Zay sat in the chair next to Allie, and Terric lifted his shirt to see the damage.
“Who did this?”
“Collins,” Allie said. “It was Eli Collins.”
Chapter 19
“Everything you can tell us,” I said. “Quickly. Zay. Step it up, man. Use words.”
Terric was at the sink now, getting a clean cloth wet so we could clear some of the blood off Zay’s chest to see if there was a serious wound beneath it all.
“We were at the table,” Zay said in that very, very calm tone he had that really meant he was very, very angry. “We both heard something crack. He was standing inside our kitchen. Smiling.”
Zay jerked as Terric pressed the cloth on his stomach. “Did he shoot you?”
“No,” Allie said. “He had a knife. He didn’t want to kill Zayvion.”
Zay picked up where Allie left off. “He wanted to hurt me and make me watch while he killed Allie. Said he was going to carve the life out of her.”
The baby.
Fuck.
“So you broke magic,” I said.
“We broke magic,” they said simultaneously.
“Did you kill the bastard?” I asked.
“No,” Zay said. “He had something like a gate.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Tech, I think.”
“You’ve seen it?” Allie asked. “You’ve seen Eli? When?”
“Last night. He left me a message. Said that people are going to die if I don’t find him and save him. Oh, and he’s the one who’s going to do the killing.”
“Why would he warn you that he’s going to kill people?” The shock of what had just happened appeared to be wearing off and Allie was back on her game.
The distant wail of sirens filled the air. Maybe the police, maybe an ambulance. Maybe coming here.
“He said he’s being held captive and being used to kill people. People like Joshua. He said they’re holding his soul. His Soul Complement.”
“He’s lying,” Zay said.
“No,” Terric said. “Victor told us. They’ve known who his Soul Complement is for years. She had been in a mental institution all this time until she disappeared a short while ago. Victor took away Collins’s memory of her.”
“Shit.” He exhaled. “How long?”
“She’s fifteen in the file photo,” I said. “Thirty-five now. And Eli says they might have her.”
“What do they want with him?” Allie asked.
“Their very own Soul Complement pair weapon? I’ll give you one guess. But the thing we ought to worry about, boys and girls, is that he’s a Breaker. Even though she’s damaged and he’s bat-shit crazy, if they work together, they can break magic and make it do whatever they want it to do.”
“What isn’t adding up for me,” Terric said, “is why Eli came here with a knife. He’s not shy about guns. He’s not shy about taking his one shot and making it count.”
That was true. Eli liked death, destruction, and bloody mayhem and didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. “So he didn’t want to kill Zay. Probably didn’t want to kill Allie. Or at least not quickly. Did he have anything else with him?”
“A needle.”
I nodded. “Right. Had that with me too. But no tranq gun?”
Zay frowned. “No.”
I looked over at Terric. “Maybe this was a diversion. Maybe this was just to scare us. Force Allie and Zay to run. Or force them to stay. It feels like a chess move, more than an attack.”
“The hole in my chest says otherwise,” Zay said.
The sirens were getting closer.
“Are you staying?” I asked.
Allie and Zay looked at each other. Maybe read each other’s thoughts.
Allie nodded. “We’re staying. We’ll set up Hounds to keep an eye on the house.”
“He has the tech to show up anywhere he wants,” I said. “Hounds wouldn’t react fast enough.”
“We’ll set up guards,” Zay said. “Trip spells. Traps.”
“You’d have to break magic for anything to be strong enough to stop him,” Terric said. “And with the baby . . .”
“The baby will be fine,” Allie said.
I didn’t care how brave and steady her words were. She was white as a sheet. This had scared the hell out of her. She was afraid the baby would be damaged if they broke magic and used it. Was probably already worried the baby had been damaged.
“We’ll do it,” I said.
No one hurt my friends. No one.
Zay looked at me, raised one eyebrow. “Who?”
“Terric and me. We’ll break magic, set the traps and trips, make it so that if he techs into the place again, he’s knocked out cold. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Silence in the room. I thought Terric had gone completely mute.
“When was the last time you two broke magic?” Allie asked.
“I do not like the tone of your voice, young lady,” I said. “We’re . . . capable. We can do it.”
Zay was staring at me like I was an unsolvable puzzle. He took a breath and looked over at Terric instead. “What do you think?”
“Really, Jones?” I asked. “First you punch me in my beautiful face. Then you kick me right in my tender ego. I don’t need Terric’s permission to make a plan. A good plan.”
“We can do it,” Terric said with a smoothness that probably hid the fear I could feel in the fast beat of his heart. He didn’t want to break magic with me.
Or maybe he really desperately did.
Didn’t matter. Didn’t care. We were doing it. Discussion done.
“Let’s get it done before the police arrive. We’ll pull from the crystal well,” I said, tugging my rings off, one by one. “Three levels of spells. By the time he’s able to break through all three protections—if he can break through them—Zay and Allie will either be out of the house, ready to defend themselves with magic—”
“Or have guns in our hands,” Zay finished.
“Right,” I said. “That works too.” I started pacing, suddenly full of too much restless energy. “Three spells: Block, Hold, Sleep. Or maybe not Sleep. We could do Pain, or Freeze, or something more permanent.”
Yes, I was talking a mile a minute. I was nervous. It had been a long, long time since we’d broken magic. I had an overwhelming need to control this event.
“Shame,” Terric said. I think he’d been talking to Zay and Allie while I paced. I think they’d decided on things without me. Also, Zay had a new towel he was pressing against the puncture wound.
So, I’d lost some time.
“Let’s take this outside. Allie needs to be at some distance from us when we break magic to protect the baby. And since the police are almost here, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“The police can wait. I’m not going to cast a crappy spell because they’re in the way.”
“It will be fine,” he said.
“Of course it’s fine. Of course it will be fine. Fine is the way it’s always going to be.”
Okay, now I was rambling.
Terric walked over to the door. Opened it. Pointed outside. Like I was some kind of dog who needed to pee. “Outside.”
Zay was already on his feet. He didn’t move like he was in much pain, but then, he had been through worse than a knife in the gut. He wrapped his arm around Allie protectively and she leaned into him as they walked out of the kitchen.
It was odd to see Allie so shaken by this. She was one of the bravest women I knew. And I would lay good money that she hadn’t flinched in the face of danger. Hadn’t been afraid to fight Eli. But now that the danger was past, she had time to think of how the situation could have turned out, had time to realize her life could have been very different in the matter of seconds. She could have been babyless, Zayless. They were realities she did not want to come true.