A Criminal Magic (20 page)

“Until
you
release it.” Gunn meets my eyes. “Which means no one else will be able to open it.” And of course, this is the dead end we've reached day in, day out. There's no denying that Gunn is onto something: Mama's caging spell does manage to defy the shelf life of shine. It's a way to cage an evil in a bottle forever, which means it can prevent shine's magic high
from ever fading. But like I said, what Gunn wants—the linchpin that could bring a shippable shine to pass—it's not possible. 'Cause once I seal the shine bottle with my blood, no one else can open it.

Not that Gunn accepts this.

He rests his forehead in his hands, leans his elbows on his desk. “We need to find a work-around, you understand? What I've been planning, everything I've been working toward, is finally coming together—but there's no room for error, no time to slow down.” He stares at me. “This is the last piece. But this piece has to fall into place for the entire picture to come together.”

This is all I ever get from Gunn.
Pieces
. Pieces to some plan I barely know anything about. Pieces that he gives me sparingly, just enough to remind me that more than I realize is at stake, but not enough that I'll ever be able to use the pieces to betray him.

“You need to figure this out soon, Joan.”

Make the impossible possible.

But like always, I say what I have to, to get through today. “I know, sir.” I nod. “I will.”

Outside Gunn's office, we hear the turn of Gunn's doorknob, but the door doesn't open, thanks to my linked trick. Then the slamming of another door. A muffled curse, and then another.

“Someone's in the hall.” Gunn quickly grabs the bottle of sealed shine, places it in his bottom drawer, and locks it away. “Figure out who.”

I press my ear to the door, whisper “
Amplify
,” and hear more curses, mutterings, a muffled, “
I'm not sure, Boss
—”

“My best guess? Boss McEvoy.”

“What the hell's he doing here?” Gunn's face is now a shade paler, though I swear I thought Gunn said there was a meeting of McEvoy's underbosses. “Where'd you link this door to?”

“The bathroom.”

Gunn stands up. “Quick, go on, open the door.”

I release the linked trick, and we open Gunn's office to a flustered Boss McEvoy barreling out of the john. My pulse quickens, just on seeing him. A man nicknamed the Jackal—a man who Shaw boys whisper collects teeth and fingernails as souvenirs—is not someone you want to trick.

“Is every door in this fucking Den spellbound?” McEvoy spits at me as he heads toward Gunn's office.

My throat closes, but Gunn saves me with, “She was demonstrating a new linked trick for our finale. Apologies, sir, I didn't realize you'd be stopping by.”

“I always make my rounds, even to the far-flung corners of my empire,” McEvoy digs. He throws a shoulder as he sidesteps me into Gunn's office, so I step out into the hall. “Besides, I need to talk to you, about Sullivan.”

“Something happen down at the racetrack, sir?” Gunn asks.

McEvoy holds up his hand to Gunn, a sign for,
Wait a minute
. He calls into the hall, “Alex, protect the door, would you?”

Alex?
I whip around. And there he is. Alex Danfrey, standing in front of the bathroom. A warm, sinking feeling takes me hostage for a second. But Alex's eyes are on McEvoy.
What's he doing with Boss McEvoy?
“Of course, sir,” Alex says.

After Gunn closes his office door, Alex waves his hand, and a perfect spitting-image replica of the door crystalizes before the actual door in front of us. There's only one difference—his replica has no handle, no way inside.

“Clever.” I manage to find my voice.

Alex smiles. “Well, it's no linked trick that dumps the Boss of the Shaws into the john, but it'll have to do.”

I swallow. “God, I hope McEvoy doesn't hold a grudge.”

Alex's smile just becomes wider. “You're tough to forget, Joan, but lucky for you, I think the Boss has other things on his mind.”

I wasn't expecting to see Alex today, but now that I have, I'm almost hopped up on adrenaline. I want to stop time and break this moment open. It feels like a surprise gift, having Alex for as long as McEvoy and Gunn confer behind closed doors.

Alex paces back toward the main show space and waves for me to follow.

“So you're running with
Boss McEvoy
these days?” I jog to catch up with him.

Alex nods, looks around, whispers, “I'm his right-hand sorcerer now.”

Right-hand sorcerer?
I study Alex's face, trying to get a read on him, because I almost can't believe what he's said. Alex doesn't seem hard enough for McEvoy, isn't the kind of sorcerer who should be attached to the side of a man called the Jackal. I don't know how many of the rumors I've heard about the Boss are true, but if even half are, I'm terrified for him.

“An opportunity presented itself,” Alex adds slowly. “It's a step up, obviously, from running for Win. Besides, McEvoy's not the kind of man you can say no to.”

Well, that I understand. “You really must have some sorcering chops, if you caught McEvoy's eye.” I feel my own blush coming on from paying him the compliment. “How's the new gig working out?”

Alex crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Truthfully?” He lowers his voice. “A lot of casting spells to break fingers. A lot of sleepless nights. A lot of tricking McEvoy into thinking I'm worth keeping around.”

I shake my head, not sure how to answer.

“You think I'm joking.” He attempts a smile. “I'm not. It's difficult magic, casting spells to convince others of your competence.” Despite the smile, Alex's sadness is so real I can practically see it on him, like a thin layer of dust. It makes me want more than just this steady banter we've got going on between
us. I want his whole story. I want to know what's haunting that smile—how he spends his days, what he's doing in the time between when I see him around the Den. If he's safe, if he really can handle it.

“Are you going to be all right?” I manage. “Haven't spent more than a few minutes with the man around here, but McEvoy's got a reputation for being impossible.”

Alex shrugs a bit. “I've survived worse. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?” Then he leans in. “Hate to tell you this, but Gunn doesn't strike me as being a softie either.”

I swallow, Gunn's name piercing our little cocoon in the hallway. “I'm aware.”

Something Alex must see in my face changes his, because all his pretense of humor drains, and then he's looking at me like he's trying to see through me, to figure me out like I'm trying to figure him. “Seriously, what's a girl like you doing in this place?”

I think about whether I should lie, keep everything as close to my chest as possible, but I find myself wanting to share the truth. “My family,” I say quietly. “My sister, and my cousin. I want to do right by them, so I'm up here trying to make a living.” I dare myself to take another step toward him, and now we're close enough to whisper. “What's a guy like you really doing mixed up with the Shaws?”

Alex gives a half laugh and looks at his feet. “I've been asking myself that same question. It started out about my family too, as some vague form of revenge. . . .” He looks at me. “You ever set out to do something for one reason, and that reason's like a firm, set compass in your hand”—he holds his hand out as evidence, and a little brass compass appears, floating above his palm—“but then the further in you get, the farther you go, the more turned upside down everything starts to seem?” He looks back to the door to Gunn's office, then at the brass compass
floating in his palm. The little hand inside it starts spinning slowly, then faster, round and round, bypassing
North
, then
West
,
South
,
East
. . . . “Soon you start thinking that maybe your compass is broken, or wrong.” He looks back to me as the compass disappears. “But without that damn compass, you're lost, plain and simple.”

His words hit home, burrow right under my skin. Ruby and Ben are my compasses—the reasons I get up in the morning, the reasons I perform illegal magic in an illegal club for Gunn, the reasons I'm using to justify helping this volatile gangster try to change the face of the underworld with a dark, dangerous spell. Those compasses make me who I am: a devoted sister, a daughter trying to right the past, an honorable woman. But without them, Alex is right. I'm lost, plain and simple. I've been trying to hold on to them even tighter these days, as I barely get a moment to myself away from the Den. From the blood-magic I've been obsessing over with Gunn, to the performances I'm practicing, perfecting, day and night. I swear, magic's started seeping into my dreams. Even when I'm awake, sometimes it feels realer, stronger, than anything else.

“We're not so different, you and me.” I look back to Gunn's office. “Some days, it's just easier to focus on what's right in front of me, on just putting one foot in front of the other. On throwing myself into my performance, the magic—on what I was made to do. And I think I might actually be good at it.”

“You know you're good at it.” Alex smiles.

“I suppose.” I drop my gaze, deflecting his compliment. “But . . . other days, when I look at how far I've come, when I think about what I'm helping to build—about what this place is . . . I mean, there are reasons that magic's criminal, right? This haven, it's a place where we trick people, drug people, help them get so high that they want to keep living in a lie.” I shake my head. “Sometimes I forget that, I'm so far in.” I run my fingers
around my temples in little circles. “God, I don't even think I've stepped foot outside this place for days.”

“You serious?” Alex asks.

“It's pathetic, isn't it? But yeah.” I raise my arms to signal the Red Den. “This is pretty much what I live and breathe, day in, day out.”

Alex's little smirk is back. “Can you pull that trick you did a while ago?” He points to where the hallway meets the show space. “Where you protect the hallway?”

I look at him curiously. “Why? I don't think anyone's out there.”

He takes another step toward me. “Just in case. It's a surprise. Come on, I promise, it's worth it.”

I look at him curiously, then turn back toward the mouth of the hall. I whisper my words of power, wave my hand in front of me, and then a double-sided protection wall materializes at the entrance to the corridor.

“Come closer,” Alex whispers, waving me forward. Then he closes his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

He opens one eye to spy on me, and arches his eyebrow above it almost too perfectly, like some villain in a motion picture. “Do you
not
like surprises?”

I roll my eyes. “Fine.” I take a tentative step forward. Alex is so close, I can smell him now, a soft, textured scent of soap and cologne. If I leaned in, I could rest my head on the tweed vest that spans his chest.

Stop. Don't think about his chest.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

I settle into my spot, and then I close my eyes, listen to his faint whispers.

After a couple moments, he says, “Okay, open them.”

I gasp. Built around Alex and me is a small gazebo drenched
in lush green ivy, white-latticed walls, a cathedral-domed roof. Peeking in through the openings of the gazebo are all sorts of wildflowers, and if I angle my head just a few inches, I can see a brilliant, near-electric-blue sky cast over the gazebo like a warm blanket. The shadows of flowering bushes dance along the white wooden frame, their rhythm set by a soft and sweet magic wind. Alex's talent is extraordinary. A manipulation this complicated could only be pulled off by me, and maybe Ral with Billy's help.

“It's . . . breathtaking,” I finally say. I realize I'm now holding on to his forearm, and I collect myself, let go. “The detail is amazing. Alex, you've got much more than chops.”

There's a twinkle of satisfaction in his eyes. “If you can't go outside, I thought I'd bring outside to you,” he says. “Besides, sometimes magic is far better than the real thing. Right now you're missing a cold, ugly, gray December evening.”

I close my eyes once more and inhale Alex's manipulation. Even the scent of it is perfect—the faintest hint of roses, that rich, musty smell of earth.

“Do you need birds?” Alex whispers. “Because I can add birds.”

I laugh. “I'll get by without birds.” But then I hear the faintest chirp of sparrows in the background. It sounds like morning back in Parsonage, the spring chicks peeping outside our cabin window as I roll over and throw my arm around Ruby.

“We all need a breath of fresh air every once in a while,” Alex adds. “Remember that.”

And for some reason—whether 'cause I've stumbled into thinking about home, or 'cause this gangster seems to understand me more than anyone in the troupe right now, or 'cause I really did need a breath of fresh air, more than I realized, my eyes start to water.

Alex notices. “Crap, did I do something wrong? Is this okay?”

“It's better than okay.” The feeling Alex brings on—warm and
heady and tingly—it comes on strong again. But this time it's got an undercurrent, a distinct pang of guilt. Alex has nothing to do with why I'm here and what I need to do, I realize. Alex is just for me. And I gave up a long time ago thinking I deserved something of my own.

We both hear the click of a lock, and then muffled voices, the creak of the door. Alex quickly raises his right hand, and the entire garden starts to swirl, and then disintegrate into a powdery dust that whips and vanishes into nothing.