David Coe - Spell Blind

“Fearsson?”

It wasn’t going to be enough. Whatever I came up with wouldn’t keep him from killing me, and Billie, too. I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the dance floor. We were nearer to the back of the club, so I made for the exit I’d used to find the janitor the last time I’d been here.

“What are you doing?” she called to me.

“We have to get out of here.”

“Why?”

“Remember when I told you I was followed? Well, he’s here again.”

“You’re sure?”

I scanned the club, trying to spot anyone who shimmered with enough power to make me feel this way. No one did.

“Pretty sure.”

We were almost through the crowd when I felt the heat of his magic hit me.

“Oh, shit,” I had time to mutter.

“Fearsson?”

I could hear Billie’s concern, but it was all I could do to ward myself and try to save her. I couldn’t risk saying a thing for fear of distracting myself. There were people all around me, so reflection and deflection spells were out of the question. I tried to shield the two of us with a conjuring that would absorb his magic, so that no one else would get hurt, but while I knew in theory what to do, the spell was beyond me.

An instant later, I was in agony. It felt like someone had thrust a flaming torch into my chest, as if this bastard sorcerer was trying to burn my heart right out of my body. This was what Shari Bettancourt felt, I told myself. And then the pain obliterated every other thought in my head. I doubled over, clutching both hands over my chest, folding in on myself. Somehow I sensed that I was on the floor, writhing, my teeth clenched, my eyes squeezed shut. I tried again to ward myself, but I could barely remember who I was, much less whatever conjuring I’d been trying a moment before. I heard Billie screaming my name, but I couldn’t tell if she was doing so out of fear for me, or because she was being tortured, too. Not that I could have done a damn thing about it.

He had me. Three times. Power in numbers. I was going to die on this rank floor, with strains of Latin fusion blaring in the background, with people dancing and getting drunk all around me.

I tried to fight him, but I had no weapons, and he’d already carved through the shield I’d tried to summon. Magic may be an act of will, but it’s also an expression of power and knowledge, and I didn’t have enough of either. I wasn’t even close. And I was growing weaker by the second. I could feel the life seeping out of me. I could hear my heartbeat slowing, I was aware of the blood laboring to flow through my body. I thought I heard laughter again.

And then I heard a voice.

“Ohanko.”

It was as soothing as the laughter had been harsh, as welcome as rain on a parched landscape.

“Namid?” I croaked.

“Be still,” he said. I could feel cool water coursing into my chest, dousing the fire that had raged there seconds before.

“I didn’t know you could do this,” I whispered.

“I cannot. There will be a cost. Now, please, be still.”

I lay there on the floor, savoring whatever it was the runemyste was doing to me, amazed that I was I alive, grateful for the ability to inhale and exhale without pain. After a time, I opened my eyes and saw that Billie was kneeling beside me, her face as white as bone and her lips pressed thin.

“Thank God,” she said. She ran a rigid hand through her hair. “Stay still. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

“She is right,” Namid said. “Do not try to move yet.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” I said, the words coming out as a rasp.

Billie frowned. “The hell you don’t.”

The music hadn’t stopped, but there were quite a few people standing around, staring at me.

“Hurry up, Namid,” I whispered.

“What?” Billie said.

The runemyste rumbled like surging flood waters. “You must rest.”

“Not here, though.”

“What are you saying, Fearsson?”

After a few moments more, the flow of soothing waters over my heart ceased. As soon as it did, I felt the pain return, or at least a shadow of it. I could only assume that my chest would be sore for a while.

I sat up, which made my head spin. But I met and held Billie’s gaze. “I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not. What was that? What happened?”

“I’ll try to explain it to you,” I told her. “But not here.”

I thought she’d argue, but after gazing at me for a few seconds, she nodded once. She still looked pale and scared, but I could tell that she hadn’t gone to pieces. She was too strong for that. She stood, helped me to my feet. It hurt to move at all, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near here when the ambulance arrived.

Billie started toward the back door again, and I followed, my steps stiff, like those of an old man.

One of the college kids stared at me. “Dude, you okay?”

I laid a hand on his shoulder as I walked past him. “Yeah, thanks.”

The air in the alley behind Robo’s felt cool, and I leaned against the cinder block wall for a moment, taking deep breaths.

“What happened to you, Fearsson?” Billie demanded again.

I straightened and started walking. “Not here,” I said.

She didn’t move. “Yes, here.”

I walked back to her. “I’ll try to explain this to you. I swear it. But we’re still not safe. I want to get as far-”

“Wait a minute,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Are you trying to tell me that what happened to you in there was. . was done to you?”

“I guess that sounds pretty strange, doesn’t it?”

Billie nodded, her mouth a dark gash on her ashen face. “Paranoid, even.”

I sighed. “I’m not nuts.” Not yet, at least.

“I didn’t say you were,” she said. I could tell she was trying to keep her tone gentle. “I’m trying to understand.”

I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I was spent and sore, and even if I had been ready to tell Billie everything, I wasn’t certain that she was ready to hear it. I’d only had to explain all of this once before, to Kona, years ago. And that had been right after we solved the warehouse robbery cases and collared Orestes. She would have been willing to believe pretty much anything at that point.

Other than Kona, I’d never had to tell anyone about all of it-Namid, the craft, the phasings. My father already understood, and my mother would have as well, having lived with my father. There were a few street sorcerers, like Orestes, who knew, but again, they hadn’t needed an explanation. Billie wouldn’t understand much of this at first. She might not even believe me; some people didn’t believe magic was real.

By the same token, she deserved some explanation for what she’d seen in the club. And before long I wanted to tell her everything.

“Fearsson?”

But not tonight.

“Can we walk while I try to explain?”

She hesitated, then nodded. We started down the alley. I tried to sense the sorcerer, but he wasn’t around. Maybe Namid had driven him off before doing whatever he’d done to ease my pain.

“Do you believe in the occult?”

“The occult? You mean witchcraft? Voodoo? Stuff like that?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“I’ve heard people talk about it. I guess you could say that I’m a skeptic.”

“I figured you’d say that.”

She stopped walking. “You’re telling me that was voodoo?” she said, gesturing over her shoulder at the club. “Come on, Fearsson. You can do better than that.”

I stopped as well, and turned to face her. I didn’t have the energy for this. “Not voodoo precisely,” I said. “But that’s kind of what we’re talking about.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”