Magic In the Blood

Chapter Fourteen

I made it up the steps to my building, where I let myself in. It was warm and dry and quiet in the lobby. I stood there a moment, dripping on the floor, content in the silence and not quite ready to face the three flights of stairs I had to haul myself up.

Sweet hells.

I put my hand on the wall and my foot on the first stair. I could do this. I could climb three stories after a day of being jumped, poked at, poked through, and squeezed. Darn right. I could climb these stairs with one foot tied behind my back. On a pogo stick. Blindfolded.

I headed up, one slow step at a time.

Okay, so this was the downside to living in a building without an elevator.

By the time I made it to my floor and my door, I was sweaty and tired. I didn’t pause to listen for anyone in my apartment. I didn’t pause to cast magic. I just shoved my key in the lock and walked in.

My apartment looked and smelled the same as how I’d left it. Nobody home but me.

I kicked the door shut, locked it, and tugged off my wet hat and jacket. The red light on my answering machine blinked, but I just didn’t have it in me to listen to my messages yet. I did one circuit of my house, turning on all the lights. Then walked into the living room and sat on the arm of the couch, where I groaned my way out of my boots and wet socks.

Barefoot, I shuffled over to the window and looked out at the street below to make sure Stotts wasn’t spying on me. His car was gone.

Across the street, a flash of blue in the rain caught my eye. A man stood beneath the awning. The blue light-a cell phone screen-angled to illuminate a face, a smile.

Davy waved at me, tipped his fingers in another salute, and then palmed his cell, smothering its light and throwing his face back into shadow.

I shook my head and watched him trot down the street, long legs lending him speed. There was a bar not too far from here. I figured he’d make it just in time for happy hour.

If the kid tracked spells even half as easily as he tracked me, he really was a good Hound.

I let the curtains fall back in place and thumbed on the answering machine. Three phone calls. One from a credit card company, and one from my father’s accountant, Mr. Katz, politely reminding me that we had not yet met to go over the next round of papers to settle my father’s estate.

As Katz spoke, I tugged off my sweater. It was wet and smelled of my own sweat and fear. I threw the sweater on the floor on top of my boots, skinned out of my long-sleeved T-shirt, threw that on the pile, and was just unbuttoning my jeans when the third message clicked on.

“Ms. Beckstrom,” said a man’s voice I could not immediately place. “I am sorry to be calling your home number. This is Dr. Frank Gordon, your neighbor. We recently ran into each other at the coffee shop. I have a Hounding job I would like to hire you for. It’s… of a delicate nature. I hope you will call me so we can arrange a time to meet. Please return my call at your earliest convenience.”

Instead of hanging up, he remained on the phone, breathing. Just breathing.

After a minute or so, the call disconnected.

Strange.

Standing in my living room with only my bra and jeans on, I felt a chill roll down my skin. I rubbed my hands over my arms and hissed as my palms crossed raw spots. Sure enough, I had more circles of raw burns on my left arm and shoulder and, now that I looked, on my belly too.

I shivered. There were more sores on my back, my legs. A lot more. I needed to shower again and put more antiseptic on them.

I was hungry. I was tired. And nothing was going to get done if I just stood there in my living room whining. I dragged myself into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. I didn’t care how late it was; it was never too late for hot caffeine.

But first, I wanted to be clean.

I walked into the bathroom, slicked out of my wet jeans, and turned on the shower.

I steeled myself and looked in the mirror.

Lovely. I looked as horrible as I felt.

More circles mottled my skin, down my left arm, my belly, my thighs, and what I could see of my shoulders. I opened my mouth and leaned in. Raw red spots marked the inside of my cheeks and both sides of my tongue.

I looked like I’d just done three rounds with a gang of octopuses and lost.

All the wounds were weeping. I checked the older raw spots. They had not healed, not at all. If anything, they looked bigger, the red gone a ghastly white-blue, like frozen dead flesh, spread out in wider circles. They were still leaking in the center and sore in the middle, though less sore on the edges. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

Fabulous. If the watercolor people got all slaphandsy again, I’d be a giant walking scab.

The bruise on my thigh from Trager’s needle was the same size, still spidery and glyphlike with a red, needlepoint center.

With my crazy color marks wrapping from my right temple to the edge of my breast, down my shoulder, arm, and hand, and with new moist red circles poxing the rest of me like a medieval plague, I looked… strange… foreign… inhuman.

Even my eyes looked darker.

My stomach clenched. That scared the hells out of me.

Time to stop staring in the mirror.

I got in the shower and scrubbed from my scalp to my soles. I wanted to be clean. Really clean. Inside and out. I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to be changed by the watercolor people. Or by anything else, for that matter.

The soap stung and burned. I adjusted the water so it was tepid and kept scrubbing. The combination of cool water and pain woke me up a little.

I got out of the shower and did what I could to apply antiseptic spray to my hurts. I left the light on and changed into the only pair of pajamas I owned: flannel with ladybugs and dragonflies. Usually I wore nothing to bed, or a slip nightgown. Tonight I was bringing out the big guns of comfort, though: flannel jammies, woolly socks, and a big mug of coffee that I wished were cocoa. Note to self: buy cocoa.

I shuffled into the living room again.

My front door knob turned. I froze, watching it. The knob turned back and then stopped. It was locked. Whoever was on the other side of the door drew on magic. The prickly discomfort of a spell ready to be cast-a big spell-poured over me like unwelcome rain.

Oh, hells.

I whispered a Disbursement-that little fever I had in store for me was now going to knock me out for a week. I traced a glyph for Shield, hoping that would keep me safe long enough to deal with my intruder.

I picked up the hammer I’d left on my bookshelf when I was hanging pictures, held it in my left hand, magic in my right, and waited.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, as if purposely trying to be noisy, accompanied by loud, cheerful whistling.

The prickly spell unraveled. Broken before it was cast. Gone. It was hard to hear over the footsteps and whistling, but I think I heard an apartment door open and close somewhere down the hall.

What the hells? A knock made me jump. The knock rapped out again.

I thought about pouring magic into the Shield glyph but decided the hammer would probably solve my problem quicker. I let go of the glyph, switched the hammer to my right hand, and approached the door.

I looked out the peephole.

Zayvion Jones stood on the other side of the door, warped by the bend of glass. He was whistling loudly and holding something that looked like a pizza box in his hand.

He stared straight at the peephole like he knew I was looking at him and, without breaking eye contact, knocked on my door again.

I unlocked the door, opened it.

In front of me, smelling like pine and pepperoni, stood six feet plus of Zayvion Jones.

“Mr. Jones,” I said, trying to think of what had really just happened. “What brings you by?”

His eyebrows hitched up while he looked me over, from my fuzzy socks and buggy pajamas to my wet, uncombed hair. His gaze lingered on the hammer.

“I brought you pizza.”

“I thought our date was tomorrow.”

“It is. This is just a late night snack. I thought you might be hungry.”

Now that he mentioned it, I was starved. The delicious scents of basil, rich cheese, and spices wafted up from the box.

My stomach growled. Loudly. Traitor. Should I trust him? Let him into my house after the day I’d had? I thought it over. Realized I didn’t care. I wanted food, and here it was, hot and delicious, on my doorstep. And Zayvion Jones wasn’t hard on the eyes either.

“Come on in.” I walked away from the door and into the kitchen, putting down the hammer, pulling out napkins, and getting a couple glasses.

Zayvion closed the door behind him.

“Just put it in the living room,” I said. “We can eat there.”

I didn’t hear him walk across the floor, but I did hear him put the pizza down and lift the box lid. I strolled out of the kitchen, napkins and two glasses of apple juice-the only beverage in the house besides water and coffee-in my hand. “All I have is apple juice. Hope that’s okay.”

He moved away from the window. He had taken off his ratty coat and black beanie, hanging the coat on the back of one of the chairs at the round table. He wore jeans and a dark gray sweater that looked like cashmere. The flex and movement of his chest and torso beneath that thin fabric made my heartbeat quicken.

I remembered him, remembered his body. An image flashed behind my eyes. He stood in a doorway, naked except for his boxers, his dark skin tiger-striped with yellow light, his eyes burning gold with passion. He had waited. Waited for me to say yes.

I blinked. And the memory was gone. A sad hunger lingered at the back of my mind and echoed through my body. I wondered if I’d said yes.

I realized Zayvion was silent, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, watching me, waiting.

I blushed. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” he said softly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” I sat in the coatless chair. “It was just-maybe-a memory or something. It’s gone.” I tried to keep the frustration and embarrassment out of my voice.

He sat in the chair across from me silently, even though that chair usually creaked, and turned in his seat so he could see both the front door and the window. “Was it about me?”

I fished a piece of pizza out of the box, pulled it up until the strings of cheese broke. “Yes.”

“Was I naked?”

I couldn’t help it-I laughed. “I can’t believe you asked me that. No comment.”

He smiled, laugh lines curving at the corners of his eyes. “So I was naked.”

“Shut up and eat your pizza,” I said around a mouthful. And that was the end of my side of the conversation. I wiped out two pieces of pizza before coming up for air. Zayvion paced me, piece for piece. He got up, found the apple juice, and refilled our cups.

After the fourth slice I felt like I could think again. Hounding always made me hungry; drawing on magic always made me hungry. I’d been doing a lot of both of those things on nothing but a scone, coffee, and french fries, most of which I’d lost in the parking garage.

“How did the job with Stotts go?” he asked.

I tore the crust off another piece of pizza, leaving the topping portion still in the box. “I didn’t tell you I was working for Stotts.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Were you spying on me?”

“Define spying.”

“Were you on the street watching me Hound for him?”

“No. I was… working.”

“And that involved keeping an eye on me?”

“In a roundabout way. I noticed you were with him. How did it go?”

“My Hounding jobs are between me and my clients,” I said. “And this is police business. Confidential.” I did not want to tell him about Pike. Didn’t want to tell him I had ratted Pike out and that he would be charged with kidnapping-or more, if the girls were found injured, or dead.

Time for a subject change.

“So what was up with that chanting and light show you put on earlier today?” I asked.

“That?” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded. “That was magic.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out under the table like he was used to being comfortable around me and in my apartment.

“Genius. What kind of magic? What did you use against those things? The watercolor people things?”

He considered me for a second then. “What is the first rule of magic?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Zayvion did not look like he was kidding. As a matter of fact, if I had to describe how Zayvion looked, I would use the word intense. Something important was riding on this conversation. Or maybe riding on my response.

“The first rule of magic is if you use magic, it uses you.”

“Yes,” he said. “There is always a price to pay for using magic. Always. And when you spend a lifetime using it, it spends a lifetime using you. It leaves its mark on you”-he motioned toward my hands-“and you leave your mark on it.”

“What do you mean, you leave a mark on magic? It’s hard enough just to touch magic. Magic isn’t solid.”

“Neither are the Veiled.”

“The who?”

“This doesn’t apply to the casual magic user. This doesn’t even apply to someone who uses magic once a day. But for those of… us… who use magic constantly, it is believed that our minds, our souls, our life essence, can impress upon the flow of magic. Like an image on film. Or maybe more. Some people believe that if you use magic too much, you will impress certain parts of your life into the flow of magic permanently. You can lose bits of yourself to it.”

I suddenly wasn’t hungry.

“But they’re wrong, right? Because I have magic in me. Inside me. Tell me there aren’t… parts of people’s spirits and lives in the magic. Tell me I’m not full of dead people.” It came out just as horrified as I felt.

I suddenly wanted to crawl back into the shower and scrub myself again.

Zayvion straightened and leaned forward without making a sound in my creaky chair. He reached across the table and put both of his hands over mine.

His hands were warm, wide, heavy like a blanket. “You are not full of dead people. But there are theories that magic is. And that sometimes when the gates between life and death are opened, those bits of dead magic users-the watercolor people, the Veiled-can rise.”

“Like ghosts?” I could handle ghosts. There were people who got rid of ghosts. Exorcists and such.

“No, not like ghosts.”

Well, that was just fantastic.

“Then what are the… what are the Veiled?”

“They are parts of dead magic users who don’t know they’re dead because they are still tied to-fed, if you will-by the flow of magic.”

“That’s the theory?” I asked.

“That’s the theory.”

“And the gates between life and death?” I asked.

“Theory.”

Right.

“What happens if they touch you?”

Zayvion shook his head. “They can’t see most people.”

“They can see me.”

“What?” Zayvion’s hands tightened on mine. He tipped his head down, catching my gaze. “Did they see you? Did they touch you?”

I nodded.

“Where? When?” He was still calm, but his breathing was quicker, and I could smell the peppery edge of his fear. Theory, my ass.

I pulled my hands away from his and unbuttoned the top buttons on my shirt. His eyes flickered with another kind of light-desire-down to my collar-bones before he schooled his face into that calm Zen expression that gave nothing away. I pushed one shoulder of the shirt down, revealing a patch of old and new burns.

He held his breath and sat there like I’d just slapped him.

I squirmed, really uncomfortable with the look in his eyes.

“Oh, baby,” he breathed.

“It’s nothing. Forget it.” I tugged the shirt back up over my skin, hiding my wounds, hiding my pain. But Zayvion stood, walked around the table, and knelt in front of me.

“May I see it closer? Please?”

My heart was beating too fast. I didn’t know why, but I felt like crying. Okay, it was probably because I’d had a shitty day. Or maybe it was because I felt like I’d been touched, violated in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t guard against. I wasn’t even sure I should trust Zayvion, if I should trust in the intimacy he assumed was between us.

“I might be able to ease the pain,” he said gently. “Does it still hurt?”

I nodded.

And he just waited. Didn’t touch me, didn’t push, didn’t ask again. He just knelt there on my carpet, in the pose a man would take to offer a diamond ring and the rest of his life. Except Zayvion wasn’t asking me for forever. He was asking me to trust him. Just for now.

Sweet hells.

I unbuttoned the top button again and pushed the material aside to reveal my shoulder. I gave him a level gaze.

Zayvion leaned in a little closer and studied the marks without touching them. “Some of these marks look older than others. Have you been touched by them more than once?”

“Once outside the coffee shop. Once in the parking garage with Stotts, and once on the street. In that order.”

“So you’ve seen them three times today?”

“Four. With you.”

Zayvion nodded, very Zen, although I could still smell the fear on him. “Did you put anything on the wounds?”

“Nothing but soap, water, and Bactine, Doctor.” Zayvion glanced up, smiled. “Okay. That’s good. I can ease the pain some too. Help speed the healing a little. Is that okay with you?”

“How?”

“I’ll need to touch one of the marks. I can soothe them with… magic.”

“Nice hesitation there,” I noted.

He took a deep breath. “It probably isn’t the kind of magic you were taught in school.”

“Does it involve chanting?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You don’t like my chanting?”

“I don’t get your chanting. The unknown plus magic always equals dangerous in my life.”

“Hmm. So am I known or unknown?” he asked.

I held his gaze and remembered the black flames and silver glyphs that covered his body. There was more to Mr. Jones than met the eye. “Unknown. Especially when you are mixed with magic.”

He smiled, and heat of a very pleasant sort stirred deep in my belly. “Fair enough,” he said. “Maybe we can do something about that. Get to know one another better.”

“Maybe we can.”

This close, it would be easy to touch him, to kiss him. And even though I didn’t remember us, my body responded to him like fire to oxygen. Zayvion could stir emotions in me with a soft word, a sideways glance. Sweet loves, he did such things to me.

“May I?” he asked.

I blinked, trying to remember what we were talking about. Oh, yes. The burns.

“Touch one of the marks?” I asked to make sure.

A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Yes.” “Will it make any difference? They’ll heal on their own, right?”

He leaned back and tipped his head to the side. “They should. But if you continue to use magic, it could take a very long time for that to happen.”

“Why? They’re just burns.”

He stared at me, waiting.

“Okay, fine,” I conceded. “They’re not just burns. They’re dead-magic-user-ghost-finger-burn things.”

“Death magic,” Zayvion said, “is nothing to mess with. If you don’t want me touching you, I could call a doctor I know-”

“No,” I said a little too quickly. The idea of a doctor creeped me out right now. “It’s fine. You can do it.”

He leaned forward again and placed the fingertips of his right hand next to the marks on my shoulder. Whisper soft, he traced a glyph against my skin. Mint flowed out from his finger, warming in small circular motions as he retraced the glyph again, guiding the mint and magic to spread a pleasant heat up my neck, across my skull, and then down my other shoulder.

Oh. Nice.

“Mmmm,” I said.

Mint flowed deeper, trickling and then pouring down my body, my bones, my blood, soothing, stroking the pain away, leaving warm waves of pleasure behind. The fevered ache inside me eased. The catch in my heartbeat eased. The tight sunburn sting of my skin eased. Even though he touched me with only one finger, it felt like his hands were everywhere, drawing gently across my skin, touching me, holding me. Making me clean, whole, and myself again.

Finally he drew his hand away. “Better?” he asked.

“Please don’t stop.” It came out smaller than I wanted it to. “Don’t go. Yet.” I put my hand on his left arm, keeping him from going away.

Instead of pulling away farther, Zayvion gathered me into his arms and held me. His palm softly rubbed the center of my back and I breathed in the pine of his cologne, the sharp male bite of his sweat.

I put my arms around him and relaxed into him. Touch, human touch, felt so good. It had been a long time since anyone had touched me like this.

“What aren’t you telling me, Allie?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“My dad’s dead.”

Okay, that was a stupid way to start, but my brain was losing ground to the emotions I’d kept in check all day. Zayvion nodded, the stubble from his jaw rubbing against my cheek.

“I’ve seen him,” I said. “In my bathroom when the electricity went out. Out on the street with you, and then after I Hounded. My dad was there. But he didn’t look like the Veiled. He looked like himself but transparent. He spoke to me.”

“Do you remember what he said?”

“That I always forget to set Disbursements, and ‘the gates, seek the dead,’ or something like that. Do you think he meant the gates between life and death? In theory?”

Zayvion stiffened and then relaxed again, like a string being plucked. He pulled back just enough so I could look into his eyes. Gold eyes burning tiger bright.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No?”

“Did he do anything else?”

The memory of his hand sinking into my chest and squeezing, flickered behind my eyes.

“He touched me.”

“Did it burn like the Veiled?”

“No. But it hurt.”

The line of his lips tightened. He did not look away from me. “I’d like it very much if I could stay here tonight.”

“Why?”

“If your father comes back… comes to see you… I might be able to communicate with him.”

“And why do you want to do that?”

“Your father was a powerful man. A very powerful user of magic. I am worried he may have… planned for his death.”

“You’re not talking funeral arrangements and wills, are you?”

“No. I’m talking magic. You father may not want to stay dead. And I don’t want him hurting you.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Yes.”

And he was so not joking.

“So by ‘communicate’ with my dad, do you mean casting a Shield spell and then sucking him down a black hole like you did to the watercolor-the Veiled?”

“If I have to, yes.”

Great. My ex-maybe-still-current boyfriend was going to get into a magical battle with my dead-maybe-still-kicking dad.

“And that’s the only reason you want to stay? To protect me from my father? Because let me tell you, Jones, I can deal with my father.”

He blinked, and his gaze softened. “When he was alive, yes. But he’s dead now, Allie. And I’m worried about you. I know what it’s like to try to sleep with all the lights on because you’re too afraid to turn them off.”

“Calling me a sissy isn’t winning you any points.”

“I’m not looking for points. This isn’t a competition; this is real. This is life. And I know what it’s like to be afraid of the dark and all the things inside it.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” I said.

“You should be.”

Silence stretched out between us. He meant it. He believed it. And if Zayvion Jones said I should be afraid of something, I’d be stupid to not at least consider the validity of that.

“Just for the night,” I said.

He visibly relaxed, his shoulders lowering and loosening. He had been really worried I’d say no.

“Thank you,” he said. He stood and so did I.

“I’ll get you a blanket for the couch.” I walked to my hall closet and found a spare blanket and a pillow. “I’m going to leave my bedroom door open, but it isn’t an invitation.” When I turned around, he was next to my couch, watching me.

“Here.” I walked over and handed him the blanket. “What? What’s that funny smile?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “This just seems familiar.” “Does it?”

He looked at me, looked for something I apparently didn’t have. Then he became very interested in slowly unfolding the blanket and spreading it across the couch. I’ve seen that kind of reaction before from people who knew a part of my life, who had experienced something with me that I’d forgotten.

“I’ve slept on a lot of couches in my day; that’s all,” he said.

“That’s not going to work for me,” I said.

“What?”

“Lying. If you’re in my house, I want honesty. Hells, I want it when you’re not in my house too.”

“Honesty,” he said, tasting the word. “When you and I went to Nola’s farm, she made me sleep on the couch. I could see the open door to the room you slept in. I could hear you breathing, moving, dreaming. And when you cried out, I came to you. So this”-he held his hand toward the couch and then my bedroom-“and this”-he pointed to me and then himself-“feels very familiar.”

I’d asked for honesty and I’d gotten it. I liked that.

“Oh,” I said. I handed him the pillow. He took it, his fingers brushing mine and pausing there.

Instead of letting him pull the pillow away from me, I held on to it and stepped toward him. Close. We didn’t have to say this was forever; we didn’t have to say this would last. We didn’t have to say anything to understand the moment. We leaned toward each other, drawn like metal to magnet.

And kissed.

His lips were soft and thick and tasted of salty pizza and sweet apples. I opened my mouth to him, wanting to taste more of him, wanting to say with my body what I could not say with my words. That he was right. I was afraid and alone. And I really wanted to be touched by him.

His tongue drew gently along the inside of my lip and electricity thrilled through me, settling like a solid heat deep in my stomach. The kiss was hot, sweet, needful.

And I wanted more.

I pulled back enough to catch my breath. “Please. Come to bed with me.”

Zayvion was breathing hard. His nostrils flared. I could feel the thrumming of his pulse through the pillow we both still gripped.

He closed his eyes. Licked his lips. “I can’t.”

“Can’t?” I asked. “Or won’t?” I suddenly wondered if he had another girlfriend or a vow of celibacy.

He opened his eyes and met my gaze. “The last time… out at Nola’s. You… we…” He exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. When he looked back at me, he seemed a little calmer. “I promised myself if I ever had a chance to be with you again, I would wait. Wait until you said yes because you wanted me. Wanted this. Wanted us. For more than one night. For more than one reason. And right now it isn’t about us. It’s about uncertainty. It’s about death. That’s not enough for me. It shouldn’t be enough for you.”

I didn’t know if I should be frustrated, flattered, or furious.

So I was all three.

“A simple no would have been fine.”

“Nothing is ever simple with you, Allie. That’s what makes you so interesting.”

What was I supposed to say to that? I let go of the pillow. “So this is good night?”

“Yes,” he said, “it is. Sleep well.”

I doubted that was possible. I walked to my bedroom, turning out lights as I went. I listened as Zayvion stretched out on my couch. I crawled under my covers and waited to see if he snored. But I never had a chance. As soon as my cheek touched the pillow, I fell into a dark, and thankfully dreamless, sleep.