A Touch of Magic

by Isabelle Adler

  CARY OPENED HIS eyes slowly, staring into the dimness that lurked high above, between the ancient wooden beams. Rusted chains swayed gently above him. He blinked, watching specks of dust as large as mothballs drift serenely through the air for what felt like eternity. They blurred at times, as the throbbing pain in his temples made it difficult to focus his eyes, or to think about anything but the invisible currents that made the dust spin.

  He blinked again, fighting against the sluggishness. This was just like regaining consciousness in the car on the way here, after Leland had dosed him with magic. God, he was sick and tired of waking up like this. He wasn’t sure he could take any more of this skull-splitting headache.

  As seconds crept by, he took stock of himself. He was lying on his back on something cold and solid, his arms free and stretched by his sides. He tried to move, but that only made him nauseous. When he turned his head to the side, very carefully, his vision swam, a kaleidoscope of muted colors. But after a few moments of disorientation, he was able to take in his surroundings.

  Of course—the barn. He was lying on top of the weird altar Leland and Vincent had been so eager to haul him onto. Well, it seemed like they’d gotten their wish. Cary wasn’t tied, but he could barely move. His fingers twitched as he remembered what was hidden in the pocket of his trousers, but he willed himself to keep still for now.

  Cary swept his gaze across the barn and immediately spotted Ty, as if drawn to him by some sort of magnet. This time, however, it wasn’t a welcome sight. Ty stood near one of the posts, his hands held up by a chain hitched over a beam. In fact, he was almost hanging by the damned chain, his shoulders slackened and his head lolling on his shoulder. His chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. Dried blood crusted around a deep gash on his forehead, and Cary winced even as a tightness that was clutching his heart eased. Ty must have put up quite a fight to land himself in that position, but at least he was alive. Cary could only guess at why Leland had decided to incapacitate him instead of killing him outright. Whatever the reason, Cary was grateful for it, because while they were both breathing, there was still hope—even if it was as feeble and stupid as he felt.

  Vincent was standing near Ty, holding the gun at his hip. He was looking at Cary, or rather, at something or someone behind him, on the other side of the altar. Cary gradually became aware of a low chanting, barely a murmur at first, then growing stronger and louder. He couldn’t make out the words, but he wasn’t sure if that was because it was in some foreign language he didn’t understand, or because his brain was still addled in fog. He risked lifting his head just a little, to see where it was coming from.

  The first thing that caught his attention was the gleam of metal on his chest. The amulet rested on top of his stained and torn white shirt, the chain secured around his neck. The gleam was so bright it hurt his eyes a little, and Cary squinted, trying to make sense of what was going on. The silver disk was growing warm, too, and as familiar as the feeling was, it was making him decidedly nervous.

  Cary shifted uneasily, but jumping off the altar and tearing that thing off his neck was out of the question. Even trying to use the damn thing, to influence Vincent, for example, was impossible in his current condition. His limbs felt as if they were full of lead; just moving his head took enormous effort. All he could do was wait for the daze to wear off and hope he regained control of his body before it was too late.

  The chanting became louder, and he recognized Leland’s voice. A shiver ran down his spine, which had nothing to do with the coldness of the stone, but rather the way the amulet seemed to respond to the incantation. It was almost vibrating, gathering energy that even Cary could feel. The energy was flowing through him, all around him, moving through air, stone, bone, and wood, circling and converging into a single point. The amulet was acting like a magnifying glass, concentrating scattered light into a single powerful beam. But where this beam of energy was directed, Cary had no idea. It scared the shit out of him, being right there, at the eye of the vortex. Leland’s words about Cary playing “the star role in the show” suddenly resonated with a whole new meaning. Considering the amulet was apparently supposed to open some sort of portal, he really, really didn’t want to be there when that happened.

  His fingers fluttered above his right trouser pocket. If only he could slip his hand inside without drawing Leland’s attention. The solution was right there, literally at his fingertips. But then Leland stepped into view, and Cary let his hand fall. He was definitely not strong enough to fight the sorcerer off if he noticed Cary was up to something.

  If Leland saw Cary was awake, he gave no sign. He made some weird gestures with his hands above Cary’s body, never interrupting his chant. Cary guessed the hand waving was meant to direct the currents of energy, which were now so strong as to be almost visible to the naked eye. His heart raced as he watched Leland warily.

  Wisps of purple and silver smoke began to rise from the center of the amulet, thin and insubstantial at first, like fogging breath on a cold winter’s morning. It was kind of beautiful, in a terrifying way. But it had never done that before. The silver disk was so hot Cary was afraid it would burn a hole through the fabric and fuse with his skin, but that particular worry took a back seat for the moment. He flexed his feet, just a little, and had to suppress a thrill when he felt them move.

  The chanting, repetitive and monotonous, was wearing on Cary’s nerves—like the buzzing of a mosquito he couldn’t swat away. The purplish smoke was becoming thicker, and it billowed around the altar and spilled down the wooden stairs like steaming liquid. It filled his mouth and nostrils, and Cary coughed, choking on the unfamiliar, almost sour taste at the back of his throat.

  Every breath made him dizzy. The smoke rushed through his lungs, and he suddenly imagined it rushing through his blood in a foul tide and retreating as he exhaled, leaving him weak and confused. The smoke he huffed out was darker, closer to the shade of dried blood, streaked with silver, and it coalesced into a vortex that swirled above him, faster with each exhalation.

  The amulet was draining him. The sudden realization was utterly clear. Living energy was more readily obtained than whatever could be sapped from the ether, as he well knew from his own meager experience. He was being used as a battery, providing power for the amulet to do its thing. Every breath he took, every mouthful of that smoke, was killing him. He was going to die on that altar as surely as a victim of a bloody ritual, sacrificed to Leland’s madness and ambition.

  He looked to the side again, and his breath hitched. Ty had regained consciousness and lifted his head ever so slightly. A soft groan escaped his lips, so quiet Cary couldn’t be certain he’d heard it at all. There was a dazed look in his eyes, but he was blinking rapidly and shaking his head as he looked around.

  Their eyes met above the wreckage, and Ty jolted against the chain that held him suspended. He whispered something inaudible, and Cary thought he saw Ty’s lips forming his name—whether in disbelief or in silent plea, he couldn’t tell.

  Cary’s heart clenched. He wanted to say he was sorry. He was the one who’d insisted on this crazy adventure. If it weren’t for him, none of them would have been in this situation. And there were other things he wanted to say to Ty before the end. Things he’d never said before to anyone, things he’d never thought would be true for him, things he had to say even if Ty had made it clear he didn’t want to listen.

  But maybe Ty could help after all. If he could only distract Leland for a second, make him look away from Cary… Just one moment would be enough. As much as Cary hated the idea of shifting Leland’s attention to Ty in the middle of his grand scheme, he was desperate. It was the only chance to maybe save them both.

  He looked at Ty again, mouthing the word “talk.” He didn’t dare do more, for fear of attracting Vincent’s attention. Luckily, the other man’s gaze was riveted on the vortex forming above the altar, his sour expression replaced by something close to rapture.

  Ty’s gaze shar
pened and shifted momentarily between Cary and Leland. He nodded in response to Cary’s unspoken request, almost imperceptibly.

  The smoke swirled, the silver streaks joining together, creating an almost solid reflective surface in the middle of the vortex. It looked like someone had placed a mirror inside a mini galaxy, and Cary thought he could almost discern a picture in that mirror—not his own dirty, terrified visage, but the hints of a foreign landscape. Jagged spires loomed on a hill behind a thick forest, and the air shimmered in the rays of the noonday sun.

  Cary took a ragged breath, inhaling a reluctant mouthful of purple smoke just to smother an involuntary whimper. His vision swam, mercifully obscuring the glimpse of the window to another world opening up right above him.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing, Leland.” Ty’s hoarse voice cut through the chanting. “If you think you can deal with the Fae on equal terms, you’re a damn fool. They’re not ones to share their magic willingly.”

  Leland paused, but it seemed the amulet no longer needed his words to be activated. The smoke swirled faster and faster, and the silver mirror—the portal—grew in size and sharpness.

  “Be quiet, child,” Leland said gravely.

  At his sign, Vincent turned and took a step toward to Ty, raising his hand to hit him, and that was when Cary took his cue. His shoved his hand inside his pants pocket and felt for the thin gold band that was hidden there—Ty’s ring, which he’d shucked off Leland’s finger when he’d grabbed the sorcerer’s arm. He held his breath and slipped it on.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THE CHANGE WAS instantaneous. It was as if the world around him suddenly came back into focus, and Cary’s body was all at once his own to command. The fog that had bogged his thoughts was gone; he could breathe, and he could see and hear with absolute clarity. Neither Leland’s nor the amulet’s magic could touch him.

  The tendril of smoke that flowed from his mouth to the spinning vortex vanished, as if severed by an invisible hand. The window was still there, but it grew dimmer, and the edges of the silver surface wavered. A tremor ran through the stone, down into the ground, shaking the walls.

  Cary heard Leland’s gasp of surprise and outrage. He only had a second’s worth of opportunity, so he threw himself off the altar, instinctively putting out his left arm to shield his head. He hit the wooden steps (so hard stars danced in front of his eyes), and rolled down to the floor, hoping the sickening cracking sound had come from the rotting wood and not his ribs. He wasn’t sure his body could take any more abuse.

  Pain flared in his arm, dashing his hopes at a clean escape. It definitely felt as if the bone cracked. Apparently, he’d misjudged the height of the stone block and how cramped his muscles were, and he was too weakened by the life-draining magic to have made a graceful landing.

  A bullet whizzed past his head, sending splinters flying as it hit the floorboards. Cary hissed and flailed with the agility of a newborn kitten, trying to push himself up to get out of the line of fire. The amulet was burning against his chest, but he ignored it in favor of more pressing concerns.

  “Don’t kill him, Vince!” Leland shouted. His regal features distorted, and his outstretched hands shook as he fought to maintain control of the magical whirlpool that swerved in the air. Another tremor shook the long-suffering barn. “We need him alive to hold the portal open!”

  But Vincent had no chance to respond. Ty grabbed at the chain that bound his wrists and swung himself in a violent arc, using the momentum to kick Vincent in the back and sending him sprawling. The gun cluttered out of his hand and skidded on the floor, two or three feet off to Cary’s side.

  Cary heaved himself up on all fours and lunged for the gun, though perhaps “lunged” was too big a word for his awkward scuttling. He never knew two fucking feet could be such a huge distance to cover. He reached with his good hand, but it was just a split second too late. Vincent, who wasn’t encumbered by a broken arm and bruising, grabbed the gun, swatting away Cary’s extended hand, and rose to his feet, pure rage coloring his face in shades of purple. Cary cowered, waiting for the shot, but apparently Leland’s admonition had some effect, because Vincent hesitated, weapon in hand.

  “What are you waiting for?” the sorcerer cried, his voice strained. “Bring him back here, now!”

  Behind Vincent, Ty swore. The wound on his forehead had opened again, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his cheek and neck behind the collar of his jacket. The chain rattled as he tugged at it in frustration.

  “Cary!”

  This was it, Cary thought. No more second chances. He could feel the magic flowing inside him, but now it was his, not something poured on him, drowning him. He could control it. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? It had worked when he wanted to get out of Giordano’s lake house basement. This was no different—he’d just have to amp it up, draw the energy and direct it with razor-sharp precision. And after all, there was no shortage of magical energy in the barn at the moment.

  He took a shaky breath just as Vincent bent down to haul him to his feet, and whispered an opening spell, imagining the invisible currents streaming through the air like a river flood.

  The metal bands around Ty’s wrists snapped open, and he tumbled to the floor as he lost his balance. Not having a chance to steady himself, he rolled with the fall, and yanked the chain off the high beam. Holding it in both hands, he launched at Vincent from behind, using the chain to crush the man’s windpipe.

  Vincent made a gurgling sound and let go of the gun to clutch at the chain at his throat. Cary crawled to the gun again, cussing at every inch of ground he had to cover. Agonizing pain radiated from his left forearm into the rest of his body with every jolt. Don’t pass out. Bad shit happens when you pass out. Suck it up and deal with it later.

  His fingers closed on the gun handle just as he heard the wooden stairs by the altar creak under Leland’s steps. He was coming down, presumably to drag both Cary and the amulet back on the altar himself, despite the limp that was hampering his movement. The clouds of purple smoke thinned, and the window was getting smaller now that there was no living creature to feed it. Leland’s magic wasn’t enough to power it without an external source.

  Leland raised his hand, and Cary could almost imagine something vibrating in the air around him, dissipating before it could hit him. The ring he was wearing had neutralized whatever spell Leland had directed at him.

  The sorcerer’s expression changed. He glanced at his own hand and then back at Cary.

  “You thieving little shit,” he hissed.

  Cary didn’t bother telling him it was quite a compliment, especially coming from him. His right hand shook as he raised the gun, pointing it at Leland. The weapon seemed to weight a hundred pounds. Guns were never his forte, and Cary had the vaguest idea of what he was doing.

  “Stop right there, or I’ll shoot,” he said.

  His voice was trembling as badly as his hand, so it was no wonder Leland didn’t seem to take him seriously. But instead of coming at Cary, he turned and walked to where Ty was strangling Vincent.

  The chain burst, the individual links flying and scattering across the floor. Ty staggered and took a step back. Vincent sagged to his knees, coughing. His face was now a deep shade of red, and an angry welt ran across his throat.

  Ty’s gaze flickered between Leland and Cary, and Cary couldn’t discern his expression. There was grim acceptance, and sorrow, and something almost tender as their eyes met, and that single look knocked Cary’s breath away as effectively as any magic spell.

  Leland extended his hand in Ty’s direction.

  “I wanted to give you a chance,” he said, fake regret underlying his words. “A chance to walk away, for old times’ sake. But you’re just too stubborn, Ty. You always have been. And as much as it pains me—”

  Cary had no idea what Leland was about to do, but he had no intention of waiting till the end of his self-indulgent tirade to find out. He took a deep breath, closed h
is eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

  A shot rang out, deafening despite the noise of the rushing wind, the creaking wood, and Vincent’s coughing. Cary opened his eyes. For a moment, he was sure the shot had gone astray, or worse, hit the wrong target. Then Leland sank to the floor, as if in slow motion, going down on one knee and hunching over. He clamped a hand over the wound in his side, blood dripping onto the dirty floorboards, obscenely red against the years-old grime. Cary couldn’t see his face, but judging from Ty’s expression, he didn’t really want to.

  The purple and silver vortex above the altar quivered, and the window grew entirely opaque, the otherworldly scene no longer visible behind the veil. With no readily available magic to hold it stable, it began to break apart, plumes of smoke tearing away and drifting to the ground like chunks of shredded fabric. The entire structure around them seemed to convulse at the release of the unstable energy, shaken violently as if by a powerful earthquake.

  “No!” Vincent pushed himself up, but his look of horror was directed at the disintegrating portal rather than his partner in crime bleeding out a few feet away from him. He cast about, his look wild, almost deranged. Cary tightened his grip on the gun, but Vincent’s attention wasn’t on him at all.

  Ty rushed to Cary’s side and hauled him to his feet. The feel of his warm, solid body pressed against his own nearly made Cary faint with relief, and he had to bite back unexpected tears. He was trembling, and the words “I just fucking shot someone” blazed in his mind’s eye like a neon sign, making it difficult to focus on anything else.

  “I got you, baby,” Ty whispered, though he was hardly in a better shape. He put his arm around Cary’s shoulder, steadying them both. Cary was grateful when he took the gun away from him, because he couldn’t have pointed that thing at another human being even if his life depended on it.

  They nearly stumbled as another shock wave ripped through the ground. There was a high-pitched, keening sound, and a part of the roof near the barn door caved in, showering them with dust and splinters and effectively cutting off their escape route.