The Enchanter Heir

  The wizards looked at one another, seeming more amused than frightened.

  What’s wrong with them? Jonah thought. Aren’t they the least bit concerned? Hasn’t it occurred to them that this might be dangerous work? Then again, maybe not. Being at the top of the magical food chain, they weren’t used to worrying about other predators.

  “Don’t you remember her?” Cameron said to Graham, pointing at Emma. “She’s the labrat that beat you at pool.”

  “So a labrat with a gun overpowered two wizards?” Graham smirked. “Not your best day, Cam.”

  “She surprised us,” Brooke complained. “And then we immobilized her, but it didn’t seem to work.”

  And I tied her up, Jonah thought. And that didn’t seem to work. Well, he had left her tied up in a room full of tools and sawblades.

  “So you’re Greenwood’s daughter?” A gloating smile twitched Rachel’s lips. Jonah didn’t need to read minds to know what she was thinking. Emma would make a great weapon to motivate Greenwood to talk.

  “I’ll give you to the count of three,” Emma said, shifting the gun to Cameron’s temple. “Then I shoot.”

  “Go ahead and shoot him,” Rachel said, with a shrug. “I don’t care.” She paused. “But you do care about your father, don’t you? Somerset and Hardesty can kill him in an instant. Even if you shoot one, the other will kill him. So put down the gun, and let’s talk, and maybe you both can survive this.”

  Wizards have persuasive powers of their own, Jonah thought. She’s stalling, counting on reinforcements. Jonah had to find a way to end this stalemate.

  Greenwood was working the same problem. The sorcerer’s eyes flicked around the room, assessing his options.

  Nobody noticed when the ostensibly immobilized Jonah removed his gloves and dropped them on the floor. But before he could act, Greenwood made his move.

  “Emma! Run!” he shouted, jerking free and plowing into Hardesty, taking him down like tenpins and landing hard on top of him. He slammed the wizard’s head into the stone floor, once, twice, three times. The last time there was a crunch, and Hardesty lay still.

  Somerset extended his hand toward Greenwood. As flame spurted from his fingers, Emma set her feet and fired, and the wizard went down like he’d been axed. Cameron smashed into Emma, sending her flying into a stone fountain. She landed, draped over the base like a broken doll.

  Then Jonah was on him, and Cameron was dead before he hit the floor.

  After that, it was a chaotic melee of wizard flame and killing charms and burning wicker, Jonah’s hands closing on bare flesh. All around him, wizard voices rose in a cacophony of nasty charms that had no effect whatsoever. Jonah flinched when they flamed him, but he was used to pain, remarkably resistant to it, unless it was somebody else’s. Most of the time they missed, often hitting each other. Even wounded, he was quick, while they were painfully, fatally slow.

  Graham ran for the door, slowed by the weight of Fragarach, but Jonah was there first.

  “Not so fast,” Jonah said, extending his hand. “I’m going to need my sword back.”

  The wizard slashed at Jonah, a two-handed sweep, but Jonah nimbly leaped aside, gripping the wizard’s bare wrist with one hand and retrieving his sword with the other. Jonah released his hold, and the wizard crumpled to the floor.

  Rachel charged toward Emma, landed rolling, and came up with the gun. “If immobilization doesn’t work, let’s try this.” She fired four shots at Jonah in quick succession. The shots went wild, shattering glass all around. Wizards were not, generally speaking, skilled with firearms: they rarely needed them.

  Jonah spun, swung, and cut Rachel down with his sword.

  “Rachel!” Brooke screamed.

  Even when they tried to get out of his way, even when they scrambled for the door, he intercepted them easily, cut through them like a blade through silk, leaving dead bodies behind him. Finally, it was down to Brooke, who huddled, weeping in a corner, mascara running down her face.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she quavered, when Jonah squatted in front of her.

  “This won’t hurt,” Jonah said softly. “I promise.”

  Killing wizards. He was finding that it was something he was good at…something that brought him a certain satisfaction in a dark and terrible world.

  When it was all over, Jonah stood alone in the silent conservatory. Nobody was moving.

  The porch was a charred ruin. A bamboo curtain smoldered where wizard flame had set it on fire. Furniture was overturned, and pottery smashed, dirt strewn everywhere.

  And everywhere, it seemed, there were dead wizards.

  Conscious of passing time, Jonah searched for his gloves, pulled them back on, then looked for Greenwood. The sorcerer was lying, facedown, amid shards of shattered glass and smears of blood.

  Gently, Jonah rolled him over, searched for a pulse, and swore. He was dead.

  Fury mingled with guilt and disbelief. That’s another survivor of Thorn Hill gone. One more door to hope closed. Somebody who probably actually knew something.

  What had killed him? His jeans were soaked in blood from a deep gash in his right thigh. Maybe that. Or was it Jonah’s touch, a fatal encounter in the confusion? Or a wizard’s killing charm?

  You’re like a bull in a china shop, Jonah thought. You’re not used to fighting humans, who can bleed, and die, and not get up again.

  Would Greenwood be dead if Jonah hadn’t come there? That question gnawed at him. But time was passing. He had no idea where Rowan DeVries was coming from, but no doubt he’d be here before long.

  Jonah threaded his way through the rubble and dropped to his knees next to Emma.

  Just let her be all right.

  And if she is, Kinlock, what exactly are you going to do with her? Her father’s dead. There are eight dead wizards in her sunroom.

  One thing at a time, he told the voice in his head.

  The bruise on Emma’s temple was ugly purple, and her eye nearly swollen shut. At first, Jonah worried she might have fractured her skull or broken her neck, but some color had returned to her cheeks. When he picked up her wrist, he could feel the reassuring thrum of her heart, even through his gloves. She was still breathing, thank God.

  Blood still welled from a wound on the side of her head, where it had struck the fountain. Gently, he moved hair around until he found it. A bad gash, but not too deep, though it was bleeding a lot, the way head wounds always do.

  Gently, he straightened her tangled limbs, checking for broken bones. He didn’t want to move her if doing so might injure her further. Nothing seemed to be broken, although she moaned and tried to pull away, so movement was obviously painful. She had cuts all over from the broken glass, but none of them seemed life-threatening.

  All the while Jonah kept up a constant litany of soothing lies, hoping it would help her, as it did Kenzie. “Easy now, Emma, you’re going to be all right, I promise.”

  Jonah found his sword, slid it into place on his back. Found Rachel’s butchered body and pulled his Nightshade amulet from her pocket. Then he knelt next to Emma again, sliding his arms under her so he could lift her.

  Something about the pressure of his arms around her roused her, and she began to struggle, flailing her long limbs, crying out, “Tyler!”

  “Please, Emma, don’t,” Jonah said, lowering her back to the floor, pinning her with his body, pouring persuasion into her, giving it all he had. Even singing softly into her ear until her body relaxed. “Please,” he said. “I’m going to have to carry you, and I can’t do it if you struggle.”

  She opened her eyes, gazing into his face, her expression muddy with confusion. “My head hurts,” she whispered, tears leaking from her eyes.

  “I know,” he said. “Just rest. I’m going to take you somewhere you can get some help. Is that all right?”

  She nodded, her eyes still fixed on his face.

  He lifted her again, cradling her against him, and she snaked her arms around his neck, slipping he
r hand under the collar of his jacket, raising gooseflesh across his shoulders and the hairs on the back of his neck. A sense of déjà vu, of impending danger, rolled over him, but he didn’t know why.

  She said something he couldn’t make out, and he leaned closer to hear.

  “You’re—you’re beautiful,” she murmured. “Anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Just—just close your eyes,” Jonah said. “It’ll be easier that way.”

  She licked her lips, swallowed hard, then, before he knew what was happening, pulled his head down and kissed him on the lips.

  Time seemed to slow into a series of sensations. Warm lips, opening under his. Her body arching up to meet him. Her hands in his hair. His body reacting with a lifetime of backed-up desire. It was as if he’d been waiting for that kiss all his life. Which, in a way, he had, with mingled anticipation and dread.

  And even when he realized what had happened, what he’d done, it still wasn’t easy to pry himself away from her. Her arms were like iron bands around him. Her hands pressed against the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades, generating blazing heat where skin met skin. It was all he could do to free himself without breaking her arms, and yet the struggle, the friction between them, sent blood surging through his veins. He was strong in some ways, but weak in others, and Emma was stronger than she looked.

  “Oh,” she whispered, suddenly breathless. That familiar drunk and dreamy look spread over her face. That exquisite bonding, soul to soul. Joy welled up in her, spilling through the link between them.

  “No!” Jonah flinched back from her as if scalded, swearing under his breath. Too late. Too late. Too late.

  He knelt again, easing her onto the floor, his hands gripping her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length.

  Her head drooped like a heavy flower on a long stem. She smiled, her eyelids fluttering shut.

  Jonah recognized the look. The look of death coming on.

  Desperately, he scrubbed at her lips with the hem of his sweatshirt, as if he could wipe the toxin—and his guilt—away. Instead, he left a smear of blood.

  Jonah drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them, his body shuddering with grief.

  Hearing, once again, the whispers that followed him everywhere. That’s Jonah Kinlock. He killed his own sister. And ever since, he’d told himself: Stay away from the innocent. The best you can do is deliver peace to the afflicted and justice to the guilty. You have the killing touch.

  Jonah turned his attention back to Emma. She lay still, eyes closed, barely breathing, that creepy, blissful smile still on her face. Her left hand lay across her stomach, the nails cut short, like a child’s, her fingers callused at the tips. She had guitar player’s hands—sinewy and strong, like his own. He gripped them between his gloved hands, as if he could hold her in the world somehow.

  Stubbornly, she clung to life, breaths shivering in and out of her, tears still seeping from the corners of her eyes. As long as she’s crying, she’s alive.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, praying to the merciful gods who had never heard him before. Hoping for the most potent, head-spinning drug of them all—and knowing he wouldn’t get it.

  Forgiveness.

  Instead, he watched helplessly as the color slowly bled from Emma’s face. As her breathing slowed, became fainter and fainter until he could no longer hear it. Now, when he pressed his gloved fingers against her throat, he felt no pulse.

  She was dead. The realization hit him like a knife to the gut. Though he was out of Nightshade, he was still killing Thorn Hill survivors.

  “She wasn’t supposed to be here,” Jonah muttered to the indifferent world, his stomach roiling with sick self-loathing. His life was an endless loop of disaster and regret, a phonograph needle stuck on a sad song. A decade of killing, and he still hadn’t shed the enchanter’s curse: Empathy.

  Jonah heard cars pulling into the driveway, doors slamming, feet crunching on gravel. A voice in his head spoke up—some primal plea for survival that wouldn’t be stilled.

  Reinforcements are coming. If you’re still here, you’ll have to riff them, too.

  He decided to leave the same way he came in—through the basement. He was barely around the corner and down the basement stairs when he heard the back door opening and somebody calling, “Rachel?”

  As he passed through the workshop, he took one of the SG guitars. He knew he shouldn’t do it, he knew it was stealing, but he also knew that it was the only way he’d ever hear Emma’s sweet music again.

  Kenzie pulled off the headphones, draping them around his neck, and took another bite of his spring roll. “If one person survived, there must be others.”

  “You’ve already researched that,” Jonah said. “Greenwood was our best prospect.”

  “He’s the best prospect that we know of now,” Kenzie said. “Doesn’t mean he’s the only one.”

  Jonah snorted. “Don’t try to lie to me, Kenzie. You should know better than that.”

  Emma’s bloodless face floated before Jonah’s eyes. He’d told Kenzie the whole story…except for the part about Emma. He rarely kept secrets from Kenzie, but this one cut too close to the bone after what had happened to Marcy at Thorn Hill.

  When Jonah had returned from Greenwood’s, he’d thrown his clothes into the incinerator, showered in the hottest water he could stand, and treated his wounds as best he could. In the time it took to do that, he’d received four increasingly worried texts from Kenzie. Despite his weariness, Jonah knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, so he’d walked over to Safe Harbor and given his brother the bad news. Seemed like he was doing a lot of that these days.

  Kenzie’s voice broke into his thoughts. “What about Rowan DeVries?”

  “What about him?”

  “He may have some leads that we don’t know about.”

  “He doesn’t know any more than we do. That’s how we all ended up at Greenwood’s.”

  “We don’t know what he knows,” Kenzie argued. “You didn’t really have a chance to search the house. He did. He might have come away with something useful. Plus his father was in the thick of it, back in the day. Anyway…we each have a piece of the puzzle. Maybe it would look like something if we put them together.”

  “You’re saying we should partner up with him?” Jonah leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Don’t you think that the fact that I riffed his younger sister might cause a little tension?”

  “He doesn’t know that. I’m saying that as soon as he puts anything online, I can get at it,” Kenzie said. “That’s what I do.”

  “It doesn’t matter how well you do your job, if I blow it up,” Jonah said.

  Kenzie snorted his disgust. “Tell me again how you picked a bloodbath from all of your other options? Oh, wait—you had no other options.” He nudged the take-out carton toward Jonah. “Aren’t you going to eat any of this? Mango curry is your favorite.”

  “I’ve had enough,” Jonah said.

  “You haven’t had any,” Kenzie said. When Jonah didn’t respond, he added, “Fine, fair warning, the curry’s mine.”

  “Be my guest,” Jonah said.

  Splat!

  Jonah looked up to see that Kenzie had flung the carton of curry against the sterile white wall. The bright yellow sauce ran down in long streaks toward a heap of shrimp and vegetables at the bottom.

  Jonah swung around to look at his brother. “What the hell?” he said.

  Kenzie eyed the mess critically. “Adds a little color, don’t you think? I’m calling it Curry Paintball on Marshmallow Fluff.”

  When Jonah made as if to get up and get a rag, Kenzie gripped his arm. “No,” he said. “Every time there’s a mess, you don’t have to clean it up.”

  “Would you quit trying to make me feel better about this?” Jonah snapped.

  “Would you quit holding yourself to a higher standard than you do me?” Kenzie snapped back. Shoving himself back from his keyboard, he swivel
ed toward Jonah, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. “Do you have to be the superhero all the time? Do you have to fix things all the time? We’re supposed to be partners, and it’s really condescending, if you want to know the truth.”

  Kenzie’s pain and bitterness slammed into Jonah, leaving him nothing to say.

  “Isn’t it amazing, what little Kenzie Kinlock is able to accomplish, given his disabilities,” Kenzie said. His hair was beginning to halo around his head, which was always a bad sign. “Why, he can look up an address! And then his big brother Jonah can take that information and save the world. He cannot fail, because then little Kenzie will be disappointed. After all, he did his job.”

  Blue flame flickered over Kenzie’s hands and arms, and he gripped the arms of the wheelchair to keep them from flailing.

  “Kenzie,” Jonah said, “you’re burning.”

  “Damn right I am,” Kenzie said. “Has it occurred to you that you’re more likely to fail because what you’re doing is harder than what I’m doing?” He rolled his eyes. “I know I get extra credit for being disabled and all, but I actually enjoy being in the digital world, because there, I’m usually the most capable person in the room. Everyone else is disabled, compared to me. But you—what you’ve done for Nightshade, what you did tonight…it’s totally contrary to your nature. You’re a walking contradiction—a deadly predator who suffers every time he makes a kill. And yet you keep going out there.”

  “It’s not because I’m brave,” Jonah said, his voice catching. “And it’s not for fear of disappointing you. It’s not because I want to be a hero. I’m working this plan because I don’t want to live in a world without you. I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Then don’t,” Kenzie said bluntly. “Do what I do. Now is now. Now is all we have. We can write our own music, and dance to it while we can, or we can start writing our eulogies. I’d rather have a go at life, so there’s something to talk about once we’re gone.”