Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

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.

The 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.