Hell Bent

by Devon Monk

  “Alone?”

  “I offered her our side of the sandbox. She said no.”

  He shook his head and drove. “We’ll need to track her.”

  “I’m already on it.”

  We pulled up to the inn a few minutes later. The drive had made me realize how damn tired I was. I didn’t know if it was from breaking magic with Terric, Zay practically snapping my neck, or just the last couple days of way more activity than what I’m used to, but right now sleep sounded better than a bottle of booze.

  “You want me to wait while you get your coat?” Terric asked.

  I yawned hugely. “No. I’m going to catch an hour of sleep.”

  “If you go out looking—”

  “I’ll call you.” I got out, opened the back door, took the statue and the baseball bat I’d nicked from the office. Started walking.

  Stepped into the inn, and waited until Terric pulled away. Then I stepped back out again, walked around to the back of the building, and got in my car. Keys were in the glove box. So was my phone.

  Dialed Sunny. She had been a hell of a Blood magic user, studied under my mum for a couple years. Fell in lust with Davy Silvers, and sort of moved in with him. She and he managed the Hounds in the area, making sure security, info, and tracking jobs were fulfilled, that the Hounds stayed clean, and that paychecks got cut.

  “What do you want, Shame?” Sunny answered.

  “Nice to hear from you too, Sunny. You back in town yet?”

  “Just got in a couple hours ago. Is there a reason you’ve suddenly crawled out from under your rock?”

  “Ouch. Also, yes. I need a Hound to follow a woman by the name of Dessa Leeds. She came into town a couple days ago. Ex–government spy of some sort. Packs heat. I don’t want anyone to engage or get in her way, but she’s looking for someone I’m looking for, and I want to know if she finds her.”

  “Who do I bill?”

  “Me.”

  She laughed. “Right. Who do I really bill? Terric?”

  “Sunny. This is my thing. It’s not the Authority’s thing, it’s not Terric’s thing. Bill me.”

  “If you don’t pay—”

  “I will.”

  “I know where you live, Flynn.”

  “I know. Just call me if you find out anything.”

  “I’ll call if you keep your phone on.”

  “Promise.”

  I could hear her sigh. “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Have you seen Davy since you got back?”

  “No. He said he’s on a job.”

  “Who’s shadowing him?”

  I heard the clicking of a computer mouse, as she looked up the job records.

  “I don’t know.” She sounded concerned. “Do you know something about this?”

  “Eli Collins is in the area. Davy knows it. There’s a chance he’s trying to hunt Eli on his own. When you find Davy—as I am certain you will—tie him down somewhere and keep him out of this, okay?”

  “I will,” she said. “Shame?”

  “What?”

  “It’s nice to have you back.”

  We both thumbed off our phones since that was about as much mutual affection as either of us could handle.

  I sat there for a second thinking out my next move. I really was tired, but it wasn’t my most pressing problem.

  That was how to deal with Jeremy before he harmed Terric.

  I needed Jeremy out of the picture. But he was just a cog in the machine that wanted to use Terric. It made more sense to take out the mainspring of the operation. Which meant it was time for me to deliver a personal message to the Black Crane.

  I’d been out of the loop on the criminal activity in the city for more than a year. I had no idea where the Black Crane was headquartered now, and it wasn’t really something I wanted to ask the police or the Hounds.

  I needed someone who knew the dark side of the city and wouldn’t rat me out to the law, or anyone else, for that matter.

  I knew just the man. I dialed. Waited. He picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Cody Miller.”

  “Cody, this is Shame. I need a favor.”

  Back in the day, Cody and I had been young, reckless men. His terrible gambling skills had nearly gotten him killed, but his amazing ability with art and magic put him under Allie’s dad’s employ for a while, where he’d made wondrous things like Stone, the gargoyle. He had also been the best damn forger of magical signatures in the States—maybe in the world. That caught the attention of all sorts of unsavory folk and he eventually managed to get in the way of people, living and dead, who wanted to rule the Authority and magic.

  To make sure he wouldn’t ruin their plans, he’d been Closed, several times. Finally his mind had broken. For several years, he’d been nothing but a childlike shell of a man. But when our last-ditch effort to save the world included trying to join light and dark magic, he had volunteered to be the Focal—the vessel in which magic would be joined again.

  It should have killed him. Instead it mended his mind and destroyed his ability to use magic. Joining magic had changed him in good and strange ways, just like the rest of us. Just like the world.

  “A favor? You owe me, Shame. I should be collecting from you.”

  “What’s stopping you, mate?”

  “Well, you don’t have a job.”

  “Employment is overrated. This will be worth saying yes.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “I need to go make a point clear to some people.”

  “People.”

  “Black Crane.”

  Silence, while he rolled that over. “Why?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “I’m going to need more than that if I’m getting into this with you.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “No, it’s a why.”

  “They think Terric is their own personal bucket of magic they can dip into any time they want to.”

  “Please tell me that’s not a euphemism.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “They are using him for the magic he can access, jackass. Life magic. And they want me to stay out of their way.”

  “So you’re going to get in their way.”

  “What can I say? I have a contrary nature.”

  “They kill people, Shame. They make people disappear.”

  “I know. And they think they own Terric.” I didn’t say any more. Didn’t have to. Cody could take the next logical step. As soon as Terric decided to turn on them, to leave Jeremy, or to refuse to do what they wanted, they’d kill him. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “You know I can’t use magic,” he said evenly.

  “Not what I need you for.”

  “Why do you need me?”

  “I want what you know about who’s running the syndicate. I want your contacts. That’s all.”

  “Come by. I’ll have what you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  He hung up. I checked the gun in my pocket. I’d never really used it much, but it was a great attention getter when people lost focus. Yes, it was loaded.

  I started the car and took the shortest route to Cody’s place over on the east side of town. He’d taken the art scene by storm over the last three years and had made enough off it he’d never have to work again. He might not be able to use magic, but there was something about his art that drew a person to it, and made that person willing to empty out bank accounts for it.

  Instead of living big, he had bought a quirky little place on southeast Thirteenth Street, not too far from pubs and coffee shops.

  And he’d apparently painted it several shades of purple, blue, and yellow since I’d last been by.

  I parked the car in front of the place and Eleanor drifted into the backseat of the car.

  Cody was already walking down the porch and past the rosebushes. He was yellow haired, tan, muscled, quick to laugh, and, if I remembered correctly, just a little older than me. He had on several la
yers of shirts and jackets in browns, oranges, and blue, a dark green scarf tossed over his shoulders that should have looked messy, but somehow came across as fashionable, and was carrying a bowling ball bag.

  He opened the passenger door, and ducked down as he got in. “You’ll want to head back over the river. West.”

  “I need an address, I don’t need a passenger,” I said.

  “You need both.” Cody slid the seat belt over his shoulder and snapped it in place. “And I want to see you.” He turned toward me. “I want to see what you’re about to do. With magic. With death.” Those blue eyes were just this side of madness, and when he smiled, I realized magic might have done more than just change him.

  “Cody,” I asked before I put the car in gear, “are you sane?”

  “Oh no. But then, neither are you. That’s what makes this so fun.”

  I slowly removed each of my Void stone rings and dropped them into my cup holder. Then I drove west, because damn it, he was right.

  Chapter 22

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Cody tipped his head to better see around the slight bend in the road where I’d parked. We were in the southwest hills on a narrow one-lane that snaked up along the hillside between cliff-clinging houses with grand views of the city and Mount Hood. We were so close to downtown it seemed like I could spit and hit it, but the way the neighborhood was built to soak up the wide horizon, the city felt like a world away.

  The address had led us to an immaculately landscaped spread with a multileveled house that showed some beige and cedar between the expanses of windows. Decks, probably a pool. Rich, without standing out among the other rich.

  Houses on both sides had bikes tucked up against porches or doors, or a couple kid toys. Families lived here.

  “That’s it,” Cody said. “Head man goes by Phillip Soto. Second is Rene Schuller. I have other names if you want them.”

  “I don’t. You should stay here.”

  “Right.”

  I glanced over at him, surprised he’d agreed so quickly.

  He raised one eyebrow. “I should but we both know I won’t. Are you taking the gun or the baseball bat?”

  “The gun. For show.”

  “How are you going to play this?”

  “No playing. I’m going to walk in there and start killing people until they understand my point of view.”

  “That’s . . . direct.”

  “Things have changed, Cody. I don’t follow Authority rules now.” I drove down the hill a bit and parked the car in the driveway. Then I opened the car door, and he did too, climbing out with his bowling ball bag.

  “That doesn’t sound very different than how things used to be,” he said.

  “It’s different.”

  Afternoon sunlight slipped yellow and heatless through the scattered clouds. It would be dark in a couple hours. I didn’t need the dark to get the job done.

  I strode across the tasteful beige driveway to the tasteful beige stairway, up one flight to the glass-on-glass double-wide doorway framed in yet more glass. A balcony wrapped at that level around the wall of glass windows to my right, and a second balcony and wall of windows wrapped the same way on the next story up.

  For people who lived on the wrong side of the law, they sure had picked a house that was nearly transparent.

  Cody was behind me, not too close, and taking his time to enjoy the architectural details. Eleanor had already slipped into the house ahead of me.

  I kicked the door.

  Glass did not shatter, but a Break spell took care of the hinges and the whole thing fell inward.

  Quick rundown: everything about the place was glass and chrome. A black marble bar curved a crescent to my left, red stools edging the outer arc, the floor was brown marble and a deeply textured beige carpet, and the three men in the room were all reaching for their guns.

  I killed them before they even had their weapons in their hands. Lashed out with magic dark and fast, and stopped their hearts.

  Cody, behind me, let out a little “huh” sound when the three gunmen collapsed to the floor. I didn’t wait to see if he was going to remove himself from the situation, or stick close.

  He chose to stick close.

  Around the bar, past a glass-tiled alcove holding wine bottles hung by chrome hooks, was a staircase. Just planks of glass going up, cabled wire and metal creating an open banister.

  Either I’d been loud or, more likely, the place was wired and I’d been spotted on the security monitors. I could count the hearts pumping up on the next floor—four.

  I pulled my gun and strode up to the second level. Short hall that likely ended in bedrooms, the rest of the space opened up in a huge vaulted ceiling level made even larger by the wall of windows overlooking another balcony and the wide green spread of downtown Portland broken through by tall buildings.

  Rich wooden floor anchored the room and a stone fireplace stretched off to the left. Two gold couches did nothing to take up the space, and even the mini grand piano seemed dwarfed by the sky and city.

  The four heartbeats belonged to four men, three who were standing, and one who was sitting at the gold couch to my right. No one had a gun in their hand, which surprised me. Maybe I hadn’t been spotted.

  No, they wouldn’t be that careless.

  I lifted my gun to get their attention.

  “Have a seat,” I said to the men standing around. “This won’t take long.”

  The three glanced at the man sitting on the couch. Black hair, soul patch, fake tan, he wore a jacket that was obviously designer and sat with his arms across the back of the couch.

  “Mr. Shamus Flynn,” he said, a slight smile narrowing his eyes. “What brings you to my home?”

  “I have a message I’m not sure has been made clear to you, Mr. Soto,” I said, guessing correctly who he was. “I don’t care how big a network the Black Crane has developed over the last three years. Don’t care how powerful or rich you think you are. This is still my town. And there are people within it who are off-limits to you and your goons.”

  “Of course,” he said. “We respect the Authority has certain concerns for its people. Boundaries we respect.”

  “I’m not talking about the Authority. This is just about me. You’ve pissed me off. You’re using people I care about. I’m here to make you understand that if you don’t back off and leave my friends and Terric Conley alone, I will destroy your little pop shop and kill your members one by one.”

  “Mr. Flynn, please,” Soto said. “We are all reasonable men here. Surely we can discuss this without resorting to threats. It is a crude way to do business.”

  “I want your word you will leave Terric Conley alone.”

  “I don’t think you understand the situation properly,” he began.

  He didn’t finish. Because I killed him.

  Drank down his life without even twitching my fingers.

  His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his heart stopped. He slumped forward and the remaining three men bolted off the couches, reaching for their guns.

  “Keep your hands off your weapons,” I said.

  “I’d do as he says,” Cody said behind me.

  I didn’t look back, but the men in the room all glanced at him, then held their hands out to the side.

  “Let me make myself clear,” I said. “I am not here to discuss the situation. I am not here to do business. I am here for an unbreakable guarantee that Terric Conley will be cut free from everything and anyone involved with the Black Crane. Who’s going to give me that guarantee?”

  “I will see that Mr. Conley is removed from our attention,” one of the men said. He was taller than me, probably in his early fifties, with light brown hair going gray and receding at the temples. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his mouth at the bottom of his long, narrow face was thick-lipped.

  “My name is Rene Schuller. I have a position in this organization that can ensure my desires are acted upon.”


  “And your desire is?” I prompted.

  He smiled, even though neither of us was buying it. “To make you happy, Mr. Flynn.”

  “Good. Make me happy, Mr. Schuller, and I won’t go out of my way to kill you.”

  I could feel their pulses as if they were my own, three thrumming beats that would be so easy to slow, slow, slow until they were gone.

  Instead I turned my back and walked across the room toward the stairs. Cody stood to the right of the staircase, holding a sawed-off shotgun at his hip. So that’s what he carried in the bag.

  “Don’t bother,” I said to Cody loud enough they’d hear. “I could kill them before they squeezed a trigger.”

  I paced down the steps and Cody followed behind. Passed the bar and dead bodies, then got into the car.

  “You’ve become a little more blunt, I see,” Cody said as he got into the passenger’s seat.

  “I tried subtle. It chafed.” I started the car but didn’t back out of the driveway yet.

  I drew on the magic deep beneath the city and cast a spell. It was a spell that required quick, scribbling strokes, winding into a tightly coiled center.

  A few seconds later, Scatter hung in the air between me and the windshield. I cast it with a push of both hands, and it rolled into the big house. If they had surveillance cameras, they were now fried, the information that might have been stored there scattered and irretrievable.

  “In the old days you’d have done that first,” he said. “You’re getting sloppy, Shame.”

  “I’m not sloppy,” I said, finally putting the car in gear and getting the hell out of there. “If I’d screwed with their cameras before we walked in, they would have known someone was coming and would have been waiting for us. This way, no one got hurt.”

  “Except the four men you killed.”

  “Yeah, well. They were in my way.”

  “That was probably a little over the line, don’t you think?”

  “What line?” I glanced over at him. He stared calmly ahead, maybe at the city, maybe at whatever else it was that man saw.

  “The law’s line, to begin with. After that, justice. You didn’t know those people, Shame. They might not have been guilty of the crimes you accused them of, crimes you killed them for.”