Hell Bent bm-1 Read online

  A ferret. She was smuggling a ferret into the inn.

  “There’s a no-pet rule, you know,” I said.

  “Oh?” she asked, unconcerned.

  “Yes. So make sure your hats don’t go for a stroll in the middle of the night.”

  She was in the room now, and had placed the cage on the floor. “I assure you, my hats are very well behaved.” She shut the door, and I heard the slide and click of the locks setting.

  Ferrets. I shook my head. Not what I’d expect out of an ex-government spy. But then, Dessa was proving to be a lot more than just a woman on a mission of revenge.

  I smiled, stepped into my room, and closed the door behind me.

  Chapter 14

  You know those soft, lazy kinds of mornings where you wake up, realize you are in a comfortable bed, buried beneath your favorite blanket, warm, relaxed, and don’t have a worry in the world?

  This was not like that.

  A spear of ice slid into my chest, shocking me awake faster than a lightning bolt. I opened my eyes.

  It was dark. Eleanor was sitting on my hips. Her eyes wide, panicked. Her hands had disappeared up to her wrists in my chest.

  Jesus. I mean, I’d always assumed she’d try to kill me someday, but two things: it wasn’t working, and it hurt.

  “What?” I yelped. She was really agitated, and therefore, much more solid. I could feel the weight of her across my hips, like a vise of winter.

  She shook her head and hurriedly twisted. I grunted as she pulled one, then the other hand out of my rib cage. She pointed over her shoulder. Toward the door.

  No, not toward the door. Toward the man who stood there.

  About six foot, built a little on the slim side, wearing dark slacks and a button-down shirt that was undone at the cuffs and away from his neck. His dusty brown hair stuck up, like he hadn’t brushed it in a day or two, and his round wire-rimmed glasses caught the faint moonlight seeping in through the window.

  It’d been a while since I’d seen him. About three years. Back before magic had been healed. Back before we knew if we were going to survive the apocalypse. He’d looked like a slightly crazy mad scientist magic user back then.

  Hadn’t changed much.

  “Eli Collins,” I said as I sat and put both my feet on the floor. “Really nice of you to stop by, my friend. I’ve been looking for you.”

  He hesitated there in the shadow for a moment, like a fly on the edge of a spider’s web.

  I waited, listening to his heartbeat. Elevated, but not fear. More like anticipation.

  “Shamus.” He took a step into the room. Moonlight slipped across him like an airport scanner. “You’re alone?”

  What did he expect, that I’d have Terric stashed in my closet? “Sure,” I said. “I’m alone.”

  “Good,” he said. “Very good.”

  He lifted his hand and in it was a gun.

  Eleanor flew at him, flew through him. I raised my hand, the rings across my fist crackling with red light.

  But I was too slow.

  Bullets are faster than magic.

  So are tranq guns.

  The gun in his hand popped. The dart hit me right in the chest.

  The sun exploded there and wrapped me in fire. I clenched my teeth and moaned against the pain.

  Holy fuck, that hurt.

  The drug and magic crawled through my veins, knotted my muscles, and locked me down hard.

  I couldn’t even blink.

  Even the monster inside me was still. Knocked out cold.

  This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

  Collins tipped his wrist, checked his watch, then looked back at me and pressed a button that beeped. Counting down the minutes?

  “I don’t have any time to waste,” he said as he walked over to me. “No time for you to argue, or try to kill me. They’ll pull me back into my cell in two minutes. Two minutes of freedom.” He spread his arms and smiled.

  He glanced around, found a chair, set it close enough I could see his eyes and the wildness within them, even in the dark. Then leaned forward, his arms across his knees.

  “Did you get my message, Shame? Did you see it? On Joshua? My handiwork? Did Davy see it? I hope that he did. I couldn’t have made it more obvious.”

  I moved my tongue, opened my mouth. “Fuck. You.” Huh. Well, at least I could talk, though magic, and any other movement, was out of the question.

  “So you saw him? What I did to him? How I killed him? Good.” He checked his watch again. He was amped up, distracted. Not exactly what I liked to see in a psychopath.

  “I am not on your side, on the side of the Authority,” he clarified. “I do not care what the tattered remains of that powerless organization does. Nor am I on the side of the forces that are rising against the Authority. I am a prisoner.” Here he paused, and swallowed as if just saying that word would bring the bars of his cage slamming shut around him.

  “Prisoner,” he repeated. “They have me locked down, except when they let me go for two minutes. Such a short time to do my work. To make my mark. To kill the way I like killing. You see the problem before you: you know they are looking for Breakers. Soul Complements,” he said a little softer, as if those words meant something to him now.

  Then, “They want the weapon, Shame. They want you. They want the magic only you can tap. No matter that there are ways, other ways to tap magic. Things you haven’t seen. Things I have shown them are possible.”

  He waved his hand as if he’d argued this before.

  “Costly. But effective. Ways I have shown them they can tap in to the power of magic.” He seemed to catch himself. “Not that I will tell you. Even that—magic—is not the real problem. Do you know what the real problem is?” he asked.

  “Just say it, freak,” I managed. Talking hurt. My head was pounding spikes of pain through my brain with each hard heartbeat.

  “The problem is a woman. You have met her. Dessa Leeds. She knows. Knows where I am. Knows what my chains are made of. They have her, Shame.”

  “Dessa?” He used to make sense. But now . . . maybe the madness had finally taken its toll.

  “No, not Dessa. My soul. They have my soul.” He pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. Sniffed hard, then wiped under each eye before replacing his glasses. “You have to save her. You’re the only thing they can’t fight, Shame. Death. And you crave it, don’t you? You like killing just as much as I do. Find me and my prison. Save my soul. I’ve tried. Tried everything. You.” Here he shook his head. “You’re all I have left. If you stop them, all this will be over.”

  “And if I don’t?” I asked.

  “Then people will die. People you care about. Oh, don’t look so surprised. It isn’t personal. I am doing what I must to survive, though I will enjoy it.”

  He smiled. “I have orders to kill the people standing in their way. You’re standing in their way, Shame. You and . . . others I would love to see dead. And if you don’t find her, I will do more than just kill your friends. I will destroy everything you’ve ever touched. Everyone you’ve ever touched. It won’t matter that you carry Death magic. I’m the one with my finger on the trigger of the gun. And I will make your every breath a study in pain and misery.”

  He glanced at his watch again. “You don’t have much time. Maybe a day. Maybe less. And you’ll have to be sharp, Shame. You will have to be much, much better than this . . . pitiful wreck you’ve become if you are going to save her. To stop me.”

  His watch beeped once and he jumped just slightly. “Out of time. And so are you.” He tugged a needle out of his shirt pocket, bit the plastic cover off it, then leaned forward and stabbed me in the neck.

  Oh, I was so going to kill the slimy little fucker for this.

  “This is just the start of what they have to control magic users. To control people changed by magic. Enjoy the ride.”

  Maybe I’d convince Terric to bring him back to life so I could kill him twice.

 
The room swirled like water down a toilet bowl. I watched Eli. Watched something that looked like a hole in space—a gate—open up behind him with a hard snap of electricity. Watched as he stood and was yanked backward by men in lab coats and face masks I could not see through.

  Then the gate was gone. Eli was gone. And so was my mind.

  Chapter 15

  Flashes of images: the parking lot in darkness. Trees. Underbrush rustling with animals that fell deathly still as I passed.

  Flashes of sensation: gravel cutting my feet, wind on my bare chest and back, blood on my fingers, my lips.

  Flashes of sounds: forest, the river, cars. Eventually, my own breathing. Too loud. And then: voices.

  First too many voices. A bar, a club, laughter, anger, lust. The rhythmic pound of music. Heat I could consume. Life I wanted and could have. If I stepped over the threshold.

  Then only one life, sweet and burning in front of me: Dessa.

  “Shame,” she said through my pain, around the finger-painted slide of colors and agony that made up the world. “You can’t go in there. You’re safe. Safe with me.”

  The world pushed past me. Life roaring by like a thundering wave. Maybe she was still there. I didn’t know.

  A scream of colors slashed me to the bone. Then everything went black.

  “Don’t move.”

  Was that Dessa? It sounded like her. I could smell her perfume, a burst of vanilla and sweet spices. Could feel her strong, beating heart. A singular, pure note.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she said.

  Felt the soft release of her hand lifted from my hip. The hushed chirp of a cell phone dialing. Footsteps retreated. And then the engine of a car rolled to life.

  I was alone. Alone with my pain.

  “Hey, Shame.”

  Darkness parted. Light poured over me. Terric’s voice. Terric’s light.

  I wanted to tell him I thought I might be really screwed up this time. That he should get far, far away from me. I wanted to tell him there was a reason for the state I was in. That someone, someone whose name I could not remember, had done something to me. But my thoughts dissolved as I tried to stack them into order and form.

  This was not good.

  Fear slipped between each breath I struggled to take. Fear that if I was losing my mind, the monster in me would devour every living thing. Even him.

  “I got you now,” Terric’s words said, falling like soft snow around me. “You’re going to be all right.”

  His hands touched me—one on my arm, one on my chest. I shuddered as that light pushed away the darkness and pain, holding the worst of it away.

  “Just breathe,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  So I closed my eyes, or I hoped I did. And breathed.

  Maybe we moved, maybe we stood there. Maybe this was all a dream. Terric’s words drifted around me, soothing, cooling. In them was comfort and peace.

  There was no fighting it. I didn’t want to.

  I breathed his words. His light wrapped me in gentle arms. And all the world disappeared.

  * * *

  I gasped, opened my eyes. Tried to push up onto my feet.

  A hand appeared out of nowhere and pressed against my chest so hard my shoulder blades sank into the cushions at my back.

  Cushions?

  “Stay down,” Terric said.

  “Where the hell?” I blinked, swallowed. Whatever drugs Eli had used on me left the taste of vomit in my mouth. I felt like I’d been run through a meat tenderizer. Twice.

  “You’re at my house,” Terric said. “In my living room. It’s the middle of the night—”

  “Two o’clock in the morning,” another man’s voice said.

  “—and,” Terric continued, “you’ve been hurt. Do you understand me, Shame?”

  I blinked again. The room slipped in and out of focus. Finally cleared.

  Terric sat next to me in a padded chair. His hand gripped my upper arm, applying a slight pressure so I remained seated.

  He wore a gray tank top and dark blue pajama bottoms. Barefoot, hair a little messy like he’d just gotten out of bed.

  Middle of the night. Of course he’d been in bed. I was all about the smart right now, wasn’t I?

  I tried my brain out on the rest of the room. It’d been a while since I’d been over to his house. Instead of the fine photography he usually had on display, the walls were covered in bold, ugly abstracts and a huge TV screen swallowed up the corner by the window where he used to keep his favorite reading chair. Even so, I was indeed sitting on his couch in his living room.

  Standing behind him was the man I’d seen in the car with him: buzz-cut light brown hair, narrow face, and brown eyes set too wide. Jeremy.

  Jeremy scowled at me, his arms crossed. He had on a black T-shirt, flannel over that, and jeans. Couldn’t see his feet, but I’d guess his shoes were on.

  I could not guess whether he had just arrived or was headed out the door.

  From the look on his face, I knew he and I were not friends. Not by a long shot.

  No, we were enemies.

  So Dessa and Dash had been right about him.

  “Shame?” Terric said again. “Can you understand me?”

  “Yes,” I said. Talking took more effort than it should. I didn’t think the drugs had done the last of their work on me.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Jeremy scoffed. “You have to ask? He’s wasted.”

  “Jeremy,” Terric said quietly, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “He’s a waste, Terric. You want to do something for him, dump his ass in rehab.”

  “He’s staying here,” Terric said.

  “Fuck that. Aren’t you done with this piece of crap? After everything he’s done to you?”

  “Jeremy,” Terric snarled. “Get out.”

  Lots of anger in that Jeremy. I was following along, but the conversation was going by so quickly that by the time I pulled together a comment, they had moved on.

  “You can’t just pretend this is normal, Terric. You can’t ignore what he is. Look at him. He’s a junkie piece of crap, baby. Win some, lose some. You lost him a long time ago. Let it go.”

  Terric stood, and I tipped my head back to see what he was going to do.

  He was looking down at me.

  I gave him a smile. I’d seen that anger before.

  Thought about putting together some words to warn ol’ Jeremy that he was about to get his ass handed to him on a platter, but figured he’d catch on soon enough.

  Terric turned so he blocked my view of Jeremy. “Leave. Now.” Two words. Words that Jeremy really ought to listen to.

  I actually hoped Jeremy would push it. It had been a while since I’d seen Terric punch someone in the face.

  “Please, Terric.” Jeremy leaned toward him, the chair Terric had been sitting in between them. “He has you where he wants you. He’s preying on your sympathy. You have to be strong, remember? We talked about this. All he wants is to use you—”

  “Out.”

  “—use your magic for whatever rush can score—”

  “Jeremy.” Terric pointed to the door. “Leave now before I do something to end this. End us.”

  I could cut the tension with a knife. If, you know, I could actually lift my hand. Or make a fist tight enough to hold a knife.

  Also, if I had a knife.

  Jeremy looked past Terric to glare at me.

  I winked at him.

  Oh-ho, that did not go over well.

  He used a few choice four-letter words and stormed across the room. A door slammed shut. Aw. I hurt his feelings.

  Terric was still standing with his back toward me.

  He shifted his shoulders just a bit, as if taking the weight of the damage that might have just been done to their relationship.

  I was, once again, not a lot of help in his love life.

  He turned to me. The anger wasn’t gone, but it was under control. Set aside for
now. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

  “Super,” I managed.

  “Are you thirsty? Do you hurt?”

  “Yes.” I answered both questions, even though I knew he could tell I was still in pain. Just one of the many joys of being tied to another person’s soul: he hurt, you hurt.

  He sat back down in the chair with a sigh and handed me the glass of water from the side table.

  It took me two tries to get my hand around the glass. Those were some long odds I’d actually get any of the water in my mouth.

  “Here.” He hadn’t let go of the glass yet. So he stood, sat next to me, and pressed the glass back in my hand.

  Then he lifted my hand with the glass to my mouth. Helping me drink.

  It was embarrassing. But I needed that water. And needed the help. I gulped as much of it as I could before I had to breathe again.

  Terric tipped the glass away, waited for me to stop gasping, then helped me drink the rest.

  “What happened?” he asked as he placed the glass on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  “Eli,” I said.

  Terric froze. “Where?”

  “My room. Shot me with a tranq.” I swallowed, trying to get my brains in order. “Jesus, hate this.” Pointed at my head.

  “Eli was in your room,” Terric repeated. “And he shot you with a tranq gun? Did he say anything?”

  “Lots. The usual crazy.” I was out of air. Worked on filling my lungs. “He cut up Joshua just to get our . . . attention. Just to fuck with us.” I was shaking now, a tremble I couldn’t seem to get under control.

  Terric made a blanket appear from somewhere nearby, draped it over my legs and up to my neck.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Said he wanted me—us—to save him. Find him. Save her.” Stopped for breathing again. This was getting old.

  “Find who?” Terric shifted off the couch and knelt on the floor in front of me, then settled there cross-legged.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly alarmed.

  “Your feet are a bloody mess,” he said. “You showed up on my doorstep with no shirt, no shoes, and looked like you’d walked all the way from the inn to here, barefoot.”