Devon Monk - Magic In the Blood

“What are you really doing here?” I asked.

“Looking for you. To ask you out. On a date.” As he said it, his gaze flicked over my shoulder and rested just a little too long on the horizon.

So I turned and looked back there too. Close to the mausoleum at the top of the hill, a figure moved, walking among the graves. Heavy knee-length coat, a hat. It didn’t look like anyone I knew, but from this distance it was hard to tell.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

See how I bought myself time to think about the whole date thing?

“Not yet.” Zayvion had not moved, had not stopped squinting off into the heavy drizzle. “Maybe not at all.” He wiped rain off his face and pulled his beanie closer to his head. “This place always makes me jumpy.”

“Always? How often do you come here?”

Zayvion finally looked away from the figure, who had stopped walking between graves and was now standing, just standing there, staring in our general direction.

“I was last here at the burial,” he said quietly.

I glanced down at my father’s grave. The press of our bodies had left the image of a broken snow angel in the soft grass and soil. A mud angel. Oregon style.

“You saw him lowered down. Down into that?” Into that empty grave , I wanted to say, but didn’t, couldn’t, yet.

He nodded. “Are you done here?” he asked. “If you want to go, I have my car.”

He didn’t look cold despite the rain. Didn’t look like he was in a hurry. Didn’t look like he might be trying to avoid answering my questions too.

“Maybe,” I said. “Will you tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Everything might take some time.” He tipped his head down a bit, his smile warm. More than warm-it was firelight in the damn cold world, a heat I wished I could pull deep within me. Maybe I could overlook the darkness of the rest of the day if I could hold on to a little bit of that fire.

“I have some time,” I said. “Until noon, anyway. You have somewhere you need to be?”

He held very still, so still I didn’t think he was breathing. Finally, “No. Just with you.”

And for no reason at all, those words made my stomach flutter, like he’d just drawn his hand down my back and pulled me close. Oh, yeah. There was a reason I’d been attracted to him. Still was. Even in a graveyard, even in a rainstorm, even after a crappy day like today, he knew what to say to make me feel like there was no one else in the world with him but me.

Well, me and the person standing by the gravestones, staring at us.

We walked toward the car, Zayvion crossing behind to position himself on my right and slightly uphill from me. The way someone would position himself if he wanted to put his body between me and, say, that person up there on the horizon.

“How about you start by telling me why you don’t want whoever that is up there to see me?”

I could see his smile from the corners of my eyes.

“You’re an observant woman, Ms. Beckstrom.”

“You have no idea.”

I let the sound of our boots in the grass take up some time. Zayvion didn’t look worried. I couldn’t smell anyone on the wind, couldn’t smell much over the strong pine of Zayvion’s cologne.

“Might be no one I know,” he finally said.

“Or?”

He shrugged again. “Never hurts to be careful. You’re a public figure right now.”

“I’ve always been a public figure.”

“Not like this,” he said softly. “Not like now. People are watching you, Allie. Closely.”

Like that was news. It would take more than a vague reference to scare me. Hells, as far as I knew Trager’s men waited around every corner and even dead people had suddenly decided to watch my every move.

“I’m just lucky that way. Who do you think is watching me?”

“A lot of people. People in powerful positions.”

I usually wouldn’t put up with that kind of coy answer. But I had lost weeks to that coma, and a lot of memories. Zayvion had been with me for a lot of what I no longer remembered. He’d been there when I last saw my father. Nola said he’d even been there when I found out my dad was dead and when I’d turned into a living receptacle for magic.

If he had something to say, if he knew something about my life, then I wanted that information.

I could be patient when I had to be.

The raindrops fell, bigger, harder, a cloudburst now instead of a steady drizzle. The wind, which had never really stopped, picked up the pace.

“I’d like to hear more about those people,” I said.

“Then it’s a date?” he asked.

“It could be.”

Zayvion brushed his hand along my bent elbow and guided me forward a little more quickly.

“My car is down by the gate. Let’s get out of the rain first.”

Out of the rain and out of earshot, or eyesight, of whoever was watching. Without looking over my shoulder, without breaking stride, I strained to hear the sound of footsteps, of movement, of breathing in the graveyard. Strained to hear or sense, without the use of magic, anything or anyone other than Zayvion and me.

“The car’s over here.” Zayvion pulled his keys out of his pocket and strode off ahead of me.

I glanced over my shoulder at where the figure had been. He-because I decided it looked more like a man than a woman-was still there, leaning against a tall pillar gravestone, black coat, black figure against a dead sky. And I knew, without using magic, that he was looking for me. Maybe even was one of those powerful people Zayvion said was watching me.

See how well I put two and two together?

Zayvion came back to where I stood and touched my arm. “Come on, Allie.”

The click and thunk of his car door opening, and the promise of warmth and sanctuary it offered, got me moving. I crawled in and had a moment to worry about ruining the black leather seats, but was grateful for the shelter from the cold, the wet, and the overwhelming presence of death. I was freezing, soaked through, and tired. Really, really tired.

Like death warmed over. Ha-ha, not funny.

Zayvion walked around the car and slid in the driver’s side.

“So who do you think that man is? Was he there when my father was buried? Does this all have something to do with his death?”

He put the keys in the ignition, started the car, and, thankfully, the heater.

“How about I drive while I talk?”

“Where are we going?”

Score one for the logical mind.

He looked over at me. Nothing but Zen. Well, a little wet. A lot kissable. And just unreadable enough that I didn’t feel safe enough to risk getting too intimate. Yet.

“Where do you want me to take you?”

“Anywhere you’re going to tell me the truth about that man out there, the powerful people watching me, and my father’s grave.”

He frowned. “What about your father’s grave?”

“Did you actually see his body lowered into it?” I said it like it didn’t freak me out that my dead father was missing in inaction. So to speak.

He looked out the front window like he was looking into his memories. Then took a very deep, loud breath. Let it out. “A lot of… people saw his casket lowered into the grave.”

“Nice hesitation,” I noted.

He put the car in reverse and backed out of the cemetery, out through the iron gates, then put it in drive and pulled onto the street. He didn’t say anything more. I didn’t let that stop me from talking.

“Listen, I know we said we’d try this…”

“This?”

“Us,” I said. “At the deli when I came back to Portland. That we’d try us. But I am so done with the mystery-man bit. If you don’t level with me, there is no way I’m going to trust you like-”