Hazard (West Hell Magic Book 1)

  “You have to understand where you fit in this league, though. You’re not a hockey player. Not really. You’re a novelty. A fad. Just like Pop Rocks. Interesting now. Forgotten tomorrow.

  “Now that I’ve realized that, well, you will remain in the game. As long as you’re interesting? You’ll be tolerated. After that? It’s over.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Your coach is in debt. Buying that team put him under a financial load that will end him. He is too proud to take the help people have offered. Which means he’s a season or two away from being out on the street.

  “Your assistant coach is a year from retiring, and that third owner doesn’t give a damn about hockey. I’ve been in this game and the game behind it—the game of making money—for years. I know how to grease the wheels. I know how to win.”

  There were rumors Coach Nowak was dirty. That he had thrown games. It sounded like he was all but admitting it.

  “I have people, you understand? People?” He tipped his beer again. “All down the line and all up the line, working for me. People who make sure my ability to make money isn’t impeded.”

  “Are you telling me you blackmail people? Bet on games?”

  “Mouth. Shut.” He glared at me, eyes pebble hard.

  I took a drink of water, trying to cool the anger rising under my skin. West Hell had a bad enough reputation I could absolutely believe Coach Nowak was dirty. I hated that he was bragging about it. Bragging about how he used this league to profit.

  He waited a minute more, then started up again, like we sat down to lunch every week to shoot the shit.

  “People. Let’s say you sent a letter to the commission to complain you’ve been threatened. Let’s say there’s a man who made sure that letter never made it there. I have those people. You following?”

  Son of a bitch. He was behind it. He was behind those letters, the threats. I nodded.

  “Let’s say you go for a walk after a game, and a few local boys give you a hard time. I have people. I’m a planner, Random. A leader. I like to keep tabs on all the loose ends.

  “And you are a loose end that needs to be tied down. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to play hard tonight. You will allow the plays to come down as they may. No magic. No interfering. You’re just there to do what you can for your team and no one else.”

  I frowned because now he wasn’t making sense. I was always there to play for my team. What the hell was he talking about?”

  “Why would I do what you want?” I asked, instead.

  “Because if you don’t, I will destroy Clay’s life, will destroy Beauchamp’s retirement, and will tear every Thunderheads player down so far, they’ll have to dig for days to find air.

  “Don’t think I can? I have dirt on every person in this league. Your captain? Want to know why he hates wizards? Hates you? No, don’t look at me like that, I’m going to tell you.

  “He had a friend who was a wizard. Names don’t matter. What matters is that he and the wizard used to pal around with Steele. Until that terrible accident, magical accident that killed Steele’s mother. Of course there was a cover up. No one was prosecuted for the crime. His wizard friend disappeared in the wind.”

  His face brightened with a smile. It was a gleeful, angry thing, like he’d found a handful of salt and was enjoying rubbing it in an open wound.

  “Didn’t know that did you, Random? Well, now you do. And that’s just a taste of what I know.” He seemed to rediscover his appetite and shoveled food in his mouth.

  I vibrated with anger. He could be bluffing, but the sickening feeling in my gut told me he was telling the truth.

  “And if I go to the authorities?”

  “All the way up the line,” he said around a mouthful of buttered potatoes. “In the league, out of the league.” He shrugged. “I have people.”

  Which meant there was no one I could turn to. Not even the police. And I wasn’t sure what I could accuse him of doing. He hadn’t actually admitted to threatening me, although I was sure he was behind the letter, the text, and the guys jumping me in Redding.

  But if he had destroyed the letter, there was no evidence to back me up.

  “So why did you bring me here?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. Sat back again and wiped his mouth with a clean cloth napkin. “I brought you here to tell you I expect you to play hockey tonight, Random. Just like you said you wanted to. With no magic involved. Isn’t that what you want too? Isn’t that what you said when they kicked you out of the NHL?”

  I refused to nod. I stood, and walked away.

  Behind me, his laugh rang out.

  Coach Nowak was dirty.

  He was behind the threats. And now that he’d decided I was a fad, useful for filling the arenas, those threats were over.

  But the thing that confused the hell out of me was asking, no, telling me that all he wanted me to do was to play hockey. To let the game fall as it may.

  Since that was what I always did anyway, the entire lunch encounter made little sense. What was his angle? What was I missing?

  “Their captain is a wrecking crew tonight,” Duncan said.

  I watched Tabor Steele, the centerman with the C on his chest. He was tall, somewhere in the stretch above six foot where I stopped paying attention because it was all atmosphere at that point.

  And he had speed. He was putting himself everywhere the puck was headed. Making plays like this was the only game of the year that would count.

  I expected him to be on the first line but Nowak was mixing it up and giving him extra minutes. At this rate, he’d wind up playing a lot of fourth line.

  We’d already been in on the ice a lot together. Looked like we were going to get more of the same.

  So when I took my next shift, I was not surprised that he was all up in my face.

  Of course, along with his face came his elbows, his stick, his cheap shots, and his mouth. There was something extra angry about his play. Extra desperate.

  I wondered what dirt Nowak had on him, and I wondered what he used it for.

  Duncan felt the level of desperation radiating off Steele and was slinging insults even though he was supposed to be dealing with his own man, Zima.

  I swung past Duncan while we were setting up for a new face-off.

  “Keep it easy, Donuts. Pay attention to your man. I don’t need your protection.”

  “Something.” He shook his head. “Something’s different with him. It’s making my skin itch.”

  I glanced over at the visiting team bench. At Nowak.

  He stood with arms crossed over his suit jacket, glaring at the ice. Glaring at me.

  “What?” Duncan asked.

  I shook my head and got in place. The music was too loud, the crowd was too loud. I didn’t know what to tell him anyway. Nowak was a problem. Duncan knew that. Steele was a problem. Duncan knew that too.

  “Play smart,” I said.

  He tipped his head like he was considering my request. “How about I play to win?”

  And then there was hockey. It was a rhythm, a battle.

  Absolute focus on the puck, on the ice, on the players around me, as the roar and chant of the crowd faded, faded.

  It was sweat and hits and cussing and pain. It was speed, and freedom, and brutal grace. I forgot about Nowak. Forgot about Steele’s weird vibes. The only thing in my mind, in my heart was winning this with my team.

  By the third period the game had leveled off at 2-2. We had twenty minutes to bury the puck one more time, and win this thing.

  Our crowd was worked up to a froth. They jeered at the refs, cheered every time we made a run at the net, groaned when we missed shots.

  That energy fueled us, lifted us.

  It was its own kind of magic.

  Fifteen minutes went by scoreless and as those minutes ticked down, the intensity ratcheted up.

  Every Thunderhead out there was an electrical current I was a part of, a loop I compl
eted and fed. Our team pushed and retreated and fought like a heart beating, beating, beating.

  The Tide were their own heartbeat, the rapid rush of prey, the pounding tempo of predator. On our heels, in our faces. No punches pulled.

  They were out to break, bend, bruise.

  We brawled for the puck, unafraid to make a man bleed.

  Watts took a stick to the face the refs missed, and had to go back to the locker room so Leon could patch him up.

  Tetreault got hammered into the boards so hard, it took him several long, grueling seconds to get back on his feet again. He skated over to the bench for a change, bent in half.

  Graves threw down gloves and started a fight with the guy who had bodied Tetreault. The crowd went insane, cheering out his nick name: Grave Digger.

  Nothing like a little fair and honest hockey fight to get the fans on your side.

  Both fighters got sent to the penalty box, but not before Graves gave the guy a black eye that was already swelling shut.

  Oh, yeah. This was fun!

  Penalty minutes meant we were playing four-on-four, both teams a man short. Covering that much ice this late in the game was grueling work.

  Steele and I ended up behind the net, fighting for the puck. He had been on my ass all period, shoving, punching, slamming me with stick or fist every chance he got.

  And it felt like his chances were endless.

  “Trash. Washout,” he snarled. “Your magic doesn’t mean anything out here, little man. Get off the ice, hack. You’re weak. Nothing. Let the real players play.”

  He slammed the back of my head, follow it up with a pop to the side of the neck.

  Magic in me roiled in an angry, nauseating wash of power.

  I breathed. I centered. Just like Coach said. I held magic back before it blew.

  “Kiss my magic ass, Steele.”

  Maybe not all that original, but my stamina was bottoming out fast, and I wasn’t going to waste my breath thinking up brilliant insults.

  Steele jammed the puck out from between my skates and made a breakaway to our net.

  I scrambled after him. Forced a pass that went wide.

  Minutes ticked down. Graves and the other player were sprung from the sin bin.

  Two minutes of game left.

  If we were going to break this tie, it had better be soon. It had better be now.

  We subbed out, waited our turn, then were back on the ice before I could do anything more than catch my breath.

  One minute left.

  Another hot face-off and we were flying, pushing, every muscle, every burst of speed, every hit aimed at the net.

  And then I saw it, our chance to score. Their goalie was a frickin’ brick wall, wider than he was tall. But he couldn’t see JJ through the traffic of bodies in his way.

  Before I could get to the puck, one of the Tide was on it.

  That player, Paski, wound back for the shot. He put shifter muscle into it, practically bending his stick in half.

  It should have been a pass. Away from the net. But it was a sniper shot across the ice.

  Fast, fast, fast.

  My brain fired a warning.

  Everything, everything slowed.

  Steele was in the way of that shot. He’d been tangled up with another player, hadn’t twisted around to see the play. Was moving. Right into the line of the puck that flew high.

  It would hit him. Side of the neck. Side of the head.

  His helmet wouldn’t save him. His face gear wouldn’t save him.

  I didn’t know why. But I looked over to Coach Nowak.

  And he was smiling. The bastard was smiling.

  This was what he wanted. What he’d ordered me to do at lunch. Just let the game play out. Don’t use magic. Don’t be anything out there on the ice except another hockey player.

  Just let a man get hit by a career-ending shot.

  I could save Steele.

  My enemy.

  My rival.

  The man who wanted me dead.

  What was I supposed to do about that?

  A thousand options ran through my head, a thousand images.

  My empty house, my adopted brother, my loving family. And between it all, holding it together with sharp, smooth punches of a needle through the stiff edges of reality, was hockey.

  This game, these brotherhoods. The laughter, the wins, the losses. Friends who were more than friends. Miraculous moments shared and so fleeting, fleeting, fleeting.

  A thousand thousand split-second decisions.

  Some I’d won, some I’d lost.

  That moment, that final moment when I’d pulled on magic, when I’d saved my teammate from ending his NHL career and had instead ended mine.

  I’d made a choice then: Save him.

  Because teammate, or stranger, or enemy, he was a part of this. A part of the game I loved.

  The game that had saved me. The game that could save other people too. The game that was still my life even though I’d thought I’d lost it.

  The game that had given me not one family, but many.

  Sometimes life and death come down to a split-second decision.

  This time it was mine to make.

  I reached deep inside me, felt magic hovering there, waiting for me to call it out, waiting for me to shape reality with endless possibilities.

  It was a part of me. No shame in that.

  In fact there was joy.

  The kindling behind my heart caught fire. Not a bonfire, just a flame. Something easy, something strong, something I coaxed with threaded ribbons of light to reach, spin, fly.

  And catch the puck in a net of magic, stopping it dead in the air right in front of Steele.

  Time clicked back up to normal speed. Steele jerked and ducked the instant he finally saw the puck glowing in the magic net right in front of his eyes.

  The arena went silent.

  And then the crowd rolled with an avalanche of sound.

  Refs blew whistles, game play was brought to a halt.

  Lock skated over and told me to drop the magic, and wait by the bench while the refs reviewed the play.

  I untangled the magic with a tug of a string. The puck fell flat on the ice with a smack.

  The crowd cheered even louder, a chanting force of “Wi-zard! Wi-zard! Wi-zard!” that rang in my bones.

  I held up a hand in acknowledgement and coasted over to the bench where Leon passed me water, and players held out their hands for high fives.

  My teammates repeated “nice work,” “nice save,” “good catch,” and Coach Clay nodded and leaned forward to yell over the crowd.

  “Good work, Hazard. Don’t care how they rule, you made the right choice.”

  I nodded, drank water, and scarfed down half a bar Leon shoved at me.

  The refs were going over the replay, and they had contacted the league’s situation room for their review and to get a ruling on whether or not that was illegal use of magic on the ice.

  I watched Coach Nowak, who was watching the play on the screens behind the bench.

  He looked furious.

  Someone might mistake that for anger at his player for almost braining a teammate. But I knew better.

  He had planned to take Steele out. He had ordered Paski to do it.

  I could see the irritation, the agitation in Paski’s movements as he skated slow circles near his teammates. He was not looking at his coach. He was not apologizing to Steele.

  This was all kinds of messed up.

  The ref finally skated to center ice to make the announcement on the call.

  The crowd went silent.

  “We have an illegal use of magic on equipment. Two minute penalty.”

  The crowd jeered and booed, then broke out into the wi-zard chant as I skated to the penalty box. I didn’t care that I’d taken the foul.

  Those were the rules. I was not supposed to use magic to affect the ice, the players, or the equipment.

  But I wouldn’t change my deci
sion.

  I’d saved a man’s life. I was certain I would make that same choice again and again and never once regret it.

  I clomped into the box and leaned forward, watching my team face-off against the Tide.

  We had less than a minute on the clock to break a tie. The face-off was where we’d left, in the circle near the Tide’s goalie.

  We had to win this. We needed to win this.

  God, I hoped we won this.

  I took a deep breath. Held it.

  The ref dropped the puck. Lock won the battle and tapped the puck out to Duncan.

  Duncan passed to Graves, who passed to Watts, who juked to open up a lane and passed it back to Graves.

  Ten seconds.

  Graves offloaded it back to Duncan who chipped it around two Tides to get it on Lock’s stick.

  Lock wound back and fired the puck at the net.

  It was a second. Less than that.

  Three players between him and the net. No room for the puck to get through.

  And then…

  …like there was nothing but open space between a forest of skates…

  …goal!

  The lights went off, the crowd went crazy.

  Every Thunderhead on the bench jumped to their feet, pounding the boards and shouting.

  I jumped out of the penalty box and joined the celebration.

  It took everything the refs had to get us back in position to let that final second slip off the clock. When that was done, all that was left was joy.

  Thunderheads poured over the boards, piled on top of each other, slapping backs, helmets, laughing. Josky, helmet thrown off, skated across the ice to pile drive into the celebration.

  We’d won.

  Holy shit, we’d won.

  That’s when I caught Steele’s gaze. He looked shocked. Not at the goal. He wasn’t even looking at the rest of my team, or his own.

  He was just looking at me, as if he couldn’t understand what had just happened.

  I gave him a quick salute with my stick. Then he was hurried off the ice with the rest of the Tide.

  I skated out to center ice with the rest of my team and held my stick high in salute, in gratitude, for our crowd.