A Murder of Magpies (16 page)

Alone.

With Ward.

In a very dark room.

“Where is everyone?” I asked while he locked the front door.

“Visiting Chris’s brother,” he answered. “Which means we have the place to ourselves.”

He stretched his fingers through the darkness until they found mine. His touch began
light, fingertips winding with mine before he caressed my arms. My teeth chattered
from a draft, from excitement singing in the air. I backed up, my fingers laced through
his vest, until my hips pressed against a wall. I pulled him closer. Ward slipped
off my cardigan and again chased the vibrations down my now-naked arms. In the darkness,
his lips found mine and pressed hard against my mouth, none of those tentative kisses
we shared before. He kissed me as if he could take everything and draw it far inside
himself. His mouth burned while the plaster against my shoulders chilled, and in the
middle, I was like fuel, combustible. I didn’t close my eyes because it was too black
to see.

“Come on,” he whispered.

I followed him through the darkness, up the staircase with a twist so steep I felt
like falling backward. The shadows blanketing the walls were thick, velvety things.
I wasn’t sure how far off the stairway we were when he made a sharp angle into his
bedroom.

A match fizzed as it ignited, then a votive candle bathed the room in tranquil amber.
I sat on the foot of the bed and unzipped my boots. Before me, Ward unbuttoned his
shirt. My chest rose with measured breaths. The shadows folded into the muscles where
his trousers rested below his waist.

“I want you so bad,” he breathed, slinking onto the bed.

Something shivered in my body. “I want you—”

His mouth blocked me from speaking. The fingers against my skin weren’t the same ones
painted with chipped gray polish I’d noticed when I met him, more deft and eager.
My palm numbed from a tremor of electricity as I placed my hand over his and broke
from kissing him.

“I’m afraid we won’t stop if we start.”

In my ear, he whispered, “Would that be so terrible?”

I thought about it and answered, “No. It’d be perfect.”

His fingers slid down my dress’s zipper, coaxing the fabric to reveal more of my skin,
and then tiptoed under my skirt. Even though I wanted him, what would happen if we
did this? How would he look at me afterward? I focused on the candle on the dresser,
how the flame danced on the wick, whipping and flitting. A sense of awe so strong
I didn’t know if it came from Ward or myself or both uncurled in my body, and I couldn’t
keep my eyes open through the wonder but heard Ward’s hushed laugh.

Forcing myself not to heave him across the room, I pressed my hands to his chest.
He smiled as I needed to catch my breath. The candle burned in a cup with arches like
church windows cut in the metal. His hair shined like copper.

“You want to?” he murmured.

I managed to nod before he unfastened his pants and guided my hand inside. So muffled,
the candleholder rattled on the dresser. I touched him. I was scared of what might
come next, but I didn’t want to stop. The candle’s flame thrashed in circles, moved
faster, and flickered brighter. He pushed up my dress, our bodies separated by less
space than the distance between our mouths.

“Hang on,” he said. “I need a condom.”

A high-octane rush pumped into my veins. The corona of light around the candle widened
until a plume of fire burst from the wick and torched the air.

“Shit!” He leapt off the bed and smothered the flames with a blanket from the floor.

My hands were quiet.

Ward switched on a lamp with a loud click. Molten, blue wax spilled on his dresser
and dripped to the carpet. He grimaced at the gooey mess. With the lights on, I saw
him, as he was— a damaged, lanky boy unsure of himself and bashful.

“What the hell happened?” He gave me a dubious glance and flopped down beside me.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I answered. Which was true.

My finger outlined his hand on his thigh. A modest smile twitched his mouth, and the
push of energy was too loud, too tenuous for me not to hear his thoughts riding the
current to my mind.
My girl.
My cheeks warmed, and I smoothed my rumpled dress. What might happen if the lights
went out and we were in the dark again?

Vayda!

My brother’s yell was sharp and echoed in my brain.

Leave me alone, Jonah.

I gathered the ash of my exploded barriers. So help me, God, Jonah better not have
been near my head when a single candle lit the room.

Vayda, come now!

A spike of ice speared my mind, brutal in its pain. My face ached and jaw locked,
teeth clenched from agony, and I grabbed the blanket to stop my fingernails from cutting
into the heel of my hand. This wasn’t Jonah reaching out because he got a rise out
of invading my space. Something had happened. My chest tightened as though Jonah dropped
his shields on top of me with a solid, reeling thud. Ward furrowed his brow, and though
his mouth moved, I couldn’t make out anything he said. A tang puckered my mouth. I
darted to Ward’s bathroom. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Throwing up was impossible to stop once it started. Ward held my hair, not reacting
to my sickness except with a steady, concerned regard. He filled a cup with water.
I swished out my mouth. The sound of the water rushing through the faucet thundered
in my ears. Sweat pooled in the divot above my upper lip.

“Take me to Fire Sales,” I panted.

He grabbed a sweater for himself and covered my shoulders with his coat. “You’re sick.
You should go home.”

“You don’t understand! Jonah needs me!” I barked, ignoring his insulted expression.

Panic overruled any damn I gave about hurting his feelings. I slid on my boots and
barreled down the stairs, outside. The sky should’ve been black with stars at nine
o’clock, but clouds invaded the night. Covering the ground were pellets of ice, which
crunched under my feet, transforming the walkway into a slick gauntlet. Ward caught
my arm and stopped me from falling as I slipped.

“The roads are gonna be bad,” he said.

I didn’t care. “Get me there as fast as you can. Something’s wrong.”

He scraped off enough ice from the Jaguar’s windows to drive, and once the engine
was running, he steered the car toward the open gate. The tires spun in search of
traction when the car hurtled into the street.

Vayda, help!
My brother panicked in my head.

“I’m coming, Jonah. I promise,” I murmured. Ward glanced at me. I didn’t care what
he heard.

Within fifteen minutes, we settled by the curb in front of Fire Sales, and I flung
open the car door. All the lights in the shop shone on an otherwise dim block of the
business district. The showroom should have closed an hour ago. Still two feet from
the entrance, I raised my hands. Energy spurted from my fingers. The door threw itself
open, the hinges sprung. My shoes clicked against the floor, faster and faster, while
I scanned the racks and gaps between furniture.

“Where are you?” I whispered. “Come on, Jonah.”

I shut my eyes, shut down the alarms raging in my head until all was silent, not even
the crackle of a radiant coal of Jonah’s heat. I needed to try again. I held still
and searched for the center of the energy racing through me, the place where it would
be quiet. I shut out all the chaos, and after a moment, muffled but detectable, my
brother’s heartbeat vibrated against my fingers.

“There.”

I spread my arms as though slicing a field of wheat with a sickle. China cabinets,
armoires, and every other piece of furniture skated to the sides to reveal a straight
corridor to the storeroom. My twin’s pulse signaled me. The overhead lights popped
with a shower of electric sparks. No matter how fast I weaved through the furniture,
no matter how forcefully I shoved, I couldn’t breach Jonah’s barriers. Why couldn’t
I find his mind? I reached the storeroom and again shoved open the door with the energy
collected in my hands.

I found him.

Jonah’s defeated body was sprawled on the floor by Dad’s desk, surrounded by the strewn
remnants of a splintered end table.

“Jonah!”

He lay on his stomach. Bruises marbled the left side of his face. Blood seeped from
his nose and mouth to pool in a dark halo on the floor. A scream rattled the glass
cases and antique mirrors.

“GOD, NO! JONAH!”

I ran my fingers through his hair soaked with blood. His skin was clammy, his cheekbone
blackened with bruises spreading from under his widow’s peak.

“—at Fire Sales downtown. We need an ambulance,” Ward dictated to the phone mounted
on the wall. Unruffled as if he’d had to call for help countless times before, he
spoke in a calm tone despite that his skin faded to the same stark white as linen.
He glanced at me, mouth falling open, and looked away. A second unconscious figure
lay ten feet away. “Two ambulances…They’re both unconscious. Bleeding…I’ll stay on
the line.”

I scurried toward the showroom where the furniture stayed shoved to the sides. I clenched
my fists, searching for energy.
Move, damn it!
If Jonah could do it on command, why couldn’t I?

A kindling spark swelled over my fingers. Some chairs and an old bookcase spider-crept
away from the rest of the furniture and disrupted the measured hallway I’d blasted
through the shop. I checked Jonah once more before moving to the second body.

I knew Marty even before I saw his face. Lying on his back, a gash in his forehead,
he still wore his clothing from the coffee shop. His shirt stained with blood, but
he was breathing.

Ward set down the phone. As I moved toward him, he stepped back once. Then a second
step back. His spine was inflexible, his chest swollen as though ready to strike or
safeguard himself—whichever he needed.

He knew what I could do. He put his hands on me and now knew about the Mind Games.

Abruptly, the room swarmed with emergency help. A blond woman took Jonah’s vitals
and spoke into a walkie-talkie. A second paramedic slipped a stabilizing collar around
his neck. I heard myself give my father’s cell phone number to an officer, aware of
his uniform and the sound of his pen scratching on his notepad, but my gaze didn’t
move from Ward and his didn’t leave mine.

“We need statements from both of you,” the officer declared as the paramedics wheeled
out Marty on a stretcher.

After I lied that I’d found Jonah while checking on the shop, the officer allowed
us to leave. I clipped my seatbelt and waited for Ward to steer the car away from
the curb. He didn’t drive anywhere. The car’s engine hummed, the heat drying my eyes,
and Ward’s hands coiled around the steering wheel hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
He stared at the dashboard, the grinding of his teeth audible.

“What the fuck are you?” he asked. I reached out, but he blocked me. “Don’t touch
me.”

I flinched, and my face was wet with renewed tears. “Ward—I—”

There was nothing to say. I’d succeeded in what I’d dreaded since I met him and knew
he was the
gadjo
in my dream. I terrified him by unleashing my Mind Games, and now I was strung up
in this nest of unwound thread I’d spun.

Ward

“Hell of a night.” Emory tapped an unlit cigarette against his hand. “You don’t have
to stick around.”

“Where would I go?” I asked, sinking into my seat in the emergency room’s waiting
lounge.

“You’d go home. Heidi worries about you, Ward.”

I coughed. “Because I live there doesn’t mean it’s home.”

He slipped his cigarette behind his ear. “There’s a saying that your home is wherever
you seek shelter in a storm. Every kind of storm.”

I was hardly in the mood for preaching, but Emory didn’t push me further. The fluorescent
lights in the waiting room made his skin greenish. Few people sought help tonight—bad
weather keeping everyone inside, out of trouble. Vayda dozed on a loveseat. The black
make-up smudged around her eyes had dried, and where she held Jonah’s bleeding head
left stains on her hands.

Hands that opened doors without touching them.

I smelled something sweet. Her scent, snowy and brisk, clung to my clothing and my
skin. My stomach heaved.
I didn’t—If I—

Damn thinking straight.

Vayda stirred in her slumber. The light above her sizzled.

Tonight, I saw things that went against reality. The “shh” of the furniture drifting
over the floor. My girlfriend with her arms stretched, a black-and-white bird with
wings angled for flight.

I’d had nightmares like this, whipping around, blindfolded, in a forest maze with
no idea how I got inside or which path would free me. When I awakened from those dreams,
my skin was always cold and sweaty.

“Can I get you a Coke?” Emory asked.

I grunted a response, distracted by the television where a rapper in some hip-hop
group flashed a gargantuan ring. He thrust his hips with about as much sexiness as
the pair of boning lemurs I’d witnessed on a class field trip to the Minnesota Zoo.
Hell, at least lemurs weren’t pretentious about getting it on.

“Mr. Silver?” an attendant called. Emory didn’t respond. The attendant called again,
and he startled, realizing he’d been summoned. “We’re ready for you.”

With Vayda’s dad gone and crap on the television, boredom came quick. Even an aquarium
with one of those giant algae-eating fish couldn’t hold my attention. My head was
too noisy. Vayda shuddered in her sleep, and I picked up my coat from the chair to
lay it across her hips.

In my room. The fire. Had she done that, too?

I reached for her, my hand aching to touch her cheek, but pulled back. I couldn’t
do this.

Her eyes opened. I’d never pictured irises so light green like chips of springtime.
She sat up, rotating her neck. “How long was I out?”

“An hour.”