Aspen took off after him.
The man was harder to track than she’d thought. This part of Ember’s Landing was more working class, snarls of clotheslines overhead and dive bars cut into brickwork, rusted equipment and barred doors. The man hurried by them all and Aspen followed just close enough behind.
Every so often he’d readjust his cloak—an actual, ridiculous-looking cloak. That was interesting. Supernatural beings or not, very few dressed the part. Things like jeans and tank tops were infinitely more comfortable than anything considered ‘classic.’
But the fact that he was being so jittery was good. Meant he was nervous. Probably meant he was hiding something. Maybe something valuable.
They were nearing the Canals, a network of pressed together boat slips at the edge of the river. It was by far the most maze-like, congested area of Ember’s Landing, coming out somewhere near Times Square. If she lost him there she’d probably never find him again. She needed to strike now.
The man paused at the top of the street to get his bearings.
Keeping her steps light, Aspen snuck until she was less than ten feet from him. She took a pinch of the last bit of darkness powder but kept her knife sheathed. No need for this to get any more violent than it had to.
Just as the man began to move, Aspen threw the powder. All the light around him was immediately swallowed up. Aspen rushed in, hands reaching for where she’d memorized the man’s belt had been. She’d have less than twenty seconds to—
The street was suddenly bright again.
Aspen stumbled in the sudden change in lighting. She blinked. How was that possible? How had he—
She grasped for his cloak anyway but the man spun away, almost seeming to float above the ground. Aspen used her momentum to whip around. No thinking, just reaction. Hit him hard and fast and get out of—
Her punch went wide as the man easily ducked. He was fast. Too fast to be just some nobody wandering the streets. Her stomach dropped. A Vamp, maybe? An incubus?
She lashed out with a kick but the man lifted one cloaked arm and blocked it. She could see beneath the cloak now; see he had nothing there but casual street clothes and a ring-covered hand. Some kind of sorcerer.
Aw, hex it all.
“I have to say, I’m quite impressed,” the man said. His voice was light and lilting. Almost playful. Like this was some big joke to him.
Aspen struck again but he lazily dodged. “If I hadn’t cast my extra sensory charm I may not have heard you. Guess the guilds are stepping up their thieving game.”
“I’m not in a guild!” Aspen snarled. She considered running this guy through with her knife. Or just running. He probably didn’t have anything. But an unsuccessful night and her frustration from the earlier job failure meant she wanted to hurt something.
She dropped to the ground, using the slapping of her hands on the concrete to cover the faint snap! of her grapple firing into the wall beside her. Another sweep of her legs drove the man towards the tripwire she’d created. His ankle touched it…
“Okay, enough of this.”
The wire snapped like thread. The man raised his hand. Before Aspen had time to react, a searing force slammed into her chest and pushed her against the wall.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink. Her thoughts ran through all the possible countermeasures she could do but all of them came up blank. The most she could manage was to wait until whatever spell he’d hit her with wore off.
She tried to move her hands. Her fingers twitched.
Which would be soon. Then this jerk would pay.
“You’re lucky that was a light stun spell,” the man said. “I’m not in a good mood, but you almost cheered me up. Consider this a warning. You’ll wake up in a few hours with a pretty nasty headache but that’s nobody’s fault but yours.”
He swept his cloak around to leave. Aspen’s entire body began to tingle as her feeling returned. His back was to her.
Bad move.
Aspen was up and charging him before she could completely feel her legs. The man just barely turned in surprise.
“What the h—”
Her arms wrapped around him and together they went tumbling. Aspen’s fingers grasped for a bag, a wallet, anything, shoving his ridiculous cloak in his face to buy her time as they tried to untangle.
“Okay, that’s enough!”
Aspen felt herself lifted off the ground and hurled into a stack of boxes at the side of the river. Another stunning spell followed. Her limbs went limp again, but this time they began to tingle almost immediately. The man brushed himself off. He stared at her in wary disbelief.
“You…how did you do that?”
She’d knocked his hood back. He was about thirty or so, with thick, sooty lashes, skin as pale as a Vamp’s. Both hands outstretched warily towards her were covered in golden rings the same color as his cluster of earrings. His honey-colored hair was short but fine, bangs falling almost elegantly over his eyes like he’d styled them that way.
“Gonna have to hit harder than that, pretty boy,” Aspen said. She propped one arm and managed to stand. “Looks like your spells don’t work on me.”
She faced him, expecting to see a confused, horrified look.
Instead he was grinning. Freaking grinning.
“I do believe,” he said, “that you’re the answer to all my problems.”
Aspen didn’t like the sound of that.
She didn’t like the sound of that at all.
An Introduction of Sorts
Aspen leapt for him again.
Slow. Waaaaay too slow. His spells might not have worked like they should, but they’d still done something to her.
The man casually stepped aside. His cloak fluttered as Aspen went stumbling into its folds.
There was a sudden jerk around her midsection, like a hook had caught through her spine and yanked backwards. Her entire world spun, as if she was falling farther and farther down a rabbit hole, unable to tell which way was up or down.
Then everything jerked to a stop.
Aspen rolled out of his cloak and onto a patch of grass. She breathed in the earthly scent, reassuring herself that this was real, she was still alive. For now.
“You don’t make it easy to jump from one place to the next,” the man said. He snapped his cloak and small particles of magic wafted off. “It’s hard enough doing it alone, but all that struggling took a lot more out of me than usual.”
Aspen stood on wobbly legs. The few stars above that the city lights hadn’t washed out spun in her vision. The ground beneath her wouldn’t stay in one place. “You…” she slurred.
“Aw, hex it all.” He sounded somewhat concerned now. “That’s right, this was probably your first time traveling by Farcast magic, wasn’t it—”
Aspen rushed him. It was like running through water, everything slow and muddled and dulled. The man sighed and stuck out a foot as she barreled past. She found herself face first on the ground again.
“Seriously? Points for persistence, but it’s getting a little old. And I’m sure you’re feeling pretty sick right about—”
Aspen rolled over and vomited.
“Ah. There we go. Just as I predicted. Get it all out, you’ll feel better, I promise. Same thing I did when I Farcasted for the first time. Not a fan of it anyway, but I saw no other way to get you here without one of us killing the other…”
Did he ever shut up? His voice was only making her more ill.
Aspen heaved until the little she’d had in her stomach was gone and she was pushing up clear liquid. She didn’t feel any better.
“There,” the man said. “That should help—”
Aspen went for one of her guns.
“Oh no you don’t!”
An invisible force jerked the gun out of her hand as she drew it. She fumbled for her knife, next, but no sooner had she grabbed the hilt than it too went flying. The man raised a finger and the rest of the items she’d had tucked away came l
oose and soared out of reach. Her grapple, powders, small explosives, even Charlotte. The man’s eyes widened as the pile of gear beside him grew to a respectable size.
“By the ancients, what are you carrying, an armory?”
Aspen could only roll over in defeat. She could feel her mind going, feel the darkness creeping in. This was it. This was how she died. At the hands of the world’s most annoying magic user.
“I think it’s time to…oh, you’re passing out? All right, then, makes my job easier. Just don’t die on me, please,” she heard him say.
Aspen caught a glimpse of the enormous red gates they’d landed in front of before she knew no more.
Aspen’s thoughts flickered in and out of reality. One second, she swore she was awake, lying on a comfy cot on some floor. Then she’d blink back to darkness and realize she’d dreamed that. Or had she? She certainly remembered the feel of the cot, the shape of the room. But then she’d wake up again and realize she’d been asleep without realizing it, stuck in the twilight between awake and asleep.
One of the times she was awake (or was she?), a girl was leaning over her, dabbing her forehead with a wet cloth.
“Don’t you think you overdid it a little?” The girl said, her voice sharp with condescension. “Two stunning spells, Lucien? On a Norm? Really?”
“You don’t understand, Tana,” the man from earlier, Lucien, said. “They hardly affected her. At all.”
“Oh, good, so the second one was just to prove yourself right?”
Lucien grumbled something inaudible. “She kept attacking me. What was I supposed to do?”
Tana dabbed Aspen’s forehead again. Through her hazy vision, Aspen thought she could see her smirk. “You probably deserved it. And I know someone else who wants to attack you…Nina came by while you were gone…”
“You didn’t let her in, did you?” Lucien said quickly. “She could have left a trap, or a hex, or…”
Tana rolled her eyes. “No, Caretaker politely declined. Lucky for you. Whatever she sees in you…” Tana added at a mumble, so low that only Aspen could hear.
Lucien relaxed. “Excellent. She’s a problem for another day. Preferably doomsday.”
Tana was peering closer at Aspen’s arms. Her dabbing had slowed.
“No, Tana,” Lucien said firmly. “No feeding.”
“But her veins…” Tana’s voice was transfixed. “Look at them pop. Look how blue they are. They’re practically begging to be free…”
“I said no. You know what that will do to you. And I need her strong. She’s my ticket out of this mess.”
He turned with a flurry of his cloak. “I’ll be back later. I have to announce this new development to the Council.”
There was a pause.
“Tana!”
“All right! All right!” Tana said, jerking her face away from Aspen’s arms. “No feeding, sheesh!”
Aspen’s consciousness faded again.
She thought of Brune. He’d probably be worried. She was sure he could get by without her for a short time, but she shouldn’t have left him. What if he got his head stuck in the fridge again? Or went racing through the streets, looking for her? They’d had a good thing going, she realized. They could have figured things out without her getting into this mess.
Her thoughts turned. She could taste smoke on her tongue. Feel heat on her skin. She saw her parents’ house being consumed by flames. Their charred bodies. Her parents’ murderer making his escape. Then her thoughts changed to the house she’d broken into and the smooth, magic-filled cylinder. Memories sluiced through her brain like a speedboat through water. Something within her stirred. Aspen didn’t know what it was. A feeling of something coming; of inevitability, of a long-dormant potential being awakened. It was as if a boulder had been dislodged on a mountainside and started rolling downhill, gathering speed as it went, faster and faster and faster—
Aspen snapped awake. She sat up and immediately regretted it. Her head felt full of needles, all prickling the inside of her skull. The bright sunlight from outside was like ice picks to her eyes.
She stood anyway, her previous instincts demanding she assess her situation. Weaponless. In a foreign place. She remembered voices. Names. Lucien. Tana. But neither one was near her now. She felt a momentary surge of absolute panic and helplessness, but took a deep breath and managed to squelch it.
Assess, analyze, plan.
She was in a small, open room. Japanese style, Aspen realized. She’d seen it in books and cartoons. Her blanket-covered cot had been spread across a tatami floor. The sunlight from outside cut through some fusuma panels pulled halfway open to let the breeze in. If she stopped long enough to listen, she could make out faint, atrocious opera singing coming from some other part of wherever she was.
Aspen stood straighter and kicked aside the last of the blankets. Something moved beneath them. When she peered closer, small, dust-like creatures vanished between the floorboards. Dust sprites. She jerked around as a translucent, murky shape vanished into the far wall. Great, this place had spirits, too.
Aspen padded over to one of the fusuma panels. She was barefoot. And in new clothes. Somebody had changed her. She shuddered. Hopefully not that sorcerer guy. Maybe the girl she’d heard talking—
Remembering something, Aspen quickly brought her forearms up and checked the veins. They were unmarked. No small puncture wounds or bruising. Whoever had wanted to feed hadn’t.
Slowly, so it wouldn’t make any noise, Aspen slid aside one of the panels. She nearly gasped.
Her room faced an inner courtyard easily the size of a small parking lot, filled with rows of maples bursting with fiery orange and red leaves. Un-lit lanterns had been hung on hooks around the perimeter.
Aspen slowly stepped into the outdoor corridor that wrapped around to her left, bypassing more fusuma, probably covering more rooms. It was an entire Japanese manor. In the middle of New York.
If she even was in New York anymore. Who knew how far that Lucien guy had teleported her last night.
Aspen took another tender step out, feeling her jaw drop, almost not noticing she didn’t have any shoes on. Through her haze of disbelief, she vaguely remembered the Lucien guy had taken all her weapons. She should search for them, but…
Her eyes wandered to the right, to the far end of the courtyard. The rooms of the house closed in on three sides like a horseshoe, leaving the fourth for an immense gate, ten feet tall, with blood-red doors. A stone wall just as high branched off on either side, encircling, Aspen assumed, the entirety of the house.
Aspen stood in place, gaping at everything. It was a complete contrast to what she was used to living in. Everything was bright and colorful. Nothing looked in disrepair. The air was sweet and thick with the pleasant buzz of magic and…
Okay, stop. She could fangirl later. First objective: get out and regroup. She could retrieve her gear later.
Aspen hurried across the courtyard, feet slapping on fallen leaves, thinking any second that some sort of alarm charm would go off, or someone would spot her. It was oddly quiet. As before, the house seemed almost vacant. Minus the spirits, of course.
She reached the gate and pulled at one of the iron knockers. It stuck but, with a couple more tugs, eventually swung open. On the other side was a small yard of grass, and then a narrow alley leading to a window of light. She could hear the comforting sounds of traffic not too far away. Relief flooded through her. Maybe not New York, but still in the city. Still in somewhat-known territory.
Aspen took a step forward—
And ended up in the exact same place. She stumbled, blinking in confusion. She knew she’d stepped through the door, yet here she was, back where she’d started.
She tried again. And again. With each successive time she began to become aware of the faint buzz of magic on her skin whenever she stepped through. A charm. A charm to keep her trapped here.
Growling to herself, Aspen took a second to think. Charms were spells cast
on primarily stationary objects to make them do certain things. Alarms, barriers, keeping her captive…
But most stationary charms had a limited area they covered and only covered that area. So if the caster wasn’t meticulous…
Aspen looked over at the walls.
…then they might only put a charm on the door and not bother covering anywhere else.
Even without her shoes and the rest of her gear she was easily able to find handholds in the worn brick. She scrambled up the side until her fingers were digging into the top. Easy. All she had to do was pull herself the rest of the way up and find a soft place to land on the other side and she was home fr—
Her skin buzzed.
Before Aspen knew it, she was blasted from the top of the wall and thrown against the not-too-soft cobblestones below.
“Son of a flippin’ little—”
“Are you okay?”
Aspen craned her head up. A girl about her age sat perched at the top of the wall. She was peering down with a mixture of admiration, curiosity, and concern. Aspen peered right back, trying not to show her sudden surprise at finding her there.
“Lucien’s right,” the girl said, “you’re really good. You figured it out quick. I mean, not the stun charm at the top but the spell across the doors. And you climbed it so easily! That’s amazing!”
Aspen agonizingly rose to her feet. “You’re Tana.”
The girl’s face lit up. “Yeah! You were awake when I was helping you?”
“I need out of here, Tana. This guy, Lucien, he kidnapped me.”
Tana leapt from the wall. Aspen expected her to land hard on the stones, but instead it was as if a sudden gust of air rushed beneath her and gently lowered her to the ground. She wore sweat pants and a sweater that were both three sizes too big and hung baggy over her slender frame. Her hair was unkempt and stringy, part of it covering half her face, giving the impression that she was peering out at the world from a hiding place.
She approached Aspen, her yellow-gold eyes filled with concern. Her nails were chewed to the ends, the veins of her arms sea-blue as she brought her fingers up to bite the ends.
Mage's Apprentice (Mages of New York Book 1) Page 5