Midnight Shadows

by Emerson Knight

  Over the last few months, I’d picked up a few spells and rituals from the books in Josh’s library. Recalling one of them, I turned toward Sky’s bedroom window. Muttering a quick chant, I gestured with an outstretched hand, my fingers splayed. A translucent shimmer spread across the windows, then extended out over the nearby wall, forming a thin barrier that was impenetrable by sound.

  The Harley’s engine rumbled and boomed as Reed slowly turned into the driveway and parked next to my BMW. My hand slipped into my pocket for my phone. Once I texted nine-one-one to Josh, he’d transport to me, ready for a fight. Between the two of us we could put an end to the witch, but my pocket was empty.

  I remembered leaving the phone in my BMW and growled. Calling my wolf to the surface, I tore open my shirt in anticipation of the change. It was my only advantage against his magic, which would be useless against me while I was in animal form. If he was arrogant enough to fight a wolf hand to hand, I’d kill him easily. My bones cracked as the transformation began. My muscles and tendons began to elongate, until a force struck my chest and quickly engulfed me, suppressing the transformation. I fell to my knees, straining to force the change. Inside me, my wolf snapped and snarled as it fought to escape, to vent its fury in Lucas Reed’s blood, but it couldn’t escape the oppressive spell that constricted around me. I panted, struggling for breath as the force steadily compressed my chest.

  He grinned at me as he swung off his Harley and swaggered toward me. “Bad doggie.”

  Concentrating, I tried to break the magical hold, but my own abilities were no match for his. Stay inside, I pleaded to Sky.

  Reed stood over me, gloating. “You know, the more you fight it, the faster it’ll kill you. I suppose that’s not particularly comforting. I mean, sure, you could suck in another half breath or two before you die, but is it worth it?” He shrugged. “By the way, I know you killed my master. It’s okay. He wasn’t exactly well liked. But you don’t get a gold sticker. And you don’t get to keep his magic.” He grinned. “That little nugget is my legacy, and I’m going to take it.” He turned toward Sky’s bedroom window. “I don’t have the best view of her from here, but she looks like a pretty little wolf. Did you make her? Ah, hell, you can always make another.” He paused, lifting a finger as if he had just remembered something. “Except you’ll be dead in about a minute. Oops.”

  I felt my rage build inside of me like an explosive force, pushing at the magic that suffocated me, but I couldn’t break it. For the first time in my life, I felt completely helpless as Reed swaggered onto her porch. He was reaching out to break the ward when he suddenly stopped. His head tilted as if sensing or hearing something, then he turned back to me with a look of pleasant surprise.

  I felt it then, a dark, cold power striking down like a javelin as it pierced through the magic that held me and struck me at the back of my skull. My vision went white as every nerve in my body fired simultaneously, sending searing jolts of pain like shards of glass through my brain. For a moment, I lost myself in agony. When the pain finally receded, I realized that I was still alive. Only a moment had passed, and Reed was once more standing over me, his smug smile melting into a concerned scowl.

  My body radiated power it struggled to absorb. I didn’t know what had happened, or how, and I didn’t care. I shrugged off his magic with a thought, then rose to my feet.

  “You should be dead,” he snarled.

  “About that.” I growled, extending both hands toward him. He attempted to raise a field, but it didn’t matter. Angry blue tendrils of electricity shot from my hands, tearing down his half-constructed field in a shower of blue sparks. He tried to wrench free as the tendrils wrapped around his chest like an electric serpent and squeezed the breath from his lungs.

  As he struggled, I made a flippant gesture, flinging him through the air and slamming him down onto his back on the driveway. Lost in rage and power, I tightened the tendrils around him. I listened to the beat of his heart as it struggled, slowly failing until it finally gave up. Still, I continued to squeeze until eventually the rage receded. Realizing Reed was dead, I released the magic, then stared at my hands as ripples of electricity continuously rolled over them. Glancing down I saw the ripples traversing my entire body, drawing waves of pain that were quickly escalating. Without a target, the magic seemed to be turning against me.

  Josh.

  My phone was still in the BMW. Glancing back toward Sky’s bedroom window, I saw that the silencing spell had disappeared. Lucas Reed dead, I could call to her for help, but I didn’t know what the magic would do. Would it attack her? I couldn’t take that chance.

  Grimacing, I stumbled toward the BMW to retrieve my phone. I made it as far as the witch’s body before the undulating waves of pain became too much.

  Looking down at Lucas Reed, I knew I had one hope to get help.

  A fresh wave of pain reached its crescendo. I dropped to my knees, then twisted onto my back, gasping for breath until the pain subsided. A few more waves and I’d be completely incapacitated. Time was running out. Grunting and growling with the effort, I reached across the witch’s body and hauled him to me. Once close enough, my fingers plumbed his pockets until I fished out his phone. Luckily, it wasn’t locked.

  I called Josh’s number from memory. When he picked up, I didn’t wait for him to speak.

  “Nine-one—” I grunted, folding over as a new wave of pain hit me. The phone fell from my hand. I writhed on the concrete until the wave eventually subsided, and I saw my brother’s concerned expression as he crouched over me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I gasped, but he needed to get me out of sight before the neighbors took notice. It was very possible that an ambulance or the police were already on their way to investigate the dead body and the man with lightning still crackling over his skin.

  Josh began to mutter a chant. Slowly, steadily, I felt the waves of pain recede. The visible electricity diminished and died, and then I felt a rush of relief that left me panting for breath.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” he promised. Worried that I still wasn’t safe to touch, I jerked from his hands, but he managed to touch my leg before I could stop him. My senses reeled for a moment, then I found myself on his couch.

  He quickly pulled a blanket over me. “I’m going back to get rid of the body,” he said.

  “Move my car,” I groaned, tossing him my keys from my pocket. “And get rid of the motorcycle.”

  “I got it,” he insisted, then disappeared.

  I lay there for a few minutes, slowly bringing my breathing under control as the echoes of pain diminished, but I couldn’t shake the faint film of darkness that clung to me. Feeling stifled, I threw off the blanket, but the sense of darkness remained.

  When Josh reappeared a short time later, he looked relieved to find me sitting up. “It’s taken care of. Ethan, what happened?”

  “Sky?” I asked, wishing I’d remembered to tell him not to upset her.

  “She’s safely tucked inside the ward around her home. She has no idea.” He scrutinized me for a moment, his eyes roaming my body for signs of injury. “How did you kill that witch? He didn’t have a mark on him.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t answer that.”

  His lips pressed together in a tight frown. “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “I have no idea,” I said sincerely. “Something came over me, like a bolt of lightning. He had me on the ground. I was suffocating, and then I had this … power.” I stared at my palms. “Maybe it controlled me. I don’t know, but I somehow used it to kill the witch. He put up a field, but I broke through it easily.”

  I looked to him for answers.

  He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “When I found you, you were overflowing with magic. Now it’s subtler. If I wasn’t looking for it, I’m not sure that I would notice.”

  I sighed, relieved. “It’s dissipating.”

  He shook his head. “More like it’s settling.”

&nbs
p; “Do you recognize it?”

  “No. How do you feel?”

  “Different.”

  Josh took a step back from me and a translucent bubble shimmered to life around him—a magical protective field. “Try and break it down.”

  We both knew I could, even without the strange magic inside me. “No.”

  “We need to test this,” he insisted.

  I scowled. “When I killed Lucas, I didn’t have control over what I was doing. I’m not going to test it on you.”

  “This is important,” he insisted.

  I rose on wobbly legs to face him. “It’s reckless.” He rolled his eyes, triggering a spark of anger in me that seemed to excite my newfound magic. “Did you see what she was doing, how he found her?”

  Josh frowned but didn’t answer.

  “She was making her wardrobe dance. She used Ethos’s magic. To make her clothes dance. Tell me, Josh, what would’ve happened to her if I hadn’t been in the area and gotten there before Lucas Reed?”

  “She was safe inside the house.”

  “He could’ve broken in easily, and you know it.” Josh reacted as if stung, but I continued to press him. “You two have been playing with magic even you don’t understand. Do you think Lucas Reed was the only witch out there that is attracted to Ethos’s magic? And Sky is clueless. You both are.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, avoiding my direct gaze as he soaked in the blame, trying to mitigate it.

  “No. She’s just as reckless as you are. No matter how much you warn her, one or both of you will come up with another excuse to use Ethos’s magic.”

  “Ethan—”

  “What if Maya has access to that same power? What could she do with it?”

  He chewed absently on the bed of a fingernail while he considered the possibilities. Finally, he admitted, “I don’t know.”

  “Sky doesn’t have the training or the experience to deal with it. Until she does, it’s too dangerous for her to have.”

  “She’s not going to understand if we just take it from her.”

  “You just don’t want to give up your chance to study Ethos’s magic,” I snarled. “Grow up. Forget about power and make the right decision for her, for the pack.”

  He clenched his teeth and walked a few steps away before he turned back to me, angry. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Teach me the ritual to extract Ethos’s magic from her.”

  He struggled for a long moment before he answered with an almost imperceptible nod. I realized it wasn’t the loss of power that hurt him the most; he couldn’t bear the guilt of taking something from Sky that she valued. For once, he understood the kind of decisions I was frequently forced to make as the pack Beta.

  “I need a drink.” He turned and shuffled his way into the kitchen. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  I dropped down onto the couch and waited until he returned with two tumblers of whiskey. I’d give him a few minutes to relax before I pressed him for the ritual. For Sky’s sake, the job needed to be done soon. At least he didn’t have to bear the brunt of her anger after it was done. I could at least spare him that.

  CHAPTER 3

  We sat quietly for a moment, sipping our whiskeys, until Josh asked, “Is there anything you can think of that might explain where the magic came from?”

  I shook my head. Considering I’d used the mysterious magic to kill Lucas Reed, I doubted he’d been the source. He’d felt it coming before I had, and he’d been just as surprised. The memory of all that power suddenly coursing through me, inflaming every nerve of my body, made me shudder. Thanks to Josh, the magic had been reduced to a faint, dark vibration that hummed in my body like a ringing in my ear, a constant reminder that something in me had changed.

  “Someone sent you that magic, or you somehow intercepted it,” he said with a wary look. “Your body didn’t know how to absorb that much raw magic, at first.”

  “How did you get rid of it?” I asked.

  He considered for a moment, frowning at his whiskey. “I helped your body absorb it. I didn’t have time to do anything else,” he added in a defensive rush, closely watching my reaction.

  I swallowed my suspicion, for the moment. “This wasn’t an accident.”

  “No.”

  “I’m being set up,” I stated.

  He lifted his tumbler in semblance of a shrug, causing the ice to clink against the glass. “I suspect we’ll hear from your anonymous donor soon enough. I’ll ask around and see what I can come up with. Do some research. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to figure out the potential of your new abilities.”

  I scowled. “Playing with Ethos’s magic isn’t reckless enough for you?” I downed the last of my whiskey and set the empty tumbler on the coffee table. “You’re going to teach me the ritual to take Ethos’s magic from Sky, and then you’re going to demonstrate it on me.”

  He leaned back into his chair. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  I grunted. “Which one?”

  “Both, but for different reasons. I’ll teach you the ritual, but I think removing this magic from you is a mistake.”

  “Of course you do.”

  His lips bent into a disgruntled frown. “What do you think will happen when the owner of that magic comes looking for it and finds out we’ve destroyed it?”

  “A convenient rationale,” I said bitterly.

  Josh gestured broadly as he said, “I’m just considering all the angles. Isn’t that what you do?”

  I suppressed a growl as I scrutinized my brother. If his theory was correct, having the magic in my possession gave me a bargaining chip—or made me a target. Giving the magic up might make me a target as well. As much as I didn’t like the conclusion, he was making sense. “Teach me the ritual.”

  Josh gave me a long, sideways look, then set his tumbler aside and began gathering the items needed. While the ritual wasn’t complicated, it took me several dry runs before I felt confident. The more I focused, the more aware I became of the mysterious magic inhabiting my body, as steady and annoying as a ringing in my ear. After the last run-through, I gathered the necessary items into a bag and Josh transported me to my BMW parked a block away from Sky’s house.

  Behind the wheel, I picked up my phone from the passenger seat and discovered two voice mails. The first was from Claudia, reminding me to visit her. Though she didn’t press the matter, I could feel the subtle urgency in her voice. The second call was a somber one, from the nurse at Twilight Harbor.

  Miriam was family. I should’ve been there when she died. I shook my head, reminding myself, If I’d been with Miriam, Sky would be dead. But Lucas Reed should’ve never been a problem. If I hadn’t allowed her to keep Ethos’s magic, there wouldn’t have been a crisis in the first place. I couldn’t shake my anger at Sky, but I shared the responsibility.

  I called the nurse, instructing her to contact the funeral home where Miriam had previously made her arrangements. The home would handle everything. Judging by the shocked tone of the nurse’s response, I presumed that she found my seeming lack of emotion offensive, but we didn’t share the same frame of reference. The supernatural world was a dangerous place. People around me died all the time, often by violent means and while at the peak of their potential. With Miriam, I felt the small absence in the world of a face I would never see again, a voice I would never hear, but we’d never been close. She’d made sure of that.

  Claudia’s gallery was a large brick building just off the city’s main street. Noticing Sky’s Honda Civic parked outside triggered a rush of anger. At one time, her recklessness had been easily attributable to her lack of familiarity with our world. Her mother had died giving birth to her, leaving her to be raised by an adopted mother with no knowledge of the supernatural. Sky had grown up believing that her animal was a lonely curse, to be suppressed and shunned. But she’d spent the last two years with the pack—enough time to absorb the pitfalls and dangers of our way of life,
enough time to appreciate just how dangerous magic could be.

  Still, I couldn’t escape my own culpability, and the sinking feeling in my stomach as I schemed to take Ethos’s magic from her. It has to be done, I reminded myself. The sooner the better. Lucas Reed wasn’t the only threat out there; he’d just been the first to find her. She’ll understand it was for her protection, I decided. Eventually.

  I let out a slow breath, forcibly suppressing my anger and frustration and replacing it with a facsimile of calm, then went inside.

  Claudia’s gallery showcased Chicago’s most sought-after artists. Exquisite modern and abstract art dotted the textured white walls. Sculptures and installations were generously placed throughout the gallery, intermingled with uniquely styled benches and sofas placed for optimal viewing.

  As I walked in, I noticed Sky standing in front of her favorite painting. It was the one piece of art Claudia refused to sell, and Sky was obsessed with obtaining it. Her home was tastefully decorated with the fruits of her failure, as Claudia had skillfully converted each plea into a purchase of some other piece of artwork. I smiled. My godmother was a beguiling salesperson as well as a gifted artist. She claimed the painting was inspired by the relationship between my brother and me, but I only saw a passing resemblance.

  Sky was so engrossed in the painting that she failed to notice as I stopped just behind her. I found myself scrutinizing it over her shoulder, wondering just what it was that fascinated her. The smaller of the two boys, with short ruffled hair, appeared angelic as he slept peacefully, while the other boy knelt protectively nearby. His brown hair was flecked with gold. His gaze was somber and intense, displaying a wariness beyond his years as he watched over his sleeping brother, unaware of the looming shadow behind them.