Hell Bent

And that was the fear I wanted.

His sudden cold knowledge of what I could do to the other half of his soul shone through her empty eyes.

“You know what I can do to her, because you killed just like this. Killed Joshua, killed Dessa, killed Victor. You killed people I loved. With no shred of remorse.

“But you did not think about who you left behind, injured.”

I drew the magic away from her, and her body went limp. She was sweating hard from the absence of pain. But her eyes were still open. And they were filled with Eli’s terror. With his knowledge, his attention.

“You have left me injured, Eli. A very bad mistake. I am the wrong man to hurt.”

I let the monster forward, which was not hard, as it took up so much room in me now. I smiled as his terror turned to panic. Desperation.

“I am going to destroy you, Collins. I am going to make you writhe. Consider this your invitation to start running. Away from me, or toward me, it doesn’t matter. Because I am going to make the remainder of your life agony.” I smiled at the pleasure I would gain from that. “And then I will make you beg for death until I am tired of hearing you scream.”

I placed my palm flat over Brandy’s eyes.

Death comes for us all. Sometimes when we least expect it. Sometimes at our bidding.

I sent pain twisting through her again, knowing Eli felt it. Knowing how it tormented him. Knowing how helpless it made him feel. Then pulled my hand away so he could see me. So he could see exactly what I was doing.

I was surprised to see a second awareness in her eyes. For just a moment, it was Brandy looking at me. Please, she mouthed. Kill me.

I hesitated. She was begging for mercy. For relief from the tortured life she had been living. But I hadn’t come here to show her mercy. Only to make Eli hurt.

Then Brandy was gone, and it was Eli looking through her eyes again. Panicked. Begging me not to kill her.

“You know where to find me,” I said to him.

I placed my fingers against her chest and drew a glyph there. I stared into Eli’s pleading eyes, wanting to see his pain.

Magic filled the invisible line I traced, crushing her heart.

Tighter. Tighter.

Until there was no beat left. Until she was cold and dead. Until even Eli’s hating eyes were gone.

Brandy’s ghost stepped free of her body and threw her arms wide, head tipped back, smiling as if she had taken her first deep breath in many, many years.

I waited for her to see me. Judge me.

She touched the side of my cheek with cold, cold fingers. Thank you, she mouthed.

Then she was gone.

Revenge, mercy. Tonight they were the same.

I left the room. Left the building. Strode away into the darkness of night.

I flicked my fingers and canceled the Scatter spell and Sleep spell. No one would know I had been there. No one would see the glyph I had drawn. No one would remember.

Only Eli.

Everything was just how it had been only moments before.

Except everything had changed.

This was my war now.

Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next Broken Magic novel by Devon Monk, STONE COLD Coming in April 2014 from Roc.

The door behind Eleanor opened, letting in the March wind, a little rain, and the man I had come here to kill.

The man was a few years older than the photo I’d seen, black hair shot through with gray, white face gone pudgy behind square bifocals. His name was Stuart, and he carried himself like someone who was irritated with his own skin: stiff movements, coat clutched closed with one hand over his stomach, a scowl hammered into his face.

Not what I’d expected a murderer to look like, but then killers came in all shapes and sizes.

He glanced around the diner. Didn’t notice me. I didn’t stand out in a diner that hadn’t passed a health inspection in a decade. And although it would be fun, I didn’t wear a sign that said “Shame Flynn. Death magic user, loyal friend, troublemaker, and the last guy you’d want to meet in a dark alley if you’d done something naughty.”

He didn’t notice Eleanor either, but that was understandable.

Eleanor was a ghost.

She sat across from me, long blond hair flowing with an underwater grace as she moved. Soft features, sweet smile, she was beautiful when alive, and still beautiful when dead. She noticed me noticing him. Tipped her head a bit, narrowed her eyes. “What?” she mouthed.

I couldn’t actually hear her because—hello—she was dead. But I’d learned how to read her lips over the last couple years since she’d been stuck with me.

“Nothing,” I lied.

She, as usual, didn’t believe me.

She scanned the diner, saw the guy take the booth just off to our right, looked back at me. Shook her head.

“Not listening.” I stared at my breakfast so I didn’t have to see her, poked at the waffles. My fork bounced off the hardened whipped cream.

She shifted through the table like someone forging a stream and floated in front of me, half of her body stuck in the table.

“Jesus. Do you stay up at night thinking of ways to creep me out?”

“No killing,” she mouthed. Or maybe it was “No kidding.” I didn’t say I was good at reading lips.

“Sorry. I made a promise. I never go back on my word.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine. Lately,” I amended. “I never go back on my word lately. And that man”—I lowered my voice because, seriously, I did not need people looking at the crazy guy who was yelling at his waffles—“has done unspeakable things to people. With magic. For years. He’ll continue doing unspeakable things, with or without magic. He should have been dead a long, long time ago. I’m just taking care of business.”

“Terric.” She pointed at my heart, which wasn’t beating all that well today. A problem I intended to take care of as soon as the ghost got off her high horse so I could kill the guy.

I lifted my knife. “We’ll leave Terric out of this. Plus, he’s avoiding me, not the other way around.”

Not that I could ever get away from him. We were Soul Complements: Death magic, Life magic. Ever since the magical apocalypse a few years ago had made magic a gentle force, it was just us Soul Complements who could break magic and make it do the old, horrifying things.

Well, and the old, wonderful things too, but that wasn’t really my department.

I was the guy who handled the darker side of things.

I’d been a damn fine Death magic user back in the day. And now? Well, now I was death.

While it had its perks, it didn’t come without a hell of a price. I carried death, but if I didn’t let it loose, didn’t