Devon Monk - Hell Bent

“Rehabbing magic users?”

“Helping place people who used to use magic, or were harmed by magic, into magic-free or low-magic jobs. Most of those people still live here in Portland since this is where magic went bad. You know how it is for us all. To have that kind of power fade away. Hard adjustment.”

“Last time I was paying attention, it took a hell of a lot of work, and a hell of a lot of people, like a hundred or more, to pull on enough magic to do anything harmful to someone,” I said.

“That hasn’t changed.”

I was silent. So was he. We were close to Portland now, traveling on well-lit roads.

Davy had probably already come to the conclusion I’d been trying very hard to ignore. The only person strong enough to use magic to kill someone with it was a Breaker. A Soul Complement.

“We’re looking for two people, aren’t we?” I said.

Davy nodded.

“Balls.”

“At least it will be a short list,” Davy said.

That was the upside of Soul Complements being rare.

“Unless there’s a pair out there we don’t know about,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s what we were thinking.”

From the tone, I knew Davy wasn’t telling me everything. “We? Who are you working for, Davy, my boy? Police? Overseer? Perhaps a little freelancing with government black ops?”

“Right now? The Overseer. He has a Hound on every known Soul Complement.”

“And how long have you really been following me? Come on now, tell Uncle Shame.”

That got a quick smile out of him and he looked my way. “About a week. Do you know that you talk to yourself a lot?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that all about?”

“It’s an Irish thing.”

“It sounds more like a crazy-guy thing. I mean, it’s practically full conversations. Arguments. You go on and on, Shame.”

“It’s a pity we’ll never get to the bottom of this mystery,” I said.

Davy smiled. “Never say never to a Hound. Also never say mystery, come to think of it.”

“How about drop it? Or where are we going?”

“Or how about you tell me about your date back there?”

“Nothing to say, mate,” I said.

“Nothing? You staggered out of the bar like you’d drained half their stock, but I only saw you go through two beers and four shots over six hours. With lunch.”

“So?”

“That’s not enough to get you drunk.”

“So?”

“So either you were faking it or she dropped something in your drink.”

“By the way, do you know who she is?” I asked.

“I know she had a rifle trained on you. On more than one occasion.”

“Jesus, Silvers. You didn’t want to tell a man he was in some sniper’s crosshairs?”

“Like you didn’t know. I’m curious as to why you haven’t told Terric about her.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

He gave me a look, then turned his gaze back to the road.

“I’ve seen that man he’s dating,” he said a little more quietly.

Didn’t have to fill in the blanks. I knew he was talking about Terric’s bruiser.

“Dash mentioned he didn’t approve of the situation,” I said. “You have any information on Jeremy I should know about?”

“He’s tied into an old family of Blood magic users. Used to deal spell-laced drugs. They have connections in the region. Some say Black Crane. Powerful people who made a lot of money while magic was hot.”

“And now that it’s cold?”

“They still have connections. Power. Deals in place.”

“Do they have anything on Terric?”

Davy didn’t say anything for a minute. Slowed for a light, then turned left. “Not that we can find.”

So he had been checking in on Jeremy. Nice of him. “There’s that ‘we’ again. Who asked you to check in on Terric’s love life?”

“Allie and Zay. Plus, Terric’s my friend too, you know? I keep an eye on my friends. And he’s been . . . different since he’s been with Jeremy.”

I didn’t say anything so he just kept on talking.

“You want to know what I think, Shame?”

“I really don’t.”

“I think Terric wouldn’t be trying to keep Jeremy alive if you were around. I think he’d instead use that Life magic to damp down the Death magic that’s killing you.”

“Killed,” I said. “Not killing. Other than the whole breathing thing, I’m not much alive, mate.”

“Sure,” he said. “You’re as dead as I am. Magic changed us. Made us into . . . something else. You don’t see me whining about it.”

“You know what you don’t see me doing?” I said. “Being a prick.”

“Or admitting I’m right and you don’t like it.”

“There must be someone else’s business you can dick around in,” I muttered.

“Oh, there is. Plenty of people’s. None quite as fun as yours.”

“I’m so pleased you find me amusing. Also, you do realize that Terric put Jeremy’s cancer into remission? That means something to him. To both of them.”

“I know. It means something to Jeremy’s doctors too. And his family. As a matter of fact, some members of his family, powerful people, are taking very close notice of what Terric can do with magic.”

And there it was. The angle I hadn’t seen. If Jeremy’s powerful family saw Terric as a way to hold off illness, cure diseases, or hell, put a new kick into the drug-of-the-week they were cooking up, then Terric was suddenly a valuable commodity. Someone worth controlling.

Maybe even someone worth hurting.

“Does this have anything to do with the government hunting down Soul Complements?” I asked.

“That’s . . . news. Want to fill me in?”

“Aren’t you working for the Overseer?”

“Working, yes. It’s not like he invites me into his bedroom to talk over his day.”

“I probably shouldn’t,” I said. So I did anyway. “The Overseer called a meeting. Hell, I guess it was this morning. What day is it?”

“Friday, but only by a few hours.”

“Okay, so yesterday late morning the Overseer fired Terric and me, put Clyde Turner in our place, and told all the Soul Complements in the room that the government had declared it Breaker season and was most likely hunting us down.”

“All the Soul Complements? How many were there?”

“Me and Ter, Zay and Allie, Doug and Nancy, and two other couples I don’t know.”

“What did they look like?”

I did a quick recap of the cougar and the younger man, and of the hipster pair.

“The cougar is Simone Latchly, and the man with her—he’s older than me, Shame—is Brian Welling. They’re out of San Diego. The other couple is from Arizona. Anthony Pardes and Holly Doyle. You should know that. You were Head of the Authority.”

“I left the details to my underlings.”

“Nice try. I know what you did your first year. I was there with you, remember?”

What I’d done was worked my ass off to keep the normal people in the world from killing every Authority member they found out about. There was a lot of anger, mistrust, and blatant hate in the first year of everyone getting their memories back.

If you looked at it right, I’d saved a lot of lives that first year. Well, Terric and I had.

Healing magic had proved that secrets, grudges, hurt feelings, and lawsuits do not die easily.

I just shrugged and rubbed my thumb over the edge of the ring on my finger. We were well out of the dead zone. Magic pooled naturally and flowed through the networks and pipelines far belowground.

Easy to access as it ever was.

My hunger, which must have been snuffed out by being around Terric, then poisoned, covered in Void stones, and dragged to a nonmagical zone, was gnawing on me again.

I needed to consume. Now.