by March, Lucy
“Look. People go missing for ten years without a sign, ten-to-one, they’re buried in the cement foundation of a high-rise. But whoever it was in that forest with your sister was asking for Gabriel, and why would she call the name of a man who’s been dead ten years?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But then, I don’t understand a lot of it.”
“You don’t need to understand,” Stacy said. “What does your gut tell you?”
I thought about that for a minute, then said, “I don’t know.”
“Jesus Christ, Liv. Sure you do. You asked me to find him. You think he’s alive, too.”
Hope surged within me, and I tamped it down; I had no room in my heart for hope at the moment. “Maybe. So, what do I do now?”
“Hire a real detective, for one thing,” she said.
“I don’t know, you did pretty well for an amateur.” I looked at her. “You seen Peach?”
Her eyes darkened. “I just came from there. She’s still a little out of it because of the painkillers. Nick’s with her.”
I nodded. “Can I ask you something?”
“Has permission ever stopped you?”
“Millie … do you think she was always a time bomb, just waiting to go off?”
Stacy leaned back, stretched one arm over the back of the couch, and looked thoughtful. “Yeah, probably.”
“Do you think we can get her back from this?”
Stacy looked at me, then slowly shook her head.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” I said. “The four of us?”
She sighed. “It was always going to end eventually. Peach is getting married, Millie finally toppled over the edge, and you’re going away. Me, I’ll always be the townie slut. I’m the anchor that will keep us marginally connected, at least.”
She grinned at me, but I didn’t smile back. “You’re more than just the townie slut.”
“Oh, I’m not ashamed,” she said. “And speaking of shameless, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I’m in love with that man.”
I was so surprised by the comment that I almost laughed. “What?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not gonna piss in your flowerpot again but”—she waved her hand in front of her face, and then motioned to the front door where Cain had gone—“he is something else.”
“Go ahead and piss on him,” I said. “He’s not my flowerpot.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Because you know, he’s just my type.”
I laughed. “The type that will screw you senseless, give you shit, and leave you stranded?”
She looked at me and shrugged. “What can I say? Daddy issues.” She gently took the article from my hands, and said, “You know everything’s gonna be okay, right?”
“Yeah? How would I know that?”
“Because, eventually,” she said, leaning back, “it always is.”
And then, the article in her hands burst into flames.
It was quick, less like burning and more like disintegrating. A red ridge of fire rimmed the edges and consumed the whole thing with a zip sound, until there was nothing but pieces of ash floating to the ground. Stacy didn’t seem surprised at all. She shook out her hand, and as she did, I saw flickers of red light dancing around her fingertips.
“Wow,” she said, swallowing. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen Stacy even remotely flustered. “That was weird, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, crap,” I said. “You, too?”
She looked at me for a moment, then said, “Me, too, what?”
I reached over to the coffee table, picked up a cork coaster, and held it in my hands. I closed my eyes and concentrated, surprising myself with how easy it was this time to draw the energy through myself, to focus it. When I put the coaster back down on the table, it was a turtle, slowly making its way across the surface.
Stacy blinked a few times, then looked at me. “What the fuck is going on here, Liv?”
“Stacy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear—”
She gave me a pointed look. “You did this to me?”
“I think … maybe. I don’t know how. Something happened at that last Confessional—”
And then I stopped. The coffee. That Saturday morning before the girls came over, when Davina had told me about my sister, she’d given me a cup of coffee.
And I drank it.
“Shit.” I shot up from my chair. “What an idiot!”
I headed for the door, Stacy following closely behind, and pushed my way through. I glanced both ways down the street and didn’t see Cain, so I started down the street.
“Liv,” Stacy said, on my heels. “Wanna tell me what’s going on here, babe?”
And then Cain darted out of the narrow space between my house and Dale Hibbert’s, and grabbed me by the arm.
“Where the hell you think you’re going?”
“I was looking for you.”
“Well, you found me.” He shot a suspicious look at Stacy, then said, “What’s going on?”
“Davina, she—”
Cain stepped out toward the street, putting me behind him. “What? She here?”
“No, last week. Listen.” I stepped around him to face him again. “She gave me a cup of coffee, and I drank it.”
Cain’s expression got even more grim, if that was possible, and he said, “What happened?”
“It was right before the girls came over last week; she brought me coffee. Later that day, I touched Peach, and there was this static electricity shock between us. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but then Peach has started making things … I don’t know. Kind of dance around? And I saw this pink light on her fingers, like the yellow light that I get, and the blue light that Betty gets. And now Stacy … there was a moment when we had a static shock thing, too, right?”
I looked to Stacy, who nodded. “I thought that was weird.”
Cain eyed her. “So, what’s your power?”
“Intense heat, apparently.” Stacy pulled her car keys out of her pocket. One of them was wavy, as though it had been thrown into the heart of a blazing fire and then shaped around someone’s fingers. “I don’t have a normal goddamned spoon left in my house.” She tucked her useless keys back into her pocket.
I pulled on Cain’s sleeve. “Is there something you can do? Can you reverse it?”
He grunted a curse, and said, “Hell if I know. I don’t know what she gave you. What’d it taste like?”
I thought about that for a moment and shrugged. “Coffee?”
“Great,” he breathed, annoyed, and started back toward the house, me following close behind. “Next time a conjurer gives you something to drink, pass.”
“Davina said that normal people with magic … she said it hurts them. Should I be worried?”
He climbed up the steps to the front door. “No.”
I grabbed his arm, and turned him to face me. “Cain, these are my friends. If they’re going to be hurt because of me…”
His expression changed to something approaching sympathy, then he quickly shook his head. “The magic Davina stole hurts her because she took all of it. If your friends just got a little bit, they’re probably gonna be fine. Might even wear off after a while. She probably did it to make you freak out, turn to her for help.” He shot a quick look at Stacy, then looked back at me. “You’d need to deliberately dose someone before they’d be in serious trouble, and you’re not there yet.”
Then he went inside. I stood on the porch with Stacy for a moment, absorbing the information, and then she touched me on the arm and said, “Did he say magic?”
I opened the door for her and let her in first.
It was going to be a long afternoon.
*
An hour later, Stacy sat back on my couch, turning the coaster turtle around in her hand.
“Magic,” she said finally, and set it back on the coffee table, where it slowly started moving. It tended to favor its right back leg, and moved in slow, aimless circles a
cross the surface of the coffee table. “All right. I think my mind’s wrapped around it now.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Then you’re doing better than I am.”
The front door opened and Cain—who’d been sitting guard on the porch, although I think that was as much about not having to listen to me and Stacy as it was about security—came in with Tobias behind him. Tobias had a large army-navy duffel bag over his shoulder, which he dumped on the floor by the stairwell, and they both walked over to us in silence.
“Hey, Tobias,” Stacy said casually, putting her feet up on the coffee table.
Tobias looked at Stacy, then at me.
“Stacy’s lighting things on fire,” I said awkwardly.
“Again?” Tobias asked.
Stacy waved one hand at him in a dramatic flourish. “Without matches this time.” She angled her head at me. “Courtesy of magical Typhoid Mary over here.” She stood up. “Anyone want a Diet Coke?”
Both Tobias and Cain just looked at her, then I said, “No, thanks, we’re fine.” Stacy shrugged and went into the kitchen.
“Get rid of her,” Cain said, stepping into the living room. “We’ve got stuff to do.”
“I think she’s part of the team,” I said.
“Yeah?” Cain narrowed his eyes at me. “And who decided that?”
I sat back in my chair. “She did.”
“Well, tell her she’s wrong and kick her out.”
I shared an amused look with Tobias. “Spoken like a man who’s never tried to tell Stacy Easter what to do.”
Cain gave me an annoyed stare for a minute, and then cursed, and stalked off to the kitchen. Tobias, a small smile on his face, settled down across from me on the couch.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Good,” I said. “You know, considering.”
We held eye contact for a little longer than absolutely necessary, but didn’t speak again. From the kitchen I could hear Stacy’s defiant tones overwhelming Cain’s annoyed ones, and Tobias and I shared a grin. A few moments later, both Stacy and Cain came back into the living room. Stacy settled on the couch next to Tobias, sipping her Diet Coke.
“So,” she said, “I guess we’re having a meeting?” She looked from me to Tobias to Cain. “About how to take down the magical bitch?”
Cain ignored her, focusing on me. “Where’s Betty?”
“Taking a nap,” I said. “Want me to get her?”
“I’ll do it.” Stacy hopped up and headed up the stairs.
After she was out of earshot, I raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Cain. He shot me an annoyed look and grumbled, “Fire could come in handy.”
“I didn’t say anything.” I got up to go sit on the couch, and Tobias put his arm around me when I settled down next to him. A minute later, Betty and Stacy walked into the living room. Stacy seemed surprised for a moment at the sight of me and Tobias together, then shrugged and sat down on the other side of me.
“All right,” Cain said once everyone was settled. “Here’s the plan. Davina’s gonna be weakened for a while, but I say she makes a move tomorrow night, Friday at the latest. She’s angry, she’s desperate, and she’s running out of cards to play, so the play’s gonna get dirty.”
I tensed up. “The play hasn’t been dirty?”
Cain looked at me, but didn’t answer. “She’s strong at night, so during the day, we won’t find her if she doesn’t want to be found. The only way to end this thing is to draw her out when she’s feeling secure.” Cain looked at me. “That means, at night.”
My heart clutched in my chest. “But I don’t have any power at night.”
“Do what I tell you, you won’t need it. She needs to come after you when she thinks you’re weak. That’s at night. We send you out on your own to someplace, she follows you, tries to make her move and then…” He looked grimly around the group. “Then you let me take care of it.”
I felt a chill at the coldness in his voice. “What do you mean, take care of it?”
He met my eye. “That’s my concern. Your job is getting her to me.”
“So you can do what?”
Cain stayed quiet, and Stacy said, “You’re going to kill her.” Cain turned his icy look on Stacy and she held it for a moment, then looked at me. “Yeah, he’s definitely going to kill her.”
“You can’t,” I said automatically. “No.”
Cain looked at me, annoyed. “She’d break your neck without a second thought if it’d get her what she wanted. What are you protecting her for?”
“I’m not protecting her. But I’m not a killer, either.”
“You don’t have to be,” he said. “This is my thing, and I’m gonna get her with or without you. Be easier with you, but either way, that woman is getting put down.”
The hardness in his eyes scared me. Cain had never been exactly fluffy, but all the rage simmering underneath was coming to the surface now, and I felt like things were getting quickly out of control. I looked at Betty.
“Is it just me who thinks talking about killing people is insane?”
Betty took in a deep breath and shook her head carefully. “It’s not just you.”
Stacy shrugged. “I say the bitch started it, but then, I wanna kill someone at least twice a day, so…”
Betty looked at Cain. “I know Holly was important to you, and I’m sorry about what happened, but isn’t there a way to protect Liv without killing anyone?”
Cain’s cold eyes met hers. “No.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said. “If she could steal Holly’s magic, maybe we can just … I don’t know. Steal it back. Then she’d be relatively harmless.”
“She’d still be a conjurer, and a damn powerful one at that,” Cain said. “Soon as she healed up, she’d be back for you. You wanna spend the rest of your life with her on your tail?”
“No, but—”
Cain slammed his hand down on the coffee table, sending a sharp report throughout the room.
“She killed Holly!” His voice was full of rage and heartbreak, and while he pulled the emotion back in quickly, it was clear what his dog in this fight was, and it had nothing to do with protecting me. The room went quiet, and I had no idea what to say, but Tobias did.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Cain?”
“No,” Cain said, a sharp bite in his tone as he turned angry eyes on Tobias. “You?”
“Yes,” Tobias said, and the room went silent.
17
I felt the breath cut out of me as I watched Tobias, but his eyes were fixed on Cain, who stared back at him.
“You don’t come back from it,” Tobias said. “Circumstances change, and sometimes, killing someone is even justified, but once you’ve taken a life, it changes who you are. It doesn’t matter why you did it; you’ll never be the same person again.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Tobias walked over to Cain, stopping next to him by the fireplace. Betty, Stacy, and I stayed quiet, just watching.
“Look, if the only way to protect Liv is to kill Davina, I’ll do it. I don’t have as much to lose as you do. But I’ll only do it if there’s no other way.”
“Tobias,” I began, but he was focused on Cain, whose eyes were in turn locked on Tobias. There was some kind of manly communication going on between them, and neither one was paying attention to me, or anything else, at the moment.
“You kill that woman out of vengeance,” Tobias went on, “and you’ll stop being the guy that Holly knew.”
“What the hell do you know about Holly?” Cain said through his teeth, his voice a low, angry growl.
“Nothing,” Tobias said. “I know you loved her, that’s obvious. And I know, better than you, the price you pay when you kill someone. That’s all I’m saying, Cain. You pay a price, and it’s a steep one.”
Cain’s eyes narrowed and he glared at Tobias. “I’ve already paid.” And then he stalked out the front door. We all stayed where we were, frozen in silence, a
nd then, finally, Stacy pushed herself up from the couch.
“Well, I haven’t been in a room with this much tension since I tried to give my stepfather a tonsillectomy with a spork.” She stretched. “Time for a break.” And with that, she headed into the kitchen. A moment later, Betty stood up and silently followed her, leaving me and Tobias alone.
“So,” I said. “Wow.”
He raised his eyes to mine. I felt an involuntary shaking in my legs, and I put my hands on my thighs to stop it.
“You said…” I began, then hesitated. I had promised I would trust him, but even as I tried to stop myself, I knew I wouldn’t be able to let this go. “You said you’d never killed anyone.”
He lowered his head. “I said the firm never asked me to.”
“Ah, semantics.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. “How many people have you killed?”
He gave me a dull stare. “I lost count at twelve.”
“Don’t joke about this,” I said. “Please.”
He sat down on the couch, let out a long breath, and spoke.
“I was thirteen. My powers came in right as a school bully was beating my brother to a pulp. I stopped his heart. I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that I had imagined something, and then … it had happened. I haven’t used my power outside of a controlled setting since.” He stood up, walked toward the wall, then took a few steps toward me. “My parents were both Magicals, so they knew the deal. They called ASF as soon as I told them what happened.”
“Oh my god,” I said. “They turned you in to the feds?”
He shrugged. “They thought it was the right thing to do. When kids show signs of extraordinary ability, the potential to really hurt someone, it’s what people are told to do.”
“Still.” I reached out and touched his hand. “That sucks.”
He let out a small laugh. “Yeah. Anyway, the firm came and got me, gave me a new name, and raised me in a special boarding school until I was old enough to work for them. I haven’t seen my family since.”
“You can’t visit, or write at least?”
His eyes looked sad and tired as he shook his head. “There was a kid in my boarding school who got a letter out to his mom. The entire family disappeared two weeks later.”
