Devon Monk - Magic to the Bone

Hells. I did not like to negotiate for my life before coffee either.

“I know who it is,” I said.

“Who?” The gun came up, casually aimed at my stomach.

“I am not going to tell you while you’re holding a gun.”

Her eyes narrowed and I knew she was suddenly much more awake than she had been.

“You don’t trust me?” She did not put the gun down. “Tell me.”

“Not with the gun.” I was a lot more awake right now, too.

I could tell it was a hard decision for her. She had, as far as I knew, raised a multitude of boys on her own, in the poorest part of town. Asking her to trust me enough to put down a weapon was like asking magic not to follow a perfect casting, or a river to flow backward.

“Did you do it?” she asked.

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. No wonder she wasn’t putting the gun down. I shook my head. “No, Mama. I hate that someone hurt him. He’s just a little kid.”

And she must have heard the sincerity, because she walked over to the counter and put the gun down. She did not step away from the counter, but she did fold her hands in front of her so I could see both of them, which was thoughtful of her. It would give me just enough time to surrender if she decided to grab the gun and fire it at me.

“Who?” she asked again.

“My father.” I’d never told her who my father was, but I figured she knew. I’d spent enough time in the public eye when I was younger, and I looked enough like my father that it was hard to find someone who didn’t know we were related. On top of that, Mama was smart. Smart enough to know who she hired to Hound her personal problems. Maybe she hoped some of the Beckstrom fortune would eventually find its way into her pocket.

Mama scowled. “Why? Why my boy?”

“I don’t know. I went to him. I told him we knew. Told him he would have to pay for everything, hospital, damage, and more, but he didn’t tell me why he did it.”

“He say he did it?”

“No. He denied it. But I know his signature. I know what he can do.”

Mama considered that for what felt like a long time. Long enough that I started feeling tired again, started wishing for a cup of coffee down at Get Mugged. Started thinking about the big man I’d seen in the street and wondering whether or not I should mention him to her. Yeah, right. Like telling her a strange and possibly dangerous man was in the neighborhood would be news to her.

“He agree to pay?” she asked.

“I didn’t give him a choice. He hit Boy, Mama. And he has the money to pay. You should take him for everything you can get.”

I expected maybe a smile out of her. Instead, “You don’t care for your own father?”

Good question. Only I had no good answer for it. “I don’t know. I don’t like what he is.” It was the best I could give her.

“Then we sue,” she said. “I have lawyer.”

“A good one?”

“Good, bad.” She shrugged. “I just need hungry.”

“Then you shouldn’t have a problem.” I shifted the weight of the backpack straps again. “I’m going out of town for a while, a week at most. You filed a report with the police, right?”

“I take care of it.”

Which meant she probably hadn’t. I’d need to stop by the station and file a Hounding report. But not before coffee.

“You really need to contact the police about this, Mama. It will make a difference when you go to court.”

“I take care of it.” She picked up the gun. “You do good for Mama. I do good for you.” She walked over to me, the gun balanced in the palm of her hand, grip toward me, like she was offering it to me.

“No thanks. I don’t do guns.”

She scowled. “Did I say I give you gun? Think with your head.” She said it in the same tone she used with her boys, and for no reason at all it made me happy she would be so gruff with me.

“You are good Hound, Allie,” she said, “but you can be more. Better. I see it here.” She pressed her fingertips against my sternum. Warmth spread out from her fingers and dug down deep, like roots looking for water. I felt magic—it had to be magic, though I didn’t know Mama had ever learned to cast—branch out through my veins, wrap my bones, and then drain away, down my arms, stomach, hips, legs, dripping out my fingertips and the bottoms of my feet.

I felt refreshed. Awake. And suspicious as hell. That magic didn’t feel like anything I’d experienced before—too clean, too soothing—and it was gone so thoroughly, it was like it had never happened. I couldn’t even catch a scent from it. It certainly didn’t feel like the magic stored within the city. Didn’t feel like the magic harvested from the wild storms.

But there was no other kind of magic in the world. If there were, it would have been exploited. And if a new kind of magic were going to be found in the world, it sure wouldn’t be here, in the rundown section of Portland, a city where every tap of magic was carefully regulated, monitored, and doled out in billable minutes. And it wouldn’t be discovered by a woman who, as far as I knew, didn’t even have a high school education, much less a higher ed in magic, called all her kids the same name, and wore clothes scrounged from the women’s shelter.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I say if you try hard, you be better. Here.” This time she poked my chest, and all I felt was her bony fingers. “And here.” She tapped my forehead. “Think with your head. Get a real job. No more Hound.”

I rubbed at my forehead. “What else?” She knew what I wanted to know. What kind of magic had she touched me with. Or what kind of spell or glyphing had she cast. I wasn’t an expert. There were spells I’d never experienced before. “What about that magic you just used on me?”

Mama scowled. “No magic. If I had magic, would I be poor? Would my Boy be in hospital dying? Would I live here?”

I gave her a noncommittal shrug. Mama was smart and tough. Tough enough to take a few hits, or live with less if it meant hiding what she had from those who would want to take it. She was also smart enough not to wave magic around in front of someone she didn’t know very well—me.

“I don’t know what you’d do if you had magic,” I said quietly. “Maybe you would be poor and Boy would still be hurt.”

I was very aware of the gun in her hand. And of the fact that she and I weren’t exactly best-buddy girlfriends.

“No magic,” Mama repeated, flat. Final. But she didn’t smell right. I didn’t think she was telling me the truth—or at least not all of it.

The door handle rattled behind me. A key slipped into the first lock and the dead bolt snicked.

I moved to one side of the door. Mama tucked her gun into the pocket of her robe.

“Boy?” she yelled.

“Yes, Mama,” said a man’s voice. “It’s me.”

Mama seemed happy with that, but I wasn’t feeling nearly as confident. I could smell the man, a heavy musk and spice odor.

I thought I knew all of Mama’s Boys, but the man who walked through the door was a stranger to me. Lighter hair than the other Boys I’d met, his dark eyes glittered in the low light, hard and glassy against the deeper tone of his skin. He looked more like Mama than most of her boys. I was pretty sure he was actually her son and figured he was older than me by maybe ten years. He looked like he’d recently taken a shower, and was clean-shaven and polished in a casual corporate way, all the way from his button-down white shirt, dark tie, and gray khakis to his loafers. He smiled and there was a smooth, slick coldness about him that made me think of reptiles. Or politicians.

“I didn’t know we had company.” He extended his hand. “James.”

It took everything I had to put my hand out. I might have been raised by wolves, but I still had social graces. I shook his hand and pulled mine away as quickly as possible. His hands were cold and smooth, and I had a real desire to wipe my palms on my jeans.