Rogue Magic

by McKenzie Hunter

  She left behind an identical mark on both of us. An ash-colored circle with an extension that looked like a clawed finger positioned into a hook.

  “What the hell was that?” Savannah hissed, looking at the reminder of the woman’s visit on my arm.

  Gareth extended his arm and Savannah examined the identical markings. Her finger hovered over mine, reluctant to touch it. I didn’t blame her. The skin around it was raw and angry-looking.

  She tugged us behind the bar and gave the bartender a look when he dared to be offended by her invasion. I knew his concession had little to do with her angry face and everything to do with who she was to Lucas. Turning on the cold water, she stuck our arms under it. It cooled the inflamed area but didn’t remove the mark or soothe the odd sensation that lingered over it. It pulsed a steady beat, a reminder of its existence.

  Standing behind Savannah, Lucas pulled her into him when she mustered the courage to touch it.

  “Don’t,” he instructed. Frowning, he looked at the activity in the club. There were a lot of things that could be said about vampires, but no one could ever question their formidableness. The activity had returned to normal, as if a strange, screeching woman dressed in white was just a glitch in a night of hedonism and fun.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kalen and Blu looked down at the mark on my arm again and then went to look at the matching one on Gareth, who was seated in a chair in the office sitting area. He was starting to let his frustration show. There had been a flurry of activity since we’d been marked the night before. The Supernatural Guild had taken pictures of the marks, a specialist on ritual magic had been called in, and we’d spent several hours with a team of agents, going through books trying to find out what the mark meant. It still pulsed on my arm, and since it was linked to Dorian and a woman who was simultaneously the scariest and most alluring thing I’d ever seen, everyone’s curiosity was piqued—until we told them who Dorian was and how we knew him. Gazes became concerned or judgmental, nonverbally chastising us for our excursion.

  Kalen and Blu were just concerned as they split their attention between their books and our indelible marks. The third time Blu roughly turned my arm over to look at the mark I suggested she take a picture of it.

  “No, I need to see it in real time in case it changes.”

  “Why would it change?” I asked, confused.

  “Why would a magical mark be placed on you and Gareth? Why is it this color? Why is Gareth even marked at all? He’s a shifter. There are a lot of whys here.” Twisting her lips to the side, she flipped a couple more pages in the book she was referencing before tossing it aside and grabbing another.

  “How was magic used on Gareth? Do you think a Legacy did this?”

  “We’re dealing with magic that predated the Legacy and the magic we have now. But the mark is magic, it’s not actually using magic against him.”

  “Mine feels peculiar, like Levy says hers does.”

  “It still is just a mark.” After several moments of deliberation, Blu amended, “I think.”

  Kalen and Blu began pacing in front of us going through books and exchanging looks in such smooth motion it looked choreographed. It was the first time I’d actually seen Kalen look disheveled. His woven silk shirtsleeves were rolled up to the forearm, the bottom half of his shirt was pulled from his pants, and his hair was mussed from running his fingers through it. Watching Blu march back and forth in front of us added amusement to the dire situation. It was the witchiest I’d ever seen her look. Stereotypical bohemian witch carrying a burgundy gold-rune-covered book. Her thick, coarse ringlets were pushed back and secured by a long flowing scarf. A long printed gauzy dress overtook her frame and fluttered in small waves as she moved. She complemented the outfit with rhinestone-studded sandals that glinted in the light.

  The mark had a heartbeat, an annoying thump that bumped at a constant rhythm, reminding me of its presence.

  Kalen suddenly stopped. Slowly scanning the book in his hand, he jerked his head up. “When the Naga asked you all to stay, did you indicate at all that you would?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern.

  “I didn’t want to be rude, so I said I would if I didn’t have to get back to Savannah,” I said.

  “Then what?”

  I tried to remember everything that had transpired; it seemed like every detail was important. “I told her I needed the Culded to help Savannah.”

  “Did you offer to return once the task was complete?” Once again I combed over the events of that day. With everything that had happened, it seemed like it had occurred years rather than just days ago.

  “You did, in a way,” Gareth said, frowning. “You were just being polite, but it’s easy to see how she could have misconstrued it.”

  “How could that be misconstrued? I told her I needed to help Savannah.”

  Gareth’s gaze cast down to the floor as if he, too, was going over the scene in detail. Then he repeated the whole conversation with very specific detail. Impressed by his recall, I was glad I was on the good side of it.

  “I was being polite,” I said.

  “I know you were, but that explains her reaction.”

  “Reaction?” Kalen inquired.

  I shuddered at the image of her wailing in pain. “She attacked us as we were leaving. When we escaped, she cried, sorrowfully. It was very odd, and then we were forbidden to return there.”

  “The mark is a retaliation,” Blu offered. Several minutes passed and she continued, “It’s beating—like a pulse, right?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s a magical homing system. Now we need to find out what’s coming for you.”

  Gareth seemed too relaxed for someone who had just been told that a godlike creature had marked us. Instead of looking worried, he gave a haughty smile.

  “You’re not concerned?” I asked incredulously.

  He shrugged. “We’ve had to deal with Conner. I can’t imagine they can send something worse.”

  I would have loved to be more optimistic, but there always seemed to be something worse. I didn’t think there could be anything worse than the Legacy, and then ta-da—I find out about the Vertu. Had he forgotten how hard it had been to kill Conner?

  Blu and Kalen’s faces twisted into scowls as they both looked at a page in the book that Kalen was holding. Kalen moved to the computer and started clicking at the keyboard frantically. “You want to bet?” Kalen frowned, answering Gareth. “This is worse…a Mortem Spiritus.”

  Then he started to read. “They only take on a form to collect their offering.” His gaze flicked up from the screen. “You’ll be fighting something similar to a wraith, but deadlier. It doesn’t have a discernable form. I think that’s harder than Conner.”

  “Trap them in a jar like a genie,” I threw out. Making light of the situation was all I could do to cope. What they described was worse than Conner. No matter how harmless I attempted to make the situation, the problem remained that I had to fix this, which meant I would probably have to make a trip to Menta Island to track down the Naga and give her a less than kind education on the difference between a polite rejection and a promise.

  “There are some positive things about this. They are bound to the darkest of night, where they will rule your nightmares before they collect their payment,” Blu offered. It wasn’t much consolation. Great, they can only kill us at night. She read on and then moved to the stack of books and flipped through several others. “So you all are fine, if you sleep in the day.”

  “What happens if they appear at night?”

  “They’ll torture you in your dreams and then use the energy from your terrors to take you away.”

  “Where do they take us?” I asked, no longer able to hide behind a quip or one-liner.

  She kept reading and I moved next to her, reading on, finding Conner less scary with each sentence that went into detail about the victims of their visits. She turned the page. Yay, pictures. I wasn’t able to see Conner behea
ded, and I didn’t want to see the results of the Mortem Spiritus torture chamber. Apparently whatever they subjected you to in your dreams manifested physically. Shuddering at the images before me, I wanted desperately to pay the Naga a visit.

  “How do you stop them?” I asked, still peeking over Blu’s shoulder. I read along with her and five pages later, we knew who could call them and how it was done and had seen visuals of their horrific retrieval—but there wasn’t anything about stopping them.

  “I should be able to summon one, right?” I asked.

  “What will that do, Levy?” Blu inquired.

  Nothing, I just wanted to send one back to the Naga. Pettiness at its best.

  “We have to sleep in the day until when?” Gareth asked.

  “Until we find a way to stop it,” Blu said.

  “I’m assuming the death of the summoner would do that.” Blu’s face twisted in disgust. I understood her feeling. Death being the answer to a problem was difficult to accept and I hoped to end it without bloodshed.

  Gareth had been examining his mark for the past few minutes, deep in thought. “Even if that were an option, there’s no way we’d be allowed back. They would stop us at the shore.” His words were a reminder of the disapproving and angry way Dorian had looked at us.

  It was midnight and we had several hours before day broke and we could sleep. Kalen left the room, went to the kitchen, and returned with two large cups of coffee and a bowl of dark chocolate. Between the coffee and chocolate, there was enough caffeine to keep us awake.

  The problem with being sleepy and forced to stay up was that you were too tired to actually read. The words of all the books I read blurred in front of me and comprehension became a problem until I looked at the book with the pictures and retelling of the torture that the victims underwent.

  “Do they not have a form at all until they are fulfilling their calling?” At some point they had to coalesce in order to touch us. “There are two of us; I’m assuming there’s more than one Mortem Spiritus.”

  Blu nodded. “It seems that they travel in threes,” she said, frowning. Oddly, it was comforting to know that there was more than just one and that one Mortem Spiritus didn’t wield enough power to take out a Legacy and a shapeshifter. Then I had the morbid thought that maybe one was enough, but three came to ensure the job was done in the cruelest way possible. My heart thumped faster at the idea.

  When the sun finally peeked through the darkness, I was more than ready to sleep. Not wanting to worry Savannah or get her involved, I decided to stay at Gareth’s. Showered and waiting for the caffeine to wear off so I could finally sleep, I heard Gareth’s phone ring. He frowned at the number that popped up.

  “Yes, Savannah, dear.” He paused. “We are fine, we don’t need you to watch over us while we sleep.”

  I couldn’t hear what she was saying on the other end, but Gareth made several efforts to interrupt her without success. I’d gathered from what he said on his end that she was at the gate of the subdivision. He bit down on his lips and pressed several buttons on his phone, which must have allowed her entry.

  “She is rather tenacious, isn’t he?” he opined, rolling out of bed and starting for the bedroom door.

  “That’s a good word for bossy and overbearing,” I said, following behind him.

  Savannah, with a very unhappy Lucas in tow, entered with a tote. She’d packed her overnight version of the “quest bag,” complete with a bat, stakes—which Lucas must have loaned her because I didn’t have any—and a Taser. The Taser was a new purchase and I wondered when she’d added it to her arsenal.

  “I brought snacks. This can be like a sleepover.”

  Lucas looked less interested in a group sleepover than Gareth was. I couldn’t take the disappointment, so I didn’t even bother looking in the bags for the snacks, which were going to be taste-free versions of something good.

  “You do manage to have your share of adventures,” Lucas said, shrugging off his jacket and laying it across the back of one of the chairs before taking a seat. Savannah sat where she usually did when Lucas was present, in his lap snuggled close to him.

  “We’re okay. It’s daylight; they move at night.”

  “Well, that’s what the book says, but remember, your books said Legacy were extinct and have no mention of Vertu. Better safe than sorry,” Savannah offered.

  Gareth scrubbed his hand across the low stubble on his face with a look of sheer confusion. It was the same bewildered look he had when Savannah became upset with Lucas, him, and me and gave us a good “talking-to.” It was entertaining watching him try to deal with Savannah. I figured he’d take a page from Lucas’s book and concede in silence and choose to see her as amusing rather than annoying. I considered my overbearing, tenacious roommate to be both: an amusing annoyance.

  Handing them the books we’d borrowed from Kalen, I asked, “Can you go through these to see if we missed anything that can help us send them back or remove the marks?” Then I followed Gareth back to his room.

  Slipping his hand around me, he brought his lips to brush against my hair. “Still suck blocking?” he teased.

  “Of course not. I’m just giving them something to occupy their time while they’re here.”

  CHAPTER 25

  It took over three days to find something that would have a remote chance of working, since I’d destroyed most of the objects that we could have used to trap them, along with many other objects in the Magic Council’s possession. Even though one of the objects might have helped save Gareth and me, I didn’t regret my decision.

  “This is going to work?” I asked skeptically as Blu and Kalen started making a large circle in the middle of Gareth’s living room, using salt, tannin, and a potion Blu had made.

  Blu made a face of uncertainty. “It should.”

  Her lack of assurance made it difficult for me to feel confident about the circle that they were forming to trap the Mortem Spiritus. Responding to the magical beacon, the Mortem Spiritus had seeped into Gareth’s home at night, in a puff of dark smoke. Their nebulous forms had filled the room, only to find us awake and sitting on the sofa. Unable to do anything more than taunt us, they’d shifted frequently throughout the night, filling the room with the scent of ash and cinnamon as they took on various forms, the most common one a ghostlike human. Having access to extraordinary magic, I found it absurd that my most prudent weapon against them was caffeine, sugar, and a morning nap.

  Yesterday the Mortem Spiritus had trickled in through the crevices of the house to find us awake again. Their corporeal forms whipped around us as their unique scent wafted through the air. They displayed their fury at finding us awake by making the odor stronger and more noxious. They’d resorted to making lulling, somnolent sounds to entice us to sleep. When that hadn’t worked, they’d swirled and twisted into menacing forms that would have had the desired effect if they weren’t just apparitions.

  We had about an hour before we could expect them again. Enough time for Blu and Kalen to finish the spell and for us to position ourselves to execute the plan.

  Lucas rested against the frame of the door, an unwilling visitor for a fourth night because of Savannah, who wouldn’t leave. His look of irritation and disinterest belied any concern about our safety. Savannah stood next to him, acutely interested in Kalen and Blu’s preparation.

  Gareth had adjusted well to the sleep change. He’d slept for a couple of hours, stayed late at work, leaving Savannah and Lucas to keep me company, and returned in time to stay up with me at night. I could barely function on just four hours of sleep, but Gareth seemed to be doing fine until now.

  Seated on the sofa, his head bobbed. He jerked it up, made a face, then looked around the room. My gaze followed his to the gas moving under the door. He covered his nose. Lucas was shocked into action: He rushed down the hall, I assumed to get towels and anything he could find to cover the windows and doors, while Gareth guided me into the other room. Magic didn’t work on Gare
th, but gas would hit him—and me.

  Fuck. Since the Mortem Spiritus couldn’t take on solid form, Dorian had to be responsible for the gas attack.

  After a few minutes, Kalen called for us to return.

  Savannah was sprawled out on the floor, Lucas holding her close to him. She’d succumbed to the toxic gas. Lucas wasn’t immune to magic but toxic gas didn’t affect him, a benefit of being undead.

  “I guess they enlisted help,” Gareth fumed.

  Blu was trying to reassemble the circle, which had been disturbed as everyone scattered to clear out and secure the windows and doors, and then waited for the Mortem Spiritus to return with the evening darkness. They crept in as a dark smoke of swirling clouds and poorly shaped figures that stopped moving when they found us, awake and waiting for them.

  I whispered the words to evoke the spell, and they were sucked into the circle as if by a vacuum, unable to pass its boundaries. It was their prison until the morning—if they made it that long. As the magical energy formed around the Mortem, they succumbed to it. No, they seemed to have conceded to the magic.