A Little Night Magic (31 page)

God, I loved that man.

“Oh, wow.” I took a step toward Davina and crouched in front of her. “My sister’s power doesn’t want you, does it?”

I moved my fingers, feeling the power within me, taking root, finding home.

“That’s how you found me, isn’t it? It wants me; it drew you to me. But when I have conduits, the pull is too strong. It wants me too much, and you can’t hold onto it.”

I tested this theory, pulling Davina to her feet, making her step closer to me even as her ankles buckled under her. Her eyes glittered with fury as she did it, but she stepped exactly where I commanded her to.

“All right, then,” I said. “As long as we know who’s in charge here.”

Sweat broke out on Davina’s upper lip as her eyes widened in fear.

“You can’t do this,” she said, gasping as she struggled to fight me. “You need my permission to take it … my will…”

“Hmmm, that is a sticky point. Let’s test it, shall we?” I concentrated on her and began to pull. At first, it was slow going, a lot of effort for very little return, but eventually, I could see the gray smoke that was seeping out of her. My yellow light curled around it, pulling it back to me through Tobias, the portal between us, and with every breath, I felt it settle home inside of me—a power unlike mine, darkened and brittle, but there was also a hint of familiarity in it. Davina had corrupted my sister’s power, but my sister was still in there, her power different from mine, but ultimately complementary. I took it in, as much as I could, not everything, not quite all of it, but most of it. If Davina could manage someday to light a candle without a match, I’d have been surprised.

“I think maybe you’re wrong about that,” I said, slowly lowering Davina to her knees as I released my hold on her. “I think it’s not your will, it’s Holly’s. After all, it was her magic. And I think she wants her magic with me.”

Davina groaned and writhed on the ground, fighting me as much as she could, but she was weak. Eventually, she stopped moving except for the short, shallow breaths she was taking, and only then did I disconnect from her entirely, releasing both her and Tobias in a rush of relief.

When it was done, and Davina was passed out on the ground, I stumbled outside the circle and managed to get myself to the flat rock by the brook. The power made me shaky and, ironically, weak. I didn’t have the strength to wield it all, not at the moment. Someday, I would, but for now, it was all I could do to maintain consciousness.

“Liv!” Tobias was beside me on the rock, pulling me into his arms, and the relief of it was enough to make me cry out. He pulled back and looked at me. “You all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “How are you?”

I looked at his sweet face, bloodied and beaten, but still, my own Tobias. I put my hand over his chest and felt the heartbeat under my fingers.

Mine.

“Don’t leave me,” I said, too tired to keep from expressing the thought out loud.

He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I pushed him back so I could look in his eyes. “No, I mean,
ever.
Don’t you ever, ever leave me again.
Ever.
”

He smiled. “Never.”

“I mean it,” I said. “None of this ‘when they come to take me away’ bullshit. If they come for you, we run. We go rogue. Whatever. I don’t care, so long as we do it together.”

He took my hand in his and kissed the tips of my fingers. “Deal.”

“Really?”

He nodded, and brushed some hair away from my face. “Yeah. I’m in.”

He smiled at me, and I smiled back, and then I heard twigs crunching as footsteps approached. Instinctively, I flinched, and Tobias tightened his grip around me until we saw the shadowy figures of Cain and Stacy emerge into the clearing.

“For fuck’s sake, Liv,” Stacy began, “we’ve been waiting for you. What the hell happened?”

I didn’t say anything, just watched as Stacy caught a glimpse of Davina lying helpless on the ground, and she whooped.

“Yeah, that’s right, baby!” Stacy said. “The bitch is—”

And then she stopped, frozen, and her eyes landed, as I knew they inevitably would, on Millie. Cain, a second too late, stepped between Stacy and Millie’s body, putting his hands on her shoulders and angling her away.

“You don’t wanna see that,” he said, his voice as soft and kind as I’d ever heard it.

“Millie?” Stacy’s voice cracked as she said the name, and I could see the moonlight glittering in the wetness in her eyes as she looked at me. “Liv?”

I was too tired to say anything, so I just squeezed Tobias’s hand. “Take Stacy back to the van. Can you find it?”

Tobias nodded. “Yeah, I passed it on the way in, but—”

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “You can come back for me. I’m not going anywhere. Please, take care of Stacy. I need to deal with Cain for a bit.”

Tobias kissed me gently, then walked over to Stacy, put his arm around her, and gently guided her out. When I looked back at Cain, I saw him standing over Davina, his hands at his sides, the glint of the gun he’d just pulled out of the back of his jeans barely visible in the moonlight.

“Please, Cain,” I said. “Don’t.”

He didn’t look at me, just kept staring at Davina. “Have to.”

“I took the power,” I said. “All of it. She may not survive the night as it is. But you have to make a choice now and I’m asking you, for Holly. Please don’t.”

He raised his head at Holly’s name.

“I’m so tired,” I said, not to him, but to her. I could feel her, with me, her desperation growing stronger as her power found home with mine.

Please. There isn’t much time.

“Please,” I repeated. “There isn’t much time.”

His entire body froze as I said the words, and I felt the memory; the darkness Holly had felt, the coldness even as he held her to him.
There isn’t much time. I love you.

“She loved you,” I said.

He has to move on.

“She wants you to move on, but you never will. Not unless you drop the gun.”

Please.

There was a protracted silence as Cain stared down at Davina, the gun still in his hand. Finally, I heard a clatter as he dropped it to the ground. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion.

“Tell her…” He cleared his throat. “Tell her…”

“She knows,” I said. She was gone by then, but I knew it was the truth. She loved him so much that I could feel that love for him within myself, solid and unconditional and more real than anything else in the world. Most of that love was hers, but some of it was my own to keep. In a weird way, he was the only family I had left. A brother, of sorts; the man who had loved the sister I’d never known.

I’d take it.

He looked at me for a long moment, then quietly took off his flannel shirt, revealing a white T-shirt that glowed an ethereal blue in the moonlight. He draped the shirt over Millie’s head and shoulders, then picked her up and disappeared into the forest, leaving me alone with Davina. I took a few deep breaths, and drew what strength I could for the last thing I had to do.

I got up, stumbled past Davina and the circle, and found her backpack. It was impossibly heavy, but I managed to drag it back to the brook. One by one, I emptied her vials and potions and herbs into the running water; she may be able to build herself back up as a conjurer one day, but at least she wouldn’t have a head start.

Once I was done, I went into my bag and pulled out the second bottle I’d had tucked in there, one I’d taken from Cain’s stores. I walked over to Davina, tilted her head, and poured it into her mouth. She sputtered and coughed, then swallowed. I left her there to vomit by herself; I’d done my part. She could recover and get back to town on her own. If she died in the process, it wouldn’t be on my head. I sat on the rock by the brook again, gathered up what strength I could, and finally stood up. As I took my wearied and wobbly steps past Davina, I said, “Set foot in this town again, and no force in the world will save you.”

A powerful, rage-filled scream reverberated off the trees, and a strong grip pulled on my ankles. I went down, face-first, into the dirt. Before I could get my bearings to turn myself over, something hard hit me on the back of the head, and I saw stars. I scraped and pulled at the ground, managing to flip around just in time to see Davina, up on her knees, a huge rock in her hands. Her eyes were wild and glassy, her hair matted with dirt and leaves. Guttural, primal sounds came from her as she threw her body onto mine, sending sharp shards of pain through me. I screamed as she regained her balance, pulling herself back and lifting the rock, preparing to brain me. I was trapped under her bulk, unable to access my magic through the haze of my exhaustion, and unable to physically move or scramble out of the way.

Never underestimate the power of crazy,
I thought, and waited for the blow that would certainly kill me.

But no blow came. I saw a small flash of light, and heard a strangely innocuous-sounding
pop.
It took me a moment to place the sound, as I’d only heard one like it once before, when Stacy’s mom had taken all of us to the shooting range.

Davina jerked back and fell away from me. With her weight off of me, I scrambled away as best I could, getting a few feet between us, and the pop happened again. The world started to spin around me, and there it was again.
Pop. Pop.

“Cain!” I called out into the dark, not sure where he was, but sure he could hear me. “Stop!”

I tried to focus, but all I could see was a dark form, one hand extended, and the final blast of light from the end of a gun.

Pop.

“Cain,” I said. “No.”

Pop.
Davina’s body jerked again, but there was no life left in her. She was gone. He’d killed her.

I fell back onto the ground, barely able to move. A second later, arms were around me, pulling me up, and carrying me away.

“Liv.” Tobias’s voice, quiet, shaky. “Are you okay?”

“Tobias?” I was dizzy, and confused. “Where’s Cain?”

“Back in the van,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

And then, everything went dark.

21

A week later, Betty moved in.

“Stop treating me like a damn invalid,” she said when I carried the last of her things to her room, where I’d made her sit on the bed while I puttered around her. “I’m
fine.
”

“The doctor said you needed to rest for your first few days back.” I set the suitcase of clothes Grace and Addie had rescued from her apartment down next to the bed. “You rest, or so help me, I’ll duct tape you to that bed. What do you want for lunch?”

“I don’t want lunch,” she said. “I want you to sit down for five minutes and talk to me.”

I hesitated for a moment. I’d spent the last week keeping busy, managing Millie’s funeral, visiting Betty in the hospital, preparing the house for her to move in. Ordinary, mundane tasks had been my lifeline, and the idea of sitting and talking didn’t necessarily appeal. But, since I’d never actually won an argument with Betty, I sat down at the desk chair and said, “What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about you,” she said. “How are you doing?”

I smiled. “I’m fine.”

She stared at me, and I relented.

“I’m okay. I’m … managing. The night magic takes a little getting used to, it’s like it never turns off, you know?”

“Have you slept?”

“Sure.” Not a full night, not more than a couple hours at a time, but I had slept. The nightmares were getting less and less frequent, so progress was being made. “I’m sleeping fine.”

She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. We fell into a silence, and then she said, “You know it’s not your fault, right?” Her expression tightened a bit, and she added, “Everything that happened with Millie.”

“I know.” There was a noise down by my ankle, and I looked down to see Gibson bumping into the side of the bed. I glanced up to see Niles floating in circles above Gib, and I smiled as I picked Gibson up.

“Well, that’s weird,” Betty commented.

“They’re inseparable,” I said. “I think it’s sweet.”

“It is sweet,” she said. “But your piece of paper’s in love with your mug. It’s also weird.”

I gave her a small nod. “I concede the point.” I got up, opened the empty bottom dresser drawer, and set Gibson into it to keep him safe for the time being. Niles floated down next to him and settled into the drawer as well.

“Weird.” She sighed. “Still no word from Cain?”

“Nope, and I don’t think we’ll get any.” By the morning after the showdown with Davina, Cain had disappeared. Stacy had talked about tracking him down, but I figured we wouldn’t see him again until he wanted to be seen. I hoped that would happen someday, but who knew? Cain wasn’t a terribly predictable kind of guy.

“So, what did you do with the body? Are we worried about Tobias going to jail? Do we need to find a good lawyer?”

I sat back down on the edge of the bed. “You know, Betty, we don’t have to discuss—”

“I. Am. Not. An. Invalid,” she said. “You’ve danced around this when I was in the hospital and I couldn’t come after you because they had tubes in me. Now, however, I will hurt you.”

I sighed. “It’s possible that people might come around asking about Davina, but Cain said she didn’t have any family, or friends, or any kind of employment that he was aware of, so if no one reports her missing, we’re probably okay just not saying anything about it. But, just in case, Stacy took care of it.”

Betty’s brows knit for a second. “Stacy?” And then her face cleared. “Right. Fire. So she…?”

“Cremated her. Right there in the forest, and didn’t catch anything else on fire. The girl had talent.”

Betty raised her brow. “Had?”

“It was borrowed power, both her and Peach. Yesterday, Stacy had trouble lighting a match head.” I remembered the disappointment on Stacy’s face, and how she’d stalked away after the failure. “Possibly, that’s a good thing.”

“I think maybe,” Betty said. “And what about Millie?”

I sighed. Millie’s death had been harder to explain. We brought her in, told the hospital that we’d found her in the forest, and for lack of a better explanation for her injuries, they had deduced suicide by hanging. The note found at her apartment, written in Millie’s careful hand, confirmed this, and we didn’t say any different to anyone. I tried not to think about Millie, sitting alone at her desk, being forced to write the note against her will as Davina controlled her every move, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head anyway. It was a small comfort that her fate had been sealed before we’d ever walked into that forest; Davina was never not going to end Millie that night, no matter what I did.