Gunmetal Magic (kate daniels)

by Ilona Andrews

  “What’s the matter with you? Is it the poison?”

  “I just realized you died on me twice.” Raphael rolled to his feet and staggered off.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need a minute.”

  He stumbled into the bushes and I heard him vomit.

  A shadow came over me. Roman sat on a log next to me. He was carrying something long and wrapped in plastic.

  “Nice guy,” Roman said. “An asshole, but he loves you.”

  “I love him, too.” I petted his hand. “Thank you for everything. I had fun.”

  “I had fun, too.” He grinned. “Look what I got.” He pulled the plastic back. The Bone Staff.

  “You got it?”

  He nodded. “Spent an hour digging through that clay. Worth every minute.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you around. You call if you need anything, yes?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “You call me, too. I owe you some help. As long as I don’t have to sacrifice any babies, I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll count on it.”

  He walked off and Raphael took his place, rinsing his mouth with water from a canteen. Around us, the shapeshifters were herding the snake people into a group. I was covered in mud, blood, and swampy muck. Raphael looked even worse, his hair smeared with gore. I really wanted to go back home, take a shower, and sleep for a year.

  “Help me off the log?” I asked him.

  “No. We’re going to get you a nice stretcher and carry you down to the boats.”

  “I’m okay to walk. My chest hurts a little, but I can make it.”

  “You are certifiable,” he told me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “I swore that if we made it through today, I would do this.” Raphael pulled a small plastic box out of the bag and got down on his knees in the mud.

  This was crazy.

  He opened the box. A white engagement ring with a band shaped like a beast’s paw lay on a small velvet pillow, with a beautiful sapphire clasped in its tiny white claws.

  “I’m fucked up,” he said. “I have many faults. But I promise if you marry me, I will love you and take care of you for the rest of our lives.”

  I stared at him.

  “If you put up with me, I will put up with whatever you can throw my way,” he said. “Bad days, good days, ‘I’ll cut you if you look at me the wrong way’ days. I’ll take them all.”

  I knew I had to say something.

  “If you kill her with this after everything I’ve done,” Doolittle said behind me. “You will never leave this swamp.”

  Raphael searched my face, anxious. “Andi?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “In sickness and in health, poor, rich, I don’t care.”

  He was still looking at me, as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Yes, Raphael.” I laughed or cried, I wasn’t sure. “Yes.”

  “Put the ring on her, you fool,” Doolittle said.

  Raphael slipped the ring on my finger and I hugged him.

  “I’d kiss you,” Raphael said. “But I need to brush my teeth and I’m covered in blood.”

  “I don’t care,” I told him. “Kiss me anyway.”

  EPILOGUE

  My Pack admittance ceremony was held on Tuesday in the Pack’s main gathering place, a large room deep below the Keep, where the terraced ground sloped in “steps” toward the stage with the metal fire pit. I’d heard Kate describe it before, but I had never seen it. I thought about dressing up, but it seemed kind of pointless. Whichever outfit I wore, I would still be me and that’s what really counted.

  A few minutes before ten p.m., Martina knocked on the door to the small room where I was asked to wait. “It’s time.”

  I followed her down the stairs, lower and lower. I had no idea the Keep went that deep underground.

  Finally she stopped before a solid door. “Nervous?”

  “Not really.” I had spent the morning sitting in a small room with Raphael and the families of the four murdered shapeshifters, telling them the whole long story. The Pack had rounded up the snake people. It didn’t take long for the truth to come out: Raphael’s crew was murdered by Saii, the priests. They were the only ones with poison glands. The rest of the snake people had fangs, but their bites were hardly fatal. All six of the Saii were dead. I took out Gloria, Roman and I had killed Sanchez on the bridge, and the four remaining perished before our battle with Apep. The Pack loaded the remaining cultists and what little baggage they had onto the boats and shipped them under armed escort out of the Pack’s territory. They were forbidden to return. Derek oversaw the convoy and said that most of them seemed relieved. The Saii had worked them like slaves.

  I got to hold Baby Rory again. We made a pact, he and I. He would grow up to be kind and strong, and I would make sure that his clansmen would never mistreat him or break his bones.

  I was able to look Nick in the eye when I told him that the people who had murdered his wife would never again hurt anyone else. He thanked me. This ceremony paled in comparison.

  “Last chance to turn back,” Martina said.

  I knew what waited behind the door. Raphael and his mother. A few members of Clan Bouda. Kate and Curran. My friends, my alpha, my mate, and the new future. For once, I wouldn’t have to hide who I was.

  I opened the door.

  The vast chamber stretched in front of me, dipping down to the stage, on which a metal fire pit stood. Flames danced inside it.

  Behind the pit stood Aunt B. To the left, Curran and Kate sat, together with the other alphas and betas. Shapeshifters occupied the terraced steps surrounding them. Hundreds of shapeshifters. Suddenly I was nervous.

  There was no turning back. I raised my head and marched down the stairs toward the fire, looking straight at Raphael for support. The stairs lasted for an eternity. Finally I stopped next to Aunt B.

  “We gather here to invite Andrea Nash to the Pack,” Aunt B said, her voice carrying through the room. “You know her. She has fought for us. She has given her blood and used her skills for the good of the Pack. Today we honor her sacrifice and accept her as one of our own. If any of you have a problem with that, rise and challenge me.”

  “No, thank you!” someone quipped from the right.

  Light laughter ran through the room. I tried to keep still, but the giggles bubbled up out of me.

  Aunt B grinned. “It’s your turn, dear. Your moment.”

  I stepped to the fire and pulled my sleeve back. The flames crackled and burned in the fire pit. I thrust my forearm into the fire. The flames licked, searing my flesh. The smell of burned hair from my arm whiffed up. I held it for another second to prove that I was in control. No loup could touch the flames. It inspired strong instinctual terror in them.

  I lowered my arm, trying not to wince at the pain, and said the first words of my oath. “I, Andrea Nash, a human and a shapeshifter, swear to abide by the laws of the Pack and my clan. I swear to obey my alphas and honor my clan’s traditions. I swear to be loyal to my Pack brothers and sisters, to guard them from harm, and should the need arise, to fight to my death at their side…”

  MAGIC GIFTS

  A Kate Daniels Novella

  CHAPTER 1

  I was ten feet from the office door of Cutting Edge Investigations when I heard the phone ring inside. Unfortunately, the key to the office was in my sweatshirt pocket, which at the moment was also full of pale pink slime dripping from the tentacles resting on my shoulders. The tentacles weighed about seventy pounds and my shoulders really didn’t like it.

  Behind me, Andrea, my best friend and partner in crime solving, shifted the bulbous mass of flesh that was the rest of the creature, rearranging it. “Phone.”

  “I hear it.” I dug in my pocket, all but glued shut by slime. Cold wetness slipped through my fingers. Ew.

  “Kate, it could be a client.”

  “I’m trying to find the key.”


  Clients meant money, and money was in short supply. Cutting Edge had opened its doors three months ago, and while we were getting a trickle of paying jobs, most of them were lousy. Despite a good recommendation from the Red Guard, the premier bodyguard outfit in Atlanta, clients weren’t knocking down our door to hire us.

  Our world was beset by magic waves. They flooded us at random, smothering technology and leaving monsters in their wake. One moment you had rogue mages spitting fireballs and lightning, the next the magic would vanish, and the cops would gun down said mages with their now-operational firearms.

  Sadly, the consequences of the magic waves didn’t always vanish with them, and Atlanta by necessity had spawned many agencies to deal with magic hazmat. All of them had been in business a lot longer than us: the cops, the Mercenary Guild, a slew of private companies, and the big gorilla, the Order of Merciful Aid. The Order and its knights made it their mission to guard humanity against all threats and they did just that—but on their terms. Both Andrea and I had worked for the Order at some point and both of us had left under less than amicable circumstances.

  Our reputations weren’t stellar, so when we got a job, it was because everyone else in town had already shot it down. We were quickly turning into Atlanta’s business of last resort. Still, every successful job was a check mark by our name.

  The phone rang, insistent.

  Our latest job had come courtesy of the Green Acres Home Owners Association, who had shown up at our door this morning claiming that a giant levitating jellyfish was roaming their suburb and could we please come and get it, because it was eating local cats. Apparently the translucent jellyfish was floating about with half-digested cat bodies inside it, and the neighborhood children were very upset. The cops told them that it wasn’t a priority, since the jellyfish hadn’t eaten any humans yet, and the Mercenary Guild wouldn’t get rid of it for less than a grand. The HOA offered us $200. Nobody in their right mind would do the job for that price.

  It took us all damned day. And now we had to properly dispose of the cursed thing, because dealing with the corpses of magical creatures was like playing Russian roulette. Sometimes nothing happened…and sometimes the corpse melted into a puddle of sentient carnivorous protoplasm. Or hatched foot-long blood-sucking leeches.

  The weight of the jellyfish suddenly vanished from my shoulders. I rummaged in my pocket and my fingertips slid against the cold metal. I yanked the key out, slipped it into the lock, and swung the heavy reinforced door open. Aha! Victory.

  I lunged through the door and made a break for the phone. I reached it a second too late and the answering machine came on. “Kate,” Jim’s voice said. “Pick up the phone.”

  I backed away from the phone like it was on fire. I knew exactly what this call was about and I didn’t want any of it.

  “Kate, I know you’re there.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  “You will have to deal with this, sooner or later.”

  I shook my head. “No, I won’t.”

  “Call me.” Jim hung up.

  I turned to the door and watched Andrea walk through it. Behind her, the jellyfish squeezed through the doorway on its own. I blinked. The jellyfish kept coming. It cleared the door, turned, and I saw Curran carrying it in his hands, as if the three-hundred-pound mass of flesh was no heavier than a plate of pancakes. It’s good to be the Beast Lord.

  When had he arrived and what was he doing here, anyway?

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Back room,” Andrea said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  I followed them and watched Curran pack the jellyfish into the biohazard container. He slid the lid in place, locked the clamps, and closed the distance between us. I held my slimy arms out to keep him from getting covered in ooze, leaned forward, and kissed the Beast Lord. He tasted like toothpaste and Curran, and the feel of his lips on mine made me forget the lousy day, the bills, the clients, and the two gallons of slime drenching my clothes. The kiss lasted only a couple of seconds, but it might as well have been an hour, because when we broke apart, it felt like I had come home, leaving all my troubles far behind.

  “Hey,” he said, his gray eyes smiling at me.

  “Hey.”

  Behind him, Andrea rolled her eyes.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  Curran almost never came to visit my office, especially not in the evening. He hated Atlanta and its teeming masses with all the fire of a supernova. I didn’t have anything against Atlanta in theory—sure, it was half-eroded by the magic waves and it caught on fire with alarming frequency—but I had a thing about crowds. When my workday was over, I didn’t linger. I headed straight for the Keep, where the Atlanta shapeshifter Pack and His Furry Majesty resided.

  “I thought we’d go to dinner,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve gone out.”

  Technically we had never gone out to dinner, just the two of us. Oh, we had eaten together in the city but usually it was accidental and most of those times had involved other people and frequently ended in a violent incident.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  Curran’s blond eyebrows came together. “Does there have to be a special occasion for me to take you out to dinner?”

  Yes. “No.”

  He leaned in to me. “I missed you and I got tired of waiting for you to come home. Come grab a bite with me.”

  Grabbing a bite sounded heavenly, except Andrea would be stuck here by herself. “I have to wait for Biohazard to pick up the jellyfish.”

  “I’ve got it,” Andrea offered. “Go, there’s no reason for both of us to sit here. I have some stuff I need to take care of anyway.”

  I hesitated.

  “I can sign forms just as well as you,” Andrea informed me. “And my signature doesn’t look like the scratches of a drunken chicken in the dirt.”

  “My signature is just fine, thank you very much.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Go have some fun.”

  “I need a shower,” I told Curran. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

  It was Friday, eight o’clock on a warm spring night, my hair was brushed, my clothes were clean and slime-free, and I was going out with the Beast Lord. Curran drove. He did it very carefully, concentrating on the road. I had a feeling he’d learned to drive as an adult. I drove carefully too, mostly because I expected the car to fail on me at any second.

  I glanced at Curran in the driver’s seat. Even at rest, like he was now, relaxed and driving, he emanated a kind of coiled power. He was built to kill, his body a blend of hard, powerful muscle and supple quickness, and something in the way he carried himself telegraphed a shocking potential for violence and a willingness to use it. He seemed to occupy a much larger space than his body actually did and he was impossible to ignore. The promise of violence he carried used to scare me, so I’d bait him until some of it came out, the same way people afraid of heights would rock climb to cure themselves. Now I just accepted him, the way he accepted my need to sleep with a sword under my bed.

  Curran caught me looking. He flexed, letting the carved muscles bulge on his arms, and winked. “Hey, baby.”

  I cracked up. “So where are we going?”

  “Arirang,” Curran said. “It’s a nice Korean place, Kate. They have charcoal grills at the tables. They bring you meat and you cook it any way you want.”

  It figured. Left to his own devices, Curran consumed only meat, punctuated with an occasional dessert. “That’s nice for me, but what will your vegetarian Majesty eat?”

  Curran gave me a flat look. “I can always drive to a burger joint instead.”

  “Oh, so you’d throw a burger down my throat and then expect making out in the backseat?”

  He grinned. “We can do it in the front seat instead, if you prefer. Or on the hood of the car.”

  “I’m not doing it on the hood of the car.”

  “Is that a dare?”

  Why me?

  “Kate?”
/>   “Keep your mind on the road, Your Furriness.”

  The city rolled by, twisted by magic, battered and bruised but still standing. The night swallowed the ruins, hiding the sad husks of once mighty, tall buildings. New houses flanked the street, constructed by hand with wood, stone, and brick to withstand magic’s jaws.

  I rolled down the window and let the night in. It floated into the car, bringing with it spring and a hint of wood smoke from a distant fire. Somewhere a lone dog barked out of boredom, each woof punctuated by a long pause, probably to see if the owners would let him in.

  Ten minutes later we pulled into a long, empty parking lot, guarded by old office buildings that now housed Asian shops. A typical stone building with huge storefront windows sat at the very end, marked by a sign that read ARIRANG.

  “This is the place?”

  “Mhm,” Curran said.

  “I thought you said it was a Korean restaurant.” For some reason I had expected a hanok house with a curved tiled roof and a wide front porch.

  “It is.”

  “It looks like a Western Sizzlin.” In fact, it probably used to be a Western Sizzlin.

  “Will you just trust me? It’s a nice place…” Curran braked, and the Pack Jeep screeched to a stop.

  Two skeletally thin vampires sat at the front of the restaurant, tethered to the horse rail with chains looped over their heads. Pale, hairless, dried like leathery jerky, the undead stared at us with mad glowing eyes. Death had robbed them of their cognizance and will, leaving behind mindless shells driven only by bloodlust. On their own, the bloodsuckers would slaughter anything alive and keep killing until nothing breathing remained. But their empty minds made a perfect vehicle for necromancers, who telepathically navigated them like remote-controlled cars.

  Curran glared at the undead through the windshield. Ninety percent of the vampires belonged to the People, a weird hybrid of a corporation and a research institute. We both despised the People and everything they stood for.

  I couldn’t resist. “I thought you said this was a nice place.”