Magic on the Storm ab-4

by Devon Monk

  Then I was on Greyson.

  Still pinned beneath Stone, he was more man than he had been. And I knew why. Chase lay next to him, frozen, her hand clasped with his. She was alive. I thought she was. And she was pouring her life out to sustain his.

  Sometimes love made you stronger. And sometimes it made you crazy.

  Greyson looked up at me. “There is still hope.”

  “Not for you. Give me back my father, you bastard.” I swung the sword.

  My father shifted in my head, stretched like electricity crackling behind my eyes. He pushed at my brain, my mind, my head.

  My sword halted midswing.

  My father’s ghost stood next to me, his hand blocking my blade. “Taking his life with this blade will kill you,” he said, from outside my mind.

  I didn’t care. I had a lot of fury and magic holding me up. But there was also a lot of screaming in the back of my head that had been going on for a while. I knew I was ignoring a lot of pain. Maybe ignoring too much pain.

  “Get out of my way,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Allison.” My father stepped closer to me. I caught the scent of him, wintergreen and leather. His voice was gentle. “There is no time for revenge. Not if you want life to win.”

  How much time did it take to kill someone?

  And that was when I felt it. The storm was passing, the rain lifting. Wild storms ended as quickly as they hit. Soon there would be no more wild magic to hold me up. I glanced up, away at the city, crouched in magicless darkness.

  Lights flickered on, blazed. Magic caught again like a flame to a wick, and exhaled life and safety into the city. We had done it. We had channeled the wild magic away from the city. The storm was passing.

  More than that, the wells and networks were filling fast. I could feel the deep tingle of familiar magic wrapping up inside me again, a heavy warm weight that stretched out against my skin, all pleasure, no pain.

  I could easily access that magic, even out here in magicless St. Johns. But it was obvious Chase, lying still, eyes closed, hand clasped with Greyson’s at my feet, struggled to reach magic. To keep him alive.

  My father let go of the sword, and bent over Greyson.

  Stone growled. My father paid no attention to him. Instead, Dad traced a glyph in the air, a serpentine line that glowed pure white gold. He caught it up on his hands, where it pressed into place like gauntlets a king might wear. My father glowed with that light, as if the magic wrapped him in its vestments.

  And then he pressed his hand into Greyson’s head.

  Yes. Into.

  Greyson went absolutely still, and Dad said something that sounded like an old language. A blessing more than a curse.

  The gold lines of magic grew stronger and filled my dad with more light. He stood, and was more solid than he had been, though I could still see Stone and Greyson through him.

  He regarded me for a moment. “Good-bye, daughter.” He turned toward the gate.

  A rumble shook the ground. I turned. The gate, trapped by Victor’s spells, began to collapse.

  Hayden was cutting a swath through the beasts toward us. He’d be here, on top of Greyson and Chase, in a second.

  And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Terric stand and swing his ax, killing another beast, while he poured magic, less than before, into Shame. Terric was exhausted. The easy magic, the wild magic, was nearly gone.

  Without it, Shame would die.

  I spun, Zay’s sword still in my hand, and ran for the center of the field, for the pile of broken, blown-apart disks that no longer held magic, where the gate still shimmered in the air, growing smaller as Victor wrapped it in massive lines of magic that webbed it so that no more creatures poured out.

  I didn’t want the disks. I wanted the crystal. Found it, glowing pink with magic beneath the burnt silver disks. I picked it up and could almost taste the sweetness of the full, heavy magic it carried like a perfume on the back of my throat.

  “Terric!” I yelled.

  He glanced over. I threw the crystal to him, willing it with mind and magic to find him, reach him. He caught it with the hand that was channeling magic, life, into Shame.

  His eyes widened. And then he was on his knees, his ax discarded at his side, pressing the crystal to Shame’s chest with both hands, as if it were a new heart for a broken toy. He bent and pressed his forehead to Shame’s, whispering to him.

  No time.

  My father strode toward the gate. Close enough he could step through, but Victor’s lines blocked him.

  “He must let me pass,” my father said.

  Victor was focused, caught in a trance of sheer will, sweat peppering his face, his arms shaking as he chanted the spell and forced the gate between life and death to close. He was wielding a hell of a lot of magic with very little resources.

  He did not see my dad. He did not know he was sealing Zayvion’s death forever.

  There was no cavalry to come to our rescue.

  But I didn’t need a cavalry to save Zayvion.

  I strode over to Victor. My teacher, Zayvion’s teacher, who might even have been a father figure to Zay. I put my hand on his shoulder and used Influence so that he would understand me and obey.

  “Wait until I pass through. Then close the gate behind me.”

  “Allie,” he gasped. “It is suicide.”

  “Zayvion is the guardian of the gates and I am his Soul Complement. No one’s going to tell me I can’t bring him home.”

  Someone yelled. I thought it was Shame. He had told me I couldn’t go anywhere without him.

  He was wrong.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Shame was barely standing, eyes wide in horror or anger, one hand extended toward me. Terric stood behind him, one hand clasped with his, the other arm wrapped around Shame’s waist, holding him up, holding him back.

  “Allie,” Shame yelled. “Don’t!”

  I didn’t listen. I held up one hand. A wave. A farewell, and I turned away. Shame was in good hands. Maybe the best hands he could be in. Terric’s hands.

  If there was ever going to be a chance to bring Zayvion back, it was now.

  The shadow of a figure in flight flashed above me. Stone.

  The big rock landed with surprising grace at my side.

  I sheathed Zay’s sword across my back, and glanced down at Stone, all muscle and wing and fangs. He tipped his head to look up at me, ears perked into triangles.

  “Stay,” I said. “I have work to do.”

  Stone growled, then crooned like an out-of-tune pipe organ. His wings pressed against his back and he took a step toward the gate.

  Fine. I was running out of time. I didn’t know if Stone could walk into death and return alive. Hells, I didn’t know if I could walk into death and come out alive. Didn’t know if I could find Zay’s soul and drag it back with me into the living world.

  But I sure as hell was going to find out.

  “Are you ready?” I asked my dad.

  He frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “To save my man.” I put my hand down on Stone’s head. My father smiled. I didn’t know why. Maybe he was angry.

  “No,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Impressed. You know you can’t survive in there without me.”

  “I didn’t say I was going alone.” I didn’t trust him. Sure, he talked a nice Truth spell, but once on the other side, he might change his mind about saving Zayvion. I wouldn’t chance that.

  Dad took his place at my right, and Stone stood at my left. Without another look back, I walked through the gates of death.

  Read on for an exciting excerpt from

  Devon Monk’s next Allie Beckstrom novel,

  MAGIC AT THE GATE

  Coming in November 2010 from Roc

  Death had seen better days. Vacant, crumbling buildings, a brown-red sky, and slick pools of black oil stretching out along the sidewalk of what I was pretty sure was supposed to be Burnside Boulevard. The city-and it was very c
lear we were in Portland-looked like a dump. If this was death, I wanted to meet the marketing team that had dreamed up both the fluffy-cloud-golden-harp thing and the eternal-fires-of-burning-hell shtick.

  Because this place was broken and empty. Achingly so.

  “Allison?” my father, next to me, said.

  He was fully solid now, no longer ghostlike at all. A little taller than I, gray hair, wearing a business suit with a lavender handkerchief in the pocket. Death didn’t seem to bother him one bit.

  And it shouldn’t have. He belonged here.

  He squeezed my arm, his eyes flicking back and forth, searching the details of my face. “Can you breathe?”

  Of all the dumb questions. “Of course I can breathe. Let go of me.”

  His lips pressed together in a thin line and the familiar anger clouded his eyes. He pulled his hand away from my arm.

  There was no air. No air in my lungs, and none to breathe. I tried not to panic, but, hey, this was death. I knew I’d be lucky to get out of here alive. And I had to get out of here alive. Zayvion was here, somewhere, his soul sent here, his body in life, in a coma.

  This was my one chance, my only chance, to save him.

  The wild-magic storm might have passed, but the very real danger of my never seeing Zayvion’s beautiful eyes, hearing his gentle voice, feeling his touch, set off a sharp panic in my chest.

  Well, that and not being able to breathe.

  Dad put his left hand in his pocket, tucking away something. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and watched me gasp. Stone-cold, that man.

  I shut my mouth and glared. Yes, I was that stubborn. My vision darkened at the edges.

  Could you pass out in death? I was about to find out.

  Stone growled and stepped toward Dad, fangs bared. That’s my boy. Stone’s normally dark gray body was now black, shot through with lightning flecks of blue and green and pink, as if he were made of obsidian with opal running beneath the glassy surface. He shone, his eyes glowing a deep amber.

  “Touch the Animate,” Dad said. “You should be able to breathe again.”

  Since it was beginning to dawn on me that passing out and leaving my dad conscious might be a really stupid idea, I put my hand on Stone’s head.

  Air-good. . well, if not good, serviceable, smelly air-filled my lungs. I hacked like a smoker on a three-day bender. My lungs hurt.

  “You are in death.” Dad hit lecture mode from word one. “A living being crossed into death. There is so little chance you could have survived that, Allison. No one can step into death if they are fully alive. And yet here you stand. It does make me curious. What part of you is dead, my daughter?”

  I didn’t know. My sense of humor, maybe? My tolerance for his being a jerk? Or maybe because my Soul Complement was in a coma and his soul was already in death-that counted. I was too busy coughing and trying to breathe to be philosophical.

  He shook his head, dismissing the question as easily as he dismissed me. “To survive you will need to stay in contact with something that is neither fully alive nor completely dead. Something that exists in a between state. A filter between life and death.”

  “You’re dead.” I finally managed to exhale. “All dead. Why could I breathe when you touched me?”

  “That answer is complicated.” He looked up and down the street, then at the building next to us, as if getting his bearings, and started walking down the street.

  I followed him, and Stone somehow sensed the need to stay under my hand. There was no one on the streets with us, no wind, no rain. When I glanced up, it was nothing but terra-cotta sky and hard white light.

  “Tell me you’re dead,” I said.

  “Very much so. That doesn’t mean I’m not without resources.”

  Which meant part of him, some of him somewhere, was alive. Great. I did not trust my dad. I never had. For good reason. And that very calm, trustworthy face he was wearing made me twitchy.

  “Where are you alive? Why?” I asked. “Who’s helping you?”

  “That is not important.”

  “Yes, it is. What is your angle in all this, Dad? I have lost track of whose side you’re on.”

  “I am on magic’s side. To see that it falls into the right hands. My motives are not yours to question.”

  “I’ll question your motives until the day I die. Again. For reals.”

  “This is real,” he said quietly. “Very real. If you are to survive, you need to put your stubbornness aside and listen to me.”

  “Oh, I just love that idea.”

  “Love it or not, your options are limited. Living flesh does not travel well in the world of death. I believe if you stay in contact with the Animate, it will filter the. . irritants of death long enough for you to accomplish your task.”

  He made it sound as if he were teaching me the ABC’s and knew there was no way I’d ever make it to Q.

  He stopped and glanced back down the street the way we’d come. “Faster would be better.”

  He grabbed my arm and propelled me down an alley. I shook free of him, my other hand still on Stone’s head, and looked over my shoulder.

  Watercolor people. And not the nice kind. Unlike the other Veiled I had seen in life, these ghostly people barely resembled people. With their twisted bodies and sagging faces, they resembled movie zombies more than ghosts. They also looked solid.

  And hungry.

  Stone growled.

  The Veiled heard him, turned our way, sniffing, scenting, crooked hands tracing half-formed glyphs, as if they could use magic to find us.

  “Veiled?” I asked.

  “Quiet,” Dad said.

  Stone’s ears flattened. He stopped making noise but his lips were pulled back to expose a row of sharp teeth and fangs.

  Dad traced a glyph in the air and magic followed in a solid gold line at his fingertips. I wasn’t using Sight, yet magic was clearly visible. That wasn’t how it worked in life. Magic was too fast to be visible. Here, it was slow and fluid.

  He finished the glyph. Camouflage glittered in the air like a filigreed screen. He whispered a word and the glyph stretched and widened, creating a swirling shell around us. I swallowed, but could not taste anything. That was different from in life too. Magic didn’t smell or taste here.

  Or maybe I just wasn’t dead enough to sense it.

  The Veiled were almost on us.

  “This way,” Dad whispered. He rolled his fingers, catching up the lines of the Camouflage glyph and balancing it on his open palm. He pushed his palm outward in a sort of traffic-cop stop motion and the spell moved with us, keeping us hidden.

  Impressive.

  Dad’s mouth set in a hard line and his eyes narrowed, as if casting magic and maintaining the spell wasn’t easy. Still, he stormed down the alleyway-not once looking back-strong, confident.

  And for a second, just a second, I saw my dad as a heroic figure. The epitome of what a magic user should be. The mythic wizard who knew the hidden strengths of magic and his own soul. Even in death, my dad stood tall and kicked ass.

  “Walk or be eaten,” he said.

  Okay, so much for the hero bit.

  I picked up the pace and Stone padded along beside me.

  The Veiled stepped into the alley behind us and shuffled over to where we’d been standing. They didn’t follow us. A few dropped to their knees, patting the sidewalk as if they’d just lost something, while others ran their hands along the brick wall, mouths open. They leaned against the building and sucked at the wall as if they were starving for even the slightest drop of magic it might contain.

  It creeped me out. I walked faster, holding tight to Stone’s ear.

  “I did not want to enter this way,” Dad said, “but bringing you along has changed my approach. Why must you challenge me in every way, Allison?”

  “I’d be happy to help,” I said as pleasantly as I could muster, “if you’d tell me where Zayvion is so I can get the hell out of here.”

  He
stopped at the other end of the alley. More Veiled blocked our passage. These stared at us as if they could see right through the Camouflage my dad still held.

  That wasn’t good.

  I put my hand on the hilt of Zayvion’s katana, which was sheathed on my back.

  “Don’t draw the blade.”

  There wasn’t a lot of room in the alley. I was mostly behind him. I didn’t know how he’d seen me reach for the sword.

  “I’m not going to wait until they jump us.”

  And just like that, the Veiled rushed toward us.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked without looking back at me.

  “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  My dad broke the Camouflage spell-and I mean it shattered and fell like glass exploding.

  Then he spun and stuck his hands into my chest.

  Into. My. Chest.

  It hurt. I inhaled. Exhaled. Yelled. Couldn’t move to draw the sword, draw a spell, draw a breath.

  Stone launched at him. Then I couldn’t breathe even more.

  Dad was fast. He pulled his hands free, pulling magic-pink and silver and black-out of my chest and pointing at Stone, who halted in his tracks and stepped on my foot, so I had at least some contact. Dad cast a glyph out of the magic-my magic-and threw a metallic, sparking fireball at the Veiled.

  The explosion lit the street and carved hard shadows down the alley.

  The Veiled screamed, an unholy sound that echoed out and out and seemed to reflect off of the sky as if it were a low ceiling. It was too big a sound, too much sound, in too small a place.

  Their scream vibrated somewhere deep inside of me where I couldn’t get away from it, making their pain a part of me, my magic a part of them.

  No, no, no.

  I reached for Stone, for my dad, for anyone, anything to hold on to to make this stop. Then Dad was standing in front of me, his hand over the old bullet scar just below my collarbone.

  “Breathe, Allison. Breathe.”

  I gasped. Got some air down. Tasted something sweet against my tongue, and the cool, rough bricks of the building against my back.