Magic at the Gate Read online

  “Very much so. That doesn’t mean I’m not without resources in life.”

  Which meant part of him, some of him somewhere, was alive. Great. I did not trust my dad. I never had. For good reason. And that very calm, trustworthy face he was wearing made me twitchy.

  “Where are you alive? Why?” I asked. “Who’s helping you?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. “If I tell you those things, you will be at risk.”

  “I’m already at risk. I’ve been at risk from the moment I was accused of your murder. Probably before then. And now I’m in death. How can I be at more at risk than that?”

  “If you walk away from this, out of death and into life again with information you should not have, you will end up back here. Permanently. My plans are not your concern.”

  “Yes, they are. What is your angle in all this, Dad? I’ve lost track of whose side you’re on.”

  “I am on magic’s side. To see that it falls into the right hands. Magic was once whole—light and dark used equally through the disciplines of Life, Death, Faith, and Blood. But when Leander and Isabelle became Soul Complements, everything changed. Magic was too dangerous to be used in its full form, and magic was broken.

  “Guardians of the gates, such as Zayvion, are trained to endure the strain of wielding light and dark magic for short periods of time. No one else. But separating light magic from dark magic hasn’t made anything better. I’ve been trying to tell the Authority that for years. The separation has caused a rot in our world, and has given the Veiled and other creatures cause to seek out the living in search of the light magic they hunger for.”

  That was more than I’d gotten out of him in months, maybe years. Death made him talkative. Good. I planned to use that to my advantage. “So why are you getting involved? You’re dead. Why worry about the living?”

  He gave me a look that could melt rock. “My motives are not yours to question.”

  “I’ll question your motives until the day I die. Again. For reals.”

  “This is real,” he said quietly. “Very real. If you are to survive, you need to put your stubbornness aside and listen to me.”

  “Oh, I just love that idea.”

  “Love it or not, your options are limited. Living flesh does not travel well in the world of death. I believe if you stay in contact with the Animate, it will filter the . . . irritants of death long enough for you to accomplish your task.”

  He made it sound like he was teaching me the ABC’s and knew there was no way I’d ever make it to Q.

  He stopped, glanced back down the street the way we’d come. “Faster would be better.” He grabbed my arm and propelled me down an alley. I shook free, my other hand still on Stone’s head, and looked over my shoulder.

  Watercolor people, about a dozen or so, mostly men, wearing clothing in the style of the recent century. The Veiled were the ghosts of powerful magic users—or at least pieces of powerful magic users—impressed on the flow of magic. Zay had once told me to think of them as a recording of a life caught on the film of magic.

  I think he was wrong. These did not look like the nice kind of Veiled. Unlike the other Veiled I had seen in life, these ghostly beings barely resembled people. Twisted bodies, sagging faces—they looked like movie zombies more than ghosts. They also looked solid.

  And hungry.

  Stone growled.

  The Veiled heard him and turned our way, sniffing, scenting, crooked hands tracing half-formed glyphs, as if they could use magic to find us.

  “Veiled?” I asked, just in case the mutated watercolor people were something else.

  “Quiet,” Dad said.

  Stone’s ears flattened. He stopped making noise, but his lips were pulled back to expose a row of sharp teeth and fangs.

  Dad traced a glyph in the air and magic followed in a solid gold line at his fingertips. I wasn’t using Sight, yet magic was clearly visible. That wasn’t how it worked in life. Magic was too fast to be visible. Here, it was slow and fluid and gorgeous.

  I hadn’t seen him set a Disbursement, nor a Proxy. He was bearing the price of pain for using this magic.

  He finished the glyph. Camouflage glittered in the air like a filigreed screen. He whispered a word and the glyph stretched and widened, creating a swirling shell around us. I swallowed, but couldn’t taste the butterscotch scent of the spell. That was different than in life too. Magic didn’t smell or taste here.

  Or maybe I just wasn’t dead enough to sense it.

  The Veiled were almost at the mouth of the alley.

  “This way,” Dad whispered. He rolled his fingers, catching up the lines of the Camouflage glyph and balancing it on his open palm. He pushed his palm outward like a waiter carrying a tray, and the spell moved with us, keeping us hidden.

  Impressive.

  Dad’s mouth set in a hard line and his eyes narrowed. Clearly, casting magic in death and maintaining the spell cost pain. Well, at least something about magic was the same. Dad stormed down the alleyway—not once looking back—strong, confident.

  And for a second, just a second, I saw my dad as a heroic figure. The epitome of what a magic user should be. The mythic wizard who knew the hidden strengths of magic, in life or death, and the power of his own soul. Even in death, my dad stood tall and kicked ass.

  “Walk or be eaten,” he said.

  Okay, so much for the hero bit.

  I picked up the pace and Stone padded along beside me. I didn’t have a clue where we were going, but Dad seemed to know the place a lot better than I did.

  The Veiled stepped into the alley behind us and shuffled over to where we’d been standing. They didn’t follow any farther. Four dropped to their knees, patting the sidewalk as if they’d just lost something, while the other eight ran hands along the brick walls, mouths open. They leaned against the building and sucked at the walls, as if they were starving for even the slightest drop of magic they might contain. The dead were hungry for light magic. I didn’t see how this could turn out well.

  It creeped me out. I walked faster, holding tight to Stone’s ear.

  “I did not want to enter this way,” Dad said, “but bringing you along has changed my approach. Why must you challenge me in every way, Allison?”

  “I’d be happy to help,” I said as pleasantly as I could muster, “if you’d tell me where Zayvion’s soul is so I can take him, and me, the hell out of here.”

  He stopped. We were at the far end of the alley. A crowd of mutant Veiled blocked our passage—I gave up counting at twenty. A mix of men and women, they stared at us as if they could see right through the Camouflage my dad still held.

  That wasn’t good.

  I put my hand on the hilt of Zayvion’s katana, sheathed on my back.

  “Don’t draw the blade.”

  There wasn’t a lot of room in the alley. I was behind Dad. I didn’t know how he’d seen me reach for the sword.

  “I’m not going to wait until they jump us.”

  And just like that, the Veiled rushed.

  “Do you trust me?” Dad asked without looking back.

  “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  My dad broke the Camouflage spell, and I mean it shattered like glass exploding, gold ribbons and sharp edges falling through me, but not hurting, not drawing blood, then spreading out across the broken concrete at our feet to be sucked down into the cracks as if the magic had never been there.

  The Veiled were almost on us. They were fast, fast, fast.

  Dad spun, his back to the Veiled. He stuck his hands into my chest.

  Wrist deep. Into. My. Chest.

  It hurt. I inhaled. Exhaled. Yelled. Couldn’t move to draw the sword, draw a spell, draw a breath.

  Stone launched at him out from under my hand. Then I couldn’t breathe even more.

  Dad was fast. He yanked his hands free, pulling magic, pink and silver and black, out of my chest and pointing at Stone, who halted in his tracks and stepped o
n my foot with his back paw, so I had at least some contact. Dad carved a glyph out of the magic, my magic—a metallic sparking fireball—and threw it at the Veiled.

  The explosion lit the street and slapped hard shadows across the alley.

  The Veiled screamed. An unholy sound that echoed out and out and seemed to reflect off of the sky as if it were a low ceiling. It was too big of a sound, too much of a sound, in too small of a place.

  Their scream vibrated somewhere deep inside of me where I couldn’t get away from it, making their pain a part of me, as my magic was now a part of them.

  No, no, no.

  I reached for Stone, for my dad, for anyone, anything to hold on to to make this stop. Then Dad was in front of me, his hand over the old bullet scar just below my collarbone.

  “Breathe, Allison, breathe.”

  I gasped. Got some air down. Tasted something sweet against my tongue, and the cool, rough bricks of the building against my back.

  “What. The. Hell,” I said.

  “Light and dark magic, through Death magic,” he said evenly, not moving away from me. “Death magic always takes a transference of energy. I took from the Life magic within you, and now I give you back the magic of death.”

  So that was the bluish glow coming from his hand.

  “Wait. What? You are not putting dead magic in me.” I pushed at his hands, but it didn’t do much good. I was very, very tired and he didn’t seem to have any problem keeping me pinned against the wall.

  Why was I so tired?

  Could it be because I was in death? And my father had just ripped magic out of my chest? And right before that, back in life, I’d Grounded a wild-magic storm and fought a bunch of crazy magic users, all the while killing nightmarish creatures while trying to save my friends’ lives?

  Yes. That was probably it. I’d had a hell of a day and the adrenaline of the battlefield was wearing off, leaving behind the very real horror of what had happened.

  Zayvion was in a coma. Shame had almost died on the battlefield, trying to save his mother, Maeve. For all I knew, the crystal I gave to Terric to try to keep Shame from bleeding out had been only a temporary reprieve.

  Jingo Jingo, who had been a trusted member of the Authority and a teacher of Death magic, had betrayed everyone, nearly killing Shame’s mother. Jingo Jingo had kidnapped Sedra, the head of the Authority, and used my dad’s disks to disappear with her.

  Magic users had turned against magic users in a battle that had left several dead. The Authority wasn’t cracking; it had broken. Sides had been taken. The war was on.

  Whoever came out on top would rule how magic was used by the common citizen, and by the Authority. Whoever came out on top would control all the magic that the public knew about, and worse, all the ways magic could be used that they didn’t know about.

  The winners would have say over what technology was allowed to be developed to use with magic, how doctors could use magic, how politicians could use magic, how corporations could use magic. They would decide what every person could learn about magic. And they could kill anyone who stood in their way. There was a lot of power at stake here. Plenty enough to kill for.

  And I was here, dead. With no one but my gargoyle and my Dad to help me find a soul for my lover, and the way home for me. Where were my ruby slippers when I needed them?

  I had to find Zayvion soon. Yes, because I loved him. But also so we would have a fighting chance to stop the war. There was a city full of people who didn’t deserve to die because a few secret magic users had suddenly become power hungry. I might not agree with everything the Authority did, but at least their tenet required that they keep magic safe and people unharmed from using it. That was worth fighting for.

  “I’m not putting dead magic inside you.” Dad’s voice was gentle. He shifted so he wasn’t pressing so hard on my collarbone. “I’m giving back the magic I used in a slightly different form. They won’t be able to see you here now—or at least you won’t stand out like a burning torch. It’s the best protection I can give you.”

  “Don’t,” I said. But he ignored me like he always ignored me, and didn’t move his hand. I was feeling better, stronger. Like I’d just taken a long crawl through the desert and he was tipping a cup of cool water to my lips.

  That sort of kindness did not make sense coming from him. I couldn’t look in his eyes, didn’t want to see the concern there. He was a confusing man. I liked it better when I could just hate him and not have to think he was capable of compassion. So I gazed past him, toward the end of the alley.

  The watercolor people walked past the mouth of the alley, smiling, and paying no attention to us.

  Weird. They looked like normal men and women. No longer twisted and zombielike, they moved down the street as if they were out shopping, going to work, enjoying the first day of spring after a hard winter.

  They looked like they had been healed.

  “What did you do?” I whispered. “What did you do to them?”

  Dad took a deep breath and finally pulled away. His hand, when he straightened his jacket, trembled a little.

  Stone, who had been grumbling like a bag of rocks in a washing machine, stepped up to me and leaned against my leg. That was nice. Since my dad wasn’t touching me, I needed Stone to breathe.

  “I took an educated risk with magic and saved your life. Again.”

  Oh, he had not just used that tone of voice. I glared. “You took my magic and used it without my consent.”

  “Your magic?” He shook his head. “I thought you’d be pleased. The magic you carry healed them, restored them to a balance of light magic and dark magic together. It is how magic is meant to be. One. Whole. Not separated into two forms.”

  “You will never again take my magic. For anything or anyone,” I said. “Understand?”

  I pushed off the wall and strode past him to the edge of the alley. Stone paced me, a solid, breathable buddy. Not for a minute would I believe my dad was doing me favors. There was a reason he had agreed to let me step into death with him. There was a reason he hadn’t let me get eaten by the Veiled. He wanted immortality. And I was pretty sure he wanted to be the one who came out on top of this war, with magic ending up in his hands and him having final say over how it was used.

  Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to let him use me in the process.

  Except I had a problem. I had no idea how to find Zayvion. Just because we were Soul Complements didn’t mean I could find him in death. Right now, even the idea of touching the magic inside of me that Dad had messed with made me want to throw up. So Hounding was out.

  My dad told me he knew where to find Zay. Which meant I had to cooperate with him.

  I stepped up to the mouth of the alley. Watercolor people walked by, stopped to talk to one another, though I could not hear their words. They didn’t seem to notice I was there. At all.

  I waved my hand. Nothing. Not even a glance. I was a ghost to them just as they had been ghosts to me in life.

  Dad stopped next to me. “You have always underestimated your natural ability,” he said, with a tone I could not place. “Do you see what we have accomplished together? The healing of souls with the magic you carry. We have healed souls in death. With light and dark magic.”

  “We? No, you stuck your hands in my chest and stole my magic and threw it at them. If you try that again, you won’t have hands. Where’s Zayvion?”

  Okay, maybe I was a little rusty on the whole cooperation thing.

  “Where did I go wrong with you?”

  “You never listened to me, to what I needed from a . . . from a father. You never once had time for me. Not even when Mom left and I thought my whole damn world was going to end.”

  He pulled back, surprised. I didn’t bother to hope he felt something else, like regret or guilt or shame. No, those emotions were beyond my father. He wasn’t built with that kind of heart.

  “Allison, I have always cared for you and I have tried—”

 
“Where’s Zayvion?” I repeated.

  He held my gaze a moment, while we both decided if we were going to let my little emotional outburst slide.

  “There is a man we must meet,” he said, letting me win the unspoken argument. “He will take us to Zayvion’s soul.”

  He started walking. I swallowed my anger until I didn’t feel like yelling. After a few seconds, I followed him.

  The street was black and white cobbles; the buildings rose above us like stone red castle walls, turrets at each corner.

  No cars. The street wasn’t wide enough for cars. I didn’t see any functioning technology at all. Sure, there were streetlights, gothic iron-worked lanterns that blazed with multicolored flames behind thick glass shades. But no electricity, or motor-powered thing in sight.

  We crossed the street, maybe east. I was pretty turned around. A building that resembled a medieval version of the Schnitzer Concert Hall was on our left. The Portland sign hung there, burning with flames of magic instead of electric lights.

  I glanced at the sky. No sun. Just a hard white light that melted into brittle candy colors against the black shadows at the horizon. I hadn’t expected death to look like this, to so closely resemble the living world and yet be so foreign. I wondered if the other souls here were happy, if maybe there were nice suburbs with heated pools and country-sides with ghost cows and ghost chickens and ghost people raising ghost crops.

  “What man are we meeting? Is he one of the Veiled?”

  “There are other beings in death than the Veiled. Souls who exist here.”

  “Like you?”

  “Very much so.”

  Since he was being talkative again, I decided to try to get a little more information out of him.

  “Aren’t you a Veiled now?”

  “Technically. Most Veiled are only a fraction of a living person—the part of them that paid the price for using magic, played out like a film with just a flicker of the soul to light it. An echo.”

  “Echoes don’t attack people.”

  That got a tight smile out of him. “The Veiled have not always wandered the world attacking people. When light magic and dark magic were one, the Veiled were more like ghosts, and could be summoned and asked for specific knowledge. Our history is rich because of it.”