Magic on the Storm (29 page)

That kind of focus was crazy. They should have had her Ground for the group. It
was a good thing Sedra hadn’t asked me to hold the Illusion. I would have
dropped that shit long ago.
I knelt and placed my hand on Maeve’s chest. Flashbacks rocked through me. Of
Zayvion lying still, of a fight I could not win raging around me, of watching
him cross into death. I tried to push it away, tried not to panic. Maeve’s
heart beat, strong and even. She was breathing.
I didn’t know if I could heal her. With the wild magic pouring through the air,
I wasn’t sure if I should even try. I might kill her.
I glanced back at Shame.
Things were not going well. Jingo Jingo smiled, a flash of white across his
dark face, and I added another image to my nightmare list. He shook his head
slowly, pitying Shame.
Shame’s hands shook as he cast the next spell. A spell Jingo Jingo batted aside
and countered with something that sent Shame to his knees.
Where was Terric? Where was the cavalry? There didn’t seem to be any end to the
storm, to the magic, to the fallen.
I didn’t know what to do.
Listen to me, Allison
, Dad said in my head.
This battle is not the
war. Those who fall will be remembered. But there will be more, many deaths,
hundreds.
I saw a flash of Davy’s face, of Bea, of Violet, of Stotts, of Zayvion,
then a blur of people whom my father knew, some of his ex-wives and business
partners, and for one brief, sweet moment an image of my own mother’s laughing
face; then the images were gone.
Thousands could die if you do not listen to
me.
I’m listening.
Leave Maeve. She is alive. Leave the others. You must release the Hand,
Cody, back into this world. He was never meant to hold the gates between life
and death closed.
The Authority will kill him. Destroy his soul if they find out, maybe even
kill the living Cody too
, I said.
No. There is one who will keep him hidden.
Who?
My dad pointed in my head—a strange feeling that made me want to scratch the
roof of my mouth. I looked up to the right.
Mama stood on the other side of the wall of magic, all five-foot-nothing of
her. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she wore a secondhand raincoat
that was two sizes too big, the green hood tightened around her face like a
corn husk.
“Mama?”
She couldn’t hear me. She was outside the Illusion. Wait. What was she doing
there? From her perspective, she was standing in the middle of the field at
night in a downpour. Why would she do that?
She owes me a favor
, my dad said.
Okay, that was fucking creepy. I didn’t know how my dad had gotten her to show
up. Didn’t know if he’d left something about it in his will, or if he was
somehow talking to people when I didn’t know it. Like at night when I was
sleeping or something. I tried to think if I had done any sleepwalking and came
up with nothing.
You are not the only vessel I fill
, he said.
You are not the only one
who can hear me.
Holy shit. Could he get any more creepy?
Who?
I asked.
Greyson?
Oh, I hoped I was wrong.
It has not been easy
, he said.
The beast fights me, but I found a
way.
He sounded proud about that.
It made me want to barf.
Dad, or Greyson, or some combination, had somehow talked to Mama. Which meant
she knew my undead dad was undead. And she’d agreed to do him a favor.
I didn’t know if I should break through the shield and tell her to go away
somewhere safe fast, or if getting my body, and my possessed brain, closer to
her would let Dad jump the ship. He was stronger here, with the wild magic and
the disks. Stronger ever since Greyson had attacked Zayvion.
Was he a part of Chase and Greyson’s betrayal?
What do you want?
I asked him. Cold sweat washed over me, and I shivered
in the rain, even though it was tropical hot inside the shield. Fear, of him
manipulating me all this time, of the frighteningly real possibility that he
was the one behind the attack on Zayvion, made me want to run far and fast.
But how could I escape that which was inside me?
I want magic in the right hands. And I want immortality.
Two things he’d told me before. If they were lies, they were lies he was
sticking to.
Why should I trust you?
Do you want your friends to live?
I looked at Shame again. He was still on one knee, the other foot braced, his
hand sunk deep to clutch the grass, the soil, the other raised toward Jingo
Jingo, so much magic pouring through him that Jingo was having to take hard
steps backward, even though he leaned with all his strength, with all his bulk,
into Shame’s spell.
Shame shook with fury. He wasn’t chanting. He was cursing. And every word drew
blood from Jingo’s thick skin, sending Jingo’s blood to pour down with the
rain, and into the soil, where Shame drew the energy and strength out of
Jingo’s blood, draining Jingo’s life energy and throwing it back at him to cut
him again.
Holy fuck, that boy was ruthless.
I didn’t need my dad. I didn’t need to do what he wanted. Shame was taking care
of Jingo Jingo. Dane still held the cage from crushing Sedra, though he hadn’t
broken it yet. Victor was hot in battle with both Liddy and Chase, and Terric
had knocked Mike out—with fists, not magic. I couldn’t see Greyson or Hayden.
I needed to deal with Cody and close the gate so the Hungers couldn’t get
through.
Jingo Jingo yelled.
Shame was on his feet now, magic still hammering Jingo’s Shield. But Jingo
wasn’t yelling in defeat. He swung his huge arm to one side and directed the
disk and magic at the gate.
Cody screamed. The incorporeal shrill felt like someone had shoved hot peppers
in my eyes. His voice, his pain, filled the dome.
For a breath—just that long—everyone stopped.
Except me.
I stood. Ran. Straight at the gate. And caught Cody’s spirit as he fell free
into this world again. Caught him, not in my arms, but rather, confusingly,
horrifyingly, in my mind.
For a moment, I was three people, three lives, three memories. I remembered
painting with magic, carving with magic, creating beautiful, beautiful things
that broke barriers between life and death, ways for magic to be all
disciplines at once.
I remembered inventing technology, formulating glyphs, standardizing spells
with a mix of metal and glass that broke barriers between life and death, and
made magic follow all disciplines at once.
I remembered my eighth birthday party and the purple sweater my dad bought me.
I loved that sweater.
Too many memories, too much. Too crowded. I whined and stumbled backward,
trying to get away from the people inside me, trying to escape my own skin,
flee my crowded, crowded brain.
People can’t possess people. People can’t possess people. Zayvion had said it
was rare. Said my dad was in my head only because we were the same blood. Cody
and I were not related. And yet his spirit—or at least this part of it who
could make magic do beautiful, beautiful things—was curled around my brain
stem.
There wasn’t any room for me to breathe, to think.
Out, out, out!
My back brushed the spongy wall of the Illusion, and I finally heard my
father’s voice.
Allison. Let him go!
I exhaled, blinked. Magic swirled around me, a curtain of ribbons and fire, a
maelstrom all my own.
Good. You are doing fine. Calm your mind.
I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t listen to him. Shouldn’t trust him. But I had loved that
purple sweater. He had canceled a business trip to Europe and stayed home for
my birthday. He had brought me a birthday cake. And the purple sweater I had
secretly loved and mentioned to him only once when we walked by the store.
I did as he said.
Dad used me to cast a spell. It felt like a gentle stroke over my hair, except
it was inside my head. And then the awareness of Cody, his life, his memories,
his soul, was gone. Instead, Cody’s spirit, pale as watercolor, stood beside
me.
“Tired,” he said in a voice little more than a child’s. He was transparent,
rain falling through him. He looked like the watercolor people who usually
showed up when I cast magic. Or usually showed up if my dad didn’t block them
when I cast magic.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I could fix this.” He frowned, his voice
drifting away on the wind. Destroyed by thunder.
“You’re okay now.” I was surprised at how calm I was. Apparently some part of
my brain still functioned. Now that Cody was out of my head, I could think
again, breathe again, and not panic again.
Mama stepped forward, just enough that she was through the Illusion. She
squinted. It must be brighter in here. It was certainly a bloody mess.
“Come with me now, boy,” she said to Cody’s spirit.
Which meant she could see Cody’s spirit. Which meant she was using some kind of
magic to see him. Which meant she could use magic. A fleeting memory of her
hand on my chest, glowing, snapped bright in my mind, then was gone. But the
sense that she had more to do with magic than I knew lingered.
“Wait,” I said. “Mama, what are you going to do with him?”
“He’s safe with me, Allie girl. I’ll keep him hidden. Have my own ways, and you
won’t ask me nothing about it. Tell your father I don’t owe him no more.” She
held out her hand for Cody.
Cody looked at me. “I like her.” He smiled.
I had no idea what to say to him. Had no idea what was the right thing to do.
Maybe I should try to keep him somehow and return him to his living self.
Cody took Mama’s hand, and for a second, I thought I saw her hand glow white,
just as lightning struck. I blinked away the flash and Cody was stuck to her by
a stream of white light, like the ghost children had been stuck to Jingo Jingo,
only Cody didn’t look sad about it. He looked relieved, walking to the end of
the length of light, then back close to her again. I couldn’t help but think of
a balloon being caught safely before it floated away.
Mama stepped toward the wall of Illusion, out to the outside world.
Just before he followed her, Cody turned back toward me. “Zayvion,” he said.
Thunder drowned out his words.
“What?” I asked.
Allison
, my father warned.
“Zayvion . . . ,” Cody started, the stream of light between him and Mama
tugging on him.
Allison
, Dad said again.
Shut up
, I thought at him.
“. . . says he loves you too,” Cody said.
“When did he say that?”
“In there.” Cody pointed at the gate. “Today.”
I looked over at the gate.
And saw a wave of monsters, Hungers, and horrors I had no name for pouring
through the gate and onto the field.

T
here was no
time to see how anyone else was reacting to this. There was no time to think
anything through. Hungers would tear the magic users apart in seconds. There
was so much wild magic in the air, in the sky, in the city, that it would take
the shadowy Hungers only a few minutes to become fully solid. And then they
would hunt. They would eat magic users and civilians. They would kill.
I pulled Zayvion’s sword, and wondered why that hadn’t been in my hands all
along. A calm washed through me, as if this sword that Zayvion had spent so
much time with had been infused with his calm, his strength, his clear, concise
ability to deal with a horrifying situation and make competent, lifesaving
decisions.
The Hungers, a dozen, two dozen, went from transparent beasts into solid
muscled creatures with wide heads, red eyes, and fanged jaws. Magic pulsed down
their hides, like black veins, wild magic feeding them, making them strong.
Other things with too many eyes and too many limbs clattered out of the gates
behind the Hungers.
Magic users turned weapons and magic on the beasts that howled and charged
across the field. But just as quickly as the magic users struck the beasts
down, magic, wild magic, poured through the beasts. The black veins along their
bodies pulsed with it, and then the beasts stood again, attacked again.
They were not going down and staying down.
A beast leaped for me. I swung the sword, caught the thing midleap, straight
through the neck. It fell to the ground, quivered, and lay still.
The blade in my hand went black, then grew bright and silver tip to hilt. Holy
shit. Zay’s sword had some kind of spell worked into it so that it could drink
the magic out of its foe. Maybe it was honed to drink down dark magic.
It is
, Dad said.
But you are not trained to use it. You will grow
weaker with each strike.
So tell me how to use it right
, I thought.
I can’t.
He didn’t sound happy about that.
I am not the guardian of
the gate.
Here’s the thing. I was getting pretty tired of having to pay the price of
magic. But I’d do it with grim satisfaction if it meant I could save my
friends.
Another Hunger leaped at me. I swung again. Left it headless. It did not rise.
The ground beneath my feet swayed and I stumbled as my knees gave out. Okay, he
wasn’t kidding. It took a hell of a lot of stamina to wield dark magic.
I pushed back up to my feet, into a fighting stance, sword at the ready.
The four beasts nearest me backed away. Like scenting the wind, they all lifted
their wide heads. And ran. Past fallen or injured magic users—easy kills—which
made no sense. Ran toward Sedra.
A dozen beasts ran for Sedra. Two dozen. More.
Dane could not hold them off and keep the cage whole. He threw a wall of magic
at the beasts, but only half of them fell. The rest rushed him, fast. Too fast.
Dane disappeared beneath slathering jaws and wicked claws.
The cage around Sedra constricted, crushing her. Sedra screamed—a strangely
inhuman yell.
I started off toward her. But the battlefield was filled with beasts. And with
each one I killed, I had to pause, catch my breath, and balance before I could
raise the sword and stride forward again.
Jingo Jingo answered Sedra’s cry. Caught in battle with a beast, he cast magic,
the disk clenched in his thick palm, and chanted something that sent the beast
to its belly. No. Something that made the beast crouch, then spin to launch at
Shame’s throat.
Shame opened his arms and laughed, magic caught between his two hands drinking
the dark magic out of the creature. But the monster was huge, bigger than a
car. It kept coming, no matter how quickly Shame drained it. Shame yelled,
anger, terror, maybe even desire, as it broke through his spell and leaped upon
him, jaws tearing into his chest.
Terric, on the other side of the battlefield, yelled. “No, no, no!” He swung
his axes, cleaving through the beasts between him and Shame, blood and a black
ichor covering his face, so much that not even the rain could wash it away as
he hacked and sliced. Hungers and the other, stranger creatures with too many
hands, too many eyes, and too many teeth fell in pieces at his feet as he cut a
bloody swath through them.
I ran toward Shame. Slow. Too damn slow.
Jingo was already striding over to Sedra. Past the slathering pile of beasts on
top of Dane, ignoring them, and Dane’s screams, like they were of no more
concern to him than a pack of puppies. He slammed the disk, full of magic, into
the cage that held Sedra. His voice rose above the battle, above the storm,
above the thunder. “This will end!”
Copper lightning shot up out of the ground, enveloping them. Then Jingo Jingo
and Sedra were gone, leaving nothing behind but a circle of black ash.
Holy shit. I killed another beast. And another. Then pulled the blood blade to
hold another off while I tried to catch my breath and strength. I wasn’t going
fast enough. Shame lay dying beneath that creature. Might already be dead.
A blur to my right caught my attention. Victor, wielding his sword, and I swear
not even breaking a sweat, sliced his way toward Liddy, who held a protective
spell around Chase. I didn’t know why she was protecting Chase, but Chase
wasn’t looking too good. She looked dazed.
Liddy wasn’t looking too good either. She didn’t even try to keep Victor from
breaking the Shield spell. She stiffened and fell before Victor’s blade reached
her.
And then I saw why. Behind her hunkered a huge nightmare of a thing. Too many
heads and mouths and hands, all bloodred. It pulled six bloody pincers out of
Liddy’s back and reached for Chase. Chase crumpled as if she’d been hit by a
Taser. Victor’s sword, which I thought had broken Liddy’s spell, instead
finished its intended arc and sliced the creature in half.
The creature shuddered, then fell into a pile of quivering flesh. Flesh that
started smoking in the rain. Victor grabbed Chase and dragged her away. He ran
back for Liddy, but he was late, too late.
The creature went up in a screaming bonfire of flames, so dark, it hurt to look
at it. And somewhere in that flame had been Liddy.
This was a slaughter.
Chase coughed and rocked, as if she’d hit the ground from a height and was
trying to kick-start her lungs. Blood and rain splashed across her face. That
nightmare creature had done some damage.
From the edge of the clearing, I saw another beast moving fast, liquid on four
legs.
Greyson. No longer a man. All pissed-off hell-spawn creature, somehow more
familiar and less frightening than the Hungers and horrors, coming straight for
Chase. He tore through the Hungers, sucking down their life, their magic, and
then spewed that magic at the other creatures, boiling them until they burst
into flame.
I didn’t know where Hayden was. Didn’t know how Greyson had gotten away from
him. But there was another killer on Greyson’s heels. Just as fast. Just as
frightening. Coming down heavy enough I could feel the vibration of his stride
under my feet.
Stone.
And he looked angry.
Greyson pounded toward Chase, throwing Hungers to the ground, laying a path of
destruction behind him.
Allison
, my dad said.
Get close to Greyson.
I intended to do just that. Then I intended to stick Zay’s sword in his chest.
I understood the pain Chase must be going through. She still loved Greyson,
even though he wasn’t human anymore. I could forgive her for siding with him,
for wanting to defend him. But I would not let that keep me from killing the
bastard.
If you kill Greyson
, Dad said,
you will kill the part of me inside
him.
You’re not supposed to be alive anyway
, I said.
Get rid of him, get
rid of you. How is that a bad thing?
Because without me, you’ll never be able to bring Zayvion back.
A chill washed over my skin, colder than the rain. Stone leaped and landed,
hard, in the middle of Greyson’s back. I heard bones break. Chase screamed as
if the pain was hers to share, and maybe it was. She pushed up to her knees,
and feet, and stumbled toward Greyson.
Victor did not stop her, too busy with the half dozen Hungers that surrounded
him.
Hayden was back, at the northernmost edge of the field, swinging his broadsword
like a one-man army, and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Zayvion is trapped
, my father said.
They did more than push him
through the gate. They locked him there. They are using him there. He will
never return.
No
, I thought.
That’s a lie.
My hand jerked, and I nicked the side of my thumb on the glass and steel blood
blade I carried. Zayvion’s blood blade. I hadn’t moved my hand—my father had.
What the hell? It was a small cut, but blood ran freely from it.
Blood to blood, Allison.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, or why it mattered. He drew on the
magic in the air, maybe used some of the magic in me, and I felt the tight,
intimate tingling of a Truth spell spread through me, spread between us.
Zayvion is locked on the other side of death
, my father said, and I felt
the truth of it like a fire against my bones.
I thought Truth spells were bad on the outside. Having someone inside of my
head bonding through Truth hurt. But it was very, very clear that my father was
not lying.
I believe I can free him and send his soul back to his body, back into life.
If you regain the parts of me Greyson now holds. And if I cross over into death
to find him now. His time there is at an end. He is dying.
I didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to feel that truth burning through me.
We can do it later. After the battle. After we win. You can help me later.
I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. He already knew what I was feeling.
Truth spells worked both ways.
No, I cannot.
He broke the Truth spell, or uncast it, or did whatever it is a dead guy who
can still freaking cast magic from inside someone else’s freaking body can do.
I opened my mouth to curse, but didn’t have time. More and more creatures
continued to pour out of the gate. Too many for the magic users to deal with,
too many to hope to defeat, too many to let loose into the city.
Victor had carved his way across the field to the front of the gate, his hands
lifted in a complicated glyph that would close it. Nikolai, the good-looking
Russian Closer, stood next to him, killing the beasts that came too near,
holding a Shield of magic so that Victor could do his work.
Close the gate. So that there were no more beasts loose in the world.
Close the gate. And trap Zayvion.
Close the gate. Sealing Zayvion’s death.
Maeve was still on the ground, unconscious, but Sunny knelt next to her,
keeping the beasts away with wicked knives.
Shame was also on the ground.
Terric had destroyed everything between him and Shame, and beheaded and
de-limbed the Hunger that had attacked Shame. Terric now crouched next to
Shame, one hand on his chest, glowing with magic that sank into Shame and
poured out of him into the ground, as if Shame were a sieve, broken, unable to
carry magic, life, breath.
I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Terric was crying, his teeth bared in
fury, his ax raised and crackling with black licks of magic as creatures
circled them, came too close, and died on the edge of his blade. The blood on
one side of his face was finger-painted in the glyph for life and I knew it had
been traced there by Shame.
Shame was dying. Maybe he was already dead. I didn’t have the wrist cuff. I
couldn’t tell if his heart still beat.
The gate was about to close. There was no more time to make good decisions.
There was only time to make a decision.
Whom to save?
Zayvion had once told me I was not a killer. I’d proved him wrong. I had
killed. But right now, it was life I was trying to hold on to.
I ran toward Greyson, caught the attention of too many creatures, and hacked my
way through them. Months of training and sheer fury drove me on, Zayvion’s
sword drinking down the magic, the energy, of the beasts. It was draining me,
but I was pulling on magic from the sky, wild magic that licked and bloomed and
caught fire in my blood, my bones, and fed me strength.
I channeled the storm. And now the storm raged in me.
Too bad for the beasts. Too bad for anyone in my way.
Closer
, my father said.
I made ground as things born of death’s nightmares leaped at me, tearing at my
magic, tearing at my flesh. Something, a claw or a fang, got through, sliced my
thigh. Something else raked down my back. I felt the hot pump of blood mix with
the hard-falling rain.
Then I was on Greyson.
Still pinned beneath Stone, he was more man than he had been. And I knew why.
Chase lay next to him, frozen, her hand clasped with his. She was alive. I
thought she was. And she was pouring her life out to sustain his.
Sometimes love made you stronger. And sometimes it made you crazy.
Greyson looked up at me. “There is still hope.”
“Not for you. Give me back my father, you bastard.” I swung the sword.
My father shifted in my head, stretched like electricity crackling behind my
eyes. He pushed at my brain, my mind, my head.
My sword halted midswing.
My father’s ghost stood next to me, his hand blocking my blade. “Taking his
life with this blade will kill you,” he said, from outside my mind.
I didn’t care. I had a lot of fury and magic holding me up. But there was also
a lot of screaming in the back of my head that had been going on for a while. I
knew I was ignoring a lot of pain. Maybe ignoring too much pain.
“Get out of my way,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Allison.” My father stepped closer to me. I caught the scent of him,
wintergreen and leather. His voice was gentle. “There is no time for revenge.
Not if you want life to win.”
How much time did it take to kill someone?
And that was when I felt it. The storm was passing, the rain lifting. Wild
storms ended as quickly as they hit. Soon there would be no more wild magic to
hold me up. I glanced up, away at the city, crouched in magicless darkness.
Lights flickered on, blazed. Magic caught again like a flame to a wick, and
exhaled life and safety into the city. We had done it. We had channeled the
wild magic away from the city. The storm was passing.