by Devon Monk
But I had never in my whole damn life been so glad to see them.
“Shame,” Zay said, taking in the scene with one glance. “You need to go in with Terric. I’ll stay out here with her.”
“Brandy,” I said. “Scott.”
Zay nodded. “I know.”
Of course he knew. He had been a Closer, Victor’s star pupil. He had probably been there when Victor Closed Eli.
I wondered if he knew Victor was dead. Gone.
“Is Terric conscious?” Allie asked.
“He is,” Terric whispered.
So I helped Terric out of the car, got his arm over my shoulder. Allie made a move to put her arm around him too to help him walk.
“You shouldn’t,” I warned. “I’m not safe.”
“You’re a mess,” she agreed. “But I’ll be fine.”
I didn’t have it in me to argue with her, so I just did my best to keep from touching her. I focused on getting Terric into the building and down the hall. We found an empty wheelchair and navigated him into that, and then I wheeled him to admittance, Eleanor somewhere at the edge of my vision.
I was glad Allie came along. When they asked me what had happened to us, I came up blank. What should I say? We’d been in the middle of a magical firefight and had had our asses handed to us?
Allie decided on an easier story: shooting in the park, didn’t see the guy. Didn’t see the car he drove off in. I didn’t know how she was going to explain our other burns and contusions since I was slowly realizing a good share of the blood and pain was also mine. But she had that covered too. Car accident on the way over here.
Apparently I’d called her in shock after I’d driven the car into a ditch trying to get Terric to the hospital and she’d shown up to help me get Terric and me treated.
They bought the story, probably because she put a little of her family’s natural Influence behind it to make it stick.
Terric was immediately taken away for surgery. I snarled about it. I think I told them I would be in the room with him while they cut him open whether they liked it or not. And if they harmed him I’d do unspeakable things.
Allie took care of that too.
In the form of flagging down a burly nurse who looked like he could break me with one hand.
Turned out, he was very good at giving fast and painless shots.
Turned out, those shots were even better at taking the world away.
• • •
I woke up to an annoying alarm clock beeping. Which was weird since I never used an alarm clock. Opened my eyes.
This was so not my room.
“You’re in the hospital,” Zayvion said from beside me.
I rolled my head, which hurt, and squinted at him. “Why am I in bed? Terric was the one who was hurt.”
“You were both hurt,” he said, switching off the screen he’d been working on and leaning all that muscle of his forward in the chair. “You have six fractures, soft tissue damage, and some organ bruising. He was shot.”
“Where is he?”
He twisted a bit, pointed. There was another bed in the room. Terric lay in it, hooked up to tubes and wires. He was breathing evenly and on his own, though he had an oxygen tube taped below his nose. I could tell he was sleeping, and currently not in pain.
“What did the doctors say?”
“It was a . . . difficult surgery. Void stones.” He shook his head. “Dr. Fisher was called in. He made it through fine. Better than the doctors expected. He’s recovering faster than they expected too. You’ve been here for twenty-four hours. And we’re calling that barren mess you left behind down the hill a bit a gas explosion. Triggered a landslide. Half the hospital’s been evacuated.”
But I wasn’t thinking about the damage I’d done to the land. “Zay, Brandy. Terric had an Illusion on her.”
“We know. We took care of everything.” He put his wide hand on my arm and squeezed it, his expression sympathetic. “Dash filled us in on a few things, but we don’t know what happened up there.”
So I told him. It took me some time to get it all out. I couldn’t seem to say Dessa’s name without being swallowed by pain.
The nurse came in before I’d finished—same guy who looked like he should have gone into pro wrestling instead of health care. Turned out, his name was Carlos. He gave us both a cheerful greeting and went about checking the machines, meds, and everything else, while singing softly. Had a hell of a voice.
When he was gone, I went over the last of the events.
Zay rubbed at the back of his neck. “Fuck,” he said.
“Yeah.”
That was pretty much how I’d sum up the situation. Some government jackwad named Krogher had control of both Eli and Davy and a crew of magic-wielding people modified by Eli so that they were magic-holding drones that had kicked our Breaker asses.
“We know what Eli wanted,” Zay said quietly, “and we know he lured you into a trap. But our information said they wanted to use Breakers, to capture them, not to kill them.” He paused a second, staring at the wall like there was a window there.
“They were testing you. First the electrical barrier, then guns, fire, magic. They wanted to see what Breakers could do. They wanted to see what the modified magic users could do against you.”
Zayvion is a man who can hold his own in a fight, and he’s got that don’t-fuck-with-me presence that makes people avoid him in dark alleys. In light alleys too, come to think of it. But he is also a very smart man.
“We played into their hands,” I said. “Fuck. Me.”
“I’ll talk to Clyde,” he said, “call a meeting to get everyone up to speed. We’ll turn this to our advantage. We learned a hell of a lot about their strengths and weaknesses too. Plus, we made other . . . gains.”
He meant Brandy. Eli’s Soul Complement.
Zay stood, stretched like a big cat that had been cooped up in a cage too long. “I’ll be back later. You should get some sleep, okay?”
“Zay?” I said.
“Mmm?”
“He could have died. He almost died.”
He knew I was talking about Terric. Zay walked up to the side of my bed, paused, looked over at Terric, then back at me.
“He could have died,” Zay said. “But you wouldn’t let him, Shame. You’re Death magic. You have a lot of say over the matters of his soul.”
“Dessa died.” It came out hard, flat, angry.
“Terric’s your soul, Shame. Soul.” Zay was quiet a minute. “You’ll never lose him like that.”
I stared up at him, wondering if that was true. And in his eyes was absolute confidence in me. “I think you might overestimate my abilities, Z.”
He gave me half a grin. “I never have. But you, despite your big mouth, have always underestimated yourself.”
“Morning,” Dash said quietly from the doorway. “How are they today?”
“Awake,” Zay said. “At least Shame is.”
“Is he talking?” Dash asked with a lot of worry in his tone.
“Yes,” Zay said, giving me a look. “Mostly bullshit.”
“So, normal, is what you’re saying,” Dash said.
“Fuck you both,” I said as Zay left and Dash settled in to take a stint of watching over us.
It was nice to be loved.
Chapter 31
I walked down the street with two coffees in my hand. Sunglasses, beanie, fingerless gloves, and heavy coat. November had arrived with ice in the wind. Not that I felt it.
I hadn’t slept much in over a week since we’d fought Eli and Krogher’s blank-eyed, magic-wielding drones. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dessa. Every silence was filled with her voice.
She wasn’t haunting me. Not like Eleanor. But her absence was a shadow across my soul.
I’d fallen for her too hard to stand up again easily or quickly. She’d left me bruised on the inside. Touched me in places I didn’t even know I had. Places where only pain remained.
I walked
up the stairs to Terric’s place. Rang the bell with my elbow. Waited.
Heard his footsteps. A little stronger than when I’d visited yesterday. And while the doctors were stunned with the rate of his recovery, I knew without magic to support him, he might not have made it through the surgery at all.
The door opened.
“Morning, Shame,” he said, stepping aside to let me in.
He was dressed, showered, his hair left to fall with the male-model perfection that he achieved with annoying ease. But the dark circles under his eyes against the sallow pale of his skin gave away his injuries.
I handed him his coffee as I walked in past him with this new morning ritual I’d fallen into. “Morning. Brought you coffee.”
I headed to the living room. Stopped on the threshold to it. There was a fist-sized hole in the wall by the fireplace.
“There’s a fist-sized hole in the wall by the fireplace,” I said.
He walked up behind me, sighed. “Jeremy stopped by last night.” He moved by me, over to the couch where he preferred to sit.
I worked on reminding myself why I hadn’t killed Jeremy yet.
“You still like him?” I asked, covering some of the anger with a gulp of coffee.
He pushed a couple books to one side so he could sit, and placed his coffee next to the lamp and the bottle of antibiotics and painkillers. Then he looked up at me. Gave me that stare that all of my friends seemed to use around me now. Like he was seeing a new person. Someone he wasn’t quite comfortable with.
“He’s funny,” Terric said carefully. “We have the same taste in movies. He’s good in bed.”
I just raised one eyebrow. “Don’t need the details.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t like him like that anymore. He came by last night to tell me he was in trouble again. That he had promised people I would do things for them. Life magic. I told him I wasn’t a currency he could bargain with. Things got heated.”
“Did he hurt you?” I asked calmly. “Did he touch you?”
Terric paused, gave me that cautious look again. “Sit down, Shame. You worry too much.”
I said nothing. Walked to the chair across from him, sat. “Did he?” I asked again.
“No. He yelled for a while, but then, so did I. He punched a hole in my wall.” He shrugged, took a drink of his coffee.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You never liked him.”
“No, I didn’t. Still.” I took another drink of coffee. “Did you break it off with him?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to do it for you?”
He paused. “No. I can do it. Just . . .”
When he didn’t pick up that thought, I tried again. “Let me be there when you do.”
“Shame . . .”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
He exhaled. Looked as tired as I felt. “I think it’s a bad idea. But okay.” Then: “Did you drive over?”
I nodded.
“Do you want to take your car or mine?” he asked.
“We’re going to see him now?”
Eleanor stopped studying a photo on his wall, which was when I noticed all the art was removed and a few of Terric’s pictures were back in their place. She drifted closer to me.
He frowned. “No. Allie and Zay invited us over. In an hour. I told you yesterday. And the day before that when I got the invitation.”
I didn’t remember him talking about it. “I can drop you off, but I’m not—”
“You’re going.” He pushed up off the couch, something he did with a fair amount of grace to cover the fact that it still hurt like a mother to move so quickly.
I knew, because I could feel his pain.
We were closer now, since the fight. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
“We need to stop off at the store,” he said as he picked up his coat from the back of the chair and pulled into it very carefully. “I promised I’d bring flowers.”
It didn’t make much sense to me why we were going, nor why we’d need flowers. But then, a lot of things just seemed . . . beyond me this last week or so. I could not muster the energy to give a single damn about any of it.
He handed me his keys, so I guessed I was driving his car.
Did so, stopping at a florist that Terric insisted had the best bouquets this time of year. I walked with him, my pace shortened for his.
By the time we’d bought a bunch of flowers of which I only recognized two—lilies and the pink ones—and had made it back to the car, the sky was filled with black clouds and it was raining hard enough to back up the gutters.
Terric was breathing heavily from the hurried pace he’d managed on the way back to the car.
“I’m going to be so glad when I can move again,” he said. “Really move.”
I think he talked about flowers or maybe it was salsa dancing while I drove to Allie and Zay’s house. I listened, heard each word, but they all slipped away as quickly as they came, leaving no impression of their passage behind.
Then we were there. And we weren’t the only ones. Cars lined the alley behind their house.
“What is this?” I said right in the middle of his discussion on the nasturtium, which could have been a flower or a dance move for all I knew.
“What is what?” he asked.
“Why are we here? What are we doing here?”
He paused, watched me. I was staring at the cars, trying to remember what he’d said we were going to do.
“It’s just some of us getting together in honor of Victor,” he said calmly. “It’s not a meeting. It’s not business. Just a low-key gathering of friends.”
Frankly, I think it would have been easier if it were business.
“You don’t remember me telling you about it, do you?”
“No.”
“Let’s go in.” He opened the door. I got out too, and we walked through the pouring rain to the kitchen-side door.
Terric didn’t knock, he just walked right into the house. “And here I thought we’d be early,” he said, holding out the flowers for Allie.
“You are just in time. Both of you,” she said, giving Terric a quick kiss on the cheek. “Shame, if you stand on my porch dripping any longer, I will pin you to my clothesline in the basement.”
I didn’t want to do this. Enter this houseful of caring faces, warmth, love. I wasn’t what they thought I was. Not anymore.
But they were waiting for me. Waiting for me to come home to the living.
I dug down deep, down beneath the darkness, looking for the shreds of me that were still Shame. Held that up like a familiar mask.
“You have a laundry line?” I asked. “How eighteen hundreds of you, Beckstrom. What’s next? Indoor plumbing?”
And for the first time, I realized the extent of my disconnect over the last week. Because everyone in the kitchen let out the breath they’d been holding, and chuckled.
It was not that funny of a joke.
But it was a start.
Chapter 32
The gathering was just what Terric said it would be. A bunch of us sitting around, talking, eating, drinking. Nola had outdone herself with the cooking and forbade us all to give her any more compliments about it since she was blushing so hard.
Detective Stotts was there too, being very nondetective. I appreciated that he didn’t ask a lot of questions when certain details came up about Victor’s death.
Like the fact that Terric and I had gone off looking for his killer on our own. Though from the look on his face, he’d have us down to the station soon to talk.
Allie and Zay sat in an oversized chair, curled up with each other, Stone sitting next to them like their own private guard gargoyle.
Allie had made sure there was a comfortable place on the couch for Terric. Dash sat at the other end, trying not to stare at Terric too much, which I thought was amusing.
The rest of the group included Clyde, a few of the Hounds, but not S
unny, who had been told the bad news of Davy being held captive. She was busy coordinating every Hound in a three-state area looking for him. The police were also looking for him and so were several members of the Authority.
As soon as I got my head clear, I’d be looking for him too.
Eventually Kevin Cooper, who was a longtime member of the Authority and a close friend of Victor’s, showed up along with his wife and Allie’s ex-stepmother, Violet Beckstrom-Cooper, who had been a more recent friend of Victor’s.
They’d also brought baby Daniel, who was a little over three now. He ran through the room, headed straight for Stone, who tipped his ears up and caught Daniel in his arms. Then that big pile of rock wrapped his wings gently around him and snuffled at his neck, making rumble-gurgle noises.
Daniel squealed in delight.
Cody Miller was there too. It wasn’t too long before he was standing in front of me. Looking down at me with ice blue eyes that looked too old and too mad.
“Cody,” I said, holding my Shame mask firmly in place and wishing he would go stare at someone else.
“This will be interesting, I think,” he said. “And I’m going to help you with it, Shame. When you’re ready.” He walked away.
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. And didn’t ask.
But it was my mum showing up that really made me want to crawl out of my skin.
Terric must have felt it, because he speared me with a look to keep me seated.
Mum looked great, really. Had pulled her red hair up in a loose knot that made her green eyes wider. She was fit, strong, wearing slacks and a sweater, and when she smiled, the lines around her eyes were more from happiness than pain.
She and Hayden had been staying at his place in Alaska for the last couple years, though they came down three or four times a year to check in on the inn, friends, and, I supposed, me.
“Maeve,” Allie said. “It’s so great you made it. When did you get in?”
“Last night,” she said. “Well, early this morning. We got a little sleep before we headed over. I brought a couple pies. They’re in the kitchen.”
