Magic is fast. Bullets are faster. I raised the gun, aimed. Fired.
Two of the drones went down. Their magic released, rushing at us in spiraling red flames.
I couldn’t pull up a Block spell fast enough. Didn’t even have a split second to react.
Didn’t have to.
Davy was somehow in front of me, in front of us all, faster than a living being could move. Those spells Eli had carved in him gave him abilities most people didn’t have, one of which was not being solid when he didn’t want to be. He appeared in front of us, and was a very solid and, in my opinion, highly suicidal being.
Sunny, who was nothing but a ghost, ran to him. She tried to pull him out of the line of fire. But even a ghost isn’t faster than magic.
Davy spread his arms wide. Magic hit him like a wall of fire. Fast enough, hard enough, he should be on his heels. But instead he absorbed it, all those spells carved into him sucking it in. He lifted his hands and threw the magic back at them with a ragged yell.
Had I mentioned he was not quite a regular guy anymore?
The drones disappeared in the blast furnace of that magic. They fell. Not dead. Not yet.
But maybe now that they were all out of magic, I could put them out of that misery.
I released just the edge of Death magic again. Let it drink down their lives, all six of them.
It was like gulping acid. The changes Eli had made in them, twisting them from human into living bombs, made them toxic. Poison. There was nothing human left to them.
He’d carved out their souls and used that to fuel the magic in them.
Holy shit. I’d seen dark magic before. I’d used it. But I had no idea anyone could twist spells to do the horrors he’d done to these people.
My vision narrowed in, just a speck of light out there at the end of the tunnel ahead of me as I endured this new pain. Their ghosts clawed at me, fingers burning into my bones. They were mindless, screaming spirits, nothing like Eleanor or Sunny.
But finally they slowed, calmed. For half a second they looked human again.
And then they whisked away like smoke in a strong wind.
They were dead. Maybe at peace.
Now there was nothing but a pile of dead bodies between us and the only way out.
I heard the distant thump of helicopters. Krogher had the resources to bring in the national guard, the police force, and any other heavily armed reinforcements he wanted. Those helicopters were probably coming for us, bringing more men, more guns, more magic.
The grumble of truck engines approaching filled the air too. Filled with even more lives scrambling to take us out.
Delightful.
We were officially screwed.
Time to run.
So we ran. Davy was able to move under his own power now, and helped Cody with Sunny’s dead body.
Sunny’s spirit pulled against the rope around her neck. I knew she wanted back in her body.
I knew I should let her go. If I could figure out how to do that, maybe she’d live.
We reached the SUV and I leaned Terric into the backseat, sliding in beside him and breathing hard with his pain. Okay, his pain and my pain. Sucking down the lives and magic from those poisonous drones had been a very bad idea.
Terric was pale, bloody, and not breathing nearly enough.
“Go now, go now!” Cody said from somewhere near the front of the car.
The car lurched across the lot, speeding down the road.
Bullets cracked through the night air. I heard Dash tell Cody to call for help, heard Davy begging Sunny to live, heard Sunny’s ghost yelling at me to fix her.
But something in me was terribly broken. If drinking Eleanor down had shattered the wall between me and the monster I feared, then killing Sunny had given that monster permission to use me as its little puppet man.
I didn’t know how to break the tie between Sunny and me. I didn’t know how long I could keep Death from killing again.
So I focused on Terric, on his pain. That pain was all that was holding us together. It was all that was keeping him alive.
And I needed him to be alive. I needed it more than breathing. But no matter how much of his pain I took, his life was slipping, thinning. His life was winding down, spooling out. He’d be dead soon too.
No.
“Pull over,” I said.
Nothing. So I said it again, “Pull over. Now.”
Shame, you bastard. Listen to me. Sunny punched me in the face.
The world rubber-band-snapped back down around me, sharp edges, sounds, motion.
Dash was driving, Cody in the front seat. He was on the phone. I had no idea who he was talking to.
Sunny’s body was in the back of the car. Davy held her in his arms as he talked to her in a soothing, monotonous tone. Sunny’s spirit was floating in front of my face.
Put me back, she demanded. Cut this damn rope and put me back.
“I . . . can’t.”
Then I’m going to cut it. She pulled a knife. Typical. Blood magic user dies and takes her knives with her. But it was just a ghost knife. She hacked at the tie between us, but it didn’t change a thing.
She pulled her head back, glared at me. Had that stabbing look in her eyes.
“Sunny, don’t—”
Too late. She buried the blade in my chest.
Yes, it hurt. But that blade was her energy, her anger, her pain. And therefore it was consumable. I absorbed the blade without even thinking about it. It faded. Was gone.
“Settle down,” I whispered. “Just. Stop yelling. Let me think.”
“Shame?” Dash asked, glancing at me in the rearview.
Terric moaned. I had my arms around him, his head resting on my shoulder.
No wonder he was dying. He was in my arms. I was killing him.
“No, no,” I said. “It’s going to be okay, Ter. Just hang in there. You’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.” I let go of him and propped his unconscious body against the door. I didn’t know what else I could do for him. He needed a doctor. He needed an army of doctors. He needed magic. He needed life.
He didn’t need me.
None of them did.
“Pull over,” I said again. “Damn it, Dash, pull over.”
“Cody, tell me you found us a safe hole,” Dash said.
“There’s a house just outside Umatilla,” he said. “We can stop there.”
“We got it, Shame,” Dash said. “Just keep it together a little longer.”
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, turning my attention inward. I wrestled Death magic down, retraced the Bind spell.
But no matter how far I distanced my mind and magic from the real world, I could feel the heartbeat of every person in the car.
Worse, I could hear Sunny’s ghost talking to Davy. Telling him she was sorry, and that she loved him. Telling him I’d killed her. And if it was the last thing she was going to do, she was going to kill me right back.
I kind of hoped she was going to follow through with that promise.
I measured the passage of time in the rise and fall of Terric’s pain. Maybe it took an hour before we stopped. I didn’t know. Didn’t care. Cody and Dash handled the getaway.
“This is it,” Dash was saying. “What do you need, Shame?”
I let the world return.
Dark, painful. Sunny and Eleanor hovering right in front of my eyes, one sorrow, the other pain.
Both my fault. Blood on my soul. If I still had one.
“Shame?” Dash tried again.
“Help me with him.” I opened the door, got out of the car. My legs were heavy, numb in places and on fire in others. I was too hot, too cold, Terric’s pain making me shake. I staggered away from the car and puked.
Serves you right, Sunny said. Put me back. Put me back in my body, Shame, or I swear I will kill you.