Magic on the Storm (2 page)

“The bucket?” Zay held up his hand where he still held the glyph between ring
finger and thumb. “Down.”
Shame pulled out a piece of ice and stuck it in his mouth. He chewed
it—noisily—as he strolled over to us.
I swear he had a death wish.
Shame did a fair job at that goth-rocker vibe. Black hair cut with the
precision of dull garden shears shaded his eyes. Black T-shirt over a black
long-sleeved shirt on top of black jeans, black boots. Even his hands were
covered by black fingerless gloves. But behind all that black was a man who
wasn’t as young as he looked. A man whose eyes carried too much pain to be
hidden by that sly smile.
“That was your last warning.” Zayvion tensed, ready to pour magic into the
glyph.
“Do not burn your best friend to a crisp,” I said, sounding more like a
babysitter than a girlfriend.
Zay just kept staring at Shame. “He’s won’t burn long. Not with all that water
on him.”
Shame laughed. “Bring it on.”
“No one’s going to bring anything on.” I stood, and took turns glaring at
Zayvion and Shamus. “No magic fights in the gym.”
Right. Like they’d do what I said.
Time to change tactics. “How about food? Zay and I were just going to do
lunch,” I said.
“Lunch?” Shamus said. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days? Back in
my day we called it fucking.”
“Shamus,” Zayvion said, “may I have a word with you?” Zay let go of the spell
and stood up in one smooth, graceful motion that showed just how many years
this man had spent sparring.
Shame didn’t have time to answer because Zay closed in on him, fast and silent
as a panther. He wrapped his arm around Shame. It looked friendly enough, but
both of Shame’s arms were pinned and Shame was tucked tight against Zay’s side.
“You want a word with me, or you want to date me?” Shame asked. “’Cause if it’s
the second thing, you’re buying me more than lunch.”
Zayvion forced him toward the far side of the room.
I shook my head. Those two acted like brothers, even though they were
physically about as opposite as they could get. I glanced at the door,
wondering if Chase, Zay’s ex-girlfriend, might have come along with Shame. No
one was there.
My shoulders dropped. Chase and I were not exactly friends, even though we’d
had to work around each other the last couple months. She wasn’t done hating me
for what happened to Greyson, the man she dumped Zay for. And I was more than
done explaining to her that I hadn’t turned him into a half-dead beast.
What can I say? My relationships were complicated.
I found the water bottle I’d left on the floor, picked it up, and took a drink.
Zay and Shame were far enough across the room I shouldn’t be able to hear what
they were saying. But Hounding for a living meant I had good ears. There was a
chance I’d be able to spring into action if Shame needed me to save his life or
something.
“. . . ever throw ice at me again, I am going to beat you with that bucket. Do
you understand me?”
“Oh, please. Like I should take you seriously. You haven’t raised a finger in
two months.”
“Listen.” Zay paused, lowered his voice. “This is different than Chase and me.
More than . . . that ever was.” He paused again. “I need you to respect what we
have, or you and I are going to have real problems.”
“Respect?” Shamus asked, just as quietly. “I’m filled with envy.”
“Then stop being an ass.”
Shame snorted. “Better to ask the rain not to fall.”
“Rain,” Zay said, squeezing Shame a little harder. “Don’t fall.” He released
his hold.
Shame got out of arm’s reach and shook his hand, probably trying to get blood
back into it. Like I said, Zay played for keeps.
“Can’t remember the last time you and I had real problems.” Shame stuck his
hand in the ice bucket and dug out another frozen chunk, popped it in his
mouth.
“It’ll come to you.”
From Shame’s body language, I could tell it had. “Yes. Well. Let’s not go there
again.”
Then Shame raised his voice, obviously talking to me. “Aren’t you going to ask
why I came by?”
I shrugged the shoulder that didn’t hurt. “You need a reason to harass Zay?”
“Hell no. But I’m not here to talk to Zay. I’m here for you.” He strolled
across the room toward me.
Zayvion paced over to where he’d left his water bottle. The man was so quiet
that if I weren’t looking at him, I wouldn’t think there was anyone in the room
except Shame and me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Shame stopped and held out the bucket. “Ice?”
“We’re going to lunch, remember?”
“You were serious about that?” he asked. “Huh. Well, you might want to eat
quick. My mum wants to see you.” He glanced at the clock on the wall behind me.
“In an hour, the latest. At the inn.”
“Did she say why?” I asked.
“Officially?”
“At all.”
“There’s a storm coming,” he said, all the joking gone now.
Zayvion stiffened. I watched as the relaxed, laughing man I’d spent the last
few weeks with was replaced by an emotionless wall of control, of calm, of
duty.
“What kind of storm?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure what the answer
would be.
“Wild magic,” he said. “And it’s aiming straight for the city.”
Dread rolled in my stomach. The last time a wild storm had hit the city, I’d
tapped into it and nearly killed myself. Ended up in a coma. Ended up losing
more memories than I wanted to admit. Like my memories of Zayvion.
“And what does that have to do with me?” My voice did not shake. Go, me.
Wild-magic storms were violent and deadly, and messed with the flow of magic
that powered the city’s spells. But that’s why my father invented the Beckstrom
Storm Rods. Every building in the city was outfitted with at least one storm
rod to catch and channel strikes of wild magic.
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “She might just want to go over details from your
last session with her.” He nodded toward the void stone necklace around my
neck. “See that things are going right with you and all.”
Lie. Lie. Lie. Shamus knew more. Knew what Maeve wanted. Knew why I was being
called upon.
I looked him in the eyes. Raised my eyebrows.
He just shook his head.
Okay, whatever it was, he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. It was hard to remember
that Shame was a part of the Authority too. He reported to Jingo Jingo, and
above him was Liddy Salberg. They all used Death magic, which was unknown to
the average magic user, and for good reasons. Maybe Jingo had told him not to
talk.
More likely his mother had told him to keep his gob shut.
I’d only taken a handful of classes with Shamus’s mother, Maeve, but she
treated me like a cub who needed protecting from the other senior members of
the Authority, people like Liddy; Jingo Jingo; Zay’s boss, Victor; and
especially the leader, Sedra.
She was wrong to think I needed protecting. But over the last month or so, I’d
discovered the one thing the members of the Authority had in common. They were
all suspicious as hell. Not a lot of trust going around for a group of people
who relied on one another’s discretion to stay in business.
“For that, you couldn’t just call?” I asked, trying to lift the mood.
“What, and waste a perfectly good bucket of ice?”
“Tell your mom I’ll be there in an hour.” I picked up my gym bag and headed to
the women’s locker room. “Zay, you still on for lunch?”
“We have time. I’ll take you out to Maeve’s afterwards.”
Shame followed Zay into the men’s locker room, his voice drifting back to me.
“Oh, what’s with the face? Mad your vacation’s over? When was the last time you
did any work, you lazy git?”
I heard the muffled smack of a fist against flesh and an “Ow!” as I closed the
door.
I was the only one in the locker room, and Zay and Shame were the only other
people in the gym. The gym wasn’t advertised—as a matter of fact, it was fairly
hidden, and not by magical means. It was located on the bottom floor of a
fabric store, and no one suspected there was a modern workout facility here.
Zay had told me it was only one of several places in the city set aside by
members of the Authority for members of the Authority. It was like they had an
entire hidden city shoved into the pockets and cracks of Portland. And no one
got in those pockets if they weren’t part of the Authority.
The whole exclusivity of the Authority was a little odd to me. I still wasn’t
one hundred percent down with the I’m-on-their-team bit, because I wasn’t sure
they were on my team.
Yes, the members of the Authority had magical knowledge up the wazoo, and used
more magic in more ways than I could imagine. Yes, I loved learning how to
control the magic that filled me. Not that I had been top of the class in the
execution of everything they tried to teach me.
But the price for all this knowledge was that I could never speak of it outside
the Authority, never abuse the trust they placed in me, and never use magic in
the hidden ways in public. And the public included the police.
Which made my day job of Hounding illegal spells for Detective Stotts a
difficult combination of remembering what I should know and, more important,
what he should know I knew.
I shucked my T-shirt, and traded my exercise bra for something I could breathe
in. I didn’t look in the mirror until I’d pulled on my jeans and boots. I dug
the brush out of my bag and did a quick once-through on my hair. My hair was
dark and short enough I could tuck it pretty easily behind one ear, and I did
so on the left side. The right I let fall free, hiding the metallic whorls
magic had marked me with.
Since it was winter in Oregon, there wasn’t a natural tan in town, and I was no
exception. My pale skin made the glass green of my eyes look like chipped jade.
I held my breath and braced myself for the shadow of my father in my eyes.
Nothing but me staring back at me.
Good.
If my dad never spoke to me again—better yet, if he faded away into death like
a decent dead person—that would be fine with me. I did not like being
possessed.
I shoved my workout clothes into my bag, zipped everything, and put on my
hoodie before strolling out of the locker room. Zay and Shame stood by the
door. Shame cradled a cigarette and lighter in one hand—neither lit.
“So, where to?” I asked.
“The River Grill’s on the way to Mum’s,” Shame suggested.
“You’re coming with us?” I asked.
“Like you’re surprised. Free lunch, right?”
“Wrong,” Zay said. “It’s your turn to buy.”
I opened the door and stepped out into the hard, cold air. The sun lent the day
no warmth, but it was sunny and the sky was a shock of blue that hit my
winter-weary soul like a cool drink of water.
Zayvion followed behind me. Shamus paused to light up.
“You going to tell us the rest?” Zay asked over his shoulder.
Shame exhaled smoke. Finally got walking.
“The rest of what?”
We’d made it to the car, and Zay unlocked the passenger’s side and touched my
arm before walking around to the driver’s side. Shame, still smoking, paused
near the back of the car. He’d gotten here on his own—I assumed his car was in
the parking lot somewhere.
Zay turned and gave Shame a look that said more than words.
One corner of Shame’s mouth curved upward. The wind stirred his hair, pushing
it closer over his eyes, and taking his scents—cigarette smoke and cloves—away
from me.
“Sedra called in the crew from Seattle.”
“Terric?” Zay asked mildly.
Shame just took another drag off the cigarette. His shoulders were squared,
tense, his free hand fisted. He looked like someone who had more pain in him
than he had breath left to scream it out.
“Of course.”
“Have you seen him yet?” Zay asked.
“Nope. And if luck holds, I won’t see him at all.” Maybe it was supposed to
come out funny, but his voice dropped into a growl, even though he was smiling.
Whoa. There was a lot of fury behind that smile.
“Come to lunch,” Zay said.
Shame tossed the cigarette to the damp concrete, then clapped his hands
together as if brushing away dirt, his fingerless gloves muffling the sound.
“Not going to talk about it.”
“I know.”
Shame nodded, then strolled off to his car, whistling a punk rock song from the
nineties.
I looked over the roof of the car at Zayvion. He watched Shamus with such
intensity, it was like he could see the man’s bones, his soul.
Who knows? Maybe he could. There were a lot of things about both of them I
didn’t know.
Shamus, walking away, couldn’t see us. Still, he must have felt Zay’s gaze. He
lifted his hand in a dismissive wave.
Zayvion inhaled, his nostrils flaring. When he looked back at me, he was calm.
Zen Zay. Private Zay. Controlled. Deadly.
“Vacation’s over, isn’t it?” I asked.
Zay shrugged one shoulder. “I think we have time for one last lunch.”
“As long as lunch involves coffee, I’m on for it.” We both got in the car, and
at least one of us, namely me, wondered how long it would be before the storm
really hit.           
Chapter Two
T
he River Grill was on the Oregon side of the Columbia, and should have
been swank if the real estate surrounding it had any sway. Instead, it looked
pretty much the same as it did back in the day when the lumberyards were still
going strong—a squat, wide building with plenty of windows facing the water,
mostly clean tables, and food that was hot, filling, and cheap.
It was three o’clock, a little late for lunch, and a little early for dinner,
so the place was mostly empty.
Zay and I took a table by the window and Shamus strolled in behind us. He
plucked a menu off the stack by the cash register, and read it while walking
over to the table.
“Think it’s the burger today.” He sat in the remaining chair and folded the
menu.
“Big surprise,” Zayvion said over the top of his glass of water.
Shame held up one hand, and caught the waitress’s attention.
She was over in a jiffy, took our orders—burgers and sodas all around—and then
was off.
Shame cracked his knuckles. “So, how did sparring go today?”
“She’s improving,” Zayvion said.
“She won,” I said, clearly.
Zay just smiled. I really was getting better. Good enough I knew I could hold
my own in a fight. Good enough I was doing more than just knife training—we’d
moved on to the machetes Zay and his crew use to hunt down magical nasties. Zay
had let me work with the katana, a beautiful blade, heavy with the weight of
old magic. Training, being aware of every muscle in my body working in concert
to my command of magic, made me feel powerful. And I liked it. A lot.
“Very nice, Beckstrom,” Shame said. “Zay’s a hard man to take down. Not that
he’s much of a challenge for me, of course. I could take him with one spell
tied behind my back. And now that he’s all soft from his time off, he’d go down
in a hot second.”
“Are you done?” Zay asked.
“Done?” Shame said.
“Not talking about Terric.”
Shame glared at Zayvion. Zay sipped his water, patient as time. Shame finally
gave up, and rubbed his mouth across the palm of his fingerless glove. With his
other hand, he cast a very subtle Mute spell. The people around us, not that
there were many, wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation. Handy, that.
“Mum said Sedra’s calling . . . them . . . down. Said it’s about the storm, but
I think there’s more going on.”
Zay folded his fingers and propped his elbows on the table. He stared at
Shamus, waiting for him to talk.
“I think there’s something wrong with the wells,” Shame said.
Zayvion’s eyebrows rose. End of reaction. “All of them?”
Shame took a drink of water. “Like I know? I don’t have access to all of them.
But the one beneath Mum’s place . . .” He shook his head.
Zayvion did not look pleased. Then he pulled on the somber mask of Zen, of
calm, of duty, and simply looked emotionless.
Well, that was helpful.
“Want to tell the new girl what can go wrong with the wells?” I wasn’t a
complete idiot. In the time I’d been taking classes from Victor, Liddy, Maeve,
and Jingo Jingo, I’d realized that Portland has four natural wells of magic
beneath the ground. That was unusual. Other cities had wells—usually one.
Sometimes two. Rarely three. But the Portland area had four wells, one of which
was beneath the Flynns’ inn, which Shame’s mother ran, just on the Vancouver
side of the river, and all of which were a hard-guarded secret.
The waitress hurried over, three plates balanced across her arm. She placed
everything on our table, plunked down a carrier of condiments, and left us to
our meal.
“So?” I asked. “What can go wrong with the wells?”
Shame took a huge bite of burger, pointed at his mouth, and gave me a
shut-up-and-let-me-eat look while he chewed.
Closers such as Zayvion, Chase, and, apparently, Terric could take away the
memories of any people they judged were a harm to themselves or others when
using magic. Judge, jury, and executioners, Closers had the final say about
what people remembered about magic. It made me uncomfortable. Shame told me
once that Closers take away Hound memories if Hounds stumble across magic they
shouldn’t know about.
I’d asked him and Zayvion if I’d ever been Closed. It would explain a lot. It
would explain why I randomly lost my memories when I used magic.
They’d both said no. Shame told me he didn’t think anyone in the Authority was
really interested in me before my dad’s death. And while Zayvion hadn’t exactly
agreed with that, he said he had never seen or heard of anyone being ordered to
take my memories.
I wasn’t sure if I was glad about that. If my memories were taken by a person,
there was still a chance I could get them back. If they were taken by magic, I
could kiss those parts of my life good-bye.
Still, I didn’t know what could go wrong with the wells that the Closers
couldn’t handle. They could just erase any memories about them if someone
outside the Authority found something out.
I looked at Zay. “Well?”
“If Sedra is calling in more Closers, it might have something to do with the gates,
not the wells,” he said.
“They’re closed, right? No openings in the last two months? Since my . . .
test?” What I didn’t say was since there had been a huge fight, and Cody
Miller’s spirit had sacrificed himself to close the gateways between life and
death.
“Wild storms can blow the gates open,” Zayvion said.
“Neat. So you Closers have some work ahead of you, but it’s not a big problem,
right?”
“It is very, very difficult to close a gate during a storm,” Zay said. “Magic
doesn’t work right in wild storms. It can be hard to access, or come too
quickly and foul or mutate spells. And if the wells are also affected by the
storm . . .” He shrugged.
“Can enough Closers contain it?” The Authority was tight-lipped about
membership. I wasn’t even sure how many people were a part of the Authority in
Portland, much less other cities, or the world. And I had no idea how many of
those members were Closers.
Shame shoved french fries in his mouth, mumbled, “Lunch,” and gave a nod toward
my plate. “Save the world on a full stomach.”
Fine. If they didn’t want to talk about it, I’d find out when I went to see
Maeve later. I took a bite of my burger. Juicy, hot, nothing fancy, but as soon
as I got a bite of it, I discovered I was starving.
The door opened, letting in the brisk wind and a man and woman.
The man was at least six feet tall and wide as a football field, his long,
shiny black hair pulled back at the base of his neck. He wore cargo shorts,
flip-flops, and a black and red Blazer jacket, even though it was February and
cold, and moved with that island-warmth vibe of his birthplace. Detective
Mackanie Love.
With him was a blade of a woman. Thin, unsmiling, dark and cool as a rainy
midnight, she was wrapped in a gray coat and gray scarf that did nothing to soften
her angular but pretty features. Detective Lia Payne.
I used to run all my Hounding jobs that dealt with illegal use of magic past
them before Detective Stotts and the MERC, a secret branch of the law that
dealt with magical crime, came into my life. We were maybe not fast friends,
but friends just the same.
Just as I spotted them, they spotted me.
I smiled and waved.
“Tell me you did not just wave down the cops,” Shamus whispered.
“Tita!” Mackanie strolled over, a smile on his face. He took in my company,
with what seemed to be friendly interest.
Zayvion Jones looked Love in the eyes, but had slouched into his
slacker-drifter bit he did so well, and Shame motioned under the table,
breaking the Mute spell before Mackanie got too close.
“Food any good today?” He stopped between Zay’s and Shamus’s chairs.
“Good enough that it’s almost gone,” I said. “Have you met Zayvion Jones and
Shamus Flynn?”
“Jones and I have met.” He nodded at Zay.
“Detective Love,” Zayvion said.
“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, Mr. Flynn.” He held his hand out to
Shame. They shook.
“Pleased to meet you,” Shame said with very little tone inflection. He’d fallen
into his sullen goth-boy act pretty fast. What was it with these two and the
cops?
Oh yeah. Most of what they did would probably be considered illegal if the
world ever knew magic could do what they could make it do.
“So, you talked to Stotts today?” Love asked me.
“Should I?”
“He knows how to find you, yah?”
“He has my number. There a case he wants me on?”
“Not sure. He’s got your number, you got no worries. But that warehouse of
yours. There’s a worry. I hear they’re gonna condemn it.”
I grinned. That warehouse of mine was the building next to Get Mugged. Grant
had decided to buy it, and agreed to let me lease two of the floors for an
office, a meeting space, a couple bunks, a kitchen, and a workout room for the
Hounds. To say it had been a learning experience was a serious understatement.
I’d never repaired or renovated anything in my life. Yes, I hired a contractor
to do the big fixes, but then I dragged as many Hounds into manual labor as I
could.
Not one of my brighter plans. Hounds are loners. Working together was so far
out of their natural tendencies, it was laughable.
And with how much I’d spent doing it, I think it would have been cheaper to
just knock the place down and build from scratch. But Grant loved the “vintage”
feel of it, and so did the ghost hunters who were renting out the bottom floor.
Therefore, the old building remained as it was, standing proudly. Well, leaning
proudly, anyway.
Plus the location—right next door to my favorite coffee shop—was pretty hard to
beat.
“Too late to condemn it,” I said. “Paint’s dry by the end of the week, and the
landline’s being hooked up tomorrow.”
“So you got emergency response plugged in, in case of trouble?”
“No drug use allowed on the premises. No guns. No brawls. No troubles.”
He just stared at me. Yeah, we all knew that things went to hell when too many
Hounds got together for too long.
“Fine,” I said. “Yes, I’ve set things up.”
“Good, then, good,” he said. “You Hound, Flynn?” he asked Shame.
“Wash dishes at my mum’s restaurant, Feile San Fhomher.”
“Maybe that’s where I’ve seen you, yah?”
He shrugged. “Unless you worked juvie a few years back.”
I turned and stared at Shame. He had a record? “You have a record?” I asked.
See how tactful I could be?
“Did some tagging when I was fourteen.”
How come I figured it was a lot more than that?
“Gang?” Love asked.
“Just art and anger.”
“You get that out of your system?” he asked.
“Let’s just say I’m not fourteen anymore.”
Love grinned. “Yah, live and learn. I got some eating to do, though this
place’s got nothing on your mom’s blackberry cobbler.”
Maeve’s inn was a working restaurant. Which meant a lot of people went there,
including cops who had no idea she was one of the voices in the Authority and
her entire inn and restaurant was built over a secret, hidden well of magic.
This kind of stuff gave me a headache. There were layers and layers of who knew
what in this city. Zayvion said he had a spreadsheet to keep track of what
secrets were spoken where. I had yet to see it.
Every time I thought these things out, I was more impressed that the Authority
hadn’t been discovered yet. Of course, they had one ace in the hole no one else
in this city had. Closers, who could get in your head, make you forget anything
they wanted you to forget—like a secret you shouldn’t have heard or maybe how
to use magic. They could Close away your desire to stay in the city. Take away
your life, and give you a new one if they decided the situation warranted it.
Kill you, if you got in their way.
I glanced at Zay. He was drinking his Coke and trying hard not to look over at
Love’s partner, Payne, who sat in the booth across the room. She was staring at
him.
She caught my gaze and gave me a considering look, her mouth pressed together
in a thin line. I wondered how, exactly, she and Zayvion knew each other. I
remember Mackanie Love being there when Frank Gordon had dug up my father’s
body and tried to kill me. Zay had been there too. So it was possible that
their only connection was Zay being a witness to that crime. But if I
remembered right, Love and Payne had been looking for Zay prior to that.
Interesting.
I stretched my foot under the table and rested it against the side of Zay’s
tennis shoe.
The contact let me concentrate on his emotional state: tense, which was not at
all what I’d have guessed from his body language, with a side order of worry
and dread.
He must have sensed my curiosity because he gave me a sideways look and sat up,
pulling his foot away from mine.
Like that would stop me from finding out why he was all worked up over Payne.
Even though it had taken only a couple seconds, I’d sort of lost track of the
conversation Love and Shame were having. I had a hard time listening in to
Zayvion’s emotions and listening to the real world at the same time.
I tuned back in just in time to hear Love say, “. . . lunch. Later, Tita.”
“Bye,” I said, wondering if I’d just made a lunch date with him.
Love rambled over to Payne. She stopped staring at Zayvion and stared at her
menu instead.
“You don’t like the police, do you?” I asked Shame.
Shame flicked up a couple fingers in a dismissive motion. “They do good work. I
just like them better when that work has nothing to do with me.”
“Juvie?” I asked.
“It happens.”
“Would have thought your mom had some pull to keep you out of there.”
“She did,” Zayvion said. “So did his dad.”
Shame looked up at me. He didn’t grin, but there was a sparkle in his eye.
“They let me sweat it out for a week. Said it’d help me rethink my priorities.”
“Did it?”
“Yes. I decided my first priority was not getting caught.”
“You are a man of questionable morals, Shamus Flynn,” I said.
“You have no idea. Well, then.” He stood, stuck one hand in his jean pockets,
and brushed hair out of his eyes with the other. “Thanks for lunch. I have to
run. See you soon.”
I had a mouthful of fries. Zay was finishing his too. I held up my hand to tell
Shame to stop, but he spun and was across the room, weaving between a noisy
crowd of college kids pouring into the place. He was out the door before I
could call his name.
The waitress saw my hand and came over with our ticket. Zay reached for it, but
I got it before him. “You cover next time.”