Wilder Mage (31 page)

Street Fair - Wallagrass @ seven pm

The candy-apple red letters across the whiteboard caught his attention every time he happened to glance up. Notifications went out to the appropriate adepts, and all seemed ready for the transfer in three hours.

Macy had simmered in anger since the message from Tiarra, but did not give her reasons for her mood. The regrettable circumstance of Sable’s—he corrected himself—the
tener unus’s
behavior had no other outcome. Wilders and the magic of stubborn adepts fell under the jurisdiction of the Imperium.

His subs prepared their reports and strategy. He patted the shoulder of one adept who delivered several flashdrives Dayne had asked for. The fellow was obviously running on fumes, his face gray with exhaustion. He looked up when Dayne spoke words of encouragement. The man smiled wanly, but squared his shoulders. A little commiseration went a long way. And his team needed it.

Dayne turned back to the three men sitting at the table. Their sharp-eyed posture differed from the clerks and assistants. Emotionless, hard-jawed, they sat in varying degrees of fierce attention as they listened to Tiarra’s words coming from the speakerphone.

“But not until I arrive,” she was saying. “Don’t touch the human. Don’t reveal yourself to the
tener unus
. You will remain out of sight unless she breaks away from the human.
Until
she escapes.”

One man frowned. “But you say the human has fixed magic that negates the girl’s. Can she break it somehow?”

“Yes. It isn’t foolproof. Or idiot-proof, as in this instance. This human is below even their usual level of low intelligence. The girl will eventually break out of the animal’s shielding device. If she kills him, fine. If not, Conor, you will provide clean-up detail and take care of the human. Tie up that loose end.”

The guard examining his immaculate manicure glanced up. “Of course, Tiarra.”

“Until the moment I take her or she breaks free from the human, my orders stand; observe, blend, do not interfere unless I or my Imperator instructs you differently. Stay out of sight.”

She cut the connection.

“Well, this is an interesting assignment, but it’s not like I’ll be breaking a sweat over this one,” said an adept. The beefy thug laid both hands on the table as he stood and then stretched. “We are to go there now and wait for this fool to show up with Tiarra’s prize, and then she will take over. Doesn’t sound too hard.”

Another man stood and shrugged. “Sounds like overkill to me.”

“Nevertheless, it’s time for you to get the move on,” Dayne said.

The third man flexed his muscles, and the sleeve of his red polo shirt rode up his arm. He laughingly declared that he would be the one to turn the
tener unus
. Knowing Sable as he did, Dayne thought the sweat-rings under the burly guard’s armpits would not impress her. Dayne elected to remain silent as the three men joked, crudely making bets on who would be the one to bring the
tener unus
to see the light.

Uncharacteristically, Macy didn’t react to their jests. Whether he met with his accounting staff or thugs, she had kept to herself, listening intently. Her emotions bloomed as the guards entered the elevator. She motioned to Dayne, and he followed her into their private room away from the clerks and chattering equipment.

“Dayne, what if…” Macy paused and swallowed. “What if this adept—”

“Wilder,” he corrected. “An unrestrained, dangerous wilder.”

“Wilder. Okay. So what if he isn’t?”

“Isn’t what?”

“Nuts. Crazy. A megalomaniac. What if he is just like, well, like Sable, just trying to live his life?”

He shook his head and started to reply.

“No,” she said. “You. Aren’t. Listening to me. What if he is just like us?”

He stepped back, surprised at her ferocity. Her eyes blazed in a way he had never seen before, and because of that, he paused before he gave her a glib answer. This was Macy, his love. Dayne stopped his automatic response to consider it for a moment and…

What if it were true?

What if the mage wasn’t evil?

As a supervisor and leader of the Imperium, Dayne had exercised his power of observation and deduction skills in many circumstances, as an investigator and in the field. It came naturally to him, the methodical reasoning applied to the facts of a case. But when he tried to apply his training to Macy’s question, his thoughts seemed to slide to other cases.

The sound of a phone ringing in the outer room made him start and think he should answer it. He shook his head to clear it; what was he thinking? He had assistants delegated for that duty. They reported to him, not the other way around.

What
was
he thinking?

He looked at Macy, confused when she continued to look at him steadily. Why was she here? And…

He remembered. The wilder, questions about the…

A fierce headache bloomed behind his eyes. He needed aspirin. Where did he put the bottle? He should go get it now…

A hand touched his knee, and Dayne looked at her. Why was she here…and the wilder?

Now she held his face, cupping her hands around his cheeks and looking at him intently. When his mind began to shift away, Macy shook him and his eyes came back to her. Dayne tried to focus on her alone. And the question.

What if?

The training dictated this process, cataloguing the pros and cons of every argument.

He tried to consider the facts, focusing on what he knew from Tiarra.

Years ago, she had attempted to bond with a powerful mage.

The mage eluded her and remained free.

He was highly dangerous. Restraining the wilder by any means necessary was the only answer, only common sense.

His headache sharpened into hot spear points, pounding in time to the beats of his heart.

Dayne closed his eyes and tried to focus. It was like stepping into heavy clay. He needed to follow the facts logically, but he had to pull free of the mire with each step. He tried to force his mind to his will and felt it slide away again.

Macy shook him violently, and fresh pain surged through his skull. He sucked in a breath and tried again, holding Fire in his hand.

In the time since the adept escaped from Tiarra, the unsuspecting world had suffered no catastrophes traceable to a wild mage.

Distantly, Dayne realized he was sweating and his heart thumped strangely. He gritted his teeth and ignored them as well as Macy’s clinical expression.

The wilder was benign, posed no threat to the world or the Imperium.

With that thought, white-hot needles pierced his skull, and Dayne groaned in agony. Somewhere in his normal world, arms held him and murmured into his ear.

“No more for now,” Macy said softly. “Don’t try to force it. Let it go.”

He panted, surprised he was on the floor. His dry mouth tasted of copper. He wiped his chin and stared uncomprehendingly at the blood on his hand.

“You, all of the adepts she has touched, Tiarra left something in them that demands absolute, unqualified obedience. Even to think about defying her makes you ill, doesn’t it?” Macy said.

Dayne stared at her, but couldn’t answer. Even to think about nodding made the sweat break out on his forehead.

“Do you see?” she said quietly. “You can’t fight it alone.”

Macy leaned over him; he felt her reach for her elements Air and Earth. Dayne didn’t think she was even aware she had done it. “We carry Tiarra with us. We pay a price to that bitch every day and every minute of every day. It’s an offering left for a savage god.”

She gestured at the closed door and the clerks behind it. He felt her two elements swarm around the room as she threw her hand, gesturing. “All of them. We are all in an invisible prison.”

He struggled to speak. Her face shadowed when he pushed her hands away and stood. For a moment, he stared down at her, and she bit her lip, the start of tears in her eyes. Then he offered his hand.

She started to speak, but stopped when he put his finger over her lips. Dayne sat on the chair beside the window and let his mind wander as he stared at the floor. Macy took the other chair and waited.

“There was this woman once,” he began. He stopped and grinned when he saw her shock. “Not like that. It was a promotion I wanted, a regional supervisor for the eastern area. I had this woman in mind.”

He looked down at the black denims he wore and rubbed the material over his knee, thinking of that day. It was a cloudy memory, but at least it wasn’t painful now.

“She was funny, but competent, knew how to lead and allow her subordinates to do their jobs without micromanaging their every move. Pam was everything I wanted for that position, and when I took her to meet Tiarra for the first time, I knew there was nothing she could say to change my mind. Nothing.”

After the meeting, he didn’t know what he had seen in the woman. Now he understood.

“I walked into the meeting with absolute confidence that Pam was my next supervisor. All I needed was the final signatures and her next assignment. But Tiarra took one look at her, smiled, and then made subtle disparaging comments. Just like that, I looked at Pam and wondered why she was even in the same room with us. I promoted another mage, a man Tiarra fancied. He’s an idiot, but she likes him.”

Macy remained silent, searching his face. She nodded, as if she saw something she needed to know.

“I’ll ask you again, what if he is like us and only wants to live without shackles?” Macy said quietly.

“He isn’t like us, Macy,” Dayne said.

She started to argue, but stopped when he held up one finger and shook his head fiercely.

“He isn’t like us,” he repeated. But this time, he nodded. The pain spiked, but then drained away.

Macy’s eyes widened.

“He will be caught.” Dayne’s negative shake of his head made her break into a grin.

“By the way, how do you get around it?” he asked.

She hesitated, then slowly drew a pendant from around her neck. The black chain was made of fine interlocking links of metal, and the stone itself was brown with flecks of green and gray. It was unremarkable. Until this moment, he hadn’t known she wore it.

He took the stone into his hand and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. Still warm from her skin, it was smooth as pliant wax, with no marks or etchings. Confused, he looked at her silently.

Macy slipped the stone down her shirt again, hiding it carefully under her collar. “I met a stranger once while jogging that trail in the park. He knew my name. He knew your name. He knew things no one, not even another wizard, should know. And he was human, not another mage.

“He gave me this—” she patted the hidden stone “—and told me about the bonding process. He gave me options. To ignore him and what he was saying and go along with all the lies. Or take the stone and see for myself what was happening. I chose the stone.”

He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “It appears I can speak of it in general terms, but I cannot…break out of it without some damage. Headaches. I think I get them every time I even think about straying from Tiarra’s path. You know something, though.”

Macy sighed and nodded.

“But if you tell me, I might not be able to break out of the bond before I give something away.”

She started to speak and then stopped. Instead, she jerked her head into one quick nod.

“Okay, well. I believe in this instance, I will get on with my business and you can get on with yours.”

Dayne narrowed his eyes at her and smiled briefly when she nodded.

She understood.

“I need to leave for a while,” she said. She emphasized each word.

He nodded and tried to ignore the stab of needles in his brain. “To get some coffee. Right?”

The pain drained away.

Macy looked at him without speaking and nodded. She immediately stood, swept her car keys from the bowl on the dresser, and walked out the door.

He had his assignment and he would follow orders. Until she returned and told him…

The pain made him squeeze his eyes shut. Coffee, until she returned with the coffee, he would continue his mission and hope the two did not overlap.

But he didn’t think he would be so lucky.

Chapter Twenty-Four

J
ustus turned the key off, stepped out of his car, and paused to listen, searching with his senses for hunters. It was very quiet at the house, and he felt no one, Sable’s distinctive magical signature absent. The shop held nothing of her either. Justus had stopped there first, rattled the lock, and spun around to return to the still-running car. As he pressed the accelerator to the floorboards, he decided Sable had stayed secluded at the house. But she wasn’t there, the pickup gone, the house silent.

Maybe she’d decided to hike the trails or take a drive, go to the store.

By the time his feet hit the sidewalk, Justus broke into a run, clearing the steps in two jumps. He extended his senses into the house and then the surrounding yard, but there was no one near, human or mage.

In the depths of the house, he thought he heard Zephyr trilling her displeasure. Except for the cat, it was stone-cold quiet, the silence a sentient being holding its breath.

“Sable.” His voice sounded unnaturally low, as if speaking louder would be fruitless. Just inside the door, a disc of silver caught his attention, and he bent. One of her charms from her bracelet, the head of a silver wolf lay in his hand. He rolled it between his fingers, and a scrap of her fixed magic leaked from it to whisper across his skin.

The cat’s squall broke his reverie, and Justus realized many minutes had passed since picking up the charm. He carried the piece of silver deeper into the house and up the stairs to the door of her apartment over the garage. Zephyr’s wails became more strident, and as soon as he opened the door, she bolted from Sable’s empty rooms.

He saw nothing out of place, nothing moved. The crystal ball stood on its black wrought-iron stand, and her rumpled denim bag sat in its usual place, half-packed.

Just in case.

The cat disappeared down the staircase, and he followed, his stomach churning. Chills crawled up his arms as he retraced his steps, hardly looking where he walked. He shadowed Zephyr, and she took him back to the porch, pausing to stop on the top step. He sat down beside her, looking back at his car in the driveway. Zephyr turned her head to stare at him with her startling blue eyes, then twisted and dropped her gaze to his arm.