Hell Bent

  “You don’t have to do this, Shame. We don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, “we do.”

  “Then let’s do it.” Terric turned toward me. “Three spells. Hold, Block, and Pain.”

  I was surprised he’d picked Pain, not Sleep. “Seems more like what I’d want to cast. Are you sure, Mr. Goody-goody?”

  “I don’t like Eli either,” Terric said. “And I am pissed he hurt Allie and Zay.”

  “Good,” I said. “Nice to see you here on the dark side. We do have more fun, you know.”

  Terric shook his head once. “Work, not bullshit. Tap the well, let’s get this done.”

  Well, well. Look at who had gone all bossy.

  Still, he was right. I reached out with that part of my head that was always aware of magic, of how it whispered in the back of my thoughts, how it tempted and begged.

  Then I tapped in to the well not too far from here and felt magic cover me like an electric heat over my entire body. Pure magic, not just the Death magic that lurked inside me.

  It was glorious.

  Terric tapped the well too. I didn’t know what he was feeling, didn’t care. I was having a hard time not being swallowed by the sensation of drawing on magic. God, I loved it. Missed it. Craved it.

  I pulled magic to me in huge greedy handfuls, holding it tight. I’d have to carve a spell, have to make the glyph for magic to fill and bring us whatever outcome we wanted, but right now all I wanted was to stand there with magic burning across my skin.

  I might have moaned. Normally, that would be embarrassing. But right now I didn’t think Terric was paying any attention to what I was doing or what I was feeling either. He was dealing with his own experience of drawing on raw magic—drawing on it knowing that we were going to break it, make it stronger. Make it into what it used to be.

  Make it into the thing we loved.

  “Hold,” Terric breathed.

  Took me a second to realize he was talking about the spell. Right. We were supposed to be casting spells.

  I did what I could to focus my attention on the spell, on casting it with him. Best I managed was mirroring his movements. Terric drew the spell, I drew it facing him, opposite to him, but frankly magic had me so distracted that, if he hadn’t been leading the charge, I would have given up and fallen into other, much more pleasurable spells.

  “Shame,” he said, out loud I thought. Not in my mind. I hoped. “Focus, for fuck’s sake.”

  That got a smile out of me. Fine. Focus. I could do that. Enough that I did not do a shabby job completing the glyph for Hold.

  “Ready?” Terric asked. He was breathing in rhythm with me, his heart in rhythm with mine.

  It felt right. It steadied the hunger inside me. Pushed it away, and filled me with ease. Made me feel whole again. Real again.

  “Always.”

  Our eyes locked.

  We broke magic.

  It was like running a knife along the soft, ripe skin of a fruit and feeling it split beneath my fingers. But instead of digging down into the fruity middle, we tore the seal on magic open and released the power. A hell of a lot of power. An explosion of power that had been waiting for us to set it free.

  Magic poured into the glyphs traced in the air in front of us. Hung there and burned like fire.

  “Hold,” Terric said. “To stop those who would break this sanctuary.”

  One thing I had to admit, Terric knew how to set a spell so it stuck.

  I waited until the glyphs were burning a hot cherry red before I passed my hand across it, sending it out to wrap the house. It would be visible for a moment or two. We’d done our best to cast a Fade into the spell so it wouldn’t be seen with the naked eye.

  Ever since magic had been healed, it had also become much more visible. So the smart magic users now made sure they included something to hide the spells they cast.

  The spell wrapped the house from roof to foundation, glowing red for a moment, then fading away beneath the gray of the day.

  The sirens were getting closer.

  “Block is next,” Terric said, his voice a little husky.

  Glad I wasn’t the only one enjoying this.

  I got my fingers busy and drew the negative image of the spell as he drew the positive. We both pulled on more magic, poured it into the glyphs, which glowed a deep blue this time.

  “Block,” Terric said. “To protect those within this sanctuary.”

  He didn’t really have to say anything out loud for the spells to work, but he had studied for a long time beneath Victor and Faith magic. Some of the history of those kinds of spells involves prayer, intonation, mantras. I guess old habits are hard to break.

  I waved my hand across the spell and sent it spinning to the house, where it immediately sank into the walls.

  “Last is Pain,” Terric said, beginning the spell.

  “Let me.”

  He nodded and wiped his fingers through the beginnings of the glyph, clearing the air.

  I carved the glyph for pain in the air between us, making sure it would wrap and hold and bite and paralyze. I carved it so that if Eli tripped it, he’d be lucky to be breathing by the time the spell ran its course. Terric mirrored my movements, no comment on the viciousness of the spell I was shaping.

  The police arrived. We were behind a screen of brush. With the fog closing in, I didn’t think they’d immediately notice the black spell smoldering between us.

  And because Terric had done it, as soon as the spell was formed and filled with magic, I spoke too.

  “Pain,” I said. “To bring our enemy to his fucking knees.”

  “Amen,” Terric said. He wiped his hand across it and pushed it toward the house, where it fell like a hard hail of dark rain, soaking it through.

  That, the cops saw. But I didn’t think they knew where it had come from. Until I glanced out at the road, and noticed Detective Stotts looking our way.

  Chapter 20

  “Act natural,” Terric said.

  “Seriously? Natural? Like we’re just two guys who happened to have dressed out of the same closet, standing in the rain and fog on an abandoned lot casting magic the likes of which hasn’t been seen for three years? That kind of natural?”

  “It’s just Paul,” he said. “He knows we’re on the side of the good guys.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Terric, Shame,” Detective Stotts called out. “Can I have a word with you?”

  “I say we run for it,” I said.

  “You have zero survival instinct, Flynn.” Terric started toward Stotts and I followed.

  “What are you two doing out here?” Detective Stotts asked.

  “Skipping rocks,” I said.

  He turned to Terric. Why did people always ignore me?

  “Terric?” he asked.

  “We came out to see Allie and Zay.”

  “So you know they were attacked?”

  “We’re the ones who told Clyde Turner.”

  “You know I’d prefer it if crimes were reported to the police first.”

  “It was a matter of seconds between me knowing they were hurt, to Clyde knowing, to you,” he said.

  “Those seconds count,” Stotts said. “I’d like to have them so that my people, our guns, and the law can get here in time to keep things contained.”

  “We weren’t even sure that they had been attacked,” Terric said calmly.

  “Then why did you tell Mr. Turner they were?”

  “What we told Clyde was that Zay and Allie cast magic,” Terric said. Then, a little quieter, “They broke it.”

  Paul Stotts was the boyfriend of Allie’s best friend, Nola. No, wait. Husband. They’d tied the knot a couple years back. And Paul had stood by us through the worst of the apocalypse. He knew things about magic and magic users that no one knew back in the day.

  He knew things today about magic we still try to keep quiet—namely that Soul Complements can break it.

&
nbsp; “Why did they do that?” he asked.

  “That’s what we wanted to know. Especially since Allie is . . .” Terric paused. “Has Allie talked to Nola?”

  “Are you kidding? She’s planning the baby shower.”

  “Right. Since Allie is pregnant, they didn’t want to break magic,” Terric continued. “So when we felt it break . . .”

  “You can feel it when magic breaks?”

  Terric shrugged. “We did this time. We assumed they wouldn’t have broken it if they weren’t in trouble.”

  Stotts nodded, then glanced over at the house. “I’ll need a statement.”

  “You know we can’t admit to breaking on record,” Terric said.

  “I’ll want something from you, even if it’s just you had a bad feeling and followed up on your hunch.”

  An ambulance rolled up, and the EMTs got out and walked up to the kitchen.

  Good thing we’d triggered the spells to only react if Eli tripped them.

  “Zayvion’s been stabbed,” Stotts said.

  “We know,” Terric said.

  “I don’t suppose you know anything else about this, do you?”

  “No,” Terric said.

  Yes, that surprised me. I thought he liked telling the truth and following procedure.

  Stotts finally looked back at me. “Shame, do you know anything else about this?”

  “Nope. Not a thing.”

  “All right.” He glanced up as one of his officers walked our way. “I want to see you both in the station later today.”

  “We’ll be there,” Terric said so smoothly, even I had a hard time telling if it was a lie.

  Stotts moved up the path toward the house and Terric went the other way to the car.

  I glanced back at the house. A movement along the rooftop drew my eye.

  There was a gargoyle on the roof. Namely, Stone.

  Well, he was really an animate—which is a construction of stone and gears powered by magic. He’d been made by Cody Miller, who had once been an incredible artist and magic user.

  Even though magic shouldn’t be strong enough to keep Stone going, he was still as mostly alive as ever. He’d been Allie’s loyal companion for years now, was a good-natured doofus who liked to stack household items.

  In a fight he was a deadly, ferocious brute.

  He folded his wings and four-footed it to the chimney, sitting with his hands wrapped over his toes. He peered down at the police moving around, then looked out at me.

  I held up a hand. “Look after Allie,” I said in a normal voice I knew he’d hear. He tipped his head, both ears rising into sharp points, and showed a little teeth.

  He must have been with Cody when the attack happened. I was glad he was here now. I suddenly felt a lot better knowing a ton of fanged, clawed, winged living rock was going to be there with Allie and Zay.

  I turned and caught up with Terric and walked along beside him. “I see what you did there with the detective, you little liar.”

  “Shut up, Shame.”

  He got in the car and I got in after him. Eleanor slipped into the backseat.

  “You lied to a police officer,” I said with mock disappointment. “Aren’t you worried they’re going to take your hero card away?”

  “If he knew what we knew, he’d stop us from doing what we’re going to do,” he said.

  “Kill Eli?”

  “Kill Eli.”

  “Let’s drink to that. Swing by and get me a coffee, won’t you?”

  “Coffee, not booze?”

  “When they open a drive-through bar, I’ll be the first in line. Until then, coffee.”

  What could I say? I was in a good mood. Breaking magic had taken care of my hunger, and made me feel lazy and satisfied, like finally scratching an itch I couldn’t reach. Watching Terric lie to the cops was the candy sprinkles on top of today’s donut.

  Terric stopped at a coffee shop, ordered an Americano for himself and a double caramel latte for me.

  Score.

  “Do you think we should have stayed with Zay and Allie?” I asked after I’d drained half the cup.

  “We talked with them about that. Don’t you remember?”

  “No.” It was probably when I’d been pacing and not paying attention to them. I pushed at my cheekbone gently and flipped the visor down for the mirror. The bruise had spread down to my jaw and was making it a little difficult to see out of one eye. Zayvion Jones knew how to land a hit.

  “...offered,” Terric was saying. “Zayvion refused. He said they’d call Stotts and make sure there were EMTs coming to look at his wound. He said he’d rather stay at the house with Allie, since he had planned on casting protections on it.”

  “Protections we cast.” I flicked the visor back up. My face hurt, but I didn’t think anything other than the nose was broken.

  “Yes. He’ll call if anything happens, but if you and I do our job—”

  “Kill Eli?” I just loved how that rolled off the tongue. Felt like I could say it all day.

  “No, find Dessa, who might know where Eli is.”

  “Then kill Eli?”

  “Maybe, yes. Stop him for sure. Find Brandy and release her, or use her as a bargaining chip against Eli.”

  “That’s . . . calculated.”

  “That’s practical.” He took a drink. “If we do our job, then Eli will be in no position to attack Allie or Zay or anyone else.”

  “Because he’ll be dead. Come on, Ter. You know that’s how this is going down. We’re going to take Eli out. And by ‘out’ I mean mulch him into grave filler.”

  Terric’s phone rang. It was in his cup holder, so I pulled it out. “Dash,” I said. I thumbed on the speaker. “This is Shame.”

  “Shame,” Dash said. “Can I speak with Terric?”

  “I’m listening,” Terric said. “What’s going on?”

  “We have a lead on Eli. Davy just called in—”

  “From where?” Terric asked.

  “Don’t know. He rigged a blocker on his phone so I couldn’t track it.”

  “Okay,” Terric said. “Are you at the office?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re on the way over now. Let’s finish this conversation there.”

  “I’ll put the coffee on,” he said.

  I hung the phone up. “Don’t want to talk to him?”

  “Don’t want a phone record if we’ve been bugged.”

  “Do you think you’ve been bugged?”

  “No, I’m sure I haven’t been. I don’t know about the lines at the office, though. If they know where Eli is, I want to hear it in person.”

  I finished off the last of my coffee, sat back, and let the man behind the wheel take us to the office.

  By the time we found parking, the rain had stopped. We got out. Everything was wet and when the higher clouds broke, the fog torched up with sunlight.

  Eleanor drifted beside me of course. On the drive over here, I caught her staring at the statue. I almost brought the statue in with us, just in case Terric and I didn’t leave in the same car after this, but she shook her head.

  So we stormed across the street, Terric and me step in step. People moved aside. I supposed we made quite a pair.

  We walked into the building, took the elevator up to the office.

  It had only been a few hours since I was down here getting the riot act read to me by Clyde. Funny what a difference a few hours made.

  The haphazard tower of empty boxes was now a squat pyramid of neatly taped, labeled, and stacked boxes. Probably contained the few things I’d left behind and were otherwise filled with Terric’s possessions.

  The framed picture of Paris he had taken back before college that used to hang in his office was propped against the pyramid.

  I guess Clyde was moving in.

  “Terric, Shame.” Dashiell paused halfway across the room and looked me up and down. “Those are good colors on you, Shame. But what happened to your face?”

  “
I ran into Zay’s fist.”

  “So . . . wait. What’s that now?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” I said. I strode off to the small storage closet just outside the bathroom. Mop, cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper. And up there on the top shelf next to a box of caulking tubes was a jacket.

  My jacket.

  One of them, anyway.

  I pulled it down, turned my head, and shook the dust off it. Black, lightweight, shorter than the peacoat. Really not much more than a hoodie, but hell, it was my hoodie.

  I shrugged into it. Realized that even with the bulky sweater, the hoodie still fit.

  I was seriously tired of things reminding me of how thin I was. Maybe I should start working out.

  Ha!

  I strolled back into the main room where Dash and Terric were standing and Clyde leaned against a desk. They all had coffee in their hands.

  Detour to the coffeepot. I made myself a cup, stole a truly sorry-looking bear claw sitting alone in a bakery box, and noted I’d left the baseball bat those thugs had threatened me with propped up by my desk. That was leaving with me. And so was the gun I figured was still in my drawer.

  I walked over to my desk. Pulled the drawer and stuffed the gun in my pocket.

  “...EMTs are taking care of him,” Terric said. “We’ll be giving Stotts our statements later today if we have time.”

  “And what are you going to tell him?” Clyde asked.

  “That we were planning on stopping by anyway,” Terric said. “And had a hunch that something was wrong, so we let you know in transit.”

  He nodded. “Not the best we’ve ever come up with, but it should do. And you, Shame? Where do you stand on all this?”

  “On the side of better donuts,” I said, turning toward them. “Where the hell did you buy this greasy sponge?”

  “They weren’t for you,” Clyde said.

  “Thank God for that,” I said. I shoved the last of it in my mouth and chewed. “Awful.”