Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

Shamus jumped out and started rummaging through the gear in the trunk.

“I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying in the car?” Zayvion asked.

“No.”

He didn’t look surprised by my answer. “Did your father teach you any of the Closing spells?”

“No.”

“Attacks?”

“What? No.”

“Allie. .” He rubbed the back of his neck and tipped his head down.

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t have to be the one who kills these things, but I do want to see how they are killed. I’m here to watch and learn so the next time one of my Hounds gets attacked, I’ll know what to do. I’ll stay out of your way. Think of me as a job shadow.”

He stopped rubbing his neck. “I’d like to think of you as a lot more than that. Alive and safe, for one thing.”

“How about stubborn and smart enough to look after myself?”

“Mmm, that too. But I’m still going to go with alive and safe.”

He leaned toward me. I met him halfway. We kissed, and delicious warmth spread through me, filling me. The taste of him-a little smoky and sweet, along with the scent of pine that would forever remind me of him, of his touch-poured through me and made me want him more.

He pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. “Please. Please take the keys and drive home,” he said softly.

I leaned away, just enough that I could see his eyes. Just enough that I wouldn’t fall into needing to do what he said. Not because of Influence or anything magical between us. But because I hated to hear the worry in his voice.

“Just tell me what to do if one gets too close to me. I promise I am not going to get close to one of them.”

He licked his bottom lip, and I wondered if he could still taste me, taste our kiss.

“Shield will work against them,” he said. He was all teacher now, all Zen. Calm. Reassuring. Matter-of-fact. Like he hunted nightmares every day.

Which, come to think of it, he probably did.

“Camouflage works too. If things get hot, back off and back out. Most of the defensive spells-Hold, Sleep-won’t do a thing. The Hungers absorb anything thrown at them. So your best defense is to not attack. Try to blend in, try not to smell like magic or give off the sign that you use magic.”

I rolled my eyes, and he nodded. “I know. But try. Blocks will work on you, not on the Hungers.”

He searched my face, his gaze dropping to my lips, then back up to my eyes. “Allie-”

“-tell me later,” I said with a little too much cheerfulness. “When all this is over and you and I are sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of wine.”

“Stubborn,” he said.

“Middle name,” I agreed. And before we could say anything else, before I lost my nerve, I got out of the car.

Shamus bent over the open trunk, humming a tuneless song and smoking a cigarette.

“Need any help?” I strolled over, my boots crunching in the wet gravel. I stuck both my hands in my pockets and was grateful I’d put on a hat. It wasn’t raining or very windy right now, but the air was bone-bitingly cold and damp.

“Sure,” he said without looking at me, “hold this.” He handed me a leather rope that looked a lot like a short-handled bullwhip, but with silver glyphs worked down the length of the leather and a blade of glass at the tip.

I held it, leaving the length curled in the trunk among the other weapons-a couple sheathed machetes with glass and glyphs worked into the hilts, more leather whips, some plain rope, a few stained glass boxes that looked like they should hold jewelry, sheathed knives, and several glyphed and Warded cases that looked like the right shape and size to carry guns.

And with all that to choose from, Shamus, who was still wearing his black fingerless gloves, was instead carefully unwrapping silk handkerchiefs off of four small round medallions. The medallions were lead and glass like everything else in the armament ensemble, but each was loose. He opened one of the stained glass boxes and pulled out four leather cuffs. He pressed the medallions into the leather cuffs, and I could feel, rather than hear, a low thunk as they snapped into place.

Zayvion got out of the car, paused to assess what I was holding, then got busy on the other side of Shamus, sorting small bits of glass, leather, lead, and steel.

They each took one of the leather cuffs and snapped them into place on their bare wrists, medallions pressed against their skin.

“You think?” Shamus asked, holding up a leather band with one of the medallions in it.

Zayvion nodded and took it from him. “This,” he said to me, “is for you to wear. We’ll each have one on. They allow us to sense where the other person is. If we’re injured. If we’re unconscious. If we’re alive.”

“Do they let us read each other’s minds too?”

Shamus chuckled. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what’s going on in Jones’ mind.”

“No,” Zayvion answered.

“Which arm?” I asked.

“The right, I think.”

I pulled back my sleeve and he wrapped the leather around my right wrist. The medallion fit like a warm, silky disk against the inside of my wrist and pulsed with two distinct beats. I raised my eyebrows.

Zayvion lifted my hand to his chest and pressed my palm there. I could feel the beat of his heart under my hand and echoed in the medallion at my wrist. And when I took a second to think about it, I could somehow tell that he was well, confident, and a little excited.

“Shame?” he said.

“Right.” Shamus sucked the last of the smoke out of his cigarette, threw it to the wet gravel, and dragged his shoe over it. He stepped up, and I put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat matched the second rhythm on my wrist, and touching him gave me the sense of his state of mind. He was exhausted, worried. Two things I never would have guessed, looking at him, and I was good at reading body language. He was also determined, like someone who had been working a hard, long shift and was willing to roll up his sleeves and work for however long it would take to get the job done.

He grinned, and the worry shifted to amusement.

“Okay,” I said. “Do you need to touch me?” I asked.

Shamus wiggled his eyebrows. “If you insist.” He lifted both hands-curled, not flat-and reached for my chest.

I took a step back.

“Shame,” Zayvion growled. “Knock it off.”

Zay took my arm and stood half between us, turning his back on Shamus. “We use these all the time. We’re attuned. As long as you’re wearing that, we can sense you without touching.”

“Maybe you can,” Shamus said, “what with the whole Soul Complement thing you two have going on, but I might need a little feel.”

“No.” Zayvion did not look at him. “You don’t.”

The conversation stopped as a car drove down the gravel road and parked behind us. For a second I worried that we were all standing there in front of a weapon-filled trunk. Then Chase got out of the car.

She wore black combat boots, black jeans, and a blue-and-black plaid flannel coat zipped up so that just the turtleneck of her gray sweater showed. Her hair was back in a single long braid, and her eyes, beneath the straight, thick bangs, were wide and sapphire blue.

She made flannel and combat boots look as though they belonged on a Parisian runway.

“Hello, boys.” She nodded toward me. “Why are you here?”

“On-the-job training,” Shamus said. “Plus, we think the things like her. She’s our in.”

Her pretty face settled somewhere between curiosity and disgust as she gave me the full-body once-over. “You saw the Hungers?”

I stuck my wrist with the band on it in my pocket. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want her opinion of me wearing the band that connected me to Zayvion and Shamus. “I saw them. I use Sight a lot when I Hound.”