by B N Miles
The outside lights around the motel emitted a weak orange haze and flickered a few times. They’d been doing that all evening, but this time, they went out completely and didn’t turn back on. The sun set about an hour back, though the rainclouds made it dark already.
“You see that?” Jared asked.
Jessalene made a low noise in her throat. “But nothing’s moving out there.”
“Can you see?” Jared leaned forward and squinted. “I can hardly make it out.”
Lumi moved and popped her head up between the two headrests. “I can use a little magic,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Can’t take the risk,” Jared said. “He might feel it.”
“We could get closer,” Jessalene said. “I mean, we’d get wet, but that’s not so bad. I could grow a nice little canopy around us.”
“Hold on,” Jared said, staring at the room at the far end of the motel. “Do you guys see that?”
A figure stepped out from inside. It wore dark jeans and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. It lingered in the lot, looked around, closed the door behind it. The lights flickered again but didn’t turn back on.
“That has to be him,” Lumi said.
“We can’t be sure,” Jessalene said. “If we go after the wrong person—”
“Look,” Jared said. “He’s coming closer.”
The figure turned into the parking lot, hands shoved into its pockets. Rain battered the hood of its sweatshirt as it walked toward them, face angled down toward the puddled pavement. Jared shifted, staring, eyes narrowed.
Just as the figure looked up toward them.
Jared froze, afraid to breathe. The figure stared in their direction, his face lit up by the headlights of a truck driving down the main road. Light eyes, tan skin, long hooked nose. He only caught a glimpse, but he was sure that face matched the picture he saw in Taavi’s file.
“Can he see us?” Jessalene asked.
“I don’t think so,” Lumi said.
“It’s him,” Jared said. “I’m positive it’s him.”
“Let’s follow,” Jessalene said. “See where he goes.”
“No,” Lumi said, leaning back. “Let’s grab him right now.”
“The others aren’t here yet,” Jared said, but Lumi already reached for the handle of the back door and pushed it open.
The lights in the car popped on and Taavi’s head snapped up as Lumi stepped out into the rain.
Jared heard her step through a puddle, the water sloshing against her tight, black yoga pants.
“Shit,” Jared said as Lumi strode forward. “Fuck, Jessalene, stay here.”
“Wait, why?”
Jared threw open his door as Lumi approached the Plethoak.
“Taavi?” Lumi asked. “Taavi Plains?”
Taavi stood still, eyes wide, jaw tight. His hood dripped water down into his face, but Jared was even more positive it was him. Taavi took a step away from Lumi and pulled his hands from his pockets.
“Lumi,” Jared said, hands extended, fingers tensed, just as a flash of lightning smashed into the ground an inch away from her.
It crackled with heat and power and blinded Jared for half a beat. The explosion launched Lumi off her feet and sent her careening backwards. She screamed and Jared had only moments to react. He wrapped Lumi in a cushion of air, reaching for a version of his shield memgram to stiffen the space around her. She hit that cushion and slowed, stabilizing on her back. He brought her slowly to the ground as Taavi turned to him, the man’s eyes hard.
Jared was ready when another bolt came. He snapped a second memgram into place and threw up a thick shield around himself. The bolt smashed into the hardened air, the bright white energy of the lightning crackling around the shield and scattering down onto the pavement in wild sparks. Jared grunted with the effort, shocked at the power behind the bolt.
Lumi sat up and rubbed at her head. “Mother fucker,” she said and scrambled to her feet.
“Are you okay?” Jared called out, his eyes on Taavi.
“Mother fucker,” she said again, and Jared felt her draw in a huge amount of priori.
Taavi turned and ran.
“Stay here,” Jared yelled, but he heard Lumi running after him.
He didn’t have time to argue. Taavi cut across the parking lot, heading toward the far side.
Lumi threw lightning at him, the bolt skittering through the air like some horrid glowing wormlike creature, but it only smashed against Taavi and dissipated, like he’d scattered it away without even slowing.
Jared grunted with effort as Lumi threw another bolt, just seconds before the Plethoak vaulted over the guardrail at the far side of the lot and threw himself into the woods. Her lightning hit a tree and exploded its trunk, sending shrapnel flying at Jared’s face. He threw up his arms and barely managed to deflect it away.
“Plethoak,” he yelled at Lumi as she caught up. “You can’t use lightning against them.”
“Mother fucker!” she said then threw herself over the guardrail and ran into the woods.
Jared grunted in anger and followed. Lumi was being reckless, and he was worried she’d make some horrible mistake and get them all killed. She sucked in huge amounts of priori, and he could see it spilling off her skin just ahead, the glow degassing up into the air in thick rivulets of power, making the forest around them shimmer in the blue-gray light.
He caught up with Lumi, his legs longer and faster. She clenched her jaw and flung herself between the trees, and Jared felt her flow more magic into her body. This time, though, she used a spell to augment her speed, pumping power into her limbs, similar to what that muscle Magi had done to himself beneath the underpass.
Jared could barely believe what she was doing. It was dangerous magic, deadly if done wrong, and hard as hell to pull off right. The Human body was immensely complicated, and any wrong circumstance could break a blood vessel, cause bleeding or clotting or worse. Lumi could lose a leg or throw a clot to her heart or brain if she wasn’t careful.
And Jared knew she wasn’t being careful.
Most Magi wouldn’t attempt to do that sort of magic while sitting alone in a room with notes to guide them, much less running wildly through the woods at night during a rainstorm.
But he felt her flare and flow, reknitting her muscles, reordering her body.
As soon as the magic hit, she flew forward, using the trees like walking sticks. She threw herself, flying through the air at impossible speeds from tree to tree, a scream of rage on her lips.
Jared called out, trying to get her to slow down, but she didn’t listen. He heard trees crash and smash as she ripped branches and flung herself directly through their trunks, heedless of anything around her.
It was horrifying, how much power she threw into herself.
Jared dodged the worse of the broken trees and wrapped a heavy shield around himself as he barreled forward, smashing through bushes and saplings, crashing through the wreckage Lumi left in her wake.
He couldn’t see Lumi or Taavi, but he followed the path of destruction. He heard a crack and a shout up ahead, and he turned to the right, following a path littered with snapped wood and debris.
The trees thinned up ahead into a small clearing at the edge of a farm. The fields were full of half-grown corn stalks, their bodies swaying in the rain and wind. In the distance, a square red barn stood with its back to them, just outside a white house with large columns in the front.
Standing in the field, the corn smashed to bits around them, were Taavi and Lumi, only a few feet apart. The Plethoak breathed hard, the hood of his sweatshirt thrown back to reveal his wide, wild eyes, as he tossed both hands out. Lightning drenched the air and ricocheted off a shield Lumi held around herself.
She was drenched in water and sweat, and Jared saw blood rolling from her nose.
“Stop!” Jared shouted as he got closer.
Taavi looked at him, and Jared could see the panic in his face. Lumi didn’t e
ven turn around as she dropped her shield and called on fire, slicing a thick line of it down along the corn.
Taavi barely managed to dive out of the way. He countered with more lightning, the bolts smashing into the ground all around Lumi. She screamed, laughed, called on more flames until a bolt hit too close and sent her staggering back.
Jared reached her side and grabbed her arm. She must have released the spell augmenting her body as soon as she reached the clearing.
She looked at him, her eyes bloodshot, her nose pouring blood down her mouth and chin. He grabbed her arm hard and pulled her toward him, wrapping his shield around them both as Taavi threw more lighting, the bolts smashing and scattering, lighting more corn on fire, only to be put out by the rain.
Smoke smoldered in the drizzle.
“You have to stop,” Jared said, shaking Lumi. “You have to stop before you kill yourself.”
“That mother fucker,” she said. “You saw what he did. He started this.”
“You’re going too far,” he said. “We need him alive, and if you keep going at this rate, you’ll both end up dead.”
She stared him at him, struggled again, but he held her tight. Taavi crawled away from them through the muck, toward the stalks just behind him.
“Let me go,” she said.
“No,” Jared said. “You have to calm down.”
She struggled then coughed and blood splattered against Jared’s chest. They both stared at it and Lumi’s eyes went wide in fear.
“Jared,” she said, and her voice came out a moan. “I think you’re right. I think… I took too much.”
“Don’t move,” he said and released her. He touched her face, as gentle as he could, before turning away. He left a shield wrapped around her as he advanced on Taavi. “Just stay there, Lumi. You’ll be okay. We’ll find Izzy.”
He looked back and saw her wrap her arms around herself and stare down at the ground, her drenched dark hair hanging over her face.
When he turned back, Taavi got to his feet and tried to run. But the corn began to shake and slither, coming alive as it wrapped itself around him. The Plethoak yelled in surprise, struggling against the vine-like corn, and released lightning down his body. The corn sizzled away, burned to ash, but more stalks grew and danced, lashing out and wrapping themselves around his arms, his legs, his throat.
He growled, burning it, trying to run, but he didn’t get far.
Jared summoned a heavy block of solid ice and slammed it against Taavi’s back. The Plethoak let out a gasp as it pinned him to the ground. Lightning crackled around the thief, sparking and burning everything in a circle around his prone body, but Jared walked up to him and slammed a boot into the ice that pinned him to the ground.
Taavi let out a low groan. More lightning sparked, dancing up Jared’s boot, singing his jeans.
“Stop struggling,” Jared said. “Or I’ll snap your fucking spine.”
Taavi went still, taking deep, gasping breaths.
Jared looked over his shoulder. Jessalene stood with Lumi, her arms wrapped around the smaller girl.
“Get her to Izzy,” Jared shouted. “Make sure she’s okay.”
Jessalene held up a hand and turned Lumi back toward the forest and toward the motel.
Jared looked down at Taavi. The Plethoak took a couple shuddering breaths.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name’s Jared Bechtel,” he said. “I believe you’re working for my family.”
Taavi grunted. “I don’t know you.”
“You don’t need to,” Jared said. “All you need to know is that I’m a Meta Marshal, but I don’t give a damn what you’ve done. I want information, and you can give it to me.”
Taavi didn’t move. He held still beneath the heavy block of ice. Jared put more weight on it, just a little bit, but enough to let Taavi know he wasn’t messing around.
“Meta Marshal,” Taavi said. “And who the fuck was that other Magi?”
“That was Lumi Medlar,” Jared said. “She’s an Independent now, and I suspect she’s not restrained by law like I am.”
Taavi grunted and gave him a little smile. “I saw that.”
“I want to talk,” Jared said. “About the thing you stole for my family. And about why you’re running.”
Taavi’s smile vanished and he went still again, like an animal playing dead. They stood in the rain for a few seconds, the corn blowing in the wind around them, drops of water dripping from Jared’s drenched hair and onto the block of ice beneath his boot.
“Fine,” Taavi said. “But please, not here. Not in the open. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“If I let you up, are you going to try and run?” Jared asked.
“You have no way of knowing that,” Taavi said. “But I give you my word.”
“If you try it, I’ll follow, and I won’t be so gentle next time.”
Taavi only grunted in response.
Jared pulled his boot back and released his ice memgram. The block shimmered, cracked, then turned to steam as it dissipated back to pure energy.
Taavi took a few deep breaths as he rolled onto his back and groaned. He spit to the side then sat up, his face covered in mud, his clothes drenched and wrecked and burned in a few places.
Jared held out a hand. Taavi gave him a look, hesitated, then took it. Jared half expected the Plethoak to try and fry him right then and there, but nothing happened. He helped him to his feet and they stood regarding each other for a moment.
“Why can’t we talk in the open?” Jared asked. “What are you so afraid of? Is it my family?”
Taavi’s eyes flicked to the forest, to where Lumi and Jessalene had disappeared.
“Not your family,” Taavi said. “But the people your family’s working for.”
Jared frowned, cocked his head. “I didn’t think they worked for anyone.”
“You don’t know much about your family, do you?”
Jared opened his mouth then shut it again. He stood for a moment, fingers curled against his thigh, then relaxed them.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk in your room.”
“Fine.” Taavi took a deep breath and let it out before pulling his hood up over his head again.
“Lead the way,” Jared said.
Taavi nodded twice then began to walk back toward the forest.
Jared followed, his magic perched on the tip of his tongue.
23
Jared followed Taavi back through the damp forest. Together, they picked their way through the thick mud and smashed trees. Taavi limped along, walking right through the puddles, his hands shoved in his pockets. Jared kept close behind. They scrambled back up the short slope, over the guard rail, and toward the motel.
The “M” flickered as they got closer, and then went out when Taavi walked beneath it.
“Do you do that on purpose?” Jared asked.
“Do what?” Taavi said.
“The lights.”
Taavi glanced up and made a face.
“No,” he said. “And it’s annoying.” He stopped walking and looked back at Jared. “Where are we going?”
“Your room,” Jared said.
He turned around again, walked to his door, and unlocked it. Jared followed him inside.
The lights flickered but stayed on as Taavi walked over to the bed. He sat down at the edge of it. The gray and blue comforter was thrown on the floor and only a thin top sheet covered the mattress. There was a tangle of pillows at the top of the bed, and a suitcase sat on the floor, half opened, clothes spilling out.
The room looked just like the two Jared rented. An old bureau sat against the wall opposite the bed with a flat screen TV that looked like it was ten years old. A small table with two chairs sat right next to the front windows, which were covered by ratty red curtains.
The painting hanging above the bed depicted the most generic lake Jared had ever seen, so generic that it seemed almost impossible that it e
xisted anywhere in the world. The walls were painted gray and dirty fingerprints marked their surface. There was a small closet standing open and empty except for one bent clothes hanger. Jared could just see inside the bathroom with its teal tiles and beige shower curtain.
“I hate these rooms,” Taavi said as Jared pulled his attention back to the Plethoak. “They’re always the same and I spend half my time in them. At least there aren’t any bedbugs in this place.”
“I almost feel bad for you,” Jared said, grabbing a small wooden chair with a torn seat cushion. He sat down, crossed his legs, and watched Taavi closely.
Taavi grunted and ran his hands along his thighs like he was trying to warm them up. “Can I take off my sweatshirt? It’s soaked.”
“Go ahead.”
He let out a breath and pulled off the hoodie. It dripped as he tossed it onto the floor with a wet slap. He wore a navy V-neck underneath, his arms wiry and veined, his chest thin and sunken.
Red burns, nasty and livid, covered his right arm. There was a white bandage on his neck, just underneath his chin, which Jared hadn’t noticed before.
“All right then, Magi,” he said. “You have me.” He spread his hands out wide. “What do you want?”
“First, call me Jared,” Jared said.
Taavi inclined his head. “Magi Jared.”
Jared made a flat face but moved on. “I want to know about the object you stole for my family.”
“Ah, yes, the sphere,” he said. “Interesting little piece of work, that thing.”
“Do you still have it?”
He nodded. “I do,” he said. “Is that all you want?”
“No,” Jared said. “That’s just one piece of the puzzle.”
“I’ll show it to you, if you want,” Taavi said, head tilted, a frown on his lips. “But it won’t do you much good if they come for it.”
“Where is it?” Jared glanced toward the closet, but Taavi pointed at the half-closed suitcase.
“In there,” he said.
Jared hesitated then reached out and pulled it toward him. He unzipped the main compartment, pushed aside some old underwear, shirts, shorts, and at the very bottom he found a metal, circular object about the size of a baseball.