Magic Burns

by Ilona Andrews

  “Fancy. You missed,” he said.

  “You want something?”

  “I thought since we both might die tomorrow, you’d be up for a friendly roll-in-the-hay.”

  “I might die. You’ll be healed.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not immortal, dove. Do enough damage fast and I’ll kick the bucket like the rest of you.”

  I disengaged and moved past him to the door.

  His kilt fell.

  “It took me forever to fix this!” He grabbed it off the floor and it fell apart in his hand. I had cut it in three places.

  I walked out into the hallway and almost ran into Curran accompanied by a group of shapeshifters. Bran followed me in all his naked glory. “Hey, does this mean no sex?”

  Curran’s face went blank. I dodged him and kept walking.

  Bran chased me, weaving through the shapeshifters. “Get out of my way, don’t you see I’m trying to talk to a woman?”

  I made the mistake of looking back in time to see Curran reach for Bran’s neck as the Hound of Morrigan rushed by. With an effort of will that must have taken a year off his life, Curran curled his fingers into a fist and lowered his hand instead.

  I chuckled to myself and kept walking. The Universe had proven Curran wrong: a person who aggravated him more than me did, in fact, exist.

  Bran caught up with me on the stairs. “Where are you headed?”

  “To a balcony. I want some fresh air.” And maybe to doze off a bit. Although I was no longer sleepy. The magic hummed in me, eager to be released. Is this how it would be when the tech finally fell for good? I wasn’t sure I could handle that much raw power. I had to hold myself back, as if I was riding a crazed horse at full gallop and the reins kept slipping through my fingers.

  Bran strode next to me, completely unconcerned with his lack of clothes. I stepped into the first room I saw, pulled a pair of gray sweatpants out of a chest of drawers—just about every room in the Keep had them, since people who shifted shapes found it convenient to have extra clothes present—and handed the pants to him.

  “Can’t control yourself?” He slipped into the sweatpants.

  “That’s it,” I murmured, stole the spare blanket and pillow, and left the room.

  He followed me to the balcony, where I made a makeshift bed in the recessed doorway and curled up. The stone shielded me from the sun, but I saw it all: the sky veiled with sunshine and touched with feathery smudges of clouds, the bright greenery of the trees, rustling in the breeze, the stone walls, still smooth and warm to the touch. I smelled the honeyed flowers and the light scent of wolves on the breeze. I drank it all in.

  Bran perched on the stone rail. “A scrawny street kid. A throwaway human. Now you’ll go to war because of her.”

  “Wars have been started for worse reasons.”

  He stared at me. “I don’t understand.”

  How do you explain humanity to someone who has no frame of reference? “It has to do with good and evil. You have to decide for yourself what they are. For me, evil is striving to an end without regard for the means.”

  He shook his head. “Better to do a small wrong to prevent a big one.”

  “How do you decide what is a ‘small’ wrong? Let’s say, you buy the safety of many with the life of a child. That child means everything to her parents. You devastated them. There is no greater wrong you can do to them. Why would that be a ‘small’ evil?”

  “Because now more of you fools are going to die.”

  “We fools volunteered to fight. We have free will. I fight to save Julie and to kill as many of those bastards as I can. They came into my house, they tried to kill me, and they crucified my kid. I want to punish them. I want that punishment to be so hard, so vicious, that the next scum who takes their place wets himself at the mere thought of trying to fight me.”

  Slayer smoked in its sheath, sensing my anger. Normally I’d have to feed it, or its blade would become thin and brittle, but with the magic flowing this strong, the sword would last through the battle and then some.

  I pointed to the yard. “The shapeshifters fight to take a stand against a threat and to avenge their dead Pack mates. They fight to protect their children, because without them there is no future. What do you fight for?”

  He ruffled the wild nest of his hair. “I have no future anyway. I fight because I made a deal with Morrigan. Without mist, I’ll age and die.”

  “Would aging be such a bad thing? Don’t you want a life? A real life?”

  He sneered. “If I wanted a real life, I wouldn’t have asked to be a hero. When I die, I want to die strong, with a sword in my hand, sheathing it into the bodies of my enemies. That’s how a man should die.”

  I sighed. “My father served as a warlord to a man of unequaled power. This man called my father ‘Voron,’ which means Raven, because death followed him. Voron had never been defeated with a blade. Had he remained as a warlord to lead the army he had built and trained, the world would be a very different place.”

  “Is there a point to this tale?”

  “He left it all behind for my sake.” And he did it all for a child not of his own blood.

  “Then your father was a fool and now I know why you’re one.”

  I closed my eyes. “There is no reasoning with you. Let me sleep.”

  I heard him jump off the rail and land next to me, and then he poked my shoulder with his finger.

  “I’m trying to understand.”

  I opened my eyes. Explaining my moral code really wasn’t my forte. “Imagine you’re being chased by wolves. You’re running through the woods, no settlement in sight, and you come across a baby lying abandoned on the ground. Do you save the baby or do you leave him for the wolves?”

  I saw the hesitation in his dark eyes. “I’d leave the little bastard,” he declared, a bit too loudly. “Would slow the wolves down.”

  “You had a doubt.”

  He raised his hand but I shook my head. “I saw it. You had a doubt. You thought about it for a second. The same force that drove that doubt is what makes us fight. Now leave me be.”

  I curled up on my blanket and closed my eyes. The wind gently stroked my face and soothed me into calm sleep.

  DEREK AWOKE ME A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER. I looked at the sky. The sun rode high—it was just past noon.

  I didn’t want to die.

  Derek’s face was grim. “Jim has something for you downstairs.”

  He took me to the first floor and held the door open for me. I entered a small room, where Jim sat in a chair, testing the edge of that same knife with his thumb. In front of him, on the floor, sat Red. He was filthy. His left eye was swollen shut with a magnificent shiner. A long metal chain stretched from the wall to clutch at a metal collar around his neck. God help you if you offend the Pack, because they didn’t need a K-9 unit to find you.

  I crossed my arms and looked at him. He was only fifteen. It didn’t excuse his betrayal of Julie but it precluded me from doing all of the things I would normally do under these circumstances.

  Red squinted at me with his good eye. “You gonna beat me, go ahead.”

  I leaned against the wall. At the first hint of my movement, he ducked, covering his head. “Why didn’t you tell me about the necklace?”

  “Because you’d steal it.” He bared his teeth. “It was mine. My power! My chance.”

  “Do you know what happened to Julie?”

  “He knows,” Jim said.

  “Do you feel responsible at all?” I asked.

  He scooted back from me. “What the fuck do you want me to say? Am I suppose to make nice and cry and tell you how sorry I am? I took care of Julie. I watched out for her for two years. She owes me, okay? They had their claws on my throat. Right here!” He clamped his neck with his grimy fingers. “They said, you get the girl or die. So I got the girl. Any of you assholes would’ve done the same. You gonna stand there and look down on me like that, well fuck you.”

  He spat o
n the floor.

  “If you didn’t care for her at all, why did you ask me to guard her?”

  “Because she’s an investment, you dumb whore.”

  He wasn’t a person, he was just a ball of hate. We could beat him, we could starve him, we could lecture him, but no amount of punishment or education would make him understand that he was wrong. He was lost.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I asked Jim.

  Jim shrugged. “I’ll give him a blade, put him on the field. He can show me how tough he is.”

  “He’ll stab us in the back.”

  “I’ll have people watching him. We found him once, we’ll find him again. He stabs someone, I’ll skin him alive. Piece by piece.” Jim smiled at Red. Most people saw Jim smile only once, just before he killed them. The smile had the desired effect: Red cringed and paled so light, I could see it even through the layer of dirt smudging his skin.

  “Objections?” Jim asked me.

  “Do what you will.”

  IN THE YARD, TWO HUGE BUSES ROARED, THEIR ENGINES fueled by magic-infused water. That’s the trouble with magic-fueled vehicles: they were slow, thirty-five, forty miles an hour max and they made enough noise to wake the dead and make them call the cops. I’d get to ride to the battle on a bus. The Universe had a mordant sense of humor.

  I noticed a familiar slender figure. Myong. And next to her, Crest. He looked well: same dark eyes, same clothes, immaculate to the last crease. He was still a very handsome man, with auburn hair and warm eyes. I looked at him and didn’t care. The pang of embarrassment was gone. I was free.

  “Curran let them go. Released her from all duties to the Pack. She’s excused from the fight.” Derek wrinkled his lip. “If it was me, I’d make her fight. And then, if she did well, I might let her go.”

  Crest held the door of a narrow gray vehicle for Myong.

  “There, they are off, the happy couple excused from revenge and saving the world. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  I smiled. “Derek, in life you have to learn to let some things go.”

  We circled the bus and a wave of vampiric magic hit me. Eight vampires sat perched like statues in front of a Jeep. Curran stood by the Jeep, having a rather animated discussion with the ninth vampire. The vampire saw me.

  “Kate,” it said in Ghastek’s voice. “Your ability to remain alive never ceases to amaze me.”

  “What are you doing here? As in what are you doing here, instead of being under lockdown in the Casino?”

  “Quite elementary, my dear; I’ve come to get even. That, and the People would like to monitor the full potential of the vampires during a flare in an environment where they are free to inflict unrestricted damage. But mostly, I’m here to get even with the Shepherd. I find retribution to be a worthy cause.”

  I looked at Curran’s face and suddenly I knew exactly who would escort Bran through the tunnel.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE BUBBLE FILLED THE GAP. SOLID, TRANSLUCENT, streaked with hairline cracks, it betrayed the faces of monsters within. Snouts crushed, heavy lips squished, the Fomorians stood shoulder to shoulder, packed tight like Altoid mints.

  We had ridden the buses to the Honeycomb and walked a trail to the bottom of the Gap. Curran had brought a hundred shapeshifters, all volunteers. A hundred could block the Gap long enough to give Bran a chance to close the cauldron. And if they failed, no number of shapeshifters would make things right. Curran didn’t want to put more of his people in harm’s way. Still, I would’ve taken more, but nobody asked for my opinion.

  The trail took us along the Honeycomb Gap’s edge. I saw the bloated trailers pulled up tight to encircle the lip of the Gap, where it touched the Honeycomb. Beyond the trailers waited the Honeycomb residents, armed with clubs, axes, and blades. I counted four dog handlers, holding their metallic charges on the arm-thick chains and two cheiroballistas beyond them before the path took me eastward. Should any demons make it up the trash-and spike-studded slope, they would regret it in a hurry.

  The shapeshifters had cleared the floor of the Gap enough to make it serviceable. All the sharp trash had been thrown against the bubble. It would slow the Fomorians down.

  We descended into the Gap. The Pack formed ranks about a hundred yards from the bubble. The shapeshifters stood apart, giving each other room to work. A group of women strode past me, led by a familiar witch: one of the Morrigan coven leaders. They wore leather and chain mail, carried bows and swords, and their faces were painted blue. With a look of grim determination, they elbowed their way to Curran. They spoke for a few minutes and the witches climbed up the walls, taking position among the refuse above the battle.

  It was my turn. I walked up to Curran. “Fifteen seconds.”

  His eyes shone. “I remember. Try not to die.”

  “I’ll survive just so I can kill you.”

  “See you in the morning, then.”

  I moved aside. Behind me Derek had a wide smile plastered on his face.

  “Are you babysitting me for the fight?”

  He nodded, his smile even wider.

  Marvelous.

  A chunk of pale gray, like dirty ice, broke from the top of the bubble. With an eerie whistle, it plunged and bit deep into the bottom of the Gap, punching through the rusty garbage. The gray hissed and fizzled, evaporating into thin air. A hush fell upon the field. The shapeshifters trembled in anticipation.

  Curran’s voice carried over our heads. “We have a job to do. Today we avenge our own! They came here, onto our land. They tortured a child. They killed our Pack mates. Nobody hurts the Pack!”

  “Nobody!” answered a ragged chorus.

  He pointed at the bubble. “They are not men. There is no human flesh on their bones.”

  Where was he going with this?

  “What happens here, stays here. Today there is no Code. Today you can let go.”

  They lived the Code. They followed it with fanatical discipline. Obey, perform, account for yourself. Ever diligent. Always in control. Never let go. Curran had promised them the one thing they could never have. One by one their eyes lit amber, then flared blood-red.

  “Remember: it’s not your job to die for your Pack! It’s your job to make the other bastards die for theirs. Together we kill!”

  “Kill!” breathed the field.

  “Win!”

  “Win!”

  “Go home!”

  “Go home!”

  “Kill! Win! Go home!”

  “Kill, win, go home! Kill, win, go home!” They chanted it over and over, their voices merging them into a unified avalanche of sound.

  Another fraction of the dome tumbled to the grass. As one, the shapeshifters stripped off their clothes. Around me people gripped their weapons. I smelled sweat and sun-warmed metal.

  With the ear-splitting roar of a crumbling ice flat, the gray dome fell apart revealing the sea of Fomorians. They shifted forward a few steps and stood silent, a chaotic mass dappled with green, turquoise, and orange, monstrous like an old painting of hell.

  “Turn!” Curran roared.

  Fur burst along the shapeshifter ranks like a fire running down the detonation cord. Beasts and monsters shrugged their shoulders and bit the air. Curran snarled and rose above his troops, an eight-foot-tall bestial nightmare.

  Behind the Fomorian horde, Morfran stood on a small knoll of garbage. He thrust an enormous, double-edged axe to the sky.

  The Fomorians bellowed.

  A hundred roars answered them from thick furry throats: wolves snarled and howled, jackals yipped, hyenas laughed, cats growled, rats screeched, all at once, and through it all, unstoppable and overwhelming, came the lion roar.

  The Fomorians hesitated, unsure.

  Morfran thrust his axe straight up. He pretty much seemed to have one sign for everything: poke a hole in the sky.

  The front ranks of the horde started forward, first slowly, trudging, then faster and faster. A stretch of trash-strewn ground as long as a football
field separated them from us. The ground shook from the pounding of many feet.

  “Hold!” Curran snarled.

  A low chant of female voices rose behind us. The magic moved and shifted, obedient to the power within the voices. The ground quaked like a giant drum being struck from within. Vines burst before the Fomorian front ranks and slunk along the ground, twisting around their feet, tripping, binding. The demons halted, tearing themselves free.

  A witch screamed. Guttural cries answered her. The sky came alive with glittering shapes. The Stymphalean birds took to the air and plunged at the demonic horde. Feathers whistled through the air and howls of pain echoed them as the razor-sharp metal sliced into flesh. Here and there the demonic forms went liquid. The cauldron would bring them back to life. I remembered what Bran screamed while watching the fight in the Oracle’s turtle. He screamed, “Maim.” If we could maim a large number of them, incapacitating them but not killing, it would work better than dispatching them only to be reborn. We needed to engage their attention, to occupy them and to thin their ranks to buy Bran safe passage.

  The demons had untangled themselves from the vines and started forward again, a roiling mass of flesh and teeth and horns.

  My cue. I ran forward, light on my feet, farther and farther away from the shapeshifter line. Ahead, the Fomorians swelled before me.

  I dropped all the guards. All the leashes, all the chains, everything that ever restrained me through the discipline and fear of discovery, I let all of it go. No need to hide. Magic flowed through me, intoxicating, heady, seductive. It mixed with my bloodlust and I realized that’s how my father must have felt when he led his armies into battle. I was raised by Roland’s Warlord. I’d dropped my shackles and they would bow to me.

  Magic sang through me. Drunk on its strength, I held nothing back and barked a word of power.

  “Osanda!” Kneel.

  The magic erupted from me like a tsunami. The ground shook as hundreds of knees hit it in unison. The Fomorian ranks collapsed to the ground in a spray of blood and crunch of broken leg bones, as if a giant had stomped an enormous bloody footprint in their midst. My pain was so slight, I barely noticed it. The pressure of magic within me finally eased.