Magic Without Mercy (3 page)

“Not happening.” Zay gave Shame a harder shove and closed the door so that only he could see into the room. “Are you all right?” he asked me.

“Peachy. I don’t think Roman expected to show up in a bathroom. It’s hard to predict where Gates will open, right?”

Zay paused. “For normal people. Roman can open a Gate on the head of a pin. I’ll talk to him.” He gave me a not-entirely-tolerant look and then shut the door behind him.

Fantastic. So Roman had intended to show up in the bathroom, alone, with me. Or maybe he just wanted to show up in the bathroom. I wondered how he even knew there would be a room here. He’d been in jail for years before Shame had wheedled his way into home ownership.

More questions that needed answers. And how Roman knew we’d be here, now, was just the beginning. We needed to know everything he had found out about Leander and Isabelle too.

I dressed, then rubbed the towel through my hair so my shoulders wouldn’t get wet. Took me all of a few seconds. Then I walked out into the living room.

Roman had been given the guest interloper seat of honor—a chair in the middle of the room with everyone else standing in a circle around him. No one was casting magic, but everyone had a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other. Well, everyone except Roman.

“Sounds like good news to me,” Hayden said, his shotgun resting casually across his shoulder. “The farther away Leander and Isabelle run, the better. Now tell me how you knew we’d be here, and who sent you to find us.”

Roman looked up at the big man. “I came here of my own accord. My days of serving anyone’s agenda are long gone.”

“You do know you’re a criminal?” Hayden asked. “And I have every right to take you down and take you in.”

Okay, so these two were not friends.

“We’re all criminals,” Zayvion said. “We’ve broken our vows with the Authority. We’ve gone against their direct orders.”

“I haven’t.” Hayden gave Zayvion a hard look. “And neither has Terric.”

Terric had taken his place beside Shame behind Roman’s back.

“Is there some reason we need to go over this again?” Terric asked. “If you want out of this, Hayden,” he said calmly, “then you should leave now. I’m in this to the end.”

Hayden scowled. “I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, flat, hard, in the voice that always stops the Hounds from bickering. Everyone looked over at me. Good.

“Roman,” I said, “we’ve broken with the Authority and no longer follow their rule or orders. You should know that before you say anything else.”

“And who’s running the Authority now?” he asked.

“We’re not sure,” I said. “Maybe Jingo Jingo. I killed Bartholomew Wray.”

Roman’s eyebrows shot up, and then he looked me up from foot to face. His expression when his gaze finally met my eyes was one of deep respect and maybe just a little fear.

Good. Respect and fear went a long way when doing business.

“Why?” he asked.

“The Veiled are on the streets possessing people and killing them. Hundreds are falling ill from the tainted magic they’re carrying. Hundreds are dying. He knew it. He wouldn’t stop it. So I stopped him.”

My voice was even, but I broke out in a sweat saying those words. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the reality of what I’d done.

“I see.” He looked at each of the magic users in turn. Then nodded. “I have only one goal—to see that Leander and Isabelle die. I have no grudge with any of you, and do not care who controls the Authority. I broke with it long ago.”

“See, we’d just love to take you on your word, mate,” Shame said, “but I say we should Truth on it.” He pulled a switchblade out of his belt and grinned as he strolled around in front of Roman. “Worth a little blood to you?”

“It is.” Roman held out his left hand, palm up.

“Shame,” Maeve said.

“Not to worry, Mum.” Shame flicked the blade free. “Sweet and easy.”

He sliced the side of Roman’s hand, then pricked his own finger. With the blood caught and mingled on the blade, he drew the glyph for Truth in the air between them. The room filled with the overpowering smell of sweet, sweet cherries. Blood magic.

“Who are you working for?” Shame asked.

“No one but myself.”

“Why did you come here?”

“To tell you that Leander and Isabelle have left Portland and I don’t know why. To see if you have information I can use to track them.”

“How did you know we’d be here?” Shame asked.

“Allison has a piece of death in her palm. Given to her in death by Mikhail. It’s easy enough to find if you’re looking for it.”

I glanced down at my left hand. The dark circle in the center of my palm was still there, and still cold, though it wasn’t hurting anymore like it had in the shower the moment before the Gate had opened. It hadn’t been much
trouble lately, so I’d taken to ignoring it. Pike had said it was something the dead could see like a beacon. Maybe it was something ex–Guardians of the gates could see like a beacon too.

I’d traded away the small flicker of magic that I’d always carried inside me for that black blessing from Mikhail. It was the only way I could get myself and Zayvion back from death. Dad had helped me use the mark to cast magic against the Veiled, but that was about all the good it’d done me.

I lifted my hand in case anyone in the room didn’t have the complete scorecard on all the weird things that had happened to me in the last year.

“Are you here to betray us?” Shame asked.

“No.”

“Is that accent of yours fake?” Shame asked.

“No. Is yours?”

“I don’t have an accent,” Shame said.

“Shamus,” Maeve sighed. “Blood magic isn’t a toy.”

Shame grinned. “Everything’s a toy,” he said, “if you mess with it enough. Anyone else have any questions for our man Roman here?”

“I think it’s enough,” I said.

But Zayvion spoke up. “What are you going to do to Leander and Isabelle if you find them?”

“Kill them. Send them through a gate to death. Remove them from this living world. Anything I have to do to stop them.”

Zayvion nodded.

Shame broke the Truth spell and the scent of sweet cherries was so thick it made my eyes sting.

I pinched at the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the headache hovering behind my skull. Magic and me were not a good mix lately.

Maeve broke whatever spell she’d kept poised on the
tips of her fingers. I think it was Hold. “Well, then,” she said. “Roman, we were just going to have something to eat. Would you care to join us?”

The other magic users dropped their spells. It was like watching stained-glass windows shatter into liquid drops of color that turned to mist and were gone.

Magic, sometimes, can be a very beautiful thing.

Roman gazed at Maeve and gave her a smile. I’d never seen him smile and suddenly wished I’d known him in better times. Man was handsome, but that smile carved a decade off his looks and brought to him a humanity that imprisonment and a hard life running hard magic had not afforded.

I noted his smile was not lost on Maeve.

Or Hayden.

Ah, suddenly the tension between Hayden and Roman made some sense.

“Thank you, Maeve,” Roman said as he stood. “I would.”

T
hat settled, we all got busy divvying up the food Hayden had cooked: potato hash, scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast.

None of us sat. We stood around the kitchen island so we could reload our plates more easily. Well, that, and from the feeling of restlessness in the air, we were all a little twitchy, wanting to get moving before we were found out, tracked down, or forced to run.

“How do you know Leander and Isabelle aren’t in Portland?” Zayvion asked after he demolished half a plate of potatoes.

“I saw them open a Gate and step through,” Roman said.

“Were they solid?” I asked. Last time I’d seen Leander and Isabelle, they were ghostly, no more solid than the Veiled. They’d been looking for a body to possess, but needed one that was caught between life and death in some manner. There’s just not enough room in a body for more than one soul for very long, so Leander and Isabelle needed a person who was only part of a soul, or partly dead, if they wanted to be physical.

And yes, it made me wonder how Dad and I both managed to survive in my body. He’d asked me about it briefly when we were in Death, but I hadn’t had much time to contemplate the logistics of it. Zay once said it
had something to do with us being blood related. I didn’t know if that was true or not.

“They were not solid,” Roman said. “They possessed two young people for a few hours.” He frowned at his plate, pushing at the eggs with his fork. “Neither of them survived. They were discarded like candy wrappers after Leander and Isabelle opened the Gate. I didn’t see where the gate opened onto.”

“Horizon?” Zayvion asked.

“Trees. Out of doors,” Roman said. “But that was all. No building, no landmark, no body of water.”

“Time zone?”

“It was night when they opened the Gate. Before midnight.” He frowned, sifting through his memories. He nodded slowly. “I saw daylight. I’m sure it was daylight on the other side. Early morning.”

“So the other side of the world,” Zayvion said. “Maybe England? Russia?”

“Nowhere in the Western hemisphere.” He straightened, and ran his finger and thumb down from the corners of his mouth. “Half a world to hunt.”

“What kind of Gate were they using?” Victor asked.

Roman shook his head. “Ezekiel’s Hands.”

Terric whistled in appreciation. “I’ve read about it,” he said. “Never seen it. Zay?”

“No. I attempted it. Once.”

Shame laughed. “I remember that. You couldn’t pronounce your name for a week.”

“Why is that Gate so difficult?” I asked.

“It’s old,” Victor said. “Ancient. And it’s based on both light and dark magic being used together in large quantities. The price to pay for it is… extreme.”

Which meant those young people they had been possessing and discarded like candy wrappers had paid the price to open that Gate.

“Why did they choose that Gate?” I asked.

“Distance,” Roman said. “And precision. The man who can open Ezekiel’s Hands has the world at his beck and call.”

“Can you cast it?” I asked.

Everyone else in the kitchen got a little quieter, pausing with their forks, waiting.

“I’ve done it,” he said. “Years ago. When I was younger. And stronger.” He took a drink of his coffee. “But today? Today it would be my death.”

“So what do you use?” Zayvion asked. “For distance and precision?”

“Trigemina,” he said.

Zayvion’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled. “I never got the hang of that one. Three spells at once?”

“You have to hold them at once,” Roman said, “but you don’t have to cast them simultaneously.”

Zay leaned forward. “Really? Is there a preferred order?”

Like a kid in a candy shop. Zayvion had just found someone he could learn from, a man who had held the same position in the Authority as Zayvion. A man who had stood as the guardian between this world and any other place the gates could open upon.

“I find it easiest to begin with the most inward spell,” Roman said. “That sets your focus, grounds your will, holds magic to your direction. If you can hold it in your mind’s eye, then the companion spells flow easily from hand and voice. If not”—he gave Zay a quick smile—“well, there’s always a plane ticket.”

Zay actually laughed. “I suppose there is.”

It was great to see them talking shop and all that, but we still had an issue at hand. Several issues.

“Are you going to hunt Leander and Isabelle?” I asked.

“I am,” Roman said, the smile gone now. “But it may take me time to find them.”

“They’ll make themselves known,” Zayvion said. “Trip some trigger, open another Gate. You’ll know.”

“With a Gate shift at that distance, they’ll have to rest,” Roman said. “It could be a while before they do anything.”

“Then maybe you could help us,” I said.

He looked at me. Correction, everyone looked at me. “We are limited on manpower,” I said. “And there’s every chance we won’t succeed in what we’re doing. If we fail—”

“As if,” Shame said.

“If,” I continued, “we fail, the information we have needs to fall into the hands of someone who can do something to stop this plague.”

“What plague?” Roman shifted his gaze between me, Victor, and Maeve.

“Bartholomew Wray had Maeve and me Closed,” Victor said. “My memory’s spotty on some of the recent events.”

“As is mine, I’m afraid,” Maeve said. “Allie, would you tell him what you know?”

“We think magic has been poisoned,” I said. “We know the cisterns are tainted, and that the tainted magic is mutating the Veiled, who are in turn spreading the tainted magic by biting and possibly possessing people, which is causing people to become sick.”

“Magic can’t be poisoned,” he said. Even though it was a statement, his eyes questioned each of us.

“So we’ve always assumed,” Zayvion agreed.

“Roman,” I said. “You were there when we fought Leander and Isabelle at the Life well. Shame was possessed by Mikhail, and Sedra was possessed by Leander and Isabelle. Do you remember seeing Leander and
Isabelle using a spell, or something else that could have poisoned the magic in the well?”

He shook his head. “They were using a lot of magic. Old spells. Mixed disciplines. Did things with magic that only Soul Complements can do. I can’t be sure of every spell they cast.”

“We have to be sure,” I said. “We have to find out if all magic has been tainted, or if it’s only the magic filtered through the cisterns. We have to find out how magic has been poisoned if we’re going to stop it. If we fail, we will need someone, someone we trust in a position of power, to know what’s going on here. I want someone to have a fighting chance against this if the poison spreads outside Portland and infects the rest of the world.”

That was the big problem we weren’t addressing. That was the long-range worst-case scenario. All magic in the world was connected in some manner. Something that had gone this bad this quickly had every indication of picking up speed as it spread. People dying from tainted magic could become the first magical pandemic we’d have to face.