Huh.
I hadn’t known him when powerful magic was something anyone could use easily, although I’d read his record and known he had mostly stayed away from using magic, and instead dealt with the business sides of the Authority’s needs.
But that man leaning against my bedroom wall had this possibly explosive magical situation under control and was determined to see it through.
Since the explosive situation in this case was me, and I was barely holding it together, I was impressed by his composure.
“What are we going to do, Dash?” I said. “Fight? Think you can take me?”
“Right now my grandmother could take you.”
I smiled. “True.” I swallowed another couple mouthfuls of coffee and left the cup on the edge of the bed. I pressed my hands into my thighs and pushed up.
“This is me. I am on my feet,” I said. “Where’s the battle, Chief?”
“Use magic,” he ordered. “I don’t care what spell. But you’re going to show me what you got.” He tipped his head down and made that hurry-up motion with his fingers.
I glanced over at Eleanor, who had her back turned to me, staring out my window. The black rope around her neck snaked toward me and latched in to my arm like a dark IV line.
“This is such a bad idea,” I whispered.
“Why?”
“There’s a good chance I’m going to hurt someone.”
“Won’t know until you do it.”
I finally looked away from Eleanor. “You just won’t let this go, will you, Spade? Why haven’t you used this kind of determination to get Terric to date you?”
I was hoping bringing up his love life would make him pull back. Sore subjects usually do. But he didn’t even flinch.
“Magic, Shame. Now would be good, but I can wait. Days, if that’s what you need.”
I glared at him. Would have continued the argument, but just standing there holding up my attitude was wearing me out. If I was going to cast magic, which apparently I was, then I’d better do it while I had the strength to control it. I didn’t want to drink another person down.
I didn’t want to hurt Eleanor.
Something easy, like Light, seemed a good bet, but what Davy really wanted to know, and what Sunny really wanted to know, was if I could handle Death magic.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
I took a breath, held it, then drew on the place inside me where Death magic sat.
It came to me, slowly, cold, and painful. Filled my bones with a weight that threatened to snap my bones.
Holy shit, it hurt.
But I stood, holding against the weight of it. I directed Death magic, sluggish, heavy, and raw, to Death something. But not a person. Or a ghost.
The dresser looked like a good enough target.
I turned toward it, held out my hand. Nothing. Magic was there, I could feel the lead weight of it in my chest, in my spine, filling my arm so that it was difficult to keep extended, but magic would not move through me.
Hell.
I trudged over to the dresser. Put both hands on it. Reached in for the magic again, dragging it forward.
Death, I thought. Now.
Magic responded by paralyzing me.
Shit.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eleanor dim and flicker.
Magic oozed out of my bones, slithered through my veins, cold, toxic.
My hands cracked with black lines as Death magic carved new channels and paths in me. Paths that hadn’t been open even before I’d died.
I couldn’t breathe.
Well, that was inconvenient.
Magic poured out of my fingertips like oil and ink, puddling and spreading from under my palms, covering the dresser in the black and slime, dissolving wood and nails and brass, aging them all, decomposing, killing.
Death.
The dresser went ash gray and crumbled into a pile of dust.
I was still standing, mostly because I couldn’t move. Just enough nerves were firing to let me know I was going to be hurting or unconscious—or both—when magic was done with me.
“Shame?” Dash said. “Shame?”
I tried to answer, to tell him not to touch me, for God’s sake.
No go. Magic wasn’t done with me yet. It crept out from the ashen pile of rotted wood and across the floor to the outer wall, where it leaked beyond the bedroom to the plants that surrounded the house.
And killed them all in one quick strike.
An explosion of pleasure blew through me. I closed my eyes as the death of each plant rolled hot and sweet across my skin, my bones, my soul. It was sex; it was more than sex. It was death and life, wrapping around me in an embrace so sensual I lost all thought.
I wanted life. The life Death magic could give me.
Death magic drank down the easy, sweet life of plants, bushes, trees.
I wanted more. So much more. Cars rushed by on the road that wound above the house. Cars filled with sweet, blood-pumping life. That would be enough to fill me. To begin to fill this cold dark hole inside me. To ease my pain.
And then Eleanor was in front of me. She’d been crying, her eyes red-rimmed, her cheeks wet. She shook her head. Stop, Shame. You don’t want to kill innocent people. You don’t want to lose your humanity to this darkness.
She was right. I just couldn’t move, couldn’t get ahead of the magic that had swallowed me whole.
Eleanor must have seen something in my eyes. She smiled sadly, then reached out and pressed her hand over my heart.
For a moment, I felt her hand as if she were solid, real, alive. Or as if I were dead, ghostly like her.
Magic paused, eased its grip on me.
It wasn’t much of a break, but I took full advantage of it.
Enough. I focused my will over it and drew the magic back to me, hauling on it, hand over hand, as if it were a rope, a chain that I could drag away from the living world and pack away inside me.
Magic snapped back with concussive force. I grunted from the pain but didn’t let go of the magic. I forced it down, back into that hole in my brain, chaining it to me and drawing it in, tight, tighter.
“Shame.” Dash was right in front of me now. I didn’t know where Eleanor had gone. Dash looked angry. “Let go, Shame,” he said. “Please, just let it go.”
Nope, not angry, worried.
“So, that good enough for you?” I asked, though it came out a faint wheeze.
I felt like magic had just bad-touched me from the inside out. I was cold, sweaty, and I stank of it.
Dash didn’t move. Didn’t reach out to help me. After I got done breathing too hard, and my vision cleared, I realized why.
He wasn’t worried or angry. He was afraid.
Join the damn club.
“That was delightful,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You think that’s control?” he asked.
“Enough.”
He clearly didn’t believe me. That was okay, I didn’t believe me either.
“You need a day to rest. Well, a year might be better, but at least a day, Shame. This can wait.”
“No,” I said. “It can’t. We haven’t had a lead on Davy and Eli for months. We do this now, while there’s still a trail to follow.” I gave the walking thing a try. After three wobbly steps, my legs and muscles got back on talking terms. As a matter of fact, I felt the best I had since rising from the dead. My lungs were on autopilot, and my heart pumped on its own, although very, very slowly, which was both odd and distracting.
The life from the plants had done some good.
“I’m fine,” I said to Dash and his sideways looks.
“You look worse,” Dash said.
“Ever thought about going into motivational speaking?” I asked. “Because you’d be amazing.”
“Shut up, Shame.”
That’s my boy. I gave him a smile and walked out of the room, down the hall, and into the living room, where Sunny was pacing the perimeter.