by Sam Cheever
The ward on Mitch’s home snicked off when I touched the knob again, recognizing the familiar energy of the spell. I glanced at Art. “Wait out here. Let me get a look at what’s going on before you come inside.”
Moonlight slipped over his face in thin streams, obscuring his features. But not enough to hide the belligerent expression. “Not happening, sis.”
“Mitch doesn’t know you. If he’s inside, he might attack.” What I didn’t mention was that Art didn’t have the magic to deal with whatever might be inside.
See, I could be diplomatic if I had to.
“You’ll be right here if I need help. And Nicht’s around here somewhere. It’ll be fine. I just want to siphon some of the energy inside and read it. It’ll take five minutes. Ten tops.”
He reluctantly allowed me to precede him into the shed. But he refused to leave the doorway. I could feel his judgmental glare biting the skin between my shoulder blades.
Goddess save me from a bossy sibling.
I slipped into the tiny home and stared at the empty chair in the center of the space. It was weird to see the chair empty. Mitch spent ninety percent of his time there, even sleeping in the chair most nights. Its position allowed him to see whatever came through his door, and he’d infused the age-scarred leather with his seer magic so that it was nearly plug and play. He plugged his narrow backside into the chair, and visions just rose up around him.
Anyway, that was how he’d described it to me. The chair wouldn’t work for anyone else, he’d assured me. But then, he hadn’t accounted for a Magis.
I could make the chair plug and play for me too. And I fully intended to do it. As soon as I finished my search of the shed.
Pulling out the flashlight I’d brought along with me, I painted the small space with light. I focused it in the corners and along the ceiling before moving deeper into the room and skimming it over every inch of the chair.
I found what I’d dreaded on one overstuffed arm of the chair, following the trail of dried blood down one side with the light.
I knew without having it tested that I was looking at Mitch’s blood.
And there was a lot of it.
I hung my head, feeling worry turn to a certainty that made my stomach churn.
Mitch hadn’t left his little home under his own steam. He’d been attacked. And if he was still alive, he was badly hurt.
I turned toward the door as soft footsteps approached. Art bent over the chair, frowning at the blood my flash illuminated. “That’s not good,” he said.
I sighed, straightening. “No. Not good at all.”
I finished examining the rest of the place, which consisted only of the tiny kitchen and a five-foot square space with a camping toilet and a sink with running water that Mitch captured in a roof cistern and fed through a simple plumbing system leading to the kitchen and bath.
I didn’t find anything in either place, which worried me. If Mitch had been hurt and had washed up at either sink, I could convince myself that he’d left of his own accord. But there was nary a single drop of blood in either sink. No bloody towels left behind—no med supplies in the trash.
Mitch had been taken.
“Anything?” Art asked.
I shook my head. “You need to wait outside for this next part.” I fixed him with a look that I hoped he could interpret properly. I didn’t want to put him into the position of seeing me access Mitch’s magic and then having to lie to the Body.
His gaze sharpened. “What are you going to do, Glynn?”
I just stared at him.
“Glynn?”
“Two words, Art. Plausible deniability. I’ll be out in a minute.” Or ten.
He stared back at me for another minute. Long enough that I was afraid he was going to fight me on it. But then inclined his head. “I’m leaving the door cracked. If you need help…”
“I’ll call you,” I promised, knowing I wouldn’t. No matter what happened, I couldn’t allow Art to see what I was about to do. Not only was my magic status illegal outside of magical Indy, but I was going to insert myself into another magic user’s energy and siphon it off for my own use. That was considered by many in the magic world to be the ultimate violation unless it was done in self-defense. Akin to energy rape.
It was bad enough that Art might feel he had no choice but to report it.
I waited until he’d stepped through the door and then pulled the door closed behind him, infusing it quickly with the ward magic I’d siphoned.
“Hey!” Art yelled from outside.
I ignored him and headed for the chair, my heart thudding against my ribs.
Art began pounding on the door as I settled my flashlight onto the floor and turned to lower myself into the chair.
My heart was pounding so hard I was having trouble breathing. Panic swelled inside my chest, tightening my lungs and churning acid in my belly.
I was about to do something I’d never wanted to do. I’d always believed being a Seer would be horrible. I’d never wanted to know the future because if there was something bad there, I wouldn’t be able to avoid it. I’d only worry about it until it happened.
Mitch could sometimes change the future from his visions. But that was well beyond my ability to do. Even siphoning his magic wouldn’t give me that power.
So, whatever I was about to see, I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
No matter how horrible it was.
16
As soon as I touched the worn leather, the warm sting of Mitch’s magic slid into me, tightening my skin and sending a rolling tremor sliding beneath it.
The sensation was so uncomfortable it was all I could do to stay in that chair. My flesh crawled beneath the magical onslaught, and my fingers tightened against the soft leather of the overstuffed arms.
The magic swelled and took me.
I gasped, my eyes flying open as the air around me shifted, changing form against my skin. I didn’t have any idea what I’d expected to see. But it wasn’t what I was looking at.
The place was beautiful. Vivid and bright, with a golden sun high overhead. The grass beneath my feet was thick, my feet sinking deeply into its cool embrace. I wriggled my toes with pleasure, realizing that I was barefoot.
A soft breeze wafted past, its touch a gentle caress against my bare skin.
Bare?
Panic sliced pleasure from me as I looked down and saw…
Goddess’s galoshes!
“Whew!” I wasn’t naked. Not totally anyway. I was wearing a summery dress, made of a light fabric that felt silky against my skin and was so lightweight it was almost see-through.
But I wasn’t naked, thank the goddess.
A bright splotch of color flashed in my peripheral vision. My gaze snapped up and I smiled. A butterfly fluttered past, heading for a bush that was thick with large chartreuse and purple flowers. I realized the bush was the source of the delightfully sweet scent that perfumed the air.
I was so engrossed in my surroundings, it took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t in my world.
The place where I stood wasn’t Render. It wasn’t even Magical Indy, though I knew Indy had some of the best gardens of any of the country’s magical cities.
But they had nothing like that butterfly, whose wingspan had to be something like twelve inches and whose body looked to be five inches long.
It was the size of a bird.
My gaze slid upward. Indy’s gardens, though beautiful beyond compare, didn’t have trees whose branches were formed into arrowhead shapes, and whose leaves were a vibrant shade of scarlet, perched atop perfectly straight trunks covered in black bark. The trunks were wide enough to drive a car through. And they rose next to each other in nearly perfect formation, like a giant, verdant army from another planet.
The ground shook and something snapped out, snatching the butterfly from the air above the flowery bush.
I blinked and my head whipped around.
The creature had to be thirty f
eet tall, with a lizard’s head and impossibly long claws on too-long arms.
The monster had a humanoid frame, but that was the end of any resemblance to humans. A long, disgusting tongue slithered out from between reptilian lips and tasted the air. I shuddered with disgust.
Without warning, the thing dropped to all fours and started toward me.
I panicked, trying to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. I stood there, my heart pounding hard enough to make me dizzy, and watched it lumber right at me.
The creature’s stench hit me several feet before it did. It smelled like rotten fish and feces, and its eyes glowed with a terrible amber light. Each time a heavy paw hit the ground, the branches on the bush beside me rustled, mirroring the quaking of the ground beneath my feet.
I fought desperately to move, but my feet were stuck fast, the thick grass wrapped around them like steel bands.
With a small, terror-filled sound, I crouched low, covering my head with my arms, and said a prayer that the thing might somehow miss me.
The stench deepened, coating the air like paint, thick and viscous, and its touch on my skin was clammy. I shuddered as it flowed over me, feeling each rumble of the creature’s footsteps in my bones.
And then it was gone.
The air was cold and I shivered. I slowly uncovered my head and blinked, blinded by darkness.
“What the…?”
I was in Render again. I stood, staring around at the familiar sight of my street. And it was nighttime. Had I somehow left the chair, sloughed off the visions and returned to reality?
I tried to move but my feet, clad in my familiar sneakers once again, were glued to the broken asphalt.
I looked at Victoria, terrified of what I might find. If I saw a vision of the house burning, or worse, of Boyle being harmed, it would be real and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
I suddenly wanted out of that chair, away from the visions. I couldn’t shake the feeling that, if I didn’t know about the bad thing, somehow I could stop it.
It wasn’t a logical feeling. But feelings were rarely logical.
Victoria rose into the darkness. Unchanged. Golden light bathed the space behind the windows of my room and higher, in Boyle’s attic bedroom. The tension that had turned my muscles to rock eased.
I took a deep, relieved breath.
A husky, pain-filled cry broke the night.
I swung my vision to find the cause, seeing Hawk and Nicht in battle with something…something…a long tongue snapped out and caught Nicht across the muzzle. He jerked away with a painful yelp.
Hawk swung a long blade and the monster reared back, emitting an ear-shattering squeal that sliced along my nerves. His strike severed the lizard thing’s disgusting tongue, the meaty flesh hitting the ground with an acidic sizzle.
A soft warmth slipped over my leg. I jumped, crying out in shock. I looked down to see the small black cat rubbing against my legs. It looked right at me, purring loudly. “Hey,” I said. “You can see me?”
The cat meowed, its short tail lazily waving above its back.
Excitement made me try to move my feet again. If I was really there, not in the vision, I could help them fight off the monster.
Nope. Still glued to the street.
Son of a bunion!
A roar filled the silence of the vision, and I whipped my head toward the sound. Nicht was down and Hawk was on his back, his sword clattering to the street as the monster dove at him. As I fought to move, I heard the horrible sound of teeth crunching down on bone.
I screamed, ripping my feet, finally from the ground, and then felt myself falling through a deep, velvety black tunnel. The scream died in my throat and I forgot to breathe as I plunged through nothingness, as fearful of it never ending as I was afraid of what would happen when it did.
I never found out. The tunnel disappeared, and my flailing arms smacked against something warm and solid.
“Umpf!” someone grunted. “Goddess, Glynn! Stop thrashing around.”
My eyes snapped open. I was looking up into Art’s confused and welt-covered face.
I was back.
I struggled out of the chair, finding it difficult not because of magic but because the stupid thing was covered in flesh-thwucking foam. “Hawk’s in trouble. We need to go!”
To my shock, as we ran toward home, Art reached inside his boring cotton shirt and pulled out a blade. The thing was about eighteen inches long and gleamed in the soft light of the moon high above.
I’d never seen my brother use a weapon before. I filed that away to ask him about later. I wasn’t sure how I felt about my pole-up-the-posterior brother as a knife-wielding defender, but for the moment, I was glad of it.
I opened my senses to the residual magic in the air around us and felt Art’s meager energy, automatically sifting it out of the mix as I embraced a variety of energies that included some of Della’s fairy magic, a mix of other powers bleeding from the surrounding homes, and, as we came within a block of Victoria, a welcome rush of my home energy, waiting for me to accept it.
I yanked the power to me, letting it bleed from my fingers in a thick stream and form into a sword, long and deadly, its blade honed by focused intent.
The blade glowed silver as I lifted it, my hand wrapped securely around a hilt that had been created to fit my specific handprint.
I realized as we closed the distance that a small form stood in the street, facing the monster. I sucked in a shocked gasp at the sight of Sissy holding two miniature thunderclouds of magic in her hands, legs set apart and gaze locked with determination on her foe.
The lizard thing had reared up, standing on its back legs with the steadiness of a creature that was used to standing that way. Though its thick legs were bent and its back slightly bowed, it towered several feet above the small witch, making her look tiny in comparison to its height and bulk.
I dared a quick glance toward the spot where I’d seen Hawk go down and he was still there, an unmoving shape in the trampled grass
Nicht was starting to move, his enormous paws twitching helplessly against the ground.
Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away as rage scoured through me, burning emotion back until I had the luxury of safety to expel it.
“I’ll circle around behind it,” Art said quietly.
I inclined my chin, my gaze locked on Sis. As soon as she hit the monster with the energy bubbling at her fingertips, I wanted to strike it with my blade. The thing was huge, and apparently powerful since it had taken down both Hawk and his hellhound. Our only shot at besting it was if we combined power.
“Sis,” I said softly, my nearly silent voice gliding toward her on a gentle push of power.
She gave me a terse nod without looking away from the thing looming over her. “On three,” she responded just as softly.
“One,” I said, lifting the blade over my head.
“Two,” Sis said.
“Three!” I screamed, sending power into my voice that threaded through the space between me and the lizard thing.
“Die!” Sis screamed, her voice throbbing with magical energy. She hurled the energy storms she’d held in her palms at the lizard.
I leaped into the air, the hilt of my magic blade clutched above my head in both hands, and hit the beast just after Sis’s magic thrust duel blades of pure defensive energy through its thick hide.
My blade sliced downward, spearing it through one dense shoulder, and I threw my weight sideways as it split the flesh, redirecting the tip toward the thing’s heart.
The lizard screamed, acid spewing from its long, heavy snout, and pain sizzled along my leg where the nasty spittle landed.
It turned and punched the claws of its other leg into me, sending me flying across the yard. I hit the ground ten feet away and skidded until I bumped up against something big and soft that smelled like wet dog.
Sis threw another pair of magical firestorms at the thing as it turned with a roar to meet Art and his flying
blade.
To my shock, my nerdy brother actually seemed to be doing some damage to the thing, blood and spittle flying around its flailing limbs and snapping jaws.
Deadly black claws sliced the air close, so close to Art, but he was too fast for it to touch. His big, lithe body leaped from side to side, seemingly dancing on the very air as he struck and spun away and then struck again, weakening the thing even as he kept it busy so Sis could continue to pelt it with boiling clouds of witchy magic.
I pushed away from Nicht, taking a moment to check his big body for damage. Claw-tracks scored his sleek black fur in a few places, a few of the wounds deep but no longer bleeding. I watched several of the shallower tracks close up before my eyes and realized he was healing himself as quickly as he could. His sides were heaving from the effort and, though his brightly glowing eyes were open, they were glassy with the effort of healing.
I crawled away from him and checked Hawk.
It wasn’t good.
He was paler than pale against the dark ground—his color nearly the silvery-white of the moon high above us. Hawk was barely breathing and, it didn’t take me long to find out why. His chest was caved in, a large chunk of flesh missing near his heart. Oh so very near. The monster had clearly been going for the life-sustaining organ and had probably only been distracted in its purpose by Sissy arriving on the scene.
She’d likely saved the big hunter’s life. But it ultimately wouldn’t matter, because he was a breath away from dying anyway. I leaned down and put my face in front of his, feeling only the smallest touch of warm breath against my face. “Hold on, Hawk. You hear me? You need to fight.”
My mind roiled, as I churned frantically for a way to help. I needed healing energy and lots of it. I could take it from Nicht, but that might get in the way of the hound’s attempts to heal himself.
Victoria’s bones had absorbed all kinds of energy over the years, some of it the healing variety, but I knew instinctively that there wasn’t nearly enough to fix the damage to Hawk’s body.
