Lost Magic (Stolen Magic Book 3) Read online

  If I was going to face her directly, I’d need to be able to push through her illusions directly, and that meant I’d need spellbreaking. All my reading into spellbreaking showed it to be the kind of talent you couldn’t just develop. I was still going to try, but that had to wait. That meant Tobias. I enjoyed working with him, but I’d rather have saved the money. Call me a skinflint, but paying the price of a sportscar for an afternoon’s work was a last resort. That didn’t mean I’d hesitate if it meant taking out a threat to the pack. I sent him a text that just said I needed him to help me for the afternoon, the address of the pack house, and an eye-watering figure in pounds sterling. He sent back an affirmative with an ETA of 20 minutes. I did love Tobias.

  While I waited for him to arrive, I prepared myself for the fight. I expected it to be easier than it seemed, given that her illusion magic would likely be her go-to and once Tobias took care of it there’d be time to end it before she caught up to the tactical situation. That didn’t mean it would be easy.

  I geared up with variety of blades and charms, put a spell to produce a bubble of breathable, self-cooling, hypersaline water around me into the Genie in a Bottle, and explored the hotel’s website to find pictures of the rooms. There was nothing unusual there, at least not that mattered to me. Plush carpet, silk sheets, lots of mirrors, the normal cheap-to-look-expensive kind of fare, but otherwise a normal hotel room. The ideal location to do away with a being reliant on complex and creative magical deceptions.

  Tobias arrived with his usual fanfare. It was all hugs and stories of recent exploits, names changed to hilarious pseudonyms as much to spice up the narrative as to protect the guilty. I normally hated that sort of thing, but on Tobias it worked. If I were going to have made a friend in the years before I met the pack, he really would have been it. Maybe it was time to revisit that idea.

  I had to stop him between the end of a story about sabotaging the magic powering a drug facility to make it look like the supersoldier serum it was producing caused permanent diarrhoea and the beginning of one about a guy name Thurston and his ongoing dispute with the Erotic Harpy Enthusiasts Society. We had work to do. Now that he was here, I could give him the rundown without risking anything falling into the wrong hands. Texting was only as secure as the phone itself, and until I could see his face there was no way to be certain who I was talking to. It briefly occurred to me that, given the opponent we were going after was a illusionist, it wasn’t impossible that I was giving up the playbook to an enemy even in my own home, but if that was the case there wasn’t much to be done about it.

  After I told Tobias everything I knew about kitsune in general and Kim in particular, we slipped into touristy-looking glamours and set off to find Brighton’s newest assassin. Even looking the part, it was unlikely we’d sneak up on her in broad daylight, but I didn’t want to give her the time to settle in and prepare and there was no reason to think she wouldn’t find us first if given the afternoon to do it. Along the way, I stopped and bought more storm magic, channelling the vials into my charms for ease of use. Given the kitsune’s tie to lightning, it wouldn’t likely see much use, but there was no reason to go in less than fully prepared.

  Passing through the lobby of Kim’s hotel with the certainty of someone who had already checked in, we took the stairs to the third floor. Pausing at the door, I pulled on the spell in the Genie and was immediately surrounded by cold water. I gasped, having forgotten just how cold this spell could be. It was easily solved, though. I pulled on a bit of fire to warm myself up, forming a barrier between me and the water, and took a deep breath. A glance at Tobias showed him to be ready, if a little bemused about my sudden mermaid impression. With a nod, we stepped through the door from the stairwell, looking for room 307.

  What we found was an agonizing mass of flashing lights brighter than anything I could imagine set against a background of black so complete it was as if the concept of light couldn’t share a universe with it. Alongside my spell, it gave me the impression of being trapped at the bottom of the ocean, the place where those horrifying fish with the weird lights on them lived. The moment that thought occurred to me, I felt incredible pressure on every side, the weight of a trillion gallons of water crushing me into a ball so tiny that the anglerfish coming at me was big enough to swallow me without even noticing. I tried to swim away, but my arms were pinned. I reached for the magic of the water and began to shove outwards, but the moment I did I realized that none of this could be real. Hotel doors didn’t open onto oceans, and the water I was pressing on was the carefully formed protection I myself had created.

  I calmed my mind as best I could, ignoring the oncoming monstrosity and the agonizing press of water, and reached out to find a magical signature. The fish didn’t have one, at least not one of life magic. There were other signatures ahead of me and to the sides, but they were weak, weak enough that under other circumstances I’d have dismissed them as bugs or residual magic. They might have been other residents of the hotel, or they might have been Tobias and Kim. For that matter, they might have been entirely illusory, though why she would fake them and not the fish I couldn’t imagine.

  I looked for fire and lightning and found nothing. The water still felt real, probably because she could warp my perception of my own water spell. I thought about my options and realized I didn’t have any. If she attacked me, I’d have something to latch onto. At least, I hoped so. Until then, it was just me and the increasingly concerning variety of fish. That, and the constant agony of the imaginary water imaginary crushing me under its imaginary weight.

  I was certain that I had enough experience with pain that I could block it out, ignore it as the trifle it was, but it ate at me by inches. My concentration frayed as I tried to dissociate, my perception narrowing. If she’d attacked then, I would have been in trouble. She didn’t, though. Instead, the illusion burst open like a balloon, the images spraying in every direction and disappearing through the walls. I was surrounded by ugly sea-green walls and sandy industrial carpet. Tobias was holding me by the scruff of the neck, his magic burning in my mind like it was scouring the nerve endings.

  “Oww! Fuck almighty, Toby, can you just leave me in the ocean next time? I think my fucking brain melted.”

  “Oh, sweety, I’m sorry. Next time you should bring One-Eyed Tom and he can just take your consciousness out right along with the spell and save everyone some time.”

  “So, you heard about that,” I said, feeling a little sheepish even though it hadn’t been my call.

  “Ohhh yeah,” he said, smiling at me and shaking my head back and forth before he let go. “Don’t worry, I stole a couple black rhodys out of the garden on my way in to balance the books.”

  I almost complained about having just started my witch’s garden but reminded myself that we were in the middle of something. I took a deep breath, noted room 313 to my right, and continued down the hall towards the much-anticipated 307. I expected to at least see a few purple lions patrolling the halls, maybe a black void where the door was supposed to be, but everything went quite smoothly. Without waiting for something else to come out of nowhere, I raised my leg to kick down the door, getting within a couple inches before Tobias caught me by the ankle, earning himself a firm glare.

  With a wave of his hand, he revealed the door to be a window looking out on a 3-storey fall onto the concrete sitting area below, already weakened to break with the slightest tap. The people sitting there hadn’t noticed a thing, but nothing about them gave me the impression they would’ve appreciated several square feet of plate glass and a confused witch falling into their mojitos.

  I was preparing a quip about letting him lead when I heard a splash and felt a sharp pain between my shoulder blades. I turned to see a pretty girl with a mesmerizing amalgam of constantly moving tails flicking behind her holding a crossbow. As so many did, she had underestimated how much momentum a foot or two of water will bleed off a projectile, and now it was time to ensure it cost her. I dre
w out a throwing knife and threw it, the strength of my toss just enough to get it free of the water. Once it hit the air, I grabbed onto the earth magic in it and accelerated it towards its target, latching onto her life force with my magical senses and drawing the earth of the weapon and the life of her body together with terrible speed. It struck her solar plexus, burying itself almost entirely.

  I drew another, but as expected she threw up a new illusion and disappeared. I opened a hole in my water to shout, “Better luck next time, bitch,” as loudly as I could. Taunts weren’t really my style at times like this, but she needed to hate my arrogance, or she might slip away. Money was money, but it was punishment that drove her kind and even if she saw an easier payday on the horizon she wouldn’t walk away from a chance to bring down a cackling braggart and make a million-five in the process.

  Tobias took my cue and shouted something in Japanese after her, turning to me to ask much more quietly, “How tough are these things? Is that even going to slow her down?”

  “Not in itself, but - like all throwing knives should - it comes complete with waterproof poison. She’s too powerful to die from it, but it won’t do her any favours. Given enough time, it’ll unravel her life essence enough for me to get a grip on it and tear her apart at the most basic level. In the meantime, she’ll be slower, weaker, and stupider.”

  “Sexy,” he said, drawing a stiletto and taking the lead.

  I couldn’t blame him, given last time I was in charge I nearly threw myself out of a window. I wasn’t sure how much he could see, or what his sense of magic even looked like as a breaker, but if he was confident in his ability to suss out what was and wasn’t real, I was happy to trust him. After all, if he was wrong, he’d be the one to walk off the cliff this time.

  He paused at a blank spot of wall and reached for it, but before he could do his thing it dropped and a massive ball of lightning came from the open door it had concealed. It hit him square in the chest and dropped him. I had no time to tell if he was ok, I just launched myself through the door, the outer edges of my bubble splashing against the narrow doorframe. I found the room apparently empty. I made a show of punching the wall and beginning to turn my back.

  Right on cue, a ball of fire, bolt of lightning, and giant spear came at me from inside the room. All three struck my liquid shell simultaneously. The fireball would boil some water, but the ice would cool it before it could hurt me much. The lightning would disperse hypersaline water and into the floor below, all but ignoring my less conductive body. The spear was the real threat, and I focused on it exclusively, leaning backwards as I turned to let it pass in front of my face. Grabbing the weapon, I yanked on it and got my hands around the wielder, invisible but having not had the time to do the difficult job of faking immateriality.

  I closed my eyes and worked by feel, putting every bit of my grappling knowledge to use against the significant advantage of sight. She got in several elbows, her arms impossible to keep track of without letting her torso free, at which point she’d be all but gone. The water slowed her strikes, but she was stronger than she looked. I heard a knife clear its sheath and needed to put an end to it. I latched onto the hand with the weapon, dumb luck standing by me as I blindly groped at where I expected her to strike from given the direction of the sound, and held it at a distance, letting her focus her strength on forcing it inwards. While she did, I reached down with my earth magic and pulled several poisoned throwing knives free, driving them into her one by one and letting the poison do its job. It wasn’t long before she was too weak to keep up the wrestling match, and I quickly wrapped my arms around her, putting her into a simplistic chokehold. It wouldn’t last, not even against a poisoned amateur, but it didn’t need to. Less than a second later, I had freed one hand, drawn a dagger, and driven it between her ribs and into her heart three times in a row. Her blood, sparkling red like spilled rubies, began to disperse into the water, and she went limp.

  I hastily dropped the water spell, the ice and fire dispersing as the earth and water remained to ruin the carpet. I gathered the priceless kitsune blood into several large flasks and tucked them away before it could spill on the carpet and make a wasteful mess. I turned to Tobias once I had.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said, sipping health potion from an engraved crystal bottle. “I’ll just be over here dying of electrocution. Alone. With no witch to heal me. Or remember I exist. At all.”

  I kissed him on the forehead and ruffled his hair, which was thoroughly ruined by his recent electrocution. I pressed one of the smaller flasks of blood into chest as I did.

  “I had a strong feeling you’d rather have double your fee in blood while the gathering was good than a concierge healing experience.”

  “Oh, Lily, you know me so well, you selfish bitch,” he said, grinning and putting the vial into a pocket hidden by the glamour, and splashed me with a bit of the water that was puddling down the hall at him.

  I turned back to the body and butchered it for parts with my knife, taking what was left of her magic as I did. I didn’t normally do the organ donor thing, if only because it was gross and I didn’t need the money, but this sent a message. If you hunt the Sentinels, you get turned into meat. No open caskets, no honour among rivals. The mercs in this city had gone to war with us, and there could be no compacts between wolves and lambs.

  Tobias looked on with shocked admiration. I had a feeling that my reputation was a little more princess-y than I’d realized. Could be time to change that, too. I split the loot into two bags of roughly equal value and passed one to Tobias along with a roll of 50s. He smiled coyly at me.

  “So... drinks?”

  Twenty-Two

  Word was spreading that I'd taken the kitsune out. Hopefully the pack would have a little more room to breathe and the mercenaries would back off a bit.

  I was heading home with some groceries and healing supplies when the call came in. Another burn had just been discovered. We weren't going to be able to get there ahead of Varehn this time. Swinging the car around, I pushed it as hard as I could towards the border between Brighton and Hove. This one was closer to people, more of a risk.

  Varehn was wearing a shit-eating grin when I got there. Elijah had pulled up just before me.

  "Looks like you were too late," Varehn said as he tucked something in his jacket.

  There was nothing we could do about the damage he'd likely done to the scene. No one was playing fair. We'd just have to suck it up and get what we could.

  Jess was sidling up to one of the firemen and spoke to him in soft tones. She giggled girlishly and put her hand on his forearm. It was something to see. I decided that she had the right idea. The firemen might have some information.

  I was heading over to the older firewoman who looked like she'd seen some shit. My assumption was that she was superior and thus might have a better chance of having seen something of use.

  She tensed and someone shouted. A scruffy looking man took off down the street and around the corner. I ran after him as fast I could. Those runs around the forest with the pack were paying off as I gained on him. He was running flat out. His old t-shirt with three holes near the shoulder blade and dark jeans that had seen better days gave the impression that he was likely local to the area; it wasn't what you'd call a well-to-do area. It was more the type of place where you kept your sword on show to try and keep the witches from jumping you in broad daylight.

  Witches are prone to earning their bad reputation. There are those who live in places like that and predate anything they can. Bones, blood, life essence, it all went for a pretty penny if you knew whom to sell it to. Then there were those like the coven I came from. Cut-throat businesswomen who'd throw a family out on the street just to make an extra ten pounds a month in rent.

  How people reacted to the news that you were a witch changed from territory to territory. Brighton was very relaxed about our presence, but it was a relaxed territory all around. Leeds could get interesting, as the witches
had a lot more power there. That meant that you'd be watched very closely by the resident witches. Personally, I didn't much care what other witches were up to as long as it didn't interfere with my pack or work.

  The guy half-stumbled, and I took my chance to leap on his back. As he landed with a thud, I realised that maybe I'd been spending a little bit too much time around the pack.

  "Why did you run?" I demanded.

  He coughed and tried to throw me off his back. I drew my closest knife and pressed it against his throat.

  "Why. Did. You. Run?"

  "Because I saw something, and you're here to tidy up his mess."

  "Tell me exactly what you saw."

  He deflated against the cracked tarmac. I could feel the gathering of witch life essences. They weren't within sight yet, but they were slowly edging closer, having seen a potential opportunity. The most confident of the witches was casually leaning against a silver-barked tree on the corner of the next street. The tree was a marker of the amount of magic witches had taken from the area. It would once have been a beautiful deep purple with vibrant yellow and amber leaves that stayed all year round. The fact that it was now crooked and grey showed that the witches had drained as much magic as they could from the area.