Magic in the Blood (7 page)

I didn’t blame him. I’d be worried if a wild-eyed woman were pointing a Hold spell big enough to stop a rhino in midcharge at me too.

He slowly raised his hands to about chest high, while I stood there breathing hard, and blinking harder, and trying to think straighter.

“Easy, now. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

What I had seen—the glyphs and the watercolor people—was not here. Or at least they were not here anymore. I sniffed and couldn’t smell death. Couldn’t smell the leather and wintergreen of my dad, couldn’t smell anything except the city, coffee, and Grant’s cologne that hinted at vanilla and something deeper, like bourbon and sex.

Grant didn’t do anything else, didn’t move any closer.

I pushed off the chain-link fence and was happy that my legs held me. I ached in my joints, ached where Trager had stuck a needle in my thigh, and my skin felt tight and sunburned.

“You’re shaking,” he said. “How about a cup of coffee to warm you up? Come on inside. It will be okay.”

I lowered my hand, breaking the Hold glyph as I did so. Magic seemed a little dimmer in me, a little smaller. And my heart was still pumping too hard, like I’d been running or had just come out of a fight.

No surprise there.

But other than that, everything was fine. Normal. Fine. I was fine. Normal. Fine.

Oh, who was I kidding?

“I’ve had a really bad morning,” I said, my voice catching at the end.

Grant nodded, like maybe he already had that figured out. He strolled over to me, all sweet and brotherly—if I had a brother who was a hot-looking cowboy coffee roaster—and put one large, warm, coffee-scented hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you inside. You can tell me all about it.”

When all I did was stand there and shake, he slid over next to me and rested his arm across my shoulders. Then he gently propelled me forward toward the doors of Get Mugged.

“Hey, Jula,” Grant called out. “Get me a Shot in the Dark, would ya? And a towel?”

She looked up, the piercing in her eyebrow flashing blue and then pink as she looked from Grant to me. “Oh. Sure.” She put down the tray of scones and reached for a big mug from the shelf behind her.

Grant, his arm still over my shoulder, steered me farther into the shop, back to a table nestled against a narrow window on the other side of the counter. It was far away from the door and out of sight from most of the people in the shop but close enough to the counter that Grant or Jula could keep an eye on whoever sat there.

I had the distinct impression Grant didn’t think I was doing so hot.

“Here now,” he said. “Best seat in the house.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m okay.” The heat of the place was working wonders for me, easing some of the ache. Even the intense sunburn sting from the watercolor people touching me was fading some. I was soaked through my coat, but still cold enough that I didn’t want to take it off. Once I got home I really would have to wring out my underwear.

I tugged my hat off and ran my gloved fingers through my hair. Another good thing about short hair is it handles the wet pretty well. I tucked it back behind my left ear, but kept it loose on the right so it would swing forward and cover the whorls of colors that licked beneath my jaw and up to the corner of my right eye. I was feeling a little touchy about the whole marked-by-magic thing at the moment.

Grant sat across the small table from me.

“Rough morning, huh?” he asked.

“I’ve had better,” I said.

Jula stopped by the table. “Here you go.” She placed a mug of coffee and a plate with a hot scone in front of me. “The towel?” she asked.

Grant pointed to me.

She handed me the towel. “Anything else I can get you?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks.”

She looked over at Grant again. He was leaning back in his chair, his own short hair wet enough that it looked as black as mine instead of the light brown I knew it was. Drips of rain caught on the edge of his spiky bangs and ran a wet line down his temple and jaw. Grant had dark, dark blue eyes and that sort of rough and ready look that always made me imagine him in a cowboy hat.

Even though all I wanted to do was dive into that cup of coffee, I took the towel, pulled off my gloves, and inspected my hands. Black bands on all my left knuckles, whorls of metallic colors over every inch of my right hand. The black bands looked a little swollen, like they were bruising beneath, and the whorls of colors were darker than normal, dull, like someone had sanded the metallic shine off of them.

Or several someones.

I dried my hands carefully, though they weren’t really hurting. The ache and sunburn had faded fast, leaving me cold. Just cold. And wet. I wiped my face. The towel was white, soft, and smelled of lemon dish soap.

“Thanks,” I said again, lifting the towel a little before handing it to Grant. He rubbed it over his face, wadded it up, and put it on the table.

“You had me worried.”

“Sorry.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Oh, I so did not. I didn’t like telling people I was going crazy.

“That’s really nice. But trust me, you don’t want to get involved in my troubles.”

“I don’t know. Everyone needs a little trouble now and then. Keeps things spicy.”

“Running the coffee shop isn’t spicy enough?”

He shrugged. “Business is business. But I want my friends to know I’ll do what I can to help. Be there if they need me.”

I shook my head but smiled despite myself. I’d been coming to Get Mugged for years, and I didn’t know Grant considered our casual morning talks the basis for a friendship.

“Friends?” I asked.

“Anyone who gives me tickets to the Schnitz for my birthday two years in a row is officially my friend.”

“I did that?”

Grant gave me a funny look. I knew that look—it happened when I had forgotten something in my past but the person I was with had not. Fantastic. I’d not only forgotten I was friends with Grant, but had also forgotten I’d given him tickets to the opera.

“You sure you’re feeling okay?” he asked.

I rubbed at my eyes. “Sorry, Grant. Things . . . The coma did weird things to my memory. I have a lot more holes. I think I lost your birthday.” And damned if that didn’t make me feel like a heel.

“Hey, that’s okay. I’ll remind you.
The Phantom of the Opera
’s coming to town, and I do like me some
Phantom
.” He patted the edge of the table and it suddenly felt like we’d just sealed a deal. We were officially still friends.

“So, tell all, girl. What’s going on?”

I am not the kind of gal who falls for every nice smile she sees. But Grant’s smile was like the shop— warm, friendly, comfortable. I smiled back, and for the first time in what must be years regretted not putting on at least a little mascara.

Not that it would matter with Grant. Women weren’t his thing.

“I just, well, I took a new job—”

“Hounding?”

“Right, for the police, and I guess my mind’s on that.”

“So, you’re not hurt?”

“No.”

“Not in trouble—No, let me rephrase that. Don’t need me to call the police for you?”

“No.”

“And you’re feeling a little better now that we got you out of the rain and wind?”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed. I took a drink of coffee and closed my eyes as it rolled hot all the way down to my belly. Hot, dark, rich. Heaven.

“Trust me,” I said. “After a cup of this, I’ll be perfect.” I took a bite of scone. “Wait,” I said around a mouthful of pumpkin spice goodness. “I’ll be perfect after the coffee
and
the scone.”

“Good.” He straightened and put both his hands on his knees, ready to push up onto his feet. “ ’Cause you looked like you’d seen a ghost out there.”

I choked on the scone and coughed uncontrollably.

“You okay?”

I nodded and thumped at my chest to try to get the bite of scone either up or down. I picked up my coffee and took a slurp. That got me a burnt tongue and scalded the roof of my mouth, but at least the scone slid down my throat. I coughed a little more and then sneezed.

How graceful was I today?

Grant calmly handed me the towel again, which I used to wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes.

“Maybe I should stop filling those things with gravel,” he said.

“What did you say?”

“Gravel. The scone. It’s a joke.”

“No. You said something about a ghost.”

Grant gave me a long look and then leaned his forearms on the table, folding his fingers together. “I said you looked like you’d seen a ghost,” he said calmly. “Standing out in the rain all pale and spooked. Why? Did you?”

I didn’t want to talk about this. Not to Grant. As far as I knew, he didn’t use magic, didn’t really understand it, and wouldn’t even care if I had seen ghostly glyphs or a whole herd of ghostly people stampeding outside his door.

“Did you see one?” he asked.

“What?”

He wiggled his fingers in the air. “A ghost.” Those dark, dark blue eyes still held the echo of his smile, but he was not joking around. It was a serious question.

I took a drink of coffee—a little more carefully this time.

“Get Mugged used to be an old saloon and boardinghouse,” Grant said. “It was built over the Shanghai Tunnels—did I ever mention that? Some people—especially people who use magic a lot—see things here. Spirits. I had a local ghost-hunting team come out and check into it a while back. Said there was a lot of activity. Ghosts of the men and women who were knocked out, locked up, killed, or sold onto pirate ships heading to China.”

“You had ghost hunters in here?”

“Sure. Why not? You don’t believe in ghosts?”

“I just—” I took a breath, exhaled. “I’m surprised you do.”

“Well, now that I’ve shared my secret, it’s your turn. Did you see a ghost?”

Hells. Why not?

“Yes.”

“Here?”

I took another drink of coffee, which hurt the burnt spots in my mouth. Totally worth it.

“Outside,” I said. “It was just for a couple seconds, but there was more than one.”

Grant grinned. “I liked the sound of that. Haven’t had multiple apparitions before. Were they full body?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you see them clearly from head to toe?”

The memory of them turning, gazing at me with hungry, empty eyes, moving toward me slowly, too slowly, flashed through my mind.

“Every bit of them. And I don’t know what you’re so happy about. They scared the hell out of me.”

“Haven’t seen a full body myself. Always kind of hoped I would. The ghost hunters said they didn’t think there was harmful activity here.”

“You might want to rethink that,” I said. Hells. Who was I to change Grant’s mind? If he liked thinking friendly ghosts were Caspering about in his coffee shop, that was cool with me. He could probably capitalize on the haunted thing and bring in the tourists.

And since no one else had seen multiple full-body apparitions (see how quick I pick up on this stuff?), I was beginning to think seeing them—and being touched by them—had more to do with those Death glyphs out on the wall than with Grant’s Shanghai victims.

“Oh, now. Don’t go holding out on me. I can see it in your eyes. There was more. Spill it, girl.”

I took another bite of the scone, which practically melted into sugar and spice in my mouth. “This is really good. Did you change bakeries?”

“It’s my own recipe. Less scone. More ghost.”

“You made this? I’m impressed. You should open a bakery or a coffee shop or something.”

“Allison Beckstrom,” he said. “Don’t make me sic Jula on you. And don’t think she can’t take you—she’s little, but she’s tougher than she looks.”

“Listen,” I said. “I saw ghosts—a lot of them. And they . . . um . . . touched me. It hurt. Don’t. Don’t look like that. I’m fine. It was just for a second. Right before you came out. And before that I saw some kind of magic written on the warehouse wall. Glyphs that were for Life and Healing—good glyphs. But around all those was the glyph for Death. When I got closer to the building, they . . .” Telling the truth and watching Grant’s expression go from excitement back to worry again was harder than I thought it would be. “. . . they just—”

“Disappeared?”

I nodded.

“And you’re sure you’re not hurt? I’ve heard of ghosts leaving marks.”

“I think I’m fine.”

He stared at me.

“I’ll check myself over when I go home. After coffee.” I picked up the cup and took another drink.

Grant didn’t push me on that, for which I was grateful.

“Life and death, huh?” he asked. “Were they city-cast to keep vandals off the block?”

I blinked. “I don’t know.” I’d never even thought about that. “Do you know if the city has any standing spells here?”

“I can look into it. The company that owns the lot next to me went bankrupt. I’m thinking about buying it, though I don’t know what I’d do with it.”

“Open a bakery?” I suggested.

“Like I need two businesses to run.”

“You could always rent the place out to the ghost chasers.” I popped the last of the scone in my mouth.

Grant’s eyes went wide. “That’s a fabulous idea.”

“Wait—I was joking.”

“No. It’s good. It’s really good. They’re looking to move out of their place—too small and not enough . . . you know . . .”

“Decay?”

“History. They were saying they wanted to move closer to the older part of town. This whole block’s been trying to go high-end for years.” He winced. “It hasn’t caught on, which is fine with it me. I like things the way they are.”

“And you think bringing in people who run around doing seances is going to bring the property value up?”

“Séances.” He shook his head. “You really don’t know anything about this, do you? But even if it were séances, do I look like I care?” He grinned and I could tell that no, he most certainly did not.

“Well, good luck with that. If things go well, maybe they can come de-ghost my apartment.”

I was joking around.

Grant didn’t buy it.

“Why? You seen ghosts there too? Ghost magic?”

“No. Not really. Not like here on the street. It’s complicated. And what do you mean ghost magic? There’s no such thing.”

“Those graffiti things you said you saw, that appeared and disappeared. Ghost magic, right? Talk to me.”