Stone Cold

Chapter 26

SHAME

There is maybe one thing good about carrying Death: You can’t die. There are, however, a lot of bad things about carrying Death. Example? Sometimes dying is a kindness.

In the middle of that explosion, as magic ripped through the walls of the house, as magic was set to do one thing—kill all the people in that house, especially the Soul Complements and their unborn baby—I decided there was one more thing Death magic was good for: absorbing energy.

Even magic.

I threw Death at Davy’s magic like a heavy blanket, swallowing down the force of it, devouring the heat of it, taking on the explosion as an energy I could drain and diffuse. Did it too.

The blast rerouted to the middle of my head.

Pain.

Heat.

A riot of magic—the magic Davy had tapped—pulverized through my mind and body.

Eli had done more than carve spells into him. He’d filled him with tainted magic. Just like the magic that filled the drones. Back in the warehouse when I’d drunk down the magic in the drones, it had made me sick.

This? This might be my ticket out of here.

I screamed and burned and bled and broke, tainted magic pouring over me, pumping through me. I didn’t know how Davy had held this so long, didn’t know how he was still alive.

And then, in an instant, there was silence.

That was just a different kind of pain.

A hand lay cool against the back of my neck. He walked me into the house, took me to a bed, made me sit. The magic was gone. So was the porch, melted to slag and ash.

Hell.

The ringing in my ears was so loud, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts.

Shuttering darkness and blasts of light still rolled through my brain, across my eyes, but I was pretty sure that was Terric at my side, Terric who had brought me here.

“Rest,” he said maybe from somewhere in my head, his hands still on me, words carrying a soft yellow light. Life magic. Healing.

The next time I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. This was not my bed, not my bedroom. I was alone. Well, just me and the ghosts of three women. I was on top of the covers, a light blanket over my torso.

Go slowly, Mum said from where she sat on the bed next to me. That was a lot of magic to consume.

Consume? I wondered if I said that out loud. From the look on Mum’s face, I hadn’t.

I pulled my hands up to my sides, bent elbows, and pushed up to sitting.

Bloody hell, that hurt.

Sunny sat cross-legged on top of the dresser, her head resting against the mirror behind her. I didn’t know, she said.

“Know?” Excellent. That was actual audible speech. My bell had been rung pretty damn hard, though. It had taken a lot to get that word out.

The details of exactly what had happened were on the other side of the blast zone in my brain.

About Davy, Sunny said. I didn’t know that he was carved up and triggered to kill you. Well, you and Allie and Zayvion and Terric.

Ah, the details were coming back to me. “Did he? Kill?”

I looked around the room expecting to see everyone I cared about dead and tied to me. But the only ghosts in the room were Mum, Sunny, and Eleanor, who shook her head.

No one died, Eleanor said. But your mom’s right. That was a lot of magic to absorb. You’re kind of smoldering with death and darkness.

“Yeah?” I asked. “Is it sexy?”

She grinned. Oh yeah. Real sexy. That was the first time I’d seen her smile, really smile since I had bought her a drink in heaven.

Hold on. Heaven? Images and memories flashed and burned through my mind. All that magic I’d absorbed must have rattled a few things loose.

I’d died, gone to a bar in heaven. I’d seen Eleanor there, and Chase and Greyson, and Dessa. Dad and Victor too.

Shamus? Mum said.

“Hold on. Having a Dorothy moment.”

Dad and Victor had thrown me out of heaven and cast me down here.

They’d told me I didn’t have much time. That if I didn’t stop Krogher and Eli and the drones, the world would end. I searched those memories for exactly how the end might come, but came up empty.

Undoubtedly it was something involving magic.

“How long have I been here?” I asked. “How long since Davy bombed out on us?”

It hasn’t been longer than an hour or two, Mum said.

Felt like years.

I got out of the bed, keeping one hand on the wall just in case walking was going to be an issue. Nope. I felt pretty good for a guy who’d just taken a nuclear blast to Oz and back. “Where’s Terric?” I asked. “Where’s Dash and Cody? I have to go. We have to go find Eli.”

I was fully clothed, still had my shoes on.

Like we’d know? Sunny said. We can’t get that far away from you.

“Then let’s get moving.” I opened the door onto a nicely decorated hallway. Figured out where I was.

I’d been to Kevin’s house a couple of times and recalled needing a map to navigate the place. It had been in his family for generations, a family of some wealth who liked living on the grand side of the scale.

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. Well, 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 asked. “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.”

“It’s all a bad idea,” Dash said.

“I’m with Shame and Cody on this, Dash,” Terric said. “You should stay here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to listen to you either, Terric. So let’s get this done.” He pulled a gun out of his pocket and chambered a round.

I couldn’t help appreciating his attitude. Somewhere along the line he had picked up the habit of being armed at all times. I liked it.

If this spell was a Gate, that meant it would swing both ways. It was just as likely to let something through to us as to let us through to something.

And if something was coming through the Gate . . . well, magic is fast. Bullets: faster.

“I don’t suppose you’d keep Dash here for us, would you?” I asked Cody.

“You want me to argue with the gunman?”

“Great,” I said. “Then this is a plan. Fantastic. Sunny,” I said, “I need you to touch Davy again. When I say three, okay?”

“Sunny?” Dash said. “She’s here? She’s dead.”

“Shame tied her soul to him when he killed her,” Cody offered up helpfully.

“Jesus, Shame,” Dash said. “That’s worse.”

Yeah, well, we could discuss my screwups later.

“Did you hear me, Sunny?”

I heard. I’ll touch him. She’d been involved in magic for years. She knew the only way to get Davy out of this mess was to set the spell free to release him.

And we were about to find out if setting the spell free would release him alive or dead.

But promise me that you’ll catch him if he dies, she said.

I nodded. It meant I’d have both of them haunting me for the rest of my life. But I owed her . . . well, at least a chance to be with him again.

“If Davy lives,” I said to Cody, “he’ll need help.”

“Already have nine-one-one coming this way,” he said. “I’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”

“Ready, then.” I glanced at Terric. “Block?”

“Got it,” he said, finishing the last lines of the spell. We’d have to fill it with magic at the same time we were triggering Eli’s spell. A tricky bit of work.

This really was a bad plan.

“One, two, three.” I put my hand on Terric’s right wrist just as Sunny reached into the tangle of blue around Davy and kept her hand there. The entire spell lit up again.

Terric and I drew magic up from the ground beneath us in perfect sync. I am not ashamed to say I moaned a little from the pleasure of it. We set the Block spell thrumming with magic while we focused on Eli’s spell.

It was so easy to draw on magic with him, so easy to set it spinning down the threads of the spell, to guide it to the core of the spell, to twist it just a bit so that as the spell activated and Davy was cut free.

Davy yelled and toppled from his knees to the floor.

“Holy shit,” Cody said. “He’s alive, Shame. Tell Sunny he’s alive.”

I’d be happy to pass along that news, but the spell spun where Davy had knelt, burning with blue fire that caught red. Thunder fired somewhere above us, and the air sizzled.

In the center of the room was a hole. Not just a hole in space, but a break in reality, a tear in magic. Zayvion had been wrong. It was a Gate.

Go, Mum was yelling. Now, Shamus, now!

I ran for it, Terric right beside me. Dash was on our heels. We tucked our heads and jumped.