Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) Page 9

  Astral projection required the shaman to concentrate his or her self into a contained form. So they could picture themselves in their own body, or in that of an animal or spirit (the small gods of their world) form. That was the form that left their physical body and returned to it.

  The second visualization required was the cord that linked their spirit and physical bodies. They had to be able to follow that cord back into their physical body. Some shamans left protections by their physical bodies to protect the cord. Others summoned assistance in their incorporeal form. The stress on protecting the cord indicated that it could be attacked. The shaman’s dream essence could be divorced from the shaman’s body.

  Fay breathed evenly, maintaining steady adrenaline levels, even as she identified this second point as the crucial one. When she and Steve saw Barbara Winnet, the lone wolf, if the cord to the woman’s dream essence had been severed, then Fay didn’t know what she’d do. If, however, the rogue mage hadn’t cut the cord but maintained it to continue draining Barbara’s energy, then Fay could potentially wrench it back to Barbara and/or follow that cord to the rogue mage.

  A shaman would pursue Barbara’s dream essence while in a trance. Fay couldn’t imagine surrendering her control to that extent. She liked to stay grounded in the physical, here-and-now world. Just as she’d never pursue a demon to hell.

  She looked at Steve. “Do you know any shamans?”

  “Some. None that I’d trust with this.”

  “Why not?”

  He ignored the plane’s bumpy landing. “Same reason you didn’t tell Lewis all the details. I don’t want to give anyone ideas of controlling weres, or anyone, this way. Is this shamanic magic?”

  “I won’t know till I see Barbara.” She hesitated. “I learned one other thing, but there’s no time now.” The plane was taxiing to a stop.

  “Does it change our plans?”

  “No.” It made her feel cold and wary, but it didn’t change what they had to do. If anything, it made their mission more urgent.

  Steve studied her expression as she unclasped her seatbelt. He pulled her up, into a hug.

  She went eagerly into the warmth and sanity of his embrace. Her research, or rather, the implications of it, could give anyone nightmares.

  The plane door opened. “Ah.” A man cleared his throat.

  Fay looked over Steve’s shoulder.

  The late middle-aged man didn’t look like ground crew. He wore a khaki work shirt and jeans, and his gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but he had an aura of authority.

  “Hi, Gordon,” Steve said.

  Gordon Forde, wolf alpha and owner of the airfield, sniffed the air rather than responding to the greeting. Thick gray eyebrows went up. He stared at Fay’s face, assessing her. “Well, now.”

  Mate scent. Fay disengaged from Steve’s embrace and stooped for the jacket she’d shrugged off in the cabin’s warmth. She’d forgotten that to a were, her connection to Steve was immediately obvious. She figured that what threw the wolf alpha was her lack of were scent.

  Yes, folks, the heir to the Suzerainty has chosen a non-were partner.

  She studied Gordon’s face, curious as to the man’s response.

  “Congratulations,” he said to Steve. But then, something seemed to strike him. His head tilted.

  Fay saw the wolf in him, the ruthless calculation and readiness to act.

  “You’re a mage.”

  Steve broke the moment, pushing forward, pushing Gordon into retreat down the plane steps. “I’m glad the grapevine doesn’t have every detail yet.”

  “What have I missed?” Gordon grumbled from the ground, watching Fay descend.

  “I introduced Fay to Tomy and Raha, yesterday.”

  “I don’t care for Suzerainty politics.”

  Fay reached the ground. “How about Collegium gossip?” she challenged.

  He barked a laugh. “Me and mine don’t have anything to do with that lot—unless we’re hungry.” White teeth gleamed in a reckless grin, but he’d divided his attention, ready for a move by Steve.

  Fay held out her hand. “Fay Olwen, former Collegium guardian.”

  “Well, now. Seems I heard the Collegium recently lost its old President Olwen. You any relation?”

  “Daughter.” She kept her hand out, waiting, daring him.

  “They kick you out along with your dad?”

  Steve snorted. “You really are out of the loop, Gordon.”

  “What’d I miss? Oh, hell.” He took the two steps required and shook Fay’s hand. His grip was strong, calloused, but not ungentle.

  Fay smiled. “Steve and I kicked Dad out after his secretary summoned a demon that had ambitions to possess the entire Collegium.”

  “A demon hunter.” Gordon’s gaze raked her one last time before he slapped Steve on the back. “I ought to have known you’d pick a fighter.”

  “A warrior-princess,” Steve quoted Uncle with a small smile for Fay.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “So why are you here? I haven’t heard of a demon in my territory.”

  “No demon.” Steve looked at Fay. “According to my grandfather, not Tomy, the—”

  “The earl.” She grinned at him.

  His eyes lit with laughter. “I was going to say, the other one, who is also a wolf alpha, trusts Gordon.”

  “Were business or magic?” the older man asked, gaze shifting between them.

  “Both.”

  “Ain’t no were business on my territory that I don’t know about.”

  “This is just outside your territory. Barbara Winnet, a lone wolf.” Steve’s eyes narrowed. Like Fay, he’d seen Gordon’s response to the name. “What’s she to you? Do you have a problem with her?”

  “Only that she’s too damn stubborn. Like my son, Saul. The two of them ought to be mated. Saul’s working on an oil rig in the Gulf. He’d be in this if he was here, arguing with her or not.” Unspoken was the declaration that Gordon would take his son’s place. For a lone wolf, Barbara had defenders.

  Steve raked a hand through his hair. “Damn. I didn’t think there’d be an emotional tie. Lone wolves and all…”

  “I won’t jeopardize whatever you’re doing, but Barbara’s one of mine, whatever she thinks otherwise.”

  Steve nodded, jerkily. “All right. You can come with us to see her, but you stay out of the way, and you don’t do one thing Fay hasn’t cleared for you.”

  “Magic don’t touch weres.”

  As a Collegium guardian, Fay had gotten used to other magic users backing away and letting her assume full responsibility, whatever the problem. Now, with weres, she had a whole new frustration: they dismissed her and her magic.

  She might as well start as she meant to go on. She might be Steve’s mate, but she’d have her own reputation. She’d earned respect once. This time, outside the Collegium, she’d demand it.

  Besides, as an alpha and a stubborn one, Gordon would keep hammering at what he saw as her non-were weakness unless she showed him otherwise.

  “Magic touches the world around you,” she said, and slammed a silencing bubble around him. She cut off air as well, remembering how he’d used scent to identify her as Steve’s mate. The bubble shimmered as she turned it opaque on its inner surface, blinding Gordon. Nothing she did directed magic at him, so his were status couldn’t cancel it. All of her magic centered on changing the world around him. She stripped his senses from him, and when he’d have torn free, she locked metal cuffs around his ankles and embedded them deep in the tarmac.

  For the count of ten seconds she and Steve watched the wolf alpha rage and strain in his confinement. Then she released the magic.

  Gordon stumbled three steps, turned and leaped at her.

  Steve blocked him and threw him to the ground.

  Men and women ran out from the airfield’s jumble of buildings. Fay watched them.

  Steve watched the man on the ground. “You knew she was a fighter.”

 
“Kick a man while he’s down.” Gordon bounded up, as agile as an eighteen-year-old, and swung to face his rescuers. “Can’t a man lose a fight in private?”

  His pack skidded to a halt. One or two evidently recognized Steve.

  “I’m fine. Steve’s fine. Fay’s more than fine.” A hint of a wink in her direction was probably all the apology she’d get.

  She was just relieved he’d accepted her attack.

  “Get the hell back to work,” Gordon roared.

  “Next time you’re going to kick his ass, let us know and we’ll film it,” a young woman said with the cheek of family. “Getting slow in your old age, Dad?” She laughed at his cuss word.

  “All right.” Gordon lowered his voice. “I was going to lend you a junker, but since I’m going with you, we’ll take my car and I’ll drive.”

  Fay was barely aware of reacting, but both men focused on her. Minutely, she’d stiffened in resistance.

  “Unless that’s a problem?” the wolf alpha pushed.

  “No,” she said coolly. Gordon wouldn’t like it, but if she wanted to talk privately with Steve, she could block Gordon’s hearing, again.

  Steve was more direct. “Give us ten minutes,” he told the older man.

  “Meet me in the carpark,” Gordon said with would-be casualness and strode away.

  “Will he tell anyone we’re going to Barbara’s?” Fay asked.

  “No.”

  She trusted Steve’s judgement. They walked slowly towards the office. “About the rogue mage. I was reading a story copied from a medieval text. The original author stated that he mistrusted the tale. Nonetheless, it seemed to have hooked him and he included it. The story was told to him by a merchant, a story of a wizard met in an Egyptian oasis. The wizard was crazy. He had magic enough to turn away a sandstorm, but at night, when he slept, his skin bulged and twisted and he cried out in different voices. He sounded old and young, male and female, and when he woke, he screamed. His skin split open and poison ran out. It sizzled on the ground and anything that touched it, vaporized.”

  “You’re thinking of the toad in the spell Uncle found us.”

  Fay nodded. She enclosed them in a silencing spell as they neared the range of were hearing by the office building.

  “And this came up when you were researching astral projection?”

  “Tangentially. It was in a volume on night walkers.”

  “I’ve not heard of them.”

  “Another name for all the folk stories of vampires and hags, succubae and the like.”

  “Fairy-tales,” Steve dismissed them.

  “But with a hard truth apparently. I didn’t know about dream essences.” She grimaced at him as they rounded the corner of the office building and the carpark appeared. The airfield was small but busy, and the carpark three quarters full. The sun had a welcome warmth to it because the breeze from the mountains bit. She thought regretfully of the warm Mediterranean sun. It wasn’t worth putting her jacket on. In a couple of minutes they’d be inside a sun-heated car.

  Steve moved, positioning himself to block the wind from her.

  It helped even her internal chill. She ceased rubbing her arms and shoved her hands in her pockets. “The warning of the story is that a rogue mage draining dream essences mightn’t just be evil, he might be mad.”

  “Driven crazy by trying to contain multiple essences in one body?”

  “And poisonous. Whatever that may mean. It could be physical poison, or a mental or spiritual one. Capable of being transferred. The original Egyptian spell warned of poison on the toad’s claws.”

  “Toads don’t have claws.” He watched the office and Gordon emerging from it.

  Fay stared at him. “That’s your concern? A biological detail?”

  He kissed her open mouth. “We’ll be careful.”

  “Hmmph.” She released the silencing spell as Gordon approached.

  The old wolf beeped the doors of a massive SUV.

  Steve opened the passenger door for Fay.

  She gave him a look that said she failed to appreciate the honor of riding shotgun.

  He half-grinned, and helped her up and into the seat with a pat to her butt. Then he got into the seat behind her, where he’d be able to protect her back and observe Gordon’s profile. He waited till Gordon had pulled out of the carpark and onto the road before he outlined the situation.

  “We’ve got a rogue mage. He’s siphoning off his victims’ energy. So far, we know of about two dozen victims, including Barbara Winnet. The assumption is that he goes after the more solitary of our kind.”

  A grunt from the driver’s seat. “How?”

  “We’re not sure,” Fay said. “I need to see firsthand the residue of the magic used. The method is unlike anything taught in the Collegium. It’s closer to shamanism.”

  “Which makes it wild magic,” Steve said. “Closer to our were-natures.”

  “I’m not arguing,” Gordon began. “You’ve proved you have the magic and I’ll trust your knowledge. The Collegium doesn’t train its guardians to chase soap bubbles. But I’ve not heard of even a shaman controlling a were via magic.”

  “I wondered.” Fay tugged at her seatbelt, readjusting its fit. The road wound up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Spring sunshine had brought out wildflowers and a hundred shades of green from the new leaves. Through windows cracked open, the clean scent of the country blew into the car. “A rogue mage is actually a relief. Their fundamental approach to magic should be similar enough to mine that I can interpret it.”

  “Like defusing a bomb?” Gordon slowed as they approached a small town, a collection of shops and houses that barely stretched back from the road. “You’ll take the spell off Barbara, won’t you?”

  Fay knew better than to hesitate. The wolf alpha was here with one purpose: to protect his own. “The analogy of bomb disposal is a good one, except this spell is likely attached to the rogue mage as well as to Barbara. He may have booby-trapped it to protect himself and his stolen energy.” She respected Steve’s decision not to confuse the issue by mentioning dream essences. “Or de-spelling Barbara might act as a tripwire, announcing our pursuit prematurely.”

  “So you’ll leave Barbara hanging?” Definitely a growl in Gordon’s voice. The car accelerated as they left the small town behind.

  “If I have to,” Fay said steadily. Life as a Collegium guardian had taught her about hard choices, and about maintaining authority. They might be in the wolf alpha’s territory, but this was her—and Steve’s—mission. “And you’ll be staying in the car until called.”

  Gordon took his eyes off the road to scowl at her.

  “Those were the conditions of bringing you with us.” Steve sounded unhappy, too.

  “How long till we’re at Barbara’s house?” Fay changed the topic.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “Near neighbors?”

  “She’s a lone wolf,” Gordon snapped.

  “I’ll take that as a no. Which is good.”

  She thought they’d travel the rest of the drive in silence while he sulked. However, Gordon surprised her.

  It took him ten minutes. Ten minutes of his displeasure sitting heavily in the car, but then, he seemed to come to terms with the fact that neither Steve nor Fay could be dominated. “We avoid magic around here. Even if I’m to remain sitting in the damn car, I’d like to know what to expect. What should I know about rogue mages?”

  “Firstly, that this’ll probably be the only one you ever encounter. Rogue mages aren’t actually common. Having magic doesn’t mean you’ll use it.” Fay tried to explain. It was difficult because within the Collegium and the magic users’ community, this knowledge was taken for granted. But weres who’d determinedly dismissed magic in their lives, needed Magic 101. Fay sought for a comparison. “It’s like athletic ability at school. People start off with a natural talent. Kids use it and enjoy competing and winning. Then they grow older and natural talent isn’t enough. They need to
exercise and train. Most people don’t. With magic, it’s the same. It fades.”

  “It’s not innate?”

  “No, it is. It’s hard to simplify without generalizing. I have a lot of magic. It was born in me. Even without training, I’d be able to use it as an adult. But it would be…messy. There’s an elegance to magic. The more you learn and practice it, the more it streamlines.”

  Her magic coiled in her, humming golden in her veins. There was joy and satisfaction in using it. Without her training, though, she and her magic would fight for control. “Messy” was as good a word as any to describe that chaos. She might resent her dad’s behavior and the Collegium’s harsh training, but the result was a gift of serene assurance in the extent and ability of her magic.

  “Those of us who develop our magic generally do so with family or other tuition. I had the Collegium. Part of any respectable magic instruction includes teaching the consequences of abusing it. Some mages do go on to exploit a magic talent for unethical purposes. But that doesn’t make them rogue. Lots of people use their natural talents to do stupid things. Rogue mages use their magic aggressively, to do harm. They’re violent.”

  “A rogue mage is like a were brought to judgement,” Steve said. “They’re not unnatural. They’re an evil, unbalanced example of the potential in each of us. The Collegium polices them as the Suzerainty judges weres.”

  Fay relaxed. Explanations were difficult.

  Steve was great at explaining, but also at indicating by tone of voice, that his explanation closed the subject; in this case, the subject of rogue mages.

  “Will I have Collegium guardians tramping through my territory, harassing Barbara?” Gordon asked.

  “No.” Fay took a leaf from Steve’s book and didn’t elaborate.

  Gordon slanted her a glance, then let it go. The chain of command was decided, and he wasn’t leader. He’d accepted it.

  She swiveled in her seat, craning her neck to see Steve. “I have a question. Do all weres change into their animal form?”

  He lounged, lean and deadly, pretending to be casual, in the back seat. “No. In some, their were-nature is weak. They transform a few times after puberty, but find it difficult. They get scared of being lost in their animal. Others don’t like the experience, the way the sensory world changes in animal form.”