by Devon Monk
“What?” I asked.
“I feel like an explanation is in order.”
My willing must have worked. The waitress appeared with two plates on her arm and glasses in her hand. Sweet heaven, it was about time.
She set the burger in front of me, and the beer and water, then deposited a plate of what looked like chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn in front of Shamus.
The overpowering aroma of the food reached my nose, and my stomach cramped in hunger. Using magic made me hungry. And Shamus wasn’t kidding, I’d thrown a hell of a lot of magic around a few minutes ago. The nice thing? Whatever his mom had done when she brushed my forehead had totally wiped out my Disbursement headache.
“Go ahead.” I got both my hands around my burger and bit into it.
“I didn’t know Chase was going to be here tonight.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I took a swig of beer to wash down the burger, and tore into the fries.
“She and I . . . we were . . . we did date. Well, not date, but we had . . .”
“Sex,” Shamus offered helpfully. “You and Chase had hot, screaming sex. A lot,” he added, with a serious nod to me.
I stopped chewing. I didn’t know if I should tell him to shut up or just laugh. He was shameless.
“Shame,” Zayvion said in a voice that wasn’t even close to Zen.
“Sex everywhere, all the time,” he continued, with a wicked glint in his eyes. I noticed he had pushed his plate away and dusted off his hands, as if in preparation for a fight. “One time during training, I actually had to carry bags of ice around and lob them at the two of them to keep them from spontaneously fucking.”
Zayvion was up out of his chair so fast, the only thing I had time to do was duck. Zay towered over me, caught Shamus by the shirt, and had him in a headlock before he could squirm away.
“Tell Allie you apologize for your mouth and your manners,” Zayvion said.
Shamus made a horrible choking sound.
“Hey, hey,” I said, figuring I better break up this little testosterone hug before someone got hurt. Then I realized Shame wasn’t choking, he was howling with laughter.
“Tell her. Tell her you are incapable of telling the truth, because you are an immoral ass.” Zayvion calmly squeezed just a little harder.
“Can’t . . . breathe,” Shamus wheezed.
Zayvion squeezed one last time, then released him. “Remind me why I keep you around?” He glowered.
Shamus tugged on his shirt to straighten it, and brushed his hair back down over his eyes, covering the bruises, then raked it back to one side.
“My good looks, quick wit, and, best of all, my connections,” he said. “Need I say more?”
“No,” Zayvion said. “You need say less. Much, much less.”
They both settled into their seats again.
“Well, see, I may not have morals, but I do have a conscience.” Shamus pulled his plate back in place and took a bite of mashed potatoes. “And I know when to speak my mind. Not at all like you, Jones. Silent. Shifty. Temperamental. Sullen. Morbid.”
“How long have you two known each other?” I asked.
Zayvion shook his head. “Exactly one hour too long.”
Shamus made a rude noise. “You said that three hours ago.”
Zayvion lifted his beer and flashed me a quick smile before taking a drink. “Several years,” he said. “Long, painful years.”
“Grew up together,” Shamus added around a mouthful of chicken.
I took a drink of my beer. During the hubbub I’d managed to get through half my burger and made a serious dent in the pile of fries. The food did a decent job of clearing my head and settling my mood.
I was feeling a lot better. “Well, then, I’m sorry for you both.”
Shamus coughed and laughed, and Zayvion’s faint smile spread out into a grin. He looked good when he smiled. Looked like someone should be kissing him for it.
I guess some of my thoughts showed in my expression. Zayvion raised one eyebrow and pushed my knee with his knee, swiveling my stool toward him. I was now mostly facing him.
“How was class?” And even though he was relaxed, a hint of a smile still playing on his lips, he spoke a little more quietly, privately, and somehow that made it easy to hear him, only him, over all the other voices and people in the room.
He was concerned about me.
How sweet was that?
“I learned a lot. There’s um, still some question about my dad.”
He nodded. “She say anything about that?”
“She wants someone else to look into it. I think Jingo Jingo?”
Zay’s smile faded away.
“What? Is that bad?”
“No. No, not bad. He’s very good at what he does.”
“He’s a freak is what he is.” Shamus finished off his beer and tapped the counter for a refill.
“Shame,” Zayvion said.
“Sure, you go ahead and deny it. You know it’s true.”
“What does he do?” I asked.
“It’s not what he does.”
Shamus snorted, and Zayvion gave him a silencing look, then leaned in a little closer to me so he could lower his voice.
“Death magic. He is Liddy’s second, and deals hands-on with the dead. It makes sense Maeve wants him to see . . . what your father may have done.” He pulled back, his gaze searching my face for understanding.
And I was absolutely positive he didn’t find a single stitch of it.
“What the hell?” I asked. At his look, I lowered my voice and leaned closer to him. “Death magic? I’m not letting anyone use death magic on me. Besides, it’s illegal.”
“Just because the law doesn’t know how to use something doesn’t make it illegal.”
Wow. There was a concept I didn’t want to think about.
“Isn’t that the magic Frank used on me, on the kidnapped girls in the warehouse?” I couldn’t remember much of what happened there, but I knew my dad’s corpse had been there, that was where he had possessed me, and that was where the girls had been tied down and killed.
“He abused it, twisted it. Used more than just death magic. He used dark magic. Forbidden. Jingo Jingo is one of the Authority. Sworn to use magic in the ancient ways.”
“Frank wasn’t part of the Authority?”
“He was. A faction. Part of the splitting off, the breaking that has been going on. But he wasn’t even near the same level of ability or responsibility as Jingo Jingo.”
“Is that your comforting speech? Because I am not feeling the comfort,” I said.
Zay rested his palm, warm and heavy, on my thigh. “Jingo is the best person to deal with this. I’ll be there with you, if you want.”
I suddenly wanted that very much. “I’d like that.” I slipped my fingers between his.
Two glasses of beer descended slowly between us, held with the tips of fingers wrapped to the second knuckle in black fingerless gloves.
Shamus, standing next to us, held drinks in both outstretched hands. “More drinking, less flirting,” he said. “Or so help me God, I’ll throw ice at you.”
Zayvion gave Shamus a withering glare. “You just don’t know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “A toast.”
I took one of the beers, and Zayvion leaned back, let go of my hand, and took the other beer.
“To what?” Zay asked.
“To the only thing worth drinking to. Love.”
“That’s not what you said last week,” Zayvion said. “Last week you were toasting magnificent breasts, if I remember correctly.”
Shamus grinned. “Also lovely, but I’ve matured since then. To love.” He lifted his own glass and took a long drink.
Zay looked over at me. “To love,” he said quietly.
“To love,” I said. And joy, I also blushed like mad, my face washed with heat from that look in Zayvion’s eyes.
“You,” I said to Shamus
, to have an excuse to look away from the raw intensity of Zayvion’s gaze, “are a trouble maker.,
“Aren’t we all?”
“No,” Zayvion said. “Some of us are trouble enders.”
Shamus chuckled. “Like hell.”
And he toasted us again, drained his glass, then patted Zayvion on the shoulder. “My friend. Be well. I need a smoke.”
“That’s gonna kill you someday,” Zayvion said into the rim of his beer.
Shamus nodded. “I could only be so lucky.” Then to me: “Tomorrow, love. Ten o’clock. Don’t be late. The mum has the temper of a demon with a diaper rash.”
He lifted a hand in farewell and walked across the room, weaving his way between tables, until I couldn’t see him anymore.
Chapter Eight
I finished my burger and fries, but not my beer. Zayvion sat with me, pulling his Zen moves, patient, silent. I finally pushed my plate away. “Mind if I get a ride home?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” He stood and offered me his hand.
Like I said, old-fashioned.
I took it as I stood, then we walked out through the door nearest us, which opened onto the wooden porch that paralleled the river. The cool, dark scents of moving water filled my nose and lungs. Night had settled into the cracks of day, and only the yellow lanterns lining the old inn held it back.
There was no one in the parking lot. We walked down the porch steps and out into the clear night—wonder of wonders, it was not raining. I looked up at clouds broken by patches of stars.
Nice.
“You and Chase used to date?” I asked as we made our way across the parking lot.
“No. But we were lovers.”
Okay, even though I liked his honesty and had said I was adult enough to deal with the fact he’d had other relationships, I cringed a little. Chase was gorgeous, and they’d obviously known each other for a lot longer than Zay and I. And it was highly likely she didn’t get involved with weird Necromorph things, lose bits of her memory, or carry a dead relative around in her head.
Speaking of which, I hadn’t felt my dad since I’d been sitting with Shamus and Zayvion.
“We trained together,” Zay said.
“For?”
“Our jobs. The Authority. She’s a Closer too.”
“Is that what I’m training to be?”
“I don’t know. None of us know. When you are accepted into the Authority, you are tested to see what your natural abilities are and which branch of magic they can best be used with.”
“Like the test Maeve gave me in there?”
“No. Your real test will be done with several members of the Authority in attendance. Three days from now. Maeve was just gauging what you already know, and what preparation your testers will need so you don’t harm yourself or others during it.”
“And figuring that out takes more than one day?”
Here he smiled a small smile. “Not generally.”
Yeah, well, that made sense. I couldn’t imagine Maeve really wanted me to blow the walls out of her room again. No wonder Shamus ducked out early. If he was going to stand as my Proxy again tomorrow, he’d need the sleep.
No, I wouldn’t let him do it. I could Proxy my own magic use, and Maeve would just have to deal with that.
“So you and Chase trained together,” I pressed, bracing myself for the rest of the story.
He nodded. “The Authority is insular, private—it has to be to survive. And the organization is very, very careful about the people it allows in. Only a few people a year are even tested for it, and most don’t make it. During most of my . . . training . . .”
I noted his pause, but didn’t ask about it.
“. . . I was alone. Sometimes Shamus and I were allowed to train with the same teacher, but Shamus isn’t a Closer. When Chase came to the Authority, and when she was approved to train, she was taught by my teacher, Victor.”
“Have I met him?”
“Not while I’ve known you. Maybe before then, although with how much your father kept you in the dark about this, I’d say it’s doubtful. There are five disciplines of magic the Authority teaches: Life, Death, Faith, Blood, and Flux. Each discipline has its strengths, its abilities. Life is the oldest way of magic. There are some who say it is the only way of magic, and all other branches are wrong to be practiced separate of it and each other. When the Order of the Aegis first began thousands of years ago, it was only Life magic that was known, understood, and practiced. All magic as one.”
We reached the car and he unlocked the door for me.
“But magic is one thing,” I said. “There aren’t different kinds of magic underground.”
He nodded. “True. But there are different ways to tap into that magic, different ways to cast spells, different approaches to make magic do what you want it to do.”
“Like that chanting thing you did.”
“Exactly. Death magic is in many ways the balance, the opposite of Life magic. It is just as old, but its ways were once practiced only in secret. Those were dark days before Death magic was legitimized, recognized, and taught so that users among the Authority could cast it with some manner of safety.”
I opened the door and got in while he walked around the car and slid into the driver’s side.
“Over the years, hundreds of years, Blood magic and Faith magic have been defined and practiced. With your father’s integration between magic and technology, the fifth magic, Flux, has been recognized and practiced.”
“Which magic is the strongest?”
Zayvion shrugged. “Ask a hundred people and you’d get a hundred answers.”
“Okay, let me put it this way: who’s running the show? Who is the boss of the Authority and which magic do they practice?”
“Currently?”
“Sweet hells,” I said. “Does it change hands that often?”
“More often than you’d think. For the last twenty years and currently, it is Sedra. She practices Life magic. The first.”
Having nothing to relate that to, I decided that sounded good. The main magic, the original magic, was the magic used by the one woman calling the shots. I wondered if I’d ever meet her.
“Before that it was Mikhail. He practiced Death magic.”
“And Mikhail’s dead?” I asked.
He gave me a strange look. “Yes.”
I looked over at him. “My dad told me.”
“When?”
“Recently. In a dream, actually.”
Zay started the engine. “Maybe I should take you to Jingo Jingo now.”
I yawned. “Don’t. I have dinner with Violet at eight. So, do you and Chase and Shamus report to Victor?”
Zay started the engine. “Shamus isn’t a Closer.”
“Blood magic like his mom?”
“No.” He glanced over at me. “Shamus works Death magic. He reports to Jingo Jingo.”
“Whom he doesn’t like,” I dot-to-dotted.
Zayvion nodded. “Shame isn’t shy about his opinions. But we don’t get to choose our teachers. We just have to do our job.”
I leaned my head back into the headrest of the seat and watched the streetlamps go by. We were driving parallel to the river. There were few businesses here, which made it feel farther away from civilization than it really was.
I don’t know if it was the beer or the testing, but I was suddenly very tired. I closed my eyes and half-drifted until Zayvion parked.
We were in the parking lot behind my apartment. I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes.
“Want me to come up?” he asked.
I rubbed at my eyes and tucked my hair back behind my ears. “No. I’m just going to take a nap before I see Violet.” I opened the car door. Cool air mixed with the warmth from the heater. I paused, one boot on the pavement. “Do you still love her?”
He turned in his seat, leaning his head against the window of his door. “Chase? What we had was good. It was strong. But it wasn’t love.
I know that now. I think she knew it even then.”
That was not exactly a straight answer.
“Were you the one who called it off?”
He tried to smile, didn’t make it, and settled for that Zen bit. “She left me for someone else. A man named Greyson. She thought he was her Complement. Maybe even Soul Complement.”
“I thought you said that was rare.”
“So is lightning striking in the same place twice. Yet it happens.”
“Are they still together?”
“He was killed three months ago,” he said. “Jingo Jingo found him dead just after your father was killed.”
No wonder Chase was pissed at me. Three months isn’t long enough to grieve, isn’t long enough to recover. At least it wasn’t for me.
“I’m sorry.” And though I probably should have, I just didn’t have it in me at the moment to ask him how he had died.
“Good night, Zay.”
“Good night. See you around nine o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“For?”
“Coffee before I take you back to Maeve’s?”
Right. Maeve’s. I had class tomorrow. Wow, I was so totally out of the swing of morning living. I’d been Hounding jobs, mostly at night, for long enough that nine in the morning sounded obscenely early.
“Sure,” I said. “That would be nice.”
I shut the door and strolled to the back entry of the building. Zayvion started the engine, but didn’t drive off until I had opened the door, waved, then stepped into the building.
I made my way to the stairs and couldn’t help but shake my head at the bottom. Why in the world had I decided a walk-up was the kind of place to live in?
Maybe because even the sound of an elevator door opening, that rigor-sweet bell, was enough to make my palms sweat. Claustrophobia was a bitch, but I guess it meant I got my walking in every day.
I headed up the stairs, taking my time to listen to each floor of the building. I caught the drone of a television, music, laughter, an argument, a baby crying, one sweet tenor raised in an operatic chorus, all muffled by the walls and doors of apartment living.
Then I was on my floor and it was silent, which wasn’t that unusual. My neighbors and I did little more than nod hello when we ran into one another. Most of the time we kept to ourselves, and I liked it that way.
