Cornered Magic

by Charissa Dufour

  Chapter Nine

  Sam and Amber listened to her parents settle down for the night, her father’s breathing slowly turning into loud snores that vibrated throughout the apartment. From Amber’s bedroom, they could hear the faint murmur of at least three other snorers in the building. As quietly as they could, they pulled the old window open. Sam flung a leg out, carefully finding a footing before dragging her other leg out, her hands firmly gripping the windowsill.

  Amber gave her a friendly peck on the cheek. “Be safe.”

  Sam nodded before she began the slow descent. Halfway down she had to work her way sideways in order to avoid the next window. She had just made it far enough away from the second story window to begin her descent again when she lost her grip and began to slide. The crumbling wall bit into her palms and bruised her knees as she scrambled, her hands and feet all trying to find purchase in the pockmarked wall. She slid a few feet before her fingers dug into the decaying cement. As her body came to a sudden stop, her left foot found a ledge. The resulting sudden stop jarred her leg. She quickly pulled on her new hand hold, relieving the weight from her injured ankle.

  Tentatively, Sam put some weight on the leg. As quickly as she could, she found another toe hold to support her weight. She didn’t think the ankle was broken, just badly sprained.

  Sam tried to look over her shoulder. She still had one and a half stories to climb with only one foot. Sam had never had a lot of upper body strength. Other than climbing out her window on the odd occasion, she hadn’t had a need to be strong.

  Well, that changes today, she thought as she slowly lowered herself using nothing but her arms, while her one good foot frantically searched for a new foothold.

  It was a long and painful journey down to the ground. Sam glanced up, spotting Amber hanging out her window, her fist in her mouth. Evidently Amber had nearly screamed when Sam began her frantic slide downward. Sam waved to her, hoping she would go back inside before Sam began limping toward the row houses.

  Sam waited for a second, but it quickly became clear Amber would not close her curtains until her friend was out of sight. Resignedly, Sam turned and limped across the street. She could almost feel Amber’s gaze on her back as she turned toward the vampires’ territory.

  Sam felt as though her body was growing heavier with each step as she dragged herself into the vampires’ territory. She didn’t want to do this. Though she had never met the mage in question, she doubted he deserved what was coming to him. Still, she had to do whatever she could to save Carl.

  It wasn’t a long walk between her housing complex and the row-house neighborhood, but even in that short distance, she managed to get stopped. Chad called to her, bringing her to a halt.

  “What are you doing out?” he demanded.

  “Just have to meet someone,” she said, hoping to draw the conversation to a quick end.

  “Surely not tonight,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up against his chest.

  Chad kissed her lightly, as though inviting her to do more. She ignored the invitation and turned her head away. With the movement, his grip on her loosened.

  “Seriously?” he asked, stepping away from her.

  “I’m sorry, but I got to go.”

  Chad glanced over his shoulder, in the direction she had been traveling. “To vamp territory.”

  “What does it matter?” she snapped, the pain in her ankle and her own nervousness making her snippier than normal.

  “You are not going into vamp territory, Sam.”

  “It’s not for you to say.”

  “I’m your boyfriend, like hell it ain’t!”

  “Oh, shut up,” she growled as she surged past him.

  Chad caught her arm, spinning her around on her weak ankle. Sam grimaced with the pain, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “You are not going in there,” he repeated. “You do and we’re through.”

  Sam shrugged. “Then we’re through.”

  With that final statement, she used his shock to escape.

  As she limped into the row-house neighborhood, she began to wonder what Heywood would want from her next. Would they allow Carl’s secret to fade into oblivion, or would they continue to use him to get her to do their dirty work? Sam had just reached Heywood’s home when she came to the ugly realization that they might continue to blackmail her for years to come.

  She was just beginning to wonder if she should turn around and leave when the door opened, revealing Lee. The old vampire smiled at her as he guided her up the steps and into the house. Her brain was still working through her depressing epiphany as her feet moved mechanically, leading her into the lion’s den.

  “What happened to you?” asked a voice from the landing above her.

  Sam looked up to where Heywood stood on the staircase landing positioned halfway between the first and second floor, where the stairs did a switchback and headed in the opposite direction.

  “Just a sprained ankle,” she said, half her mind still sorting through her dilemma.

  “Carry her up here, Lee.”

  Before she could protest, Lee scooped her up and raced up the stairs. Heywood made his way up after Lee to the second story. Inside the room, she had first met Heywood, Lee lowered her to a seat.

  “Want me to look at it?” Lee asked as Heywood took his own seat.

  “No. It’s fine. Thank you,” she replied, still a little breathless from the speed of the vampire’s movements.

  It was one thing to know that vampires moved with lightning speed. It was an entirely different thing to experience it first-hand.

  Today, Heywood was garbed in snug pants covered in patches that had been stitched on, making them into a sort of artistic collage. Sam suspected the patches had been added by himself. She didn’t think the pants had come like that. With the unusual pants, he wore a durable-looking jacket that vaguely resembled the human’s army coats. The sleeves were pushed up, revealing two studded bracers on his wrists. On a normal teenager, a human teenager, the bracers would have been nothing more than a fashion statement, but on a vampire, they were a weapon. A blow at vampire speeds, with those bracers, would be deadly.

  “I think you might want to wear this,” suggested Heywood as he tossed a black beanie to her.

  Sam pulled it down over her white hair. Without her hair visible, she might be confused for another vampire. Sam hadn’t expected them to worry about her reputation, but she was thankful for the consideration.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Sam was just about to ask what the holdup was when a third and fourth vampire appeared. They were dressed in black like everyone else, with beanies over their heads, though their clothing bespoke the donations bins—like Sam’s—rather than a unique style. Sam assumed the leader of the vampires had more luxury items, like studded bracers and designer jackets than the average Reservation inhabitant.

  “Excellent,” said Heywood with a brisk clap of his hands. “Let’s go.”

  “Is there a plan I should I know about?” asked Sam.

  The four vampires looked at her as though she was crazy.

  “Get the relic,” said Heywood, sounding as though he had just explained that the sun is yellow.

  Sam still didn’t know what the relic was, and she wasn’t about to ask. Her job was to incapacitate the mage, leaving the other four to search his apartment. Truth was, she didn’t need to know what they were stealing.

  Sam silenced her fears and hobbled after the vampires. As the others began to descend the steps, Lee stepped in front of her, motioning for her to climb onto his back. Her ankle hurt badly enough that she didn’t worry about his offer, but rather scrambled up until she rested on his back.

  With her as a backpack, they were outside the mage’s housing complex in seconds. Lee set her down behind the other vampires. Sam had hoped to have time to think about Lee and the accident he might have during their mission while they traveled, but the j
ourney had been too short to do anything other than gasp.

  To Sam’s surprise, three men stood outside one of the entrances, watching the vampires. This housing complex had originally been three traditional apartment buildings with two narrow parks in between them. When the housing crisis had escalated, they quickly built two more apartment buildings in between the original three. Whoever had built the two new ones hadn’t worried about matching the styles, but rather how to make it as cheap as possible. The result was one long building that looked as though it had split-personality disorder.

  “Heywood,” called one of the men standing outside the entrance. “I was expecting your goons, but not you.”

  Sam heard the slight tremble in his voice. Even without Amber here to tell her, she knew he was afraid. Sam would have thought him rather dumb if he hadn’t been afraid of the head vampire. She was assuming the man speaking to them was the mage in question, though how he had known they were coming was beyond her.

  “You really think five vampires can take us mages?” he asked.

  Sam glanced at Heywood. He was smiling. He liked deceiving his enemy. Sam couldn’t decide if she admired Heywood’s strategy or despised him for it. Either way, the mage had no idea that she was a fae, much less a Void.

  “I take it you’re here for the ring,” continued the mage.

  Again, Heywood just smiled.

  “You have it?” asked Lee.

  “I never let it go,” replied the mage—Sam recalled that his name was Dan—as he lifted his hand and twirled a powerful ring around his pinkie.

  “Glad to see that.”

  “My friends are prepared to fight to the death to keep it from you.”

  “They can try,” said Heywood quietly, so quietly Sam could barely hear him; she doubted the mages had.

  Sam began to pull her gift up from the prison in her heart. Her tattoo burned as she set its magic aside. Her gift leaked out in tendrils as it caressed the people around her. As she tasted the four vampires, she directed her gifts to the others.

  She felt their power. Mages, at least well-trained mages, were the most powerful of the mystics, and the mages standing before her paled only to Roman. They were by far the most powerful mystics living within the Res. Sam wondered if Heywood knew what they were up against.

  Their power swam together, mingling until she had trouble telling what came from one and what from the others. She clamped down on her gift, her tattoo burning until she almost cried out. Her gift did not want to come back under control. It wanted to take from the others, molding itself in their power, in their identity. She fought against it until sweat dampened her beanie and trickled down her spine.

  She had to keep her gift in control or their secret weapon wouldn’t be so secret.

  The mages stood in a loose triangle, as though the other two mages were bodyguards for Dan. Sam wished their formation was that simple, but she knew it came from a mage strategy where the three mages worked together, combining their power. She hoped this did not affect the way she stole their power. If they were weaving their magic together, she might not be able to drain one without draining the others.

  While that might not normally bother someone like Heywood, she knew what the results would be. Like any tank or battery, she had a capacity limit, and when that limit was reached, her last secret would be revealed.

  Sam felt the trickle of power before she saw their triangle began to glow. Unlike the vampires, she knew a little about how the mages’ power worked. They had arrived early to the fight to prepare, increasing their power. However Dan had discovered that the vampires would be attacking, his foreknowledge was going to be the deciding factor. Sam wanted to warn Heywood, but she didn’t know if the mages would hear her whispers.

  She glanced at the old vampire, but his face was still masked in haughty playfulness. He was having fun toying with the mages.

  Sam swallowed the fear rising from her gut. The plan had been to catch Dan in his apartment, where Sam would disable him and the vampires would make a quick search of his apartment. This was an entirely different kettle of fish.

  She glanced up at the walls of the Reservation. They were standing in the large courtyard of the Reservation, used by the inhabitants for any sort of large gathering and for their own trading. This late at night, the courtyard was empty. From two perspectives, the guards could not see them, blocked by a tall housing complex on the north and south side of the courtyard. But the other two angles were open, allowing any guard passing by to see the firework display of the mages defending themselves. If they weren’t careful, they would all end up dead with a bullet in their skulls.

  “The guards,” she whispered, just loud enough for Heywood and Lee to hear with their vampire-enhanced hearing.

  Heywood rolled his eyes over to where he stood and threw her a wink. Whatever he had planned, he wasn’t worried about the humans. Before turning his attention back to the mages, he gave her a defined nod.

  It was time.

  Sam forced herself to set the worry aside. She needed to be focused on her gift. Sam let it free again, giving it a long rein. It snaked out, winding itself into the fabric of the spell the mages were working on. Sam waited until her gift had weaved itself through all three mages. When it had, she gave it a yank, dragging her gift and the mage’s power with it.

  All three mages slumped, barely keeping themselves on their feet. At that same instance, the vampires attacked.

  They charged forward in a group. For some reason, they weren’t moving at the lightning speed she had experienced before. Sam put the oddity aside, leaving it with her fear so that she could focus on her gift. She could always ask them later.

  Her gift surged, pressing itself against the walls of her control. It wanted to drain them all, mage and vampire alike, and though the thought was tempting, she held it back by a thin thread. Once she knew her gift was back under control, she looked for an enemy.

  While she was busy wrangling her gift, one mage raised his hand and chanted something strange. A second later a ball of sunlight appeared above their heads, streaming down on the vampires, burning them.

  Sam didn’t stop to consider what side she should be on, but reached up, focused on the ball of light, and released her power. Within seconds she had drained the spell of its magic.

  Sam glowed.

  Though she knew it wasn’t visible to the others, she could feel the sunlight spell inside, demanding to be released. But she knew if she did that, her allies would burn to ash.

  What Heywood—and in fact, everyone else—didn’t realize was that Sam could do a lot more than just drain powers from other mystics.

  Sam put these thoughts aside, with her fear and her confusion, and focused on the here and now. The two vampires she didn’t know had stumbled to the ground under the power of the sunlight spell, but Heywood and Lee had continued forward, plowing into Dan and the mage who had done the sunlight spell.

  Sam focused on the only mage still on his feet and began sucking his power away. She tried to take as much as she could, her skin beginning to tingle and grow hot as her magical battery neared its capacity. As she continued to take from the mage, he dropped to his knees, his eyes drooping as though he was about to pass out.

  Sam reached her limit, dropping to one knee like a man proposing. She needed to release the power built up inside her before she exploded, but if she did Heywood and Lee would know her secret.

  Sam squeezed her eyes shut. Not even her parents knew that she could wield the magic she stole. She had first learned of her extended ability a year after her gift had manifested. She had gotten angry at a schoolmate—a werewolf—and taken his power. After running away from school in shame, she had found her hand turning into wolf claws. She had hidden behind a dumpster for five hours, waiting for the power to drain on its own. If anyone knew what she could do, they would never trust her. She doubted even Amber and Carl would be willing to look past her abilities.

&nb
sp; All the same, she wasn’t going to be of any more use until she dispelled the magic raging inside her. The worst part was, her gift sang to her, calling for her to dispel the power and steal yet more. It wanted to take and take, even when she was full to bursting.

  Sam focused on the mage still on his feet. Unlike a mage, she wasn’t trained. She didn’t know any spells to use with her stolen powers, and so she focused on Dan, who was just climbing back to his feet after disengaging himself from Heywood with a powerful Scorching-Ray spell. Instead of trying anything fancy, she simply flung the power back at him, knocking him off his feet as though another vampire had plowed into him. He fell back, bashing his skull against the pavement.

  Sam refused to worry about it—even though a voice in the back of her mind told her she had killed him—and turned toward the mage who had found himself caught between Lee and one of the other vampires.

  Sam blinked and the mage was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Sam glanced around the courtyard, suddenly spotting the mage at the far end of the large empty space. Lee and the other vampire raced after the mage. Instead of working on the mage, Sam released her gift onto Lee.

  Like before, she let her gift leak into Lee, winding itself around the mystical side of his strength. She waited, knowing full well she was off mission until her gift had wound itself around the very core of his being. She could feel him, taste him, as her gift and he became one. The vampire continued to run, oblivious to what the Void was doing. Just as the mage threw a spell at the vampires, Sam gave her gift a mighty jerk, tearing it back with every fiber of her control and hatred.

  Lee dropped to the ground and immediately turned into ash.

  Sam had no idea what her powers could do. She had never pushed them to the limit until now, but now she knew. She could take the very life force from a person, even a vampire. The thought both thrilled and scared her.

  Sam turned to the mage, who was still teleporting around the courtyard, keeping the other vampire running in circles. Being filled with the power of Lee, she had speed and strength at her disposal, rather than innate magic as she had after draining Dan the mage. She watched the mage bounce around the courtyard, slowly taking notice of a pattern.

  With Lee’s power buzzing in her ears, she turned and raced to the corner of the yard where she expected the mage to teleport next. As expected, the mage appeared just as she reached the corner. She grabbed him before he could move again, her motion taking them both to the ground. Before she could do more than wrap her arms and legs around the mage, Heywood appeared at her side. He grabbed the mage’s head and gave it a twist.

  Even as the vampire power drained from her body, Sam could hear the distinctive pop as the mage’s neck broke.

  As though the pop was the bell ending a round of boxing, the courtyard went silent. Sam disengaged herself from the mage’s dead body and scrambled to her feet.

  Rain was beginning to splatter down on them, quickly picking up tempo. Sam glanced at the pile of ash that had been Lee and wondered if Heywood had noticed his enforcer had died.

  Their leader walked over to Dan’s body and pulled the disputed ring from his hand.