The new girl Monroe was the one with enough smarts to grab me before I toppled. For that alone I’d kiss her feet, nothing more humiliating than doing a face plant on your first day of proving yourself.
Stone grabbed my other arm and between the two of them dragged me to the side while I fought to keep from upchucking all over them.
“You hurt?” Stone asked, looking at Monroe as if she’d hit me harder than he’d suspected.
I shook my head, repeating, “Black magic. Someone’s using.”
Stone glanced over my shoulder, doing a quick scan of the room as the women were pairing off, some dragging their feet more than others. But he must not have noticed anything out of place as his attention snapped back to me almost immediately.
“Not seeing anything.”
That had me biting back a groan. Of course he wouldn’t see anything; it wasn’t like a bolt of black magic emitted a colored energy wave. At least not to someone not trained to see it. Even I wasn’t that strong a practitioner, especially as rusty as I was, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t smell and feel the dark magic.
Monroe rolled her eyes at Stone as she asked, “What can we do?”
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t embrace my magic except for survival. Damn, if this wasn’t just that. Do nothing and the magic attack still washing over me was going to weaken me to the point I was out of the program. Or dead.
Besides, once I or any witch started using magic, I left myself wide open to physical attack.
“Got salt?” I croaked. Problem with a hex spell, especially a black magic one, was that the three easiest ways to neutralize it didn’t work without a lot of set-up and ingredients. Some spells needed the leaves of ash trees, others a mixture of dragon blood and blessed oils. Uncrossing spells assumed no wicked intention was meant by the original spell caster, and given the knots tightening in my stomach, I didn’t believe that for a second.
“Salt?” Monroe glanced at Stone as if she’d never heard of the item.
“Out the door, second door on the left. Upper cupboard,” Stone replied, and bless her heart, Monroe beat feet.
“What’re you going to do with the salt?” Stone asked, as he leaned me against the nearest wall. All I wanted to do was slide to the floor and moan, but that meant some SOB black magic witch would win.
“Protection spell,” I murmured.
“White or black?” he asked, surprising me.
I shot him a quick glance that had him shrugging. It was a damned astute question, especially for a human.
“Black to black,” I bit out between clenched teeth. Unfortunately it was too hard to counter a lot of black or dark magic with the more benign white magic. Think of going up against a tank with a garland of flowers and sparkle dust. Sometimes it could work, but today wasn’t the time. Someone was doing their damnedest to hurt me and I didn’t have a lot of options to fight back. But I’d hold off using the blackest, or blood magic, if at all possible.
Without the right ingredients to truly fight black magic I’d take what I could and see if it helped ease the hex.
I closed my eyes, fighting nausea swimming through me, when I felt something squeezed into my hand. I looked up to see Monroe bending over me, curling my fingers around a saltshaker.
Worked for me.
“Thanks,” I whispered, bracing my legs to stand. I needed a small circle of space around me. I stepped forward to put a hand’s length between the wall and myself, and between where Monroe and Stone hovered near me.
I didn’t like using my magic in public, didn’t like using it at all, but if I didn’t counter the hex, I might not walk out of here. With hope the other recruits would just think I was crazy acting, tossing around some salt while I mumbled.
I poured about a teaspoon of ordinary table salt in my right palm and closed it. This time when I shut my eyes it was to visualize a circle of bright light twining around me. It took a little focus, but the image came. Murmuring low I started the chant.
“Light come forth. Clear the darkness. Guide and protect. Light to dark.”
I turned counter clockwise, repeating,
“Clear and guide. Light to dark. Protect.”
By the time I had turned half circle the pressure in my chest began to ease.
I kept going, releasing a little of the salt in the four directions as I turned.
"East to the morning light. North to the warrior spirits. West to the waning light. South to the heat. Beat back the darkness. Scatter and protect.”
By the time I reached a full circle I could breathe, and think. Snapping my eyes open I followed the protection spell with a guiding one. A cast of the remaining salt in my hand toward the gym spread before me was the first step.
“Dark to dark, seek thy home.”
It wasn’t the strongest spell, and unlike what I’d told Stone it wasn’t true black magic. For that you needed evil intention and human blood.
I sensed whoever tried to hurt me meant harm more than true evil. Like unto like. No way could I bring a semi-automatic assault rifle to a squirt gun fight and using true black magic was very potent and could be very deadly. But I still wanted to see who had cast the harming hex.
But the salt, or I, wasn’t strong enough. Instead of a trail of light leading from me, the recipient of the hex, back to the caster, all that happened was a small flurry of salt sweeping across the floor. And I hadn’t noticed anyone paying particular attention to what I was doing either. That might have been a nice lead.
“Damn,” I whispered, not realizing I’d said it aloud until both Stone and Monroe looked at me.
“No luck?” Stone jumped to the heart of the problem.
I shook my head, still feeling wiped from the attack, small as it was. It wasn’t the residual tingle of pain remaining but more the unspoken threat behind the action. Someone able to use magic wanted to hurt me. Maybe not kill me but take me out of the lineup of potential Invisible Recruits. If I hadn’t caught on to what was swirling around me, or Monroe had been more aggressive and Stone less astute, I’d simply be a potential agent who couldn’t hack the grade because I had failed a sparring match.
But who wanted me gone? And why? Except for Ling Mai and Stone I hadn’t met any of these people before last night. Amazon Woman and the Chiquita? Yeah, I’d butted heads with them at dinner but was that enough to have one, or both of them, hunting for me? What about Kelly Kindergarten Teacher? I’d sooner believe the Energizer Bunny was after me before I could see her spell casting.
So who did that leave?
“Watch your back,” Monroe murmured next to me.
I snorted. “As if I needed that reminder.”
She countered with a smile. The first non-threat here, except for cheerleader Kelly.
“If we’re done pampering,” Stone growled, though it held more bark than bite and was directed at Monroe more than me. “Let’s get back to work.”
Monroe moved off and as I started to follow her at a much slower pace, Stone nodded toward a side bench. “Not you, Noziak. Sit this one out.”
Great. A Princess took me down in Krav Maga and now I got to be a bench warmer. Keep this up and I’d be on the fast express back to prison.
Except it looked like Stone had other ideas as he slid down next to me and asked, “Given you’re the only known witch on the roster present this morning, who’s sending out the magic?”
I glanced at him, not worried about hiding my surprise. I’d assumed the magic had been witch generated. It held that taint, but then I hadn’t practiced a lot of witchcraft lately; killing someone with magic tended to have that side effect. At least for me.
“You have any part witches?” I asked, wondering where this was leading.
“Not that anyone’s admitted to,” came the terse reply.
I held my tongue for a moment, weighing the possibilities, but in the end there were only two options. I cleared my throat, looking straight ahead as I murmured for Stone’s ears alone. “Then someone is either lying to you about what they can do or . . .“
“Or?”
“Or someone is intentionally messing with you.”
And me, too.