Authors: Tracey Martin
“Grace, we did talk about this,” Tom said.
“I changed my mind.”
That was an understatement. Her fear was so strong it was making my extremities quiver with the energy hit. I bounced from foot to foot as Tom and Dezzi attempted to assuage her rising panic. Mitch chimed in too, promising her that he wasn’t excited about the idea either, but it was necessary.
None of their approaches worked. I could sense that Grace was more on edge than ever, and everyone’s combined pressure was working her into an awful state. Fear predominated in her heart, but her guilt was also growing. The combination made for a terrible one-two punch to her head.
“Guys.” I held up my hands. “We don’t need to force her into this. Let Mitch and I practice first. Grace can watch and see that nothing bad happens.”
Grace wasn’t as grateful for my defense as I thought she would be. “I don’t want to watch either. I just need space. I have to leave.” Before we could say anything else, she ran out of the room.
Tom jumped up to follow her, and I put a restraining hand on his arm. “Let her go. She doesn’t like magic, and this is all hard on her. As long as she’s in the building, she’s safe.”
Tom scowled and took out his phone, presumably to let people know to make sure Grace didn’t try to sneak outside without a guard. “She needs to learn these things. We’re counting on her.”
“Not everyone is cut out to be a warrior,” Lucen said. “What you’re expecting of people isn’t easy.”
“I’m not a warrior,” Mitch muttered.
I grabbed one of the bottles of water Tom had arranged on the table. “You’re here and you’re trying. I think that makes you one. And who knows? Grace could come around still. She might just not have found the strength yet.”
“That almost sounds like optimism,” Lucen whispered to me.
I flipped him off. “Can we get started? I have to meet a friend in The Feathers in a few hours.”
Tom wasn’t thrilled by my pronouncement, but Dezzi agreed with me that we might want a break by then. So we got to work.
Thank dragons Lucen had suggested I practice with him last night. It made the ordeal less uncomfortable since I knew what to expect. But it was no easier. Initially, I was distracted by Tom’s increasing boredom as he watched us, as well as Mitch’s anxiety. Then by my own nerves. I was too aware of the hundreds of Gryphons in the building, all of whom now knew my secrets.
I couldn’t sense anyone else’s emotions when Dezzi was in my head, so the problem then wasn’t their turmoil but my own. My lack of control. Because I was distracted with worry, my will was weakened, and I lost the ability to focus on our bond. After a second time of not getting too far, Dezzi broke our connection, and I crumpled to the floor. My head was splitting, and my body quivered with unfulfilled lust. I ran a hand over my hard nipples as I curled in on myself. I wasn’t sure which pain was stronger, but I was certain I felt like an idiot.
Dezzi dropped onto a chair near me. “You’re not paying attention. Your mind is…” She twirled her hands around in the air.
“It’s been a long day.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lucen’s back, and I forced myself to turn away. He had his own task, and he certainly wouldn’t help mine. “I’m ready. Let’s try again.”
The third time, I succeeded. On my knees on the conference room floor, sweating with need and straining to keep my hands PG in front of my audience, I did it. When the direction of Dezzi’s power changed and the full force of it slammed into me, stars formed in front of my eyes. My cells felt like they were exploding, but I laughed and raised my arms skyward with elation. Dezzi’s magic healed my headache instantly and lifted my mood into the stratosphere. I could have flown into The Feathers.
Then she cut the connection, and I crashed into reality.
“Good.” Dezzi grabbed a cookie from the tray on the table and took a bite as though starved by the exertion. “Faster this next time.”
We did it again and again. When I could reliably reverse the bond fast enough that I didn’t do anything stupidly embarrassing first, Dezzi had me practice controlling my response to the magic hit. Euphoria was great and all, but if I couldn’t control my emotions while buzzing with so much power, I wouldn’t be able to strategize or fight effectively.
The effort should have left me exhausted, but feeding on powerful magic negated the tiredness. I actually felt pretty damn great when I next checked the time. “I have to get going. My muscles are telling me I could sprint the whole way to The Feathers, but somehow I doubt that’s the truth.”
Dezzi snorted. “You might as well try. This time of day, you might be able to walk there faster than the T can take you.”
I doubted that too, although Dezzi had a point. I didn’t look forward to fighting the rush hour crowd on the train, especially when I might be recognized.
“I will check in with Lucen and Mitch,” Dezzi said as I got out my phone. “I am curious whether Lucen is experiencing the same side effect of this bonding as I did.”
“Side effect? What do you mean?”
Dezzi tapped a finger against her lips in contemplation. “I expected your ability to reverse the bond would drain me of energy, and it did. But it also drained away some of my own uniquely satyr emotions. It was more than just what I give to you with a normal addict bond.”
Uniquely satyr emotions? It took me a second to understand what she meant. “The lust?”
“Yes. It was lessened. I assumed it was flowing into you along with the power.”
I nearly dropped my phone as I realized something I’d never thought about before. “It does, er, did. Reversing the bond helps me control the feeling, but it doesn’t make it totally go away. When I reversed the bond on that fury the first time, I was filled with anger. I thought it was because of the situation I was in, but it must have been partly his magic coursing through me. The same thing happened when I did it with the sylph the other week. When I pull from you, I’m pulling more of everything.”
“You take the good and the bad. It is an interesting phenomena,” Dezzi agreed. “And I’m sorry to say that you are ready to begin work with Claudius later.”
“Peachy.” I crept out of the room so I wouldn’t disturb the men and texted Steph to assure her we were on in spite of the day’s events. As I stuck my phone away, my hand grazed a familiar glass jar at the bottom of my bag. Grinning with relief, I pulled out a half-empty container of glamour. It must have been lying around in there for weeks.
I practically skipped into the nearest bathroom and used the spell to rearrange my face. Although I was probably paranoid about being recognized beyond the walls of this building, I saw no need to take chances. Besides, I couldn’t easily take my satyr bodyguards into The Feathers with me. They wouldn’t want to go, and the magi wouldn’t want them there. With a fake face, I wouldn’t have to. I’d be free of dangerous humans and any furies who wanted revenge or pieces of my flesh for other reasons.
The subway was every bit the nightmare I expected it to be, but Steph was ready and waiting near the hospital’s main entrance when I got there. I sent her a fake-me selfie so she’d know what I looked like.
She lowered her sunglasses as I approached. “Your artistic skills need practice. Or were you going for a disguise that says ‘I broke my nose and it was never set properly’?”
“Bite me. It’s been a long day.” Ugh. How many times had I said that today? I needed a better excuse. Though true, I was getting sick of it.
Steph crushed her cigarette, and we started walking. “Yeah, that clip of Xander is everywhere. Shit, I’m getting bugged by people who know that I know you.”
“Hence why my phone has been turned off most of the day.”
“I am so sorry. Do you want to grab a beer after this and vent?”
I sighed and pushed my magically straight, red hair out of my face. “I’d love to, but I have more work to do later.”
“It pisses me off that you and those Gryphons are doing so much to stop whatever’s coming, and some jackass of a magi—”
I hushed her. We’d passed beneath the colorful archway at the edge of The Feathers, and magi outnumbered the human population around us. “Not here.”
Steph made a noise of disapproval but nodded. “So where are you taking me?”
“We’re first going to a shop owned by a crow shifter named Vekta. She specializes in defensive kinds of charms, mainly. Next, if you want some general good luck, which is never a bad idea, I’ll take you to another place. Luck is pricey though, and that was before the world went to hell.”
Steph kicked an empty soda bottle out of our path and wrinkled her nose at the stench emanating from a restaurant on the right. “I’ll see how much money I have left after the first shop.”
Haggling with Vekta took forever, but the magi didn’t recognize me, which was a relief. Steph could make fun of my disguise all she wanted. It worked. Although Vekta side-eyed me a couple times, as though something about my manner or voice was familiar, she never tried to guess my name.
“To luck or not to luck?” I asked when we left.
Steph clutched her purse and the shopping bag closer to her side. “Maybe. Depends on what kind of price I can get.”
We paused at a busy intersection beneath a brown flag bearing the form of an owl, and I checked the time. I had no great incentive to return to headquarters. It might be necessary, but facing down Claudius was at the bottom of my list of fun ways to spend an evening. “Let’s go find out about some luck then.”
The shop I was taking Steph to was situated just off the central intersection in The Feathers. The intersection—not the shop—was a terribly designed piece of real estate. Rather than traffic lights on each street, the roads met in a roundabout, the center island of which showcased the statue of some famous magi who’d played a heroic role in the American Revolution.
That magi had probably never anticipated that Boston’s traffic would ever reach such horrific levels. The cars, the bicycles and the pedestrians made for dangerous street crossings. Even with the reduced traffic these days, it was ugly.
Probably because everyone needed to concentrate on their personal surrounding in order not to end up a street pancake, no one paid attention to the two humans standing in the center of it all by the statue. As my feet touched safer ground on the opposite side of the street, my gift picked up a familiar and most unwelcome emotion. An oily taste, reminiscent of stale French fry grease, filled my mouth.
I associated that flavor with evil intentions, people about to do terrible things. Sometimes, I could get a sense of what those things were, but that wasn’t necessary today. I spun wildly in the direction of the emotion, just in time to see the two humans fling a sign that said NO MAGIC atop the statue.
I screamed at Steph to run. Screamed at the humans to stop. But my voice was garbled to my own ears. My speed charms had activated, and the world slowed down as I searched for an opening in traffic, a path to the center of the roundabout.
Even with charms I wasn’t fast enough. One of the humans pulled a colorful sphere out of his bag. No question, it was some kind of container, probably a type of curse grenade. I dropped to the street, yanking Steph down with me.
My charms stayed activated long enough that I saw the statue, the humans and more explode in slow motion.
Chapter Thirteen
Like fireworks, curse grenades didn’t have to make noise. Most people who made them added the boom, not merely for the effect but to let the person using it know the device had released its contents.
The curse grenade these anti-magers set off didn’t make a sound, but the device exploded anyway and in completely surreal fashion because of it. A silent, golden flash blasted the statue and a good chunk of the traffic island into millions of granite pebbles and a few boulders. And there began the noise.
The debris stormed down on the intersection, smashing car windshields and bodies, and crashing into the asphalt. Horns honked and people screamed. Screeching metal and shattering glass followed and followed, a series of never-ending echoes as cars continued to collide and alarms wailed.
Down on the ground, I’d covered my head with my arms so I didn’t see it, but I could hear and imagine it. Some of it I felt, a hailstorm of unknown objects pelting me in the back.
The blast itself was over in seconds, and then the grenade went off again. I’d raised my head, coughing from the dust that landed on me, and so I saw the encore. Green sparks shot off in all directions from the rubble. Swearing in shock, I barely darted out of the path of one as it streaked by my head. It punched a hole into the building behind me, and a second flash of light—also green this time—followed. A horrendous shriek and explosive rumble came from inside the building.
And still, the original sparks kept flying in a beautifully deadly starburst pattern until they hit a target. Booms and the sound of things breaking reverberated in all directions. Buildings and the ground trembled.
I blinked a couple times, my eyes feeling like they were coated in dust. “Steph, you okay?”
She was huddled next to me, her arms wrapped around her purse and shopping bag, her head on the sticky, gross concrete. Coughing, she lifted her head. “What the hell?”
“Come on.” I climbed to my feet, dismayed to see how close I’d been to get hitting by a car that had been rear-ended. “We need to get away from the street.”
A haze of golden dust hung over the intersection, and the air smelled toxic. In the distance, sirens announced the arrival of some sort of authority, but it wasn’t the Gryphons. Their sirens had a very distinctive sound. Whoever it was, I couldn’t see how they were going to make it through this clusterfuck in their cars. Yet somehow they had to. People were screaming and their fear was increasing, warning me that there were serious injuries nearby.
Steph coughed again, her breathing wheezy. I helped her to sit by a pile of concrete bricks that once been part of a building. “Can you walk?” I asked. “Can you leave without me and get back to the hospital?”
“Without you?” Steph covered her mouth with her hand. “Where are you going?”
I wasn’t sure. I was used to chasing after the bad guys, fighting to stop them. But in this case, the bad guys were already dead. It was the good ones who needed attention.
Rising panic surrounded me, pulling me in all directions. I couldn’t sense physical pain or magi emotions at all, but the mental anguish of the terrified and dying humans reverberated in my bones. It was both chilling and energizing, and for once, it was useful that these awful emotions juiced me. I could help a few people, I hoped. My problem was I didn’t know where to start. Nor did I have anything helpful on me.
“Get on your phone. Call the Gryphons. I’m sure someone already has, but do it anyway just in case.” I assessed the former building behind Steph, fairly certain someone was trapped under the rubble. “And keep your head down.”
Steph coughed in reply as I climbed through the ruined façade, tracking the trail of fear. What was left of the building’s frame creaked and swayed around me. Shit. I had to be fast, and I had to get Steph farther away from this deathtrap.
Sunlight beat down through the broken windows, illuminating a collapsed staircase. Keyboards lay on the ground, some with keys jutting out at odd angle and others simply broken in two. Guitars had been smashed to pieces, and books of sheet music had blown over the clutter. Remnants of other instruments littered the floor.
The rubble shifted under my feet as I maneuvered closer to the person I could sense. Catching my balance, I barely distinguished a white feather among the broken wood. “Anyone there?”
Two voices answered my question. One of them had to belong to a human, a young one from the sound of it.
“Hold on. I’m going to dig you out.” My strength charms activated, burning like brands on my skin as I tossed aside heavy bits of wood and plaster. Nails tore at my jeans, and glass fragments burrowed into my palms. As I worked, more charms heated up. Endurance, pain relief, speed. I didn’t have a clue what some of them were.
The remains of the staircase shook, and I hauled away more crap. I was making what was left of it more unstable, but if there was a better way to do this, I hadn’t any idea what it was. My only equipment was my hands, so I’d simply have to work faster.
The magi came free first, a burly owl shifter who flung the last piece of rubble off himself with my help. He had one arm wrapped around a young human boy, clearly having tried to shelter the child with his body.
“I got you. We’ll get him next.” I held out my scratched and bleeding hand.
The magi grabbed it and tumbled out of the gap in the rubble. He was stooped over, feathers crushed and likely sporting broken bones. Blood stained The Beatles T-shirt he wore. “Jonah, the boy—his leg is trapped.”
“I’ll get him. Get outside if you can. This building isn’t stable.”
The magi didn’t leave though. He hovered around me, doing what he could to help, including continuously speaking in a calm voice to the boy, for which I was grateful. Every time I got more cleared, the boy tried to move and ended up yelling in pain. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he didn’t cry even as plaster dust drizzled on his head.
At last I shoved the final chuck of drywall away, revealing his bloody leg. I was totally going to have to carry him out of here.
“Come on.” I knelt to his level and held out my arms, all the while hoping my back or my charms didn’t give out.
He winced as I lifted him, and his voice trembled. “Where’s my mom?”
Mom? I glanced at the magi, and his face filled with worry. Shit. Focusing my gift in the immediate area told me nothing good. I couldn’t sense another human in the rubble.
Breathe, I told myself. His mother might simply be unconscious.
“We’ll find her,” I said.
“That’s right. We will.” The magi stroked the boy’s head. “You need to keep being brave.”
Didn’t we all.
A wood beam crashed to the floor as I adjusted my grip on Jonah, mere inches from where he’d been trapped. I jumped, barely repressing a curse, and he tightened his grip around my neck. More dust rained down, and the building moaned.
“That’s it, we’re out. Come on.” Caution warred with my need to hurry as I navigated the treacherous floor. With the magi’s help, I managed not to lose my footing, but it was close. I nearly twisted my ankle when a brown blur caught my eye and distracted me. A dragon was my first thought, but no. Dragons never got that dark a shade. It was probably more falling debris.
Outside, chaos continued to rule. The helicopters that had been circling the city were above us, and a couple cops had appeared but with no sign of their vehicles. The dozens of cars and trucks involved in the massive pileups had emptied of their passengers, at least those not seriously injured. Humans and magi roamed the streets, dazed, frantic and more often than not bleeding.
Searching for a safe spot to set down the boy, I finally came to the conclusion that none existed. I left him with the magi at a fair distance from the building by a totaled minivan.
“The Gryphons are already on their way. But, Jess?” Steph swayed on her feet, tugging on my arm. “Purple smoke—that’s salamanders.”
“What? Where?” I saw it as I asked. It was behind the building I’d emerged from. There wasn’t a lot yet, only a simple purple wisp. But after a few salamanders had burned part of the city not so long ago, no one in Boston was ignorant of how quickly they could grow. Or how much they could destroy. “Shit.”
Steph grabbed the hood of the nearest car for support and sat on it. Its owner was too busy gazing around in dismay to notice, and Steph pulled out a cigarette with a shaky hand. “Can you catch it?”
I laughed without humor. “Maybe if I had a spelled net or some sprites, but catching salamanders is a bit outside my experience and I don’t have those things.” I didn’t wish to face it down either. Been there, done that once. Had nearly had my skin seared off.
If I didn’t do anything though, there was no telling how much damage the creature could do. For that matter, there was no telling how many there were. A chill crept over me as I realized what sorts of establishments might have been destroyed in the secondary blast. Charm makers would naturally have salamander eggs for their work, and if one had hatched a salamander before the explosion, it could easily have gotten loose.
This was the busiest intersection in The Feathers. A very commercial area. There were more charm makers per square foot in this vicinity than in the rest of the city. Who knew how many salamanders I could be dealing with? Not to mention what else. Every city had its imp issues and dragons in the sewers, but we could be talking sprites slipping into the city water supply or half-finished charms and curses seeping into the ground.
And miniature trolls.
My head snapped to the right as the flash of brown reappeared. Damn. So that’s what that brown shadow I’d seen was—a building-chewing, two-footed termite.
The mini troll popped its knobby head out from the rubble. It was only about four inches tall, full grown. Its beady black eyes scoured the area, its jaw working furiously as it chewed on a section of the blown-out window frame.
Some cultures considered mini trolls delicacies, and many spells used them in various ways. Hell, some people kept mini trolls as pets. While they were certainly cuter than their regular-sized counterparts, they could be every bit as damaging. There was a reason most municipalities banned them for noncommercial keeping. A single mini troll on the loose could chew through a house’s wood frame in a couple weeks.
Most reports put their intelligence somewhere on par with dragons—well above most magical creatures—and I swore this one kept its gaze fixed on me, as if it knew I was contemplating how to catch it. Unlike a salamander, I had a chance. Assuming, that was, I could grasp its tiny body before it attempted to bite me with its impressive teeth.
A disturbingly loud rumble ensnared my attention while I contemplated the troll. At first I thought it was more of the ubiquitous thunder I’d been hearing for the past week, but my ears sorted it out. It had come from the direction of the salamander smoke. More raised voices emanated from that direction too. My pulse quickened. A building had collapsed. From the fire? Was the smoke getting thicker?
I tapped Steph on the arm. “Help me.”
“Catch a salamander? Are you kidding me?”
“Catch a troll. Come on.” I snatched an empty plastic shopping bag that littered the street.
Steph coughed, saving me the trouble of pointing out that smoking when the air was already plenty full of toxic dust might not be the best idea. “What do you need me to do?”
I picked up a piece of attractive wood that I suspected had once belonged to some sort of musical instrument. “You hold this out to it with one hand, and when it gets close, you throw the bag over it. But watch out for its teeth. Hold it by the body and tempt it with the wood. It’ll calm down.”
“I know how to care for trolls.” Warily, she crushed her cigarette and took the wood and bag from me. “My grandparents had one when we were kids. But why aren’t you helping?”
“Because I’m going after the salamander.”
“I thought you didn’t have supplies for that?”
I tied my hair back. “I don’t, but any of these charm or supply shops should have some.”
“The Gryphons are coming. Let them handle it.” Her fear registered more clearly to me than the general fear I sensed all around. It was a bright lemonade that made me crave a cool drink.
“I am a Gryphon.” Whether I wanted to be or not. Just like I was a satyr. Both those designations came with certain responsibilities.
Jaw set, I took one more scan of the area. The worst of the noise had died down. The yelling had muted to upset voices, and the crunch of concrete and plaster crumbling was less powerful. Car alarms still shrieked and unseen sirens blared, mixing with the thump of the helicopters. Fear and a touch of anger was heavy in the air along with the dust. But I couldn’t see anyone in the immediate vicinity I could help. It didn’t mean there weren’t any, but my best chance for saving lives at this point was to go after the salamander. Catch it before it devoured too much.
“Don’t spend too much time with the troll,” I added. “If you can catch it, great, but it’s not the biggest problem. Getting to the hospital is more important.”
Assuming the salamander, and any of its brothers and sisters, was reined in before
it
got to the hospital.
“I’m starting to become nostalgic for the days when you only hunted bad guys,” Steph said. “I trusted you could subdue those with your gift.”
Me too. Life had been simpler then, or perhaps it had just seemed that way. I sure didn’t miss worrying about finding my share of the rent money or mourning my nonexistent love life. On the other hand, I’d gone from waitress to warrior a bit more quickly—and without as much preparation—as I’d like.
I covered my mouth with my hoodie sleeve as I wove through the jungle of cars and rubble. The air had taken on a particularly sharp twang, the odor of sulfur mixed with burning plastic and untold other horrors. As I turned the corner, the press of people moving in the opposite direction thickened. A magi grabbed my arm, yelling “Salamander” at me as she fled.
Yup, salamander, run away. What are you doing, Jess? This is no time to try proving to yourself that you can handle whatever the Gryphons need you to do.