I did not care, did not pause, did not stop. Davy was in this building, and I was bringing him back for Sunny. Terric was in this building, and I was bringing him back for me.
No matter how many people I’d have to kill to make that happen.
The place was set up surprisingly like an actual warehouse. Crates of product stacked down long aisles, forklifts and dollies resting along walls. I didn’t see any workers. Could be they didn’t have a graveyard shift. Could be they’d seen us coming and run.
I turned left, strode down the aisle. Davy’s heart was easy to track, easy to find. More gunshots cracked through the air around us. Didn’t matter. The gunmen’s hearts were easy to find. Hearts were easy to squeeze, to stop.
I flicked my wrist like throwing a knife. Death magic followed my will, and did what it was meant to do: kill.
Dash shouted behind me. Sunny yelled something back.
More hearts, beating faster, coming our way, stopped by bullets. That was fine with me. Easy to drink their lives, easy to drain them down.
Davy’s heart pumped away, leading me on. Death magic stretched out in me, numbing and pushing aside my emotions, my worry, my control of my mind and body.
I pushed back, a part of my mind screaming, a part of my mind knowing I was losing ground to Death, losing control.
Death didn’t listen. Death didn’t care.
Another left, this time to a hallway that led to a metal door. Locked. I threw magic at it and it buckled, rusted, fell, sending up a cloud of dust.
Death was getting stronger. I was working hard just to stay conscious.
I pushed Death back, shoved the magic away, put it behind me just enough to see where we were.
A storeroom or workroom. Heavily soundproofed, wired up the yang. Magic glyphs painted on the walls up to the ceiling, and across the ceiling, glowing with faint blue light.
The walls were lined with bars. Cages. Jail cells. In each cell were people. The kidnapped, spell-carved people. Mindless as zombies.
In the center of the room stood a larger cage. Magic poured down the bars of the cage, too bright, and smelling of kerosene. I couldn’t see what was in that cage, couldn’t hear anything from it. If I were operating off my senses alone, I’d say there wasn’t anything in there.
But my gut told me otherwise. Said it was an Illusion surrounding that cage. My soul told me who was trapped in there, dying in there.
“Terric?” I whispered, everything in my head going suddenly shock-blank.
“Shame!”
I turned. Dash ran my way. Behind him, Sunny supported a very bloody Cody in her arms.
“Dash! Two o’clock,” Sunny yelled. She turned and half dragged Cody behind something that looked like a generator.
Bullets sprayed around us.
Jesus. Someone was shooting at us.
Dash tackled me. Yes, it hurt. I bitched him out about it as we crawled across stained concrete to a supply shelf.
He was bleeding. So was I. But bullets couldn’t kill me. I was already dead.
“Fucking suicide,” Dash yelled as he took aim across the warehouse to where the gunmen were gathered. “Walking right into the line of fire, in a warehouse full of guns. Fucking stupid fucking ass.”
It was possible he was talking about me. Reality was knocking on my brain box and I was doing everything I could to open the door and let it in.
We were surrounded. Injured. Worse, the cage in the middle of the room had taken bullets too. If Terric was in there, if Davy was in there, they could have been hit.
No, they most certainly would have been hit.
Possibly dead. Probably dead.
“Can’t just walk into a fucking gunfight in the middle of the enemy’s fucking living room,” Dash said.
I’d give him a hard time about his language going to crap when he was being shot at, but, well, we were being shot at.
“Stay here,” I said.
“Fuck that. Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he said.
“To save them,” I said. It was hard to talk, to make my thoughts fit inside words. Death snarled and howled and chuckled behind every pulse beat, behind every breath. It scratched claws against the core of me, against my mind, my sanity.
“Trust me,” I think I said.
“Like hell. You’re going to get yourself killed,” Dash said. “They have guns.”
“I’ll take care of that. Stay back.”
He reloaded, swearing the entire time, but didn’t try to stop me. He put down some covering fire.
I strode out from behind the storage shelf. Death magic reached for hearts. Reached for pulse points. Greedy, hungry, it shut them down one by one, each life feeding the monster in me, making the monster stronger.
Almost stronger than me. Almost out of my control.
The magic-drenched cage was only a few yards away. I made for it as quickly as I could.
“You got this?” Sunny was suddenly at my side. What the hell was she doing here?
Death wanted that. Wanted her. Pulsing bright. Her life burning like a bonfire in the darkness.
No.
“Go back, Sunny,” I said. “Get away from me. Now.”
“Bite me,” she said. “Where’s Davy?”
“I’ll get him. I’ll bring him to you.” Alive, I thought while Death magic churned and growled, hungry for killing. “Back off before I lose control.”
“If you kill him, I will kill you, Flynn. Are you listening to me?” She grabbed my arm.
Death magic paused, a predator zeroing in on the scent of prey—on the scent of her.
No. I closed my eyes, jerked my arm away. Built walls in my mind as fast and hard and solid as I could. Walls I could trap the Death magic behind.
“Go!”
But it was too late. Death magic slipped my hold.
The pulse of Sunny filled me. I tried to pull back, couldn’t. Tried to yell, but Death stole my breath.
Son of a bitch.
Death put my hand over hers, gazed in her eyes. At the worry there. The anger, the need.
I tugged and pulled, fought to move my hand away, move my body at all.
No!
And then Death drank her down.
Something inside me broke, shattered like brittle glass beneath a bootheel as I screamed and screamed and watched her die. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t save her.
Death magic did not care.
Sunny slumped to the warehouse floor, empty, dead.
Death used my mouth, my air, to laugh.
Fucking hell.
Death was drunk from the high of killing someone I cared for. My pain, fear, and anger had made her death all the sweeter.
If I had control of my body, I’d be puking.
Instead I focused my thoughts. Quiet, calm. Calm enough to recite a spell. Calm enough to draw the spell in my memory, deep within my mind.
Bind.
Death’s heavy gaze turned inward. To me, my life, my soul, and the spell I was drawing.
I concentrated on the Bind spell, making it as whole and real as any other spell I’d ever carved. Then I pushed it outward from my center, to surround my body and the Death magic that held the wheel.
I had no idea if this would work. It probably shouldn’t. But if Death was me, then I was it. The magic I called up from deep beneath the earth to fill a spell in me should answer me.
Maybe.
I mentally traced the last line in the Bind spell, angling it to catch up and bind the Death magic possessing me. I filled the spell with the magic that pooled deep in the earth beneath the warehouse.
A shotgun crack whipped through my brain. Pain flashed black, then hot white.
Then I was in control of my body again. Death magic squirmed and chewed at the Bind spell inside my head.
This was not good. Not good at all.
But better than a moment ago.
I wiped the blood off my face and took a second to get my bearings.