Nice, but a little too late.
He lunged at me.
I twisted at the hip, aimed the book and my fist at his face with everything I had.
And slammed my hand into a rock wall. I think I broke a finger. Or five.
A roar filled my ears. Not my own. Though I yelled too.
No, this sound was huge. The murderer was howling in pain.
That was no rock wall I’d slammed my fist into. That was a gargoyle.
Stone tore into the murderer with hands and fangs. Four ground-shaking blows from Stone sent the Necromorph to the ground, bleeding black. He was broken. More than that, he was pulverized.
I thought it was over.
I think Stone thought it was over too.
But even without holding Sight, I could feel the magic gathering beneath my feet. Feel it pooling, growing, and pouring toward the murderer.
I traced a quick glyph for Sight.
Holy shit. It wasn’t magic, or at least it wasn’t magic as I had ever seen it before. It was like a shadow of magic, indigo, violet, bloodred, dark and seeping. Rising up through the soil and pushing into the Necromorph’s body while the disk in his neck pulsed and glowed the same shadowy colors as the magic.
He twitched. Jerked. Stood back up.
Holy shit. He was dead. Had been dead. But he was not dead anymore.
I pressed against the wall. Stone growled. The Necromorph looked at me.
“You will not stop me.” Then he took off running, bleeding, fast and fluid and silent, a slice of moonlight in the shadowed night, despite the wounds Stone had given him. Stone was right behind him, just as fast, but each footfall landed like a heavy engine shaking the night.
Yes, I could have stood there and watched the rest of the gory details. But I was going to get the hell out of there while the getting was good.
I ran uphill toward my house. I didn’t care if that would be the first place anyone would expect me to go. I needed to get away, get out of there, run, run, run before the nightmares caught up with me.
I was halfway home when I heard footfalls behind me. Human footfalls. Running.
“Allie?”
I knew that voice. Davy Silvers. Hound. But I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. Not for him. Not for anyone.
Davy had two things on me. Legs and youth. He caught up to me before I reached the doors to my apartment.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait. Hold on.” He tugged on my sleeve and it hurt like hell. It took everything I had not to punch him in the nose.
I stopped, spun on him.
“What is your problem?” I yelled.
He stumbled back several steps and held up both his hands. He was sweaty, his face too pale in the streetlight. “I heard you scream. Heard the fight back there. Then you were running, but there’s nothing behind you but me. You have blood on your face.”
Maybe. I had anger too. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop following me around?” I said. “You could have been killed.”
He folded his arms over his sweatshirt and tucked his hands in his armpits. “You’re hurt,” he repeated stubbornly. “Do you want me to call an ambulance or take you down to the hospital myself?”
“Listen,” I said, trying to calm down, trying to pull my wits back on, one word at a time. “A guy jumped me. I hit my head on a wall fighting with him. I’m fine.”
Davy was a Hound. One things Hounds are good at is spotting bullshit.
“Okay, we can go with that for now,” he said. “At least we both agree you’re hurt. Ambulance or front seat of my car?”
“Neither. I’m going home.”
I started toward my apartment a block up the hill. Davy followed me. Out of swinging range.
Smart boy.
“Go home, Davy.” The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving me shaking and tired.
“I am. Just not my home.”
We walked a distance from each other all the way up to my building. By the time I reached the stairs, every ache, pain, and scratch was reporting for duty.
I hurt inside and out. And magic was pointing a headache at my brain that already made my molars ache. The wind was too cold, even with my heavy coat on. That meant I had a fever. Great.
Still, if I showered, took some aspirin, and slept for a month or so, I’d probably come out of this with only minor scars. I stopped in front of my door.
“Davy—” I looked over my shoulder.
Davy’s face was washed in the blue light of his cell phone, which he closed and stuffed in his pocket. “Yes?”
“Who were you calling?”
“Zayvion Jones.”
My brain tried to figure that one out, and came up empty. And I mean static-on-the-TV empty.
“What?” I said. “Why? How do you even have his number? Why are you still following me?” My voice rose up and up with each question, even though I didn’t want it to.
It’s called panic. I’m good at it.
“You’re hurt, and you stink of so much used magic, it’s like you rolled in a pile of shit and spells. Some of them are . . . stuck to you. I don’t know how to fix that.” He shrugged. “Zayvion did things for you back in the warehouse. He did things I’ve never seen a doctor do. With magic. So if you’re not going to let me take you to the hospital, I’m going to get someone here who can help. Help get the magic off you, or help me pick you up and shove you in the trunk of my car so I can take you to the emergency room. Either way.” He shrugged again.
I tipped my face up to the sky and exhaled. “You can’t tell me—”
A movement at the roof level of the building—a head poking over the edge and looking down—caught my eye. Stone gripped the edge of the building and tipped his wide head sideways, considering me for a minute before pulling his head out of my line of vision.
I didn’t know whether he was still chasing the murderer or whether he was crawling down the side of the building to open my bedroom window and give Nola the scare of her life.
If Stone was still on the hunt, I wanted to stay the hell out of his way. And there was no way I was leaving Davy out on the street where the Necromorph might be looking to get a few new licks in.
“Zayvion gave me his number when you were in the hospital. Well, before that. Before you went to the hospital, but after the . . . after the warehouse.”
He was still talking? Hells.
“Fascinating. Tell me about it inside where it’s warm.” I opened the door as quickly as I could—speedy as a snail in glue. My fine-motor coordination was set on suck mode. Still, I got the door open, stepped into the lobby, and closed the door behind Davy before anything jumped out of the shadows and tried to eat us.
Now all I had to do was get up the stairs and save Nola.
Well, get up the stairs and get into my apartment before Stone let himself in the bedroom window, if that’s what he was doing. Or maybe he had crawled down the building and was back on the street. Or maybe he had found a nice garden to be a statue in until the dawn.
If he actually went inert in sunlight.
What was I doing? Oh yeah. Climbing the stairs to the rescue.
I started up the stairs, and maybe six whole steps into it, my head really started pounding in earnest. Holy hells, I hurt.
Davy, behind me, was chatting away. Kid was awfully talkative for a Hound. I didn’t catch half of what he said; the thrum of my own heartbeat, rough breathing, and internal bitching was too loud. It wasn’t until we got to the second floor that I realized he had called my name. Repeatedly. And I only heard him because he somehow got around me on the landing between flights and stood in front of me.
“What?” I panted. Hells, I was so worn out, I felt sick. Too hot, too cold, I was covered in a slick sweat that made me really want a shower. And a toilet to barf in.
“Zayvion wants to talk to you.” He held his phone out for me.
I took it. Look at that—there was blood on my hands. I wondered whose it was.
“Hello?”
“Allie,” Zayvion said. “I’m almost there. Davy said you were mugged.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Was magic involved?”
“Yeah.”
“Was your father involved?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Y-yes.”
There was a short pause. I could imagine him frowning, going through options. “Don’t use magic until I get there, okay?”
And I don’t know if it was just that the events of the night had finally all stacked up or what. But I was so done with being bossed around.
I hung up on him.
Yep. On Zayvion. Probably the only person in the city who knew, one, about the Necromorph; two, that I had a renter in my brain; and, three, how the two were related, which they obviously were. And he was probably the only person in the city who was actually on his way to help me.
I handed Davy the phone.
Because now I was worried. If Zayvion had some sort of idea that I shouldn’t cast magic, then he must know something else I didn’t know. Like maybe what kind of danger I was in, or, what worried me more, what kind of danger the people around me were in. Violet’s words came back to me. If she had known I was in this kind of danger, was she a part of it? A part of that thing having the disk?
I did my best to pick up the pace.
Ow.
“Someone,” I panted to Davy who walked next to me, “might be breaking into my apartment. With magic. Nola might be in there. My friend. She doesn’t cast. Do you know how to set Proxy on someone?” I asked.
“In theory. I’ve never done it before,” he said.
“Just like setting a Disbursement on yourself. Project it onto the other person. Onto me.”
He laughed. “Right. You’re barely standing.”
“Fuck you. I’m so very more than standing. I’m climbing. And talking. And thinking.”
We’d made it to the third floor now. I didn’t hear any screaming, growling, or anything else, really. Everything seemed normal.
Well, except for the hallway being all blurry at the edges and the sparks of silver fog that lit up at the corner of my vision whenever I turned my head too quickly.
I turned to look at Davy and had to spread my feet so I wouldn’t fall over. Wow. The price of casting all that magic, probably the magic I cast and the magic my father cast, was really kicking in.
“Listen,” I said in the most reasonable voice I could muster. “I can’t cast right now. You can. Proxy me so you can stay clearheaded and help Nola.”
“Like I can’t pay to play?” He actually sounded offended.
As well he should be, I guess. I’d basically just told him he wasn’t strong enough to cast magic. Wasn’t strong enough to endure the pain. But that wasn’t even close to what I was worried about.
“Course you can,” I said. “I know that. But you might need a lot of magic in a hurry. I’m wiped. One of us needs to stay clearheaded. ’S gonna be you, Silvers.”
I put out my right hand and got back to that walking thing, dragging my fingertips along the wall. I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, but I was getting somewhere slow.
“Wait,” Davy said beside me. “What kind of magic?”
We had reached my apartment door. “Any good at Hold?”
“I can do it.”
“Great. Get ready to hold back a tank.”
I tried the door. Locked. I was pretty sure I was happy about that.
Davy muttered something, a rhyme, a poem, that I couldn’t quite catch the words of, his mantra to clear his mind for casting.
While he did that, I pulled my keys out of my pocket and turned the lock. I opened the door as quietly as I could.
The apartment was dark except for the wan light of streetlights seeping down through the windows in the living room. Everything seemed to be exactly as I had left it. I walked in, glanced over the half wall to the kitchen. Nothing in there moved, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t crouched down in the dark.
Davy glided behind me, damn quiet for someone who showed no sign of shutting up just a minute ago. He had that kind of wolflike grace, his young face set in a calm but fierce determination, his body language aware but not tense.
I pointed at the kitchen and Davy walked into it, leaving the lights out.
I snuck into the living room as well as I could. I was beginning to feel more than a little dizzy. I checked the couch, the corners, and down the hall. Nothing. No one out of the ordinary. No Nola on the couch. I wondered if she’d gone into the bedroom.
I switched the light on in the bathroom. Nothing but bathroom. Then I knocked gently on the bedroom door, which would tell whoever was in there that I was out here, but barging in on Nola, spells a-blazin’, didn’t make any sense either. And if something was in there, I didn’t think I had the element of surprise on my side anyway.