Magic Steals

by Ilona Andrews

  Not good. “How much blood?”

  Iluh swallowed. “Just a smudge.”

  “Show her,” my mom said.

  Iluh reached into her canvas bag. “We found this next to the blood.”

  She pulled a Ziploc bag out of her purse. Inside it were three coarse black hairs. About nine inches long, they looked like something you would pull out of a horse’s mane.

  “We tried going to the police, but they said we had to wait forty-eight hours before she can be declared missing.”

  I opened the bag and took a sniff. Ugh. An acrid, bitter, dry kind of stench, mixed with a sickening trace of rotting blood. I shook the hairs out on the table and carefully touched one. Magic nipped my finger. The hair turned white and broke apart, as if burned from the inside out. Bad magic. Familiar bad magic.

  Iluh gasped.

  “I told you,” my mother said with pride in her voice. “My daughter is the White Tiger. She can banish evil.”

  “Not all evil,” I said, and pushed a sticky-note pad toward Iluh. “Could you write your grandmother’s address down for me? I’ll go visit the house.”

  Iluh scribbled it down and got a key out of her purse. “Here is the spare key.” She wrote down another address. “This is my parents’ house. I’ll be over there today. Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No.” She would just get in the way.

  “Do I need to pay you?”

  My mother froze in the kitchen, mortally offended.

  People often confused ethnicity and cultural upbringing. Just because someone looks Japanese or Indian, doesn’t mean they have strong cultural ties to their country of origin. Cultural identity was more than skin deep. Because of the nature of my magic, I was known to many Indonesians in Atlanta, and learning about the culture and myths of my parents wasn’t only a part of my heritage, it was part of what made me better at what I did. Iluh chose to have less ties to Indonesian families. Culturally she was more mainstream. You can’t be offended by someone who simply didn’t know how things worked.

  “You don’t have to pay me,” I explained gently. “I do this because it’s my obligation to the community. Generations ago my family was given the gift of this magic so we could help others. It’s my duty and I’m happy to do it.”

  Iluh swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, no, I’m sorry you felt uncomfortable. Please don’t worry about it.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Please find her. She is my only grandmother.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I told her.

  • • •

  I walked Iluh out to the door. When I returned, my mother crossed her arms. “Pay? What, like you’re some kind of maid?”

  “Let it go, Mom. She just didn’t know.”

  “She should know. That’s my point. Are you going over there?”

  “Yes. Let me just get dressed.”

  “Good,” my mother said. “I’ll make you dinner while you’re gone. That way when you come back, there will be something to eat.”

  No! “Thank you so much, but I’m okay.”

  “Dali!” My mother opened the refrigerator. “There is nothing in here, except rice. You might have to purify a house today. You don’t even have cakes for the offering.”

  There was nothing in there because I was planning to store leftovers from Jim’s and my dinner. Jim, who was currently hiding upstairs and whom I had to sneak out of here. “I was going to go grocery shopping today. And I’ll steal some of your donuts for the offering.” I had apples in the fridge and my garden was in bloom. That would be plenty for the offering.

  “I’ll make you something to eat. Look at you, you’re skin and bones.”

  “Mother, I’m perfectly fine. I’m twenty-seven years old.”

  “Yes, you are. Your sink smells funny, your refrigerator is empty, and your trash is overflowing. And!” My mother pulled two dirty wineglasses out of the cabinet.

  How did she even know? It was like she had radar.

  “What is this? Have you been drinking?”

  Help me.

  “Drinking alone? That is not healthy for you. Look, you couldn’t even bother to wash the glass. You just got another one and then stuck the dirty one in there. That’s what alcoholics do.”

  “I’m a shapeshifter, Mom. I can’t get drunk even if I tried.” Technically I could. If I drank an entire bottle of whiskey, I would be buzzed for about twenty minutes or so, and then my body would metabolize the last of the alcohol and I would be sober as a baby.

  “Drinking, not eating, messing with stray cats.” My mother shook her head. “You know what you need? You need to meet a nice man. You need to get married and have lots of healthy children . . .”

  I put my hands over my face.

  Something thudded above us again.

  “That’s it.” My mother marched to the stairs. “I’m going to see this cat.”

  “You’ll scare him!” I chased her up the stairs. “Mother!”

  My mother opened the door to my bedroom. It stood empty.

  “Puss, puss . . .” My mother bent down and glanced under the bed. “Puss, puss . . . Does your cat speak Indonesian?”

  Actually he does. He learned it just for me.

  “I told you, he’s hiding.” Maybe he went out the window.

  The door to the closet stood open. The tomato red lingerie I had left on the carpet was missing.

  “Kitty, kitty, puss, puss . . .”

  Jim was still here. I could smell him. I edged into the closet and raised my head. Jim stood above the door, legs propped up on the top shelves of the closet, his back pressed against the wall. The stupid lingerie hung from his fingers.

  I wished I could fall through the floor.

  Jim shook the lingerie at me and raised his dark eyebrows.

  My mother turned around. “Why are you blushing?”

  I had to get her out of my bedroom. “I really have to go and look for Eyang Ida,” I said. “I’m going to get dressed now.”

  My mother looked at me.

  “May I have some privacy?”

  “Fine.” She shook her head and went out of the room. I heard her walk down the stairs, locked the bedroom door, sagged against it, and let out my breath.

  Jim stalked out of the closet, moving completely soundlessly across the carpet and leaned against the door next to me.

  “How much did that thing cost?” he whispered.

  “Never mind,” I whispered back at him. “You did that on purpose.”

  “Did what?”

  “Dropped things. Are you a jaguar or an elephant?”

  “I’m a stray cat, apparently. And your mother wants to neuter me.”

  “She wouldn’t want to neuter you if you stayed quiet.” Neutering was the last thing he had to worry about. If she found him, she’d be overjoyed and run out of the house so we could get busy making grandchildren.

  He grabbed me and picked me up. His eyes sparked with an amused light.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. “I’m mad at—”

  His mouth closed on mine. His lips brushed me, teasing, coaxing, and I melted, opening my mouth. He brushed a single sensual lick across my tongue and I shivered. His scent swirled around me, amber and musk, and tangy sweet citrus, carrying me away to a secret place, where there was only Jim, my hot, crazy Jim, with his strong arms locked around me. His kiss grew intense, passionate, then possessive. Every stroke of his tongue said, “I want you.” I wrapped my legs about his hips and let him kiss me. Our tongues mingled, as we shared the same breath. He had no idea how beautiful he made me feel when he kissed me like this.

  “Dali! What’s taking so long?”

  I broke away from him.

  He shook his head, his arms wrapped around me. �
�No.”

  “I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  I wiggled and felt him. He was hard and ready for action.

  “Jim, let me go. We can’t make out now.”

  He nodded. “Yes, we can.”

  “My mother is downstairs.”

  He didn’t seem impressed.

  “It’s that red thing, isn’t it?” I whispered.

  “No, actually it was your little tank top and panties as you jumped out of bed this morning. Or specifically what was in them.”

  “Dali?” my mother called.

  I slumped onto him. “She isn’t going to let it go.”

  “Which car are you taking?” he asked.

  “Pooki.”

  He set me down on the carpet. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  Before I could say anything, Jim opened the window and jumped out of it. I sighed, yelled, “Coming, Mom!” and went to get dressed.

  • • •

  POOKI was my Plymouth Prowler. When you’re barely one hundred pounds and other shapeshifters make fun of you behind your back because you’re the only tiger who eats grass in the entire state, you have to do something to prove that you’re not a wimp. My thing was cars. I raced them. Unfortunately being half-blind meant I crashed a lot, but being a shapeshifter meant I walked away from most of it, so the risk balanced itself out. Jim kept forbidding me to race, as the alpha of Clan Cat. I kept disobeying him. Some things just had to be done. When I raced, I felt powerful and strong. I felt awesome. I couldn’t give that up no matter how many times I had mangled my cars.

  Normally Pooki occupied a treasured spot in my garage, but a friend asked me to take care of his Corvette. He didn’t live in the best neighborhood and he was paranoid about his baby being stolen while he was out of town. So right now the Corvette chilled in the garage next to Rambo, my ’93 Mustang, and Pooki had to suffer the indignity of being parked in the driveway. I looked around. No sign of Jim. Hmm.

  I unlocked Pooki, got in, and began to chant under my breath. The magic was in full swing and it took fifteen minutes to get the water engine running. Pooki had two engines, a gasoline one and the enchanted water one. Internal combustion engines refused to combust during magic, which made no scientific sense, because gasoline fumes still burned in open air. But trying to measure magic by Newtonian laws of physics and Gibbs’s thermodynamics was pointless. It didn’t just disobey those laws. Magic had no idea they existed.

  The engine purred. I waited for an extra second, hoping Jim would jump into the car out of nowhere, but nothing happened. His scent was still on me. I sighed, backed out of the driveway, and drove down the street.

  It was too much to hope for a whole day together. The Pack was keeping him busy.

  I pulled up to the stop sign. The passenger door opened and Jim slid into the seat next to me. I clicked the locks closed. Ha-ha! He was trapped.

  “I’m going to try to find Eyang Ida. She’s a nice old lady, who disappeared from her house and some sort of bad magic is involved.”

  He nodded. “Can I come along?”

  “Yes. Put your seat belt on.”

  “I should drive,” he said.

  I laughed.

  “Dali,” he said, dropping into his “I’m a Serious Alpha Man” tone. “I’ve seen you drive.”

  “Nobody drives Pooki but me. You know this. Seat belt.”

  Jim clicked the seat belt in place and braced himself.

  I stepped on the gas. We took the next turn at thirty miles per hour. Pooki didn’t quite careen, but he thought about it. Jim swore.

  I laughed a little bit. “The magic is up. The fastest it will go is forty-five.”

  Jim braced himself with his legs. If he were in his jaguar form, his fur would be standing up and all of his claws would be out, sunk into the upholstery.

  We passed a crumbling wreck of an office building, jutting to the sky, its insides looted long ago by enterprising neighbors. Magic hated the by-products of technology, including pavement, computers, and tall buildings. Anything taller than three or four stories, unless it was built by hand and protected with spells, crumbled into dust. Atlanta’s entire downtown lay in ruins, and buildings still crashed without warning here and there. Most Atlantans didn’t care. Repeated exposure to fear-inducing stimuli creates familiarity, which in turn greatly reduces anxiety. We had acclimated to the chaos and technology. Falling buildings and monsters no longer terrified us. I wasn’t that afraid of monsters in the first place. I was one.

  “When are you going to tell your mother about us?” Jim asked.

  Never.

  “You do realize that she met me, right?”

  I made a hurrumph noise. That was all I could manage.

  “I’m too old to be hiding in closets,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t have to hide in a closet if you didn’t keep knocking things over.”

  “What’s the deal?” he asked me.

  Girls like me didn’t get guys like Jim. And if they did, they couldn’t keep them. Jim was everything an alpha of a Clan should be: powerful, ferocious, and ruthless. Clan Cat wasn’t the easiest clan to deal with. We all liked our independence and we chafed at authority, but we listened to Jim. He’d earned it. He ruled like an alpha, he fought like an alpha, and he was built like an alpha, too, broad shoulders, strong arms, great chest, a six-pack. You looked at him and thought, “Wow.” You looked at me . . . I was everything an alpha of a Clan wasn’t: physically weak, with an aversion to blood, and bad eyesight that even Lyc-V couldn’t fix, because it was tied to my magic. If I had transformed into some deadly combat beast, I might have gotten a pass. But my ferocious tiger image was only fur-deep. I would fight if my life was threatened, but to be an alpha, you had to live for combat.

  Not that Jim was some sort of murder junkie. He went physical only as a last resort and when he fought, he went about it with a methodical precision, brutal and lightning fast. I loved that about him. He was so competent, it was scary sometimes, and I admired that he was so good at something he had to do. But I had also seen him in combat long enough to recognize the excitement in his eyes when he struck and the quiet moment of satisfaction when his opponent fell dead to the ground. Jim didn’t look for a fight, but when one found him, he enjoyed winning.

  The shapeshifters were all about physicality and appearances. It was so unfair, I used to cry about it when I was a teenager. To top it all off, I did magic. Not only the tiger purifying magic, but actual, spell-based magic. I wrote curses in calligraphy. They didn’t always work. The shapeshifters mistrusted magic. They were magic and they had very little need for it. It just added to my overall uncoolness.

  In shapeshifter society, an alpha couple acted as a unit. They upheld the laws together, they made decisions together and when they were challenged, they answered challenges together. In a challenge, I wouldn’t be an asset to Jim. I would be a vulnerability. So all of this magical fairy-tale thing that was happening, his scent in my car, his big body in my bed, and our stolen secret dates, was temporary. Soon Jim would wake up and smell the reality. He would leave me and that would rip my heart out. When that happened, and it was a when not an if, I wanted to nurse my wounds in peace. I didn’t want pity from my mother, my family, or the Pack. I got pitied enough as it was.

  I didn’t even want to think about it. I just wanted to enjoy the magic while it lasted.

  “Dali!”

  I realized we were heading straight for a pothole, swerved, and hit the bulging asphalt, where a tree root had burrowed under the pavement. Pooki went airborne. My stomach tried to fall out of me. The Plymouth landed on the asphalt.

  “Whee!” I grinned at Jim.

  He put his hand over his face.

  “It’s not that bad!”

  “Dali, are you ashamed of introducing me to your mother?” />
  “No!”

  “Is it because we are planning on having sex before the wedding?”

  “No. My mother is from Indonesia, but she’s been in the United States for a long time.” Not to mention that she would be so overjoyed that I was having sex in the first place, she would probably call all of our relatives and tell them about it. They’d throw a party to celebrate.

  “Then why do I have to hide?”

  Think of something quick . . . “You know, this introducing thing goes both ways. You haven’t introduced me to your family either.”

  He nodded. “Okay. We’re having a barbeque this Sunday. You’re welcome to come.”

  I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. A barbeque with Jim’s family? With his mother, his sisters, and his cousins . . . Oh no.

  Jim reached over, put his fingers under my chin, and pushed my jaw up to close my mouth. “The way you’re driving, you’ll bite your tongue off.”

  I was smart. With all of that brain power I had to manage some sort of smart way to escape. “I can’t just show up unannounced.”

  “I already told them that I would ask you, so they know you might be coming.”

  “Oh so you just assumed I would show up?”

  “No, but I thought there might be a possibility that you wouldn’t turn me down.”

  He just refused to be ruffled and he was so logical about it. It was hard to argue with logic.

  I made another turn. We’d swung into an older neighborhood. Magic destroyed tall buildings, breaking them down into dust, but it also fed tree growth. The people-friendly trees, red maples, yellow poplars, red and white oaks, which usually grew in carefully managed spaces to shade the front lawns, had shot upward, spreading their thick limbs over the road and their massive roots under it, bulging the asphalt in waves. The street looked like a beach with the tide coming in.

  “Dali, I need to know if we’re on for this barbeque.”

  “Driving on this road is just awful. They should do something about this.”

  “Dali,” Jim growled.

  “Yes, I will come to the barbeque, fine!”