I sat up and looked around, trying to remember the details of what had happened. There was the blast and then Jakes carrying Devan and me away from the barn. Much more than that was lost in a fog of pain and weakness.
At least Devan was safe. And I was home.
Light wiggled around the edges of the blankets covering the window. I lay in the middle of the living room, the old sofa that we’d brought in for Taylor now pushed out of the way so that I was lying on a blanket in the middle of the floor. The circle carved into the floor caught enough of the light that I could see that someone had pressed power through it. Not me, not in the shape I’d been in last night. Maybe Taylor?
Two figurines perched on the ground, each pointing toward me. They were Devan’s work, different from the figurines I’d found in Jakes’s shed. Devan’s figurines each looked like some magical creature from her imagination. I suspected she carved creatures she’d seen before, but these weren’t anything I’d ever seen.
After sitting for a moment, I forced myself to stand. Pain shot through my back and side, and I winced, holding myself as I opened the door and stepped into the morning sunlight. Sounds from the open garage drew me toward it.
Devan was hunched over her bench and paused when I approached. “You should still be resting, Ollie.”
“Yeah, well my body doesn’t want me to rest.”
She turned and faced me, a long tool that looked something like a knife held out in front of her. “Your body doesn’t know what it wants,” she said.
I looked past her to see what she’d been working on. A long strip of black leather lay across the bench, and she worked a hunk of shaped metal into it. “That my belt?” She slapped my hand away with the knife as I reached for it. “Hey! Careful with the weapons.”
“Not your belt. Your belt—at least the one I’d made you before—was basically shredded.”
I looked down at my waist. I hadn’t really thought about what would happen when I triggered the charm. “Shredded?”
She slapped my hand again, and I looked up at her. “You weren’t in any danger of blowing your parts off. The leather was made to tear away when you used the charm.”
I grunted. “You could have warned me about that. What if my pants fell down?”
“Then you’d have had to face Adazi with a bare ass.” She turned back to the bench and pushed the long knife into the metal a few times, making movements so subtle, I couldn’t really see them. Then she stopped and held it out to me. “Here. Need to load the ink of your choice, but it should be ready.”
“Only three hooks?” I tapped the hooks where I’d always attached satchels of ink. My other belt had room for five.
“Do you really think you’re ever going to need more than that?”
“It was nice to have options,” I whined.
She grabbed the belt from me and within a minute had jabbed two more hooks into the belt before whipping it at me. “Here. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.”
I placed the belt over my shoulder. “What happened, you know, with Adazi?”
Devan looked past the garage toward the house, a troubled expression pulling at her face. “Shifter magic,” she answered. “I can’t detect it. When he snuck up on me, I…I didn’t see him coming. He overpowered me. I didn’t know how at first, but then I realized what kind of magic he used, how he combined the two.”
“Kacey didn’t think there was any point in a shifter using painter magic.”
“She wouldn’t,” Devan agreed. “She’s young. The only thing she’s ever lost is Sam’s father.”
“Sam? You’re on a first name basis with Jakes now?”
She glared at me. “You’re an idiot.”
“That’s what you keep telling me.”
“Besides, why would you care?”
“Just want you to be well. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” I pulled a stool out from the under her bench and took a seat. It didn’t help the achiness in my back and sides. “What did Adazi do to you?”
Devan’s face clouded at the mention of Adazi. “Nothing. I wasn’t what he was really after.”
“Maybe not you, but the Druist Mage wants you back over the Threshold.”
“You must have found the orb?” Devan asked, eyes looking back down to the bench.
I studied her, noting the reaction to the Druist Mage. She rarely spoke of the commitment her father had made and her role in it. “I found it and would have given it to him if not for Jakes convincing me otherwise.”
She looked up, heat in her eyes. “The Druist can never have that orb, Ollie. I’m not worth the pain that will come if he possesses it.”
“I gathered that. What’s it do? I mean, besides making the little men dance.” I held out the figurines she’d left beside me and wriggled them in front of her face.
She snatched them out of the air and carefully placed them in her pocket. “You know about that?”
“I saw what happened when Adazi used the orb. His figurine started to stretch and move.”
She jerked her head up to look at me. “I thought you said you didn’t give him the orb.”
“We made a replica. Only, I think I might have attuned it to Adazi.” When she frowned, I explained the arcane mark I’d added. “The original might not have worked for him, but I might have unintentionally given him the power he wanted.”
“What happened with the figurine?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Ollie?”
“I don’t know. It was about that time when everything went to hell. Jakes attacked Adazi. Chase attack me. I used your charm on the crystal ball and it cracked. So for all I know, the little man that Adazi made dance burned up in the fire.”
Her jaw worked, clenching slightly.
“What is it? What are those things? Are they some sort of magical containment?”
“Something like that. Magic—real magic,” she said, making me wonder if she implied that what I did was not real magic, “can’t be destroyed. Not entirely. It will pass on, always living on.”
“You’re not immortal, Devan,” I reminded her. “I’ve seen your father’s men die.”
“I’m not immortal, but certain power is.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighed. “You think my father horrible—”
“He is horrible.”
Devan waved away my comment. “But he’s contained hundreds of dangerous powers. He keeps them all well protected. You’ve seen the room. He had you add part of the protections.”
The Trelking had me add protections to many parts of his palace. “What does that have to do with Adazi?”
“I didn’t know at first. But while he held me, he couldn’t help but talk.” Devan turned and looked at me. “Adazi managed to steal several of those things from my father and brought them to the Druist.”
My eyes widened. “That was the reason behind the bargain, wasn’t it? The Trelking wanted his toys back.”
Devan shook her head. “They’re not toys, Ollie. And that figurine you saw, that was a creature of power like those my father had contained.”
I didn’t need Devan to explain what it meant that it had taken her father—the Trelking—to contain the creature of power.
I thought of the locked drawers in the cabinet where I’d found the figurines carefully stacked and left, the chill I’d felt holding them. There had been one drawer that had been empty. The reason Jakes thought I’d already been in the shed and stolen it. Chase had somehow managed to break into the shed and steal the figurine. But why that one?
“Do you think destroying the orb kept Adazi from releasing it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. That’s not an area I know much about.”
I pointed toward the pocket where she’d placed the figurines. “From what I see, you know quite a bit about them.”
“Ollie, don’t be an idiot. It suits you too well. These aren’t the same as my father’s.”
“Then what are they?”
She shrugged. “A distraction.”
I shifted on the stool, trying to get comfortable. “I’ll need to go back to the barn,” I said. “I need to see if the figurine is still there. And Adazi. I need to know that he’s gone.”
Devan nodded. “Later. You’re not strong enough yet.”
“Then I’ll take Jakes with me.”
Devan stared at me a moment. “Fine. I’ll go with you, too.” She hesitated. “Ollie, there’s something you should know. Something else I overheard Adazi talking about.”
“What?” I asked.
“I never knew who he spoke to. He kept me bound and contained. I think he thought his protective circle would keep me from overhearing him, but I could listen as long as I was awake. There was one time the other person asked if they should fear you.”
I snorted. “I think Adazi feared Taylor more than me.”
“Maybe in time. But it was you he was most nervous about. But that’s not what caught my attention. He made a comment about another painter they’d found a year ago. One they’d captured and taken to the Druist.”
“Are you saying what I think you are?”
Instead of answering, Devan looked over my shoulder.
I turned and saw Taylor standing in the doorway to the garage. The look on her face told me she’d overheard the last part.
“He’s alive?” Taylor said.
Devan sighed. “He might be alive, but it’s likely he now serves the Druist Mage.”
Painter For Hire
1
Music thumped out of the old-fashioned jukebox set along the wall of the diner, stuffed between two empty booths that let the music echo off it. The mix of new hip-hop didn’t fit the neon lights that swirled around the outside of the machine, or the rest of the diner. The Rooster had a row of booths along the front bank of windows, salt and pepper shakers at each table, tucked neatly against the wall, arranged between plastic bottles of ketchup and mustard. A long counter ran across the back of the diner, and vinyl-covered stools were pushed under the ledge. The diner could have fit right into the sixties; most of the decorations looked like they came from that era.
Devan tapped something on the front of the jukebox, and the song changed, slipping to an older Michael Jackson song. At least I knew this one. She stomped her feet a few times as she flashed me a smile and arched her eyebrows at me.
“Is that some sort of message to me?” I asked her when she came back to the counter to the sounds of “Beat It.” I worked the fry I was eating through a dollop of ketchup, smearing it into a pattern along the plate. Habit, I guess. As a painter, able to use colors and patterns to focus power, I was always making different patterns like that. Ketchup might not make a great ink, but the color worked for me. I didn’t bother trying to infuse power into the ketchup. I didn’t want to create any more of a scene than Devan’s dancing already was.
She flopped onto her stool, slid back on the vinyl and reached for the massive burger on the chipped plate in front of her. Were she any other woman, I might question whether she could finish the burger. Devan is petite. I mean, seriously tiny. She stands maybe five feet tall and can’t weigh any more than one hundred pounds fully dressed—and that includes the hiking boots she preferred and even her pockets full of her favorite metallic figurines. Devan is one of the Te’alan, what most people would call elves or fairies. She even wears her black hair pulled around in a pixie sort of look that frames her oval face.
“Typical, Ollie. You think everything is about you,” she mumbled as she took a big bite out of the burger. She wiped her arm across her chin as she chewed.
“Nice look. I know that’s not for me, though your boyfriend might actually be turned on seeing you eat like that.”
She spun and looked around the diner, but Jakes wasn’t here. No one was, really. It was early in the day, but usually, the Rooster had a couple of people sitting in booths or along the counter. Now that I knew what kind of place it was, I felt even more compelled to swing by than I ever had before. It helped that the owner, a tagger by the name of Tom Brindle, used the Rooster as some sort of magical diner. I still didn’t really know what that meant for Conlin, only that the town I’d grown up in—the town I thought I knew when I still lived here—was much different from anything I had ever suspected.
“And I don’t always think everything is about me,” I said. “It’s just, you know, that it usually is.”
Devan shook her head as she took another bite. A little dribble of juice squirted out the front of the burger and dripped onto her plate. Ketchup plopped next to it. “You’re an idiot.”
I tossed the fry into my mouth. “You should take a look at yourself sometime.”
She grinned at me, somehow stuffing another bite in before the last was swallowed. “So you’re really planning on taking her back there?”
“I told her I would. We got delayed the last time we tried to go, but I need to get her away from all the temptation around here.”
“And the delay was my fault?”
I arched a brow at her. “Yeah. I mean, who lets herself get taken by a deranged painter determined to drag her across the Threshold to marry the Druist Mage?”
“Not my fault he was a shifter. You know I can’t sense that kind of power.”
“Now you’re blaming your boyfriend?”
She finished the burger—I have to admit the speed at which she ate was impressive—and slapped her hands down on the counter. She might be small, but she’s strong. The counter rattled, and Kacey, a mousy-looking woman working at the end of the counter, glanced over at her and smiled. Kacey was a shifter, just like Jakes. I still wasn’t sure if they were related or just part of the same pack.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Her face flushed as she dragged her arm across her chin, smearing a trail of juice as she did.
“Not yet, but you keep making those sexy faces at him, and he might be.” I grabbed a napkin and wiped her face clean. She glared at me as I did but didn’t pull away. “I didn’t want him to see that and be tempted to lick it off. Besides, he might end up biting your face off. That would end up really pissing off your father.”
This time, she punched me on the shoulder and I winced. As I said, she’s strong.
“So what’s she up to today?” Devan asked.
I smirked at how she changed the subject away from Jakes. “Not really sure. She said she wanted to wander Conlin. Thought she’d check it out.”
“Nobody wants to do that. Conlin is meant to be boring,” Devan said. “That’s one of the charms, if you ask me.”
“I know. Gives me a chance to catch up on movies.”
Devan shook her head. “You’ve been watching far too many since we’ve returned. Isn’t doing that supposed to melt your brain or something?”
“Just because you don’t enjoy them—”
“Maybe if you’d watch something entertaining. The crap you watch is pretty bad.”
I shrugged. “I watch whatever’s on.”
“And whatever is on is usually terrible.” She took a sip of her water and asked, “You think Taylor’s still looking for something of your father’s?”
I swiveled and looked toward the front door of the diner, trying to ignore the song and the way the music danced along. Devan hadn’t really cared for Taylor since she first appeared, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that I nearly died because of her. Maybe there was another reason. With Devan, it wasn’t always easy to know. “Besides the book she tried stealing and the magical prison we found in a shifter’s back yard? What else might there be?”
“I don’t know. Your father is the Elder.”
The Elder. An artist of such skill that he knew more magical secrets than anyone in Arcanus, the place where painters went to learn what it meant to have the abilities we did. He was a master, more skilled than any of the other masters, and thought dead for nearly a decade. I might be the only one who doesn’t believe he is dead. It didn’t change the fact that I st
ill had no idea where he’d gone.
“Yeah, well you’ve seen how much he shared with me. Had he been a little more open, we might not have nearly lost you to Adazi.”
Devan turned her attention to her fries, poking them into her mouth four and five at a time. “It wasn’t Adazi that scared me,” she said between bites.
I grunted. “I never thought it was.”
Devan’s father is something of a magical rock star, too. Over the Threshold, he’s known as the Trelking. He rules with power that painters can’t even fathom, but there’s another with strength that rivals him: the Druist Mage. The Trelking had committed Devan to marry the Druist Mage, a way to bring peace so the Trelking could focus on other conquests. At least, that’s what I thought. With the Trelking, you never really knew. He had foresight, a prescient ability that many of the Te’alan possessed, but him most strongly. Devan and I hadn’t worked out what he might have seen, or the reason behind why he would have promised her to the Druist.
Devan managed to finish chewing long enough to turn and face me, her face suddenly serious. She leaned on her forearms resting on the counter. “Whatever she’s doing is probably what I sensed, then.”
“What did you pick up?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. Powerful, whatever it was. I’m not used to picking up on that much power on this side.”
“Thanks.”
“You know I don’t mean you.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that.”
Devan grinned at me. “You know I’m coming with you. You’re not going to leave me behind in Conlin when you take Taylor back to Arcanus.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
The serious expression faded, replaced with an expression that dripped with annoyance. “Come on, Ollie. I know you. You think that after what happened, I shouldn’t go. I know you agreed to keep me safe, but I agreed to help you, too. As soon as we get separated, bad things start to happen.”
“We’ve survived a few bad things already, but if something happens and you’re dragged back across the Threshold, that’s a whole new type of badness. I know that going to Arcanus isn’t going to be too dangerous, but what if we have to go through one of the doors? What if that’s the only way to reach Hard?” That was the reason Taylor had come to me. She needed my help finding her father, one of the Arcanus masters and the one who’d made certain I left. “We do that and get too close to the Threshold, and your father will learn that you’re there.”
The Painter Mage: Books 1-3 Page 33