Magic to the Bone

Chapter Seven

The taxi came to a smooth stop.

“Here it is, miss. As far as I go.”

Seemed like I’d been hearing that a lot lately. I unlocked my arms from over my chest. I was wet. Cold. Wearing nothing but a thin sweater and jeans. What had I been thinking, throwing away my coat? Sure it would make it a little harder for Bonnie to spot me in a crowd, but if she tripped over me because I passed out from pneumonia, it was going to be a dead giveaway.

I dug in my pocket for cash, found a twenty. I knew I was overpaying him, but didn’t want to take the time to ask for change.

“Thanks.”

The driver took my money without ever looking away from the rearview mirror. “You gonna be okay?”

I nodded. “Got family down here. I’m good,” I lied. I got out of the car, and into the rain. The taxi was already driving away by the time I’d taken two steps.

I wasn’t kidding about the pneumonia thing. I felt all shaky and cold inside, and my head was stuffed and numb. Maybe I really was getting sick.

Maybe I grieved a death in the family by going catatonic. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

North Portland is no place to wander around while confused or injured. Why then, I wondered, had I been making a point of doing just that?

Because I had no one in my life I could trust. And the one sure thing—the hate-hate relationship between my father and me—was gone now too. I wanted to run from town and curl up in front of Nola’s fireplace so bad, it hurt. Instead, I kept my ears and nose open, and headed toward Mama’s place. She had a phone. I could call Nola. Call the police. And if not that, at least Mama had a gun.

A man strolled out from under the overhang of a half-plaster, half-brick bar, and made good time crossing the distance to me. The heavy odor of pine wafted through the rain. Zayvion.

He fell into step beside me, and I didn’t even look over at him. I didn’t know how he knew to find me, or that I’d be here right now, but I was glad.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I sniffed. “About what?”

“Your father.”

Silence.

“Allie, I don’t think it’s safe for you in the city right now. Do you have somewhere else you can be for a while?”

I stopped, turned to look at him. “You don’t think it’s safe? What do you know, Zayvion Jones? What do you know about my father, what do you know about me, what do you know about that bitch who’s trying to kill me?”

He tipped his head a little to the side. “Which bitch?”

“A whacked-out Hound named Bonnie who thinks it’s fun to mess with people who have just had family members die on them.” I was angry, frustrated. I wanted to scream. Wanted to hit someone. I wanted to cry. And if Zayvion knew stuff I didn’t—if he had an idea how my father died, or why Bonnie wanted me, I needed to know.

He shrugged off his coat—a dark blue ski-appropriate thing with ratty edges and cuffs—and held it out for me. “Why don’t we start by getting you warm.”

“I’d rather have answers.”

“Mmm.” He walked around behind me and I slid my arms into the coat while he held it for me. “You can have both.”

I shivered at the heat lingering in the fleecy interior. It smelled like Zayvion—like his strong pine cologne and the warm, male scent of sweat and soap. It was good, really good, to be so near him. I remembered our kiss, how surprising and right it had felt. He confused me. But not so much that I wanted him to leave me alone.

His coat fit well enough I could zip it and didn’t have to roll up the sleeves.

Zayvion stuck his hands in his jean pockets and somehow didn’t look cold in the rain. He still wore the black wool hat, and had on a sweater with a turtle-neck under it, so maybe he didn’t feel the biting cold of the morning like I did. Or maybe it wasn’t all that cold out.

Maybe I was in shock.

Nah.

“I heard about your dad’s death on the news this morning,” he said. “It’s on all the channels, the radio, the papers. I’ve been looking for you to make sure you’re okay.” He started walking toward Mama’s and I fell into step with him, because that’s where I was planning to go too.

“And you came here to tell me to get out of town?”

“I think it would be a good idea.”

“Do you know who hired Bonnie Sherman?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know who Bonnie is. The Hound you were talking about?”

“The Hound with a gun who likes the idea of me and dad meeting again real soon.” I tried to make it sound all tough-cop, but instead it just sounded like I was confused and a little hysterical.

Zay was silent a bit. Finally, “I don’t know anyone named Bonnie Sherman. But your dad made a lot of enemies over his long business career. A lot of people might want you dead. You are, after all, the heir to his business and fortune, unless he’s named Violet in his will.”

“Who?”

He gave me a sideways look. Realized I was not joking. “His wife.”

“Oh.” I’d stopped keeping track after wife number three. “So I could inherit a fortune. That’s not news. What else, Zayvion? Did Dad tell you something? About me? Something I should know?”

“He didn’t confide in me, Allie. I was just a guy he hired to tail you.”

“Just?”

“Just. But sure, I kept my eyes open when I was around him. Listened. He was a careful man. Didn’t let things slip, didn’t let his emotions show. It’s not like he ever sat with me over coffee to share secrets. He wasn’t that kind of guy.”

“No,” I said, “he wasn’t.”

We walked a little farther, and a truck passed by, the unmuffled engine loud and slow.

“I did wonder if something was happening in the company,” Zayvion said once the truck had passed. “Like maybe he was going to launch a new product?” He said the last as a question, as if I, of all people in the world, would know anything about what my father was doing.

“I hadn’t seen him in seven years.” It came out dead flat, and sounded sad, even to me. It sounded like I regretted it. Regretted my father was such an asshole I couldn’t love him no matter how much I wanted to.

I sniffed again and was really glad it was raining hard, ’cause when I wiped my face, I didn’t have to explain that the tears were from anger, not sorrow. Okay, maybe sorrow too, but at least I didn’t have to explain it.

My nose was getting all stuffy and snotty, and that wasn’t going to do me any favors, since I really needed to be able to smell if I was going to stay ahead of Bonnie. I swallowed hard and bit at the inside of my cheek and thought calming thoughts.

You’re a tough girl, Allie, I told myself. Suck it up. There will be time to cry later.

“Going to Mama’s?” Zayvion asked.

“Need to use her phone to call the cops,” I said.

“To report Bonnie?”

“Yes. And everything else. I figure just because I haven’t gotten a summons, it doesn’t mean they won’t want to know what I know about my dad’s death.”

Much better. No sniffling or sad, sobby words. Just calm, confident, practical choices. The Queen of Matter-of-Fact, that’s me.

“Hmm,” he said.

I looked over at him, but he didn’t say anything more.

I stopped walking. “Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with my father dying, Zayvion.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, like he was sort of expecting me to say something like that. I watched him very closely, looking for any hint of falsehood, in his words, his voice, his body, his scent.

He reached out and caught my hand, and held it while he looked me straight in the eye. The need to draw nearer to him, to feel the pressure of him against me was overwhelming. So much so that I wondered if there were more than just attraction here—if maybe there were something magical going on between us. I couldn’t sense a spell, or Influence of any kind from him. But I ached to be closer to him. I stood my ground, a little worried. It wasn’t like me to trust so quickly.

“I didn’t kill him.” He paused and I knew, as strong as blood magic Truth, that he was not lying to me. “I don’t know who did yet. When I find out, I’ll tell you.”

He did not step back, did not let go of my hand, and the contact, of another human being, of flesh and heat and comfort, was enough to bring the tight, tearful feeling back in my chest.

I knew I should pull away, but I didn’t want to.

“You were with him after I left,” I said, so softly it was almost a whisper.

“I know. And I’m sorry.”

My heart beat so hard I thought maybe he could hear it. “Me too,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if I was sorry I’d accused him, or sorry my father was dead.

Gone.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. “So you don’t think it was just a heart attack?”

“No. They would have mentioned that in the paper.”

“Do you think magic was involved?”

He looked down at his shoe, but still held my hand. “Maybe. How much do you really know about your father’s business? His past?”

“Not much. When I was a kid, I didn’t pay any attention to those things. Then when I was older . . . well, he never sat down with me over coffee to share secrets either.”

Zayvion’s eyes were soft with compassion. Neither of us said any more. I guess we didn’t have to. He squeezed my hand one more time and then let go. The sudden absence of him was cold and sharp. I didn’t want him to go—to go away too.

Wow. I was a mess. But a thought occurred to me.

“Don’t you have a cell phone?”

Zay shook his head.

“But I thought you called that ambulance for Boy.”

“I did. From the bar down the street.”

I stuffed my hand in Zayvion’s coat pocket. “You have something against cell phones?”

“No. They just break when I use them.”

I walked up the two wooden stairs to Mama’s restaurant. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Break?”

“Must be my magnetic personality.” He smiled, and I knew it was an act.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“What?”

“Lie like that.”

Zayvion held very still. He looked surprised, then thoughtful. “I’m sorry,” he said, and that I knew he really meant. The calm Zay, the Zen-Zay came back.

“I don’t care why you don’t have a cell,” I said. “I don’t have one either.”

“Why is that?”

“Can’t afford the bill.” Huh. That sounded kind of weird coming from a woman who was about to inherit a fortune. I needed to change the subject before my mind went running down a thousand different what-ifs again. “You’re not following me around, are you?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Now I am. You have my coat.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled open the door to Mama’s.

Boy was behind the counter, and I got to thinking that, except for really early this morning, I’d never seen him away from his post. This time he wasn’t drying cups, he was reading a paper.

Great.

The thick smell of onions and olive oil and garlic got through my stuffy nose and did some work clearing my sinuses.

I walked into the restaurant, noted two men at a table to my right, and a woman—not Bonnie—at a table to my left. They didn’t glance my way as I walked in, so I didn’t spend any more time looking at them.

Boy looked up though. Looked up, and looked shocked.

The question was, why? Because I was walking in, or because Zayvion was walking in behind me?

“Morning, Boy,” Zayvion said. “I’ll have a coffee. Two?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “I just need to use the phone. Is that okay?”

Boy scowled at Zayvion and didn’t answer.

I was at the counter now, in front and to one side of Boy so I had a good view of half the room. Zayvion was directly in front of Boy, holding out a dollar like he was daring Boy to take it and get the coffee he hadn’t bothered to pour yet. Something was wrong. Boy smelled like fear, and his breathing was a little too fast.

“Where’s Mama?” I asked more quietly.

Mama came out of the kitchen, right on cue. If I didn’t know how much she hated technology of every kind, I’d say there was a hidden surveillance system set up. She looked like she was in a rush, her hair pulling free from a clip, her apron stained with flour and grease.

“I told you to go away,” Mama said as she hurried behind Boy. She pointed at me. “You. Out.” Then she pointed at Zayvion. “And you. Out. Out of Mama’s restaurant.”

She was breathing too hard too. She looked worried, maybe afraid. I’d never seen her afraid. Not even when Boy lay dying on her countertop.

“I just need to use your phone,” I said. “I can pay.”

“No.”

I leaned forward, lowered my voice so the patrons wouldn’t hear. “I need to call the police, Mama. Someone’s trying to kill me.”

She pulled herself up, put on a regal poise. “You leave. Now.”

“Why?” I seemed to be asking a lot of that lately. “I just need to make one phone call.”

“No public phone.” She pointed at the door behind me.

I glanced over at Zayvion. He had put the dollar away, which was probably smart because Boy didn’t look like he was pouring coffee for maybe the next century or so. He had gone back to reading the paper and glancing off toward the stairs at the back of the room.

“Are you in trouble?” I asked Mama.

She scowled.

And then the other Boy, James, Mr. City Slick, Mr. Magic-and-Danger-in-the-Night, Mr. Reptile, slunk out of the door from the stairwell.

A couple of things happened at once. Boy stiffened. Mama’s mouth dropped open, then snapped closed. Zayvion became so quiet and calm he might as well be a potted plant. James-the-slimy paused, licked his lips, and stared straight at me with a look of sheer terror, then a gleefulness that was frightening. I know ’cause I was staring right back at him and wishing, right that moment, that I was maybe anywhere else.

“Hello there,” James practically purred. “How nice of you to come back again. May we help you?”

Mama was quick on her feet. She glanced up at me, her eyes too wide. Then she turned on James like a five-foot hurricane.

“They leave. They leave now. You go do dishes. Dishes!”

James crossed the room, a static smile on his face. “Of course, Mama. I was making sure our guests—” Here he looked from me to Zayvion. And a strange thing happened. His smile drained away and his face became blank, then worried.

“Yes?” Zayvion prompted. “Your guests?”

“Of course, guests,” James picked up smoothly. “That our guests wouldn’t perhaps like a table? Some breakfast?”

“No,” Zayvion said. “We didn’t come here for the food.”

I knew the dynamics had just suddenly shifted. James was on the defensive instead of the prowl, and Zayvion was looking more like a man who had authority, maybe even power, instead of a homeless drifter.

Sweet hells, I was going to need a scorecard to keep up with this man.

James, however, seemed to know Zayvion, seemed to know Zayvion had the upper hand, and didn’t like it. “Why else come by our fine establishment if not for Mama’s cooking?” James asked.

“We’re here to use the phone.”

James shook his head. “It’s not working today. Mama forgot to pay the bill.”

I knew it was a load of crap. Zayvion probably knew that too, but the thing I couldn’t figure out was what these two were really talking about. I got the feeling they were squaring off against each other over old grudges.

For all I knew it could be a drug deal that had gone wrong.

Lovely.

All I wanted was to call the police. And if I couldn’t do that here, I needed to be moving, moving on before Bonnie and her gun caught up with me.

James took a step toward me. “I would be happy to help you, maybe drive you somewhere?”

From the corner of my eye I could see Zayvion stiffen, and that sense of authority he emanated became one of danger.

Oh, there was no way I was going to get in the middle of this—whatever this was.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I got it covered.” I turned and started walking toward the door. I glanced at Zayvion, but he did not move to follow me, which was weird.

James laughed. “You don’t have to run away, Beckstrom,” he called. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

He started after me but Zayvion stepped in front of him.

“You know what?” Zayvion said in his calm, slow, Zen-like voice. “I changed my mind. I think I would like a cup of coffee. Be a pal and get it for me.”

I kept on walking toward the door. I knew the beginning of a fight when I saw one. I already had a woman out to kill me. I didn’t need to add two crazy men to the parade.

“You scared off your girlfriend, Jones,” James said.

“She’s fine,” I heard Zayvion say as I stepped through the doors. “She’s just fine.”

I pushed through the door into the cold and rain, and got walking. I was not his girlfriend, or at least I didn’t think I was. Still, Zayvion was buying me some time. It stung that Mama had turned me away when I told her I was in trouble, but Zayvion was right. I was just fine on my own. Better than fine. The best.

The bars along the street were all closed, and every time a car crawled down the street I expected Bonnie to jump out and shoot me.

My need to find a phone was strong, but the need to not get shot or kidnapped while finding said phone was even stronger. My heart beat so fast I couldn’t think straight.

My dad was dead. And someone had killed him.

A truck roared by and I almost screamed. Okay, I was losing it.

I hustled down the next alley and leaned against crumbling stucco. The tears I was holding back were mixing with panic. It was getting hard to breathe around all that. I pressed my hands over my face and bent down, trying to hold myself together.

Don’t fall apart, don’t fall apart.

I sucked in air around the sob in my throat, and did it again until I could do it silently. I just needed a little time to think. I hadn’t been doing enough of that lately and I was making stupid mistakes.

To sum up, I had some problems. One of which was a Hound on my trail. If she were any good, and I had to assume she still was, despite the painkillers, she’d already be sniffing out North Portland.

There weren’t a lot of ways to throw a Hound off your trail. One way was to not cast magic so there was no signature to follow. So far, so good on that. Other than the snap of light in front of her face, I’d stayed clear of magic use. The other way was to physically mask your smell. But you needed something really strong and natural to the area to work effectively, to help you fade like an invisible woman into the surrounding woodwork. What around here could mask my olfactory identity?

The wind changed, and I got a strong whiff of the sewage treatment plant and the stink of the river.

Great. Rotten fish, garbage, and sewage. I was such a lucky girl. But I couldn’t handle being on the street right now. I felt too exposed. I needed to hide my scent, then find a phone.

I followed the alley to another street, one that paralleled the river, and jogged along it, heading toward the gothic spires of the St. John’s Bridge and Cathedral Park nestled along its feet.

There had to be a way down to the water from here. This was one of the older parts of town, and the river was still used for shipping and other industrial things. I shivered, even though I was starting to sweat, and flipped up the hood on Zayvion’s jacket. I took the next street that led down toward the river. I felt ridiculously exposed walking alongside warehouses and rusted chain-link fences and empty gravel lots. But I didn’t see anyone following me. Cars drove past, tires hissing against the wet street, and I kept my head low, hidden by my hood. Bonnie could be in one of those cars. Bonnie and her gun.

I hurried.

Finally, I saw the shieldlike concrete bases of the St. John’s Bridge marching down to the river’s edge, green metal cables connecting the spires of the suspension bridge to the earth. I headed to the parking lot, and quickly toward the sparse shelter of bare-branched trees that lined the river. The river smells would be down there, past the grassy field, past the meandering concrete walkways and park benches, behind the screen of brambles and trees. I didn’t know if there was a real footpath to the shore, and even if there was, didn’t want to take time looking for it.

I jogged along the concrete path, parallel to the river. The brambles thinned out here, not exactly an opening, but maybe a way down.

A car pulled into the parking lot behind me, cruising along the edge, low engine idling, headlights flickering against the rain.

Shit.

I pushed through the wet brush and picked my way down the tumble of rough rocks to the narrow sand-and-gravel shore.

Holy hells, it stank of garbage and raw sewage. I covered my nose and mouth, trying not to gag.

Even though it had been raining, the Willamette River was still low. The shore was covered in garbage and punctured by the remnants of old docks, or maybe piers. Wooden spikes as big around as me speared up through the sand and gravel, catching and holding piles of filth. Half-buried concrete pilings tipped in drunken angles like forgotten headstones. The hiss and snap of the river’s small waves blended with the clattering noise of rain, but didn’t mask the drone of traffic crossing the bridge twenty stories above me.

Across the river I could make out the lights of warehouses, cranes, and silos all set against the evergreen hills. There were more industrial areas on this side of the river too, but they were up a ways toward where the Columbia met with the Willamette.

The twin red lights on the railroad bridge marked the boundary between the rest of the city and this neighborhood. If I followed the edge of the shore I could come up somewhere deeper in the city without traveling by road. That would get me into town without being seen or scented, and from there, so long as Bonnie wasn’t on my heels, I’d find someplace to call the cops and lie low until a patrol car came to get me.

I moved as quickly as I could over the rocks and slime and slippery chunks of trash. It looked like the entire neighborhood kept its garbage bill down by dumping here. Seagulls and crows picked through it, screeching and scrabbling. Most of the trash had fallen close to the land, but broken bags of refuse lay like a putrid avalanche, strewn from the brushy edge of the cliff down to the lapping water.

All the better for Bonnie not to smell me, I reminded myself. My shoes and jeans were covered by a wet slime that stank like the bottom of a hospital’s Dumpster. I worked my way up a little closer to the cliff, hoping to stay out of sight and a little drier. It also meant getting cozy with the garbage, but I was all for stinking if it meant staying unshot.

The rocks got bigger here, and so did the stumps of old trees and mounds of garbage. This did not bode well for easy or quick footing.

I clambered along as quickly as I could, glancing frequently toward the railroad bridge to gauge my progress.

A pile of garbage to my left rustled and something small skittered out from it.

Probably a rat.

Neat.

I took another step, keeping my eye out for the rat, and saw instead a small, gray kitten nuzzling the hand of a dead man.

Good loves. Could this day get any better?

I am not a cat person. Not that I hate cats or anything. It’s just that I have not been around them much, as my father never allowed pets in my life. I developed a sort of cautious distance from all things four-footed. Especially cats, with their curiously intelligent eyes and sleek, unpredictable motions.

But this little guy was hardly moving and his eyes were closed. He mewed, a tiny, pitiful sound. What was I supposed to do? Leave the poor thing there? Even if all I did was drop him off at a shop or on the street as I ran through town, he might have a better chance of surviving. Maybe someone at the police department could get him to a shelter or something. He was so small; if I left him here, a seagull would eat him for lunch.

Of course, there was the complication of the dead body next to him, and if there was one category I needed less of right now, it was “ten interesting things I don’t want to tell the cops about,” dead bodies being right up there at the top of the list.

Move on, Allie, I thought. Can’t save every little thing in the world.

I took another step and the wind changed, lifting the sulfur and rotten garlic smell of a magical Offload from the mess at my feet. The kitten? Who would use a kitten as a Proxy? Maybe the dead joker next to him.

This was so none of my business.

While I am not a cat person, I am even less a dead-body person. But it’s not like I hadn’t ever been to a funeral before. I could handle seeing dead people. I didn’t much like touching them, but in order to get the kitten out from under his arm, and maybe then to a shelter, or at least away from the dead jerk, I had to move the dead arm.

I took a deeper breath and bent down. I plucked at the dead jerk’s sleeve and tried lifting the arm, which was heavier than I’d expected. Deadweight. Ha.

Not funny.

I couldn’t get good enough leverage, so I took hold of the jerk’s wrist.

Warm wrist. Supple wrist. Alive wrist.

Quite clearly alive, or at least I sure as hell hoped so, because he moaned.

The kitten mewed and I yelped, which, I suppose, was better than the scream I’d felt like belting out.

Hells. Double hells. A dying person was a lot more of a problem than a dead one. I glanced back down the beach. A wall of gray rain blocked my view. I looked up the shore, and got the same—rain.

I wiped my face with the hand that hadn’t touched the not-dead guy and bent over again to get a closer look.

He was lying on his stomach and just half of his face was visible. He looked younger than me, and had narrow features leaning toward delicate. He reminded me of a boy who played violin down the street from me when I was ten. His skin was the color of fog and rain, and his lips were blue. Not dead yet, but not much alive either, I decided.

Thinking about back and neck injuries, and the inadvisability of moving someone who was hurt, I gently pushed him over onto his back anyway.

Thin. Malnourished, and bleeding from somewhere under his shirt.

I tugged his sweatshirt up, and hissed at the gash in his chest.

Someone had gone all stab-happy on him, and recently. The wound oozed a little, but wasn’t gushing, which didn’t make sense until I placed my finger at the edge of one of the puncture marks.

Magic.

I could feel it, a slight, warm tingle like I’d just stuck my tongue on a battery. There was magic sealing this wound. I glanced at his face—still unconscious—then leaned down close and sniffed his blood.

Magic had created the wound, and magic had sealed it, perhaps keeping it from killing him. I’d never seen someone use magic like that before, though I supposed doctors might during surgeries. It was a beautiful, simple glyphing, and I wanted to trace it with my fingers and see just what kind of glyph could hold a man’s soul to his bones, but if I did I would have to draw upon magic and Hound him.

Sure, I wanted to know who had felt the need to stab him with a knife and magic several times. I wanted to know if the person who hurt him and the person who sealed the wound were one and the same.

But now was not the time. Any draw I made on magic would light me up like a neon “get me” sign, and I needed that as much as I needed an almost-dead guy and a kitten.

I pulled his shirt back down and considered finding a safer, warmer place for him to rest while I found the cops. I stood and looked around. I thought I’d passed a makeshift tarp strung between rusted shopping carts a minute ago.

“Please don’t leave me,” he said.

The sound of his voice, high, frightened, gave me the instant creeps and sent shivers down my spine.

His eyes, blue as a summer afternoon, were open.

“Please,” he said. “I need you.” He swallowed. “You and the powerful man. The dead man. I know how. I was there.”

The chills just kept coming.

Okay, sure, it might be incoherent babbling. It might be some sort of elaborate trap, though I couldn’t believe anyone would go through staging an almost death here on garbage shore just on the off chance I’d dodge by on my way to the cops. No one needed me dead that much.

So if it wasn’t incoherent babbling, then maybe the guy knew something. If not about my dad’s death, about someone’s death. Maybe someone who was willing to stab him and dump him down here to get rid of him.

It could have been a gun deal gone bad, a drug deal, a fight over a girl, a fight over a boy, hell, he could have been fighting with a girlfriend over who got to keep the cat. Whatever had happened to him, it was none of my business. I wasn’t a cop, wasn’t a doctor, wasn’t anybody who was in any kind of position to help him.

“You stay here and rest,” I said. “I’ll try to get you some help.” I started unzipping Zayvion’s coat, figuring I could at least give him some shelter from the rain while I called the cops and probably the hospital now too.

“No,” he said, his voice lower and somehow older. “Your father, Bed—Beckstrom. I was there when he died. I was you. I did—” He ran out of breath and worked hard—too hard—to pull air into his lungs.

Holy shit.

“What? What’s your name?” I asked him.

When he could talk, when he could breathe, his voice was high again, scared. It was eerie, like maybe I was suddenly talking to someone else behind those baby blues. “Cody. Cody Hand,” he said. “And Kitten. Please? Take us. Away.”

Take him away? Not likely. Haul his pretty blue eyes down to the cops? No problem.

“This is going to hurt,” I said.

“Okay,” he said in a small, childlike voice.

I bent and pulled his arm up over my shoulder and heaved back, getting him to his feet. He moaned and whimpered and breathed in loud, raspy gasps. I gave him a minute to get ready for the fun ahead.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Kitten,” he said. “Don’t leave her.”

Hells.

I half bent and held out the one hand I sort of had free. Luckily, the kitten was either too tired or too sick to back away. I picked her up and stuffed the poor thing down the front of my zipped jacket. If she fell out, there was no way I could go back for her. The kid might be slight of build and short—his head barely came up to my shoulder—but his legs weren’t working too well, his lungs weren’t working too well, and I figured his eyes weren’t working well either.

Still, we hobbled along. I took us closer to the water because trying to pick our way over the slime of garbage and shin-bruising rocks wasn’t doing us any favors.

So I was out in the open with a mostly dead guy on my shoulder and a cat stuffed down my bra.

Living the good life, oh yeah.

It took some time to get anywhere. The kid blacked out once or twice, and I had to wait until he came to before moving on again. The good thing was I didn’t see Bonnie, didn’t hear Bonnie, didn’t smell Bonnie. The bad thing was the rain never let up and the cat peed on my shirt.

I’d wanted olfactory disguise; I’d gotten olfactory disguise. I smelled like garbage, cat piss, and somebody else’s blood. Couldn’t have asked for a better cover. A nicer one, yes. But better? Not in a river full of sewage. And I was pretty sure that not even Bonnie would be looking for two people stumbling along the shore like a couple of drunk hobos. She was looking for sporty-me, rich-girl me, long-coat-and-running-shoes me. Not wet, smelly, old-ski-coat-and-half-dead-guy me.

Things were looking up.

Except I was freezing, sweating, worried, stinking, and tired. Hells, I was tired. If even one of the mattresses scattered across the rocks didn’t look like a whorehouse reject, I would have taken some time to sit, lie back, rest. Dead guy, cat pee, or no.

It occurred to me, however, that I hadn’t a clear idea of where the shore went exactly. My theory was to follow it away from certain death and toward the police in shining armor. But as for how long that might take in reality, in crappy weather with a half-dead guy at my side, nope. Not a clue.

I was pretty sure the kid wasn’t going to hold up much longer. He blacked out more than he stayed conscious, and I spent as much time dragging him as shaking him to wake up. I scanned the shoreline looking for another decent tumble of rocks to climb (shudder) or maybe, (please, please, please) a road or alley that wound up to the streets above.

So when a slope of cliff to my left made mostly of flat-topped boulders appeared, I shook the kid awake again and headed toward land.

It was not easy dragging him up the boulders along the embankment, but I managed without doing much more damage to either of us. The going got easier once we got to the top. A narrow gravel road wended away from the river, blackberries and other brambles crowding it on both sides. I could hear cars and buses growling somewhere ahead of us. The constant cry of gulls faded as the road took a bend, leaving the river to the right of us and the rest of civilization somewhere to the left.

Even though I was breathing hard, and the kid wasn’t breathing nearly hard enough, I could smell the oil and dirt of the city, the salt and hickory of hot dogs getting the grill, the pineapple and smoke of chicken and teriyaki.

I could smell something else too—the copper and lye of magic being cast, spoken, chanted, channeled, used, like a blanket that smothered the city, every crack, every brick. There wasn’t a building or person in the city that wasn’t touched, coated, and shaped by the force of magic. It was in our soil, in our air, and in our blood. We breathed it, we ate it, we used it. And even though it used us back, we wanted more.

In my opinion, the fine line between advancement and addiction had been crossed years ago.

I was close to the edge of the city. Close to the train track that divided North from the rest of Portland. Close to magic.

The wind changed directions again, and I caught the black-pepper smell of lavender. Bonnie. Or another woman who smelled a lot like her. And since I couldn’t draw on magic to investigate the nuances of that smell, I had to assume it was probably Bonnie coming to shoot me.

I stopped trudging along and wondered how much I smelled like me. Maybe I smelled enough like garbage, cat pee, and blood to hide in plain sight. Maybe she wouldn’t expect me to be dragging an injured boy along with me.

There had to be something smart I could do. But the only thing that came to mind was getting myself and this kid to a hospital or police station quick. Quick meant car or cab on the other side of the railroad tracks. Quick also meant walking straight over the top of Bonnie if she tried to get between me and a reliable set of wheels.

We were at the end of the line here—the brambles stopped, and a clear and open road continued between some warehouses and into a mix of small businesses and apartments.

I shook the kid. “Hey. Cody. Come on, kid. We gotta get going.”

His head lolled to one side, and I shook him one more time, shifting his weight from where I held him propped by one arm over my shoulders, and my other arm around his waist, thumb tucked tight in his belt loop.

He exhaled, and I swear it rattled like he had just blown bubbles in a cup of milk.

Shit. Maybe he was worse off than I thought.

I lowered him as gently as I could and went down on my knees beside him, taking a hard look at his face. Oh, not good. Not good at all. He was white heading toward a horrible pale blue. His eyes rolled into his head and his eyelids flickered. He jerked spastically, his limbs moving like a puppet’s on a string.

“Hey now, you’re going to be okay. Hang in there, guy.” I pulled off Zayvion’s coat. The kitten dropped off my shirt and did not land on her feet, but rather pitifully tumbled onto her side, on top of the kid, and then fell down next to his arm. I tucked my coat over his chest.

What were the emergency things you were supposed to do when someone was dying? A hundred scenes from movies and TV shows flashed through my mind, most of them involving someone beating on a prone person’s chest and screaming at them not to give up.

Old information from high school came back to me, and I pulled off my sweater, leaving me in a tank top, and balled the sweater under his head. I didn’t have anything to wedge between his teeth to keep him from biting his tongue, and I debated the wisdom of that, anyway. He looked like he needed all the room he could get just to breathe.

I put both hands on his chest and tried to press his body down gently, tried to still the spasms racking through him.

What the hell was I was doing trying to dodge a Hound, get to the cops, and take someone to a hospital all on my own?

What choice did I have? My father was dead and this kid might know who did it. Might know who I could make pay for killing the man I wanted dead and somehow couldn’t handle living without.

I wanted to scream, but Bonnie was still out there. If she heard me, she would find me and shoot me. It was enough to make a girl paranoid. Or furious.

I decided to go with furious.

But unless I wanted to pull on magic, there wasn’t anything else I could do. It wasn’t like I could turn bullets if someone pulled a trigger.

This would all be a hella different if I had a damn cell phone.

Or if my father hadn’t died.

Or if I had taken his advice and finished school and gone to work for him.

Or if this kid and his cat hadn’t gotten stabbed.

“P-please,” the kid rasped.

I about jumped out of my jeans. I thought he was way past being able to talk.

“I’m right here, kiddo. Hang in there, you’re going to be okay.”

“H-hand,” he said.

I didn’t know what he wanted, but took both of his hands in my own.

“M-magic.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t. Sure the magic was close enough, maybe a couple blocks away at most. But I couldn’t draw on the magic to do so much as add pressure to his wound or make the air he breathed richer in oxygen because Bonnie would spot me. And I certainly didn’t have enough medical experience to save him, with my hands or with any of the spells that could ease pain at an exorbitant cost to the caster. If I drew on magic at all, I was screwed. I could smell Bonnie and the reek of lavender getting stronger by the minute.

“P-please?”

Hell. Screw Bonnie. If she was so determined to kill me, she’d just have to get in line and wait her turn. This kid didn’t have any time left.

I took a calming breath, even though I was freezing and soaked through my tank top and really freaked out. I set a Disbursement spell, deciding, even though I didn’t like it, I should take a long and slow pain this time so I could remain functional—maybe something along the lines of a bad sore throat or a recurring stomachache over the next couple weeks. I held tightly to the kid’s hands and thought about the soil beneath us, and below the soil, beyond the train tracks, to the magic pooled there deep under the city, caught and held by ironworked conduits.

I spoke a mantra, a jingle from a cereal commercial, and called for the magic to come over to this side of the tracks, coaxed the magic, invited the magic into my body and into my hands.

To my surprise, the kid managed to pull my hands, still clasped with his, down upon his stomach, over his wounds.

Kneeling next to him, I was close enough to see his eyes, blue, unfocused, looking at me, or maybe through me, close enough to see his lips and see that he, too, was chanting.

Holy hells. Soft as a whisper or the brush of a butterfly’s wing, the kid reached out for the magic I drew upon, and used me like a channel, like an ironworked conduit. He pulled the magic he wanted through me, not through the ground or through the channels. That shouldn’t be possible. People were not conduits of magic. Magic killed the people who held it inside their body for any length of time. Magic could only be channeled by lead, glass, iron, and glyphs.

And, apparently, me.

Like a breeze stoking a flame, the small magic I carried within me flared to life and the magic the kid drew upon mixed with it. I filled with magic, more magic than I’d ever held before. Like an artist mixing paint beneath my skin, the kid guided the magic to blend and move, connecting the magic beneath the city to my flesh, to my bones.

This couldn’t be good.

But it felt good, very good. Magic shifted and changed in me, and I realized my eyes were closed. Instead of darkness, I saw lines of magic that pulsed in jeweled colors, connected in contrasts of sharp angles, and softened like a watercolor. I could suddenly see so many possibilities in magic, so many things I could use it for. Things I’d never thought of. Like a balm to soothe pain, or a thread to stitch flesh.

“Oh,” I whispered. I didn’t know it could be so easy to heal someone with magic.

But I did now. I used one hand and drew a glyph for health—the sort of thing that might reduce the effects of a head cold, or revive a wilted plant. I could see how the glyph would fit around the kid, and how it would sink inside him, like a tattoo of color and magic on his bones. It would stay there too, supporting him, healing him. I worked the magic inside of me out into the glyph and then directed the glyph down over his body—inking it above him from his skull to his toe, magic that urged healing, health, life.

I’d never seen anyone use magic like this before. I’d never seen anyone try. But I could do it. Of course I could do it.

So I did.

Magic spooled out of me and into the glyph. I let go of the kid’s other hand so I could catch the power and guide it, weaving and bending the force of it like ribbons of light, of heat, some rough, some slick and smooth, all fast, faster, falling out of me and into the glyph, then over him, then into him, wrapping around his bones, webbing through his muscles, arcing across his tendons.

Heal, I thought. And the magic soaked through him, filled up his wounds, and followed my will, my intent, my glyph, my spell.

The boy gasped, and part of me wondered if this might kill him, and whether it might kill me too since I’d never channeled so much magic before, and sure as hells had never tried to play interior tattoo artist with it. But if I stopped, or worse, if I freaked out, I wasn’t sure what the magic would do. Would it stop, collapse, explode? I was pretty sure it would do more damage to him than it was doing now.

I worked on creating an end to the spell. But magic rushed through me like a river raging free of its banks. I didn’t know how to cut the ties of magic between me and the ground, or me and the kid. How did you stop something you didn’t know how to do in the first place?

I didn’t want to disengage too quickly, in case the wild rush of magic lashed back on the kid and left nothing but a burned and charred mess. But I had to let go soon. My ears were ringing and the sheer force of channeling so much magic had gone from feeling good to making me dizzy. I couldn’t feel the wind anymore, couldn’t feel the rain, couldn’t smell the garbage.

This was bad.

I tried tying the strands of magic into knots, to stem the flood, but magic still rushed up through the ground, into me, then out of me into the kid, and then completed the circle by exiting him and wrapping around my hands again. My fingers were getting full, stiff with magic that tangled and wrapped and constricted.

Clearly, I sucked at this. That was no surprise since I had no friggin’ idea what I was doing. Knots unraveled, twisted, tangled. I caught at strands of magic and wound them around my fingers, through my fingers, to try to hold them all. But no matter how fast I spooled up the magic, it came faster, rushing up through the soil, through me, into the kid, healing, painting muscle, bone, sinew, his and mine, and then back out through him to wrap around my hands again.

I was about to be in a world of hurt. I could not control this much magic. The magic pouring out of me and the magic pouring out of him collided in my hands, tangled, and burned. I jerked away from the kid, rocking back on my butt, but I wasn’t fast enough. Magic crackled, hot, bright. It burned up my right arm like fire in my skin following lines of gunpowder.

I held my right arm away from me and turned my head away from the heat and pain coming closer to my face. Heat licked across my jaw, up my ear, and arced across my temple. I yelled, “Stop, stop, stop!”

A wild thought of stop, drop, and roll before my hair caught on fire flashed through my mind. I flung myself to the side, not caring that wet gravel and blackberries were the best landing I could hope for.

But before I hit the gravel, I hit a very solid chest. A set of arms closed around me and held me tight, my burning arm tucked between them and me, the heat of the fire lessening, cooling, leaving not heat, but pain behind.

I couldn’t tell who held me, couldn’t smell who held me—as a matter of fact, I couldn’t smell anything. I freaked out about that, then freaked out when I realized I also could not see.

Well, not completely true. I could see something. Everything was really, really white, like someone had just dumped a mountain of snow all around me, or set off a bomb. As a matter of fact, I felt cold and numb, like I was buried in snow, which annoyed me. I’d thought a little bit about how I wanted to die, and freezing to death in an avalanche wasn’t even on my top-ten-favorite-ways-to-bite-it list.

Ten involved chocolate and sex. Not one in one hundred involved snow.

And I seemed to remember that I was not in the mountains surrounded by snow, but in the city surrounded by rain. With the kid. Doing magic.

My brain turned over like a cold engine, gave up, and went blank. Then I tried to think again. I was doing magic. Wasn’t I trying to avoid magic? Why was that?

“Allie?” A man’s voice spoke through the white and I tried to answer, but couldn’t feel my lips or tongue.

But the man’s voice had punched a hole through the whiteness so I could hear again. Sounds of a city. Sounds of a man breathing hard, like he’d been running. Sounds of rain falling against concrete.

I knew these things should smell like something too, and hoped I might smell the man who was speaking and get a clue of who was with me, but all I smelled was a sort of germ-free disinfectant odor that masked everything.

This was beginning to worry me. I tried to move my hands, tried to blink my eyes, tried to focus.

“Don’t fight me, Allie. It’s hard enough as it is. Relax.”

And that last word brought back to me the owner of the voice. Zayvion.

Color me equal parts amazed and confused. I did not remember being with him. But I had been with a man. A boy. The kid. Cody. I wondered if he was buried in the snow too.

Like a industrial flamethrower in the blizzard of my brain, the memory of Cody and the magic I had used on him burned through my semiconscious mind. I had, or he had, done a substantive draw on magic. I had tried to use it to heal him while a Hound was tracking me. Wasn’t that clever of me?

I had to tell Zayvion. He should know a crazy blonde with a gun was headed this way.

“Bon—” And that was all that came out. After that single syllable, my mouth stopped working and I felt like an explosion, or thunderclap, or something loud and nasty had gone off just inches away from my face. That loud nasty sound drenched me in the prickly cool of mint. I could suddenly feel my body again, smell again, see again, think again, and what I thought was that everything hurt.

“Can you stand?” Zayvion asked.

Oh, hells no. With prompting, and some support, I might be able to puke.

I blinked until I could make out his face above me and gave him the dirtiest glare I could muster.

Zayvion scowled. Then he looked up, away from me, and the muscle where his jaw and ear met tensed and his nostrils flared, like he was scenting the wind.

Yes, I was hurting. Yes, I felt sicker than the worst hangover I’d ever had. That didn’t keep me from appreciating the fact that Zay was stepping in to help me, and the kid with me, probably at great risk to himself. Plus I couldn’t help but notice that Zayvion was a good-looking man. If I’d been up to it, I might even have licked the edge of that jaw to see if he tasted like mint, or what he would do if I bit his ear.

“We have to go, Allie.” He looked back down at me. His eyes were brown and warm and understanding. They were also flecked with gold, like back at the diner when he’d Grounded me. I had never seen anyone’s eyes look like that, and wondered if it was magic or me that caused it.

I wanted to tell him not to worry. We’d make this work out somehow. I had a good feeling about us.

Had I just said that out loud?

Zayvion’s eyebrows notched upward and he lost the serious Zen look. “I do too,” he said quietly. “But tell me about that later. We have company.”

He pressed his fingers into the back of my neck and the minty feel of his touch rolled down my body in ever-warming waves until I could really and honest-to-goodness feel myself again.

“Mmm,” I said. I felt a hundred times better. What was it with those hands of his? “Better,” I said. I stretched and yawned.

Zayvion was back in scowling mode, unimpressed by my appreciation. “Now, Allie. Hounds.”

Okay, that got through my amazing stupidness. Hounds. Bonnie-with-a-gun. With Zayvion’s help, I sat away from him.

“We can’t leave him,” I said. It came out kind of slurred, but Zayvion nodded.

“Fine. My car’s over here. Come on.” He stood, helped me stand, something I needed and wasn’t proud of, then more or less supported me to his car. I noticed he was limping a bit and was sure I could feel bruises forming beneath his skin on his arms, stomach, and back. If I could draw magic and paint it through the kid’s bones, think of what I could do for a few bruises on a guy I really liked. One little lick of magic should take the sting out of what ailed him. I whispered a poem and told magic to run down Zay’s chest, like warm water, like oil, soothing, heating, mending, and leaving health behind.

“Not now, Allie.” Zay dumped me in the front seat and slammed the door, breaking my concentration. By the time I had formed a snappy response, he had shut the back passenger’s door and was sliding in behind the wheel.

“Wait,” I said. “The kid.” So much for snappy.

“Got him,” Zayvion said. “The cat too.” Then he put the car into gear and got us going forward fast.

I rubbed at my eyes with stiff, swollen fingers. I hurt, but in a distant way, as if the hurt wasn’t moving fast enough to catch me yet. I looked at my hands. My right hand was an angry scarlet color, like I’d gotten a bad sunburn that went all the way up to my elbow before splitting out into forks of red lightning up to my shoulder. I wondered if I was red all the way up to my temple, where my skin felt burned. I wondered if I had any hair on that side of my head.

My other hand was normalish color except for the knuckles, wrist, and elbow where bands of black seemed to be forming.

“Are you okay?” Zayvion asked.

I pulled myself together and tried to think through the last few events. The afterimages of the magic I had directed, the colors and textures of it painting against bone and flesh—and more, the feel of it coursing through me, filling me and the kid—distracted me for a bit, but I managed to pull my thoughts back. Back to the car, to the rumble of the engine, to the stink of too much garbage in too small a space.

“I’m fine. I think.”

“Your hand is burned.”

I wiggled my fingers. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just red.”

“Are you sure?”

“Not really. How is the kid?”

“Breathing. Unconscious. What did you do to him?” He glanced over at me, but I didn’t know exactly what I should tell him. Our very strange relationship wasn’t making a lot of sense to me right now. Why was he helping me?

Come on, Allie. Think it through. Your dad was killed and you need to go to the cops. Just stick with the simple stuff.

Besides, what I had done to the kid—if I remembered correctly—was heal him. I know I’d tried to needle a permanent image of health and healing on his bones with magic. A lot of magic.

No one used magic to heal someone like that. The amount of magical energy it took to actually heal flesh came at such a high price that it usually killed the user before the patient recovered. Add to that the horrifically failed attempts through the years that had left people maimed, dead, and insane, and magical healing was as much a pipe dream as floating cities.

All of which meant what I’d done wasn’t exactly impossible, it was just very, very unlikely.

Zayvion was still waiting for an answer, so I gave him one. “I found him, by the river.” I cleared my throat and put a little effort into voice projection so I could be heard over the engine. “Someone stabbed him in the chest. He needs a doctor.”

“I didn’t see any wounds—blood, but no wounds. I looked.” Zayvion geared down, slowing the car. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

The stink in the car seemed to be getting worse. My eyes watered and I wondered if I had enough fine motor skills to roll down the window.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Tired. Cold. But that kid needs a doctor, that cat needs food and probably a rabies shot, and I need to get to the police.”

“Now’s not a good time for you to be anywhere in the public eye.”

“Why?”

“Because your friend Bonnie spent some time talking to the police. She said she was hired to Hound the hit on your dad.”

“So he was killed by magic?” Even though he had told me that might be the case, I did not know how it could actually happen. The idea of my very careful father being touched, much less harmed, by the magic he had been so influential in regulating made zero sense to me. “How? No one can get through his defenses.”

“Someone did.”

“Who?”

Zayvion glanced at me, those warm eyes still burning with gold. He had tiger eyes, I decided, burning bright.

“Who?” I asked again. “Who could get through to my dad?” Who could match his magical prowess? Who would he even let his guard down for?

“You,” he said softly. “Bonnie said it was your signature on the hit.”

That was a slap in the face. I was very awake now. “What? Oh hells, she didn’t. Who hired her? The cops?”

He shook his head. “His ex-wife.”

That narrowed it down to five women. “Which one?”

“I don’t know.”

I scowled. “Bonnie’s full of crap. She’d do anything to make my life miserable.”

“Why?”

“Because she and I are in a very competitive business and the last time we went head to head, I won. Also she’s a crazy, petty bitch.”

He glanced at me, then back at the road. He was taking us through the downtown neighborhoods, heading south toward the highway. I was glad it was still raining. It kept most people occupied with umbrellas and hats and trying to stay dry, instead of looking for a woman on the run.

“The police wouldn’t be looking for you if there weren’t reasonable suspicion, Allie.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Can you convince me to believe your story instead?”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Ow!” I yelled. Stupid, stupid. That hurt. My hand was killing me.

Zayvion acted like he hadn’t even noticed I’d touched him.

“Hitting me is not the best way to convince me you are not capable of violence,” he said, and I was sure I heard laughter beneath his disapproving tone. “I don’t think it would go over well with the police either.”

“I did not kill my father. You were there when I last saw him. I accused him of being a jerk, of putting the hit on Boy. I told him I’d go to court to testify against him, and I worked blood magic to make him tell the truth. That was all.”

Zay was busy navigating the road. “Even so, the police are looking for you. And they’ve put out the Hounds to hunt you down and bring you in.”

“Why is that a bad thing? I need to go to the cops. I need to tell them what happened. I’m innocent, Zay. I don’t want to hide.”

The car stopped, and I looked up. We were at a stoplight, and a crowd of people streamed across the intersection through the rain and gray.

“The police have orders to shoot, if necessary, Allie. You’re considered armed and dangerous. You were right about one thing—it took a hell of a lot of magic to knock your dad down. More to kill him. Unprecedented,” he added quietly.

The light changed and Zayvion moved the car through the intersection, only to slow for traffic ahead. “The Hounds have been approved to Proxy as much magic use as they need to drag you in.”

“All the more reason for me to surrender peacefully. I have information that will clear me.” I was getting into that uncertain how-much-could-I-trust-him territory. I didn’t want to tell him what the kid had told me. That he might know who killed my dad. That he might have been there when it was done. Or at least that’s what I thought the kid had said. But until he was conscious and could answer questions, telling him Cody might be a part of it was only hearsay.

“What kind of information do you have about your father’s death?” And even though he was quiet, there was that air of authority again. Like he expected people to tell him things because he said so. Like he expected me to do what he thought was best.

And I guess because that reminded me too much of the sort of things my father used to do to me, or maybe because I’d just had the crappiest day on earth, I suddenly didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do.

“Information I’d be happy to tell the police.” And not you, not yet, I silently added. “And unless you can give me a better reason than ‘you’re being hunted by Hounds,’ then this is kidnapping, Jones.”

Zayvion snorted. We had stopped at another light, another intersection. He turned and looked at me.

“I’m trying to help you.” The baffled smile was real and nothing like my dad.

“Why?”

“Because I have . . . friends in the police department. This isn’t an average arrest order. Someone wants you gone from public view, locked away, shut up, dead, if need be. Someone wants to kill you, and whoever it is, they have the money, the manpower, the Influence and drive to make sure you are removed from the picture. They think you know who killed your father.”

“Why?” My heart was pounding with equal parts fear and anger. Mix in a cup of tired, two spoons of shock, and a heaping portion of way too much magic, and all I could think of was, “Why me?”

“Because you are Daniel Beckstrom’s only heir and your father was a very shrewd, very bad man in the world of business and the world of magic.”

“Like that’s news.” I’d grown up hearing about the Hoskil and Beckstrom fight over the patent for the Storm Rods. Grown up listening to the news stories about how my father had outmaneuvered Perry Hoskil, filed the patent in his name alone, and then bought out Perry’s share in what was now Beckstrom Enterprises. That action had ruined Perry Hoskil and made Daniel Beckstrom what he was. I’d grown up hearing other, darker stories of my father’s magic and business deals too.

But Zayvion had done his job. I was spooked. I always knew my dad had enemies. For some reason, I just never expected to be their direct target.

“Listen, Allie. The police . . .” He stared out the window, thinking. “Anyone can be bought for the right price. Even people in authority positions. It’s not safe to go to the police right now. I’ll take you anywhere else you want me to. All I ask is that you lie low for a day or two before you approach a lawyer—and yes, I think you should go to a lawyer before you go to the police. Do you have a place I can take you to? Maybe out of the city? Out of your father’s range of influence?”

Right. Like I, the girl drifter, would have some out-of-the-way cottage on a sunny shore where I lounged and drank fruity rum drinks, waiting for bad guys to give up plotting my demise. My life was starting to sound like something out of the movies, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“My friend Nola . . .” I didn’t know if I should mix her up in this. What if he was just making this all up? What if he were the one out to hurt me, out to kill me? He could have killed my father. He was there too.

Okay, now I was just getting paranoid.

“Who?” Zayvion asked.

I swallowed.

“Can you convince me to believe your story?” I asked, “Give me one indisputable reason why I should trust you enough to put my friend in danger.”

Zayvion eased out of traffic and turned down an alley. He put the car in park, but left the motor running and shifted his whole body toward me. I was ready for him to punch me like I had just punched him. Instead, I got honesty.

“You should trust me because I’m trying to look out for you. And I don’t want you to be hurt, or to die.”

He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. Everything about him seemed sincere, but I’d been wrong before. I’d been wrong a lot lately, and people were dying.

“Really? Why not?” I wanted it to come out strong, accusing, but I just didn’t have it in me. It came out quiet, sad. Maybe even lonely.

“Because,” he said gently. “I care about what happens to you.”

He leaned forward, and I thought about leaning away, but then his hand was on the unburned side of my face, and I didn’t want him to stop touching me there, even though he paused. His eyes were still brown and gold, still earth and fire, but the heat warmed me, made me feel welcome, wanted. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was right where I wanted to be, with who I wanted to be with, doing exactly what I wanted to do. That electric tingle flipped in my stomach and rushed along my nerves. I brushed my fingers down his long, lean chest and stomach, then dragged my stiff hand around to his back so I could pull him closer.

I was bloody, filthy, and stank of a garbage dump on fire. I was pretty sure most guys would consider that a turnoff in a woman. Still, the need to feel his touch, to savor again the richness of his mouth, the heat of his lips, the strength of his body, pushed all other thoughts aside.

I stroked the arc of his dark cheek with my bloody, bruised fingers and cupped the back of his neck with my hand. I thought I’d have to bring his head down to mine, but that was not the case. He leaned down and kissed me.

Oh, sweet loves, I wanted him. All of him.

I breathed in deeply as the kiss lingered. The electric tingles built up and up and poured through me in a wave of luxurious heat. I opened my mouth to him and he moaned, shifting closer, his knees, the stick shift, and his seat belt all stopping him from making much progress.

I, however, hadn’t buckled my seat belt. I pulled my legs up and shifted in the seat so I could face him. He drew his hand down the back of my left arm and pressed his palm against my ribs. With his help, I crawled over the stick shift and then placed my knees on either side of his seat. I eased down across him and straddled his lap.

He was built thicker than I’d expected, and there was barely enough room for me to press tightly against his thighs and chest without my back hitting the steering wheel. It was a cramped space, a small space.

And I liked it.

He smiled, and I noticed I had left a smudge of dirt, or maybe blood, on his face. I touched his face, and hesitated. He did not. He kissed me again, and the pleasure, the want, the sweet hot need for him radiated through me.

Oh, I thought. Yes. More.

Zay’s hand slid up my thigh. His palm, wide and hot, squeezed my hip and I gasped hungrily. Fire followed his thumb as he stroked down the curve of my hip bone. I moaned for him, for the taste of him, for his touch that was hot and cool, mint and magic licking beneath my skin. I wanted him to fill me, to ride this sweet, hot fire I could not quench. Then his hands were gone, fumbling between us, and I thought he was trying to unzip his pants, or unbuckle the seat belt, so I leaned back.

The car horn blared out—loud, jarring a Klaxon of reality—and we both held very still.

We just stared at each other and breathed hard and didn’t move. There were things I wanted to say, like “please don’t stop,” and “please don’t go away,” but the suddenness of this, of us, of everything, came crashing down around me.

I was in the middle of a crowded city crawling with cops and Hounds, running for my life, and had decided that taking a quick sex break was a good idea? The practical side of my mind sent off rockets and warning sirens.

If Zay was telling the truth, I was in a world of trouble. The cops, Bonnie, and a bunch of other Hounds were looking for me. They thought I was a murderer.

If Zay was not telling the truth, he himself might be a killer.

That was not a quality I looked for in a man.

And this was not a good way to start a romance. No matter how much I wanted it.

“I can’t—” I started.

“Mmm.” Zayvion leaned his head back into the headrest and looked away from me, out at the cold and the rain. Finally, he looked back, and his eyes were brown, warm, with barely a spark of gold. He was good. I’d never met a man so in control of his emotions.

“I know,” he said. “But you asked me why I didn’t want you dead.” He smiled and, even though I was cold and shaking with need for him, he was a perfect gentleman and sweetly helped support me as I lifted off his lap and settled back into my empty seat.

I needed an attitude adjustment myself, something to get my mind off him, off what it had felt like to be with him. Sarcasm usually did the trick.

“So. You’re saying you don’t want me dead because you want me in bed?” I said. I thought it would come out a lot funnier than it did.

“That’s not what I said.” He put the car in gear again and drove down the alley to a cross street.

“Your kiss said you wanted me in bed.” That was better.

“You mean the kiss you started?” Zayvion shook his head. “Maybe that’s all you were saying, but I was saying I was open for more than just sex—maybe a real date that didn’t involve blood, bruises, that incredible odor you’re wearing, or unconscious people in the backseat. But if it’s just sex you’re offering, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

“Right. Is there anything else a man really wants from a woman? Wrap it up in pretty words all you want, Jones. You can’t tell me you’re any different than any other man I’ve dated.”

“Maybe not. But you are different than any woman I’ve ever known.”

Oh. That was sweet too.

“You don’t get involved with women on the run from the law?”

He paused before answering. “That, actually, is none of your business. You can’t take a compliment, can you? Let me say this as straight as I can. I like you. A lot. Enough to follow you all over this town, even when I’m not getting paid for it—in the rain, I might add. Enough to get you out of town before you’re killed, enough to quit my job, and you have no idea how much hell I caught for that. I like you enough to do what it takes to keep you safe.”

“You are a cop, aren’t you?”

“If I were a cop, would I be taking you away from the police to keep you safe?”

“Who said I need someone to keep me safe?”

Zayvion gave me a who-are-you-kidding glance.

“Careful, Jones.”

“Fine. Maybe you don’t think you need someone looking out for you, but you’re wrong.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And stubborn. Like your father.”

That shut me up. It was just not my day for snappy comebacks. Probably because he was right. The car rattled over potholes and jostled the kitten awake in the backseat. The little thing started mewing and wouldn’t stop.

“What’s with the cat?” Zayvion asked.

“She belongs to the kid.”

“Do you know his name?”

“He was sort of babbling, but I think he said Cody Hand.”

I glanced at Zayvion. If his mood had just been warm, flirty, and fun, it had suddenly parked square in the middle of pensive, cool, and serious.

“You know him?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “No.” His mouth might be saying no, but his body language was saying oh, hells, yes. His body language might even be saying they were good friends—cousins, pals. Or maybe his body language was saying they were enemies. Close enemies.

“No?” I asked.

“I know of a man named Cody the Hand. He had a knack for magical forgeries. Landed him in the state pen, I think. But that was seven years ago.”

“Anyone who forges, or creates, original art with magic is called a Hand,” I said quite unnecessarily. “Maybe this kid is just a regular kind of magic artist.”

Zay nodded and the rest of his body language said he wasn’t so sure this kid was just a regular kind of anything.

“What? You want me to frisk him for ID?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

I rubbed at my face, which made both my face and my hands hurt. I tried to work up the desire to touch the kid’s garbage-and-blood-soaked clothes again. I wondered if I would feel the magic I’d painted in him. I wondered if it would burn through me again. Trap me. Scar me. “I don’t know how to frisk anyone. I’m not a cop.”

“It’s easy. Just like they show in the movies. Pat his pockets.”

He was so not joking.

I twisted in my seat and looked back at the kid. He really did look better. No, he looked fine. His skin was pale, but he had a healthy pink across his cheeks and he was sleeping so hard he was snoring. Didn’t look like a mastermind magic forger to me. Looked like a sweet kid who fell on hard times.

I braced my foot on the floorboard and pushed up and around so I was sitting on my knees. I reach around the bucket seat to feel the front pocket of his jeans. No wallet in the first one and, thankfully, no garbage worse than what I was covered in, and no hint of magic. I reached back a little farther to check his other pocket.

The stupid kitten pounced, all claws and teeth and hissing fury, and tore the hell out of my left hand.

I yelled and shook my hand until the ball of fur tumbled to the floor, where it trembled and mewed and looked pitiful.

“Are you hurt?” Zayvion asked.

“No.” I lied. My hand looked like I’d lost a fight with a killer rosebush. The cuts and punctures probably weren’t very deep, but that cat had been scratching around in filth and garbage.

Great. On the run for my life, I try to do a good deed and now I need a tetanus shot. Maybe something for rabies, too.

Stupid cat. Good things did not come in small packages—mean things did.

I sat forward in my seat again. I tucked my bleeding hand under my tank top, hoping the cotton would help to stem the blood flow, but my sweat, cat piss, garbage, and river water made the cuts hurt more.

“Anything?” Zayvion asked.

“Nothing in his front pockets and I am not rolling him over to pat his butt. Think about it, Jones. What are the chances of me running into some infamous, escaped forger left for dead along the river on the one day I would go down there to stroll through garbage?”

“Amazingly low.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And besides, he doesn’t look old enough to be an infamous forger. He’s only a kid.”

“True,” he said. “And that cat doesn’t look like it can do any harm. It’s only a kitten.”

“Bite me, Jones.”

That got a smile out of him. “That sounds promising.” He glanced over at me and I met his look, straight on. Dared him to offer.

He looked like he was about to, but said, “I can get the kid to a hospital and have him checked out. They’ll run his fingerprints and see if he’s on file or missing from anywhere. But first, I’m getting you out of town. You said you had a friend?”

And it wasn’t like I could make up a phony address. I really had nowhere to go except to Nola’s. And besides, magic or no magic, Hounds, or no Hounds, Nola could take care of herself, and I was tired and feeling more bruised and achy by the minute.

“Head east.”

“How far?”

“Burns.”

“Your friend lives three hundred miles away?”

“You said you wanted to take me outside my father’s range of influence. I don’t think he has much pull in cow country.”

Zayvion grunted. “Good thing I have a full tank.”

I leaned my head against the window. “When the skyscrapers turn into barns, and the barns turn into mountains, and the mountains turn into rangeland, wake me up.” I didn’t intend to really fall asleep.

But I did anyway. It just wasn’t my day.