And Liddy, who had turned against us all, had been my teacher. I had reasons to be suspicious.
“It’s fine, Maeve,” Victor said. He produced a straight pin from his cuff and stood.
The pin was gold—just like the pin my father had given me when he let me use Truth on him. Back when he was alive.
The room spun a little, and I felt tears at the back of my eyes. My throat hurt. Oh, of all the times for me to get teary-eyed over my dad’s death. He wasn’t even dead. He was renting out a corner of my mind.
I blinked a couple times and waited for Victor.
“Your hand.” He held his left hand out, the straight pin in his right, bandaged fingers.
I held out one finger, tipped up, and he placed his bandaged right hand in support under mine, pricked my index finger, which hurt, and then pricked his thumb. He whispered a spell and pressed his thumb against my finger.
Blood magic was intimate. I could feel Victor’s emotions; he was angry, frustrated, and not nearly as Zen as he looked. He was also tired.
And I knew he could feel my emotions.
That was the downside to this deal.
Still, if he noticed how angry I was, and how pass-out exhausted, he didn’t say anything.
“You have my word I will reconsider the state of Detective Paul Stotts’ memories, once matters have settled.”
I felt his promise as if it were my own, tasted it in my mouth like the warm sweetness of Earl Grey tea. He meant it.
That was good.
“Thank you.” I pulled my finger away, breaking the spell.
He looked past me to Shame. “She needs to get some sleep.”
“I’m fine,” I said, or at least I think I said it. All of a sudden my ears weren’t working too good.
“Allie?” That was Maeve.
“Fine,” I repeated. The room was getting black at the edges, like someone was slowly turning down the lights. Had Victor cast something more than just a promise in that spell? Had he knocked me out?
“What did you—” I mouthed, but no sound came out. The room rushed up around me as I fell. I was swallowed in darkness. Before I hit the ground, I felt Hayden’s arms catch me. Then . . . nothing.
Chapter Seven
I
woke next to Zayvion, feeling too good to be mad at Victor for knocking me out. The pine scent of Zay’s cologne was muted by soap and sweat. His breathing was even, almost mechanical. I knew he was still in the coma, still in bed, still at Maeve’s.
And I was apparently still at Maeve’s too.
I scooted closer to Zay, checking first to make sure I wasn’t going to foul up any tubes or wires on him. I was on his right side, his arm tucked under the covers with me. I ran my fingertips gently down his arm. Muscle and smooth skin. No wires.
I pressed up against him, his arm between my breasts and down my belly so I could rest my head on his shoulder. “Morning,” I said. “How about a nice cup of coffee and scones? I could go out to Get Mugged and see what fantastic concoction Grant has baked up today. Then maybe we could catch a movie, or drive to the coast. Bet it’s a nice day for some sand and rain.”
I rubbed my hand over his chest. He was wearing a thin T-shirt, and through the soft material I could feel more of his bones than I should. It was a grim reminder of how long he’d been here.
Math was not my strong suit. I frowned, trying to calculate how many days he’d been in bed.
It would help if I knew what day today was. “You have any idea was day it is, babe?” I asked.
“Saturday.”
I lifted up, peered over Zayvion at the man sitting in the corner. Silver hair, dark button-down shirt tucked into jeans: Terric.
“So how long since I’ve been back?”
He put down the book he was reading, a Bradbury, I think, on the table next to him. “You came back four days ago. It’s the morning after you talked with Victor. You’ve been asleep ten hours or so.”
Wow. From how much better I felt, I was surprised I’d only been asleep that long. “It’s morning again?”
“Eleven o’clock. Hungry?”
I shifted in the bed, made sure I had on a shirt and pants. Check and check. “I could eat something. Got any scones?”
“The kitchen might. I’ll go down with you.”
“What, no breakfast in bed?”
Terric stood. “The doctor said you should get up today. You are feeling better, aren’t you?”
The way he said it made me suspicious. “Yes? Why?”
“Victor worked a small healing spell on you. Something to encourage your body to rest and recuperate. He didn’t expect it to knock you out. You must have been running on empty.”
I ran my fingers down Zay’s arm one more time, then slipped out of the covers as carefully as I could and tucked them back around him.
“Still on empty.” The room didn’t sway, but I could eat a pachyderm twice dipped and deep-fried in batter. “Let me use the bathroom. I’ll be right out.”
Terric pointed over at the empty bed. “We raided your apartment. Shoes and clothes if you want them.”
“How’d you get in my apartment?”
“Zay’s key.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.
Terric picked up the book—definitely Bradbury—as I grabbed some of the clothes they’d brought, then walked to the bathroom. I used the facilities, washed my hands, and splashed some warm water over my face.
I was surprised my dad had been so quiet since I returned. I hadn’t heard or felt him more than once. I wondered if I’d dreamed that he had come back to life with me.
One way to find out. I could always see the shadow of his presence in my eyes.
I looked up into the mirror and jerked in surprise. Not because of my eyes—my eyes were mine, pale glass green, with the multicolored ribbons of magic at the corner of my right eye swirling down my jawline. My eyes and face were the same.
The difference was the strands of white that streaked my normally dark brown hair. Not gray. Not silver. White.
Death couture. Funky.
It didn’t look bad. Kinda edgy. It gave my face a harder angle, and made my green eyes shine like a predator’s. I decided I liked it. A lot.
Might have to buy myself a leather jacket and some stiletto boots to go with the new look. I tucked my hair back behind both ears. Yep, with the marks of magic down one side of my face, and the shock of lightning-white tattering my hair, I had cornered the market on tough.
Zay was going to love it. As soon as he woke up.
I brushed my hair and teeth, put on my own underclothes, black jeans, and a heavy slate gray sweater. Wished I had my gloves and boots, but at least they’d brought my running shoes.
I walked out of that bathroom feeling hungry, human, and ready to kick ass.
“Breakfast?” I asked.
Terric put the book down and stood. “You look a lot better.”
“Than what?”
He grinned. “You look like you’re
feeling
better.”
“I am. Good enough that I’m going to go home and take care of a few things today.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’m not forbidden to leave, am I?”
“No. But I doubt you’ll be going alone.”
“You can’t put me under guard, Terric. I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
“Not me.”
I took my coat off the back of the door as we stepped out of the room and strolled down the hall, our feet making hollow
thunks
on the old hardwood floor.
“Who?”
“Shame.”
“Wish he’d give it a rest. Would you talk to him for me?”
“I don’t think you want me in your corner. He’s . . . uncomfortable with our current arrangement.”
I headed down the stairs, happy that my knees were holding up. I didn’t know what kind of healing spell Victor had cast, but it had really done the trick. I’d have to thank him for it. But first, breakfast.
“What exactly is your current arrangement?” I asked. “I saw the crystal.”
He exhaled loudly behind me. “It had side effects I didn’t imagine.”
“The connection.”
“Mmm,” he agreed. “It’s been difficult. We’re both used to privacy. I’ve tried to ignore him. But you know Flynn. He doesn’t make anything easy—he is one of the most difficult people to ignore.”
We made it to the bottom of the stairs. I smelled bacon and sausage, fried potatoes and fresh coffee. I was starving.
“This way.” Terric stepped past me with a smooth movement that reminded me of someone who knew how to dance. Or who knew swordplay. The room was filled with the breakfast crowd: families, couples, friends, going out on a Saturday morning for a good hot, home-cooked meal. A small table by the window was open, and that was where Terric was headed. I followed.
It was strange to look at those normal people with normal faces and normal lives and realize I didn’t feel like I was a part of them anymore. Somewhere in the last few months I had begun to see myself as a person living on the edges of normal—more so than I used to be when I was a Hound doing questionable jobs for questionable people in questionable parts of town. Somehow I had started thinking of myself as a magic user caught up in so many important, dangerous things that a normal morning out for breakfast sounded as foreign and strange as walking through a gate into hell.
When had I changed?
Or maybe I’d always been this, and trying to be normal, trying to blend into the crowd and want the same things everyone wanted—a house, a job, a lover—hadn’t been enough for me. Maybe I’d always needed more. Or if not more, different.
Wanting different was a lot of what had driven me to become a Hound.
Speaking of Hounding, I was surprised Davy wasn’t around. Davy Silvers was a good kid, and a good Hound. He was my right-hand man when it came to providing basic support for Hounds in the city, and he did a hell of a job at it too. But he had some crazy idea that it was his job to follow me. Everywhere.
Terric stopped at the table near the windows. Sunlight, real, beautiful, buttercream sunlight, splashed in through the old watery glass and drew copper and honey tones out of the tabletop.
“This okay?” he asked.
“So good.” I pulled a chair out and sat in the sunlight.
Terric sat across from me, facing the length of the room, while I had a view of the lunch counter and the few tables and windows beyond it.
The waitress, Jenny, showed up with a carafe of coffee and two cups.
“Black, right?” she asked me. “Love the hair by the way.”
“Thanks,” I said. She poured coffee for Terric, and plunked menus down in front of us.
“I don’t need a menu,” I said. “Two eggs over easy, bacon, sourdough toast, and hash browns. Oh, and grapefruit juice if you have it.”
“We have it fresh. And you?” she asked Terric.
“Just the coffee.”
“There’s apple-ginger coffee cake fresh out of the oven.”
He smiled, and I could tell Jenny liked the look of him. “I think I’ll stick to coffee for now, thanks.”
She picked up the menus, and looked back over at me. “I’ll have that out to you in a minute.”
I was too busy sipping coffee to answer. Terric seemed content to drink in silence. I stared out at the trees that lined the Willamette, at the spring sky with patchy clouds padding the blue. The murmur of people talking, of laughter, of normal, wonderful, boring, beautiful living, filled me. I closed my eyes, savoring it, lonely for it. Lonely for normal.
When I looked back at Terric, he was frowning slightly, cup halfway to his mouth, as if he heard a far-off voice.
“Problem?” I asked.
“No.”
“Have you seen Davy Silvers?”
He shook his head and put his cup down. “Should I have?”
“It’s just that he’s always following me around. I thought he might have stopped in while I was sleeping.”
“No. And I’d know. We’ve been holding meetings here every night. For members,” he added. “If someone had been by looking for you, we would have seen him.”
It wasn’t like Davy to keep his nose out of my business. I’d been telling him for months not to follow me around—ever since our friend Martin Pike died, actually—and he never listened to me. I wondered what he was up to. Another thing to add to my To Do list: check in on Davy.
“Do you have a pen?” I asked.
Terric pulled an expensive pen out of his pocket. It was the kind of thing I’d expect an architect to use.
“Nice pen.”
“Thanks,” he said distractedly.
I flattened my paper napkin and jotted down a list of people to check on: Davy, Violet, and Stotts. I wanted to look in on them quickly and then be back here to stay with Zayvion for the evening. And since Terric still looked like he was trying to listen to a radio station through static, I opened the napkin and jotted down everything else that came to mind:
find notebook, transfer notes, and ask about Mikhail’s history.
Mikhail might be the best place to start.
“Do you know anything about Mikhail?” I asked.
“Some,” he said.“What have you been told?”
“Not a lot. I met him in death.”
Terric’s eyebrows shot up. He leaned his elbows on the table and kept his voice low. “Want to tell me about that?”
“I’d like to know a little background on him first.”
“Mikhail was the head of the Authority for fifteen years. He and Sedra were lovers. They had a son.”
“Cody?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s when things started to go wrong. Sedra almost died in childbirth. When she finally recovered, Mikhail said she had changed. They became more and more distant. Soon that distance turned into anger.
“Some people thought they might have been Soul Complements, but they never tested. The rumor is they were fighting over how to raise their son, who was obviously magically gifted at a very young age. Sedra wanted him raised outside the Authority, and Mikhail wanted him to be a part of it.
“They had a fight. Mikhail opened a gate to death and tried to push Sedra through it. If Dane Lannister hadn’t been there, she would be dead. Instead, Mikhail walked through the gate—willingly—vowing revenge on Sedra and the Authority.
“He never came back, though he has tried. So far, we’ve been able to keep him on that side of death.”
“And Sedra took over as Head of the Authority?”
He nodded. “It was a political move, mostly. Mikhail was also the voice for Death magic. It made sense to have the voice for Life magic replace him. A yin-yang kind of thing.”
“So Jingo Jingo kidnapped her because he wants Death magic to be the head of the Authority again?”
“Probably more than that. It’s possible he wants to open a gate to death and bring Mikhail through. You making the crossing has all of us worried.” He smiled. “Don’t get me wrong. We’re happy to have you back, safe. But if you can do it, why can’t Mikhail?”
Why not, indeed? Because he didn’t have a gargoyle for his soul? No, Terric had said he walked through the gate. If that was true, maybe all he needed was enough magic to open the gate. I’d given him my magic, but he hadn’t used it to open the gate for me. He’d taken it back to the woman in the room. He opened the gate, but didn’t step through. If he really was looking for revenge and a way back to life, he’d lost a prime opportunity. This was not adding up.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to,” I said.
Three people—a man and two women I didn’t recognize—stared at us as they walked past the window. They headed to the door. I took a drink of coffee, expecting to hear the door behind me open. The door didn’t open. That was odd.
From where I was sitting I had a good view of the parking lot. The people weren’t there. I looked back down the porch. Nothing. Maybe they had walked farther up the road.
“What are you looking for?” Terric asked.
“I was trying to figure out where those people went.”
“What people?”
The waitress strolled over and put my plate down in front of me. It looked like fried heaven. “Here you go,” she said. “Need anything else? Ketchup? Hot sauce?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“And you’re sure I can’t talk you into some coffee cake? It’s sweet with a little kick.” She batted her eyes at Terric.
“No, I don’t have the time,” he said. “Thanks, though.”
She left, and Terric waited for me to get a few bites in. Then, “People?”
“Man and two women who walked past our window? Looked in at us? I thought they knew you and were coming in.” The eggs were amazing. Who was I kidding? It was all amazing.