Magic Without Mercy (19 page)

Since he always slept with his eyes open, it was sort of hard to tell if he was even conscious.

Stone tipped his head to one side, slowly, but faster than he’d been moving before. Maybe the rest had helped. Maybe the warehouse would help too. Collins said it was built to channel magic, to focus. And Stone looked like he could use a little of both.

“Good boy,” I said. “Time to go inside. We have stuff for you to stack in there, buddy.” I stepped back and waited. For a moment, I didn’t think he was going to follow. Then he lifted one hand and one foot, and eased out of the car.

“This way.” I put my hand on his back and walked with him, slowly, into the building.

“How did it go out at the Life well?” Terric asked.

“Didn’t Shame tell you?”

He gave me a look. “You know how he is.”

“There were men waiting for us there,” I said. “They tried to kill us. We killed them back.”

“Zay didn’t Close them?” he asked.

“He took their memories. Then he killed them.”

Terric nodded. He didn’t seem surprised. “Did he get any information out of them?”

I stopped walking. “Enough to know they were Bartholomew’s men. I didn’t ask about anything else. He can do that?”

“Sometimes. It’s like standing under a waterfall with your mouth open. The memories hit so hard and fast, it isn’t easy to focus on any of them. But Zayvion’s always been good at it. Better than most.”

He gave me a soft smile. “Better than me, even before I lost the ability to use dark and light magic.” His smile turned wry. “And Blood magic. And Death magic.”

Not being able to use those disciplines had ended Terric’s chance to become Guardian of the gates, a job both he and Zayvion had vied for.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said. “A while ago when we were all at the Life well, fighting Leander and Isabelle. After the fight, Shame asked Mikhail to heal you so you could use all those magics again.”

“Mikhail said he couldn’t heal me, remember?” Terric said.

“I remember. I just wondered… what did he do when he touched you?”

Terric took in a breath and looked down at the floor. “He gave me this.” He tipped his right hand out toward me. In the center of his palm was a symbol—no, a glyph. It was just the faintest outline, and could be mistaken for the lines of his hand except for one thing. A very, very thin thread of magic pulled through it, like the finest stitches holding it to his skin.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “It looks like—what is it?”

“I think it’s a Renewal of some kind, a Binding. I’ve never seen the glyph before, and lately there hasn’t really been time to ask anyone—”

“There’s been some time,” I said. “Enough time. Why haven’t you asked Maeve or Victor or Hayden about it?”

“I just—” He shook his head. “It’s over my Lifeline.”

“So?”

“I’ve always had two breaks in my Lifeline, here”—he pointed to a skip in the line that arced down his palm closest to his thumb—“and here.” This break was a little farther down the line.

The glyph not only bridged those gaps; it also reached out with thin lines to wrap around other lines, and create the symbol in his palm.

“I’m not following you,” I said.

“A friend once told me that if you have a break in your Lifeline, you’re going to die young.”

“You believe in palmistry?” I asked.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He sighed. “It’s just strange that a powerful undead Death magic user decided to mark my Lifeline. To patch the break. And it’s annoying that it is all he gave me for Shame’s begging. For Shame almost dying. A useless scar.”

“There’s magic running through it.”

“What?”

“Not much. I mean I can see magic all the time now, and I can barely see it.”

He stared at his hand, then rubbed his thumb over it. “I don’t feel it.”

“Maybe it’s not in your body, Terric,” I said. “Maybe it’s just on your body.”

“Difference?”

“Only one of those things will kill you?”

“Okay.” He nodded and tipped his hand to better see
it. “Still looks like a thin pink scar to me. Tell me what you were going to say.”

“About?”

“What it looks like,” he said. “To you.”

“Like an infinity symbol. A figure eight. Kind of. Or a knot. Or both maybe. A knotted figure eight. Might be a hell of a tie to life.”

“Infinity, huh? So you’re telling me Mikhail made me immortal?”

I grinned. That was one thing I liked about Terric. He recovered his footing quickly, no matter the situation.

“Maybe.” I started walking again. Stone had gotten a good way ahead of us. “I can think of worse people to let live forever.”

“Like?”

“My dad.”

Terric made a little
hm
sound. “Or Shame.”

I laughed. “Can you imagine him living forever?”

Terric grimaced. “Yes. All the world would be in ruin. But there’d be plenty of whiskey.”

“Did you get the sample from the Death well?” I asked.

“We did. Just cost us a little pain. We didn’t see anyone there guarding the well.”

As well they wouldn’t. Shame and Terric had closed that well. If anyone in the Authority was even paying attention to it in the last couple weeks, they would have thought it secure. I didn’t know if it took the same magic users who had shut a well down to uncap it, but even if not, there had been enough chaos going on that it was possible the well was being watched.

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

“Fairly certain.” He paused. “Strange, right?”

“No stranger than anything else lately.”

“I couldn’t tell if the well was tainted,” he said. “We
were in and out so fast, uncapped it, unlocked it, stole the magic—that was a lot of no fun at all—then lock and cap. There wasn’t time to see if there was a taint. But there weren’t any Veiled coming out of it, which is something. Did you get a look at the Life well?”

I nodded. “We think it’s poisoned. We’re not sure. Stone has a sample from it. Maeve has a sample of the Blood well. I think Victor got a sample from the Faith well. And I hope all of it is enough to get a read on this problem.”

Terric glanced down at Stone. “Where is he holding it?”

“In a spell Shame cast—Passage—that he smashed down so Stone could hold it in his chest. Don’t ask me,” I said to his look. “I don’t understand it. It was Dad’s idea and Shame’s execution. Of the idea,” I amended. “Shame executed the idea, not Shame, you know.” I pulled my finger across my throat.

“So you’re going to test the magic samples?” he asked.

“If Collins has the equipment to do it like he says he does. Did Victor Unclose him?”

We’d made it inside the warehouse and halfway across the room by now. “He did. But I don’t think—” He shook his head.

“What?”

“I don’t think Collins was a good choice as an ally when he was less crazy. To put more information, more power, into his hands now is a bad idea. I think you should cut ties with him as soon as possible, Allie. We all should.”

“I don’t have anyone who can look after Davy,” I said. “Especially now.”

“Shame told me about what Collins did,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s against everything the Authority stands for.”

“What would the Authority have stood for, Terric? Letting Davy die?”

He pressed his lips together, then, “Yes. They would have let him die, rather than turn him into that… I don’t even know what to call it. Necromorph, I guess, since he’s half between life and death.”

“Isn’t that what they called Greyson?” I said. “But Greyson had been changed by one of my dad’s magic disks being implanted in his neck. He was very solid, either as a beast or a man.”

“Greyson was caught in a form of living and dying by the dark and Death magic worked through that disk implanted in him. It wasn’t the shape that made him a Necromorph. It was that his soul and body were caught between life and death. When magic changes someone to the point that he is only half alive, he’s a Necromorph. And Davy isn’t fully alive or dead.”

What Terric didn’t say, what he didn’t have to say, was what had happened to Greyson. He’d gone insane, tried to kill me, been caught, escaped, joined with Chase to try to kill us all, and then been imprisoned. And even in the prison where magical criminals are kept, he’d been possessed by Leander, who was looking for a body that was caught between life and death. Leander had forced Greyson to kill Chase, his own Soul Complement, with his own hands.

We killed Greyson, but Leander went free.

Not exactly the bright future I was hoping for Davy.

“Davy’s going to get better,” I said. “Once we get magic cleansed, we’ll find a way to heal him, undo the spells Collins put on him. We’ll find a way to heal everyone.”

“Allie.” Terric stopped and turned toward me. Stone just kept going in his slow-motion straight line toward the main room. “What if we can’t cleanse magic? What if there is no cure? No antidote? We need to make plans for that. Get better people with better minds working on this.”

“Which is why Roman went to talk to the Overseer,” I said. “If this is something that we can’t fix, then she’ll have to decide what to do.”

“Unless she decides the best thing to do isn’t letting us win,” he said.

“Why would she do that?” I asked.

“There’s only one sure way to guarantee magic won’t harm anyone,” he said. “Close off all access to magic in Portland, lock it down from the rest of the world, quarantine it, and make sure magic can’t be used until we find a cure.”

“One, we aren’t the ones who are going to make that decision. And two, if that’s what needs to happen to keep people alive, we’ll do it. But first we try to fix what’s gone wrong. And the only way to do that is to test the magic to see if we can find the source and cause of the poison.”

“I’m not saying I disagree with the steps we’re taking,” Terric said. “I just… don’t want you to get your hopes up. Even testing the magic may not give us the answers we need.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “My hopes have been pretty down most of my life.”

Shame walked through the doorway. “There you are. Get on with it, will you? We’re waiting for the sample. Plus, Zay’s asking for you, Allie.”

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“No, but he isn’t any worse than when you brought him here.”

“Does Collins have the tech set up?” I asked.

“As much as.” Shame paced over to Stone, who was still walking incredibly slowly. “Hey, Stone. How’s my buddy?”

Stone gurgled. It was a little louder than last time.

“Looks like you could use a recharge,” he said, scrubbing at Stone’s ears.

“Think you could do it?” Terric asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Give him a jump.”

Shame stared at Terric, then at Stone. “Don’t know. Ever since you sank this damn rock in my chest, things haven’t rolled off my fingers in quite the same way. You thinking a Transference?”

“Maybe. Like back a few years ago, when we used to…”

Shame gave him a look.

“Okay, more than a few years ago,” Terric said. “You were pretty good arcing the storm rods and hacking Refresh spells. Do much of that in the last couple years?”

“Wait,” I said. “You found a way to hack the storm rods?”

“Just took a nip or two now and then,” Shame said.

“But that’s my dad’s tech—my company’s tech. And you’re hacking into it? I didn’t think they could be accessed like that.”

Shame doused his smile and gave me wide, innocent eyes. “They can’t. I have no idea what Terric’s talking about, the delinquent. Your da’s handiwork is above the genius of all other men and will never be soiled.”

I pointed at my face. “This is me not believing you. Think you can help Stone?”

Shame shrugged and stuffed his hands in his front pockets. “Or hurt him. Dunno. Want to risk it?”

I thought about it. This was a fairly safe place. Maybe the safest in town. For now.

“Not yet. Not until we get the sample out of him. That might be the thing that’s wrong with him.”

“Or it could be the undead that were trying to suck him dry,” Terric said.

“The hell you say,” Shame said.

“So Beckstrom tells me.”

“Is that what you two have been out here gabbing about?” Shame asked.

“Pretty much,” Terric said while closing his right hand and tucking it into the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. Hiding it. Hiding his hand from Shame.

He hadn’t told Shame that mark was all he’d gotten out of the hideous pain Mikhail had put Shame through when he’d possessed him. I’m sure Terric had let Shame believe Mikhail had given him some kind of blessing on a much larger scale.

Shame looked at Terric, then at me. “Either of you going to tell me what else you were talking about?”

“Swatches for my living room,” I said.

Terric’s eyes twinkled. “I think she should go for a strong maroon, but leaning toward fuchsia so she doesn’t overdo the masculine energy. Better than that drab rent-me-cheap and leave-me-dirty white walls you currently have.”

“Hey,” I said. “Rental property. Not my fault.”

“You asked for my opinion,” he said. “And by the way, cute haircut.”

Shame just shook his head. “Fine, don’t tell me. We have bigger problems to solve.”

“Like what?” I asked. We were in the main room, and everyone was there, Maeve, Hayden, Zay, Victor. And Collins, who was passed out on the couch.

“Like that.”

“W
hat happened?” I asked.

“Victor Unclosed him,” Maeve said. “He was fine for a bit”—she glanced over at Victor, who stood against one wall, arms crossed over his chest—“…and then he wasn’t.”

What I wanted to do was panic. Instead, I assessed our situation. Zay was in a chair, not moving much, his eyes still half-lidded from pain. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He was hot with pain, tight. But I think me being there helped some, so that’s where I stayed.

Hayden was pacing toward the hall and back. Maeve stood behind Collins’ couch, keeping an eye on Victor and Hayden.

“I assume there’s been a disagreement?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t listen to sense,” Hayden said.

“It’s done,” Maeve interrupted. “Let it be.”