by Devon Monk
Heat snapped out from the hook in my chest and zagged down to my thigh. The pain slithered over the rise of my leg muscle, soft threads of heat licking down the inside of my thigh.
I bit my bottom lip to keep from moaning.
This wasn’t right.
This was blood magic. What had Zayvion said? Blood magic was intimate.
Trager. It was his blood magic, his glyph on my thigh, his voice calling me. It was his touch I wanted. His touch he was making me want.
Shit, shit, shit.
Inhale, exhale. Pain, desire. The blood magic glyph on my thigh throbbed with wicked pleasure. Magic in my blood rose in response, pushing to be free, to be used. No, no, no. That would be bad.
Blood magic bit, tugged, chest and thigh, a luscious ache that overwhelmed my senses. I hated it, and I wanted it. Wanted more of it.
And all the while a small part of my mind screamed at me to stop, to wake up, to run away. I leaned away from the window. Blinked hard. Focused on the seat in front of me.
I will not go to him. I will not be his toy on a string, his dog on a chain. I exhaled as another wave of pleasure shuddered through me. I will not let him use me.
I needed help. I needed my phone.
Pain, pleasure. I inhaled, tasted sweet cherries, and then held my breath as the blood glyph cinched tight again.
My hands shook. I pulled the phone out of my pocket, managed to open it.
Dead.
Maybe I’d pulled out the wrong phone.
I reached back into my pocket, and my fingers brushed over the dagger. Zayvion’s knife. He had said I could use it to break the Binding. I exhaled. A stroke of heat pulsed through me again. I closed my eyes, waiting for it to pass.
Sweet hells. Intimate didn’t cover it. Blood magic was far more than that. It was sexual. Orgasmic. Needful. No wonder people got hooked. And if they mixed it with drugs… Hells.
“This is it,” the driver said.
I opened my eyes. Dawn was trying to wedge night aside. In the low light of streetlamps, the freestanding arched columns and cobbled bricks of Ankeny Square shone blue, black, and gold.
It was too early for any of the shops to be open yet.
My fingers were wrapped around the door handle.
Stop it, Allie, I told myself. Don’t open the door. Tell the cabbie to take you home. Tell the cabbie to call the police.
The hook in my chest tugged, and I bit my lip to keep from gasping. I had to get out of the cab. Had to go. Go to Trager.
I left money on the seat. Left other things there too, I think. My hat. My gloves. I got out. Stood there, trembling in pain and need in the ice-covered square. The cab pulled away.
The hook in my chest tugged again. Forced me to take a step. One step closer to Trager. To what I wanted.
No, what I didn’t want.
I still had my jacket. Still had the dagger. Breathing hard, I pulled out both phones and opened each in turn. Dead and dead. Okay, that left me, the knife, and magic.
I could do this. I could break this hold. But if I pulled on magic to fight Trager, the Veiled would try to eat me. And it didn’t matter how strong I was. I didn’t think I could fight off dead magic users while I was trying to take down one of the most notorious drug and blood dealers in the city, who had his hook in my chest and thigh.
So much for magic. Okay, that left me and the knife.
I took the dagger out of my coat pocket and drew it free of its sheath. Light caught at the slim edges, pooled in the glyphwork that flowed from the hilt, down the blade, across the glass center, and slipped off the razor edge, glowing in the same metallic shades as the marks on my arm.
I didn’t know how to break the Binding. Couldn’t remember what Zayvion had told me to do. Fine. There were other things a sharp blade could be used for. Things like self-defense. And kicking ass. I gripped the hilt like I knew how to use the thing and scanned the square for Trager and his goons. A shadow detached itself from the pillars. He-I was sure it was a he-started toward me with a slow, limping gate.
I inhaled, sorted through the smells of ice and asphalt, and got a noseful of hickory and soap. And blood. Lots of blood.
“Pike?” I breathed.
He continued his slow, slow walk. Damn him. He had Hounded Trager without me, without the police. He’d broken his promise. Gone vigilante. I was so going to kick his retired ass.
“Pike?” I said a little louder. Still no answer. The hook in my chest stung and throbbed, until I took another step. Closer to Pike. That worked for me, so I kept walking, trying to focus on Pike and not the strokes of pleasure and pain. I picked my way across the icy uneven cobbles.
Pike trudged forward, swaying drunkenly. And the closer I came to him, I knew why.
A gory portrait out of a bad dream, Pike was covered in blood. A meaty, sloppy mess was all that was left of where his left eye should be. His cheekbone stuck out of his skin. His left arm swung and grinded with a loose gristle-over-bone sound. His T-shirt was so wet with blood, there was nothing of the original blue left. The front of his jeans were so heavy with blood, each grueling step he took toward me left behind a dark, wet footprint.
He wasn’t breathing very well. Or very much.
“Oh, no. Oh, fuck, Pike,” I said. “Where’s Davy? Who’s watching you? Covering your back? Who has a fucking phone?” I tried to jog the remainder of the distance, tried to reach him.
Just as I was almost close enough to touch him, pain exploded in my chest. No pleasure this time. Hot spikes rattled over my ribs, each one in turn until I thought they’d break. I groaned.
Pike grunted, tipped his working eye up to look at me, and then folded down to his knees. His exhale wheezed with horrible wetness.
I stood above him, close enough to touch him but unable to move, unable to bend in the vise grip of pain and the damn Binding. I listened as his breathing grew more shallow. I didn’t know how he was getting any air through all that wetness.
In the still air of the morning, where traffic moved in the distance like a muted dream, I could very clearly hear the soft snicking of Pike’s blood falling onto ice and stone.
I pushed against the pain, the need, against the Binding that held me frozen. I couldn’t even move my fingers.
Then the pain eased and I could move. But I wasn’t the one in control of my legs any more.
I took a step away from Pike, a step past him. Trager. The asshole was dragging me to him. Making me leave Pike behind. Another step. Two.
I fought the pull of the Binding, leaned back against it. Yelled as the hook shifted to catch at my lungs. I couldn’t leave Pike, couldn’t leave him dying behind me.
I still had the dagger. By damn, I was going to use it. I forced my hands up, trembled as I turned the knife to my chest, aiming for the hook. I had to use both hands to hold it steady, to press it against my chest. The tip slipped through the thin fabric of my shirt, nipped gently at my skin.
I took another step, heard the deadweight thunk as Pike fell the rest of the way to the ground. I couldn’t turn to look at him. I pressed the dagger harder, broke the skin over my breastbone.
Wait. Something was wrong with this. Magic dagger or not, if I shoved a knife through my heart, I wouldn’t be around long enough to do anything else.
Holy hells.
Think, Allie.
The glyph. The Binding on my thigh. I could cut the bastard’s magic out of me.
I took another step and shifted the grip on the blade. Before Trager could make me take another step, I slid the tip-okay, more than just the tip, the whole damn length of the blade-across my thigh.
The knife sliced effortlessly through the heavy denim of my jeans. It sank into my thigh like heated glass. I yelled. Felt like barfing. Instead I jerked the blade out of my leg. I tugged at the hole in my jeans, ripping it open. I blinked sweat out of my eyes and looked down at the glyph.
What I saw was blood, my blood, pouring down the pus green venous ridges of the Binding glyph. I had to p
ull the magic out of it. Zayvion had said that. Pull the magic out.
But I needed magic to do that. Needed magic to see what I was doing.
Fuck it all.
I tried to calm my mind. I whispered a mantra over and over: Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black… I set a Disbursement-I was so done with having a headache and fever and went for a nice head cold this time. I jerkily traced the glyph for Reveal over my thigh and drew magic up out of my body to pour into it.
Magic responded strangely. It skittered beneath my skin like a rock over a pond instead of flowing smoothly. It took all the concentration I had to guide the magic into the spell I’d cast.
And doing that made everything hurt.
Trager yanked on the hook in my chest.
But my leg wasn’t working so good. I stumbled forward and fell.
It is amazing how it doesn’t matter how much pain I’m in, I can always feel one more thing. I hit the ground hard, banged my elbow, my hip, scraped the side of my face. Managed not to hit my head, break my hold on the Reveal spell, or impale myself on the knife.
Go, me.
I curled inward, fetal position, and wished I could stay there forever. Then pushed up to a sitting position. Made it too.
The Reveal I cast showed me the Binding’s true nature. The glyph on my thigh glowed pus green and oozed black. I’d never seen anything like it. One part of my mind-the part I was trying very hard not to listen to-was screaming. The other part was getting pissed off.
Calm, Allie. Stay calm.
Pike rattled out a long, thin breath.
I inhaled, scented the rotten flesh stench of the Veiled, who undoubtedly had invited themselves to my little private hell. I didn’t take time to search for them. I knew they were there, around me, on their slow march.
Fast. I needed to work fast.
I opened my mouth, leaned toward my thigh, and inhaled the scent and signature of the spell. I knew Trager had cast it, but my Hounding senses sorted through the spell’s subtleties. And, most important, let me trace the actual manner in which the spell had been cast.
With the knife in my right hand, I pressed my right fingers at the top of the glyph and traced it, dragging my fingers through the blood, drawing a new layer of pain along its twisted route.
Ow, ow, ow. Someone was whining like a kicked puppy. That someone was me.
My fingers probed at the spell, pushed at it.
There. Where the thinnest tendril of the glyph stretched out to connect to the knotted lump in the center. The Binding originated there.
Keeping my right fingers on the point of origin, I brushed my left fingers more lightly out from there, followed the twists and knots until my fingertip rested on the exit point of the spell-the last line drawn before the spell had been stabbed into me. That point was deep in the gash I’d made with the knife.
Good news, I told myself. I didn’t have to make a second cut.
I gritted my teeth and stuck my fingers into the wound. Holy shit, that hurt. My fingers slipped across a very thin, glasslike thread in my flesh. That was the Binding, cast in blood magic, which had somehow turned solid beneath my skin. Or maybe blood magic always turned to glass. I didn’t know. And I didn’t care.
I pinched at the slippery thread, caught it between my thumb and fingernails. Then I tugged. The Binding slithered beneath my skin, unwinding with barbed pain along the path of its design.
Good, but not good enough.
I tugged harder, groaned. The glyph unwound some more. I could see the solid glass thread as it exited my skin, but as soon as it hit the air, it dissolved into ashy black smoke. And of course the harder I pulled, the more it hurt.
Pike was dying. The Veiled were closing in. I didn’t have time to be subtle. I clenched my teeth and yanked. Fire scraped across my thigh, up my belly, shocked across my nerves. Pain gouged my chest and stabbed my heart and lungs. I yelled and yelled. Stars burst at the edges of my vision.
But I didn’t stop pulling.
My vision narrowed. The only sound I could hear was the pounding of my blood. My world reduced to two things: pain and sheer determination not to stop pulling on the spell.
The Binding shattered, rising in the air like wisps of smoke from a sudden fire. I broke out in a heavy sweat, like a bad fever breaking. I was still sitting, my left hand pulled as far from my body as it could reach, the final ashes of the spell drifting away on the sweet-cherry-scented breeze.
Without knowing it, I’d pressed the dagger deep into my thigh again. Holy hells, that was going to scar. So much for wearing miniskirts.
Somehow I had managed to hold on to the Reveal spell. I blinked, looked up. The watercolor people-the Veiled, dead magic users-rushed me. Empty black eyes, mouths open, hands reaching, hungry for my magic.
I scrambled backward, turned my face away from their onslaught, and let go of the Reveal spell. The stink of dead flesh rushed past me, borne on an unnatural wind. And nothing more. No fingers, no eyes, no mouths.
I shuddered, gagged. Took a couple hard breaths. Then I dragged my ass back to where Pike lay.
Trager would now know the Binding was broken. He would now know I was not his little toy. And it pissed me off that I had just destroyed the evidence I had against him-evidence that would have thrown him in chains.
But when I made it to Pike, I didn’t care.
Pike was curled up on his bloodiest left side-Hounding instincts to keep the most vulnerable side of yourself hidden, protected. It meant his good eye-the eye he still had-was toward me.
I brushed my fingers over his neck, searching for a pulse. A sluggish throb sent a slow gush of blood over my fingers.
Deep blood. Lifeblood. Pouring down to the icy street.
Even though I didn’t remember doing it, Nola had told me I healed Zayvion with magic when the storm of wild magic raged over the city. Paying the price for that had thrown me in a coma and erased weeks of my life. It could have killed me.
But if I could do it once, I could do it again.
I calmed my mind, sang my little song, and shoved the panic to the side.
“Pike,” I said. “It’s Allie. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.” I ran my fumbling hands over his chest, his belly, looking for the deepest wound. His entire torso felt like ground beef-wet and pulpy everywhere. Someone had beat him physically and magically. I didn’t even know where to begin.
I took a deep breath and, still holding the knife in one hand, pulled the magic up through my body. It responded better this time, spooling out through me like warm water over burned skin. I didn’t know any glyphs for healing-no one healed with magic. The price was too high. Even doctors used magic only as a tool to assist in healing, not as a means to the end.
I closed my eyes and directed the magic through my fingers and into Pike’s body.
Heal, I thought, putting my will and intent behind the magic. I held an image of him whole and well in my mind, and told the magic to make that happen, make him alive, breathing, healed.
Magic poured into Pike’s wounds, and there were a lot of them. Magic poured through me fast, faster. But instead of wrapping around his bones, spreading through his muscle and veins, mending and healing, the magic poured through him and then sank, useless, into the ground.
I couldn’t make it spread through him, couldn’t make it catch up the pieces of him and knit him back together. It was like he was made of sand, and all the magic I pumped into him drained into the earth without touching him.
No, no, no. What was I doing wrong?
I smelled the fetid rot of flesh again, opened my eyes. The Veiled shuffled slowly toward me. I did not stop pouring magic into Pike.
Pike’s eyelid flickered open. His eye roamed the flat, dark sky and then rolled down and focused on me.
“Al,” he rasped. “Trag used”-he inhaled, a short rattling breath that made his body stiffen-“my blood. To kidnap girls. Trag used Ant to cast like me…” He inhaled again, his on
e eye wide, as if there were more words trapped behind his broken lungs, as if there were more words trapped in his broken body.
“Doctor,” he wheezed. “Has blood. Yours. Girls.”
My blood? What doctor? What girls? The kidnapped girls?
“Don’t let Trager free-” The painful inhale again.
“Easy, Pike,” I said. “It’s okay. I won’t let Trager free. I’ll take care of everything. You just hold on. Hold on, okay?”
A spasm wracked his body. His hand jerked out, gripped the blade that was still in my right hand. His blood mixed with mine, caught in the finely wrought runnels of the blade and slid down the liquid glyphs, turning the glowing symbols into a dull fire before dripping onto his chest.
“Not Ant’s fault. I… failed… him. Look after”-the painful inhale again-“the kid. The Hounds. They’re family. Mine. Yours.”
“Hey, now. Don’t get all soft on me. You and I can look after the Hounds together, okay? I promise.” I poured magic into him-more, faster.
“Worth it,” he exhaled.
Pike’s one eye stared at me. I did not look away from him. Did not look away from him as the Veiled rushed me and shoved greedy fingers into my skin, burning, hurting, eating the magic out of my flesh. Did not look away from him as the last spark of life drained from his eye. Did not look away from him as he became unnaturally still, vacant, empty. Dead.
Only then did I let go of the magic pouring into him. Only then did I look away from my friend.
As soon as I let go of the spell, the Veiled faded. I stung from head to foot. Felt like my skin had been scraped raw by frozen sandpaper. My thigh throbbed; my chest throbbed. Every breath caught and burned, and, damn it, tears poured down my face.
But I was raging inside, seething. And way past caring about my own pain.
I was angry as hell. Trager was going to pay. Fuck the law. I was going to kill him with my own hands. I pushed up onto my feet, turned a slow circle. I couldn’t smell Trager, but I could feel him like a dirty echo in my bones. He was here. Near. I followed my gut and my rage and walked toward the corner building. The wind picked up again, pulling ice off the skin of the river and slapping me in the face with it.
