Magic on the Line

by Devon Monk

  Hell, I didn’t even know if Davy needed anything more than a good night’s sleep.

  Who could I call?

  Collins.

  I jumped. I had not expected my dad’s voice so loud in my head.

  Who? I asked.

  Eli Collins. A colleague of mine. Very good with magic, and with medicine. Not a part of the Authority. Not anymore.

  He’s a doctor? I asked.

  He’s an expert in magical injury.

  That was not quite a yes. He’s trustworthy?

  I trusted him when I was alive.

  And that wasn’t quite a yes either. But really, what choice did I have? Do you remember his number?

  He did, and I dialed. A cheerful voice with a slight English accent answered. “Good morning, this is Collins.”

  It was what? Three a.m.? No one in his right mind should be that happy at three a.m.

  “Hello, my name is Allie Beckstrom,” I began.

  “Allison. I’ve wondered if I’d ever hear from you. My deepest condolences on your father’s death.”

  “Thank you. I understand you’re a doctor?”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  I heard a car door slam and the hard-soled footsteps of someone headed my way. I paused long enough to listen to the pace. It sounded like Stotts. I thought it was Stotts. But whether it was or wasn’t, I needed to wrap up this call quick so I could deal with whoever was approaching.

  “He told me you could help a friend of mine who’s been hurt by magic.”

  “I certainly can try. Where would I meet this friend of yours?”

  “He’s at the old warehouse next to Get Mugged. Do you know where that is?”

  “Get Mugged, the coffee place?” he asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Do I need to know anything else before I arrive? Or will this be clean?”

  “Clean?”

  “Will I need to arm myself?” He sounded amused.

  “I wouldn’t. The place is occupied by Hounds and most of them have some sort of weapon on them and are twitchy about strangers. He’s a Hound and he’s hurt. I’m trying to get him medical care.”

  “Of course. I shall proceed with the utmost discretion. And you will guarantee payment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Pleasure doing business with the Beck-stroms again.”

  “Right,” I said, not paying all that much attention. “Good-bye.” A figure was walking toward me—and from his build, his walk, and the trench coat and long scarf he was wearing, I knew it was Paul Stotts.

  “Hi, Paul,” I said. “I need to make a quick call. Anthony’s right here.” I pointed at where Ant lay, but didn’t have the heart to look at his still, still body again.

  I dialed Jack’s phone.

  “Quinn,” he said.

  “I’m sending a doctor over. His name’s Eli Collins. I’ll pick up the tab.”

  “Got it. Stotts there?”

  “Just showed up. How is he?”

  “Same.”

  “Be there soon.” We both hung up. I turned to Stotts. He handed me a cup of coffee, and I almost wept out of gratitude. I was freezing, sick. Worried about Davy, angry and sad about Anthony. Coatless and tired.

  The smell of regular, plain old normal coffee filled my senses and did what it alone could do to ground me in reality. Told me the world was still moving forward, regular people were working regular jobs, coffee was being brewed, all was well somewhere out there.

  I took a grateful sip.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “So tell me what happened.” Didn’t ask me why I was out, coatless on a cold night, in the middle of an alley with a dead guy at my feet. Of course in my line of work—Hounding—this was just a normal day on the job.

  “Anthony came by the den tonight. We were having a sort of . . . memorial for a friend of ours who died.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name was Chase. She was Zayvion’s ex-girlfriend.”

  “How’d she die?” he asked.

  “Overdose,” I said without hesitation. It was the lie the Authority had circulated, and the one they expected us to stick to. I think I managed that one word pretty well. And besides, if he checked the records of her death—not that I thought Stotts would suddenly become curious about a stranger’s death when he had a fresh dead person on his hands—he’d see all her stints in and out of rehab. He could probably even shake down a couple dealers and they’d tell him she’d bought from them.

  Even though she hadn’t. Even though she didn’t use drugs. Even though it most certainly was an insane magic user from the other side of death who had killed her—quite horribly—with Death magic.

  He’d find the cause of death overdose. Because that’s what the Authority said it was. And that’s what they wanted him, and everyone else, to find. The Authority, all those record and paper-pushing people like Tiffany Lowe back at the party, were very thorough about covering the Authority’s tracks.

  “So then what happened?” Stotts asked. He knelt next to Anthony’s body, but didn’t touch him.

  “He attacked Davy Silvers. They have history.”

  “Pike?” Stotts asked.

  “Yes. I think Anthony bit Davy—not in a fight. He just walked up behind him and bit him on the shoulder. I don’t know why. Davy hit him. Then Anthony ran out the door. There were a lot of us there. Some who had been drinking. But enough of us heard it and ran out after Anthony to try to stop him.”

  “And you happened to find him?”

  “Jack Quinn was with me. So was Davy. Jack was using Sight. Thought he spotted Anthony down this alley, using magic. So we got out to follow him. And this is what we found.”

  Stotts straightened and looked down the alley and back out at the street.

  There was just enough light that the sky had gone from black to a bruised blue. Nowhere near morning, but time was passing. I wondered how long I’d stood here.

  “And so you called me. Why me, Allie?”

  I took another drink of the coffee. “Could be because you bring me coffee,” I said.

  “Or?”

  “I think magic was involved. Something ...” I stared at his profile, strong, handsome. A good man who did his part to keep magical crime off the street. I could lie, tell him Anthony had been mixed up in illegal magic—and that had been true at one point, but I was pretty sure he really had done his best to clean up his life and move away from that sort of thing.

  “Allie?” Stotts looked over at me.

  I decided to tell him the truth. “There was something really strange about him, Paul. He bit Davy—and he’d told me over and over that he was planning to stay out of his way, just as long as I accepted him back into the Hounds.”

  “Did you?”

  I nodded. “I saw him and his mother this morning—well, yesterday morning. He finished high school. His mother was so proud of him—” I swallowed hard against tears again. This was killing me. I inhaled and pushed all my emotion away. People died every day. I’d seen it. And right now, my job was to hand this over to Stotts to see if he had any idea about the marks on Anthony. Then I’d go back home, or maybe to the den, check on Davy and get another four hours of sleep.

  “She asked me if I’d let him back in to the Hounding group. I told them yes. So he came by earlier in the evening, left, and then he came back. What time is it?” I asked.

  “Four o’clock.”

  “So almost two hours ago, he showed up, bit Davy, and ran off.”

  “And how was magic involved?” he asked.

  “Jack said he was using magic like he was leaking it.”

  “Jack said. What did you see?”

  “I didn’t cast.”

  He raised his eyebrows and took a drink of coffee. “Want to tell me why not?”

  No. But I would anyway.

  “It’s making me sick—immediately ill. I don’t know if I’m completely screwing my Disbursements or what, but every time I u
se it, I feel like I’m going to hurl. So I let Jack hunt him.”

  Stotts nodded. “Hold my coffee and step back a bit.”

  I did so. He inhaled, exhaled, twisted the ring on his left hand—his wedding ring he still wore even though his wife had died. I noted it was now on his pinky. Maybe it had been there for a while. Maybe it had been there since my friend Nola had been in town.

  Interesting.

  He cast a nice, clean Sight and held his hand spread wide as he directed the Sight down the alley, back up the alley past me. He frowned.

  “You sure you’re feeling okay?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine. Cold. Can you hurry?”

  He turned back to face Anthony and cast another spell—this one much more complicated. I was once again impressed with his training. For some reason I had this idea that only members of the Authority or Hounds were any good at casting magic. But Stotts could stand shoulder to shoulder with either and more than hold his own.

  I couldn’t quite catch the motions since I was standing behind and to the side of him, but it seemed to be a variation on Sight. He didn’t move, didn’t really even seem to breathe. He simply stood there and looked at Anthony. I knew he was looking through magic, seeing things I wished I could see.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me, but dropped the spell and pulled out his phone. He thumbed a key. “This is Stotts. I want the van down here. Full containment. And a stretcher. Third grid seven. That’s it.” He put his phone in his pocket and stepped back to me.

  “Did you Hound him at all?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you see, Allie?”

  “He looked burned out, burned up. Or like tar or something covered him. Smothered him.”

  He nodded. “Can you tell the signature of whoever would have thrown a spell like that?”

  “No.” A chill washed over my skin. That’s what seemed so weird about it—I mean, yes, it was weird anyway, but there was no signature. It wasn’t like someone had thrown that smothering magic at Anthony. It was more like magic had consumed him without any hand to guide it.

  “Allie?” Stotts asked. “Are you going to be sick?”

  “No.” I was already sick. But I refused to give in to it. “I need to walk. Is it okay if I go, or do you need me?”

  He glanced up at the sky, then at the street. Even though it was only four in the morning, the city was stirring, the sounds of cars and traffic scratching to life, distant, but rising.

  “I don’t want you out alone. I’ll call you a cab.”

  I considered fighting him on that, but really I didn’t expect him to give in. “I got it.” I dialed, got a cab company. By the time I hung up, a familiar white van pulled up and blocked the alleyway. Stotts’ crew.

  “See you around, Stotts,” I said.

  Paul was still staring down at Anthony, his coffee untouched in his hand. I didn’t know if he heard me. But by the time I’d gotten to the sidewalk, he finally said. “Be careful, Allie. This is . . . something else.”

  He didn’t know how right he was.

  Chap ter Seven

  The cab got there just as Stotts’ crew were getting out of the van. I didn’t stay and say my hellos to the police officers. All I wanted was a long shower and a change of clothes. I didn’t have a change of clothes at the den, so I asked the driver to take me home first.

  I kept my phone in my hand, waiting for a call from Jack or Zay or, hell, Stotts. But no one called. I asked the driver to wait and jogged into my apartment building. I stopped outside my door, like I always did, and listened for any sounds. Nothing. Not even the rustle or snuffle of Stone in there messing around.

  I was beginning to wonder where Stone was. I hadn’t seen him for a couple days now, and even if I didn’t happen to be in the apartment when he was, he always left evidence of his visit—usually in the form of stacking up something I’d sworn was unstackable, like spoonfuls of Jell-O. That had been fun to clean up.

  I let myself in, grabbed a clean shirt, tank top, sweater, jeans, socks, and underwear and wondered where my gym bag was. Stolen. Right. So I stuffed my clothes in a shopping bag and jogged back down the stairs. Eventually I realized my phone was ringing.

  By the time I dug it out of my pocket, it had stopped. The caller ID belonged to Jack. I dialed him back.

  “Quinn,” he said.

  “Hey, Jack. How’s it going?”

  “You know this Eli Collins?”

  “Never met him. Was recommended to me, though. Why? He legit?”

  I got back into the cab and gave the driver the address for the den.

  “Too good to be true,” Jack said.

  Hounds are suspicious. Collins might just actually be that good and be true. He was my father’s contact, after all, and my father never settled for second best. “Think he’s dangerous?”

  “Everyone’s dangerous for the right price,” he said.

  “Well, I’m paying him not to be dangerous. He help Davy any?”

  “That’s the thing. Said he won’t start without talking to you first.”

  “So put him on,” I said.

  “Not on the phone. Here. He wants you here.”

  “I’m on my way. Anyone else still there?”

  “Just us Hounds. All your other friends took off.”

  I thought about who of the Authority had stayed the night. Terric, Shame, and Zay. Zay and Shame had gone out hunting Ant and then been called away by Bartholomew, so I knew they were gone. Terric must have gone home, or maybe Zay and Shame had taken him to see Bartholomew. I just hoped he hadn’t driven. Boy was probably still a long way from sober.

  Sunny had stayed too. But everyone else—Victor, Maeve, Hayden, and all the people whose names I hadn’t memorized—had left around midnight.

  They’d probably all gotten lots of sleep. Probably hadn’t had someone bite their friend. Probably hadn’t had to chase someone through the night down a dirty alley. Probably hadn’t had to deal with a dead body, a dead kid.

  Lucky bastards.

  “Allie?”

  I still had the phone to my ear and the silence had stretched out. “I’ll be there. Tell Collins to wait a minute.”

  I hung up. The morning was nice. Blue sky with just a string of clouds pulled across it, and not even cold enough for me to see my breath. I just wished I felt as sunny and upbeat as the weather.

  It didn’t take long to get to the den. I didn’t see Zay’s car, or Shame’s for that matter. I paid the driver with the credit card in my jean pocket and stepped into the building, listening. Low voices to the right—that would be the paranormal investigators who rented out the office space on this floor. No sound from above. Hounds made it their job to be quiet. Always.

  I headed up.

  By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I decided it was stupid not to get something to eat at home or on the way. I’d lost everything I’d tried to keep down, and I was tired. My knees were doing that weird low-blood-sugar quiver.

  But I pulled my shoulders back and stepped into the room like nothing was wrong.

  “Morning,” I said. “Someone better be brewing coffee.”

  “All set,” Bea said from the kitchen space. “And there’s scones.”

  I knew where the scones came from. Grant.

  I took in the room as I headed for a cup of coffee. Sid was still here, snoring in the easy chair by my desk. Someone had done a good job of cleaning up the place so it didn’t look like a party had happened. I had to guess that was Bea. Jamar and Theresa weren’t anywhere to be seen.

  Jack stood near the windows over by the bunk, and on the bottom bunk lay Davy. Standing next to Davy, and directly across from Jack like a gunfighter in an old western duel, must be Eli Collins.

  “So good of you to come by,” I said as I put the pot back on the burner and picked up a scone. I took a bite, chewed and swallowed. Maple hazelnut. Delicious melt-in-your-mouth Grantness. “I’m Allie Beckstrom.�
�

  Jack flicked a gaze my way, and Eli Collins turned.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Allison.” He extended his hand. He was younger than I’d expected, maybe in his early thirties. Thick sandy brown hair cut just a little short, wire-rim glasses, a suit vest over a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and slacks. His face was long, friendly, and handsome. Except for his eyes. A little too bright, a little too happy. Just this side of madness, if I had to make the call, and since I’d invited him over here, I had to.

  I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you too.” His handshake was gentle, not soggy, reassuring. Maybe he knew he projected a “mostly mad” vibe and made up for it with a nice firm handshake. The handshake felt sane.

  “So are you a doctor?”

  “I am not currently practicing, though I specialize in magical wounds. I’ve forgone that for years, to instead pursue research and development.”

  Jack gave me another look. The one that said, Can I throw this clown down the elevator shaft now?

  “Jack tells me you wanted to talk to me before treating Davy?” Enough time had been wasted. I was tired, hungry, and in no mood for polite conversation.

  “In private, if you don’t mind.”

  “Come on out of the room then.” I turned and picked up the rest of the scone and popped it in my mouth, washing it down with coffee before I reached the door. I headed up the stairs and Mr. Collins followed without a word. In the back of my mind, I realized he could be trying to get me out of sight so he could murder me or something.

  He’s not going to kill me, is he? I asked Dad.

  I don’t think so.

  Well, not complete confidence, but enough. Plus, those weapons-training and self-defense classes hadn’t gone to waste. I could handle myself.

  I unlocked the door and held it open for him to walk in first. He stepped in past me, his shoes making a pleasant thump across the beautiful original hardwood floor. I flipped on the light—not that I had to. Morning poured long rectangles of light across the room, giving it a soft burnish. The mattress on the floor in the far corner with my spare quilt and extra blankets was hidden in shadow, leaving the room looking as if it was empty, untouched.