Magic on the Line

“That’s pretty gentle,” Zay noted.

  “Agreed. But when I cast Draw with a straight feed, his vitals were compromised.”

  Zay walked over to the table where Collins had laid out his supplies.

  “These are new,” he said.

  “I have been kicked out of the Authority and Closed, Mr. Jones. I am not dead. And neither am I unable to follow through with my research.”

  “I thought we destroyed all your records.”

  He didn’t look at Zay, but he smiled. “You did.”

  Dad in my head shifted slightly. Just enough that I knew he was uncomfortable with this conversation. Which meant he was probably a part of Collins’ having new research.

  “Even so, it would take a finer hand than mine to calibrate these spells and tech to do any greater good,” Collins said.

  “Then we need to find a finer hand,” I said.

  Collins glanced at me. “There isn’t one, Allison. Not any longer. I am the expert in these sorts of things, or I used to be before the Authority made a butchery of my skills.”

  “You’re saying there’s no one better at this than you?”

  He inhaled slightly, considering his response. “Not that I know of,” he finally said.

  Cody, Dad said.

  I rubbed at my forehead. Why are you so full of suggestions now? I asked. And do you really think Cody can help anybody with anything?

  Perhaps my . . . focus has shifted. It wasn’t a full answer. Still, behind it I could sense his thoughts lingering on one thing. His newborn son.

  I’d heard it could be like that. When men have sons, their perspective and priorities in life change.

  Cody is a Savant, Dad said. A great artist, even though his mind has been broken. His hands should remember.

  “What about Cody Miller?” I asked.

  Collins turned toward me like I’d just declared there were ninjas coming out of his ears.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you can find him,” he said doubtfully. “If he is . . . of sound mind, then yes, he might be very useful.”

  Well, I didn’t know how sound of mind he was, but it was still worth a try.

  I thumbed my phone on and dialed Nola. I also paced across the room because I really didn’t want to have this conversation a few inches away from Collins.

  Zayvion just stayed where he was, arms folded across his wide chest, watching Collins watch Davy. I wondered if they had worked together in the past. Or if maybe Zayvion had been the person who Collins said had made a butchery of his head. From Zay’s reaction, I didn’t think so. But then, I doubted any Closer would leave his victim with the memory of who had done the Closing.

  “This is Nola,” Nola answered.

  “Hey, it’s me,” I said.

  “Allie, I’m so glad you called. We’ll be headed back to Burns in a couple days and I wanted some time to hang with you before we go.”

  “I’d really like that,” I said, “but I kind of need to talk business first.”

  “Which business?”

  “Hounding and magic.”

  “Okay. Want me to take notes?”

  “No,” I said, “this isn’t one for the memory files. I need to know if you can bring Cody with you over to the den today.”

  “When today, and why?”

  “Now, and because I need to ask him, and you, a favor.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

  “Davy’s hurt. I’m worried. And probably a half dozen other things I should catch you up on since we last talked.”

  “I told you we need some girl time,” she said. “All right. The den. That’s next to Get Mugged, right?”

  “Yes. And come on up to the third floor. I’ll be here with Zayvion, Davy, and a doctor. Maybe a Hound or two.”

  There was a soft knock on the door and Zayvion walked over to open it. Terric strode in.

  “So this is a serious visit?” Nola asked.

  “Yes, it is.”

  She sighed and guilt flickered through me. I hadn’t been much of a friend lately; too caught up in the Authority’s business to really spend time with her, even though she had come to town to visit me. Well, me and her boyfriend, Detective Stotts. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d just told me no.

  “We’ll be over,” she said.

  “Thank you, Nola.” I wanted to say more, but not in front of Collins. “See you soon.”

  I hung up.

  Terric wore a brown leather jacket and jeans. His silver hair was pulled back in a band that kept all but the bangs from falling across his face. He looked like he’d gotten some sleep, or at least a good dose of caffeine. But he did not look happy, or relaxed.

  He greeted Zay, then noticed Collins.

  “Hello,” Terric said, testing the ground.

  “Mr. Conley, it has been a long absence, hasn’t it?”

  Terric’s eyebrows raised. “Yes, it has. I thought you moved overseas.”

  “I moved. The distance of my relocation may have been slightly exaggerated.”

  “Did you come into town with Mr. Wray?” Terric asked.

  “No. I don’t work for the Authority any longer. You know that. If I remember that much, you must remember more.”

  “It’s possible,” Terric said. “Not that I had any say over such things.”

  Great. More history I didn’t know.

  “Why did you want to see us, Terric?” I asked. “Did Bartholomew send you?”

  He walked off to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee from a pot that smelled like it had been cooking on the warmer for too long.

  “This has nothing to do with my . . . official capacity.” He took a drink, closed his eyes for a moment too long, then walked back into the spacious main room with us. “I wanted to check on you, both of you, and make sure you were okay. And Davy.”

  “What official capacity?” Collins said, ignoring everything else he had just said.

  “He’s the Voice of Faith magic for the Portland area,” I said.

  Collins, who as far as I could tell didn’t get ruffled by anything, turned a shade of white most often seen in paper products.

  “Is that so?” he asked with forced levity.

  Well, I supposed if I was informed I was in a room with the head Closer in Portland, and also the Guardian of the gates, I’d break a sweat too.

  “It is,” Terric said with such calm authority that it was like looking at a younger, silver-haired Victor.

  “Then I am not comfortable with you being here while I am tending my patient, Mr. Conley,” he said.

  “If you’re uncomfortable around members of the Authority,” Zayvion said, “then maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be here, Mr. Collins.”

  Collins looked from Zay to Terric, and finally to me. I just gave him a steady look.

  “I see.” He seemed to come to a decision. “Well, so long as the paycheck clears the bank.” He smiled and walked over to the window, putting as much space between himself and the other two men as he could.

  Also interesting.

  “If you want to know how we’re doing,” I said to Terric, “I don’t know what to tell you. Davy’s hurt—dying if we can’t find a way to stop the magic spreading through him. I got a call from Stotts telling me he thinks the flu epidemic that the doctors can’t seem to contain is somehow linked to how Anthony died—and Anthony probably died from fighting with a Veiled and definitely died from too much magic poisoning him.

  “Since Anthony bit Davy, we’re pretty sure he has the same infection, but whether it’s the Veiled that are poisoned, or magic itself is poisoned, we don’t know. And we don’t really know how it’s spreading so quickly, how other people are being infected. . . .”

  Or did we? I’d seen two people start coughing after a Veiled stepped out of the same space they’d been inhabiting. Were the Veiled doing more than occupying the same space with the living? Were they somehow possessing them, if even only
temporarily, to make them sick? If so, why? What did they get out of it?

  “Something you’d like to share with the class, Allison, dear?” Collins asked.

  Zay leveled him a dirty glare.

  “I thought I saw a Veiled step out of a person on the street the other night,” I said. “And yesterday I saw it again—different person, and I think a different Veiled. Do you think they might be possessing people?”

  Zayvion shrugged. “It’s not very likely. Let’s say that they are. What danger would that present? They can’t control a living body. The Veiled have no physical or magical mass in life.”

  Unless they had a disk stuck in their neck. That not only gave them mass, it gave them life. For as long as the magic in the disk lasted.

  I hadn’t seen whether the Veiled on the street had a disk. So that wasn’t helping much.

  “Ideas, people?” I said.

  Terric walked to the window that looked over Get Mugged. “Let me see if I have this straight. You think that magic is poisoned or that the Veiled themselves are poison and are somehow infecting people with magic?”

  “I’m trying to find the connection,” I said, “between the Veiled Anthony followed, Anthony dying of magic poisoning, him biting Davy, and Davy being infected with poisoned magic. Have there been cases of people transferring magical poisoning through bites?”

  Terric looked out the window, thinking it over. Zay shook his head, his eyes on Davy. Even Collins nodded. “Not that I know of,” Collins said.

  “So somehow Anthony infected Davy with poisoned magic with a bite?” I said. “How?”

  “Can you see any Veiled right now?” Zayvion asked me.

  I looked around the room. Nothing. I walked over to the window and checked outside. Streets, buildings, spells, people. No Veiled. “Not right now.”

  “We could always have a volunteer put himself in the path of a Veiled and see if he is possessed,” Collins said.

  “No,” Zayvion and Terric said at the same time.

  “We could try to contain a Veiled and dissect it,” he said.

  “We’d have to hold it with magic,” Terric said. “And dissecting through that wouldn’t give clean results.”

  “Are you going to talk to Bartholomew about this, Terric?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I have no proof on anything yet. It’s all hearsay at this point. And I don’t think Mr. Wray is the kind of person who is interested in hearing theory or hearsay.”

  “Good,” I said, and he glanced over at me, gave me a small smile.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do,” I started.

  Shame strolled through the doors without knocking. “What are we going to do? Did I miss the fun?”

  Terric went stock-still. I knew Shame knew Terric was in the room. He’d told me that they could practically close their eyes and know what the other one was doing.

  Which suddenly made me realize that if Terric kissed a man, or Shame kissed a woman, they’d totally feel it through their connection.

  Awkward.

  But maybe even stranger was how very, very still Zayvion had become. He was watching Shame like a man watches a snake.

  “Come on, now,” Shame said, smiles for everyone except Zay. “Someone fill a man in. Are we hunting? Killing? Drinking? ’Cause any and all, or a mix of them, would do me fine.”

  “Shame,” I said, “have you seen any of the Veiled possessing anyone?”

  “Lately?” He made it look like he was thinking about it. “No.”

  “Okay, so what we’re going to do is find out if there really is a connection between the epidemic and people being poisoned by the Veiled. Who wants to follow that up?”

  Terric raised a finger. “I’ll talk to some trusted members of the medical community.”

  Collins chuckled. “Trusted,” he mumbled.

  “Trusted,” Terric said. “I should have an answer by the end of the night.”

  “Good,” I said. “Call me when you have any information. Shame, do you think you could track down a few Veiled and see if they are doing anything un-Veiled-like?”

  “With those amazing specifics how could I fail?” he said.

  “You know what I mean. See if they seem to be intentionally hunting and possessing people, or if they’re just ghosting about the city like normal. Specific enough?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Someone should go with Shame,” Terric said softly.

  Shame turned toward him. Full eye contact, and not a small amount of anger.

  “Don’t think you can order people around, Terric. Just because that bastard told you you’re above me doesn’t make it so.” Each word was bit off sharp, as if it took everything Shame had not to yell.

  “Doesn’t matter what title anyone’s given me,” Terric said. “It doesn’t take a title to see that you shouldn’t be hunting alone.”

  “Fuck you,” Shame said.

  “Shut up,” I interrupted. “Fight on your own time. Shame, someone’s going with you because nobody does anything alone until we figure this out. Zay?”

  “I’m going where you’re going.”

  There was no way Shame and Terric would work together. I didn’t trust Collins enough to have him do anything more than care for Davy. We needed more people.

  “Hey,” Jack said as he walked into the room. “That’s your half hour. Going to let me in on this little scuffle?”

  And right behind him was Bea. “Hi, everyone,” Bea said in her bouncy-happy voice. “I brought doughnuts. Who are we killing and how much does it pay?”

  Okay, this had quickly gotten out of hand. I wasn’t planning to involve the Hounds with Authority business.

  It’s not Authority business, Dad said. It’s your business.

  Huh. He was right.

  Thanks, I said to him.

  And since everyone was looking at me and waiting for a decision, I started deciding.

  “No killing unless it’s in self-defense, then knock yourself out and don’t tell me where you hid the body.”

  Bea threw me a smile over her shoulder as she opened the box and walked to each person in the room, offering a doughnut. It was sort of funny. Here I was talking about murder and they were all picking out pastries.

  “Can either of you see ghosts?” I asked.

  Jack shook his head. Bea stopped in front of me with the doughnuts. I took an old-fashioned glazed buttermilk.

  “I’ve seen things that might be ghosts,” Bea said. “Maybe. But I just chalked it up to working the morgues so much. Active imagination.” She ran her finger in a circle by her temple in the universal gesture for crazy.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “There are ghosts—but it’s a little more complicated. There are also echoes of past magic users who sort of walk around town. They tend to stay near networks because, like film recordings, they need a little bit of magic to power them.”

  “We’re hunting ghosts?” Jack asked.

  “No,” I said, “we’re hunting Veiled. Echoes of past magic users. People who were good at using magic. Really good.”

  “Did the ghosts—I mean Veiled—do something bad?” Bea asked. “Haunt someone? Leave goo behind?”

  I sighed. “This isn’t a joke. We think they might have somehow infected Anthony, who then bit Davy and landed him there.” I pointed at the bed just in case either of them needed reminding that Davy was fighting for his life while we were eating doughnuts.

  “Is there a mark on him?” Bea set the doughnuts down and walked over to Davy. Jack was already there.

  “Cast Sight. You’ll see it,” I said. I also crossed the room so I didn’t have to smell them working magic.

  “Me,” Bea said to Jack’s look. She cast Sight, wide enough that Jack could look through it. These two had been practicing together. Good for them.

  “Black lines of tar covering him,” Jack said. “Son of a bitch.”

  I nodded. “That’s what Anthony looked like too. Except worse. Covered
in it. Smothered by it. Dead.”

  “So how do you see one of these Veiled?” Jack asked.

  “You don’t have to,” I said to him. “You and Bea are backups. Shadows for the jobs Shame and Terric will be doing.”

  “I don’t need a Hound following me,” Terric and Shame said at exactly the same time.

  Collins tipped his chin up at that. He peered through his glasses at Shame and Terric, who were scowling at each other. They were also breathing in the same rhythm, though I didn’t think they knew it, and their hands were fisted at their sides, identically.

  Collins looked at one, then the other, then the other again. Finally, his eyebrows went up. He must have still remembered something about Soul Complements too.

  “I,” Terric said, “refuse to have anyone go where I go, Allie. You know they can’t follow me.”

  I thought about it. Terric would probably contact a doctor within the Authority to see what information he could find out about the epidemic. He might even contact Dr. Fisher. And there was no way she was going to be forthcoming with Jack or Bea in the room.

  “I agree. Terric, since you are gathering information from people in the medical community, and not stalking down dark alleys, you can go alone.”

  “Thanks,” he drawled. Yes, I was bossing him around. Deal.

  “But, Shame, you need someone with you while you hunt Veiled.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Hounds aren’t babysitters,” I said. “We’re hunters. We’re quiet, we have sharp eyes, damn sharp survival instincts, and God help us, we’re loyal. At least to money. I am tired of people talking down about this business. You want a part of my team, you play by my rules, Flynn.”

  Shame’s eyebrows had gone up with each declaration. He finally said with a dead blank expression. “I love it when you get sassy.”

  I did not dignify his comment with a reply, though if I had it would have been of the four-letter variety.

  “So which of you wants to shadow me?” Shame asked, turning that Irish charm of his full tilt on Bea.

  “I’ll follow.” Jack stepped in front of Bea and got in the way of Shame’s smolder. “If we run into trouble I might even call 911 for you.”

  Shame wandered over to the doughnut box. “No officials. If we run into trouble you call the boss.”