Night Rises: The Awakened Magic Saga (Soul Forge Book 2)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  Addie nodded. “I have to go back now.”

  I closed the space between Addie and Jess as Addie stepped away. Ben closed and locked the door. The thunk of the bolts sliding home felt final.

  Jess barreled toward us, intent on mowing us down and following her aunt out into the freezing rain. I caught her in my arms and held her tight while she shook. We remained still while everyone around us began to move—to get dressed, to gather what gear we’d managed to bring with us in our flight to this place and whatever else the kids had the foresight to pull together in case of emergency. Doors opened and shut. People spoke softly.

  When Jess’s trembling had calmed, she whispered in my ear. “You can’t let her die.”

  “I don’t intend to,” I said.

  She struggled in my grasp, pulling away to look at me. Her eyes were dry, heat and light taking the place of unshed tears. “How?”

  “Working on it.”

  “Work faster,” she said.

  “Understood,” I said.

  She pressed the heels of her hands into the hollows below her eyes and sniffed. Then she let her hands fall. “What can I do?”

  “Ask Sunday,” I said. “If there’s nothing else, we meet back here.”

  Jess moved toward the back of the house in search of Sunday, just as I asked, leaving me a minute to myself in front of the fireplace, where the flames cracked a length of cedar, sending up a breath of fragrant smoke. I braced my hands on the mantel and leaned into them, letting the heat of the fire melt into me.

  I let my mind go blank, allowing the muscle memory of my training to come to the fore, to see the angles I wished I didn’t have to look for, to turn over the problem until the others returned. The pieces of information Miguel, and now Addie, had shared seemed as if they belonged to different puzzles, but the operative in me began to make sense of how they fit together.

  Red’s grass- and earth-drenched presence drew close behind me. I felt him before he laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  I turned to look out at the living room and saw that everyone had assembled, waiting. I hadn’t heard them. I hadn’t sensed them at all.

  Red’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a show of calm and certainty I didn’t feel inside and had no idea how he’d managed to manifest.

  Sunday and Miguel stood side by side, leaning back against the bar. They didn’t look ready to kill each other, or even as if they might be biding their time until they got a chance at it. Ben had taken up position near the door, his gray halo in constant touch with the house shield. Jess stood beside him, the shaking of earlier not only over but every trace of fear and anticipation of grief banished. She’d found a brown leather belt in the house stash, one with a sheath and a bone-handled knife that fit in it.

  Faith and Corey held up the far wall, where a few hours earlier they’d watched a movie. They held each other’s hands tight enough to cut off circulation. If there was a touch more gold in Faith’s eyes than ought to be there, I couldn’t do anything about it right now. They’d piled a few items in front of them. A couple more knives, a baseball bat, plastic water bottles filled with liquid that fizzed in ways water did not.

  There were also extra coats and shoes, brought for those of us who’d fled Addie’s place without ours.

  “You with us?” Red asked.

  This was my family. My reason for trying so hard to become human.

  “Never anywhere else,” I said.

  Sunday studied my face. “You have a plan. Does it still involve Miguel turning into you?”

  “It does,” I said. “But there’s more.”

  I told them what Shadow had said about humans with magic being descended from angels, which they met with stunned silence. And then I told them what Miguel had said about me in particular, about the specific angel blood that ran through my veins and granted me the power necessary to trap and hold the Angel of Death.

  Michael or Lucifer.

  Sunday glanced at Miguel. “Any way to prove that?”

  “It’s the lore,” he said.

  “It’s a myth, you mean.”

  He shrugged. “You got a better explanation?”

  “No,” she said. “It just seems far-fetched.”

  “Like the Angel of Death is far-fetched?” he asked.

  “No comeback to that,” she said.

  I pulled up my sleeve and pointed to the half-moon mark, the part of my physical landscape that every single person in the room except Miguel had taken for granted. “Jess, do you know what this is?”

  She walked over to take a closer look. “No. What is it?”

  “You ever heard of a being like Shadow—a woman whose name is Dream?”

  “I only know Shadow,” Jess said.

  “She looks about forty, but she feels like an abuela.”

  Jess shook her head. “Shadow is with us. With the Watchers. He’s the only one of his kind—that I know of.”

  Red reached for my arm, running his fingertips along the length and curve of the mark.

  “You see anything?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “Doesn’t mean nothing’s there, though. I’m used to seeing the same patterns in people—people aren’t all that different. Sometimes you have to know what you’re looking for before you can compass it.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  I’d explain later if I could. The important point was that the Watchers had a hole in their knowledge. And we could use that to our advantage.

  I hoped.

  I met Red’s gaze.

  He searched my eyes. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

  “No,” I said. “You and the kids stay in the house unless there’s a compelling reason not to.”

  “Really not liking it already,” he said.

  I flashed him a tight smile, then glanced at the kids. “You hear that? Compelling.”

  In other words, they had my permission to burn it up or burn it down if the need arose. It was the only way I could balance keeping them safe with the fact of their power, smarts, and teamwork.

  “Sunday,” I said. “Need you with me.”

  “I’m on it,” she said.

  I lifted my chin in Miguel’s direction. “You ready?”

  “You want me to go out the front door while you take the back,” he said. Not a question, but a statement of fact.

  “You’re gonna bear the brunt of what they throw,” I said. “It’ll be your job to stand as long as you can.”

  “It’s not a job,” he said. “It’s an adventure.”

  He wasn’t really joking; he meant every word.

  He was about to get the chance to take on a bunch of Watchers while wearing my face and using my magic, with no idea how long he could keep his feet or whether he’d end up dead for the trouble. I wondered about what he’d told me before about who he wanted to be—and how much having the chance to be someone other than himself for even a minute had to do with the strange joy that lit his face.

  Sunday wore a similar expression. She’d been made for this kind of stuff.

  I couldn’t pretend that something inside of me sang, too.

  Fucking Order operatives.

  Corey and Faith handed me a pair of chunky Mary Janes, the ones Corey had worn earlier.

  “We’re about the same size,” Corey said.

  We were, shoes and clothes. I accepted the shoes and a black fleece jacket with gratitude.

  “Give us a minute?” I asked.

  Corey took a step back and went to help someone else, leaving me with Faith.

  Definitely more gold in her eyes than there should’ve been. Her skin seemed burnished with it as well. The Awakened, closer to the surface than I’d witnessed before.

  “I don’t want to stay inside,” she said.

  “I get that,” I said. “I don’t want you to use our magic unless you have no other choice.”

  She slid her hands into her back pockets. “You’re afraid of wha
t will happen. That the Awakened will take over.”

  “You’re not?” I asked. “After what happened at the gym?”

  “That man needed killing,” she said.

  I flinched. “Never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”

  “I have to see it that way,” she said. “If I hadn’t killed him, he’d have killed Red and me.”

  Absolutely true. “I’m not gonna tell you different.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  I took a breath before I answered. “It bothered you before.”

  “That was before, Night.”

  I hugged her hard because I wanted her to know I loved her, but also because I didn’t want her to see the worry on my face. That she hugged me just as hard helped some.

  When I pulled away, Sunday stepped between us. “Now or never.”

  Miguel waited behind her. He’d taken up his long hair and tied it in a knot at the nape of his neck. “It’ll go easier if I can touch you.”

  I held up my hands. He pressed his palms to mine.

  A shock surged through me, raising every hair on my body to attention. For a heartbeat, it felt as if every cell in my body had been invaded and sampled, as if someone had opened the door to my soul and looked inside, taking my measure. All the air in my lungs rushed out, leaving me gasping. All the air in the room seemed to gather in one point—over the crown of Miguel’s head. It took the shape of a tiny, black dot, with weight and mass so great it might’ve been a planet instead of a speck.

  My mouth leached dry as a desert. My lungs ached. My head began to feel full, like a fallen grape about to burst underfoot.

  Then the speck above Miguel’s head exploded. Air rushed into my lungs so fast and strong, I staggered back, breaking the connection between us. He began to change.

  The transformation began with his hands, where we’d touched, his fingers drawing shorter, his wrists more slender. One piece of him at a time turned into a piece of me. Proportions shifted wildly. One eye his and one mine; one leg his and then mine. It felt like one part magic, one part science I couldn’t name, and one part art. Picasso. Or Frankenstein.

  I blinked at Miguel, and in that fraction of a second, he became a mirror image of me entirely—one swallowed by now-oversized clothes and shoes. The last change was the most important: his purple bruise of a halo darkened to the color of a moonless, starless midnight sky, the color of the beginning and the end, of birth and death. From darkness we emerged; unto darkness we would return.

  “Wow,” I said.

  He flushed. A peculiar reaction. His voice sounded exactly like mine. “You saw how it works?”

  I nodded. And then I got it—no one other than chameleons themselves had been allowed to see what he’d shown me. He’d given me clues as to how his magic worked, and therefore a potential weapon against him.

  It was an act of trust. A leap of faith.

  I nodded again, this time in appreciation.

  “You understand how my magic works?” I asked.

  “It’s projection,” he said. “I mean, it’s more than that. You have to read the dreams and memories of your targets first. I’m not gonna have time to do that.”

  “No,” I said. “You won’t. So choose an image and project the hell out of it—at all of them. Into every single one of their minds. Have it ready before you even open the door and step outside. Hit them hard. Don’t give them a chance to breathe.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  I felt a nudge at my elbow. Corey, with the rest of the clothes she’d brought, this time for Miguel to wear. If he was going out there as me, he’d need to dress like me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Corey nodded. “I just hope it works.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  I rested a hand on Miguel’s—my—shoulder. “Good luck.”

  His lips—my lips—curved. “Yeah. You, too.”

  I headed for the back of the house, Sunday dogging my heels, and Red behind her. Before we reached the back door, at the end of the hall beyond the familiar places, Sunday had drawn her knife, keeping her gun in reserve—stealth first. She’d been outfitted by Corey, like me. In her case, with a purple fleece hoodie. She’d have looked silly if it weren’t for the impending violence in her eyes.

  “We’ll need to move fast and silent,” she said. “I’ll only use this if I have no other choice.”

  Which meant magic. And for me, my knife as a last resort.

  I recalled the terrain from the quick check I’d done last night. Patio right outside the door. No lawn furniture. Trees to the left—good hiding in there. Wood fence way out back. Trash bins on the right. Chain-link fence on that side of the yard, with a chain-link gate. There was a side yard, not fenced.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Red. “Watch for infiltration. If the Watchers can get around Miguel or Sunday and me to get in here, they will. They’ll go after—”

  He finished my sentence. “Faith.”

  “Yes.”

  “They may get more than they bargained for if they try that,” he said.

  Vaporized, like the Order operative at the gym. I was more worried about the consequences. I didn’t believe Faith’s ends-justify-the-means conversion, and I sure as hell didn’t want to see what the effect of further killing with her magic would do. If the Awakened rose in her full and whole—where would that leave Faith?

  “Let’s not go there if we can help it,” I said.

  “I know you want more time. I know we need it.”

  “Whether we get it may not be up to us,” I said.

  He planted a kiss on my mouth. It tasted like a promise.

  “Come back,” he said.

  I held his gaze. “Whatever it takes.”

  Shouts filled the air out front. Some Watchers taken by surprise, from the sound. Others, not.

  Sunday swung open the back door and stepped into the night.

  I followed, the darkness swallowing me whole. I breathed in the scent of snow, and the sap-and-astringent perfume of the pine trees to our left. The soles of my shoes slipped and slid on the ice-drenched back patio. I could just make out shadows and edges, including the outline of the wooden fence at the far end of the yard.

  My eyes adjusted quickly, but not fast enough to dodge the blade thrown at me. Sunday shoved me sideways. The knife flipped end over end, the point sinking halfway to the hilt into the siding beside the door as Red slammed it shut.

  I caught sight of the Watcher who’d thrown it. Small frame. Auburn hair. Halo like a nebula. I reached out with my magic, locking onto her mind before she had a chance to figure out what hit her. A memory of Shadow flashed behind her eyes. He’d been at her with her own knife.

  Addie hadn’t been the only Watcher to have second thoughts about what Shadow had demanded of them. This one had tried to resist, but Shadow had broken her.

  If I felt a sliver of empathy for her, I couldn’t indulge it. Fast and silent, we had to be. I dumped her into that terrible memory as if throwing her over the side of a ship into storm-tossed waves. She sank like a stone.

  She wanted to scream. Shadow wouldn’t let her use her voice. So she cried out on the inside, heart racing so fast it would burst any second—

  I set the trap that held her and pulled the rest of my mind, and my magic, back into myself.

  Sunday was already moving again. I quickened my pace to catch her, slip-sliding again as cement gave way to slick grass.

  The next Watcher went down before I could get to her. He was short, stocky, bald, and in a instant, blind. He dropped a handgun in the grass and drew his hands to his face. He rubbed his eyes, mouth open to suck in air.

  Sunday had stopped to set her magic. She didn’t make a sound—not even so much as the sound of indrawn breath. So the Watcher didn’t hear her, but he heard me.

  Down came the hands, reaching for the weapon he’d dropped. I launched a right hook at the side of his head. It connected with a sickening thud. Down
he went before he could shout a warning. Sunday followed my strike with her knife.

  I hunkered beside the chain-link fence, checking for movement, searching for halos. Rhododendrons lined the side yard, planted in a line of flowerbeds close to the house. Flowering bushes weren’t the only things planted there, however.

  Sunday knelt beside me. “Anything?”

  “One pressed against the side of the house between the bushes,” I said. “There’s a couple more that I glimpsed a second ago closer to the front yard, but they were running toward the front walk. They’re out of sight now.”

  “Miguel,” Sunday said.

  “Still alive.” It gave me hope—a dangerous emotion to feel at a time like this. “I’ve got point from here on out.”

  I reached for the hidden Watcher with my magic, seizing their mind and dropping them onto a lonely road that stretched on forever under the Milky Way, an image they’d seen in an art gallery. The road was made for walking. If they became trapped there, they’d walk forever. No food. No water. No stopping.

  I vaulted the fence and took off at a run, brushing by their unseeing eyes, flying down the side yard until I broke the plane of the house. I rolled, rising up again on the balls of my feet.

  The movement caught the eye of a single Watcher whose gaze had wandered from the full-on assault three others levied against Miguel.

  The Watcher’s blue hair rose on end, impossibly tall. No, not hair—peacock feathers. The Watcher lifted a hand that glowed with blue fire and aimed it at me, using their magical muscles like a slingshot to draw back the shot.

  They never got the chance to launch it.

  Sunday barreled around the corner, skidding low to the ground, her eyes tracking the Watcher. She met the Watcher’s gaze. A moment later, the Watcher hit the ground, blinded. Too far away for me to throw a punch or a knife, and I dared not tie up my own magic. Not with the field in front of me still in play.

  The grounded Watcher screamed. Every single person in the yard froze.

  The Watchers surrounding Miguel backed away—all except the one who’d managed to get hands on him. That one held him in a headlock, pressure on his jugular. As I watched, Miguel’s consciousness fled. His legs betrayed him. He went down in a heap.