Devon Monk: Stone Cold

And hey, humanity was overrated, right? So what if we lost a little more of our sanity, of our souls? We had people to kill, magic to feed, and meetings to attend. What was one more bad decision in my life anyway? I turned to Terric and decided to find out.

SHAME

“You could have asked me to help with all that Life magic climbing the curtains in your noggin,” I said quietly.

“So you could laugh in my face?”

“Harsh. Also, yes. Not like I haven’t before.”

“Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with . . .” He shook his head.

“Me?” I supplied.

“Us,” he answered.

“What about us?”

The traffic light turned and he was quiet for several blocks. Finally, “I don’t know how to navigate this anymore, Shame.”

“What’s there to navigate?” I slouched down against the side door trying not to show him how much I needed to consume, to use magic too. “You need an outlet for all that Life magic crowding you up. I need to consume life. If we don’t do it too often, if we don’t do it too much, there’s a slight chance we won’t go insane and kill each other. Besides, it’s not like we’re going to die old men.”

“It’s an addiction. Us using magic together. When we don’t . . . the longer we go between using together, I can’t . . . I can’t think.”

“Thinking’s overrated.”

“I feel like a goddamn junkie.”

I waited until the truth of that cooled between us. He wasn’t wrong. And I should know. “I haven’t seen you in two weeks,” I said. “Two weeks is a long time.”

“I know.”

“You could just get your own place and we could go back to permanently ignoring each other.”

Since Mum kicked me out of the inn—the only place I’d ever called home—while she and her new love, Hayden, did a beam-to-basement remodeling on the place, I’d moved into the house I’d won—fairly, I might add—from my buddy Cody Miller back in the day.

And Terric? Well, he hadn’t gotten over the last crappy boyfriend who had beat him and forced him to use Life magic for whatever the Blood magic and drug syndicate, Black Crane, had wanted him to do.

He had told me I owed him a couch for a few days. I’d probably been too drunk to say no. I didn’t know when or how he’d moved in with me exactly. Hell, it was a big house. There was more than enough room. I had just expected him to leave by now.

“That wouldn’t change anything. Wouldn’t change us,” he said.

“True. Pull over,” I said.

“What?”

“Just.” I pointed. “Pull over.”

We were on the east side of the river now, a few miles out of St. Johns, where Allie and Zayvion lived, and where, I assumed, the meeting was being held.

He did as I said, which just showed what state of mind he was in. Terric never listened to me.

He put the car in park, then returned both his hands to the wheel. Stared straight ahead at the rain.

“Do it,” I said. “Throw a little Life magic at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t? Won’t. Sorry, Ter. If I have to deal with the monster inside me, then a little turnabout’s good for the gander.”

That got a twitch of a smile out of him. “Your grasp of the English language is staggering.”

“Shut up. Do it. Life it on up in here, and I’ll Death it on down.”

He took in a deep breath, half turned toward me. “You think it’s that easy?”

“Drawing on Life magic? For you, yes.”

“And what about all those people out there?”

I listened. I could count the heartbeats in the blocky apartment buildings on one side of us and in the beat-down row of nineteen forties cottages on the left. I knew Terric could do the same.

Death magic in me was obvious about its killing nature. The Life magic in Terric was a little more subtle in its cruelty.

Suffering a disease? Life magic might just side with the disease and accelerate it. Or it might decide that other latent things inside you should come alive.

To hear Terric talk about it, which he didn’t often, it was an alien, calculating force that slipped through his fingers no matter how he tried to control it. To hear him talk about it, he never knew if it was going to heal or destroy.

Other people might be surprised that Life magic wasn’t a blessing.

It wasn’t news to me that life was synonymous with suffering.

“The people are going to be fine,” I said. “We’ll make sure we keep it contained in the car. It’s why you came to pick me up, isn’t it? To draw on magic, feed the need?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I came to take you to the party.”

“Party?”

He winced. “Meeting.”

I did a quick check. It wasn’t my birthday. I didn’t keep track of other people’s birthdays, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t that either.

“Party?” I repeated.

“Baby shower. For Allie.”

“Baby what? No.”

“Shame.”

“Hell no.” I laughed. “Did Allie send you out to drag me in for a baby party?”

“No, Zay asked me for her. And I would have volunteered. You’re supposed to be an uncle to that kid, a godfather.”

“When the kid gets here and can blow out the candles, I’ll be there to cheer,” I said. “Baby showers are for girls.”

“I’ll be there. Zay will be there.”

“Point stands.”

“You are such an idiot. Fine,” he said. “Don’t. But I am. I am going to be around Allie, Shame. I am going to be around my friends, people I care for. Something I’ve avoided for almost a month now. This magic inside me . . . I need . . .” He clenched the steering wheel tighter. Then in a quieter voice, “I just want one damn normal day. You’re the last person I want to ask, but . . .”

“You’ll break your no-magic rule with me for a baby shower? Is it a gay thing?”

“It’s an Allie and Zayvion thing.” He turned toward me again. Blue eyes drenched in color, a depth that should reflect kindness, but instead gave the impression of fire. Madness wasn’t far behind.

When Terric lost control of Life magic, he became a very alien thing. No emotions, no humanity. Just a calculating creature of power that twisted the world to his will.

We didn’t need that. The world didn’t need that because then I’d have to kill him.

“All right,” I said to Terric, and to the madness within him. “I’ll go to the party so you don’t hurt anyone. But first we use magic so we can put on our sane masks while we’re in public. We do a simple spell, here, in the car, nice and controlled, and take the overstock of Life down a notch.”

He nodded once, stiffly. He hated this just as much as I did. Or, really, loved it as much as I did and hated that it was just one more step toward us losing our control of magic, or our humanity, for good.

I stuck one finger in the air and traced a very simple glyph for Burn.

It took Terric a second to notice which spell I’d chosen. “What? No,” he said. “No fire inside the car.”

“It’s magic. It will flash so hot there won’t even be ashes.”

“Shame, this is my car . I just paid it off. No fire.”

“I don’t know, mate. I’ve already drawn most of the symbol. Too late to go back now.”

“Just cancel it. There are a hundred better spells. Consume, Dampen, Flow . . .”

“Flow?” I asked. “Do you see a river that needs rerouting? No. Plus, I like Burn. Easy and quick.”

“No fire. Use Dampen.”

“Screw you, Life Boy. I’ll cast what I want to cast. You best get busy calling up all the growing and thriving shit for me to knock down.”

He licked his lips. “It’s been a while.”

“This isn’t a confessional. Cast.”