Decimation, p.6
Decimation, page 6
“Oh Gods, you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you, Boo? All of you?”
“Yes.” I was sure. A glance at Dahlia and Nico confirmed they looked okay. “Where are you? Are you safe?”
“I’m safe in my shop,” Tatiana said. “I appeared here, and y’all were gone. Do you want to come back? He burned the tattoos off.”
I reached for my neck, but stopped short of touching the damage. “Not today. It was fun though. Thank you.”
“Yeah.” Tatiana’s laugh wasn’t amused. “Oh. Hang on.”
Silence met me. And then stretched out.
“Everything all right?” I nudged when there was nothing from her for a moment.
“He took my charm.”
“What charm?”
“It was from Mamere. I had it around my wrist, and now it’s gone.” Distress filtered into Tatiana’s voice.
Why would he do that? “What did it do?”
“Nothing? Luck. Safety. But it wasn’t a big magical talisman or anything.”
“I’m sorry.” In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t anywhere near the worst that had happened to someone because of me, but it was still due to her helping me. “I’ll get it back.”
“No. Stay safe, Boo. I’m here if you need,” Tatiana said.
I hung up and turned back to Dahlia and Nico. “So, she’s home, and did one of us bring us here?”
Dahlia shook her head. “I would’ve taken us back to NEON.”
“I would’ve dropped us inside the wards,” I said.
Dahlia looked skeptical. “So Vidar sent us here?”
“I think you actually did damage to him, Magnus.” Nico spoke up.
That was hard for me to believe. Wait. “Why did he send us here? Why not drop us in front of NEON?”
“He doesn’t know you’ve gone back to NEON?” Nico suggested.
Oh. Oh. That felt like it had to be useful somehow. We just had to figure out how. Along with why Vidar sought us out there.
But I knew that—it wasn’t just to talk to me. He said he was waiting for me to visit her. He wanted to get both of us at the same time. Intimidate me, and take the charm from her. That had to be it. Vidar seemed random, but he planned everything to the letter.
“We have to stop him. We have to—”
“Stop.” Nico grasped my hands, his voice calm. “What you have to do is stop and think this through. Not here.”
“He’s right. Reacting never gets us anywhere,” Dahlia said. “If we leave from inside the wards, Vidar will think you’re still here. We’ll go back to NEON. We’ll talk this out.”
I hated the waiting. There was so much waiting. No plans. No action. They were right, though, as much as I didn’t want to pause anything. “I yield. Let’s regroup.”
We appeared in the apartment Dahlia lived in with Frey and Fen. “I want my laptop for this,” Dahlia said. “I’ll make notes.”
She also had access to a digital archive of magical books that she’d been building—we both did. We’d already been through dozens of them before, but maybe we missed something.
“Make notes about what?” Fen’s voice came from behind us, where he’d just emerged from the kitchen.
He moved like liquid stealth, especially for such a large man. Probably had something to do with the fact that he was a wolf god.
“We ran into Vidar.” Dahlia pulled her computer from a shelf under the coffee table, set it on top, and opened the device.
Fen crossed the room in a blur, kneeling on the floor next to her and looking her in the eye. “You're not going out there alone again. Neither of you.”
I scoffed, and Dahlia’s disbelief surged in to mingle with mine. Hers was tempered with affection, though.
“I’m sorry. Who the fuck do you think you are?” She raised her brows and stared down Fen.
His features shifted, so his nose was sharper and his fangs were more distinct. “The man who’s not going to let you get hurt.” The growl in his voice was unmistakable.
She growled back. “So you’re going to lock me—us—up?”
He was worried. I understood that. I was more than a little jealous. He had to know by this point that Dahlia did what Dahlia wanted to do.
“I’m going to tell you that whatever you’re doing, you’re not doing it without me.” Fen’s voice was hard.
The low rumble of a dragon echoed from Dahlia’s chest.
Despite the outward appearance, I felt the love flowing between them. The protection. The possessiveness. And the sweetness.
Nico’s chuckle disrupted the staring match.
Fen scowled at him.
“Is it odd that I missed this part of the world?” Nico asked.
“The growly asshole part?” Dahlia countered.
Fen reinforced her question with another deep, threatening sound.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He gripped the back of her neck and kissed her hard.
I gasped when Dahlia did, as a surge of desire washed through me. It wasn’t as intense as being part of the kiss myself, but the sensation bordered on overwhelming. There was no way I could do this for another eight months—especially if whatever I was given to mute the emotional noise kept breaking.
“I miss being part of the family you protect at all costs.” Nico’s comment brought me out of my head.
He was right. It might ache to see what Dahlia had with her guys, but she also had me.
“It’s worth holding onto, and something tells me you’re more a part of it than you realize,” Fen said.
Nico fixed a gaze on me, and I felt the currents of affection. “I wouldn’t mind that at all.” His voice softened.
Feeling that wasn’t bad.
I needed control over this empathy, regardless. There had to be another way. It didn’t matter how much training I had, this was different. Did centuries of living really give Bragi the ability to function on a regular basis, with so many other voices in his head?
There had to be more to what he was doing.
Dahlia and Nico filled Fen in on the rest of our day, including Vidar’s bizarre Thanos-style story, that he’d taken Tatiana’s charm, and that it was possible I’d hurt him, but we weren’t sure, and I didn’t know if I could do it again on command.
I wanted to be more a part of the conversation, but every time someone had a surge of feeling, so did I. It was like watching my favorite TV show, but with the volume screwed up, and in my head instead of external.
Through it all, I kept coming back to two thoughts.
I couldn’t keep this up for another eight months, and Bragi might be the only person who could help me.
“Hey.” Dahlia’s soft voice drilled through my thoughts. “Earth to Magnus.”
I blinked away the chatter and looked around. “Where did Nico and Fen go?”
“Fen is showing off his weapon collection—that’s not even a euphemism. Where did you go?”
I didn’t want to tell her, but if I did, she’d point out all the ways I was wrong. She’d remind me of every reason I couldn’t trust Bragi, and I’d be able to move on to a new solution. “It’s stupid.”
“I doubt that.” Dahlia perched on the arm of the chair I sat in. “Tell me.”
Spit it out. Just say the same things you’re thinking. “A few days ago, Bragi told me something.”
Dahlia tensed, and it was as if she was getting pre-angry. Prepping to be furious. “What’s that?”
“He said you and your guys would burn down the world for each other. And that sometimes, not everyone good can be saved.”
Dahlia let out a strained chuckle. “Never tell him I said this, but he’s right.”
Oh. “But what he did, the way he lied to me about you, that wasn’t. What he did at TOM, that wasn’t right either.”
“No.” Dahlia’s pre-anger was ebbing, replaced with a kind of sad acceptance. “But what we did at TOM wasn’t right either.”
“We thought it was.”
Dahlia nodded. “Because we bought into what we were told. I’m not defending him, but when we were all fighting Minato, when you and Fen wouldn’t wake up? I would’ve done an awful lot of questionable things to bring you back. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were things you wouldn’t forgive me for, as long as you were still here. What’s going on in your head?”
Besides feeling how serious and sincere she was? Besides knowing she didn’t judge me even for a moment for bringing up Bragi? “I need to learn some sort of control on my own. Of my emotions, of everyone else’s, and probably of anything that flows through me. I think he can help me.”
“Okay.” Dahlia was fine with it. Not completely. She didn’t trust him, but she agreed with my decision.
This wasn’t what I wanted. She was supposed to deter me. Stop me. “It’s a mistake, isn’t it? For me to trust him, especially with this? I’ve trusted him before, and I was wrong. I trusted other people… Vidar…”
Dahlia bit her bottom lip. “Bragi is not Vidar. It’s easy to see the similarities, but Vidar manipulated us. Used our pain to control us. Still hunts us and taunts us and is doing so many fucked up things not only to you and me, but to the solders he still controls. For all we know, to the world. And Bragi walked away from it all, the same way we did. I hate him for teaching me that it was wrong to let my feelings show, but the ways that saved all of us?”
“You’re saying I should do this?”
“I’m saying if it feels right, you have to listen to your gut,” Dahlia said. “Our instinct steers us all wrong sometimes, but if we stop trusting ourselves, that’s when we’re fucked.”
Then that was that. “I don’t suppose you can tell me where to find him.”
Dahlia had inherited that gift from Vidar—the ability to feel anyone in the world and where they were, as long as they were out in the open.
“Yes. It’s not as if he’s hiding,” she said.
“I guess he’s not in danger if I’m not there.”
“Or Bragi’s willing to risk Vidar’s wrath if it means distracting him from you.”
“You really sound like you’re defending him.” I could say no regardless of what Dahlia thought. I didn’t have to do this.
But I wanted to.
“I’m saying if I had lost my power and the men I love and you, and the only way to keep them safe was to take on one of the most powerful gods in existence, I wouldn’t hesitate. And the last thought on my mind would be collateral damage.”
I could argue that was a hypothetical, and she didn’t know that for sure, but Dahlia had basically done exactly that at least once. True, she had her power, but it hadn’t been enough to defeat him, so it was the same as going in unarmed.
“I’m going to see Bragi.” Saying it aloud made it real, and cemented in my mind that I wanted to. “Don’t tell Nico?”
For the first time since we started this thread, Dahlia didn’t like what I was saying. “Don’t lie to him.”
“I won’t. I’ll tell him, but I need to figure out how.”
Dahlia nodded. “I have your back. Always. Are you going now?”
It was barely nightfall and there was no way I was sleeping anytime soon. This was an action I could take now. “Yes.”
Dahlia gave me an address and a room number. I wasn’t surprised to see it was the most expensive hotel in town, but I was shocked that the town in question was Detroit.
I should be grateful he wasn’t across the street from NEON anymore.
In a blink, I was standing in front of the room in question. I knocked.
Bragi answered, staring at me wide-eyed.
It wasn’t easy to force out the words. “I need your help. Please.”
EIGHT
BRAGI
I couldn’t believe she was here. Standing in front of me, strength and softness, beauty and justice.
Creation, I wanted to hold her.
She was asking me for help. I had no idea what I could offer in my current state, but I wasn’t going to turn her down. “Anything.”
“You can’t promise me anything.” The purse of her lips was alluring rather than deterring me.
“It doesn’t matter, I promise it anyway.” I stepped aside and opened the door wider. “What do you need?”
She moved into my room, but lingered as I closed the door behind her. “You want to ask where he is.”
I hadn’t even vocalized the thought to myself, but she was right—the desire was there. The worry was there. Stories told throughout history implied that reading thoughts was a skill unto itself, as if people spoke in full sentences in their minds the way they did out loud. As if looking in someone’s head was the same as opening a book.
None of that meant anything if one couldn’t read the emotion that went with disconnected splashes of thought. Context was everything, and empathy wielded correctly offered more mind-reading power than telepathy ever could.
Magnus was adjusting to this power so quickly.
“You’re feeling again. Where’s the crystal Maeve gave you?”
“Shattered. Same for these.” Magnus pulled back the collar of her shirt to expose a series of small scars on her neck. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.” I still couldn’t guess what I could offer.
“Ask me first. Get it out of the way.”
I wasn’t asking her about Nico, because I didn’t want this conversation to be about anything but Magnus and me. I did want answers, though. “Where’s Nico? How is he?”
“He’s safe at NEON.”
Two of the best words I could’ve heard. I was relieved not only that he was staying hidden, but that Magnus was willing to give me a location.
I moved further into the room, giving her the space to follow. The suite had a sitting area, with multiple spots to pick from, and the bedroom was behind a door. If I had to be here for a while, and had no home to go back to, I was going to appreciate the comforts I could.
“Where did the fresh scars come from?” As long as I was voicing my concerns, I might as well get to the other one as well.
The way Magnus hesitated was telling. “I had tattoos done by a friend. Vidar showed up almost instantly. Removed them. Stole a bracelet from her that had been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Taunted us. Left.” Her voice hitched on left.
“If I ask you for more details, will you give them to me?”
Magnus shook her head.
Because she was here for help, but didn’t trust me.
I’d earn that. “What can I do for you?” I asked directly.
Magnus hesitated near the doorway, then moved further in.
I wasn’t going to watch her hover at the edge of the rug, pretending she didn’t want to fidget. I took a seat, hoping it would prompt her to do the same.
She settled in the furthest chair from me, perching on the edge. “Teach me how to not feel all of this.” She gestured at the air around her.
“I taught you that in school.” Rather, I taught them what I could.
Magnus shook her head. “No. You taught us to hide our emotions from others and ourselves, and that only goes so far. Especially when I sense everything that everyone around me is feeling. I want to know how you handled it. Whatever you did for you was more than willpower. Something you didn’t think we could or should learn.”
She was right.
“There is a way to use magic to shield your mind. There was no reason to teach any of you that if you couldn’t use it.”
“Some of them—us—could have.”
Because every student there had the potential for magic—it was why we’d recruited them. It was true, I could’ve determined who was capable of learning the deeper skills. Originally I opted not to because I still needed to be able to read my students.
By the time Magnus’s class came along, I’d convinced myself I was doing it the only way.
“We all made mistakes at TOM,” was the best answer I could give her.
She clenched her jaw, but didn’t answer.
“I can only teach you the theory, and tell you what worked for me,” I said. “Without magic of my own, I can’t do more, but I promise you everything I have.”
“How long will it take?”
It had taken me centuries. I needed to figure out the details though, since no one was teaching me. “We won’t be done this evening, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ll explain the theories to you, and walk you through as much work as we can do. Like any exercise, it’s tiring. You’ll need to break, process what you’ve tried and learned, and come back to it multiple times.”
Magnus didn’t look happy about that, but she gave a terse nod. “Thank you.”
I ached to close the distance between us, and she had to know as much. Parts of this were better done with as little contact as possible.
“There’s magic in everything.” I was best off diving into the lesson. “Most of it is insignificant. Wisps at best, but if you can identify it, you can weave it into something more.”
“I think I saw some of that earlier, when we were facing—” She snapped her jaw shut.
“Facing whom?” I already knew the answer, and the fact that I hadn’t been there—couldn’t be there—filled me with rage.
She gave a tight shake of her head. “No one. That’s not why I’m here.”
It was a large part of why she was here.
I wanted to push, and it wouldn’t do either of us any good, so I continued. “The trick is, recognizing what mutes things, and that includes portions of your own empathic power.”
“Is that it?” Magnus sounded skeptical.
I half expected her to get up and walk out. “That’s the theory. Do you want me to teach you how to use it in practice?”
The twist of her mouth, the almost-audible whirring of gears in her head, was endearing. “Yes,” she finally said.
“Step one is sorting through the emotion. All of it. You may think you know which is yours, but I guarantee, none of us ever get there completely. As you practice identifying your own, you’ll see the differences in the others, too. Each person will have a unique taste or sound. Each energy that seems to be attached to an individual but isn’t will compliment or sour their flavor.”
