Back Lash

  “I don’t take liabilities into fights with me. Especially when those liabilities are my best friend’s little sister.”

  “I know who they are.” She walked out the door. “And I am nobody’s liability, jackass.”

  Fuck.

  “Tell me who they are while I drop you off at the ER.”

  “Nope.”

  I opened the passenger door for her and she slid into the seat without a complaint.

  “You know I could knock you out and dump you anywhere I choose.” I slammed the door as I got in behind the wheel. “This attack, this...wand and magic business doesn’t concern you, Jolie.”

  “Yes, it does. Those weren’t just any assholes waving wands. I’ve seen their faces before. At least three of them.”

  “Where?”

  “Dealing for the Russian mob.”

  I turned the key and ground my way through the gears while I worked through that little snippet of information.

  “You weren’t telling us everything were you, Jolie?”

  “I didn’t think...didn’t think it mattered what kind of shit the mob was involved in. Shit’s shit, right?”

  “Spill it. All of it.”

  “It wasn’t just the drugs and human trafficking that freaked me out,” she said. “I ran into some emails. Private emails. None of it made sense. Half of it was in Russian, but...well. I’ve taken Russian since high school.”

  “How fluent are you?”

  “Enough to know that they weren’t talking about a shipment of spices or drugs or people or weapons. They were talking about something else. About trying to tap into magic. About blowing things up until something shook loose.”

  “With wands?”

  She nodded. “That wasn’t in the emails, but yes. Those guys who blew the door off the hinges and kidnapped Terric and Dash might not be Russian, but they worked for the mob.”

  “What kind of mob hires out its dirty work?”

  “All mobs,” she said. “Easier to deal with transactions through middlemen. Why do you think they hired me? It wasn’t for my personality.” She hissed through her teeth at a particularly rough patch of road. “Do you have to hit every damn hole?”

  “Hurt, does it? Notice that broken arm and knocked head? Good. Because those are the reasons you can get out now.” I turned off the road and rolled up in front of the ER. “Get patched up, then call a cab and have it take you out to my mum’s inn on the other side of the river. She’ll take care of you.”

  “Screw that,” she said. “If you drop me off here, I’ll find you. I’m in this. All the way in this. I’m the reason those people with wands found you, and Terric, and Dash. I caused this, led them to all of you. No,” she said as I tried to tell her otherwise.

  She was angry, shaking.

  “I left too many trails behind that they followed to you. My fault. And now Terric’s in trouble. If we’re going to the cops, I’ll stand aside and let them handle it. But if we’re going renegade vigilante, then I’m going to be there to fix this problem. My problem. I’m going to get my brother back. So you can drive or get out of my way.”

  She was dead set on this. That determined glint Terric usually got in his eye when he wasn’t going to let me get away with shit flickered to life, hot with challenge.

  “Jesus,” I said, putting the car in gear and driving away from the front of the ER. “You Conleys don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  “We quit when the job is done,” she said. “So let’s get the job done. What’s the plan?”

  “I plan on walking into where ever they have taken him and killing anyone in my path to get to him.”

  She was silent. Maybe shocked.

  Yeah, well, magic made for a cruel, cruel world and I had no problem being the cruel, cruel man who used it.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Things you don’t want to know.”

  “Bet on that?”

  “Things your brother doesn’t want you to know.”

  “He’s not here. How do you just walk in and kill people, Shame? Are you some kind of ninja?”

  “Magic,” I said simply.

  She didn’t say anything for a mile or so. I glanced over at her. The crease between her eyebrows wasn’t from pain. The pills must be kicking in now and I knew they were good. She was still too pale, though. Still injured.

  “Is that...part of what you and Terric have? Those dark looks you share when you think I’m not looking?”

  She didn’t know we were Soul Complements. It wasn’t something that was talked about outside the Authority: two people who could use magic together in ways magic was never meant to be used. Two people who could break magic. Or in our case, lock it up so the rest of the world couldn’t access it.

  Well, shouldn’t be able to access it.

  “I can use magic,” I said.

  “Can he?”

  I didn’t say anything. She didn’t need me to.

  “Shit,” she breathed. “Shit. They’re going to figure that out, aren’t they? They’re going to do more than hurt him. They’re going to...use him? Drain him?”

  “Jolie,” I said before she could think up nightmares that might very well come true. “I’m not going to let them do dick to him. Understand?”

  She nodded, her eyes a little too wide.

  “Another thing?” I added. “You’re wrong. You weren’t the cause of this. You weren’t the reason they came looking for Terric and me. We are. We are the ones who shoved magic behind a wall no one can break. We’re the ones who set the locks that keeps it away from every other person in the world.”

  There it was. The secret we didn’t want anyone to know. Not because we were afraid of people wanting to kill us for it—people always seemed to want to kill us for something. But because whoever knew what we had done, whoever carried that information, was in danger.

  Just like Jolie was in danger.

  “So what you’re going to do is listen to me,” I said. “I’m the expert here. On what magic can do. On what I can do with it. On what those asswipes think they can do with it. You are going to listen to me, follow my lead, and do what I say so I don’t have to explain to Terric how his little sister got killed. Understand?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it. Listen to me. I want you alive at the end of this. Period.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Okay. What do I do?”

  “Let’s find out where they have them locked up before we decide that. Have you received any contact from them?”

  “No.”

  “Did they tell you why they took Terric and Dash?”

  “It was...it happened so fast. They blew in, threw magic, and knocked out Dash. I was...I was hiding in the kitchen.” She sounded miserable to admit it.

  “You were smart not to throw yourself into the line of fire,” I said. “Hands on ass kicking is a little messier than cyber wars, and you were right to stay safe. After Dash was out, what happened?”

  I took a turn toward the part of town where I could feel Terric. He was barely conscious. I had no idea about Dash.

  “They found Terric. In the bedroom. He was still sleeping. He woke, though. When they started hitting him.”

  I eased down the street, eyes sharp for gunmen, wandmen too. My connection to Terric pulled me on.

  “And?” I said.

  “Jesus, Shame. They were beating on him.”

  I spared her a quick look. “He can handle it.”

  “Well, I couldn’t. I couldn’t see straight, I was so mad.”

  “Did you hit straight?”

  “Damn right I did.”

  “Another thing I appreciate about a Conley.”

  I pulled the car into an alley and turned off the engine. “They’re in that building over there.”


  “The hardware store?”

  “Mexican restaurant being remodeled.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Okay. Now what?”

  “Think you can handle a gun?”

  She nodded. There was no panic, no fear in her eyes. “Won’t be the first time.”

  “Good.” I reached below the seat and pulled out the gun I kept there. “You’re going to walk behind me. Pay attention to any movement around us. Plug anyone I don’t handle. Think you can do that?”

  “Kill them?” Her voice was steady, but thin.

  “I’ve found the shock of getting shot anywhere—arm, leg, stomach—is enough to stop most men cold. You don’t have to kill them.”

  “I will...if I have to.”

  “You won’t have to. That’s not what you’re here for.” That was what I was here for.

  We got out of the car. The wind was cool and heavy with the threat of rain, the light of the day already lowering into a dark, wet night. A drop of water hit my head, my hand.

  I started across the street.

  Chapter 16

  “They’ll see you,” Jolie said as we crossed the street.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Death magic rolled out from me like the breath of winter hungry for the blood of spring. The world dissolved into hearts beating, life pumping out against the beat of time.

  Seven men in the restaurant. Two women and a man in the hardware store. Forty-eight more people in the surrounding office buildings.

  Didn’t matter. None of them mattered. None of them would ever know that Death walked amongst them.

  And that Death was in a very bad mood.

  I knew Terric’s heartbeat as well as my own. I felt Dash’s too, scattered, fast. He was either afraid or furious. I’d bet cold cash on the latter.

  “Stay close,” I said. Jolie’s heart beat hard with fear and adrenalin. She was right on my heels.

  I kicked in the restaurant door. Strode into the darkened room. The rot of oranges hung heavy in the air. Death magic rolled out, searching, filling this space that was far too small for all this magic.

  Five men waited in the shadows. They raised their guns.

  Magic is fast. Bullets are faster.

  But death cannot be stopped.

  I clenched my fist around the wand in my coat pocket.

  I couldn’t kill with magic the way I used to—I had to have my hands on the person I intended to end—I had to have a connection to them.

  No problem. I had the broken wand. The spells carved into it were connected to the same spells carved into the wands they carried.

  Too bad for them.

  If the wands could channel twisted magic, they could sure as hell channel Death magic.

  Death magic arced like lighting through the wand I carried, searing into the wands in their hands. Death magic sank cold, greedy teeth deep into their hearts.

  Fingers never closed on triggers.

  Bullets never flew.

  Four gunmen folded to the ground without so much as a scream.

  Death magic drank them down as easy as water falling from the sky. I laughed with the sheer, glorious pleasure of it.

  I wanted more. The anger in me, the death in me, wanted more. There was one man left. Paralyzed on the floor. He would be so easy to kill.

  But I had other plans for him.

  I could feel the drumming of Jolie’s heartbeat—her fear, revulsion, and a thin thread of hope.

  “Shame?” Her voice somehow pitched over the Death magic that roared through me. “Where’s Terric?”

  I must have been standing there for longer than I thought. The need for death, the sweetness of it, the satisfaction of it had distracted me.

  I looked over my shoulder at her. Jolie’s eyes were too wide, her face pale from shock and horror.

  “Terric?” she said.

  There were four dead men on the floor, but they weren’t why we’d come here. Not really. She didn’t need to see what I wanted to do to the fifth.

  “That way.” I pointed toward the kitchen.

  “I’m not leaving you out here alone. You’re coming with me,” she said.

  “Not yet.” I closed in on the one guy who was still breathing, heard Jolie’s footsteps behind me. I knew it took everything she had to walk closer to the dead.

  “Do you recognize him?” I asked as I stared down at the man.

  He was in his mid-forties, dark skinned, and currently sweating from the agony of Death magic pinning him to the floor. He couldn’t speak. He was damn lucky I was allowing him to breathe.

  “Yes,” Jolie said. “He was at the house.”

  I crouched down next to him. “You should be dead,” I said. “I snap my fingers and you will be.” I picked up his gun, removed the clip, then pulled the wand out of his frozen fingers, leaving my hand over his.

  “Listen very carefully to me. You know who I am. I know who you are. I know who you work for. There is only one reason I’m going to allow you to live today. You are going to tell your bosses that the matter with Jolie Conley is over. You are going to tell them that if they so much as glance in her direction, if they so much as touch her or her brother, or anyone who I, Shamus Flynn, care about, I will walk through their front doors and I will kill them and everyone they love. As for these?” I pointed the wand at his face. Watched his eyes dilate. “These are mine.”

  I shot Death magic down the connections between every wand carved with the same symbols. All of the wands—maybe a dozen—were in Portland, which meant this hadn’t had a chance to spread any farther yet.

  Death magic devoured the wands, drained the magic, then sucked the vitality out of the wood.

  The wand in my hand, and every other wand connected to it, turned to ash and dust. I crumbled it in my fist.

  “Do we have an understanding?” I pulled my hand away, simultaneously reining in Death magic, giving him the ability to move, to talk, but not taking the pain away.

  “Yes,” he blurted out. “I understand.”

  “Good.” I stood. “If you ever touch my people again I will tear you apart into pieces and make sure you live long enough to feel every second of your long, agonizing death. Now get the hell out of here.”

  He rolled onto his side, got up on his feet and staggered out the door.

  I would know where he went. I would know who he went to. He was marked by Death magic, an easy target. He was a dead man walking.

  I still didn’t like letting him go.

  “Shame?” Jolie said.

  “This way.” I strode through the room to the kitchen in the back.

  Dash was gagged and handcuffed to a chair. He made a sound when I came in, eyes filled with warning.

  Someone had used him for a punching bag and that pissed me the hell off.

  “They’re dead,” I said. “Hold on.” I heard Jolie move in behind me, then off to the right where I knew she’d find Terric unconscious.

  I heard him groan. Okay, not quite unconscious.

  “Shame,” she called. “You need to look at this.”

  “Hold on.” I flipped out my keychain with a handcuff key on it. Used it to unlock Dash from the chair. “You okay, Dash?”

  “Fine. Where’s Terric?”

  “He’s breathing. Back there. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  I strode to the far side of the kitchen where Jolie leaned against the open pantry door. She hadn’t stepped into the room yet.

  “Let me see.” I stepped past her. Stopped.

  Dash had not stayed put. He was right behind me, and swore when he looked in the room.

  Terric lay in the middle of the floor, stripped down to his waist. Carved into the floor around him were the symbols I’d last seen around the dead lawyer in the basement of the cabin. Burned across his ches
t was the glyph for Proxy and Surrender, and across his forehead: Binding.

  “Son of a damn bitch,” I snarled. “Son of a bitch.”

  They had set Terric out just like Harold Throne. They had intended to sacrifice, to use him as the key to slip the lock and break magic free. And if not that, they would have just funneled all the magic out of him they could before he died.

  Since he carried Life magic in his body it would have been years of pain before Terric gave up and became nothing more than a shriveled corpse.

  “I am getting sick of finding you half dead, Ter,” I walked over the glyphs surrounding him, wished I could erase them forever, burn them out of the concrete they were burned into.

  Terric moaned again and his eyes rolled, too much white at first, then sliding down into a sightless blue.

  “I got you,” I said as magic in him pushed against the glyphs that bound him.

  I knelt at his side. With control I wasn’t sure I had, I traced each of the glyphs on his skin backward, canceling them with Death magic. It wouldn’t erase them from his flesh, but it would break the binding.

  I slashed a finger across the length of each: chest, neck, and forehead.

  Terric took a huge gasping breath. Magic flared in him so hot and fast he glowed with a burning blue light.

  Life magic.

  “Easy,” I said. “You’re fine. We got you.”

  “Jolie?”

  “You know she’s here. Right here.”

  That was all it took for her to rush into the room, kneel by his side, and help him sit.

  I couldn’t tell which of them was more worried about the other. But I knew which of them calmly hushed his sister and with shaking hands healed her broken arm, mended her cut head, and soothed her with gentle words.

  She helped him up until he was standing.

  That’s when he got a look at Dash standing right behind her.

  “Dash,” he said quietly.

  Dash smiled. His swollen lip split open and sent a bright flash of blood down his chin. “Good to see you, babe.”

  He took the few steps to Dash, Jolie right beside him, her arm still around his waist, his over her shoulder. He reached out for Dash. “I’m sorry Y “