Stone Cold (24 page)

Death magic rolled over me at that threat, but I hauled back on it, locking it behind the thin barrier of my flesh and bones. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Go apologize.”

“That's a really bad idea,” I said as Death magic kicked at me.

“You want my help, you go patch it up with your mom.”

“She needs some time to cool down,” I said. “So do I. Just. Just show me what I need to do with Terric. Then I'll talk to her. I promise.”

I really needed him to listen to me. The hunger was gaining on me. If I were left alone, with my mom. . . . no. I wouldn't hurt her. I couldn't.

“Please, Kellerman. Just. Please.”

“Fine,” he said. “Against my better judgment. Faith magic spells used to Close a person aren't like casting Death magic. You must be mechanically precise. You must be controlled. You must be disciplined.”

Great. I was pretty much none of those things.

“How
must
must I be?”

“Depends on how badly you want Terric's brains to remain unmangled. This is precision work, Shamus. You so much as deviate on any aspect of the spell, improvise or wing it, and he's losing memory, or brains, for life. Are you getting what I'm saying, or should I take you around the dance floor one more time?”

“I heard you. Precision. Discipline. My middle name. Then what?”

“You'll cast Close. Backward.”

I glanced up at the big guy. “Is that all?”

“Not as easy as it sounds. You have to trace the original Closing spell from end to beginning. Hard enough if it was a spell originally cast in your signature. Damn impossible to trace someone else's handwriting backward. Blindfolded. With a handful of fire.”

I knew how to fake another magic user's signature, but not good enough to fool anyone. Not exactly right. Only a few people in the world could pull off that kind of deception.

But I knew someone who could do it. An artist with magic. Good enough he'd run on the wrong side of the law for years taking forgery jobs.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Dash, get Cody here. Now.”

•   •   •

Cody showed up less than fifteen minutes later. Walked into the room, paused, then grinned. “We're UnClosing Terric, aren't we?”

“That's the idea,” I said. “I need you to do it.”

“Do what? I can't cast magic anymore, Shame. That's what I gave up for letting magic use me as a cocktail shaker, remember?” He walked over to the table, poured himself some lemonade.

Dashiell lifted a few fingers in greeting. Davy did the only thing Davy seemed to do lately—glare at me.

“Just because you can't use magic doesn't mean you can't draw a spell,” I said. “Your hands aren't broke, Miller.”

He held up his right hand and wriggled his fingers. “Hands, sure. But I'm not a Hand with magic. Not anymore.”

“He's right, Shame,” Dash said.

“I'll take care of the magic part,” I said. “You just draw.”

“Just draw.” He glanced at Hayden, who shook his head and shrugged.

“Putting aside for the moment that it's not going to work,” Cody said, “why do you need Terric unClosed? Can't you still use magic, break magic, Shame?”

“Not reliably. Not with control. I need . . . I need Terric for that. It's going to take both of us to kill Eli. To stop Krogher. To do something about those drones.”

To save the world before I destroy it.

With Allie and Zay down and every other Soul Complement in hiding, we were the only people left who could take them on. End them.

“All right,” he said. “We UnClose Terric. Or try to. What's in it for me?”

“Saving the world isn't enough return on your investment?”

“I want something personal. From you.”

“Like I don't break your nose?”

“Like you make me an unbreakable promise.”

“Everything breaks,” I said.

“Sealed with Blood magic. Terric's blood and your blood.”

Terric spoke up from the floor. “Nope. I won't be a part of Shame's deals. Not after that poker game in Astoria,” he said. “I'm Closed, not suicidal.”

“Okay, your blood,” Cody said to me. “You make me a Blood promise, that the two of you won't change how I mended magic. No matter what else you do together, you leave magic gentle like it is now, and I'll help you get his memories back.”

I threw my hands up. “What the hell does you mending magic have to do with anything? We're not doing anything to
change
magic. We're trying to get Terric's brain back so we can
use
magic.”

“Then it's an easy promise, isn't it?”

I'd heard those words out of Cody since we were teens. He usually said them right before I made a deal I ended up regretting.

“Don't care if it's easy,” I said, drawing my pocketknife and slicing my left palm. “You got the promise. I won't screw with how you healed magic if you show me how to fix Terric.” I held up my bloody palm, used the tip of the knife to draw a Binding spell between us. “Happy?”

He held his hand out for my knife. I gave it to him and he sliced his palm. “Good enough.”

We shook, blood to blood, and I felt the binding of word and magic in the clasp of our hands.

“Good. Now . . .” Cody wiped his palm on his jeans. “Let's pry open his brain, shall we?” He strolled over to Terric and stared down at him. “Ready for this?”

“Should I do something? Bite down for pain?” Terric asked.

“No. You're fine,” Cody said. “Shame, I need Sight.”

“Not your magical slave, mate.”

I stepped up to him and drew a clean Sight spell, then drew on the magic beneath the inn to fill it. The spell hissed to life, deep blue light carving three perfect concentric circles.

“Not too bad,” Cody said.

“Considering it's perfect?” I asked.

Cody didn't answer, too busy looking into Terric through the Sight spell in ways I couldn't see. Well, I could see them, but I wouldn't be able to puzzle them out the way Cody did.

“I see the Close spell that was used on him,” he finally said. “You might as well go do something. This will take me a minute to get a grip on it.” He closed his eyes, his lips moving as if pulling words from a long-forgotten text.

Terric looked up at me. “Go. Apologize to your mom. You know she's worried.”

Since my other option was to stand there while Davy and Hayden glared at me, I went. Took me a couple of minutes to find her. She wasn't down in the basement where the Blood magic well rested, hidden beneath the old marble. She wasn't in the kitchen, or outside, or in the main part of the inn. I finally found her at home—the second-story addition on the inn where we had lived when I was younger and where she and Hayden were staying now.

I didn't have to knock on the door. It was open.

“Mum?” I walked into the living room, across the honey brown wooden floors and throw rugs, into a space I knew as well as my childhood dreams. She was standing at the window, looking out, a locket in her hand.

I knew that locket, though I hadn't seen it for a long time. It held a photo of her and my da from their wedding day.

“Who sent you here?” she asked.

“Hayden,” I said. “And Cody. And Terric. So: everyone.”

“I don't want to hear the words they want you to say.”

I paused. It would be easier to go back. To turn around. There were so many things broken inside me, so many holes Death had chewed through my humanity, I was flailing for solid ground. The last thing I needed was to fight with my mum, or worse, to hurt her.

“So this is me,” I said. “And these are my words I want to say. I'm sorry for . . .”

What should I apologize for? Dying? Coming back to life? Being broken? Being willing to do anything to take Eli down, even if that put Terric at risk?

“Everything, I suppose,” I said. “Dying, it . . . rattled me, and I wasn't all that steady to begin with. I know I'm alive-ish for a reason. Terric and I are the only ones who can take out the people who are trying to kill our friends. So I'm doing whatever it takes to see that it's done. Finishing this fight.”

She didn't say anything. I waited there as long as I could. Death magic twisted in me, painful, hungry for the life in front of it. Her life.

“So, we'll be out of here soon. Love you, Mum.” I turned to go.

“Shamus,” she said, and I stopped in the doorway. She finally looked away from the window and turned toward me. “We aren't done talking about this, understand? When we've helped Terric, and when you've taken care of whatever it is that is going on, you and I are going have a nice, long talk. For years.”

I couldn't help smiling. “Sure, Mum.”

She crossed the distance between us and gave me a hug.

I clenched my teeth and gently wrapped my arms around her while Death magic stabbed at my brain.

“Good,” she said. “Now go finish this fight. We'll talk later.”

•   •   •

“All right.” Cody opened his eyes. “Terric, I think you'll want to be standing.”

“Hayden told me to sit.”

“That's because I thought you'd be on your ass when we got done with you,” Hayden said. “But if Cody says stand, stand.”

“I'll stand beside him.” Dash walked across the room and stood next to Terric. “I won't get in the way unless you fall.”

“You could get in the way, a little,” Terric said.

Dash blinked back his surprise, glanced at me. I raised an eyebrow briefly. Yeah, that sounded like flirting to me too.

Maybe memory-less Terric had some advantages.

“Well, let's start with getting back your old memories before we make any new ones,” Dash said.

“Fair enough,” Terric said.

“Shame.” Cody motioned me over. “Stand right here in front of Terric. I'll stay at your right, and, Hayden, you can be there on his left. I'll guide Shame's hand through the spell. I don't think a Closer cast the spell. Or if it was a Closer, he was sloppy. Too many inconsistencies. It's no wonder there are holes in your memories, Terric.”

“Hurray?” Terric asked.

Cody nodded. “Not exactly cheer-worthy. Cleaner spells are easier to follow. This one's . . . rough. Hayden, let me know if you see anything I'm missing.

“Your job, Shame, is to concentrate on what you want the spell to do—UnClose him—as you and I draw it. When the glyph is done, you'll fill it with magic, his mind will unlock, and . . .” Cody snapped his fingers. “He'll get his memories back.”

I glanced at Terric. “He might be oversimplifying things a bit.”

“Not my first ride at the carnival, Flynn,” he said. “Get cracking.”

“Is there a way to erase the bossy parts of him?”

Cody snorted.

I shook my hands, cleared my mind. The thing none of us was really talking about was that my control of Death magic was in the gutter right now. If we got through this without me killing someone just to ease the pressure and feed my hunger, I'd consider it a raging success.

I held up my right hand, ring and pinkie finger tucked loosely against my thumb, index and middle finger pressed against each other and extended.

“Closing,” Cody said, “is intention. It's about the spell and the function of magic, but it's also about the Closer's intention. Know who did the Closing and why, half your work is done.”

“We don't know who did the Closing,” I said.

Cody put his left hand on my shoulder, placed his fingertips on the back of my raised hand. “Sure we do,” he said.

“Sure we do?”

“Who?” Dash asked.

“Eli Collins.”

“Eli Collins ain't no Closer,” Hayden said.

“I know,” Cody said happily. Yes, happily. The jerk was enjoying this. “That's our break. That's what we're going to use to our advantage. Because I know his signature and could forge it blindfolded.”

“This,” Cody said, applying pressure on the back of my hand to raise my fingers level with Terric's forehead, “is our beginning. Let's take it to the end.”

SHAME

It took an hour, with Cody's fingers guiding mine, Hayden's occasional interruption to tell us to angle the glyph one way or another, and my keeping my mind as clear and clean and focused as I could manage.

Holding Death away from every beating heart in the room was exhausting.

I was breathing hard after the first fifteen minutes. By the hour mark, I was covered in sweat, shaking, and so hungry I'd pulled Eleanor and Sunny up on such a tight leash they were almost standing in the same space with me. Only Hayden's arm around my waist was keeping me on my feet.

Terric seemed to be doing pretty well so far. But then it wasn't the prep for this spell that was going to knock his teeth out. It was when I poured magic into it.

“Almost done,” Cody said. “Just tie that line into the diagonal arc. Yes, that one.” He paused. “Okay, Shame, I think you have it, his UnClosing. Hayden, do you see anything we missed?”

He took his time looking through the glyph I had carved, a glyph that hovered in a milky white light in front of me like the flight paths of air traffic control over La Guardia.

“It's good,” he said. “For what it is. Eli is no Closer. I wouldn't know how to make it better.”

“So, cast?” I asked through my teeth. I was glad they were being extra careful, but I was counting down the seconds of consciousness here.

Terric was the one who answered. “Cast it, Shame.”

I held his gaze with my own. Saw the trust implicit there and the feelings he had for me: friendship, caring, maybe hope. God, had we ever been that innocent?

“See you on the other side, mate,” I whispered.

I drew on magic from beneath the inn, opened my hand wide, and let the magic fill the lines of the spell. It caught like a lit fuse, hot red liquid flowing through the glyph so quickly I barely had time to register that the spell was charged before it whipped out and wrapped Terric from head to boot.

He yelled, stiffened. Davy caught him as he fell, slowing his descent to the floor as he eased him down.

Terric was still yelling.

I had done it wrong. Cast wrong. Drawn it wrong. Somehow I'd connected the spell to me, as I had connected it to him.

I could feel his mind breaking open, dull teeth tearing at my body, my mind. I could see his memories. Not just the torture, not just the last few years, but all of his past. All of the things he'd been through with me, without me. All the things he'd endured because of me.

Jesus. How did anyone go on living after that?

“Shame?” Someone was shouting, their voice muffled and distant. “Shame!”

A hard slap, maybe two, landed across my face. Got my attention.

Hayden was looking down at me. Not worried. Angry. “Are you in there? Are you listening to me, Shamus?”

Eleanor was looking down at me too. That must have been the second slap.

“I'm here.” My voice sounded so far away and strange, the very weirdness of it pulled me up to full awareness, sweating.

I was in the middle of Terric's head. Got the full double-vision thing of looking out of his eyes—he was currently staring at Dash, who looked worried for Terric—and out of mine, where Hayden still had on his ass-whupping glare.

Story of my life: Something goes down, everyone frets over Terric and blames me.

Terric laughed, and I could feel it,
feel
his laugh on my brain walls. “You think you're the one they blame?” he asked.

“Stop listening to me.”

“Stop whining in my head.”

“Your—?” I swore, then turned to look at him. He was sitting on the floor, Dash on one side, Cody on the other. Hayden was standing next to me, and Eleanor was at my left, kneeling beside me.

When I looked at Terric, I got that mirror-in-a-mirror sensation. I was looking at him while he was looking at me, while I was looking at me from him, looking at me from me.

“How the hell do Allie and Z do this shit?” I asked.

Terric bit his bottom lip, which I realized was bloody and swelling from all the screaming and whatnot that had just gone on.

“For one thing, they
want
to be connected this close,” he said. “But for us . . .”

“This is a bad idea,” I agreed. “I'll step back if you step back. And no nicking the valuables, on the way out, mate.”

He smiled and I got a weird wash of him thinking I was adorable when I assed around and pretended not to be terrified.

Way too much information for me. I wasn't built to know what a real human heart felt. Pretty sure if I ever had to deal with real emotion any real person should experience, I'd snap in half.

“Please,” he said. “And I always thought I was the drama queen.”

“Done being your brain buddy. Just shush up and step back.”

No one else in the room seemed to have anything to add to the conversation.

I didn't know how much of what we were saying was going on in our minds, and how much was actually coming out as words.

I had cast magic, UnClosed Terric . . . I hoped . . . and we'd ended up sunk knee-deep in the mud of each other's minds.

“This might hurt,” he said.

“I'd be surprised if it didn't.”

There was a one-two-three countdown, a holding of breath and gritting of teeth, and then we both jumped back into our own thought space.

“Son of a bitch,” I panted. Terric just groaned.

“. . . coming, Shame,” someone was saying. I blinked, looked around. Dash was hanging up his phone. “Here. We have to get moving.”

“Where? Who? What?” I said. Hayden was already hauling me up to my feet. After a couple steps I finally got the hang of feet and legs and walking.

There were too many people in the room doing too many things: Hayden, Terric, Cody, Dash, Mum, Davy.

We were headed to the door.

The air sizzled and popped. I knew that sound—had last heard it in my kitchen before Eli had killed us.

“Gate,” I yelled.

And then there was chaos.

Three men—drones—stepped out of nowhere, a flash of light pouring through the room. They stood with their hands extended, fingers and thumbs together, focusing magic.

“Down! Down,” I shouted.

Magic pounded through the air in a blast of heat. I lifted my hands in a Block spell, but I was too unfocused to cast, or even begin to pull a spell together.

Time stopped for a moment, my heart, all the people in the room, the magic, stopped.

I saw my mom falling, the spell the drones had cast—Impact—burning a fire through her. Hayden was midstep, trying to reach her, trying to block the magic with his own body.

Too late.

Terric was just closing off the line of a Cancel spell, impressive since he had to be at least as rattled as I was, and both Eleanor and Sunny were blank-eyed and frozen in place.

Davy was nowhere to be seen, maybe already out the front door.

Dash was halfway through firing his gun, not at the drones, but at the man I saw behind them, the man standing in the hole in space.

Eli. He waited for me to make eye contact. When I did, he nodded and held up something in his hand. A disk.

“Come and get me, dead man,” he said. Behind him was a house. A manor. I knew that place.

He flipped the disk and caught it in his fist.

Hammer and steel cracked like a broken gong as he canceled the Time spell he had cast. Time cranked up again; the hole in space burned into itself, closing Eli away and leaving the drones behind.

Magic sizzled through the air toward Mum, completing the spell the drones had cast.

She fell.

Dash's bullets hit one drone in the chest, the next in the neck. Terric's spell ignited and sucked down all the magic in the room.

I busted the chains on Death inside me and let it have its due.

Death drank down the lives of all three drones, who screamed, and fell, and died.

I turned. Mum was on the floor, Hayden calling her name. She wasn't breathing.

Cody ran to her and started CPR.

I stood there, numb, frozen. I watched her spirit, her soul, lift up out of her body. She looked around, confused.

“God, no.” I couldn't lose her. She couldn't be dead, hit by a spell that wasn't meant for her. This wasn't how it ended for her. Not like this.

I took a step, held out my hand toward her. A smoky black rope shot out from my hand so fast I couldn't follow the path it took, couldn't lower my hand in time to redirect it.

Holy shit.

Eleanor screamed,
Shame, no!

I jerked my hand away, trying to sever the stream of Death magic pouring out of me.

Too late.

The rope looped around my mom's throat and cinched in tight.

Her hands flew to her neck and she pulled against the tie between us.

Death magic had taken her, claimed her spirit. I could already feel the heat of her energy feeding into the vein in my arm.

“Oh God,” I breathed, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. Not wanting to face the horror of having just tied my mother's ghost to me.

Mum stopped struggling and seemed to see me—really see me.
Shamus?

She looked down at her body, where Hayden had gathered her in his arms, where Cody was slowly standing back up, the CPR having done no good.

Ah, son,
she said, her ghostly eyes closed.
No.

“I didn't mean, I didn't want . . .” I put my hand over my face and wished the world would go away. Wished I could be gone, dead. Wished I hadn't done this to her, killed her. Worse: tied her to the monster inside me.

Terric walked up from behind me, then stopped next to me, his hand gripping my upper arm.

The contact was a shock of electricity. But instead of blowing me off my feet, it grounded me, cleared my head, steadied me.

“I got you,” he said. There was Life magic in his touch and kindness in his tone. “Do you have your mother's spirit?” he asked. “Did you tie her to you?”

I nodded.

“You did
what
?” Hayden bellowed.

“How about the others?” Terric asked. “The drones? Do you have them?”

“No,” I said. There was nothing inside them for me to take.”

Hayden gently lowered Mom back to the floor, then stood.

Man clocked in over six four and was half again as wide. “Did you kill your mother, Shame?”

“I—”

“He saved her.” Terric moved to stand between me and Hayden. Terric was a little taller than me but was still dwarfed by the size and muscle of the older man. If this came down to a physical fight, I had no doubt Hayden would mop the floor with both Terric and me.

“What do you mean?” Dash asked. He still had the gun in his hand, probably to put me down if needed. Smart.

“She's tied to him, which means she isn't dead,” Terric said. “He has her spirit. We have her. And we'll find a way to heal her.”

“Then find a way
now
,” Hayden yelled.

A phone rang. It sounded like it was coming from Dash's pocket. He finally set the safety and answered the phone.

“I said now,” Hayden said again. “Or so help me, you two, I will make you wish you'd died with her.”

“We didn't kill her,” Terric said. “That Impact the drones threw killed her. Understand me, Hayden. Shame caught her when she fell. He may have saved her.”

Hayden uncurled one massive fist and pointed at Mum. “Do something for her.”

“All right.” Terric gave me a hesitant smile. “It's going to be all right, Shame. Relax.”

He so didn't know that. “Don't tell me what to do.”

Mum, who still stood near her body, cleared her throat.
Listen to him, son. This is all . . . all going to be fine.

“No,” I said, the rise of tears choking back my voice. “I don't think it's going to be fine. You're dead!”

Terric pressed his palm on my shoulder. “Just trust me for once.”

He walked over to Mum's body and knelt. He breathed deeply and cleared his mind. Faith magic user. Terric had been one of the best many years ago. When he wanted to access his inner calm, it came snapping. With just a couple of breaths, he drew tranquility around him.

It was a technique Victor taught all his students—this Zen state of mind. One I'd never really gotten the hang of.

Terric stretched his hand out toward me and not knowing exactly what he wanted, I stepped over and clasped it.

Then he closed his eyes and prayed.

Great.

Terric had a thing about praying when he cast magic. It wasn't required, and the prayers he spoke were derived from very old texts. But in each syllable, between each word, he hung his faith, his belief and trust that the good in this world, and the worlds beyond our reach, would be there to support his actions, to guide his choices.

That was another part of Faith magic I'd never gotten the hang of—the faith part.

Early on in my training, Victor had declared that if I couldn't even manage patience, peace, and trust, I'd have zero chance surrendering myself to faith.

He hadn't been wrong.

Terric kept praying, the same few verses over and over again in a voice just above a whisper.

Mum moved to stand a little closer to Hayden and put her hand on his, not that he noticed.
Oh,
she said.
I see. I see what he's doing.

I'm glad she could see something, because all I saw was her unbreathing body.

Terric opened his eyes, the last word tumbling from his lips, a gentle light pouring from his hand into Mum's body. The soft yellow glow of healing, of Life magic doing what Life magic does best—thriving—filled her.

Mum glowed for a moment. Then the glow was gone.

“Did you?” I asked. “Is she all right?”

Hayden was on his way to her again, knelt on the opposite side of where Terric still knelt, Mum between them.