Stolen Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 3) (6 page)

I slowed my steps and my breathing as we neared the exhibit where Dr. Garriso had fallen through the portal. Aidan did the same. We nodded at each other, then slunk to either side of the entrance, each taking up a post and peering in.

The four administrators stood along the side of the room, watching the three investigators with sharp eyes. Two men and one woman, their magic radiating immense strength. Some supernaturals weren’t afraid of showing off their power, though I could never understand why. There was an advantage in having people underestimate you.

The woman’s power smelled like over-ripe apples. One man’s magic felt like too-hot water against my skin, and the other’s tasted like dirt. None of those were signatures I’d be showing off, despite their obvious power.

“It’s strange,” said the woman investigator. “I’ve never seen a portal like it.”

She and the other two stood near it, peering intently into the pulsing purple light.
 

Had it gotten brighter? My skin prickled, a sickly wariness turning my stomach. Was that the portal? Was it giving off even more weird magic?

I focused on the investigators, trying to ignore the nerves that crept along my spine and keep my magic under control. It didn’t take much, as long as I didn’t actively use it, but I needed to be extra wary.

“And you say Dr. Garriso just fell through? And then it shut?” the taller male investigator asked.

“Yes,” Madam Astrix said. “Though as it was described, he was sucked in.”

“Hmmm. Portals don’t do that,” he said.

The woman investigator raised her hands. Silvery light flowed from her fingertips, disappearing inside the portal. She said, “And this is clearly a portal.”

“It’s residual at this point. Failed magic,” the tall man said.

No.
It didn’t feel failed. Something was off about it.

“So you don’t think it is anything more than a portal created by stupid thieves intent on stealing from a place that cannot be stolen from?” Madam Astrix asked.

“While that is possible, I doubt it,” the woman investigator said. “But we will retrieve Dr. Garriso. We’ll have to call in a Transporter to see if they can get through the barrier. In scenarios like this, their unique power helps them cross the closed portal.”

“Excellent. When can we expect them?” Madam Astrix’s worried gaze darted to the portal. “Dr. Garriso is not used to such hardship. He is a scholar.”

That was the truth. He had a brilliant mind and a cunning wit, and I’d no doubt he could handle himself in a fight, but only if it were an even fight. And you couldn’t count on even fights in this world.

“It shouldn’t be more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours,” the tall man said. “We’ll call in a transporter, but we only have two and both are on jobs right now. But they will come right away.”

I had to stifle a growl as my skin heated. A whole day? Maybe more?

“Is there nothing else you can do?” Madam Astrix frowned.
 

“Not at the present, though we can send our findings back to the Order and see what they have to say. We’ll also stay and monitor it for changes. It should close on its own as the magic fades. A week, maybe a bit longer. I’ve seen the like before.”
 

This was such bull.
 

The female investigator stiffened, her head jerking toward me. She sniffed, her nostrils flaring.

“Who’s there?” she demanded.

Shit.
 

The heat on my skin wasn’t just anger. It was the invisibility charm fading. We were near the end of our hour. She’d be able to see us any second. I met Aidan’s gaze. He was thinking the same thing.

“The lights,” I mouthed. I wanted the cover of darkness as we fled back into the museum.

He nodded.

My magic reached out for his, calling for his Elemental Mage powers and finding the chill of ice. I breathed deeply as I embraced it, cold air in my lungs, and tried to control my power so they wouldn’t sense me. I raised my hand and threw tiny bullets of ice at the lights in the ceiling, small enough I hoped they wouldn’t see them.
 

They raced through the air, tiny pinpricks of ice, and shattered the bulbs.

I grinned. Damn, I was getting good at this.

Aidan did the same, blowing out the rest of the lights.

Darkness crashed. The investigators and administrators shouted, but I didn’t stick around to hear. I spun and raced into the darkened museum, my back now protected, Aidan at my side.

My breath heaved and lungs ached as I pushed myself faster, praying they wouldn’t get to a light and see my hair. The red was pretty distinct. Not to mention, Aidan wasn’t a subtle guy.
 

We streaked for cover along the wall, racing behind the looming statues toward the narrower hallway I knew lay at the other end. Footsteps pounded behind us as we darted into the dark hall.

Aidan spun and flung out his hands, sending a streak of power at the hall entrance. A thick wall of ice formed, glittery and blue even in the dark.

“That should take them a second,” he said. “But no time to waste.”

“Agreed.”

We turned and sprinted down the hall. Shouts sounded on the other side of the makeshift wall. As we neared the door at the end, I called upon my Mirror Mage power and accessed Aidan’s gift of the wind. It filled me, a cool breeze that brought joy in its wake. A torrent gusted from my fingertips and blew the door outward, breaking whatever lock had kept it closed.

“Nice one,” Aidan said as we sprinted into the dark night. “I hardly sensed your magic at all.”

“Thanks—” I panted, too exhausted to do anything but run. We raced across the grass and around the old library, then dove into Aidan’s car.

“Take the back way.” I dragged the seatbelt on.

“Not my first rodeo.”

I laughed and wheezed at the same time, peering over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming.

No one.

I leaned back against the seat, gulping air. “I really need to work on my cardio.”

Aidan laughed, his breathing short as well, and drove us away from the museum.

“What bastards,” I said as we passed through the business district. It’d taken me two neighborhoods to catch my breath. “Waiting a whole day?”

“Not everyone has a Transporter on hand.”

“No.” I reached toward the communication charm that hung around my neck. “But I do.”

I pressed on the silver pendant to turn it on. Comms charms were basically magical cellphones. Though I had a cellphone, I preferred this. No roaming charges.
 

“Del?” I said.

A moment later, her voice came through, along with what sounded like a fight. “Cass? What’s up?”

“I need your help.”

“Sure. I’m still dressed for business.”

Which meant leather instead of pj’s, if I knew Del. She had two modes: full throttle and couch.

“Can you meet me at my place?”

“Sure”—the sound of a scuffle interrupted—“stay down, you bastard!”

“You busy?”

“Just finishing an impromptu job.” A pained grunt echoed though the comms charm. Sounded masculine, so likely not Del’s. When she said she was still dressed for business, I guess she meant she was still
doing
business.

“Be safe,” I said.

 
“Almost done. Meet you at your place in thirty.”

“Thanks. Good luck.”
 

I pressed the charm again to turn it off. A few minutes later, we pulled back onto Factory Row. P & P was hopping, more of the late-night crowd having shown up for Connor’s fancy cocktails. Laughter echoed across the street as the door opened and someone ducked inside the party.

Aidan parked, and I jumped out and crossed the street to the green door beside Ancient Magic. I ran my hands along the edges to unlock the protection spells, then pushed the door open as Aidan joined me. He followed me up the three flights of stairs, past Nix’s place on the first floor and Del’s on the second, until we reached my landing. In addition to the shop on the bottom floor, we rented the whole top three floors of the building, over twelve thousand square feet combined. One floor for each of us.

I pushed open the door to my tiny apartment. About fifteen percent of my floor was living space, and what there was was crappy. But it was home. The good part, my trove, was hidden behind a secret door in my bedroom. That was where my priorities lay and my paycheck went.
 

The quiet of my apartment crashed around me. It’d been so go-go-go since this afternoon that nothing had had a chance to hit me. And the familiarity of this place—the battered furniture, the faded wallpaper, the empty PBR can on the coffee table—made me think how much about myself was no longer familiar.

Suddenly, I was exhausted. I sat on the couch and tried to keep the sigh from heaving out of me. “We’ll wait for Del here.”
 

Aidan joined me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just worried about Dr. Garriso.” Wearily, I scrubbed a hand over my face. “And it’s getting late.”

Aidan tugged me against his side, and I melted into him. “I believe both of those statements, but there’s a hell of a lot more you’re not telling me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ve got to trust me, Cass. I want more than just a date with you—which it looks like we’ll never get a chance to have—so we’re going to have to start sharing our dark secrets without it.”

“Didn’t we already do that?” We’d had a pretty good heart-to-heart last week.

“No, we told each other about our tragic Lifetime-TV-movie-childhoods. I’m talking about whatever it is that made you not call me back while I was away and whatever this guilt is that you’re feeling over Dr. Garriso.”

“Shouldn’t I feel guilty? I got cocky with my magic and was reckless. I should’ve gone for something different. Fire. Lightning.”

“There’s no way to know what would have worked better. And I think you’re reaching with the guilt.”

“I just feel so out of control now. My magic is getting better, and I love it. Like,
really
love it. But I’ve been changing.” I reached for the dagger strapped to my thigh and fiddled with it, a nervous habit. “It’s like using my magic ignited the FireSoul part of me that I’ve been ignoring. And now that it’s awake, I don’t like what I’m finding.”

“What do you mean?”

My mind flashed back to a week ago, when I’d last killed and stolen another supernatural’s magic. Sickness twisted my insides. “I didn’t tell you what happened when I stole the Shifter’s power back in Turkey.”

“Then tell me now.”

“It’s like something came over me. This enormous hunger to take her power. Like an addiction. It’s not that I have a problem stealing powers from bad people—I can use it to fight the Monster that hunts me—but it’s the fact that I was compelled to do it. And that I
liked
doing it. Shouldn’t that be wrong? Shouldn’t I be more in control?”

“I don’t know.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But I do know that power can be addictive. It’s basic. It’s survival. It’s hard to fight that kind of pull when you have access to it.”

I glanced up at him. His jaw was set, and he stared toward the door.
 

“Sounds like you know something about it,” I said.
 

“Yeah, a bit.” He reached up and rubbed a hand over his face. “The Origin has a lot of power. But it can twist a person. I told you about my father.”

I nodded. Madness ran in his family, spurred on by the immense amount of power that the Origins possessed. Aidan’s dad had ended up killing two other Alpha Council members. Aidan had had a rough childhood with a murderer for a father.

“But it’s not just that. There’s something more basic to the pursuit of power. At least, the kind I think you’re dealing with. When I first started shifting into a griffin, it was this enormous surge of power. I was the strongest mythical creature—besides dragons, which no one can shift into—and could terrify or kill whatever I wanted. The griffin knew this. When I shifted, I wasn’t entirely myself. The griffin held the reins too. Like your FireSoul. The magic part and the human part trying to live in harmony. It took me a long time to get it under control.”

I shivered, the image of Aidan in his griffin form sharp in my mind. He was terrifying in that form, though beautiful. “So I was right to be afraid of you in your griffin form.”

“Not anymore. The griffin urges are still there, but I’ve banked them so far down that I’m in control now. You will be too.”

“How?”

“Practice.”

“Always practice.”

“Always. But it means the urge to take other supernaturals’ magic isn’t really your fault. It’s the FireSoul in you. Part of you, but not all you.”

“But what if it takes over? Makes me try to steal good people’s powers?” I didn’t say the worst part. That to steal them, I’d have to kill. That was my biggest fear. Killing when I didn’t have to, just to take the power.

He reached an arm around me and squeezed me to his side. “You won’t. You’ll fight it. The power is seductive, but you’ll find your way to the other side.”

I hugged him, breathing in his forest scent. “How’d you get to be so smart?”

“I’ve got a few years on you.”

“Not that many.”

“Then I’m just a genius.”

I grinned up at him, then raised my head to kiss him.
 

A knock sounded at the door.

“We really need to find a few minutes when we’re not running for our lives or someone else’s,” I muttered. “Because we cannot catch a break.”

“Agreed.” The heat in his gaze burned me.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of Aidan’s arms and stood. “Come on in, Del!”

The door opened, and Del stepped through. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her blue eyes stood out starkly in her pale face. More blood splattered her black leather jacket, visible only by its gleam and my keen eye.
 

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” I said. “Finish beating up whatever demon you caught?”

“Yeah. That’s what I get for thinking I was on a break. Claire needed help with a particularly iffy job, so I volunteered.”