Devon Monk - Stone Cold

He healed magic, made it whole, and at the same time made it into a radiant expression of what magic could be: hope, peace, love, miracles. Things I certainly couldn’t see in it. Things it would never be in my hands. Things I was glad he could make it be.

It was better this way. Magic was better when it was gentled, healed by Cody.

But for this to work, we had to hit him with everything, give him all the magic to mend and weave back together.

Okay, all the magic except the Death magic I kept cupped in my palm.

All the magic except the Life magic Terric held behind his back.

You do know we’re cheating, I thought to Terric.

Terric’s smile flashed through my mind, and left behind the taste of cloves. This isn’t cheating. It’s keeping our possibilities open.

Then all the magic, well, almost all the magic in the world, was in Cody’s brilliant hands, body, and brain.

I was just me again, tired, empty, raw, Terric a steady warmth beside me and in my mind.

Cody inhaled, exhaled, and sent magic back out into the world, healed and whole.

And our new world began.

SHAME

“. . . are you listening to me?” Allie said. She snapped her fingers twice. “Hello? Planet Earth to Shamus Flynn.”

“Coming in loud and clear, m’dear.” I was currently lounging on their couch, a half-drunk beer on the table next to me, my feet propped up on Stone’s back. He was snoring softly, a stuffed puppy in his hand. Kind of adorable.

Zayvion was off getting Allie some iced tea from the kitchen. Probably just an excuse for him and Terric to talk about how magic had gone quiet and invisible since Terric and I gave it back to Cody and Cody gave it back to the world.

Which left me in the living room with Allie, who looked pretty damn good for a woman who’d just had a baby a week ago, my mum, who was on the couch with a thick wool blanket and Hayden’s arm wrapped around her, even though it was plenty warm enough in the room, and Davy, who sat on the floor in front of Sunny’s wheelchair.

Mum was moving pretty slowly, and resting a lot. Even with Hayden doting on her hand and foot, I knew what I’d done to her had left permanent damage. She’d aged in the short week since she’d returned to her body, her hair now a cascade of pure silver.

Sunny had recovered too, although she wasn’t up to walking yet. The doctors had told her she probably never would. She had told them to shove it. She planned to be walking down the aisle with Davy in a year.

Davy was healthy enough to take care of Sunny, and had already said his apologies for being used against us. Unnecessary apologies. We’d let him down far more than he’d let us down. All the spells Eli had carved into him were dead now, leaving behind a wicked sort of full-body tattoo. Very tribal. I was sure it was going to look boss with the wedding ring he’d soon be wearing.

Terric had gotten out of the mess with a missing pinkie finger, and I’d somehow kept the aurora borealis glow in my eyes. It was still freaky. Sunglasses were now a permanent wardrobe item.

“So,” Allie said, “you heard me warning you that I am going to make you hold your goddaughter, right?”

“Uh, right. Sometime, sure.”

Allie fixed me with a look and eased up out of the rocking chair with the baby in her arms.

“. . . in the future . . .”

She raised one eyebrow and nudged my legs with her foot. I drew my boots off the gargoyle and sat up straighter.

“. . . when she is much less fragile . . .”

Allie plopped the tiny pink-wrapped bundle of baby Beckstrom-Jones into my arms.

“. . . holy crap.”

Sunny and Mum laughed.

“Language,” Allie said.

This was the first time in my life I’d held a baby. Suddenly I was all thumbs and elbows, and every joint went stiff as I held perfectly still.

“Well, this was great,” I said. “A miracle of life. Glad to be a part of it. You can take her back now.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Allie walked over to the chair and sat down, smug as a cat.

“Please?”

“Nope.”

“You’re doing fine, son,” Mum said from over her cup of tea.

The baby squished up her face and opened her mouth.

“What’s she doing?” I asked, alarmed.

“Her name is Ramona Jozette, and she is yawning,” Allie said.

“You can handle a little baby yawn, can’t you?” Sunny asked.

“No,” I said. “I most definitely cannot. Take her back before I break something.” I sort of lifted my arms awkwardly, trying to hold her out for Allie to retrieve.

“Suck it up, Shame,” Allie said. “You are officially in training. I expect full babysitting days out of you in the future.”

“You should know better than to leave her with a guy like me, Beckstrom.”

“What? A Death magic user who might at any moment drain the life out of her?” She gave me an innocent look. “Oh no. That’s right. You can’t do that anymore. Nobody can use magic anymore. Because you broke it.”

I grinned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“What’s a bad thing?” Zayvion strolled into the room, Terric a step behind him. “Hold on. Is that my daughter in your arms, Shame?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thought she and I could have a little talk. Somebody’s got to tell her all her daddy’s dirty secrets.”

Zay gave me a smile and his brown eyes were just brown. No more gold for him, no more magic for the man who had stood at the front lines on this city’s battlefields for years, protecting it from the people who were trying to destroy it.

No more worrying about protecting his daughter from the things people with magic might do to her—a Soul Complement’s child.

It had turned out to be, I decided, one of my favorite side effects of me trying to swallow magic whole, and it trying to tear me apart. Maybe his kid would have a chance to grow up in a place that wasn’t so full of fear and pain.

“Tell her anything you want,” Zay said, handing the iced tea to Allie. “I’ve got nothing to hide. She knows I love her.”

“Is that right, Rami Jo?” I asked the baby, who had her daddy’s thick black hair and her mommy’s nose. “Did you also know that your old man was a very bad man back in his day before he grew up and turned soft and fatherly?”

“Unlike her uncle Shame,” Terric said, “who is still a bad man and never grew up.”

“Or your uncle Terric, who is a terrible liar, and owes me for saving his life. Again.”

Terric settled onto the couch, took a swallow of his tea, and grinned. “Asshole.”

“Language,” Allie said.

Mum laughed again. “I don’t think she understands it yet, sweetheart.”

“It’s the principle,” Allie said.

I carefully shifted the baby so I could hold her in one hand. Her little body lay down on my arm but didn’t even reach the crook of my elbow.

“Hey, look at that,” I said. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of this. She’s like a little football, isn’t she?”

Zay crossed the space between us in three strides and plucked her out of my hands. “You know what? You are doing that wrong.”

There it was. Promise complete. I held his daughter and he told me I was doing it wrong. I grinned, leaned back. “What? I wasn’t going to punt her.”

“I know,” he said, but his body language had gone daddy lion protective. Oh, her future dates were in for a world of hurt.

I looked over at Terric, who threw me a small smile. We were going to have a hell of a lot of fun teasing him for the next couple of decades.

Ah, who was I kidding? Fatherhood looked good on him.

“So, magic,” Allie said, swinging back on the subject. “Now that we’re all up and about, tell us exactly what you two did. I tried talking to Cody, but he was elbow deep in figuring out why Stone was still working after what you did.”