Devon Monk - Stone Cold

His left hand still gripped the steering wheel. The other clenched a fist next to him.

He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t casting. He was not doing much for a guy who wanted to use magic.

Fine. If talking wouldn’t work, action should.

I didn’t draw a spell. I didn’t concentrate on pulling magic from beneath the ground to fill the spell. I just relaxed a little, took a deep breath, and called on the Death magic snarling behind my mental chain link fences.

“Hey, Terric,” I said, thinking maybe the element of surprise would knock him into gear. “Think fast.”

Death magic hit him like a ton of . . . well, death.

Slammed him against the door. His head snapped so hard the glass cracked.

Crap.

Pain exploded through him, whipped back through our Soul Complement connection, riding the black fire of death coursing through me and into him.

Jesus. I’d expected him to block. He was fast. Faster than me. He should have seen that coming.

I grappled with the magic, trying to rein it in, but Death wanted its due. Heartbeat, blood, life. And Terric was right there for the picking.

Sweat slicked my face, scratched at my neck as I tried to drag Death back to me, back inside me. I hadn’t meant to hurt him.

“Ter?” I said. “Are you breathing?”

Magic flared around him so bright it blinded.

I had one second to think that maybe we should have parked somewhere more private where people driving past wouldn’t see the ridiculous amount of magic filling the vehicle.

I had another second to think that if I’d been smart, I would have cast a Block spell or an Illusion so no one would call the cops about the explosion about to go off in the car.

And the third second? Well, that’s when I got busy fighting for my life.

Life magic roared out of Terric, pouring so hot it was hard to breathe. Liquid white shattered through the raging darkness of Death I was losing control of, canceling it, breaking it, burning it.

Light and darkness, life and death. Pretty even odds if you asked me.

But I’d caught Terric off guard, angry. And hungry. That was a dangerous misstep, like poking a raging lion, lighting a match near gasoline, or pissing off an uncontrolled Life magic user.

This was not going to end well for one of us. Probably me.

The pain between us shifted, nauseatingly so, to a sort of pleasure as the magic he called on and the magic I called on fought for the edge, fought for the advantage over each other.

I could feel Life creeping into me, filling dark hollows in me, firing across my nerves. Every muscle in my body clenched, just as I knew Death was biting off pieces of him.

Fight? Flight? Break glass in case of emergency?

Terric and I had done some stupid things with magic.

So far, we’d avoided reaching into the core of all magic that flows through the world and actually snapping that core in two—which is exactly how a magical apocalypse kicks off. Right now we were just accessing the magic we carried in us—Life and Death—and that was not strong enough to start the end of the world.

Still, I was pretty sure we’d just climbed to new heights of Mt. Dumb.

“Terric,” I said. Or I think I said. I might have just thought it, since someone in the car was yelling, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t me. “Take it down a notch.”

The only problem? That wasn’t Terric staring out of those brittle blues. That was Life magic, inhuman, calculating, brutal. Hungry.

Okay, so maybe I had underestimated how close to the edge of insanity he’d been.

If I let go of Death magic, I’d probably have a second or two of pure bliss as my body became completely and fully alive. After that?

Probably oblivion. Or obliteration.

Plus, that would mean Terric had won, Life magic had won.

Since I am a terrible loser, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Time to tip the scales the best way I knew how: cheat.

I pulled a knife out of my pocket, cut my left palm. It instantly healed.

Thanks, Life magic.

I cut myself again, deeper. Got a few drops of blood before that healed too. Tried to think of my next move.

Jesus. I was getting a little drunk off all this Soul Complementy magic flying between us.

Spell. I needed a spell.

I carved the air with the blood-covered knife. It was not graceful. It was not precise.

Okay, so it took me two tries, because, damn. The amount of magic in this car. What a way to go.

Finally got it, got the glyph drawn. Laughed.

Terric, or rather, that inhuman vessel of magic over there, frowned.

I set the spell spinning with the tip of my blade.

Time.

It wasn’t a spell I liked to use. You had to be connected to the other person in some way for Time to manipulate both you and your opponent’s perception of it. Blood magic was the easiest way to accomplish that.

But as I said, Ter and I were joined by more than blood.

I had his soul.

The other problem here was that Time was a damn hard spell to end. Instead of just canceling the spell, you had to make sure you were coming back into the reality of time exactly in sync with the natural flow of it.

That was as easy as landing a jumbo jet on the head of a pin.

Time washed out like a curling pinwheel of smoke, crashed over his head, crashed over mine, surrounded us.

Since I was the one who had cast the spell, I theoretically had control over whether it would speed things up or slow things down.

I opted for slow.

“Terric,” I said as a year crawled by. “You need to listen to me, mate.”

“You. Attacked. Me.”

“I thought you’d block. You attacked me back. We’re even. Except you have completely lost your mind. Control yourself, mate. Haul back on that Life magic.”

“I . . . ,” he started.

“Have gone crazy,” I finished for him. Then a month or so later, “And if you can’t get a grip, I will shut you down.”

Something moved behind his eyes, something that looked a lot more like the man I knew. “You’d try,” he said.

“You bet your weet sass I would,” I said.

Even though Time was stretching each second so that it felt as if it were days and weeks, the overload of magic and hit of pleasure from using Life and Death was drunking me up a bit.

“We both put the magic down,” I said. “On three.”

I lifted my hand, so very, very slowly. He did the same, mirroring my movements.

“One,” I said.

“Two.” I waited, held my breath. Wasted a heartbeat or two savoring the high. Needed this to be right. Needed to get the alignment of our reality of time and time’s real reality correct so I didn’t kill us.

“Three.”

He canceled Life magic, hauling back on it, controlling it. White fire snaked around his hand, a lightning storm come to rest in his fist.

While he was doing that, I was wrestling for control of my own magic. Not easy. Not fun. Blackness whipped around me, lashing hard enough to break skin.

It hurt. Everything hurt.

So: normal.

I flicked fingers and broke the Time spell. There was that thunder crack ringing and foot-off-the-cliff lurch of our perception of time readjusting.

I fell forever.

I’d missed the landing. I’d screwed it completely.

Nope. I nailed it.

We were sitting in the car, along the side of the road. Eventually I could hear the soft patter of rain over my pulse, which beat steady and strong.

Terric was breathing hard too.

But neither of us was exploded.

So: all good.

“What were you thinking?” he said.

I gave him a grin, licked the blood off my split lip, wondered how many more little cuts Death magic had left me with this time.

“You wanted to use magic with me but were afraid we couldn’t control it. Which we did, I’d like to point out. I was tired of listening to you whine about it.”