Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

If I survived.

I looked up, at the sky roiling with metallic, psychedelic clouds, stirred by the winds like oil on water, pushed into new shapes, into unnamed hues and colors. Lightning struck, and all the colors of magic flashed gold against the black sky. I’d never felt so much magic so concentrated. At least, not that I remembered.

Even the rain tasted of the oily, metallic heat of wild magic, striking sour on the tip of my tongue, and so sweet at the back of my throat.

Lightning struck again. Thunder roared.

Now. I knew I had to cast it now.

I focused, pushed away the awareness of the magic users around me, most of them chanting over the rush of rain and wind, pushed away my awareness of the storm, of the rain, of the wind buffeting my body.

Raised my hand.

This one stroke, this one line, this one curve-I cast each part of the glyph for Grounding with precise, purposeful motion. Nothing wrong, not a tremor, not a pause.

Then I drew upon the magic from the disk in my hand. It hesitated, and for a second, I thought I had screwed up and was going to suck all the magic in the disk into me, into my bones, blood, and flesh. But the magic sprang free of the disk, and I guided it to fill the glyph for Grounding.

Magic poured into the Grounding, and shot ropes of magic over me. Even though I expected that and braced for it, I jerked. The thick, cold cables of the magic clamped over my shoulders and fell like hundred-pound anchors into the soil, where they plunged deep and hooked. I could not move if I wanted to.

I was now officially Beckstrom the storm rod. And I hated it.

Have I mentioned I am claustrophobic? I tried to push my fear out of the way, tried to ignore the clamping restraints of the Grounding holding me down.

This is why I am no good at Grounding. I freak out within the first three seconds or so. Trapped. Too trapped.

I exhaled, focused on the disk in my outstretched hand. I could do this. Not only that, I would do this. Everything depended on me doing this one thing. One thing wasn’t hard. I could do one thing.

Magic leaped into the hands of the users in the circle. I recognized directional glyphs, drawn to attract and guide the magic down out of the sky and into me-or rather into the framework of magic around me, the Grounding I’d just cast.

I breathed evenly, bracing for the onslaught.

Magic would not burn me alive. So long as I didn’t take it into me. So long as I didn’t lose my concentration. These magic users were professionals. They knew what they were doing.

I hoped.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a figure leap out of the shadows. Two figures. Magic flared. Glyphs turned to flame. The pile of disks at my feet caught fire, magic bursting free.

A wall of heat hit me and I yelled, thinking, Ground, Ground, Ground.

No, my dad said. Let go, Allison, let go! He shoved at me, tried to take control, but I was nothing if not made of stubborn. I held my place, kept my cool, even though I was being roasted to the core.

Ground, Ground, Ground.

Look, Dad said. Look around you. Look at the battle.

Battle? My ears were already ringing from the pounding thunder and magic. I couldn’t hear him over all the screaming.

Wait. Screaming?

I hesitated. I was not good at doing what my father wanted me to do. But there was something very wrong.

I looked away from the disk in my palm, holding my concentration in the Grounding spell.

Chaos. The circle was broken. And it wasn’t because of the storm.

Magic user fought magic user in a blur so confusing, I couldn’t make out who was where.

I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. Magic poured over me, hot, heavy, cold, biting, rushing down the cables of the Grounding spell that I somehow still held.

Go, me.

But all around me the Authority battled.

I searched for Shame in the melee.

And instead saw Greyson and Chase.

No, no, no. Absolutely no. They could not be here. Who would have told them we were going to be here?

Greyson was more beast than man, on all fours, wide head, fangs, and claw, bone and sinew for legs and arms, and burning eyes. Chase cast magic for him, with him, his Soul Complement and his hands. She was tall, but thinner and paler than just a day ago. Working magic with Greyson, or maybe being Soul Complement to a man who was half alive and half dead, carried a hard price-her humanity.

Her hair hung around her shoulders like a black cape, glimpses of her skin flashes of moonlight in a dark night. Her eyes and her lips were bloodred. She no longer wore jeans and flannel, but instead had on a black dress that skimmed her knees and black boots with heels low enough to make running easy. Or fighting.

And that was exactly what she was doing.

And doing very well.

Just like back at Officers Row, Chase was chanting and weaving glyphs in the air and filling them with magic she pulled out of the storm. Multicolored ribbons wrapped down her fingers and up her arm, where tendrils shot out to anchor in Greyson, feeding him. He was headed my way.

Romero, the family-man killer, launched himself at Greyson, the machete in his hand a blur of magic channeled from the sky.

Greyson fought him, fangs bared, then unhinged his huge jowls and sucked down the magic Romero threw at his head.

Chase clapped her hands together once and a gate sprang up. Greyson leaped through it. Chase slammed her hands together again, and the gate disappeared in a blast of black smoke.

I didn’t know how she was doing it. Those gates weren’t allowing any of the creatures that haunted the other side, the Hungers, to break through. But Greyson used them as easily as stepping though an open door.

One more clap, and the gate was open again, this time on the other side of the circle. Near Sedra and Maeve. And me.

Greyson tore out of the gate, and ran fast, too fast, a nightmare of bone and fang and claw. He launched at Sedra.

Sedra stood, cool and angry, hands raised in a block I’d never seen before. Greyson hit the block, and I swear I felt the thrum of that impact at the base of my skull, over the thunder, over the wail of magic in the storm, over the sounds of battle.

Maeve stepped up to Sedra’s defense. She wielded a long knife in each hand, blood covering her fingers and the blades as she cut glyphs into the air. She threw magic at Greyson. It wrapped him in dark lightning, filling the air with the sweet smell of cherries. Greyson sucked the magic down. Which was exactly what Maeve had wanted. Still connected by blood to her blade, and her will, Maeve yanked on the spell, tearing a brutal scream out of Greyson.

Greyson stumbled. Gave up his advance on Sedra and turned on Maeve instead. He leaped.

“No!” I yelled. I tried to take a step. The Grounding spell rooted me, anchored. I couldn’t let go of the spell, couldn’t break it.

Come on. Let go, undo, leave me now, go away, go away, stop.

Lightning struck, so close, rain sizzled. Thunder popped an ear-busting explosion and I tasted blood at the back of my throat.

Wild magic filled me, licked across my skin, catching fire down the ribbons of my arm and hand. Wild magic grew roots in me, different from the Grounding spell. I had felt this before. I suddenly remembered it now. The last time I’d tapped into a wild-magic storm and nearly died.

The crystal, my dad said. Or I think he said it. It was hard to hear anything over the thunder, the yelling, the fighting-worse because someone, I think the Georgia sisters, was supporting the dome of magic, keeping all the sounds we made inside.

I pushed my left hand into my pocket and pulled out the crystal. Deep fuchsia, the crystal was hot, glyphs carved inside it fluctuating with the magic I carried. I didn’t know how the crystal was going to help.

Direct the magic into it; use it to Ground. It is organic, unlike the disks, Dad said. It can act as a Grounder.

Okay, so all I had to do was recast the Grounding spell onto the crystal. One crystal to handle what me and a hundred disks were barely managing?

It’ll explode, I said.

It will hold long enough, Dad said.

Long enough?

For the storm to pass.

Maybe that was his idea of success. As a matter of fact, it probably was. I didn’t know what his stake in this was, except Violet’s safety.

Put the crystal on the disks, he said.

And that made sense. The excess magic in the crystal would bleed off into the disks, and they could help carry the load of wild magic.

But the Grounding spell wrapped me in concrete. It took everything I had to bend my knees and hold my hand out over the pile of disks. I opened my fingers, tipped my palm. The crystal fell, tumbling down and down. It struck the disks and a sweet, harmonic tone echoed back from the rain.

And then the world exploded.

My hands flew up without thought. Well, without my thought. Dad took over and cast a hell of a Shield spell. That kept me from burning to the bone. But it did not keep me from being thrown back ten feet, and landing flat on my back.

Someone above me, in the light, shadows, rain, wild magic, held a hand down for me.

“Move!” It was Victor, my teacher, Zayvion’s teacher. He grabbed my hand and rocketed me onto my feet.

All the training I’d done on the mats came into play. I found my balance and footing in the wet and confusion, and got out of the way fast. Victor had pulled me to one side of the battlefield.

I hurt-my skin stung from the magic burns, or, for all I knew, from lightning strikes. But even with all hell coming down, I did not draw Zay’s blade and go in swinging.

I didn’t know whom we were fighting, other than Greyson and Chase, and I didn’t know why. Everyone was throwing magic and weapons around. This had gone from a fight against the storm to a fight against one another.

“Stay out of the way.” Victor turned and ran into the fray.

I wasn’t going to do anything until I knew my hands, my body, were my own. I shook my hands, making sure my dad was not using them. It creeped me the hell out when he did that.

You’re welcome, his sardonic voice said in the middle of my head.

Shut up. And leave my body alone.

This isn’t your battle, he said. There is so much more you were meant for. So much more you and I could do to make this right. Death isn’t the end, nor life the beginning.

Save it for the encore, I thought. I am a part of this. My friends are in there.

You do not know who your true friends are.

I ignored him because, really? Busy trying to figure out how to lend a hand here, and the last time I’d let him tell me who my friends were, I was six. I set a Disbursement, headache, and traced a glyph for Sight. The entire field opened up like I’d just flipped the switch on a floodlight.