Magic on the Line

by Devon Monk

  “Found him,” he exhaled with smoke.

  I knelt, careful to keep my shoes far enough away that they wouldn’t get bloody. But even without magic I knew there was no blood. Anthony wasn’t breathing, that was obvious, but I didn’t know what had killed him.

  “Did he fall?” I asked. I reached out to touch the back of his head—he was lying sort of sideways—and Jack held out a pair of latex gloves for me.

  “I’m assuming yes,” Jack said. “He was on his feet running last I could tell, magic pouring out of him like a fucking sieve. I’ve never seen that. It was . . . like he was bleeding magic.”

  I got the gloves on and felt his neck—no pulse—checked for injuries on the back of his head, his chest. Nothing.

  He wasn’t wearing the hoodie I’d last seen him in. Just a T-shirt. I pulled it up to see if there were any injuries on his stomach.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  Jack leaned in closer.

  Black and blue lines ran from his hip and across his stomach like a tentacle creature lay just beneath the surface of his skin. The lines wrapped up the left side of his chest and wove together over his shoulder.

  “What the hell is that?” Jack asked.

  I just shook my head and rolled Ant enough that I could get a good look at his shoulder. Well, as good a look as I could in a dark alley. “You have a flashlight?”

  There was a snick, and then Jack held his lighter closer to Ant’s skin.

  I pressed against the lines, bruises, whatever they were. What they weren’t was a vein—not raised enough—or a tattoo—not flat enough. The mark was harder than his unmarked skin. I checked to see whether it ran down the back of his shoulder, and it did, tendrils reaching out to hook around his spine.

  “Have you ever seen that?”

  Jack shook his head.

  I let go of Anthony, then pulled off the gloves and took a deep, calming breath. I needed to Hound this. To see if some kind of magic was the cause of this. The last few times I’d called on magic, it had made me sick.

  So I stood and took a step or two back. Jack gave me a curious frown.

  “You might want to move in case I barf,” I said. I calmed my mind and set a Disbursement for muscle aches, then drew the beginning of Sight, Smell, Sound. I wanted one good hard look at this, at whether there was any foul play behind it.

  Jack, wisely, backed off to stand behind me. He didn’t draw on magic—which was good. I didn’t know if he and I could throw at the same time and not have disastrous results.

  I drew magic up out of the network lines and poured it out through my fingers. My stomach clenched again, and I took a couple steps to one side and puked up the tea I’d drunk. I didn’t let go of the spells, didn’t lose focus.

  Because I’m that good.

  I wiped the back of my left hand over my mouth and tried hard to ignore my stomach. Magic hurt when I used it—I mean immediately hurt, not Disbursement hurt. I felt like I was standing under a too-hot sun, burning and swelling.

  Ignore. I needed magic to show me what had happened to Ant.

  Spells at either end of the alley lit up bright blue and soothing green and rose, but other than that, there weren’t any spells—which was pretty much what I expected from an alley. People walked through alleys but very few permanent spells were used in them. There weren’t even lingering spells from clandestine activities—Hush for drug deals, Illusions for stalkers, that sort of thing.

  No, what was in the alley was me; Jack, who had tendrils of magic clinging to him like a slight haze of sunrise-colored cigarette smoke—that would be the Track he’d been using to hunt Ant; and Anthony, who did not look like Anthony.

  Where Anthony Bell should be was a black man-shaped lump. Through the eyes of Sight, it was as if not magic but tar covered him from head to toe. As if something had sucked all the . . . the everything out of him, leaving a burnt husk behind.

  I canceled the spells. I was breathing heavily, lightheaded and sick.

  “Jack, tell me what you see. Use Sight on him.”

  Jack didn’t argue, but cast a nice tight Sight. “Burned out?” he asked. “Fucking hell, Allie. I’ve never seen that done to a person.”

  I looked over at Anthony with just my eyes. “It’s only when you see him with magic. Physically he’s not burned—well, unless that’s what those marks on his skin are. But he’s mostly not burned. It could be a spell.”

  It could be Blood magic, Death magic, dark magic, something I had little training in and Jack wouldn’t even know about. But I knew enough about Blood magic to know it wasn’t that—no sweet smell of cherries. It didn’t look like any Death magic I’d ever seen, though Shame would be able to tell me whether I was right. And as far as dark magic went—hells if I knew what it could and couldn’t do.

  “No spell I’ve ever seen,” Jack said. “You want me to clean up so it doesn’t look like we’ve been here?”

  “No,” I said, not because I wanted to be mixed up in Anthony’s death, but because I’d met his mother. I’d looked into her eyes and told her that I would let her boy be one of my Hounds. And I wasn’t going to leave one of my Hounds dead in the street. Even if he had hurt Davy.

  “I’m going to call the cops,” I said. “If you want to take off, that’s fine.”

  Jack threw his cigarette down and didn’t bother stamping it out in the wet alley.

  “We said you don’t go anywhere alone. None of us goes anywhere alone. I’ll wait.”

  I had already pulled out my phone and dialed.

  “Detective Stotts,” a familiar voice said.

  “Paul, this is Allie. I have a dead body on my hands. Anthony Bell.”

  “Where? Are you safe?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t even know how he died. We were following him. We’re . . .” I looked at Jack. Jack told me which street we were on and I relayed that to Stotts.

  “Who’s with you?” Stotts asked.

  “Jack Quinn. We’ll stay here until you arrive.”

  “Give me ten minutes.”

  I hung up, and Jack sniffed, then found a relatively slime-free part of the wall to lean against. He lit another cigarette.

  “So I guess you’re pretty good friends with him now,” he said.

  “Who? Detective Stotts?”

  He nodded.

  “Not really. He’s dating my best friend. And he’s been . . . nice to me. But it’s still just business between us.” And I intended to keep it that way. The less Stotts was in my life, personal or magical, the better for him, and Nola.

  “And him?” He tipped his chin toward Anthony.

  I rubbed my left hand through my hair and suddenly realized I’d forgotten my coat. It was spring in Oregon. That meant it was cold. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at Ant’s still body.

  “I ran into him and his mom this morning. They showed me his graduation pictures. He wanted to be a Hound. She asked me, they both asked me, if he could join us. I said yes.”

  “So he died the way he wanted to,” Jack said. “A Hound can’t expect any more than that. If it’s not one thing that kills you, it’s another.”

  I supposed that was his idea of a comforting remark. It just made me feel worse.

  I heard footsteps. Jack did too, because he flicked his cigarette to the ground and scrubbed out the ember. The footsteps were coming from behind us. Not Stotts. No, it sounded a lot like Davy’s pace.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, Davy was striding down the alley, like he was out to start a brawl.

  “Settle down, Davy,” I said. “He’s dead.”

  Davy didn’t slow. I put one hand out to stop him from storming past me and stepping on Anthony.

  Davy grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him.

  “Hey,” Jack warned.

  I stumbled on the slick concrete. Which may have been the only thing that saved me.

  Davy started coughing. And a flash of green sparked in the center of his chest. Even cou
ghing, he was inhumanly strong and dragged me toward him, toward his mouth.

  That was not Davy in those eyes. There was nothing but black—no whites at all—just black and tiny sparks of green swimming in the inky depth. I’d seen eyes like that. On the Veiled.

  Jack threw a spell at Davy, and even without Sight I could see the magic sink into him. Just like I could see the magic—no, the Veiled—pulling out of him.

  A pastel, foggy hand reached out of Davy’s hand that was around my wrist and pointed at my head.

  Oh, hell no.

  I pushed at the foggy hand with my free hand. Nothing. I pulled as far away as I could, trying to keep from tripping over dead Anthony. A pastel person seemed to be taking shape between me and Davy, as if trying to get free of one body and into the other.

  And by other, I meant mine.

  Jack was swearing.

  I finally realized he was swearing at me. “Would you just fucking duck?”

  I ducked as far as I could with Davy’s hand still twisting my wrist.

  Something hit Davy from behind.

  Davy fell, dragging me with him. I scrabbled to get away from him, my left hand landing square in the middle of Anthony’s chest.

  There was a pastel flash.

  And I could have sworn Anthony inhaled.

  “Shit!” I pushed away from him. Davy was on his hands and knees, coughing like he was going to lose a lung.

  “Anthony’s moving!” I yelled.

  Jack cast another spell—Impact, I think—and threw it at Anthony. No, not Impact. Freeze.

  Anthony was no longer moving. But I didn’t know if that was because of his deadness or because of Jack’s spell.

  Davy pushed back to sit on his heels, his hand on his thighs. He was no longer coughing. “Fucking Christ,” he whispered. “What the fuck?”

  Took the words right out of my mouth.

  Jack looked over at me. For an explanation.

  “Davy, I think you were occupying the same space as a dead person—a ghost. Shut up, Jack.”

  Jack hadn’t said anything. He just held up his hands to indicate he didn’t care how crazy the answer was, he was just looking for an answer.

  Typical Hound.

  “I think it—the dead person, ghost thing—is gone now,” I said. “That’s why you were coughing. I think it went into Anthony.”

  We all looked down at Anthony, who was still not moving, though his blank, glassy eyes stared wide.

  Davy was sitting no more than a few inches away from Ant and seemed to notice that. He pushed up onto his feet and staggered a couple steps before he caught his balance. Neither Jack nor I reached out to help him stay steady.

  With unknown magics, and an unexplained dead, undead, maybe re-dead body at our feet, neither one of us was dumb enough to touch Davy, who may have just had too much deadness in him.

  “You okay, Silvers?” I asked him.

  He rubbed at his face, then his neck, rolling the shoulder Anthony had bit.

  Oh. No.

  “Davy, do me a favor, okay?” I said calmly. “Pull your shirt off so I can see your shoulder again.”

  He stood there, breathing a little hard, his hair messed up, and his skin that flulike pasty green-white color. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled off his shirt, wincing when he had to roll his shoulder to get it over his head.

  “Turn around and let me see your shoulder and back,” I said.

  He turned. A bruise, not nearly as dark as the marks on Anthony, was spreading out from the very noticeable bite mark on the back of his shoulder. The edges of the bruise had a few ragged lines starting off it, like a storm cloud just beginning to drop streamers of rain. I had no doubt those streamers were going to turn into lines. Just like the lines on Anthony.

  “You’ve been bit, Davy,” I said. “Anthony bit you.”

  He turned his head to try to see over his shoulder, but didn’t have the right angle on it. “Does it look bad?” he asked.

  I glanced at Jack, who still had one hand up, his pointer and thumb pressed together as if he held a spell there. Which he probably did. He caught my look. There was no mercy in his eyes.

  “Yes, it looks bad. But I know a doctor who might be able to help you. Dr. Fisher. I think you’ve met her before.”

  “Can I turn back around and put on my shirt? I’m fucking freezing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The spell on Ant is about to wear off,” Jack said. “You ready?”

  “Davy,” I said, “I want you to step on the other side of Anthony. I need to keep you in my sight, and keep you out of the range of fire. Over there by the wall should work.”

  He looked at Jack, looked at me. “Christ,” he whispered. But he did as I said, and stepped around Anthony, careful not to touch him. He tucked his hands into his armpits and stood with his back against the brick wall.

  “Don’t use magic,” I said to him. “We don’t know what effect that will have on you right now.”

  He swallowed, nodded.

  “Okay, Jack. Let’s see if he has a pulse.”

  Jack canceled the Freeze spell with his left hand.

  Anthony didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

  We waited. No exhale, no inhale, no heat radiating off him. No movement at all. If Ant was alive, he was faking death incredibly well.

  “He doesn’t look alive,” I said. “But we’re not going to risk anything. Jack, I want you to take Davy back to the den. Keep an eye on him. Davy, you’re basically under house arrest until I get you a doctor.”

  “Like hell—”

  “And Jack is going to make sure you stay put at the den until Dr. Fisher shows up. Got that?”

  “Who’s going to guard you?” Davy asked, all the fire gone out of him. He had closed his eyes. If his knees hadn’t been locked, I didn’t think he’d be standing.

  “Detective Stotts is on his way here now. I’ll be fine.”

  Jack let go of the spell he’d been holding and instead pulled out a Bowie knife and a set of handcuffs. Man wasn’t messing around. “Let’s drive, Silvers. Walk.”

  I opened my mouth to tell Jack to stash the knife, but decided he was right. Maybe having a weapon in his hand would discourage Davy from trying to grab him like he grabbed me. Or maybe the Veiled that had possessed him was gone now, leaving Davy exhausted and used.

  “He’s still one of us,” I said as Davy pushed away from the wall and walked, dazed, down the alley toward the car. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “I got it,” Jack said.

  I grabbed his arm before he passed me. “I mean it, Jack. He’s like a little brother to me. Don’t hurt him.”

  Jack just looked down at my hand on his arm, then gave me a steady gaze. I let go of his coat, and he strode down the alley to where Davy was waiting on the sidewalk.

  I inhaled and blinked back sudden tears, then pulled out my phone. Things were going to hell. Ant was dead. I’d just looked into his mom’s proud, hopeful eyes and told her I’d do what I could to look after her boy. That I’d take him in and help him on his way to the dream he most wanted to achieve.

  Didn’t matter that I’d also told her how dangerous it was. First day on the job—hell not even that, he wasn’t on a job—and he wound up facedown in a dirty alley.

  On top of that, Davy was hurt, Jack might be a little trigger-happy, and every time I pulled on magic I felt like it turned me inside out. I crossed my arm over my chest where the burn from yesterday morning still stung, and rubbed my arm to try to stay warm. Davy was right—my left hand was very cold and my right was fevered.

  Dad? I thought, just to see if he was still there, just to see if everything between him and me was the same.

  No reply. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t there, but wasn’t exactly reassuring either.

  I cleared my throat and dialed Dr. Fisher.

  “Dr. Fisher,” she said, a little huskily.

  I didn’t think I’d ever been so grate
ful to hear her voice.

  “Hi, this is Allie,” I said, even though I probably didn’t have to because she had caller ID. “Davy Silvers was hurt. By magic. Can you come see him?”

  She paused. “Where are you?”

  And that’s when I realized it was the middle of the damn night.

  “I’m waiting for Detective Stotts to come by. I’m Hounding tonight. But Davy was with me and he’s hurt.”

  “Davy’s one of the Hounds?” she asked.

  “Yes. You met him a while ago at the den. He’s young—under twenty maybe—thin, blond, always following me around.”

  “How is he injured?”

  “Magically, otherwise I wouldn’t have called you. I mean I wouldn’t have disturbed you in the middle of the night.”

  She paused again. “Allie, I think it might be better if you took him to the hospital. Call 911 if you need an emergency transport.”

  I stopped pacing. “Is it because he’s a Hound?” It sounded like I was accusing her of betraying her Hippocratic Oath. I knew I could take him to any one of the hospitals to have him looked at by normal doctors who knew how to treat normal magical injuries.

  But one, this was no normal magical injury I’d ever seen before, and two, Dr. Fisher had never once turned me away when I was in trouble.

  What had changed?

  “Yes,” she said. “Partly it’s because he’s a Hound. Allie, you know I have been very busy. Bartholomew has me . . .” She paused for an extra-long moment, then sighed. “I have a very specialized list of clients and patients I’ve been tending. I simply cannot bring anything else into my practice right now.”

  I heard a car brake and an engine turn off. Stotts. Or so I hoped.

  “Bartholomew told you not to help me, didn’t he?” I asked.

  “This is nothing I want to discuss on the phone,” she said.

  Which meant two things—yes, it was Bartholomew, and her phone was tapped—or at the very least her house calls were being monitored. Possibly by Bartholomew.

  He was either paranoid or an ass.

  “I’m disappointed,” I said. “Good-bye.”

  I hung up. I wasn’t going to throw a snit about it. I just needed a way to help Davy before Stotts showed up and got his nose mixed up in my business. Yes, I wanted him to figure out what to do with Ant, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to help me with Davy.