Magic Without Mercy

by Devon Monk

  “Fix this,” I said out loud, even though I was talking to my dad. “Unlock him.”

  I can’t unlock him, Dad said, which means I can’t unlock the magic in him.

  “No. You put the magic in him. Undo the spell.”

  “I can’t,” Dad said through my mouth.

  Okay, I wasn’t getting anywhere with this. I took a couple calming breaths and tried to look at this problem through reasonable eyes.

  Stone was a statue. All the glyphs that I’d seen on him before were gone, faded. He really did just look like a piece of garden decor.

  “Allie,” Maeve said softly. She cleared her throat. “Allie, dear. Tell us what your father is saying.”

  “Stone’s locked,” I said. “All the magic in him is locked too. Dad doesn’t know how to open him up. He said Cody made it so he would lock up and do this. Turn into a statue.”

  Stone looked sad. He looked afraid. He looked like when I’d first met him, chained down by magic that would not let him touch the sky.

  I hated this, hated that he was trapped. Yes, also trapped in him was all the magic we’d just gone to so much trouble to secure. But he was my buddy. My gargoyle. My Stone. I didn’t want to lose him. Not like this.

  “Cody made him. Cody put this lock on him. We can’t get to the magic, to see if it can be used for a cure, until we find a way to unlock Stone.”

  “At least we know what the problem is,” Terric said. “That’s something.”

  “Not damn much,” Hayden said.

  The door to the room burst in. And six hands raised six different spells that could cause six different versions of pain.

  Bea and Jack, two of my Hounds whom I had told to stay away, stay safe, stay out of this, strode into the room.

  “Hi, Allie,” Bea said with her customary perky smile. “The police will be here in less than ten minutes. Don’t know what you all are doing, but it’s time to run.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “How many?” I asked.

  Bea shrugged. “I think they emptied out the entire department.”

  Shame pushed off the wall he was leaning on. “I say we get the hell out of here.”

  “We can’t,” I said.

  “Can’t?” Shame raised one eyebrow. “I don’t see why not.”

  “We have two unconscious men we need to look after and a two-ton gargoyle who’s frozen solid and happens to be our only chance to cleanse magic.”

  “The van’s here,” Terric said. “We could probably get Davy and Collins loaded in it. Maybe Stone too.”

  “In ten minutes?” I said.

  “Nine now,” Jack noted, his restless gaze taking in all the technology and implements lining the room. His gaze rested the longest at the restraints on the bed, and his mouth pressed a hard line.

  Hounds weren’t dumb—he knew what kinds of things happened here, even if he didn’t know exactly how those things happened.

  “Are you sure they’re coming here?” Victor asked.

  Bea nodded. “We have our ear to the ground on this. Hounds don’t get these kinds of things wrong.” Then to me, “Allie, you really need to run now.”

  “Where are we even going to run to?” Hayden asked. “Split up? Try to regroup?”

  “Hell,” Shame said. “Maybe we don’t run at all. We can take them. Take them here. Look at all this.” He waved his hand toward the equipment that filled the room. Most of it looked like it could do a lot of harm.

  “No,” I said. “We will not get in a standoff or shoot-out with the police. They’re just doing their job. They don’t know what’s really going on with magic, and they don’t deserve to die for it.”

  “Some of them work for the Authority,” Victor noted.

  “I don’t care. We protect the innocent.”

  He nodded, his approval clear. “So we run.”

  “Where?” Hayden said again.

  I didn’t know. Didn’t know if splitting up was a better option or if staying together would be safer. “Anywhere away from here, for the moment, will do. Hayden, Maeve, get Collins, see if you can wake him. If not—”

  “I’ll carry him,” Hayden said. He and Maeve hurried out of the room.

  “I’ll get Davy,” I said. “Terric, can you help me with him?”

  “What about Stone?” Shame asked.

  “He’ll have to stay here,” I said reluctantly.

  No, Dad said. He’s the only chance to cure magic. He has the samples.

  “We can’t carry him,” I said. “And he can’t move.”

  “And we’re running out of time,” Bea said again.

  “Gate,” Zayvion said.

  I stopped halfway across the room. I hadn’t thought of that. “Can you do it?”

  Zayvion turned to me. His eyes burned with molten gold and there was no warmth in his smile. He was burning hard, hot. Asking him to throw such a massive spell after all that he’d been doing, with no recovery time, might just push him too far into a killing insanity.

  “Easy as breathing,” he said with an unconvincing smile.

  That was a lie. The possibilities of what opening this Gate might do to him—physically, mentally, magically—washed over me with sticky, cold fear. His fear, my fear. Same thing.

  “Maybe Terric or Victor?”

  “They can’t hit this jump,” Zay said.

  “Maybe—”

  He walked over to me and gripped my upper arm. “Go get Davy.” Fear pushed through that contact. So did anger and determination. We had to get out of here, all of us, now, alive.

  “Can’t do anything until you let go of me, Zay,” I said evenly.

  He let go of my arm and began drawing a Disbursement.

  “Terric?” I said.

  “I’ll stay here,” he said.

  I ran out the door, with Shame, Bea, and Jack jogging to keep up.

  “Anything else we can help with the… Gate thing?” Bea asked.

  “No. You two need to disappear. I don’t want to see you, hear you, or so much as catch a scent of you. The police have a lot of powerful magic users behind them right now who want a bunch of us dead. I don’t want you hurt.”

  “We could help—,” Bea started.

  “No,” I said again. “I’ll call you when we land.”

  “If we land,” Shame added as we hit the main room. Maeve and Hayden already had Collins, who was semiconscious, off the couch and on his feet.

  “We could leave him,” Hayden noted.

  “No. He comes with us. Take him to the room. Zay’s going to open a Gate.”

  “You let him talk you into that?” Hayden asked.

  “No choice. We’ll deal.”

  They started off and we hurried down to Davy’s room. Bea and Jack were still behind me. I understood why they hadn’t left yet. Davy was one of them, one of us, a Hound. Last they’d seen him, he was on death’s door.

  But they were about to find out that he’d walked right over death’s threshold.

  “Davy?” I said as I strode to the bed.

  Davy opened his eyes, and thankfully, he was solid. “Hey, boss,” he whispered.

  “We have to move. Cops are closing in. Think you can walk?”

  He swallowed, nodded. “I think. So.”

  “C’mon, now, mate,” Shame said. “You could dance if a pretty girl asked you. Someone like Sunny, maybe. Am I right?”

  That got half a smile out of him. “Sure.”

  Shame and I helped him to his feet. Davy was breathing hard. I wrapped his arm over my shoulder, and Shame did the same.

  We took a step, and Davy lost hold on his physical self, fading to watercolor magic, his feet slipping into the floor.

  “Jesus,” Jack whispered.

  Bea gasped. “What did he do to him? What did Collins do to him?”

  “No time,” I said, giving her a hard look. “Get the hell out of here.” Then to Davy, “Keep your mind on your feet. We can move faster if you’re solid.”

  Bea tugged
on Jack’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

  “This isn’t right, Beckstrom,” Jack said.

  “I know,” I said. “Working on it.”

  Jack and Bea jogged down the hall, and were out the front door by the time Shame and I had half carried, half dragged Davy through the front room toward the back of the warehouse.

  “You’re doing fine,” I said as Davy concentrated on his feet, lifting them and putting them down a little gingerly as if unsure that the floor would be there for each step.

  “Freaks,” Davy breathed. “Me. Out.”

  “Collins did this to keep you alive,” I said. “We’re working on a way to reverse it. You’re going to be back to your old self soon.”

  Shame spoke up. “You’re just a temporary sort of ghost. Although I, for one, could see the advantages of being able to slip through walls.” Shame sounded calm, happy even. Our doom was closing in around us and Shame didn’t seem a bit flustered.

  Then, I’d always wondered if Shame didn’t have a little too much of a death wish.

  We made it to the walkway overlooking the warehouse. The sound of sirens I’d been ignoring was growing louder. The police were almost here. Maybe some were already here, outside, with guns drawn.

  I hoped Jack and Bea had made it out safely.

  The entire warehouse shook like a bomb had just gone off.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “That,” Shame said, “is our gate. Davy, if you can walk any faster, now’s the time to do it.”

  Amazingly, Davy picked up the pace.

  I pushed the door open.

  The room stank of magic and the hot salt and sulfur of the Gate spell.

  Zay had opened the thing right in the middle of the room where Stone was frozen.

  Correction. He opened the Gate around Stone so that Stone was already inside it. If Zay could push the Gate, he’d be able to close it behind Stone. I didn’t know a lot about Gates, but I thought that might make it so Stone ended up not so much going through to the other side, but having the other side pull him there.

  Zayvion stood several paces in front of the gate, his arms out to both sides, feet spread, as if by will alone he physically held the gate open.

  Hayden walked through the gate with Collins. There was no one else in the room, which I hoped meant everyone else had gone through.

  “What is. That?” Davy asked.

  “Our way out,” I said. “Shame—you got him?”

  “No.” Shame helped me get Davy to the edge of the gate. “You take him. I’ll knock out Z and drag him through behind me.”

  “We all go,” I said.

  “Look at him. Allie,” Shame said, urgently, “look at him.”

  I looked at Zayvion.

  He burned with gold light. Black fingers of smoke curled around him, feeding magic into the Gate. His eyes were pure gold, no white, no pupils. He looked like a pillar of magic, a grounding wire, a storm rod.

  “You touch him, and you’re going to get swept up in that. I’m just going to hit him over the back of the head,” Shame said. “Go!”

  He let go of Davy, who slumped against me.

  “Don’t hit him,” I said as I took the three steps needed to get to the gate. “And do not make me turn around and come back here after you two.”

  God. I sounded like a den mother.

  “Hang on, Davy,” I said. “This might be a little rough.”

  I stepped into the gate.

  Magic hit me like a truck. I screamed and fell as if I’d just stepped off a cliff. Magic poured through me, burning, slicing, taking me apart and fusing me back together with lashes of pain. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t see. And then I couldn’t even scream.

  I hit. Hard. Shoulder, hip. Something landed on top of me. Someone. Davy. Damp grass beneath me, darkness around. Then hands helping me up.

  “You’ll need to back away a bit,” Hayden said as he pulled me away from the Gate to where everyone else was gathered.

  “Davy?” I couldn’t think. I was supposed to do something. Help someone. Where the hell was I?

  “We have him,” Hayden said. “Terric and Maeve are walking with him right behind you. But you”—he pressed down on my shoulder—“need to sit before you pass out.”

  Hayden stopped walking and I sat, unable to put more than two words together in my brain before they slipped away like a poorly tied knot. Collins sat on the grass next to me, mumbling. Talking, talking. To himself, I thought. Maybe to voices in his head. I didn’t think he was entirely sane.

  But then, I didn’t think I was exactly up to par right now either.

  Terric and Maeve helped Davy walk toward me. He looked a little better. Certainly looked more solid. I think the Gate hadn’t been as bad for him as it was for me.

  They eased him down to sit next to Collins, and Davy bent his knees, folded his arms across them, and then rested his head against his arms. He was breathing heavily. But he was still solid. That was good. I thought it was good.

  I didn’t know what everyone was standing around looking worried about.

  Then it hit me. The Gate. Shame and Zayvion were supposed to be walking through that right about now.

  I stared at the opening in space that hovered there in the… Where the hell were we?

  A park. No, not just a park. A very familiar park.

  “You’re kidding me,” I whispered. I glanced over my shoulder. Yep. There was the St. Johns Bridge, stretching down the hill we sat upon, and pushing out across the river.

  Why here? I didn’t know if this was where Zay had intended to take us, but if it was, I didn’t know why.

  Where was he?

  “Zay?” I said, though I don’t think anyone was in earshot to hear me.

  I stared at the gate. It wavered there, flickering. Two shadows filled the hole in the air, filled the gate, and then the entire thing imploded. The shadows were thrown to the ground, and gray ashes rained down from where the gate used to be.

  I knew who those shadows were—Shame and Zayvion.

  I pushed myself up onto my feet and ran for them.

  Terric was on his feet, running right beside me, reaching for Shame, fear hard in his eyes, on his lips, as I reached for Zayvion, my heart pounding too fast, fear caught in my breath, slick and hard in my chest.

  We pulled them from each other, Shame having fallen beneath Zayvion.

  “Zay?” I touched his face, his neck. Breathing, heartbeat, he was alive, covered in ash, knocked out. Relief flooded me, and was swallowed down by fear.

  Terric swore. “You fucking kill me, Flynn. That’s the way you go through a gate? What were you trying to do? Burn all the clothes off your back?”

  He paused. “Breathe, you idiot.” Terric placed his right hand over the crystal that lay within Shame’s breast. Then, softer, “Breathe.” He exhaled, and it was almost like he dimmed just the smallest amount, that light filtering into Shame.

  Shame coughed, groaned, and elbowed up. “Goddamn.” He turned his head and spit, then wiped blood off his mouth. “Forget what I said. Next time you can drag him through the gate, Beckstrom.”

  Terric stood, and helped Shame up onto his feet, something Shame did not argue with.

  I shook Zayvion, but he didn’t open his eyes. His skin was cold, which seemed really weird since the last time I’d seen him, he was surrounded by gold fire. I kept my hand on his chest. I needed to feel him breathing, and each rise and fall of his chest assured me that he was still alive.

  “Allie?” Victor walked up beside me.

  “He’s unconscious,” I said. “We need to get out of the park, somewhere safe. Do you have any contacts we can use in St. Johns?”

  He shook his head, then crouched down and felt for Zayvion’s pulse. He looked as tired as I felt.

  “We’ll need to do something with Stone too,” he said.

  I glanced over. Stone stood there, where the Gate had been, his face tipped up to the sky, one hand reaching out, wings angle
d as if he could take flight. But he was stuck, frozen. Cold. Dead.

  No, not dead. Locked. We’d find a way to unlock him. We’d find a way to fix him and fix magic.

  We just needed a place to catch our breath and make a plan. Before the police showed up.

  Or the Authority.

  “Mama’s,” I said.

  “Your mother?” Victor asked, startled.

  “No. Mama owns a restaurant here. I used to Hound for her. She took me in once, when I needed a place to stay. She might take us all in. Might take Davy and the other injured at least.”

  “None of us has a phone,” Victor said.

  “I have a phone,” Collins mumbled weakly. He dug in his pocket and handed it to Hayden, who was standing over him.

  Hayden brought it to me.

  I turned it on, dialed Mama’s number.

  “We’re closed,” her familiar voice said, with the buzz of the crappy landline rattling in the background.

  “Mama,” I said. “This is Allie. I’m in trouble.”

  Silence on the other end. Silence and the buzz of electricity.

  “How much trouble?” she asked.

  “More than I can handle. My friends and I need a place to land for just a few hours. Some of us are hurt. There’s magic involved. A lot of magic.”

  Silence again while she considered. Then, “Come to the back door. Boy will let you in.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “You want me to do everything?” she snapped. “Fine. I send Boy with car. Where are you?”

  “Cathedral Park,” I said.

  Mama hung up.

  I thumbed off the phone, hoping I hadn’t just given our location away to someone who would call the police. I didn’t think Mama would. She’d had too many run-ins with the law to turn to them in times of crisis. She hadn’t even called for an ambulance when her youngest Boy was hurt. Zay had called it for him. And it had probably saved his life.

  “Is she coming?” Maeve asked.

  I looked up into her worried face. “I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It didn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes, before we heard a car rumble into the parking lot. Zayvion was still out, still breathing evenly. I knew that because I hadn’t left him and my hand was still resting on his chest. Shame sat next to his mother, looking singed and sick. Davy was still sitting with his head bowed forward, and Collins had decided lying on the grass and staring at the sky was the best option.