AM 7: Durance, chapter 9 (Patreon)

Kavon was caught between two instincts. One urged him to pull Darren free of the wreckage and lay him gently on the sidewalk where Kavon could guard him more easily. The second was an instinct trained into him as a law enforcement officer to not move an injured man. Some shamans had the ability to stabilize patients or even heal them on scene. However, Kavon had never trained in that sort of medical procedure. He regretted that decision now, and as soon as possible, he would rectify this failure in his training.

Before Kavon could make a decision, a sedan came screaming up the road, followed by an FBI SUV. Kavon hadn't had a chance to call for backup, so he had to assume that someone had reported the incident. 

Kavon looked around. The area still had a faint glow as the living magics from the guides slowly faded into the dead magic that users could mine. The fight had shattered the windows in the surrounding hotels and glass glittered in the street. Weeds had forced their way up through cracks in the sidewalk and the road and the seam where the street and curb met had turned into a thick mat of wildflowers and burrs. A parked car even had a tree branch growing through a broken out back window.

The whole scene looked like some abandoned city that nature had reclaimed. Magic had spurred nature on and given her the power to overcome concrete and steel.

Given the amount of destruction in the area, several someones had likely called 911. Kavon braced himself for a confrontation with the anti-terrorism units or a tactical unit. Instead, his people tumbled out of the SUV and rushed into defensive positions around him. Anita, the shaman nurse from the DC Djedi Center, got out of the sedan and rushed to Kavon’s side.

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice full of urgency but without panic.

Kavon blinked, his mind temporarily unable to form thoughts. Reality had taken such a sharp detour from his expectations that he needed time to even process the question. He gestured towards the SUV. “He was driving when the SUV got flipped.” It was still on its side, and the upper two tires lazily spun.

She cast an evaluative gaze toward the vehicle before nodding. “Okay, give me a second to collect magic, and I can stabilize him.”

Kavon search the sky, and he quickly found what he was looking for. Bennu circled the area still in his ancient form. Kavon touched the tattoo on his hip and focused his thoughts. Just to avoid any misunderstandings, he spoke aloud. “Get down here and offer her your magic.” Kavon pushed as much determination and fear and anger as he could gather through their bond.

Bennu gave a barking cry at the same time that Anita asked in horror, “Are you snapping at your guide?”

Kavon was not about to explain that he was actually yelling at Darian's guide, so he said, “Do you need power or not?”

She hesitated a second before saying, “I need it. This kind of medical stabilization requires me to magically support the entire body at once.”

“Then you'll get your power.” Kavon stared at Darren’s guide. Bennu had already landed on top of the SUV, his wings stretched out wider than the vehicle’s length. “Do it,” Kavon ordered the guide. Kavon felt the subtle shift in the air as the power shifted. Darren had worked with Bennu for weeks in order to get him to transfer power in a narrow, easily digested trickle. The practice showed. Despite his own anger and his literally ruffled feathers, Bennu controlled himself.

Anita closed her eyes and tilted her head up toward the sky for a moment. When she opened her eyes, she gave Kavon a nod. “Thank you.”

“Just fix him.”

“Let's focus on moving him without causing more damage first.” Anita stood by the tire and put her hand on the undercarriage of the SUV before she closed her eyes. Her brow wrinkled in concentration, and then she said in a tight voice, “Quick, grab him.”

Kavon did not need a second invitation. He clambered up the side of the SUV to the driver side door. Darren was still hanging by his seatbelt. “Do I need to be careful about how I lift him?”

Anita’s voice was strained. “Not as long as I have stabilized his body. Just do it quickly before I run out of power.”

Kavon grabbed Darren's arm and hauled him up with one hand while he undid the seatbelt with the other. In a few seconds, he had Darren free of the SUV, and he laid him carefully out on the sidewalk. “Okay, he's clear.”

Anita blew out a relieved breath and Bennu took off to patrol the sky again. He kept his form invisible and Anita didn’t even notice when his wing went through her body. She knelt next to Darren and put her hand on his chest.

After a few seconds, Kavon asked, “Is he okay?” He held his breath and waited for her answer. Guides gave their shamans many amazing powers, but they couldn’t stop death. That thought echoed through Kavon’s head.

She looked up at him and nodded. “Cracked ribs, contusions, a few pulled muscles and a bruised liver. Everything is fixable. He'll be fine.”

The darkness that had wrapped itself around Kavon's heart eased, and he fell to his knees before he realized he had moved it all. The pain of hitting the pavement pushed him back toward reality, but so many emotions slammed into him that he couldn’t get up. Fear, anger, frustration, fury, grief, pain… Kavon couldn’t even tell whose emotions he endured, his own, Bennnu’s or his bull’s. No matter the source, there were too many for him to do more than kneel on the ground and struggle to catch his breath.

“He’ll be fine,” Anita repeated.

Kavon nodded mutely. He still couldn't find his voice, and he felt as if the world had somehow changed. Maybe it was just his world that had changed. For all of his overprotective instincts, up until this moment, Kavon had never truly believed that Darren could die before him. And now, that's all Kavon could think about. If it hadn’t been for Bennu and Pochi’s relentless defense, Darren could be dead right now.

Pochi. Kavon forced himself back up onto his feet. He looked around and found his team was still holding a perimeter. The tactical team had shown up, but Coretta was keeping them back. “Les!” Kavon called.

Les had taken a position to the north, near Coretta. Their newest shaman, Joe, was holding the south with Rima and Milton. Jen and Ahtisham had taken west with Anne and Rima holding east. The entire unit was on the street, and the respect and appreciation Kavon felt for his team replaced some of the more negative emotions. Unfortunately, none of them had the power to defend themselves if that monster reappeared. Their most powerful spells would be like shooting a forest fire with a water pistol.

“Boss?” Les asked. He glanced over toward Coretta. She jerked her head toward Kavon, releasing him from perimeter guard duty and Les trotted toward Kavon.

“How’s Darren?” he immediately asked. 

Anita answered for Kavon. “He’ll be fine, and I can make sure he stays that way.”

Les blew out a breath and closed his eyes. Kavon moved to his side. Only when he was so close that they could share words without being overheard did he say, “I need you to look for a guide.”

A confused frown flitted across Les’s face before it vanished. “Boss?” 

“It's a hummingbird guide, small.” Kavon held up his hands to show that the guide could fit in his cupped hand. “But very powerful. It was injured during the fight. Find it, Les.”

Les looked around the devastation, and his incredulity was evident on his face. “How am I supposed to find one hummingbird guide in all this?”

Kavon barely avoided yelling. “Have you or have you not been training with Selma?” he demanded. Right now he regretted that she was out of town because for the first time, he felt like they needed her help. However, Kavon had Les available, not Salma.

Like Selma, Les had a guide that had patterned himself after an animal that preferred to live in groups. For Salma, that was a Crevalle jack fish. The predators swam and hunted in schools. Salma had insisted Les could use his gregarious guide to overcome most of the limitations most adepts had on their powers. 

Since there were always more guides on the spirit plain than shamans and adapts to partner with them, Salma had been teaching Les how to have his wasp guide call other unattached wasp guides. That trick of working with groups of guides gave Salma as much power as most mid-level shamans. 

“Training with Salma is not the same as doing her tricks out there,” Les said.

Kavon needed Les to stop underplaying his power. If Pochi was dead, Kavon had no idea how other ifrit might react. Darren might call them docent, but that did not make them any less powerful. And if they lost one of their own, they might decide to fight this war the one way they knew would work—destroy every human with Talent. If that was a possibility, Kavon needed to know it now.

“Get every wasp guide from the entire spirit plane down here and get them to search for that hummingbird now.” Kavon bit down on all the other words he wanted to add. An ambulance was threading its way through the vehicles at the perimeter, and he looked like the tactical team had temporarily retreated to move their cars. Kavon moved to stand over Anita. If she needed power, he wanted to make sure he was there to provide it.

Coretta waved the ambulance through and then walked beside it as the paramedics parked near the overturned SUV.

In the street, Les paced, and Kavon was gratified to see a swarm of wasps gathering around him before darting off in a direction like cartoon insects. Clearly he had more ability with the group guide technique than he had told anyone because Salma had called his control intermittent. But now his cloud of wasps was as focused as an arrow as it darted back and forth across the battlefield. 

Kavon didn't mention that if Pochi chose to hide himself, there would be no way for any guide to find him. Kavon figured that if Les had that excuse, he would use it to accept failure. Sometimes Kavon disliked the narrowness of Les’s line between being laid-back and being quick to give up.

The paramedics jumped out and Anita started barking orders. Her tone suggested urgency rather than panic, but Kavon still felt sick at his stomach as he watched the paramedics stabilize Darren’s neck and spine for transport.

“How is he?” Coretta asked.

“Anita says he’ll be fine,” Kavon said. He knew his own tone was far too brusque, but Coretta didn’t seem to take offense. “How did you get here so fast?” Kavon asked. Their miraculous appearance should have registered with him earlier, but he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Don’t get angry,” Coretta said too quickly.

Kavon shifted his attention to her.

“We put a tracking spell on Darren, one that sent out a general alert if his heart rate exceeded safety.”

“We?”

Coretta sighed. “Rima is best with tracking spells, but Anita’s Talent is focused on medicine, so they worked together, and I authorized it. So if you’re going to get pissy with someone, that would be me.”

Kavon turned his attention back to Darren as the paramedics raised the stretcher. He stepped forward. “I’m riding with you.”

Anita broke away and stood between Kavon and the stretcher. “No, you aren’t. There’s only room for one extra person to ride, and I’m the best person to stabilize Darren if he has an emergency en route. You can meet us at the Center.”

While Kavon wanted to argue—desperately wanted to argue—he had to admit that was logical. He took a step back and pressed his lips together as the paramedics moved Darren. Anita hesitated as if waiting for more argument, but after a few seconds, she hurried after Darren.

Kavon turned to Coretta. “I need a ride.”

“Done,” she said. Before they could even turn toward the SUV that was still upright, Les came up to them, shielding his hand from casual view. 

“Is this your missing guide?” Les asked. The hummingbird in Les’s hand and occasionally quivered so his feathers all fluffed up.

“That’s your guide?” Coretta sounded scandalized. Sometimes Kavon hated the assumptions non-shamans made.

“No, but he’s much more powerful than my guide,” Kavon said. “And he doesn’t let many people see him, so don’t mention this.” 

Coretta stared at Pochi, and Kavon could practically see the moment that the lightbulb went on over her head. This was one of the all-powerful ifrit they had discussed. She swallowed and reached into her pocket. She probably had protective crystals in there. “Right. I’ll consider it classified,” Coretta promised in an uneasy voice, but Kavon trusted her to keep her word, no matter how uncomfortable she felt about it.

“But is this the guide you were looking for?” Les asked again.

Kavon nodded. 

The ambulance started backing up. A fallen tree and the police vehicles that kept showing up made retreat difficult, and Kavon barely avoided an urge to blow up every car in their way. That might make him feel better in the short term, but it wouldn’t get Darren to the Center any faster.

So he turned his attention back to Les and the shivering ball of fluff in his hand. Anything that could take out an ifrit was clearly a threat. Kavon wondered how many of the docent had been involved in their effort to stop the durance last time. He suspected it had taken many more than two. Either that or the durance had improved their fighting skills during their exile.

“What are we going to do?” Les asked. Pochi rose into the air above Les’s hand. He wavered drunkenly for a moment before he vanished.

“Nothing,” Kavon said. “There's nothing we can do. So we get to the Djedi Center and worry about the rest when it's time to worry about the rest.”

“It seems like that time would be now,” Les muttered.

Kavon couldn't argue with his logic, but there was precious little to be done right now. Kavon rubbed the back of his neck. He was used to having answers, to knowing how things worked. And if he wasn’t sure, he went to the goddamn rulebook and looked it up. But right now he wasn't sure where to even start looking for answers. 

“I’m going to get Kavon to the Center. Hold the perimeter,” Coretta told Les.

“You got it,” he agreed. As the ambulance cleared the immediate traffic jam, Kavon headed for Coretta’s SUV. His phone chimed, and he pulled it out to find a text from Anita. 

–Still going strong–

The message helped, but he still wished he was by Darren’s side.

Coretta caught up to him near the SUV and quickly moved toward the driver’s side. Kavon knew he was too emotional to drive, so he didn’t argue. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I'm not the one to worry about.” He got in and fought an urge to order Coretta to hurry. She wasn’t his subordinate, and even when she had been, she wouldn’t have accepted him micromanaging her driving.

She started the SUV and quickly navigated the circus. Local police, FBI tactical and terrorism units, emergency medical vehicles and dozens of nosy civilians had all invaded the area.

“Oh, I can worry about both of you at the same time,” Coretta assured him. “However, Anita says he's going to be fine. She can't say the same about you.”

“I'm not injured.”

Her sigh was almost pained. “You know that's not what I'm talking about.”

Kavon tried to stare her down, but she had been his second in command for too long, and now she was his equal in every way. After a minute, Kavon abandon the attempt at intimidation. He admitted softly, “I couldn't protect him.”

“No one can protect him though this sort of war.” Coretta’s words failed to make him feel any better. Then she added, “We’re all going to have to work together to protect each other. You know that.”

Kavon nodded without answering.

For several minutes they drove in silence. The faint chatter on the FBI radio was the only sound in the SUV. “White is going to want to report about how you managed to take your vacation at ground zero tactical nuclear strike.”

“Is it that bad?” Since Kavon had no affinity for dead magic, he wasn't sure how much power managed to get thrown around the area. 

Coretta raised an eyebrow. “I'm fairly sure my magical objects got fully charging just by standing in the middle of the street. I have never felt a magical sink like this one. There's more magic on that street than there was at Arlington when that asshole tried to set up his own kingdom.”

Kavon doubted that. But then O'Brien had been working with shamanic magics, so Coretta would not have been able to feel most of them. “What's the equivalent of a hazmat cleanup crew for magic spills?” Since shamanic power was living, it tended to rejoin nature quickly. Only large pools of shamanic power led to the disconnected, dead magic that users could manipulate. And only dead magic would linger in an area.

“Good question. We don't have one.” Coretta sounded particularly unhappy about that. “Every magic user on the East Coast is going to show up, and there's enough power here to keep all of them happy.”

Kavon grimaced as he considered the magic users he had met over his life. Most were good people, but access to power at this level would bring out magic users like Luschese—manipulative assholes who saw their Talent as permission to break the law. Of course Luschese was gone now and the remains of his criminal organization lacked the Talent to care about magic, but someone would move into the vacuum.

Other law breakers were like Angel—not inherently evil, but still possessed of a certain moral flexibility that made Kavon distrust them with power.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you're thinking,” Coretta said, “and one of us had better figure this out because White is going to be asking questions. This is like leaving C4 sitting in the middle of the road and hoping nobody comes along and sticks a detonator and it.” She frowned. “No, it's worse. In the case of C4, there are not many detonators or people who know how to correctly set them wandering around the country. There are literally thousands of magic users. And then there's the issue of who owns it.”

Kavon hadn’t even considered that mess. “Legal is going to give birth to kittens,” he said.

Coretta gave an inelegant snort. “Legal is going to kill you and leave your body out as a warning for future team leads.”

“If that's the case, you get to handle the follow-up,” Kavon said.

“Oh no, you're not getting out of it that easy. We need a solution. What do we tell White about how to secure this scene? Back at Arlington, the spells Darren and O’Brien threw around used most of the power their guides spilled. The scene back there… I can’t even describe how much power is all there for the taking.”

“I hate to point this out,” Kavon started to say.

“Don't you dare say you're on vacation because we both know that's not true.” Coretta poked a finger in his direction to punctuate her words.

“I wasn't going to. I was going to point out that I can't even see the magic. I can't clean up what I'm incapable of perceiving.”

Coretta frowned. “Well, shit. That means this really is my mess. I hate you.”

“Feel free to drag Rima and Milton into cleaning up,” Kavon offered. It was the best he could do. Beyond that, Coretta would have to solve this one. She pulled into the emergency drive of the Djedi Center.

“I’ve got it. Go. Make sure Darren is okay,” Coretta said.

Kavon was already heading for the doors. Common sense told him that he’d feel it if Darren died. They had taken vows that tied their life forces together and joined them with their guides. Their fates were too entangled for one of them to die without the others knowing about it. Most likely, the rest of them would have died with Darren if he passed on to the spirit plane.

But right now Kavon didn’t give a rat’s ass about common sense. He wanted to hold his lover’s hand and see those beautiful eyes open. The rest of the world could go to hell as far as he cared.

Chapter 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-10-22817775 

Chapter 11: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-11-22905312 

Chapter 12: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am7-durance-22974766