“. . ever throw ice at me again, I am going to beat you with that bucket. Do you understand me?”
“Oh, please. Like I should take you seriously. You haven’t raised a finger in two months.”
“Listen.” Zay paused, lowered his voice. “This is different than Chase and me. More than. . that ever was.” He paused again. “I need you to respect what we have, or you and I are going to have real problems.”
“Respect?” Shamus asked, just as quietly. “I’m filled with envy.”
“Then stop being an ass.”
Shame snorted. “Better to ask the rain not to fall.”
“Rain,” Zay said, squeezing Shame a little harder. “Don’t fall.” He released his hold.
Shame got out of arm’s reach and shook his hand, probably trying to get blood back into it. Like I said, Zay played for keeps.
“Can’t remember the last time you and I had real problems.” Shame stuck his hand in the ice bucket and dug out another frozen chunk, popped it in his mouth.
“It’ll come to you.”
From Shame’s body language, I could tell it had. “Yes. Well. Let’s not go there again.”
Then Shame raised his voice, obviously talking to me. “Aren’t you going to ask why I came by?”
I shrugged the shoulder that didn’t hurt. “You need a reason to harass Zay?”
“Hell no. But I’m not here to talk to Zay. I’m here for you.” He strolled across the room toward me.
Zayvion paced over to where he’d left his water bottle. The man was so quiet that if I weren’t looking at him, I wouldn’t think there was anyone in the room except Shame and me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Shame stopped and held out the bucket. “Ice?”
“We’re going to lunch, remember?”
“You were serious about that?” he asked. “Huh. Well, you might want to eat quick. My mum wants to see you.” He glanced at the clock on the wall behind me. “In an hour, the latest. At the inn.”
“Did she say why?” I asked.
“Officially?”
“At all.”
“There’s a storm coming,” he said, all the joking gone now.
Zayvion stiffened. I watched as the relaxed, laughing man I’d spent the last few weeks with was replaced by an emotionless wall of control, of calm, of duty.
“What kind of storm?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure what the answer would be.
“Wild magic,” he said. “And it’s aiming straight for the city.”
Dread rolled in my stomach. The last time a wild storm had hit the city, I’d tapped into it and nearly killed myself. Ended up in a coma. Ended up losing more memories than I wanted to admit. Like my memories of Zayvion.
“And what does that have to do with me?” My voice did not shake. Go, me.
Wild-magic storms were violent and deadly, and messed with the flow of magic that powered the city’s spells. But that’s why my father invented the Beckstrom Storm Rods. Every building in the city was outfitted with at least one storm rod to catch and channel strikes of wild magic.
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “She might just want to go over details from your last session with her.” He nodded toward the void stone necklace around my neck. “See that things are going right with you and all.”
Lie. Lie. Lie. Shamus knew more. Knew what Maeve wanted. Knew why I was being called upon.
I looked him in the eyes. Raised my eyebrows.
He just shook his head.
Okay, whatever it was, he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. It was hard to remember that Shame was a part of the Authority too. He reported to Jingo Jingo, and above him was Liddy Salberg. They all used Death magic, which was unknown to the average magic user, and for good reasons. Maybe Jingo had told him not to talk.
More likely his mother had told him to keep his gob shut.
I’d only taken a handful of classes with Shamus’s mother, Maeve, but she treated me like a cub who needed protecting from the other senior members of the Authority, people like Liddy; Jingo Jingo; Zay’s boss, Victor; and especially the leader, Sedra.
She was wrong to think I needed protecting. But over the last month or so, I’d discovered the one thing the members of the Authority had in common. They were all suspicious as hell. Not a lot of trust going around for a group of people who relied on one another’s discretion to stay in business.
“For that, you couldn’t just call?” I asked, trying to lift the mood.
“What, and waste a perfectly good bucket of ice?”
“Tell your mom I’ll be there in an hour.” I picked up my gym bag and headed to the women’s locker room. “Zay, you still on for lunch?”
“We have time. I’ll take you out to Maeve’s afterwards.”
Shame followed Zay into the men’s locker room, his voice drifting back to me. “Oh, what’s with the face? Mad your vacation’s over? When was the last time you did any work, you lazy git?”
I heard the muffled smack of a fist against flesh and an “Ow!” as I closed the door.
I was the only one in the locker room, and Zay and Shame were the only other people in the gym. The gym wasn’t advertised-as a matter of fact, it was fairly hidden, and not by magical means. It was located on the bottom floor of a fabric store, and no one suspected there was a modern workout facility here.
Zay had told me it was only one of several places in the city set aside by members of the Authority for members of the Authority. It was like they had an entire hidden city shoved into the pockets and cracks of Portland. And no one got in those pockets if they weren’t part of the Authority.
The whole exclusivity of the Authority was a little odd to me. I still wasn’t one hundred percent down with the I’m-on-their-team bit, because I wasn’t sure they were on my team.
Yes, the members of the Authority had magical knowledge up the wazoo, and used more magic in more ways than I could imagine. Yes, I loved learning how to control the magic that filled me. Not that I had been top of the class in the execution of everything they tried to teach me.
But the price for all this knowledge was that I could never speak of it outside the Authority, never abuse the trust they placed in me, and never use magic in the hidden ways in public. And the public included the police.
Which made my day job of Hounding illegal spells for Detective Stotts a difficult combination of remembering what I should know and, more important, what he should know I knew.
I shucked my T-shirt, and traded my exercise bra for something I could breathe in. I didn’t look in the mirror until I’d pulled on my jeans and boots. I dug the brush out of my bag and did a quick once-through on my hair. My hair was dark and short enough I could tuck it pretty easily behind one ear, and I did so on the left side. The right I let fall free, hiding the metallic whorls magic had marked me with.
Since it was winter in Oregon, there wasn’t a natural tan in town, and I was no exception. My pale skin made the glass green of my eyes look like chipped jade. I held my breath and braced myself for the shadow of my father in my eyes. Nothing but me staring back at me.
Good.
If my dad never spoke to me again-better yet, if he faded away into death like a decent dead person-that would be fine with me. I did not like being possessed.
I shoved my workout clothes into my bag, zipped everything, and put on my hoodie before strolling out of the locker room. Zay and Shame stood by the door. Shame cradled a cigarette and lighter in one hand-neither lit.
“So, where to?” I asked.
“The River Grill’s on the way to Mum’s,” Shame suggested.
“You’re coming with us?” I asked.
“Like you’re surprised. Free lunch, right?”
“Wrong,” Zay said. “It’s your turn to buy.”
I opened the door and stepped out into the hard, cold air. The sun lent the day no warmth, but it was sunny and the sky was a shock of blue that hit my winter-weary soul like a cool drink of water.
Zayvion followed behind me. Shamus paused to light up.
“You going to tell us the rest?” Zay asked over his shoulder.
Shame exhaled smoke. Finally got walking.
“The rest of what?”
We’d made it to the car, and Zay unlocked the passenger’s side and touched my arm before walking around to the driver’s side. Shame, still smoking, paused near the back of the car. He’d gotten here on his own-I assumed his car was in the parking lot somewhere.
Zay turned and gave Shame a look that said more than words.
One corner of Shame’s mouth curved upward. The wind stirred his hair, pushing it closer over his eyes, and taking his scents-cigarette smoke and cloves-away from me.
“Sedra called in the crew from Seattle.”
“Terric?” Zay asked mildly.
Shame just took another drag off the cigarette. His shoulders were squared, tense, his free hand fisted. He looked like someone who had more pain in him than he had breath left to scream it out.
“Of course.”
“Have you seen him yet?” Zay asked.
“Nope. And if luck holds, I won’t see him at all.” Maybe it was supposed to come out funny, but his voice dropped into a growl, even though he was smiling. Whoa. There was a lot of fury behind that smile.
“Come to lunch,” Zay said.
Shame tossed the cigarette to the damp concrete, then clapped his hands together as if brushing away dirt, his fingerless gloves muffling the sound. “Not going to talk about it.”
“I know.”
Shame nodded, then strolled off to his car, whistling a punk rock song from the nineties.
I looked over the roof of the car at Zayvion. He watched Shamus with such intensity, it was like he could see the man’s bones, his soul.
Who knows? Maybe he could. There were a lot of things about both of them I didn’t know.
Shamus, walking away, couldn’t see us. Still, he must have felt Zay’s gaze. He lifted his hand in a dismissive wave.
Zayvion inhaled, his nostrils flaring. When he looked back at me, he was calm. Zen Zay. Private Zay. Controlled. Deadly.
“Vacation’s over, isn’t it?” I asked.
Zay shrugged one shoulder. “I think we have time for one last lunch.”
“As long as lunch involves coffee, I’m on for it.” We both got in the car, and at least one of us, namely me, wondered how long it would be before the storm really hit.
Chapter Two
The River Grill was on the Oregon side of the Columbia, and should have been swank if the real estate surrounding it had any sway. Instead, it looked pretty much the same as it did back in the day when the lumberyards were still going strong-a squat, wide building with plenty of windows facing the water, mostly clean tables, and food that was hot, filling, and cheap.
It was three o’clock, a little late for lunch, and a little early for dinner, so the place was mostly empty.
Zay and I took a table by the window and Shamus strolled in behind us. He plucked a menu off the stack by the cash register, and read it while walking over to the table.
“Think it’s the burger today.” He sat in the remaining chair and folded the menu.
“Big surprise,” Zayvion said over the top of his glass of water.
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