Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price

Without the many people who have contributed time and energy along the way, this book, nay, this entire series would never have seen the light of day. My deepest thanks to my agent, Miriam Kriss, for believing in Allie and her story, and also to my wonderful editor, Anne Sowards, for her keen eye and amazing knack for making each book better. A huge thank-you also to the fabulous artist Larry Rostant and to the many people within Penguin who have gone above and beyond to make this series shine.

There are two first readers who made it through every rough draft of every book, and probably deserve a medal for that. Thank you, Dean Woods and Dejsha Knight, for all the last-minute reads, for the crazy brainstorming sessions, and for your wonderful suggestions, enthusiasm, and help. I could not have done this without you. A big, squishy thanks to my family, one and all, for being there for me, offering unfailing encouragement and sharing in the joy. To my husband, Russ, and sons, Kameron and Konner—you are such strong, creative people and the very best part of my life. Thank you for putting up with me. I love you.

To you, my dear reader, go my greatest thanks. A book can only really come alive when there is someone to share it with. Thank you for giving me the chance to share these people, this world, and this journey with you.

I
never expected cookies at the end of the world. Some other more violent dessert perhaps, like volcano cake or devil’s food or heck, maybe even zucchini muffins, since everyone knows zucchini is evil. But cookies? Those are happy, life-goes-on desserts.

And that was exactly what my best friend, Nola, was cooking. By the truckload.

Two days ago I had led a small group of magic users, who were also my friends, in a magical battle for the safety of the people and magic in Portland, Oregon, against Jingo Jingo—a powerful and mad Death magic user. The only reasons they’d needed me, Allie Beckstrom, to lead them were one: we were on the run, and two: our backup for the fight—Hounds who, like me, tend to work in the shadier corners of the city tracking down illegal spells—would listen only to one of their own.

Magic had been poisoned—a problem we still haven’t solved—and it was spawning the Veiled: ghosts of dead magic users who were infecting and killing the living. Not that anyone in the Authority would have believed us about any of that. We had fought Jingo Jingo, and the entire Authority—the secret group of people who decide who uses magic and how.

None of us had gotten out of that fight unscathed.
Some of us would carry those wounds, and the things magic had done to us, for the rest of our lives.

Jingo Jingo was dead but we still hadn’t come up with a cure for magic.

Which was why we were all here at Kevin Cooper’s estate. We had to find a way to cure magic before Leander and Isabelle, two undead and superpowerful magic users who made Jingo Jingo look like a fluffy puppy when it came to madness and magic, showed up to kick what was left of our asses.

Generally not a situation I’d expect to be celebrating with cookies.

“Nola,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Allie!” She bent in front of the oven, her honey-colored hair pulled back in a long braid, a plain white apron tied at her waist. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

She drew two sheets full of cookies out of the oven and turned toward me. “Nothing’s wrong. Cookie?” Her freckled cheeks were pink from baking, her hair doing that cute curl-thing around her face from the heat. But she wasn’t smiling.

I stared at the cookies on platters, stacked in step-mountain pyramids across the counter tops, and filling bowl after bowl in rounded domes. Chocolate chip, sugar, gingersnaps, oatmeal, and something that looked like red velvet.

“You bake when you’re worried. You bake a lot when you’re really worried.” I pointed at the heaps of cookies. “What’s wrong? Really.”

She shrugged one shoulder and expertly slid the spatula under a black-and-white crinkle cookie, depositing it on the cooling rack.

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, nothing new. To you, anyway.”

I took a sip from my water bottle and waited for her to continue.

All this violent and secret magic stuff was new to Nola. I was afraid my friend wasn’t coping with this new knowledge with her usual aplomb. Finally, I asked, “Is it Cody? Is he okay?” Nola had taken Cody in about a year ago. He had gotten mixed up with a lot of the wrong people and ended up with his memories taken away and his mind broken. We’d done what we could to heal him a couple of days ago.

Still, it was strange to see her without him by her side.

Nola stopped sliding cookies onto the rack and turned to face me.

She frowned, looking worried, which I supposed was better than exhausted or injured. “He’s still trying to get his footing, I think,” she said. “Since Zayvion joined the two parts of his…soul…or mind…or memories?”

I shrugged. She jabbed the spatula at me. “That. That sums up everything.”

“What ‘that’?”

“The shrug. You just take all of this in stride. Like it’s normal for a young man to have half of his mind and soul or whatever broken in two. One part of him nothing more than a ghost, the other part of him alive and struggling to do the simplest things. And then it’s normal to shove those two pieces of him back together again so that he’s someone different, even though he’s the same.”

“It’s not normal,” I said. “It’s just I’ve been aware of this level of magic and magical cost and retributions for months. You’ve only just found out about it. It takes a while to get used to it all.”

“You could have told me.”

“About the Authority?”

She nodded.

Ah, so this was what had sparked the baking explosion.

I relied on Nola. Magic had always made me pay the price in pain like everyone else who used it, and then it had taken a chunk of my memories for good measure. I’d lost fewer memories lately, but if what Jingo Jingo had said about my father, Daniel Beckstrom, was true, it was possible people—like my dad—had also used magic to take my memories.

Nola had always been the one to give me back my memories when I lost them. For her to be able to do that, I confided in her and told her everything that was happening in my life.

Everything. Even the uncomfortable stuff…until I met Zayvion Jones, got framed for my father’s murder, tangled with the secret organization of magic users, and realized telling Nola everything I was mixed up in might just get her killed.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked.

I dragged my hand back through my hair, trying to tuck it behind my ears even though it was too short to stay put.

It was strange to think that it had been only two days ago we’d been fighting for our lives in St. Johns. Fighting against the very people who were going to be gathering now, here, to try to stop an even bigger threat.

Leander and Isabelle. We knew they possessed the Overseer, the one person who held the highest and most powerful position in the Authority.

Which meant they had every member of the Authority in the world at their beck and call.

All we had was us.

Well, and cookies.

I didn’t know who was going to make the decisions about what to do next. Maybe Victor Forsythe, who had been my Faith magic teacher, or maybe Maeve Flynn, who taught Blood magic and was also my friend Shamus Flynn’s mother. Hell, it could be twins Carl and La, since they’d stepped up to serve as spokespersons for the Authority right after the battle with Jingo.

Whoever it was, they’d have a plateful of hard choices in front of them. Like how to stop Leander and Isabelle. And how to convince every other magic user in the world that two dead people were possessing the highest ranking magical official in their organization.

“Must be a big reason if it’s taking you that long to answer.” Nola scooped dough that smelled like peanut butter onto the sheets.

“Not really,” I said. “I’m just…not at full speed yet. On anything.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Maybe you should get some sleep before the meeting?”

“No. Maeve wants to talk to Zay, Shame, Terric, and me to see how we might use the disks to cure magic. And I want to see how Shame and Terric handle magic now.”

“Now?”

“Since the fight. When they…died for each other using magic.” I said it as if that explained everything. Only it didn’t really explain anything. Not to a woman who had spent most of her adult life living in a small town on a large farm without magic.

“Zay and I are Soul Complements,” I said. “We can make magic bend the rules of what it will and won’t do. All Soul Complements have that ability. I think that’s why it’s so rare to have two people linked together in that way. When you use magic together like that, you can do things other magic users can’t do. Usually deadly things.”

“How many Soul Complements are there?”

“In Portland?”

“In the world.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never asked.”

For the briefest moment, a parade of faces flashed behind my eyes. Memories from my dad, who was possessing a corner of my mind. Memories of people he knew—Soul Complements. Men and women, young and old, from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds, all smiling in that over-the-moon-in-love kind of way. Several of the faces carried with them Dad’s emotions, and I was surprised he thought kindly of these people. Maybe even cared for many of them.

“Maybe a dozen pairs?” I continued. “I know of Zay and myself, and probably Shame and Terric, though Shame refuses to be tested to find out if he and Terric are a match. Chase and Greyson were Soul Complements too. I haven’t met anyone else, although now I kind of wish I had.”

“Chase?” she asked. “Zayvion’s ex-girlfriend?”

I nodded.

“Is Greyson still alive?”

“No. Leander killed him. Killed him, and used him to kill Chase.”

“Allie,” she breathed. Nola was no stranger to death. Behind her country girl manners, she was no shrinking flower. Still, her gaze was heavy with the knowledge that Leander, on his own, had already successfully killed two Soul Complements.