A Little Night Magic (22 page)

Maybe I was already dead.

Huh.

He looked around, then put his fingers between his teeth and let out an ear-shattering whistle.

“Ow,” I said, and then I heard footsteps. I pulled my focus onto Tobias, who was standing still, but watching a point to my left. Slowly, I forced my head to turn, but all I saw were an old pair of construction work boots, and then a rough, Southern voice said, “She alive?”

“Yeah,” I heard Tobias say, his voice tense. “She’s not doing great, though.”

There was a grunt, then the work boots stopped next to me. A moment later, Cain crouched down and looked at me, his eyes flickering with cold assessment over my face, then my body.

“Can she move?” he asked, not bothering to talk directly to me.

“A little,” Tobias said, his voice quiet.

Cain reached out to touch my face, and I wanted to shrink back from him, but I couldn’t. Maintaining consciousness was about all I had it in me to do at the moment.

“No,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. How could Tobias do this? Bring
Cain
to me when I was at my weakest? What the hell was going on? My vision started to darken, but whether it was a result of my panic or my impending death, I didn’t know.

“We have to go back to my place,” Cain said, leaning forward to pick me up.

“No,” I whimpered, and my body started to shake and convulse.

“I got her,” Tobias said. A moment later, the hard earth was no longer under me, and I was being jostled about in Tobias’s arms as he carried me out of the forest. I tried to speak, to ask Tobias what the hell he was doing with Cain, but the pain of the movement was too much, and I passed into blackness instead.

*   *   *

When I woke up, I was lying on a futon, staring at a nicotine yellow ceiling in a vaguely familiar studio apartment, although I couldn’t place where I’d seen it before. I didn’t know how long I’d been passed out, but the light outside wasn’t full yet, so it couldn’t have been too long. Or, it was so long that it was already dusk.

Or, I was dead, and hell was a studio apartment with nicotine ceilings. At this point, my mind was open to anything.

“Tobias?” I croaked, my throat rough and pained from all the abuse it had taken.

I heard noise, the clanking of pots, pans, utensils, and I lifted my head a bit to look. Cain was rummaging through the cabinets in his kitchenette, pulling out little bottles and tins and setting them aside. They looked a lot like the bottles and tins I’d seen Davina using.

“Where’s Tobias?”

“What?” He opened a tin, sniffed it, then shook his head and tossed it aside on the counter.

“Tobias?”

Cain looked at me over his shoulder, then opened another cabinet and continued rummaging.

“He went to get me something I need,” he said. “He’ll be back later.”

“Oh.” I laid my head back down on the cushion. I was covered with a blanket, but my body was still shivering involuntarily with cold. “Are you going to kill me?”

I couldn’t see Cain anymore, but from the sounds of things, he just continued his business in the kitchenette, ignoring me.

“It’s just that, if you’re going to kill me, it’s kind of mean to bring me here to do it. I had the job half-done for you in the forest.”

He made a harsh sound, then said, “Shut up and let me concentrate.”

“She tried to kill me,” I said, staring at the ceiling while the bottles and tins clanked in the kitchenette. “
You
tried to kill me. I don’t understand why people want to kill me. I’m basically a very nice person.”

“I didn’t try to kill you,” he said. “I tried to kill
her.
”

I blinked, trying to adjust my memory to what had really happened, but my mind was reeling. I couldn’t put it all together.

“But … that night…”

“I was following her. She took the opportunity to put on a show for you.”

I tried to wrap my mind around it all. The woods, the smoke, the branches flying … it had been Davina. “But she was knocked out. How…?”

He made a disgusted noise. “She was never knocked out.”

And then, the truth flowed over me like water. It had been Davina all along. She’d used Millie and Amber Dorsey as conduits, and blamed Cain to get my trust.
She
was the gray smoke. Not Cain. She’d never actually been knocked out that night in the woods; she’d faked it to frame Cain. Tobias knew this, and had brought Cain to me to save me, not to kill me.

I took a moment to adjust to this, to temper my intense dislike of Cain and my strong affection for Davina with the knowledge that he hadn’t done any of the bad stuff; she had. But the proof was simple; Tobias had trusted me to Cain, and I trusted Tobias.

So that was that.

“God, I’m so stupid,” I said.

There was a long pause, then, “You’re not stupid. You just wanted to believe. Get someone who wants to believe, half your work is done for you.”

I closed my eyes, then opened them again as I realized something. “Hey. This is the apartment above Happy Larry’s, isn’t it? I was here for a party once in high school.”

Cain grunted. I took that as confirmation.

“Happy Larry lied. He told Betty he hadn’t seen you.”

“A good man knows when to keep his mouth shut.”

“Happy Larry is not a good man. Happy Larry is a sleazebag,” I said. “You paid him off, didn’t you?”

“Damnit. Where the hell is it?” Cain opened a drawer, cursed, and shut it again.

I stared at the ceiling and just repeated whatever thoughts came into my head. “I don’t understand anything that’s happening.”

“Here it is,” Cain muttered. I heard water running, and looked up to see him filling a pot. I rested my head back down, and tried to move my fingers. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would.

“I can move my fingers,” I said. “That’s good, right?”

“Don’t move anything. Just breathe and shut the hell up. You’re not out of the woods yet. You like Splenda? Don’t much matter, it’s all that’s in here.” He ripped open two packets and dumped them in the pot.

“I hate Splenda,” I said. “Any man who doesn’t appreciate a woman with curves probably doesn’t like women much to begin with, anyway.” I remembered when Davina had said that the night we met, how much I had liked her. My eyes filled with tears and I blinked them back, not wanting to deal with Cain’s certain surly response to my being a human person.

Cain grabbed a spoon and started stirring. I went quiet for a while, staring at his ceiling, distracting myself by wondering if it was originally white and had just been neglected into that nicotine yellow, or if Happy Larry the Sleazebag had actually thought that was a good color for the apartment. I entertained the idea of asking Cain, but then decided he’d just tell me to shut the hell up anyway.

A few minutes later, he was at my side, holding a plain mug with a blue stripe around the top.

“Hey,” I said. “I know that mug. Did Happy Larry steal that from CCB’s? He did, the sleazebag.”

He put his hand behind my head and held the cup to my lips. “Drink.”

“Oh, god, not another putrid—” I began, but stopped as I sniffed. “Wait. That actually smells not bad.”

Something that might have passed for a smile if you’re grading on a really big curve graced his lips, and he said softly, “Just drink it, okay?”

I leaned forward a bit with his help and sipped it. It was warm, not hot, and tasted of peppermint and licorice, and the feel of it in my ruined throat was incredible. It wasn’t terribly sweet, but just enough, and as I drank it down, the pain in my body started to fade a bit. I stopped halfway through, but Cain kept holding me up until I’d finished every last drop, then he gently lowered me down onto the couch.

“I’m not going to throw everything up again, am I?” I asked. “Because that was kind of a mean trick.”

Cain walked to the other side of the tiny room, grabbed the pillow and blanket from his bed in the corner, and brought them back to me.

“I don’t need those,” I said. “I feel a lot better. Just give me a minute, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Shut up.” He lifted my head and set the pillow underneath, then flipped the blanket out over me. “You’re not going anywhere until you’re stronger. Go to sleep.”

“Stop telling me to shut up,” I said, my lower lip twitching as my mood swung back into the crying zone. “I’m tired and I hurt and I’m scared,
so stop being mean to me.
”

He paused for a moment, watching me.

“You gonna cry again?”

I blinked a few times and took a deep breath. “No.”

“Good.” His expression seemed to soften a bit, and I looked up at him. We stayed like that for a bit, both of us seeming to accept the gentle transition from enemies to … well, not exactly friends, but we were on the same side at least. For the moment, anyway.

He broke the eye contact first, turning to grab the ugly orange recliner and shove it next to the couch. He sat down, flicked the legs out, and said, “Get some sleep. I’ll be right here. She’s gonna be hurting for a while, too, so it’ll be a bit before she tries to get at you again.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

He shrugged, leaning back into the chair. “It’s what I got.”

“Right.” I turned over onto my side, hugging the pillow under my head. “Why are you here? What does any of this have to do with you?”

He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the chair, and for a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then he said. “I’m here because of her.”

“Because of who?” I asked.

It took him a minute to answer. “Holly.”

Holly.
“My sister,” I said absently. “Davina told me you killed her.”

He let out a bitter huff. “She did, did she?”

“Not true?”

He was quiet for a long while, his face stony, and then he said, “No. It’s not true.”

I let the puzzle pieces slowly rearrange themselves in my head. “She’s the one who stole Holly’s magic. She was the conjurer. She’s the one who’s going crazy, and needs my day magic to balance herself out.” I felt dizzy, all the pieces flying around me, and I picked one out of the air. “And you … did you know Holly? Were you friends, too?”

He didn’t answer, just stared off at a spot on the wall over my head, and my heart cracked a little as the realization hit.

“You loved her,” I said, and his eyes shot back to mine. “Holly,” I added, as if either of us needed the clarification.

Even through the hard shell he kept around him, I could see the pain in his face, the slump of his body, and my heart ached for him. Or for me. Probably both.

“You loved her,” I said again, and again, he didn’t argue. “Did she love you back?”

He lowered his eyes, and I could see the answer.
Yes. She had.

“So … you’re kind of like my brother-in-law, then.”

“Go to sleep.”

“No.” I took a breath, trying to slow my thudding heart, and with great effort, pushed myself up to sitting.

“You forget the part where I saved your life? Least you can do is listen when I say you need rest.”

“I want to know what happened,” I said. “To Holly.”

He gave me a dark look. “You know all you need to know.”

“What was she like?”

“Lie back down. You look like you’re gonna vomit again, and I don’t want a mess on my floor.”

“I just want to know what she was like,” I said. “Was she pretty? Was she kind? Was she smart? Funny?”

Just the effort of sitting up was making me dizzy, but the idea of lying down and going to sleep without learning everything there was to know about my sister from the man who had loved her seemed unthinkable.

Cain leaned forward, his tone uncharacteristically gentle. “We’ll talk when you’re stronger. But for now, you need to rest. Okay?”

“Okay.” I leaned back, slowly, onto the couch and my body trembled a bit with the effort. My eyes filled with tears, and I didn’t bother to blink them back. A father I’d never known about was missing, probably dead; a sister I’d never known about was definitely dead; and the friend I’d thought could help me make sense out of it all had betrayed me.

Cain shifted in his seat, but I didn’t look at him, just closed my eyes and let the tears flow. Screw him if he didn’t like it.

I heard him get up a moment later, and when I looked up, he was holding a roll of toilet paper out to me.

“Thanks.” I took it from him, ripped off a length, and blew my nose. He sat down in the recliner and kicked the legs out again. I cried for as long as I needed to, and he didn’t say a word. After a while, the grief dried up, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. I snuggled into the soft pillow.

“Happy Larry really is a sleazebag,” I said, sniffling.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, leaning his head back on the chair and closing his eyes. “He is.”

*   *   *

I don’t know how long I slept, but it was almost dark when I opened my eyes again. I could feel the
thump-thump
from the music downstairs in the bar, but I couldn’t hear clearly enough to tell what song it was exactly, which said some impressive things about the construction of the building, considering the apartment was right on top of the bar. I stretched for a moment, rolled on my side, and looked around.

Cain was gone, but Tobias was there, asleep in the orange easy chair, his hands clasped lightly over his stomach. I didn’t make any noise, just watched him, but apparently the heat of my stare was enough to wake him. He opened his eyes and watched me for a long while, unmoving.

“How are you doing?” he said finally.

I sniffed. “It smells bad in here.”

“That’s probably me.”

“I don’t think so.” I reached up to my neck, where something was tucked around my throat, into my sweatshirt. I pulled it out, holding it away from me with my two fingers.

A damp gym sock that had been filled with some kind of weird paste.

“Oh, right,” Tobias said. “That’s a poultice, for your throat. Cain sent me all the way out to Buffalo to get the mullein. I don’t even know what the hell else he put in there.”

“These people and gym socks, I swear. Smells like a mix of baby butt paste and dead muskrat.” I tossed it across the room and lay back down. “Where is Cain?”