I was no expert on relationships. Still, this total takeover didn’t seem . . . healthy.
I had plenty of energy to pull my feet away from Terric’s grasp this time. But I didn’t. The magic that Terric called upon was like sliding my feet into warm, soothing oil. And since I was in possession of most of my gray matter this morning, I paid very close attention to what he was doing and how he was doing it.
Mankind had wanted to use magic for healing for years on end. And while magic can help speed up the healing process, or support the body while it naturally heals, or ease the pain brought on by magical damage, I’d never seen anyone straight-out heal with magic.
Doctors used magic, yes. To assist and support surgeries and other medical procedures.
But that’s not what Terric was doing.
Terric had his eyes closed and was whispering slightly. Not a spell, more like a mantra. Sounded like Latin and maybe a little French. I didn’t know either well enough to take a guess at what he was using to keep his concentration sharp, but I knew that’s what he was doing.
Also? My feet were glowing. Not the bright green-edged white that Terric usually called upon. This was the soft yellow of candlelight.
“No word on Dessa?” I said.
Terric didn’t answer. Kept his concentration on the healing.
“That’s strange, right? She’s following me. Which means she should be close by.”
Terric just kept whispering those words, guiding magic to knit my cuts and ease my bruises.
I was starting to feel good. Much better than I should feel after a night like last night.
Was this hurting Terric? One way to find out.
“Ter,” I said, “open your eyes.”
He did. Still whispering. That was a blank, empty look. Not feverish, not like he was thinking over some kind of complex calculations. Just inhuman, alien. Life magic was staring back at me, hungry and hollow.
There wasn’t a scrap of Terric in those eyes.
I pulled both feet out of his grasp, stood, walked halfway across the room. “Stop it,” I said.
He didn’t seem to hear me, just frowned and stood, then came marching toward me. That glow in his eyes turned into a hard, hungry glint.
I knew the face of the monster in his bones. It was the twin to mine.
His fingers curled into claws as he spread one hand toward the floor, and the other toward my heart.
The bushes outside the house suddenly leaped against the windows, lashing and twisting and growing so fast they completely blocked the morning light.
Heat shot up my legs from my feet. My skin pricked like electricity was riding my nerves. And I felt my body change. Change into something the magic in Terric wanted it to be.
Oh, hell no.
“Terric, if you don’t snap out of this I will shove Death magic down your throat.”
I figured he could hear me, but I didn’t know how much power Life magic had over him.
“No? Fine.” I pulled on Death magic and let it whip toward the Life magic he was bleeding out.
The connection was electric. Literally. Dark and light magic clashed and exploded, the force of impact canceling both magics. The backwash rushed over me in a wave that should be agony, but was pure pleasure.
Soul Complements and magic. Heady stuff. If we continued using magic together like this, soon we’d be taking up residence in each other’s brains. Then it was a real possibility we’d slide on over to insanity together—use magic to shape the world, shape the people around us, in any way we desired.
I’d fought Soul Complements who had used magic in that way—monsters who had brought the apocalypse to my city and nearly destroyed it. I’d kill us both before letting us become that.
I slipped off two of my Void stone rings and stepped up to him. I grabbed his hand—which finally got his full attention—and dropped the rings into his palm, closing his fingers over the rings.
“You got this,” I said. “You can control it. Just take it down a tick, mate.”
I stepped back, not wanting to risk our connection becoming any stronger for fear I’d be lost in it. He locked his hand around mine and didn’t let go. “Just. Stay,” he panted. “Give me a minute.”
I stayed and gave him a minute.
He whispered something over and over. Maybe a spell, maybe a litany to focus his will.
At about the thirty-second mark, the rings in his palm that were scraping against the rings on my knuckles went hot. Then very cold.
The vegetation outside stopped writhing.
He dropped my hand. Ran fingers over his face, then hair. Finally held out the rings to me.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He nodded, still not looking at me. “I’ll get my necklace.” His voice was a little rough.
Terric left the room. I slid my rings back into place like a man counting prayer beads.
“And some shoes for me!” I called out after him. “Or at least socks.”
It took a few minutes, but I figured he needed them.
So did I. I hadn’t gotten out of that unscathed. He had done something—no, the clash of our magics had done something—so that I could feel him. Usually I sensed his heartbeat. Now I could feel how he was breathing, and weirdly, I got an echo of what he was feeling—anger, sorrow, hunger.
Soul Complements.
I didn’t like it.
When he came back, he was wearing the Void stone necklace over his T-shirt, his expression calm, his eyes just his eyes again. He was also holding up a pair of socks and the ugliest footwear I’d ever seen.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“UGGs.”
“No.”
“They’re comfortable.”
“No.”
“They’re all I have in the house that will fit you.” He jiggled them a little, like I was some sort of cat who could be tempted by string.
“No.”
“Shame, you can’t walk around barefoot all day.”
“If my only alternative are those boots, I can. Why do you even have those ugly things? Aren’t your people supposed to be fashion forward?”
“My people?” he asked with a dangerous arc of his eyebrow.
“Graphic designers,” I said.
“You wear the boots, or you walk to the car barefoot.”
“Do you have real shoes in the car?”
“No. But if you stow the attitude and the mouth, I’ll take you to a store and you can buy a pair.”
“Take me to my place and I won’t have to buy anything.”
“That was Victor on the phone. He wants to talk to us. Immediately.”
“Did he say what it was about?”
“No.” He jiggled the boots again.
I strode over to him and grabbed them out of his hands. “If you give me one single word of shit about this . . .”
“Silent as a saint,” he said.
I shoved my feet into the boots, which were, damn it all, comfortable.
“Not. One. Word.” I stomped off to the door, ignoring Terric’s grin.
Chapter 17
Not a shoe store. Terric parked at a local Fred Meyer, a one-stop-shopping department store between his place and Victor’s. I shuffled in, past the pumpkins in huge boxes outside the door, past the produce section with a colorful display of fruits and gourds. There was also a scarecrow, which might explain why Eleanor was suddenly drifting so sullenly beside me.
She didn’t like Halloween, which, when you thought about it, was ironic. A ghost who didn’t like the celebration of dead things. I figured it was because on that first Halloween, she and I had both held some hope that she might cross into death because they say the veil between the living world and death is the thinnest then.
I’d even taken her out to the graveyard with the Death magic well beneath it.
Other than me getting rained on, and her getting depressed, nothing had happened. Ever since, she’d been sad on Halloween.