Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

It was an unhealthy thirty-five, sure, but there were no crows’ feet at the corners of those strange eyes, no sagging jowls, and no gray in the hair. Jonathan appeared ageless, but it wasn’t because of a glamourie. It was because of magic.

Magical humans lived longer than normal ones because their bodies were like a hybrid car: they received energy both from the food they ate as well as from the magic they gleaned from the world around them. They were like fleshy talismans, which was one reason they didn’t fight effectively in Faerie: once the magic they had in their bodies dried up, they couldn’t obtain any more to replace it. Earth fed them; Faerie didn’t.

But Earth wasn’t the only thing feeding Jonathan.

Centuries ago, he’d started the popular dark mage habit of stealing other people’s magic and using it to enhance his own. It had worked, giving him more power and an enhanced lifespan, but it came with a price—and I don’t mean just madness. But rather the same one that every drug user eventually discovers: the high didn’t last.

According to Jonas, Jonathan’s need for magic had grown year by year, especially once he surpassed his normal lifetime and was basically living off of nothing else. His body should have disintegrated into powder by now, even his bones gone cracked and yellow and brittle. Yet, there he was, picking at his damned toes.

And using an absolute crap ton of magic to stay that way.

So, yeah, I thought he was telling the truth when he’d said he didn’t plan to kill me. He’d come back for me, all right, but to capture not to kill. He’d started grafting souls onto his body, like adding apps onto a phone, and I was supposed to be his next upgrade. There to add to his power, but with none of my own, and no say in what mine was used for. Or any way to stop the process or even to die and make the torture end.

I wondered if Jo had enough mind left to understand what had happened to her. I really hoped not. I’d had to kill her twice now—once her body and once her soul, or most of it—but I’d taken no pleasure in it. I’d even felt a little sorry for her, ostracized and excluded from the world despite her talent, simply because necromancy was feared by the magical community. But I had been relieved when she was gone; even in life, she’d been more than a little crazy.

But not like that.

Jesus, not like that!

“Cassie.” That was Pritkin’s voice, and it sounded a little calmer.

I turned back to see that he looked it, too. At least, he was no longer fritzing like an overloaded circuit. He didn’t look much happier, however, when he took a chair, put it in front of me, and straddled the back.

“Talk to me.”

“I probably should have mentioned this sooner,” I said, “but I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Worry me.” It was flat.

“And because we already knew that the Black Circle wanted me dead, so it didn’t seem like news . . .”

I trailed off, because Jonas wasn’t looking too pleased, either. He’d acquired his own chair, although he sat in it the usual way. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just here to get caught up.”

“You already know part of it,” I said. “You told it to me. Jonathan might have started out as a man, but he’s a monster now, driven by nothing but the unending lust for power. You said he has to have it, more and more each year, that his life literally depends on it.”

Jonas nodded. “It is safe to say that magic—stolen magic—is the only thing holding him together, at this point.”

“But for how long? I’ve heard people say that dark mages get ‘high’ on magic, like it’s a drug.”

“It reacts much the same way,” Jonas agreed, glancing at Pritkin, who was just staring at me, like he’d like to bore a hole in my head and let all my secrets pour out.

Only he wouldn’t like that.

He wouldn’t like that at all.

“It not only gives them an energy boost, it also produces a very obvious high, in sufficient quantities,” Jonas added.

“Yeah. So, what if it acts like a drug in other ways, too? Dorina—Mircea’s daughter—seemed to think so. She came to see me a month ago, after that senate meeting that the covens crashed.”

Jonas’s eyebrows went up. “Memorable evening.”

Yeah, you could call it that. Trying to get everybody on board for this invasion had not been easy, especially when half the parties involved hated the other half. But we’d managed, partly because of a power play that had left me so drained that I passed out. And when I woke up—

I’d found a dangerous predator sitting on my bed.

She’d looked like her mother, although I hadn’t known that then. But the resemblance was striking. Same liquid dark eyes, same lovely features, same dark brown hair, although hers was straight and cut short.

It hadn’t affected her beauty.