it,” Terric said. “Ready?”
“Always.”
He didn’t give me flak, just got out, paused as if scenting the air, then headed to the left of where Zayvion had gone, breaking into a jog.
Shame waited until I was next to him. He hitched his hands forward, which drew the sleeves of his jacket off his wrists, and flicked an Illusion over the two cars so that they faded from casual observation.
He grunted, and swayed, his heartbeat under my wrist missing a beat, then pounding hard to make it up. I reached over and caught his elbow. He was shaking.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He pulled the cig out of his mouth. The cherry trembled and jumped as he tried to push his hair out of his eyes. “Just. Fucking tired. I’m okay.”
And that was when I smelled the pain on him, and the blood.
“Bullshit. She hurt you, didn’t she? Where? How?”
He gave me a considering look, noticed I was fuming mad. He exhaled. “My gut. I’m fine.”
I gripped his elbow tighter and dragged him back to his car. “No, you’re not.”
“What part of the language don’t you understand, Beckstrom?”
The very fact that I could actually force him to walk with me told me just how badly he was hurt.
“You need a doctor?”
“No.”
“Stitches?”
“No.”
We passed through the Illusion he had cast, the slippery green scent of aloe filling my nostrils and throat. I opened the front door of Zay’s car. “Get in.”
“For Christ’s sake,” he started.
“Duck.” I pushed on his shoulder at the same time I shoved him into the car.
He gave in, or more correctly, his knees gave in, and he folded down into the seat. Groaned.
“Let me see.”
He turned his pale face in my direction. “I’ll call my mum. Honest.” He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. “You go make sure Z. and . . . Make sure Zay’s okay.”
He looked sick, greenish even in the low light. Casting that spell must have exacerbated his wound.
“How badly are you bleeding? Don’t bullshit me, Shame.”
“She stabbed me once. With a knife. I remember that.” Dead serious. What did you know? The man could tell the truth without going up in flame. “The bleeding isn’t too bad. She planted a Blood glyph and when I cast that spell, it started bleeding. It’s not enough to kill me—you can trust me on that, Beckstrom. But she is seriously fucking up my fun.”
“Show me.”
He scowled. Gave in. Lifted his jacket. Even in the low light, I could see the glyph of Blood magic spread out across the width of his flat stomach, just catching on his hip bone. It bled—not badly—from one edge, probably the entry of the wound. The rest of the glyph snaked out under his skin, like deep red ropes. Blood magic was strange stuff. The glyph formed itself to the caster’s will like a time-release capsule after the incision was made.
He pushed his shirt back down.
“You’ll call your mom?”
He held up the phone again. “Go. No one’s gonna find me under this Illusion, and if they do, I’m not without weapons. And a phone.”
I nodded, and shut the door. Shame tipped the seat back a bit, and I saw a brief flash of the phone’s blue light against his cheek and jaw before I was out of the umbrella of the spell, and then couldn’t see the car at all.
I started off in the direction Zayvion had run, concentrating on the heartbeats at my wrist. Shame’s was slow, labored, but even. I was glad he’d stayed behind.
I shifted my focus on Terric’s heartbeat, fast, like he was running. His emotions: angry, but calm.
Then Zayvion. His heart beat in the steady rhythm of a marathoner or an athlete. Someone who was used to this kind of exertion. But his emotions hit me like a brick wall falling. Surprise. And fear.
Something was wrong.
I broke out of my jog and into a run. The concrete beneath my feet gave way to soft soil, well-tended grass wet from all the storms and the night’s dew. Zayvion was near. I could feel him, like a heat beneath my skin.
And he was in trouble.
I broke out from between the buildings to the grounds in the back. Trees and outbuildings cut my view into bits.
The acrid scent of a Confusion spell burned like black pepper at the back of my sinuses. I couldn’t tell which way I should go. Didn’t even know which way I had come from.
Okay. This wasn’t the first time I’d been hit with Confusion. I