Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

“Enough.” He reached out and pulled my hand from the water. The image vanished, the chain between me and the magic broken. “Give me my pen.”

I handed it to him without comment, and he stood up. He was shaken, broadcasting fear like a human or a young wizard who hadn’t learned to put up mental shields. After a few seconds I felt them slam into place, but too late. My little demonstration had surprised him. In theory, Adrian knew I could do hydromancy, but he hadn’t realized I could use it on him.

“You realize that is regulated magic.” His smooth exterior slipped back into place.

“Of course.” Anything the Elders couldn’t do themselves tended to go on the “black” list of illegal or regulated magic. I poured the water onto the incense cones to douse them, then returned the bowl and bottle of water to my pack. “Okay, your first show-and-tell is over.” I stood up and motioned toward the door. “After you.”

We walked back into the sunlight, blinding after the darkness of the store. Squinting, I took a lungful of clean air. “Want to return to the bench?”

He shouldered past me and returned to our former perch, where he’d left his briefcase. I slung my pack over my shoulder and followed.

Once we were seated, he crossed his arms and met my eyes for the first time today. “What else can you do?”

Guess we’d finished hydromancy class. “Well, Gerry and I were able to communicate through dreams.” A truly awful thing I didn’t want to try again. “Never happened with anyone else.”

Adrian nodded, looking thoughtful. “My understanding is dreamsharing only works between people who have a blood bond. The skill’s probably dormant now that Gerry’s dead.”

Anger leapt up, hot and sharp, followed by a blur of tears. I glanced away so he wouldn’t see them. I’d accepted Gerry’s death, mostly. But grief has a way of slapping you silly when you least expect it. Sitting here, surrounded by so many reminders of what had happened during Katrina as if three years hadn’t passed, and listening to this jackass talk about Gerry’s death so callously . . . it hurt.

“What else?” asked Mr. Oblivious.

I choked on a lump of grief. “The empathy and energy recognition.”

He laughed, a sly, silky flex of vocal cords and throat muscles. “Ah yes, the famous ability to read auras and emotions.”

Yeah, the famous empathy and energy recognition he’d ignored, which cost some lives and got him publicly chastised by Zrakovi. “Despite your disregard for them, my empathic skills are valuable,” I said, my tone flat.

“They could be,” he said. “But they’re a tool, and like any tool they have to be taken in context.”

I swiveled on the bench to face him. “Well, it told me how my hydromancy display—a minor example of that skill, by the way—made you uncomfortable.”

He nodded. “But how do you know I wasn’t thinking of something else that made me uncomfortable?”

He was right. I didn’t know. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But knowing what emotions are driving an adversary’s actions can be a powerful weapon, regardless of their source.”

His brown eyes narrowed. “And am I your adversary, Drusilla Jaco?”

I gave his question serious consideration. I was angry at Adrian Hoffman and we’d never be friends—maybe not even friendly acquaintances—but we were fellow wizards. “No, you’re not my adversary. We differ in our methods, we certainly have different temperaments, but in the end we’re on the same side and that’s what matters.”

His face relaxed, and the man actually smiled. “So, shall we agree we’ll never be chums, get through this exercise as pleasantly as we can, and then go on our way?”

“Great idea.” I had enough to deal with between the Axeman and the loup-garou crisis without adding political warfare. “So, that leaves the staff.”

I pulled the ancient weapon out of my backpack, its carved sigils glowing under my touch, and enjoyed Adrian’s naked admiration. He’d never seen the staff, and if he’d spent his academic years studying elven magic, he’d probably be itching for a closer examination.

I held it out to him. “This is the staff known by the elves as Mahout.” I’d leave off the Charlie nickname.

His face was reverent, eyes shining like a sugar addict in a praline factory. He better be careful, or I might decide to like him.

“This is amazing.” His voice held reverence but his heart held jealousy—which I was able to tell with my useless empathic ability. “How did the claiming happen? You found it among Gerald’s belongings, yes?” He ran a finger over the sigils, which had stopped glowing as soon as he touched them.

“I found the staff in Gerry’s attic after Katrina. I knew from his journals he’d never gotten it to work for him, but it began glowing the instant I picked it up. It began following me from room to room, although it’s never come right to my hand except once when I summoned it using wizard’s magic. It really amplifies my physical magic.”

The staff did other things too. It ramped up my hydromancy and just about any other kind of spell or ritual I’d tried, but I didn’t volunteer that. I didn’t like the way Adrian caressed it, almost possessively. He might as well be Smeagol cooing over the One Ring and muttering “preciousssss.”

I held out my hand. “I’ll give you an example.”

He laid the staff across my palm but didn’t let go until I finally pulled it away. My aim was notorious, in a bad way, so I searched for a broad target. The side of the Jean Lafitte Pirate Ship ride looked un-missable. I took a deep breath, pointed the staff at the skull and crossbones painted on the ship’s hull (which Jean would never have permitted lest he be seen as a real pirate instead of a “privateer”), and channeled a bit of magic through it.

“Holy Mother of God!” Adrian jumped to his feet as a stream of red fire flew from the tip of the staff and burned a hole in the side of the ship about six feet to the left of where I’d been aiming. He’d never know the difference.

An acrid, smoky odor wafted our way as flames began to lick along the hull of the rotted vessel.

“I suggest you put that conflagration out.” Adrian crossed his arms. I’d really shaken him this time.

“Um, well, I haven’t gotten to the ‘undo’ lesson yet.” I’d been working on a flame-retardant charm but hadn’t perfected it enough for it to work on something as large as the pirate ship. The vial was in my pocket, but the ship would burn down to water and then the fire would be automatically doused. No point in wasting good magic.

Adrian snorted and ran toward the edge of the small boat landing, chanting and twisting his fingers in front of him like he was speaking to the fire in sign language. The flames flickered, then died, leaving a charred, gaping hole.

Adrian fisted his hands on his hips and stared at the ship a few moments before turning back to me with an assessing look.

I gave him one right back. “You’re Blue Congress?” I’d never seen magic like his. It differed from Gerry’s brute-force Red Congress magic and my own methodical rituals. Blues were artistic, creative—a congress I’d never have pegged for Adrian. His magic was poetic, almost delicate. “That was beautiful.”

He looked back at the ship. “Normally, that spell would restore a magicked situation to its previous state, but it apparently doesn’t quite work with elven sorcery. Let’s try something else. Just don’t burn anything down.”

I followed him down the midway, dodging the patches of weeds that had sprung through cracks in the concrete. He came to a stop near a giant clown’s head lying on its ear, red mouth gaping in a curve like a parenthesis, blue eyes goggling at us. Mr. Happy was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and made me shudder. I freakin’ hated clowns. They weren’t as bad as zombies or elves, but close.