Magic at the Gate

  “Red,” I said, because it was her favorite color.

  We found a red square with gold swirls on it. It wasn’t easy remembering every fold, but Mom patiently helped me make each crease clean and straight.

  “What are my girls up to tonight?” Dad asked.

  He wore a black turtleneck and jeans, which seemed strange for a minute, until I remembered he always wore that on the weekend. In his hand was a wooden box the size of a shoe box, which he put down on the table. Across the lid, written in his clean, blocky print, was ALLISON ANGEL BECKSTROM’S BOX OF DREAMS.

  He had made this for me, and it was my favorite keep-sake holder.

  “Cranes for wishes.” I proudly held up the red crane.

  “Very nice. Is that your first one?”

  I nodded. “The next one is going to be blue.” Because blue was his favorite color. “I’m going to make a thousand of them.”

  He was standing behind Mom’s chair now, his hand on her shoulder, her hand over his. She always smiled more when he was here with us. I wondered if I should wish for him not to work so much and spend more time with Mom.

  “One thousand and her wish comes true,” Mom said.

  “What are you going to wish for, Allison?”

  I smiled. “If I tell you it won’t come true.”

  “You never know.” He took the seat next to Mom and selected a piece of paper with crushed flower petals worked into it. “I’m pretty good at making wishes come true.”

  Mom chuckled. “You are, indeed.”

  He made the first clean diagonal fold in the paper. Mom leaned over and kissed him on the corner of his mouth.

  And then the dream was over.

  “Wake up, Beckstrom.”

  I opened my eyes. The room was still dark, no morning light filtering in through the blinds. I’d been asleep, what? Minutes?

  I pushed up and away from Zay. My right hand and the side of my chin were asleep from lying with my hand stuck under my face.

  At the bottom of the bed stood Pike.

  “Pike?”

  “They’re coming.”

  “Who?” I sat up the rest of the way and got out of bed, looking for my bra and shoes, the last ribbons of the dream drifting away from me.

  “The dead. They’ve found disks, and found a way to use them to be solid. Alive.” He said the last word like it was one of his deepest desires.

  “How many? How close?” The clock said it was four o’clock. I’d gotten about three hours of sleep. Didn’t matter. When a ghost shows up and tells you you’re about to get your ass kicked, it’s time to be moving. At least my cold symptoms were gone.

  “An army of dead. Seven solid dead lead it. I’ve never seen them, not when they were alive. But they’re strong.” He shook his head. “Strong enough that it’s not easy to walk away. Away from them. And their promises.”

  “Why did you?” I turned my back to Pike so I could put on my bra. Yes, he was dead. Didn’t mean he didn’t have eyes.

  “Because there isn’t any promise that good, that’s real. I might be dead. I’m not gullible.”

  I turned back around. “They’re coming here? Do you know why?”

  “There’s disks here. Somewhere. And a well of magic.” He looked toward the door like he could see through it. “They’ll have them, Allie. Even if it means destroying every last room in this place, drinking down every last drop of magic, and killing every last person.”

  “Aren’t you a cheery guy this morning? Any idea when they’ll be here? Any idea how to stop them?”

  He shook his head. “Time’s a bitch from this perspective. I’m no help there.”

  “Weaknesses?” I found my shoes, shoved my feet into them. Where did I leave Zay’s katana? Found it by the dresser.

  He shook his head. “The solid ones are powered by the disks. They use magic like it doesn’t hurt.”

  I frowned. That sounded familiar to me. Someone had recently told me that. A dream?

  “So get rid of the disk, get rid of the undead magic user?” I said.

  “Maybe. Something happens when they take those disks on. They become . . . more.”

  “How about a specific?” I was done dressing, and walked past Pike to get my coat. I passed near enough that I felt the icy chill of his presence. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to that.

  “Dead eyes see the world differently,” he said. “See the magic running through it. For the most part. When those deaders take on a disk, it’s like magic, all kinds of different magics, fill them up in a sort of chaotic way. Like a wild storm. It powers them.”

  “Are the different kinds of magic like darkness and light?”

  “That’s right. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  Which he wouldn’t have. The idea of dark magic wasn’t known to the living except for members of the Authority. I glanced over at Zay. Wonders of wonders, he was still asleep. Even if he couldn’t hear Pike, I wasn’t exactly whispering.

  “Anything else I should know?” I asked a little more quietly.

  “That’s it. Except one thing. I think you’re possessed.”

  “Old news.”

  “Huh. Anyone I know?”

  “My dad. It’s a family issue I’m working on. I’ll go tell the others about our visitors. Pike?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Keep an eye on the Hounds for me, would you?”

  That got half a smile out of him. “I’m retired, Beckstrom. That’s your job now. This dog don’t hunt and he sure as hell don’t babysit no more.”

  “You’ll never retire.” I opened the door. “Even death can’t keep you out of the good fight.”

  “Don’t know if it’s a good fight,” he said. “But it’s a fight.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. He was gone. I walked around to the front of the bed and drew my fingers across Zayvion’s bare arm. “You stay here, Jones. We got this.” I bent and kissed his lips. His mouth opened slightly and he sleepily kissed me back. He was deeply asleep, but still knew he was being kissed.

  I pulled away and smiled. Warmth flushed down my chest, covering the cold lump where my magic used to be. It felt so good to know he was alive and not in a coma. I was proud of him for holding on. And I was pretty damn proud of myself too.

  I draped the katana over my shoulder and strode to the door, still smiling. Time to get to work.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I didn’t need to be a Hound to know where everyone was in the inn. But I wanted to first tell Maeve and Victor and Hayden what I knew. Down two flights of stairs, my fingertips brushing over the wood that had been shaped and smoothed by a hundred years of hands passing over it.

  No one was in the main room. The cards had been put away, the tables arranged like they were waiting for breakfast, white tablecloths straight and clean, chairs gathered around. The only thing that showed it was not an average day was that by now the cooks and Maeve would normally be back in the kitchen, busy baking.

  The front door remained locked, and I had the feeling Maeve had shut the place down for the day.

  Smart.

  I walked through the main room and into the hallway, through the kitchen, to the private stairs. Maeve’s living quarters took nearly a third of the top of the building. She and her husband had lived here while running the restaurant, while raising Shamus, while guarding the well. I’d been to her “home” only once before, and had been struck by its simplicity, its warmth, and the very normal, nonmagical mementos that covered the walls and filled the shelves.

  Plus, the framed pictures of Shame as a kid were adorable, and had given me months worth of fodder for teasing.

  I stopped at the wooden door at the top of the stairs. There was a little bench on one side with a pair of shoes beneath it, and a hook for hats or coats or umbrellas on the other side. I knocked. Worried for a minute that no one would hear me, then heard footsteps approach.

  The lock turned. The door opened. Hayden stood there, his hair s
tuck up on one side. He was shirtless, which showed off his build—muscled like an ox, not nearly as soft as I’d assumed, pale, except for the black hair covering his chest and running a thick line down his stomach to his jeans, which were unbuttoned.

  “Want me to turn around so you can check out the bumper?”

  Yes, I blushed. “The Veiled are coming.”

  That wiped the smirk off of his face.

  “Tell me.” He opened the door the rest of the way and I walked into Maeve’s cozy living room. A rumpled blanket and pillow were on the couch and Hayden’s boots were on the floor. Huh. So he and Maeve weren’t sleeping together.

  He walked down a hall, tapped on a door, opened it.

  “Allie’s here, says the Veiled are coming.” Then he was back in the living room, stopping by a bookshelf filled with books and other interesting bits and pieces. “You wake anyone else?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t bother.” He picked out a stone that looked like a thunder egg and placed it in a niche in the shelf that was actually a notch in the wall.

  I felt a wash of warmth brush past me like a summer breeze. I smelled roses.

  Magic. Gentle, and sweet. I’d been dealing with so much pain and dark magic, I’d forgotten how clean and lovely magic could be.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Sets off a series of glyphs worked into the inn. Turns on the lights in all the rooms occupied by a magic user. Lets them know we need everyone front and center.”

  “And you know this because . . . ?”

  He strolled to the couch, sat, and started putting on his boots. “I’ve known Maeve and Hugh for a long time. Used to spend winters here, when I could. Had my hand in most of the remodeling and renovating they did back in the day.”

  Hugh was Shame’s dad. Sometimes I forgot how much magic, at least the hidden ways of magic the Authority used, was held among a small circle of people.

  “How do you know about the Veiled?” he asked.

  “My friend Pike told me.”

  Hayden shrugged into his thermal undershirt and pulled a flannel shirt over that. “Do I know him?”

  “Probably not. He’s dead.”

  Hayden didn’t miss a beat. “Which is why he knows about the Veiled.”

  “He used to be a Hound.”

  “That’s right. I remember now. He say when they’re going to hit and how many?”

  Maeve walked into the room. She was still using a cane, her limp more prominent than the last time I’d seen her. But instead of a loose skirt, she wore brown leather pants tucked into over-the-knee boots, her daggers in the tops of her boots and at both hips. Ready for a fight.

  “What’s the situation?” she asked. “Talk while we walk.”

  I followed Hayden out the door. Maeve shut the door behind us and whispered something in a language that was not English—maybe Gaelic? I felt the Novocain tingle of a Ward flaring to life and locking down not only the door but this entire part of the floor.

  “Pike,” I said, “told me the Veiled are coming this way. Seven Veiled. Solid, using the disks. And an army of other Veiled.”

  “Did Pike know why they were coming here?”

  “To get the rest of the disks.”

  Maeve’s eyebrows lifted. “I see. Let’s fill everyone in and prepare.”

  Hayden walked down the stairs, his height and bulk blocking my view. Maeve, though a little slower, kept up pretty well.

  I hoped someone had a big old Veiled sucking device that would mow through them, reclaim the disks, and end this.

  Everyone was gathered in the main room. Boots and coats and weapons. This group did not fool around when roused in the middle of the night.

  Shame leaned against the wall on one side of the room, Terric the mirror opposite of him on the other side. Sunny straddled a chair backward, her chin resting on her arms crossed over the back of the chair. Nik sat at the same table with her, sitting with one foot hooked behind his chair, and twisted at the waist in a very unconscious, but undeniably sexy male model kind of way.

  Joshua Romero was there too, and the Georgia sisters, all three of them, and the twins, Carl and La, but I didn’t see Ethan Katz, who was my dad’s accountant, or Paige Iuamoto, the Blood magic user, or Darla, who Shame said used Death magic. And I did not see Dane Lannister, who had been Sedra’s bodyguard.

  Add to that group Victor, who was just now arriving, straightening his sleeves as though daggers lay between his cuffs and wrists—which I knew they did—plus Maeve and Hayden and me, and we numbered fourteen.

  Fourteen against whatever death could throw at us. Fourteen on short rations of sleep, health, and resources.

  Sweet hells, we were doomed.

  Still, Victor gave me a smile, something filled with more than a little relief. I thought it odd, considering the circumstances, but before I could go over and talk to him, Maeve spoke.

  “Allie has an announcement,” she said. “Please listen.”

  “My friend Pike was killed a few months ago. He showed up here this morning and told me the Veiled are coming this way. To get the disks, and take the well.”

  “There are protections in place on the inn,” Maeve said, “defenses that will hold against known magical attacks. But the Veiled are not human any longer, and not alive in the strictest sense.We don’t know how they’re going to use magic, since we have never fought the Veiled. Both Shame and Allie have had encounters with the solid Veiled. Shame?”

  He rubbed at his shoulder. “Ran into one on the street. A man. He came right at me, so it’s clear they know members of the Authority, or maybe just strong magic users. I drained him, sucked the magic out of the disk in his neck.” He licked his lips, gave a wolf’s smile. “Through Death magic. I’d be lying if I said it was easy. The magic in the disk was hard to tap, hard to pull on. But he was solid flesh. Not quite living . . . ” He looked off in a middle distance as if searching for words. “I couldn’t kill him. But I could break his link to life, if that makes any sense.”

  “So cleaving spells?” Hayden asked.

  Shame nodded. “Cleaving, drains, negates, End, if anyone wants a month of migraines. Death magic, if you can do it.”

  “Allie?” Maeve asked.

  What could I say about Truance? “I saw Truance—the Veiled—in a chocolate shop. She didn’t have a reflection, and when I cast Sight”—I traced the glyph so everyone could see which version I used—“she no longer looked like a woman, she looked like green fog. She attacked me. But I didn’t fight her. My father did.”

  Everyone in the room suddenly looked a lot more awake.

  “I know Jingo Jingo has been telling everyone that my dad is not in my mind, or that only pieces of his memory linger there, but Jingo Jingo was lying. My dad possessed me when Frank dug up his corpse. He’s been in my head, at varying degrees of strength, ever since.”

  “How did your father fight her?” Victor asked. He didn’t seem surprised, just acutely interested.

  “First Truance did something with the mark on my left hand.” I held up my hand. “The mark I got in death. It paralyzed me. I couldn’t break her spell. She could see my father in me. She was talking to me as if he were the only one in my head.”

  Wow. This was quickly becoming one of my top five wish-someone-else-was-here-instead-of-me moments. Going over the event only made me angry, and ashamed that I couldn’t control my own body, my own mind.

  “So Dad pushed me into the back of my mind and took over my body. He cast magic, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. I felt him pull magic through my right hand, then push it into a spell, and I felt my left hand go very cold. When I got control of my mind and body, the glyph had been drawn, my left hand was on fire, and I threw both at Truance. It hit her in the neck. She spoke a word, and disappeared. Using the disk, I think.

  “She stabbed Terric in the graveyard. Shame didn’t use Death magic.” I paused to look over at him and he shook his head. “But when she was p
inned, she disappeared again.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I shut up.

  “Well.” Victor walked into the center of the room, taking the energy of all those gathered, putting it back on task. “We can assume Death magic is involved since the mark on your palm is from death. Not a condition I think any of us could imitate. We will need to concentrate on using cleaving spells. Are there any questions?”

  “Proxy load?” Sunny asked.

  Victor nodded. “We’ll each carry our own price. If anyone falters, Shame has volunteered to Proxy.”

  I raised my eyebrows and looked over at Shame. He just shrugged.

  Terric was looking at him too, angry, maybe more than that, afraid.

  Shame ignored him. Maybe he did have a suicidal streak.

  Victor went on. “The disks are locked and warded on the bottom level of the inn—the safest place within these walls. Until we find a way to destroy the disks, we will keep them out of the wrong hands just like any other kind of dangerous magic. We will keep them away from the Veiled.”

  “Maeve?” He stepped back, giving her the floor.

  “We will take a blood oath. To protect each other, the disks, and the well.” She drew a slender blade the length of her hand out of her belt. The silver blade glinted with beveled glass, and was shadowed with lead and steel. Glyphs were worked into the hilt, delicate as ebony spiderwebs etched into the glass blade. I knew it was a blood blade, because I carried Zayvion’s with me.

  Everyone in the room held out their left hands. I did the same. Maeve sang a song, something old and lilting. She had a beautiful alto, and her song carried magic I’d only ever imagined in my childhood dreams of fairies and lost kingdoms.

  One by one she nicked the thumb of each magic user and with each taste of blood, the blade glowed a new metallic color. By the time she reached me, I thought the blade would be covered in blood, but instead a thick line of red filled the center channel of it, like the holding vial of a syringe, and the edge was bright and clean.

  She sang a word that resonated in my bones, and pricked the tip of my thumb.

  It didn’t hurt. Exactly one drop of blood welled up and was drunk down by the blade.