Magic Bleeds

CHAPTER 12

WHEN I TOLD SAIMAN THAT I RECOGNIZED HIS eyes, I wasn’t lying. He looked at the world through a prism of intellect, arrogance, and subtle but smug contempt, and he was unable to hide it. It took me precisely two seconds to zero in on him in a half-deserted Guild Hall, but this time it wasn’t his eyes that did it.

Today he chose to appear as a lean male in his early thirties. When I entered, he stood with his face in profile, casually speaking to Bob, Ivera, Ken, and Juke seated at a table. Saiman’s black jacket showed a light Mandarin influence with a high collar and a formfitting cut that accentuated his narrow waist and the straight line of his shoulders. Dark pants hugged his legs, showcasing muscular thighs, but his was the smooth, long muscle of a fencer or a runner, not the bulk of a weightlifter or the crisp definition of a martial artist. His hair, the color of dark alder wood, fell down to his waist without a trace of a curl.

Saiman turned at my approach, presenting me with a well-defined oval of a face: crisp jawline, a wide nose with a shallow bridge, and almond-shaped, slightly hooded eyes with shockingly green irises. He oozed professionalism and expertise the way I sometimes emanated threat. Had I not known who he was and met him on the street, I would’ve thought him one of the high mages from the local college, the type who could decipher three-thousand-year-old runes, speak a half-dozen dead languages, and level a city block with a sweep of his hand. He stood out among the mercs present in the Hall like a professor of medieval studies in a bodybuilder bar.

Saiman smiled, showing even white teeth, and came toward me, gracefully stepping past a large wooden trunk.

“Kate,” he said, his voice a smooth tenor. “You look lovely. The cloak, in particular, is an intimidating touch.”

“I strive to menace,” I said.

“Do you like my working persona?” Saiman asked softly. “An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn’t you say?”

Aren’t we pleased with ourselves. “Are you Chinese, Japanese, half-white? I can’t tell, your features are neither here nor there.”

“I’m inscrutable, mysterious, and intellectual.”

He forgot conceited. “Did you have any trouble getting that ego through the door?”

Saiman didn’t even blink. “Not in the least.”

“Have you been able to glean any information from the eyewitnesses using your mysterious intellect?”

“Not yet. They do seem ill at ease at the moment.”

The Four Horsemen looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here. I surveyed the hall. Out of the twenty or so calls I had made this morning, fourteen people showed up, including Mark, who stood leaning against the wall, a sour look on his face. A lot of familiar faces. The movers and shakers of the Guild had turned out to watch Saiman and me work.

I reached into my cloak and pulled out a plastic bag with a piece of parchment in it.

“What’s this?”

“This is a magic parchment.”

Saiman took the bag with long, slender fingers, held the parchment to the light, and frowned. “Blank. You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

I took a piece of paper from my pocket. “This is the list of tests ran on the parchment by PAD.”

Saiman scanned the list. A narrow smile curved his lips. “Amusing. Twenty-four hours. I’ll tell you what is written on it, or I’ll tell you who can read it.” He slipped the parchment into his inside pocket. “Shall we?”

I turned to the mercs. “We need five volunteers. Don’t volunteer if you didn’t get a good look at the guy.”

Bob raised his hand. “The four of us will do it.”

“I need one more,” I said.

Mark came forward. “I’ll do it.”

Juke sneered down her Goth Tinker Bell nose, decorated with a tiny stud. “You weren’t even there.”

Mark gave her a grim look. “I was there for the end.”

They glared at each other.

“Let us not argue,” Saiman said. “The five of you will do splendidly.”

He knelt by the trunk. It was a large, rectangular trunk, made of old scarred wood reinforced with strips of metal. Saiman flicked his fingers and produced a piece of chalk with the buttery grace of a trained magician. He drew a complex symbol on top of the trunk. A dry metallic click sounded from the inside. Slowly and with great care, Saiman lifted the lid and took out a bowling ball. Blue and green, swirled with a gold marbleized pattern, the ball had seen some wear and tear.

“Have you ever heard of David Miller, Kate?” Saiman asked.

“No.”

Saiman reached into the trunk and retrieved a plastic pitcher tinted with hunter green. “David Miller was the magic equivalent of an idiot savant. All tests showed that he had an unparalleled magic power. He constantly emanated it the way an electric lamp emanates heat.” He set the pitcher next to the bowling ball. “However, despite numerous attempts to train him, Miller never learned to use his gift. He led a perfectly ordinary life and died a perfectly average death from heart failure at the age of sixty-seven. After he had passed on, it was discovered that the objects he had handled most during his life had gained a magic significance. By manipulating them, their owner can achieve a rather surprising and occasionally useful effect.”

Interesting. “Let me guess, you hunted the objects down and acquired them?”

“Not all of them,” Saiman said. “Miller’s descendants made a concerted effort to scatter the objects, selling them to different buyers. They had agreed that concentrating all of that power in the hands of a single person was foolhardy. But I will collect them all, eventually.”

“If they were worried, why sell the objects at all?” Mark asked.

Saiman smiled. “The lack of money is the root of all evil, Mr. Meadows.”

Mark blinked. My guess was, nobody ever called him by his last name. “I thought it was ‘the love’ of money.”

“Spoken like a man who never went hungry,” Ivera said.

“Besides,” Saiman continued, “the family had concerns for their safety. They were afraid they would be robbed and murdered by enterprising parties interested in Miller’s collection. Considering the worth of the objects, their worries were quite valid.”

He extracted a key chain from the trunk and carefully closed it. “I’ll need a pitcher of water and five glasses, please.”

A couple of mercs brought over a full glass pitcher from the cafeteria and five glasses. Saiman surveyed the floor and headed to the front door, chalk in hand. He drew a semicircle about ten feet from the doorway, the curve facing the center of the room and chalked an odd symbol into it. Then he crossed to the spot of Solomon’s death, drew another larger semicircle, straight side flush against the elevator shaft, and filled it with perfectly round circles. I counted. Ten.

“Bowling pins?” I asked.

“Precisely.”

Saiman returned to the table, freed the keys from the chain, and handed each of the five keys to the Four Horsemen and Mark. “Hold them between your hands and try to recall the event in your mind. What did you see? What did you hear? What smells floated in the air?”

Saiman poured the water from the glass pitcher into Miller’s plastic one.

Ken, the Hungarian mage, studied the key. “What sort of magic is this?”

“Modern magic,” Saiman said. “Each age has its own magic traditions. This is ours. It’s unlikely that most of you will see a repetition of this ritual in your lifetime. This magic is extremely rare and very taxing. I only perform it for very special clients.” He smiled at me.

Oh good. He just made everyone involved think we were sleeping together.

I smiled back. “I’ll be sure to inform the knight-protector that he should be very generous in his compensation.” Right back at you. Let them scrub the image of a naked Ted Moynohan out of their brains.

After half a minute, he collected the keys, slipped them back onto the keychain, and dropped it into the pitcher. The keys sank to the bottom. Magic pulsed from the pitcher, breaking against me. It felt like someone had clamped a furry soft paw over my eyes and ears, then vanished.

Saiman poured an inch of water into each glass and glanced at the eyewitnesses. “Drink, please.”

Juke grimaced. “That shit ain’t sanitary.”

“I’m sure you’ve swallowed much worse, Amelia,” Saiman said.

“Amelia,” I said. “What a lovely name, Juke.”

She scowled at me. “Drop dead.”

“Drink the water,” I told her.

She skewed her face. “I already told you everything I saw.”

“Our memory is much more detailed than our recall,” Saiman said. “You might be surprised how much you do remember.”

Juke gulped it down.

Bob drank his with a stoic expression. Ivera peered into hers and drained it. Mark tossed his down like it was whiskey. Ken was the last. He drank his water very slowly, in sips, holding each swallow in his mouth, probably trying to glean some sort of knowledge from it.

Saiman picked up the bowling ball. “Please remain sitting through the event. Don’t interfere with the illusion in any manner. Kate, you may move if you wish; however, don’t intersect the image. Is everyone clear?”

An assortment of affirmative noises answered him. He strode to the first semicircle, held the ball at his chest for a long moment, bent, and sent it hurtling across the hall’s floor. As the ball rolled, a different reality bloomed in its wake, as if someone had pulled a zipper on the world, revealing the past. Solomon’s murder took place in the afternoon, and the light slanted at a different angle from the present midmorning sun, clearly marking the edges of the illusion: an oval about thirty feet at its widest stretching through the hall.

The ball smashed into the second semicircle, scattering the imaginary pins. It would’ve been a perfect strike.

Two men dropped from above into the oval. One was Solomon, his eyes bulging, his face bright red. He landed badly, on his back, but jumped to his feet.

His opponent landed in a crouch. A spear fell next to him. The Steel Mary straightened to six and a half feet. A cloak hung about his shoulders. His hood was up. From where I stood, I could only see the dark fabric.

I ran along the illusion’s edge toward the elevator shaft.

Solomon hammered a vicious kick at the Steel Mary’s side. The Steel Mary leaned out of the way, his cloak flaring about him. Solomon’s foot passed within a hair of his face. Solomon spun for a back kick, and the Steel Mary backhanded him. Solomon flew through the air, crashing against the elevator shaft just as I braked next to him, at the edge of the illusion.

The Steel Mary picked up the spear and walked to us, each step a deliberate point, like the toll of a funeral bell. The hood shifted back and I caught a glimpse of large eyes, dark, almost black, framed in the thick velvet of long eyelashes and brimming with power.

A woman.

I froze. There was something so hauntingly familiar about those eyes. If I just stood still, I could figure it out.

The Steel Mary opened her mouth. Words poured forth, resonating through me. “I offer you godhood, imbecile. Accept it with grace.”

Perfect English. No accent. No clue to nationality. Damn.

The Steel Mary grasped Solomon’s shirt with her left hand, jerked him up against the elevator shaft, and thrust. The spear head sliced through Solomon’s windpipe. Blood gushed. Solomon screamed, writhing on the spear. Crimson spurted from his mouth.

The Steel Mary raised her right hand, fingers rigid like talons, and thrust it into Solomon’s chest. “Hessad.” Mine.

The power word clutched at Solomon. His body strained, his back arching. He screamed again, a terrible hoarse bellow of pure pain. Blood burst from his chest and collapsed back, sucked inward into the wound. A long exhausted sigh broke from Solomon’s lips. He sagged. His eyes rolled back into his head. His body shook once and became still.

The Steel Mary pulled her hand out of Solomon’s chest, a wad of red glow resting on her palm. I couldn’t feel it but instinctively I knew exactly what it was. It was blood. Condensed blood. All of Solomon’s power, all of his magic, his essence contained in a small glowing globe trembling, caged, in the Steel Mary’s fist.

The Steel Mary smiled. “Finally.”

Her lips stretched in a smile. She turned, carrying the blood, and I saw the twisted lines of a tattoo on the inside of her forearm. The letters burst in my mind, searing it. A power word.

The world burned around me. Heat surged through my blood, spreading through every vein and capillary. My body locked, struggling to overcome the shock.

The Steel Mary turned, slowly as if underwater, and walked away, melting into nothing.

Pain wracked me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. Through the tempo of my heartbeat thudding like a sledgehammer in my ears, I heard Juke’s voice. “He bitch-slapped Solomon Red! I’d missed that the first time around.”

My vision faded, replaced by a fog of blood. The power word was killing me. I clamped it, trying to break through its defenses. It hurt. God, it hurt.

“It certainly is interesting,” Saiman said. “Don’t you think, Kate? Kate?”

“What’s the matter with her?” Ivera asked.

The power word cracked under pressure. Searing light pulsed before me and suddenly I saw, crystal clear, Saiman staring at me from across the room.

The power word hammered at me from the inside, threatening to tear me apart. I had to say it to make it mine.

Something clicked in Saiman’s eyes. “Run!”

Too late. I opened my mouth and the power word burst forth on a torrent of magic. “Ahissa!”

The magic swept through the room. People screamed and fled, trampling each other. Bob clawed onto the table with both hands, his face a skewed mask of fear, and bellowed like a bull in pain. Ivera collapsed on the floor.

I felt light as a feather. The last echoes of magic whipped about me, bringing the true meaning of the word into my mind. Ahissa. Flee.

All of my strength leaked out through my feet. I sagged down and slid against the wall.

The hall was empty, except for Bob breathing like there was an anvil on his chest, Ivera weeping quietly on the floor, and Saiman pressed against the opposite wall. Ice covered his arms. His eyebrows had turned blue-green and the eyes that stared at me from under them were the eyes of a frost giant: cold, piercing blue, like a diamond caught in a sheath of brine. The eyes that belonged to Saiman’s original form.

We stared at each other’s secret face. It dawned on me that I had just scared the crème of the Guild’s crop half to death. They wouldn’t forget it. To top it off, I had displayed control of a power word in front of Saiman. His eyes told me he understood exactly what had transpired and he was shocked by it. On a scale of one to ten, this disaster was at a twenty. If I could move, I’d be banging my head against the nice hard floor.

Saiman pushed himself free of the wall. The ice on his arms broke into a thousand tiny snowflakes. His blue-green eyebrows fell out, individual hairs fluttering to the ground. New dark brows formed, matching his hair. The savage intensity of the frost giant’s eyes dissolved into calm green irises.

“We seem to have experienced a minor technical difficulty,” he said with forced cheer. “My apologies for the inconvenience. This type of magic is yet unproven.”

Bob bent down and scooped Ivera off the floor. His face said that he wasn’t buying any of it. He grunted, shifting Ivera’s tall frame in his arms, and carried her from the hall.

Saiman approached me and knelt. If he tried to kill me now, there wouldn’t be much I could do about it. Breathing was an effort. The first time I assimilated power words, I came very close to dying. The second time, I lost about three hours. The third time happened during the flare and it was a rush of pain. Now, with normal magic, I felt completely drained. I didn’t pass out and I didn’t lose time, so I had to be getting better at it, but I had no reserves left.

Saiman brushed my left arm with his fingertips. “There were words,” he whispered. “Hundreds of words written in dark ink on your skin.”

Words? What words? “What?”

He caught himself and rose. “Nothing. It’s best we go. I’ll gather the items.”

I watched him pack Miller’s collection into his trunk and take it out. By the time he returned, I managed to assume a vertical position and shambled on out of the hall into the daylight. It was my body, my legs, and they would obey me, damn it.

Outside, a group of pale-faced mercs waited, gathered around the Four Horsemen and the Clerk. A few smoked, clutching at the cigarettes with trembling fingers. Nobody spoke, but they watched me like I was a rabid pit bull. Ivera wouldn’t look at me at all. I had to get the hell out of there, because right now I was easy pickings and my audience was feeling unfriendly.

“What happened?” the Clerk asked.

“A slight technical malfunction with the spell,” Saiman said. “My fault entirely.”

He was covering for me. Saiman dealt in information and the price of a secret was inversely related to the number of people who knew it. The fewer people possessed the information, the more valuable it became. I knew this, because Saiman had patiently explained it for my benefit.

“Sorry for the trouble, guys,” I said to say something.

“Did you at least get what you came for?” the Clerk asked.

“We got it. Thanks,” I said.

“Anytime,” Bob said grimly.

“The Guild is always willing to cooperate with the Order,” Mark said.

I waved at them and headed out into the parking lot. A woman. Dark eyes. I wished I could’ve seen her face.

A quick staccato of steps echoed behind me and Saiman caught up. “I’d be delighted if you rode with me,” he said. “The engine of my Volvo is wrapped in a layer of mass-loaded vinyl, caught between two layers of polyether foam. It’s adequate at attenuation of low-frequency noise.”

“Fascinating.” Most water cars made enough noise to do permanent damage to one’s hearing.

Saiman favored me with a narrow smile. “My vehicle is relatively quiet by enchanted engine standards. If you rode in my vehicle, you could rest.”

And he could ask me all sorts of interesting questions. I was tired, but not tired enough to risk a car ride with Saiman.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I can’t abandon my mule. Besides, I come with a passenger.”

His eyebrows came together. “A passenger?”

I whistled and the dog popped out of his hiding spot behind Marigold.

Saiman stared at my canine companion with an expression of pure horror. “What is that?”

“That’s my attack poodle.”

Saiman opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. A grimace gripped his face. A violent struggle of some sort was obviously taking place inside.

“Are you trying to find something nice to say?”

He looked at me helplessly. “I can’t. It’s an awful creature.”

“If you want me to ride with you, this awful creature has to enter your car.”

The pain on his face was priceless. “Can’t we just—”

“I’m afraid we can’t.”

The attack poodle trotted around me and proceeded to vomit an inch from my left boot.

“Delightful,” Saiman reflected as the dog, having puked his guts out, urinated on the nearest wall.

“He’s a dog of simple pleasures,” I told him.

Saiman leaned back, stared at the sky, exhaled, and said, “Very well. Your taste in dogs is as appalling as your taste in wine. It’s a wonder you didn’t name it Boone.”

It had been a long time since I had tasted Boone’s Farm. Drinking was no longer my preferred entertainment. “It’s a he. Please don’t insult my faithful canine companion.”

Saiman turned and strode to his sleek, bullet-shaped vehicle, disfigured by the bloated front end containing the enchanted water engine.

I petted the poodle. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you bite him if he gets out of line.”

The dog wagged his tail. Either Saiman smelled tasty, or my poodle had good instincts.

I mounted, swaying a bit, and nudged Marigold into action. Even if I did fall along the way, I’d likely land in a snowdrift. Any landing you could walk away from was a good landing.