Devon Monk - Hell Bent

Oh, hell no.

“Terric, if you don’t snap out of this I will shove Death magic down your throat.”

I figured he could hear me, but I didn’t know how much power Life magic had over him.

“No? Fine.” I pulled on Death magic and let it whip toward the Life magic he was bleeding out.

The connection was electric. Literally. Dark and light magic clashed and exploded, the force of impact canceling both magics. The backwash rushed over me in a wave that should be agony, but was pure pleasure.

Soul Complements and magic. Heady stuff. If we continued using magic together like this, soon we’d be taking up residence in each other’s brains. Then it was a real possibility we’d slide on over to insanity together—use magic to shape the world, shape the people around us, in any way we desired.

I’d fought Soul Complements who had used magic in that way—monsters who had brought the apocalypse to my city and nearly destroyed it. I’d kill us both before letting us become that.

I slipped off two of my Void stone rings and stepped up to him. I grabbed his hand—which finally got his full attention—and dropped the rings into his palm, closing his fingers over the rings.

“You got this,” I said. “You can control it. Just take it down a tick, mate.”

I stepped back, not wanting to risk our connection becoming any stronger for fear I’d be lost in it. He locked his hand around mine and didn’t let go. “Just. Stay,” he panted. “Give me a minute.”

I stayed and gave him a minute.

He whispered something over and over. Maybe a spell, maybe a litany to focus his will.

At about the thirty-second mark, the rings in his palm that were scraping against the rings on my knuckles went hot. Then very cold.

The vegetation outside stopped writhing.

He dropped my hand. Ran fingers over his face, then hair. Finally held out the rings to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He nodded, still not looking at me. “I’ll get my necklace.” His voice was a little rough.

Terric left the room. I slid my rings back into place like a man counting prayer beads.

“And some shoes for me!” I called out after him. “Or at least socks.”

It took a few minutes, but I figured he needed them.

So did I. I hadn’t gotten out of that unscathed. He had done something—no, the clash of our magics had done something—so that I could feel him. Usually I sensed his heartbeat. Now I could feel how he was breathing, and weirdly, I got an echo of what he was feeling—anger, sorrow, hunger.

Soul Complements.

I didn’t like it.

When he came back, he was wearing the Void stone necklace over his T-shirt, his expression calm, his eyes just his eyes again. He was also holding up a pair of socks and the ugliest footwear I’d ever seen.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“UGGs.”

“No.”

“They’re comfortable.”

“No.”

“They’re all I have in the house that will fit you.” He jiggled them a little, like I was some sort of cat who could be tempted by string.

“No.”

“Shame, you can’t walk around barefoot all day.”

“If my only alternative are those boots, I can. Why do you even have those ugly things? Aren’t your people supposed to be fashion forward?”

“My people?” he asked with a dangerous arc of his eyebrow.

“Graphic designers,” I said.

“You wear the boots, or you walk to the car barefoot.”

“Do you have real shoes in the car?”

“No. But if you stow the attitude and the mouth, I’ll take you to a store and you can buy a pair.”

“Take me to my place and I won’t have to buy anything.”

“That was Victor on the phone. He wants to talk to us. Immediately.”

“Did he say what it was about?”

“No.” He jiggled the boots again.

I strode over to him and grabbed them out of his hands. “If you give me one single word of shit about this . . .”

“Silent as a saint,” he said.

I shoved my feet into the boots, which were, damn it all, comfortable.

“Not. One. Word.” I stomped off to the door, ignoring Terric’s grin.

Not a shoe store. Terric parked at a local Fred Meyer, a one-stop-shopping department store between his place and Victor’s. I shuffled in, past the pumpkins in huge boxes outside the door, past the produce section with a colorful display of fruits and gourds. There was also a scarecrow, which might explain why Eleanor was suddenly drifting so sullenly beside me.

She didn’t like Halloween, which, when you thought about it, was ironic. A ghost who didn’t like the celebration of dead things. I figured it was because on that first Halloween, she and I had both held some hope that she might cross into death because they say the veil between the living world and death is the thinnest then.

I’d even taken her out to the graveyard with the Death magic well beneath it.

Other than me getting rained on, and her getting depressed, nothing had happened. Ever since, she’d been sad on Halloween.

I took the most direct route to the shoe section, kicked off the UGGs, and bought the first decent pair of work boots I could find. Nothing fancy, but if someone needed a tree cut down, I could probably handle it. I snapped the tags, shoved the UGG boots into the box, then started toward the checkout on the other end of the store.

Eleanor had drifted maximum distance from me. She was studying an end shelf filled with Halloween trinkets and decorations.

I took a couple steps, expecting her to follow. She stood there, bent just a bit, her long, ghostly hair covering her face as she stared at something in the shelf.

I walked around behind her, looked over her shoulder.

Jack-o’-lanterns, witches, ghosts with smiling faces, and a Frankenstein stein cluttered the shelf. But behind all the cheerful candy-colored decorations was a single statue. Made out of metal that had been treated to a green patina, it was the figure of a cloaked and cowled man, head tipped down, face hidden in the shadows. He held a scythe by the handle, the curved blade at his feet, as if he were too weary to lift it again. And spread wide across his back were angel wings.

The angel of death, grieving.

“You like it?” I asked her, not caring about the woman who looked up at me and hurried away.

Eleanor just shrugged one shoulder. But she did not look away from it.

I picked it up. Was impressed at the weight and craftsmanship.

“Let’s go,” I said softly.

Eleanor looked from me, to the statue, then back to me. She gave me a small smile.

I bought the boots, the statue, and a pack of cigarettes. Made my way toward the front of the store. Passed in front of a stockroom door and noted a guy walking out of it.

Walked past him before I heard the click.

I turned.

Did not expect the Taser in that man’s right hand, nor the gun in his left. I also didn’t expect the other two guys who strode out of the sporting goods and household paint aisles.

I called on magic, just as the guy with the guns raised them both and pulled a trigger.

Heads or tails. Would I be shot or electrocuted? Heads said bullets.

Before I could raise my hand for a spell, before I could lash out and drain their lives down, someone flipped a switch and a million volts of electricity blew through me.

Huh. It was tails: electrocution.

I came to being dragged away from bright lights and basketballs, and into the stale, cold stockroom.

Maybe another door went by. Then the two guys who had my arms over their shoulders dropped me into a chair.

I decided not to let them know I was conscious.

They stepped away and a new set of boots came closer.