Magic Bites

by Ilona Andrews

  Long ago I argued that his Uberman simply could not exist. Even if he did succeed in creating an image of the essential male, it would fail his expectations. Too much depended on the interaction between two human beings, and ultimately it was that interaction that led to intimacy. He debated me with great passion and I had learned not to argue anymore.

  We met during a merc gig a year ago, bodyguard detail. All mercs did one sooner or later, and it was just my luck I drew Saiman. He was injured at the time, confined to his bed by a postoperative complication from a stomach surgery. His body kept changing while it fought the infection and he proved very difficult to guard. I managed to kill two of the assassins sent to dispatch him. He killed the third with a pencil through the eye. I thought I had botched the job but he had seemed grateful ever since. I didn’t complain. His services didn’t come cheap.

  Saiman returned wearing loose clothes of dark blue that were cut like common sweats but looked too expensive to be soiled by that moniker. He looked at the Almanac still opened in my lap, the article Bono had given me a few days back laying on the page.

  “Cut from the Volshebstva e Kolduni. What a pretentious title. As if writing ‘Spells and Warlocks’ in Russian would somehow lend them more credibility. I didn’t know you read that trash.”

  “I don’t. The article was given to me by an acquaintance.”

  “The problem with those rags is that the people who publish them don’t realize that magic is fluid. They print erroneous information.”

  It was an old argument and a valid one. People affected magic just as magic affected them. If enough people believed something to be true, sometimes the magic obliged and made it true.

  Saiman scanned the article. “It’s incomplete and full of garbage as always. They classify the upir as a corpse-eating undead. Look, they correctly state the upir has an enormous sexual appetite, but are unaware of the contradiction: an undead has no urge to mate, therefore an upir cannot be undead. They also mention that it will try to mate with anything mammal it can secure long enough to achieve a climax but fail to note that the product of such union usually survives to serve the upir.” He dropped the article in disgust. “If you ever need to know more about this creature, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “So what brings you to my humble abode?”

  “I need an m-scan evaluated.”

  He arched his eyebrow again. I could learn to hate him. “Very well. I’ll charge you by the hour. Our usual discount starting . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Now. Do you want a complete workup?” he asked.

  “No, just the basics. I can’t afford the fancy stuff.”

  “Cheap client?”

  “I’m working pro-bono.”

  He grimaced. “Kate, that’s a horrible habit.”

  “I know.”

  He took the chart, holding it gently with his long fingers. “What interests you?”

  “A series of small yellow lines toward the bottom.”

  “Ah.”

  “What would register yellow? And how much is the answer going to cost me?”

  “A great question. Let me run a test to make sure this isn’t a mechanical failure.”

  I followed him to the lab. A forest of equipment that would make the personnel of an average college lab giddy with joy rested on black surfaces of flame-resistant tables and counters. Saiman donned a green waterproof apron and a pair of slick opaque gloves, reached under the table and produced a ceramic tray. With a practiced, economic movement, he took the tray to a glass cube in the corner.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m going to scan the m-scan to pick up any residual traces of magic. Full enclosure. I don’t want any contamination.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “It’s free. Your altruism infected me. You still have to pay for my time, of course.”

  He touched a lever and the cube rose upward on a metal chain. Saiman slid the tray onto the ceramic platform and lowered the cube, so the glass enclosed the tray. His fingers danced across the keyboard and an explosion of green color flooded the cubicle. It died, flashed again, died, and a printer chattered on a different table, belching a piece of paper.

  He ripped it free and handed it to me. It was blank—a control to make sure no magic traces contaminated the tray.

  Saiman attached the m-scan to the tray, slid it into the cube and repeated his elaborate high-tech dance. This time the printer produced an exact copy of my m-scan.

  Saiman pondered it for a moment and leaned against the table, m-scan in hand. “The problem is, the m-scanner is imperfect.”

  My heart sank. “So, it’s a malfunction?”

  “In a manner of speaking. As of now, the scanner is an imperfect instrument. It registers humans in various shades of light blue to silver, but it frequently fails to document the subtle tint of their magic. Almost anything except the most radical variations, such as purple for a vampire or green for a shapechanger, escapes it. A clairvoyant and a diviner of roughly equal power would register in the same color, even though their magic inclinations differ. And,” Saiman allowed himself a thin-lipped smile. “It registers all fera magic as white.”

  “Fera as in feral? Animal magic?”

  “Each animal species exudes its own specific magic. The common m-reader documents it as white so we don’t even see it. Recently some bright minds in Kyoto examined a wide variety of animals using a hypersensitive scanner. They conclusively proved that each species of animal produces its own color. Faint, pastel, but distinct, and always a derivative of yellow.”

  “So the yellow lines mean animals?”

  “On a superb scanner, yes. But on our piece of junk the animals would most likely register white. The only way we would notice them is through mixing with some other magical influence.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Look at your lines. They have a light peach tint. It’s very faint but that peach is the only reason we can see the lines in the first place. It means that you are facing something that is mostly animal but has been tainted with something else.”

  My head swam. “Okay. Let me reiterate this. All animal magic registers as white but is truly pale yellow. A very weak yellow that is easily dominated by all other colors. There is no way to see that pale yellow, except when it’s mixed with some other color. The yellow of the wolf mixing with blue of a human makes the hunter green of a lycanthrope. By this reasoning, the wolfwere, an animal shapeshifting into human, would register as swampy green. Am I right so far?”

  He nodded.

  “The fact that I can see the yellow lines means that the scanner showed the presence of something with strong animal magic and a touch of something else. Since the lines are peach, then the likely suspect would be . . . orange.”

  I bit off the last word. Orange came from red and red was the color of necromantic magic.

  Saiman confirmed my deduction. “It’s an animal that has some connection with necromantic magic. I don’t know of what kind. It certainly isn’t an animal zombie. That registers as a dark red. Have fun.”

  I groaned.

  “Time is money,” he said, “so I suggest you save your ruminations for later. Do you have anything else for me?”

  “No.”

  He looked at his watch. “Thirty seven minutes.”

  I wrote a check for nine hundred and sixty-two dollars, which left exactly four hundred dollars and nine cents in my checking account. I had five hundred in savings to use in case of emergency. If more money didn’t come my way soon, I’d have to consider a change of venue.

  I handed him the check. He didn’t bother looking at it.

  “Let me know how it turns out,” he said with his customary smile.

  “You’ll be the first to hear.”

  “And Kate? If you change your mind about my latest prototype, the offer still stands.”

  The piercing blue eyes and enormous muscles flashed before my mind’s eye. That way lay dra
gons. “Thanks, but it isn’t likely.”

  As I strode out of the apartment, I decided that I didn’t like the tint of smile playing on Saiman’s lips.

  CHAPTER 4

  I AWOKE IN GREG’S APARTMENT CLOSE TO SEVEN and reached for the phone. Dialing Jim’s number resulted in three rings, a click, and a beep of the answering machine without any forewarning message. I left a laconic “call me” and hung up. He would be none too pleased. The morning after a night of hunting was the time for serene contemplation, as sacred to the shapeshifters as meditation to a Shaolin monk. Caught between Man and Beast, the shapechangers sought complete control over each and so they met the sunrise looking inward. Their moment of self-reflection completed, they succumbed to peaceful sleep. I had little doubt that Jim had hunted last night in the Unicorn. He was likely to be asleep already, and the machine would beep announcing the message until it drove him crazy. I smiled at the thought.

  I stretched, working the kinks out of my shoulders and back. I kicked at the shadow on the wall, putting all I had into it but never touching my imaginary opponent. I cycled through some basic kicks, front snap, roundhouse, thrust, finishing with more elaborate forms. After ten minutes I broke a sweat and pushed on for another twenty, working mostly on strength in my arms, shoulders, and chest. Greg did not own weights so I used a heavy lead-filled mace instead of a dumbbell. It was poorly balanced but it was better than nothing.

  I had not lifted for a few days and I felt weaker than usual. Still, the controlled, determined exertion felt good and my mood improved gradually, so by the time the shower started calling to me, I was almost upbeat.

  The phone rang just as my hand touched the bathroom door. I did a 180, expecting Jim on the line.

  “Jim?”

  “Hello,” said a male voice. It was a pleasant voice, well modulated and clear. I’d heard it before, but it took me a minute to remember where.

  “Dr. . . . Crane?”

  “Crest.”

  Yes, the toothpaste-named charity worker. How the hell did he get my number? “Can I help you?”

  “I was hoping you would have lunch with me.”

  Persistent bugger. “How did you get my number?”

  “I called to the Order and lied to them. I said that I had information concerning the dead vampire and gave them my credentials. They gave me this number.”

  “I see.”

  “So will you join me?”

  “I’m very busy.”

  “But you have to eat once in a while. I would really like to see you again, some place less formal. Give me a chance and if the lunch doesn’t work out, I’ll vanish from your horizon.”

  I thought about it and realized that I wanted to say yes. It was a completely ludicrous thing to do. I was sitting on top of a bomb and both the Pack and the People stood ready to light the fuse, and here I was, considering a date. How long had it been since I’d been on a real date? Two years?

  “It’s a deal,” I said. “I’ll meet you between twelve and twelve thirty at Las Colimas. Do you know where it is?”

  He knew.

  “And Dr. Crest?”

  “Just Crest, please.”

  “Crest, please don’t call the Order again.”

  I expected him to be taken aback, but he said cheerfully “Yes, ma’am!” and hung up.

  Stepping into the shower, I tried to figure out why I had agreed to meet him. There had to be a reason, something besides feeling lonely and tired, and wanting normal human contact, male human contact, the kind of male that didn’t warp into a monster or shift muscles around its frame with the ease of changing clothes. Perhaps, I would use this opportunity to pump him for information about the morgue’s treatment of the dead vamp. Yeah, that was it.

  Halfway through the shower the phone rang. I turned off the water and went to pick it up, dripping wet soap lather onto the linoleum.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Maxine, dear.”

  “Hello, Maxine.”

  “The protector wishes to see you in his office today at eight thirty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem, dear.”

  I hung up and went back into the shower. The hot water hit me with a satisfying rush, soothing my muscles.

  The phone rang.

  I growled and stomped back to the phone, without bothering to shut off the water.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got some fucking nerve calling me in the morning,” Jim growled.

  “Forgive me for disturbing your beauty sleep!” I snarled.

  “What the hell did you call me for?”

  “I want you to claw your eyes open and give me a list of Pack murders: locations, times, and so on.”

  “You know, that’s classified information. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I’m the only person that gives a shit. Look out the window. You see a line of people waiting to help your furry asses?”

  I slammed the phone and returned to the shower. The absence of steam should have alerted me, but I foolishly stepped right into the ice-cold cascade. While I was talking, the shower had run out of hot water. Choking the shower pipe would not bring the hot water back, as satisfying as it might feel, so I turned the shower off and toweled dry. It was going to be one of those days.

  I SAT IN ONE OF THE VISITOR’S CHAIRS DEEP IN THE bowels of the knight-protector’s office. This time Ted was not talking on the phone. Instead he regarded me from behind his desk like a medieval knight watching the besieging Saracens from the ramparts of his stronghold.

  Moments stretched into minutes.

  Finally he said, “I pulled your file from the Academy.”

  Oh, shit.

  “You had an e-rating,” he said.

  E for electrum. Not that big of a deal, really.

  “Do you know how many squires with e-ratings came to the Academy in its thirty eight years?” he asked.

  I knew. Greg told me so many times that the number made holes in my ear membranes, but provoking the protector would do me no good, so I kept my peace.

  “Eight,” he said, letting the words sink in. “Including you.”

  I tried to look solemn.

  Ted moved his pen two inches to the left, gave it a careful look, and leveled his gaze back at me. “Why did you leave?”

  “I had a problem with authority.”

  “A bad case of honor student ego?”

  “It went beyond that. I realized that the Order was the wrong place for me and I withdrew before I had a chance to do something really stupid.”

  In my mind Greg’s voice said with a touch of reproach, And so you became a mercenary, a sword for hire, without a purpose or cause.

  Ted said, “You’re working for the Order now.”

  “Yes.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “Well, Doctor, it feels rather sore and tingly.”

  He waved my quip aside. “I’m not fucking around. How does it feel?”

  “Having a base in the city is nice. The MA sticker opens doors. There’s a lot of responsibility.”

  “It bothers you?”

  “Yes. When I’m on my own, I screw up and my pay-check goes down the drain, so I eat what I grow until the next thing comes along. Now I screw up and a lot of people might die.”

  He nodded. “Feel choked by authority?”

  “No. You gave me a long leash. But I know it’s there.”

  “Just as long as you remember.”

  “That’s not something I would forget.”

  “I’ve got a complaint from Nataraja,” he said.

  I relaxed. The tide was changing. “Oh?”

  “He claims that you’re avoiding discussing the case with them. He had a lot to say.”

  “He frequently has a lot to say.” I shrugged.

  “You know why he’s making noise?”

  “Yes. Both the People and the Pack are suspects. He wants to put on a show of cooperation.”

  Ted nodded, appr
oving of my assessment.

  “I had no cause to go to the Casino,” I said.

  “You’ve got one now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then after we’re done, go and shut him up.”

  I nodded.

  “Tell me what you’ve got so far.”

  I unloaded. I told him about the dead vampire and the hidden brand; I told him about the meeting with the Beast Lord who wanted to be called Curran, and I told him about the yellow lines on the m-scan and Anna’s dream.

  He sat through it all, nodding with no expression on his stone face. When I was done, he said, “Good.”

  I realized that the audience was over and left the office. This time the Saracens escaped without burning oil scalding their backs.

  I proceeded into Greg’s office. Something had been bothering me since last night, tugging at my mind, and this morning, my wits sharpened by fury over the icy shower, I finally figured out what it was: the names of the women in Greg’s file. I had forgotten about the four names, just let them slip from my memory, which was both irresponsible and stupid. I should have known better than that.

  Finding the file and extracting the page listing the names took about five seconds. Sandra Molot, Angelina Gomez, Jennifer Ying, Alisa Konova. I checked Greg’s files looking for the names, but none of the women had individual folders. Besides coming from different ethnic groups, they had nothing in common. I rummaged around for a phone book, found it in the lowest drawer, and looked through it. Gomez and Ying were common surnames, and Molot was not infrequent, so I looked for Konova. I found two men with the surname Konov, Anatoli and Denis. Russians denoted female gender by adding a vowel to the end of their surname, so a female form of Konov would be Konova. Given that, I thought the names were worth a try.

  I dialed the first one and was informed by an indifferent female voice that the number had been disconnected. I tried the second number. The phone rang and an older female voice said with a slight accent, “Yes?”

  “Hello, can I speak with Alisa, please?”