Hell Bent

Chapter 29

Time was not slow anymore. It was suddenly, brutally fast.

Dessa yelled as the magic slammed into her, throwing her across the floor.

Terric and I lifted our guns. Terric aimed at Eli’s head. I aimed at that damn thing in his hands.

We unloaded the clips.

He had a choice of which part of himself to Shield. Chose his head. The controller fell to the floor.

And the blank-eyed monstrosities from above hit us with another spell.

Impact.

It blasted through the room like a sonic wave. Threw me off my feet. An entire ocean of magic pounded and roared through the room.

Crushing us.

I couldn’t breathe. Tasted blood.

Tumbled, hit my back, shoulder, head, into something metal, felt my spine crack. Felt Terric’s pain too: arm, shoulder, neck. Could not tell where he was, or hell, where I was.

Ran out of air.

Drowning. Drowning in magic.

“Dessa!” I yelled. I didn’t hear her. Couldn’t see her.

Then Terric was there, standing above me. A goddamn angel with alien eyes. He did something with Life magic that made my ears ring with an ungodly chorus of sound. My head spiked with pain.

And then I could breathe, I could think. I stood. A little woozy, but kept my feet. It felt like they’d aimed the entire ocean of magic at me.

“They did,” he said in that flat, creepy tone that was not Terric, not human, and somehow louder than my own voice.

“Where’s Dessa?” I yelled.

“They’re taking Davy. Using him.” He might have just pushed the brunt of that Impact off us, but there was no Terric in those eyes. Just raw magic.

Get a grip, Flynn.

I stuck my hand on Terric’s chest, drew off the Life magic burning through him until he stopped glowing and some sanity came back into his eyes.

Situation: the room was filled with a snarling maelstrom of magic that burned across the ceiling, walls, floor, picking up metal, debris, and glass and spinning it through the room like a caged tornado.

The people above us, including Krogher, were gone. That wasn’t good.

The air cracked again and three holes in space materialized on the far side of the room. Gates.

Eli turned and limped toward one, holding his arm against his side and breathing hard. I hoped to hell one or a dozen of our bullets had hit him.

The second hole in space appeared right next to Davy. Men in black suits and black sunglasses stepped out of it and were quickly unchaining Davy and dragging him through that hole.

And the third . . . well, in the third stood a woman.

Terric turned to stare at her, his eyes gone alien again.

She wore a plain cotton nightgown. Looked like the room behind her was a hospital. She even held an IV bag in her hand. Her hair was dark and cut boy-short. She was about Eli’s age.

I’d seen her picture. I knew who she was. Brandy Scott. Eli’s Soul Complement. She looked lost. Confused.

“Brandy!” Eli yelled. “Save her, Shame! You must save her!”

He took what looked like an impossibly painful step toward her, one hand stretched out, but there were already men in black coming for him.

I had been standing there, getting a grip on the situation for two seconds, max.

Something cold punched my face. Eleanor floated in front of me, panicked. She pointed to my right. Dessa, she mouthed.

I turned away from Terric, who was already marching toward those gates, and looked for Dessa.

Dessa lay on the floor, holding her hand to the gaping hole in her chest. A hole put there by magic. A hole that was steadily growing larger. Eating away at her.

There are moments when you know your life is forever changed. You hold your breath and for that heartbeat wish it wasn’t true. You make promises. You offer sacrifices. You lie to yourself.

But you know your world will never be the same again. You know you are lost and will never find your way back home. You know you will never be who you were just a heartbeat ago. This was my moment.

The moment my world broke.

The entire damn room was blowing up around us. Eli was getting away.

I didn’t care.

I crossed to Dessa, knelt. Pulled her into my arms.

There was blood. Too damn much blood. Covering her. Covering me.

Her eyes searched mine. “Shame,” she said. “Kill him for me.”

“Shush, now,” I said. “You know I’ll do more than that. I will make his remaining breaths eternities of agony.”

Her eyes were sad, filled with thick shadows of fear. She managed a smile.

I yelled for Terric. He could heal her. Like he’d healed me. He could make the hole in her go away.

“Look at that,” she whispered as if she hadn’t heard me screaming. “Your boyish charms are showing.”

“Did they work?” I asked, smoothing her blood-soaked hair away from her face.

Don’t die, baby. Hold on. Just hold on for me.

Where the hell was Terric?

“Yes,” she said. “But then, they always have.”

I shouldn’t be touching her. The Death magic I held was only going to make her wounds worse. I shifted slightly, thinking I could ease her down to the floor.

She screamed in pain.

“Goddamn it, Terric!” I yelled again, holding still, holding her in my arms.

Her breathing had gone shallow and ragged.

“Dessa,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.” The hole in her chest was growing, leaving nothing behind. No flesh. No blood. No Dessa. She was dissolving in my arms, like sand falling through my fingers.

“Just,” she said. “Kiss me, Shame.”

I lowered my head and pressed my lips gently to hers. Kissed her even though my body was shaking. Kissed her even though tears mixed with our blood. Kissed her for the last time.

I could feel her heart straining. I knew how little life she had left.

“I think I could have loved . . . ” she mumbled against my mouth.

And then she exhaled. Her heart stilled.

I pulled back.

A flash of light devoured her body, the sudden, intense heat burning my hands, arms, face, chest, and legs. I yelled.

But Dessa was gone. No bones, no blood. Not even dust left behind. My arms were empty. Blistered.

I was alone.

“I told you!” Eli yelled. “I told you I’d kill everyone you love!”

I heard Terric snarl and call on magic.

Even though the storm of magic in the room tore at me, there was a stronger storm inside me.

I could keep her. I could keep her forever.

Her soul stood in front of me, a beautiful, ghostly image. She looked surprised and thoughtful but not sad.

“Please, Dessa,” I whispered. “Don’t go. Stay with me, love. Forever.”

Eleanor stood a short distance behind her. She was shaking her head and saying no. She didn’t approve of what I was about to do. I knew she wouldn’t. But I couldn’t let go of Dessa. I’d only just found her.

With mind and magic, I reached out for Dessa’s soul.

This I could do. Bind her to me forever. I’d done it once before.

Terric yelled again.

His pain shot through me like a hammer shattering glass. I tipped my head back and yelled at the agony that was not my own.

Instinct pushed me to my feet.

Fury made me turn.

Terric stumbled backward, clutching his gut. Blood flowed there. Three bullets. Not made of metal, made of Void stones. I could feel each one digging toward his spine, tearing him apart. Tearing apart his magic and his life.

Done. I was done with this. Done losing the people I loved.

Fuck Eli.

Fuck them all.

I threw my hands out to each side. And called on Death magic.

It leaped to my command, rushing into me, consuming me. Until I was no longer just Shame. No. Until I was no longer Shame at all.

I was darkness. Power. Death incarnate. And I was going to tear apart the world.

The room rumbled, metal girders screaming as I drank life out of the walls, out of the floor, out of the cliffside, stones, forest, and soil around us.

The hospital was so near. So full of life teetering on the edge of death. I could have that. Drink down those lives.

So I did. One, twenty, forty delicious sweet deaths burst through me with carnal pleasure. I laughed. It wasn’t all the people in the building—it was only a start.

Eli Collins was at the gate. The men in black were dragging him through.

That was all I could see. He was all I wanted.

So easy to destroy him. But I wanted time. An eternity to make him suffer.

I reached out for the men around him. Their hearts, their brains.

Magic whipped out, caught them, heart and brain. And squeezed.

The men screamed. I drank their lives, then consumed their bodies, flesh, muscle, and bone until there was nothing but dust left. Then I licked that up too.

But I hadn’t touched Eli, who still carried his protective spell and the torture controller. Eli, the Breaker.

I strode toward him. Lashed at him with so much magic the hill shook.

Before the magic hit, before I could break that protective spell, the gate he’d been standing in slammed shut. The hole in space was gone.

Taking Eli with it. Before I could hook him, before I could crush him, before I could kill him.

Leaving nothing but the wall of the warehouse where he had just stood.

I tore at the building, tore at the building with fury. Hatred. Rage.

“Shame,” Terric called to me from a far, far distance.

I wanted more to kill. I was not nearly done destroying. I wanted Eli.

Then Terric staggered to stand in front of me. Blood on his face, bullets in his chest, where his hand was clamped, the glow of yellow-white healing unable to stop the bleeding. His other hand was extended to one side, holding a spell there.

A bruise covered his temple to neck, but his blue eyes were so very, very sane.

“It’s over,” he said quietly, his words resonating in my blood, in my bones, in the core of me where something more than death used to dwell. “Come back to me.”

He put his hand against my heart. Where my heart should be.

Unafraid. Touching me should be his death.

But he was Terric.

He was my brother.

I would be his death someday.

Today was not that day.

“Let it go,” he said, still there, resonating deep inside me, coaxing out the shredded remains of me that was not death. “We will kill him. I swear. But I need you clear, Shamus. Come back to me. Please.” He swallowed, and I could taste his sorrow, his fear. “God, I can’t lose you.”

It wasn’t magic that made me let go of the death I clung to.

It was his words.

It was Terric.

I tipped my head down, fingers splayed to the floor. But I could not force myself to let go of magic.

Terric wrapped his hand around my wrist. Life magic burned strong in that grip.

I released the Death magic. It blasted into the metal floor, melting it, pouring out of me like a rush of blood and fire from my veins.

It took time. A lot of time before I noticed the room had no magic raging through it.

It took even more time before I noticed Davy was gone. The gate he had been dragged through was closed.

We had failed to kill Eli.

We had failed to save Davy.

And Dessa. . . .

I looked over at where she had been, hoping. That she was all right. That Terric had reached her soon enough to heal her. That her spirit had lingered behind for me.

But she was gone. Not even the ghost of her remained.

I was unable to move. Unable to think. The world took on soft edges and retreated so far away I couldn’t feel the floor beneath my feet, couldn’t feel my body, couldn’t feel my breath.

“Are you all right?” Terric asked.

“Yes,” I said, the words dust in my mouth. “I am fine.”

“I need you to help me get Brandy to safety. Shame, are you listening to me?”

He reached out this time and put his hand on my arm. It took me a minute, but I finally realized he was steadying himself with that grip. Leaning on me.

Because he was very, very injured.

The world came slamming back into me.

Edges, pain, heat, odors, heartbeats crashed down.

“There you are,” Terric said, his voice no longer soft and close, but rough and worn as if he’d been screaming this whole time. “We need to get out of here. I can’t. I can’t do this without you.”

His left hand pressed tightly against his stomach. Holding back the bleeding there. He was also supporting a second spell. I had seen him cast it, but I didn’t know what it was.

“You’re shot. Jesus, Terric, you’ve been shot.”

He nodded. “I can keep my insides stable with magic. Think I have about half an hour left before I pass out, and that might be a problem. But hey—the hospital’s right up the hill. If it’s still standing.”

He took a breath, a little too much rattle in it. Licked his lips. “Listen to me, Shame. Don’t drift off. We need to get back to the car. All of us. I need your help with her, because I can’t keep this up forever.”

He turned his head. I looked that way.

The “her” was Brandy Scott, surrounded by an Illusion spell. She stood just a few feet away from us, rocking softly back and forth. She still had her IV bag but didn’t seem to notice it in her hand.

“What. The. Hell?” Too much had happened. I couldn’t put all the events in the right order in my head. “Jesus Christ, Terric. Did you save Brandy? Did you fucking do what Eli told you to do? You could have saved Davy. You could have killed Eli.”

“I . . . wasn’t in my right mind.” The hurt from admitting that crossed his eyes. “All that mattered was calculating the correct outcome. Taking her was the correct outcome. I wanted to save Davy, but the magic . . . it took everything to hold it, manage it through the pain.”

I knew what he was saying. The monster in him had taken over. Life magic had chosen who to save, no matter what he wanted. Heartless. Cruel. Inhuman. He had saved Brandy and not Davy. Not our friend.

“How?” I asked.

“I cast an Illusion to hide her. To replicate her where they expected her to be. They’ll know she’s missing in the next half hour too, if I pass out. Or when the spell fades. She’s our bargaining chip, Shame. She’s how we’re going to find Eli. She’s how we’re going to kill him.”

I stood there. Couldn’t get my brain clear enough to know whether I should yell at him or hug him. That was a staggering amount of magical finesse and strength under any circumstance. But with Void stone bullets digging through his gut, and the rest of the magical bombardment, it had taken incomprehensible skill. I didn’t know anyone in the world other than Terric who could have pulled it off.

“I can’t touch her,” I said flatly. “I’ll kill her between one heartbeat and the next.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll lead her, but if I pass out . . .”

“No guarantees I’ll catch her, and not hurt her. I . . . can’t.”

I waited as Terric said calm things to Brandy. He put his hand softly on her arm and took a step.

She followed along without question.