Free Allie Beckstrom 09 - Magic for a Price by Devon Monk Page A

that?—they won’t be looking for Rebound. I assume we aren’t going to let them get close enough to the wells to actually look into them?”
    “That’s right,” I said, while Shame and Zayvion glared at each other. “I have the Hounds out to trip them up and slow them down. Can we make the spells on the well refresh so that anyone who pulls magic will get their wrists slapped?”
    “If we set Refresh over Tangle and Rebound, it won’t be their wrists that are slapped,” Terric said, “it will be their heads. And they will be unconscious.”
    “Even though we’re only using one disk to power all three spells?” I asked.
    “The spells will be drawn and cast as one spell,” Terric said. “Each component of that combined spell will only take a third of the magic in the disk to work. Together the parts will be much more powerful than the sum.”
    “Good,” I said.
    “Good?” Terric asked. “You do know if we set those spells, everyone who draws magic from the wells will also get slapped. Including us.”
    “I know,” I said. “Are you two done?” I asked Shame and Zayvion.
    “Are we?” Zay asked Shame.
    “Not hardly,” Shame said.
    Fine. They could glare and threaten. I had things to take care of. I noticed Eli Collins standing in the shadows at the end of the hallway and ducked out from under Zay’s arm. I strolled over to him.
    Collins the Cutter had been Closed and kicked out of the Authority years ago. But he had also saved Davy’s life and stood with us against Jingo Jingo. He possessed a sharp, if immoral, intellect and was currently one of the people I planned to use to help us win the fight with Seattle and the battle with Leander and Isabelle.
    “Allie,” Terric called after me, “you’re shutting down the networks, you’re booby-trapping the wells. How are we supposed to defend ourselves without magic?”
    Zayvion followed me, but Shame stayed behind, hopefully cooling down.
    “We are going to fight the old-fashioned way,” I said. “Dirty. Dr. Collins, I need to talk to you.”
    The bruising on his face had faded some, though a ragged edge of brownish red licked along his hairline and jaw. He was still a little puffy from the price he’d paid using magic to save Davy, and then to fight Jingo Jingo. He didn’t seem to be in pain, standing cool and crisp in a button-down shirt, vest, and slacks. His round wire-rimmed glasses gave him that stiff, educated air that made him seem older than the thirty or thirty-two I guessed his age to be.
    “Allison,” he said. “Zayvion.”
    I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know Zay was scowling at him.
    Eli shifted away from the wall, and nodded toward Terric and Shame.
    “What about them?” he asked.
    “What about them?” I asked.
    “Do you think they’re stable?” he asked.
    “
You
asking if they’re stable?” Zayvion said. “Ironic.”
    Eli just gave Zay a droll look.
    “If you have a point,” I said, “tell me now. I’m a little busy.”
    “Terric and Shame aren’t stable, is my point. If I were in a position to have a say in such things, I’d get them out of Portland to some place with little to zero naturally occurring magic for a month at least. Then I’d slowly reintroduce them to magic.”
    “Do you think they’re that much of a danger?”
    He shrugged one shoulder. “I can only assume. I may be wrong. There is very little…research on Soul Complements. That’s what they are, isn’t it? That’s why they were able to do what they did on the battlefield together?”
    “Yes.” I figured there was no point hiding it.
    “Two men,” Collins mused. “Since I am certain Victor hasn’t fully restored my memories, would you, Zayvion, tell me if in the history of the Authority there have ever been Soul Complements of the same gender?”
    “None that were tested,” Zay said. “It doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. It just means either they didn’t find each other, or they did, but were never