Devon Monk - Hell Bent

“Was that the only reason you came back?”

She considered me a second. Then stood and kissed me. When she finally pulled away, she tipped her eyes up to meet my gaze. “No. Last night was real. Wasn’t a part of the rest of this. However this goes down, that stays the same.”

“People might get hurt,” I said. “I might be the one hurting them.”

“I know.”

Terric was out of his room, new jeans, new black T-shirt under a black peacoat. He handed me a gun. Had one of his own.

Dessa’s eyes widened up.

“Sometimes the direct kill is the best,” I said. I shrugged out of the sweater, leaving me in just a gray T-shirt. I didn’t need a coat. I had my hate to keep me warm.

Terric strode to the door and I followed him, Dessa at my side. Back to the car.

I’d barely noticed Eleanor, drifting with me, finally caught the glow of her out of the corner of my eyes. She looked like she’d been crying, though I’m not sure how that could be for a ghost. I didn’t think she had liquid in her.

Still, the way she moved, the bend of her head. Everything about her was sorrow.

She’d known Victor too. Had spent some time training in magic with my mum and him. “You see something I don’t,” I said to her. “Tell me.”

Eleanor noticed I was noticing her and nodded. She pressed her hand over her heart. I didn’t know if she was indicating her promise, or saying it was broken.

“I will,” Dessa said.

“I know,” I said to Eleanor.

Terric didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. He knew who I was really talking to.

Here’s the thing. I’ve spent a good amount of time doing my best to put distance between Terric and me, for both our survival.

But right now that wasn’t my goal: survival. My goal was to take Eli down. And if I knew exactly what Terric was doing, if not exactly what he was thinking, it made it easier to get things done. No hesitation. No slack. So the closer together he and I were right now, the better it was.

He drove. I sat in the passenger seat, Dessa behind us.

Terric didn’t break any speed limits getting to the warehouse, so as not to attract the cops, but he pushed a few lights. From the color of the sky, we still had about an hour before the sun rose.

Good. I did my best work in the dark.

“This it?” Terric asked.

The warehouse didn’t look abandoned. It was being retrofitted into offices or maybe apartments, construction equipment surrounding it.

“This is where she said he was,” Dessa said.

“Did you come by here and look for him earlier?” I asked. “Before you came to my place tonight?”

“No,” she said. “I wanted to talk you into coming with me. That didn’t go quite how I planned it.”

“Outcome was the same,” I said, opening the door.

“Outcome was better,” she said softly.

I could almost feel my heart again, captured in her voice.

Terric was through the gap in the chain-link fencing. Dessa and I caught up with him.

There was some logic in splitting up to cover all exits, but on a retrofit building, there would be more exits than we could cover.

So I listened for heartbeats.

Felt Terric’s probably beating in time with mine. Felt Dessa’s. There were more in the buildings around us. A few in the only car that passed by. But in the warehouse, there was only one.

“He’s in there,” I said for Dessa’s sake.

We pulled our guns. I could use magic one-handed. I intended to do so.

Terric and I pushed through the door, walked step in step, guns raised.

The inside was gutted. Framework where walls once were, and maybe where walls were going to be. Plastic draped from the ceiling, rubble on the floor.

Noted it all absently. I was headed for that heartbeat. Eli’s heartbeat.

Corner room. To the left. There was a door here, hung half-shut. Terric kicked it open. He and I pushed into the room, arms straight, guns locked on the heartbeat.

But the huddle of clothes in the corner was not Eli. It was a girl, well, a young woman, and she was unconscious.

We lowered our guns and Terric crossed the room to her. “She the only one you feel, Shame?”

I listened, let the monster stretch out to feel lives it could consume.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

He had turned her face and was checking her pulse. The blood from her head was making it hard to see her features clearly, but she seemed faintly familiar to me.

“It’s Gillian,” Dessa said, rushing forward to her. “She’s my Hound. Holy shit. Is she okay?”

Terric ran his fingers quickly over her head, checked her neck, and finally pressed two fingers on her chest, just below her collarbone. He closed his eyes and I could see the yellow-white magic responding to his touch. Healing magic poured into her as he whispered a prayer.

Dessa inhaled a hard breath.

“He’s healing her,” I said. “She told you Eli would be here?”

She nodded. “Who would do this? She’s just a kid.”

“Stay here.” I strode through the building looking for any sign of Eli—what he’d been doing here, which way he’d left. Wished I’d brought a flashlight.

Screw it. I drew a light spell, filled it with magic. It wrapped around my left hand with scrolls of white that rolled upward like licking flames. It lit up a twenty-foot space around me.

“That’s . . . wow,” Dessa said behind me. So much for her staying with Terric.

I turned on my heel. “I asked you to stay with Terric.”

“He told me to go with you.”

“Jesus.” I made quick work of the place, figuring the light was going to be pretty easy to spot this time of night through the broken windows. I did not want a nosy neighbor calling the cops.

And then I saw the sign I was looking for. Next to a door that faced south, a glyph was drawn. It was the glyph for Direction, one of the finding spells. It was definitely Eli’s handiwork.

Right there in the dirt was something else: a turquoise bead. I bent, picked up the bead. I knew where I’d seen it before. It was from Davy’s necklace.

Terric was on the phone with Dash when I walked into the room. “...wait. No, just a Hound, or you. That’s best.”

He flicked the phone off. “What did you find?”

“Sign that says Eli’s south of here. Direction glyph. Also this.” I walked over to him, dropped the bead in his hand.

He frowned.

“It’s from Davy’s necklace. Broken.”

“Davy was here. So was Eli,” Dessa said. “Great. But where did they go?”

“I don’t think Davy left willingly,” I said.

“Why?” Terric asked.

“His truck is out back.”

Terric swore. “He shouldn’t be hunting Eli alone in the first place.”

“Who’s coming for Gillian?” I asked.

“Dash. He’s close, and it won’t involve the Hounds. He’ll take her to the emergency room, then call the Den. Go search Davy’s truck in case he had a chance to leave something there for us.”

I didn’t even bitch at him for ordering me around. I crossed the structure then jogged out across the lot that was still mostly paved. The fact that the truck was parked so close and in the open bothered me. Davy wasn’t that reckless. So either he had thought there was no one inside, or he had come here, not looking for Eli, but looking for Gillian instead.

“What are you thinking?” Dessa asked. I remembered she was with me, glanced over at her.

Had her gun in her hand and was keeping an eye on the buildings around us.

I tried the door on the truck. Locked.

“It’s not like Davy to drive into a situation and park in the open. Makes me think he didn’t know what he was walking into. And that’s even less like him.”