Magic at the Gate (30 page)

“I won’t apologize for being angry about that. You threw yourself into death.”

“For you. To get you. To save you. I died for you.”

“I don’t want you to die for me. I want you to live for me. You broke your promise.”

“What promise?”

“That you would never try to be the hero. Never put yourself in that kind of danger again.”

I did vaguely remember promising him that. “When you died, all bets were off. We’re in this together, and we’ll both give every damn thing we’ve got to make sure we get out of it together.”

Shame jogged over to us. “Later, lovelies. We have company.”

Hayden and Maeve finally made it down the stairs.

Victor and Joshua chanted, a very Gregorian kind of sound, walking a circuit of the room and activating storage spells there.

Clever. Magic had been piped and captured in storage pockets where it could be accessed and used.

In case of emergency, break into chant.

I liked it.

“Defense,” Maeve said. “We’ll take them here. Pick them off one by one as they come down.”

She was assuming they would break through the Lock.

The deep thump of a contained explosion made my molars ache, and then Nik and Carl and La were sprinting down the stairs.

“It’s down, it’s down,” Nik said.

The Lock was broken.

“We protect the lower level. We protect the well. We protect the disks,” Maeve said.

Other than us, what would keep them from just running down the stairs to the well? I glanced at the staircase. The stairs stopped here, on this floor. The wood flooring looking like one seamless piece.

They must have a hidden panel that closed off the stairs, or maybe Victor and Joshua’s chant had triggered the inn’s defense here. Nice.

Victor and Joshua completed their circuit of the room, completed the chant.

The walls hummed like a hundred cellos being plucked.

This floor was locked down. I didn’t smell an Illusion, but then, I couldn’t smell the very large Illusion the Georgia sisters were still maintaining over the inn. The sisters stood together, whispering a litany to hold their focus and Illusion, well protected and well behind the rest of us who surrounded the stairs.

“Zayvion,” Victor said.

Zay looked up. Didn’t let go of my arm.

“Go,” I said. “Now’s your chance to be the hero.”

“Zayvion. Now,” Victor said.

“Fuck.” Zay leaned down, not much, since we were nearly the same height. He pressed his mouth against mine, hard, needful, and a new heat filled me, licked fire across the cold emptiness inside me.

I opened my mouth, taking him in greedily, just as hard, my tongue, my teeth exploring, stroking, catching at him and telling him I didn’t want to let go, didn’t want him to let me go. Begging him to leave with me to someplace where I could touch him, savor his body, his heat, drag my fingers through his soul, until I knew, really knew, that he was alive and safe, and mine.

He pulled away. We were both breathing hard.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

“Damn straight it isn’t. You still haven’t apologized.”

He smiled, and the fire in me flashed into an inferno. I leaned in for another kiss.

“Zayvion.” Victor again.

And then Zayvion was gone. No longer just a man, my man. He would always be guardian of the gate, always belong to the Authority first.

A flash of jealousy fanned that fire in me. But I knew that was stupid. We all needed him to be the Authority’s man right now.

“Can you Channel?” Victor asked him.

Zay took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Yes.” He spread his feet shoulder width, and then placed his hands together in prayer in front of his chest. I felt his heartbeat jump, then settle into a strong meditative rhythm. He and I were bound by more than just a drop of blood in Maeve’s dagger. We were Soul Complements.

I knew he was afraid. Worried. Exhausted. And I knew how determined he was to end this now.

With incredible finesse for someone who had just been dead, he pulled the magic out of the walls and created a pool of magic in the air in front of him, a strong, steady force ready to be accessed by any user in the room.

Talk about playing hero.

“Allie, I need you to be my eyes,” Maeve said.

I strode over to her. She leaned heavily on her cane. Maintaining the blood oath must be costing her a huge price.

“How?” I asked.

“Cast Sight. Tell me when you see them.”

I cleared my mind, set a Disbursement, and drew Sight. What I saw scared the crap out of me.

“Shadows are moving down the stairs. A lot like the watercolor people—no, they’re spells. Maybe Death magic pouring down the stairs.”

“Shame,” Maeve said.

Shame and Terric moved forward, Terric cast Sight, canceled it, then cast another form of Sight until he finally saw what I saw.

“Got it.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Shame was casting. Not dark magic like Zay wielded, but taking the magic Zayvion held in the glowing amorphous blob in front of him and spinning just a thin thread of it into Death magic, the transference of magic, of energy from one state to another.

Shame intoned a spell, his voice resonating in me. My left palm itched, burned, froze. The mark of death responded to Shame’s words as if he were speaking to my soul. I had to fight to not go to him.

Great.

But the Death magic flooded toward him, and he negated the spells with the blade in his hand and opened his arms, drinking down the smoke and dregs.

Nice. Shame was bearing Proxy for this fight. I knew he could endure pain, but that hit of Death magic was bound to help ease the pain a little.

A green fog drifted at the edge of the ceiling. “They’re coming down,” I said. “The solid Veiled.”

The first in line was Truance, bearing a curved sword that looked like a scimitar.

We hit her with everything we had.

She raised a Shield with her left hand, easily deflecting our magic. “You cannot stand in our way,” she said. “There are more of us, so many more, who will fight to be alive again. Today, we will take the disks and the well. And we will gladly kill you, as you once killed us, to do it.”

“Leave this world.” Victor put so much Influence behind it, I dropped Sight and looked for the nearest exit.

Allison,
my father said quietly, but clearly, inside my head.
Don’t.
I don’t know what he did, but I no longer felt the need to do as Victor said.

Still, I shuddered. I had almost zero resistance to Influence.

“You have lived your life,” Victor continued, using magic to push against her Shield, to push against the others, so they could not move down the stairs. “Your deaths were justified by the Council of Voices of your time. It is the way of the Authority. It used to be a way you swore fealty to. Move on, Truance. Find peace in death, and let magic rest in our hands.”

“The Authority broke magic, then used it for their petty games. But now the dead lay claim to what is rightfully ours. Magic. And life.” Truance walked down the stairs, step by step, a smile on her face.

Just as her boot hit the floor, Hayden threw Fire at her, a burning twisted gout of flame-worked glyphs and spells that made me throw one arm over my face to ward off the heat. Fire wrapped a half circle in front of her, caught on her Shield, burning. She flicked her left hand, drawing the magic down into the sword she carried in her right.

She looked taller, younger. Stronger.

The spell, the magic in it, had made her stronger. Just like drinking magic made the watercolor people stronger. Just like magic made the Hungers and other things that stepped through the gates of death stronger.

Shit.

Hayden realized what had happened too.

He canceled the spell, broke the flame into ragged edges that tore at Truance but could not quite reach her. She tugged at the collar of her coat, baring more of her throat, and drank the remaining magic into the disk like a smoker inhaling through a hole in the neck.

Frank, who had done nothing but smile his creepy smile, and the rest of the Veiled stood beside her. They lifted their hands and cast magic as one.

It is dangerous to cast magic with another magic user. It can kill you. It can kill everyone around you.

But apparently being dead with a disk stuck in your throat made group casting possible.

Allison!
my dad yelled in my head.

He didn’t have to yell. I felt it too.

An explosion rocked the inn. And I knew, without a doubt, that a gate into death had just opened over the well below us.

Chapter Twenty-four

“A
gate,” I yelled.

Not that I had to. The room was filled with Closers. They all felt it too.

“Down!” Victor roared.

Victor and Joshua raised their hands to break the Illusion and barrier over the stairs.

I’m sorry,
my dad said.

No.
I opened my mouth to warn them, to tell them, to stop my dad.

But he picked me up and shoved me to the farthest corner of my head. Slick walls and darkness surrounded me. I slammed my fist into the walls, trying to break my own mind.

I yelled, screamed. Nothing.

Then I heard my own voice, oddly accented with my father’s commanding cadence.

“I am Daniel Beckstrom,” he said with my voice. “Do not let the barrier fall, Victor. Do not let them reach the well.”

I couldn’t see, couldn’t tell what was going on.

Panicking about it wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good. I calmed my thoughts, closed my eyes, and recited my “Miss Mary Mack” song.

When I opened my eyes, I could see what my father was seeing, though it was like I was standing at the back of a theater, watching what someone else watched on the screen.

I stood in front of Victor. Someone was behind me. I could only assume they had gotten hold of my wrists and were restraining me. It’s the least of what I would have done.

“I can Close the gate,” Dad was saying. I must have missed some of the conversation. “But you must let me cap the well without the capstone.”

I didn’t know who was fighting the Veiled while this little conversation was taking place. Lights flashed. I heard the electric crack of magic shattering a spell.

Okay, so maybe everyone who wasn’t dealing with me, with Dad, was still fighting.

“You are no longer a part of the Authority, Daniel,” Victor said. “You are as much an invader in our world as Truance and Frank. Leave us and return to death, or I will end you.”

“When I was alive, I set traps on the inn that I can trigger. They will contain everything within these walls. Nothing living or dead, magical or otherwise, will be able to escape. The well, the Veiled, the gate, will be locked in. Secure.”

Victor had a good poker face, but I could tell he believed Dad. He was weighing his options. Not how to win, but which of his enemies he should let become his conqueror.

“Why are you doing this to your daughter?”

It was not a question I expected from Victor.

I don’t think my dad expected it either.

“It was my last option. I dislike being forced to make a snap decision. I never wanted to do this. Any of this. Although I had prepared for many outcomes.”

“Why shouldn’t we kill you now?” Zayvion asked, so close I knew it was he who held my wrists trapped so Dad couldn’t cast magic.

“I know where Jingo Jingo is. And I know what he’s using Sedra for.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

“And there is an enemy stronger than you or me loose in this world, my friend,” Dad said. “I will do anything to stop him.”

“Who?” Victor asked.

“Leander. He is the shadow man behind the undead Veiled. He’s looking for Isabelle.”

Holy shit.

Fear shadowed Victor’s face. “Lock it down. We’ll take care of the Veiled.”

Victor looked over my shoulder. “Let her go,” he said to Zayvion.

I couldn’t feel my body, couldn’t feel Zayvion touching me. I pushed at the walls surrounding me. Nothing budged. Trying to think calm thoughts when all I could picture was throttling my dad did not make using magic any easier either.

“What about the disks?” Zay asked.

Right. If we left the disks down by the open gate, a gate we could assume was allowing more of the Veiled through, we would be up to our asses in the un-living, disk-powered dead.

“Mr. Flynn should be able to help me retrieve those,” Dad said. “He carries the crystal?”

Victor nodded once. “We used to be friends, Dan,” he said, striding into the fray. “Don’t make me regret that. Shame!”

Dad turned and I could see the battle.

We were not winning. There were still five Veiled standing, Truance, Frank, Pioneer Guy, the thirtysomething blond Lauren, and the 1950s woman. Two of them were holding the other disks from their fallen comrades in their hands.

And they were warping magic, sending it out in ways I’d never felt magic used. Dark, mutated. It reminded me of the Veiled in death. This was broken magic. Disks that had been broken on the anvil of the wild-magic storm and now were wielded by the undead.

Not a pretty combination.

Shame fell back from the line of magic users who stood equidistant around the room, containing the Veiled but unable to break their defenses. Victor spoke briefly to Shame, then took Shame’s place.

Shame jogged over to me.

And stopped like someone had just slapped him in the face. “You must be Allie’s dad.”

“I am. We cannot let the Veiled get their hands on any more disks. And we can’t break the barrier to physically retrieve the disks below. Do you know where they are kept?”

“I’m not going to tell you until you let Allie go.”

“There is no time—”

“Then make it snappy.” Shame returned my dad’s gaze with a deadly nonchalance.

Options. It looked like my dad was running out of them.

“This could be our death,” Dad said.

“That won’t be anything new to you, will it?” Fearless, that boy, facing down my dad. Even from the back of my own brain, I could feel Dad’s approval.

So unfair. When I faced down Dad he hated me for it. When some stranger did it, he got all warm and fuzzy. Bastard.

Dad took down the walls that surrounded me. I rushed out of that small dark space, letting anger cover up the screaming claustrophobia that had been eating at my sanity.

“You bastard,” I said.

He ignored me. “Where are the disks?” he asked Shame.

“In the east safe.”

I could feel the calculations go through his head, my head. Our head. Whatever.

“You carry the stone in your body.” He wasn’t asking Shame. “It shares many of the same properties as the disks. I am going to put my—Allison’s—hand on your chest and charge it with magic.”

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then I will cast you, body and soul, down to the lower level. I’ll try to put you in front of the safe and leave enough magic in the stone for your return.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. Yes, with my own mouth. Hey, what did you know? Dad really was sharing the body.

Shame grinned. “Hey, girl. Think he can do it?”

“Yes.” I hated admitting it, but my dad really was that good.

Shame nodded. “Do it.”

Dad put my hand—my left hand—on Shame’s chest. I could feel the rush of cool flame fingering down into the crystal join with the hot flood of magic Dad pulled out of the room, and into my body, my bones.

Dark and light magic? Maybe. I was too close, too entranced to tell.

It felt good, felt right to give magic to Shame like this. It felt like this was how magic should always be used.

And from the expression of bliss on Shame’s face, it was clear that this blend of magic did not hurt him.

Dad gathered more magic, pushed it through me until I was full, so achingly full, I didn’t have room to breathe. Even the hollow space where my small magic had once held fast was stretched, filled, warm, heavy. It felt so right.

He spoke one word. Magic rushed out of me fast, too fast, taking the ache and pleasure with it and leaving me cold and empty. I cried out.

Shame disappeared.

Terric, across the room, yelled. Not in pain or pleasure, but in anger.

And everything seemed to slow. Dad filled half of my mind, more than that, filled me, touching me everywhere magic touched me. We were more one person than two, a reality that made me want to scream.

But he was very, very focused on Shame, on his heartbeat, which he felt through the blood bond Maeve had cast. On his body, and his magic, both of which he felt through the crystal that he fed a careful stream of magic into, giving just enough so the crystal would remain full, and not enough to burn Shame alive.

Great. I hadn’t known that was a possible outcome. But freaking out about it right now would do none of us any good. So I chanted my mantra, staying calm, supportive. Not fighting my dad, nor the magic he wielded.

Trusting him. With me. With my magic.

It was the only thing I could think of doing to help Shame survive.

Someone screamed. I glanced at the fight—was able to move my head since Dad was focused on Shame breaking into the safe below us.

Nik was down, writhing on the floor. Hayden stood above him, fighting the Pioneer Man, but unable to stop long enough to do anything for Nik. Sunny was also down, a pale pile of limbs slumped against the wall.

The Veiled combined their magic and blasted a hole into the floor.

Everything went white—too white.

The room flooded with watercolor people.

“Out, out, out!” Hayden roared. He bent, picked up Nik like he was a child and put him in a fireman’s hold as he headed for the stairs.

Joshua ran to Sunny, and pulled her up into his arms. She looked like a broken rag doll, blood smeared down the side of her pale face, fingertip burns everywhere, just like the rest of us.

“Move,” Maeve said. “Everyone out!”

Everyone moved, ran for the stairs, hacked their way through the watercolor people who swarmed up the stairs in a tangled mob of holy-shit-we’re-going-to-die.

Victor helped Maeve. She’d lost her cane in the fight, but wielded daggers and Blood magic.

Me? I stood there toward the back of the room. Thinking calm thoughts as the monsters reached the top of the stairs, pulled themselves up and out of the hole in the floor. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this. But I wasn’t going to leave Shame behind.

Zayvion was suddenly beside me, casting Shield after Shield to keep the monsters at bay, each Shield weaker than the last.

“We have to go,” he said.

“I’m not leaving Shame.”

“How much longer?”

I didn’t know. Dad had fallen into such a deep concentration, I couldn’t reach him.

“I don’t—” And then my mouth was no longer mine.

Dad spoke a word. Shame appeared in front of us, a heavy iron and glass box under his arm. Blood and burns covered his hands and much of his shirt.

The Veiled howled.

“Open it,” Dad said.

Shame hesitated. Looked like he was going to pass out.

The monsters were closer. Much closer. Zay’s Shields barely flashed up before they fell.

I touched the box, knew immediately what spell would break the seal. I cast a quick Unlock and the lid of the box flew open.

The disks inside pulsed with a palatable magic. Dark, rich, smelling like burned blackberries and too much sugar. I licked my lips and swallowed down the flavor of them.

The monsters in the room screamed.

My dad spoke another word.

The room seemed to press in half, closing in on me with sharp, complicated folds like the world had become an origami creation and I was nothing but colored paper.

And then we were outside. I hurt from head to toe, my skin fever-hot, a crippling headache stabbing down my spine. Black ashes, fine as feathers, fell from the sky to settle into a perfect circle around our feet. The oily tang and copper burn of spent magic, of spent disks, filled my nose.

Shame exhaled. “That. Was. Awesome.” The box of disks in his hands was filled with smoke and slag. The disks were destroyed.

I tried to respond, but Dad had control of my body now, and I could not fight my way up through the pain to take over.

He walked over to the front of the inn, just as all the rest of the Authority ran out the door. Yes, they looked surprised to see Shame, Zay, and me already outside.

“Move,” Dad said.

And they did.

I didn’t know if he felt the same pain I felt—

—
Yes,
he said,
I do.

Well, now I knew he could hear my thoughts. I wondered what he was doing with my body and as soon as I thought it, I knew we, I mean he, was going to trigger the traps and lock down everything that was in the inn.

I could still see through my eyes. The solid Veiled ran past the windows toward the door.

Dad lifted his hands above his—I mean my—head and sang a very soft song. At first I thought it was nonsense, but then I recognized the hush-a-bye song my mother used to sing to me when she tucked me into bed at night.

Magic coalesced out of the air over the inn, magic seeking magic, and joining in a beautiful lace knotwork that glimmered gray, silver, plum, in the predawn light.

Dad pulled my hands together, then apart, my left, marked with death, pointed at the sky, my right, marked with ribbons of color, pointed at the ground.

Magic pulled through me, easy as a thread through the eye of a needle. Magic from the ground, magic from the sky, caught, wove together, and locked down over the inn. Before the Veiled could reach the door, before the monsters could break free.

I expected an explosion, a deep thrum of closing, ending, the rattle of gears locking into place. But this spell might as well have been cast out of the roots and limbs of the trees that surrounded the inn, might as well have been worked into the soil and the rocks and the rain.

Seamless, natural. And yes, beautiful. I’d never seen magic used in such an organic fashion, as if it were indeed a natural part of the living world.

I didn’t expect that kind of beauty, that kind of grace, from my father.

Then he was no longer at the front of my mind. He fell back, exhausted beyond endurance, nothing but smoke, a shadow.

Released from his control, I stumbled, fell to my knees, the damp gravel pricking my palms. I hurt like nobody’s business. I sat there for a second or two.

Zay rested his hand on my shoulder. “Can you stand?”

I looked up at him. He didn’t look much better than I felt. He was breathing through his mouth like he’d just run a marathon. Dark blood trailed down his temple, and fingerprint burns pocked his neck.