A Criminal Magic (18 page)

But my mind stays blank, and I keep staring like a damn fool at his pretty face.

“Anyway, probably should get going,” he says, not that I blame him, seeing as he's found a weird mute in the hall. He turns back to the main space.

And then I find my nerve, my magic, and quick throw up a double-sided protective wall in front of him at the mouth of the hallway: on the show space side, a replica of an empty hall. On ours, a thin sheet of glass, so we can see the show space without being seen ourselves.

Alex turns back to me, a sparkle in his eye. “Wait . . . was that
you
?”

“Got to watch what you say in this place.” I recover with a smile. “I feel a bit more comfortable talking, now that we have some privacy.”

“So you're a sorcerer?”

I make a little curtsy.

He smiles. “I thought you said you were a stagehand.”

“No, you
assumed
I was a stagehand.”

His smile grows wider as he turns to the new wall and reaches out to touch it. “What do they see on the other side?”

“An empty hall.”

He won't meet my eyes, just keeps looking at the wall I've conjured. “A double-sided trick. Impressive.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Not at all.” He turns around and looks at me. “If I'm honest, I really did think there was something magic about you.”

His compliment does something to my cheeks—warms them before I can stop it. “You know what a double-sided trick is,” I say. “That's impressive too, for a guy working the streets.”

His smile turns the slightest shade serious. “Well, you know my last name. Pretty sure that says it all.”

Alex
Danfrey
. The name did sound vaguely familiar when that shiner Howie kept rambling on about him the other night, but I couldn't place why. I still can't. “Sorry, have to say I've got no idea if that's supposed to mean something to me.”

He studies my face, like he's looking for a lie. “You've got to be kidding me.” He clears his throat. “You don't read the news?”

I shrug. “Newspapers aren't a necessity where I'm from.”

“Well, I guess that's kind of refreshing.” He shifts a bit, crosses his arms in front of him, and leans against my manipulated wall, a strange game of trust. “Let's just say my family had quite a public run-in with the law.”

“That's why you're here, working for this lot?” I nod behind him, out to the main show space where his running buddies are likely getting shot to Sunday. “Can't help who you are, sort of thing?”

Alex nods. “I guess you could say that.”

“Got to be honest,” I say, as I study him, “you don't look like the typical guy working on the smuggling end of things.”

“And why's that?” He throws me a smirk as he ruffles his soft blond hair. “I'm not slick enough?”

I can't help but match his smile.

“Because I'm not sporting a fedora?” he says, and I laugh. “Not to worry, I just picked one out from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. It's on its way.”

Alex laughs with me, looks down at his hands. “Hate to be
the first one to tell you, but you sort of stand out too. In a good way.”

My grin grows even bigger. “Besides this whole sorcering thing, I really consider myself very ordinary.” God, I'm flirting with him, and I can't stop myself.

“Oh, you're far from ordinary.” He takes a step closer to me, and the movement catches me off guard, sends more of that sickening, churning, wonderful feeling thrashing around inside. “But I think it's good to be extraordinary.”

And then he stares at me, not into my eyes, but right above my left ear. I can't hear what he whispers, but soon I feel the softest of pressures against my temple, and a new scent, heady and foreign, teases my nose.

I reach up and pull down the silky flower that's now tucked over my ear. It's a black, glistening orchid, red tongue, looks like some cross between a dragon and a flower you might find hidden in someone's dark dream, or growing on the moon. I'm near positive it only existed in Alex's imagination, until now.

“So you can sorcer too.”

Alex gives a little bow. “They've got me pulling tricks on the road, protection walls, coast guard diversions, police code scrambling, that sort of thing.” He holds his hands up, as if summoning the room. “Nothing as elaborate and big-time as your show here.” He looks over his shoulder. “Speaking of, we're heading on another smuggling run soon. So unless you've found some way to stop time, I probably should go.”

But I want him to stay. Something about Alex draws me in, like a magnet, makes me want to joke with him, keep him talking.

I focus on the wall behind him and force myself to say, “
Release
.” I nod. “Go on, you can pass through it now.”

Alex pinches his fingers a few inches in front of his brow, and then a fully formed black fedora appears out of nothing, the
brim inserting itself right in between his fingertips. Alex grins, takes off his new hat, tips it in my direction, and as his hand extends, the hat vanishes. “Till we meet again, Joan.”

Then he turns, to join his gangster buddies across the Red Den.

I whip around, unable to wipe the smile off my face. I practically prance back toward the stairs. It's been a long time since something's felt easy, light,
free
.

But then I spot Gunn standing outside his office door.
How long was Gunn watching us? Watching me?

“Our meeting, sir,” I recall out loud, the feeling of freedom that Alex brought on like a summer wind all but snuffed out as I remember what I'm about to share:
Mama's secrets,
my
secrets, the dark magic that Mama never wanted me to whisper, much less sell . . .

“That's right. I'm ready for you,” he says, as Win Matthews slips out from Gunn's office. But Gunn doesn't watch him go, or move from the doorway. He just keeps staring at the orchid tucked behind my ear.

So like a reflex, I reach into my hair, find the flower, and pinch it out like it's made of air, before following Gunn into his office.

Alex's flower was just a trick. An easy manipulation, one I could do over a thousand times without a blink. But still, it pains me a little that it's gone.

BIG FISH

ALEX

“I'm hankering for the shine,” Howie says beside me. “Like bad. Look at my hands.”

I glance at Howie's shaky, chapped fingers as he runs them around each other. “It's just the withdrawal,” I say, and turn back to the water. The moon hangs over it low and bright, casts a long thread of spun silver across the dark ocean as we cut through it on our bare-hull boat, forty knots speed, engine as large as an airplane. It's a beautiful night, an otherworldly night, the kind of night you want to be gazing at the vast, star-studded sky with a dame like Joan. Not with Howie. “If you power through it, you'll be fine by tomorrow.”

“But maybe I don't want to be
fine.
Maybe I want to be electric.”

“Take a break, okay, How? You've been hitting the shine hard all week. Relax.”

Howie pulls his thin coat tighter around him. “What are you, my mother?”

It's dark, but I can still see the gray tint around Howie's cheekbones, the dullness to his eyes. Back in training, the Unit taught us the long-term effects of a steady shine diet: how the stuff eventually steals the color out of life, dulls it until you can't stand living without the polish of magic. But I don't think I ever
fully understood what that meant until I became attached to Howie's side. Since we left Lorton, he's only happy anymore when he's high. Time in between he spends angry, restless—and clamoring for the next time he can steal a glimpse of a world that doesn't last.

I've tried to tell him he survived shine withdrawal before, and that he'll end up hollowing himself into a shell if he keeps going at this pace, but you can't reason with him. And after so many times of trying, I started worrying that too much anti-shine talk might compromise my cover. So tonight I stay silent and watch the indigo water race by the rudders.

We're several miles off the coast, on our way through the waters of the Atlantic. Win's in the front as captain, and Howie and I are shivering on the bench in the back. Late November's winds are brutal, breath-stealing, and while neither one of us is thrilled about snuggling, we're huddled next to each other for warmth.

“Even a cigarette would help,” Howie mutters.

“Christ, How, why didn't you buy another pack before we left?”

Howie shrugs. “'Cause you usually bring enough for both of us.”

And usually, I do take care of these little details, but I've been working overtime, exhausted. Howie's clearly exhausted too. But that's not the only reason we've been picking at each other, sparring like siblings vying for their parents' affection. There's a tension I haven't been able to shake, a thick, persistent one lodged right between us.

“Seriously, can't you do something about this?” Howie waves his hand above us to indicate the cold wind.

“It's tougher when we're moving, but I'll try.” I focus, close my eyes. I picture a bubble of warm, soft air wrapping around us like a towel, command, “
Envelop
.”

After a minute, Howie stops shaking beside me.

Needless to say, we are definitely not, as Howie predicted when we first got out of Lorton, “partying until dawn.” If I'm figuring right, this is our twelfth straight night of running with Win—no nights off, no breaks. Since that first night, when things went south with Baltimore out at the warehouse, we've been on the road by the start of every evening for a trade, or a redistillery run, or some other clandestine errand for the Shaws. Sometimes I don't come home until the sun's up, and other than the few times Howie and I have lingered at the Red Den waiting for Win, we're either on the road, or crashing. In fact, the couple of times I've managed to sneak out and call Agent Frain have been at noon, when I know the rest of my smuggling world will be sleeping.

We're putting our heads down
, as Howie says, not asking questions, showing we're willing to pay our dues, get broken and rebuilt as slick, lethal Shaw boys.
And in turn, edging closer to Boss McEvoy
. But so far, the biggest Shaw fish has evaded me.

“We're here,” Win calls back, interrupting my thoughts. He cuts the engine, and our boat gives a little jump, then sighs and floats a few feet more into the dark water.

Ahead of us, a long line of ships, boats, cruisers, and cutters blink and flash like stars peppering the black ocean.

“Wow,” Howie whispers, “it's like a little city out here.”

We've reached a stretch of safe waters right behind coast guard territory called “Magic Row,” where dust sweepers and obi smugglers from overseas and the islands shuttle in their magic contraband, then wait for street runners like us to come trade and bring their products back to shore. Tonight we're after fae dust—an addictive, paranoia-inducing, magic blue powder that the Irish boast they stole from another reality. No one knows what the stuff really is, or where it actually comes from, but dust causes a fierce psychedelic trip, and unlike shine,
transports across the sea easily. And there's a steady market for mobile magic, of any sort—even, apparently, if the high drives you crazy. My role in this smuggling venture: throwing distress signal manipulations up and down the coast, giving the coast guard false alarms to chase, as our boat evades their radios.

Win turns the boat engine on low again and we slowly churn through the waves to a two-story ship marked
EMERALD JANE
. Win turns the wheel, right, left, right, until we're right next to the large ship like a sidecar.

“HO! What's your business?” a man on deck calls down to us in a soft Irish lilt.

“It's Win Matthews, with the Shaws,” Win calls up. “We're here for the dust.”

There's a pause, then a muffled discussion as the ship hand confers with his cronies. “All right, come onboard.”

Howie and I follow Win silently, each of us climbing up the rope ladder on the side of the ship. We clamber onto the deck, and we're immediately surrounded by a five-man crew, all of them cloaked in thick, salty, musty layers. The stench of weeks at sea curls around and suffocates us.

“Been out here long?” Win asks what I'm thinking.

“Near a month,” the man with the lilt answers. “Long journey. Started up in Maine, if you can believe it. Heading to talk with buyers in Virginia Beach tomorrow.”

The
Emerald Jane,
dust deals up and down the East Coast
, I repeat silently, and file it away
.
I've become an expert at taking notes without a pen, at remembering small details. Everything gets stored and saved for the next time I get to talk to Agent Frain: all the ways we might manage to hook the big fish we're planning to fry.

“You have any trouble with the pigs?” the man adds. The rest of his team pats us down, takes our weapons, and puts them in a box on the boat's far side for safekeeping.

“No, ride out was smooth. We brought our street sorcerer. He never fails.” Win nods to me in recognition, while Howie shifts uncomfortably at Win's compliment. “You've got the dust?”

“A hundred ounces, like we promised. You got the cash?”

“One thousand.”

The smuggler nods, studies the water. “The sea has eyes and ears. Come, let's break bread below.”

I swear, I almost follow them, invite myself right into the belly of this ship. My desire to find the beating heart of this underworld, so that I can wrap my hands around and destroy it—it's become my
own
sort of addiction. Of course, it's still about bringing down the types of men who broke apart my family. But there's something more now too, I can't deny it. The satisfaction of excelling at something very few people can do. The commitment to something real—something I might one day look back on and be proud of.

“You two stay here,” Win tells Howie and me, and then leaves us to keep watch in the frigid midnight air.

The rest of the crew returns to their nighttime duties—ship hands finish mopping the deck, a few start tying thick knots alongside the ship—as Howie and I turn to face the water.

“You look tired, Danfrey,” Howie whispers beside me.

I fake a laugh. “That's 'cause I
am
tired.” I pause. “You're telling me you're not?”

“Nah, these runs light me on fire. 'Cause I want it, Danfrey, more than anything.” He turns to study me. “I've been thinking, you know. About you. About this.”

“Is that right?”

Howie rests his back against the boat beside me, then stretches out his legs, so he's at a perfect forty-five-degree angle facing the ship's interior. “Honestly, brother, I really don't think this street work is for you. I see how it's wearing on you.”

I don't answer.

“There's no shame in it, though, you know? Admitting you're not hard enough for McEvoy's street, for running with the big boys. 'Cause someone like you, Danfrey, you could have a whole bunch of futures. Hell, you could be one of those performers the crowds flock to see at the revamped Red Den every night.” He laughs. “You know, I haven't thought about that before, but I have to say that's a damned good idea. I hear Gunn managed to score quite a nice change purse to run the place. Could be a decent living. And a much safer one.”

Howie waits, as if he's letting his idea settle in with me, but of course, I know the real reason for this “off-the-cuff” suggestion. Win's been relying more on me these past few weeks, and Howie less—which obviously doesn't sit well with him. Sure, Howie talks a big game, but in the end, he's sloppy, often shined or coming down from a high when he shows up for a job. Plus, he forgets things. Like when he didn't check all the rooms in a dealer's house last week, and some dust-bunny dissatisfied with his high came barging down the stairs with a loaded gun. Or when he mixed up the address of a local shine redistillery, and we ended up driving around Hell's Bottom for half an hour with ten gallons of newly lifted remedial spells in our trunk, looking for the right place.

“Besides”—Howie nudges me with his elbow—“there'd be other benefits.”

I blow into my hands. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know who I'm talking about.” He arches one eyebrow, shoots me this exaggerated grin, and I can't help but laugh, despite the tension. “I've seen the way you've been watching that hot black-haired Betty they've got working the place.”

“Who?”

“Oh, please, don't ‘who' me.”

He's clearly talking about Joan, and I blush, as I hadn't realized he was watching me, or rather, watching us. Sure, Howie's
right—every time we're there, I try to catch her before she gets ready for her show and Howie and I head out the door. Never more than a quick flirtation, but it has me thinking about her from time to time. Joan's a warm, welcoming distraction when I need to take my mind off things, something harmless and exciting of my own. I laugh to myself. “It's that obvious?”

Howie shoots me an honest-to-God smile. “You might be a sorcerer, but you can't trick me, Alex Danfrey.”

Win emerges from the boat and beckons us forward. “Howie, come on, grab the box,” he calls over the ship deck. “Alex needs to focus on getting us home.”

Howie's face changes immediately at the barked order, the menial task. And then I can almost see it, the faint spark between us fizzles, until there's nothing but cold, dull air. I offer to help Howie carry the goods, but that just seems to add insult to injury.

*    *    *

We spend the night near the coast, at some smuggler-friendly brothel-and-breakfast where I have to surround my room with a force field to sleep, considering the constant knocking bedposts and shine-induced singing blaring through the walls. Our entire next day is on the road, running our dust score to Win's local dealers across DC's sprawl, then a quick stop at the Red Den while Win shares a drink with Gunn. While Howie uses the chance to get shined in the bathroom, I manage to score a couple of minutes with Joan at the performance space's bar. We sneak in a checkers game using a board she conjures, while she teases me about wearing last night's clothes and smelling like a sailor.

When she's not looking, I leave her a conjured starfish as a souvenir.

I'm so tired that I almost can't see straight by the time Win
takes us home. Still, I'm with-it enough to notice that Win makes a right onto 14th, instead of making a left up to my place. I sit straight up as we turn on F Street, drive through a neighborhood I've never seen, with shards of broken glass glistening on the curb like strange diamonds, sad row houses leaning on one another like shiners at the end of the night. We pull up to a nondescript building, three stories high, crumbling brick and mortar.

Before I can figure out what's happening, Win mumbles to Howie, “I'll stop by tomorrow.”

And then I'm chilled with the significance of this situation. Win's ordering Howie out of the car. Which means that for some reason, I'm staying.

Howie steals a look back at me, then at his cousin. He laughs, the sound hard and brittle. “You two screwing each other behind my back or something?”

“I need your boy is all,” Win says. “Alone. Nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal,” Howie repeats. He grabs the back of his headrest and turns around to look me in the eye. “You been casting spells to make this happen, Danfrey? Working with me just to work my cousin, pushing me down so you can get ahead?”

“Easy, Howie, don't be such a dame about it—” Win mutters beside him.

“You'd be nothing without me, you know that?” Howie cuts at me.

“Come on, Howie.” I try to calm him down, but he barrels over me with, “Just forget it. All you Danfreys are traitors.”

Heat sears my skin, blood rushes to my temples, the word “traitor” slapping me back to my father's trial.
Those D Street rats on the stand, my father in cuffs, the headline
PHARMA MOGUL BETRAYS HIS CAUSE
as reporters swarmed us on the courthouse steps
—“That was a shitty thing to say.”