by Devon Monk
I glanced at the road, didn’t see any cars or people walking by.
Still, I thought Zayvion said they knew how to do this in daylight. I thought they knew how to do it without being seen. And I certainly thought they knew how to do it without leaving Shamus all alone to face down every nightmare that had crawled out of death’s hole.
Except, of course, that calling the nightmares was exactly what Shamus wanted to do.
The beasts crouched, stepped closer, closing the circle. Two yards out. Four feet.
Shamus tipped his chin down. He was no longer chanting. He was grinning, his arms spread wide as if welcoming the beasts in for an embrace.
His eyes burned with black fire. Literally. He lowered his head just enough that his hair fell forward, hiding his eyes. Then he pulled his hands together, as if in prayer, against his chest.
Zayvion’s heartbeat abruptly struck with bruising pain against my wrist. I sucked in a raking breath. My heart stung, beat on beat, in time with Zayvion’s pounding pulse.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
I pulled my wrist up to my chest, pressing it close, trying to ease the ache behind my ribs.
Zayvion was alive.
Shamus chanted, a soft singsong whisper that reminded me of a lullaby.
Even though he was singing a lullaby, things were going to hell over there. The beasts’ mouths gaped, muscled shoulders bunched, ready to jump, rip, devour. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t attack. And then I knew. Even without Sight I could tell they were draining the magic out of the spell he was chanting. Draining him.
The nightmares grew more and more solid, and Shamus stood there, head bowed, hands at his chest, humming a childhood song, while his heart pounded a slow, almost meditative beat. He was enduring the drain of magic. Enduring the pain, just as he had endured the Proxy I’d set on him.
The Hungers were no longer translucent at all. They were solid, slathering beasts, heads too large for their compact bodies, skin mottled with scales. Thick veins snaked beneath the mottled skin.
Magic, no longer just shadowed, but now black and thick as tar, pulsed through those veins. Magic that Shamus had just fed into them. Magic that pounded Shamus’ body and mind. Magic that punished him, drained him. And made the beasts stronger.
The beasts moved forward. Shamus swayed.Another step. Shamus’ song faltered. He licked his lips and sang on. Another step. Sweat or maybe tears dripped from the edge of his jaw. Even from across the field, I could see him tremble.
I couldn’t just stand there and watch him get eaten. I took a step away from the shed.
Just then, Shamus looked up. But not at me. He stared at the beasts in front of him. Then smiled and opened his hands, palms upward like he was pushing something up to shoulder height.
He stopped pulling on magic.
The beasts lunged.
“No!” I yelled.
I traced a glyph for Sight, filled it with magic, and drew the glyph for Hold so I could throw it at the beasts and stop them, even though Zayvion had told me not to use magic at all. I threw that spell at three of the beasts tearing at Shamus. As soon as I cast Hold, I remembered Zayvion had said it wouldn’t work.
Hells.
Shamus was still standing, still grinning, though I could not fathom how.
Hold hit two of the beasts. It locked down on one of the Hungers, clamped like a black-legged spider that latched on and pulsed, injecting the paralyzing venom of Hold into the beast’s flesh. For a second, I thought it might work. But instead of freezing, the Hunger stretched and absorbed the Hold spell like a gutter sucking down rain.
The beasts turned. Three of them. Toward me.
Bigger, faster, more solid. Their eyes widened, burning with unholy, bloody fire.
Right. Screwed up. Big time. Wondered if I’d live long enough to apologize to Shamus about it.
The Hungers charged.
Camouflage, my father said.
In that second, with that one word, I saw the lines it would take to cast the Camouflage glyph. Where the beginning and ending twisted back to parallel one another, so the spell fooled the eye, ears, senses.
Screw the Disbursement. Screw trying to clear my mind. I drew the glyph for Camouflage as fast as my fingers could move and poured it full of magic, as much magic as I could get my hands on, as much magic as I had in me.
Hot, sweet, slippery, the taste of butterscotch stung my eyes to tears, snapped at the back of my throat and burned.
Still the beasts ran. Three yards away, two, one. I pulled the knife out of my belt and shifted my stance to brace for impact. I was really wishing I owned a gun right about now. Or, yes, that I’d started those damn self-defense classes Violet insisted I take.
No time to worry about that. Not while the bulldozers of gonna-fuck-you-up bore down on me, butterscotch coating and all.
Screwed, screwed, screwed.
A solid wall appeared in front of me and blackness slammed down. I yelled at the sudden absence of light and jerked back. I couldn’t see anything but blackness. I also couldn’t smell the creatures, couldn’t hear the creatures.
I was about to die, and I’d gone blind.
This sucked.
The wall reverberated with three heavy impacts that shook the ground like small earthquakes. The creatures, I think, slamming into the wall again and again. I stepped backward and traced a Blocking spell blind, from memory alone. I didn’t know how long before the Hungers pounded their way through that wall of darkness.
But before I put the last twist on the Blocking spell, the pounding stopped. For a second I stood there, wet, panting in the dark, too silent, too cold, too hot. Too damn blind. The heartbeats on my wrist thumped, three different drums in three different beats.
Then the wall exploded into smoke. Standing in front of me was Shamus.
He was pale. I didn’t know white could get that white. Through the heavy hang of his hair against his face, I noticed he had freckles I’d never seen before. His eyes burned green, carved beneath and above by black smudges. But he was not bloody or bruised. He just looked really, really angry.
“Didn’t I tell you not to use magic?” he growled. “ ‘Get back,’ I said. And did you? No.” He shoved my shoulder—my injured left one—so hard I yelped and stumbled. He palmed me ruthlessly toward the rusted metal building. “Stupid. Stubborn. You’re fucking trouble. Fine, if you want to die on your own. There’s fucking four of us out here.” Another shove, and my back hit the metal wall.
“I—”
“Shut it. Watch.”
He faced me, so close I could smell his sweat, feel the heat rise off his body. He kept his back to the open field. The way he stood, it was like he was a wall between me and the beasts. And since I had not let go of Sight (which was amazing, considering. Go, me) I could see the low glow of light caught in the folds on his clothes where only shadows should be. The air around him seemed thicker, as if glass stretched out to either side of him.
The grasses and weeds at his feet were already yellowed by winter, but the longer he stood in one place, the browner they became. A slow-creeping circle of dead grass and weeds extended out from his boots as he sucked life in to feed the exchange of magic.
Death magic, my father whispered. And I caught a hint of him being impressed by Shamus’ skill, a hint that he hadn’t thought the boy he once knew would ever sacrifice enough to become a master in the art.
Shamus very calmly pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it, letting the match fall to die in the wet, brittle grass. When he slanted me a look, his eyes burned a green so dark, it was almost black.
That boy was pulling in some heavy magic.
Master indeed.
I didn’t know how he did it, but he really had become a wall, and was accessing a hell of a lot of magic in this magicless part of town to hold it in place. I briefly considered pouring some of my magic into his spell to support it, but we were Contrasts, unpredictable and explosive when mixed.
I looked past his shoulder. Zayvion, in his ratty blue ski coat and black beanie, strolled through the middle of the field, heading uphill and toward the base of the bridge. His head was bent, his hands loose at his sides. He looked like a transient, watching his feet and hoping to find a discarded miracle lying in the dirt and weeds.
But with Sight I saw not only Zayvion the street drifter, I also saw Zayvion the warrior.
Seven feet tall, his body was alight in a symphony of black fire and silver glyphs that whorled like tribal tattoos down his arms, torso, back, and legs. The black fire flickered with silver blades of light.
The beasts followed the light and darkness that was Zayvion, as if they could taste the magic he held, caught by his fire, his shadow, hungry, but just wary enough to stay several feet away from him.
I took a step forward. I wanted to be a part of that fire too, wanted to feel his hands on me, his magic in me. Wanted to be a part of whatever he really was. Wanted to know what he could be, maybe even what we could be together.
Shamus clamped his hand on my shoulder and pressed down until it hurt. The pain—normal physical pain—did wonders for clearing my mind and stopped me from walking after Zayvion.
“Beauty, isn’t he?” he said with just a hint of longing in his voice. “Guardian of the gates.” He nodded. “No one but Jones can handle that and come out of it breathing. And sane. Magic from Life, magic from Death, light and dark, Blood, Faith, and Flux; he’s got it all, uses it all. Some of them doubted him. Not me. Not once. Just have to look at him to see it. He’s more than any of us. Scary. But disciplined. Controlled. No matter what kind of shit he’s in. No one doubts him now. Not even Sedra.” He sucked on the cigarette, his eyes narrowing for a second while he considered me. “Well, until you came along.”
“Me? What does this have to do with me?”
“If you’re his Soul Complement, you’re just like him. One finger in each kind of magic. Light and dark. Able to break open or close the gates between our world and death. Maybe a lot more than that. You worry people, Beckstrom. I think you even worried your all-powerful da. I think that’s why he didn’t want you using magic. I think that’s why he kept you out of the Authority.”
“Trust me,” I said, “You don’t have to worry. If I could do half of what Zay’s doing, I wouldn’t be standing here with you. I’d be over there taking care of those things.”
Shamus just stared at me and sucked on his cigarette. Not exactly a vote of confidence. But not a dismissal either.
“Should we help him?” I asked.
“We should do nothing but stand here. Chase has him covered. I’ll do cleanup. You’ll do nothing. Nothing.” He exhaled smoke into the wet air. “If you so much as twitch, I’ll knock you out and hold you down until this is done.”
“You could try,” I said.
That got a tight smile out of him. “I bet you even worry Jones.”
The way he said it, I didn’t think he was joking.
The Hungers that I knew were solid, monstrous nightmare creatures now looked like dogs, sniffing around in the dirt, trotting at Zayvion’s heels. It was an Illusion, and a very clever one at that. I squinted at the shadow of the glyph that maintained the Illusion. The lines of the spell floated in the air toward the sickly hemlock tree.
Chase leaned against the trunk of the tree, one knee bent, the heel of her boot propped behind her. She didn’t look any different from the last time I’d seen her, flannel and black jeans. Tough, pretty, strong. No amazing transformation like Zayvion-on-fire. Her hands were shoved in her flannel overcoat, one of her shoulders hitched toward her ear. To the casual observer, she was watching Zayvion, waiting for him to join her under the tree and out of the lightly falling rain.
To the not-so-casual observer, like maybe someone with her back against a wall using Sight, it was clear she was maintaining the Illusion and had made the pack of monsters look like a pack of dogs.
To the not-so-casual observer, she was throwing around magic like it was as easy as breathing, like it cost nothing. I wondered whether people in the Authority Proxied their spells. If I had to guess, I’d say Chase did. I wasn’t sure about Zayvion. And I’d guess Shamus took the pain for casting his spells. Maybe even liked it.
Chase lifted her chin and met my gaze. I was pretty sure Shamus’ wall blocked us from the creatures’ senses, but that didn’t make us invisible. Chase’s mouth quirked, and there was challenge in her eyes. I was not about to take that challenge. Sure, I was good at magic, but as people seemed to be pointing out to me, I was largely untrained. Watching Chase manipulate the Illusion filled me with a burning desire to learn more and fast. Then the next time she gave me that condescending, dismissive look, I could smack a spell up the backside of her head.
Zayvion started whistling. Soft, swaying, the song was an old folk or country tune, something that brought to mind half-remembered words of a man wanting to waltz with a woman but ending up dead, his lonely ghost calling her name and wandering the land.
At the end of the chorus, Zayvion stopped, turned. He pulled the machete out from beneath his coat. Chase had an Illusion for that one too. To the nonmagical eye, he was doing nothing more than stretching.
But the beasts saw him for what he really was. A seven-foot-tall, burning black and silver god of a man wielding a wicked steel and glass machete glyphed to a killing edge.
The beasts leaped. Zayvion caught the first one through the chest with the tip of his blade. He pulled the blade free and pivoted, swinging the machete more like a billy club than a sword, putting the strength of his body into it. He sliced the next beast in half. Both sides of the creature fell to the grass and quivered.
I blinked, lost my focus on Sight for a half second, and the scene changed to Zayvion standing there, lighting a cigarette while the dogs wandered aimlessly around him and eventually made their way into the shadows under the bridge and out of sight.
Note to self: Chase can kick some serious Illusion ass.
I concentrated on Sight again. The glyph was still there, still working.
And Zayvion was still fighting. Silent, even in the noisy grass, he took the next beast through the thick head, the blade wedging and not coming free. He abandoned the machete, and a string with glyphed blades at the end appeared in his hands.
It didn’t look like a formidable weapon, and frankly, I was trying to figure out why he didn’t just pull a gun. Zayvion said a word I didn’t hear—maybe Chase was working a Mute spell too—and the string burned with wicked fire. Magic dripped like flame down the edges of the blade. He swung the string in a tight circle and folded it against his chest to shorten and change the string’s direction. The blade whipped out and cut off the front legs of the creature nearest him. A second strike through the ribs, and the thing moved no more.
This time I saw the Hunger’s muzzle open in a howl.
But I heard nothing. Definitely a Mute spell. Zayvion probably didn’t use a gun because Mute, even a really strong Mute, still allowed some noise to escape. And it was harder to hold an Illusion and Mute spell at the same time, doubly so in the dead zone of St. Johns. But a machete and rope—pretty easy to mask the sound of their strikes.
And apparently, the howl of undead, unliving beasts.
The rest of the creatures seemed to finally figure out that Zayvion was going to finish them off in short order. As if a cue had been sent, they took off running, fast, fluid, disappearing beneath the bridge.
Zayvion swore—that I heard—and Chase and he set off after the Hungers, their heartbeats tapping fast at my wrist.
Shamus flicked his cigarette to the ground and rolled his boot over it. He also dropped whatever spell he had been using to hold up that wall.
He coughed a couple times and spat.
“Shouldn’t we follow them?”
“No.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, but not before I noticed the blood at the corner of his lips. “I’m going to clean up. You can watch if you want
.”
It really bugged me to just stand around while other people were working, but I’d said I only wanted to come so I could learn. So I could keep my people safe from those creatures. So I would know what to do next time. So I never had to haul Davy’s broken and bleeding body into the hospital again.
All I’d learned so far was that it took at least three people to handle the Hungers. And a certain knowledge with weapons.
Which meant, if I really wanted to know how to fight these things, I had a lot of learning ahead of me.
Shamus must have taken my silence for agreement. He walked off toward the dead—at least I hoped they were dead—bodies of the Hungers.
I put the knife back in my belt and followed, noting the circle of dead grass where Shamus had stood had grown to six feet in diameter.
“Bet you suck at gardening,” I observed.
Shamus shrugged. “It’s all about energy exchange. It could always go the other way, me feeding a plant instead of drawing the life out of it.”
“Do that often?”
Shamus looked at me over his shoulder. “No.”
“Why not? Have something against plants?”
“No, but I haven’t met a vegetable good enough to sacrifice a year of my life for.”
“What?”
“Energy exchange. Death magic is all about transition, transfer, mutation, change from one state into another.” At my look, he rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. This is the ABC’s. I can draw the life energy out of a living thing, like a plant, or I can give my life energy to a living thing, like a plant. Once that connection is set, it is a carrier for magic. And that carrier—say it with me: Death magic—shifts how magic responds when it is cast into glyphs.”
We stopped above the inert creatures. They were reduced to a strange collection of torsos, limbs, and body parts. Zayvion’s machete stuck out of the skull of one of the things, hilt toward the sky, with just enough blade showing that it caught silver in the light. Fluid, thicker than blood, oozed black from every wound. I still didn’t smell any kind of scent from them.
What had Shamus said? Death magic was hard to Hound?
