Magic Without Mercy (37 page)

Stone burbled again, one hand on the couch, looking like he was considering curling up with Zayvion. I doubted Zay wanted a half ton of rock for a blanket.

“Come on, Stone,” I whispered. “Let’s go find breakfast.”

Stone slunk down off the couch and did so with so little noise it was a bit surprising. He followed at my side as I tried to remember which way led to the food and coffee.

After the first hallway, I didn’t have to wonder. The smell of hot oats and something buttery like pancakes filled the air. As I neared the kitchen, the heavenly scent of fresh-brewed coffee mixed with the others and made my mouth water.

I pushed open the door to the kitchen. It was large enough that between the chairs surrounding the island and the actual dining table, all of us could have sat and had a meal along with an extra twenty friends.

Nola was at the stove, stirring a pot, a waffle iron to the side.

“Do you always have to get up before dawn?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Good morning, Allie. Did you get some sleep?”

I walked across the room and started opening cupboards, looking for a cup. “Not enough,” I said. “But some.”

“Last one the right,” she said. “Stone wouldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to let him outside. I’ve spent the last hour trying to keep him occupied so he didn’t wake you.”

I found a mug, filled it with coffee, took a sip. Oh, good God, that was sweet, sweet heaven.

“Where’s Mrs., um… Mrs.…?”

“Stanley?” she asked. “The owner of the house? She
works the morning shift at the barge company. She told me to feel free to use her kitchen. How’s oatmeal and waffles sound?”

She opened the waffle iron, pulled out the golden brown cake, and slipped it into the oven to keep it warm. Then she poured more batter on the iron and closed it again.

“If you’re cooking? Delicious.” I leaned against the counter and watched while Stone nosed around until he found a cupboard of canned goods, and started sorting through them, stacking them on their round side, instead of upright on their flat ends.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She was quiet for a minute, then sighed. “I think so. It’s just… a lot. Overwhelming. Coming out of that circle with Cody and Stone and seeing all those people injured. I don’t know how you’ve been handling it for so long.”

“I haven’t. Not really.” I shifted to sit at the table, because my feet hurt. “It’s not usually this bad.” I decided now was not the time to give her the list of fights and magical scrapes I’d been in over the last few months. We’d have time, later, to catch up on all of that, because I intended to tell her everything.

She turned around, her mouth tucked down in a worried line. “Should I apologize? For thinking you were crazy?”

I smiled. “Absolutely not. I’m glad you were looking out for me. And the day I do go crazy, because hey, look at the odds, you better be right there, making sure I know it.”

She walked over and gave me a quick and gentle hug before walking back to the stove. “You know I will be.” She checked the waffles, then walked over to the freezer, searching through the contents.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Just after six,” she said, taking sausage out of the freezer.

“We’ll need to make some decisions soon.”

“About Stone?” she asked.

“Yes. About Stone, the magic inside him. About Shame and Terric. About Cody.” I watched Stone carefully balance a second layer of cans on top of the first. So far, so good.

“Well, if the smell of coffee didn’t make them stir, I promise this will do the trick.” Nola put the sausages on a griddle and popped the waffle in the oven.

And she was right. Within the next fifteen minutes or so, Maeve walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, ladies,” she said. “Breakfast smells heavenly.”

“Morning, Maeve,” I said. “Think we should haul this out for everyone?”

“I believe if we don’t, we may have a riot on our hands.”

Between the three of us, we gathered breakfast, extra plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery, and took it all out into the main room, spreading it across two of the coffee tables by the couches. Since the cots were along the wall, we shifted the couches a little and created an area where we could all sit together and still help the wounded with their meals.

To my surprise, everyone was awake, including Victor and Hayden, and Stotts and Cody, who had wandered in from the spare bedrooms. Only Shame and Terric were still out.

I didn’t know about anyone else, but I was starving. I practically inhaled a waffle, and was digging into a bowl of oatmeal—with fresh blueberries—when Paul finally spoke.

“So how does this work now?” he asked.

“Which part of it?” I asked.

“The magic. Stone. The Authority.”

“Carl and La told me the Authority is going to listen to us, to what we need to get the cure distributed, as soon as we formulate a cure.”

“Carl and La?” Victor asked, his voice a little hoarse. His eyes were still bandaged, but he was doing a remarkably good job of eating his oatmeal without seeing.

“They stood up at the end of the fight,” I said. “Told me they’re calling a state of emergency, and contacting the Overseer.”

“Practical of them,” he said with an approving smile.

“So that’s one thing not to worry about right now,” Hayden said. I could tell he was still heavily medicated, his eyes a glassy sort of yellow. But he’d apparently taken the news of losing his hand with stoic acceptance.

Still, it was hard for me to hold eye contact, knowing he’d been damaged because of my plans, my orders.

“What are we going to do about magic?” he asked.

“We need someone to test it. Maybe Collins or Violet or… I don’t know, really.”

Zay gave me an odd look, then put his hand on my thigh. I knew he felt my shame, my guilt, for other people bearing the cost of my fight.

“Anyone in this room regret what we’ve done so far?” Zay asked.

I snapped my head up and looked at him with horror. I couldn’t believe he’d just asked that.

“Why?” Victor asked. He might be blind, but he wasn’t unaware of what was going on around him.

“Allie’s worried she made the wrong choices,” Zay said.

“Zay. Stop—,” I started.

“Worried that we regret our wounds,” he continued. “Worried about you, Hayden, and you, Victor.”

Hayden scoffed. “The hand?” he asked, raising the stump of his arm. “Rather lose it than my life. And I’ve vowed to give up my life if that’s what it takes to keep the innocent, and magic, safe. You told us where the battle was going to be,” he said. “It has always been our choice whether to fight.”

“This isn’t just your fight, Allison,” Victor said. “It’s always been ours too. And it always will be. Until the day we die.”

“Ditto, boss,” Davy said around a mouthful of waffle.

“You suck,” I said quietly to Zayvion.

He smiled. “I’m just tired of you worrying so much,” he said. “Why not just clear the air between us and give you a little peace of mind?” He leaned back, looking satisfied with himself, then grunted at the pain and drank his coffee.

“So who are you going to task with running the magic and poison through its paces to find a cure?” Collins said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think that’s part of what you promised to do.”

“I did,” he said. “And I still could. I might need some things, though. A lab to run tests, for example. Do you think your father would let me use his lab?” he asked.

“Maybe. He said we’d need fail-safes. He said he was thinking about how it might best be done.”

“We may need you to ask him for his help, Allison,” Victor said. “Your father knows Flux magic, and the integration of magic with technology, better than anyone else in the city. Perhaps, the world.”

That didn’t sound good. But then, Dad hadn’t been working against us lately. He’d been helpful—hell, he’d been vital to our cause and done things none of the rest of us could do when the chips were down.

“I think he’ll do it.”

Won’t you?
I asked.

I’ll be of any assistance I can be. But give me a few hours to rest.
Then I got the distinct feeling he was sleeping, or in a deep meditation—the closest to sleep that I’d ever felt from him.

“He said he’ll be of any assistance he can be,” I said. “But he needs a few hours of rest.”

Paul put down his coffee cup. “You’re telling me your father, Daniel Beckstrom, isn’t dead?” he asked.

Oh, right. He didn’t know that part. Neither did Nola. I looked over at her.

“He’s dead. But he’s a ghost.”

Nola’s eyes went wide.

“So you can talk to him?” Paul asked.

“Yes.”

“Is he here now?” Nola asked.

“Yes, Allie,” Collins prompted. “Is he?”

It was too late trying to keep this information away from Collins, and I didn’t want to keep it from Nola any longer. “He’s in my head. Someone tried to raise him from the grave and he’s kind of been possessing a part of my mind and body for a few months.”

Nola looked like she was about to cry. “Oh, Allie. I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged and managed a smile. “It wasn’t my idea for him to possess me, and it wasn’t his idea either. But in some ways it’s sort of worked out for the better. I think he’ll help us. Help us with Stone.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will at that,” Collins said over the edge of his coffee.

“It’s a good start,” Maeve said, giving Zayvion a wink.

A wink?

But before I could ask, she stood. “Do you think there’s any tea in that kitchen, Nola?”

“Yes, let me help you with that.” Nola looked like she
needed a moment to pull herself together. It was sweet of Maeve to help her out. I think if I’d offered to go with her, she and I would just end up sitting on the floor crying. And I couldn’t do that. Yet.

They walked off and Paul got up to pace, working his knee to move more fluidly. His back looked like it was killing him. Plus, he was probably trying to swallow down the whole ghost-on-the-brain revelation.

“Before we go anywhere or do anything, or decide who’s going to try to cook up the cure,” Zay said, “I want a hot shower.” He plucked at his sweaty, bloody shirt. “And all the rest of you could all use a change of clothes too.”

“I’ll see if there’s anything here,” Davy said. “If not, I’ll hit up a thrift store.”

“I’ll help,” Sunny said.

He smiled, and they left the room, hand in hand.

“You,” Zay said. “Woman. Shower.” He heaved up off the couch, and I could tell it took everything he had to straighten. But he did straighten, and then sniffed, as if dismissing the pain.

“You don’t really think you can boss me around like that, do you?” I asked.

He licked his lips and I could see the sweat on his forehead. “Just wanted to make sure I’d caught your attention. Shower?”

I glanced around the room, my gaze lingering on Shame and Terric. “Do you think they’re going to wake up?”

“Not for a while. And if they do, everyone is here to look after them.” He started across the room. The hitch in his hip was worse. Bad enough he couldn’t cover it with his usual swagger.

I followed after him. I did want a shower and clean clothes.

Zay stepped into the bathroom, except it wasn’t a
bathroom. It was a bedroom. A big bowl of popcorn waited on the nightstand with two cups of tea. That would be Maeve’s doing and must have been what all the winking was about. A flat-screen was paused on the opening credits of a movie.

“This isn’t the shower,” I said.

“No, it isn’t. That comes after this.”

“And what’s this?”

He started toward the huge bed, then reached up to pull off his shirt. He groaned and pulled it over his head, swearing under his breath.

And no wonder. He was covered in bruises and several shallow cuts that Dr. Tullis, or maybe one of the nurses, had cleaned and spread some kind of cream over. His right shoulder was noticeably swollen, and his left arm was burned down to his wrist. He wadded up the shirt and dropped it on the floor.

“This is what you and I are going to do for the next two hours.” He crawled across the patchwork quilt, snagging up three pillows on his way.

“Popcorn and a movie?” I asked.

“I believe that was the deal. When this was done, and we were still standing.”

“This isn’t done. We haven’t cured magic. All we’ve done is poured a bunch of magic—both light and dark, which is very dangerous together—in Stone, Unclosed a madman, put Cody’s soul back together, and dragged the rest of my friends into a fight that we almost lost.

“And we killed the head of Portland’s Authority. Again.”

“True,” he said. “We also sent Roman to give the Overseer word about what’s going on here, about Leander and Isabelle, did the world a service by removing Jingo Jingo from it, and possibly, for the first time in
months, have a chance for the Authority to be working as it should. We’ll talk to your dad, Collins, and Violet soon. We’ll find a way to stop the sickness. But the world is going to wait for two hours. Two,” he said to my inhalation. “Because we’re still standing, aren’t we?”

He stretched his legs out with a grunt, positioned the pillows behind his back and head, then gave me a smile. “Well, one of us is anyway.” He patted the side of the bed next to him. “Come here.”

I shook my head, but couldn’t hide my smile. “I can’t believe you.”

“How amazing I am?”

“This. All this. It’s ridiculous you remembered I wanted this.”

“Ridiculous? A man should always remember the important things.”

I strolled to the bed and crawled over the quilt to settle beside him. “I get only two pillows?”

“That was also the deal. Good pillows are mine,” he said. “But you can hold the popcorn.” He handed it to me and picked up the remote.

I settled beside him, leaning on his chest, not even needing a pillow. Zay was right. We all needed showers, fresh clothes, and more than four hours of sleep. Dad wasn’t responding, and Collins was half asleep over his coffee. We couldn’t do anything until we were rested.

In a few hours, by afternoon at the latest, we’d pull our plan of action together. Right now, we needed all the downtime we could get.