Magic on the Storm

  Davy’s face flushed red. The thin scar that still hadn’t healed over his left eyebrow and down his temple turned white.

  “Leave Tomi out of this.”

  “Listen—” I stopped. Took the volume out of my voice. “What I’m saying is, Hounds make bad decisions. It comes with the territory. I think you have to be willing to do stupid things if you’re going to Hound. We’re hardwired that way. Pike understood that. I think if he were still alive, he’d probably give Anthony the ass-kicking of his life, and then take him in, and teach him so he never made that kind of mistake again. It’s up to Anthony to pull his life together. There’s a good chance he’ll find something better than Hounding, safer than Hounding, before I let him in the pack.”

  “You think that’s how Pike would want you to run this place?”

  “I think that’s how I’m going to run it. When someone wants to take over, they can run it their way. Until then, I make the rules. If you don’t want to follow those rules, no one’s saying you have to stay.”

  I leaned back. “I hope you won’t leave. Not over Anthony. He’s not worth it.”

  Davy gritted his teeth again and looked out the window. Not much to see out there, just the roofline of Get Mugged and a few lights shining through the rain.

  I waited. Gave him some space to think, some time to breathe.

  Zayvion, who had been silent this whole time, stayed where he was, sitting in one of the couches behind Davy, in my line of vision, watching Davy, me, and the door, without looking like he was doing any of those things.

  The rain pounded harder, wind kicking it across the window. It felt suddenly much colder in here, as if night had crept unnoticed through the seams of the walls and sunk down into all the shadows of the room.

  “Things aren’t . . . aren’t what I want,” Davy said quietly.

  “Hounding?”

  “Everything.”

  “You want some time off?”

  He shook his head. “More time only messes with my head. I can’t even sleep, well, not enough. Not really. Not since . . .” He stared out the window, and I watched his eyes shift, as if he could see someone there.

  “Sometimes I think I can feel her.”

  I didn’t let my surprise show. “Who? Tomi?”

  He nodded. “When she’s hurt. I think when she’s cutting. . . .”

  “That seems a little strange, doesn’t it?” I asked gently.

  He laughed, a short huff. “You think?” He looked back over at me, gave me the half grin that I hadn’t seen in weeks. “Just a little strange?”

  I had no idea what to say to that. Davy didn’t know about the Authority. He just thought Zayvion was my boyfriend, who sometimes hired out as a bodyguard. Since Davy didn’t know about the Authority, he also didn’t know about the kinds of magic the Authority kept hidden. And other things, like the magically half-man, half-beast Greyson, who had been using Tomi to try to trap me, and dig my dad out of my brain. Zay was careful not to use much magic around Davy, and I was trying my best to keep who knew what straight.

  Blood magic had been used to hurt Davy. And Blood magic was . . . intimate. It dug into your body and senses, deep and hard, and offered you pleasure—so long as you did everything the caster wanted you to do. It tied you to the caster in ways other magic disciplines did not.

  There was a reason people mixed it with drugs and sex.

  And there was a reason it was illegal.

  Davy might know some of that, but I couldn’t tell him that Blood magic could be mixed with dark magic to do very bad things. Things that were done to him. Things that stained your soul.

  I glanced over at Zayvion. He was frowning, staring at the back of Davy’s head. I was pretty sure he couldn’t actually see inside Davy’s brain, but for a minute I kind of wished he could.

  “You gonna call the psych ward?” Davy asked.

  “What? Why would I do that? You’re no crazier than the rest of us.”

  Davy relaxed a little.

  I couldn’t believe he’d really been worried I’d do that.

  “Blood magic is pretty rough stuff,” I said. “And Tomi was using it. That . . . man she was working for made her use it. I know she doesn’t remember that.” I didn’t tell him I knew she couldn’t remember what she had done to Davy—what Greyson had made her do to him—because someone in the Authority had taken away her memory of it. “But I’m the one who found you in the park, and there was definitely Blood magic involved. It can take a while for the effects of that to fade.”

  This is where living three different lives is tricky.

  Spreadsheet. Still needed one. Because a woman with as many holes in her memory as I have should not be allowed to try to juggle all these secrets.

  “You think that’s it?” he asked.

  “Yes. I mean, it’s possible you’re just the sensitive sort, lonely and all that.”

  He grinned. “Right.”

  “It’s more possible magic messed you up a little. Tomi hit you pretty hard. Magic hasn’t been in use long enough for us to know everything it can do to a person. You might be sensitive to Tomi, to her pain for a while.

  “If you want, I could find a doctor who might have some experience with this,” I said. “There’s no end to what my father’s fortune can buy.”

  “Maybe. I’m not ready to mess with it . . . yet.”

  He meant he wasn’t ready to give up feeling Tomi yet. Poor kid had it so bad for her that even if all he could feel was her pain, he was going to keep it.

  I guess Anthony wasn’t the only one who needed counseling.

  I wondered if anyone in the Authority would know why he was able to feel Tomi’s pain. I made a note to ask. I knew there were doctors in the Authority who specialized in magical wounds.

  “Sleep might be a good idea,” I said.

  He ran his hand back over his hair, leaving it stuck up on one side. “Yeah. That’s not working so good right now.”

  “How about sleeping pills?”

  “I hate pills.”

  Funny, for a Hound who used booze to cut the pain from magic, it was a little high-handed for him not to want to take a drug that might actually be good for him.

  “Then try some warm milk. Eight hours. Sleep.”

  “Warm milk? What are you, my mother?” He smiled again, looking for a moment like the Davy I knew.

  “I’ll know if you lie about it,” I said.

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “If you thought you could get away with it.”

  I stood and so did he. “You staying?” I asked.

  “No. I’ve had enough of this place for one night. I’m going home. I have sleep to catch up on, apparently.”

  Zay stood too, and we all walked out the door and were down on the street in the rain in no time. We didn’t say anything else, even though a hundred things were going through my head. All one hundred were things I couldn’t tell Davy.

  “Night,” Davy said.

  “See you,” I said.

  Davy hunched his shoulders, and crossed the street to his car. Zay and I made it to the parking lot, and managed to get under cover before we were soaked.

  “Home?” Zay asked, after starting the car.

  “How much time do we have before the meeting?”

  “It’s only seven o’clock.”

  I groaned. “Feels like midnight. Home. I want to eat my scone.” I held up the wrinkled, slightly damp bag I still had in my hand. Maybe I’d get a chance at a shower too, or maybe Zayvion would crawl into bed with me for a little bit.

  The void stone necklace was still in the cup holder where I’d left it. I had worried it was making me dizzy, sucking magic out of me too quickly. But right now I was feeling a little edgy, the magic in me uncomfortably hot. The whole thing with Anthony and Davy bothered me, but even worse was the problem with Violet and the disks.

  As soon as I thought about her, my dad scratched at the backs of my eyes. Like I needed a constant reminder of
things out of my control.

  I could ask Zay to Ground me again. Could recast the Linger spell that had apparently worn off. Or I could put on the necklace.

  Right now, I wanted easy.

  I put on the necklace, and sighed as it settled against my skin. Magic cooled, slowed. Dad stopped scratching. I felt like I’d just taken a painkiller.

  Nice.

  I watched Zay drive, city lights and shadows sliding down his dark skin, highlighting his strong features. The windshield wipers kept a steady beat. Zay didn’t look happy.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Ask me after the meeting tonight.”

  Right. There was another thing to worry about. “How does the Authority usually handle storms like this?”

  “Not well.”

  “Ha-ha. I’m serious.”

  He looked over at me. His eyes sparked with gold, with magic. It was a feral look, the eyes of a killer.

  “So am I. Magic doesn’t follow the rules when it’s being thrown around in a storm. If a front is big enough, and organized enough that they know it’s going to hit Portland, and if the wells are somehow being drained by it . . .”

  He shook his head and flicked on the turn signal, changing lanes.

  “A lot of things could happen. We’ll just have to deal with things as they come.” He eased the car into the parking lot behind my apartment and parked.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “But this isn’t the first wild-magic storm that’s hit the city. Every building has a storm rod to channel magic strikes. Dad knew what he was doing when he invented those.”

  “They help. But if the storm is big enough, the storm rods won’t be enough.” Zay turned off the engine and twisted in his seat toward me. “We’ll handle it. It’s just different this time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to be there.” He smiled a little, as if his own honesty surprised him. “These are the sorts of things I didn’t think through when I was lobbying to get you accepted into the Authority. But now, knowing you’ll be a part of our fight, of our struggle, against magic . . . that you could get hurt—” He glanced away. “I don’t know. I know you’re a fighter, Allie. I just wish you didn’t have to be.”

  Actually, that was sweet of him. “I wish you didn’t have to be too.”

  He chuckled, and I liked how his eyes curved into crescents. “I’d fight even if they told me I couldn’t.”

  “We’re a lot alike that way. You know I never back down from a challenge.”

  He reached over, brushed my hair back, and tucked it behind my ear. “Not the safest way to go through life.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s my way.”

  He searched my face, his hand paused to cup the edge of my jaw. I knew he wanted to say something. I could feel his concern like a hard palm against the base of my spine.

  I was suddenly aware of our connection, of our shared need for the other to be safe, and our knowledge that it was unlikely either of us would go through life safe and unscathed. It was hard to face how much we both dreaded the thought of the other in pain.

  I drew away.

  “You know what I’d really like right now?” I said, changing the subject, and trying to change the mood in the car. “A hot shower. Want to join me?”

  He leaned his wide shoulders back against his seat and stared out the window for a second or two. He nodded. “Hot shower sounds good.”

  A wave of cold prickled over my skin, a slow, biting chill. Zay rubbed at the back of his neck. He felt it too. Magic. Pulling, twisting. Magic moving as if stirred by a wind, as if unsettled by a storm coming over the horizon. Magic that we’d have to deal with soon.

  Chapter Six

  Time. We needed it. The Authority thought we had it. A day or two before the storm hit. Which was good. Because I really did want that shower.

  Zay and I walked up the stairs and I paused in front of my apartment door—habit. Didn’t hear anyone moving around in there. I was on my way to a several-month streak of people not breaking into my apartment, and I wanted that streak to continue.

  I unlocked the door and stepped in, switching on the hall light.

  “Stone?” I called out.

  A familiar coo, half pipe organ, half vacuum cleaner, answered me from the corner of the living room. Stone, the gargoyle I couldn’t get rid of, slipped out from beneath the fall of my curtains, stretched his big, batlike wings, and tipped his wide head to one side, his ears perked up in perfect triangles.

  “Hey, boy. You ready to get up for the night?”

  Stone was big as a Saint Bernard, but had a heck of a lot more teeth and muscle. He clacked, his bag-of-marbles happy sound, and trotted over to me. He was heavy enough that I felt the vibration of each footfall. He pushed his flat snout under my hand, then angled his head for a scratch.

  Even though he was made out of stone and was alive via magic, he was warm to the touch and loved getting scratched. I rubbed my fingers behind his ears.

  He clacked—happy—then dropped me cold for Zayvion, who knelt and gave his head the rubbing of its life.

  Stone cooed.

  “I see how you are,” I said. I shrugged out of my coat, hung it on the back of the door, and carried my gym bag with me into the bedroom. My answering machine wasn’t blinking—no messages waiting for me, which was a little strange. I had expected something from Stotts, since Detective Love had made a point of telling me he was looking for me.

  “Want a shower?” I called back to Zay. I unzipped my bag and dug out my notebook. Tugged the cap of my pen off with my teeth and opened the book to a blank page.

  It took me less than thirty seconds to note what had happened today, but I wanted to update it before I spent more time around mega magic users tonight. Magic hadn’t wiped out many of my memories lately. I didn’t know if I was just getting better at setting Disbursements, or if maybe having my dad take up residency in my brain had done something to help with that.

  And with all the training I’d been doing, physically and magically, I was getting more and more nervous that magic was just . . . I don’t know . . . saving up to take a huge chunk of my life away.

  Maeve said the void stone necklace might help block that price magic extracted from me. Or that my training was helping with the memory loss.

  Whatever it was, ever since I’d started training, I’d kept my memories.

  Personally, I wondered if it had something to do with being lovers with a Closer. Zayvion was good at taking people’s memories. Maybe he was good at helping them stick around too.

  “Ready?” Zay said it softly, but I jumped anyway.

  Boy was too damn quiet. I glared at him from just inside the bedroom door.

  “Make some noise, will you?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he said all low and sexy-like. “How about I make you make some noise?”

  I smiled. “I thought we were taking a shower.”

  “That’s a good place to start.”

  “Okay, magic boy. You’re on. First person to cry mercy folds the laundry.”

  “After you.” He stepped aside so I could walk past him, and I did too, without freaking out or even having to hold my breath even though there just wasn’t enough room in the hall for me and him in the same place.

  Of course my bathroom was even smaller.

  And it was currently filled with a half ton of living rock who was flushing my toilet and watching the water circle the drain, his wings quivering in excitement.

  Great. When had he learned to flush the toilet? My water bill was going to be sky-high.

  “Stone,” I said. “Out. Go play with a lathe or something.”

  He swiveled his head and looked at me over his shoulder, one five-fingered hand still resting on the tank plunger.

  “Window, boy. Go to the window. It’s dark out. Nighttime. You could go. Out. Go fly.”

  He clacked doubtfully and looked back down at the water.

  “Need some
help?” Zayvion asked.

  “I got it.” I walked into the bathroom, squeezing around Stone, and giving myself the willies.

  I put my hand on Stone’s head and stared straight into his intelligent, round eyes. “Out.” I pointed my other hand at the door, and tipped his head that way.

  He cooed happily at Zayvion, who leaned one wide shoulder against the doorway and took up all the remaining space and air.

  “Getting out of the way would be nice,” I said to Zayvion.

  “Oh. Sorry about that,” he said, clearly not at all sorry.

  He backed into the hallway and snapped his fingers twice. Stone’s ears flicked back, then pricked up when Zay snapped his fingers again. Stone looked at me, clacked, in a why-didn’t-you-say-so way, then lifted up on his two back legs and waddled out of the bathroom.

  He clattered like a bag of marbles being shaken, and Zayvion treated him to another head scratching and told him he was a good boy.

  Fine. Let him play with the statuary. I was taking a shower.

  I started the water and stripped, throwing everything but my bra—which wasn’t wet, wonder of wonders—into the hamper. I did not look at myself in the mirror, because right now I didn’t care how many scars I had, nor if my father was going to be looking at me through my eyes. Hot water was calling me and nothing was getting in between me and the steam.

  I shut the door so Stone wouldn’t wander back in, took off the void stone, and put it on the sink, then stepped into the shower. I dunked my head under the strong, hot spray and moaned. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to shower at the gym this morning.

  “No fair starting without me,” Zayvion said.

  Man was too damn quiet.

  But I did hear him taking off his shoes, and then just one clack of his belt buckle being undone.

  The thought of him, of his body, in the shower with me, made me wish I hadn’t agreed to this little bet.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I called out.

  He pulled back the curtain at the head of the shower, caught my arms in his wide, strong hands, and pulled me in for a kiss.