“We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Yes,” I said, “you are. Krogher’s got the bombs up and running. Two Soul Complements just bit it. You’re on his list, and it’s a damn short list.”
“We can’t go anywhere. Allie is in labor.”
“What?”
“She’s having the baby, Shame.”
“No. That’s a month away, isn’t it?”
“It’s right now. We were just headed to the hospital.”
“You can’t.”
A hospital would be an easy target, an easy kill. It wouldn’t take anything to get a person close enough to them to kill them. It wouldn’t take anything to get a drone in to kill them.
There was a pause, then, “We’ll call Dr. Fischer. We’ll go somewhere safe. Where are you now?”
“I’m with Cody, Sunny, and Dash. We have a line on this—the warehouse—and are going to follow up. We’ll be in touch. Just . . . look after her.”
“Nothing’s going to hurt Allie or the baby,” Zay said in that soft voice that sort of made me want to take several steps backward.
“Good,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we have any info.”
“Shame,” he said. “Is Terric with you?”
My heart tripped, stopped beating for a beat or two.
“No,” I said as evenly as I could. “He might be dead.”
His silence said more than words.
“And you?” he asked.
“Holding it together. Mostly.”
He knew it was a lie. He also knew I needed him to pretend it was the truth.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Nothing important. We’ll call. Just keep them safe, okay?”
“We’re all going to be fine, Shame,” he said. “You’re going to do what you have to do, and then you are going to come back and hold my kid in your arms while I tell you you’re doing it wrong. You are going to survive this. Do we have an understanding?”
“Sure,” I said, “we have an understanding.”
I hung up and glanced at the phone in my hand. The glass was cracked, the case broken into tiny brittle bits. Then even the light on the screen went out.
I’d killed it. In under a minute flat. The Death magic inside me had drained down the electricity. And I hadn’t noticed Death slipping past me.
Not good.
“How far to the warehouse?” I asked.
“About five hours,” Sunny said.
Great. Five hours of keeping the lid on Death. I closed my eyes, turned to the magic inside me, and concentrated on exactly two things: breathing and not giving Death magic an inch.
Chapter 17
SHAME
Sunny made the drive in three hours.
Dash stayed on the phone almost that entire time, checking in with Clyde and half a dozen other people along the way. Sunny placed a few calls too, to make sure the Hounds were there to watch over Zay and Allie.
I didn’t bother to tell her that if Eli was involved in the drones killing Soul Complements, the Hounds would never see him coming.
He had that tech device that opened up holes in space he could walk through.
Just as he’d walked through one into my damn kitchen.
And killed Terric.
Death magic kicked at that memory and I pushed the outer world away again. Just me and Death in the dark of my mind, and I was the only one of us with the key to the door.
It wouldn’t hurt for the Hounds to stay with Zay and Allie. After all, anyone with a gun pointed in the right direction can squeeze the trigger and take out any magic user, including Eli.
“. . . awake?” Dash said.
I opened my eyes.
Dash was leaning in the door of the car. He shifted back just a bit but didn’t take a step away.
Apparently we weren’t driving anymore.
“Are we there yet?” I asked.
He nodded. “Right over the hill.”
I sat up, the upholstery beneath me crackling and crumbling to fall down around my feet. So much for Sunny’s deposit on the car.
It was dusk now, the cloud cover already swallowing what little light remained of the day. We’d stopped on a gravel and dirt road that rambled off to the nowhere of fields and scrub brush horizons.
“Here.” Dash handed me a protein bar and a bottle of water. “Sunny’s scouting. She’ll be back in about three minutes. Cody’s taking a leak.”
I took the bar, glanced at Eleanor, who was about six feet away from me, arms crossed over her chest.
“Eat,” Dash said. “I’m getting tired of telling you how horrible you look.”
I opened the bar, took a bite. “Tastes like crap.”
“Peanut butter,” he said. “It tastes like peanut butter.”
“My point stands. You hear anything from anyone?” I broke the seal on the water, drank. It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough to sate my hunger.
“Nothing useful. We’ve contacted all the Soul Complements. They know the danger and are as prepared as they can be.”
“What about Allie?”
“Her contractions slowed. No baby yet.”
“Is that normal?”
He gave me a small smile. “I was assured it’s okay.”
“Does that mean she won’t have the baby for another few hours, or tomorrow, or what?”
“I don’t know. This is life we’re talking about. It’s unpredictable. How are you holding up?”
“Swell, thanks.”
“Shame.”
I chewed on another hunk of crap, swallowed, and tossed the rest of the bar in the back of the car. I ducked up out of the door, stood by Davy, who leaned against the car and stared out across a field that ended at a hill and darkening sky. “I’ve got my thumb on Death’s windpipe, but it isn’t going to last forever. How long did you say Sunny would be gone?”
He glanced at his watch. “Should be back in a minute.”
“And she went alone.”
“She’s the Hound, Shame.”
“She’s a Blood magic user out for revenge for her lover being captured and tortured,” I said.
He nodded. “That too. Still a Hound.”
“See, what you may not remember, Spade, is that Sunny got into the Hounding business fairly recently. Before that, she was all about blood, blades, and blowing things up.”
“She won’t go in there without us, Shame. Not without you.”
“Really? Reckless is in her job description. We go after her. Now.”
“We wait.”
The ground beneath my feet cracked, new spring grass dead brown, crumbling and flicking away in the wind. Dash noticed, because Dash is not a stupid man. He moved away from the car, moved away from me, his hands out to the side as if ready to draw a weapon on me.
I didn’t move, because I’m not a stupid man either. Dash is fast on the draw, and while I hadn’t thought to look, he probably had a gun on him. Or two. Or twelve.
“What about that windpipe?” he asked. “Are you really going to push this right now, Flynn?”
“Of course,” I said, wrestling to pull the Death magic back into my body and away from all the lovely living things. “Have I ever been the guy who followed orders?”
“You’ve always been dangerous,” he said. “And my friend. But right now I think you’re just dangerous.”
“Then listen to the dangerous man,” I said. “I’m going out there to get Sunny before she gets shot. Don’t care if you follow, and kind of hope you won’t.”
“Shame, don’t.”
“Or you’ll shoot me?” I spread my hands and gave him a smile. “Knock yourself out, mate. Bullets don’t punch my ticket.”
He took a breath, looked out over the hill, maybe hoping to see Sunny there. Nothing but empty sky.
I started walking. Got about thirty feet from the car.
“You walking out on me?” Sunny asked.
I turned. She was striding up the road toward me.