He opened the door wide and stepped aside with a warm, relaxed smile on his face. “Welcome home,” he said.
My heart caught at the sound of those words on his lips.
“You and I have issues,” I said.
“Apparently,” he said.
Nola and Shamus were laughing in the living room. Something about dogs, and Nola going on about Jupe’s disastrous skunk-hunting expeditions.
“What’s wrong?” Zayvion glanced down the hallway behind me, then shut the door.
And when all I could do was shake my head, he took the three steps necessary and wrapped his arms around me. I should have pushed him away. I was still angry at him for hurting Cody. But he held me, my face tucked into his shoulder, didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask anything. Just afforded me a little time to pull myself together for what I knew I had to do.
Nola walked out of the living room. “Allie? I was just going to pour us all coffee. Do you want a cookie?”
That’s what I smelled-homemade oatmeal cookies.
“No.” I pushed away from Zayvion and smiled for Nola. “It’s been a bad day. I found Davy Silvers-he’s one of the Hounds in the group-hurt over in St. Johns.”
Nola’s face shadowed with concern. “Is he okay? Do we need to take him to the hospital?”
“I already did.” I looked at Zayvion, who watched me with a dark intensity. “There’s blood in your backseat. Sorry.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he?”
“I don’t know yet. Some of the Hounds are at the hospital, waiting to hear if he’s going to be okay.”
“Should we go down there too?” Nola asked. “How was he hurt? Was it an accident?”
“No. It was magic.”
Zayvion didn’t move, but Shamus, who had been sitting in my living room with his feet on my coffee table, stood up and strolled over.
“Well, it’s been a fine afternoon,” he said to Nola. “And a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Robbins.” He shook Nola’s hand. “But it’s getting late, and I see that you have things needing your attention. I hope we’ll get a chance to see each other again before you head out of town. Maybe catch a pint out at O’Donnel’s.”
“I’d like that,” Nola said.
Shamus turned to me. “Good afternoon, Allie.”
I nodded.
Then he slugged Zayvion in the shoulder. Zayvion didn’t so much as flinch. “See you soon, won’t I?” he asked.
“Of course,” Zayvion said with smooth Zen calm.
I had a feeling they had both just said a lot more to each other than was obvious.
And then Shamus let himself out. I could hear him whistling down the hallway and down the staircase.
Nola was no dummy. Even though she didn’t know a lot about magic, she knew when the mood in the room had suddenly changed.
“Do you two need some time in private to talk?” she asked.
Can I just say that I loved her? Honest. Down to earth. No bullshit Nola. Loved her.
“If you don’t mind,” I said.
“I’ll be back in the bedroom if you need me.” She walked off, and Zayvion and I both stared at each other until we heard the bedroom door shut.
“Tell me why you Closed Cody,” I said.
“Because it’s my job.”
“Don’t,” I warned. “I am so not in the mood.”
He held still a moment, considered me. Finally, “He’s been a part of the Authority for a long time. But he wasn’t Closed. Someone put a hit on him, years ago, when he was turning witness for those magical forgeries he was involved in. We don’t know who did it, but they broke him, his mind. And just a few months ago James used him to work Blood magic, Death magic, dark magic, to kill your father and hurt you. . ”
Zayvion took a deep breath, looked away. His gaze finally returned to my face. When he spoke, he was very calm. “The Authority approves of Nola looking after him. And Sedra. . she thinks living away from magic will be the best thing for him. Might even give his mind some time to heal, if it can heal. But before he could be given into Nola’s care, he had to be Closed. The traumas and the memories of how to use magic taken away. So no one can use him again.”
“So you just erased the parts of his life that you didn’t think were good enough? That you didn’t think he could handle? How kind of you to make that decision for him.”
Um, yeah. Sarcasm. I had it.
“I don’t need your approval to do my job,” he said, flat, cold.
We spent a little time glaring at each other.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to Davy?” he asked.
I didn’t know whether the change of subject was a peace offering. But it was common ground, maybe better ground, for both of us.
“I found him half dead in Cathedral Park. Tomi Nowlan, his ex-girlfriend, the Hound, was there with a knife and a burnt circle of ash.”
“The disks,” he said.
I nodded. “She was working dark magic, I think. Shadowed colors in indigo and red. And then things, creatures came out of the circle.”
“She opened a gate.”
“And that’s bad, right?”
He nodded. “The creatures are called the Hungers. They exist only on the other side of magic, in the realms of death.”
“Well, I think they’re setting up a vacation home in Cathedral Park.”
He spared me a brief smile. “I need to go.”
“Are we going to hunt them?” I asked.
“No.
aren’t going to do anything,” he said. “Shamus and I will take care of them. It’s what we’re trained to do.”
“No,” I said. “Hell, no. You are not going after those things alone. I am going with you. I have to learn how to kill a nightmare sooner or later, right?”
“Allie. .”
“Consider it on-the-job training.”
“Bad idea.”
“Why? Keeping me in the dark about these things will not keep me safe,” I said. “Not anymore. Not if I’m going to be a part of your world.”
“Nola?” I said over my shoulder.
Zay caught my wrist. “Allie, listen. The disks are involved. The only person out there that we know of who has a disk is the Necromorph. He knows your dad is in your head. And he is willing to kill you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“That’s not my point.”
“Then point,” I said.
“Did you ever think that hurting Davy, involving Tomi, and calling you to the park to watch Tomi release the Hungers might have been planned? Might have been a way for the Necromorph to draw you to him?”
“That’s crazy. If he had wanted me there, why didn’t he show up?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something didn’t go the way he expected it to.”
I thought about Tomi’s shock. How she had seemed really out of it. So much so that even her spell casting
