Magic in the Shadows

by Devon Monk

  “I’ll let her know,” I said. “Knock loud. If she’s not back by the time you get here, you’ll have to get Zay to open the door.”

  “Don’t worry, love,” he said. “I know how to wake Jones.”

  “Tell your mom I’m going to be late,” I reminded.

  “Right. Later, then.”

  “Bye.” I hung up and then wrote a note for Nola, letting her know Zayvion’s friend Shamus was going to be over to sit with him until he woke up. I also mentioned that Zayvion was okay, just exhausted and needed a place to crash.

  I left the note—which I hoped was innocent-sounding enough that Detective Stotts wouldn’t get suspicious if he was with Nola—on the coffeepot, grabbed my spare knit hat off the hook behind the door, and left, locking the apartment behind me. I paused out in the hallway and considered setting a Ward on the door. I never used them, but good Wards could at least warn the person inside that an intruder was coming.

  No. A good Ward took more time and concentration than I had right now. And all it was likely to do was set off when Nola came home, freak Zayvion out, and cause a ruckus.

  No Wards for the door.

  Interesting, though, that I had wanted to set one. That I had wanted to do something to make sure Zayvion was safe. Even though he’d told me he had just taken away Cody’s memories. What did that say about how I felt about him?

  And what would Zayvion feel about me when he found out I was stealing his car?

  Chapter Twelve

  Tracking someone in a city the size of Portland isn’t easy. But I had a few things on my side for a change. One, I knew Davy, knew his scents. I also knew Tomi and her scents. It was a pretty good guess that she was the trouble he had gotten himself into. Where I found one, I’d find the other.

  But unless they were using magic, I couldn’t track them by magical means. Or at least I couldn’t if I didn’t have something personal of Davy’s.

  And I had the notebook he’d been writing in during the Hound meeting. Lucky for me, he’d also been in a state of higher emotion. That always left a better impression on the item, especially since it had so recently been in his hand.

  Back in college we called this kind of tracking work swamp-walking. The impression left on an object gave a hint of where the person was, but the trail rarely held out long enough to actually lead to the person. Still, it was a point in the right direction.

  I got in Zayvion’s car, locked the doors, and cleared my mind. I held the notebook in my left hand, added a little more pain onto that headache that was going to kick my ass in a couple days, and traced the glyph for a version of Sight that allowed a more subtle energy trace.

  The notebook flickered with faint lines of energy—not like the hard-carved glyphs of magic; these lines were fading and fading fast.

  The lines trailed off at the edges, reaching out as if they followed a slight wind, or magnetic pull, toward the north, toward St. Johns.

  Good enough.

  I let go of Sight, breaking the glyph. I hadn’t seen any of the Veiled when I used magic this time. Of course I hadn’t looked around for them either, and I was quick at swamp-walking.

  I started the car and eased out into traffic, getting the feel of Zayvion’s car. It was strangely like him. Smooth, lots of power, and geared a little tight.

  It took some time to get there, traffic being heavier than normal at this hour. We got a lot of rain in Portland, but when a really good downpour decided to open up over the city, sane drivers didn’t go faster than their windshield wipers could move.

  I drove over the St. Johns Bridge and down into the lazy little broken-down neighborhood. I don’t know what it was about St. Johns. Every time I came here, my shoulders relaxed and my mind cleared. Coming back to St. Johns always felt like coming home.

  Sure, the neglected neighborhood showed signs of wear. But there was an honesty to the place. No fancy magic spells to make a business look like it was made of marble and gold. No fancy magic spells to keep the flowers blooming out of season. St. Johns was unapologetic.

  I loved that.

  I didn’t know where Davy was, and I didn’t know what kind of trouble he was in. So I decided to stay out of Cathedral Park’s parking lot. I stopped the car behind a warehouse on North Brandford Street. Out of the way of curious eyes but still within running distance of the park.

  I got out of the car, locked it, and made sure I had the keys in my pocket. Then I crossed the street to a soggy patch of trees on the edge of the park. Time to find Davy.

  I cleared my mind, chanted a mantra, set my Disbursement. Drawing on magic here in the fifth quarter, on the other side of the railroad tracks, was difficult. But now that I carried magic within me, even in a dead zone, there was enough magic to power a dozen spells. Maybe more. I’d never really tested how much I could use magic without the constant refill from the city.

  I hoped I wouldn’t have a reason to find that out any time soon.

  I drew the glyphs for Sight, Smell, and Sound and poured magic into them.

  St. Johns might not have magic going for it, but the few spells that were at work here stuck out like a sore thumb. Mostly, I saw spells wrapped around people who had bought cheap magical vanities that never lasted long, to try to improve the look of their cars, clothes, hair.

  I ignored all those petty spells, my Hounding instincts drawn instead to the flicker of magic in the shadows beneath the bridge.

  Indigos, bloodreds, burnt copper. All the colors I’d last seen bringing the Necromorph back to life shimmered under the gothic arched pillars of St. Johns Bridge. I couldn’t make out the spells from this distance—they were too tangled, too dark, caught with the scents of blood and shadow—but I could catch the slightest magical scent of Davy, cedar and lemons and pain, and of Tomi, strawberry bubble gum and blood.

  Davy was there. In the park. In that mess of magic.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought as I dropped the spells I’d been using. What did Davy think he could do? Follow Tomi around all day, and convince her he wasn’t crazy?

  Stupid.

  I wound through the strip of trees, not wanting to use the footpath that was out in the open. My jeans were wet halfway up my calves from the tall grass, but I kept going, heading downhill toward the river.

  The wind shifted and the smell of the river came to me, greens and wet soil and the slippery scent of fish. I’d been through this part of town plenty of times, smelled the river plenty of times. This time a memory rode the scents of the river. Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Something bad had happened to me here, alongside the river.

  I searched my mind but came up blank. Still, the emotional knowledge that something terrible had happened here was so strong, I broke out in a sweat.

  Losing my memory made a lot of things feel like a half-remembered nightmare. And I hated that. Hated going into a situation with such an obvious blind spot in my experience. It made me feel like around every corner someone—or something—was there, waiting to jump me.

  And it probably was.

  I followed my gut toward the bridge. The huge green expanse of the St. Johns Bridge arched overhead at least three stories, spanning the river with gothic arches that ended across the river in Forest Park.

  I didn’t see anyone walking the concrete trail around the park. Still, I couldn’t see the whole thing.There were too many hills and valleys and trees to get a good view of the place.

  I set a Disbursement again and drew Sight. A bloodred trail of magic pulsed like a vein through the air, tracing the natural curve of the land along the water and knotting just twenty yards ahead of me, where the hill took a sharp downward curve into a gully, hidden from most of the park. The spell pulsed there, bright as copper lightning from the sky.

  The traces of Davy’s signature were clearer there. He was either part of casting that spell or he was a victim of it.

  I jogged closer, as quietly as the wet grass would let me. I probably should have contacted the police o
r Stotts or, hell, even told Shamus I was coming out here. But I figured Davy was mixed up with ex-girlfriend-fistfight problems, not giant-dark-crazy-magic problems.

  And, hey, maybe it really was just fistfight problems.

  Yeah. Right.

  Tomi seemed like the kind of girl who wouldn’t mind using magic to torture her ex. Or on the woman who was trying to rescue him.

  I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t even have a cell phone. But I had magic. If someone was hurting Davy, I could at least Hold them and get Davy away. I could probably knock them unconscious with magic, if I had to.

  Just in case, I traced a Hold spell and held it pinched between my forefinger and thumb, but didn’t pour magic into it yet.

  I took the curve of the hill and came over the crest.

  The full smell of the spell hit me as the scene spilled out before me. Davy was crumpled on the ground about twenty feet away. Blood poured from the side of his head onto the concrete path. Blood trailed away from him and connected to the edge of a circle of black ash that was as glossy as crow feathers, and burned finger deep into the grass.

  Standing on the other side of that circle was Tomi. Too pale, too thin, wearing too many layers of black with too many bruises and scratches mucking up her skin. She looked like hell had sucked her up warm and spat her out dead.

  She had a knife in her hand. A very large knife. With a lot of blood on it.

  “Tomi?”

  She didn’t say anything. She just stared into the empty space between us. I didn’t think she even realized I was standing there. Shock?

  I crept forward. She didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. I bent next to Davy, keeping my eye on her. His skin was warm, but his breath came out in uneven gurgles. Maybe a punctured lung. Or worse.

  “Tomi,” I said again. “Are you hurt? Do you know what happened?”

  ’Cause, yeah, asking the crazy chick with the big bloody knife if she was up on current events was a great idea.

  Nothing.

  Davy wasn’t breathing well enough for me to wait around for her answer anyway.

  I had to get him out of here. To the hospital. I bent and picked him up, swore at the pain in my injured shoulder that shot down my back. I tried to lift him as carefully as I could, which is to say, not very.

  He made a moaning noise.

  Tomi blinked. Focused. Looked over at me.

  “I told you they’d kill him,” she whispered. “See what happened? See?”

  She gestured with the knife and blood fell from the blade into the circle of ash. The magic in the circle, in the spell, rippled with shadows of indigo and bloodred.

  “Tomi, listen. Davy’s not dead. I need to take him to the hospital. Put the knife down and come with me.”

  Tomi just stared at me and jerked the knife in a couple haphazard strikes through thin air. No, not strikes. Drawing. She was working Blood magic, casting a spell. Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.

  I didn’t think I could get him up into a fireman’s hold, so I pulled his arm over my shoulder, which also hurt like hell. It was good he wasn’t a heavy-built guy. Still, deadweight is deadweight.

  I gritted my teeth and grasped him by the waist, then started to sort of half drag him back along the path to the car.

  I thought about putting him down so I could tackle Tomi and drag her butt along with me, but I didn’t think Davy had that much time, and I sure as hell didn’t have the strength to haul them both back to the car.

  “Tomi,” I called. “Follow me. Let me help you.”

  She looked up away from the circle of ash, her expression blank. “Me?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s coming,” she said. “He’ll kill him. Don’t . . . don’t let him hurt him.”

  The circle in front of her seemed darker, more shadowed, and filled with flashes of things that moved.

  Shit.

  Tomi went back to casting the spell. I saw yellow eyes in that circle, fangs.

  I moved as fast as I could, across the park, through the trees. Not easy, not fun.

  I so needed to start going to the gym.

  Davy kept right on breathing. Jerky, slow, but breathing. And that was all I could ask for.

  Well, that, and maybe for Tomi to snap out of the crazy and stop casting magic. That chick was messing around with dark magic—something she should not know about. No wonder Davy said she was different.

  I picked up the pace and made it to the car. It was raining and I was shaking from fatigue and anger. I unlocked the back door, lay Davy half in the car, ran around to the other door, and pulled him by his armpits the rest of the way across the seat.

  Davy’s breathing wasn’t doing so hot now. I needed to stop Tomi, save her, but Davy didn’t have any time left.

  This pissed me off to no end. I couldn’t go back to save Tomi, and I would not just drive away and let her die.

  Then I remembered I had friends in low places. Time to call in a favor.

  All I needed was a phone.

  Something moved at the edge of my rearview mirror. I looked up.

  Creatures ghosted across the grass, dark, transparent horrors of indigo, midnight, blood, low to the ground, nightmare beasts like the Necromorph but compact, muscled, all claw and fang and burning yellow eyes. Running my way.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I gunned the gas.

  The creatures were fast. Too fast. Before I was even out of the parking lot they were behind me, beside me, then past me, silent as poison, spreading out, half a dozen or more, into the streets, the rain.

  Crap. Nightmare creatures chasing me was bad. Nightmare creatures loose on the street was worse. Maybe they were what had hurt Davy. Maybe they were the “him” Tomi was talking about.

  Maybe I didn’t have time to find out.

  I pulled up in front of Mama’s place, a two-story brick and wood building with a diner on the bottom floor and some living space on the top. I ran up the stairs and pushed open the door.

  Boy, the one who was always behind the counter, didn’t bother to pull his hand away from the gun I knew he kept hidden. As a matter of fact, he pulled out the gun and casually aimed it at me.

  Oh, how fandamtastic was that?

  “Where’s Mama?” I asked. He lifted the gun, just in case I hadn’t noticed it the first time.

  “Out,” he said.

  Yeah, we had history. The bad kind.

  “Give me your phone. There’s a woman hurt. In the park. She might be dead.”

  He didn’t seem very impressed with the news. And I supposed if you’d grown up in this part of town, the report of a dead person in your backyard wouldn’t exactly hit the headlines.

  “Give me the phone, Boy. I’ve got a kid dying in my car.”

  Mama stormed out of the kitchen, five feet not much of street and attitude. She stopped, obviously surprised to see me.

  “Allie, girl?”

  “I need your phone,” I said.

  And that, I knew, was very familiar. I’d told her the same thing just a few months ago when I was still Hounding for her and trying to get her to call 911 for her youngest, Boy, who had been hit by an Offload from my father. Well, not my father, but at the time I’d thought it was his spell.

  Instead of arguing with me, she handed me the phone from where it hung on the wall next to the kitchen. That was new.

  “Is it bad?” she asked as I dialed.

  “I think so.”

  She nodded and waited, watching me.

  I dialed Detective Stotts. He would be the one they’d call in on the case anyway, because there was no way that was a run-of-the-mill magical crime.

  After one ring, he answered. “Stotts.”

  “This is Allie Beckstrom,” I said. “You need to get to Cathedral Park as soon as you can. There’s a woman hurt there. Tomi Nowlan. Magic is involved.”

  I noted Mama tensed at that, and I was not about to give him any more details with her listening. “I’m on my way to the hospital with Davy Silv
ers. If you need me, you can find me there.”

  I hung up before he had a chance to ask me anything.

  “Police are on their way,” I said to Mama. “Detective Stotts. He’ll know what to do. Lock the doors and keep Boy, your youngest, off the street for a while, okay?”

  She bit her bottom lip and nodded. Her hands were laced together in front of her, her body language saying she was trying hard to hold something back. I didn’t know what she wanted to say to me, or do to me, and sure as hell didn’t have time to find out.

  I straight-armed the door open. Just before it closed behind me, I heard her say, “Good luck.”

  And I hoped she meant it in an innocent sort of way, and not in a she-knew-more-about-what-was-going-on-than-I-did kind of way.

  The whole thing in Mama’s had taken a minute, tops.

  I jumped back in the car and tore off toward the hospital as fast as I could, hoping I hadn’t taken one minute too long to save Davy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was amazed I didn’t get pulled over by the police on my way to the hospital. It all went by so fast, and yet every pause, every second I had to brake or work my way around someone in traffic, felt like a lifetime. I raced up to emergency, and ran inside to get help.

  Two people rushed out to the car with me, and between the three of us we got Davy moved onto a gurney that was wheeled into the ER.

  My heart pounded so hard, I was breathing as if I’d run the entire way.

  I followed Davy, but was stopped by a petite nurse.

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No. Friend.”

  “Do you know family we should contact? Insurance information?”

  I didn’t. I had no idea at all. I wasn’t even sure how old he was. “No. We’ve just started working together. He’s a Hound.”

  She nodded and motioned for me to follow her to a desk. “We found his wallet. Do you know if he’s allergic to anything?”

  “No.” I should have taken medical information from the Hounds at the meeting today. How stupid could I be?

  “That’s all right,” she said. “We’ll see what we can pull up on him. If he’s been in a hospital in the last ten years, we’ll have something on record. Why don’t you have a seat? I have a few more questions.”