“Soul Complements, maybe, that whole rarest-of-the-rare, only-one-for-the-other thing. There are other degrees of magic use that complement one another. That aren’t as powerful and are still fairly rare. Mostly, there’s Contrasts or nothing. Course, you and I might be that too.”
“Contrasts?”
“Means our magic blends, sometimes perfectly, sometimes not so much. Do the same thing twice and get different results. Never know when it will work and when it won’t.”
He unwove the spell, then traced a new orb of Light into the air in front of him.
“Here’s the same thing I just cast. You do your part again. Exactly the same. Let’s see what happens.”
I cleared my mind, set a Disbursement, then drew magic through me just as my father had showed me, just as I had done the last time, and added it to Shamus’ spell.
Instead of growing brighter, the orb sizzled, filled with black specks, then went completely black. It snapped like a firecracker and was gone.
It happened so quickly, neither Shamus nor I had time to flinch away from it. I felt the failure of the spell like a quick headache behind my eyes that was gone almost as soon as it registered.
I dug my left thumb into my temple.
Shamus nodded. “Give you a pain?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his hands over the thighs of his jeans, as if trying to wipe away sweat or pain. “Thought as much. We’re Contrasts. That means you keep your magic to yourself, missy.”
I gave him a sour look. “Like I’d want my magic mixing with yours anyway.”
He chuckled. “Ooh. Spunky. I like. No time, unfortunately. Z and Chase should be done digging at the gate. Ought to have it closed anytime. Which should flush the Hungers from their nest.”
“And how, again, do we find them?”
“We don’t. They find us. Me,” he amended. “They find me. You stay quiet and don’t call attention to yourself.”
He headed down the sidewalk. “We need a side street, alleyway, abandoned building. Best would be a spot out of sight-especially since it’s still light out-but open enough we have room to maneuver.” He tipped his chin toward the left, where a broken-down metal shed that might have once been a workshop or warehouse huddled behind half of a rusted chain-link fence. Next to the shed was a patch of dirt and weeds.
Here, huddled between the rise of the bridge to our left and the untended bushes and scrub of the empty lot, we had everything Shamus had said he was looking for. Enough area to move in, and privacy from prying eyes.
He strolled through the gap in the fence and then over to stand beneath a sickly hemlock. I followed him.
“You’ll want to be over there.” He pointed at the rusted shed.
“Couldn’t you have said that before I walked all the way over here with you?” I kicked my way through the wet weeds that slapped at my shins. I put my back against the shed.
“And?” I asked.
“And don’t use magic. At all. Period. Not even Sight. Nothing. Got it?”
“The first time.”
He flashed me a grin, then shook out his hands and held them up, chest high, palms facing outward. He pulled on magic. Not just a small amount to fill a spell; Shamus accessed enough magic that I could taste it, feel it on the back of my throat like hot peppers when I swallowed.
He chanted, or at least I think he chanted. His lips moved and he was half whispering, half humming words I could not understand. A glow, something that didn’t look like anything more than weak sunlight through the storm clouds, surrounded him. That was not sunlight. It was magic.
The heartbeats against my wrist changed. The one I knew belonged to Shamus slowed and pumped harder, like he was falling into his stride in a marathon. But the other two rhythms, Zayvion and Chase’s hearts, suddenly quickened. I turned my thoughts toward Zayvion’s heartbeat and could feel his strain as he drew magic toward him, from the stores out past the rail line, from the stores on the other side of the river, and then could feel him focus all of that magic into one place.
A rush of heat flooded my body-it felt like I was blushing from head to toe. I swayed and took a step to right myself. Hells, he was pulling on so much magic, I could feel the drain in my bones. I bit the inside of my cheek and recited my Miss Mary Mack jingle to keep my head clear.
The heat rushed out of me. Zayvion’s heartbeat skipped, paused, long enough that I wondered whether his heart would beat again.
Chase’s heartbeat continued on, strong, heavy, almost as if she were trying to make up for the lack of his. I felt Shamus’ heart and I felt Chase’s heart. But not Zayvion’s.
The only emotion I could feel from Shamus was a sort of grim patience. When I focused on Chase’s heartbeat, I could feel her anger, her worry.
I opened my mouth to say something, and then I couldn’t move.
They had arrived. Nightmares, monsters. The Hungers I had seen running through the edge of the park loped up to the broken chain-link fence. And paused.
They looked more solid than when I had seen them in the park. They had killed, fed, devoured.
But if I had not been staring at them-if I had not been
them to be there-I would not have noticed them. They were silent. I couldn’t hear their breath, couldn’t hear their paws on the concrete. I breathed in, caught no scent other than the rain and green of the nearby river and the slight meaty tang from the sewer processing plant.
My senses said that they should not be there, that nothing but shadows hovered beyond the rusted gate. But a chill down my back raised every hair on my arms.
I looked into their eyes and knew I was gazing into death. It took everything I had to look away from them. Away from their eyes. It took everything I had to look instead at Shamus, softly glowing, chanting, with his feet spread wide, his face tipped up to the sky, eyes closed, as if caught in some sort of exaltation.
And it took everything I had not to run as the nightmares, the creatures, pushed through the gate-all of them just solid enough that they could not pass through the chain links, but instead had to squeeze through the hole between two fence posts. Silent, even in the wet, tall, noisy grass. Silent as only predators could be. Silent as winter’s killing cold. As death.
They ignored me, drawn to the magic Shamus was using.
Shamus did not move. There were a dozen of them, all bigger than a Saint Bernard, all muscled and thick. Tanks. Killing machines. They spread out, half stalking around behind Shamus, the rest in front and beside him, keeping equidistant and in a circle, maybe three yards between themselves and him.
They paused, tasting the air. Scenting their prey.
Every nerve in my body told me to run. And if not that, then to cast magic, to fight. To save Shamus before these things jumped him and tore him to shreds. But he had told me to hold still and not use magic, not smell like magic, not even look like I’d ever been around magic.
The Hungers stepped closer to Shamus.
Shamus pulled on more magic. The yellow-white glow didn’t grow bigger, but it brightened enough that I thought it might catch the eye of a casual passerby.
I glanced at the road, didn’t see any cars or people walking by.
Still, I thought Zayvion said they knew how to do this in daylight. I thought they knew how to do it without being seen. And I certainly thought they knew how to do it without leaving Shamus all alone to face down every nightmare that had crawled out of death’s hole.
Except, of course, that calling the nightmares was exactly what Shamus wanted to do.
The beasts crouched, stepped closer, closing the circle. Two yards out. Four feet.
Shamus tipped his chin down. He was no longer chanting. He was grinning, his arms spread wide as if welcoming the beasts in for an embrace.
His eyes burned with black fire. Literally. He lowered his head just enough that his hair fell forward, hiding his eyes. Then he pulled his hands together, as if in prayer, against his chest.
Zayvion’s heartbeat abruptly struck with bruising pain against my wrist. I sucked in a raking breath. My heart
