Page 19 of Hell Bent


  “So you kept them apart?” I didn’t know why it was bothering me so much. I mean yeah, I had stayed as far away from Terric as I could these last few years. And a few years before that. But that was my choice. No one had made me forget him. No one had forbade me to be with him.

  It was my choice.

  Eli and Brandy hadn’t had a choice.

  “It was decided, by more people than just me, that it would be best for them to never know about each other,” Victor said.

  “So you Closed Eli,” Terric said, “took the memories of Brandy away from him. And then you took the memory of how to use magic away from him too?”

  “Yes.” He was quiet a moment, maybe thinking over those times, those decisions.

  I’d always wondered if Victor followed rules, or made rules to follow. Too many times in the past he’d leaned a decision one way or another to make sure things in the Authority turned out the way he approved of. The way he thought was right, despite what the Authority stood for.

  “Yes,” he said, “I did. I made him forget Brandy. I took away his ability to use magic.”

  “Not that he didn’t relearn it,” Terric said.

  “And when Eli demanded you Unclose him back when Davy Silvers’s life hung in the balance,” I said, “you didn’t give him the memories of Brandy back, did you?”

  “No.”

  A pause while I, at least, swallowed the fact that my teacher, my friend Victor, had been playing God with someone’s life. With their soul.

  “It was my decision not to let him know about her. I still believe it was the correct thing to do. She is broken. There is no future for them together.”

  “I had no idea you have a crystal ball,” I said. “How very convenient you know what they can and can’t be.”

  The rings snapped with tiny sparks of red.

  Yes, I was angry. Even though I hated Eli, I hated even more that Victor had made decisions that only Eli and Brandy should have made.

  “Would you rather I have let two very unstable people have full access to a magic more powerful than ninety-nine percent of magic users in the world could access? It is not unthinkable that they could have destroyed the world.”

  I knew he wasn’t being overly dramatic. Soul Complements could be walking time bombs. Soul Complements, in fact, had almost ended the world just three years ago.

  “But to just cut them off from each other? There had to have been other options.”

  “There were not.”

  “Have you considered that by not having Brandy it drove Eli to extremes? That all this—all the crap he’s doing—is because of what you did to him? Joshua might still be—”

  “Shame,” Terric said gently. “Don’t.”

  I just glared at Victor.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. “I have thought of it many times. Especially over the last three years.”

  I’m sure he had. One of the side effects of surviving the apocalypse was that Cody Miller had healed magic with the intension of making everything better. That healing had made magic soft, and it had given memories back to everyone in the world who had had their memories taken away by Closers.

  Closers like Victor.

  So Eli had remembered Brandy and the part Victor and the Authority had played in keeping her separate from him.

  “Damn,” Terric said softly. “He’s known for three years that she’s his match? And that she was locked away?”

  Victor nodded.

  “When did he find her?” I asked.

  “Our sources say it was two years ago. She doesn’t have family, was a ward of the state. They were trying a new medication. It seemed to be helping. She was more responsive. Aware.”

  “Then?” Terric asked.

  “Then the war.” Victor spread his hands. “The end of magic being separated into dark and light. The end of our power. And the beginning of the new world where the Authority is no longer secret, where memories are no longer hidden, where those of us who fought to keep the world, and all its people safe, are ignored. Unwelcome. Silenced.”

  “You’re not unwelcome,” Terric said. “The Authority still needs you. Needs what you can teach.”

  “Faith magic?” Victor smiled sadly. “The things I would teach are nothing more than a history lesson now. Those spells, Closing people, guarding gates, fighting to keep dangerous uses for magic secret and safe? Unnecessary.”

  “All right,” I said, “fine. Things might not have worked out the way you wanted them to. We’ve all shed our tears. But we’re still breathing, and we all have a problem: Eli. How do we find him? How do we stop him?”

  “I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “Do you know about a woman named Dessa?” I asked.

  He frowned. “The name isn’t familiar to me.”

  “Dessa Leeds?”

  His gray eyebrows pushed wrinkles up his forehead. “Leeds? Do you mean Thomas Leeds?”

  “That’s her brother,” I said. “Dessa’s brother. You know him?”

  “He was a Closer. Out of Seattle. He was working for us. What do you know about him?”

  I leaned back. Studied him. “Nothing, really. I do know that you’re holding out on me, though.”

  “Shame,” Terric said.

  “Come on, Ter. The old man’s got a secret he doesn’t want to share.”

  “Old man?” Victor drew himself up and gave me a stern glare. “You know I’m in contact with your mother, don’t you, Shamus?”

  I grinned at his indignant tone. For all that I was angry about his decisions with Eli and Brandy, Victor was one of my teachers. I’d grown up with him being a stern, proper sort of uncle. Plus, he’d taught me some of the dirtiest tricks you could do with magic. He was family, and that bond couldn’t be broken. Not even over dangerously poor decisions.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Tell her I’m being disrespectful to one of my teachers. It won’t be the first time she hears it. Oh, and while you’re at it, ask her why you don’t have the balls to tell us the whole truth.”

  Terric leaned back on the couch and threw his hands up. “Jesus, Shame. Did that Taser fry your brain?”

  I just watched Victor. In the past, needling him couldn’t make the old man change his mind. I didn’t think it would work this time, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. People who are upset or angry tend to say all sorts of interesting things they would never say in a calm state of mind.

  “We’ve known the government was becoming . . . interested in the members of the Authority,” he said quietly. “Certain members. Our Closers, our Soul Complements, and those of us in higher positions. But we didn’t know why. We needed someone on the inside. Someone who had a contact.”

  “Thomas?” I asked.

  “Yes. Thomas thought he could use his relationship with his sister—I do believe her name was Dessa—to get closer to the matter.”

  So Dessa did work for the government. “Which department was he infiltrating?” I asked.

  “He worked his way into a government-sponsored research and development facility. On the surface, it is a testing lab for biotechnology. Everything from increasing crop yields to deterring invasive species. But beneath that facade, Thomas found evidence of other tests. Human tests.”

  “Medical tests on humans are far from rare, Victor,” I said. “What made these different?”

  “The tests weren’t for medical advancement. They were searching for ways to weaponize people.”

  “What?” Terric said.

  Took the word right out of my mouth.

  “Now that magic is a known resource, the government is very interested in what people can do with it. How it can be used as a protection. As a weapon.”

  It made sense. Any government would want to know how magic could be used, and by whom.

  “Okay,” I said. “How do Eli and Brandy fit into this?”

  “Brandy disappeared a year and a half ago,” Victor said. “The o
fficial report is that she died from a stroke caused by side effects of the medication she was on. But we know she was taken. Stolen out of the institution. By the government. By this research lab.”

  Terric opened the file again. Thumbed through it. “Thomas was looking for her, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Eli?” he asked.

  “We’d lost trace of him at the same time. I don’t know if he was taken, if he went looking for her, or if he was behind her kidnapping. Our . . . resources aren’t what they used to be. But our goal, that has remained the same. To keep the innocent safe from magic and the things people would do with it. Brandy is an innocent in this. But we believe she was taken by men who would use her as a weapon.”

  “Tell me you know where the research facility is.”

  “From the information Thomas was able to gather, it has branches across the country. We suspect one of them is here in the Northwest. And if they are trying to tap magic, it will need to be near a well.”

  “There are a lot of wells. One under almost every city,” Terric said.

  “And five under Portland,” Victor said.

  “Eli opened a gate,” I said.

  That got his attention.

  “He— What?”

  “He was in my bedroom, and after about two minutes, a gate opened behind him and he was pulled back through it.”

  “He used magic?” Victor asked. “Broke magic to open the gate?”

  I thought about it. “No. I can usually feel when magic breaks.” From the corner of my eye I saw Terric nod.

  “There was magic involved. But there was also technology.”

  “Eli spent too long working under Beckstrom Senior,” Terric said.

  “I think you mean worshipping,” I said. “Spent too much time worshipping Allie’s father and all that experimental tech the Beckstrom fortune funded.”

  “If they have gate technology,” Victor said, “then none of us are safe.”

  “Which means we need to find Eli,” I said. “You didn’t happen to shoot him with a tracking chip over the years, did you?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Victor said. “I wish we’d thought of it.”

  “Have you followed up on everyone connected to Brandy and Eli?” Terric asked. “Her doctors, caregivers? Eli’s contacts, where he’s lived, worked?”

  “Yes,” Victor said. “We hit a dead end about eight months ago. That was also when we fell out of contact with Thomas.” He paused, then, “We think Thomas was killed.”

  “He was,” I said. “Dessa said he was killed by Eli. Said he had marks in him like Joshua.”

  “Was she sure?” Victor asked softly.

  “She saw Joshua,” I said. “Saw the glyphs carved into him. She thinks it was made by the same magic user.”

  Victor took off his glasses and closed his eyes. For a moment, I saw the weight of years change him. He had been in the Authority for longer than I had been alive. He’d seen all manners of horrors committed by both the right and the wrong people having too much power.

  And now this.

  “You have to stop him.” Victor replaced his glasses and opened his eyes. There was the iron strength of resolve in his words. “Eli Collins should have been killed years ago. We thought then that it was a mercy to just take his memories away. To give him a chance to build a normal life. But he turned to darkness. To killing. To murder. Joshua should not have had to pay the price for our mistakes. I want you to stop him. At any cost.”

  “We should let the Overseer know,” Terric said.

  “No. Not this,” Victor said. “It has never been the way of the Authority to kill unnecessarily. It is not the way we want to go forward in this new world of magic. But this is an old wound. An old ill that must be ended. Before more innocent people die. I do not want to be hampered by the Overseer’s decisions.

  “Eli must be stopped. He will kill each Closer involved with his closing, and then he will kill more. Anyone who ever spoke against him or stood for the laws of the Authority. Anyone who ever stood aside, knowing what had been taken from him. If he finds his Soul Complement . . .” Victor paused, swallowed. “Her broken mind will drive him deeper into darkness. And if they break magic together, and use it to shape the world to their desire . . .”

  He didn’t have to tell us what would happen. Having that much power drove people insane. Even people with good intentions were lured by the madness in magic, the temptation of simply making and unmaking the world. And people with bad intentions did things like start the apocalypse.

  “Do not show him mercy, Terric,” Victor said, “for he will refuse it. Stop him before he removes every Soul Complement and every magic user in the Authority.”

  Terric opened his mouth, but I spoke up over him. “The only way to stop him will be to kill him,” I said. “You understand that, don’t you, Victor?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “At any cost?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Terric sighed heavily. Here’s the thing: Death and me pretty much saw eye-to-eye. I knew one of these days someone would have to take me down when I lost control of magic. And Eli wasn’t just a poor magic user caught by an evil government. Yes, he’d been used by the Authority and others. But even if he had once been a good man, that was over.

  He liked killing. Craved it. If the world bowed at his feet, he would want violence, destruction.

  I understood those kinds of dark desires. I had no problem ending it for him.

  Victor looked between Terric and me. Finally settled on me. “Thank you, Shamus. I know your burden isn’t easy. Death magic—”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Shame,” he said firmly. “Let me finish. I know the changes magic has made in you and in Terric have been painful. I know you struggle for control.”

  “Hey, now,” I started, but he just leveled a gaze at me. What could I say? It was the truth. And he knew it.

  Victor was not a stupid man. He had known me my entire life. It didn’t take eyes to see how close I walked the edge of disaster every day.

  “Your father was a good man, Shame,” he said. “A dear friend of mine.”

  I hunched my shoulders unconsciously. I didn’t like it when people brought up my father. He and I had gotten on as most fathers and rebellious slacker sons do. Really, he was a lot more patient than I would have been. I missed him, but I’d had enough time to know he was gone from my life for good.

  That wasn’t what bothered me. No, what haunted me was the thing Jingo Jingo had said before I killed that sick bastard. That my father had fallen on his knees and begged Jingo Jingo to end me. To end the monster he knew I would become.

  A Death magic user.

  Only I hadn’t just become a Death magic user—I’d become a vessel that carried Death magic in my body and soul.

  If my dad were alive, I figured he’d want me dead. Before I gave in to the monster inside me.

  “This is something that I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time,” Victor said. “Jingo was lying. Your father didn’t beg him to keep you from using Death magic. Your father warned Jingo that if he grew too hungry, if he ever lost control, it would be you, his son, who would stop him. Your father saw the strength in you. Saw how you, of all magic users we had ever seen, have the ability to use Death magic without succumbing to its allure.

  “He was proud of you, Shamus. As am I.”

  Not what I was expecting to hear. And for once in my life, I didn’t know what to say.

  Chapter 18

  Victor gave us all the information he had on Thomas Leeds, which wasn’t much, but it was more than the files Terric and I could access. Actually it was a lot more than the files Clyde and Dash could access too. I found that very interesting, and Terric found it very annoying.

  “We were the head of the Authority,” Terric said, slowing for traffic in the afternoon downpour. “We should have had access to every file on every person
we wanted.”

  “Victor doesn’t play by the rules,” I said. “He’ll probably always see a reason to keep the secret organization secret. Or at least as secret as he can. Very old-school skullduggery. I like him for holding to the old, distrustful, cynical standards.”

  “You would.”

  I grinned and folded my arms, carefully, over my chest. The run through the rain to the car had gotten both of us pretty wet, but Terric had on a coat. Even though I was still wearing the sweater, I wished I had my black peacoat instead.

  “Stop by the inn,” I said. “I want a coat.”

  “I have a coat in the trunk.”

  “I want my coat.”

  “We are not stopping this investigation so you can get your comfy clothes.”

  “Investigation? Is that what you’re calling it?”

  “What do you want me to call it?”

  “A manhunt,” I said. “That’s what it is.”

  “We’re going to the office,” Terric said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to tell Clyde what Victor told us, in person. Or at least most of it, so he has the heads-up.”

  “Why?”

  “If I were running the Authority, I’d be furious that I didn’t have this kind of information. Also, I want to find out if they’ve seen Davy.”

  “Fine,” I said. Mostly because I was pretty sure I’d left an old coat there.

  “Why the statue?” Terric asked.

  “What?”

  “Why did you buy a statue of the Grim Reaper with wings?”

  “Caught my eye.”

  “I’ve seen your apartment, Shame. Art never catches your eye.”

  I didn’t say anything. Didn’t care what he thought. This conversation was done.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror, at where the statue was carefully propped up so that Eleanor could sit next to it.

  Don’t remember her, I thought. Don’t ask about her.

  Unlike Zay and Allie, we couldn’t read each other’s minds. But we’d known each other a long time. My bluff didn’t hold.

  “It’s Eleanor, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

  I stared out the window.

  “She’s still . . . connected to you,” he said. “I’d forgotten. I’m sorry, Shame. I’d forgotten.”