Magic on the Line

by Devon Monk

  “Tell that woman”—I pointed—“I need to talk to her.”

  I jogged across the street, headed for the Veiled. I managed not to get hit, though three cars laid on the horns and brakes.

  The woman was going in the opposite direction from the Veiled. Even without Sight, I could see it—him—walking down the street. It moved a little faster than a normal walk, as if each step were on ice, gliding it forward more than a normal step would. He did not look back at me, did not seem bothered by the people around him.

  I calmed my thoughts and set a Disbursement. I wanted to stop him, and find out if he was solid like the Veiled whom Leander had commanded, or if he was something else. Any kind of Veiled could be dangerous. I wasn’t going to take any chances of facing one down alone, nor was I going to let him walk the city and hurt someone.

  I drew the glyph for Hold, easy, basic, should work, even at a distance, even on a Veiled. Then I drew the magic from beneath the ground. It was hot, painful, burning, licking. I gasped, froze in my tracks. My vision clouded, the edges buzzing with black, closing down. I couldn’t see the Veiled anymore. Couldn’t see the buildings around me.

  Allie, my dad said. Don’t!

  And then I was pretty sure I didn’t. Because I passed out.

  I woke up staring at an elderly woman’s face. She had the most amazing manicure, with little bunnies painted onto the space of each peach-lacquered fingernail. Spring colors, I supposed, all wrapped around her tiny bright green cell phone. She was talking on the cell, answering a lot of yes and no questions, and giving a street address.

  Strange.

  “Oh, she’s awake now. Are you all right?” she asked.

  What I was, was lying on the sidewalk, a handful of people gathered around looking down at me. There was something soft under my head that shushed like a nylon jacket when I nodded.

  “I’m good. I’m fine.” I worked on sitting and all the faces blurred a bit, then settled back into focus.

  “You really shouldn’t move,” the nice lady said.

  “No, I’m fine.” I touched the back of my head. It was bleeding. “Seizures,” I lied. “I’ll be fine.”

  One of the men in the crowd suffered a sudden attack of chivalry and helped me up onto my feet. The lady on the phone told whoever was on the other line, 911 I’d guess, that I was fine, mobile, and didn’t need an ambulance.

  Which was all good and well, but didn’t change the fact that I’d totally lost track of the Veiled. What had hit me?

  Magic, Dad said. You channeled it, and it knocked you out.

  Okay. That wasn’t good. What had I been pulling on magic for? I’d been following the Veiled, right? I looked around and didn’t see him. What I did see was magic— spells hung on the sides of buildings, personal spells clinging like ribbony spiderwebs around people. Soft neon-colored glyphs, jagged, flowing, pulsing with magic. Rigid Refresh spells in deep golds, silver, and copper attached to walls, street meters, cars, as if they were riveted there. I should not be able to see magic without casting Sight. I should not be seeing it right now at all.

  Am I using magic? I asked my dad.

  He did a strange sidestep thing in my head, paused for a moment, then said, No.

  Can you see what I see? I asked.

  A different sort of sidestep, and then I felt his presence next to me, as if he were standing over my shoulder and leaning down to say something in my ear.

  You can see magic? You shouldn’t be able to see it with your bare eyes.

  I know that. Maybe a side effect from hitting my head? I tentatively probed the back of my head with my fingers. My hair felt like a bloody, tangled mess. There was a knuckle-sized lump there, and everything around it hurt. Yuck. I needed to have someone look at it. Maybe see a doctor. At least take a pain pill.

  I think a doctor is a very good idea, Dad said in a calm, encouraging tone.

  Why are you being so helpful? I asked.

  Allison, you have a head wound. I live in your head.

  True. But I didn’t want to see a doctor. I wanted to go find that Veiled, or maybe get a cab and go home and take a nap.

  I looked around for Jack. He was striding my way, no spells clinging to him, though a sort of dark shadow surrounded him, like someone had outlined his entire body in charcoal.

  “Come this way,” he said. And then he did something Hounds simply do not do. He touched me. He took my arm and led me away from the last few people who had lingered to see if I was okay, and walked with me briskly down the block and across the street.

  “You okay?” he asked, still not letting go of my arm.

  “Hit my head. It’s bleeding.”

  We were across the street now and Jack’s car was there. “Get in.”

  He let go of me and walked around to the driver’s side of the car. I pulled on the door handle and happened to glance at my arm. A black charcoal stain covered my arm in a handprint-sized area. The same charcoal that had been surrounding Jack.

  I knew Hounds didn’t like touching people because Hounds didn’t like leaving their scent on someone to track them by. But this was more than scent. Wasn’t it?

  I got in the car and sniffed my sleeve. It smelled like whiskey and smoke—Jack’s smells—but only faintly. I rubbed at my sleeve to see if I could wipe the charcoal mark off. No luck. But that mark didn’t cling to my fingertips or otherwise smear or travel.

  It didn’t seem tangible. It seemed more like magic. Or the residue of magic that had been on his hands.

  “Did you cast magic on me?” I asked. I looked over at Jack.

  He was watching me like someone watches a wild animal. With extreme caution. “No. Let me see your head, all right?”

  I turned my head and tucked my chin. “Right on the crown,” I said. “But you might want gloves. I think I’m still bleeding.”

  I heard a click of a flashlight button depressing, and then he moved my hair out of the way with something that was not his fingers. A comb maybe.

  “Looks to be just a lump and a cut. Not too deep. Not worth stitches, I don’t think. But it is not bleeding, it’s gushing.” The flashlight clicked again and Jack unzipped his jacket pocket. “Here, press this on it.”

  I turned back around and took the clean dark blue handkerchief he offered me and pressed it to the back of my head.

  “Where to next?” he asked. “Hospital?”

  I thought about it. Bed sounded good. But I needed to find Shame. Terric had asked me to, and I didn’t know if that meant Shame was hurt or needed help.

  “Let me call someone,” I said. I pulled out my phone, dialed.

  “What?” Shame asked. Oh, he was not happy. Not happy at all.

  “Where are you?”

  “Home. Why, Bartholomew sending you out to drag me in?”

  “No. I need to see you. For my own reasons.”

  “Fine.” He hung up.

  Well, he was in a cheery mood. “Can you take me out to Maeve Flynn’s inn?” I asked.

  Jack started the car and pulled out into traffic. “You want to tell me why your head’s bleeding?”

  “Did you find that woman?”

  “Yes. But she refused to wait until my unconscious friend could talk to her.”

  Nice. Sarcasm. The perfect side order with my headache. “Did you get her name?”

  “No. But I could find her if I had to.”

  Hounds. Loved their attention to detail.

  “Your head?” he asked.

  “I passed out.”

  “Why?”

  “I used magic and it kicked my butt.”

  “Did you set a Disbursement?”

  “Yes. I did everything the way I normally cast magic. And I blacked out.”

  “What were you casting? Why were you casting it?”

  “I could tell you it’s none of your business.”

  “You could.” He didn’t say anything else.

  “Do you see anything strange about the city?”

  He
chuckled. “You’re going to have to be a hell of a lot more specific.”

  “Do you see magic?”

  “The results, the effects, yes. Illusions, that sort of thing.”

  “No. I mean, can you see the spells? Right now, without Sight, can you see . . .” I glanced at the road we were traveling down, noted a big fat Attraction spell hugging a storefront. “Can you see that Attraction over there? How it’s sort of gray blue with sparks of gold at the center?”

  He looked. Looked at me, then looked back at the store. “No.”

  I didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Can you?”

  I nodded, which hurt my head, but didn’t change the fact that I could still see magic.

  “Have you always seen magic like this?” he asked.

  “Not without Sight.”

  “Want to go back over what kind of magic you were casting before you hit your head and why?” he asked.

  “Want to risk having my words pulled, painfully, out of your brain by people who don’t want you to know this stuff?”

  “Those people in the car with us?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Then talk,” he said.

  “I was casting a Hold.”

  “At who?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “What, like Davy talking to Pike?”

  “Sure,” I said, looking over at him and trying to get a read on whether he believed. “Like that.”

  “Davy thinks he saw him,” Jack said. “Heard him. More than once. I wouldn’t believe in ghosts unless I saw them with my own eyes.”

  “Then you won’t believe what I’m saying, but I saw a ghost step out of that woman I told you to follow.”

  “Like in the alley with Davy?”

  “Yes.”

  He drove for a bit, silent.

  “Why Hold?” he finally asked.

  “I wanted to stop it so I could get a better look.”

  “Does magic work on ghosts?”

  “Not always. Sometimes.”

  “And a ghost stepping out of someone is unusual behavior?” he asked.

  See, this was what I liked about Hounds. They could take the impossible, the improbable, the outrageous, bend their minds enough to entertain an acceptance of the possibility, and then ask what the indicators, habits, and behaviors of the thing were—all necessary bits of information for having to track something down, or track a spell back to it.

  “She was coughing,” I said. “And then the ghost stepped out of her and went walking down the street.”

  “Why worry about a ghost?”

  “I thought it might use magic.”

  He laughed. “You really did hit your head.”

  “I thought it might use magic before I hit my head.”

  He glanced over at me with the smile still on his face. “You’re serious?”

  “Very.”

  He just shook his head and watched the road. “I knew you were crazy, Beckstrom, but I didn’t think you were certifiable.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me, Jack,” I said closing my eyes. “As a matter of fact, I don’t recommend it. For your own good.”

  “So ghosts can use magic,” he finally said.

  “Some of them.”

  Jack just made a hm sound, thinking about that.

  I didn’t fall asleep during the drive. My head hurt too much for me to rest. But I kept my eyes closed. Seeing all the spells, seeing that much magic covering everything, running like leaves tiptoeing over power lines, snaking up buildings, wrapping like rope around people, plants, cars, made me a little sick to my stomach.

  Well, that or the fact that I was very likely concussed.

  Pretty soon I heard the hum of the tires over the bridge, and not long after that the access road and gravel of Maeve’s parking lot.

  “Allie?”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Looks like the inn’s still closed,” he said.

  “It probably is. But I’m here to see Maeve, not to get a cup of coffee. Thanks, Jack. See you.”

  “Not letting you in there alone,” he said.

  I dug in my pocket. I had two twenties and a ten on me. “Fifty bucks, and you stay out here instead of following me into my friend’s house and getting in the way of my personal conversation.”

  He nodded and took the money. “Done.”

  I got out of the car and winced at the pounding in my head. The wind felt a lot colder here by the water. I walked to the front door. It was strange to see the porch light off, and the sign turned to CLOSED. Next to the sign a piece of paper said the restaurant and inn was going through renovations and would be open in a month.

  I guess renovations sounded better than saying that the Veiled tried to kill us here and we had to lock the place down so they couldn’t get to the magic well beneath the inn that no one knew about.

  I tried the door. It didn’t open. So I rang the doorbell. Nothing for a bit. Jack was still in his car, the engine idling. I folded my arms over my chest, and really wished I’d asked Jack if he had an aspirin, or maybe a few cc’s of morphine stashed in his glove box.

  Finally, I heard the muted tread of footsteps approaching the door.

  I did not expect to see Hayden looking through the high glass.

  The locks clacked, and I got a whiff of the fresh-cut-grass smell of a Ward being canceled. Then he opened the door.

  “Allie.”

  Hayden was tall, a good six or more inches over my six feet. He was also wide-shouldered and had that Northwestern lumberjack look. Magic flickered black and red around him, in thick bands that crisscrossed his chest, then split to wrap down his arms like bracers, and finally pooled in his hands.

  He’d come down from Alaska to help the Authority after my dad died, and had rekindled a relationship with Shame’s mom, Maeve.

  “Hey. Is Shame here?”

  He looked out past me at Jack’s car.

  “The Hounds won’t let me go anywhere alone,” I said. “I paid him to sit out here so I could have some privacy.”

  “Anyone else with you?”

  “No. Well, you know, my dad.” I lifted my hand and pointed at my head.

  His eyes narrowed suddenly. “Come on in,” he said. He stepped aside and I stepped in. It was only when I lowered my hand that I realized my fingers were covered in blood.

  “Where are you hurt?” he asked.

  “I passed out and hit the back of my head. It’s just a bump and a cut. And a headache and a dizzy.”

  “I’ll get Maeve.” He started across the room to the side of the inn that led to her home.

  “No, that’s okay. I just came to check on Shame.”

  “Not listening,” Hayden said. “Have a seat. Pour yourself a drink.”

  And then the door closed behind him and all the polite yelling in the world wouldn’t have done me any good.

  I looked around the room. It didn’t appear that we’d had a life-or-death magic battle here. The burnt walls and ceiling were repaired, the tables all solid, each with a folded white tablecloth in the center of it, chairs pulled up tight as if any minute Maeve’s employees would come in and set things up for hungry patrons.

  But even though the room looked normal, the smells that I associated with the place were gone. No deep, buttery scents of bread and pastries, no heavy onion and meat and herb aromas, no sweet pies, coffee, wines. The inn felt like a hollow shell of itself, as if it too were a ghost of what it had once been.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I turned. Shame was standing in the hallway opposite to where Hayden had exited. I knew that behind Shame were meeting rooms, rooms I had trained in when I was first learning the different disciplines of magic, and stairs that led up to lodging where Zayvion had recovered from his coma, and down those same stairs eventually, to the Blood magic well.

  Shame was a slice of darkness against the shadows behind him, only his pale, pale face catching any light. Magic surrounded him,
just like it surrounded the door, and, now I noticed, faintly strung across the doorway he stood within.

  The magic around Shame wasn’t a charcoal outline like it was around Jack or black and red bands like around Hayden. It was moving, a constantly drifting stream, like sunset-colored smoke lifting up off things—off living things: the plant in the corner, and farther away, off the plants outside the windows, streaming a faded fire into him, into the crystal embedded in his chest.

  But that crystal wasn’t just sucking in life energy. It was also consuming Shame. I could see it radiating outward, a soft pink glow, chewing away at the hard, clean blackness of him, leaving behind nothing but his bones.

  Holy shit. The crystal was eating him alive. No wonder he’d been so frail since Mikhail had possessed him. Whatever Mikhail had cast on that crystal to allow him to use Shame’s body must have changed it.

  I suddenly realized Shame was dying.

  “I’m . . . Shame . . . God. I really need to talk to you.” It came out stilted, breathy. I felt like someone had just knocked all the air out of my lungs. I didn’t want Shame to die. I was losing everyone. Everyone I loved. But all I could do was stand there, frozen, as everyone died around me.

  Shame tipped his head down, his bangs falling to cover his eyes. “What?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  Shame held his breath and was very, very still. “Who sent you?”

  “No one. Nobody. Well, Terric . . .”

  “Fuck him. Did he tell you to take me back to him? Like a dog to beg for Bartholomew’s favor?”

  “What? No. He was worried—”

  “Turn around and leave, Allie. And when you and Terric and Bartholomew all get together to decide just how to put me down, tell them I will be more than happy to show them just how good of a Death magic user I really am.”

  Okay, something about this conversation had gone terribly wrong. Between the head wound and the emotional shock of knowing Maeve had been Closed, Victor had been Closed, Violet was in danger, and Davy and Shame might both be dying, I just could not track why Shame was so angry at me.

  He thinks you’re working for Bartholomew, Dad said, being helpful again. He thinks you’re here to haul him in to Bartholomew. Which probably means he is not on speaking terms with Bartholomew, or that he is not doing what Bartholomew wants him to be doing.