And still no guard.
Zay placed his hand on my shoulder. The heat of it was shocking, and I jerked away.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll go first.” He drew his sword, and then he was past me, stalking down the hall and down the stairs, like a panther in the night.
“Go,” Shame said from behind me. “I’m going to close this thing.”
I went, not wanting to be too far behind Zay. Down the stairs. Lights set in the walls were not electric, but rather clever spells set to trigger as a magic user passed by. They poured a strange pinkish glow over the sandstone, then basalt stairs. Down a flight. Down two. Down three. We were beneath the building, beneath the stone. We entered a large chamber.
I had expected something medieval with all this stone around us and magical lights. Instead, we entered into a state-of-the-art magical holding facility.
Not that I’d ever seen a state-of-the-art magical holding facility. But if I were to design one, this was what it would look like.
The room was three times as large as the upper floor, and square instead of round. There were four hallways of doors that reached out like spokes from the center. The halls and the room were well lit by electric lights along the ceiling and walls. The air was cool and smelled of damp stones and industrial soap. The floor was concrete, and I suspected the walls were too, though they were covered in a thin layer of what looked to be a soft yellow ceramic, with spells pushed and pulled through it in subtle streaks of gray and black.
Calming spells, holding spells, trigger spells. It made me relax even though I didn’t want to. It made me want to rest. No, it made me want to lie down and sleep away a century.
“Block,” Zay said quietly.
I realized he meant I should Block the spells, which weren’t just worked into the walls but were actually emanating from the walls, casting their magic, their Influence, into the air we were breathing.
I calmed my mind, set a Disbursement—for how small a spell I was casting, I wouldn’t have to pay more than a case of the hiccups—and cast a very simple Block.
Sweet hells, that did a world of good to clear my head.
Shame was already down one door-lined hallway and paused in front of the door at the very end.
Zay touched my shoulder again as he walked by me. His hand wasn’t quite as hot.
I followed. The hall was wide enough for three people to walk side by side. The doors were solid, made of the same ceramic as the walls, but with different black and gray spells worked into them.
The scents of conflicting spells, so strong, and so near together, stung my nose like black pepper and ammonia. My eyes watered. I pressed my left hand over my nose to keep from sneezing.
“Greyson?” Zay asked once we reached Shame.
Shame nodded. “Might want to get Allie’s da in on this one.”
Zay looked over his shoulder at me. “You up for it?”
“How much time do we have left?”
He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes.”
I turned to Dad in my mind. Open the door.
He stepped forward and once again accessed magic like it was as easy as walking through daisies. Locks on the door tumbled and clicked into place. Dad fell away again into that quiet space in my mind.
He hadn’t even bothered to argue with me this time. That wasn’t like him.
Shame stood to one side of the door, letting Zay stand in front of it. Then Shame opened it.
Zay didn’t cast the spell he held in his fist. He strode into the room.
Shame was right behind him, and I followed but paused at the doorway.
The room was large enough for a bed, a chair, and a toilet and sink. No windows, the walls were the same ceramic, but bone white, with barely darker glyphs shining through the glaze.
The room stank of Greyson, the burnt blackberry smell of the disk implanted in his throat choking the small space.
Except Greyson was not there.
The room was empty.
“Well, shit,” Shame said.
“Did he break out?” I asked.
Zay shook his head. “Everything is intact.” He stepped past me and down the hall to the main room. “He’s here. He has to be here.”
Shame walked out and shut the door. I felt the spells lock back into place. Zay strode down the opposite hallway, dragging his finger along the wall of doors, his katana unsheathed in his right hand. About halfway down the hall he stopped, put his hand on a door, and pulled it open.
Zay lifted his hand to throw the spell.
“That is not wise, Guardian. She will die.”
The voice belonged to Greyson, but the stilted rhythm to the words was not his.
“Step back.”
Zayvion took a step back. Two, three, until he was in the center of the room.
Greyson walked out into the hallway. Not half man and half beast, this was Greyson as he must have been before someone had stuck a disk in his throat and tried to make him a creature of dark magic. Dark hair, pale skin, handsome, and hard eyed. I’d seen him that way only twice before, when he was using Tomi as his hands to mess with Blood, Death, and dark magic, and when he and Chase were working that same combination of magic on the battlefield.
Greyson held his lover and Soul Complement, Chase, by the throat, his fingers dug deep into her flesh. He dragged her out of the room as she half crawled, one hand over his trying to break his hold. In his other hand, he held a gun. I was off to one side but could see the unmoving form of a man, probably the guard, lying in a pool of blood inside the room behind him. The shifting air brought me the smell of spent gunpowder and death.
I lifted my hands.
Greyson dropped Chase and threw a spell.
Holy shit.
I Blocked. Too slow.
I couldn’t move. All the air in the room had coagulated, holding me frozen in place.
I couldn’t see Shame, who was still behind me, I thought, but just as frozen as Zay and I. Zay was in my line of sight. He wasn’t moving, his left hand halfway through an Impact spell, his right in midlunge with the katana.
“This body, mine,” Greyson said. “This life, mine. This world, mine.”
“You, Guardian.” He stopped in front of Zayvion. “Have lost. All. Body, life, world.”
He raised the gun, pointed it at Zay’s head.
“Stop,” I screamed, throwing every ounce of Influence I could behind it.
Greyson paused, the gun still pointed at Zay’s head.
“No Soul Complement will be as powerful as I. You are not. That creature”—he pointed toward Chase, who gasped on the floor—“is not. Only my beloved and I. Only we will break magic to our desire. Only we will rule. Forever.”
He pulled the gun away from Zayvion’s head and unloaded three shots into Chase’s chest.
Chase screamed, spasming, her eyes wide as blood poured out from beneath her. She was breathing. I didn’t know how, but she was.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t even get enough air to speak. The bullets had magic worked into them; I could smell the bitter burn of the spell tearing Chase apart from the inside out.
No, no, no! Dad, help me.
Break the binding. I cannot fight him bound to your will.
Zayvion whispered something, a spell, I thought, and Greyson raised his gun toward Zay again.
Like hell you can’t. I grabbed my dad by his cottony scruff and dragged him out of that cocoon in my mind, hauling him to the front of my mind with me. I might have ripped the binding Victor and Shame had cast on him, but I didn’t care.
Make. Him. Stop.
“Leander,” we said. I could taste Dad’s fear mixed with my panic. He didn’t want to fight him, didn’t think he could survive a fight with him. Too damn bad.
The gun shifted, pointed at me. Fuck.
“The magician of light and darkness,” he said. “Why you choose this fight, I do not understand. But this is done for you now.”
Dad pulled on magic so
fast and so hard, it felt like someone had just hit me in the face with a board. My ears were ringing, and blood poured from my nose.
Cast, Allison. Now!
I lifted my hands. Not to wipe my face. To work magic. A lot of magic. All the magic Dad had grabbed.
Light and dark. Dad guided my hands, supporting my movements when I faltered. Smooth, strong, we worked together as if we cast light and dark magic every day.
Greyson’s eyes went wide. He was not moving, the barrel of the gun still steady at my head.
The disk in his neck glowed a scorching yellow-green. Dark magic burned through it like a hot poker, leaving behind bleeding trails of glyphs. Darkness swallowed up the yellow-green until the disk burned with cold, endless blackness. Empty. Empty of magic. Empty of the magic that kept Greyson caught between life and death, and kept Leander in Greyson’s body.
Greyson raised his left hand, and I could see the effort it cost him.
Dad said one more word, and the air was just air again. I could move.
So could Zayvion. I heard Shame, behind me, swear and push up onto his feet. I hadn’t heard him fall.
The magic was still pouring out from my hand, dark magic eating away at Greyson’s life.
“Stop!” Zay yelled. He ran forward and, to my surprise, caught Greyson before he fell. He laid him next to Chase.
I could not stop. Dad would not let me. His hand, his will, pressed hard against my mind, forcing the magic through me, forcing my hand to cast, my lips to whisper. The black from the disk spread down Greyson’s neck, pumping his veins full and fat beneath his pale skin, and stretching out like slow lightning toward his heart.
“You’re killing him. You’re killing Greyson,” Zay said. “She needs him. Chase needs him to live.”
Chase was still breathing, shallow, but breathing. I didn’t know how she’d held on with the bullets and magic tearing her apart. I knew she wouldn’t last long, even with Greyson’s life to draw from.
Still, I shoved at my father, tried to break his concentration, tried to force him to stop. The binding between us wasn’t as strong as it should be.
All I met was his ruthless wall of fury.
He knew he was killing Greyson, killing the man who had murdered him. It was exactly what he wanted to do. I thought I saw a shadow pull free from Greyson. Leander?
Zay swore and straightened. He stepped up in front of me, his katana weighted in one hand, ready to strike, a spell cupped in his left hand.
“Let him go. Now.”
Dad didn’t listen. I couldn’t make him listen.
Zay raised the sword, and for a moment, half a breath, I stared into my lover’s eyes and saw my death there.
Chapter Twelve
Zay traced a variation of Bind, carving the air in front of me with his sword, so near, I felt the breeze from his blade brush over my face. His spell caught my hands like a slippery rope and forced my wrists together.
Zay said a word. My right hand went hot, my left cold, and then both went numb.
The spell Dad had been feeding, the dark magic he’d used to destroy the disk in Greyson’s neck, ended.
Dad fell back into my mind like a dead man kicked off a cliff.
I was alone in my head. And I had a headache that made me moan. I tried raising my hands to cradle my head, but my arms were numb too. “Zay?” I said, barely a whisper, but loud, too loud. We hadn’t set a Disbursement. Or at least I hadn’t. Maybe Dad had. Maybe I was paying the price for killing Greyson.
And Leander, if Leander could be killed.
The price for killing someone with magic was death. Or at least that’s what I was taught in college. But now I wondered if that were true.
“Move.” Zay shoved me to one side. I stumbled from the force of his push but managed to catch myself before I fell. I turned so I could see what new threat we were facing.
Not a new threat. Shame stood, his back against the wall of one of the cells, pinned there, back arched in pain, eyes closed tight, hands splayed as if trying to give the pain an escape from his body.
The crystal in his chest burned white-hot. The shadow of Leander pressed its way into Shame’s body, like a man shrugging into skin much too tight for him. It must have been the crystal that allowed Leander access to Shame. Maybe Shame almost dying on the battlefield and the mix of Blood and Death spells Terric had used to keep him alive made Shame an acceptable vessel for Leander.
Holy shit.
I didn’t know how Shame kept from screaming. I didn’t know why Shame wasn’t fighting him, keeping him from possessing him.
But Leander made even my dad quiver in fear. Leander was strong. Ruthless.
And it was clear Shame could not fight him off.
Shame didn’t even open his eyes. His face relaxed, and a smile that was not Shame, that was nothing at all like Shame, curved his lips.
Zay cast Hold.
Leander-Shame whispered a word, and Zay’s spell broke.
Zay cast again: Impact. Leander-Shame Blocked it, caught it in his hand, opened his eyes, and crushed the spell in his fist. . . .
“You will die.” He raised one hand at Zayvion. Zayvion cast Block, but the spell—whatever it was Leander cast—hit him so hard, he went down to one knee.
And then I knew what the spell was. Knew it because I could feel it. He was using Death magic to drink down Zayvion’s life.
I took a step forward. I didn’t know what I could do with my hands numb at my sides, but I had to do something.
A wall of magic, so solid it looked like an ocean wave, rolled through the room and slammed into Leander-Shame.
Zayvion had not cast that spell. I had not cast that spell.
Leander-Shame looked up at the stairs. So did I.
Terric strode down the stairs, magic in both hands, calm, cool, spells already falling again against Leander-Shame, breaking the Drain he had put on Zay. Hayden descended the stairs right behind Terric, shotgun over one shoulder, sword in hand.
Hayden said something, and the ropes around my wrists let up. Blood stabbed like cactus spines into my hands and fingers as my nerves came alive.
I couldn’t cast, but in a minute I might be able to.
Zay was on his feet again but didn’t use magic against Shame.
Not everyone can use magic together. I didn’t know if he and Terric could cast spells at the same target and not have those spells explode. Or kill the target.
And Terric was not backing down.
Terric strode across the floor, his hair pulled back in a band, lending a blade’s edge to his cheek and jaw, the silver flash of magic glinting in his eyes as he threw spell after spell. He burned white-hot with power.
“Leave him,” he said.
Leander-Shame was pinned against the wall by the spells Terric had thrown at him. Still, he smiled.
“Do you not remember me, Closer?” Leander said through Shame. “Do you not remember how easy it is for me to break you. Kill you?”
He said a word—negated by Zayvion’s chanting and ended by Hayden’s glyph that skittered up the wall behind him.
Terric strode up so close to Shame, I didn’t know how they couldn’t be touching.
“Get the fuck out of his head.” He traced a glyph.
“No!” Zay said.
Too late. I recognized that spell. It was Closing. I’d seen Zay use it on gates. I’d never seen it used on a person. Zay could not stop Terric in time. None of us could.
Terric’s left hand carved magic into the air. With his right hand, he caught at something, something deep inside of Shame, and dragged it out of him, his fist pulling back as if he’d just grabbed hold of a rope inside Shame’s head.
Shame yelled.
Terric did not flinch, though I knew he had to be sharing Shame’s pain. He manipulated magic with his left hand, as if he were turning dials and gears, while his right hand pulled.
He was Closing Shame’s mind. Making him forget who he was. Making him forget his li
fe. Making him forget how to use magic.
Greyson moaned, and Hayden glanced over at him. “Goddamn, he’s alive.” He paced over to where they lay, both surrounded by Chase’s blood. He knelt, his hand on Chase.
“Terric,” I said. “You’re killing him.”
Shame slid down the wall, his mouth open in a scream he didn’t have the air to shout. But it was Leander who looked out through Shame’s eyes. And he was furious.
Terric did not blink. Did not waver. He was cold, ruthless. A man trained not to care that it was his Soul Complement he was Closing. Ending. Killing.
Shame seized, arms and legs jerking, head knocking against the wall.
There was no way out, not a flicker of mercy in Terric’s eyes.
Leander must have realized he was about to be trapped in a body that would have no capacity to use magic, a body that would most likely be thrown into one of the empty cells and put under heavy guard.
Just before Shame’s mind slammed closed, the shadow of Leander stepped out of him and pushed through Terric. Terric yelled, and Leander exited him, then passed through the wall on the other side of the room.
Hayden swore and drew his sword. He ran down the hall after Leander.
Shame crumbled to the floor. He blinked up at Terric, his fingers raised toward him, though he could not move his arm.
Terric had gone a deathly shade of white. Sweat covered his face, and he was breathing hard through his teeth. He opened the fingers of his right hand and tipped it down, as if pouring Shame back into himself. Then he retraced the spells with his left hand, in backward order, opening Shame’s mind, untying the magic he’d been using, unknotting, unbinding.
Shame’s eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out.
Terric fell to his knees. Zay caught him as he went unconscious and laid him down as gently as he could. Zay didn’t wait to see if he and Shame were okay. He was up and running, hot on Hayden’s heels, chasing Leander.
I just stood there, not sure if I should follow Zay or help Shame and Terric.
First, Shame. I knelt, pressed my hand on his neck. He was breathing. Out cold.
Next, Terric. The same. I didn’t know how to ease the effect of what they’d done, didn’t know how one soothed a Soul Complement trying to Close the other.