Devon Monk - Hell Bent

“Conclusion?” she asked as I checked to see if the other door of his truck was unlocked.

“Maybe a trap. Coming to find Gillian, an injured Hound, and got ambushed.”

“I don’t think he was looking for Gillian,” she said, handing me a slim-jim from her duffel.

“Because?”

“Gillian was following Davy.”

“Is that what you hired her for?”

“Yes, but I told her not to engage.”

The lock popped and I pulled the heavy door open. “After the morgue, right? You saw how much Davy hated Eli, knew he’d go after him alone.”

“I had a hunch.”

“Wish you would have shared it,” I said, climbing into the cab.

“I didn’t know you as well back then,” she said, getting into the cab from the other side after I unlocked the door. “Or I would have done it differently.”

There were a couple gas receipts, insurance, registration, and random papers but nothing else that indicated Davy had left clues in his vehicle for us to find.

A car rolled up on the other side of the chain-link. Killed the engine.

Dash got out. He was wearing a dark leather jacket, dark jeans, and boots. And the vibe he gave off had nothing to do with the office. He looked like a man who could handle himself in a fight.

I suddenly wondered if he had combat training. Something I’d never asked him about, though I should have.

“Where’s Gillian?” he asked, coming up on me and Dessa.

“This way.” I took him in the building.

He and Terric managed to get Gillian awake and aware enough, she spoke, guessed the right number of fingers, and understood Dash was going to take her to the hospital. Even did some moving of her feet so we didn’t have to carry her.

After we got her settled in the back of Dash’s car, Terric paced back toward the warehouse.

“Listen,” I said to Dash. “I’ve kicked a few hives. I want you to be careful.”

“Which hives?” Dash asked.

“Black Crane.”

“Define ‘kick.’”

“There’s been a change in leadership, ’cause the other guy’s dead.”

He nodded. He knew what that meant. “Jeremy?”

“Haven’t gotten my hands on him yet. But I will. Don’t tangle with him. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Be careful,” I said.

He nodded. “Take care of him.”

Dash left and I strode over to Terric.

“Show me the glyph,” he said.

I took him to the south door.

“It’s Eli’s work,” Terric said. “But why didn’t he complete it?”

I looked closer. He was right.

“Maybe the better question is, who do you think he put this here for?” Dessa asked.

“Me,” I said the same time Terric said, “Shame.”

Which meant he’d left it undone so I could finish it.

I didn’t know that I liked his calling card. Yes, it was a Directional glyph. I figured it was a trap, but we wouldn’t know for sure until I triggered it.

“Might want to step back,” I said.

I stuck out my finger, drew over the glyph to get the flow of his signature, then closed the arc at the end of the spell.

The spell flashed, and in the afterburn I could see an address.

“Shit!” Terric yelled.

The air cracked. Just outside the door stood a man. Not Eli. This was an older man.

I’d seen him. I knew his face. He was the old man in the missing person report. The one with the tattoo for Impact.

He stared at us with blank eyes as if he didn’t see us, or the world around him. Then he raised his hands, thumbs crossed, fingers spread.

And said one word.

An explosion hit, throwing us across the room, and bringing the building crashing down around us.

Concrete, wood, metal roared down around us, slammed into us.

Terric and I were on our feet, hands raised, standing back to back. I pulled Dessa up against me.

“Hold on,” I said.

I reached down below the building’s foundations to the magic flowing there as Terric did the same.

We didn’t just draw on magic, we ripped it out of the ground. Forced it to sever, to scream and break.

I didn’t have to talk to Terric about what we were doing. We each knew what the other was thinking, knew what we had to do: Shield.

We cut that protection into the air with wide strokes and left a burning, dripping trail of magic behind. Shield snapped into a barrier around us, like an unbreakable bubble.

Just in time. The ceiling beams shoveled down, bounced off the Shield, and fell to either side.

Terric was chanting.

I was concentrating on pulling on enough magic to feed the spell and keep it strong.

The other thing about magic—doesn’t matter how powerful you are. If you lose your concentration, you lose the spell.

We could try walking, but if we stumbled, the Shield would break and we’d be crushed. So we waited.

Turns out it doesn’t take long for half a building to collapse.

Felt like an eternity.

We didn’t wait for the dust to clear. We pushed and climbed our way out of the rubble, before the other half of the building came tumbling down too.

Made it out by the car.

There was no one around us. Yet.

“That man did that?” Dessa asked. “One man?” She was a little louder than necessary, maybe a little panicked. I didn’t blame her.

“Yes,” Terric said, striding as quickly as he could around scattered debris to the car. “Go,” I said, grabbing Dessa’s arm and following Terric.

“H-how?” she asked. “He said one word and blew up a building.”

“I was there,” I said. “I don’t know how he did it.”

“Can you find him? Did you see where he went?” Dessa got into the car and so did I, in a hurry to get away from the very loud falling-building noises that had undoubtedly woken everyone in a square mile.

Terric peeled out fast, took a side street, slowed, and crept along a normal speed until we were a good mile away. Then he put on the speed. Heading south.

“Shame?” Dessa said. “Can you find that man?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to go on. If he’s around, he’s just another heartbeat in the crowd. But Eli planted an address in the afterburn of the Direction glyph I triggered. Did you see it?”

“I was shielding my eyes,” she said.

“Terric?”

“I saw it. The hospital.”

The address burned in that spell pointed straight at OHSU, a medical complex and teaching hospital built beneath, on top of, and into a hillside south of downtown.

“Hospital?” Dessa asked. “Why?”

“Davy has a theory,” I said. “That Eli was using the labs, or operating out of the hospital.”

“Again, why? What does he need a hospital for?”

“People,” Terric said.

“Test subjects,” I clarified.

“Testing what?”

I could tell from Terric’s body language that he didn’t want me to say anything. But as far as I was concerned, she was in this just as deep as we were. Wanted him dead. Would do bad things to make sure that happened.

“Testing people,” I said. “People who were poisoned by tainted magic three years ago.”

“Tainted magic? Is that even a thing?”

“It was,” Terric said.

“How do you taint magic?”

“It helps if you decide you want to change magic into a weapon,” I said. “It helps if you are Breakers who are crazy and come back from the dead.”

“Like you and Terric.”

Damn. I hadn’t drawn those parallels. From the look Terric shot me, he hadn’t thought of us that way either: Breakers who had come back from the dead. But she was right.

“No,” Terric said. “We aren’t nearly evil enough to poison magic. To destroy the world for our pleasure.”