Devon Monk - Stone Cold

So that’s how he’d powered all these spells. Jesus, he must have found a vault of them.

I was going to have to have words with Allie’s stepmom, Violet, and tell her the security on her labs was crap.

That is, if I survived.

The spells across Brandy’s throat flared a soft green.

Her eyes flew open, rolled back in her head, then focused on the ceiling. She arced back, arms pressing against the mattress, legs stiff, as the machines beeped even louder.

Eli was sweating and breathing hard. He hadn’t thought it would work either.

“Back out of the room. Now.”

“Tell us the deactivation spell,” Terric said.

“You need a Beckstrom disk.” He moved between machines, flipping switches. No gun on us, hardly paying attention to us. I couldn’t kill him with Death magic with the Void stones rattling around in my chest.

I glanced at Terric.

“And?” Terric said.

Eli turned toward us again, gun in his hand. “Get the hell out of the room.”

We backed toward the door. Stepped over the threshold.

“It’s Sleep,” Eli said.

“That’s the spell?” Terric said. “Just sleep?”

“Use the magic in the disk. Cast Sleep. It will drop them cold.”

“Will it kill them?”

“Oh, Terric. What I did to them? They are already dead.”

He could be lying. We’d find out pretty quick, hopefully before I bled unconscious. All we had to do was cast Sleep and send that spell precisely out to hit each of the drones on those monitors. Drones that were scattered across the world.

It was going to take a hell of a lot of concentration on our part to send a spell by remote sight. But hey, Soul Complements, rule breakers, blah, blah.

“Can you feel her?” Terric asked as we slogged across the floor to the monitors. “Are you still connected to Eleanor?”

“No. Why?”

“That means the spell worked,” he said. “That’s how we get your mom and maybe Sunny back into their bodies again.”

“Swell. Let’s deal with one disaster at a time,” I panted.

He dug the disk out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand, the watery blue light from the monitors catching against the glyphs carved into it.

“Sleep,” he said.

“I heard him. You’d better cast it, mate. I’m wrecked.” I walked over to the wall and pressed my back against it, locking my knees. From here I could see into Brandy’s room. The monitors were to my left.

Good God, I wished I had a smoke. Or painkillers. Or a drink. Or a working gargoyle. Or no bullets in my heart.

Terric stood at an angle to me so he could see the monitors and, from the corner of his eyes, Brandy’s room.

Any minute now, Eli was going to figure out that wasn’t Brandy in that body. A soul knew a soul. And Soul Complements, even the crazy ones, couldn’t be fooled for long.

“Hurry,” I said.

The Zen thing Victor had taught all his students came in damn handy. With a single breath, Terric cleared his mind. Another breath, and he was focused on the spell, drawing it in the space between us.

He didn’t need to pull magic out of the networks to fill the spell, didn’t need to pour Life magic from his body into it either.

All he had to do was tap the magic in the Beckstrom disk, and stay focused on the spell reaching out to each of the people he saw on the monitors.

Terric finished the spell, glanced at me.

I gave him a nod and he triggered the disk.

Magic flared through that spell and burned the room into a supernova. Spell after spell on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, triggered and filled with magic, burned to life, blew.

Son of a bitch. Those spells weren’t just set to keep Terric and me where Eli wanted us. They were a bomb ready to go off.

And that damn Sleep spell had been the trigger.

The room filled with spells: Impact, End, Pain. More. Spells I didn’t even know the names for. All of them aimed at killing Terric and me, at tearing us apart into so many pieces we’d never glue back together again.

We had one second, maybe not even that, before the spells all hit. Time to make a choice. Who would win?

Death?

Life?

Eli?

Then magic blew us to bits.

SHAME

In that explosion of power, we made our choice.

Without a word, without so much as a nod, Terric and I reached into the spells as they exploded. We grabbed them with our hands and dragged that raw fire and pain toward us, into our bodies, into our souls.

All magic in the world is joined. Like thousands of rivers, lakes, pools, it is connected by rocks, soil, air, and those who use it.

It is us.

It connected Terric and me, tied us by the soul, made us whole.

Soul Complements.

We could break magic, deep at its core. We could rewrite its rules. If ever there was a time to go all in—to break magic and make it do anything we wanted it to do, this was it.

We broke magic, splitting it like a melon beneath the machete of our will.

It was no longer just Life and Death that filled us. It was no longer the soft, nearly useless force that filled the world. It was darkness and light, pure, deadly, and intoxicatingly strong.

Magic that anyone could use for a price—pain.

Just like the good ol’ days.

All the magic in the world paused, waiting for our hands to guide it. To use it, to make it into whatever we wanted it to be.

The room was silent.

First we kill Eli, I thought, knowing Terric would hear me.

First we stop the drones, Terric thought. Then we take care of Eli.

I was still full of Void stone bullets, and yes, they still hurt like hell. But light and dark magic pulsed through me, through Terric, and back to me, in a constant loop, one part adrenaline, the other part morphine. I felt no pain.

We didn’t have to talk it out, didn’t have to decide who was doing what. We were in perfect sync now, not a horrifying nonperson as I’d feared, but two people perfectly locked together in ways I’d never imagined possible.

Soul Complements. It was strong. Powerful.

Terric and I weren’t lost in each other’s minds; we were found.

Oh, we could get into so much trouble, I chuckled.

Focus, Flynn, he said.

We focused. It was easy to throw magic, dark and light across any distance. Easy to break the spells carved into the drones. And so we did.

One by one, the drones fell, empty of magic, powerless. All of Eli’s work undone, all of Krogher’s plans ended. The monitors went blank as the spells that connected the drones to Eli’s network and control were broken.

And since we could take the shot, we threw magic at Krogher too. Found where he was hiding in this world, stopped his heart, ended his life with a single thought. It was a much more merciful death than he deserved.

But with Krogher dead, my mum in ICU was safe. Allie, Zay, Cody, Davy, the hospitals, the police department, the remaining Soul Complements, and every other target in Krogher’s crosshairs was safe.

But we were not done using magic yet. Were not done with this great power at our disposal. Eli wasn’t dead yet.

We strode to Brandy’s room, shoulder to shoulder, step in step.

Eli backed away from her cot, gun aimed at her still form. He must have seen us coming, must have known what we had done. He pulled the trigger. The rattle of gunfire filled the air as bullets tore through her body.

“Eleanor!” I said.

Eli swung the barrel our way. “If I can’t have her ,” he yelled, “then I’ll be damned if you can have him .” He aimed at Terric.

“No!” I yelled.

We were already throwing magic. To stop him. To end him.