by Devon Monk
“He’s slowing,” I said.
“How far ahead?” Dessa asked.
“Not far,” Terric answered.
Eleanor flashed into the walls, flew out, flashed through them again. Searching for Eli.
The hall ended at a massive metal wall and hatch, bolted together like something made to handle deep-sea pressure.
Eleanor darted toward it, struck the wall, and pulled back, screaming in pain.
Holy shit.
I hadn’t heard her voice in years.
“Don’t!” I said as Terric jogged to the door. “Something’s set here. A trap.”
He didn’t ask me how I knew.
“Do you see something?” Dessa asked.
I cleared my mind. Drew Sight. It was magic that surrounded the door. But no spell I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t formed in a shape, a glyph, an order of some sort. It was just a pulsing blob of magic.
“What?” Dessa asked.
Terric drew a spell: Reveal. Different from Sight, it should show the true form of any physical object.
“What the hell is it?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. It made Eleanor scream.”
“Eleanor?” Dessa glanced around us as if expecting another person to be hiding in the shadows.
“What hurts her?” Terric asked.
“I have no idea.” I looked over at Eleanor. She stood at a distance from the door, her arms crossed over her chest. She was frightened and angry.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Who?” Dessa asked, but Terric was already talking.
“Three heartbeats on the other side of that door.”
“I noticed.”
“Is Eli one of them?” Dessa asked.
“Yes,” Terric and I said together.
“That’s enough for me.” She strode to the hatch, her hand out.
I stood in her way. “No.”
“Move, Shame.”
“No.”
She reached for her gun. “I’m not going to let him get away.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her against me, and kissed her. She kissed me back, but her hand didn’t leave her gun.
I pulled away, looked down into those hard blues. “We do this smart, and we do this together,” I said, staring into her grief and pain and anger. “Because we are all making it out of this alive. Do you understand me?”
“Except Eli,” she said. “Eli dies.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Eli dies.”
Terric began a spell, probably Cancel to clear the door so we could go through.
“He’s the only one who dies today,” I said.
Terric reached out with magic. I let go of Dessa and turned to him.
He wasn’t casting Cancel. He was casting Explosion.
Shit.
I grabbed Dessa’s arm and tugged her back down the hall, even as I was supporting the spell Terric was casting. We carved a quick Shield spell into the air to block the explosion and Terric stepped back to join us.
Then we broke magic and sent the spells flying.
The door blew apart with a huge roar, smoke and molten metal shooting toward us and into the room beyond.
We waited a heartbeat, two. Dropped the Shield and strode through the smoke and rubble into the room.
“We didn’t think you would come this far,” a man’s voice said. “We hoped you might, but never thought you could.” I didn’t recognize the voice. It carried a soft burr, like the speaker was practiced at standing on a stage and reading Shakespeare. “But we underestimated both of you, didn’t we, Mr. Conley and Mr. Flynn?”
The room was a quarter the size of the warehouse, but would still take a jog to get across. It was lit to obscure the walls, ceiling, and the lumps of machinery it contained. I thought it might have originally been used as a generator room.
Eli stood about a third of the way across the room. He had something metal in his hand that looked like a controller of some sort. Chained to the wall at the far end of the room was Davy. He was naked and unconscious, held down by the neck, wrists, ankles.
The glyphs carved into his chest, down his stomach, and over his arms pumped with a sluggish light—magic—pushing and pooling there. I didn’t know what they were using Davy for. But I knew they were using him.
Above the room, on a walkway with metal railings that overlooked the space, stood the man who had greeted us.
His long gray coat covered most of his body, but his shoes shone, and a smudge of white at his neck told me he wore a white shirt and jacket. His features were obscured by the shadows and the fedora-like hat he wore.
“We don’t care what you’re doing here, Krogher,” Dessa said as she lifted her gun and aimed it at him. “All we want is Eli.”
“Why, Ms. Leeds,” the man—Krogher—said. “How disappointing to see you here. Apparently I’ve wasted my efforts trying to track you down in Canada.”
“You know him?” Terric asked.
“He was my boss.”
“You were useful to me, Ms. Leeds. But then you ran,” Krogher said. “This is the only mercy I will show you. If you put the gun down, stand aside, and let me take care of the business at hand, you will walk from here alive.”
“Give me Eli,” she said. “And we’ll walk out of here and leave you alive.”
Krogher chuckled. “It amuses me that you think you can bargain with me.”
“Well, it was worth a shot,” she said.
She took aim and fired six shots at Eli.
And all hell broke loose.
Eli blocked the bullets with another one of those electric barriers. Then the room filled with magic, hot as acid. Eli adjusted the controller in his hand. Davy gave a strangled yell.
No bullets on us this time. They’d tried that, and it hadn’t worked.
This time it was fire.
Terric and I ran. For Eli. We could save Davy by killing Eli. We could get the hell out of here when Eli was dead.
The man above us was using magic to call up the very real fire that burned over the metal walls and stone floor. Fire made by magic.
“How?” I said, or maybe thought, as Terric and I carved Cancel spells, absorbed and diverted the fire, the heat, the magic, like we had choreographed this dance and knew every move.
“Eli,” Terric replied, or maybe thought. “And them.”
I ducked a fireball roaring toward my head, glanced up. There were five people standing at equal distance across the catwalk. These were not men in business suits. These were regular people, all of them in sweatpants and loose shirts—hospital issue.
All of them staring blankly, hands pushed palm out, thumbs crossed.
Holy fuck. The last guy I’d seen stand like that had blown up a building. As a matter of fact, he was up there too, assuming the position.
“What the hell are they?” Dessa yelled. “Breakers?”
“No,” I yelled back. “They’re using magic. Stay back.”
Dessa apparently did not know what those words meant.
She pushed her way through the fire, running for Eli.
“God. Damn. It. Woman!”
I drew in the magic, a god-awful lot of it, twisted it, felt Terric’s hand behind mine supporting the weight and chaos of it as we heaved it back at the people standing on the catwalk.
“Very good, Shamus,” Eli somehow said so close to me I thought he was next to my ear. “But not good enough.”
Davy moaned again, a gut-wrenching sound.
Time slowed.
This wasn’t a trick of my mind or adrenaline that made it seem like time was slowed.
All the world around Terric and me was slowed. Even Dessa.
But not Eli. And not Terric and me.
“You lift one finger, take one step, and all bets are off,” Eli said hurriedly. I noted he was sweating. Whatever he had done with the controller, with Davy, took a toll on him too.
“Krogher has Brandy bound. Trapped. I cannot touch her without killing her. Save her and I will give Davy a quick death. Refuse and his death will be long and agonizing.”
Brandy had to be close enough he could draw on her to break magic. But I didn’t see her or feel her heartbeat.
Just because the world was slowed didn’t mean it was at a standstill. Dessa was pulling another gun on Eli. The people upstairs had recovered from the backlash I’d thrown at them. At this speed, I could see that it was Krogher who controlled them, and he did so with some kind of device in his palm.
Probably something Eli had invented. The people were like individual generators of magic. Like matching bombs just waiting for Krogher to tap their power.
Strong as Soul Complements.
Maybe stronger.
Weapons.
“Fuck you, Eli,” I said. “You got no card in this game.”
I reached out for the spells he was supporting to protect himself and drank the magic out of them.
Davy screamed.
“Shame!” Terric said. “Don’t. He’s tied to Davy. You’re killing him too.”
I glanced over at Davy. Terric was right. Davy was weakly thrashing, the magic burning into him, blood streaming out of the glyphs and pouring down his body.
I broke my connection to Eli’s magic. “As you see,” Eli said, “I do have a card to play, Shame. The last card.”
He pressed a button and ribbons of razor-sharp magic shot out from the thing in his hand, aiming straight for Dessa’s heart.
Chapter 29
Time was not slow anymore. It was suddenly, brutally fast.
Dessa yelled as the magic slammed into her, throwing her across the floor.
Terric and I lifted our guns. Terric aimed at Eli’s head. I aimed at that damn thing in his hands.
We unloaded the clips.
He had a choice of which part of himself to Shield. Chose his head. The controller fell to the floor.
And the blank-eyed monstrosities from above hit us with another spell.
Impact.
It blasted through the room like a sonic wave. Threw me off my feet. An entire ocean of magic pounded and roared through the room.
Crushing us.
I couldn’t breathe. Tasted blood.
Tumbled, hit my back, shoulder, head, into something metal, felt my spine crack. Felt Terric’s pain too: arm, shoulder, neck. Could not tell where he was, or hell, where I was.
Ran out of air.
Drowning. Drowning in magic.
“Dessa!” I yelled. I didn’t hear her. Couldn’t see her.
Then Terric was there, standing above me. A goddamn angel with alien eyes. He did something with Life magic that made my ears ring with an ungodly chorus of sound. My head spiked with pain.
And then I could breathe, I could think. I stood. A little woozy, but kept my feet. It felt like they’d aimed the entire ocean of magic at me.
“They did,” he said in that flat, creepy tone that was not Terric, not human, and somehow louder than my own voice.
“Where’s Dessa?” I yelled.
“They’re taking Davy. Using him.” He might have just pushed the brunt of that Impact off us, but there was no Terric in those eyes. Just raw magic.
Get a grip, Flynn.
I stuck my hand on Terric’s chest, drew off the Life magic burning through him until he stopped glowing and some sanity came back into his eyes.
Situation: the room was filled with a snarling maelstrom of magic that burned across the ceiling, walls, floor, picking up metal, debris, and glass and spinning it through the room like a caged tornado.
The people above us, including Krogher, were gone. That wasn’t good.
The air cracked again and three holes in space materialized on the far side of the room. Gates.
Eli turned and limped toward one, holding his arm against his side and breathing hard. I hoped to hell one or a dozen of our bullets had hit him.
The second hole in space appeared right next to Davy. Men in black suits and black sunglasses stepped out of it and were quickly unchaining Davy and dragging him through that hole.
And the third . . . well, in the third stood a woman.
Terric turned to stare at her, his eyes gone alien again.
She wore a plain cotton nightgown. Looked like the room behind her was a hospital. She even held an IV bag in her hand. Her hair was dark and cut boy-short. She was about Eli’s age.
I’d seen her picture. I knew who she was. Brandy Scott. Eli’s Soul Complement. She looked lost. Confused.
“Brandy!” Eli yelled. “Save her, Shame! You must save her!”
He took what looked like an impossibly painful step toward her, one hand stretched out, but there were already men in black coming for him.
I had been standing there, getting a grip on the situation for two seconds, max.
Something cold punched my face. Eleanor floated in front of me, panicked. She pointed to my right. Dessa, she mouthed.
I turned away from Terric, who was already marching toward those gates, and looked for Dessa.
Dessa lay on the floor, holding her hand to the gaping hole in her chest. A hole put there by magic. A hole that was steadily growing larger. Eating away at her.
There are moments when you know your life is forever changed. You hold your breath and for that heartbeat wish it wasn’t true. You make promises. You offer sacrifices. You lie to yourself.
But you know your world will never be the same again. You know you are lost and will never find your way back home. You know you will never be who you were just a heartbeat ago. This was my moment.
The moment my world broke.
The entire damn room was blowing up around us. Eli was getting away.
I didn’t care.
I crossed to Dessa, knelt. Pulled her into my arms.
There was blood. Too damn much blood. Covering her. Covering me.
Her eyes searched mine. “Shame,” she said. “Kill him for me.”
“Shush, now,” I said. “You know I’ll do more than that. I will make his remaining breaths eternities of agony.”
Her eyes were sad, filled with thick shadows of fear. She managed a smile.
I yelled for Terric. He could heal her. Like he’d healed me. He could make the hole in her go away.
“Look at that,” she whispered as if she hadn’t heard me screaming. “Your boyish charms are showing.”
“Did they work?” I asked, smoothing her blood-soaked hair away from her face.
Don’t die, baby. Hold on. Just hold on for me.
Where the hell was Terric?
“Yes,” she said. “But then, they always have.”
I shouldn’t be touching her. The Death magic I held was only going to make her wounds worse. I shifted slightly, thinking I could ease her down to the floor.
She screamed in pain.
“Goddamn it, Terric!” I yelled again, holding still, holding her in my arms.
Her breathing had gone shallow and ragged.
“Dessa,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.” The hole in her chest was growing, leaving nothing behind. No flesh. No blood. No Dessa. She was dissolving in my arms, like sand falling through my fingers.
“Just,” she said. “Kiss me, Shame.”
I lowered my head and pressed my lips gently to hers. Kissed her even though my body was shaking. Kissed her even though tears mixed with our blood. Kissed her for the last time.
I could feel her heart straining. I knew how little life she had left.
“I think I could have loved . . . ” she mumbled against my mouth.
And then she exhaled. Her heart stilled.
I pulled back.
A flash of light devoured her body, the sudden, intense heat burning my hands, arms, face, chest, and legs. I yelled.
But Dessa was gone. No bones, no blood. Not even dust left behind. My arms were empty. Blistered.
I was alone.
“I told yo
u!” Eli yelled. “I told you I’d kill everyone you love!”
I heard Terric snarl and call on magic.
Even though the storm of magic in the room tore at me, there was a stronger storm inside me.
I could keep her. I could keep her forever.
Her soul stood in front of me, a beautiful, ghostly image. She looked surprised and thoughtful but not sad.
“Please, Dessa,” I whispered. “Don’t go. Stay with me, love. Forever.”
Eleanor stood a short distance behind her. She was shaking her head and saying no. She didn’t approve of what I was about to do. I knew she wouldn’t. But I couldn’t let go of Dessa. I’d only just found her.
With mind and magic, I reached out for Dessa’s soul.
This I could do. Bind her to me forever. I’d done it once before.
Terric yelled again.
His pain shot through me like a hammer shattering glass. I tipped my head back and yelled at the agony that was not my own.
Instinct pushed me to my feet.
Fury made me turn.
Terric stumbled backward, clutching his gut. Blood flowed there. Three bullets. Not made of metal, made of Void stones. I could feel each one digging toward his spine, tearing him apart. Tearing apart his magic and his life.
Done. I was done with this. Done losing the people I loved.
Fuck Eli.
Fuck them all.
I threw my hands out to each side. And called on Death magic.
It leaped to my command, rushing into me, consuming me. Until I was no longer just Shame. No. Until I was no longer Shame at all.
I was darkness. Power. Death incarnate. And I was going to tear apart the world.
The room rumbled, metal girders screaming as I drank life out of the walls, out of the floor, out of the cliffside, stones, forest, and soil around us.
The hospital was so near. So full of life teetering on the edge of death. I could have that. Drink down those lives.
So I did. One, twenty, forty delicious sweet deaths burst through me with carnal pleasure. I laughed. It wasn’t all the people in the building—it was only a start.
Eli Collins was at the gate. The men in black were dragging him through.
That was all I could see. He was all I wanted.
So easy to destroy him. But I wanted time. An eternity to make him suffer.
I reached out for the men around him. Their hearts, their brains.