by March, Lucy
“You got it.” He gave me a direct look, presumably to show me he meant business. “Meanwhile, you start packing.”
“What?”
“Change your ticket to Europe. Get the next flight out of Buffalo. I’ll follow up with you when we find this guy.”
I shook my head. “No.”
He stared at me as if I was crazy. “Why not? Now, five weeks from now, what’s the difference?”
“First of all, if he found me here, he’ll find me there. At least here, I have friends who can help.” I took a deep breath. “Second, it’s not just about me. He’s taking conduits.”
Tobias’s eyes widened; he obviously knew what conduits were. “Who?”
“So far? Definitely Millie. Possibly Amber Dorsey. There could be more, but the bottom line is, I’m not leaving Millie like this. I’m not leaving until she’s okay, and that’s it.”
He watched me for a while, his entire being vibrating with tension and worry, and then something in his eyes softened, and he seemed to relax, just a bit.
“Okay,” he said simply. “I’m going to poke around, see what I can find out about this guy. I’ll come back tonight, let you know what I’ve found, if anything.”
“That’s fine, but you can just call me in the morning. I’ve got plans tonight.”
He tensed. “Where are you going?”
I rolled my eyes. “To Betty’s.” I left out the part where I’d be with Davina. This boat was already rocky. “I’ll be fine. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Keep your cell phone with you. Don’t turn it into a bat.”
“Oh, ha,” I said.
He pushed up from his chair, and I got up from mine. He looked at me, not moving, and I met his eyes. We held the gaze for a long moment, and my heart started skipping as all the feelings I’d been denying for so long rushed forward, making their presence undeniably known.
Not the time, I thought, and then he said, “We’ll deal with the rest of this later, okay?”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by “the rest of this,” but I was willing to let it go, for the moment. I nodded, and watched his back as he crossed my backyard and disappeared down my driveway.
11
I stood on my patio for a while. Fifteen minutes or an hour, I couldn’t tell, just staring at the corner Tobias had disappeared around, my mind going a mile a minute, trying to assimilate everything that was happening to me into something that made sense.
I wasn’t having a lot of luck.
“Liv?”
I looked up to see Peach standing in my driveway, her eyes red, crumpled tissues in her hand.
“Oh, honey,” I said, and held my arm out to her. She sniffled and walked up to me, letting me hug her as she cried.
“That son of a bitch,” she said, her words muffled into my shoulder as she spoke them.
“Come on inside,” I said. “I’ll make some tea.”
When I came into the living room with the tea, she was slumped down on my couch, playing ruefully with the Tupperware full of Jordan almonds she’d laid on her stomach, scooping up handfuls and letting them fall through her fingers, like big chunks of sand. Peach was petite, but her presence had always made her seem bigger somehow. Now, she looked shrunken, tiny, and spent.
I set her mug on the coffee table in front of her, then took my seat in the floral love seat, waiting for her to start. Eventually, her eyes still on the almonds, she did.
“I asked him,” she said. “It was true. Everything Millie said.”
I stayed quiet, not sure how to respond. I’d expected that it was true, but also, had some suspicions as to the level of Nick’s culpability. I didn’t know the extent of Millie’s magical influence. Could she have coerced him magically, somehow? Nick may have been kind of a jerk when we were kids, but as an adult, he had always seemed like a good guy to me, and I couldn’t imagine him hurting anyone this way, but especially not Peach.
“The wedding’s off,” she said. “I told him I never wanted to speak to him again.”
I hesitated a minute, then said, “What did he say? Did he … explain why?”
She snorted angrily. “He doesn’t know why.” She swiped at her eyes. “What is it with men? They always treat these things like accidents. It just happened, baby. It’s not my fault. I didn’t want to, I slipped and my dick just fell into her, over and over again, and…” She trailed off, her voice crackling with pain and despondency.
“Maybe…” I began, but I didn’t know where to go with it. Under any other circumstances, I would be leading the charge to castrate the son of a bitch. But I couldn’t help but feel like this particular thing might be a special circumstance. If it was beyond Millie’s power to coerce Nick, it probably wasn’t beyond Cain’s, and he could only continue to control Millie if he held up his end of the bargain, and she got what she wanted …
But then there was the possibility that Nick was just a horny son of a bitch, too, in which case, he got what he deserved. But there was no way to explain any of this to Peach, who sat there, sniffling and playing sadly with the Jordan almonds.
She flicked her hand out a couple of times. “And the worst part? It’s making me sick. Last night I had the worst headache, and now, my stupid hands are falling asleep. He doesn’t get the right to do this to me, goddamnit.” She clamped her fist around a handful of Jordan almonds, as if trying to crush them. “And now I’ve got a living room full of his stupid solar walkway lights. Bastard. Oh!”
She made a surprised sound and bolted upright, throwing the almonds in her hand back into the Tupperware dish. She shoved it onto the coffee table and stared at it, her eyes wide and horrified.
“Peach, what…?” I began, but then stopped as I saw what she was seeing. The almonds were moving, sort of shaking, like eggs about to crack open. I glanced down at my hands; they were tingling, a little, but they were almost always tingling a little now, to the point where I wasn’t always aware of it. Had I somehow made the almonds dance without realizing it?
Peach blinked a few times, then looked at her hand. I looked closer at her hand, too, and caught the last little wisps of light fading. Unlike my yellow light, this was pinkish in color, and it faded very quickly, almost fast enough that I could convince myself I hadn’t seen it at all.
Except I knew I had. And I knew what it meant. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but Peach had magic.
Crap.
“Jesus!” Peach crawled back into the corner of the couch, staring at the bowl on the coffee table as if it were full of spiders. “What the hell?”
Goddamnit Cain, I thought. Doesn’t she have enough to deal with right now?
“Peach.” I said her name forcefully and carefully, and waited until she pulled her eyes away from the almonds and locked them on me before I said anything else. “You haven’t made any kinds of … vengeance deals lately with anyone? Like a scruffy Southern bad boy type?”
She shook her hand out absently as she looked at me like I was crazy. “Vengeance … what? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Scruffy Southern bad boy type,” I said. “Let’s focus on that. Name of Cain. Have you seen him, talked to him, sold your soul to him for vengeance against Nick? Say, in the last day or so?”
She blinked and shook her head. “No. I’ve been home eating Cheetos and drinking wine since I left your place yesterday. What the hell are you talking about?”
I relaxed a bit, realizing that Cain’s power was at night, and was accompanied by the gray smoke. Mine, however …
… was light.
“Oh my god,” I said.
For the moment, the despondency in Peach’s expression was replaced by genuine concern. “Liv, you’re looking kind of pale. Are you feeling okay?”
I stared at her. I couldn’t have taken her as a conduit. I didn’t know how. But something had happened, something weird.
I needed to talk to Davina.
“Yeah, I think I’
m going to vomit.” I grabbed Peach’s arm and pulled her out of the love seat. I spoke fast as I led her through my front hall to the door. “It’s a twenty-four-hour thing, I’m sure I’ll be fine soon, but I don’t want to give it to you. That’s the last thing you need.”
I guided her to the front door, but she stopped and turned to face me on the porch.
“What’s going on with you, Liv?” she said, suspicion deep in her voice. “You’ve been acting really weird lately.”
I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. There is something going on, but I can’t talk about it right now. I promise, though, when I can, I’ll come find you.”
She hesitated for a moment, then let it go. She had problems of her own; there was no need to bug me about mine. “Okay. I’m going to go home and get drunk on Boone’s Farm. If you hear crashing sounds later, it’s just me throwing his stupid walkway lights into the street from my roof.”
“Go rest that throwing arm, babe.” I pulled her in for a hug and said, “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said, and finally, she left.
I shut the door, then walked into the living room, over to Gibson’s box in the corner. I picked him up and cuddled him to me, and for something hard and ceramic, he was oddly comforting. I held him out and looked into his little blinking blind eyes.
“Oh, Gibson,” I said. “I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
*
A little after nine that night, there was a knock on my front door. I put Gibson into his padded cardboard box, lest he get another crack in his butt, and walked over to get the door. When I opened it, Davina held up a bottle of wine, grinning as she motioned toward the orange notepaper crane that danced in the air around her head.
“That is adorable.” She stepped inside and handed me the wine. “And this is your reward.”
I took the wine from her and put it on the half-moon table. “I wouldn’t need to send you cranes if you told me where you were staying, or gave me a cell phone number. Do you even have a cell phone?”
“The crane is genius.” Her eyes followed its trajectory around her head, her expression glowing with pride. “It actually found me! And it’s still got life in it. What time did you make it?”
I shrugged and thought. “I don’t know. About two, I guess.”
“And it’s still in the air.” She smiled, watching the crane. “Lovely work. Your power’s growing. That’s good, baby. That’s very good.”
I grabbed her arm to get her attention. “Yeah. Not good. My neighbor made Jordan almonds dance this afternoon. Little wisps of pink light zip-zapping around her fingers. A lot like my yellow light.”
She eyed me for a long moment, then said, “I guess it’s starting early.”
“Hmmm? What? What’s starting?”
“I can’t be sure, but if you’re beginning to leak—”
I did not like the sound of that. “Leak? I’m leaking now?”
“It’s rare, but it happens. When a Magical gets more power than they have the control to handle, they can leak onto non-Magicals. Sometimes. A little. The effect is usually temporary, and as long as your neighbor stays calm, it probably won’t get anyone hurt.”
I was just starting to calm down at “the effect is usually temporary,” but then I heard the rest of the sentence. “Wait, probably won’t get anyone hurt?”
“It’s magic. You never really know what’s going to happen with magic.” Davina frowned. “But it’s not good news. You’re gaining power faster than we anticipated. We’re running out of time.”
My heart clenched in my chest. “So … so … so, what are we gonna do? I haven’t even gotten close to finding my father yet.”
She grabbed my hand and patted it. “Even if the binding was a good idea, which it’s not, we don’t have time for it, baby. We need to move. We need to build your powers, get you ready to fight.”
I put my hand to my forehead. “My brains are scrambled. I can’t think about fighting. Not now. We have to go.” I started toward the door.
“Where are we going?” Davina asked.
“To see Betty, over at CCB’s.”
I pulled the door open, and Davina grabbed it with her hand, holding it there. “Who’s Betty, and why are we going to see her?”
“She’s my boss at CCB’s. She’s magic. She wants to meet you, so she can figure out how to help.”
Davina narrowed her eyes. “There’s someone else with magic in this town?”
“Yes. She makes pastries. Zip-zap-baklava. They’re amazing. Anyway, I told her about this thing with Cain and—”
“You what?” Davina seemed annoyed. “You can’t go around telling people things like this. This is very sensitive information.”
“Don’t worry. We can trust Betty.” I decided not to tell Davina that I had also told Tobias; she seemed annoyed enough about Betty, and there was no need to add fuel to that fire. “Anyway, we need to go to CCB’s tonight. Betty wants to talk to you, find out what’s going on.”
“Oh, sure,” she said, slowly. “We can do that. But first, I want you to tell me … have you had any more contact with Cain?”
“No,” I said. “I haven’t seen him, and I haven’t heard anything about him, which is strange because whenever there’s a new man in town, usually, I hear about it.”
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Let’s go talk to your Betty. Maybe she’ll have some ideas on what we should do.” She headed toward the door. The crane followed her automatically and I grabbed it gently by one wing.
“You want me to … I don’t know. Undo it?”
Davina watched me, interest in her eyes. “Think you can? You know that’s an important part of your growth, learning to take the power back.”
“I know,” I said. “It just feels too much like…”
“Killing?” Davina nodded. “I know it does. But you know it’s not, right? That thing lives on your power. It’s no different from clipping your nails or cutting your hair. It’s all just a part of you that you don’t need anymore.”
I glanced back toward the living room, where Gibson thunked around in his cardboard box. I held the crane’s wing in my fingers, closed my eyes, and rallied my energy, feeling it flow through my arms, amazingly at my control. Then something occurred to me, and I looked to Davina.
“Hey, wait,” I said. “It’s night. Why is this working?”
“You generated the power during the daytime,” Davina said. “You can take it back whenever. It’s just a little bit of power in that thing. No big deal.”
“Oh.” I concentrated on the crane again, looking it in the … well, I guess … face. I stopped rallying my energy. “Go hang out with Gibson.”
I released it, and the crane flew into the living room to hover over Gibson’s padded box. I turned to see Davina staring at me, smiling.
“You’re a softy, baby,” she said, chuckling. “That’s gonna hurt you someday.”
“I know,” I said, stepping out onto the porch and shutting the door after us. “Let’s just go to CCB’s and get this over with, then we can come back and drink the wine.”
“That’s fine,” Davina said. “Let’s go.”
We stepped out into the night and made it about half a block when Davina grabbed my arm.
“What?” I said as she yanked me into the narrow driveway between two houses at the end of the street.
“Shh.” She held her finger to her lips and seemed to be listening. I listened, too. Didn’t hear anything. I waited a few more moments, and was about to ask her what was going on, when she looked at me, her eyes wide. “We need to get out of here.” She pointed to the darkness behind the houses. “What’s that way?”
“Um … the woods,” I said.
“Okay.”
She grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me along behind her. We crossed through the backyard and into the woods. It was dark, the moon was only about half-full, and I stumbled along behind her as weeds and twigs crunched under feet.
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“Davina, what—?”
“Shh!” she said, and we broke into a run. She moved through the woods like she already knew them, and I had trouble keeping up with her. Finally, we came to a thick copse of trees, and she pulled me behind one.
“You stay here.”
I didn’t have time to argue. She left me there and walked into a clear space, turning around as if looking for someone.
“You can’t have her!” she called. “She’s under my protection!”
There was nothing. No response. No sound. Not even twigs crackling under anyone’s feet.
It was then that it first occurred to me that just because Davina had told me the truth about a few things, that didn’t mean she wasn’t absolute batshit. I waited for a few moments, then started to move out from behind the tree, but Davina made a motion with her hands, telling me to get back. I sighed and retreated; if she was crazy, I could indulge her for a few minutes until she felt safe, and we could go to Betty’s and then … I don’t know. Find a doctor, get a prescription, and—
It sounded a little like wind at first, the eerie whistling when air moves a little too fast. The air around me, however, was still and dead. I watched Davina’s form in the moonlight, and had she not been wearing bright yellow, I might not have seen it. But, slowly, circling around her, there appeared to be something … kinda smoky. My heartbeat ratcheted up; she wasn’t crazy.
Crap.
And that’s when things started to move. The smoke swirled around her, furious, fast enough to move her hair and send her skirt billowing around her. She turned in circles, too, her eyes wide with fear, but when she spoke, her voice was firm.
“You can’t have her!”
The trees around us started to rustle as the smoke spread out. There was the crack of wood overhead, and I looked up to find a baseball bat–sized branch flying toward her in the grip of the smoke. I ran out from behind the trees to get to her.
