picture this girl, someone who could maybe have been my friend if she wasn’t my stepmom, next to my polished, powerful, stern father, and just couldn’t make the image work in my head. Another image came unbidden into my mind—the idea of the two of them in bed together.
There were some things that should never be imagined. That was one of them. I took another swig of wine.
“Tell me what you know about his death,” Violet said, “and I’ll fill you in on what you don’t know.”
Zayvion, who had been standing over by the bar with Kevin, walked over and sat on the couch opposite me, settling against the leather cushions with a beer in his hand. Sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a beer. They all looked good on him.
“I hope you don’t mind.” He held up his beer toward Violet. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“No, that’s fine. I want to hear what you know too, Zayvion.”
Zay took a drink of beer and gave me a subtle, encouraging nod.
“Okay,” I said. “I found out he died when I picked up a paper at a newsstand down on Third Street. I was on my way to get coffee. The last time I saw Dad was the previous afternoon when I accused him of illegally Offloading into the St. John’s side of town.”
“St. John’s?” She sounded surprised. “How interesting. I’ve seen the records, and the company hasn’t ever used in-city Proxy, and especially not out by St. John’s. That’s over the railroad divide. In the dead zone.”
“I was there. I Hounded the hit. It was his signature.”
“Really.” She glanced at Zayvion. What I couldn’t figure out was why she was all of a sudden so interested in St. John’s. “Who did you Hound for?”
“I won’t give names. Client confidentiality.”
“I think we both need to break a few rules here if we’re going to share information.”
“Okay, I’m all for that. You start.”
She tipped her head. “Did you know that Zayvion was hired by your father to keep an eye on you?”
“Yeah, I figured that out pretty quick.”
“And that he worked for me before that?”
“Yes. Tell me something you shouldn’t, and I’ll spill the rest of what I know.”
It was like a game of chicken. A game I was good at, mostly because I had nothing to lose. Violet didn’t seem to be a slouch at it either.
“Kevin, will you see that we are not bothered?”
Kevin walked over to the doorway and pressed a button. Even without using magic to enhance my senses, I felt him draw on the deep, rich core of magic over which the condo had been built and he deftly set a Deflection spell. There was nothing in this world I was aware of that could break a Deflection spell of that magnitude and expertise. Respect for Kevin’s worth just jumped about a million points in my book. A plain-looking, unassuming, deadly guy who cast magic like the highest-level user was a hard position to fill, but it looked like my dad, and Violet, had hit the jackpot when they found Kevin.
Violet untucked her leg from beneath her and rested both of her elbows on her knees, the glass of wine held in both hands.
“Your father and I met when he became interested in a line of study I was following at a very private institution. At first we argued. He was an intelligent man and had strong ideas about how magic should be made available to the public. I had other ideas. I thought a system with more freedom would alleviate some of the criminal elements of magic use. If we are all equally able to use magic, perhaps we would be less likely to hurt one another with it or for it.”
She took a swig of wine, draining her glass. “He agreed to invest some money so I could pursue the application of certain technologies to magic. We were not romantically involved then. That didn’t happen for several months, and it was a mutual decision, though I had to talk sense into him when he wanted to end the relationship. You may not believe this, but he was a kind man, if you could get through the business tycoon exterior.”
Okay, that just creeped me out. I looked over at Zayvion, but he was looking at Violet.
“In any case, we developed some astounding devices. Disks about the size of your palm that carry enough magic to cast a single spell.”
“Portable magic. Even off the grid,” I said. “Even in a dead zone.”
“Yes. And since the magic is in the disk, and can be more easily accessed by the user, there is very little price to pay.”
“So there is no Offload, and no need for Proxies?”
“That’s right.”
Holy shit.
“Do you realize how much this will change how magic is used?”
“Yes. And apparently, so do other people.” She glanced over at the bar where Kevin stood, and I heard the clink of glass on glass, then the sound of wine pouring.
“How do you charge the disk with magic in the first place?” I asked.
She shook her head. “That I won’t tell you. Patents are pending. The entire process will change how magic can be accessed and distributed. We both thought, with enough regulation, the disks would do more good than harm. But we were not going to release them for public use until we had laws in place. We had just begun working on the legal side of matters when he was killed.”
“Him dying didn’t do you much good at all, did it?”
She laughed, one hard, broken sob. “No. Not at all.”
I glanced over at Zayvion, who looked his thoughtful, Zen self.
“Do you know a woman named Bonnie Sherman who Hounds for a living?” I asked Violet.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I know anyone named Bonnie.”
“How about a man named Cody Hand?”
She frowned, thinking. Kevin came over with two full wineglasses and another beer for Zayvion.
“Wasn’t there something in the news a long time ago about a man named Cody the Hand who was sent to jail for corporate forgeries?”
“It might be him,” I said.
“I know of him. Why?”
“I think he forged my signature on the hit on Dad. I also think he knows who really killed him.”
Violet became very still. But it was the sort of distracted nonmotion that looked like she had left her body on neutral while her brain burned through an amazing amount of calculations.
Finally, “Where is he?”
“We think Bonnie has him.”
She curled back up in the chair, looked over at Zayvion.
“We were off the grid,” Zayvion said. “Out in the country. We had Cody with us. He’s been damaged mentally, whether at birth or later in life”—he shrugged—“but he can comprehend simple concepts, and he is aware of magic.”
“He was in a field ahead of us,” I said, “and a bolt of lightning . . .” I paused. Actually, it hadn’t looked like a bolt of lightning striking from sky to ground. Now that I thought back on it, I realized it looked like a shot of copper lightning had come up out of the ground. “Uh, a bolt of some sort of energy shot up out of the ground. It was a copper-colored flash. Then Bonnie was suddenly standing there in the middle of the field in front of him. We were a world away from nowhere, and so far off the grid, electric lights could pass for magic.”
If Violet had looked ashen before, she looked like she was going to faint now.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“She put her arms around Cody, intoned a spell, and held one hand up. Then they disappeared.”
“Impossible,” she said. But her eyes were too wide, and she had a white-knuckle grip on her wineglass. She looked at Zayvion.
“Impossible,” he agreed. “But it happened. There was residue left behind in a perfect circle on the ground. Black ash.”
“Feathers,” I cut in. Halfway through my second glass I was starting to feel the wine. I wanted to stretch out
