Magic at the Gate (26 page)

“I don’t care what you want. We’ll be there. We’ll take care of Stotts.”

He hung up on me. The bastard. To keep from swearing, I laughed. “I know. Guess that’s just the way it goes when you date a cop. Okay. Talk to you later. Bye.”

Ass.

Shame was smoking, and throwing me angry looks. I know. Terric was hurt. The Veiled were loose. And Hayden hadn’t sounded nearly as relaxed as the last time I’d called. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the biggest problem on his hands right now.

The ambulance pulled up in literally a minute—lights, no siren. It helped that there was a station just a few streets away.

The EMTs asked a few questions, which Shame had all the answers to, including that Terric was allergic to penicillin, and that this was a Proxy problem, and that he probably needed a night’s sleep and an aspirin and maybe a doctor who knew how to set a magical syphon.

They dragged the barely conscious Terric out of the car. He looked worse than when we’d put him in there. Shame wasn’t kidding that Terric couldn’t do Death and Blood magic. His color was off, he was shaking, and fever-incoherent.

The void stone wasn’t on him. Shane had probably stashed it before he got out of the car. Boy was smart that way.

And angry. At me. He glared at me, still as a snake before a strike. If Terric was permanently hurt because of me trying to protect Stotts, he would never forgive me.

“Let’s go,” Stotts said.

Shame watched the ambulance drive off. Lights, no siren, which I took as a good sign. He flicked the cigarette to the ground, where it sputtered and died. Didn’t move until the calliope slide of red and yellow lights coating gravestones, tree limbs, and angels was replaced by darkness again.

Stotts gave him a minute. I liked that about him. He really was a decent guy. Which was why I wasn’t going to let him be used.

“Mr. Flynn.” He opened the back door. “We’ll retrieve your car later.”

Shame stared up at the sky, took a deep breath, then shot me a look of pure hatred. “Maybe you should have stayed home.” He got into the car, Stone tromping happily after him.

I walked around to the other door. I wasn’t feeling all that well—a stomachache and fever, I thought. Fever was the beginning of that cold I’d given myself for the magic I’d been throwing around. Stomachache was the fear that I had just made a huge mistake.

Chapter Eighteen

S
totts drove out of the graveyard. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. Shame was a broody shadow with dark, burning eyes that even the streetlights seemed to slide away from. I sat as far away from him as I could, my shoulder against the cold window.

Stone sat backward, his head against the rear window, clacking at the city.

It was late. The rush of adrenaline was gone, replaced by the sticky feeling of an oncoming flu. As soon as Stotts parked, I got out of the car. If I was going to throw up, I’d rather do it where there was lots of fresh air.

Shame and Stone got out and Stone trotted over next to me, pressing against my thigh and extending his wing up along my back like he had in death. Guess he could tell I wasn’t feeling very well.

“Let’s go,” Stotts said. Half a dozen steps toward the station and Stone’s ears pricked up. He growled toward a break between buildings, then took off at a gallop.

“Son of a bitch.” Stotts jogged a few steps after him, but Stone was too fast and too quiet. Plus, he had functional wings that tipped the odds in his favor.

Stotts stormed back.

Rock, one. Angry cop, zero.

“Did you tell it to do that?” he asked Shame.

“No.” He stood there, hunkered in his sweater like he was cold. Hurting was probably more like it. He’d pulled on a shitload of magic tonight too, and even if he’d sucked some of it down, and Proxied most of it to Hayden, what he’d done to keep Terric breathing and break Truance’s spell had come at a price.

Stotts didn’t seem to be in pain. The force had legal Proxies to bear their approved limit of magic usage.

“It will wind down soon,” Shame said. “I’m sure someone will stumble across it.”

I wanted to thank Shame for going along with this, for keeping our story straight, for helping me keep Stotts safe. But I was pretty sure he’d just flip me off.

Stotts pulled out his cell again, and told one of his crew—Garnet, I think—that he needed him to look into a magicked gargoyle on the loose. Took him a while to convince Garnet he wasn’t joking. During this, he followed us up the stairs and through the doors into the station.

The lobby was empty except for a man pushing a soft, shaggy broom over the floor. Beyond the lobby people moved and phones rang.

Stotts didn’t take us back to the normal offices. He opened a door to our left and started down the stairs. I expected to stop a flight down, at the wall that was really a door hidden by a powerful Illusion spell. I’d been through that door exactly once, the first time I’d met Detective Stotts.

“Keep going. Next landing,” he said.

We clomped down another flight of stairs and stopped at a normal-looking door. I didn’t touch it. I wasn’t that stupid.

Stotts swiped a card and threw a nice little Trip spell that further unlocked or deactivated the mechanical, electrical, or maybe magical behind the door.

“Come in and shut the door behind you.”

I walked in. Shame shut the door. The room was an office. Not fancy, but enough space for a desk, a couch that looked like it had been used as a bed more often than a couch, a small refrigerator, a few chairs, and shelves of file boxes. No windows. Wards so strong they stung my nose like I’d been snorting rubbing alcohol.

Shame’s mood shifted from broody to carefully interested in the place.

“Have a seat.” Stotts shrugged out of his coat and threw it over the back of a chair with a practiced aim. “Coffee?” He was across the room and in the corner where a coffeepot, microwave, sink, and refrigerator made up a small kitchenette.

“No,” Shame said.

“Not me,” I said.

He poured himself a cup. I picked a chair—vinyl, but padded and deep enough I could sink in it and lean my head on the back—which is exactly what I did.

Shame took the couch. Stuck his feet up on the coffee table between a couple empty Chinese food cartons and a stack of file folders. “Nice place,” he said.

“Thank you. Used to be a storage room.” He looked around the room, gesturing with the coffeepot at the rows of metal shelves and dust-covered boxes. “I think the upgrade is pretty nice.” He clunked the pot back on its burner and drank as he walked over to his desk.

His chair squeaked when he sat. And I mean loudly. Squalled when he swiveled to face Shame and me.

“So. What were you three really doing in the graveyard?” He took another gulp of his coffee, shifted. Squealed.

Shame just gave him a slacker-boy stare.

“I was Hounding.”

“Looking for the statue he stole?”

“He didn’t steal it.” That was true. I did. “Would you give the statue a rest? We were out there checking the signature of magic it threw. And then those other things, the ghost things, showed up. I thought there might be a leak in the network or something.”

Thank you Magics History class. Leaks in the network was one of the old problems when copper lines were used instead of the superior lead, iron, and glass that now networked the city. The leaks had caused widespread hallucinations. Now that I knew about the Authority, I’d say what people had been seeing were not hallucinations.

“And you didn’t call me?”

Oh, he was not going to use that tone of voice. “I’m a Hound. My job is to investigate magic being misused,
then
contact the police. You were second in line, Stotts. If there had been a crime behind the magic being used, I would have called.”

He drank coffee, tried a different tack. “What did you find?”

Shame had his eyes closed, ignoring the entire conversation. No help there.

“I found those ghost things. There were a lot of them. I don’t know how else to describe them.”

“Uh-huh. And how did you know they were attracted to the disk?”

Shit.

“It was in the report Violet gave me.”

Stotts leaned back, pulled a manila file off the shelf behind him. “This report?” He tossed it on his desk.

The tab said BECKSTROM ENTERPRISES.

“From your tone of voice, I’m going to say no. Not that report.”

“Funny, she said she gave us a full disclosure on the disks. I don’t recall her mentioning ghosts.”

“I know what she told me. If you have a question about it, maybe you should ask her.”

“Good idea.” He screeched forward and pressed speed dial on his cell. “Anything you want to add, Mr. Flynn?”

“I didn’t steal the gargoyle.” He didn’t open his eyes. “May I go now?”

“No.”

“Then tell me what charge I’m being held on.”

“Shame.” I rubbed at my eyes. My hands trembled, my fingers felt like icicles. I was rocking a fever. And the burns from the Veiled were starting to sting.

“Listen, Allie,” Shame said. “I get he’s a friend of yours. But
your
friend just dragged me to the feckin’ police station while
my
friend is in the hospital. I want to know what I’m being held for, or I am out that door.”

“Theft, magical mischief, trespass, failure to Proxy in legal limits, destruction of property,” Stotts intoned over the top of the cell.

Violet hadn’t picked up yet. I hoped Kevin hung up on him.

“Then I want my phone call.” Shame finally opened his eyes. He didn’t look worried. Annoyed, yes.

Stotts’ desk phone rang. He stared at it a second, then hung up his cell and squeaked over to answer the other phone.

“Stotts. Who?” Pause. “Interesting. Thank you.” He hung up.

“You’re both free to go.” He took another drink of his coffee, watching us. “Don’t leave town.”

Okay, that was the fastest about-face ever. “Why are we free?”

And that was the dumbest thing I’d said all day. Don’t argue with the nice policeman when he says you can go home, Beckstrom. But the fever, the night, the fight, everything was stacking up.

Shame didn’t have any problem with the news. “Well, then. It’s been lovely. Just. I’m sure I’ll see you around, Detective.” He was on his feet and walking toward the door.

I stood, feeling a little uncertain. Did I follow Shame or stay here and make sure Stotts didn’t get Closed?

That was ridiculous. I couldn’t babysit the policeman. I couldn’t even protect him from the Authority if they really wanted to Close him. And unless I wanted to tell him all of their secrets so he could protect himself, I’d just have to hope I’d done enough to keep him safe.

“Who called?” I asked.

“Violet’s lawyer. They’re waiting for you outside.” Stotts didn’t stand. He didn’t look any the worse for wear unless you counted the fingerprint burns on his neck.

“Where did you get the disk?” I asked.

“Found it out in St. Johns. Fully charged.”

“That’s strange,” I said, and I meant it.

“Isn’t it?”

I would have expected him to contact me to Hound it. But he hadn’t. I felt like I’d somehow failed him. Like we were breaking up, choosing different teams, going our separate ways. “If you need a Hound, if you don’t want me, you have the list and our contact information, right?”

“Yes.”

“Davy’s keeping an eye on the phones at the den.”

“You’re calling it the den now?”

I shrugged. “You can get hold of him anytime and he’ll tell you who’s available.”

“That sounds like you’re saying good-bye for good.”

I tried to smile, didn’t make it. “Of course not,” I said. I walked across the room and out the door that Shame held open for me.

Chapter Nineteen

S
hame took the stairs like his shoes were on fire. I kept up, but was breathing hard by the time we made it to the lobby.

Shame kept walking.

“Shame, wait.”

Wonders of wonders, he turned around. Stopped.

I huffed over to him.

“What’s your hurry?”

“I hate police stations.”

“From all that trouble you got into when you were a kid?”

He scowled. “No. You hate elevators. I hate cop shops.”

“Allie?” A woman’s voice called out. I knew that voice—Violet.

I looked back toward the regular offices and watched as she walked, slowly due to the girth of her belly, my way. On one side of her, looking like he was ready to catch her if she sneezed, was Kevin Cooper. Medium height, medium hair, medium everything, Kevin always faded into a crowd. If I didn’t know him, I’d never guess he was a deadly good magic user. By the way he walked, quiet and respectful, and bodyguardish next to my dad’s widow he just looked like an ordinary guy. He was not.

On the other side strode a happy-looking woman who wasn’t much taller than Violet. Her long dark hair was caught mid-escape from the clip that held it away from her face. She wore no makeup to disguise her clever brown eyes set in a round face. The bulky knee-length sweater over her business suit and skirt looked two sizes too large for her.

Melba Maide, Beckstrom Enterprises’ highest-paid attorney. A tenacious litigator, she had a win-to-loss ratio that was bar none, and her jovial, even occasionally messy exterior hid piranhalike instincts. Behind her back when they were polite, they called her Sweet and Low, for how she clinched her arguments. In front of her back they always called her ma’am.

My dad had spoken highly of her. But then, he respected any woman who could bring him to his knees.

“Wow,” Violet said. “Look at your hair.”

I tucked my hair behind my ears. I hoped she was just talking about the streaks of white. “Hey.” There. That brought my lame response quota up for the day. “How are you? What are you doing out of bed?”

“You were in trouble with the police. They were going to press charges. There is nothing that could keep me in bed.”

Kevin shifted a little uncomfortably. I had a pretty good feeling he’d tried to do just that.

“You remember Melba?” Violet said.

I offered her my hand. “I do. Good to see you again.” We shook.

“Nice to see you too, Allie. Although I prefer my socializing to happen before midnight.” She laughed, a silly little giggle that somehow still felt genuine.

I couldn’t help but smile, even though I knew the woman wouldn’t think twice about carving my heart out and using it as a cup holder if I ever crossed her in a legal sort of way.

“Sorry about that. It was a misunderstanding. I was Hounding. Shame was with me. We ended up in the graveyard, and Detective Stotts got it in his head we were messing around with things.”

Violet’s eyebrows went up. “Theft, magical impropriety, illegal tapping, and Proxy don’t sound like misunderstandings.”

“Well, they were.” I wanted to tell her more. That Stotts had a disk. That I’d told him she knew ghosts were attracted to it. That bad things were happening. But I couldn’t say any of that with Melba around, because as far as I knew, Melba wasn’t a part of the Authority.

I’d asked for a list of names once. They wouldn’t give it to me. Afraid it would fall into the wrong hands. I didn’t need it in my hands—I just wanted to at least read it once so I’d know when to keep my mouth shut.

I glanced at Kevin. He gave me an odd look. Like there was a spider crawling on my face, but he was too polite to mention it to me.

Okay, whatever.

“So do I need to fill out any paperwork? Go to any hearings?” I asked.

Melba shook her head, freeing a bobby pin that clattered on the floor. “You just need to go home, get some sleep, and stay away from the graveyard and people who get you into trouble.” She chuckled again. “And if you are going to get into trouble, at least do something that’s challenging. This almost wasn’t worth leaving my bowl of ice cream for. Good night, Violet.”

“ ’Night, Melba. Thank you. Sorry to get you up so late.”

“Oh, you know I’d pout if I couldn’t come out and play. It’s been fun. Stay out of trouble, Allie.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Melba strode off, leaving a trail of bobby pins behind. She paused for a second to say something to Shame.

Whoa. Maybe she
was
a part of the Authority.

“So what really happened?” Violet asked.

“Not here,” I said.

She glanced over at Shame. He was on his cell. I tried to catch what he was saying, but he was fumbling with putting a cigarette in his mouth, which was a perfect cover to keep me from both reading his lips and hearing his words.

Maybe Hayden? Maeve?

“How about we go out to my car?” Violet asked. “We’ll take you home.”

“Could you take me back out to the graveyard instead?”

“Allie, never return to the scene of crime,” Violet chided.

“I’m not. Shame’s car is there. I want to get it back for him.”

“We can do that,” Kevin said.

By the time we walked over to Shame, who was only a few feet away, he had hung up his phone and pocketed it.

“Give you a lift to your car,” Kevin said.

“Thanks. You coming?” he asked me.

“Yes?”

“We’re all going,” Violet announced. She started off toward the doors at a purposeful waddle. She buttoned her coat—a nice heavy wool in lime green—and Kevin held the door open, letting her walk through.

I followed. Shame avoided eye contact and lagged behind. I didn’t know why. He’d practically sprinted to get out of here before.

Violet’s car was down a block and a half. Kevin strolled along like he wasn’t paying particular attention to every shadow, rustle, and movement around us, except I knew he was. Shame, behind me, smoked. I just kept walking and wishing I didn’t feel like hell. I should have asked Violet for an aspirin.

Kevin held the front door for Violet; Shame and I took the backseat. Shame left the door propped open, one boot out on the concrete, and sucked the flame out of the cig. He exhaled smoke in a thin stream, then put his foot in the car and shut the door.

He still looked like he was hurting. I wondered if he was feeling Terric’s pain. They’d used magic together, Blood magic, Death magic. Maybe they were tied together even closer now.

Shame leaned his elbow on the doorframe, closed his eyes again, and rested his head in his hand. Kevin eased into traffic.

“Does it have something to do with Daniel?” Violet asked.

Since Shame wasn’t talking, I did. “Not directly. It’s about the disks. Stotts recovered one of the stolen disks.”

“He called earlier today to tell me he found it in the St. Johns area,” she said. “I was going to examine it tomorrow.”

Okay, good. She knew that much.

“He had it with him in the graveyard.” I said. “And I told him it attracts ghosts.”

Kevin shot me a warning look in the rearview mirror.

“Why would you tell him such a thing?” she asked.

“Because it’s true,” I said holding eye contact with Kevin. He rolled his eyes and looked away.

From where I was sitting, I saw Violet in profile. She didn’t look surprised, just resigned. “Is that what happened tonight? Ghosts?”

“Part of it. I told Stotts you knew about the disks attracting ghosts and he’s going to ask you if that’s true. I’d like you to say it is.”

“Allie, you’re not asking me to lie.”

“I’m asking you to back me up on this one thing.”

“Ghosts.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m a scientist.”

“Okay, then it might not be ghosts, but there is something, maybe a magical interference, or an echo of spells clashing, or swamp gas or
something
that is very interested in the disks. And it can hurt. See?” I pushed my collar down to reveal the finger burns.

She flicked on the overhead light, and I moved so she could see without having to twist much.

“Those are from ghosts?”

“They’re from whatever attacked Stotts and me back in the graveyard. If you think I’m lying, ask Stotts to let you see his burns.”

She frowned. “Document this for me, please. With pictures of the burns. I haven’t seen anything like that before.”

It wasn’t a promise that she would go with my ghost story, but at least she wouldn’t completely brush it off. That was as good as I was going to get.

The truth was, the Veiled hadn’t been interested in the disks before the wild-magic storm. I wondered if channeling the wild-magic had changed the disks somehow. Violet was the expert in the technologies. She might know.

“Did you work any kind of safeties into the disk? In case of overload or tampering?”

“They are still in the developmental stages. We never expected them to be outside the lab. But I have a redesign in mind that will be implemented in the next version. Ways to make sure only certified users can access the magic.”

“Passwords?”

“Much more than that.”

Kevin glanced at me in the mirror again. From that look I could tell he’d had some input on safety measures. Well, good. The Authority had done a pretty good job of keeping the most dangerous disciplines of magic out of people’s hands. Hopefully he had used some of those techniques to put safeties on the disks.

“What about wild magic?” I asked.

“The disks aren’t affected by it.”

“Not even if they’re directly hit?”

“Difficult to reproduce in a laboratory experiment, but let’s assume a disk were . . . strapped to a storm rod that just happened to be hit by wild magic. . . . ” She frowned. “I don’t know. There is always, I suppose, a possibility that the disk could be reglyphed under strong enough force.” She paused, the corner of her eyes tightening as she worked through the calculations. “The price to reglyph, to actually rewrite a disk would be . . . deadly. I suppose it’s possible, but not at all practical. But if it were hit by a storm, maybe.”

She shifted in her seat a little, pulling the seat belt into a better position. “If the conditions were right, wild magic might override the magic and glyphwork in the disk, and might re-create the paths of magic the disk holds. It’s a sobering thought.”

A disk had been changed or reglyphed to make Greyson half man, half beast. I could only assume people had died to pay that price. And Frank Gordon, the man we were pretty sure had turned Greyson into a Necromorph and had gotten me possessed by my dad, was dead now too.

Kevin drove through the graveyard. We weren’t far from the gate when Stotts had found us. Shame’s car was still there.

Shame opened his eyes, rubbed his face, dragging his hair out of the way. “This is it. Thanks to the both of you. I appreciate you bailing me out and going out of your way. Good night, Mr. Cooper, Mrs. Beckstrom.” He got out, shut the door, and headed to his car.

Ditched me. He ditched me.

“Do you want us to take you home?” Violet asked. She had pivoted as much as her belly allowed. She glanced at Shame, then back at me, curious. Like she was trying to figure out what was really going on between Shame and me.

Welcome to the club.

“No, I think. Um, I think I need to—” I looked out, watched Shame peer into the backseat of the car before he opened the driver’s-side door.

“Tell me how I can help,” she said.

My heart leaped at those words. I felt like I’d been holding up, holding tough for about a century and a half, dealing with all these life-or-death decisions, literally, alone. Zay wasn’t talking to me much. Shame wasn’t talking to me now either. I couldn’t tell Nola or anyone else my troubles, because I’d be putting them at risk of being Closed no matter what I said. I was feeling pretty damn lost right about now. It wanted to tell her I just needed a couch for a night, a few hours of peace, a solid week of sleep.

I considered it for a moment, then went with logic. Where should I be right now? Back with the Authority, telling them about what had happened with the well. And with Stotts.

“I think I need to go check on Zay. Get some sleep and get rid of this headache. Could you take me to the inn over in Vancouver?”

“Of course,” Violet said.

“It’s late,” Kevin said.

She frowned. “We’re not going to call her a cab. We’re taking her.”

“Violet. You hired me to keep you safe.”

“Safe doesn’t mean smothered.”

He didn’t look at her, but didn’t say anything either. Finally, he nodded. “That’s true.”

Wow. I was seriously impressed with his ability to not escalate this into a fight. Took a big man to swallow his pride. The steering wheel, however, looked like it was bending inward from his grip.

“We’ll take you,” Violet said. “It’s not that far out of the way.”

Actually, it was completely out of their way, and now I felt bad asking them for the ride.

My door flew open. Shame stood there.

“So are you coming or what?” he asked.

I looked at Violet. She frowned. Nodded. “That makes sense if you’re comfortable going with him. I am a little tired.”

Half of the tension drained out of Kevin and the steering wheel flexed back to round.

“Thanks,” I said. “For everything. I’ll call you soon. Take care of that baby, okay?”

Violet smiled. “Planning on it.”

And then I was out of the car, in the cold air, and hoping Shame’s heater was going full blast.