His Dark Magic

by Pat Esden

  “I swear, he was fine the last time I saw him,” Chloe said, panting for breath.

  Keshari hunched in the driver’s seat hugging the sweater-wrapped sword, lips trembling. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.” Chloe glanced at the ignition. No keys. Of course, it couldn’t have been that easy. Her eyes went to Devlin’s apartment, a dozen yards away. There were no signs of life coming from inside, no lights shining from a window, no glow of a TV. She scanned the main house. It was also dark, except for one faint light that looked to be more decorative than functional. At least they didn’t have to worry about Henry’s barking alerting anyone. But that wasn’t really a good thing. Even if they managed to escape from him, there was no one here who could tell them where the Shade was, and it was impossible to stab something she couldn’t find.

  Henry circled the car, once, twice…Finally, he slunk away and hunched down in the shadows as if daring them to try to escape.

  Chloe took out her phone. “I’m going to check Facebook and see if Devlin left us a message. He could be coming back anytime.”

  She flicked her fingers over the screen. No message. In fact, there wasn’t anything new on his Facebook page. Not for weeks. Her gaze went to the time. Nine fifteen. For the love of Hecate, they had less than three and a half hours.

  Holding her breath, she checked for a text, even though Devlin claimed he wouldn’t do it. Nothing. No missed calls either. No voicemail. No emails. She checked for a direct message on Twitter. Nothing again. She gritted her teeth in frustration. They couldn’t just sit here and watch their time run out.

  She scoured the car’s interior, looking for a weapon. She didn’t want to hurt Henry, but there might not be another choice. Nothing. The place was as empty as a steel cage.

  Like a cage—or a box trap.

  Chloe smiled. “Unless your demon spray works on bespelled dogs,” she said to Keshari, “I think we only have one choice—get us out and him trapped inside the car.”

  Keshari shuddered. “I am pretty sure this is a bad idea.”

  Chloe held her hand out. “Give me the sword. On the count of three, I’ll open my door. When Henry starts to charge, I’ll shout go. You get out your side as fast as you can, leave your door open, and run around and close my door. Hopefully, I’ll be a second behind you with all my body parts intact.”

  “I do not like this, not one bit.”

  “One,” Chloe said, before she could lose her nerve. “Two. Three.”

  Chloe opened her door. And Henry charged, Keshari flew out her side. Chloe was a second behind, Henry snapping at her shoulder as she escaped and slammed the door in his face.

  A second door slam echoed in the air, followed by Henry’s frantic barking as he bounded from seat to seat.

  Keshari laughed. “We did it. I can’t believe it.”

  “Hurry. We should check to see if Devlin left a note for us.” She beelined toward his apartment, but as they reached the door a new fear hit her. She put out a hand, stopping Keshari from opening it.

  “What’s wrong?” Keshari asked.

  “He could be in there. But…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the rest out loud. The Shade could have gotten to him. He could be lying in wait for them like Henry—or dead on the kitchen floor…No, don’t think like that, she admonished herself. They didn’t have time for negative thinking. Just time for doing. “Try the door. If it’s not locked, open it. But let me go inside first.”

  Keshari slowly wrapped her fingers around the doorknob and turned it. She glanced at Chloe, nodding to confirm the door was indeed unlocked. As she began to ease it open, Chloe took a fresh hold on the covered sword, wishing for a moment that she’d taken fencing; even a vague idea of what she was doing would have been better than her drop the wrap, stab, and run plan. Still, she swallowed hard, slipped through the open doorway, and into the apartment.

  Light filtered out from a salt lamp near the TV. No movement. No sound. No strange odors.

  Chloe sprinted to the living room. She checked the bedroom alcove and the bathroom. No one.

  “What now?” Keshari asked.

  “I can feel Devlin and the Shade’s magic faintly, and Athena’s. But it’s residual. It could even be from when they healed me.” She set the sword down on the kitchen island next to a dirty shot glass and a half-full decanter of Devlin’s cure. “At least it looks like he followed his own advice.”

  “Let’s hope he took enough,” Keshari said.

  She pulled out her phone. “I’m going to check for messages again. Can you look around for car keys? Maybe he has a set for something other than the BMW.”

  “Even if we find keys and the right car, we don’t know where the Shade is.”

  Chloe sunk down on the end of Devlin’s bed. She rocked forward, head in her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just call Athena and pretend I’m begging forgiveness—simply ask where they are.”

  Her phone chirped, adrenaline pounding into her veins when she saw it was a Facebook message from Devlin. A link and one word: Instagram.

  She followed the link. A photo Devlin posted five minutes earlier showed a scrap metal monkey perched close to a fountain in City Hall Park with its wings outspread and its fangs bared. Two minutes ago, he’d added an image of the Shade leaning on his staff, glaring down a living statue of The Thinker. There were other familiar faces in the background. “Found them.”

  “Where?”

  “Church Street. All of them, including Juliet.” She blew out a relieved breath, Juliet hadn’t sprouted cat’s ears or something—and if Devlin was leaving a breadcrumb trail of photos, that meant he hadn’t succumbed to their magic, at least not yet.

  Still, the damage the Shade could cause in the busiest part of the city was unimaginable, especially at night, with people heading to restaurants and bars. Even if he didn’t physically or mentally screw with everyone he met, it was only a matter of time before the Shade and his monkeys were all over the Internet. Then, whether she’d told her family and the High Council about the Shade or not, it wouldn’t make a difference. The Council would see the news. They’d send an investigator. He or she would shut down the Circle…But worse than all of that, in a few hours there would be no way to send the Shade back. Plus, she had the sneaking suspicion there were a few questions she should have asked Nimue, like were there ways to kill him if she failed, or was he immortal?

  The feeling of dread returned, squeezing her chest until she could barely breathe.

  Stay calm, Chloe. You’ve got this. You can do it, she repeated sternly to herself.

  “I am not finding any keys,” Keshari said.

  “We should go see if there are any cars parked in front of the main house. With all the craziness, maybe someone left one with the keys in it. If not, we’re going to have to take a chance and call a taxi.”

  As Chloe got up from the bed, Keshari stepped to one side, knocking over Devlin’s pool cue case by mistake. Chloe’s eyes zeroed in on the case, an idea sparking. She snatched it, dashed to the kitchen, and began using a butter knife to wedge out the plastic divider that was intended to hold the pool sticks in place.

  Keshari stared at her, a mystified look on her face. “What are you doing?”

  “We can’t exactly wander around Church Street with a glowing sword, can we?” Chloe pushed with all her might. The plastic let out a loud snap and gave way. With it gone, she went back to the island and unwrapped the sword. The whole room brightened as if lit by a white-hot sun, then returned to darkness as she shoved the sword diagonally into the case. It was a tight fit, but she didn’t sense any resistance from the sword’s tip, like the sword didn’t have an issue with close quarters.

  She slung the case’s strap over her shoulder. “Let’s go look for cars.”

  “Sounds good.”

&nb
sp; They dashed outside and into the parking lot. As they passed Devlin’s car, Henry bounded from seat to seat, foam flying from his mouth.

  Chloe’s chest ached. She hated seeing him like this, having to leave him locked up in a car, even if it was cool and one window was slightly cracked open. He was such a good dog. Devlin’s baby. Damn the Shade and his cruelty.

  She veered sharply away from the car, sprinting across the parking lot with Keshari keeping pace. They jogged through a puddle of floodlight, then back into the surrounding darkness. She could see now that there were two lights on in the main house, the faint one she’d noticed earlier and another down in the basement. But she didn’t bother to give either of them a second glance. No one was home. She’d seen everyone in Devlin’s photos.

  As they skirted the house, an uneasy feeling fluttered in her stomach. In truth, she’d only studied the photos for a moment. She could have overlooked someone.

  Clank! The metallic sound came from somewhere just ahead of them, followed by a creaking noise, like rusty hinges.

  Keshari snagged Chloe’s arm, pulling her to a stop. She bent close. “How many monkey sculptures were there to start with?”

  The uneasy flutter in Chloe’s stomach transformed into an acidic burn. There had been a lot more monkeys on the gateway than the two they’d seen at the apartment house. Dear Goddess, not more monkeys. The first ones had been terrifying enough, and they been held back by wards and a windowpane.

  A whisper came from the darkness off to their right. Or was it the swish of a metal wing?

  Chloe thought for a second, orienting herself. They were near Chandler’s workshop. She’d created the monkeys.

  Another creak and the interior light of a sedan illuminated the front of Chandler’s building. The dark outline of a wide-shouldered woman heaving a suitcase into the sedan’s backseat appeared, then she helped what looked like a half-asleep boy into the seat next to it. Peregrine and Chandler. What was she doing? And why wasn’t she with the rest of the coven?

  Chloe re-evaluated the scene and a possibility dawned on her. Chandler was escaping. But it couldn’t be. She and Athena were longtime friends, coven-sisters attached at the hip.

  Keshari elbowed Chloe and tilted her head toward the main gate, signaling they should keep going. She was right, it was smarter to escape while Chandler was too busy to notice them, safer to assume she was still on Athena and the Shade’s side. Except it didn’t look that way—and Chandler had a car.

  A piece of gravel crunched under Keshari’s foot. Chandler wheeled, a bright red energy-ball forming in her hands. Logic said the darkness they stood in should have hidden them from her sight, but Chloe could sense that Chandler’s magic had homed in on their location. The ball’s crackling power grew, throwing off sparks. Lit by its glow, Chandler’s face revealed a single emotion: sheer terror.

  Chloe threw up her hands in surrender. “Stop. Please. It’s me and my friend, Keshari.” She stepped forward. “We aren’t going to try to stop you. But we need a ride—desperately.”

  Chandler scuffed backwards, closing the car’s rear door and opening the driver’s. “Stay away.” Her voice rasped. “You can’t have my son. Never.”

  What had the Shade done to her—or the boy? Chloe dared another step. “We don’t want your son. We want to send the Shade back. But we need your help.”

  “No. You’re trying to trick me. Athena, Merlin—that creature…They’re trying to enthrall everyone. They’ve been doing it for months. You can’t lie to me about it. I asked Athena, and that Merlin monster had my son chained in the basement—” A pained expression swept over her face. She dropped the energy-ball and clamped her hands against her temples as if to push back a blistering migraine.

  “We have a cure that will help you resist their magic.” Keshari crept past Chloe, her voice soothing. She took an ampule from her pocket and held it out. “It will ease the confusion. Here. Have it. Take it for your son’s safety. You should not drive without drinking it first.”

  Chloe hung back, crouching down to look less threatening as Keshari inched forward. The warmth of the sword against her back reminded her of the seconds that were passing. But another feeling tightened in her chest. They had to help Chandler. She was a coven-sister. She was in pain and danger. She needed them.

  Chandler rested her hand on the driver’s door, as if preparing to launch herself into the seat. Her voice lowered to a snarl. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Please.” Keshari leaned down and rolled the ampule toward her. It tumbled across the pavement, stopping short.

  Chandler eyed it, but she didn’t move.

  Thinking quick, Chloe drew up a spritz of magic and let it out with her breath. The magic wisped across the distance, touching the ampule and rolling it forward until the vial hit the toe of Chandler’s work boot. “Please, Chandler, for Peregrine,” she said. “Trust us. Trust your instincts.”

  The air went still, surreally quiet. Even the sound of Henry’s barking silenced.

  Then Peregrine began to cry.

  In one motion, Chandler swooped down, took the ampule, and chugged it. She stared down at the pavement for a second, then a fleeting smile crossed her lips. “Thank you.” She hesitated, then continued, “The Athena I knew—the high priestess I dreamed about the future with, about the amazing things we could do once we awoke Merlin—this Athena isn’t her, any more than this Merlin is who I expected.”

  “That’s because he’s not Merlin,” Chloe said. “Athena tricked everyone. She used our powers and blood to help her awaken and summon Merlin’s Shade.”

  Chandler gasped. “Goddess forgive us.”

  “Please.” Keshari clasped her hands together, begging. “We want to stop this, but we need a ride.”

  Chandler nodded to the old Cherokee parked beyond the sedan, yanked a ring of keys from her pocket, and tossed it to Keshari. It landed halfway between the two of them, the clink of metal chiming against the pavement. “Take it. It has plenty of gas.”

  “Keep in touch,” Chloe shouted to Chandler. “Email Devlin. He’ll tell you if we succeed. The coven needs you.”

  Chandler raised her hand in an abbreviated wave, but whether it meant she would stay in touch or not, Chloe had no time to worry about it. She snatched the keys and hurtled for the Cherokee’s driver’s seat. Keshari scrambled in through the other side.

  Chloe gunned the gas, gravel spraying up behind them as they squealed under the gateway, now only decorated with a few unanimated monkeys.

  Chapter 28

  Curiosity. Intention. Focus. These are the most powerful tools and weapons of our Craft.

  —A Witch’s Study by Zeus Marsh

  According to the car’s clock, it was almost ten when Chloe careened into a parking spot near the fountain—the one in Devlin’s photograph with the monkey perched nearby.

  She shuddered. Maybe not all the Circle members were loyal to the Shade, but the monkeys weren’t going to let her send him back without putting up a fight. She yanked the keys from the ignition and shoved them into her pocket. “Has Devlin posted any new photos?”

  “Not in the last half-hour. You do not think he gave in—” Keshari cringed. “Sorry.”

  “Go ahead, say it—that the magic finally got to him—I wouldn’t be surprised.” She snagged the pool cue case and slung it over her shoulder. “But we can’t worry about that. We’ve got one goal: stab the Shade and then get the sword back to the stone before it’s too late.” She said it more for her benefit than Keshari’s, to reinforce the plan in her mind.

  You can do this, you have to, she told herself.

  They sprinted away from the Cherokee through streaks of watery streetlight. The trees that had been bright with autumn colors when she’d come here to the farmers’ market now stretched skyward with bone-bare branches. But despite the night’s eeriness and the fact t
hat it was a Sunday, the streets hummed with traffic and people hurried everywhere, as if racing to wring as much life as they could out of the night before winter’s cold closed in.

  “Excuse me,” Chloe said, jogging through a group of dressed up couples. The cue case slapped against her side as she veered around a guy walking his golden retriever. Her mind flashed to Devlin and Henry. She pushed the thought aside. No distractions, though she hoped distracted was exactly what the tour of downtown Burlington was doing to the Shade.

  She slowed when they reached Church Street, a shopping district that was closed off to car traffic. The sidewalk cafés and bars teemed with people. A heartbeat echoed from a drum circle up the street. Coffee, grilled sausages, beer—the place not only looked and sounded normal, it smelled that way too, unnervingly so.

  Keshari panted up next to her. “We should find that living statue, The Thinker. He had to have seen which way they went.”

  “In Devlin’s photo, he was in front of City Hall.” She went up on her tiptoes to get a less obstructed view. It was hard to tell at a distance, but down the street a ways someone was sitting statue-still on a rock. “I think I see him.”

  They wound their way through the crowd. But as they neared, Chloe’s instincts sent up a warning flare. The Thinker sat utterly motionless with his chin on his fist. His resemblance to the original statue was absurdly uncanny, every inch of his seemingly naked and muscular body tinted metallic shades of teal and black.

  She snatched Keshari’s sleeve, slowing her. “There’s something off about him. Do you feel it?”

  “I am not sure. He does give me the creeps.” She studied him again, her forehead wrinkling as if she were sensing for magic. “Yes. Very creepy.”

  The cue case chilled against Chloe side as they crept closer to him. She pulled the case forward, ready to unsheathe the sword if needed. It wouldn’t be smart to stab anyone other than the Shade with it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use it for threatening.