Magic at the Gate (5 page)

It was small in here, too small. I’d be in a cold sweat right now if I could sweat. I wanted out, wanted to run. But Influence held me button-tight.

“Pay attention,” Old Dad said.

I looked back at him, paying very good attention, just as he commanded. The gate was closed, or at least there was no light beyond it, no glimpse of where we had been. I could make out the cinnamon-colored bars, barely illuminated, and nothing but blackness beyond it and around us.

“Tell me what you see,” he said.

“Blackness. The Gate. Stone. Myself.”

New Dad made a sound like an exhale. “That’s good. There is much more here with us. Things living souls should not see. The path is narrow. You do not want to step off of it.”

Oh, didn’t that sound wonderful?

“Can you breathe?” New Dad asked.

I nodded, then, since he might not be able to see me, said, “Yes.”

“Good. Walk and don’t lose contact with us, or the Animate. We will keep you on the path.”

I walked. The ground beneath my feet felt strangely slippery, like it was moving at a different pace than I was. The gate we entered should be behind Old Dad, behind me, but I could see it ahead of us, ahead of New Dad in front of me. I couldn’t tell if we were coming or going, or holding still.

And even though I knew I was walking and so were my dads, the gate, the darkness around us, moved too and nothing seemed to get nearer.

“You’re doing fine,” New Dad said. “We’re almost there.”

Weird. He’d never been so comforting. This New Dad was full of things Old Dad, the dad I knew, never spoke about, or maybe had given up years before my earliest memories. New Dad had a sort of hopefulness to him, an even demeanor, an easy smile. I wondered if I would have hated him less if I had known this younger dad. I wondered if I might have even liked him.

“Relax,” Old Dad Influenced.

I felt like I’d just downed half a bottle of Merlot. If he did that again, there was no way I’d be walking.

Dad ahead and Dad behind cast magic. The gate ahead of us was solid, real, close.

The scenery behind it had changed, though it still looked like a city.

But the real kicker was that the light from the magic the dads cast revealed our surroundings.

Monsters faded in and out of my line of vision, people too. And magic, odd spells and glyphs that echoed with pain, with horrors that made me want to shut my eyes and click my heels.

“I see—” I started, my voice trembling.

Old Dad let go of my shoulder and gently pressed his hand over my eyes.

I knew I should fight him. I knew being blind to fears and danger doesn’t make them go away. But this was too much. I could feel my sanity slipping like sand beneath an ocean wave.

“You’re safe,” Old Dad said. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

And I believed him. Even without Influence. We walked like that for a while. I counted my breaths to keep track of time. I got to fifty.

Then a rush of warm air pushed over my skin. I gasped, which hurt, but I managed not to scream. Old Dad uncovered my eyes and stepped back. He let go of my shoulder too.

We stood in front of a castle.

I turned to make sure whatever had been in the dark wasn’t about to jump us. Nothing there but a plain brick wall of a plain brick building.

I hoped it stayed that way.

There were no buildings other than the one behind us. A river flowed in the distance to my left. Three bridges spanned the water, none of them multileveled like Portland’s real bridges. They twisted like tree branches reaching across the river to the fog-obscured bank on the other side.

Ahead of us was a single structure in the center of a clearing with grass around it. Made of stone and steel and hard shards of glass, tiles, and carvings, the massive structure was wide at the base, gnarled and knotted like a tree, or a stalagmite. It glowed faintly green-white, every edge softened as if wind or water ran over and through it, carving out doorways, windows, faces, and eye-catching, dreamlike creatures.

The building, tree, whatever it was, reached at least two hundred stories high. I squinted against the bright sky. Branches fanned out black skeletal umbrellalike framework, lace against the white-washed sky.

We were on a slight hill about two blocks away from the base of the tree. People were gathered around the structure. Watercolor people. The Veiled. Solid, mutated, broken people.

They faced the building but did not enter it. I didn’t know what they were waiting for—the door was open. I could see it from here.

“Where are we?”

“At the pillar of Death magic,” New Dad said.

“That’s a pillar?” Could the tree somehow support this place? Give it not life but something else? Magic? Order? Vitality?

“It isn’t an architectural pillar. There are no wells of magic in this realm, in death. Wells are a thing of light magic. Pillars are a thing of dark magic. It is where dark magic comes from, where dark magic is held, like the wells.”

“I thought dark magic came from the Rift,” I said recalling the dark water with glyphs sparking through it.

“No. That is the break between light and dark, life and death. No magic comes from there, though old spells often are caught by it before they fade.”

Speaking of old spells. I held up my arm with my shiny shackle of Influence. “I want you to break this.”

Old Dad spoke. “That will remain until we—until
you
return to life. I do not want to lose you in this place.”

“We?” So that was his angle. He had no intention of staying behind, of staying dead. He planned to make me carry him—part of him, or all of him—back into life. Fat chance.

I’d been trying to get rid of him for months.

Well, only since he’d taken over my brain. Before that, when he was still alive, I’d just wanted him to leave me alone.

There was nothing that would make me take him back to life with me. This was a one-way ticket, and for once the odds were on my side.

“You.” He stormed past me toward the pillar. “Come.”

My feet, damn them, followed.

New Dad walked next to me and looked off after Old Dad as if he couldn’t quite recognize himself in that man. “Zayvion is within the pillar,” he said quietly. “Just a little longer now.”

I needed a plan to get Zayvion home. I could feel the dark Death magic that made the pillar. I might be able to access it. That, along with the small magic I had always carried inside me, the little candle flame of magic that was all my own, should be enough to power at least one spell to open a gate to life.

I hoped.

Old Dad was a good twenty feet ahead of me, storming right toward the watercolor people like he was invisible. I scanned the people gathered, morbidly curious to see if I would recognize anyone.

There, to the left, I glimpsed the shadow of a man. The same shadow man I had seen on the street with the Hungers. I blinked, and he was gone.

Stone growled.

Yeah, that summed up my feelings too. I slowed my pace, watching to see what the watercolor people would do when Old Dad passed them.

He walked right by, not a pause, not a sideways glance. Walked like he owned the place—radiating that confidence he’d always had in life. Man could take on the world and come out on top. Take on both worlds and come out on top.

No wonder he was admired, even if only grudgingly. New Dad followed him past the Veiled and through the triple-wide, triple-tall door.

The Influence around my arm squeezed so hard it hurt.

“Let’s go, big guy,” I said to Stone. “Don’t eat anybody, don’t start a fight, and don’t leave me alone.” I took a breath, as deep as my struggling lungs would allow, and started walking.

We were almost parallel to the Veiled. They weren’t just standing there. They were touching the walls, shaping them, a hundred palms pressing and pulling and guiding the magic in the walls to form the creatures, the dreamlike faces that flowed slowly, gently, ever upward, as naturally as glyphs in the air.

It was strange to see things—people who had tried to kill me in life—creating something this beautiful in death. Still, I held my right hand ready to cast a spell in case arts-and-craft hour suddenly ended and they went back to Killing 101.

The watercolor people were solid enough that I could see every strand of hair, stubble on chin, wrinkle in clothes. I passed through them so close I had to angle my shoulders not to brush against anyone. Just like my dads, I was invisible to them.

Only a dozen or so steps away from the open doorway. What had looked like a small opening from the hill was actually a huge arched doorway tall enough for two elephants, side by side, to march through and not bump their heads.

The dads were nowhere to be seen.

Nice of them to wait.

I stepped through the doorway into the dim interior.

Stone stopped on the threshold. And while I applauded his instincts, because—seriously?—we were strolling willingly into the pillar of Death magic, he did put me in the awkward position of one arm stretched back, fingertips caught on the big rock’s forehead so I could breathe, the rest of me inside the building, pulled by the rope of Influence and unable to go forward.

“Come on, boy. Get in here. Let’s go see if there’s something you can stack, okay? Like blocks. Or maybe there are some Tinkertoys in there.”

Stone crept forward, his ears flat against his skull, his lips pulled away from the arsenal of blades he called teeth.

He took exactly one step.

That did me exactly no good.

Fab.

I shifted to stand beside him. The watercolor people hadn’t moved, hadn’t seen us, were still busy being dead and artistic. Good. I glanced back at the interior.

Stunning.

From the outside, this had looked like a strange, twisted shell.

From here it was every shade of magic I had ever seen or imagined. It was the stuff of fairy tales, of dreams. Crystalline walls shone with gentle colors and gave hint to the levels that reached up and up until I could not see the top of the walls. A warm yellow light filtered down, catching gold and silver along the arched doorways and balconies. It was like standing in the center of a glyph.

The Influence squeezed my arm and neck. Ouch. The dads weren’t waiting. If they pulled any harder, I’d have to walk away from Stone and then I wouldn’t be breathing.

“Come on, Stone. You can’t hang half in and half out of the doorway. Zay’s here. We have to find Zay.”

Stone tipped his head and sneezed.

Nice. Dust poofed out of his nostrils and drifted lazily out the door.

I don’t know why that caught the watercolor people’s attention.

But the ones nearest the door stopped shaping magic and looked up.

Not at Stone. No, I just wasn’t lucky that way.

They looked at me.

Chapter Three

“G
et moving.” I grabbed one of Stone’s ears and tugged.

Stone did not move. He did, however, sneeze again.

More of the Veiled stopped working and looked at me.

A few of them, maybe five, stepped toward the door and blinked as if they couldn’t quite see it.

“Allison,” Old Dad, from the disapproval in his tone, said. “Come. Now.”

For cripes’ sake.

I had to follow his command. And I was a little helpless in the whole breathing department. I took a deep breath before my feet jerked me forward and my hand slipped free of Stone’s head.

Luckily, Old Dad was glaring at me and noticed: one, I wasn’t breathing; two, Stone was sneezing again; and three, the watercolor people were waving their hands at the open doorway, trying to feel their way into the place.

Best of all? He decided to handle my breathing problem first.

Old Dad strode to me. “Must you always make things so difficult?”

Just because I couldn’t breathe to tell him off didn’t mean I couldn’t lift my middle finger.

New Dad laughed.

That surprised me.

Old Dad did not laugh.

No surprise there.

“You are testing my resolve. As a parent
and
a magic user.” His hand clamped over my wrist, over the Influence spell, and I gasped, inhaling like a swimmer who had been down too long. Everything went sparkly at the edges.

Dad waited while I tried to catch my breath. Some small kindness, considering.

Downright nice, even. That is, if I didn’t already know that the only reason he was worried about me staying alive was because I was his ride back to life.

Stone growled. He didn’t much like my dad touching me. That was because Stone was my buddy, my watch dog, my guardian, my pal. And pretty smart, even if he was a rock.

“Come, Stone,” New Dad said. “Let’s go home.”

Weird. I didn’t know he knew his name.

Oh, wait. If he shared a brain with Old Dad, he’d know a lot of things. About Stone. About me.

Stone knew the word
home
. He trotted up to me giving me those big round eyes that made him look pretty proud of himself for figuring this all out.

I stuck my left hand on Stone’s head and glared at my father until he let go of my wrist.

“Just like your mother.” He strode off to where the rest of him stood.

Hell of a thing to say. My father was my last and only link to my estranged mother. He knew her, had history with her, had shared his life with her, had shared my life with her. And since he was dead, and staying here—thank you very much—I was in a way losing both him and his memories of her.

I was, in a way, losing both my parents.

Again.

I stared at my father’s back, then over at New Dad, who watched me. He looked like he was apologizing. Like he knew I was missing my mother, my chance at having a father who knew how to do more than growl and command, my hope for a real and normal life.

“Are you ready, Angel?” he asked.

Angel. He used to call me that when I woke up with nightmares. Used to call me that when he held me on his lap and made my nightmares go away.

Memories I had forgotten years before I knew I should remember them rushed to the front of my mind. Of my dad, younger, kinder, brushing his fingers over my forehead, over my heart, his touch taking away my fears, my pain, my nightmares.

He had been there when I was little and terrified. He had made me believe I was safe. He had made me believe he loved me.

I swallowed the knot in my throat. I wasn’t that little girl anymore. And that man, the man he used to be, was dead. Dead right there across the room from me, waiting patiently for me to take the next step forward. Waiting like he believed in me. Believed I was strong enough to do this, to bring Zayvion’s soul home.

I took the next step. “Don’t call me Angel.” Because I couldn’t love him. Couldn’t hope for him to be my real father, my living father.

Stone walked with me, his head pushed up beneath my hand, his wing draped against my shoulder. We crossed the room, my footsteps muffled. It felt like I had cotton stuffed in my ears. A bell-tone ring echoed back from the walls, and from the floor beneath my feet. Pure and rolling like a chorus of angels, each tone rode the next, familiar, lovely, haunting, and made me ache to hear the next note.

I was halfway across the room before I realized I hadn’t been paying any attention to where I was going.

Hypnotic, that song. Soothing, this place.

And the last thing I needed was to be distracted in death. To keep my head clear, I recited my mantra and took slow, even breaths. The air was a little easier to breathe in here. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

“In there,” New Dad said.

We stood in front of an archway carved in flowered reliefs of gilded steel blue and metallic roses. As I watched, the flowers budded, blossomed into open blooms, then dropped their petals one by one to where another flower budded, and blossomed again in a tranquil cycle.

I lost track of where I was headed again. That was not good. I needed to pay attention. Needed to walk through this place and find Zay.

I bit the inside of my cheek. And I mean bit hard. I didn’t feel a thing. Huh.

Both dads were watching me. “Look inside,” Old Dad said.

I peered into the room and caught my breath. Zayvion was in there, seven feet tall, the black flame a hazy flicker over his glyph-marked skin. He stood in the center of the room, surrounded by Hungers. He had chains on his neck, waist, hands, and feet.

The glyphs worked into his skin were no longer silver but ash black. Threads of smoke spun off of him in colored threads, streams of magic that poured into the Hungers’ mouths, filling the ribbons of magic around their bodies until those ribbons brightened and tightened like candy-colored bandages.

“Take this thing off me.” I held my wrist out. I didn’t care if all Dad planned to do was stand here and stare at Zayvion while the beasts ate at his magic.

I still had a katana, and I aimed to use it.

“Has it done any good?” Old Dad asked.

New Dad answered. “Some. There is still too little light magic. He is the guardian of the gates, but his connection to life is too tenuous. They can’t pull enough magic through him. He’s burning out.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about, but it didn’t sound good.

“Break this,” I said again.

Three of the Hungers in the other room whimpered, then moved slowly and heavily, as if bearing a huge weight. The ribbons wrapped around them were glossy and fat with magic—magic they had taken from Zayvion.

He wasn’t burning out; he was being devoured.

Three more Hungers stepped up to take their place, entering from a wide door on the other side of the room. Ten beasts surrounded him, mouths hinged open to drink down the magic.

Old Dad was suddenly in front of me.

“. . . Allison, hear me.” He squeezed my shoulder.

I hadn’t even seen him move.

I blinked. Got the prerequisite frown. But no anger this time. He placed his fingertips under my chin, tipped my face, and gazed into my eyes like a doctor checking to see if I had a concussion.

“She’s drifting.”

New Dad moved past us both and into the room with Zayvion and the beasts. “Now. It must be now.”

“You are here to save Zayvion’s soul,” Old Dad said like maybe I had forgotten that already. “You are here to take it back with you into life so he may live. So that you may live. You must keep your hand on the Animate or myself to breathe. Do you understand me?”

“I understand that if I have to stand here while you tell me things I already know, I’m going to shove this Influence up your nose.” I made a fist, to make my point clear.

He smiled. “That’s my girl.”

Then he stepped away and Stone was there, his big warm shoulder against my knee and thigh, his wing up on my back, his head under my left hand.

Right. I had to hold on to him. I remembered that. And I had to go save Zay. I remembered that too.

Old Dad walked into the room where New Dad drew something in the air—a glyph? He held something in his other hand. I couldn’t see since his back was turned to me. Whatever it was, that motion was a signal to the Hungers. They all backed away from Zayvion and lumbered toward the open door on the other side of the room.

Stone stepped forward.

Right. I was supposed to be walking.

I got busy doing that—walking—and pretty soon I was in the room. The ceiling was lower in here. It was warmer in here. I could breathe a little more here. And Zayvion was here. Things were finally looking up.

As soon as I was a few steps into the room, I could feel Zayvion’s presence. Then I didn’t need anything to remind me to walk. I ran.

I knew where I had to be. Knew where I belonged. With him. Even here. Even in death. Maybe especially here.

He stood in deep meditation, eyes closed, hands held low, palms up as if he were receiving, not giving away all of his magic. A glyph on the floor pulsed beneath his feet in rhythm to his heartbeat. The chains around his neck, waist, wrists, and feet anchored into the glyph and were made of the same blue-white substance of the walls.

How could I wake him, free him? The black flames that wrapped his body didn’t give off any heat; the glyphs against his skin were concrete gray. If it hadn’t been for the slow pulse of the glyph beneath his feet, I wouldn’t have thought he was inside that silent, silent shell.

I pressed my fingertips against his bare chest, my palm over the fire of his heart. “Hey, lover,” I breathed.

His emotions, his thoughts, filled me and I inhaled, wanting to make room for more of him, all of him.

Allie,
he exhaled through my mind.
I couldn’t find you
. Relief and fear. Then, anger.
You didn’t follow. Tell me you didn’t follow me into death. Tell me you’re alive.

“I’m alive,” I said out loud. I remembered what New Dad had said about Leander and Isabelle getting too close and being unable to draw apart. Zayvion and I were Soul Complements too. If I started talking in his head, I might lose track of myself. I couldn’t do that. I was counting on me to get us home.

But sweet hells, I wanted to lose myself in him.

It isn’t safe,
he said.
I told you not to come, not to find me. I told you not to risk yourself.
Then, almost in a panic,
You promised me you wouldn’t be a hero.

He was frightened. Angry. Tied down. Stuck. Dead. And I had thrown myself into the grave after him.

Yeah, well, maybe. But I’d been smart enough to bring a shovel and a ladder with me before I jumped in.

I pulled my hand away, breaking our connection. I didn’t have enough brain to think my own thoughts, much less listen to his and deal with our combined fears. I was beyond tired and wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep. I didn’t think I was going to last much longer in death.

We had to leave. Together. Now.

“How do I free him?”

“A Release, or Compulsion,” Old Dad said. “You will need to find a vessel for him to inhabit. He cannot walk through the gate back into life in this form.”

“What? Why? He came through the gate in this form without a vessel.”

“Every living thing can pass into death. It’s a door that swings one way.”

“Hungers and other creatures come through gates into life all the time.”

“The Hungers cross through but exist only briefly in life without magic to feed on and sustain them. When magic is gone, they are spirit form again. But a soul. . . . ” He paused. “A soul is a very different matter. Once a soul crosses into death, it can never return to life. Always, the body follows into death.”

“Not always,” New Dad said.

Old Dad looked annoyed that he had brought that up. “True. There are exceptions. Rare circumstances. But Zayvion is not one of those exceptions. His soul will slip through your fingers and fall back into death before you can rejoin his soul to body—
if
you can rejoin his soul to body. That will take a mastery of Life and Death magic, which you do not possess.”

“Won’t you be surprised when I do it anyway?”

“Allie,” New Dad said, “Zayvion carries the glyphs of light and dark magic on his soul. It is one of the prices of being a guardian of the gates and using both light and dark magic. It marks his soul. And that which gives him strength in life chains him in death.”

“You said if I opened a gate, he could go back.”

“I never promised it would be easy. The glyphs have taken root in death now,” Old Dad said.

He was right. The ashy glyphs trailed down his body, long tendrils of silver and gray smoke that sank like the chains into the floor.

He was trapped here. Those chains on his ankles, wrists, waist, and neck weren’t just magic—they were the magic burned into his soul.

No. Hells no. I knew how to break a chain. I was good at destroying things. And if Zayvion and I were really Soul Complements, then I was the perfect person to bring his soul home.

I reached for the katana over my shoulder.

“Do not draw the sword,” Old Dad and New Dad said.

“If you won’t break him free, I’ll do it.” Only problem? I couldn’t pull the sword. I was still under their Influence.

“Without a vessel, you will kill him.”

“Bullshit.”

“You might free his soul here in death.” Old Dad’s voice rose. “But it will
not
survive returning to life. How many times must I say the same thing before you listen to me?”

Stone growled. And I knew why.

A man, easily eight feet tall, strode through the doorway and into the room with us. He carried himself with an air of command, and though he wore slacks and a button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, he really looked like the type who would be comfortable wearing a military uniform. His hair was short and black, his eyes iceberg blue in a face that might have been handsome if he hadn’t looked so worn and sad.

The sadness surprised me. I had seen him only once before, when I was being tested as Zayvion’s Soul Complement. He had been furious then. It was Mikhail. The man who used to be the head of the Authority before he tampered too much with dark magic and broke the rules. Before he had been killed and Sedra had taken his place as the head of the Authority.