Magic at the Gate

  I cast Hold, Cleave, and Impact with my left and followed it up with the razor edge of Zay’s sword. Still, I was pressed back, until there was almost no swinging room left.

  I was not the only one struggling. Chants of spells were punctuated by curses and grunts of exertion as we fought to hold against the spells and Veiled pummeling us.

  The watercolor people broke through, diving into blade and magic, hands grabbing, piercing, sucking, even as they were canceled, ended, killed. And every touch left a burning, bleeding mark behind, sucking away strength and stamina. My arms, shoulders, thighs were covered in burns.

  Note to self: next time wear fireproof long johns.

  I wondered why Shame didn’t drink down their magic, but realized there was no chance of him getting through their defenses.

  We were too close, too fatigued. Friendly fire crossed, collided, blew, sending fire to lick up one of the beams.

  Something had to give.

  “The hall!” Maeve’s voice carried subtle Influence, enough to sink into my head without getting in the way of what I was doing. Damn, the woman was good.

  “Go!” Victor said. He doubled his attack, magic and sword a dance of light and fire and steel. Hayden yelled—no spell that I could parse—just anger, and followed Victor, his broadsword taking the watercolor people down faster than they could rise. Blood and burns stood out on Hayden’s face and Victor’s hands. But none of us had so much as touched the seven Veiled.

  With Victor and Hayden holding off the enemy, I ran for the hall. Zay, behind me, hesitated. Terric grabbed his arm and pushed him across the room.

  “We follow orders. We get out alive.” I could hear Terric through the blood in Maeve’s spell.

  Zay didn’t argue. Once he made it to the hall, he turned and cast a glyph with his left hand over the palm of his right until a dark orb, burning like the Veiled’s weapons, hovered there.

  He heaved the orb at the Veiled. It exploded, and for the first time, I heard the Veiled scream.

  A magic bomb! So someone did know how to make one of those. Boy had been holding out on me.

  One of the Veiled fell, the dark-haired man, Elijah. He did not rise.

  “What did you use?” I asked.

  “Dark—” He had to take a breath. “—magic.” He wiped his hand over his mouth. Casting that one spell had nearly wiped him out.

  Zay was the only one I knew who could cast dark magic without going insane. And it looked like that would be the last dark spell he would be able to cast.

  “Allie.” Zay grabbed my hip and pulled me back. I don’t know why I’d been just standing there staring out at the fight Victor and Hayden were losing.

  “We need to help,” I said.

  “We are. We’re closing down the room as they’re working our way. Listen—about what I said. About you not knowing how to handle yourself—”

  Really? In the middle of a battlefield was when he wanted to have a heart-to-heart about our relationship? “Don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  Hayden and Victor gave ground, methodically running through spell variations that were astounding. They were now in the arched doorway to the hall.

  “Nik,” Victor shouted, “now!”

  The pretty boy took three steps forward just as Victor and Hayden stepped back. Nik threw something out into the room that sounded like an entire building under demolition charges.

  The Veiled screamed a second time. Another solid Veiled fell, Pinstripe Guy.

  Music to my ears.

  The room locked down like bulletproof glass had just been poured over the top of it.

  “What was that?” I yelled, because the explosion had killed my ears.

  “Lock,” Shame yelled.

  “Back,” Maeve said. “Down the stairs. Now.”

  No Influence. We didn’t need Influence. The solid Veiled, all five who were still standing, were no longer screaming. They were at the doorway, casting spells with staffs, swords, knives, and hands. Going through spells just as methodically as Victor and Hayden had gone through them, searching for the way to break the Lock that held them trapped in the room.

  They had once been good magic users—no, great magic users. They knew as much as we knew about magic.

  And they had the disks to fuel them and no price to pay.

  Hells.

  I ran for the stairs, even though it took everything I had to turn my back on them. Nik stayed at the doorway, moving back slowly in tandem with the twins, Carl and La, who sang, feeding magic to Nik as he fed it to the Lock spell, doing that liquid spell thing that Shame had done with his art Refreshing and shifting the glyph faster than they could try to take it down.

  “Down the stairs,” Maeve said again, and this time it was Hayden who thundered toward me and pushed my shoulder to get me moving.

  We thumped down the stairs, as fast as we could, Maeve moving painfully slowly.

  The floor opened up to one large space, walls lined with shelves and cabinets, files and desks and computers. I guessed this was the official business office of the restaurant. The stairs continued down to the bottom floor, where the well, and the disks, were stashed.

  Hayden helped Maeve down the stairs while looking back over her shoulder to see when Nik and the twins were going to start down.

  Zay glanced up the stairs, probably gauging if he could help in any way. There just wasn’t room for more people on the stairs. He walked over to me. “About what I said. Earlier.” He touched my arm and the reality of him, standing there, alive and mostly whole, hit like a lightning strike to my soul.

  I wanted to lean into him, wrap around him, feel his touch, taste his lips, and never let go.

  But, seriously, we were in the middle of a war here.

  “Are you going to apologize?” I asked.

  “Apologize for what?”

  “For being mad at me pulling a reverse-Valkyrie and dragging you out of death?”

  He scowled. So far he had not been burned by the Veiled. The ratty ski coat was doing a good job of keeping him safe.

  “I won’t apologize for being angry about that. You threw yourself into death.”

  “For you. To get you. To save you. I died for you.”

  “I don’t want you to die for me. I want you to live for me. You broke your promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “That you would never try to be the hero. Never put yourself in that kind of danger again.”

  I did vaguely remember promising him that. “When you died, all bets were off. We’re in this together, and we’ll both give every damn thing we’ve got to make sure we get out of it together.”

  Shame jogged over to us. “Later, lovelies. We have company.”

  Hayden and Maeve finally made it down the stairs.

  Victor and Joshua chanted, a very Gregorian kind of sound, walking a circuit of the room and activating storage spells there.

  Clever. Magic had been piped and captured in storage pockets where it could be accessed and used.

  In case of emergency, break into chant.

  I liked it.

  “Defense,” Maeve said. “We’ll take them here. Pick them off one by one as they come down.”

  She was assuming they would break through the Lock.

  The deep thump of a contained explosion made my molars ache, and then Nik and Carl and La were sprinting down the stairs.

  “It’s down, it’s down,” Nik said.

  The Lock was broken.

  “We protect the lower level. We protect the well. We protect the disks,” Maeve said.

  Other than us, what would keep them from just running down the stairs to the well? I glanced at the staircase. The stairs stopped here, on this floor. The wood flooring looking like one seamless piece.

  They must have a hidden panel that closed off the stairs, or maybe Victor and Joshua’s chant had triggered the inn’s defense here. Nice.

  Victor and Joshua completed their circuit of the room, completed
the chant.

  The walls hummed like a hundred cellos being plucked.

  This floor was locked down. I didn’t smell an Illusion, but then, I couldn’t smell the very large Illusion the Georgia sisters were still maintaining over the inn. The sisters stood together, whispering a litany to hold their focus and Illusion, well protected and well behind the rest of us who surrounded the stairs.

  “Zayvion,” Victor said.

  Zay looked up. Didn’t let go of my arm.

  “Go,” I said. “Now’s your chance to be the hero.”

  “Zayvion. Now,” Victor said.

  “Fuck.” Zay leaned down, not much, since we were nearly the same height. He pressed his mouth against mine, hard, needful, and a new heat filled me, licked fire across the cold emptiness inside me.

  I opened my mouth, taking him in greedily, just as hard, my tongue, my teeth exploring, stroking, catching at him and telling him I didn’t want to let go, didn’t want him to let me go. Begging him to leave with me to someplace where I could touch him, savor his body, his heat, drag my fingers through his soul, until I knew, really knew, that he was alive and safe, and mine.

  He pulled away. We were both breathing hard.

  “This isn’t over,” he said.

  “Damn straight it isn’t. You still haven’t apologized.”

  He smiled, and the fire in me flashed into an inferno. I leaned in for another kiss.

  “Zayvion.” Victor again.

  And then Zayvion was gone. No longer just a man, my man. He would always be guardian of the gate, always belong to the Authority first.

  A flash of jealousy fanned that fire in me. But I knew that was stupid. We all needed him to be the Authority’s man right now.

  “Can you Channel?” Victor asked him.

  Zay took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Yes.” He spread his feet shoulder width, and then placed his hands together in prayer in front of his chest. I felt his heartbeat jump, then settle into a strong meditative rhythm. He and I were bound by more than just a drop of blood in Maeve’s dagger. We were Soul Complements.

  I knew he was afraid. Worried. Exhausted. And I knew how determined he was to end this now.

  With incredible finesse for someone who had just been dead, he pulled the magic out of the walls and created a pool of magic in the air in front of him, a strong, steady force ready to be accessed by any user in the room.

  Talk about playing hero.

  “Allie, I need you to be my eyes,” Maeve said.

  I strode over to her. She leaned heavily on her cane. Maintaining the blood oath must be costing her a huge price.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Cast Sight. Tell me when you see them.”

  I cleared my mind, set a Disbursement, and drew Sight. What I saw scared the crap out of me.

  “Shadows are moving down the stairs. A lot like the watercolor people—no, they’re spells. Maybe Death magic pouring down the stairs.”

  “Shame,” Maeve said.

  Shame and Terric moved forward, Terric cast Sight, canceled it, then cast another form of Sight until he finally saw what I saw.

  “Got it.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Shame was casting. Not dark magic like Zay wielded, but taking the magic Zayvion held in the glowing amorphous blob in front of him and spinning just a thin thread of it into Death magic, the transference of magic, of energy from one state to another.

  Shame intoned a spell, his voice resonating in me. My left palm itched, burned, froze. The mark of death responded to Shame’s words as if he were speaking to my soul. I had to fight to not go to him.

  Great.

  But the Death magic flooded toward him, and he negated the spells with the blade in his hand and opened his arms, drinking down the smoke and dregs.

  Nice. Shame was bearing Proxy for this fight. I knew he could endure pain, but that hit of Death magic was bound to help ease the pain a little.

  A green fog drifted at the edge of the ceiling. “They’re coming down,” I said. “The solid Veiled.”

  The first in line was Truance, bearing a curved sword that looked like a scimitar.

  We hit her with everything we had.

  She raised a Shield with her left hand, easily deflecting our magic. “You cannot stand in our way,” she said. “There are more of us, so many more, who will fight to be alive again. Today, we will take the disks and the well. And we will gladly kill you, as you once killed us, to do it.”

  “Leave this world.” Victor put so much Influence behind it, I dropped Sight and looked for the nearest exit.

  Allison, my father said quietly, but clearly, inside my head. Don’t. I don’t know what he did, but I no longer felt the need to do as Victor said.

  Still, I shuddered. I had almost zero resistance to Influence.

  “You have lived your life,” Victor continued, using magic to push against her Shield, to push against the others, so they could not move down the stairs. “Your deaths were justified by the Council of Voices of your time. It is the way of the Authority. It used to be a way you swore fealty to. Move on, Truance. Find peace in death, and let magic rest in our hands.”

  “The Authority broke magic, then used it for their petty games. But now the dead lay claim to what is rightfully ours. Magic. And life.” Truance walked down the stairs, step by step, a smile on her face.

  Just as her boot hit the floor, Hayden threw Fire at her, a burning twisted gout of flame-worked glyphs and spells that made me throw one arm over my face to ward off the heat. Fire wrapped a half circle in front of her, caught on her Shield, burning. She flicked her left hand, drawing the magic down into the sword she carried in her right.

  She looked taller, younger. Stronger.

  The spell, the magic in it, had made her stronger. Just like drinking magic made the watercolor people stronger. Just like magic made the Hungers and other things that stepped through the gates of death stronger.

  Shit.

  Hayden realized what had happened too.

  He canceled the spell, broke the flame into ragged edges that tore at Truance but could not quite reach her. She tugged at the collar of her coat, baring more of her throat, and drank the remaining magic into the disk like a smoker inhaling through a hole in the neck.

  Frank, who had done nothing but smile his creepy smile, and the rest of the Veiled stood beside her. They lifted their hands and cast magic as one.

  It is dangerous to cast magic with another magic user. It can kill you. It can kill everyone around you.

  But apparently being dead with a disk stuck in your throat made group casting possible.

  Allison! my dad yelled in my head.

  He didn’t have to yell. I felt it too.

  An explosion rocked the inn. And I knew, without a doubt, that a gate into death had just opened over the well below us.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Agate,” I yelled.

  Not that I had to. The room was filled with Closers. They all felt it too.

  “Down!” Victor roared.

  Victor and Joshua raised their hands to break the Illusion and barrier over the stairs.

  I’m sorry, my dad said.

  No. I opened my mouth to warn them, to tell them, to stop my dad.

  But he picked me up and shoved me to the farthest corner of my head. Slick walls and darkness surrounded me. I slammed my fist into the walls, trying to break my own mind.

  I yelled, screamed. Nothing.

  Then I heard my own voice, oddly accented with my father’s commanding cadence.

  “I am Daniel Beckstrom,” he said with my voice. “Do not let the barrier fall, Victor. Do not let them reach the well.”

  I couldn’t see, couldn’t tell what was going on.

  Panicking about it wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good. I calmed my thoughts, closed my eyes, and recited my “Miss Mary Mack” song.

  When I opened my eyes, I could see what my father was seeing, though it was like I was standing at the
back of a theater, watching what someone else watched on the screen.

  I stood in front of Victor. Someone was behind me. I could only assume they had gotten hold of my wrists and were restraining me. It’s the least of what I would have done.

  “I can Close the gate,” Dad was saying. I must have missed some of the conversation. “But you must let me cap the well without the capstone.”

  I didn’t know who was fighting the Veiled while this little conversation was taking place. Lights flashed. I heard the electric crack of magic shattering a spell.

  Okay, so maybe everyone who wasn’t dealing with me, with Dad, was still fighting.

  “You are no longer a part of the Authority, Daniel,” Victor said. “You are as much an invader in our world as Truance and Frank. Leave us and return to death, or I will end you.”

  “When I was alive, I set traps on the inn that I can trigger. They will contain everything within these walls. Nothing living or dead, magical or otherwise, will be able to escape. The well, the Veiled, the gate, will be locked in. Secure.”

  Victor had a good poker face, but I could tell he believed Dad. He was weighing his options. Not how to win, but which of his enemies he should let become his conqueror.

  “Why are you doing this to your daughter?”

  It was not a question I expected from Victor.

  I don’t think my dad expected it either.

  “It was my last option. I dislike being forced to make a snap decision. I never wanted to do this. Any of this. Although I had prepared for many outcomes.”

  “Why shouldn’t we kill you now?” Zayvion asked, so close I knew it was he who held my wrists trapped so Dad couldn’t cast magic.

  “I know where Jingo Jingo is. And I know what he’s using Sedra for.”

  Victor’s eyes narrowed.

  “And there is an enemy stronger than you or me loose in this world, my friend,” Dad said. “I will do anything to stop him.”

  “Who?” Victor asked.

  “Leander. He is the shadow man behind the undead Veiled. He’s looking for Isabelle.”

  Holy shit.

  Fear shadowed Victor’s face. “Lock it down. We’ll take care of the Veiled.”