Magic or Madness (21 page)

He nodded. “Like your mother too.”

“She never mentioned you.” Her voice had grown a little louder but was still somehow thin.

“Interesting.” He smiled. “But there are many things she never mentioned, aren’t there?”

Reason shook her head, but not so much to say
no;
more in confusion. “Do you even know Sarafina?” she asked. “I have a father. I’ve never seen him.”

“Sarafina and I have met.” He smiled broadly and Jay-Tee felt sick. He was enjoying this too much. It wasn’t like he would tell Reason anything that would help her. This was all about helping him.

“Why . . .” Reason stopped and said instead, “Do you know why they all die? Why the women in my family all die so young?”

“I do. I also know why your mother is insane.”

Reason’s eyes widened. “Tell me.”

Jay-Tee could have told her
that.
She needed to ask the right questions.

“Say yes, Reason. And then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Give me what I want.”

“What do you want?”

He picked up his glass, rolled it in his hands, watching the bubbles spinning. He brought it slowly to his mouth and, instead of sipping, drained the full glass in one slow, steady drink.

That’s what he wants,
thought Jay-Tee.
He wants to drink you dry.

“I want to take a little of what you have. A little of your magic.”

“My magic?”

“Yes. You can give it to me. A little at a time. You’ll hardly feel a thing. Will she, Jay-Tee?”

Reason looked sharply at Jay-Tee, who forced herself to meet Reason’s eyes and say, “No,” even though it was a lie. Jay-Tee felt what he did to her. She missed what he took. She did everything she could to get it back. That was why she had wanted him to take from Reason: to stop him taking from her. It had seemed a good idea, back before she’d gotten to know Reason.

“How does it work?”

“Tell her, Jay-Tee.”

Jay-Tee swallowed, drank more of the champagne. Her head was spinning at about a hundred miles an hour. She figured she was probably drunk. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she said, knowing he’d be pissed at her. When he asked questions, you were supposed to answer. She could practically smell the acid gathering in his mouth.

When she stood up, she didn’t wobble, which was quite an accomplishment with the heels she was wearing. She strutted in a reasonable approximation of a straight line toward where she hoped the bathrooms would be. The loud click of her metal heels against the floor caused many of the other diners to turn their heads and watch her progress.

Someone was walking behind her. Jay-Tee carefully turned her head. Reason wobbled along behind her.
Damn,
thought Jay-Tee.
Now he’s really going to be mad.

The bathroom was all marble and gold. Very classy. There was a separate room with chairs and mirrors for fixing your makeup. When Jay-Tee had peed and washed her hands, she went in and sat down, waiting for Reason to be done.

She redid her lipstick. It took a while because her hands were shaking. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shiny, but they weren’t bloodshot. Jay-Tee figured that would come in the morning. Her head would probably ache too. Especially if he decided to exact revenge on her.

Reason was taking her time. Jay-Tee could feel herself starting to sweat. She should probably go back to the table, face him without talking to Reason first, but Jay-Tee figured she owed her. Which was crazy. Reason couldn’t hurt her the way he could.

A tall woman with dreadlocks down to the small of her back came in, sat down, nodded at Jay-Tee, and began to redo her makeup, starting with concealer under her eyes. She’d looked great to start with, and Jay-Tee couldn’t imagine she’d look noticeably different afterward.

Reason sat on Jay-Tee’s other side. She wasn’t at all flushed. All the color had gone from her face, making the black eye Jay-Tee had carefully painted over stand out. Her skin was flat, sallow, like the color of a paper bag. The shock had drained all the champagne away.

Jay-Tee’s need to help her grew, which was crazed. The longer they stayed in here, the madder he’d be—at
both
of them. How would that help Reason?

“You okay?” she asked, but Reason didn’t say anything.

“Want me to fix your lips? Put some more blush on?”

Reason nodded.

“But we shouldn’t stay too long. He won’t like it.” She glanced at the woman, now curling her eyelashes, and wondered when she would leave.

Jay-Tee got the blush and lipstick out of her purse, shifted around on her chair and leaned forward, started putting the lipstick on, but her hands were shaking. She kept slipping, going beyond the line of Reason’s lips.

“Sorry,” she muttered, grabbing a tissue and rubbing it off.

“Here,” Reason said, taking them from her. “I think I know how to do it.”

She did her cheeks and then her lips, much more evenly than Jay-Tee would have managed. She had half a mind to ask Reason to redo hers. But how much longer would that take? Jay-Tee could almost see him sitting there, his eyes growing colder and his lips thinner.

The dreadlocked woman finished with her makeup, nodded at them both, and finally left.

“How does he take your magic?” Reason asked at once.

Jay-Tee put the makeup back in her purse. Well, he’d said he wanted her to tell Reason; might as well do it here. “He asks me if he can, and when I say yes, he puts his hand on me. Like this.” Jay-Tee leaned forward and lightly touched the back of Reason’s hand. “And then there’s this weird sensation of heat, kind of like it’s burning, but not that bad, and when I want it to stop, I say so. And it stops right away.”

“It’s up to you? You make it start and stop?”

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?” Reason leaned closer, as if she was trying to see the truth in Jay-Tee’s eyes.

“No.”
Not exactly.

“How do you feel after? Like something’s gone?”

Jay-Tee hesitated, decided to tell the truth. “Yes. I feel tired. The more he takes, the worse it is.”

“Does it mean you can’t do magic? ’Cause he’s taken it from you?”

“I can do magic. You’ve seen it.” Jay-Tee smiled, thinking about everything she’d done right under Reason’s nose. “He hasn’t taken all of it. I wouldn’t let him,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “It’s not that bad. Honest.”

Reason’s nose wrinkled. Jay-Tee figured the word
honest
didn’t carry much weight coming out of her mouth.

“Can
you
answer my questions? Is there stuff Blake knows that you don’t?”

“Lots. I didn’t know he was your grandfather.”

“Do you think he really is? Do you think that’s true?” Reason sounded distressed.

Jay-Tee understood why. She couldn’t help feeling relieved all over again that he wasn’t any relative of hers. Her dad was mad foul, but not even on the same scale as
him.

“Don’t know, Reason. I don’t know anything about your family. Except that your grandmother’s heavy-duty scary. I guess that means they’d be a perfect match.” Jay-Tee smiled, but her joke was too true to be funny.

Reason said nothing, thinking it all through. Her learning curve had been steep tonight. But they couldn’t just sit here like this. He’d be getting madder and madder by the second. “We should get back.”

“Are you frightened of him?”

Jay-Tee looked down. “Sometimes.”
Most of the time.

“What has he done for you? Why do you let him take it?”

A blond woman in an ugly brown-and-green dress came in.

“Tell you later,” Jay-Tee said, although she wasn’t sure she could. She stood up, lowering her voice. “It’s not all bad, I promise. I’d’ve run away from him if it was. He leaves me alone most of the time.”

Reason didn’t reply.

He didn’t say a word as they picked the napkins up off the backs of their chairs and sat down. Jay-Tee started to raise the champagne to her lips but was too nervous and put the glass back down, bracing herself for the acid to start dripping from his lips.

“Yes,” Reason said before he could open his mouth, staring straight at him, putting her hand palm down on the table as Jay-Tee had shown her. “Yes, take some now.”

He reached across and laid his hand on hers. It made Jay-Tee sick to watch but also relieved it wasn’t her. Even so, she flashed back to the feeling of skin contracting, the slowly increasing burning sensation crawling up her arm. Like ants, poison devil ants.

Would it make Reason want to hurl? Make her head suddenly ache right where the spine and skull met? Would Reason’s body scream at her that this wasn’t right? Color appeared in a spot the size of a nickel on both her cheekbones, clashing with the blush. Jay-Tee thanked God it wasn’t her and then felt like a bitch because it
was
Reason and that was her fault.

“No,” said Reason. “Stop.”

He took his hand away. He wasn’t buzzing like he did when he drank from her, and Reason wasn’t shaking. But Jay-Tee knew that even such a short time was enough for him to get a taste and for Reason to get an inkling of what it felt like to be drained. She’d been wise stopping it so soon.

The waiter brought yet another dish. A dessert this time, Jay-Tee was relieved to see. This would end soon. She’d be able to get away from him. She wondered how the three of them looked to the waiters: rich old white guy with his two Chicana girls, one with a suspicious hint of a black eye. None of them was going to know Reason was a . . . whatever it was she’d said she was. But appearances didn’t tell you everything, she thought. This was much, much creepier than it looked.

“Now tell me,” Reason said, “about magic.”

Jay-Tee leaned back in her chair, twirling her champagne glass, all ready to hear how he was going to weasel out of telling Reason anything.

“After a mere ten seconds? Hardly fair. I should keep my explanation as abbreviated as your scant offering.” He ate some of the dessert. “It’s very good, girls. You should at least try it.”

Jay-Tee had lost her appetite watching him take from Reason, but Reason would be starving. “You should eat it,” she told her. “Food helps. You’ll feel better.”

Reason smiled halfheartedly, spooned some of the wobbly creamy stuff into her mouth, then proceeded to inhale the rest of it. Jay-Tee switched their plates, feeling slightly better for having done
something
to help her. “Have mine.”

“Thanks.” She finished it as quickly as the first.

“What exactly do you want to know, Reason?” he asked. The smile on his face was genuine. He was enjoying this.

“What
don’t
I want to know!” Reason said, sounding fed up, almost angry. It was the first time Jay-Tee had heard her use such a sharp tone of voice. As she spoke, her voice grew sharper, a red haze grew around her eyes. Jay-Tee could feel the hair standing up on her arms. Reason was losing her temper. The questions bubbled out of her like lava. “What is it? How does it work? How do I use it? Why am
I
magic? Why do you want it?”

As Reason continued to fire her questions at him, Jay-Tee leaned across to put her hand on Reason’s arm.
“Tranquila,”
she whispered softly, like her father would whisper when she was little and losing it.
“Cálmate.”
She could feel Reason simmering down, regaining control. She squeezed Reason’s hand for a second, glad to have helped her but sad to remember what her dad used to be like before he turned into a monster she wished dead.

“Why do you want to take mine?” Reason asked in a lessagitated voice. “Or Jay-Tee’s, for that matter? How does the door work? Does it have to do with maths?”

Math,
Jay-Tee mentally corrected her. Unless there was more than one math? What a horrible thought.

“Why do they all die so young? Do I—”

He held up his hand. “Enough. I can’t answer all of those questions. You are magic, Reason, because it’s in your genes. It’s hereditary; it runs stronger in some families than others. You’re from a long line. Jay-Tee’s the product of two magic-wielders who were, as far as they knew, the only ones in their families. Many appear out of nowhere, with no relatives like them and no idea what they are.”