Cold Burn of Magic(6)

“Good night, Mom,” I whispered.

Once again, I waited, but there was no response. And there never would be.

Sighing, I hit the lamp with my fingers, casting the basement into darkness. Then I curled into a tight ball on my cot, drew the sheets up to my chin, and tried to go to sleep, instead of thinking about how much I still missed her.





Unfortunately, rubies or not, thief or not, magick or not, I still had to get up and schlep to school the next morning.

I attended one of the regular rube public high schools, where no one knew who I was or anything about my illegal late-night errands. I doubted that anyone except the teachers even knew I existed. They, at least, had to grade my papers and put a face with the name. But the students ignored me, and I did the same to them. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need friends.

Even if I had bothered to make a couple, it wasn’t like I could bring them to my squatter’s home in the library to hang out, watch a TV that wasn’t even mine, and talk about cute guys. That would be a good way to get shipped back to foster care—or worse, put in juvie for trespassing, breaking and entering, stealing, and all the other bad things I’d done.

So I went to my classes, ate lunch by myself in the school library, and waited for the day to pass so I could get on with more important things—like taking the necklace to Mo and getting paid.

Finally, the three o’clock bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. At three-oh-one, I was out the front door. Since I didn’t feel like walking, I hopped onto one of the trolleys that crisscrossed town at all hours of the day and night. Not only was Cloudburst Falls “the most magical place in America,” but it was also a total tourist trap. Think a Southern version of Vegas, but with real magic and mobsters who wielded their Talents with brutal efficiency and deadly consequences. Folks came from all across the country, and the world, to buy cheap trinkets and cheaper T-shirts, eat fatty foods—like deep-fried fudge—and throw their money away inside the themed shops, restaurants, and casinos that lined the Midway.

Mostly, though, the tourists loved to dawdle on the sidewalks, lick their disgusting ice cream cones, and gawk at everything, even though they could see the exact same stuff back home if only they looked hard enough. Talented magicks were everywhere. Monsters, too.

But legend had it that Cloudburst Mountain itself was particularly magical, especially since so much bloodiron had been discovered and mined there. Some folks even claimed that the mountain emanated power, sort of like a giant magnet, which was why so many magicks and monsters made their homes in, near, on, and around it. Either way, the town officials had decided to play up the magic angle. Well, they and the Families. The Families got a cut of everything in this town, including all the cash the tourists left behind.

I plopped down in an aisle seat on the trolley. The lady sitting by the window didn’t even glance at me. Instead, she raised her camera and snapped a photo of a food cart shaped like a miniature metal castle, as if she’d never seen a guy wearing a black cloak and matching cavalier hat, holding metal skewers full of hot dogs and roasting them with the flames shooting out of his fingertips.

I rolled my eyes. Tourist rubes were the worst. I thought about stealing her wallet, just on principle, but I decided against it. The twenty bucks that was probably inside wasn’t worth the hassle.

Thirty minutes later, the trolley stopped in front of one of the many squares that branched off the Midway, the main tourist drag in the center of town. While the tourists were grabbing their purses, cameras, and jumbo sodas, I was already striding down the aisle and stepping off the trolley.

The street ran by the front of the square, while shops and restaurants made up the other three sides, with several walkways in between the buildings leading back to the Midway or to the next square over. A park lay in the middle of the area, with leafy trees that provided a bit of shade from the mid-May heat. A gray stone fountain shaped like Cloudburst Mountain, complete with a waterfall on one side, gushed in the center of the park.

A bronze plaque stood next to the fountain, telling about the town’s history and how two local families—the Sinclairs and the Draconis—had started guiding folks up the mountain to see the falls and monsters. Some of those early tourists swore that drinking the water and breathing in the clouds of mist from the falls cured everything from baldness to stomachaches, and the views were so spectacular and the monsters so creepy that word got out, and more and more folks began flocking to the area. As a result, Cloudburst Falls was pretty much tourist-central all year-round now, although the summer months were the most crowded.

I snorted. The plaque failed to mention the real history of the town. Namely, that the Sinclairs and the Draconis had both been poor mountain families who ran moonshine during Prohibition before they realized they could make more money by luring tourists to town and showing them the scenery and monsters. Rumor had it that a Sinclair had opened up the first business in town, a shack selling fudge and other sweets to tourists at the base of the mountain. A Draconi had retaliated by setting up an ice cream cart. And so on and so forth, until the town had become what it was today, with the Sinclairs and the Draconis still fighting for control of everything. It was more Hatfields and McCoys, or Capulets and Montagues, than a fairy tale come true, but the town officials had prettied up the past, just like they had everything else.

I was skirting the fountain when a pack of girls stepped in front of me, laughing and talking. I rolled my eyes and pulled up short, but I still couldn’t help clipping the shoulder of the girl on the edge of the pack, one who looked around my age.