Magic In the Blood

Chapter Twelve

The wind whipped up off of the river and blustered hard enough to rock Stotts’ car and throw rain that sounded like rocks against the windows. It was going to be miserable out there.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance the girls were last seen indoors?” I asked.

“One of them,” Stotts said. “They all disappeared from the same general area-about a four-block radius. There are two places that are still hot. One’s on the street; the other is in a parking garage.”

“Well, at least one’s out of the rain.” I drank my coffee, letting the warmth and caffeine bolster my confidence and clear my mind. I could do this. I could go stand out in the rain with a cursed magic cop, Hound an old hit and not lose control of magic, and keep a lookout for Trager’s thugs. Oh, and Davy.

I’m sure it was all going to go just fine. I mean, nothing weird had happened to me all day, right?

“We’ll go to the parking garage first. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a break in the rain before you Hound the hit on the street.”

The neighborhood shifted from office buildings and fast food joints to tumbling down apartments and warehouses, mostly concrete fitted with the older, heavier iron pipes with almost no glass showing. Crouched beneath a blackened sky in the driving rain, the neighborhood gave off a dark, wary vibe. Here and there a few houses huddled amongst the industrial-looking buildings, less than half the windows lit with yellow light. Even in the rain, people moved on the street, or sat smoking beneath edges of roofs, or leaned under eves. A lot of those people seemed very interested in our car as we cruised by.

“You come out here a lot?” I asked. I didn’t think the northeast had more magic crime than anywhere else in Portland, but I might be wrong.

“Sometimes. I have family here.”

“Family, as in mob connections, or family, as in crazy uncles who drink too much?”

“There’s a difference?” He smiled. “I’m kidding you. I got Latino roots, not Italian.”

I noted that he didn’t really answer my question. “How long have you been a police officer?”

“About ten years now. Specialized in magic crimes and been part of MERC for eight. This is it.” He turned the car into a parking garage that looked like it had been built in the seventies. He did something to the tollbooth with a card, and the bar lifted and let us in.

Lights hung in cages bolted to the concrete beamed ceilings. Every other light had been busted out, creating pools of darkness and not nearly enough light. I was feeling pretty good right now about being in the company of a police officer who knew the neighborhood and carried a gun.

Magic shifted inside of me, stirring, pushing to be released. That headache that had been nothing but a tightness now shot pain along my temples and jaw. Apparently the aspirin had worn off. Great. I rubbed at my temples and wished I’d taken more painkillers before leaving my apartment.

“Here,” Paul said. “She was last seen right here.” He parked the car, the headlights shining on the elevator door.

“She was in the elevator?”

Paul took a drink of his coffee and put it back in the holder. “She was.”

Oh, holy hells. I hated small places. Hated elevators. I think that came through my body language, or maybe the oh-so-subtle look of terror on my face clued him into my phobia.

“Is that a problem?” he asked.

“No.” My voice was a little too high and that annoyed me to no end. “It’s fine. Fine.”

It would be fine, I told myself. I’d go out, get in that tiny closet of death, Hound the spell in that tiny closet of death, and then I’d get out of that tiny closet of death before anything could happen to me-like maybe death. And, hey, there was a chance I wouldn’t have to go into the elevator. Maybe the spell had been cast on the outside.

After I did this, I was going to lobby for a new law: no spell casting in small places. Ever.

“Let’s do this,” I said, trying to pep talk myself into it.

I took off my gloves because I could learn things by touching the spell, and my gloves would make that impossible.

I opened the door and stepped out into the cold air. The temperature must be near freezing. I could smell the ice in the wind. I took a deep breath and let the cold take the edge off my headache.

Paul shut the door but did not lock it. He left his coffee in the car and unzipped his coat to allow easy access to his gun.

I was beginning to like this man.

“Witnesses say they saw her there.” He pointed to the elevator. “The story breaks up as to whether or not they saw anyone on the elevator when she got in it. No one’s seen her since.”

“How long ago was that?”

I walked over to the elevator with him. It looked like every other parking garage tiny metal coffin of death. An orange number three was painted on it, big enough it would split in half when the door opened. The wall next to it was tagged. Gang symbol, not magic glyph.

“Three days. Do you mind if I record this?” he asked. He had a small tape recorder in his hand.

“That’s fine,” I said.

I heard the recorder click. He said something in it, and then he sort of faded from my awareness. I could feel the lingering weight of the old spell in the air. I whispered a mantra, set a Disbursement. This time I was going for general muscle aches and fever to Proxy my use. I hoped that wouldn’t kick in until I got rid of this headache.

I drew a glyph for Sight, Taste, and Smell and pulled it toward me. I very carefully drew upon a small amount of the magic coursing through me and poured it into the glyphs.

My senses heightened.

The parking garage shifted. Lines of burnt magic, faint and far between, threaded through the air. People rarely cast spells in parking garages. Maybe a Locator so they could find their car or a Shield to keep them dry once they stepped out into the rain, but other than that, a concrete parking garage was just a concrete parking garage. There weren’t even any lead and glass lines to channel magic through here.

Which was why I was so surprised to see the heavy gold knot of burnt magic webbing the door of the elevator. Someone had cast a hell of a spell here.

Paul said it was three days old, yet it still pulsed with the slow throb of magic in rhythm to the city’s heartbeat. That was strange. Unless someone was paying the price to maintain it-to come back and pour more magic into it-it should have burned out by now.

I walked over, not caring that Stotts was taping me, not caring that the spell was centered around an elevator, not caring that a low pastel fog was gathering at the edges of the garage and slowly, slowly lifting.

The spell wasn’t complicated. It was clearly an Illusion glyph, cast to hide actions from another person. Under a strong Illusion spell, a herd of hippos could roll down Main Street and no one would notice.

If I were going to smuggle something or kidnap someone, this is the kind of spell I would use.

I leaned in toward the elevator door and took a deep breath, my mouth open so I could get the smell and taste of the spell on the back of my palate and sinuses at the same time.

It stank of burnt wood and something sweet I couldn’t quite nail. I drew my fingers gently along the thickest line of magic. A snapping tingle resonated up the marks on my arm.

I traced the glyph, memorizing the strokes, the turns, the twists. The signature was familiar. I traced the full glyph and then pressed my mouth against the strongest pulse of the spell, at the spell’s heart, to taste it. Cool metal of the door met my lips.

The flavor of hickory and sweetness bloomed in my mouth and spread out through me like I was drinking it down.

Magic stirred in me, and I wanted more, needed to taste the spell, the magic. I knew I had Hounded this signature before, knew I had been around this caster. There was more to it, more of the spell I needed to unravel, more of the rank sweetness hidden inside the lines of magic. I wanted to taste that, smell it, lick it.

Closer. I needed to be closer.

I pressed the elevator button, impatient and not caring that I’d have to get in the damn thing. The door opened. I took a deep breath.

And nearly gagged. There was Glamour here. A blocking and shielding that burned with anger, with strength.

Someone had hurt that girl. Hurt her and then taken her. I could smell the slippery musk of violence in the lines of the spell.

There was blood here too, but not on the floors, not on the walls. The blood was in the spell. I knew blood magic was usually cast by dipping the tip of a silver or gold needle or knife in the caster’s blood, and often the victim’s blood, and then drawing the glyph in the air with the knife instead of the fingers. Great care had to be taken that the blood didn’t touch any other surface while it was tracing the glyph; otherwise magic would not flow into the spell.

Blood magics hurt. Blood magics scarred. And mixed with drugs, blood magics could be the highest high ever obtained.

Which is why they were illegal except for during certain medical procedures performed by well-trained and well-regulated doctors.

It was very difficult to sniff out and separate the mix of blood cast in this spell. Every person’s blood carried its own unique scent, but the differences were so minute, it would take a better Hound than me to untangle all of them.

I stepped into the elevator, into the tiny space with no air and no room, walls closing down around me, magic clogging my nostrils, burning my throat, hurting my lungs.

Pain. Violence. Glamour. They didn’t see anyone on the elevator with the girl because the attacker had been hiding. In plain sight. But he had been there. He had been right here.

I knelt down, pressed my palm to the floor. She had fallen here. She had been frightened here. Hurt.

This is where the true center of the spell was located. In the faint burnt ash of the caster’s handiwork, I could finally recognize the signature.

A Hound had cast this spell.

A Hound I knew.

Pike.

I didn’t want to believe it. I traced the lines of the spell again. Inhaled again. Hickory, just like Pike; the glyph drawn just like Pike’s signature. And the blood, at least one of the bloods involved, was Pike’s. I was sure of it. He’d been bleeding this morning. I’d had plenty of time to learn the smell of his blood.

Damn.

But the sweetness that lingered in the spell, I had never smelled on Pike. It was the tang of sweet cherries, blood magic. Maybe Pike wasn’t doing house repair. Maybe he’d been bleeding for another reason. Maybe Pike was teaching Anthony, who always smelled like cherries, how to use blood magic.

But why would Pike kidnap the girl?

Maybe he didn’t think he was kidnapping her. He might think he was saving her. Saving her like he couldn’t save his own granddaughter who had been about her age. Saving this girl before Lon Trager could get his hands on her.

Or maybe Trager had already found Pike, cut his wrist, and told Pike this was the favor he owed him. I didn’t like any of those ideas, didn’t want to tell Stotts that my friend might be behind the disappearance of these girls.

My heart thumped against my chest as I looked over my shoulder at Stotts.

A wave of watercolor people gathered behind him. They took one slow step, two, slid past Stotts, slid through Stotts, hollow blackness where their eyes should be, mouths open and hungry, hands reaching out for me. For my magic.

“Shit!”

“What?” Stotts said. “Allie? What’s wrong?”

The watercolor people lunged.

They filled the elevator, smelling like fetid death. Cold fingers stabbed me and I yelled at the pain. Fingers pulled magic off my bones like meat from a turkey. They stuffed the magic in their mouths and moaned for more.

I yelled again. Fingers slid into my mouth, sucked at my tongue and inside my cheeks. The taste of raw, rotted meat filled my mouth. I rocked back on my heels, hit my head on the elevator wall. I pushed at them, at their hands, but it was like pushing air. I let go of the glyphs for Sight, Smell, and Taste. I wanted, I needed a spell, another spell. Something to make them go away.

As soon as I let go of magic, the watercolor people were gone.

I breathed in short, shallow gasps. Everywhere they had touched me burned. And they had touched me-all of me-inside and out.

“Allie?” Stotts said from somewhere far away.

I needed air. I needed to be out of this elevator.

I got up to my feet and ran out of the elevator, ran past Stotts, ran across the garage. I heard footsteps behind me, chasing me, but I didn’t stop until I slammed into the concrete railing at the edge of the garage. Air. Space. I was going to puke.

I leaned over the edge.

A fist grabbed the back of my coat and yanked so hard I landed on my ass on the floor. I groaned. Too much. It was too much. I rolled up on my knees, and then I lost everything in my stomach.

“Shit,” Stotts said from close above me but not too close.

I heaved and heaved, trying to get the taste of death out of me, trying to get their rotten touch out of me, trying to forget them reaching inside of me and pulling me apart.

Why didn’t magic ever take away the memories I wanted to lose?

A hand, Stotts’ hand, pressed gently on my back. “Here,” he said.

I swallowed until I was sure nothing more was coming up and sat back. Stotts kept his hand on my back, a comforting weight. He offered me a handkerchief, and I took it, wiped the tears from my eyes, blew my nose, and used the last dry corner of the cloth to wipe my mouth.

“Think you can stand?” he asked softly.

I wondered if he had kids. He seemed like an old pro at this.

I stood, and his hand came under my elbow to help support me. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m good.” My legs, however, didn’t believe me. Exhaustion rolled over me, and I stubbornly locked my knees to stay standing. Even so, I was trembling.

“You’re doing just fine,” Stotts said. He helped me walk maybe six or seven steps away from the mess I’d made. I was breathing hard, like I’d just climbed Mt. Hood. Darkness closed in at the edges of my vision, and the whole garage slipped away down a far tunnel.

“I’m going to help you sit. That’s good,” Stotts said from somewhere farther away than the ringing in my ears. “Now I’m going to help you lie down. That’s good. I’m going to go get the car. I will be right back. You are going to stay right here. No trying to jump off the building again, okay?”

Jump off the building? Did I look like I was in any shape to jump off the building?

As soon as I could open my mouth, I was going to ask him what he meant.

Maybe I blacked out. I don’t know. The next thing I knew, his hands-warm, human, living hands-helped me up.

“I’m going to help you into the backseat so you can lie down.”

“No,” I mumbled. What do you know, I could talk. “The front. The front’s fine.”

“Are you sure you can sit?”

“I’m feeling better,” I said. Even I could tell my voice was gaining strength. He helped me into the front seat, closed the door. The weight of the car shifted as he got into his seat. He twisted to pull something out of the back and then handed me a blanket.

“Thanks,” I said. I draped the blanket over my lap and leaned my head against the headrest. I was feeling stronger, but the magic that usually filled me so full was distant, dulled. I felt empty but not in a good way.

The watercolor people had done more than just eat the magic of my spell. They had pulled the magic out of me, and magic was having a hard time filling me back up.

The absence of it, the absence of its weight and motion, made me feel raw inside. Knowing those people could do that scared the hell out of me.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Tell me what happened.” The engine was running, and the heater was on full blast, but we were not driving anywhere yet. “Tell me what you saw. Could you trace the spell?”

I nodded. “It was still strong. Even after three days.”

“Do you know who cast it?”

“I want to Hound the other site before I say.”

“We aren’t going to Hound the other site. Not with you trying to leap tall buildings back there.”

“I wasn’t going to jump.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Listen.” I took a deep breath. Pike told me to confide in Stotts. Even though I was feeling a little shaky about Pike’s loyalties at the moment, he was right about one thing-Stotts knew about magic and magical crimes. If anyone in this city would know what those watercolor people were, it might be him.

Well, and maybe Zayvion, but Zayvion wasn’t here, was he?

“Listen,” I said again, keeping my voice calm. “I Hounded the spell and it’s very strong. Blood magic was involved. There was more than one blood used for it. Those things I would swear to in a court of law. I have a suspicion of who cast it. But I want to Hound the second site so I can be one hundred percent sure. And me freaking out back there?”

Do it, Beckstrom, I told myself. Don’t be a pansy ass.

“I saw people. I think they’re ghosts. They attacked me, and pulled apart the spells I cast, and ate them.” I didn’t tell him they sucked the magic out of me too, because as far as I knew, he didn’t know I could carry magic in me. As far as anyone knew, I pulled magic out from the stores deep beneath the city and poured it directly into the glyphs, just like every other magic user.

No one was stupid enough to try to draw magic into their bodies-magic always demanded a price, and the price of holding it in your body was organ failure and death. At the very least.

Take that, Pike. Now who you calling pansy?

Detective Paul Stotts had a good poker face. He gave me a considering gaze, and I returned it. I was beginning to get my strength back and might even be capable of walking when I got out of the car. But the sunburn from the watercolor people’s touch was worse than the last time they’d attacked me. I wondered how many more raw circles would be on my skin when I next looked in the mirror. It felt like a lot more-dozens more.

“Can you describe what you saw?” he asked.

This was the calm and controlled police and procedure thing I could really appreciate right now.

“I saw a pastel mist rise at the edges of the parking garage before I got in the elevator. I finished Hounding the spell, and when I turned, several people who were not solid were walking toward me. I could see their clothes and I could see their faces, except for a blackness where their eyes should be.”

“Could you smell them?”

I nodded. “They smelled like death. Rotten flesh, compost pile, matter breaking down.”

“Did you recognize any of them?”

“No.”

“When did you stop seeing them?”

I frowned. “What?”

“When did they disappear? I’m assuming they did disappear?” One of his thick eyebrows twitched upward.

“Yes. They did. They disappeared as soon as I stopped using magic.”

Oh, crap.

“All right. Did you first see them when you were using magic-Hounding?”

“Yes.”

“And have you seen them before?”

“Just today, but yes.”

He didn’t have to say it-I’m not stupid-but he said it anyway.

“You see them when you cast magic, and they disappear when you stop casting magic. It might be some sort of side effect you’re experiencing from magic use. A hallucination, an afterimage-I don’t know. I haven’t ever heard of this before. But you’re a Hound. You use magic a lot, and I’m not surprised something like this might happen. I think you need to see a doctor.”

No, I thought. I most certainly did not need to see a doctor. “Okay,” I said. “Well, that’s a place to start.”

I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. Zayvion had seen them too. Zayvion had fought them with me. If I was hallucinating, then so was he, at the same time, and about the same thing. Not likely.

“I’ll take you back to the station,” he said. “I’ll get your statement and the paperwork started, and then I’ll take you home.” Stotts didn’t wait for me to answer. He put the car in gear and followed the exit arrows.

“I’d rather finish the job first.” I was tempted, really tempted, to put Influence behind my words. With no more effort than breathing, I could make Stotts do what I said.

I’d seen my father use that power far too often- on others and on me-to think it was a moral action. Still. I really wanted to Hound the second site to see if Pike’s signature was on it too.

Stotts picked up his coffee, drank the cold dregs. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Let me tell you why you’re wrong,” I said. That got his attention. He smiled and glanced over at me before looking back out the front window.

“All right.”

“I think I know who cast that spell. But I am not sure, not certain enough that I would testify in court. If I Hound the second site and it looks like it’s the same person, then I would be happy to stand in front of the law and point fingers. But if I don’t have a second site to compare to, I will not feel comfortable taking the stand.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Not until I see the second site.”

“Are you trying to bribe me, Ms. Beckstrom?”

“If I were trying to bribe you, you wouldn’t have to ask that question,” I said.

“So you won’t tell me what you found, even though I’m paying you for your services and you are legally obligated to tell me?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you. But I won’t testify to it.”

“Tell me.”

I didn’t have a choice. If I wanted a stab at that other site-and I did-and if I wanted a chance to clear Pike’s name-and I did-I would have to trust Stotts would give me that chance.

“Martin Pike.”

I felt like a complete jerk, but Stotts did not look surprised at all.

“Interesting,” he said.

“I’m not the first Hound to indicate him in this, am I?”

“No. But you’re the first one who has doubts.”

“Something about the spell doesn’t smell right,” I said.

“And you’re not the first one to say that.” We were on the ground floor of the parkade now. He paused and then turned right. “I’ll take you to it,” he said. “But if you see anything strange while you’re using magic, anything like back there-ghosts, or whatever-you will stop and we’ll call it a night.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.

It was dark now and still raining. The drops were smaller, icier, driven by the wind like a sandblaster.

We drove through the neighborhood and I worked on calming my mind. Magic stirred in me, sluggish, distant, but it did respond. I might have been drained by the watercolor people, but it was not permanent.

Good. I didn’t care what Stotts said. I was going to pull on magic for as long as I wanted and Hound this spell no matter what the watercolor people did to me.

Now that I was expecting it, I could handle the pain. The watercolor people had hurt me, but they hadn’t killed me. Yet.

Stotts parked at the curb. “This is the second site.”

More people moved around in this part of the neighborhood despite the rain and cold. Shadows hunched in doorways and overhangs, light catching the cherry embers of cigarettes, the flash of teeth, the glitter of eyes.

This, I decided, was not the kind of place to be alone in the dark. Stotts pulled his gun, did something with it, and then reholstered it. Good thing I’d brought a buddy.

Hells, what about Davy? Was he out there, skulking in the shadows? If he was, he should be easy for me to spot. I glanced at the street, at the houses and abandoned shops and boarded-up buildings. I didn’t see Davy. I hoped he had stayed home.

Stotts took a deep breath and traced a glyph too quickly for me to see which spell he was casting. Then he closed the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, creating a circle and holding magic there like a trigger, ready to pour it into the glyph when he needed it.

Well, well. He wasn’t just a by-the-books gunslinger after all.

“Ready?” Stotts asked.

“Damn straight.” We both got out of the car.

Stotts didn’t need to point out the place where the kidnapping had happened. I could tell even without pulling on magic. Someone had built a small, hand painted cross and nailed it to the side of the building and written “My baby” across it. This girl may have been running with a gang, but she was also someone’s daughter. Someone who still remembered her.

“She was last seen two weeks ago.” Stotts walked around the car to stand next to me.

“Two weeks? Have there been any leads?”

“Nothing I can disclose.”

Magic bucked in me, burning slowly up my bones. It felt like my limbs had fallen asleep on the inside, my bones numb. Magic burned, stung, tingled painfully from the soles of my feet upward, as if it were trying to reestablish blood flow.

Holy hells, that itched and hurt.

You can do pain, I told myself. It won’t last forever.

“How old was she?” I asked.

“Fifteen.”

The same age as Pike’s granddaughter. The granddaughter who was used by Lon Trager. The granddaughter who committed suicide.

Oh, Pike, no.

I walked to the middle of the sidewalk. The soles of my feet felt bruised, but at least they weren’t burning numb. I hoped the pain of magic refilling me would be over soon.

Stotts stayed near the cross, his coat open. His right hand was free so he could easily pull his gun. He stood with his middle finger and thumb obviously together, a clear symbol to anyone watching that he was holding a spell in check and could cast it in seconds.

I hadn’t bothered putting my gloves back on. But I needed to stall just a little until my arms and hands stopped itching and hurting so much. I couldn’t cast magic if my fingers weren’t working.

“Did you do anything with the spells?” I asked Stotts.

“No. You’re not the first one to Hound them, but no one’s contaminated the site.”

“No kind of Holding or Stasis put around them?”

“That’s contamination. These are just as we found them. Can you get to this now or is there a problem?”

I shook my head. No more stalling.

If Stotts was that uncomfortable standing out here on the street while he had magic and a gun, I needed to get this done quickly.

I calmed my mind, putting my expectation and fear of Pike being involved aside. I needed my judgment to be absolutely clear if I were to see the truth of this hit.

I muttered a mantra and set the Disbursement spell-that fever would last a little longer now. Probably ought to stock up on my chicken noodle soup supply. I pulled on the magic inside me.

Like lighting a fuse, magic burned through my bones, my muscle, my flesh. I gritted my teeth and let it flow, not using it yet.

It filled all the empty places in me, replaced the numbness with warmth. I was sweating. Shaking. Talk about a hot flash.

I sent a small amount of magic through the lines on my arm and felt the familiar cold numbness creep up my left arm. I let my breath out in relief. That was normal.

Well, normal for me.

Magic filled the glyph I traced for Sight, Smell, Taste, and my senses opened.

The street was lousy with old spells that hung like a miasma of smoke in the air. Some were faded ash; some were new and bright as neon fire. Cheap sex spells that never worked; spells of illusion, of coercion and influence. Spells of protection, warding, warnings.

And there were other magical things out on the street too. The watercolor people with hungry, empty eyes walked down the sidewalk and street, unaware of the rain, unaware of the cars, unaware of the people moving in the night.

They were aware of me, though. Like zombie moths to a flame, they turned.

I stepped closer to the strong spell that drifted in the air, tendrils of gold draping outward, thinning like a golden spiderweb spun onto nothing but air. It was the same as the one in the elevator. A Glamour intended to hide and conceal. And it was still burning strong.

Which was strange because it should have looked older, should have smelled older, should have faded. Time mattered in Hounding spells. Weak spells were older; strong spells newer. But these spells looked like they could have been cast within hours of each other.

I flicked a glance at the watercolor people. They were still moving slowly toward me, more of them appearing in the distance like fog-hells, like ghosts. I needed to either Hound this spell fast or get ready to fight.

I voted for speed. I opened my mouth, breathed in. I could smell hickory, could taste the sweetness of cherry behind it, could scent the mix of bloods. The spell looked like something Pike could have cast. It could be his signature.

I needed time.

Fine. I’d buy it. I leaned away from the spell so I had room to cast another glyph. I added a little more heat onto that damn fever I was going to come down with, hoped the combined Disbursements of three spells wouldn’t mean I’d have to be hospitalized, and cast a Shield the size of Cleveland.

Magic pushed up through me, poured out of me fast, faster, building the spell around me and around the spell I was Hounding. Magic is too fast to see with the naked eye.

But I could see it, catching fire through the metallic whorls of my arm, leaping from my fingertips in ribbons of color, arcing and weaving into the twisting, tight glyph of Shield.

The air around me warmed. I no longer felt the wind. I no longer felt the rain. As a matter of fact, I didn’t hear the cars going by either.

I glanced at the watercolor people. Still slow, but I knew they’d break forward and start eating the Shield at any second.

Stotts’ mouth was moving. I was pretty good at reading lips. He was calling my name. Asking me what I was doing, what was wrong.

I tapped my ear and shook my head, letting him know I couldn’t hear him, and then I turned back to Hounding the spell.

Hounding while also feeding a constant flow of magic into a defensive spell was harder than I thought. Zayvion had done this and more-he had put up a shield and opened something within it to swallow the watercolor people.

Zayvion chanted. The cheater.

My heart was pounding, and a little voice in my head that sounded a lot like fear just kept saying, “They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming…”

Stupid voice. I knew they were coming. It was all I could do not to look up, not to run away.

I traced the lines of the gold Glamour spell with the fingertips of my right hand. The spell’s magic resonated across my skin, mixing with and ever so slightly altering the magic I was using for the Shield and for my senses.

Could this get any harder?

The lines of the Glamour spell were distinctive, cast with the basic north, south, east, and west boundary lines I knew Pike always used.

It had to be his signature.

But the sweetness, the cherry, wasn’t anything I’d ever sensed on Pike. Anthony, yes, but not Pike. Pike had never done blood magic in all the time I knew him. And he was plenty strong enough as a magic user to cast Glamour without using blood. So why would he do so? I followed the lines of the spell, trying to taste the wrongness on the back of my throat.

All I got was the scent of blood. Pike’s blood.

The watercolor people slammed into the Shield.

And I felt it. Pain shivered through me.

Don’t look at them; don’t look at them. I knew I shouldn’t. Knew I shouldn’t look away from the Glamour spell.

But I did.

Holy shit.

People, and there were dozens of them, pressed against the Shield. This close, with magic still enhancing my vision, I could see that they were indeed people-tall, short, heavy, thin, pastel skin tones of varying shades, facial features distinct. They had no eyes, and yet I knew they saw me.

They leaned on the Shield, and I could feel the weight of them like a press of a storm about to break. Their fingers scrabbled across the Shield. Scraped, found purchase, and dug into the magic. They pulled at it like cold taffy, trying to bend it, stretch it, shove it into their mouths.

They hadn’t broken the Shield yet. But they would.

Hound, Allie, I said, forcing myself to look away. Get the damn job done.

I pulled a little more magic from within me and added it to my sense of smell. I hissed as magic leaped up in response.

Magic rushed from the ground and filled me. I used it as fast as I could. I diverted most of it into the Sheild, pouring it out so fast, I was breathing hard with the effort.

And I was losing ground.

No matter how much magic I poured into the Shield, the watercolor people consumed it.

A pastel finger pushed through the Shield; another followed. I could smell death.

A hand broke through, and then another. A finger slid down my spine, thunking over each vertebra, hooking the magic in my bones and pulling it out of me.

Pain rolled over my body.

I gritted my teeth against a scream. I am almost done, damn it. If they’d just leave me alone for a fucking second more.

I reached with all my senses toward the Glamour spell.

And the Shield broke.

I was buried by them, smothered by their rotted stink, suffocating, breathing them into me, tasting them as they scraped through my skin, digging in like worms through my soft flesh, sucking, consuming.

Let go of magic. Let go, let go, let go.

But I couldn’t.

Magic pushed up out of the ground and into me, following the burnt pathways down my arm, pouring out to fall again back to the ground, where it surged back up into me. I was an electric circuit.

I was stuck in a loop, trapped by magic.

I couldn’t let go.

Come on, Allie. Do something.

I was being eaten alive.

I am a river. Magic cannot touch me. Magic cannot change me.

Burning alive.

Where the hell is the off switch when I need one?

Fuck this.

If I couldn’t let go of magic, then I’d hold on to it with both hands and shove it down their throats.

I called magic up into me, more, all the magic that flowed beneath the city, all the magic flowing through the network of lead and glass lines, all the magic stored in deep cisterns. I spoke a word, ready to rain all bloody hell and destruction down upon them.

Something hit the back of my head. Hard.

Even though I hurt everywhere, that hurt more.

My vision went dark, and the ringing in my ears followed a rushing throb of blood. I think I landed on my knees.

And everything went black.