Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

She led us through the arched doorway, down the hallway a bit, and into the first sitting room. It was decorated in velvets, wood, and brass, love seats and chairs huddled to make comfortable conversation nooks, heavy curtains on the windows giving the room a deep sense of privacy.

She held the door open as we walked through, and then locked it behind us. With one quick wave of her hand, she cast a ward and activated the Mute spell worked into the wallpaper.

“Thank you both for coming.” She gestured to the seats, and we sat. “Shamus did talk to you?”

“He didn’t tell us much,” I said. “There’s a storm coming, Sedra has called other people from Seattle, and there’s something wrong with the wells.”

She brushed a tendril of hair back up toward the bun, even though it just fell back down to her face. “There will be a meeting tonight among the members of the Authority. To exchange information. To plan for the storm.”

Zay, lounging on a love seat, took a drink of his coffee. I could feel every muscle in his body ratchet tighter and tighter as Maeve spoke.

She walked over to an empty chair and sat. She looked tired. Worried.

“The storm is still a day or two off. At least we think so.”

I opened my mouth and she held up one finger to tell me to shut up. I didn’t know what it was with her and her fingers. She had that motherly no-bullshit way of using her hands as a second communication device and I always fell for it.

I drank my coffee and made a note to ignore her fingers.

“We can’t track them like weather fronts,” she said. “Wild storms are sorely underresearched. One theory is that wild-magic storms are a combination of how the magic in the earth is being accessed and released into the world, and how magic, all disciplines, dark and light, is being used. When things swing too far out of neutral, magic can rise and gather into a storm front-and ride upon a real weather front.

“The other theory is that the magic is wild to begin with, a mix of dark and light that causes nothing but chaos and destruction when it is used.

“You can imagine it has been difficult to test either theory on a large scale in secret. In any case, we do believe a wild storm is coming our way.”

“The gate Mikhail opened?” Zay asked quietly.

“That could be it. There are more things happening in the world that could have accumulated or triggered to set it off.”

“Wait,” I said. “So magic is a ticking time bomb and as soon as someone shakes the nitrogen a little too hard, or mixes in the wrong elements, we get explosions?”

She frowned. “No. It’s a combination of factors. Magic on its own is a part of the natural world. No more destructive than wind, rain, and fire.”

Which was like saying no more destructive than hurricane, flood, and inferno. Spiffy.

“We’ll go over how to handle the storm at the meeting tonight,” she continued. “I want you both there. And Zayvion, if you see Shame, make sure he comes.”

Zay nodded. “I’ll get him there.”

She brushed her hair back again. “Now, what I most needed to talk to you about, Allie, is the well. I want you to look at it. To tell me what you see in the magic there.”

“You want me to Hound the well? Really? For illegal magic use? You people don’t even recognize the law on magic use, so I’m sure you’re not using it illegally.”

She gave me a steely gaze and I wiped the innocent look off my face.

Note to self. Do not be a wiseass when your Blood magic teacher is stressed-out.

“Right. I can Hound the well,” I said. “Not a problem.”

“Zayvion, I’d like you to be there too, please,” she said.

He rubbed his palms across his jeans and stood.

I finished off my coffee and left the empty cup on the table.

Maeve led us down a long hallway to a set of stairs that jagged down and down.

I’d been in the lower level of the inn just once before. When I’d had to stand in front of members of the Authority and fight for my life. I hadn’t expected to get out of it with my memories or magic intact.

I wanted to take Zay’s hand and hold on like a little girl as we descended the stairs, but I refused to. There was nothing down here I couldn’t handle on my own. I’d already proved that.

The last flight of stairs spilled out into a room that looked like it should be the receiving room of a castle, a ballroom, a grand theater for a grand ceremony, instead of the basement of a railroad boardinghouse.

The floor was tiled with marble that washed from the purest white through grays, then sank into the deepest black. The ceiling rose up two stories, huge pillars spreading out at the ceiling into wings that arched up to meet in the center. Glyphs shaped and carved the pillars, the arch of wings, the ceiling, and the walls. Magic drawn in lead, glass, iron-a powerful network of holding spells, warding spells, most I still didn’t know-surrounded the room and the well that pulsed like the earth’s heart beneath the marble floor, deep underground.

There was one thing out of place since I’d last been here. A cage stood in one corner of the room. Built of steel, four-sided, it looked mobile and was placed over the purest white marble tiles.

In that cage was a beast of a man, a nightmare creature caught between life and death. Greyson.

Chills rolled up my spine and I could not take my eyes off the cage, nor the man who was still too much beast within it. Covered by a blanket, he hunched in the corner of the cage, his too-long arms crossed over bent knees, his mouth resting against his forearms so that only his eyes, animal yellow, glowed from within the shadow of the blanket.

I smelled his magic, twisted, dark, burnt-blackberry stench, mixed with the old wax and polish perfume of wood that had been cleaned for centuries. And I smelled blood.

Greyson had a good nose too. He turned his head, just enough to show a flash of fang digging into his arm and leaving a trickle of blood behind.

Something in my head flickered, rattled, and scratched behind my eyes.

I knew the feel of that. Even though I hadn’t felt it for two months. It was my dad. Then my father’s voice, clear as if he were standing next to Greyson’s cage instead of in my head, whispered, Come to me.

Chapter Three

A hand landed on my left shoulder. I yelled, pivoted, and swung.

“Holy shit!” a voice said.

My fist whiffed through empty air. That was because Shamus Flynn was fast. He ducked and skidded down two steps, neatly avoiding a broken nose.

He laughed. “You have got to lay off the coffee, Beckstrom. You’re all twitchy and whatnot.”

“I thought. .” I was breathing hard. Felt a little sick too. Didn’t know if it was from the overwhelming smells, the half-beast killer guy staring at me, my dad’s voice seeming to come from the half-beast killer guy, or the feeling of my dead dad scraping at the backs of my eyes again.

Why choose? It was all of the above.

Greyson, back when he was just a man, had been one of my father’s murderers. I’d seen that memory from sharing my head with my dad. And since Greyson had one of dad’s experimental disks stuck in his throat, it was a pretty easy leap to guess that someone had stuck it in his neck and used it to keep him in his current state of half man, half beast. The disks could hold magic, and somehow the disk in Greyson held both dark and light magic, and whatever spell worked into it made him the half beast.

My guess was that Dr. Frank Gordon had done it to him, probably around the same time he’d dug up my dad’s grave and tried to possess my dad’s spirit to open up a gateway to death and draw dark magic into the world. Things hadn’t gone the way Dr. Frank Gordon had wanted them to go. Namely, instead of doing what Frank wanted, my dad had possessed me.

Then Greyson had hunted me. Well, not me. He wanted my dad’s spirit. I didn’t know why. Maybe revenge-that seemed like the easiest answer. What I did know was that letting Greyson get his hands on my dad’s spirit, and maybe my dad’s knowledge of magic, fell squarely in the middle of my Bad Things list.

And to make it all worse, Greyson used to be Chase’s boyfriend, maybe even her Soul Complement. She had dumped Zayvion to be with Greyson before Greyson had gotten so screwed up.

I closed my eyes, trying to regain my calm. I was okay; everything was okay. The cage would hold Greyson. Why did they have him caged?

Why was Dad talking from way over there? My dad wasn’t in Greyson. He was in me. Maybe not the best thing, but certainly better than the other options.

“Allison,” Maeve said. “Come down the stairs.” She didn’t put Influence behind it, didn’t even make it sound like a command. Just calm, gentle. Motherly.

If I remembered correctly, I wasn’t listening to her motherly commands.

I opened my eyes. Zayvion, Shame, and Maeve all stood on the bottom step, looking up at me like I was about to burst into flames.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just. It’s just.” I took a step. My knees went wet-noodle and I had to hold the rail to keep from falling. What the hell was wrong with me?

I gritted my teeth and pulled my shoulders back. I could do this. I could walk down these stairs without falling. Did it too. Stood in front of Maeve, breathing a little too hard, sweating a little too much.

She put one finger under my chin and looked up into my eyes.

The good thing? One look from her and Dad stopped scraping at the backs of my eyes.

The bad thing? Greyson growled. Not quite a howl. It was more of a low moan-yell. The hairs on my arms pricked up, and goose bumps tightened my skin.

Allison, I heard my father whisper. Yes, from outside my head. Again.

“I don’t think. .” My breath gave out, so I tried again. “I don’t think you need to look,” I managed. “He’s there. And in Greyson. I think he’s in Greyson too.”

Maeve’s eyes flicked back and forth, probably seeing more inside me than I really wanted her to.

Greyson howled as Maeve looked deeper in my mind for my dad. He wanted the rest of my dad’s spirit in me. The cage shook. I hoped the steel bars could hold him. I hoped the magic in this room could hold him.

“We have been through Greyson’s mind,” Maeve said. “Jingo Jingo has been through his mind and has seen nothing, no trace of your father in him.”

Yeah, well, Jingo Jingo had been through my mind and said my father wasn’t there either. I’d already told her that a dozen times. She never believed me.

“You know what I think about Jingo Jingo’s ability to sense my father.” It came out calm. Reasonable. Strong.

Go, me.

“I do. Jingo Jingo is an expert at sensing the dead. You are not.”

“Jingo Jingo isn’t the one who’s possessed.”

We stared at each other for a couple seconds.

“He could be wrong,” I pressed.

Maeve was a woman made of stubborn. So was I.

“Can you feel the well?” she asked, suddenly switching subjects.

I held my breath, trying to keep from yelling. The well was the least of our problems. The caged killer Necromorph half-beast dude over there, who had a part of my father in his head that no one else could see, and a desire to drag the rest of dear ol’ dad out of me even if it meant killing me, was something I thought we should all be a little worried about. “Why?” I asked.