Devon Monk - Magic In the Blood

And he was so damn much more.

“Let’s get out of the street,” he said. “We’re going to get run over if we’re not careful.”

He took a step toward the car, and I did too. My mind wasn’t doing so good keeping up with everything that had just happened. For right now, I decided to cut myself a little slack.

I got into the car, even wetter than I’d been just minutes before. I glanced at the clock on the dash.

That entire altercation had taken less than a few minutes.

Zayvion got in the driver’s side and put the car in gear. Traffic behind us honked, and a car passed on the right. The driver gave us the middle finger.

Zayvion rolled through the intersection, taking the normal street into the normal city, driving through the normal rain.

When we were just a few blocks from my apartment, he spoke. “Are you okay?”

Why did people always ask me that?

“I’m fine. That was some… spectacular magic you threw around back there.”

“Hmm.”

“So what are they? Those people?” I asked.

He double-parked next to my apartment building. “We’re here.”

I glanced at the clock again. I had just over an hour until I needed to be at the Hound meeting. Plenty of time to shower and change. And I was not about to let Zayvion wander off without coming clean about what had just happened.

“Why don’t you come on up?” I said.

He took a deep breath, leaned his head back against his window, and looked at me. “You’re going to grill me about all this, aren’t you?”

“Have I told you lately that you are a very astute man, Mr. Jones?”

“No.” He paused, seemed to be weighing something. “You saw them?”

“Yes, I did.” I gave him a level gaze.

“And you saw your father?”

“Why don’t you come up and we’ll talk about it?”

It took him a moment more to decide. “I want to. How about we make a date of it instead?”

“What?”

“A date. It’s a custom that’s been around for a long time. It usually involves two people going out for drinks, dinner, and companionship.”

“Ha-ha. You’re just trying to dodge me, aren’t you?”

“No.” I knew he was not lying. “There are some things I need to take care of. Appointments I have to keep. I’m free tonight. Does that work for you?”

“No, I’m Hounding tonight. Tomorrow?”

“For dinner?”

I hesitated. Did I have time for dinner with him? I didn’t know what Pike would want to do once I told him about Trager. I didn’t know if I’d be in protective custody. But I didn’t want to miss my chance to get information out of Zayvion, or miss what might be my last chance to be with him.

“Maybe around five,” I said. “You might want to call first.” I made it sound all hard-to-get instead of worried, and apparently, he bought it.

“That should work,” he said. “I’ll call at five.”

“Good. See you then.”

It was still raining, but it wasn’t like I could get any wetter.

I opened the door and got out.

“Allie?” Zay called after me.

I ducked down to look at him.

“Be careful.” He was dead serious.

I wanted to crawl back into the car and stay with him. Instead, I shut the door, and then strode across to the sidewalk, under the awning, and into the familiar surroundings of my building.

Ijogged up the three flights of stairs, maybe because I wanted to get to my apartment and shower and change in time to pull myself together before the Hound meeting. Or maybe because that fight with the watercolor people on top of the rest of my day had shook me in a deep way that made me want to scream just a little.

Yeah, mostly it was the second thing.

Running up the stairs in a totally dignified and not scared of my own shadow kind of way let me release a little of that pent up panic, let my body burn while my mind rolled out the fear carpet and took a nice leisurely stroll.

Whatever those watercolor people were-they had been a lot harder to get rid of this time. And despite not wanting to tell Zayvion, I was sure-positive-I had seen my father in the street. I was positive I had heard him.

He had said something about gates opening and seeking death.

Why did ghosts have to be so spooky? I mean, it had been a while since my dad and I had spoken to each other. He could have talked about the weather, asked me how my job was going, or maybe explained why even though he was dead he still felt the need to meddle in my life.

Honestly, he could have just told me why he wanted me to seek the dead and what seeking the dead meant.

I made it to my apartment door. All the other doors down the hall were closed, including the one where my newest neighbor, the creepy doctor from the coffee shop, lived. I unlocked my door, and then, because I was feeling more than a little jumpy, I drew a glyph to enhance my senses of hearing and smell, set a Disbursement this time (oh, hells, I hadn’t been setting Disbursements when we faced the watercolor people; I was so going to have magic pound that price out of me), and leaned close to my door to listen for any movement, any breathing beyond it. I sniffed and got only a noseful of the smells I am used to in my building, along with the slight smell of almonds that I decided must be my new neighbor.

A motion at the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked down the hall. I thought, for just a second, that someone had been standing there. Even though I had not enhanced my sight with magic, the pale green and blue tremor of fog-watercolor fog-at the end of the hallway near the head of the stairwell was enough for me to let go of magic.

The hall was just a hall again. No fog. No movement. No sound.

And nothing seemed to be moving in my apartment either.

I walked in, flipped the lights on, locked the door behind me, and strode through the entire place, just to make sure I was alone.

And I was.

I wanted a shower, but that would mean getting naked in my bathroom again, and as good as hot water sounded, I just didn’t have it in me to get all naked and vulnerable yet.

Last time I was in that bathroom, my dead father had seen me, touched me.

“C’mon, Allie,” I said out loud. “Get over it. You’ve gotten over every other screwed-up thing that has happened to you.”

Maybe I needed a cat. Or a dog. Something that would sense if there were anything out of the ordinary going on in my apartment. But a cat or dog would take time to care for, and I barely made time to take care of myself.

Maybe something smaller that needed fewer walks in the park and less one-on-one time. A goldfish? How about a ghost-sniffing hamster?

Ha.

I took off my coat, hung it on the hook behind the door, and decided I could stall the whole get-naked thing while doing something useful. I pulled out my notebook.

I wrote down everything that had happened today-the bus ride with Trager, the visit with Love and Payne, Stotts and his secret magic police, the Hounding job I’d go on tonight, Pike and the angry young Anthony, and of course the watercolor people, magical disappearing Life and Death glyphs, Grant’s opera tickets, my re-date with Violet for breakfast tomorrow, my dad’s empty grave, his appearance in the intersection, the encounter with the watercolor people, and the surprisingly powerful Mr. Jones. I noted that I was going to a Hound meeting and that I had a dinner date with Zayvion, who had said there were magic users out there, watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. And that the price for that mistake might well be my death.

Listed like that, my day was shaping up fan-damntastic.

I pulled off my knit hat, dropped it on the half wall between my entryway and kitchen, and scratched at my wet, itchy head. I had delayed it as long as I could. Time to shower. I picked up a candle I had left there on the half wall and stopped in the living room to light it.