by Devon Monk
“I’m taking a break for the next month or so. Give me time to hit the gym. How’s the farm?”
“Oh, that’s part of why I’m in town. My big news. I’ve had an offer to sell.”
I made a little wounded sound. “No. You aren’t going to consider it, are you?”
Her smile faded, and she studied my face. “Well, I’m thinking about it, yes. I love the place, but the farm really was John’s lifework. Since we don’t have children to hand it down to, and it’s a lot for me to manage on my own, I keep wondering if I’m just holding on to it for myself or for John.”
“But what about Cody?” Okay, I was really saying, what about me? Her farm was more a home to me than the condo where I’d been raised. It felt like she was selling off a part of my past, cutting off a root that held me strong to this world.
“He’ll stay with me. He’s making great progress with his skills. I think he might be able to hold down a job, and maybe one day live on his own, with some assistance. He has an amazing touch with plants—and can nurse almost any living thing back to health. And you won’t believe the art he’s been doing. I was knitting one night, and he wanted something to do, so I pulled out my old watercolor set. He’s . . . really talented.”
Cody looked away from the window he’d been staring out and smiled. “I like paint.” He made a gesture in the air, half glyph, half mimicking a paintbrush, and I found myself wondering what that stroke would look like against canvas. Or with magic.
“Where are you thinking about moving to?” Zay asked.
“Here. Saint Johns maybe, or one of the coastal towns off the grid. Cody would still be out of the reach of magic, and I’d be closer to you, Allie, and closer to . . . to living a life that suited me better.”
“You mean closer to Paul,” I said.
“Yep. Pretty much. Do you blame me?” She smiled, and I saw a spark in her eyes I hadn’t seen since she met John in high school. “And the next time you catch a ‘flu’ ”—she did the air-quote gesture—“I’ll be here to help instead of almost four hundred miles away.”
“You really want to take up city life?” It wasn’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. If she moved into the city, she’d be one more person I’d have to look after, I’d have to keep safe. The very reason to get Cody out of the city was because people like James Hoskil, people like other members of the Authority, wanted to use his talents for their own gain, no matter the consequences. He was amazing with magic, and I had a feeling even St. Johns wouldn’t be a safe place for him.
His ghost was currently in St. Johns with Mama, but if he, the real, living Cody, also stayed here, there would be no way he’d go beneath the notice of people wanting his ability with magic in their hands.
Dad shifted in my head, like a bag of sand pouring all its weight to one side of my brain. He was interested in Cody, interested in his ghost and him being here together, moving here.
Great. Anything that interested my dad usually made my life miserable.
“Maybe not city life,” Nola said.
The waitress showed up again, and we gave her our orders.
“But I need a change,” Nola continued. “I’m looking for a change. And since you’re my best friend”—she shrugged—“I thought you might like it if I was a little closer. Not that I’m going to take up all your time, but, you know, we could catch a movie once in a while, or go shopping.” She gave me an up and down. “You haven’t bought new clothes in the past year, have you?”
“Of course I have. Okay, no.”
“When was the last time you went to a movie?”
I took a drink of my Coke. “It’s been a while.”
She gave Zay a hard look, then glanced back at me. “You work all the time.”
“Not all the time,” Zay murmured.
She chuckled. “Fine, maybe not all the time, but a lot. You’d agree with me on that, right, Zayvion?”
He nodded. “She puts in some pretty long hours. Especially lately.”
“If I lived closer we could have some fun. We both deserve a little fun in our lives, don’t you think?”
“Sure, we deserve it,” I said, “but life doesn’t work like that.” Longing for days filled with shopping, movies, and time not working washed through me. Nola was right. I hadn’t taken time to have fun in forever.
But someone had tried to kill me today. My life didn’t have room in it for leisure. Not yet. Maybe not ever if I stayed Hounding and working for the Authority. And how would I explain my double life to her? It’d probably take her a day of living here before she started asking what I really did with my time, what I really paid the price of magic for. And those were the kinds of things she didn’t know, couldn’t know if she was going to stay safe from the secret magic users and battles going on in this city.
“What?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “What what?”
“What aren’t you telling me? What happened? Are you in trouble?”
You know, for someone who made her living reading body language, I was hell at hiding my true feelings from Nola.
“I just . . .” I glanced at Zay. He was leaning back, looking like he wasn’t casing the restaurant. No help there.
“Listen.” I leaned my arms across the table. “Things have been pretty hot around here—with the Hounds, and with magic, and with all the crap my dad was mixed up in with his business. From some of the jobs I’ve done, I can tell you things are only going to get worse for a little while. I don’t want you mixed up in it. I don’t want Cody mixed up in it.”
“Cody,” Cody said.
“And I don’t want you to get hurt. If you really want to leave the farm, that’s fine. I mean, I know I don’t have any say over what you do, but I’m going to miss the hell out of that place—I love it out there. But I totally understand letting go of things that are in your past and moving on.
“Just, please, wait a little while before moving here for good.”
She adjusted the alignment of her knife and fork on the table, and then put her napkin in her lap. “What difference will waiting make? There’s never a good time for change. And dangerous things are always going to be happening in the city—dangerous things happen everywhere. I don’t use magic. At all. So it’s not going to hurt me. And I promise I am smart enough to stay out of the way of trouble. I’ve lived on my own and run a business for years. I think I can handle a suburban neighborhood and a fenced yard.
“Besides, my boyfriend is a police officer. I’m sure he would let me know if I were moving somewhere he doesn’t think is safe. I’ll be fine. Safer than you.”
I took a drink of water and tried to dig up a smile. “I’m still going to worry about you.”
She laughed. “You’re ridiculous. Worry all you want. I’d rather gossip. So, what’s really been going on lately?”
The waitress brought our lunch. Between chowing down on the club sandwich and devouring fries, I filled her in on all the Hound stuff, and some of the Zay-and-me stuff, which Zay told her I got mostly wrong. So I made him give her his side of the story about me hiring him as a trainer and our sparring sessions and unspoken agreement to move in together.
It was nice. Normal. By the end of it, we had all had a good laugh, and I, for one, was stuffed. I finished off the last fry on my plate, dragging it through ketchup and steak sauce before popping it in my mouth.
“How long are you going to be in town?” I asked.
“A week or so. Paul and I have tickets to the Cirque du Soleil on Sunday.”
“Nice. Are you going too, Cody?”
He nodded. “And my monster.”
“Maybe,” Nola said. “I have to meet your monster first before we decide if he can go.” He seemed content with that and went back to folding his napkin into the shape of a bird.
A cell phone rang. That wasn’t my ring, or Zayvion’s.
“Sorry.” Nola reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone
. Well, well. Looked like love had gone a long way to bring my magical Luddite friend into the current century.
“Hello, this is Nola. Oh, hi, Paul.” Her face lit up like a million-watt bulb. Oh, yeah. She had it bad.
And I was happy for her. I really was. But I just wished she’d fallen for a nice uncursed police officer who didn’t work on magical crimes and instead worked in a nice nonmagical town giving out parking tickets and jaywalking citations.
I looked over at Zay. Okay, I suppose I’d fallen for him despite all the risk and danger involved in both of our lives. I guessed all I could do was try to keep Nola safe if things turned bad. I wondered if I could hire Davy or one of the other Hounds to keep an eye on her for me.
Zay shifted so that his foot pressed against mine. He was restless. It was time to leave. Time to let go of this little bit of normal. Time to get back to work. Time to save the world.
“Sure, love to,” Nola said. “Say in an hour? Perfect. Bye.” She hung up, her hair swinging forward to hide her face as she tucked the phone in her purse.
“That was Paul. He got the rest of the day off. We’re going to a movie. Would you like to see a movie?” she asked Cody.
“No monsters?”
“No monsters in the movie. Something fun, I promise.”
“Okay.”
“Allie, Zay? Do you have time for a movie?”
“I can’t,” I said. “Not today. But I am so glad I got a chance to see you.” I stood, and so did she. We hugged again.
“Think we can get together again? Maybe alone so you can tell me all the really juicy details about Zay?” she asked.
“Now, now, ladies.” Zay was still leaning back in the chair, probably to keep his ribs from hurting so much, but all it did was make him look like someone should drag him off to bed. “No talking behind a brother’s back.”
“Promise I’ll only share the good stuff.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” he said. “With me it’s all good.”
I laughed. “Well, we could start with the ego problem.”
“It’s not ego if it’s the truth.” Zay got on his feet without looking like it hurt, and we all left the restaurant.
“Did you drive?” I asked Nola.
“Yep. I’m parked right up the hill. See you soon.” We hugged one last time.
Cody was staring up at the sky. No, as he and Nola walked away, I realized he was looking up at the top of the buildings.
I saw a shadow move, the slide of a wing too big to belong to a bird. Stone?
Sweet hells. I thought I knew who Cody’s monster really was.
Chapter Four
“What time is it?” I asked as I buckled my seat belt.
Zay glanced at his watch. “About fifteen to three. We should get to the meeting on time.”
“Where is Victor’s place? In town?”
“Yes.”
“Does he live over one of the wells too?”
“Yes.”
“So let me get this straight: Maeve’s inn is over the Blood magic well. Victor lives over the Faith magic well?”
He nodded.
“But the Death magic well was under a crypt in a graveyard. No one’s living there to look after it.”
“Not in the graveyard. Nearby, though. Jingo Jingo used to be a groundskeeper.”
“Jingo looked after that well, not Liddy?”
“You don’t have to be a Voice of magic to be assigned to the wells. Victor’s the Voice of Faith magic, and Maeve’s the Voice of Blood magic, but Jingo was considered the best to keep an eye on the Death magic well since he lived right across the street from it and worked there. The Life well doesn’t even have a keeper.”
“Where is it?”
“Multnomah Falls.”
“Excuse me?”
“Multnomah Falls,” he said a little slower and clearer.
“There’s a well of magic under a six-hundred-foot waterfall?”
“It’s cute how you’re surprised about these things.”
I would have smacked him for that, but he was out of my good arm’s range. Note to self: smack him later.
“Who looks after that well?”
“Sedra would check on it. And Dane. I don’t know who Victor and Maeve have checking on it now.”
We were headed west, not east, Zay making good time in the pre-rush hour traffic.
“I think I know who Cody’s monster is,” I said.
“Mmm.”
“Stone.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“He made him.”
“Stone?”
“Yes. And the other statues out at the Gargoyle too. He was commissioned for them. Made a tidy sum that he gambled away.”
I just shook my head and changed the subject. “What do you think about Nola?”
“I like her.”
“Ha, ha. I mean about her moving here?”
“Makes sense for her and Stotts.”
“You aren’t worried?”
“Should I be?”
“She’s my friend. And she doesn’t even use the simplest spells to defend herself.”
“One,” he said, “she’s not a Hound or a magic user. Of course she wouldn’t use magic to defend herself. And two, that’s what we’re here for. To keep people like her safe.” He glanced over at me. “If she moves here, we’ll do everything we can to keep her out of the line of fire. We’re pretty good at it.”
I knew he was trying to comfort me, but I hadn’t stayed out of the line of fire. Of course, I had a bad habit of throwing myself into dangerous situations, and Nola wasn’t like that. She was careful and smart. Maybe that would be enough to keep her safe.
I watched the city roll past and made plans. I’d hire a Hound to keep an eye on her while she was in town. If she decided to move here, I’d take it from there.
Zay took the exit to the Japanese Gardens. The road wound up and up, ivy-covered hillsides and fir trees reaching out to give it a deeply forested, almost wild look. Then we were at the Rose Garden that shared the land with the Japanese Garden. I caught a glimpse of the postcard view of the city spilling out below the gardens with Mount Hood rising white and blue in the distance.
“Victor lives here?” I asked. “Where’s the well? Under the teahouse?”
Zay shook his head. “After all you’ve been through, the idea that the well is under a teahouse seems outrageous?”
“So it is?”
“Not exactly.”
Zay took a road that I didn’t notice until he cast a spell. The road twisted around the western edge of the grounds through dense forest and eventually led to what looked like a small parking garage. He cast another quick spell, and the garage door opened. He drove in, and the door and spell closed behind us.
It was not a small parking garage; it was a large underground parking facility that could hold maybe fifty vehicles. Zay turned off the engine.
“We’ll walk from here.”
We got out of the car and strolled across the well-lit space, which reminded me a lot of the parking garage under my dad’s condo.
“How far?” I asked.
“It’s a hoof.” We were at a door. “But not too far now. You up for this?”
“I’m good.”
He cast another spell, then pressed his right thumb onto a scanner pad. The door opened. Beyond it stretched a long hallway.
He wasn’t kidding it was a hoof. The hallway curved slightly but for the most part seemed pretty direct. We walked a block or three before reaching the closed door at the other end.
Same thing here—spell, and this time left thumb on the scanner, opened the door. More hallway with a large glass-and-lead double door worked in an Asian motif in front of us, the hall running to the right and left before disappearing at corners.
Zay walked to that door and opened it the old-fashioned way.
“What, no more secret spy stuff?”
He pus
hed the door open and held it there for me to walk through. “If anyone gets this far, an identification pad isn’t going to stop them.”
The space was beautiful. Large enough it could probably seat a hundred people or so, and yet didn’t feel open or empty at all. The room seemed to be carved out of one enormous piece of mahogany and followed the Asian theme, with screens, plants, and the sound of falling water filling the air. The walls were burnished soft red-black that reminded me of good, strong tea and were slightly curved to take the edges off the room. It felt like the room sprang up organically from the roots of the trees that covered the hill above us.
The furniture leaned toward earthy wood and creams, with just enough accents of sapphire, red, and gold to bring to mind the sky and sun.
Tasteful and rich without being overt about it. It reminded me of Zayvion’s apartment, but on a much grander and more luxurious scale.
Victor stepped into the room, carrying what looked like a nice, nonreleased piece of tech that was mostly screen but folded down to the size of his palm when he snapped it shut.
Next to him walked Maeve.
“Glad you are both here safely,” he said, wasting no time. “Sit. There are drinks.” He motioned toward one of the tables by a set of couches and chairs. “We’ll need to get to this in short order.”
“Have the others made it in?” Zayvion strolled toward the drinks, which looked to be water, ice tea, a pot of what might be hot tea water, and a carafe that might hold coffee. What I knew for sure was that none of it smelled alcoholic.
“Not yet,” Maeve said. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore and alive,” Zay said. He poured a cup of coffee and plucked up an ice tea, then walked over to me. “A little vengeful.” He gave me the coffee and sat on the couch, letting out an exhale when he settled into the plush leather.
Maeve took a seat in a chair, her cane resting on the arm, and sighed. “Aren’t we all?”
Victor went back to fiddling with that little tech device before choosing a chair to sit in. He pressed a button, and the wall behind the other couch went softly opaque. Then a satellite map of the Portland area that I swear looked like real time spread across the screen.