jess and Addie.

  I curled my hands into fists. “Does the other operative have them?”

  “He should by now,” Corey said.

  My nails dug into my palms. “Where?”

  “Home,” she said.

  She blinked several times, shaking her head, pressing her hands to her forehead.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked. “Faith’s and my apartment?”

  “No,” she said. “The place you feel most at home. Where feels like that to you?”

  I swallowed hard. I looked at Faith, who’d dried her tears, wishing I could make things different, understanding that she couldn’t un-know what she’d learned and seen and heard.

  I turned to meet Red’s gaze.

  “The gym,” he said.

  The gym.

  “Are they alive?” he asked.

  “They should be,” I said. “Until the operative has what he wants.”

  “You and Faith.” Red pushed too his feet.

  I n
odded.

  “What are you gonna do?” he asked.

  “Get the others out alive,” I said. “Trade myself for them.”

  “Absolutely not,” Sunday said. “I make a much better trade.”

  I looked at her.

  “I don’t have a kid to worry about, for one,” she said.

  Something went thump-bump over our heads. Upstairs. In the approximate location of Ben’s closet.

  Dave the Pizza Guy, waking up from his Angel of Death nightmare.

  Sunday gathered her hair and knotted it into a bun on the top of her head. “I’ll check on the not-so-Sleeping Beauty. You strategize.”

  She marched from the kitchen, trailing blood across the tile and into the hall.

  “Ben’s dad is going to be so pissed,” Corey said.

  I sighed. “I’ll pay for the cleaning.”

  “Really?” Corey asked. “When? He’ll be home tonight.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  Faith looked from me to Corey and back again. “Can we stop talking about the blood on the floor? I don’t give a crap about the blood or the—the body. How are we gonna help our friends?”

  All eyes focused on me.

  It’d be great to think we could go in stealthy and steal our people, but the second operative would’ve set up defenses against that. Two former Order operatives wouldn’t be enough to get around them. That meant going in straight-up, without any advantage of surprise.

  I wouldn’t take the girls into that. In that scenario, any safety they’d gain by sticking close to me evaporated in an instant.

  “Red,” I said, “can you take the girls?”

  He nodded. “Where?”

  “Out of the city,” I said. “Get on a plane. Go anywhere. Just make sure it’s far away.”

  Faith shook her head. “That’s not gonna happen.”

  I put on my best hopeful face. “I’ll be right behind you. We’ll get the others and then we’ll follow.”

  “No,” she said.

  “It’s the only plan that makes any sense, Faith. Sunday and I will go in. We can handle it.”

  And if we couldn’t, Red and Faith and Corey’s presence there would make no difference at all. Steadfastness and half-trained magic would count for nothing against an operative of the Order—and against the Angel of Death. I hadn’t forgotten him.