beneath the incessant picking of Death magic. My jeans weren’t faded and shredded at the edges for fashion’s sake.
“Yes,” I realized Terric was saying, “I told you on the phone yesterday. I told you at the bar the day before. And I told you by e-mail the day before that. You’re not listening to me, are you?”
“What?”
He sighed. “Your boots are in the bathroom.”
“Right.” I pulled my coat off the bottom of the bed and shrugged into it. “Where’s the meeting?”
“St. Johns.”
“Again?”
I walked into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub to tie my boots. Ever since the four wells of magic under Portland had turned out to be five—the hidden fifth well crystallized beneath St. Johns—a lot of magic users saw it as some kind of sacred ground. Neutral territory, peaceful land of blessed magic users mumbo-in- the-jumbo.
Not that magic users had much in the way of fighting one another anymore, other than traditional guns and violence. Which, sure, could be handy, but lacked the particularly satisfying backstab–double-cross–kill-you-dead- without-anyone-knowing that magic used to offer.
Since healing magic had included restoring people’s memories that those of us in the magic-oversight business had worked hard to take away, well, both the government and law enforcement agencies and the magic-ruling Authority were pretty twitchy about the role magic played on all levels now.
Or at least that’s how it had been the last time I was paying attention a year ago.
“...be there,” Terric was saying. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I lied. I walked out of the bathroom.
Terric lounged by the front door, staring at his nails. “Liar.”
I grinned. “Only when I’m conscious. Ready?”
“Waiting on you.”
But I wasn’t talking to Terric. I was talking to the ghost who was hovering near my half-filled bookshelf.
Eleanor Roth. She had long light hair, an athletic twentysomething body, and a smile that transformed her from pretty to pretty please. She had wanted to date me once.
But now she was a ghost, tied to me and the magic I wielded. She was a constant reminder of what happens when I lose control over the Death magic inside me. I had consumed her. Put my hands on her and drunk her down.
I’d taken her life, but somehow she hadn’t quite gotten death out of it either.
Like I said, I can break anything.
And I regretted what I did to her more than anyone would know.
She pointed to a book on the shelf. I strode over, pulled it out, glanced at the front cover.
“I don’t think you’ll need reading material at the meeting,” Terric said. “It won’t be that boring.”
He couldn’t see Eleanor. Not without working magic specifically to look for her. I made it a point not to mention her. Ever.
Over the last three years of being haunted, I’d found out Eleanor liked to read. So I helped out with that, tried to get to the bookstore once a month so she could pick out new books, turned the pages so she could read.
It was the least I could do for what I’d done to her.
I pocketed the book. Eleanor smiled and floated along beside me.
“Everything about this job bores me,” I said to Terric.
He just shook his head. He didn’t believe me.
Who could blame him?
Chapter 2
Terric did the driving. I did what I did best: nothing. Just slouched in the front seat, eyes closed behind dark sunglasses, coat collar flipped up to my cheekbones, head pounding. It took a lot to get me drunk, double that to push me into hangover land. Three days and nights in a bar just about did it every time.
Except I usually got a day or so of sleep afterward. The half hour of shut-eye I’d managed only sharpened my headache.
“Shit,” Terric said, slowing the car. “That’s Hamilton. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He parked the car, opened the door, and was out of it in the same amount of time it took me to open my eyes.
Narrow street, old warehouses, MLK Boulevard. Whatever, whoever Hamilton was, it must be serious. Not only was Terric running down the street all long-legged and action-heroed, but he had also double-parked on the wrong side of the street.
I thought about calling the cops to ticket him for it. Imagined how angry he would be. Smiled. Closed my eyes again.
Eleanor poked me in the shoulder.
Thing about ghosts—they are dead cold. And stubborn. She poked my arm a second time, gentle as a dull ice pick chipping at my bones.
“What?” I said. “He’s fine.”
Poke.
Opened my eyes. Again. “I am not running out there after him.”
She pointed at my heart.
“Nothing there, love,” I said. “Empty as a shadow.”
A man slipped out one of the warehouse doors and walked quickly in the opposite direction that Terric had gone. He looked over his shoulder, then caught sight of me sitting in the car. Light hair cut short and clean, thin, tanned face with eyes set just too wide on either side of his nose. He wore black boots, dark jeans, and a button- down short-sleeve shirt he’d rolled the sleeves up on to show the tattoo of a stylized black feather.
He pulled one hand up, stuck his finger at me, thumb cocked like a gun. Even from this distance I could read his lips as he jerked his hand in a shooting motion: “dead.”
There was no spell attached to that action, and I’d never seen this joker before in my life. I flipped him off and mouthed,
He scowled and moved off at a jog. Sure was in a hurry to be somewhere.
Then the back-of-the-head slap of magic being used, bent, and manhandled hit me hard enough I hissed. Terric was casting magic. More than that, Terric was trying to break magic.
Without me.
“Balls. What does he think he’s doing?”
Eleanor poked right in the middle of my forehead this time, the pain and cold of her finger mixing with all the rest of the hurt in me.
“Damn it, woman, stop touching me.”
She held up a finger and aimed it at my eye.
“Fine!” I shoved the door open and groaned. It was too damn sunny, too damn cold, and too damn early for me to be walking this damn street to save Terric’s damn magic-wielding skin.
New plan: find Terric, knock him out, no magic required. Then drive back to my room where I could sleep off the knife-wielding banshees screaming in my head.
I stormed down the street clenching and unclenching my fists, the rings scraping between my fingers. I hoped to hell there was going to be someone I could punch at the end of this.
Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea.
Just as I reached the corner of the alley, I saw a guy move out of the shadow. I ducked the fist aimed at my face. Took a shot at the guy’s ribs. Since the man was built like an ox, the only bones that cracked were my knuckles.
