Junk magic, p.7
Junk Magic, page 7
“But I did do it,” I told him miserably. “It was my spell; my magic. Just as it was tonight—”
Cyrus’s eyes flashed. “You did not kill Colin! You saved the rest of us. Look at those boys tomorrow; look at their faces. They’re here, alive, right now, because you risked yourself to make sure they would be. I thank you for that. They will thank you, too, once the shock wears off—”
“One of them won’t.”
“Damn it, Lia!” He looked exasperated. “You’re a war mage! You must have lost people before—”
“Adults. Trained operatives. Not children.”
I sat up, struggling out from under him and hugging my arms around my knees. “And now they’re giving me more of them. And not just regular recruits. But vulnerable, marginalized, fucked up kids. I don’t want this assignment, Cyrus!”
He lay there and looked at me for a moment. I couldn’t see him very well, barely an outline in the dim haze of light spread by my clock. But somehow, I knew he was frowning.
“Then tell them that. Ask for another job. But think about this before you do. None of us had ever seen anything like that Relic, as you call it. None of us, me included, knew how to fight it. Do you think we could have handled it ourselves? Or would there have been a lot more bodies on the ground if you weren’t there?”
I started to speak, but he shushed me. “Not finished yet. And maybe think about this, too, while you’re at it. I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, but I’ve been tiptoeing around, because you never wanted to talk about it and I didn’t want to force the issue. But maybe I should have.
“The day Adam died, there was an entire squad of well-armed, well-trained mages here, and only one of you. You didn’t have your weapons, you’d just woken up, and you were handicapped by not wanting to kill your own students. And yet you saved all except one.
“How many other instructors would have been able to do that? How many would have even tried, with their own lives on the line? Or taken a bullet and almost died to bring down the bastard who caused it?
“You’re better than you know, Lia de Croissets. And the Corps is damned lucky to have you. And tonight, so were we.”
I just sat there, suddenly glad for the dark because my face was wet and probably screwed up as well. Not that it mattered when your partner is a Were. I didn’t know if Cyrus smelled the tears or heard the slight catch in my throat that I wasn’t fast enough to stop. But the next second, his arms were around me and he was whispering nonsense words in my ear like you do for a traumatized child.
It should have been embarrassing; I was a big, bad war mage. I didn’t need soothing. Only I guessed I did, because I broke down in his arms, sobbing, for Adam, for Colin, for all the kids fighting this war who shouldn’t be. And all the while, Cyrus just held me, murmuring softly, letting me get it all out, even though he’d had just as bad a day as I had.
I was damned lucky to have him, too.
Chapter Seven
My backup coat was being an ass.
I’d hauled it out of the closet after breakfast, which was more like lunch since I’d overslept. Cyrus and the boys had already been up and out, with a brief note telling me that they’d gone looking for whoever had sold punch to Colin. I didn’t try to call them back, because it wouldn’t have done any good, and it was one of the few things they could do without risking Sebastian’s wrath. Plus, they might have more luck than the Corps.
Vegas has a vast network of drainage tunnels underneath it, which have been nicknamed Tartarus by the local down-on-their-luck magical community. They use them as a highway for a sprawling ant-like colony of caverns that contain everything from marketplaces and bars to shantytowns and illicit manufacturing centers. And guess what was being manufactured?
The Corps knew that most of the punch flooding the streets came from Tartarus, but with the war taking up the majority of our resources, we didn’t have the people to patrol it effectively. This was unfortunately not a secret. Production had really been ramping up lately, with a lot of new players getting into the game.
I wished the guys luck, but they had their work cut out for them.
Sort of like me with this coat.
I scowled down at the shiny new leather, which didn’t have so much as a scratch on it. The only time it had been worn was in the class where I’d learned to enchant it, and where I’d used it as a test subject, not wanting to risk my family heirloom. That had been years ago, and ever since, it had occupied a dark corner of my closet, where I had learned the hard way to keep it well away from the other clothes. I’d found more than one garment shredded or burnt, because my learner coat had a temper.
As it was currently demonstrating.
I reached for it, and had my hand slapped away by a sleeve for my trouble. I tried again, and had my hand enveloped in a leather “fist” that wouldn’t let go. Until I zapped it with a spell, only to have it zap me back.
Son of a bitch!
“Oh, this I gotta see.”
I looked up to find Caleb, a fellow war mage, lounging in the doorway. He was big, black and imposing, a solid mass of ‘tude eyeing up my pathetic excuse for a coat. His own coat, on the other hand, was looking good, well-oiled and supple, with a hem that wafted a little too energetically around his calves, but overall . . .
“Don’t even,” he told me flatly.
I put on my best be-a-pal face, and may have even fluttered an eyelash or two. I was desperate, okay? “I’m desperate,” I told him. “I need a coat.”
“What happened to your old one?”
“Involucrum.”
Caleb winced. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” I blinked rapidly, cursing myself for being sentimental, but the loss cut like a bitch. I didn’t even know how I was going to tell dad. Or what I was supposed to do for a replacement, after reaching out for my badly behaving item and getting the crap shocked out of me for my trouble.
“Damn it! Did you see that?”
I received no sympathy from Caleb. “Some of us weren’t lucky enough to get handed an heirloom,” he said heavily, crossing his arms. “I’ve gone through three coats so far in my career, and this one is still new. I’m breaking it in—like you’re going to have to do.”
“If it doesn’t break me first. Or fry my damned arm off!”
“You have to show it who’s boss.”
Yeah, only I was pretty sure it already knew that, and didn’t think it was me.
It was my backup for a reason: I’d never liked it. They’d told us in spellbinding class that it was a fallacy that magical objects developed personalities. That we humans just liked anthropomorphizing things.
That was a load of crap.
This thing hated me.
“Have to show it soon,” Caleb added meaningfully.
“Why?”
“You got company.”
I grabbed a regular old jacket, useless magically but good, thick leather, the kind I used when riding to keep the road and my flesh from meeting too energetically, and followed Caleb into the living room.
“Well, shit.”
“Nice to see you, too,” Sophie said dryly.
They were all there, my whole new class, which frankly gave me hives. And not just because they were supposed to be back at HQ and safely locked up. But because of what had happened the last time I had students here.
I looked at Caleb, who shrugged. “Just the delivery guy.”
“They said they needed the cell,” Sophie informed me. “Something about a nest of dark mages they dug up, hiding out in the desert somewhere.”
“Hey, is that your bike in front?” That was the Hispanic guy, his brown hair sticking up everywhere.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Look—”
“You got anything to eat?” That was Malibu, with his blond locks equally disheveled and his plain blue T-shirt wrinkled. He also hadn’t shaved, although his beard wasn’t too noticeable as it was blond, too.
“Yeah, I’m starved.” That was the Asian guy. “We didn’t get breakfast.”
“Because somebody gave us all of five minutes to get ready,” Sophie said, looking pointedly at Caleb.
I could have told her to save herself some time. Caleb didn’t have a shame reflex that I’d ever noticed. Which he demonstrated by corralling the brunet and the blond, who’d been heading off in the direction of the kitchen, despite not knowing where it was.
“It’s okay,” I told him. I looked at the guys. “You know how to cook?”
They blinked at me as if I’d asked them if they spoke Navajo.
“None of us do. Brought up in a prison, remember?” That, of course, was Sophie.
“Don’t look at me,” Caleb said, which was fair. He was the king of take out.
I sighed, and wondered if a bunch of hungry Weres had left anything to cook. “Intros first, then I’ll feed you,” I said.
“Blue hair over there is Aki,” Sophie told me. “The male model is Chris.” Malibu waved and pushed the Hispanic guy forward. “Dimas,” Sophie dutifully added. “Didn’t you get papers on us?”
“Left them somewhere.”
She rolled her eyes. I was cementing myself as a slipshod operator. “That’s Jen,” she said, nodding at the shy blonde with the 1920s bob and the love for beer. “And Kimmie,” she added, talking about the chick with the braids, who unlike everybody else, was looking surprisingly good, with a full face of makeup and a fashionable blue jumpsuit. “Kimmie doesn’t sleep,” Sophie added, as if reading my mind, which maybe she was for all I knew.
“At all?” I asked Kimmie, who shrugged.
“Only if I expend too much magic and have to recover. Otherwise, I don’t need it.”
“Must be nice,” I said enviously.
“Not really. You run out of Netflix shows after a while.”
“Food?” Aki said, looking worried that I’d forgotten.
“This way.” I led them down the hall and into the kitchen.
It was a snug fit with eight of us, especially since Caleb counted for at least one and a half. But there was food left, although a big dent had been made in the grocery haul that I’d lugged in just a few days ago. I wondered if Cyrus was planning for his guys to stay here for another night.
And then I wondered something else.
“Uh, Caleb? Where is everybody staying?”
He gave me a look I didn’t like. “Think of it as a boarding school—”
“Caleb!”
“We’re out of room, Lia. The Corps is bursting at the seams—”
“Hargroves said there was a special facility—”
“Yeah, it’s under construction—”
“He didn’t mention that!”
“Probably slipped his mind.” We exchanged looks. Nothing slipped the old man’s mind. The bastard.
“Then another room at HQ,” I said desperately.
“Take it up with him—”
“Yeah, like getting on his calendar isn’t a three-week ordeal!”
“You seem to manage okay. Weren’t you cozied up in his office just yesterday?”
“To get chewed out!”
Caleb shrugged. “Maybe screw something else up?”
I glared. “I thought they were prioritizing the dangerous criminals for cells and letting the rest go with fines—”
“They are. We’re still overrun.” He put on his serious face. “You know the deal. The war has become a free for all for every lowlife from here to the border—and beyond. We need every bed—”
“So do I! I can’t house six more people. This is a three-bedroom house!”
“Some can sleep in the living room—”
“I have vargulfs in the living room!”
Caleb paused. “Do I want to know why that is?”
“No.” I slammed down my biggest frying pan and dumped half a pound of bacon into it. Then did some mental math and dumped the rest into another one.
“We can bunk up in two rooms,” Sophie said. Her eyes had been shifting back and forth like at a tennis match as me and Caleb argued it out. “Guys in one, girls in another, if you have enough beds.”
“That’s the problem; I don’t. Half the rooms aren’t even furnished.”
“Get us sleeping bags and we’re good on the floor,” Aki said. “Or . . . or just a blanket—”
He looked panicked. In fact, now that I noticed, they were all looking panicked. Including Kimmie, who was backing toward the door to the yard. “I’m not going back there,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Do you understand me? I’m not.”
“None of us are,” Sophie said. “Come on, Kim. Put the knife down.”
Which was about the time I noticed that one of my kitchen knives was missing from the rack.
It was now in her hand, and she was almost to the door. That shouldn’t have been a problem since the only thing beyond my back yard was desert; there were no neighbors to freak out that way. But when she tried the door and it stuck, thanks to a bent hinge from the last disaster, she panicked.
“I won’t be locked up again! I won’t be locked up again!”
Her eyes were wild, and when Chris tried to get the knife back, she slashed at him. It didn’t connect, but that was more because of cat-like reflexes on his part than anything else. Or maybe Were-like was more accurate, although I’d seen Weres who moved slower.
That was fortunate, since I suddenly found out what Kimmie’s talent was. A moment ago, there had been one knife, shining under the kitchen fluorescents. Now there was a solid dozen, glinting in the air in front of her.
Multiplier, I thought.
Shit.
And then they were coming this way.
They hit the shield I’d thrown up, but because it had been split second, there were gaps and one got through. And one immediately became another dozen, which required putting up another shield. And then more and more, piling them on top of each other to try to plug the holes, while Sophie yelled and Jen fled and Chris tried to grab one of the knives, God knew why. Forcing me to have to send a spell to knock him back toward the laundry room.
My heart tightened at the sight of him splayed against the door, but the fight was over the next second. Somebody had left the kitchen unnoticed by everyone, slipped around the side of the house, thrown open the stubborn back door and enveloped Kimmie in a hug from behind. And when Caleb hugs you, you stay hugged.
The knives abruptly dropped to the ground, and then she was sobbing against the big chest, saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.
I looked at him and he looked at me, above her head. “Yeah. I’m gonna take some PTO.”
Of course, I couldn’t allow Caleb to do that, not when they were my students. So, while I turned over the bacon, which had started to smoke, and the kids picked up a whole laundry basket full of kitchen knives, and Sophie held Kimmie and tried to calm her, I got on the phone to HQ. It didn’t go well.
Hargroves wasn’t there, but then, the boss didn’t handle scheduling anyway. And the guy who did was a dick. His name—I kid you not—was Alistair Fitzgibbon, and he looked exactly the way that sounds: thin, haughty, British, and as pale as a vampire.
“Just for a few weeks,” I said, balancing the phone under my chin while I tended to the bacon.
“Not for a few days. Are you aware that we’re at war, Mage de Croissets?”
“You know, I’d heard something about it.”
“We need every man—”
“And woman?” I said, just to be difficult. Because the Corps tends to forget about us. But this time, it didn’t even phase him.
“—and anything else I can get! You try doing a schedule with half your operatives on medical leave and the other half—”
“I understand—”
“—who probably should be! This place looks like a convalescent home—”
“—but—”
“—with people staggering about—did you know, my own assistant is on crutches? Not because of the war, you understand; the boy falls over his own two feet if you don’t watch him, and took a stumble off the curb. The curb. Who breaks an ankle on a three-inch drop?”
“However, I really think—”
“Donovan, that’s who. Which means I have to fetch and carry everything myself. Assistant,” the tone was acerbic. “I should be credited with assisting him. He can’t even make coffee, not if you expect him to carry it, too—”
Caleb took my phone. “Fitzgibbon, it’s Carter. I’m taking a week’s PTO,” he said, and hung up.
“I can’t let you do that,” I said, dumping up the half-charred bacon.
“You can’t afford not to.” He held up one of the strips. “You said you could cook?”
“I like them that way,” Aki piped up.
“You like them any way,” Sophie said dryly.
“So, if anybody else doesn’t want theirs—”
“Here,” I handed Aki the platter. “Dining room’s through there.”
I started some eggs.
“I can set the table,” Jen offered, reemerging from the living room.
I showed her where the dishes were, put some oil in a pan, and dumped in the potatoes. “Can I help?” Caleb asked.
“You can start some toast. And don’t think we’re not going to discuss this.”
“Discuss what? You need help; I’m here to help.” He looked around. “Although a toaster would be nice.”
“Toaster oven—it does four slices at once,” I said pointing it out.
“And this works how?”
“I’ll show you,” Sophie said, getting up. That amazing head of red hair was in a ponytail today, and bouncy with curls that I guessed she hadn’t had time to brush out.
“I thought you didn’t know how to cook?” I said.
“Toast is not cooking.” And, okay, couldn’t argue with her there.
Breakfast was finally completed, somehow. I even found some sausage to add to the bacon, which had mostly been eaten by the time everything else made it to the table. I discovered that the kids really liked orange juice, and went through a gallon of it along with what remained of a gallon of milk. I bumped up my visit to the grocery store to today.
