Magic in the Blood (30 page)

I swallowed. “I don’t remember that at all.” Stotts looked a question at me, but maybe my shock showed. “All right. When you do remember, if you do, I’d like to hear about it.”

I nodded. My ears were ringing with a thin high tone. My dad’s dead body had been in that warehouse. Frank Gordon had been using it for something. Something involving Life and Death glyphs and the girls he kidnapped.

Was it too much to think my father’s ghost might have been there too? My stomach clenched in remembered fear. He had been there. Even though I couldn’t remember it, my gut, my emotional memory of the fear, told me he had been there.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I whispered.

Stotts nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Do you think my father’s ghost was there?”

“I don’t know,” he said evenly. “Do you?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

We sat there, in silence, the car engine still running, which was burning gas, but it kept the heater warm. It was raining outside, and suddenly this little space, this crowded car wasn’t nearly big enough for me. I needed out. I needed to breathe.

“I’m going home now.” I pulled on the door handle.

“Let me walk you in.”

“No. I got it. Really. I just want a shower and bed. Thanks for the ride.”

“Call me if—”

I cut him off. “I will. I’ll call if I remember anything else.”

“I was going to say, if you need anything.”

Oh.

“Thanks.” I got out of the car and shuffled across the sidewalk. Someone, probably my landlord, had thrown rock salt on the sidewalk and stairs, so it wasn’t even slippery anymore. Just wet.

I held my breath and dug in the plastic bag of my clothes. The clothes were stiff and damp with sweat and blood, but my hand came out a lot cleaner than I thought it would. I pulled the key out of my coat pocket and I let myself in the building. I took my time climbing stairs until the third floor showed up.

My head spun with thoughts of my father. His ghost had touched me twice. Had he touched me again in the warehouse? Had he done more than just touch me?

Even though I could not remember, there was an echo, an emotional memory. My father had done something to me. Something bad.

And I knew, without a doubt, that whatever it was, it was permanent.

What did you do to me, Dad? What did you want to use me for?

That skittery feeling at the back of my head triggered again, like a moth wing beating at the top of my spine—like something moving away from my concentration, dodging my notice.

I made it to the third floor and stopped. Down the hall by my door, stood a woman. She looked older than me by fifteen or twenty years, her faded red hair streaked with gray and pulled back in a loose bun. She had on a forest green wool coat and high heel boots.

I’d never seen her before, but she held up a hand and waved.

“Allie?” she asked. “Are you Allison Beckstrom?” Her voice had the slightest accent that made me think Ireland or Scotland.

And sure, it might be really dumb to tell a stranger who I was, but damn it, I was tired. And a little spooked. I just wanted to get home, and she was in my way.

“I’m Allie Beckstrom.”

She closed the distance between us and stuck out her hand. “My name is Maeve Flynn. I knew your father.”

I shook her hand, aware that mine wasn’t very clean.

Her hand was warm and strong, and she shook mine firmly enough I could feel the bones beneath her flesh, but not so hard as to hurt. She had working hands, a little calloused, but her nails were professionally polished with a soft pink gloss.

“Business partner?” I guessed.

“No. More of an acquaintance than anything else,” she said. “He and I didn’t agree on many things, though neither of us were shy about our personal opinions on the use of magic. He wasn’t pleased you went into Hounding, you know.”

“I’m not at all clear why you are here to see me. Is there something I can help you with?”

She looked up into my eyes—I was taller than her by several inches even though she was wearing heels and I wasn’t. Her eyes were the same color as her coat.

“Your father was a vicious and determined man. In life. And in death. I came by to see how badly he has hurt you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am a member of the Authority. I am here to see that his death, his spirit, has not harmed you.”

What had Zayvion said? There were powerful people watching me, waiting for me to do something wrong with magic so they could kill me. Was Maeve my killer?

I took a deep breath and looked at her. Really looked at her. She didn’t seem to be harboring a burning desire to off me. Which would put her several steps up from the company I’d been keeping lately.

“Maybe we can go inside and talk about it?” she offered.

“I thought you people were all about keeping a low profile,” I said as I walked toward my door.

“We are. But I believe that no longer suits both of our interests.”

I put the key in my lock and paused. “You aren’t here to kill me, are you?”

She laughed—and I mean really giggled—like that was the best joke she’d heard in years. “Where did you get that idea? I just told you I’m here to see that you are unharmed. Why would I kill you if I’m here to help you?”

“You’re the people who have been watching me, right? Waiting for me to misuse magic.”

“That’s right,” she said. “And we’ve seen everything you’ve done. Everything he did too.”

“Who?”

She pointed at my head. “Your father.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

“Everything.”

At my look, she went on. “There has been a . . . review . . . among the Authority. A discussion of what to do with you. Mr. Jones has been fiercely insisting you be allowed into the group, that you be allowed the teachings your father denied you.”

“Does Zayvion’s opinion have that much sway?”

“He is not without a voice among us. And he brings up valid points. If what he says is true . . .” She shook her head. “Well, it’s only logical for us to see that you are not judged unfairly. Are you interested in our offer?”

“To teach me about magic?”

She nodded. “To teach you the unknown about magic.”

“I suppose it will cost me if I say yes.”

“It will. The first price being to trust in me, so that I can see what sort of damage your father may have done to you.”

I so wasn’t up to dealing with this right now. I just got out of the hospital, for cripes’ sakes. I should just tell her to go away. Go back to her little club and tell them I was not interested. The problem was, I was interested. I wanted to know what my father had done to me, wanted to know what the Life and Death glyphs meant. Wanted to know what Frank Gordon had been doing to my father’s body. And to me.

And if someone in this city knew how I could keep from getting screwed over every time I used magic, I’d like to know. Even if it meant joining the secret clubhouse.

I unlocked my door and opened it, holding it so she could walk in past me.

I waved toward the living room. “Have a seat. I’m going to get changed.”

I passed the bathroom and threw the plastic bag of clothes on the floor near the hamper. In my bedroom, I got out of the hospital sweats and into a pair of loose jeans and a thick wool sweater.

When I came back out into the living room, Maeve was sitting on the edge of my couch. The blanket Zayvion had slept under was folded neatly on the arm of the couch. The food we’d never gotten around to eating was still on the table, along with the single, dead pink rose.

“Sorry about the mess,” I said.

“That’s fine,” she said in a sincere and motherly way. “And I promise this won’t hurt. I’ll tell you everything I’m doing as I do it, and you can ask me to stop at any time.”

“I’m not made of glass,” I said.

“Ready, then?”

No.

“Yes.”

She patted the couch next to her and I sat.

“I need to touch your hand or your leg,” she began patiently, like maybe she had talked a lot of people through this before.

I held out my right hand and she took it in both of hers.

No weaving of glyphs, no chanting; Maeve simply closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes again.

But instead of deep forest green, her eyes were shot with lines of silver. I knew, without a doubt, that she had called on some kind of Sight. And that she was using it to look
into
me. The weird thing was I couldn’t feel the magic, couldn’t smell the magic.

Very sneaky.

Maybe, if I pulled on my Sight, I could see what she was doing, but I felt as burnt out inside as a month-old forest fire. No magic for me for a while, if I could at all help it.

I wondered what she was looking for. Wondered if it was in me.

The moth-wing flutter started up in the back of my head again. Then went deathly still.

Maeve frowned. “There is much of you that is hidden, Allie,” she said in an isn’t-this-interesting way. “And much of you forgotten. Your father . . . he . . . parts of him are still with you.”

“Parts of him?” I asked. “Like my memories of him, right?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Pieces of his soul? Tell me I don’t have parts of my dead dad in me.”

And even though I would have sworn I was too tired to panic, I felt the clutch of fear in my stomach and my heart started racing. I didn’t want anything to do with my dead dad, didn’t want him talking to me, didn’t want him touching me. And I sure as hell didn’t want him
in
me.

Maeve blinked. The silver drained from her eyes. She let go of my hand and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know if bits of my dead dad are left inside me? Aren’t you some sort of expert on this?”

She nodded. “Many would say I am. But your father, Allie . . .” She stopped pinching her nose and leaned back a bit. “He has always been a difficult man to pin down.”

“Which means?”

“Which means I think your father left something in your mind, probably couched in your memories. I am not sure what it is nor how much of his own . . . soul . . . he left with it. It could just be an echo, an aftereffect from the massive amounts of magic you and he used.

“And he pulled that magic through you, using your body as his own. It is unheard of. . . .” She muttered, like maybe if she hadn’t been just looking at me, she wouldn’t believe it possible. “That it did so little damage to you—physical pain and some memory loss—is bloody amazing. Anyone should be dead from what happened to you in that warehouse.”

It’s great to be special. “Well,” I said, trying not to show how crappy I really felt. “I’m not dead.”

She smiled in a motherly way. “No, you aren’t.” She stood up. “And I think you will be fine between now and when you come to learn. I’ll be able to see better just what you father has done when you come to my place. I don’t want to keep you.” She walked to my door.

Wasn’t she in a big hurry all of a sudden?

“No need to show me out. Get some sleep, take your painkillers. And call me when you’re back on your feet. Here’s my number. I’ll tell you how to find me.” She put a business card down on the half wall between my front hallway and kitchen.

I stood and followed her, even though she had told me not to.

She opened the door. “And, Allie? You are healing. I hope you get well
soon
so your true learning can begin.” She hesitated, like maybe she was going to say more, but then simply nodded, as if agreeing with herself, and shut the door behind her.

Weirdos. My life was full of ’em.

Ha. Not funny.

Violet called a couple times, and I managed to convince her I wasn’t up for visitors and still didn’t want to move in with her. Detective Stotts called and I answered a few more questions for him, still off the record. I was sure there would be a couple official visits to the police department ahead of me. I promised not to leave town.

I didn’t hear from Zayvion. Not a single pink rose.

I watched the news and read the papers, which was probably the first time I’d done either in five years. The kidnappings were mentioned, and so were the deaths of Pike, Lon Trager, and his men. But while Frank Gordon was also implicated in the crimes, his death and the rest of the details—such as my father’s corpse, me being there, the magical ritual Gordon had been attempting, and Zayvion’s involvement in his death—were carefully omitted. It was eye-opening to see all that had been left out. Someone had pull over the media. I wondered if it was the Authority or MERC.

Five days after I’d left the hospital, Violet called again.

“There is going to be a burial for your father. I thought you might want to come this time.” Her voice sounded tight. Like maybe she had been doing her share of crying.

“When is it?” I asked around the knot in my throat.

“Noon today at the cemetery. There will be a small gathering of . . . important people, and no one else. I thought you might want to know.”

I unclenched my fists and rubbed at my cold left arm with my always-warm right hand. Did I really want to see my father’s dead body again? I stared out at the bleak Portland sky. The ice had melted, but it was still cold and wet, and would likely stay that way until May.

Yes, I decided, I needed this. Needed to see him lowered into the ground. Need to know, once and for all, that he was gone. His body and, I hoped, his spirit.

“I’ll be there,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”

She paused. “It means a lot to me that you’re coming.”

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” I hung up the phone and spent the next few hours staring out the window and trying not to think too hard about anything.

Just before noon I changed into the only good black I owned—slacks and a sweater—and then called a cab and waited for it to pull up. When I saw it outside the window, I grabbed my umbrella and headed down the stairs.

Just outside my apartment, someone strode down the sidewalk to catch me before I got into the cab.

I looked up, ready for trouble.

Davy Silvers, wearing his hoodie and denim jacket, nodded to me and kept walking. He didn’t say anything but just as he came parallel to me, he handed me a card. I took it, and he continued on.

Very secret agent of him. Except then he sneezed several times and swore, which sort of blew the cloak-and-dagger bit.

I ducked into the cab and told the driver to take me to the cemetery. I tipped the card to read it. Black with white letters: The Pack. But on the back was a handwritten note. “Pike’s last meeting. Two o’clock, O’Donnel’s.”

Great. Just what I needed. A meeting with a bunch of twitchy, nervous Hounds right after I watched my dad’s body get sunk six feet.

Well, at least they were holding it at O’Donnel’s this time. A pub meant beer. And I had the feeling I’d need a lot of that before the day was over.

The cemetery wasn’t that far outside the city, but enough that the push and pull of magic in me eased just the slightest amount.

But driving up to the iron gates made my stomach clench. This was where my father would be buried. Again. For the last time. Death was final. Even for him.

A small gathering of people, maybe twenty-five or so, all in black stood on the crest of the hill in front of the mortuary. They each held black umbrellas against the slight drizzle in the air.

These must be the important people Violet had mentioned.

“Want me to take you up there?” the cabdriver, a thin man who reminded me a little of Anthony, asked.

“Yes.” I smoothed my hair. No one had found my hat or gloves. I had started knitting new ones but hadn’t made much progress. Which meant I was going to have to use my umbrella to keep my head dry.

My umbrella was bright yellow and had little duckies on the edge.

I totally knew how to blend in.

The cab stopped and I paid, took a deep breath, and then got out into the cold air.

Half the people were watching me. People who I had never met—men, women, lots of shapes and sizes and ages. A tingle ran down my back as vague memories of each of them came to me. Tall, temperamental Victor, who always thought his opinion was correct; mousy Liddy, who could tear a man apart with the flick of a finger; big, friendly Jingo, who had a thing for little children and their bones.

I blinked, trying to stop the flow of memories. Memories that were not mine.

I popped open my umbrella so I had an excuse to look away from the crowd for a minute. Yellow duckies filled my vision, and the memories were gone.

But the remaining thoughts that filled my head were mechanical as the workings of a gun.

These important people were magic users. The Authority. People my dad had spent a lifetime hiding from me. All here. Now. Gathered to watch my father’s corpse get lowered into the ground, to be covered in dirt, once and for all.

Holy shit.

I scanned the crowd for Violet, saw her there by the top of the stairs, her guard, Kevin, behind her. She was talking to another woman with red and gray hair pulled up in a loose bun. Maeve.

She and Maeve knew each other?

I was so out of my depth here.

So I did what I did in any social situation that throws me. I faked the hell out of it.

I walked up like I had expected this. Like my dad had told me all about each of them and I knew their secrets. I held my ducky umbrella over my shoulder and practically sauntered, selling all-the-fashionablegrievers-are-wearing-ducks-this-season attitude for all I was worth.

And I took great pains to keep my mind, my thoughts, and the magic that flowed through me very quiet.

The crowd hushed. Not that they’d been talking loudly. But as soon as I was a few steps away, they stopped talking completely.

The other half of the crowd who hadn’t been looking my way turned so they could.

I put on a disinterested expression and scanned the faces. I spotted Zayvion. He stood near Violet and Maeve and a thin, pale kid done up in Goth couture. My heart raced.

The crowd shifted to make room for me, to allow me to walk up through the middle of them if I chose. Everyone waited. Everyone watched me. Like whatever I did next was important.

It is no fun playing a game when you don’t know what the rules are, much less what is at stake.

From the tension in the air, I didn’t think these people were all on the same side exactly. No, this felt more like a strained truce that would remain long enough to see their mutual enemy, or friend, buried.

It probably mattered a lot who I decided to stand by. But it wasn’t a hard choice. I strode up the open pathway through the crowd and climbed the stairs to stand next to two people, Violet Beckstrom and Zayvion Jones. Just to make sure they got my point, I turned to look out at the crowd. We stood, Zayvion on one side and Violet on the other, shoulder to shoulder.

I liked that feeling. Liked the guarded looks of respect, and anger, and curiosity it brought from the crowd.

And no matter how much my logical mind doubted I was making a good choice, since I didn’t even know what the hells I was choosing, my gut, my heart, knew I was right where I should be.

“Is this all of us, then?” I asked in a calm voice.

Violet, next to me, nodded. “We may begin.”

The big double doors behind us opened, and a group of six men brought out a casket. Instead of carrying it on their shoulders, they carried it low, at hip height. And instead of the lid being closed, it was open, from head to toe.

We stepped to one side, and the pallbearers brought the casket forward and paused in front of us, letting us take a long look.

That was my dad. No doubt in my mind. That was my dad’s overpreserved, leathery, gray, rotting corpse. He was naked except for a black blanket across his hips. Zayvion squeezed my hand gently in silent sympathy. Violet, on the other side, placed a lavender handkerchief on my dad’s chest, over his heart.

The pallbearers moved on. They walked slowly down the stairs, pausing every five steps so those in the crowd could look into the casket and agree that the body in that coffin was my dad. Once everyone got a chance to see him, the lid was placed upon the casket, and the pallbearers began the slow, long walk to my father’s grave.

We followed along behind, and no one spoke a word. Only the sound of our shoes on the grass and the rain on our umbrellas stirred the silence. Zay was beside me, his hand still in mine, no mint, but the scent of pine and a familiar warmth that was solid and real in this surreal moment.

We walked out to the thin gathering of trees, barren of leaves, stone angels grieving at their roots, black limbs spread against a stormy sky. A draped lowering device surrounded the newly re-dug grave.

The pallbearers placed the casket on the lowering device and lifted the lid on the casket one more time. All of us could see it was still his corpse. Wetter now, but still the same. A few people leaned in closer to get one last look. I did not feel the need to do so.

The pallbearers closed and locked the coffin lid and then worked the controls so the coffin could be lowered.

No one moved forward after that. Everyone watched as the coffin sank to the bottom of the grave, the equipment was removed, and the cemetery grave diggers—three of them wearing black raincoats and carrying shovels—cut shovelfuls of dirt and threw it into the hole.

No one sang. No one cried. No one gave words or comfort or remembrance. There was no sound at all except silence, raindrops, and the heavy thud of dirt upon pine.

After an unspecified time, the crowd began to break up. Each person walked past me and Zayvion and Violet. Some stopped and spoke to Violet in a low tone. No one spoke to me. Some made eye contact, looking for something or maybe trying to tell me something, and then looking away. Some turned so I never got a good look at them.

I tried to commit as many of their faces to memory as I could, inhaled to get the scents of them. Then they were gone, black coats beneath black umbrellas, beneath a dark sky.

The grave diggers were still filling the grave. Violet stood at the edge, watching each shovelful of dirt cascade down. Kevin, hands folded behind his back, stood by her side. I thought they looked good together, him painfully reserved but radiating strength and loyalty, her small, pale, and, I knew, fierce.

Violet’s shoulders shook and she put her hands over her face.

Kevin lifted his hand, hesitated with it just above her shoulder, as if weighing the consequences. Then the moment was gone. He quietly drew his hand away and stood, once again as only her guard—near her, but not touching her, his hands folded behind his back.

My heart hurt. For her. For him. For what they almost had.

“Allie?” Zayvion’s voice was quiet.

I looked over at him.

“Would you like to get out of the rain?”

What I would like was some kind of an explanation. Of where he had been the last five days.

But suddenly I realized I was really cold. My feet were numb from standing in the same place for so long. “Fine,” I said.

I walked over to Violet. Caught Kevin’s gaze. He sized me up.

Unreadable, that man. He tipped his chin down, just enough, I knew he was giving his okay.

I gently put my hand on Violet’s back. She had both her hands across her stomach now. She was shorter than me, thin, petite. Standing this close to her, touching her, made me realize how small and breakable she was, and I felt an overwhelming desire to protect her, to not let her, or my sibling she was carrying, get hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She did not look at me. Did not look away from the grave.

“So am I,” she whispered.

“Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded. “It’s going to take some time. More time,” she said faintly.

“If you need me,” I said, “I’ll be here.”

I wanted to say more, wanted to tell her words of comfort, wanted to tell her that I had spoken to him, to his spirit, but it seemed like the worst time ever to bring that up.

“Take care of her.” I said to Kevin. He nodded. I walked back to Zay, and he fell into step with me as we crossed the graveyard.

“Where were you?” I asked. I hadn’t meant for my voice to catch.

“Lobbying for you.”

“With whom?”

“Them.” He pointed in the direction of the people leaving the cemetery.

“Maeve stopped by.”

Zayvion, the graceful, the unflappable Zen master, tripped on smooth ground. “She did?” he asked as he pulled himself back up and dusted his muddy hands.