Magic in the Shadows

Chapter Eight

I finished my burger and fries, but not my beer. Zayvion sat with me, pulling his Zen moves, patient, silent. I finally pushed my plate away. “Mind if I get a ride home?”

“I was hoping you’d ask.” He stood and offered me his hand.

Like I said, old-fashioned.

I took it as I stood, then we walked out through the door nearest us, which opened onto the wooden porch that paralleled the river. The cool, dark scents of moving water filled my nose and lungs. Night had settled into the cracks of day, and only the yellow lanterns lining the old inn held it back.

There was no one in the parking lot. We walked down the porch steps and out into the clear night-wonder of wonders, it was not raining. I looked up at clouds broken by patches of stars.

Nice.

“You and Chase used to date?” I asked as we made our way across the parking lot.

“No. But we were lovers.”

Okay, even though I liked his honesty and had said I was adult enough to deal with the fact he’d had other relationships, I cringed a little. Chase was gorgeous, and they’d obviously known each other for a lot longer than Zay and I. And it was highly likely she didn’t get involved with weird Necromorph things, lose bits of her memory, or carry a dead relative around in her head.

Speaking of which, I hadn’t felt my dad since I’d been sitting with Shamus and Zayvion.

“We trained together,” Zay said.

“For?”

“Our jobs. The Authority. She’s a Closer too.”

“Is that what I’m training to be?”

“I don’t know. None of us know. When you are accepted into the Authority, you are tested to see what your natural abilities are and which branch of magic they can best be used with.”

“Like the test Maeve gave me in there?”

“No. Your real test will be done with several members of the Authority in attendance. Three days from now. Maeve was just gauging what you already know, and what preparation your testers will need so you don’t harm yourself or others during it.”

“And figuring that out takes more than one day?”

Here he smiled a small smile. “Not generally.”

Yeah, well, that made sense. I couldn’t imagine Maeve really wanted me to blow the walls out of her room again. No wonder Shamus ducked out early. If he was going to stand as my Proxy again tomorrow, he’d need the sleep.

No, I wouldn’t let him do it. I could Proxy my own magic use, and Maeve would just have to deal with that.

“So you and Chase trained together,” I pressed, bracing myself for the rest of the story.

He nodded. “The Authority is insular, private-it has to be to survive. And the organization is very, very careful about the people it allows in. Only a few people a year are even tested for it, and most don’t make it. During most of my. . training. .”

I noted his pause, but didn’t ask about it.

“. . I was alone. Sometimes Shamus and I were allowed to train with the same teacher, but Shamus isn’t a Closer. When Chase came to the Authority, and when she was approved to train, she was taught by my teacher, Victor.”

“Have I met him?”

“Not while I’ve known you. Maybe before then, although with how much your father kept you in the dark about this, I’d say it’s doubtful. There are five disciplines of magic the Authority teaches: Life, Death, Faith, Blood, and Flux. Each discipline has its strengths, its abilities. Life is the oldest way of magic. There are some who say it is the only way of magic, and all other branches are wrong to be practiced separate of it and each other. When the Order of the Aegis first began thousands of years ago, it was only Life magic that was known, understood, and practiced. All magic as one.”

We reached the car and he unlocked the door for me.

“But magic is one thing,” I said. “There aren’t different kinds of magic underground.”

He nodded. “True. But there are different ways to tap into that magic, different ways to cast spells, different approaches to make magic do what you want it to do.”

“Like that chanting thing you did.”

“Exactly. Death magic is in many ways the balance, the opposite of Life magic. It is just as old, but its ways were once practiced only in secret. Those were dark days before Death magic was legitimized, recognized, and taught so that users among the Authority could cast it with some manner of safety.”

I opened the door and got in while he walked around the car and slid into the driver’s side.

“Over the years, hundreds of years, Blood magic and Faith magic have been defined and practiced. With your father’s integration between magic and technology, the fifth magic, Flux, has been recognized and practiced.”

“Which magic is the strongest?”

Zayvion shrugged. “Ask a hundred people and you’d get a hundred answers.”

“Okay, let me put it this way: who’s running the show? Who is the boss of the Authority and which magic do they practice?”

“Currently?”

“Sweet hells,” I said. “Does it change hands that often?”

“More often than you’d think. For the last twenty years and currently, it is Sedra. She practices Life magic. The first.”

Having nothing to relate that to, I decided that sounded good. The main magic, the original magic, was the magic used by the one woman calling the shots. I wondered if I’d ever meet her.

“Before that it was Mikhail. He practiced Death magic.”

“And Mikhail’s dead?” I asked.

He gave me a strange look. “Yes.”

I looked over at him. “My dad told me.”

“When?”

“Recently. In a dream, actually.”

Zay started the engine. “Maybe I should take you to Jingo Jingo now.”

I yawned. “Don’t. I have dinner with Violet at eight. So, do you and Chase and Shamus report to Victor?”

Zay started the engine. “Shamus isn’t a Closer.”

“Blood magic like his mom?”

“No.” He glanced over at me. “Shamus works Death magic. He reports to Jingo Jingo.”

“Whom he doesn’t like,” I dot-to-dotted.

Zayvion nodded. “Shame isn’t shy about his opinions. But we don’t get to choose our teachers. We just have to do our job.”

I leaned my head back into the headrest of the seat and watched the streetlamps go by. We were driving parallel to the river. There were few businesses here, which made it feel farther away from civilization than it really was.

I don’t know if it was the beer or the testing, but I was suddenly very tired. I closed my eyes and half-drifted until Zayvion parked.

We were in the parking lot behind my apartment. I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes.

“Want me to come up?” he asked.

I rubbed at my eyes and tucked my hair back behind my ears. “No. I’m just going to take a nap before I see Violet.” I opened the car door. Cool air mixed with the warmth from the heater. I paused, one boot on the pavement. “Do you still love her?”

He turned in his seat, leaning his head against the window of his door. “Chase? What we had was good. It was strong. But it wasn’t love. I know that now. I think she knew it even then.”

That was not exactly a straight answer.

“Were you the one who called it off?”

He tried to smile, didn’t make it, and settled for that Zen bit. “She left me for someone else. A man named Greyson. She thought he was her Complement. Maybe even Soul Complement.”

“I thought you said that was rare.”

“So is lightning striking in the same place twice. Yet it happens.”

“Are they still together?”

“He was killed three months ago,” he said. “Jingo Jingo found him dead just after your father was killed.”

No wonder Chase was pissed at me. Three months isn’t long enough to grieve, isn’t long enough to recover. At least it wasn’t for me.

“I’m sorry.” And though I probably should have, I just didn’t have it in me at the moment to ask him how he had died.

“Good night, Zay.”

“Good night. See you around nine o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“For?”

“Coffee before I take you back to Maeve’s?”

Right. Maeve’s. I had class tomorrow. Wow, I was so totally out of the swing of morning living. I’d been Hounding jobs, mostly at night, for long enough that nine in the morning sounded obscenely early.

“Sure,” I said. “That would be nice.”

I shut the door and strolled to the back entry of the building. Zayvion started the engine, but didn’t drive off until I had opened the door, waved, then stepped into the building.

I made my way to the stairs and couldn’t help but shake my head at the bottom. Why in the world had I decided a walk-up was the kind of place to live in?

Maybe because even the sound of an elevator door opening, that rigor-sweet bell, was enough to make my palms sweat. Claustrophobia was a bitch, but I guess it meant I got my walking in every day.

I headed up the stairs, taking my time to listen to each floor of the building. I caught the drone of a television, music, laughter, an argument, a baby crying, one sweet tenor raised in an operatic chorus, all muffled by the walls and doors of apartment living.

Then I was on my floor and it was silent, which wasn’t that unusual. My neighbors and I did little more than nod hello when we ran into one another. Most of the time we kept to ourselves, and I liked it that way.

Out of habit, I paused at my door, pressed my fingers against it, leaned in, and listened. There was movement in there. I figured it was Nola.

I unlocked the door and it opened-which meant she hadn’t set the chains.

I stepped in and shut the door behind me, turning the locks and setting the chains. It sounded like she was in my bathroom or bedroom. Probably hanging more plants.

“Hey,” I called out. “I’m home. You forgot to set the chain on the door.”

It was the kitchen that tipped me off. One, nothing was cooking, baking, and not even the smell of brewed coffee touched the air. Whenever Nola was in a house, there was always the comforting smell of food present.

Two, every cupboard in my line of vision was open.

Three, every coffee cup had been removed from my shelves and was now stacked, one on top of the other, on the stove.

What the hell?

I recited a mantra, set the Disbursement-more aches-and traced the beginning of a Shield spell. Maybe the smart thing would be to call 911. Tell them a cup-stacking intruder was in my home. Of course, since I had just yelled that I was here, maybe the smartest thing was to leave the apartment and come back when the police showed up.

Decisions, decisions.

Without drawing magic into my sense of smell, I inhaled, breathing in the scents of the room.

It smelled like my apartment, except there was a heavy odor of wet dirt, stone, and moss, like rain on a hot summer sidewalk. Maybe from all the plants Nola had put around the place. That would explain the dirt smell anyway. But hot stone wasn’t anything I could place.

Screw it. I did not want to get jumped tonight. Time to go find a phone. I put my hand on the chain, quietly slid it loose. I was just turning the lock when someone walked into the living room.

Okay, not someone. Something.

I gasped, which was better than the yell I felt like belting out, but loud enough in the silent room that the thing turned its wide stone head toward me.

Big as a Saint Bernard, I recognized the gargoyle immediately. It was the one I’d accidentally broken, or as was now obvious, set free outside the restaurant the other night. The carved collar still circled its neck and three stone links of the chain hung free there.

It tipped its head to the side, as if working to see me better, and then, I swear this is true, it smiled, pushed up on its hind doglike legs, and waddled over to me, wide stone wings spread for balance.

I pressed up against the door and poured magic into the Shield spell I’d started.

The gargoyle stopped, tipped its head the other way, then lowered onto all fours, moving much more smoothly and slowly over to me. It sniffed its way down the hall, up to the edge of the spell I had cast. Then it stuck its snout into my spell and past my spell-pushed right through the Shield like it wasn’t even there. Impossible.

Yep. As impossible as a living, breathing gargoyle sniffing me in the middle of my apartment.

It snuffled at my boots, then my jeans, and finally touched its flat stone snout against my outstretched hand.

I had expected it to be cold, but instead its nose was warm, and so was the air that blew out from its nostrils and mouth. I let the Shield spell drop, because, seriously, why pour magic into a spell that wasn’t doing a damn bit of good?

The gargoyle made a glasslike clacking sound, like someone stirring a bag of marbles. It smiled again, revealing all three dozen of its teeth. Yes, I counted.

He-I decided it looked more he than she-blinked his big round eyes and twitched his wings.

I got the overwhelming impression he was waiting for me to do something.

“If you want me to cast magic for your entertainment, you are going to be sorely disappointed.”

He dipped his head down and rubbed his face under my hand.

Like a dog who wanted to be scratched behind the ears.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I rubbed at his head-stone, not as smooth as marble, but soft and warm, like heated tile. His wings spread and folded neatly down his back. He made the marbles-in-a-bag clatter sound again.

I stopped rubbing his head. He stood up on his hind legs and waddled back into my apartment.

“Are you a joke?” I asked as I carefully followed behind him. “Is someone here? Who’s making you do this?” Did they make remote-control gargoyles?

I mean, Zayvion had told me the gargoyles were just statues. Carved by a master Hand, infused with a small amount of magic, but just statues.

Currently, the statue was pulling the seat cushion off my couch and balancing it on his head.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone here?”

The gargoyle held the cushion on his head with one hand and called out too, a sound somewhere between that of a soft vacuum cleaner and a muted pipe organ.

“Not you,” I said. “I know you’re here.”

He clacked, which I decided was his happy sound, and got busy trying to balance an additional cushion on his head.

“If you ruin those, you’ll have to pay for them.”

A cool breeze whisked down the hall from my bedroom.

It was a small apartment. Other than the kitchen and living room, the only other places for someone to hide were the bathroom and bedroom. Both of which had windows. One of which, the bedroom, wasn’t painted closed and was large enough for a person to crawl through.

I started down the hall.

The gargoyle clattered behind me.

“You stay here.”

He tipped his head and lost both pillows. He took a step toward me, on all fours this time, silent.

“Stay.”

He held still, waiting for me to turn, then took another step. Okay, fine. It was crazy to think he would understand me and do what he was told. He wasn’t a dog. He was a statue, for cripes’ sake.

The door to the bathroom was open. I looked in. Nothing.

The door to my bedroom was also open, and I could feel the cold night air stronger here.

I turned on the light and walked into the room. The window was open, my curtains fluttering in the breeze. My bed was unmade, but I think I’d left it that way this morning. I looked around the bed, under the bed. I even looked in the closet. No one else was there.

Meanwhile the gargoyle had decided it was some sort of game. He followed behind me, mimicking everything I did. He looked out the window, looked under the bed, even looked in the closet. Having human hands meant doors were not a problem for him.

Yes, that worried me.

“Did you open the windows?” I asked.

He stopped in front of me, crouched, wings spread, round eyes waiting for me to do something. Like cast magic. He stretched his neck out a little more, offering an ear for scratching.

“This?” I pointed at the open window.

He looked at it. Clattered at it, then waddled on two legs over to the window. He stuck his head and shoulders out the window, his wings tight against his back so he could fit his barrel chest in the space. His face was inked by the blue of night, only the barest brush of yellow from the light in my room outlining his comical features. He could crawl out through that space, I realized. Just the way he had probably crawled in through it. All on his own.

Even though I was on the third floor.

Holy shit.

He blinked his big round eyes and crooned into the night-the strange vacuum cleaner pipe organ in B flat. Pigeons startled and flew off the roof. The muscles down his back bunched as if he too wanted to take wing. I wondered, as he hung there, more out the window than in, if his wings were big enough and strong enough that he could fly, or if he’d drop like a rock.

He’s just a statue

, I told myself.

Statues can’t fly.

He pulled his head back in the window, and used those very human hands to pull the window shut, careful not to catch the curtain. Then he turned and made himself busy with the things on top of my dresser.

Statues can’t fly, can’t walk, can’t make noise, and can’t stack loose change on people’s dresser tops.

And statues did not dig through your underwear drawer.

“Stop it.” I yanked one of my favorite camisoles off his head before he pulled it the rest of the way over his snout and stretched it out. “Out.” I pointed to the open door. He looked at the door, clacked. Then he went down on all fours and trotted out of the room.

Sweet hells. What was I supposed to do with this thing?

Technically, he was not my property. I hadn’t stolen him or anything, but I had sort of broken him and set him free. I wondered if the restaurant had a you-break-it-you-have-a-new-roommate policy.

The water in the bathroom sink turned on and off. I strolled down the hall and leaned in to watch him.

He turned the water on, watched it drain down the sink, turned it off. The pipe gurgled. He clacked at it, and turned the water on again. Turned it off. Pipes gurgled. He clacked at the pipes and turned the water back on, childlike and content.

I should call the restaurant. Tell them their statue was messing around with my plumbing.

Sweet hells. I pressed my fingers against my eyes. They’d have me committed.

What I needed was coffee. Then I’d be able to think.

“Don’t break anything,” I said to Pet Rock Extreme.

In the kitchen, I found the note Nola had left for me on the coffeepot.

It said she and Stotts were working on the Cody case and not to wait up for her. The little smiley face made me think it was more than just a business appointment.

Well, good for her. Maybe one of us could have a normal date with a normal person and not have to come home to overzealous architecture messing up the place.

I started the coffee, putting a little extra grounds in, because I had a feeling I was going to need it. While the coffee brewed, I put the stacked coffee cups back in the cupboard, closed all the doors, and made myself busy cleaning.

When the coffee was done and the already clean kitchen even cleaner, I poured myself a cup and took it out into the living room.

The gargoyle was there, standing very still in the corner of the room. He had piled the curtains and vines on his head. They were still attached to the curtain rods, so it just looked like he’d stepped into a waterfall of fabric. I guess it looked a little like the waterfall stuff at the restaurant, though he had been crouched beneath a bush when I found him. Who knew? Maybe gargoyles liked being half hidden by falling water.

Or cheap curtains.

I picked the cushions off the floor and put them back on the couch. Then sat down.

“What am I going to do with you?” I asked. “Do you have a name? Fido? Rock? Quasimodo? Stone?”

He tipped his head and cooed.

“You like that? Stone?”

He clacked, walked toward me, the curtains stretching out behind him, over his thick shoulders, catching on the arc of his wings, then down his broad back and haunches, flowing away to pool against the wall. He stopped next to the couch, sniffed at me again, then lowered himself at my feet like a huge coffee table. He rested his head on his crossed arms and stared, unblinkingly, straight ahead.

He didn’t close his eyes, and he didn’t move. I put the toe of my boot against his side, and he didn’t seem to mind.

I drank coffee, while the gargoyle sat there like a gargoyle.

Gargoyles are not real. If I remembered the stories right, gargoyles were alive at night, and sunlight turned them back to stone every day.

Well, Stone was already made out of rock. I didn’t know how much more stone he could get. Maybe the sun made it so he couldn’t move. Put him to sleep or something.

I’d only ever seen Stone at night, at the restaurant and now. Maybe he lost all his magical locomotion once dawn rolled around. Maybe that’s why the restaurant had him chained down in the first place; otherwise he would have wandered off and messed with their sprinklers or something.

And if he did turn into a statue-an unmoving statue-in the morning, it might be easier to get him back out to the restaurant that way.

Except they were going to think I stole him.

Hells, I had money. I had my dad’s whole company. I could buy the statue from them. Tell them it was a misunderstanding and throw enough money at them until they saw it my way. I’d seen my father use that tactic more than once.

Speaking of which, I needed to call Violet about our dinner plans.

I stepped over Stone, who watched me cross the room but did not follow.

I picked up the phone-a landline and therefore less inclined to die on me-and dialed Violet.

“Beckstrom residence,” a man, Kevin, said.

“Hi, Kevin. This is Allie. Is Violet available?”

“Let me check. Just a second.” He put me on hold and I got the soft strains of one of Bach’s symphonies. My dad had a thing for Bach, and it sounded like Violet didn’t mind keeping it on the system.

“Hi, Allie. How are you?”

It still surprised me how young she sounded. It shouldn’t surprise me, since she was younger than me by a couple years, but I still couldn’t understand why she would like my father. And she obviously liked him enough to get pregnant.

My dad, who had been silent since I’d sat with Zayvion at the bar, stirred in my mind, and I did the mental equivalent of shoving my fingers in my ears and humming while I worked very hard not to think about Violet’s pregnancy.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said before the pause became too long. “Yourself?”

She sighed. “Tired, which is to be expected, I guess, with how. .”

Please don’t say

pregnant

, please don’t say

pregnant, I la-la-la’d.

“. . things have been going,” she said. “But well.”

“Good. Say, listen, I know we were going to have dinner tonight, but I’m beat. Would you mind if we push it out an hour and maybe just make it coffee and dessert?”

“Sure. Do you just want to come over here?”

My dad’s condo? “I’d rather not.”

“Do you want me to come over there?” she asked.

My heartbeat elevated and it wasn’t me doing it. The sound of Violet’s voice was agitating my dad. He’d pushed me pretty hard back at Maeve’s. I wasn’t up to fighting him again so soon. And I didn’t know what he would do if he got control of my body, of my voice.

Stone stood and padded over to me. He growled like gravel being crushed. His head tipped up, and those round eyes were staring at me like I might be something worth eating.

Hells.

I pushed on the fluttering behind my eyes, trying to get my dad to settle down. Stone’s ears flattened and he showed me some teeth.

My dad went still and Stone’s ears pricked back up, but his fangs were still showing.

“Uh, no,” I said. “Place is a mess. How about we just meet somewhere close to you? Maybe Tchaikovsky Coffeehouse?”

“Perfect. I’ve been craving chocolate. See you there in a couple hours.”

“Okay. Bye.” I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. “Easy, boy,” I said to Stone. “It’s just me.”

He inhaled, a long, chest-filling draw of air, as if he were scenting me. Or scenting something in me. Like my father. Wouldn’t that be great? A gargoyle who could sense the undead.

Well, since he wasn’t exactly all alive himself, maybe that made some sense. He blew the air out through his nose, then tipped his head to the side and raised his pointed batlike ears and pointed batlike wings. No more teeth. He looked happy again.

Crap. “Remind me to never piss you off, big guy. You ready to leave?” I walked into the bedroom and he followed like a big stone puppy behind me.

“Ready to go? Wanna leave?” I opened the window and pointed at it. “There you go. This is the way out. All those buildings out there. Or, if you don’t like buildings, you can head to Forest Park. That place is so big, they’d never find you in there. Just think of it: you could start up some big-foot sightings.”

He trotted over, quiet for something that weighed enough to make my floorboards creak. He stuck his chin on the windowsill, his bat ears two triangular peaks.

“That’s right,” I said. “There’s your city, boy. Go get it!”

Stone clacked like a big, dumb bag of marbles, pulled his chin off the sill, and reached up to the window. He very carefully closed it, making sure the curtain did not catch in it.

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not so sure this living arrangement is working for me. If you change your mind, you know the way out.”

I yawned. Okay, a little sleep, hope the gargoyle didn’t eat me, then off to Violet for dessert. Maybe in the morning, sunlight would to turn him back into a statue; then I could take Stone out to the forest where he could frolic among the ferns, gurgle at streams, and make friends with the other interesting rocks.

I kicked off my boots and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over me without bothering to get undressed. I also set the alarm for eight o’clock.

Stone padded over to the side of my bed and tipped his wide head, studying me with round, intelligent eyes.

Kind eyes

, I thought.

I reached out and patted his blunt nose. “Good night, Stone.”

His ears peaked, then relaxed. He settled down on the floor, between me and the door, resting his head back on his arms again and staring straight ahead at the window. I had no idea if he was going to sleep, or even if he did sleep, but he knew where the window was. If he needed to go, he knew how to leave.

Good enough.

I closed my eyes, and fell, gratefully, asleep.