by Devon Monk
“I know.” It was still raining, and the wind was blowing so hard, I had to correct my stance every time it let up. Still, my face flushed with heat. Nausea pushed up the back of my throat and burned. “Thirty years, Pike. Trager got thirty.”
“That’s not the way the courts see it,” Pike said. “Mistrial. Contamination of evidence. He’s out, Allie. And he’s going to be looking for you.”
“About that . . .” I began.
Anthony homed in closer to us and stood there, staring at me, smiling now, and chewing something that was not gum. “You’re gonna be one popular lady, eh?” he said. “All his people, they’re gonna be asking around about you, looking for you. Real popular. Until he finds you.” He laughed. “Ain’t nobody gonna want you after he gets done with you.”
Pike threw him a hard look.
I glared at Anthony, who, I decided, was a prick.
“Can you and I talk alone?” I asked Pike. “Somewhere indoors?” I was freezing cold again.
“We could,” Pike ventured. “But this has been on the news. In the papers. I know you don’t keep up with those things, so I thought I’d find you. Don’t know what else we’d need to say.”
“Can’t handle the real world, can you, rich girl?” Anthony said. “And now you don’t got no rich daddy looking after you no more. Keeping you safe from dirt under your nails. Dirt like Trager.”
“Shut up, Ant,” Pike growled.
Anthony kept chewing, kept smiling, but his eyes narrowed. “Why? Rich girl ain’t never been one of us. She too good for that, right, Beckstrom?”
“I said shut up,” Pike said.
So, that quiet killing vibe Pike gave off? Right there, hot and dangerous between him and Anthony. Anthony was either too stupid or too wasted to notice it.
I resisted the desire to back up a step while they squared off. If I had to bet, I’d say Pike was going to come out on top and beat the living crap out of the kid, but Anthony had that drugged edge of crazy going for him that said he wasn’t going to feel the pain of a fight until days later.
“Side with the rich girl, white girl, gonna jump her bones, old man?” Anthony said. “Fuck her. Get a piece of rich bitch, daddy’s money, and never have to work again?”
Pike, who I thought was going to punch the kid, instead pulled back. He turned his shoulder toward him, dismissing him with body language as clearly as a fist in the face. He shook his head slowly. “That’s the blow talking, boy. If you’re gonna be a dumb ass, get out of my face and go home.”
Anthony bared his teeth. “You afraid? Think you can take me? You don’t know what I can do to you, old man. You don’t know me at all.”
“You’re making me wish that was true,” Pike said. “Go home to your mama. Tell her I won’t teach a boy who doesn’t have the brains to keep his nose clean.”
Anthony’s face burned a dark red, and he clenched his hands into fists. “Fuck you.” He growled. “I didn’t fucking ask for your fucking help.” He spun and stormed off.
“When you get your head on straight,” Pike called out over the wind and rain, “you know where to find me.”
Anthony punched both fists in the air and flipped him off. But like a dog on a chain, he did not go far. He stopped just a couple yards away, jerked as if he knew better than to walk any farther, and began pacing. If his ears were good enough for Hounding, he was still well within hearing range no matter how quietly I spoke.
I didn’t want to talk about Trager in front of the kid. He might be a prick, but there was no need to get him mixed up in this.
Pike started walking again, slowly enough that I caught on he was waiting for me to follow. I strolled along beside him, both of us passing Anthony, who trailed behind us a couple yards back. We walked beneath the awnings of buildings as much as we could. Shield spells—the kind of thing that would keep you dry even without stretching an awning over the sidewalk—were not used here. I guess they figured it wasn’t worth the Proxy price. Oregonians were used to the wet, and since these buildings were mostly offices, not shops, old-fashioned umbrellas or hats just had to do.
“Get Mugged?” Pike asked, as though nothing had happened.
I nodded. We were headed that way, toward the bus stop a few streets down. “So,” I said after we’d been walking awhile, “I see you’ve been making new friends.”
He chuckled, a short, low sound. “Took him on for a friend on the east side. His mama thought I could keep him off the streets and out of the gangs long enough so he could finish school. She wanted me to teach him to Hound.” He glanced over at me, shook his head, and then looked back at the rain coming down so hard, I was pretty sure I’d have to wring out my underwear by the time we made it to the coffee shop.
“I told her I’d do what I could,” he said.
“I don’t think he likes you very much.”
“I don’t give a crap if he likes me or not. He’d make a decent Hound if he’d stay clean. He’s got a hell of a knack. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Ought to just haul his ass into juvenile detention. Let them take a whack at that thick skull of his.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen.”
“Damn.” I tucked my hands in my pockets. “Maybe juvie isn’t a bad idea.”
Pike sniffed. “We’ll see if he can pull it together. Then. Maybe.”
“So, other than telling me that Lon Trager is out of jail, why are you following me?”
He was a step or so ahead of me, so he gave me a curious, sideways look.
“For the police?” I asked. “Did they hire you to follow me?”
“Not doing much Hounding lately,” he said. “Thinking about retirement. Twenty-five years is about enough pain for me.”
I never thought I’d hear Pike say that. He was the toughest Hound I knew—not that I knew a lot of Hounds. He’d not only been chasing down magical signatures for at least twenty years; he was one of the original Hounds to hire out almost exclusively with the police. I guess I’d always looked up to him for that and figured he was going to Hound until he was old and gray.
Well, older and grayer.
I wondered if he’d ever hounded for Stotts. Since he was still alive, I guessed the answer to that was no.
“Hate to see you call it quits.”
He looked a question at me.
I shrugged. “It’s like seeing a legend end.”
He chuckled again. “Well this legend’s thinking about warm beaches where pretty women wear more flowers than clothes.”
“You? Warm beaches?”
“Don’t think I’d do it?”
“Oh, I think you would,” I said. “But you’d get bored, and you’d be back.”
He stopped beneath the end of an awning. There weren’t very many people on the sidewalks—too early, too cold, too windy, too wet. The light was red anyway, so we stayed there.
Pike watched the traffic crawl past. “Every legend has an end, Allie. And a beginning.”
“How very poetic of you,” I noted.
He scowled and fished a card out of his pocket. “Here.” He handed it to me. “I want you to join.”
I pulled the card close to try to keep it dry and read the plain white letters set against the black background. “The Pack?”
“Call the number and they’ll let you know where we’re meeting next. We move around.”
“Who’s we, Pike? You and Anthony? What’s the Pack?”
“Hounds. Those who work with the police, and those who work against them, and any others who will join. Not all of them are as stupid as Ant.”
I heard Anthony mutter, “Fuck you.”
My ears were good too.
“You put together a support group for Hounds?” I asked. “That’s just . . . that’s just so . . .”
“Allie . . .” he warned.
“. . . sweet.” I grinned.
He gave me a level stare and I was glad he didn’t have a gun in his hand, and that he and I were, if
not on the same side, not on opposing sides.
“Things are changing in this city, with magic. With everything,” he said. “We either watch each other’s backs, or we’ll be used up—used against each other. Dead. If you’re on our side, call and come to a meeting.”
“And what if I don’t want to be on any side? I like being on my side—alone.”
“Then don’t come.” The way he said it, he made it sound like a threat.
“Nice. So I don’t come,” I said, dead serious myself now, “what will you do? Hunt me down?”
“I won’t have to.” He held my gaze long enough that I knew what he meant. Someone else would find me, like Lon Trager’s men, or maybe I’d just bite it working for the cursed Detective Stotts. Hounding alone meant I’d end up dead eventually, maybe even anonymously, like the sixteen I hadn’t even known had died in the last six years. And even though I liked the idea of living on my own, having my own independence, and not being held responsible to anyone, the idea of dying alone, with no one to even know I was gone or how I’d died, made my chest hurt.
He was right. Things were changing in the city. The strange tension of something—a fight, a fire, a storm, something—hung heavy on the air. I had felt it after I saw my dad’s ghost, I had felt it at the police station, and I felt it now.
I leaned in and whispered, “I need to talk to you alone, Pike. It’s about Trager.”
He didn’t show any change of emotion. Just nodded. “Come to the meeting, and we’ll talk.”
“How about I skip the meeting and we talk anyway?”
“Nope.”
I rubbed at my face. I didn’t care what he said. Nothing could convince me meeting up with a bunch of Hounds would make my life any kind of easy.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” I asked.
Pike’s eyes widened. I was pretty sure this was the first time I’d ever seen him surprised. “Don’t believe in them,” he said, dead flat and poker-faced.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looked down at his shoe, his body language turning inward, as if trying to dodge an old pain. When he straightened and squared his shoulders, he was nothing but steel cold killer again. “Can’t live as long as I have without seeing things.”
“Like ghosts?”
“You want to talk, call the number and come to the meeting.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “When did you give up on talking straight?”
The light changed; traffic stopped. My bus had pulled up on the other side of the street. Passengers were getting on. I really wanted some coffee and a chance at being warm and out of the wet. I took a step, but Pike did not follow. I glanced over at him. He had already turned and was walking away, back the way we’d come.
“What? You giving up on coffee too?” I yelled.
“Call the damn number,” he yelled back without turning.
I shook my head and then jogged across the street before the light changed again. I didn’t care how many times he ordered me to do something. I wasn’t going to join his little club.
I got to the other side of the street but not soon enough. My bus pulled away from the curb, gunned the engine, and rolled through the yellow light, leaving me behind.
“Damn it!”
And all I heard was Anthony’s shrill laughter.
Chapter Five
Okay, so far today I’d been haunted, stabbed, strong-armed by an ex-con, interrogated by the police, hired by a cursed criminal-magic-enforcement guy, and threatened and/or invited by a Hound to join a secret union/army/tea party/club thing.
And I’d missed my bus.
I hated missing my bus. That, most of all, officially put me in a pissy mood.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and strode off toward Get Mugged. The coffee shop was maybe eight blocks away. Against the wind, of course.
I kept a steady pace, not worrying about getting there fast—it didn’t matter now because I couldn’t get any wetter—but instead working on getting there in one piece. I watched the people moving around me, looking for Trager’s men; breathed through my nose, smelling for Trager’s men; used all my nonmagical observation skills to stay aware of Trager’s men. But seriously? Trager’s men could be anyone, anywhere.
The few other people tromping through the crappy weather didn’t make any strange moves. No one paid any attention to me. No one even made eye contact. My teeth started chattering, so I picked up the pace, hoping faster would make for warmer.
By the time I’d made it to Get Mugged’s cross street, I was wetter and warmer, which is not as sexy as it sounds.
I turned down the street and spotted the roofline of Get Mugged. The neighborhood had gone through some heavy reconstruction. Buildings had been torn down, leaving behind dirt, concrete, and gravel. There were two buildings left standing: Get Mugged and an empty warehouse with boarded-up windows.
Get Mugged held down the corner of the block, a coffee-scented old broad wearing too much paint and plaster to cover her age but still turning over clients like a dime-store hooker. The warehouse looked like Get Mugged’s meth-mouthed sister, broken, rotting from the inside out, spongy, and frail.
For years, people had wanted to turn this area into boutique shopping. A building would go up, something would move in, and before there was time to hang curtains, the business would bankrupt. Enough of that had left the whole block looking a little like an unmade bed. Nothing seemed to survive here for long. Except Get Mugged.
I jogged across the street and walked beside the empty gravel lot, heading toward Get Mugged on the far corner. On this side of the street there were no awnings to keep me dry and no buildings to block the wind coming up off of the Willamette River. I was tired, and the cold, wet, and weirdness was catching up with my lack of stamina.
Neat.
A flash of color caught my eye.
One windowless wall of the empty warehouse faced the gravel lot. Magic glyphs I’d never noticed before were painted across that wall, running from the second story’s rusted gutters to disappear somewhere behind the piles of dirt at the foundation.
I slowed. The glyphs were strange, bright whorls of color ribboning from one spell into the next. I couldn’t read them, not exactly, which was a little weird. It was like there was too much rain between me and the wall, even though I was only about half a block away from it. The glyphs looked washed out, faded. The bricks cut ridges through them like ribs stretched beneath pale skin.
My gut told me they were protection spells, warnings of some kind. I blinked, wiped rain out of my eyes, and squinted to see them better. No, not exactly wards and warnings. The glyphs were a study in opposites. Several glyphs for Healing and Thrive and Life were painted on the wall. But what caught my eye was the glyph repeatedly drawn around all the others.
Death.
Over and over again.
Death by magic. A glyph and spell no one ever drew, and never cast, since the price for casting it was death not only to the target but also to the caster.
Sure, you could trace it out, but if you so much as flicked a speck of magic on it, Death would ricochet back on you so fast you wouldn’t even have a chance to swear before you were done breathing. I can’t believe someone hadn’t complained about the glyph on the wall, hadn’t demanded the city or the property owner take it apart, paint over it.
That glyph was bad luck. Dangerous.
To say the least.
But as I came closer to the wall, I realized why the glyphs looked so strange.
They were in the style of my dad’s signature. All of them. The Healing and positive glyphs and even the Death glyph were written in his hand. Written by him.
And just as my brain did a nice double somersault to try to wrap some logic around all this—that somehow my stern, corporate father had become a graffiti artist in his spare time four months ago when he was still alive—the glyphs were gone.
Gone. As in one blink they were there—pale water-colored lines of spells two st
ories tall, with no magic behind them—and the next blink, nothing but brick wall and rusted gutters.
Holy shit.
A chill dug nails under my skin as I realized there wasn’t even a hint of color on that wall. I am not stupid. Slow, sometimes, but not a complete idiot. Something really weird had just happened.
I scanned the empty lot, looked behind me at the sidewalk, the street, and the buildings beyond. A few people moved through the rain, but except for a steady stream of cars on the street, I was alone out here. I inhaled deeply, my mouth open, to try to smell if someone were near enough to cast magic—Illusion, maybe—to make me think I saw those glyphs.
