Trace of Magic (19 page)

The stairwell was brightly lit. Price blocked my entrance until he was satisfied there was no danger. He jogged to the base of the stairs, scanning upward along the barrel of his gun. He kept it raised as he climbed with quiet steps. I hung back a ways, figuring he’d need room to maneuver if we ran into trouble.

He stopped on the second-floor landing. Trace crisscrossed the floor in a spangle of colorful ribbons. More than a few were gray and fading. Where there was Tyet, there was death. A fire door blocked the stairs going up. A pair of double doors closed off the lobby floor. On either side, the walls glimmered like the moon on midnight water. A thick weaving of the same intricate spellwork matted the doors.

My chest tightened as I examined the loops and whorls. On the one hand, this was a pretty simple operation: drain the magic off the nulls into the tire iron. On the other hand, simple didn’t mean easy. Seeing what I was up against, I knew the tire iron wasn’t going to hold all the magic in the nulls, especially since they were probably renewed monthly, if not weekly. Cass wouldn’t be able to hold enough to make a difference. If she tried to take the magic I was going to need to dump, she’d burn out like a lightbulb.

Let’s not do that
, she said dryly.
Still, you could pick up the trace in the stairwell, and I could see about fixing the guards with magic you channel to me. The boost would be helpful, and I’d be ready to use it up as you fed it to me if I had targets in my sights.

I was willing to try it. I bent and gathered all the ribbons. There were a lot of them, but no more substantial than a laser beam. I could hold them easily between my thumb and forefinger. I pulled up my sleeve and twisted them around my wrist.

Shit. How do you do that?

I just do. Brace yourself. I’m going to get started.

My nerves were itchy. I was sure that we’d be discovered at any moment. I shook off my rising unease and went to the doors. The web of magic crossing them completed the circuit of nulls.

I pressed my hands flat against the doors without reaching into the trace dimension to touch the web. Then I moved my hands in small circles up and down. If the control was inside the room and not on the periphery, this could get harder. I was counting on the fact that setting it within the interior of the circle rather than in line with the other nulls was so much harder that the original tracers couldn’t or wouldn’t have bothered.

A feeling like pinpricks ran through my palms. I followed the feeling down to the floor. There it was. Right under the doors and below the concrete. I wanted to be able to actually touch the stone, but I’d have to make do. It would take longer is all, though that in itself would help keep me from going up in flames. The main thing was time. We didn’t have much. Cass couldn’t stay with me forever. Hell, I couldn’t tolerate her presence a whole lot longer. My head felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through my ear, and my double vision was getting blurrier. The power here was enough to keep me busy for hours. I was going to have to speed things up, which meant taking some risks.

I pulled all my nulls out of my pockets and set them on the floor. The marbles wanted to roll. I put them on my gloves so that they didn’t touch. Beside them I set the tire iron. I sank down cross-legged in front of them and sideways to the door so I could touch the space right above the null control. I’d channel what I could into the nulls after I filled up the tire iron. I suddenly remembered my baton and my gun. I pulled both out. I shucked the magazine and the bullet out of the chamber. Raw magic and gunpowder didn’t mix well.

I flexed my fingers and pushed my hair out of my face. I looked at Price, who’d taken up a watchful stance between the two doorways where he had a clear shot at anyone who might chance to come through. He face was taut. He radiated threat. Like a wolf standing guard over his territory. Inwardly, I cringed. He wasn’t going to be happy with the next bit.

“It could get hot in here,” I told him. “You’ll want to get out if it gets too bad. You don’t want to crisp up into a French fry.”

He scowled. “Explain.”

“When I drain the magic out of the nulls, I’m going to have to let it come fast, before we get caught. Once I start draining, I’ll have to bind the magic into these.” I gestured at the paltry collection in front of me. “I have to form and bind it as I go, otherwise it will spill over and cook us.” I didn’t point out that if I was too slow, the flow from the nulls would do the same. “You should be prepared to get out of here.”

His gaze held mine, and I shivered at the look in his eyes. It wasn’t just the anger. It was the stark fear beneath. Not for him—for me.

Suddenly his eyes shuttered, turning remote.

“You said you could do this,” he said harshly. “Then do it. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I know, because then you’d have to punish me. I wouldn’t want that, now would I?”

I set the fingers of my right hand over the null control and touched the fingers of my left to the tire iron. I closed my eyes and pushed out with my senses. The null control was like a ball of yarn, all wrapped in colored threads of magic. I touched it gently, learning its structure.

I began to find the strands connecting it to the other nulls. They twisted together with filaments from the control and wrapped and wove around each other, creating a tight knot. If there was a specific pattern to it, I couldn’t see it. It looked more like the various nulls had been added at random and then the tracer creating the control had just used a lot of magic to duct tape it all together. It would be easy enough to dismantle, but between the magic in the nulls and that in the control stone, there was a lot more to channel off than I’d expected.

“I’m going to need more magic sinks. Give me any coins you have,” I said to Price, hardly aware of him.

There was a moment of silence, then jingling and metallic clicking as he set some on the ground before me.

“Any glass you have, too. Or stone.”

There was silence and then some noises and a heavier click as he set his gun down along with something else.

“Keep the gun,” I said. “It won’t be any use after I get done with it and we don’t want to be defenseless.”

I didn’t hear what he might have said. I started unraveling the magic. It flowed up my arm like hot syrup and spread through my chest and down my other arm into the tire iron. I shaped it. The easiest thing to make was a basic trace null. I shaped my intent and added more and more magic, picking apart the strands as slowly as I could, hoping to keep the flow down.

The tire iron couldn’t hold any more magic. I moved to my gun. Magic likes solid objects. I couldn’t separate the parts in my head, so I just treated it as a whole. It’s why it wouldn’t work as a gun again.

It was full all too soon, and I still had a lot of the null wall and the control stone left to siphon off. I poured magic into the rest of my nulls and then my baton and my knife. I had been leaching a little off to Cass and now fed her more.

Whoa! Slow down. Shit. But oh my heaven. This is the best high I’ve ever had. Keep it coming, sister. Just slower.

I could feel her doing things through the trace, but I ignored it. Next I worked on Price’s coins. Three quarters, two nickels, and a penny. He also had a watch, a pocket knife, and a pair of clippers.

I filled them until they fairly crackled. By this time most of the field was depleted, but I still had the control and no receptacles left.

My brain scrambled for a solution. Magic sluiced into me, but now it had nowhere to go. I felt the pressure building, and sweat beaded on my forehead and ran down my spine. I put my hands on the concrete floor, but I didn’t have the skill or focus to shape magic into that size of an object—pretty much the entire building. I needed something smaller.

Price couldn’t run and fetch me something fast enough to help.

“You should go,” I said. I think I said it. The rushing in my ears made it hard to know. My skin began to blister, and blue and yellow arcs of magic flickered across my skin.
Think
, I told myself.
There’s a way out of this. What is it?

Then I got an idea. It could work, if I didn’t snap my hold on the control null’s magic.

I twisted up onto my knees, then straightened my legs, all the while hunching over to maintain my touch on the floor. A sledgehammer pounded between my eyes, and all I could see was a kaleidoscope of colors. I held my breath. Next came the potentially deadly part. I inched back toward the stairs. Heat flared around me as my link with the control null wavered and thinned. It was like trying to shape lightning.

I pushed out, reaching deeper into the trace dimension, grasping the control flow with invisible hands.

It hurt.

Worse than hurt. It felt like hundreds of drills were screwing through my bones and teeth. I was crying. My skin blistered from the increasing heat cascading through me.

Keep it together, Riley. Almost there. You can do it. Don’t stop. You’re strong enough for this. Just hold on.

Cass kept up a running patter in my head. I held onto it like a lifeline. I was aware that Price was beside me saying something. I couldn’t hear him.

Another step.

One more.

I reached out with my left hand, searching for the railing. It would hold all the rest of the magic. Price’s cool hand closed firmly on mine. I gasped. His touch hurt like hell. He guided me.

Another step.

My fingers hooked over the round rail. I dropped to my knees, pouring magic into the steel pipe. I could barely focus. My head was going to explode like a marshmallow in a microwave. I forced myself to concentrate on what I needed to shape the new null. The framework formed and collapsed. I clenched my body, and willed the null to hold.
Hold, dammit!

I don’t know how much longer it was before the last bits of magic trickled into the rail. My entire world became that flow and the raking pain of the magic. At last it ceased, and I tied it off. My hand went boneless and I fell over onto my side. Instantly Price pulled me up against his chest, stroking my head.

I was a wet rag. So were my clothes. I probably smelled like the inside of a boy’s locker room. I was still panting and wishing I could go roll in the snow to cool off.

“Riley? Baby, are you okay?”

“Sure,” I croaked. After all, nobody died, least of all me. That made me pretty okay, all things considered.

Cass? Did you get the guards handled?

You’re good to go.

I repeated the message through sandpaper lips. My eyes were gritty. I felt like a dried-out husk. “We don’t have a lot of time before someone figures out the nulls are gone.”

Price pulled me to my feet. I gripped his jacket with rubber fingers. My whole body was rubber. My head was six times its usual size, and pinballs careened around inside. I swayed. He steadied me.

“Can you walk?”

“Sure.”

I let go of him and took a step. The walls swam around me. Ugly gray-green vomit-colored walls. There must have been a sale on paint the day they picked it out. I reached out to balance myself against the wall. Price caught me around the waist before I could.

“How can I help you?” he said.

“I could use some water. Maybe something to eat.”

“Let’s get up to Shana Darlington’s apartment. She’s bound to have anything you want.”

“I’m soaked. I hope she’s got clothes I can wear. You know, ever since I met you, I can’t seem to keep my own clothes on. Why is that?”

Yes, why is that?
Cass smirked from inside my head.

Price ignored me. “Let me pick everything up.” He pushed me against the wall and gathered everything up. He pocketed some, putting the rest in my pockets. He gave me my gun.

“It’s useless,” I said. “Paperweight now.”

He exchanged it for the tire iron. I held it loosely, which was about as hard a grip as I could manage.

“Put your hand on my waist,” he ordered.

I grabbed his waistband, glad of something to hold on to. He opened one of the doors, and we stepped into a lobby area. It was ridiculously quiet inside, like a library. A front desk faced the elevator doors. It was staffed by a middle-aged woman with sun-streaked hair. A security guard stood out in front of the desk. Two others flanked the stairwell and another stood around the other side near the front entrance.

Thanks to Cass, none of them looked at us.

“Which floor?” Price asked.

Let me check. Fifth
, Cass said after a slight moment.
Apartment 550
.

“Fifth,” I parroted. “Apartment 550.”

“Elevator,” Price said, pulling me over and punching a button. It chimed open in a matter of seconds. We went inside. For once I didn’t feel like a cat trying to escape a bathtub. I was too tired to be claustrophobic. The doors closed, and we lifted up. That didn’t help my spinning head. I turned and grabbed the flat railing and leaned my head against the wall. It was deliciously cool.

“Riley?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you look it.”

He sounded pissed. Maybe he’d spank me later. I smiled to myself. I might like that.

The elevator stopped, and the doors dinged as they slid open. Price leaned out, glancing up and down the hallway. It was empty. He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him. We went left. The doors were far between. There could only have been three or four apartments on any level.

“Can you pick up her trace in the hallway?” Price asked as we came up on Apartment 550. The door was a polished wood with an inset of beveled glass that showed nothing within.

I opened myself to the trace. After draining the null field, it hurt. A lot. Like being in a clothes dryer with a billion needles. I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “Nothing. At all. For anybody. Talk about hypercautious.”

“Tell me you don’t null your way through your front door,” Price mocked.

“I have a good reason.”

“Everybody has a good reason. All right. I’m going to get us inside. Soon as you can, grab her trace. Cass? I want her to spill her guts. I’ll guide our talk with questions, but make her willing to give everything up.”