Phoenixlost

by K. T. Strange

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Daria said, kneeling beside me.

  “Ugh, fuck,” I muttered, stretching. A tumble of books was at my side, and I glanced around the room. It was daylight, although early still yet.

  “I really don’t recommend sleeping on the floor, although it’s supposed to be great for your back,” she said, sitting back on her heels. My head hurt. It was filled with way too much information and everything I’d been reading the night before. Wolfe tended to leave out key points of information, not on purpose, I don’t think, but more because he just knew so much that he forgot to explain everything under the assumption that I would just know what he did. The books’ authors, at least, had been more thorough. Soul-magic was a misunderstood and little documented art, but one that anyone, mundane or witch, could tap into if they knew enough about it. Witches were more likely to use it because we had our own magical powers that we possessed, and we were used to working with them. Most mundanes didn’t even know about our magic, let alone their own innate abilities, although some probably came close to feeling the world’s heartbeat through meditation or intense spiritual practice.

  My brain was definitely cooking up an information-overload headache.

  “So, you suddenly get all keen on reading?” Daria asked, picking up the thin leather book that had been my initial guide. “What’s this?”

  “A practical guide to soul-magic,” I said dryly, “well, that’s not what it’s called, but that’s what it should be.” Her eyebrows jumped.

  “Oh wow, that’s uh, ancient,” she replied, laying it open in her lap reverently, fingers stroking the pages. “And dry. Nobody talks about this; most of the council never even acknowledged it as anything more than-”

  “Bullshit?” I asked with a sarcastic grin. She smiled back.

  “If anything, they’d see it as a lower form of power, an impure talent far beneath them. If mundanes could use it-”

  “Then it can’t have been all that powerful or worth spending the time to master it,” I finished for her. She rolled her eyes, not at me, but at the attitude we’d both encountered from older witches throughout our life. Mundanes were a necessary part of a witch’s life, but they were not people to be respected or even cared for. They fixed cars, managed bank accounts, grew food, cleaned houses, provided the backdrop of a world that to witches was our playground. They were easily manipulated, died early, and were useful idiots.

  But they were always seen as less than us. They were deaf to our power and thus useless in that regard.

  “I always thought that attitude to be pretty stupid and also ignorant,” Daria said as she bit her lip, trailing off as she started reading. “Oh wow, I haven’t read this one.”

  “Well, it looks like a one-off; it’s the only one that really covers this kind of magic,” I said as I stretched out on my back, trying to guide all my vertebrae back into proper position. Sleeping on the floor had done a number on my body. I’d also missed out on waking up with the guys, being snuggled and slowly kissed into wakefulness. Oh well, there was always the next morning. Plus, I needed to talk to Wolfe because there was so much more to my new-discovered abilities than I’d realized. Of course, now that I knew the full extent of what was possible, I probably wouldn’t be able to command the earth to move at my will again. Annoying how that works out. I sighed, watching Daria’s eyes scan the page, her fingers flipping to the next one.

  “What do you know about soul-magic?” I asked her.

  “Not much,” she admitted, “just that it’s there, in all of us, but that it’s pretty weak as a power. It’s only as strong as the person wielding it, and I don’t mean muscles.” She lifted her hand and tapped a finger in the middle of her chest. “What’s in here counts more than anything else. So-”

  “I ripped up a tract of land a few miles long,” I said flatly, “and while I don’t think I could do it again-” I swallowed. “Max has been visiting me.”

  “Max?” Daria’s eyes widened, and she looked more alarmed than pleased. It’s not that I was happy she’d come to see me because it wasn’t… her. It was, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t hug her, tell her how sorry I was, or hear her voice. It gave me some small comfort that she was there, though, in some form of existence.

  “She’s, I don’t even know how to say it, but she’s a flame,” I said, “she’s come twice now, last night and early this morning, the first time I don’t know if she meant for me to see her, but the second, she lead me to these books.” I gestured at the pile between us. Daria’s lips thinned.

  “You know it might not be… her,” she said, looking concerned.

  “It’s her,” I said, determined. “I know it. I could feel it.” In my bones, I’d known who it was.

  “Ooookay, if you say so,” Daria murmured quietly, and I couldn’t help the flicker of anger in my chest.

  “It was,” I insisted. “I mean, who else would it be? Who else have I known to live and die that I cared so much about or cared so much about me?”

  “It could’ve been-” She paused then shook her head.

  “No way would it have been him,” I said.

  “Well, the fire,” she hesitated and then shook her head. “I mean, why would he help you, though.”

  “Yeah, Creston would’ve rather seen me dead than help me.” It was from Max. Creston would never come back from the dead to give me a sign unless it was two middle fingers. I held in a hollow laugh at that mental image.

  Daria was giving me an odd look, and I cocked my head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ve known people with daddy issues, but you really take the trophy on that one,” she said with a sigh.

  “I think he’s hated me since I was born,” I replied, taking the book from her.

  “I’ve never known of someone’s parent draining their magic like that. It’s just… not that it’s not done, but it’s not done.”

  I flipped open the book as she spoke, rambling quietly about how even the angriest of witch parents wouldn’t do that to their children.

  “Yeah, well, I kinda made him undead, so I think the usual rules of child-parent relations are out the window at this point,” I said, “so, here, look,” I pointed down at the parchment page. A thin, age-worn drawing was scribbled on the page, the artist’s hand sketchy and awkward. A witch, a female, given the long hair that tumbled unbound to her waist, stepped forward into nothingness, the planet curving under her, and every star across the galaxy visible through the earth and above it. “That’s what it was like. I was able to see everything. Obviously, things far off were too in the shadows for me, but I could see for miles. I could see through the earth.” I gulped for air, still feeling that twisting sensation in my gut from feeling like I was walking on glass, the ground transparent and falling away under me.

  “Shit,” Daria said, eyes wide. “Really?”

  “And then we get here, and I-” I frowned. “It felt like I could hear the heartbeat of the house, but it was fast, which isn’t right considering how old this place must be.”

  Daria mmm’d quietly, a troubled look on her delicate features.

  “Being at your parent's place was…” She paused, nibbling on her lower lip. She scooped some of her hair behind her ear, and it was then I realized how she was curled up into herself, her knees to her chest to make herself smaller. “It was interesting.”

  “Frank looked a little rough around the edges,” I said. Her eyes darkened with anger.

  “If I don’t kill your bitch of a sister myself next time I ever have the misfortune of seeing her, it’ll be a miracle,” the toxins dripped from Daria’s voice, her throat trembling as she swallowed hard with feeling.

  “My sister?” I was stunned that she was even there. She should have been at the Hailward family home with her husband…

  “Well, she’s given birth to Creston’s baby, hasn’t she, and your mother is all aflutter about it, so she’s,” Daria inhaled sharply and looked like she was about to spit pins
and needles; she was so angry. “It’s so fucked up. It’s one of those things where I can’t even imagine a more fucked up family than yours, and mine was bad enough too, but yours…” She shivered. “Your father, nah-” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to talk about him.”

  My sister had given birth. I had a niece or nephew… I blinked back tears that had sprung up without warning. Why was I so sad? I just couldn’t imagine a child, any child, being raised in that house. It had nearly killed me, and that was with a father who’d had some of his senses in his head. I tried not to think about it.

  “I’m here if you do want to talk,” I said, sorting through my feelings and tossing away anything that felt like too much self-pity. Daria, Frank, and Luca had all been through hell. This needed to be about them.

  “Well, I'll say this,” Daria cleared her throat and gave me a weak smile. “He wants you alive. I got that much out of him, and I think maybe it has something to do with him draining your magic. He rambled a lot because his brain is totally scrambled eggs, but he said that he wanted to steal it from you, and the magic that your wolves have too, although I don’t know how that’s possible.” Her voice wavered. “Darcy, I just, I know we need to face him down because he’s going to keep coming for us all if we don’t, but can’t we just hide somewhere? Forever? Until he finally dies completely?” She sounded so desperate that my heart ached.

  “I don’t think that even with all of our money, we could do that,” I said, and I reached toward her, tugging her into me like the little sister I’d always wanted. She hid her face in my shoulder and huffed out a sigh.

  “I just wanted to read books and do magic,” she mumbled. “I didn’t want all this…” Her fingers on her far hand fluttered in the air, tiny sparks lighting up in the path they left. A pang of jealousy, for the powers I’d long hated and now missed, sounded off in my gut.

  “We both know what would have happened to us if we’d stayed, good little wives, putting on garden parties, sapped of our magic and made to have babies to carry on the family lines,” I reminded her as gently as I could. She tucked her head under my chin and folded herself entirely into me.

  “I know. But…” She closed her eyes.

  “Uh, sorry to… sorry to interrupt, girls,” Ace said, poking his head in the doors of the library. His hair was dishevelled, and he smiled at me, his eyes weary and sad when I met them with my own. “Breakfast? It’s ready. You hungry?”

  I felt hollow inside but more nauseous than starving for food. Still, I needed to recover the energy that I’d spent the night before. The books I’d been reading made it clear about that. My soul magic was only as strong as my body, and my body currently felt like it’d been dragged over cobblestone for a few hundred yards by an overgrown Labradoodle.

  “Pancakes?” Daria asked, hopefully. Ace stepped inside and offered her his hand, which she took without hesitation. That made my heart warm, and I got to my feet. I guess it didn’t hurt that she had fallen in… something, with Frank and he was a werewolf. I was grateful she wasn’t afraid of my pack anymore, though.

  “Hey,” she added as we stepped out into the hall, Ace slinging his arm around my shoulders, “we should talk about that track of land you ripped up.” I felt my cheeks warming as Ace gazed down at me. “Y’know,” Daria said, “for science. Maybe we can go out to the fields of this place and try it again.”

  I swallowed down my discomfort.

  “Yeah, okay,” I replied. I wanted to take my father down, and the only way I was going to do that was if I managed to master what weak magic I had. But first, breakfast.

  Thirteen

  The cold air prickled along my skin, and I inhaled, determined not to do anything to disturb the fragile peace I was building inside of myself.

  “Eyes shut,” Wolfe’s voice was quiet, and I obeyed, closing them slowly. There, deep inside of me, hiding in plain sight, was the magic that I needed to tap into to defeat my father and hopefully steal my powers back from him.

  It welled up inside of me suddenly, taking me by surprise, the thud of my heartbeat loud in my ears and making me feel like I was going to cry and vomit at the same time. I struggled to keep my eyes shut as light flared across my eyelids, searing my vision. I knew it was inside me, though, the power fighting me as it didn’t want to wake up and serve. No, it was too busy with the critical task of keeping me alive. No wonder so little was known about this magic. It was wild and untamable, about as under control as our own involuntary body functions like breathing or perspiring.

  “That’s it,” Wolfe murmured, “just like that, take it, like the edge of a blade, and cut-”

  The earth exploded around me, and Wolfe yelled. My eyes flew open just in time for me to get sprayed with a volley of dirt and rocks. Something hard glanced off my cheek, and I threw my arm up to cover my eyes, ducking my head down as dirt showered upward around me, like an earth fountain.

  “TURN IT OFF!” Wolfe bellowed from behind the curtain of soil that was erupting all around me, and I gulped for air, wrestling with myself, it was hard, almost impossible, and it stretched the edge of my self-control, like riding the crest of a wave without a surfboard under me to hold me up. I was drowning in it, my vision going red at the edges and whiting out-

  Someone slammed into me, and I tumbled to the ground, my head knocking against a shoulder that didn’t belong to me. In an instant, my magic bubbled back down into the background, humming in my ears but not making any more planetary disruptions

  “Shit, sweetheart, you like to go full bore or not at all,” Finn said, panting heavily. When I cracked my eyes open, his face was dusty, smears of dirt along his cheeks, and his clothes were caked in grunge. I looked down and wasn’t any better. Wolfe was standing a few feet away, looking equally filthy.

  Where I’d been standing, a deep moat had been cut into the ground, heaped dirt on either side of it, like a mad gardener had attacked the ground in a circle with his shovel. I really had no idea what to make of it. Had I done that? Not that I didn’t appreciate the depths of my magic before, but this wasn’t controllable. This was borderline insane. My powers just did what they wanted to do and fuck whatever my intentions were.

  Finn lifted his fingers to brush the dirt off my face.

  “You got cut,” he said, wincing as he inspected the sore, throbbing spot above my eyebrow.

  “Probably a rock,” I grumbled.

  “Y’know, you don’t need to fight this war,” he said, helping me up to my feet. My body felt pounded like tenderized meat. “We’ve got this-”

  “If anyone’s killing my father for a second time, it’s gonna be me,” I snapped and then cringed. “Fuck, sorry, I don’t mean to be grumpy-”

  “The landscaper will have an absolute fit,” Wolfe said, inspecting the earth.

  “Just call it a new water feature,” Finn said with a shrug. He brushed me off with a sigh and inspected me for damage. “I don’t like this shit,” he muttered. “What it does to you.”

  “I’m fine,” I tried to assure him, but his gaze was skeptical. “Seriously, this has to happen. What else am I supposed to do? Pack you all a lunch and wait at home while you fight my battles for me?”

  “Our battles,” he corrected me with gentleness, “Don’t forget that. Please. It’s not just you facing this down; it’s all of us.” I swallowed my arguments. I knew he was right, but fuck it all if I wasn’t frustrated and just ready to burn it all down. There’s nothing worse than knowing who you have to take out but knowing you’d be risking everything to do it.

  But I was risking everything by waiting. Precious minutes meant my father could come for us at any time. Why he wasn’t was a mystery to me. He had to know where we are… maybe. It was making for some uneasy sleep. My skin itches, like I was being watched. Perhaps it was the whole pack keeping an eye on my every move, they were worried, and I knew it.

  Wolfe sighed and slung his hands into his pockets, looking at me like I was his greatest disappointment.
I knew that wasn’t the case, but still. Wolfe had a way with looks.

  “What?” I asked, and Finn gentled me with a hand on my shoulder. I schooled my expression and tried to give Wolfe a less grimacer-smile.

  “We could seriously consider it… we could drain the heartstone,” he said like that was a simple suggestion or even on the table. “It has enough power in it to reawaken yours.”

  “Fat fuckin’ chance,” I said with a shake of my head. “Not happening. I’m going to master this soul magic, or whatever, and then I’m going to bury my father under a skyscraper’s worth of dirt.” I gulped down an angry breath. Finn hesitated at my shoulder, and I could feel that he wanted to, not argue with me, but actually entertain the idea. I’d worked so hard to make it in the first place. Wolfe settled his shoulders.

  “It is, as always, your choice.”

  “Not fucking much of one,” I muttered and looked down at the dirt rearrangement I had done in the yard. “Again.” I pushed away from Finn and walked out toward clear ground, further away from the two of them. “I’m trying again.” The anger bubbled up inside of me, and I wrested it away from my heart, deep inside of myself.

  I needed to control it. I needed to… fix it. I had to fix myself and make this work. I was our only chance of succeeding. The guys needed me, and I needed them, but they were moving up to full power, and here I was, dead-weight and dragging everyone back down with me.

  My father’s face floated in my mind, and I grunted, a spear of anger striking me right through the chest. Humming filled my ears, and I shuddered. The earth was whining. In my spine, I could feel it, like the bones of the planet grinding together.

  Split.

  The word echoed in my mind, ricocheting down out through my finger-tips, and the ground opened up, an angry, raw maw that crumbled at the edges from my feet right to Wolfe’s. My eyes flicked open, and I stared at him. His gaze was steady on the gash I’d opened up in the earth.