Stone Cold

by Devon Monk

  “Don’t, please, Mum.”

  But she was already walking out of the room.

  Fantastic.

  “You know better than to argue with your mom,” Hayden said.

  “Pointless,” I said around a mouthful of club sandwich that should taste like heaven but was plain as ash. Food wasn’t what I was hungry for. I wanted life. I wanted death.

  “I’m fine enough. Until we’re done with this.”

  “With what?” Hayden asked.

  Dash started in on the situation, telling Hayden we wanted him to guide me through the UnClosing I was going to throw at the walls in Terric’s head. The big man wasn’t having anything of it. I moved to the side of the room near the door and let Mr. Spade try to talk Hayden into our crazy scheme while I inhaled three sandwiches and a couple of tall glasses of ice-cold lemonade.

  The food sat heavy in my gut but didn’t feed my hunger. If anything, it only made me hungrier.

  Great.

  What did you expect? Sunny asked. You know what that hunger wants. You know what that hunger is—death.

  “Shut up,” I muttered. Maybe a little too loud.

  Dash shut up and looked over at me.

  Even though I wasn’t talking to him, I went with it. “I’m doing it,” I said.

  “No, you aren’t,” Hayden said. “I’ve seen a lot of stupid in my years, but you’ve just Nobeled that prize, boy.”

  “We need Eli dead,” I said. “For that, Terric and I need to be able to break magic. For us to do that with any kind of control, we have to unlock the walls in Terric’s head. Whoever Closed him isn’t going to just come on over here and do us a solid. Zay’s out of the picture, Victor’s dead—and so are half a dozen other Closers Eli made sure to off months ago. We don’t have options. We just have you, Hayden.”

  “Don’t think you do,” he rumbled.

  I glanced at Dash and Terric. Terric shook his head slightly. We’d known Hayden since we were young. Knew that when he dug in his heels, it would take a couple sticks of dynamite and a gallon of gasoline to budge him.

  “Well, then I guess we just have me,” I said. “I’d like to give you a say in this, Hayden, but you either step in to help or step out of the way.”

  “Is that how it is?” Hayden asked Terric. “Is that how you want it?”

  “We were going to do it without you before Shame thought you might help,” he said. “So, yes, I think that’s how it is.”

  “No,” Mum said, from where she stood in the shadows of the hall.

  “Mum.” I shook my head. “It’s decided.”

  She walked the rest of the way into the room, closing the distance between us. Her heart was beating a little hard. Not fear of me—fear for me.

  I kept my hands open, ready to block if she was throwing magic, or a knife. Growing up with a Blood magic user as a mother kept a troublemaker on his toes.

  But when she was near enough, she just placed her hand over my heart. Her gentle touch stilled me more effectively than any blade.

  She stood there, looking into my eyes.

  My heart was beating at about half the rate of any living person, and I knew my body was cold to the touch, even after the hot shower, even through my layer of clothes. I’d died—the real no-breathing parade. And it was clear coming back to life had left me changed. Had left too much of me dead.

  I waited.

  “Do you hear yourself?” she asked quietly. “Do you understand that you can’t undo the damage done to Terric because you aren’t the one who damaged him?”

  “I watched him die, in my kitchen, at the hands of a madman I couldn’t stop,” I said so quietly only she would hear me. “I am the one who damaged him.”

  “Terric’s alive. You see that, don’t you? Whatever happened to you—”

  “I died too,” I said. “Not figuratively. Eli killed me.”

  Ah, there was the shock, the sorrow. Her emotions ran blood deep, through the familial tie between us. I didn’t want to say more, but I couldn’t stop now. “Eli walked into my house and shot me full of bullets. Killed Terric too, sliced his neck, dragged him off to be tortured, and let someone Close him.”

  I could feel the edges of her sorrow, could almost taste it on my tongue.

  The Death magic inside me yearned for that pain.

  She must have seen that. Seen how her pain kicked up the hunger in me.

  She stepped back. “I am against this, Shamus.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I can’t watch this,” she said. “Won’t.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be here, Mum.”

  She held my gaze a moment more, then turned her back on me and walked out.

  I could count on one hand how many times she’d turned away from me. Each time she’d been right to do so. I had screwed up each of those times by not listening to her. Maybe I was screwing up now.

  “You still think this is a good idea?” Hayden asked.

  “I never said it was a good idea. But it needs to be done. Are you going to help or not?”

  He looked off the way my mom had gone, then back at Terric. “I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

  Yes, that surprised me.

  “Did Dash tell you what we need?” I asked.

  “Other than matching straitjackets?” Hayden paced away from the wall, pointed at Terric. “Cop a squat, Terric. This would hurt at the hands of an experienced Closer. An amateur like Shame isn’t going to make this any kind of joyride.”

  “Amateur?” I complained.

  Terric looked around, decided the floor would work and sat, leaning his back against the wall.

  “You.” Hayden pointed a finger my way. “Stand right here.”

  I stepped up next to him, expecting him to tell me how to draw an UnClose spell.

  “If you ever treat your mother’s heart like a toy you can tear apart,” he said quietly to me, “if you ever look at her like a meal you can slice up and swallow like what I just saw—”

  “I didn’t—”

  “—I will put you down,” he said. “Do you understand me? Son?”

  Death magic rolled over me at that threat, but I hauled back on it, locking it behind the thin barrier of my flesh and bones. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Go apologize.”

  “That’s a really bad idea,” I said as Death magic kicked at me.

  “You want my help, you go patch it up with your mom.”

  “She needs some time to cool down,” I said. “So do I. Just. Just show me what I need to do with Terric. Then I’ll talk to her. I promise.”

  I really needed him to listen to me. The hunger was gaining on me. If I were left alone, with my mom. . . . no. I wouldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t.

  “Please, Kellerman. Just. Please.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Against my better judgment. Faith magic spells used to Close a person aren’t like casting Death magic. You must be mechanically precise. You must be controlled. You must be disciplined.”

  Great. I was pretty much none of those things.

  “How must must I be?”

  “Depends on how badly you want Terric’s brains to remain unmangled. This is precision work, Shamus. You so much as deviate on any aspect of the spell, improvise or wing it, and he’s losing memory, or brains, for life. Are you getting what I’m saying, or should I take you around the dance floor one more time?”

  “I heard you. Precision. Discipline. My middle name. Then what?”

  “You’ll cast Close. Backward.”

  I glanced up at the big guy. “Is that all?”

  “Not as easy as it sounds. You have to trace the original Closing spell from end to beginning. Hard enough if it was a spell originally cast in your signature. Damn impossible to trace someone else’s handwriting bac
kward. Blindfolded. With a handful of fire.”

  I knew how to fake another magic user’s signature, but not good enough to fool anyone. Not exactly right. Only a few people in the world could pull off that kind of deception.

  But I knew someone who could do it. An artist with magic. Good enough he’d run on the wrong side of the law for years taking forgery jobs.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “Dash, get Cody here. Now.”

  • • •

  Cody showed up less than fifteen minutes later. Walked into the room, paused, then grinned. “We’re UnClosing Terric, aren’t we?”

  “That’s the idea,” I said. “I need you to do it.”

  “Do what? I can’t cast magic anymore, Shame. That’s what I gave up for letting magic use me as a cocktail shaker, remember?” He walked over to the table, poured himself some lemonade.

  Dashiell lifted a few fingers in greeting. Davy did the only thing Davy seemed to do lately—glare at me.

  “Just because you can’t use magic doesn’t mean you can’t draw a spell,” I said. “Your hands aren’t broke, Miller.”

  He held up his right hand and wriggled his fingers. “Hands, sure. But I’m not a Hand with magic. Not anymore.”

  “He’s right, Shame,” Dash said.

  “I’ll take care of the magic part,” I said. “You just draw.”

  “Just draw.” He glanced at Hayden, who shook his head and shrugged.

  “Putting aside for the moment that it’s not going to work,” Cody said, “why do you need Terric unClosed? Can’t you still use magic, break magic, Shame?”

  “Not reliably. Not with control. I need . . . I need Terric for that. It’s going to take both of us to kill Eli. To stop Krogher. To do something about those drones.”

  To save the world before I destroy it.

  With Allie and Zay down and every other Soul Complement in hiding, we were the only people left who could take them on. End them.

  “All right,” he said. “We UnClose Terric. Or try to. What’s in it for me?”

  “Saving the world isn’t enough return on your investment?”

  “I want something personal. From you.”

  “Like I don’t break your nose?”

  “Like you make me an unbreakable promise.”

  “Everything breaks,” I said.

  “Sealed with Blood magic. Terric’s blood and your blood.”

  Terric spoke up from the floor. “Nope. I won’t be a part of Shame’s deals. Not after that poker game in Astoria,” he said. “I’m Closed, not suicidal.”

  “Okay, your blood,” Cody said to me. “You make me a Blood promise, that the two of you won’t change how I mended magic. No matter what else you do together, you leave magic gentle like it is now, and I’ll help you get his memories back.”

  I threw my hands up. “What the hell does you mending magic have to do with anything? We’re not doing anything to change magic. We’re trying to get Terric’s brain back so we can use magic.”

  “Then it’s an easy promise, isn’t it?”

  I’d heard those words out of Cody since we were teens. He usually said them right before I made a deal I ended up regretting.

  “Don’t care if it’s easy,” I said, drawing my pocketknife and slicing my left palm. “You got the promise. I won’t screw with how you healed magic if you show me how to fix Terric.” I held up my bloody palm, used the tip of the knife to draw a Binding spell between us. “Happy?”

  He held his hand out for my knife. I gave it to him and he sliced his palm. “Good enough.”

  We shook, blood to blood, and I felt the binding of word and magic in the clasp of our hands.

  “Good. Now . . .” Cody wiped his palm on his jeans. “Let’s pry open his brain, shall we?” He strolled over to Terric and stared down at him. “Ready for this?”

  “Should I do something? Bite down for pain?” Terric asked.

  “No. You’re fine,” Cody said. “Shame, I need Sight.”

  “Not your magical slave, mate.”

  I stepped up to him and drew a clean Sight spell, then drew on the magic beneath the inn to fill it. The spell hissed to life, deep blue light carving three perfect concentric circles.

  “Not too bad,” Cody said.

  “Considering it’s perfect?” I asked.

  Cody didn’t answer, too busy looking into Terric through the Sight spell in ways I couldn’t see. Well, I could see them, but I wouldn’t be able to puzzle them out the way Cody did.

  “I see the Close spell that was used on him,” he finally said. “You might as well go do something. This will take me a minute to get a grip on it.” He closed his eyes, his lips moving as if pulling words from a long-forgotten text.

  Terric looked up at me. “Go. Apologize to your mom. You know she’s worried.”

  Since my other option was to stand there while Davy and Hayden glared at me, I went. Took me a couple of minutes to find her. She wasn’t down in the basement where the Blood magic well rested, hidden beneath the old marble. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or outside, or in the main part of the inn. I finally found her at home—the second-story addition on the inn where we had lived when I was younger and where she and Hayden were staying now.

  I didn’t have to knock on the door. It was open.

  “Mum?” I walked into the living room, across the honey brown wooden floors and throw rugs, into a space I knew as well as my childhood dreams. She was standing at the window, looking out, a locket in her hand.

  I knew that locket, though I hadn’t seen it for a long time. It held a photo of her and my da from their wedding day.

  “Who sent you here?” she asked.

  “Hayden,” I said. “And Cody. And Terric. So: everyone.”

  “I don’t want to hear the words they want you to say.”

  I paused. It would be easier to go back. To turn around. There were so many things broken inside me, so many holes Death had chewed through my humanity, I was flailing for solid ground. The last thing I needed was to fight with my mum, or worse, to hurt her.

  “So this is me,” I said. “And these are my words I want to say. I’m sorry for . . .”

  What should I apologize for? Dying? Coming back to life? Being broken? Being willing to do anything to take Eli down, even if that put Terric at risk?

  “Everything, I suppose,” I said. “Dying, it . . . rattled me, and I wasn’t all that steady to begin with. I know I’m alive-ish for a reason. Terric and I are the only ones who can take out the people who are trying to kill our friends. So I’m doing whatever it takes to see that it’s done. Finishing this fight.”

  She didn’t say anything. I waited there as long as I could. Death magic twisted in me, painful, hungry for the life in front of it. Her life.

  “So, we’ll be out of here soon. Love you, Mum.” I turned to go.

  “Shamus,” she said, and I stopped in the doorway. She finally looked away from the window and turned toward me. “We aren’t done talking about this, understand? When we’ve helped Terric, and when you’ve taken care of whatever it is that is going on, you and I are going have a nice, long talk. For years.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Sure, Mum.”

  She crossed the distance between us and gave me a hug.

  I clenched my teeth and gently wrapped my arms around her while Death magic stabbed at my brain.

  “Good,” she said. “Now go finish this fight. We’ll talk later.”

  • • •

  “All right.” Cody opened his eyes. “Terric, I think you’ll want to be standing.”

  “Hayden told me to sit.”

  “That’s because I thought you’d be on your ass when we got done with you,” Hayden said. “But if Cody says stand, stand.”

  “I’ll stand beside him.” Dash walked across t
he room and stood next to Terric. “I won’t get in the way unless you fall.”

  “You could get in the way, a little,” Terric said.

  Dash blinked back his surprise, glanced at me. I raised an eyebrow briefly. Yeah, that sounded like flirting to me too.

  Maybe memory-less Terric had some advantages.

  “Well, let’s start with getting back your old memories before we make any new ones,” Dash said.

  “Fair enough,” Terric said.

  “Shame.” Cody motioned me over. “Stand right here in front of Terric. I’ll stay at your right, and, Hayden, you can be there on his left. I’ll guide Shame’s hand through the spell. I don’t think a Closer cast the spell. Or if it was a Closer, he was sloppy. Too many inconsistencies. It’s no wonder there are holes in your memories, Terric.”

  “Hurray?” Terric asked.

  Cody nodded. “Not exactly cheer-worthy. Cleaner spells are easier to follow. This one’s . . . rough. Hayden, let me know if you see anything I’m missing.

  “Your job, Shame, is to concentrate on what you want the spell to do—UnClose him—as you and I draw it. When the glyph is done, you’ll fill it with magic, his mind will unlock, and . . .” Cody snapped his fingers. “He’ll get his memories back.”

  I glanced at Terric. “He might be oversimplifying things a bit.”

  “Not my first ride at the carnival, Flynn,” he said. “Get cracking.”

  “Is there a way to erase the bossy parts of him?”

  Cody snorted.

  I shook my hands, cleared my mind. The thing none of us was really talking about was that my control of Death magic was in the gutter right now. If we got through this without me killing someone just to ease the pressure and feed my hunger, I’d consider it a raging success.

  I held up my right hand, ring and pinkie finger tucked loosely against my thumb, index and middle finger pressed against each other and extended.

  “Closing,” Cody said, “is intention. It’s about the spell and the function of magic, but it’s also about the Closer’s intention. Know who did the Closing and why, half your work is done.”

  “We don’t know who did the Closing,” I said.

  Cody put his left hand on my shoulder, placed his fingertips on the back of my raised hand. “Sure we do,” he said.