by Devon Monk
“Can I talk to Zayvion?”
“No.” She reached over and took the tray off my lap. “I can send Shamus in, if you’d like.”
“Okay. And I need to make a phone call.”
“We can do that.”
She stood, got halfway to the door.
“Maeve?”
“Yes?”
“What happens if I don’t pass?”
There wasn’t even time for her frown to register before it was replaced by a neutral line. “You’ll be Closed.”
“How Closed? Just my memories of this place? Of the Authority?” What I didn’t say, what I didn’t ask was, Will I forget you and Shamus? Will I forget Zayvion? Will I lose the ability to use magic? I realized my chest hitched at that thought. I didn’t want to lose them. Didn’t want to lose Zayvion. And I didn’t want to lose this life I was living, even though this life was currently kicking my ass.
“Very, very Closed,” she said softly. “You don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want that to happen. You belong here, Allie. You belong with us. And I know you are strong enough to prove me right. I’ll send Shamus in. Then I hope you’ll take my advice and get some sleep.”
“I’ll try,” I said in answer to both her suggestions.
She left. I needed to use the bathroom, so I got out of bed. I was still in my jeans and the tank I’d put on under my sweater, but no boots or socks. My coat draped one corner of the bed and my hat dripped dry on a towel on the dresser top.
I walked across the floor, wood and waxed to a deep shine. My feet hurt. My legs hurt. Everything hurt.
Oh, right. Probably from the Disbursements I’d set. Wondered whether the headache was going to kick in too.
The bathroom was small, clean, and white. The honeysuckle smell was stronger here. I used the facilities and washed my hands. I turned my wrist to see if there was any mark left from the cuff and disk I’d been wearing. There were no marks other than the ribbons of colors on my arm. Nothing to remind me of what it had been like to feel the heartbeats of three people, to feel their emotions, to be part of them. I rubbed my thumb over my wrist, pushing away the sudden loneliness.
Pull yourself together, Beckstrom, I told myself. This is no time to get all sappy. People out there were going to try to kill me or Close me. Take my memories away.
I stood there, warm water pouring over hands that had been clean for at least a minute, trying to gather up the guts to look at myself in the mirror.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought. Just look. See what you’ve become. What you are. You can do it. You’ve done it before.
I bit the inside of my cheek and forced myself to look up.
For once, I didn’t look as bad as I felt. No bruises, no strange burned circles on my face. My eyes were a little dilated, and pale, pale green. The only person looking back at me through my eyes was me.
Maybe Jingo Jingo was right. Maybe my dad was gone.
Or maybe he was just very, very tired.
Yeah, that made two of us.
I turned off the water and walked out of the bathroom. Got all the way back to bed and under the covers before the knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Shamus breezed into the room like he’d spent the day strolling through the Rose Gardens.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Are you okay?”
He paused and gave me a strange look before continuing on over to the chair Jingo Jingo had sat in. He dragged it away from the wall, over to the side of my bed.
“Am I okay? You’re the one in bed, trying to shake off a Paralyze spell in time for the test of your life. I’d say of the two of us, I’m gold.” He flopped down into the chair and stuck his feet on the bed frame.
So that’s what Chase threw at me. I hoped she Proxied her own spells and was barfing from the pain.
“Honestly.” I gave him a serious look.
He smiled. “I don’t think you and I are close enough for that much honesty. You’ll just have to trust that I’m fine enough.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “How is Tomi doing?”
“The bait? She’s had a bad time of it. We did what we could to take away the memories. Someone’s staying with her to help her heal. There’s a cover story about a hell of a bender, drugs, too much cutting. Blood magic. Bad crowd. That kind of thing. Not all that unusual for a Hound, eh?”
“No,” I said. The sudden reality of what being a Closer really meant sent shivers down my back. How many times had I woken up not remembering? How many times had I blamed it on drugs, booze, magic? Was there something else I should have blamed it on? Someone else? Closers. Chase? Zayvion?
“You Close Hounds?” I asked.
Shamus tipped his head to one side. “Don’t tell me this is the first time you figured that out.”
“Yes. How often do you Close Hounds? Whom do you Close? Have you Closed me? Have you taken my memories?”
Shamus held up one hand, his black fingerless gloves making his fingers look ghostly pale. “I don’t Close anyone. I am not a Closer. Death magic, remember?”
“Who?” I demanded. “Who Closed me?”
“Listen, love,” Shamus said with a hard smile. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but I have no fucking idea. You weren’t even on my radar until a couple months ago when Zayvion went head over shit kickers for you. Well, I did harbor a bit of hate for you, seeing that your da killed my da. Other than that though, I didn’t care you were alive, much less who might be Closing you.”
I just sat there and blinked. It was cold water to the face. These people—Shamus, Maeve, Zayvion—did things to people, made choices without the advice of law or courts. They had probably done things to me.
“Scary, ain’t it?” Shamus asked when I was quiet a little too long. “This secret magic shit is crazy stuff. The things we can do to try to keep people and society safe. Most all of it is in good intention too; that’s honest. If it helps any, I can ask around. You’ll be on the files if you’ve been Closed. I can’t access the files on that, but I can talk to Victor about it. See if he’ll release some information.”
“Do they ever tell someone if they’ve been Closed?” I finally asked.
“Tell someone? Darlin’, haven’t you been paying attention? We can do anything. Tell you if you’ve been Closed. When and where and why. Or—this is a possibility—give you back your memories if the person who Closed you is willing. It’s not so easy as clicking your heels and everything snaps back into place, but it happens.
“You won’t believe this, but sometimes people want to leave the Authority, and so their time here is Closed. Then sometimes they wander back, and their memories are Opened. Just like new.” He stuck out one hand and made the so-so motion. “More or less.”
“Is that your pep talk?” I asked.
“Not mine so much, no. Standard-issue. Drag it out whenever the situation calls for it. Did it work?”
I rubbed at my eyes and tried to let go of my anger and fear. If they had Closed me, I’d find out. First, I had to survive the test. I pulled my hands away from my face. “Let’s pretend it did,” I said. “So Chase pushed to get me tested tonight?”
He nodded, his eyes wide. “Woman is chewing glass and spitting sparks over what she thinks you did to Greyson. You remember that part, right?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“No one Closed you,” he said. “By the time I got there, Zayvion and Chase were yelling to bring the roof down. Neither of them got in your head. I made sure of that.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” he said. “It’s a serious thing what went down there. Greyson. You.”
“I didn’t do anything to Greyson.”
“No? Just coincidence he was there? That he used the Hound girl for bait to lure you? Made her open the gates with the other Hound, Davy, and release the Hungers? You did notice Greyson, he isn’t exactly human anymore, right? Oh, and one of your da’s disks is crammed in his cr
aw?”
“Listen,” I said. “He tried to kill me. Three times. Of course this wasn’t a coincidence.”
Shamus was good at hiding his body language, but from the subtle tensing in his shoulders, I knew that Greyson trying to kill me was news to him.
“And I didn’t do anything to him. He killed my father.”
“Is that true?”
I nodded.
“So you think your father implanted the disk and converted him to a Necromorph?”
“No.”
“Come on, now. Don’t be dense. It’s your da’s disk. Who else has access to the disks? And you say he killed your da. Two and two. It adds up.”
I shook my head. “He was still a man when he killed my dad. He didn’t have the disk in his throat.” I dug for the flash of Dad’s memory that I had seen, of Greyson standing in front of him with a knife and a disk in his hand.
“I find myself potently curious as to how you know this,” Shamus said.
“My dad told me.”
We stared at each other for a minute or so.
“In your noggin?” he finally asked.
“Yes.”
“Huh.” That was it, nothing more.
But my head was spinning. I had assumed the stolen disks had been used on Greyson. But Shame brought up a very good point. There were other people who had access to the disks. People like my father. And people who worked for my father. People like Violet and probably even Kevin.
So it could be a stolen disk in his neck, and stolen disks being used to open the gates. Or it could be someone inside Beckstrom Enterprises was supplying them.
Is that why Dad said Greyson would hunt Violet?
Shamus shifted his feet on the bedframe. “We do have Greyson contained. Off the street, thanks quite a bit to you. That’s a problem we’ve been trying to take care of for months. I’m sure someone will figure how to get in his head and pull the truth out of him. Find out who morphed him.”
“I don’t understand why anyone would even want to do that,” I said. “It’s dark magic, right?”
“Very. With technology to bolster it. Bad shit.”
“Why mess someone up like that?”
He took a deep breath and leaned back so he could stare at the ceiling. “I forget you haven’t read the history.” He was quiet a minute.
“Basically,” he looked back down at me, “magic has always been around. It took mankind a long time to discover it, and even longer to learn how to access it. Lots of hints of that show up in the history books if you know what you’re looking for. We, the Authority, have mostly covered up the reality of magic until about thirty years ago, when your da and a few of his cronies went public with the ‘safe’ technology to access magic.
“Magic is a natural part of this world. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Some ways to use magic are still kept secret from the general population. Death magic, for sure. Blood magic to some degree, and lots of ways magic can be used aren’t taught—dark magic especially. Those college classes that teach how to use magic for business, counseling, medicine, construction, the arts?
“Who do you think developed those courses? The Authority. Who do you think teach it in the universities? Mostly members of the Authority. See, once your da let the devil out of the bag, damage control was the best the Authority could do.
“It’s worked okay. Some people who were dead set against magic being used by the general public changed their tune. Making magic available has helped the world more than hurt it. So far, anyway, and so long as the Authority keeps a close eye on what ‘advances’ are being released.” He shrugged.
“And making someone into a beast is an advance?” I asked.
He held up a finger. “Getting to that. So magic is bright, right? It casts a shadow when it’s used. And that shadow contains magic too. That shadow is a twisted version of magic—dark magic.
“Dark magic can do very bad things. That’s why it’s forbidden. But making something forbidden only means it gets used in secret, which is why some people think dark magic should be sanctioned, taught, and regulated. The price for using dark magic is death, so that goes a long way toward deterring users. Still . . .”
He shook his head. “People, right? Crazy. Anyway, dark magic is used sometimes. Not often, because, well, it’s sort of hard to access. Like catching a shadow. But just like magic casts a shadow, so does life. Life’s shadow is death. You still with me?”
I nodded.
“So for a long while, dark magic was rarely used. But your da opened the door to experimentation with the rules, changed centuries of tradition. Gave people ideas. Wasn’t long before someone discovered where dark magic was most plentiful: in death. All you had to do was find a way to tap into it, and just like sucking magic out of the ground, dark magic was at your fingertips.
“Frank Gordon gave it a go, and tried to reanimate your dad’s corpse to open the gates between life and death.”
“Why?” I asked. “Don’t we have enough trouble dealing with light magic?”
“I think it’s all about control, who has the most magic at their disposal, and who can keep it that way.
“But legends say that a man who can walk between life and death will be immortal. Maybe that’s what Frank was trying with your dad. Maybe that’s what someone is trying with Greyson, seeing as how he isn’t quite living as a man. Frank’s dead, so we can’t ask him. But now we have Greyson, so maybe we can find out who’s been dipping their fingers in the naughty sauce, and take care of them before this blows into a war.”
Shamus shifted in his seat, crossing one ankle over his knee. He was quiet, letting me absorb it.
That was crazy. Impossible. Half-alive, half-dead magic users. Light magic, dark magic, life and death. Controlling all the magic, all the time. Was I the only one who thought that was a hideous idea? And immortality? Hadn’t that been what my half-alive, half-dead dad had told me he wanted?
Okay, even though it was crazy, it could also be true.
I rubbed at my eyes again, hoping this might be a dream and I might wake up and find out that my world was just a world again, that my city was filled with regular people going about regular lives with simple, regular magic that made their shoes look shiny.
“Holy shit, Shame. Are you joking?”
“Dead serious,” he said, and I knew he was. “Frank was on to something, thinking your da, out of all the powerful magic users of our time, might be able to pull it off—life and death, dark and light. Might have done it too, if you and Zayvion hadn’t stopped him. That was probably the one thing that got you the chance to be a part of the Authority, you and Z shutting Frank down. Well, that and Z saying you’re his Soul Complement.”
I didn’t even know what to say about that. About any of this. Okay. Regroup. Back to the problem at hand.
“What happened to Stone?” I asked.
“Who?”
“The gargoyle.”
Shamus’ smile spread into a grin. He looked like a kid who’d just taken a dive into a pile of cotton candy. “Hell of a thing. Awesome. Just.” He twisted his wrists so both hands spread open, palms up, fingers wide. “Magic. Don’t ever get to see that kind of thing anymore. Animation is part of the old ways. Not all that useful, a parlor trick, not much taught. I thought the knack had been lost. How’d you do it?”
“He was already animated, I just, uh . . . gave him a boost and set him free.” There was more to it than that. I had used magic on him, and I was pretty sure my magic had triggered something more inside him, like oxygen to a flame. But since I wasn’t sure how I had done it, I didn’t know what more to say. “He’s okay, right?”
“Absolutely. Well,” he amended, “we couldn’t have him rampaging through the house. Knows how to mess up a place. Plus he seemed pretty upset when Mum woke him. Think he was looking for you. She stuck a Grounding Stone on his head to keep him quiet while we figure out what to do with him.”
Great.
Now I not only had to survive the test, I needed to make sure they’d set Stone free no matter if I passed the test or not. I did not want him to be trapped here just because he’d come to my rescue.
“You should set him free,” I said.
Shamus laughed. At my look, he sobered. “Sorry. Didn’t realize you were serious. I don’t think they’ll let him free. A gargoyle loose in the city? How are we going to keep that under wraps? Plus, he’s too . . . interesting, you know?”
“Anyone ask him if he wants to stay here?”
“You do know it’s not really alive,” he said.
“Yes. He’s not really dead either,” I said.
“A lot of that going around lately. That’s part of what makes him so interesting.” He pointed at my head. “Heard you saw Jingo Jingo. Let him look in your attic?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“Of Jingo Jingo?”
Shamus nodded, his fingers now folded together, index fingers steepled against his lips.
“I don’t trust him and I don’t like him.”
His eyes squinted in a smile. “He think your da’s in there?”
“No.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
We sat there, neither of us breaking eye contact. I don’t know what Shamus had expected of me. For all I knew he was Jingo Jingo’s ears, a student and spy.
But I didn’t give a flying fig what he told Jingo Jingo. There was no way I could feel good about a person who wore the ghosts of children like a winter coat.
“What’s with all the children’s ghosts around him anyway?” I asked.
Shame blinked. “What?”
“When he uses magic, if you look at him with Sight. You know, those little ghost people attached to him?”
“How hard did you hit your head?” he asked.
“You can’t tell me you don’t see them.”
“I don’t see them.”
“But Zayvion? When he uses magic? Don’t you see the silver glyphs, the black flame . . . ?” From the look on his face, the answer was obvious.
“I know Hounds use all sorts of things to deal with pain,” he said, “and I’m not going to ask you what you’re using. But you might want to back off it a wee bit.”
