Magic Bleeds (20 page)

Saiman turned and strode to his sleek, bullet-shaped vehicle, disfigured by the bloated front end containing the enchanted water engine.

I petted the poodle. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you bite him if he gets out of line.”

The dog wagged his tail. Either Saiman smelled tasty, or my poodle had good instincts.

I mounted, swaying a bit, and nudged Marigold into action. Even if I did fall along the way, I’d likely land in a snowdrift. Any landing you could walk away from was a good landing.

THE MAGIC WAVE KEPT GOING. MY APARTMENT would give any meat freezer a run for its money. I couldn’t avoid the woodstove forever.

I’d been thinking about the female Steel Mary the entire time I rode to my apartment and was getting nowhere. A woman’s voice came out of the undead water mage’s mouth but I couldn’t recall it well enough to compare it to the Steel Mary’s. So either there were two women working together, or there was only one woman, six and a half feet tall, expert with a spear, with the ability to pilot the undead, use power words, and create pandemics.

Nothing I’d read even remotely fit that scenario. I’d have to rely on Saiman’s ability to read the parchment.

I pulled my shoes off and trudged into the kitchen. The red light on my answering machine was blinking.

I pushed the button.

“Got your note,” Christy’s voice said. “Someone ripped out the lock on your screen and pinned the paper to your front door with a nail. It’s rain-stained, but I think it says, ‘I’m here, you’re not. Call me.’ ”

He did come to see me with broken bones. A day too late and a dollar short.

The second message was from Andrea.

“Hey. It’s me. Raphael says that Curran’s been a real bastard since about mid-November. He’s in a
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

bad mood, he’s snarling at everything and everyone, and he stopped hearing petitions. The big items that have to be done get done, but no new projects have been approved. Raphael’s been trying to get financing from the Pack to buy out a competing business. He says the last time he brought it up, Curran almost bit his head off. He apparently stalks the Keep halls at night, looking for someone to chew out.”

“He needs to get laid!” Raphael’s voice called out from a distance.

“Shush. Raphael’s mad because he can’t get his thingie approved.”

“My
thingie
would make us money,” Raphael yelled. “Not getting it approved is costing us money we could be making.”

“
Anyway
,” Andrea said, “I thought you ought to know.”

The message ended.

The answering machine was still blinking. There was another message and I had a pretty good idea who it was from.

For a while I sat in the kitchen and petted the attack poodle, deciding whether I should listen to the message or just erase it. Finally I pushed the button and Curran’s voice filled the room.

“You can run, but it won’t matter. I will find you and we will talk. I’ve never asked or expected you to deal with me on shapeshifter terms, but this is juvenile even by human standards. You owe me an answer.

Here, I’ll make it easy for you. If you want me, meet me and I’ll explain my side of what happened. Or you can run away from me the way you always do, and this time I won’t chase you. Decide.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” I told the answering machine.

I played the message a couple of times more, listening to his voice. He’d had his chance and blown it.

I’d paid for it. It would be stupid to risk this kind of pain again. Plain stupid.

I slumped in my chair. The rock in my chest cracked into sharp pieces. Thinking about letting him go hurt. But then he wasn’t mine to let go in the first place.

My father taught me many things. Guard yourself. Never become attached. Never take a chance. Never take a risk if you don’t have to. And more often than not, he proved right. Taking stupid risks only landed you into hotter water.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

But if I let Curran go without a fight, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I would rather drag a dozen rocks in my chest and know that he wasn’t my chance at happiness, than walk away and never be sure.

And that’s all he wanted—to be sure. We both deserved to know.

As much as it pained me to admit it, Curran was right. I never made allowances for him being a shapeshifter. I always expected him to deal with me as a human. He didn’t think I could meet him on his home turf and play by his rules.

Big mistake, Your Majesty. You want me to act like a shapeshifter? Fine, I can do that. I pulled up the phone and dialed a number from memory.

“Yes?” Jim answered.

“I was told that shapeshifters declare their romantic interest by breaking into each other’s territory and rearranging things.”

There was a slight pause. “That’s correct.”

“Does the cat clan use this ritual?”

“Yes. Where are you going with this?”

When on shaky ground in negotiations, shovel on some guilt. “Do you remember when I stood by you during the Midnight Games, even though you were wrong and your people attacked me?”

He growled quietly. “Yes.”

“I need access to Curran’s private gym for fifteen minutes.”

Silence stretched.

“When?” he asked.

“Tonight.”

Another pause. “After this, we’re even.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Jim was an ass but he paid his debts. “Deal.”

“He’s in the city tonight. I’ll keep him here. Derek will meet you at the Keep in two hours.”

I hung up and punched in the second number. What do you know, I actually pulled it off.

“Teddy Jo,” a gruff voice answered.

“You owe me for the apples,” I said into the phone. I was calling in all favors tonight.

“That’s right. What can I do you for?”

I smiled. “I need to borrow your sword.”

THE NIGHT WAS FREEZING AND I TOOK KARMELION, my old, beat-up truck of a bile green color. It was missing the front light assembly and had more dents than a crushed Coke can, but it ran during magic waves and it would keep me warm. It also made enough noise to wake the dead, but I didn’t care. Being warm won.

It took me two hours to get the sword and leave Atlanta behind. Before the Shift, many of Atlanta’s residents had had the luxury of commuting from nearby towns, driving in through the countryside. Aided by magic, nature had reclaimed these undeveloped stretches with alarming speed. Living things generated magic by simply being, and when put against inert concrete and steel, plants had the advantage. What once were fields now had become dense forest. It swallowed gas stations and lone farmsteads, forcing people to move closer together. Trees flanked the road, their branches black and leafless, sharp charcoal sketches in the snow.

I peered into the dark and petted the attack poodle. I had to lay the front seat flat for him—he was too big. “I always miss the damn road.”

The poodle made a small growling noise and curled up tighter.

A long howl of a lone sentry rolled through the night, announcing our arrival.

We made a sharp turn, picking up a barely perceptible narrow road between the thick oaks. The trail veered left, right, the old trees parted, and we emerged into a wide clearing. The enormous building of the Keep loomed before us. A hybrid of a castle and a modern fort, it jutted over the forest like a
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

mountain, impregnable and dark. It was built the old-fashioned way, with basic tools and superhuman strength, which made it magic-proof. Since I’d been here last, most of the north wing had been completed, and the wall of the courtyard now rose about fifteen feet high.

I steered through the gates into the courtyard. A familiar figure sauntered to the truck. Derek. I’d know that wolf gait anywhere.

Three months ago Derek had been handsome. He’d had one of those perfect male faces, fresh, almost bordering on pretty, and dark, velvet eyes that made women wish to be fifteen again. Then rakshasas poured molten metal on his face. It healed. He wasn’t disfigured, although he thought he was, but his face had lost its perfect lines.

His nose was thicker, his jaw bulkier. His eyebrow ridge protruded farther, making his eyes appear more deep set, the result of the Lyc-V thickening the bone and cartilage in response to trauma. The skin along his hairline on the left temple showed permanent scarring, where bits of his shattered skull had become lodged in the muscle. I touched it once and it felt like grains of salt under the surface of the skin.

With longer hair, it would be practically invisible, but Derek kept his hair short. There were other small, minute things—the slight change in the shape of the mouth, the network of small scars on the right cheek.

His face now made you want to call for backup. He looked like an older, scarred, vicious version of himself.

And his eyes were no longer velvet. One look into those eyes and you knew their owner had been through some heavy shit and, if he got pissed off, you wanted to be miles away.

I shut off the engine. The sudden silence was deafening.

Derek opened the door for me. “Hey, Kate.” He had a wolf’s voice, raspy, harsh around the edges, and occasionally sardonic. The ordeal at the Midnight Games had permanently damaged his vocal cords as well as his face. He’d never howl at the moon again, in fur or out, but his snarl made you cringe.

He looked my truck over. “Nice vehicle. Inconspicuous. Stealthy even.”

“Spare me.” I got out, carrying Teddy Jo’s sword wrapped in flame-retardant cloth, and shut the car in the poodle’s face. “Stay.”

Derek nodded at the vehicle. “Who is that?”

“Your replacement.”

He led me away from the front gate to a narrow side door.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“You replaced me with a shaved poodle?”

“He’s got mad skills.”

Derek’s eyebrows crept up.

“He can vomit and urinate at the same time and he doesn’t make fun of my car.”

He laughed under his breath.

We entered the door and started up a long winding staircase. “Let me guess, he’s up at the very top.”

Derek nodded. “Curran has the top floor to himself.”

“It’s good to be the Beast Lord.”

We kept climbing. And climbing. And climbing. Five minutes later the stairs finally ended in a large door.

Derek opened it, inviting me into a small room, ten by ten. Another door blocked the exit at the far wall.

Derek waited a moment.

The second door swung open, revealing two shapeshifters, an older bald man and a woman about my age, both in superb shape. They gave me the evil eye.

Derek nodded at them.

They plainly didn’t want to let me in.

Amber rolled over Derek’s eyes. “Move,” he said quietly.

They stepped aside. Derek motioned me in. “Please.”

The boy wonder had moved up the ranks.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

We passed between the shapeshifters into a hallway. On the left was a small room. A third shapeshifter, a man about Derek’s age, sat there.

We strode down the hallway, the older man and the woman shadowing us. Curran’s guards definitely had doubts about my presence here. They were right. I was up to no good.

“The gym will be on the left.” Derek nodded at the hallway, where the stone wall ended, replaced by glass. “His living quarters are upstairs. There is a small stairway down the hall.”

He pointed to the doors as we passed them. “Private meeting room. Sauna.”

“And that?” I nodded to another door.

The bodyguards looked like someone had stepped on their feet.

Derek’s face turned perfectly neutral. “It’s reserved for the female guests.”

I opened the door. A huge canopied bed occupied most of the room, gauzy curtains drawn up like clouds above the snow-white comforter. The furniture was pale, blond oak with golden accents, elegant and light, almost floating above the polished wooden floor. A large dresser stood against the wall, next to a vanity table with a three-panel mirror. The middle of the floor was taken over by an overstuffed sofa facing a fireplace with a thick white rug by it. A flat screen hung on the wall above the fireplace. The far wall was frosted glass, strategically interrupted by clear stretches forming a bamboo design. The door stood ajar and through it I saw a pristine hot tub.

“Where is Barbie?”

The female shapeshifter snickered and choked it off.

“Is there a stripper pole?”

The older man winced. Derek looked pained. “No.” “Speakers for the mood music?”

Derek pointed at the corner above a small refrigerator. I bet there was cold champagne in that fridge.

I stepped out, shut the door, and pulled on an oven mitten. The shapeshifters watched me with great interest. I untied the cord securing the flame-retardant cloth on Teddy Jo’s sword and handed it to
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Derek, revealing a thick, asbestos-lined scabbard. “Hold this, please.”

He took it.

I grasped the onyx-colored hilt and pulled the sword free. It was a classic Hoplite blade, leaf-shaped, about two feet long. A spark ran down the metal, from the hilt to the point. The blade burst into blinding white fire.

The shapeshifters jerked back.

Derek’s eyes went wide. “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a loaner from the Greek angel of death.” I aimed the sword at the lock and touched it to the door.

Blue sparks flew.

“What are you doing?” the female bodyguard snarled.

“I’m welding the bimbo room shut.”

She opened her mouth and clamped it closed without a word.

I lifted the sword. The lock had melted into a blob of quickly cooling metal. Lovely. I held the sword straight up and turned to Derek. “Where did you say the gym was?”