The man opened his mouth wide, wider, empty black eyes unblinking, and inhaled. The mist that had just been a Shield spell flew forward and filled his mouth. He swallowed in huge gulps, throwing his shoulders back and arching his spine as he swallowed and swallowed.
All the watercolor people moaned, low, hungry, like a hard wind blowing over an empty grave. They wanted that. They wanted magic.
They rushed.
Zayvion drew a second glyph.
I was faster.
I traced Hold spells with both hands (yes, I’m spellambidextrous; have I not mentioned that before?) and threw them at the mob ahead and behind us.
Magic licked up my bones, pushed against my skin, and unleashed into the spell.
The watercolor people froze.
They did not look happy about it.
I, frankly, was hella impressed.
“Good,” Zayvion said, like I was a pupil who had just figured out how to concentrate so that a Light spell will reduce weight, not illuminate.
“Now get in the car.”
I had to give the guy props. He didn’t sound the least bit concerned that my spell was dissolving into mist even faster than his had. Didn’t sound worried that it too was being devoured by our ethereal company.
And, as far as I could tell, he didn’t seem bothered by the large crowd of new watercolor people who were trudging in slo-mo down the streets toward us.
I was pretty sure they weren’t just stopping by to cheer on their home team.
“Car, Allie. It’s safer.”
I didn’t move. Call me crazy, but I was not going to leave him out here to fight these things alone. Hells, for all I knew the car wouldn’t do me any good. These things walked through walls.
Zayvion finished the glyph—an intricate, thick-lined beast of a thing—and began chanting.
Chanting.
Okay, I’d done two years at college studying magic. I’d been around magic and my father for most of my life and had watched him do all kinds of spell casting. Ninety-five percent of the people in the city use magic.
And I had not once ever heard anyone chant.
Chant.
What. The. Hell?
The words didn’t sound like a language I recognized, but the magic—oh, sweet loves, the magic—poured up out of the ground, leaping to Zayvion’s body, sparking the glyphs and symbols on his skin to catch with a secondary fire so they seemed to shift and undulate across his skin. Magic rolled up his body in metallic colors like the marks on my arm, bright against black fire.
The man was raw, controlled power, and I wanted to touch him. Wanted to be that with him. He drew his wrist and palms together and then separated his hands in one smooth motion. He spoke a word. It sounded a little like “not” or “nunt.” My ears stopped working for a second—nothing but white noise and a high-pitched ringing.
Then the air in front of Zayvion became hard—I don’t know how else to explain it. The space around him, around me, turned into a thick glass wall, and in that glass wall, currents of gold mist swirled and shifted. Just as I almost made out the glyphs the gold formed, it would change into another glyph, fluid, flowing.
The watercolor people slammed into the glass wall, grappling at it with fingers that could find no purchase.
Zayvion spoke another word, and I could tell he was pouring magic through that word. His leaned forward, both palms extended but not touching the wall. He shifted his stance, leaning into something that looked vaguely tai chi, knees bent, one leg stretched back, torso and arms forward, as if he were pushing against a great weight. And still the magic rushed up his body, molding, whirling through the glyphs and flames against his skin, pouring through his hands into the wall. Raw power I had never seen before.
The glass wall darkened in front of Zayvion. A hole—no, a door or a gate—appeared there, so dark, it hurt to look at it. So I looked away to the edges of the wall that were still snaked with gold glyphs.
Beyond the wall, the watercolor people gathered in a huddle. They weren’t moving now, not even their arms. They did not look happy. Worse, they leaned, no, stretched out toward the black gate thing Zayvion was casting, faces and bodies elongating in a manner that defied the laws of nature. Like watercolor flames caught in an updraft.
Another word from Zay, and the dark gates filled with a rushing stream of light, filled with the watercolor people pouring in off the streets around us and funneling into that black hole. Zayvion slammed his hands together in a resounding clap, and the gate thing closed and was gone, leaving the glass and gold wall still standing.
He chanted again and brought his hands together. Another resounding clap that broke the glyph. The wall shattered into a million translucent droplets of magic that fell from above us, around us, and mixed with rain to splash against the street, where it disappeared into the rain, swirling, down the storm drains.
The watercolor people were gone. Sucked into that black door in the wall that was no longer there.
“Wow,” I breathed.
Zayvion tipped his head to the side, working out stiffness. Then he put both his hands in his pockets and turned to face me. Zen Zay. Now that I wasn’t pulling on magic, he just looked like a guy in a knit hat and ratty blue ski jacket.
And he was so damn much more.
“Let’s get out of the street,” he said. “We’re going to get run over if we’re not careful.”
He took a step toward the car, and I did too. My mind wasn’t doing so good keeping up with everything that had just happened. For right now, I decided to cut myself a little slack.
I got into the car, even wetter than I’d been just minutes before. I glanced at the clock on the dash.
That entire altercation had taken less than a few minutes.
Zayvion got in the driver’s side and put the car in gear. Traffic behind us honked, and a car passed on the right. The driver gave us the middle finger.
Zayvion rolled through the intersection, taking the normal street into the normal city, driving through the normal rain.
When we were just a few blocks from my apartment, he spoke. “Are you okay?”
Why did people always ask me that?
“I’m fine. That was some . . . spectacular magic you threw around back there.”
“Hmm.”
“So what are they? Those people?” I asked.
He double-parked next to my apartment building. “We’re here.”
I glanced at the clock again. I had just over an hour until I needed to be at the Hound meeting. Plenty of time to shower and change. And I was not about to let Zayvion wander off without coming clean about what had just happened.
“Why don’t you come on up?” I said.
He took a deep breath, leaned his head back against his window, and looked at me. “You’re going to grill me about all this, aren’t you?”
“Have I told you lately that you are a very astute man, Mr. Jones?”
“No.” He paused, seemed to be weighing something. “You saw them?”
“Yes, I did.” I gave him a level gaze.
“And you saw your father?”
“Why don’t you come up and we’ll talk about it?”
It took him a moment more to decide. “I want to. How about we make a date of it instead?”
“What?”
“A date. It’s a custom that’s been around for a long time. It usually involves two people going out for drinks, dinner, and companionship.”
“Ha-ha. You’re just trying to dodge me, aren’t you?”
“No.” I knew he was not lying. “There are some things I need to take care of. Appointments I have to keep. I’m free tonight. Does that work for you?”
“No, I’m Hounding tonight. Tomorrow?”
“For dinner?”
I hesitated. Did I have time for dinner with him? I didn’t know what Pike would want to do once I told him about Trager. I didn’t know if I’d be in protective custody. But I didn’t want to miss my chance to get infor
mation out of Zayvion, or miss what might be my last chance to be with him.
“Maybe around five,” I said. “You might want to call first.” I made it sound all hard-to-get instead of worried, and apparently, he bought it.
“That should work,” he said. “I’ll call at five.”
“Good. See you then.”
It was still raining, but it wasn’t like I could get any wetter.
I opened the door and got out.
“Allie?” Zay called after me.
I ducked down to look at him.
“Be careful.” He was dead serious.
I wanted to crawl back into the car and stay with him. Instead, I shut the door, and then strode across to the sidewalk, under the awning, and into the familiar surroundings of my building.
Chapter Ten
I jogged up the three flights of stairs, maybe because I wanted to get to my apartment and shower and change in time to pull myself together before the Hound meeting. Or maybe because that fight with the watercolor people on top of the rest of my day had shook me in a deep way that made me want to scream just a little.
Yeah, mostly it was the second thing.
Running up the stairs in a totally dignified and not scared of my own shadow kind of way let me release a little of that pent up panic, let my body burn while my mind rolled out the fear carpet and took a nice leisurely stroll.
Whatever those watercolor people were—they had been a lot harder to get rid of this time. And despite not wanting to tell Zayvion, I was sure—positive—I had seen my father in the street. I was positive I had heard him.
He had said something about gates opening and seeking death.
Why did ghosts have to be so spooky? I mean, it had been a while since my dad and I had spoken to each other. He could have talked about the weather, asked me how my job was going, or maybe explained why even though he was dead he still felt the need to meddle in my life.
Honestly, he could have just told me why he wanted me to seek the dead and what seeking the dead meant.
I made it to my apartment door. All the other doors down the hall were closed, including the one where my newest neighbor, the creepy doctor from the coffee shop, lived. I unlocked my door, and then, because I was feeling more than a little jumpy, I drew a glyph to enhance my senses of hearing and smell, set a Disbursement this time (oh, hells, I hadn’t been setting Disbursements when we faced the watercolor people; I was so going to have magic pound that price out of me), and leaned close to my door to listen for any movement, any breathing beyond it. I sniffed and got only a noseful of the smells I am used to in my building, along with the slight smell of almonds that I decided must be my new neighbor.
A motion at the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked down the hall. I thought, for just a second, that someone had been standing there. Even though I had not enhanced my sight with magic, the pale green and blue tremor of fog—watercolor fog—at the end of the hallway near the head of the stairwell was enough for me to let go of magic.
The hall was just a hall again. No fog. No movement. No sound.
And nothing seemed to be moving in my apartment either.
I walked in, flipped the lights on, locked the door behind me, and strode through the entire place, just to make sure I was alone.
And I was.
I wanted a shower, but that would mean getting naked in my bathroom again, and as good as hot water sounded, I just didn’t have it in me to get all naked and vulnerable yet.
Last time I was in that bathroom, my dead father had seen me, touched me.
“C’mon, Allie,” I said out loud. “Get over it. You’ve gotten over every other screwed-up thing that has happened to you.”
Maybe I needed a cat. Or a dog. Something that would sense if there were anything out of the ordinary going on in my apartment. But a cat or dog would take time to care for, and I barely made time to take care of myself.
Maybe something smaller that needed fewer walks in the park and less one-on-one time. A goldfish? How about a ghost-sniffing hamster?
Ha.
I took off my coat, hung it on the hook behind the door, and decided I could stall the whole get-naked thing while doing something useful. I pulled out my notebook.
I wrote down everything that had happened today—the bus ride with Trager, the visit with Love and Payne, Stotts and his secret magic police, the Hounding job I’d go on tonight, Pike and the angry young Anthony, and of course the watercolor people, magical disappearing Life and Death glyphs, Grant’s opera tickets, my re-date with Violet for breakfast tomorrow, my dad’s empty grave, his appearance in the intersection, the encounter with the watercolor people, and the surprisingly powerful Mr. Jones. I noted that I was going to a Hound meeting and that I had a dinner date with Zayvion, who had said there were magic users out there, watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. And that the price for that mistake might well be my death.
Listed like that, my day was shaping up fan-damntastic.
I pulled off my knit hat, dropped it on the half wall between my entryway and kitchen, and scratched at my wet, itchy head. I had delayed it as long as I could. Time to shower. I picked up a candle I had left there on the half wall and stopped in the living room to light it.
A headache was looming, pressing at the back of my skull, not bad yet, but I knew in an hour or two, it would probably be a migraine.
“Disbursements, Allie,” I said out loud, trying to fill the emptiness of my apartment with my voice. “Why do you always forget to set Disbursements? You are such an idiot sometimes.”
I set the candle on the edge of the sink and left the door open. If the lights went out again, I wanted something to see by and a clear escape route. I took a deep breath and pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing but my empty shower. Good. I turned on the shower to give the water time to warm up. I undressed and kept glancing out at the hallway and peering at the corners of the bathroom.
I tossed my clothes in the hamper and checked myself for bruises and cuts in the full-length mirror standing next to the hamper.
No cuts, which was great. But the site where Trager had shoved the needle in my thigh was a hard, sore, hand-sized lump. A bruise spread out in thin tendrils that looked more like a broken spider web than a bruise. A glyph? I ran my fingers over it carefully and didn’t sense any magic left in it. But, yes, it was a glyph. Blood magic, though not any kind I was aware of. It had to be the thing that had made me feel so dizzy after he had stabbed me.
I swore.
But the glyph wasn’t the only new mark I carried. There were four dark red circles down my neck, a lot more on my left shoulder, and several on the outside of my hips, thighs, stomach, and what I could see of my back. They looked like finger-bruises, only they weren’t the right color for bruises. I gently rubbed the marks on my left shoulder.
Ouch.
Sticky moisture clung to my fingertips. Those red spots hurt. I wasn’t exactly bleeding, but I was sort of weeping fluid. The marks burned like someone had peeled my skin off. I touched the ones on my neck more carefully. Same thing—raw and painful.
I didn’t think Trager could have caused these marks. I would have known if he touched me like that, no matter how glyphed and dizzy I was.
No, I knew where I must have gotten them from—the watercolor people touching me outside Get Mugged. I had felt light-headed after that—drained and sort of sunburned. And these were the marks left behind from their attack.
I didn’t have any Band-Aids.
I wasn’t even sure I had any painkillers in the house.
I bet this was going to sting like hell in the shower.
I could do this. I could get in the shower, wash off despite being afraid my dead dad was going to show up again, and despite the pain it might cause my new wounds.
I stepped in the shower and did not pull the curtain closed. So what if I got a little water on the floor? It probably needed to be mopped anyway. With the curtain open I had a better cha
nce at that clear escape route.
The water hit my shoulders, and sure enough, it stung like mad.
Fabulous.
So instead of taking a nice relaxing soak, I shivered in the heat of the water and made it quick. I washed my hair with shampoo that stung, then rubbed soap that stung over my skin, and patted myself dry, which also stung.
Not that I was bitter about it or anything.
I got out of the shower, wrapped the towel around me, and brushed out my hair, tucking it behind my ears. Then I opened my medicine cabinet. That lingering headache was moving in, sinking down into the back of my head and squeezing at my temples. All I had in the medicine cabinet were some cold pills, cotton swabs, a bottle of aspirin, and Bactine.