Devon Monk - Magic to the Bone

“Was he mentally challenged?” Nola asked.

Zay shook his head. “If he was, it was never mentioned in the news articles. Still, there were rumors that once he was out of the public’s eye, the people whom he had indicted before he was sentenced dealt out their own kind of justice.”

“They mentally damaged him?” she asked. “How is that possible?”

“Tried to kill him, but were not successful. It’s hard to kill someone with magic. Takes an incredible amount of power, and intense focus and control.”

“And the price is too high,” I said.

“What’s the price?” Nola asked.

Questions like that made me realize she really did live in a world without magic. “Death. If you take a life, you have to give a life.”

“Oh.” Nola looked over at Cody, who was still rocking.

“And,” Zay added, “despite all those risks, they apparently didn’t want to get their hands dirty by killing the old-fashioned way.”

“Do you really think he might be the same person?” Nola asked.

We all looked at Cody, who rocked faster and hummed.

“They say he was a genius,” Zay said. “An artist who could manipulate magic and make it become anything he wanted it to be.”

“Nobody can make magic into anything they want,” I said, hoping it was true. “There’s a limit to what magic can do, a limit to any user’s ability.”

Zay shrugged. “Some say magic isn’t as cut and dry as people think. It’s only been in use for what? Thirty years?”

“Isn’t there a name for people who are naturally talented at magic?” Nola sat at the table. “I heard it’s rare. Aren’t they called Servants or something?”

“Savants,” Zay and I said at the same time.

Cody stopped rocking. He looked up at each of us, his blue eyes wide, frightened. Then he dropped the kitten next to his cereal. “Kitten likes milk. See?”

Kitten did indeed like milk and went to town, greedily lapping it up from around the floating cereal.

“Hmm,” Nola said. “It might be easy to find out where he came from, but I’m not so sure it will be as easy for you to get him back there.”

“Who said we were taking him anywhere?” Zayvion asked.

“I do,” I said. “I think he needs to go back to wherever his home is.” Wherever he’s safe, I thought.

“And if I disagree?” Zay said. “How are you taking him without a car?”

“I’ll drag him in with me to the police, and let them take care of him.”

Nola held up her hand. “Wait. The news is back on. This is what I wanted you to see.”

I glared at Zay and he looked at me, unperturbed. But when I heard my name on the news, I turned to watch.

It is strange to hear your own name on the news. I suppose people might think it’s an exciting thing, but really, the news mostly covers tragedies, scandals, and misfortune. Any time your name is associated with one of those things, you were in a world of hurt and probably didn’t want the whole world to know about it.

Hearing my name spoken by a reporter, a stranger who did not know me, was weird even though my name had been occasionally mentioned alongside my father’s in the media. This time felt very different. This time made me feel vulnerable, exposed, violated.

A picture of my dad next to an intelligent-looking dark-haired woman who I assumed was one of the wives I’d missed out on flashed on the screen. Then the screen filled with a picture of me, from a dedication ceremony I’d attended with my father during my precollege days. In the photo I was smiling and had absolutely no idea what a huge mess my life was about to become.

The news ended with the reporter reciting a phone number, and summing up that I was a person of suspicion in the case of my father’s death and any information on my whereabouts should be immediately reported to the police.

The reporter gave the camera over to the weather-man, and I sat back in my chair, acutely aware that Nola and Zay were staring at me.

“Shit,” I said. I supposed the only good thing was they didn’t say I was armed and dangerous and should be shot on sight.

I expected Zayvion to say he told me so—Bonnie had ratted me out to the cops and they were looking for me, just like he said. But he sat there quietly, which was pretty decent of him.

“Well,” Nola said. “I think we need to think this out and make a plan of what to do next. Allie, do you have any ideas?”

“I still think I should go to the police. Turn myself in.”

Zay sat back in his chair and watched me from over the edge of his coffee cup.

“I’m innocent,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Can you prove that?” Zay asked quietly.

“Of course I can.”

“You have an alibi for where you were after you and I left the deli?”

I opened my mouth to tell him of course I did, and he could shove it. But my recollection of what had happened from when I left my dad’s office to when I woke up at Mama’s was spotty at best. Even the deli seemed a little foggy to me.

“I went home,” I said.

“Did anyone see you there?” Zayvion asked. “Did you make any calls? Talk to anyone in the halls?”

“No.”

“No witnesses. No calls to trace. Not good,” he said. “Then what?”

“I left.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t stand the smell of the building.”

“Doubt that will hold up in court, but fine. Where did you go, and who saw you go there?”

This is where the really big black holes and gaps of time filled my head. The hit I Hounded on Boy had kicked in pretty hard by then. I was hurting and maybe even a little delirious. I was lucky I hadn’t wandered around town bleeding out of my ears and singing show tunes. For all I knew I might have done just that.

Or maybe I’d gotten angry and confused. Maybe I’d found my way back to my father’s office, managed to ride the elevator without having a panic attack, gotten past his perky, nosy secretary, and somehow summoned the strength to draw enough power, through the protection wards—and cast a killing spell—to kill him.

It just seemed so incredibly unlikely. But it also seemed incredibly unlikely that I couldn’t remember nearly a full twenty-four hours—the twenty-four-hour span when my father was killed.

“I can’t remember, exactly.”

Zay said nothing. He didn’t have to.

Nola rubbed her hand between my shoulder blades and gave me a gentle pat. “I suppose this is a bad time to remind you what I think about using magic.”

“Yeah, Nola.” I managed a small smile. “I know what you think about using it. And right now, I see your point.” I looked back over at Zayvion. “So maybe I don’t have an alibi. But do they have any evidence that I went back to my father’s place? Do they have any evidence that it was me who killed him? A security camera? Some eyewitness in the lobby or something?”

“They have Bonnie’s testimony that she Hounded the hit and it was your signature on it.”

“Bonnie hates me and would do anything to make me hurt.”

“Can you prove that?” Zayvion asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe. Probably. We haven’t hidden our hatred or anything. People know about it. The bank job she and I handled—all the people involved in that know how she feels about me.”

“That would help,” Zay conceded, “but it won’t change the fact that the police brought in three Hounds to sniff the hit, and that Violet hired a separate Hound independent of them to check too.”

“Violet’s my dad’s current wife?” I asked.

It didn’t take him long to figure out I was not joking. He nodded.

“Okay. What did her Hound say?”

“They all said it was your signature, Allie.”