Mercenary Magic (7 page)

“How were you going to get past the security measures?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where did the extra magic you had come from?”

“I don’t know.”

Well, aren’t you helpful.
Sera bit back the words. What had happened to Finn wasn’t his fault. She wasn’t the mean dragon; she could remember that.

“Is there anything else you can tell me that could help us stop whoever is doing this?” she asked.

He paled. “You can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t stop this. Whoever is doing this is too powerful.” He looked at his cousin. “Even more powerful than you, Kai.”

The dragon cracked his knuckles. “We’ll see about that.”

“No. It’s too late. Too late for all of us,” Finn spluttered out quickly. “I saw San Francisco burning. Legions of monsters tearing through the city. Dead bodies in the streets. Everywhere. The bay bubbled with hot blood. And above it all, high in the sky, a dark, sinister magic hanging over the city like a storm cloud about to burst. The end. The end is coming. A magical apocalypse will crush the city. We are doomed.”

“Those were the thoughts of the person controlling you?” she asked.

Finn began to rock back and forth. “The end. The end is coming. A magical apocalypse will crush the city. We are doomed.”

“What does the thing you were trying to steal have to do with all of this? Will it bring about this destruction?”

His eyes glazing over, Finn rocked harder. “The end. The end is coming. A magical apocalypse will crush the city. We are doomed.”

“Finn?”

“Don’t bother,” the dragon told her as Finn muttered on. “He’s gotten like this every time we’ve tried to dig too deep. Whoever hijacked his body put safeguards into place.”

“This is why we came here. You wanted me to see him like this. Why?”

“I thought it would motivate you to know the city is in danger. From the look in your eyes, I can see that I was right.”

Sera stood. Crazy, rambling Finn was too much. The tenor of his magic had changed from nervous to full-out nuts. It was giving her a headache.

“You could just have told me,” she said.

“You don’t trust me.”

He had a point.

“It’s better this way,” he said. “It’s better for you to see for yourself what we’re facing. And you won’t try to back out of this assignment, not now that you know the stakes.”

“You manipulated me.” The words scraped against her tongue.

“I’d like to think of it as motivation, not manipulation.”

“You can think whatever you want, but that doesn’t change what it is,” she shot back. “You’ve done nothing but manipulate me and my brother ever since you poked your head into our lives, and you wonder why I don’t trust you. Seriously?”

He stared at her for a few seconds before expelling a martyred sigh. “There are more important things going on here than your bruised ego. You’re being hard-headed.”

Says the hard-headed dragon.

“Let’s worry about saving the city first,” he continued. “After that, if you’re still mad at me, we can fight it out. I’ll even let you throw the first punch. And I won’t tell Simmons either.”

“Deal,” Sera said, grinning.

Oh, he had no idea what he’d just gotten himself into. She’d spent the last twenty years learning how to take down monsters. And when it came down to it, a dragon was nothing more than just another monster.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Replay

A COLD, WET wind bit at Sera’s arms and face. If she’d known she’d be paying a visit to the scene of Finn Drachenburg’s magical meltdown, she’d have packed her leather jacket. Or at least a sweater. A tank top was no defense against the winds of San Francisco.

Beside her, the dragon looked around the parking lot. His t-shirt wasn’t any more wind-resistant than her top, but he walked around like the cold didn’t bother him one bit. Maybe he had a fire roaring inside of him—or dragon scales hidden beneath his skin.

“Why are we here? Finn doesn’t remember what he was trying to steal. What exactly do you expect to find, Mr. Drachenburg?”

He stopped in front of a wall tie-dyed with black scorch marks, then looked back at her. “Kai.”

“Sorry?”

He turned the rest of the way around. “Call me Kai.”

“Simmons wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Forget about Simmons. He’s not here. And he’s not your client. I am,” he said. “I want you to call me Kai.”

“Very well. Kai.”

It didn’t sound as intimidating as Drachenburg. And that was dangerous. Intimidating was good. It reminded her of what he was: a threat hidden beneath a handsome mask.

“Good. Mr. Drachenburg is my father. Or it’s what other people—people who revere me, who are scared of me—call me.”

“I’m too insubordinate to revere people, no matter who they are. And I’m too stupid to be scared of anyone.”

He laughed. “No, you’re not. You only pretend to be.”

“I hunt down misbehaving monsters for a living. That’s not smart; it’s pretty damn dumb.”

“Dumb and desperate are two entirely different things. You took a dangerous job because you needed the money. The fact that you’ve survived all these years proves you’re not just a dumb brute.”

She crossed her arms against her chest. “I am so. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know what Riley told me.”

“And what was that?”

“That your mother died when you were very young. That you, your twin sister, and he lost your dad when you were only sixteen. You were only a child. You could have run off, but you took care of your brother. You got a job hunting monsters. And because of that money you brought home, Riley was able to get a proper education. That speaks droves about you.”

Riley had said too much. He shouldn’t have mentioned that she and Alex were twins. Coupled with his suspicions about her strange magic, it might be enough for Kai to put two and two together.

“I haven’t seen such devotion to family from most of the world’s esteemed magical dynasties, even though they pride themselves on exactly that.”

In his eyes, Sera saw something she’d seen rarely—and certainly never directed at her. Respect. He respected her. It felt…good. It shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have cared what he thought of her. He couldn’t be trusted.

“You used Riley to spy on me,” she said, crunching that reminder into her mind.

“If I was going to hire you, I needed to know what sort of person you are.”

He said it as though he didn’t even realize what he’d done was wrong. And that was the whole problem. That was why she couldn’t trust him. Morality was elastic to him, something that could be wielded as a shield or moved aside when it was too much of an inconvenience.

“I’m a person who doesn’t like to be spied on,” she told him. “Now, let’s get back to why we’re here. What exactly do you expect to find here,
Kai
?”

His lower lip twitched. “I’m not sure. Whoever or whatever was controlling Finn was hitching a ride in his body. They might not have been sharing their intentions, but they must have left clues.”

“Finn said he couldn’t read their mind,” she said, chewing on the thought. “But could they read Finn’s?”

“You mean, was it more than his body they were using?”

She nodded. “You told me that the only people who could bypass your security are select members of your family. If someone is controlling their bodies and reading their minds, that could be their way in.”

“Remember the spell I had put on all of us. Myself included. No one with malicious intent can bypass the security. Based on the apocalyptic slideshow Finn caught, I think it’s safe to say this person has nothing but malicious intentions.”

“Magic is not foolproof. And this wacko is clearly no ordinary individual.”

“True.” Kai pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. His fingers swirled and swiped across the screen. “I’m putting a few more guys on Finn watch. If he starts acting crazy again, we’ll know it.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at her. “My people searched this scene right after you brought Finn in. Besides the damage he shouldn’t have been able to cause, they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. But I still think someone that powerful had to have left traces, even if he was hiding inside of Finn. Magic of that scale is not invisible. I’d like you to take another look at everything with me now. Go through the motions of the fight, and tell me everything you remember.”

“All right.”

Sera turned and walked across the parking lot to the spot where she and Naomi had entered the property. She stopped at the gate, then jogged around the cluster of buildings to stand in front of the fence that separated the facility grounds from Battery Spencer.

“When we arrived, Finn had a group of guards caught up in a spinning whirlwind over his head. Over there.” She pointed to the building with a large black eight painted on the wall, and Kai moved to stand there. “We tried to circle around him.” She sidestepped a few paces. “But he’d tossed the guards aside and summoned a field of cyclones to hold us off.”

Kai lifted his hands, and a dozen cyclones sprouted out of thin air. They twirled completely in sync—moving in that same slow, lazy spin. But unlike Finn and his frenzied cyclones, Kai had his completely under control.

“Is everyone in your family an elemental mage?” she asked.

“Yes. Most of us have additional talents too. Finn is also a summoner, but his summoning isn’t any stronger than his casting.”

“And what additional talents do you have?”

Magic shone through his eyes, lighting them up. He grinned at her. “Many.”

Ok, she’d stepped right into that one. Back to business…

“Finn was making his way toward Building Six,” she said.

The cyclones moved with Kai as he walked to Building Six.

“Naomi tossed a few bursts of Dust at him, but the cyclones ate it all up. He started blasting us with wind, trying to hurl us at the fence.” She raised her hand quickly. “Don’t do that.”

“We want to recreate the scene as closely as possible.” He looked completely serious. He was ready to blast her across the parking lot. What a psychopath.

“Recreate that part in your head.”

“Fine.” He dropped his hands. “Keep going.”

“Then he threw a fireball at us—don’t do that either!”

A sigh brushed past his amused lips as he lowered his half-raised hands.

“He went into a summoning pose and merged all the cyclones into a single spinning wall. But don’t you—”

“I told you I had many talents. Summoning is not one of them. So relax.”

He drew the tornados in toward him. They blended seamlessly into a wind barrier, twirling in a kaleidoscope of colors. Its spin was silky smooth, its hum whisper soft. A subtle sweetness hung in the air, tickling her tongue. Yum.

Kai had the most beautiful, effortless magic she had ever seen. Magic wasn’t something he forced out of himself; it was an extension of his body. It was so breathtaking that she couldn’t help but stare.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Make it look so easy.”

The wind barrier went nearly transparent. “Practice.”

“I’ve faced a lot of mages. None of them could do what you can. Your cousin was powered by some force that shot his magic up several classes, and even he wasn’t this powerful.”

Kai turned the barrier light blue. A rim of purple flames sprouted out of the top. It was so beautiful, it was scary. While other mages were sweating trying to make their fire as hot as possible, he was changing its color and forming it into pretty patterns.

“What happened next, Sera?”

“I gave Naomi a boost over the barrier. She landed beside Finn and hit him with some Dust, but for some reason he didn’t go down.”

“So he gained power and resistance. Go on.”

“I couldn’t let him finish summoning the dragon. It was gigantic and people would get hurt. I saw a gap in his barrier, so I made a run for it and slipped through.”

“Show me.”

Crap.
“There’s no gap in your barrier.”

A gap formed in the barrier. It was a crooked circle, perfect in its imitation of chaos. Nature couldn’t have designed a better breach if it had tried.

“How about we skip this part, ok?” She walked toward him. “It was a desperate move, and I got lucky. There’s no need to tempt fate.”

The flames dissolved into steam, and the wind barrier slid down Kai’s body like a silk sheet. He stepped over its fast-fading remains, stopping right in front of her.

“And then?” he asked.

He towered over her, a living wall of muscle and magic. It took every scrap of willpower she had to hold her ground before the dragon. He was looking down at her, his eyes etched with suspicion. One thing was for sure: he wasn’t buying her story.

“And then I punched him really hard in the head,” she told him.

“Anything else?”

Yes, my body can dissolve other magic on contact. I’m essentially a battering ram against magic.
“No, that’s it.”

Kai turned in place, his eyes scanning the scene. “Something feels wrong here.”

The magic-dissolving battering ram standing next to you.

“I can’t say exactly what it is. A weird feeling, I guess.” He looked at her. “Do you feel it too?”

“There’s nothing—” Wait, a minute. Something did smell bad, like slowly rotting magic. Weird.

“You feel it too?”

Sera looked down at the ground. It was humming. The sound was so faint that she hadn’t noticed it before.

“Sera?”

A subtle flicker twinkled off the asphalt. She crouched down for a closer look, peeling back layer after layer of magic. It was there. Somewhere.

Suddenly, something shattered, and blue and red drawings faded in. Patterns of swirls and circles and lines covered the ground between Buildings Four and Five.

“They were magically cloaked,” Kai said from behind her.

Sera rose, her eyes tracing the peculiar patterns. She’d never seen anything like them before.

“How did you do that?” He set his hand down on her shoulder, then drew it away, shaking it out as though he’d just been burned. “How did you dissolve that cloak? How did you know exactly where the glyphs were? I couldn’t even pinpoint them.”