Trigger Magic

by Kim McDougall

  Contents

  Copyright

  Reviews

  Title

  1 Invasion

  2 Reunion

  3 Discussion

  4 Dimension

  5 Affliction

  6 Battalion

  7 Repercussions

  8 Medication

  9 Exploration

  10 Perception

  11 Scission

  12 Passion

  13 Detection

  14 Excursion

  15 Deception

  16 Preservation

  17 Dominion

  18 Complication

  Before you go

  About the Author

  A WrongTree eBook

  Copyright © Kim McDougall 2017

  Cover design by Castelane Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published in the United States in 2017 by WrongTree Press

  An imprint of the Castelane Inc.

  1710 MacArthur Rd. #203

  Whitehall, PA 18062

  www.Castelane.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  ISBN - 13: 978-0-9988651-3-3

  ISBN - 10: 0-9988651-3-3

  Version 1

  Praise for The Hidden Coven Series

  “The action and drama kept coming, page after page, unleashing shocking new secrets which left me unable to put the book down.” Rosie Malezer for Readers’ Favorite

  “I love it when I find all the ingredients of a great read: compelling plot, believable and likable characters, tight, active writing, humour and tension.” Susan Stephenson on Goodreads

  Trigger Magic

  Book 3 of the Hidden Coven Series

  By Kim McDougall

  Chapter One

  Invasion

  THE SKY BROKE.

  Fat heavy raindrops pelted the roof of my car. Tired of spring, Mother Nature just wanted the job done. I turned off the engine and sat in my driveway. To get soaked or not to get soaked?

  I really wanted my bed.

  Lightning reflected off the dark windows of my single-story house. The rain increased, and was that hail? Yep. Ice pellets pinged off my car as if daring me to break for the house. I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest.

  I’d been awake since before dawn helping my father at his Open Gate Farm Tour Fundraiser. Now close to midnight, I needed sleep. Emmett wanted me to stay at the farm, but I had to work tomorrow. I wanted my bed for tonight and my bathroom and closet in the morning.

  The hail stopped, giving me a small reprieve. I readied myself to dash for the door, wishing I knew a spell against weather.

  Wind nearly ripped the door from my grip as I jumped from the car. Hailstones crunched under my feet. Cold water dripped into my eyes and plastered my clothes to me by the time I reached the door.

  Lightning crackled again. I froze. Something was wrong. I wasn’t proficient enough with wards to protect my entire house, but I’d set up a few magical trip wires around the perimeter. I should have felt a tingle of aether as I passed over them, but I didn’t.

  The wards were gone.

  I unlocked the door and flicked on the light switch. Nothing.

  Just perfect. The storm knocked out the power. Or had it? I peered back into the rain. Several porch lights glowed up and down both sides of the street.

  As a sensate, I could detect the presence of aether, a less useful talent than it sounded. All living beings gave off aether or life-magic and continually scanning for it was overwhelming. But in the aftermath of events from last fall, I’d practiced discerning useful information from all that noise.

  My house felt off. Mentally, I picked through the familiar aether signatures. I’d started to think of these in connection to my other senses. The houseplants gave off their peculiar earth-scented aether. A faint orange tinge remained on the couch where the neighborhood cat slept on cold nights. And something else. A jittery aether, like the sound of cicadas buzzing in the summer heat. This aether was too fresh. The intruder still hid in the house.

  A blast of cold air told me a window was open somewhere. With quiet steps, I headed into the kitchen. The storm raged overhead as lightning and thunder collided. Each flash ignited the room, then left me blind.

  “Hello? Who’s here?” My voice rang too loud in the dark. I passed through the kitchen into the dining room. Rain blew in through the broken patio door, and shards of glass littered the floor. Lightning briefly illuminated my backyard, empty except for the patio furniture neatly piled under a tarp for the winter.

  Turning back to the quiet house, I called up my aether ward, struggling to make the protective spell big enough to surround me. It wouldn’t deflect bullets, but like kevlar, it would slow them down enough to keep me alive. And it would protect me from all but the strongest magic attacks.

  I grabbed the phone a dialed 911.

  “What’s your emergency?”

  “Someone’s in my house,” I whispered.

  “What’s your name, ma’am.”

  “Bobbi Cole. Please send someone…”

  Thunder clapped and lightning burst through the windows. I dropped the phone and heard the operator’s tinny voice from where it lay on the counter.

  “Ma’am? Please get out of the house, if you can. Ma’am, are you still there? Bobbi?”

  A crash came from my bedroom.

  I slipped a knife from the rack, and wrapping my ward around me like a cloak, stepped toward the back of the house. Something loomed at the end of the hall. Lightning flashed, and I recognized the hanging stairs that led to my attic.

  “The police are on the way!” I called into the gloom.

  A ball of light struck me in the chest and exploded. Crackling energy raced across my skin, pain and heat in its wake. The ward took most of the hit, but the blast knocked me backward. I fell, dropping the knife and ward. My eyes burned with hot tears as the intruder rushed past me. I kicked out, trying to trip him. My foot glanced off his ankle. Another bolt of white-hot light ripped into the wall beside my head. I flattened myself to the floor.

  He flung open the front door, and it slammed against the inside wall. Rain blew into the foyer. Lightning cracked and behind the pealing thunder, I heard the wail of sirens.

  When the police arrived, I sat slumped in a daze beside the scorched drywall, the paint around it black and peeling. I touched my sore chest where the other bolt hit me. What damage would it have done if I hadn’t been shielded?

  Five months ago, my demon father possessed a creep named William Fain and pushed him to use me in a dark rite that I didn’t completely understand. If he’d succeeded, Koro would have birthed himself into our world, tearing me apart in the process. And no one—witch or mundane—would have been safe from his lust for aether.

  William taught me a healthy fear of soother magic. To this day, while I lay in that paralyzing moment between wakefulness and sleep each night, I could feel his slithering magic enfolding me, taking away my will, and I’d shoot upright with a scream lodged in my throat.

  Until tonight, soothing was my least favorite kind of magic, but being attacked by a galvanic mage sucked too. The bastard shot me with a bolt of electri
city. My muscles still hummed and twitched, and I didn’t even want to look at my hair.

  As the police searched my house, I brooded at my kitchen table. Why me? Why did I always end up in the crosshairs of some maniac magic user? Of course, the answer to that was easy. It was in my DNA. Koro would never stop coming for me.

  The officer who took my statement suggested I interrupted the burglar before he could steal anything. He told me to get a copy of his report from the precinct and to go through all my belongings carefully for the insurance. I once again refused his offer to call the paramedics. As far as the police were concerned, I’d only been knocked down. No way to explain the burn mark on my wall, or the bruise blossoming on my chest, so I ignored those.

  “Is there anyone you can call?” the officer asked, after they helped me board up the broken window. “We’ll have a car in the area tonight, but you shouldn’t be alone.”

  I nodded. As soon as they left, I dialed Henry’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Damn. I forgot he went on some secret Paragon mission.

  Since Koro’s attack last fall, Henry Garza had been teaching me defense, both physical and magical, with varying degrees of success. A kick-boxing instructor for mundanes by day, Henry was also a Knight of Paragon, the group of warriors, healers and scholars who protected the mundane world from all things supernatural. My adopted father, Emmett, put me in touch with him when my nightmares of Koro and William Fain became a risk to my health.

  It turned out that kicking the crap out of things helped. Blowing stuff up with balls of magic fire was also cathartic, even if my spells tended to get away from me. But I improved with every lesson. I’d only set the dojo on fire once last week.

  Henry taught me to ward my house and my body. When he learned of this attack, he’d offer praise and disapproval. Praise for calling up the ward under duress, and disapproval for letting it drop after the first attack. I’d take the criticism if it meant I didn’t have to spend the rest of this night alone. But Henry was away, and I had no one else to call.

  That wasn’t entirely true. Every day for the past five months, I wanted to call Quinn. Even now, my finger hovered over my phone. He would come. I knew he would, but I hadn’t called him when things were good, and it seemed unfair to reach out now. Quinn wasn’t my protector. I had no right to ask him to save me. I sighed and put the phone down.

  Unable to sleep, I spent the dark hours of pre-dawn sorting through my jewelry and other precious effects, even though I knew all would be in order. Whatever the intruder sought, it wasn’t mundane valuables. Other than a broken lamp in my bedroom, I couldn’t find anything missing or damaged. The police had poked their heads into my attic, but found only boxes of books still unpacked from my last move.

  Nothing out of place. Nothing missing.

  I went to bed and managed only two hours of sleep before my traitorous alarm woke me.

  In the harsh morning light, the burn mark in my foyer looked even worse, and my chest ached. I left another message for Henry before heading to work. I owned a small fiber shop on Main Street in Ashlet. Mondays at the Woolery were quiet, and I hoped to use the time to practice that warding spell. I needed to learn to keep it intact even while under fire from an enemy. If the intruder had better aim, he would have killed me.

  So preoccupied with my thoughts, I didn’t notice the buzzing sound in my ears until I unlocked the store.

  I stood in the open doorway. Shock locked my legs in place.

  The store was a mess. Baskets of wool were pulled from the shelves and left in heaps on the floor. The book and magazine section was torn apart. Chairs were toppled in the lounge and my cash register lay open and empty on the floor beside the counter.

  I stared at the ransacked chaos and suddenly recognized the buzzing noise I’d been hearing all along. It was an aether signature—the same one I’d detected in my house last night.

  I picked up my phone to call the police again, but I needed more than mundane help this time.

  Chapter Two

  Reunion

  QUINN PAUSED WITH A FORK HALFWAY TO HIS MOUTH.

  Something twanged his aether like a chill down his spine followed by an echoing shockwave. Squirtsburger opened one eye, decided the sound was none of his concern and curled his tail around his nose. Cats were attuned to the aether world; they just didn’t worry about it. That was Quinn’s job. Any possible threat to the coven should be taken seriously, especially this week, with the village full of VIP guests.

  Several Paragon agents, along with the heads of influential covens came to discuss the demon Koro, his previous attacks and inevitable future attacks. They chose the Hidden Coven to host these talks because of its combat-rated ward. It was an honor for the coven, but it meant that Quinn hadn’t slept for more that a couple of hours at a time in days. Now, after all the formal dinners, presentations and debates, Quinn finally had a moment of solitude.

  Again the shockwave sounded as if someone knocked on a giant door. Lightning flashed, followed by a low rumble of distant thunder, then another bang.

  Despite fatigue and hunger, he put down the fork. Supper would have to wait.

  A cold wind blew around the empty village square as he left his cottage. One or two faces peered through half-cracked doors, those witches with sensate abilities. Quinn motioned for them to stay inside.

  Bang! It seemed to echo from all around. Quinn stood in the village square, turning in slow circles. Bang! It came again, and again, more insistent now, and suddenly, he recognized the noise. Jane’s staff made the same sound last fall when it slammed into William Fain’s ward.

  Someone was trying to break into the coven.

  Abilene ran into the square with Jane on her heels. Both his sister and mother had off-the-chart sensate abilities so it didn’t surprise him that they were attuned to the sound.

  “Can you hear it too?” Abilene asked.

  Quinn nodded.

  “What is it?”

  “Ward,” Jane said, her face grim. “Someone’s trying to crack it.”

  Quinn pointed to the guest cottage. “Abi, rouse the Paragon agents and meet us at the ward.” A dozen Paragon knights remained on the island. If Koro was banging on their door, he hoped it would be enough. Memories of the demon’s first attack tore at him—a hellish night of fires burning through the thatched cottages and wraiths loose inside the ward, killing indiscriminately. He couldn’t let that happen again.

  Abi ran for the guest cottage, where the knights were already mustering.

  Quinn glanced at Jane, who simply said, “Go. I’ll catch up.” He didn’t need to lead her to the spot on the coven perimeter where the sound originated. Every bang made Jane wince. She could pinpoint it more easily than him. He ran up the path leading to the vestal house. The young guards set to protect Siranda and the core snapped to attention.

  “We may be under attack.” Quinn pointed to one guard then the other. “You, wake Gavin and the vestals. You, come with me.”

  His foster brother, Gavin, didn’t have a strong sensate ability, but he was a good man to have at his back in a fight.

  Ignoring the path, Quinn dodged trees and took a straight route to the ward’s edge. He clutched his cockroach necklace to boost his aether and ran faster. The young guard did his best to follow.

  The sun set later these days and the last tinges of daylight faded into the forest. Branches slapped his face and clutched at his clothes, but he didn’t slow. The sound of rushing water grew in harmony to the constant battering at the ward. He slid the last few feet down an embankment to the edge of a stone jetty.

  And found Bobbi.

  She stood in the river up to her knees with a backpack slung over one shoulder. Her blond ponytail hung in a long wet hank and dirt was smeared across her cheek. She was beautiful.

  Quinn leaned against a tree and crossed his arms, trying for nonchalance though his heart hammered in his chest.

  Bobbi raised her fist glowing within a protective glove of ae
ther and pounded on the door to the Hidden Coven.

  “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” he said.

  She glared and pounded again.

  “Just let me in.”

  The guard finally caught up, making enough noise to scare away a bear.

  “Stay here,” Quinn said to the boy. He strolled up the jetty, taking time to assess the situation. Bobbi’s teeth clenched. Was she angry or cold? Both, he decided.

  The last time she’d left the coven, Quinn insisted she go blindfolded. She’d bristled at the blatant mistrust on his part, but his security instincts were right. What if she’d led Fain back here? As much as it pained him to treat her like an outsider, that’s what she was.

  “How did you find us?”

  “Easy.” Bobbi shrugged. “I’m a super sensate, remember?”

  He gave her his best I’m-not-buying-it look.

  “Fine. I drove fifty miles into the middle of nowhere, then hiked another two through the woods and swam the last stretch through ice water because that was the only way I could find this jetty.”

  He thought of the last time they’d stood here, when he’d hugged Bobbi close so they could pass through the ward together, and saw the same thought reflected on her face.

  “And you thought you’d just break down our ward? Do you have any idea what that would have done to the vestals linked to the core?”

  Bobbi stood straighter. “You still think I’m a bumbling idiot when it comes to magic, but I’ve learned a lot in five months.”

  “So I heard.”

  He kept tabs on her through Emmett when he went to the old med-mage for his weekly inoculation. Emmett set Bobbi up with a Paragon mentor. She needed proper magical education, and he understood why she turned to someone else, but it still hurt.

  “I wasn’t trying to break through it. I needed to get your attention. It’s cold out here.” She crossed arms over her wet chest.