Magic In the Blood ab-2 Read online

  Or maybe I just wasn’t in my right mind. Which might also explain the whole ghost-in-the-bathroom bit.

  Well, whatever. Right now I had to get down to the police department and tell them what I knew about the day my dad died. After that I’d scout around town and see if there were any Hounding possibilities.

  I picked up my journal and quickly wrote that I was giving a statement and had dinner plans with Violet. I paused, wondering if I should write that I’d seen a ghost. Common sense won out, and I simply wrote: Saw Dad’s ghost in the bathroom. Not fun. And hoped that would be that.

  Chapter Two

  I blew out all the candles and checked to make sure my windows were locked and my heater wasn’t turned up too high. My apartment looked like it always did: sort of half-decorated, a few boxes still out from my move a week ago, laundry piled on one corner of the couch waiting to be folded, and empty coffee cups perched here and there amidst a half dozen paperbacks I was reading.

  The place was coming together. Pillows on the couch and a couple pieces of artwork I’d bought at the Saturday Market did some good to add color to the off-white walls and tan rug.

  And best of all, not a ghost in sight. If I managed to stay here long enough, it might even feel like home someday.

  I gathered all the empty cups and took them to the kitchen sink. I was procrastinating, and if I waited any longer I was going to miss the bus and miss my appointment with Love and Payne. Then they’d be on my doorstep, wearing their not-at-all-amused faces.

  Going in to see the police before coffee wasn’t my idea of fun.

  I took a nice deep breath and put the last cup in the sink. I could do this. Go downtown, give my statement, and then head over to Get Mugged-my favorite coffee shop in the whole town-and get me a decent cup of joe and something for breakfast.

  All the normal stuff normal people do. Normal people who use magic only occasionally because they don’t want to pay the physical price of pain. Normal people who use magic only to make themselves look thinner at their high school reunions or to keep their cars shiny in the summer. Normal people who use magic only to get high on Friday nights.

  Normal people who don’t see ghosts.

  So what if I wasn’t good at normal? Didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun.

  I turned out the kitchen light and walked around the half wall, snatching up my knit hat on the way. I tugged the hat over my head, thankful my hair was short enough I didn’t have to tuck it up. I headed to the living room and pulled my coat and scarf off the back of my couch and put them on. I put my journal and dead cell phone in one pocket and then checked for my gloves (black leather driving gloves that were actually warm and stylish, wonder of wonders) in the other pocket.

  The gloves served two purposes. One, they kept my fingers from freezing-it had been cold the last week or so. I was amazed the rain hadn’t turned to snow yet. And two, the gloves hid the marks magic had left on my hands. Which meant I didn’t have to put up with the stares and questions.

  Yes, I get tired of making up excuses for something most people wouldn’t believe. That magic, magic in my bones, painted me, marked me, scarred me. Most days I liked how it looked but some days I didn’t want the attention.

  With my keys and wallet tucked in my pockets, I went out the door, locking it behind me. The delicious spice of cinnamon and yeast caught at the back of my throat and made my empty stomach cramp in protest. I inhaled deeply and sighed. Sweet torture, someone was baking cinnamon rolls. I put one hand over my stomach and picked up the pace a bit. I hadn’t eaten since my peanut butter sandwich for dinner yesterday, and I was suddenly very hungry.

  I marched down the hall and noted the last apartment door was propped open. The tenants had moved out about a week after I moved in, and it looked like someone had rented it already. I passed in front of the door and inhaled deeply again, this time picking up on the more subtle scent of almond and deeper spices-a man’s cologne, the slightest tang of sweat and something sweet like licorice-as I passed by the door. I didn’t hear anyone moving around in there, but clearly, moving was going on.

  There were no elevators in the Forecastle, which was one of the reasons I practically begged the landlord to let me rent. I had a serious thing about small spaces. I seriously hated them.

  Elevators, changing rooms, even small cars set me off in a panic. I’d rather walk a million stairs than push a single elevator button. The other thing the Forecastle had going for it was it didn’t reek of old magic every time the weather got bad. And in Portland, the weather got bad a lot.

  I headed down the central staircase, my boot heels silent on the carpeting. The lobby was cold and quiet and dark except for the ceiling lights. There were windows next to the doors that led to the street, but dawn hadn’t knocked the night out of the sky yet.

  I pulled my hat closer over my head and tucked my chin in my scarf before opening the door.

  Rain fell in huge heavy drops, cold as ice melt on the gusty winds. I pushed my hands into my pockets and tipped my head down, trying to keep my face out of the worst of the wet. I tromped up the sidewalk to the bus stop. The good thing about being six feet tall is I can cover some serious ground in a short time. But even though the bus stop was only a few blocks up the hill, I was out of breath by the time I hit the first curb.

  Nearly dying had taken a lot out of me. I hated being reminded that I wasn’t as strong as I liked to be, but it was true.

  Time. All I needed was a little time to finish getting well and then I’d be healthy and strong. I’d be normal again.

  Magic pushed under my skin, stretching and making me itch a little. Reminding me it was there, ready to be used, to be shaped, to be cast. Reminding me it would do anything for me. So long as I was willing to pay the price.

  Okay, maybe normal was too much to ask for. Right now, I’d settle for healthy.

  I ignored the push of magic and kept a steady pace to the bus stop. I was drenched by the time I arrived. The bus stop itself was a cozy little Plexiglas closet of death beneath the glaring eye of a streetlight. My palms broke out in a sweat inside my gloves.

  Oh, no way. No matter how wet and cold I was, there was no force in this world that could make me stand under that tiny roof with the other six people who were already crammed inside. Freeze to death in the driving wind and rain instead? No problem.

  Five or six men huddled on the other side of the bus stop, between it and the curb. They faced the street, hands in their pockets, heads bent against the gusty rain.

  Typical to Oregon, no one carried an umbrella, though everyone had on a hat or hood. We all waited, silent, a mix of old, young, and odd.

  I scanned the faces, wondering if I knew any of them. It was possible they could be my neighbors. But no one made eye contact, and no one looked familiar. What everyone looked was wet, and tired of it.

  The bus rumbled up to the curb and screeched to a stop. The curbside men got on first, and then a few of the speedier bus stop huddlers, myself in the mix. I reached the door and flashed my bus pass. The smell of people-lots and lots of wet people-hit me full in the face.

  That was one of the disadvantages to being a Hound. Not only was I able to track spells back to their casters, but I also had a pretty sensitive nose, even without magic enhancing it.

  I tucked my nose a little deeper into my scarf and beelined to the empty back of the bus. I took a seat near the door and leaned my head against the window behind me. That let me stare across the aisle and out the other window while the rest of the riders got on the bus. Across the street, a man pulled free from the shadows. He stood there, in the open and the rain, a darkness against darkness. He stared at the bus. He stared at me.

  I felt his gaze all the way down to my bones.

  I knew him. I was sure of it.

  Zayvion Jones. The man I had fallen in love with-the man I might still be in love with. The man I hadn’t seen for weeks.

  The doors hissed shut and the engine growled as the
bus pulled out into traffic, leaving Zayvion lost to the rain and darkness behind me.

  Loneliness hollowed out my chest. What had he been doing there on the street? Was he looking for me?

  Well, if he was, he’d have to wait. My cell was toast. If he had a phone, I didn’t think he’d given me the number. I’m sure I would have written it in my blank book. Or at least I thought I would have.

  I shook my head and tried to push Zayvion out of my mind. He knew where I lived. Obviously. He could leave me a note if he wanted to get ahold of me.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  That voice sent my stomach down to my shoes and left nothing but fight or flight rising up through me in a hot wave. I suddenly wished I’d brought my baseball bat with me.

  I looked up.

  Lon Trager, the kingpin of drugs and blood magic, smiled down at me. I’d saved Martin Pike’s granddaughter from his blood-and-drug den a while ago. My testimony had put Trager in jail.

  He was supposed to get thirty years. Thirty. It hadn’t even been three.

  He wore a nice business coat, expensive French cologne, and a hat straight out of a 1930s film. He didn’t wait for my answer before folding into the seat next to me, his shoulders brushing mine. His face was long, dark, his cheeks hollowed out so the bones cut a hard line under his eyes. He was a predator. He was violence. A dealer, a pusher, a killer.

  “Great day to be alive, isn’t it, Ms. Beckstrom?”

  If he thought I was going to sit there and make nice talk, he was out of his mind.

  I stood.

  Six other men in our immediate vicinity rose out of their seats just a little and glanced at Trager. They each had at least one hand in a pocket. I pulled my nose out of my scarf and caught the faintest scent of metal and oil and gunpowder.

  “I’m sure you are a very busy woman.” Trager put his hand out, and his thugs sat back down in their seats. “Please sit, Ms. Beckstrom. We wouldn’t want anyone on this bus to have an unpleasant experience.”

  I was so screwed. If I yelled for the bus driver to call 911, or even if I silently traced a glyph to cast magic, Trager’s men would pull their guns. Everyone on the bus could be killed.

  Magic is fast.

  So are bullets.

  Think, Allie, I told myself. There had to be a way out of this.

  But the only other thing I could think of was to sit down, listen to his threats, and maybe oh-so-casually trace a glyph that I could use on him before his goons killed me.

  Life or death before coffee. Welcome to Monday.

  I sat on the edge of the seat and half turned so I could meet him eye to eye.

  His eyes were brown enough to be black. Cool, flat, and alien in a way that made me squirm inside.

  “Cops know you’re out?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, they do.”

  That sent chills over my skin. He had gotten out legally. Or maybe he had bought his way out. Either way, he was free. Really free.

  Holy shit.

  “Does it worry you?” he said. “You know, this… bad blood between us”-he smiled, and it made him look hungry-“could be wiped away. I’m willing to call it clean, done, over, no harm, no foul, so long as you do one thing for me.”

  I had no intention of doing anything for him. But he didn’t have to know that. “Really? Must be my lucky day.”

  His smile wasn’t doing anything for his looks. Unless he was going for the crazy psycho-killer thing.

  “Ms. Beckstrom,” he chided, “you don’t know how lucky you’ve been. I will kill you.” He shrugged his shoulders as if he were discussing which pizza to buy for lunch. “Today, tomorrow. If not by my hand, then by my voice and the hands of my people. My people are everywhere. Even your rich, dead daddy knew that. Even your rich, dead daddy bowed to me.”

  I blinked like I wasn’t the least bit intimidated. And in some ways, I wasn’t. He could insult my father all he wanted-I didn’t care.

  “Is this going to take all day?” I asked. “My stop’s coming up.”

  A flicker of raw anger flashed in those alien eyes. “Bring me Martin Pike,” he said with such emphasis that his spit peppered my face. “Bring him to me alive. By tomorrow night. Tuesday, no later than midnight. If I don’t see both of you strolling across my floor, you will be dead before the sun rises on Wednesday.”

  The bus grumbled and slowed, kneeling toward the stop at the curb. His goons all stood.

  I should have seen it, should have sensed the change in his body language. But when six guys with guns stand up at the same time, I am all about keeping an eye on them.

  The bite of a needle plunged deep in my thigh hit me like an electric shock. I grunted but didn’t have time to yell, didn’t have time to cast magic or even punch him in the face before Lon Trager was on his feet. In his hand was an odd double-chambered glass syringe wrapped from tip to plunger in a fine metallic cagework of glyphs. And in that syringe was my blood. Six guns from his goons were pocketed and pointed at me.

  Subtle. Deadly. “Tomorrow by midnight.” Trager deposited the syringe in his pocket.

  I stood to throw a spell at him, regardless of the stupidity of taking him down with all his gun-buddies ready to waste me, and thumped back into the seat on my ass. A wave of dizziness washed over me. The sickeningly sweet taste of cherries exploded in the back of my mouth, and the entire bus slipped sideways while a flood of heat spread out over my thigh.

  What was on that needle?

  By the time the dizziness passed-maybe a full minute and a half-Trager and his men were gone, the bus was no longer at the curb, and the seat across from me was now filled with a mother and two kids sitting on their knees so they could look out the window behind them.

  Sweet hells. I was so screwed.

  Lon Trager had my blood.

  And I didn’t know what he was going to use it for.

  I thought about calling the police on my cell, but it was beyond busted.

  Magic shifted in me, pressed to slip my tenuous hold on it. It promised anything, promised to destroy Trager, if I was willing to pay for it.

  No. I’d find a traditional way to throw his ass back in jail. Some way that he wouldn’t be able to plea or bribe his way out of.

  I’d be at the police station in just a few minutes. Enough time to calm my pounding heart and regain my cool.

  Tall buildings slid through the branches of trees that lined the streets as the bus continued into downtown. At the next stop, a man wearing a ski hat, a gray trench coat, and a black scarf walked up the two stairs and paused to scan the bus like he was looking for someone. He had a newspaper folded under his arm. The brown paper cup in his hand sent out the scent of coffee like strains of music from a caffeine angel’s harp.

  He paid, glanced again at the mostly full seats, and caught me looking at him. Okay, I was really looking to make sure he wasn’t carrying a gun, but still, he caught my glance.

  Here is something else that’s weird about me. I do not look away when people catch me staring at them. I’d spent too many years staring down my father even though I hadn’t ever won. My father had a deep need to control people-his only daughter perhaps most of all. Still, it taught me not to back down from confrontation.

  The man with the coffee smiled, just the slightest curve of his lips, and walked my way. He didn’t look away either, and I found myself staring into a pair of eyes the color of winter honey. He had a square face with heavy brows and eyes framed by very dark lashes. I didn’t think he’d shaved this morning, and it looked good on him.

  “This seat taken?” he asked.

  What was it with me and strange men today?

  “Yes.”

  He frowned, looked toward the front of the bus. No other empty seats. But instead of pushing it, which would have gotten him a broken nose because no one was screwing with me again, he took a couple steps forward. He switched his cup into his left hand so his right hand was free to hold the overhead bar. With the newspaper pinned under his
arm, he took a sip of coffee.

  I sniffed him out, searching for a hint of Trager’s French cologne. Instead of Trager’s overpowering scent, this man’s cologne-sandalwood and sweet oranges-mixed with the fragrance of coffee. A delicious combination made more delicious because he didn’t smell like Trager, didn’t smell like the goons, the guns, or the danger that had suddenly pushed its way into my morning.

  My gut said he was just a regular guy.

  Well, Regular Guy would just have to ride the bus on his regular feet.

  We rode awhile in silence, me looking out the window across the aisle, keeping him in my peripheral vision, him looking ahead. He took a sip from his cup, and the smell was sweet torture.

  At the next stoplight, he let go of the bar and extended his right hand. “Paul Stotts,” he said.

  I did not shake his hand. “Good for you.”

  “I know you,” he said. “Allie Beckstrom, right?”

  I did a quick search through my memories. I didn’t remember him, but instinct told me he wasn’t as Regular Guy as he appeared to be. “How long have you been following me?”

  “Hmm,” he said around a swallow of coffee. “Just today.”

  He didn’t hold himself like a Hound, didn’t have that desperate look of a Hound, and was wearing too much cologne to be a Hound. He also didn’t look or smell like he was into blood magic or drugs, so maybe he wasn’t a part of Trager’s game. But with Trager’s “my people are everywhere” speech ringing in my head, I did not want to chance it.

  “Police,” he said. “Detective Stotts.”

  Oh. I hadn’t expected that.

  “Police? Where were you two stops back?”

  “Waiting for the bus. Why?”

  I hesitated. Did I really want to go into this in public? Just because the goons got off the bus with Trager didn’t mean someone else wasn’t here acting as his ears. If Trager had any brains-and I had to assume he did, since he had not only created the largest blood-and-drugs cartel in the city, but he had also pulled a get-out-of-jail-free card-he would have left someone behind to watch me and report back.