Bound Magic

  Bound Magic

  Faerene Apocalypse

  Book 2

  Jenny Schwartz

  Six billion people are dead. More are dying. The Faerene Apocalypse isn’t over, but the seeds for a new beginning have to be planted, now.

  The future of Earth is that of a planet of many sentients: of the invading, magical Faerene and mundane, traumatized humanity.

  But a few, exceedingly rare humans do have magic. Amy Carlton is one of them. Forced to bond with the black griffin, Magistrate Istvan, and act as his familiar, she doesn’t understand the magic she possesses. Nor does she understand the Faerene society she is thrown into.

  She’ll have to learn fast because the cost of Amy’s ignorance couldn’t be higher. Death stalks an apocalypse, and the lives lost could be those of people she loves.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Want More?

  Chapter 1

  Home smelled of wood smoke and rain.

  Philosophers argue that no one can truly go home. The act of leaving and living away changes a person, and those who stay behind change, too. Nothing remains as it was.

  But the philosophers are wrong.

  Home is home because no matter the changes, there is always a place there for you.

  Dogs barked wildly as I stepped through the portal to Apfall Hill with Istvan on my left and Rory just a fraction ahead of us on my right.

  “Amy?” Digger’s shout of greeting and surprise silenced the dogs. He’d been scavenging in the Twenty First Century Graveyard, which was the grand and ironic name for the junkyard on the road verge created from the remnants of failed technology we’d scrapped there. Behind him, the old green roof and white walls of the two hundred year old farmhouse stood out against the gray and brown of the bare trees and rain sodden dirt.

  Istvan had opened the portal in the middle of the road.

  “Digger! I’m with friends.” I didn’t want anyone trying to shoot an arrow or otherwise attack the massive black griffin and human-form werewolf who accompanied me. Both Istvan and Rory were mages. They could do more than protect themselves. They could obliterate my home.

  I jumped a tire and stayed upright despite the bull mastiff, Skull, greeting me exuberantly. Then I landed in Digger’s arms.

  They closed tight around me.

  Digger was a former army sergeant. He was in his early forties, tall, hard-bitten and equally hard muscled. His hug would leave bruises. But his kiss on my forehead was gentle. “We thought we’d lost you.”

  Fort Farm, as Jarod had renamed our home, was inhabited by my self-chosen family. Digger was the sort of man anyone would want to be their “dad” during a disaster. Together, we’d weathered the first six months of the Faerene Apocalypse. This was home in a way I’d never known before. This was family.

  In bringing Istvan and Rory here I was trusting them with the most precious treasure I possessed: the people I loved.

  Tabby, Digger’s huge brindled mutt, leaned heavily against us, her tail thumping against my thighs.

  “Amy! Oh God, Amy.”

  I pulled away from Digger to run and meet Jarod, who came dashing from the house. From the corner of my eye, I saw Skull sitting by Rory, getting an ear scratch. Then Jarod and I crashed together, tumbling down onto the wet leaves that covered the yard. I was too happy to feel any hurts.

  Jarod was half-sobbing and I was full on crying. He was the brother I’d never had; barely taller than me, but wiry and quick. He hauled me back up from the dirt and swiped a sleeve across his face. His other arm held me close. “How? What? Who?”

  His jumbled questions reminded me of Istvan and Rory’s presence.

  I sniffed inelegantly. “Magistrate Istvan, Rory,” I didn’t know his last name. “This is Jarod and that’s Digger. The dogs are—”

  “Pleased to meetcha. Come up to the house,” Digger interrupted. “Amy, Stella shouldn’t be out in the rain.”

  I hadn’t noticed how wet we were getting. I turned to the house, and there was Stella starting down the front steps.

  Hand in hand, Jarod and I ran to meet her.

  Carefully, Stella climbed back up two steps to the shelter of the porch. In her late seventies, Stella had shown remarkable resilience, handling the dangers and disruption of the apocalypse with dignity and determination.

  Now, her arms shook as she stretched them out to me.

  I wrapped her in a careful hug, newly aware of her frailty. “I’m home, Stella.”

  The farmhouse was hers. It had been in her late husband’s family for generations. She had welcomed us all in, working with us to ensure food and physical security for the family we’d created, and for our town.

  “I’m okay,” I whispered.

  “The dragon took you.”

  I nodded. “And Istvan’s brought me back.” For how long, I didn’t know, and I couldn’t make promises. “Stella, this is Magistrate Istvan, a black griffin. And this is Rory, head of the Magisterial Guard Unit for North America.” I think I got his new title correct. “Rory is a werewolf.” Maybe in Faerene circles announcing their species might be considered uncouth, but my family needed to know.

  And Rory looked like an ordinary guy from his red-tinged brown hair and scattering of freckles on his tanned face to the worn scruffiness of his boots. He was a fraction taller than Digger, but carried himself with a slouching casual air that failed to completely disguise his muscled build and general alertness.

  There were so many explanations to be made.

  However, Stella insisted on observing the courtesies first. “Magistrate Istvan. Thank you for bringing our Amy home. You are welcome. As are you, Rory. I am Mrs. Stella Thornton. I’d invite you in for breakfast, but…”

  Istvan was far bigger than an ordinary lion; more the size of an elephant. There was no way he’d fit in the house.

  It was early morning, barely past dawn.

  “There is space for us in the barn.” The gruff voice came from the side of the house. Mike, Jarod’s father, had been watching in hiding.

  Rory and Istvan had probably known he was there. Neither startled at his approach.

  I gave him a hug. I wasn’t as close to Mike as I was to the others. He’d lost his son, Ryan, in the early days of the troubles and he’d withdrawn. Still, I trusted him. I’d missed him and his uncompromising commonsense and problem solving. The world made sense when Mike was around.

  Jarod grabbed an umbrella for Stella and we headed for the barn.

  Inside, a woodstove was just beginning to give off heat. I settled Stella in a rocking chair beside it. I recognized the chair. In the summer, it occupied the screened-in back porch.

  Jarod shook out a blanket and laid it over Stella’s lap.

  I placed a plain bentwood chair beside her and sat close enough to clasp her hand.

  Unexpectedly, Rory insinuated himself into the picture and sat on the floorboards at my feet. His sturdy shoulder brushed my legs. His position flirted with possessiveness. It laid a claim that I hadn’t agreed to.

  Or had I? It didn’t feel wrong to have him close by, even with Digger, Jarod and Mike all glaring at him.

  Skull sighed and laid down with his head on Rory’s knee. Tabby sat alertly by Digger, and Brutus, the third dog, stayed with Mike.

  “Craig and Niamh?” I asked after the absent members of our family.

  “On patrol,” Digger said.

  Relief flashed through me.
On patrol meant they were fine. It had only been a few days since Dorotta, the copper-colored Messenger dragon, had carried me away, and yet, it felt much longer. I was glad my family was safe.

  Craig was Mike’s other son. Niamh was a former firefighter, a woman in her thirties, who’d been the last to join our clan. Like me and Digger, she was originally from out of town.

  Apfall Hill had more out-of-towners now than home-grown residents. Disease was mostly to blame for our losses. Fevers had swept through Pennsylvania and the wider region in summer.

  Refugees had bolstered our numbers. A lot of the newcomers were former military. Mike had been well-known pre-apocalypse for helping veterans find their feet in civilian life. People had sought him out after the army, navy and air force disbanded. Apfall Hill had acquired a reputation for being a safe place. For as many as we’d lost to disease, the death toll had been many times higher outside. I’d recently learned that our survival rate had been due to the magic I’d unconsciously channeled into healing.

  I looked at Istvan. A few hours ago I’d sworn a vow to the black griffin. My magic was no longer mine, but his to command. I was just the channel it would travel through. I couldn’t heal people magically any more, not even by accident.

  Mike put a kettle on the stovetop to heat and arranged six tin mugs on a workbench. He looked sideways at Istvan. “I don’t know what to offer you.”

  “I require no refreshment.”

  Jarod shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I smoked some eels a few days ago if you’d like a snack?”

  “Another time.”

  The tension in the barn ratcheted up at Istvan’s implicit promise that he’d return. Then again, they didn’t know what he was to me.

  I plunged into my story. “When Dorotta, the dragon, took me from the harvest festival, she did so because I’m one of perhaps a few hundred humans in the world who’ve shown that they possess magic.”

  “Magic?”

  “You have magic?”

  I released Stella’s hand, afraid that as my tension increased I might forget myself and squeeze her fingers too tightly. Her arthritis would make a hard grip painful. “Apparently, I was channeling magic to heal people.”

  “Wow.” Jarod dragged up a cane chair and sat beside me.

  Digger stood beyond him, and Mike watched the kettle from the far side of the stove.

  Istvan was opposite us, at the entrance to the barn, blocking it with his bulk. He lowered himself into a crouch, wrapping his tail around his hind legs as a housecat might. He was as black as night and as glossy as a raven. His head and wings resembled an eagle’s, but his body and legs were leonine.

  “The Faerene took a hundred of us rare human magic users to test the nature of our magic and who we might be best matched with.” I paused. Trying to summarize my experiences of the last few days and not freak out my family was challenging. “When the Red Drake appeared on television, before eating the Fukushima nuclear power plant, he mentioned that the Faerene came through the Rift to save us. I’ve been told a little bit more than that.”

  Mike added the ground up dandelion roots and nuts that were our coffee substitute to the water coming to the boil in the kettle.

  I watched the everyday action absently while I mentally juggled the need to inform my family of Earth’s new reality whilst not offending Istvan or Rory. “The Faerene are a number of different peoples from their planet, Elysium. Some are griffins, like Istvan. Others are werewolves, like Rory. There are elves. I met Fae King Harold. He’s…interesting.”

  Istvan coughed.

  I recognized his dry amusement.

  Beside me, Jarod jolted in his seat.

  For a second Rory gripped my ankle. It was a curiously encouraging touch. It reassured me that I could do this. I could bridge the gap between my human family and the Faerene magistrate and his guard whom fate had gifted me to.

  “There are unicorns and orcs and others.”

  Mike poured the ersatz coffee, the brown liquid streaming through an old tea strainer. Steam rose on the cold air.

  I accepted a mug.

  Rory stretched up a lazy arm and took his with a nod of thanks.

  “From what I understand, the Rift between worlds opened because we, humanity, kept pushing forward, using up more and more resources all directed to the future.” I hesitated. “I know this sounds weird, but the unicorn who taught me said something about our linear progression being the problem. We need a more circular approach to life. Life, death and rebirth.”

  Istvan nodded, confirming that this was a valued Faerene philosophy.

  I sipped some of the “coffee”, and missed the taste of the genuine coffee the Faerene had served at the trials I’d just completed.

  Rory drank the brew without comment or hesitation.

  I cradled my mug. “Istvan and Rory were among the Faerene magicians who closed the Rift, barring it against the Kstvm—giant carnivorous insects—who would have invaded and laid their eggs inside humans. We’d have been cattle, bred and eaten, till the Kstvm exhausted our world and moved on. Istvan and Rory lost a couple of colleagues in their defense of the Rift. Earth is now their home as well as ours. Apparently, a Migration is a one-way event. They can’t return to Elysium.”

  I gulped some of the swiftly cooling drink. “The Faerene say we can’t risk uncontrolled human magic battering at the Rift. They’ll do whatever they have to to keep the Rift sealed.”

  “Which means maintaining a slow, stable lifestyle across the planet,” Istvan said.

  Stella had placed her mug on the floor untasted, and left it there. “Renaissance level, your dragon said on television.”

  “Piros, the Red Drake, kept things simple in his explanation to your world,” Istvan replied. “Amy is also summarizing what she’s learned.”

  “The bottom line,” I said. “Is that the Faerene won’t let the rare humans with magic, like me, use that magic recklessly, so they’ve resurrected an old idea from their culture. The notion of familiars. Familiars have magic, but don’t use it. Instead, they channel their magic for their magician’s use. The primary goal of the last few days was to match me as a familiar with a magician.”

  My family all looked at Rory as he lounged at my feet.

  “I was matched with Magistrate Istvan.”

  They blinked and stared at the black griffin.

  “So you stole her magic,” Digger said.

  Istvan cocked his head to the side, studying the former soldier. “Would you leave a tinderbox or a box of matches in a toddler’s hands? Magic is too volatile and powerful, and the Rift too recently sealed, for humanity to play with magic.”

  Jarod leaned forward eagerly. “Will you teach Amy how to use hers?”

  “Perhaps. I have many demands on my time. Even learning to incorporate her magic into my spells is a distraction from my purpose on Earth.”

  “Why are you here?” Mike frowned at him from beneath graying, bushy eyebrows.

  Istvan ruffled his feathers. “I joined the Migration to serve as a magistrate, as I have done for three centuries on Elysium.”

  Eyes widened at his casual mention of centuries.

  “I am here in Apfall Hill because all of the adjustments required of a Faerene and human familiar pairing shouldn’t be borne by Amy alone. She wanted me to know, value and protect her family.”

  I blushed as I realized how easily he’d read my attempt to defend my family from him by bringing him here, pulling him into it.

  But, he hadn’t resisted.

  “Protect us how?” Mike asked.

  “As one does for family.”

  Istvan’s non-specific answer oddly satisfied Mike.

  Digger nodded, as well.

  Males. Whatever the species, sometimes they were just mysterious.

  “The final reason I’m here,” Istvan continued. “Is because territories have been reassigned due to our losses and my new relationship with Amy. I was to be magistrate for the former Russian emp
ire, plus Mongolia and Japan. Instead, I am now responsible for North America. I need to determine where I will be based.”

  He looked at me. “Apfall Hill is not an option. I can translocate to wherever I am required, plus many months will be spent on circuit. However, a town tends to grow around a magistrate’s residence, and I do not think that is a burden that should be placed on an already thriving settlement such as Apfall Hill. Moreover, in a world where the majority of long distance travel will be along waterways, I need a residence by a river.”

  “Will Amy go with you?” Stella asked.

  “Yes.” Rory’s voice was quiet, but firm. “This is both for her protection and yours. It is unlikely that Faerene would attack a magistrate’s familiar or anyone under Istvan’s protection, such as yourselves, but it is possible. Amy can’t defend herself against a magical attack, so she needs to be with either Istvan or me.

  “Secondly, as humans learn more about Faerene and the existence of human familiars, it’s possible that they might seek power or revenge by attacking her. If Amy were to stay here, she could bring that danger of vengeful humans down on you.”

  Rory’s last observation silenced any protest I might have made to stay with my family.

  He stood and stretched, lethal and lazy. “I won’t hurt any of you, but you should understand who I am.” He vanished behind a partition.

  “Is he shifting?” I asked Istvan.

  “Yes.”

  Jarod bounced up from his chair. “Cool.”

  “Remember, he won’t hurt any of us,” I said anxiously. I found that I’d stood, unconsciously.

  Rory prowled back from around the partition in his wolf form.

  The three dogs rolled on their backs and showed their bellies. Smart dogs.

  Rory was massive; the size of a tiger rather than a wolf. In this form he was gray and black with a white front paw. He paced forward.

  I came to meet him. If I acted calm, the others would take their cue from me. I rested a hand on Rory’s shoulder.

  He posed a moment before returning behind the partition.

  “Rory, like all werewolves, has a half-form,” Istvan said in warning.