Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price (17 page)

It was beautiful, really, and very well done.

Shame handed Zayvion the spent disk. Zay took it and shook the Grounding spell free, letting it unravel and fade away.

Terric held out the Void stones and Shame put them
all back on with the rhythm of a man sliding prayer beads through his fingers.

They all turned toward me.

Shame was sweating, his color a little high as if he’d just come off a hard workout. Still, he gave me just the slightest quirk of a smile, his eyes burning green.

That boy had not fallen.

Terric looked calm, and incredibly pleased. Maybe even a little relieved.

Shame had always been a hell of a magic user. My dad had once said he was a master of Death magic. Without control, he was also very dangerous. But he’d proven to us, to himself maybe most of all, that he could still make magic his bitch.

And not kill everyone within a three-block radius.

Go, team.

Zayvion met my gaze. Accusing. Angry. A wall of grim and pissed off.

Whoa. Wait. What had I done to make him so angry?

“Let’s go,” he said.

Collins took one last look around the room as if trying to fix it in his memory, which was probably exactly what he was doing, and then headed up the stairs. Stone was already out of sight.

The thought of hauling up all those damn stairs made me nauseous. No choice. I got moving.

After a dozen steps, Zay jogged up next to me. “You’re bleeding.”

“Backlash. The spell Dad used wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”

“Is your dad making you pay the brunt of the price?”

“I don’t think so. He’s unconscious, I’m not. I wasn’t even sure if he’d survived that last spell.”

We walked and I counted stairs by ten, then ten again, then ten again. My thighs were burning. And not in a sexy way.

“I watched you cast the spell,” he said.

“Dad…cast it.”

“Doesn’t matter. Magic tore through you.”

“Tear seems a little—”

“It’s killing you.”

And that faint knowledge, that awareness the moment my dad had so very painfully “fixed” me whispered:
yes.

A chill washed over my skin.
Permanent harm.
I knew he was right.

“When you cast magic, it’s killing you.” Zay’s voice was so very, very calm. “It’s draining you. Draining your life.”

“I know. Now. Maybe if I don’t do much…”

“Two more wells,” he said.

“We can do it. Dad can.” That was all the breath I had. If air were plentiful I might add that I’d watched Dad pulling the magic out of Stone. It was the blend of light and dark magic inside Stone that was kicking our respective mental and physical asses. Back when Dad had first combined the samples from the wells into Stone, he’d also added a little dark magic. I’d never been very tolerant of dark magic. Hell, no one was.

“Maybe Dad can find a way…to use magic through me without it having to…to harm me.”

“No. You’re done.”

I stopped right there in the middle of the climb. “That’s not your call, Zayvion.”

He walked back down two stairs toward me and stood so close I could feel the brush of his coat against mine as he leaned down over me. “It is now.”

“Really?
And who are you going to get to pull the magic out of Stone? You’ve heard that weird language Dad’s using. It isn’t even real words. It’s something he’s made up to trigger magic in a certain way. I’ve never heard it before. I don’t think anyone else has either. There isn’t anyone except him who can do this.”

“I do not give a single damn,” he said. “You are done.”

“I’m done when the wells are closed. I’m done when this city is safe. I’m done when I say I’m done.”

“That’s not how this is going down,” he said. “Not this time.”

My phone rang. I pulled the phone from my pocket and glared at it. Victor.

“What?”

“Are you safe?” He sounded concerned.

“Yes. The Blood and Life wells are closed.” Then to Zayvion, “Walk.”

We started up the stairs again.

“Where are you now?” Victor asked.

“Done with Life well. Going to…”

“Faith,” Zay said.

“…Faith well next. Ran into Seattle crew outside the Blood well. They didn’t survive.”

I glanced over my shoulder.

Eleanor’s ghost was floating just ahead of Shame, who kept his gaze doggedly on his feet.

“There’s one body, um…Eleanor Roth’s body is in one of the rooms at the inn and needs to be taken care of.”

“Oh,” Victor said, a little of the air taken out of him. “That is so unfortunate.”

That’s right. Zay had told me she trained with Maeve. Victor might have known her too. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“We will take care of it. I want you all to return to Kevin’s
place immediately. Do you understand me, Allison?”

Wow. It had been a while since Victor had ordered me around. Since Zayvion had also decided it was suddenly time to tell me what to do, I found myself not liking it much.

“Why?”

“We just received a report from London. Leander and Isabelle are on the move.”

“Where are they?”

“They’ve left England. They’ve killed George and Lorraine in Wales, John and Cherie in France, and Alessandro and Anna in Italy.”

“Who are those people?”

“Soul Complements. Allie, they’re all Soul Complements. Leander and Isabelle are taking out every known Soul Complement pair in the world.”

Holy shit. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Get back here, now. All of you.”

“I’ll call you…when we are on the road.”

I turned off the phone.

“What?” Zay asked. He wasn’t even out of breath.

Unfair.

“Victor,” I said. “Hold on.” I kept my air to myself until we got to the platform at the top of the stairs. I leaned on the railing for a good thirty seconds, trying to reacquaint myself with oxygen.

Sure, I’d been running pretty hard lately and paying more than one price for magic, but Zayvion was right. Whatever spells Dad was working through Stone were murder on me. Literally.

“He said Leander and Isabelle are on the move. Said they’re killing Soul Complements. Just like they killed Chase and Greyson.”

Shame and Terric stepped up on the platform.

“Who else is dead?” Zay asked. “Where?”

I repeated the names Victor had told me. Zay swore softly and tipped his head down, shaking it. He knew those people, the happy faces I’d seen in my dad’s memories.

“God,” I said, realizing I hadn’t handled that announcement with much compassion. “I’m sorry, Zay. Were you friends of theirs?”

He nodded. “I’ve met them all. They…they made me think there was a chance, a life together for Soul Complements. A good life, you know?” He looked up at me, sorrow and pain tugging at his mouth and eyes.

There was no happily ever after for Soul Complements. I’d been told that many times. And these deaths just proved, once again, our future. Shame and Terric’s future too.

“Victor wants us to return to Kevin’s. Do we go?”

“No,” Terric said. “We finish this. We get to the other two wells before anyone can access them. We cleanse magic and close the wells. We make these sacrifices…all of them…worth it.”

“If Victor knows Soul Complements are being killed by the Overseer, so does everyone else in the Authority,” Shame said. “Zay, you and Allie are walking targets.”

“So are you and Terric,” I said.

Shame just shrugged, his gaze on Zayvion alone. “Best way to survive this is to step down, mate,” he said. “Keep Allie off the battlefield, keep her safe.”

“There is no way I’m staying out of this fight,” I said. “I can’t, remember? Dad is the only one who can access the magic in Stone.”

The Zen mask slipped and Zay looked like he wanted
to pull someone’s spine out of their skin. He took a deep breath and composed himself. Calm on the outside, raging in the inside.

“We know all the Soul Complements too,” he said. “We have the same list the Overseer has—the same list Leander and Isabelle have. We could get to the Soul Complements before the Overseer. I can open a gate. They wouldn’t expect that. We could save them.”

“No,” Shame and Terric said at the same time.

“When Roman Grimshaw died,” Terric said, “Allie said his spirit stepped into a gate to lock down that system of travel, so the Overseer couldn’t just open a gate and appear on our doorstep. Even if you can undo what Grimshaw did and open a gate, all it will do is tip our hand. You might be able to save one pair of Soul Complements, but as soon as you opened the next gate, there would be an army of magic users under orders to kill, waiting for you to walk through.”

“I agree,” I said. “Leaving Portland right now only plays into their hands.”

Zay glared at me. “So you think we should hide while Soul Complements, good people, are killed?”

“No,” I said. “We need to do something for them. Try to get someone out to help them, or guard them. But not you.”

Not us, I thought but didn’t say. “Plus, it’s not really news that we’re targets.”

“I’m not,” Collins said.

We all ignored him.

“Did Victor say where the Overseer is?” Zay asked.

“No. Just that they, well, she, was out of England and on the move. Which is what we should be. On the move,” I clarified. “Is someone opening this door, or am I?”

Zay pushed off the wall he’d been leaning on and
walked past me. I didn’t have to touch him to feel his anger. At me. Maybe at this entire situation. At his friends dying. At not being able to attack the problem the way he wanted to.

“So are we going back to Kevin’s?” I asked.

“You think someone else can run the gargoyle?” Shame asked.

“No.”

“Then we go to the wells,” Terric said.

“Fuck.” Zay blew the spell he’d been drawing. He took a deep breath, then started another spell to open the door.

“That’s new,” Shame noted.

Terric frowned at Zay. But Collins, who had been closest to Zay and me on the stairs and had the best chance to hear our recent conversation, just gave me a placid stare.

Asking me without words if I was going to tell Shame and Terric what Zay had confronted me with before Victor called.

“Magic’s hurting me,” I said, holding Collins’ gaze.

He blinked. The low light cast crescent moons on the lenses of his glasses but otherwise didn’t show any reaction to my half truth.

“That’s not new,” Shame said.

“How bad?” Terric asked.

Zay triggered the spell to open the door. He grunted, but held steady so that the glyphs in the air could rotate into position. He was pulling magic in from one of the other wells miles away, since we’d just made sure no one could tap into this well.

It was not easy. Especially if you were distracted. Or angry.

Magic finally responded, rising a little sluggishly into
the spell he’d cast. The door opened and we stepped out onto the concrete path. It was still dark out. We hadn’t lost much time.

“Pretty bad,” I said to Terric. “I agree that we should hit the next well before heading back to Kevin’s. Try to reach both the Faith and Death wells. Then see what we can do for the Soul Complements.”

“Victor may have sent someone to help them already,” Collins said.

“There isn’t anyone else who can help them,” Zayvion said.

“Truly? Are you so deluded to think you are the only one who can help a person under attack?” Collins asked.

“From Leander and Isabelle?” Zayvion said. “I am one of the few left who can fight them. They have no qualms breaking the rules of magic. If we’re to have a chance against them, we’re going to have to break magic to fight them. I can break magic. With Allie. Terric and Shame can too. Because we’re Soul Complements.”

“So are the people they’re killing,” Collins noted.

“But I can use dark magic. Other Soul Complements can’t.”

Collins’ eyebrows rose up into his sandy hair. He, apparently, hadn’t thought that all through.

We stopped talking and negotiated the pathway down. I needed all the breath I could get anyway. Things were getting suspiciously dark at the edges of my vision, as if I were low on oxygen, or exhausted.

Or dying from magic.

I pushed that thought away because it just made me want to scream in terror. All the screaming in the world wouldn’t change anything. I just needed to make it through two more wells and two more spells. Then someone else would have to handle magic.

We reached the base of the falls where the path spread out wide enough to handle the crowds that usually gathered here. Zayvion stormed past me and just kept right on walking toward the car.

“Tantrum much?” Shame asked, coming up beside me, but watching Zayvion. “What did you do to make him so angry?”

“Like I’m the only one screwing up today?”

Shame stiffened just slightly, but didn’t go away.

Damn it.

“Blunt,” he said, as if sampling wine. “Sharp. Also true. I know my sins, love. What I want to know is why you’re suddenly afraid of yours.”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Even after that hike, I was cold. “He’s angry that magic is hurting me.”

“The bloody nose back there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

We walked for a little while, through the train trestle tunnel and to the parking lot.

“When this is all over,” he said, “and if we survive, I will teach you how to lie.”

“Promise?”

We were at the van now.

“Cross what’s left of my heart.” Shame pulled the side door open and climbed in, saying no more. Eleanor drifted in beside him, then faded through him to hover near the window. Shame shivered at her passing, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her.

I thought about crawling into the back next to Stone. I didn’t want to be so close to Zayvion that I could feel his anger against my skin.

We didn’t have time for his anger. We didn’t have
time for my fear. What we had time for was trying to get the cure to the wells so the people in the hospitals infected with the poison—and all the people in Portland—might be safe when they used magic again.

If we could keep magic shut down, we could keep Leander and Isabelle from tapping into the wells to fight us.