Hell Bent

Allie stood, gave her a hug. “Wonderful.”

  Zay was standing too, shaking Hayden’s only hand. Zay was a big man. But Hayden was a damn giant. Dark hair, trimmed beard, he’d put on a few pounds living with my mum’s good cooking. He grinned at Zay, genuinely looking happy to be back.

  “Shamus,” my mum said.

  “Hello, Mum,” I said. “Have a seat?”

  “Why don’t you help me with the pie?”

  “I can—” Nola started.

  “No,” Maeve said. “It will give us a chance to catch up.”

  I glanced over at Terric. Wanting him to make an excuse so I didn’t have to talk to my mum. He just raised his eyebrows and gave me a mind-your-mother look.

  Bastard.

  “Shamus,” Mum called from halfway across the room. “Come with me. Now.”

  “Better just do it, son,” Hayden said in his rolling baritone. “She is not a woman who likes to be kept waiting.”

  He heaved his bulk down into a chair gratefully and got busy catching up with Kevin and Zayvion.

  No one was even looking at me.

  I wiped my fingers over the top of my lip, clearing the sweat there. I did not want to talk to my mother about what had happened. Didn’t want her to see what I had become.

  I didn’t remember walking into the kitchen. One minute I was sitting; then I was in the doorway, unable to make my feet go any farther.

  “Do you know where she keeps the serving knife?” She wasn’t looking at me.

  I tried and couldn’t find a way to say anything.

  “Shamus? Son?” She looked over at me.

  Something changed in her as she studied me. She put down the plates and crossed the room. Then tugged me in, away from the door, away from where anyone would see me.

  And wrapped her arms around me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Her familiar perfume and warmth surrounded me, comfort I had known all my life. It had been years and more since she’d held me like a frightened, broken child.

  But I didn’t pull away.

  “Ah, my love,” she said gently. “Someday your heart will mend. Someday the pain will become a part of your memories instead of your every living moment.”

  I realized she wasn’t talking about me grieving Victor’s death, though I was certainly doing that too. She was talking about Dessa.

  “Wh-who told you?” I asked around the pain in my chest.

  “About Dessa? Zayvion.”

  I pulled back from her embrace, wiped at my face to keep the tears from falling. “He’s such a mother hen.”

  She tipped her head and smiled gently. “He told me you killed, Shamus. With magic.”

  “You know what I am,” I said softly. “What I’ve become.” I pulled my shoulders back, wishing I could put more space between us, but not wanting to leave her comfort.

  “Yes,” she said, touching my cheek with her fingers. “You are my son. A man I am proud of.”

  “No. Not . . . now. I am death.”

  There it was, the truth. She studied me, then pushed my bangs out of my eyes. “Well, then, death needs a haircut.”

  “Mum!” It was such a motherly thing to say.

  “It is the truth,” she said. “And much truer than the nonsense you’re telling me. You carry Death magic, Shamus. But you are still a man in control of it. And you have handled that heavy responsibility better than ninety-nine percent of the people in this world.”

  “By killing people?”

  “Death comes to us all, my child.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed like she was grossly oversimplifying the situation. But then, Mum had seen my dad killed, her friends possessed, destroyed. She’d raised a Death magic user, and had already seen what hellish thing I could become, back when I’d ripped Jingo Jingo to bloody shreds.

  She was, I realized, very comfortable with the workings, and reality, of death. No wonder she was nonchalant about it.

  “True,” I said.

  “Good.” She drew her fingers along my cheek one last time and looked at me as if sizing me up for a new suit. “Now help me with the pie.”

  I did that, and mostly managed to handle myself in the rest of the day’s conversations.

  The other Soul Complements had cleared out of town. So had the Overseer, though Clyde had kept him informed on everything that was happening.

  We knew who we were up against: Krogher. We didn’t know his position in the government yet, nor what his plan, his final plan was for the modified magic users he had controlled.

  They had taken Davy, one of our own. And we all agreed that would not stand.

  And Eli . . .

  Well, no one talked to me about Eli. They didn’t have to. I had my own plans for him.

  Because I had a promise to keep.

  In the meantime, I tried to smile at the appropriate moments, nodded like I was listening, and dug deep to be the Shame they all needed me to be, not the monster they refused to believe I had become.

  When Terric said he was tired, I got up, said my good-byes to my mum and Hayden, then Allie and Zay.

  Allie suddenly went domestic on us—this baby business made her weird—and insisted she had to wrap up leftovers for us to take. I left her and Terric to their girl talk in the kitchen.

  I needed silence. Rain. Darkness. I needed away from my mother, and all of my friends.

  Zay walked with me out to the car.

  The rain had let up, but everything was wet, cold. I lit a cigarette and leaned against the hood of Terric’s car.

  “How you holding up?” I asked him.

  Yes, he looked surprised.

  “Victor was a father to you, Zay. I know that,” I said softly.

  Zay nodded. There was a stiffness to his shoulders, like there was a pain he hadn’t quite figured out how to breathe around.

  Welcome to the club.

  “I’m dealing,” he said. He came over and leaned on the hood next to me.

  I offered him a cigarette.

  He took it. Now it was my turn to look surprised.

  “Everything really okay with Allie?” I asked as I flicked my thumb over my lighter for him.

  He sucked heat into the cigarette, held the smoke for a moment, exhaled with a nod. “We think so. Dr. Fisher is keeping a very close eye on her. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, not even after we broke magic.”

  “Good,” I said, meaning it. “That’s good.”

  We smoked for a while staring up at the house, the trees beyond it, listening to the river rushing by behind us.

  “Did you love her?” he finally asked.

  “I barely knew her.” It had become my stock answer. A parry Terric and Dash and most other people who had asked me that very same question would not engage with.

  Zay wasn’t most people.

  “So you loved her.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “Did she love you back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Then, since he waited me out, “Yes.”

  “You’re going to hunt him down, aren’t you, Shame?”

  I inhaled smoke, exhaled. We both knew who he was talking about: Eli.

  “Yes,” I said. “You won’t want to get in my way, Zay.”

  He shook his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it. But if I can be there to hold him down while you pull his lungs out of his chest, I will be.”

  Terric said no one knew me better than him. I thought he might be wrong about that. Zay understood. Understood pain. Understood love. Understood vengeance. Understood me.

  “Call me if you need me,” he went on. “Any day, anytime. And I’ll be at your side.” The door opened and Zay finished his cig, tossing it to the ground.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But you need to take care of Allie. Of both of them. Of your family.”

  “I take care of all my family, Shame,” he said, pushing off the car and walking away with that alpha swagger of his. “My family includes you.”

  Terric was walki
ng down the steps. Allie waited for Zay just inside the doorway, the light of their home framing her.

  “Zay,” Terric said.

  “Don’t let him forget we hate the bastard too,” Zay said.

  Terric gave me a quizzical look as Zay passed him.

  I just shrugged. “Fatherhood makes him sentimental.”

  I heard Zayvion chuckle as he walked up the steps.

  Chapter 33

  I took Terric to the office because he wanted to talk to Clyde. For a guy who had been fired, he sure spent a lot of his time at his not-job. Dash promised to take him home.

  We’d gotten a hit on that syringe Victor had been holding. Turns out there was only one pharmaceutical company that could manufacture the mix of chemicals it contained. And we had hopes that since Eli was using it, we could track the purchase to Eli, or the people keeping him.

  More importantly, that we could track it back to where Davy was being held.

  I hit a bar at noon, left before one. Ordered a beer, but only took a couple drinks off it. Eleanor sat across the table from me, still and patient, but I was restless. So I walked the streets for a while, wandering. Aimless. Then a while turned into hours, and I found myself at Victor’s place.

  I stood there, hands in my pockets, staring at his front door. Imagined him opening it and telling me to come in. Walked up, pulled the key I’d had made years ago without him knowing about it, unlocked the door, and stepped in.

  The late-afternoon light fell through windows. His home looked like his home, felt like his home. I walked through every room except the bedroom. Couldn’t bring myself to going back in there.

  Thought about stealing one of his books, or knickknacks, or something to keep as my own before whoever was in charge of his estate vultured down on the place.

  Found myself at his desk in the corner of the living room. Ran my fingers over the closed rolltop. Opened it. There were two files neatly stacked there, a fountain pen—so very Victor—and his computer.

  I was surprised the police hadn’t confiscated all this. Figured Clyde had put the kibosh on that. After all, we didn’t need an investigation. We knew who killed Victor and why. The carvings on his body had been verified as Eli’s signature by several Hounds.

  I flipped open the folder. Lost my breath at the picture. Blue eyes that knew you were watching her, looking at her. Red hair, pale skin. And that smile.

  Dessa.

  I waited until the knife stopped twisting in my heart. Blinked until the text on the page made English again.

  He’d had a file on Dessa? Why hadn’t he given it to me? I took it, looked at the file beneath it. That one was on her on her brother, Thomas. I took that too.

  Then I closed his desk. Eleanor hovered near a bookshelf.

  “Do you want something?” I asked.

  She turned to me, startled I’d spoken to her. Wow, how out of it had I been?

  “Pick one. We can bring it back tomorrow.”

  She nodded, chose a slim poetry volume. I pulled it out and pocketed it. And hell, since I was in a burglarizing mood, I picked up a small frame on his fireplace mantel. It was a picture of Zay, Terric, and me, back when we were lads, laughing, and a much younger Victor laughing right along with us.

  Rare, that.

  Mine now.

  I left, locked the door behind me. Was not about to walk all the way home, so I caught the MAX to the bar where I’d left my car, removed the parking ticket from under my windshield wiper, threw it into the gutter, then drove home.

  It was dark by the time I rolled up to the inn, but the place was open, busy. I tried to remember what day of the week it was. No luck. Went inside, ordered whatever the special of the day was, took it up to my room.

  The ferret was sleeping in the little hammock strung at the top of the cage. I’d tried to take him down to the animal shelter, but at the last minute found myself setting up his cage in my room, doing research on what to feed him, and getting Eleanor’s promise she’d help me keep an eye on him. He was staying with me for now.

  I spent some time eating and reading over the files. When I was done with that, I showered, then brought the book Eleanor had wanted to bed and turned pages for her while I smoked and thought.

  I had set the picture of Victor, Terric, Zay, and me on the table by my bed and noticed something wasn’t right about the back of it.

  “Hold on a sec,” I said to Eleanor. I placed the book facedown on the bed about where Eleanor’s legs would be if she were solid, and picked up the picture, tipping it to better see the back. There was something glued between the cardboard backing and the photo. I removed the backing. Three microthin flash drives no bigger than my thumbnail were stuck to the cardboard. Written on each was a name: Terric, Zayvion, and Shamus.

  I pried mine free and took a closer look. Victor’s handwriting. I pushed out of bed, went into the other room, and pulled my laptop out from underneath the bills I hadn’t been paying. Took that to the couch and plugged in the flash drive.

  There were two files on the drive. One labeled LIFE, the other labeled DEATH.

  I hesitated, then clicked on LIFE.

  The file was full of photos and some videos. I clicked on a slide show view, and lost an hour to pictures of me, my friends, my family, my schoolmates, a few from before my father had died, but most from after. Victor had created a virtual scrapbook of my life, of all the good times, and sure, some of the bad we’d been through together.

  When the pictures were done, I wiped my palms over my eyes to clear the tears there. I was going to miss him for the rest of my life.

  I closed out that file and clicked on the other labeled DEATH.

  I figured it would be friends and family who had passed away, or maybe a will or last message he wanted me to have.

  Instead it was filled with photos from surveillance cameras, mug shots, and files. Each photo had a file behind it containing a name, discipline of magic, last-known address and occupation, a list of crimes, and a Closer’s name. The documents were written by Victor, and other high-ranking members of the Authority, and they were all marked CLASSIFIED.

  These were people who had raped, murdered, stolen, blackmailed, and betrayed. These were people who had used magic to do those things and more.

  It was a hit list.

  And Victor had left it in my hands.

  I sat back and thought about that for a bit. What did he expect me to do with it?

  I pushed out of the chair and retrieved the flash drives marked for Terric and Zayvion. Terric’s contained one file, filled with pictures, a lot like mine, and several reviews of the art that I guess Terric had once displayed at a gallery. The second file contained some information about some of the greatest Life magic users in the history of the Authority, and an exhaustive history on Soul Complements.

  Zay’s file was filled with photos, a few that contained a man and woman that might have been his parents. He’d been fostered out pretty young, and as far as I knew, he’d never looked for his birth parents. I’d honestly assumed they were dead, and realistically, they might be.

  The other file looked like Victor’s diary from the day he joined the Authority. Read like a history book of who’s who and what was what.

  Neither of them had received a hit list. That he’d given only to me.

  Because he knew I would do something about it.

  A knock on the door made me jump.

  “Mr. Flynn?” the night clerk said. “Call for you. A Mr. Conley.”

  “I’ll be right down.” I pocketed the flash drives and turned off my laptop. Pulled on a T-shirt and boots and walked down to the office.

  I picked up the phone. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “You said you wanted to be here.” Terric sounded tight, but calm. “I’m at my house. Jeremy’s on the way.”

  “You invited him over?”

  “No. But he’s coming anyway.”

  I scrubbed my fingertips across my scalp, my new Void stone rings
warming as they dampened the magic surging through me.

  “Shame? You don’t—”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I walked out into the cold without my coat, without a weapon. But when I pulled up to Terric’s place, I dug through my glove box, then checked under the seat. Found my knife, flicked it open, then walked up to Terric’s door.

  Tried the latch. It was open. Walked in.

  Heard voices in the living room.

  Terric stood by the fireplace, his arms crossed over his chest. Jeremy paced opposite Terric, which put his back to me.

  Terric didn’t look up as I walked in. He didn’t have to. He’d know if I were within a mile of him now.

  “...it him?” Jeremy was saying. “Whatever he’s been saying, it’s a lie.”

  “This has nothing to do with Shame,” Terric said calmly. “This has everything to do with you and me, Jeremy. With how you’ve been using me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I flipped the knife up into my fingers. Terric’s eyes flicked over to me, along with a very clear “no stabbing” look.

  “Do you want to get your stuff now, or do you want me to mail it to you?” Terric asked.

  “Damn it, Terric. Why? We have something. I thought it was important to you. I thought I was important to you.”

  “You lied to me, Jeremy. You’ve always lied to me.”

  “You just want me out of the way so you can fuck that shithead Flynn.” He had stopped pacing the edge of the room and was advancing on Terric.

  Terric’s shoulders tightened and his eyes narrowed. “You and I are over. Leave.”

  “Like hell I’m leaving. You need me.”

  “No,” Terric said.

  “He told you to go,” I said. “I’d suggest you listen to him.”

  Jeremy stopped as if an icy wind had suddenly frozen him in his tracks. He turned to glare at me. “You called him?” he accused Terric. “You called this waste of breath to save you?”

  “I don’t need saving,” Terric said. Then, a little quieter, “Not from you.”

  “Fuck you, Flynn. I know you did this. What did you tell him? What lies did you tell him about me?”

  He crossed the room in five hard strides, and I waited, shaking my head. “You really should have left.”