Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

Losing my memory made a lot of things feel like a half-remembered nightmare. And I hated that. Hated going into a situation with such an obvious blind spot in my experience. It made me feel like around every corner someone-or something-was there, waiting to jump me.

And it probably was.

I followed my gut toward the bridge. The huge green expanse of the St. Johns Bridge arched overhead at least three stories, spanning the river with gothic arches that ended across the river in Forest Park.

I didn’t see anyone walking the concrete trail around the park. Still, I couldn’t see the whole thing.There were too many hills and valleys and trees to get a good view of the place.

I set a Disbursement again and drew Sight. A bloodred trail of magic pulsed like a vein through the air, tracing the natural curve of the land along the water and knotting just twenty yards ahead of me, where the hill took a sharp downward curve into a gully, hidden from most of the park. The spell pulsed there, bright as copper lightning from the sky.

The traces of Davy’s signature were clearer there. He was either part of casting that spell or he was a victim of it.

I jogged closer, as quietly as the wet grass would let me. I probably should have contacted the police or Stotts or, hell, even told Shamus I was coming out here. But I figured Davy was mixed up with ex-girlfriend-fistfight problems, not giant-dark-crazy-magic problems.

And, hey, maybe it really was just fistfight problems.

Yeah. Right.

Tomi seemed like the kind of girl who wouldn’t mind using magic to torture her ex. Or on the woman who was trying to rescue him.

I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t even have a cell phone. But I had magic. If someone was hurting Davy, I could at least Hold them and get Davy away. I could probably knock them unconscious with magic, if I had to.

Just in case, I traced a Hold spell and held it pinched between my forefinger and thumb, but didn’t pour magic into it yet.

I took the curve of the hill and came over the crest.

The full smell of the spell hit me as the scene spilled out before me. Davy was crumpled on the ground about twenty feet away. Blood poured from the side of his head onto the concrete path. Blood trailed away from him and connected to the edge of a circle of black ash that was as glossy as crow feathers, and burned finger deep into the grass.

Standing on the other side of that circle was Tomi. Too pale, too thin, wearing too many layers of black with too many bruises and scratches mucking up her skin. She looked like hell had sucked her up warm and spat her out dead.

She had a knife in her hand. A very large knife. With a lot of blood on it.

“Tomi?”

She didn’t say anything. She just stared into the empty space between us. I didn’t think she even realized I was standing there. Shock?

I crept forward. She didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. I bent next to Davy, keeping my eye on her. His skin was warm, but his breath came out in uneven gurgles. Maybe a punctured lung. Or worse.

“Tomi,” I said again. “Are you hurt? Do you know what happened?”

’Cause, yeah, asking the crazy chick with the big bloody knife if she was up on current events was a great idea.

Nothing.

Davy wasn’t breathing well enough for me to wait around for her answer anyway.

I had to get him out of here. To the hospital. I bent and picked him up, swore at the pain in my injured shoulder that shot down my back. I tried to lift him as carefully as I could, which is to say, not very.

He made a moaning noise.

Tomi blinked. Focused. Looked over at me.

“I told you they’d kill him,” she whispered. “See what happened? See?”

She gestured with the knife and blood fell from the blade into the circle of ash. The magic in the circle, in the spell, rippled with shadows of indigo and bloodred.

“Tomi, listen. Davy’s not dead. I need to take him to the hospital. Put the knife down and come with me.”

Tomi just stared at me and jerked the knife in a couple haphazard strikes through thin air. No, not strikes. Drawing. She was working Blood magic, casting a spell. Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.

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.