God, not again. The healing Life magic forced me through was pure hell. It was always pure hell.
If I could breathe, I’d scream. If I could think, I’d turn Life magic on Eli to rip him apart. If I could move, I’d save Shame. But all I could do was endure.
Something deep and important inside me broke with a bone-shattering crack.
Please, no.
But I knew. Knew what that break had to be—my soul connection with Shame.
Shame was dead. Gone.
And my world went dark.
• • •
I woke with a soft grunt, lying on my back. Breathing. Hurting. Tied up.
My mouth tasted like piss and oil and blood—the remainder of whatever poison and magic Eli had put on the knife blade.
My chest felt like a block of ice were balanced on top of it: a cold I could not shake that held me pinned.
Shame was gone. . . . I pushed that thought away, buried it. I needed to remain calm. Needed to find a way out of this, whatever this was.
So I could kill Eli Collins.
I could not feel anyone near me, could not sense their beating hearts, their dying bodies.
I was alone.
“This is the first day, Terric Conley.”
I jerked at the voice, a man’s, cultured, but an American accent, echoing through the room. His words had the careful elocution of someone who had worked overseas for a decade or two.
I opened my eyes and saw nothing but blackness and blur. I wasn’t blind or blindfolded.
“The first day will be the easiest,” the voice said.
I blinked until my vision cleared. I was in a cage, thick bars reaching from floor to the darkness lost in the rafters. I was chained down to a cot by hands, ankles, waist. Shadows robbed the details, but I could make out an industrial fan high above me, and from somewhere over my left shoulder, a dim light shone. Shadows curved around pipes—old, rusting, and I thought I heard the steady drip of water leaking.
It smelled of dirt and coal and damp rust. A factory.
“The first day you will know what we want,” the voice continued. The sound of footsteps echoed off the ceiling, the walls. It was a large room. Warehouse. The floor was concrete, uneven with the scratch of gravel and metal shavings.
Machine shop.
“The first day you can give us what we want without pain. Without cost.” The man stopped just out of my line of vision.
I knew that voice. Where had I heard it before?
“The first day is free.” He took two more steps, came into my line of sight.
Older man, gray hair brushed up away from his face, forehead creased from temple to temple, more lines winging out from around and below his heavy-lidded dark eyes. His nose was hooked and wide at the tip, his cheekbones hacked a shelf above sallow cheeks, and his lips were lost in a long jaw.
Krogher.
He was the man Eli said called the shots in the organization, the man who told Eli what to do. High-ranking government official of some kind who was far too interested in magic, Soul Complements, and the things he could do with both. Not CIA, not FBI, not several of the covert agencies we’d dug our way through while looking for Davy.
Powerful enough to hide from our very skilled investigation.
Krogher had been kidnapping people who had been poisoned by magic several years ago. He’d told Eli to carve spells into them. Spells that then made those people even stronger than Soul Complements. Spells that made those people walking, brainless bombs. Krogher had used them to try to kill Shame and me. It had almost worked.
We’d been looking for Krogher because we knew he had Davy. Sure, Eli was his dog, but Krogher was the one throwing the bones.
And now Krogher was right there on the other side of those bars.
“The first day, Terric Conley,” he said. “Could be your last. If you cooperate with us.”
I heard the scuff of shoes. There had to be at least two other people in the room. I should have felt their heartbeats, but there was nothing. I didn’t even sense Krogher’s pulse.
They’d found a way to block the heightened senses Life magic gave me.
Or they’d found a way to block magic from my reach.
“What do you want?” It came out harsh and dry, as if I’d been screaming for hours. I swallowed and wished I hadn’t.
“You,” Krogher said. “We want you, Mr. Conley. We want your cooperation.”
“For what?”
“To unlock the mysteries of the universe. Well, the mysteries of magic. A mystery you carry in your blood and bones. Life.”
I twisted my wrists and shifted my legs. It wasn’t just metal and chain that had me tied down. There was magic worked into the metal and chain.
“Life magic isn’t a thing,” I said. “It is a way of casting magic. A discipline of using magic, of casting spells. That is all.”
“Yes. We know that’s all it used to be. But something happened to you over the years, over the battles you’ve survived. Life magic became something in you. Just as Death magic became something in Mr. Flynn.”
“Where is he? Where is Shame?”
“You don’t know?” He took a few steps closer to me, stopped just on the other side of the bars. “Strange. We thought you, of all people, would know exactly where he is.”
He paused.
I pulled against the bindings, dragging myself up, but could only lift my shoulders a few inches off the cot.
“Where is he?” I yelled.
“We killed him,” he said. “Eli Collins killed Mr. Flynn. He was too much of a risk. Too volatile for our needs.”
Fury roared white hot over my body and raged in my head. Life magic flared, answering my anger, cold, deadly. It burned in me, coiled to strike.
But it could not strike. It was trapped in me, burning through me with no way out.
I couldn’t cast a spell, couldn’t make magic do my bidding. Couldn’t kill Krogher.
“Bullets always trump magic, Mr. Conley,” Krogher said. “How lucky we are that it is so. Mr. Flynn was a liability, a danger we could not control. You, however.” He stopped close enough I could see the SIG Sauer in his hand. “You are the answer to our prayers. Although I would advise you to calm yourself. Too much Life magic will only . . . spoil our conversation.”
I looked up into his eyes. Held that dark gaze. “I will kill you.”
His expression didn’t change. I’m sure he’d heard those words before. He was in a line of business that guaranteed threats. But this was the first time he’d heard them from the man who was going to follow through on that promise.
“So,” he went on as if Life magic weren’t cracking my bones. “As I was saying. This is the first day. And this is what we want: cooperation. From you. An all-access pass to the Life magic you carry.”
“Why?”
“Now, now, Mr. Conley. We aren’t here to answer your questions. We are here to get the job done.”
“What job?”
“Let’s just say we have investors who are very interested in magic. In how it has been used. In how it can be used in the future. We are interested in the secrets the Authority has been hiding for centuries. Especially secrets about how magic can break rules. Things like Soul Complements, for instance. Things like you, Mr. Conley. Things like Davy Silvers.”
“Davy?” I said.
“Oh yes. We have him. And he is still alive. If you would like him to remain that way, you will cooperate.”
“With what?”
“With me,” a new voice said.
I turned my head. Out of the shadows walked Eli Collins.
“Hello, Terric,” he said. “I hope you’re enjoying your stay. We got you the best suite and the highest-quality, strongest-binding spells this side of purgatory. Nothing’s too good for you, my friend.”