Back Lash

by Devon Monk

  “Easy, Shame,” Terric said, near me. His voice was clear. Tired, but there was none of that nightmare-garbled distance to it. “Don’t try to move.”

  Which only made me want to move.

  I settled for opening my eyes.

  For a couple heartbeats, I thought I couldn’t see. Then the low light gave fuzzy edges some clarity.

  I was in my room. Terric sat in a chair next to the head of the bed, to my right. The door was behind him, but I thought it might be shut.

  I had no concept of what time it was, what day it was. I was having a little trouble remembering what month it was.

  “You were shot,” Terric said. “Multiple times. I got the bullets out. Healed you. But you’re not in good shape right now, Shame. You still need to rest.”

  “How...?” My voice wasn’t even a whisper. My mouth was ash dry and it hurt just to breathe hard enough to make air into words.

  He reached over and placed his hand on my chest. Cool, soothing magic flowed into me with a comforting weight.

  He drew his hand away. I might have closed my eyes for a while.

  “Can you drink?” he asked, maybe a moment, maybe an hour later.

  I opened my eyes expecting a beer. Got a straw sticking out of a glass of water.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I said. More than a whisper this time, though my throat felt like I’d been gargling hot gravel.

  He angled the straw to my mouth so I didn’t have to lift my head much. I sucked down a couple gulps. After the third, it felt like my throat and mouth were working together again.

  “How long have I been in bed?”

  “Two days.”

  “Fuck.”

  He leaned back, put the glass down and rubbed at his eyes. “We found you....” He stopped moving, his fingers pinching at the inside corners of his eyes so that the width of his hands covered his face.

  He cleared his throat. Started again.

  “I felt the shots. Maybe not all of them, but the bad ones. The ones that killed you.”

  He dropped his hands into his lap and stared at me. His eyes were ice blue, ringed with red. And so very, very tired.

  “Killed,” I repeated.

  “Killed,” he agreed.

  We both let that settle between us.

  “I knew where you were, could feel you bleeding out....” His voice gave up, and I watched him stare blindly into that memory. A tear tracked unnoticed down the corner of his cheek.

  “Dash drove,” he went on. “I was blind with your pain. With the need for you not to die.”

  “You...healed me,” I said.

  “I brought you back from death.” His eyes ticked down, gaze steady with a pain that did not reach his blank, emotionless face. “I let...magic do anything it wanted to bring you back. I didn’t heal you. You weren’t alive.”

  “Fuck,” I said softly.

  He nodded slowly.

  I took a moment to evaluate my body. Breathing, heart pumping. Sore and aching, but not in terrible amounts of pain.

  Zero hunger for brains, so I guess that ruled out the zombie theory.

  I was like someone who had drowned, or been frozen, or otherwise flat-lined and then had been brought back by forcible actions.

  “What about the gunmen?”

  He shook his head. “Just you lying there.”

  “And another dead guy.”

  He frowned.

  “There should have been another dead guy with me. Shot up.”

  Shook his head again. “I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see...anything but you. We had to go. Had to load you in the car fast. The police were on their way.”

  “They weren’t the Russians,” I said, trying and failing to pull myself into a sitting position. All I managed was to prop myself up better on my pillow.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly.

  For once, I listened to him.

  “They wanted to know how to break into magic.”

  He stared at me for long enough, I wondered if he’d heard me.

  “Terric?”

  His eyes seemed to clear and focus on my face.

  “Jesus. When did you sleep last?”

  He shook his head.

  “Where’s Dash?”

  “Here. I think.” He looked over his shoulder as if expecting Dash to be standing behind him.

  “Come here,” I said.

  He frowned at me.

  “Sit here. Next to me. On the bed.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re a mess. Sit. Now. Don’t make me get out of this bed and force you.”

  That got a thin smile out of him. He stood like everything in his body hurt, turned, sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Now lie down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  To my surprise, he stretched out on the mattress beside me, on his side, his back toward me.

  He exhaled a soft, exhausted groan.

  “Get some sleep,” I said. “We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

  He was already snoring. And I was right behind him.

  Chapter 10

  The sound of a shower running and the smell of fresh coffee and bacon woke me.

  Light filtered in through my window, bleeding around the pulled curtains. I stared at the ceiling and took stock of myself.

  I felt...decent. Good. Like I’d gotten a nice hard sleep and needed food.

  But first, the bathroom.

  I shoved the blanket off, sat on the edge of the bed for a second. I was in my boxers and nothing else. Bright pink new skin scattered like pocked stars across my chest. I pressed my finger against one, felt the slight indentation of the skin and flesh there.

  Bullet holes. Healed.

  I inhaled, exhaled. Felt bones move with the stretch of my lungs.

  Stiff, but no pain.

  God damn, Terric was good.

  I eased up to my feet and walked to the bathroom, pissed forever, then took a shower to wash off the sweat, old pain, and random blood stains.

  Dragged on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, walked barefoot out into the hall, then to the kitchen.

  Heard voices in the kitchen. Dash, Jolie, and Terric.

  Walked in.

  “Hey,” Dash said, startled to see me in the doorway. “Here, sit down, Shame.”

  He got up, pulled out his chair for me. Stood there like he wasn’t sure if I might need a hand to make it the six steps to the chair.

  “I’m good,” I said. Had to clear my throat a little to push sound into the words. “Be better with coffee and bacon.”

  “Sure,” Dash said, turning his chair out for me anyway.

  “Hey, zombie,” Jolie said. “Good to see you shambling.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Pass the brains, will you?”

  She smiled and pushed her plate of toast my way. She glanced over at Terric, then back at me.

  I didn’t know what he’d told her about me. About us. About magic. About what he’d done to save me. But she was not stupid.

  She must have seen them drag me in. Must have seen Terric in full Life magic mode, healing with his bare hands, pulling bullets out of my flesh.

  Terric was at the stove, cooking pancakes. His back was toward us. A pile of pancakes about a foot high teetered on a plate next to him. There were at least half a dozen more on the griddle.

  “Feeding an army today, Mother Teresa?”

  He turned. Gave me a look.

  I tipped my chin up. Dared him to tell me that what he’d done was wrong. That me being alive was some kind of mistake he regretted.

  I owed him for my life. Every breath. If I got a chance—when I got a chance—I’d tell him so. I’d thank him.

  He had a hard time accepting the mistakes he could make with the Life magic he carried. Worr
ied about it even more than I worried about the mistakes I could make with Death magic.

  How screwed up was that?

  The connection between us was a snarl of emotions I couldn’t sort. Relief, certainly, but a mix of other things: worry, anger, guilt, irritation, and yes, joy.

  So basically: we were a mess.

  “Did you miss me?” I asked. “Dash, did he pine for me while I lay sleeping?”

  Dash chuckled.

  “No,” Terric said. “Nobody pined for you Shame. I was just thinking of how much I’ll miss the peace and quiet in the house now that you’re not comatose. Pancake?”

  “I’ll take half that pile.”

  “Yeah, you will.” He transferred six pancakes onto a plate and brought it to me.

  “Thanks.” I held the edge of the plate, but didn’t support the weight so he had to hold it to keep it from falling.

  He scowled at me.

  “Thanks,” I said again. For everything. For saving me.

  I knew he felt that through our connection.

  He nodded. “Eat your pancakes.”

  I took the weight of the plate so he could let go.

  He turned back to the griddle, his shoulders no longer board-stiff with worry. The connection between us was filled with relief and mild irritation.

  Normal.

  Good.

  Dash tipped his head toward Terric and mouthed thank you as he handed me coffee.

  I could only imagine Terric had been a delight to live with the last few days.

  I gave him a small toast with my mug, then took a sip, groaned. “God, that’s good. What day is it?”

  “Thursday,” Dash took the seat next to me, carrying his own coffee.

  I poured a gallon or two of maple syrup over the spongy stack of cakes. “How have things been while I vacationed in coma-land?”

  “We’ve made some progress,” Dash said.

  “On what?” I shoveled pancakes into my mouth. An explosion of vanilla, sweet maple, and toasted nuts hit my mouth like a damn freight train that rumbled through my body. I held up a finger to Dash and closed my eyes while I chewed, moaning a bit.

  Food never tasted so wonderful as after one has died.

  Trust me on this.

  Also, food cooked by a man who couldn’t help but put Life magic, healing, thriving into it—especially when he was worried—was more than a little mouth-gasmic.

  Everything in my body tightened for it, hungered for it, devoured it.

  “You done making love to your food?” Terric asked as he sat at the table on my left.

  I flipped him off, heard Jolie chuckle, and slowly finished chewing. Only then did I open my eyes and wash it all down with hot, black coffee.

  I almost felt human.

  Terric slouched a bit in his chair, his long fingers wrapped around his cup. His eyes were clear—no red, no exhausted dark circles—no magic. Just blue.

  One of the dangers of carrying magic in your bones is that magic will change you. Eat away at the boundaries of what makes you you until you aren’t you anymore. You become a tool for magic, an extension of magic.

  Terric, I was happy to see, was just Terric.

  And that was good too.

  “You were saying?” I asked Dash.

  “We’ve made some headway on those names you got.”

  “Names?”

  “Written on a slip of paper in your pocket,” Terric said.

  Right. Durnam and Tandy. The men Jak had ID’ed.

  “We?” I asked, glancing at Jolie.

  She raised her eyebrow. “I’m all up on your secret magic stuff now. Did the spit handshake and everything.”

  “Huh.” I looked over at Terric. “I didn’t think this relationship was on a spit-to-spit basis yet.”

  Terric shrugged one shoulder. She might be up on some of our secret magic stuff, but not all of it.

  “So what did we find on them?” I asked.

  “They weren’t a part of the Authority,” Dash said. “Not directly. But there are a few people they had in common who were.”

  I continued making my way through the pancakes. Glanced up for him to go on.

  Jolie spoke: “They were all professionals and, as far as we can tell, were respected by people who were a part of the Authority.”

  “So they knew how to keep their mouths shut. Were they connected to the Authority before or after it went public?”

  “Before,” Dash said. “They didn’t throw dirt once it did come out, didn’t have any complaints about the people in the organization.”

  “Were most of their clientele Authority members?”

  “No,” Jolie said. “They had thriving practices. Hundreds of clients. Which is why it took us so long to narrow down why they would have been hit.”

  “And what did you narrow it down to?”

  “Us,” Terric said. “They’re looking for us.”

  I put my fork down. The pancakes were demolished and I couldn’t eat another bite. I swigged coffee and glanced over at him. “Who is looking for us? Why?”

  “You said there should have been a dead guy on the street with you,” he said. “Who? Why?”

  I took a breath, hesitating, since I wasn’t sure how much he wanted Jolie to know. Decided to take the direct route.

  “They weren’t the Russians. But they had guns. And wands.”

  Silence filled the room.

  Terric stared at me and I held that gaze. I knew he knew I wasn’t lying.

  The corners of his eyes tightened as he picked up on the memory of the experience from me. The raw, sick feeling of the magic the wand had drawn upon, the blast of magic that had accompanied every damn bullet that had killed the guy I’d used as a shield, and then me.

  “You two want to let us in on that?” Dash asked.

  “No price to pay?” Terric asked.

  “Not that I saw.”

  “That’s not how it works,” he said.

  “I know. But that’s how it worked for them.”

  “How what worked?” Dash asked.

  Terric looked away from me. “They used the wands to access magic. To direct it. To use it as a killing force.”

  “How do you know?” Jolie asked. She was glancing between the two of us. Curiosity was glossed over with a little panic. We’d spooked her. So I had to guess she didn’t know about our connection.

  “They do that sometimes,” Dash covered smoothly. “It’s weird, right?”

  She nodded. “I think you two have been around each other too long.”

  “See, Terric?” I said. “Even your little sister thinks you should move out.”

  “How many?” Terric asked.

  “Men? Six total. They shot through the guy who I thought was their leader, trying to kill me.”

  “Holy shit,” Jolie breathed. She looked a little shaken.

  Sometimes I forgot what that kind of thing must sound like for people who didn’t have to accept that they were a target every single waking moment of their life.

  “I don’t suppose they gave you any indication of who they are working for?” Terric asked.

  “Accents say it’s not the Russians. So I don’t think it’s part of the mess you’re in, Jolie.”

  She nodded and took a sip of tea, refusing to make eye contact with me.

  “Which means they must be a part of the dead bodies we’ve found around town,” I said. “They admitted as much.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They know magic is gone, and they’re looking for it. Thought I had some intel on that.”

  “They were using magic, though, right?” Jolie asked. “Why are they looking for it if they already have it?”

  “Either they have a limited access to it,” I said, “or they have a limited supply of it. All I know is they want more. A
lot more.”

  Terric nodded, thinking it through.

  “So who did Durnam and Tandy and Carpenter have in common?” I asked.

  Dash was watching Terric and chewing on the inside of his cheek. Like he had something to say, but didn’t want to say it to him. Here. Now.

  Maybe because it was something that Jolie shouldn’t know. Maybe because he and Terric still hadn’t settled the moving-out-of-country doesn’t equal moving-out-of-love thing.

  “There’s a man named Harold Thorne,” Jolie said. “Have you heard of him?”

  I frowned. “No.”

  “He was a client of all three of those men. They were his dentist, real estate agent, and psychologist when he was going through a divorce.”

  “At the same time?”

  She nodded. “A few years ago. We think...well, Dash and I think, maybe someone’s trying to threaten him. Or force him out of hiding.”

  “He’s hiding?”

  Dash stopped staring at Terric. “No one’s heard from him since the Authority went public.”

  “So he’s dead,” I said.

  “No record of his death,” Dash said. “His bank account is still open. Credit cards active. It’s just, as far as we can tell, no one has actually seen him for a couple years.”

  “Recluse?”

  Jolie shrugged. “Even a recluse shows up on a street camera, goes to doctor appointments.”

  “Did he? Go to doctor appointments?”

  “Records indicate he did. Credit records.”

  “He’s got an address?”

  “That’s the weird thing.” Jolie rose to retrieve her laptop from the living room. “He sold his house three years ago. Moved to a small—and I mean small—place on the outside of town. Surrounded by trees and some acreage. There’s a driveway to it, but it’s not even on the satellite maps.”

  “What does this guy do for a living?” I asked.

  “Lawyer,” Terric said.

  “Did he make enough money to remove himself from the maps, or make enough enemies he had to?”

  “We can assume one or the other,” Dash said.

  “So we go check out his place,” I said. “See if our wizards are Hogwarting it up there.”

  “Walk into the home of your enemies?” Jolie asked. “That’s stupid. Why not call the cops on them?”

  “Cops can’t handle this,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Weren’t you just lecturing me about how I should have gone to the authorities—the police—with my problems?” she asked Terric.