by Devon Monk
Nola whistled and Jupe looked back at her. He wagged his tail and barked. She whistled again, lower this time, and the big lunker of a dog bounded over to her and stood at her side.
I rolled the window down a crack. “Nola! It’s me, Allie,” I yelled.
Nola put both hands on her hips and leaned forward at the waist, peering through the dust-covered car windows.
I stuck my hand out the window and waved.
“Are you okay, Allie?” I knew what she was asking. Did she need to get a gun, call the cops, or tell Jupe to tear the car apart?
“I’m good. I have someone with me. His name’s Zayvion. And another guy asleep in the backseat.”
Okay, that sounded seriously weird. “Can we stay for a while?”
Nola shook her head and clomped down the porch stairs. She came around to my window, Jupe trailing her like a trained grizzly. She looked in the window at me and got that worried frown I hated to see on her. She glanced at Zayvion, then back at Cody.
“Come on in,” she said. “All of you.”
Zayvion unlocked the car doors and I opened mine while Nola waited until she saw me push my own door open. She flinched, probably from the smell, or maybe from the mess of blood and gunk on me.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Just messy. The kid in the back needs help, though.”
She took a breath, then opened the back door.
“Wait,” I said. “There’s a cat.”
But it was too late. Nola had the door open, and Jupe stuck his big bear head in the back of the car, snuffing and sniffing.
The kitten hissed and yowled. Jupe harrumphed and licked his chops. The kitten yowled again.
Served the fluffy little monster right.
“Leave the cat alone, Jupe,” Nola said. “It is not a toy. Out of there now. Out.” Nola patted Jupe’s side. He put it in reverse and got out of the way.
“Is this man hurt?” Nola asked.
I stood up out of the car, and wished I hadn’t. Everything I’d been through in the last eight hours came roaring down on me. Sweet loves, I was tired, stiff, and sore. And I really had to pee. My stomach cramped and I realized I hadn’t eaten all day, either. All of that hit me in one nauseating wave and I was glad for the cool wind against my face.
“Allie?” Nola said.
“I’ll help her,” Zay said.
I was working hard not to puke, so I kept my mouth shut. If I could have opened it to talk, I’d have told them I was fine and didn’t need any help.
“No, I’ll help her,” Nola said. “You can take him into the house. If you need me to help carry him, I’ll be back out.”
A thin, strong arm slipped around my waist and, even through the garbage, I smelled the warm yeast and butter of bread she must have been baking. It should have made me feel more sick, but it just made me hungry.
“Ready?” she asked. “Take a few steps for me.”
I opened my eyes. “Hey, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Good. I’m getting messier the longer I hold you. Let’s get going.” Nola smiled, but her eyebrows were drawn down in a frown. She was worried about something. I hoped it wasn’t me for a change.
We got in the house, which was warm enough that I wanted to sleep right there in the hall, or right there in the living room, or right there in the kitchen. We stopped in the kitchen, and I sat at her oak table and dragged garbage-soaked shoes across Nola’s lemon-clean wood floors.
“Thanks for the money,” I said. “I hope this isn’t a bad time to visit.”
“Nonsense. I told you to come out and visit any time. Here.” She put a bowl in front of me. “Chicken noodle soup. Eat.”
She wiped her hands and the side of her face on a dish towel and then clomped out of the kitchen the way we came in.
I did as I was told, and was not disappointed. Nola was the best cook I had ever known.
While I ate, I listened to Nola direct Zayvion about where to put Cody. Upstairs bedroom, across the hall from Nola’s room, probably, so she could keep an eye on him. Plus, Nola knew every floorboard and creak in this old house. It had belonged to her husband’s parents and she’d spent a lot of time here even before they were married. If Cody got out of bed in the middle of the night, she’d know.
Zay and she had a conversation, something that involved doctor and magic and authorities and my name. It was the kind of conversation I figured I should be involved in, but I just couldn’t muster the strength to give a damn. Not with a hot bowl of soup in front of me.
I was done with the soup by the time Nola and Zay came into the kitchen. Zay walked in front of her and smiled a little, like he’d had a couple beers and could feel the buzz. I wondered when he’d had a chance to drink. Come to think of it, he’d been a lot more open and relaxed in the car. Talkative, even. I wondered if it was because of the lack of magic around these parts.
“Sit,” Nola ordered. “I’ll get you some soup.”
“Say yes,” I advised.
Zay sat down across the table from me, where I noted he could watch the doorway to the living room, and also keep an eye on the other door that led to the pantry and mud room.
“Yes, please,” he said. “Thank you.”
Nola put a bowl down for him, then took mine and refilled it. “I’ll get you some bread.”
“No, thanks,” I said.
Nola put the soup in front of me again and got busy with the kettle on the stove. Nola had a clean, modern kitchen. An old potbelly wood stove stood in the corner, but I knew she only fired it up in the winter when the snows lingered. Just because she was magic-free didn’t mean she lived without the other modern conveniences.
“This is excellent,” Zay said. He didn’t slur, so I rethought the beer thing. Still, he looked like he was officially on vacation: kicking back, eating soup, and relaxing. I think the lack of magic was good for him.
Nola pulled three cups from the cupboard. “I don’t have coffee on, but I’ll make us all tea.” Nola never asked; she just told you what she was going to do for you. I’d learned early on in our relationship that if it bugged me, I just had to speak up, and she usually didn’t mind changing her plan.
“Have you been drinking?” I asked Zay quietly.
He grinned. “No.”
“Then why are you so happy?”
“It’s quiet here.”
That so didn’t make any sense to me.
“No magic,” he said.
So I was right. Interesting. Magic was his hobby, my ass. I checked his eyes. Still brown. Just brown, like when I’d first met him, with no hints of gold.
“Okay,” Nola said, “which of you is going to tell me why that young man—and you—are covered in blood?”
I looked at Zay and he gave me a she’s-your-friend look.
Lovely.
“I found him down by the river—the Willamette,” I clarified. “He was hurt. I thought he was stabbed. Punctures in his chest.”
“We took his shirt off,” she said. “Not a scratch on him. Took down his pants too. Other than dirt and a smell that will probably take me days to get out of my sheets, he wasn’t bad off below the belt.”
“He was hurt,” I said. “I thought he was hurt. He wasn’t walking very good, wasn’t breathing very good.” I put my elbow on the table and rubbed at my face. “I don’t know, Nola,” I said through my hands. “It’s been a long day.”
She poured water into mugs, put them on the table, and sat in the chair next to me. “I heard about your dad. I’m so sorry, honey.”
Oh, great. That was the last thing I needed to hear—my best friend, who had probably heard me complain the most about what a jerk my father was—sympathizing with grief I could not feel.
I nodded, because my throat was tightening around a knot. Maybe it was the soup, maybe it was the tea, or the warmth of Nola’s house. Maybe it was because I was away from the immediacy of magic and felt safe in a way I never felt in the city. Whatever it was,
I just wanted to sit there and cry. I sat back and pulled my hands away from my face.
“I think you need a doctor, Allie,” Nola said.
“I don’t need a doctor, I need a shower.”
Nola’s gaze flicked from one side of my face down to my hands, one of which was red while the other looked like I’d gone black-ink tat-happy around every joint. Then she looked over at Zayvion, of all things, and he shrugged one shoulder. Why in the world would she want his opinion instead of mine?
“Just a shower, Nola,” I repeated. “I’m tired, but I feel fine.”
Nola nodded. “Even those burns and bruises?”
“Don’t hurt.”
“Okay, let’s get you in a bath. Mr. Jones—”
“Zayvion.”
“Zayvion. You’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight. Blankets and sheets are in the coat closet in the living room. You can make up the couch while I get her in a bath.”
“I don’t need a bath,” I mumbled. “I’ll fall asleep and drown. Just shove me under a shower and hand me a bar of soap. A big bar.”
I pushed up away from the table.
“You know where the bathroom is,” Nola said. “Give me your clothes when you get out of them. They need a wash. And I’ll find you some pajamas. Did you pack before you came here?”
“I tried, but that didn’t really work out.”
Nola patted my left arm very gently as she moved past me. “After your shower, I want to hear all about it.” She tipped her head to point at Zayvion. “Everything that’s happened since I last saw you.” He kept eating soup like he didn’t notice her unsubtle hint.
“After my shower I want to go to sleep,” I mumbled.
“And since you didn’t pack, you have no right to make fun of my taste in sleepwear.”
“Like that would stop me.”
Nola paused. “I don’t think I have anything left from John that would fit you, Zayvion.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I have some spare clothes in the car.”
“Good. Get in the shower, Allie,” she called over her shoulder.
Like I was going to do anything else.
Zayvion picked up his empty bowl and mine, and put them both in the sink, manners that spoke of either a strong female influence in his upbringing or a long life of living alone.
For the life of me, I did not know why that man was here, with me, at the only place in the world I considered a sanctuary. But I was glad. Grateful even.
I was such a sap.
I watched as he started the water, rinsed bowls. Relaxed, he moved with the kind of easy grace I’d seen in people who do Tai Chi in the park. Unselfconscious. Comfortable. At home in a kitchen away from the push and pull, the want and denial of magic and city living. Or I could be just hoping he felt that way, hoping he’d like this place and Nola as much as I did. And hoping she would like him too.
Jupe galumphed into the kitchen and bumped my legs with his ox head. I scratched him behind the ears. Satisfied, he trotted over to give Zay the sniffing of a lifetime.
Traitor. I’d been the one walking through garbage and peed on by a cat. I should be the most interesting person in the room to sniff. So much for loyalty.
I headed down the hallway to the bathroom. Jupe, who usually likes to follow me around when I visit, trotted off after Zayvion, which was actually fine with me. Nola’s house didn’t just look like an old farmhouse, it was an old farmhouse, and the rooms were on the small side. The bathroom was no exception. If Jupe had decided to hang out while I showered, I would have kicked him out anyway. I needed every inch of space I could get to breathe in there, and Jupe took up acres of exhale room.
I turned on the shower and shucked out of my shoes and clothes. I ached in weird places and itched. The back of my throat hurt, so the Offload from the spell I’d worked on the kid was starting to kick in.
I used the toilet, then washed my hands. I glanced in the mirror and winced at the red mark by my eye that fingered out like thin red lightning, down the arc of my cheek to my ear, along my jaw, then down my neck. At my shoulder it spread out even more, webbing down my arm to finally merge into a more solid red from my elbow to my hand. It was like the mother of all burns, but when I touched it, it didn’t hurt, didn’t feel hot, didn’t feel any different than my non-red skin. My left arm wasn’t red at all, just ringed by black bruises that were beginning to look like black tattooed bands around my knuckles, wrist, and elbow.
Maybe I did need a doctor. I’d heard of magic leaving marks, especially back when it was first being discovered and used thirty years ago. But those marks were open wounds that quickly festered, resisted medical intervention, and claimed the lives of the wounded. There had been a lot of trial and error before magic was considered mostly safe to use.
My father had been on the forefront of making magic accessible and relatively safe to the general populace. The iron, lead, and glass lines he patented, the Storm Rods that pulled magic out of the infrequent wild storms, the holding cisterns beneath cities—he’d had a hand in all those things.
So while magic was not harmless, most people believed that if they limited their use, or hired a good Proxy service to handle the price and pain, then the benefits outweighed the cost.
I moved my arms around, flexed my fingers, wrist, elbows. A little stiff, including the stupid blood magic scars on my left deltoid, but nothing serious. No open wounds.
I decided to take a wait-and-see approach. I stepped into the hot water and moaned.
Heaven.
I let the water sluice over me for a good ten minutes, my eyes closed, breathing in the warm and clean of it all. Then I stopped soaking and started scrubbing. All of Nola’s things were natural, organic, and nonmagic. Her soaps smelled like oatmeal and honey, her shampoo eucalyptus. I used every soap she had available and came out of that shower feeling one hundred percent warm, clean, and sleepy.
Nola knocked on the door. “Allie?”
I wrapped the towel around myself and opened the door.
Nola handed me a folded pair of sweatpants, a T-SHIRT, and panties.
“The underwear are new—I’ve never worn them. The pants will be too short, but the T-shirt should be comfortable. Want to talk?”
“Sure. Am I sleeping in the coatroom?”
Nola’s mouth quirked up. “Yes, you are sleeping in my quaint and comfortably cozy guest bedroom.” She stepped into the bathroom and gathered up my filthy clothes.
“Nola—you don’t have to. I can get them in the wash.”
“So you have more time to think about the things you’re going to self-edit before you talk to me? I don’t think so. I want every detail. Especially the ones involving that man out there. I’ll get these washing and meet you in your room.”
She shut the door and I slipped on the clothes she had brought me. The sweats were too short, but I rucked them up to my knees and they were comfortable. The T-shirt was soft, roomy, and had a giant cartoon cow sleeping in a field of daisies on the front of it. Not my style, but I didn’t care. I was dry, warm, and grateful nobody was shooting at me.
Still, when I walked out of the bathroom rubbing the towel over my head, thinking short hair had some advantages—it dried fast—I was a little uncomfortable to come face-to-face with Zayvion. It’s not like we were dating, not like we’d done anything more than get a little handsy in the car. But still, the sweatpants-slob look is something I usually save until after the first month of seeing someone.
“Um,” I said.
“I was just heading to the bathroom,” he said. Those Zen eyes were calm, unreadable.
“Right.” I moved out of the way, both disappointed and relieved he hadn’t said anything about the cow outfit.
“Nice cow,” he said just before he shut the door.
Terrif. I padded off to the bedroom, and took a deep breath before actually stepping through the door. The room was small, but if I focused on the one wall that was almost all window, and kept the door
open, I was pretty sure I was tired enough I could handle my claustrophobia and get some sleep. I didn’t care that it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. I was tired.
Nola knocked on the door frame and walked into the room. “So. Tell me what’s been going on.”
I pulled the handmade quilt down and crawled up to the head of the bed. Nola sat on the foot of the bed. She was still wearing her overalls, but had kicked off her boots. She held something in a towel in her hands, and at first I thought it was a cup of tea. Then it meowed.
“You mean Jupe hasn’t eaten her yet?” I asked.
Nola petted the kitten’s little gray head. “No. Poor thing. She finished off an entire can of tuna. When did you get a kitten?”
“She’s not mine. I found her when I found the kid.”
“Talk to me about it.” Nola scooted across the bed so she could lean against the footboard and sit with her legs crossed up. The kitten mewed again, and Nola put her in her lap and petted her. The kitten fell asleep midpurr.
I heard the pipes in the old house thrum and figured Zayvion was taking a shower.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I said. How was I supposed to condense the last two days—days that felt like months—into something that made sense? Where should I even start?
“How did your dad die?” In typical Nola fashion, she cut right to the heart of the matter.
I told her I didn’t know. I told her I’d gone to see him that day, which she was surprised to hear. I told her I’d threatened to take him to court, which she was not surprised to hear. I told her about Mama and her sons, about the youngest Boy being hit, and the Hounding job that led me to my father. I told her about Bonnie chasing me, and the kid and cat I stumbled over buried in the garbage at the river. I told her the kid had been so hurt I thought he was going to die.
She listened, and only interrupted when things got confusing. She didn’t offer opinions, encouragement, or criticism.
