Stone Cold Read online

  “Last chance, Flynn,” Dash warned. “Bullets might not kill you, but they will slow you down.”

  Terric wasn’t breathing, still wasn’t breathing.

  Goddamn you, Cody. You said he’d live. Like me.

  I pressed my palm over Terric’s heart. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Move,” Dash said, “away.”

  I swallowed the tears, swallowed pain. Nodded. I’d done this, made this choice. The wrong choice.

  He was gone. Gone. I’d killed him. Just like I always thought I would.

  Death spread its arms and wrapped around me like a thick, soft blanket, and I let it. Let it feed on my shock and pain, leaving me dull, blank.

  I moved away from Terric as Dash said, backing away from the bed.

  I’d killed him.

  Everything went silent under the weight of that reality. The world slid past me in slow motion.

  Dash moved toward the bed, shifting his aim to keep the gun pointed at my head. He bent and pressed fingers against Terric’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

  I stared at Dash’s gun. Wished it could kill me.

  I wished I was the dead guy in that bed. Wished I’d never crawled out of heaven and off that damn kitchen floor. If I could give up something to change this, to change everything, I would.

  But there was nothing I could do.

  Yes, I’d find a way to die. Soon. Dash was right—bullets wouldn’t do it. Something would, though. I was sure of that.

  But before I found out how to take myself out of this world, I had someone to destroy.

  Eli Collins.

  Death magic closed around me tighter, a black wave that swallowed the last of me.

  I did not fight it.

  I started walking, clearheaded and calm. Revenge is a wonderful focusing tool, when applied correctly.

  Through the house, out the door. Maybe Dash was calling my name. Maybe Sunny said something as I stormed through the living room. Maybe the doctor put down her cell phone and walked out the door behind me.

  Maybe Death didn’t give a damn.

  Out to the front of the house, out to the dirt road that wound off the highway and back into these hills. Out past the Illusion spell I had cast to keep us safe.

  Only I didn’t want to be safe anymore.

  Not one little bit.

  Come at me, boys, I thought. I’m not hiding anymore.

  I bent, unlaced my boots, pulled them off, and threw them into the ditch. Stocking feet pressed against the cold dirt. Dirt tied in to everything in this world. Dirt beneath my feet was dirt beneath Eli’s feet.

  And there was a world of magic flowing between us. Magic I was a part of. Magic I knew he was a part of.

  “Mr. Flynn,” the doctor said, her voice sounding miles away and small.

  Eli was somewhere on this earth. I was going to find him, find his single, beating heart out of millions of beating hearts. Then I was going to tear him apart and drag him down to hell with me.

  Death curled my hands into fists. I was angry, but anger was only the beginning.

  Shame, Eleanor said. Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it. Think about this. Think about what your actions will do.

  Death could drink down every life in a ten-mile radius. Every life in a hundred miles. But the only life I wanted ended was Eli’s.

  “Please, Mr. Flynn,” the doctor said. “Let me see to your injuries.” Her hand gently touched my shoulder.

  Death turned to her, to the life pulse thrumming in her, and smiled, hungry.

  No, I thought

  No! Eleanor said.

  The doctor smiled back. “Let’s go inside.”

  Death was fast. My hand whipped out and cupped the back of her head. My other hand pressed against her heart.

  It was enough to snap me out of the shock, to shake off some of the numb grief that held me down.

  But Death had the edge on me. I fought for control of my own damn hands, my own damn body.

  Too late.

  Death magic wrapped her, skin to soul, smothered the life out of her, and sucked it into me. The flare of her surprise, followed by pain, fear, and then the gentle release of her consciousness was thick against my tongue, heavy in my belly.

  God, what had I become?

  Shame, Eleanor said. Let go of her.

  I heard her, and had enough control that I lowered the doctor to the ground and stood back.

  Her spirit stepped out of her body, ghostly and confused. There was a new rope attached to my arm, a rope that wrapped around her neck.

  Death magic was sated for the moment. Not easy to shove away, but I leaned into it, pushed it down, held it back.

  The doctor was crying. Why? she asked softly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, the words numb against my lips.

  You killed me with a single touch, she said. That’s not how we die. That’s not how anyone dies.

  “I know,” I said. I had no words for her. No words she’d want to hear.

  Eleanor and Sunny took her away from me, as far as their chains would allow, turned their backs on me, and on her dead body, and whispered comforting things to her.

  If you’re going to do it, Sunny said. Do it now.

  I must have been standing there for a while. Eleanor and the doctor—Mina—still had their backs to me, but Sunny was in front of me now.

  “What?”

  You killed Terric and he died. Then you killed Mina too, she said. Which I’m guessing was because you lost control of the snake pit of magic writhing in you. I can only think of one reason why you didn’t just force Dash to blow your brains out. You want revenge.

  “Eli,” I said.

  Good, she said. I want him dead too. Kill the son of a bitch. Kill him for what he did to Terric. Kill him for what he did to Davy. And kill him for what he did to you, Shame. For turning you into this crap-fest of magic, and hatred, and pain. For making you kill the people you care about.

  “He didn’t do that,” I said. “That’s on me. My choice. My weakness.”

  Some of it, yes, she said. But you have to know this is what Eli wanted. What he counted on when he was torturing Davy, torturing Terric: to make you suffer. So make him suffer back.

  I shook my head. Blood magic users. Always looking for a way to turn pain to their advantage.

  She was right, though. If there was a price to pay for all of these deaths, I wasn’t the only one who owed dues. Eli had blood on his hands.

  “Why are you on my side now?” I asked.

  You’re my only way out of this, if there is a way out. Also, fuck Eli.

  Death magic curled inside me, tempting, seductive.

  I nodded. Revenge made strange bedfellows, but killing Eli was something Sunny and I both wanted. I had my body again, control again. The magic inside me was a tool I could use.

  I inhaled, drawing just the thinnest smoke of Death magic into my hands. It slipped through my veins, cold and invigorating and powerful. I spread my fingers wide, sent tendrils of Death out to search for Eli.

  Thunder rolled against the predawn sky.

  “Come on, you bastard,” I whispered. “Let’s hear your heartbeat.”

  Hundreds of heartbeats tapped against my ear, then thousands as Death magic reached out in an ever-growing circle, wider and wider, tens of miles, hundreds of miles. Millions of hearts pumping, living, thriving.

  I only wanted one. I only needed one: Eli.

  Every pulse of life in the world was different. Fast, slow, old, young, hot, cold. Like a million fragile liquid notes, streaming out, pulsing, tangling, joining, breaking to make one vast, beautiful, chaotic song.

  One of those notes had to be Eli’s. One single life.

  I held my breath, sorting heartbeats
, sorting lives, digging and sifting through the dirt of this world until only one heartbeat remained.

  Eli’s.

  Got him. He wasn’t far, less than a hundred miles north of here. Close enough I might be able to kill him from where I stood. If I could hold my concentration. If I could control the Death magic long enough to kill him.

  Sure, I wanted to be there to see him take his last breath. But I had a clear shot. I intended to take it. “Burn in hell, you son of a bitch,” I snarled.

  I cleared my mind, set my feet to bear the weight of throwing magic that far—impossibly far—and aiming it that precisely. Rolled my shoulders, tipped my head down. One strike, clean. That’s all I needed. It would do no good to take down a mile-wide swath of innocent people on accident if I lost hold of the magic. I aimed . . .

  ... and Eli’s heartbeat disappeared.

  “Son of a bitch,” I yelled.

  I scrambled to follow him, follow the sound of his life among the snarled sounds and beats of all those other lives. It would be easier to find a single grain of sand in a tsunami. Too many currents washed over me, too many lives coming, going, living, dying, changing.

  I lost him in all that living.

  Goddamn it.

  Ice raked down the side of my face. I opened my eyes, gasped in a breath, started coughing. When had I stopped breathing? When had I fallen flat on my back?

  Eleanor knelt in front of me, her hand on my cheek. You are insane, Shame, she said not unkindly. Trying to kill him from here. Not even you can do that.

  “We know that now,” I said. “Are you okay?” Throwing that much magic could have hurt her, could have hurt Sunny and the doctor too.

  Enough, she said. But we need to deal with Mina, okay?

  “Mina?”

  The doctor. We know how you can let go of her so she can live again.

  “Who we? You and Sunny?”

  Me. The doctor floated over to stand next to Eleanor.

  I’d like to return to living, she said calmly. It hasn’t been too long for me to recover from this. I’d like you to let go of me, and I think I can help you with that.

  “You can’t. No one can.”

  Not true. She crossed her arms over her chest. I used to be a Death magic user, back before magic changed. I understand the way spells can be used for supporting life, for holding off death. Let me help you.

  This was a bad idea. Using the Death magic inside me seemed to be nothing but bad ideas.

  Eleanor’s hand slipped down to my heart. Not digging around in my chest looking for a way to kill me, just a cool, soft pressure there.

  This is the right thing to do, she said. You know it is.

  Her gaze searched my face. Not judging. Just waiting, patient. Something inside me that might have been my humanity kicked at the walls of grief and anger and darkness that surrounded me.

  “All right,” I said. “She goes back to living. How?”

  Eleanor smiled. There’s my hero. She moved away while I got myself back up on my feet.

  Mina drifted closer to me.

  Do you know the Resurrection spell? she asked. It was being experimented with in hospitals several years ago.

  “Not a doctor,” I said. “And I don’t raise the dead.”

  That’s okay. I know the spell. I can draw it, and then instead of filling it with magic, you can fill it with this—she touched the black rope between us—and me—she touched her chest.

  Even the crazy parts of me thought that was crazy.

  “What makes you think it will work?” I asked.

  Strong theories. She gave me a smile. If it doesn’t work, what’s the worst that can happen?

  I didn’t have time to run through all the possible disasters, but the most likely was that she’d be dead and still tied to me just like now. It was, in theory, a low-risk proposition.

  “I think this is a terrible idea,” I said. “But if you want to try it, I’ll do it. I owe you that. I owe you more.”

  Good, she said. Good. Thank you. Where do you want me to draw the glyph?

  “Between us should be fine,” I said.

  Eleanor and Sunny moved off a bit to give us room. Mina stood in front of me and then drew the glyph for Resurrection.

  She cast with an odd blend of styles: half how I would expect a Life magic user to cast spells, and half how I’d expect a Death magic user to cast. The glyph knotted and looped in such a way that I lost track of the lines between blinks. Mina drew it as if she’d practiced it a million times, confident, clean, smooth, without a pause.

  It hovered there in the air between us, the lines of it fading in and out of my vision, as if she had scratched the color off the world to make room for the spell.

  That’s it, she said. It’s done.

  She took a step away from the glyph. I could see where magic would fit into it. More than that, now that the spell was completed, I could see where a soul fit into it.

  A soul like Mina.

  “Who the hell came up with this?” I asked. I’d lived in the know of the secret, dangerous magic all my life and I’d never seen a spell like this.

  Please hurry, Mina said. Before my concentration fails and the glyph breaks.

  “Has this ever worked?” I asked as I untangled the rope that tied Mina to me from the other ropes.

  We’ve had good results in the operating room.

  “But pulling someone back from death?” I guided her rope toward the spell. The spell tugged on the rope, on the ghost of her, like a magnet pulling to metal.

  She didn’t answer me. Maybe she couldn’t hear me. The spell was drawing her in.

  “Live,” I said.

  I released my hold on her, concentrated on sending her spirit into that floating glyph.

  She poured into it with violet light, filled the spell, and triggered it.

  Sunny and Eleanor drew closer to the spell, like moths drawn to a flame.

  The spell arced through the air and hovered above Mina’s body. It draped over her like lavender lace. The black rope between us dissolved.

  Our tie was gone, broken. The spell really had carried her soul, her spirit. She should be firmly back inside her body now.

  Good. This was good.

  She’d been dead maybe a few minutes at most. All systems were go. Lots of people had been revived after a much longer death.

  I took a few steps back so I wasn’t deathing up the area around her. Gave her space to revive.

  I waited.

  She’s not breathing, Sunny said.

  Eleanor bent down next to her, touched her face. Mina. Wake up, Mina.

  Shame, Sunny said. Do something. Get someone.

  Someone could do CPR. Not me. With the Death pulsing through me, I’d either rekill or reghost her.

  I jogged to the house. Maybe Dash could help. Or Cody.

  “Help,” I said as I stepped into the living room. “I need help out here.”

  Cody and Dash hurried into the room.

  “Shame?” Dash said. “What?”

  “The doctor. Mina. She needs help.”

  “What happened?” Dash asked as he stormed out the door. “What happened to her?”

  I didn’t turn. I didn’t have to. I knew the exact moment he found her there, dead on the ground. I heard him call for Cody. I heard him tell him to call 911.

  “Me,” I whispered. “I happened to her.”

  Eleanor and Sunny were just outside the door, watching. We waited. A full minute. We waited two.

  She’s dead, Eleanor said. Gone. Oh, Shame. She didn’t make it.

  Sunny swore, and paced past me, her knife clenched tight in her hand as if it could protect her from me. Protect her from death.

  “You killed her?” Davy asked.

  I turned. I hadn’t
seen him in the room. Probably because he hadn’t wanted me to.

  He sat on the floor again, in front of Sunny’s corpse. The glow of blue magic leaked light through the bandages someone must have wrapped him in.

  Mina. Bandages Mina must have wrapped him in.

  His hair hadn’t been cut in too long, and fell into his eyes. He didn’t bother to brush it out of his way as he stared at me, waiting for my reply.

  “Who?” I asked. Not that it would matter. The answer would be yes.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do for you, Flynn? I’m going to give you a head start. If you’re smart, you’ll track down Eli Collins and kill him. Before I find you. And kill you for what you’ve done.”

  He hadn’t moved an inch, but the rage in him was a palpable thing pushing out toward me.

  “Well, then, mate,” I said quietly. “Until we meet again.”

  I walked away. Away from the house, away from the dead bodies. I thought Davy might have the right of this situation.

  My best use, hell, my only use right now, was Death. And Eli was the man we all wanted dead. After that . . . well, it would be interesting to find out if the spells Eli had carved into Davy, the things he had done to change Davy, would be enough to kill me.

  Wind dragged cold across my sweat-covered skin, sticking my jacket to my back and sending a chill up my bare neck.

  Dash yelled my name.

  I ignored him and jogged to the SUV, got in, started the engine.

  I might still be able to find Eli.

  But I’d be damned if I was going to kill any more innocent people tonight.

  Ever.

  A gunshot ricocheted off the vehicle. I glance in my rearview mirror. Dash was there, took a second shot, for the tires, I thought.

  Hit the car, missed tires.

  Too bad, mate. But I had no time to stay and explain things. I had a killer to take down.

  • • •

  I pulled off to the side of the road about twenty minutes later.

  I’d left my boots back in that ditch near the house. The gravel on the shoulder of the road was sharp and cold. That was fine with me. I just needed enough contact to the earth for Death magic to find Eli’s heartbeat again.

  Almost instantly, I caught a heartbeat that could be him about two hundred miles northwest of here.