Anaphylaxis

by SA Magnusson

  “I guess no one. I don’t even know what to make of that. It all sounds so bizarre.”

  “It is bizarre.”

  “If you want me to take off the jacket—”

  “No. Someone should wear it. And I think that my mother would have liked you.”

  “Everyone likes me.”

  “Sometimes too much.”

  Jen grinned. “Let’s get this over with. I want to get over to this disaster and see what we need to do from here.”

  “And if it’s not a disaster?”

  “How can it be anything other than a disaster?” Jen asked.

  I set my mug down in the sink and followed her back out of my condo. After taking a moment to seal the door closed, we headed down the stairs and out to her car. Within a few minutes, we reached her building.

  I hadn’t seen it, but in the light of day, the burn marks along the side of the building were evident. The air held a hint of char and I wrinkled my nose, glancing over to see how Jen was handling things. I couldn’t imagine going through what she was, the loss of everything, and now having to come and sort through it.

  “I’ll be here with you.”

  She nodded. “I know you will, Kate.”

  We headed up the stairs and I looked around, noticing the soggy carpet and the stench of smoke that hung over everything.

  “How many others lost their homes?” I asked.

  “There were several others on my floor. I’m not sure where the fire started, and they won’t give me a straight answer, but I don’t think it was in my place. It was probably the potheads who live below me. I could never get them to stop lighting up, and too often when they got stoned, they would be completely stupid.”

  We stopped at her door and she pushed it open. I stood there, glancing inside. Her living room looked intact, if a little wet. The furniture would all have to be replaced. But then, furniture could be replaced. I followed her inside, surprised by how little damage there was. Her kitchen looked fine, as well. Most of the things in the kitchen could be washed and cleaned, so anything here that wasn’t damaged could be salvaged.

  Following her back to her bedroom, that was where the devastation hit the most.

  Jen had a one-bedroom apartment, and her entire bed was destroyed, burned by the flames. The half charred remains of a dresser leaned forward, smashed on one end, with the contents of the drawer strewn all over the room. A nightstand was little more than broken pieces of wood.

  She turned to her closet, a large walk-in, one that was much bigger than what I would’ve expected in an apartment like this. Everything inside it was soiled. Soot covered most of her clothes and the firemen had sprayed down everything within it. Fire had crept along the floor, leaving it charred.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for us to be here?”

  “They said there weren’t any structural issues,” she said.

  “Maybe we should wait for firemen to accompany us.”

  “There’s nothing here that I can take, anyway.”

  “We can go through what you have here. We can see what there might be.”

  Jen leaned on the doorway. “There’s nothing. I thought that maybe I would have something here I could recover, but all of these clothes need to be thrown.”

  “Do you have anything else that you want to salvage?”

  “I don’t know if I can. I thought… I thought that if I came here, it wouldn’t look quite as bad as it seemed before.”

  “I told you that you’re welcome to stay with me.”

  “I know that you did. I just don’t know that I can.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m scared, Kate. I’m scared of what I don’t know, I’m scared of the things that you can do, and I’m scared of the people you have around you. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you can face the things that you’ve been confronting as if there’s nothing strange about it.”

  “It’s not that there’s nothing strange about it, it’s just that I can’t do anything but continue to move forward.”

  “And yet that’s not entirely true. I’ve seen you put yourself out there when you wouldn’t have to. I’ve seen that you throw yourself into danger when you don’t need to. You might say that you don’t, but I’ve seen that you do.”

  “Just because you’re staying at my house doesn’t mean that you would be pulled into it.”

  “Probably not. You would do everything that you could to protect me, though I don’t know how much you would be able to. I know you have some sort of protection on your home that is meant to keep you safe, but what if it fails? What if somebody like the woman who kicked your ass last night manages to get through?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re just trying to be a good friend, and here I am throwing it back in your face. I just can’t shake the uncertainty.”

  “I can help you find someplace else to go,” I said.

  Jen took a deep breath. “You don’t even have to do that.”

  There was a part of me that felt as if I were losing my friend. It felt as if she were rejecting the magical side of me, and I couldn’t blame her. What would I do if the situations were reversed? I wouldn’t want to be threatened by the magical world any more than Jen did. I wouldn’t want to be exposed to the dangers of this society, not if it weren’t necessary.

  “We can go,” she said.

  “Jen?”

  “I’m going to be okay,” she whispered.

  “But are we?”

  She turned toward me. “Of course. Just because I don’t want to face the same demons that you do doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be your friend.”

  “What happens if I embrace that side of me even more?”

  “You mean by letting go of the part of you that’s the doctor?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been struggling with it. I love medicine, but the longer that I’m entrenched within the magical world, the more I begin to wonder if perhaps I could use the knowledge I have of magic and mix it with medicine.”

  “I don’t know how you could do it and not get exposed.”

  “Neither do I. Which is why I wonder if I have to decide to embrace one side or the other.”

  “Which means you are going to choose the magical side.”

  “That’s not what it means.”

  “It’s okay, Kate. I’ve seen the way you interact with that world. It fits you.”

  “And medicine doesn’t?”

  “Medicine does, too. It’s just that you seem yourself when I’ve seen you around the magical world.”

  What did that mean for me if I abandoned the medical training I’d spent so long to acquire? I didn’t think that I had to, but the more that I was pulled into the magical world, the more I didn’t fully understand how I could easily mix the two. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of mixing them. Maybe I needed to simply choose. Ariel had suggested that I find a balance, but that balance seemed to be difficult, especially when I faced terrible creatures and terrifying power like I had the night before.

  Jen wrapped me in a hug and held me. “I’m still going to be your friend.”

  I hugged her back. When she let me go, we headed back out of her apartment, closing the door over the sopping carpets. Back out on the street, I pulled my coat tighter around my shoulders, pushing back the cold.

  “Do you want to go shopping?” Jen asked.

  As she did, a strange tingling along my spine caught my attention.

  It was a familiar spell. The kind of power that I had felt several times before, most recently when the woman had placed the spell along the Mississippi River, trying to divert the power of the ley lines.

  Could she be doing it again already?

  “Kate?”

  “I don’t know if I can,” I said.

  “Your other job?”

  I met her eyes, wishing that there was a different answer and not w
anting for this to separate us so soon after feeling as if I were pulled away from her, but what choice did I have? I needed to find out what this woman was doing, especially if she was drawing upon the power of the ley lines and trying to alter them.

  “I can drive you,” she said.

  “I don’t know that you should.”

  “I’m not going to make you walk, and the last time I let you borrow my car, it came back with a few modifications that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with.”

  “I thought the shifters repaired it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they did, but some of the things they did were different than what I had before. Your friends have a strange sense of humor.”

  “I wouldn’t have considered them having a sense of humor at all.”

  “Are you going to let me drive you, or not?”

  The spell continued to build and I sighed. I needed to get there and find out what was taking place.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “It’s not that I don’t mind, but I’m willing to bring you.”

  “Thanks.”

  We got in the car, heading toward the Mississippi. For some reason, I was able to track this spell in a way that I wasn’t able to track others. It continued to build, the power within it incredible. I punched in a number on my phone, thankful Barden had given me a way to reach him, and sent a message.

  “Who was that?” Jen asked.

  “Barden.”

  “Well, if he’s going to be there, maybe I should stick around.”

  I laughed, thinking that Jen probably would stick around, if only for Barden.

  We cruised along the street, getting closer to the river. This was a different part of the city, and a different park, but if what the mage had said remained applicable, then this place probably dipped into the power of some hidden storage well of the Mississippi the same way the last one did. And if that were the case, then she would try to modify it in the same way.

  “We’re getting close.”

  “You can feel it?”

  “I can feel something, but I’m not entirely sure what it is.”

  “Then we can—”

  Something struck the car, sending us rolling. I reached for a barrier, wrapping it around the car before thinking better of it and wrapping it around both Jen and me. The car could crumple, but I needed her not to get injured because of some accident.

  She looked over at me, panic in her eyes, and when the car came to a stop with us hanging upside down, I looked out the window to see the mage stalking toward us.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered.

  17

  Tearing through my seatbelt, I jumped out of the car but left Jen in place, not wanting her to have to confront this mage. Anything I could do to prevent them from coming face to face, I would do.

  We were in the middle of the street. Jen’s car had come to a stop near the base of a tree planted in a strip dividing the road in half. To my right was a row of houses and to my left, on the other side of the treed island, was where I suspected the woman had placed her spell. How had she known we were coming?

  Fading sunlight made it easy enough for me to see, so I scanned the street, looking for the woman. Where had she gone?

  I held onto my barrier, thankful that I had enough rest and that my power had mostly restored. I needed Barden and his ability to connect me to the other side of the Veil. If he were here, I would be better equipped to face her.

  I located my nemesis. It wasn’t hard; she was dressed strangely. She wore a leather jacket with runes marked all along the surface. I couldn’t make out the detail in the patterns, but suspected that she was protected by it. She held a long metal rod, another magic wand. I looked beyond her, just in time to see two other figures—people—disappear.

  They didn’t consider us—me—a threat.

  I didn’t know whether to be offended or not.

  “You need to stop meddling in our plans.”

  “Whose plans are these?”

  “Someone that you would do well to avoid.”

  I tried a different approach with her. I wrapped a barrier around her, trying to seal her within. Attempts to attack her had failed, so I doubted that anything I might do now would hold her very effectively, but I was willing to try.

  She tapped her wand on the side of the barrier and it exploded.

  I staggered from the force of the sudden change.

  “Had you more power, that might’ve been effective.”

  Summoning my sword, I pointed it at her, sending a blast of power through the end. Unlike the last time I faced her, she twisted, moving the wand out of the way, avoiding the possibility of me connecting with it, and let her leather jacket absorb the attack. It simply dissipated.

  There definitely were protections in place.

  Where was Barden?

  “We aren’t going to let you get away with this.”

  “You think I would’ve planned this if I feared the mage council?”

  “It’s not just the mage council you need to fear.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You have involved the so-called Dark Council. And somehow, you think I should fear that, as well.”

  “We stopped you once.”

  “You did, and at what cost? Your friend perished. Others fell. How many are you willing to sacrifice in order to stop these plans?”

  “As many as it takes,” I said.

  “Even your friend?”

  She pointed her wand at the car and power exploded from it.

  I solidified the barrier around Jen, hoping that it would be enough to save her.

  I needed to get that wand out of her hand.

  Using magic on her wasn’t going to be enough. It was a similar realization as I’d had when facing one of the Great Ones, which meant that I had a choice. I could run—and I still had enough power to transport myself from one place to another, probably even enough to bring Jen with me—or I could fight.

  The better sense would involve running, but I couldn’t leave, not with what she was likely doing to the ley lines. I needed to understand what that was and if there was anything we could do to stop it.

  Knowing that I shouldn’t, I danced forward, bringing my sword around.

  She used the wand to block.

  I ignored it, swinging my other fist. In mid strike, I dropped, sweeping my leg around, and caught her on the back of her knee. She bent and I shifted my elbow, driving into the side of her face.

  She slammed onto the ground.

  I chopped at her arm. My goal wasn’t to incapacitate her this time. She wasn’t expecting the strike and dropped the wand. She pushed, much stronger than I would’ve given her credit for, and sent me flying away from her, but not before I managed to grab onto the wand and fling it away.

  “I don’t need that to be effective against someone like you.”

  “You might not, but I think it helps. And I’m willing to take the chance that you would prefer to have it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought it with you. If you didn’t need the wand or your leather jacket, you wouldn’t have either.”

  She twisted her hands, the spell building with a spark of light. I didn’t feel it, but I could tell that power was coming.

  I made a hasty circle around me, augmenting my barrier, and it slammed into place just in time. Her spell bounced off my barrier.

  She started toward me. “How long do you think you can hold onto this?”

  “Long enough to keep you from hurting others.”

  “You’ve done nothing but slightly delay me.”

  “I think I’ve done more than slightly delayed you. You had to make another attempt at the river, which I suspect you weren’t intending to do.” I watched her expression as I said it, and the twitch at the corners of her eyes told me that I was right. “And I only need to delay you long enough for help to arrive.”

  I could feel the spell building, a power that came from the arrival of dark mages.

  She sneered as she slammed her
fist into my barrier. Her hand twisted in a motion as she did it, some spell forming. The barrier collapsed.

  “Your help will get here too late.”

  She pressed her hands out and I braced myself, trying to raise a barrier, but the loss of power around me had made it difficult to do. As I readied for her strike, she went sliding across the pavement.

  I looked over to see Jen standing there, holding the wand in both hands.

  “Jen, you need to be careful.”

  “It worked,” she said.

  “How did you know how to use it?”

  Jen shook her head. “I just pointed it and said what I wanted to do.”

  “I don’t know much about magic wands, but I suspect that’s not how they are generally able to work.”

  “Can I keep it?”

  “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with the magical world.”

  “I don’t, but if it means that I can use the magic wand, maybe I was a little hasty in my decision.”

  The mage had gotten to her feet. She swept her hands around in a circle. The movement suggested that she’d formed a barrier around herself. I had to wonder again why it was that I didn’t detect anything from her use of magic.

  Did she have some way of masking it? Her spell certainly had the appearance of a mage spell, but the sensation that came with it was nothing like those that I detected from the mages. I started toward her, holding the sword out.

  She glared at me. “Even like this, you don’t have enough power to overcome me.”

  “And what if I hold onto the wand?”

  “It would do nothing more than what you already have done.”

  “I don’t believe that. Had it done nothing, my friend wouldn’t have been able to use it.”

  The woman swiveled her head and looked over at Jen. “You have made a grave mistake.”

  Jen paled and I stepped between her and the mage, drawing the woman’s attention to me. I didn’t need Jen worrying about what this woman might do to her.

  “Tell me what you’re after.”

  “You keep accusing me as if I’m acting alone. That is your mistake.”

  “It’s your mistake to keep placing these runes and attempting to disrupt the ley lines.”

  “And you keep assuming that I intended to disrupt anything.”