Magic on the Storm

Chapter Eighteen

Shame and I made it down to the car without any arguments about stairs. I didn’t care if he took the elevator-I needed to stomp, to move, to stretch out and feel my body as my own again. The stairs suited me perfectly.

We made it to street level. I straight-armed the door, and practically ran across the street to the parking garage. Fear, hate, and, yes, anger got me where I was going-anger at my father. For doing this to me. For using me. Again.

I was so done with it. I didn’t care what it took-I was going to get rid of him. He wasn’t going to stay in my mind and use my body, my thoughts, my emotions, ever again.

You, I thought, are going down.

A hand caught my elbow and yanked. Hard. “Slow the hell down.” It was Shame, breathing hard, looking even more like death, if that were possible.

“You are going to get yourself killed.”

A car, horn blaring, rolled down the parkade ramp.

“That car almost hit you. Allie? Are you in that noggin somewhere listening to me? Or is there another Beckstrom I’m addressing?” Shame’s grip was punishing, and the pain cleared my mind.

“I heard you,” I said. “Holy shit, Shame. I am so fucked-up.”

He blinked, gave me a weird smile. “And?”

I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. Zay was in a coma. Violet could lose the baby. My dad was raging in my mind. The storm was coming, Stone wasn’t working very well, and someone out there had disks of magic that could kill us all. I’d forgotten to ask Violet about the break-in, but there wasn’t a herd of elephants that could drag me back into her room right now.

How come I had to be the one to fix everything? How come I had to be the hero? I sure as hell didn’t feel like a hero.

“No hero does,” Shame said.

I must have said some of that out loud.

He tugged my arm again, this time gently, and pulled me into a hug. He was a little shorter than me, thinner than Zayvion-the last man I’d been this close to-but strong, and careful. It was a simple, brotherly gesture. I had to work hard to not cry for the comfort of it.

“You,” Shame said, not letting go of me, “are going to save Zayvion. Not because you’re a hero, or he’s a hero. Not even because you’re Soul Complements. But because you love him, he loves you, and you deserve the chance to be together. Whatever that takes. Don’t give up on him. Don’t give up on yourself. You can do this. All of this. For him. For you.”

I inhaled, caught the deep burn of tobacco on his clothes, the spice of cloves beneath it. Shame was half dead, his heart pounding slow and hard, a slight tremble shaking his body. But he was standing there, giving me the strength he had left. So I could save Zayvion. So this could somehow turn out happily ever after.

“Thanks,” I whispered. It wasn’t enough. There weren’t enough words to say how much I needed him to be here for me, this way, right now.

He let go of me, searched my face. I wiped the tear off my cheek, waited for his approval. He nodded.

“You did notice I didn’t grope your ass,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “You always have to take a good moment out at the knees, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started toward the car. “I just want it on the record when Jones wakes back up. I did not grope your sweet bits. And I had ample opportunity, what with how you were pawing at me.”

“Keep digging, Flynn. Six feet makes a grave.”

We got in the car, and Stone turned his head. He was moving even more slowly.

“Hey, boy. Have a nice nap?”

He opened his mouth and clacked. It sounded like his gears were missing a few cogs.

“That’s okay.” I turned around and rubbed his head. “You rest.”

He put his chin back on his arm. Shame started the car, but I stayed twisted in my seat, petting Stone’s head.

Shame’s phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket. “Flynn.”

I had good ears. But I couldn’t quite make out the words. I knew who the speaker was, though: Terric.

I recognized his voice, and also I knew it had to be him from the way Shame tensed up.

“Where?” A pause. “Unbelievable. Fine. We’re stopping by Mum’s place first.”

He snapped his phone shut and stuffed it back in his pocket.

“I hope you didn’t have plans for today.”

“Other than hunting down Greyson and Chase?” I shifted so I was sitting facing forward again and buckled my seat belt.

“Sedra has ordered everyone to go out to St. Johns.”

“Why?”

“They’re setting up some kind of storm rod, to try to divert as much of the storm as they can and to channel it into one place when it hits. St. Johns, probably because there is no magic there. It’s the one place that could handle a huge blast without blowing out the networks. I have to admit, it makes sense.”

“You’re surprised Sedra is making sense?”

He licked his lips. Stared at traffic for a second or two. “She’s been. . different. I don’t know if it’s the storm, or your dad dying-which, by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you-what the hell happened back there with Violet?”

I rubbed at one eye. “I’ve told people he’s in my head. I’ve told you. Jingo Jingo doesn’t believe me, so no one else in the Authority does-”

“Jingo is a one-man freak show. And he’s been lying this entire time about not knowing your dad is in your head. I believe you. After seeing your dad glaring out from behind your eyes? Oh yeah. I’m convinced.”

“Good. Now help me get rid of him.”

Shame shook his head. “Magic. And not even your pretty pink crystal can hold enough for the kind of magic it takes to draw a soul out of a body. Even if the soul doesn’t belong there in the first place. Plus, it will hurt. A lot.”

“I don’t care about the pain. Greyson did it, and I held up pretty well.”

Shame glanced over at me. “Greyson did what?”

“He sucked Dad out of my head.” Should have left you in him. Let him eat you, I thought.

“So he’s really in Greyson?”

“No. He’s in me. And maybe some of him is in Greyson.”

My dad shifted in my head, as if uncomfortable. That was how I knew it was true. Part of him was still in the Necromorph, in the man who had tried to kill him. Who had tried to kill Zay.

Shame was quiet a moment. “You know how you said you were really fucked a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to change my response to ‘and how.’”

“Wonderful. Thanks for that, Mr. Good News.”

“If your dad is in Greyson, or a part of his soul is in Greyson, then you are tied to Greyson through him. He’s spanning two minds, two lives. It makes for an interesting state of being for him. I can appreciate the advantages, though.”

My dad in my head went very still. He listened to Shame like he had just found an expert in the one subject he could not figure out.

Yes, that scared the hell out of me.

“Uh, I’m not sure that you should tell me right now. Dad’s listening.”

Shame laughed. “You are such a creepy girl. Not that I mind. But I just never expected Jones would go for the whole goth-chick-possessed-by-the-dead-guy thing. Talk about Daddy issues. And I’m not at all sure what that says about Zayvion, psychologically speaking. Tell me, does your dad know when you and Jones are, you know, doing it?”

“Do you want me to puke in your car? ’Cause if you keep it up, I will destroy your upholstery.”

Stone, in the backseat, growled.

“And then my gargoyle will eat you.”

“Aw, c’mon. A hint?”

“Zay’s been helping me find ways to block him.”

“Ooh. Nice. Can you block your dad without him?”

“Yes. Most of the time.”

“But back with Violet?”

“It’s always worse when I get around her. Dad. .” I couldn’t believe I was about to say this out loud. “He loved her. And even though I do not know why, Violet loved him too. So when he sees her, hears her voice, we get into sort of a wrestling match over who gets to run my body.”

“Do you always lose?”

“Not for long. We’re not going to St. Johns, are we?”

“I don’t think skipping out on this party is an option.”

“Then you go. I have a Necromorph to hunt.”

He wiped his hand over his face, then rubbed his palm over his jeans. The pressure of the building storm was growing strong enough now, I was starting to feel it like a migraine behind my eyes.

“I want Greyson dead,” he finally said. “No questions. But if we don’t deal with the magic, with the storm, we’ll lose the chance to get Zayvion back. Until the wild magic passes, all bets with magic-how it’s going to work, when it’s going to work-are off.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I can handle myself. With or without magic.”

“I know. And if you’re set on it, on the hunt, then I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not how this works. I’m making this decision for myself. Alone.”

“That is exactly how this works. You don’t go anywhere without me. You don’t go anywhere alone. I won’t let that happen. Like it or not.”

“Get off my back, Flynn.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “You’d rather I get on your front? What would Zayvion say?”

“He’d tell you to shut up and hunt.”

“Planning on it. But even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go into a hunt without weapons. And until we have magic-until both of us have magic at our disposal-hunting Greyson is a waste of time.”

He had a point. And it finally soaked through my stubborn head. Magic first. Because once I had magic, was filled with it again, it wasn’t going to take me any time to find Greyson and kick his ass.

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine,” he agreed.

“Why are we going to Maeve’s and not straight to St. Johns?”

“I need to pick up a couple things.”

I was glad. After having my dad run roughshod over my body and emotions, I wanted to look in on Zay. Tell him I was okay. Tell him he was going to be okay too, and to not give up on us. Tell him I hadn’t given up on finding Greyson, no matter what I told Shame.

It didn’t take long to get across town to the other side of the river. But even in that short time, the sky changed. Clouds, lots of them, all the shades of gray and black, gathered. Some of them tinted with a watercolor wash of green and blue and burnt orange. There was magic in the sky. And it was coming to kill us all.

Shame pulled up beside his mother’s inn. The inn seemed to be doing business as usual. A dozen or so cars were in the parking lot, and when we walked through the front door, the dining room had only a few empty tables. The one thing that was different was I didn’t see Maeve anywhere in the room, talking to patrons, or pouring coffee.

One of the other girls who worked the place, Kathy, looked up at us. Shame still had his hood up. He raised his hand in greeting, and she nodded. We walked along the outer edge of the room and through the arch to the hall beyond. I started up the stairs that led to the rooms above.

“You coming?” I asked when I didn’t hear Shame’s footsteps behind me.

“Downstairs first. See you outside?”

“Five minutes?”

“That should do.”

I took the stairs a little faster. If I only had five minutes before I went off to fight a storm of wild magic, I wanted to spend those five minutes with Zay.

I hesitated at the door to his room. Thought about knocking. Knew it would only hurt more when he didn’t answer, so instead, I just opened the door.

The light was dimmer in here, making the strange-colored clouds hanging outside in the darkness seem even more eerie.

Two beds. The one I’d been in was empty and had been remade.

But in the other bed was Zayvion. I walked over to him, trying to be quiet, and feeling stupid about that. I wanted him to wake up. So why was I being so careful not to disturb him?

I walked up to the head of the bed.

Even sleeping, he was a handsome man. In the low light, his skin looked like burnt bronze, his hair a dark tangle of midnight. I brushed my fingers through his hair, then down his cheek. Finally, I brushed my finger over his lips, hoping he could feel my touch.

The cool, steady exhalation of his breath against my fingers gave me hope. He was still breathing. On his own. There was very little medical equipment hooked up to him, an IV, and something that ran under his blanket, to attach to his chest. His skin was warm to the touch.

He looked alive. My sleeping beauty.

But I knew he was not in there, not in his body. And no matter how long his body breathed, without his soul, his spirit, or whatever part of him that had been shoved into the gate between life and death, I knew he would never wake up.

I didn’t know how long they would keep him like this. How long until they gave up on him.

Shame said it was possible to open a gate as soon as magic normalized. I didn’t know if that would help Zayvion find his way home, but it was all I had to hope for right now. And if that didn’t work, then I’d find something else that did.

But first we had to take care of the storm.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” I said to Zay. “You still owe me that horses-on-ice-skates thing. I plan to collect.” I brushed my fingers across his lips again, thought about kissing him.

“Just don’t die,” I whispered. I concentrated on projecting my words, my thoughts, to him though my fingertips. Willed them into his mind, his heart. “Don’t give up on me. We’re going to St. Johns to take care of the storm. And after that, I am going to find a way to get you home. A gate. If you see a gate open, all you have to do is step through it. I’ll be waiting on the other side.”

I knew this wasn’t a fairy tale. Still, I bent, kissed him on the corner of his mouth, ignoring that, yes, he was motionless, unresponsive, not even a flicker of his awareness stirring at my touch. There wasn’t any magic in the kiss, but there was something just as strong: a promise that we were in this together.

I straightened and the crystal in my pocket clunked against the side of the bed. I dug it out.

It was warmer, pinker, the shadows dusty blue. It was filling with magic, though I didn’t know how it could collect it when even the best magic user couldn’t tap into the cisterns and networks right now. Maybe the crystal had a default mode that allowed it to collect whatever scraps of magic it could find to fill the emptiness.

Maybe it could help Zay. I thought about leaving it here. The crystal might act as a beacon for him.

My dad, who had been wisely silent this entire time, brushed the backs of my eyes gently.

The crystal is passive, he said. It holds magic and gives it up when tapped correctly. It will not call a soul, save a soul, or hold a soul. It carries magic, deep, natural, but it works no magic on its own.

I didn’t want to listen to him. I was heavy into hating him for what he had done to me. But his thoughts were weary, as if he had lost the hope of making me believe him, but tried anyway.

Will it hurt him if I leave it here?

No, but there are those within the Authority who may take it for themselves.

He was right about that. One of the reasons I kept Stone under wraps was because when the Authority found out I had him, they brought him here and were going to keep him for study. And even though the crystal was smaller, it was no less amazing than the gargoyle.

Dad was telling the truth. And it seemed to be a truth that would help rather than hinder me.

Weird.

That still didn’t make it okay for him to run me around like a puppet.

I put the crystal back in my pocket.

“Allie?” Shame pushed on the door. “Ready?”

“Has it been five minutes?”

“More like fifteen.” He stepped in and leaned against the wall. From the way he moved, I knew he had stashed more weapons on his body. A lot more.

“Do you know where Zayvion’s sword is?” I asked.

“Probably. Why?”

“I want to take it with me.”

“This is a peaceful gathering. We’re setting up storm rods, or something-Terric wasn’t very clear about that. But it’s not going to be a fight.”

“I’d feel better with a sword on me. As soon as we deal with the storm, and get Zayvion back through a gate, I won’t have to make a special stop to gear up before hunting Greyson.”

“Thought you might have that in mind.” With a little contorting, Shame pulled Zayvion’s blade out from the sheath he had strapped to his back.

Peaceful gathering, my ass.

“His knife?” I asked. I took the blade-not the machete Zay usually used on Hungers and for other magical threats, but a beautifully balanced sword, his katana. I’d used it a couple times in practice. It fit my hand and reach better than a machete, but it was harder to convince a police officer why it was in the trunk of a car. So for quick dirty hunts, a magic-worked machete was best.

I don’t know where Shame pulled the knife out of, but I was glad he had it on him. Zayvion’s blood blade was long, slender, deadly, centered with a beveled crystal and glyphs that were carved into the metal and glass, ash black against the shiny dagger. It was familiar, the first weapon Zay had given me, trusting that with it I would be able to protect myself.

Call me sentimental, but that knife was more romantic than a car full of pink roses.

I tucked it in my belt. Shame handed me the sheath for Zay’s sword, which I strapped on my back, before shrugging back into my jacket.

“Anything else?” Shame asked.

“Hold on.”

I stepped over to Zay, rested my forehead against his. “Come home to me,” I whispered. “I love you.”

Magic beneath my feet bucked and I braced against the bed frame to keep from falling. Something, low thunder with the strangest high wail behind it, like a horde of the dead come calling, skittered at the edge of my hearing.

I looked at Shame. “You felt that?”

“The storm,” he said. “It’s about to break. We need to haul.”

I brushed my fingers one last time over Zay’s lips. Then I jogged across the room out to the hall. Shame was already at the stairs and heading down. He was also on his phone.

“How much longer?” Pause. “Fuck. Yes, we’ll make it.”

“How much longer?” I asked.

“Maybe ten minutes. Maybe not.” We took the stairs as fast as we could without falling, then used the side door to exit the building.

“Car’s here,” he said. “I moved it.”

Smart thinking.

We ran.

Got to the car, got in, got going.

Stone was sitting up in the backseat, his big face pressed to the window, his eyes searching the sky. He crooned, a lonely sound, and his wings trembled.

“Stay in the car, boy. It’s gonna get messy out there.”

He crooned again, but didn’t try to get out. The big lug was moving better. Maybe because there was magic coming our way, roiling across the sky. Maybe the storm was helping him. Wild magic was, after all, still magic.

Halfway across the bridge, magic rolled again, like a hot wind pushing through the car, through my skin, my bones.

I hissed, and Shame grunted. “Lord. This is gonna be such an ass-kicking,” he said. “Ours.”

He drove at a terrifying speed, one boot on the gas, both hands on the wheel, eyes narrowed in concentration. I stopped watching the traffic around us as soon as the number of impending collisions got into the vicinity of two digits.

The void stone between my breasts went warm, then pulsed cold. My skin itched.

Over the bridge now, and rolling up to the St. Johns neighborhood. Before we reached the tracks that separated St. Johns from the rest of the city, magic rumbled and rolled again, and I saw the faulty-lightbulb flicker of lightning somewhere high, high above us.

“Do you know where?” I asked.

“The bridge.”

“What is it about that bridge?” I scrubbed at my arms, but the itching only got worse. “Too many weird things happen there.”

Shame didn’t answer. We were over the railroad track and into St. Johns. Even in the darkness, St. Johns looked like it always looked. Magic never prettied it up to make it into something marketers would approve of. St. Johns wore her face bare, and even if she wasn’t perfect, she was more beautiful because of her flaws.

Broken-down, homey, unapologetic, St. Johns wore many faces. All of them the truth.

Crossing the railroad track made my teeth hurt. Not like there was no magic in St. Johns, but like there was far too much magic here.

Stone clacked a low growl and rubbed the top of his head against the back of Shame’s seat. Stone felt it too. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Shame took the speedometer down out of death-defying, and worked off the main drag toward the towering green arc of the St. Johns Bridge.

“In the park?” I asked.

“I think so.” He got us there in too little time. Parked in the open lot and got out.

I turned to Stone. “You stay here, boy. Sleep, okay?”

Stone’s ears flattened, then perked back up. He tipped his head and looked out the window, making the bag-of-marbles sound and then the coo again. He jiggled the door handle.

“No. Don’t go out. Don’t leave the car.” I pointed at him and he let go of the handle. “Sleep,” I commanded.

He clacked, then clunked his snout against the window, ears up in triangles.

I hoped he would stay put. I didn’t want anyone in the Authority to see him. I locked the doors and stepped out.

The air had so much magic in it, it felt like it was made out of lead. It weighed on my shoulders, legs, and feet, crushing. Shame had lit up and sucked his cigarette down to half ash. His face was tipped toward the sky, his neck exposed, hood fallen away, to let his dark hair fall free from his eyes. Eyes closed, the arc of his body was taut with ecstasy as he drank the magic down.

He held the cigarette smoke captive in his open mouth, then exhaled, his mouth still open, eyes still closed in rapture.

The air broke under the impact of thunder. Shame moaned away the rest of the smoke, and took in a breath like it was his first, like he could suck down the sky and still not be full.

He opened his eyes. “Fuck yes,” he said up into the rain. “That’s what I needed. More. Much more of that.”

I finally got a full breath myself. “This is not good.”

“It’s magic. It’s never good.” Shame grinned at me. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.”

“Not if it’s wild magic.”

I’d been through a few wild-magic storms before, fast-moving tangles of lightning and thunder and magic. Beckstrom Storm Rods did their job and channeled the strikes of lightning and magic down into the glyphed channels that stored magic throughout the city.

This was different.

This storm had death on its wings.

“Come on,” I said.

I jogged across the parking lot toward the center of Cathedral Park, Shame at my side. Above us, thunder broke, the high demonic wail an earsplitting echo. Magic crackled through the sky, tracing out in flashes of glyphs.

Lights on the bridge flickered. A rolling blackout washed over the city downriver.

The void stone at my neck burned.

I ran, but my feet moved mud-slow. My breath came too quickly, too loudly. The void stone flashed cold again as lightning the color of dead roses webbed the sky with wild, elongated glyphs and spells.

Even my feet itched.

What had Maeve said? We were wearing the stones because when magic came back, the stones might help us not burn to death? Nice. And since I held magic inside me, I was in for a world of pain. Maybe Shame had the stone pressed against his neck for another reason. Like to keep him from drinking down too much energy once it hit.

What if magic wouldn’t fill me again? What if it was a onetime thing, back when Cody had pulled it through my bones? Maybe now that it was gone, it was going to stay gone, leaving nothing behind but some ribbon tattoos.

I hoped not. I had a lot of things I wanted to do with magic right now, one of them being taking out Greyson. I wanted the magic back. I wanted that power back.

The pathway parallel to the river hooked uphill. Even though it was dark, the trees weren’t leafed out enough to hide the flicker of the warehouse and factory lights on the river. I wondered if there were people there. People who were about to get hurt.

“And I repeat: fuck yes,” Shame said beside me. “That’s beauty.” He pointed.

I looked over to where the bridge angled across on huge arched pillars. Magic lingered there. A lot of it. Not from the storm, thundering like a mountain being hammered down. This magic was contained, controlled, almost mechanical in its perfection. I knew the Authority had to be behind that magic. Shame had one thing right: it was beautiful.

And I knew that magic came from the disks. Hundreds of them.

The Authority had broken into Violet’s labs and stolen these disks from her. They had hurt her, maybe killed her baby, and hurt Kevin, one of their own. I didn’t know anything that would justify those actions. Not even this. But I was willing to tame the storm first and take names for ass kicking later.

Shame strode toward the wall of magic that had been cast in such a masterful Illusion that it mimicked the park perfectly. I started off after him, and pushed through the spongy resistance as I crossed that magical barrier. Someone who wasn’t determined would not be able to get through the Illusion-it had a weight and a Diversion woven in it that would repel people and animals.

This, apparently, was a private party.

I don’t know what I expected to see on the other side. Something gothic, magic going off like fireworks, maybe wizards’ robes and pointed hats and wands, which I had yet to see in all my time in the Authority.

What I saw was even better.

The Authority, all the men and women who were supposed to make sure magic was used correctly, that the common citizen wasn’t destroyed by it, that the world benefited from it, stood shoulder to shoulder, creating a circle.

No longer in street clothes, they wore what I could only assume they liked to cast magic in. Maeve had on her leather pants and stiletto heels, Hayden his leather bomber jacket and lumberjack boots. The twins Carl and La wore loose-legged pants and kimono-like shirts. The rest were in a variety of leather, tight-or loose-fitting coats and jackets, none longer than knee-length, and all of them had weapons at their sides.

I expected the atmosphere to be grim. What I didn’t expect was the mood behind the magic.

The magic users did not like one another.

The magic users did not like being here, working together.

The magic users were all waiting for someone to make a wrong move.

Angry, suspicious, explosive. Just the kind of situation I liked to stay far, far away from.

There were two places open in the circle. One next to Terric, which I was surprised to see Shame stride over and fill, and one next to Sedra. I supposed that one was mine, though I wondered if it had once been my father’s, or Zayvion’s.

I crossed the grass uphill, conscious of the body language of everyone who stood still and focused. Even though the general mood was hate, they were, for the moment, each doing their job. They held their hands in front of them, and as I came nearer, I saw why.

At the feet of each of them was a disk. Small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, the disks were silver and black. Since I’d gotten a pretty good look at the one in Greyson’s neck, I knew the disks had glyphs carved through them.

The disks gave off a soft pastel light. Magic I could see with my bare eyes rose in wisps, held in stasis by the magic user’s hand and will.

I took my place beside Sedra. There was no disk on the grass in front of me.

What? The new girl didn’t get to play?

“This completes our circle,” Sedra said before I could point out that I didn’t have a shiny toy like everyone else.

“This completes our power,” she continued. “We stand together facing a common threat. Magic rises in our world, claiming the sky. It is our duty to bring it once again to the heart of the earth.”

A few people looked over at her, or pointedly avoided her gaze. Wasn’t that interesting? Liddy didn’t look at her. Neither did Mike Barham, and half a dozen other people. No, instead they looked at one another.

Uh-oh.

The sky above us clotted with color. Lightning flashed again, shattered the sky with wild glyphs so bright I couldn’t blink away the burn. Even flash-blind, I thought I saw a shadow moving back by the trees on the other side of the wall of magic. Short, female.

It was Mama Rositto, the woman whose youngest boy had been used as a Proxy, and almost killed, to cover up my father’s murder several months ago. I used to Hound for her, but after her boy had been hurt, and her son James had been thrown in jail, she’d made it clear I wasn’t welcome in her life.

What would she be doing out in the park in a storm?

With the Illusion up, she wouldn’t see us, couldn’t see us. And if we did our job right, she’d go her way, take her walk or whatever it was she was doing, without ever suspecting that the most powerful magic users in Portland were about to bring the sky, and all the magic in it, crashing down in her backyard.

Lightning flashed and thunder exploded so close they joined.

A drop of rain hit my head. Then another.

Great. Why did it always rain when the world needed saving?

The disks around the circle flickered as rain pattered through the rising magic.

I looked around, uncertain as to how this was a storm rod that was going to channel the magic. Unless they intended to channel bits of the magic into the disks at their feet. Even so, there weren’t nearly enough disks to contain that storm.

The big, heavy figure of Jingo Jingo lumbered out into the center of the circle. He carried a sack over his back. Lightning struck, painting him pale as a horror-movie Santa Claus. A flash of ghostly faces, children’s faces, swarmed around his body, tied to him, clinging to him in sorrow and desperation.

Darkness returned, snuffing out the ghosts.

But I knew I’d see them in my nightmares.

Jingo swung the bag off his back and upended it.

Disks poured out, dozens and dozens, striking one another in sweet glass tones, primal music and magic, ringing in song so pure I caught my breath. Disks and magic poured into a pile, a mountain, a treasure of glittering, beautiful power.

I moaned softly. I wasn’t the only one.

There it was-the unattainable dream. Easy magic.

Safely contained, safely used. No price to pay. Ready to do what you wanted it to do. At no cost.

I wanted it to stop a storm. I wanted it to help me open a gate so I could get Zayvion back.

I looked around the circle, at faces brushed in liquid light from the disks at their feet. I saw awe, doubt, greed. I saw anger, and fear. All the good things a human could feel and all the bad, played out across the faces of those gathered.

The Authority, Zayvion had told me, was on the brink of a war.

And someone had just poured a pile of loaded weapons at their feet.

“Allison Beckstrom,” Jingo Jingo said. “Come forward now.”

“What?” Thunder struck, covering my voice. I shot a panicked look at Shame and Terric, both of whom looked away from the thrall of the disks and at me. They looked as confused as I felt.

“We need a focal point,” Sedra said softly next to me. “I had hoped there would be another way. If Zayvion hadn’t fallen, he would be the one standing here. I would not have asked this of you.”

“Asked what of me? Explain-” Lightning, thunder. I waited them out, or at least until the thunder’s volume went down a notch. Tried again, “Explain what you think I’m going to do.”

She smiled, and it looked out of place beneath her cool, brittle eyes, as if there were two different people with two different emotions behind that face. “You are going to direct the wild magic. You don’t need to wield it, don’t need to absorb it. You simply need to Ground it, into the disks.”

How had she not noticed that I sucked at Grounding? I thought my teachers reported to her about me. I wasn’t even any good at keeping control over the magic inside me and never left home without a void stone anymore.

Volatile was the polite word my teachers used when they didn’t think I was listening. You’d think someone would have pointed that out to her.

“I don’t Ground.”

Her eyebrows flicked up. “You will do so now. If you are the Soul Complement to the Guardian of the Gate, then you will be strong enough. We will divert the wild magic to you, and you will Ground it. Using the disks.”

“I’m a lightning rod? A storm rod?” I blinked back rain that trickled into the corners of my eyes. “I tapped into a wild storm and it almost killed me.”

“Zayvion wielded all manifestations of magic. It is now your time to prove you can do the same. Prove that you really are his equal.” This last bit she said with more anger than I expected. I got the feeling she didn’t like me very much.

“Zayvion’s had a hell of a lot more training than I have.”

“There is only you. If you don’t channel the magic, the city will burn, magic will explode, melt the conduits, destroy. People will die. Zayvion will die.”

“What? Why?”

“He has been broken by magic. And only magic-dark and light-can make him whole again.”

Holy shit. “So if the storm hits, it’s going to kill him?”

“If we don’t control it, yes.” I did not like the pitying smile she gave me. It looked like she wanted me to fail.

Well, screw that.

The entire conversation lasted all of a few seconds. It scared the crap out of me. But I was getting tired of standing there getting wet and arguing about things I knew too little about.

Not knowing what the hell I was doing had never stopped me before. And so far, not knowing what I was doing with magic hadn’t killed me.

But this time it wasn’t just my life on the line. It was Zay’s life, and the lives of people in the city-Violet’s life, her baby’s life.

If I failed and magic blew out the conduits in the city, thousands could die.

Maybe some of the fear showed on my face.

Victor, who stood next to Sedra, said, “We will guide you. We will be your hands if you falter, your strength if you fear, your breath if you fall.”

That was good and all, but what I really needed was someone to be my sense of self-preservation and oh, I don’t know, tell me to run away now and run real fast.

Since that wasn’t going to happen, I nodded and pushed my fear as far away as I could. I was good at denial.

I walked out into the center of the circle where Jingo Jingo waited for me.

“You’re gonna do just fine, Allison,” Jingo Jingo said in his low, smooth liar’s voice. “You were born for this, made for this.” He smiled, but there was a fevered gloss in his eyes. Even in the rain I could tell he was sweating. Even in the rain, I could smell his lie.

Or maybe I was reading too much into this. Panic will do that to a girl. I took a deep breath, and squared my shoulders.

“What do I need to do?”

Jingo Jingo stepped closer to me and ran his hand down my arm, petting my right shoulder and stroking down to my fingers, which he caught up. It was weird, creepy, invasive. I gave him a look that let him know exactly what I thought about that.

“You’re gonna stand here.” He guided me around the pile of disks so I stood facing Sedra.

Sedra looked calm and cool as an ice sculpture. Which is to say she looked like she always looked.

Well, that and wet. Lightning flashed, painting ragged glyphs across the sky, and for a second, less than that, I thought I saw something else in her, something under her skin that was dark, twisted.

Panic shot through me. I looked at the other users gathered. There was something wrong with their body language. Too many sideways glances, meaningful looks. Even Liddy, my teacher in Death magic, looked tense, as if she was waiting for her cue.

Sedra might be the head of this parade, but I was pretty sure some of the band didn’t want to march.

“All you need to do is hold this,” Jingo Jingo continued. He bent, dug through the piles of disks. They were all the same. I didn’t know what he was looking for. He finally selected one and placed it in my palm. “And meditate.”

Meditate? Oh, yeah. That would be no problem in the middle of a wild-magic storm surrounded by a circle of users-all better trained than me, all giving one another hateful looks-with a big pile of free magic at my feet.

Okay, yes, granted, you had to have a clear mind to actually cast magic, and high emotion destroys the concentration it takes to access magic. But meditation takes time to do well. So if my ability to meditate was what was going to save the world, or at least save Portland, then I was pretty sure we should all think about moving to Seattle.

“Meditate,” I said. “Right, then what?”

Jingo Jingo stood in front of me. I could smell his fear, bitter and sharp on the back of my sinuses. And something else-the candy sweet of excitement, anticipation. He licked his lips. He was looking forward to this, anxious, eager. “Then, you are going to do the right thing, Allison Beckstrom. And you won’t need me to tell you what that is.”

He stepped back, putting rain and space between us. Lightning flashed again and thunder broke the sky to pieces. I had zero chance to tell him how incredibly unhelpful he had been.

Some teacher. Going silent on me when I most needed a clear answer. Bastard.

Okay, I had my disk. It was heavy and cool in my hand. And I had my sword. It was heavy and cool on my back. It shouldn’t, but just the presence of Zayvion’s blade made me feel better, like a part of him was with me, telling me, calmly, to stop thinking so hard, and just kick some ass.

And that was exactly what I planned on doing. I was about to meditate like no one had ever meditated before.

Yes, that sounded stupid.

I took a deep breath, spread my feet so I wouldn’t fall over when the winds picked up.

Just as I began to close the outside world away from my senses, the storm tore open the sky, the air. And the magic beneath the earth rushed into me, and burned through me.