Sandra blew out her worry and pulled her magic to her, the way they had tried to teach her in her first magic school, back when she had first transformed Harold. Back then she’d had a block, an emotional obstruction to using her magic. But after all this time, and the fresh exercises taught by the staff at The Seven’s, she could feel her power humming under her skin. If she had to use her curse to save Dani, she knew how, theoretically. She had never used her curse on purpose before. Never. Not once.

  But for Dani, maybe God would forgive her.

  Marvin

  Marvin stopped at the fifth floor and took a slow breath to rest his aching knees. He pulled his power to him. It gathered, not something he could see, but something he could feel, like a low-pitched buzzing under his skin, a sense of invincibility. He wasn’t invincible, but … he could do things with his curse that no one knew about. There had been that one time when a thug attacked him in a parking garage.

  He knew what the guy had seen. Old man, in the dark, alone. A white-headed guy who couldn’t fight back. Right? Just walk up to him and take his wallet. Maybe stick a knife in his ribs just for fun. Except he had picked the wrong old man. When the thug pulled his knife and demanded Marvin’s money and jewelry, Marvin had stopped, drawn in his power, and cussed his curse spell. All the cameras broke into garden soil. Then he altered the spell. Just a little. And the guy in front of him dissolved into dirt too.

  Marvin had stood there, staring at the pile of dirt. Then he had kicked the dirt away, revealing the guy’s knife, his belt buckle, and the little metal rings that his shoelaces had once passed through. There was also some cash. No plastic ID. No leather shoes or wallet. Nothing was left to ID him except the prints on the knife hilt. Marvin had pocketed the cash, used his hanky to lift the knife, and gotten into his car. Later he had carefully wiped off the knife and tossed it into the library book return box. There was no camera monitoring the box, and it wasn’t like he could turn the blade in to the cops.

  He had survived, twelve dollars richer, and a lot smarter.

  Marvin knew that if he used his most powerful spell, he could turn everything made of plastic and everything made of beef, like the meatloaf, to garden soil. And if he got mad enough, he could transform people too. His talent was precise, easy to target, but there was always the potential for mistakes if he got cornered. He hoped no innocent people got hurt.

  He peeked out the stairway door. The hallway in front of the nurse’s station was full of medical people—nurses, technicians, aides, probably doctors too, though these days they all dressed alike. He preferred the days when nurses wore those cute white dresses, white stockings and shoes, and a hat that looked like half of a milk carton on their heads. Sexy.

  Dani’s door was out of sight, around the corner. “Stay close,” he said to Sandra.

  “Yes.”

  The single word was breathy, as if she was about to pass out. If so, the stairway was not a safe place for her to land. She could break her neck. He looked back at her, but her face was set in firm lines, solid, sure. Marvin gave her a nod, held his magic close to his chest, and strode from the fire stairs. Mable followed right behind. Marvin took a right at the nurses desk and spotted Dani’s room just ahead. The door was open.

  Dani was on a stretcher, being wheeled into the hallway by a short, muscle-bound attendant. Beside him was a big burly redheaded white guy with a nose ring, and wearing a black security uniform. The security guy wasn’t a void; he had magic. A security guy who could toss spells. A magic user who used his power against old people, old magic geezers.

  He had to act fast. Marvin pointed a finger at the floor beneath Dani’s gurney and whispered, “Fuckety.”

  The synthetic rubber tires on the stretcher dribbled away into dirt and the gurney dropped an inch to land with a small thump. The floor tiles beneath it crumbled to dirt too. Quickly he pointed a finger at three rolling data carts down the hall and said it again. They crumbled into soil.

  “What the hell!” the nose ring guy said. He started looking around for the source of the magic.

  With careful control, Marvin waved his hand in a small arc in front of himself and Sandra, and to the side of Nose Ring, and murmured, “Fuckety fuck.” Everything made of elastic and synthetic and leather crumbled away. All the employees’ shoes and underpants and bras and some of the clothing that had a low cotton content became dirt and fell to the floor.

  There were screams and people grabbed at their clothing.

  Marvin raced in, ready to grab Dani off the stretcher. He intended to carry her to the stairwell, but the guy with the nose ring reached out to grab his shoulder. There was power in his hand, raw, blazing power. “Fuckety,” Marvin said out loud. But his attention had been on Dani, not fully on the guy and instead of turning the security guy to dirt, the wall behind him crumbled away. The spell had brushed by Nose Ring and hit the wall.

  The guy stepped back, his eyes wide. He shook his whole body like a wet bulldog to rid himself of the traces of Marvin’s spell. But he didn’t turn to dirt.

  Instead, Nose Ring threw out his hand and hit Marvin square in the chest with a magic taser. Electricity lit up Marvin’s body. The world tilted. He was falling.

  Throwing his last ounce of power, he whispered, “Fuckety fuck fuck,” and hit the security guy in his nose ring. Marvin landed on Dani. The world went dark.

  Sandra

  Sandra watched Marvin’s magic lash out, silent, transforming shoes, clothing, and medical equipment into soil. And then the feeling of incredible power building fast. There was another magic user here. And it was far from the familiar sensation of Marvin’s magics; this magic was hot and razor sharp.

  Marvin cursed. The wall behind the magic user crumbled into dirt.

  The security guard at the end of the stretcher threw out his hand.

  Marvin collapsed on top of Dani. The security man screamed. Fell silent. And stared at his left arm. It was crumbling into rich good garden soil. Dani tried to sit up. Tried to pull her magic to her. But someone must have given her a booster directly into her IV. Her eyes were drugged and dazed. There were too many medicines in her system for Dani to a help.

  Sandra had to act.

  But her magic was a claylike lump of hard uselessness inside her. What her first teachers had labeled as fear. Fear. Yes. She was terrified.

  But Sandra moved through the chaos to the other end of Dani’s bed, away from the one-armed magic user, and pulled the heavily laden gurney—or what was left of it—back into Dani’s room. She shut the door on the chaos of the hallway. The door had a latch. She figured it was easily unlockable from the hallway, but she turned it anyway.

  Dani was still trying to move, still trying to gather her magic, but it wasn’t coming. Moving on some kind of automatic reflex, Sandra pulled Marvin off of Dani and lowered him to the floor. Well, tried to. Her back, which hadn’t twinged in months, spasmed tight, so it was more like providing a cushion for his head with her hands when he landed. Then she folded the IV line into a kink to shut off the last of the drugs. Aloud, she said, “Mable. We’re in Dani’s room. Marvin’s been hit with a spell and he’s drooling on the floor. Dani’s coming back awake but her magic is doped up again. There’s a finger latch between us and a magic user whose left arm is now made of dirt. Get me help!”

  Sandra spotted some tape on a shelf and removed Dani’s plastic IV needle, happy to see that Marvin’s spell had missed the plastic attached to and inside of her friend. There was no gauze so she folded a tissue and held it in place over the bleeding hole and wrapped the tape around Dani’s arm. She gave Dani a few sips of water and dumped the rest of the cup over Marvin’s face. He cursed as he struggled to wake up fully. Then cursed some more when he finally sat upright on the floor. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “It worked, didn’t it? Get up. You need to get it together. You just turned some thug’s arm to dirt. We’re out of the closet and I have a feeling it’s about to get busy in here.”

  “The guy,” he groaned, placing a hand on his chest. “Nose Ring. He had magic.”

  “A lot of magic,” Sandra said, putting her ear against the door. “He zapped you.” She glanced at his pants. “You don’t wear pull up protection, do you?”

  “No?”

  “Shouda, wouda, coulda.”

  Marvin looked down. “I peed my pants. Son of a bitch.”

  “You could be, I guess,” Sandra said. “I never met your mama. It’s too quiet out there.”

  Marvin spluttered as if he had never heard her make a joke. Maybe he never had. Maybe she didn’t make jokes anymore.

  “It’s too quiet for Mable to be on the way. We’d hear things,” Dani said, sitting up on her ruined stretcher. She fingered the dirt beneath her. “Who knew mattresses were mostly plastic?”

  “Everything is mostly plastic,” Marvin said. “Crap never breaks down unless you have a magic spell and a lot of power to make it work. Everything currently made of plastic could be made out of hemp and revive the farming economy and improve the oxygen content of the atmosphere—”

  “We heard it before, Marvin,” Sandra interrupted.

  He rolled over to his hands and knees and grabbed one of the wall shelves to pull himself up. “Oh hell. My knees. I’m too old for this shit.”

  Dani slid off the dirt gurney and held herself upright with both hands. “I’ma vomit,” she slurred.

  Adjusting the position of her ear on the door, Sandra whispered. “Shhh. I hear something.”

  Dani

  Dani tried to gather her power, but it was like sucking water through a trick straw, one stuck with pin holes. Useless.

  Marvin moved around the room to the window, took in the view, and met her eyes, shaking his head.

  Mable wasn’t outside.

  The big guy had been zapped. That could be really dangerous to old people. If she got zapped on top of all the drugs in her system, she’d be down for the count. Maybe dead. Their plan hadn’t included magic-using goons.

  She tried again to draw up her magic, but nothing happened.

  She was powerless, Marvin was still pressing his chest, and Sandra had never before used her power on purpose. And their rescue knight on a white horse was … Mable and her tiny dragons.

  “Problems,” Sandra said. She backed away from the door. “They’re bringing in voids and a battering ram.”

  Over Building Z’s emergency loudspeaker—the one used to call out codes when patients crashed—a voice said, “Code Red, dining room. Code Red, dining room. Code Red, dining room. This is not a drill. Code Red, dining room.”

  It was Mable’s voice, breathless and hollow. As if she was running.

  Dani tried again to pull up her power and this time it hurt. She had to stop for a while.

  Marvin breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and did the same. He shook his head again. Neither of them were having any success.

  “Code Heart, room 205. Code Heart, room 205. Code Heart, room 205,” Mable’s voice said.

  Then, “Code SOB, room 312. Code SOB, room 312. Code SOB, room 312.”

  SOB? Dani thought. Oh. Short of breath. Laughter tittered up through her tight throat. I’m pretty SOB myself right now.

  Sandra

  Her muscles were quivering, her breath short and fast as she backed away from the door. Whatever Mable was doing with the speakers and the codes, it wasn’t enough. The security team was ready to break down the door.

  “Oh. Oh nonono.” She began to pull up her power. “No no. Dear God, please stop them. Please stop them. Oh no. Please stop them. Please—”

  A crash knocked her back.

  The door rammed open. Slammed against the wall.

  Black-suited figures rushed in. They had magic. So much magic.

  Sandra released her power at them.

  It shuddered through her. Whipped her spine. Blasted out of her gut and down her arm to her fingers. It struck the line of jack-booted thugs.

  Power blasted into them.

  So much power it was like fire, hot and burning. It ricocheted over them and into the wall.

  Overhead, the lights blinked several times and went off.

  Smoke blew through the air with the smell of burning feathers.

  Soft, odd grunting sounds filled the room.

  Emus appeared out of the smoke.

  In a panic, small-brained, long-necked birds stomped off their boots and flung their clothes away. Spread their short wings and grunted loudly. Then they started booming, the sounds caught in the small room, reverberating as they raced in circles and then strode, long legs reaching. The wild mob raced down the hallway, claws clacking on the floor. They pecked at everything that moved.

  Sandra sank to the floor, trembling with shock, tears on her face. “Dear God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She burst into racking sobs. Dani slid to the floor beside her and held her as she cried.

  Mable

  Mable stepped inside the outer door and tripped a black-uniformed guard, bringing her fist across the side of the woman’s neck as she fell. She darted toward the elevators and caught a glimpse of medical types at the entrance to the dining room, some carrying fire extinguishers, all looking confused. She turned and raced up the flight of stairs.

  By the time she reached the first landing, her heart was pounding. Her knees ached and felt like small swords were stabbing into them. She broke into a sweat. Thank God for sex or I’d be out of shape. She started up the second flight. Stopped. Breathed. Okay. Maybe I need real cardio.

  Two minutes later, her breath finally slowed. There was no way she could do this—save her friends—with brute force. Not even with her martial art abilities and skills.

  She went back down the stairs and pulled her power to her. Hot and burning. The stink of brimstone and terror. The ancient human memory of ripping claws, rows of slicing teeth, piercing fangs. Wings spread. Feathers vibrant and rich and tipped with barbs. She opened the outer door and saw birds at the birdfeeder. There were more birds wheeling high overhead. Buzzards. She had never tried to turn buzzards.

  She focused her power. “Here there be dragons,” she said, and sent her spell flying directly at the birdfeeder. Tiny dragons began to pop into existence around the birdfeeder. Three. Seven. Nine in all. Looking into the sky, she whispered her incantation and the buzzards gilding overhead snapped into dragons. Yes. Two of the buzzards were gold. The goldies were the queens, just like in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern world. They’re the dangerous ones, she thought. They don’t always come.

  “Come,” she whispered to all the birds, putting all her power into the request. And come they did. Mable held the door open and they whipped inside, then followed her into the stairwell.

  Mable started back up the stairs. She slowed, stopped several times, and finally at the third floor, she rolled against the wall, blowing hard, her heart slamming inside her chest. “I’m not fifty anymore,” she gasped. A dozen breaths later, she rocked her head back and said, “Okay. I’m not sixty anymore either. Damn it.”

  The dragons were zooming up and down the stairwell. They made the most amazing peeps and trilling calls. They were having a ball.

  When she had her breath back, she continued up the stairs and cracked open the door to the hallway with all the commotion. The place was a mess.

  “Shoot fire at anyone in a black uniform,” she said to her dragons. “Herd them into rooms. And if any of them try to hurt you, cook and eat them. They’re yours.”

  The two queens raised their heads and trilled-roared, the sounds too deep for the long, narrow throats. Their mouths gushed flames.

  Slow, predatory, Mable pushed open the stairway door and stepped into the hallway. Dragons flew through behind her, shooting flames from their mouths. Small fires started everywhere.

  People in scrubs were suddenly darting here and there, in a panic. Screaming.

  Mable, queen of the dragons, raced down the hallway, preceded by red, green, blue, and gold mini-dragons. She pulled a fire alarm as she ran. The wail rose, hurting her ears. The dragons flew around a corner and instantly darted back. Cowering. Hovering behind her.

  She stopped. A mob of emus raced across the hallway intersection ahead, along the hallway, long, hairy, bony legs striding. Stumpy wings flapping uselessly. Beaks clacking and grunting. a weird booming hurt her ears.

  The tiny-brained birds disappeared, and an instant later some raced back.

  Sandra. Sandra had used her power.

  “Well, dang.” Mable blinked. “Four of you round up the birds,” she said to her dragons. “You may not believe it but you’re smarter and more powerful than they are.”

  The two queens trilled and looked at each other, then at the stampeding birds.

  “Put ’em behind the nurses desk. The rest of you, herd the people wearing black clothes in with them.”

  The dragons flashed away.

  In short order, the emus were in a tight mob in the small space, pecking and snapping and grunting at each other. And one man dressed in black, his pants smoking, his sleeve in flames, raced by, pursued by dragons. He barricaded himself in a storage room. Mable had a good laugh over that.

  From outside, she heard the mixed sirens of firetrucks, police, and ambulances.

  Some first responders wore black. “Dang.”

  Mable sat on the floor, the wall at her back, legs out in front of her. She had seldom been able to practice with her power, so she had only done this once and it had taken everything out of her. Better to be sitting.

  She called her babies to her. The dragons flashed close and fluttered around her, the two queens settling on her shoulders, ignoring each other. The other dragons rested on her legs and arms, and on the floor around her according to a pecking order she had never understood. “Fire-breathing stops. We won. Good dragons. Fresh meat for supper.” The queens preened.