Magic on the Storm (3 page)

“How about we just make Shame pay for a month?” he said.
“Does he ever pay for anything?”
Zay finished off his Coke. “Nope. That’s one of his special talents.”
I pulled out the cash, left it and the ticket propped next to the condiment
basket. I stood. “Ready?”
For a second, just the briefest of moments, a wave of dizziness hit me. The
entire building felt like it shuddered, like a liquid earthquake rumbled far
beneath my feet, and echoed up my body and rolled through my head.
“Allie?”
I rubbed at my temple and the sudden headache. “Headache.” But it couldn’t be
from magic use.
The last time I’d used magic was two weeks ago. A Hounding job that had nothing
to do with the police or Detective Stotts. I had tracked back a spell for a
lady in my building to make sure no one was putting Attraction on her car.
Turned out no one was. The parking tickets and the speeding and seat belt
violations were all nonmagical and all her.
Maybe this was just a regular headache? Regular people did get regular
headaches. I was regular people too.
Zay put his hand on my arm and I walked with him out the door. The headache
hung on despite the cool air. By the time we were halfway across the parking
lot, the pain was less, and I felt stable on my feet. Normal.
Zay’s hand was still on my arm. I didn’t have to concentrate to feel his
concern.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just a little dizzy. It’s gone.”
He didn’t let go of me until we were next to his car, which he unlocked. “Maybe
you should stop wearing the void stone.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Can it make me dizzy? Give me headaches?”
He shrugged. “No one holds magic in their body like you do. It’s hard to know
what the long-term effects are.” He paused, looked at me over the top of the
car. Probably saw my panic as I scrambled to get the necklace off.
“It won’t bite,” he said.
“Right.” Visions of the stone sucking magic out of me like a leech filled my
mind. “Nothing about you secret magic users or your secret magic toys is dangerous.”
I tugged the length of leather off over my head and held it out in front of me
like I had a snake by the head. The void stone swung in the breeze, a dark
heart wrapped in copper and silver wire like fire and moonlight, glass beads
flashing like stars.
Zay grinned. “Want me to tie it in a knot or kill it and put it in the trunk?”
“Shut up.” I ducked into the car and plunked the thing down into the empty cup
holder.
Magic stirred in me, a tingling warmth that grew hot, flushing across my skin,
then sinking back down, warming my bones and filling me. It moved within me
with promise, with desire. I closed my eyes, wanting to lose myself to it.
Wanting to use magic in every way I could.
But that would be bad. I had enough magic inside me, I could burn down a city.
And I didn’t want to do that. I liked the city.
I took a deep breath and worked on letting the magic move through me without me
touching it.
I am a river and magic is the water. It pours through me, but
it does not change me.
I closed my eyes and repeated that litany until the
magic backed off and settled like a layer of lead over my bones.
Several minutes had passed. Zay had already started the engine and was heading
toward Maeve’s through traffic that was starting to thicken up for pre-rush
hour. It was still light out, and a misty rain ticked against the windshield
and roof. Other than the rub of the windshield wipers and the hum of the
engine, it was quiet in the car.
I knew Zay could Ground me to help me keep the magic at controllable levels and
could ease the pain I carried from using magic. But ever since we’d stepped
into each other’s minds, we’d tried not to use magic together.
Grounding was extremely difficult and carried twice the pain for the user—in
this case, Zay—as other spells did. It was one of the spells I’d never been
good at.
No, let me be blunt: I sucked at Grounding. Always had, and it looked like I
always would.
Zay could Ground like he was strolling through daisies.
It would be easy to ask him to Ground me, but I had to do this, learn to quiet
the magic inside me on my own.
“Hint?” I finally asked.
“You learned it with Victor.”
Okay, Victor was Zay’s boss. Head of the Closers, who followed the magic
discipline of Faith. Tall, elegant older man. Cultured, intelligent, and
ruthless. He had a sort of calm and deliberation about him that I liked. It was
a little like Zayvion’s Zen mode, and I wondered if Zay picked up that
particular habit from him.
I may not fully trust Victor—issues; I have them—but other than Maeve, who
taught Blood magic, he was my next-favorite teacher despite the fact that he
taught Faith magic.
Faith magic was the same magic Dr. Frank Gordon had used to dig up my dad and
try to kill me. Well, Frank had used a lot of disciplines, Faith, Life, Death,
Blood. He’d probably used everything he could to try to open the gates between
life and death. Wanted to control dark magic. Sacrificed a few innocent girls
to do it.
I did not regret that he was dead.
“Allie.”
Oh, right. I was supposed to be dealing with the magic that was trying to burn
its way out of me.
Victor. What had he taught me? That magic was a river, a constant flow. But it
could be thought of as shape and form too. As glyphs. And every glyph had a
beginning and an end. Every glyph had break points, corners, places where you
could block and stop magic.
So what I needed to do was think of the magic in me as a glyph, find a corner,
a break point where it flowed through me, and block it.
Good thing using magic was so easy.
Not.
I imagined myself as a river. Magic flowed up through my feet, filled the pool
I held inside me—the small magic I was born with that was now a raging sea—and
then magic poured out, too slowly, through my fingertip and into the ground
again.
Where was there a break in that?
“Another hint?” I asked.
Zayvion placed his hand high up on my thigh, his long fingers curving downward.
I sighed as cool mint washed along all the rivulets and pathways magic had
torched through me. Swallowed and tasted mint on the back of my throat, and
breathed deep to make room for Zayvion to tap into the magic I carried. I
wanted to close my eyes and savor the feel of him within me. I licked my lips,
shifted in my seat a little, and drew my fingertips up the back of his hand.
“Hey,” I said all breathy-like.
“Hey. Are you going to pay attention to what I’m doing?” he asked.
Spoilsport.
I rolled my head to one side and looked at him. I didn’t draw Sight. Using
magic right now was sort of the opposite of what I was trying to do.
Still, there was that whole soul-to-soul thing between Zayvion and me. When we
touched, I could sense him. I concentrated on that, felt what he was doing.
Sweet hells, the man put the multi in multitasking.
He held himself in a very disciplined, meditative frame of mind. He had sort of
opened himself up, a lot like how I breathe deeply to let magic move through
me.
But instead of just making space for magic inside him, he had made a channel.
He had drawn a glyph, mentally. The glyph of Grounding wrapped through him like
cold steel cables. He concentrated on feeding magic into it. I’d never seen
this spell worked on a purely mental level.
Probably because I’d never seen any spell worked on a purely mental level.
Zayvion Jones kicked magical ass. I wondered if even my father, who was one of
the most powerful magic users I’d ever known, was as strong as Zay.
“Wow,” I breathed.
That got a small smile out of him. His eyes squinted, laugh lines edging the
corners.
“Thank you. Can you see how it’s channeled?”
“Other than magnificently?”
We stopped at a red light. He looked over at me. “Other than that, yes.”
I stared into his eyes, at the gold burning hot and deep there. All that did
was make me want to touch him, kiss him, pour so much magic into him he’d be begging
me for mercy.
Magic rolled in me, deep in my stomach, and I worked hard not to moan with the
need to have him.
“You are not winning,” he noted.
“No kidding,” I gasped. Right. The idea here was to not give in to magic. Or,
apparently, my need for Zay.
I pressed my fingers against my eyes. My right fingers were hot, and my left
were cold, positive and negative from the magic pouring through me. I took a
second to breathe in again and clear my mind.
When I looked again at Zayvion, he was paying attention to the road, taking us
across the bridge, calm, unconcerned. And he was Grounding like mad on the
inside.
All I had to do was find a way to slow magic pouring into me. That meant a
glyph that would track back and forth at the beginning, loop and loop so that
magic had a long way to travel before it could add to the pool I already
carried. I could do that.
I thought.
“Victor said I could use any of the spells that slow magic, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I didn’t care how good Zayvion was—I was absolutely certain I could not
just mentally draw a glyph and expect it would work. I used my right hand and
traced a liquid, curvy glyph for Linger in front of me. These kinds of spells
were used inside stores, restaurants, and salons. They gave off a comfortable,
relaxed feeling. If they were particularly well drawn, they made shoulders
drop, smiles come out, and people spend way more money and time in their
vicinity.
I pinched the glyph between thumbs and two fingers of both my right and left
hands. Instead of pouring magic into it, I was going to push the spell into me,
so the magic in me would be forced to follow it.
I had no frickin’ clue how to do that.
“Uh,” I started.
“You can do it.”
“A little help?”
“I’m watching.”
“I wanted help, not an audience.”
He just gave me a look.
Okay, fine. I recited my go-to mantra, the “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack” jingle,
to clear my mind. Then I pulled the glyph into me, toward my chest,
concentrating on it wrapping around the flow of magic, the speed of magic, the
pressure of magic.
My heart stuttered. Whoa. Not good. I concentrated harder on the spell.
Magic,
not heart. Find the magic. Just the magic.
I released the spell. It sank
like a rock toward my feet, then settled beneath my feet and pressed against my
arches and heels. It rested there like a layer of sand and stone and soil,
soaking up the magic, filtering it, and giving it a place to stretch out before
it trickled up into me at a much slower pace.
My head cleared. I broke out in a sweat.
“Holy crap. Good?” I asked Zay.
He nodded. “Not how I would have done it, but effective. So yes. Good. You have
control?”
Oh, right. That was the other half of this deal. I cleared my mind again,
calmed my thoughts, and pressed back on the magic rolling within me. Magic
fluttered, pressed once again, tempting me to use it, to fall to its siren
call.
Nope. La, la, la. Not listening.
Magic quieted.
“Very nice,” Zayvion murmured. “I’m impressed.” He drew his fingers slowly up
my thigh, then away, leaving the lingering cool warmth of mint and his touch
behind.
“Are you still dizzy?” he asked.
“No. I feel pretty good.”
Oh, screw it. I felt powerful. Proud. That had been a fine little piece of
magic using I’d just done. Yes, I’d probably pay for it with a walloping
headache, but right now, I didn’t care. “I’d feel even better with a
hell-of-a-job kiss.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be? One elementary-level spell and you get naked?”
“First, that was not elementary level. High school at the very least. Second,
tell me you don’t like the idea of me being naked.”
“How about I tell you I don’t like the idea of driving off the road. Which
means your clothes stay on you.” He stopped at a light, then added, “For now.”
“Chicken.”
He grinned. Zay had a good profile, a strong, wide nose, high cheekbones, and a
slant to his eyes that I thought was incredibly sexy, and that spoke to his
mixed heritage. Under that ratty coat and jeans was a very fine, very fit body.
But he was also a man full of secrets. Even though we’d been officially dating
for a couple months now, I still hadn’t gotten much about his past out of him.
I didn’t even know where he’d grown up.
“Did you do time with Shame in juvie?” I asked.
“That’s what you were thinking about when magic was trying to burn you up?”
“No, it’s what I’m thinking about now.”
“Shame?”
“Your past.”
“Hmm.”
We were on the other side of the bridge and making our way southeast along the
Washington side of the Columbia River. The sun pushed through cumulus clouds on
their way to the Cascade Range, where rain would cover the mountains in snow
and keep the skiers happy.
“Well?”
“I never got in trouble with the law when I was young.”
“So why was Detective Payne staring at you?”
He glanced over at me, then back out at the road.
He drove for a while, silent. I’d learned to give him his space. I didn’t know
if it was life or if it was just second nature to him, but he was the most
private person I’d ever met. I didn’t even know if he had a middle name.
“She helped me out once.”
I waited. I didn’t want to, but I did it. Go, me.
“I was twelve. Fostered to a family that . . .” He closed his mouth, inhaled
through his nose. “She caught me digging in Dumpsters for food. Made me give
her my foster parents’ names and address. Things got better after that.”
“Is she part of the Authority?”
“No.” He paused again. “The past is the past, Allie,” he said. “I’d rather not
go over it.”
I just shook my head, but didn’t push him. Strange. There was so much of my
past that I’d lost—memories magic had taken away from me—moments I wished I
could have back. It was odd to hear someone choose not to remember. Maybe I’d
been that way once too. It was hard to say. Magic had done a lot of damage to
my life. Maybe it had done a lot of repair to Zayvion’s.
We made it to Maeve’s and pulled into the gravel parking lot between the inn
and the scrap-metal collection site beside it. Both buildings were tucked off
the main road, and close enough to the Columbia that I could smell the algae
and green off the river as I stepped out of the car.
The inn used to be an old train-station boardinghouse and restaurant. The track
didn’t run past here anymore, but the building remained much as it was when it
had been built. Fresh white paint, and glittering rows of uniform windows, gave
the Feile San Fhomher a welcoming, homey feel.