Junk magic, p.10
Junk Magic, page 10
“She held on for almost two years, because twenty-five is the age of majority among the clans, when I would be considered fully adult and able to choose for myself. She went through a great deal of pain to shield me, including a number of pointless surgeries and treatments that were never going to work, but might buy a little extra time.
“She missed my birthday by less than a week.”
“My sympathies,” Hargroves said, and actually sounded like he meant it.
Maybe he did.
We were all well acquainted with grief these days.
“The clan couldn’t do anything as long as she lived,” I continued. “But two days after she died, I was attacked by eight clan members determined to bring her only child into the fold before time ran out, whether I liked it or not. They forgot: I was Guillame de Croissets’ daughter, too, and a war mage in my own right. Not to mention that, while Father is retired, he’s far from helpless.”
“An understatement,” Hargroves murmured.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to break down in front of the boss. But the pain was just as bright, just as strong, just as enraging as it had been that night, fueling my response. And father’s, too. Grief takes many forms, and ours had been written in blood.
“In the end, there were six dead Weres, two fires, five million dollars in property damage and headlines in all the Newark papers. The Circle covered it up as a gang war, but I received a black mark on my record for letting the fight become public as well as a transfer out here.”
“So that was why.” Hargroves looked like he’d wondered. “And your old clan?”
“They would have killed me in retribution once the furor died down, but under Arnou’s protection, they didn’t dare. But it’s safe to say that I remain . . . unpopular.”
“Yet they still do not know of your affliction.”
“No. And it needs to stay that way,” I said grimly, and he inclined his head half an inch, his version of a nod.
A commotion started up outside of our bubble before I could say any more and Hargroves dropped the shield. I looked up to see Caleb filling the doorway, looking belligerent, with his coat whipping about as if in a high wind. Maybe because he had a crowd of my new students behind him, and babysitting did not appear to have gone well.
Either that or I looked worse than I thought, because he was glowering at the boss in a way that was unwise if he wanted a promotion anytime soon.
He tossed me something and Hargroves caught it—fortunately. I would have sat there while it bonked me on the head, judging from the fact that my hand didn’t lift until the boss was already examining it. I pretended to be pushing back a strand of hair before anybody noticed.
“Your phone?” Hargroves asked, looking at Caleb.
“No, hers.” Caleb transferred the glare to me. “You scared the hell out of me! I called to ask about milk and it sounded like I dialed into a goddamned a war zone! Then you cut out and I had to listen to a couple of assholes deciding whether or not to kill you. They hadn’t made up their minds when somebody noticed the phone and that happened.”
“That” was putting a boot through it, by the look of things.
“I found it in the dirt,” he continued, before I could respond. “After we finally got there—”
“We?”
“Well, what did you expect me to do with them?” he hiked a savage thumb over his shoulder.
“I expect you to get them out of here,” Hargroves said, unamused. “They do not have clearance for this. They do not have clearance for anything!”
Sophie looked like she had something to say about that, but several of the others dragged her out before she could.
“Your distress signal was noticed by a patrol returning from Reno,” Caleb added. “Along with a farm in the process of burning down and a bunch of highly illegal fey plants, most of which were crispy fried by the time we arrived—”
“And the people?” I interrupted.
“The patrol didn’t find any people. Just tire tracks.”
I shook my head. “There were trailers there, a half dozen or so, and a bunch of Weres on a truck—”
I cut off, but too late. The magic word had been uttered, and damn it! Hargroves had been smart to talk to me when I was woozy as hell.
“Weres?” he said, very deliberately.
“Yeah. Did I not mention that the punch growers were Weres?”
He just looked at me.
“I got a name off of one: Cloud-Leaper. I can ask about it, find out what human name he goes by and if he has property registered anywhere else.”
Hargroves looked at me some more. His eyes said that he understood exactly how much this revelation complicated things. But I expected a measured response, since he was always measured.
I didn’t get it.
“I hate this shit,” he said, causing me to blink, because the American phrase sounded weird coming from an uptight Englishman.
“Um,” I said.
“I hate that I don’t have the people to properly patrol this territory. I hate that an operative almost died due to that. I hate that two very concerning issues, both having to do with Weres, have decided to crop up right before the Conclave—”
And, damn. I’d forgotten that the agreement between the Circle and the Were Council had only been for a year, and had to be renewed annually. The clan leaders were meeting in Vegas less than a week from now, and yeah.
The timing could have been better.
“—and I especially hate that I don’t have anyone else to trust with this, anyone who knows the clans well enough to pick up on what is going on, anyone—”
“Who isn’t your resident troublemaker.”
He didn’t bother to deny it.
“But I don’t,” he seethed. “So, this is your job—your only job—until we get that damned Conclave out of the way! It has to go off without a hitch, do you understand?”
“I—yes, but—”
“I don’t want any buts. You can use Carter on this.”
“But I’m on vacation,” Caleb said, and immediately looked like he wished he hadn’t when the boss rounded on him.
“Rescinded!” Hargroves snapped, and strode out of the room.
Caleb looked at me.
“Well, at least you’re getting paid now,” I said, and saw him scowl.
Chapter Ten
“I was already getting paid,” Caleb growled. I had slung on some spare clothes that a medic brought me from my locker, since mine had gotten the scissor treatment after I was brought in, and we’d started climbing the steps back to the lobby. “That’s what PTO means: paid time off.”
“Well, now you’ll have it for later,” I pointed out.
“Like any of us is ever getting a vacation again!”
I frowned. “You were already insisting on helping out. I don’t know why you’d rather do it for free—”
“Free means I don’t have to write anything down. Free means off the clock and therefore off the record—”
“What do you think might need to be kept off the record?”
“How would I know? With you I never—”
He cut off when a siren started up, but not the kind that indicated a fire. That one was loud, blaring, and intended to get the attention of anyone in the building. This one was different.
This was meant for war mages only, being silent and almost impossible to detect for anyone without a Circle tattoo somewhere on their body. It was designed to alert the Corps to the fact that we had a breach without letting potential bad guys know that we’d been warned. And it did its job well.
My skin tightened painfully, as if I’d just received a massive sunburn all over my body, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And then felt like it was trying to pull out of my skin when the alarm intensified, all but pulling us up the stairs and causing Caleb to curse. I don’t know why; he shaved off most of his hair anyway.
“Hey, what is that?” Sophie demanded, looking around as if she could feel it, too.
But she didn’t get an answer. I was too busy hitting the wall after being shoved behind Caleb as he tore past.
“Stay there!” he threw back over his shoulder, probably because I was still wobbly and had no business being in a fight right now. Or maybe he wanted me to protect the kids; I didn’t know. And I didn’t have time to find out. Another alarm hit, hard on the heels of the first, but this one . . .
Was new.
Or new to me, since I had only a fraction of my mother’s abilities, with senses heightened barely above those of a normal human. I couldn’t usually hear things a mile off, or name every spice in a dish, or see almost as well at night as in the daytime. But I could suddenly see something, and with perfect clarity: a flash of dark eyes flickering wildly across my vision, like those of a hunted animal.
The image was as clear as if I was staring right at it, and was quickly joined by a smell. It was strong, almost overpowering, and not the usual mustiness of the stairway. I breathed in the stench of stark panic, heard pounding blood and rapid breaths, and felt skin prickling fear and indecision, along with the impression of a wild fluttering in my throat that made it all but impossible to swallow. It was terror given tangible form, but it wasn’t mine.
My heart rate was more or less normal; my breathing unbothered. But someone was coming out of their skin—literally. And I experienced it right alongside them.
For the first time in my life, I knew the agonizing crack of reforming bones, the waterfall of a thick, magical pelt spreading over my body, the incredibly strange sensation of a new face pushing its way out of mine. The sensations were so overwhelming that, for a second, I just stood there, gasping and trying to grab a snout I didn’t have. Because the changes weren’t happening to me.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sophie was shaking me, and one of the boys—I didn’t see who—was whistling between his teeth.
“Told you—mages be cray, yo.”
And then I was moving, as another blast of distress flooded down the stairs, almost strong enough to knock me over. My new students pounded after me, all those feet making the stairwell echo loudly in my ears, even though most of them were wearing sneakers. Something about that, about them running headlong into danger, pulled me out of the fog and I rounded on them.
“No. Stay.”
“What the fuck?” someone said loudly.
It was Chris, the usual laid back surfer dude, but he wasn’t sounding so relaxed right now. Maybe because the voice that had come out of my throat hadn’t sounded like mine. Low, guttural, and menacing as hell, it should have shocked me, too.
Instead, I was grateful for it, as the whole class stopped on a dime. I turned back around and raced ahead, and when Aki tried to follow—I could hear the peculiar sound of his sneakers, all worn down on one side for some reason, giving a little lisp to his walk—Sophie threw an arm over his chest. I could distinctly make out the soft sound of her touch impacting the buttons on the front of his shirt.
And then I was through the door to the lobby and out.
A blast of sound and sensation hit me, making the quiet stairwell feel like an oasis. But I wasn’t tempted to go back, because the door had been blunting more than just the five senses. A tornado of terror battered me as soon as I stepped out, like a physical blow.
I somehow stayed on my feet, even while the emotions of a panicked wolf hit me on all sides. Every instinct I had wanted to find, to help, to protect, but training held. And caused me to take a second to size up the situation first.
It wasn’t good.
In front of me was a ring of leather coated war mages standing like rocks in the middle of a crashing surf, motionless against the blurred panic going on behind them. The only motion was in their coats, fluttering around their legs as if caught in a strong wind, and the occasional twitch of a hand hovering over a weapon’s belt. Or the weapons themselves in the case of one mage who had already deployed his arsenal, leaving them circling his head like a deadly cloud.
In front of the mages was a ring of wolves, facing inward and already transformed, with bunched muscles in their haunches and torn clothing littering the ground around them in a confetti of colors. Their bodies were tensed and ready, their hackles were raised, and snarls and growls were emerging from behind bared teeth. They looked like they were about to pounce.
Outside the circle, the high rafters of the old warehouse were ringing with the distressed sounds of normal people who had showed up to renew weapons’ licenses, to report a disturbance, or to apply for a permit, only to find themselves caught in a situation. I saw flashes of wide eyes and dropped jaws, probably because many had never seen a transformed Were before. Some were rushing to get away before they saw even more, while others had stopped to gawk, with one lady letting a slew of paperwork slide out of her hands unnoticed, which scattered everywhere.
But all of that was a haze at the edges of my vision, vague and indistinct, almost irrelevant. My eyes noticed it because they’d been trained to notice everything, and to size up a situation quickly in order to determine the best course of action. Only, this time, I wasn’t coolly assessing anything.
This time, I was furious.
And then two Weres sprang for the small wolf at the center of the circle, who was apparently the cause of all this, and what could only be called a roar echoed through the room. It was loud enough to drown out the panicked background noise and the ambient music the Corps had recently started playing in the lobby for some reason. The roar didn’t sound like a wolf’s howl; it didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard. Which should have been a surprise since it was coming from me.
It wasn’t. And neither was the sight of two large wolves changing course mid-attack, their haunches bunching up around their faces as they veered off to the side. Or half a dozen more war mages’ weapons springing into the air as if on strings. Or the several hundred heads that suddenly jerked in my direction, some stopping and craning their necks to see past the deadly circle.
Nothing mattered except the boy, because he was a boy, a desperate, hurting, still defiant cub, crouched low to the floor but howling his fear into the air, along with his defiance.
At least, he had been a moment ago. But he’d paused at the roar, too, and turned his head as I started toward him, pushing a war mage whose face I didn’t bother to register out of the way in the process. “Lia—” someone said, sounding shocked, and was ignored.
I could smell the cub’s fear as I approached, a tsunami of sensation. And below that, a deep, dark ocean of agony that didn’t know where to go or how to cope. He’d been in pain before, but never like this. For the first time in his life, he was alone.
And was slowly realizing that he always would be, because it was Jace, who had lost his brother barely two days ago.
“No,” I rumbled, and again, barely recognized my voice. “Not alone.”
Someone was shouting a warning, someone else was calling my name—Caleb—who was also yelling at our fellow mages to “Put the goddamned guns down; she’s got this!”
I didn’t know if I had this. I didn’t even know what this was. Except that I was drawn by that horrible pain, that terrible loneliness, and by the strange feeling of possession sweeping over me. A war mage took a small step forward and I growled at him. I saw his eyes fly open in surprise, and although I was currently unarmed, he stepped back.
I turned my attention back to the cub, who was almost nose to the floor now, in a position of respect and submission just short of rolling onto his belly. But he couldn’t do that, couldn’t risk it, not now. His eyes flickered from me to the encroaching circle, but he wasn’t looking at the mages.
And for good reason.
“Vargulf,” a fully transformed wolf snarled, the voice like an industrial sized file scraped across stone. It was harsh enough to cause a man, fleeing just behind him, to let out a little scream.
It didn’t faze me. Weres can talk while transformed, although few do as it isn’t often necessary. The scents coming off the clan, the small changes of expression, the odd telepathy that close family members shared, was usually sufficient.
Like the kind I was suddenly getting from the cub.
Some of the images I recognized: the paint splattered figure of a young man, at a faucet outside of my house, carefully washing off a bunch of brushes; the circle of happy faces around a campfire, jumping with leaping flames; the full moon, flooding over sand, turning a spreading circle of blood black and terrible. . .
But others were new to me: a terrifying race through the night on all fours, blood pounding in his veins, his brother at his side, and the howling of a pursuing pack in his ears; a dilapidated room with dirty windows, but with their meager possessions arranged carefully on cinderblock and plywood shelves; his brother, laughing for the first time in months, with hope in his eyes and the neon lights of Vegas behind him—
“It’s vargulf!” the same wolf growled, his pelt red and ruffled and angry. “Get away. We’ll deal with this!”
It was what they were paid for, I realized. Because these weren’t a random clan who had wondered in here. They weren’t even from the same clan, with no less than four distinct family signatures hitting my nose. And when I concentrated on their wolf forms, I could see a hazy figure of the men and women they’d been a moment ago crouched in the middle of each.
That wasn’t normal, any more than the rest of whatever was happening to me. But it did allow me to recognize them as the Weres who’d been contracted by the Corps to sniff out dark magic attacks. And now they thought they were protecting us from something else. Because a vargulf wasn’t a traumatized child to them; he was a serious threat.
One they were about to eliminate.
“Touch him and die,” I said, my own voice so rough now as to sound almost transformed.
It shouldn’t have, because the rest of me hadn’t changed. And for some reason I found that surprising, looking down at my human body and barely recognizing it. Spindly arms instead of heavily muscled ones; pale, hairless skin instead of a shiny pelt; a face that felt curiously flat and unremarkable, rather than sleek and purpose built for a predator, with an elegant snout of knife-like fangs.
