rods? Perry Hoskil has been dead for ten years.”
“I know,” James said. “Perry Hoskil was my father.”
Which meant Mama had slept with Perry Hoskil. I glanced at her. “Mama?”
She looked up, pressed her lips together, and nodded.
It didn’t make sense. Why would Mama go along with James in this crazy scheme? But at least I was finally able to see all the holes in the puzzle. James was the bastard child of Perry Hoskil. There had been a fierce court battle years ago over who had proprietary ownership of the patents and production of the Storm Rods—the technology that had allowed magic to be harvested not only from the rare magic-charged storms, but also from the reserves of magic that pooled deep in the earth. The two men who claimed they had the rights to the rods were partners in the invention of the technology. Those men were Perry Hoskil and my father. But my father had gone behind Hoskil’s back and filed the patent in his name alone, claiming proprietary ownership of the technology.
Perry Hoskil had lost the case. Most say he was bribed out of pursuing further litigation. Most also said he took to drinking and drugs, and he was found years later, dead of an overdose in some garbage heap on the worst side of town. Maybe on this side of town. Maybe even right here where I was standing.
I didn’t think anyone knew he had a son. But then, I wouldn’t expect Mama to share that information with the world.
She had shared it with at least one person though—James.
“Okay,” I hedged. “You want to sue Beckstrom Enterprises for royalties due. I still think you need a lawyer for that.”
He was no longer smiling. “I’ve talked to dozens of lawyers. I’ve talked to judges. They won’t do shit for me.” He paced over to where Mama stood and back to the sink. “They say there is no winning back that money. No getting the money due me. No getting back the technology that is rightfully mine. Beckstrom has had the law tied around his filthy fingers for years, and there isn’t a lawyer he can’t buy off.” He paused and smiled at me. “Couldn’t buy off. Things are different now, aren’t they? Now that Daniel Beckstrom is dead.”
If he was waiting for a reaction out of me, he didn’t get it.
The lights flickered again, three quick times, and I only had to count to ten before I heard the answer of thunder. My arm was really starting to ache, and the ache was spreading. The closer the storm came, the more I felt like I was coming down with the flu.
“But now that you’re here,” James said, “you can see that a little justice is finally served.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “But I’m under suspicion for killing him, and until my name is cleared, you may not want to do business with me.”
“It will be a very short business relationship,” he said. “You sign over your shares of Beckstrom Enterprise to Mama, and you can go your own way and live your life.”
The lights flickered again, throwing the kitchen into darkness long enough that the other Boys were looking a little worried.
I counted to eight. Thunder.
“You’ll still have to convince Violet’s lawyers that I didn’t sign my shares over under duress,” I said. I was stalling, looking for an out. Waiting for a good bolt of lightning to really knock the power out for more than a second. “People think I killed my father. They are not going to honor a contract I sign when I’m not in my right mind.”
“You’ll convince them that you’ve snapped out of your killing passion. That you regret your hasty, terrible actions. You’ll turn yourself in to the police and declare you want to pay back your father’s debt to the Hoskils. Then you’ll live a nice long, unpleasant life behind bars.”
“And if I talk?” I knew there had to be an “or else” in there somewhere. I didn’t really care what it was. But I needed time. The itch and ache in my arm were growing worse, like needles of fire stabbing through every pore. I didn’t know what kind of tricks James had up his sleeve, but I could hold magic within me. A lot of it now. And I was banking James didn’t expect me to be able to use it here.
He walked toward me, stopped just out of arm’s reach. “This isn’t a game,” he snarled. “There are a lot of lives on the line, a lot of people tired of Beckstrom’s stranglehold on magic. Tired of hard-and-holy Beckstrom saying who can use magic and how and why and when.
“No more. We will wage war, bring it to the streets if we have to. You are nothing but an inconvenience to these people, and to me. You will sign your rights over to Mama. Zayvion will turn you in to the police. And I will hold a gun at that young man’s head until I hear you are safely locked away. Your other option is to say no to me. Instead of killing you with magic, like I killed your father, I will kill you right here with my bare hands, for fun.”
The lights flickered and went out.
I swung for James in the darkness, missed, and heard Bonnie swear. I ducked and made a blind run for Cody. Thunder roared, so close, so loud, that I did not hear the gunfire that threw the room in staccato light.
Someone hit me from behind and I fell to the floor, slamming my head and shoulder against the cupboards. I knew who it was—could recognize the pine scent of him no matter how dark the room was, knew his body intimately. I pushed him away. He felt like deadweight.
Lightning flashed, pouring through the single window of the room. In one moment I saw Zayvion, face-down on the floor, unmoving, a dark pool spreading out from under him. He had thrown himself at me and gotten a bullet in the back of the head. Panic threatened to freeze me.
I caught a glimpse of Cody pressed against the refrigerator, curled in a ball, his hands over his ears, before darkness fell again. I rolled away from Zay’s unmoving form and threw my body over Cody’s. The spark of gunfire lit Bonnie’s face. Her laughter, and the sound of bullets, were swallowed again by thunder.
She stopped shooting. Probably to reload. I got on my knees and whispered a mantra. Magic lifted, painful, but clear and pure from deep within me.
I was incredibly aware of everyone in the room. Cody’s terror, all the Boys’ anger, Bonnie’s fury. James was halfway across the room and coming to kill me. I was also incredibly aware that Zayvion was not breathing.
There was one other person in the room—Mama. To my magic-filled eyes, she glowed with pure, untapped magic. North Portland magic. St. John’s magic. Here. Magic no one knew existed. Magic shielded by an elaborate Diversion glyph so old it mimicked the natural geology around it perfectly, hiding, cloaking the pure store of magic beneath this part of the city. Someone was maintaining that spell. And that someone was Mama.
Maybe James had threatened to expose the unharvested magic if Mama didn’t go along with his plan. No, if James knew about magic beneath St. John’s, he would have sold off rights to it to the highest bidder. The idiot was killing people for bits of silver and didn’t even know he was sitting on a gold mine.
Lightning and thunder rode each other’s backs, and I knew I had to make a choice—use magic to stop James, to stop Bonnie, to stop the Boys. Use magic to save Cody. Use magic to heal Zayvion.
I never was very good at making snap decisions. So why choose one thing? Why not do it all?
I pushed up to my feet.
I was burning up, too raw and too hurt from the last time I used magic. But there was a pleasure in the pain, a siren desire to use the magic before it used me up. And I could. I could heal Zayvion. I could crush James’ throat, blind Bonnie, knock out the Boys, force Mama to tell me everything she knew. I could do anything. Anything I wanted.
And all I wanted was for this not to be happening. For Zayvion to be alive. Maybe for one last chance to tell him I really thought we were good together and wished we could have made it work. To tell him I had hoped he would be the one person in my life who wouldn’t betray me. To tell him I hoped he had an explanation for being here, being a part of James’ plan to take over Beckstrom Enterprises and kill my father, and that maybe he was still on my side.
I hesitated. Heard sirens between the explosions of thunder. Watched as Bonnie squeezed off the last bullet, watched as it sang true toward my heart.
