Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

Will it hurt him if I leave it here?

No, but there are those within the Authority who may take it for themselves.

He was right about that. One of the reasons I kept Stone under wraps was because when the Authority found out I had him, they brought him here and were going to keep him for study. And even though the crystal was smaller, it was no less amazing than the gargoyle.

Dad was telling the truth. And it seemed to be a truth that would help rather than hinder me.

Weird.

That still didn’t make it okay for him to run me around like a puppet.

I put the crystal back in my pocket.

“Allie?” Shame pushed on the door. “Ready?”

“Has it been five minutes?”

“More like fifteen.” He stepped in and leaned against the wall. From the way he moved, I knew he had stashed more weapons on his body. A lot more.

“Do you know where Zayvion’s sword is?” I asked.

“Probably. Why?”

“I want to take it with me.”

“This is a peaceful gathering. We’re setting up storm rods, or something-Terric wasn’t very clear about that. But it’s not going to be a fight.”

“I’d feel better with a sword on me. As soon as we deal with the storm, and get Zayvion back through a gate, I won’t have to make a special stop to gear up before hunting Greyson.”

“Thought you might have that in mind.” With a little contorting, Shame pulled Zayvion’s blade out from the sheath he had strapped to his back.

Peaceful gathering, my ass.

“His knife?” I asked. I took the blade-not the machete Zay usually used on Hungers and for other magical threats, but a beautifully balanced sword, his katana. I’d used it a couple times in practice. It fit my hand and reach better than a machete, but it was harder to convince a police officer why it was in the trunk of a car. So for quick dirty hunts, a magic-worked machete was best.

I don’t know where Shame pulled the knife out of, but I was glad he had it on him. Zayvion’s blood blade was long, slender, deadly, centered with a beveled crystal and glyphs that were carved into the metal and glass, ash black against the shiny dagger. It was familiar, the first weapon Zay had given me, trusting that with it I would be able to protect myself.

Call me sentimental, but that knife was more romantic than a car full of pink roses.

I tucked it in my belt. Shame handed me the sheath for Zay’s sword, which I strapped on my back, before shrugging back into my jacket.

“Anything else?” Shame asked.

“Hold on.”

I stepped over to Zay, rested my forehead against his. “Come home to me,” I whispered. “I love you.”

Magic beneath my feet bucked and I braced against the bed frame to keep from falling. Something, low thunder with the strangest high wail behind it, like a horde of the dead come calling, skittered at the edge of my hearing.

I looked at Shame. “You felt that?”

“The storm,” he said. “It’s about to break. We need to haul.”

I brushed my fingers one last time over Zay’s lips. Then I jogged across the room out to the hall. Shame was already at the stairs and heading down. He was also on his phone.

“How much longer?” Pause. “Fuck. Yes, we’ll make it.”

“How much longer?” I asked.

“Maybe ten minutes. Maybe not.” We took the stairs as fast as we could without falling, then used the side door to exit the building.

“Car’s here,” he said. “I moved it.”

Smart thinking.

We ran.

Got to the car, got in, got going.

Stone was sitting up in the backseat, his big face pressed to the window, his eyes searching the sky. He crooned, a lonely sound, and his wings trembled.

“Stay in the car, boy. It’s gonna get messy out there.”

He crooned again, but didn’t try to get out. The big lug was moving better. Maybe because there was magic coming our way, roiling across the sky. Maybe the storm was helping him. Wild magic was, after all, still magic.

Halfway across the bridge, magic rolled again, like a hot wind pushing through the car, through my skin, my bones.

I hissed, and Shame grunted. “Lord. This is gonna be such an ass-kicking,” he said. “Ours.”

He drove at a terrifying speed, one boot on the gas, both hands on the wheel, eyes narrowed in concentration. I stopped watching the traffic around us as soon as the number of impending collisions got into the vicinity of two digits.

The void stone between my breasts went warm, then pulsed cold. My skin itched.

Over the bridge now, and rolling up to the St. Johns neighborhood. Before we reached the tracks that separated St. Johns from the rest of the city, magic rumbled and rolled again, and I saw the faulty-lightbulb flicker of lightning somewhere high, high above us.

“Do you know where?” I asked.

“The bridge.”

“What is it about that bridge?” I scrubbed at my arms, but the itching only got worse. “Too many weird things happen there.”

Shame didn’t answer. We were over the railroad track and into St. Johns. Even in the darkness, St. Johns looked like it always looked. Magic never prettied it up to make it into something marketers would approve of. St. Johns wore her face bare, and even if she wasn’t perfect, she was more beautiful because of her flaws.

Broken-down, homey, unapologetic, St. Johns wore many faces. All of them the truth.

Crossing the railroad track made my teeth hurt. Not like there was no magic in St. Johns, but like there was far too much magic here.

Stone clacked a low growl and rubbed the top of his head against the back of Shame’s seat. Stone felt it too. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Shame took the speedometer down out of death-defying, and worked off the main drag toward the towering green arc of the St. Johns Bridge.

“In the park?” I asked.

“I think so.” He got us there in too little time. Parked in the open lot and got out.

I turned to Stone. “You stay here, boy. Sleep, okay?”

Stone’s ears flattened, then perked back up. He tipped his head and looked out the window, making the bag-of-marbles sound and then the coo again. He jiggled the door handle.

“No. Don’t go out. Don’t leave the car.” I pointed at him and he let go of the handle. “Sleep,” I commanded.

He clacked, then clunked his snout against the window, ears up in triangles.

I hoped he would stay put. I didn’t want anyone in the Authority to see him. I locked the doors and stepped out.

The air had so much magic in it, it felt like it was made out of lead. It weighed on my shoulders, legs, and feet, crushing. Shame had lit up and sucked his cigarette down to half ash. His face was tipped toward the sky, his neck exposed, hood fallen away, to let his dark hair fall free from his eyes. Eyes closed, the arc of his body was taut with ecstasy as he drank the magic down.

He held the cigarette smoke captive in his open mouth, then exhaled, his mouth still open, eyes still closed in rapture.

The air broke under the impact of thunder. Shame moaned away the rest of the smoke, and took in a breath like it was his first, like he could suck down the sky and still not be full.

He opened his eyes. “Fuck yes,” he said up into the rain. “That’s what I needed. More. Much more of that.”

I finally got a full breath myself. “This is not good.”

“It’s magic. It’s never good.” Shame grinned at me. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.”

“Not if it’s wild magic.”

I’d been through a few wild-magic storms before, fast-moving tangles of lightning and thunder and magic. Beckstrom Storm Rods did their job and channeled the strikes of lightning and magic down into the glyphed channels that stored magic throughout the city.