Хлоя Нейл - Firespell

I swallowed a giant spoonful of chocolate pudding—magical near misses really built up the appetite—then lifted my brows at him. “Adept?”

“Those of us with magic,” he said, “but who are willing to give it up. It’s what we call ourselves. Our philosophy is, we hit twenty-five, and we return our power to the universe. We stop using it. We make a promise, take a vow.”

“It’s an even trade,” Scout said, with a small smile. “No more power, but no more upsetting the balance of the universe.”

“No more being Adepts,” Jason said, his voice quieter and, I thought, a little wistful, as if he’d considered the blow that giving up his magic would be, and he wasn’t thrilled about it.

“Okay,” I said. “So, to review, you’ve got kids with magical powers running around Chicago.

Some of them are willing to give it up when the magic gets predatory—that would be you guys.”

Scout bobbed her head.

“And some of them aren’t willing to give it up, so they have a future of soul sucking to look forward to.”

“That’s a fair summary,” Michael said with a nod.

“But that doesn’t explain why you guys are running around under the convent throwing, what,

firespell, at one another.”

Scout looked up at Michael, who nodded, as if giving her permission to answer the question.

“We found a list,” she said. “A list of, well, I guess you’d call them leads. Kids who’ve been scoped out by Reapers. Kids they’re targeting for a power lunch, no pun intended.”

I nodded my understanding.

“I’ve been working out a spell of protection, a little half charm, half curse, to keep the Reapers from being able to zero in on their targets.”

“How do you do that?”

“Have you ever tried to look at a faraway star,” Scout asked, “but the closer you look at it, the fuzzier it gets?”

“Sure. Why?”

“That’s what Scout’s trying to do here,” Michael said, crossing his arms and bobbing his head in her direction. “Making the targets invisible to the Reapers. She’s been working on a kid who lives in a condo on Michigan, goes to a high school in South Loop. They haven’t been real thrilled with that.”

“And that’s why they’ve been chasing you?” I asked, sliding my gaze to Scout.

“As you might imagine,” she said, “we aren’t exactly popular. Our ideas about giving up our power don’t exactly put us in the majority.”

“The gifted are proud to have magic,” Jason said, “as well they should be. But most of them don’t want to give it up.”

“That puts us in the minority,” Michael added. “Rebels, of a sort.”

“A magic splinter cell?”

“Kinda,” Scout said with a rueful smile. “So the Reapers identify targets—folks who make a good psychic lunch—and kids who are coming into their own, coming into their own gifts.

Spotters,” she added, anticipating my question. “Their particular gift is the ability to find magic.

To detect it.”

“Once a kid is identified,” Michael said, “the Reapers circle like lions around prey. They’ll talk to the kid, sometimes their parents, about the gift, figure out the parameters, exactly what the kid can do. And they’ll teach the kid that the gift is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that any souls they take are worth it.”

“The Reapers try to teach the kids that the idea of giving up your power willingly is a conspiracy,” Jason said, “that feeding on someone else’s energy, their essence, is a kind of magical natural selection—the strong feeding on the weak or something. We disagree. We work our protective spells on the targets, or we try to intercede more directly with the gifted, to get the kids to think for themselves, to think about the consequences of their magic.”

“For better or worse,” Scout added.

“So you try to steal their pledges,” I concluded.

“You got it,” Scout said. “We try to teach kids with powers that giving up their powers is the best thing for humanity. You know, because of the soul sucking.”

I smiled lightly. “Right.”

“That makes us pretty unpopular with them, and it makes the Reapers none too popular with us,” she added. “We didn’t need the original Reapers. And we certainly don’t need Reapers spawning out there.”

“Seriously,” Jason muttered. “There’re already enough Cubs fans in Chicago.”

Michael coughed, but the cough sounded a lot like, “Northside.”

I arched an eyebrow, and returned my glance to Scout. “Northside?”

“Where the Cubs are,” she said. “They’re territorial.”

“I see. So, what do you do about the evangelizing? About the Reaper spawn, I mean?”

“Well, weare the good guys,” Michael said. “They’re bullies, and we’re a nuisance. We make it harder for them to do their jobs—to recruit, to brainwash, to convince kids with magic that they can keep their powers and live long, fulfilling lives as soul-sucking zombies.”

“We thwart with extreme prejudice,” Scout said with a grin. “Right now, we’re doing a lot of protecting targets, and a lot of befriending the gifted who haven’t yet been turned toward the dark side.”

“A lot of things that get you chased,” I pointed out, giving Scout a pointed look.

“That is true,” she said with a nod. “Reapers are tenacious little suckers. We spend a lot of time keeping ourselves alive.”

I crossed my legs beneath the thin blanket. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have let them into St.

Sophia’s.”

Scout snorted. “We didn’tlet them in. The tunnels beneath the convent connect it to half the buildings in the Loop. Welcome to the Pedway.”

“How many of them are there?” I asked.

“We think about two hundred,” Scout said. “Sounds like a lot, but Chicago is the third-biggest city in the country. Two hundred out of nearly three million isn’t a lot. And we don’t really have an ‘in’ with them, obviously, so two hundred’s only a best guess.”

“And you guys?”

“This month, we’re holding steady at twenty-seven identified Adepts in and around Chicago,” Michael said. “That includes Junior Varsity—high schoolers—and Varsity. V-squad is for the college Adepts, their last chance to play wizard and warlock before it’s time to return to a life of mundane living. We’re organized into enclaves in and around the city. Headquarters, kind of.”

Another puzzle piece fell into place. “That’s what the symbols on the buildings in the model room mean.” My voice rose a little in excitement. “There was aY in a circle, and these kind of combined circles, sort of like a cross. Those are enclave locations?”

“Those circle things are called ‘quatrefoils,’ ” Michael said. “TheY symbol indicates enclave and sanctuary locations—that’s where the Reapers plan their minion baiting—around the city.

There are six enclaves in Chicago. St. Sophia’s is Enclave Three.”

“Or ET, as the idiots like to call it,” Scout added with a grin, bobbing her head toward the boys.

Jason lifted his gaze to mine, and there was concern there. “Did you say you’ve been to the city room?” He looked over at Scout, and this time his gaze was accusatory. “You let her into the city room?”

“I didn’t let her in,” Scout defended. “I wasn’t even there. The preps found the room and led her down there, locked her in.”

Jason put his hands on his hips. He was definitely not happy. “Regulars know about the city room?”

“I told you people would get through,” Scout said. “Not all the tunnels are blocked off. I told you this was going to happen eventually.”

“Not now,” Michael interjected. “We don’t need to talk about this right now.”