Sadie had been so caught up in her own emotional storm, she hadn’t worked out the obvious. “You wanted the Stag mercenaries to find us.” That’s why he hadn’t made a big deal about staying behind wards or getting hold of a containment box to store the amulet in.
“My reputation is enough to scare most people off.” He opened the passenger door for her. “Now, we’ll get to see if it discourages the client.” She climbed into the seat and waited for him to shut the door. He stared down at her. A street light showed his brooding expression. “Are you scared of me?”
“No.” She reached for the door handle and slammed it shut.
A faint grin twisted his mouth. He walked around the front of the truck and opened the door for Karma before getting in, himself.
She wasn’t scared of Marcus, but she was terrified of what was changing between them.
Sadie lay in bed, listening, imagining that she could hear Marcus breathing. Separate beds in a single room gave a disconcerting intimacy. Before they’d turned in for the night, the television had filled the space. Marcus had stepped out, ostensibly to allow Karma a final flight for the night, while Sadie got ready for bed.
It hadn’t been so awkward last night. But last night she’d been tired and scared. Tonight, they’d just kissed.
She couldn’t sleep.
She rolled over carefully, trying not to rustle the sheets.
Marcus lay with his back to her, facing the door.
Karma roosted on his backpack at the foot of the bed. The bird’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. How was that even possible? But Karma wasn’t an ordinary bird. She was a phoenix.
Senator Aurelius had kept a phoenix alive and caged for decades.
Sadie hugged her pillow. Marcus was determined not to enslave or bleed Karma, but Sadie wasn’t. Not if it meant his death.
On the other hand, she tried to imagine taking blood from Karma and her soul flinched. No, she couldn’t bleed the bird, either. She couldn’t imagine caging the phoenix its whole life.
But I eat meat, the flesh of farmed animals. Is that so different?
Her own inconsistency annoyed and frustrated her as she stared across the dark room at Karma.
The bird closed its eyes.
Sadie sighed, then winced. If Marcus was only pretending to be asleep, he’d have heard her. She concentrated on breathing evenly. Sleep. I’m asleep.
Only, she wasn’t. And she really wanted to punch her pillow.
Phoenix blood couldn’t be the only answer. There had to be another way to save Marcus, not to feed his addiction, but to cure it. They had to find a solution, and then, she’d have time to consider the truth bombs he’d shattered her world with.
…to find a solution. She sat up, the sheet and light blanket pooling at her waist. She was a finder talent.
Marcus rolled over and up onto an elbow. He reached out and flicked on a bedside lamp.
Karma crooned unhappily.
“Problem?” he asked.
“No,” Sadie blushed and wriggled down under the covers. “I was just thinking.”
“Uh huh.”
“You can turn off the light. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” She closed her eyes, faking immediate sleep.
After a few seconds the light switched off and covers rustled. It sounded as if he turned over.
She gathered in her magic. It was a technique taught at Minervalle School. Students with magic were taught control. Magic naturally centered in the seventh chakra, just above the crown of the head, but it had to be drawn down through the body and grounded. Grounded magic was far more reliable, the power steadied by its contact with the earth.
She visualized the magic funneling into her seventh chakra from the universe and pulled it down till her feet burned with it.
It was, perhaps, a faint echo of the scorching blood that ran in Marcus’s veins.
Find a cure for Marcus, a means for him to live.
She braced herself, prepared for her magic to lock onto Karma. Then she’d have to detach it and send it further. But her magic ignored Karma and surged around Marcus.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He was out of bed and leaning over her, caging her in with arms either side of her head, before she could think. She shut off the flow of her magic. “I set my magic to find a cure for you.”
“There is no cure.” He was so close. And then, he was gone. He strode away, as far as the door, which wasn’t far. But his body language said he wanted to run. His shoulders were hunched and his lean body tense. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have told you the truth of what Grandfather did. You can’t save me, Sadie. You shouldn’t care about me.”
She sat up, hugging her knees. Perhaps it was a fading remnant of her finder talent, but she could see his silhouette in the darkness. “I don’t know if I care about you.” She was such a liar. Was it better or worse that she was lying to herself as much as to him? “But it’s not like I’m going to simply let you die.”
“You should.”
“Marcus! No.”
Karma hopped down from the backpack to the floor.
Sadie ignored the bird. She scrambled out of bed.
“I’m going to have a cold shower.” Marcus strode into the bathroom and slammed the door.
The cold shower wasn’t because of raging hormones. His fever must have flared up.
Sadie shrugged on her cardigan over her pajamas. Her shorty blue pajamas weren’t sexy. They were chosen for practicality on her picking trips. She sat cross-legged on the bed. Karma surprised her by hopping up, then nestling against her leg. Sadie stroked the bird’s ridiculous feathered crest, the feathers curling around her fingers.
Marcus emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later. “You should be asleep.”
“Like that’s likely,” she groused.
He ignored her comment, and her, and got into bed, putting his back to her.
“Marcus, why do you believe you deserve to die?”
He rolled onto his back, turning his head to look at her. “Go to sleep, Sadie. I need sleep and you should too.”
It made her feel guilty. He was sick and she was keeping him up with her anxiety. She lifted Karma and put the bird down safely at the end of the bed before taking off her cardigan and curling up under the covers.
She listened to Marcus’s breathing shift from conscious regulation to a relaxed state. It only took a few minutes.
He hadn’t been kidding. He needed sleep.
For Sadie, sleep took much longer.
Marcus drove for the first two hours, through the early hours before the traffic grew heavy. He swapped seats with Sadie at Little Rock. He’d expected her to press him for the confession he’d promised last night, but she’d been silent and subdued. Since he really didn’t want to see her recoil from him, again, or worse, run from him (which wouldn’t be safe with the Stag mercenaries still a possible threat) he stayed silent as well. He was bitterly aware that he was playing the coward’s part and merely delaying things.
Sadie cracked just an hour outside of Little Rock. She turned off the highway and drove along country roads lined with wildflowers and weeds, leaving the noise of the I-40 behind. Just before the road crossed a small bridge over a creek, she parked. “I need to know,” she said bluntly.
“All right.” He wouldn’t tell her everything—the nightmares were his alone—but simply thinking of his time in the Arena would stoke the fire in his blood to fever pitch. He needed to take some precautions. He unlaced his boots and stripped off his socks.
Sadie watched him wide-eyed.
He rolled up his jeans. The creek took a meandering path between grassy banks with a scattering of trees offering some privacy. It could have been idyllic, a place for children to splash and try to catch tadpoles. For himself, he hoped the cool creek water and its muddy streambed would counteract some of the fever in his blood.
Karma wriggled past him and flew from the truck away from th
e bridge to the creek.
He waited for Sadie and walked with her. The grass was warm from the sun, yet soothing under his bare feet. Some of his magic sank into the ground and that eased the burn in his blood. He left Sadie on the bank and paddled into the shallows.
She hugged her elbows, standing uncertainly, the toe of one shoe rubbing the back of her other calf. “Is this some magic of running water? Do I need to take off my shoes?”
“You’re fine. You might as well sit down.” He moved into the shade of an oak. The ripples of his passing scattered light in glittering arcs across the surface of the brownish water. He waited till she’d sat on the sun-warmed grass, tugging down the cap she’d borrowed from him. It hid her eyes but not the uncertain curve of her mouth. “Grandfather was never much part of my life. He made it obvious that he despised Dad, and with youthful arrogance I thought I understood why. Dad has never done much with his life. He sits on boards and nominally runs a non-profit that handles the preservation of old buildings, but his second-in-command is the one in charge. Dad crafted a life that never challenged and never interested the Senator. Dad’s smarter than I thought. A survivor.”
Marcus consciously sent his magic down to his feet, trying to channel away the heat building in his veins. “Mom died when I was eight. Dad immediately put me in boarding school. It was harsh, lonely, but it meant I built a life away from the family. I only knew the Senator by reputation and the few things I glimpsed in his house on duty visits. He was interested in the esoteric. When I discovered that I could move things with my mind, I didn’t know who to tell, and…Grandfather was always strong and confident and with an interest in inexplicable phenomena. I was a fool, but I confided in Grandfather rather than Dad.”
“Turning to family is natural.” Sadie wound a piece of grass around and around her right index finger.
“That depends on the family.” He burrowed his toes into the muddy streambed. “Grandfather had me demonstrate my magic. He tested it. Tested me. Then he invited me to spend the night. He said it wasn’t worth travelling across town to my apartment.” His hands clenched as old bitterness flooded from his soul to leave a sour taste in his mouth. “My apartment was apparently too far for me to return to that night, but near enough for him to send someone to collect my things. I’ve never been so grateful we never lived together.” The words burst out of him.
Sadie leaned forward, her whole body urgent with worry and concern. “Moose.”
“Yeah. Moose. Grandfather had my dog brought to his house, along with my clothes and a few belongings. In the morning, I woke shackled to the antique bed I’d slept in. I was so shocked—”
“Betrayed.”
He nodded. “I didn’t even think of using telekinesis to break the handcuffs. Grandfather poured the first dose of raw phoenix blood down my throat. It was like swallowing whisky and honey and wildfire. The Senator stepped back, observing me. He said, ‘now you’re mine’. And to prove it, he turned and shot Moose who’d been tied to a bedpost. He said that if I ever disobeyed him he’d torture and kill anyone or anything in my life. ‘I mightn’t have magic, boy, but I’ll have you.’.” The old words were branded in Marcus’s soul.
Sadie splashed through the creek and hugged him, hanging on tight. “He was a monster.”
“A powerful one.” He didn’t hug her. He didn’t dare. Soon she’d recoil from him, and if he was holding her, he didn’t know if he’d let her go. “The Senator didn’t have magic, but he’d learned of it. He studied it. He compensated for his lack of magic by making it into a strength. The phoenix blood potion he drank made him immune to magic. With all my telekinetic powers, I still couldn’t attack him. My efforts didn’t reach him. Then he sent for Dad.”
“Dear God,” she whispered a prayer.
His blood scorched Marcus’s veins, burned in his heart, and chewed on his bones. “I won’t describe what the Senator did to Dad till he had my promise, and worse, my horrified belief that challenging him would be devastating. Dad still bears the scars.”
“Marcus. Marcus, none of this was your fault.” She put a hand either side of his face, then snatched them away. “You’re burning up.”
“There’s not too much more to tell.” He would endure the agony and end this. End, too, before they could grow, the tiny shoots of hope that she could forgive him and care for him. He could set her free of the burden of mourning for him. His own words would convict him of terrible crimes. “The Senator belonged to an exclusive club. The other six members all had magic. The Senator had his knowledge, immunity, wealth and political power. However, it had made him the least of them. I evened things up.”
“What did he do?”
Marcus stepped back from her, deeper into the creek. The cold water soaked his jeans. “There’s a place in…” But that was information she was safer not knowing. “There’s a hidden place called the Arena.”
“The older Stag mercenary. That’s where he said he recognized you from.”
“The place is warded, secure, and you fight to the death in it. The seven club members can each sponsor a fighter. They call it sponsorship. Some who fight do so for money. A few for fame in certain specialized circles. I did so because the Senator owned me. I killed two men with wild telekinesis that ruptured their bodies and sent shattered bones flying.”
Sadie shuddered.
It was what he’d expected. He was a murderer. “I learned to control my telekinesis and to fight in other ways, but it was always my last resort. I can stop a heart with a thought, but doing so…”
“Magic rebounds,” she said quietly. She understood. “You named your phoenix Karma for a reason.”
“After a few fights, the Senator withdrew me from the Arena. He sent me back a couple of times, but I had other duties.” There was no nice way to say it, and what he’d done didn’t deserve nice words. “I was an assassin.”
She pressed her hands to her lips. She had tears in her voice. “You were going to be a doctor.”
“My knowledge of anatomy and disease came in useful.”
“How many did you kill?”
He shrugged. “In the end, numbers don’t matter.”
“So many?” she asked shakily.
And there was her recoil. Marcus was bleakly satisfied. He stopped trying to channel the magic from his veins down into the mud and let it roar through him. His muscles and tendons twisted and tore from his veins.
“Marcus!” Sadie screamed. Water splashed as she crashed to him, only to halt, beaten back, putting up her arms as a shield.
He could feel why. The magical fire that had been in his veins was all around him now. He tried to draw it back, to protect her, but the beast was unleashed and devouring him. Dimly, he saw Karma fly in and perch on Sadie’s shoulder.
If he died now, Sadie would take Karma to Taos, but would Sadie, herself, be safe?
He couldn’t die yet. Not till he was sure that the Stag mercenaries’ client wouldn’t pay more to send a more powerful agent after the amulet. I can’t die yet.
Reality exploded.
Chapter 7
Sadie struggled to comprehend what she saw, but some magicks weren’t meant for human understanding. The magic that had Marcus in its grip was one of them.
Paranormal fire flickered across the air and water and under the water. It wasn’t fire as such. It wasn’t yellow or red or anything normal. It was energy. Everything within it was more intensely itself—except Marcus who it seemed to be ripping apart.
His head was arched back, his arms and legs extended as if he was being drawn and quartered by invisible forces. A terrible, silent scream peeled his lips back from his teeth, and then, he changed.
She tried to go to him, and again, the heat beat her back.
Karma dug her claws into Sadie’s shoulder and fluttered her wings, hitting Sadie in the side of her face.
Marcus fell forward. Whatever force had held him, released him. He tried to get his arms in front of him, instinctively trying t
o protect himself from the impact as he hit the creek. But his arms changed to furred limbs and massive paws. His legs curled and formed a matching, leonine form. His head changed into the form of an eagle, a wickedly sharp beak gnashing the air, and giant wings sprouted from his tawny, furred back.
The whirlwind of magic quieted. The creek water flowed on, unaware and uncaring that it flowed around the legs of a griffin.
“Marcus?”
Karma launched herself from Sadie’s shoulder to the griffin, and that small movement was enough to topple Sadie’s wavering balance. She fell backwards onto the creek’s muddy bank, sitting down hard.
The griffin lowered its huge head.
Absurdly, Karma balanced on the griffin’s head, her tail tickling its beak. Still, that absurdity couldn’t hide how lethal the beak was.
Sadie’s heart pounded so hard it threatened to break her ribcage. Or that’s how it felt.
The griffin pecked the cap off her head and studied her unobscured face with one fiery eye.
“Marcus?” she whispered.
The griffin dropped the cap and extended its wings. It crouched down, then launched upward.
The force of the air it moved washed over Sadie.
Karma let out a startled squawk and tumbled down to land on the grass.
The griffin flew higher and higher before levelling out and circling. It was impossibly graceful and utterly incredible.
Sadie remembered the amulet she wore, tugged its chain impatiently over her head and dropped it on the grass near Karma. Instantly, the griffin vanished from her sight. She snatched up the amulet and saw the griffin diving down toward her. Evidently a glamour made the griffin invisible.
Marcus. This is Marcus. He won’t hurt you, she chanted, forcing herself to hold her ground on the sunny grass.
The griffin landed neatly, furred paws silent and wings folding along the top of its body. Its lion tail lashed the grass and Karma pounced on it. The tail lifted, tumbling the phoenix, who chirped a high excited tune as she righted herself and pounced again for the tail. It evaded her.
Phoenix Blood (Old School Book 1) Page 6