Witch-Mage Breaking, page 9
The creature surged up, hitting the ceiling. Cracks spiked across the surface. Several more sharpened tendrils shot from the center of its body. For the first time since seeing the creature attack Giselle, Brandon felt true fear, deep and cold. It took over his whole body, rendering him motionless.
He’d seen nightmarish things before, but nothing like this. The only thing that came close were the giant spiders Silas had produced in his illusionary house last year. This was much worse. Not only was it not controlled by a mage they could take down, it seemed to have an insatiable hunger.
Brandon turned his head at a welling of warmth behind him to find Thea’s shield so bright he could hardly see beyond it. Her power expanded until the room was so full of light that Brandon had to shield his eyes.
Thea released a wild cry, and her shield exploded. Brandon flew back, certain Jax and the officer had gone flying as well. He hit the wall and groaned. Fortunately, her light hit the snake, too.
When the light died down, Brandon uncovered his eyes to find snake parts smoldering on the floor. What Thea had managed to burn smoked and oozed on the tiles. Flames licked the remains of the darkness. Fucking hell. Thea had used fire magic. Brandon had seen her use bright, white light but never flames. Though she had always been capable of fire magic, using it reminded her too much of the tragedy of her parents’ death and the fire at Blackwood Manor.
Well, it had worked. Though the snake’s corpse was still there, no lingering dark magic tried to escape the smoldering body. Thea’s magic had quelled the foul force.
Breathing hard, Brandon got to his feet. Across the room, Jax had done the same and was helping the security officer.
Brandon turned to find Thea and ask if she was okay. Instead, he found her lying on the floor, head lolled to the side and eyes closed. Blood trailed from her nose over her chin, and her face was pale as the tiled floor beneath her.
Thea heard voices, but they sounded far away.
“Thea, come on. Wake up, for fuck’s sake!” Brandon.
“Come on, kid. Come back to us.” Jax.
“What the hell was that thing?” The security officer.
“Go get your school under control,” Brandon told the officer.
Thea heard hurried footsteps leaving the room, then a voice inside her head. You’re okay. It was Kira. You’re suffering backlash. Using your fire magic for the first time made you black out. You’re going to be fine, but your body will take some getting used to it. You haven’t trained with it enough.
She hadn’t dipped too far into her magic. She had simply used part of it she hadn’t touched since before her parents died. With her eyes closed, Thea felt panic well in her chest. I finally did it. I ruined myself. She had used fire magic without meaning to. She hadn’t thought about it. It just happened. The magic burst from her body like an explosion, and she couldn’t have controlled it if she wanted to.
No, Kira’s firm voice told her. You’re going to be fine.
Thea wondered if Kira only said that because she wanted her to wake up.
“Come back, Thea.” Brandon’s voice again.
She opened her eyes, but fear at the thought of having burned through her magic lingered. She searched for her magic as if seeking the bottom of a deep, dark well. After a few troubling seconds, she found it. It was thin and weak but slowly regenerating as if coming to like she was. She wouldn’t be able to use it for the rest of the day, at least.
You need to recover, that’s all, came Kira’s gentle voice.
Brandon’s hand wrapped around hers, pulling her to a sitting position. His touch was strong and warm. Thea couldn’t help herself. She leaned into him. He smelled awful. Must be the snake bits that exploded on him, she thought. He was saying something, but Thea hardly heard it until she focused. She blinked.
“Thea, did you hear me?” His voice was halfway between firm demand and gentle prodding. His hand was still wrapped around hers.
She was slow to respond. “What was that?”
Brandon’s expression was anxious. “Are you all right?”
Thea nodded numbly. “I hit my head, that’s all.” A lie, but she was too afraid to explain, especially when she wasn’t totally certain herself of what had happened.
Jax scrutinized her, clearly unconvinced.
Brandon found her answer acceptable for the moment, but she knew he’d seen her flames and probably guessed it had not happened of her own accord. Thea hated lying to him about the real reason she had blacked out, but they had worse things to deal with than her backlash.
I’ll tell him later. Now, I have no choice but to bring up our idea to meet other entities.
Brandon helped her to her feet. Thea wobbled, and before she knew it, he crushed her to his chest, his arms wrapped around her. His knives were on the floor beside him. He had dropped them to come to her. His tight embrace made her heart crack, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jax asked gently.
Quickly, Thea wiped the tear away. She was scared—not of the thing she’d defeated but of how she had done it. She nodded. “I got overwhelmed. And my head hurts.” It was true she’d hit her head when she fell, but she doubted that would have knocked her out. It had been her magic.
“Let’s get back to headquarters and send someone to clean this up,” Jax suggested.
Brandon finally let Thea go, nodding distantly. “I’ll report to Claire about this right away.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Both stupid and lacking in foresight those poets of old who wrote songs for revels and dinners and banquets—pleasant sounds for men living at ease; but none of them all has discovered how to put to an end with their singing or musical instrument—grief, bitter grief from which death and disaster cheat the hopes of a house.”
―Euripides, Medea
Brandon told Thea to go home and rest, but she insisted on returning to headquarters with them. “I’m part of this team. I’ll report to Claire with you and Jax.” She also still wanted a chance to talk to him alone after they made their reports, but she wouldn’t tell him this yet.
Brandon hesitated but realized he would not be able to win this argument. Instead, he gestured at her face. “You’ve got something there.”
Thea wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand. “Must have been from when I hit my head.”
“You fell backward, Thea.”
Thea studied the dark spot of red on her hand. She did not remember her nose bleeding. It must have been a side effect of the backlash. “Right. Well…” She tried to come up with an excuse or explanation but couldn’t.
Thankfully, Jax stepped in. “Claire just got back from a meeting with the deputy chief. She’s anxiously awaiting us.” He had gone to find Claire while Thea, Brandon, and Kira, still hidden in bird form, waited in the hall, earning alarmed looks from their colleagues at their disheveled states. It turned out that fighting a snake made of corporeal darkness did not lend itself well to professional appearances.
When they entered Claire’s office, they found her expression furrowed and grave. “I heard something happened at Washington High.” She glanced over the trio. “Something not good, if I had to guess by the state of you three.” She wrinkled her nose, no doubt smelling the odor of exploded snake covering their clothes.
Brandon gave her the rundown of what happened. Claire seemed satisfied with their explanation, or at least looked less stressed than normal. Seeing as that didn’t happen often, Thea was relieved. She was further relieved that Brandon chose to leave out the part where she had overexerted herself with magic and passed out.
Still, Claire having to explain why two armed AID agents and a witch liaison had burst into a school to chase a monster counted as one of the higher-stress reports she had to give her boss.
“Brandon and Jax, thank you for what you did today. Please type up the official reports, meet with the local law enforcement, and clean up the mess at the school. I’ll have someone else work on the public statement regarding the matter.” Claire’s expression grew harried. “I hate to admit it, but dealing with angry parents is going to be ten times worse than whatever Deputy Charles has to say on the matter.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have stopped it sooner,” Brandon replied.
Claire simply nodded before dismissing them. Thea turned to go as well, but Claire stopped her. “You can stay here, Thea, and tell me about Ms. Belmont’s findings in the morgue before the creature got away.” She motioned for Thea to have a seat.
Thea was surprised. Claire never asked her to make a report without Brandon and Jax around. However, her surprise only lasted a moment, and she took the seat, glad not to be on her feet another second. A headache persisted, but at least Brandon was out of the room. His absence cleared her head. She was disappointed that he’d left so soon, though. Oh, well. She would find time to talk to him later.
Thea had spoken with Mia and Giselle on the phone earlier when she, Jax, Brandon, and Kira returned to headquarters. She had explained to Mia what happened, assured her they were all right, though she excluded the part about the backlash. Mia told Thea that her aunt was well enough to share what she’d discovered during her autopsy, then handed the phone over. Thea now relayed that information to Claire.
“Earlier, we thought Arthur used magic to shift and launch an unprovoked attack at the coven estate. It seems now that something else was in him, using his magic, and it made him shift. Ms. Belmont says there was leftover magic in the corpse that allowed what is called a famine spirit to take up residence. It was inside Arthur Adderget to begin with, and when he managed to shift back to human form, the darkness stayed inside his snake form.
“This famine spirit is like a parasite. It quickly took him over, enhancing his shape and changing his powers, so he tried to eat people at the coven estate.” Thea paused. “That has never happened before.”
Claire wondered aloud if the magic inside Adderget’s snake form was like what they’d faced at the community center.
“I think so,” Thea agreed. “The attack at the coven estate is similar enough to what you saw at the Council meeting and what I dealt with today. That’s three attacks in the span of a week, and we can only guess they’ll grow more frequent.”
Claire blanched. “That’s what I was afraid of. The only difference with today’s attack is that it was unplanned, as far as we can tell. That is, if what or whoever is behind this didn’t expect Adderget’s snake form to be brought here and for Ms. Belmont’s rituals to wake up the leftover magic. Regardless, this is a matter we need to clear up quickly before anyone else gets hurt.”
Then what the hell are we doing sitting here? Kira demanded.
Thea didn’t answer her.
And what about your backlash? That’s important, too!
We’ll deal with that later, Kira.
But—
Later!
Thea was grateful for Kira’s concern, but she could only handle problem-solving for one thing at a time.
“Thea?” Claire prodded. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry. What was that?”
“I asked what might have caused the famine spirit to reside inside the snake form rather than going back with Arthur when he shifted again.”
“Oh, right. Giselle thinks Arthur managed to trap the spirit inside his snake form, and it went into dormancy when he shifted, which goes to show he has some semblance of sanity left. The magic caused him to act out, probably against his will.” Or so Thea hoped. She had never liked Arthur, but she kept returning to feeling sorry for him. “Giselle thinks she awoke the spirit by accident during her ritual.”
Claire sat back, nodding.
Thea continued. “She observed that while she couldn’t identify anything exact about the handiwork behind the creature, she’s sure the thing was made or enhanced by a witch with a good deal of power.”
“How does she know this?”
Thea repeated what Giselle had told her. “The witch needed material components to create the effect in the magic, including rare seeds. Crimson Coriander. It’s a special plant that only grows on the site of powerful invocations and summonings. I myself have only seen it in two places, the coven estate and my family’s estate, though I haven’t noticed it at either place in years. This doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been grown anywhere else, though.”
“I see.” Claire’s expression sobered further. “We had a few cases involving the illegal sale of Crimson Coriander a few years ago with some merchants on Dark Street. We dealt with it and haven’t had a case crop up since.”
“It might not hurt to check the records of that case and see if anything matches up with what we have going on now,” Thea remarked. She paused, wondering if she should add something else. Then, remembering her vow to not keep secrets and Claire’s encouragement to keep everything aboveboard, she did.
“Mia sells a mild version of Crimson Coriander at her shop. It’s the legal kind, but if used by a powerful witch and combined with the right ingredients, it could become harmful. The seeds have other, less harmful uses, of course. I asked Mia to pull up a list from her sales so we can have a list of potential suspects.”
“Good thinking,” Claire replied.
Thea wasn’t so sure it would lead to anything. Mia was a wonderful person with skills Thea could only dream of, but paperwork organization was not one of them. “I hate to say this, but the whole thing points to something happening inside the hedge witch community. With magic as freeform as it is among that group, they trade spell components all the time. They swap ingredients more often than they buy then, so it would be impossible to keep up with who has what. A sales sheet might not mean anything.”
“Because while one witch could have bought coriander seeds, another could have them now?”
Thea nodded.
Claire leaned back. “I’m glad we have some direction. Thank you, Thea, for everything you did today.”
“There are a few other things I want to talk about while I’m here.”
You’re telling her first? Kira demanded with some alarm.
Be quiet, would you?
“What is it?” Claire asked.
“Mia told me this morning that divisions are running deeper in the hedge witch community than ever. She’s concerned the Council will come apart any day now. If it does, it will be more difficult for us to find any cooperation. We can forget a witch liaison, but if AID could reach out and try to help anyway…”
She trailed off, but Claire understood where she was going. “It’ll be a pain in our ass, but we vowed to back the hedge witch community. I, for one, plan to stick by that.”
“Me too.” And not only because of Mia, Thea thought. She adored Giselle, too, and the vast majority of hedge witches were not vocal about what they wanted but lived peaceful, quiet lives. For them, she would fight. She only wished she had their outward support.
“The second thing has to do with my magic.”
“Oh?”
Thea gathered her courage. She had not planned on telling Claire first, if at all, but she felt it was better than putting Brandon in a difficult position. “I’ve been suffering some backlash.” She explained what happened at the coven estate and earlier that day. Claire was the only person Thea worked with who didn’t know about her having an extra-dimensional entity. She was bound to find out eventually, though. Might as well rip the band-aid off now.
Holy shit, Kira muttered.
“Is there a way to combat the backlash?” Claire asked.
Thea fidgeted with the end of her shirt. “There is. Actually, I’ve been doing something that’s prevented it until now, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore.”
That’s one way to call me useless.
Kira, you know it’s my fault, not yours.
The extra-dimensional entity fell silent.
Thea dove in headfirst, refusing to meet Claire’s eyes. She told of her first attempt to find the Lake of Power almost two years ago with Mia and how she’d met an extra-dimensional entity along the way. She explained how that entity had come back into the human world and was friendly. “You see, Kira isn’t my cousin. She’s the extra-dimensional entity.”
Finally, Thea dared to meet Claire’s gaze. To her shock, Claire appeared unsurprised.
She nodded curtly. “I always had a sense Kira was different.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Kira demanded in Thea’s mind. I’m going to shift and ask her what—
Absolutely not.
Kira groaned.
A heavy pause followed. “Is she here with us now?” Claire asked.
Thea nodded, then unglamoured Kira’s bird form. Kira hopped from Thea’s shoulder onto the desk, still muttering in Thea’s mind about how she thought it was better for Claire to see her in her human form.
“I see. I think I liked Kira’s human form better.”
Of course she does. It’s my best one. How about this? Kira sent into Thea’s brain, then turned into cat form, which Claire had seen before. “Kira would like to know what you think of this,” Thea interpreted, leaning back. She gave her boss a wry grin. “You might have guessed already, but she can be vain sometimes.”
Kira glowered at Thea, flicking her tail.
“Things are making more sense,” Claire added. “I always wondered why your cat and Kira struck me as similar. I thought it was a simple matter of a pet taking on their owner’s personality.”
“So you’re not mad?” Thea dared to ask.
“I can’t say I’m pleased. Normally, this shit would get you fired, but you’re lucky we need you now more than ever. No one else would have been able to take down that creature today, and it seems like Kira is as much to thank as you are.”
“She is,” Thea admitted.
“And do Brandon and Jax know about this?”
Thea felt conflicted. She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to risk their jobs, either. “No.”
