by Jess Haines
Cormac reached across the table, his warm fingers pressed lightly over her own, stilling them. “Stop worrying. Like I said, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She nodded, though fine lines of strain remained around her eyes. “My mom doesn’t have the spark. I’ve got school and work—I can’t always be there to keep her safe—”
“Kimberly.”
She looked up, her haunted gaze meeting his.
“No Other in their right mind who plans on keeping their freedom will approach you directly. Even if one of them is foolish enough to try something, I’ll be watching out for you. And your mother, if you wish.”
He sat back as Rieva approached with their dinners. She took one look at Kimberly’s stricken face, set the plates down, then reached over to a nearby table to grab a napkin wrapped around silverware. Shaking the square of cloth out, she pressed it into Kimberly’s hands, shot an accusatory look at Cormac, then flounced off back to the kitchen.
Cormac watched the changeling go, his eyes narrowed to dangerous slivers. Then he turned back, gesturing to the steaming plates of steak and lightly grilled vegetables. The scent wafting up was divine, but he ignored his hunger, waiting for Kimberly to take the first bite.
She didn’t touch the food. He knew she had to be hungry, but she was just looking at him with the strangest expression, wringing the napkin so hard her knuckles were going white.
“What is it?” he asked.
“What are you?”
There were a couple of choked-off sounds and whispers nearby. Though it wasn’t a question one normally asked of an Other—speciesism was frowned upon—he didn’t take offense.
“A friend. Come on, eat up.”
She continued to stare, though she went through the motions of cutting up her food. It didn’t escape her notice that Cormac didn’t touch his own food until she took her first bite.
She could have sworn for a second that she had seen beyond his skin and that, like Rieva, he was a veritable wellspring of power. Not that she doubted it, but she usually had to concentrate to see elemental magic. Her Sight tended to be limited and hazy, and it was doubly odd that she had seen something without having to put effort into it first.
That coffee must have been tweaking her perceptions. The other creatures who were shifted into a human form rather than using illusions to hide their nature gave off a similar aura, but nothing near the level of power she had detected from the changeling or from Cormac.
Obviously, he wasn’t interested in giving her any straight answers. She turned her attention to her food—not very difficult, considering the steak was some of the best she’d ever tasted, and the thick slice of rum-infused chocolate cake they shared for dessert was melt-in-your-mouth delicious—but throughout the meal, the question remained in the back of her mind.
The aura of magi “sparked” with their unconscious influence on their environment as they absorbed power, often in a miasma of colors unless they were gifted in the use of a particular element. Elemental Others were more like bubbling springs or fountains, a constant flow of power shaded with the colors of the elements that formed their essence.
Though he was doing something to mask the strength of his nature, she had seen his brand of power, and it was like nothing she had ever encountered before. While she had never seen her own aura, or that of another sorcerer, somehow she didn’t think he was like her.
He was no mage. Nothing remotely human.
Seeing as he wasn’t about to come clean on his own, and she was beginning to suspect Professor Reed would remain similarly close-lipped if she asked, she had to figure out what kind of mess she had walked into. Everything about him and his motives was now suspect. After the night’s fiasco, she couldn’t afford to wait for him to get around to telling her what he was or why he was helping her on his own time. Time was running out and even with Professor Reed’s recommendation, she couldn’t be sure his offer of protection was genuine. She would need to do some research of her own into Cormac Hunter.
It might be the only way she could survive this hunt intact.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Despite Cormac’s reassurances, Kimberly couldn’t stop worrying about her mother’s safety. If she had any skill whatsoever with elements, she could have fashioned a protective spell to shield her. Instead, she would have to rely on enchanting a few runic stones and hope her mother wouldn’t forget to keep them close enough to be effective.
Kimberly’s ability to infuse an enchantment into an item was greater than that of most of the other students at her school, but she didn’t have all of the necessary ingredients or any idea what she should be protecting her mother against. The only protective runes she could make at home were basic, and she’d have to use some of her school supplies to do it, but it was better than sending her mother out entirely unprotected.
Dragons and their ilk came in as many flavors as there were elements. They didn’t have to breathe fire or use their great strength to be dangerous. Not to mention there was no way to guess what the specialty of any attacking magi might be.
While the major elements—fire, wind, water and earth—were easy enough, there were hundreds of sub-specialties and cross-element spells that could be used. No runic glyph existed that could stop them all. If some enemy turned her mother’s heart to stone, filled her lungs with water, froze her insides, cut off her oxygen, poisoned her food—there was no single catch-all shielding spell Kimberly could concoct to protect against all of those things. As a mage, she had some innate sense of when such spells were being cast and could counter them herself without relying on components or charmed objects. Her stonework counterspells still needed some work, but otherwise she was just as proficient as the next student in personal shielding.
Her mother had no spark. She wouldn’t even know what was happening, and had no way to sense a magical attack coming. She could be dead before she even knew something was wrong.
When she got home, Kimberly tore through her third year Semi-Permanent to Permanent Enchantment and fourth year Counterspells & You and Intermediate Redirection, Countermagic and Sheilding textbooks. She knew the counterspell and defensive spell books were all geared toward teaching personal protection cast on the fly, but she was hoping she could find some way of applying them to what she knew about wards to set a myriad of protective enchantments on the apartment.
Her mother came home just after midnight, still wearing her black slacks and stained long-sleeved shirt from her latest stint at the diner down the street.
Like Kimberly, she was skinny and a bit hollow-eyed from constant stress. They shared similar bone structure and the same skin tone, but Kimberly had gotten her reddish-brown hair and fae green eyes from her father. Her mom’s hair was much lighter, almost blonde, and chopped short in a pixie cut. Her brown eyes were heavy with exhaustion, and her lips twisted with displeasure the moment she walked in the door and saw the candles, mortar and pestle, and baggies of various herbs, shells and stones spread out around Kimberly in the middle of the hallway.
“I wish you’d do your homework in the living room, kiddo.”
Kimberly flushed and scrambled to her feet, making some room for her mom to slip by.
“Sorry, Mom. This isn’t homework.”
At the thundercloud passing over her mother’s face, she ran back to her supplies and grabbed a handful of runic stones, like small, round river stones, freshly etched with glowing symbols. Her mother shook her head and moved into the living room, tossing her purse on the couch as Kimberly held out the stones for her mom to see. She didn’t touch them.
“Don’t be mad! This is important. Please, keep these on you at work, okay? Put them in your purse or your pocket.”
Her mother didn’t object as she put the stones in the faux leather purse, watching with a weary expression. She didn’t say anything at all until Kimberly stopped bustling around and turned to face her again.
“You know how I feel about this stuff. I really need some help t
his month. If you’ve got this much free time, I need you to use it putting in more hours at the café, not messing around with this voodoo junk. We’re short on the rent and I can’t get any more hours at the diner.”
Kimberly tried to ignore the constriction around her heart, but she was still having a hard time speaking around the lump in her throat. “Mom, please—”
“Don’t get started. I’m going to shower and get some sleep. Finish your homework, clean up this mess, and get to bed. Let me know what Don says about your hours tomorrow.”
Kimberly stood there as her mother headed into the bedroom. A few minutes later, the shower was running.
Clenching her fists in frustration, she glared a burning hole in the floor where she’d left her spelling ingredients—then dismissed the illusion before her fury might freak out any neighbors smelling the fake smoke. Angry and frustrated beyond measure, she thought about throwing everything out, just out of spite—but then common sense kicked back in.
Even if her mother didn’t want to have anything to do with this side of her, Kimberly still had a responsibility to do everything she could to protect her.
Though she’d probably get grounded for sending their security deposit on the apartment down the drain, she used her spelling chalk and etched a series of protection glyphs around the door frame. The pale blue chalk wasn’t so visible in the dark against the cream-colored paint. Maybe she’d get lucky and her mom wouldn’t even notice the marks until the danger was past. Even if she did spot it and tried to clean the chalk, it wouldn’t come off. Kimberly set the glyphs; a fae light briefly glimmered in the shadows of the hall, then faded. Now her power, or that of a stronger magic user than herself, was the only thing that could remove them.
Her mom might not like it, but at least they would be safe from most basic elemental attacks or intrusions. Someone could still set the building on fire or destroy it with a bomb, but no one of a supernatural nature would be sneaking into the apartment or lobbing any magical grenades inside anytime soon.
She spent the rest of a mostly sleepless night tossing and turning, unsure if she’d thought of every possible type of protection rune to stick in her mom’s purse. Also trying and failing to come up with a decent plan to keep herself safe, too.
As soon as the sun rose, a little after 6AM, Kimberly was up and at her books again. This time she was searching her textbooks for any clue how to decipher what an Other was when they were hiding in a conjured body instead of using illusion to blend with their environment. There was plenty of information about tactics for seeing through the illusions an Other might use and how certain turns of phrase in their speech might give some general clues, but no specifics, and nothing about how to read their auras.
When her mother woke up, she found Kimberly sitting cross-legged on her bed surrounded by books. She was staring at the one in her lap like she could glare the answers she wanted out of it with the force of her will alone.
She grimaced, but rolled out of bed and started getting ready for work without doing anything to interrupt her daughter’s concentration.
Kimberly lost track of time and didn’t notice until she overheard her mother’s dismayed shout—looked like she found the glyphs—and voiced a curse of her own when she spotted the time on the clock on the bedside table. Flying off the bed, she threw on her clothes, ran ragged fingers through her hair to get it out of her face, and scrambled to find the books she needed for class.
“What did I tell you? This mess better not still be here when I get home tonight, young lady!”
“Yes, Mom!” Kimberly shouted in reply, hopping on one foot as she fought to tug on one of her sneakers.
“I mean it!”
“I know, I’m sorry! I’ll get it tonight! Go to work, you’re gonna be late!”
Minutes later, Kimberly was following her mother out the door, sprinting down the hall and taking the stairwell instead of the ancient, rickety elevator. Bursting out into the street, she took off full-tilt for school, huffing like a bellows as she clutched her backpack straps tight.
She was glad it was still cool out in the mornings. It made her straining lungs not ache quite so much as she ran two and a half miles through the city streets. The buildings around her gradually—and in a few places, not so gradually—shifted from old brick and granite, some with boarded up windows, to shining marble and gleaming chrome.
It didn’t take as long as she had feared it would to get to the Museum of Natural History. She still had almost half an hour before her first class started. Breathing deep, she started circling the block to walk off the stitch in her side.
When she rounded the corner on Central Park West, Xander was on the other side of the street waiting at the crosswalk. She returned his wave and paused when he shouted for her to wait up. She leaned against the short stone pillar holding up the museum’s fencing at the corner. She surreptitiously weaved a bit of magic to hide just how sweaty she was, then reached up to tie her hair in a ponytail to get it off her neck.
Moments later, Xander trotted up to her side. He nudged up his sunglasses with his thumb, giving her a cheerful smile. “Hey, you’re here early. Want to grab a coffee before class?”
“Nah, but I’ll go with you if you want one.”
They headed to a Starbucks only a half a block away. It was packed with people in suits and a few early bird tourists, but the service was quick, and Xander was soon sipping a caffè americano.
“I don’t know how you can drink that bog water,” Kimberly teased.
“Hey, it’s expensive, so it must be good,” he replied, grinning.
They headed to the deep shadows under one of the trees in front of the museum. Just as Kimberly was about to step into the hidden Gate disguised as a natural alcove in a tree that would take her directly to one of school common rooms, a leather-clad arm shot out to block her way.
She jerked back, looking up into eyes an unnatural yellow hue, arrestingly luminous in an otherwise unremarkable face. Aside from his height and strangely colored eyes, there was nothing obviously out of the ordinary about him. He grinned down at her, his teeth gleaming white and sharp.
“So this is the fierce and ferocious dragon hunter. You’re shorter than I expected.”
Xander stepped closer, his gaze flitting back and forth between the two. “Kimberly, what’s going on?”
The strange man cut Kimberly off before she could stammer out an answer. “Get out of here, boy. This doesn’t concern you.”
Kimberly skittered back, and the man straightened, never taking his eyes off her. She held up her hands to ward him off before he could take another step closer. Nearby pedestrians were giving them a wide berth. One of the security guards by a driveway in front of the museum was muttering into a walkie-talkie, his eyes glued to the three.
This went against everything the two magi had been taught. The first rule of being Other was, above all else, blend with humanity to survive. The obfuscation spell on the Gate was limited; it only worked if you weren’t doing anything to call notice to yourself. Anyone making a point to stare at the spot, like that security guard, would see the people disappearing into thin air as they stepped into a patch of shadow beside a particular tree. Even if they got rid of this newcomer, Kimberly, Xander, and any other Blackhollow students who were planning on using the Gate on 77th and Columbus would have to find an alternate route inside this morning thanks to the attention they had drawn.
“Look, I don’t know what you want, but I’ve got to get to class.”
“Not today, you don’t. I’ve got a proposition for you. Come with me and we’ll talk about it.”
Xander stepped between them. To anyone without a drop of spark in their blood, the power gathering around his upraised palm would be invisible. The passerby might assume he was doing an impression of The Supremes, telling the stranger to stop in the name of love, or something very much like it. Whereas to Kimberly and the Other who had accosted her, to their Sight, the threads of red and
white energy were building a formidable fire-based shield that shimmered into life between them.
The Other finally broke his unblinking stare, switching that cold, calculating gaze to Xander. The mage held his stance, unflinching.
A slow, wicked smile revealed too many fangs behind the Other’s lips. “Your white knight can’t keep you safe forever. Watch your back, dragon hunter.”
A hand appeared on his shoulder, spinning him around. As Cormac leaned in, the stranger scrambled back and out of his reach. Neither Kimberly nor Xander had seen Cormac approach; it was like he’d appeared out of nowhere.
“You watch yours, Viper. Slither back to your hole and don’t let me catch you anywhere near the girl again.”
The man he’d called Viper snarled something Kimberly didn’t catch, then turned on his heel and fled. He melted into the pedestrian traffic so rapidly that both magi quickly lost sight of him.
Xander lowered his hand, clenching his fist around the glittering threads of energy he’d summoned. The (mostly) invisible shield winked out of existence, giving an audible pop that made a few people walking nearby jump in surprise and look around for the source. He took a sip of his americano, looking around with mild curiosity as if he, too, were searching for the source of the sound.
Cormac didn’t look at either of them or make any attempt to blend with the crowd, his gaze focused in the direction Viper had disappeared. When he spoke, his voice was a low, husky growl that sent shivers up Kimberly’s spine.
“Use the entrance off of 81st. Use the Gate to Grand Central when school lets out and I’ll escort you to work.”
“Are you serious? I’ll be late for work. If I’m late again, I’ll lose my job!”