Chapter 8

I showeredand washed my hair. When I got out, I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and spent several minutes straightening the mess left behind by this morning's magical hurricane. I stacked my files, put my dirty clothes back in the hamper, returned the scattered items to my nightstand and dresser, and hung the pictures back on the wall.

After I got dressed and dried and braided my hair, I ate a sandwich while setting out a replacement change of clothes for my go-bag.

With my preparations finished, I called my client.

"Hello!" Natalie's greeting was warm and cheerful. I felt a pang of guilt that she had no memory of what had happened last night. "How are you feeling? I've been so worried about you."

"Doing fine," I told her. "I'm ready to come take a look at that library."

"I'm glad you're okay. I haven't tried to go in there."

"I'm sorry about that, but until we know what's going on, I think we'd better err on the side of caution."

"Good thinking. I can't believe I was living in this house for so long with those wards." I could hear the fear and anger in Natalie's voice. I could understand the feeling; even knowing the wards had been keyed not to harm her, anyone not used to being around magic would have good reason to be afraid of spells designed to kill without warning or mercy. Hell, I'd been using magic since I was four and blood magic since I was twelve, and it was enough to rattle me.

"Well, it made for an interesting afternoon. What time should I come over?"

"Whenever you want. I'm here all day."

"I'm about ready to head out. I can be there in about an hour."

"Awesome." A pause. "Is Malcolm coming?"

"Yes. He's going to help me with the wards. See you in a few."

We said good-bye and disconnected. I put on my jewelry: rings, charm bracelet—with assorted spells—and a monogram necklace with a pendant shaped like the letter A.

Time to let my new sidekick out. I picked up my crystal earrings from the tray on the nightstand. I could feel Malcolm's energy buzzing in my palm. Yesterday, unsure of how much energy would be discharged, I'd used a circle to contain Malcolm when I released him, but it hadn't been necessary. Today, I simply held the earring and said, "Release."

With a yell, Malcolm popped into existence three feet in front of me. The wave of magic staggered me back a half step. Unlike yesterday, when he'd been disoriented and near frantic, today he just looked surprised. He also looked far more substantial than he did before. Hmm. I suddenly wondered if he'd gotten a boost at the same time I did when I was having sex with Sean. I'd been wearing the earrings and it seemed logical. I flushed.

"Hey, Alice." Malcolm moved back and forth slowly. "I feel…different, more solid and much stronger. Did you try another spell?"

"Sorta." He categorically did not need to know where the energy boost had come from. "Was it less rough on you this time?"

"Yes." He looked relieved. "It feels like it's only been a few minutes this time. The time before…." He shuddered. "It felt like forever, and like a split second too, if that makes any sense. It really messed with my head."

I tried to wrap my brain around that and couldn't. "I'll have to take your word for it. I'm glad it wasn't as bad this time. I'll look into a different spell as soon as I get a chance."

"So how long was I in there?"

"It's tomorrow afternoon. After I put you in the earring, I went to meet the vamp, but he was busy. I'll be seeing him tonight. Then I, uh, got some sleep, called Natalie to let her know we're on our way over, and here you are."

"Cool." Malcolm moved around the room. "So this is your house?"

"Yes." I gave him a quick tour of the upstairs, then grabbed the stack of clothes that were going in my go-bag and headed downstairs, Malcolm floating behind me. I showed him around the main floor—living room, kitchen, laundry room/downstairs bathroom, storage room—and then pointed at the basement door. "That's my library and my spellwork area. We'll be spending a lot of time down there."

"Right on." Malcolm stared at the door and whistled low. "Whoa."

I realized he was seeing the wards. I'd poured a lot of time, energy, and blood into those wards. They were the strongest and most intricate I'd ever made. Even the best mages wouldn't be able to get in. There were layers of deadly landmines strung throughout the spells. Trying to break the wards directly would mean death for the mage or mages who tried. Nuking the wards with focused energy would level the house and kill everyone in it. My basement was as secure as I could make it.

Malcolm looked at me with a combination of fear and respect. "Holy shit. I thought Betty's wards were intense. How long did it take you to do this?"

"The foundation spells took three days and eight pints of blood. The rest of the basic spells took about a week. I've been adding on to it and pouring energy into it since I moved in almost five years ago."

"It's incredible," Malcolm said reverently. "All that energy, and yet I couldn't even sense it from upstairs." He drifted forward, his fingers moving as if he was envisioning the process I'd used to layer the spells. "I've never seen anything like it. I see the energy, but I can't feel it. I can't even begin to understand the spells you're using to mask the trace. Unbelievable."

"Well, I couldn't very well let anyone sense the energy. It would be a beacon so bright, they'd see it from space. You're not even seeing the strongest and most deadly wards."

"What?" Malcolm's eyes widened.

"There are secondary spells hidden in landmines. Even if a team of mages came in here and tried to unweave the spells, they'd hit the landmines and release the cascades." Cascades were spells that triggered a series of other, more powerful spells, like an avalanche. There were even more surprises hidden in the cascades: divine wind spells designed to travel back to the heart of whichever cabal attempted to break my wards and cause maximum destruction. If my library went—even if I went with it—I'd be going out with a very big bang.

Malcolm was silent for a long time. "With skills and power like this, you would be the most powerful mage in just about any cabal in the country," he said finally. He drifted back toward me and stopped close enough that I felt his energy buzzing. "There is no way any cabal would let you go. I know you used to belong to one; you knew what I was talking about when I was telling you about my past. At first I thought you'd completed your contract and negotiated a release, but there's no way." His eyes searched my face. "You feel like a mid-level mage, but you aren't, are you?"

I said nothing.

Malcolm's brows drew together and his anger prickled on my skin. "Alice—"

"No," I said in a cold, flat tone.

He closed his mouth.

"I belonged to a cabal. Now I don't. The rest of what happened isn't a story I can share with you, not right now, maybe not ever. You know better than most people what the cabals are capable of. Now you know at least some of what I'm capable of." I gestured at the wards protecting my basement. "Perhaps you can fill in some of the blanks for yourself, or at least hazard a guess."

I took a step toward him, despite the sizzle of his energy on my skin. It hurt, but I was no stranger to pain. I'd felt little else since I was four years old. "You're one of the best mages I've ever met. I think we can have a good long-term partnership. I want to know what's in Betty's library and what books were stolen from her. I want to know how strong Natalie's magic is and find her a mentor if she wants one. Big picture, I want to know what Darius Bell is up to and how you ended up bound to me. But from here on, you have to understand that my past is off-limits. No questions, no poking around. It's not personal, but I will protect myself. If those wards tell you anything, it's that I am not someone you'd want to cross."

Malcolm's mouth opened and closed several times. I stepped back.

Finally, he regained his power of speech. "Well, at least we cleared that up." He sighed—purely an affectation, as ghosts didn't breathe. "I get it. No questions."

"Good. We need to head over to Natalie's house." I put on my leather jacket and turned to gather my things.

"Wait, I do have one question."

I paused, my arms full. "Yes?"

"The blood in the foundation spells—all eight pints of it—it isn't yours."

I turned and gave him the kind of smile that made people twitch. "I never said it was."

Malcolm flitted back so fast, he passed through the couch and the coffee table and ended up over near the fireplace. "Okay then." He sounded strangled. "I'm glad we could have this talk."

"Come on, Malcolm." I opened the front door. "Let's go see a woman about some missing books."

The drive over to Natalie's house was more or less silent. When I parked in her driveway, I could feel the wards. They felt as strong as they had when I'd left. At some point, Natalie would be able to maintain them, but that would be a while yet, and that was assuming I could find someone to teach her.

I had to find Natalie a mentor, but I also had to be very careful. If she had strong magic like her grandmother, she'd be worth good money to a cabal. A mage without scruples would sell her out in a heartbeat. At the same time, I was hiding from the cabals. I couldn't very well go around making inquiries, but Charles could. As a broker and a member of the Vampire Court, he was powerful and connected. I was betting he would know someone who could train Natalie and wouldn't sell her out.

Was there any reason to doubt Charles? I thought back over all my dealings with him. He was ruthless, certainly; all vampires were. The older they were, the less human they became. Charles wasn't all that old by vamp standards; he'd fought in the Revolutionary War as an adolescent, which meant he'd been turned sometime around 1800. As a member of the Vampire Court and a successful businessman, he excelled in reading people, making alliances, and staying ahead of the competition. Could I trust him with Natalie's life? I'd been so certain last night, but now, in the cold light of day and looking at the home Betty had shared with her granddaughter, I started to wonder.

The X factor was how much power Natalie had. If she had a lot, it would make her a powerful bargaining chip, and for a vamp, that might be too irresistible of a prize if he needed something to establish an alliance with a cabal. Of course, if her power was mid-level or lower, she wouldn't be worth selling out.

"Are we going in?" Malcolm's voice made me jump. I realized we'd been sitting in front of Natalie's house for almost ten minutes while I thought through the problem.

"In a minute. I need your opinion." I laid it out for him. "Thoughts?"

"I definitely agree that we need to know how strong she is," Malcolm said. "If she's powerful, you're right—telling the vamp about her might not be a good idea. If she's mid-level or below, we're probably safe talking to him."

I nodded. It was great having a partner to talk things through with, especially when he agreed with my plan.

"I vote we tell Natalie the truth and let her decide," he added. "I think she needs to know what's going on and make an informed decision. I'm not sure we have the right to determine how much she gets to know about herself."

"You're right. If it were me, and I found out someone had been keeping this kind of information from me, I'd be furious. I'm worried about how she'll take the news, but she deserves to know."

"I think the best thing to do is tell her what we know, give her the options, and see what she wants to do. Hell, she may want us to bind her power completely. There are a lot of people who don't want any part of magic. There are a lot of days when I'd give anything not to have it. I suffered a lot because of my ‘gift.'" He sounded bitter.

"Do you really wish you had been born without magic?"

A long pause. Then the ghost in my car said, "Honestly? Yes."

I sat back in my seat and tried to imagine my life without magic. No cabal, no blood magic. No Agency to fear. My parents would still be alive. I thought about all the pain I had endured since the day when I was four and my magic manifested and my grandfather saw in me the potential to be the strongest mage in the family's history.

I rubbed my face. It didn't matter if I didn't want the magic or not; I had it. I couldn't change anything about my past. The dead would stay dead. As an MPI, I tried to help people, as if I could do enough good to somehow make up for what I'd done for the cabal. It wasn't enough, but it was all I could do.

"Let's go talk to Natalie," I said finally.

Once we were inside, Malcolm went visible again. Because he'd drawn energy from Natalie the night before, she could hear him now. What surprised me was that she could sort of see him too, probably thanks to the power boost.

Natalie sat on the couch, I took the chair, and Malcolm floated three feet to my left. She was looking right at him. "I can see the outline of someone," she said in wonder. "Like when you stare at a geometric pattern and then a blank wall, and your eyes still see the pattern."

I pulled a folder out of my bag. "Before we get started, we should write up a contract and talk about payment. I should have done it yesterday, but things got unexpectedly…busy."

Natalie's hand flew to her mouth. "I am so sorry! I forgot completely about that. Let's do it now."

We spent about twenty minutes going over the contract. She argued when I told her I wasn't invoking the "extraordinary circumstances with personal injury" clause after what happened last night. I insisted that my burn and ruined shirt were my fault, but I let her talk me into adding a bonus for the landmine mishap. We agreed on a retainer and a daily rate plus expenses, and she wrote me a check and signed the papers.

With the legalities out of the way, it was time for The Talk. "Natalie, before I start working on the library, there's something we need to discuss. What's the last thing you remember from last night?"

She thought about it. "You'd been hurt by the wards," she said slowly. "I wrapped you in blankets and Malcolm was going to put new wards on the library. And then I…fell asleep?" She frowned. "That doesn't seem right. How did I fall asleep in the middle of all that?"

"You didn't." She blinked at me in confusion. "Some pretty strange stuff happened last night. I'm going to tell you everything, but you might find it a little upsetting."

"Just tell me!" Natalie demanded.

I told her about her fire and air magic suddenly manifesting, how Betty had suppressed her magic, and how I'd bound it again before tucking her into bed.

By the time I finished, Natalie was pacing around the living room, her arms wrapped around her middle. She looked mad and scared. I wasn't sure what would help her, so I waited.

Finally, she turned to face me. "What am I supposed to do?" she demanded. "Yesterday I found out my grandmother was a powerful mage who left killer wards behind when she died. I saw you hurt twice from what she did. Now you tell me I have magic too, but that my grandmother put spells on me so I wouldn't know I had it."

Malcolm and I waited quietly while she struggled to process what I'd told her. Finally, she dropped back onto the couch and sighed. "Okay, I can deal with this. Tell me what we need to do."

Briefly, I outlined the problem. "I'm pretty sure we can keep your magic bound. If you want no part of this life, I'm about ninety percent certain I can keep your magic from manifesting. I think the reason it flared last night is that Betty's spells weren't maintained after she passed away. They might have been tied to the library wards; I'm not sure."

I suddenly had a revelation. "You know how you told me you thought you were being poisoned because you've been sick and losing weight? I'm wondering if your magic trying to escape the binding spells might be causing you to be ill."

She looked shocked. "You really think so?"

"It's a possibility. Have you felt better today?"

She thought about it. "Well, yes, I guess I have. I ate a big sandwich for lunch, and normally I'm not that hungry. I thought it was because I got a good night's sleep." Suddenly she seemed more energized. "Well, that's a relief! One less thing to worry about. I guess nobody is really trying to kill me after all!"

"I'm not sure I'm right; it's just a theory for now," I said before she could get too excited. "The binding spell I put on you is tied to our wards, which are at full strength, so your situation should be stabilized for a while."

"Will the spell always be tied to the wards?" Natalie bit her lip.

"No. There's another way. A better way."

"How?"

"A tattoo." I pushed up my right sleeve and pulled down the back of my shirt to show her some of my own tattoos, including a dragon coiled around my upper arm and the phoenix on my back. "A tattoo can hold a spell pretty much indefinitely. It wouldn't have to be very big—maybe two inches square. Your own aura will power the spell."

"Would it have to be a particular design?"

I shook my head. "There would be runes, but a good mage tattoo artist can make them practically invisible within most any design. You could get pretty much whatever you want and put it wherever you want. I can take you to the mage who did my tattoos."

"You said ninety percent." Natalie seized on something I said earlier. "Why not a hundred percent?"

"Unfortunately, every spell has counterspells, and I can't anticipate every possibility. Most government buildings are protected by wards that disrupt spells, even ones anchored by tattoos. If you crossed one, the binding might fail. If you ever touched a null—"

"What's a null?"

"A null is a mage who can drain someone else's energy by touching them. They're not common, but they're out there. If you bumped into one on the street, you'd lose some or all of your magic and the suppression spell would fail. If you didn't get to me or someone soon to redo the spells, your magic would be uncontrolled as it regenerated."

Natalie closed her eyes.

"If you're looking for guarantees, I can't give them to you," I said. "That's life, pretty much. You'll be as safe—and nonmagical—as anyone can make you, if you decide that's what you want."

"And if I don't want it bound?" Natalie opened her eyes and stared at me. She might be tiny, but she was feisty.

"You'll need training. First, I need to know for sure what kind of magic you have, and how strong you are. Once I know that, I can find someone to take you on as an apprentice. You'll learn how to control your magic and use it. You don't have to become a practicing mage. Your life won't have to change much. Once you learn control, it will be just like any other ability, like being able to paint or sing." Well, that was oversimplifying things, but the gist was true.

"How do we find out how strong my magic is?"

"Two choices. I can put you back in a sleep spell and Malcolm and I will find out, rebind you, and wake you up to tell you. Second option: you stay awake and find out at the same time we do."

"Which do you recommend?"

"It's up to you. One thing you might want to think about is that you have no memory of having magic, of how it feels. I can imagine it might be frightening for you if you're awake when we release the binding spells, which is why I suggested you be asleep. You might prefer to make the decision without the memory of being afraid."

Natalie was quiet. "How long can I think about this?"

"As long as you need," Malcolm said. "Your magic is bound. I know Alice would prefer that we at least find out today what kind of magic you have and how strong you are, but really it's up to you. If you want to do that today, and then decide later whether or not to bind the magic permanently, that's okay. For whatever it's worth, if it were me, I'd at least want to know that about myself before I made any long-term decisions."

Natalie took a deep breath. "Okay, let me think about this."

I stood up. "In the meantime, Malcolm and I are going to take a look at the library."

"I'm going to make some tea. You want some?"

"Sure."

Malcolm and I headed back to the master bedroom, and Natalie went to the kitchen.

We looked at the wards we'd put on the library the night before. I could see the beautiful green lines of Malcolm's spellwork and the darker colors of my own magic.

"What are you thinking?" Malcolm asked.

"I'm thinking we need strong containment wards. Whatever's in there, we don't want it getting out."

"I can do that. Can you take down your wards?"

I reached out and brushed my fingertips over the doorframe and my wards fell. Malcolm's fingers moved quickly, and in a few minutes, the library perimeter hummed with a strong containment spell. Nothing short of the magical equivalent of a nuke was getting out.

"Whew," Malcolm said. "I feel like I have so much more power today. Whatever spell you used, I like it."

Yeah, I like it too.I didn't say a thing.

I took a deep breath and opened the door to Betty's library.