Magic to the Bone

  The question was, why? Because I was walking in, or because Zayvion was walking in behind me?

  ‘‘Morning, Boy,’’ Zayvion said. ‘‘I’ll have a coffee. Two?’’ he asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘‘I just need to use the phone. Is that okay?’’

  Boy scowled at Zayvion and didn’t answer.

  I was at the counter now, in front and to one side of Boy so I had a good view of half the room. Zayvion was directly in front of Boy, holding out a dollar like he was daring Boy to take it and get the coffee he hadn’t bothered to pour yet. Something was wrong. Boy smelled like fear, and his breathing was a little too fast.

  ‘‘Where’s Mama?’’ I asked more quietly.

  Mama came out of the kitchen, right on cue. If I didn’t know how much she hated technology of every kind, I’d say there was a hidden surveillance system set up. She looked like she was in a rush, her hair pulling free from a clip, her apron stained with flour and grease.

  ‘‘I told you to go away,’’ Mama said as she hurried behind Boy. She pointed at me. ‘‘You. Out.’’ Then she pointed at Zayvion. ‘‘And you. Out. Out of Mama’s restaurant.’’

  She was breathing too hard too. She looked worried, maybe afraid. I’d never seen her afraid. Not even when Boy lay dying on her countertop.

  ‘‘I just need to use your phone,’’ I said. ‘‘I can pay.’’

  ‘‘No.’’

  I leaned forward, lowered my voice so the patrons wouldn’t hear. ‘‘I need to call the police, Mama. Someone’s trying to kill me.’’

  She pulled herself up, put on a regal poise. ‘‘You leave. Now.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’ I seemed to be asking a lot of that lately. ‘‘I just need to make one phone call.’’

  ‘‘No public phone.’’ She pointed at the door behind me.

  I glanced over at Zayvion. He had put the dollar away, which was probably smart because Boy didn’t look like he was pouring coffee for maybe the next century or so. He had gone back to reading the paper and glancing off toward the stairs at the back of the room.

  ‘‘Are you in trouble?’’ I asked Mama.

  She scowled.

  And then the other Boy, James, Mr. City Slick, Mr. Magic-and-Danger-in-the-Night, Mr. Reptile, slunk out of the door from the stairwell.

  A couple of things happened at once. Boy stiffened. Mama’s mouth dropped open, then snapped closed. Zayvion became so quiet and calm he might as well be a potted plant. James-the-slimy paused, licked his lips, and stared straight at me with a look of sheer terror, then a gleefulness that was frightening. I know ’cause I was staring right back at him and wishing, right that moment, that I was maybe anywhere else.

  ‘‘Hello there,’’ James practically purred. ‘‘How nice of you to come back again. May we help you?’’

  Mama was quick on her feet. She glanced up at me, her eyes too wide. Then she turned on James like a five-foot hurricane.

  ‘‘They leave. They leave now. You go do dishes. Dishes!’’

  James crossed the room, a static smile on his face. ‘‘Of course, Mama. I was making sure our guests—’’ Here he looked from me to Zayvion. And a strange thing happened. His smile drained away and his face became blank, then worried.

  ‘‘Yes?’’ Zayvion prompted. ‘‘Your guests?’’

  ‘‘Of course, guests,’’ James picked up smoothly. ‘‘That our guests wouldn’t perhaps like a table? Some breakfast?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Zayvion said. ‘‘We didn’t come here for the food.’’

  I knew the dynamics had just suddenly shifted. James was on the defensive instead of the prowl, and Zayvion was looking more like a man who had authority, maybe even power, instead of a homeless drifter.

  Sweet hells, I was going to need a scorecard to keep up with this man.

  James, however, seemed to know Zayvion, seemed to know Zayvion had the upper hand, and didn’t like it. ‘‘Why else come by our fine establishment if not for Mama’s cooking?’’ James asked.

  ‘‘We’re here to use the phone.’’

  James shook his head. ‘‘It’s not working today. Mama forgot to pay the bill.’’

  I knew it was a load of crap. Zayvion probably knew that too, but the thing I couldn’t figure out was what these two were really talking about. I got the feeling they were squaring off against each other over old grudges.

  For all I knew it could be a drug deal that had gone wrong.

  Lovely.

  All I wanted was to call the police. And if I couldn’t do that here, I needed to be moving, moving on before Bonnie and her gun caught up with me.

  James took a step toward me. ‘‘I would be happy to help you, maybe drive you somewhere?’’

  From the corner of my eye I could see Zayvion stiffen, and that sense of authority he emanated became one of danger.

  Oh, there was no way I was going to get in the middle of this—whatever this was.

  ‘‘That’s okay,’’ I said. ‘‘I got it covered.’’ I turned and started walking toward the door. I glanced at Zayvion, but he did not move to follow me, which was weird.

  James laughed. ‘‘You don’t have to run away, Beckstrom,’’ he called. ‘‘I’m sure we can work something out.’’

  He started after me but Zayvion stepped in front of him.

  ‘‘You know what?’’ Zayvion said in his calm, slow, Zen-like voice. ‘‘I changed my mind. I think I would like a cup of coffee. Be a pal and get it for me.’’

  I kept on walking toward the door. I knew the beginning of a fight when I saw one. I already had a woman out to kill me. I didn’t need to add two crazy men to the parade.

  ‘‘You scared off your girlfriend, Jones,’’ James said.

  ‘‘She’s fine,’’ I heard Zayvion say as I stepped through the doors. ‘‘She’s just fine.’’

  I pushed through the door into the cold and rain, and got walking. I was not his girlfriend, or at least I didn’t think I was. Still, Zayvion was buying me some time. It stung that Mama had turned me away when I told her I was in trouble, but Zayvion was right. I was just fine on my own. Better than fine. The best.

  The bars along the street were all closed, and every time a car crawled down the street I expected Bonnie to jump out and shoot me.

  My need to find a phone was strong, but the need to not get shot or kidnapped while finding said phone was even stronger. My heart beat so fast I couldn’t think straight.

  My dad was dead. And someone had killed him.

  A truck roared by and I almost screamed. Okay, I was losing it.

  I hustled down the next alley and leaned against crumbling stucco. The tears I was holding back were mixing with panic. It was getting hard to breathe around all that. I pressed my hands over my face and bent down, trying to hold myself together.

  Don’t fall apart, don’t fall apart.

  I sucked in air around the sob in my throat, and did it again until I could do it silently. I just needed a little time to think. I hadn’t been doing enough of that lately and I was making stupid mistakes.

  To sum up, I had some problems. One of which was a Hound on my trail. If she were any good, and I had to assume she still was, despite the painkillers, she’d already be sniffing out North Portland.

  There weren’t a lot of ways to throw a Hound off your trail. One way was to not cast magic so there was no signature to follow. So far, so good on that. Other than the snap of light in front of her face, I’d stayed clear of magic use. The other way was to physically mask your smell. But you needed something really strong and natural to the area to work effectively, to help you fade like an invisible woman into the surrounding woodwork. What around here could mask my olfactory identity?

  The wind changed, and I got a strong whiff of the sewage treatment plant and the stink of the river.

  Great. Rotten fish, garbage, and sewage. I was such a lucky girl. But I couldn’t handle being on the street right now. I felt too exposed. I needed to hide my scent,
then find a phone.

  I followed the alley to another street, one that paralleled the river, and jogged along it, heading toward the gothic spires of the St. John’s Bridge and Cathedral Park nestled along its feet.

  There had to be a way down to the water from here. This was one of the older parts of town, and the river was still used for shipping and other industrial things. I shivered, even though I was starting to sweat, and flipped up the hood on Zayvion’s jacket. I took the next street that led down toward the river. I felt ridiculously exposed walking alongside warehouses and rusted chain-link fences and empty gravel lots. But I didn’t see anyone following me. Cars drove past, tires hissing against the wet street, and I kept my head low, hidden by my hood. Bonnie could be in one of those cars. Bonnie and her gun.

  I hurried.

  Finally, I saw the shieldlike concrete bases of the St. John’s Bridge marching down to the river’s edge, green metal cables connecting the spires of the suspension bridge to the earth. I headed to the parking lot, and quickly toward the sparse shelter of bare-branched trees that lined the river. The river smells would be down there, past the grassy field, past the meandering concrete walkways and park benches, behind the screen of brambles and trees. I didn’t know if there was a real footpath to the shore, and even if there was, didn’t want to take time looking for it.

  I jogged along the concrete path, parallel to the river. The brambles thinned out here, not exactly an opening, but maybe a way down.

  A car pulled into the parking lot behind me, cruising along the edge, low engine idling, headlights flickering against the rain.

  Shit.

  I pushed through the wet brush and picked my way down the tumble of rough rocks to the narrow sand-and-gravel shore.

  Holy hells, it stank of garbage and raw sewage. I covered my nose and mouth, trying not to gag.

  Even though it had been raining, the Willamette River was still low. The shore was covered in garbage and punctured by the remnants of old docks, or maybe piers. Wooden spikes as big around as me speared up through the sand and gravel, catching and holding piles of filth. Half-buried concrete pilings tipped in drunken angles like forgotten headstones. The hiss and snap of the river’s small waves blended with the clattering noise of rain, but didn’t mask the drone of traffic crossing the bridge twenty stories above me.

  Across the river I could make out the lights of warehouses, cranes, and silos all set against the evergreen hills. There were more industrial areas on this side of the river too, but they were up a ways toward where the Columbia met with the Willamette.

  The twin red lights on the railroad bridge marked the boundary between the rest of the city and this neighborhood. If I followed the edge of the shore I could come up somewhere deeper in the city without traveling by road. That would get me into town without being seen or scented, and from there, so long as Bonnie wasn’t on my heels, I’d find someplace to call the cops and lie low until a patrol car came to get me.

  I moved as quickly as I could over the rocks and slime and slippery chunks of trash. It looked like the entire neighborhood kept its garbage bill down by dumping here. Seagulls and crows picked through it, screeching and scrabbling. Most of the trash had fallen close to the land, but broken bags of refuse lay like a putrid avalanche, strewn from the brushy edge of the cliff down to the lapping water.

  All the better for Bonnie not to smell me, I reminded myself. My shoes and jeans were covered by a wet slime that stank like the bottom of a hospital’s Dumpster. I worked my way up a little closer to the cliff, hoping to stay out of sight and a little drier. It also meant getting cozy with the garbage, but I was all for stinking if it meant staying unshot.

  The rocks got bigger here, and so did the stumps of old trees and mounds of garbage. This did not bode well for easy or quick footing.

  I clambered along as quickly as I could, glancing frequently toward the railroad bridge to gauge my progress.

  A pile of garbage to my left rustled and something small skittered out from it.

  Probably a rat.

  Neat.

  I took another step, keeping my eye out for the rat, and saw instead a small, gray kitten nuzzling the hand of a dead man.

  Good loves. Could this day get any better?

  I am not a cat person. Not that I hate cats or anything. It’s just that I have not been around them much, as my father never allowed pets in my life. I developed a sort of cautious distance from all things four-footed. Especially cats, with their curiously intelligent eyes and sleek, unpredictable motions.

  But this little guy was hardly moving and his eyes were closed. He mewed, a tiny, pitiful sound. What was I supposed to do? Leave the poor thing there? Even if all I did was drop him off at a shop or on the street as I ran through town, he might have a better chance of surviving. Maybe someone at the police department could get him to a shelter or something. He was so small; if I left him here, a seagull would eat him for lunch.

  Of course, there was the complication of the dead body next to him, and if there was one category I needed less of right now, it was ‘‘ten interesting things I don’t want to tell the cops about,’’ dead bodies being right up there at the top of the list.

  Move on, Allie, I thought. Can’t save every little thing in the world.

  I took another step and the wind changed, lifting the sulfur and rotten garlic smell of a magical Offload from the mess at my feet. The kitten? Who would use a kitten as a Proxy? Maybe the dead joker next to him.

  This was so none of my business.

  While I am not a cat person, I am even less a dead-body person. But it’s not like I hadn’t ever been to a funeral before. I could handle seeing dead people. I didn’t much like touching them, but in order to get the kitten out from under his arm, and maybe then to a shelter, or at least away from the dead jerk, I had to move the dead arm.

  I took a deeper breath and bent down. I plucked at the dead jerk’s sleeve and tried lifting the arm, which was heavier than I’d expected. Deadweight. Ha.

  Not funny.

  I couldn’t get good enough leverage, so I took hold of the jerk’s wrist.

  Warm wrist. Supple wrist. Alive wrist.

  Quite clearly alive, or at least I sure as hell hoped so, because he moaned.

  The kitten mewed and I yelped, which, I suppose, was better than the scream I’d felt like belting out.

  Hells. Double hells. A dying person was a lot more of a problem than a dead one. I glanced back down the beach. A wall of gray rain blocked my view. I looked up the shore, and got the same—rain.

  I wiped my face with the hand that hadn’t touched the not-dead guy and bent over again to get a closer look.

  He was lying on his stomach and just half of his face was visible. He looked younger than me, and had narrow features leaning toward delicate. He reminded me of a boy who played violin down the street from me when I was ten. His skin was the color of fog and rain, and his lips were blue. Not dead yet, but not much alive either, I decided.

  Thinking about back and neck injuries, and the inadvisability of moving someone who was hurt, I gently pushed him over onto his back anyway.

  Thin. Malnourished, and bleeding from somewhere under his shirt.

  I tugged his sweatshirt up, and hissed at the gash in his chest.