Night Magic (40 page)

“
Jane?” He’d never been so glad to hear anyone’s voice in his life.

“
Kemble!” Sound of hurrying feet. Jane’s soft touch on his face was electric heaven.

“
Are you hurt?” he asked, frantic.

“
No. But Maggie is.”

“
I saw her go down from the stairs,” he said. “Where is she?”

“
Jane,” Lanyon’s voice called, sotto voce. “Don’t leave me here. I can’t see shit.”

“
Oh, sorry.” Jane was gone.

Could Jane see in this blackness? She was back in a moment.

“Lanyon’s carrying Maggie,” she informed Kemble. “We’ve got to get her help.”

“
Mother’s in the wine cellar. That’s our best hope.” If she could still Heal.

“
Okay,” Jane said. “Both of you follow me.”

Jane could see in this darkness. She took his hand. Some protector he was. He’d be lost if she wasn’t guiding him. They made their way back along the wall of the house.

“Stop here,” Jane whispered. Her hand disappeared from his. He heard clanging as the cellar doors were tugged. Damn. They were locked from inside. The next sounds were some crashing and then Tristram, cursing.

“
It’s Maggie, Lanyon, Kemble, and Jane,” Jane said in a low voice. A creak said the doors were opening. “Maggie’s hurt, Tris.”

“
Not dead. . . .” That was panic in his brother’s voice.

“
Not dead,” Jane said firmly. “Lanyon, come slide her into Tris’s arms. You’ve got her?”

“
Yeah,” Tristram muttered. “Maggie, Maggie honey, I’m here.”

When bidden, Kemble
scrambled down the wooden steps, sliding his way into more pitch-blackness. The doors creaked closed above him as Lanyon pulled them shut after him and slid the bolt. He clattered down the stairs and fell against someone else. The grunt sounded like Michael. Lance barked in protest. Of course Tamsen had brought her animals.

“
Maggie, baby, where are you hurt?” Tristram’s desperation cut through the murmurs of the family.

“
Are you all right? What’s this blackness? How’s Daddy?” Questions tumbled over him.

The wine cellar was cool and moist
in the darkness. It smelled of glass and aged wood barrels primed with red wine. Jesse’s childish voice said clearly, “Turn on the lights.”

“
Mother. . . .” Kemble whispered. “You here?”

“
Yes. . . .” Her voice was thready. “We have to get out and protect Brian.”

“
We will.” He had no idea how. “Maggie got shot.”

That brought a gasp from Tristram.

“Can you Heal her?” Kemble asked, feeling wretched. She hadn’t been able to Heal Senior. But that could have been the influence of the Wand. She was weak and exhausted. But there were not a lot of choices here.

“
I smell blood,” Tristram said, sounding terrified. Maggie groaned.

“
I’ll . . . I’ll try,” his mother said.

“
Let me get you there,” Jane’s voice in the darkness was surprisingly strong.

As he listened to his mother make her way to Maggie, Mi
chael’s voice sounded, close. “What’s the power outage doing to Brian’s respirator?”

“
It was still going when I went after Maggie,” Jane said from somewhere off to Kemble’s left. “Tris rigged a backup generator. Here, Brina. She’s right here.”

“
This may not even be a power outage,” Kemble muttered. “It’s just this black outside the house.” His brain began turning over possibilities, almost without being bidden.

“
Magic?” Michael asked. “Shit.”

“
Maybe.” All the possibilities converged in his mind. Holy shit. No, he told himself, don’t get ahead of yourself. Just think about what to do next. “Jane, can you see in this dark?”

“
Yes.” She was right next to him now. The voice was small. All her sureness had evaporated. He thought he knew why. “It’s sort of like seeing in a darkroom. Infrared looking.”

“
Good,” he said, thinking fast, not about what was most important, just about what was most urgent. He took a breath. “So, this is yours?”

“
Maybe.” The voice was even smaller. “I got scared when that man shot Maggie and. . . .”

“
You mean Jane has magic?” Michael asked.

“
She sure as shit does,” Lanyon said, at Kemble’s other elbow. “I wonder. . . .”

“
We’re not going into that now,” Kemble said in a tone he hoped would brook no contradiction. He felt for Jane’s hand. “We need to do a little experiment, Jane. You up for that?”

“
I. . . .” He heard her take a deep breath. “Yes.”

“
All right then.” He tried to sound cheery. “You just close your eyes and focus, and see if you can lift the darkness, just in here. Okay? Are your eyes closed?”

“
Yes.”

“
So think of a circle of light, dim light,” he corrected himself, knowing her aversion for brightness, which now made an incredible amount of sense.

A tiny column of very dim light appeared off to his left. Figures appeared in the shadows
of the cellar: his family, huddled together and looking worried. Tammy had Jesse on her hip, one hand on Lance’s head. Her cat, Bagheera, was a darker shadow weaving among the barrels of wine. “That’s what we need. Now try making it go dark again.” He’d hardly gotten the words out when the blackness snapped back into place. “Well, that . . . that was good. Now try for some light again.” The dim column slowly reappeared. “Okay. You’ve got an on/off switch.” He heaved a sigh of relief. “And we’ve got a flashlight and an advantage.”

He went to stand over his mother where she had
placed her hands flat on Maggie’s shoulder. He could hear her small sound of strain. It was so reminiscent of her effort with his father he wanted to stop her, for her own sake, for the pain it would cause her when she failed. But glancing up to Tristram, hovering above his wife, he knew he couldn’t. Tris was looking at his wife and his unborn baby, their lives perhaps drifting away from him even as his mother strained. Maggie looked out of it, dopey and hardly aware. This could end so badly.

His
mother rocked back and forth, emitting a small keening sound. The minutes stretched. Finally, she rocked back on her heels with a sob. “I can’t. It’s gone. It’s gone.”

Kemble had never heard despair in his mother’s voice. But it was there now.
Tris dived for Maggie and gathered her up in his arms. Her eyelids fluttered and she gave him a tiny smile.

“
Don’t die,” he pleaded, his deep voice breaking.

K
emble glanced to Drew, who seemed out of it as well. Her eyes flickered here and there as she was tormented by her visions. His family was falling apart before his eyes.

“
Stupid,” Maggie said weakly. “It’s only a shoulder wound. I’ll be okay.”

Assuming she didn’t bleed to death or get killed by the Clan, of course.

It was Keelan who took charge of things, to Kemble’s surprise. His sister came over to their mother and took her gently by the shoulders. “Let’s wrap Maggie’s shoulder. That will keep it from bleeding so much, right?”

His mother nodded
, the nurse in her background pushing its way through her despair. Kee was wearing some kind of a long, flowered skirt. In Jane’s dim light it looked absurdly cheerful. She began ripping the skirt. Kemble realized that they were now totally on the defensive, at the mercy of the Clan. Senior might be falling prey to Morgan even now.

He took Tris by the shoulder.
“We’ve got to go on the offense, so we can get Maggie to a doctor. Michael, did you bring your big-ass army knife?”

“
Oh, yeah.”

Tris stood, trying to get hold of himself.

“We’re going after Senior,” Kemble told them. Funny. His voice sounded so certain. He sure wasn’t. This might be a stupid stunt that would leave the family split and vulnerable. It might get people he loved killed. The thought chilled his blood. But he couldn’t let his fear show in his voice. “And I hope some Clan members get in the way.”

“
I’ll lead the way.” Jane held up her hand to fend off his reaction. “You need me.”

The last thing
Kemble wanted was to put Jane in danger. But she was right. And his little idea about his own role had better work.

“
I can’t leave Maggie,” Tris said, as much to himself as to anyone else.

“
Your ability to draw power and Michael’s fighting skills are our best offensive weapons now. Kee can’t redo the visuals on reality if everything is dark, and we need the darkness right now. Maggie’s in no position to Calm. So we need you, Tris.” He didn’t even need to say that Drew wasn’t in any position to help. “Devin can protect Maggie.”

“
I can’t call water without risking drowning everyone,” Devin muttered.

“
How about wine?” Kemble glanced around at the dim racks full of the family’s wine collection. Some of the bottles went back decades.

Devin gave a grim smile
. “Lanyon, let’s get everyone over behind the cheese pantry. Could be flying glass.”

Kemble turned back to his brother.
“Tris, the best way to help Maggie is to get the Clan the hell out of our house.”

Tristram grimaced.
He knew Kemble was right.

“
Go, stupid,” Maggie whispered, looking brave. If Jane looked that way while she was bleeding like that it would break Kemble’s heart.

To his brother’s credit he swallowed, brought Maggie’s good hand to his lips for a kiss, and stood.
“What’s the plan, bro?”

Kemble heaved a breath.
Now it was all on him. “I’ll locate them using the security cameras we installed, just to make sure we don’t run into more than we can handle.”

“
Security system is offline and Jane made it dark.” Tris never beat around the bush. “Cameras won’t work.”

Okay, here it wa
s. “If the software is damaged, I can fix it, I think. And the cameras have an infrared function to see in the dark.”

“What if there’s no power? What if this is an outage of some kind?” Tris really didn’t cut him any slack, did he?

“Then I think I can connect the security to Tris’s backup generator.” He blew out a breath.

“That’s going to take time,” Michael muttered. “Not sure we can buy you much.”

“I… I don’t think I’ll need much time. If we have to, we can make our way to the security office. But I think I… I can do it all from right here.” Damn. He didn’t really know if he could or not. But he’d felt the security system go off line from up in Drew’s bedroom. Maybe his power was expanding.

They all stared at him.
“From right here?” Drew muttered. Several pairs of eyes widened. Then one by one they turned to stare at Jane.

Kemble coughed to hide his embarrassment.
“Maybe. It’s kind of like hacking. Only, uh, more. And if we have to, we’ll make our way over to the security office.” He didn’t want to see their reaction so he closed his eyes. Pray to God he wasn’t just blowing smoke. What if he got lost for six hours like he had when he hacked Knight, Inc.? What if he collapsed from the effort? The ways he could let the family down were just about endless.

Get to it, coward. What choice do you have but to face failure?

He opened himself up and tried to relax. He had to reproduce what happened at the museum when he just slid into the security system and sort of felt the code. Like gliding. He breathed out. He could feel . . . something . . . inside him, growing. He felt full, like he’d grown an extra organ of some kind. He reached out with his mind for the nearest security camera, attached to the roof over the cellar doors. Software ran through the house like a living river. Now he slid down toward the main console where Edwards and the guys had their headquarters. Don’t think about what happened to them. His job was to save the family.

The software of the security console was like a glowing ball in the dark, filled with clinking, broken
glass. He reached for the globe and felt the shards of code inside like knives in his brain. The Clan must have taken a sledgehammer to the console. But the code was all still there. Deeper. He had to go deeper. He sank into the globe until he saw the helixes, their perfection marred by trailing fragments. They swirled around him like trees covered in moss. Deeper. He glided through corridors of ones and zeros, tapping them back into place until they gleamed in ordered rows.

So seductive. Perfection always was, wasn’t it? Life was simple, clear, among all these ones and zeros. One could live forever in this kind of perfection and be happy.

He took a ragged breath. What was he doing? He had to get back to the family and Jane. Even now it might be too late. He might have been here for hours. He backed out. The helixes swirled in perfect symmetry, but he didn’t stay to admire them. He was back out of that glowing ball of light, speeding now. He flipped on the infrared functionality and he went direct to the cameras. He looked through their lenses and saw nothing. Wait. There! And there, and there.