Magic to the Bone Read online

  Then, as fast as it had hit, the pain was gone. I wiped at the wet on the corners of my eyes. That had been the worst headache I had ever experienced. I took a couple of breaths, and was relieved that really, all the rest of me was feeling pretty good. But the headache, or maybe the haunting absence of that sudden pain, left me feeling horrible in a different way. I was crying, actually crying, like I hadn’t since I was ten. But why?

  The wispy fragments of a dream brushed across my thoughts; someone was gone, missing. Hopelessness washed over me like when I’d been told my mom had left the country. I wanted to curl up under the quilt and never come out.

  I’d just lost someone or something important to me. But I didn’t know why I thought that. I must be tired. Just tired.

  I wiped my face on my sleeve and took a look at my hands. Still a little yellow from the bruising, but not the angry black and purple-red they’d been last time I’d looked at them.

  The digital clock next to the bed read five a.m. I’d slept over twelve hours. I had better write down the details of the hit on Boy and the meeting with my father in my little book while I had the chance. When I got home, I’d take some time and transfer the notes to my computer.

  It was strange to have my entire life, or at least the important bits I didn’t want to forget, recorded by hand and backed up electronically. It made sense to do it for the jobs I Hounded, but sometimes when going through the book I ran across a detail, like ‘‘always take the right trail in the park’’ or ‘‘parrots don’t work’’ that were obviously personal experiences I no longer retained.

  Sometimes I felt like a ghost in my own life.

  I sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. Mama had left me in my jeans and tank top and put my extra sweater on me, and had draped my coat over the foot of the bed. I tugged the coat up to me, and dug the leather-bound journal and pen out of the pocket.

  The first page of the book had my vital information. My name, birthday, blood type, medical allergies, things of that manner. So far I hadn’t forgotten those things, but it was a grim and very real possibility that one day I might. I didn’t like to think about it, but it would be stupid to not take what precautions I could.

  I thumbed back to a blank page and started with the date and time of Mama’s call.

  It didn’t take me long. I’d had lots of practice, in college and otherwise, to make my notes as short, clear, and concise as possible.

  I tucked the book back in my coat and turned out the lamp. But instead of drifting back to sleep for maybe another hour, I tossed and turned, the lingering sadness and loss from the dream filling my thoughts.

  For no reason at all, I kept thinking about my father. Not about his anger and manipulation, but about the feel of his blood and mine joined, his regret when he said, ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ and how genuine that felt.

  I should have stayed away. Stayed away for another seven years.

  I finally got up and walked across the dark room to the window. I tugged back a corner of the curtain, not sure I was ready for actual sunlight yet. I needn’t have bothered being so cautious. It was not daylight out, not even close. The sky was black as a hangover, and the alley below the window didn’t have a light anywhere along it. I was on the second floor, so I could see around one building with windows that were broken out, and there was plenty of light from the other streets, lights that burned brighter the farther away from St. John’s they were.

  St. John’s wasn’t like what I expected from this vantage. This early in the morning, it carved a strong ebony edge against the burning yellows and blues of the city, like the mountains against sunrise. And there was a kind of haphazard sense of power in the short, strong buildings that were still standing, a squared-off victory over time, over manipulation, over magic. It survived despite the changing world.

  St. John’s had power to withstand poverty, neglect, pain. Maybe that was what I liked about it. Because there were people in these buildings who hadn’t given up, hadn’t tried to be anything other than what they were, hadn’t tried to conform to what the world expected them to be. There were other people too, the kind who migrated here like rats to garbage. Even so, good people remained—people like Mama and her Boys. Those deep roots made this dump feel more like home than the penthouse condo of my childhood.

  A motion at street level caught my eye. A big, heavy man in a dark trench coat moved down the street, stepping around piles of what I hoped were just garbage and cardboard. He was coming from somewhere farther north, moving out of deeper shadow into faint streetlight.

  A chill ran over my skin. There was something about the big man that gave me the creeps. I watched as he strolled along, trying to figure out what bugged me about him.

  He was almost out of my line of vision, moving in front of the building that blocked my view farther down the street. I shifted on my feet, curling up so I put some weight on the side of my foot. I drew the curtain back a little more.

  The man stopped. It was like watching an old movie where a mime runs into a glass wall. He threw a hand in front of him and looked over his shoulder. But instead of looking back into the darkness, he looked up. At me.

  Like I said before, it was dark out, dark in the room, and I hadn’t brought a night-light with me. There wasn’t a single way he could see me, standing behind a dark curtain, in a dark room, wearing a dark sweater and jeans.

  But his face was tilted up toward me. I saw his mouth open, as if he had just said the word no. I could see the shadow-smudged thumbprints where his eyes should be, and I knew he saw me. I stared right back at him, because if there’s one thing I won’t do it’s back down once I’m spotted.

  My heart beat hard, and I wished I had on my boots, my running shoes, anything. Instinct told me to run. Instinct told me he was dangerous.

  I could handle dangerous. Dangerous and me went back a long way. We did lunch when dangerous was in town.

  The man lifted a hand toward me and I felt, very clearly, his fingers, like heated oil, slide down my spine, thump over each vertebra, and then squeeze.

  I caught my breath because it felt really real. And it creeped me the hell out.

  I let the curtain drop and stepped away from the window. Groping someone without their permission was against the law, magic or no magic. Breaking the line of vision was usually enough to dispel that kind of spell. But just in case, I backed away to the door and made a warding gesture. The sensation of his hand down my back had already faded, so I didn’t invoke a spell or draw any magic into that ward, but I rubbed my hands up and down my arms trying to rid myself of the sense of violation.

  His touch might be gone, but my heart was still pounding. That had been familiar. That man down there, whoever he was, had touched me before.

  I tried to draw up a memory that he fit. A client? An acquaintance? Someone from college? An associate of my father’s? But where there should be a name, or a defined face in my memory, all I found was black static.

  A chill rattled under my skin and I clenched my hands into fists, then shook them out. That man touched me, bone deep, without my consent. He knew me. And he knew I was here, up here, in this room.

  ‘‘Oh, hell,’’ I whispered.

  There was no way I was going to just sit here. For all I knew, he was on his way up now. I didn’t know why, but getting away from him, shaking the scent of him—rot, and something like licorice or honey mixed with the faint whiff of formaldehyde—had become the top item on my agenda for the day.

  Okay, I wanted out, out of here, out fast.

  I looked for my backpack and found it on the wooden chair by the bed. I picked it up, took the time to shove my feet into my shoes and tie the laces so I wouldn’t trip. I pulled on my coat, patting my pocket to make sure the book was there.

  The other pocket had money, so I pulled out a twenty and threw it on the mattress. Mama’s generosity was a bridge I didn’t want to burn.

  I wanted to run. I needed to run. I knew he was coming for me. I coul
d feel him moving through the darkness below into the light of Mama’s restaurant. I could smell him. Could smell the rotted stink of magic he’d used on me. I had to leave. Now.

  I looked at the window, but some practical part of my mind calmly listed the injuries I’d get if I tried to hero it down the outer walls of this dump. Right. Probably best to escape through the door. Any time now. Now would be good. Before he made it up the stairs.

  I swung my backpack over my shoulder and hurried to the door again. I listened for footsteps. My heart was beating so loudly that I had to hold my breath to hear. Nothing. No sound at all from the other side of the door.

  I opened the door as quietly as I could and checked the hall in the dim light of a couple low-watt bulbs in the ceiling. Just a hall with a few closed doors, and the wooden-railed staircase going down. And that’s exactly where I was going too. I closed the door behind me and walked over to the stairs, insanely grateful that I’d packed my running shoes. I looked down the stairwell. Pockets of shadow swallowed whole sections of the stair. Anyone could be in those shadows. He could be in those shadows. I hesitated.

  What if he were waiting for me on the stairs? I didn’t like small spaces, and especially didn’t like fighting in them.

  But there were other ways I could defend myself. Like magic. I was a Hound. I had certain abilities at my disposal. All I had to do was calmly draw upon the magic within me and use it to see where the man was. It was even possible he wasn’t in the building. Maybe he had just walked on. Maybe this was all in my head and I was panicking for no reason.

  I shivered even though it was warm and damp in the hall. Instinct told me someone was nearby and looking for me. Instinct had never been wrong about these kinds of things before.

  I silently recited a mantra, the one that always calmed me down no matter how freaked out I was. A mantra could be anything you could actually remember in times of panic. Mine happened to be the childhood chant Miss Mary Mack. Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back . . . and again, all the while listening for footsteps and keeping a nose out for the smell of him. Finally, my shoulders relaxed and my breathing slowed. Good. Now all I had to do was draw upon magic.

  Nothing. I felt as empty as a beggar’s pocket. No magic here, not even old copper channels. It didn’t mean it was impossible to tap into the magic—that guy out on the street had done just fine. It did mean it was difficult.

  The small magic I carried within me seemed like a tiny flicker of its usual strength—a flame about to go out. I was deeply tired, and even though I’d slept, I hadn’t really recovered from the price I’d paid. I didn’t want to draw magic from the nearest source, which was at least three miles away. For all I knew, that guy out there was a Hound and would spot me the moment I cast a spell.

  Fine. I could do this the old-fashioned way.

  I headed down the stairs as quietly as I could, my back against the wall. The first landing was empty, and I waited there, breathing through my nose, trying to sniff out a whiff of anything, or anyone, out of place. All I smelled was cold cooking grease, and the tang of meat and onions.

  I took the last set of stairs down and paused at the bottom to listen. Still nothing. There was no one in the hall. There was no one out in the dining area.

  What a great morning this had been so far. First, I woke up and cried like a little girl who’d lost her mommy, and now I was jumping at shadows when there were no shadows.

  I so needed a cup of coffee.

  And I wanted to be away from here. But when I crossed the room and checked the front door, it had no less than six dead bolts across it. I could get out, but I didn’t want to leave Mama’s place unlocked behind me. Not with that man out there.

  Great.

  Well, I could still get coffee, then maybe wake Mama up and ask her to lock the door behind me. I walked behind the front counter and toward the kitchen to see if I could start a pot. I heard footsteps behind me.

  ‘‘Allie girl?’’

  I turned around. I can’t say I was surprised to see Mama, wearing a pink robe with red hearts on it, her hair messed from sleep. But I was surprised to see the gun in her hand.

  ‘‘You robbing Mama?’’ She waved the gun toward the cash register at my elbow.

  ‘‘What? No. No, of course not. I was going to make coffee.’’ I shifted the backpack on my shoulder and turned away from the register so it didn’t look like I was casing the joint. ‘‘I really just want to go now. The door’s locked and I didn’t want to leave it unlocked behind me. I need to take care of some things.’’ Like getting some coffee and sanity. In that order.

  ‘‘You in trouble, Allie girl?’’ She had not lowered the gun.

  For a fleeting moment I wanted to say, well, yes, there’s this woman who is pointing a gun at me, and I don’t do guns before coffee. But Mama was the one who put me up yesterday and let me lie low, and Mama was the one who woke up in the middle of the night to check on me. So what if she was checking on me with a gun? She was just the overprotective type.

  ‘‘I’m going to be fine,’’ I told her. ‘‘How is Boy?’’

  Mama lowered the gun. The sleepy look in her eyes turned to worry before she shrugged one shoulder. ‘‘Doctor say he stays for a week. But he is sleeping good. Breathing good. Strong.’’

  There was a strain in her voice, the tight tone of a parent whose child was hurting, maybe dying, saying the hopeful things as if she believed them. Maybe saying them so she could believe them, so they could be true.

  ‘‘He’s at the hospital?’’ I asked.

  She nodded again. ‘‘He comes home soon. Soon.’’

  ‘‘That’s really good. You did the right thing.’’ And I meant it. I didn’t expect someone as little as Boy to survive such a hard hit, much less recover so quickly. But Boy was strong. Just like Mama said he was.

  ‘‘Who did this, Allie?’’ Mama asked. ‘‘Who hurt my boy?’’

  And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t told her. I had been so angry, then so shocked that my father would be behind this, that I hadn’t told her he was the one who put her son in the hospital. I wondered if she would believe that I’d forgotten to tell her. I wondered if she would hold me hostage and demand money from my father once I told her. I wondered if I wanted to risk telling her anything while she was holding a gun.

  Hells. I did not like to negotiate for my life before coffee either.

  ‘‘I know who it is,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Who?’’ The gun came up, casually aimed at my stomach.

  ‘‘I am not going to tell you while you’re holding a gun.’’

  Her eyes narrowed and I knew she was suddenly much more awake than she had been.

  ‘‘You don’t trust me?’’ She did not put the gun down. ‘‘Tell me.’’

  ‘‘Not with the gun.’’ I was a lot more awake right now, too.

  I could tell it was a hard decision for her. She had, as far as I knew, raised a multitude of boys on her own, in the poorest part of town. Asking her to trust me enough to put down a weapon was like asking magic not to follow a perfect casting, or a river to flow backward.

  ‘‘Did you do it?’’ she asked.

  Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. No wonder she wasn’t putting the gun down. I shook my head. ‘‘No, Mama. I hate that someone hurt him. He’s just a little kid.’’

  And she must have heard the sincerity, because she walked over to the counter and put the gun down. She did not step away from the counter, but she did fold her hands in front of her so I could see both of them, which was thoughtful of her. It would give me just enough time to surrender if she decided to grab the gun and fire it at me.