Hell Bent

by Devon Monk

  “Bad things?”

  “You make it hard to say good things, Shame.”

  “True.”

  Silence again.

  “You know his family is involved in Blood magic,” I said.

  “Used to be involved,” he said. “Blood magic isn’t what it used to be.”

  “It’s not nothing,” I said. “With the right spell carved in blood, added to the right drug, you can still get results. People pay big money for those customized highs.”

  “You’re telling me he’s a drug dealer.”

  “I’m telling you he’s a part of the drug syndicate, Terric. The Black Crane. And the only thing he wants from you is your magic.”

  Terric didn’t say anything for a minute.

  “Where are you getting your information?” he asked far too calmly.

  “I know people.”

  “You don’t know him, Shame. He’s not like that.”

  “He jumped pretty quickly to accuse me of using you.”

  “And that makes him a part of a drug cartel?” he snapped. Then, with a lowered voice, “Shame. I don’t need two jealous men on my hands.”

  So much for him listening to me. That was fine. I hadn’t expected him to. He cared about Jeremy, I knew that. I could take care of Jeremy on my own. And really, maybe it was better Terric didn’t know about it.

  I smiled. My eyes were still closed.

  “What?” he said.

  “Jealousy is for people who know they can’t hold on to what they want.”

  “My statement stands,” he said.

  I opened my eyes, rolled my head so I could see him. “No. I can’t lose you, Terric. Not if I tried. Which is pretty much my default mode, come to think of it.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why is that, Shame? Why do you insist, still, after all these years, to close me out?”

  I sat up, put a little weight on my feet. Nothing popped, split, or bled. So I stood. Managed it well enough. Took a step toward the bathroom. And another.

  Ouch.

  “You’re not even going to talk about it?” he asked.

  I paused, put one hand out on the wall to keep my balance. “Talking doesn’t seem to be our thing.”

  “It needs to become our thing. We’re a part of each other’s lives. Whether you want to acknowledge that or not.”

  I turned so I could see him.

  “Lives?” I shook my head. “Deaths. That’s what we’re a part of, Terric. Each other’s deaths. When we’re together, one of us always gets hurt. The more we are together, the more we hurt each other.”

  He watched me for a moment. “Tell that to your healing feet.”

  “Jesus.” I pushed away from the wall and made my way to the bathroom. “You’re impossible,” I said too quietly for him to hear.

  He answered me anyway. “No. I’m right.”

  Found the bathroom. It was depressingly clean and color-coordinated. Started the shower, stripped, and stepped in the water. Saw something bright out of the corner of my eye. Eleanor, sitting on the sink.

  “Hey,” I said. “Thanks for waking me.”

  She floated up so she could peek over the top of the shower door and down at me. I didn’t care that she would see me naked. We’d been together for so long, she’d seen me do many worse things than bathe.

  She pointed at her neck about the same spot where Eli stabbed me with the needle.

  “It hurts,” I said. “Feels like someone sewed a golf ball under my skin.”

  She pointed at her chest.

  “That hurts too.”

  Shook her head, disappeared, then faded through the shower door so she was standing in the shower with me. The water rushed through her, but didn’t stir her hair, or dampen her glowing skin. She pointed at my heart, and pressed just the tip of her finger there.

  “My heart?”

  She drew the letter T, her cold touch leaving goose pimples across my wet skin.

  “Don’t,” I said, pushing her hand away, even though my hand just passed right through her. “He’s the last thing I want to talk about.”

  She stepped back and eased through the door. I scrubbed my head, face, and body. Tipped my feet so I could see how bad off the soles were. Bruised black and purple-red, lots of long cuts from heel to toe that were scabbed and not weeping, thanks to Terric. What had I done? Walked across glass?

  I washed the cuts as gently as I could, then rinsed and got out.

  Pulled a towel that was folded on the edge of the sink and rubbed my head.

  Good. God. It was the softest towel I’d ever touched. I shut out everything but that sensation—soft cotton drifting across my skin—whisking the water away.

  If it was wrong to have carnal feelings for a towel, I didn’t want to be right.

  Terric had an eye for luxury. Lived his life like it was worth doing right.

  Maybe he had something there. We were all going to die. Might as well savor whatever time we had.

  Maybe it was the towel, maybe it was thoughts about mortality, but I found myself thinking about Dessa and smiling. Terric said she’d dropped me off. So she’d been following me.

  Who knew I’d have the hots for a ferret-smuggling stalker girl with an overactive desire for revenge?

  If she’d dropped me off, then that meant she’d approached me when I was out of my mind and devouring all the life around me.

  Correction: stalker girl with an overactive desire for revenge and a hell of a lot of guts.

  She’d been with me when I was dangerously uncontrolled. I could have killed her. And yet I hadn’t. Or at least I thought she was okay.

  She also hadn’t come inside with me so we could ask her what Eli said she knew: namely where the hell he, or his Soul Complement, was being held prisoner.

  If Dessa was making it a point to keep an eye on me, she should be nearby. It seemed strange that Terric hadn’t found her yet. Maybe she had a lead on Eli and was following it.

  Great. She might be walking right into a situation that would get her killed.

  I looked around for the clothes he said might fit me. Spotted a folded gray T-shirt, a heavy brown sweater, and faded blue jeans. A belt was set out next to the jeans. Not exactly my colors, which were, by the way, black, but better than being naked.

  I shook out the pants, put them on. A little long, but not by much, too loose at the waist. Belt took care of that. I shouldered into the T-shirt, fit me fine, then the sweater.

  Everything smelled like Terric. The colors looked like Terric.

  I toweled off the mirror. Got a good look at myself while brushing back my hair.

  Dark green eyes a little bloodshot. Needed a shave. The bones of my cheeks and jaw were squared and prominent. However, even in the bulky chocolate brown sweater, I looked like I could kick ass and take names.

  Not my colors. But not bad.

  I looked around for socks. Nothing. Then I pissed and left the bathroom.

  Terric was on the phone. Pacing. Couldn’t tell who he was talking to.

  I started looking for my shoes. Remembered I’d come over barefoot. Crap.

  Terric stopped pacing. Glanced over at me. One look at me and he paused a second in his good-bye, which made me grin.

  Damn straight I was worth looking at.

  He pocketed his phone. “I know it’s only brown, but damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in a color, Shame. You should wear colors more often.”

  “I do wear colors: black, coal, ebony.”

  He smiled. “Sit. I want to look at your feet.”

  “This foot obsession you’ve got going?” I said. “Unhealthy.”

  I sat in the nearest chair and propped both my feet up on the coffee table. Realized something that had been nagging me. “Your place smells like cigarette smoke.”

  “Does it?”

  I took a deep breath. “A bit.”

  “Hm.”

  “Why? Did you take up smoking?”

  “No. Jeremy smoke
s.” He sat on the couch, bent a bit so he could see the bottom of my feet. It really was sort of weird having someone stare with such interest at my heels and arches. “I’ve told him not to, but.” He shrugged, then put his hand on my ankle, firmly.

  “That’s—” I started.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  So I didn’t. But if I had finished the thought it would have run along the line that Terric hated when his things smelled like smoke. And after that it would have gone down the path that his house didn’t look like he lived here anymore.

  The things that always made it feel distinctly his, things like his photography, his collection of hardbound books, and the wall that used to display the pictures of all of his many—and I do mean many—brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins, were gone. Wiped away. Replaced with the abstract art. Changed.

  Jeremy had made Terric change for him. Or maybe Terric had done it willingly.

  I was no expert on relationships. Still, this total takeover didn’t seem . . . healthy.

  I had plenty of energy to pull my feet away from Terric’s grasp this time. But I didn’t. The magic that Terric called upon was like sliding my feet into warm, soothing oil. And since I was in possession of most of my gray matter this morning, I paid very close attention to what he was doing and how he was doing it.

  Mankind had wanted to use magic for healing for years on end. And while magic can help speed up the healing process, or support the body while it naturally heals, or ease the pain brought on by magical damage, I’d never seen anyone straight-out heal with magic.

  Doctors used magic, yes. To assist and support surgeries and other medical procedures.

  But that’s not what Terric was doing.

  Terric had his eyes closed and was whispering slightly. Not a spell, more like a mantra. Sounded like Latin and maybe a little French. I didn’t know either well enough to take a guess at what he was using to keep his concentration sharp, but I knew that’s what he was doing.

  Also? My feet were glowing. Not the bright green-edged white that Terric usually called upon. This was the soft yellow of candlelight.

  “No word on Dessa?” I said.

  Terric didn’t answer. Kept his concentration on the healing.

  “That’s strange, right? She’s following me. Which means she should be close by.”

  Terric just kept whispering those words, guiding magic to knit my cuts and ease my bruises.

  I was starting to feel good. Much better than I should feel after a night like last night.

  Was this hurting Terric? One way to find out.

  “Ter,” I said, “open your eyes.”

  He did. Still whispering. That was a blank, empty look. Not feverish, not like he was thinking over some kind of complex calculations. Just inhuman, alien. Life magic was staring back at me, hungry and hollow.

  There wasn’t a scrap of Terric in those eyes.

  I pulled both feet out of his grasp, stood, walked halfway across the room. “Stop it,” I said.

  He didn’t seem to hear me, just frowned and stood, then came marching toward me. That glow in his eyes turned into a hard, hungry glint.

  I knew the face of the monster in his bones. It was the twin to mine.

  His fingers curled into claws as he spread one hand toward the floor, and the other toward my heart.

  The bushes outside the house suddenly leaped against the windows, lashing and twisting and growing so fast they completely blocked the morning light.

  Heat shot up my legs from my feet. My skin pricked like electricity was riding my nerves. And I felt my body change. Change into something the magic in Terric wanted it to be.

  Oh, hell no.

  “Terric, if you don’t snap out of this I will shove Death magic down your throat.”

  I figured he could hear me, but I didn’t know how much power Life magic had over him.

  “No? Fine.” I pulled on Death magic and let it whip toward the Life magic he was bleeding out.

  The connection was electric. Literally. Dark and light magic clashed and exploded, the force of impact canceling both magics. The backwash rushed over me in a wave that should be agony, but was pure pleasure.

  Soul Complements and magic. Heady stuff. If we continued using magic together like this, soon we’d be taking up residence in each other’s brains. Then it was a real possibility we’d slide on over to insanity together—use magic to shape the world, shape the people around us, in any way we desired.

  I’d fought Soul Complements who had used magic in that way—monsters who had brought the apocalypse to my city and nearly destroyed it. I’d kill us both before letting us become that.

  I slipped off two of my Void stone rings and stepped up to him. I grabbed his hand—which finally got his full attention—and dropped the rings into his palm, closing his fingers over the rings.

  “You got this,” I said. “You can control it. Just take it down a tick, mate.”

  I stepped back, not wanting to risk our connection becoming any stronger for fear I’d be lost in it. He locked his hand around mine and didn’t let go. “Just. Stay,” he panted. “Give me a minute.”

  I stayed and gave him a minute.

  He whispered something over and over. Maybe a spell, maybe a litany to focus his will.

  At about the thirty-second mark, the rings in his palm that were scraping against the rings on my knuckles went hot. Then very cold.

  The vegetation outside stopped writhing.

  He dropped my hand. Ran fingers over his face, then hair. Finally held out the rings to me.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  He nodded, still not looking at me. “I’ll get my necklace.” His voice was a little rough.

  Terric left the room. I slid my rings back into place like a man counting prayer beads.

  “And some shoes for me!” I called out after him. “Or at least socks.”

  It took a few minutes, but I figured he needed them.

  So did I. I hadn’t gotten out of that unscathed. He had done something—no, the clash of our magics had done something—so that I could feel him. Usually I sensed his heartbeat. Now I could feel how he was breathing, and weirdly, I got an echo of what he was feeling—anger, sorrow, hunger.

  Soul Complements.

  I didn’t like it.

  When he came back, he was wearing the Void stone necklace over his T-shirt, his expression calm, his eyes just his eyes again. He was also holding up a pair of socks and the ugliest footwear I’d ever seen.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked.

  “UGGs.”

  “No.”

  “They’re comfortable.”

  “No.”

  “They’re all I have in the house that will fit you.” He jiggled them a little, like I was some sort of cat who could be tempted by string.

  “No.”

  “Shame, you can’t walk around barefoot all day.”

  “If my only alternative are those boots, I can. Why do you even have those ugly things? Aren’t your people supposed to be fashion forward?”

  “My people?” he asked with a dangerous arc of his eyebrow.

  “Graphic designers,” I said.

  “You wear the boots, or you walk to the car barefoot.”

  “Do you have real shoes in the car?”

  “No. But if you stow the attitude and the mouth, I’ll take you to a store and you can buy a pair.”

  “Take me to my place and I won’t have to buy anything.”

  “That was Victor on the phone. He wants to talk to us. Immediately.”

  “Did he say what it was about?”

  “No.” He jiggled the boots again.

  I strode over to him and grabbed them out of his hands. “If you give me one single word of shit about this . . .”

  “Silent as a saint,” he said.

  I shoved my feet into the boots, which were, damn it all, comfortable.

  “Not. One. Word.” I stomped
off to the door, ignoring Terric’s grin.

  Chapter 17

  Not a shoe store. Terric parked at a local Fred Meyer, a one-stop-shopping department store between his place and Victor’s. I shuffled in, past the pumpkins in huge boxes outside the door, past the produce section with a colorful display of fruits and gourds. There was also a scarecrow, which might explain why Eleanor was suddenly drifting so sullenly beside me.

  She didn’t like Halloween, which, when you thought about it, was ironic. A ghost who didn’t like the celebration of dead things. I figured it was because on that first Halloween, she and I had both held some hope that she might cross into death because they say the veil between the living world and death is the thinnest then.

  I’d even taken her out to the graveyard with the Death magic well beneath it.

  Other than me getting rained on, and her getting depressed, nothing had happened. Ever since, she’d been sad on Halloween.

  I took the most direct route to the shoe section, kicked off the UGGs, and bought the first decent pair of work boots I could find. Nothing fancy, but if someone needed a tree cut down, I could probably handle it. I snapped the tags, shoved the UGG boots into the box, then started toward the checkout on the other end of the store.

  Eleanor had drifted maximum distance from me. She was studying an end shelf filled with Halloween trinkets and decorations.

  I took a couple steps, expecting her to follow. She stood there, bent just a bit, her long, ghostly hair covering her face as she stared at something in the shelf.

  I walked around behind her, looked over her shoulder.

  Jack-o’-lanterns, witches, ghosts with smiling faces, and a Frankenstein stein cluttered the shelf. But behind all the cheerful candy-colored decorations was a single statue. Made out of metal that had been treated to a green patina, it was the figure of a cloaked and cowled man, head tipped down, face hidden in the shadows. He held a scythe by the handle, the curved blade at his feet, as if he were too weary to lift it again. And spread wide across his back were angel wings.

  The angel of death, grieving.

  “You like it?” I asked her, not caring about the woman who looked up at me and hurried away.

  Eleanor just shrugged one shoulder. But she did not look away from it.