Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

I didn’t want to startle her, but wasn’t sure if she’d heard me come in. So I made some noise opening the door and shutting it more loudly behind me.

“Welcome back,” she said without turning. “I heard you come in the first time.”

I laughed and hung my soggy coat on the back of the door. “I didn’t want to send you tumbling to your death,” I said. “How was your day?”

“Good. I did some shopping. Hope you don’t mind.” She finished adjusting the vine, some kind of philodendron, I think, over the valance, where it obliged her, as all green living things seemed wont to do, by draping in a perfect waterfall of leaves like an interior-decorating magazine photo shoot. “You really needed some living things in here.”

“You didn’t pay for all this, did you?”

“It’s not that much,” she said as she stepped off the chair, flashed me a smile, then walked far enough back so she could look at her handiwork. “I found a nice secondhand store just down the street for the little things.”

“They were selling plants?”

“No. But the flower shop around the corner was. Think of it as payment for putting me up on such short notice for a few days. Soup’s ready. Did you have lunch?”

“Didn’t have time. I’m starving.” I headed into the kitchen, where I found on the stovetop soup filled with veggies, and bread wrapped in a dish towel on the counter beside it. Heaven. I filled a bowl, took a couple pieces of bread, and headed back into the living room.

“How did the job go?” Nola asked. She sat on the couch, and I sat at the café table. Nola had opened the blinds enough to let in the dull afternoon light. And with the cascade of green leaves in the corners of the room, the light no longer seemed as dreary.

“Good,” I said around a mouthful of the best beef veg gie soup I’d ever put a spoon to. “Any luck with Cody’s stuff?”

She folded her hands in her lap, and I realized I had rarely seen her that still, no knitting in her hands, no bills to pay, no charity items to sort, no chickens to tend, alfalfa to bale, heck, not even her dog Jupe’s big head to scratch.

It was the first time I’d really thought about how lonely her life might be.

“I went down to talk with the supervisor. She wasn’t available, and no one else seemed to have any information except that he was in the care of a psychologist for tests he needs before he can be released. They said that’s customary with cases that deal with the handicapped and their misuse of magic.”

“The forgeries he did when he was younger? Or him being used as part of my dad’s murder?” Cody hadn’t been the one behind the scheme to kill my dad, though he had been a part of forging my dad’s signature on the hit on the kid in St. Johns, and my signature on the hit on my dad. As far as the law was concerned, James Hoskil was the brains behind the crime.

But the law did not know about a lot of things going on in this city, like the Authority, and weird half-dog men running around. Even I didn’t think James Hoskil was powerful enough to take down my very powerful father.

My dad fluttered behind my eyes. I ignored him.

“I don’t know,” Nola said. “They won’t say more than that. I’m guessing it’s from the most recent crime. He was in custody before that. Those records, of why he was jailed for a short time, I can’t find. I’ve tried looking up newspaper articles, courtroom documents, but there are no reports in the news. It’s strange. The courtroom documents aren’t even public. I don’t understand what all the cloak-and-dagger stuff is around this poor kid, and I’d like to know what crimes he committed before I take him in.”

I took another bite of soup. The Authority was probably behind the secrecy. They had put the hush on the circumstances of Lon Trager’s death, Frank’s dark magic shenanigans, and my dad’s stolen corpse. None of those ever hit the news. Maybe the Authority had pull, or people, in the courts as well.

Nola didn’t know much about the Authority, and I was inclined to keep it that way for now. Telling her about the secret society of magic users meant putting her at risk.

I refused to do that.

“I’ll ask Violet if she knows anyone that can help us with this,” I said. “Are you going to call Detective Stotts and see if he can help?”

She twisted her fingers together. “I think I will. What do you think about him?”

I sipped the remainder of the broth out of the bowl. “I only met him a couple weeks ago. He seems to be a good police officer. Dedicated to his job. Determined. Said he grew up in the Northwest. Raised by his mom mostly here in Portland. Has good taste in coffee, so that’s something in his favor.” I smiled.

“I didn’t know his wife had passed away though. I thought the ring. . well, you know.”

She nodded. “He could be lying about that.”

“How very suspicious of you,” I said approvingly. “But I don’t think so. He didn’t smell like he was lying. Oh, one more thing. He’s cursed.”

I took a huge bite of bread, white with a hint of garlic and Parmesan. Delish.

“What?”

I talked around the mouthful of bread. “Cursed. Hounds who work for him die very unusual deaths. Weird, huh?”

“My God, Allie. How can you joke about that?”

“I’m not joking. People really think he’s cursed.”

“Do you?”

I took another bite of bread to give me time to think. Stotts could prove by numbers and odds why Hounds tended to die when they worked for him. But a small, suspicious side of me wasn’t buying it. I didn’t think foul play was involved. I did think Stotts had a knack for being around when Hounds pushed too hard, made the wrong choice, or finally gave up all together.

“I don’t know if it’s a curse. I don’t believe in curses. But. .” I rubbed my fingers back through my wet hair and slouched in the chair. “Something. If nothing else, he’s a magnet for bad luck.”

“And you are working for him because. .?”

“I’m bad luck?” I grinned. “Because I made a promise to Pike that I would look after the group of Hounds he was leading. Make sure they checked in with each other, keep track of who was working with the police, with Stotts, so we’d know who was alive and who was dead.”

“Sounds kind of lonely and grim,” she said.

“Not really. It’s a support group, I guess.”

“And you’re leading it?”

I couldn’t parse her change of tone. “Yes?”

She grinned. “I can’t believe I heard that out of your mouth. You, taking responsibility for others. Good job.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I drawled.

“No, really.” She leaned forward, a twinkle in her eye. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you step up like this. So respectable.”

“Forget I said anything.”

“No, it’s good. And you must have really cared for Pike to promise to look after everything for him.”

“Not everything. Just the Hounds. Have I talked about Pike much?” I asked.

“No. You’ve mentioned his name a couple times. What was he like?”

“Sort of what I wished my dad could have been. Not that he was the nicest guy around. But he was. . fair. He always told it to me straight. Didn’t lie. Even when he knew I wouldn’t agree with him.”

“I’m glad he was in your life,” she said.

Which was just what I needed to hear, because I was glad he was in my life too. I’d just never been able to say that to anyone. See how great best friends were? Even if they were also incredibly annoying.

Someone knocked on the door. I straightened, dug my thumb in a circle at my temple, waiting out the spike of pain. I should have taken some aspirin. “Did you invite someone?” I asked, trying to remember if I had locked the door after opening it the second time.