Magic in the Shadows

Chapter Seventeen

I didn’t think I would sleep. Too worried about Davy, about Tomi, Stone, about the dead, the living, and everyone in between. Too worried about the test.

But I did sleep, the soft darkness of the room eased by a little night-light that glowed amber in the wall outlet against the floor. It reminded me, for a moment, of the little room at Nola’s house, one of the safest places in the world to me. Home of my heart.

No dreams this time, no conversations with my father.

I woke and stared at the darkness, listening to the movements of the big inn. There were people here, footsteps, and sometimes laughter. The lonely call of the far-off train filtered through the walls, but I could not hear the drone of the big engine. When the clock on the nightstand said it was seven, I got up, checked to make sure the bathroom door had a lock, and took a long, hot shower.

The vanity had a care package complete with toothbrush, toothpaste, some generic deodorant, and a comb. I used all of them. Even though my clothes could use a washing, I felt better, my muscles looser, the ache at the back of my head from hitting the floor gone. The ribs that I had sworn I’d cracked felt sore, bruised, but not broken.

Give me a hot cup of coffee and a couple aspirins, and I could take on the world.

I figured they had Wards or maybe a guard on my door, so I used the last fifteen minutes or so to clear my mind and relax. Magic filled me, rippled through my body from the ground and well deep beneath the inn. I worried that it would fail me, or worse, that I would fail to control it. I worried that the Veiled would appear during the test. If they were eating me alive, pulling magic out of me, there was little chance I could handle anything else. The Veiled hadn’t bothered me when I tested with Maeve, but my father had been strong. He was the one who kept them from hurting me. Without him, I was vulnerable again.

Dad?

I thought.

There was no answer. Not even a faint flutter.

If he was still with me, his presence was very, very small.

No help there.

I jumped at the knock on the door. Stupid.

“Yes?” I stood.

Maeve stepped into the room. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

She walked over to me, took both my hands in hers. Her fingers were warm, strong. “You can do this, Allie. Do not doubt yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I meant it.

She released my hands and strolled out of the room. I followed her down a white hall with walnut woodwork and old oak floors. Down to a staircase with wood that arched downward again, to another short hall, then down once again.

I don’t know what I’d expected. Secret society stuff. Maybe a dungeon, torches, cast-iron braziers, pillars, weird statues. Something archaic. Mystical. Magical.

But the huge room-and I mean the room must spread out beneath the entire inn, and then some-looked more like a ballroom. The stone floors, maybe marble or granite, laid out in a glowing and subtle shift from white to gray to black all the way to the far end of the room.

The ceiling was two stories high and supported by columns carved from the walls that arced wings across the ceiling, graceful tips crossed at the center. Adding to the winged effect were thick ribbons of cast iron molded into the columns, and lead-lined glass panels that caught glittering wedges of light falling upward from the fixtures set cleverly along the walls and within the nooks and curves of the winged arches.

Grand. Beautiful. The walls were done in rich reds and browns and forest green, light scattered here and there to the room’s best advantage.

It was difficult to remember this was a basement of an old inn.

The room itself was enough to make me pause on the last stair step. But the people who lined the walls of the room, perhaps a dozen or so, made me want to call a cab and go home.

No ceremonial uniforms, they all looked as if they’d just stepped out of their everyday lives and come here. A few were familiar faces. Kevin, Violet’s bodyguard, stood next to Chase, and tall, stern Victor, whom I’d seen at my dad’s graveside. Shamus slouched next to Jingo Jingo, and mousy Liddy, whom I’d also seen at the funeral.

My dad’s accountant, Mr. Katz, stood next to a dark-eyed woman and man who looked like they could be twins, and another man who must have been a linebacker in collage.

But even in a room of magic users whom I could only assume were incredibly skilled, my attention was pulled toward one woman who stood at exact east, if the room were set on a compass rose.

There was no reason why she should stand out among the crowd. Maybe thirty years my senior, her light brown hair was pulled back into a severe bun, lending her delicate features a razor’s edge. She had a wide mouth that might be pretty if she were smiling, and the kind of flawless grooming that gave her a brittle, premeditated beauty.

She wore a black, or maybe very dark blue, suit with a red shirt beneath-neither colors doing her pale complexion any favors, and both managing to downplay her figure. At her neck, a medallion caught silver and copper light.

She reminded me of someone. I didn’t remember ever meeting her, but there was a frailty beneath that hard exterior that made me think of summer and blue skies. Maybe not her, but someone similar. Someone I had liked.

Weird, since she was currently scowling death at me.

If I had to make a wild guess from the body language of the people around her, she was Sedra, the queen bee of this little buzz fest.

I glanced at the man who stood next to her. Tall, with a square, unmistakable face, the sight of him was a punch to the gut. I remembered him.

Just after my coma, when I had returned to the city to find my life, my home, and Zayvion again, this man had been there. He had opened a taxi door for me and told me there was a war brewing. My heartbeat shot up, instant panic, though I didn’t know why, and my palms slicked with sweat. He stood next to Sedra in the same way Kevin stood next to Violet. Like a guard.

Okay, maybe I didn’t want to be tested. Maybe I didn’t care if they sent a Closer into my head and yanked out my memories of this place, of these people. Maybe I didn’t care if they made it so I could never use magic again.

Yeah. Right.

I was nothing if not a stubborn bitch.

I pulled my shoulders back and forced my feet to move again, to follow Maeve as she walked across the white stone to the very center of the room, where the white tarnished into the color of silver cast iron. It looked like she walked above a stormy sky.

Everyone, the men and women of the Authority, watched me. I worked on not tripping over my own feet.

Shamus, on the far side of the room, wearing black from hair to boot, standing on black stone, next to huge Jingo Jingo, winked, and I took that as a hint to maybe try to breathe.

“Allison Beckstrom,” Maeve said, her voice filling the room. “Are you prepared to be tested as one favored by magic, to be forged in the ancient ways of this Authority?”

Okay, so there actually was some pomp and circumstance in the ceremony.

“I am,” I lied through my teeth. Sounded good, though. And I was pretty sure the other magic users bought it.

“Let us begin,” she said. She didn’t smile, but gave me a grave, encouraging nod before she walked away and took her place on the slightly darker side of the room next to my dad’s accountant and the twins.

I didn’t know the place could become more silent. It was as if every person simultaneously held their breath. But that was not what happened. Not at all. What happened was that every person in the room drew upon magic.

Yes, they drew glyphs. Yes, I heard whispered chanting, humming. The lights dimmed and took on a deeper orange cast, which might just be good special effects, but was probably a Warded reaction to so much magic being summoned at the same time in such a suddenly small space.

Speaking of Wards, there were plenty of them, worked in the walls, worked in the tiling of the floor. Probably worked in the wings across the ceiling and every other square inch of the place. They hummed from the rise of magic in the room.

I held still, black stone to my left, white stone to my right, all my Hound senses geared up for survival. Someone in the crowd was going to fight me, push me to my limits until I broke. But no one had stepped forward yet.

To keep myself busy, I silently recited my Miss Mary Mack song.

The crowd across from me shifted and allowed a new figure to enter the room.

Tall, dark, and oh, so deadly, I immediately recognized my opponent.

Zayvion Jones.

My heart rattled in my chest. No. Oh, hells, no. Fight Zayvion? My mind spun with possibilities. If he cared for me, he’d pull his punches. No, they’d know. Which meant if he cared for me, he would hit me with everything he had. And I would have to do the same, push back just as hard as he pushed me.

Maeve had said I had to do everything in my power to survive.

Survive.

Zayvion Jones, the guardian of the gates, the go-to boy of the Authority, didn’t look like he was going to go easy on me or do me any favors. Those cool brown eyes sized me up as an opponent, not a lover.

Crap. Could my dating life get any weirder?

He wore a white shirt, loose fit and open from the collar to his sternum, and black wide-legged pants, both of which looked vaguely martial arts-ish. No weapons in his hands. Not that the man needed weapons.

I was so going to get my ass kicked. But I was going to make him work for it.

I grinned at him, which made him frown. I set a Disbursement. This time, the pain would be hard and fast, but I made sure that it wouldn’t hit me for a week. Plenty of time to recover from this little song and dance.

Correction: plenty of time to recover if I survived the song and dance.

I had to assume he had set a Disbursement too, and that he wasn’t Offloading his use of magic to a Proxy in the room. But, hells, for all I knew, every member in the room was sharing his cost. That would give him virtually unlimited access to magic at no cost, and make him a very, very difficult person to take down.

Nothing like an impossible challenge to really wake up a girl.

I traced a quick spell for Sight, Smell, and Sound, willing to risk him canceling each of those for the chance to better observe what was going on.

The room burst into color. Magic crackled and flowed up the walls, crawling over the cast-iron ribbons and setting the winged arches afire.

Every person held a spell in their hands, or was wrapped by gossamer shifting magic, ready to cast that magic into a spell. I wanted to take my time and study them, study all the different ways they used magic, study their signatures and what that said about them, about who they were and how they perceived magic, but instead, I concentrated on not dying.

Zayvion traced a spell and threw the world at my head.

Yes. The world.

In response, magic flared in me, flooded my bones and blood, hot on the right, cold on the left. I raised my hands and drew a Block, catching the brunt of his attack. I left lines of the spell open so the impact of the magic could wrap at my right fingers. I pointed at the floor, bleeding the magic into the ground, while drawing Impact with my left hand.

It pays to learn to cast ambidextrously.

I never got the chance to throw it. Zayvion rushed me, a tower of black fire and golden eyes.

No time to duck. I braced my feet, tipped my shoulder down, arms out so he could not pin them and keep me from casting.

Paralyze rattled off my Block, then another spell I could not identify, and another.

Hells, he was fast.

My Block broke, burst into ash in front of me. I inhaled too quickly, felt that ash sting my lungs.

And then Zayvion was there, his arms around me, pulling me hard against him. Pinning me.

Not in a nice way.

I wriggled my right arm free, my left pressed into the center of his chest, palm flat against his skin.

Claustrophobia shot liquid panic through my bones. I had to get out. Break his hold.

Those gold eyes were filling with blackness. Everywhere he touched hurt.

He was draining me, draining the magic out of me. Grounding me.

Not in a nice way.

“Surrender.” His voice was cold.

Yes, I was freaked out. Yes, I hurt. But I was also determined to take him to the mat.

And not in a nice way.

Instead of throwing more magic at him, which he would just Ground anyway, I used my left hand pressed against his heart to draw the magic out of him.

No, I wasn’t any good at Grounding. But Zayvion said we were Soul Complements. I was going on a hunch that whatever he could do to me, I could do right back to him.

The concept of Grounding was to take the price of the other user’s magic and act as a lightning rod for both the magic and the price. That meant you had to release what you were Grounding, let the magic flow back into the earth.

Zayvion’s eyes widened. I drank the magic out of him. Drew it into me. Filled myself with the hot, dark, mint flame of him. Drank his magic down ruthlessly.

No, I didn’t know how to let go of the magic. Have I mentioned I suck at Grounding?

I was full, every inch of me stretched and thrumming with magic, his magic. There was no room in me for more. But that didn’t stop me.

My head swam. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I drank and drank and drank. He did the same.

Zayvion’s grip loosened slightly.

I pushed down and away, broke free. I wove a spell for Hold. Cast it blind with all that magic I held inside me.

He froze. Long enough for me to cast Shield, something strong enough to surround me and keep him from touching me physically again.

Zayvion lifted his hand and muttered a word. Hold shattered like cheap glass.

So not fair. I didn’t know the magic words he knew.

He chanted, drawing magic in multicolored ribbons out of the floor, singing it into a jagged ball in his hand, which he then threw at me. It hit my Shield and broke into bits that scrabbled over it like spiders trying to climb ice.

He followed it up with a wave of darkness that clung to my Shield, blinding me.

Fuck.

I’d have to drop the Shield to see. And he’d be waiting for me.

Think, Beckstrom.

What did I have at my advantage? Not my father’s memories or skills. Certainly not Maeve’s training.

No, all I had was the magic inside me and a knack for Hounding. I also had a burning determination not to fail myself, not to lose my memories, my life again. Not even for Zayvion Jones.

I took a deep breath. Calmed my mind. Then I called to the magic in the well beneath the room. To hell with fighting fire with fire. I needed some napalm.

I dropped the Shield.

Zayvion threw everything he had at me.

Pain-hot, slicing, deep-shook me. I screamed, but couldn’t hear the sound over the spell he threw.

An explosion of lights blinded me again, and all I could taste was pine, mint, and blood.

He meant to kill me. He really did. I don’t know why I hadn’t believed it before. Zayvion had proven himself to be a dangerous man, a killer, a Closer. And now it was me he was going to end.

Screw that.

The magic from the well poured into me, and I knew I could hold it-could claim all of it for myself, keep it in my body and my bones.

So I did.

The pain disappeared. Everything around me suddenly slowed. I watched, from somewhere above myself, as magic spun from my fingers, from my soul, from the inexhaustible well beneath the earth. I was wrapped in ribbons of light and color and shadow. I was living, breathing magic, and I could make magic do anything I wanted it to do.

I didn’t aim the magic at Zayvion. I aimed it at all the other magic users in the room.

No glyphs, no words, no songs. Just my need for magic to do as I desired. Gold threads followed my thoughts and sank deep into the chest of each user. Some of them were able to disengage, to turn the magic away before it knocked them out. A few fell.

And that’s all I needed.

I threw magic at the walls. At the Wards. Magic users scrambled to reinforce them so I didn’t blow the walls out and bring the whole building down on our heads.

That is what I call a proper distraction.

Now to deal with Zayvion.

Zayvion wove a glyph like a massive net and threw it toward me slowly; everything was still running in half-time.

I knew that the moment he released the spell, he would be overextended. Vulnerable. I could take him down. Take him apart. I could tell the magic to wrap around his heart, his brain, and squeeze. It would stop him. I wondered if it would kill him.

Was this test worth that? Was it worth ending Zayvion’s life to save my own?

I had never been good at these kinds of decisions.

Zayvion told me once that I was not a killer. I remembered that now. Remembered him laughing, remembered him reaching out to me as a bullet tore through me. Strange, the things you think of in the last moments of your life.

I walked over to Zayvion, letting the net he cast glide over my head, then continue on to land somewhere behind me. I stood so close to him, I could feel the heat of his body.

The memory of his smile, of his body, strong, warm, naked, against mine flashed through me. He had been there for me, more than anyone but Nola. If I had the time, I would mourn the loss of that, the loss of him.

I placed my hand on his chest. Even though I was fast, too fast, and all the world was too slow, I know he felt my touch. His body tensed.

I am not a killer. Not if there is any other choice. And I was making another choice. A choice for both of us.

I reached into his mind. Just like he told me Soul Complements should not, because once Soul Complements touched mentally, they would not be able to let go. And now I understood that.

Oh, baby, it felt wonderful to be touching him like this. It felt right.

Zayvion arched his back in pleasure, and I felt his pleasure under my skin as if it were my own. Sweet loves, this was good.

I felt him laugh inside my mind, inside my mouth, echoing through me, as if we were one person, not two. Joined. Soul Complements.

I gloried in it. Never wanted it to end.

But I am a stubborn woman.

“Tag,” I said. “You’re it.” Then I knocked him unconscious.

Zayvion crumpled at my feet.

And somebody threw a lead coat over my shoulders. All the magic in me, all the magic I was pulling out of the well, pumped out of me in a heartbeat.

I was suddenly emptied.

Whoa.

I lost my knees, fell on my ass next to Zayvion, who stirred, already waking up. Gotta love a man with stamina.

Maeve stood above us. She didn’t look happy. I didn’t know what her problem was. We were both still alive. Wasn’t that the point of all this?

“I am going to remove the void stones,” she said like a traffic cop telling me which way to go and how. “You are not going to draw upon the magic in the well. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” Weird, but my voice came out all breathy, like I was exhausted or something.

Maeve removed the lead coat, and I got a look at it. Not a coat, but a blanket with tiny, round, black river rocks sewn into it. Void stones, like the one she’d put on my lap. Smart woman.

“This was not a test to see if you were Soul Complements,” she admonished.

Zayvion moaned, swore. And yes, Maeve was angry at me, but I couldn’t help but grin as Zayvion blinked up at me and realized where he was. Namely, flat on his back on the floor.

He moaned again. “I can’t believe you did that.” He dropped his hand on my knee, and levered to sit.

“Hey, I was supposed to use anything and everything to survive, right?” And even though I was smiling, a sick sort of dread gripped my throat. What if I had done permanent damage to him? What if I had done permanent damage to us? What if I had failed the test and now they were going to take all my memories away? My life away?

Zayvion’s hand was still on my knee. “They’re not going to take all your memories away.”

“Did you hear me think that?” I asked.

He nodded, and in my mind I heard him say,

Loud and clear

.

His voice in my mind was not at all like my father’s voice. His voice was familiar, comforting, warm.

Are you always going to be able to hear my thoughts?

I thought.

We’ll have to find out.

He pulled his hand away from my knee. We were close, just inches away from each other, but we were not touching.

“Think something,” he said.

I thought how maybe I’d like to get the hell out of here.

He shook his head. “I didn’t hear you. Can you hear this?”

I listened, strained to hear him in my mind. Nothing.

“So only when we touch?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. But he didn’t sound very sure of it.

There had been a lot of noise going on around us. A lot of people hurrying here and there, a lot of magic being used, but I hadn’t been paying attention to it.

Then Shamus strode over and crouched down next to us.

“You two done? Because we have a problem here.” He pointed at the far, dark side of the room.

The room was in chaos. Magic vibrated in the air. Even without Sight, I glimpsed the afterimages of spells being cast, of magic being used. A hell of a lot of magic. By a hell of a lot of people.

And no wonder.

A hole, easily a yard wide and tall, and getting wider and taller by the second, was burning into the air, like a light-bulb burning through a filmstrip.

“What?” I said.

“A gate,” Shamus said. “It opened when you tapped into the well. Fuck if I know why, but we haven’t been able to close it.”

“Here?” Zayvion said. “Impossible. It’s too Warded, too safe.”

“Yeah, well, your girlfriend there wreaked havoc with the Wards. Nice going, Beckstrom.” Even though I was pretty sure I’d done something bad, Shamus didn’t sound mad. The boy loved trouble.

“Not possible,” Zayvion said again as he stood.

“Looks pretty damn possible to me,” Shamus noted.

I got my feet under me and managed to stand too. The magic inside me was small, and I felt emptier than I had in a long, long time. Maybe even a little light-headed.

The hole on the other side of the room sizzled and flashed, lighting the room like a flare.

“That’s your cue, Closer boy,” Shame said. “Go. Fix.” He shoved at Zayvion’s shoulder.

Zay strode away from me, toward the hole. Between one step and the next, between one blink and the next, he became a man of black flames, silver glyphs blazing against his body.

I had seen him like this before, but I had never felt him like this.

It was as if I walked with him, felt the crushing weight of dark magic and light magic war through my body, tug at my control of sanity, singing of pleasures within my reach if I succumbed to its siren call. Shamus had said Zayvion could use all the kinds of magic, and now I believed him.

No wonder he was so disciplined, so calm. It took an amazing amount of concentration to keep sanity and reality in perspective while dark magic sang its song. Zayvion stopped, lifted his hands, and wove a spell that looked a lot like the net he’d thrown at me, only more solid.

He incanted something, or at least I thought he did. Everyone in the room was chanting or humming or singing. Well, except me.

Blocking spells, Warding spells, defensive spells; magic users moved as far from the burning gate as they could, casting their magic at the walls, the pillars, the inn itself to repair the damage I’d done. They supported the inn and guarded the well of magic that pushed up and up from the earth and rolled beneath the floor.

They, the Authority, worked to contain the magic, to support the room, and not let a lick of magic escape these walls.

Zayvion stood alone before the gate. He twisted at the hip and threw the net. Magic flared in me, wanting to leap to join his spell. I inhaled, cleared my mind, and held tightly to the magic that rushed up to fill me, afraid to let it merge with Zayvion’s.

We might be Soul Complements, but we had not yet cast magic together. Now seemed like a horrible time to find out what would happen if we did.

The net closed over the gate, damping the mercury-gray light that poured through it, but the gate was still growing, still burning.

Then a voice rang out, a man’s voice from the other side of the gate.

“I will not be denied.”

Oh, no. This I did not want to know. There were things, people, on the other side of the gates, in death? Angry people?

Within the gate stood a dark figure of a man. Magic fluctuated across the gate and obscured the huge shadowed figure, but I could make out his hands held to either side, elbows locked, as if he could force the gate to open faster. As if he could walk through that gate and into our world.

No, no, no. That was not good.

A small part of my mind refused to believe what I was seeing. Sure, I’d seen stuff like this before-in horror movies. But this was real. This was now. I could taste the copper-hot burn of magic, could smell the sweat and fear in the room, could hear the people around me swearing, chanting, angry, calm.

This was really happening. And this was really, really bad.

The man yelled and shoved the gate wider. Now I could see behind him, slashes of fangs, bloody red eyes and claws, just like the Hungers we had hunted in St. Johns.

The man tipped his face so that shadows and magic hid his features. Except for his eyes. Blue as a summer sky, his eyes were familiar. I scoured my memory, but could not think of where I had seen those eyes before.

“Life and death are mine to wield. Light and darkness.” The man flicked one hand, and as if to prove his point, dark magic, a solid tentacle of blackness, whipped out and rammed into Zayvion like a wrecking ball.

I yelled as Zayvion flew across the room. Shamus was already running toward Zay and reached him before he hit the ground.

“Sedra,” the voice called out. “You will bow to my will. I will walk between life and death. Immortal.”

The tentacle of darkness that had knocked Zayvion down whipped through the air and plunged into Sedra’s chest.

The ice queen stiffened. She took a jerky step toward the gate. Her jaw was set, the bone there straining against muscle and tendon as she took another involuntary step.

“No,” she mouthed. She lifted one hand, traced a spell, and a shot of light pierced the man’s chest.

Several people around her cast magic, trying to break the rope that held her.

Nothing worked. Dark magic forced her forward, toward the gate, even as the light seemed to force the man to lean against it to keep his feet.

Okay, here’s the deal. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I mean, really. If this was how they always gave tests, it was amazing anyone survived.

But even though I didn’t know what was happening, that didn’t mean I was going to stand around while people were hurt.

First, stop the dude in the gate.

Right. Like I had any idea how to do that. And since I had no idea how to stop him, the next thing I could think to do was to save Sedra from his grip.

Zayvion stood again. I felt his anger, felt the calm Zen that kept his mind clear. He wove an intricate spell in the air with one hand and sang that lullaby waltz. Shamus was beside him, a bright shadow to his dark light, his hands extended in a hell of a Shield spell.

They looked good together. Like they had done this sort of thing before.

Another man joined them, Victor. Tall, lean, fit, dark-haired. Older. He took the place to Zayvion’s right, and fell into rhythm with his chant, sang with him, building a spell that licked with silver light.

While Sedra marched toward the gate.

I felt Zayvion hold his breath. He and Victor threw the spell at the same time. It skittered over Sedra, past her, a wind of silver and gray, a shatter of glass that tore into the gate and burned into it like a maelstrom of silver embers.

The man in the gate looked away from Sedra, as if noticing other people in the room for the first time.

“Victor, and your favored student. Why have you betrayed me?”

“Mikhail,” Victor said. “Let Sedra go. You cannot cheat death. No man is immortal. It violates the true ways of magic.”

“True ways?” Mikhail snarled. “Do you think you follow the truth? You follow the enemy among you. Light cannot be separated from darkness. I was a fool to assume the old ways could withstand the change. This-” He pulled, and the rope tightened on Sedra. She yelled, and stumbled forward again, but still didn’t do so much as raise a hand in her own defense. “-This is what comes of truth. Lies. Deceit. Betrayal.”

He gestured with one hand, tracing an arc from his left to his right. The burning, shattered glass tearing holes in the gate extinguished like a candle in a breeze.

“I will have what is rightfully mine.” Mikhail spread his fingers, as if throwing seed upon the ground.

The Hungers behind him burst through the gate, claws scrabbling upon dark stone. And they ran straight for me.