Gunmetal Magic (kate daniels)

by Ilona Andrews

  The brown square building of the Central Library sat recessed in the green. A pair of massive ash trees hugged it on both sides, their branches and roots braiding together, sliding over the walls and sometimes through them, as if the library itself was some odd mushroom growing from their twin trunks. The trees sheltered the library and while its neighbors had long-ago fallen and crumbled, the library looked intact.

  We parked in a large parking lot, which used to be Forsyth Street, and went to the doors. Inside, a young dark-haired girl, barely fifteen if that, stepped in our way. She carried a staff, wore jeans and a frilly white T-shirt, and the left side of her face sported a tattoo of some arcane symbols above her eyebrow and down over her cheekbone.

  “Please surrender your weapons!” she chirped in a high voice and nodded at the cart full of plastic bins.

  Ascanio’s eyes lit up.

  I removed my Sig-Sauers and put them into a plastic bin. The two knives followed. I put my wolfsbane and a small flask of my silver powder into it.

  “Thank you!” the witch said and looked at Ascanio.

  The boy offered her his knife with a charming smile. “Hi! What’s your name?”

  “My name is Put the Knife into the Bin, Please!”

  Ascanio deposited the knife into the bin and followed me.

  “Giving up?” I asked.

  “She isn’t interested,” he said. “Cute, but not interested.”

  That was one thing I could honestly say about the Atlanta boudas: the men always understood the difference between no and maybe.

  We crossed the floor to a heavy desk manned by a female librarian. She smiled at me. “May I help you?”

  “We need access to the Library of Alexandria.”

  “Are you a member?”

  “No, but I would like to be.”

  “Andrea?” a familiar male voice said.

  I turned. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood on the right, by the reference bookshelves, looking at me. He wore a black robe with silver embroidery along the hem and sleeves, fastened by a leather belt around his narrow waist. His jet-black hair was shaved on the sides of his head into a semblance of a horse’s mane. His features were bold and harshly cut: he had a large aquiline nose, a square jaw, prominent cheekbones, and a full mouth that could be either sensual or cruel.

  His eyebrows were black, and his eyes, full of humor, were black, too. He seemed to really like that color, which was understandable since he was a volhv, which was kind of like a Russian druid, and he worshipped Chernobog, a Slavic god of “Everything Bad and Evil,” as Kate once put it. If you looked in a dictionary under “dark wizard,” you’d get his picture. Except he would be standing on a pile of skulls and holding a staff with magic fire shooting from it.

  “Hi, Roman.”

  The volhv put his book down and walked over to us. I had to admit, the robe, the hair, and his height combined into a pretty menacing whole. He smiled, showing even white teeth. “You remembered my name.”

  He had one of the best male voices I’d ever heard. Rich and resonant and just a touch suggestive. Or maybe I was reading too much into it. The first time I ever saw him, he was in a loup cage in our office, because he’d attacked Kate and she didn’t like it. He’d made some comments to me, which could have been construed as flirting. In a dark, terrible wizard way.

  I also remembered him having a Russian accent. Not a big one, but now he was talking like he’d been born and raised in Atlanta. Maybe he had been.

  “Still the same outfit, I see. Do you ever change it up?”

  “In private,” he said. “Must maintain the whole ‘knitted from darkness and shadow’ image.”

  “Aren’t darkness and shadow the same thing?” I asked.

  He wagged his eyebrows at me. “Aaah, you’d think so, but no. Shadow implies the presence of light. I am not all bad, you see. Parts of me are good. In fact, parts of me are excellent.”

  Ascanio rolled his eyes behind him.

  “So,” Roman said. “What brings you here?”

  “We’re trying to get access to the Library of Alexandria.”

  “I can help you. I’ve got this, Rachel.” Roman waved at us. “Follow me.”

  We followed him up a tall gray and brown staircase. “Do you come here often?” I asked.

  He rolled his dark eyes. “I live in this bloody place. Dad’s making me track down some obscure legend. The Witch Oracle foresaw some things a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been digging in ever since.”

  “Could you just tell him no?” Ascanio asked from behind.

  Roman glanced at him and heaved a dramatic sigh. “My father is the Black Volhv. My mother is one of the Witch Oracles. In my place, you have to ask yourself, is saying no worth the problems, the nagging, the accusations of not being a good son, the lectures from both of my parents, and the story of how my mother was in labor for forty hours, which I can recite from memory. It’s easier to just do what they want. Besides, if the prophecy is the sign of something dreadful happening, we might as well be prepared.”

  “What sort of prophecy was it?” Ascanio asked.

  “That’s classified.” Roman winked at him. “I could tell you, of course. But then I would have to kill you and chain your soul, so you would be my shadow servant for all eternity. Come on, it’s right this way.”

  Roman turned left, between the bookcases, going deeper into the library’s second floor.

  Ascanio’s eyes widened. He turned to me. “Can he do that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. Why don’t you try bugging him, so we’ll find out?”

  “No thanks.”

  Roman led us through the narrow tunnel between bookshelves all the way to the back of the library, where five terminals glowed weakly. He pulled a card out of his pocket and swiped it through the card reader of the two closest terminals. The Library of Alexandria logo—a book encased in flame—came on the screens.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thank you. Much obliged.” It was really nice of him.

  “Say, can I ask you a question? In private?”

  “Sure.” I pointed at the left terminal. “Ascanio, search for our boy. Remember, anything that has to do with his art collection.”

  We walked along the wall outside of Ascanio’s hearing distance, which took us almost all the way to the end of the section.

  Roman’s dark eyes turned serious. “You have ties with the Pack, yes?”

  “Some.”

  He frowned, looming next to me, all tall and dark. “Did you hear anything…alarming? Anything about them taking over the city, for example?”

  “No. It wouldn’t happen anyway. Curran is a separatist,” I told him. “He believes in maintaining a distance between the shapeshifters and everyone else. The Pack worships his footsteps. They wouldn’t do anything without his say-so. Even if they did, how would they hold the place? Everyone else would unite and crush them and that’s leaving aside any action the government would take.”

  Roman stroked his chin. “True, true…”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “The prophecy. Some prophecies are distinct. This one wasn’t. The witches saw a shadow falling on the city and then there was howling. Deafening, scary howling. They aren’t sure if it’s a dog or a wolf or something else. Also they saw a spiral of clay.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  Roman shook his head. “No way to tell. It must’ve felt terrifying, because my mother was rattled after it.”

  I had met Evdokia. Anything that managed to rattle her had to be treated as a serious threat.

  “Are you free tomorrow night?” Roman asked. “I’d love your perspective on things.”

  “Are you asking me on a date?” Flirting or not flirting?

  Roman leaned one arm against the bookcase. “Who, me? I don’t date. I only steal virgins to sacrifice.”

  Flirting. Shamelessly flirting. “Hmm, then I’m not of any interest to you. I’m not a virgin.”
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  He grinned. “This would be a professional meeting.”

  “Aha.”

  “Kompletely profeshonal,” Roman said, turning the Russian accent back on.

  He was charming and funny and a bit scary, which was always a draw in my book. But every nerve in me still hurt. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that jumping from one relationship into another was a bad idea.

  Still…my life didn’t have to be tied with Raphael’s. The world wasn’t limited to one bouda jerk. Here was a guy, a funny, handsome guy, who probably thought I was hot. It could be someone like him. It could be no one, for that matter. I could be perfectly fine by myself.

  “I’m investigating four shapeshifter murders,” I told him. “Have you heard anything?”

  “No. But I can ask.”

  “Well, see, I’m no good to you, because I’m not a virgin and you are no good to me because you know nothing about the murders. Maybe some other time?”

  He reached out to me. One second his hand was empty and the next a small black card with a white phone number appeared as if by magic. “Take a card?” he asked, winking. “Come on, take one.”

  “Will it sprout fangs when the magic hits?”

  “You won’t find out unless you take it. Or are you chicken?”

  I swiped the card. “Just a warning, if it turns into something nasty, I’ll shoot it.”

  Roman laughed quietly.

  “You want one of mine?”

  “Five-five-five, twenty-one thirteen.”

  The number to the office. He must’ve gotten it from Kate.

  “Well, I’ve got to go,” I said.

  Roman glanced up and said in a conspiratorial voice. “If I disappear in a dramatic pillar of black smoke, do you think the sprinklers will go off?”

  I leaned over to him and kept my voice low. “Probably. But I’m willing to close my eyes for a second and pretend you did anyway.”

  I closed my eyes for a long moment and when I opened them, he was gone.

  When I returned to the terminal, Ascanio handed me a notepad with notes. “I found some articles. Also the volhv likes you,” he said, his gaze fixed on the screen.

  “Yes, he does.” I scanned his notes. He’d made a list of the art auctions Jamar had visited.

  “Does this mean you’re done with Raphael?”

  I gave him my sniper stare. “If you ever want to set foot out of the office again, you will stop taking an interest in my love life. It doesn’t concern you.”

  He turned to me with an expression of remorse that could’ve made the angels weep. “Yes, ma’am.”

  How do you go from Baby Rory to Ascanio? To think that one day I might have kids, and given that I was half-bouda they would probably turn out just like him. The mind boggled.

  “It says here Jamar bought a toilet seat for fifty thousand dollars,” Ascanio said.

  I looked on the screen. “It says it’s from Amarna, from the eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.”

  “It’s a toilet seat,” Ascanio said.

  “It’s four thousand years old.”

  He looked at me, incredulous. “Some ancient Egyptians sat on it and took a dump.”

  “I assume so.”

  “He paid fifty thousand dollars for a used toilet seat.”

  “Maybe it was gold-plated,” I told him.

  “No, it says here it’s made of limestone, so if you were to use it, you’d freeze your ass off when you sat on it.”

  “It’s not cold in Egypt. It’s hot. Your grasp of geography is shaky, my friend.” I sat down at a terminal next to him and typed “Jamar Groves” into the search window.

  “You could buy a car for fifty thousand dollars. A really nice car.” Ascanio’s eyes lit up. “A Hummer. You could buy a converted Hummer.”

  “You don’t need a Hummer,” I said.

  “Chicks dig the Hummer.”

  “You don’t need any chicks either.”

  He gave me an injured look. “I have needs.”

  “I have needs too and right now I need you to concentrate on tracking down Jamar’s antique collection. Get to it.”

  We’d been in the library for three hours when the magic hit, cutting our research short. We’d identified thirty-seven items. Considering that my list of the vault’s contents included only twenty-nine, that gave us at least eight artifacts for which we couldn’t account. A knife from Crete; two necklaces from the Etruscan civilization, which was apparently some sort of pre-Roman culture in Italy; a cat-headed statue from the Kingdom of Kush; a bronze head of Sargon the Great, who was some sort of king in Akkadia; a spear from the same country; and two stone tablets with ancient Hebrew writings. None of those lit up with Christmas lights and sirens when we found them. Whether I liked it or not, it was time to quit and head home.

  “That mechanic said he’d found the check from the woman he towed,” Ascanio said.

  “Yes?” He was going to be my next stop.

  “I can pick up that check for you,” Ascanio offered.

  I eyed him. “Promise not to get yourself killed.”

  “I promise.”

  “And if there is any threat, you will run like a scared bunny.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” I gave him the money. “Do not kill, do not get killed, do not mess up. Go, faithful apprentice!”

  He flashed me a grin and took off. Well, it would keep him out of trouble for a little while. Hopefully.

  I stared at the now-dead computer terminal. Tonight Raphael and I would go to Anapa’s house.

  If all went well, we wouldn’t kill each other.

  CHAPTER 8

  Raphael was on time. He was always on time. At seven, a small rock hit my bedroom window and bounced off the bars with a loud clink. I glanced through the glass. Raphael stood below, wearing a tuxedo.

  Like we were kids going to the prom.

  I swiped my oversized clutch off the bed and checked myself for the last time in the mirror. The evil dress was still stunning and badass. My blond hair floated around my head in a beautifully disarrayed cloud that had taken half an hour to arrange and coax into place. I’d tweezed my eyebrows into a perfect shape, applied a narrow line of eyeliner around my eyes to make them stand out, brushed a light dusting of bronze onto my eyelids, and finished off with a double coat of mascara. My lips were a shimmering, intense red, matching the ruby of the dragon’s eye.

  I slipped a bracelet on my wrist: red garnets mixed with white sapphires. It was the only noncostume piece of jewelry I owned. My mother bought it for me when I graduated from the Order’s Academy. I always thought it brought me luck.

  I checked my clutch to see if the outline of my Ruger SP101 showed through the black leather. Nope. All good. With the magic up it wouldn’t even fire, but it comforted me to have it with me. I didn’t bring a knife. I could count on Raphael having several.

  For some reason, when a typical weresomething got into a fight, nature flipped a switch in its head that dictated it grow claws and fangs and rip things apart instead of shooting them from a distance or cutting them with knives like smart people do. I always thought it was to Raphael’s credit that he was the exception to this rule.

  He was waiting. No more stalling. I was as hot as I was going to get.

  I shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the apartment in my four-inch black heels. Click-click-click down the stairs and out the door.

  The evening breeze swirled around me, flinging scents into my face. Raphael waited for me on the sidewalk. My brain took a second to process what I was seeing and got stuck. My coordination unraveled. I stopped.

  Raphael wore a black tuxedo. The light of the early evening played on his face, painting the left side golden, while the right remained in cool shadow. He looked perfectly poised between darkness and light. The elegant jacket mapped the strength of his broad shoulders and the supple resilience of his narrow waist, bringing to the forefront both the natural beauty of his body and its dangerous ed
ge. His blue eyes looked hard and focused, hammering home the point—crossing him would be extremely unwise.

  He didn’t wear his tuxedo like a relaxed gentleman would wear a dinner jacket, nor did he wear it the way a knight wore his armor. Raphael wore it the way an assassin wears his leathers and cloak. He was a dagger in a black sheath. I wanted to reach for him, even knowing he would slice my flesh to pieces.

  My heart hammered in my chest. This was such a bad idea. But it was my only chance at Anapa and his office, and I owed it to Nick and the families of four dead shapeshifters to take it.

  Raphael was looking at me and I just stood there, unable to move. I had to do something. Say something.

  Sad, sad Andrea cradling her pitiful broken heart. Pathetic.

  The vitriol did its job. The world stopped spinning, my mind snapped into gear, and I finally registered the significance of Raphael’s expression. He looked blank. Completely blank, as if he was gazing at something that had broken his brain.

  “Raphael?”

  He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

  “Are you okay?”

  Raphael’s lips moved. He swore.

  Ha! I got him! Drink it in, darling. Where’s your seven-foot-tall fiancée now?

  “Is there something wrong with my dress?” Rub it in, rub it in…

  Raphael finally managed to formulate a word. “No. Just wondering where you hid your gun.”

  I showed him my giant clutch.

  “Ah,” he said. “Didn’t see that.”

  Of course he didn’t. He was too busy looking at me. It was a small revenge, but it tasted so sweet.

  Raphael led me to his Pack Jeep that spat and roared, belching magic. He opened the door for me. As I got in, his scent slid along my skin, singing to me.

  Maaate. Mate-mate-mate.

  Damn it.

  I sat in my seat. Instead of closing the door, he leaned toward me, a look of intense concentration on his face as if he were about to say or do something rash.

  My breath caught in my throat. If he bent down to kiss me, I would punch him right in the face. I wouldn’t be able to help myself.