Magic to the Bone

Chapter Three

Zayvion held the deli door open for me. Old-school chivalry. Nice. I walked into the heat of the deli, into the smell of soup and spices and Parmesan crisping in butter. My stomach knotted with hunger. No surprise there; I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

A small wood table by the window was empty, so I threaded between the early lunch crowd to get to it. Once there, I paused and took a deep breath, preparing for the unique aches in store for me as I tried to take my coat off.

“Want any help with that?” Zayvion asked.

“I got it.” Actually, I had already worked up a sweat just unzipping my coat. Getting my left arm out of the sleeve without dislocating something or having all the muscles down my back cramp into one solid knot was looking pretty grim.

Zayvion moved behind me, silent even on the hardwood floor, and gently tugged on my cuff.

“It’s okay,” I said. But I liked the sensation of him behind me, so close I could feel the heat of him.

“Mmm.” Zayvion held the left cuff until I extracted my arm and then he sort of slipped to the side, leaned close, and pulled my coat the rest of the way off. He draped the coat over the back of a chair before I could come up with a comment about him keeping his hands off my outerwear.

I didn’t know whether to be attracted or worried. I didn’t like it when people invaded my personal space, and liked it even less when I was hurting. But Zayvion had been helpful, and hadn’t touched more than my coat.

It was a really nice thing for him to do.

We stood there for an awkward moment while I breathed far too heavily for just a coat unzipping—I mean, I’d walked several blocks in the rain to this place and done okay.

My stomach did more than flip; it rolled and cramped, and a wave of nausea washed over me. The heavy smells of garlic, salt, grease, beans, wet coats, cologne, and hair spray, not to mention the gritty stink of diesel and oil from traffic outside, made it pretty clear that instead of being attracted, or confused, I was going to be sick.

The sweat on my skin went greasy cold and Zayvion got a worried look on his face. He put his hand on my arm. “Okay. Why don’t you sit down, Allie. I’ll get you some water.”

I’m not the kind of girl who does what someone tells me to do, but my vision was going dark around the edges and little sparks of light were doing the chacha in front of my eyes. I carefully sat in the chair and propped my forehead against the cool window, not caring what the people beyond the glass or around me thought. I stared at a spot on the wooden window-sill, two carved zeros that were not quite connected enough to symbolize eternity, and breathed very evenly through my mouth, telling myself I was not going to throw up in the middle of this deli like some drunk in a soup kitchen.

A cool, light cloth draped the back of my bare neck.

“Do you need a bucket?” Zayvion asked from behind me.

“No,” I gritted.

He lifted what I assumed was a wet towel. I felt the sticky heat of the diner on the back of my neck again, then the coolness of the other side of the rag. As he turned the towel, his fingers rested against the back of my neck, at the base of my skull.

His fingers were cool, like mint. I opened my mouth to tell him to leave me alone for a minute, but instead of words all that came out was a soft moan. That cool mint feeling from his fingers spread up my neck to cradle the back of my head and quench some of the fire there, then worked down the back of my neck and spine and wrapped minty-cool around the hurt in my ribs and stomach. The pain eased off enough that I could think. And what I thought was, I was in pretty bad shape.

How stupid could I be to not set the Disbursement spell when I Hounded Boy? And how stupider could I be to go out for a cup of coffee with a man my father paid to stalk me while magic used me for a punching bag?

“Breathe,” Zayvion said, so softly I knew he must have leaned forward to speak near my ear. I would have done almost anything so long as he didn’t move his fingers away from my skin. He should be bottled and sold for migraine sufferers.

I took a slow, deep breath and the sick in my stomach let up a little more.

“Good,” he said. “Now exhale.”

I did that too, and moaned again as the nausea drained away, leaving me tired, achy, but functional. Then his fingers were gone, the cool wash of mint gone. I felt stiff and bruised, inside and out, but not as bad as before he touched me.

Zayvion sat on the other side of the table and picked up a cup of coffee I hadn’t seen him bring over.

He glanced out the window, his eyes narrowing against the gray-white light, and took a drink.

“Thanks,” I said.

He tipped the cup away from his lips. His eyes were brown, flecked with a gold I don’t remember seeing before. “Sure,” he said. “Any time.”

I put my hands on the table and discovered there was a second cup of coffee and, next to that, a little saucer of individual cream pots and packets of sugar. I picked up the coffee and took a sip of it. Black and bitter, it washed the sour taste of spent magic out of my mouth and filled my sinuses with a sharp but pleasant burned smell.

“Nice trick,” I said.

Zayvion blinked once, slowly. “Trick?”

“You set a Siphon to mitigate some of the pain from the price I’m paying for not setting a Disbursement spell, right?”

“Ah,” he said. “That trick.” He followed up that nonanswer with a Zen-like look.

But his eyes. Gold flecks burned where there had only been brown before, and an intensity flickered through his calm gaze. He had done something, something more than setting a Siphon—not that setting Siphons was easy. It took two full years of specialized education to be able to cast and set channels that slowly bled used magic back into the raw magic that pooled beneath the city. And not everyone who studied hard and practiced harder mastered that trick. The few who did were usually into the more advanced fields of body-magic integrations, people like doctors and the regulators who set tolerance levels for legal Proxies.

I’d seen Siphons set. I put a year of study into it myself before my professor told me I might as well waste my time failing at something I enjoyed. But I remember the basics. Enough to know that Zayvion had not set a Siphon. He’d done something else. Something that took even more skill.

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “You Grounded me.”

Grounding was another matter altogether. It was equivalent to acting as a lightning rod for someone else and was usually done while the original caster was drawing on magic. It allowed a larger amount of magic to be accessed, and a smaller price to be paid by the original caster. The Grounder often bore a heavier burden of the pain—trying to match another person’s magical style and ability was very difficult and dangerous. As so was using Grounding to mitigate the pain of using magic.

Zayvion’s eyebrows went down and he tipped his chin to one side. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“What are you?” I asked. “Master’s level?”

He shook his head and took another drink of coffee. “I didn’t go to college for magic.”

“What did you go to college for?”

“The women.” He smiled. “Oh, we aren’t being that honest? Economics.”

“So you’re an economist who stalks people for money and just happens to have mastered the rare art of Grounding?”

“What can I say? I’m a complicated man. And I didn’t Ground you.”

I took another drink of coffee. He was so lying. “All right. Let’s go with that. If you didn’t set a Siphon, and didn’t Ground me, how come I feel better?”

“Acupressure,” he deadpanned.

“Acupressure?”

“Pressure points. It’s a kind of massage that helps with muscle tension.”

“I suppose you went to college for that too?”

“No, but maybe I should have. I’ve been told, on more than one occasion, that I have good hands.”

I gave him back what I hoped was one of his blank stares. “Do you really expect me to buy that?”

That got a smile out of him, and damned if it didn’t make me smile back. “Well, you don’t have to buy it, or lunch,” he said. “Both are on me. I’ve already ordered and paid, so no argument.”

As if on cue, a girl came over with a platter that held two bowls of soup—beef vegetable, with what looked to be real chunks of fresh vegetables floating in the thick broth—and a side of sourdough bread.

My mouth watered so hard I had to swallow.

“Anything else?” the waitress asked as she put down the soup, bread basket, and two sets of napkin-rolled cutlery.

“Some water,” Zayvion said. “For both of us, please.”

She left and I stared down at my soup like I’d never seen food before.

“It’s soup,” Zayvion said. “Beef and vegetable. Oh. You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

“I love soup.” Then I remembered he probably already knew that. He’d been working for my father and following me around for I didn’t know how long. He probably knew a lot of things about me. Probably even knew what kind of underwear I wore.

Which begged the question. Was he a boxer or brief kind of guy?

Come on, Allie, I thought. Stop being such a sap-head. This wasn’t a date. Zayvion wasn’t a friendly neighbor. He was someone to dig information out of. Information about the hit on Boy. Information about why my dad was suddenly so interested in pulling me back into the company and under his control.

I sat up a little straighter and unrolled the napkin and spoon. Zayvion might be a liar, a snitch, a stalker—whatever. I wasn’t going to turn down a free meal or a chance to find out what he knew.

“How long have you been following me?” I said it as if the meeting had just been called to order and his sales performance were under review.

He already had his spoon in his hand and had taken a big bite of soup. He left the spoon in his soup, reached for the sourdough, broke off a fist-sized section, then dipped it in the broth. So he liked his bread without butter. Not really the kind of information I had hoped to get out of him.

“About two weeks.”

Better.

I thought back on what had happened in the last two weeks and scooped broth in my mouth. Oh, good loves. It was perfect, salted and thickened with tomato and hints of basil and peppers. I wanted to lick the spoon, lick my fingers, then dive in face-first and lap up the entire bowl. Zayvion did not appear to be watching me. He was already through his first piece of sourdough and moving fast for a second.

I reached over for the bread, got there just before he did, and pulled the soft and warm center piece out of the loaf.

“Ha!” I held up the chunk of bread with the tips of my fingers. “Still warm.” I snatched up a foiled pat of butter and spread it over the bread with my finger.

He didn’t look concerned at my victory. “Only half a loaf left? I suppose we could split it. Oh, wait.” He took the remaining bread, dropped it in his soup, and smiled. “Maybe I’ll just eat your share.”

“What, no more Mr. Nice Guy?”

“Nobody gets between me and fresh sourdough.”

“Bread fetish?”

“How about less talking, more eating?” He didn’t wait for my reply before digging into his soup.

I took a bite of the buttered bread and then I didn’t care what Zayvion did so long as he didn’t get between me and the soup and bread. I put my spoon into action and devoured the soup. Hounding always makes me hungry—using any kind of magic usually makes me hungry—and I’d been cutting it pretty tight on grocery money lately. Actually, now that I thought about it, this was the first meal I’d had in the last month that wasn’t a cold sandwich, cold cereal, or cold microwaved pizza.

But even hungry, I kept an eye on the door, and the people who came in and out of the deli in a steady stream. I didn’t think my dad would go so far as to send the police to haul me in, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

The waitress came with our water, refilled our coffee, and dropped another basket of bread on the table.

“Thank you,” Zayvion said. I nodded my thanks. I would have said something, but my mouth was full of hot vegetables. I tore into the bread loaf, thought about keeping it all for myself, and knew I’d be sorry and probably asleep if I ate too much too quickly. I split the bread in two, handed half to Zayvion, and got busy buttering my portion.

“Why did my dad hire you?” I asked. “What did he want you to find out about me?”

Zayvion had finished his soup and sat back, coffee in his hand. I watched him change from a flirty sourdough aficionado into a calm, expressionless man. Interesting. So the Zen bit was his professional mode. It made me wonder what line of business—besides poker—required that strong a poker face.

I took the last chunk of bread and ran it around the inside of the bowl to get any bits of soup I’d missed, sopped up the broth at the bottom, then popped the bite in my mouth.

The deli was getting crowded, full of lunchgoers content to stand and eat if it meant dodging the rain. With the growing noise and heat, my head and body aches were coming back.

Zayvion sipped coffee and watched me with that cool expression. I planted my elbows on either side of my bowl and laced my fingers under my chin. “What?” I said, pitching my voice so he alone could hear me over the crowd. “No quick answers? Talk to me, Zayvion Jones.”

“About what? Weren’t you the one who was telling me business matters are confidential? How would breaking that confidence be good for my reputation?”

“You have a reputation?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I make a living.”

“Stalking?”

“Not much money in stalking.”

“So you’re what, a detective? An economic spy? Why would my father hire an economic spy?”

“The only reason your father had one of his men approach me was because I know the neighborhoods in North Portland and he knew you had done some Hounding jobs there.” He went back to staring out the window and drinking coffee.

He was lying. I could smell the sour tang of it on his skin. Plus, I knew my dad wouldn’t do anything, not in his personal life, not in his business life, not in any other part of his life, so haphazardly. He didn’t even choose his socks so casually.

Any sane woman would have cut her losses and called it a day. But it intrigued me that he would tell such an obvious lie, and then look away like he was sort of sorry when he did it. He didn’t strike me as a stupid man. As a matter of fact, I was sure the harmless-tramp bit was a ruse. He had to know I was familiar with my father’s fastidious attention to detail in all matters of business. So why lie?

“How many years have you been working for him?”

Zayvion did me the favor of eye contact. Then, quietly, “Four.”

That smelled closer to the truth. I nodded. “Just me?”

He shook his head.

“Gonna tell me who else you tailed?”

He took a drink of coffee. “Buy you dessert?”

Back to avoidance mode. “How sweet. Tell me about the hit on Boy.”

“What makes you think I know anything about Boy? You Hounded the hit. You tell me.” Those eyes were all brown and fool’s gold, and my stomach flipped.

Sweet loves, he was good-looking.

It would be so easy to put some Influence behind my questions and pry the truth out of him. Well, except I hurt, and was fatigued from using magic. I’d probably blow a vein if I tried to use any kind of magic, even the easy stuff that was most natural for me.

I rubbed my hand over my lips, which were still swollen.

“Listen,” I said, changing tactics. “I’m tired. I want to go home and get some sleep. I’m not going to be able to do that knowing that a five-year-old child is dying because my father decided to Offload magic on the poor kid. You’ve been following me around. If you’re any good at what you do, you know I think Mama is a decent human being. You know how I feel about Boy, and you probably even know exactly how I feel about my father and his business practices.”

“Everyone knows how you feel about your father and his business, Allie. Dropping out of college, publicly disowning any contact with him, then going into hiding for the last few years paints a pretty clear picture.”

Like I needed to be reminded of any of that. Still, it prickled. I just sat there, wondering how he could get under my skin so fast.

“So there’s no mystery about how much I hate my dad.” I smiled and told myself he didn’t know, could never know, what it was like growing up under my father’s Influence. There was a reason my mother changed her name and lived overseas, and hadn’t ever tried to contact me. There was a reason he’d married and divorced four times since then. People in my father’s life were commodities to be consumed and discarded. And I, his only child, was tired of being recyclable goods.

“Since you just quit your job and no longer work for Beckstrom Enterprises, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t tell me what you know about the hit. Why they did it and why Boy was the target.”

He frowned and looked down at his hands.

“Zayvion,” I said, “I don’t want the kid to die. I’d like to think you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t want a little kid to die either.”

“You Hounded the hit,” he said. “Are you sure it was your father’s signature?”

“Yes.”

He looked back up and there was a fierceness in his eyes. “Do you think it could have been a forgery? Or someone else’s signature? Something magically forged?”

“I know my father’s mark intimately.” End of discussion.

Zayvion glanced back out the window again, and I wondered if he were watching for someone, or maybe if he thought he was being watched by someone. Economics, my ass. This man was either a PI or an undercover cop.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I have no idea why your father would Offload illegally. It seems like there would be too high a risk that he would be found out. He’s a careful man.”

That was an understatement.

“You know him better than I do.” He looked back at me. “Why would your father do such a thing?”

And hearing someone else ask it brought a dozen answers to my mind. Maybe he knew I’d been nice to Mama and wanted to hurt me through her. Maybe Mama was indebted to him and had agreed to let him do it. Maybe he thought hurting the kid would get me storming into his office after seven years of avoiding him.

Maybe he’d done it for no reason at all.

I wanted to take the easy way and just believe my father was thoughtless in his cruelty, but I knew that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t have put a hit on Boy without weighing the risks and deciding the odds were on his side. And there was no way it could have been a random mistake—he was not that sloppy.

But what did he have to gain from Boy dying?

I shook my head, frustrated. “Do you think I’d be sitting here having lunch with you if I knew the answer to that?”

Zayvion’s expression went carefully blank. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose you would.”

I rubbed at my eyes and regretted it because they started to water. My head was pounding.

“Sorry. Don’t take it personally. I wasn’t kidding about having no social life. I’m a little rusty on the finer points of polite conversation. But tell me this: you weren’t going to really help me, were you? Because you’re still working for my father, right?” It was a hunch, but I was pretty sure I was right.

“I told you I quit.”

“You told me you quit tailing me for money. Didn’t say you quit working for Beckstrom Enterprises.”

A little bit of sadness, or maybe guilt, seeped through the cracks of his calm expression. “No, I didn’t.”

“That’s what I thought.” I stood. It took me some time and effort to put my coat back on without grimacing, but I did it.

Zayvion didn’t help me, which was smart since I would have smacked him if he touched me with so much as a single pinky. I should have known better than to like him. When people spent too much time around my father, they tended to get infected with his rotten morals and scruples. Too bad Zayvion hadn’t gotten out when he had the chance.

“You should go see a doctor, Allie,” he said softly.

“Is that you or my father talking?”

He just shook his head.

“Good-bye, Zayvion Jones.” I zipped my coat. “Thanks for lunch.”

I walked between the tables and made it out to the sidewalk, into the smell of smoke, oil, and wet, dirty concrete. People on their way to or from lunch moved around me, and I tried to decide if I could sweet-talk a cabbie into a ride home. I had zero money on me, zero money in my bank account, and my crappy apartment was miles away in Old Town.

Lovely.

I stood there, sore, hating the rain, hating my father, hating Portland. But mostly hating that someone who was nearly a stranger to me could make me like him so much in so short a time.

One thing I was clear about—I was a good Hound. One of the best. I knew how to do my job. And no soft-talking, mint-fingered Zen economist was going to convince me that I was wrong about that hit. My dad was behind it.

“Taxi!” Zayvion called out.

I hadn’t even heard him come up beside me. That man was quiet when he wanted to be. “Don’t bother,” I said. “I can find my own way home.”

Like magic, a cab appeared out of nowhere and pulled up to the curb.

Zayvion turned to face me. We stood almost eye to eye. I was tall but he still had an inch or so on me. “You might be a good Hound, Allie,” he said. “And you might have your dad figured out, but you got me all wrong.” He grabbed my wrist, turned my hand over, and pressed cab fare into my palm.

I should be angry. I should tell him to keep his money. I should pull away.

Instead, I took one step closer. I don’t know what I was thinking—okay, I did know what I was thinking—I liked him, was drawn to him, despite my reservations, like a magnet pulled to steel. A jolt of hot, electric pleasure sparked through my body as I pressed against his warm, strong chest, hip, thigh. The smell of his cologne and the musky male scent of him filled me. Warm waves of need rolled beneath my skin. I could not think. I did not want to think. And I did not want to let him go.

So I kissed him.

I think he was surprised. Frankly, I was a little surprised too. But I was not disappointed.

What I thought would be a quick kiss stretched out into a lingering moment of discovery. His lips were soft and thick, and I sucked at them gently, pleased when his mouth caught mine in an even deeper embrace. I bit, but not hard, and he answered by drawing the tip of his tongue so slowly along the bottom of my lip that I could feel the echo of it vibrate through every pore of my being.

More, I thought.

But he pulled back, pulled away, and suddenly the rain, the noise, the city, and the world returned.

“Be careful,” he whispered. He walked away, hands in his coat pockets, stocking-capped head bent against the falling rain. It took a blink, two, before he was swallowed by the crowd, hidden from my sight, gone. It took several more before I could think again.

The cabbie powered down the passenger-side window. “You want a ride, lady?”

I opened the back door and got in. “Fair Lead Apartments,” I said.

The cab pulled out into traffic, and no matter how hard I looked out the rain-fogged windows hoping to catch a glimpse of Zayvion, he was not there.