Stone Cold

by Devon Monk

  I was on the lower floor, in one of the bedrooms that was probably a servant’s quarters back in the day.

  The hall led to a sitting room and a few other rooms that I guessed were libraries or something, and finally I was in one of the main living areas, which was roughly the size of a small ballroom.

  There was no one in the ballroom, but I heard voices from farther down the hall.

  Great. More walking.

  The voices were in a meeting room that was done up in wood and leather and fine artwork.

  Terric, Dash, and Cody sat at the table on one side of the room with Kevin, who had a shotgun propped next to his knee.

  “Started the party without me?” I asked.

  They all looked my way.

  Terric stood, walked over to me. “I didn’t think you’d be up. Not so soon.” But in his eyes was not at all.

  “I’d hate to miss out on the plans for kicking Eli’s ass,” I said. “We are kicking Eli’s ass, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” Terric said, placing his hand on my shoulder and guiding me over to a chair. “But there’s something else we have to deal with first.”

  “Tell me it involves ordering pizza.”

  “No,” he said. “You want a drink?”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then make it a double.”

  He walked over to the small refrigerator recessed into the wall and pulled out a beer, brought it back to me.

  I opened it, took a drink and then one more. How long had it been since I had a beer?

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell me.”

  Terric looked over at Cody and the rest of the people at the table.

  “It’s kind of complicated,” Cody said. “But we think Davy booby-trapped the house.”

  “Think? That’s a yes/no sort of situation, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, if we could get a straight look at it,” Kevin said. “But that spell, whatever the hell that was he hit the place with, left something behind.”

  “Okay.” I held up a finger, then finished the beer. Because, priorities. “I just got cracked in the head with exploding tainted magic he carried. I’m guessing Eli sewed a Beckstrom disk into that poor guy’s chest, so explain everything to me straight and clear. Use small words.”

  “Davy’s spell created another spell,” Terric said. “We think it’s a trap.”

  “Spells can do that? Never mind. A trap for what?” I asked. “Keeping us in, or keeping us out?”

  “Both,” Cody said. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s something more.”

  “Like?”

  “The possibilities are pretty damn endless,” Dash said, finally joining the conversation. “We can’t figure it out.”

  “Still missing the details.” I glanced at each of them. “I said small words, not no words.”

  Terric stood and walked toward the door. “It would be easier to show you.”

  I heaved up out of the chair and followed him. The others stayed behind.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, keeping his pace slow enough that I didn’t have to strain to keep up.

  “Just spiffy.”

  He glanced over at me. “With less bullshit,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  “I killed my mother, Terric. How do you think I’m doing?”

  You didn’t kill me, Mum said.

  He didn’t say anything for a bit. Then, “You didn’t kill her. And I think you’re doing better than I expected, considering what you’re dealing with.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know what I’m dealing with.” The people I’d killed. Losing ground to Death magic. Hell, the only thing I had to look forward to was penance via silver bullet through the head once we took care of Eli and Krogher.

  Terric made a little hmm sound, then said, “Death, trip to heaven, dire warnings from your dad, killing Sunny, Mina, your mom—”

  He didn’t kill me, she said again.

  “—killing me, taking the brunt of an explosion meant to kill half a dozen people even though you knew that tainted magic is probably the only thing that will end you. Kind of hoping you’ll bite it after you take Eli and Krogher out? Silver-bullet penance.” He looked over at me again. “How am I doing?”

  “The hell, mate?”

  “I heard your thoughts, Shame. When you UnClosed me, you were an open book. There isn’t anything in you I didn’t see.”

  “And that’s not creepy how?”

  “You saw the same in me, I’m sure.”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t. All I saw was the spell we were trying to trace to UnClose you.”

  “Really? I told you. You never pay attention.”

  “Sure,” I said, “next time you get a hatchet job on your brain that I have to unhatchet, I’ll try to take the time to appreciate the scenery.”

  We stepped into the actual ballroom of the house. Yes, the house had a ballroom.

  “You know we still have a chance at this, right?” he asked.

  “At what?”

  “Life. Maybe a decent one at that. You and me.” At my look, he added, “Not you and me like that. But both of us. Alive. No silver bullets necessary.”

  I stopped.

  He stopped too. “What?”

  “You really think that somehow, if we survive taking out Eli and Krogher and those walking drone bombs, you and I are going to just go along like nothing happened? Live our lives the way we were before we both died?”

  “Live our lives however we want to,” he said. “Why not?”

  “Oh, I dunno, mate. Maybe because we died? I don’t know about you, but I am not the same since the revolving grave door. Not at all. Something in me is broken. I am pretty sure I’m not a thing that should be allowed to live.”

  Shame, Mum said gently.

  “That’s the truth,” I said. “That’s how I’m doing. So if you want to believe that there’s some kind of happiness ahead of you, good on ya. But it won’t include me. The only thing ahead of me is a grave.”

  He looked over my shoulder, maybe bored. Maybe angry. “Are you done?” he asked.

  I shrugged.

  “I know what you are, you idiot,” he said. “I’m your other half. If I say we live we live.”

  “And if I say we die?”

  “Well, then you and I will just have to see who wants it more.” He gave me a hard smile and I couldn’t help smiling back.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I suppose we will. But money’s on black here. Death ends us all.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” he said. “Every time you’ve died, you’ve come back. So far, Life trumps. My money’s on red.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “So, where’s this problem spell Davy cast?”

  “You can’t see it?”

  I looked away from him and at the room. It was a big space. Stage at one end that could seat an orchestra, staircases from above spiraling down to the center, lots of marble with plenty of room to waltz.

  The room was humming with blue magic—Davy’s spell. The lines of the spell webbed from wall to wall to ceiling to floor, but each line was so thin and glass blue, I couldn’t see all of it at once.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked.

  Terric had his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He shrugged. “Like Dash said, we’re not quite sure yet.”

  I craned my neck to look at the ceiling. “Does it go through?”

  “Yes. Up about thirty feet from the roof, and out thirty feet on each side of the house. It’s like we’re wrapped in a ball of twine. Magic twine.”

  “So, where’s Davy?”

  Terric pointed to the center of the room and the center of the spell. I don’t know how I’d missed him. W
ell, since he was completely covered in the glasslike magic, he just looked like a man-sized knot in the center of the thing.

  Davy? Sunny said. Should I . . . Shame, should I touch him?

  She was asking me? “Have you tried to reach him?” I asked Terric.

  “Yes. When any of us touch the magic, the whole thing heats up.”

  “Hot?”

  “Energized. Powered. Cody thinks this is the trap Eli wanted to lay for all of us. And if we touch it to try to defuse the bomb, cut the wrong wire, it’s going to go off.”

  “Go off and do what?”

  He gave me the shrug again. “Blow us all up? Break magic? Infect us all with tainted magic? Wipe Portland off the map? Lots of theories, little data.”

  “Did you eat a bowl of Valium this morning, Conley? You are way too relaxed about all this.”

  “I’ve recently been reminded to enjoy the little things.”

  I gave him a quick smile. “Go ahead, Sunny,” I said, “see if you can reach him.”

  Terric looked around, didn’t see her, but nodded. “Can she talk to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bet that’s been interesting.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Let me know if she says anything, okay?”

  “I’ll give you the CliffsNotes.”

  Sunny walked through the web of magic. Her passing didn’t disturb the spell at all, didn’t even make one single thread waver, flare, or move. As soon as she realized she didn’t have to worry about the spell kicking to life if she touched it, she walked the straightest line to Davy.

  The rope between her and me stretched out with her, but it was a big room. There was only so far she would be able to go before she reached the end of her rope. Literally.

  I walked up as close to the spell as I could, stepping over and ducking the thin blue lines.

  Davy? She stopped next to where he knelt, close enough she could touch him.

  “She’s there,” I told Terric. “Next to him.”

  She reached out and gently touched the tangle of blue that cocooned him.

  The entire spell pulsed, one flood of blue that lit every line simultaneously, then faded away.

  But for that moment, I saw the spell. Saw all of it at once. Saw what it must be.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “It’s a Gate.”

  “The entire thing?”

  “Yes, didn’t you see it light up when Sunny touched it?”

  “No. That’s all you.”

  I guess I had seen it change because of my connection with Sunny. “Who casts a Gate spell this big? And where the hell does it open to?”

  “I don’t care,” a new voice said behind us.

  I turned.

  Zayvion Jones was walking into the room. Had on boots, jeans, and a sweatshirt, only it looked as if he’d been sleeping in them for a couple of days. Plus, he needed a shave. “Shame, Terric.”

  I’d seen that man face down the magical apocalypse at the end of the world. He hadn’t looked half as tired as he did now.

  “You look like hell, mate,” I said.

  He paused, then took a full breath. “Don’t touch the Gate, don’t go through the Gate, don’t do anything with this thing. We’re going to the hospital. Now.”

  “The baby?” I asked.

  “C-section. The sooner we get there, the higher the chance the baby survives.”

  He said it calmly, but I could see how those words hurt him. No wonder he looked like crap. Forget about magic and Gates and bombs. He was up to his neck in his own personal hell.

  “And,” he said, his voice wavering. He cleared his throat. “The sooner we get to the hospital, the higher the chance Allie will survive.”

  Every word came out flat, but oddly weighted by pain. And I knew why. He was not only dealing with Allie dying; he was connected to her. He was dying with her.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “I’m sorry, Zay. Go. We got this.”

  “No. I don’t want you to have this. We don’t know what it is and I am not going to take the risk of the two of you fucking around with it. I’ll handle it.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s a bad idea.”

  He wasn’t listening. “You’re not going to touch it or trigger it. Do you get me, Shamus?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I hear you. I’m not going to do anything to fuck this up, Zay. Go. Take care of Al and give us five minutes to see if we can find a way to get you and her out of here.”

  His gaze weighed me, then turned to Terric. “What the hell happened to you two?”

  “Just a death thing,” I said. “It’s all good.”

  He ignored me. “Terric?”

  “Eli’s a vindictive bastard,” Terric said. “We’re handling him.”

  Zay looked back at me, one more time at Terric, then nodded. “Five minutes, and then I’m leaving no matter what this thing is set to do. He turned and started out of the room. “It’s not a Gate spell.”

  “You can see it?” I asked.

  “It looks like the glyphs on the Beckstrom disks.”

  “Huh,” I said to Terric. “Maybe he’s right.”

  “I am,” Zayvion said, even though he was already in the hall.

  Terric pulled a disk out of his pocket.

  “Where the hell did you get that?” I asked.

  “Eli dropped it when Stone tackled him and fell through that hole in space Eli opened up.”

  “Filled with tainted magic?”

  “Nope. Feels pure. I’m guessing it’s a relic from the old days. Charged back when magic was strong. Clean.”

  “It’s charged?”

  “Yes. And changed. He carved a spell over the original spell.”

  “Gimme.”

  He hesitated.

  “Other half of you, remember, mate? Trusty-trusty.”

  He dropped it in my hand. I tipped it, light and shadow tunneling through the carvings.

  “Not Gate,” I said.

  “No, it’s something he told me would cancel the magic in the drones.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Eli talked to you?”

  “Funny how chatty he is when he’s torturing a man.” Terric said it calmly, but I knew him. Hell, I was connected to him. I could feel the wave of heat, anger, and shame that rose in him at the memories of what Eli had done to him.

  As I said. Not having his memories would have been a kindness.

  “This disk cancels the magic in the drones?” I asked. “All of the drones?”

  “I don’t know. He said we could use it to cancel the spells he cast. I think. He wasn’t being very clear about it.”

  I handed him the disk. “Well, I am all for crazy plans built on dubious hunches. Let’s do this.”

  “Do what? Shame? What?”

  “Trigger the spell.”

  “You told Zay we wouldn’t do that.”

  “I lied. I do that. We’ll cast Block when we trigger it. Should keep Zay and Allie out of the blast zone.”

  “We don’t know what the blast zone is.”

  “We’ll take an educated guess.”

  “And we’re not going to tell anyone that we’re doing this, why?” he asked, putting the disk back in his pocket.

  “Too many people get involved and we’d have to make a new plan.”

  “What plan?” Dash asked. He, Cody, and Kevin were all walking into the room.

  “The plan of Zay and Allie getting to the hospital as soon as possible,” I said.

  “No.” Dash shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I already heard that plan from Zayvion. You two have something else cooking.”

  “We think Davy’s spell is part of how we can stop the drones,” Terric said.

  “Why?” Dash as
ked. “I don’t remember Eli being on our side.”

  “Eli’s on Eli’s side,” Terric said.

  “What does that mean?” Kevin asked.

  “He’s more than happy,” Terric said, “to use friends, enemies, and anyone and anything else to get what he wants.”

  “Okay,” Cody said. “Do you know what Eli wants, Terric?”

  “Destruction,” he said. “Krogher’s destruction for using him as a weapon and a tool. Shame and my destruction for killing Brandy. In that order.”

  “Aw, we’re number two on the list?” I said. “Disappointed.”

  “How does this”—Dash pointed at the spell that spun out around Davy—“stop the drones?”

  “Might be a Gate,” Terric said.

  “Who says?” Kevin asked.

  I held up my finger. “It looks like a Gate to me. Zay doesn’t agree.”

  “So we’re going to trigger it and find out,” Terric finished.

  “That’s a terrible plan,” Dash said. “Eli carved this into Davy and then he led Davy and us here to set it off. You said it yourself, he wants you two destroyed. This isn’t a Gate—it’s a damn trap.”

  “Probably,” I said. “And we’re going to set it off. We will also cast Block, to keep the explosion to a minimum. Kevin, I’d like you to stay with Zayvion and Allie. Just because we’re following Eli’s bread crumbs doesn’t mean he isn’t planning to kill them while we’re in the woods.”

  “I’d like to go on record as being against this idea,” Kevin said gruffly.

  “We’ll be sure to have our secretary put that in the notes,” I said. “Go. Keep them safe for me, okay?”

  “I will,” he said. “And you two had better stay a step ahead of the grave. I do not want Zayvion on my ass for letting you go get killed in a permanent sort of way.”

  “We have a few aces up our sleeve,” Terric said.

  Kevin gave us both one last look. “This isn’t good-bye, boys.” He turned and waved his hand above his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

  I hoped he was right.

  “Now.” I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s do this.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Dash said.

  “Bad idea,” Cody and I said at the same time. “Jinx, mate,” I said. “You owe me a beer.”