Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk Page A

fare.
     
     
    I giggled at that, and a small part of my mind, perhaps my common sense, started to worry. I was not thinking so straight. That was a bad thing to do anywhere in the city, and really bad—the dead kind of bad—in this neighborhood.
     
     
    ‘‘Here.’’ I put my money in my jacket pocket and gave the driver a twenty. He watched me from the rearview mirror. ‘‘No round trip,’’ he said.
     
     
    ‘‘Right. Thanks.’’ I opened the door, got out into the rain. I tugged my neon backpack onto my shoulder, but didn’t do it very well, because it made me really dizzy.
     
     
    I staggered and caught myself on the edge of a trash can.
     
     
    Lovely. I probably looked like a drunk just waiting for someone to roll me.
     
     
    Come on, Allie, I thought. Suck it up. It’s not that far. Just a couple blocks. I needed a bed in the worst way. Maybe I should have just put up with the stink back in the apartment. It was no worse than the stink coming out of the trash can I was holding on to. Too late to go back to my apartment now. There was no way I’d make it that far without passing out. But if I had anything to say about it, I wasn’t going to sleep in the trash can either.
     
     
    I lifted my head and held still as vertigo rocked the street beneath my feet like a hammock in a strong wind.
     
     
    Just a couple blocks. I could do that.
     
     
    I pushed away from the trash can, pulled my shoulders back, and took a deep breath. Even though my vision was spotty at best, my nose was still working. I caught the fish-and-salt stink off the river, the rust and oil from the train track and river traffic, and the pungent barf smell coming from, oh, I don’t know—everywhere. The sweet smell of tobacco and charcoal, hinting of a wood fire down on the shoreline, wafted through the air. Along with all that, I could also smell the acrid tang of magic being used behind me, from the city proper. To get to Mama’s all I had to do was walk toward the smell of old wood and hot grease and something kind of dirty, like wet dog and barf. Those smells.
     
     
    I knew better than to show how bad I was feeling. So I set a confident stride, kept my head up, and looked around enough to signal to any circling predators that whatever they wanted from me, they were going to have to fight me for it.
     
     
    I made it to Mama’s without having to risk my life over my crummy backpack, walked up the three wooden stairs, and was winded like I’d just done a few record-breaking laps through quicksand.
     
     
    Boy, behind the counter, watched me walk in. He frowned, glanced over my shoulder, then brought his hand up empty from where it had just been on the gun he kept there.
     
     
    ‘‘Is Mama in?’’ I asked.
     
     
    He nodded, but didn’t do anything else for me.
     
     
    Nice.
     
     
    I walked the rest of the way into the restaurant. I eyed the spindly wood tables to the right and left and considered sitting down. But I knew, once I stopped standing I wouldn’t be doing it for at least twenty-four hours.
     
     
    ‘‘Listen,’’ I said as I leaned my elbow, carefully, on the counter in front of Boy. Leaning felt good. Felt real good. Maybe I could just put my head down on the counter and let Boy figure out the rest of it. Surely I couldn’t be the first woman who’d passed out on this counter. Probably wasn’t even the first woman to do so this week.
     
     
    I blinked, my chin dipped, and it took effort to fight my way up out of the quicksand that was dragging me down, especially since I was pretty sure I was still wearing my lucky lead coat.
     
     
    Boy had a funny look on his face. Something between amusement and disgust.
     
     
    Oh, good loves. I knew what he was thinking.
     
     
    ‘‘I’m not drunk,’’ I slurred.
     
     
    Fabo. That sounded convincing. ‘‘I’m . . . I’m hurt.’’ And I hated saying it, hated admitting it, hated hurting in front of him, in front of anyone. ‘‘I