“Magic,” I finally repeated.
“Magical powers of every shape and size,” she said. “I can see the doubt in your eyes, but you’ve seen it. You’ve felt it.” She bobbed her head toward my IV. “You have firsthand experience it exists, even if you don’t know the what or the why.”
I frowned. “Okay, earthquakes and fire and whatnot, but magic?”
Jason leaned forward a little. “You can have a little time to get used to the idea,” he said. “But in the meantime, you might want to have her move along with the explanation. She’s got quite a bit to get through yet.” He smiled warmly, and my heart fluttered, circumstances notwithstanding.
“You must be a real hit with the ladies, Shepherd, with all that charm.” Scout’s tone was dry as toast. I bit back a grin, at least until she looked back at me again. She gave me a withering expression, the kind of raised-eyebrow look you might see on a teacher who’d caught you passing notes in class.
“Please,” I said, waving an invitational hand. “Continue.”
“Okay,” she said, holding up her hands for emphasis, “so there’s a wee percentage of the population that has magic.”
“What kind of magic? Is it all earthquakes and air-pressure-contact-lenses and whatnot?”
“There’s a little bit of everything. There are classes of powers, different kinds of skills. Elemental powers—that’s fire and water and wind. Spells and incantations—”
One of the puzzle pieces fell into place.
“That’s you,” I exclaimed, thinking of the books in Scout’s room. Recipe books. Spell books. “You can do spells?”
“Of a sort,” she blandly said, as if I’d only asked if she had a nose ring. “They call me a spellbinder.”
I glanced over at Jason and Michael, but they just shook their heads. “This is your field trip. You can get to us later,” Michael said, then glanced at Scout. “Keep going.”
“Anyway,” Scout said, “the power usually appears around puberty. At the beginning of the transition to adulthood.”
“Boobs and earthquakes?” I asked. “That’s quite a change.”
“Seriously,” she agreed with a nod. “It’s pretty freaky. You wake up one morning and boom—you’re sporting B cups and the mystical ability to manipulate matter or cast spells or battle Reapers for dominion over Chicago. Gossip Girl has nothing on us.”
I just stared at her for a minute, trying to imagine exactly what that life would have been like. Not just the part about waking up with B cups—although that would be a pretty big adjustment. I glanced down at my chest. Not a horrible adjustment, I guessed, but nonetheless . . .
“You still with us?” Scout asked.
I glanced up quickly, a flush rising on my cheeks. She grinned cheekily. “I’ve thought the same thing,” she said with a wink.
“Before you two get too friendly,” Michael said, “tell her the catch.”
“There’s a catch?” I asked.
“Isn’t there always?” she asked dryly. “The thing is, the magic isn’t eternal. It doesn’t last forever, at least, not without a price. When we’re young—teens, twenties—the magic makes us stronger. It works in conjunction with our bodies, our minds, our souls. When we’re young, it’s like an extra sense or an extra way to understand the world, an extra way to manipulate it. We have access to something humans forgot about after the witch trials scared it out of everyone, after fear made everyone forget about the gift.”
“And when you get older?”
“The power comes at a cost,” Jason said. “And our position is, the cost is pretty nasty.”
“Too high,” Michael added with a nod.
I arched an eyebrow. “A cost? Like mentally? Does it make you crazy or something?”
“It could,” Scout said. “It rots the body, the soul, from the inside out.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean, it rots the body? Like, it kills people?”
She nodded. “The older you get, the more the magic begins to feed from you. It drains you, transforms you. The magic shifts, from something symbiotic to a parasite. And in order to stay alive, to keep up with the power’s constant craving, you have to feed it.”
“With what?” My voice was quiet. So was Scout’s when she answered.
“With the energy of others. Those who keep their power must learn to drink the essence of others—like vampires of the soul. We call them Reapers.”
“Takers of life,” I thought aloud.
“Bringers of death,” she said. “You want a shorter life span, they’re the folks you call.”
“You said they take the energy of others,” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
Jason took a step forward. “Have you ever seen people who you thought seemed drained of energy? Depressed? Like, kids who are sleeping in class all the time, dragging around, that kind of thing?”
“I’m a teenager,” I flatly said. “That’s pretty much how we live.”
“Puberty takes its toll,” Scout agreed, “but hormones aren’t the only problem. Reapers target people with self-confidence issues—people who don’t fit in. And slowly, so they don’t gain too much attention, the Reapers consume their energy. Call it their aura, their soul, their will to live. That spark that makes us who we are, that makes us more than walking robots.”
“The earthquake and fire kids,” I said, “The ones chasing you—chasing us—under the convent. Those were the Reapers?”
Scout nodded. “It’s a belated introduction, but meet Alex and Sebastian. She’s a senior in the publics; he’s a sophomore at Northwestern. They don’t actually need to do any reaping right now—they’re too young—but they help find victims for the older ones. That’s the Reaper way. Do whatever you have to do to keep your grip on the magic, regardless of how many people you hurt—or kill—to do it.”
“Okay,” I said. “So these bad guys, these Reapers, suck the souls out of people so they won’t become walking zombies. But what about the rest of you?” I looked at each of them in turn. “I assume you don’t plan on doing any soul sucking in the future?”
Before they could answer, there was another knock on the door. Before I could answer, a scrubs-clad nurse walked in, tray in hand.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “How are you feeling?” She shooed Scout off the bed, then put the tray—which held a small plastic tumbler of water, a small plastic pitcher, and a chocolate pudding cup.
“Okay. Considering.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, then came to my bedside and measured my pulse. She pulled the end of a tube from a machine connected to the wall, then held it toward me.
“Stick out your tongue,” she said. When I did, she stuck the chunk of cold plastic beneath my tongue, then watched a read-out behind me. “Shouldn’t you all be in school right now?” she asked without glancing up.
“We have passes,” Scout said.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said again. When the machine beeped, she pulled out the thermometer, put it away, and then moved to the end of my bed, where she scribbled something on my chart. When she’d returned it to its slot, she looked at me. “Visiting hours are over in an hour.”
“Sure,” I said. After a final warning glance at Scout, Michael, and Jason, she disappeared out the door again.
Suddenly starving, I pointed at the tray at the end of the bed. “Hand me the pudding cup and get on with the story,” I told Scout. She peeled off the foil top, then handed me the cup and spoon as she licked the remnant of chocolate pudding from the foil. I dug in.
“No soul sucking,” Michael continued. “From our perspective, keeping the power isn’t worth it—not to feed off others. We aren’t willing to pay that cost, to take lives so we can wax poetic about how great it is to be an Adept.”
I swallowed a giant spoonful of chocolate pudding—magical near misses really built up the appetite—then lifted my brows at him. “Adept?”
“Those of us with magic,” he said, “but who are willing to give it u
p. It’s what we call ourselves. Our philosophy is, we hit twenty-five, and we return our power to the universe. We stop using it. We make a promise, take a vow.”
“It’s an even trade,” Scout said, with a small smile. “No more power, but no more upsetting the balance of the universe.”
“No more being Adepts,” Jason said, his voice quieter and, I thought, a little wistful, as if he’d considered the blow that giving up his magic would be, and he wasn’t thrilled about it.
“Okay,” I said. “So, to review, you’ve got kids with magical powers running around Chicago. Some of them are willing to give it up when the magic gets predatory—that would be you guys.”
Scout bobbed her head.
“And some of them aren’t willing to give it up, so they have a future of soul sucking to look forward to.”
“That’s a fair summary,” Michael said with a nod.
“But that doesn’t explain why you guys are running around under the convent throwing, what, firespell, at one another.”
Scout looked up at Michael, who nodded, as if giving her permission to answer the question. “We found a list,” she said. “A list of, well, I guess you’d call them leads. Kids who’ve been scoped out by Reapers. Kids they’re targeting for a power lunch, no pun intended.”
I nodded my understanding.
“I’ve been working out a spell of protection, a little half charm, half curse, to keep the Reapers from being able to zero in on their targets.”
“How do you do that?”
“Have you ever tried to look at a faraway star,” Scout asked, “but the closer you look at it, the fuzzier it gets?”
“Sure. Why?”
“That’s what Scout’s trying to do here,” Michael said, crossing his arms and bobbing his head in her direction. “Making the targets invisible to the Reapers. She’s been working on a kid who lives in a condo on Michigan, goes to a high school in South Loop. They haven’t been real thrilled with that.”
“And that’s why they’ve been chasing you?” I asked, sliding my gaze to Scout.
“As you might imagine,” she said, “we aren’t exactly popular. Our ideas about giving up our power don’t exactly put us in the majority.”
“The gifted are proud to have magic,” Jason said, “as well they should be. But most of them don’t want to give it up.”
“That puts us in the minority,” Michael added. “Rebels, of a sort.”
“A magic splinter cell?”
“Kinda,” Scout said with a rueful smile. “So the Reapers identify targets—folks who make a good psychic lunch—and kids who are coming into their own, coming into their own gifts. Spotters,” she added, anticipating my question. “Their particular gift is the ability to find magic. To detect it.”
“Once a kid is identified,” Michael said, “the Reapers circle like lions around prey. They’ll talk to the kid, sometimes their parents, about the gift, figure out the parameters, exactly what the kid can do. And they’ll teach the kid that the gift is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that any souls they take are worth it.”
“The Reapers try to teach the kids that the idea of giving up your power willingly is a conspiracy,” Jason said, “that feeding on someone else’s energy, their essence, is a kind of magical natural selection—the strong feeding on the weak or something. We disagree. We work our protective spells on the targets, or we try to intercede more directly with the gifted, to get the kids to think for themselves, to think about the consequences of their magic.”
“For better or worse,” Scout added.
“So you try to steal their pledges,” I concluded.
“You got it,” Scout said. “We try to teach kids with powers that giving up their powers is the best thing for humanity. You know, because of the soul sucking.”
I smiled lightly. “Right.”
“That makes us pretty unpopular with them, and it makes the Reapers none too popular with us,” she added. “We didn’t need the original Reapers. And we certainly don’t need Reapers spawning out there.”
“Seriously,” Jason muttered. “There’re already enough Cubs fans in Chicago.”
Michael coughed, but the cough sounded a lot like, “Northside.”
I arched an eyebrow, and returned my glance to Scout. “Northside?”
“Where the Cubs are,” she said. “They’re territorial.”
“I see. So, what do you do about the evangelizing? About the Reaper spawn, I mean?”
“Well, we are the good guys,” Michael said. “They’re bullies, and we’re a nuisance. We make it harder for them to do their jobs—to recruit, to brainwash, to convince kids with magic that they can keep their powers and live long, fulfilling lives as soul-sucking zombies.”
“We thwart with extreme prejudice,” Scout said with a grin. “Right now, we’re doing a lot of protecting targets, and a lot of befriending the gifted who haven’t yet been turned toward the dark side.”
“A lot of things that get you chased,” I pointed out, giving Scout a pointed look.
“That is true,” she said with a nod. “Reapers are tenacious little suckers. We spend a lot of time keeping ourselves alive.”
I crossed my legs beneath the thin blanket. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have let them into St. Sophia’s.”
Scout snorted. “We didn’t let them in. The tunnels beneath the convent connect it to half the buildings in the Loop. Welcome to the Pedway.”
“How many of them are there?” I asked.
“We think about two hundred,” Scout said. “Sounds like a lot, but Chicago is the third-biggest city in the country. Two hundred out of nearly three million isn’t a lot. And we don’t really have an ‘in’ with them, obviously, so two hundred’s only a best guess.”
“And you guys?”
“This month, we’re holding steady at twenty-seven identified Adepts in and around Chicago,” Michael said. “That includes Junior Varsity—high schoolers—and Varsity. V-squad is for the college Adepts, their last chance to play wizard and warlock before it’s time to return to a life of mundane living. We’re organized into enclaves in and around the city. Headquarters, kind of.”
Another puzzle piece fell into place. “That’s what the symbols on the buildings in the model room mean.” My voice rose a little in excitement. “There was a Y in a circle, and these kind of combined circles, sort of like a cross. Those are enclave locations?”
“Those circle things are called ‘quatrefoils,’ ” Michael said. “The Y symbol indicates enclave and sanctuary locations—that’s where the Reapers plan their minion baiting—around the city. There are six enclaves in Chicago. St. Sophia’s is Enclave Three.”
“Or ET, as the idiots like to call it,” Scout added with a grin, bobbing her head toward the boys.
Jason lifted his gaze to mine, and there was concern there. “Did you say you’ve been to the city room?” He looked over at Scout, and this time his gaze was accusatory. “You let her into the city room?”
“I didn’t let her in,” Scout defended. “I wasn’t even there. The preps found the room and led her down there, locked her in.”
Jason put his hands on his hips. He was definitely not happy. “Regulars know about the city room?”
“I told you people would get through,” Scout said. “Not all the tunnels are blocked off. I told you this was going to happen eventually.”
“Not now,” Michael interjected. “We don’t need to talk about this right now.”
A little tension there, I guessed. “Why the tunnels in the first place?” I wondered. “If Reapers are out to suck the souls from humans and keep you guys from getting in their way, why don’t they just bust through the front door of St. Sophia’s and take out the school?”
“We may be a splinter cell,” Jason said, “but we’ve got one thing in common with the Reapers—no one wants to be outed to the public. We don’t want to deal with the chaos, and Reapers like being able to steal a soul here and there without a lot
of public attention.”
“People probably wouldn’t take that very well,” I said.
“Exactly,” Scout agreed with a nod. “Reapers don’t want to be locked up in the crazy house—or experimented on—any more than we do. So we keep our fights out of the public eye. We keep them underground, or at least off the streets. We usually make it out and back without problems, but they’ve been aggressive lately. More aggressive than usual,” she muttered.
I remembered what Scout had told me about their long, exhausting summer. I guessed ornery, magic-wielding teenagers could do that to a girl.
“They have given chase a lot lately,” Jason said. “We’re all thinking they must be up to something.”
The room got quiet, the three of them, maybe contemplating just what the Reapers might be up to. Then they looked at me expectantly, maybe waiting for a reaction—tears or disbelief or enthusiasm. But I still had questions.
“Do you look forward to it?” I asked.
Scout tilted her head. “To what?”
“To giving up your powers?” I uncrossed my legs and buried my toes in the blanket—this place was as frosty as St. Sophia’s. “I mean, you’ve got costs and benefits either way, right? Right now, you all have some kind of power. You hit puberty, and you get used to being all magically inclined, but then you have to give it up. Doesn’t that bother you?”
They exchanged glances. “It’s the way it is,” Scout quietly said. “Magic is part of who we are now, but it won’t be part of us forever.”
“But neither will midnight meetings and obnoxious Reapers and power-happy Varsity Adepts.”
Scout lifted her eyebrows at Jason’s mini-tirade.
“I know,” Jason said. “Not the time.”
I guessed things weren’t entirely hunky-dory in Enclave Three. “So the guy that blasted me, or whatever. You said his name was Sebastian. And he’s a Reaper.”
Scout nodded. “That’s him.”
“He said something before he blasted me. What was that?”
“Ad meloria,” Michael said. “It’s Latin. Means ‘toward better things.’ ”