“About damn time, Flynn.” She slung a glare my way and then went ghost white. “What the hell happened to you?”
I paused, held out my hands to each side. “I got dressed. Like it?”
She looked over at Dash as though maybe he had something to say about my wardrobe.
“You’d better get used to it,” he said to me. “Because you just disintegrated all the rest of your clothes.”
The dresser. He was right.
Well, shit.
“How bad was it?” Cody asked, coming in from the kitchen with a plastic cup of pudding.
“What?”
“Death magic. You drained . . . something, drank some living thing down and it fueled you, right? But there must be a price.”
At my look, he said, “I’m the guy who held all of magic until it healed, remember? You’re an anomaly, Shame. I can see it in you. Before today, I wouldn’t think someone could come back from the dead with that much Death magic gluing them together. What’s it like?”
“Hungry,” I said. “Cold. Painful.”
He nodded and scooped pudding into his mouth. “And the price?”
“Having to answer dumb questions.”
He ate another bite of pudding and waved the spoon at me. “By changing the subject?”
Sunny and Davy were silent, but I knew that was the question foremost on their minds too.
I didn’t blame them. They were about to road-trip with Death, after all. You’d have to be an idiot not to want to know if I had magic under control.
“It’s different,” I said. “But I think I have a handle on it. And as long as I don’t use it, I think I’ll be okay. I think you’ll all be okay. If that changes, I’ll tell you.”
I walked to the door and pulled my coat off the hook. “How about we get on with the rescuing of Davy and the saving of the world?”
“So you’re good, Shame?” Sunny asked.
I just gave her a bored look. “I’ve never been good, babe.”
She glanced at Dash again as if he were my keeper or something. “All right,” she said, uncrossing her arms and picking up her duffel. “Let’s go. And you can cut the ‘babe’ shit.”
Dash strolled up to me. “So we’re going to pretend you have control?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”
“And we’re ignoring all that black blood that poured out of you, and gray light and magic that destroyed your dresser?”
“It wasn’t blood,” I said. “It was Death.”
“So is that what we are paying attention to?”
“You’re still standing. That’s what we’re going to pay attention to.”
“My survival? Was that a problem?”
“No. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know, Dash. Right now I have control over the magic inside me. I’ll tell you if that changes. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “So listen to me now. I don’t want you hurt either. If you need help with that magic, if you need us to do something for you, or to you, tell us.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do that.” Not that anyone could do anything. Still, he seemed comforted by my words.
His phone rang and I motioned for him to step through the door. I followed as he answered the call. Didn’t bother to lock the door behind me.
“Dashiell Spade,” he said.
Sunny and Cody stood by a black SUV that must be something Sunny rented. Sunny was glaring at me. Cody was finishing off his pudding and staring up at the trees that surrounded the driveway. I glanced up at the trees too.
Dead. Every one of them gray and white, needles rusted, leaves shriveled at the tips of branches. All the life sucked out of them. Not just the trees. All the plants, ferns, grasses, and brush were shriveled, brown, barren.
As if a month of winter had set down right here in my driveway and gone on a killing spree.
“Love what you’ve done with the landscape,” Cody said. “You could open a business, you know.”
“Who?” Dash said into the phone.
“The hell you talking about, Miller?” I asked Cody.
“Yard care. You’re poison and weed whacker all in one. You can call it Death to All Shrubbery.”
Okay, yes. Cody and I had run together a lot when we were younger. Before his mind had been broken, he and I use to swindle, gamble, and generally pal around. I liked him. But he was getting on my nerves.
I pointed at my chest. “Not in a joking mood, mate. Not even a little bit.”
He ran the spoon across the bottom of the pudding cup, catching up the last dregs. “I think he’s still alive, you know. Not that you asked me.”
“What?” I asked.
“Terric.” He looked up, those blue eyes of his giving me no clue how sane he was at the moment.
“How would you know?” I asked.
“Eleanor told me.”
That stopped me cold. “You can see her? Hear her? Now?”
He frowned. “Not now, no.”
“When?”
“She showed up in my bedroom telling me you were here and needed our help, which is when we knew something serious was wrong and came out to your place. I saw her when you woke up.”
He’d seen what I did to her. That I’d used her to live, that I’d tied her to me.
“Cody, I didn’t want to hurt her,” I said.
“They’re dead,” Dash said, thumbing off his phone.
“What?” I asked.
“Simone Latchly and Brian Welling.”
I knew those names. Soul Complements. They’d gone into hiding when we found out the government had suddenly gotten pissy about Soul Complements’ ability to break magic.
“How?” Sunny asked.
Dash shook his head. “There was a bomb. They think there was a bomb. The villa they were staying in was demolished.”
“Any other deaths?” Sunny asked.
“No. Just Simone and Brian. It was magic that hit them. An Impact spell was seared into the rubble.”
We all stood there for a second. The only thing that could power a spell strong enough to take out two Soul Complements was another Soul Complement.
Or those spelled-up drones Eli and his boss, Krogher, had been making.
Son of a bitch.
This was it. This was the move we’d been waiting for them to make for months now.
And we weren’t in any shape to shut them down.
“Let’s go,” I said. “If we find Davy, we find Eli. And before I make Eli eat his own beating heart, we make him tell us where the hell Krogher is, and where his drones are going to hit next.”
Everyone was suddenly moving. I took the backseat because I knew I’d be useless as shotgun. Death twisted inside me, trying to get out, trying to slip my control, but I knuckled down on it.
If it slipped my control in a car full of my friends, I’d be well fed, and they’d be dead.
Sunny started the car.
Dash was next to me, already on his phone.
“We hit the warehouse first,” Sunny said.
“Yes,” I said. “Police, Hounds, and other officials will be crawling over the bomb scene, but I don’t think Krogher or Davy or Eli is anywhere near it. The warehouse is the most solid lead we’ve had in months, right?”
“Yes,” Sunny said.
“Good,” I said. “Give me your phone, Miller.”
Cody tossed it back to me. I thumbed through his contact list, finally found the number I wanted, dialed.
“Cody?” Zay answered.
“No, it’s Shame,” I said. “Things are about to get hot. You need to get Allie out of there. Somewhere safe. Somewhere off-grid where no one would expect you to be.”
“Where the hell have you been, Shame? We haven’t heard from you.”
“I’ll tell you later. You have to leave Portland. Go far away.”