Dying Is My Business

and stained-glass windows, it took my breath away. At each corner, a stone tower topped with crenellated battlements rose two additional stories above the domed roof. Suddenly the name Citadel made sense. It looked more like a fortress than a home. A paved path, just wide enough for a Parks Department vehicle, snaked past and forked in two. One path led back into the woods. The other ended in a patch of dirt beside Citadel, where the Escalade was parked.

Funny, I’d been through the park numerous times and never noticed this building before. But then, I wasn’t supposed to. No one was. That was the point of wards.

I went back inside. Isaac had burned the shadowborn while I was out, leaving only a spear sticking out of the wall and a mound of ashes beneath it.

“Reve Azrael is gone,” I reported.

“Of course she is, she got what she wanted,” Isaac said, his tone bristling with anger. He cast another spell to burn the bodies of the revenants scattered on the floor—either as a precaution or because he was so furious, I couldn’t tell—and in a flash the carpet was so thick with ash the room looked like the inside of a cremation furnace.

“Isaac, I need your help,” Bethany said. She was crouched over Gabrielle’s unconscious body on the other side of the room. She’d torn open the shoulder of Gabrielle’s shirt and was applying pressure to the bullet wound to stop the bleeding.

Isaac hurried to her, telling me to go look after Philip.

The vampire was still on the middle landing. He’d regained consciousness but was weak. I helped him down the steps. He leaned his weight on me, his body as hard and heavy as stone. I finally got him onto the antique Queen Anne couch where we’d laid Thornton’s body earlier. Even as he settled onto the couch, breathing hard and sweating, he never took off his mirrored shades. I took that as a sign that he was probably okay.

Philip winced as he adjusted himself to get comfortable. “Hurts like hell,” he said. “Take it from me, never be on the wrong end of a shadowborn’s sword.”

“Too late,” I told him.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re the man who doesn’t stay dead. Must be nice not having to worry about it.”

“Not as nice as you’d think,” I said. “Anyway, what’s it to you? I thought vampires were supposed to be dead already.”

“You’ve been watching too many movies, man. I’m as alive as you are. Vampires just live longer, that’s all. And we’re a hell of a lot harder to kill.” He poked gloomily at the long tear across the fabric of his shirt. “Damn. This was the last of my black turtlenecks.”

“If it’s any consolation, my shirts get ruined all the time, too,” I said. “You learn not to get attached.”

Philip pointed at a small marble box sitting on an end table. “Do me a favor and hand me that box?” I got it for him. When he opened it, I saw it was filled with dirt, as rich and dark as coffee grounds. He took some in his fingers and smeared the dirt on his wound. He winced again, like someone putting antiseptic on a fresh cut, but the dirt seemed to lessen his pain.

“Is that … magic dirt?” I asked. This was what my life had become. Asking if dirt was magical.

“It’s just dirt,” he said, but didn’t explain further. He rubbed some more on his chest. “I’ll be fine now. You don’t need to stand over me like a mother hen.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

Philip seemed to be recovering fine. Gabrielle had me a lot more worried. I went over to where Isaac and Bethany were crouched over her. They hadn’t moved her off the floor yet. They didn’t dare move her at all until she was stabilized. Isaac was holding a wooden bowl filled with some kind of fibrous green goop, while Bethany scooped out handfuls and patted them over the bullet wound. I knelt down beside Gabrielle. Her face was coated in sweat from shock, but she was still breathing and I could see the faint throb of her pulse in her neck. “Is she going to be all right?”

“She hasn’t lost too much blood,” Bethany answered. “The Sanare moss will stop the bleeding and help the wound heal faster.”

“The bullet went right through her,” Isaac said. “The exit wound is pretty bad, but at least the bullet missed the brachial artery in her shoulder.”

She was lucky. It would have been a lot worse if the bullet had stayed inside her. I knew that from personal experience.

I watched Bethany apply more of the Sanare moss to Gabrielle’s shoulder. “Why did you give me the charm instead of using it yourself?” I asked her.

“It wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” she said. “There was something wrong with my containment spell, remember? Reverse engineering is never as good as using an original spell.”

“But still, you gave it to me,” I said. “You thought it would work if I used it?”

She looked up at me. “It did, didn’t it? That’s what happened last time, so I took a chance it would happen again.” She shrugged. “Somehow, magic just seems to work better for you.”

“That was a hell of a chance to take,” I said. “If it hadn’t worked…”

“But as she said, it did,” Isaac said. “How often does that happen to you?”

“How often does what happen?”

He looked at me curiously. “Is magic always more powerful when you’re in contact with it?”

I shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

“It happened with the Anubis Hand, too, didn’t it? When you used it, it didn’t just stun the gargoyles, it killed them. Burned them up, that’s what Bethany said. And then there’s the shock Gabrielle experienced when she went too deeply into your mind. She said it was like feedback. Her own psychic energy coming back at her, but stronger…” He trailed off, tapping his short red beard in thought.

Great, I thought, more reasons to think of myself as a freak. But I’d seen magic in its rawest form, and it was terrifying. If it was connected to me somehow, I had to know. “Okay then, so what does all this mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Isaac said with a sigh. “Magic is an element of the natural world, no different from wood or fire, even if it has been tainted by the Shift. Casting a spell is just channeling and transforming that elemental energy, but even so, the energy should remain constant. If the charm didn’t work for Bethany, it shouldn’t have worked for you either.”

“What about you?” I asked. “You’re a mage. Aren’t your spells supposed to be stronger or something?”

He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing. Mages have access to a different level of magic, and through study and a greater understanding of the element we’re manipulating, it can be carried inside us with less chance of infecting us—”

“Wait, less chance?” I interrupted. “I thought mages were immune.”

“Nothing is foolproof,” he said. “There have been mages who’ve become infected. Some were weak-willed, or had an affinity for darkness already. Others … well, fending off the infection can be a struggle even for the most powerful among us.” I didn’t like the sound of that. Did it mean Isaac could become infected, too? At any time? “But, Trent,” he continued, “even a mage can’t make a faulty charm work, let alone operate with the kind of increased intensity that one did. That was all you. Somehow, you’re like a shot of caffeine to magic. A supercharger.”

“How?” I asked. “I don’t even know when I’m doing it.”

“The real question isn’t how, Trent, it’s why,” Isaac said. “Why does magic become stronger around you? Why can’t you die? And why is Reve Azrael able find you whenever she wants?”

Isaac had studied magic enough to become a mage, and yet even he didn’t know what to make of me. That wasn’t exactly comforting.

“Guys, she’s coming around,” Bethany said.

I looked down at Gabrielle. Her eyes fluttered open.

Isaac smiled at her. “Welcome back. You gave us quite a scare.”

With her good arm, Gabrielle pushed a few loose dreadlocks out of her face. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, gravelly. “I’m sorry. I saw his face and I—I just couldn’t do it.”