Magic on the Storm

Chapter Three

A hand landed on my left shoulder. I yelled, pivoted, and swung.

“Holy shit!” a voice said.

My fist whiffed through empty air. That was because Shamus Flynn was fast. He ducked and skidded down two steps, neatly avoiding a broken nose.

He laughed. “You have got to lay off the coffee, Beckstrom. You’re all twitchy and whatnot.”

“I thought. .” I was breathing hard. Felt a little sick too. Didn’t know if it was from the overwhelming smells, the half-beast killer guy staring at me, my dad’s voice seeming to come from the half-beast killer guy, or the feeling of my dead dad scraping at the backs of my eyes again.

Why choose? It was all of the above.

Greyson, back when he was just a man, had been one of my father’s murderers. I’d seen that memory from sharing my head with my dad. And since Greyson had one of dad’s experimental disks stuck in his throat, it was a pretty easy leap to guess that someone had stuck it in his neck and used it to keep him in his current state of half man, half beast. The disks could hold magic, and somehow the disk in Greyson held both dark and light magic, and whatever spell worked into it made him the half beast.

My guess was that Dr. Frank Gordon had done it to him, probably around the same time he’d dug up my dad’s grave and tried to possess my dad’s spirit to open up a gateway to death and draw dark magic into the world. Things hadn’t gone the way Dr. Frank Gordon had wanted them to go. Namely, instead of doing what Frank wanted, my dad had possessed me.

Then Greyson had hunted me. Well, not me. He wanted my dad’s spirit. I didn’t know why. Maybe revenge-that seemed like the easiest answer. What I did know was that letting Greyson get his hands on my dad’s spirit, and maybe my dad’s knowledge of magic, fell squarely in the middle of my Bad Things list.

And to make it all worse, Greyson used to be Chase’s boyfriend, maybe even her Soul Complement. She had dumped Zayvion to be with Greyson before Greyson had gotten so screwed up.

I closed my eyes, trying to regain my calm. I was okay; everything was okay. The cage would hold Greyson. Why did they have him caged?

Why was Dad talking from way over there? My dad wasn’t in Greyson. He was in me. Maybe not the best thing, but certainly better than the other options.

“Allison,” Maeve said. “Come down the stairs.” She didn’t put Influence behind it, didn’t even make it sound like a command. Just calm, gentle. Motherly.

If I remembered correctly, I wasn’t listening to her motherly commands.

I opened my eyes. Zayvion, Shame, and Maeve all stood on the bottom step, looking up at me like I was about to burst into flames.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just. It’s just.” I took a step. My knees went wet-noodle and I had to hold the rail to keep from falling. What the hell was wrong with me?

I gritted my teeth and pulled my shoulders back. I could do this. I could walk down these stairs without falling. Did it too. Stood in front of Maeve, breathing a little too hard, sweating a little too much.

She put one finger under my chin and looked up into my eyes.

The good thing? One look from her and Dad stopped scraping at the backs of my eyes.

The bad thing? Greyson growled. Not quite a howl. It was more of a low moan-yell. The hairs on my arms pricked up, and goose bumps tightened my skin.

Allison, I heard my father whisper. Yes, from outside my head. Again.

“I don’t think. .” My breath gave out, so I tried again. “I don’t think you need to look,” I managed. “He’s there. And in Greyson. I think he’s in Greyson too.”

Maeve’s eyes flicked back and forth, probably seeing more inside me than I really wanted her to.

Greyson howled as Maeve looked deeper in my mind for my dad. He wanted the rest of my dad’s spirit in me. The cage shook. I hoped the steel bars could hold him. I hoped the magic in this room could hold him.

“We have been through Greyson’s mind,” Maeve said. “Jingo Jingo has been through his mind and has seen nothing, no trace of your father in him.”

Yeah, well, Jingo Jingo had been through my mind and said my father wasn’t there either. I’d already told her that a dozen times. She never believed me.

“You know what I think about Jingo Jingo’s ability to sense my father.” It came out calm. Reasonable. Strong.

Go, me.

“I do. Jingo Jingo is an expert at sensing the dead. You are not.”

“Jingo Jingo isn’t the one who’s possessed.”

We stared at each other for a couple seconds.

“He could be wrong,” I pressed.

Maeve was a woman made of stubborn. So was I.

“Can you feel the well?” she asked, suddenly switching subjects.

I held my breath, trying to keep from yelling. The well was the least of our problems. The caged killer Necromorph half-beast dude over there, who had a part of my father in his head that no one else could see, and a desire to drag the rest of dear ol’ dad out of me even if it meant killing me, was something I thought we should all be a little worried about. “Why?” I asked.

“Just answer me.” She was not amused. Not playing games. Not happy.

Yeah, well, that made two of us.

I leaned back on one foot and glanced at Zayvion. He watched me, fists clenched at his sides belying that oh-so-Zen mask. He’d been helping me keep my dad blocked in my mind. Taught me a few spells that seemed to be working to keep Dad quiet. Until now.

I raised one eyebrow, to let him know I could handle it.

Shame, however, was pacing across the room away from us, like a man walks on rice paper. His head was tilted down at an odd angle, as if he were listening to his footsteps. His hands were lifted slightly above his waist, fingers spread. He was trying to hear something, sense something. Something beneath the floor.

He was listening for magic.

I realized I couldn’t feel it like I had before. The deep strumming heat of it beneath the room, beneath the tiles. Outside the inn, the well was usually no more than a faint presence, but down here, the well radiated power.

Or at least it had the day I’d taken my test. And now the well felt-not empty, but certainly less strong, less radiating, less full.

“It’s different,” I said.

Shame paused over tiles that were gray going on black. He knelt, stuck his fingertips against the marble. Took a deep breath, let it out, then rocked back on his heels. “Damn.”

He patted the pocket of his jacket, looking for cigarettes, found them, tapped one out.

“Don’t smoke in here,” Maeve said. Then to me, “How is it different?”

I glanced at Zay. He had moved silently to stand next to Greyson’s cage. Maybe he didn’t want to influence me. Maybe he wanted to pound Greyson.

He wasn’t the only one.

“You want me to Hound the room?”

“First I want you to tell me what you feel. What you sense.”

I’d learned that when Maeve asked me to do something in her teacher voice, she wasn’t really asking. Normally, it bothered me and I gave her lip for it.

But there was something very wrong about the well and the magic here. Something that made me want to go home to my apartment, home to my stone gargoyle, and stay as far away from the Authority and magic as I could.

Like ducking for cover before a storm hit.

Who was I kidding? Even if I went home, I couldn’t get away from magic. It flowed under the entire city, through the conduits and Gothic glyphed cage work that wrapped every building. And it flowed through me.

I tucked my hair behind my ear, my hand trembling. I walked across the room until I stood in the center of it, and stopped just short of where Shame knelt.

The same down-the-throat horror that I usually got from enclosed spaces skittered through my brain and set fire to my nerves. My heart was pounding too hard. I wanted to turn back. I wanted very much not to do this.

Shame watched me from his position on the floor. He placed one hand on the tiles, palm flat. I hoped he wasn’t planning to Proxy or Ground me. I was shaky. I wasn’t sure how magic was going to respond to my cast, or if it would respond at all.

I stopped, spread my feet so I had a chance of staying on them if things got bad. I resisted looking behind me to see what Maeve, Zayvion, and Greyson were doing. Instead, I calmed my mind: Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. .

I licked my lips. Instead of tracing a glyph in the air, I tipped my head up to the angel-wing ceiling, dropped my hands at my sides, fingers wide and open, and drew the glyph for Seek at my side. I reached out with my senses, using a little magic from inside me to seek. I sent my mental fingers deep, deep into the earth beneath me.

The well was not there. I frowned, reached deeper, sent my magic farther. Finally felt the well, a glow of magic, a heat, yet so far away. The magic was there, still pooling, still flowing, but it was like an ocean at low tide. Or like someone had punched a hole in the well, and magic was draining away. I didn’t feel it filling any other space, didn’t feel it creating new channels, new rivers. Didn’t feel it pouring out through the iron and glass conduits that channeled the magic that flowed freely beyond the well.

Something, or someone, was draining an enormous amount of magic out of the well.

Holy shit.

Magic inside of me went cold and sticky. I wanted to puke. Okay. That was enough of trying to touch the well. I let go of the small Seek spell and tipped my head back down.

Shame watched me with a grin on his face. Nice, he mouthed.

I took a couple breaths, maintaining eye contact with him until I was confident my panic didn’t show. How could he be so calm? Maybe the well emptied out like this all the time. Maybe I was overreacting.

I turned back to Maeve and Zayvion. “Do you really want to talk about this here?”

Maeve frowned. “Why?”

“Greyson.”

“He is contained. Controlled. He cannot hear us. Or see us.”

I glanced over her shoulder. Greyson glared at me from amid the shadows of his cage.

I was pretty sure he saw me.

“Isn’t there a better place to keep him?”

Maeve folded her arms over her chest. “This is the safest place for him exactly because he is near the well.”

I did not believe her. This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. People who use magic to murder should not be anywhere near magic, much less a well of it. How did she not get that?

“What did you feel?” she asked.

Fine. I’d do it her way. But I wasn’t happy about it.

“Something is draining the well.”

I didn’t think Maeve could get any paler. The freckles on her cheeks suddenly seemed darker, and a greenish hue lined her lips.

“The storm?” Zay asked.

“It must be,” she said. “Allie, you hold magic inside your body. Can you sense anything unusual about it within you?”

Other than that it was cold, sticky, and giving me the creeps? “It’s usually warm, or hot. It feels cold. Kind of sticky.”

Shame snorted.

I made a mental note: smack him when his mom wasn’t looking.

“Has it ever felt that way before?” she asked.

“That I can remember? No.”

“Do you feel magic being drained out of you?”

I took a second to concentrate on the magic inside me again. It felt strong right now, just. . wrong. “No. It’s still there.”

“That’s good news.” She didn’t smile. “Shame, come stand with us,” she continued as if this were class. “Allie, I’d like you to Hound the room, to see if there are any unusual spells here.”

She was such a kidder. Every spell, ward, and glyph worked into this room was unusual. Still, I knew what she meant. She wanted me to look for predatory spells, Drains, Siphons, anything else that might be used to screw up the well.

It might help if I knew how the well worked, or how the spells and wards and glyphs normally reacted to being so near it. Nothing like throwing the new girl into the deep end of the magic pool and telling her to dive for pearls.

Good thing my lack of knowledge had never stopped me from doing stupid things before.

I calmed my mind, used my little jingle again, and chose which price I would pay to use magic. My standard pain lately had been muscle aches. Don’t get me wrong: it still hurt to use magic, but since I was working out and hurting anyway, and had the funds to get a massage and soak in the steam room or hot tub every once in a while, I figured muscle aches made the most sense.

I set the Disbursement for muscle aches, then drew the glyphs for Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste.

Spells keyed to life beneath my vision. Pale fire in rainbow metallics crawled up the columns, across the walls. Shadow glyphs, glowing in deeper tones than those on the walls and ceiling, burned like dark ghosts shifting beneath the marble tiles.

Wow. It wasn’t just glyphs worked into the room. The entire room, including the winged arches, was a glyph, carved and constructed to carry magic, to channel it, to hold it, keep it, hide it, tap it.

The art, the vision, the intimate knowledge of architecture and how spells blended, contrasted, strengthened, and weakened, were stunning. I didn’t know who had created this room, but whoever they were, they were brilliant. Genius.

“Allie?”

It was Maeve. I licked my lips and realized I’d been standing there and staring, transfixed by the beauty and power of the room, instead of Hounding.

Embarrassed much?

I paced to the wall opposite the stairway, and made my way along the perimeter of the room. I dragged my fingertips across the wall as I went. The soft, ancient wood, carved and placed here long before this was a train station, long before this was even a building, thrummed beneath my touch. Magic darkened and rippled away from me, like water beneath a soft wind.

The glyphs shifted from one discipline to another as I made my way around the room. Faith, Death, Blood, Life. Nothing seemed strained, strange, or out of place. All magics flowed and merged in harmony I’d never seen before. All magic working together as one.

If something here was draining the well, I didn’t think it was in this room.

I stopped next to Zayvion, in front of Greyson’s cage. I had every intention to Hound that cage. I wanted to know that it could really hold him. The binding, holding, and ward spells were strong, but there was a hint of something, a darkness beneath them, that worried me.

I wondered if the spells were being drained like the well. I reached out to touch the cage. The spells were strong. Whole.

Greyson growled, animal gaze fixed on my face.

He saw me. Or my dad in me. I was sure of it. And I was sure Greyson was not blind to what was going on in the room.

“You are mine.” His voice was little more than shadow scraping skin, but I felt it to my bones.

“Like hell,” I whispered. I pulled my hand away and I released the magic, letting my senses snap back into more normal ranges. I walked away from the cage, away from the murderer in the cage, even though doing so made me want to run. Got three steps before I found Zayvion stood so near me, I almost ran into him.

“Not good,” I said quietly.

He frowned, then brushed his fingertips down my cheek, tracing the whorls of magic and wiping away the sweat.

Sweet hells. Hounding the room hadn’t been as easy as I thought. I was exhausted. I blinked, my eyes staying closed a little too long, and realized if I blinked again, I’d be asleep.

Zay’s hand ran over my right arm, a warmth, a comfort. He drew me farther from the cage, and a little bit of his strength flowed through our connection and into me. I felt more awake.

Still, I wanted to take his hand and tell him we had to leave now. Before the cold, sticky flow of magic inside me got worse. Before Greyson got better at seeing me. Before that cage fell apart. Before the storm hit.

But I did not do that.

He stepped away from me, and I did from him too. We had business to take care of. Maybe even a city to save.

Like superheroes.

Right.

“I don’t see anything out of place,” I told Maeve. “But I’ve never Hounded the room under normal circumstances. If you were bringing me in to see if someone had cast a spell to purposely change the flow of magic in the well, I didn’t see anything that could accomplish that.”

She visibly exhaled. Oh, she had been very, very worried about what I would find. And that worried me. If she thought it was that likely someone would come in here and mess up the well, I was more than a little terrified at their security measures.

“It’s a start. Thank you.” She strode across the room to the staircase, and Zay and I followed.

“Did you think someone broke in?” I asked.

“No, but not all members of the Authority have the same agendas. There is always the chance someone has played their hand.”

Why can’t the secret, powerful magic users all just get along?

“The meeting is at ten o’clock,” she said. “Upstairs. I want all three of you there.”

Shame scoffed.

“Yes, even you, Shamus Flynn. You’ll not shirk your duty this time.”

This time? That sounded interesting.

Still crouched in the center of the room, Shame straightened, then strolled toward the stairs. He wasn’t looking at his mom, or at us. His eyes were on Greyson. And Greyson’s eyes were still on me.

Shame frowned, tipped his head to get a better angle on Greyson’s gaze. Followed it. Right to my eyes. Raised his eyebrows when he found Greyson’s gaze ended at me.

Yeah, I didn’t like it either. And the less time I was in Greyson’s eyesight, the better. I turned and walked up the stairs.

Weird, weird, weird.

Only my tennis shoes and Maeve’s boots made noise. Zay was Zay. Silent. Brooding. When he carried himself like that, he was a force, a darkness, a power.

I was glad he was on our side.

Once at the top, Maeve called down to Shame. “Come up, now. Jingo Jingo will be by soon to look in on Greyson. I don’t want him to find you poking at that cage.”

More stairs, and some doors; then we started down the hall.

I rubbed at my arms, trying to banish the image of Jingo Jingo with Greyson.

“Why is Jingo coming by?” It was none of my business, and I really should learn to shut my big mouth and let the senior members of the Authority deal with the big problems. Like the storm. Like the well. Like Greyson.

“He has been working with Greyson. Trying to diagnose exactly how Frank Gordon implanted the disk.

Trying to see if there is any mercy in breaking the spells worked into him.”

“You mean trying to turn him back into a man?” I asked.

Maeve gave me a look that said more than words ever could. “He is trying to find a merciful answer to the question of him,” she said.

Shame clunked up behind us. For a man who had just been moving silently across the marble floor like it was made of thin glass, he sure could make a lot of noise.

“Chase been by?” he asked.

Maeve frowned. “I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

“Huh,” he said, then, “Anyone else thirsty? All that hard work watching Allie Hound deserves a beer, don’t you think?” He moved past his mom, and exchanged a short glance with Zayvion.

I didn’t think the two of them could actually hear what the other was thinking, but I was positive they had a secret code. Zay had even hinted as much, saying he always knew when Shame was up to trouble.

And that look had been more than just a look.

“Ten o’clock, Shamus,” Maeve called after him.

“I heard you the first time, didn’t I?”

Maeve tapped one fingertip against her lips, and watched him go. “He knows something,” she decided. “Is up to something. Zayvion, you’ll watch that he doesn’t stir too much trouble, won’t you? I do not need any more problems right now.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said mildly.

“When that son of mine gets a wild idea in his head, it never ends well.”

She sounded angry, but her body language said more. It said she was worried. Worried she was about to lose something precious to her. Maybe her son.

“He’ll be here tonight,” Zay said. “Sober. He knows this isn’t a game.” I wondered how many times he’d told her that over the years.

“Terric will be here,” she added more quietly.

“He knows.”

Maeve brushed her hair back again. “I thought as much.” She shook her head. “Well. What will be will be. I’ll see you both this evening.” She strolled off, her bootheels clacking across the old wooden floors.

The moth-wing flutter scraped at the backs of my eyes, pressing harder, insistent. It made me think of Greyson, of him watching me, wanting me and my dad in me. I swallowed and tasted wintergreen and leather-my dad’s scents. Great.

I suddenly really wanted fresh air, a shower, hells, to be anywhere but here right now.

My creep-out quota for the day was officially maxed.

“I need air.” I strode past Zay, not waiting to see if he followed. It wasn’t exactly tactful, but he’d watched me fight my claustrophobia before. Stayed out of my way. Boy had smarts.

Maeve had turned the opposite way down the hall, so she wasn’t in my flight path either. I took the first opening I could and walked right out into the main dining area again.

The noise was up, every table filled. The smell of food and drinks and people-perfume and soap and cigarettes-closed in on me.

Out more. I needed much more out more.

I did not run, because I am composed even in full-throttle panic mode. But I made quick work of that room-long legs had their use-and straight-armed that door open.

The evening wind hit like a sharp slap to the face, and I inhaled a huge lungful of cold, misty air.

I didn’t stop at the porch. There was too much roof on the porch, too many railings around the porch, too much building behind the porch. I clattered down the stairs, and jogged across the gravel, looking for out, for space, for air.

“Afraid of the dark?” a voice asked from one side of me.

Okay, yes, I was freaking out from claustrophobia. And yes, I was already a little freaked-out over the whole cold-magic weirdness and empty well. Add to that Greyson staring at me out of his magic-blocked and warded cage, and my dad, or maybe only half of him, shuffling around in my head-or even better, him spending time-shared brain space with Greyson-and what I really needed was just a few seconds of normal.

Instead, I got Chase.

“Chase,” I said, relatively calmly too, considering. “Did you hear about the meeting tonight?”

Zayvion’s ex-girlfriend was nearly my height. If I had seen her walking down the street, I’d think she was a model, not a Closer. Her pale skin was almost luminescent in the low light, and her eyes belonged to a cat, framed by the blunt wedge of dark brown bangs. I’d never seen her use makeup, not that she needed it. I’d never seen her dress in anything other than jeans, T-shirt, and flannel.

Tonight was no different.

“I heard about it.” She took a step toward me, her hands very obviously held with fingers spread, as if she was looking for a spell to grab hold of.

A sound behind me made her look up. She bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile. And not a very pretty one.

“Hello, Zayvion. Still babysitting all the troubled children for Mommy Maeve?”

“I do what I can,” he said. Unconcerned. Zen. “Are you done running away?”

“Running away from what?”

“Greyson.”

Chase held very still. Something moved across her eyes, a shadow, sorrow, pain. Maybe fear. Maybe hope.

“I’ve never run from him,” she said. Flat. Emotionless. What she didn’t say, what none of us was saying, was she still loved him. And she blamed me and my father for changing him into a monster. I was pretty sure she’d do anything to get him back, to see him be a man again.

I know I would feel that way if it were Zay in that cage.

“They wouldn’t let me see him,” she said. “Not without Jingo Jingo being there.”

Zayvion crossed his arms over his chest and strolled closer, his footsteps silent across the wet, noisy gravel. “You’re going to listen to them, aren’t you?”

“Be a good girl and do as I’m told?” She raised one eyebrow. “Have I ever done anything else?” It was a challenge.

Zayvion didn’t reach out for her, but his voice was softer. “It will work out, Chase. We’ll find a way to help him. Trust that.”

That tone got through. She swallowed and looked off over his shoulder. “Trust. Just like that.”

“You’ve been doing it for years. Don’t stop now.”

I could see how much it cost her to look back at him. Could see the emotions she was fighting back. Looked a lot like rage and grief. “No, that’s what you’ve been doing. Trusting. Trusting it will all work out. No matter how blind or stupid that makes you.”

“Trust isn’t a weakness,” Zay said.

“So says the man who begged for the chance to be the hero, the keeper of the gates, user of all magic, light and dark, no matter how much it destroys him. Do you get off on taking the fall, Jones, or are you just too stupid to know that’s what they’re using you for?”

“Are you done?” he asked, a hint of fire rising behind that ice.

She glared at him.

He ignored her. “You joined this fight for a reason. You joined this fight to make the world better for the people you cared about. Not for me, not for them, but for who you love. Who do you love, Chase? Other than yourself?”

“Fuck you.”

She took a step, but he moved, silent and swift, to stand in front of her. They weren’t touching, weren’t drawing on magic. Yet.

“That’s over. Remember?” he said. “You ended it.

Ended us. For him. For Greyson. And now you’re going to have to risk a little trust to save him. I think that’s a small price to pay, not even a price at all. Or maybe you’re just looking for an easy way out again.”

“You have no right-,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Yes, I do. Don’t turn your back on him. Don’t turn your back on the Authority. Don’t choose that ending.”

And that threat, that anyone in the Authority, even a Closer, could be Closed, got through too.

She unclenched her fists and shook her bangs out of her eyes. “I’d do anything to have him back,” she yelled. She looked down, swallowed a couple times, as if trying to get the rage down. Then she looked back up at him. “I don’t turn my back on anything I love.” She looked at me, then back at him. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, Jones?”

She strode off toward the inn, leaving Zayvion and me alone in the rain.