Magic in the Shadows (36 page)

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Authors: Devon Monk

BOOK: Magic in the Shadows
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I didn’t think I could get him up into a fireman’s hold, so I pulled his arm over my shoulder, which also hurt like hell. It was good he wasn’t a heavy-built guy. Still, deadweight is deadweight.
I gritted my teeth and grasped him by the waist, then started to sort of half drag him back along the path to the car.
I thought about putting him down so I could tackle Tomi and drag her butt along with me, but I didn’t think Davy had that much time, and I sure as hell didn’t have the strength to haul them both back to the car.
“Tomi,” I called. “Follow me. Let me help you.”
She looked up away from the circle of ash, her expression blank. “Me?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s coming,” she said. “He’ll kill him. Don’t . . . don’t let him hurt him.”
The circle in front of her seemed darker, more shadowed, and filled with flashes of things that moved.
Shit.
Tomi went back to casting the spell. I saw yellow eyes in that circle, fangs.
I moved as fast as I could, across the park, through the trees. Not easy, not fun.
I so needed to start going to the gym.
Davy kept right on breathing. Jerky, slow, but breathing. And that was all I could ask for.
Well, that, and maybe for Tomi to snap out of the crazy and stop casting magic. That chick was messing around with dark magic—something she should not know about. No wonder Davy said she was different.
I picked up the pace and made it to the car. It was raining and I was shaking from fatigue and anger. I unlocked the back door, lay Davy half in the car, ran around to the other door, and pulled him by his armpits the rest of the way across the seat.
Davy’s breathing wasn’t doing so hot now. I needed to stop Tomi, save her, but Davy didn’t have any time left.
This pissed me off to no end. I couldn’t go back to save Tomi, and I would not just drive away and let her die.
Then I remembered I had friends in low places. Time to call in a favor.
All I needed was a phone.
Something moved at the edge of my rearview mirror. I looked up.
Creatures ghosted across the grass, dark, transparent horrors of indigo, midnight, blood, low to the ground, nightmare beasts like the Necromorph but compact, muscled, all claw and fang and burning yellow eyes. Running my way.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I gunned the gas.
The creatures were fast. Too fast. Before I was even out of the parking lot they were behind me, beside me, then past me, silent as poison, spreading out, half a dozen or more, into the streets, the rain.
Crap. Nightmare creatures chasing me was bad. Nightmare creatures loose on the street was worse. Maybe they were what had hurt Davy. Maybe they were the “him” Tomi was talking about.
Maybe I didn’t have time to find out.
I pulled up in front of Mama’s place, a two-story brick and wood building with a diner on the bottom floor and some living space on the top. I ran up the stairs and pushed open the door.
Boy, the one who was always behind the counter, didn’t bother to pull his hand away from the gun I knew he kept hidden. As a matter of fact, he pulled out the gun and casually aimed it at me.
Oh, how fandamtastic was that?
“Where’s Mama?” I asked. He lifted the gun, just in case I hadn’t noticed it the first time.
“Out,” he said.
Yeah, we had history. The bad kind.
“Give me your phone. There’s a woman hurt. In the park. She might be dead.”
He didn’t seem very impressed with the news. And I supposed if you’d grown up in this part of town, the report of a dead person in your backyard wouldn’t exactly hit the headlines.
“Give me the phone, Boy. I’ve got a kid dying in my car.”
Mama stormed out of the kitchen, five feet not much of street and attitude. She stopped, obviously surprised to see me.
“Allie, girl?”
“I need your phone,” I said.
And that, I knew, was very familiar. I’d told her the same thing just a few months ago when I was still Hounding for her and trying to get her to call 911 for her youngest, Boy, who had been hit by an Offload from my father. Well, not my father, but at the time I’d thought it was his spell.
Instead of arguing with me, she handed me the phone from where it hung on the wall next to the kitchen. That was new.
“Is it bad?” she asked as I dialed.
“I think so.”
She nodded and waited, watching me.
I dialed Detective Stotts. He would be the one they’d call in on the case anyway, because there was no way that was a run-of-the-mill magical crime.
After one ring, he answered. “Stotts.”
“This is Allie Beckstrom,” I said. “You need to get to Cathedral Park as soon as you can. There’s a woman hurt there. Tomi Nowlan. Magic is involved.”
I noted Mama tensed at that, and I was not about to give him any more details with her listening. “I’m on my way to the hospital with Davy Silvers. If you need me, you can find me there.”
I hung up before he had a chance to ask me anything.
“Police are on their way,” I said to Mama. “Detective Stotts. He’ll know what to do. Lock the doors and keep Boy, your youngest, off the street for a while, okay?”
She bit her bottom lip and nodded. Her hands were laced together in front of her, her body language saying she was trying hard to hold something back. I didn’t know what she wanted to say to me, or do to me, and sure as hell didn’t have time to find out.
I straight-armed the door open. Just before it closed behind me, I heard her say, “Good luck.”
And I hoped she meant it in an innocent sort of way, and not in a she-knew-more-about-what-was-going-on-than-I-did kind of way.
The whole thing in Mama’s had taken a minute, tops.
I jumped back in the car and tore off toward the hospital as fast as I could, hoping I hadn’t taken one minute too long to save Davy.
Chapter Thirteen
 
I
was amazed I didn’t get pulled over by the police on my way to the hospital. It all went by so fast, and yet every pause, every second I had to brake or work my way around someone in traffic, felt like a lifetime. I raced up to emergency, and ran inside to get help.
Two people rushed out to the car with me, and between the three of us we got Davy moved onto a gurney that was wheeled into the ER.
My heart pounded so hard, I was breathing as if I’d run the entire way.
I followed Davy, but was stopped by a petite nurse.
“Are you a relative?”
“No. Friend.”
“Do you know family we should contact? Insurance information?”
I didn’t. I had no idea at all. I wasn’t even sure how old he was. “No. We’ve just started working together. He’s a Hound.”
She nodded and motioned for me to follow her to a desk. “We found his wallet. Do you know if he’s allergic to anything?”
“No.” I should have taken medical information from the Hounds at the meeting today. How stupid could I be?
“That’s all right,” she said. “We’ll see what we can pull up on him. If he’s been in a hospital in the last ten years, we’ll have something on record. Why don’t you have a seat? I have a few more questions.”
I sat across from her, but didn’t have any more answers.
Note to self: start a Hound medical information data bank.
She finished entering my lack of information into her computer, then gave me a sympathetic smile. “You can wait right out there. There’s coffee at the far wall if you’d like some.”
I mumbled my thanks and walked over to the coffee station, pouring myself a cup and then walking woodenly back to one of the banks of lima-bean green chairs in the waiting room. There were several people in the waiting room whom I hadn’t even noticed until now.
I paced for a little while, held the coffee between my hands until it was cold, then finally took a seat near the door. I wasn’t sure whether I was sitting there for a quick escape or whether I was keeping an eye out for monsters.
Either way, it took some time for the adrenaline to wear off, and when it did I realized I was really tired.
My thoughts were jagged and random.
Somewhere out there monsters roamed the street.
Zayvion said he Closed Cody.
Where was Nola?
I was late for class.
Tomi was using dark magic.
She might be dead.
Was Davy going to be okay?
Had taking the time to make that phone call killed him?
What did Jingo Jingo have to do with this?
And what the hell was that spell anyway?
Did Tomi have a disk?
I don’t know how much time passed before Detective Stotts came walking in, wearing a trench, a maroon scarf, and a frown. But he brought two cups of coffee with him.
“Allie.” He sat down next to me and offered me one of the cups.
This was the good coffee from the mom-and-pop shop close to the police station, not the overcooked canned coffee the emergency room provided.
I put down my cold Styrofoam cup and held the larger, warmer cup in my palms. Was it strange that I couldn’t feel the heat against my skin?
“How’s Davy?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head. “They haven’t told me.”
He took a drink, and so did I. The coffee was black, hot, and rich. It felt like heaven going down. And it somehow made the world feel real again.
“Did you go to the park?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Tomi?”
“We couldn’t find her.”
I lowered my head and pressed the coffee cup against my forehead.
“What happened?” he asked.
A sick feeling rolled in my stomach and I put the coffee down because the smell, the heat, was suddenly too much. “Was there anyone . . . else?”
“No. The circle was still there.”
“Did you get rid of it?”
“Not yet.”
I stared at him, confused. Then my brain kicked in. Right. Procedure. He’d have someone Hound it, get photos, take samples, all that before they cleaned it up. It could take days.
I stood. I needed to talk to Zayvion. Or Shamus. Or maybe Maeve. Find out if any of them knew anything about Tomi. Find out if she was hurt, dead. Find out if I needed to get her to the hospital too. “I have to go.”
Stotts stood slowly. He put his hand on my elbow.
“Where?”
“Out. Away. Find out if anyone else, if people, if Hounds know anything.” Wow. I was not thinking straight. Really, all I wanted to do was sit down in a quite room for maybe a century. The idea of losing Davy, when I’d promised Pike I’d take care of him, and that Tomi was probably hurt, maybe dead, made me crazy.
So I did what I usually do when I’m afraid, or worried. I got angry.
“I have people to take care of, okay?” I said.
“I understand that. One of them is in there.” He pointed at the double doors that led to the emergency room.
“And the rest are out there.” I pointed at the door, and turned to storm off.
But the door had already slid aside. And through it walked the Hounds Jack and Bea and Sid.
“We heard about Davy,” Bea said, her normally smiling face worried.
“Davy wasn’t working for you, was he, Stotts?” Sid looked like the sort of guy you’d expect to program computers, not Hound. He was dressed in his usual tan slacks, button-down shirt, sensible loafers, and wire-rimmed glasses.
He was smart too. I hadn’t even thought about Stotts using Davy. Stotts was cursed. More Hounds died working for him than for anyone else in the city.
Stotts blinked once. “Yes.”
“What the hell?” I said loud enough that half the emergency room looked over at me. “You asked me to work for you. Not him. Not Davy. Didn’t I answer you fast enough? You had to go out and find someone else to kill?”
“That,” Stotts growled, “is enough. He was already working the job before you and I talked.”
I glared at him. He glared right back at me.
Sid, next to us, just sighed. “It’s done,” he said tiredly. “Neither of you have ground to fight on. Leave it be and let’s move on.”
To my surprise, Stotts backed down. “Do you know if he has family here?” He was all business and police procedure again.
Sid rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then pushed his glasses back in place.
“I don’t know much about his personal life. He never mentioned family. I always thought he lived somewhere out southeast. Thought he went to PCC. But I’m not sure about that either.”

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