Magic on the Storm (30 page)

More than that, the wells and networks were filling fast. I could feel the deep
tingle of familiar magic wrapping up inside me again, a heavy warm weight that
stretched out against my skin, all pleasure, no pain.
I could easily access that magic, even out here in magicless St. Johns. But it
was obvious Chase, lying still, eyes closed, hand clasped with Greyson’s at my
feet, struggled to reach magic. To keep him alive.
My father let go of the sword, and bent over Greyson.
Stone growled. My father paid no attention to him. Instead, Dad traced a glyph
in the air, a serpentine line that glowed pure white gold. He caught it up on
his hands, where it pressed into place like gauntlets a king might wear. My
father glowed with that light, as if the magic wrapped him in its vestments.
And then he pressed his hand into Greyson’s head.
Yes.
Into.
Greyson went absolutely still, and Dad said something that sounded like an old
language. A blessing more than a curse.
The gold lines of magic grew stronger and filled my dad with more light. He
stood, and was more solid than he had been, though I could still see Stone and
Greyson through him.
He regarded me for a moment. “Good-bye, daughter.” He turned toward the gate.
A rumble shook the ground. I turned. The gate, trapped by Victor’s spells,
began to collapse.
Hayden was cutting a swath through the beasts toward us. He’d be here, on top
of Greyson and Chase, in a second.
And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Terric stand and swing his ax, killing
another beast, while he poured magic, less than before, into Shame. Terric was
exhausted. The easy magic, the wild magic, was nearly gone.
Without it, Shame would die.
I spun, Zay’s sword still in my hand, and ran for the center of the field, for
the pile of broken, blown-apart disks that no longer held magic, where the gate
still shimmered in the air, growing smaller as Victor wrapped it in massive
lines of magic that webbed it so that no more creatures poured out.
I didn’t want the disks. I wanted the crystal. Found it, glowing pink with
magic beneath the burnt silver disks. I picked it up and could almost taste the
sweetness of the full, heavy magic it carried like a perfume on the back of my
throat.
“Terric!” I yelled.
He glanced over. I threw the crystal to him, willing it with mind and magic to
find him, reach him. He caught it with the hand that was channeling magic,
life, into Shame.
His eyes widened. And then he was on his knees, his ax discarded at his side,
pressing the crystal to Shame’s chest with both hands, as if it were a new
heart for a broken toy. He bent and pressed his forehead to Shame’s, whispering
to him.
No time.
My father strode toward the gate. Close enough he could step through, but
Victor’s lines blocked him.
“He must let me pass,” my father said.
Victor was focused, caught in a trance of sheer will, sweat peppering his face,
his arms shaking as he chanted the spell and forced the gate between life and
death to close. He was wielding a hell of a lot of magic with very little
resources.
He did not see my dad. He did not know he was sealing Zayvion’s death forever.
There was no cavalry to come to our rescue.
But I didn’t need a cavalry to save Zayvion.
I strode over to Victor. My teacher, Zayvion’s teacher, who might even have
been a father figure to Zay. I put my hand on his shoulder and used Influence
so that he would understand me and obey.
“Wait until I pass through. Then close the gate behind me.”
“Allie,” he gasped. “It is suicide.”
“Zayvion is the guardian of the gates and I am his Soul Complement. No one’s
going to tell me I can’t bring him home.”
Someone yelled. I thought it was Shame. He had told me I couldn’t go anywhere
without him.
He was wrong.
I glanced over my shoulder. Shame was barely standing, eyes wide in horror or
anger, one hand extended toward me. Terric stood behind him, one hand clasped
with his, the other arm wrapped around Shame’s waist, holding him up, holding
him back.
“Allie,” Shame yelled. “Don’t!”
I didn’t listen. I held up one hand. A wave. A farewell, and I turned away.
Shame was in good hands. Maybe the best hands he could be in. Terric’s hands.
If there was ever going to be a chance to bring Zayvion back, it was now.
The shadow of a figure in flight flashed above me. Stone.
The big rock landed with surprising grace at my side.
I sheathed Zay’s sword across my back, and glanced down at Stone, all muscle
and wing and fangs. He tipped his head to look up at me, ears perked into
triangles.
“Stay,” I said. “I have work to do.”
Stone growled, then crooned like an out-of-tune pipe organ. His wings pressed
against his back and he took a step toward the gate.
Fine. I was running out of time. I didn’t know if Stone could walk into death
and return alive. Hells, I didn’t know if I could walk into death and come out
alive. Didn’t know if I could find Zay’s soul and drag it back with me into the
living world.
But I sure as hell was going to find out.
“Are you ready?” I asked my dad.
He frowned. “Where are you going?”
“To save my man.” I put my hand down on Stone’s head. My father smiled. I
didn’t know why. Maybe he was angry.
“No,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Impressed. You know you can’t survive in
there without me.”
“I didn’t say I was going alone.” I didn’t trust him. Sure, he talked a nice
Truth spell, but once on the other side, he might change his mind about saving
Zayvion. I wouldn’t chance that.
Dad took his place at my right, and Stone stood at my left. Without another
look back, I walked through the gates of death.

The End

Read on for an exciting excerpt from
Devon Monk’s next Allie Beckstrom novel,
MAGIC AT THE GATE
Coming in November 2010 from Roc
D
eath had seen better days. Vacant, crumbling buildings, a brown-red
sky, and slick pools of black oil stretching out along the sidewalk of what I
was pretty sure was supposed to be Burnside Boulevard. The city—and it was very
clear we were in Portland—looked like a dump. If this was death, I wanted to
meet the marketing team that had dreamed up both the fluffy-cloud-golden-harp
thing and the eternal-fires-of-burning-hell shtick.
Because this place was broken and empty. Achingly so.
“Allison?” my father, next to me, said.
He was fully solid now, no longer ghostlike at all. A little taller than I,
gray hair, wearing a business suit with a lavender handkerchief in the pocket.
Death didn’t seem to bother him one bit.
And it shouldn’t have. He belonged here.
He squeezed my arm, his eyes flicking back and forth, searching the details of
my face. “Can you breathe?”
Of all the dumb questions. “Of course I can breathe. Let go of me.”
His lips pressed together in a thin line and the familiar anger clouded his
eyes. He pulled his hand away from my arm.
There was no air. No air in my lungs, and none to breathe. I tried not to
panic, but, hey, this was death. I knew I’d be lucky to get out of here alive.
And I had to get out of here alive. Zayvion was here, somewhere, his soul sent
here, his body in life, in a coma.
This was my one chance, my only chance, to save him.
The wild-magic storm might have passed, but the very real danger of my never
seeing Zayvion’s beautiful eyes, hearing his gentle voice, feeling his touch,
set off a sharp panic in my chest.
Well, that and not being able to breathe.
Dad put his left hand in his pocket, tucking away something. Then he crossed
his arms over his chest and watched me gasp. Stone-cold, that man.
I shut my mouth and glared. Yes, I was that stubborn. My vision darkened at the
edges.
Could you pass out in death? I was about to find out.
Stone growled and stepped toward Dad, fangs bared. That’s my boy. Stone’s
normally dark gray body was now black, shot through with lightning flecks of
blue and green and pink, as if he were made of obsidian with opal running
beneath the glassy surface. He shone, his eyes glowing a deep amber.
“Touch the Animate,” Dad said. “You should be able to breathe again.”
Since it was beginning to dawn on me that passing out and leaving my dad
conscious might be a really stupid idea, I put my hand on Stone’s head.
Air—good . . . well, if not good, serviceable, smelly air—filled my lungs. I
hacked like a smoker on a three-day bender. My lungs hurt.
“You are in death.” Dad hit lecture mode from word one. “A living being crossed
into death. There is so little chance you could have survived that, Allison. No
one can step into death if they are fully alive. And yet here you stand. It
does make me curious. What part of you is dead, my daughter?”
I didn’t know. My sense of humor, maybe? My tolerance for his being a jerk? Or
maybe because my Soul Complement was in a coma and his soul was already in
death—that counted. I was too busy coughing and trying to breathe to be
philosophical.
He shook his head, dismissing the question as easily as he dismissed me. “To
survive you will need to stay in contact with something that is neither fully
alive nor completely dead. Something that exists in a between state. A filter
between life and death.”
“You’re dead.” I finally managed to exhale. “All dead. Why could I breathe when
you touched me?”
“That answer is complicated.” He looked up and down the street, then at the
building next to us, as if getting his bearings, and started walking down the
street.
I followed him, and Stone somehow sensed the need to stay under my hand. There
was no one on the streets with us, no wind, no rain. When I glanced up, it was
nothing but terra-cotta sky and hard white light.
“Tell me you’re dead,” I said.
“Very much so. That doesn’t mean I’m not without resources.”
Which meant part of him, some of him somewhere, was alive. Great. I did not
trust my dad. I never had. For good reason. And that very calm, trustworthy
face he was wearing made me twitchy.
“Where are you alive? Why?” I asked. “Who’s helping you?”
“That is not important.”
“Yes, it is. What is your angle in all this, Dad? I have lost track of whose
side you’re on.”
“I am on magic’s side. To see that it falls into the right hands. My motives
are not yours to question.”
“I’ll question your motives until the day I die. Again. For reals.”
“This is real,” he said quietly. “Very real. If you are to survive, you need to
put your stubbornness aside and listen to me.”
“Oh, I just love that idea.”
“Love it or not, your options are limited. Living flesh does not travel well in
the world of death. I believe if you stay in contact with the Animate, it will
filter the . . . irritants of death long enough for you to accomplish your
task.”
He made it sound as if he were teaching me the ABC’s and knew there was no way
I’d ever make it to Q.
He stopped and glanced back down the street the way we’d come. “Faster would be
better.”
He grabbed my arm and propelled me down an alley. I shook free of him, my other
hand still on Stone’s head, and looked over my shoulder.
Watercolor people. And not the nice kind. Unlike the other Veiled I had seen in
life, these ghostly people barely resembled people. With their twisted bodies
and sagging faces, they resembled movie zombies more than ghosts. They also
looked solid.
And hungry.
Stone growled.
The Veiled heard him, turned our way, sniffing, scenting, crooked hands tracing
half-formed glyphs, as if they could use magic to find us.
“Veiled?” I asked.
“Quiet,” Dad said.
Stone’s ears flattened. He stopped making noise but his lips were pulled back
to expose a row of sharp teeth and fangs.
Dad traced a glyph in the air and magic followed in a solid gold line at his fingertips.
I wasn’t using Sight, yet magic was clearly visible. That wasn’t how it worked
in life. Magic was too fast to be visible. Here, it was slow and fluid.
He finished the glyph. Camouflage glittered in the air like a filigreed screen.
He whispered a word and the glyph stretched and widened, creating a swirling
shell around us. I swallowed, but could not taste anything. That was different
from in life too. Magic didn’t smell or taste here.
Or maybe I just wasn’t dead enough to sense it.
The Veiled were almost on us.
“This way,” Dad whispered. He rolled his fingers, catching up the lines of the
Camouflage glyph and balancing it on his open palm. He pushed his palm outward
in a sort of traffic-cop
stop
motion and the spell moved with us,
keeping us hidden.
Impressive.
Dad’s mouth set in a hard line and his eyes narrowed, as if casting magic and
maintaining the spell wasn’t easy. Still, he stormed down the alleyway—not once
looking back—strong, confident.
And for a second, just a second, I saw my dad as a heroic figure. The epitome
of what a magic user should be. The mythic wizard who knew the hidden strengths
of magic and his own soul. Even in death, my dad stood tall and kicked ass.
“Walk or be eaten,” he said.
Okay, so much for the hero bit.
I picked up the pace and Stone padded along beside me.
The Veiled stepped into the alley behind us and shuffled over to where we’d
been standing. They didn’t follow us. A few dropped to their knees, patting the
sidewalk as if they’d just lost something, while others ran their hands along
the brick wall, mouths open. They leaned against the building and sucked at the
wall as if they were starving for even the slightest drop of magic it might
contain.
It creeped me out. I walked faster, holding tight to Stone’s ear.
“I did not want to enter this way,” Dad said, “but bringing you along has
changed my approach. Why must you challenge me in every way, Allison?”
“I’d be happy to help,” I said as pleasantly as I could muster, “if you’d tell
me where Zayvion is so I can get the hell out of here.”
He stopped at the other end of the alley. More Veiled blocked our passage.
These stared at us as if they could see right through the Camouflage my dad
still held.
That wasn’t good.
I put my hand on the hilt of Zayvion’s katana, which was sheathed on my back.
“Don’t draw the blade.”
There wasn’t a lot of room in the alley. I was mostly behind him. I didn’t know
how he’d seen me reach for the sword.
“I’m not going to wait until they jump us.”
And just like that, the Veiled rushed toward us.
“Do you trust me?” he asked without looking back at me.
“No.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
My dad broke the Camouflage spell—and I mean it shattered and fell like glass
exploding.
Then he spun and stuck his hands into my chest.
Into. My. Chest.
It hurt. I inhaled. Exhaled. Yelled. Couldn’t move to draw the sword, draw a
spell, draw a breath.
Stone launched at him. Then I couldn’t breathe
even more
.
Dad was fast. He pulled his hands free, pulling magic—pink and silver and
black—out of my chest and pointing at Stone, who halted in his tracks and
stepped on my foot, so I had at least some contact. Dad cast a glyph out of the
magic—my magic—and threw a metallic, sparking fireball at the Veiled.
The explosion lit the street and carved hard shadows down the alley.
The Veiled screamed, an unholy sound that echoed out and out and seemed to
reflect off of the sky as if it were a low ceiling. It was too big a sound, too
much sound, in too small a place.
Their scream vibrated somewhere deep inside of me where I couldn’t get away
from it, making their pain a part of me, my magic a part of them.
No, no, no.
I reached for Stone, for my dad, for anyone, any
thing
to hold on to to
make this stop. Then Dad was standing in front of me, his hand over the old
bullet scar just below my collarbone.
“Breathe, Allison. Breathe.”
I gasped. Got some air down. Tasted something sweet against my tongue, and the
cool, rough bricks of the building against my back.
“What. The. Hell,” I said.
“Light and Dark magic, through Death magic,” he said evenly, not moving away
from me. “A transference. I took from the magic within you, and now I give you
back the magic of death.”
So that was the bluish glow coming from his hand.
“Wait. What? You are not putting dead people in me.” I pushed at his hands, but
it didn’t do much good. I was very, very tired, and he didn’t seem to have any
problem keeping me pinned against the wall.
Why was I was so tired?
Could it be because I was in death? And my father had just ripped magic out of
my chest? And right before that, back in life, I’d Grounded a wild-magic storm
and fought a bunch of crazy magic users, all the while killing Hungers and
other nightmarish creatures while trying to save my friends’ lives?
Yes. That would be why. I’d had a hell of a day and the adrenaline of the
battlefield was wearing off, leaving behind the very real horror of what had
happened.
Zayvion was in a coma. Shame had almost died. For all I knew, the crystal I’d
given to Terric had been only a temporary reprieve for Shame. Jingo Jingo
betrayed everyone, nearly killed Maeve, nearly killed Shame, kidnapped Sedra.
Magic users had turned against magic users. Liddy, my Death magic teacher, was
dead. Chase and Greyson might be dead too. And La, and Joshua, and probably
more were hurt. Violet was in the hospital. Kevin too.
The Authority wasn’t cracking; it had broken. Sides had been taken. The war was
on.
Whoever came out on top would rule how magic was used by the common citizen,
and by the Authority. Whoever came out on top would control all the magic the
public knew about, and, worse, all the magic they didn’t know about. There was
a lot of power at stake here. Plenty enough to kill for.
And I was here, dead. With no one but my gargoyle and my dad to help me find my
way home. Where were my ruby slippers when I needed them?