Hell Bent bm-1

by Devon Monk

  I threw my cigarette into his ashes and crushed it under my boot. Stared straight into his dead eyes. “Welcome to hell.”

  He opened his mouth to scream, but I couldn’t hear him as he faded away.

  With a flick of my fingers, even his ashes were gone.

  Problem solved.

  Chapter 34

  I went back to the inn. Found myself sitting at my desk, staring at Eleanor’s angel statue.

  There was one more death I needed to deal with.

  Just before dawn I texted Terric and Zay. Told them I was going out of town to clear my head for a day or two. Mountains or coast, I hadn’t decided yet. And if they needed to reach me, I’d have my phone on.

  Then I stuffed the phone in my sock drawer, made sure the clerk would look after the ferret, and picked up Eleanor’s statue since she made several gestures that she wanted me to do so.

  I left.

  Headed to Seattle. Lost myself to the drive and my thoughts.

  Stopped for coffee once and bought a red rose from a roadside vender. Took me some time to get where I wanted to be. Finally found what I was looking for.

  A graveyard where Thomas had a plot. Where Dessa had a headstone since there wasn’t anything left of her to be buried.

  I had still been in the hospital, sitting in Terric’s room waiting for him to prove he was going to live through another day, when they’d done this.

  She’d told me she had family. But the Hounds who had spied on the burial said only a minister had been there.

  It make me think that was why her brother’s death hit her so hard. He was all the real family she had had.

  I rolled slowly through the graveyard, parked, and got out of the car. Wandered to the southwest corner. I had forgotten to bring the files with me, but I had a decent memory of the layout.

  Eleanor always seemed a little wary in graveyards, though I never understood what she feared. Because, seriously, she was a ghost.

  I finally found the grave. A headstone was already placed and simply read DESSA OLIVIA LEEDS, along with the dates of her birth and death.

  Eleanor touched my hand, where I held the statue of death with angel wings. Then she pointed at the grave.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered.

  She touched my heart and nodded. So I placed the statue there, Death’s weary head lowered, the scythe useless in his hands, as his wings stretched out for a sky he would never know.

  Eleanor stood beside me, her arm cold around my waist.

  I didn’t know how long I stood there and stared. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. It rained, stopped, and rained again.

  Eventually I became aware of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. Blinked and looked around. Terric stood just a short ways off. Noticed me trying to decide if he was a mirage or not. Came walking over.

  Bastard had followed me up to Seattle. I wondered how many Hounds he’d had tracking me. Probably dozens. I hadn’t been very observant lately.

  But at least he didn’t say anything, just came closer until he was beside me, looking down at her grave with me.

  Everything around me was dead. The grass over her grave, the trees and bushes.

  I remembered the rose in my hand, the only flower I’d ever bought for her. I knelt, but once my knees sank into that cold, wet, dead grass, my hands started shaking. I suddenly realized it was pouring rain, merciless. And very, very cold.

  I placed the rose where I thought her heart might be. But the flower had been in my care for too long. It was withered. Dead.

  Just like everything I touched.

  I wiped rain off my face. “I can’t even keep a flower alive,” I said. “Everything dies. Anyone I . . . care for is going to die. I’ll make them die.”

  “I’m still alive,” he said.

  “Not forever. Not for long,” I said.

  “Maybe.”

  That admission, that it was a very real possibility for me to kill everything I laid a finger on, for me to kill him, did more for me than any attempt at comfort.

  “You can still make choices,” he said. “Choose to be a man.”

  “No,” I said, the memories of drawing on Death magic, the memories of surrendering to its vengeful need filling me with a shudder of pleasure. I wanted that. The pleasure. The oblivion. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

  Terric knelt in the rain next to me. Reached out and placed his fingers on the dead rose. Bent his head, like a man grieving, or praying.

  I felt magic draw to him like a mist over the grass. Felt it filling the words he spoke.

  The rose trembled, then washed with life again, velvet red petals, deep green stem and leaves, and roots that reached out and dug deep into the rich earth. Planting there in the newly green grass. Growing. Alive.

  The bushes around us stirred as if caught in a wind, and new sprouts pushed up from the ground.

  He pulled his hand back and caught me with his gaze. He was still human. Still Terric.

  “We do this together,” he said. “You’re not alone, Shame. And, yes, we might not be men anymore,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we have to be monsters. Our fate is still our own.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked quietly.

  “I’m trying to,” he said. “Because it’s all that keeps the madness away.”

  He stood. Held his hand down for me. I took his hand and pulled myself up onto my feet.

  “Did it hurt?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Admitting you’re not perfect.”

  He scowled at me. “Shut up, Shame.”

  I smiled and shut up because, well, most of the time, Terric was my friend. Sometimes he was more than that. A brother.

  He hung his arm over my shoulder.

  We walked away from the grave. Walked away from the death we’d never be able to leave behind us, walked away from the past we could not escape.

  I guessed we had decided to face the madness together, or die trying. Sounded good to me. Might even be fun.

  I wrapped my arm around his shoulder too and he leaned his head against mine.

  It wasn’t much of a beginning.

  But it was ours.

  Epilogue

  I had waited. Long enough that no one was following me to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong. Something destructive.

  But now it was night, and darkness was exactly what I needed.

  It wasn’t hard to walk into the facility. I could cast Sleep without using so much magic Terric would know what I was doing.

  So I did.

  I could cast Scatter to interfere with the cameras.

  So I did.

  And then I walked through the high-security facility, counted the doors until I reached the one I wanted.

  Locks are easy to pick.

  Then I was inside. With her.

  Brandy lay in her bed, eyes open, but not seeing this world. They kept her heavily medicated. They said it helped her remain calm.

  And they needed her calm, because they needed her alive.

  So we could bargain with Eli. So we could bargain with his masters.

  But there was no bargaining with monsters. I should know. I was one.

  I stepped over to her bed, my boots loud in the hollowness of the room.

  She didn’t see me. Didn’t hear me.

  That was fine. She wasn’t who I had come here for. She was simply a way to get what I wanted.

  And I wanted revenge.

  I sat on the bed next to her, studied her face, her hair, her lips. She could have been pretty, if there was any sense of humanity looking out from her eyes.

  But she was a shell, cored out and emptied by madness many long years ago.

  I understood madness too.

  I brushed her hair away from her face, then leaned so I was directly in her line of vision even though she didn’t see me.

  I put my hand over her mouth.

  Death can be painful, or . . . sweet. I didn’t need her death, not just yet. But
I wanted her pain.

  I reached out with Death magic, letting it cover her. I drank down an ounce of her life.

  Brandy’s body arched and she screamed.

  “Do you feel that, Eli?” I asked, keeping eye contact with Brandy as she trembled. “Do you feel her agony?” I drank more of her life down, Death magic twisting her nerves, catching fire beneath her skin.

  The monster inside me liked it.

  I liked it too.

  “Do you understand what I can do to her?

  “Yes, of course you know,” I said as fear set her heart beating faster. But this was not her fear; she was too far gone to know fear.

  This was Eli’s fear.

  And that was the fear I wanted.

  His sudden cold knowledge of what I could do to the other half of his soul shone through her empty eyes.

  “You know what I can do to her, because you killed just like this. Killed Joshua, killed Dessa, killed Victor. You killed people I loved. With no shred of remorse.

  “But you did not think about who you left behind, injured.”

  I drew the magic away from her, and her body went limp. She was sweating hard from the absence of pain. But her eyes were still open. And they were filled with Eli’s terror. With his knowledge, his attention.

  “You have left me injured, Eli. A very bad mistake. I am the wrong man to hurt.”

  I let the monster forward, which was not hard, as it took up so much room in me now. I smiled as his terror turned to panic. Desperation.

  “I am going to destroy you, Collins. I am going to make you writhe. Consider this your invitation to start running. Away from me, or toward me, it doesn’t matter. Because I am going to make the remainder of your life agony.” I smiled at the pleasure I would gain from that. “And then I will make you beg for death until I am tired of hearing you scream.”

  I placed my palm flat over Brandy’s eyes.

  Death comes for us all. Sometimes when we least expect it. Sometimes at our bidding.

  I sent pain twisting through her again, knowing Eli felt it. Knowing how it tormented him. Knowing how helpless it made him feel. Then pulled my hand away so he could see me. So he could see exactly what I was doing.

  I was surprised to see a second awareness in her eyes. For just a moment, it was Brandy looking at me. Please, she mouthed. Kill me.

  I hesitated. She was begging for mercy. For relief from the tortured life she had been living. But I hadn’t come here to show her mercy. Only to make Eli hurt.

  Then Brandy was gone, and it was Eli looking through her eyes again. Panicked. Begging me not to kill her.

  “You know where to find me,” I said to him.

  I placed my fingers against her chest and drew a glyph there. I stared into Eli’s pleading eyes, wanting to see his pain.

  Magic filled the invisible line I traced, crushing her heart.

  Tighter. Tighter.

  Until there was no beat left. Until she was cold and dead. Until even Eli’s hating eyes were gone.

  Brandy’s ghost stepped free of her body and threw her arms wide, head tipped back, smiling as if she had taken her first deep breath in many, many years.

  I waited for her to see me. Judge me.

  She touched the side of my cheek with cold, cold fingers. Thank you, she mouthed.

  Then she was gone.

  Revenge, mercy. Tonight they were the same.

  I left the room. Left the building. Strode away into the darkness of night.

  I flicked my fingers and canceled the Scatter spell and Sleep spell. No one would know I had been there. No one would see the glyph I had drawn. No one would remember.

  Only Eli.

  Everything was just how it had been only moments before.

  Except everything had changed.

  This was my war now.

  Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next Broken Magic novel by Devon Monk,

  STONE COLD

  Coming in April 2014 from Roc.

  The door behind Eleanor opened, letting in the March wind, a little rain, and the man I had come here to kill.

  The man was a few years older than the photo I’d seen, black hair shot through with gray, white face gone pudgy behind square bifocals. His name was Stuart, and he carried himself like someone who was irritated with his own skin: stiff movements, coat clutched closed with one hand over his stomach, a scowl hammered into his face.

  Not what I’d expected a murderer to look like, but then killers came in all shapes and sizes.

  He glanced around the diner. Didn’t notice me. I didn’t stand out in a diner that hadn’t passed a health inspection in a decade. And although it would be fun, I didn’t wear a sign that said “Shame Flynn. Death magic user, loyal friend, troublemaker, and the last guy you’d want to meet in a dark alley if you’d done something naughty.”

  He didn’t notice Eleanor either, but that was understandable.

  Eleanor was a ghost.

  She sat across from me, long blond hair flowing with an underwater grace as she moved. Soft features, sweet smile, she was beautiful when alive, and still beautiful when dead. She noticed me noticing him. Tipped her head a bit, narrowed her eyes. “What?” she mouthed.

  I couldn’t actually hear her because—hello—she was dead. But I’d learned how to read her lips over the last couple years since she’d been stuck with me.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  She, as usual, didn’t believe me.

  She scanned the diner, saw the guy take the booth just off to our right, looked back at me. Shook her head.

  “Not listening.” I stared at my breakfast so I didn’t have to see her, poked at the waffles. My fork bounced off the hardened whipped cream.

  She shifted through the table like someone forging a stream and floated in front of me, half of her body stuck in the table.

  “Jesus. Do you stay up at night thinking of ways to creep me out?”

  “No killing,” she mouthed. Or maybe it was “No kidding.” I didn’t say I was good at reading lips.

  “Sorry. I made a promise. I never go back on my word.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Fine. Lately,” I amended. “I never go back on my word lately. And that man”—I lowered my voice because, seriously, I did not need people looking at the crazy guy who was yelling at his waffles—“has done unspeakable things to people. With magic. For years. He’ll continue doing unspeakable things, with or without magic. He should have been dead a long, long time ago. I’m just taking care of business.”

  “Terric.” She pointed at my heart, which wasn’t beating all that well today. A problem I intended to take care of as soon as the ghost got off her high horse so I could kill the guy.

  I lifted my knife. “We’ll leave Terric out of this. Plus, he’s avoiding me, not the other way around.”

  Not that I could ever get away from him. We were Soul Complements: Death magic, Life magic. Ever since the magical apocalypse a few years ago had made magic a gentle force, it was just us Soul Complements who could break magic and make it do the old, horrifying things.

  Well, and the old, wonderful things too, but that wasn’t really my department.

  I was the guy who handled the darker side of things.

  I’d been a damn fine Death magic user back in the day. And now? Well, now I was death.

  While it had its perks, it didn’t come without a hell of a price. I carried death, but if I didn’t let it loose, didn’t let the Death magic in me consume and kill, then it simply consumed and killed me.

  I was never going to be an old man. Hell, I’d be lucky to live another year.

  But I was damn sure going to live long enough to take out some people before my time was up. For one, that killer in the booth across from me, and for two, the psychopath Eli Collins, whom I still hadn’t tracked down.

  A cold slap of pain hit my shoulder and forced my attention back on my surroundings. The grease and noise of the diner fell back around me again, the
heat of the air, the cool of the wind coming through the door. Eleanor had her hand up, ready to slap me again to get my attention. She didn’t need to.

  Another man stood just inside the door, scanning the diner.

  Terric Conley was a bit taller than me, dressed better than me, and had blue eyes and good looks angels would fistfight for. His hair had been white since the day I’d tried to kill him and he’d killed me back. Altogether, he was the sort of man women fell for. Unfortunately for women, he was the sort of man who fell for men.

  He was also a hell of a Life magic user, and, when we admitted such things, my friend, my partner, and my Soul Complement.

  He annoyed the hell out of me.

  He spotted me and started my way.

  “Shame.” He stopped by the table, glanced down at the untouched plate of waffles, strawberries, and whipped cream in front of me. A frown wrinkled his forehead. “Breakfast? Why are you eating breakfast here? Now?”

  “What’s wrong with here and now?”

  “For one”—he glanced back across the diner, then at me—“this place is a dump. And you promised you’d go with me to a meeting today.”

  “I promised?”

  “Okay, fine. I promised. Allie and Zayvion want you there. Us there,” he corrected.

  “Busy. Sorry.” I sawed my way through the waffle with a wholly inadequate knife, then shoveled waffle and whipped cream into my mouth. Chewed. And chewed. And kept on chewing.

  Tough didn’t describe this waffle. Kevlar had more give.

  “Just . . . come, Shame,” he said. “Allie wants you there.”

  Ever since Allie had gotten pregnant, she was all sorts of unpredictable in the emotional department. I found it endlessly amusing. Terric had taken to tiptoeing around her, and Zayvion had threatened to tie my spine in knots if I riled her up. Again.

  I spit the waffle into the napkin. “If I don’t?”

  Terric raised an eyebrow. “You need me to threaten you?”

  “Might be amusing.”

  “I can promise you it would not be.”

  Had some fire behind those words. Man could deal out the hurt when he wanted to. Apparently, me not going would make him want to.