Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price (37 page)

“I think these little cassette tapes are video, right? There’s dozens of them.” I read the label of one:
ALLISON YEARS ONE THROUGH THREE
. It was in a softer, more fluid handwriting. My mother’s.

She had recorded memories, stories of me? Of my life?

Only the first few of the tapes were in her handwriting. Then there were others, in my father’s handwriting.
ALLISON YEARS SIX AND SEVEN. ALLISON YEAR EIGHT. ALLISON YEAR NINE
. He had taken over where Mom had left off.

It was all so much—more than I’d ever thought he’d cared about me, more of my life than I’d ever expected
to get back. And I’d barely scratched the top of the pile of stuff. I could see a few thumb drives, which might be full of photos, or who knew what else? It would take me a lot of time to go through everything.

And it made me really happy to have it all.

“Good. You’re smiling now. Too nice a day for all those tears.” Mama pushed up onto her feet. “You come by again soon. I feed you dinner.” She patted me gruffly on the shoulder, then stumped off toward the street.

I sat and looked through a few more things: a key that said it fit a safety deposit box, my birth certificate.

“Allie?”

I glanced up. Eli Collins stood in the shadows near the trees.

“Eli?” How long had he been standing there?

“I just wanted to tell you it was a pleasure working for your father. I know he’s dead now. Truly at rest.”

“We dated?” I blurted out, holding up the letter.

He nodded, the light not quite reaching his glasses. “We did. For two years, actually, while you were in college.”

“Why?”

He smiled a little ruefully. “Because we liked each other?”

“Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t use magic to make me like you?”

He laughed. I think it was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh. It was a joyful outburst, and I found myself smiling too.

“No,” he said. “I have never used magic to make a girl like me. We had…something. And we were both happy for a while. But I came here to tell you something about…about our past.”

I braced myself. For the life of me, I didn’t know what he could say that would shock me now.

“Your father once told me that he was very sorry for the choices he had made. For the things he had done to you. Especially for his years of influence on your mind causing heavy use of magic to take your memories away. He also told me that if magic could be healed, dark and light joined, it might make it so that you didn’t lose your memories any longer.”

“I read the letter,” I said.

“Good. There’s one more thing he told me. He said he knew you were strong enough.”

“What, to survive what he did to me?”

“No. To question him. He counted on that. And he counted on you being strong enough to trust him one day.”

I was quiet for a moment or two. “I guess he was right about that,” I finally said.

“Yes. Well. He was brilliant,” Collins said. “And, Allie, please don’t look for me. You won’t be able to find me.”

“Look for you? You’re standing right there.”

He smiled again. “No,” he said. “I’m not.” Then the image of him, the Illusion of him that had seemed so real I was sure I could smell his cologne, winked out of existence.

Sweet hells. Magic.

Without thinking, I cast a small Sight spell. Magic flickered into the spell I drew, and I caught my breath. I saw the dusty remnant of the spell Collins had cast, draped across the dry grass at the base of the tree. He was nowhere to be seen.

But that wasn’t what had surprised me. Magic felt easy again. It didn’t hurt, not one bit, to cast it now. Whatever
healing Cody had done included my ability to cast magic too.

Oh, that was good. So very good.

Then I felt a familiar, and very real, presence.

Zayvion was walking across the park toward me, his thumbs tucked in his belt loops, relaxed in the sunlight, smiling.

I folded the papers back up and tucked them in the box. I stood up and walked toward Zayvion, my soul, my love.

There would be time enough for the past later. Time enough to explore what I could do with magic later. Right now, I just wanted today, with a promise of an awful lot of tomorrows with him.

I
t was the morning of my twenty-sixth birthday, and all I wanted was a decent cup of coffee, a hot breakfast, and some time away from the gargoyle who had been given a dozen squeaky toys by Shame and was chewing on them. All of them. At once.

It sounded like an entire flock of rubber ducks were screaming out their death quacks.

I’d asked Zay if he wanted to go out today to do something to celebrate, and had received vague promises in return. Something about him needing to help Shame and Terric with important Authority-related stuff.

He’d gotten up before dawn, given me a kiss, which I’d been too sleepy to return properly, and left.

Not that I expected him to remember it was my birthday. Things had been busy the last few months.

Reappointing the Voices of the Authority was just the beginning of restructuring the Authority. There was a lot of information that needed to be exchanged about how magic had changed worldwide. It meant establishing contacts throughout the various systems and agencies so the Authority could now operate as a semihidden organization.

But Sam Arch and the Overseer had finally chosen who should be the head of Portland’s Authority.

They’d given that position to Shame and Terric. Said that they thought the head of the Authority might best be handled by two people, Soul Complements, with a lot of experience dealing with a town that sat on five wells of magic.

Terric was shocked, but as is his way, took the appointment with gravity and grace.

To say Shame was reluctant to take the position was a massive understatement.

To say he threw a bloody fit was more like it. He’d argued against it for three weeks, brought up his lengthy past history of irresponsibility and slackerdom as proof of his incompetence.

Zay had finally taken him out for a drink and a long talk.

The next day, Shame had agreed to the position.

I hadn’t yet gotten Zay to tell me what he’d said to Shame.

But there were plenty of things I’d probably never understand. Like why I had dated Eli Collins in college.

Use magic, it uses you back. That was still true, though the magic was much gentler now and the price to pay was also more moderate. No one knew if that was a temporary state of things or not.

I guess we’d just have to keep living to find out.

I shoved the pillow off my head and got out of bed. “Stone! For the love of God. Stop torturing those ducks.”

There was a pause in the noise from the living room. Then one long, sad squeal that ended with a pop.

Oh, sweet hells. He was killing them.

Fine. Let him have his rubber minions. I wanted a shower, clothes, then a big cup of coffee at Get Mugged. Because it was my birthday and I planned on doing anything I wanted to do today.

By the time I got out of the shower, dressed, and had put on my shoes, Stone had stacked his toys across the windowsill in the living room. Even the slightly saggy duck with the missing head.

At least he wasn’t eating them anymore.

“See you later, Stoney,” I said. “Be a good boy, okay?”

He whuffled at me and trotted over so I could pet his head.

“You are such a goofus,” I said, rubbing behind his ears. “Don’t get seen, okay?”

Sure, people had gotten memories back, and the Authority was a little more out in the open than before. But Stone was still the only gargoyle in the city. The fewer people who knew about him, the better.

It didn’t take me long to make my way to Get Mugged. Even though it was September, the sky was mostly clear, patched together by clouds that sent the sun dipping into and out of shadows. No rain yet. That was nice.

I just kind of wished Zay was here. That maybe he would have had time to spend with me on my birthday.

Maybe Grant would take a couple of minutes and sit at my table. We hadn’t had a chance to gossip for weeks.

Just before I opened the door to the coffee shop, I realized something was not right.

It was too quiet, though I saw Grant, and only Grant, standing behind the counter. He smiled and waved me in.

I put my hand on the blood blade I still carried at my side and cautiously opened the door.

The snap of a canceled spell filled the room with the sweet scent of lilac.

“Happy Birthday!”

The entire place was filled with people. No, not just people. My friends. All the Hounds, all the members of
the Authority, Maeve and Victor, Nola, Stotts, Violet and my little brother, and Terric and Shame.

It was back-to-belly crowded, but I stepped right in. And for the first time, I realized I didn’t feel the slightest twinge of claustrophobia.

All the world seemed a lot more open to me now.

Zay stood at the door and shook the last wisps of the Illusion spell off his fingers.

Victor started singing the happy birthday song, and everyone joined in.

I couldn’t stop smiling. This—all this, all of them—was worth every price I’d ever paid.

Zay stepped up and wrapped his arms around me. “Happy birthday, love,” he said. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Yes,” I said. “You can. Today and every day.” I reached up and kissed him. And oh, sweet loves, how he kissed me back.