Devon Monk - Magic In the Blood

“Right,” Sid said. “Herlief. He worked a couple cases for Stotts-maybe three or four. Did okay. Until his head fell off.”

“Oh, come on,” I said.

Sid put one hand over his heart. “I swear, it’s true. He was Hounding for Stotts. I don’t remember what the case was-” He looked around the room.

Jack stabbed his cigarette toward Sid, leaving a trail of smoke behind. “Magical coercion-someone trying to make people join something, give all their money to something…”

“Right,” Sid said. “So it wasn’t even dead body and kinky sex stuff. Herlief traced the spells back to the perps, and then the next day while he was getting coffee, a cable from a construction site snapped, whipped down, and bam!” He snapped his fingers again. “Severed his spine. Took his head right off.” He chuckled.

Okay, this was one sick group of people. Still, I understood the laughter-gallows humor. It could have been anyone of them, anyone of us, in those Hounds’ shoes.

As a matter of fact, tonight, it was going to be me.

“But no one actually died during their Hounding job, right?” I asked.

Pike shrugged. “It’s happened. Death is a risk when you work for the police. Any of them.”

And his understated acceptance of that did more to calm me than if he had told me there was no chance anything would go wrong. After all, Pike had been Hounding for the police for years. And he wasn’t dead yet.

“Okay,” I said, bracing myself for my next question. “Any of you ever seen a ghost?”

The easy smiles stalled out, and even Davy opened his eyes and leaned forward to give me a weird look.

“I have a possible client who says he’s seen a ghost,” I said with a straight face, because Grant might someday be a client, and he told me he’d seen a ghost once. I know, I was lying and justifying my cowardly behavior. But I didn’t feel the need to come off like one hundred percent wacko at the first meeting.

“He’s seen full-body apparitions and glyphing that appeared on a wall and then disappeared. He thought the glyphs were warnings.” I left out the Death glyph part.

Davy was the only one who spoke. “You Hounded a ghost sighting?”

“No. Look, I’m just asking if any of you have had any experiences involving ghosts.”

Everyone shook their heads. But it did not escape my notice that they had all become awfully quiet and sober at the change of subject. Strange. Ghosts could startle them to silence, but people’s heads popping off-that was comedy.

Or maybe asking about ghosts meant I was nuts. I mean, I had a reputation too. Besides my being the daughter of Daniel Beckstrom, it wasn’t exactly a secret that magic knocked holes in my memory. It didn’t take a genius to wonder if magic took potshots at the rest of my mental facilities.

Screw it. I so didn’t care what they thought.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

Pike gave me an I’ll-talk-to-you-later look. That, at least, was something.

“Anything else?” he asked the room in general.

More head shaking.

“Good. Anyone Hounding for non-police want backup?” No one answered, including me, because I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Looks like we have Sid, Jamar, and Allie doing police work,” Pike said, referencing his notes. “Who volunteers for backup?”

“I’ll take Sid,” Jack said, exhaling smoke. “I’m on call, but I already did a job today. Don’t think they’ll call me back until tomorrow.”

“That’s okay with me,” Sid said. “So long as you keep a low profile. And stay downwind with those cancer sticks, okay? They kill my sniffer.”

Jack just gave him a crooked-tooth smile. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

“Theresa,” Pike asked, “do you have time around your Nike duties to take Jamar?”

“This week, sure,” she said.

“Don’t know that I like that,” Jamar said. “It can get dicey in that part of town. Lots of drug movement over there.”

“You do your job,” Theresa said, “and I’ll do mine.”

Jamar just took a deep breath and let it out while shaking his head.

This looked like some sort of weird buddy-system, job-shadow matchup.

“Anyone want to tell the new girl what’s going on?” I asked.

Pike continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Who wants to take Allie?”

“Take Allie what?” I said.

“I’ll do it,” Davy said.

“Do what?” I asked again.

Tomi stiffened and stopped chewing her gum. She glared at Davy.

Davy looked across the room, made eye contact with her. “I’m not doing anything tonight,” he said to Pike, though it was obviously aimed at Tomi. “And the college doesn’t need me for a few days. I’m free.”

Tomi held very still, her face blank. But she was young. She hadn’t figured out how to keep the pain out of her eyes yet.

She did know how to recover quickly though. She tossed her bangs and muttered something that was ninety-five percent obscenity and five percent poetry. She looped her thumbs in her belt and stared Davy down, daring him to challenge her.

Pike broke up the little lovers’ spat by speaking up so Davy would have to look at him. “Drink and eat something first. I don’t want to hear about Allie tripping over you or her worrying about you being out there.”

“Wait,” I said. “Out there? Do you mean when I Hound for Stotts tonight? No. Absolutely not. No way. I work alone. I always Hound alone.” I so didn’t want this kid on my tail. Especially if Trager were after me.

“Settle down, Beckstrom,” Pike growled. “He’s not going to do any Hounding. And you don’t owe him a cut on the job or any favors, unless maybe someday you want to volunteer to shadow him. He’s just going to be in the neighborhood while you’re doing your job. An extra pair of eyes and ears. Someone to call for help if things go wrong, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Okay, why was I the only one in the room who thought this was a massively bad idea? “People die when they Hound for Stotts, remember? Heads fall off?”

“I’m not Hounding for Stotts,” Davy said. “You are. All I’m going to do is be on the same street or block when you’re working, keeping an ear out in case something comes up.”

“Well, good luck, because I’m not going to tell you where I’m Hounding.”

Davy grinned, and some of the pale sick look seemed to leave him, revealing a mischievous, disarming twinkle in his eye. He was young-maybe as young as seventeen-but he was also very clearly a smart, ambitious man. “You won’t have to tell me. Finding you will be half the fun.”

I opened my mouth.

“And,” he said, cutting me off, “I’ll stay so far out of your way you won’t even know we’re in the same city.”

“That’s it, then,” Pike said. “We’re done.”

Everyone pushed away from walls and chairs and started toward the door. They all filed out, no one touching each other, not even inadvertently. No one talking.

Too damn weird.

Pike was the last to get up, which was good. I had some talking still left in me.

He pulled his coat off of the back of the chair and put it on while he strolled over to me. “Glad you could make it.”

“Pike,” I said. “This is crazy.”

He paused in his effort to zip up his jacket and gave me a hard look. “You have some problem with me trying to make sure people stay alive?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t want to hear it. You don’t like it, don’t show up next week.”

He walked past me, waiting for me to leave the room so he could turn off the light and shut the door.

“Until then, you’re stuck with Davy keeping an eye on you tonight. Don’t underestimate the kid; he’s good.” Pike started down the half-constructed hallway.