“If I don’t get Stone in for testing, those stories are going to become nightmares,” I said. “The poison will spread unchecked. It won’t just stop at the edges of Portland—it will follow all the natural lines of magic through the world.
“Are you going to stand here arguing with me when we could be finding out how to save the people dying out there?”
Stotts hesitated, then glanced over my shoulder.
Zayvion walked up behind me. Man could be quiet when he wanted to be. Looked like he wanted to be. I didn’t know how he’d gotten through the Ward. From the look on Paul’s face, he didn’t know either.
“I can give you proof,” Zayvion said. Then he threw a spell at Paul.
“Zay,” I said, “no!”
Paul staggered back, his hand reaching for his gun as the spell wrapped around his wrists and throat.
Zayvion stormed over to him, just as angry as when he’d pinned Collins to the wall.
Was he having another flashback?
“Don’t hurt him,” I said. “Zay, don’t hurt him.”
Zay lifted his hand, fingers spread, and cast another spell. This one wrapped around Paul’s head, then pulled into a burning red glyph in the center of his forehead.
Paul had stopped moving. He was staring straight at Zayvion. He didn’t look like he was in pain, but he didn’t look like he was exactly conscious either.
Zayvion whispered a mantra, a litany, while he slowly, slowly closed the fingers of his right hand together, until the tips of each finger were touching and the glyph in the center of Paul’s forehead was a small red light.
“Don’t take his memories, Zay,” I said, touching Zay’s arm. “Don’t kill him.”
Zay took a deep breath, then said one word. “Open.” He opened his hand and the glyph spun like neon knot work, growing bigger, spreading over Paul’s head, face, and down to his heart.
Paul’s eyes went wide and he slumped forward. Zayvion caught him as his knees gave out.
“What did you do?” I said. “What did you do to him?”
“I gave him back his memories,” Zay said. He carefully lowered Paul to the ground and made sure he was lying in a fairly comfortable position.
“You Unclosed him?” I asked. Yes, I was a little stunned about that. I’d fought for the Authority to give Paul back his memories. And I’d been told Victor had Closed him. “How can you do that? Victor Closed him.”
“He did. Last time.”
Oh sweet hells.
“How many times has Stotts been Closed?” I asked.
Zay just shook his head. “Several. I think. He’s a good detective, Allie. He’s been on our heels for years. I Closed him only once, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Zayvion rubbed his hand over his face, resting the heel of his palm on his forehead as if pressing against a headache. Which was probably a doozy since he was paying the price for the magic he used. He hadn’t set a Disbursement—no time—so that meant magic could just pummel him however it wanted to.
“He stumbled on me Closing a Gate and fighting the Hungers a few years ago,” he said. “Pulled a gun on me. I’d told him a lot of things, took him back to see Victor. And Closed him.”
“So Unclosing him will give him back all those memories?”
“Yes. I put a Sleep spell in with it to give his mind time to sort it out. He’ll be down for a couple hours, I think.” Zay lowered his hand away from his eyes and winced even though the room was only dimly lit. “Let’s get Stone.”
I nodded, trying to decide whether I should do something more for Paul. Nola would kill me if she found out I left him unconscious and alone in an abandoned building. I still had my journal in my pocket. I tugged it out, wrote: “I’m with Zayvion. Find the Hounds. Show them this note. They’ll take you to me if they know where I am.” And then I signed it and drew the glyph for Truth at the bottom.
I didn’t know if the Hounds would believe it, but they would know by the way I drew the glyph that it was really my signature and not some kind of forged note. I hoped it was enough to let Paul know I wasn’t trying to ditch him.
Well, not permanently.
I turned to help Zayvion with Stone. Zay was standing far enough away from Stone, Stone’s arms and wings couldn’t touch him. Stone’s eyes were narrowed slits, and he was growling.
Not a happy rock. “Is he hurt?” I asked.
Zayvion gave me a placid look. “I don’t know. He’s your pet. Does he look hurt?”
“He looks angry,” I said. “Hey, Stone,” I said, using a soft voice. “Are you okay, boy?”
I didn’t see any spells on him, didn’t see any nicks or scratches on him. Didn’t see anything missing or leaking. Still, he growled.
A whole lot of my common sense was telling me not to pull the tape off his mouth until he calmed down.
“Stone,” I said. “I’m going to fix it, okay?” I walked over to him and crouched down close enough to touch him. Close enough he could touch me too. He pulled against the chains, trying to reach me, his wings arching up over his back, the prehensile tips tugging and clipping at my short hair.
Oh. I didn’t look a whole lot like myself. I wondered whether Stone was so freaked-out from being trapped that he couldn’t tell it was me. I pulled off my glasses and my gloves. “Look, Stoney,” I said, showing him my magic-marked hands. “It’s me. Allie.” I held out my hands and he sniffed, then tipped his head to one side, his eyes still narrow. He woofed out air, puffing up his cheeks. One ear perked up. Which made him look like a doofus. A doofus who could tear me apart with one swipe.
“I’m going to fix your mouth,” I said. I caught hold of the duct tape and pulled it off.
He tipped his head back to center and opened and closed his big jaws like he was trying to get his ears to pop. Then his lips drew away from his teeth in a huge grin. He sat on his haunches and held out his duct-taped hands for me, his eyes wide and expectant, his ears pointed up.
“You’re going to come with us, boy,” I said as I tugged on the tape and unwound it from his right hand.
He wiggled his fingers and burbled at them like he was greeting long-lost friends.
I untaped his other hand. Stone reacquainted himself with those fingers too.
The bindings around his ankles, wrists, and neck were leather straps that buckled. It took me only a minute to get him out of them. I didn’t know how Stotts had talked him into the things in the first place, but Stone did not seem harmed in any way.
“That’s it, buddy,” I said. “You’re free. C’mon, boy. Let’s go for a ride.”
Stone stomped around me in a wide circle, burbling at his hands and feet in what sounded suspiciously like complaining. Then he stopped and looked at Stotts. His ears tucked back and he showed more teeth. He growled. Took a step.
“No, Stone. He’s a good guy. He’s a friend. He’s just a little mixed-up. Want to go for a ride?”
Stone growled again.
“In the car, buddy?” I said.
Stone wasn’t budging.
“Go for a ride?” I tried.
“Stone,” Zay said. “It’s time to go.” Stone looked up at Zayvion and then trotted over to him like a well-trained dog.
“Fine, listen to the man,” I muttered. “Next time you get taped up, see who comes to your rescue.”
We walked through the door and I still didn’t feel the Ward or any other indication that we had passed through magic. “How’d you get through the Ward Stotts put up?” I asked as we picked up our weapons and strapped them back on.
“I canceled it. It’s not something he’d know to guard against.”
Zay strode over to the door, and looked outside. “Allie?”
I looked out the door too. “Clear. I don’t see anyone or any magic.”
We left in a hurry. Zayvion snapped his fingers several times to keep Stone with us. For some reason the stupid rock was really distracted and looked like he wanted to fly away. Maybe because he’d
spent who knew how much time tied up in a room. Stone didn’t like being tied up, chained up, stuck to the earth.
I couldn’t think of anything he would hate more than not being able to fly.
We crossed the street, the shadows keeping us hidden.
“Back to Collins, right?” I said.
Zayvion nodded. “Before the spell wears off and we lose the sample.”
“We still don’t have the Death well sample,” I said.
“Shame and Terric might have it by now.”
“We could go out to the Death well and see if they need help. The graveyard’s public property. It would be easy to get in.”
“Too risky,” Zay said.
“We need that last sample, Zay. And they haven’t sent any sign that they have it.”
“Don’t you think the Authority will be waiting for us there?” he asked. “They’ve had enough time, Allie. Enough time to know their men are dead.”
“Those were Bartholomew’s men,” I said quietly. “The Authority—whoever is running it now—might not know. Might not know what Bartholomew wanted them to do. Might not know that they’re missing.”
“They’ll know,” he said. “Whoever is the head will know. And they’ll know we did it. Our signatures are all over the place. So they’ll be looking for us. And if we went to one well, they’ll expect us at the other wells. The graveyard. The gardens. The inn.”
“They didn’t stop Maeve at the inn.” But even as I said it, I knew that was a different matter altogether. One, Maeve lived there. Two, she hadn’t just been out at the Life well killing people.
“They might not think we’d be stupid enough to do it,” I said.
He half turned to me, shaking his head. “Don’t count on it. Everything we’ve been doing lately is… insane. We’ve broken from the Authority. People who do that are hunted down and Closed or killed. Always. No matter how long it takes.”
Stone growled.
I looked away from Zayvion and searched the shadows. Something shifted between the buildings.
“Veiled,” I said. “Zay, we’ve got Veiled.” The slide of watercolor light slipped at the edges of shadows. Men and women with black holes where their eyes should be, mouths filled with too many teeth, shifted forward, lining the street behind us. Not just one person or two. A lot. Way too many.
They paused.
Then rushed.
“Run!”
We ran.
They were closing in on us. Fast. Too fast.
The car was just a few yards away. The Veiled were gaining on us.
We’d never make it to the car before they swarmed over us.
Shit, shit, shit. My gun wouldn’t stop them. My knife wouldn’t cut them. The only thing that worked on Veiled was magic. And I couldn’t use magic.
About fifty yards from the car, Stone stopped. He growled, his head down, his fangs bared. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t flying. He was just standing there in the middle of the street, growling at the Veiled.
“Stone!” I called. “Come on, boy. Run. Get in the damn car!”
But Stone did not move.
The Veiled shot past us. I smelled the rotted-meat stink of them. Their fingers scraped and slapped as they crashed in a wave and streamed past me.
Aiming straight for Stone.
“They want his magic,” I said. “Zay, they want the magic in him. In Stone. The sample!”
Stone tore into the Veiled, ripping off arms, heads, and leaving wet, shredded ribbons of colored magic to scatter the ground. But there were too many. They latched on with wide, wide mouths and sucked the magic out of him, draining him down.
Zay cast a quick Sight to see the Veiled and dropped it like a struck match. “Fuck,” he said, wiping his foot over the ashes of the spell to muddle his signature.
“Witnesses?” he asked.
I turned a full three-sixty. “No.”
“Get back!”
I got out of the way. Zayvion pulled his sword and muttered a Disbursement spell that crawled down his spine and bit deep at his low back. Then he traced Impact. It skittered and sparked like lightning down the blade of his sword.
He strode into the mob of Veiled and swung. Hard, clean strokes cleaved through half a dozen Veiled. The Veiled screeched and fell, clawing at him, clawing at Stone, even as they were pulverized into a liquid magic mess.
The Veiled turned on Zay like wild animals. They bit, tore, clawed at him.
“No!” I ran toward the fight, unable to just stand by and watch. I didn’t have a weapon, but I wasn’t going to let them tear him apart.
Before I could even reach Zay, he threw Hold. The mass of Veiled around him froze. He swung his blade again and the undead shattered like glass beneath his blow.
But for every Veiled that fell, more swarmed toward us from the shadows. Stone was still fighting, tearing them apart. So many more were still coming. Too many.
I pulled my knife and slashed at the Veiled, but my blade slid right through their faces as they pushed past me toward Stone.
Stone roared out, a painful rusty screech I’d never heard before. The Veiled grabbed him by wings, arms, and legs and forced him to the ground. They piled on him, burying him in a heaving, sucking heap.
“Zay!” I yelled. I slashed and hit the Veiled, trying to get them off Stone, but it was like punching fog. I hated this. Hated being so damn helpless.
Stone was slowing, the magic in him fading. The light in his eyes was growing dim, and even the rusty screech was down to a whisper.
He was dying.
“We have to save Stone. Zay, we have to get him out of here.”
Zayvion took three steps back, and called on magic. And magic answered. He slammed his sword, tip first, into the concrete. Magic crackled across the buildings, scrambled down the street, licked arcs from storm rod to storm rod across the night sky.
And then magic poured into his sword and blasted through the concrete. The street fissured into a glyph, a spell: Grounding.
The Veiled were sucked toward that spell like smoke to a chimney.
They flew, to Zay, to his sword, swirling around him in gruesome, tattered shambles of the once-living, then lost all form.
Watery hues of magic, of the dead, washed down the glyphs of his blade and spread out into the fissured spell broken into the concrete. Then the Veiled were gone, like rain sluiced down the drain.
Zayvion crackled with sparks of magic that wove silver and burned copper over his skin.
He said a single word and pulled the sword out of the concrete. He took a step back, wavered a little, and caught his balance with his arms spread slightly.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything. Was still staring at the massive pothole he’d just carved into the street.
That was when I realized the magic sparking around him wasn’t leftovers from the spell. It was the Disbursement—the price he was paying for throwing that massive Grounding spell.
Holy hells, he must be on fire.
“Where are your keys?” He still didn’t move, maybe couldn’t move. I patted his jeans, found the keys in his front pocket. I jogged to the car, got in, and started the engine. That spell Zayvion pulled down from the heavens was going to call attention to us from every magic user in the city. Especially the ones who were looking for him, for me.
I turned the car around and stopped next to Zay. I got out, leaving the engine idling. “Can you walk?” I hurried around the passenger’s side of the car and opened the door.
“Zayvion. Jones. Can you walk?”
He shifted slightly and inhaled, then groaned. Somehow that man lifted his feet. Somehow he turned around.
Then I was next to him, my arm around his waist.
His pain shot through me, bit so deep I wanted to let go. But I gritted my teeth and helped him get to the car. He slumped into the passenger side and closed his eyes. I shut the door behind him and looked at Stone.
“Stone?” Far of
f, I heard the wail of a siren, then two. Another joined in. Maybe coming our way to check what the big explosion and spike in magic had been.
Definitely coming our way.
Stone was frozen midstride, his right hand lifted. The light in his eyes was very, very dim.
I jogged to him and put my hand on his head. “Stoney?”
He rumbled, a sigh of his usual bag-of-marbles sound.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “I’m going to help you, boy. It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Sure, the mouth was promising, but the brain had no idea how to deliver.
Stone was doing what he could. He managed to get his hand to the ground, shift his weight, and take another underwater slow-motion step forward.
I needed to get the car closer to him. Otherwise we wouldn’t be out of here before dawn.
I scrambled back to the car, got in, pulled up so the back door could open right in front of Stone.
Then I got out, opened the door, and put my shoulder to Stone’s hind end, helping shove him into the car, even though he weighed a ton or two.
The sirens were louder. Flashes of blue snapped in the distance. The police were coming. Probably the Authority too. Time to make scarce.
I ran around to the driver’s side again, got in, and hit the gas. Screw the speed limit. I needed to get us out of there as quickly as I could. I wondered if I should backtrack and do something sneaky so they wouldn’t follow us, but the best way to stay out of sight was to look like every other car out there.
There were no spells on this car, which wasn’t that unusual, and Stone and Zay and I weren’t leaking magic, so that was good. After several blocks, I brought it back down to the speed limit, took the first corner, then navigated a long, meandering route to the warehouse, heading toward it from the opposite direction than the last time I’d been there.
I didn’t know what the Veiled had done to Stone. I didn’t know what they’d done to the magic he held. Zayvion was hurting, and too damn quiet.
“Zay, are you hurt?” Dumb question. I’d felt his pain from the Disbursement. I knew he was more than hurt. Nothing but slightly ragged breathing from the passenger’s seat answered me. I glanced over at him. He had his eyes closed. Sweat covered his face.