“...be there,” Terric was saying. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I lied. I walked out of the bathroom.
Terric lounged by the front door, staring at his nails. “Liar.”
I grinned. “Only when I’m conscious. Ready?”
“Waiting on you.”
But I wasn’t talking to Terric. I was talking to the ghost who was hovering near my half-filled bookshelf.
Eleanor Roth. She had long light hair, an athletic twentysomething body, and a smile that transformed her from pretty to pretty please. She had wanted to date me once.
But now she was a ghost, tied to me and the magic I wielded. She was a constant reminder of what happens when I lose control over the Death magic inside me. I had consumed her. Put my hands on her and drunk her down.
I’d taken her life, but somehow she hadn’t quite gotten death out of it either.
Like I said, I can break anything.
And I regretted what I did to her more than anyone would know.
She pointed to a book on the shelf. I strode over, pulled it out, glanced at the front cover. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It was probably a gift from my mum. I didn’t remember reading it.
“I don’t think you’ll need reading material at the meeting,” Terric said. “It won’t be that boring.”
He couldn’t see Eleanor. Not without working magic specifically to look for her. I made it a point not to mention her. Ever.
Over the last three years of being haunted, I’d found out Eleanor liked to read. So I helped out with that, tried to get to the bookstore once a month so she could pick out new books, turned the pages so she could read.
It was the least I could do for what I’d done to her.
I pocketed the book. Eleanor smiled and floated along beside me.
“Everything about this job bores me,” I said to Terric.
He just shook his head. He didn’t believe me.
Who could blame him?
Chapter 2
Terric did the driving. I did what I did best: nothing. Just slouched in the front seat, eyes closed behind dark sunglasses, coat collar flipped up to my cheekbones, head pounding. It took a lot to get me drunk, double that to push me into hangover land. Three days and nights in a bar just about did it every time.
Except I usually got a day or so of sleep afterward. The half hour of shut-eye I’d managed only sharpened my headache.
“Shit,” Terric said, slowing the car. “That’s Hamilton. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He parked the car, opened the door, and was out of it in the same amount of time it took me to open my eyes.
Narrow street, old warehouses, MLK Boulevard. Whatever, whoever Hamilton was, it must be serious. Not only was Terric running down the street all long-legged and action-heroed, but he had also double-parked on the wrong side of the street.
I thought about calling the cops to ticket him for it. Imagined how angry he would be. Smiled. Closed my eyes again.
Eleanor poked me in the shoulder.
Thing about ghosts—they are dead cold. And stubborn. She poked my arm a second time, gentle as a dull ice pick chipping at my bones.
“What?” I said. “He’s fine.”
Poke.
Opened my eyes. Again. “I am not running out there after him.”
She pointed at my heart.
“Nothing there, love,” I said. “Empty as a shadow.”
A man slipped out one of the warehouse doors and walked quickly in the opposite direction that Terric had gone. He looked over his shoulder, then caught sight of me sitting in the car. Light hair cut short and clean, thin, tanned face with eyes set just too wide on either side of his nose. He wore black boots, dark jeans, and a button-down short-sleeve shirt he’d rolled the sleeves up on to show the tattoo of a stylized black feather.
He pulled one hand up, stuck his finger at me, thumb cocked like a gun. Even from this distance I could read his lips as he jerked his hand in a shooting motion: “dead.”
There was no spell attached to that action, and I’d never seen this joker before in my life. I flipped him off and mouthed, Bite me.
He scowled and moved off at a jog. Sure was in a hurry to be somewhere.
Then the back-of-the-head slap of magic being used, bent, and manhandled hit me hard enough I hissed. Terric was casting magic. More than that, Terric was trying to break magic.
Without me.
“Balls. What does he think he’s doing?”
Eleanor poked right in the middle of my forehead this time, the pain and cold of her finger mixing with all the rest of the hurt in me.
“Damn it, woman, stop touching me.”
She held up a finger and aimed it at my eye.
“Fine!” I shoved the door open and groaned. It was too damn sunny, too damn cold, and too damn early for me to be walking this damn street to save Terric’s damn magic-wielding skin.
New plan: find Terric, knock him out, no magic required. Then drive back to my room where I could sleep off the knife-wielding banshees screaming in my head.
I stormed down the street clenching and unclenching my fists, the rings scraping between my fingers. I hoped to hell there was going to be someone I could punch at the end of this.
Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea.
Just as I reached the corner of the alley, I saw a guy move out of the shadow. I ducked the fist aimed at my face. Took a shot at the guy’s ribs. Since the man was built like an ox, the only bones that cracked were my knuckles.
“Bloody hell!”
“Don’t kill him, Shame,” Terric said from somewhere farther down the alley where he was, apparently, holding his own against three guys.
“If I’d wanted him dead . . .” I jumped back out of the man’s reach. “I’d have already . . .” The heel of my boot hit something slick.
Fuck.
I went down hard, knocking the back of my head against the moss-covered brick wall.
I’ll take “concussion” for four hundred, Alex.
While I reacquainted myself with the inside of my eyelids, Terric got busy with the swearwords he saved for injuries, breakups, and soccer—excuse me—football. Since I didn’t hear any vuvuzelas, I didn’t know why he was cussing.
Sure, Terric was my partner—work, not bed—but half the time I had no idea what was going on in that head of his.
I opened my eyes just in time to see the ox swing a steel-toed boot the size of a Hummer at my gut. I rolled.
Not fast enough.
The boot clipped me in the low back. White, ragged pain shot down my butt and leg. It didn’t do a damn thing to improve my mood.
It did, however, shake loose my hunger.
Hunger to kill. Hunger to consume.
Death magic is never more than a thought away for me. I’ve been told that I look like the Grim Reaper himself when I spend too much time away from Terric, who has the same screwed-up overpowerful thing going with Life magic and therefore sort of cancels my Death magic thing. Yes, it’s more involved than that. No, I don’t like to go into the details.
But my point: Grim Reaper—with a hangover.
Bad news for the bastard beating me up.
“Changed my mind about the whole not-killing thing,” I said. “Too bad for you, mate.”
“Shame,” Terric warned. I heard footsteps running away. Was he letting those men go?
Didn’t have time to look.
I flicked my fingers, rings sparking as I carved a glyph in the air between me and the ox. Binding spell, not death. I wanted him to hurt before I snapped his neck.
The Binding, a net of black and silver magic sharp as razor blades, lashed out to hover in the air in front of me.
Magic might be kinder and gentler for most people. But it wasn’t kinder or gentler for me. Nor was it was invisible.