cold, too windy, too wet. The light was red anyway, so we stayed there.
Pike watched the traffic crawl past. “Every legend has an end, Allie. And a beginning.”
“How very poetic of you,” I noted.
He scowled and fished a card out of his pocket. “Here.” He handed it to me. “I want you to join.”
I pulled the card close to try to keep it dry and read the plain white letters set against the black background. “The Pack?”
“Call the number and they’ll let you know where we’re meeting next. We move around.”
“Who’s
“Hounds. Those who work with the police, and those who work against them, and any others who will join. Not all of them are as stupid as Ant.”
I heard Anthony mutter, “Fuck you.”
My ears were good too.
“You put together a support group for Hounds?” I asked. “That’s just… that’s just so…”
“Allie…” he warned.
“… sweet.” I grinned.
He gave me a level stare and I was glad he didn’t have a gun in his hand, and that he and I were, if not on the same side, not on opposing sides.
“Things are changing in this city, with magic. With everything,” he said. “We either watch each other’s backs, or we’ll be used up-used against each other. Dead. If you’re on our side, call and come to a meeting.”
“And what if I don’t want to be on any side? I like being on my side-alone.”
“Then don’t come.” The way he said it, he made it sound like a threat.
“Nice. So I don’t come,” I said, dead serious myself now, “what will you do? Hunt me down?”
“I won’t have to.” He held my gaze long enough that I knew what he meant. Someone else would find me, like Lon Trager’s men, or maybe I’d just bite it working for the cursed Detective Stotts. Hounding alone meant I’d end up dead eventually, maybe even anonymously, like the sixteen I hadn’t even known had died in the last six years. And even though I liked the idea of living on my own, having my own independence, and not being held responsible to anyone, the idea of dying alone, with no one to even know I was gone or how I’d died, made my chest hurt.
He was right. Things were changing in the city. The strange tension of something-a fight, a fire, a storm, something-hung heavy on the air. I had felt it after I saw my dad’s ghost, I had felt it at the police station, and I felt it now.
I leaned in and whispered, “I need to talk to you alone, Pike. It’s about Trager.”
He didn’t show any change of emotion. Just nodded. “Come to the meeting, and we’ll talk.”
“How about I skip the meeting and we talk anyway?”
“Nope.”
I rubbed at my face. I didn’t care what he said. Nothing could convince me meeting up with a bunch of Hounds would make my life any kind of easy.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” I asked.
Pike’s eyes widened. I was pretty sure this was the first time I’d ever seen him surprised. “Don’t believe in them,” he said, dead flat and poker-faced.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looked down at his shoe, his body language turning inward, as if trying to dodge an old pain. When he straightened and squared his shoulders, he was nothing but steel cold killer again. “Can’t live as long as I have without seeing things.”
“Like ghosts?”
“You want to talk, call the number and come to the meeting.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “When did you give up on talking straight?”
The light changed; traffic stopped. My bus had pulled up on the other side of the street. Passengers were getting on. I really wanted some coffee and a chance at being warm and out of the wet. I took a step, but Pike did not follow. I glanced over at him. He had already turned and was walking away, back the way we’d come.
“What? You giving up on coffee too?” I yelled.
“Call the damn number,” he yelled back without turning.
I shook my head and then jogged across the street before the light changed again. I didn’t care how many times he ordered me to do something. I wasn’t going to join his little club.
I got to the other side of the street but not soon enough. My bus pulled away from the curb, gunned the engine, and rolled through the yellow light, leaving me behind.
“Damn it!”
And all I heard was Anthony’s shrill laughter.
Chapter Five
Okay, so far today I’d been haunted, stabbed, strong-armed by an ex-con, interrogated by the police, hired by a cursed criminal-magic-enforcement guy, and threatened and/or invited by a Hound to join a secret union/army/tea party/club thing.
And I’d missed my bus.
I hated missing my bus. That, most of all, officially put me in a pissy mood.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and strode off toward Get Mugged. The coffee shop was maybe eight blocks away. Against the wind, of course.
I kept a steady pace, not worrying about getting there fast-it didn’t matter now because I couldn’t get any wetter-but instead working on getting there in one piece. I watched the people moving around me, looking for Trager’s men; breathed through my nose, smelling for Trager’s men; used all my nonmagical observation skills to stay aware of Trager’s men. But seriously? Trager’s men could be anyone, anywhere.
The few other people tromping through the crappy weather didn’t make any strange moves. No one paid any attention to me. No one even made eye contact. My teeth started chattering, so I picked up the pace, hoping faster would make for warmer.
By the time I’d made it to Get Mugged’s cross street, I was wetter and warmer, which is not as sexy as it sounds.
I turned down the street and spotted the roofline of Get Mugged. The neighborhood had gone through some heavy reconstruction. Buildings had been torn down, leaving behind dirt, concrete, and gravel. There were two buildings left standing: Get Mugged and an empty warehouse with boarded-up windows.
Get Mugged held down the corner of the block, a coffee-scented old broad wearing too much paint and plaster to cover her age but still turning over clients like a dime-store hooker. The warehouse looked like Get Mugged’s meth-mouthed sister, broken, rotting from the inside out, spongy, and frail.
For years, people had wanted to turn this area into boutique shopping. A building would go up, something would move in, and before there was time to hang curtains, the business would bankrupt. Enough of that had left the whole block looking a little like an unmade bed. Nothing seemed to survive here for long. Except Get Mugged.
I jogged across the street and walked beside the empty gravel lot, heading toward Get Mugged on the far corner. On this side of the street there were no awnings to keep me dry and no buildings to block the wind coming up off of the Willamette River. I was tired, and the cold, wet, and weirdness was catching up with my lack of stamina.
Neat.
A flash of color caught my eye.
One windowless wall of the empty warehouse faced the gravel lot. Magic glyphs I’d never noticed before were painted across that wall, running from the second story’s rusted gutters to disappear somewhere behind the piles of dirt at the foundation.
I slowed. The glyphs were strange, bright whorls of color ribboning from one spell into the next. I couldn’t
