Magic Without Mercy

  Victor and Hayden were standing, and Terric was trying not to hover over Shame, though every time he paced near Shame, he slowed a bit.

  Stone was stuck. Still a statue, still not moving.

  Someone needed to go check to see if the car that had just pulled up in the parking area was our ride or not. Even though I didn’t want to leave Zayvion, the longer I sat here, the more restless I became.

  I stood and started across the damp grass.

  “Where are you going?” Hayden asked.

  “To see if our ride is here.”

  Hayden walked beside me, and I was fine with that. Better to have backup. Even though there was no magic in this neighborhood, that didn’t mean there were no guns.

  We made the slight uphill climb and finally caught a view of the lot. An old pickup truck idled in the empty parking lot, lights off. Two people in the cab. The passenger stepped out of the truck and into a bit of light.

  Mama had gotten her name from taking in boys off the street and raising them up as her own. She didn’t legally adopt them, but she’d done a lot of good for kids who fell through the cracks. When they were old enough to make it on their own, some of her boys stayed on and worked her restaurant, which had living quarters above it. All of them went by the same name: Boy. Loyal and gun-toting, Mama’s Boys were pretty easy to pick out in a crowd.

  And the thirty-something man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail and the shotgun in his hand was one of her Boys.

  “Hey,” I said with just enough air to carry my voice to him.

  He glanced our way, not lifting the gun, which I appreciated.

  “It’s Allie,” I said.

  He nodded. “Truck’s ready.”

  “Wait. I’ll get the others.”

  He walked back to the truck and Hayden and I turned around and headed back to where everyone was waiting.

  “They’re here,” I said. “It’s a truck, so we’ll have to ride in the back. Hayden, can you help me with Zay?”

  “What about Stone?” Victor asked.

  “We’ll have to leave him here for now. Let’s get all the wounded to Mama’s first; then we can come back for him.”

  “Shouldn’t someone guard him?” Maeve asked.

  “Yes,” Collins said as he sat up. “It’s too dangerous to let that fall into the wrong hands.”

  Interesting. I didn’t even know Collins had noticed Stone. And now he had an opinion about not only what he was, but also how dangerous he might be?

  “Who wants to stay with him?” I asked. It wasn’t going to be me, even though I felt guilty about it. I didn’t think Stone could get any worse—I mean, unless someone took after him with a hammer. But Davy, Shame, and Zayvion were all hurt and needed a bed to lie on. I had to make sure they were okay first; then I’d come back for Stone if I needed to.

  Collins opened his mouth.

  “Not you,” I said.

  I didn’t trust him much before, and I wasn’t sure how much I could trust him now that he had even more of his memories back.

  He shrugged.

  “I’ll stay,” Victor said.

  “Maybe I should,” Maeve said.

  “No, I’ll be fine,” he said. “If anyone comes by, I can keep Stone and myself hidden.”

  Terric paused in his pacing. “It should be me, Victor,” he said. “The Authority doesn’t even know that I’m not a part of them. They probably wouldn’t question me sitting in a park with a gargoyle.”

  Victor shook his head. “You need to go with them.” He glanced over at Shame, who was groaning as he got his feet under himself and stood.

  “How far is this car-topia?” Shame asked.

  “Not far,” I said.

  Terric took a step toward Shame, one hand stretched out for him. Shame had his back turned and didn’t see the gesture. But Terric seemed to realize what he was doing and let his hand drop.

  “Fan-freaking-tastic,” Shame panted. “Mum? Shall we?”

  He held his arm out for her. She gave Terric a soft look, then took Shame’s arm. “Careful, now, son. It’s a bit uneven.”

  Terric watched them for a minute, then walked over to Davy. “Hey,” he said. “Need any help?”

  Davy nodded. Terric helped him up, and wonder of wonders, Davy remained solid. They started across the grass, Terric talking quietly to him.

  I glanced at Collins and at the unconscious Zayvion. “Think you can walk?” I asked Collins.

  “I’ll manage.” He heaved up onto his feet, and swayed a little. Then looked over at Victor. “It’s been so wonderful seeing you again, Forsythe. These little meetings of ours are so… informational. Please do be careful out here. I’d prefer that you not get killed, as I don’t believe you’ve fully restored my memories.”

  “Give it time,” Victor said. “I’m sure you are concerned over nothing.”

  “Doesn’t feel like nothing.” Collins began walking, and after a few steps looked pretty steady.

  Hayden and I bent, and lifted Zayvion into a sitting position. Hayden was a big man, but there was no way we were going to carry Zay the entire way to the parking lot.

  “Come on, Zay,” I said. “Wake up. I really need you to be awake.”

  He inhaled, and lifted his head.

  “That’s it,” I said. “Wake up. Zay, wake up.”

  His lids fluttered open, and he blinked, wincing like he was fighting the mother of all migraines. Which I assumed he was. The Disbursement spell wrapped red-hot bands around his head, burning lines down the sides of his neck, and running beneath his shirt. I didn’t know how he had decided on paying the price of pain, but there didn’t appear to be an inch on the man that wasn’t on fire.

  “Allie?” he said softly.

  “You need to walk,” I said. “Hayden and I can help.”

  He did what he could to support his own weight, but from the first step I could tell he was barely on the upside of conscious. Still, he put one foot in front of the other, every step sending a flare of pain through the Disbursement glyph pulsing on his skin. He was breathing hard, heavy, and was covered in sweat by the time we made it to the truck.

  I didn’t know how he was going to crawl up into the back of the truck, nor how we were going to lift him. One of the Boys showed up, and somehow between me, Hayden, Boy, and Terric, who reached out from the truck and helped pull, we got Zay into the vehicle.

  I was so glad it was dark.

  The night was cold, quiet, and damp and we all rode in the open bed at the back of the truck, jostling along in silence.

  The truck came to a stop in the rutted parking lot behind Mama’s place. It had been a long time since I’d been here. A few months at least. It felt like a lifetime.

  I got out of the back of the truck. As soon as my boots touched the concrete, I shivered. Dread washed over me and settled heavy in my stomach. Something bad had happened to me here. Something bad enough my body remembered this place as a danger, as pain.

  Even though I couldn’t remember it, I knew what it was—I’d channeled a wild magic storm here. I’d been shot here. I’d saved Zayvion’s life here. But I knew those things only because Nola had told me about them.

  I’d lost days of my memory. Days of my life for those things.

  And I’d been told not to come back here. Ever.

  Yeah, well, that hadn’t lasted, had it?

  I reached up to help Zayvion down out of the truck. Hayden had shifted to get Zay to the edge of the pickup bed, and kept one hand on his back, helping him stay sitting.

  Zay pushed forward onto his feet and stood.

  “Careful, there,” Hayden said. “You got him, Allie?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  Zay leaned on me, but stayed standing with only my arm around him. He wasn’t better yet, but he was getting stronger.

  “Why here?” he asked me.

  “It seemed like our best option.”

  “Best?”

  “Only,” I amended.

&n
bsp; “Don’t think. It’s such a good idea.”

  “Better than where we were. Let’s get you inside. Then I can help the others.”

  “I can walk,” he said.

  “Good, because there is no way I’m gonna carry you.”

  We headed toward the back of Mama’s restaurant, and the door swung open.

  A woman, barely five feet tall, dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, stepped into view.

  “Allie girl,” she said, “come in. Come in, now.”

  She stepped outside and held the door open for me while Zayvion and I walked past her.

  “Thank you,” I said. “The others might need some help too.”

  We walked through a storage room, filled with the things one would need to run a restaurant, and then we entered the kitchen.

  I froze. Every nerve in my body told me not to go forward, not to step out there. Panic set my heart beating faster, soured my mouth, and made my knees week. I wanted to run.

  I had been hurt here. Zay had been hurt here. This was not a good place to have come to.

  But I didn’t leave. Instead I walked forward, keeping my eye on the door that led to the dining room.

  One memory and one memory only, of this room, of being here, burbled up out of my brain and flashed behind my eyes. Blood. Too much blood. Zayvion’s blood. My blood. We had died here.

  I didn’t know how long it took before we exited the kitchen. Logic said just a minute at most, but emotion said it took months, years, aeons to walk from one door out through the other.

  This door opened onto the dining room area.

  Quiet now, dark. I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’d been to Mama’s when Boy wasn’t standing behind the counter. But tonight the room was empty, with only the light at the top of the stairs at the back of the room lending it warmth. I knew Mama lived at the top of those stairs.

  There were beds up there. At least one. And if that was where the bed was, that was where I intended to take Zayvion.

  “How do you feel about stairs?” I asked him.

  “Not happening,” he rumbled. He was sweating, breathing too hard for such a short walk.

  “How about a chair?” I offered.

  “More my speed.”

  I guided him to a chair and pulled it out. He lowered himself gratefully into it with a grunt.

  By the time I looked up, everyone else had wandered into the room.

  What a vision we all made. Zombies would have looked more spry.

  Except for Mama. She strode in and wove her way between people like a stage director prepping for opening night.

  “You. Help that one up the stairs to the bed.” She pointed at Davy and one of her Boys hopped to it and helped Terric get him upstairs.

  “You,” she said, giving Collins a nod. “Over there at the table.”

  He followed the direction of her finger, while she looked at Shame. “Stay out of my liquor.”

  Shame gave her a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Shame walked over and took the chair next to Zayvion.

  “Do you know her?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ve eaten here once or twice.”

  “And left an impression, obviously.”

  “Of course. I make an impression everywhere I go. You should know. Once someone sets eyes on me, they’ll never forget I was in their life.” And that roguish smile he gave me would have worked better if he wasn’t both pale and singed.

  Well, at least he wasn’t feeling as bad as Zayvion.

  Maeve and Hayden sat at one of the empty tables, and Mama got busy telling another Boy to brew coffee and fetch us water.

  I didn’t know why she was suddenly feeling so generous toward me and my friends. She and I hadn’t exactly left on the best of terms. Her son, James, had gotten mixed up with people, people who I now knew were members of the Authority, and specifically the head of the Authority, Sedra. James had helped kill my father.

  Mama knew it. Her son had pulled a gun on Zayvion and me in her kitchen too, and I’d gotten him thrown in jail.

  It hadn’t made us the best of buddies.

  And yet, here she was, tough loving on us.

  Maybe it was our down-on-the-luckness that softened her stance. Maybe things were worse than I knew. She told us all to sit and stay that way while she stormed off to the kitchen and yelled for the remainder of her Boys to fire up the stove and get something more than hot coffee cooking.

  Something at the corner of my eye caught my attention, a blur of color, a shadow shaped like a man. A Veiled?

  I jerked and looked across the room.

  At a ghost. No, not just any ghost, a nice-looking young boy. Blue eyes the color of summer skies, hair so yellow it might as well be white.

  Cody Miller. His dead self, his broken spirit, the part of him that Zayvion had permanently Closed away. It was a little confusing, but the best way I’d been able to think of Cody the ghost and Cody the alive was that when Cody had been Closed the second time—an order given by Sedra, who was possessed by Isabelle at the time—his mind and soul had snapped.

  Because of that break, the living Cody had a childlike intelligence and half a soul, and the dead Cody was a ghost who had an adult intelligence and was the other half of his soul.

  This ghostly part of him I’d last seen taking Mama’s hand and walking away with her to St. Johns when we were trying to deal with the wild magic storm.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He smiled and drifted over to me.

  “I thought you were going to fix it,” he said.

  I bit my lip and shook my head. I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Fix what?”

  He very gently pressed one finger into my left hand. His finger was cool, but not frost-cold. It was a nice touch, a soothing touch.

  I opened my hand and turned it to look down at it.

  Cody placed his finger on the circle of black, the mark Mikhail had placed in my palm.

  “This,” he said. “You haven’t fixed it. Not yet. Not even after my father…” His voice faded, and when he spoke again, it was with great sadness. “He marked you. Gave this to you, so he could save my mother. Save her from them.”

  I knew whom he was talking about. Mikhail and Sedra were his parents. They were both dead now. Very much dead. Because Mikhail had saved Sedra from Leander and Isabelle possessing her. But the only way he’d been able to save her was to kill her, and release the rest of her soul Isabelle had kept trapped in her body.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I don’t know what this mark in my hand does.”

  He nodded, and looked thoughtful, as if he wasn’t quite sure what I should do either.

  “Something,” he said. Then he looked up at me, his eyes so blue, I was caught by their beauty. And their intelligence. He might look younger than the living Cody Miller, but he had a wisdom and sorrow that belied his years.

  “It’s important,” he said. “And if you don’t do it, people will die.”

  “People?” I repeated. “Who? Who will die?”

  He looked away, at a great distance, as if he could see to the end of a far horizon. And when he looked back at me, his eyes were dark with sorrow.

  “Everyone.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shame sighed loudly. “Really, Beckstrom? The crazy talk. Still? You do know you’re talking to air, right? Or is this one of your teatimes with Daddy in the gray matter café?”

  “Cody’s here,” I said, not taking my eyes off Cody. “His spirit. His ghost.”

  “Yeah?” Shame shifted in his chair. “I don’t see anything.”

  “If you used Sight, you’d see him,” I said.

  “And since that ain’t happening,” Shame said, “why not just ask him if he knows how to unlock Stone?”

  Holy shit. I’d forgotten. It wasn’t just the alive Cody that had made Stone. This broken, Closed, dead part of him had still just been him, a whole soul, when he made Stone.

&
nbsp; “Stone?” Cody said. “Who has Stone?” He said it cautiously, like it mattered a great deal whose hands Stone fell into.

  “Right now, he’s in the park. Victor’s watching him.”

  Cody nodded. “Oh.”

  Ask him if he’ll help us, Dad said quietly.

  “Will you help us?” I asked. “Stone’s locked. We tried to put samples of magic in him to see if we could cleanse it, but all it did was lock him down. He’s just a statue now and we can’t access the magic in him, which we think might be the antidote to the spread of poison.”

  “Who put the magic in him?” Cody asked.

  “We did,” I said.

  “Who? Exactly who?”

  “My dad,” I said quietly enough I hoped Collins didn’t hear. “In me.” I lifted my hands. “We did.”

  He shook his head. “He’s not supposed to do that.”

  “We didn’t have any other choice,” I said. “Magic has been poisoned. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I can feel it,” he said. “I can feel the Veiled rising. Gathering. Getting stronger. Feeding. Being fed upon. A lot of people are dying.”

  “We want to help those people and cleanse magic,” I said. “But we need your help with unlocking Stone. Can you help us?”

  He thought about it for a long while. Long enough Mama, who had gone into the kitchen and left only one Boy to stand watch over us—the Boy with the shotgun—came back into the room.

  “How long are you staying?” Mama asked. “Long enough to eat?”

  I nodded. I didn’t know about everyone else, but I was hungry. And the smells coming out of the kitchen would stir anyone’s appetite.

  Terric and the Boy who had helped Davy upstairs came down into the room.

  I glanced at Terric and he gave me a slight nod. Davy was settled. That was good.

  Cody drifted away from me, glanced at the stairs, and then walked up them, making no sound at all, his hand sliding along the old banister, his face tipped upward toward the light. I guessed he was going to see Davy, though I didn’t know why.