We stepped into the actual ballroom of the house. Yes, the house had a ballroom.
“You know we still have a chance at this, right?” he asked.
“At what?”
“Life. Maybe a decent one at that. You and me.” At my look, he added, “Not you and me like that. But both of us. Alive. No silver bullets necessary.”
I stopped.
He stopped too. “What?”
“You really think that somehow, if we survive taking out Eli and Krogher and those walking drone bombs, you and I are going to just go along like nothing happened? Live our lives the way we were before we both died?”
“Live our lives however we want to,” he said. “Why not?”
“Oh, I dunno, mate. Maybe because we died? I don’t know about you, but I am not the same since the revolving grave door. Not at all. Something in me is broken. I am pretty sure I’m not a thing that should be allowed to live.”
Shame, Mum said gently.
“That’s the truth,” I said. “That’s how I’m doing. So if you want to believe that there’s some kind of happiness ahead of you, good on ya. But it won’t include me. The only thing ahead of me is a grave.”
He looked over my shoulder, maybe bored. Maybe angry. “Are you done?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“I know what you are, you idiot,” he said. “I’m your other half. If I say we live we live.”
“And if I say we die?”
“Well, then you and I will just have to see who wants it more.” He gave me a hard smile and I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Yeah,” I said, “I suppose we will. But money’s on black here. Death ends us all.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he said. “Every time you’ve died, you’ve come back. So far, Life trumps. My money’s on red.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Not even a little.”
“So, where’s this problem spell Davy cast?”
“You can’t see it?”
I looked away from him and at the room. It was a big space. Stage at one end that could seat an orchestra, staircases from above spiraling down to the center, lots of marble with plenty of room to waltz.
The room was humming with blue magic—Davy’s spell. The lines of the spell webbed from wall to wall to ceiling to floor, but each line was so thin and glass blue, I couldn’t see all of it at once.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
Terric had his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He shrugged. “Like Dash said, we’re not quite sure yet.”
I craned my neck to look at the ceiling. “Does it go through?”
“Yes. Up about thirty feet from the roof, and out thirty feet on each side of the house. It’s like we’re wrapped in a ball of twine. Magic twine.”
“So, where’s Davy?”
Terric pointed to the center of the room and the center of the spell. I don’t know how I’d missed him. Well, since he was completely covered in the glasslike magic, he just looked like a man-sized knot in the center of the thing.
Davy? Sunny said. Should I . . . Shame, should I touch him?
She was asking me? “Have you tried to reach him?” I asked Terric.
“Yes. When any of us touch the magic, the whole thing heats up.”
“Hot?”
“Energized. Powered. Cody thinks this is the trap Eli wanted to lay for all of us. And if we touch it to try to defuse the bomb, cut the wrong wire, it’s going to go off.”
“Go off and do what?”
He gave me the shrug again. “Blow us all up? Break magic? Infect us all with tainted magic? Wipe Portland off the map? Lots of theories, little data.”
“Did you eat a bowl of Valium this morning, Conley? You are way too relaxed about all this.”
“I’ve recently been reminded to enjoy the little things.”
I gave him a quick smile. “Go ahead, Sunny,” I said, “see if you can reach him.”
Terric looked around, didn’t see her, but nodded. “Can she talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“I bet that’s been interesting.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Let me know if she says anything, okay?”
“I’ll give you the CliffsNotes.”
Sunny walked through the web of magic. Her passing didn’t disturb the spell at all, didn’t even make one single thread waver, flare, or move. As soon as she realized she didn’t have to worry about the spell kicking to life if she touched it, she walked the straightest line to Davy.
The rope between her and me stretched out with her, but it was a big room. There was only so far she would be able to go before she reached the end of her rope. Literally.
I walked up as close to the spell as I could, stepping over and ducking the thin blue lines.
Davy? She stopped next to where he knelt, close enough she could touch him.
“She’s there,” I told Terric. “Next to him.”
She reached out and gently touched the tangle of blue that cocooned him.
The entire spell pulsed, one flood of blue that lit every line simultaneously, then faded away.
But for that moment, I saw the spell. Saw all of it at once. Saw what it must be.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “It’s a Gate.”
“The entire thing?”
“Yes, didn’t you see it light up when Sunny touched it?”
“No. That’s all you.”
I guess I had seen it change because of my connection with Sunny. “Who casts a Gate spell this big? And where the hell does it open to?”
“I don’t care,” a new voice said behind us.
I turned.
Zayvion Jones was walking into the room. Had on boots, jeans, and a sweatshirt, only it looked as if he’d been sleeping in them for a couple of days. Plus, he needed a shave. “Shame, Terric.”
I’d seen that man face down the magical apocalypse at the end of the world. He hadn’t looked half as tired as he did now.
“You look like hell, mate,” I said.
He paused, then took a full breath. “Don’t touch the Gate, don’t go through the Gate, don’t do anything with this thing. We’re going to the hospital. Now.”
“The baby?” I asked.
“C-section. The sooner we get there, the higher the chance the baby survives.”
He said it calmly, but I could see how those words hurt him. No wonder he looked like crap. Forget about magic and Gates and bombs. He was up to his neck in his own personal hell.
“And,” he said, his voice wavering. He cleared his throat. “The sooner we get to the hospital, the higher the chance Allie will survive.”
Every word came out flat, but oddly weighted by pain. And I knew why. He was not only dealing with Allie dying; he was connected to her. He was dying with her.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “I’m sorry, Zay. Go. We got this.”
“No. I don’t want you to have this. We don’t know what it is and I am not going to take the risk of the two of you fucking around with it. I’ll handle it.”
“No,” I said. “That’s a bad idea.”
He wasn’t listening. “You’re not going to touch it or trigger it. Do you get me, Shamus?”
“Sure,” I said. “I hear you. I’m not going to do anything to fuck this up, Zay. Go. Take care of Al and give us five minutes to see if we can find a way to get you and her out of here.”
His gaze weighed me, then turned to Terric. “What the hell happened to you two?”
“Just a death thing,” I said. “It’s all good.”
He ignored me. “Terric?”
“Eli’s a vindictive bastard,” Terric said. “We’re handling him.”
Zay looked back at me, one more time at Terric, then nodded. “Five minutes, and then I’m leaving no matter what this thing is set to do. He turned and started out of the room. “It’s not a Gate spell.”