by Devon Monk
He shook Zay’s hand, then wrapped him in a huge bear hug, slapping him on the back so loud, I winced as it echoed through the room.
“Good to see you, boy!” Hayden’s voice carried over the rest of the conversations filling the place. “Looks like you’re about to be put through your paces! Think you’re up for it?”
Zay stepped back and answered, but his response was so quiet, I couldn’t pick it up, not even with Hound ears.
Still, Hayden laughed. “That’s what I like to hear. Got some new kind of fire burning in him, doesn’t he, Maeve? What you been doing to this boy while I’ve been gone?”
“Excuse me,” said a man behind Shame and me. “Are you Daniel Beckstrom’s daughter?”
Danger. That was all I knew. Shame tensed from head to foot, both hands off the table now. The cheese knife was missing.
I inhaled, taking in the stranger’s scents—the plastic of too much hair gel, and a deeper note of something faintly metallic. He was not familiar to me. I turned.
He was maybe midthirties, shorter than me, looked like he knew his way around a gym, and gave off that professional broker, banker, doctor vibe. Wore a Nike T-shirt under a Windbreaker, and jeans with tennis shoes. Clean haircut. Clean-shaven. Small, close-set brown eyes. I’d never seen him before in my life.
“Your father was a good man. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
If he thought my father was a good man, my opinion of him just took a dive. Still, I had manners. “Thank you. And you are?”
“Mike Barham.” He held out his hand. I didn’t take it.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “If you’ll excuse us, I don’t want to miss out on the main event.”
He glanced at Shamus and gave a halfhearted attempt to look surprised. “Shamus Flynn,” he said. He didn’t sound angry, but hate radiated off the man. “I didn’t know you were in town. Still living with your mother?”
Shame didn’t turn. Didn’t twitch, didn’t look at him.
Mike’s smile slipped. He walked around to stand next to Shame, which did not seem like a very smart thing to do. “You still mad at me about the position up north?” he asked. “You know the best man won. Plus, you’d never make it out there without your dear mother to protect you. It’s dangerous out in the real world.”
Something inside Shame coiled and burned, ready to leap. One more word out of Barham, and I was pretty sure Barham would have a cheese knife stabbed in his throat.
“Blow me, Barham,” Shame said.
Barham shook his head. “You are a spoiled little boy, Flynn. Your father used to tell me you were his biggest disappointment. He used to tell me he had wanted a son, not a fag.”
Shame rolled his head back and smiled up at him. “Tell me more about my father, Mike. Please do.”
I’d never heard that tone out of Shame. It was sweet, nice. And scared the hell out of me.
“You,” I said to Mike Barham with enough Influence to stun a rhino, “move away. Now.”
He jerked, and glared at me. He opened his mouth.
“Go,” I said.
He did as I said, because he couldn’t not do it. Under my Influence, he turned and walked away. He ended up across the room, where he sat at another table, and threw me angry looks.
Whatever. I was not going to just sit there and listen to him insult my friend.
It took Shame a full five minutes to finally let go of the cheese knife under the table, and place it back on the table. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t say anything. Just rolled his head down and stared off on some middle distance.
“So, he’s a prick,” I said. “Want to talk?”
He shook his head imperceptibly. I didn’t push him on it. I’d always thought Shame was straight. Not that it mattered. If Mike had wanted to make Shame angry, he’d done a bang-up job of it.
I glanced around the room, looking for Zayvion. He was absorbed in a quiet, intense conversation with another man I’d never met. The man with Zay was slender and tall, wore black slacks and a black turtleneck, and held himself with an elegance that made me think of historical movies with sword fights and aristocrats. His hair was so blond, it was white, and long enough it fell between his shoulder blades, pulled back and banded. He and Zayvion were both turned half toward us, talking quietly, but also with hand gestures, as if they had a lot to say, and not enough time to cover it with words alone.
Hoping to change the mood, I nudged Shame.
“So who’s Zay with now?”
Shame blinked and seemed to come back from a long, long distance. He inhaled, and looked in the direction of my gaze.
“Terric,” he breathed.
It wasn’t the sound of a man who hated another man. No. In that one word, in that one name, was longing, need, the sound of something precious lost.
I didn’t realize they had been intimate. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the draw between Soul Complements wasn’t about the sex. Maybe it was just about magic. Using it, having it, letting it use you, immersed and joined by it in ways unimaginable. Power.
Whatever it was, Shame’s body language was that of a starving man using all his strength not to yield to the poisoned feast before him.
I thought about putting my hand on his arm to console him, and decided against it. Shame was keyed up and I didn’t want to get a cheese knife in the throat.
“Zay and him friends?” I asked instead, trying to draw Shame down.
“We all were once.” Saying that seemed to help. He closed his eyes a moment. Maybe he realized he was sitting on the edge of his seat. He relaxed in stages back into his normal slouch and rubbed his gloved hand over his eyes.
“Balls,” he said. “It’s gonna be a long night.”
“Were you and Terric lovers?”
“No.” He sighed behind his gloves. “I’m not gay. But that man . . .” He pulled his hand away from his eyes. “Soul Complements. It’s . . .” He just shook his head. “Him and me . . . and magic? No. It doesn’t—can’t—work.”
“Did you refuse to be tested to see if you and he were Soul Complements because you were afraid you might want sex with him?” Yes, I am tactful that way. And also stupid.
He stared at me for a moment. “It’s good you and I are friends, Beckstrom,” he finally said. “Because I’m willing to ignore that ridiculous nonsense that just fell out of your mouth. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sex, okay? There were other reasons, other . . . bad things.”
“Like?”
“Like I’m done talking about it. And like I wish Mum had ponied up a bottle or two of wine right about now.”
“I can see why she wouldn’t want to serve alcohol to a roomful of trigger-happy magic users,” I said.
“She doesn’t have to feed it to the magic users. She could just feed it to me.”
“I’ll buy you a beer if you give me a who’s who on the rest of the people here.”
“Done.” He sat and leaned his elbows on the table. “The three women laughing over there? Dark wavy hair, coffee skin, and beautiful matching sets of big, lovely—”
I slapped him on the arm.
“Hey. Eyes. I was going to say eyes. What were you thinking? They’re the Georgia sisters. Life magic. The blonde next to them, about Mum’s age in the biker jacket who looks like she can wrestle an alligator? Darla. Death magic.”
He shifted in his seat a little. “The Russian underwear model over there is Nik Pavloski, and the family man next to him is a sweet-hearted killer named Joshua Romero. Faith magic—that means they’re both Closers. At the table near the wall is the ass wipe, Barham. Life magic, and the woman sitting next to him who looks like she hates him—petite, pale, black hair with a red streak, and a knockout scowl—Paige Iwamoto. She’s Blood magic. Stab him, baby—you know he deserves it.” Shame licked his lips and stared at Paige, as if he could will her to wield the cheese knife.
“Shame,” I said.
He looked away from Paige and Mike, giving the room a subtle gla
nce while he reached for a piece of bread. He would make a good spy.
“You know the rest of the people in the room, I think.”
I looked around, the remaining people standing and sitting at the other tables: Kevin Cooper, Violet’s bodyguard; Sunny, whose demeanor was the exact opposite of her name; Ethan Katz, who was my dad’s and now my accountant; the twins Carl and La, whom I’d seen briefly at my test; the ex-quarterback-looking dude whom I’d also seen briefly at my test; and a few other suits—two women and a man—board members from Beckstrom Enterprises I’d met over the last couple weeks. The rest of the people I’d seen off and on at Maeve’s, but hadn’t been officially introduced to.
“Pretty much,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Now, about that beer.”
“If I could please have your attention.”
I glanced at the front of the room. Victor, trim and gray-haired, stood behind the long table, an open laptop in front of him. His suit jacket hung on the back of the chair, along with his tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Even from this distance, I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he’d just been through the longest meeting of his life, and been elected to stand up and give everyone the bad news.
Maeve, looking more composed and refreshed than Victor, sat to his left. Next to her was Liddy Salberg, a quiet, mousy woman, who took plain to the extreme. I’d first seen her at my dad’s burial. She’d also been at my test, and she’d since been my teacher in Death magic. I never seemed to get a good read off her body language. That mousy exterior hid something else—I was sure of it—though I’d never seen her be anything but polite and professional.
Still, I got the impression that she didn’t like me, or that I made her nervous.
At her left was Sedra, the head of the Authority in Portland. Always cool, always portrait-perfect, her unchanging expression and porcelain complexion made her look like she was carved out of marble. Only her blue eyes gave her a hint of life. Her bodyguard, Dane Lannister, stood behind her, looking how he always looked: relaxed and deadly. There was something about him that made me pause, like a bad taste in my mouth, but try as I might, I couldn’t think of what it was about him that bothered me.
Instead, I wondered who usually filled the empty seat next to Sedra, wondered if perhaps it had been my father.
Interestingly, Jingo Jingo, who usually made himself a part of any gathering, was nowhere to be seen.
Weird.
“Please be seated, so we may begin,” Victor said.
Everyone made their way to seats, filling the tables ahead of us, and behind us.
“Please, please, please,” Shame whispered so quietly, I wasn’t sure if he said it or I imagined he did.
Zay and Terric walked toward us, a study in opposites, and yet both powerful, calm, confident. Terric angled to take the seat next to Paige. Zay sat next to me, shifting his chair so he could better see the front of the room.
“Exhale before your head explodes,” Zay said quietly. “He’s not coming to the table.”
Shame exhaled.
Victor began speaking. “As many of you have heard, we have an unprecedented warning that a wild-magic storm will be hitting the Portland area soon. We think it will strike within the next forty-eight hours. That gives us some time to coordinate our efforts and work together against this threat.”
He paused, taking the time to make some eye contact. I’d seen my dad do that when he was facing a hostile audience. While Victor did that, I glanced at the body language within my range of sight.
Tight. Pensive. Maybe not explosive but damn close. Pretty much the same as when I’d walked in.
I’d already figured that these people were secretive and suspicious. But until this moment, I hadn’t realized that these people barely tolerated one another.
Neat.
That brewing war? I’d put my bet on the table that it was done brewing. All it needed now was a spark to set it off.
My stomach clenched as I realized the war might already be on, and lines might already be drawn as to who should use magic, and how it should be used. And I had no idea who wanted what, nor whose side I was on.
I reached back in my head to see if Dad had something to say about all this, but he had been quiet as a corpse—ha, not funny—ever since I walked through that door.
I had the feeling he didn’t much want to give Liddy or Jingo Jingo or anyone else an excuse to go digging around in my head looking for him.
Victor was done with the eye-contact pause.
“Our largest concern for the citizens of the area is that the wild magic will interrupt, or warp, the spells already in place in the city. We’ve compiled a detailed list of businesses and services that we will monitor and protect, and prioritized them from the most vital to the least, and divided that by the quadrants of the city. Since St. Johns has no conduits for magic, we’ll just need to cover four of the five quadrants.”
He glanced down at the laptop, then back up. “I know many of you have . . . vested concerns in the way magic is made available to the public. Here in this city, and in others. Now is not the time to push those agendas forward. Loss of life has never been the Authority’s goal, and certainly now, more than any other time, a significant loss of life at the hand, influence, or neglect of a member of the Authority would carry dire consequences to any and all involved.”
Threats. There’s a neat way to ruin friendships and attract enemies.
“We’ve put together a suggested list of which businesses and services we’d like members to monitor. It’s been an . . . exhausting few days.” He took a drink of water.
“This list isn’t perfect. I’m sure there will be changes. We’ll distribute it in a moment. Are there any questions so far?”
There were. About forty-five minutes of questions, most of them dealing with things I did not understand. It was like everyone had suddenly switched to a foreign language, half of which sounded like it dealt with magic, and the other half sounded like some kind of underground lingo.
“Should I be understanding any of this?”
Zay leaned back a bit. “It’s pretty standard elbowing and power plays for who gets to do what.”
He didn’t look concerned, so I took his lead and passed the time trying to remember names and what kinds of magic the people in the room preferred to use.
The gathered members of the Authority were pretty evenly split between the four disciplines—well, five if you counted the mix of magic and technology my dad had pushed into use.
But watching how they spoke to one another, or more so, how they didn’t speak or look at one another, I could see the tension, the cracks and fractures, between them, divided not by what magic they used but rather by who should use it, and how.
And I found it fascinating—no, frightening—that no one had mentioned that there was the very real possibility that the well was already being affected by the coming storm. The magic in it was being drained—maybe by the storm. Seemed to me that we had two potential disasters on the horizon.
Perhaps that went without saying.
It sucked to be the newest kid in the club. And I hadn’t even earned my decoder ring.
Sedra stood. Everyone watched her, waiting. It wasn’t exactly reverence, but more a shared acknowledgment that she would make the decisions they would all have to live with. For good and bad.
“We will set spells in place to further monitor vital systems and services throughout the city,” she said, her musical voice at contrast with her strict demeanor. “But until the storm hits, we wait.”
You couldn’t have quieted a room faster if you’d shoved a sock in every mouth.
Zayvion looked Zen on the outside, but inside he burned with anger.
“I thought it was agreed we would coordinate our efforts,” he said, his quiet voice filling the room.
“That,” Terric said, “is what I also understood. We would plan for the worst, and meet it he
ad-on. We have time on our side for once. We can plan how to mitigate the magical onslaught.”
With every word Terric spoke, Shamus hunkered into himself, his hands tucked into his pockets, one shoulder hitched as if he could deflect the pain.
Sedra gave both men a cool, emotionless gaze. “Closers,” she said, like it was a dirty word she didn’t want in her mouth, “will need to watch for gates opening, for breaches between life and death. I expect you are willing to do your duty and abide by the wisdom of the Voices of the Authority?”
Voices. She meant the highest-level magic users: Maeve, Victor, Liddy, and Sedra herself. My father too, once, though no one had yet taken his position.
“I will do what is asked of me,” Terric said.
“Zayvion?” she asked. “Will you abide by the wisdom of the Authority?”
Okay, I was starting to dislike her imperious, overly formal, condescending tone. Oh, who was I kidding? I hated the way she high-handed people. I’d watched it over the last couple months. When this woman said jump, everyone asked her when they should come back down.
Yes, she was the head of the Authority. But there was something unrelenting about the woman. As if she had to work hard to cover her hatred for everything and everyone around her. And I knew Zayvion Jones, the gate-guardian-do-my-duty-until-death, would bow to her just like everyone else.
“I’ll do everything in my power to keep the city safe,” Zayvion said.
Well, well. Not exactly a “yes, ma’am.” I wondered whether she would let it pass.
“So let me get this right,” Hayden said. The burly giant was standing by the door, arms crossed over his wide chest. If Zayvion’s voice had been loud, Hayden’s was thunder. “No pre-spells, no triggers, no traps, filters, no backup conduits or overload lines? How exactly are we supposed to keep these places, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, warded from the effects of the storm?”
Victor nodded. “We’ve decided to approach this with as little magic use as possible because of how powerful the storm appears to be. Too many spells and too many members supporting those spells, managing the pain—even with Proxies—will limit how quickly we can react when the storm hits.”