A Criminal Magic

by Lee Kelly

  You need to talk to Gunn. It’s time for some answers on what your future’s going to look like, regardless of whether he thinks you deserve them.

  Gunn folds his map up. “Why don’t you check on the troupe, Win?” he says, like he can somehow read my thoughts. “I need a word alone with Joan.”

  Win gives Gunn a knowing smirk, and then he leaves.

  “I have something to show you.” Gunn flashes me one of those shifty half smiles, and stands.

  “Mr. Gunn, I think we need to talk,” I say carefully, “for a minute, about some of the things that are happening. I want to know what’s next—”

  “Later,” he interrupts. “There’s a surprise in your room. And it’s too important to wait.”

  A surprise. From Gunn. In my room.

  I’m always living on a razor blade of fear with Gunn, but something about his fake excitement right now feels extra cutting.

  We head out of his office without another word. Gunn locks the door behind him, whistles a haunting little tune as we walk down the hall and up the stairs. When we get to my room’s door, he pauses. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

  I have no clue what’s waiting for me in here—dread, nerves, anxiety, it’s all mixing inside me like a scalding stew. Still, my fingers find the door, I twist the handle open—

  And I gasp.

  Ben and Ruby. My cousin and my sister sitting on my bed. Like some mirage. Like someone plucked them out of my dreams and conjured them real.

  “Oh my God.” I run to them, pull Ruby into a huge embrace, grab Ben’s hand and drag him in.

  “What are you doing here? How did you, how—”

  “Mr. Gunn sent for us.” Ben wraps his arms around me. He pulls away and takes a good look at me, and his face folds into a relieved smile. “Got us a big fancy town car, pulled right in front of the cabin, and carted us up here like movie stars.”

  “It was crazy, Joan,” Ruby says, beaming. “We got new clothes and everything.” Ruby strokes the flapper dress that pulls tight over the little bulging belly she’s now sporting. She’s well. She managed to overcome Mama’s blood-spell. She’s well.

  I pull her into another hug. “It’s so good to see you,” I whisper, my words catching.

  Ruby pulls away from me, sizes me up like a parent sizing up her child, and then pulls me back in, like she, too, is making sure I’m real.

  “So Jed’s back at the cabin?” I ask Ben slowly.

  “Wasn’t up for the trip. He needs his rest.” Ben averts his eyes. “But Mr. Stone is gonna divide his time between his farm and our cabin for the next few weeks, make sure he takes care of Pop’s bills. I gave Stone a little of the cash you’ve been sending. He promised to keep the place up till we figure out where to go from here.”

  I nod, grateful for our nearest neighbor, Mr. Stone. Even though I don’t give a rat’s ass about Jed’s welfare, I worked too hard for him to run that cabin into the ground.

  “Thanks to you and Mr. Gunn here, the house is ours, though, free and clear.” Ben throws a huge smile back to Gunn.

  “You’re here,” I say again. “I can’t—I can’t believe you’re both really here.”

  I crawl my fingers into Ruby’s armpits and tickle lightly like I used to do when she was younger, and she blushes in front of Gunn, but laughs and squirms just the same. Then she collapses into me with a simple whisper, “Joan, you did it. You’re my hero forever.”

  Gunn’s still standing in my doorway, leaning sideways against its frame with his arms crossed. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he even looked somewhat touched.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, regardless of everything else.

  “Of course. DC is your home now.” He drops his arms and walks over to us, places his hand lightly on Ben’s shoulder. “It’s important to have what grounds you close by.” He puts his hand on Ruby’s cheek. The gesture isn’t tender, though, it’s almost possessive. “Nothing good comes about when people forget why they do what they do, what it’s all for.”

  Gunn’s words pull something tight inside me, and then everything clicks into place like an engine. Of course.

  This isn’t some kind gesture.

  This is just another veiled threat, another way to keep me careful, watched, tethered. Gunn releases Ruby, who rubs her cheek and gives me a look like, What a strange bird.

  But I just smile and ruffle her straw-colored hair. Gunn can think whatever he wants right now.

  Because he’s given me this. Because I have my family.

  “Why don’t you take an hour break, get them comfortable in here?” Gunn says, then looks at Ben. “Joan’s told me how adept you are working at your father’s shining room, but I bet you’ve never seen a full-scale magic haven before.”

  Ben’s as helpless against magic’s spell as anyone else. He shakes his head fervently. “I haven’t, sir.”

  “Well, after you get settled, tell Joan to come find me and I’ll give you a tour.”

  Ben’s face lights up. “Yes, sir. Thank you, I will.”

  Alex’s words from a few nights back, when we were lying in this very room, tangled up and twisted, come floating into my mind like some conjured ghost: Something this big could attract other attention . . . you could end up behind bars for life . . .

  It’s one thing to take risky moves, to burn fast and bright as a comet against this dark underworld when I’ve only got myself to worry about. It’s another when my family, the ones I’m fighting for, pledged to die for, have entered the game.

  And seeing Ruby and Ben here, standing next to Gunn, in this dangerous, slippery world where someone can kill you just as quick as trick you, makes me wonder if my strategy somehow needs to change.

  TIGHT QUARTERS

  ALEX

  I’m in the Red Den’s VIP lounge. My best guess is it’s Wednesday afternoon, but I can’t be entirely sure, because the only chances I get to see the clock above the performance space’s double doors are when I need to use the john. Meals are brought in by the stagehands. Cigarette breaks are taken in here, or in the hall right outside. If we’re too tired to brew another round of shine at the moment—you can power through a couple of rounds of brewing, but after a while you and your magic begin to fade—there are lounge chairs and sofas for taking short catnaps before raising up the sorcering flag once more.

  Ral, Billy, Grace, Tommy, Rose, and me. Brew after brew, sorcerer’s shine after shine, every trick of twelve ounces we brew to be poured into two hundred glass quart jugs that Joan will bind with her blood and trickery, so each jug can last forever on a shelf. Fifty gallons of a magical, wildly addictive drug that will mark the first shipment of shine ever to grace the black market, earmarked for Colletto’s D Street gang to take and distribute up and down the coast and out to smugglers waiting on Magic Row. Fifty gallons that, if Gunn and Win—and Joan—have their way, will be the first of many shipments.

  I’ve been trying to get Joan alone—I need to tell her everything, including what she’ll need to do to walk away from this mess, and the only alibi that might save her from prison, once my Unit charges in. But Gunn is keeping her on a short leash. The few times I’ve managed to sneak a spin around the Den, or climb the fire escape to her room, her lights were off, and she was gone. I’ve heard her voice, though, muffled behind Gunn’s office door. It makes me sick, thinking about how for every quart we’re complaining about filling, Joan’s matching it in drops of blood.

  “I’m starving,” Billy says, as he collapses into a chair in the corner of the room. They’re the first words anyone has said for hours.

  “Me too,” I say quietly.

  Billy looks up. “They never brought in lunch, am I right?”

  “No. What time is it?” I glance at Ral, the only one of us with a wristwatch.

  “Jesus, the hours, the days, are starting to bleed to
gether.” Ral looks at his watch. “It’s nearly three. How long do they intend to keep us going like this?” I assume it’s a rhetorical question, but Ral looks pointedly at me. “Have you spoken to her, Alex, since the night of the demonstration?”

  We all know who her is. “I haven’t.”

  “I just wish I knew what was in store for us after this deal is done,” Ral says slowly. “I mean, is this our new reality, working around the clock in a tight, windowless room, dumping our magic into a bottle? It can’t be, right?”

  “Not what I signed up for,” Tommy grunts from the far corner.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. We’re like prisoners in here.” Grace sits down in another one of the armchairs. She puts her hands over her eyes, like she’s going to attempt a catnap in the middle of this conversation. I can’t blame her.

  “Wonder what the princess is doing right now,” Rose mutters, “but I’m sure it’s not this.”

  Grace separates her fingers like a peephole and shoots Rose a loaded glance.

  Rose just gives her a little smirk. “You know I’m right, Mama Bear.”

  “We wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for Joan,” Tommy piggybacks. “She’s cursed us, in more ways than one. She has us doing grunt work while she plays partners with Gunn.”

  And then I can’t help but step in. “Enough. She’s doing her part, same as you. You saw her on the stage.”

  “Yeah, but how’d she get such a leading role, you understand what I’m saying?” Tommy says, as Rose laughs. He takes a step closer to me. “You two were thick as thieves, partners in your little circle, am I right?” he says. “Did you really not know about any of this?”

  I keep my eyes on the newly conjured shine between my hands, will my pulse to slow. “I didn’t.”

  “She could have told us about the spell,” Rose presses, “it could have been a team effort. Instead she kept it to herself to cozy up to Gunn. She played all of us.” She raises one eyebrow at me. “Especially you, Alex.”

  Tommy adds, “Yeah, she’s all yours, until you find her in bed with Gunn.”

  Like a reflex, my fingers tighten around my shine bottle and squeeze. The red, glistening shine explodes and splatters onto the folding table.

  “Alex!” Ral rushes to my side to help clean up the mess. “Get some towels from the bar,” he tells Grace and Billy.

  “Christ, I’m sorry.” I take off my sweater and throw it on the shine, which is now seeping into the carpet and soaking its fibers red.

  Grace comes back quickly with some towels. She bends down next to me. “Pat it. There you go.”

  No one says anything for a long time. We don’t have the luxury of sparring in a twelve-by-twelve room, with our gangster keepers down the hall, and we all know it. Especially me. I’m too close, there’s too much at stake to lose control.

  “Tommy, take a break, grab a smoke,” Ral says quietly. “Alex, why don’t you get washed up, use my room. I’ll cover for you if Win comes checking.”

  I nod slowly in thanks.

  But as I head down the opposite hall and to the back stairs leading up to the sorcerers’ rooms, I can’t help but stop, right in front of Gunn’s office door. I can almost feel Joan behind it. I’m sure Gunn’s in there too. I want to break down the door, insert myself right in between them. I want to tell Joan the truth, get it over with, have her forgive me, so that we can move forward and put Gunn and the rest of his thugs where they belong.

  Tonight’s my last chance. Tomorrow is Thursday, when Colletto is due to arrive.

  I’m going to need to get to Joan and explain things another way.

  CONFESSION

  JOAN

  I’m in my performance circle, surrounded by feathers. The club has been closed for the better part of the week so we can focus on Colletto’s shipment, but tonight there’s a ­special performance. Tonight, Harrison Gunn sits with my baby sister and cousin on the benches around my old stage to watch me like a circus act. The rest of my troupe? Down the hall, brewing shine in a dark, windowless lounge.

  I’m not sure who has the better deal.

  “What’s she going to do with those feathers?” Ruby says.

  Ben shushes her. “Don’t talk so loud. You’ll break her concentration.”

  I hear Gunn answer in a low, almost seductive hum, “This was your sister’s signature performance trick. She used to have half the crowd around her stage, clamoring for a glimpse of her magic.”

  “Really?” Ruby whispers.

  “Indeed. Joan is our magic haven’s most talented sorcerer. It’s why I need her here.” Gunn nods toward me. “Watch and learn.”

  I know Gunn wants me to look at him and give him some kind of acknowledgment, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Instead I focus on the feathers that line the edge of my stage, and not my sister chatting with a gangster. I focus on the trick, instead of thinking about the message Gunn is trying to send me by taking my family under his wing.

  It’s not that I don’t want Ruby and Ben here—it hurts as bad as a cut sometimes, when I wake up and forget that Ruby isn’t sleeping by my side. But it turns everything around. It makes me ashamed of all this, angry with it, makes the truth of what I’ve managed to justify and shelf—turning shine into a shippable product, allowing the underworld to deliver it across America, ruining families like mine—inescapable.

  Magic is what you were made to do, I remind myself. Everything you’re doing, the caging spell, the shine, the deal, it’s all for them.

  But the reminder isn’t loud enough, isn’t strong enough to banish Alex’s words: What about Ruby and Ben . . . You could end up behind bars for life. . . .

  They tease me, taunt me, keep poking at me from the inside.

  “Something wrong, Joan?” Gunn calls from the benches.

  “No, sir.”

  I concentrate back on the feathers, until I can actually feel my mind reaching out like a hand and lifting them. One by one, the feathers dance a few inches off the ground until they form a slow, spinning circle above my head. They spin fast as the wind, then a tornado, then start to bleed into one long trail of white. And out of the swirling madness, a dove flaps its wings and flies up to the rafters.

  Ruby leaps to her feet and claps. “Oh my goodness, Joan, that was wonderful!”

  “Holy smokes,” Ben gasps. “Pop could never manage that in a million years.”

  I wipe away the small beads of sweat that have collected along my hairline. “I’ve just been practicing.”

  “She’s being humble,” Gunn says evenly. “I’ve seen a lot of sorcerers in my line of work, have searched for the strongest and the best. Your cousin is a rare breed.”

  A thick lump forms at the base of my throat. This time I manage to answer, “Thank you, Mr. Gunn.”

  “You should really see this place when it’s open during a performance,” Gunn says to Ben and Ruby in this secretive little voice, like they’re old pals. He studies my dove, now perched in the rafters. “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever imagined.”

  “I can’t believe we’re really here,” Ben says dreamily. “Thank you, Mr. Gunn. I hope I get to stay long enough to see one of your performances.”

  Gunn throws a look my way. “Well, we’re working on something major right now, but when it’s over, the Den will be open again, and I always need good stagehands.”

  Ben, in this world, working under this roof? Not on your life. “Mr. Gunn—”

  “It’s a low-level job, I know,” Gunn talks over me, “but if you prove yourself, Ben, you’ll work your way up, just like your cousin. I’m a firm believer in rewarding those who deserve it.” Gunn shoots another glance at me. “And keeping good people once I find them.”

  Another veiled threat, another two-sided message, like a double-sided trick.

  I’ve been attached to G
unn pretty much morning through night this past week, trying to ensure his deal with Colletto goes down without a hitch. I need time away from him, with just my family. I need to remember who it’s all for.

  I glance pointedly at the clock. “It’s almost ten, sir, and they’ve had a long day. Think it’s time we all turned in.”

  “Aw, not yet, Joan, one more trick. Please?” Ruby cries.

  Ben laughs. “I’m with Ruby.”

  Gunn stares at me for a while. “Come on, Joan knows best,” he tells Ruby. “We’ve got plenty of time for tricks.”

  The four of us cross the show space together, walk down the hallway to the back stairs that lead to my room. Gunn stops in front of his office. “You want a nightcap?” he asks Ben suddenly. “Maybe a shot of shine, to chase away the day’s cobwebs?”

  As Ben’s eyes grow wide as saucers, I cut in with, “He’s fine, Mr. Gunn, thank you. Again, it’s been a long day.”

  “Some other time then.” Gunn opens the door to his office, throws me a triumphant look. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Mr. Gunn,” Ruby and Ben say in unison.

  When we get into my room, I immediately push Ben and Ruby back from the door and focus on its wooden frame. I hold out my hand, and the door’s wood crackles. The frame begins to disappear, the white wood bleeding into the plaster of the wall—and then there’s only one thick sheet of white in front of us, studded with the doorknob.

  “Did you just lock us in?” Ben says.

  “I don’t want you going downstairs, and I don’t want Gunn coming up.” I rustle through my bureau, pull out Ruby’s sole pair of pajamas. “This place isn’t safe. He isn’t safe.”

  “You know, I don’t get you,” Ben says. “I know you’ve made your own way here, but Gunn’s the one who gave you the chance. He practically saved us. Besides, he’s treating us like royalty. Treats you like a queen.”

  “Well, appearances can be deceiving, Ben.” I kneel down and help Ruby into her pajamas. “He’s dangerous. If you don’t see that, you’re a fool.”