whatever spell worked into it made him the half beast.
My guess was that Dr. Frank Gordon had done it to him, probably around the same time he’d dug up my dad’s grave and tried to possess my dad’s spirit to open up a gateway to death and draw dark magic into the world. Things hadn’t gone the way Dr. Frank Gordon had wanted them to go. Namely, instead of doing what Frank wanted, my dad had possessed me.
Then Greyson had hunted me. Well, not me. He wanted my dad’s spirit. I didn’t know why. Maybe revenge- that seemed like the easiest answer. What I did know was that letting Greyson get his hands on my dad’s spirit, and maybe my dad’s knowledge of magic, fell squarely in the middle of my Bad Things list.
And to make it all worse, Greyson used to be Chase’s boyfriend, maybe even her Soul Complement. She had dumped Zayvion to be with Greyson before Greyson had gotten so screwed up.
I closed my eyes, trying to regain my calm. I was okay; everything was okay. The cage would hold Greyson. Why did they have him caged?
Why was Dad talking from way over there? My dad wasn’t in Greyson. He was in me. Maybe not the best thing, but certainly better than the other options.
“Allison,” Maeve said. “Come down the stairs.” She didn’t put Influence behind it, didn’t even make it sound like a command. Just calm, gentle. Motherly.
If I remembered correctly, I wasn’t listening to her motherly commands.
I opened my eyes. Zayvion, Shame, and Maeve all stood on the bottom step, looking up at me like I was about to burst into flames.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just. It’s just.” I took a step. My knees went wet-noodle and I had to hold the rail to keep from falling. What the hell was wrong with me?
I gritted my teeth and pulled my shoulders back. I could do this. I could walk down these stairs without falling. Did it too. Stood in front of Maeve, breathing a little too hard, sweating a little too much.
She put one finger under my chin and looked up into my eyes.
The good thing? One look from her and Dad stopped scraping at the backs of my eyes.
The bad thing? Greyson growled. Not quite a howl. It was more of a low moan-yell. The hairs on my arms pricked up, and goose bumps tightened my skin.
“I don’t think. .” My breath gave out, so I tried again. “I don’t think you need to look,” I managed. “He’s there. And in Greyson. I think he’s in Greyson too.”
Maeve’s eyes flicked back and forth, probably seeing more inside me than I really wanted her to.
Greyson howled as Maeve looked deeper in my mind for my dad. He wanted the rest of my dad’s spirit in me. The cage shook. I hoped the steel bars could hold him. I hoped the magic in this room could hold him.
“We have been through Greyson’s mind,” Maeve said. “Jingo Jingo has been through his mind and has seen nothing, no trace of your father in him.”
Yeah, well, Jingo Jingo had been through my mind and said my father wasn’t there either. I’d already told her that a dozen times. She never believed me.
“You know what I think about Jingo Jingo’s ability to sense my father.” It came out calm. Reasonable. Strong.
Go, me.
“I do. Jingo Jingo is an expert at sensing the dead. You are not.”
“Jingo Jingo isn’t the one who’s possessed.”
We stared at each other for a couple seconds.
“He could be wrong,” I pressed.
Maeve was a woman made of stubborn. So was I.
“Can you feel the well?” she asked, suddenly switching subjects.
I held my breath, trying to keep from yelling. The well was the least of our problems. The caged killer Necromorph half-beast dude over there, who had a part of my father in his head that no one else could see, and a desire to drag the rest of dear ol’ dad out of me even if it meant killing me, was something I thought we should all be a little worried about. “Why?” I asked.
“Just answer me.” She was not amused. Not playing games. Not happy.
Yeah, well, that made two of us.
I leaned back on one foot and glanced at Zayvion. He watched me, fists clenched at his sides belying that oh-so-Zen mask. He’d been helping me keep my dad blocked in my mind. Taught me a few spells that seemed to be working to keep Dad quiet. Until now.
I raised one eyebrow, to let him know I could handle it.
Shame, however, was pacing across the room away from us, like a man walks on rice paper. His head was tilted down at an odd angle, as if he were listening to his footsteps. His hands were lifted slightly above his waist, fingers spread. He was trying to hear something, sense something. Something beneath the floor.
He was listening for magic.
I realized I couldn’t feel it like I had before. The deep strumming heat of it beneath the room, beneath the tiles. Outside the inn, the well was usually no more than a faint presence, but down here, the well radiated power.
Or at least it had the day I’d taken my test. And now the well felt-not empty, but certainly less strong, less radiating, less full.
“It’s different,” I said.
Shame paused over tiles that were gray going on black. He knelt, stuck his fingertips against the marble. Took a deep breath, let it out, then rocked back on his heels. “Damn.”
He patted the pocket of his jacket, looking for cigarettes, found them, tapped one out.
“Don’t smoke in here,” Maeve said. Then to me, “How is it different?”
I glanced at Zay. He had moved silently to stand next to Greyson’s cage. Maybe he didn’t want to influence me. Maybe he wanted to pound Greyson.
He wasn’t the only one.
“You want me to Hound the room?”
“First I want you to tell me what you feel. What you sense.”
I’d learned that when Maeve asked me to do something in her teacher voice, she wasn’t really asking. Normally, it bothered me and I gave her lip for it.
But there was something very wrong about the well and the magic here. Something that made me want to go home to my apartment, home to my stone gargoyle, and stay as far away from the Authority and magic as I could.
Like ducking for cover before a storm hit.
Who was I kidding? Even if I went home, I couldn’t get away from magic. It flowed under the entire city, through the conduits and Gothic glyphed cage work that wrapped every building. And it flowed through me.
I tucked my hair behind my ear, my hand trembling. I walked across the room until I stood in the center of it, and stopped just short of where Shame knelt.
The same down-the-throat horror that I usually got from enclosed spaces skittered through my brain and set fire to my nerves. My heart was pounding too hard. I wanted to turn back. I wanted very much not to do this.
Shame watched me from his position on the floor. He placed one hand on the tiles, palm flat. I hoped he wasn’t planning to Proxy or Ground me. I was shaky. I wasn’t sure how magic was going to respond to my cast, or if it would respond at all.
I stopped, spread my feet so I had a chance of staying on them if things got bad. I resisted looking behind me to see what Maeve, Zayvion, and Greyson were doing. Instead, I calmed my mind:
I licked my lips. Instead of tracing a glyph in the air, I tipped my head up to the angel-wing ceiling, dropped my hands at my sides, fingers wide and open, and drew the glyph for Seek at my side. I reached out with my senses, using a little magic from inside me to seek. I sent my mental fingers deep, deep into the earth beneath me.
The well was not there. I frowned, reached deeper, sent my magic farther. Finally felt the well, a glow of magic, a heat, yet so far away. The magic was there, still pooling, still flowing, but it was like an ocean at low tide.
