by K. F. Breene
Chapter Fourteen
Had speech been possible, I would’ve broken my mother’s rules and let a whole bunch of four-letter words spew from my mouth. As it was, all I could do was stare. The stare of a child who’d believed one thing her whole life, only to discover her parents had believed something entirely different.
My life hadn’t been a lie. It had been a series of shadows and secrets that I was only now starting to shed light on.
“I’m a little confused. Did you say mage?” Veronica asked with rapidly blinking eyes. “And why am I in danger? Who is out there, Ms. Bristol?”
“We don’t have time for questions, Veronica. Grab some dinner for the road and let’s go. I need to head to your house. Your parents will probably think I’m a little eccentric, but that can’t be helped right now.”
A little eccentric? People had thought she was crazy for years. This would dump her into the “best not to look at her directly” bucket.
“You’re a mage?” I finally got out as Veronica turned up her nose at the overly roasted pork. “Not a witch, but a mage?” I’d learned the distinction from Callie and Dizzy.
“Come on, Veronica, let’s get going. We don’t have much time.” My mother dropped a placeholder in the book and closed it up before motioning for Veronica to get moving. “Come on, come on. Let’s go.”
“Wait. Mother!” I tried to block them from the doorway, but I was still mostly numb from the shock of my world being flipped upside down. Zombies were bad, but somehow this seemed infinitely worse. “Is that a book of spells? You can do spells?”
“Penelope, I do not have time right now to explain your father’s and my reasoning for keeping this from you. Or for keeping you from this. You’ve found out, much later than a curious kid might’ve, and now we need to move forward. Move quickly forward, because we don’t have much time. Veronica, would you come on?”
“I still don’t know what’s happening,” Veronica said, allowing herself to be pushed out of the kitchen by my mother. “Penny?”
I didn’t have any explanation to offer. I’d fallen into this life and all these terms not much more than a month ago. I’d found magic haphazardly, and gone about it the way I went about everything—crashing and burning. To now hear that all these questions could’ve been answered by my own mother was beyond my ability to comprehend. It seemed traitorous, somehow. She could’ve kept me from the zombies. And magical battles. And whatever was happening now.
By the time she returned from Veronica’s house (I wasn’t allowed to go), anger simmered deep in my gut.
“Why did you keep this from me?” I asked, ignoring her tight eyes and the lines of fatigue on her face. “Why have you kept me from anything—everything—concerning witchcraft? Kept me from learning, talking to people…”
“Because you have your daddy’s gift,” she said, grabbing the book on the table and then disappearing again. I longed to reach for it. To open it up and explore its pages. But the situation in the church stopped me. I didn’t want to go blindly into this. I wanted to know what I was getting into. “Maybe more than your daddy’s gift.” She returned with a bottle of scotch that didn’t look as old and dusty as it should’ve for someone who didn’t allow drinking within her house.
She took down two glasses, dropped ice cubes into one of them, and plunked it down in front of me.
“Welcome to womanhood,” she said. “We’ll start by having a drink.”
“I went to New Orleans,” I blurted, wanting to surprise her with my own truth.
She sighed as she poured brown liquid into my glass. “I know. You’re horrible at keeping secrets. Clearly you didn’t get that from me.”
Here came the stare again. My mouth hung open wide enough to catch flies.
“I knew the time was coming, but I’d hoped I had a little longer.” She sat down heavily, and suddenly she looked older. Beaten down. “The simple truth is, Penny, that you have a powerful gift. You have a lot of magic. I don’t know how much, but more than me. You can do things even your father couldn’t do, and you’re not trained. But the magical entity in Seattle has grown corrupt. More corrupt than when your father was working there. Much more. His dying wish was to keep you away from them at all costs. At all costs.” She wiped her forehead. “I should’ve moved, probably. The organization isn’t as far-reaching as they’d like to be. But I stayed, thinking someone would overthrow them. That they’d crumble and rebuild by the time you were ready. You’re past ready, and they are worse than they’ve ever been. I’ve even heard they’ve participated in…” She shook her head as a disgusted look crossed her face. “We’ve run out of time.”
I furrowed my brow, not understanding half of this. “We’ve run out of time for what?”
“They’re lurking around the neighborhood, which means they have an interest in you. It won’t take much for them to figure out who you are, who your father was, and what you might’ve inherited. The fact that I believe you inherited more will… Well. They can be a very charming organization. And when that fails, very hostile.” Moisture glossed her eyes. “I’m not powerful enough to keep you safe, Penny. I have to send you away. Which is fine, but I don’t know who to send you to. But I have a couple days. I’ll find the right fit, don’t you worry. Then we’ll smuggle you out.”
My mind was whirling. Thoughts wouldn’t stick. I choked down the scotch and barely tasted the overcooked roast. After dinner, I trudged up to my room, barely able to keep from crying. I wasn’t sad or hurt, just…frustrated. I’d spent my whole life thinking I was supposed to be the same as my peers, that some quirk of fate had made me different. It turned out that I was not supposed to be the same. I was supposed to be different. And that difference would’ve been celebrated by a certain magical group.
I plopped down onto my bed, thinking things through. My mind flitted back to the mages from New Orleans, and how hard they’d tried to get me to train with them. Were they part of this organization that my mother feared? That my father wanted to keep me from?
The scene last night replayed of its own accord. The stranger demanding the name of the person who had killed his brother. No, wait. That was wrong. Who had ordered his brother killed. Those were two very different things.
Organizations ordered people killed. Mobsters and the like. Was that what I was dealing with?
And did that mean the stranger was on the right side of the divide?
But what if there were no lines at all? Just a mess of murkiness I’d never be able to navigate.
I was too gullible. Too easy to prey upon. Just look—my whole life I’d been bullied and badgered by my mother, and I hadn’t rebelled or pressed for the truth. The woman swore, drank, and had powerful magical volumes hidden around the house. I’d spent years blindly following rules she didn’t follow herself. Living in the dark.
I blew out a breath and pushed myself up off my bed. What better time to morosely stare at the rain? I was approaching the window, planning to stew in my sullenness for a moment, when I caught sight of a person walking down our side of the deserted sidewalk.
I dropped low, all my grievances instantly forgotten.
Peeping out of the corner of the window, a place that would be nearly out of sight from down below, I studied the passerby. The man was lean, wearing a black coat with the collar turned up. He had a bowler hat on his head and his hands in his pockets. No umbrella.
To say he stood out on this drizzly night was to say a shark stood out in a shallow pool. This man did not belong.
I clutched the window frame. My breath came out fast and shallow.
He turned and stared at the house, his toes only a foot from our grass line. A long moment passed. Silence stretched like taffy.
He tore his hands out of his pockets and threw them forward. A flash of purple sparkled along an invisible wall on the edge of our property. The patterns and colors I’d come to expect from magic flashed into view, the weave artful and delicate, though not nearly as tightly woven
as the stranger’s.
A boom sounded from somewhere within the house. I jumped. A slice of yellow cut through the front yard.
“You got business with me?” My mother trudged into my line of sight. In her hands, held like she’d been born with it, was a shotgun.
“Holy crap-shack,” I said, pushing forward until my forehead was pressed against the glass. “Where did she get a shotgun?”
“I have the right to shoot you. Try me!” she boomed.
The man started and jerked back.
A light clicked on across the street. Lewis must’ve fallen asleep in his chair. Soon he’d see the spectacle. Then call the cops.
At least this time it wouldn’t be our fault. Kinda.
“That’s right. You better run. I know what you’re about.” My mother stalked out a little farther, staring at the retreating man in the raincoat.
I shrank back from the window so she wouldn’t see me. I was supposed to be sleeping, conserving my strength. Though I clearly wasn’t the one who needed it. Not that she’d let me tell her that.
Minutes passed, the curtain across the street rustled, and my mother wandered back into the house.
The street fell into an uneasy quiet.
For now.
Chapter Fifteen
I blinked my eyes open and slid the back of my hand across the drool lining my chin. With a start, I realized there was soft light shining through the window. I peeled my face off the window frame and adjusted my butt, still asleep, on the chair I’d dragged over to the window.
Some sentinel I was. I hadn’t even properly lain down and I’d still fallen asleep.
With the pad of my finger, I wiped away the crust in the corner of my eyes and pushed closer to the window again to make sure all was clear.
A jolt coursed through me. I sucked in a breath.
On the other side of the street was a figure. His broad shoulders strained the T-shirt stretched across his torso. Tall and built, he emanated strength and power in repose as he stared up at my window.
It was him.
The stranger.
I shrank back. Had he seen me? There were no lights on behind me, and the glare of the sky should coat the glass, preventing the ability to see in. But then again, my face had nearly been pressed against it. He might’ve identified a cheek and some smushed lips.
Leaning closer again, I saw that he was now looking at the corner of the yard. His gaze roamed and his long arms stayed at his sides, thankfully with nothing between them.
A glance at the clock said it was five thirty in the morning. There was no telling how long he’d been standing there.
He stepped forward, into the street. Without looking left or right, he stalked across it with determination. Up on our sidewalk, he stood right in front of the house.
Then glanced up at me again.
Our gazes connected. Something inside of me did a little dance, a remembrance of the time he’d touched me and electricity shocked through my body. That had been fairly awful and painful, but this was more along the lines of pleasure.
Because I was crazy. That was the only explanation.
He spread out his hands in front of him. Rain fell, hitting a bubble around his body like it had the other night. Falling away without soaking him. It had to be some kind of magic, but I didn’t see the weave. Just like I couldn’t see the weave of the ward.
His fingers waggled slowly. A blast of light materialized on our property line, where I’d seen the purple wall earlier, and slapped into his palms in midair.
He stepped back and dropped his hands a bit as a little grin lit up his face.
His gaze hit mine, and though I couldn’t see detail, I knew he thought I’d put up that bit of magic.
After resuming his original place, he lifted his hands once again. A moment later, strings of various colors, textures, and patterns rose from the yards next to mine and the one across the street. They rose from his boots. Twisted out from his clothes. Wafted from the sidewalk. From everywhere. They all met up at his waggling fingers, and were then directed into an extremely intricate weave.
His posture, expression, and the playful drift and dance of the magic made the process look effortless. Beautiful.
The weave plastered itself along the invisible wall my father had created before converging into a diagonal line. Cracks formed along the surface, and then the whole place lit up. What had once been invisible became a gorgeous tapestry of color.
I watched in awe as he called up another weave, this one solely from his pocket. He tapped the wall with his finger. The magic broke like shatter-proof glass, raining down in pieces.
The stranger had cracked the ward. It hadn’t taken a couple days of study. It had taken a couple hours at the most. Ten minutes at the least.
The now-familiar surge of adrenaline ran through me. Fight or flight, and closets wouldn’t help me. I had to fight!
I pushed away from the window and grabbed out the scariest thing I could find: a tennis racket. “I need to try harder.”
I threw open my bedroom door, going for the biggest, loudest, craziest weapon in the house.
“Mother!” Rounding the corner into the stairwell, I took the steps two at a time, missed one toward the bottom, and tumbled down the rest. After a grunt, I picked myself up off the ground and snatched up the racket again. It might not help, but we were in this together now. “Mother, it’s the guy. The stranger. He just got past the first ward. Where’s that shotgun?”
I found her on the couch, struggling up to sit and blinking puffy eyes. Her hand slapped down next to her. Onto the gun. “I’m awake.”
“I’ll get a sword.”
“Get King Arthur. It handles the best.”
“Who are you?”
“A mother that will protect her child at any cost.” My mother straightened her top, paused long enough for a scary sort of determined expression to settle on her face, and started forward.
I ducked into her study, grabbed the sword off its decorative holder on the wall, and ran back out. Probably wasn’t wise to run with a sword, but desperate times, as they said.
My mother threw open the front door, cocked the shotgun, and lowered the business end, leveling it no more than ten feet from the stranger’s large torso. He didn’t so much as flinch.
“Mrs. Bristol, right?” the stranger said in his deep, scratchy voice, his gaze roaming the side of the house.
“Mzzzz Bristol. I’m widowed, which means I don’t have a man to hide behind. That makes me three times as dangerous. You are on my property. I’d suggest you get off.”
His little smile was back. “Yes, ma’am. You are correct, I am on your property. This second ward is expertly done. My compliments to the chef.”
“I’ll call the cops. Right after I shoot you.” My mother moved to get in better position, as though she’d used the gun every day of her life.
Just what hobbies had she been taking up besides knitting?
“You don’t want to do that, ma’am. You’ve had some visitors.” He spread out his fingers like he had before. “Thankfully, you had these wards up. But they would’ve gotten through eventually. I can see you are ready to shoot me. Please don’t. My brother worked for the guild. Trusted them. Tried to change them from within. They killed him three years ago.” He dropped his hands and looked straight at my mother. “The guild is my enemy. I would sooner tear them down to the ground than help them.”
My mother didn’t budge an inch. Then again, she didn’t pull the trigger, either.
“I didn’t think they knew about Penny Bristol yet. But I ran into a member of the guild hiding”—he turned and pointed at Lewis’s yard—“just in that yard there. They are watching this house. I don’t know how much they know, but knowing even a little is enough. Or it is with your daughter, at any rate. If they saw what I did, more of them will descend on your house. They’ll drag her out by her hair if they have to.”
“If they saw what you did?” my mother aske
d.
I grimaced. “I may have left a thing or two out of the story I told you,” I murmured.
I could just see my mother thinning her lips.
Magic drifted up from the ground again, thicker streams than before, pulling from at least two dozen places within the yard.
“He’s getting ready to break this second ward,” I said in a strangely high-pitched squeak. “He’s pulling magic from the ground right now.”
The stranger’s deep blue gaze snapped to mine. His eyes widened. “Even very little would be enough for them to know you’re special, Penny Bristol.” He sounded impressed. Even proud.
I flushed, then glowered to undermine the effect. This guy killed people. I was not about to develop a soft spot for him because of a few words of praise, however tickled I was to be noticed.
“What do you mean, pulling from the ground?” my mother said, looking at his feet.
I pointed at what I was seeing, which was notably less clear now that I’d vocally made note of it. “He’s about to create the weave to break the ward.”
My mother glanced back at me, her eyes as wide as the stranger’s.
“What?” I asked. “I know a little bit of magic. From New Orleans.”
“I’d like to come in, Ms. Bristol,” the stranger said, his voice solemn. “You can’t let them have her. I can help you protect her.”
Chapter Sixteen
The breath caught in Emery’s chest as he waited for the verdict. He’d meant to tear down both of these wards in order to show his power, then put up better ones to protect Penny and her family, but this second ward must’ve taken months to put into place. It had been anchored to this spot, maturing, for years. It was expertly crafted, finely woven, and stuffed with fresh power. He could force it to break, but he doubted many others could.