Magic Bites kd-1

by Ilona Andrews

  Its face no longer bore any resemblance to a human. The skull jutted back in a bony hornlike curve to balance the horribly massive protruding jaws. The creature had no nose, not even a hint of the nose bridge. It opened its mouth, splitting its head in a half. Rows of fangs gleamed against the blackness. It wouldn’t just puncture and rip, it would shred me.

  The creature’s eyes focused on me. The owl-like pupils gleamed with red.

  It leaped with inhuman speed. I aimed for the throat and missed, my blade sinking to the hilt into its shoulder. The thing swept me off my feet. I hit the ground hard. My head bounced off the pavement, and the world swam. Pressure ground into my chest, forcing the air from my lungs. I strained and sent a jolt of my power through Slayer’s blade.

  The saber’s hilt was jerked from my hand and the pressure vanished. I sucked in a lungful of air and scrambled to my feet, the throwing knife in my hand.

  The creature shivered a dozen feet away, dazed and uncertain. The thin blade of my saber protruded from its back. Two inches lower and to the left, and I would’ve hit its heart. The shoulder jerked, twisted by a powerful spasm as Slayer ground deep into the muscle seeking the heart. The flesh around the blade softened like melted wax.

  The creature’s head snapped, and it whipped around to face me. Two more inches. It would take Slayer at least three minutes to burrow that deep into the flesh. I had to survive for three minutes.

  No problem.

  I hurled my dagger. The tip of the blade bounced off the bony ridge just above the left orbit. Spectacular.

  The creature leaped, sailing easily across the twelve feet separating us, and a furry shape smashed into it in midflight. They rolled, the vampire and the werewolf, one snarling, the other hissing. I chased them. For a moment Derek pinned the bloodsucker, his claws fastened into the vampire’s gut, and then the vampire raked at the werewolf and shrugged him off.

  I lunged. It didn’t expect me to attack, and I delivered a clean kick to its shoulder. It was like kicking a marble column. I heard the bone crunch and hammered two quick thrusts to its neck. The creature swept at me, tearing at my clothes, in a whirlwind of teeth and claws. I parried the best I could. No sound issued from the monster’s mouth. A claw raked at me. A hot whip of pain stung my ribs and my stomach. The fangs snapped an inch from my face. I jerked back, expecting the horrid maw to engulf me, but the vamp let go and took a step backward.

  A set of new vampire arms was growing from its back. It spun, flailing, and I saw Ghastek’s vampire clinging to its neck.

  The bloodsucker rode the monster’s back, clawing at the massive neck. The creature tore at the arms and reared. Derek clutched its hind legs. The vamp kicked, but Derek clung to him. I took a running start and hammered a kick into the vampire’s ruined chest. Bone crunched. The vampire’s flesh tore like an overfilled water sack, releasing a torrent of foul-smelling liquid.

  The creature shrieked for the first time, an enraged, grating sound. The veins under its pallid hide bulged and its eyes smoldered deep blood-red, illuminating its face. It had sustained too much damage and was about to succumb to bloodlust, breaking from its master’s control. It flung Ghastek’s vampire away like a terrier flings a rat. Derek kept clawing at it, oblivious.

  “Get away from it!” I kicked the werewolf. He snarled, furious, and I kicked him again. He let go and came at me, growling. I shoved him aside.

  The creature screamed again and again, its body twisting, warping, as muscles knotted and snapped. Bony spikes pierced its shoulders, curving from its frame like horns. It reared and pawed at the ground, leaving cuts in the asphalt. I could see Slayer’s blade through the hole in its chest.

  The vampire charged me. It came with astonishing speed, impossible to stop. It smashed into me, and I grabbed Slayer’s hilt and thrust with everything I had. We hit the asphalt and skidded until we crashed into a wall.

  Good thing it was in our way. We might have kept going.

  I lay very still. The creature’s blood surged from its ruptured heart, drenching me. Colored circles blocked my view. Gradually I became aware of two eyes glowing gentle yellow above the vampire’s shoulder. I blinked, bringing the furry nightmare of a face into focus.

  “You okay?” My voice sounded hoarse.

  With a short growling noise, Derek swiped the corpse off me and pulled me to my feet. “Thank you,” I said.

  Derek was bleeding. A long gash marred his right leg and jagged claw marks seared his shoulder. He saw me looking and snarled, swinging away, so I couldn’t see his hip. I was bleeding, too. Fire bathed my waist, and it hurt to bend forward.

  I put my foot onto the vamp and pulled out Slayer. It came away easily, the flesh enclosing the blade liquefied by its magic. Positioning myself, I swung the saber and sliced through the creature’s neck. The deformed head rolled. I picked it up. The fire had gone out of its eyes. They looked empty. Dead.

  Drenched in foul-smelling blood and hurting, I looked for Frau. Through all that, the mare stayed put. I couldn’t believe it. I started toward her, stumbling a little. Walking, for some odd reason, proved to be troublesome. Halfway to Frau I changed my course and aimed for Ghastek’s vamp instead.

  The vamp lay on its stomach, its face toward me. I put the head down in front of it and tapped it with my finger.

  “I guess that settles it. How old is it, Ghastek? Three hundred years? More?”

  The vamp struggled to say something.

  I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I’ll find out. Thanks for your help. You can tell Nataraja he can take his security and shove it.”

  The vamp moved its hand, clamping onto my foot. Gently I took the hand off my bloodstained shoe, stepped over it, and headed to the horse.

  Derek stared at the bloodsucker with malice.

  “Let him be. We need to get out, before the People’s cleanup crew gets here.”

  I patted Frau and jammed the head into the saddlebag. The mare snorted, offended by the awful smell. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  I took down a large army-issue waterproof bag. “Gasoline,” I told Derek as if he couldn’t smell it.

  I splashed it over the spill, threw the bag aside, and reached for my matches. My fingers shook. I struck one match, another, on the fourth the gasoline flared. Ghastek’s vamp screeched as his evidence and my blood went up in smoke.

  I walked Frau into the night and my loyal wolf followed me, limping.

  WHEN WE REACHED THE DEAD-RAT WIELDING kids, Derek collapsed. He fell forward, snout first into the asphalt. The kids stared, startled, but didn’t bolt.

  A soft shudder went through the werewolf, releasing a mist, and leaving the naked human body curled on the ground. The kids looked on.

  The gash on his thigh was deeper than I had thought. The creature’s claws had severed the thick muscle shield of the quadriceps and cut deep into the calf. I peered into the wound and saw the shredded femoral artery. The injured flesh quivered. Torn blood vessels crawled toward each other amidst the muscle starting to knit together. The Lyc-V had shut his consciousness down to save energy for repairs.

  Pain lanced my waist, tearing up into my chest. Gritting my teeth, I turned Derek on his stomach, worked one arm under his hips and threaded the other across his chest under his arms. He was heavier than he looked, weighing in at one fifty, maybe one fifty-five. No matter.

  “Hey, lady!” said the kid with feathers in his hair.

  The children stood huddled together. We must have made quite a spectacle, Derek, nude and no longer furry, and I, drenched in blood, with my sword still smoking in its sheath.

  “You need some help?” the kid said.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  He came forward, picked up Derek’s feet, and looked back at his pack. “Mike.”

  Mike spat to the side and tried to look mean.

  The kid with the feathers glared at him. “Mike!”

  Mike spat again, for show—there wasn’t much spit left—came over, and
awkwardly clutched Derek’s shoulders.

  “Hold him under the armpits,” I said.

  He glanced at me, fear dancing in his eyes, set his jaw, and shifted his grip.

  “On three,” I muttered. “Three.”

  We heaved. The world swayed in the whirlwind of pain and then Derek was draped across Frau’s back. He would be fine. Lyc-V would repair him and tomorrow morning he’d be like new. I, on the other hand . . . A wet bloodstain was spreading from under my jacket at an alarming rate. If the blood started dripping, I’d be in a world of trouble. At least I still hurt.

  “Thanks,” I muttered to the children.

  “My name’s Red,” the kid with feathers said.

  I stuck my hand into the pocket of my pants. My fingers found a card. I handed it to him, careful to wipe the bloody smudge marring it on my sleeve. Not my blood. Derek’s.

  “If you ever need help,” I said.

  He took it solemnly and nodded.

  THE STAIRS WERE DARK AS HELL.

  I climbed, the steady pressure of Derek’s body distributed over my back. If I bent over just right, the pain was bearable, and so I dragged Derek and the bag up the stairs one step at a time, trying to keep my angle steady and being careful where I put my feet. I wasn’t certain if a werewolf could survive a broken neck. I knew I couldn’t.

  I paused on the landing to catch a breath and glanced up at my apartment’s door.

  A man sat on the stairs, his head leaning against the wall.

  Gently I lowered Derek to the floor and went for my sword. The man’s chest rose and fell in a smooth, even rhythm. I padded up the stairs, breathing through clenched teeth, until I could see his face. Crest. He didn’t wake.

  I tapped his head with the flat of Slayer’s blade. When I awoke, I did so instantly and silently, my hand looking for my sword before my eyelids snapped open. Crest awoke like a man unused to danger, with luxurious slowness. He blinked and stifled a yawn, squinting at me.

  I gave him a moment to recognize me.

  “Kate?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to pick you up for dinner. We had a date.”

  Shit. I had completely forgotten about the date.

  “I got held up until ten,” he went on. “I called you but you didn’t answer. It was too late by then, but I figured I’d drop by with a peace offering.” He held up a paper bag full of white cartons, decorated with a stylized Chinese symbol in red ink. “You weren’t here. I thought I’d wait a couple of minutes, sat down here on the stairs . . .” His brain finally registered my bloodied clothes, the sword, and the smudges of dried blood marring my face. His eyes widened.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live.”

  I unlocked the door to the apartment, opening the ward.

  “There is a naked man on the landing,” I said hoping to forestall any upcoming questions. “I’m going to carry him into this apartment.”

  Crest threw the Chinese food into the apartment hallway and went down the stairs to get Derek without saying a word. Together we brought him inside and put him on the hallway carpet. I shut the door in the world’s face and let out a breath.

  I kicked off my shoes and turned the lantern switch. My shoes were bloody again. Oh well, nothing a lot of bleach wouldn’t fix.

  The tiny flames of feylanterns surged up, bathing the apartment in a comforting soft glow. Crest knelt to examine Derek’s leg.

  “He needs emergency care,” he said. His voice had the brisk, professional, slightly distant tone good physicians adopted under stress.

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  He glanced at me. “Kate, the cut’s deep and dirty and the artery’s probably severed. He’ll bleed to death.”

  Dizziness came, and I swayed a little. I wanted to sit down, but couches and chairs were harder to bleach than shoes. “He isn’t bleeding.”

  Crest opened his mouth and looked back at the wound. “Shit.”

  “The Lycos Virus in action,” I told him and went to the kitchen. There was no ready ice and scraping the freezer walls wasn’t in me right that minute, so I put the bag into the sink and pulled off my shredded jacket in a flash of pain. The top underneath was soaked with blood. I tried removing it but it was stuck. I rummaged through the everything drawer for scissors, found some, and tried to cut off the vest.

  The scissors got caught in the soggy fabric. I cursed and then Crest was beside me, his hand over the scissors. “I remembered you didn’t have the Lyc-V,” he said and the vest fell to the floor in a sodden, heavy mass.

  He knelt to examine the jagged claw marks on my stomach.

  “How bad?” I asked.

  “Mostly shallow. Two deep lacerations, here and here.” His finger grazed the skin lightly and still I winced.

  “Hurts.”

  “I’d imagine. Would you like me to take you to the emergency room?”

  “No. There is an r-kit on the table in the living room,” I said. With magic this high, a regeneration-kit was almost as good as the spell doc. It cost an arm and a leg, but it was worth it. And its magic healed with very little scarring.

  He looked at me. “Are you sure? We’d get it stitched in no time.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He went to get it. The trouble with regeneration-kits was that sometimes, like all things magic, they backfired and ate into the wound instead of healing it.

  I shrugged off my pants, my panties, and my bra on the way to the bathroom and stepped into the shower. The water ran bloody. My stomach hurt. When blood no longer swirled around my feet, I shut off the shower and yelled for Crest to come in. He did, carrying the roll of brown paper.

  “Do you know how to use one of those?” I asked.

  “I am an M.D.”

  “Some M.D.s want nothing to do with the r-kits.”

  “You’re not giving me a choice about it,” he said. “Raise your arms.”

  I put my arms to my head and chanted the incantation. Crest untied the cord securing the paper and unrolled it. It contained a bandage and a long wide strip, smeared with brown ointment and covered with waxed paper. Crest peeled the paper off and held the strip by its edges. I chanted. The ointment on the strip obeyed, liquefying. A strong smell of nutmeg spread through the room.

  Crest pressed the strip against my stomach. It adhered and a soothing coolness spread through my injured muscles, slowly transforming into warmth that suffused my stomach, drowning out pain.

  “Better,” I murmured. Crest bandaged my waist. After putting in a long day at work this seemingly normal guy would come all this way just to see me. Why? What would it be like to crawl home after a hard day and instead of licking my wounds in solitude in a dark and empty house, find him? On the couch, maybe. Reading a book. Maybe he would put it down and say, “I’m glad you’ve made it. Would you like some coffee?”

  His hand grazed the tattoo on my shoulder. “Why a raven?”

  “To honor my father.”

  The fingers continued to gently slide across my skin. “The writing under it, is that Cyrillic?

  “Yes.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Dar Vorona. Gift of the Raven. I’m my father’s gift.”

  “To whom?”

  “That, my dear doctor, is a story for another time.”

  “The raven is holding a bloody sword,” Crest said thoughtfully.

  “I never said it was a nice gift.”

  He finished the bandage and was examining it critically. “You know those things are unreliable.” His voice held just a touch of reproach.

  “Eleven out of twelve work fine. I’d say that’s better chances than getting an orgasm with a blind date and women still try.”

  He blinked and laughed softly. “I never know what you’ll say next.”

  “I don’t either.”

  He rose and put his arms around me. So warm. I resisted the impulse to lean back against him. “Are you hungry?”

  “Raveno
us,” I murmured.

  “The food’s probably cold by now.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He kissed my neck. The kiss sent tingling warmth down into my fingertips. I turned and he kissed me again, on the mouth. I was so tired . . . I wanted to melt against him and let him hold me. “You’re trying to take advantage of an injured naked woman.”

  “I know,” he whispered in my ear, drawing me closer. “How awful.”

  Please don’t let go. What am I thinking? Am I this desperate? I took a deep breath and pushed away from him gently. “I have to finish my work. I don’t think you want to watch me.”

  “Do it after,” he whispered and kissed me again. Somehow instead of breaking free, I pressed against him. I wanted nothing more than to stay wrapped up in him like this, smelling his scent, feeling his lips on mine . . . And then the vampire’s head would lose the last of its magic and Derek and I would’ve bled for nothing. Poor Derek. “No,” I said, my face a grimace. “By then it’ll be too late.”

  “Work first. I see.”

  “Tonight. Not always.”

  “I’ll watch,” he said.

  “You don’t want to, trust me.”

  “It’s part of what you do. I want to know.”

  Why? I shrugged and went to the bedroom to find some clothes. He didn’t follow me.

  IN THE KITCHEN I SET A LARGE SILVER TRAY IN THE middle of the table. Supported by four legs, it rose above the surface of the table about three inches. Greg had kept an excellent supply of herbs in his apartment. Having combined them in the right proportions, I spread the aromatic mixture on the platter so it covered the metal completely. Crest sat on the chair in a corner and watched me.

  I pulled the strings of the bag, took the head out, and placed the monstrosity onto the powder, balancing it on the stump of the neck.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “A vampire,” I said.

  “I’ve seen pictures. They don’t look like that.”

  “It’s very old. My guess is, at least a couple of centuries. Undeath brings certain anatomical changes. Some are immediate and some are slow. The older the undead, the more apparent those changes become. A vamp’s never finished. It’s an abomination in progress.” The fact that vampires weren’t suppose to have existed two hundred years ago when the tech was in full swing bothered me a great deal. My experience and education offered no explanation for this monster’s existence, and so I put it aside, filing it for future reference.