Magic In the Blood

    Like lighting a fuse, magic burned through my bones, my muscle, my flesh. I gritted my teeth and let it flow, not using it yet.

    It filled all the empty places in me, replaced the numbness with warmth. I was sweating. Shaking. Talk about a hot flash.

    I sent a small amount of magic through the lines on my arm and felt the familiar cold numbness creep up my left arm. I let my breath out in relief. That was normal.

    Well, normal for me.

    Magic filled the glyph I traced for Sight, Smell, Taste, and my senses opened.

    The street was lousy with old spells that hung like a miasma of smoke in the air. Some were faded ash; some were new and bright as neon fire. Cheap sex spells that never worked; spells of illusion, of coercion and influence. Spells of protection, warding, warnings.

    And there were other magical things out on the street too. The watercolor people with hungry, empty eyes walked down the sidewalk and street, unaware of the rain, unaware of the cars, unaware of the people moving in the night.

    They were aware of me, though. Like zombie moths to a flame, they turned.

    I stepped closer to the strong spell that drifted in the air, tendrils of gold draping outward, thinning like a golden spiderweb spun onto nothing but air. It was the same as the one in the elevator. A Glamour intended to hide and conceal. And it was still burning strong.

    Which was strange because it should have looked older, should have smelled older, should have faded. Time mattered in Hounding spells. Weak spells were older; strong spells newer. But these spells looked like they could have been cast within hours of each other.

    I flicked a glance at the watercolor people. They were still moving slowly toward me, more of them appearing in the distance like fog-hells, like ghosts. I needed to either Hound this spell fast or get ready to fight.

    I voted for speed. I opened my mouth, breathed in. I could smell hickory, could taste the sweetness of cherry behind it, could scent the mix of bloods. The spell looked like something Pike could have cast. It could be his signature.

    I needed time.

    Fine. I’d buy it. I leaned away from the spell so I had room to cast another glyph. I added a little more heat onto that damn fever I was going to come down with, hoped the combined Disbursements of three spells wouldn’t mean I’d have to be hospitalized, and cast a Shield the size of Cleveland.

    Magic pushed up through me, poured out of me fast, faster, building the spell around me and around the spell I was Hounding. Magic is too fast to see with the naked eye.

    But I could see it, catching fire through the metallic whorls of my arm, leaping from my fingertips in ribbons of color, arcing and weaving into the twisting, tight glyph of Shield.

    The air around me warmed. I no longer felt the wind. I no longer felt the rain. As a matter of fact, I didn’t hear the cars going by either.

    I glanced at the watercolor people. Still slow, but I knew they’d break forward and start eating the Shield at any second.

    Stotts’ mouth was moving. I was pretty good at reading lips. He was calling my name. Asking me what I was doing, what was wrong.

    I tapped my ear and shook my head, letting him know I couldn’t hear him, and then I turned back to Hounding the spell.

    Hounding while also feeding a constant flow of magic into a defensive spell was harder than I thought. Zayvion had done this and more-he had put up a shield and opened something within it to swallow the watercolor people.

    Zayvion chanted. The cheater.

    My heart was pounding, and a little voice in my head that sounded a lot like fear just kept saying, “They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming…”

    Stupid voice. I knew they were coming. It was all I could do not to look up, not to run away.

    I traced the lines of the gold Glamour spell with the fingertips of my right hand. The spell’s magic resonated across my skin, mixing with and ever so slightly altering the magic I was using for the Shield and for my senses.

    Could this get any harder?

    The lines of the Glamour spell were distinctive, cast with the basic north, south, east, and west boundary lines I knew Pike always used.

    It had to be his signature.

    But the sweetness, the cherry, wasn’t anything I’d ever sensed on Pike. Anthony, yes, but not Pike. Pike had never done blood magic in all the time I knew him. And he was plenty strong enough as a magic user to cast Glamour without using blood. So why would he do so? I followed the lines of the spell, trying to taste the wrongness on the back of my throat.

    All I got was the scent of blood. Pike’s blood.

    The watercolor people slammed into the Shield.

    And I felt it. Pain shivered through me.

    Don’t look at them; don’t look at them. I knew I shouldn’t. Knew I shouldn’t look away from the Glamour spell.

    But I did.

    Holy shit.

    People, and there were dozens of them, pressed against the Shield. This close, with magic still enhancing my vision, I could see that they were indeed people-tall, short, heavy, thin, pastel skin tones of varying shades, facial features distinct. They had no eyes, and yet I knew they saw me.

    They leaned on the Shield, and I could feel the weight of them like a press of a storm about to break. Their fingers scrabbled across the Shield. Scraped, found purchase, and dug into the magic. They pulled at it like cold taffy, trying to bend it, stretch it, shove it into their mouths.

    They hadn’t broken the Shield yet. But they would.

    Hound, Allie, I said, forcing myself to look away. Get the damn job done.

    I pulled a little more magic from within me and added it to my sense of smell. I hissed as magic leaped up in response.

    Magic rushed from the ground and filled me. I used it as fast as I could. I diverted most of it into the Sheild, pouring it out so fast, I was breathing hard with the effort.

    And I was losing ground.

    No matter how much magic I poured into the Shield, the watercolor people consumed it.

    A pastel finger pushed through the Shield; another followed. I could smell death.

    A hand broke through, and then another. A finger slid down my spine, thunking over each vertebra, hooking the magic in my bones and pulling it out of me.

    Pain rolled over my body.

    I gritted my teeth against a scream. I am almost done, damn it. If they’d just leave me alone for a fucking second more.

    I reached with all my senses toward the Glamour spell.

    And the Shield broke.

    I was buried by them, smothered by their rotted stink, suffocating, breathing them into me, tasting them as they scraped through my skin, digging in like worms through my soft flesh, sucking, consuming.

    Let go of magic. Let go, let go, let go.

    But I couldn’t.

    Magic pushed up out of the ground and into me, following the burnt pathways down my arm, pouring out to fall again back to the ground, where it surged back up into me. I was an electric circuit.

    I was stuck in a loop, trapped by magic.

    I couldn’t let go.