by Jen Kirchner
My mugshot wasn’t a photo like the others; an artist had sketched a rough drawing in charcoal. The face didn’t look anything like me. Some of the details were correct—dark hair, dark eyes—but everything else was wrong. The face was younger. Late teens. Angry. The face was bloated, with beady eyes, a tiny nose, and a cartoonish line for a mouth, drawn into a sneer. The hair was a tangled shoulder-length mess. Beneath the drawing, my name was typed in capital letters, with the crime in smaller print:
ELIANA RENDON
FOURTH-CHANNEL MAGIC USER.
DO NOT APPROACH. CALL 911.
I wondered where the sketch artist had received their information. I was 30 years old, with ridiculously long brown hair that I wore like a protective cape. And a sneer? After a decade in the entertainment business, I’d learned to control my facial expressions.
I glanced around the room. No one seemed focused on the mugshots. Most people were watching the 24-hour news channel on the old, boxy televisions hanging from the ceiling. Between the general clamor of the airport and that incessant security reminder about smoking and magic usage, I couldn’t hear the news.
However, I easily got the gist of the feature that had captured everyone’s attention. The subtitles were turned on and a yellow banner was plastered beneath the news anchor, boldly stating the urgent topic of the hour: NECROMANCER WATCH!
Perfect.
We got into the line for returning U.S. citizens. Fifteen minutes and two dozen paces later, I was only slightly more informed as to why a worldwide search for me had ensued. The news station had provided a recap of my exploits from three months ago. They covered the night I blew up an entire block of Immortal property in downtown Rochester. Someone had captured a snippet of the evening in a dark and grainy cell phone video. Presumably, the whirlpool of necromancer smoke standing in the middle of the street was me. Besides the cloud of black smoke, the only part I recognized was my white sneakers sticking out of the bottom. No wonder my Most Wanted sketch didn’t look anything like me.
Afterward, they featured a quick interview with a professor of magic history from Columbia University to analyze the spells I’d used that night. The bowtie-wearing professor had simply held up both hands, palms up, and shrugged. Apparently, the guy had no clue. There was no historical record of the majority of magic I’d used.
Thankfully, the news report glossed over the global magic killer that I’d set off, which had wiped out all magic around the globe, including spells attached to museum artifacts, holy relics, and most military armaments worldwide.
The entire Immortal State had to take refuge before I did it. Otherwise, the magic running through every Immortal’s bloodstream would have been destroyed, resulting in the genocide of the Immortal State. Unfortunately, there had been immortals who weren’t so lucky as to have been notified—innocent people who had been turned immortal against their will and trapped in various unknown locations around the world by a voodoo spell—something I’ve cried about, in private, every day since. I was even on trial with the Immortal State because of it, which I didn’t know until a headline saying so swam across the bottom of the screen. It also told me that I’d been classified by the UN as a terrorist entity and a military-level threat.
Why had my family stayed at a distance and not told me about this? None of it made sense.
The line moved forward, putting me close enough to the television that I could finally hear the news over the cacophony of the airport. The news anchor had a guest. He looked middle-aged, which meant he was human. The yellow banner changed to read “David Ramirez, Seer.” The security recording kicked on again and drowned out the television, but the subtitles indicated that this was the exclusive interview that the news channel had been promising.
Was it just me, or had everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the screen? Even the security agents in the customs booths were watching the interview.
“Huh,” Ryan said, leaning close. “This is odd, right?”
I nodded. The gift of seeing the future was super rare, almost as rare as being born a necromancer, and I wouldn’t call their ability a wondrous gift. Seers could use their gift as long as they didn’t affect causality. My adoptive mother was the oldest Seer on the planet. Three months ago, she used her gifts to keep me from getting killed, and she almost died from it. I had no idea why a Seer would appear on the news. This was unheard of.
Unless this guy was about to reveal my true identity.
I glanced around, scanning for exits. One emergency exit. Commandos everywhere. Brad had clamped a hand onto my wrist, as if he was preparing to haul me out of there. Even Nicolas was standing strangely close, like he was expecting a fight.
The news anchor finished introducing her guest, and a warning flashed on the screen, saying viewer discretion was advised. The news anchor repeated the warning before returning her attention to the Seer sitting across from her.
“Mr. Ramirez, you asked to be interviewed because you believe the world is in danger.”
He gave a nervous head nod, then wiped his forehead. He didn’t speak. I guess he was saving himself for the big event.
“Mr. Ramirez, you’re a human Seer. While the past is almost impossible for you to see, you can see various possibilities of the future.”
His voice was strained. Tentative. “I can see the strongest possibilities for our future. The timelines that are less probable are harder for me to see.”
“And you want to tell the world what the most likely future holds for us.”
The camera closed in on David Ramirez’s face as he licked his lips and nodded. He swiped at his forehead again.
“You understand that telling us constitutes manipulation of timelines. That by telling us what you see, you could alter our timeline. And because of this,” the anchor paused, “you’re putting yourself in danger.”
His head bobbed. “I understand. But the people must know. And by doing this, I hope many people will be saved.”
The anchor sounded excited. “You’re saying many people are in danger.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath and looked into the camera. “Eliana Rendon will bring the world to war. She will take magic away and change the world forever.”
His voice broke and dropped to a strained whisper. His eyes bulged. The Seer’s Curse was already taking hold, trying to stop him from speaking.
“She will rule the world,” he croaked out.
His hands clutched at his throat and he gasped, struggling to say more. There was commotion behind him in the newsroom, but the screen stayed locked in on its closeup of David Ramirez.
The Seer released his throat and grasped the edge of the news desk, his fingers clawing desperately. He was obviously struggling to keep his head up, like an invisible weight was trying to crush him. He stared into the camera lens as his face turned tomato red. Each word was gasped in staccato, barely audible, but felt like a shout.
“Eliana… Rendon… must… die.”
His body seized up and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then, Seer David Ramirez fell lifelessly to the floor.
My horrified scream melded with similar screams exploding across the room and throughout the airport. The news station cut to the weather.
The airport halted all operations while security tried to calm everyone down. It took twenty-five minutes, and included the security recording barking at us twice as often and the doughnut kiosk giving away free doughnut holes with any coffee purchase. Brad wouldn’t let me leave the line for doughnut holes. I think he was afraid I would go AWOL.
It wasn’t a bad idea. Cody’s jet was still outside, getting a refuel.
After everyone had filled up on coffee and doughnuts, the customs line started moving again. I was so engrossed with the new news segment, “How to Tell If Your Neighbor Is a Necromancer,” that I didn’t realize I was holding up the line.
“Next, please. Miss? Miss, I can help you down here.”
Brad’s voice growled in my ear.
“Go!”
I grabbed my purse and carry-on bag and hustled to the back of the room, where a young man in a stiff gray uniform sat inside a small square cubicle topped with a narrow counter and a glass protective screen. He gestured to a small tray set into the counter where I could pass along my papers.
As I slid my battered passport into the tray, I could see my Most Wanted poster looming on the wall.
The weird drawing that wasn’t me stared back with her cold, dead eyes.
The customs agent flipped open my passport and typed something into his computer. “You’ve been busy,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m in a band. We were on tour.”
“Band?” He looked up and focused on me, eyes squinting, scrutinizing me like he was trying to figure out whether I was someone famous. Someone he should know. Someone worth knowing. Finally, he shook his head. He had no idea.
“Vis Viva,” I said. “I’m dating Cody Springer.”
At the Cody Springer part, his eyebrows shot upward and his eyes widened. Then he cringed. “I saw something on the news about you.”
He continued to look at me like I was going to offer more about my band’s horrific tragedy, but I didn’t. The FBI had asked us not to discuss the ongoing investigation.
He looked back down at my passport. “Your middle name is Eliana?”
“Yeah. It’s not an uncommon name.”
“Unfortunate, though,” he quipped. “Right?”
I shrugged.
Thirty years ago, I’d been born Kari Rose Hunter. I was raised in secret by a group of the most powerful Immortals in the world. They just wanted to give me a chance at a normal life. When my adoptive parents took me from my birth parents, they legally changed my human middle name to Eliana, and they updated my magical fingerprint with a different name, Eliana Rendon. That was all it took to make me family. Immortals don’t procreate in the human way, so they have different ways of forming families, too.
The officer typed a little more on his keyboard, glanced at me, at my passport again, then at the Most Wanted posters. And, just as I’d hoped, he handed the passport back to me.
Because he wasn’t looking for Kari Hunter. He was looking for Eliana Rendon, the other me.
As I stuffed my passport back into my purse, the agent said, “Before we allow reentry, it’s regulation to touch the skin of every passenger. Hands only. If you prefer a female agent, we can call one over.”
Was this guy kidding me? A stranger touching me was my worst nightmare. I glanced around, suddenly not caring whether it made me look guilty. Sure enough, an agent was touching the hands of another passenger.
“Is this legal?” I asked.
“As of last month, yes. There’s a worldwide search for a fourth-channeler—that’s the clinical term for a necromancer. Necromancers are most easily detected by touching their skin. It enables us to see spell scripts and other weird, supernatural things, like they can.” He paused. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
“Like I said, I’ve been traveling, mostly in places that don’t have many English newspapers or television.”
“Well, as you saw on the news, there’s a hunt going on for a necromancer named Eliana Rendon. The Immortal State probably groomed her to be a weapon against humans. It’s suspected that she can manipulate all of the magic channels, not just the fourth channel. As if sacrificing innocent people for power didn’t make her bad enough…”
Where did this guy get his information? Yes, I can manipulate all kinds of magic, but I don’t do it to be a weapon. I do it for research. And for the record, I’ve never sacrificed anyone for power.
I made a mental note to write a nasty letter to this guy’s supervisor. That’ll show him!
I swallowed my fury. “I have a skin condition. I have to avoid contact with other people or I get life-threatening rashes.”
His expression soured, and he stared me down like he’d heard a thousand excuses before and didn’t believe me. “You have a doctor’s note?”
Damn! “Not with me. We weren’t expecting to come through this airport.”
He slid his hand, palm up, into the metal tray. “Give me your hand, please, or I’ll have to detain you.”
I swallowed and glanced around the room. The walls and ceiling were dingy gray, the floor done in charcoal linoleum with flecks of autumn colors to hide dirt. Nicolas and Ryan were getting checked out at other booths. Ryan was doing the handholding thing with his agent.
The line to the customs area was getting longer. The exit was twenty paces from here, and the space beyond it was crawling with commandos and their dogs. I saw nothing else. Felt nothing else.
“Your hand, please.”
My head snapped back in the agent’s direction. I inhaled a slow breath, noting how jittery and uneven it sounded. I reached into the tray and pressed my fingertips against his.
At our contact, he flinched but didn’t release me. He cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry. You gave me a little static shock.”
I wasn’t surprised. Everyone who comes into contact with my skin gets a little static shock. That’s why I usually wear really fuzzy socks—so I can blame it on a habit of shuffling my feet. The real trick is making sure people don’t touch me for more than a second. Anything odd that they see out of the corners of their eyes can be blamed on a trick of the light.
As the agent scanned the room for spells, the overhead speakers clicked on and an androgynous voice repeated the same message we’d heard earlier.
“Your attention, please. Welcome to the Rochester International Airport. Smoking and the use of firearms and magic are strictly prohibited. Spells are not allowed beyond the security checkpoint. Violators will be prosecuted. Thank you.”
My smile softened as the agent looked around the spell-free room.
He released my hand and turned back to his computer. “Thank you, Miss Hunter. You can go.”
I grabbed my purse and carry-on bag and practically ran from the room.
Chapter Three
Twenty minutes later, my taxi pulled into Penfield, a suburb inhabited solely by families striving for an American dream that was complete with brightly painted houses, freshly paved driveways, and lawns that were green and neat. Finally, the car slowed at the entrance of a cul-de-sac, and I was home.
My house—a long, 1970s-era house painted pale yellow—stood atop a small, steep hill at the cul-de-sac entrance. There was a wrought iron fence circling my property with three bright spell strings slithering around it—two red and one blue.
The red spells were third-channel protections against physical force and magical force, cast by my roommate, Luucas.
The blue spell was an access spell that controlled who was allowed onto the property, cast by my lawyer and surrogate uncle, Marcus.
The first two spells were just prudent planning. The third spell was something I absolutely couldn’t live without.
My gaze drifted behind the fence to the wild, unkempt shrubbery, an overgrown and burnt-out lawn, and what was that brown stain on my garage door?
The taxi stopped in front of my driveway gate. The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You got one of those access spells around your house, or can I drive up?”
In years past, when my survival was on the line, I’d never let anyone past my access spell unless their magical fingerprint was listed inside the spell. But the old danger was gone.
Right now, all I had to do was make sure no one connected the dots between Kari Hunter and Eliana Rendon. As long as the guy didn’t touch my skin, it was easy enough.
I reached into my purse and clicked the gate remote, opening the gate and temporarily deactivating the access spell.
After I’d paid for the taxi and let the guy go, I clicked the remote to open the garage door. The two-car garage was surprisingly tidy. It was also surprisingly empty. Where my roommate’s and my cars should have been there were just clean, swept spots. No cars.
My roommate was
n’t home, either. I could tell because my roommate is immortal, which means he’s technically dead, and dead things are my jam. Necromancers have a weird ability that enables us to identify every dead thing nearby. Brad named the ability Death Radar when we were kids, and we’ve called it that ever since.
If I’m ever in a pinch and need to summon an undead army to pillage something, I’d use Death Radar to locate all of the smelly, rotting corpses in my immediate vicinity. In the absence of those, I’d locate a very chatty bunch of old people with parasitic blood who survive on human energy transferred through their eyeballs—immortals—and I’d be set.
I grabbed my cell phone and called my roommate, one of said old people.
The phone didn’t even ring; it immediately went to voicemail. A stern male voice, tinged with a strong Scandinavian accent, sped through his greeting, obviously trying to squeeze in all of the information he could before getting cut off.
“This is Luucas Mikkelson, Principal Conservator for the Immortal State, governing the East Americas. I’m unable to answer your call. If this is an emergency, please hang up and try the Lead Conservator in your area. Otherwise, I’ll return your call as soon as I can.”
The message ran through a long list of conservator names and the township where each was assigned. The list was long. Conservator organization charts were very lateral, and Luucas governed the largest territory. By the time the beep finally screeched in my ear, I was seething.
“Luucas, this is Kari. I’m at home and my car isn’t in the garage. Do you know what happened to it? Were we robbed? Did you steal it? Please call me when you get this message.”
I dragged my bag through the empty garage. When I opened the kitchen door, my missing car was immediately forgotten. My breath went out of me in a whoosh, followed by an excited squeal.
I had a kitchen!
Well, almost. It was halfway there, which is more than I had when I left.
Three months ago, there was just a hole where my kitchen had been. The destruction had been a misunderstanding between me and Mikelis Priedis, the necromancer who lived about a mile away. The Immortal State lived in awe and fear of Mikelis. He’d spent the last four centuries watching his back and was a shoot-first-and-don’t-bother-asking-questions-later kind of person. He’d detonated my kitchen from over a mile away without even getting out of bed, which would be impressive work for anyone on the planet except Mikelis. For Mikelis, it was Friday.