Magic Without Mercy

  To my surprise, the twins Carl and La walked up. “We’ll take it,” Carl said. “For now. What do you want us to do, Allie?”

  “Promise me you’re not going to order someone to hunt us down and kill us.”

  Carl shook his head. “You’re safe. We’re calling an emergency halt on all orders and will get in touch with the Overseer. No one’s going to do anything more until we get this straightened out. After what Jingo Jingo did…” He looked at the lumpy burned mess of his corpse and swallowed.

  “We’ll follow your recommendations, right now,” La said. “We know you must be doing something right to force Jingo Jingo to show his hand… to show what he really is. Was,” she amended.

  I would have been giddy with relief, but I was just too numb. “Take care of the wounded. Take care of the dead. The plague spreading through the city is caused by tainted magic. So if you can somehow tell people not to use magic as much, that might help some. We think we have a way to cleanse magic, but it’s going to take us a little more time to figure it out.”

  “We can do that,” Carl said. “We’ll get the word out.”

  Then he and his sister headed off to talk to the other members of the Authority, none of whom looked like they were willing to argue about anything.

  Good.

  “This way,” a man said at my elbow. I would have jerked in surprise but I was pretty out of it. Between my pain, Zay’s pain, and sheer exhaustion, I was amazed I was still on my feet, much less thinking in coherent sentences.

  The man was one of Mama’s Boys. This one was redheaded and maybe sixteen. He nodded, reassuringly. “We have a car for all of you and a place for you to recover. Let me help.”

  “Go,” Mama said to me. “Boy will help. It is all arranged.”

  I was too tired to argue. “The Hounds? My friends?”

  “We have doctors here and we’ve called 911,” Boy said. “We’ll get anyone who needs medical care to a hospital. Ambulances are on the way.”

  “Zay?” I said, a little dazed.

  And then I saw him, walking my way, with Cody and Stone at his side. Nola was with him too, her arm around Paul, who was limping badly.

  I wanted to run to him, knew I’d get only a few steps before passing out. So instead, I waited, studying his face, locked in a calm expression, watching his body, moving smoothly and strong even though I knew he was in god-awful pain.

  I smiled, because I had never seen anyone so beautiful in all my life.

  Davy and Sunny were walking our way too. Davy was solid as any living man, and looked a little singed, but otherwise was saying something softly to Sunny, who kept her arm tight around him.

  Collins was wandering through the fallen, whistling and rolling up his bloody sleeves. He occasionally stared at the sky as if expecting rain, then gave me a raised eyebrow and a smile before executing a sweeping, formal bow. “Well played,” he said. “Very well executed indeed, Beckstrom.”

  Hayden wasn’t walking. They’d put him on a stretcher with an IV and were taking him to a waiting ambulance. Victor was on a stretcher too, though he seemed to be talking, his eyes wrapped in clean gauze and padding.

  I did a quick count of how many Hounds were still standing, and couldn’t help but grin.

  There were only six Hounds sitting in the grass, surrounded by the other Hounds, who were making sure no one, other than the doctors, touched them.

  Jack looked up, caught me staring, and raised a hand. He was bruised and cut, but had his arm over Bea’s shoulder. She handed him back his cigarette, and exhaled smoke before giving me a big smile.

  Hounds. They were all crazy. Loyal. I loved them for it.

  Sid was one of the injured they were guarding. A woman tended what looked like a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

  I held up my hand and mouthed, Thank you.

  Jack nodded, and said something to the Hounds. Half of them gave the park one last look, nodded toward me, or gave a wave, then faded off into the shadows of the night.

  They had survived. We had survived. Maybe not without pain. Maybe not without injury. But we were alive and Stone was unlocked. Magic had a chance. The people in Portland had a chance to be okay again.

  That was something, right? Maybe that was even more than something.

  And then Zay was there, in front of me, taking up my world, taking up my senses. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his mouth against mine, kissing me as if we’d just survived the world’s end. I kissed him back, because I thought maybe we had. And I didn’t care if I saw or felt anything or anyone else ever again.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Mama’s Boys took us to a church that had long ago been converted into a house. The house belonged to an artist friend of Mama’s, who’d filled the walls with paintings and found objects and some remarkable metal art.

  She had the place set up like a minihospital at Mama’s request, with plenty of equipment and supplies.

  But there was no magic here—none at all, just a lingering sacred hush that seemed to cling to the bare rafters and floor and soothed my rattled nerves.

  It didn’t take us long to get settled in the large room that had half a dozen couches, a few cots, and plenty of chairs. I suggested Davy take one of the rooms to sleep in, but he just gave me a look from my head to my feet, and told me I looked worse than he did.

  I would have argued, but he was right.

  However, our most wounded were Victor, Hayden, Shame, and Terric. They each got their own beds, monitors, IVs, and painkillers in the main room. Dr. Tullis had come with us as a favor to Mama and brought two nurses with him. It didn’t take them long to get everyone comfortable.

  We all had a long way to go to recover from our injuries. But we were as settled, tended, and safe as we could be.

  It was agreed we’d stay here through the remainder of the night. Dr. Tullis said he’d stay until morning to keep an eye on everyone. Depending on how well the next few hours went, he might recommend one or all be moved to a hospital for better care.

  I was on a couch, leaning against Zayvion. He had his head back, eyes closed. The thought of sleep rolled through me like a sensual promise, just as I could feel it roll through Zayvion. I was dog-tired. But we weren’t quite done with this fight yet.

  “Yes, we are,” Zayvion said. He shifted his arm around me, holding me closer. I rested my head on his shoulder, my knees tucked up on the couch.

  “No fair listening to me think,” I said.

  He grunted. “Stop thinking so loud.”

  “We have to get Stone, have to get the information… somewhere for someone to start formulating a cure,” I said.

  “We have to sleep,” Zay said.

  “But—”

  “Allie,” he said with a sigh. “We can’t take another fight right now.” Zay picked up one leg. I could feel the ragged agony of just that much motion rattle down his spine. He rested his leg on the footstool. “I can’t. You can’t. None of us can. Whatever it is we need to do with Stone—whether it’s taking him to a scientist, or door-to-door for personal inoculations—it’s going to take a hell of a lot more energy than I have right now. Than any of us have right now.”

  “Think it can wait until tomorrow?” I asked.

  “It’s damn well going to have to.”

  Shame moaned in his sleep, and Maeve, who sat in a chair at the head of his bed, reached over and gently brushed his bangs away from his forehead, hushing him. The doctor said he and Terric were stable, but he didn’t expect them to be conscious anytime soon.

  Collins sat at the head of Terric’s bed, his shirt half unbuttoned, and the white of a bandage covering a wound across his ribs. A second, massive bruise bloomed down the other side of his face. He had his hands clasped, his fingers steepled against his lips, as he stared, blearily, into the middle distance.

  Victor was sleeping. The doctor didn’t know how much permanent damage had been done to his eyes. He couldn’t use them right now, maybe wouldn’t eve
r be able to see again. Or maybe the magic burn would heal, slowly. And Hayden, well, there was nothing that could be done about the loss of his hand.

  We might have won, but we had paid a heavy price.

  Not all of us were broken, though. Davy and Sunny were spooned up on a couch together, and Nola had taken Cody off to a room of his own, Stone following him like a big, stupid puppy. Paul had gone with them. Limping, but not permanently damaged.

  I believed Carl and La when they said they’d keep things quiet, but Mama had told me she left several of her Boys in the neighborhood just in case, and they’d keep a lookout for trouble and drive by the place to make sure no one showed up unannounced.

  We were as safe as we could be.

  The way I looked at it, I had two choices. Stay up and argue with that very stubborn man of mine, who was not going to budge off this couch or change his mind anyway, or go to sleep so we could take care of magic tomorrow.

  How many people would die if we didn’t get the cure to them? How many would be hurt because we needed sleep?

  It will take time, Dad said quietly in my mind. To unravel the poison and create the cure. None of us has the strength to take on that task right now. None of us has the clarity of thought and will to do what must be done.

  Hells, even my dead dad wanted to throw in the towel.

  Do you know how to do any of that? I asked.

  He paused, thinking. This has never happened before, so even my best guess is still just a guess.

  And? I thought.

  And you know how much I deplore making guesses. I don’t want to cause the further spread of the poison. I don’t want to damage Stone.

  Wait, I thought. Why don’t you want to damage Stone? What does he mean to you?

  Okay, yes. A little of what Jingo Jingo had said about my dad sort of sank in. Dad might be working all of this, working me, all of us, to his advantage. Maybe he wanted Stone for something important.

  Stone means nothing to me, Dad said. If I were alive, I would find him a fascinating tool of magic, but since that is not the case, I care that he isn’t damaged only because you seem fond of him.

  I am, I said. When he isn’t stacking everything in my apartment.

  Dad paused again, and I could tell he was working calculations, but slowly, as if they were figures he’d worked over many times and always arrived at different answers. Give me some time to think this through, he said.

  “Just a few hours,” I said out loud.

  Zay rumbled in agreement, though he was already sliding off to sleep assisted by painkillers.

  Sleep while you can, Dad said. I’ll wake you at dawn.

  Well, there was one thing I hadn’t ever thought to use my undead dad for—an alarm clock. Who knew he was such a multifunctional ghost?

  I looked around the room one last time. Everyone had their eyes closed except for Dr. Tullis, who was tapping information into a computer on the far side of the room. I closed my eyes, and followed Zayvion into sleep.

  I didn’t remember my dreams. What I did remember was someone placing a bowling ball on my thigh. A bowling ball that moved. And made a sound sort of like a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a pipe organ.

  I opened my eyes. Stone was scrunched up on the end of the couch, his hands propped under his chin, which also happened to be propped on my hip. Even though I didn’t recall moving, Zay and I had somehow rearranged ourselves on the couch so that he was stretched out on his back, his left arm over the back of the couch, and I was lying, more or less, on top of him, on my side.

  Stone must have decided my hip was a good chin rest.

  He noticed my eyes opening and burbled at me.

  “What?” I whispered.

  Stone burbled again, his wings lifting and sending a wash of cooler air over me.

  I pushed at his snout with my palm. “Off, so I can get up.”

  Stone seemed to understand some of that and lifted his head. I disengaged myself as carefully as I could from Zayvion and stood.

  Ow. An awful lot of me hurt. And the majority of the parts of me that didn’t hurt wanted coffee. There was just enough light coming in through the curtains, I knew it must almost be dawn. In the low light of the room, everyone appeared to be sleeping soundly.

  Even Shame and Terric.

  I tiptoed over to look down at each of them in turn. Both breathing, both sleeping without lines of pain at their eyes, or on their lips. There were still smudges of blood here and there, and they each had bandages over wounds, but they didn’t seem to be in distress. Amazing what a few hours’ sleep and really good painkillers could do for a person. Even a person as wounded as they were.

  Stone burbled again, one hand on the couch, looking like he was considering curling up with Zayvion. I doubted Zay wanted a half ton of rock for a blanket.

  “Come on, Stone,” I whispered. “Let’s go find breakfast.”

  Stone slunk down off the couch and did so with so little noise it was a bit surprising. He followed at my side as I tried to remember which way led to the food and coffee.

  After the first hallway, I didn’t have to wonder. The smell of hot oats and something buttery like pancakes filled the air. As I neared the kitchen, the heavenly scent of fresh-brewed coffee mixed with the others and made my mouth water.

  I pushed open the door to the kitchen. It was large enough that between the chairs surrounding the island and the actual dining table, all of us could have sat and had a meal along with an extra twenty friends.

  Nola was at the stove, stirring a pot, a waffle iron to the side.

  “Do you always have to get up before dawn?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Good morning, Allie. Did you get some sleep?”

  I walked across the room and started opening cupboards, looking for a cup. “Not enough,” I said. “But some.”

  “Last one the right,” she said. “Stone wouldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to let him outside. I’ve spent the last hour trying to keep him occupied so he didn’t wake you.”

  I found a mug, filled it with coffee, took a sip. Oh, good God, that was sweet, sweet heaven.

  “Where’s Mrs., um… Mrs.…?”

  “Stanley?” she asked. “The owner of the house? She works the morning shift at the barge company. She told me to feel free to use her kitchen. How’s oatmeal and waffles sound?”

  She opened the waffle iron, pulled out the golden brown cake, and slipped it into the oven to keep it warm. Then she poured more batter on the iron and closed it again.

  “If you’re cooking? Delicious.” I leaned against the counter and watched while Stone nosed around until he found a cupboard of canned goods, and started sorting through them, stacking them on their round side, instead of upright on their flat ends.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She was quiet for a minute, then sighed. “I think so. It’s just… a lot. Overwhelming. Coming out of that circle with Cody and Stone and seeing all those people injured. I don’t know how you’ve been handling it for so long.”

  “I haven’t. Not really.” I shifted to sit at the table, because my feet hurt. “It’s not usually this bad.” I decided now was not the time to give her the list of fights and magical scrapes I’d been in over the last few months. We’d have time, later, to catch up on all of that, because I intended to tell her everything.

  She turned around, her mouth tucked down in a worried line. “Should I apologize? For thinking you were crazy?”

  I smiled. “Absolutely not. I’m glad you were looking out for me. And the day I do go crazy, because hey, look at the odds, you better be right there, making sure I know it.”

  She walked over and gave me a quick and gentle hug before walking back to the stove. “You know I will be.” She checked the waffles, then walked over to the freezer, searching through the contents.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Just after six,” she said, taking sausage out of the freezer.

  “We’ll ne
ed to make some decisions soon.”

  “About Stone?” she asked.

  “Yes. About Stone, the magic inside him. About Shame and Terric. About Cody.” I watched Stone carefully balance a second layer of cans on top of the first. So far, so good.

  “Well, if the smell of coffee didn’t make them stir, I promise this will do the trick.” Nola put the sausages on a griddle and popped the waffle in the oven.

  And she was right. Within the next fifteen minutes or so, Maeve walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, ladies,” she said. “Breakfast smells heavenly.”

  “Morning, Maeve,” I said. “Think we should haul this out for everyone?”

  “I believe if we don’t, we may have a riot on our hands.”

  Between the three of us, we gathered breakfast, extra plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery, and took it all out into the main room, spreading it across two of the coffee tables by the couches. Since the cots were along the wall, we shifted the couches a little and created an area where we could all sit together and still help the wounded with their meals.

  To my surprise, everyone was awake, including Victor and Hayden, and Stotts and Cody, who had wandered in from the spare bedrooms. Only Shame and Terric were still out.

  I didn’t know about anyone else, but I was starving. I practically inhaled a waffle, and was digging into a bowl of oatmeal—with fresh blueberries—when Paul finally spoke.

  “So how does this work now?” he asked.

  “Which part of it?” I asked.

  “The magic. Stone. The Authority.”

  “Carl and La told me the Authority is going to listen to us, to what we need to get the cure distributed, as soon as we formulate a cure.”

  “Carl and La?” Victor asked, his voice a little hoarse. His eyes were still bandaged, but he was doing a remarkably good job of eating his oatmeal without seeing.

  “They stood up at the end of the fight,” I said. “Told me they’re calling a state of emergency, and contacting the Overseer.”

  “Practical of them,” he said with an approving smile.

  “So that’s one thing not to worry about right now,” Hayden said. I could tell he was still heavily medicated, his eyes a glassy sort of yellow. But he’d apparently taken the news of losing his hand with stoic acceptance.