Magic at the Gate (7 page)

My heart thrilled at that. A perfect solution. Exactly what I wanted. Zayvion would be close to me, really in my mind, not just talking to me there. We would be one.

And that was one of the most dangerous things that could happen. Just like Leander and Isabelle, we could lose ourselves, lose our individuality and go insane.

It wasn’t something that happened only in legends. Chase, Zay’s ex-girlfriend, and her Soul Complement, Greyson, weren’t exactly sane anymore. A vision of Chase flashed behind my eyes—of her reaching out to give magic to the man-beast that Greyson had become as they fought magic users, fought my friends, killing them, killing the people they had once cared for.

I couldn’t become that. Wouldn’t lose who Zayvion and I were apart, just for us to be together. I was trying too hard to keep us alive.

“No. I can’t let him in me.”

“Then let Stone carry his soul,” New Dad said.

“He can do that?”

“It is possible,” New Dad said. “The Animate holds magic.” He paused, stared at Stone as if he could see his inner workings. “There is magic in him. And room for more.”

“Will it hurt him? Hurt Zayvion?”

“I do not think so. It will need to be a short transfer, though. The Animate wasn’t made to carry the weight of a soul for long. Zayvion will need to be returned to his body within thirty minutes. Perhaps less.”

“Has anyone ever tested this?” See? Even confused and worried, I could ask good questions.

“There are histories of experiments where Animates have held souls,” he said, “albeit only briefly.”

“Tell me Zayvion will survive. Tell me his soul will survive.” I needed to hear it. Those words, from that man.

“If he has the willpower and stamina. Yes.”

I didn’t need to hear any more.

“Do it. Let’s do it.” My mind was swirling with questions. How close to his body could they open the gate? How much stamina did Zayvion have left after all this time in death? How many ways could this go wrong?

Thousands.

Dad—Old Dad—spoke. “I will need to be in your mind to free Zayvion.”

Thousands plus one. I just couldn’t catch a break.

I locked gazes with Old Dad. He wanted back in my head, wanted to possess me again. I knew he’d try to work this to his own benefit. He never did anything, not one single thing, without thinking it through and meticulously securing the avenues to his own success.

Giving up my magic wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to ride me, force himself into me, use me.

“No.” I didn’t have a lot of air, but I had plenty enough for that word.

“Time,” Mikhail said, “is nearly gone.”

What, did the guy have an hourglass somewhere around here sifting out the last grains of my life or something?

Stone clacked, sounding more like a watch winding down than my happy singing vacuum cleaner. He nudged my hand, and I realize I’d been leaning pretty hard on him. Okay, maybe time was running out.

New Dad walked over, his hands extended and open, palms up.

“Once magic is finally put right, I will leave you and your mind forever. Until then, please do the right thing.”

I opened my mouth to add
hell no
to my reply.

Too late. Surgeon-quick, he stuck his hand in my head and did something fiddly that felt like fingertips pressing a key code on the inside of my skull. I tried to step back, to jerk away, but was frozen. Not even Stone moved.

And then Old Dad was no longer standing across the room from me.

Old Dad was back in my head, a familiar, scratching weight I could not shove away.

I still had the katana. Almost got it through New Dad, but New Dad backed away fast.

I wasn’t as good with the sword one-handed and half-dead.

“You bastard,” I whispered. “Get the hell out of my head.”

New Dad gave me a blank stare. “I can’t.” New or not, he was my father, through and through.

A moan, low, soft, turned me to Zayvion. Mikhail was near him finishing a spell that left a fine mist in the shape of a Canceling glyph hovering in the air around Zay. The silver glyphs against Zay’s skin were no longer stretched and nailed to the floor. He was free.

Zay blinked, moved his hands, fingers posed in a Ward spell.

Got to love a man whose first instinct is to fight.

“Go to him,” Mikhail said.

I was already on my way. I sheathed the sword, because with my current dexterity, I’d probably behead us both, then looped my arm around his waist to support his weight as he took a step forward.

The contact hit me like lightning.

Vertigo rushed over me. I fell. Into Zay. Or maybe Zay fell into me.

Allie,
he breathed.

I inhaled, gorging myself on the luscious textures of him, filling my mind, my body, and my soul. He stretched through me and waves of pleasure followed. He was worried, joyful, sad.

This is forbidden,
he whispered.

I don’t care.

I wanted this, needed this, needed him to know I loved him. If I could just hold him closer, run to him faster, breathe in his breath, we could have everything, life, death, and all magic, at our fingertips. I knew it was true, reveled in the knowledge. Joined as one, we could make everything right in the world.

Zayvion
, I called, my voice, my thoughts echoing through me, through him, through us.

Pain filled me, a hammer shattering the middle of my brain.

Inside my mind, my father’s voice rang out like thunder.
Let go, or he will die.

I couldn’t let go. I wouldn’t let go.

And I didn’t.

Zayvion did. He pulled away, pulled back. Pushed me when I grasped at him, slipped between my fingers as I tried to hold him.

No,
I whispered.
Don’t leave me.

What have you done?
he growled, primal, angry, painful in my mind.
Do not touch me.

He yanked, out of me, out of us. Yes, it hurt. Holy loves, it hurt.

I gasped, sucked air, sobbed out a moan. Opened my eyes, just my eyes.

I was on the ground. Stone stood above me. Stone was covered in black fire. And there was an angry intelligence shining out from those eyes that was not his.

I lifted my hand, amazed I could do that much, and touched Stone’s snout.

“Zay?”

Stone growled and jerked his head away from me. He stepped back.

Which meant I couldn’t breathe. Except I could. Enough to fill my lungs and roll onto one hip. I felt like every rib was bruised. Why could I breathe?

A moth-wing flutter snapped at the back of my eyes.

My dead dad was in my head—and having him there allowed me to breathe. I was now neither fully alive nor dead. And I had almost done the one thing I’d sworn I wouldn’t do—become so much a part of Zay, I lost myself. Holy shit.

Mikhail did not seem to care about any of this.

He sang. I thought I’d heard glimpses of that song, in my dreams, in my fevers. It tugged at me. Made me sad and hopeful. But as soon as each note faded away, it was lost to me. The song brushed over me like a slow wind and left no echo behind.

He cast a glyph, and even though magic was visible, I could not follow the pattern he wove.

The rose in his hand, my rose, my magic, pulsed, sending tiny chains of ribbons into the spell he wove.

I ached inside.

The gate opened, a burning, beautiful filigree that pushed apart the reality of the room, creating a window. There was grass beyond it, trees, life.

Seeing life again, grass again, cleared my head.

I didn’t know how close to Maeve’s inn the gate was, but I did not care. I’d get Zayvion and Stone there somehow. I pushed up onto my feet.

Stone looked back at me, his ears pricked up. Not my happy lug. There was more Zen in that look. More intelligence.

It was really, really weird to see Zayvion looking out from that stone exterior.

“Go now,” Mikhail said. “Stand strong.”

New Dad raised his hand. “Good-bye, Angel.”

The gate had almost burned open to its widest points, creating a hole big enough that I could get through it if I ducked and stepped up a little.

I walked as close to it as I could without stepping through, Stone-Zay at my side. I glanced once over my shoulder.

Saw Mikhail open another door, just a regular door, across the room. Caught the glimpse of a woman lying prone upon a bed draped in gossamer and white lace. He crossed to her, knelt beside the bed, and placed the rose, my magic, upon her chest. A bloom of ribbons poured out from the rose and sent threads, like roots seeking water, into the lace and then down to lock into the floor. She looked like Sedra.

But before I could think that through, a shadow in the faintest outline of a man sidled up behind me. I blinked, turned toward it, and it was gone.

Stone’s head bumped the back of my thigh. We had to go. Now, before the gate closed. No more time to think, to worry. There was only time to do.

I stepped up, ducked, and fell through the gateway.

Stepping into death had been easy. A pause of breath and then cool, heavy numbness spread through me, dulling all sensation.

Stepping into life hurt like hell.

Heat raked across my skin in a toe-to-head wave, stabbing down to my bones, catching fire in my veins. I screamed, my voice silent to ears that could not hear. All around me light burned, darkness froze, and I knew if I didn’t push forward, push into the pain, I would end here.

I lifted my foot, forced it forward.

My skin was stripped away, the heat eating into my muscles, burning me up, digging deeper for my heart and making it beat—

—one heavy thump—

Making me inhale, shudder.

As I fell into life.

Alive.

Stone-Zay fell beside me.

Wet grass against my skin, cool, soothing, the rich loamy scent of soil and living things. The sharp oil of crushed grass filled my nose, so strong I could taste it in my mouth. It was raining—I could feel it across my back, my legs, hear the beetle-wing ticking of it against my boots and the hard leather of the sword sheath. I’d never thought rain would feel so good, as if the sky and earth were patting me down, assuring me I was indeed home again, alive, whole.

“Shit. Allie?” a man’s voice, a familiar voice, said.

I looked up. Blinked. It was night, a thin layer of clouds against the sky lit by the lamps in Cathedral Park. I’d landed in St. Johns, in the park beneath the bridge. And standing above me was Detective Paul Stotts.

Chapter Five

I
tried to tell him I needed to get Stone to Maeve’s, but nothing came out of my mouth. I swallowed, tried again. Just wheezy exhale.

Crap. I braced my hands under me and pushed. I felt, acutely, every blade of grass bend and then spring across my palm. Didn’t manage to get anywhere, though.

Stotts bent and hooked my elbows, helping me sit. The heat of his touch made me suck in a breath, the grip of his hands against my elbows an overwhelming sensation. Real, living hands, touching the real, living me. My senses were blown open after being smothered in death. Any contact felt a thousand times stronger.

I wondered if this was how a prisoner released from solitary confinement felt.

The spices and orange of Stotts’ cologne filled me with memories of flowers and food. My mouth watered, my stomach cramped. I was starving. For food, yes. But also for sensation, life, touch.

Stotts pulled away.

I managed to remain sitting. Sitting was good. The park spinning like a tequila roller coaster was less good. I felt numb almost everywhere, except my chest, which someone had carved a hole in and filled with ice. I pressed one hand against my sternum. No hole.

Then it hit me. My small magic was gone. I felt empty. Raw. Hollowed out. Death had changed me, and I had no idea what I’d become.

“Nice sword,” Stotts said, drawing my thoughts away from that horror.

“I need . . . ” Yay—I had a voice! I inhaled, coughed. Swore silently at the pain. I needed to get Zayvion to Zayvion. Needed to get Stone to Maeve’s. Needed a car. Or a pair of legs that worked. He liked my sword?

A hand tapped my cheek. I blinked. Opened my eyes. Why had I closed them?

“Allie, keep your eyes open. That’s good. Good. What is that thing?”

I looked at that thing. Stone. Who sat there like a big statue. Except his ears twitched and he blinked.

“Pet,” I managed. “Good. Magic pet.” I was getting better at this talking stuff. “Car.”

Stotts frowned and tipped my face so he could better look in my eyes. He had squatted in front of me, cell phone or police walkie-talkie or whatever it was, in his other hand. He didn’t look as wet as I felt. “Ambulance is more like it. You’re burning up.”

He was wrong. I was freezing. And an ambulance wasn’t what I needed. I had to get Stone to Zayvion in less than a half hour. Dad had said I had only that much time before Stone wouldn’t be able to carry Zay’s soul.

I wondered if Dad was still in my head, but I couldn’t clear my mind enough to find out.

“No. Please,” I said. “I have to get Stone—the pet, to Vancouver. It’s a magic spell. In less than half an hour. Or Zay dies.”

Stotts frowned. Closed his cell. He hadn’t talked to anyone. Hadn’t gotten through to 911, or at least I didn’t think he had.

“What’s going on?”

“Zay’s in a coma. His soul—it’s in Stone. Magic. I found him. Just found him. Don’t let me lose him.”

He glanced over at Stone and squinted. “It’s going to be okay. Stay there and rest. I’ll take care of you.” He stood.

I could tell by his tone of voice he thought I was delusional.

“Listen to me,” I said clearly. “There is more magic going on in this city than even you know about. And that”—I pointed at Stone—“is a part of the magic. Someone bound Zayvion’s soul to it, and if I don’t get it back to Zayvion’s living body, he will die.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Where have you been for the past week?”

Week? Holy shit.

“Looking for that.” It came out almost all growl. “Help me get Zay’s soul back to him, or I swear I will knock you out and steal your car.”

“Can you even walk?” He looked back down at me. Didn’t offer a hand. He was making a point.

Screw that.

I’d walk through death and back—again—to save Zayvion. One know-it-all detective wasn’t going to stand in my way now.

I pushed up onto my knees and then somehow, out of sheer grit and stubbornness, stood.

Stotts’ eyebrows notched up.

“You either help me, Detective Stotts, or get the hell out of my way.” I took a step toward Stone. Just that one step made me want to weep in exhaustion. But I didn’t stop.

“Come on, Stone. Let’s find a cab.”

Stotts breathed a curse. I smelled the ashy afterburn of a spell—probably Sight. He’d gotten a look at Stone through magical eyes. Using a spell like that made it obvious that magic fueled him.

Stotts took the time to rattle off a few more swear words. I didn’t think they were in English.

My ears were ringing now. The magic in my soul was gone, but the magic that flowed beneath the city could still follow the lines and paths Cody had painted in my bones, my blood, my body. Since I was in St. Johns where there was no natural magic, I wasn’t suffering from overload yet. As soon as we passed the railroad tracks out of town, I’d be screwed.

Stone was under my hand again, the subtle textures of his head like fur beneath my fingers. He supported me in life as he had supported me in death, which was good. I was pretty sure I was about to pass out.

An arm wrapped around my waist, strong, warm, and I moaned a little. I wanted him to hold me, so I would know skin-to-skin and heartbeat-to-heartbeat that I was alive.

My logical mind knew that need for contact had to be a reaction to being dead. To being so devoid of sensation. I was starving for touch. Any kind of touch.

“Think you can make it to the car?” he asked.

I pressed my lips together, glanced across the park. The parking lot was maybe a block away. I could do that. I hoped. I took another step.

Stone grumbled like a bag of rocks, then cooed louder, like he had just figured out how to make that sound. He swiveled his head to look up at Stotts and me, and pulled his lips back from his fangs.

“Is it dangerous?” Stotts asked.

“No.”

“It’s not alive?”

“It’s magic.”

“No magic I’ve ever seen.”

That was a problem. Stone was one of those things that the Authority didn’t like common magic users knowing about. Hells, the Authority didn’t even like common magic users knowing about the Authority. I’d just exposed Stotts, a man of the law and my best friend Nola’s boyfriend, to something he should not have seen.

Which put him in danger of having his memories wiped out by the Authority. And put the Authority in danger of being discovered by the justice system.

I tried to think up a solution as we slogged through the damp grass, with only the lap of the river to our left and the hiss of car tires on the distant street to our right breaking the silence of the night.

“It might be better if you don’t come with me,” I said. We were almost at the parking lot. If this was what Mikhail called opening the gate close to Zayvion’s body, I was going to kill a compass and a slide rule and send them through the gates of death to him.

“I’ve been looking for you for a week. Nola hasn’t heard from you in a week either.” He grunted as we made it up a small incline to the pavement. “You are in no shape to drive.”

I wanted to argue, but the man was right. I was beyond exhausted. My vision was still closing in. I watched as Stotts’ car approached us with jerky steps—or rather, as we approached it.

Stone trotted ahead of us and crouched near the passenger’s side, out of sight of the rest of the parking lot. I was glad it was dark.

“It’s coming with us, right?” Stotts asked. He was breathing a little hard. I wondered why.

He leaned me against the car, let go of my hand over his shoulder, but kept his arm around my waist. The sword sheath on my back clunked against the car, and then wet metal soaked through the back of my shirt. Oh yeah. He was hauling around a stupid, almost unconscious person. Me. No wonder he was out of breath.

“Don’t move.”

Like I could.

Stotts reached across me and opened the front door. He smelled good, his body lean and heavy against mine. I savored the heat and movement of a real living body touching me and was absolutely no help getting myself in the car.

“Duck.” He braced with his knees, and somehow got a hand on my shoulder to push me into the seat.

It was enough to clear my head. A little.

The interior of a car had never felt so much like a luxury hotel. I managed not to fall asleep as Stotts leaned in and buckled my seat belt for me.

“Will the gargoyle get in the car?” he asked. He look prepared to Tase it, cuff it, and read it its rights if necessary.

“Backseat.”

Stotts shut the door, and opened the back. The car dipped under Stone’s weight as he got in. I stared out the window working hard to stay awake. I watched the yellow streetlights of St. Johns that were stair-stepped up the hill away from the park as I waited for Stotts to come around to the driver’s side. Ahead and to the left, a stand of trees filtered the light of the park lamps through bare spring limbs.

A shadow moved near the tree line. There was enough light that I should have been able to make out the features. No features. Just a shadow in the shape of a man, blackness against blackness.

Watching me.

I hadn’t smelled anyone else in the park, and with my senses so high, I know I would have smelled him. I hadn’t heard him either.

What might have been a few minutes or a few hours later, Stotts slid behind the wheel and started the car.

“Where does it need to be?”

“What?” I looked away from the shadow man.

“The gargoyle.”

“Maeve Flynn’s place. We need to take him to her. At her inn. Vancouver.”

“Why Maeve?”

I hated a man who knew how to ask questions. I glanced back toward the shadow. It was gone. Hells. Could I be seeing things? “Maeve’s very good at magic. As good as my dad was.”

Stotts knew how powerful my father had been.

“You need a doctor,” he said.

“She has one on staff.”

His mouth pressed tight as he drove out of the parking lot. I looked, but didn’t see the shadow anywhere in the trees.

“I don’t like this,” Stotts said.

“If I need a hospital, we can call an ambulance from there. I have to undo this . . . this. Paul, if you don’t take me to Maeve’s, I will shove you out of this car.”

“That’s how you convince me you’re of sound mind and body?”

It was tempting to use Influence on him, but I didn’t trust my control with magic. We were just over the railroad tracks and I was trying very hard to hold magic down, while it was trying very hard to press up into me like hot fingers digging for purchase, stinging against my bones. I didn’t have the brain cells for anything else.

“You know this isn’t about normal magic,” I said. “You know there’s something more going on in this city. You’ve probably suspected that for a long time.”

A sharp pain shot through my mind. Ah, so my dad was still along for the ride. Well, I didn’t care if he didn’t want me to spill the Authority’s secrets.

“I trust Maeve. She knows what’s going on—enough to help me save Zayvion. I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you just get me there. Fast.”

No Influence. Still, that got through. Stotts was no dummy. He must have suspected for a while now that there was more back alley, black market magic going down in this town than he could account for.

And he was right.

“How long does he have?” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Stone, who sat uncharacteristically silent and still on the floor, looking more like a statue than Stone ever did.

“Less than thirty minutes.”

I looked at where we were headed for the first time. Multitasking was way out of my reach right now. Even monotasking was stretching it.

It was dark and a light drizzle, not even enough for windshield wipers, spattered the window. The city was wet in the aftermath of a storm. Stotts drove toward Vancouver, making good time in the relatively light traffic. I was surprised he hadn’t turned on the police lights at the top of the windshield.

“I’ll get you there in fifteen or less,” he said.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to sleep. Too many nightmares waiting for me there, but holy hells I was exhausted.

Stotts shook my arm gently. “Come on, Allie. Time to go.”

The engine was off, my door was open. Stotts was outside my door, tugging at me.

“We’re there?” I wasn’t tracking very well. The world skipped in a jerky half circle to my right. “Where’s Zay? How long was I asleep?”

“Not long. Walk, Allie. If you really need to get to Zay, you’d better do it now.” He dragged me out of the car, while I did what I could to help. We bumped into the back door, which was hinged open.

“Zay?”

“Right ahead of us.”

I’d have to take his word on that. I couldn’t see my own feet, much less three steps in front of me.

We made it across the gravel, then climbed a mountain of stairs, which was weird, because I’d thought the inn had only a couple stairs leading up to the porch. By the time we hit the front door, I didn’t care about the stairs; I was blacking in and out and everything sounded like it was underwater. Good thing Stotts was strong.

I remember the door opening. I remember voices, too many, too burbly to distinguish one from the other. The smell of food engulfed me and made me hungry and sick at the same time. This was not the hospital, which I’d worried Stotts might have dragged me to. I knew by the familiar scents, this was Maeve’s inn.

If this worked out, I was so going to give that man a big kiss. In a sisterly sort of way.

Then there was a brush of fingertips across my forehead. Cool, soothing.

“Allie?”

I opened my eyes. I was lying down, on a bed, I thought. And the man frowning above me wasn’t Stotts.

“Shame.” The word carried all my worry and relief to see him alive.

Shame was Zayvion’s best friend, and a hell of a Death magic user. He’d blamed himself for Zayvion’s being thrown into death and had pretty much made himself my bodyguard. The last time I’d seen him he was wounded on the battlefield, begging me not to step through the gate into death. It was great to see him alive.

He did not smile. He didn’t look like he’d smiled in the last year. His usually fair skin was still a weird greenish shade, the circles under his eyes taking away all the laughter that sparkled in those green depths. No, not green anymore. His eyes were black. It looked strange on him, like his eyes were one big pupil.