Stone Cold

Chapter 17

SHAME

Sunny made the drive in three hours.

Dash stayed on the phone almost that entire time, checking in with Clyde and half a dozen other people along the way. Sunny placed a few calls too, to make sure the Hounds were there to watch over Zay and Allie.

I didn’t bother to tell her that if Eli was involved in the drones killing Soul Complements, the Hounds would never see him coming.

He had that tech device that opened up holes in space he could walk through.

Just as he’d walked through one into my damn kitchen.

And killed Terric.

Death magic kicked at that memory and I pushed the outer world away again. Just me and Death in the dark of my mind, and I was the only one of us with the key to the door.

It wouldn’t hurt for the Hounds to stay with Zay and Allie. After all, anyone with a gun pointed in the right direction can squeeze the trigger and take out any magic user, including Eli.

“. . . awake?” Dash said.

I opened my eyes.

Dash was leaning in the door of the car. He shifted back just a bit but didn’t take a step away.

Apparently we weren’t driving anymore.

“Are we there yet?” I asked.

He nodded. “Right over the hill.”

I sat up, the upholstery beneath me crackling and crumbling to fall down around my feet. So much for Sunny’s deposit on the car.

It was dusk now, the cloud cover already swallowing what little light remained of the day. We’d stopped on a gravel and dirt road that rambled off to the nowhere of fields and scrub brush horizons.

“Here.” Dash handed me a protein bar and a bottle of water. “Sunny’s scouting. She’ll be back in about three minutes. Cody’s taking a leak.”

I took the bar, glanced at Eleanor, who was about six feet away from me, arms crossed over her chest.

“Eat,” Dash said. “I’m getting tired of telling you how horrible you look.”

I opened the bar, took a bite. “Tastes like crap.”

“Peanut butter,” he said. “It tastes like peanut butter.”

“My point stands. You hear anything from anyone?” I broke the seal on the water, drank. It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough to sate my hunger.

“Nothing useful. We’ve contacted all the Soul Complements. They know the danger and are as prepared as they can be.”

“What about Allie?”

“Her contractions slowed. No baby yet.”

“Is that normal?”

He gave me a small smile. “I was assured it’s okay.”

“Does that mean she won’t have the baby for another few hours, or tomorrow, or what?”

“I don’t know. This is life we’re talking about. It’s unpredictable. How are you holding up?”

“Swell, thanks.”

“Shame.”

I chewed on another hunk of crap, swallowed, and tossed the rest of the bar in the back of the car. I ducked up out of the door, stood by Davy, who leaned against the car and stared out across a field that ended at a hill and darkening sky. “I’ve got my thumb on Death’s windpipe, but it isn’t going to last forever. How long did you say Sunny would be gone?”

He glanced at his watch. “Should be back in a minute.”

“And she went alone.”

“She’s the Hound, Shame.”

“She’s a Blood magic user out for revenge for her lover being captured and tortured,” I said.

He nodded. “That too. Still a Hound.”

“See, what you may not remember, Spade, is that Sunny got into the Hounding business fairly recently. Before that, she was all about blood, blades, and blowing things up.”

“She won’t go in there without us, Shame. Not without you.”

“Really? Reckless is in her job description. We go after her. Now.”

“We wait.”

The ground beneath my feet cracked, new spring grass dead brown, crumbling and flicking away in the wind. Dash noticed, because Dash is not a stupid man. He moved away from the car, moved away from me, his hands out to the side as if ready to draw a weapon on me.

I didn’t move, because I’m not a stupid man either. Dash is fast on the draw, and while I hadn’t thought to look, he probably had a gun on him. Or two. Or twelve.

“What about that windpipe?” he asked. “Are you really going to push this right now, Flynn?”

“Of course,” I said, wrestling to pull the Death magic back into my body and away from all the lovely living things. “Have I ever been the guy who followed orders?”

“You’ve always been dangerous,” he said. “And my friend. But right now I think you’re just dangerous.”

“Then listen to the dangerous man,” I said. “I’m going out there to get Sunny before she gets shot. Don’t care if you follow, and kind of hope you won’t.”

“Shame, don’t.”

“Or you’ll shoot me?” I spread my hands and gave him a smile. “Knock yourself out, mate. Bullets don’t punch my ticket.”

He took a breath, looked out over the hill, maybe hoping to see Sunny there. Nothing but empty sky.

I started walking. Got about thirty feet from the car.

“You walking out on me?” Sunny asked.

I turned. She was striding up the road toward me.

“Did you find Davy?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He has to be in there, though, Shame. It’s heavily guarded and I can smell magic. I think they have an Illusion over it.”

“The drones?” I said.

“I’m guessing. The access road half a mile back will get us in the back door.”

I glanced at the SUV. Didn’t think there was a single chance I could get in it again and keep Death magic from devouring my friends. “I’ll meet you there,” I said.

Sunny stormed up the dirt road and grabbed my shirt with both hands. “I don’t care what your problem is. I don’t care that you died, Flynn. You owe me a favor. This is that favor. So shut up, stow your shit, and help me get Davy out of that hole. My way. Do you understand me?”

“You are so missing the point here. Death?” I swallowed. “It’s all I can do to keep it under control. Keep it away from hurting you.”

She was so close, her heartbeat sent shivers of need across my skin. The exhalation of her breath against me made me dizzy with hunger. I wanted to drink her down, drink down her heat, her life. It was more than want. I needed it.

Thumb on the windpipe, Shame, thumb on the windpipe. It was not much of a calming mantra, but it was, apparently, mine.

Blinding-hot pain shot through my shoulder.

“What the shit!” I stumbled backward as Sunny pulled her knife out of my shoulder.

“Do I have your attention now?” she asked with a tip of her head. “Or do I have to use your blood in a spell to slap some sense into your thick head?”

Blood magic users. Crazy bitches with blades.

“Stabbing?” I panted, trying to swallow back the magic that wanted to kill her. “Did you want my help, or did you want to piss me off? ’Cause stabbing me is only going to get you one of those things.”

“Shame . . . ,” Cody said.

“Shut up, Cody.” I put my palm over my shoulder to hold what remaining blood I had where it belonged. “You want me to be your weapon against Eli and everyone else who’s hurt Davy, fine. But if you so much as scratch me again, Sunny, I will walk, and you will be lucky to still be alive.”

“Shame . . . ,” Cody said again.

“You don’t get this, do you?” she said. “I own you, Flynn. For this, I own you. And I don’t care what you say about the magic in you.”

“I’m the only thing standing between you and an early grave,” I said. “I’m on your side, you crazy fool.”

“That’s it,” she warned.

“Hurry,” Dash yelled, jogging our way. Where had he gone? “Cars are coming.”

Cody sighed. “That’s what I was trying to—”

“Get in,” Dash said. “Now!”

Neither Sunny nor I moved. We were just stubborn that way.

And then Cody and Dash were there, shoving Sunny and me into the car, which meant we ended up in the backseat together while Cody took shotgun and Dash slid into the driver’s seat and peeled out, taking the road at speed.

“Access road,” Sunny said. “South.”

“I heard you,” Dash replied. “Cody, you know anything else we don’t know?”

“I think Shame’s losing control, and if we want him to be conscious and . . . well . . . human by the time we hit the warehouse, you’ll want to drive faster.”

“Hey,” I said. “Give the stabbed guy some credit.” But my heart was stuttering, no longer quite in working order, and my lungs had gone to hell. I needed to kill. Needed life. Needed to feed the death inside me before it killed me.

Or let it kill me and not have to pay back that favor I never should have promised Sunny.

The rope around Eleanor’s throat had tightened and shortened. She was sitting so close to me we’d be touching if she wasn’t pulling against the rope as hard as she could.

If we got too close, would I drain her the rest of the way down? Would I kill her? Again?

“Just get me to the warehouse,” I said, or thought I said. From the speed of things whipping past the car to the conversation around me that sounded as if it were underwater, I was pretty sure I wasn’t on reality’s frequency.

Eleanor shoved her cold, cold hand into my head, right through skin, bone, and meat, and wiggled her fingers in my skull.

And for a second, all the world went silent.

There was no sound, no motion, no pain. No Death magic hunger. I drifted, just outside my body.

Took me a minute, but I finally realized Eleanor was talking to me. . . . kill me, then you’d better make it worth it. Get a grip on the magic inside you. It’s the only way you’re going to save them all. Kill them all. Find him and use it with him.

“Him? Davy?” She was talking faster than I was thinking.

Terric. He’s not—

“Shame!” A palm hit my face, hard.

Okay, so basically things were not going well in Shameland. I was being chewed out by a ghost I’d enslaved and slapped by . . . I opened my eyes . . . my gay ex-assistant, who, come to find out, had a decent right cross.

We must have stopped for a change of drivers.

“Dash,” I wheezed. “You hit me again, I will drink you down to sixty-two.”

He frowned. “What does that even mean? Keep breathing. We’re about half an hour away.”

How much time had I lost? “Warehouse?” I asked.

“Hospital. You’re a mess.”

Rolling me up to a hospital would be like sitting a starving man down to a smorgasbord.

“Stop the car,” I said. “Stop it. Now.”

Dash glanced up and I did a recalculation on the entire situation. Still nightish, still in the SUV. Sunny driving. Cody next to her. Dash risking his fool life to try to keep me alive.

“I’m better,” I said. Whatever Eleanor had done to my head had at least restored my ability to lie. And to think. And to hold down Death magic. For now.

“I won’t fight you,” I said. “I don’t need a hospital. They wouldn’t know what to do with me anyway.”

“That’s true,” Cody said. “They only treat the living. Dash, we’re only about twenty minutes from the warehouse. We should take our shot while we can.”

“Shame,” Dash said. “We’re not going in there unless we have proof Davy’s there. Can you feel his life?”

It wasn’t a bad idea to ask me that. I could tell how many heartbeats were within a ten-mile radius, and Davy’s heartbeat was one of the more unusual ones on the planet since Eli had carved him up with magic a few years ago.

Only problem was that I had crap for control. If I used it, if I tapped Death magic, it was pretty good odds I’d kill my friends and all the living souls within a mile.

“Get me close to the warehouse and I’ll try,” I said.

Sunny gunned the engine, and time slipped by, measured by my slow breaths and ragged heartbeats. Dash kept looking over at me with that face that said he was sure I’d be dead between one breath and the next.

I winked at him and he sighed. “This isn’t the time to be flirting.”

“I’m not,” I said. I was going to tell him I knew that I was close to being dead or undead or whatever it was a Death magic user turned into when he lost control. “But you all will need to get clear of me real soon now.”

Before I became a monster. Just like Jingo Jingo. A monster that sucked the lives out of people and chained up their souls for a bedtime snack.

Yeah. That.

Fifteen minutes crawled by. The car stopped and Sunny was out the door. Pretty sure I heard a shotgun rack a round. That’d be Sunny all right.

Cody turned in his seat. “Be careful how you look for him, Shame. Be careful what you see. You might not like what you find.”

Well, that was unhelpful. I held my hand out for Dash. He helped me sit and left me there as he went around the car to open my door for me.

I thought I had my feet, but I didn’t argue when his hand under my elbow steadied me as I stood.

The thing Eleanor had done helped, yes. But I was so far from steady, it was hilarious.

The clouds had given some ground, stars taking the stage to shine up the place. I tipped my head up and wasted a precious second or two staring into the eternal nothingness.

I should have stayed dead. It would have been kinder to . . . well, everyone.

“Shame?” Dash asked.

“I got it.” I leaned my hip against the car and closed my eyes. “Might want to step off a bit, though,” I said to him. “You too, Cody. And Sunny. My control is crap.” I waited until I heard footsteps in gravel moving away. Then I waited until their three heartbeats were at least twenty feet off. Not far enough—a mile wouldn’t be enough for them to be out of my blast zone. But at least they weren’t in arm’s reach. I’d be able to look for Davy’s heartbeat and pay no attention to theirs.

Who was I kidding?

The cold pressure of Eleanor’s hand landed on my left wrist. She was there, standing beside me. Not that she could get away. Not that she could stop feeding me, and the hunger devouring me, or break the tie between us.

But she was there to do what she could to help.

I sort of loved her for that.

So here’s how it went down. I took a couple of breaths that didn’t ruin my lungs, cleared my mind, thought the happy, and hooked up just enough Death magic in my mental fingertips, thumb still pressing on the windpipe. I could send it out like a gentle breeze to tell me if any familiar heartbeat was tapping away in the space around me.

Easy. I’d done it a thousand times before. Did it without thinking most days. Had to push it away and ignore it so every damn heart wasn’t thumping against my brain.

So of course I could do it now, right?

First, I felt my heart. Broken, cold, and wrong in just about every way. Ignore that. Move on, move out. Cody’s heart, calm, steady. Stronger than almost anyone I’d ever met. Man had a solid grip on living after all those years of being mentally broken. He was a survivor.

Ignore him.

Next, Sunny. Blood pushing too fast, heartbeat too high. Worried about Davy, her heart racing with love and fear. She would be so easy to pluck. So ripe.

Ignore her.

Past her heart, I could feel the beat of Dash’s life. A little elevated, but steady. A man who had dealt with all sorts of shit and just kept dealing. He knew what he was in for, maybe was the only one here willing to put me down if I went feral.

Yes, I knew that was an option, a rather high chance, actually. If it came to that, I figured Dash would pull the trigger. Over and over until I stopped moving.

He was a good man, but he worried too damn much.

Ignore him.

Push the magic past them. Fast, faster. Rabbits and birds and snakes and bugs. Kill them all. Crunch and crack and pop of life spilled over my tongue.

Now the warehouse. And in it, human hearts.

The warehouse thumped with the living. People working there, maybe three dozen, all in a ragged concert, pumping with life like good little governmental engines.

That would be enough. Or at least an appetizer for my needs.

No, I wasn’t going to kill people unless I had to. I wasn’t going to become the monster.

Focus, Flynn.

Guards around the place, at least another dozen. And inside the place. . . .

I could feel him: Davy. Not alive like anyone else in this world. Carved by magic, changed by magic. Not alive, but not rightly dead either. Davy. In a room on the ground floor. Unconscious, I thought. But breathing. Carved up with spells. New spells squirming amid the old.

I nearly lost my concentration from the surprise of finding him. I didn’t think it’d be that easy. Didn’t think Sunny had really tracked him down.

But he was there.

And so was someone else.

Faint, faint heartbeat, too long between each pump, so close to death there wasn’t enough life left in him to fill a thimble.

Terric. That was Terric’s heart. I’d know it anywhere.

Terric was in there. Alive.

Concentration slipped, control shattered. Death wanted its due.

I gasped, frantically pulling Death back to me in fear it would touch Terric. Kill Terric. Terric, who was already almost dead.

Magic roared back into me so fast and hard I lost my knees and fell to the ground.

Hands helped me up. Dash’s hands.

“Shame?”

“He’s there,” I said, pushing his hands away, pushing his help away, not trusting my control. “He’s there.”

“Davy?” Sunny asked. “Where?”

“Both,” I said. “Both of them. Bottom floor. Main room.” Dash let go, took all his heat and living and energy I refused to drain away from me.

Good. Smart.

“Guns. We need guns.”

“We have them,” Cody said, walking around to the back of the SUV.

“Are you sure?” Dash asked.

“He’s there, Dash,” I said. “Terric’s there.”

And I watched something change in him. Dash had thought Terric was dead from the moment he’d found me corpsed out in the kitchen. He hadn’t expected us to find Terric. Not alive. Not after all this time.

“Alive,” I added just to make sure he understood. Understood why we needed to be moving. Now. “Get moving, lover boy.”

I didn’t have a gun on me. Luckily, Sunny had thought of that. She pressed a Glock in my hand. Good God. Did a loaded weapon need a loaded weapon?

“Can you keep that pointed the right way?” she asked.

“You mean at Eli’s head? I got that.”

“Is he in there?” she asked, her heart kicking up a couple of notches. Oh, she wanted him dead.

Get in line, sister.

“I’m not sure,” I lied. “Let’s just assume he is.”

“How many guards?” Dash asked.

“As soon as I’m close enough?” I said, striding down the road toward the compound. “None.”

I chambered a round and tipped my head down. Sure, bullets are faster than magic. But Death never needs to reload.