Magic in the Shadows

Chapter Five

The fun in being safe was that it didn’t hurt.

Driving over to the job Stotts wanted me to Hound had been a mostly comfortable-silence sort of thing. He didn’t dare ask me anything about Nola-he probably knew I was not about to give up my best friend’s secrets. And I couldn’t ask him anything about the job without getting more than a noncommittal grunt out of him.

So I pulled my journal out of my coat pocket and caught up on the last day or so of things that had happened. Even with my quick note-taking ability, I filled three pages, covering my dad’s funeral, Pike’s wake with the Hounds, my dad in my head, Nola showing up, and eventually the date with Zayvion. I noted the Necromorph in the alley and my nightmare with Dad too.

Stotts didn’t ask me what I was doing. He just drove and kept his mouth shut. Maybe he thought I was taking notes for the Hounding job.

The rhythmic sway of the rosary on his rearview mirror seemed less ominous in the daylight, although the chatter and static from the police radio set in the dash reminded me of just how serious working with Stotts could be.

He turned a corner, stopped at a light. “I heard your father’s body was buried yesterday,” he said.

Wow. Now that was a conversation starter.

“He. . it. . yeah,” I said, giving up on how to classify the dead-undead body of the man still very much alive in my head and dreams.

“Private ceremony?” he asked.

“The news channels weren’t invited.”

“Were there a lot of people there? His friends, business acquaintances? Wives?”

It sounded like a fairly innocent question. I hadn’t been there to see my dad buried the first time. From what Nola had told me, it was a pretty big event. Flowers, lots of people, the media, all his ex-wives except for my mother, in attendance.

The second, final burial had been quite a different thing. No flowers, no weeping widows except for Mrs. Beckstrom the Last-Violet. Everyone else seemed to be a part of his other, hidden life. Members of the Authority, including people who were a part of his public life and Beckstrom Enterprises. And all of them seemed to exhibit something between grim satisfaction and outright pleasure to see him thrown in a hole and covered with dirt.

And now that I thought about it, it was a little strange that the media had not picked up on the funeral. At all. Nothing on the news about the body being stolen in the first place, nothing about him being reburied. The only people in the city who seemed to be aware of it happening were the people who were there, graveside.

And, apparently, Detective Stotts.

Wasn’t that interesting?

“How did you know there was a burial? I didn’t see you or any of the police there.”

“It wasn’t a secret,” he said. “I was at the warehouse. I saw your father’s body there, watched the coroners take it away. I wasn’t invited to the burial, but it’s not a big stretch to think his body would be laid to rest.”

Oh, right, he’d been at the warehouse. I’d forgotten most of what had happened there-thanks to magic eating through my memories.

“I just wondered if you were alone,” he said.

“I didn’t know most of the people at the burial,” I said, which was true. “Violet was there. I think some of the people who worked for him-for Beckstrom Enterprises-were there.”

“People who work for you, now, right?”

And that was one of the questions I’d been trying not to think about for days. I was the heir to the Beckstrom fortune, which meant I had the final say about who was going to run the business and what was going to be done with the money. I was under no illusion that my father had run a clean operation. As far as I was concerned, that money had blood all over it.

“I guess,” I said.

I’d been thinking about setting up a charity. And maybe setting up a medical fund for the Hounds. It bugged me that I wanted to use my father’s money after pushing it away all of these years.

The flutter at the back of my eyes started up again, sparking little pricks of pain.

I so did not want to know his opinion on this. If I wanted to use his dirty money for a good cause, I would. Even though I’d been telling my father to stick that money up his assets for my entire adult life.

The flutter grew stronger, and I pressed at one temple.

I took a moment to envision disbanding his company. Lobbing a financial bomb at it and watching it sink for good.

The flutter quieted. So maybe he was paying attention to what I was thinking. Good.

And bad. My thoughts quickly turned to Violet, to her being pregnant with my dad’s child, my one and only sibling. I pushed that thought away and la-la-la’d like crazy. I didn’t want to tear Violet’s world apart. And destroying Beckstrom Enterprises would do just that. I’d never make a good day-to-day sort of manager of my father’s empire, not because I couldn’t do the work, but because I hated the company.

Almost as much as I hated him.

Okay, and yeah, I hated the paperwork and boardroom bullshit too. There was a reason I chose Hounding for a career.

Stotts stopped next to the curb, a park behind hedges and trees to my right.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“This is it.”

It looked innocent enough. Winter in Oregon meant the sky was stacked in layers of gray, sunlight filtered to a dim bluish cast that wouldn’t change much until May. It also meant the park next to us was soggy, the grass still green even in the grip of winter, Douglas fir and cedar trees dark needled and heavy with rain.

I got out of the car, inhaled the clean scent of rain and growing things. And the boiled-vinegar stink of used magic.

I turned my face into the wind, inhaled again. I took a few steps across the sidewalk and into the park itself, following the scent of magic. Stotts paced me, his hands in his pockets. He didn’t tell me what he wanted me to Hound. He didn’t have to.

I set a Disbursement, deciding sore muscles for a day should do the trick, then drew a glyph for Sight, pulled magic up through my body and out into the spell. The world sharpened under the cast of Sight, colors brightened, shadows deepened, as if the sun had broken through the clouds.

Sight showed me a trail of magic like ashes in the air, gray and green, snaking toward a gazebo, where the spell hung like a bloody handprint.

I made my way along a trail to the gazebo. At the corners of my vision, ghostly people swayed. I glanced over at one of them, a woman made of pastel watercolors, eyes black, hollow, hungry, as she shuffled my way.

Great. Ever since my dad’s ghost had smacked me in the head, every time I used magic I could see the Veiled-the ghostly remainders of dead magic users who wandered the world. Worse, they could see me.

Well, except for in the alley. The Veiled hadn’t shown up then. But maybe that had something to do with the spells Zayvion was throwing around, or the fact that I had used magic for only a second or two.

I picked up my pace. I needed to get to the spell, Hound it, and release the magic I was using before the Veiled swarmed me and added to my collection of fingertip burn marks.

The flutter behind my eyes started up again, my dad pushing at me. Exactly what I didn’t need right now.

Shut up

, I thought. And to myself:

Focus.

I recited my favorite jingle under my breath:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. .

I was almost up to the

buttons, buttons, buttons

part when I finally reached the gazebo and spell.

Sure, I knew the watercolor people, a half dozen of them, were headed my way. Sure, I felt the flutter of my father’s awareness like a second pulse behind my eyes. Sure, I felt Stotts stop behind me, far enough to be out of my way; close enough I could smell his anger and his fear.

But it was the spell, hovering in the air inside the gazebo, that held me fixed, like a hot palm against my throat.

It wasn’t a spell I knew the name of; didn’t look quite like anything I’d Hounded before. Blood magic was involved; the sweet cherry stink of that particular magic was undeniable. But this spell seemed to be more of a sealing off or a trading off of something.

Transmutation.

My father’s voice was so clear in my mind, I jerked back as if he had been standing next to me. Along with that word came his knowledge of what the spell was.

A complex knot work that links the caster and the victim through dark magic. A bastardization of death magic, wherein the soul and spirit are bled from the living to the dying, or the dying to the living. A spell that can be molded to the will of the caster to break the rules of life and death. A dangerous way to make magic break its natural laws.

Deadly to the caster. Forbidden.

Holy crap. I didn’t want to touch it. If it had been created by magic jumping its tracks, dark magic messing with life and death, I was not about to poke it with a stick. And I was doubly freaked out because all of a sudden my father was working hard to make sure I got the information behind this spell. I didn’t know if that meant he was trying to help me or screw me up.

The Veiled were coming, still walking slowly. I knew any minute they’d rush supernaturally fast. If I didn’t do this quickly, they’d be on me, pulling magic out of me, and shoving it in their mouths like taffy. Then I wouldn’t be good for any kind of magic use.

I decided to take my father’s information as a freak accident of helpfulness. It was good to know what the spell was, but what I was really here for was to find out who had cast it and why. And why the police would want to know about it.

I leaned in, the fingertips of my right hand spread out toward the green and gray scaled center of the spell.

Magic still burned in the spell. It licked against my fingertips with a disturbing sentience, tasting me.

It’s not alive

, my father’s voice answered my unspoken question.

It is. . aware of the power you carry within you. Much like the Veiled.

“Who did this?” Oops. I said that out loud.

“What?” Stotts asked.

I shook my head and inhaled, my mouth open, trying to taste the signature on the spell. Only the faintest taste of something sweet and burnt, like berries scorched on the vine. I had smelled that before. Outside my apartment with Zayvion. Last night.

But other than that, the signature was not familiar to me. I did not know who cast this spell or what it was really for.

Transmutation

, my father said again, frustrated at me being so dense.

It changes one thing, one energy, into another, suspends the state of one thing into another.

That was the spell Zayvion said the man-dog thing in the alley was using.

Do you know who was using it?

I asked my dad.

Do you know why?

Nothing.

I blinked, realized my fist was stuck straight in the middle of the spell. I did not remember putting it there. I was not only tampering with evidence, I was also pretty much destroying it.

Dad?

I asked.

He did not respond. Or if he did, I did not hear him. Because the Veiled chose that moment to snap out of their slow motion and race at me faster than any living thing.

I threw my hands up to protect my face from their clawing fingers. My hand in the spell tore up through it and magic within me sparked, like steel to flint. My magic caught the spell, ashes and all, on fire, and burned hot, clean, fast.

Just as Veiled fingers should have hit me, stabbed into me, dug under my skin, a spell rose around me, pouring like cool oil from my head to the soles of my feet, covering my skin, cloaking me. I could no longer see the Veiled. Could not feel them, smell them, or sense them in any way.

And I was pretty damn sure they could not see me.

Holy shit.

Dad?

I thought again.

Did you do that?

Yes. You cast too loudly when you Hound, Allison. Learn some control and maybe the Veiled won’t be able to track you so easily.

Yeah, that, or maybe if I got the dead guy out of my head, they wouldn’t notice me so much.

“That was impressive,” Stotts said, walking up beside me. “Destructive. But impressive.”

I turned to look at the spell that only moments ago had hovered in the air. Even though I still carried Sight, the spell, ashes and all, was gone.

“You have some answers for me?” he asked.

“What was the question?”

“How about we start with what kind of spell that was.” Huh. He didn’t know. Just like I hadn’t known. So this had to be either a secret thing or a very secret thing.

I wasn’t sure what I should tell him. If I suddenly started spouting off the properties of a spell neither of us had ever seen before, I was pretty sure he would question where I’d gotten that information.

“That’s odd,” Stotts said. He walked away from me, making a wide circle around the center of the gazebo.

I looked down at what held his attention.

A perfect circle of black ash, glossy as crow feathers, lay against the floor. And yes, that’s weird, because magic doesn’t usually leave something quite so physical behind. Especially when the spell is gone.

I’d seen that kind of circle before. I knew I had. I dug around in my head, searching for the memory.

Stotts knelt on the other side of the circle and stuck his fingers out toward the ash.

“Wait!” I warned at the same time my father’s voice echoed in my mind,

Don’t touch it.

Stotts’ eyebrows lifted. He pulled his hand back and rested both elbows across his knees. “What is it?”

“I’ve seen it. I know I have. Give me a sec.” I took a deep breath and stared off into the mist and the green, clearing my mind before I pulled out my journal. It was starting to rain, just an intermittent tapping like distant drumming.

I’d been taking notes of my life for long enough I had a pretty good coding system worked out. Anything dealing with spells was marked in the upper right corner of the page and underlined in text. I flipped through the pages. Even though I’d had this notebook for almost a year, and had noted several Hounding jobs and other spells, I didn’t see anything in it about circles of burned-out magic.

So what is it?

I asked my dad. Just because I didn’t have the memory didn’t mean I couldn’t get the information out of him.

I sensed his hesitance. I could tell he was weighing something. Probably his options and whether or not telling me would work to his advantage. For just a second I wished I were dreaming because at least then I could tell exactly what he was thinking. Of course, he could tell what I was thinking too, so it wasn’t all good.

The disks

, he said, his voice stronger and clearer, just as if I were wearing an earbud and he was a tune. Yes, it worried me that I could already hear him clearer than I could just a day ago, and that he was interacting with me easier too. I tried not to think about how if he kept getting stronger, more comfortable, more active, maybe he would just keep going until he took me over completely.

Heck, why panic about that when I could panic about this illegal, possibly unknown, certainly forbidden spell that I had completely destroyed?

What about the disks?

Oh. That was it. I remembered, or, hell, maybe Dad gave that info a nudge toward my consciousness. There was no trail left behind from magic used through the disks. When the disks were used, all that was left behind of the spell was a burned black circle of ash.

Holy shit.

“I think we need to talk to Violet,” I finally said.

“Beckstrom?” Stotts asked.

I nodded. “I think that circle is the residue of a spell cast using the disks that were stolen from her lab.”

Stotts looked back down at the ashes, then shook his head. “Is that why you destroyed the spell?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, needing an easy out right now in the worst way. “Can I use your cell phone? We need Violet to confirm this.”

He exhaled and brushed his hands over his thighs before standing. He dug his cell out of his pocket. “I’ll get it,” he said. He pushed one button and waited for the person on the other line to pick up. Violet Beckstrom was on the magic cop’s speed dial. Wasn’t that an interesting thing?

While Stotts asked her to come on out to the park, I walked around the circle of ash, trying to get a scent off it. Just a slight greasy tang. I remembered that too, though the familiar smell did not bring any more of my memory back to me.

Dad was no help in that area either.

I tried to decide what I should tell Stotts. Just because the spell was gone didn’t mean I hadn’t seen exactly what it was. There was no trail to be traced back to a user. I could honestly tell him that I had no idea who cast it. But should I tell him that it was Transmutation?

I walked down the gazebo steps while Stotts talked to Kevin, Violet’s bodyguard, on the phone. My sneakers and cuffs of my jeans got soaked while I made a slow circle around the structure. I set a Disbursement-those sore muscles were going to last for more than a few hours-and cast Enhancement to my sense of smell. The world broke open in a bouquet of odors, rich loamy grass, wet pine sap, musky hints of small animals who had been through the park recently, rotting wood and molds.

Lighter, but still present, were the smells of burnt blackberry, licorice, the chemical taint of formaldehyde, a burn of copper, and more. Strawberries, candy sweet, like bubble gum and booze. Tomi’s scents.

Holy crap. I followed my nose, heading toward the stink of fear, pain, and death.

A hedge of bushes overgrown by ivy and tangled, dry blackberry vines filled the space beneath a small copse of trees.

I peered into the shadows there. I didn’t even have to wait for my eyes to adjust to the low light to know what was spread out beneath the trees: the remains of an animal, maybe a dog or a small deer. There wasn’t enough of it left to tell. There was, however, a lot of blood.

Fresh enough, everything was still wet, and the flies hadn’t found it yet.

Hells.

“Tomi?” I called. There was no answer and no movement in those shadows. I inhaled again. Her scent was faint. She had certainly been here, but she was not here now.

I let go of the Enhancement and backed away until I could breathe clean air.

The wind lifted, reluctant and lazy, and I smelled warm cedar and lemons, soured by sweat and booze. Davy Silvers, a Hound and Tomi’s ex-boyfriend, was here somewhere. Upwind, which was where he would be if he wanted me to notice him.

I scanned the park, finally spotted him leaning against a tree closer to the street. He had on a rain jacket with the hood up. He wasn’t looking my way, but he wasn’t trying to hide either.

After that bender at Pike’s wake yesterday, I was impressed he was walking. But, damn, that boy needed to stop following me.

I walked back up to the gazebo. Stotts pocketed the phone.

“She’s on her way,” he said. “Want to fill me in on that?” He nodded toward the circle of ash.

“I’m not really sure what kind of spell it was,” I started. Something was niggling at the back of my mind. I frowned, thinking. Then it came to me. I’d just pulled on magic, cast an Enhancement so I could smell out traces of magic in the air, and I had not seen the Veiled, had not been touched by the Veiled, had not been hurt by the Veiled. Not one painful burning fingertip bruise.

That was the first time I’d pulled on magic and hadn’t had to fight them off since I’d first seen my dad’s ghost several weeks ago. What did that mean?

A smug satisfaction filled my mind.

You’re still protecting me from them, aren’t you?

I asked my dad.

We can work together, daughter

, he coaxed.

We could help each other through these trials. My knowledge, your power.

“Allie?” A hand landed on my upper arm, and I literally jumped.

Stotts raised his eyebrows. “Are you still with me?” he asked.

I blinked a few times, clearing my mind. Talking to my dad was a bad idea. Too distracting, for one thing. For another, I had the very bad feeling that given the chance and my own inattention, Dad could actually Influence me to do what he wanted. From inside my head.

A chill ran down my shoulders and arms, and I shuddered.

“Okay,” Stotts said, “why don’t you come over here and sit down?”

I let him lead me over to the bench that ringed the outer edge of the gazebo’s covered area. He probably thought I’d set an immediate Disbursement, and was bearing the price of using magic already. That wasn’t true, but the truth-that I was dealing with the growing horror of my father living in my mind-wasn’t something I cared to share with him. He’d take me in for a psych review.

And who had the time for that?

“Do you need some water?” he asked. “Some pain killers?”

I looked up at him. In the blue-gray light, his skin took on a dusky forest look, his thick black lashes almost covering his eyes as he squinted from the low glare, giving him lines that etched the knowledge of pain on his face. Even scruffy from not shaving, his eyes a little bloodshot and yellow from lack of sleep, and his hair messed up and wet, he looked worried for me. And willing to serve and protect, just like every nice, cursed magic police officer should be. I found myself thinking Nola could do a lot worse than be with him.

Then I pushed that thought away because, really, did a girl need more than a thousand things to worry about all at once?

“I’m just a little cold is all,” I said. “That spell isn’t anything I’ve ever seen before.” Hey, that was the truth. Go me. Maybe I’d just tell Stotts everything I knew, including the whole secret society of the Authority with their secret magical spells, secret magical tests, and weird-ass secret magical backstabbing, and let him figure it all out.

My dad fidgeted and fluttered in my head, like a bird in a box. He obviously did not like that idea.

Then stop trying to Influence me

, I thought at him.

Or so help me, I will spill it all.

The hot wash of surprise flashed over my face-his surprise, not mine. And while I wanted to gag a little that his emotions had actually triggered a physical reaction in my body, I was too angry to stop yelling at him now.

What, don’t think I can play with the big boys? I am not going to play your game by your rules. This is my game now.

Silence. And I mean a dead, empty silence. If my dad was still in my head, I could not feel him. Not one leathery spec of him.

Good.

Stotts was waiting, looking between me and the treed area where I assumed Davy Silvers still lingered. It begged the question of why Davy was following me so obviously. He had proved he was a very, very good Hound and knew how to stay unseen when he wanted to.

But before I dealt with Davy, I needed to finish with Stotts.

“I did get a feel for what the spell might have been used for,” I said.

“Okay,” he encouraged.

“I think whoever cast that spell used a disk to access and carry the magic. There was no trail left behind, so I can’t trace it back-the magic did not come from the cisterns or networked conduits. I couldn’t make out the signature.”

“Because of the disk, or because you don’t know the caster?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking mostly because of the disk.” I looked past him at the black circle of ash spread across the concrete gazebo floor. The ring of fragile crow-feather ash reflected blue and green in the low light. “It could be I just haven’t ever Hounded or studied the caster.”

Which meant it had to be someone from outside the Northwest. Hounds do not just run around sniffing magical signatures and immediately know who they come from. There is a lot of study that goes into it, and books and books and electronic slides of recorded signatures to go through. As a matter of fact, every citizen is required to register a state-Proxied spell cast with city hall-much like applying for a gun license or having your fingerprints added to the record-so every magical signature was, theoretically, on record.

I had studied every signature in the Northwest, and thousands more beyond that. Plus, I’d spent years on the street actually applying my knowledge, and building my own list of quirks and signatures. And yes, I kept notes.

I was good at things when I put my mind to it. After I failed business magic in college, I threw myself into Hounding.

Obsession doesn’t always work against a person, you know.

“I think the spell was a form of Conversion.”

“Huh,” he said, thinking that over. I didn’t blame him. Conversion was a spell most often used in medical procedures. It was a central part of the Siphon glyphs, which were vital to draining away magic-induced pain and wounds. But out here, in a gazebo, the idea of using Conversion didn’t make a lot of sense.

“Could you tell what the spell was cast for? Or who it was for?”

I shook my head. “But over there in the bushes might be another good place to look for clues. I think I smelled a Hound, Tomi Nowlan, in the area. Did you have her look at this site before me?”

“No.”

Well, crap. Sorry, Tomi. But Stotts was a police officer. The law. And if some kind of mutated man was still out on the street, eating larger and larger animals, I figured it was good to let the law know about it before anyone, including Tomi, got hurt, if she was indeed mixed up in this.

He walked off, and returned in a short time. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look nearly half as sick as I felt.

“What do you know about that?” he asked.

“There was another animal, smaller, a dog, torn apart like that in an alley near my house.”

“It was reported last night. Were you the one who reported it?”

“No. But I saw it. I was going out on a date. And the car was parked close to the alley. I thought I heard something, so I went back there. Zayvion was with me. He reported it.”

I didn’t know how much of this kind of magic he knew about, or how much of this the Authority wanted to keep under wraps. Since I didn’t know what I could or could not say, I stuck with the truth. It was easier that way.

“I think there was magic involved. It smelled exactly like that mess over there.”

“Do you know if the disks are involved in that?” he asked. “Was there a ring of ash left behind?”

I thought about it. “Not that I could see. It was dark. And foggy.”

He strolled to the edge of the gazebo railing next to me and my bench and leaned his forearms against the wooden edge, staring out at the rain.

“Looks to me like some sort of Drain or Siphon was worked on it. Sucking all the life out before mangling the body.” His eyes narrowed at the corners. “Maybe someone screwing around with blood magic who thinks they’re a goddamn vampire.”

“So you’ve seen this sort of thing before?”

He nodded. “Do you think this might have anything to do with Mr. Silvers out there?”

It surprised me he knew Davy, but of course he did. Davy was one of Pike’s Hounds. Or had been one of Pike’s Hounds. And Pike kept Stotts informed on who was working in the city.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know why he’s here?” Stotts asked.

“He has some sort of idea that I need someone to follow me around and look after me.”

Stotts chuckled. “Why do you suppose that is?”

“Ha-ha.” I tucked my chin down into my coat collar. The temperature had dropped with the rain, and holding still was making me cold. I wished I’d brought some coffee.

“So do you like having a bodyguard?” Stotts asked like it didn’t matter what I answered, which meant, of course, it did.

“No.”

He glanced over at me. “Huh.”

“Why would I want someone to watch every move I make? I got a lifetime of that being the infamous Daniel Beckstrom’s daughter.”

“Not your thing?”

“Not even close to my thing.”

“Do you need me to tell Silvers to back off?”

I opened my mouth, shut it fast. I had not expected that. Stotts pulling the cop card on my behalf. For some reason it always felt like Stotts and I weren’t quite on the same side. But with just that one statement I realized he’d be willing to step in and help me, just because it was the right thing, the lawful thing, to do.

“No,” I finally said. “I’ll talk to him. He’s a good kid doing what he thinks is right.”

“Stalking?”

“It’s not like that. Pike decided too many Hounds were being hurt Hounding without a safety net. He set up a buddy system. One person Hounds, and another Hound volunteers to stay back and keeps an eye on things. Calls the police if something goes wrong, but otherwise doesn’t get involved.”

“When did you tell him you were taking this job?”

“I didn’t. He has a lot of free time on his hands and is too curious for his own good.”

Stotts turned and leaned his back against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest. If Davy could hear us, and he might be able to-Hounds were known for having acute hearing-with Stotts’ back turned, it would make it harder to hear, and impossible to read lips.

“I don’t like outside eyes on my cases.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” I said again. I stood and started pacing, trying to warm up. When was Violet going to get here?

“Good.” Stotts watched me pace from one side of the gazebo to the other. Neither of us looked over at the circle of ashes, as if we wanted to avoid it as long as possible.

“I’d like to continue working with you,” he said. “Just you. I’d like this to be a more permanent partnership.”

I stopped halfway to the railing, and looked back at him. “What?”

“I’d like to formalize this. You working with me. For me. Make it something more along the lines of what I had with Martin Pike.”

“Are you offering me a job?”

“Yes. A trial period, anyway. On call. Contracted to Hound exclusively for the MERC. Monthly stipend. Proxy service. Interested?”

“Let me think about it,” I said. “Is there anyone else in the running for the job?”

“Not until I hear from you, there isn’t.”

I searched his face for a hint of why he had picked me, out of all the Hounds in the city. I’d only worked for him once. Some of the other Hounds had worked for him more than once. Even Sid had, I think.

“Okay, I give up,” I finally said. “Why me?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared off toward the circle of ash and shifted against the railing, so he was standing more than leaning, his arms still crossed over his chest.

“You aren’t like the other Hounds, Allie. You see and track spells on a level most Hounds don’t even try for. Plus, most Hounds who have more than three years of experience have already burned out on drugs and alcohol. They don’t, or maybe can’t, Hound as precisely as you can.”

“Pike was good,” I said. “Better than me.”

“No,” Stotts said quietly. “No.” He pushed off the railing and stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. He stopped right in front of me, and then just as quietly asked, “What are those marks on your hands and arms?”

I blinked a couple times. I didn’t know what to tell him. Would he buy it if I said they were just tattoos I’d gotten on a wild drunken weekend?

“They have something to do with magic, don’t they?” he continued. “With channeling it? Using it? Sensing it?”

I could not remember if I’d ever talked to him about the marks. Would it matter if he knew that I carried magic inside me, that I had always carried a small magic in me and after Cody Miller had pulled magic through me, that small flame had ignited into a roaring, barely controlled wildfire of magic in my bones, in my blood, in my soul?

No one else could do that. No one I knew about anyway. Holding magic in your body was a short road to death.

“It is from magic,” I said. My heart was beating too fast. I felt like he’d just caught me, found out the secret I’d been trying to hide. Not that I could really hide metallic whorls of color that spread over my face and arm.

“Magic marked me,” I exhaled. Why was it so hard to tell him this?

Because you know it’s wrong

, my father’s voice whispered in the back of my mind.

He shouldn’t know. He is not one of our kind.

“When?” Stotts asked.

“I don’t remember when it happened,” I said. That was the truth. Nola had told me how I got the marks. The coma had taken that memory from me. Still, deep in the pit of my stomach, I could feel the press and movement of magic, like a sleeping thing curled inside me. I felt the memory of when it had burned through me, pain and pleasure. I felt the memory of when it had first taken root in me.

“After the coma, that’s when I first remember seeing it.”

“And does it enhance magic use? Does it make things more clear?”

I realized I could not look away from his eyes. He wasn’t using Influence on me, but he had a presence, an intensity. As if he were really counting on me to tell him this. To do the right thing. And if I looked away, he would know I was lying.

“It makes using magic more painful.” It came out straight. Even. And I meant every word of it.

He pressed his lips together. “I saw you use magic. When you Hounded for me last time for the kidnapping, I cast Sight, to watch what you did.”

“I thought you were keeping an eye out on the thugs in the neighborhood.”

“I was. When you drew on magic, those colors on your hand, on your face, glowed.”

I nodded. “I don’t know why that happens. I don’t know why this is the way it is. Why I am the way I am.”

He studied me and I did not look away. No deceit. I truly did not understand why magic had marked me, nor why I could hold it in my body while others could not. But that was all I could give him, all I could tell him. I didn’t know how much Stotts knew about nonstandard things about magic. Or how much he knew about the Authority.

Nothing

, my father whispered.

He is not our kind.

Okay, so maybe now I did know how much Stotts knew. But here’s where the trouble started. He was the law. And I was working for him. I was also about to be trained by people who used magic illegally.

Ancient magic use is not illegal. It is only unknown.

“Have you talked to anyone about it?” he asked.

I tipped my head to the side, hoping my dad would just shut up so I could concentrate on one conversation at a time. Because I thought I was missing something here. Stotts was digging for a response from me. But I didn’t know what.

“Not really. I talked to Nola about it before the coma. Or at least she told me I talked to her about it.”

“I mean, since you’ve been back. Back in the city.”

“Is there someone I should talk to?” I asked, shifting the focus of the question so I could gain some ground. “Do you know someone who might be able to tell me more about this?” I held up my right hand, wiggled my fingers.

He didn’t look away from my face.

“The city is full of people. All kinds.” He emphasized the word

kinds

just like my father had, and I worked hard not to show him how that hit me. “Charlatans. Pushers, users, cons. You know the type.”

“Yes. I do.”

“I want you to know you can come to me. Anytime. For any reason. And my. . resources will be at your disposal.”

“Even if I don’t take the job with you?”

“Even if we never work together again.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That’s nice to know.”

My father pushed somewhere behind my eyes, and I tasted leather and wintergreen at the back of my throat. I also sensed his displeasure. He didn’t like Detective Stotts. Probably didn’t trust him. And while I wasn’t sure that I trusted Stotts either, I did find myself liking the man.

Not that I was childish enough to make friends just because my dad didn’t approve of someone.

Okay, yeah, I was that childish.

“Just wondering,” I said. “Did Nola put you up to this?”

He smiled. “You don’t take anyone at face value, do you?”

“Not even a newborn baby.”

He chuckled. “That’s too bad. No, Nola didn’t ask me to do anything for you. But if she did, I probably would have done it.”

Was he telling me that he liked her? That he maybe already felt something toward her? I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Nola lived a small-town life in a place where magic could not touch her. Stotts was in the middle of a city crawling with magical crime. Opposites might attract, but that didn’t mean they didn’t also explode on contact.

“That’s good to know too,” I said.

The sound of a car engine broke off our little heart-to-heart.

We both took a step away from each other. I, at least, was surprised we were still standing that close together.

A Mercedes-Benz drove up and parked on the side of the street, behind where Davy still stood, hunched-shouldered beneath the tree, probably soaked through anywhere his coat didn’t cover. Why didn’t the kid just get in his car and out of the rain, or come on over here and take shelter in the gazebo? That boy made no sense.

The car engine turned off, and Violet’s bodyguard, Kevin, got out of the driver’s side. Kevin had to be my height or so, but carried himself like a man who was used to getting lost in the crowd. Blond hair, brown eyes, and a face that most resembled a puppy dog, eyes too big, jaw too soft, he didn’t look like the killer he was. Nor did he look like a man who was good-very good-at using magic. He was part of the Authority, and Violet knew that because she was my father’s widow, and apparently Dad didn’t mind telling her about the secret society of magic users.

Not that I was bitter about it or anything.

Violet was just a beat behind him, sliding out of the passenger’s side, and wearing a full-length wool peacoat as blue as a stormy ocean, the wide hood pulled up. Her figure was still trim.

They walked over to the gazebo, side-by-side.

Stotts waved to them, and Violet waved back. They strolled up the gazebo steps, Violet in front, Kevin behind her.

“Hello, Detective Stotts,” she said.

“Mrs. Beckstrom, Mr. Cooper.” Stotts shook hands with both of them. “Thank you for coming out.”

Violet pushed her hood back and put on her glasses. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Allie.”

In the gray light, Violet’s hair seemed to have a warmth of its own, the fiery hue of autumn leaves. I found myself unable to look away from her, unable to exhale, as emotions that were not mine poured through me in a river of heat.

Images flashed behind my eyes, memories, of Violet. And with those memories came emotions.

I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her. I wanted to feel her heartbeat against my own. I wanted to touch her. Love her.

Holy shit. I took a step back, away. Away from Violet. Away from the emotions raging in me. Emotions that were not my own, but my father’s.

It was only a second, a hot, vivid second of wanting her. . as a man, as my father wanted her, but it freaked me out.

I didn’t know if I should be sick or angry. Angry was easier.

Get the hell out of my head and leave me alone

, I said.

The presence of my father did not dim, but he did something to lower the intensity of his emotions. There was some sort of curtain between us, a curtain that dampened his feelings.

My apology

, he said stiffly. And here’s the weird part-I knew he meant it. Really meant it. The primary emotion that filtered through the curtain now was embarrassment. He didn’t like sharing his emotions with me-never had when he was alive, still didn’t now that he was dead.

I wasn’t overjoyed about it either.

“Allie?” Violet asked.

“Hounding,” I said, brushing right over my little melt-down by striding over to the circle of ash. “For Detective Stotts.” The sooner I got this job nailed down, the sooner I could get out to Maeve’s and get rid of my dad.

I just needed to keep my cool.

“This,” I said, “is what’s left of a Conversion spell. No trailing line, no signature, nothing but this circle.”

Violet knelt next to the circle. “Is this what you saw before on the farm?” she asked.

I assumed she was talking to me. “I don’t remember what I saw before, but I’m pretty sure this matches what Nola described to me. It is very familiar. I know I’ve seen something like it before.”

“Huh.” She pulled a small vial and something that looked like a tongue depressor out of her purse. She scooped up some of the material and tapped it into the vial. She dropped that in her purse, then walked around the circle and knelt again.

“There are no other lines in the center?” she asked.

I looked down. There clearly weren’t. But she wasn’t asking me.

“No,” Stotts said.

His gaze was unfocused, his feet spread as if he were holding up a weight. His right hand was held palm forward, in an old-fashioned “stop” motion. And though he held still, I knew, because I could smell it, that he had cast a variation of Sight.

Right. I forgot that even though he called people like me in to Hound cases, it didn’t mean he couldn’t use magic to see things himself. Hounds could just see it, taste it, smell it, and track it better than any other magic user.

“Nothing on any of the standard spectrums,” he said.

Correction. He used magic very well. My opinion of him went up a notch.

He put his hand down, releasing the spell, and shook his wrist out. “It looks like a circle of ash. I wouldn’t think it had anything to do with magic if I hadn’t seen it fall when Allie broke the Conversion spell.”

Kevin, who had walked across the gazebo to stand with his hands harmlessly in his pockets while he stared out at where Davy stood, suddenly stiffened. His puppy dog gaze slid over to me. That was it. No other reaction. But I knew he didn’t believe Stotts.

As well he shouldn’t. It wasn’t a Conversion spell I had broken. I sucked at anything along the lines of spells traditionally meant for medical use, and breaking a spell took just as much skill as casting a spell.

“Do you have any idea who is involved in this?” Violet asked.

Stotts shook his head. “Nothing here. No one. Just the spell, reported by some dog walkers whose dogs wouldn’t get anywhere near the gazebo, and who reported getting sick the closer they came to look at it.”

Even I could tell that didn’t sound like a Conversion spell. Violet pushed on her knees to stand, and Kevin was suddenly beside her, catching her hand and helping her up. “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

He made it look like business as usual, but my dad, behind my eyes, focused on the two of them and would not look away.

Stop it

, I pushed at him.

But he did not stop it. With a force of will a dead man should not have, he stared at Violet’s smile, at the softening of Kevin’s expression, then followed Kevin’s hand to where it lingered just a second too long, too gently, too damn much in love, on Violet’s hand.

My father’s hatred burned chemical hot in my brain and everything went white for a second.

Violet, strangely enough, did not seem to notice Kevin’s barely concealed attentiveness. She was all business, a scientist with her thoughts on the problem at hand, not the people around her.

“I do think it is the full discharge of magic one of the disks could carry,” she said.

“Which leaves us with several more still out there.” Stotts said.

“Several?” I asked, leaning against my dad, like he was a door in a hard wind that refused to close. I wasn’t gaining much ground against him. I-or rather Dad-could not look away from Kevin, could not see anything but the man who had touched Violet. My Violet. My wife.

Holy shit. I pushed harder.

“We are unsure how many disks were stolen,” Violet said. “There was a fire in the lab that destroyed evidence from the breakin. But we think at least one was used to cast that spell at Nola’s.”

I frowned.

“The circle you don’t remember seeing. A circle like this was left behind at Nola’s farm. This”-she pointed at the ring on the floor-“is similar to what we saw in lab tests. I’ll double-check of course, but I’m comfortable saying this is the discharge of one of the disks. And as far as we know, no one but Daniel-” She visibly swallowed, then nodded to herself, accepting her own verbal slip. “No one but me knows how to recharge the disks.”

“So they’re worthless?” I asked. “Once they’re used, no one knows how to reuse them?”

“An unloaded gun is still a gun,” Stotts said.

“Someone could crack the code,” Violet agreed. “Get lucky and correctly interpret the combination of glyphs and tech. .” She took a couple steps along the edge of the circle. “Are you sure it was a Conversion spell?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Dad pushed harder, the pressure of his will like a dull-edged blade sinking into the back of my eyes. He wanted to say something-he wanted to make me say something more to her. I clamped my back teeth down and pressed my lips together.

“Interesting,” Violet said. I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not. “Is there anything else you need from me, Detective?”

“The test results, when you have them.”

“I’ll get that to you this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Kevin walked forward to stand beside Violet, just slightly too close. No, he stood much, much too close. He reached out to take her hand again.

My father’s anger built to an unbearable pain. My vision flashed white again.

“I need to talk to you, Violet,” I blurted out. A flash of heat poured over my face and chest. I didn’t know if that was me or my dad talking.

Kevin frowned, his eyes suddenly narrow. Those weren’t puppy dog eyes. Those were the eyes of a bodyguard, a killer. And a well-trained member of the Authority who knew something was terribly wrong with me.

Smart man.

At his look, my father in me stilled. Not because he was afraid. No. All I felt from him was burning hatred and betrayal.

Stop it. You’re dead. You have no say over what Violet or anyone around her does.

I concentrated and pushed on him mentally. Pushed him farther back in my mind.

He has no right

, my father’s voice rang in my mind. Not loud, like he was yelling. Very softly, in almost a lullaby tone.

Which meant he wasn’t just mad; he was crazy, killing mad.

I rubbed my fingertips over my eyes and forehead, forcing my eyes to close so I couldn’t see Kevin, so my father couldn’t see Kevin or Violet.

“Allie?” Violet asked, concern in her voice.

“Sorry.” It came out a little shaky, but it was all me. “I’m a little tired.” I took a short breath and mentally shoved at my dad as hard as I could.

I wanted him out of my head. Away, gone. Back behind his curtain. Farther back, if I could manage it. Back where I could no longer feel him. Back until he was no longer a part of me.

Yes, I was angry. And yes, I knew magic couldn’t be used when you were in a state of high emotion. But I wasn’t using magic against my father. This was nothing more than sheer willpower, determination, and stubbornness of who wanted control of my head and body more.

Believe me, it was me.

“Do you need to sit?” Violet asked.

I still had my eyes closed, my fingers rubbing at my forehead. I knew I had to answer, knew this shoving match with Dad was taking too long. Fine, if I couldn’t push him away, I’d shut him out. I willed a wall between my father and me, a black, thick wall of granite to replace the curtain between us.

For a brief moment, I saw him, dressed in a business suit like he was always dressed, but younger and stronger than I remembered him. His hair was black with no hint of gray, the lines on his face smooth. Death, apparently, did good things for one’s complexion. He scowled at me and raised his hand, as if to cast a spell-

I mentally took a step back, thinking,

Wall, wall, wall, I really need a wall between us

.

“Allie?” A touch on my arm. I opened my eyes.

Stotts raised his eyebrows but didn’t take his hand off of my arm. “Are you sick?”

“Tired,” I said. Wait, I’d already said that. Great. “Sorry. It’s the Hounding. Proxy headache,” I lied again. I had to stop living the kind of life where it was better to lie to the secret magic police than to tell the truth. “Are we done?” I nodded toward the circle of ash.

“I’ll need your report on what you Hounded.”

“Right.” I stepped back, and he let go of my arm. The wall in my head sat like a real weight, as if I’d put on a hat made out of concrete. But the good thing was I couldn’t hear my father’s voice, couldn’t see him, and he wasn’t pushing at me. I could feel his emotions, but they were not nearly as strong. He was still angry, still betrayed, but with the Mt. Everest of don’t-give-a-damn between us, his motions were only a whisper of what they had been just a moment ago.

I took a breath and tried to get my feet under me again.

“Do you want me to come down to the station to give my statement?” I asked Stotts.

“Yes. But we need to wait until the cleanup team arrives.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“Ten minutes. Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”

“Maybe.” I braced myself to look over at Violet, to be ready to fight my dad’s reactions to seeing her and Kevin again.

At least he didn’t know she was pregnant. And if I had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t think about that any time that he could hear my thoughts. Like when I was dreaming. Or when he was trying to mutiny in my brain.

Violet stood next to Kevin, staring pensively at the circle as if she was trying to get the right answer out of an ink blot test. She and Kevin weren’t touching, but Kevin radiated that overly protective bodyguard vibe.

Dad didn’t do anything. Or at least nothing I could feel.

“Violet?”

She looked up.

“I do need to talk to you. About the business.”

“Now?” she asked.

Frankly, here, in the rain, hell, in the driving ice and snow, would be fine with me, because at this moment, I had control over my dad and could tell her I wanted her to run the company instead of me without him getting all grabby with my brain.

As if on cue, the wind picked up, whipping rain into the gazebo, and stirring the ashes that refused to blow away.

“Is now good?” I said.

“I’d really like to get this sample back to my lab,” she said. “How about dinner tonight instead?”

“Sure,” I said. “When? Where?”

“If you don’t mind coming over to our-to my place, maybe around eight?”

I had to see Maeve today, but it wasn’t even noon yet. And I didn’t have anything else to do other than catching up with Nola to try to help her with Cody, which I still might be able to swing. I didn’t know how I was going to fit it all in, but I’d try. And if Maeve helped me get rid of my father, I wouldn’t have to deal with him in my head while I was around Violet.

“I can do that,” I said.

“Then I’ll see you tonight.” She smiled. “Kevin?”

They walked together, step in step, past me.

I caught a hint of her perfume, and sadness filled me.

Bought in France, an anniversary gift. She laughed when I gave it to her, telling me it was too much, too good. I never told her what she meant to me.

I pushed that unwanted thought and the ghost of a life I had not lived back behind the wall in my head.

“You sure you’re okay?” Stotts asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“You’re crying.”

Startled, I wiped the tear I had not felt off my face. “It’s just the wind,” I said.

I don’t know if he believed me, but he didn’t say any more as I watched, helpless hands deep in my pockets, as Violet and Kevin hurried through the rain to their car, got in, and drove away.