Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

He gestured with one hand, tracing an arc from his left to his right. The burning, shattered glass tearing holes in the gate extinguished like a candle in a breeze.

“I will have what is rightfully mine.” Mikhail spread his fingers, as if throwing seed upon the ground.

The Hungers behind him burst through the gate, claws scrabbling upon dark stone. And they ran straight for me.

Great. Just what I needed. Slathering hell beasts from the other side of death out to kill me. And me without any magical kibble.

I was so freaked out, I was flat calm. I wove a spell for Shield and cast it, while checking in to see if maybe my dad was still in my head and awake, and might want to give me a hint as to what else I could do to save myself.

No luck. Dad was silent as a tomb. Those beasts hit my Shield with the force of a Mack truck.

Plan B would be good right about now. Really great, as a matter of fact.

I concentrated on feeding magic into the glyph, to keep the Shield strong. The beasts tore at it with fangs and claws, sucking at it, draining it.

I had maybe four or five seconds before they broke through.

Zay told me throwing magic at them wouldn’t work. I traced another glyph to shield me, and buy me time to think.

The nightmare in front of me sliced in half.

Zayvion was there, his machete in hand, carving through the creatures. Beyond him, I saw Victor wielding a sword that burned with silver flame. Shamus clapped his gloved hands together, and when he pulled them apart the Hunger in front of him exploded into black fire in midleap. Shamus held his arms wide, his mouth open, and drank the fire down.

Jingo Jingo was more subtle, wading out among a knot of Hungers and grabbing them with his big hands, sucking the magic out of them with his touch alone.

Kevin moved through the room like a tai chi master, each circle of his hands, each flowing movement pouring out a wavering, glossy impact of magic that tore the Hungers in half.

Chase was there too. And what did you know, she had an ax in one hand and a hatchet in the other, magic trailing behind each strike like electric acid.

Fuck this damsel-in-distress bit. If I survived this, I wasn’t signing up for self-defense classes, I was signing up for battle training.

More and more of the beasts poured out of the gate, a black wave of muscle and fang. So many, they filled the room.

My Shield broke; Zayvion pressed the machete into my hands and pulled a glass-bladed whip from out of thin air.

He looked up at the gate, half a room and fifty or more beasts away, and then turned his head sharply at the scream to his left.

The dark-eyed twins fell beneath the beasts. I scanned the room and realized there were other people missing: my dad’s accountant, the linebacker. And I could not see Chase.

Zayvion swore and laid into the beasts, making his way to where the twins had fallen.

That was all I had time to watch. I hacked at the first thing with fangs that jumped at me like the mother of all rosebushes was out to kill me, and then fell into a steadier rhythm, my body catching on pretty quickly how to use this much metal.

Which was great, because I liked breathing. It was one of my most favorite things to do.

But in the heat of battle, no one could reach the gate, Sedra, and Mikhail.

I stumbled backward over a dead beast and spotted a clear path to a column. I jogged to it and pressed against its relative safety. From here, I could see Sedra.

She stood in front of the gate, looking up at Mikhail. She didn’t look angry. If anything, she looked strangely happy.

The rope in her chest was gone. She had managed to cast another spell. Something that attached at the edges of the gate, trying to close it.

Mikhail stared down at her. He held up one hand, and she held up hers. Magic, dark and light, shot like caught lightning between their palms. They seemed to be caught in a stalemate. She pushed him away as he drew her closer. Her spell tried to shut the gate, but Mikhail had cast a counterspell. Neither moved.

More beasts poured out of the gate, streamed past Sedra and Mikhail, whose hands were now clasped, fingers twined.

We were quickly going to run out of room for more bodies in here.

Someone needed to close the gate.

I took a deep breath and calmed my mind. Even took the time to set a Disbursement. Then I closed my eyes. Going off of nothing but memory, I traced the glyph for End.

It was an old spell, Maeve had told me. It was, I was certain, my father’s spell.

I didn’t know it. Not really. I hadn’t been trained in it. But I cast it with a certainty, a gut knowledge once.

I didn’t aim at the gate, because that wasn’t what needed to End. I aimed at Sedra and Mikhail.

And threw the spell with all my strength. End slammed into them. Sedra yelled and turned toward me, her hold on Mikhail, or perhaps his hold on her, broken.

For a brief second, I could see them both clearly. Two handsome people, filled with rage.

Not exactly a Hallmark moment.

And then Mikhail lifted his hand and tore my End spell to ribbons.

I wove it back together as fast as he unraveled it, but it was clear I was losing ground.

“Not even your father could stop me, Allison Beckstrom,” he intoned, his voice so loud, the wings against the rafters trembled.

He traced a spell. Sedra stared straight at me, unable or unwilling to stop him. And I knew that spell was my death.

A hand brushed against my fingertips. I jumped and looked down.

Beside me stood Cody, or rather, a ghostly version of Cody. My brain went blank a second. Cody wasn’t dead. Zayvion had Closed him, but he wasn’t dead.

“Cody?” I said. “Why are you dead?”

Tact. I got it.

He seemed older somehow, his sunny sky blue eyes calm. Even though he smiled, I could tell he was sad.

“Not dead. Just. . separate from myself. When Zayvion Closed me, my mind was already broken in two. It’s been that way for a long time. But now that I’m Closed, I can’t. . reach myself anymore. It’s okay. The part of me that is still alive is happy.”

This was one of those moments when I just wanted to call a time-out. This didn’t make sense.

“Promise me you will make this right,” he said. “All of this.” He lifted his hand, long, artistic fingers pointing at the room, and somehow also taking in just Sedra and Mikhail, the Hungers in the gate. “The fight over magic, over who should rule it. The light and the dark. Promise you’ll make it right. For all of us.” He tipped his head in question.

“If I can,” I said, not knowing what I was promising. Because, hey, I had about three seconds left to live, and then I’d probably be a ghost like him, and who wanted to spend their last seconds of life making someone sadder?

“I think you can. I think you were born to do this.” He nodded, solemn, as if we’d just sealed a deal.

Then he turned. Looked at Sedra, who stood silent outside the gate. Looked at Mikhail, who stood silent within the gate.

“Don’t take too long, okay?”

Cody smiled.

And ran. Ran past me, past the beasts, past the people who fought the beasts. He ran past Sedra. Images of fields, of summer sunlight and kittens, flashed before my eyes. Then Cody jumped, flew, arms wide, back arched, a specter, a ghost, the soul of a broken man-child, laughing as he fell inside the gate. He somehow held himself there, between life and death, his soul outlined in silver, gold, copper magic that wrapped him in satin ribbons. Cody became fire, became magic, as he stretched to bridge the space between life and death, burning and sealing the gate, his laughter fading, fading into a childhood song.