by Devon Monk
“Did I?”
“You may as well have. Dessa called. She found you at a bar downtown. Brought you here. I’m going to heal your feet.”
“Wait. Don’t.”
He wrapped his hand around my left ankle. I didn’t think I could pull away if I tried.
I tried anyway.
Nope.
“Just tell me what else he said.”
A soft warmth spread out over my foot, which was a far cry better than the pounding ache I’d been unsuccessfully ignoring.
“Anytime now, Flynn,” he said.
Huh. I must have drifted. He set my left foot down carefully, then picked up my right foot by the ankle.
“Said Dessa knows where he is. Knows what’s going on. Said he’s a prisoner. Going to kill everyone. In two days if we don’t find him. Stop him. Save her.”
“Her who?”
Terric put my right foot down, and that lack of pain made me realize how damn exhausted I was. “His soul.”
“Fuck,” Terric breathed. “So he does have a Soul Complement. And they’re using her against him?”
“I think so,” I said. “Or that just might be what he wants us to think.” I wouldn’t put it past Eli Collins to manipulate and use his Soul Complement for whatever dark scheme or experiment he was involved in. “Or maybe he’s telling the truth and someone is using her against him.”
Terric didn’t say anything for a bit. Just sat there, cross-legged, with one hand absently on my bloody bare foot. “Did he say who he’s going to kill?”
I nodded, which sent the room swinging. Not doing that again. “Anyone who stands in their way. All of us. You. Me.”
Terric took a deep breath, let it out.
“So Jeremy is unhappy,” I said.
“He was being an ass. He doesn’t like you,” Terric added. “And he is the least of my problems right now.”
“Am I the most?” I asked, trying to pull together a smile. I wasn’t sure if both sides of my mouth were working.
He looked up at me. “Always.” He shook his head, as if trying to figure me out. “What the hell were you thinking, walking half a city barefoot?”
“I don’t remember. Any of it.” A hard image of blood on my lips flashed through my mind. “Might have hurt people.”
“I already thought of that. Sent people to see if you did any damage. Did he look sane?”
“Collins?”
“Yes.”
“Not really. Desperate and crazy.”
“Not a winning combination,” he said.
“Maybe for him,” I said. If you believed the records on the man, Collins had done a lot of brilliant things while being stark raving mad.
Terric stood. Walked away. By the time I began to wonder where he’d gone, he was walking back, bare feet quiet in the thick carpet.
“Whatever he shot you up with isn’t out of your system yet,” he said. “You want a doctor?”
“Doctors don’t work on me.”
“You’re not inhuman, Shame.”
I didn’t say anything. This was an old argument.
He must not have expected me to say yes to the doctor anyway. He had a pillow in one hand and another blanket in the other. “Then you should get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll take care of . . . whatever needs to be done until morning. You’ve got four hours.”
“Find Dessa,” I started.
“I will.” He set the pillow on one side of me. “Lie down.”
I worked on getting my legs to move. Lifted one with the help of my hands. Then the next. Didn’t have the energy to do anything else.
Just sat there staring at my feet stretched out on the couch in front of me.
Terric bent, putting his mouth near my ear. “Don’t argue and make this harder,” he said. He slid one hand and arm behind my back, and the other under my knees.
I was about to be manhandled. It was as physically close to him as I’d been in years.
I shut my mouth and stared at the ceiling, trying not to say anything, trying not to think anything while he half lifted, half slid me into a prone position.
I couldn’t have done it on my own. Not right away, anyway. He didn’t say any more about it. Didn’t mention how weak and wrecked I was.
Just straightened, retrieved the blanket, spread it out over me. I shivered from the pocket of cold air followed by the warmth of the blanket settling around me.
“I’ll put some water on the table,” he said. “If you need the bathroom, try to wait until morning. I don’t think your feet can take the walk, and there’s enough of your blood on my carpet I have to clean up already.”
His voice was fading. Walking away, I thought. Couldn’t see him. My eyes were closed.
“Ter?” I whispered.
“I’m here.” Close. Sitting in the chair again. I thought I smelled tea.
“Thank you,” I said. “I . . . I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Whatever you’re apologizing about, I won’t accept it until you can tell me in the morning light, looking me straight in the eye.”
“You are a picky bastard,” I mumbled.
“Yes,” he said, “I am.”
And then darkness and warmth swallowed me whole and dragged me down.
Chapter 16
“Wake up, Shame,” Terric said. “Time for food.”
What the hell was Terric doing in my room? I opened my eyes.
Correction: what the hell was I doing in Terric’s house?
“French toast, sausage,” he continued. “Think you can eat?”
I lifted a hand, rubbed my face. My arm was sore; the side of my neck felt swollen, bruised. And when I breathed in too deep, something in my chest scraped my bones.
So, not the worst I’d ever woken up feeling.
“Food,” I repeated. “My mouth tastes like ass.”
“Spare toothbrush in the bathroom. Be careful on your feet.”
That brought it all back to me. Or at least the clear images. Half of what I remembered was pain, blurry flashes, and a muddle of sensations and sounds.
“So he drugged me,” I said.
Terric had showered. His hair was still a little damp, combed back, and dripping just a bit on the shoulders of his white T-shirt. He also wore jeans and boots, one ankle propped on his other knee. He was drinking tea from what I knew was very expensive china.
He lifted his cup toward the tray of food on the coffee table. French toast, coffee, sausage, and apple butter.
“Not going to feed you. Unless you want me to.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
I bent, groaned as I pulled the tray over to me, setting it across my legs. Didn’t spill a drop.
If Terric was talking, only the walls were listening. I didn’t hear a thing while I consumed every bite, lick, and morsel of breakfast.
I felt like I hadn’t eaten for months. And after I’d plowed through the food, I felt a lot better.
“Did you spike it with . . .” I wiggled my fingers over my empty plate.
“No. You walked for miles last night, Shame. Anyone would be hungry. Also, I am a hell of a cook.”
“Yeah, you are.”
I scraped the last bit of tart and sweet apple butter off the plate with my fork, licked the tines clean, then set the tray back on the table. Noticed the coffee carafe, cream and sugar there.
Refilled my cup. Sat back and took a drink.
“Did you find Dessa?” I asked.
“Not yet. The Hounds are looking.”
“Try the inn.”
“Why?”
“She’s renting a room. Did you tell Clyde about this?”
“Just that Collins contacted you last night and said we have a day or less before more people die.”
I thought that through. “So you didn’t tell him he wanted us to find his Soul Complement? It’s not like you to lie, Terric. That’s my shtick.”
Terric drank his tea with that quiet grace that reminded me of ele
gant people in old movies. “He could have gone to anyone,” he said. “Why did Eli go to you, Shame?”
“Fuck all if I know.”
“Maybe he still thinks we’re the head of the Authority?” Terric said.
“Everyone knows you were the head of the Authority. But no. He made it clear he doesn’t think the Authority has any power.”
“If I tell Clyde Eli wanted us to find his Soul Complement, Clyde’s going to want that handled through proper channels. What do you suppose that is?”
I rubbed my fingers across my scalp. God, I was filthy. “I don’t know. Call the cops? Start an investigation?”
“We’re already investigating Eli. The police already know he’s a suspect in Joshua’s death. They’re already looking for him. The Authority knows he’s behind Joshua’s death. We’re looking for him.”
“So . . . what? The police would question me, I guess.”
“Detective Stotts would lock you up,” Terric said. “For your own safety. Maybe as bait for Eli, but mostly to keep you safe. Plus, you wouldn’t be out barefoot on the streets destroying swaths of innocent horticulture from one end of Portland to the other.”
I cringed. “I killed plants?”
“Trees, bushes, grass, greenhouses. Took out a neighborhood garden off of Lombard.”
I waited. Waited for him to tell me how many people I’d killed.
“None,” he said over the rim of his cup, guessing correctly what I was thinking.
“There was blood on my mouth. In my mouth.”
“I think a few raccoons and possums met their maker.”
“Are you sure? There were people, a lot of people.” The memory was chaotic, but I knew it wasn’t a dream. “A bar?”
“No missing persons reports, no unusual injury reports at the hospitals. No unknown causes of death. Not bad for being half out of your mind.”
I closed my eyes. Realized my heart had been beating. Hard. With fear. Worry. Terric wouldn’t lie to me. Not about this. Not about the monster inside me.
I sat there for a bit, until my heartbeat quieted.
“So if we’re not telling Clyde that Eli tried to kill me so I would agree to help him, what’s next?” I asked.
“You,” he said, “are going to take a shower because you reek. I have some clothes I think will fit.”
“Jeremy’s clothes?” I asked, my eyes still closed.
“No.” Tight. Didn’t want to talk about it.
So, of course, I did. “Other than thinking I’m a waste of skin, is there some specific reason he hates me? We haven’t met before last night, have we?”
“You haven’t met,” Terric said quietly.
“He seems to know a lot about me.”
A pause. Then, “He thinks he does. I’ve . . . said a few things.”
“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.”