Magic Bleeds (40 page)

Mauro’s body flew past me. A thud shook the building—Mauro’s back punching Ted’s office door. A wall of fire followed, blasting me with heat. Andrea screamed.

I tore at the wall in front of me and squeezed through the narrow opening.

“Where are you, whelp? Did you run away again, maggot?”

The boards creaked. She was moving Torch in my direction. A wound to the stomach would do nothing to him and the collar kept me from slicing his neck. Not a lot of choices. If this failed, he’d burn us alive.

Torch passed by the door.

Now.

I lunged out of the room and clamped my left arm across his throat, pulling his back snug against me.

Fire shot along his skin. I slid Slayer between his ribs into his heart and whispered a word into his ear.

“Hessad.”
Mine.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The world shook, as all of the magic I’d gathered tore from me at once. Pain streamed through my body, wringing tears from my eyes. Torch’s mind opened before me, hot like boiling metal. I clamped it, dousing the flames, and smashed against the solid wall of Erra’s presence. Her mind punched me and I reeled.

The immense force of her mind towered over me. Nobody was that powerful. Nobody.

Was that what looking into my father’s mind would be like? If so, I didn’t have a fucking prayer.

I pushed back, a gnat against colossus. An immense pressure grinding against me, sparking pain. I hung on, clenching my hand on Slayer’s hilt. If I held it in his heart long enough, the blade would turn the undead tissue to pus. I just had to last.

Torch spun, lifting me off my feet. Fire licked my chest. “You shame the family. Weakling. Coward, who runs from the fight like a mangy dog.”

I gritted my teeth against the pain and pushed back with my mind, extinguishing the flames. “It wasn’t my idea. I had you and I would’ve killed you.”

Hard fingers gripped my left wrist and pulled, slowly moving my arm from his throat. I strained. The moment he got free, he’d pull Slayer out and then we’d be done for.

“You dare to wrestle with my mind? I’m the Plaguebringer. Gods flee when they hear me coming.”

“If my hands weren’t busy, I’d clap for you.”

Slayer gave under my hand, slightly loose in the rapidly liquefying undead tissue, and I jabbed it deeper into the wound. Erra grunted, a harsh sound of pain.

“Did that hurt? How about this?” I twisted the blade.

A fiery hammer hit my mind, tearing a groan from me. Heat shot from Torch. The air around me boiled.

Fire spiraled up his legs.

“Did that hurt, whelp? I’ll cook you alive. You’ll beg me to kill you when your eyes pop from the heat.”

Torch threw himself back, smashing me against the wall. I hung on to him like a pit bull. A few more moments. It didn’t hurt that much. I just had to hold on for a few moments.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Erra slammed into the other wall. Something crunched in my back.

A dark shape sprang from Ted’s office and sprinted to us. Erra saw it. Flames filled the hallway. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe.

An enormous black dog shot through the fire. I saw eyes glowing with blue fire and ivory fangs. The creature smashed into Torch.

My mental defenses shuddered. I was done.

The giant dog clamped his teeth on Torch’s arm and hung on. Torch shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, but the dog clung to him, dragging him down.

A second shape burst through the fire, this one pale and spotted. Deranged blue eyes glared at me from a face that was neither hyena nor human, but a seamless fluid blend of the two. Andrea buried her claws in Torch’s gut. We crashed on the floor, Torch on the bottom, me on top.

The world drowned in pain, melting into hoarse snarls.

The flesh under Slayer’s blade gave. I strained, forcing the saber through the soggy undead heart. The blade ground against ribs and burst out in a spray of dark fluid. The undead blood splashed on my lips and its sting tasted like heaven.

“I’ll kill you,” Erra gurgled. “I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth—”

I smashed my foot into Torch’s neck, crushing the windpipe.

The awful pressure on my mind vanished.

I closed my eyes and floated in a long moment. Absence of pain was bliss.

And then an ache gnawed at my arms. My eyes snapped open.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

A sleek creature rose from the Torch’s stomach. Petite, proportionate, with elegant long limbs and well-shaped head, she was a perfect meld of human and hyena. Dark blood drenched her hands armed with long claws, staining her spotted forearms all the way to the elbow. Furious red eyes gazed at me from a human face seamlessly flowing into a dark muzzle.

She’d changed to save me.

Andrea’s dark lips trembled, showing the sharp cones of her teeth. “God damn it.”

She kicked Torch’s corpse, knocking it off me, and kicked it again, sending it flying into the wall. “You bitch!

Mother-fucking whore.”

I sat up and watched her punt and throw his body, spouting profanities. Being part bouda, she fought driven by rage. The quicker she let it out, the quicker she would be able to calm down enough to change back.

The enormous black creature lay down next to me and licked my foot.

“Grendel?” I asked softly.

The hell-dog whined softly in a distinctly Grendel-like fashion.

My attack poodle turned into a huge black hound with glowing eyes and shaggy fur. Figures.

The light dawned. The Black Dog. Of course. It was an old legend from so many cultures nobody knew exactly where it came from. Stories of giant Black Dogs with shiny eyes haunting the night have been passed around for years, especially in the United Kingdom and northern Europe. Nobody quite knew what they were, but when captured, they scanned as “fera,” animal magic. Animal magic registered as a very pale yellow. When the medtechs scanned, their scanner must’ve failed to pick it up.

Andrea growled a few feet away. Grendel whined again and tried to stick his baseball-sized nose into my hand. Around us the office smoldered.

We’d beaten her again. Three undead down. Four to go.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

TO CALL HURRICANE SAVANNAH, WHICH FLATTENED half of the East Coast some years back, “a gentle breeze” would be an understatement. To say that Ted Moynohan was pissed off would be an understatement of criminal proportions.

He stood in the middle of the hallway, surveying the smoking soggy ruin that was the Order’s office and radiating anger with dangerous intensity. After Andrea’s rage died down, she changed back. Shifting back and forth pretty much wiped her out. We dumped snow and water on the fire, and the result wasn’t pretty. Every window had been busted when the ward collapsed and icy wind howled through the building, juggling loose papers.

I’d laid out Erra’s identity in broad strokes and made my report—lucky for me I had a lot of practice lying through my teeth. Mauro had been knocked out solid for most of the fight. He now sat in the middle of the hallway, pressing a rag filled with snow to a bump on his head. He didn’t seem in a hurry to volunteer any information.

Ted said nothing. A dead silence claimed the office, the kind of silence that usually only struck at 2 a.m., when the city sank into deep sleep and even the monsters rested.

Flame-retardant carpet and metal furniture had done its job. The building had survived and the damage to the office was mostly cosmetic. The damage to the Order, however, was enormous. The knights were untouchable. You injure one and the rest would show up on your doorstep, throwing enough magic and steel to make you think the world had ended. Erra had come into the Chapter, into the Order’s house, and wrecked it. Ted had to hit back, fast and hard.

“The problem is, we don’t know where Erra will attack next,” I said. “We need to take the choice away from her. We killed three of her undead. She views it as an insult and she’s arrogant as hell. She will respond to a direct challenge. We pick a spot outside the city, nice and private.”

It was a simple plan, but simple plans sometimes worked best.

Behind us something thumped. A section of the wall crashed to the ground. Ted glared at it.

The phone rang in my office. I picked it up.

“Kate—”

“Help,” Brenna’s hoarse voice gasped. “Help us . . .”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

A distant scream echoed through the phone, followed by a grunt. The disconnect signal wailed in my ear.

Oh no.

I dropped the phone and started to the door.

“Daniels!” Ted’s voice cracked like a whip.

“One of the Pack’s offices is under attack. I have to go.”

“No.”

I halted.

Ted gazed at me with glazed-over eyes. “You belong here. If you leave, then you don’t.”

“People are dying. They called me for help.”

“We’re people. They aren’t. I’m giving you a direct order to stay here.”

I looked at Andrea behind him. She stood still like a statue. Her face was bloodless.

Brenna’s hoarse voice echoed through my memory.

Everything I had worked for, everything I’d done and accomplished to keep Greg’s legacy alive—but none of it was worth a single life.

“Daniels, if you do this, we’re done. No second chances, no forgiveness. Done.”

My fingers found the cord around my neck. I tore it off with a brutal jerk, dropped my ID on the floor, and walked out.

THE SNOW-STREWN CITY FLEW BY ME. I’D GRABBED the first rider I saw, jerked him from his saddle, and stole his horse, telling him to bill the Order for it so I wouldn’t get shot in the back as we galloped away.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

We rounded the corner at breakneck speed. The Wolf House swung into view. Dali’s Prowler waited in the middle of the street. She stood next to it, staring at the building, her small body rigid.

She heard me and turned to look at me. Her mouth opened.

A body burst through the second-floor window in a cascade of glass shards. It plummeted through the air, a grotesque shape, neither human nor animal, huge claws poised to rend. The shape landed on top of the car and smashed into Dali, knocking her off her feet with a guttural snarl.

I tore at the reins, trying to slow down my horse. The horse screamed.

Warped, twisted, covered with random patches of fur and exposed muscle, the beast pinned Dali to the ground, clawing at her with black talons. Dali threw her arms up, trying to shield her throat.

I jumped off my horse and hit the ground running.

Blood sprayed the snow, shockingly red against the white. Dali’s high voice screamed in a hysteric frenzy.

“Stop, it’s me, it’s me!”

I snapped a side kick, putting everything I had into it. My foot smashed into the beast’s side, knocking it back. The creature rolled and sprung to all fours.

If it was a shapeshifter in a warrior form, it was the worst one I had ever seen. Its left arm was too short, its pelvis tilted too far forward, its bottom jaw jutted to the side, overflowing with fangs. Above that awful jaw, its face was almost human. Green eyes glared at me. Every hair on my neck stood up. I’d seen that face yesterday, smiling at me.

“Brenna?”

A vicious growl spilled from Brenna’s deformed mouth. She shook. Gashes crisscrossed her body, oozing black pus and blood, as if her skin had randomly burst in places.

Dali scrambled back on her butt, leaving bloody tracks in the snow, until she bumped into the car with her head.

“Brenna, it’s me! It’s me. We’re friends. Please don’t.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Brenna snarled again.

“Brenna, don’t do this.” I stepped toward her.

Brenna’s eyes fixed on Dali with the unwavering focus of a predator about to charge.

“Please, please don’t.” Dali pressed tighter against the car. “Please!”

Brenna lunged.

Her mangled body flew above the snow, as if she had wings.

Brenna or Dali. No time to think.

I lunged forward and sliced at her back. Slayer cut through flesh, aborting Brenna’s charge in midleap.

She twisted in the air and hit me. Huge jaws fastened on my leg, searing my thigh with pain.

“No!” Dali screamed.

I cut again, cleaving through her spine.

Brenna’s fangs let go. She crashed into the snow, jerking like a marionette on the strings of a mad puppeteer. Blood and spit flew from her terrible mouth. She growled and bit the air again and again, rending invisible enemies with her teeth. Behind me Dali sobbed uncontrollably.

I raised Slayer and brought it down. The saber pierced Brenna’s chest. I twisted the blade, ripping her heart to pieces. In my head, Brenna’s voice said, “Don’t worry, Kate, I won’t drop you.”