Hell Bent

  Terric, on the phone, blood on his hands, blood streaked through his hair where he must have pulled at it with his fingers. Dessa at my side, her gun still in her hand and aimed at me.

  “Dessa,” I said. “Are you . . . are you all right?”

  “I’m not the one on fire.” She nodded at my hand.

  I lifted my right hand. The rings were glowing red, but as I watched, the burn was fading like coals dusted at the edges.

  “He’s sane,” Terric said to Dessa as he pocketed his phone. Then, in a voice louder than that whisper, “Dessa, put the gun down. He could kill you before you pulled the trigger.”

  She hesitated. Finally lowered the gun.

  I turned. Looked into blue eyes that were not frightened—but were very wary.

  As she had every right to be.

  “Did I hurt you?” I said with what gentleness I could manage.

  She searched my eyes. I did not know what she saw there. Maybe Death magic. It was there, just behind my will, lapping at my control. Pressing and promising.

  She held up her hand, turned it one way and the other to examine the skin. “Felt like all the skin burned off when I touched you.”

  “And now?”

  She curled her fingers to her palm. “Everything works.” She pulled her shoulders back.

  “Don’t touch me for a while,” I said. “I’m in control, but it’s not solid.”

  She nodded.

  I finally turned my full attention to Victor.

  He was on his back, in his pajama pants, his shirt cut to shreds, the edges of it burned. Blood soaked the carpet. Terric was kneeling in it.

  I walked the few steps to Victor’s prone body. It seemed to take three long years before I reached his side. I rested my hand on Terric’s shoulder and for a second, he leaned his head against my arm.

  I felt his sorrow as if it were my own. Because it was.

  I wanted to scream. Instead Terric whispered a prayer. It was the words of a very old spell—Peace.

  Grief knotted my throat and clenched my gut. I didn’t have time for grief. I couldn’t have time.

  So I pushed it away, fed it to the monster within me. Any pain would sate it, even my own.

  Terric lifted his head away from me and stood as I knelt, trading places, his hand falling now on my shoulder. Perhaps it seemed an odd thing, the way we moved in tandem without thought, but it was natural as breathing to me.

  “The marks,” Terric said.

  I moved the edge of Victor’s shirt away, uncovered the shredded mess that was his torso. He had been carved, and carved, and carved again.

  Spells: Pain, Refresh, Fire, Refresh, Crush, Break, Sever. Refresh, and Refresh again. Every dark agony cut into him in a continuous circuit of unending torture.

  The bastard hadn’t even had the fucking decency to carve Death into his skin. He had carved Life instead. He had squeezed every last ounce of pain out of Victor.

  And in the blood around his body was another spell. But from the ragged streak trailing off to one side, it was clear that the spell had been interrupted before it was finished.

  “Eli,” Terric and I said at the same time.

  It wasn’t a name anymore.

  It was the shape of the thing we were going kill.

  Chapter 25

  I paced. Smoked. Just outside his room. Just over the threshold of his death.

  Waiting. For Terric to finish talking. Couldn’t remember who was here worth talking to. Didn’t care.

  Cigarette burned down. I flicked it to the fireplace as I paced past, lit the next one. Hungry. Angry.

  Because there wasn’t room in me for grief.

  Just rage.

  The floor cracked like ice under my feet. I’d drawn all that could be drawn out of the wooden floor, out of the bracers beneath them. Had drawn all of the moisture from the air. Three plants in the room: dead. The bushes outside: withered.

  Six people in the house, only one was dead: Victor. But there would be more if I stayed longer.

  Rings on my fingers hissed and snapped as I turned and followed my anger back to the other side of the room.

  This house was my cage. And I was an animal who wanted out. But I’d stay here until Terric told me differently.

  Because I’d promised Zay I would listen to him.

  I didn’t know if Terric called Zay or not. Hadn’t been paying attention to the bedroom’s blood-covered walls, hadn’t listened while the police came in and Terric told me to stay in the living room and kill no one. Had no idea where Dessa was.

  Better that I didn’t.

  I was anger. Anger that keened for the hunt. Eli had said he’d give us a day, maybe less.

  Eli had lied. He was never going to give us time.

  Terric was walking my way, I could feel it before I saw him.

  Strode into the room. Still had a streak of dried blood in his white hair, blood on his jeans, his shirt. Victor’s blood.

  His eyes were as hard and steady as his stride.

  Didn’t stop, didn’t pause. Walked right up to me. Stuck one hand against my shoulder, and grabbed the back of my neck with the other.

  “I need you to come back, Shame,” he growled. “If you can’t fight the magic in you, I will.”

  The rings on my fingers hissed with magic. The stone on his chest caught white fire.

  Life and Death pushed between us like two magnets repelling each other while being shoved together.

  Then Life slipped like a clean knife to clash with Death in the middle of my head.

  It hurt.

  And with pain came clarity.

  “...are you clear on that, Shamus?” he was saying.

  “I got the last half,” I said.

  “We are going to let the police take care of this. You and I are going home together so I can keep an eye on you.”

  Oh, that was not going to fly. Terric’s fingers dug into the back of my head, and I realized he wasn’t telling me this. He was saying it for someone else.

  “Jesus,” I said. “Fine. But you are not my fucking boss, Conley.”

  His expression washed in relief. He must have thought that I wouldn’t catch on to his lie and help him tell it. Or maybe he didn’t think I’d return to a semblance of sanity.

  Right now I’d do fucking anything to get out of this house. Because I had a man to kill.

  We had a man to kill.

  Terric let go and stepped back, his body language falling into that corporate clean-cut, responsible, trustworthy falsity. Sure, sometimes Terric was all of those things. But right now I knew he wanted Eli just as dead as I did.

  “I’ll keep him for the night,” Terric said. “Please let me know if you get any leads on this.”

  “I will,” Detective Stotts said, not unkindly. “We upped the drive-bys on Allie and Zay’s house too. Do you want us to send a unit past your place every hour or so?”

  “No,” Terric said smoothly. “If anything happens, we’ll break magic and Hold him.”

  “Are you sure you can do that?” Stotts looked over at me.

  I just gave him a slow blink.

  “I can control him,” Terric said, meaning me, not Eli. “I promise you.”

  Stotts nodded, but didn’t look away from me. “If you have any trouble at all, call me. We can lock him up and put him under so far he won’t even know what his name is.”

  I couldn’t help it, I smiled.

  I could never forget my name because it was stamped in the face of every person I saw: Death.

  Stotts’s gaze finally skittered away. With a nod to Terric, he walked back to the other beating hearts in the room.

  “Let’s go, Shame,” Terric said.

  He walked toward the door. I followed, the floor snapping like old glass beneath my boots.

  Then we were outside. His car was there. And so was another pulse beat—Dessa.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  “This isn’t any of your business,” Terri
c said.

  “We’re hunting Eli, aren’t we?” I said, my voice a little too low.

  Terric didn’t say anything, just shot me a look.

  “She wants him just as dead as we do. She comes.”

  Terric didn’t argue. Not with so many police here, not with the ambulance and EMTs pushing the gurney and body bag.

  Jesus.

  Terric shoved me firmly toward the passenger seat and Dessa got in the back. Eleanor clung to the corner by the window.

  Terric drove. I didn’t know where. Probably his house in case any of the police had a Hound on us. I was out of cigarettes, and in no place to be carefully siphoning the heat off the engine. I crossed my arms and tried to push the world away, tried to push Terric away, Dessa away. Tried to push the whole damn living city of Portland over the edge of my awareness. But there was too much within my reach to consume, to hurt, to kill.

  Far too much to ignore.

  Terric’s hand landed on my upper arm, squeezed. He fed Life magic into me in a steady stream. I didn’t want it, didn’t want the edge of my anger to dull. Thought about doing the same to him. Let him try to keep up with the death I poured into him.

  I glanced at his face. Stone cold, flat, and expressionless as he drove. The single tear track he hadn’t wiped away was the only thing that betrayed his grief.

  So I kept my hands to myself, let him pour Life magic to sate the hunger in me, and the hunger in him.

  By the time we got to his house, I was no less angry, but I was a hell of a lot more in control.

  I pulled my arm out of his grasp, and he put his hand back on the wheel, saying nothing.

  “Are we going in?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Terric got out. I followed, Dessa next to me.

  Up the steps to his door, then in his house.

  Jeremy was not here. I could tell because I didn’t sense his heartbeat.

  Once I was inside, I paused at the door, tipped my head down with my hand still on the doorknob, and listened to the world outside.

  Not for the sound of cars. For the beat of a heart.

  I wanted to know if Stotts or Clyde had put a Hound on us, and I wanted to know where that Hound might be.

  It took about five minutes. Then I felt it. A heartbeat about two houses down. Close enough, probably in a car where, she, I guessed, could watch us. And farther off, a second beat.

  Hounds never traveled alone. Sure, only one of them would work a job, but there was always a shadow, always another Hound watching after the first.

  “Two,” I said as I walked into Terric’s living room.

  “Two what?” Dessa asked.

  I looked at Terric. Didn’t have to explain. “Allie said Sunny is running things since Davy is AWOL.”

  “She’s looking for Davy,” he said. “I’ll call Dash.”

  Terric got busy doing that, telling Dash that he needed to call off the Hounds. We’d done this just a few other times when we had first taken over the Authority. While I liked the eyes and ears of a Hound, there were times when we didn’t want even our closest allies knowing what we were doing.

  Times like tonight.

  So we’d set up an agreement with the Hounds. We’d only call them off if it was of utmost importance. The respite lasted exactly twenty-four hours, and we’d never hunt one of their own.

  Yes, we had a list of who the Hounds considered part of the pack. Allie and Zay fell on that list. So did my mum, and ironically, both Terric and I.

  Eli was nowhere on that list.

  Terric hung up. I paced, waiting for the heartbeats to go away.

  Took less than a minute. Both Hounds cleared out.

  “Tell me why she’s with us, Shame,” Terric said. Not angry, no, not at all. He had become very precise, as if all his thoughts and movements were razor sharp, heartlessly cold, deadly. Man was in a killing mood.

  “She knows where Eli is.”

  “I think I know,” she corrected.

  “And we’re lovers,” I added.

  Dessa raised her eyebrows and stared at me. Terric took a moment to study her. She might not think it was important that Terric know what I felt for her, things I knew he was getting right now through our connection, but if she was going into a fight with us, I wanted Terric to know that she was important to me, and was to be protected.

  “Understood,” he said. “Show me what you have in the duffel.”

  Now she stared at him. “Why?”

  “I’m not going to take anything. I just want you to have enough of the right things with you to make a difference. Sooner would be better. We need to be moving.”

  She looked back at me.

  “If we know what you have, we know how to cover you. Simple as that.”

  She lifted the duffel, put it on top of his coffee table, and pulled it open.

  Terric looked into the bag and so did I.

  Quick inventory: two Glocks, a couple throwing knives, a hunting knife, the rifle, and a sawed-off shotgun.

  “Looks like you’ve got it covered,” he said. “Might want to put the Void stone on, in case there’s magic.”

  She reached in, pulled out a beaded necklace with a silver-dollar-sized Void stone hanging in the center of it, and drew it over her head.

  “So, where is he?” I asked her.

  “I said I might know,” she said. “There’s a warehouse down on Macadam.”

  “Why do you think he’s there?” Terric asked.

  “I got a tip from a friend.”

  “Who?” Terric asked.

  “A Hound. She can be trusted.”

  “How long ago did you get this tip?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  “It’s a start,” I said.

  Terric nodded. “I found this in Victor’s hand.” He reached in his pocket and handed me an unused hypodermic needle. There was a label on it with a glyph for Clarity crossed out by a glyph for Chaos.

  I held it up to the light. Looked like the liquid had flecks of dust in it. Whatever was in that needle was what had sent me barefoot across Portland, mindlessly destroying things. Victor had just put one of Eli’s weapons into our hands.

  “Are we taking the time to analyze it now?” I asked.

  “No,” Terric said. “But we will.”

  I handed it back to him. “And not with the police?”

  “We don’t need the police,” Terric said. Then, “I’m going to get into something clean. You two need anything?”

  “We’re good,” I said.

  He left the room and I turned to Dessa. “I’m suddenly wanting to talk you out of this. Any chance you’ll listen?”

  She had pulled a footstool up to the coffee table and was going over her weapons.

  “You know how you said Terric is like a brother to you?” she said.

  I waited.

  “Well, my brother was my brother. We were close. And I am going to kill Eli for him.”

  “Right,” I said slowly. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why did you come back to me after you had the lead?”

  “Because I knew you’d killed other powerful men.” She looked up at me, snapping the last piece of the rifle in place. “With magic.”

  “So,” I said, “you knew you could kill him with bullets . . .”

  “But I got nothing when it comes to magic. And people like you and Terric—”

  “Breakers,” I said.

  “—‘Breakers,’” she agreed, “can kill him with magic.”

  “Was that the only reason you came back?”

  She considered me a second. Then stood and kissed me. When she finally pulled away, she tipped her eyes up to meet my gaze. “No. Last night was real. Wasn’t a part of the rest of this. However this goes down, that stays the same.”

  “People might get hurt,” I said. “I might be the one hurting them.”

  “I know.”

  Terric was out of his room, new jeans, new black T-shirt under a black peacoat. He handed me a gun. Had
one of his own.

  Dessa’s eyes widened up.

  “Sometimes the direct kill is the best,” I said. I shrugged out of the sweater, leaving me in just a gray T-shirt. I didn’t need a coat. I had my hate to keep me warm.

  Terric strode to the door and I followed him, Dessa at my side. Back to the car.

  I’d barely noticed Eleanor, drifting with me, finally caught the glow of her out of the corner of my eyes. She looked like she’d been crying, though I’m not sure how that could be for a ghost. I didn’t think she had liquid in her.

  Still, the way she moved, the bend of her head. Everything about her was sorrow.

  She’d known Victor too. Had spent some time training in magic with my mum and him. “You see something I don’t,” I said to her. “Tell me.”

  Eleanor noticed I was noticing her and nodded. She pressed her hand over her heart. I didn’t know if she was indicating her promise, or saying it was broken.

  “I will,” Dessa said.

  “I know,” I said to Eleanor.

  Terric didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. He knew who I was really talking to.

  Here’s the thing. I’ve spent a good amount of time doing my best to put distance between Terric and me, for both our survival.

  But right now that wasn’t my goal: survival. My goal was to take Eli down. And if I knew exactly what Terric was doing, if not exactly what he was thinking, it made it easier to get things done. No hesitation. No slack. So the closer together he and I were right now, the better it was.

  He drove. I sat in the passenger seat, Dessa behind us.

  Terric didn’t break any speed limits getting to the warehouse, so as not to attract the cops, but he pushed a few lights. From the color of the sky, we still had about an hour before the sun rose.

  Good. I did my best work in the dark.

  “This it?” Terric asked.

  The warehouse didn’t look abandoned. It was being retrofitted into offices or maybe apartments, construction equipment surrounding it.

  “This is where she said he was,” Dessa said.

  “Did you come by here and look for him earlier?” I asked. “Before you came to my place tonight?”

  “No,” she said. “I wanted to talk you into coming with me. That didn’t go quite how I planned it.”

  “Outcome was the same,” I said, opening the door.