Devon Monk - Hell Bent

“I’m not promising to care. Not even about your brother’s killer.” It was blunt. Honest. “But I want to see how he was killed. And I want to hear about the missing girl.”

She didn’t look at all surprised. Still, she considered me for a long moment.

“Not here,” she said as she tied up her boots. “Let’s do lunch instead. Also, I think you should pay for the room.”

“How about I don’t file kidnapping charges instead?”

She glanced up. Smiled. “You know I could kill you from a rooftop if you approach the police.”

“Oooh. I like it when you talk dirty.”

She stood. Stepped up close to me.

I thought maybe I ought to kiss her. Maybe I ought to talk her into seeing things my way, Shamus-style.

“You still haven’t given my boyish charms a chance,” I said.

“To seduce me?” she asked.

“To make you never want to be with any other man as long as you live.”

She laughed, truly laughed. It was a musical sort of thing that filled the silent places in me.

“You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“Not at all. I am painfully humble.”

She closed the distance between us. Close enough I could smell her perfume, a very light vanilla scent that made me want to lean in closer and taste it on her skin.

“And what if I took you up on it?” she asked, tipping her head up to meet my eyes. She was breathing deep and slow. Waiting. Wanting.

“You would not be disappointed,” I said softly. I lifted my hand and gently pushed her hair away from her face.

A key turning the bolt on the door clicked. We both looked that way.

She pivoted, a gun suddenly in her hand, but I knew who was on the other side. Knew the heartbeat.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her up against me, turning to foul her shot.

“No,” I said. Just as the door opened to show the man standing there.

Davy Silvers.

“Sorry to interrupt. Shame, I need to talk to you.”

Davy looked like he was barely old enough to drink, although he’d shown me his license once that said he was twenty-three. Blond, sort of an easygoing-skater-kid look, complete with a turquoise beaded necklace. Most people had no idea he was the head of the entire network of Hounds in Portland. And since Hounds used to be the best at tracking illegal spells back to the caster, he liked the anonymity.

The reason I knew his heartbeat? He was the only man I knew who had been more screwed over by magic than Terric and me.

He’d made it through the apocalypse, but not before he’d been infected by poisoned magic, and then had been kept alive by Eli “the Cutter” Collins. Collins was brilliant, as most sociopaths are, and was a hell of a magic user. Eli had also been kicked out of the Authority for the horrors he’d done with magic. So even though Eli had literally carved spells into Davy’s skin to keep Davy alive, I wasn’t sad when I’d heard Collins had left Portland for good.

“Friend of mine,” I said to Dessa.

She scoped Davy out like she was filling in a missing person report. Then she lowered the gun.

“Outside okay with you?” Davy asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Outside should be fine.”

Davy didn’t shut the door, just leaned there with it propped open, looking like he wasn’t paying very close attention to every detail of the situation.

“So,” I said to Dessa, who stepped out of my arms. “This was fun. Thanks for the drink. Try not to kill anybody I wouldn’t kill.”

I started toward Davy.

“I’ll see you real soon, Flynn,” she said.

Yes, it was a reminder of our lunch date. And also a threat. I would have been disappointed by anything less.

Davy had a beat-down old pickup that had been left to him by a good friend. Allie once told me it was the truck Martin Pike used to drive. Pike had been a hell of a Hound, and a mentor to Davy.

I put on my sunglasses, even though it was still dark out, then made straight for the truck, glancing around to try to get my bearings. Lots of tall fir trees, some pine sprinkled in. The buzz of a busy road tickled the edge of my hearing, but none of these things were distinct enough to stand out from any other corner of the northwest.

“Where the hell?” I asked.

And that’s when it hit me. I was in St. Helens, northwest of Portland, somewhere off Highway 30. A dead zone. Back when magic was broken, but strong, there were only a few places off-grid that were naturally magicless. This was one of them.

“She really knows how to cover her bases,” I said.

“Get in,” Davy said as he walked around to the driver’s side of the truck. He didn’t give me hell for being drugged, trunked, and tied up by some strange woman, which is how I knew whatever he had come to tell me was not good news.

“Who’s hurt?” I asked.

He opened the door, got in.

I swung up into the passenger’s seat.

Davy started the engine and refused to say anything until we had tires on asphalt. Pretty soon the Highway 30 signs flashed by at the side of the road, white in the darkness.

“It’s Joshua Romero,” Davy said. “He’s dead.”

I leaned my head back against the headrest and took each emotion as it came: anger, sorrow, anger, loss, anger, acceptance and anger.

Joshua was a nice guy out of Seattle, a Closer who’d thrown his lot in with us Portlanders when we were trying to convince the Authority we weren’t crazy, while simultaneously saving the damn world.

“How?” I asked, dragging through my memories for him mentioning health issues.

“Murder.”

“The hell. How?”

“Magic.”

Okay. Maybe this wasn’t my call anymore, since I hadn’t really been the head guy in charge of anything magic related for more than a year, but there was too damn much murdering by magic going on lately. Especially since killing someone with magic simply should not be in ninety-nine percent of the population’s reach anyway.

“Do you, does anyone know who?” I asked. “Or when? Or how exactly ? As in what kind of magic? Tell me they had Hounds on the scene. Tell me the police up there didn’t just think Hounding and tracking back a spell is some kind of Ouija board voodoo trick.”

“I don’t know yet. I just got the call.”

“How long has Terric had you tailing me?” I asked.

He glanced at me. “I’m not following you for Terric.”

“Who, then? Allie? Zayvion? Please tell me it isn’t my mother.”

“Shame. Joshua is dead. Can we put you and your problems on the back burner for a minute?”

Like I said, he wasn’t as young as he looked.

“Gladly. Where did it happen?”

“He was found in his car. In a parking garage on Burnside.”

“Whoa, hold on. He was in Portland?”

“Yes. And it looked like he’d gotten in his car and dropped dead behind the wheel before he ever had the chance to turn the key.”

“Where’s his family?”

“They were in Seattle. They’ve been taken in. They’re nowhere anyone can find them now.”

I nodded. So the Authority was still doing its part in trying to protect magic users and families of magic users. But Joshua wasn’t a Soul Complement to his wife—they didn’t use magic together and couldn’t break it to make it powerful.

So why was he targeted?

“What was Joshua doing?” Here’s where being out of touch was working against me. I didn’t even know if Joshua was still working a magic-related job, or if he’d washed his hands of it all and finally opened that restaurant he’d always dreamed of.

“I don’t know all the details, but he was still involved in magic. Rehab, I think. Finally put his counseling degree to use.”