by A C Spahn
Tapping my speed ring, I slammed my right arm down atop Vince’s gun. At the same moment I jerked the steering wheel right and plowed into the concrete wall.
A shot banged. Metal crunched. Pain exploded through my body. My head whiplashed forward, and my teeth clacked, rippling fire through my jaw and neck. My arm smacked the steering wheel, even as the rest of me thudded against the airbag. I gasped, struggling to suck air into shocked lungs. High-pitched ringing drowned out my hearing. Blinking rapidly, I turned my aching head to see Vince sitting dazed, hands clutching his head, face buried in his own airbag. His gun hand still clung to the pistol, but the trigger finger was rapidly purpling and swelling, broken during the impact. A glance down showed me where his shot had gone into my chair, less than an inch from my hip. The speed ring had made me fast enough, but just barely. I fumbled to unlock my seatbelt.
“You bitch!” Vince growled. His gun hand dropped to point at me, but I was ready. Before another shot fired, its bang muffled by the silencer, I accessed the magic in my shield ring. A translucent wall of purple light flared to life between us, stopping the bullet midair. The little metal cylinder clattered onto the center console.
Vince didn’t bother firing again. Dropping the gun, he lunged across the seats and wrapped his hands around my throat.
Kadum! Kadum! Kadum! Magic still pulsed within me, and I’d had the advantage of knowing the crash was coming. I slammed my hand against the dashboard, which was hot from the impact, and focused my magic on that heat.
Then I fleshwrote.
Channeling magic through my own body hurt. Each nerve seemed to explode as magic touched it, turning my skin into a landscape of pain. With gritted teeth and eyes squeezed shut, I concentrated on focusing the magic, while also keeping it away from the enchantment around my heart. If the enchantments touched and interacted badly, I’d be lucky to only wind up insane.
Magic flowed through me, spread into the tips of my fingers and toes, rising from bone to muscle to skin, coating me except for that one circle around my heart.
Finally I felt the enchantment take hold. The magic settled into my body. Dimly I noticed a new circular tattoo wheeling its way across my forearm, thin and delicate. My vision had grown spotty, not only from the pain of fleshwriting, but from the pressure of Vince throttling me. My throat ached, and my face felt like a balloon about to burst.
Then Vince began to scream.
His hands yanked from my neck, blisters popping on his fingers. Smoke rose from the seat cover beneath me. As soon as Vince let me go, I lunged across the center console and pressed my hands to his face. Another animal scream ripped from his throat. He yanked his door open and scrambled away from me, out onto the asphalt.
The smell of smoke grew oppressive. I shoved my own door open and tumbled onto the street. On the other side of the car, Vince regained to his feet, murderous hate twisting his features. Angry welts rose on his face where my touch had burned him. He bent and snatched his fallen pistol, then leveled the barrel at my chest.
I ducked beside the rear passenger tire as a gunshot rang out. My position gave me a clear view of the rest of the off-ramp. Another car had pulled up behind us, capped with flashing red and blue lights. For a moment I worried the human police had beaten the Voids here, but then I recognized the car Desmond had borrowed, with two temporary police lights atop it, the kind undercover cops stick up on the roof when they decide to reveal themselves. He leaped out of the driver’s seat, leaving the vehicle running, and sprinted toward us.
Vince hadn’t yet seen him. I had to keep it that way.
“Vince,” I croaked. My throat still ached with the pressure of Vince’s fingers, and my lungs were only just starting to recover from the crash. “Vince, drop your gun, now!”
A harsh laugh sounded. Then Vince appeared around the rear of the car, tracking my voice. He leered down at me.
I grinned back.
He spotted Desmond too late.
Desmond closed the distance to Vince in a microsecond. He chopped his hand against Vince’s gun arm, trapping it against the car. His other elbow slammed Vince’s jaw. Then Desmond pivoted and swept his leg across Vince’s ankles, sending Vince face-first to the asphalt. Desmond planted a knee in his back and twisted his wrist until the gun came free. He tossed it out of reach and stayed there, pinning Vince helplessly despite the fleshwriter’s attempts to struggle. Desmond glanced back at me, his black hair hanging over his eyes, and cracked a nervous smile.
If my heart wasn’t already racing with adrenaline, it would have fluttered.
“You all right?” he called.
“Fine.”
“You’re, uh, glowing.”
A glance at my arm showed I was indeed radiating light. Whoops. Apparently I’d made the enchantment too strong. All I’d meant to do was make my skin too hot for Vince to touch, but I seemed to have turned myself into a dwarf star. A car passed on the freeway up ahead, and I spotted a middle-aged man’s wide eyes staring down at me. Maybe it was just the car wreck that shocked him. Or maybe he’d just caught his first glimpse of magic.
Other vehicles pulled to a stop behind Desmond’s makeshift police car. The rest of my so-called escort. Before the Voids could swarm out and draw even more attention to my condition, I grabbed a nearby rock and yanked out a couple strands of my hair. Then I shuffled to the mangled remains of my beloved car and set the rock on the smashed hood, with the hair draped over it.
“Are you okay to make an enchantment right now?” Desmond called, half his attention still on keeping Vince trapped.
“No,” I said. Then I did it anyway.
Pulling magic out of my own body worked much the same way as pulling it out of something else. The pain of fleshwriting returned, burning through the tattoo on my forearm and flaring out across my skin. I carefully avoided pulling too hard, lest I accidentally yank on my heart enchantment, too. Once the magic left my skin, though, all pain ceased, aside from the normal pounding of the unchanneled magic in my head.
I sensed the magic’s impressions, the way it had been used before. It wanted to heat, to burn, to protect. I encouraged that goal, focusing it on the car engine’s heat once more. Then I channeled it through my hair strands, which started smoking, and into the rock. In moments a glowstone radiated light on the hood of my car. When I picked it up, it singed my fingers, though wrapped in a cloth it would be a very effective heater. If the magic lasted until winter, I could keep it in my pocket as a handwarmer. If I was still alive, anyway.
It was strange. After crashing my car and then doing two enchantments on the fly, my head should have been spinning. But I turned toward Desmond and smiled at him, only vaguely aware of the various aches yelling at me from throughout my body. From my other side, I spotted two more civilian cars with flashing lights stuck to their tops driving the wrong way up the off-ramp. More Voids, here to secure the scene. And I was fine. How great.
I took two steps toward Desmond and passed out.
Chapter 13
MY EYES OPENED to Kendall’s worried face filling my vision. “I am so sorry!” she babbled the second she saw me awaken. “I watched your car for three hours before you went in. Nobody went near it. I should have figured it out, I should have realized he was already hiding inside it, I should have–”
“Kendall,” I said hoarsely, “shut up. It was my fault.”
“It was not,” said Desmond’s voice from my other side. “None of us realized he was in there. He had to have been waiting since before sunrise to have gotten in unseen. Not to mention doing this day after day, waiting for you. I didn’t think he would spend so much time gambling that you’d come back for your car.”
“Guess it wasn’t a gamble,” I said. Taking stock of my surroundings, I saw that I was in a hospital bed, covered by a thin white sheet. With relief I noted that I still had on my own clothes. Whatever had happened to me, it wasn’t too invasive. A privacy curtain secluded us, but even so the room sounded silent and emp
ty. I tried to shift so I could look at Desmond. Pain ignited in my neck, and my eyes swam with stars. I moaned and pressed my palms to my eyes.
“You have whiplash,” said Desmond, pressing a hand to my shoulder to keep me still. I found his other hand and twined my fingers through his, drawing warmth from his reassuring grip. “You’ve been asleep for an entire day.”
“From whiplash? I’m not that fragile.”
“You were pretty banged up from the crash. And there’s something else. Dr. Richards isn’t sure what it is, but your brain scans are kind of ...”
“Batshit nuts,” Kendall finished for him. She swallowed. “They think you did something to yourself. Something with magic.”
Shame seeped through my pores. “I fleshwrote,” I admitted softly. “I didn’t have any other options.”
Desmond’s grip tightened on my hand. “Are you ... uh ...”
“I’m sane,” I said. “I think.”
Kendall snorted. “Girl, you were never sane.”
“Then what happened?” Desmond’s voice never wavered, but I felt fear simmer in his words.
Gingerly I probed my senses outward, seeking the pulsing of magic. Nothing was there. “I ... I can’t feel any magic.” Wonder filled my voice, and a sudden hope rose in my chest. With magic acting so strangely, could something impossible have happened? Had I overloaded myself, but instead of dying, removed my ability to enchant? If I no longer could touch magic, I wouldn’t be useful to the cult. I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping enchanting supplies nearby at all times, lest the magic overwhelm me. I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night needing to craft an enchantment or go insane from the drumming. I could–
“We’re in Void Headquarters,” Kendall said, and all my speculation ground to a halt. Disappointment settled in me like a stone. My head cleared, the half-conscious fantasies fading away like so much smoke.
There was no going back. I knew that. Once an enchanter, always an enchanter, until death gave you release.
And I wasn’t ready to die.
I turned my magical senses inward, feeling the magic tied up around my heart. It was still there, a huge geyser ready to be unleashed, ready to kill me in the process. It felt the same as it always had, but my mind ached as I studied it, as if neurons in my brain had been scrubbed raw. Wincing, I stopped feeling for magic and rubbed my forehead. “I think I hurt myself. Did too much magic. My senses feel like they’re injured.”
“Will that heal?” Desmond asked.
“It should. People in the cult did this every so often. It’s like hyperextending a limb. Not quite a break or a dislocation, but a warning sign of how close you came. A little more magic, and I would have overloaded myself and died. I should be back to normal in a few days. Maybe more. But I shouldn’t do any enchantments until I’m healed.”
Kendall’s eyes widened. “But how will you get rid of the magic around you? I thought you had to channel it every couple days or get overwhelmed.”
“She’ll stay here,” Desmond said firmly, giving my hand another squeeze. “No magic to worry about.”
“Thanks.” I sighed. Despite not wanting to let the Voids pen me up, it seemed I was going to be their involuntary guest anyway. Something triggered in my memory, and I bolted upright. Pain lashed down my spine, and my words came out through gritted teeth. “Oh no! The contest. Yesterday was the last day for submitting my art.”
“That’s one of your first concerns?” Kendall asked. “Seriously?”
“It’s important,” I insisted. “This is my life, this represents everything the cult’s trying to take from me. I can’t let them win.”
“Relax,” said Desmond. “We took care of it.”
I blinked. “You thought of that?”
“I saw you’d set aside the pieces you wanted to submit, so I sent in photos of them.”
“You had help, I hope,” I said, trying to maintain a strict frown. “I don’t trust your carpenter instincts with something as delicate as photography.”
“Nah, I just banged the camera on the table until the pretty pictures popped up.” He chuckled, but his jaw had a defensive set to it. “My photographer buddy came out and did a quick photo shoot. Kendall helped me pick the best shots to submit.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
He blew out a breath. “Glad you’re not mad. I was afraid you’d think I overstepped.”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve been a bit ... testy lately.”
“Testy?” My voice hardened. “You don’t think I have a right to be on edge?”
“You do,” Desmond said. “But try to remember we’re on your side.”
Anger protested within me, wanting to defend my reactions. Which only proved his point. I forced my shoulders to relax. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. The opposite, in fact. I’m relieved you sent in the art. Even though it probably won’t go anywhere.”
Desmond smiled and returned to holding my hand. He didn’t bother correcting my last comment. He was an artist; he knew how competitive the field could be. “I gave them Haven’s contact info and a fake name I made up. You can give them your real name if this goes anywhere. They’ll announce the winners in the next few weeks.”
“My shot at glory,” I said, trying to smile. “One last attempt to make my mark on the city’s art world before I have to run.”
“You won’t have to run,” Desmond said firmly.
“Yeah,” said Kendall. “Besides, we already caught their hunter dude. This contest is you flipping off those bastards before we take them down for good.”
Well, at least some of us were feeling confident.
The privacy curtain was whipped open, rattling along the bar supporting it. Janette the Void stood there, her brown braid swinging as if she’d just run the length of the ward. A plastic grocery bag dangled from her hand, with unknown contents. She gave Kendall a dismissive sniff before turning to me. “Enchantress.”
“Asshole,” said Kendall. Desmond elbowed her into silence.
Janette crossed to my bed and glowered down at me. She wasn’t that tall, but her body was hefty with muscle. Lying there, without access to magic, I suddenly felt very vulnerable. “If you took it upon yourself to tell me I shouldn’t have done magic the way I did, I know.” I couldn’t bring myself to use the word fleshwriting in front of a Void.
“Good,” said Janette with a scowl. “That’s not why I’m here.”
She stood there staring at me until I felt compelled to speak. “Why are you here?”
She raised her chin as if I’d given her a victory of some sort. “Axel and Harrow have the fleshwriter in a secure holding cell, and they want you present for the interrogation whenever you feel well enough.”
“Interrogation seems like a polite word. I don’t want to be there.”
“We’re not torturing him.” Janette sneered at me. “We don’t do that sort of thing.”
“Much,” Desmond added softly.
She transferred her glare to him, then shoved the plastic bag into my hands. “Here.”
Pulling the crinkly plastic aside, I discovered my buttons, embroidered seat covers, and other personalization from my car. I blinked. “Did you decide to save these for me?”
“No,” said Janette. “I would have thrown them out, but Harrow ordered me to collect them. The Union is keeping your car for evidence. They stopped the normal police from investigating, but Harrow had to call in some major favors, the way I hear it. Also a few people are reporting seeing a glowing woman at the scene of the accident. Our PR department is in a panic trying to cover for that. You really screwed us over.”
“Yeah,” said Kendall. “Shame on us for maintaining a perimeter around the car but never noticing the fleshwriter that had snuck into it. Oh wait, that was you guys.”
Anger tried to worm its way out of me, but I stamped it down. Not only was I mindful of Desmond’s comment ab
out lashing out, but I didn’t want to fall into the fiery Latina stereotype in front of Janette.
And she did kind of have a point. Paranormals had lived in secrecy for centuries, ever since the days of major persecution. Nowadays it was more to avoid being drawn into international politics and having our abilities weaponized, but it was one of those unspoken things that nobody exposed themselves to normals. Those who did tended to find themselves picked up by the local Void Union or fleshwriter cult, depending on whose territory they were in, and given a strong talking to. Repeat offenders disappeared.
“It won’t happen again,” I said, completely sincere. “I was just trying to survive.”
“I hope it was worth it.” The look Janette flashed Desmond on her way out had an air of disdain to it. Guess he was on her hate-list too.
Kendall made a face at the curtain. “And the award for meanest Void goes to ... what is her problem, anyway?”
“I asked around,” Desmond said. “People don’t talk to me as much as they used to, but I can still get a few questions answered. Janette is a new recruit. Her Void powers didn’t manifest until she was in college. When they did, she discovered her boyfriend was a minor enchanter and had been, er, manipulating her with magic.”
Kendall’s mouth dropped open. “Wow, what a dick.”
Desmond grimaced. “Needless to say, she bought wholesale into the Union’s narrative about the dangers of enchanters and the corruption magic wreaks on one’s soul. She was also Maribel’s protégé.”
I winced. “So when our story came out about Maribel being an enchantress ...”
Desmond nodded. “She didn’t take it well.”
Guilt filled me anew. “No wonder she hates me.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” Desmond put a hand on my knee. “She’d have despised you no matter what. The Union trains hatred of enchanters into us. Janette was more than willing to internalize that, even before the stuff with Maribel.”
I shook my head. He was probably right. And even if he wasn’t, there was nothing I could do about it right now. “We can’t make her change her mind, but we don’t have to let her ruin everything.” From the plastic bag, I withdrew the purple-robed body and severed cranium of my bobble-head wizard. “Somebody find me a glue gun.”