Three sharp lines of pain blossomed across my side. The force of the hit shoved me to the ground. I lay there, my side aching, as I gathered enough magic for another spell. Even without being able to see him, I focused the tight coil of magic that marked him in my senses. “Fehu.”

  I pushed myself to my feet and tucked my left arm tight against me. My side felt damp. The sleep spell wasn’t enough to knock me out, but the blood loss could.

  A fine layer of ice encrusted the man, but it wouldn’t last long. I reached into the core of my power and settled in for a difficult cast. It would take all the power I had left. “Obala o sowil”—I was sure he had twitched, so I sped up the cast as the magic flowed out of me—“en Kannu, alkaz—”

  He tackled me, his shoulder going squarely into my diaphragm before I could finish the spell. We crashed into the ground, and my head hit the concrete floor hard enough for my vision to go gray. My wand was gone, and so was most of my magic.

  Only my second day as an agent, and I was the reason for Officer Jameson’s death and my own. Did it get more pathetic than that?

  Across the floor, Jameson’s lifeless eyes looked at me accusingly. He had given his life to protect me, and I couldn’t even make his sacrifice have meaning.

  The monster brought his face next to mine and licked my cheek from jaw to temple. “Witch tastes good.”

  My remaining magic gathered in my birthmark, of all places. Deep inside me, the forbidden well of cold power I knew better than to reach for unfurled. It sucked the magic from my birthmark and shot out of me.

  Warm breath washed across my face, carrying with it the stink of magic gone wrong.

  I closed my eyes and hoped the end would be quick.

  The icy power blossomed and moved.

  One moment the monster’s saliva was dripping down my neck, and the next, his weight was gone.

  A sharp crack forced my eyes open.

  The monster’s arm was turned the wrong way, the way arms didn’t turn. Human hands with a tattoo in the place of a wedding ring released the monster. I followed those hands up to a face I knew.

  Jameson turned, as if he felt my gaze, and came toward me. Cold blue swirls of magic replaced his pupils. “Mistress, may I help you?”

  I nodded, too unnerved to speak.

  Jameson, or his zombie, rolled me over and helped me to sit. Lightheaded from the blood loss and expenditure of magic, I swayed. Without any input from me, Jameson scooted me across the floor until I could lean against a pallet stacked high with boxes.

  He crouched beside me. “What else do you need?”

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  The magic in his eyes scared me to my bones. The clan would kill me for this if they ever found out. Illegal or not, I’d be dead and buried on their land before I could say necromancer.

  Raising a fish and keeping it undead was one thing. A human… I’d thought that beyond my power without ceremony and sacrifice. Though considering all my experience was with Bubble, who I’d raised as a child, it wasn’t like that assumption was based on a broad knowledge base.

  “Jameson,” I whispered through dry lips. “What do you remember?”

  “I felt the pressure change, and I forgot you were a witch. Back in my army days, I lost good men to a similar blast. The idea was to get both of us behind the pallets, but I slid too far. And I died.” He tried to blink away tears. “You’ll tell my wife and kids I love them? That I don’t want to leave them.”

  “I’ll tell them,” I said hoarsely. Not right away, but when they wouldn’t blame me for his death. If there was ever a time they didn’t blame me and I was still alive to pass on the message.

  He pressed his lips together and jerked his head in a nod. A few seconds later, he continued. “You brought me back. I answer to you now.”

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t leave him like this. No one would understand, and it would cause everyone more pain. Looking at the magic in his eyes, the magic that was unmistakably the cold power I’d kept locked away all my life, I saw his pain. “Lay down as you were before you answered my call.”

  He bowed his head before turning away. When he was back on the ground, his head turned to look at me, eyes still cold blue with my power, I opened myself up and tugged at the magic animating him. If there were runes to focus this magic, I didn’t know them. “Jameson, be at peace. Rest and walk no more.”

  My birthmark tingled, and cold power trickled back into me, taking the light from his eyes with it. It settled into the dark place, the place that had once been its prison but now felt more like its refuge. Across the room, Jameson’s eyes gazed at the room, unseeing.

  He was dead, again, and even if the first death wasn’t my fault, I’d killed him the second time.

  The radio on his shoulder squeaked, and a thin voice came through. “Jameson, Pine? Do you read me?”

  At least five other officers had been on scene when I arrived. They should’ve been trying to get to us, but I hadn’t heard anything from them since the creature had added a sleeping spell to the air.

  Pulling up the last of my magic, I extended probes through the building. I hadn’t gotten the shields up fast enough. Dismantling the barriers across the doors let me recover some magic, enough to cast a spell that destroyed the sleep spell. It would also burn through what was in their bodies, and they should be up soon.

  Until then, I was the only one who could call in. With one hand pressed to my ribs, which continued to bleed and ache, I crawled across the floor. Halfway to Jameson, I found my wand and shoved it in the thigh sheath.

  By the time I got to Jameson, I was shivering, sweating, and struggling to hold my hand steady enough to push the button. “Dispatch, this is Agent Pine. Officer down at Get Magic Goods. Officer down. Subject of initial complaint dead.”

  Dispatch asked for more details, but I didn’t have them.

  As I lay on the floor and waited for help, I looked at the magic coating the room. The spells focused on the twisted creature had mostly died with him. What remained on his body contained hints of the same stimulant spell I’d found this morning and bits of magic from all around the shop.

  Not willing to risk that mess jumping to another person, I picked apart the core of the spell and let the magic dissipate back into the earth. Two small areas had been contaminated, likely from the mass of spells he’d collected, and I unmade those too. By the time the sirens reached my ears, the building was safe again. That was for the best, really. I was all out of magic.

  Seconds later, officers swarmed the building. It didn’t take them but a moment to get EMS to me. An elf pressed a warm hand to my forehead, and the pain vanished.

  The physical pain. Nothing could ease the hard knot of fear that had taken residence in my stomach or the anguish from seeing Jameson die.