The happy woman, whose name was Liz, secured my poodle to a long iron pole and turned on the electric clippers. The moment the clippers touched his skin, the dog whirled about and tried to clamp his teeth on Liz’s arm. Instead I clamped my hand on his muzzle and turned him to face me.
“Pheew, you’re fast,” Liz said.
“I hold, you cut.”
Twenty minutes later Liz had swept away a rank mass of matted poodle fur, while I received a new dog: an athletic-looking mutt with smooth ears, long legs, and a build similar to an abnormally large German pointer. The dog got a homemade dog biscuit for suffering through the indignity and I was relieved of the awful burden of thirty dollars.
“Have you picked out a name yet?” the woman asked.
“No.”
She nodded at the pile of black matted fur. “How does Samson sound?”
WE JOGGED HOME. THE MAGIC WAVE CAUGHT US on the way and I gave silent thanks to whoever it was upstairs that we’d managed to get the poodle trimmed before the magic rendered the electric clippers completely useless.
I let the chain sag as an experiment, but the dog seemed content to stay by my side. In the parking lot, he proved that not only did he have a stomach of steel, but his bladder was also magically connected to one of the Great Lakes. We made a circle, as he enthusiastically marked his territory. The sleepless night was catching up with me. My head swam and my legs kept trying to fold, pitching me into a horizontal position. I’d put a lot of effort into the wards around Joshua’s corpse and my body demanded a few hours of sleep.
The dog snarled.
I looked up. He stood with his feet planted wide, back humped, his body frozen stiff. Hackles rose on his spine. He stared left, where the parking lot narrowed between my apartment building and the crumbling wall of the ruins next door.
I pulled Slayer from the sheath on my back. The ruins had once been an apartment building as well. The magic had crushed it, chewing it down to rubble, and now crumbling brick walls served as purchase for ivy frosted with the cold. The greenery obscured my view.
The attack poodle bared his teeth, wrinkling his muzzle, and let loose a low, quiet growl.
I took a step toward the ruins. A figure dashed from behind the wall with preternatural speed, veered left, and jumped. It sailed through the air, clearing the six-foot-tall wall with a couple of feet to spare, and vanished from view.
Alrighty, then.
I jogged to the spot where the person had been hiding, comparing the memory to the wall. Whoever it was, he or she wasn’t very tall, near five feet. Swaddled in some sort of drab garment. Not much to go on. Chasing the person through the ruins wasn’t an option. I’d never catch up, not with that kind of speed.
Who would want to keep tabs on me? No way to know. I’d pissed off a lot of people. For all I knew, it could be one of the Steel Mary’s flunkies. Assuming he had flunkies.
I headed back to my apartment, dog in tow. “If this person is following me, he or she will continue to do so. Sooner or later, I’ll snag them,” I told him. “If you’re really good, I’ll let you bite them first.”
The attack poodle wagged his tail.
“What we need now is something to eat and a nice shower.”
More adoring wagging. Well, at least one creature in this Universe thought my plans were genius.
I heard the phone ringing when I unlocked the door. Phones were funny things: sometimes magic took them out, and sometimes it didn’t. When I desperately needed it, the damn thing failed, but when I didn’t want to be bothered, it worked like a charm. I got inside and picked it up. “Kate Daniels.”
“Kate!” The frantic note in the Clerk’s voice knocked the sleep right out of me. “We’ve been hit!”
CHAPTER 5
I DROPPED THE PHONE AND DASHED DOWN THE stairs, slapping the door shut in the poodle’s face. I cleared six flights of stairs in seconds, sprinted across the parking lot, unlocked my garage, got Marigold out, mounted, and we thundered out of the parking lot.
We turned up the street, nearly plowing into a cart. Marigold thudded up the wooden ramp onto the highway. The ruined city dashed by me, a long smudge of wrecked buildings and overcast sky.
The Mercenary Guild occupied a converted Sheraton Hotel on the edge of Buckhead. I brought Marigold to a halt before the thick iron gates, jumped down, grabbing a canteen of kerosene I used to obliterate my blood, and took off, praying that whatever disease the magic hit man induced wouldn’t go active.
I dashed through the gates into the lobby and nearly collided with the Clerk. A huge red welt marked his face and his left eye was rapidly swelling shut. “Inner hall!” he yelled.
“Did you call Biohazard?”
“Yes!”
The inner door hung crooked on its hinges. I ran through the doorway and into the inner hall.
The Sheraton was built as a hollow tower. In its other life, the inner hall housed an on-the-premises restaurant, a coffee shop, and a happy hour area, raised on a platform above the main floor, and a gift shop. The old photographs showed a small stream winding through it all, flanked by carefully selected plants, its waters sheltering huge surly koi. At the far wall, an elevator shaft of transparent plastic rose up to the fourth floor.
The happy hour platform now held the job board, the gift shop contained one of the numerous armories, and the restaurant had been converted into a mess hall, where tired mercs filled their stomachs between jobs. The elevator no longer worked, the plants, stream, and koi had vanished years ago, and the main floor lay bare.
The first thing I saw was the body of Solomon Red, pinned to the elevator shaft by a spear through his throat.
Three mercs rapidly drew a chalk warding semicircle around the body. Another dozen hugged the walls. I grabbed the first warm body. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” the merc woman told me. “About five minutes ago.”
Damn. I was too late.
Solomon’s body swelled, expanding.
“Back up!” I barked, in tune with two other voices.
The mercs scattered.
A flood of blood and feces drenched the clear plastic, gushing to the floor to form a wide puddle. The stench hit us. People gagged.
The body shriveled, drying up right before my eyes like some sort of mummy. I didn’t need Patrice to diagnose that for me. I’ve seen that before. It had the same name in English, Spanish, and Russian—cholera. Only this one was on magic steroids.
The foul puddle turned black. A shiver ran along the surface. The liquid slithered, testing the chalk edge of the ward circle, and rolled right over it, heading right. I glanced in that direction and saw an old drain in the floor, a remnant of the koi brook. Cholera spread through water.
“It’s going for the drain!” I sprinted before it, pouring kerosene across the tile. Behind me, Bob Carver struck a match, setting the fuel stream on fire.
The puddle reached the flame, recoiled, and rolled to the left.
Ivera, a tall, large woman, folded her hands together, let out a piercing screech, and jerked her hands apart, palms outward. Magic snapped. Twin jets of flame rolled from Ivera’s hands and licked the puddle. It shrank back, to the half-moon of burning kerosene. I poured more, trying to corral it.
Ivera’s arms shuddered. She gasped. The flame vanished and she stumbled back, her nose bleeding.
The puddle oozed out of the flaming trap.
I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the pain of a power word. I didn’t know if a power word would stop it, but I was out of options.
A chant rose from behind the mercs, a low soft voice murmuring Chinese words in a practiced singsong melody. A long scaled ribbon slipped past the mercs—a snake. The snake tasted the air with her tongue and stopped, swaying slightly in tune with the chant. Ronnie Ma emerged into the open. His real name was Ma Rui Ning, but everyone called him Ronnie. Ancient, wizened, Ronnie was one of those rare and endangered mercs who’d managed to reach retirement. He’d done his twenty y
ears and got his pension. His house was only a minute away and he spent most of his time hanging out in the Guild, sipping tea and nodding at the crowd with a small smile.
He circled the puddle, carrying several small sacks, the chant rolling from his lips.
The puddle made a beeline for the drain. Somehow Ronnie got there first, reached into his sack, and lowered something to the floor. A scorpion. The arachnid danced in place, curling its tail. The puddle shrank away.
Ronnie dropped the sack on the floor and moved on. A few more steps, and he reached into another sack, and deposited a large toad.
Flanked on three sides by animals, the puddle reversed its course and almost ran into the fourth creature, a long twisting millipede, just as Ronnie dropped her on the ground. A few more steps, and the old man emptied the last sack on the floor, revealing a large spider.
The creatures swayed in tandem with his voice. The puddle hovered in the center, caught. Ronnie took a small canister from his waist and walked up to the puddle. His fingers flickered, very fast, and he pulled a small yellow piece of paper from his sleeve. The paper fluttered onto the puddle, a small Chinese symbol written in red lying faceup. Ronnie uncorked the canister and poured its contents onto the paper in a vermillion stream.
A dark miasma surged up from the puddle and vanished, as if burned off. The nasty fluid lay placid.
Ronnie Ma smiled.
“IT’S AN ANCIENT CHINESE RITUAL,” PATRICE SAID as two medtechs fumigated me with mugwort smoke while I stood behind the salt line drawn on the floor. “Five poisonous creatures to hold the disease at bay. We know it because it was part of the Fifth Moon Festival. The Festival fell over summer solstice and coincided with hot, humid weather and a spike in infections.”
“What did he pour on the cholera?”
“If I had to take a guess, wine with cinnabar.” Patrice glanced at Ronnie Ma, still smiling serenely as two techs unsuccessfully tried to get him to exhale at the diagnostic flower. “We’ve been looking forever for someone who knows how to perform it. Do you think he would come to work for me?”
“I’d say yes. Mr. Ma enjoys being useful. Can I go? I feel fine, no pain, no discomfort.”
Patrice put her hand onto my forehead. Magic struck me. Circles swam in my eyes. My skin felt on fire. I sucked in a breath and shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Now you can go,” Patrice told me.
“Was I infected?”
“No. Just a precautionary measure. Five poisonous creatures,” she said, nodding at the five animals still sitting in their places. “They put all disease to sleep. But once away from them, it will wake up and I don’t want to take chances.”
Good to know.
I stepped over the chalk line. Around me a controlled chaos reigned as the Biohazard team swept the scene, examining two dozen mercs and taking samples of the puddle.
I leaned toward Patrice. “That puddle went straight for the drain. That implies intelligence or instinct. Either it knew the drain would lead to water or it sensed the moisture. How can a disease sense anything?”
Patrice shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not suggesting you’re wrong. I just have no answers. I can tell you that it’s instinct rather than intellect. The organisms that caused both diseases are simply too primitive to develop intelligence. There are limits even to magic. And in this case, my guess would be physics.” She pointed to the floor. “It slopes toward the drain. The puddle may have simply tried to take the path of least resistance.”
CHAPTER 6
IT TOOK ME FIFTEEN MINUTES OF QUESTIONING TO ascertain that nobody in the hall had actually seen how the attack on Solomon started. Two men saw the Steel Mary enter. He kept his face hidden. In the hall full of street bravos, nobody paid him any mind. The man crossed the floor and took the stairs up to the fourth story, where Solomon Red made his quarters. The altercation ensued there; my present pool of witnesses became aware of it only when the stranger and Solomon stumbled out of his rooms into the hallway and took a dive over the railing into the inner hall. According to Bob Carver, the man landed on his feet, holding Solomon Red by his throat. That got everyone’s attention in a hurry, given that Solomon Red was six feet two inches tall and weighed close to two hundred and forty pounds.
The fight itself was short and brutal.
“Did any of you wade into it?”
The four mercs at the table shook their heads, all except Ivera, who still had gauze up her nose. Bob Carver had twelve years in the Guild, Ivera and Ken both had seven, and Juke was coming up on her fifth. All four were trained, seasoned, tough, and worked well as a team. In the Guild they were known as the Four Horsemen. Most mercs were loners, occasionally working with a partner when they had no choice about it. The Horsemen worked the jobs that required more than two bodies and they were damn good at it.
“He’s good,” Bob said. “I stayed clear of him.”
“He didn’t do any fancy shit,” Juke added, rubbing her hand through her spiked black hair. She was probably going for frightening, with black hair and smoky eyes, but her features were too sharp and delicate and she ended up looking like a pissed-off Goth Tinker Bell. “None of the spinning whirlwind or whip qiang stuff. He slammed Solomon against the elevator and stuck the spear into his throat. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. That was it for the fearless leader.”
“It was a practiced thrust,” Ivera added. “No hesitation, didn’t aim, nothing.”
“What happened after he added Solomon to his butterfly collection?”
“The magic hit,” Ivera answered.
Did the Steel Mary sense the magic coming? That would be a hell of a trick. “And then?”
Bob looked to Ken. The tall, lean Hungarian was the group’s magic expert. Ken had a habit of sitting very still, so quiet you forgot he was there. His motions were small, in direct contrast with his lanky body, and he rationed out words like they were made of gold. “Extraction.”
“Could you explain that, please?”
Ken mulled it over, weighing the benefit to mankind against the terribly taxing effort of producing a few more words. “The man placed his hand over Solomon’s mouth.” He held his long fingers apart to show me. “He said a word and pulled his essence out of him.”
What the hell did that mean? “Define essence.”
Ken regarded me for a long minute. “The glow of his magic.” That made no sense. “Can you describe the glow?”
Ken halted, puzzled.
“It looked like a wad of bright red cotton candy,” Juke supplied.
“Glowing with Solomon’s magic. I felt it. Powerful.” Ken nodded. “The man held his essence in his hand, and then he left.”
“He just walked out of here?”
“Nobody was dumb enough to stop him,” Juke said.
And that was the difference between the Guild and the Order in a nutshell. If the cloak-man walked into the Order’s Chapter, every single knight would have to be dead before he came out.
“Her,” Ivera said.
Bob looked at her. “Iv, it was a man.”
She shook her head. “It was a woman.”
Bob leaned forward. “I saw the hands. They were man-hands. The guy was six and a half feet tall.”
“Nope, about six eight,” Juke said.
“It was a woman,” Ivera said.
I glanced at Juke. She raised her arms. “Don’t look at me. I only saw him from the side. Looked like a man to me.”
“Ken?”
The mage folded his long fingers in front of him, pondered them for a long moment, and met my gaze. “I don’t know.”
I rubbed my face. Eyewitness accounts were supposed to narrow the pool of suspects, not make it wider.
“Thanks,” I said, snapping my notepad closed. I had taken to carrying it, because it was necessary. It made me feel stupid. I could duck in a room for half a second and tell you how many people were in it, which of them were a threat, and what weapons they carried. But when it came to int
erviewing witnesses, if I didn’t write it down, it was gone in a couple of hours. Gene, a knight-inquisitor with the Order and a former Georgia Bureau of Investigations detective, whom I strove to emulate because he knew what he was doing and I didn’t, could listen to a witness or a suspect once and recall what they said with perfect accuracy. But I had to write it down. It made me feel like I had a hole in my head.
It was time to wrap it up. “On behalf of the Order, I appreciate your cooperation and all that.”
Juke gave me the evil eye. She was trying hard for an early version of me, but although Juke was good, by her age I had already dropped out of the Order’s Academy. I’d eat Juke for breakfast, and she knew it, but kept at it anyway.
“So you’re in the big leagues now. Investigating for the Order and all that. I feel like bowing or something.”
I fixed her with my little deranged smile. “Bowing not necessary. Don’t leave town.”
Juke’s eyes went wide. “Why? Are we under arrest and shit?”
I kept smiling. We stared at each other for a long moment and Juke glanced into her cup before tipping it down to her mouth. “Screw you!”
“Now come on, sugar, you know I don’t swing that way.”
“Whatever!”
Curran’s alpha-staring habits must’ve rubbed off on me. Curran. Of all the people, why did I think of him? It’s like I couldn’t shrug him off.
“It comes,” Ivera murmured.
Mark trotted through the crowd toward me, looking well put together in a navy business suit.
The Four Horsemen glowered in unison.
Mark had a last name, but nobody remembered it. When someone condescended to add some moniker to his first name, it was usually “corporate asshole” or “that bastard,” and if the speaker was particularly displeased, “massa.” At least he got to keep one name, unlike the Clerk.
Officially the Guild’s secretary, Mark was more of an operations manager than an admin. Solomon Red had created the Guild and earned the lion’s share of its profits, but it was Mark who solved day-to-day problems and the way he went about that didn’t make him any friends. The universe created him with his “understanding” setting stuck permanently on zero. No emergency or tragedy, real or fabricated, made a dent in his armor as he raced to a better bottom line.
Magic Bleeds Page 7
