Magic In the Blood

with silver glyphs, his body crackled with dark fire.

    Zayvion Jones.

    Maybe I was imagining him. I really wanted someone to show up and make some sense out of all this. Make Frank stop, make my dad stop. Make this all go away so I could get away, and life and death and the world would be normal again.

    But Zayvion said he wasn’t following me. Kevin said Zayvion wasn’t following me. So why would he be here?

    He made his way silently to Anthony’s side, and I looked away from him just in case he was real. Just in case Frank caught me looking at him. Frank was busy weaving a spell between my father’s corpse and me with the tip of the bloody knife and his empty left hand.

    This was not how I wanted things to work out. But if Zayvion could get Anthony out of here, maybe I could find a way to rescue the girls.

    I moved my feet, felt the bite of a rope around my ankle. Not a physical binding-a magical one. Frank was a busy little bastard.

    “You are much like your father, Ms. Beckstrom,” Frank said in his nice-doctor voice while another rope of black snaked out to tighten around my legs. “Intelligent. Willful. And incredibly powerful. If you had simply returned my phone call, we could have gone about this in a much more civilized manner. It could have been very… pleasurable.”

    Holy crap.

    Allison, my father growled in my head. Now. Give me your power.

    Help me free the girls.

    Allison, he warned. If you will not give it to me, I will take it. And that will cause us both damage.

    Anthony grunted.

    Frank noticed. Glanced up away from me. Saw, as I saw, Zayvion carrying Anthony on his shoulder, moving toward the door.

    “Ah, Mr. Jones. The guardian of the gates has arrived. Please return my Proxy.” Frank wove his hands in the air and pulled magic-from my father’s corpse. The magic rose, sticky, wet, thick, not so much glowing as sucking light into it, leaving an afterimage of the rest of the room on my eyes when I blinked.

    My dad groaned in my head. I felt it too. Frank sucked the magic out of me like a leech sinking teeth in my bones and sucking the marrow.

    I yelled. From the pain, from trying to warn Zayvion.

    One of the ghost girls screamed with shrill, childlike terror. I glanced over at the six cots. One of the ghost girls lifted away from the cot, away from the dark chain holding her there, and shot across the room toward Frank. She twisted, thinned, became a bolt of pure magic. Magic that Frank caught in his hand as easily as catching a ball. Magic that he twisted into a glyph and threw at Zayvion.

    Zayvion cast Shield. Frank’s spell, the spell made of the girl, skittered off it, sparking magic in black and gold. The stink of sulfur flashed through the air. There were only three girl ghosts left. He had killed her. Used her soul and spirit like it was magic. Holy shit.

    Frank pulled more magic out of my dad, out of me. I yelled along with Anthony’s moan. Since I was busy yelling, I missed seeing the spell Frank cast.

    But Zayvion countered it. I turned my head in time to see the backlash from the two spells colliding. Bloodred flames flared from floor to ceiling and then fell and hissed like acid as they ate into the floor. That surge of magic made the glyphs on the walls flicker bright, too bright. Then the glyphs went dull. Dead. Nothing but pastel ash.

    The Wards were broken.

    Allie, now!

    The glyphs on the walls dripped down, hit the floor, and then stood up-stood up-and became the Veiled.

    Holy shit. Those weren’t spells on the walls. They were dead magic users, somehow bent in ways magic was never meant to be bent and forced into the lines of glyphs, the warding spells of Life and Death. Frank had used the dead like they were nothing but fodder for his spells. Used them just like he used the girl’s ghost. Used them like he planned to use me.

    The room was suddenly full of the Veiled. Only they weren’t nearly as transparent as before. They were so solid, it was hard to think of them as ghosts. Well, except for their empty black eyes and slow, swaying movements.

    The dead people closest to the ghost girls turned on the girls.

    The three remaining ghost girls screamed as the Veiled pulled at them, ate away bits of their spirits with greedy fingers.

    I was so done with this bullshit. Hells, yes, my father could use me. Because I planned to use him right back.

    Yes, I said to my father. Do it. Take my magic. Stop Frank. Stop it all.

    And like inviting the wind into a room, my father blew open my mind, settled into those parts of me I thought of as mine-private, safe, sacred-and pushed that aside. He pulled magic through my body, my blood, as easily as water runs through fingers.

    He chanted. I chanted. His words but my voice, my body. And I understood the words though they weren’t in a language I had ever heard before. They were the words of Closing. Killing. Ending Frank. Ending his dark magic.

    I could feel my feet. My legs. The Bindings still held me down, but I could sit.

    I sat, twisting so I faced Frank’s back. Frank, who was busy trying to kill Zayvion.

    Zayvion stood braced, both hands outward in that tai chi stance again. An amazing sort of Sheild glistened with magic that flowed and changed in breath-taking colors and shapes in front of him, taking forms I had seen only in my dreams. Beautiful. Zay’s magic was beautiful, powerful. And so was the man behind it.

    Anthony was on the ground behind Zayvion and his powerful Shield. It didn’t look like he was breathing any more.

    Sorry, Pike, I thought. I tried to keep him safe.

    Frank extended one hand toward me, weaving a Sleep spell.

    My father lifted my right hand. Now that was a weird sensation. He blocked Frank’s spell, and I felt the weight of the impact and leaned forward from my shoulder to physically hold off his spell.

    And still the ghost girls screamed.

    So here’s the thing. My dad was in the most private parts of my mind. And he was as open to me as I was to him. I sifted through his knowledge, found what I needed. A spell, a different sort of spell.

    I drew on magic, traced a glyph with my left hand-the one my dad wasn’t using.

    Allie, my dad strained to say. Do not use magic. It will damage us both. Kill us.

    And I knew he was right. But I already knew what my father was going to do to me. I’d seen his plan. Once Frank was taken care of, my father would either take over my body as his own, burning away the parts of me that made me who I was, or he would-and I’m a little shaky on the details of this one-use the magic in my blood and the core of my life energy to transfer himself into another body. Frank’s body.

    Both options would leave me dead.

    So, fine. In the time I had left, I was sure as hell going to save those girls.

    The image of the white cross on the building came to me. The image of the words “my baby.” There were families out there waiting for these girls to come home. People who loved them. Maybe I couldn’t fulfill my promise to Pike by looking after his Hounds, but I could at least make sure these girls got home.

    And if by doing so I screwed up my father’s plans-then sign me up, baby. If I was going to die, I was going to take my dad down with me.