A Criminal Magic Read online

Gunn and I stay looking at each other, my chance for our future staring me down. Slowly, something changes in his eyes—there’s not warmth, but a new respect.

  “Won’t be easy up there,” he says slowly. “We’ll be culling the best sorcerers, and that means long days of dangerous magic, of pushing yourself to the brink. It’ll be hard conditions, a tough run. I can’t guarantee you’ll come home the same way you left.”

  His words crack something open inside me. But this is the reason I’ve forced myself to survive—the reason I banished my magic in the first place. So I can protect Ben and Ruby, spend my life filling in the hole that I carved out of their lives.

  “Jed’s spot’s still open, if you think you can handle it”—Gunn nods at my bottle of shine—“and if you’re sure you can brew this again.”

  I’m so far from “sure” it’s terrifying. Mama barely taught me anything before she died. In fact, caging my magic touch inside that shine bottle is the only true spell I’ve ever managed to cast, after the only magic manipulation I ever conjured ended in death. I brewed that shine in a surge of grief, a desperate attempt to cut off my talent like a poisoned limb, in the hopes of limping forward, moving on. I’ve got no idea how to brew this shine twice.

  But I glance at my cousin, and at Ruby, who’s managed to sneak outside and hide behind one of Ben’s legs on our stoop. I think about their world before I went and gutted it in my arrogant, stupid attempt to save it. I look up to our sagging roof, the roof that’s not going to be over our heads much longer if one of us doesn’t do something soon. Long ago there was a sorcerer who wanted to leave her cursed magic behind her, but the only way out was through—

  So I straighten my spine, look Gunn in the eye, and will every ounce of resolve I’ve got left to case my voice in steel. “Sure as hell I can brew it again, sir.”

  BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

  ALEX

  If you were inclined to use the term “magic” lightly, it’s a word you might offer to describe a night like tonight. Twilight paints the grass of Georgetown’s lawn in broad strokes of deep emerald and shadow, and streetlamps act like glowing alchemists, turning the campus’s cobblestone walkway into gold. The sky is a slice of indigo, rich and sweet with Indian summer. And the crowd I’ve anchored onto? Just as beautiful—boys in tailored jackets, young women donning far too much makeup, beads, and gems.

  This isn’t my world. I’m borrowing it, holding on to my old chum Warren’s stern as he sails through the warm waters of Georgetown University. But on nights like tonight, where the wind itself practically whistles a note of invincibility across campus, it’s far too easy for me to pretend, to get lost in what could have been. So I clutch the cheap plastic badge in my pocket as a reminder: It wasn’t just his fault. He couldn’t have done it without you. You ruined this for yourself.

  The group ahead of Warren and me charges out of the wrought-iron gates of campus and crosses over to O Street. And then the crowd’s whispers start to grow louder, begin buzzing around us like fireflies:

  “A faux shining room at Sigma Phi, can you believe it?”

  “It’s going to be tops. Performing sorcerers, with shine, just like the Red Den—”

  “Poser, you’ve never been to the Red Den—”

  Giggles, squeals, laughter—

  For a second, it’s too bright, too free, too wonderfully, painfully familiar, and I have to stop walking and collect myself. I start fumbling inside my jacket for a cigarette. It takes Warren a couple of steps to notice, and he doubles back as the crowd continues to trailblaze ahead.

  “You’re positive you want to come along tonight?” Warren asks, as he fishes a Lucky out of his own pocket and lights it.

  “Don’t worry, the badge is in my pocket, and that’s where it’ll stay.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Warren shakes his head, takes a drag, and watches the crowd continue down O Street toward Sigma Phi’s “criminal magic” party. “You’re almost a real agent now, Alex,” Warren says. “I thought . . .” He trails off.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “You told me that you joined the Prohibition Unit because you needed to move on. That you wanted to help the Feds catch guys like your father.”

  I don’t answer.

  “But it’s like you’re not even trying,” Warren pushes. “I mean, don’t you think this isn’t right? You hiding your badge, hitting up parties, chasing tail and magic like you’re just another freshman?”

  A flame of embarrassment lights me up inside, but I quickly pinch it out. “I’m not pretending I’m just another freshman.” I throw Warren a hollow smile. “I’m hanging out with my old friend.”

  “I saw you in the Harbin dorm a couple days ago, Alex.”

  “So? I picked up some English-lit Betty at Chadwick’s the other night. She invited me back to her dorm.”

  “It was in the middle of the afternoon,” he says flatly, “in the cafeteria.”

  I turn away from him and give a stifled laugh to the sky. “Christ, Warren, I’m starting to think that you’re the police here.” I take another drag to buy myself time, to concoct another lie. I’m quick at it, dealing them out, stacking them up like a house of cards. I’ve had good practice.

  And my father was the best of mentors.

  “The Prohibition Unit had its trainee class come onto campus a few times, to hear Professor Starks’s lecture about sorcerer’s shine, and the magic of shine transference,” I explain slowly. “I must have grabbed a soda or something afterward.” At that, Warren’s face softens. It almost tempts me to tell him the truth. That I want my old life back so bad it hurts. That I want to go back in time and erase what happened, erase it all.

  Instead I add, “But it’s nice to know you’re spying on me.”

  “I’m not spying on you. I’m worried about you.” Warren looks at the pavement, stubs the rest of his cig into it. “I’m just not sure I understand anymore,” he says quietly. “I got it at first—tailing me till you got settled in the Unit, getting a taste of what could have been if your father hadn’t been indicted. But Alex, it’s been months since the trial.”

  I study my cigarette, the way the white paper surrenders to the hungry cinders. “Is this an elaborate way of trying to tell me to get lost?”

  Warren waits a second, another second. “Of course not.”

  He looks back down O Street, which is now empty, save for an older gentleman walking his dog and a few students with bursting book satchels coming back from the library. “But tonight’s important to me. Sigma Phi’s going to choose their pledges this weekend, and I don’t want anything messing that up.”

  I give him a glass smile. “Well, let’s make sure our boy gets what he wants.”

  “I’m serious, Alex. Sigma’s president isn’t a joker, all right? Sam Rockaway takes his frat seriously, and he’s obsessed with sorcery. He’s been planning this criminal magic party since June. What happened the past few times I brought you around? That stuff can’t happen again.” A faint blush falls over his face as he mumbles, “Honestly, I didn’t even mean to tell you about tonight. It just sort of came out.”

  That stings, not that I can entirely fault Warren for saying it. I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, a liability. My nights trolling Georgetown with Warren always start all right—I feel comfortable hitting the town at his side, almost hopeful, like I’m getting to relive a warm, wonderful dream—but then something always goes wrong. Some ass says something that rubs me the wrong way, or I hit on the wrong guy’s girl. Last Friday I got into a fistfight with some arrogant junior who called me a “suit,” and I was dangerously close to transforming his varsity letter into a straightjacket.

  I take another cigarette out, light the new one with the stub of my last. It’s a dirty habit, chain-smoking, but when I’m nervous I need to keep my hands busy. “Look, I’ll handle myself tonight, I promise, okay?”
I tell Warren. “I’m not going to mess Sigma up for you. I’m just along for the ride. For a break from the grind.” I sigh out a flood of smoke. Then I add quietly, “Sometimes I just need to escape.”

  I steal a glance at Warren. I want him to understand without me explaining any more. I want my friend of over a decade to tell me that everything’s okay, that no matter how many times I mess up, how desperate I seem, how dim my future’s become while his just keeps burning brighter—he’ll never leave me to flicker out alone.

  But standing here under the streetlamps, the whispers of my life long gone disappearing like the crowd around the corner of O and 35th Streets, Warren’s face only shows pity.

  He sighs, pastes on a false smile, and slaps me on the back, a fast, flippant gesture. “Okay, friend,” he says, “then we better hop. Sam said the performance starts at nine.”

  We walk without another word down to 35th Street.

  “Sam said to use his back door, in the alley.” Warren points us down a narrow, shadowed street behind the corner lot on 35th and O. The alley’s bordered on both sides with old homes that date back centuries, each painted in faded pastels, with sleepy back lots cluttered with trash cans. There’s a light on in about every third house, no noise but the sound of far-off traffic. In short, there’s absolutely no indication of a legendary sorcery party anywhere in our vicinity.

  “You sure the crowd went this way?” I ask.

  Warren pulls out a small piece of paper from the pocket of his trousers. He checks the address, then approaches one of the squat, shabby houses on our left, a two-story with smudged windows and chipping rose-colored paint. Two wooden Greek letters have been nailed over the entrance, the only faint scent of “fraternity” on the block.

  “This is the address,” Warren mumbles.

  I throw the stub of my cig into the dying bushes lining the little yard, then follow Warren up the set of cracked cement stairs to the house’s back door.

  “1312”—he looks at me—“this has to be it.”

  I shrug. “So try the door.”

  Warren reaches for the doorknob, but his hand passes right through it. “Oh, wow.” He gingerly steps in, straight through the door, and I follow.

  As soon as I cross the threshold, I feel it, that slow pull of walking straight through a protective force field. Like an unraveling, layer by layer, like I’m being consumed slowly by a thick, black nothing. I can’t see Warren, hell, I can’t even sense Warren—and then the void releases, the black softens into twilight, and we’re standing at another door, this one identical to the last, leading to an identical house, except each window of the house is now glowing, animated with light from within. A steady flow of jazz and conversation spills from the house’s interior.

  “Holy shit,” Warren says. “Have you ever experienced anything like that?”

  Call me jaded, but this force field is amateur magic at best. “A better sorcerer would have added a tactile manipulation, an actual house around the house, instead of just a protective shield,” I say. “See this little force field?” I wave my hand back through the charged, protective space. “As soon as cops or agents reach for the door, they’ll know there’s magic inside.”

  Warren rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue—sorcery is the one topic I still have the upper hand on, always will. Of course I know I’m being a prick, but Warren’s pathetic, almost childlike wonder over this lackluster work of sorcery bothers me. I’m angry at magic. I’m angry at my father, at those D Street gangsters who sold him out, at myself—

  These days, I’m pretty much angry at everything.

  Warren grabs the real doorknob in front of him, pushes the wooden door open, and we step into a narrow hall that’s packed with college kids, whispers, and speculation. There must be dozens of frat boys idling, passing some of the legal stuff around—whiskey, rum—to warm themselves up for the main event. Dames are angling around one another, standing on their tiptoes to see the front of the line, to judge how long it’s going to take to get in. The air is heavy with perfume and sweat, and conversations bounce off the walls. A line to the freaking door for a glimpse, a taste, of magic. If declaring something criminal doesn’t render it sexier, then I don’t know what does.

  “Sigma Phi attracts a crowd, doesn’t it?” I shout to Warren over the noise.

  Warren throws me a self-satisfied smile. “It’s the most sought-after fraternity on campus. And on a night like tonight, with live sorcering? Place is going to shoot through the roof.”

  “You really think you stand a shot of getting into a frat like this?” I mean it to sound curious, but it comes across like an accusation.

  But Warren doesn’t flinch. I wait as he shakes the hands of a group of tweed-vested chaps who’ve filtered in behind us. Warren puffs out his chest a little as he does it, tosses his hair in the same way I used to, when I was a guy who could pull off a hair toss. I’ve been noticing Warren’s got a little more presence since he moved into his freshman dorm, and since I started training with the Unit this summer. It’s like he’s managed to grow into his own, now that he’s out from under my shadow. “I better.” He turns back and leans in conspiratorially. “My dad took Sam’s father and two older brothers out to Saint Michaels for a golf weekend in August, to sweeten the deal.”

  “Thank God for fathers,” I say simply.

  At that, Warren’s face turns beet red.

  “Come on, War, I’m teasing,” I add, trying to let us both off the hook. But the damage is done.

  Before the awkwardness has a chance to settle in and stay, a redheaded dame comes barreling toward us from the back door, saving us from each other. She sidesteps through the back of the line, which prompts a chorus of, “Come on! Wait your turn!”

  “Sorry, gents,” the ginger announces, “but my fella’s holding my spot for me.”

  As evidence, she sidles up to Warren’s other side and plants the airiest of kisses onto his cheek.

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it,” Warren says breathlessly, no residue at all of “big man on campus” left in his tone.

  “And miss the party of the year? No thank you.” The redhead straightens her skirt. She’s cute—cherry mouth, cherry hair, little upturned nose. And rich, that much is obvious from her pearls and the embroidered LM on her purse. Perhaps equally as obvious, Warren is definitely not her “fella.” Not in the way he wants to be, at least: I can tell from the way she’s already moved on, is scanning the crowd for someone else she might know who’s closer to the front. I hate this habit of mine—reading into the slightest gesture, the meaning of a smile, a pause. But since my father’s indictment, I can’t seem to stop. It’s like I’m watching everyone, waiting for the other shoe to drop, scouting whether anyone’s on the hunt for the full truth, and whether they’re starting to circle in on me.

  “Sam’s roommate told Sasha who told Laura that Sam’s having three DC sorcerers here tonight,” the ginger prattles as she keeps surveying the crowd ahead. She still hasn’t seen or acknowledged me. “And they’re going to actually brew some sorcerer’s shine! Can you believe it? Sam’s auctioning off ten shots of it to raise money for the Christmas Ball.”

  “Are you serious?” Warren matches her enthusiasm.

  “That’s what I heard.” She sighs loudly and dramatically. “God, it’s so hot, all of it. I’ve been wanting to try shine so bad I’ve been dreaming about it. I better win one.”

  For a second, I’m tempted to show her a magic that will send her into a dream so thick and hot she’ll never want to climb out.

  “You’re really a sorcerer’s shine virgin?” I say instead, wedging myself right into their conversation.

  The ginger turns her head, annoyed, in my direction. But then she stops, sizes me up, faintly blushes. I know she must like what she sees, they almost all do before they really get to know me. Sure enough, her cherry mouth starts to turn up
like little stems.

  “Lana Morgan, Alex. Alex, Lana Morgan,” Warren introduces us quickly. I notice he leaves my last name out of the introduction.

  “Pleasure.”

  Lana leans closer. “So are you a freshman too? I haven’t seen you around—I’d remember.” She lets her eyes linger on me. The line starts moving again, and we all take a few steps forward together. Warren uses the chance to reinsert himself between us.

  “No, Alex is a friend from the old days, just along for the ride,” Warren says quickly. “He works for the government.”

  I watch Lana’s interest deflate. “The government,” she says blandly. “How interesting.”

  “I’m actually a sorcery expert,” I’m quick to add. “I’m training with the Prohibition Unit, the Domestic Magic division.”

  “You don’t say?” Lana’s smile brightens a few watts, as Warren rolls his eyes next to me. “I bet you’re just chock-full of all sorts of fascinating information.” Then she shoots Warren a confused, fearful glance. “Wait, if he’s a Fed, what’s he doing here?”

  Warren laughs out something like, “My thoughts exactly,” but I talk over him: “Let’s just say I value fieldwork.” I shoot her my smile, the cocky, off-center one, the one my last fling told me was the only reason she put up with me so long.

  “So you’re one of those Unit men, the fun kind.” Lana meets my smile and wiggles her eyebrows. The corrupt kind, is what she means. The Unit’s notorious for making more money off bribes than their government salaries. It’s part of the reason I joined—the agency’s messy, disorganized, an easy place to get lost and hide. “Did you ever have to take a shot of shine, you know, as part of the job? To see what it’s like?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Her eyes become liquid, hungrier. “So what’s it feel like, drinking the sorcerer’s shine?”

  The sorcerer’s shine—the magic spell without any other elements, water turned into pure magic touch inside a bottle. The primary reason the anti-sorcery activists were able to pass the Eighteenth Amendment, besides the record-high crime rate during the Great War and the media’s frenzy over a slew of high-profile magic robberies, and one of the most sought-after, addictive magic drugs on the black market. A spell quite literally stumbled upon centuries ago, goes the rumor, when some sorcerer was so drunk he forgot to add his spell’s other elements.