Magic for a Price – Excerpt #3

Here is the Monday Tuesday snippet of MAGIC FOR A PRICE.   🙂

***

I so didn’t want to be the one calling the shots in this fight. I’d already taken the responsibility for one fight. People had died, people had been crippled. I didn’t think I could handle all these lives in my hands again.

You are strong, Allison. Dad’s voice was as comforting and confident as I’d ever heard.

I have no battle experience . . .

. . . you have done nothing but fight since I died, he said.

I don’t know how to coordinate a city full of people. Thousands, Dad. Thousands of people could die, are dying right now. I don’t know enough to make everything turn out right.

They’re not looking to you to make everything right, Allison. They are looking to you to stand and be their strength. To make the hard decisions they know must be made. To lead them when they are lost. Each person will make their own choices, will live and die by their own actions. Your place, a leader’s place, is to make them believe they can win this war. And if not win, then survive.

Even if they can’t? I asked.

Is that what you believe?

I thought about it. I didn’t know what to believe. Things had been changing so quickly. Magic had changed. My friends had changed. Hell, even I had changed.

I’d killed a man.

I swallowed hard, trying to push away the memory of Bartholomew’s death that always hovered just below my conscious thought.

I’d managed to handle whatever had been thrown my way, but could I handle this?

It’s a war, I said. We’re talking about waging a magical battle against Seattle, Leander and Isabelle, and all the people they are going to send against us. We fought Jingo Jingo—one man—and almost died. He wasn’t nearly as strong as Leander and Isabelle—he wasn’t even a Soul Complement. They are. I don’t know how we can take on someone more powerful than him.

You are a Soul Complement, Allison, do not think that is without advantage.

I can’t even cast magic without puking.

Dad sighed, which is sort of weird since he couldn’t breathe. You simply refuse to admit your power. It has always been a vexing and disappointing flaw in your character.

“Disappointing? From a dead guy? You have no right to judge me.”

It is not a judgement if it is the truth. Why must you turn every conversation into an argument?

“I’m not arguing. I’m being logical and you’re talking crazy!”

Someone coughed.

That’s when I realized I wasn’t just thinking to my dad. I was talking. Out loud. On stage. While everyone across that floor stared at me, silent.

Oh, just so classy.

***

Available November 6, 2012