Page 38 of Runaway Magic
:Right there with you. Let me see how far this goes.:Marshall slowed his breathing and concentrated on the cool air touching his skin. He felt irritation from the situation sitting inside his chest and concentrated on where its edges were, accepted that the feeling was there, and observed it until it faded gently away.
Now that Marshall was centered and free from the control of his emotions, he could access his magic safely. He decided to goas deeply as possible to see if he could gain any more clues from the Blaike family.
He was able to discern right away that none of them had demon taint nor had any of them been cleaned. They were all as bland and unassuming as beige paint. If he’d been asked to paint a picture to represent a group of unremarkable witches, the group in front of him was what he would have painted.
The only unusual thing he noticed was that their magics were all shades of green, purple, and blue—traditionally protective, but very passive forms of magic—his own blue essence was the only magic he knew of that didn’t fit the tradition. Other than Stella—whose vivid, blood-orange magic was already beginning to bleed back into her aura—there were no witches here with offensive magic.
Watching him intently, Stella pounced on him as soon as he broke from the trance. “Have you seen enough, then? Unless you’re planning on arresting us all, I’d like to dismiss my people to go back to their jobs.”
Several members cringed at the words arrestingus all, and Emily made an animal-like sound of distress in her throat.
“Lady…” Emily croaked and plucked at Stella’s arm.
Stella shook her off and stood as tall as she could manage. “There’s no point beating around the bush. Either we’re free to go about our business, or we aren’t. I want to know so I can begin planning the rest of my day.” Her mouth was a hard line, and she crossed her arms over her chest. And though the gesture must have agitated her injured arm, she showed no sign of it on her face.
Marshall looked down at her. “You know I can’t detain you—as I see it your family has broken no laws.”
“Marshall—” Adelle cried in anger.
He cut her off with a firm mental poke.
“While I and my team are off searching for your lost family member, you will send the rest of your family to the Boston chapter house within the next twenty-four hours to complete the turnout, or they will be considered fugitives.”
Stella growled in outrage.
Marshall raised his voice, “Including your matriarch. Unless she is about to die, she will be there.”
“Is that all, Guardian?” The title was a curse on her lips.
Marshal was about to turn to leave but paused.
Stella’s arrogant entitlement couldn’t be allowed to stand. Any opposition to the Guard had to be swiftly punished. If the governing body of the Other was perceived as weak, the entire world would fall into chaos in the ensuing power struggle.
The time for diplomacy was over. In his opinion, the entire Blaike family needed a reminder of why they should respect the Guard.
He dropped back into a mild trance and gathered the lights representing the souls of the assembled Blaikes in his mental hand and squeezed. Every member of the family went still as death, including Stella. He felt her light batter against him, and he clutched her soul even tighter.
Right now Marshall could do anything to them: force them to break into song, rewrite their personalities, even tell them to die. Only the strict moral code of the dreamwalkers kept the urge to do so from taking over and turning his desires into reality.
Respect for life and free will had been drummed into every potential dreamwalker from birth. Between that and the Guard's core tenant to protect the balance, Marshall rarely got to use more than a fraction of the abilities at his fingertips. But today it was his job to scare the living hell out of these people in the name of protecting the balance.
As a child he thought it would be fun to play with other people like puppets. He used to imagine forcing his babysitterto make him cake or buy him toys. And oh, how he used to rail against the watchful spells his father had cast to keep him in line—any indication of Marshall using his magic unsupervised, and his dad would shut his mind down.
Due to his father’s care, looking at the blank faces in front of him now and the grim expressions of his partners, Marshall knew playing with other people’s souls wasn’t fun.
It was a heavy burden.
“While you have broken no laws set by the Guard, I consider the treatment of your nephew abhorrent. If anyone in your family gets in my way during this investigation, I will cut them off from the Source.” Marshall tightened his hold on the family for emphasis before releasing them.
Nearly everyone collapsed to the ground, gasping and shivering as they all regained control of their bodies. Emily lay draped over a nearby concrete urn. She struggled to rise and kept flopping back down to crush the pansies planted in it. They must have been enchanted because they sprang up unscathed each time Emily managed to haul herself off them.
Only Stella remained standing. The moment Marshall let go she went on the offensive. “You—you can’t do that!”
“I’m a guardian on a mission,” he said. “You’d best to remember that.”
With a gesture to Jack and Adelle, he left Stella standing there with her quivering servant and her recovering family. Even without a trance, Marshall could see Stella’s blood-orange magic flaring around her wildly as she struggled to contain herself.
Marshall left without another word, trusting his team to follow him without a command.
