by T. S. Snow
Well, fuck. They were already the enemy when I could see the steps.
"Oh no, you don't," Blair said before she pressed a few more keys and we heard a yelp behind us. That was all it took for the stairs to become normal again.
Thank fuck.
"What did you do to her?" I asked.
"Trust me, you don't want to know. Let's leg it. Andres is waiting for us out front."
I heard a couple of yells coming from my floor and mentally cursed. Looked like the ice blast's effects were over.
Note to self, add more freezing magic to the fire retardant balls.
That was all the encouragement I needed as I followed Blair down. We were three floors down when I heard footsteps joining us, and we started to go faster.
At this point I was half stumbling, half slipping on my way down, pure desperation the only thing preventing me from tumbling for reals.
Real-life chases were not nearly as fun as Grand Theft Auto made them out to be.
And I doubted anyone would let me steal a tank so I could get away.
"Do you think you could still do a teeny tiny illusion?" I asked Blair, gasping between my words.
"It depends, what do you have in mind?"
"I'll open the next door over, think you can make it seem like the door that opened was two floors up?"
"Ohh, I can do that," Blair replied, excitedly.
Well, here goes nothing, I thought, just as I banged the door to one of the floors open really loudly, so the sound would echo all the way up.
21
Andres
I watched Blair and Charisma run out of the building as if they were being chased by an army of the undead. The illusion spell Blair had activated was starting to flicker, and I could see bits and pieces of her through the now ghostly teenage form.
Shit.
Blair saw me and dragged Charisma toward my car. Just when they reached me and opened the door, I saw two out of the three pursuers leave the building after them.
The dark haired woman, and the bald guy in jeans who was carrying a sword. I briefly wondered what had happened to the guy in a suit, but that thought briefly died when the woman raised an arm and touched her wrist.
Oh no, you don‘t.
I rolled my ring and sighed in relief when my shield of wind materialized right before the dark matter projectile could hit Blair.
"Get in the fucking car already!" I yelled, rolling my ring again and conjuring an illusion that made it seem like a big ball of fire was heading their way.
One of the pursuers scrambled out of the way just as another raised a water shield.
That was all the time Blair needed, though, and she finally closed the door of the car.
Thank fuck.
"Go! Go! Go!" Blair demanded, and I wasted no time.
I sped out of the spot I'd parked in just as something hit the car and there was a loud noise as whatever spell they'd hurled our way hit its target. The sound of metal ripping made us wince.
"What the hell is going on!?" I yelled over the sound of the engine, praying to the Goddess that the people behind us wouldn't try to turn this into a car chase.
The Goddess wasn't in the mood to answer my prayers, though, because just as I took a right entering the first street that would lead me to a busier area, I caught sight of the girls’ pursuers taking off after us.
Fuck me.
"I'll explain later, just keep driving! You gotta lose them!" Blair yelled. I mentally cursed her the whole time I was driving, swerving in and out of side streets and doing my best impersonation of any action movie where the criminals are on the run from the cops.
Except, this was New York, and there was no such thing as a high-speed chase during rush hour. It was more like a snail race where the only thing we had going for us was the fact that we took off first.
"Can you go any slower?" Sarcasm oozed out of Blair's words like pus from an infected wound, but I just rolled my eyes.
"How do you suggest I go faster, exactly? I can't just pull a Noah and part the sea of cars in front of us."
Charisma giggled from beside Blair, and the sound was so carefree I couldn't help watching from the rearview mirror as she tried to compose herself.
"I'm pretty sure that was Moses, at least according to the humans. Wasn't Noah the one who built an ark or something like that? Honestly, humans find the weirdest ways to explain magic. And they believe anything; how could they not know this Moses guy was clearly an Elemental Mage with a penchant for water?" Charisma's eyes twinkled and I didn't even get to be embarrassed by my mistake.
I saw an opportunity when the light turned yellow right when I was near a crossroads. I laid my foot down on the pedal, speeding up and hoping we’d make it, even as the car behind us set foot on the brakes.
Fuck yeah, that’d block our pursuers and buy us some time. I took a right on the first possible turn, and then three more rights, circling the block back to our original spot.
I drove on, hoping we’d managed to lose them at least for long enough that I’d be able to find a place to hide us before I threw an illusion over the car.
Speaking of… I wondered if I could manage to cast an illusion on our pursuers that would make it so every car they saw was just like mine.
Now, that would come in handy.
I’d never tried something this complex before from this far away, but it was worth a try. I stopped at the next red light, quickly visualizing what I wanted to happen, as well as my targets. I pictured the woman’s dark hair and white washed jeans, the way she’d used her MET to try to attack us. I pictured the bald guy with his sword, the way he’d been dressed, the car they’d been driving. Then I activated my MET, rolling the ring back and forth to get to the right setting.
“Andres! The light is green!” Charisma’s words broke my focus, and I quickly put the car in gear again to the sound of New Yorker drivers honking their horns at me.
I had no idea if my magic had worked, but I’d hope for the best.
"So," I trailed off, fully expecting one of them to fill in the silence, but I had no such luck. One look at Blair and I knew this was going to be like pulling teeth. "Will anyone explain to me why we're running from AMIA? What the fuck did you do this time, Blair? I thought you worked for them."
"Wait. AMIA? We thought they were with the rebellion."
I almost swerved the car at Charisma's confused nonchalance.
"What the fuck? Why are your options either the rebellion or AMIA? What the hell is going on?"
Blair rolled her eyes at me and I gripped the steering wheel tighter than intended. But in my mind, this was her neck and I was giving it a good squeeze so she would stop being such an ass.
She was my sister, so I was allowed to kill her. In fact, I was pretty sure it was in the sibling rulebook. Right underneath the part where it taught you how to best piss your relatives off.
Besides, not that I'd admit to anyone but we both knew Blair knew some Necromancers, so she could just get one of them to revive her or something. So long as no one in Arcane found out, it should be all good.
The world may have set the Necromancers out to be the bad guys, but they were no worse than Soulbinders or even other Illuderes. Hell, if I took into account all the shit I'd seen the heads of the Arcane families doing, I was pretty sure the Necromancers were the good guys. Not that I'd admit it out loud to anyone. I valued my life.
The way I saw it, they just had a bad rep based on a stupid mistake one of their leaders had done ages ago.
Proof of that was the fact that in other countries, the Necromancers were still a part of the Council of Seven. While here we only had six Families from the different branches that worked together to control the mages in America.
Not that they admitted to being controlling. No, they spun it as a way to ensure laws would be followed and that the power could be balanced out. But I’d been raised in this community knowing my place, and I’d been molded to one day take my father’s place.
I knew how things really worked in Arcane society and what actually motivated the families.
It was no wonder there was a growing faction that opposed the current leadership. Sadly, for them, they weren’t strong enough to actually take on the current heads of the families. They’d never win a magical duel.
A car's horn brought me back to the present and I realized I'd drifted off into my own thoughts a little too long and not seen the light turn green. That, or the sudden bump on my seat from what I presumed was Blair kicking it to call my attention.
"Alright, alright. I'm moving." I drove a little further and found what I'd been looking for, a plan quickly forming in my head. "Blair, how are you with power? I'm going to need your help for something."
"I'm running on almost empty, but I should have enough juice for a little illusion. What do you need?"
"Oh for Goddess's sake, when we get back into the safe house, give me your damn MET. You're way stronger than this; you must be leaking power all over your spells," Charisma remarked, almost angrily. I raised an eyebrow at her.
Little kitty had claws.
I quite liked this feisty side of hers.
Blair hugged a fucking Katana to her chest like one would a puppy and sort of petted it. I stared wide-eyed at her weird behavior.
"Girl, you already owe me this baby. Don't think I've forgotten," she said, all but cooing at the Katana.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's fine. But until then I need to plug a magical corkscrew on you or something, because you're way stronger than you're letting on and you shouldn't be out of power from just this little thing. Unless you ran the equivalent of a magical marathon while I wasn't looking, you're wasting your own potential. With your power level, you should be able to keep a steady influx of spells going for a couple of hours at least. You’re not like me, you don’t need twenty different failsafes built on your MET to keep your spells going on the tiniest bit of magic. Yet, for some reason, you’re barely stronger than I am, and what sort of friend would I be if I just let you waste your potential?”
Charisma seemed to stop after her own words, process what she'd said and then blush. I wasn't sure if it was the threat of stuffing my sister with something or the rest of it that had her embarrassed, but it was too great an opportunity to pass.
"Did you just threaten to cork my sister?" I asked, amused. “I thought I was the one you owed a date to, not her. I’m crushed.”
Charisma turned impossibly pink, and I kind of missed how her hair used to be, because I was pretty sure she would've won the pink competition against her own hair.
“What? No! I didn’t! I wouldn’t… That’s not…” Charisma stuttered through her answer and I grinned. It was so easy to rile her up, and I loved a girl who could blush that pretty.
Blair slapped the back of my head, making me see stars for all of two seconds. “Hey hey, watch it! I’m driving! Don’t hurt the driver!”
“Then don’t embarrass your passengers. Stop flirting with the poor girl, she’s too good for you anyway and she already has her loverboy. Now, what do you need me to do?”
Wait, Charisma was taken? That was new. Had Theo finally gotten his head out of his ass and gotten back with her? Somehow I doubted that.
But if not him, who? And how serious was it? I didn’t mind a little competition, so long as she wasn’t truly off the market. In fact, the idea that I might have to compete for her attention spurred me on more than it probably should have.
That was a note for later, though. Right now, we had to make sure we weren’t being followed, then I needed to get some answers.
Like what the hell Charisma had meant about Blair leaking magic, if I was leaking it too, and whether my uncle had anything to do with it.
But for now, we had a higher priority.
“Alright, so, here’s the plan.”
22
Charisma
Well, the good news was that we managed to lose whoever was after us. At least, I thought so. They could be using an elaborate illusion spell and still be onto us, but considering I was in a car with two master Illusionists... I was willing to take the odds that we'd lost them. At least for now.
The bad news was that I'd been hit when I was getting in the car. And it hurt like a motherfucker. I hadn't even realized I'd been hit at first, I was riding so high on the adrenaline of it all. But as we stayed with our heads bent hiding inside Andres's car at the mostly full parking lot where he'd stopped, the adrenaline started to fade and I could feel again. Which was not great.
I did not recommend feeling things.
Especially pain.
Pain was so overrated.
I cradled my arm where I'd been hit, mentally cursing the audacity of the bitch who dared burn me. Me. Fire was my element. Fire was supposed to be my friend, dammit! Now it had gone and betrayed me.
I felt the tiniest of flutters inside of me and froze, pain forgotten. Had... Had my magic come back? Had it just responded to my anger?
Please, Goddess, please let it be true.
Closing my eyes, I evened out my breathing as best as I could, trying to see into myself. It was weird as hell and I was the least qualified person to meditate, but it was the easiest way to access one's magic—especially when that someone had less than most—thank fuck for martial arts and my master's insistence on forcing us to learn the value of breathing right and clearing one's mind.
Which was exactly the opposite of what I was doing.
Right.
Focus, Charisma. This is important.
Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
There! Where my magic used to be, where for the last few days I'd had nothing but a giant void, I could see a small spark. It was barely even anything at all. But it was there, and it was mine.
My magic.
"Girl, what are you doing? Are you okay? Why are you crying? Andres, why is she crying?" Blair's concern, more than her words, broke my focus and I blinked up at her where she was looming, her face mere inches from mine.
"Woah, if you're going to kiss me, at least buy me dinner," I said without thinking.
"Why are you crying?" Blair sounded almost accusing.
"Crying? I'm not..." I trailed off when I raised a hand to my face and my fingers came back wet.
Huh. I had been crying. Weird.
"It's back, Blair. My magic is back!"
Blair looked at me as if I'd lost my ever-loving-mind.
"What?" Andres asked from the driver's seat, his eyes wide in disbelief. "What do you mean your magic is back? Do you mean to tell me you and Blair went into a building that's two seconds away from falling down, knowing there were people after you, and faced off against three AMIA agents while you had no magic?" His voice raised near the end and he looked pissed.
I'd never seen him look anything but sexy and flirty before. It was... an interesting change.
Instead of answering him like a normal person, I just smiled sheepishly. "Cast a small fire," I demanded.
"What? No," Andres and Blair answered practically at the same time.
It was kind of cute.
"C'mon! I want to test a theory. And I need fire," I pleaded.
"Girl, have you been hit in the head or something? We're inside a car. Starting a fire inside a gasoline filled baby tank is not exactly the smartest choice. I'm all for living dangerously, but this is suicidal." Blair looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
"Please," I pouted, and mentally cheered when Andres sighed.
I had him and we both knew it.
"Fine. A small flame, but promise to be extra careful, I don't want to hurt you by accident," he replied.
Yesss. This was happening. I just hoped my theory would actually work.
I was like thirty-four percent sure it would.
Andres messed around with his MET ring and a dark, forest green magical circle appeared right in front of his pinkie finger two seconds before a tiny flame manifested there like a lighter.
Before I could give myself
time to think about it, or give him time to understand what my intentions were, I reached out to touch the fire.
Its heat had barely touched my skin, the pain not even registering yet, before Andres cursed loudly and the fire was gone. But that was all it took, I'd felt it.
The flicker inside of me, answering the call.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Andres yelled.
Blair followed with an amused "Girl, you're crazier than I thought you were."
I was too stunned to speak. I just kept staring at where my fingers were, where the flame had been.
My magic had responded to it, in a way. It had acted as a sentient thing. And while I did always suspect magic had its own will... this was freaky.
Just how far would I be willing to go to get my magic back? Would I willingly jump into a fire pit just to feel connected to it once again?
Somehow, I didn't think I was that desperate.
Yet.
I was also no masochist, and I wouldn't be willing to let someone burn me at the stake just so I could access my magic again. There had to be another way for me to get it back.
If today was any indication, I was going to need my magic more than ever. I also had about a million projects I'd left unfinished when shit had hit the fan. And while I could still develop the software for each MET, I needed my magic to input it;, I needed to weave it into the hardware so the coding would work and so I could key it to the user's magic. I supposed another Magical Engineer could do that part for me, but there was no one I trusted not to fuck it up in the process and end up ruining my coding, I still couldn't shake my need to control every aspect of a MET's design and development. Well, except for when I needed an ironsmith to actually make some of the hardware's components.
The little spark of magic I currently possessed wasn't enough to light a candle, let alone do something this complex.
Blair snapped her fingers right in front of my face and I jumped back into my seat, startled.