Stone Cold (8 page)

A schedule.

Laundry days, shopping days, cooking days, and yes, bathroom-cleaning days. Please. I'd rather die.

“Forget it,” I said. “You can have the speakers.”

“You sure?” he said, already knowing what I'd say. “I'm feeling the urge to go full-on Portishead.”

Gag.

“Better than getting domestic with you, mate. I refuse to check off a list that involves sorting my socks.”

“Keep telling yourself that. You know you'll be sorry when I'm gone.”

“Hey,” I said. “Here's a thing. How about you tell me what you're smoking so I can hop on the all-delusion-all-the-time thing you've got going there?”

He set his beer down. “Suddenly I've changed my mind.” He pushed up out of the chair. “How does six hours of Hootie and the Blowfish sound?”

“Bite me.”

“Now, now, Flynn. I thought you didn't want to play for the other team.” He took a step, grinning.

And then the air behind him sizzled with a ribbon of vertical fire.

“Terric,” I yelled.

I knew what that ribbon was. I'd seen it the last time Eli Collins had popped into my room and given me an ultimatum at gunpoint. It was a gate, it was tech and magic, and Eli was on the other side controlling it.

A hole in space yawned open.

Terric turned.

Eli Collins, the psychopath we'd been looking for, stepped through that hole.

Terric and I raised our hands, drew on magic.

Eli already had the gun aimed, bullets tearing through the air.

Magic is fast. Bullets are faster.

Terric took one in the chest. A second hit me in the throat.

Eli had a knife in his other hand. He slashed Terric's neck. Blood poured free as Terric fell to the floor, gasping.

Terric's pain and my pain hit me like a damn truck. I couldn't breathe. I fell to my knees.

And then Eli was standing over me, the gun trained on my head.

“Hello, Shame,” he snarled. “I've been waiting a long,
long
time for this.”

I pulled on Death magic.

He squeezed the trigger.

Magic is fast. Bullets are faster.

One shot in my head. Then heart, stomach, chest, lungs. One in each leg.

Everything was shock white, hot, burning. I couldn't think, couldn't reach the magic inside me.

I think I hit the floor. Watched with fading sight as Eli dragged Terric back through the hole in space. Maybe Terric was still alive. Maybe Terric was still breathing. I felt one more hot push of his agony.

And then I felt nothing. No heat, no pain. Because I wasn't breathing. I wasn't living.

Eleanor, next to me, screamed.

Eli Collins emptied the rest of the clip into my body.

I didn't feel a thing.

I heard Eleanor again, for a brief moment:
Shame! No! Don't go!

I tried to answer but had no voice. The room filled with light. At the edge of that light I saw the tunnel, the road that led to death. The real, through-the-veil, no-coming-back death.

Like hell I was walking that road.

But my feet were not my own.

I got one last glimpse of my body, bloody and riddled with holes, staining the linoleum. Had one last thought that Terric would be pissed at the mess we'd made of the kitchen.

Eli yelled obscenities at my corpse from the other side of that hole. Then he closed the gate before I could even take a step.

And then I was dead.

TERRIC

“Terric!”

The last thing Shame said—my name.

I spun as an explosion of pain tore through me.

Bullet. I staggered, but it wasn't a hand that caught me. It was a knife. I couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow around the pain.

Blood pumped from my throat, hot and slick, down my chest.

He'd slit my throat. Someone had slit my throat. The shock of that couldn't penetrate the horror I was already grappling with.

Shame was dying, right there on our kitchen floor.

For a slow, terrifying moment, I sifted the possibilities. Who could break into our home without us noticing? Who would know we would both be here together?

Then I heard his voice and knew who was behind me: Eli Collins.

We'd spent so much time looking for him, but he'd always known right where we would be. In Portland. Together. I don't know why he'd waited so long to attack. But Eli never did anything randomly.

I tried to raise my hands to push Eli away, to fight. Nothing about me was working. Blood loss, possibly poison, the bullet wound, and the pain of Shame dying. I felt cut in half from head to soul.

I was dying too.

Life magic caught fire inside me like lighter fluid under a match and devoured me whole.

God, not again.
The healing Life magic forced me through was pure hell. It was always pure hell.

If I could breathe, I'd scream. If I could think, I'd turn Life magic on Eli to rip him apart. If I could move, I'd save Shame. But all I could do was endure.

Something deep and important inside me broke with a bone-shattering crack.

Please, no.

But I knew. Knew what that break had to be—my soul connection with Shame.

Shame was dead. Gone.

And my world went dark.

•   •   •

I woke with a soft grunt, lying on my back. Breathing. Hurting. Tied up.

My mouth tasted like piss and oil and blood—the remainder of whatever poison and magic Eli had put on the knife blade.

My chest felt like a block of ice were balanced on top of it: a cold I could not shake that held me pinned.

Shame was gone. . . . I pushed that thought away, buried it. I needed to remain calm. Needed to find a way out of this, whatever this was.

So I could kill Eli Collins.

I could not feel anyone near me, could not sense their beating hearts, their dying bodies.

I was alone.

“This is the first day, Terric Conley.”

I jerked at the voice, a man's, cultured, but an American accent, echoing through the room. His words had the careful elocution of someone who had worked overseas for a decade or two.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing but blackness and blur. I wasn't blind or blindfolded.

“The first day will be the easiest,” the voice said.

I blinked until my vision cleared. I was in a cage, thick bars reaching from floor to the darkness lost in the rafters. I was chained down to a cot by hands, ankles, waist. Shadows robbed the details, but I could make out an industrial fan high above me, and from somewhere over my left shoulder, a dim light shone. Shadows curved around pipes—old, rusting, and I thought I heard the steady drip of water leaking.

It smelled of dirt and coal and damp rust. A factory.

“The first day you will know what we want,” the voice continued. The sound of footsteps echoed off the ceiling, the walls. It was a large room. Warehouse. The floor was concrete, uneven with the scratch of gravel and metal shavings.

Machine shop.

“The first day you can give us what we want without pain. Without cost.” The man stopped just out of my line of vision.

I knew that voice. Where had I heard it before?

“The first day is free.” He took two more steps, came into my line of sight.

Older man, gray hair brushed up away from his face, forehead creased from temple to temple, more lines winging out from around and below his heavy-lidded dark eyes. His nose was hooked and wide at the tip, his cheekbones hacked a shelf above sallow cheeks, and his lips were lost in a long jaw.

Krogher.

He was the man Eli said called the shots in the organization, the man who told Eli what to do. High-ranking government official of some kind who was far too interested in magic, Soul Complements, and the things he could do with both. Not CIA, not FBI, not several of the covert agencies we'd dug our way through while looking for Davy.

Powerful enough to hide from our very skilled investigation.

Krogher had been kidnapping people who had been poisoned by magic several years ago. He'd told Eli to carve spells into them. Spells that then made those people even stronger than Soul Complements. Spells that made those people walking, brainless bombs. Krogher had used them to try to kill Shame and me. It had almost worked.

We'd been looking for Krogher because we knew he had Davy. Sure, Eli was his dog, but Krogher was the one throwing the bones.

And now Krogher was right there on the other side of those bars.

“The first day, Terric Conley,” he said. “Could be your last. If you cooperate with us.”

I heard the scuff of shoes. There had to be at least two other people in the room. I should have felt their heartbeats, but there was nothing. I didn't even sense Krogher's pulse.

They'd found a way to block the heightened senses Life magic gave me.

Or they'd found a way to block magic from my reach.

“What do you want?” It came out harsh and dry, as if I'd been screaming for hours. I swallowed and wished I hadn't.

“You,” Krogher said. “We want you, Mr. Conley. We want your cooperation.”

“For what?”

“To unlock the mysteries of the universe. Well, the mysteries of magic. A mystery you carry in your blood and bones. Life.”

I twisted my wrists and shifted my legs. It wasn't just metal and chain that had me tied down. There was magic worked into the metal and chain.

“Life magic isn't a thing,” I said. “It is a way of casting magic. A discipline of using magic, of casting spells. That is all.”

“Yes. We know that's all it
used
to be. But something happened to you over the years, over the battles you've survived. Life magic became something
in
you. Just as Death magic became something
in
Mr. Flynn.”

“Where is he? Where is Shame?”

“You don't know?” He took a few steps closer to me, stopped just on the other side of the bars. “Strange. We thought you, of all people, would know exactly where he is.”

He paused.

I pulled against the bindings, dragging myself up, but could only lift my shoulders a few inches off the cot.

“Where is he?” I yelled.

“We killed him,” he said. “Eli Collins killed Mr. Flynn. He was too much of a risk. Too volatile for our needs.”

Fury roared white hot over my body and raged in my head. Life magic flared, answering my anger, cold, deadly. It burned in me, coiled to strike.

But it could not strike. It was trapped in me, burning through me with no way out.

I couldn't cast a spell, couldn't make magic do my bidding. Couldn't kill Krogher.

“Bullets always trump magic, Mr. Conley,” Krogher said. “How lucky we are that it is so. Mr. Flynn was a liability, a danger we could not control. You, however.” He stopped close enough I could see the SIG Sauer in his hand. “You are the answer to our prayers. Although I would advise you to calm yourself. Too much Life magic will only . . . spoil our conversation.”

I looked up into his eyes. Held that dark gaze. “I will kill you.”

His expression didn't change. I'm sure he'd heard those words before. He was in a line of business that guaranteed threats. But this was the first time he'd heard them from the man who was going to follow through on that promise.

“So,” he went on as if Life magic weren't cracking my bones. “As I was saying. This is the first day. And this is what we want: cooperation. From you. An all-access pass to the Life magic you carry.”

“Why?”

“Now, now, Mr. Conley. We aren't here to answer
your
questions. We are here to get the job done.”

“What job?”

“Let's just say we have investors who are very interested in magic. In how it has been used. In how it can be used in the future. We are interested in the secrets the Authority has been hiding for centuries. Especially secrets about how magic can break rules. Things like Soul Complements, for instance. Things like you, Mr. Conley. Things like Davy Silvers.”

“Davy?” I said.

“Oh yes. We have him. And he is still alive. If you would like him to remain that way, you will cooperate.”

“With what?”

“With me,” a new voice said.

I turned my head. Out of the shadows walked Eli Collins.

“Hello, Terric,” he said. “I hope you're enjoying your stay. We got you the best suite and the highest-quality, strongest-binding spells this side of purgatory. Nothing's too good for you, my friend.”

Life magic flared again, but this time I repeated a mantra, tried to breathe slowly, tried to calm my mind. I was no stranger to the pain magic inflicted. I knew how to cope.

“See there?” Eli said. “I told you he'd fall in line. Because Terric always does the right thing. Don't you, Conley? You have such a hero complex.”

“Did you kill him?” I asked.

“Who? Your little fuck-buddy Flynn?” He stepped up to the bars, a hypodermic needle in one hand and a black leather satchel with glyphs painted across it in the other. “Tell me you didn't feel the connection break. Tell me you can't feel, right now, a raw burning sickness chewing its way through your spine, screaming and puking in your brain. Tell me you didn't feel him die.”

I was breathing hard, trying to keep Life magic from flaring and burning me up. “Did you kill him?” I asked again.

The door to the cage slid aside and he stepped into my prison.

He was close enough I could kill him with a thought.

Except the glyphs that bound me to the cot, the spells carved into the cell bars, the spells burned into the concrete floor, bound me too. I knew how to kill him, but Life magic refused to move, refused to take shape to my will.

He had done a very good job of locking magic up inside me.

Eli strolled over to the cot. Distantly, I heard the clack of Krogher's gun chambering a round. Heard that echoing throughout the warehouse, three, four, half a dozen other guns trained on me.

So there were at least six other people here. People I could not sense.

Magic is fast. Bullets are faster.

But I was two things: patient and vengeful.

Eli stopped next to my cot. Stared down at me through round gold-wire glasses. It had been some time since I'd seen him. Haggard, he hadn't shaved in probably a week, his hair was three missed appointments too long, and his clothes—a button-down white work shirt and gray gabardine trousers—were wrinkled and stained at the cuff.

Stained with blood.

“Did I kill Shame?” Eli bent at the waist, putting his mouth near my ear. “Yes. Just like he killed Brandy.”

I jerked at that. “Your Soul Complement? She died of a heart attack.”

Eli straightened, then placed the satchel next to him, his face immobile as his hands delicately manipulated the locks on it.

“She was under doctors' observation,” I said. “Close observation. Shame didn't kill her. He couldn't have.”

The locks gave with two soft
snicks
. I smelled sharp chemicals and hot plastic.

“Eli,” I said, “there were cameras on her. Protection spells on her. She was under lock and key. We wanted to keep her
alive
. There was nothing in it for us if she died. Shame never touched her. He couldn't have touched her.”

I knew I was reasoning with a madman, but getting through to Eli was the only card I had to play right now.

He didn't turn, didn't shift from the slow, measured motions of whatever he was unpacking onto the table or surface just beyond my view. Like a man caught in the trance of a dream he'd gone through too many times.

I looked the other way. Krogher was still there, the gun pointed at my head and his finger resting near the trigger. I knew there were other gunmen doing the same.

“He was there,” Eli said so quietly my own breathing nearly drowned out the sound of his words. “He sat down beside Brandy. Covered her mouth so she couldn't scream. Stared in her eyes. Told her . . .”

He held up a knife, long and razor sharp, glyphs and spells cracking into shadows and sparks of light as he turned it. “. . . that he wanted to hurt her. For me. To make me feel pain. Her pain. To tell me . . .” He turned toward me the knife—a blood blade—in one hand. In the other hand was the hypodermic needle.

“To tell me that he was coming to kill me. For what I'd done to Victor. For what I'd done to Dessa. For what I'd done to you. What have I done to you, Terric? What have I ever done to you?”

“Shot me,” I said with every ounce of calm I could call upon. “You nearly killed me, Eli. You wanted to kill me.You did kill Victor. And Dessa and Joshua. And many others.”

My heart was pumping too hard, pain riding each beat. Shame never told me he killed Brandy. He'd acted just as surprised and angry as any of us that she had died before we could use her as a bargaining chip to negotiate Davy's release.

He'd lied to me.

Jesus, Shame. Why couldn't you trust me? Why couldn't you tell me?

“Only nearly?” Eli said, tipping his head so a bar of liquid light warped across his glasses, hiding his eyes behind the reflected fire of magic. “I
nearly
killed you. Well, I promise you I completely killed that filthy rat fucker, Shame.”

“Mr. Collins,” Krogher said. “We are on a schedule.”