Hell Bent

Chapter 18

Victor gave us all the information he had on Thomas Leeds, which wasn’t much, but it was more than the files Terric and I could access. Actually it was a lot more than the files Clyde and Dash could access too. I found that very interesting, and Terric found it very annoying.

“We were the head of the Authority,” Terric said, slowing for traffic in the afternoon downpour. “We should have had access to every file on every person we wanted.”

“Victor doesn’t play by the rules,” I said. “He’ll probably always see a reason to keep the secret organization secret. Or at least as secret as he can. Very old-school skullduggery. I like him for holding to the old, distrustful, cynical standards.”

“You would.”

I grinned and folded my arms, carefully, over my chest. The run through the rain to the car had gotten both of us pretty wet, but Terric had on a coat. Even though I was still wearing the sweater, I wished I had my black peacoat instead.

“Stop by the inn,” I said. “I want a coat.”

“I have a coat in the trunk.”

“I want my coat.”

“We are not stopping this investigation so you can get your comfy clothes.”

“Investigation? Is that what you’re calling it?”

“What do you want me to call it?”

“A manhunt,” I said. “That’s what it is.”

“We’re going to the office,” Terric said.

“Why?”

“I want to tell Clyde what Victor told us, in person. Or at least most of it, so he has the heads-up.”

“Why?”

“If I were running the Authority, I’d be furious that I didn’t have this kind of information. Also, I want to find out if they’ve seen Davy.”

“Fine,” I said. Mostly because I was pretty sure I’d left an old coat there.

“Why the statue?” Terric asked.

“What?”

“Why did you buy a statue of the Grim Reaper with wings?”

“Caught my eye.”

“I’ve seen your apartment, Shame. Art never catches your eye.”

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t care what he thought. This conversation was done.

He glanced in the rearview mirror, at where the statue was carefully propped up so that Eleanor could sit next to it.

Don’t remember her, I thought. Don’t ask about her.

Unlike Zay and Allie, we couldn’t read each other’s minds. But we’d known each other a long time. My bluff didn’t hold.

“It’s Eleanor, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

I stared out the window.

“She’s still . . . connected to you,” he said. “I’d forgotten. I’m sorry, Shame. I’d forgotten.”

“Don’t want your pity. Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is she still angry? Can you hear her? Talk to her?”

I dug in my pocket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, smoked. Didn’t open the window.

He rolled his eyes at my petty disobedience. “She wanted the statue, didn’t she?” he asked. “Why?”

I glanced over at him, lifted the cigarette to my mouth, inhaled, tipped the sunglasses down so he could see my eyes. When he looked over at me, I said, “Leave it the hell alone.”

“Maybe I could help you with her. Maybe we could—”

“No,” I said. “We did what we could. We tried what could be tried. Now I deal with it my way, and you don’t ever speak of it again.”

He glanced in the rearview again. “Later,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.” Then he turned his attention to where it might actually do some good—looking for parking.

Found a spot a block away from the office, which was about as good as we were going to get at this hour. I was not looking forward to the walk in the rain, but I was looking forward to getting out of the car and the silence that was filled with Terric’s promise to not let the Eleanor situation go.

Pushed the door open before the engine was off, clomped across the sidewalk and under the awning. We were in front of a bank. It was an uphill walk to the office. Not as many people out right now, which made it easier on my hunger. I lit another cig, then put my boots to work.

Terric was still in the car. Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could sense him, his heartbeat, his mood. Being around him so much lately only made me more aware of him. Right now he was angry, but more than that, I sensed sorrow.

Who knew what he was sad about? Could be any number of things: the loss of his job, Joshua’s death, Eleanor’s not-death, Jeremy . . . or me. Or maybe it was just that he didn’t like the idea I was going to take care of Eli the best way I knew how—by killing him.

I felt more than heard him get out of the car. Felt more than heard his footsteps in the rain, jogging to catch up with me. Then he was beside me, matching my stride.

“Just because you don’t think a conversation needs to happen doesn’t mean it isn’t going to.”

“I said drop it, mate.”

“Drop it. Drop the fact that you have a ghost—an undead soul tied to you, trapped, haunting you every second of the day? No wonder you’re so damn morose.”

“Drop it just like I dropped you not wanting to believe that Jeremy is a lying bastard.”

“This isn’t about me—it’s about you,” he said. “We can save her, Shame. The answer to every problem isn’t always killing or ignoring every damn thing.”

I stopped, turned to him. “What if I don’t want an answer, Terric? What if I like killing things? What if I look for every opportunity to kill?”

“Don’t say that.”

“What? Don’t tell you the truth?” I lowered my voice. “You are a piece of work, Conley. You say you want to talk, but you don’t want to listen, do you? I am not you. I am not a good guy. I destroy things. I like it. I like killing. I like that Eleanor is shackled to me. Because it reminds me of the power I have. Power you should not underestimate.”

I pulled my hand into a fist and arcs of red electricity licked across my rings.

Terric squared off from me, the Void stone necklace at his chest burning with white-green light.

And he smiled. The son of a bitch smiled.

“You don’t frighten me, Flynn. Your magic doesn’t frighten me. And neither do your lies.”

I lifted my fist.

He lifted his hand.

I never even had a chance to draw on magic.

Pain, hot and twisting, shuddered through my head and down my spine.

Had lightning just nailed me to the ground?

Terric hissed, and I knew he felt the same pain.

I hadn’t cast anything. Hadn’t hit him.

He hadn’t cast anything. Hadn’t hit me.

“What the hell?” I breathed.

Terric’s gaze met mine, his blue eyes wide in the falling rain.

And I knew it, knew the reason for the pain at the exact moment he did.

“They broke it,” Terric said. “Someone broke magic.”

“Zay,” I said, swallowing back the burnt scent of mint and rose. “Jesus. Zay’s hurt. Or Allie. One of them.”

We ran to the car. Terric outpaced me, but only by a step or two. In the car, doors slammed, engine. Terric tore through the city, heading northeast. Heading to St. Johns. Heading to Zayvion and Allie.

He tossed me his phone. I caught it without looking, dialed Clyde.

“This is Clyde Turner,” he answered.

“It’s Shame. Someone broke magic. We think it’s Zay and Allie. We think they’ve been hit.”

“Hit by magic?”

“We don’t know. We’re going out there now.” I hung up. Terric probably would have told him to call the cops, or the cavalry or whoever it was we had to answer to these days, but I did not give a single damn about procedure.

Terric and I were enough to deal with whatever was going down.

His phone rang. Dash. I thumbed it on speaker and answered, “Shame.”

“The police are on their way,” he said. “Do you need anything else? Anyone else?”

“We got it,” I said.

“Were there any reports?” Terric asked. “Has anyone else called this in?”

“No,” Dash said. “Just you two.”

“Let us know if you hear anything,” Terric said.

“I will. Be careful.” Dash hung up. I did too.

Terric pulled up to Zay and Allie’s place, double-parking on the gravel lane that ran between their three-story farmhouse and the empty lot in front of the river. They had a front door. We didn’t use it.

We jogged past their low stone fence, the leafless rosebushes, and the hedge of dormant daisies. Past the garden Allie was so proud of, which held three decent-sized pumpkins and some random gourds and flowers the Hounds had thought would be funny to plant when she wasn’t looking, up the weathered wooden steps of the porch, to the kitchen side door.

I tried the door handle. It was unlocked.

Got exactly one step into the room.

A fist came out of nowhere and hit me in the head like a bull at full charge.

Holy shit.

I stumbled into Terric, who didn’t bother catching me on my way down to the floor. He was halfway through a spell.

“Stop.” Allie’s voice. Allie. I blinked upward. At a very angry Zayvion Jones, who was glowering down over me, his eyes molten gold.

“Jesus, Zay,” I said. “We came here to help you.”

“Zay,” Allie said calmly. “It’s Shame and Terric. Let them in.”

I didn’t think Zay was listening in the language we were speaking.

“Zayvion,” Terric said. “It’s all right. We got this. The police are on their way. Tell us what happened.”

For no apparent reason, he listened to that.

Zay closed his eyes, opened them again. Still gold, but this time there was sanity mixed in with the anger. “We were attacked.”

“Fuck,” I said, picking myself up off the floor. I wiped the blood off my nose and almost howled. “Also, you broke my nose. Asshole.”

“Are you all right?” Allie said.

“I’m fine.” I looked at Zay and he finally moved that mountain of muscle over to one side so I could walk the rest of the way into the room.

They had the old-fashioned farm kitchen thing to go with the rest of the old-fashioned farmhouse. I walked to the oversized sink and found a washcloth hanging from the facet. Used that to mop up the blood running out of my face. Then turned to get a look at the situation.

Allie was sitting at their kitchen table. She had been crying. Zay was still in guard mode. Terric was trying to talk him down toward something resembling reason. Wasn’t getting anywhere.

“For crap’s sake.” I pinched my nose with the cloth, crossed over to Zayvion, grabbed his wrist, then led him over to Allie, who held her hand up for him. “She’s fine and she’s right here.”

Their fingers touched and I pulled my hand quickly away from the connection between them—an almost physical sense of heat.

“What happened?” Terric asked again. “Allie, we felt magic break. Did you break it?”

She nodded. Her eyes were wet. “I don’t know why I’m crying. This is so . . .” She wiped at her eyes with her free hand and sniffed, then took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’m not hurt. I’m just angry.”

“Want to tell Mr. Jones to stand down and make with the talking?” I asked.

She looked up at Zay. Maybe for the first time realized how furious he still was. “Zayvion, I’m fine. The baby’s fine too.”

Right. Baby. No wonder why Zay had gone feral.

“Tell us what happened, Z,” I said as I leaned back against the counter, rag over my nose. “Tell us why you broke magic.”

Maybe it was the angle of light from where I was standing, but that’s when I noticed Zayvion’s black T-shirt was dark with blood. He was injured.

“Zay, mate,” I said. “You’re bleeding.”

Terric was looking out the door, but at that, turned and shut it. “Sit down, Zay.”

Zay sat in the chair next to Allie, and Terric lifted his shirt to see the damage.

“Who did this?”

“Collins,” Allie said. “It was Eli Collins.”