Magic on the Line (21 page)

“You’re not a Hound.”

I got up and took my plate into the kitchen. “Yes, I am.”

“But you’re Daniel Beckstrom’s daughter. He’d never stand for that.”

“I don’t care what my dad stands for. I’m a Hound. Have been for years.”

“Stood for,” he corrected me.

“What?”

“Your father. What he stood for, not what he stands for.”

Oh, right. He didn’t know my dad was still alive-ish. In my head. “Whatever. You get the things you needed for Davy?”

“I think so. Have you heard about the flu that’s going around?”

“It’s on the news,” I said.

“And it is clogging up the medical community, slowing down prescriptions, and generally being a complete annoyance. Also, I don’t think it’s a flu.”

“Really?” I asked. “How many patients have you examined to make that diagnosis, Doctor?”

He pointed the chopsticks at me. “None. But I don’t have to. Do I, Shamus?”

“Don’t drag me into your neurosis,” Shame said. “I have enough of my own.”

Collins grinned, then dug in the carton for a piece of meat. “I think it’s a cover-up.”

That got Shame’s attention.

“You working for Bartholomew?” Shame asked.

“No, but I’ve seen the Authority from the outside for more years than I’ve seen it from the inside. This flu epidemic looks like someone’s trying very hard to cover their tracks.”

“How about we follow up on that with a Truth spell?” Shame said.

Collins laughed. “How about we don’t?”

Shame stood up. “Not joking around. Now.”

Collins raised his eyebrows and gave Shame a long look. Then he sucked in a short breath and went back to eating. “That’s not going to work for me, Flynn. I don’t want a Blood spell between us. I’ve sworn off that kind of magic. And I refuse to use it again.”

“You don’t have to use it,” Shame said, advancing on him. “I will.”

Collins sighed and put his food down, then brushed his hands together. “No Truth spells. Just look into my eyes, Flynn. I am not working for Bartholomew. I do not like Bartholomew. I wouldn’t care if he jumped off a cliff, or died in a back alley somewhere. We do not have good history. I took my case to him, back in the day. He didn’t lift a finger to help me.”

Shame tipped his head a little. “Rather have a Truth spell.”

“Not going to happen. And in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. I’m here to help Allison with her friend and to collect a paycheck. Once Mr. Silvers is on his feet again, I will bother you no longer.”

“I can only hope.”

“And that hope will not be in vain.” He went back to eating, but then walked over to look down at Davy. “Allison, are you still seeing magic?”

“Yes.”

“Would you come here and tell me what you see?”

Might as well. I walked over, gave him the rundown. The spells he’d cast on him, the branching black tendrils digging into him, and the various streams and lines and webs of magic around the room.

He nodded and threw the empty carton into the wastebasket. “I’m going to see how accurate your vision is.” He calmed his mind fast, like a rock falling to the bottom of a pool, set a Disbursement with a flick of his wrist that looked like it was going to add to a headache he’d been nursing for several days, then traced the glyph for Sight.

Collins cast in a sort of blocky, learned-by-rote manner, the wires of magic around his wrists, thumbs, and throat restricting his movement, which surprised me. It was like he’d been trying to learn how to hold a pencil all his life, but his handwriting was still so bad no one but he could read it. I wasn’t sure magic would follow the lines he’d drawn. I wasn’t even sure I could follow what he’d drawn.

But when he called on magic it was like listening to someone with an unexpected, amazing voice sing. He must have been very, very good back before he’d been Closed. Magic pulled easy and strong out of the networks that surrounded the building and snaked out like a liquid ribbon at about waist height, to fill the glyph he held and to catch it on white fire with stark black edges.

It smelled weird. Hot and rotten. I covered my nose.

“Problem?” Collins asked as he brought his hand, and the spell along with it, up to his eyes so he could peer through it. The smell did not seem to affect him.

I breathed through my mouth. That didn’t help. I could taste the stink. “Smells.”

“Shame, do you agree?”

Shame sniffed the air. “What does it smell like?” he asked.

“Rotten meat. Dead people. Death.”

“Not to me,” Shame said.

Collins was done looking around the room through Sight. “I think you gave me a clear and fair assessment of the magic in the room.” He unpinched his fingers, releasing the spell and breaking its lines.

I made a strangled sound and walked over to the window, opening it and sticking my head out far enough to breathe the clean air. Only it wasn’t clean. I could smell the stink out here too, the faint whiff of sweetly decaying meat.

The air pressure changed as someone walked in through the other door.

“What’s up?” Theresa asked.

I was glad she was here. I pulled my head back in and turned around.

Theresa looked like she always looked. Tough, no nonsense, thick black hair and strong features. She was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and of course jogging shoes. Theresa often Hounded for Nike, and dealt with the pain of casting magic by being a chronic fitness freak.

“Do you smell anything?” I asked.

“I smell a lot of things,” she said with a completely straight face.

“Does magic smell weird to you? Right now, here, I mean.”

She frowned and inhaled. “I hadn’t noticed. A particular spell?”

“Collins just cast Sight. What does that smell like to you?”

She sniffed, then drew a glyph for Smell that hung in the air like a collection of raindrops. Nothing intricate like I’d use while Hounding a crime scene, but something plenty sensitive enough to catch what I had smelled.

“It’s a little . . . I don’t know,” she said. “Sour?”

“Like rotting meat?” I suggested.

She inhaled, opened her mouth this time to get more of the scent on her palate, the raindrops glistening as they touched her lips. “I could go with rotten.”

“But you only smell a hint of it?”

She nodded, and waved her hand to break the spell. The raindrops turned into mist that drifted lazily upward. “Why? It’s not like magic doesn’t stink up the place sometimes.”

That was true. It just seemed like I was overly sensitive, or overly aware of it lately. “I just wanted a second opinion. That’s all.”

She nodded. “So I’ll take watch with Mr. Collins. How’s the kid doing?”

“He’s doing well, or at least he’s not losing any ground,” Collins said. “Tomorrow should tell me more.”

“What happens tomorrow?” I asked.

“I find out if the measures I’ve been taking are adequate. And I make some hard choices for how to adjust what I’m doing.”

“No hard choices without me here,” I said.

“If you’re here,” he agreed.

“No. Listen to me. No hard choices on Davy’s care unless I sign off on them.”

“I don’t believe we agreed to that.”

“Just now,” I said with a smile. “We agreed to it just now. And Theresa heard us and will tell the other Hounds; she stood as witness to us sealing the deal.”

He opened his mouth, then smiled back at me. “I do enjoy your interpretation of how one negotiates. So you just tell me how it’s going to be with no room for any sort of compromise?”

“No compromise when it comes to him. Got that?”

“I understand what you’re saying. But if there is something I can do to treat him and you are not here, nor are you available for comment or consultation, I will not guarantee that I will not take action.”

“Was that your long about way of telling me no?”

“Yes.”

I thought about it for a minute. It’d be easy to force him into my position, I was the one who was signing his paycheck. But he was right. It would be stupid for me to demand he wait to try to find me if it was a matter of life or death.

“If his life or recovery is drastically endangered, then yes, you can treat him without checking in with me,” I said.

“Glad you see it my way.”

“Oh, I still see it my way,” I said as I walked across the room to get my coat. “Your way just fits in enough with what I want that I don’t see a reason to argue with you. I’ll be back in the morning.” I walked out of the room, and Shame followed.

“Where am I taking you?” Shame asked.

“Zay’s apartment.”

Chapter Twelve

W
hile Shame drove, I tried calling Zayvion. His phone went immediately to voice mail, which meant he had probably turned it off. Not helpful.

“He won’t answer.” I stuffed my phone back in my pocket.

“He gets like that.”

“Like what?”

“Closed off. Moody. Angry.”

“You think he’s angry?” I said. “He was just doing his job, right? Isn’t that what you were trying to convince me of back there? This is nothing personal, all in the name of duty?”

Shame drove for a bit, uncharacteristically quiet. “You know how everyone kept saying there was a war coming? That the Authority was falling apart, turning against itself, people taking sides?” He paused. “All the fights we’ve been in, all the hell we’ve been through, all the people we’ve lost—we’ve done it all to keep the Authority together. To uphold the rules, the things the Authority has always stood and fought for.

“But I don’t know how much longer I’ll stand on the side of an organization that tears down the people who were standing in the line of fire, and standing up for those ideals. I might not be able to play by their rules anymore.”

“You sure you want to tell me this, Shame?” I asked. “They could drag it out of me with a Truth spell.”

“What’s a little treason between friends?” he said with a fast smile.

“Don’t do it, Shame, whatever you have planned,” I said. “I don’t want you to be Closed too.”

He shrugged. “What I do or don’t isn’t yours to worry about. And it’s not even the point I was making. I was telling you this so you’d know that’s the way I look at what’s going on right now. We’ve been screwed. By our own people. And there is no way to correct that under Bartholomew’s rules.

“But,” Shame continued, “Zayvion isn’t like that. He would never think the things I’m thinking and would certainly never act out on it. He won’t break away from the Authority and its rules. He’s a good soldier. I’m a good fuckup.”

“Maybe you underestimate the both of you,” I said.

“I think I have a pretty clean bead on this. You might want to decide what, exactly, you are,” he said. “Because if you’re going to stay in the Authority, in Bartholomew’s Authority, you’d better be a lot more soldier and lot less so what.”

“Maybe I’ll just be me,” I said.

“Don’t know if Bartholomew has room in his Authority for someone like you, Allie.”

We were at Zay’s place. It had been a while since I’d been here—I liked my place and he seemed more than willing to hang out with me there.

“Want me to wait?” Shame asked.

“Just until he lets me in, okay?”

He nodded and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

I pushed the door open, then leaned back into the car. “I love him, Shame,” I said. “But I have spent my life not doing what I was ordered to do unless I thought it was the right thing.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s one of the things I like about you, love. Go on, now. Go get your man.”

I shut the door and walked quickly to the front steps of the building. It was dark now, the streetlights straight electric yellow, the closest spells attached to power boxes to deter criminals, and a very nice Flourish planted like a row of softly glowing red mushrooms in the shrubbery along the walkway to the door.

The smell of rotten meat was still on the air, but not as strong as when Collins had cast it. I resisted the urge to get down and sniff at the mushrooms and see if the very faint magic that supplied that spell also stank of the dead.

I climbed the few steps to the door and rang the bell. I could hear the rumble of Shame’s car engine, and knew he was still waiting. But the way the building was situated off the road, he couldn’t see me. I rang the bell again.

Just as I reached to hit the buzzer one last time, Zayvion answered.

“Yes?”

“It’s Allie,” I said. The silence went on so long, I almost pressed the buzzer to make sure we were still connected. Then the door made that sound that meant it was unlocked, and I opened it.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Shame’s number.

“Did he let you in?” he asked.

“Yes. Bye, Shame. See you tomorrow.”

“Be careful, all right?” And then he hung up.

That was weird. He’d never told me to be careful around Zayvion before.

I climbed the stairwell—all concrete but well lit and so quiet I would have been able to hear a fly sneeze. At the top of the stairs, I looked through the window in the door, which showed the hallway beyond. No one there, lots of light, no problems.

Well, one problem. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Zay. I felt angry and betrayed that he’d Closed my friends—his friends. I’d always known his vows to do his duty and uphold whatever the Authority told him was right took precedence in his actions, but this?

This was criminal.

It changed how I looked at him. Made me wonder what else he might do just because the Authority told him to do it.

I headed down the hall to Zayvion’s door, then knocked.

Again the long wait. I wondered if maybe he was in trouble. Maybe Bartholomew’s men were in there with him, holding him captive or making him Close people or something.

Maybe he’d been Closed.

Hells.

I thought about pulling on magic, but passing out into someone’s arms didn’t really count as a surprise attack.

I so needed to get a nonmagical weapon.

The footsteps approaching from the other side of the door sounded like Zayvion’s pace. He paused, threw the locks, and then broke the protective Ward on the door.

I held my breath, but not in time. The smell of rotten meat hit me.

What was it with magic and me lately?

The door opened.

Zay wasn’t wearing a shirt. He had on his jeans, no shoes. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled faintly of alcohol, scotch, I’d guess. Just like when I looked at him with Sight, he appeared taller. The silver glyphs of spells wrapped around his body and burned with black flame.

It was a weird, sort of double vision of him—I could see Zayvion as Zayvion, and I could see him as a tower of a man covered every inch in magic.

“What do you want, Allie?” he asked in a voice that sounded like it had been sanded down.

“For you to let me in.”

He hesitated. Finally stepped back so I could walk through the door.

There were no lights on in his house. The only light came from outside the window, where the city chipped at the night like faraway stars. I could smell the booze a little stronger in here.

“What do you need?” He hadn’t moved away from the door, though he’d shut it. Hadn’t locked it, but the Ward triggered automatically and sealed the door magically.

“I need to talk to you,” I said evenly. “Have you been sitting here in the dark all night?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Davy’s sick,” I said.

Still nothing.

“Zay ...” I took a step toward him. He didn’t move. I stopped before touching him. What could I say? How could I tell him how angry I was? How could I tell him I needed him to be the man I loved? The one who didn’t go around ripping out his friends’ minds.

“I know what you did,” I said. “I know that you Closed them. Maeve, Victor.”

“It is my job and my duty,” he said stiffly. “I have sworn. . . .” Here his voice faded.

“You know it’s not right,” I said.

We stood there, that truth between us.

“Doesn’t matter what I know,” he said. “I don’t have a say in if it’s right or not.”

“You could have tried—”

“I tried,” he said, cutting me off.

“You could have refused.”

“And what?” he asked, his voice growing louder, “let one of Bartholomew’s men cleaver through their brains? Just stand down and watch someone else do my job?”

“Would it have killed you?” I asked, a little more heated than before. “Couldn’t you have found a way to stop them? To stop Bartholomew?”

“He is my superior,” Zayvion said.

“So was Victor until you tore his brain apart!”

He lifted his head as if I’d just slapped him and glowered down at me. But his voice was ice cold.

“Victor was relieved of his position before I Closed him. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about that either.”

I took a couple of breaths to rein in my temper. Zayvion was obviously hurting from this, from what he had been ordered to do. And I was standing here angry at him, when I should be taking my frustration out on Bartholomew. “Victor would have wanted you to do . . . something,” I said, much softer, but still unable to let it go.

“No,” he said. “He wanted me to do my job. The job he trained me to do. That was what he was telling me at Chase’s wake. To follow orders. To follow Bartholomew. No matter what Bartholomew ordered me to do. And I did exactly that.”

His voice didn’t rise, no room beneath that ice for emotion to lift it or drag it down. He was a statue of silver and black fire. It reminded me too much of when I’d found him in death, standing right in front of me, close enough that I could touch him, but was still unable to free him from the chains that bound him.

“I know,” I admitted. I dragged my hand back through my hair, pulling it away from my face and then letting it go. I was frustrated. But I was fighting the wrong battle. Zayvion wasn’t the only one at fault in this. He wasn’t even the main person at fault. He may have been the weapon, but Bartholomew was the man who had told him to strike.

“Is that all?” he asked. Cold, shutting the conversation down. More than that. I couldn’t feel him, couldn’t hear his thoughts or feel his emotions even though we were standing near enough that I should have been able to. He had pulled so far back behind walls that I didn’t know if he was furious, or sad, or just tired of talking about it. Or maybe just tired of me.

“No,” I said. “That is not all.”

I took the remaining three steps toward him and pressed my body against his, wrapping one hand up around the heat of his bare neck, sliding the other around his bare waist to hold him hard against me.

I kissed him.

He did not return my kiss, not for a long, long moment. Then it was as if a glacier had sheared apart under the heat of the sun.

His emotions whipped through me like a hot summer wind, and I had to lock my knees to stay on my feet.

Allie,
he thought, asked, called. That one word filling me with his desire, filling me with his need.

I wanted him. Needed him. Needed to know he was still the same man I loved. Needed to know we were both still the same. That even this hadn’t destroyed what we were together.

Too full with my own desire, I poured into his mind, his soul. There were no walls between us. No hiding. No doubt. No different. We were Soul Complements. One. As we chose to be.

His mouth moved against mine, hard, hungry, his arms holding me so tightly I almost couldn’t breathe, but I wanted him to hold me even tighter. He pushed his hands under my coat, rubbing his palms up my back, then down the curve of my hips.

I knew what he wanted, could feel the hunger for it thrumming beneath my skin. And he knew what I wanted.

I savored the smoky whiskey of his mouth, savored his anger, his sorrow. Drank down the realness, the sameness of him. Heat and need trickled down my spine, licked between my legs and shockwaved upward.

I was not naked enough.

Neither was he.

He pushed my coat up, but that wasn’t enough, so his hands tugged at my jeans, undoing the button and pulling down the zipper with two quick twists.

He slid his hand into my pants and gently stroked me there.

I took a hard breath.

Yes.
My hands slid around his waist and unbuttoned his jeans.

There were too damn many layers of clothes between us.

I don’t know if that was his thought or mine.

“Wait,” I said, gasping for air. I took a step away from him, but he caught my wrist. His gaze was heavy-lidded, smoldering, as he pulled me back to him.

“Hold on, lover,” I said. “I need naked, more naked.”

He held my wrist, breathing hard, deciding, as I was trying to decide, if he, if we, could wait that long.

I lifted his fingers off my wrist but didn’t step back. We were so close together, I could feel the heat radiating off him. I shivered under his exhales against my skin, heard the litany of thoughts running through his mind, things he wanted to do to me, things he wanted me to do to him, and had to bite my lip to keep from moaning. I did a little careful gymnastics not to knock into him with my elbows as I shucked my coat and then my sweater.

I kicked off my shoes and wriggled my jeans down over my hips.

That did it.

Zayvion wrapped his hands around my rib cage and lifted me. I am not a small girl, but he made it feel like I weighed nothing. He shifted his grip to cup both hands under my butt, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, dragging his mouth up to mine so I could taste him again.

We kissed, hard, his tongue laving stroke after stroke of pleasure that slid deeper, hotter, feeding the deliciously heavy hunger blooming between my legs. Lightning shot through my body, every nerve on fire. So hot. So good. I drew a shuddering breath, wanting to pull that fire into every inch of me. I bit Zay’s lip, tugged, and he responded with a growl, a deep rumble of pleasure.

Love me,
he said, I said, we thought as one.

My hip hit the doorway as he walked into the bedroom.

My foot knocked something over on his dresser. Then we were on the bed, and I made it my one and only goal to get Zayvion Jones out of his pants.

He pinned me down, pulling my bra up and over my head, then dipped down to kiss my breasts, each one slowly, his tongue sliding heat across my hard nipples, and leaving a cool wash of mint behind.

I dragged my fingers up through the tight black curls of his hair and arched against his mouth, wanting more. Wanting now.

“More,” I breathed. His thought, my thought.

Yes.

I moaned.

Heat, pleasure, and pain wrapped me in a shock wave of sensations, of need and sorrow as his body joined with mine. Bodies followed souls, souls followed sensation, pleasure, love, lifting, pausing, only to lift again. No longer two people, no longer separate, no longer alone.