Shamus looked at me over his shoulder. “No.”
“Why not? Have something against plants?”
“No, but I haven’t met a vegetable good enough to sacrifice a year of my life for.”
“What?”
“Energy exchange. Death magic is all about transition, transfer, mutation, change from one state into another.” At my look, he rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. This is the ABC’s. I can draw the life energy out of a living thing, like a plant, or I can give my life energy to a living thing, like a plant. Once that connection is set, it is a carrier for magic. And that carrier-say it with me: Death magic-shifts how magic responds when it is cast into glyphs.”
We stopped above the inert creatures. They were reduced to a strange collection of torsos, limbs, and body parts. Zayvion’s machete stuck out of the skull of one of the things, hilt toward the sky, with just enough blade showing that it caught silver in the light. Fluid, thicker than blood, oozed black from every wound. I still didn’t smell any kind of scent from them.
What had Shamus said? Death magic was hard to Hound?
“So, yeah, I like my vegetables. Don’t love ’em enough to die for them.” He knelt and poked a finger at one of the Hungers. His finger disappeared to the last knuckle inside the flesh, like he’d jabbed a stick into sand. He pulled his finger back. It came out clean.
Not so much creepy as sort of barf-inspiring.
It didn’t seem to bother Shamus. “I’m going to stay here and retrieve the rest of the energy they fed on-since a lot of it was mine. Give me your word you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“Scout’s honor,” I drawled.
“Close enough.” He traced a spell, one I did not know, into the air above the creature nearest him. The Sight spell I had cast was gone now, and I’d promised not to use any more magic, so I had to settle for the very normal sight of Shamus kneeling over four butchered nightmares.
He tipped his head back a little and closed his eyes. He whispered something, a single liquid word. Then a look of rapture crossed his face. His heartbeat slowed, and when I turned my thoughts to how he was feeling, I was surprised at the slick, lazy euphoria that filled him. Apparently, this was the upside of using Death magic.
The Hunger nearest him began to fade. Within two minutes, it was gone, all the remaining energy that made it solid absorbed by Shamus, leaving nothing, not even black blood behind.
Shamus sighed. Maybe it was my imagination, but he didn’t look quite so pale. Without opening his eyes, he whispered that liquid word again. The next beast began to fade, and a second, stronger rush of euphoria took him.
If I stayed in touch any longer with his emotions, I was going to get a friggin’ contact high.
The wind picked up, pushing the misty air around and reminding me that it had been a long day. I was cold. Tired. Wet. I tucked my chin into my collar and exhaled, my breath doing little to warm me up. I wondered if Zayvion and Chase were done running the Hungers down. I glanced over the way they had gone, didn’t see any movements there. Of course, Chase was pretty good at Illusion.
“Daniel Beckstrom.”
I spun at the voice behind me.
The Necromorph crouched on all fours in the shadows behind the metal building. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but he was thicker, stronger than when he’d jumped me. I think he’d been feeding well too.
Shit.
The wind shifted. I smelled death and blood and burnt blackberry-him-and then strawberries and bubble gum. Tomi’s scents. The murderer shifted up and back, jerking his hand as if he were pulling a rope tight. I heard a very human whimper behind him.
Tomi stumbled forward into the tepid light.
I sucked in a breath. Every inch of exposed skin was black and blue or covered in blood.
“Shame,” I said.
Shamus didn’t move. Not an inch.
I took a cautious step back and shook Shame’s shoulder. He was too caught in the rapture. I didn’t know how to break whatever spell he was using.
Inside my head, my dad had gone very, very quiet. He didn’t seem afraid of the murderer. No, he seemed terrified. And angry. Bad combination for a powerful dead guy who could run my body on remote control.
“You betrayed me,” the Necromorph growled quietly, but not too quietly for me, not for my Hound ears. I could hear him across any distance. “And now your death will free me.”
The murderer turned, lost again to the shadows.
I heard a high, muffled scream.
Quick mental calculation: Shamus zoned out. Zay and Chase running down the Hungers. I could feel their heartbeats, still fast, still alive. They might even be done killing them by now. They might be back any minute.
Tomi didn’t have time for any minute. I strode around Shamus. Careful not to touch the Hungers, I pulled Zayvion’s machete out of one of the remaining creature’s skull.
Black ichor clung to the blade and then was absorbed, the faint ribbons of glyphs worked into the steel sucking away the blood.
Time to find out what this thing could do to a Necromorph.
I held the machete low against my side and jogged to the back of the building. I sang my Mary Mack song. I needed to keep a clear head. A cool head. And a Disbursement. Needed one of those too. I decided on body ache, afraid to add any more to the headache and push it up into deadly levels.
Dying was not in my plans for the day.
, I thought to my father, who had been too silent for too long,
He surprised me by answering.
, I said.
, he warned.
I slowed and walked down the narrow path behind the shed, brambles as high as my head forming a wall uphill to the left of me, the shed to my right. A pile of discarded wood-two-by-fours and broken pallets-made the footing tricky. There was no room here to swing the machete. I traced an Impact glyph-something strong enough to blow that thing off his feet-with my left hand and held it there, pinched between my fingers, ready for me to fill it with magic.
All it needed to do was buy me some time so I could get in better machete-swinging range.
One metal panel on the back of the shed was rusted and bent open. I glanced in. There was just enough light fingering through cracks at the roofline and seams of the wall panels that I could make out the figures in the otherwise empty building. The Necromorph stood on all fours, rocking side to side, his head low. Tomi sat beside him, her arms extended to chest height, fingers spread wide, shaking, but poised to cast magic. Even in the low light I could see her eyes were wide and blank.
