by Karen Chance
“Stay out of trouble. I’ll be back for you—”
“No! I can help!”
“You’ve already helped,” he pointed out, striving for patience. “You got us here.”
And she had. One of her sister cards, propped in the window of a barbershop on the nearby main avenue, had seen Caleb stride down this alley not fifteen minutes ago. That didn’t mean he was still here, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t, either. And possibly inside right now, along with the demon behind all this!
Because John should have remembered: plenty of them knew human magic, too. Well enough, at least, to recognize the tracker for what it was and to also possibly recognize John. Not to mention being among the few creatures with the power to pull something like this off.
He tried to pull away, but the dancer didn’t let go. Animations based on a real person tended to take more than just their appearance from the source; they took something of the model’s personality, too. And it didn’t look like her mistress was used to this sort of thing.
“You promise?” Golden nails bit into his coat sleeve. “You come back?”
“I promise.”
He meant it. She was his only source of information about the city, not to mention his only way to find Caleb if this didn’t work. He wasn’t going to abandon her in an alley, any more than he was willing to let her get destroyed by the creature inside. But she didn’t look convinced.
“I will come back,” he repeated.
“Not if you dead!”
“I’m hard to kill.”
That got him a withering stare. “You crazy man! You almost die, like, ten times since I know you!”
“Almost being the operative word,” John said, and pried off her grip. “Now, can you stay out of sight?”
He expected her to cower down in the shadows or to find a niche in the walls, which wouldn’t be difficult around here. The alley was less affluent looking than the neighborhood where he’d come in, and much older. The pharmacy that turned the street into a dead end looked like it dated back centuries, with weathered, carved wooden shutters, an upturned roof with enough missing tiles to give the appearance of a gap-toothed smile, and a hand lettered sign in peeling gold paint over the door.
But it was easily the best-looking thing on the street. Otherwise, there were looming tenements, overflowing trash skips, and a snarl of items stored on a straining bamboo lattice that was so thick, John couldn’t even see through it. It gave the street a tunnel like effect that was more than faintly creepy, something not helped by the animated graffiti everywhere.
It scrawled over trash cans, spiraled across the ground, and climbed the walls. Most of it hadn’t been maintained, so the magic had either worn off entirely or was soon to do so. The result was a warrior apathetically disemboweling a bored looking peasant on the asphalt, while a snake-like dragon yawned and groomed its no longer shiny scales on the wall above.
And then pulled back in alarm when a golden cutie ran straight into the bricks beside it, instantly going 2-D again and tamping down her glow. To the point that she was a barely visible outline, like an old mural that had faded and weathered over time. And which was now peering over a rain barrel, watching John worriedly through heavily made up eyes.
He nodded approval, and turned back to the task at hand.
The collection of skinny glass vials he’d taken off the peddler clinked in his pocket. And then glistened in his palm when he brought them out, gleaming silver-bright against his skin. John just stood there for a moment, almost mesmerized by the constantly shifting swirls and spirals of light.
And anxious and sick to his stomach and half disbelieving that he was even contemplating this.
Because the vials weren’t some dangerous battle concoction like the larger ones affixed to his belt. No, these were infinitely scarier, at least to him. Because they didn’t contain death but the opposite.
In these vials was life distilled.
Specifically, they contained life magic in its purest form, the silver swirl of unassigned power glittering and gleaming against his flesh, brightly enough to light up his fingerbones. The mages it had come from had captured some of their excess power and stored it in warded vials for later use, giving themselves a backup in case their strength petered out in combat. It was a fairly common practice in the Corps, rather like blood doping in professional sports only this was legal. After all, it was their magic; it wasn’t like they were stealing it from anyone else . . .
John cursed, and told himself to stop being a fool. This wasn’t like feeding from Cassie, wasn’t like it at all! That had required his demon’s help, to open a conduit into her power, and had energized the damned thing in the process. This wouldn’t. Any mage could do this, as it didn’t require a conduit. The power was already here!
It was the same as using a potion bomb in battle, rather than throwing a fireball. The former helped to conserve your magic, while this replaced it after it ran out. There was no difference.
Except that this hadn’t come from him.
Each of the innocuous little vials contained another mage’s magic, their strength, their abilities, the essence of men now likely dead and gone. It wasn’t John’s to take, and it shouldn’t have been possible for him to consume without the risk of serious physical and mental harm. Like the dark mages who put their lives in jeopardy to steal this stuff, which left them powerful and energized for a time. But also crazed, wild-eyed, and skeletal, fell beings who hardly looked human after a while, because no one’s body was designed to consume someone else’s magic!
Well, almost no one’s.
John’s fingers tightened around one little vial, and his thumb pushed up the stopper, before he even consciously told it to. The scent seeped out into the air, like a glistening stream of pure oxygen in a city filled with smog. It called to him, clean and fresh and alive, not like the spilled power out front, which had been desperately trying to find a new home, although he could have absorbed that, too, had he been willing to risk giving the creature it belonged to a hold on his mind. He could absorb anything.
Because he wasn’t a dark mage. He was a half demon. More specifically, he was half incubus demon, the one race who could merge with literally anyone’s power, anyone’s at all.
He was made for this, or that part of him that came from his father’s people was.
Yet still he hesitated. The whole damned city was threatening to come apart, war mages were dying in service to some foul creature’s plan, and he was possibly the only lucid operative left besides a bunch of goddamned vampires. And what was he doing?
Standing here, wasting time!
But the habits of a lifetime were hard to break, maybe because they’d also been hard won. He knew, and his demon knew: the more you came to rely on such crutches, the swifter you looked for them in the future. And eventually went to any lengths to find them.
Just ask the mages who fell to the dark.
He wouldn’t do likewise if he did this, but he would feed an addiction woven into his blood and bone. One that mere vials wouldn’t be able to satisfy for long. And then where would he turn, when his hunger grew? What deals would he make with his personal demon for power that he didn’t want and strength he didn’t need?
Only he did need it now, didn’t he?
John cursed again, furious and conflicted. And what else was new? His heritage had brought him nothing but trouble his entire life. Hell, it had taken his life, for all intents and purposes, more than once! If it provided some passive assistance in a moment of crisis, it was about damned time! He’d worry about the fall out later.
He screwed up his courage and belted back the first little vial.
There were five in total, and he used them all, not knowing what he might be facing inside. And then began to worry about what he was facing out here. He leaned against the side of the building, his body spasming from the energy suddenly coursing through him. It was a shock, because he didn’t do this sort of thing. He didn’t
even carry his own backups, his body making far more magic than he usually needed in a fight.
But not this much!
He stared around at the alley, swallowing hard, as the rush of power threatened to swamp him. Colors bloomed against the darkness, the supposedly invisible wards on the surrounding flats suddenly clear as day: a scattering of bright blue, strong and healthy; a square of sickly green, more a screen than a true ward, spitting and sputtering and soon to fail; a rectangle of dark purple on the back of a row of shops, a repellant rather than a mere shield, pulsing with the energy necessary to throw a would-be thief across the alley.
He could normally feel the energy wards gave off, but not see it.
He could see everything now.
Like the little dancer, staring at him in concern from behind her barrel, suddenly bright and vivid once more. Like the golden splashes heading in the door of the pharmacy, weaving like a drunkard’s footprints. Like the very air around him, which seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.
And then the full rush of power hit and he went to his knees, feeling the earth spin underneath him. Feeling something like he had that night in Wales, only he hadn’t needed to function then! Feeling the vials fall from his hand to rattle against the road as his heart threatened to beat out of his chest and sweat broke out on his face.
What had he done? How much had he taken? What had he—
Augghhh! Another wave of sensation hit and he bent almost double, his human half fighting to absorb that much power, all at once. And the information that came with it.
Because this was not mere magic, it was someone’s life force he’d just ingested. And it was accompanied by a flood of knowledge he didn’t want. He could feel the personalities of the donors like flavors on his tongue. Some dark and bitter, the echo of a life now extinguished. But some surprisingly bright and sweet, still vibrant with life.
Like their owners.
A succession of faces flowed in front of his mental eye: stern, taciturn, and dangerous. Older mages with a lifetime of experience behind them, grimly doing what they thought was their duty. Or young ones, frightened and confused, but determined to prove themselves. One of the later was so clear that John could see him, wedged under a shelf of dirt near the battlefield, with his golem squatting beside him in the mud.
It looked up suddenly, as if it could see John, too, and maybe it could. You never knew what a summoning spell would call forth. You might get some powerful, but not too powerful, demon to trap inside the body you’d prepared, to serve as servant and shield and bodyguard, all in one. But you might get something else entirely.
This one’s clay eyes were blank and staring, like a statue before the paint was applied. But darker ones lay behind them, sharp and knowing and strangely gleeful. John got the impression that it was laughing, although at what, he couldn’t say. At its master, for having the life magic he desperately needed stolen by another? At John, for feeling guilt and fear over what many demons did as a matter of course? At the lot of them, human, demon and vampire, all about to die together, while still fighting each other to the last?
John didn’t know. He just knew he couldn’t stay like this, huddled in the street like a frightened child. And thanks to the magic now burning in his veins, he didn’t have to.
He came off the stones with a roar, strode around to the front of the pharmacy, and threw open the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
N o one was there. At least not in the big outer room. It should have been dark, there being little light in the alley and less leaking through the shutters over the windows. But brilliant, gleaming magic was everywhere.
It spilled out of the blue and white ceramic pots lining rows of shelves on one wall. It sparkled in finger and hand prints on the big, dark wood counter. It danced and swirled with the dust motes turning lazily in the air, and on the beams of gray-green light flooding in through the open door. It glistened on practically every surface like fairy dust, as if Tinkerbell had paid the shop a visit just before John had.
If Tinkerbelle wore size twelve brogues, that is.
John’s fuzzy brain suddenly got a lot sharper. The golden splatters from outside had resolved themselves into footsteps in here, as if someone had slowed down, pausing long enough for the drips to make outlines on the scuffed, hardwood floor. They wove unsteadily across the room and into the next one, where they disappeared through a set of sliding doors—along with everything else.
Darkness boiled in the space beyond, but not the usual kind. Not the gentle peace of a moonless night or soft embrace of a silent bedroom. No, this was the very deliberate absence of any and all illumination, to the point that the swirl of dust stopped cold along the threshold, with no bleed over whatsoever.
A spell, in other words.
It had the slick, oily feel of dark magic, even this far away, coating the inside of John’s nostrils, slicking his throat, and making him want to spit out the taste or to summon a spell to filter the air.
Instead, he swished it around his mouth like wine, drew it farther into his lungs, let it trickle out on his breath. High he might be, and hopped up on stolen magic, but in this case that actually helped. It heightened his senses, human as well as other kinds, and every single one of them was telling him the same thing: this was not demonic.
It was a dog’s dinner of crisscrossing strains, a sometimes sour, sometimes bitter blend of magical energy that said as clear as day that, like John, the practitioner was also borrowing power, and from multiple sources. But in back of it all, the lattice holding it together, was just . . . human. Powerful, yes, and with a high tolerance for foreign magic, but human nonetheless.
It puzzled him. Was he dealing with a demon or not? Because they didn’t use human assistants!
John held out a hand, and summoned a ball of light from outside. That usually left him with a fistful of pale, white moonlight, but today the illumination swathing his hand was gray-green and angry. But it served, cutting through the human spell as if it wasn’t even there.
He stepped over the threshold into the next chamber, holding up the fey light, and the darkness receded before him.
The room inside was much like the outer one, except smaller. Probably used for private consultations with whoever managed this place. There was a door branching off to the right, a large cabinet of small drawers on the left, a small table and chairs, and another door straight ahead that was open and appeared to lead to a storage area.
There was also a confusion of footprints on the floor, some dark and muddy, others gold and gleaming, but most smeared and streaked in a scuffle that led nowhere. Or everywhere, because there were signs that people had been coming in and out of both doors. John headed through the one straight ahead, because it was already open.
And then stopped abruptly, at what appeared to be a golden explosion.
It looked like someone had set off a grenade in a vat of gold paint. There were striations spearing out in all directions, painting the floor, the walls, even part of the ceiling. It was beautiful, a glittering sunburst of power in the gloom.
Except for the corpses—half a dozen at least—clustered at the epicenter.
They were human, as were the others scattered along the periphery, including one speared on a wall-mounted coat rack like a hanging side of beef. There was magic here, too, the remains of battle spells snarling and scrabbling in corners, still fighting each other even after their owners were dead. Or gone, John realized, catching slight of some golden splashes headed out the back door.
They looked like paint drips. Power sliding off a shield, perhaps? He didn’t know, but the golden smear petered out a little way up the street, swallowed by the darkness.
But not before someone had stepped in it.
Caleb, John thought, recognizing the distinctive pattern on the sole of Corps’ issued footwear. The footsteps were also his friend’s long, even strides, which could cover a lot of ground quickly. But they weren’t running, much less in w
holesale flight from slaughter.
So, he’d gotten here afterwards, like John himself.
And then had gone . . . where?
He started to call out to his little helper, to see if any of her sisters could locate the big war mage again, when he heard someone in the room behind him. Someone growling softly, like an animal that senses danger nearby. Someone who might have answers.
John snuffed out the fey light, just in case, although he doubted it would have allowed a human to see through the spell suffusing the little workspace. But he’d already determined that there were demons involved in this. It wouldn’t have surprised him at this point to see fey—or much of anything else.
Which was just as well, because “anything else” took that moment to attack him.
His legs were swept out from under him the second he reentered the smaller room, landing him flat on his back. He’d trained to fight in darkness, like all war mages, and with his demon senses that wasn’t even too great of a handicap. It should have been fine.
It wasn’t fine.
Because the problem wasn’t the darkness, it was what was in the darkness.
Which was moving so fast he couldn’t even track it!
He leapt back to his feet, his spine protesting the magically enhanced speed of the move. And then other things started protesting as he kept it up, drawing on the overabundance of power coursing through his veins to counter the lighting speed of the blows raining down on him from what seemed like all directions. It felt as if he was fighting a whole squad of people instead of just one, but it was one, his senses told him that much.
One who was strong, vicious, and inhumanely fast—
And who had just made a mistake.
An overreach allowed John to get a grip on a strangely lightweight body, which he launched with brutal force against a wall. It ought to have bought him an advantage, at least, if not ended the fight all together. And perhaps it would have.
If another assailant hadn’t entered the fray.
“Dory!” someone whispered loudly—and stupidly. John immediately turned and fired at the sound of the voice, using one of the .44’s he’d taken from the peddler’s cart. And emptied the clip, because the last thing he needed was two against one in utter darkness!