His opponent landed in a crouch. A spear fell next to him. The Steel Mary straightened to six and a half feet. A cloak hung about his shoulders. His hood was up. From where I stood, I could only see the dark fabric.
I ran along the illusion’s edge toward the elevator shaft.
Solomon hammered a vicious kick at the Steel Mary’s side. The Steel Mary leaned out of the way, his cloak flaring about him. Solomon’s foot passed within a hair of his face. Solomon spun for a back kick, and the Steel Mary backhanded him. Solomon flew through the air, crashing against the elevator shaft just as I braked next to him, at the edge of the illusion.
The Steel Mary picked up the spear and walked to us, each step a deliberate point, like the toll of a funeral bell. The hood shifted back and I caught a glimpse of large eyes, dark, almost black, framed in the thick velvet of long eyelashes and brimming with power.
A woman.
I froze. There was something so hauntingly familiar about those eyes. If I just stood still, I could figure it out.
The Steel Mary opened her mouth. Words poured forth, resonating through me. “I offer you godhood, imbecile. Accept it with grace.”
Perfect English. No accent. No clue to nationality. Damn.
The Steel Mary grasped Solomon’s shirt with her left hand, jerked him up against the elevator shaft, and thrust. The spear head sliced through Solomon’s windpipe. Blood gushed. Solomon screamed, writhing on the spear. Crimson spurted from his mouth.
The Steel Mary raised her right hand, fingers rigid like talons, and thrust it into Solomon’s chest. “Hessad.” Mine.
The power word clutched at Solomon. His body strained, his back arching. He screamed again, a terrible hoarse bellow of pure pain. Blood burst from his chest and collapsed back, sucked inward into the wound. A long exhausted sigh broke from Solomon’s lips. He sagged. His eyes rolled back into his head. His body shook once and became still.
The Steel Mary pulled her hand out of Solomon’s chest, a wad of red glow resting on her palm. I couldn’t feel it but instinctively I knew exactly what it was. It was blood. Condensed blood. All of Solomon’s power, all of his magic, his essence contained in a small glowing globe trembling, caged, in the Steel Mary’s fist.
The Steel Mary smiled. “Finally.”
Her lips stretched in a smile. She turned, carrying the blood, and I saw the twisted lines of a tattoo on the inside of her forearm. The letters burst in my mind, searing it. A power word.
The world burned around me. Heat surged through my blood, spreading through every vein and capillary. My body locked, struggling to overcome the shock.
The Steel Mary turned, slowly as if underwater, and walked away, melting into nothing.
Pain wracked me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. Through the tempo of my heartbeat thudding like a sledgehammer in my ears, I heard Juke’s voice. “He bitch-slapped Solomon Red! I’d missed that the first time around.”
My vision faded, replaced by a fog of blood. The power word was killing me. I clamped it, trying to break through its defenses. It hurt. God, it hurt.
“It certainly is interesting,” Saiman said. “Don’t you think, Kate? Kate?”
“What’s the matter with her?” Ivera asked.
The power word cracked under pressure. Searing light pulsed before me and suddenly I saw, crystal clear, Saiman staring at me from across the room.
The power word hammered at me from the inside, threatening to tear me apart. I had to say it to make it mine.
Something clicked in Saiman’s eyes. “Run!”
Too late. I opened my mouth and the power word burst forth on a torrent of magic. “Ahissa!”
The magic swept through the room. People screamed and fled, trampling each other. Bob clawed onto the table with both hands, his face a skewed mask of fear, and bellowed like a bull in pain. Ivera collapsed on the floor.
I felt light as a feather. The last echoes of magic whipped about me, bringing the true meaning of the word into my mind. Ahissa. Flee.
All of my strength leaked out through my feet. I sagged down and slid against the wall.
The hall was empty, except for Bob breathing like there was an anvil on his chest, Ivera weeping quietly on the floor, and Saiman pressed against the opposite wall. Ice covered his arms. His eyebrows had turned blue-green and the eyes that stared at me from under them were the eyes of a frost giant: cold, piercing blue, like a diamond caught in a sheath of brine. The eyes that belonged to Saiman’s original form.
We stared at each other’s secret face. It dawned on me that I had just scared the crème of the Guild’s crop half to death. They wouldn’t forget it. To top it off, I had displayed control of a power word in front of Saiman. His eyes told me he understood exactly what had transpired and he was shocked by it. On a scale of one to ten, this disaster was at a twenty. If I could move, I’d be banging my head against the nice hard floor.
Saiman pushed himself free of the wall. The ice on his arms broke into a thousand tiny snowflakes. His blue-green eyebrows fell out, individual hairs fluttering to the ground. New dark brows formed, matching his hair. The savage intensity of the frost giant’s eyes dissolved into calm green irises.
“We seem to have experienced a minor technical difficulty,” he said with forced cheer. “My apologies for the inconvenience. This type of magic is yet unproven.”
Bob bent down and scooped Ivera off the floor. His face said that he wasn’t buying any of it. He grunted, shifting Ivera’s tall frame in his arms, and carried her from the hall.
Saiman approached me and knelt. If he tried to kill me now, there wouldn’t be much I could do about it. Breathing was an effort. The first time I assimilated power words, I came very close to dying. The second time, I lost about three hours. The third time happened during the flare and it was a rush of pain. Now, with normal magic, I felt completely drained. I didn’t pass out and I didn’t lose time, so I had to be getting better at it, but I had no reserves left.
Saiman brushed my left arm with his fingertips. “There were words,” he whispered. “Hundreds of words written in dark ink on your skin.”
Words? What words? “What?”
He caught himself and rose. “Nothing. It’s best we go. I’ll gather the items.”
I watched him pack Miller’s collection into his trunk and take it out. By the time he returned, I managed to assume a vertical position and shambled on out of the hall into the daylight. It was my body, my legs, and they would obey me, damn it.
Outside, a group of pale-faced mercs waited, gathered around the Four Horsemen and the Clerk. A few smoked, clutching at the cigarettes with trembling fingers. Nobody spoke, but they watched me like I was a rabid pit bull. Ivera wouldn’t look at me at all. I had to get the hell out of there, because right now I was easy pickings and my audience was feeling unfriendly.
“What happened?” the Clerk asked.
“A slight technical malfunction with the spell,” Saiman said. “My fault entirely.”
He was covering for me. Saiman dealt in information and the price of a secret was inversely related to the number of people who knew it. The fewer people possessed the information, the more valuable it became. I knew this, because Saiman had patiently explained it for my benefit.
“Sorry for the trouble, guys,” I said to say something.
“Did you at least get what you came for?” the Clerk asked.
“We got it. Thanks,” I said.
“Anytime,” Bob said grimly.
“The Guild is always willing to cooperate with the Order,” Mark said.
I waved at them and headed out into the parking lot. A woman. Dark eyes. I wished I could’ve seen her face.
A quick staccato of steps echoed behind me and Saiman caught up. “I’d be delighted if you rode with me,” he said. “The engine of my Volvo is wrapped in a layer of mass-loaded vinyl, caught between two layers of polyether foam. It’s adequate at attenuation of low-frequency noise.”
/> “Fascinating.” Most water cars made enough noise to do permanent damage to one’s hearing.
Saiman favored me with a narrow smile. “My vehicle is relatively quiet by enchanted engine standards. If you rode in my vehicle, you could rest.”
And he could ask me all sorts of interesting questions. I was tired, but not tired enough to risk a car ride with Saiman.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I can’t abandon my mule. Besides, I come with a passenger.”
His eyebrows came together. “A passenger?”
I whistled and the dog popped out of his hiding spot behind Marigold.
Saiman stared at my canine companion with an expression of pure horror. “What is that?”
“That’s my attack poodle.”
Saiman opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. A grimace gripped his face. A violent struggle of some sort was obviously taking place inside.
“Are you trying to find something nice to say?”
He looked at me helplessly. “I can’t. It’s an awful creature.”
“If you want me to ride with you, this awful creature has to enter your car.”
The pain on his face was priceless. “Can’t we just—”
“I’m afraid we can’t.”
The attack poodle trotted around me and proceeded to vomit an inch from my left boot.
“Delightful,” Saiman reflected as the dog, having puked his guts out, urinated on the nearest wall.
“He’s a dog of simple pleasures,” I told him.
Saiman leaned back, stared at the sky, exhaled, and said, “Very well. Your taste in dogs is as appalling as your taste in wine. It’s a wonder you didn’t name it Boone.”
It had been a long time since I had tasted Boone’s Farm. Drinking was no longer my preferred entertainment. “It’s a he. Please don’t insult my faithful canine companion.”
Saiman turned and strode to his sleek, bullet-shaped vehicle, disfigured by the bloated front end containing the enchanted water engine.
I petted the poodle. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you bite him if he gets out of line.”
The dog wagged his tail. Either Saiman smelled tasty, or my poodle had good instincts.
I mounted, swaying a bit, and nudged Marigold into action. Even if I did fall along the way, I’d likely land in a snowdrift. Any landing you could walk away from was a good landing.
CHAPTER 13
THE MAGIC WAVE KEPT GOING. MY APARTMENT would give any meat freezer a run for its money. I couldn’t avoid the woodstove forever.
I’d been thinking about the female Steel Mary the entire time I rode to my apartment and was getting nowhere. A woman’s voice came out of the undead water mage’s mouth but I couldn’t recall it well enough to compare it to the Steel Mary’s. So either there were two women working together, or there was only one woman, six and a half feet tall, expert with a spear, with the ability to pilot the undead, use power words, and create pandemics.
Nothing I’d read even remotely fit that scenario. I’d have to rely on Saiman’s ability to read the parchment.
I pulled my shoes off and trudged into the kitchen. The red light on my answering machine was blinking.
I pushed the button.
“Got your note,” Christy’s voice said. “Someone ripped out the lock on your screen and pinned the paper to your front door with a nail. It’s rain-stained, but I think it says, ‘I’m here, you’re not. Call me.’ ”
He did come to see me with broken bones. A day too late and a dollar short.
The second message was from Andrea.
“Hey. It’s me. Raphael says that Curran’s been a real bastard since about mid-November. He’s in a bad mood, he’s snarling at everything and everyone, and he stopped hearing petitions. The big items that have to be done get done, but no new projects have been approved. Raphael’s been trying to get financing from the Pack to buy out a competing business. He says the last time he brought it up, Curran almost bit his head off. He apparently stalks the Keep halls at night, looking for someone to chew out.”
“He needs to get laid!” Raphael’s voice called out from a distance.
“Shush. Raphael’s mad because he can’t get his thingie approved.”
“My thingie would make us money,” Raphael yelled. “Not getting it approved is costing us money we could be making.”
“Anyway,” Andrea said, “I thought you ought to know.”
The message ended.
The answering machine was still blinking. There was another message and I had a pretty good idea who it was from.
For a while I sat in the kitchen and petted the attack poodle, deciding whether I should listen to the message or just erase it. Finally I pushed the button and Curran’s voice filled the room.
“You can run, but it won’t matter. I will find you and we will talk. I’ve never asked or expected you to deal with me on shapeshifter terms, but this is juvenile even by human standards. You owe me an answer. Here, I’ll make it easy for you. If you want me, meet me and I’ll explain my side of what happened. Or you can run away from me the way you always do, and this time I won’t chase you. Decide.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” I told the answering machine.
I played the message a couple of times more, listening to his voice. He’d had his chance and blown it. I’d paid for it. It would be stupid to risk this kind of pain again. Plain stupid.
I slumped in my chair. The rock in my chest cracked into sharp pieces. Thinking about letting him go hurt. But then he wasn’t mine to let go in the first place.
My father taught me many things. Guard yourself. Never become attached. Never take a chance. Never take a risk if you don’t have to. And more often than not, he proved right. Taking stupid risks only landed you into hotter water.
But if I let Curran go without a fight, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I would rather drag a dozen rocks in my chest and know that he wasn’t my chance at happiness, than walk away and never be sure. And that’s all he wanted—to be sure. We both deserved to know.
As much as it pained me to admit it, Curran was right. I never made allowances for him being a shapeshifter. I always expected him to deal with me as a human. He didn’t think I could meet him on his home turf and play by his rules.
Big mistake, Your Majesty. You want me to act like a shapeshifter? Fine, I can do that. I pulled up the phone and dialed a number from memory.
“Yes?” Jim answered.
“I was told that shapeshifters declare their romantic interest by breaking into each other’s territory and rearranging things.”
There was a slight pause. “That’s correct.”
“Does the cat clan use this ritual?”
“Yes. Where are you going with this?”
When on shaky ground in negotiations, shovel on some guilt. “Do you remember when I stood by you during the Midnight Games, even though you were wrong and your people attacked me?”
He growled quietly. “Yes.”
“I need access to Curran’s private gym for fifteen minutes.”
Silence stretched.
“When?” he asked.
“Tonight.”
Another pause. “After this, we’re even.”
Jim was an ass but he paid his debts. “Deal.”
“He’s in the city tonight. I’ll keep him here. Derek will meet you at the Keep in two hours.”
I hung up and punched in the second number. What do you know, I actually pulled it off.
“Teddy Jo,” a gruff voice answered.
“You owe me for the apples,” I said into the phone. I was calling in all favors tonight.
“That’s right. What can I do you for?”
I smiled. “I need to borrow your sword.”
THE NIGHT WAS FREEZING AND I TOOK KARMELION, my old, beat-up truck of a bile green color. It was missing the front light assembly and had more dents than a crushed Coke can, but it ran during magic waves and it would keep me warm. It also made enough
noise to wake the dead, but I didn’t care. Being warm won.
It took me two hours to get the sword and leave Atlanta behind. Before the Shift, many of Atlanta’s residents had had the luxury of commuting from nearby towns, driving in through the countryside. Aided by magic, nature had reclaimed these undeveloped stretches with alarming speed. Living things generated magic by simply being, and when put against inert concrete and steel, plants had the advantage. What once were fields now had become dense forest. It swallowed gas stations and lone farmsteads, forcing people to move closer together. Trees flanked the road, their branches black and leafless, sharp charcoal sketches in the snow.
I peered into the dark and petted the attack poodle. I had to lay the front seat flat for him—he was too big. “I always miss the damn road.”
The poodle made a small growling noise and curled up tighter.
A long howl of a lone sentry rolled through the night, announcing our arrival.
We made a sharp turn, picking up a barely perceptible narrow road between the thick oaks. The trail veered left, right, the old trees parted, and we emerged into a wide clearing. The enormous building of the Keep loomed before us. A hybrid of a castle and a modern fort, it jutted over the forest like a mountain, impregnable and dark. It was built the old-fashioned way, with basic tools and superhuman strength, which made it magic-proof. Since I’d been here last, most of the north wing had been completed, and the wall of the courtyard now rose about fifteen feet high.
I steered through the gates into the courtyard. A familiar figure sauntered to the truck. Derek. I’d know that wolf gait anywhere.
Three months ago Derek had been handsome. He’d had one of those perfect male faces, fresh, almost bordering on pretty, and dark, velvet eyes that made women wish to be fifteen again. Then rakshasas poured molten metal on his face. It healed. He wasn’t disfigured, although he thought he was, but his face had lost its perfect lines.
His nose was thicker, his jaw bulkier. His eyebrow ridge protruded farther, making his eyes appear more deep set, the result of the Lyc-V thickening the bone and cartilage in response to trauma. The skin along his hairline on the left temple showed permanent scarring, where bits of his shattered skull had become lodged in the muscle. I touched it once and it felt like grains of salt under the surface of the skin. With longer hair, it would be practically invisible, but Derek kept his hair short. There were other small, minute things—the slight change in the shape of the mouth, the network of small scars on the right cheek. His face now made you want to call for backup. He looked like an older, scarred, vicious version of himself.
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