Something to avoid.
The Hounds had some of the finest-honed survival instincts of any people I’d ever met. It was no surprise they were suddenly alert when I entered the room.
It bugged the hell out of me. I didn’t like being noticed as what I really was unless I wanted someone to notice what I really was.
I didn’t even try to hold up the Shame mask for the Hounds. They’d see right through it.
Instead I just sort of gave them all a nod and pointed at Sid’s plate. “You’d better have left some scraps behind for the rest of us.”
“With your mother in the kitchen?” Sid said with a smile. “The entire city won’t go hungry for a week.”
Sunny just stared at me as though we had unfinished business.
And that would be because we had unfinished business.
Jesus, why had I let Terric drag me here? Weren’t prebaby birthdays supposed to be a girls-only thing?
I looked around so I could complain to him about it. He was across the room talking with Zayvion, and he glanced my way as if I’d called his name.
I hated how much we could feel each other. Hated that we were getting closer and closer every time we used magic together, no matter how much we tried to stay away from each other.
He shook his head and looked away.
My mood, which hadn’t been all that stellar to begin with, took a dive toward the nasty. Time to take my mood outside for a little nicotine therapy. I turned, digging in my pocket for a smoke.
And nearly ran into Allie Beckstrom herself.
“Hey, Shame. Long time.”
The woman was gorgeous. She’d let her hair grow so that it fell in heavy dark waves down below her shoulders. It was tucked back on one side to show the ghostly shadow of the magical marks up by her temple, at the curve of her fuller cheek, and down the side of her face.
“Al,” I said as I tapped a cigarette out of the pack, “you’re looking beautiful, love.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Beautiful for a two-ton freighter?”
I pulled out my lighter and gave her the full up-and-down. She had on slacks and a flowing blue and green shirt that didn’t try to hide the swell of her belly. Seeing her, carrying life, cradling the life she and Zayvion had created, caught me flat-footed. I didn’t have it in me to lie.
“Beautiful, as in absolutely lovely, darlin’. Zay’s a lucky man, and I couldn’t be happier for you both.”
A deep shade of pink raced across her cheeks and she avoided eye contact for a second.
“You can be such a charmer when you want—you know that, Shamus?” she asked.
“Please.” I pressed my fingers against my chest. “I am always a charmer. I meant every word. You’re a stunner. If you ever get tired of Jones, you let me know.” I gave her a wink, which just made her blush harder.
She didn’t usually wear her emotions out in the open like this. Which made flustering the woman irresistible.
“You know you’d like it,” I singsonged.
“You think?” She tipped her chin up a bit and gave me a sly look. “This”—she pointed to herself—“you couldn’t handle if you tried. And there’s no smoking in the house, remember? Ashtrays are on the porch.”
“Right. I’ll be back, then. Do start the party without me.”
I took a step past her, but she reached out and pressed her fingers gently on my arm.
Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
“Don’t leave, Shame. Please. I want to talk to you after the party.”
And even though she looked soft and radiated life, the old toughness was right behind those pale green eyes.
I licked my lips and gently pulled my arm away. “Something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Later. Be here, okay?”
“It’s been a while since you ordered me around. Even longer since I listened to you.”
“You miss it,” she said.
“As if.” But yeah, I did. We’d had good times. We’d almost died; hell, I had died, but still, things were never boring when Allie Beckstrom was around.
Chapter 4
SHAME
I waited until my mum wasn’t looking and then dodged out through the kitchen and onto the porch. No one else was out here, which suited me fine.
I lit a cigarette and paced, trying to slough off the high concentration of life, trying to make the edges of reality go away so I could deal with the “normals” a few minutes more.
Eleanor drifted over to the porch rail and floated up to sit on it, facing out toward the yard, one hand lifted to feel the rain, which fell right through her.
I leaned against the wall, one boot pressed against it, staring past Eleanor and smoking. Ignored the world, ignored the heartbeats, ignored the loudness, the warmth, the life. Pushed it all away until there were no bright edges, there was no sound. There was nothing I could care for. Nothing I could kill.
“Drink,” Zayvion said.
And just like that, the world came crashing around me again.
Zay and Terric were both leaning on the porch rail facing toward me, beers in their hands. Eleanor had floated over to make swoony eyes at Zayvion, and what woman wouldn’t? He was a six-foot-plus, dark-skinned, muscled, smoldering-hot-gaze, easy-smiling dude. He was also one of the most loyal, responsible guys I knew and head over heels in love with Allie.
Apparently the ladies liked those sorts of things.
“. . . paying any attention to us?” Zay asked.
“Almost.” Terric took a swig of beer, watching me.
“Heard every word,” I said.
Zay leaned forward, offered me a beer. I took it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in there with the party people, papa Jones?”
“Allie’s got it covered,” he said. “I’m mostly here to kick out anyone who annoys her.”
“That explains why you’re out here with Terric, then,” I said.
Terric shook his head and took another drink of beer.
Zay gave me a brief smile. “It’s been, what, two months since I’ve seen you?”
“Three. I’m touched you’ve been keeping track, what with all the baby on your mind.”
“Shame,” he said. “You know you’re welcome in our home. No matter what kind of crap you’re mixed up in.”
“Crap?”
“I was talking to Paul the other day,” he said.
“So?”
Paul was Paul Stotts. Detective Paul Stotts. He used to chase down the illegal magic users in the city. Still did, come to think of it. But he was also the husband to Allie’s best friend, Nola. Which made Paul our friend too.
Except when we were doing illegal things.
“He wanted to know if I’d noticed the upticks in strange deaths lately. About a dozen people who were involved with the Authority back in the day have gone missing.”
Terric was giving me that graveyard stare.
“What am I supposed to know about this?”
“He said they’ve disappeared. Not even bones left behind. Not even ashes,” Zay said.
“Disappeared could mean Cuba,” I said. “It doesn’t have to mean dead.”
“Maybe. That’s what he was thinking too. Until the most current disappeared.”
“Oh?”
“They found a pile of ash in his backyard. With a single bone in it.”
Shit.
“And how does that involve me? For that matter, how does it connect to the other missing people?”
“The ashes were in the glyph symbol for Death. Every last person suspiciously missing was a member of the Authority who had . . . a checkered past. All dead within the last couple months. There aren’t many people in the world who can use Death magic strong enough to kill someone with it. Here in Portland, there’s only one perso
n I can think of who can do it.”
“Come on, now, mate,” I said. “If you’re going to accuse a man, just come out and do it right.”
“Are you killing people, Shame?”
“That’s a question, not an accusation.”
Zay just waited. He knew me. He usually knew when I was lying, which had often put a crimp in our relationship. So I looked over at Terric instead.
“Et tu, Terric?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m very interested in your answer,” he said. “You’ve been gone a lot lately too, Shame.”
“That’s because you moved into my house”—I made air quotes—“‘for just a few days’ and haven’t moved out. A man needs space. If you both think I’ve gone rogue, how come Stotts isn’t here Miranda-ing my rights?”
“I told him I’d talk to you,” Zay said.
I did not know Zay had that kind of pull with him. Interesting. “And?” I said.
“And make a decision on what happened next.”
See, when Zay threatened, it was a subtle sort of thing. Unless he was breaking your fingers. He wasn’t turning me in to Stotts yet if I could give him a good reason not to.
I swigged beer and let the cold and bitter wash through me. It would be easy to lie.
Except I wouldn’t get away with it. Not with these two who were practically brothers to me.
“I don’t know who Stotts is talking about,” I hedged.
“Let’s just settle on a yes/no,” Zay said amiably. “You killing people?”
I hated it when he got specific. “Maybe a little.”
Terric’s eyebrows went up and Zayvion shifted his shoulders a bit. “Who?”
“Come on, Z. You can trust me.”
“Who?”
“Might as well say,” Terric muttered. “You know he won’t let it go.”
I sighed. “There is some business that is none of yours, Zay. This is that business.”
Zay nodded, stared at his boot for a minute, his arms crossed over his chest. “You talk to me, or you talk to Stotts. That’s the way it is.”
“I don’t remember you being my boss, Zayvion. This isn’t the old days. You don’t have any right to tell me what to do.”
“Shame,” Terric warned.
I didn’t need a warning. I knew what Zayvion was—he was Allie’s Soul Complement, which meant when Zay and Allie used magic together they were just as dangerous as Terric and me. They could, if they wanted to, reach into the core of magic and do the apocalyptic breakage too.
If anyone was ever going to end my life, if anyone could, it would be Zayvion.
“Who?” Zay asked. “Why? Two easy questions.”
I held up one finger. “People,” I said. Then held up another. “Personal.”
Zayvion had this thing that happened when he was really ticked off. His eyes, which were brown, flashed with flecks of gold. It was worse back when magic was strong and he was guardian of the gates. Nowadays he had to be all kinds of pissed before there was even a glint of gold in his gaze.
His eyes washed with a metallic shine.
Oh-ho. My answers had not made him a happy boy.
“Last chance,” Zay said.
“Or what?”
He blinked slowly. “Or I will have Terric hold you down while I shove a Truth spell down your throat.”
I glanced at Terric. He lifted the beer bottle in a toast. “Your move, Caesar.”
I tipped my head back and leaned against the house again. I could feel the heat of the heartbeats beyond those walls like a flickering bonfire across my back.
Ah, hell. Truth it was.
“Those people weren’t just involved with the Authority,” I said. “They were Closed.”
Closed was the spell we used to use to take away people’s memories, ability to use magic, and, sometimes, life. Usually it was cast on people who were dangerously against keeping magic secret and safe. Sometimes it wasn’t.
When dark and light magic had been rejoined, healing it and also gentling it, everyone had gotten their memories back.
And once most people realized their lives had been manipulated by a secret group of magic users, they went a little bat-shit.
Couldn’t blame them, really.
“Lots of people were Closed,” Zay said. He should know. He was Victor’s star pupil. He had Closed a hell of a lot of people for the old man.
“You didn’t Close them, Zay.”
“How do you know?”
Here’s the part I hadn’t wanted to tell them yet. Certainly not at a baby party. “Victor left us something. Each of us.”
At the mention of our old mentor’s name, both of them suddenly went still. Terric had been his student too. Back in the day, before I’d hurt him so badly he couldn’t use Faith magic anymore, he’d been training for the job Zayvion took. Guardian of the gates.
Now there weren’t any more gates, and only Soul Complements could break magic into light and dark so that it had the destructive strength it used to have.
“What?” Zay asked with that calm that might make a person think he didn’t care, in which case a person would be totally wrong. “What did Victor leave us?”
I reached into my pocket. “I don’t know why I haven’t shown you this yet.” Behind me Allie’s laughter drifted out through the door. “I guess I thought there were other, better things for you to be thinking about.”
I handed them each a micro USB drive with their names on it.
“Where did you get this?” Terric asked. “Shame? When did Victor give this to you?”
“He didn’t. After he . . .” I shrugged one shoulder. “After Eli killed him, I went over to his place. To look around. I . . . nicked a photo he had on his mantel. From that day we all hiked Mount Hood, remember?”
Zay nodded, studying the chip of plastic in his palm.
“Wasn’t until I brought it home that I noticed the back of the frame didn’t fit right. He’d glued three drives to the back of the picture. One with each of our names on it.”
“What’s on them?” Zay asked.
“Who says I looked?”
“Come on, Shame,” Terric said. “We know you.”
“Fine. I looked. He made a kind of picture album for each of us. Photos, some documents, things from when we were younger. I think there are pictures of your mom and dad, Zay. Your real mom and dad.”
He’d gone very, very still. He didn’t talk much about his parents. Oh, I’d heard the stock answer he gave to everyone who asked, but he was fostered out young. For all I knew, he didn’t even remember what his biological parents looked like.
But Victor knew. Victor always knew everything.
“What else?” Terric asked quietly.
“On yours is information about Soul Complements. All of them. Us,” I corrected, “throughout history. All the good, all the bad. On yours, Z, is Victor’s diary. Every damn day of his life since he joined the Authority. A hell of a lot of secrets.”
Finally Zay looked away from the drive. “What’s on yours?”
“A classified list. People who were Closed. Dangerous people. People who now are unClosed, people who now have all the memories back of what they did, what they were capable of doing, and of what the Authority did to stop them, change their lives, ruin their lives.”
“Why?” Terric asked. “Why would he give you that list, Shame? You’re not a Closer.”
“He didn’t want their memories taken away again. Didn’t want them Closed. He wanted them dead.”
I drank and let them deal with that for a bit.
Terric scrubbed his fingers back through his hair, which just fell back over his eyes. “Jesus. He left you a hit list?”
“He knew what I was. What we each are. Who else was he going to leave a hit list with?”
“Us,” they both said at the same time.
“Because you carry Death magic in your bones?” I said.
“No,” Zay said. “Because we were Closers, Shame. Not you. We dealt with these kinds of people. Not you. We’re trained for it. We were good at it.”
“Hey, now,” I said with a grin. “Are you jealous your dead teacher didn’t tap you for the job? ’Cause you’re sounding kind of jealous.”
Gold washed over his eyes again. And a thought occurred to me. Maybe with Allie pregnant and less than a month out from delivery, it was not the best time to rankle Papa Jones.
“How many?” Zay growled.
Terric glanced over at him, startled, then back at me. He shook his head just slightly, telling me not to push Zay any further.
So of course, I pushed. Just a little.
“Not your business, mate. Victor didn’t want you to help, Zay. He left this for me. Me alone. So now you’re going to leave it to me. Alone.”
The muscles in his arms tightened. It might have been a few years since we were running hard, but the man had lost none of his edge. I was pretty sure if both of us had no magic at our disposal, he would kick my ass in under five minutes.
Okay, under one.
But that’s not how things were anymore. He and I were pretty much on equal ground. Except as far as I knew, Zayvion wasn’t controlled by magic. Zayvion wasn’t ridden by it and fighting it every moment, losing his humanity to it. Because only Terric and I had been dumb enough to sacrifice our lives and souls for each other on the magic battlefield and literally shove both Life and Death magic into each other to survive.
We’d taken magic into our blood and bones and flesh in exchange for dying. No other Soul Complements had come together while drowning in magic as Terric and I had. No other Soul Complements carried magic in their bodies.
Zay certainly wasn’t that stupid.
That was my job: making bad choices.
Well, mine and Terric’s job.
“Zay, Shame,” Terric said. “Let’s think this through before anyone starts throwing punches.”
Peacemaker. I rolled my eyes at him.
“We are going to make a deal, Shame,” Zayvion said, a little calmer than a moment ago. “If you’re taking someone down, you tell me. That way I can make sure Stotts is off your ass.”