Touch it.…
My fingers started moving without conscious thought, trying to reach for the glowing aura that raked along my skin.
“Don’t do it, Graves!” Harris was apparently fighting his own battle against the voice, because my glance revealed he’d moved as far away from the machine as the room would allow and was now sitting on his own hands.
“I don’t want to. Do something, Harris. You’re the mage. Haven’t you got anything in your bag of tricks to make us both deaf or something?”
He let out a laugh that was part sarcasm and part fear. “I wish it was that easy. It’s in our heads, not our ears. I could knock us both unconscious, but then nobody will find the bomb before it blows, and they’ll have more people in the building searching for us.”
He was right. Bomb teams usually have a mage, a straight human, and a psychic. If the psychic foresees that the bomb will go off before it can be disarmed the squad simply evacuates everyone and puts a containment field on the area but doesn’t go in. Standard practice, which is why the psychic is usually the team leader.
Touch it.…
The cracks in my protection were widening. I could feel the muscles in my arm tingling. My hand was beginning to disobey my command to grip the jamb. I tightened my grasp with what felt like my last ounce of free will. The wood splintered under my fingers as my knuckles grew white and the tendons of my hand locked into position.
But I had two hands … and while I’d put all my energy into keeping my left hand still, my right had developed a mind of its own. When my right arm began to rise and reach backward, I started to panic. It wouldn’t be easy for me to touch the shield with that hand, but if the voice could make my body contort or dislocate, it would be possible. The pain in my head had grown from an ache to blinding agony. Muscles aren’t intended to be stretched to their limit and kept there—even vampire muscles that heal constantly. “Harris, you’ve got to do something! This is magic … you’re magic; do something. Freeze me in place if you have to, or knock me out or make me start screaming so people can find us.” Because now I was part of the problem. I just knew that if the voice wanted me to touch the shield, that touch would either set off the bomb or cause other things to happen that I wouldn’t like. I could feel it in my bones.
I heard voices outside now, but they seemed too far away, given the size of the building. Maybe that’s how we were able to sneak up on Nathan in the first place—sound dampening on the room kept him focused on his task.
I was beginning to think he wasn’t the bomb’s creator. He was likely just a hired hand brought in to make sure nobody got to it before it blew. Maybe he was the intended trigger—the one the voice we were hearing was meant to control.
Another sharp pain stabbed through me. My right arm was struggling to touch the glowing sphere, even as I fought to keep a grip on the doorjamb and keep my feet planted firmly on the floor. I was not going to take even a piece of a step back toward that thing. If my body was going to betray me, it was damned well going to have to work at it.
So why not make the problem part of the solution? “Harris? Can you cast at all?”
His voice was breathy when he started to reply but strengthened as he talked. “Little bit. Nothing too complicated.”
Thankfully, what I hoped for wasn’t complicated at all. But it was only going to work if Nathan wasn’t in here with us or just outside. By now, I didn’t think that either of the mages Harris had caught was the creator of our little problem. This magic felt … feminine somehow. And I was the only woman here to my knowledge.
“I need you to make a trip wire. Cast a spell so that if the voice does make me touch the bomb, the second spell will go off.”
“And what’s the second spell?” Harris sounded skeptical, probably because he realized I was admitting we might fail here. I was going to fail pretty soon. He was right.
“Set the bomb to implode. We contain the blast in this room and force the bomb in on itself.”
His voice was flat now and sounded hollow. “That would kill us.”
I forced my eyes to the right as far as they would go so I could at least meet his wide brown eyes. “But the kids won’t die, and the building won’t be turned into little pieces that will punch through the neighbors’ roofs.” I paused long enough to pull on my shrinking reserves, keeping my body from obeying the powerful force that was turning me into a puppet.
I stated the reality for the first time, and I hated saying it. “Face it. We’re probably going to die today, Harris. Let’s make it have some meaning, huh?”
He was silent long enough that I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. But then his voice came, sturdy and resolute. “Okay. For my little girl upstairs, I’ll do it.”
2
Crap, he was a father of a kid in this school? No wonder he was nearby. “Jeez, Harris. I didn’t know.”
He shook his head as I yanked my hand back once more. “That’s why I was here instead of at work. I was supposed to take her for testing.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “We don’t know what this thing is going to do. If we don’t keep it in this room, there’s no telling what’ll happen. Willow might have to go through life with only one parent, but she’ll be alive. If it has to be a choice, I choose her.”
I did my best to blink back the tears that formed in my eyes. “Willow’s a pretty name. What grade?”
“First,” he said, sounding distracted. “She wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. Now shut up. I have to concentrate if I’m going to pull this off. You just keep your hands to yourself and away from that freaking bomb.”
Touch it … now!
My whole body jerked with the command and I had to struggle with everything I had left not to obey. I didn’t know if the caster of this particular spell was listening and realizing what we were doing or if it was just a timed command for whoever was in the room to count down to the event. But either way, the new order was more urgent and my skin was twitching in earnest now, my fingers stretching while my arm shook with the strain of keeping from reaching those last few inches. I still had command of my feet, and as long as I kept them pointed toward the door, anatomical limits would keep me in check.
Relax … let your mind drift.
Oh, crap. While the caster might not be in the room, this new command made me realize she knew Harris and I were here. She was reacting to my plan. Oh, crap. I felt tension seep out of my body, the same way the magic had crept in. If my leg muscles relaxed, I’d fall right over onto the bomb. My heart was beating like a jackhammer even as my eyelids were drooping, like I was trying to stay awake when I’d been driving too long. “You need to speed it up, Harris. The voice is trying to make me go to sleep, so I fall over and set off the bomb.”
“I’m hurrying. I’m hurrying. Just hang on for a few more seconds and I’ll wrap the spell all the way around you.”
I yawned, then shook my head, wanting nothing more than to curl up and rest, like a cat in a sunbeam.
Wait. A sunbeam. That’s exactly what I needed. Moments before, a tree’s shadow had lain across the basement window, casting the room into darkness. Now the sun had moved on and bright sunlight streamed into the room. The sunbeams flowed through the spell with only a slight change of color before hitting the wall right next to me.
Sunlight was no longer my friend. But the enemy of mine enemy was acceptable today.
I leaned sideways as far as I could, letting my relaxed muscles work in my favor. I kept my hand on the doorknob to limit the swing of my body, but soon my face was square in the warm sun.