Cold Burn of Magic (18 page)

“Indifferent how?” Devon asked, the first time he'd spoken since our fight.

I shrugged again. “Too many kids and not enough hours in the day for the adults to see to them all. Most of them focused on the younger kids who needed them more. After a while, I stopped trying to get anybody's attention. It was easier to keep my head down and blend in.”

“That doesn't sound so bad,” Felix said in a tentative voice.

“It wasn't that bad.”

“Then why didn't you stay?” he asked, gesturing out at the basement. “Surely, it would have been easier than doing all of . . . this.”

“I got into a fight with one of the older boys. He'd been taking food from some of the younger kids, and I told him to stop. He thought because he was bigger and stronger than me that I'd be an easy target. I showed him how wrong he was.”

“What did you do?” Devon asked.

“I busted his nose and told him that if he ever took anyone's food again, he'd be drinking through a straw for six months. He got the message.”

Devon grinned. “I would have liked to have seen that.”

Despite our fight, I grinned back at him. “His nose swelled up like a grapefruit. It was awesome.”

“I'm sensing a
but
in there,” Felix said.

“
But
the couple who ran things didn't like fights, so I got shipped to another foster home,” I said. “This one was actually a lot better. The Hendersons had a four-year-old girl of their own, and she was the sweetest thing ever.”

The Henderson family. I still thought about them sometimes. I'd been with them for two months, and it had been a good two months—until the end.

“What happened?” Devon asked in a soft voice, picking up on my sudden sadness.

“They were a nice couple, but they didn't have a lot of money, and they lived in a bad part of town, near the lochness bridge. You know where that is?”

Devon and Felix both nodded.

“Anyway, they had this teeny-tiny backyard. One day, their daughter was out there playing, laughing and running around. Then, suddenly, she wasn't. I couldn't hear her anymore, so I went out to check on her, only she was down on the ground, flat on her back, with a copper crusher wrapped around her chest.”

Devon and Felix both winced. They knew that copper crushers were nasty creatures, oversize boa constrictors really, with shimmering, copper-colored scales who could coil themselves up tight enough to crush rocks—and human rib cages. And if they didn't kill you with their coils, then they could do it with their bite, since their venom was highly poisonous.

“So I snatched up this plastic baseball bat she'd been playing with, and I started hitting the crusher with it. The mom came out into the backyard just in time to see me hit the crusher a final time before it let go of the girl and slithered away. She thought it was just a very large garden snake. Of course, the little girl told her mom that it was really a monster, but the mom didn't listen to her. The next morning, I got shipped out to another home.”

“I'm so sorry,” Felix said.

I shrugged. The fear in the Hendersons' eyes had been one of the worst things I'd ever seen and felt with my soulsight—because they'd been afraid of
me
. But I couldn't blame them for it. Nobody wanted a violent kid in their home, sleeping down the hall from their little girl.

“Why didn't you tell the parents what it really was?” Devon asked.

“I tried, but they were mortals. These folks knew about monsters, but they didn't want to think about them being in their backyard. They thought they were doing the right thing sending me away. The Hendersons were just looking out for their kid. Their real kid.”

Devon and Felix shared a guilty glance. They didn't ask me any more questions, but I decided to fill in the rest of the blanks. Might as well get it all out in the open. Hopefully, after tonight, I'd never have to talk about it again.

“After that, I went to one more foster home—a bad one.”

“What happened?” Felix asked.

“One night, the husband tried to sneak into the room I was sharing with two other girls,” I said. “I broke his nose, too. He called the cops, but I told them what he'd been about to do to me and those other girls. So they took him to jail instead of me. After that, I decided that I'd had enough. I packed up my stuff and left that same night. I've been on my own ever since.”

“But what about Mo?” Devon asked. “Why didn't you go live with him?”

I made a face. “Mo offered, he
always
offered, but I didn't want to be around anyone then. Not even him. Besides, he's a total slob.”

I made the bad joke so they wouldn't realize how hard it was for me to talk about all this. I'd wanted to stay with Mo, but I also hadn't wanted to be a burden and have him reject me like the Hendersons had done. Yeah, I knew that he wouldn't have, but I couldn't keep myself from worrying about it all the same. Because if Mo had turned his back on me, then I would have had nowhere to go and absolutely no one to help me. So I'd decided to lean on him as little as possible.

I realized that the guys were staring at me, so I quickly finished up my story. “After that, I found this spot in the library, and I decided that I'd just stay here where no one would bother me. And it worked.”

“Until I came along,” Devon said.

“Yeah. Until you came along.”

I made sure not to look at him. I didn't want to know what he was thinking or feeling right now. Because I didn't know what I was feeling myself.

“Well,” Felix said in a cheery voice. “I, for one, am glad that Lila came along. Although I bet Reginald and the pixies aren't, given how much more food they have to fix now.”

“It probably takes them half the morning just to make enough bacon for her,” Devon chimed in, his voice taking on a lighter, teasing note.

“Half the morning?” Felix said. “They probably start cooking at midnight just to get ready for breakfast.”

“Hey!” I said, throwing a pillow at Felix. “I do not eat that much bacon.”

“Oh no,” he said, ducking it. “Just your own body weight in it. Every single morning.”

I grumbled and threw another pillow at him, but Felix laughed and batted it away, and I found myself chiming in with his and Devon's chuckles.

We all went back to work, but a funny thing happened. I realized that I was glad they had come along, too.

It didn't take us long to finish packing my things. I managed to stuff everything into the suitcases except for the furniture. Devon had stacked boxes three deep around the cot, the mini-fridge, the old washtub, and the other items. I didn't know if they would disappear in the sale or not, but I had a feeling I wouldn't need them. Not anymore. In fact, part of me wondered if I'd ever come back here again.

I looked at every single part of the basement, from the water spots on the ceiling to the cracks zigzagging through the walls to the curling linoleum tiles on the floor, trying to imprint it all on my mind, in case this was the last time I ever saw it. Maybe it was weird, but I was going to miss this place. It had been the closest thing I'd had to a home since my mom died.

“Lila?” Felix said. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

Felix took one suitcase, while Devon grabbed the other. Together, the three of us trooped up the stairs, through the storage room, and out into the main part of the library. I stopped again, staring at everything, from the shelves of worn paperbacks to the battered toys scattered on the tables in the children's section to the old computers that lined the checkout counter. A hard lump filled my throat. I'd spent so many afternoons here with Mom, reading stories and browsing through the books together. I supposed that's why I had decided to live here in the first place, so I could be close to the ghost of those good times.

“Come on,” Devon said. “We parked down the street.”

I closed my eyes a second to hold back my tears, then nodded and walked past him, heading toward the front of the library. It wasn't the entrance I usually used, but it was on the side of the building closest to the street, and I didn't want Devon and Felix dragging my heavy suitcases any farther than necessary.

The glass double doors loomed in front of me. We were fifty feet away from them. Forty . . . thirty . . . twenty . . .

Something flitted in the shadows outside, racing across the entrance and then vanishing on the other side.

I froze. “Stop.”

Felix pulled up short, almost ramming into me from behind. “What? What's wrong?”

I peered out the glass, my hand dropping to my sword. Using my sight, I looked out through the doors again. All I saw were shadows. But someone or something had been there a second ago. A finger of unease crept up my spine, and I realized how isolated Devon, Felix, and I were in the library. It would be the perfect place for an ambush—or another assassination attempt.

“Get your phone. Call Claudia. Tell her to get down here with some guards. Right now.”

“Why?” Felix asked. “The car is right outside—”

Another shadow flitted across the entrance outside. Then another. Then another. All headed this way.

I opened my mouth to shout out a warning, but it was too late.

Guys with swords crashed through the library doors.

O
ne after another, seven guys stormed the library, swords out, ready to attack.

Ready to kill.

“Get back!” I screamed.

I whipped my sword out of my scabbard and stepped up to meet our attackers, even though my heart sank at the sheer number. Whoever wanted Devon dead had upped his game.

Behind me, Devon and Felix dropped my suitcases and drew their own swords, and I knew they needed another precious few seconds before they were ready.

So I charged into the men, whirling this way and that, cutting into every person I could reach. I hacked and slashed mostly at their hands and arms, trying to at least get them to drop their weapons. If any of them had a strength Talent, they could always strangle me to death with their bare hands, but with the swords, they didn't even have to get close to kill me. If nothing else, I wasn't going down easy, and they were going to have to work to murder me—and Devon and Felix, too.

One man howled with pain as my blade bit into his wrist. His sword slipped from his nerveless fingers, and I pressed my advantage. I twirled my sword in my hand, then wrapped both hands around the black blade, brought it up, and slashed it across his chest hard and deep. The stink of blood flooded the air, and crimson drops sprayed off the end of my sword, spattering onto the books. The man screamed again and pressed his hands to his chest, even as more blood dripped out of the deep wound. I whirled around and drew my sword back the other way, opening up another vicious gash across his chest. He fell to the floor, convulsing, and he didn't get back up.

One down, many more to go.

Most of the men darted past me and headed toward Devon and Felix, who moved so that they were standing back to back. Devon and Felix lashed out with their swords, keeping their attackers at bay—for now.

I started to run over to help them, when I saw one more person step into the library—the mystery man from the Razzle Dazzle.

Brown hair, brown eyes, not tall or short or fat or thin. He was as average and forgettable as before, right down to his beige polo shirt and khakis. He stood behind the men, his hands tucked into his pockets, as though he were watching some sort of boxing match instead of Devon and Felix fighting for their lives.

I tightened my grip on my sword and started toward him, betting that if I took him down, some of the fight would go out of the rest of the intruders. But the mystery man saw me coming, and his face pinched into a frown. Our eyes locked, and my soulsight kicked in. Needle-sharp annoyance poked me in the chest, along with something that felt like . . . recognition. I frowned. Did I know the mystery man? I didn't remember meeting him before, but he seemed familiar—or at least I was familiar to him.

The mystery man saw me coming and let out a low, sharp whistle. Two of the men broke off from the group surrounding Devon and Felix and headed in my direction, cutting me off before I could reach the mystery man. He gave me a cold, thin smile and turned his attention back to the others.

The two men advanced on my position. I didn't want them to flank me, so I turned and ran back into the children's section.

The men's footsteps
thump-thump-thumped
on the carpet behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder long enough to judge the distance between me and the nearest guy. I raced forward, my eyes locked onto a wooden chair that had been pushed off to one side of the play area. I put on an extra burst of speed, leaped into the chair, and immediately whipped back around, driving my sword through the air. I managed to get high and far enough to launch myself at the man who had been closest to me. My sword sliced into his neck, ripping into his throat. He dropped without a sound, and I pulled my sword back the other way and stepped up to face the next man.

Two down, still many more to go.

I just managed to raise my sword when the next man attacked me. His sword
zip-zip-zipped
through the air, and too late, I realized he had a speed Talent.

We broke apart after a particularly fast exchange in which I only managed to parry his blows by instinct rather than by actually seeing them coming. Sweat slicked down my face, and my hands were hot and clammy around the hilt of my sword. If my attacker hit it just the right way, he'd knock the black blade from my hand, and then I'd be done for.

My eyes flicked right and left, looking for something that would help me, and my gaze latched on to another chair and the wooden table behind it. I swung my weapon out in a wide, reckless arc, but it had the desired effect of making my attacker leap back. I turned and ran, but I didn't go far. I started to hop onto the seat of the chair, but the man used his speed magic to zoom past me and leap into the chair instead, making me pull up short.

“Oh, so sorry, chickie,” the man crowed, waggling his sword at me. “Did I take your spot? What are you going to do now?”

I grinned. “This.”

I kicked the chair out from under him.

The man yelped in surprise, his legs flying out from under him as he toppled back onto the table, just as I wanted him to. His speed, his magic, only gave him an advantage if he was on his feet—and now he wasn't.

I darted forward and slashed my sword across his chest, making him scream with pain, but he still managed to lash out with his own blade.

This time, I was the one who screamed.

“Lila!” I thought I heard Devon shout my name above the
clashes, clangs,
and snarls of the fight, but I couldn't be sure.

Lucky for me, my attacker's aim was low, and the edge of his sword only caught me in my left thigh, and not across my gut. Still, the wound hurt, like a line of fire running across my leg, and I could feel blood sliding down my skin. Since the blow hadn't been caused by any magic, my own Talent didn't kick in, and the wound didn't make me stronger.

My attacker rolled off the table, regained his balance, and lunged at me again. Given my injury, he managed to knock my legs out from under me, and I went down on one knee next to a bookcase, all the air driven out of my lungs. The man loomed over me, grinning. He drew his sword back, ready to drive it into my skull.

I sucked down a breath and managed to roll to my right. The man's sword stabbed into the spot where my head had been a second before, spearing a book on the shelf there. He let out an angry roar and shook his sword, trying to get the book to fly off the end of the blade.

I landed on my injured leg, and more pain shot through my body, making me hiss, but I managed to stagger back up and onto my feet. The man finally hurled the book off the point of his sword and charged at me again, moving even faster than before. There was no way I could kill him, not now.

Not without using my transference Talent to make me strong enough to keep fighting.

This time, instead of raising his sword, the man drew back his fist. I closed my eyes, stood my ground, and let him punch me in the face. One, two, three. That's how many blows he landed in quick succession, using his speed Talent, before I managed to stagger back out of his reach.

But it was worth it when the sharp, stinging pain from his punches froze into that bitter, bitter cold that filled my body, giving me the strength to surge forward again.

The man lashed out with his fist, but I anticipated the motion and caught his hand in mine. We stood there, seesawing back and forth. Confusion filled his face as he wondered why I was suddenly so much stronger than he was, but I didn't plan on giving him a chance to puzzle it out. I brought my sword up between us, but he was still faster, and he finally did what I'd feared he would all along—he knocked my weapon out of my sweaty grasp.

I started to lunge for the sword, but the man slammed his hand into my chest, shoving me against a bookshelf. My head snapped back against the metal rack, and this time, not even the cold burn of magic in my veins was enough for me to shake off the white stars winking on and off in my field of vision. My legs went out from under me, and my ass hit the floor. The man stepped in front of me and raised his sword high, ready to bring it down across my chest. And all I could do was sit there in a daze and watch my own death happen—

“Stop!”
a sharp voice rang out.

At the sound, a chill blasted through the entire library, one that tickled my skin in a familiar way. Was that . . . magic?

The man attacking me immediately froze, his sword held overhead, the muscles in his neck and arms tensing, straining, and swelling, as though he were fighting against whatever strange, invisible force was holding him in place.

Suddenly, Devon was there, crouching down on the floor next to me. His hand wrapped around mine, and he shielded me with his body, although he never took his eyes off the other man.

“Turn around,”
Devon said in that same sharp tone.

More magic surged through the library in chilly waves, and Devon's hand went as cold as ice against mine. The man did as Devon commanded, although he still struggled against whatever strange power was compelling him. No, not a strange power.

Devon—
Devon
was doing this.

Somehow, with just his voice, he was forcing my attacker to obey him. The man who had been about to kill me was now doing whatever Devon said, like a puppet dancing to someone else's tune.

Eyes wide, I looked at Devon. The corner of his mouth turned up into a grim smile, but he kept his green gaze on the other man.

“Protect us,”
he commanded, a strange, hard, terrible crack of magic in his voice.

Devon's hand went colder still against mine, as though I were squeezing an ice cube between my fingers instead of flesh and blood.

The puppet man let out an angry roar, but he did as Devon had said. He whipped around, raised his sword high again, and charged into the two men that were left—his own men.

The first guy blocked the puppet man's blow, and he stared at his friend in shock, as if the puppet man had suddenly gone mad. Maybe he had, because the puppet man kept attacking his friend, swinging his sword at him over and over again.

And then, the unthinkable happened. The puppet man, the one Devon was controlling, buried his sword in his friend's heart, killing him. Then he turned and did the same thing to the second man.

Still, as shocking as all of that was, I scanned the library for the last man standing, so to speak, the mystery man who'd been leading our attackers. Where was he—

Devon let out a surprised hiss. One moment, he was crouched next to me, holding my hand in his magic-chilled one. The next, he'd been hauled upright by the mystery man, who had one hand clamped over Devon's mouth and a dagger pressed up against his throat. Devon started to struggle, but the mystery man dug the blade into Devon's neck, cutting him.

“You move, you speak, you die!” the mystery man snarled.

Devon's eyes met mine, and his fear socked me in the stomach. But once again, it wasn't fear for himself, so much as it was for me and Felix. Somehow, I knew that Devon couldn't use his Talent, his magic—not unless he could talk.

The mystery man seemed to know it as well, since he kept his hand over Devon's mouth even as he started dragging him toward the library doors.

“Kill her, you idiot!” he hissed at the puppet man.

My attacker blinked and blinked, then shook his head, as though he were flinging off the last of Devon's magic. Then he turned toward me again.

I gritted my teeth, grabbed my sword, and scrambled up and onto my feet. I raised my weapon, ready to fight as best I could, hoping that I could kill my attacker and chase after Devon and the mystery man—

Suddenly, Felix was there, stabbing his sword into my attacker's side and yanking it back out. The man toppled to the ground—dead.

Felix and I both turned toward the mystery man, who still had his dagger up against Devon's throat.

The mystery man let out a disgusted snarl, but he tightened his grip on Devon and kept backing him toward the library doors. Felix and I followed them, our own weapons raised and ready.

“Let him go,” I said. “And we'll let you live.”

The mystery man let out a brittle laugh, but that was his only response—

Devon drove his left elbow into the mystery man's stomach, making him gasp with pain. At the same time, Devon shoved his right arm up between his neck and the dagger, so that the weapon only sliced into his wrist, instead of his throat. Devon hissed with pain, blood gushing down his arm, but he broke free of the other man, whirled around, and opened his mouth—

The mystery man stepped up and shoved him as hard as he could, sending Devon flying backward into a bookcase. The mystery man let out another angry snarl, then turned and sprinted out the front doors.

Felix hurried over to Devon, while I limped along as best as I could. Felix helped Devon to his feet, then both guys looked at me.

“Are you okay?” Devon asked.

“Just peachy.”

His gaze dropped to my left leg and the blood that had soaked my cargo pants. Then his eyes went to my sword, which I was leaning on as if it were a crutch. “Are you sure?”

I waved my hand. “It's just a scratch. I'm fine—”

The last bit of magic that had been keeping me going fizzled out of my veins like bubbles escaping from a can of soda. I sagged and would have pitched forward if Devon hadn't stepped up to catch me. He was stronger than I thought, and he easily put me back on my feet and held me steady.

“Maybe you should sit down,” he said, his green eyes twinkling just a bit.

“Maybe just for a second.”

He helped me over to a chair in the children's section and eased me down into it. His hand burned on my arm, hot instead of cold, but feeling like magic all the same. A different kind of magic—one that I had no idea what to do about.