Magic at the Gate Read online

  “Here.” Old Dad stopped in front of a building and pressed his fingertips against the bricks. There was no door, no window, just a blank wall.

  “Here?” I said. “This is where the Seek spell brought us? A dead end?”

  “Be silent,” Old Dad said with Influence.

  I shut up. This was getting old fast.

  New Dad and Old Dad stood near each other but did not touch, had not touched once since I’d been here. They moved in tandem and traced a spell, a glyph. Even though I’d never seen that exact glyph drawn by anyone before, I knew what it was. Gate and Death and Path.

  Then they whispered something, the words fluid and fast, but not the same—more like two different prayers.

  I kept my hand on Stone’s head and he extended one wing up against my ribs. He had never touched me with his wings. The tip of his wing hooked like fingers and thumb into my shirt.

  Such a smart gargoyle. If we got out of this, I was going to buy him a giant box of Tinkertoys. I took a deep breath and got a little more air.

  Dads traced a circular motion around the glyph that hung in the air in front of them, then tugged on it.

  I expected a gate to open.

  I didn’t expect a gate to pull free from the brick wall and literally slide out of the building. Old Dad was breathing hard. New Dad put both hands behind his back and took a step away from Old Dad. I wondered what would happen if they touched. Maybe they would become a whole soul—one person, as they should be. Maybe that would mean he would be dead for good.

  Old Dad wiped his palm over his face. I stood behind and to the side of him—so that the rope of Influence between us stayed out of the way of his casting—but his exhaustion was clear.

  New Dad walked to the gate, a single-wide cast-iron jobber gone cinnamon with rust, and pulled it open. It moved under his touch, silent. As soon as it opened, the temperature changed. It was colder in there. The kind of cold that got in your bones and didn’t get out.

  “I’ll go through first,” New Dad said. “Allie, you will follow with Stone at your side.”

  Where were we going? Why wouldn’t they take this damn Influence off me so I could talk? Old Dad wasn’t even looking at me. I pulled the rope a couple times to get his attention.

  New Dad noticed. “Speak as you wish.”

  “I have to find Zayvion. Now.”

  Old Dad shook his head. “Don’t you think I know that? This is the fastest and safest way to reach him. And we would be there more quickly if you would stop arguing every step of the way. Enter the gate. Now.”

  Influence made my feet move without me wanting them to. It was a nightmarish, out-of-control sensation too similar to when Lon Trager had used Blood magic to make me do his bidding.

  Before I killed him. I did not like being stuck, bound, trapped, forced. As a matter of fact, I had impressive panic attacks over such things. And then I got angry and killed things.

  It was good that Stone paced me, strong and solid, letting me breathe, while I worked on staying angry, which was better than going into a claustrophobic panic.

  New Dad strode into the gate ahead of me, then took my right hand.

  Old Dad, behind me, put his hand on my right shoulder. We paused, just inside the gate, in darkness broken only by the opalescent whorls of color beneath Stone’s skin, his burning amber eyes, and the metallic colors that pulsed from my right fingertips up to the corner of my eye. My skin beneath the marks of magic glowed almost luminescent, shining between the bars of black on my left fingers, wrist, and elbow, and from between the whorls of colors on my right.

  It was small in here, too small. I’d be in a cold sweat right now if I could sweat. I wanted out, wanted to run. But Influence held me button-tight.

  “Pay attention,” Old Dad said.

  I looked back at him, paying very good attention, just as he commanded. The gate was closed, or at least there was no light beyond it, no glimpse of where we had been. I could make out the cinnamon-colored bars, barely illuminated, and nothing but blackness beyond it and around us.

  “Tell me what you see,” he said.

  “Blackness. The Gate. Stone. Myself.”

  New Dad made a sound like an exhale. “That’s good. There is much more here with us. Things living souls should not see. The path is narrow. You do not want to step off of it.”

  Oh, didn’t that sound wonderful?

  “Can you breathe?” New Dad asked.

  I nodded, then, since he might not be able to see me, said, “Yes.”

  “Good. Walk and don’t lose contact with us, or the Animate. We will keep you on the path.”

  I walked. The ground beneath my feet felt strangely slippery, like it was moving at a different pace than I was. The gate we entered should be behind Old Dad, behind me, but I could see it ahead of us, ahead of New Dad in front of me. I couldn’t tell if we were coming or going, or holding still.

  And even though I knew I was walking and so were my dads, the gate, the darkness around us, moved too and nothing seemed to get nearer.

  “You’re doing fine,” New Dad said. “We’re almost there.”

  Weird. He’d never been so comforting. This New Dad was full of things Old Dad, the dad I knew, never spoke about, or maybe had given up years before my earliest memories. New Dad had a sort of hopefulness to him, an even demeanor, an easy smile. I wondered if I would have hated him less if I had known this younger dad. I wondered if I might have even liked him.

  “Relax,” Old Dad Influenced.

  I felt like I’d just downed half a bottle of Merlot. If he did that again, there was no way I’d be walking.

  Dad ahead and Dad behind cast magic. The gate ahead of us was solid, real, close.

  The scenery behind it had changed, though it still looked like a city.

  But the real kicker was that the light from the magic the dads cast revealed our surroundings.

  Monsters faded in and out of my line of vision, people too. And magic, odd spells and glyphs that echoed with pain, with horrors that made me want to shut my eyes and click my heels.

  “I see—” I started, my voice trembling.

  Old Dad let go of my shoulder and gently pressed his hand over my eyes.

  I knew I should fight him. I knew being blind to fears and danger doesn’t make them go away. But this was too much. I could feel my sanity slipping like sand beneath an ocean wave.

  “You’re safe,” Old Dad said. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

  And I believed him. Even without Influence. We walked like that for a while. I counted my breaths to keep track of time. I got to fifty.

  Then a rush of warm air pushed over my skin. I gasped, which hurt, but I managed not to scream. Old Dad uncovered my eyes and stepped back. He let go of my shoulder too.

  We stood in front of a castle.

  I turned to make sure whatever had been in the dark wasn’t about to jump us. Nothing there but a plain brick wall of a plain brick building.

  I hoped it stayed that way.

  There were no buildings other than the one behind us. A river flowed in the distance to my left. Three bridges spanned the water, none of them multileveled like Portland’s real bridges. They twisted like tree branches reaching across the river to the fog-obscured bank on the other side.

  Ahead of us was a single structure in the center of a clearing with grass around it. Made of stone and steel and hard shards of glass, tiles, and carvings, the massive structure was wide at the base, gnarled and knotted like a tree, or a stalagmite. It glowed faintly green-white, every edge softened as if wind or water ran over and through it, carving out doorways, windows, faces, and eye-catching, dreamlike creatures.

  The building, tree, whatever it was, reached at least two hundred stories high. I squinted against the bright sky. Branches fanned out black skeletal umbrellalike framework, lace against the white-washed sky.

  We were on a slight hill about two blocks away from the base of the tree. People were gathered aro
und the structure. Watercolor people. The Veiled. Solid, mutated, broken people.

  They faced the building but did not enter it. I didn’t know what they were waiting for—the door was open. I could see it from here.

  “Where are we?”

  “At the pillar of Death magic,” New Dad said.

  “That’s a pillar?” Could the tree somehow support this place? Give it not life but something else? Magic? Order? Vitality?

  “It isn’t an architectural pillar. There are no wells of magic in this realm, in death. Wells are a thing of light magic. Pillars are a thing of dark magic. It is where dark magic comes from, where dark magic is held, like the wells.”

  “I thought dark magic came from the Rift,” I said recalling the dark water with glyphs sparking through it.

  “No. That is the break between light and dark, life and death. No magic comes from there, though old spells often are caught by it before they fade.”

  Speaking of old spells. I held up my arm with my shiny shackle of Influence. “I want you to break this.”

  Old Dad spoke. “That will remain until we—until you return to life. I do not want to lose you in this place.”

  “We?” So that was his angle. He had no intention of staying behind, of staying dead. He planned to make me carry him—part of him, or all of him—back into life. Fat chance.

  I’d been trying to get rid of him for months.

  Well, only since he’d taken over my brain. Before that, when he was still alive, I’d just wanted him to leave me alone.

  There was nothing that would make me take him back to life with me. This was a one-way ticket, and for once the odds were on my side.

  “You.” He stormed past me toward the pillar. “Come.”

  My feet, damn them, followed.

  New Dad walked next to me and looked off after Old Dad as if he couldn’t quite recognize himself in that man. “Zayvion is within the pillar,” he said quietly. “Just a little longer now.”

  I needed a plan to get Zayvion home. I could feel the dark Death magic that made the pillar. I might be able to access it. That, along with the small magic I had always carried inside me, the little candle flame of magic that was all my own, should be enough to power at least one spell to open a gate to life.

  I hoped.

  Old Dad was a good twenty feet ahead of me, storming right toward the watercolor people like he was invisible. I scanned the people gathered, morbidly curious to see if I would recognize anyone.

  There, to the left, I glimpsed the shadow of a man. The same shadow man I had seen on the street with the Hungers. I blinked, and he was gone.

  Stone growled.

  Yeah, that summed up my feelings too. I slowed my pace, watching to see what the watercolor people would do when Old Dad passed them.

  He walked right by, not a pause, not a sideways glance. Walked like he owned the place—radiating that confidence he’d always had in life. Man could take on the world and come out on top. Take on both worlds and come out on top.

  No wonder he was admired, even if only grudgingly. New Dad followed him past the Veiled and through the triple-wide, triple-tall door.

  The Influence around my arm squeezed so hard it hurt.

  “Let’s go, big guy,” I said to Stone. “Don’t eat anybody, don’t start a fight, and don’t leave me alone.” I took a breath, as deep as my struggling lungs would allow, and started walking.

  We were almost parallel to the Veiled. They weren’t just standing there. They were touching the walls, shaping them, a hundred palms pressing and pulling and guiding the magic in the walls to form the creatures, the dreamlike faces that flowed slowly, gently, ever upward, as naturally as glyphs in the air.

  It was strange to see things—people who had tried to kill me in life—creating something this beautiful in death. Still, I held my right hand ready to cast a spell in case arts-and-craft hour suddenly ended and they went back to Killing 101.

  The watercolor people were solid enough that I could see every strand of hair, stubble on chin, wrinkle in clothes. I passed through them so close I had to angle my shoulders not to brush against anyone. Just like my dads, I was invisible to them.

  Only a dozen or so steps away from the open doorway. What had looked like a small opening from the hill was actually a huge arched doorway tall enough for two elephants, side by side, to march through and not bump their heads.

  The dads were nowhere to be seen.

  Nice of them to wait.

  I stepped through the doorway into the dim interior.

  Stone stopped on the threshold. And while I applauded his instincts, because—seriously?—we were strolling willingly into the pillar of Death magic, he did put me in the awkward position of one arm stretched back, fingertips caught on the big rock’s forehead so I could breathe, the rest of me inside the building, pulled by the rope of Influence and unable to go forward.

  “Come on, boy. Get in here. Let’s go see if there’s something you can stack, okay? Like blocks. Or maybe there are some Tinkertoys in there.”

  Stone crept forward, his ears flat against his skull, his lips pulled away from the arsenal of blades he called teeth.

  He took exactly one step.

  That did me exactly no good.

  Fab.

  I shifted to stand beside him. The watercolor people hadn’t moved, hadn’t seen us, were still busy being dead and artistic. Good. I glanced back at the interior.

  Stunning.

  From the outside, this had looked like a strange, twisted shell.

  From here it was every shade of magic I had ever seen or imagined. It was the stuff of fairy tales, of dreams. Crystalline walls shone with gentle colors and gave hint to the levels that reached up and up until I could not see the top of the walls. A warm yellow light filtered down, catching gold and silver along the arched doorways and balconies. It was like standing in the center of a glyph.

  The Influence squeezed my arm and neck. Ouch. The dads weren’t waiting. If they pulled any harder, I’d have to walk away from Stone and then I wouldn’t be breathing.

  “Come on, Stone. You can’t hang half in and half out of the doorway. Zay’s here. We have to find Zay.”

  Stone tipped his head and sneezed.

  Nice. Dust poofed out of his nostrils and drifted lazily out the door.

  I don’t know why that caught the watercolor people’s attention.

  But the ones nearest the door stopped shaping magic and looked up.

  Not at Stone. No, I just wasn’t lucky that way.

  They looked at me.

  Chapter Three

  “G et moving.” I grabbed one of Stone’s ears and tugged.

  Stone did not move. He did, however, sneeze again.

  More of the Veiled stopped working and looked at me.

  A few of them, maybe five, stepped toward the door and blinked as if they couldn’t quite see it.

  “Allison,” Old Dad, from the disapproval in his tone, said. “Come. Now.”

  For cripes’ sake.

  I had to follow his command. And I was a little helpless in the whole breathing department. I took a deep breath before my feet jerked me forward and my hand slipped free of Stone’s head.

  Luckily, Old Dad was glaring at me and noticed: one, I wasn’t breathing; two, Stone was sneezing again; and three, the watercolor people were waving their hands at the open doorway, trying to feel their way into the place.

  Best of all? He decided to handle my breathing problem first.

  Old Dad strode to me. “Must you always make things so difficult?”

  Just because I couldn’t breathe to tell him off didn’t mean I couldn’t lift my middle finger.

  New Dad laughed.

  That surprised me.

  Old Dad did not laugh.

  No surprise there.

  “You are testing my resolve. As a parent and a magic user.” His hand clamped over my wrist, over the Influence spell, and I gasped, inhaling like a swimmer who had bee
n down too long. Everything went sparkly at the edges.

  Dad waited while I tried to catch my breath. Some small kindness, considering.

  Downright nice, even. That is, if I didn’t already know that the only reason he was worried about me staying alive was because I was his ride back to life.

  Stone growled. He didn’t much like my dad touching me. That was because Stone was my buddy, my watch dog, my guardian, my pal. And pretty smart, even if he was a rock.

  “Come, Stone,” New Dad said. “Let’s go home.”

  Weird. I didn’t know he knew his name.

  Oh, wait. If he shared a brain with Old Dad, he’d know a lot of things. About Stone. About me.

  Stone knew the word home. He trotted up to me giving me those big round eyes that made him look pretty proud of himself for figuring this all out.

  I stuck my left hand on Stone’s head and glared at my father until he let go of my wrist.

  “Just like your mother.” He strode off to where the rest of him stood.

  Hell of a thing to say. My father was my last and only link to my estranged mother. He knew her, had history with her, had shared his life with her, had shared my life with her. And since he was dead, and staying here—thank you very much—I was in a way losing both him and his memories of her.

  I was, in a way, losing both my parents.

  Again.

  I stared at my father’s back, then over at New Dad, who watched me. He looked like he was apologizing. Like he knew I was missing my mother, my chance at having a father who knew how to do more than growl and command, my hope for a real and normal life.

  “Are you ready, Angel?” he asked.

  Angel. He used to call me that when I woke up with nightmares. Used to call me that when he held me on his lap and made my nightmares go away.

  Memories I had forgotten years before I knew I should remember them rushed to the front of my mind. Of my dad, younger, kinder, brushing his fingers over my forehead, over my heart, his touch taking away my fears, my pain, my nightmares.

  He had been there when I was little and terrified. He had made me believe I was safe. He had made me believe he loved me.