by Brea Viragh
Magic, like people, needed balance. There were those who practiced light magic—“an it harm none”—and malefic magic, delving into the evil within for selfish purposes. Not once in her years of practice had Astix ever considered veering from her very strict moral compass. She may look like the sort to go over to the dark side, but she wasn’t, not by a long shot. Having spent most of her life tamping her gifts down into the tiniest part of her brain, Astix was well equipped with the concept of neutrality.
There was nothing neutral about Constance. There was nothing neutral about her stepping up to help her family.
“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered.
One foot in front of the other, she crept across the courtyard to the barred door at the front. In and out, she assured herself. One sweep around the room and if she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, they were out of there.
She removed her hands from the comforting confines of her jacket pockets and rapped her knuckles on the wood five times. Constance was not the kind of place where one waltzed in as they pleased. A gatekeeper waited behind the bars, ready to judge them worthy. Or not.
A slab of metal screeched aside to reveal one eye the color of leaked radiator fluid. It stared at them with such malevolence the sisters took a collective step in the opposite direction.
“What do you want?” The eye was accompanied by a tumble of black curls.
Karsia spoke from over Astix’s shoulder. “We’d like entry for a few hours.”
“Then show me.”
“What?” Aisanna put in.
“Show me,” the person demanded again. “No one gets in without a display. Club rules.”
Astix was the first to understand the meaning. Not that she was happy about it. Sure, she mused. Leave it to the rule-breakers to need proof. One of the prerequisites to getting into Constance was the ability to produce magic. Not only magic, but a deadly conjure.
With a sigh, she drew on the buzzing presence always with her. She felt them then, the stones, all around her. A slight mental tug had a small chunk of rock shooting from the dirt to land precisely in the center of her palm. She held it up for the woman to observe as proof. “Chalcanthite. Water-soluble, bio-available, and highly toxic.”
“How does she know that?” Karsia whispered to Aisanna.
Unimpressed, the woman gestured for the next sister to demonstrate. “Next!”
Astix snapped her fingers and the stone disappeared. She pressed her hand against Aisanna’s arm. “You don’t have to do this. You have nothing to prove. Let me go in alone so you don’t have to use your—”
Remaining stores of magic for something stupid, she thought as Aisanna, with a mere blink, produced a single white blossom, perfect in its formation.
Aisanna’s face blanched; sweat beaded along the line of her hair from the effort of the act. She took a moment to steady her breathing. “This is bloodroot. It’s poisonous to animals.” The tone was sharp and brooked no argument. “Anything else and I’ll be passed out on your stoop. I assume this will do.”
With a flick of her eyes, the stranger turned to Karsia. “Now you, little girl.”
Karsia narrowed her gaze and planted her feet on the ground. The determined set of her jaw told everyone exactly what she planned to do. Only it wasn’t what Astix expected. Not by a mile.
The woman coughed. Her eyes widened as her chest spasmed, the hacking deep and wet. A tendril of green wound from her open mouth and curled around her lips.
“Maybe next time,” Karsia said with a soft tremble, “you’ll watch out when you eat watermelon. I hear those seeds can be devastating.”
The woman continued to sputter uncontrollably. Then the door opened, allowing them entrance.
“What did you do?” Astix asked, her eyes wide and horrified.
Karsia shook her head and moved past them into the dimly lit foyer. “I gave her what she asked for.”
“Somehow I don’t think she asked to be nearly choked to death with her own lunch.” Aisanna looked as though she wanted to apologize. The woman had fallen to her knees, removing the bile-laden tendrils of watermelon vine inch by careful inch.
“It got us inside, didn’t it? Stop worrying and come on.”
They went down. Why was it always down? Something symbolic about that, Astix supposed. Debris and broken carcasses of forgotten furniture dictated where to go. A slight staircase in the rear of the room wound deeper into the bowels of the damp, musty basement. Music shook the walls and beckoned them forward, the sound shaking the teeth within Astix’s mouth.
The blackness seemed deeper at the bottom of the steps. Turning, they could see that the basement opened up, spreading for several hundred feet to each side. The same sense of cold hung there, impermeable and lethal. The air stank of dark places, dark deeds. A sense of wickedness pervaded, so keen it cut to the bone while drawing them ever closer to the source. Willing them to embrace the evil.
Astix knew the instant they stepped inside. They should not be here.
The beat of drums, the lulling melody of a man’s disembodied voice, the occasional techno beat where no one paid much attention to the music. Throngs of people danced, lounged, drank, talked, fondled, laughed, teased, pouted… A fundamental component of these dark-magic users was their large scale selfishness. They were here for pleasure—or pain—and nothing else.
Astix felt a tickle on the fringes of her awareness darting along her exposed skin. There were eyes on them. The three of them stood out in the way of apples among matchsticks. It was obvious they didn’t fit in.
The crowd on the dance floor congregated in groups and was less concerned with dancing than other activities. Heads turned as the girls made their way toward the bar along the far right wall. Astix kept her gaze forward, relying on sixth, seventh, and eighth senses to guide her. If only she could focus.
She sought the same energy signature from before. Zeroing in on a specific person seemed next to impossible. A miasma of magic assaulted her unconsciousness the instant she opened up to her own abilities. The droning of power filled her and left a sour taste on the back of her tongue. So many lost souls in one room…how did they stand it?
Aisanna and Karsia sidled up to the bar to order drinks while Astix held back to survey the room.
“Two tequila shots, please.” Karsia bestowed the man with a smile sure to devastate any ordinary person. The man ignored them, keeping the lids of his kohl-lined eyes low. Karsia, getting into the spirit of things, snapped her fingers. “I said two tequila shots.”
At last, the man turned and let out a long-suffering breath of air. “Beer only.”
“Then give us three.” Karsia rolled her eyes in a way that let everyone know she did not appreciate the inconvenience.
The bartender, reticent to serve them, slowly grabbed bottles from a dusty shelf and set them down with a thud. Staring at them, he held out his hand. “Fifteen bucks.”
Without breaking eye contact, Karsia removed a wad of ones from her bra and let it fall to the scarred wooden surface. The dollar bills scattered and she quirked an eyebrow. “Have fun counting.”
She turned and popped the top off one, chugging half the bottle in a thirsty gulp. “Do we see him?”
“No, not yet,” Aisanna answered for them.
Astix froze, dubious and uncertain. Then she felt it. The same maleficent energy from the first club wormed its way into her mind. Voices echoed like sounds from another room, out of reach. Whispers of words she could almost make out drew her forward.
She jerked her head around, scanning the room for the source. “Someone’s here.”
“There are a lot of someones here,” Aisanna said.
“Don’t you feel it?”
“How can I not? Like blight on the earth. I don’t need magic to know it.”
“We’ll do whatever you need us to do.” Karsia turned to peruse the room.
It was hard to see in the swirling miasma of dark and mist. Each person looke
d the same, dressed the same, and produced the same kind of energy pattern.
“I can’t be here.” Astix hadn’t bothered to sit down. Her mind was already outside and down the street. Something tugged at the edges of her consciousness. “I need to leave right now. This is wrong.”
“But we haven’t found anything yet—”
Astix slapped a hand over Karsia’s mouth to silence her. “Keep your voice down.” She bent in close to whisper, away from prying ears. “We already stick out. Do you want everyone to realize what we’re doing?”
Her cognizance shifted inward. Like a soft knock at the back door, barely audible, Astix became aware of a presence in her mind.
My, my…
She thumped her sister on the shoulder. “Stop it.”
“It’s not me.” Karsia turned, her skin blanched nearly white. “It’s not me. Who is that?”
Astix tried to move and found she was no longer in control of her body. Someone else was there, a stranger.
Held in place, she felt icy tendrils of power snake along the planes of her bones. It wound into her marrow, seeped through her cells, and despite the foreignness, the power delighted in their meeting as though it knew her. As though it had been waiting. All sound ceased in a sudden vacuum of quiet. Then out of the silence came the voice.
Here you are…
Astix took a deep breath, helplessness building in a small portion of her brain. Terror gushed from her skin in a sweat that stank of alarm and fear. A coppery taste slid along her tongue and her hands grew cold, stiff. She remained upright despite the overwhelming sensation of being pulled in every direction.
Her eyes darted toward the other girls and saw equal expressions of distress.
Every cell of her body filled with horror. She gripped the edge of the bar, sealing her lips and gritting her teeth. No way to fight, she told herself, knowing she was up against a force more powerful than she was. Later, when she was out of the club and safe at home, she would give herself permission to completely unravel. Later was an eternity away.
The world slowed as it never had before, a powerful release building. Astix finally broke free as the space within the club shattered, energy ricocheting off the walls, the laws of physics bending and shifting. Someone screamed. Hundreds screamed. Slicing pain cut along her cheeks and she could almost hear the snapping of her magic rising for protection.
She took hold of her sisters’ hands the moment her senses returned. “We need to get out of here!”
Karsia nodded instead of putting up a fight. Her eyes widened and she tightened her grip.
Astix dragged them toward the door with Aisanna close behind, struggling to move her feet through the crowd. Bodies shifted into their way to block the path.
Magic rushed through the room like water flooding through an empty space. The force of it shot through her, the curse cast.
Astix dropped her sisters’ hands and reached for her earrings—chunks of bloodstone embedded in silver. She felt like she was fighting a tide, using the life force in the stones to push against the curse. Her wrist burned, and for an instant a death rune flashed beneath her skin. Then the world crashed back into place. Heat, familiar as sunlight, bathed her body in warmth as the gems did their job. The curse rebounded and the room erupted in sound.
She dropped to the floor and dragged her sisters with her. Palms slapped against concrete to break her fall while people panicked around them. A disgusting combination of burned hair and hydrogen sulfide filled the air.
People shrieked and ran, unsure of where to go to get to safety. Circling the room looking for an exit. An answer to whatever had just happened. An end to all of it.
I change only in death.
Astix dragged herself along on her hands and knees. Dirt and sticky puddles of spilled drinks seemed drawn to her bare palms as she fought against the tide of limbs. Aisanna and Karsia followed on her heels. Once they cleared the stairs, she rose, urging her legs onward.
She needed to put as much distance between them and the spellcaster as possible. Uncaring about the consequences, she flicked her fingers. Stalagmites burst through the concrete in her wake. Let the rest of them fend for themselves. She and her sisters were getting out of there alive. The headache she had tried to ignore, which had been somewhat irritating, rapidly became a skull-buster.
Magic continued to rebound, curses of unimaginable shapes and sizes flickering through the room behind them. Astix lost her footing as a shot whizzed past her cheek. A path seared her skin in its wake and her knees cracked the stair as she fell.
Then she felt a tug on her arms and looked up not into the familiar face of her sister, but—Leo. His jaw set. His hair a golden halo.
Yes. This had been a very bad idea.
“Come on!” he yelled.
A balloon with a tiny pinprick and a stream of escaping air made the same squeak Astix did in that moment. Her frame lurched forward as he dragged her up.
Another deep breath and she headed toward the front door. The same stairs she’d had no trouble descending were steeper somehow on the ascent. More dangerous. Less mountable now that her magic was running dry.
Her hands shook when she caught the sound of footsteps behind them. The muttered sound of an incantation.
They were in the hallway, out in the open. The door stood ajar and night air streamed in around the edges. The woman with the watermelon seed had disappeared among the wreckage in the lobby.
Astix’s palms were slick with sweat when the screams downstairs suddenly stopped, as if someone had pressed pause on a video.
Dead silence.
Leo hung back at the entrance to usher all three women out the door. “Run!” he urged. “Run as fast as you can. Don’t look back.”
His warning came too late. Astix stole a glance over her shoulder. There in the entrance leading down to the basement was the same man from before, wearing a black hoodie that obscured his face. The nondescript clothing obscured the rest of his body too, so the only thing Astix could tell was that it was a man.
And he was tall.
He raised a hand, index finger pointed until he leveled directly at her head. Blue fire licked around the nailbed. Cocking his thumb, the man mimed pulling a trigger.
Astix didn’t look back again.
Karsia and Aisanna had bolted, using the last of their energies to get the hell out of Dodge—or in this case, Constance. By the time Astix caught her bearings, her sisters were nothing more than the rapidly retreating sound of shoes slapping on pavement.
A normal response would have been fury. The only reason she’d gone to Constance was because she’d been convinced it was where her brother went. Instead of fury, Astix focused on distance. Whatever distance she could put between herself and the man with the curse.
A hand fell on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Leo, his lips set in a grim line, drew her away, his long legs eating up the ground while Astix struggled to keep up.
“You have a plan, Golden Boy?” she asked, breath catching in her lungs.
“You bet I do. Here, get on.” He slid to a stop beside a motorcycle, coat flapping in the breeze.
Astix pulled up short and drew on whatever shred of self-preservation she had left. The effect would have been better had her knees not trembled. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe,” he insisted.
“How did you know where I was? Why are you here?”
“I’m saving your life! Honestly, it’s like talking to a child.” Leo grabbed a helmet from the rear pack and slapped it over her head. “I don’t mean to insult you, but you are being impossible.”
In the back of her mind, Astix recognized the bike as her own. She opened her mouth to protest when Leo placed his hands on her waist. With a grunt, she was airborne and plopped down on the bike behind him. He straddled the machine before turning the key, the engine springing to life with a powerful purr.
He pulled away from the curb and urged the m
otorcycle forward with a twist of his wrist. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around his massive torso and burying her head in the back of his trench coat. The moon rode full in the sky as the night cleared. Finally free of clouds and blood-red rings. Astix focused on the sight instead of the pain of her cheek. It was only the moon.
Minutes passed as they drove back toward the glow of the city hub. The lake came into view and Leo pulled over and brought the bike to a halt, enough distance between them and the club.
The engine cut off and silence greeted them.
Astix found her fingers unwilling to release the lapels she grasped. Her knuckles felt like stone, trapped in place. She eventually pried them up and moved slowly to stand on the sidewalk. Leo maneuvered the kickstand into place before joining her.
“Are you all right?” He tossed the helmet to the ground and searched her face, pushing her hair back to reveal the extent of the damage. He sucked in a breath before grabbing a handkerchief from his coat pocket to wipe the blood. “It’s only a graze, thankfully. It will heal. What kind of magic did the bastard hit you with?”
She grimaced at the contact. “A whammy of a spell. Whatever he’d placed on…never mind.” She’d almost given up a secret. To a member of the Claddium. Her brain must have turned to mush. “It seemed familiar at the time. I used my earrings as a buffer and it rebounded, so I’m fine. You can stop touching me.”
Leo inched closer and she held her breath, curious to know if his lips were as soft as they looked. Then she steeled her gaze.
“What?” he asked.
“My earrings. They’re nothing but dust. I liked them, too.”
“If they saved your life from a curse,” he said, “it’s a small price to pay. Good thing you had them.”
She shook her head and he finally dropped his fingers. “What were you doing there?” she wanted to know.
“I came to see you.”
“I’m calling bullshit. Were you at the club beforehand?” She regarded him skeptically. “Do you use dark magic?”
Leo dug down into the pocket of his trench coat and handed her a small black object. “No. I tracked you. Sorry in advance if you’re mad.”