“You can see it?” I asked.
“It looks like the glyphs on the Beckstrom disks.”
“Huh,” I said to Terric. “Maybe he’s right.”
“I am,” Zayvion said, even though he was already in the hall.
Terric pulled a disk out of his pocket.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I asked.
“Eli dropped it when Stone tackled him and fell through that hole in space Eli opened up.”
“Filled with tainted magic?”
“Nope. Feels pure. I’m guessing it’s a relic from the old days. Charged back when magic was strong. Clean.”
“It’s charged?”
“Yes. And changed. He carved a spell over the original spell.”
“Gimme.”
He hesitated.
“Other half of you, remember, mate? Trusty-trusty.”
He dropped it in my hand. I tipped it, light and shadow tunneling through the carvings.
“Not Gate,” I said.
“No, it’s something he told me would cancel the magic in the drones.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Eli talked to you?”
“Funny how chatty he is when he’s torturing a man.” Terric said it calmly, but I knew him. Hell, I was connected to him. I could feel the wave of heat, anger, and shame that rose in him at the memories of what Eli had done to him.
As I said. Not having his memories would have been a kindness.
“This disk cancels the magic in the drones?” I asked. “All of the drones?”
“I don’t know. He said we could use it to cancel the spells he cast. I think. He wasn’t being very clear about it.”
I handed him the disk. “Well, I am all for crazy plans built on dubious hunches. Let’s do this.”
“Do what? Shame? What?”
“Trigger the spell.”
“You told Zay we wouldn’t do that.”
“I lied. I do that. We’ll cast Block when we trigger it. Should keep Zay and Allie out of the blast zone.”
“We don’t know what the blast zone is.”
“We’ll take an educated guess.”
“And we’re not going to tell anyone that we’re doing this, why?” he asked, putting the disk back in his pocket.
“Too many people get involved and we’d have to make a new plan.”
“What plan?” Dash asked. He, Cody, and Kevin were all walking into the room.
“The plan of Zay and Allie getting to the hospital as soon as possible,” I said.
“No.” Dash shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I already heard that plan from Zayvion. You two have something else cooking.”
“We think Davy’s spell is part of how we can stop the drones,” Terric said.
“Why?” Dash asked. “I don’t remember Eli being on our side.”
“Eli’s on Eli’s side,” Terric said.
“What does that mean?” Kevin asked.
“He’s more than happy,” Terric said, “to use friends, enemies, and anyone and anything else to get what he wants.”
“Okay,” Cody said. “Do you know what Eli wants, Terric?”
“Destruction,” he said. “Krogher’s destruction for using him as a weapon and a tool. Shame and my destruction for killing Brandy. In that order.”
“Aw, we’re number two on the list?” I said. “Disappointed.”
“How does this”—Dash pointed at the spell that spun out around Davy—“stop the drones?”
“Might be a Gate,” Terric said.
“Who says?” Kevin asked.
I held up my finger. “It looks like a Gate to me. Zay doesn’t agree.”
“So we’re going to trigger it and find out,” Terric finished.
“That’s a terrible plan,” Dash said. “Eli carved this into Davy and then he led Davy and us here to set it off. You said it yourself, he wants you two destroyed. This isn’t a Gate—it’s a damn trap.”
“Probably,” I said. “And we’re going to set it off. We will also cast Block, to keep the explosion to a minimum. Kevin, I’d like you to stay with Zayvion and Allie. Just because we’re following Eli’s bread crumbs doesn’t mean he isn’t planning to kill them while we’re in the woods.”
“I’d like to go on record as being against this idea,” Kevin said gruffly.
“We’ll be sure to have our secretary put that in the notes,” I said. “Go. Keep them safe for me, okay?”
“I will,” he said. “And you two had better stay a step ahead of the grave. I do not want Zayvion on my ass for letting you go get killed in a permanent sort of way.”
“We have a few aces up our sleeve,” Terric said.
Kevin gave us both one last look. “This isn’t good-bye, boys.” He turned and waved his hand above his shoulder as he walked out of the room.
I hoped he was right.
“Now.” I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s do this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dash said.
“Bad idea,” Cody and I said at the same time. “Jinx, mate,” I said. “You owe me a beer.”
“It’s all a bad idea,” Dash said.
“I’m with Shame and Cody on this, Dash,” Terric said. “You should stay here.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to listen to you either, Terric. So let’s get this done.” He pulled a gun out of his pocket and chambered a round.
I couldn’t help appreciating his attitude. Somewhere along the line he had picked up the habit of being armed at all times. I liked it.
If this spell was a Gate, that meant it would swing both ways. It was just as likely to let something through to us as to let us through to something.
And if something was coming through the Gate . . . well, magic is fast. Bullets: faster.
“I don’t suppose you’d keep Dash here for us, would you?” I asked Cody.
“You want me to argue with the gunman?”
“Great,” I said. “Then this is a plan. Fantastic. Sunny,” I said, “I need you to touch Davy again. When I say three, okay?”
“Sunny?” Dash said. “She’s here? She’s dead.”
“Shame tied her soul to him when he killed her,” Cody offered up helpfully.
“Jesus, Shame,” Dash said. “That’s worse.”
Yeah, well, we could discuss my screwups later.
“Did you hear me, Sunny?”
I heard. I’ll touch him. She’d been involved in magic for years. She knew the only way to get Davy out of this mess was to set the spell free to release him.
And we were about to find out if setting the spell free would release him alive or dead.
But promise me that you’ll catch him if he dies, she said.
I nodded. It meant I’d have both of them haunting me for the rest of my life. But I owed her . . . well, at least a chance to be with him again.
“If Davy lives,” I said to Cody, “he’ll need help.”
“Already have nine-one-one coming this way,” he said. “I’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”
“Ready, then.” I glanced at Terric. “Block?”
“Got it,” he said, finishing the last lines of the spell. We’d have to fill it with magic at the same time we were triggering Eli’s spell. A tricky bit of work.
This really was a bad plan.
“One, two, three.” I put my hand on Terric’s right wrist just as Sunny reached into the tangle of blue around Davy and kept her hand there. The entire spell lit up again.
Terric and I drew magic up from the ground beneath us in perfect sync. I am not ashamed to say I moaned a little from the pleasure of it. We set the Block spell thrumming with magic while we focused on Eli’s spell.
It was so easy to draw on magic with him, so easy to set it spinning down the threads of the spell, to guide it to the core of the spell, to twist it just a bit so that as the spell activated and Davy was cut free.
Davy yelled and toppled from his knees to the floor.