The Cost of Magic

by S T G Hill

  Then a silver sedan parked across the street exploded.

  The blast shattered all the windows up and down the street. It also shoved Ellie off her feet just as she threw her arms in front of her face.

  Shards of glass bit and stung along her arms. Then she hit the floor. With her eyes closed, the room spun around her.

  Everything sounded distant and muffled.

  But she could still feel the concussive blasts of the thunder thudding through the air.

  Magic. It's not lightning.

  "Push them back! Don't let them in the house!" someone shouted through the din.

  It wasn't just someone, though. Ellie recognized the voice. It was Thorn.

  Ellie turned over onto her stomach and pushed herself to her knees, flinching every time another spell shot violence through the air.

  Her ears hurt. They rang, too. A constant, high-pitched buzzing. Flashes of reds and yellows and greens strobed in through her window.

  People started screaming.

  "Go! Get out while you can!" someone else called. A girl's voice, high and strident.

  Ellie's bedroom door, always left slightly ajar so Chauncy could get in and out, banged inward.

  Ellie turned back, still on her knees.

  Brenda and Walt rushed into the room, Walt in his PJs and Brenda in a nightgown. They both knelt by Ellie, protecting her with their bodies.

  "What's going on?" Walt shouted over the booming thunder, the crackling of fire spells, and the dull whoosh as channelers used the very air itself as a weapon.

  "The city's being attacked! We have to get down to the basement!" Brenda shouted, her fingers tight on Ellie's shoulder.

  They three of them stood up together. They turned towards the bedroom door, all of them keeping their heads low and eyes slitted against the play of awful lights.

  Before they got to the door, it all stopped. Acrid smoke drifted through the air, and beneath that a sharp scent of ozone.

  "Is it over?" Brenda said.

  A girl screamed. They hunkered low again.

  The scream cut off unnaturally.

  Getting over the initial shock, Ellie's body fell into a cold and quiet dread. "We have to get out of here."

  "Let's go," Walt said.

  They stayed low and started for the door again. Then the outer wall of Ellie's room tore away. Plaster crumbled. Wooden beams shattered. Steel and metal groaned and then tore with ear-splitting shrillness.

  Brenda grabbed the edge of the door, the safety of the hall beckoning to them.

  Then something that sent a chill of Ellie's spine tugged the door from Brenda's hand and slammed it shut.

  She turned around in time to see five figures levitate up from the street and land almost soundlessly in the jagged remains of Ellie's room.

  Firelight flickered in behind them. That and the moon served as the only illumination. Their attack had taken down the grid.

  All five wore flowing robes. Ellie recognized the two in the middle: Darius Belt and Caspian.

  Her knees turned to ice water and she sank down onto her haunches.

  Belt allowed Brenda and Walt a quick sweep of his eyes before he dismissed the two of them and settled on Ellie.

  He looked almost sad, as though he empathized with her.

  He also looked old. Decades older than when she'd seen him last, somehow. Though his hair was still dark.

  "There's no more running. No more hiding," Belt said, "Your guards put up a valiant effort, but all in vain, unfortunately." He clasped his hands together in front of his hips, the broad sleeves of his robes hanging down.

  Caspian, just as she remembered him, wore a self-satisfied smile. He carried himself with the airs of light amusement.

  Ellie's body trembled and shook. "Please just go." Her voice sounded so small and so quiet.

  Belt's lips tightened with that terrible sympathy again. "You know that is something I cannot do."

  She thought of something, then. Some possible way out of this. Somehow, somewhere, she found the strength to steady her knees.

  Ellie pushed herself to her feet. She swiped at the wet trails on her cheeks and swallowed against the plug of terror crowding her throat.

  Brenda grabbed at her wrist, "Stay down!"

  She pulled herself free and took a step forward. The three nameless sorcerers who accompanied Belt glanced at their master nervously, raising their hands and readying spells.

  Their power crackled in the air.

  "Go now or I'll make you go," Ellie spoke through clenched teeth.

  Caspian snorted. Belt raised one eyebrow, just slightly.

  Then he spread his hands, inviting her to try, "Please, send us back from whence we came."

  Ellie clenched her hands into tight fists. She closed her eyes.

  She willed the magic to come. She willed it to burn them away with spectral fire until nothing was left.

  Her magic didn't come.

  She thrust her hands out towards them, digging deeper into herself.

  Still nothing.

  Then she implored whatever force within her saved her when those four muggers tried to get her.

  It ignored her, a dark presence in the back of her being.

  She screamed with rage and frustration, her head pounding with the effort. And still nothing happened.

  She dropped her hands to her sides and glared at them.

  "I know you don't have it anymore," Belt said, "But don't worry; we'll discover what's happened and set it all right."

  Ellie blinked at the hot pressure in her eyes and said nothing. She could think of no way out of this.

  Then Brenda stood up and placed herself between Ellie and the five sorcerers.

  "I don't know who you all are, but you need to get out of this place and leave us alone! The police are on their way!"

  Ellie's body went tight with sudden panic, "Brenda! Stay out of this!"

  "Don't worry, Ellie, I won't let anyone hurt you," Brenda said, not taking her eyes from Belt.

  Caspian rolled his eyes and smiled, clearly enjoying all of this.

  Then Walt stood up. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and went to stand beside his wife.

  Belt's cronies looked at him, awaiting instruction.

  "Please, just sit back down," Ellie said, her body shaking again.

  "I am sorry," Belt said, "But I've waited too long. Ellie, you have to know that defying me comes with a heavy price. It will be quick. A mercy."

  He waved his hand and Brenda and Walt fell to the ground, the life force ripped from their bodies.

  They collapsed against each other on the floor, their bodies limp, while Belt clasped his hands together once again.

  Ellie screamed. She rushed to them, fell on her knees beside them. She grabbed Brenda and shook her by the shoulders. She looked like she was asleep.

  "Wake up. Please just wake up."

  Belt allowed her a moment to grieve before he nodded, "Restrain her while I ready the breach portal."

  Two of the sorcerers advanced on her. They grabbed at her hands, but she screeched at them and wrenched away.

  I won't leave them. I can't leave them.

  Before they could try again, Caspian clasped her wrists with magical restraints. A moment later they wrapped around her ankles as well.

  Belt turned partway towards the gaping hole where the wall used to be.

  The knob to her bedroom door rotated. The latch clicked, and dim light from the hallway spilled into the room.

  The sorcerer closest to the door frowned, peering at the door. Then he looked down. "Master?"

  "What is it?" Belt without looking. The breach portal sliced through the air.

  "It's a cat," Caspian said, "Poor kitty, don't you know the saying about curiosity?" He lifted his hand.

  Ellie couldn't look.

  "Amenhotep!" Belt recoiled at the sight of the cat.

  Chauncy crouched low and hissed, revealing his fangs. His eyes glowed in the dimness. />
  Darius Belt clutched at his chest and staggered back a step, almost sending himself over the edge and down to the sidewalk.

  His face went waxen and his lips parted while he took a deep and shuddering breath.

  Caspian lowered his hand, confusion written across his face. "It's just a cat, isn't it?"

  But Belt ignored him. Still clutching at his chest with one hand, he held the other out to warn Chauncy from coming any closer.

  He looked at Ellie, the whites of his eyes standing out, "How did you...?" Then he looked back at the cat. "Forgive me. I thought you had died long ago."

  Ellie stared at the stray tom cat, unable to process what she saw. Chauncy didn't grow in size, but he seemed bigger.

  His eyes didn't reflect the light. They glowed from within.

  And when he growled, Ellie thought she could almost make out words.

  Belt shook his head. "No. I can't. You don't understand. I need her."

  Something passed through the air. Language of some sort. It felt impossibly ancient and impossibly powerful. Her skull vibrated with it.

  Belt swallowed hard. She'd never seen him like this before. She wasn't certain any living person had.

  Darius Belt, the most powerful sorcerer of this and possibly any other age, was afraid.

  Of a cat.

  "Is this a joke? I'll take care of it," Caspian reached one glowing hand towards Chauncy.

  "Stop you fool!" Belt scolded him, but too late.

  Before Caspian could touch him, Chauncy turned that uncanny, glowing glare towards him.

  Caspian's eyes went wide even as his hair turned white. An invisible fist smashed into him. He rocketed from the room, barely missing the razor edge of the breach portal, and slammed into the wall of the brownstone across the street.

  As soon as Caspian's limp body bounced off the sidewalk the magical cuffs binding Ellie broke. She fell to the floor, staring with wide-eyed, open-mouthed awe at the cat.

  Then Chauncy turned his attention back to Belt.

  Those impossible words thrummed through the air again. Again, Chauncy seemed to swell in size. Belt diminished.

  "I did what I thought—what I knew—was right. You know this! Don't get in my way again."

  The threat sounded hollow even in Ellie's ears.

  Then Chauncy pounced. The roar that ripped from him sounded more like a lion than a housecat.

  "No!" Belt screamed a moment before the cat collided with him.

  They both flew back, right into the breach portal. The thin edges snapped shut, revealing the broken facade of the house across the street.

  Ellie sat up on her haunches, her mind and body completely overwhelmed. She didn't even remember that three of Belt's cronies remained.

  "Get her!" one of them said.

  But the other two shied away.

  "You saw what happened. Who knows what else she has hidden?" one replied.

  "Get her yourself!" the second said.

  Then they both winked away, the air popping as it filled in the space where their bodies just stood.

  The final man glared at her. She stared at him with vacant eyes.

  The calculus going on in his brain apparently came up in her favor. He snarled, then winked away as well.

  Ellie crawled over to Brenda and Walt and curled up beside them.

  She didn't know how long she lay there. Only that at some point Thorn appeared standing over her.

  He spoke but she didn't hear at first. She was lost inside of herself.

  Then he shook her and she came to.

  "Ellie, we have to get out of here. Come with me. There's a safe place," he lifted her to her feet.

  "We can't leave them," Ellie said, turning back to Brenda and Walt.

  Thorn wrapped her up in his arms. "We can't help them. I'm sorry."

  It hit her then. Hit her harder than the spell that sent Caspian all the way across the street.

  She buried her face in Thorn's chest and sobbed. She sobbed so hard her ribs ached and her lungs burned.

  Thorn stroked the back of her head with one hand. She didn't even notice that they'd already winked well away from the remains of the Williamsons' brownstone.

  Chapter 13

  At some point, Ellie blacked out, her body attempting to give her mind a break from all that she witnessed. So she didn't see where Thorn took her.

  Her dreams tormented her.

  She saw Brenda and Walt die over and over. In some, it happened quickly. In others, more slowly.

  And in many, Brenda and Walt looked up at her from their place among the detritus on the floor, their eyes accusing.

  "This is your fault," Walt said.

  "I said I wouldn't let anyone hurt you. Why did you let me hurt me?" Brenda accused, her eyes terrible pale holes.

  "This is your price for defiance," Darius Belt told her.

  Ellie swam up to something like consciousness many times. Enough to grab at the thin blanket someone had draped over her. Or to curl into a tighter ball against a mattress.

  Then, in one dream, Brenda and Walt rose from the floor. But they weren't alive. Their faces were slack, expressionless.

  They advanced on her.

  "Join us," Walt reached for her with fingers more like claws.

  "You knew. You knew and you let it happen," Brenda joined him.

  Ellie cowered in the corner, just as powerless as she'd been in real life.

  Then another voice joined. One that came from both without and within.

  "This isn't your fault, Ellie."

  She knew that voice, or thought she did.

  "It is!" she replied, trying not to look at Walt's pale, waxen fingers stretching out towards her.

  "No. Come back. It's time you came back to us."

  "I can't!" Ellie shouted. Those fingers almost had her.

  "You can. Take my hand."

  Ellie tore her eyes away from the ghouls who'd been her foster parents. A hazy arm poked through the wall, the hand at the end more distinct and real.

  A cold finger brushed against her cheek. She shrieked.

  She reached, took the offered hand. It pulled. It dragged her up from the purgatory of her sleep.

  And then she sat up in the narrow bed. Cold, sticky sweat stuck her shirt to her body and her hair to her forehead.

  She shook, unable to forget the sensation of that cold, stroking touch against her cheek.

  "It's okay. It was a terrible dream. But you are awake now. Awake and safe."

  Ellie swallowed hard, wincing at the bad taste in her mouth, and turned to look at the owner of that voice.

  A brief wave of deja vu rolled through her stomach.

  Aurelius Cassiodorian sat in an easy chair at her bedside. That tall, gnarled staff of his leaned against the back of it.

  He held her wrist with one hand, his grip warm and soothing. He smiled at her with that grandfather's smile.

  "No... no book this time?" Ellie asked, still not certain this was real.

  Aurelius's wizened brow crinkled further for a moment, but it dissipated when he smiled once more, "No book this time, Miss Ashwood."

  Ellie looked around the room. Plain plaster walls, simple if elegant furniture. This, too, tickled at her memory. "Where are we?"

  Aurelius shifted his grip down until he held her hand. He put his other hand over top of hers. "Why, we're at Sourcewell Academy."

  He sensed she wanted to get up before she knew it, and released her hand. She swung her legs out over the bed and stood up. Her legs didn't want to hold her at first, but they held steady.

  "Sourcewell?" she said.

  Aurelius nodded. "Yes. I am sorry, truly sorry, for everything that's happened to you, Miss Ashwood. Though I have not seen it myself. There is something blocking my second sight... I could see only your dream."

  "How long?" Ellie said. Fully awake now, the empty pit of her stomach demanded sustenance.

  "A day and a night."

  Her shoulders sagged. Not s
o long as she had feared. The memory of what happened slammed into her again, and she sat down heavily on the bed.

  She couldn't think about that, though. Not now. She forced her mind to the present.

  "Sourcewell? But Thorn told me that Belt took over all the academies. Recruited all the students."

  Aurelius winked, "He did. Ingenious place to hide, isn't it? Though, I don't have to worry so much about that. I am still Magister of Sourcewell. Darius Belt wouldn't dare remove me. Not yet, at least."

  A terrible image scraped across Ellie's mind. She flinched. Darius Belt, waving his hand. A pair of limp bodies dropping to the floor...

  "You're safe here," Cassiodorian said.

  She shook the image out of her head, seizing on anything that she could. She thought back to her conversation with Thorn. "You're the mole, aren't you? The one Thorn said they have on the Council."

  "Perceptive," Aurelius said, "And also correct. Now, I think we've spent more than enough time in this room. Shall we?" He rose from his chair and grabbed the staff.

  She noticed how his beard had grown longer since she'd last seen him. It obscured but couldn't hide a certain gauntness in his cheeks.

  This war seemed to have aged everyone, no matter their place in it.

  He still wore that same gray robe, however. This made Ellie aware of her own clothing. She looked down and saw the wrinkled plain tee shirt and the pajama bottoms beneath those.

  "Actually, I'm not so sure I want anyone seeing me yet," she said.

  "What? Oh, yes. I understand. One moment," Aurelius held one hand out and swept it downwards in front of her.

  A swirl of some cool, refreshing breeze blew her hair up. "Oh!"

  She no longer felt sticky or sweaty or gross. Her hair felt freshly washed and combed. A pair of jeans and a fresh shirt clothed her now.

  Her jeans. Her shirt. Clothes that Brenda and Walt had bought for her not even two weeks ago.

  "Better?" Aurelius said.

  Some part within her wanted to marvel at it all. The rest was too worn out to do so. "Yes. Thanks, really. But won't people recognize me?"

  Aurelius smiled again. Those sharp, ageless eyes of his glinted with mischief that belied his age. "No. I've placed a charm over you. Nothing complicated, but simplicity is often best. There are those who will see you as you are, and the rest who will see you as someone else. Not a difficult spell to break, but why would anyone suspect anything in this place?"