Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price (7 page)

If I surrendered myself to this, to my want of him, the thrumming electricity pricking to life beneath my skin, the amazing awareness of who I was, and how alive I was in Zayvion’s arms, I might not let go.

I’d told Nola it wasn’t hard for us to remain in our own bodies. That he and I handled the draw of being Soul Complements just fine.

But that was not the full truth. It wasn’t just when we were using magic that I wanted to be part of him, breathing his breath, feeling his heartbeat as if it were my own.

It would be easy to let go of everything, to just slip into his mind, his soul, and never feel alone again.

I love you,
I thought, and felt it ripple through him.

Then I pulled away, making sure I was soundly in my own mind, my own body. That I was just me, Allie, and he was just him, Zayvion.

He inhaled, placing his forehead against mine. “Tell me that wasn’t good-bye.”

“That was I love you. Weren’t you paying attention? You’d know if I said good-bye.”

I stepped back, and he caught my fingertips with his own.

“I’d better,” he said. “Because I’m pretty sure I’d have something to say about that.”

“Allie?” Kevin strode out onto the porch. “Violet’s upstairs with the disks.”

I gave Zay’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll be right there. Do we know how many people from Seattle are on the way yet?”

Kevin shook his head.

Zay let go of my hand. “I’ll see if I can find out.”

We walked into the house, Zay right behind me. He jogged down the hall to the left while Kevin and I picked up the pace and made for a staircase at the right. We took the stairs two at a time, then walked a short distance down the hall.

“She’s in this room.” He stopped outside a door that looked like the other dozen doors down the hall. This place really could be a hotel.

Kevin was a man of economical movements and words. He wasn’t the sort of person to waste time. Still, he stopped a moment, adjusted his shirt, and brushed the sweat from his face. When his hand came down, he looked very placid: sad eyes calm, body language just carrying a hint of worry, but not the tension I had seen in him moments ago.

I wondered if he even knew he was doing this. If he understood how much he cared about the way Violet saw him.

“Have you told Violet you love her?”

He paused, hand halfway to the doorknob. “She knows.”

I didn’t say anything.

He gave me a sideways look. “She must know,” he insisted. “All this time. I mean, I haven’t come out and said it…”

“You should.”

“She’s a very intelligent woman. I’m sure she’s aware of how much I care, and of…my other feelings.”

He sounded uncomfortable and worried.

It was kind of adorable.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I said. “She’s smart. But sometimes the smartest people are blind to what’s right in front of them.”

“I don’t see how this is any of your concern,” he said.

“She’s my friend, Kevin. And you know, the mother to my only sibling. I’d like to see her happy. I think you can make her happy. But she’s not a mind reader. Tell her. Tell her you have feelings for her, or that she’s important to you or…something, before it’s too late.”

He blinked and waited to see if I was going to continue. Then, slowly, “We’re not going to lose this fight, Allie. After things settle down, really settle down, I’ll
talk to her. I’ll have time to tell her and show her how I feel.”

“Two undead magic users who are Soul Complements have the firepower of the entire Authority outside this city behind them and they’re coming our way. There’s no guarantee which of us will survive this, Cooper. No guarantee any of us will survive. Please. Tell her before the night is over. Or I might have to tell her myself.”

“I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of my personal business. And my love life.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t leave her in the dark. If it helps any, Dad doesn’t seem to hate you as much—”

“I don’t give a damn what your father thinks about me.”

Sore spot. Well, who could blame him? Even I wasn’t sure why Violet loved my dad. Although, from the wisps of memories I’d gotten from Dad, he very much loved her in his own emotionally stunted way.

“Neither do I,” I said. “This isn’t about Dad. This is about Violet, and I’m guessing the baby. If you want to stay in her life and stay in his life, you’re going to have to let her know about it. Soon.” Then I added, “Please.”

His expression didn’t change. I couldn’t tell if anything I’d said made a bit of difference to him. He just turned, shoulders stiff, and opened the door for me.

I walked past him. I’d meant what I said. Violet was my friend, Daniel was my little brother, and Kevin was a decent man. Decent men didn’t hide their feelings from the people they loved.

The room was a bedroom, not a meeting room, fine linens across the bed, a tasteful, almost feminine touch to the decor. Sheer curtains spilled at the corners of the window, letting in the evening light.

A little happy-baby squeal and the sound of water
splashing came from behind a second door. The bathroom. Violet’s voice carried out into the main room. “Be right there.”

Kevin walked over to the window and gazed out it. Maybe thinking about what I had said. Maybe just looking for trouble like a good bodyguard should.

Violet strolled out of the bathroom with little Daniel wrapped up in a white towel. The corner of the towel was tucked over Daniel’s head like a hat. It had little black eyes and a pink nose stitched onto it and bunny ears that flopped at the top.

He looked ridiculously cute.

“Aw,” I said.

Violet smiled. She wore a T-shirt and jeans, her auburn hair a little messy and damp as if someone had gotten his soggy little hands all over it. She didn’t have her glasses on.

I felt a strange melancholy drift through my mind. For a moment, I didn’t know if it was my feelings or my dad’s. That baby brother of mine made me think about what it might be like to have kids of my own, to hold Zayvion’s child in my arms.

Made me think about how wonderful that would be.

I pushed that knot of unexpected desire away. No time for that now. Maybe…maybe if we survived.

But the melancholy remained. Sadness. It wasn’t my emotion. It was Dad’s. He missed Violet. Deeply regretted that he’d died before she had given birth to their only child.

His only son he would never know.

“Hey,” I said, trying to distance myself from Dad’s feelings and not doing a very good job of it. “Any luck with the disks?”

“Some. We have them set and ready for anyone to access.” She made a silly face at Daniel and he squirmed and made another happy noise, waving her glasses at her before stuffing them awkwardly in his mouth.

“I don’t, however, have any clue about how to get the magic samples from each well out of Stone,” she said.

“I think I know how.”

“Good.” She was all business now, putting Daniel on the bed with a pillow on either side of him, though I had no idea why.

Kevin moved away from the window to one of the chairs. He picked up a tote bag with little bears decorating the edges of it and gave it to Violet.

“Thank you.” She proceeded to pull out the tiniest little shirt and pants and socks I’d ever seen. “Keep going, Allie. I’m listening.”

Right. Stop being distracted by the cute.

“I need to know how many disks you still have.”

She gently pried her glasses out of Daniel’s hands and he set off crying. Kevin produced a little giraffe toy out of the bag and jingled it sweetly. Then he pressed it on Daniel’s chest and made duckie noises until the baby noticed it and started chewing on the thing’s nose.

Kevin and Violet looked good together. Very natural. Like a father and mother should look. I had never once doubted Violet loved her son. And now I had no doubt that Kevin did too.

Another ache rolled through me, hard enough I held my breath against it. It was strange—Dad wasn’t usually this haphazard with letting his feelings leak. He usually kept them tightly controlled and sealed away from me.

But then, Violet was the only person—well, maybe besides baby Daniel—that I thought he actually loved.

I have always loved you, Allison,
he said with the same kind of bittersweet note.
Perhaps, someday, you will believe that.

His sorrow was so palpable, I had no idea what to say to him. I had never been in the position to comfort my father. I’d never thought he’d needed or wanted comforting. Certainly not from me.

Violet quickly dressed the baby, then sat on the edge of the bed, her hand on his belly, while he contentedly slobbered on the toy.

“Nineteen,” she said.

“Disks?” I asked, trying to remember what we were talking about.

“Yes. They are each charged with enough untainted magic to power one spell. What exactly is your plan, Allie?”

“We’re going to shut down all the magic in Portland.”

“Do you even know how to do that?” she asked. “There are agencies, paperwork involved. A review process.”

“Not today. Today I’m making the decisions. And if we’re going to stop the hit squad from Seattle and keep more people from getting sick and dying from using magic, we are going dark.”

She shook her head, but a small smile played across her lips. “It isn’t a bad idea. Reckless. Untested, but not without merit. I’m not sure there is a way to safely shut down all access to magic. Your father might have known. He was always planning for any emergency. But if he knew, he never told me.”

And that’s when I knew I’d have to do something I’d been avoiding for almost a year.

“I need to tell you something else,” I said, steeling myself for this. “It’s going to be hard for you to hear. I’d
hoped I would never have to say it. Not like this, but I think you need to know. About Dad.”

Kevin’s body language suddenly stiffened. He very much looked like a man who could take me down with one well-placed hit. I looked over at him, met his gaze.

“I have to tell her. They’ll need to work together on the disks.”

Kevin swallowed, then, “Hell. I object. Just so you know.”

“I know.”

“Allie?” Violet said. “What?”

“Violet, Dad died. I know you know that. You were there for his burial. Both of them. But there was a man, a doctor, who was a part of the Authority. He worked in Death and Blood magic and dabbled in dark magic. He was trying to raise my father from the dead.”

Violet was holding very still, listening, absorbing. She had known about the Authority before I did. But Dad had been very careful to keep her sheltered from the worst aspects of it.

“And?” she asked calmly, as if I were a student who hadn’t fully expressed my thesis.

Allison,
Dad breathed,
no. Oh, please, daughter, no.

His plea made my breath catch in my throat.

“That man contacted Dad’s spirit and chained it down. I tried to free him. Things got confusing—there was a lot of magic being thrown around. By the end of it, Dad was possessing me. A corner of my mind. And he still is.”

Violet had gone a ghastly shade of gray. Little Daniel lost hold of the giraffe and was fussing beneath her hand. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said. “I’m sorry it happened.”

“Daniel?” she exhaled, her eyes searching my face. Looking for a lie, looking for him.

She pulled herself together with visible will and turned to Kevin.

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

He opened and closed his hands. Uncomfortable. Guilty. “None of us thought it would be an ongoing concern. We all thought—We all hoped it would pass. Quickly.”

Those accusing eyes turned to me. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why did you keep this from me? All this time?”

“I—no—
we
didn’t want you to be hurt. Again,” I said honestly. “Dad—I think he thought it was enough for you to go through two burials. He…he still cares for you. And he wants you to live a good life. A happy life.”

“He can speak to you?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, but she stood.

“Let me speak to him. Now.”

Allie, please,
Dad begged.
I cannot…

You need to. She needs you to.

I stepped aside to allow Dad to come forward in my mind.

He didn’t. So, I reached over to him and dragged him forward, forcing him to stand, mentally, beside me.

Talk to her,
I thought.

“Hello, Vi,” he said softly through me.

Her eyes fluttered closed and tears caught in her lashes.

Shame had once told me that everything about me changed when Dad talked through me. My body language, the cadence of my voice, my tone. Zay had told me it was like looking at a different soul behind my eyes.

With just that one sentence, Violet could tell it was Dad.

His emotions flooded through me. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her all of his regrets, wanted to apologize, wanted to tell her he loved her. He had always loved her. But he held still. Uncertain.

After a long moment, she swallowed several times, then tipped her head up just a little to meet my gaze.

“Oh, Daniel,” she said. “I’ve missed you terribly. Every moment.”

“I’ve missed you too, my love,” he said. “This”—he held up my hands in a most helpless gesture—“is not what I wanted for us.”

She bit her lip, holding back tears. “Have you seen our son? Your beautiful baby boy?”

My head nodded. Dad was at a loss for words, struggling with his sorrow.

“I named him Daniel,” she said. “He has your smile. And your temper.” She tried to smile.

The baby had moved from fuss mode to intermittent hollering. Kevin finally picked him up and bounced him in his arms until he settled.

Kevin cast wary glances my way.

“We…I…” Dad’s voice caught and he cleared my throat. “There are times when I can see through Allison’s eyes. She visited you at the hospital the day he was born.”

“You were there?” she asked.

He nodded. “He is beautiful. Just like you. There are so many things I want to apologize for. Things I regret—”