by his fire, his shadow, hungry, but just wary enough to stay several feet away from him.
I took a step forward. I wanted to be a part of that fire too, wanted to feel his hands on me, his magic in me. Wanted to be a part of whatever he really was. Wanted to know what he could be, maybe even what we could be together.
Shamus clamped his hand on my shoulder and pressed down until it hurt. The pain-normal physical pain-did wonders for clearing my mind and stopped me from walking after Zayvion.
“Beauty, isn’t he?” he said with just a hint of longing in his voice. “Guardian of the gates.” He nodded. “No one but Jones can handle that and come out of it breathing. And sane. Magic from Life, magic from Death, light and dark, Blood, Faith, and Flux; he’s got it all, uses it all. Some of them doubted him. Not me. Not once. Just have to look at him to see it. He’s more than any of us. Scary. But disciplined. Controlled. No matter what kind of shit he’s in. No one doubts him now. Not even Sedra.” He sucked on the cigarette, his eyes narrowing for a second while he considered me. “Well, until you came along.”
“Me? What does this have to do with me?”
“If you’re his Soul Complement, you’re just like him. One finger in each kind of magic. Light and dark. Able to break open or close the gates between our world and death. Maybe a lot more than that. You worry people, Beckstrom. I think you even worried your all-powerful da. I think that’s why he didn’t want you using magic. I think that’s why he kept you out of the Authority.”
“Trust me,” I said, “You don’t have to worry. If I could do half of what Zay’s doing, I wouldn’t be standing here with you. I’d be over there taking care of those things.”
Shamus just stared at me and sucked on his cigarette. Not exactly a vote of confidence. But not a dismissal either.
“Should we help him?” I asked.
“We should do nothing but stand here. Chase has him covered. I’ll do cleanup. You’ll do nothing. Nothing.” He exhaled smoke into the wet air. “If you so much as twitch, I’ll knock you out and hold you down until this is done.”
“You could try,” I said.
That got a tight smile out of him. “I bet you even worry Jones.”
The way he said it, I didn’t think he was joking.
The Hungers that I knew were solid, monstrous nightmare creatures now looked like dogs, sniffing around in the dirt, trotting at Zayvion’s heels. It was an Illusion, and a very clever one at that. I squinted at the shadow of the glyph that maintained the Illusion. The lines of the spell floated in the air toward the sickly hemlock tree.
Chase leaned against the trunk of the tree, one knee bent, the heel of her boot propped behind her. She didn’t look any different from the last time I’d seen her, flannel and black jeans. Tough, pretty, strong. No amazing transformation like Zayvion-on-fire. Her hands were shoved in her flannel overcoat, one of her shoulders hitched toward her ear. To the casual observer, she was watching Zayvion, waiting for him to join her under the tree and out of the lightly falling rain.
To the not-so-casual observer, like maybe someone with her back against a wall using Sight, it was clear she was maintaining the Illusion and had made the pack of monsters look like a pack of dogs.
To the not-so-casual observer, she was throwing around magic like it was as easy as breathing, like it cost nothing. I wondered whether people in the Authority Proxied their spells. If I had to guess, I’d say Chase did. I wasn’t sure about Zayvion. And I’d guess Shamus took the pain for casting his spells. Maybe even liked it.
Chase lifted her chin and met my gaze. I was pretty sure Shamus’ wall blocked us from the creatures’ senses, but that didn’t make us invisible. Chase’s mouth quirked, and there was challenge in her eyes. I was not about to take that challenge. Sure, I was good at magic, but as people seemed to be pointing out to me, I was largely untrained. Watching Chase manipulate the Illusion filled me with a burning desire to learn more and fast. Then the next time she gave me that condescending, dismissive look, I could smack a spell up the backside of her head.
Zayvion started whistling. Soft, swaying, the song was an old folk or country tune, something that brought to mind half-remembered words of a man wanting to waltz with a woman but ending up dead, his lonely ghost calling her name and wandering the land.
At the end of the chorus, Zayvion stopped, turned. He pulled the machete out from beneath his coat. Chase had an Illusion for that one too. To the nonmagical eye, he was doing nothing more than stretching.
But the beasts saw him for what he really was. A seven-foot-tall, burning black and silver god of a man wielding a wicked steel and glass machete glyphed to a killing edge.
The beasts leaped. Zayvion caught the first one through the chest with the tip of his blade. He pulled the blade free and pivoted, swinging the machete more like a billy club than a sword, putting the strength of his body into it. He sliced the next beast in half. Both sides of the creature fell to the grass and quivered.
I blinked, lost my focus on Sight for a half second, and the scene changed to Zayvion standing there, lighting a cigarette while the dogs wandered aimlessly around him and eventually made their way into the shadows under the bridge and out of sight.
I concentrated on Sight again. The glyph was still there, still working.
And Zayvion was still fighting. Silent, even in the noisy grass, he took the next beast through the thick head, the blade wedging and not coming free. He abandoned the machete, and a string with glyphed blades at the end appeared in his hands.
It didn’t look like a formidable weapon, and frankly, I was trying to figure out why he didn’t just pull a gun. Zayvion said a word I didn’t hear-maybe Chase was working a Mute spell too-and the string burned with wicked fire. Magic dripped like flame down the edges of the blade. He swung the string in a tight circle and folded it against his chest to shorten and change the string’s direction. The blade whipped out and cut off the front legs of the creature nearest him. A second strike through the ribs, and the thing moved no more.
This time I saw the Hunger’s muzzle open in a howl.
But I heard nothing. Definitely a Mute spell. Zayvion probably didn’t use a gun because Mute, even a really strong Mute, still allowed some noise to escape. And it was harder to hold an Illusion and Mute spell at the same time, doubly so in the dead zone of St. Johns. But a machete and rope-pretty easy to mask the sound of their strikes.
And apparently, the howl of undead, unliving beasts.
The rest of the creatures seemed to finally figure out that Zayvion was going to finish them off in short order. As if a cue had been sent, they took off running, fast, fluid, disappearing beneath the bridge.
Zayvion swore-that I heard-and Chase and he set off after the Hungers, their heartbeats tapping fast at my wrist.
Shamus flicked his cigarette to the ground and rolled his boot over it. He also dropped whatever spell he had been using to hold up that wall.
He coughed a couple times and spat.
“Shouldn’t we follow them?”
“No.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, but not before I noticed the blood at the corner of his lips. “I’m going to clean up. You can watch if you want.”
It really bugged me to just stand around while other people were working, but I’d said I only wanted to come so I could learn. So I could keep my people safe from those creatures. So I would know what to do next time. So I never had to haul Davy’s broken and bleeding body into the hospital again.
All I’d learned so far was that it took at least three people to handle the Hungers. And a certain knowledge with weapons.
Which meant, if I really wanted to know how to fight these things, I had a lot of learning ahead of me.
Shamus must have taken my silence for agreement. He walked off toward the dead-at least I hoped they were dead-bodies of the Hungers.
I put the knife back in my belt and followed, noting the circle of dead grass where Shamus had stood had grown to six feet in diameter.
“Bet you suck at gardening,” I observed.
Shamus shrugged. “It’s all about energy exchange. It could always go the other way, me feeding a plant instead of drawing the life out of it.”
“Do that often?”
