Quintin saw me outside of the room. A nurse came out, nodded to us. “You can go back in now.”
“How is she?” Quintin asked.
“Asleep for now. Too much of that and she could have died.”
“I’m aware of that,” Quintin almost growled, and went into the room. He grabbed one of the plastic chairs, turned it toward the bed, and plopped himself into it. He took Dottie’s hand, and held it, stroking it. The look in his eyes was tender, full of worry.
I had no chair, so I leaned against the glass wall. I had nothing to do, either, so I extended my senses out, listening to what was going on. A small child crying. A woman crying that she was in pain. Hushed and whispering voices that I forced to have them carry to me, discussing whether they should have papa in a home this time around.
“Bob,” Quintin said, and shook his head.
“What?”
“We’ll discuss it outside.”
I was using magic, without realizing it. I stopped. Instead, I sat on the floor, drawing my knees up to my chin.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, because I heard myself snore after a short time. I heard people moving around. The next thing I felt was Quintin shaking me. “She’s awake,” he said. I squinted up at him – he looked exhausted. I looked up at the clock, and it was twenty-past-five. In the morning.
He held a hand down for me to help me up, so I took it. “The doctors are going to keep her overnight.”
I yawned and nodded, “So what now?”
“We go home.”
I looked over at the bed, but she was still asleep. However, this time she was snoring, so it was a deep sleep, not a passed-out sleep like it was. I followed Quintin out to the car. He got into the car, slumped into the seat and sat back, hands on the wheel.
“Maybe not,” he said, and took out a cell phone that he had under the console. He dialed a number and waited. I could hear a woman’s voice say, “Hello?”
“Chrissy, it’s Q.”
“It’s early. Are you all right?”
“Dottie went into Mount Auburn last night. I need a place to take a nap.”
“Sure, sure, I’ll tell Jose. You want anything to eat?”
“Just sleep. I have someone with me. He can take the couch.”
“Okay. See you in a few.”
He hung up the phone and sighed, casting his head back against the seat. “Just a couple of miles,” he sighed. “I can stay up.”
A spell came to mind to keep him awake. “Do you want any–”
“No!” He turned and glared at me. “Stop using magic, or those people will come after you.”
“This whole town uses magic,” I said.
“You’re not in Salem anymore. You’re in Cambridge. And we’re going into Boston.”
“I thought – since we got here so fast–”
“Remember when I asked if you can manipulate time?”
My eyes widened. “You can?”
“Only when necessary.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Why should I? You don’t want to learn. You want to get it all handed to you.”
“But I want to learn it. I want to know.”
“For what?”
I stared at him. “I have to have a reason?”
He started the car, “I have to have a reason.”
I started to say something but he waved his hand. “I’m driving. Not right now.” He backed out of the space, and it wasn’t until we were back on the main road until he said, “You haven’t proven anything to me that you would be a good student. You would take everything that you know and use it for yourself.”
“That’s not true!”
He said to me, turning to look right at me while stopped at a light. “Prove it.”
That look brokered no argument. He knew things. I wanted to learn them. My daemon could teach me, too – but would it stick? I’d have to rely entirely on that daemon, and a part of me rebelled against that. I think that one of the reasons I went against the mages and deacons and archmages is that I didn’t want to depend on them.
Quintin was just going to keep me by him as his servant until he felt that I had surpassed him. Well, I wouldn’t give him the satifaction. I set my jaw and looked out the window.
He ended up driving by some old brownstone houses, with shops in the lower section. It was just out of twilight, with people walking their dogs or out for a morning jog. He looked on both sides of the street for a spot. “Ha,” he muttered, and swung into an open spot in front of a store named “Spot and Wash”, which looked to me like a dog groomer’s.
“Only four doors down. Not too bad.” He got out of the car on the street side, and I got out on the sidewalk side. He started crossing the street, and I jumped to follow, hearing the locking beep of the car. He walked fast, and I had to half-jog to keep up with him.
We stopped in front of a brownstone that had a pentacle on the door. I rolled my eyes. He turned and ribbed me. “Be nice.”
“Are they like the Stewarts?”
“Never,” he said, and the door opened. A handsome Hispanic man in a white A-shirt and work khakis stood in the doorway. “Yo, Q,” he said, and held out his fist for a fistbump.
Quintin completed it and then he held it out to me. I did the same and glanced at him to make sure it was okay to go in. He motioned with his arm to enter.
The foyer was tight, and a set of stairs led up to a second floor, where he started leading us. “You look like shit warmed over,” the man said to Quintin.
“I’m ready to collapse,” Quintin replied.
“Well, there’s the futon or the couch, take your pick.”
“Couch. Kid gets the futon.”
Jose looked at me. “Hmmm, okay.”
“Couch is more comfortable.”
We went into a cute little apartment, where there was pagan symbolism all over the place. In one corner of the living room I could see a little shrine with statues, candles and offerings. A woman was sitting at a breakfast nook and raised her cup to us. “How is she?”
“Good. She had woken up a bit, knew who she was but not where, and then she went back to sleep.”
“What happened?”
“You know that kid who was living with her?”
Jose and Chrissy both looked at me.
“No, not him. Someone else.”
Chrissy sighed. “Poor sis.”
“He could have killed her,” Jose said.
“Don’t think I don’t know that.”
chrissy said, “Quinn, sit down before you fall down.”
“If I sit down, I’ll fall asleep. I need to go to bed.”
“Okay. You were healing her, too?”
“No, she did that on her own.”
They glanced at me again. “Futon, this way,” said Jose, and led me to a room. This room was obviously their working magic room, and I could sense the power here easily. There was a futon at the side, laid out, with a satin sheet set and pretty flowers. It smelled like cinnamon and roses.
“Sleep tight,” he said, and shut the door. I heard something lock, and I stared at the door. So that was why he wanted me in here. I wanted to rush the door, but I was so tired, and I knew I’d be safe here, behind the locked door.
I heard murmuring in the other room, then not much else after a door was closed. I settled down in the bed, inhaling the cinnamon and flowers.
I had strange, sexual dreams all night. I dreamt of Max, my first boyfriend. I dreamt of how we would have spent our lives together if I hadn’t gotten him put in jail. I slept all right, but really had to go to the bathroom when I woke up. I tried the door, and it was unlocked.
Sitting at the kitchen table was Quintin, stirring a cup of coffee. I looked around for a clock. “You slept almost five hours,” he said.
“What about you?”
“I got up an hour ago.”
I went to the bathroom, unbuttoning my belt. The glamour faded and I did my business, buckling my belt quickly. I waited for my onyx color to turn white again before coming out.
Quintin watched me curiously as I went to the kitchen table. “Take off your clothes.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Off.”
“I’m not like that–”
“You are, too, now take them off.”
Off came the shirt. I hesitated at my belt. He watched me again. Finally, I sighed and unbuckled it.
“Enough,” he said, and watched as the glamour faded. First, the skin around my stomach turned black – and so would my groin, and it bled out from there, up to my face, with the exception of lighter gray and sometimes white scars there, and fire-red hair.
“What happened to you?” he said, standing up.
“My daemon,” I said, “Set me on fire.”
“You let it?” He walked over and touched the smooth, black skin. He pressed his finger against it, but it didn’t budge much.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“So you live with this, in exchange for what he gives to you?”
“She. My daemon is a woman.”
“That’s surprising,” he said. He stood in front of me. “I could smell that magic on you. It smelled like you’d been stoking a fire for too long. Sooty.”
I looked down at the belt.
“All your magic smells like soot.”
“Well? What does yours smell like?”
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