by Devon Monk
“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 smokes.” 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 pho
ne. 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.
I picked it up. Was impressed at the weight and craftsmanship.
“Let’s go,” I said softly.
Eleanor looked from me, to the statue, then back to me. She gave me a small smile.
I bought the boots, the statue, and a pack of cigarettes. Made my way toward the front of the store. Passed in front of a stockroom door and noted a guy walking out of it.
Walked past him before I heard the click.
I turned.
Did not expect the Taser in that man’s right hand, nor the gun in his left. I also didn’t expect the other two guys who strode out of the sporting goods and household paint aisles.
I called on magic, just as the guy with the guns raised them both and pulled a trigger.
Heads or tails. Would I be shot or electrocuted? Heads said bullets.
Before I could raise my hand for a spell, before I could lash out and drain their lives down, someone flipped a switch and a million volts of electricity blew through me.
Huh. It was tails: electrocution.
I came to being dragged away from bright lights and basketballs, and into the stale, cold stockroom.
Maybe another door went by. Then the two guys who had my arms over their shoulders dropped me into a chair.
I decided not to let them know I was conscious.
They stepped away and a new set of boots came closer.
“I know you’re awake, Shamus,” Jeremy said. “Don’t make me shoot you to prove it to my men.”
I opened my eyes, tipped my head back. He wasn’t holding a gun, but the four other guys around me were.
Bullets are faster than magic. Even my magic.
“Some reason why you don’t want to face me alone, Jeremy?” I asked. “That’s an awful lot of firepower for a junkie piece of crap like me, don’t you think?”
He was a good five feet away from me, and didn’t come any nearer. “You have two options here.” He started like I hadn’t even been talking. “You either leave town, leave Terric, and leave me the hell alone, or we will kill you.”
I rolled a shoulder and wondered if that blast of electricity and the drugs Eli had shot me up with were going to get in the way of me killing this prick.
“Really?” I said. “Is this how you Black Crane lads take care of your problems? Threats in department stores? Does anyone ever fall for that?”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “I could kill you before you took another breath.”
“What’s stopping you?” I asked. Really, I was curious.
From the fear that slipped across his eyes, I suddenly knew what it was. He wasn’t sure I’d die. After all, I carried Death magic in my bones and that hadn’t killed me. He probably thought a bullet or two wouldn’t work either.
He’d be wrong.
I hoped.
“Let’s get this straight,” he said. “I am giving you one chance to get out of my sight, and out of our territory.”
“I don’t think Terric would like that,” I said.
“Terric isn’t your concern.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that, mate. Terric is my concern. As a matter of fact”—I pushed up onto my feet to the accompaniment of his boys racking the slides and lifting their weapons toward my head—“you have suddenly made yourself my concern. This is not a good move on your part.”
I didn’t wait for him to threaten me again. I didn’t wait for him to snap his fingers so his minions would blow my brains out.
I let the monster free. Death magic lashed out, dark whips hooking tightly into each gunman, cutting down to bone, piercing organs. The rush of drawing on their lives rocked through me in a wave of adrenaline and orgasmic need.
In that split second, four men collapsed to the floor, unconscious, while Jeremy was reaching for the inside of his jacket.
“You pull a gun, and I will kill you,” I said. No more nice. The monster in me was lapping down those men’s lives, even while Eleanor was standing in front of me yelling at me to stop. I wasn’t listening. I wanted more. I wanted Jeremy.
Jeremy smiled. Just half of his mouth cut upward to gave a quick flash of teeth. He wasn’t a stranger to death. Didn’t look afraid of me now. “What would Terric say if you killed me?”
“‘My boyfriend? Again?’”
Okay, that was worth it. He blinked. All that smugness drained away.
“Here’s how this goes,” I said, strolling over to him. “You are going to go back to your bosses, and tell them that if the Black Crane crosses my path, or the path of any one of my friends, I will take it as a personal insult, and I will kill every single person involved in the organization. Every last person. You will tell them that Terric is no longer their toy. They, and you, are no longer allowed anywhere near him. You will tell them that I am watching and that I would be delighted—” I licked my lips and one of the men on the floor screamed and writhed. “—to remove them all, permanently, from this world.”
“You think you have the power here?” His voice shook a little, but he managed some scorn. “Go home to your bottle, Shamus. You’re nothing.”
I nodded, thought about just how easy it would be to kill him, how easy it would be to kill whatever was left of those men on the floor.
Eleanor stood in front of me and pushed her hand on my chest.<
br />
No, in my chest. Until her icy fingers wrapped around my heart.
Ow.
She shook her head and then pointed at the unconscious gunmen. Alive. Maybe alive. I didn’t care.
But looking away from Jeremy gave him the time to pull his gun.
Well, that was stupid of me. Stupid of him too, come to think of it.
“You’re a dead man, Shamus.”
I laughed. He didn’t know how true that was.
The fear rolling off him was palpable. He was sweating so hard I didn’t know how he kept hold of the gun.
I reached out with magic.
His finger twitched. Bullets are fast. The silencer smothered the explosion.
Pain blew through my upper arm, as his shot went wide.
Jesus.
Eleanor was already on him, both hands around his gun hand. He stiffened from her icy touch, his eyes wide as his hand went numb.
I tore the gun from his useless hand, pulled the clip, and threw it across the warehouse. The pain in my left arm was excruciating, but I fed it to the Death magic inside me, pain from dying cells, torn nerves, ripped muscle, broken skin feeding my hunger.
A wash of pleasure rippled through me. It was wonderful. Also, nauseating.
“Wrong decision,” I said to Jeremy.
Eleanor let go of his hand and advanced on me, angry. She mouthed, No, then Terric and Now.
Crap. I had no idea how long I’d been gone. I didn’t want Terric to find me here, killing his boyfriend. He had said Victor wanted us right away. He must be looking for me by now.
Plus, I was bleeding.
“So,” I said, “this was fun. You trying to kill me. But if you ever get in my way again, you’ll be dead. I promise you that, mate.”
I turned, started walking, and threw his gun in a trash can. “Do tell your bosses what I said.”
“Fuck you.”
I lashed out with magic and slapped his heart. Hard.
Heard him groan, then retch. Served the bastard right. I hoped he was having a seizure.
I pushed through the doors, then stuck one hand over my arm to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. I think Death magic had cauterized it.
I took a little more care watching the people around me and finally headed outside again.