Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “Did you read the wiki page, or is that a first hand accounting?” I teased.

  Kett gifted my brilliant repartee with a quirk of his lips.

  Drake stepped out from my field of vision and I snagged him back by his hoodie. The hood pulled back from his dark-haired head and exposed the hilt of his sword, which he wore underneath. The gold of the hilt caught and refracted the overhead street light back at me. Drake grinned over his shoulder and dutifully fell into step beside me.

  “I don’t see a fruit market,” I said. The north side of the street was dominated by what looked like offices over warehouse storage. A five-story open-air parking lot occupied the south side. Each level of the structure looked like a long stretch of balcony, with white aluminum railings and everything. That was odd. Maybe the parked cars liked to have a view?

  I paused midway down the block. Kett slipped into the shadows to my left and dampened his cool peppermint magic further. Drake, all honey and almond magic, placed his back to mine, as we’d practiced in training so many times now. Behind me, his magic was muted from my dowser senses … well, as muted as dragon magic could ever be. But this placement, along with how familiar I was to the taste of his magic, helped me focus ahead and around me.

  I used my eyes first, noting the small brass plaque on the door to my left. “Importing/Exporting. Now who do I know who supposedly makes a living doing that?” I asked rhetorically.

  “Sayers,” Kett replied. His voice was just a breath of wind, but Drake and I could hear him perfectly well.

  “Yep. You’d think one of the other sorcerers might have mentioned he keeps offices near the site of the Dorset Summoning.” I turned to look up at the parking lot across from me. I couldn’t taste any other magic nearby. I would have thought London would be full of magic. Glimmers, at least, or people who maybe didn’t even know they were a quarter or an eighth magical. But it wasn’t. Centuries of humanity dominated here, perhaps whitewashing all the natural magic in its wake.

  “This was a stupid guess,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, even though the other two could hear me just fine. “This is too complicated for Sienna. If it’s even possible. She’s probably in Barbados. We always wanted to go there ...”

  It was anger, not pain that stopped me up. So much anger it squeezed the air out of my lungs. Sienna and I had plans. We’d loved life … together. At least that was what I thought. How had it gotten so far astray? With me in London, vampire and dragon in tow, hunting my sister? My best friend?

  Magic — bitter dark chocolate and something smoother, closer to semisweet chocolate but not so bland — came from the parallel street, opposite the direction of the hotel.

  “Kandy and her Nordic werewolf, Jorgen,” I murmured, right before they jogged into view.

  Kandy tucked her chin — she’d previously been sniffing the air — and glared in our direction. Jorgen was grinning, maybe a little manically.

  “Well, the good guys are all here,” Drake said. “Time for the bad guys to show and try to out number us.”

  “This isn’t a movie, Drake,” I said.

  “We doubled back. Didn’t smell anything,” Kandy said as she and Jorgen jaywalked across the street.

  “Us as well,” I said. “There’s nothing here. Just go back to your —”

  Then I tasted it … just a hint of magic … dark, oily, blood-soaked earth magic.

  “Sienna,” I breathed. “There.” I slowly lifted my hand to point across the street.

  “The car park?” Kett asked.

  Jorgen flinched. He hadn’t known a vampire was hiding in the shadows.

  “Odd,” Kett murmured. “I would have thought that the warehouse was closer to the historic location.”

  “Which floor?” Kandy asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Why can’t I taste her more clearly?”

  “She’s in a protection circle as before?” Kett asked, stepping out of the shadows and startling Jorgen even more. His wolf momentarily rippled across his face and hands, teeth and claws appearing and disappearing in the same breath. Well, that was cool in a completely amped-up freaky way.

  “No,” I said in response to Kett. “Wouldn’t I taste the magic of the circle?” I wrapped the fingers of my left hand through the wedding rings on my necklace, and set my right hand at the hilt of my invisible jade knife. This often helped focus my dowsing magic, but I didn’t need it this time. The hint I’d caught before bloomed on its own.

  “She’s here,” I said. I darted across the street, and then realizing the magic was continuing to build, I cried out.

  “Down!”

  We all flattened ourselves as magic exploded out of the parking lot.

  “What is it?” Drake asked. “Has she summoned the demons?”

  “No,” I answered, peering around the garbage can I’d crouched behind and feeling rather stupid. “Just … um … fog.”

  “What?” Kandy snapped. We all straightened to stare at the fog that now filled the balconies of the parking garage.

  “Sorcerer,” Kett spat. Yeah, that was a big reaction from the vampire, but I’m guessing Blackwell’s fog spell was an unpleasant memory.

  “Not that kind of fog,” I said.

  With the other four at my heels, I crossed to the entrance of the lot to get a closer look.

  “I think I left my oven on,” Jorgen blurted, and then spun away.

  “What?” Kandy asked, grabbing his arm.

  “My oven,” the blond werewolf repeated. He tugged his arm against Kandy’s grip.

  “Perimeter spell,” Kett said. “To keep the magically lacking away.”

  Kandy slapped Jorgen across the face.

  The werewolf shook his head, and then grinned. “Thanks.”

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing to a line drawn perpendicular to my feet. “Sand?” The fog was neatly contained on the other side of the line.

  Jorgen hunkered down to sniff at the sand. “Not beach,” he said.

  “Break the line, break the spell?” I asked Kett hopefully.

  He shook his head, but didn’t share his thoughts.

  “I can’t see through the fog,” I said. “Kandy?”

  “Me neither.”

  “Kett?”

  “No,” the vampire answered reluctantly.

  I reached up, palm forward, and extended my hand beyond the sand line and into the fog without resistance. “Not a ward, but …”

  “But?” Drake prompted.

  “I can’t taste anything beyond the fog. Like all the magic I felt before is diffused now. Evenly distributed through every molecule of fog or something.”

  “Distributed?” Kett asked.

  “Yeah, I can taste magic all around. But I can’t distinguish the tastes or pinpoint where the magic is emanating from. Nor can I grab or hold it, which means I can’t channel it into the sword.”

  I turned to look at Kett with an irritated smile.

  “Impressive spell,” he acknowledged.

  “Yep, made specifically for me. And Sienna wouldn’t bother cloaking her activities, so I tipped our hand somehow. I’m sorry.” This fog spell was obviously the work of a sorcerer who knew my powers, and I’d rather flagrantly displayed my dowsing ability to three sorcerers today. If one of them hadn’t been in league with Sienna then, they were now.

  “We saw a similar type of magic this evening,” Kett said.

  “Sayers’ diffusing spell, or magical object, or whatever.”

  “We shouldn’t have bothered warning anyone,” Kandy spat. “Then they wouldn’t have known we were coming.”

  “I didn’t know you were coming at all,” I said.

  “I said I was.” Kandy turned her glare from the fog to me.

  I looked over her shoulder at Jorgen. “This isn’t a great idea for a first date. What’s in this fog could get you killed.”

  “In the fog itself?” the Nordic werewolf a
sked.

  “No, it seems harmless enough.” I swirled my hand within the entrance. I knew there should be a ticket booth and a gate about a car length ahead, but I couldn’t see it. “But the black witch has only one reason to be here. She’s going to try to raise three demons.”

  Jorgen smiled manically. “Sounds like fun.”

  Kandy laughed.

  “You talk too much, warrior’s daughter,” Drake said. Then he stepped into the fog.

  “Damn it, Drake,” I cried after him. “We need some sort of plan.”

  “Kandy and Jorgen,” Kett said. “First floor, west to east. I’ll take the second. Drake and Jade start at the third. We meet together at the fourth and continue together to the top, unless one of us finds something before that.” Kett followed Drake into the fog.

  “No, splitting up is a bad idea,” I said. Kett didn’t respond. “And that’s only half a plan! What happens if we do run into something and we’ve split up?”

  “Looks like the fog was going to separate us anyway,” Kandy said. “This way we won’t be worried we’ve lost each other. See you at the top.” She and Jorgen were swallowed by the fog as soon as they moved beyond the sand barrier line. And I was alone for the third time since stepping out of the portal.

  I waited for screams, but none came. I waited to see if I could feel the magic of my friends moving through the fog. If I could feel Sienna’s magic again … but it had been such a brief taste. What if I was wrong?

  “Well, Jade,” I said out loud. “Something magical is happening here either way. Why not wade in … it’s what you do best anyway.” Great … now I was talking to myself.

  Drake reached out of the fog, grabbed my left wrist, and pulled me over the sand barrier.

  Well, that was one way to make a decision.

  ∞

  I could barely see anything within the fog, nor could I taste any magic other than the diluted strains that floated all around me. It was as if the fog spell took all the Adepts within its borders, mixed their magic together, and then diffused it throughout the parking lot structure.

  “I don’t even like breathing in here,” I muttered.

  “So don’t breathe,” Drake said.

  Helpful, wasn’t he?

  “The stairs are over here.” The fledgling guardian tugged me farther through the fog to the right. He opened the door to the stairs so swiftly that it crashed into my shoulder.

  “Ouch! Watch it, Drake!”

  “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

  “You’re holding my hand!”

  “Yeah, not your shoulder, though.”

  I sighed, realizing as I did so that in that frustrated expulsion of air, I sounded exactly like my Gran. Damn it.

  I pushed past Drake and headed up the stairs.

  The fog was thinner in the stairwell, as if it had only gotten in because we’d opened the door. “The fog must have spread out from one place,” I said.

  “Can you track that?”

  “Probably not.”

  We rounded the stairwell to see a giant number one painted on a blue door.

  “The door on the ground floor was green,” Drake said.

  “Great. Now you won’t forget where we parked our car.”

  “At the hotel. And the valet parked it, not —”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s all right.”

  The third floor was indicated by a giant number two on a red door. Yeah, the Brits were weird when it came to counting floors.

  “Ah, I see. The red line on the floor stops here. As the blue line did at the second floor.”

  “Yep,” I said as I placed my hands on the door and tried to sense any magic from the other side of it. “I’ve got nothing.” Damn, this was frustrating. I didn’t realize how much I’d started to rely on my dowsing senses until they were gone. “It would be nice to have a witch around,” I said.

  “To counter the fog spell?”

  “Yeah.”

  I flattened myself against the wall beside the door and Drake did the same next to me. Yeah, just like they did in the movies. I pulled my jade knife, switched it into my left hand — though I wasn’t exactly ambidextrous — and awkwardly reached across to open the door with my right hand.

  In one breath, Drake and I spun through the door, crouching low and to the sides. We waited. The fog was thicker again. I could no longer see Drake. The door snapped shut behind us. Nothing else moved or sounded out. Everything was muffled by the fog.

  Think. Think. Think. Wandering in the fog was just plain stupid, but I couldn’t channel its magic into my sword because I couldn’t feel the source of the spell. I was also worried I might end up trying to pull all the fog’s diffused magic — Drake, Kett, Kandy, and Jorgen included — into my sword. If that was even possible.

  “A fan would be great,” I muttered. I peeled myself away from the door and stepped sideways — hand extended — along the wall. “I figure we can follow the wall around the entire floor, back to the door we came out of.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, far too agreeably. I grabbed the back of his hoodie and continued moving. We found the first car right after we hit the white aluminum railing I’d seen from the street, which made sense. Drake leaned over the railing, legs in the air, as he stuck his head out through the fog.

  “Can you see?”

  “Yes. It’s clear here like it was at the entrance.”

  I crouched down and looked closer at the bottom of the railing. The line of sand appeared there as well. “It must have taken hours to set up this spell,” I murmured. Hours that overlapped Sayers chatting in the hotel lounge with me? Maybe I’d been wrong. Or had he spent all day setting the spell, then come to the hotel?

  I resisted the urge to scrape away the sand to see if that would release the spell. I was terrified by the thought that a fog like this would just spread and spread until it enveloped the entire city, and then country, perhaps only caged in by the ocean.

  Then we’d really need witches, and it would be my foolish, foolhardy fault. “Not this time,” I muttered to myself. Then to Drake, I asked, “Anyone on the street?”

  “No. The perimeter spell must be keeping the humans away,” he answered, then pulled his head back in from over the railing. “There are two floors above us.”

  “Great,” I said, continuing along the white railing in front of a long line of cars, front bumper after front bumper. This must be long-term or overnight parking.

  As we neared what I guessed was the center front of the parking lot, I thought I heard something. I paused and lost Drake as he took off in a swirl of fog. Damn it, I’d loosened my hold on him when I crouched to check the sand.

  I was going to have to follow him. His hearing was better than mine, so obviously the noise meant something to him.

  Knife drawn and back in my proper hand, I darted forward between two cars. I crossed the center lane and stepped between two other cars, which were parked facing the other direction.

  Then I nearly fell through the center of the building.

  Well, that was an exaggeration. I would have had to leap a four-foot-high concrete wall to fall through, but it was still a shock. The parking lot was built in a rectangular spiral that left the center open through all five storeys, a space about twelve feet across.

  Of course, that wasn’t as much of a shock as seeing Edmonds suspended in the air directly in front of us, three storeys up. He was held by thick ropes that formed a pentagram, lashed to the columns in the very middle of the open well at the heart of building.

  The fog was thinner here, but I still couldn’t see more than a few feet below or above Edmonds. I guessed I could only see the unconscious sorcerer because whatever spell coated the ropes of the pentagram also kept the fog spell at bay. He looked way younger than his forty plus years and vulnerable without his tortoise-shell glasses or elbow patches.


  Drake stepped out of the fog to my left. He was walking along the edge of the short wall that had stopped me from falling through the center of the building, as if he’d just circled the perimeter.

  “I can’t tell if he’s alive,” the fledgling guardian said. His voice was unnaturally grim.

  “He’s alive.” As I watched the too-pale sorcerer, I saw his chest slowly rise and fall.

  “Spelled?”

  “Most likely. As is the rope.”

  “So we cut the ropes and free the sorcerer.”

  “Right. Except we don’t know if the spell is anchored here or below or above. Also, we don’t know that if we cut the rope, we won’t trigger the spell.” I called to Edmonds. “Ummm, Professor? Professor, can you hear me?”

  The spelled sorcerer didn’t respond.

  I narrowed my eyes and desperately tried to anchor my dowsing senses in my necklace and knife. I thought I could see a line of magic running up and down from Edmonds, as if bisecting him through his heart. “Do you see that?” I asked Drake. “That line of magic, blue-black? There! When the fog shifts?”

  He peered where I indicated, but then shook his head.

  “Okay,” I said, preparing to come up with some plan. I was way, way out of my depth here, and feeling just as lost in the fog as was intended. I didn’t think my next confrontation with my sister would go like this … I thought I had prepared, trained.

  I peered up and then down over the short concrete wall and through the ropes, but I couldn’t see the next floors. I looked at the concrete pillars on either side of me, to which the pentagram was lashed. They were smooth and free of handholds, which made total sense safety-wise but was still a bitch. Drake might be able to jump up from floor to floor. Hell, the fledgling might be able to jump off the top floor and land without hurting himself, but I couldn’t. Not without seeing where I was going, at least.

  “Back to the stairs?” I didn’t like leaving Edmonds, but I also wasn’t sure I could rescue him without finding the origin of the spell. “The source is probably on the first floor, where they could actually anchor it to the earth. At least, that’s how witch magic would work.” But if it was, then Kandy and Jorgen would find it — if they could sense the magic once they got near enough, despite the diffusion of the fog spell. I pulled out my cell phone, half-heartedly hoping it worked in the fog. It didn’t. I sighed. “Or it's a series of pentagrams suspended over open air from here to the top floor.”