Magic Bleeds

by IIona Andrews

  The other body lay under the table, on the floor littered with chunks of peeled potatoes. A huge gash split open his chest, long ragged tears—a claw strike. The same black pus spilled from his lips, staining his chin. Nausea squirmed through me.

  The scene played in my head: the shapeshifter on the right lunging over the table, striking at the guy chopping potatoes. His target taking a hit to the chest, thrusting the knife into his attacker’s neck and falling . . .

  I moved on to the stairwell. Upstairs or downstairs, to the basement?

  I leaned to the side. Blood stained the green wallpaper on the landing above. Up.

  The old stairs creaked under my feet. I ran up and pressed against the wall. Short hoarse grunts broke the silence in a steady rhythm, each grunt followed by the screeching of nails on glass. I checked the hallway.

  Something crouched in the gloom, far to the right, on the clump of mangled bodies, digging in the flesh with bloody claws. The creature struck a corpse and wiped its deformed hand on the window. Claws scratched the glass. Screeech.

  I stepped into the hallway.

  Screech.

  Screech.

  The beast looked up at me. A girl. Barely older than Julie. She looked at me with pale dark eyes, the blood and black tarry pus falling from her mouth.

  Her face was almost perfectly human. The rest of her was not. Her limbs protruded too far, ending in oversized hands. A hump bent her spine, sheathed in gray wolf fur. Her chest was concave and her ribs were piercing her skin.

  “It hurts,” she said.

  I kept walking.

  “It hurts.” She dipped her hand into the blood pooling in the stomach of a woman next to her and wiped it on the glass. Screech.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She leaped at me with a guttural snarl. I dodged left, and sliced across her side. She bounced off the wall, twisting, and lunged at me. I flipped the blade and sliced up through her stomach into the heart. Human teeth snapped an inch from my mouth. Her claws gripped my shoulder and she sagged on my blade, her life bleeding out.

  I pushed the child off my saber gently and kept going.

  Bodies lay strewn across the hallway, one after another, all facing to the end of the hallway, where the solid door to Jim’s office stood half-ajar. They must’ve run here and didn’t make it. I checked the faces as I walked, afraid I’d see someone I knew.

  Whatever it was came through the front door. The first shapeshifter collapsed where he stood. The attacker hit the kitchen and headed upstairs. The shapeshifters on the first floor and in the basement must’ve heard the noise and chased after the intruder. Nine people dead, including Brenna and the child I’d murdered. Jim must’ve reinforced their numbers, expecting trouble. All of them went after the intruder. Nobody tried to get out until it was too late.

  A muffled thud came from behind the door.

  I pushed it open.

  A naked man sat among the shambles of broken furniture and clumps of papers. A metal manacle clamped his ankle, attached to a spike in the floor by a chain as thick as my wrist. The loup chain—every Pack house had one.

  A twisted mess of limbs and wounds lay in front of him. To the left a female shapeshifter hung on the wall, nailed by a sword to the boards.

  The naked man looked up at me. An oily sheen slicked his skin, stretched tight over the lean body. His eyes were the dim yellow of old urine. The stench of rotting chicken swirled about him.

  “My favorite niece,” Erra’s voice said. “Only you could make this better. Welcome to Venom’s party.”

  The body in front of Venom moved.

  “You again.” The undead stabbed the shapeshifter with a wooden shard and jerked it out for the second blow.

  I grabbed the body by the legs and pulled it to me, out of his reach.

  “Too late.” Erra snorted.

  The shapeshifter’s body shuddered in my hands. Black ichor oozed. I knelt and saw bright red hair. Dingo, one of Jim’s men. Oh no.

  A bloody hole gaped where Dingo’s left eye used to be. His right looked at me, stark against the mangled mess of his face. “Got him with the chain,” he whispered.

  “You did,” I told him.

  His voice was a hoarse, pain-laced groan. “Dying. Kill me.”

  I raised my saber, brought it down, and then he hurt no more.

  “Disgusting,” Erra said through Venom’s mouth.

  Neither of us was laughing anymore. “These people were my friends. You made me kill them. You made me kill a child.” I could still hear Brenna’s voice in my head.

  “Quit your sniveling. I have no patience for cowards.”

  I got up and slid the cabinet door open. With tech and magic dancing back and forth, most people stuck to things that always worked for backup.

  Papers, boxes, nothing of interest. I moved on to the smaller cabinet to the right. “I figured out why you don’t target women.”

  “Women are the future. One man can sire a nation, but kill the women and you kill a people.”

  “Nope, that’s not it. You were trained to demolish armies. Not many ancient armies were made of women.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Erra said.

  A glass gallon jug of kerosene, still three quarters full, sat in the corner. I pulled it out and twisted off the cap.

  “Why don’t you gnaw off your leg and escape?” I asked.

  “And miss out on your misery?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure you’d be glad to miss it. If you lose your undead toy, you’ll have to look for another body to drain of blood. You didn’t escape, because making him chew off his foot would hurt you. And you don’t like pain.”

  I strode to the undead.

  Venom lunged at me. I sidestepped, catching his throat in my hand. My fingers touched his skin. I had already touched Erra’s mind once. It took me a fraction of a second to find it again. I grabbed it and dumped the kerosene over Venom’s head. Venom twisted, aiming a kick at my stomach. I let go and backed away, out of his reach, clinging to my aunt’s mind, chaining her to Venom’s body.

  “Got a question for you.”

  “And?” Erra snorted.

  An awful pressure ground on my mind. I unclenched my teeth. “Can you outlast me?”

  I pulled a lighter from my pocket, clicked it on, and threw it at Venom. Flames surged, licking his skin.

  Erra screamed. Her mind grabbed mine and shook, the way a dog shakes a rat when it wants to kill it. I hung on with everything I had. Every ounce of fury I had to crush to get through this house. Every drop of guilt at watching Brenna’s blood splash the snow. I sank all of it into Erra’s mind, fastening her to Venom.

  Burn, bitch. Burn.

  The air stank of burning hair and charred fat. Venom flailed on his chain like a rabid dog.

  “I’ll tear you limb from limb!”

  “Does it hurt? Tell me it hurts.”

  Heat and pain wound about my mind in white-hot ribbons, and squeezed. Tears swelled in my eyes. Venom burned like a human candle, and I clung to Erra’s mind.

  The ribbons turned into blades and sliced into me, pulling me apart. I felt myself unraveling, as if my mind were disappearing thread by thread. An absurd vision of my veins being pulled from my body thrust itself before me. It hurt. Dear God, it hurt so much.

  But the fire hurt her more.

  Erra howled like a dog. “I’ll rip you apart and suck the marrow out of your bones. I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth. You can’t hide your blood, I’ll know it anywhere. I’ll track you down. I’ll murder everyone who knows you and make you watch them die. You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay!”

  The pressure ground my mind into nothing. “Quit your sniveling.”

  Venom crashed to the floor. A light exploded in my mind, like a razor-sharp star. I tasted my blood—my nose was bleeding.

  Pushing the words out of my mouth took a long time and they came out slurred. “Death shock. That’s what happens to a Master of the Dead
when a vampire she navigates dies before she can let go of its mind. Since you keep your undead so close to your heart that it hurts you when they’re battered . . .”

  “Let me go!” my aunt screamed.

  “This is how you die,” I told her. “Chained to this undead piece of meat.”

  “You’ll die with me,” she snarled.

  Pain crushed my skull. I slumped against the wall. Fragments of my thoughts dashed back and forth like frightened rabbits. “. . . worth it . . .”

  A short shape dashed into the room. I focused. Dark clothes. Indigo veil. The old woman I’d saved from some low-lives on the way to the Order. What the hell?

  She leapt over the bodies and landed by me.

  Erra screamed in agony.

  The old woman jerked her hand up. A short spear glinted with the light of the flames. Her black eyes glared at me. “I end this. Let go now.”

  I had no strength to fight her. I’d sunk all of myself into keeping Erra put. “Don’t.”

  The spear spun in the woman’s hand. She flipped it and rammed the butt into my solar plexus. Pain exploded under my diaphragm, dropping me to my knees. I clawed on to the mind link but it slipped from me. The pressure vanished. My aunt broke free.

  Venom jerked one last time and died.

  Not again.

  I surged to my feet and lunged at her. She made no move to counter. I slammed her into the wall. “Why?”

  A red sheen rolled over her eyes. Diamond-shaped pupils stared back me. “I must protect you. It’s my job.”

  The wall exploded. A seven-foot monster broke into the room, her fur dark, eyes glowing with green from a nightmarish meld of human face and wolf muzzle. Smaller shapes streamed into the room.

  “Protect the mate!” the werewolf snarled in Jennifer’s voice. “Secure the room!”

  Claws clamped me and threw me out of the room into the waiting hands of another shapeshifter.

  I SAT ON THE STEPS AND WATCHED THE SHAPESHIFTERS carry bodies out of the house. Jennifer sat next to me.

  I felt hollow and tired. If it wasn’t for the wall propping me up, I’d collapse. If I concentrated hard enough, I could wiggle my fingers. Concentrating hurt.

  Kate Daniels, deadly swordmaster. Fear my twitching pinkie.

  A young female shapeshifter carried a misshapen body out of the house. She looked a little like Brenna with lighter hair, except she was alive and Brenna was dead, because I killed her.

  “I killed a little girl,” I said.

  The werewolf-Jennifer stirred next to me. “She was my sister.”

  I was so numb, her words took a minute to register.

  “I wouldn’t let them leave.” Jennifer’s voice unnaturally calm. “I delayed evacuation. Because it was our house. We’re the wolves. We can’t be run out of our own den. Now Naomi is dead.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Jennifer turned to me. “Did she hurt when you burned him?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not enough.” Jennifer looked at the bodies laid out on the snow.

  “No. I wanted to kill her, but she stopped me.”

  We both looked at the woman. She sat cross-legged in the snow, her spear on her lap. Four werewolves watched her.

  “Naomi was twelve,” Jennifer said.

  A year younger than Julie.

  The alpha female turned to me. Her eyes were wet. “I hate you for killing her.”

  Welcome to the club.

  A caravan of Pack Jeeps entered the parking lot.

  “It hurts and you want to hurt someone, and you don’t care who,” I said. “Because hurting will make you feel better.”

  “Yes.”

  “It won’t. I killed dozens of fomorians after Bran died. It didn’t help.”

  “I’m not you,” she said.

  “We’re all human,” I told her.

  An arm wrapped around me. My heart tried to leap out of my chest. Curran pulled me to him and kissed my forehead.

  “I’m going to put a bell on you,” I told him. “That way I’ll have some warning.”

  He peered at my face. “Are you okay?”

  “I killed Brenna and Jennifer’s little sister. And the Dingo. Other than that, I’m great. Everything is lovely.”

  “Right.” He looked at Jennifer.

  She sat frozen.

  “The cars are here. Load your people up. Daniel is waiting for you at the Keep.” He turned to me. “Can you walk or should I carry you?”

  I’d be damned if I let him carry me anywhere. I pushed to my feet. My legs wobbled a bit but held. We walked side by side to the Pack Jeep. He opened the passenger door and I got in. He gave some final instructions and we were off.

  THE KEEP WAS MADE OF STAIRS. AND MORE STAIRS. And then more stairs. Just keep climbing. One foot after the other. Brenna’s bite on my thigh burned. My lungs had shriveled up to the size of golf balls.

  I would not collapse on the damn stairs. The higher we climbed, the more people stopped and looked at us, and I would not faint while half of the damn Keep watched.

  “One more floor,” Curran murmured.

  I clenched my teeth.

  Step, and step, and step. The landing before his private hallway. Made it.

  The door barring access to Curran’s quarters swung open. Derek held it ajar from the inside.

  Curran turned to the small group of shapeshifters that had trailed us. “Leave.”

  I blinked and the stairs were deserted. Our escort had vanished at a record speed.

  Curran picked me up.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Nobody is going to see you. Your reputation is intact. It’s just you and me.”

  I looked at Derek.

  “He didn’t see anything,” Curran said, carrying me through the door.

  “I saw nothing,” Derek confirmed and bolted the door shut.

  I put my arms around Curran’s neck and let him carry me past his gym and bimbo room up another staircase all the way to his rooms.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  On the left a living room waited with a large gray sectional sofa. Up ahead was the door to the bedroom. On the right was another door.

  “Bathroom,” I said.

  He carried me through the door on the right. An enormous bathtub took up most of the room.

  Hot water. Heaven.

  “Do you mind if I take a bath?”

  He lowered me to the floor gently. “Can I get you anything?”

  I shook my head and began to strip. He waited to make sure I made it into the tub and left.

  I sat and ran the water so hot it was near boiling. Even with the water up to my collarbone, the tub still had a foot and a half of space left.

  Sometime later Curran walked in, carrying a glass of water with ice. He sat by the bathtub and put his hand on my forehead.

  “You have a fever.”

  I shook my head. “Brenna bit me.”

  Venom’s poison must’ve been very potent. The Lyc-V virus would’ve multiplied in record numbers trying to counteract it, making the shapeshifters go from zero to complete loup. Loups were contagious as hell and I’d got a walloping dose of Lyc-V from Brenna’s saliva.

  “It’s nothing major. My body will burn through it in an hour or two.”

  Curran nodded.

  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

  I took the water and sipped. “Why is everything so large?”

  “The tub is sized for my beast form.”

  I smiled. “Do you take baths as a lion?”

  “Sometimes. The wolves found one of their own in the basement of the Wolf House. He attacked them on sight. Did Jennifer tell you that?”

  He was trying to help me with my guilt. “She was a bit busy. I’d killed her little sister and she was trying to hold it together.”

  I did what I had to do. I had no choice. We both knew it. Even Jennifer knew it. But knowing that didn’t make any of us feel better.
>
  “Do you need to be somewhere?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  I scooted over to the side. He stripped his clothes off and slid into the tub with me. I leaned against his chest, with his arm around me, and we sank into the hot water.

  “Where is the old lady?” I asked.

  “In a loup cage downstairs. Any idea who she is?”

  “Nope.”

  I closed my eyes. I’d dumped some foaming stuff into the tub from one of the bottles I found sitting on the edge and now it smelled clean and soapy, like Irish Spring. For all I knew, he used this stuff for his mane and I had just exhausted a month’s worth of his shampoo.

  Of course, with my luck, we were sitting in a tub full of his flea dip.

  Curran’s skin was warm under my cheek. I could sit like that forever.

  “It won’t last.” The words escaped before I had a chance to think about it.

  “What won’t last?”

  “You and me. Us. Even if we win this time, something else will come along and ruin our lives. Eventually I’ll lose a fight or you will, and it will be over.”

  He pulled me closer to him. “Something else will come along. When it does, we’ll kill it. Later, something else will show up. We’ll kill it, too, and then we’ll go home.”

  I grimaced. “And climb a million stairs trying not to collapse.”

  “I don’t do collapsing.”

  “Of course not. What was I thinking . . .”

  His voice was rock-steady. “We don’t live in a safe world. I can’t give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you’d set it on fire.”

  True. “Only if I ran out of kindling.”

  “Or needed some hardened wooden shards to drive into someone’s eye.”

  I stretched my legs. “You don’t actually burn wood to harden it. You turn it over the fire, so it soaks up the heat but doesn’t char.”

  He growled low in his throat. “Thank you for that little nugget of wisdom.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  His arm stroked my back. “There are only two things that can screw this up for us: you and me.”

  “Then we’re doomed for sure.”

  I had to tell him about my aunt. I just couldn’t get myself together to do it.