Devon Monk - Hell Bent

“Mr. Shamus Flynn,” he said, a slight smile narrowing his eyes. “What brings you to my home?”

“I have a message I’m not sure has been made clear to you, Mr. Soto,” I said, guessing correctly who he was. “I don’t care how big a network the Black Crane has developed over the last three years. Don’t care how powerful or rich you think you are. This is still my town. And there are people within it who are off-limits to you and your goons.”

“Of course,” he said. “We respect the Authority has certain concerns for its people. Boundaries we respect.”

“I’m not talking about the Authority. This is just about me. You’ve pissed me off. You’re using people I care about. I’m here to make you understand that if you don’t back off and leave my friends and Terric Conley alone, I will destroy your little pop shop and kill your members one by one.”

“Mr. Flynn, please,” Soto said. “We are all reasonable men here. Surely we can discuss this without resorting to threats. It is a crude way to do business.”

“I want your word you will leave Terric Conley alone.”

“I don’t think you understand the situation properly,” he began.

He didn’t finish. Because I killed him.

Drank down his life without even twitching my fingers.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his heart stopped. He slumped forward and the remaining three men bolted off the couches, reaching for their guns.

“Keep your hands off your weapons,” I said.

“I’d do as he says,” Cody said behind me.

I didn’t look back, but the men in the room all glanced at him, then held their hands out to the side.

“Let me make myself clear,” I said. “I am not here to discuss the situation. I am not here to do business. I am here for an unbreakable guarantee that Terric Conley will be cut free from everything and anyone involved with the Black Crane. Who’s going to give me that guarantee?”

“I will see that Mr. Conley is removed from our attention,” one of the men said. He was taller than me, probably in his early fifties, with light brown hair going gray and receding at the temples. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his mouth at the bottom of his long, narrow face was thick-lipped.

“My name is Rene Schuller. I have a position in this organization that can ensure my desires are acted upon.”

“And your desire is?” I prompted.

He smiled, even though neither of us was buying it. “To make you happy, Mr. Flynn.”

“Good. Make me happy, Mr. Schuller, and I won’t go out of my way to kill you.”

I could feel their pulses as if they were my own, three thrumming beats that would be so easy to slow, slow, slow until they were gone.

Instead I turned my back and walked across the room toward the stairs. Cody stood to the right of the staircase, holding a sawed-off shotgun at his hip. So that’s what he carried in the bag.

“Don’t bother,” I said to Cody loud enough they’d hear. “I could kill them before they squeezed a trigger.”

I paced down the steps and Cody followed behind. Passed the bar and dead bodies, then got into the car.

“You’ve become a little more blunt, I see,” Cody said as he got into the passenger’s seat.

“I tried subtle. It chafed.” I started the car but didn’t back out of the driveway yet.

I drew on the magic deep beneath the city and cast a spell. It was a spell that required quick, scribbling strokes, winding into a tightly coiled center.

A few seconds later, Scatter hung in the air between me and the windshield. I cast it with a push of both hands, and it rolled into the big house. If they had surveillance cameras, they were now fried, the information that might have been stored there scattered and irretrievable.

“In the old days you’d have done that first,” he said. “You’re getting sloppy, Shame.”

“I’m not sloppy,” I said, finally putting the car in gear and getting the hell out of there. “If I’d screwed with their cameras before we walked in, they would have known someone was coming and would have been waiting for us. This way, no one got hurt.”

“Except the four men you killed.”

“Yeah, well. They were in my way.”

“That was probably a little over the line, don’t you think?”

“What line?” I glanced over at him. He stared calmly ahead, maybe at the city, maybe at whatever else it was that man saw.

“The law’s line, to begin with. After that, justice. You didn’t know those people, Shame. They might not have been guilty of the crimes you accused them of, crimes you killed them for.”

“Cry me a river, Miller,” I said. “Everyone in that house was guilty of crimes, whether we know about them or not.”

“And you are now guilty of murder.”

I let that sit for a minute or two. “Those aren’t the first men I’ve killed in my life. I grew up in the Authority, remember? Ran with the Closers, was a star pupil of Death magic. There are casualties in any war.”

“Is that what this is? A war?”

“Not yet. Right now it’s just my life.”

“So pretty much the same thing?”

“Yeah, pretty much the same,” I agreed.

“How long have you been fighting the magic inside you?” he asked.

“None of your business, crazy guy.”

That got a smile out of him. “I think it is, but fine. We can talk about something else. When did you suddenly become Terric’s guardian angel?”

“Never, because I’m not.”

“You just killed four people for him.”

“I killed four guys to get them off my back. The Black Crane didn’t use to be anything but a couple of punk drug dealers, and now they think they can run this town? They came after me with a baseball bat. They jumped me with a Taser. They might even be behind the missing people cases the police can’t crack.”

“And yet you never brought any of that up,” he said. “You just told them to leave Terric alone.”

“I said more than that.”

“Not much more.”

I drove for a while, heading back toward his house. He was right.

“I know I am,” he said.

“What?”

“Right.”

“Lay off the mind-reading trick, mate. I’m not impressed.”

“Who says it’s a trick? It’s been a long time since you and I sat down and talked, Shame. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“Let me guess: reading minds?”

“No. Hearts.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I know you’ve tried to stay away from Terric. But you’re drawn to him. The magic in you and the magic in him can’t be separated. You hate it. And you want it. Want to use magic as it should be used—with someone who perfectly matches your power. So much so, you’ll kill people if they get in your way.”

“Not even close.”

He was totally close.

“Well, it’s good to see some things haven’t changed about you, Shame.”

“Oh?”

“You still lie like a rug.”

“I will also still pull over this car and make you walk your own ass home if you don’t shut up,” I said.

Cody grinned. “Just like old times.”

I dropped Cody off at his place, then drove around the area, just to make sure no one had followed us and that he wasn’t in danger. Waited until sundown but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Cody couldn’t use magic anymore, but I knew he could take care of himself.

Satisfied he would be okay, I headed home.

The inn was up and running full speed tonight. Plenty of diners and people at the bar. We’d started with live music a few months ago, and it looked like tonight the old piano was getting a workout.

It was, in some ways, a clash from my childhood growing up in the apartment above the other side of the inn. Back then it was home. And while it could have been very busy and alive with customers, there were late-night meetings of the Authority members, and, down in the basement around the well of magic hidden there, all sorts of tests and magic events had gone on.