Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price

by Devon Monk

  Blood fell in crimson droplets, pattering against the disk between his feet.

  The spell exploded to life, carving out a pattern of power in black and red ribbons. Shame was whispering, coaxing, guiding the spell in a singsong that I had a hard time trying to follow.

  The magic spooled a line from the glyph in the air, combined with Shame’s blood and breath, and joined the glyph in the disk on the floor.

  The floor spun open, marble moving as smoothly as a watchmaker’s spring, stones sliding soundlessly outward like a flower opening.

  Shame bent and plucked up the disk before it fell into the ever-widening maw in the center of the floor. But he continued chanting, whispering, controlling the spell as he paced slowly backward at the growing edge of the well.

  The bulk of the floor opened to the twisting, glowing mass of magic that pooled beneath the ground. Shame was on the other side of the room, the well between him and us.

  A situation Terric did not seem entirely comfortable with. He was pacing, just four short steps to the side and four short steps back, his hands opening and closing, as if wishing for something, or someone, to hold on to.

  I was happy about two things. One, the well was open.

  Two, I could still breathe even though the well stank of tainted magic. I didn’t know if that meant I’d become more immune to the foul smell, or if by turning off the networks, we’d already done some good for magic.

  Shame lifted his hands over his head, then out to each side, as if bracing against a doorway. One last word tumbled from his lips, and the floor stopped moving. The Unlock spell faded from sight. The well was open.

  “Allie?” Zay asked.

  “The magic in the well looks like black sludge to me, almost solid, with just a center of light.”

  “That’s not how Maeve and Hayden described seeing it just a day or so ago,” Terric said.

  “The poison has spread,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. Collins, I think it would be best if you access the magic in Stone and fix the well.”

  “Of course,” Collins said.

  “Like hell he will,” Terric said.

  “Collins,” I amended, “will hold the disk and Dad will access the magic in the disks and in Stone.” I glanced at Zay, who didn’t look like he approved of that idea either.

  “Let us do this part,” I said. “Dad knows what he’s doing with Stone and Collins understands how the disks work if something goes wrong. I think Terric should close the well and you should set the spells to keep people out of it.”

  I looked between the three men. Grim, but silent. “Glad we all agree,” I said. Besides, if I had to work with my dad—let him take over my body—they had better not complain about letting Collins pull his weight too.

  “Come on, Stone,” I said. “Let’s get closer to the well.”

  We do need to be closer, right? I asked Dad.

  I would assume so. You’ll need a disk.

  Right. I turned to ask Zayvion for one. But he was already handing one to Collins and giving him his patented glare of death.

  Collins took the disk without a flicker of emotion, but when he turned my way, I could see the fire of curiosity in his eyes as he studied the glyphs carved into it.

  “Beautiful,” he said, walking my way. “Just. Stunning. To hold a working product after all those years of trial and error.” He glanced up at me. “Your father is possibly one of the greatest minds ever to modify magical techniques and technology. Think of what he could have done if the accident could have been avoided.”

  His smile faded as he saw my scowl.

  “Murder isn’t an accident,” I said.

  “Not that,” he said. “Not his death. The accident. When you were younger?” He pushed his glasses back on his face, then tipped his chin just a bit as if suddenly realizing I had no idea what he was talking about. “Well, perhaps you were too young to remember. Shall we?”

  Shall we, hell. I wanted to know about that accident.

  Allison, Dad said, the well.

  “Allie?” Shame said from the other side of the room. “Really be great if you’d get in the game here, love.”

  Magic—well, black tar sticky, smelly stuff—was lapping up the walls of the well, splashing just over the edge of the marble floor. Where it touched marble, it burned, sending up steam that stank to high heaven.

  “Anyone else see that?” I asked.

  “Magic burning through stone?” Terric said. “Yes. Even without Sight. Need help?”

  “We got it.” I looked at Collins. “I’m going to let Dad forward, but I’ll be here too.”

  He nodded, not looking at all concerned. “He and I will figure this out. If I know your father he already has a plan in place.”

  We stepped as close to the well as we could get, about three feet away from the edge so the sludge couldn’t reach us.

  Stone hesitantly padded up next to me, his wings unfurled and quivering. His ears were back, and he was no longer crooning. He didn’t look like he wanted to be here at all.

  “It’s okay, Stone,” I said, putting my hand on his head to comfort him and keep him beside me. I knew he didn’t like working with my dad. “I’ll be right here.”

  “Ah,” Collins said, eyeing the magic that was steaming and burning its way closer to us. “We should get to this immediately.”

  I stepped aside in my mind, allowing Dad equal access to my eyes, body, hands. Please, Dad, I thought. Do this right.

  He paused, and I could feel his sigh. I have never endeavored to do anything less. Then, with my mouth, he said, “Eli, I’ll need you to simply hold the disk. I want to alleviate Allison’s sensitivity to the poison in magic as much as I can.”

  Eli’s smile spread into a grin. He held the disk across his right palm. “Good to be working with you again, sir.”

  “And you,” Dad said. “I’ll tap into the Animate. Do not activate the disk yet.”

  I felt my head turn to look down at Stone, which was, as always, a weird sensation. “As I understand the desired outcome, we’ll be performing this on all four wells. Is that correct, gentlemen?”

  “Yes,” Zayvion said, his voice tight.

  Oh. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it before, but suddenly realized it must be really weird for him to watch me become not me, when Dad took over.

  That anchor, the promise of me remembering us, and remembering what we were together that Zayvion had given me was still strong and comforting in my mind. I wanted to tell him not to worry, but we didn’t have time for that.

  “I’ll need a small portion of the purified magic in this…in Stone,” Dad added awkwardly.

  Stone narrowed his big round eyes and showed some teeth.

  He did not like Dad. At all.

  “It’s okay, Stoney,” I said, taking over my mouth without even having to negotiate with Dad. Once again the ease in which we were living in the same space freaked me out.

  Stone’s ears flipped up and he wrapped one wing around my leg. He knew I was here, but still didn’t seem convinced he should do what Dad said.

  “Better make it quick,” I said to Dad. “I don’t know how long he’ll let you work with him.”

  Collins shook his head, his mouth open. “It’s fascinating. You truly are two different beings in one body. Just, well, impossible would have been my first thought, but obviously this is more than possible. You must be very pleased,” he said.

  “Pleased?” I asked.

  Dad took over my mouth again, a little more quickly than I’d expected. “I am pleased only in that I can lend my assistance to purify magic and see that Portland is safe once again.”

  Okay, I believed about half of that. I knew Dad really did care about keeping Portland safe, even if it was only for little Daniel and Violet. But the rest of what he’d just said didn’t ring true.

  Collins knew something about my dad I didn’t know. Some reason why he’d be pleased about all this happening. About him possessing me. Maybe he
knew what my dad’s plans had been before he died.

  Maybe he could guess at what his plans were now.

  After we cleansed the wells, if we did so and survived, I was going to pin Collins down and bribe or beat information out of him.

  “Allison,” Dad said with my voice. “It is easier if I have your attention.”

  Could have done without the condescending tone, but I paid attention.

  Collins was tracing a very delicate spell with the fingers of his left hand, something that reminded me of Illusion, but not quite.

  “It is an Enhancement,” Dad said in answer to my thought. “We will use it to carry the small portion of purified magic contained within the Animate.”

  Stone growled.

  He has a name, I thought. You might want to use it before he bites your hand off. Well, my hand off.

  “Stone,” Dad said. “Stone will not be harmed in this work.”

  Stone just growled again. He didn’t trust Dad. Smart rock.

  “Easy, Stone,” Zayvion said, walking up to stand on the other side of him. Stone looked between Zayvion and Dad behind my eyes and whimpered a little.

  Apparently Dad in me was confusing the heck out of him.

  Still, having Zayvion there helped him settle down a bit.

  “I am going to draw out some of the magic in the Animate—in Stone,” Dad said. “Mr. Jones, please stand ready to Ground if I have miscalculated the force of this endeavor.”

  “Have you ever miscalculated before?” Zay asked quietly.

  I, well, we held his gaze. Heavy with gold, with unspent power. Dad saw Zayvion differently than I did. He saw him more of an immovable force, an uncertain accomplice who could just as easily become his most formidable enemy.

  “Yes, Mr. Jones,” Dad said mildly. “I have often been wrong.”

  A memory, of blood on his hands, his blood, someone else’s blood. The rising fear and panic choking him, his voice, begging. For the briefest moment, I saw a woman’s bloody face in profile. She seemed familiar. He snapped that image away and into darkness so quickly, I couldn’t even remember what she looked like.

  “But I will not be in error today,” he said calmly. He didn’t use Influence, which made sense. Zayvion had told me he was immune to Influence. But there was something about my dad, a kind of charisma that gave his words weight, strength. Most people found themselves nodding along with anything he said.

  He’d used that to his advantage for his entire life. Strange that he didn’t do so now.

  “Continue,” Zayvion said.

  Dad’s irritation swept across the edges of my thoughts. He didn’t like anyone telling him what to do.

  “Stone,” Dad said. “Hold still. Do not fear.” Dad actually put just the slightest Influence on that last command, maybe to comfort Stone, but more likely to try to keep Stone subdued.

  It had not escaped our attention that our single hope to cleanse the wells was locked inside a stone creature who was powered by magic, and oh, yes, had wings. Stone could fly away if he wanted to and we’d be so far up shit creek, not even a boatload of paddles would float our boat.

  We very much did not want Stone to get stubborn about this.

  Zayvion reached over and rubbed behind Stone’s ears. Stone huffed and mumbled, sounding pretty put out over the entire thing. But he wasn’t moving away, and wasn’t looking as worried as before.

  “Very good,” Dad said. “Let us begin.” He pulled the blood knife I had in my belt—the same knife Zayvion had given me months ago, and pricked my left ring finger.

  Distantly, I felt the hot sting of the blade, and then the oily slick of blood flowing from my finger across the knife.

  Dad shifted how I was standing and I had to take a deep mental breath not to reach out and steady myself. He took a wide-legged stance I never used, and then began chanting. I didn’t know the words. If someone asked me to repeat even one of them, I wouldn’t be able to.

  But Dad not only knew them, he seemed to understand them. I caught a string of his thoughts, the calculations put into play to create the correct tonal quality of the words, along with the correct spacing between them, the flow, the rhythm. All painstakingly thought through so that this one spell, on this one Animate, would respond in the way he predicted.

  This wasn’t a language—these were words my father had created.

  Stone tipped his big head up, and opened his mouth as if panting. He was still glowing that soft blue-white, but as Dad raised my hand and knife and carved a spell, or maybe two, into the air, glyphs began to burn across Stone’s skin.

  I heard Shame inhale with a kind of caught wonder, or hunger. And Terric whispered something that sounded a lot like a small prayer.

  Stone was beautiful, transformed. Magic played over him and through him with an easy, flowing gracefulness. It was like seeing the dance of the northern lights for the first time, a sunset painting the sky with fire, an ocean churning with deep jewel tones and shadow.

  Magic, this magic of each discipline combined, joined with both light and dark magic, was a force, a beauty I’d never seen before.

  Dad finished the spell, having hooked part of the spell Collins was still drawing up out of the disk with the tip of the blood blade.

  And then he pressed my finger on Stone’s head, just below his right ear. Blood bloomed there, spreading out to trace the form of a rose blossom that reached from the base of his ear, out over his eye where an eyebrow would be, if he had an eyebrow.

  Dad pulled my finger away, and liquid red fire followed my hand, arcing through the air to catch the invisible spell he’d drawn with light and flame.

  The spell was intricate, complex, a three-dimensional ball of flame that seemed to burn through a series of smaller glyphs, smaller magics. And when it had burned just enough, Dad sent it spinning, wrapped in the threads of magic Collins had unraveled from the disk, before plunging into the well.

  The spell zeroed straight for the center of the well, where magic was still untouched by the poison, and sank.

  The world shook. A sound louder than thunder rolled with physical force, crushing through the room, as if a bomb had gone off. A shriek of voices like metal twisting and snapping scorched through the room.

  I reached out for Zayvion, only Dad was holding my body very, very still so I couldn’t even wiggle a finger.

  The world shivered under my feet. Reality, the room, the walls, the arched ceiling, the marble floor, and all of us seemed to shift back into place as if our colors blurred for an instant before coming back into focus even sharper than before.

  The soft sound of chimes, distant and high, stirred on an unfelt breeze.

  “It is done,” Dad said with a kind of reverence I’d never heard in his voice. And then he stumbled back in my mind, no longer in control of my body.

  Chapter Nine

  I rushed up into my body in a wave of heat, my ears ringing, flashes of light swimming at the edge of my vision. My mouth was dry and tasted of blood. I swallowed, which hurt, licked my lips, which stung, and tried to get a grip on what had just happened.

  Everyone in the room looked like they’d survived. Stone was sitting clear across the room on the bottom stair, his wings tucked tightly around him, big round eyes narrowed as he glared at the well.

  Zayvion, next to me, was talking. I caught only every third word or so. Something about Close and Terric and spells.

  “Are you well?” Collins touched my elbow, his fingers shaking, just like his voice.

  “Fine,” I said, even though it came out more air than word.

  He pulled his hand away, as if surprised by my voice. What had he been expecting? Dad? Then I realized, yes, that’s exactly what he’d expected.

  He still had the disk in his hand. It was dark, the dusty gray-black of dry cast iron.

  “Good,” he said a little stiffly. “Very good.”

  I glanced at the well. The black sludge was much, much less, just a thin lining at the very edges of th
e well. Magic, pure, clear magic shifted in crystal glints and shattered rainbows.

  “Did we do it?” I asked.

  Collins took off his glasses and wiped them on the edge of his shirt. “Purify the well? I believe we have. At least for now. That remnant of sludge”—he pointed his glasses toward the tar sticking at the edges of the floor—“may be inert.”

  “Or it may not?” I asked. “How about a guess?”

  “We have bought ourselves some time and rid the well of the bulk of the taint so that pure magic is flowing. But it won’t stay that way forever. We will have to do more testing as time goes on. Purifying the other wells might be enough to clarify all the magic.”

  “What about the Veiled? What about all the people hospitalized from using poison magic?”

  “I am not sure.” He gave me a smile that seemed sincere. “I am not an expert. Your father would be the one to ask. I have a few questions for him myself, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  I felt through my head. Dad was there, but sort of half-conscious. Dull pain radiated from his general direction. Casting that magic in Stone, the mix of dark and light magic, had taken a lot out of him.

  I was surprised it hadn’t completely knocked me out.

  “He needs some time,” I said.

  “Interesting.” Collins slipped his glasses back on.

  Zayvion was walking back toward me, and I realized I’d sort of checked out of paying attention to everything else that was happening in the room.

  I took a quick look around. Stone was still on the stairs, looking sullen. Shame strolled across the floor, which was now seamless marble, no well to be found. Terric had positioned himself in the center of the room, a disk in his hand, apparently getting ready to cast the booby trap spells. Zayvion, just a few feet away, was shaking his right hand and sending sparks of black and gold magic crackling down to the floor.

  “Closed?” I asked him.

  “Locked. Are you all right?”

  The flash of gold in his eyes and the taste of blood in my throat told me he already knew the answer to that question.

  “Still standing. Terric setting the traps?”

  He nodded. “Thought I’d Ground in case anything…slipped.”