Magic Edge (21 page)

“No, actually. I’d never work for you.”

“Logan,” Alex said, pointing at the Orbs.

The tendrils linking them to the cages were pulsing faster now. Magic flowed from the four prisoners into the respective Orbs. The Orbs were slurping up their magic.

“What is your game here?” Logan demanded.

“We wait for the Orbs to soak up all the magic they can,” said his mother.

“And then?”

“And then we won’t ever have to fear those beasts again. All of them—mage, vampire, fairy, and otherworldly—will be at our beck and call.”

“The Orbs will allow you to control supernaturals?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you know this will work?”

She smiled. “I have my sources.”

Maybe her source was lying. Gaelyn wasn’t convinced the Orbs held any real power. But considering how quickly they were draining the four supernaturals, Alex wasn’t holding out much hope that they were benign.

The other possibility was that the Convictionites’ source was telling the truth. But who in the supernatural community knew more about magic than the world’s original immortal? And what would possess them to help an organization whose sole purpose was to wipe out magic?

“She’s going to use the Orbs to turn the supernaturals against one another,” Alex told Logan. “Millions will die—and not just supernaturals. Humans will get caught up in this bloodbath.”

“A small price to pay for peace,” said the Evil Queen with cool indifference.

“What about your loyal foot soldiers, those poor brainwashed souls who scream out ‘death to magic!’ as they march in the streets in your hate parades? What would they do if they found out you were using the very magic you’d condemned as evil?”

“They’ll never know,” she told him. “The simple folk cannot be expected to comprehend the compromises their leaders must make for the greater good. They know only black and white. They cannot understand that magic edge we need to defeat the supernaturals, once and for all.”

She was looking at Logan oddly, like he was a bomb waiting to go off. Like he was a weapon. Magic oozed out from the device in her hands, slithering toward him. It smashed against his aura and swirled into it.

“It wasn’t just objects that you enhanced with magic,” Alex said as the shell of Logan’s human aura cracked.

Below, there was magic—lots of magic. It wasn’t the naturally occurring sort that she felt from supernaturals. It was like it had been grafted on. It was a thorough job, reaching deep down to the very fabric of his being.

“You’ve done it with people,” she gasped.

Logan’s face clenched up, fighting the spread of magic. But he couldn’t—not when the magic had come from within.

“What did you do to me?” he growled at his mother.

She pursed her lips and said nothing.

“I wasn’t genetically engineered, was I?”

“No, you were enhanced with magic.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Logan turned to Alex, his brows lifting in question.

“I thought your aura was odd,” she said. “But it’s not an aura, at least not like humans have them. It’s magic. Except it’s a mix of human and the supernatural. I’ve never felt anything like it before. If humans enhanced with magic could exist, I think you’re how they would feel.”

Logan’s jaw tightened, and his hand slid over the knife strapped to his chest.

“We designed you to be the perfect white knight against that black magic,” the Evil Queen said. “But then you had to ruin things, betraying your people by running off to kill for profit.”

Her eyes were trained on Logan. Alex watched the magic unroll, displacing the broken chips of his cracked human facade. As it slid over his feet, consuming all of him, he stumbled forward onto his knees. Alex ran to him.

“Logan?” she asked, reaching for his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

His hand shot up, catching her by the wrist as his head tilted back. He met her gaze, his eyes glowing a radioactive green.

“Stop,” she said, wincing as his grip tightened. The bones in her wrist groaned in protest. “Snap out of it.”

“There’s no point, dear,” the Evil Queen said with a condescending sneer. “That traitor can’t hear you. This is our white knight, the one who will purge the world of magic.”

Logan lifted Alex up over his hand and tossed her across the room. Her shoulder smashed against the fairy’s cage. The magic around it stuttered for a second, then continued to beat on.

“What have you done to him?” she demanded.

“I’m merely setting him straight. I’ve been too lenient for too long. It’s time he set aside his selfish desires and served his family’s interests.”

“Whether he wants to or not?” Alex said.

The Evil Queen expelled a martyred sigh. “A mother’s job is often a thankless one. Some day, he will understand. And then he will thank me.”

“You’re controlling him, stripping him of his free will,” Alex said as a whisper of lime-green dust twinkled between the device and Logan. “With that thing in your hands. If you think he will ever appreciate that, then you don’t know your son at all.”

“But you do?” the Evil Queen sneered. “No, you know nothing. You are nothing. Just a diversion. He would have grown bored of you soon enough. I’ve lined up dozens of ladies—all of them beautiful, refined, and respectable. Every one of them eager to be his wife. Not one of them is the least bit like you.”

“They sound boring,” Alex said, reaching behind her back to slide her hand across the film encasing the fairy’s cage. She found a loose edge and began to unravel the spell.

“You are a pest. Your soul is dark,” the Evil Queen spat. “Our white knight needs a pure lady.”

“You keep saying that. White knight,” Alex repeated, noticing the symbol on her device. “White Knight, the security company. They use magic and technology. Just like you.”

“Yes, it’s one of our subsidiaries,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“You didn’t bypass any security to steal the Orbs. You simply turned it off.”

The Evil Queen smirked at her. “We are everywhere. And we will always be a step ahead of you. Always. You cannot win.”

Alex gave the film around the fairy’s cage a final tug, and it split wide open. The stream of magic that had been draining the fairy whipped back, slamming against the Fairy Orb. The ball fell off the pedestal and hit the floor with a metallic clink, its blue light fizzling out.

“What have you done?!” the Evil Queen roared as the cage clicked open and the fairy fell out.

Alex jumped up and pounded her hands against the ghost’s cage. The silver magic snapped and split, and the Otherworldly Orb shot off its pedestal and straight at her. She ducked, and it continued into the open cage, right into the arms of the ghost. The girl dipped her head to Alex in thanks, then disappeared with the Orb.

Hands grabbed Alex from behind, yanking her away from the cages. She kicked against the floor, but his hold was too strong.

“Logan,” she said.

He continued to pull her across the room, his arms unyielding, his lips silent. The vile magic his mother had wrapped around him stank of corpses and rust, but beneath it all, she could still smell warm spice, amber, leather, and orange. His scent. She could feel his blood burning hot beneath his skin. She could almost taste it too.

“She’s controlling you.” Alex pushed her magic against the vile power holding him; it didn’t even hiccup. “Wielding you like a weapon.”

He didn’t react. The Evil Queen was right. He couldn’t hear her, not through that shroud of sinister magic. His hold tightened around her chest, pushing the air from her lungs. She kicked his legs and clawed at his arms, but he might as well have been made of iron for all the good it did her. Purple and green lights danced across her eyes.

Wake up!
a voice screamed in her ears.

Alex tried to open her eyes, but she saw nothing. She must have blacked out. She tried to move, but she couldn’t feel her body.

What’s going on?
she asked the voice in her head.

Your assassin is suffocating you.

Am I…

Dead? No, I’ve protected you,
the voice told her.
But I can’t keep your body alive for long. You need to break the magic holding Logan.

I tried that already. It’s too strong.

It is strong,
the voice agreed.
But together we are stronger. I’ll help you.

Who are you?

I’m your dragon.

My…dragon? What does that even mean?
she asked it.

I am the dragon part of you. The part that makes you resistant to magic. The part that allows you to sense and break magic. Any magic. We can do this. Trust me. But we need to hurry. Your body won’t hold out much longer, and if it dies, we both die.

There are no dragons anymore.

Yes, there are, and you are one of them. So is your sister.

We’re Dragon Born.

It’s one and the same. You and I are one and the same. The Dragon Born aren’t born like dragons. We are the dragons. We have two forms, two sides, two selves: mage and dragon. I am the dragon and you the mage.

Does the Magic Council know?

Once they did. But now I don’t know.
The voice mentally slapped her, waking her up as she began to black out again.
We can talk about this later. Right now, I need you to do exactly as I say. I’m going to count to three, and then we’ll punch through that magic controlling your assassin.

Alex didn’t argue with the voice. Even if she was crazy—and hearing a voice in your head claiming to be a dragon was as crazy as it got—it wasn’t as though she had any better option. She could feel the cold kiss of death hovering over her. Her body was dying.

One,
the voice said.
Two. Three!

Alex pushed out with every drop of magic she had. She could feel the dragon’s power intertwining with hers. Magic shot out of her, scorching her nerves and burning her nose. But she could see again at least. As her magic hit Logan, he fell back, but it kept going. It popped like a blown fuse, sucking all the magic out of the room. The last two cages flew open, the Sorcery and Blood Orbs toppled off their pedestals, and Alex swayed sideways. She steadied herself and stalked toward the Evil Queen.

“You cannot win,” she spat the Convictionite’s words back at her. “Your soul is dark.”

Alex glared at the device. Smoke began to rise from its smooth form. The Evil Queen held on for a few seconds before her hands let go of it. She patted them against her skirt.

“You dare attack me,” she hissed, raising her hand.

The guards lifted their guns, but when they tried to shoot, nothing happened. The Evil Queen glowered.

“The magic has been sucked out of this room,” Alex told her with a casual shrug.

“No.” She looked down in disbelief at the Blood Orb at her feet. Its crimson sheen had faded out, leaving only dull metal.

“Kill her!” she shouted as Logan walked up behind Alex.

“I am not your puppet,” he ground out.

“You will do as you are told. I made you. Do you know how many of my babies died before we figured out how to get the magic to stick? You are a weapon.” Her hateful gaze flickered to Alex. “My weapon against that magic filth. That is your purpose.”

“My purpose is what I make it,” he said, his eyes promising pain and death. And more pain.

The Evil Queen met his stare for a moment, the contempt seeping off of her almost as potent as his. Then she snatched up the Orb and ducked behind her guards. They tossed down their magic-modified weapons and drew normal guns. They aimed them toward Alex and Logan…

“Get out of my way,” Marek growled as he stepped up beside Alex. “I will deal with them.” He flipped his palms face up and stared down the guards.

“There’s no magic in this room. She said it herself.” One of the guards pointed at Alex. “And the magic guns didn’t work.”

“Oh, look.” Purple flames burst out of his hands. “Magic’s back.”

The guards spun around so hard, some of them collided with one another. They ran for the door.

They didn’t make it. A wall of ice shot out of the floor, cutting off their escape. The wave of fire Marek set loose on them did the rest of the job—and it took less than five seconds. Their screams still echoed in the room after their bodies had dissolved into ash.

Alex ran out of the room and up the stairs, but by the time she made it above deck, the Evil Queen and the Blood Orb were nowhere to be seen. Alex didn’t feel them either. They had simply vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Aftermath

BLUE AND RED drawings covered a small section of the deck. The patterns of circles and swirls were faint—and fading fast. The scents of salt and cinnamon hung in the air, tickling Alex’s nose.

“Teleportation glyphs,” Marek said, walking up beside her. “The ship is empty, by the way.”

“The Evil Queen and her minions teleported away?” she asked.

“It appears so.”

Logan joined them, his steps heavy and tired. “Evil Queen?”

“Um…”

“It’s ok. It’s an apt description of her.” He looked at Marek. “Can we follow her?”

Marek squatted down and brushed his finger across the glyphs. “It’s too late. There’s not enough magic left in them.”

“Glyphs again?” Alex said, thinking back to the incident with the disappearing unicorns. “Have you asked your mother about them?”

“Yes. She says it’s old magic, pretty much forgotten,” said Marek. “But a few of the older magic dynasties have the knowledge to create them. My mother is…well, old.”

“She can make them?”

He nodded.

“Can you make them work again?”

He shook his head, and his ruffled hair, usually perfectly styled, flopped over his face. He brushed it from his eyes and said, “No. She didn’t think I was ready to wield that kind of magic.”

“How many mages could weave a spell like this?” she asked.

“In the whole world?” He thought about that for a moment. “Half a dozen mages at most. Maybe a few fairies too.”

“Could an enchanted artifact create the glyphs?”

“I don’t know.”