Wild Magic

by Sadie Jacks

  As soon as my hand landed in her palm, we were moving. Gone was the verdant and lush forest behind my cabin. We were stuck in a black and throbbing tunnel. We walked and walked.

  Walked some more.

  “Any chance you’re going to tell me what you’re doing, or do I need to figure it out on my own?”

  She laughed again. “I’m sorry, sister. You are so adept at magic, that it seems you do not need instruction. Your personal spirit plane is your forest. This,” she waved a hand at the tunnel we were in, “is the Gateway to the Spirit Realm.”

  “Why is it black?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know that I have ever questioned its color. It simply is.”

  “Can it be dark purple?” As soon as the words popped out of my mouth, the tunnel changed colors.

  “See what I mean? You use magic instinctively. It is as if you don’t even know how not to use magic.”

  I looked at her. Looked at the tunnel. “I have no idea how I did this. This is why I need you to teach me.”

  We continued walking. “Okay, back to lessons. Look at the Gateway. What do you see?”

  I was assuming she didn’t mean the opaque purple walls. I concentrated on the walls, trying to see inside them.

  Again, as soon as I said it, even in my mind, I could see its construction. It was made up of trillions of the same kind of spider webs like my own magic. I told her what I saw.

  “Perfectly done. Perhaps part of you hides the magic from yourself.”

  “Could the magic itself be hiding from me?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing, but, with you, I assume all things are possible.”

  “Uh huh.” Why was I so damned special? It was getting freaking annoying.

  “Here we are.” We stopped at a heavy wooden door. Braced with ancient looking metal, it reminded me of a dungeon door. “Now, there are three rules of the Spirit Realm. One, this is the place of the gods and goddesses. They are aware of everything that goes on here. Two, whatever you do here is permanent outside of the Spirit Realm. Three, make sure to guard your magic closely. As I said, this is the dwelling place of gods and goddesses. They are all hungry for more magic.”

  I looked at her. Had she forgotten she was a goddess?

  She smiled at me. “I do not live here. But rather on Earth. I have no need for any more power than what I already have. After I create enough children, I will cease to exist as is my right as the Goddess of Spirit. My last child will fill my vacancy in the pantheon of deities.”

  Damn. Glad I wasn’t that kid.

  She chuckled. “Too right. I’m not sure I can do it. Bring a child to bear only for it to grow up under this mantle. Power comes at too high a cost.”

  I nodded. “Gotcha. Three rules. Engraved on my brainpan.” I tapped a finger to my head.

  An odd look crossed her face before she shook her head. “One last thing. Only enter this Realm if you, or one of your loved ones’ lives, are in mortal danger. The playground of gods and goddesses is not a place you want to stay.”

  She looked at me, waiting. Expectant.

  I nodded.

  “Now. I’m going to cloak you in my power. It will be uncomfortable. But I need to keep you under their radar. I do not visit here very often, and when I do, I’m usually ignored.”

  “What are we going to do in there?”

  “We are going to find your magic. Take it back. We will then return to your forest. There, I will reinsert it.” She looked at me, another expectant expression on her face.

  “Oh right. Sure. Sounds good.”

  She nodded, a smile on her face. “Wonderful. Step here.” She pulled me into her side. Somehow her dress was able to wrap around my body a number of different times without pulling on the fabric that lay in loose folds around her.

  “Not a single sound, Kiema.”

  I nodded.

  She laid her hand against the heavy wooden door. Lowering her head to it, she pressed her lips to its surface.

  Eww.

  “Only gods and goddesses are allowed here. The door is the gatekeeper. Our magic is tested by the wood.”

  Uh huh. Still wasn’t kissing a door.

  “Who has your magic in Iron Serpent?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She cursed in a different language I didn’t understand. “No matter. We’ll still be able to find your magic without this person, but I would have liked to have known who was in possession of it.” She adjusted her clothing. “Now. Not a single peep out of you.”

  Amazingly enough I could see everything, in perfect detail, even through the layers of her dress wrapped all around me.

  She pulled on the handle that had appeared after she kissed the door.

  I was almost blinded by the vision in front of me. Everything reflected like gold and silver. Prisms danced and floated through the air. The path under my feet was white with a sheen almost like pearls.

  A couple steps inside the Spirit Realm, and it opened into paradise. It was the only term I could think of. Bright colors, bold shapes, sparkling water, rose-scented air. It was every dream location I’d ever had rolled into one physical manifestation of joy.

  Anda’s dress wrapped tighter around me. “Kiema. You must remain silent. Not even mental talking.”

  I pictured the forest outside my cabin. Deep in my mind, I lay down in the grass and closed my eyes.

  “Perfect, sister.”

  We walked along a meandering path that felt like it kept getting longer and longer. As we strolled, Anda nodded and waved at the other people. All different sizes and shapes, there were some who looked quite human and others were beyond my ability to describe.

  Finally, Anda took us off the main path. The path we now followed was more like marble than pearls. It narrowed and narrowed. Soon, I was walking directly behind Anda, making sure to place my feet where hers were.

  Anda stopped. I almost ran her over because I was too busy watching the ground. With a silent laugh I felt more than heard, she steadied me against her. “Amazingly well done, sister. Follow me.”

  With that, we stepped through another door. The layers of her dress fell away as if never around me in the first place. I stretched out my arms, moved my body to get the feeling of restriction off my skin.

  The doorway led to another tunnel, or Gateway. It was drenched in the dark red of arterial blood. It seemed to slush and slide against my feet as we began another journey to an end I didn’t know.

  “How did you know which path to take?” I asked her after about ten minutes of walking.

  “Did you not see your fiery thread running alongside the path?” She turned to look at me.

  I shook my head. “No. I was too busy watching where your feet were going and trying not to think too loud.”

  “Ah yes. See if you can wrap some of your magic around your mind as I just wrapped you in my magic.”

  “Your dress, you mean?”

  “What you see as my dress is the outward expression of my magic. It takes whatever shape it needs for any given moment. I just happen to like dresses, so when my magic is not actively necessary, it looks like my favorite human dress.”

  “Huh. It’s a gorgeous dress.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. Wrap your mind.”

  We kept walking. I imagined my spider web of magic wrapping around my head. The idea that I had spiders in my hair immediately freaked me out. I waved away the image.

  I watched the twitch and rustle of Anda’s dress. I wondered what it would take for my magic to look like that. I looked down as something soft and smooth slid over my body. “Well, I guess I know now.” Instead of a long sheath dress like Anda’s, mine was fitted at my chest and billowed out into soft waves of violet fabric.

  Anda laughed. “Like I said, your magic seems to work without you being aware that you are using it. It’s quite unique. Your style of dress is quite beautiful as well.”

  “Thanks.” I looked down at it. “Now, I ju
st need to imagine this wrapping around my mind.”

  “Yes. For myself, I think of the fibers as forming a type of shell or casing that fits just inside my skull. That way I don’t have to worry about the physicality of defining what is my ‘mind.’”

  “Sounds like an excellent idea.” After spinning my own inner skull cap, I tried testing it.

  Anda is beautiful.

  She didn’t react.

  Anda is mean.

  Still no reaction.

  I pierced a hole in my cap. Anda is the best goddess ever.

  “Thank you, sister. But as I’m the only goddess you’ve ever met, I’m not sure the sentiment has deep merit.”

  I plugged the hole in my cap. Did another test.

  “Could you hear the last thought?”

  She shook her head, her dark blue eyes rimmed in light blue sparkling. “No, sister. You have conquered another task. You truly are a warrior.”

  I smiled at her as a rush of proud heat slid through my chest. “Thank you.”

  “Now. Tell me where your magic is.”

  I felt my stomach drop. Shit, shit, shit. Not another test. I’d just passed my last one. Shouldn’t I get time off for good grades?

  I stopped moving. Closing my eyes, I searched with my mind. She’d said she was following my fiery thread through the Spirit Realm. So that had to mean it was visible, at least somewhat. I opened my eyes.

  Looking with more than just my physical eyes, I was about to give up the hunt when something flared at the corner of my vision. Turning almost fully around, I spied it. The thread that undulated in its flame was integrated into the wall of the tunnel. The red of the Gateway had obscured it.

  Reaching out, I touched the thread. It pulsed down the Gateway a little farther before spiraling out of existence. I blinked my physical eyes rapidly. “No, not out of existence. It’s there. Just on the other side of that doorway.”

  “Excellent, Kiema.” Anda clapped behind me. “That ‘doorway,’ as you called it, is the barrier between physical and spiritual planes. You access your forest through the same type of portal. However, every person has one that is unique to that person.”

  “Great. Bad news, Iron Serpent has my magic.”

  “We will not enter the physical plane until we know it is safe for us to do so.”

  “Will my physical body still be in the small conference room?”

  “No. You will leave that space and travel immediately to this space.” She pointed to the other side of the doorway.

  “That’s going to piss my men off.” I chuckled.

  “Yes. I imagine Tennotith will be quite furious with both of us.”

  “Not to mention Ransom’s reaction.”

  “All of your mates and guardians will be understandably upset. We must make their worry worth it. Or they will never let you leave their sight again.” She laughed as she said it. Sent me a wink.

  “How do we see through to the other side?”

  She laughed as the doorway thinned at my words.

  “This is getting really annoying.”

  She quieted. “Why annoying?”

  “If I’ve had this power all along, then it is solely my fault that my life has sucked since I was a child. Having it shoved in my face each time I make a silly comment is not helping.”

  Anda grabbed me by the shoulders, turned me to face her head on. “This would not have been possible without your first ascension of power. You needed at least five of your lifelines in place to help stabilize you. Without them, you would have died. Make peace with your troubled life, Kiema. I beg of you.”

  I studied her. Eons of experience and mountains of understanding shone from her eyes.

  “I’ll try.” I nodded.

  She leaned forward, kissed my forehead. “Trying is a good first step.”

  We turned back to the thinner barrier between realms.

  The scene of an office greeted us. “Not really what I had in mind when I found out my magic had been stolen.”

  Anda chuckled. “Yes, quite underwhelming.”

  The office was empty. The oversized wooden desk dominated the small space. A throne-like chair pushed away from it. On the other side were two smaller, less stable looking chairs. “Peons sit in those,” I said, pointing to them.

  “Yes. I would think so. The man who owns this office thinks he is very important.”

  “Unless he’s overcompensating for something else.”

  We giggled together.

  “Indeed,” she said around a snicker.

  Just as we were getting ready to step out of the Gateway, the doorknob turned. Anda grabbed my arm before I could pierce the veil.

  The door pushed open.

  I gasped. “That fucking bitch.”

  Ferria walked into the room, head held high, nose in the air. Two people groveled low behind her.

  “Well, where is he?” Ferria asked. “I didn’t pay that man an exorbitant amount of money to play like he was the boss? Where’s that bitch’s magic?”

  I looked to Anda. She shook her head. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Does she not see the three bloody orbs on her desk?”

  Anda shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to use those?”

  Considering the fact that I didn’t either, that was as good a reason as any.

  Something clicked in my brain. “The tests that Montague did. He extracted some fluids and samples from me.”

  Anda chuckled. It grew from chuckles to full on giggles. Soon she was gasping for air, arms wrapped around her belly. “Th-th-they won’t be able to g-g-get your m-m-magic that way.”

  I waited for Anda to settle back down.

  “These people are truly idiots if they thought magic could be extracted in such a fashion.”

  “I won’t complain about the idiots part. I had no idea magic couldn’t be passed that way. I thought if it was in every part of me, from cells to organs, that they would be able to get some from me.”

  “No. Magic is willed from the user. Not stolen or physically extracted.”

  “Then how does siphoning work?”

  Anda sobered. “Siphoning is a process through which the primary magic user’s brain is essentially melted. With no governing force, the primary magic can then be connected with from an outside source. This outside, or secondary, magic user pulls the magic from the primary’s body, soul, spirit.”

  My heart ached. “That’s awful.”

  “Yes. It's why we stopped Iron Serpent on Earth. If this iteration of the organization is doing the same thing, then they need to be stopped as well.”

  “How did you and your siblings do it last time?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t speak of it. We did terrible things. Things that had to be done. We don’t dishonor ourselves or those who lived through it by spreading tales.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is a burden I gladly carry. But a burden all the same.”

  Ferria pushed both of her followers back out of the room, slammed the door in their faces. “Idiots. Incompetent idiots.”

  A heat began in my belly. It spread quickly to engulf my whole body. This woman had committed atrocities against me. And all for what? Power.

  That wasn’t good enough.

  With a single thought, I sent a wave of magic through the doorway. It trapped the woman who should have loved me, protected me, to her chair. Another section wrapped itself around her throat so she couldn’t scream.

  “Kiema, n—” Anda began.

  I stepped through the barrier, not listening to Anda. I was done listening for now.

  “Hello, Ferria. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Her dark eyes widened as her mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.

  “There are so many things I want to say to you. To do to you. But, it has been brought to my attention that you’re not actually worth it. You no longer have any influence on my life. On the lives of those I love.” I chuckled darkly. �
�And from today forward, you’ll have nothing to say about me or those under my protection.”

  I sent a tendril of magic into her chest. It wrapped around her heart like a vise. Just as her eyes bugged from her head, as her brain began panicking, I eased the pressure. Over and over I treated her to the same measure of care she’d bestowed upon me.

  She was pale and sweaty. “Know this, mother,” I spat the word at her, “I’ll be watching you. I can get to you anywhere you try to hide. Anywhere you run. I’ll find you. And if you’re still trying to get my magic, I’ll give you some. But you won’t be alive to enjoy it. This is your one and only warning. And considering what I did to Juan, you’re getting off lucky.”

  I turned, scooping the spheres of my magic into my arms, and stepped back into the doorway between realms. Pulling my magic back to me, I darkened the doorway and turned back to Anda before Ferria could open her mouth and scream.

  “Not quite what I had in mind, but I applaud your self-restraint,” Anda said.

  “I said I’d try. Not that I would succeed every time.”

  Anda chuckled sadly. “That is true. Let’s get this back inside you before anything else can go wrong.”

  Anda took the three bloody spheres. Settling them on her cupped palms, she lifted them so they were level with her face. She blew a steady stream of air over them.

  They disintegrated. A flood of dark red particles rushed me. Just as they were about to touch my skin, they turned from red to gold. Just like the ones Hellion had given me before I was sucked out of the helicopter.

  Anda’s eyes widened. Fear darkened her expression.

  “What have I done?” she whispered.

  Chapter 39 – Xander

  I felt it when she disappeared. Like a string that went from her heart to mine had been cut with a sharp pair of scissors. She was gone.

  Pushing through the guys, I rushed through the doors between the infirmary and the small conference room.

  “Kiema!” I yelled, even knowing she wouldn’t be there.

  The sound of running feet and other yells began before the last syllable of her name left my mouth.

  “Where is she? What happened?” Ransom asked as he pushed by me.