by Sierra Cross
The older witch with the curse on her name emerged from the back room, gingerly carrying two small paper sacks and nine vials that looked like they were filled with liquid black light. Pulling a sheet of butcher paper from an enormous roll, she placed the charges in the center and began wrapping as if she were bundling delicate pastries, packaging each vial so they didn’t touch.
The old man took the scrap of paper from his wife and calculated the cost of the explosives. Asher dropped a stack of euros on the counter and shoved the two small sacks in his inside jacket pocket. The guy pulled out a paper bag for my spellbead haul. I shook my head, opting to fill my pockets instead.
“There is an order to magic, guardian.” The shop witch sounded angry as she made the final folds and tucks of the thick craft paper. “A push and pull, a balance that needs to be maintained. If you listen with your heart, it will always guide you to the right path.” Pulling twine from a large spool she swiftly secured the parcel with deft fingers. Handing him the package, she grabbed his wrist. “If you don’t, you will always be swimming against the current.”
Matt wore a polite facade on his face, waiting for the woman to release him. The facade slipped, replaced by impatience. Then he gently wrenched his thick wrist out of her grasp.
“What was that about?” I whispered as we headed out the door.
“I have no idea,” Matt said.
“Shop witches,” Asher said. “Always with the prophecy” A forlorn expression crossed his face. And it hit me, that witch looked a bit like an older version of Marley. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
The narrow street outside the shop was eerily quiet. As we reached the corner, a flurry of booted feet performed a fast shuffle across the cobblestones. A blur of uniformed men descended upon us, coming from all directions. We were soon in the center of a ring of armed soldiers—guardians with daggers, black-clad Fidei with their grey guns, and Council Suprema agents in blue, magic burning on their fingertips. My hand instinctively slid toward the spellbeads in my pocket. The blade of a dagger, nicking my ear as it sailed past, halted my forward progress.
“Hands up!” The Fidei agent closest to me yelled. Asher and I complied.
Matt held the parcel out in front of him, swearing. “That old witch set us up.”
“No one set you up, this shop’s under surveillance,” a familiar male voice called out to us. Chris Hasley split the circle and strode toward us. “We were tracking the sale of illegal goods and it led us here.” Illegal goods? Could that be Alana? “But if the proprietor had called us, she’d only be doing her duty as a magicborn citizen. Like you vowed to do. Drop the package and put your hands up.”
“Chris.” Matt raised his hands. “Not gonna drop this package.”
I knew Matt was alluding to the fact that the package was dangerous. But Chris only glowered at what he must have heard as defiance.
“I like you, Matt. We’ve been through a lot together, and up until now you’ve been an upstanding guardian. But that doesn’t change what you are.” At his righteous tone, bile rose in the back of my throat. “You vowed to do the right thing—”
“You have no clue what right is!” I yelled at him. “You ignorant son-of-a—”
Asher grabbed me hard, shaking me, hands on me more than necessary. What the hell? His move startled me into silence. “Alix, we don’t yell at angry men with weapons aimed at us,” Asher said.
“You also don’t disobey their direct orders,” Chris said, raising a dagger. He flung the knife, aiming at Matt’s hands.
“Nooooooo!” I shouted, and the world switched to slow motion.
The blade sliced across the top of Matt’s fingers. Puffs of blood bloomed into the air as his grip failed, and the package flew free of his hands. Matt’s left hand reached out to grab the package, but bungled it, splitting it open. The vials shot out like they were making an escape. His hand scooped into the air. Bad idea I thought, but his fingers danced like he was catching butterflies.
Vials bobbled and bounced in the air. One by one, they smacked the cobblestones. The crack of glass made my heart seize. Dark iridescent liquid seeped into the brown paper and onto the stone.
Asher moved between Matt and me, raised his hand and heaved spellbeads—spellbeads that he’d just pick-pocketed from me. The ground rumbled beneath my feet and luminous pearlescent smoke rose in a billowing cloud. My bones started to rattle and sound exploded. The magical bombs were all detonating at once. The molecules of my body started to shift apart in the throes of the spellbead’s power. For a brief second, we were hovering above the alley. Soldiers flung their bodies away from the impending disaster only to run into each other trying to escape the blast zone. Waves of horror and guilt passed through me as I thought of the fact that Chris had a young child. A fiery sun burst into existence below us. As we lifted into the ether, passing through a haze of splintered wood, glass shards, and metal shrapnel, I prayed that everyone got out alive.
Chapter Ten
We landed in a tangled, painful heap in Matt’s hotel room. My pulse was thumping in my ears and a sinking feeling of unreality wormed through my guts. What had we done? The guardians were the good guys. We were the ones buying illegal explosives. We were the criminals.
Matt had materialized at the bottom of the dog pile, still clutching the two salvaged vials in his hand. He held his arm straight out in front of him, so the vials wouldn’t touch anything. I’d landed on my back—on my now bruised tailbone, to be exact—sandwiched between the two guys. Curiously, Asher’s face had landed right between my breasts.
“Now this is a room with a view,” he said, slow to move.
“Is everything a joke to you?” Matt said. He sat up forcefully, shaking us both off in the process, but careful to keep his precious cargo unexploded.
“Hardly,” Asher said. “Every minute since I met you seems to be a matter of life and death.” He took a pained breath. “And I refuse to let that fact steal the moments I have left. I plan to enjoy them all.” His face twisted as he sat all the way up. “Except this one. I would pass on this moment, given the choice.” Now I saw why he was slow getting up—by the odd way his arm hung from his chest, I could tell his shoulder was dislocated.
Without thinking I reached out and touched it. Asher yelped and air-bit like a feral cat. “Hands off, witch.”
“Aren’t we a crack squad,” Matt said, scooting back and cupping the vials in his bleeding fingers.
“Alix, you wrap his fingers and he’ll fix my shoulder,” Asher said.
“What are you talking about?” Matt said, too quickly.
I froze. Was this the moment that we were finally going to talk about Matt’s witch nature? After Matt had cured me of a Caedis sear the night I’d busted into that demon party, Asher had to have put two and two together about his healing abilities—a rare talent that only ran in witch lines. Yet, he’d honored Matt’s reluctance—okay, his paranoia—and never acknowledged it out loud.
Matt looked at the butt-ugly wallpaper. “I can’t help you.” Clearly, he wasn’t ready to be out.
“One good yank should do it. And it will be quite painful,” Asher said, maneuvering to the side of the bed. “You’ll like that, watch dog.”
At the very non-magical request, Matt looked visibly relieved. He carefully arranged the vials on the desk between books so they couldn’t roll off.
I dug into my wallet for the emergency blister Band-Aids I always carried. Matt’s cuts weren’t too deep and six Band-Aids were enough to staunch the bleeding.
“Use your knee to keep my body still and just give the arm a good yank.” Asher had worked himself up on to the bed, arm out, grimacing in anticipation. “Come right over here,” he ordered Matt. “Nice and close. Promise I won’t bite.”
Matt rolled his eyes, exhaled, and moved as instructed. I heard a sickening pop and Asher howled.
“You’re right.” Matt flexed his bandaged fingers. “I did kind of enjoy that.”
> Asher rolled his shoulder. “Well, it worked.”
I breathed a sigh. My coven seemed to be in working order again…only without the tools we needed to make our plan work. Back to square one.
I picked Matt’s phone up off the desk. After drawing an opening spell on it, I pulled up the magicborn news channel and clicked on the live feed.
“Ah, Alix, are you looking for a little escapism?” Asher looked bemused. “On Matt’s phone?”
“I don’t mind,” Matt chimed in.
“I’m afraid to connect my phone to the Internet any more than I have to,” I say. Even though it was behind serious wards, the info on my phone still felt dangerous. “I’m watching magicborn news to see if there was anything about the explosion. I want to make sure no one was hurt.”
All three of us stared at the tiny screen.
A male anchor with greying temples sat shuffling papers at the newsdesk. “In Barcelona,” he announced, “two members of a joint task-force sustained minor injuries after a violent explosion outside a magic shop.” He turned his head as the feed switched cameras. “The three suspects remain at large and are considered extremely dangerous.” A picture of Matt in uniform—must be ten years old, but he looked just the same—flashed on the screen. Followed by a shot of Asher cropped in tight, obviously cutting out a woman who’d been hugging him. It shouldn’t have surprised me to see my smiling Facebook profile photo appear next. I closed the app and shut the phone off. “Thank god no one got seriously hurt.”
“Well, now we’ve all been busted for purchasing illegal explosives,” Matt said. “And as of thirty minutes ago, I missed my appointment with HQ.”
“Shit.” My heart was pounding out of rhythm. This was bad. Now there would be no safe place for him…for any of us. Unless… “We’ve got the evidence we need to get the laws changed. Liv was going to research Council procedures—”
“I’m not leaving Barcelona without Alana,” Matt said.
“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this,” Asher said. “The Council Suprema facility is basically Fort Knox. Exterior walls six feet thick, and we’ve got less than a third of the explosives to breach it. It’s warded against magic. Wired for intruder detection. So…got a spare helicopter on you?”
“Wait.” Matt stopped his pacing. “I like where you’re going.”
Asher threw him a look. “Uh, even I can’t afford a helicopter.”
“No, I like your idea of coming at it from a different angle,” Matt said as if it made perfect sense. “The walls may be six feet thick, but the floors aren’t.”
“…and busting through the floor would require less explosives,” I said catching up with Matt’s train of thought. “Plus, they won’t be watching so closely if we hit them from underneath.”
“One giant flaw,” Asher said. “Two paltry vials aren’t enough to blow a hole even if the floor is thinner. It’s still solid stone.”
“Crap,” I said.
“Then we’ll climb the walls—” Matt started.
“We already went over that,” I reminded him. “The wards are too strong.”
“Wait.” Asher put his hands up to shush us. “Maybe we don’t need to blow a hole through the floor.”
“Well then how do we get in, turn ourselves to mice?” I mocked, knowing even witchcraft couldn’t make that happen.
“No, we use the fuego rápido formula to do a molecular dispersal spell.” His eyes darted from left to right, as if he was working out the details in his racing mind. “I think we’d have enough of the substrate to blast a three-foot hole.”
Molecular dispersal. I only vaguely remembered that spell from our training sessions back at the lab. It was a wonky, persnickety spell that had something to do with forcing the molecules to move so fast they changed from a solid to a liquid. Liv had been so excited about it, but as usual I’d struggled to stay focused on technical details. Not for the first time I wondered why I’d been chosen as the coven leader.
I was gearing up for the ration of shit I’d have to take for asking Asher to re-explain a spell he would expect me to know, but I didn’t get the chance to speak. My vision went dark and a cold sweat broke out all over my body, heart thundering in my chest. I was on the coven roller coaster again and I didn’t even buy a ticket for the ride.
Snowflakes floated lazily through the blackened sky. Crisp, cold air burned the back of my throat as I inhaled too quickly. I wasn’t safe. I kept moving, feeling the danger increase with every step forward, but I kept going.
Not me. Liv.
I recognized the Millennium Dynamics loading docks, approaching the stairs that led to the back door. Damn it! Why was she here? If they caught her, we were too far away to help. And I was painfully aware that the dark witches and Neqs who worked for Aunt Jenn wouldn’t pull their punches like they did with me. She’d be fair game. The trepidation I felt now was my own. Liv, stop! I tried to shout. My brain knew it was futile but I couldn’t help myself. I can’t lose you too.
Footsteps thudded from behind me. God, no! But the two bumpy, ugly Neqs they belonged to charged right past her, up the stairs, and into the building. Relief welled up in my brain. She must be cloaked. My reassurance was quickly drowned out as she kept moving toward the building. The cloak would never hold inside that place, especially if she was heading toward that demon party room—surely Aunt Jenn had upped the security once she learned of its existence, and Liv would be detected, cloaked or not.
When Liv stopped at the bottom of the stairs, I was able to take another breath. Her life still was in jeopardy but at least outside she had a chance. Or maybe not…She was here to confront Callie. So not a good idea. Damn it, Liv, go home! Liv knew as well as I did that Callie had had plenty of time to start learning the dark magic ropes. And the powers Tenebris gave her when he revitalized her dying body with his green lifeforce would be a considerable amount of raw talent to work with. The odds were not in Liv’s favor. Damn this stupid one-way connection.
As she waited in the cold, the muscles in Liv’s jaw strained as she struggled to keep her teeth from chattering. The door at the top of the stairs opened, and Callie stepped out all Fifth Avenue, rocking a pencil skirt and bright blue Manolo Blahnik heels. She hadn’t bothered to button her fifties-style swing jacket. I guessed dark magic kept you warm. Her twinkling eyes took in the snow and she smiled, like a kid excited for a snow day. The illusion of our Callie was a dagger piercing my heart. Liv’s determination was too focused to be derailed by emotion, though I felt it hammering at her heart. Liv’s pulse sped up, and her breath quickened. Her weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Whatever she was here for, it was about to happen.
Callie paused on the first step and sniffed the air like a tiger scenting prey, but continued, keeping her pace slow and measured. She knows, Liv! She knows you’re here! Callie was five steps from the bottom. I was stuck in a horror movie, screaming at the sidekick not to open the basement door. Callie had two steps to go. Liv’s body was lighting up with panic—why didn’t she run? My aunt’s words came rushing back to me, all-consuming white noise in my head, Light witches…following emotions…get them killed.
Callie’s Manolo Blahniks hit the bottom step. Liv tensed. And before the blue pump hit the asphalt, Liv leaped forward, the edge of her hand crisp as a knife’s blade, slicing through the cloaking spell. Callie’s eyes didn’t go wide with surprise. Instead a nasty smile sprouted across her face. Her arm raised, and in a sure move, her hand wrapped around Liv’s wrist just as her icy fingers touched Callie’s neck. Callie’s other arm bent, palm flattened, hand pushing a wall of dark magic at Liv’s sternum with such intensity my coven sister’s feet left the ground, and her body flew backward. Slamming into the concrete loading dock hard enough to force all the air from her lungs. Bones, muscles, tendons, lungs screamed in fiery pain. Breath wouldn’t come. Terror…mine? Liv’s…? clouded the vision before me.
“Did you really think I didn’t know you were here? Haven’t we establi
shed that I can sense that stupid coven bond from a hundred yards out? Tsk. Tsk.” Callie’s sharp heels clicked on the pavement despite the light dusting of snow as she took slow steps toward Liv. “That is what happens when you delude yourself. Illogical thinking leads to pain.” Liv, lungs screaming for breath, looked up at Callie’s cold, compassionless eyes. “Yes, I’ve got these annoying memories inside me. They’re the only reason you’re alive right now, but trust me, I’ll get over it. Your Callie is gone, replaced by a superior model.” The imposter raised her hand and crooked her finger, and Liv’s body was dragged along the snow-covered pavement like a rag doll being pulled by the collar. Liv’s hand went to her throat like she could somehow break the ethereal grip with her fingers. Spots formed before her eyes and her vision darkened. Her body slowed but her mind raced, finding no solutions.
Though her lungs were now taking in air, Liv was no closer to regaining control of her body. She moved her mouth to make words, but nothing came out. Liv’s frame was being tossed about like crumpled paper, yet Callie didn’t seem the slightest bit worn out from the effort. The evil bitch with my coven sister’s face could do this all day. Skin tore as Liv’s cheek met the cold wet pavement. Snow parted as her body was pulled in a perfect circle with Callie at its center.
“Your incompetence is embarrassing to watch!” Callie scoffed. “You’re nothing but a sniveling emotional mess. I should just kill you now, light witch.”
The door opened and the two hideous Neqs pounded down the stairs. Callie brushed her hands together, breaking the magical tether, and Liv’s body went slack.
Callie tilted her head and smiled sweetly, just like she did when we were kids. “Just because I can’t kill you myself doesn’t mean I can’t have others do it for me. Bye-eee.” With a giggle and a wave, she crossed the snow-covered parking lot to her brand-new BMW. Her headlights turned on, and the car sped out of the lot.