Devon Monk - Magic to the Bone

His touch might be gone, but my heart was still pounding. That had been familiar. That man down there, whoever he was, had touched me before.

I tried to draw up a memory that he fit. A client? An acquaintance? Someone from college? An associate of my father’s? But where there should be a name, or a defined face in my memory, all I found was black static.

A chill rattled under my skin and I clenched my hands into fists, then shook them out. That man touched me, bone deep, without my consent. He knew me. And he knew I was here, up here, in this room.

“Oh, hell,” I whispered.

There was no way I was going to just sit here. For all I knew, he was on his way up now. I didn’t know why, but getting away from him, shaking the scent of him—rot, and something like licorice or honey mixed with the faint whiff of formaldehyde—had become the top item on my agenda for the day.

Okay, I wanted out, out of here, out fast.

I looked for my backpack and found it on the wooden chair by the bed. I picked it up, took the time to shove my feet into my shoes and tie the laces so I wouldn’t trip. I pulled on my coat, patting my pocket to make sure the book was there.

The other pocket had money, so I pulled out a twenty and threw it on the mattress. Mama’s generosity was a bridge I didn’t want to burn.

I wanted to run. I needed to run. I knew he was coming for me. I could feel him moving through the darkness below into the light of Mama’s restaurant. I could smell him. Could smell the rotted stink of magic he’d used on me. I had to leave. Now.

I looked at the window, but some practical part of my mind calmly listed the injuries I’d get if I tried to hero it down the outer walls of this dump. Right. Probably best to escape through the door. Any time now. Now would be good. Before he made it up the stairs.

I swung my backpack over my shoulder and hurried to the door again. I listened for footsteps. My heart was beating so loudly that I had to hold my breath to hear. Nothing. No sound at all from the other side of the door.

I opened the door as quietly as I could and checked the hall in the dim light of a couple low-watt bulbs in the ceiling. Just a hall with a few closed doors, and the wooden-railed staircase going down. And that’s exactly where I was going too. I closed the door behind me and walked over to the stairs, insanely grateful that I’d packed my running shoes. I looked down the stairwell. Pockets of shadow swallowed whole sections of the stair. Anyone could be in those shadows. He could be in those shadows. I hesitated.

What if he were waiting for me on the stairs? I didn’t like small spaces, and especially didn’t like fighting in them.

But there were other ways I could defend myself. Like magic. I was a Hound. I had certain abilities at my disposal. All I had to do was calmly draw upon the magic within me and use it to see where the man was. It was even possible he wasn’t in the building. Maybe he had just walked on. Maybe this was all in my head and I was panicking for no reason.

I shivered even though it was warm and damp in the hall. Instinct told me someone was nearby and looking for me. Instinct had never been wrong about these kinds of things before.

I silently recited a mantra, the one that always calmed me down no matter how freaked out I was. A mantra could be anything you could actually remember in times of panic. Mine happened to be the childhood chant Miss Mary Mack. Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back . . . and again, all the while listening for footsteps and keeping a nose out for the smell of him. Finally, my shoulders relaxed and my breathing slowed. Good. Now all I had to do was draw upon magic.

Nothing. I felt as empty as a beggar’s pocket. No magic here, not even old copper channels. It didn’t mean it was impossible to tap into the magic—that guy out on the street had done just fine. It did mean it was difficult.

The small magic I carried within me seemed like a tiny flicker of its usual strength—a flame about to go out. I was deeply tired, and even though I’d slept, I hadn’t really recovered from the price I’d paid. I didn’t want to draw magic from the nearest source, which was at least three miles away. For all I knew, that guy out there was a Hound and would spot me the moment I cast a spell.

Fine. I could do this the old-fashioned way.

I headed down the stairs as quietly as I could, my back against the wall. The first landing was empty, and I waited there, breathing through my nose, trying to sniff out a whiff of anything, or anyone, out of place. All I smelled was cold cooking grease, and the tang of meat and onions.

I took the last set of stairs down and paused at the bottom to listen. Still nothing. There was no one in the hall. There was no one out in the dining area.

What a great morning this had been so far. First, I woke up and cried like a little girl who’d lost her mommy, and now I was jumping at shadows when there were no shadows.

I so needed a cup of coffee.

And I wanted to be away from here. But when I crossed the room and checked the front door, it had no less than six dead bolts across it. I could get out, but I didn’t want to leave Mama’s place unlocked behind me. Not with that man out there.

Great.

Well, I could still get coffee, then maybe wake Mama up and ask her to lock the door behind me. I walked behind the front counter and toward the kitchen to see if I could start a pot. I heard footsteps behind me.

“Allie girl?”

I turned around. I can’t say I was surprised to see Mama, wearing a pink robe with red hearts on it, her hair messed from sleep. But I was surprised to see the gun in her hand.

“You robbing Mama?” She waved the gun toward the cash register at my elbow.

“What? No. No, of course not. I was going to make coffee.” I shifted the backpack on my shoulder and turned away from the register so it didn’t look like I was casing the joint. “I really just want to go now. The door’s locked and I didn’t want to leave it unlocked behind me. I need to take care of some things.” Like getting some coffee and sanity. In that order.

“You in trouble, Allie girl?” She had not lowered the gun.

For a fleeting moment I wanted to say, well, yes, there’s this woman who is pointing a gun at me, and I don’t do guns before coffee. But Mama was the one who put me up yesterday and let me lie low, and Mama was the one who woke up in the middle of the night to check on me. So what if she was checking on me with a gun? She was just the overprotective type.

“I’m going to be fine,” I told her. “How is Boy?”

Mama lowered the gun. The sleepy look in her eyes turned to worry before she shrugged one shoulder. “Doctor say he stays for a week. But he is sleeping good. Breathing good. Strong.”

There was a strain in her voice, the tight tone of a parent whose child was hurting, maybe dying, saying the hopeful things as if she believed them. Maybe saying them so she could believe them, so they could be true.

“He’s at the hospital?” I asked.

She nodded again. “He comes home soon. Soon.”

“That’s really good. You did the right thing.” And I meant it. I didn’t expect someone as little as Boy to survive such a hard hit, much less recover so quickly. But Boy was strong. Just like Mama said he was.

“Who did this, Allie?” Mama asked. “Who hurt my boy?”

And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t told her. I had been so angry, then so shocked that my father would be behind this, that I hadn’t told her he was the one who put her son in the hospital. I wondered if she would believe that I’d forgotten to tell her. I wondered if she would hold me hostage and demand money from my father once I told her. I wondered if I wanted to risk telling her anything while she was holding a gun.