years back. And Paul had stood by us through the worst of the apocalypse. He knew things about magic and magic users that no one knew back in the day.
He knew things today about magic we still try to keep quiet—namely that Soul Complements can break it.
“Why did they do that?” he asked.
“That’s what we wanted to know. Especially since Allie is . . .” Terric paused. “Has Allie talked to Nola?”
“Are you kidding? She’s planning the baby shower.”
“Right. Since Allie is pregnant, they didn’t want to break magic,” Terric continued. “So when we felt it break . . .”
“You can feel it when magic breaks?”
Terric shrugged. “We did this time. We assumed they wouldn’t have broken it if they weren’t in trouble.”
Stotts nodded, then glanced over at the house. “I’ll need a statement.”
“You know we can’t admit to breaking on record,” Terric said.
“I’ll want something from you, even if it’s just you had a bad feeling and followed up on your hunch.”
An ambulance rolled up, and the EMTs got out and walked up to the kitchen.
Good thing we’d triggered the spells to only react if Eli tripped them.
“Zayvion’s been stabbed,” Stotts said.
“We know,” Terric said.
“I don’t suppose you know anything else about this, do you?”
“No,” Terric said.
Yes, that surprised me. I thought he liked telling the truth and following procedure.
Stotts finally looked back at me. “Shame, do you know anything else about this?”
“Nope. Not a thing.”
“All right.” He glanced up as one of his officers walked our way. “I want to see you both in the station later today.”
“We’ll be there,” Terric said so smoothly, even I had a hard time telling if it was a lie.
Stotts moved up the path toward the house and Terric went the other way to the car.
I glanced back at the house. A movement along the rooftop drew my eye.
There was a gargoyle on the roof. Namely, Stone.
Well, he was really an animate—which is a construction of stone and gears powered by magic. He’d been made by Cody Miller, who had once been an incredible artist and magic user.
Even though magic shouldn’t be strong enough to keep Stone going, he was still as mostly alive as ever. He’d been Allie’s loyal companion for years now, was a good-natured doofus who liked to stack household items.
In a fight he was a deadly, ferocious brute.
He folded his wings and four-footed it to the chimney, sitting with his hands wrapped over his toes. He peered down at the police moving around, then looked out at me.
I held up a hand. “Look after Allie,” I said in a normal voice I knew he’d hear. He tipped his head, both ears rising into sharp points, and showed a little teeth.
He must have been with Cody when the attack happened. I was glad he was here now. I suddenly felt a lot better knowing a ton of fanged, clawed, winged living rock was going to be there with Allie and Zay.
I turned and caught up with Terric and walked along beside him. “I see what you did there with the detective, you little liar.”
“Shut up, Shame.”
He got in the car and I got in after him. Eleanor slipped into the backseat.
“You lied to a police officer,” I said with mock disappointment. “Aren’t you worried they’re going to take your hero card away?”
“If he knew what we knew, he’d stop us from doing what we’re going to do,” he said.
“Kill Eli?”
“Kill Eli.”
“Let’s drink to that. Swing by and get me a coffee, won’t you?”
“Coffee, not booze?”
“When they open a drive-through bar, I’ll be the first in line. Until then, coffee.”
What could I say? I was in a good mood. Breaking magic had taken care of my hunger, and made me feel lazy and satisfied, like finally scratching an itch I couldn’t reach. Watching Terric lie to the cops was the candy sprinkles on top of today’s donut.
Terric stopped at a coffee shop, ordered an Americano for himself and a double caramel latte for me.
Score.
“Do you think we should have stayed with Zay and Allie?” I asked after I’d drained half the cup.
“We talked with them about that. Don’t you remember?”
“No.” It was probably when I’d been pacing and not paying attention to them. I pushed at my cheekbone gently and flipped the visor down for the mirror. The bruise had spread down to my jaw and was making it a little difficult to see out of one eye. Zayvion Jones knew how to land a hit.
“...offered,” Terric was saying. “Zayvion refused. He said they’d call Stotts and make sure there were EMTs coming to look at his wound. He said he’d rather stay at the house with Allie, since he had planned on casting protections on it.”
“Protections we cast.” I flicked the visor back up. My face hurt, but I didn’t think anything other than the nose was broken.
“Yes. He’ll call if anything happens, but if you and I do our job—”
“Kill Eli?” I just loved how that rolled off the tongue. Felt like I could say it all day.
“No, find Dessa, who might know where Eli is.”
“Then kill Eli?”
“Maybe, yes. Stop him for sure. Find Brandy and release her, or use her as a bargaining chip against Eli.”
“That’s . . . calculated.”
“That’s practical.” He took a drink. “If we do our job, then Eli will be in no position to attack Allie or Zay or anyone else.”
“Because he’ll be dead. Come on, Ter. You know that’s how this is going down. We’re going to take Eli out. And by ‘out’ I mean mulch him into grave filler.”
Terric’s phone rang. It was in his cup holder, so I pulled it out. “Dash,” I said. I thumbed on the speaker. “This is Shame.”
“Shame,” Dash said. “Can I speak with Terric?”
“I’m listening,” Terric said. “What’s going on?”
“We have a lead on Eli. Davy just called in—”
“From where?” Terric asked.
“Don’t know. He rigged a blocker on his phone so I couldn’t track it.”
“Okay,” Terric said. “Are you at the office?”
“Yes.”
“We’re on the way over now. Let’s finish this conversation there.”
“I’ll put the coffee on,” he said.
I hung the phone up. “Don’t want to talk to him?”
“Don’t want a phone record if we’ve been bugged.”
“Do you think you’ve been bugged?”
“No, I’m sure I haven’t been. I don’t know about the lines at the office, though. If they know where Eli is, I want to hear it in person.”
I finished off the last of my coffee, sat back, and let the man behind the wheel take us to the office.
By the time we found parking, the rain had stopped. We got out. Everything was wet and when the higher
