by A C Spahn
“That’s good. But it’s not enough. Now that the enchantress has taken Kendall, I doubt she’s coming back here. We need to track her down. I’m the only one who can do it.”
“Axel won’t—”
“I’m not talking to Axel. I’m talking to Desmond.” I reached up to squeeze his shoulder. “You know me. You know I won’t use magic to hurt others. Kendall’s life is at stake. Trust me.” Choose me, I silently urged. Choose me over them.
Desmond’s gaze drifted to the barn door, toward where his own kind puttered around outside. His eyes lingered briefly, then flicked back to me, resolute. “All right. What do you need?”
I exhaled. “The bit of bear claw you pulled from my shoulder. Do you still have it?”
“No, but I know where to find it.”
“Get it for me. It’s time to demand some answers.”
Chapter 20
DESMOND RETURNED with the bit of Shifty Pete’s bear claw in a sealed evidence bag. I didn’t ask how he’d gotten it away from the other Voids, but assumed it had involved a good deal of sneaking around near their evidence table outside.
While waiting, I had prepared my enchantment. My own hair as a channel, and an unenchanted bracelet as a target—a wide band of silver bedecked with a sun-shaped design of amber rhinestones.
The evidence bag ripped easily, and Desmond shook the claw out into my hand. I set it on the ground beside the bracelet, then finished twining the hairs I’d plucked into a tiny braid.
“You’re gonna go bald if you keep enchanting like this,” Desmond said.
“It’s okay, I’ll just ask Axel for style tips,” I shot back. I smiled. We were doing something, helping Kendall together, and it had given my mood a huge boost. I lay the thin braid across the claw and the sunburst on the bracelet, then pulled another bracelet from my purse.
With Voids everywhere, very little magic hung in the barn. Instead I’d chosen to tap one of my already-enchanted articles, an enchantment designed to help me find my car in big parking lots. Locater magic, inclined toward seeking and searching.
Breathe in, breathe out. My eyes closed, sinking me into concentration. I drew the finder enchantment from the bracelet—kadumkadumkadum—and focused it on the claw, steeping it in Shifty Pete’s essence, the part of his soul that had chosen the form of a bear. Find this man, I chanted. Guide me to him. Eager, its purpose redoubled, the magic channeled through the hair and into the sunburst on the new bracelet.
My hair channel smoldered on the dirt floor before me. I tossed some dust on it to quench the sparks, then cautiously picked up the enchanted bracelet and slid it onto my arm. After my failure to track Kendall, I feared this enchantment wouldn’t work either, but Shifty Pete’s location wasn’t being clouded by too much magic. Immediately the bracelet rotated so the sunburst angled toward the stable door. I turned 180 degrees, and the bracelet rotated so it continued to point in the same direction.
Relief eased the tension in my heart. I had a lead. “I’m going to find the shifter who attacked us and make him tell me where the enchantress is.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. He knows you’re a Void. If you show up, he’ll be afraid to talk. Besides, you need to stay here to avoid suspicion.”
I turned to go. Desmond caught my hand. Pressing it between his palms, he stepped close to me. His sawdust and sandalwood aroma wafted over me, making my heart flutter. “Promise you won’t go fight the enchantress without me.”
I breathed deep. His face waited inches from mine. If I stood on my toes, I could reach his lips. My weight shifted forward. I rose toward him, my hand warm in his.
Someone pounded on the barn door. “Desoto!”
Desmond muttered a curse and shoved me into the shadows on the far side of the building. Just in time, too, because a heartbeat later the door burst open and Axel strode in. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking,” said Desmond.
“Think outside.”
“Will do.” Desmond moved to step around Axel, but the big man stuck out an arm and blocked him.
Eyes narrow, Axel squinted at the floor. “What’s that?”
My breath caught. The remnants of my enchantment lay on the floor, the thin braid of my hair still giving off wisps of smoke.
Desmond looked at it, and his honest face could hide nothing. Axel glowered at him. “Where is she?”
“Uh, who?”
Axel raised his voice. “Miss Morales, come out now.”
I didn’t move.
“She already left,” Desmond said quickly. My eyes closed. He was such a bad liar.
Axel’s eyes began searching the darkness. “This was unnecessary magic,” he said. “We’re going to need to ask you some questions, Miss Morales. It’ll be easier if you cooperate.”
Crap. I knew what that meant—he wanted to arrest me again. If I surrendered, I’d be held up for hours. Possibly for the rest of my life, if Bane Harrow decided I was more trouble than I was worth. I had to escape, now. In a normal situation, I’d have flung my trapping necklace at Axel and then used my fog ring to hide my exit, but neither of those enchantments would work on a Void. I needed to create a distraction, something not born of magic.
Smoke continued to drift up from the singed hair. I fished in my bag and pulled out a ring at random, unable to see them in the darkness. Axel shifted his weight, and Desmond did the same, looking like he was about to start a fight. I closed my hand around the ring and drew in its magic.
KadumKadumKadumKadum
The ring I’d chosen had a battle enchantment that projected an aura of confusion. When active, everybody within ten paces of me would feel distracted, a little uncertain of what they were doing. But now I’d drawn the magic in, and its purpose turned against me instead. Instantly my thoughts muddled, and I fought to remember what I was trying to do. Enchanting ... I was enchanting something. Something smoking. Fire. I wanted to set my hair on fire. Except not the hair on my head. That would be silly. It was the hair on the ground, the hair I’d used as a magical channel already. Not on my head. Silly.
Grinning as if at a private joke, I extended my hands toward the remnants of my tracking enchantment. Channeling magic from this far away was difficult, and the magic made my fingers spark with pins and needles as it left me. An ache spread up my arm as I used the hair as both focus and channel, sending as much of the magic into it as I could. Far more than the hair could handle.
Flame burst into being, consuming the hair and spurting sparks that lodged in the dry wood of the barn. Axel cursed and leapt back. Desmond leapt the other way. Dense smoke billowed up, choking the air and deepening the darkness. As the magic left my body, the confusion in my head cleared. I used the distraction to burst from my cover and dart back out into the open-air stalls. Behind me, Axel shouted for backup. I snatched a ring of coordination from my bag, slipped it on my pinkie, and then went into a slide as I approached the metal fence. I skidded under the lowest rung and was up running a second later, sprinting through the overgrown field.
My arm still tingled, half-numb from casting the enchantment at a distance. I shook it, willing feeling back into my fingers. I chanced a look over my shoulder. Smoke poured out the open stall door behind me, backed by glimmers of yellow flame. A moment later something smothered the flickering sparks. Axel and Desmond must have gotten the fire under control.
KADUMKADUMKADUM
The magic bought me escape, but it had been a haphazard job. I’d used the hair as focus and channel, but I’d had no target to hold the magic afterward. After escaping the hair, it now gravitated toward its last home. Me. I felt it chasing me, slamming against me, bringing bursts of terrifying confusion before receding again, aching for me to channel it and give it purpose. I pushed it away as I ran, fending off the waves pounding my mind. I couldn’t stop and channel the magic right now, not with the Voids right behind me. If I let any of it in, it would try to fulfill its last purpose, confusing me and making me an e
asy target.
I threw myself into my car and keyed the ignition, peeling out and screaming down the country road before any Voids managed to round the barn. All the while the magic pursued me.
KADUMKADUMKADUMKADUM
Where was I? Why was I driving a narrow road in the middle of nowhere? I frowned at my rearview mirror. Was that smoke? Somebody should call the fire de—
The magic receded. My thoughts came back into focus. I ripped open my glove box and rummaged blindly inside, fighting to keep my car on the correct side of the road.
KADUMKADUMKADUM
Goodness, my glove box was messy. I really needed to clean it, though I didn’t know why I’d decided to do so while driving—wait. I was looking for something. Something important. The magic. I had to channel the magic.
My fingers closed on a tin of mints and a pack of tissues. I dropped the tin on the passenger’s seat and tore the tissue pack open. I squirmed in my seat until I could maneuver the disenchanted confusion ring out of my pocket, then dropped that next to the mints.
KADUMKADUMKADUM
Who left these mints and that ring on my passenger seat?
The magic. Channel the magic. Focus, Adrienne!
KADUMKADUMKADUM
The magic pounded on me, forcing its way in like cockroaches squirming through a wall. A thousand distractions floated through my mind, whispering questions whose answers eluded me. My brain muddled through sludge, each decision an agony. I opened one tissue and dropped it over the ring and the mints. Be contained, I chanted, unable to summon better words. Be held.
The confusion magic swirled into the tin, focused there by my thoughts, then channeled through the tissue into the ring. Before the magic even finished channeling, I could feel it bleeding back out of the ring. This enchantment wouldn’t take hold. The materials weren’t right, and the magic wasn’t inclined to its new purpose of sitting still. It leaked from the ring and crawled right back at me.
KadumKadumKadum
My enchantment wouldn’t use up the magic, but it had bought me a few minutes. While the magic fought to escape its prison, I searched for a turnoff, somewhere I could hide from the Union and channel the magic into a more permanent container. Unfortunately the road was too straight, and every turnoff led onto private property. I sped back toward the freeway, knuckles white as I gripped the wheel and tried to ignore the magic’s drum growing stronger.
Gravel turned to asphalt and the country road faded into suburban homes. I slowed, merging into the loose stream of commuters and errand runners. My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, but nothing pursued me. Not yet, anyway. I was relieved to not see smoke plumes clouding the sky. The fire hadn’t spread.
KADUM. KADUM. KADUM.
Whispers of confusion tickled my mind. Points of pain flared behind my eyes. I pulled into the first parking lot I found—a gas station—and stumbled out of the car. People stared as I clutched a streetlight post and forced myself to breathe. Focus, Adrienne. Get rid of the magic.
If I was in my workshop, I would channel the magic into a novelty maze I won at a carnival, a cheap plastic thing where you guide a tiny metal ball through narrow passages. But that was at Crafter’s Haven, and I didn’t trust myself to drive that far in this state. Not without getting into a wreck, or at least getting pulled over.
The maze gave me an idea, though. I staggered to my car’s passenger side, wrenched the door open, and leaned over the seat. Maze, I thought. Maze, maze, maze. The mantra fended off the confusion enough for me to find a piece of paper and a blue highlighter in the glove box.
“Are you okay?” someone asked. I gave a noncommittal grunt and spread the paper on the dash, then started to draw.
Lines took shape, neat lines that curved and turned in parallel corridors. I let my hand lead, drawing turns and twists, alternate paths and dead ends. When I finished I looked at my work. I’d drawn my enchantment tattoo, my hand tracing the familiar design by instinct.
It would do. On another sheet of paper I quickly drew a big blue question mark. I yanked my phone charger out of its port in the CD console and laid it on the seat with one end touching the maze and the other touching the question mark. Then I grabbed the ring, its magic still leaking, and breathed in what was left. At the same time I opened myself to the magic battering me and let it inside.
KADUMKADUMKADUMKADUM
I winced as the magic pounded inside my brain, murdering my ability to concentrate. Pain burned in my eye sockets, and I pressed my knuckles against them. How had I let the magic get this bad? Why had I been so careless? Usually I channeled it long before it got to this point. Enchantment. I had to make an enchantment somehow ...
Opening my eyes, I was surprised to see the materials for an enchantment already laid out on the passenger seat. Someone had thought ahead. The sight brought back a wispy memory of my goal. I held my hands over question mark, phone charger, and maze. Confuse, I chanted. Become an enigma. Make paths that trick the eye, impossible to follow.
Magic surged into the blue question mark, bouncing around in the representation of confusion until it collected itself into one mass of chaos. Then it streamed through the charger cord and into the drawn maze. A moment later the maze’s color took on an orange sheen. The pressure in my skull vanished.
I collapsed to my knees on the hot asphalt. Deep breaths, Adrienne. It’s done now. The phone charger had been a good call. Organic materials could channel more magic, but human-made things contained it more efficiently. This chaos magic had needed the firm guidance of plastic and metal. With it, I’d ensured this particular bit of magic wouldn’t pursue me again. The enchantment would hold it long enough to forget me. If and when the maze enchantment did break, the magic would float around near the drawing until some enchanter wandered in to pick it up, or it faded back into the noise of Earth’s magical field.
Wind fluttered the papers on the seat. I picked up the maze and studied it. From familiarity I knew the tattoo’s maze wasn’t solvable. No paths led from one end to the other. It should have been a simple matter to see that in this reproduction, but for some reason the lines confused me, made my thoughts sluggish and prevented my eyes from staying on the same spot. The blue highlighter flashed orange when the light hit it just right, the enchantment manifesting in a dash of art. I sighed. It had been close.
“Neat drawing,” said a voice behind me. I jumped to my feet, clutching the paper to my chest.
A young man stood beside my open car door, his face awash in concern. He wore painters’ clothes, his overalls spotted with tan and white. Across the parking lot I spotted a van with a painting company logo and a handful of other men staring at us.
My voice wouldn’t come. I watched the young man wide-eyed until he cleared his throat. “So, really. Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”
Finally I remembered how words worked. “No,” I said. “Sorry. I ... I have, um, panic attacks.”
“Should you be driving if you’re—”
“I’m fine. Really. Please go.”
He licked his lips and looked nervously back at his buddies. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
With a shrug, he turned and trotted back past the gas pumps toward the van. I waited until the painters had loaded up and pulled out, watching them until they disappeared down the street. Only then did I round my car and crawl back into the driver’s seat.
My hands shook. The paper maze rustled against my chest. I lowered it into my lap and stared at the design, an exact copy of the one on my chest, yet enchanted to seem totally unfamiliar.
One thought echoed. That man had seen the maze before I enchanted it, before it took on its aura of confusion. Chances were he thought it was just a neat pattern. Most likely he was just a concerned guy trying to help out. But even so, he might remember some of the pattern. He might be able to replicate a bit of it. And even that much, if it fell under the wrong eyes, would tell everyone from my cult exactly where I was.
; Chapter 21
I COULDN’T GO HOME, not with the Union hunting me, so I stopped at a cafe with free internet and used my phone to search for the painting company that owned the van. To my relief, it appeared legitimate. Family owned for thirty years, doing business all over the Bay Area, with dozens of reviews on various sites. The friendly guy was exactly what he appeared to be. Still, I cursed my carelessness. I couldn’t afford more mistakes like that.
Now that I no longer felt under assault from arcane powers, I returned my attention to the tracking bracelet I’d made. Its gem still pointed deeper into the city. I used my phone’s GPS to figure the exact bearing, then drew a line on a digital map from my current position to the direction the bracelet pointed. Then I drove a few miles south and repeated the test. After one more stop, I had three lines on the map. They all intersected around a small college just outside of San Francisco’s borders. There I would find Shifty Pete.
Concrete and metal gave way to swooping trees as I approached the campus. Towering palms lined the road, and behind them groves of willows swayed in the breeze above rustling fields of manicured grass. The lawn had been edged so sharply, it looked like a slice of fudge.
When the buildings came into view, they too boasted of money. Stained glass windows nestled in marble arches. Flagstone walkways led to fenced patios and turret-topped balconies. A security booth loomed alongside the single-lane entrance to the parking lot. As I pulled up to the gate, the guard glanced into my car and paused, studying my features. My cheeks reddened. Maybe my car just had too many dents to mark me as a student here. Or maybe he thought I looked like I didn’t belong. Either way, the scrutiny irked me.
After what felt like ages, but was probably only a second or two, he waved me through. Score another point for looking small and harmless, I guess.
Red signs forbade me from parking at numbered spots, which apparently belonged to specific people. I drove past crisply painted numbers until I reached a strip of metered parking near the back of the lot. When I saw the rates, my jaw dropped. But I clinked quarters into the machine and grumbled about how it was cheaper to park on the Embarcadero.