Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

This was different.

This storm had death on its wings.

“Come on,” I said.

I jogged across the parking lot toward the center of Cathedral Park, Shame at my side. Above us, thunder broke, the high demonic wail an earsplitting echo. Magic crackled through the sky, tracing out in flashes of glyphs.

Lights on the bridge flickered. A rolling blackout washed over the city downriver.

The void stone at my neck burned.

I ran, but my feet moved mud-slow. My breath came too quickly, too loudly. The void stone flashed cold again as lightning the color of dead roses webbed the sky with wild, elongated glyphs and spells.

Even my feet itched.

What had Maeve said? We were wearing the stones because when magic came back, the stones might help us not burn to death? Nice. And since I held magic inside me, I was in for a world of pain. Maybe Shame had the stone pressed against his neck for another reason. Like to keep him from drinking down too much energy once it hit.

What if magic wouldn’t fill me again? What if it was a onetime thing, back when Cody had pulled it through my bones? Maybe now that it was gone, it was going to stay gone, leaving nothing behind but some ribbon tattoos.

I hoped not. I had a lot of things I wanted to do with magic right now, one of them being taking out Greyson. I wanted the magic back. I wanted that power back.

The pathway parallel to the river hooked uphill. Even though it was dark, the trees weren’t leafed out enough to hide the flicker of the warehouse and factory lights on the river. I wondered if there were people there. People who were about to get hurt.

“And I repeat: fuck yes,” Shame said beside me. “That’s beauty.” He pointed.

I looked over to where the bridge angled across on huge arched pillars. Magic lingered there. A lot of it. Not from the storm, thundering like a mountain being hammered down. This magic was contained, controlled, almost mechanical in its perfection. I knew the Authority had to be behind that magic. Shame had one thing right: it was beautiful.

And I knew that magic came from the disks. Hundreds of them.

The Authority had broken into Violet’s labs and stolen these disks from her. They had hurt her, maybe killed her baby, and hurt Kevin, one of their own. I didn’t know anything that would justify those actions. Not even this. But I was willing to tame the storm first and take names for ass kicking later.

Shame strode toward the wall of magic that had been cast in such a masterful Illusion that it mimicked the park perfectly. I started off after him, and pushed through the spongy resistance as I crossed that magical barrier. Someone who wasn’t determined would not be able to get through the Illusion-it had a weight and a Diversion woven in it that would repel people and animals.

This, apparently, was a private party.

I don’t know what I expected to see on the other side. Something gothic, magic going off like fireworks, maybe wizards’ robes and pointed hats and wands, which I had yet to see in all my time in the Authority.

What I saw was even better.

The Authority, all the men and women who were supposed to make sure magic was used correctly, that the common citizen wasn’t destroyed by it, that the world benefited from it, stood shoulder to shoulder, creating a circle.

No longer in street clothes, they wore what I could only assume they liked to cast magic in. Maeve had on her leather pants and stiletto heels, Hayden his leather bomber jacket and lumberjack boots. The twins Carl and La wore loose-legged pants and kimono-like shirts. The rest were in a variety of leather, tight-or loose-fitting coats and jackets, none longer than knee-length, and all of them had weapons at their sides.

I expected the atmosphere to be grim. What I didn’t expect was the mood behind the magic.

The magic users did not like one another.

The magic users did not like being here, working together.

The magic users were all waiting for someone to make a wrong move.

Angry, suspicious, explosive. Just the kind of situation I liked to stay far, far away from.

There were two places open in the circle. One next to Terric, which I was surprised to see Shame stride over and fill, and one next to Sedra. I supposed that one was mine, though I wondered if it had once been my father’s, or Zayvion’s.

I crossed the grass uphill, conscious of the body language of everyone who stood still and focused. Even though the general mood was hate, they were, for the moment, each doing their job. They held their hands in front of them, and as I came nearer, I saw why.

At the feet of each of them was a disk. Small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, the disks were silver and black. Since I’d gotten a pretty good look at the one in Greyson’s neck, I knew the disks had glyphs carved through them.

The disks gave off a soft pastel light. Magic I could see with my bare eyes rose in wisps, held in stasis by the magic user’s hand and will.

I took my place beside Sedra. There was no disk on the grass in front of me.

What? The new girl didn’t get to play?

“This completes our circle,” Sedra said before I could point out that I didn’t have a shiny toy like everyone else.

“This completes our power,” she continued. “We stand together facing a common threat. Magic rises in our world, claiming the sky. It is our duty to bring it once again to the heart of the earth.”

A few people looked over at her, or pointedly avoided her gaze. Wasn’t that interesting? Liddy didn’t look at her. Neither did Mike Barham, and half a dozen other people. No, instead they looked at one another.

Uh-oh.

The sky above us clotted with color. Lightning flashed again, shattered the sky with wild glyphs so bright I couldn’t blink away the burn. Even flash-blind, I thought I saw a shadow moving back by the trees on the other side of the wall of magic. Short, female.

It was Mama Rositto, the woman whose youngest boy had been used as a Proxy, and almost killed, to cover up my father’s murder several months ago. I used to Hound for her, but after her boy had been hurt, and her son James had been thrown in jail, she’d made it clear I wasn’t welcome in her life.

What would she be doing out in the park in a storm?

With the Illusion up, she wouldn’t see us, couldn’t see us. And if we did our job right, she’d go her way, take her walk or whatever it was she was doing, without ever suspecting that the most powerful magic users in Portland were about to bring the sky, and all the magic in it, crashing down in her backyard.

Lightning flashed and thunder exploded so close they joined.

A drop of rain hit my head. Then another.

Great. Why did it always rain when the world needed saving?

The disks around the circle flickered as rain pattered through the rising magic.

I looked around, uncertain as to how this was a storm rod that was going to channel the magic. Unless they intended to channel bits of the magic into the disks at their feet. Even so, there weren’t nearly enough disks to contain that storm.

The big, heavy figure of Jingo Jingo lumbered out into the center of the circle. He carried a sack over his back. Lightning struck, painting him pale as a horror-movie Santa Claus. A flash of ghostly faces, children’s faces, swarmed around his body, tied to him, clinging to him in sorrow and desperation.

Darkness returned, snuffing out the ghosts.

But I knew I’d see them in my nightmares.

Jingo swung the bag off his back and upended it.

Disks poured out, dozens and dozens, striking one another in sweet glass tones, primal music and magic, ringing in song so pure I caught my breath. Disks and magic poured into a pile, a mountain, a treasure of glittering, beautiful power.