Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

“Not even a newborn baby.”

He chuckled. “That’s too bad. No, Nola didn’t ask me to do anything for you. But if she did, I probably would have done it.”

Was he telling me that he liked her? That he maybe already felt something toward her? I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Nola lived a small-town life in a place where magic could not touch her. Stotts was in the middle of a city crawling with magical crime. Opposites might attract, but that didn’t mean they didn’t also explode on contact.

“That’s good to know too,” I said.

The sound of a car engine broke off our little heart-to-heart.

We both took a step away from each other. I, at least, was surprised we were still standing that close together.

A Mercedes-Benz drove up and parked on the side of the street, behind where Davy still stood, hunched-shouldered beneath the tree, probably soaked through anywhere his coat didn’t cover. Why didn’t the kid just get in his car and out of the rain, or come on over here and take shelter in the gazebo? That boy made no sense.

The car engine turned off, and Violet’s bodyguard, Kevin, got out of the driver’s side. Kevin had to be my height or so, but carried himself like a man who was used to getting lost in the crowd. Blond hair, brown eyes, and a face that most resembled a puppy dog, eyes too big, jaw too soft, he didn’t look like the killer he was. Nor did he look like a man who was good-very good-at using magic. He was part of the Authority, and Violet knew that because she was my father’s widow, and apparently Dad didn’t mind telling her about the secret society of magic users.

Not that I was bitter about it or anything.

Violet was just a beat behind him, sliding out of the passenger’s side, and wearing a full-length wool peacoat as blue as a stormy ocean, the wide hood pulled up. Her figure was still trim.

They walked over to the gazebo, side-by-side.

Stotts waved to them, and Violet waved back. They strolled up the gazebo steps, Violet in front, Kevin behind her.

“Hello, Detective Stotts,” she said.

“Mrs. Beckstrom, Mr. Cooper.” Stotts shook hands with both of them. “Thank you for coming out.”

Violet pushed her hood back and put on her glasses. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Allie.”

In the gray light, Violet’s hair seemed to have a warmth of its own, the fiery hue of autumn leaves. I found myself unable to look away from her, unable to exhale, as emotions that were not mine poured through me in a river of heat.

Images flashed behind my eyes, memories, of Violet. And with those memories came emotions.

I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her. I wanted to feel her heartbeat against my own. I wanted to touch her. Love her.

Holy shit. I took a step back, away. Away from Violet. Away from the emotions raging in me. Emotions that were not my own, but my father’s.

It was only a second, a hot, vivid second of wanting her. . as a man, as my father wanted her, but it freaked me out.

I didn’t know if I should be sick or angry. Angry was easier.

Get the hell out of my head and leave me alone

, I said.

The presence of my father did not dim, but he did something to lower the intensity of his emotions. There was some sort of curtain between us, a curtain that dampened his feelings.

My apology

, he said stiffly. And here’s the weird part-I knew he meant it. Really meant it. The primary emotion that filtered through the curtain now was embarrassment. He didn’t like sharing his emotions with me-never had when he was alive, still didn’t now that he was dead.

I wasn’t overjoyed about it either.

“Allie?” Violet asked.

“Hounding,” I said, brushing right over my little melt-down by striding over to the circle of ash. “For Detective Stotts.” The sooner I got this job nailed down, the sooner I could get out to Maeve’s and get rid of my dad.

I just needed to keep my cool.

“This,” I said, “is what’s left of a Conversion spell. No trailing line, no signature, nothing but this circle.”

Violet knelt next to the circle. “Is this what you saw before on the farm?” she asked.

I assumed she was talking to me. “I don’t remember what I saw before, but I’m pretty sure this matches what Nola described to me. It is very familiar. I know I’ve seen something like it before.”

“Huh.” She pulled a small vial and something that looked like a tongue depressor out of her purse. She scooped up some of the material and tapped it into the vial. She dropped that in her purse, then walked around the circle and knelt again.

“There are no other lines in the center?” she asked.

I looked down. There clearly weren’t. But she wasn’t asking me.

“No,” Stotts said.

His gaze was unfocused, his feet spread as if he were holding up a weight. His right hand was held palm forward, in an old-fashioned “stop” motion. And though he held still, I knew, because I could smell it, that he had cast a variation of Sight.

Right. I forgot that even though he called people like me in to Hound cases, it didn’t mean he couldn’t use magic to see things himself. Hounds could just see it, taste it, smell it, and track it better than any other magic user.

“Nothing on any of the standard spectrums,” he said.

Correction. He used magic very well. My opinion of him went up a notch.

He put his hand down, releasing the spell, and shook his wrist out. “It looks like a circle of ash. I wouldn’t think it had anything to do with magic if I hadn’t seen it fall when Allie broke the Conversion spell.”

Kevin, who had walked across the gazebo to stand with his hands harmlessly in his pockets while he stared out at where Davy stood, suddenly stiffened. His puppy dog gaze slid over to me. That was it. No other reaction. But I knew he didn’t believe Stotts.

As well he shouldn’t. It wasn’t a Conversion spell I had broken. I sucked at anything along the lines of spells traditionally meant for medical use, and breaking a spell took just as much skill as casting a spell.

“Do you have any idea who is involved in this?” Violet asked.

Stotts shook his head. “Nothing here. No one. Just the spell, reported by some dog walkers whose dogs wouldn’t get anywhere near the gazebo, and who reported getting sick the closer they came to look at it.”

Even I could tell that didn’t sound like a Conversion spell. Violet pushed on her knees to stand, and Kevin was suddenly beside her, catching her hand and helping her up. “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

He made it look like business as usual, but my dad, behind my eyes, focused on the two of them and would not look away.

Stop it

, I pushed at him.

But he did not stop it. With a force of will a dead man should not have, he stared at Violet’s smile, at the softening of Kevin’s expression, then followed Kevin’s hand to where it lingered just a second too long, too gently, too damn much in love, on Violet’s hand.

My father’s hatred burned chemical hot in my brain and everything went white for a second.

Violet, strangely enough, did not seem to notice Kevin’s barely concealed attentiveness. She was all business, a scientist with her thoughts on the problem at hand, not the people around her.

“I do think it is the full discharge of magic one of the disks could carry,” she said.

“Which leaves us with several more still out there.” Stotts said.

“Several?” I asked, leaning against my dad, like he was a door in a hard wind that refused to close. I wasn’t gaining much ground against him. I-or rather Dad-could not look away from Kevin, could not see anything but the man who had touched Violet. My Violet. My wife.