Devon Monk - Hell Bent

Well, he was really an animate—which is a construction of stone and gears powered by magic. He’d been made by Cody Miller, who had once been an incredible artist and magic user.

Even though magic shouldn’t be strong enough to keep Stone going, he was still as mostly alive as ever. He’d been Allie’s loyal companion for years now, was a good-natured doofus who liked to stack household items.

In a fight he was a deadly, ferocious brute.

He folded his wings and four-footed it to the chimney, sitting with his hands wrapped over his toes. He peered down at the police moving around, then looked out at me.

I held up a hand. “Look after Allie,” I said in a normal voice I knew he’d hear. He tipped his head, both ears rising into sharp points, and showed a little teeth.

He must have been with Cody when the attack happened. I was glad he was here now. I suddenly felt a lot better knowing a ton of fanged, clawed, winged living rock was going to be there with Allie and Zay.

I turned and caught up with Terric and walked along beside him. “I see what you did there with the detective, you little liar.”

“Shut up, Shame.”

He got in the car and I got in after him. Eleanor slipped into the backseat.

“You lied to a police officer,” I said with mock disappointment. “Aren’t you worried they’re going to take your hero card away?”

“If he knew what we knew, he’d stop us from doing what we’re going to do,” he said.

“Kill Eli?”

“Kill Eli.”

“Let’s drink to that. Swing by and get me a coffee, won’t you?”

“Coffee, not booze?”

“When they open a drive-through bar, I’ll be the first in line. Until then, coffee.”

What could I say? I was in a good mood. Breaking magic had taken care of my hunger, and made me feel lazy and satisfied, like finally scratching an itch I couldn’t reach. Watching Terric lie to the cops was the candy sprinkles on top of today’s donut.

Terric stopped at a coffee shop, ordered an Americano for himself and a double caramel latte for me.

Score.

“Do you think we should have stayed with Zay and Allie?” I asked after I’d drained half the cup.

“We talked with them about that. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” It was probably when I’d been pacing and not paying attention to them. I pushed at my cheekbone gently and flipped the visor down for the mirror. The bruise had spread down to my jaw and was making it a little difficult to see out of one eye. Zayvion Jones knew how to land a hit.

“...offered,” Terric was saying. “Zayvion refused. He said they’d call Stotts and make sure there were EMTs coming to look at his wound. He said he’d rather stay at the house with Allie, since he had planned on casting protections on it.”

“Protections we cast.” I flicked the visor back up. My face hurt, but I didn’t think anything other than the nose was broken.

“Yes. He’ll call if anything happens, but if you and I do our job—”

“Kill Eli?” I just loved how that rolled off the tongue. Felt like I could say it all day.

“No, find Dessa, who might know where Eli is.”

“Then kill Eli?”

“Maybe, yes. Stop him for sure. Find Brandy and release her, or use her as a bargaining chip against Eli.”

“That’s . . . calculated.”

“That’s practical.” He took a drink. “If we do our job, then Eli will be in no position to attack Allie or Zay or anyone else.”

“Because he’ll be dead. Come on, Ter. You know that’s how this is going down. We’re going to take Eli out. And by ‘out’ I mean mulch him into grave filler.”

Terric’s phone rang. It was in his cup holder, so I pulled it out. “Dash,” I said. I thumbed on the speaker. “This is Shame.”

“Shame,” Dash said. “Can I speak with Terric?”

“I’m listening,” Terric said. “What’s going on?”

“We have a lead on Eli. Davy just called in—”

“From where?” Terric asked.

“Don’t know. He rigged a blocker on his phone so I couldn’t track it.”

“Okay,” Terric said. “Are you at the office?”

“Yes.”

“We’re on the way over now. Let’s finish this conversation there.”

“I’ll put the coffee on,” he said.

I hung the phone up. “Don’t want to talk to him?”

“Don’t want a phone record if we’ve been bugged.”

“Do you think you’ve been bugged?”

“No, I’m sure I haven’t been. I don’t know about the lines at the office, though. If they know where Eli is, I want to hear it in person.”

I finished off the last of my coffee, sat back, and let the man behind the wheel take us to the office.

By the time we found parking, the rain had stopped. We got out. Everything was wet and when the higher clouds broke, the fog torched up with sunlight.

Eleanor drifted beside me of course. On the drive over here, I caught her staring at the statue. I almost brought the statue in with us, just in case Terric and I didn’t leave in the same car after this, but she shook her head.

So we stormed across the street, Terric and me step in step. People moved aside. I supposed we made quite a pair.

We walked into the building, took the elevator up to the office.

It had only been a few hours since I was down here getting the riot act read to me by Clyde. Funny what a difference a few hours made.

The haphazard tower of empty boxes was now a squat pyramid of neatly taped, labeled, and stacked boxes. Probably contained the few things I’d left behind and were otherwise filled with Terric’s possessions.

The framed picture of Paris he had taken back before college that used to hang in his office was propped against the pyramid.

I guess Clyde was moving in.

“Terric, Shame.” Dashiell paused halfway across the room and looked me up and down. “Those are good colors on you, Shame. But what happened to your face?”

“I ran into Zay’s fist.”

“So . . . wait. What’s that now?”

“Nothing to worry about,” I said. I strode off to the small storage closet just outside the bathroom. Mop, cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper. And up there on the top shelf next to a box of caulking tubes was a jacket.

My jacket.

One of them, anyway.

I pulled it down, turned my head, and shook the dust off it. Black, lightweight, shorter than the peacoat. Really not much more than a hoodie, but hell, it was my hoodie.

I shrugged into it. Realized that even with the bulky sweater, the hoodie still fit.

I was seriously tired of things reminding me of how thin I was. Maybe I should start working out.

Ha!

I strolled back into the main room where Dash and Terric were standing and Clyde leaned against a desk. They all had coffee in their hands.

Detour to the coffeepot. I made myself a cup, stole a truly sorry-looking bear claw sitting alone in a bakery box, and noted I’d left the baseball bat those thugs had threatened me with propped up by my desk. That was leaving with me. And so was the gun I figured was still in my drawer.

I walked over to my desk. Pulled the drawer and stuffed the gun in my pocket.

“...EMTs are taking care of him,” Terric said. “We’ll be giving Stotts our statements later today if we have time.”

“And what are you going to tell him?” Clyde asked.

“That we were planning on stopping by anyway,” Terric said. “And had a hunch that something was wrong, so we let you know in transit.”

He nodded. “Not the best we’ve ever come up with, but it should do. And you, Shame? Where do you stand on all this?”

“On the side of better donuts,” I said, turning toward them. “Where the hell did you buy this greasy sponge?”

“They weren’t for you,” Clyde said.