Fuck. Me.
Eleanor floated over to me and pressed her fingers against my cheek. Save them, she said.
Right. Davy and Terric. My guilt, my horror would have to wait.
I walked over to Terric. He was curled on his side, bullet holes in his chest. The pool of blood beneath him was not new.
I knelt, the knees of my jeans soaking up blood, his blood. Turned him onto his back. His face was swollen, bruised. His shirt was bulky from bandages soaked in blood. His bare arms were burned, cut, and bloody.
Not just shot. Torn apart.
Tortured.
Fury caught fire in my chest and burned through me. Not a clean anger. This was a ragged, tearing rage. A rage that would break my hold on Death.
I pressed my hand against Terric’s heart, felt the stagnant beat there.
He was alive.
Still alive.
Death magic wasn’t going to make him better. Death magic was the worst thing to have around him right now.
I was the worst thing to have around him.
He was dying, even though he carried Life magic. He was in too much pain to heal himself.
I could take that on. Some of that pain. Give the Life magic inside him a chance to work.
I’d never done it before. Never heard of anyone taking on another’s wounds like this. Back in the old days, we Proxied pain all the time.
But I was . . . different now. A small part of my mind—probably that thing called “reason”— knew this was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
I didn’t care.
I drew a Proxy spell in the air between us, tying it tight. His pain was my pain. Enough of it was mine that his heart could beat. Enough that he could breathe.
I relaxed my hold on Death magic, just enough it could feed the spell, then tightened my fist around that Bind spell again.
The glyph between Terric and me crackled with black lightning. His pain rushed into me.
Holy mother of God, that hurt.
But I’d just killed a few dozen people. Like it or not, I was filled with their lives. I was strong enough to endure his pain.
I pulled Terric’s arm up over my shoulder, got him sitting.
Dash was yelling again. I still couldn’t understand what he was saying. Caught a couple of words: hurry, and out, and now.
Someone ran up to me. It was Dash. That, finally, brought me out of the shock I’d been wading through.
Dash gathered up Davy, helping him to his feet. Davy was solid, though blue magic pulsed from his bare chest like broken neon. That was good, I guessed. It meant he was alive. But he wasn’t conscious.
And then Cody limped over. Cody had blood running down his face, and one of his eyes was filled with it. He stopped next to Sunny, gave me an accusatory glare but didn’t ask. Of course, he didn’t have to.
I didn’t want to answer anyway.
He picked up Sunny, her unbreathing body. Her empty shell. He stayed as far out of my reach as he could.
I got Terric standing and walked with him out of the cage. He was barely conscious. “Stay close,” I said. Or I hoped I said. Because I was going to burn this place down to the ground, and I didn’t want them in it when it went to ash and cinders.
They stayed close, Dash supporting Davy, Cody carrying Sunny.
It felt like it took a year to walk out of that hellhole. One foot in front of the other, dragging Terric at my side, enduring his pain, begging him to hold on until we got out, got away while I tried to hold Death down inside me.
“That is far enough,” a voice rang out across the rafters. “Mr. Flynn. You will not take a single step more. Not with my property.”
I knew that voice. It was Krogher. The man who had used Eli as his very own pet psychopath. The man who had been stockpiling drones, using people as walking bombs charged with magic.
The man who I assumed had killed two Soul Complements and hadn’t even gotten to the meaty center of his plans.
I blinked. Focused on my surroundings. We were in the outer section of the warehouse, fully stocked shelves and crates around and behind us. Krogher was not there. I knew that bastard’s heart too. He was off-site, not even close enough for me to get a hook on his pulse.
But this was his facility. He had cameras. He knew exactly what was going on.
And what was going on was this: There were half a dozen drones standing at the front of the warehouse blocking our only way out. Men, women, young and old, blank-eyed and silent.
Easy to kill. But I was tired of killing. Terrified to let loose Death’s chain and not be able to pull it tight again. Killing was the fastest and easiest way out of this. The only way out of this.
Hell.
I sucked in a breath, loosened my grip. Death magic lashed out.
Nothing happened. It was like throwing a feather with all my strength. Lots of windup, zero results.
Eli must have done something with the spells he carved into those people to keep them safe from magical attack, to keep them safe from me.
Son of a bitch, that was smart.
As one, they raised their hands. As one, they released the magic stored in the spells carved into their flesh.
Holy shit.
Magic is fast. Bullets are faster. I raised the gun, aimed. Fired.
Two of the drones went down. Their magic released, rushing at us in spiraling red flames.
I couldn’t pull up a Block spell fast enough. Didn’t even have a split second to react.
Didn’t have to.
Davy was somehow in front of me, in front of us all, faster than a living being could move. Those spells Eli had carved in him gave him abilities most people didn’t have, one of which was not being solid when he didn’t want to be. He appeared in front of us, and was a very solid and, in my opinion, highly suicidal being.
Sunny, who was nothing but a ghost, ran to him. She tried to pull him out of the line of fire. But even a ghost isn’t faster than magic.
Davy spread his arms wide. Magic hit him like a wall of fire. Fast enough, hard enough, he should be on his heels. But instead he absorbed it, all those spells carved into him sucking it in. He lifted his hands and threw the magic back at them with a ragged yell.
Had I mentioned he was not quite a regular guy anymore?
The drones disappeared in the blast furnace of that magic. They fell. Not dead. Not yet.
But maybe now that they were all out of magic, I could put them out of that misery.
I released just the edge of Death magic again. Let it drink down their lives, all six of them.
It was like gulping acid. The changes Eli had made in them, twisting them from human into living bombs, made them toxic. Poison. There was nothing human left to them.
He’d carved out their souls and used that to fuel the magic in them.
Holy shit. I’d seen dark magic before. I’d used it. But I had no idea anyone could twist spells to do the horrors he’d done to these people.
My vision narrowed in, just a speck of light out there at the end of the tunnel ahead of me as I endured this new pain. Their ghosts clawed at me, fingers burning into my bones. They were mindless, screaming spirits, nothing like Eleanor or Sunny.
But finally they slowed, calmed. For half a second they looked human again.
And then they whisked away like smoke in a strong wind.
They were dead. Maybe at peace.
Now there was nothing but a pile of dead bodies between us and the only way out.
I heard the distant thump of helicopters. Krogher had the resources to bring in the national guard, the police force, and any other heavily armed reinforcements he wanted. Those helicopters were probably coming for us, bringing more men, more guns, more magic.
The grumble of truck engines approaching filled the air too. Filled with even
more lives scrambling to take us out.
Delightful.
We were officially screwed.
Time to run.
So we ran. Davy was able to move under his own power now, and helped Cody with Sunny’s dead body.
Sunny’s spirit pulled against the rope around her neck. I knew she wanted back in her body.
I knew I should let her go. If I could figure out how to do that, maybe she’d live.
We reached the SUV and I leaned Terric into the backseat, sliding in beside him and breathing hard with his pain. Okay, his pain and my pain. Sucking down the lives and magic from those poisonous drones had been a very bad idea.
Terric was pale, bloody, and not breathing nearly enough.
“Go now, go now!” Cody said from somewhere near the front of the car.
The car lurched across the lot, speeding down the road.
Bullets cracked through the night air. I heard Dash tell Cody to call for help, heard Davy begging Sunny to live, heard Sunny’s ghost yelling at me to fix her.
But something in me was terribly broken. If drinking Eleanor down had shattered the wall between me and the monster I feared, then killing Sunny had given that monster permission to use me as its little puppet man.
I didn’t know how to break the tie between Sunny and me. I didn’t know how long I could keep Death from killing again.
So I focused on Terric, on his pain. That pain was all that was holding us together. It was all that was keeping him alive.
And I needed him to be alive. I needed it more than breathing. But no matter how much of his pain I took, his life was slipping, thinning. His life was winding down, spooling out. He’d be dead soon too.
No.
“Pull over,” I said.
Nothing. So I said it again, “Pull over. Now.”
Shame, you bastard. Listen to me. Sunny punched me in the face.
The world rubber-band-snapped back down around me, sharp edges, sounds, motion.
Dash was driving, Cody in the front seat. He was on the phone. I had no idea who he was talking to.
Sunny’s body was in the back of the car. Davy held her in his arms as he talked to her in a soothing, monotonous tone. Sunny’s spirit was floating in front of my face.
Put me back, she demanded. Cut this damn rope and put me back.
“I . . . can’t.”
Then I’m going to cut it. She pulled a knife. Typical. Blood magic user dies and takes her knives with her. But it was just a ghost knife. She hacked at the tie between us, but it didn’t change a thing.
She pulled her head back, glared at me. Had that stabbing look in her eyes.
“Sunny, don’t—”
Too late. She buried the blade in my chest.
Yes, it hurt. But that blade was her energy, her anger, her pain. And therefore it was consumable. I absorbed the blade without even thinking about it. It faded. Was gone.
“Settle down,” I whispered. “Just. Stop yelling. Let me think.”
“Shame?” Dash asked, glancing at me in the rearview.
Terric moaned. I had my arms around him, his head resting on my shoulder.
No wonder he was dying. He was in my arms. I was killing him.
“No, no,” I said. “It’s going to be okay, Ter. Just hang in there. You’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.” I let go of him and propped his unconscious body against the door. I didn’t know what else I could do for him. He needed a doctor. He needed an army of doctors. He needed magic. He needed life.
He didn’t need me.
None of them did.
“Pull over,” I said again. “Damn it, Dash, pull over.”
“Cody, tell me you found us a safe hole,” Dash said.
“There’s a house just outside Umatilla,” he said. “We can stop there.”
“We got it, Shame,” Dash said. “Just keep it together a little longer.”
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, turning my attention inward. I wrestled Death magic down, retraced the Bind spell.
But no matter how far I distanced my mind and magic from the real world, I could feel the heartbeat of every person in the car.
Worse, I could hear Sunny’s ghost talking to Davy. Telling him she was sorry, and that she loved him. Telling him I’d killed her. And if it was the last thing she was going to do, she was going to kill me right back.
I kind of hoped she was going to follow through with that promise.
I measured the passage of time in the rise and fall of Terric’s pain. Maybe it took an hour before we stopped. I didn’t know. Didn’t care. Cody and Dash handled the getaway.
“This is it,” Dash was saying. “What do you need, Shame?”
I let the world return.
Dark, painful. Sunny and Eleanor hovering right in front of my eyes, one sorrow, the other pain.
Both my fault. Blood on my soul. If I still had one.
“Shame?” Dash tried again.
“Help me with him.” I opened the door, got out of the car. My legs were heavy, numb in places and on fire in others. I was too hot, too cold, Terric’s pain making me shake. I staggered away from the car and puked.
Serves you right, Sunny said. Put me back. Put me back in my body, Shame, or I swear I will kill you.
I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. The oily film of Death magic smeared there along with blood. My blood.
“Better hurry up,” I whispered, “or you might not get the chance.”
I turned around, watched as Dash and Cody pulled Terric out of the car.
Davy was already walking to the house with Sunny in his arms.
Sunny shot me a dirty look. Help him, she said. Please.
I put my hand on the rope that tied her to me. Her eyes went wide with fear.
“I can’t break this.” I yanked on the rope and all it did was flex. “I’ve tried for years. I can’t free you.”
You freed me once, Eleanor said.
“Yeah, well, I did that by dying. So if you can kill me,” I said to Sunny, “do it.” I spread my arms wide.
She floated over to me. Stuck her hand in my chest, maybe looking for my heart.
Nothing. There was nothing there she could touch. And the longer her hand was in me, the more Death wanted to drink the rest of her down.
I licked my lips. “Hard to kill Death, love.”
She jerked her hand away. What are you?
“Not to be fucked with. So please, for all of our sakes, don’t. Just don’t.”
I turned and walked toward the house, ghosts on my heels.
Cody and Dash had managed to get Terric inside.
The house was nice enough—maybe someone’s vacation home. Fully furnished, clean but smelled cool and stale from disuse.
Cody and Dash took Terric down a hall to a bedroom and laid him on top of the bed. Davy had already settled Sunny on the couch in the living room.
He sat on the floor beside the couch, one hand holding her hand, and looked over at me as I walked in.
“Good to see you, Shame.” His voice was flat, his eyes yellowed and bloodshot. He looked like he’d just been scraped off the bottom of the devil’s shit kickers.
“I’m glad you’re alive, Davy,” I said. “We tried to stop Eli, stop Krogher, when they first grabbed you.”
“I was there. I remember.” Steady stare. That man used to be my friend. Not anymore. Not after what they’d done to him.
And what I’d done to Sunny.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” he said.
“What? Try to save you?”
“Bring her here. With you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Me, Sunny said. He’s talking about me.
I waited to see if Davy
had heard her. He didn’t even blink, just gave me that dead man’s stare.
“Sunny?” I asked. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have. But you know her. She wouldn’t stay behind. She would have gone without me.”
“Did you kill her?” he asked.
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. There were no words in me for what had happened, for how I’d lost control and she’d paid for it with her life.
But he knew. He must know. He closed his eyes and bowed his head over her hand.
“Davy, I—”
“Shame?” Dash walked into the room. “You should be in here.”
I followed him down the hall to the bedroom. The door was open, but I didn’t walk in. I didn’t want to get too close to Terric. Didn’t want to kill him. Didn’t want to kill Dash or Cody or, hell, anyone else either.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
Cody shrugged. “I think you know. He’s dying.”
“We pulled over like you asked,” Dash said. “We got him here. What’s the plan?”
“This is the plan,” I said. “I need to leave. As far as I can get from . . . all of you. I can’t be near him. I can’t be near any of you.”
Dash closed the distance and grabbed my coat. He walked me backward until my back was pressed against the hallway wall.
“You are his Soul Complement,” he said. “Leaving him is always the wrong choice. Using magic with him is always the right choice. Use magic and fix him.”
The heat of anger, pain, and fear rolling off Dash made the Death magic in me kick. Here was another life, burning bright for the taking. And my Bind spell was failing.
Death lashed out, slipped my control.
Damn it.
Shame, no! Both Sunny and Eleanor stepped in front of me. Stepped between Dash and me.
I hauled back on the magic but was too slow.
Dash jerked away, his hands instinctively rising to protect his head from the attack.
It was just a taste, the lightest lick of his life. Any other man would have dropped to his knees, but Dash stumbled backward, his hand reaching for the gun at his side.
“I am doing everything I can,” I said over the howl of magic raging in my mind. “But I am toxic. If I stay here I will kill Terric and all the rest of you with him. Don’t you understand me? Don’t you understand what I am? What I’ve always done to him? Death,” I said in case he wasn’t following. “Pain and death.”