Stone Cold

He pointed at his head. “Really sloppy work. Lots of holes.”

  “Do you have any idea who Closed you?” I asked.

  He stared off in the distance for a minute. Processing Chase’s death, maybe sorting through memories. He tipped his palms, then folded his fingers together loosely in his lap. “There’s a lot of people who could have done it, right?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really. Magic’s changed since the old days. It’s not easy to power those kinds of big spells anymore. Soul Complements can do it—break magic into dark and light. So either Krogher has Soul Complements at his disposal, one of which also happens to be a Closer—”

  “Faith magic,” Terric added.

  “Right, and uses Faith magic to Close, or he’s using the drones for the power and he has a Closer on call. I just don’t know who Krogher could hire to do it.”

  Anyone, Sunny said from near Davy. Lot of ex-Closers in the world.

  Maybe. Not many I’d trust.

  “You know how UnClosing works, right?” I said to Terric.

  “Whoever cast the Close spell is the only one who can UnClose that person,” Terric said.

  Thus, our problem.

  “Eli, maybe?” he said. “I don’t know. I have bits, fragments. I don’t know if they’re memories. Is he a Closer?”

  “No. He’s an asshole.”

  “I’m getting that impression. Is it something Zayvion could handle? UnClosing me. Or someone else . . .”

  Here’s where he should say Victor, but he locked gazes with me. We might not be as connected as we were, but we’d known each other for a long time.

  I looked away, unable to hold the thought of Victor’s death between us.

  “God,” he breathed. “When? How?”

  “A few months ago. Bloody. At Eli’s hands.”

  “I don’t even remember Eli being . . . anything. Is that what started this? Victor’s death?”

  “No. We started this.”

  “How?”

  “What do you remember about me? About us?” I asked.

  “Well, you tried to kill me once and never forgave yourself.”

  “Yeah, sure. Which time?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious? How many times have you tried to kill me?”

  “It’s still in the low single digits.” I gave him a smile.

  He grinned. “So I see things are going well between us.”

  “Oh yeah. We’re fantastic.”

  “Great.” He watched me stare outside for a bit. “Dash gave me the quick rundown about . . . well, I guess most of the changes with magic, and the drone people Eli made for Krogher.”

  “Is that all he told you about?”

  “I know we’re . . . Soul Complements, or maybe something more. Life and Death? He was a little vague about the specifics.”

  I tried not to wince at the way he hedged around admitting we were Soul Complements. I’d never thought he’d had a problem with that idea. He had always been the one telling me to get over it and deal with the link we had with each other.

  “We’re Soul Complements,” I said evenly. “We can use magic together better than most. And we can break it.”

  “All right,” he said. “And you carrying Death magic and me carrying Life magic in our bodies. This is a thing?”

  “No. It’s just our thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we absolutely suck at watching each other die and have done ridiculous things, made sacrifices . . .” I shook my head. “We screwed up so many times with magic, I’m pretty sure this is our punishment.”

  “Being stuck with each other?” he said with a small smile.

  “Terminally.”

  “I could think of worse,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, you also have amnesia, so you don’t know how bad it is.”

  “I know you’re still overly dramatic.”

  “Or I’m just right,” I said.

  “And you still have to get the last word.”

  “True.”

  “How about some sandwiches, boys?” Bea called out. She held a couple cups of coffee in each hand. Jack walked next to her with a platter of sandwiches.

  Bea gave us the coffee, flashed her dimples, and carried the other two cups over to Davy and Dash. Dash thumbed off his phone.

  Jack offered me the sandwich platter and a look that told me he’d prefer it if I were still tied up in the box.

  “Thanks.” I took a sandwich, as did Terric and Dash, who walked our way.

  “Allie and Zay?” I asked around a mouthful. Ham, cheese, and tomato on rye. Not bad.

  Dash took a drink of coffee, closed his eyes for a moment before tipping the cup away and easing down on the couch.

  “No sign of Eli. No baby yet,” he said.

  Terric grunted. “Still can’t believe he’s going to be a father. Zayvion.” He shook his head.

  “Can you find Eli, Shame?” Dash asked. “His heartbeat?”

  “I think so.” Half my sandwich was gone and I’d barely tasted it. “You don’t want to be near me when I do.”

  “If we’re going to be the ones to take Eli down,” Terric said, “to keep Zayvion and . . . Allie?”

  I nodded.

  “Allie safe,” he continued, “I need my memories back so I can use magic. So that we can use magic.”

  “You don’t remember how to use magic?”

  “No. Whoever Closed me got that part right. I have memories of casting spells, I know there are glyphs involved, but using magic . . . I don’t have it, Shame. And I can’t begin to tell you how much I want that back.”

  The old fire flickered behind his eyes. Sure, he was broken. He’d paid prices that didn’t just fade away with the wave of a magic healing eraser.

  In some ways, not remembering what had happened in the last week, hell, in the last three years or more, was a kindness.

  Right. As if kindness was ever in the cards.

  “Can you access magic at all?” Dash asked. “The Life magic in you?”

  Terric took another drink of coffee, then shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to access. Giving it the name Life magic is just giving it a name like purple giraffe. I don’t know how to get at it, don’t know where to look for it, don’t know how to manipulate it.”

  “We don’t know who Closed you,” Dash said.

  “So we have Zay take care of it,” Terric said. “UnClose me. Next to Victor, he’s the best Closer I know.”

  “Still, he wasn’t the one who Closed you. It won’t work.”

  “If Zayvion is half as good as I remember,” Terric said, “he’ll make it work.”

  “He’s in the middle of having a baby,” I said. “And I don’t think that’s going as smoothly as they hoped. He’s too preoccupied to be doing magical surgery on your brain. He’ll fuck it up for good.”

  “Then you do it, Shame,” Terric said. “You know me better than anyone, right?”

  Could you? Eleanor asked.

  All this talking to living people had made me forget that there were two ghosts standing in the room over by Davy.

  “What?” I said to both Eleanor and Terric. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “You said we were tied,” Terric said. “That we use magic together better than most. So use magic. On me. Open up my brain, Shame.” He flashed me a smile. “Trust me, it’s not an offer you’re going to get more than once in a lifetime.”

  Yes, Eleanor said. You should. You should do this, Shame.

  “No. Not having memories is bad,” I said. “But having your mind broken because an untrained Death magic user—hello, me—tries to pop your lid is a one-way ticket to Lobotomyville, Terric.”

  “All right.” He leaned back. Gave me that “how about we run this theory through its
paces?” look. I hated that look. “Give me another option.”

  “We call a Closer from the old days,” I said. “Someone who knows the drill.”

  “Okay, good. Now tell me how this Closer is going to access enough magic to break what’s been done to me. You said only Soul Complements and Krogher’s drones can tap in to that much magic.”

  I scowled at him. Hated when he made sense. Hated when he showed me how very wrong I was.

  “You can access magic, Shame,” he said evenly, as if carefully picking a lock and waiting to feel the tumblers give. “It’s inside you. And you know how to use it. If Zay’s not an option, then you’re the only one who can get my memories back.”

  “Another Soul Complement could do it,” I said. “Someone who was a Closer.”

  “Got one of those in your pocket?”

  “No.”

  “So we go with my plan.”

  “What is the plan, exactly?” Dash asked.

  “Crazy over there wants me to restore his memories,” I said.

  “I heard that part,” Dash said. “You’re not a Closer, Shame. If I remember correctly, you failed that part of the magic-user test.”

  I pointed to my chest. “Choir here, Bible boy.”

  “He has magic and ability to use it. He also has incentive to try to do it right,” Terric said. “Good enough for me.”

  “Since when did you become the reckless one?” I asked.

  Terric gave me a smile I hadn’t seen in years. “Being tied to you? Please. I’ve always been the reckless one. Stop being such an old woman about this. No big risk, no blue ribbons.”

  Good Lord, he sounded like Cody.

  “So what I’m hearing,” Dash said, “is we have no plan.”

  This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. But I didn’t have a better one.

  Terric raised one eyebrow. Daring me.

  There was a chance, a very small one, that this could work.

  Plus, I could never turn down his dares.

  “I’m not doing this on my own,” I said. “Not without instructions and a Closer. Dash, call Hayden. Tell him we’ll meet him out at Mum’s inn.”

  Chapter 23

  SHAME

  “What happened to it?” Terric bent just a bit to see the inn out the car window.

  The remodeling was in the “nuclear warhead came knocking” phase, about a quarter of the place demolished, a quarter of it propped up by wooden bracers and another quarter of it caged under scaffolding.

  “Mum happened to it,” I said. Then, at Terric’s questioning look: “She’s finally doing that remodeling she always wanted to have done.”

  I got out of the backseat—Dash had insisted on driving and Davy wouldn’t stay at the Den no matter what we threatened him with—and paced away from the inn toward the river.

  Before going in there, near Hayden—hell, near Dash and Davy—I needed some air. The food hadn’t slaked my hunger, and the last life Death magic had sucked down—Mina—was gone.

  Death wanted to be fed. It dragged against the inside of my skull, heavy, needful. Being around Terric helped. But I did not want to slip up now.

  Sunny and Eleanor drifted alongside me. They hadn’t said much since I’d been thrown in the box. Maybe being tied to me was draining them too. They seemed paler, thinner. Sunny caught me looking at her out of the corner of my eye and flipped me off.

  Well, at least she wasn’t any less angry at me. It was the little things that counted in a new relationship.

  I opened the cage on Death magic, just enough to let it seep out from beneath my feet, seeking nourishment.

  All those hearts beating hot behind me, easy to take.

  Shame, Eleanor said.

  But I wasn’t reaching for the lives Death wanted. Wasn’t reaching for what would sate it fully.

  Trees, bushes, grass would have to do. I pushed Death that way, sent it toward the river, toward the tangle of green and brown and bloom, and drank its meager broth.

  There was a never-ending hole inside me. All the plants in the world weren’t enough to fill it. But it helped.

  “Morning,” Hayden said from the porch. “What’s the emergency?”

  “Hayden,” Terric said. “It’s good to see you. It’s been a while.”

  Hayden frowned. “Saw you just over a week ago. You okay?”

  “No,” Dash said, “that’s why we’re here. We need your help.”

  Davy got out of the car and stood there a moment staring at me. I was half-turned toward the inn, so I saw Hayden take in the situation and lean back a bit on one leg.

  “Shamus?” He somehow shoved an entire “what have you done now?” into the two syllables of my name.

  I turned toward the house, elbowed Death magic back behind the walls in my head, and locked it down. I crunched my way across gravel.

  “Nice to see you, Hayden,” I said. “Love what you haven’t done with the place.”

  “You boys in trouble?” he asked.

  “Are trouble,” I said.

  Hayden grunted and stepped out of the way of the door. “Well, come on in. Let’s hear what it is this time.”

  Terric and Davy and Dash all walked past him and through the door he held open with the stump of his arm. He’d lost a hand the last time we stopped an apocalypse. He hadn’t let it slow him down much.

  I was hoping he’d step into the inn before me so I could keep some distance between us, but he waited for me.

  “Shame. You need a doctor, son?”

  I shook my head. “Naw, I’m good.”

  You’re a mess, Sunny said, floating into the room before me.

  Hayden wasn’t buying it either. “You’re scratched up and bruised,” he said. “You have that hungry look in your eyes, and you’re wearing a monkey shirt. You’re a mess.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said.

  “Killed anyone lately?” he asked.

  “Define lately.”

  “Want to try that again?” he said.

  “I’m upright,” I said. “Let’s call that proof that I am fine.”

  “There might still be clothes up in your room. Put on long sleeves before your mother sees those holes in you.”

  “She’s here?” I stopped short, not wanting her to see me, not wanting to explain why and how I’d completely lost this fight with the monster within me.

  I’d killed Mina. I’d killed Sunny. I couldn’t tell my mother that.

  “She’s in the kitchen pulling together some food. If you’re fast and quiet, you’ll get past her.”

  I was neither of those things right now, so I just stepped into the inn, noisy and slow.

  “Dear Lord.” The interior was torn down to studs. Painting tarps covered the old marble floor. All the light fixtures were gone, leaving bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Sawhorses, a drawing table, and a pile of power tools cluttered up the place.

  When Mum said she was taking it down to bare walls, she was not messing around.

  At least this time the destruction was on purpose. We’d had to do a hasty rebuild a couple of years ago after that explosion we’d set off to try to kill Leander—a Soul Complement who’d gone to death, come back with a hankering for revenge, and tried to destroy the world.

  Strange, how that story sounded familiar.

  The clatter of dishes in the kitchen reminded me that I needed to get moving, and I did, even though it felt strange to leave Terric behind. I crossed the room, turned down the hall, and then up the stairs to my old room.

  The door to every room was off its hinges, leaning against the wall opposite.

  I strolled into my room. All my furniture was set to one side, boxes labeled and piled up neatly. A box marked CLOTHES was in the bedroom. I flicked open my pocketknife and slit the packing tape. Pulled out a monkeyless T
-shirt, hoodie, underwear, jeans, and socks. Went into the bathroom, changed.

  Sunny stood in the dry shower, her hands on her hips. Gonna give me a show?

  “Don’t care if you watch. You aren’t the first ghost who’s haunted me.”

  You haven’t missed anything, Eleanor said.

  I chuckled at that.

  Tell Davy I’m here, Sunny said.

  “I think he knows.”

  I don’t care. I want you to tell him I’m still here.

  “What would that get you, Sunny? He’s already hurting over you being dead. Being undead? What do you think that’s going to do to him?”

  He needs to know, she said. I need him to know.

  “Maybe we don’t all get what we need,” I said. “I didn’t mean to kill you, Sunny, but that’s on me. My fault. And if I can, I’ll find a way for you to finish dying.”

  You’re telling a ghost you want her more dead?

  “Trust me,” I said, looking straight into her faded eyes, “there’re much better places to be than haunting my wreck of a life.”

  She didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so I dressed, looked for shoes since mine were currently in a ditch somewhere between Umatilla and Irrigon.

  Will you think about it? Sunny asked. About telling Davy?

  Found a pair of sneakers, laced them up. “Yes,” I said. “Just. Give me some time.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair again and headed downstairs. Hungry. I couldn’t shake the hunger.

  Everyone was gathered in the main dining area, sitting on sawhorses or leaning against the worktable or walls.

  “Shamus?” Mum said as I walked in. Hayden had his arm around her. I figured he’d warned her about what I looked like, but maybe he hadn’t warned her enough.

  Her expression made me look away.

  “You need a doctor,” she said.

  “I need food.” I headed over to the tray of lemonade and finger food spread across a folding table and helped myself to a pile of food. I’d been careful to put on a hoodie to cover the bullet holes in my arms. All she could see were the cuts and bruises I sported on my hands and face. Well, that and the general deathness of me.

  “I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you,” she said. “I’m going to call someone.”