Free The Magpye: Circus by CW Lynch

brought you some soup," she
said gently, placing the mug down on the floor. "Keep you warmed
up, it's freezing out here."
    "Thank you, miss. Going to keep
working a little longer yet though. She's not far from ready you
know."
    It was Zip who spoke. The voice
was Able's, but the words were Zip's. Able chuckled, somewhere in
the deep vaults of his mind where he kept his sense of humour.
Given the chance to speak from beyond the grave, Zip talked about
his precious blimp.
    "I'm sorry," said Marissa. "I
was looking for Able?"
    She looked at him... him, not
Zip and not Magpye but at him. "Are you there, Able?" she asked
again.
    How did she know? How could she
know? Marv must have told her something, of course, to explain his
moods, some of his more erratic behaviour. She knew he was somehow
different, of course she did. But that didn't explain how she knew,
of all the voices in Able's head, all the voices of The Magpye,
which she was speaking to.
    Able forced himself to the
surface, like a sleeper trying to shake off a dream. Zip graciously
stepped aside, slipping down into the murky waters. "She's sweet on
you son," he said as he faded. "Just try to be nice."
    Marissa smiled and, before Able
could say anything, took a step closer. "Ah," she said, "There you
are."
    "How did you know?" said Able,
his voice trailing off the end of the sentence. How the hell was he
supposed to ask this question?
    "Oh, it's obvious," Marissa
replied, "You really don't look like you a lot of the time, Able
Quirk."
    "I'm... not myself...
sometimes?" he answered. The whole conversation was surreal, he
imagined what it would mean to tell her the whole truth and now
here she was and she seemed to know... everything?
    In his pocket, Able felt his
phone, the Magpye's phone start to vibrate. He placed his hand on
it, willing it to stop. But it was too late. The others had heard
it to. The vibration in his pocket was like a dinner bell to a pack
of hungry dogs. Owen White was calling. They had work to do.
Bloody, awful work no doubt. The kind that the dead loved.
    Marissa pulled away. "Like
now," she said. There was ice cold fear in her voice, and he almost
tripped as she pulled quickly away. "You don't look like you now.
Who are you? Who are you right now?"
    Able didn't answer. He was
gone, submerged under the gestalt mind of the angry dead. It was
The Magpye in control now. And The Magpye didn't have an
answer.
    He dug his phone out of his
pocket and answered in a voice that was barely Able's at all.
    "Where and when?"
TEA AND NO SYMPATHY
    The tea shop was, for the
benefit of its very particular clientèle, almost devoid of
decoration. The walls were bare brick, thinly white washed, the
floors were bare boards. Tables and chairs were whitewashed too,
and everyone drank from the same featureless white china cups and
saucers. The aesthetics of it didn't matter. Neither, in truth, did
the tea despite the fact that the tea shop brewed some of the
rarest and finest blends there were. What mattered was that this
place, this white on white place, was safe.
    Magicians were a dying breed,
and they took safety very seriously.
    Grace Faraway sat and sipped a
pale green tea from a white china cup. She wore a high necked black
blouse, black skirt, opaque stockings and black leather heels. Her
tattoos bristled at her neck and crept up around her ears, hating
being confined and hidden from site. Patterns of any sort were
banned however, in the white on white neutrality of the tea shop. A
magician could easily hide a hex in even the simplest weave.
Through a sheer act of will Grace restrained the wild living ink
and forced it down away from her face, feeling it writhe beneath
her skin. Marv was late, which she was sure was intentional.
    She didn't need to meet him.
She kept telling herself that. The trap was set, baited, and ready
to snap its jaws on the creature that plagued her precious Cane
King. The plan was good. Good, except for the fact that Grace
Faraway had no idea