by A C Spahn
“There was some extra magic. Some part I’d missed. But when I drew it in, it wasn’t raw. It wanted to stop things. And it was strong. Like I’d drawn magic out of an existing enchantm–” I froze, blinking up at the window into Maribel’s cell.
The mountain lion shifter herself stood there, peering through the bars. She didn’t speak, and she stood so still she seemed almost asleep, but she stared at me, gaze intent. Slowly one hand rose to rub her neck. The neck where Sam had placed the enchantment that drove her insane.
The enchantment she’d used to stop Maribel from attacking her.
Stopping magic.
“Shit,” I whispered. “I think I disenchanted Maribel.”
Chapter 18
“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” Axel asked. “She’s not a shifter anymore?”
“No, that enchantment is still on her. If I’d accidentally drawn that one out, I think I’d have lost my own mind. Shifting magic is notoriously difficult to control. But the other enchantment, the one that broke her ... I think somehow when I was pulling in the room’s raw magic, I pulled that out, too.”
“I thought you had to be touching an enchantment to remove it,” said Desmond.
“I do,” I said. “Or, I did. I don’t understand how this happened.”
Axel glanced at the gun, which he kept aimed at the floor. “Is this safe to use?”
“I think so. Once you figure out what it does, anyway.”
“Even though you used crazy magic to make it?”
“The enchantment taking hold felt like it usually does. As far as I know, that magic should work predictably, like any other enchantment.” I took a deep breath. “But I don’t know for sure. Everything I thought I could rely on with magic seems to be in limbo lately.”
Axel grunted and tucked the gun into his waistband, then hooked the handcuffs onto his belt. “And Maribel?”
The shifter still watched me through the bars, irises flickering between human blue and cat-like gold. She didn’t speak, and her gaze had lost its power. She watched me, vacant, as if it didn’t occur to her that she could do otherwise.
I shook my head. “No. Even though the enchantment is off of her, she won’t go back to normal. It might have helped a little. But once magic takes your mind, it’s gone.” Some small part of me whispered that I should second-guess that fact, since so much else had changed. But Maribel gave no sign of regaining any sense of self, and I didn’t want to give false hope. I also hoped magic hadn’t gotten ill to the point where its most fundamental rules had become fluid.
Desmond helped me to my feet. My legs wavered, but I managed to stay up under my own power. “At least I know my enchanting abilities are back,” I said, trying to sound cheery. “I think I’d like to go home now.”
“Not just yet.” Bane Harrow stepped into view by the open security door to the hallway.
“Do you practice popping up at the worst possible times, or is it a natural talent?” I asked.
Harrow smiled. “I’m glad to see you healthy once more. It’s fortunate that you’re here. I was preparing to call a meeting with you anyway.”
“Can it wait?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“No.”
“Then let’s go,” said Desmond.
“Don’t you have a store to run, Desoto?” Harrow asked. “I’m sure you’re needed more there.”
Desmond’s jaw clenched. “If you don’t want me at your meeting, just say so.”
“I don’t want you at our meeting.”
“Why not? I’ve proven myself a hundred times these last few months. Why do you keep talking with Adrienne alone, about topics so disturbing she leaves the room looking sick?”
“I do not!” I said. I was a much better liar than that.
“Why don’t you trust me?” Desmond demanded, taking a small step toward Harrow.
Harrow sighed. “You mean well, Desoto. But you’re an idealist. You believe there’s a right solution for everything, and you’ll run off to implement that solution before considering whether it might actually make things worse. Good intentions count for children, but we fight monsters. Idealism could get you, and the people you care about, killed.” He threw a significant glance my way.
“Funny,” I said flatly. “Axel’s mad at Desmond for the opposite reason. He apparently failed to live up to Axel’s own ideals. Yet you don’t have a problem with Axel.”
“Axel has not struggled with his loyalty in the past.”
“Desmond’s loyalty is the reason I’m here fighting on your side instead of dead in a shallow grave.”
“I admit that is a positive side effect. But we cannot afford individuals operating on their own opinions right now. We, the Union, must stand as one. Especially in times like these.”
Desmond’s hands fisted. “What are you dragging us into, Harrow?”
“I’m not dragging us anywhere. But we are being dragged. When I figure out who’s holding the ropes, I’ll point you at them and let you loose. Until then, take your moral high ground back to your store.”
Desmond made a show of turning his back on Harrow to speak to me. “If you’d rather not be alone ...”
“It’s fine,” I said, conscious of Harrow’s eyes watching me over Desmond’s shoulder. “If he wanted to hurt me, he’d have done it by now.”
He lowered his voice. “What’s he hiding?”
Words poised on the tip of my tongue, wanting to spill out. The truth about the fleshwriter attacks on Void Unions, the fact that we had no idea how the cults had killed so many Voids, the existence of a spy in the SF Union and the impending wave of war. But I held back. Not only because of Harrow’s threat of execution if I talked. It shamed me to my core, but a part of me agreed with Harrow. Desmond was a righteous spirit. Let him stay that way. Let someone else shoulder the burden of having no good options.
I looked him straight in the eye and said, “When I find out, I’ll tell you.”
Desmond searched my face, and whatever he saw convinced him my lie was truth. He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. “I trust you.” With one last suspicious glance at Harrow, he left the cell block. Axel followed him.
Harrow held out an arm to me. “Shall we?”
I didn’t take his arm. But I wondered, as we walked to the elevator, just what moral greyness Harrow wanted to mire me in now.
Cracks had proliferated down the wall from the blast Vince’s rescuer had caused upstairs. A number of Voids were repairing it when Harrow and I passed by. A few of them looked up from their work, eyes narrowing and mouths turning downward. A skinny man’s hand tightened on the spackle knife in his grasp, and his arm twitched as if he wanted to throw it. A short woman looked me up and down as if evaluating which limb she wanted to sever first.
The elevator doors closed behind us, but their murderous looks lingered in my mind. “What was that about?”
“The animosity, you mean.”
“Yeah. I know Voids don’t like enchanters, but that felt ... personal.”
Harrow sighed. “I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“You? No! I may go into shock.”
“Sarcasm aside, this is information you should know.” Harrow worked his jaw. “Some of my people feel ... threatened by your existence.”
“Why? My magic can’t hurt them.”
“No, but it can hurt their friends and families. And Geralt Sauvage wants your magic very, very badly. When the magic in the boy’s corpse began dissipating, whispers started that perhaps it would be best if all such enchanted persons were similarly ... defused.”
I blew out a breath. “They want to kill me to keep me out of Geralt’s hands.”
“You needn’t fear. They won’t hurt you while you’re under my protection.” The elevator stopped on the top floor, and Harrow stepped out, heading for his office.
I trotted after him. “I notice this fact gives you yet another hold on me.”
“I don’t make the rules, Adrienne. I just play the game.
”
“I wish I felt more like a player and less like a pawn.”
“Please. You’re a bishop at least. Perhaps a rook.”
“Not the queen?”
“That remains to be seen.” He let us into his spacious office, gesturing to the chair facing the desk. He rounded the desk, seated himself, and asked without preamble, “Can you make an enchantment to track the escaped fleshwriter?”
“Probably,” I said, eyeing him, “if you have something personally significant to him. I need it to focus a tracking enchantment on his essence.”
“We took hair and blood samples when we arrested him.”
“That won’t work. It has to be something he sees as a part of himself. A little shed hair or lost blood doesn’t have a strong enough psychological link to make an effective focus.”
Harrow raised an eyebrow. “Would a severed finger work?”
“You didn’t.”
“No, but it’s an interesting question.”
Interesting wasn’t the word I would choose. “I’ve tracked shifters using broken-off claws before. It would probably work, for as long as he saw that finger as part of himself. Once he started seeing himself as a nine-fingered man, it would lose effectiveness and eventually stop working altogether.”
“Fascinating.”
“Please don’t start chopping fingers off everybody you arrest.”
“You think too little of me. We wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because knowledge is a tool, and you never know what tool you will need in the future.” Harrow folded his hands on his desk. “Now, as we do not have a missing body part from our escapee, what can we use for your tracking enchantment? We have the items we confiscated when we arrested him. Clothing, a hotel key, his wallet. His cellphone wiped itself of data when we tried to access it, but we still have the device itself.”
“Do you have anything he enchanted? Any jewelry or talismans?”
“No. We have his gun.”
“That might work,” I said, considering. “If it really was his, and not a weapon he borrowed.”
“Excellent,” said Harrow. “I have teams tracking him through mundane means, but your magic would ensure our pursuit leads in the right direction.”
“I’m a bit beat from the magic I just did. I may have my apprentice make the enchantment. She’s learning about tracking right now.” At Harrow’s dubious look, I added, “I’ll make sure she does it right. And the gun won’t be loaded.”
“If you insist.” His head gave a little shake. “To think I’m now working with two of you.”
“It’s almost like enchanters are useful or something.”
He flashed a wry smile. “Indeed you are. On that point ...” He reached into a desk drawer and produced a small shoebox. It rattled as he set it on the desk and slid it over. I had to half-stand to see inside. Rings, simple grey metal bands with no ornamentation, filled it from corner to corner. I inhaled sharply, knowing what Harrow wanted before he finished speaking. “You need to start crafting more enchantments for my people.”
I glared at him. “I told you how I feel about making weapons for the Union.”
“Times have changed. You know what we face. My Voids may not be able to utilize enchanted equipment, but we have allies among the shifters, vampires, merfolk, who can. At the very least they must be able to defend themselves against fleshwriter attacks.”
“Why? They’re not the target.”
“Not yet. But those under enchantment are well aware their magic can be stripped, harvested by fleshwriters, likely breaking their minds. They are afraid, with good reason. If Voids no longer govern the paranormal world, all will dissolve into anarchy. Those with power will swallow those without. The weak will become victims, one way or another.”
“And you want to help these weaker paranormals out of pure humanitarianism?”
“I am a regular philanthropist.”
I scoffed. “And I suppose it doesn’t hurt that these paranormal groups will remember who gave them the weapons they use to defend themselves. You’re still just trying to control things, Harrow. Just like you want Kendall to put a nice face on your organization, you want to hand out presents to win trust among the paranormal communities.”
“Is that so wrong?” he asked quietly. “You know what we face. Voids have stood alone against fleshwriters for decades, and we are reaping the cost of our arrogance. With the entire paranormal world standing together, we can stop the enemy, perhaps even permanently defeat them instead of returning to this holding pattern we’ve been in for so long. Yes, I want the shifters and the merfolk and everyone else tied to the Union. It’s the only way to ensure we all survive.”
He spoke with such fervor. Such conviction. And he was right. The Voids had spent decades alienating those under enchantment. He needed to earn some good will in order to start undoing that, if it wasn’t already too late. My rational mind whispered that Harrow had been nothing but accommodating toward me, that his attempts to control me stemmed from his focus on winning this war. That I needed allies just as much as he did, and I could do much worse than the legionnaire of the third most powerful Void Union in the States. And another part of me, a young, tender part, ached for the sense of belonging and protection that came from being part of a greater whole.
I wanted to trust him.
I also knew I couldn’t.
“Giving gifts. Offering protection. Talking of belonging and unity. That’s how they suck you in.” I raised my eyes to his. “The cults, I mean. They start off with free magical training, tips to improve your enchantments, free drinks at social outings. Then they start asking you to do a few things for them in exchange. Little donations. Offering information about paranormals in your neighborhood. Small enchantments, crafted on their behalf.” Harrow’s eyes flicked to the shoebox, but he didn’t speak.
I continued, “Soon they’ve collected all your personal information and taught you to rely on them so much that you wouldn’t know how to leave if you wanted to. And you don’t want to. Because they’ve convinced you that everything outside is too dangerous and scary, and only by sticking close to them can you hope for salvation. That’s how they get you, Mister Harrow. That’s how they turn you into a monster. With one small concession after another.”
He drew in a long, slow breath. He slid the shoebox off his desk and placed it on the floor where I couldn’t see it. When he met my eyes again, sadness filled his gaze. “You’ve been hurt so badly.”
“Betrayal does that.”
“I wish you could trust me. I’m only trying to help.”
“No one thinks they’re the villain, Mister Harrow. But you can’t rise to a position like yours without doing some things you regret.”
He worked his jaw. “I’ve made mistakes, I admit. You were nearly one of them.” His eyebrows lifted slightly. “I doubt Axel told you, but when I first had you brought to my office all those months ago, I wasn’t certain I would be offering you a job. I’d thought it more likely I’d be sending you back to your cell and ordering your execution.”
My legs stiffened as if to run. “Why would you tell me that?”
“To prove my sincerity when I say I made the right decision in hiring you. You’re an asset to my team, Adrienne. I’ve actually recommended that other Unions seek out independent enchanters and form alliances like ours. It will take time, but I believe Voids and enchanters can learn to trust one another.”
He smiled at me, faint wrinkles deepening around his eyes. Yet there was still a ring of emptiness in his words, a hollowness that reminded me I’d been hurt by leaders before. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I said.
He nudged the shoebox with his foot so the rings inside clinked. “Consider it. The more people allied with me, the more people are helping defend you.”
“This isn’t about my safety.” I bit my lip. That wasn’t completely true. Self-preservation was always on my to-do
list. “Not entirely. You’re still holding things back from me. You haven’t told me everything.”
Tension threaded through his smile. “A leader must keep some things classified, for everyone else’s safety. Command is a burden.”
“Ignorance is an armed grenade.”
“Some people would call it a shield.”
“I’m not one of them.”
“I cannot tell you everything, Adrienne. But I promise I will never withhold information that could keep you alive. Fair?”
I studied him. “Fair. If you keep that promise.”
“Will you ever give your trust to someone again?”
“I trust Desmond. I trust Kendall.”
“Not your apprentice?”
“Sam is sixteen. I wouldn’t trust myself at that age.”
He laughed, this time genuinely. “Fair enough.”
I stood, masking the slight tremble in my knees. “Is that all?”
“Nearly.” He looked up at me, his expression suddenly serious. “There was another ghost sighting last night. Tonight I’d like you to take care of it.”
I sighed. “Again? This shouldn’t be happening.”
“I’m aware. Fortunately we have some new equipment that should make your task easier.”
“Vince might attack. He knows I’m hunting ghosts for you.”
“My people will maintain a security detail around the cemetery. If the fleshwriter shows himself, it presents an opportunity to recapture him.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Night gives me a couple hours to recover. I’ll have Sam make the tracking enchantment for you in the meantime. It should work as long as your strongest Voids don’t touch it directly. If Vince shows up, the tracker can help you chase him down.”
“Very good. Try to study the ghost, if you can. See why its magic is behaving so oddly. It may give you a hint as to how to reverse the breakdown in the magic in our area.”
“I’ll try.”
“And Adrienne? Be careful. You are becoming too important to lose.”
Chapter 19
“I’M GETTING REALLY TIRED OF THESE,” Desmond said, braced to keep his silver knife buried in the dirt. A thin net of shining metal links covered the ghost and kept it down, but without Desmond there to anchor the net, the shade could have thrown it off. Kendall crouched on the other side of the net, using another silver-tipped blade to pin the opposite corner. The night wasn’t cold, but she shivered and licked her lips, eyes darting about the empty cemetery. Squirrel instincts didn’t mesh well with sticking around danger. I stood between them and the grave, where Sam was carefully enchanting the dirt off the coffin.