Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

• Название: Magic on the Storm
• Автор: Devon Monk
• Жанр: Фэнтези
• Год: 2010

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Kill you, if you got in their way.

I glanced at Zay. He was drinking his Coke and trying hard not to look over at Love’s partner, Payne, who sat in the booth across the room. She was staring at him.

She caught my gaze and gave me a considering look, her mouth pressed together in a thin line. I wondered how, exactly, she and Zayvion knew each other. I remember Mackanie Love being there when Frank Gordon had dug up my father’s body and tried to kill me. Zay had been there too. So it was possible that their only connection was Zay being a witness to that crime. But if I remembered right, Love and Payne had been looking for Zay prior to that.

Interesting.

I stretched my foot under the table and rested it against the side of Zay’s tennis shoe.

The contact let me concentrate on his emotional state: tense, which was not at all what I’d have guessed from his body language, with a side order of worry and dread.

He must have sensed my curiosity because he gave me a sideways look and sat up, pulling his foot away from mine.

Like that would stop me from finding out why he was all worked up over Payne.

Even though it had taken only a couple seconds, I’d sort of lost track of the conversation Love and Shame were having. I had a hard time listening in to Zayvion’s emotions and listening to the real world at the same time.

I tuned back in just in time to hear Love say, “. . lunch. Later, Tita.”

“Bye,” I said, wondering if I’d just made a lunch date with him.

Love rambled over to Payne. She stopped staring at Zayvion and stared at her menu instead.

“You don’t like the police, do you?” I asked Shame.

Shame flicked up a couple fingers in a dismissive motion. “They do good work. I just like them better when that work has nothing to do with me.”

“Juvie?” I asked.

“It happens.”

“Would have thought your mom had some pull to keep you out of there.”

“She did,” Zayvion said. “So did his dad.”

Shame looked up at me. He didn’t grin, but there was a sparkle in his eye. “They let me sweat it out for a week. Said it’d help me rethink my priorities.”

“Did it?”

“Yes. I decided my first priority was not getting caught.”

“You are a man of questionable morals, Shamus Flynn,” I said.

“You have no idea. Well, then.” He stood, stuck one hand in his jean pockets, and brushed hair out of his eyes with the other. “Thanks for lunch. I have to run. See you soon.”

I had a mouthful of fries. Zay was finishing his too. I held up my hand to tell Shame to stop, but he spun and was across the room, weaving between a noisy crowd of college kids pouring into the place. He was out the door before I could call his name.

The waitress saw my hand and came over with our ticket. Zay reached for it, but I got it before him. “You cover next time.”

“How about we just make Shame pay for a month?” he said.

“Does he ever pay for anything?”

Zay finished off his Coke. “Nope. That’s one of his special talents.”

I pulled out the cash, left it and the ticket propped next to the condiment basket. I stood. “Ready?”

For a second, just the briefest of moments, a wave of dizziness hit me. The entire building felt like it shuddered, like a liquid earthquake rumbled far beneath my feet, and echoed up my body and rolled through my head.

“Allie?”

I rubbed at my temple and the sudden headache. “Headache.” But it couldn’t be from magic use.

The last time I’d used magic was two weeks ago. A Hounding job that had nothing to do with the police or Detective Stotts. I had tracked back a spell for a lady in my building to make sure no one was putting Attraction on her car. Turned out no one was. The parking tickets and the speeding and seat belt violations were all nonmagical and all her.

Maybe this was just a regular headache? Regular people did get regular headaches. I was regular people too.

Zay put his hand on my arm and I walked with him out the door. The headache hung on despite the cool air. By the time we were halfway across the parking lot, the pain was less, and I felt stable on my feet. Normal.

Zay’s hand was still on my arm. I didn’t have to concentrate to feel his concern.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Just a little dizzy. It’s gone.”

He didn’t let go of me until we were next to his car, which he unlocked. “Maybe you should stop wearing the void stone.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Can it make me dizzy? Give me headaches?”

He shrugged. “No one holds magic in their body like you do. It’s hard to know what the long-term effects are.” He paused, looked at me over the top of the car. Probably saw my panic as I scrambled to get the necklace off.

“It won’t bite,” he said.

“Right.” Visions of the stone sucking magic out of me like a leech filled my mind. “Nothing about you secret magic users or your secret magic toys is dangerous.”

I tugged the length of leather off over my head and held it out in front of me like I had a snake by the head. The void stone swung in the breeze, a dark heart wrapped in copper and silver wire like fire and moonlight, glass beads flashing like stars.

Zay grinned. “Want me to tie it in a knot or kill it and put it in the trunk?”

“Shut up.” I ducked into the car and plunked the thing down into the empty cup holder.

Magic stirred in me, a tingling warmth that grew hot, flushing across my skin, then sinking back down, warming my bones and filling me. It moved within me with promise, with desire. I closed my eyes, wanting to lose myself to it. Wanting to use magic in every way I could.

But that would be bad. I had enough magic inside me, I could burn down a city.

And I didn’t want to do that. I liked the city.

I took a deep breath and worked on letting the magic move through me without me touching it. I am a river and magic is the water. It pours through me, but it does not change me. I closed my eyes and repeated that litany until the magic backed off and settled like a layer of lead over my bones.

Several minutes had passed. Zay had already started the engine and was heading toward Maeve’s through traffic that was starting to thicken up for pre-rush hour. It was still light out, and a misty rain ticked against the windshield and roof. Other than the rub of the windshield wipers and the hum of the engine, it was quiet in the car.

I knew Zay could Ground me to help me keep the magic at controllable levels and could ease the pain I carried from using magic. But ever since we’d stepped into each other’s minds, we’d tried not to use magic together.

Grounding was extremely difficult and carried twice the pain for the user-in this case, Zay-as other spells did. It was one of the spells I’d never been good at.

No, let me be blunt: I sucked at Grounding. Always had, and it looked like I always would.

Zay could Ground like he was strolling through daisies.

It would be easy to ask him to Ground me, but I had to do this, learn to quiet the magic inside me on my own.

“Hint?” I finally asked.

“You learned it with Victor.”

Okay, Victor was Zay’s boss. Head of the Closers, who followed the magic discipline of Faith. Tall, elegant older man. Cultured, intelligent, and ruthless. He had a sort of calm and deliberation about him that I liked. It was a little like Zayvion’s Zen mode, and I wondered if Zay picked up that particular habit from him.

I may not fully trust Victor-issues; I have them-but other than Maeve, who taught Blood magic, he was my next-favorite teacher despite the fact that he taught Faith magic.

Faith magic was the same magic Dr. Frank Gordon had used to dig up my dad and try to kill me. Well, Frank had used a lot of disciplines, Faith, Life, Death, Blood. He’d probably used everything he could to try to open the gates between life and death. Wanted to control dark magic. Sacrificed a few innocent girls to do it.

I did not regret that he was dead.

“Allie.”

Oh, right. I was supposed to be dealing with the magic that was trying to burn its way out of me.

Victor. What had he taught me? That magic was a river, a constant flow. But it could be thought of as shape and form too. As glyphs. And every glyph had a beginning and an end. Every glyph had break points, corners, places where you could block and stop magic.

So what I needed to do was think of the magic in me as a glyph, find a corner, a break point where it flowed through me, and block it.

Good thing using magic was so easy.

Not.

I imagined myself as a river. Magic flowed up through my feet, filled the pool I held inside me-the small magic I was born with that was now a raging sea-and then magic poured out, too slowly, through my fingertip and into the ground again.

Where was there a break in that?

“Another hint?” I asked.

Zayvion placed his hand high up on my thigh, his long fingers curving downward. I sighed as cool mint washed along all the rivulets and pathways magic had torched through me. Swallowed and tasted mint on the back of my throat, and breathed deep to make room for Zayvion to tap into the magic I carried. I wanted to close my eyes and savor the feel of him within me. I licked my lips, shifted in my seat a little, and drew my fingertips up the back of his hand.

“Hey,” I said all breathy-like.

“Hey. Are you going to pay attention to what I’m doing?” he asked.

Spoilsport.

I rolled my head to one side and looked at him. I didn’t draw Sight. Using magic right now was sort of the opposite of what I was trying to do.

Still, there was that whole soul-to-soul thing between Zayvion and me. When we touched, I could sense him. I concentrated on that, felt what he was doing.

Sweet hells, the man put the multi in multitasking.

He held himself in a very disciplined, meditative frame of mind. He had sort of opened himself up, a lot like how I breathe deeply to let magic move through me.

But instead of just making space for magic inside him, he had made a channel.

He had drawn a glyph, mentally. The glyph of Grounding wrapped through him like cold steel cables. He concentrated on feeding magic into it. I’d never seen this spell worked on a purely mental level.

Probably because I’d never seen any spell worked on a purely mental level.

Zayvion Jones kicked magical ass. I wondered if even my father, who was one of the most powerful magic users I’d ever known, was as strong as Zay.

“Wow,” I breathed.

That got a small smile out of him. His eyes squinted, laugh lines edging the corners.

“Thank you. Can you see how it’s channeled?”

“Other than magnificently?”

We stopped at a red light. He looked over at me. “Other than that, yes.”

I stared into his eyes, at the gold burning hot and deep there. All that did was make me want to touch him, kiss him, pour so much magic into him he’d be begging me for mercy.

Magic rolled in me, deep in my stomach, and I worked hard not to moan with the need to have him.

“You are not winning,” he noted.

“No kidding,” I gasped. Right. The idea here was to not give in to magic. Or, apparently, my need for Zay.

I pressed my fingers against my eyes. My right fingers were hot, and my left were cold, positive and negative from the magic pouring through me. I took a second to breathe in again and clear my mind.

When I looked again at Zayvion, he was paying attention to the road, taking us across the bridge, calm, unconcerned. And he was Grounding like mad on the inside.

All I had to do was find a way to slow magic pouring into me. That meant a glyph that would track back and forth at the beginning, loop and loop so that magic had a long way to travel before it could add to the pool I already carried. I could do that.

I thought.

“Victor said I could use any of the spells that slow magic, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I didn’t care how good Zayvion was-I was absolutely certain I could not just mentally draw a glyph and expect it would work. I used my right hand and traced a liquid, curvy glyph for Linger in front of me. These kinds of spells were used inside stores, restaurants, and salons. They gave off a comfortable, relaxed feeling. If they were particularly well drawn, they made shoulders drop, smiles come out, and people spend way more money and time in their vicinity.

I pinched the glyph between thumbs and two fingers of both my right and left hands. Instead of pouring magic into it, I was going to push the spell into me, so the magic in me would be forced to follow it.

I had no frickin’ clue how to do that.

“Uh,” I started.

“You can do it.”

“A little help?”

“I’m watching.”

“I wanted help, not an audience.”

He just gave me a look.

Okay, fine. I recited my go-to mantra, the “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack” jingle, to clear my mind. Then I pulled the glyph into me, toward my chest, concentrating on it wrapping around the flow of magic, the speed of magic, the pressure of magic.

My heart stuttered. Whoa. Not good. I concentrated harder on the spell. Magic, not heart. Find the magic. Just the magic. I released the spell. It sank like a rock toward my feet, then settled beneath my feet and pressed against my arches and heels. It rested there like a layer of sand and stone and soil, soaking up the magic, filtering it, and giving it a place to stretch out before it trickled up into me at a much slower pace.

My head cleared. I broke out in a sweat.

“Holy crap. Good?” I asked Zay.

He nodded. “Not how I would have done it, but effective. So yes. Good. You have control?”

Oh, right. That was the other half of this deal. I cleared my mind again, calmed my thoughts, and pressed back on the magic rolling within me. Magic fluttered, pressed once again, tempting me to use it, to fall to its siren call.

Nope. La, la, la. Not listening.

Magic quieted.

“Very nice,” Zayvion murmured. “I’m impressed.” He drew his fingers slowly up my thigh, then away, leaving the lingering cool warmth of mint and his touch behind.

“Are you still dizzy?” he asked.

“No. I feel pretty good.”

Oh, screw it. I felt powerful. Proud. That had been a fine little piece of magic using I’d just done. Yes, I’d probably pay for it with a walloping headache, but right now, I didn’t care. “I’d feel even better with a hell-of-a-job kiss.”

“So that’s how it’s going to be? One elementary-level spell and you get naked?”

“First, that was not elementary level. High school at the very least. Second, tell me you don’t like the idea of me being naked.”

“How about I tell you I don’t like the idea of driving off the road. Which means your clothes stay on you.” He stopped at a light, then added, “For now.”