Magic Strikes (4 page)

Formerly Lenox Pointe and now Champion Heights, Saiman’s building, which had been remodeled more times than I could count, was shielded by a complex spell, which tricked the magic into thinking the high-rise was a giant rock. During the magic waves, parts of the high-rise looked like a granite crag.

During the flare, parts of it were a granite crag. But today, with the magic down, it looked like a high-rise.

I had taken Betsi, my gasoline-guzzling Subaru, to save time. The magic had just fallen, and considering how weak this wave had been, the tech would likely stay on top for at least a few more hours. I parked Betsi’s battered, dented carcass next to slick vehicles that cost twice my year’s salary and then some,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

and headed up the concrete steps to the lobby armored in steel plates and bulletproof glass.

My foot caught on the edge of a step and I nearly took a dive. Great. Saiman was frighteningly intelligent and observant, always a bad combo for an adversary. I needed to be sharp. Instead I was so tired, my eyes required match-sticks to stay open. If I didn’t wake up fast, Derek could end the night wading through a sea of hurt.

When a shapeshifter hit puberty, he could go loup or go Code. Going loup meant surrendering yourself to the beast and rolling down the bumpy hill of homicide, cannibalism, and insanity, until you ran into teeth, blades, or a lot of silver bullets at the bottom. Going Code meant discipline, strict conditioning, and an iron will, and subjecting oneself to this lifestyle was the only way a shapeshifter could function in a human society. Going Code also meant joining a pack, where the hierarchy was absolute, with alphas burdened with vast power and heavy responsibility.

Atlanta’s Pack was arguably the biggest in the country. Only Alaska’s Ice Fury rivaled it for sheer numbers. Atlanta shapeshifters drew a lot of attention. The Pack was big on loyalty, accountability, chain of command, and honor. The Pack members never forgot that society at large perceived them as beasts, and they did everything in their power to project a low-key, law-abiding image. Punishment for unsanctioned criminal activity was immediate and brutal.

Getting caught breaking and entering into Saiman’s apartment would land Derek into scalding-hot water.

Saiman had connections, and if he chose, he could create a lot of noise. The potential for the Pack to get a huge and very public black eye was significant. The Pack’s alphas, collectively known as the Pack Council, would be champing at the bit once they found out about the murder. Right now wasn’t a good time to piss them off any further. I needed to get Derek out of that apartment, fast, quiet, and with a minimum of fuss.

I made it to the lobby and knocked on the metal grate. Inside a guard leveled an AK-47 at me from behind his reinforced station in the center of the marble floor. I gave him my name and he buzzed me in—I was expected. How nice of Saiman.

The elevator brought me to the fifteenth floor and spat me out into a luxurious hallway lined with carpet that might have been thicker than my mattress. I crossed it to Saiman’s apartment, and the lock clicked open just as I reached out to ring the bell.

The door opened, revealing Saiman. He wore his neutral form, the one he usually put on for my benefit: a bald man of average height and slight build, wearing white sweats. His lightly tanned face was symmetrical, handsome even, strictly speaking, but devoid of any attitude. Being face-to-face with him was similar to looking into an opaque, slightly reflective surface: he enjoyed mimicking the mannerisms of his conversation partners, knowing it unnerved them.

His eyes, on the other hand, were as remarkable as his expression was bland: dark and backlit with an agile intellect. Right now the eyes sparkled with amusement.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Saiman. I brought
my sword.

“Kate, what a pleasure to see you.”

Can’t say likewise.
“Derek?”

“Please, come in.”

I entered the apartment, a carefully designed, monochromatic environment of ultramodern lines, curves, and plush white cushions. Even the loup cage, which contained Derek at the far wall, matched the gleaming steel and glass of the coffee table and lamp fixtures.

Derek saw me. He didn’t stir, didn’t say anything, but his gaze fastened on to me and wouldn’t let go.

I walked over to the cage and looked at him. In one piece. “Are you hurt?”

“No. You shouldn’t have come. I can handle this.”

Obviously I was missing the whole picture. Any minute now he would leap up, wrench the two-inch silver alloy bars apart despite the fact that silver was toxic to shapeshifters, and heroically kick Saiman’s ass.

Any minute now. Any minute.

I sighed.
Fate, deliver me from the bravery of adolescent idiots.

“Kate, please sit. Would you like something to drink?” Saiman migrated to the bar.

“Water, please.”

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

I slid Slayer out of its sheath on my back. The saber caught the light of the electric lamps, its pale opaque blade long and slender. Saiman glanced at me from the bar.
Have you met my sword, Saiman? It’s to
die for.

I laid Slayer on the coffee table, took a spot on the couch, and studied Derek. At nineteen, the boy wonder was still slightly awkward, with long legs and a lean body that promised to fill out in a few years.

His brown hair grew dark, with a rich touch of chrome, and he kept it very short. His face, grim at the moment, possessed the type of fresh, dreamy beauty that made adolescent girls—and probably some moms—melt in his presence. When we first met, he had been pretty. Now he was slowly edging on handsome and promising to develop into a champion heartbreaker. His eyes especially posed danger to anything female: huge, dark, and defined by eyelashes so long they cast shadows onto his cheeks.

It was a wonder he could go out into the daylight at all. I could never understand why the cops didn’t arrest him for causing an epidemic of swooning among females eighteen and under.

Saiman would screw anything that moved. With Derek’s looks, I’d been afraid I’d find him chained to a bed or worse.

“After our conversation, I recalled where I had seen our young friend.” Saiman brought over two crystal glasses, a pale gold wine for himself and water with ice for me. I checked the water. No white powder, no fizzing pill, no other blatantly obvious signs of being spiked. To drink or not to drink? That was the question.

I sipped it. If he’d spiked it, I could still kill him before I passed out.

Saiman sampled his wine and handed a folded newspaper to me. The newspapers had been a dying breed before the Shift, but the magic waves played havoc with the Internet, and the news sheets had returned in all their former glory. This one showed a photograph of a foreboding redbrick building behind a ruined wall. A dragon corpse, little more than a skeleton with shreds of rotting meat clinging to its bones, decomposed in the background among bodies of dead women. The headline proclaimed RED

STALKER KILLER DISPATCHED BY BEAST LORD. No mention of me. Just the way I liked it.

A second picture punctuated the article below the first: Derek, carried off by Doolittle, the Pack’s physician. The Stalker had broken Derek’s legs and kept him chained to prevent the bones from healing.

“He was the boy targeted by the Stalker because of his association with you,” Saiman said. “I believe he was blood sworn to protect you.”

Saiman had excellent sources and paid well for the information, but Pack members didn’t talk to outsiders, period. How the hell did he get hold of that juicy tidbit?

“The oath is no longer in effect.” Curran, the Beast Lord of Atlanta, the Leader of the Pack, and Asshole Supreme, who quite literally held Derek’s life in his claws, had released Derek from his blood pledge once the Stalker affair was over.

“Magic has an interesting quality, Kate. Once a bond is formed, it affects both people.”

I knew Newman’s theory of reciprocal magic as well as anyone. Saiman was fishing for information. I was happy to disappoint him. “If you think that I came here out of some residual magical compulsion generated by an old blood oath, you’re wrong. He isn’t my lover, my secret relative, or a shapeshifter of great importance to the Pack. I’m here because he’s a friend. If our roles were reversed, you would be dead by now and he would be using your coffee table as a pry bar to wrench me out of that cage.”

I fixed Saiman with my best version of a hard stare. “I don’t have many friends, Saiman. If any harm befalls him, I’ll take it very personally.”

“Are you threatening me?” Saiman’s voice held only a mild curiosity.

“I’m simply defining the playing field. If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you back, and I won’t give a second thought to the consequences.”

Saiman nodded gravely. “Please be assured, I’ll take your emotional attachment under consideration.”

I had no doubt he would. Saiman took everything under consideration. He dealt in information, selling it to the highest bidder. He gathered his commodity bit by bit, piecing together a larger picture from fractured mosaics of individual conversations, and he forgot nothing.

Saiman set his wine down and braided the long fingers of his hands into a single fist. “However, your friend broke into my apartment and attempted to steal my property. I do feel compelled to point out that
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

while I respect your capacity for violence, I’m confident you won’t kill me without a reason. I don’t intend to give you one, and therefore, I hold the upper hand in our negotiations.”

That was true. If this mess got out, Derek would have to deal with Curran. The Beast Lord was an arrogant, powerful sonovabitch who ruled the Pack with a steel hand and three-inch claws. Curran and I mixed about as well as glycerin and nitric acid: put us together, shake a bit, and hit the deck as we exploded. However, despite his many faults, and I would have to borrow Saiman’s fingers and toes in addition to my own to count them all, Curran didn’t play favorites . Derek would be punished, and his punishment would be severe.

I sipped my water. “Noted. Out of curiosity, what did he try to steal?”

Saiman produced two small rectangles of paper out of thin air with the buttery grace of a skilled magician. The magic was down, so it had to be sleight of hand. I filed that fact away for future reference: never play cards with Saiman.

“He wanted these.” Saiman offered me the papers. I looked at them without touching. They were blood-red.

Heavy gold lettering spelled out MIDNIGHT GAMES across the parchment surface.

“What are the Midnight Games?”

“An invitation-only preternatural tournament.”

Oh boy. “I take it the tournament is illegal.”

“Extremely. In addition, I believe the Beast Lord expressly forbade attendance and participation in the tournament to Pack members.”

First, Derek broke into Saiman’s apartment. Second, he did it with the intent to steal. Third, he tried to steal tickets to an illegal gladiatorial tournament in direct violation of Pack Law. Curran would skin Derek alive and that might not be just a figure of speech. Was there any possible way this mess could get worse?

“Okay. How can we fix this?”

“I’m prepared to let him go and forget he was ever here,” Saiman said. “Provided you accompany me to the Games tomorrow night.”

Never ask that question.

“No,” Derek said.

I studied the glittering crystal glass in my hand, playing for time. A large crest had been painstakingly cut into the glass, a flame encircled by a serpent. The light of the electric lamp set the cut design aglow, and the crystal scales of the serpent sparkled with fiery colors.

“Lovely, isn’t?”

“It is.”

“Riedel. Hand-cut. A very limited series, only two made.”

“Why do you want my company?”

“My reasons are twofold: first, I require your professional opinion. I find myself in need of a fighter expert.”

I arched my eyebrows.

“I would like you to evaluate one of the teams at the Games.” Saiman permitted himself a small smile.

Okay. I could do that. “And second?”

Saiman studied the glass in his hand for a long moment and smashed it against the table. It shattered with a pure chime, showering the carpet with a spray of glittering crystal shards. In the cage Derek snarled.

I killed the desire to roll my eyes at all the drama and nodded at the stub of crystal. “If you’re planning to cut me with that, you’re out of luck. A bottle works much better for this kind of thing.”

Delight sparkled in Saiman’s eyes. “No, actually, I was planning on making a philosophical point. The glass you now hold in your fingers is the only glass of its kind in existence. It’s the ultimate luxury—there is nothing else like it.”

The flesh around his wrist swelled, flowing like molten wax. My stomach lurched and tried to crawl sideways. Here we go again. He stored magic like a battery, but I really thought with the technology as strong as it was right now, he wouldn’t be able to metamorphose. Live and learn.

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

Saiman’s shoulders widened. His neck, chest, and thighs thickened, straining his sweatshirt. Crisp muscle showed on his forearms. The bones under the skin of his face shivered and I nearly vomited my water.

A new face looked at me: handsome, strong, sensuous, with a square jaw, defined cheekbones, and hooded green eyes under reddish eyebrows. Thick blond hair spilled from his head to fall in a glossy wave onto his newly massive shoulders.

“For most people, I’m the ultimate luxury,” he said.

The man collapsed, thinning, flowing, twisting, but the eyes never changed. I stared into those eyes, using them as an anchor. Even when their corners sank, their irises darkened, and a velvet fringe of dark eyelashes sheathed them, I could still tell it was Saiman.