Hell Bent

by Devon Monk

  “Outcome was better,” she said softly.

  I could almost feel my heart again, captured in her voice.

  Terric was through the gap in the chain-link fencing. Dessa and I caught up with him.

  There was some logic in splitting up to cover all exits, but on a retrofit building, there would be more exits than we could cover.

  So I listened for heartbeats.

  Felt Terric’s probably beating in time with mine. Felt Dessa’s. There were more in the buildings around us. A few in the only car that passed by. But in the warehouse, there was only one.

  “He’s in there,” I said for Dessa’s sake.

  We pulled our guns. I could use magic one-handed. I intended to do so.

  Terric and I pushed through the door, walked step in step, guns raised.

  The inside was gutted. Framework where walls once were, and maybe where walls were going to be. Plastic draped from the ceiling, rubble on the floor.

  Noted it all absently. I was headed for that heartbeat. Eli’s heartbeat.

  Corner room. To the left. There was a door here, hung half-shut. Terric kicked it open. He and I pushed into the room, arms straight, guns locked on the heartbeat.

  But the huddle of clothes in the corner was not Eli. It was a girl, well, a young woman, and she was unconscious.

  We lowered our guns and Terric crossed the room to her. “She the only one you feel, Shame?”

  I listened, let the monster stretch out to feel lives it could consume.

  “Yes. Do you know her?”

  He had turned her face and was checking her pulse. The blood from her head was making it hard to see her features clearly, but she seemed faintly familiar to me.

  “It’s Gillian,” Dessa said, rushing forward to her. “She’s my Hound. Holy shit. Is she okay?”

  Terric ran his fingers quickly over her head, checked her neck, and finally pressed two fingers on her chest, just below her collarbone. He closed his eyes and I could see the yellow-white magic responding to his touch. Healing magic poured into her as he whispered a prayer.

  Dessa inhaled a hard breath.

  “He’s healing her,” I said. “She told you Eli would be here?”

  She nodded. “Who would do this? She’s just a kid.”

  “Stay here.” I strode through the building looking for any sign of Eli—what he’d been doing here, which way he’d left. Wished I’d brought a flashlight.

  Screw it. I drew a light spell, filled it with magic. It wrapped around my left hand with scrolls of white that rolled upward like licking flames. It lit up a twenty-foot space around me.

  “That’s . . . wow,” Dessa said behind me. So much for her staying with Terric.

  I turned on my heel. “I asked you to stay with Terric.”

  “He told me to go with you.”

  “Jesus.” I made quick work of the place, figuring the light was going to be pretty easy to spot this time of night through the broken windows. I did not want a nosy neighbor calling the cops.

  And then I saw the sign I was looking for. Next to a door that faced south, a glyph was drawn. It was the glyph for Direction, one of the finding spells. It was definitely Eli’s handiwork.

  Right there in the dirt was something else: a turquoise bead. I bent, picked up the bead. I knew where I’d seen it before. It was from Davy’s necklace.

  Chapter 26

  Terric was on the phone with Dash when I walked into the room. “...wait. No, just a Hound, or you. That’s best.”

  He flicked the phone off. “What did you find?”

  “Sign that says Eli’s south of here. Direction glyph. Also this.” I walked over to him, dropped the bead in his hand.

  He frowned.

  “It’s from Davy’s necklace. Broken.”

  “Davy was here. So was Eli,” Dessa said. “Great. But where did they go?”

  “I don’t think Davy left willingly,” I said.

  “Why?” Terric asked.

  “His truck is out back.”

  Terric swore. “He shouldn’t be hunting Eli alone in the first place.”

  “Who’s coming for Gillian?” I asked.

  “Dash. He’s close, and it won’t involve the Hounds. He’ll take her to the emergency room, then call the Den. Go search Davy’s truck in case he had a chance to leave something there for us.”

  I didn’t even bitch at him for ordering me around. I crossed the structure then jogged out across the lot that was still mostly paved. The fact that the truck was parked so close and in the open bothered me. Davy wasn’t that reckless. So either he had thought there was no one inside, or he had come here, not looking for Eli, but looking for Gillian instead.

  “What are you thinking?” Dessa asked. I remembered she was with me, glanced over at her.

  Had her gun in her hand and was keeping an eye on the buildings around us.

  I tried the door on the truck. Locked.

  “It’s not like Davy to drive into a situation and park in the open. Makes me think he didn’t know what he was walking into. And that’s even less like him.”

  “Conclusion?” she asked as I checked to see if the other door of his truck was unlocked.

  “Maybe a trap. Coming to find Gillian, an injured Hound, and got ambushed.”

  “I don’t think he was looking for Gillian,” she said, handing me a slim-jim from her duffel.

  “Because?”

  “Gillian was following Davy.”

  “Is that what you hired her for?”

  “Yes, but I told her not to engage.”

  The lock popped and I pulled the heavy door open. “After the morgue, right? You saw how much Davy hated Eli, knew he’d go after him alone.”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “Wish you would have shared it,” I said, climbing into the cab.

  “I didn’t know you as well back then,” she said, getting into the cab from the other side after I unlocked the door. “Or I would have done it differently.”

  There were a couple gas receipts, insurance, registration, and random papers but nothing else that indicated Davy had left clues in his vehicle for us to find.

  A car rolled up on the other side of the chain-link. Killed the engine.

  Dash got out. He was wearing a dark leather jacket, dark jeans, and boots. And the vibe he gave off had nothing to do with the office. He looked like a man who could handle himself in a fight.

  I suddenly wondered if he had combat training. Something I’d never asked him about, though I should have.

  “Where’s Gillian?” he asked, coming up on me and Dessa.

  “This way.” I took him in the building.

  He and Terric managed to get Gillian awake and aware enough, she spoke, guessed the right number of fingers, and understood Dash was going to take her to the hospital. Even did some moving of her feet so we didn’t have to carry her.

  After we got her settled in the back of Dash’s car, Terric paced back toward the warehouse.

  “Listen,” I said to Dash. “I’ve kicked a few hives. I want you to be careful.”

  “Which hives?” Dash asked.

  “Black Crane.”

  “Define ‘kick.’”

  “There’s been a change in leadership, ’cause the other guy’s dead.”

  He nodded. He knew what that meant. “Jeremy?”

  “Haven’t gotten my hands on him yet. But I will. Don’t tangle with him. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He nodded. “Take care of him.”

  Dash left and I strode over to Terric.

  “Show me the glyph,” he said.

  I took him to the south door.

  “It’s Eli’s work,” Terric said. “But why didn’t he complete it?”

  I looked closer. He was right.

  “Maybe the better question is, who do you think he put this here for?” Dessa asked.

  “Me,” I said the same time Terric said, “Shame.�
�

  Which meant he’d left it undone so I could finish it.

  I didn’t know that I liked his calling card. Yes, it was a Directional glyph. I figured it was a trap, but we wouldn’t know for sure until I triggered it.

  “Might want to step back,” I said.

  I stuck out my finger, drew over the glyph to get the flow of his signature, then closed the arc at the end of the spell.

  The spell flashed, and in the afterburn I could see an address.

  “Shit!” Terric yelled.

  The air cracked. Just outside the door stood a man. Not Eli. This was an older man.

  I’d seen him. I knew his face. He was the old man in the missing person report. The one with the tattoo for Impact.

  He stared at us with blank eyes as if he didn’t see us, or the world around him. Then he raised his hands, thumbs crossed, fingers spread.

  And said one word.

  An explosion hit, throwing us across the room, and bringing the building crashing down around us.

  Chapter 27

  Concrete, wood, metal roared down around us, slammed into us.

  Terric and I were on our feet, hands raised, standing back to back. I pulled Dessa up against me.

  “Hold on,” I said.

  I reached down below the building’s foundations to the magic flowing there as Terric did the same.

  We didn’t just draw on magic, we ripped it out of the ground. Forced it to sever, to scream and break.

  I didn’t have to talk to Terric about what we were doing. We each knew what the other was thinking, knew what we had to do: Shield.

  We cut that protection into the air with wide strokes and left a burning, dripping trail of magic behind. Shield snapped into a barrier around us, like an unbreakable bubble.

  Just in time. The ceiling beams shoveled down, bounced off the Shield, and fell to either side.

  Terric was chanting.

  I was concentrating on pulling on enough magic to feed the spell and keep it strong.

  The other thing about magic—doesn’t matter how powerful you are. If you lose your concentration, you lose the spell.

  We could try walking, but if we stumbled, the Shield would break and we’d be crushed. So we waited.

  Turns out it doesn’t take long for half a building to collapse.

  Felt like an eternity.

  We didn’t wait for the dust to clear. We pushed and climbed our way out of the rubble, before the other half of the building came tumbling down too.

  Made it out by the car.

  There was no one around us. Yet.

  “That man did that?” Dessa asked. “One man?” She was a little louder than necessary, maybe a little panicked. I didn’t blame her.

  “Yes,” Terric said, striding as quickly as he could around scattered debris to the car. “Go,” I said, grabbing Dessa’s arm and following Terric.

  “H-how?” she asked. “He said one word and blew up a building.”

  “I was there,” I said. “I don’t know how he did it.”

  “Can you find him? Did you see where he went?” Dessa got into the car and so did I, in a hurry to get away from the very loud falling-building noises that had undoubtedly woken everyone in a square mile.

  Terric peeled out fast, took a side street, slowed, and crept along a normal speed until we were a good mile away. Then he put on the speed. Heading south.

  “Shame?” Dessa said. “Can you find that man?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to go on. If he’s around, he’s just another heartbeat in the crowd. But Eli planted an address in the afterburn of the Direction glyph I triggered. Did you see it?”

  “I was shielding my eyes,” she said.

  “Terric?”

  “I saw it. The hospital.”

  The address burned in that spell pointed straight at OHSU, a medical complex and teaching hospital built beneath, on top of, and into a hillside south of downtown.

  “Hospital?” Dessa asked. “Why?”

  “Davy has a theory,” I said. “That Eli was using the labs, or operating out of the hospital.”

  “Again, why? What does he need a hospital for?”

  “People,” Terric said.

  “Test subjects,” I clarified.

  “Testing what?”

  I could tell from Terric’s body language that he didn’t want me to say anything. But as far as I was concerned, she was in this just as deep as we were. Wanted him dead. Would do bad things to make sure that happened.

  “Testing people,” I said. “People who were poisoned by tainted magic three years ago.”

  “Tainted magic? Is that even a thing?”

  “It was,” Terric said.

  “How do you taint magic?”

  “It helps if you decide you want to change magic into a weapon,” I said. “It helps if you are Breakers who are crazy and come back from the dead.”

  “Like you and Terric.”

  Damn. I hadn’t drawn those parallels. From the look Terric shot me, he hadn’t thought of us that way either: Breakers who had come back from the dead. But she was right.

  “No,” Terric said. “We aren’t nearly evil enough to poison magic. To destroy the world for our pleasure.”

  She was silent. I could see her reflection in the rearview mirror. She had that reality-upside-down look on her face like when I’d told her her brother had gone around stealing people’s memories with magic.

  She caught my gaze. I waited. Would she see the man in me or the monster? I gave her a soft smile.

  “All right,” she said. “Do you know why? Not why Breakers tainted magic. Do you know what results Eli is looking for in the tests?”

  “Maybe men who can blow up buildings with a single syllable,” I said.

  “Jesus,” she whispered. Then she nodded. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

  Neither Terric nor I said anything.

  “At least give me an idea of what weapons he has at his disposal.”

  “If that man is any indication, magic,” Terric said. “As strong as Shame and me. Maybe technology that enhances magic, which would make it stronger. We don’t know anything else.”

  “Do you know anything else?” I asked her.

  “No.”

  “Dessa,” I said, catching her gaze in the rearview mirror again. “Do you know anything that will help us?”

  Come on, baby. Don’t leave us in the cold.

  “I know what my brother told me. But that’s all secondhand information. I can’t prove anything.”

  “Don’t care,” Terric said. “Tell us.”

  “Thomas said that there was a man under observation. He was . . . creating new technology for defense abroad and for Homeland Security. But it was biotech. Thomas said that man was the most powerful man he’d seen use magic. And the most ruthless. Next to you, Shame.”

  “Did he tell you about us? About Breakers?” Terric asked.

  “Yes.”

  So that might have been our leak into the government. Thomas, or maybe her.

  “And you told your superiors?” Terric went on, pressing the point.

  “It was my job to pass on information.” She tipped her chin up.

  Jesus, she knew she was the reason her brother had been killed. No wonder she wanted Eli dead.

  “Did they send you to bring in Shame and me?” Terric asked. “Was that a part of your job too?”

  “No,” she said. “I left. As soon as I found out about Thomas. I gathered as much information as I could without triggering any traces, covered my trail, and I left. I made it look like I was going to South Dakota to visit family, and then into Canada to see friends. I don’t think they followed me. I don’t think I led them to you.” That last wavered with doubt. She was worried. Worried she’d get us killed.

  “They already knew where we were,” I said calmly. “They’ve known since before we broke magic yesterday for Zay and Allie. And that building, Gillian’s injuries—nothing but a trap.”
<
br />   “To kill you?” she asked.

  “If Eli’s involved,” I said, “it wasn’t meant to kill us. It was meant to test us.”

  “Which means the address will be another trap,” Terric said.

  “He wanted us to find Brandy,” I said. “Maybe he’s leading us to her.”

  “Maybe she’s the trap,” Terric said.

  “Who is Brandy?” Dessa asked.

  “She’s the other half of Eli, the person that makes him a Breaker,” I said.

  “Like Terric and you.”

  “Yeah, like Terric and me.”

  “And you’re going to save her?” she asked. “If she’s half of what Eli is, how do you know she isn’t behind all this?”

  “She’s insane,” Terric said quietly.

  “Lots of powerful people are,” she said.

  True.

  We were silent as Terric took the turn to the hills.

  “We kill Eli,” Terric said. “That’s what we do.”

  The monster in me pushed. One death would be good, Eli’s death. But two deaths would be better.

  “We kill Eli,” I said, “after we make him hurt.”

  “After we make him hurt,” Terric agreed.

  Dessa just turned and looked out the window. But I saw her nod. This was, I realized, going as she wanted it to. For a bare moment I wondered if she was playing us. If she was part of the government testing us to see what we could do together. If she had been sent out to bring us in at any price.

  Maybe the cautious man would hold on to that idea and test it. But I knew her. She was here for revenge, a very personal revenge. She was not under orders.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked. “A car? A sign?”

  “Eli.” Terric pulled over on the shoulder. “Track?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  We’d already broken magic. If there were guns waiting for a signal, they were probably pointed at our heads. Didn’t care. They could bring all the world’s weapons at us.

  I intended to see Eli breathe his last breath.

  We traced Track, the ragged edges of the spell flicking like questing limbs that snapped out as if the entire glyph were floating on water. Pulled on magic. Filled the spell until it hummed a hot orange. Set it free with a push.