by Devon Monk
Well, well. He wasn’t just a by-the-books gunslinger after all.
“Ready?” Stotts asked.
“Damn straight.” We both got out of the car.
Stotts didn’t need to point out the place where the kidnapping had happened. I could tell even without pulling on magic. Someone had built a small, hand painted cross and nailed it to the side of the building and written “My baby” across it. This girl may have been running with a gang, but she was also someone’s daughter. Someone who still remembered her.
“She was last seen two weeks ago.” Stotts walked around the car to stand next to me.
“Two weeks? Have there been any leads?”
“Nothing I can disclose.”
Magic bucked in me, burning slowly up my bones. It felt like my limbs had fallen asleep on the inside, my bones numb. Magic burned, stung, tingled painfully from the soles of my feet upward, as if it were trying to reestablish blood flow.
Holy hells, that itched and hurt.
You can do pain, I told myself. It won’t last forever.
“How old was she?” I asked.
“Fifteen.”
The same age as Pike’s granddaughter. The granddaughter who was used by Lon Trager. The granddaughter who committed suicide.
Oh, Pike, no.
I walked to the middle of the sidewalk. The soles of my feet felt bruised, but at least they weren’t burning numb. I hoped the pain of magic refilling me would be over soon.
Stotts stayed near the cross, his coat open. His right hand was free so he could easily pull his gun. He stood with his middle finger and thumb obviously together, a clear symbol to anyone watching that he was holding a spell in check and could cast it in seconds.
I hadn’t bothered putting my gloves back on. But I needed to stall just a little until my arms and hands stopped itching and hurting so much. I couldn’t cast magic if my fingers weren’t working.
“Did you do anything with the spells?” I asked Stotts.
“No. You’re not the first one to Hound them, but no one’s contaminated the site.”
“No kind of Holding or Stasis put around them?”
“That’s contamination. These are just as we found them. Can you get to this now or is there a problem?”
I shook my head. No more stalling.
If Stotts was that uncomfortable standing out here on the street while he had magic and a gun, I needed to get this done quickly.
I calmed my mind, putting my expectation and fear of Pike being involved aside. I needed my judgment to be absolutely clear if I were to see the truth of this hit.
I muttered a mantra and set the Disbursement spell-that fever would last a little longer now. Probably ought to stock up on my chicken noodle soup supply. I pulled on the magic inside me.
Like lighting a fuse, magic burned through my bones, my muscle, my flesh. I gritted my teeth and let it flow, not using it yet.
It filled all the empty places in me, replaced the numbness with warmth. I was sweating. Shaking. Talk about a hot flash.
I sent a small amount of magic through the lines on my arm and felt the familiar cold numbness creep up my left arm. I let my breath out in relief. That was normal.
Well, normal for me.
Magic filled the glyph I traced for Sight, Smell, Taste, and my senses opened.
The street was lousy with old spells that hung like a miasma of smoke in the air. Some were faded ash; some were new and bright as neon fire. Cheap sex spells that never worked; spells of illusion, of coercion and influence. Spells of protection, warding, warnings.
And there were other magical things out on the street too. The watercolor people with hungry, empty eyes walked down the sidewalk and street, unaware of the rain, unaware of the cars, unaware of the people moving in the night.
They were aware of me, though. Like zombie moths to a flame, they turned.
I stepped closer to the strong spell that drifted in the air, tendrils of gold draping outward, thinning like a golden spiderweb spun onto nothing but air. It was the same as the one in the elevator. A Glamour intended to hide and conceal. And it was still burning strong.
Which was strange because it should have looked older, should have smelled older, should have faded. Time mattered in Hounding spells. Weak spells were older; strong spells newer. But these spells looked like they could have been cast within hours of each other.
I flicked a glance at the watercolor people. They were still moving slowly toward me, more of them appearing in the distance like fog-hells, like ghosts. I needed to either Hound this spell fast or get ready to fight.
I voted for speed. I opened my mouth, breathed in. I could smell hickory, could taste the sweetness of cherry behind it, could scent the mix of bloods. The spell looked like something Pike could have cast. It could be his signature.
I needed time.
Fine. I’d buy it. I leaned away from the spell so I had room to cast another glyph. I added a little more heat onto that damn fever I was going to come down with, hoped the combined Disbursements of three spells wouldn’t mean I’d have to be hospitalized, and cast a Shield the size of Cleveland.
Magic pushed up through me, poured out of me fast, faster, building the spell around me and around the spell I was Hounding. Magic is too fast to see with the naked eye.
But I could see it, catching fire through the metallic whorls of my arm, leaping from my fingertips in ribbons of color, arcing and weaving into the twisting, tight glyph of Shield.
The air around me warmed. I no longer felt the wind. I no longer felt the rain. As a matter of fact, I didn’t hear the cars going by either.
I glanced at the watercolor people. Still slow, but I knew they’d break forward and start eating the Shield at any second.
Stotts’ mouth was moving. I was pretty good at reading lips. He was calling my name. Asking me what I was doing, what was wrong.
I tapped my ear and shook my head, letting him know I couldn’t hear him, and then I turned back to Hounding the spell.
Hounding while also feeding a constant flow of magic into a defensive spell was harder than I thought. Zayvion had done this and more-he had put up a shield and opened something within it to swallow the watercolor people.
Zayvion chanted. The cheater.
My heart was pounding, and a little voice in my head that sounded a lot like fear just kept saying, “They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming…”
Stupid voice. I knew they were coming. It was all I could do not to look up, not to run away.
I traced the lines of the gold Glamour spell with the fingertips of my right hand. The spell’s magic resonated across my skin, mixing with and ever so slightly altering the magic I was using for the Shield and for my senses.
Could this get any harder?
The lines of the Glamour spell were distinctive, cast with the basic north, south, east, and west boundary lines I knew Pike always used.
It had to be his signature.
But the sweetness, the cherry, wasn’t anything I’d ever sensed on Pike. Anthony, yes, but not Pike. Pike had never done blood magic in all the time I knew him. And he was plenty strong enough as a magic user to cast Glamour without using blood. So why would he do so? I followed the lines of the spell, trying to taste the wrongness on the back of my throat.
All I got was the scent of blood. Pike’s blood.
The watercolor people slammed into the Shield.
And I felt it. Pain shivered through me.
Don’t look at them; don’t look at them. I knew I shouldn’t. Knew I shouldn’t look away from the Glamour spell.
But I did.
Holy shit.
People, and there were dozens of them, pressed against the Shield. This close, with magic still enhancing my vision, I could see that they were indeed people-tall, short, heavy, thin, pastel skin tones of varying shades, facial features distinct. They had no eyes, and yet I knew they saw me.
They leaned on the Shield, and I could fe
el the weight of them like a press of a storm about to break. Their fingers scrabbled across the Shield. Scraped, found purchase, and dug into the magic. They pulled at it like cold taffy, trying to bend it, stretch it, shove it into their mouths.
They hadn’t broken the Shield yet. But they would.
Hound, Allie, I said, forcing myself to look away. Get the damn job done.
I pulled a little more magic from within me and added it to my sense of smell. I hissed as magic leaped up in response.
Magic rushed from the ground and filled me. I used it as fast as I could. I diverted most of it into the Sheild, pouring it out so fast, I was breathing hard with the effort.
And I was losing ground.
No matter how much magic I poured into the Shield, the watercolor people consumed it.
A pastel finger pushed through the Shield; another followed. I could smell death.
A hand broke through, and then another. A finger slid down my spine, thunking over each vertebra, hooking the magic in my bones and pulling it out of me.
Pain rolled over my body.
I gritted my teeth against a scream. I am almost done, damn it. If they’d just leave me alone for a fucking second more.
I reached with all my senses toward the Glamour spell.
And the Shield broke.
I was buried by them, smothered by their rotted stink, suffocating, breathing them into me, tasting them as they scraped through my skin, digging in like worms through my soft flesh, sucking, consuming.
Let go of magic. Let go, let go, let go.
But I couldn’t.
Magic pushed up out of the ground and into me, following the burnt pathways down my arm, pouring out to fall again back to the ground, where it surged back up into me. I was an electric circuit.
I was stuck in a loop, trapped by magic.
I couldn’t let go.
Come on, Allie. Do something.
I was being eaten alive.
I am a river. Magic cannot touch me. Magic cannot change me.
Burning alive.
Where the hell is the off switch when I need one?
Fuck this.
If I couldn’t let go of magic, then I’d hold on to it with both hands and shove it down their throats.
I called magic up into me, more, all the magic that flowed beneath the city, all the magic flowing through the network of lead and glass lines, all the magic stored in deep cisterns. I spoke a word, ready to rain all bloody hell and destruction down upon them.
Something hit the back of my head. Hard.
Even though I hurt everywhere, that hurt more.
My vision went dark, and the ringing in my ears followed a rushing throb of blood. I think I landed on my knees.
And everything went black.
Chapter Thirteen
My dead dad stood above me. He was less transparent than the last time I’d seen him. I saw through him enough to make out the corner of the building and white wooden cross where his chest should be. He still, however, looked annoyed with me.
“Always set a Disbursement,” he said, so close that it sounded as if his voice were in my head. “Every time you use magic. Every single time. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
I opened my mouth to tell him to bite me. He was dead. Dead. And that meant I no longer had to lie here and listen to his lectures.
He might be dead, but he was also fast. Fast like the watercolor people. Before I so much as inhaled, he bent over me and stuck his hand on my heart.
Not on my coat.
Not on my skin.
He stuck his hand into me. Deep. And touched my heart.
Magic slipped up his fingers. He squeezed my heart and I arched my back in pain.
Magic poured out of me. He pumped my heart again and pushed magic out through my veins like bad water coming out of a swimmer’s lungs. A strange wintergreen warmth and the taste of leather at the back of my throat filled me.
I blinked. And my dad was gone.
In his place, Paul Stotts bent over me. Sirens screamed in the distance. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I said, baffled. I was lying on my back, on the ground. Stotts looked worried. That made two of us.
I sat, using my elbows for leverage, and then pushed Stotts’ hands and protests away and looked around me.
“Allie, you shouldn’t move. You should wait-”
“Right.” I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed myself up to my feet. I wobbled a little, but he rose with me. I was confused but also full of energy, like I’d just had a brisk walk around the block.
Except it looked like I’d fallen on the ground, roughly right beneath the spell I was Hounding. The white cross was still on the building. A crowd of people-real people-were gathering on doorsteps and under roof eves. The watercolor people were gone.
And so was my dad.
“Where’s the fire?” I asked Stotts.
“Ambulance,” he said. “When I called, they already had a unit on the way.”
I was still scanning the crowd, looking for my dad, looking for Trager’s men, hells, looking for anyone and anything.
A leggy figure detached from a patch of shadow behind a car and strolled into the glow of a dull yellow streetlight. As soon as he hit the light, he turned and walked backward. He held up his cell phone toward me briefly, pulling it to his forehead and then away in a salute. And then he was part of the shadows again.
Davy Silvers, the Hound.
So much for the mystery of who called 911.
The ambulance rounded the corner and slowed as it neared us. Its siren switched off midwail, and the lights rolled through white, yellow, red, making the whole wet neighborhood look like a greasy disco hell.
“Why an ambulance?” I asked Stotts. “I feel fine.”
He gave me the strangest look.
“What?” I said.
“Allie,” he said, holding on to one of my arms like he was betting I was about to run or, you know, throw myself into traffic or do some other kind of curse-worthy thing. “Your skin was smoking.”
Oh. Wow. Weird.
I met his eyes, gave him my most convincing look. “I feel much better now. I can tell you who cast that spell.”
A man and a women hopped out of the ambulance and strode over to us.
“Did you call?” the woman, about my age but half a foot shorter, asked.
Stotts nodded. “She was out cold. Hounding magic. Says she feels fine now.” The tone of his voice said he obviously didn’t believe me.
That was the last time I let him talk for me.
I took a deep breath, surprised when my heart hitched with a twang of pain. Maybe I wasn’t all right. But I was right enough that I wanted to get home, get clean, and sleep off the touch of the watercolor people, the touch of my dead dad, and most especially the fact that I was about to rat out my friend to the police.
All I had to do was convince the nice emergency medical technicians that I didn’t need their services and was good to go. I’d be home within the hour.
Influence would be so easy. And so wrong.
“It was a pretty heavy spell I was Hounding. I got light-headed,” I told them. “But I feel fine now.”
The EMTs were very nice and helped me over to the back of the ambulance, where I sat down and let them check my vitals.
They asked some questions, took down all my information, recorded the results of blood pressure, and flashed lights in my eyes.
Everything checked out within normal ranges.
I threw Stotts, who had been waiting nearby, a told-you-so look, and he grunted.
Actually, I was surprised. I felt okay. Not great. I had a headache that could pound a mountain to sand, and the raw spots on my body-spots I did not point out to the EMTs, and spots that were not on my face or arms and therefore not seen by the EMTs-hurt like hell.
Sunburned and bruised down to the bone, even my heart felt sore. Kind of like someone had squeezed it.
Ev
erywhere else, I was just stiff. Magic had taken my name and kicked my ass.
But I had survived it. Was still surviving it. And I had questions.
Why the hells had my dad showed up? What had he done, touching, squeezing my heart? And what did Pike think he was doing, throwing around blood magic, which he hated?
The EMTs and Stotts talked while I rested there on the back bumper of the ambulance, thinking. At every soft sound, at every shifting shadow, I felt my breath quicken, my heart hurt. I strained to hear if the watercolor people were out there. Coming to get me. Coming to slide their fingers beneath my skin, to tear the flesh from my bones, to suck the magic from my blood.
To leave me empty, broken. Dead.
I heard nothing but the rain drumming like impatient claws against the ambulance roof. And even though I had a police officer armed with a gun and magic standing just a few yards from me, I was afraid.
Move over, bogeyman. There was a new hell in town.
Stotts strolled over. “They say you can go. How about I drive you home?”
Home sounded good. No, home sounded great. And once I hit my sheets, I wasn’t coming back up for hours.
Maybe days.
“I’d like to give my statement so I can get some sleep.”
We strolled over to the car, and Stotts opened the door for me. He probably didn’t think I had enough strength to do it. And even though I’d never tell him, he probably thought right.
Stotts got in after me, turned on the car and heater, and eased out into the flow of traffic.
“What did you see back there?” he asked.
“Can’t we wait until we get to the station?”
He dug in his pocket and held up a tape recorder. “How about I record it while I drive you home?”
And I swear, that was the nicest thing I’d heard all night.
“Do you treat all your Hounds this well?”
He looked over at me. Looked away. “It doesn’t always work out that way.”
Right. The curse.
He turned on the recorder and spoke his name, my name, the case number, and some other things I only gave half an ear to. That burst of energy I’d had was wearing off. I was tired. Damn tired. I felt like I’d run a marathon. Through a tar pit.