Magic on the Line (32 page)

Leander and Isabelle had done more than sacrifice people over the Life well. They’d done something right at the end of our battle with them—thrown some kind of spell at the well. I’d seen it; I just didn’t know what it had meant at the time.

“They poisoned it,” I said.

Shame was trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands. “Who poisoned what?”

“Leander and Isabelle,” I said. “When we were fighting them. At the end.” I tried to dredge up the memory. I had been pulled out of my body and was in a world of pain. Maybe I hadn’t seen it right. “Did anyone else see them cast magic at the well before they disappeared?”

Victor and Maeve and Hayden all looked at Zay, Shame, and me. The three of us were the only ones who had been there.

“I wasn’t conscious of anything but pain,” Shame said. “Z?”

Zayvion’s gaze held mine. His eyes were gold, hot, with fractured lines of black. He ached from head to foot, but didn’t let it show on the outside. And he was worried for me. Maybe even frightened of me. He didn’t let that show either. But he didn’t have to.

“I saw them throw a spell. I don’t know if it was at the well. Allie—”

“It’s something to start with,” I said, cutting him off. “Let’s get the hell out of here before someone comes to investigate the breach.” I strode off toward the tunnel, Stone beside me.

After an extended pause, I heard footsteps follow.

What’s the fastest way to the surface?
I asked Dad.

Stairs at the left of this tunnel. Elevator if you’d rather.

I nodded, even though Dad couldn’t see me nod. I felt like I was strangely out of body and at the same time rooted in deep. After what I’d done today, being afraid of an elevator seemed really trivial.

The elevator was right where he said it would be. I keyed in the combination Dad told me, and the heavy steel doors slid open. I stepped in, distantly noting that it was a small elevator and the seven of us were going to have a tight squeeze, especially with Stone.

Everyone stepped in. No one said anything. The scent of pain and rotted magic was thick in the tight space. I tried not to care about any of it.

Shame hit the button, and I watched the door close.

Chapter Twenty

T
he elevator opened in a parking garage that must have been near a restaurant. I smelled the thick beef broth of onion soup.

We all filed out, looking like refugees of a war zone.

I was the last to leave the elevator. Stone was waiting for me. “You, go home. Go find Cody. Go fade into bricks,” I said.

He cooed at me, ears pricked up. He sounded worried. Stupid gargoyle.

“Hide.”

That, he seemed to understand. He pushed his head against my thigh, hard enough I almost lost my balance, then trotted off, slipping between cars like a concrete shadow.

“Allie,” Zay said.

“We’ll need to take a look at magic in the city,” I said, purposely walking away from his reach. “We might need more weapons.”

“Weapons?” Victor asked. “Why?”

“I killed Bartholomew.”

No one said anything. The silence settled between us, heavy, thick. I waited for their judgment. Not that it would change anything I’d done.

“Well, that’s the best damn news I’ve had all day,” Shame announced. “Gonna tell us the why and the how of it? Spare no detail.”

“He told me he wanted to destroy the Authority. He told me he broke open the cisterns so that the tainted magic could kill people, so that the technology would be deemed unsafe and magic would be restricted. He said that’s what he intended all along. To become head of the Authority here in Portland, to destroy my father’s company and technology by any means possible, and to secure a position of power.”

“Do you have proof of that?” Victor asked quietly.

“No.”

All I had was a gun, a lead box, and a death sentence on my head. “His men should have discovered the body by now. I’m assuming they’ll be sending people out to hunt us. Hunt me.”

“Did anyone see you?” Zayvion asked.

I nodded. “It might be in each of your best interests not to be anywhere near me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Victor said. “We have all broken with the Authority. We are all fugitives. We do this together.”

“Do what, exactly?” Hayden asked.

“Cleanse magic,” I said, “and make it safe for the common user. Kill the Veiled so they aren’t spreading the poison.”

Hayden studied me a minute. Then he nodded. “All things I’d stand behind. But let me offer another option: leave this city while we still can.”

“Won’t matter where we go,” I said. “They’ll find us. And there isn’t any other person in the world trying to fix this.”

“Six of us against at least a couple thousand?” Shame said. “Sounds like fun.” Then he spun and looked behind him. At the man walking our way.

“Seven of us,” Terric said. He pointed to a van. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but every member of the Authority is out looking for you.”

“Including you?” I asked.

“Yes. But I’m on your side.” He walked closer, and stopped. I could see Shame’s shoulders relax. I could see the energy from Terric pouring clean and strong into Shame. Terric being close to him gave him strength. Even the crystal in his chest seemed to stop burning as hot.

“I have an unmarked van,” Terric said.

I nodded. We couldn’t jog this city for the rest of the night. Especially not Maeve, she was already leaning heavily on Hayden’s arm just to stay standing.

“That works,” I said. I started off toward the van and everyone fell into step. Terric walked next to Shame, and I noticed he put his hand on Shame’s shoulder—a buddy-buddy kind of touch. Shame did not shrug him away.

Zay walked beside me, very careful not to touch me, just looking straight ahead. I suddenly craved his touch. Wanted his arms around me, wanted him to tell me everything was going to be okay.

But those words would just be pretty lies. And I had too much ugly reality to deal with right now.

“Anyone have a stash of weapons we can raid?” I asked.

“I might have a few things tucked away,” Shame said.

Why was I not surprised?

“Somewhere the Authority won’t look?” I asked.

“Probably,” he said. “But I’ve been thinking. That gun of yours is more than decent, and it’s untraceable.”

He didn’t say any more. Didn’t have to. I knew right where he was going with this. Eli Collins. He had tech and a ready hatred of the Authority. He might be someone we wanted on our side.

“Terric, do they know you’ve defected?” I asked.

“I didn’t see any reason to inform anyone,” he said. “Besides, things are in a bit of an . . . upheaval.”

I supposed they were. I wondered who would pull rank and take over the Authority. Jingo Jingo maybe?

“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.

He stepped up and gave it to me, then opened the van for us. Hayden took the front seat. I waited as everyone else got settled in the back.

Zay waited too.

I dialed Bea’s number.

“Bea Lufkin,” she answered.

“This is Allie. Just tell me where Collins took Davy.”

Hounds have sensitive ears. She would’ve known if it was someone faking my voice.

“He’s below the water tower on the east side. Good to hear from you. There’s a price on your head. Police.”

“How much?”

“Not enough any of us would turn you in for it.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. “Stay safe. I’ll contact you soon.”

“You’d better. Luck.” She hung up.

I deleted the call from Terric’s record.

Zayvion had been standing there listening to the conversation.

“Getting in?” I asked.

He wrapped his arms around me and I caught my breath at how hard he held me. I tucked my face into his shoulder and for a moment I was home, safe, whole again.

Then I pushed away. “We need to find weapons,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, gently tucking my hair behind my ear. “
We
do.
Together
,” he emphasized.

“For as long as we can be,” I said.

“Forever.” Flat. Uncompromising.

I held on to that promise, and gave it back to him. “Forever.”

And then I climbed into the van. Zayvion stepped in behind me. I took his hand, sliding my fingers between his, and did not let go.

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Read on for an exciting excerpt from Devon Monk’s next Allie Beckstrom novel,

MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY

Coming in April 2012 from Roc

I
had a headache. That headache’s name was Shamus Flynn.

“Allie, my love,” he said, earning a quick glare from Zayvion, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace, dragging a whetstone along the edge of his katana. “I’m telling you, you’re best off with a projectile weapon. You can’t use magic anymore, so you’ll have to keep a certain distance from the fight. Get in too close, and magic will eat you alive. Then it will eat you dead just for good measure.”

“I don’t want a gun,” I repeated.

“Come, now,” he coaxed. “Look at all the pretty options.”

Options
was an understatement. When Shame had told us he had a small stash of weapons that the Authority didn’t know about, his only omission was how damn many blades, cudgels, whips, sticks, pointed things, explosive devices, and guns he had squirreled away in the rickety three-story townhouse bolted into the cliff-side.

Seriously. I flinched every time he lit a cigarette.

“Shamus,” his mother, Maeve, said from where she was resting on the couch in what might have been a comfortable modern living room before Shame covered the walls, bookshelves, and entertainment center with both magical and nonmagical killing devices. “If she doesn’t want a gun, don’t trouble her so about it. What weapon would you rather carry, Allison?” she asked.

I glanced over at Maeve. She was drinking a cup of tea, her bare feet up on an overturned crate that said EXPLOSIVES on the side. She looked a little more rested after her short nap. Shame had had the sense to keep most of the house in working order. There were beds, a surprisingly nice kitchen, and a fairly well-stocked pantry.

I rubbed my palms down the sides of my jeans, wiping away sweat. Staring at the guns Shame had laid out on the coffee table made my skin crawl. I wasn’t sure I could touch a gun, much less use one.

I didn’t want to kill again. Not like that.

Bartholomew gave you little choice,
my dad, who was still dead and still possessing a corner of my brain, said quietly.
Whatever advantage we have now, it is because of you. Of what you did to him.

It was strange to hear my father talk about us—me, Zayvion, Shame, Terric, Hayden, Maeve, and Victor—like he was a part of our group, wanting the same things we wanted, fighting for the same things we were fighting for. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange anymore. He’d helped us, helped me, more in the past few days than in my entire life.

And now that we had mutinied from the Authority, gone against Authority law—and, oh, yeah; did I mention I shot the man who had assigned himself as head of Portland’s Authority?—we needed all the help we could get.

Even if that meant listening to the dead guy.

“I don’t know,” I said, answering Maeve’s question. “Maybe I’ll stick to a blade.”

“Don’t want to shoot a man, nice and clean,” Shame said, “but you’re more than happy to carve him up? You sure about that? Swords can be messy business.”

“It’s all messy business,” I said. “And the only thing I’m sure about is that I’m not going to decide this right now.”

“Better sooner than later,” Shame said.

“I’ll do it in the morning.”

Zay stopped running his thumb along the edge of his katana and sheathed it. He gave me a steady look. The same kind of measuring look that Victor, who I had thought was half asleep in the easy chair, and Terric, who was digging through the things on Shame’s shelf, were giving me.

“What?” I asked.

“It is morning,” Shame said. “Has been for hours now.”

I closed my eyes and tipped my face up to the ceiling. Hells, I was tired. I didn’t remember the last time I’d slept, didn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I smelled like old magic, death, and blood. And I was not going to pick up a gun, make another decision, or do another damn thing until I got clean and fed.

“Someone make breakfast, okay?” I looked back down from the ceiling. “I’m going to take a shower.”

I strode down the hall, past the open kitchen area, where Hayden was already rummaging through cupboards, past the two guest bedrooms, where everyone had slept—except me. I’d spent my downtime sweating off nightmares and staring at the darkness while listening to make sure whoever was on watch was still awake and watching.

The last door on the right was the guest bathroom. I walked in and flicked on the lights.

I didn’t know why Shamus had decided to buy a house. When we’d asked, he’d used his big innocent eyes on his mother and told her he hadn’t bought it; he’d won it in a poker game.

More likely, he’d stolen it.

Whoever had built the thing was either a genius or a madman. It really was bolted into the cliff, the roofline beneath the road above that snaked the hill in hairpin curves; the hill was covered in sword fern and vine maple among the fir trees. If you weren’t trying really hard to look for it, you wouldn’t see the house at all. Not because of magic. No, nothing other than a perverse sense of architectural humor kept it hidden.

But for all that, it was decorated in a clean, modern style, with just enough nice touches to show that whoever had live here liked luxury and knew which luxuries mattered most.

And one of those luxuries was the shower. The thing took up half of the huge bathroom and had more sprays, mists, and other watery onslaughts than a November storm front. Dark marble and chrome hinted toward a man’s aesthetic but didn’t make the room feel cold.

I shucked out of every stitch I had on, hoped that Dad would do me the favor of not paying attention to me for the next twenty minutes or so, and turned on the shower.

The entire ceiling above the shower sprayed water like someone had nailed a rain cloud to the rafters. I stepped into that steady stream and closed my eyes, letting the water sluice away my pain.

But when I closed my eyes, all I saw were images of the Veiled—the ghosts of dead magic users—far too strong now, and growing stronger. The Veiled had always wandered the city—not that most people believed in them.

It didn’t used to be a problem to share the city with dead magic users. But something had gone wrong with the Veiled. Worse, something had gone wrong with magic itself. Somehow, magic had been poisoned. The Veiled were carriers of that poison, biting, possessing, and killing people.

People such as my friend, Davy Silvers, who was infected by the Veiled; people such as Anthony Bell, who was dead.

The news outlets reported it as a fast-spreading virus. Nothing magical. But we knew different. And the one person who had been in a position to stop the spread of sickness and death was Bartholomew Wray.

He hadn’t wanted to stop it. He’d wanted the disaster to reach massive proportions. That way the technology my father had invented to make magic accessible for the common magic user would be seen as unsafe. Deadly. Once it was destroyed, outlawed, magic would once again be under the singular control of the Authority.

Not that his hatred of my dad had helped much. He had planned to destroy more than just my dad’s technology. He’d wanted to ruin his business, his wife, and me.

And he hadn’t cared how many deaths it took for him to get his way. All of Portland could have fallen, and he wouldn’t have cared.

So I’d shot him.

My thoughts skittered away from that—away from his death—and the back of my throat tasted sour. I’d stared him straight in the eyes and pulled the trigger.

I wasn’t a killer.

No, that was a lie now.

I’d changed. I had killed. More than once. I didn’t know what I was anymore.

Alive,
Dad whispered from the back of my mind. Then,
Strong
.

Nothing like a dead man talking in my head while I was taking a shower to remind me that I had plenty of current problems that needed taking care of. One thing was for sure: I didn’t want to talk morality with my father, of all people. I ignored him and got busy with the shampoo and soap and used a scrubby cloth over every inch of my skin.

Dad gave me the decency of privacy, or at least the sense of it, since he didn’t say anything more, and pulled far enough away in my mind that I couldn’t feel him.

Problems. I had them. It was time to make a list:

One, I didn’t know what was going to happen to the Authority now that Bartholomew was dead. Two, we had to find a way to cleanse magic, stop the Veiled, and get a cure to end the epidemic. Maybe that was really two through four. So five, I needed to find a way to cure Davy. And six, we were running out of options and allies.

In short, we were screwed.

I reached out to turn off the shower. Before my hands touched the handle, a flash of light filled the room, bringing with it the stink of hot copper and concrete. I squinted against the glare and pressed my back against the wall, tracing Block before I remembered I couldn’t use magic without barfing.

Shit.

I shook the spell free, breaking it, then pushed off the wall and opened the shower door.

The flash of light was now a concentrated bolt of magic frozen midstrike at a ragged angle from the ceiling to the floor.

In the three seconds it took for that to register, I knew what the spell was.

Gate.

Something, or someone, was about to join me in the bathroom.

And here I was, all naked.

Go, me.

The lightning bolt burned black, then split in half, opening wide enough that I could see the arc of a distant blue sky against the ceiling lamps.

A man stepped through the Gate.

Tall, rugged, world worn, Roman Grimshaw, the ex-con, ex–Guardian of the gates, strode into the room. Ashes of the already-dying spell, the closing Gate, clung to his long leather jacket as the bolt of lightning faded to an afterimage in the steamy room.

For a moment there was no sound other than our breathing and water raining against tiles.

Roman held very still, his hands away from his body, no magic other than the ashes from the Gate on him. His frown slowly shifted to a look of surprise as he focused on the slightly damp, exceedingly naked me standing in front of him with my hands on my hips.

“You going to hand me a towel or what?” I asked.

That seemed to snap him out of his shock. He quickly turned and picked up the towel folded on the edge of the sink.

The bathroom door burst open.

Hey, just what I needed. More people in the bathroom with me and my birthday suit.

Roman spun to face Zayvion, who had a fistful of wicked Impact spell that snapped like a ball of red fire, and his blood dagger in the other hand already halfway through a Cleave spell.

“Peace,” Roman said, with the slightest hint of his Scottish accent. He threw his hands out to the side, dropping my towel on the floor.

Neat.

Zay stopped drawing the Cleave and flicked a gaze at me. I gave him what I hoped to be a bored look and he went back to glaring at the ex–Guardian of the gates. He did not, I noted, drop the Impact spell.

While they were sizing up each other and the situation, all the warm copper-tasting steam was cooling on my bare skin. I shivered and turned off the water. Then I bent and got my own damn towel, shaking it once before wrapping it tightly around me.

No one said anything. No one moved.

Until Shame strode up to the door, a mug of coffee in his hand. “For Christ’s sake, Grimshaw, use the frickin’ front door. Is it some kind of requirement that all Guardians of the gates have to do that creepy stalker thing?”

“What are you doing here?” Zayvion asked.

“I have been hunting Leander and Isabelle,” Roman said.

Straight to the point. I liked a man who didn’t preamble.

“And?” Zay asked.

“They are no longer in Portland.”

“Super interesting,” I interrupted. “Really, just. But I’d rather hear it clothed. Take it outside, gentlemen.”

“You’re naked?” Shame said, trying to get a better look around Zayvion and Roman.

Zayvion canceled the Impact spell and motioned Grimshaw out into the hall with his blood blade.

“She’s naked?” Shame asked again as Zayvion shoved his shoulder to make him turn around.

Zay closed the door so that only he could see into the room. “Are you all right?”

“Peachy. I don’t think he expected to show up in a bathroom. It’s hard to predict where gates will open, right?”

Zay paused. “For normal people. Roman can open a gate on the head of a pin.” He gave me a look and shut the door behind him.

Fantastic. So Roman had intended to show up in the bathroom, alone, with me. Or maybe he just wanted to show up in the bathroom. I wondered how he even knew there would be a room here. He’d been in jail for years before Shame had wheedled his way into homeowner-ship.

More questions that needed answers. And how he knew we’d be here was just the beginning of them.