Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price

  I glanced over at Shame and Terric. Shame was still walking our way, slowly. Terric had his eyes closed and was tracing a spell—two different spells—with each hand. The light around Terric was growing stronger, white going yellow and green. He was ramping up into gorgeousness again, magic shifting around him and making me want to be closer to him.

  Then he set both spells free, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making any small, embarrassing noise.

  Terric was beautiful, just amazingly alluring when he used magic like that.

  Shame exhaled, though I couldn’t tell if it was a curse or wonder. I slid my gaze away from Terric to him.

  Shame looked ice pale, pasty, as if working that magic to open the well, or having that magic worked around him had made him ill. He was thin, too damn thin. If he weren’t moving, if those emerald eyes weren’t glittering with caught light from the magic Terric was tossing around, I’d think he was death itself coming my way.

  “Probably a good idea,” I said, answering Zayvion. Only Zayvion was already halfway to Terric. I hadn’t even seen him move away.

  “Holy hells,” I whispered.

  “He is hard to resist,” Collins said mildly, though I noticed he was staring at the ceiling, acting suddenly interested in the architecture instead of Terric. “I tried to explain that to Zayvion, but he did not seem pleased.”

  I lifted my hand and dragged fingers through my hair, trying to sort my head, trying to gather my thoughts and put some space between my ache—because being around this much magic was no picnic—and Dad’s pain. My left finger hurt from the cut Dad had given me, and all my muscles were sore as if I’d been running too hard and too long.

  Casting that spell hadn’t just worn Dad out. It had exhausted me too.

  “That was fun,” Shame said as he came up beside me. “Next time we rattle reality, piss off your gargoyle, and make Zayvion so angry he almost botches a Close spell, can we bring popcorn?”

  “Zay almost botched the spell?” I looked over at Zay, who stood facing Terric, steady as a rock, hands at his sides, ready to cast Ground for Terric if anything went wrong.

  “Oh, he pulled it off,” Shame said. “This is Z we’re talking about. But it was a sloppy showing. Think he’s losing his touch?”

  He glanced at Zayvion; then his gaze slid to Terric. Shame narrowed his eyes. He didn’t seem as affected by the light and allure that surrounded Terric, but a faint smile played on his lips.

  “Always so anal about closing off the connections,” he muttered as he pawed at his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Give it a rest, Ter. We know you’re good. Ain’t no gold stars for perfection.”

  Shame dug out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, then lit it with the lighter he had palmed. He sucked until the cigarette was a bright cherry red, then flicked the lighter closed and exhaled smoke in a thin stream away from Collins and me.

  The cigarette burned hot between his fingers. Too hot. In a matter of just a few seconds, the cigarette was half ashes. Shame didn’t seem to notice that the Death magic around him was consuming the cigarette, burning it down to a line of gray ash. He just tapped the ashes onto the floor, then put the cigarette to his mouth again and breathed the last of the life out of it.

  He flicked it to the floor and went to rub his foot over it, then paused, one bare foot poised over the smoldering coal.

  “Jesus.” He pulled his foot away and looked around for his shoes. Found them on the stairs by Stone and headed that way. “I’m going up for coffee. Call me if something explodes.”

  He bent with a groan, grabbed his shoes, and started up the stairs, one hand holding the railing as if he were worried he’d fall. Stone took that as an invitation and clattered up the stairs after him, though trailing at a distance so the Death magic snapping around Shame wouldn’t touch him.

  It was strange to see Shame forget he was barefoot, strange to see him wandering away to find coffee before finishing a job. But then, he looked exhausted from unlocking the well. I didn’t know how he was still standing, much less climbing stairs.

  Terric was still casting the last part of the spell, the Refresh that would keep Tangle and Rebound working even if they were triggered more than once.

  It wasn’t that difficult of a spell to cast, although it took a steady hand to thread it through the other two spells that pulsed in deep blue and red weaves hovering above the floor.

  The Refresh spell poured out from his fingers like thin ribbons of green that planted deep into the flooring, then stretched up to catch hold of the red and blue Tangle and Rebound before sinking back into the floor again.

  It was literally like watching someone hand stitch a patchwork quilt together. And Terric was indeed taking his time to make sure that every connection held and was tied off.

  At this rate, he’d be done in a few seconds. Almost every red and blue line had a green ribbon connected to it.

  I rubbed my sore finger with my thumb, wishing Terric would hurry up. We had three more wells to hit and the Seattle people were getting closer with every minute.

  It made me itchy. I knew closing down the wells and making sure that no one, not the crew from Seattle, and hopefully, not anyone else Leander and Isabelle sent this way—including Leander and Isabelle—would be able to access magic.

  Still, I wondered how the Hounds were doing, if anyone had been hurt, if they were staying one step ahead of the smart and powerful magic users from Seattle coming to Close us, kill us.

  And I wondered if everything else was going according to the very hasty plan we’d thrown together. Had the hospitals been warned in time to switch to electricity only? Was the lack of magic causing fewer people to get sick, or was it making people angry, or vulnerable?

  It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to think that the city that had been bathed in magic for the last thirty years might be a little restless without it.

  There could be riots, looting.

  A phone rang. It took me until the second ring to realize it was coming from my pocket. I dug it out, didn’t recognize the number, answered anyway. “This is Allie.”

  “Two cars headed your way,” Davy said, breathless. “Lost them about half hour ago.”

  “How many people?” I asked.

  “Sid said nine.”

  “In all?”

  “Just headed to Vancouver. We’ve stalled the rest—closing down the networks was brilliant. Plenty of chaos. But they’re just about to head out of the airport now. Six cars. Thirty people.”

  So much for only twelve being sent to shut us down.

  “Stall but do not engage, Silvers,” I said. “I don’t want dead bodies. On either side.”

  “Got it. Any luck?”

  “One well is secure.”

  “Only one? Pick up the pace, boss.”

  “Working as fast as I can. Gotta go.”

  Terric and Zayvion were walking my way. Terric seemed a little dazed, although the bright beauty of him was nearly blinding. Zay had ahold of his arm and was guiding him through the tangled threads of the spells, which passed right through them.

  “Seattle’s headed this way.” I shoved the phone in my pocket. “Fight or run?”

  “Run,” Zay said. “We need to get the cure to the wells.”

  Collins made a little “hm” sound. “I always thought you’d choose to fight no matter the situation.”

  “Let’s you and I get one thing straight, Collins,” Zay said, walking past us, Terric still caught in his grip. “You don’t know me. I know you better than you do. You don’t have to understand what I do, but you damn well better not get in my way.”

  He was at the stairs and climbing. Terric seemed to be coming to his senses the farther away from the well they got.

  I hurried up after them. Collins took one last look at the room, then followed.

  The smell of coffee reached me about a dozen steps from the main floor. Terric was walking on his own now, and
Zayvion had let go of his arm though remained close enough to catch him.

  I didn’t think Terric looked that unsteady on his feet, but if Zayvion thought so, I trusted him.

  “We done with this bag of tricks?” Shame stood in the hall, a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Seattle’s on the way,” Zayvion said once we were all in the hall. “Here.”

  Shame swigged down the last of the steaming coffee, wincing a little. “Rather not have to deal with them here at Mum’s inn. She’s barely got it back together from the last fight.” He followed behind, falling into step with Terric, though I didn’t think he noticed it.

  Zay was in the lead, and flicked off the light in the hall. He glanced out through the leaded glass window of the door.

  “We have company. Two cars.”

  “Davy said it’s nine people,” I said. “Plan?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re here for?” Shame said.

  Terric slipped up beside Zayvion and looked out. “I know three, no, five of them. Decent people. Excellent magic users. Fast. I’d rather not see them dead.”

  “Nobody dies,” I said. “Understand? These people could be us. They’re just following orders and don’t know their boss’s head has been possessed.”

  “Hey, they really could be us,” Shame said giving me a grin. “Our boss’s head is possessed too.”

  “Don’t kill them,” I repeated.

  “Why do you keep looking at me?” he asked. “Collins is the guy with the bloody past.”

  “Don’t kill them,” I said over my shoulder to Collins.

  “Not my plan nor desire. But, well…accidents happen.”

  “Not today they don’t,” I said. “We have the advantage. They’re going to pull on the magic from the well. That should knock a few of them out. Can anyone tap the magic from the other wells from this distance?”

  “We all can,” Zayvion said. “And so can they.”

  “Yes, but we’re going to do it first. Now would be good.”

  Zayvion inhaled, and I felt him call magic to his hands. Shame and Terric both chanted something like a low, slow lullaby, and Collins rolled his shoulders back and carved a spell into the air, setting his mind and his concentration on the task at hand.

  As for me, well, so far magic hadn’t knocked me out. And even though it still stank, I wasn’t sure if I could draw on magic and use it without giving myself a concussion. Dad had said it was the poison in the magic that was making me sick to use it. That seemed right to me. Ever since magic had been poisoned, I’d been having a hard time using it. I guess I was just more sensitive to it.

  Dad had kept me safe from it when he used it, but he was still in some corner of my mind licking his wounds.

  Stone would fight, and I suppose I could use him as protection. But I hated walking into this with nothing but a knife in my hand and a sword on my back.

  There was a chance I could use magic, pull it in from the nearest unclosed well, and maybe cast one spell before I was barfing in the bushes.

  Okay, maybe not. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t try it though.

  Zay opened the door and strolled outside, his boots crunching the gravel.

  He wasn’t holding up a Cloak, or Camouflage, or Illusion. Still, it seemed to take the Seattle people an extended moment to realize the door was open, and all of us were walking out of it. They probably hadn’t expected us to be expecting them.

  “The Overseer has been possessed by Leander and Isabelle,” I said. Might as well tell them the truth. Even though there was no way they’d believe me.

  The short, stocky guy in flannel with a dark beard and mustache stepped in front of the group.

  Nine people. Just like Davy had said. Five men, four woman. All facing us. All ready to fight. Kill. Close.

  “The magic in Portland has been compromised,” the man said. “We’re here to make sure everyone gets the help and treatment they need. We don’t want a fight.”

  Sounded great. Except he was lying.

  Two of the women and a man snapped their fingers, reaching out for the magic in the Blood well. Terric threw a Shield around us, grunting as he pulled the tainted magic from the unclosed Faith well, miles to the south near the Japanese Gardens.

  The finger snappers all jerked backward as if an invisible force had slammed into their chests.

  That would be the Tangle. They were working Cancel spells to try to unravel the magic tying up their hands and fingers.

  The man tried a different spell, pulling on more magic. He grunted and passed out, unconscious on the gravel.

  And that would be Rebound.

  “Magic has been compromised, Rodney,” Terric said, “and so has the Overseer.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he said, taking a step backward.

  They were all walking backward. No, they were spreading out, creating a circle that literally formed the basic glyph for Enhance. A glyph that when cast with another spell did just as its name suggested.

  It wasn’t often I saw a group use their positions to each other as a way to boost magic.

  Okay, it was never.

  “You were involved in overthrowing the Voices here, Terric,” the man said. “In killing Bartholomew Wray. You’ve lost your way.”

  Not another word. Not a signal I could see. But they simultaneously pulled on magic and cast.

  Two of the men went down, pulling on the well’s magic. They quickly disengaged from the spells and were on their feet recasting, drawing on magic from a more distant well.

  Silver and black lightning bolts skittered across the Shield Terric held around us.

  They’d caught on quick and were no longer trying to draw magic out of the Blood well.

  But then, neither were we.

  Zayvion and Shame strode through the Shield at the same time, Zay throwing Sleep and Shame chanting, one hand held out, not throwing magic, but instead catching it in a spell that pulsed like a black heart in his hand.

  Collins threw Illusion. In the eyes of people who couldn’t actually see the spells tearing through the air, it would look like he had disappeared. But I could easily see him as he jogged to the van and opened the side door, ducking inside.

  He emerged with a baseball bat and a nasty grin on his face.

  He refreshed the Illusion, then circled around behind them. I hoped he remembered our deal. No killing.

  “Allie,” Terric said, “run!”

  Suddenly, there was a hell of a lot of magic raining down in flaming blades.

  Terric pivoted back, his left hand gathering a fistful of magic and twisting it into a spell—Impact—that he heaved at the Seattle crew just as the Shield broke and burned down like hot glass.

  Shit.

  I ducked my head and ran. There wasn’t a lot of cover by the inn, but Collins had gotten around behind the group. He took one woman out at the back of the knees. She screamed and fell. I didn’t have time to see if he stopped there or not. More screams filled the darkness, and I ducked behind the Dumpster.

  Use magic, I said to Dad, frantic.

  I can’t. He sounded exhausted.

  If you can’t, then I have to. Can you fix me, do something to my brain or body so I can tolerate using magic again?

  I am not sure it would work, Allison.

  I glanced out at the fight. The people from Seattle knew what they were doing, and had no qualms about using deadly force. We were not winning this fight.

  Do something, I thought. Anything.

  I didn’t know if Dad could do anything to help, but he knew my head probably better than I did.

  Dad stirred. He reached into places and parts of me that were tender and vulnerable. I didn’t like him touching me there. Oh, this was going to hurt.

  There is one way I can open you to using the tainted magic, he said. But every time you use magic it will harm you. Permanently.

  Do it.

  This will hurt, he said.

  It felt like he stabbed a knife into the middle of my
brain. Whatever it was he did, I felt the hot liquid rush through my head, like blood pouring free.

  No, not blood. Magic.

  I yelled as pain tracked through me, scraping down the paths of magic Cody had stitched into me months ago, catching my face, my neck, my arm all the way down to my fingertips on fire. My left arm went heavy and cold as magic ravaged me again.

  As magic awoke in me again.

  The pain didn’t seem to have an ending. I lost myself to agony for a second, for more than that. For ever.

  Then I inhaled, tasting sharp heat on my tongue as if someone had just struck a hundred matches at once, as if I had been on fire and suddenly extinguished.

  Something in me was gone. Snuffed. A sliding fear, a knowledge, whether mine or my father’s, of what that thing might be shifted through me and was gone.

  Then the rest of the world came back.

  I was still behind the Dumpster.

  Stone had both wings wrapped around me, protecting me from the magic raging through the night. They were still fighting. What had felt like an eternity had happened in an instant.

  I had been burning, and now I was freezing. Shaking. Not quite shock, but not exactly on my feet either.

  Stone growled and the glyphs on his body flowed through waves of gold, deep blue-black.

  I put my hand on his back and looked over his shoulder.

  I could still see magic without casting Sight, so whatever Dad had just done to me hadn’t taken that away. But magic no longer stank like rot.

  Terric was slumped against the inn behind me. His eyes were squeezed closed, his hands in fists as hot white magic rolled around him. Bright enough to hurt my eyes and destroy my night vision.

  I looked away as quickly as I could. He was breathing heavily but controlled, as if he were enduring pain.

  “Shame,” he said.

  I looked back at the fight. Shame was pulling on a hell of a lot of magic. And it looked like it was everything he could do not to lose control of it.

  Which is probably why he didn’t see the two guys throw spells that hit Zayvion so hard, he was knocked off his feet.

  “Zay!” I stepped out from behind the Dumpster and drew Impact without hesitation. Magic sank hot claws under my skin, around my bones. I yelled, unable to hold back the agony of that spell. But I did not lose focus. The spell took shape at my command.