‘‘You’re killing a five-year-old kid in North Portland with an Offload the size of a small city. If you don’t pay for a doctor to mitigate a Disbursement spell, set a Siphon, and everything else, including hospital stay, rehab, and mental and emotional damage for the boy, then his family is going to drag you through court and publicly expose Beckstrom Enterprises’ reckless Offloading practices. My testimony will be in their favor.’’
He blinked a couple times, then looked away from my face to the rest of me, slowly taking in my cheap clothes and bruised hands. The corner of his lips tightened like he’d just bitten into something sour.
I’d seen that look on his face ever since I turned nine and told him I wanted to play jazz tambourine when I grew up.
‘‘What happened to her?’’ he asked someone behind me. I looked back, and who should stroll in through the door but my old buddy Zayvion.
‘‘She Hounded a hit and forgot to set a Disbursement spell,’’ he said.
I put two and two together and shook my head in disgust. ‘‘You bastard. You work for my father?’’
‘‘One contract.’’ He held up his hands like maybe I was going to hit him. He had good instincts. ‘‘I did one contract for him.’’
‘‘For what? To spy on Mama?’’
‘‘To look out for you, Allison,’’ my dad said.
Oh.
What girl doesn’t want to hear those words? What girl doesn’t want to believe her daddy is always going to be there to look after her and keep her safe?
But I could taste the honey-sweetness of magic and Influence behind his words, could smell the bitter tang of something that was not sincerity in his tone. He wanted me to believe him. Too much.
‘‘Really,’’ I said.
‘‘I heard you had been Hounding up on the north side of town,’’ he said. ‘‘There have been so many cases of illegal Offloads over there, I was worried you’d get hurt.’’
He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. This, from the man who had manipulated and Influenced every choice I’d ever made in my life. For all I knew, a man who still believed he could continue doing so.
‘‘Bullshit,’’ I said. ‘‘Save it for the court, Mr. Beckstrom. I’ll see you there.’’ I intended to spin around and exit dramatically, but I hurt too much. Even the bottoms of my feet were swollen. So I settled for a long, dignified stroll toward the door.
‘‘Allison,’’ my dad said gently. ‘‘It is the truth, even if you are too stubborn to believe me. It has been a very long time since you’ve seen how things work around here. Laws have been passed—you know that. There are more checks and balances and outside watchdogs Hounding the details of business and magic transactions than there ever were before. We use magic sparingly at this company—at all levels—and Proxy the Offload through approved channels, such as the penitentiaries and prisons.’’
I wasn’t buying it. I just couldn’t fit the idea of a kinder, gentler man inside the skin my father owned. I kept walking.
‘‘If it would help you to believe what I’m saying,’’ he said, ‘‘you have my permission to draw Truth from me.’’
That sort of magic involved blood, and drawing Truth, in particular, only worked between people who carried the same bloodline. I hated blood magic. Then again, I felt a powerful need to stab somebody right about now, and a girl shouldn’t turn her back on opportunity.
‘‘Fine.’’ I walked back to his desk and held my palm out for a needle. I hoped he wouldn’t have one on him because the ornate letter opener on his desk looked more my speed. He must have caught some hint of that in my gaze. He raised one eyebrow and pulled a very thin, very gold straight pin out of his lapel and dropped it onto my hand.
I held it with my fingers and intoned the mantra for Truth. I placed my other hand on the desk. The desk frame was iron and carved with the patterns that allowed access to the magic held in the building’s storage network. I intoned a mantra to call the magic up through his desk and into my hand, and felt the electric tingle of magic against my palm. I pricked my middle finger, wove a glyph in the air with my bleeding finger, careful not to let the blood fall, and said a few more words. Then I took hold of my dad’s hand and pricked his finger. He leaned across his desk and so did I. We were both tall enough that we could place our fingers together, palm to palm, blood to blood.
This was the closest to him I’d been in the last fifteen years. It was the longest he’d actually touched me too. He smelled of wintergreen and something musky and pleasant, like leather. The scent of him triggered memories and feelings from a time when I was young enough and stupid enough to believe he was a good person. A time when I thought he was my hero.
‘‘Did you, or your company, Offload into North Portland or onto a child during the last six months?’’ I asked.
‘‘No.’’ His gaze held mine, and that word vibrated in my chest as if I were the one who had spoken it. He was telling the truth as he believed it.
‘‘I don’t want to believe you,’’ I said.
He nodded, feeling my truth as I had felt his.
‘‘I’m sorry, Allie.’’ His regret, of things between us, things neither of us could find a way to speak of, filtered back through our blood. Other memories stirred within me. Memories of his infrequent and surprisingly deep laughter, of his hand briefly touching my forehead when I was sick, of the time he made pancakes on Sunday morning.
I pulled my hand away from his. The spell broke. That was as much truth as I could stomach.
I stuck my bleeding finger in my mouth and felt like I’d just lost a game of chicken.
My father pulled a soft white handkerchief out of his suit jacket. He offered it to me. I shook my head. There was no way I was going to leave any more of my blood with him. Truth was the mildest of the blood magics.
I squeezed my thumb tight against my bleeding finger and put my hand in my coat pocket.
Dad pursed his lips again, disapproving, and pressed his finger against the cloth.
‘‘I don’t know how you rigged a Truth spell,’’ I said, ‘‘but I know your signature. I Hounded it on that Offload. I don’t make mistakes.’’
‘‘Come now,’’ he said. ‘‘You are not infallible. None of us are.’’ He smiled, but there was no warmth in his eyes.
‘‘I am reporting you and Beckstrom Enterprises to the authorities,’’ I said.
‘‘I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.’’ He tossed his handkerchief on the desk between us. ‘‘But I’d like you to reconsider. You’ve had your fun, Allie. You’ve proved you can survive on your own without any help from me. And you’ve had time to cool off—we’ve both had time. There is still a place for you in this company. I think you should think about where your talents and training can best be used and applied.’’
He smiled again and those light green eyes of his sparkled. He was happy, his voice comforting, encouraging, safe. I wanted to hug him and tell him I missed him and ask him why he couldn’t just be my father instead of my boss. I wanted to let him make all the hard things in my life go away. And something felt very wrong about that.
‘‘Come home, honey,’’ he said, with the unmistakable push of Influence behind his words.
I was tired, hungry, cold. I hurt, inside and out, and yeah, I woke up every day afraid I might have lost a little more of my memory, and that magic was taking a harder toll on me than I thought, and that I wasn’t going to make rent on my crummy apartment. Maybe my dad knew all that. Knew I was broke, and scared, and alone. But what he didn’t know was that I would happily endure fear and uncertainty, and even pain, if it meant I could live my life free from his manipulation.
‘‘No. Thanks.’’ It took everything I had to say those two words, to push them past the weight of Influence he’d just used on me.
And those two words were enough.
His face flushed dark, angry. ‘‘I have asked you politely, Allie. Don’t think I won’t force the issue.’’
&nb
sp; ‘‘I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.’’ I dropped the pin on his desk.
‘‘There are legal actions I can set into motion. If you agree to come back to the company now, it will save us both a lot of time and effort.’’
I nodded. My dad was all about efficiency. And things going his way. I’m sure he knew exactly how he was going to make my life miserable since I’d said no to him. ‘‘See you in court.’’
I walked across the room, past Zayvion, to the door. Made it this time. Got all the way to the receptionist’s desk, then across the half mile of burgundy carpet to the elevator that was wooden and small, too small, far too small, but fast, and even a fast coffin was better than my slow feet right now.
Once I hit the lobby, I broke into a jog, needing to be through the lobby in a hurry and gone from here, away from my father who seemed to have found a way to lie in a blood-to-blood Truth spell—something I’d never thought possible. I wanted away from the memories of what I wished he could be, and away from the reality of what it meant to fight him for my life. Again.
I pushed through the big glass-and-iron doors and stopped outside the building, under a dark awning that caught the rain. The cab was not waiting, and I remembered Zayvion told me he’d paid the guy.
Great.
I couldn’t decide where I should go next or what I should do.
The police sounded like a good idea, if I could find someone who wasn’t bought off by my dad. A lawyer sounded like a good idea too, but had the same drawback.
With any luck, Mama had already called the cops and told them I was Hounding the hit back. With any luck, they would already be starting their investigation.
Someone had put a hit on Boy, and I knew my dad’s signature was on it. His real signature, not a fake. He had a part in this regardless of the Truth spell.
Maybe I hadn’t asked the right question. Maybe someone had erased his memory of what he’d done. Memory manipulation was against the law, and deservedly so for how dangerous it was. No, I couldn’t imagine him ever letting someone mess with his mind.
He must have found a way to lie, to manipulate the Truth spell so even blood magic couldn’t detect it.
That terrified me, but I believed he could do it.
He was good at magic, my dad. One of the best.
I couldn’t figure out what he would gain from putting such a heavy hit on such a little kid, though. It didn’t make sense.
Zayvion strolled up and stopped next to me, standing so close we were almost touching. His heavy pine cologne smelled really good now, not nearly as strong as before. People wrapped in dark coats and scarves moved around us in a hurry. Zayvion didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Just stared out at the muddied traffic and hazy gray rain like I did. Strangely, knowing my father hired him to tail me made things a little easier—at least I understood why he was following me around.
‘‘Still on the clock?’’ I asked.
‘‘Nope. Quit today.’’ He held up a check, tucked it in his coat pocket. ‘‘I don’t get involved in family disputes.’’
‘‘Right,’’ I said.
He was quiet, still, patient. I decided I liked that about him.
‘‘Buy you lunch?’’ he asked.
‘‘Not hungry.’’
More quiet, except for the traffic and constant city sounds. A cab pulled up, and it made sense I should take it home. Instead, I just stood there while a short blond woman in a dark green trench coat appeared from the next building and scurried into the backseat. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on where I might have seen her before. I clenched my fist around the little book in my pocket where I wrote the things that I didn’t want to forget. I needed to record the hit on Boy and the meeting with my dad so I could add them to my files.
I stopped trying to place where I’d seen the woman and instead watched the cab drive away.
Zayvion said nothing.
My whole body was stiff, and standing in the cold wasn’t making anything better. I couldn’t bring myself to give up and go home to my empty apartment. Not yet.
Could I have been mistaken about my father’s signature? No, I just felt vulnerable right now because dear old Dad had used Influence, and Influence always made me jumpy. I was not going to let him get the best of me like that. Besides, it was still my birthday.
I looked over at Zayvion. Okay, so he worked for my father. We all make mistakes. At least he had the sense to quit. And he was standing here, beside me right now, not in there with my dad. That suddenly meant a lot to me.
‘‘How about we get a cup of coffee?’’ I said.
He looked a little surprised, then smiled that nice smile. ‘‘How about we do.’’
I tucked my hands in my pockets and we headed down the sidewalk toward a deli I knew about. The coffee wouldn’t be as good as Get Mugged, but it would be hot and dark. Right now that was all I needed.
While we were there I might even have a chance to find out what Zayvion knew about my father. I owed it to Mama and Boy to follow this trail as long as it was fresh. Going out with Zayvion was all about following the trail, I told myself. This was not a date.
At the crosswalk, I glanced at Zayvion and decided he looked good in profile too. A strong nose to go with those high cheekbones, and an angle to his jaw I found intriguing. Okay, maybe it really was a little bit like a date.
He caught me looking. ‘‘What are you thinking, Ms. Beckstrom?’’ he asked.
My stomach flipped.
‘‘Nothing,’’ I lied. And we walked the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter Two
Cody did not like the man who came to visit him. The man stood by the door that would not open. The man watched as Cody sat on the floor and rocked. Rocking was good. Rocking made Cody happy. But the man did not make him happy. The man was quiet and had not moved for a long time. And even though Cody tried not to look, he could see what was underneath the man’s skin. Something wriggled and twisted there. Something like worms, but worse. Something bad.
Cody rocked and rocked and looked at the gray floor. He could not remember how long he had been here, in the room that was just ten steps by ten steps wide. He did remember why he had been brought here. He had been bad. He had used magic wrong. He had used magic and pretended to be somebody else, somebody important and powerful and rich. And he had hurt someone.
It had been fun to be a powerful man. But it had been wrong. He had to talk to a lady in a black robe. He didn’t tell her that the man by the door had told him he would hurt his friends. He hadn’t told the lady in the black robe the other things the man by the door had made him do with magic. Didn’t tell her all the other people the man had made him pretend to be. Cody was really good at pretending to be people with magic. He was really good at keeping secrets too. Better than any of his friends at home.
The lady in the black robe had said he was guilty. So now he lived here, in this room. He missed home, and missed his friends who lived with him, and missed bus rides to the park.
He missed the sky and grass and the wind and the sun. He missed the sun the most.
But rocking made a little wind. And it made him a little warm, like sitting in sunshine. So he liked rocking. Rocking made him happy.
He rocked for a long time, but the man did not go away. Pretty soon, Cody couldn’t help himself. He peeked at the man and saw the man’s quiet outside and his twisting, angry inside. The angry thing inside the man looked back at him. It scared him and he didn’t even know what it was.
A snake, the older, smarter part of him said.