Magic Triumphs Page 14

  When I finally got through to my father, we would have words.

  “I’ll suck the marrow out of your baby’s bones and consume his magic. Then I will be even more powerful.”

  No, you won’t. I sneered at Luther. I’d had a great role model when it came to sneering. Nobody did put-downs like Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.

  “You and what army, sirrah? I’m the Princess of Shinar, the Blood Blade of Atlanta. My line stretches thousands of years into the past. My family was building palaces while your ancestors cringed inside their mud huts. You’re weak, stupid, and less. What threat could you possibly be? You dream of power I already have. A tiger doesn’t notice a worm she crushes under her paw. Slither, little worm. Slither away as fast as you can.”

  I felt the precise moment she charged out of the fog into the circle. I dropped Conlan and stepped back, twisting out of the way. My brain registered the attack in a fraction-of-a-second burst: lean blond woman, my size, my height, young, a dagger in each hand.

  The right dagger stabbed the air an eighth of an inch from my chest. I grabbed her wrist with my right hand, aiming to smash her elbow with my left palm. She dropped into a crouch and slashed across my right bicep with her other dagger. A hot line of pain tore my arm, like a heated rubber band slapping against my skin. I swung into a kick. She raised her arms, covering up at the last moment, and rolled back. My foot barely tapped her. She rolled to her feet and leaped back into the green mist.

  I stepped back to Conlan. He’d stayed exactly where I’d dropped him, hugging the floor. Thank you, whoever you are upstairs, for the miracle. Thank you.

  Conlan sat at my feet. I stood still. My right arm burned with pain. She was damn fast, and her daggers were razor-sharp. The bleeding wasn’t heavy. I could seal it, but it wouldn’t last. The moment I used the arm, I would bleed. That was fine. I could use the blood.

  The fog flowed back and forth, shifting in shimmering patterns. I waited, every sense straining for a hint of movement, a whisper of sound. Something.

  Moments crawled by.

  Conlan turned his head slightly to the left. I kept my gaze on the mist, watching him with my peripheral vision. He turned more. A little more.

  My son was a shapeshifter and a predator. With supernatural hearing.

  I kept looking to the right, toward Luther.

  A moment.

  Another.

  Another . . .

  She charged out of the mist to my left, leaping. I took a quick step with my right foot to pick up momentum and hammered a sidekick into her. My foot connected with her ribs. Bone crunched. The impact knocked her back into the haze.

  I waited. Conlan was turning to the right now. That had to hurt. She’d try to cover up that side now.

  A low, animalistic grunt came from Luther. It sounded half-bestial, half-obscene. The grunts kept coming. Noise screen. She was trying to muffle her footsteps.

  “I can still hear you, worm.” I raised my hand and beckoned, loading every drop of arrogance I had into my voice. “Come to me. Accept your death with grace.”

  Luther fell silent, but the sahanu stayed hidden. Damn. For some reason the jeering worked for my aunt much better than it did for me. I needed more practice.

  Conlan turned right. I had no idea how I knew the strike would come low. I didn’t see it or hear it, but something told me he was the target. I dropped into a crouch, clutching him to me, shielding him with my body. The dagger shot out of the dust and sank into my left shoulder, barely an inch in.

  Moron. Throwing only worked in movies.

  I jerked the blade out and spun to my feet barely in time to block her slash as she came charging into the circle. She stabbed, and I sliced across her arm. Blood wet my dagger. Thank you for the knife, asshole.

  The sahanu erupted into a flurry of slashes and stabs. I closed the distance, working her, fast and fluid.

  The colors, the noises, her movements, her blue eyes; everything became so clear and sharp, it almost hurt.

  When I was eight, Voron took me to a man called Nimuel. His name meant “peace” in his native Tagalog, and that was exactly what his opponents found when they came at him with a knife. As I worked her, blocking her arms with my own, wrapping my fingers around her wrists, using my wrists to channel her strikes, cutting her forearms, I heard his calm voice in my head. Under the bridge, on top of the bridge, over the bridge, inside, outside . . .

  She would not touch a hair on my son’s head.

  The sahanu snarled, stabbing and stabbing, and finding only air. I nicked her a dozen times, but she was so fucking fast.

  Over the bridge . . . Open the window.

  I countered a moment too slow. Her dagger painted a bright red line on my left arm. While she was busy cutting, I drove my dagger into her side.

  She tore away from me, taking the dagger with her.

  I clamped my arm on my wound and hurled my blood at her, the drops turning into needles midflight. They sank into her face.

  She dashed to the mist. I charged after her, but she dove into the green. Shit.

  Behind me, magic shifted.

  “Not in my house!” Luther roared.

  Magic exploded out of him and tore through the room, freezing the green smoke screen. The dust exploded, each emerald dot blooming into a tiny white flower. They floated down in a shockingly beautiful rain, stirred by the slightest draft, and I saw the sahanu ten feet from me, her face stunned, her mouth with sharp inhuman teeth gaping open.

  Teeth.

  I charged, swiping a heavy microscope off the lab counter.

  It’s very hard to stop someone charging at you full force, especially when your back is against the wall.

  She slashed at me, and I smashed the microscope against her dagger. The blade clattered to the floor. I reversed my swing and drove the microscope at her jaw. Blood flew. The blow knocked her back. She reeled, clawing at me. I hammered the microscope into her face. That one dropped her. I landed on her before she had a chance to roll to her feet and brought the microscope down like a hammer. Blood flew, thick and red.

  Eat this, you bitch.

  I hit her again and again, with methodical precision, driving the weight in my hand into the strike zone between her eyes. Her face was a mush of bone and blood, but I had to make sure she was really dead.

  “Kate!”

  Another blow. The red spray of her blood stained the tiny white flowers swirling around us.

  “Kate!” Luther barked next to me, his voice sharp. “She’s dead.”

  He was right. She was dead. I hit her again, just to be sure, straightened, and handed him the bloody microscope.

  Conlan cried.

  Oh no.

  I sprinted to him and scooped him up off the floor. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Mama’s got you.”

  He wailed. I realized my hands were bloody. I got sahanu blood on his clothes.

  Conlan cried, his voice spiking, tears wetting his cheeks.

  “Shhh.” I rocked him. “It’s okay. It will be okay. I’ve got you. Mommy’s got you. I won’t let anyone eat you. I’ll kill every last one of them.”

  He couldn’t possibly understand that she had been about to eat him. What the hell was coming out of my mouth?

  I rocked back and forth. Conlan wailed and wailed, tears falling from his gray eyes. Oh dear gods, I’d traumatized my child. I’d beaten a person to death in front of him. He would be scarred for life.

  “Do you have any food?”

  Luther ran over to the fridge and flung it open. Salad, a pitcher of tea, a jar of honey.

  “Honey,” I told him.

  He brought the jar over. I held Conlan’s hand out. “Pour some on him.”

  Luther got a spoon and scooped a big dollop of honey onto Conlan’s hand.

  Conlan sniffled and lic
ked his hand. For a moment he wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dirty trick, and then he stuck his hand into his mouth.

  “Babies shouldn’t have honey,” Luther said, his voice slightly wooden. “It can contain Clostridium botulinum. It’s a bacterium that causes—”

  “Botulism. I know. He’s a year old. It’s safe. Also he’s a shapeshifter and his werebear grandparents have been feeding him honey since he could hold a honey muffin in his hand, no matter what I said, and then lied to my face about it.”

  “How do you even know about botulism?” Luther asked.

  “When I was pregnant, I couldn’t do much, so I read all the books. I know all of the bad things that can happen.” I hugged Conlan to me. “I know about roseola and RSV and gastroenteritis. His biggest problem isn’t catching whooping cough. It’s that his delusional megalomaniac grandfather is trying to kill him.”

  I kissed Conlan’s hair. Nobody would touch my son. Not a hair on his head.

  Conlan leaned against me and pointed at the body. “Bad.”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “Bad. Very bad.”

  He was okay. I’d beaten her to a pulp and he was okay. It would be okay now. I just needed to breathe. The fury was choking me.

  He’d ordered a hit on me. He’d put his grandson’s life in danger. The prophecy and all the visions of the future I’d received told me my father would try to kill him, but to feed him to his pet assassins, that was beyond even Roland.

  Luther pushed a stool to me.

  I sat.

  He looked at the dead sahanu. “The temerity to attack me with plant magic in my own house.”

  “Only you would use a word like ‘temerity’ at a time like this.”

  He stared at her ruined head. “I’ve never seen you scared before.”

  “Well, I’ve never seen you turn a room full of mind-controlling spores into a flower snowstorm before.”

  Luther blinked.

  “Miasma?” I told him. “You were telling me about the changes in the creature’s body.”

  He stared at me as if I were speaking Chinese, then shook himself. “The creature. Right. Why do you vomit when you see and smell somebody else vomit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a biological survival mechanism. Primitive humans existed in family groups. They slept in the same place and they ate the same things.”

  Pieces clicked together in my head. “So, if one person vomited, they likely got poisoned, so everyone needed to vomit to not die.”

  “Yes. It’s the same with the miasma. Your body is telling you that whatever made that woman into that furry creature is a critical danger to you. It must be destroyed.”

  A horrible thought occurred to me. “Do you think it might be contagious?”

  “I can’t confirm it’s not.”

  Curran and Derek would be immune. Lyc-V would kill the invading pathogen. Julie had my blood. She should be immune as well. But what about other people?

  “Did Tucker’s corpse turn?”

  “No. I checked on him last night in the morgue and again this morning. Whatever this bug is, it must need a living host.”

  “You’re telling me that if these things are contagious, they could infect the whole city?”

  “Pretty much. We might have a version of our own zombie apocalypse on our hands.”

  We looked at each other.

  “I need something to drink.” Luther jumped off his stool, pulled a flask from the fridge, and held it out to me. I shook my head. He brought it to his lips and took a swig. The lines of his face eased.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Artisanal Dutch cocoa. Fifty percent sugar by volume. Made it this morning just in case of an emergency. You don’t know what you’re missing.” He raised the flask. “To the shiny baby and not getting killed.”

  The shiny baby. Conlan couldn’t cloak. He was emitting magic, like a lighthouse in the middle of a dark night. I hadn’t even realized it. It just came on when he had shifted for the first time, and I’d just accepted it without any thought. It felt so natural and normal somehow. If any sahanu could sense magic, they would see him. They could track him. He was enough like me and my father that they would instantly recognize the signature. We were sitting ducks here.

  I jumped off the stool and ran to the box.

  “What is it?”

  “I have to go.” I jerked the lid open, set Conlan on the floor, and grabbed my belt. Conlan grabbed at my pants, hugging my leg.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I have to go, Luther.”

  “Kate? Kate!”

  I thrust my knife into its sheath and slid Sarrat into its sheath on my back. I didn’t bother with the shark teeth. They would take too long. I picked up Conlan and took off running down the hallway. People were rushing our way as the rest of Biohazard woke up to the fact that something had gone wrong. I tore past them, took the stairs two at a time, busted out the door, and dashed to the car, scanning the square for danger.

  I started chanting twenty feet from the vehicle, thrust Conlan into the car seat, took a precious second to buckle him, and got into the driver’s seat, locking my seat belt. Minutes stretched by as the enchanted water engine warmed up. I’d give my left arm to be able to turn the key and get the hell out of here.

  Finally, the magic motor turned over. I sped out of the parking lot and almost collided with another vehicle, an armored SUV that had more in common with a tank than a car. I veered right but still caught a glimpse of the driver. Knight-abettor Norwood. I took the corner at a dangerous speed. The last thing I needed now was the knights of the Order asking idiotic questions.

  I had to get to a safe place, somewhere where Conlan and I would be protected, somewhere close. I couldn’t afford to get stuck in traffic. The Guild was too far. My office was, too. That left only one location. It was safe, secure, and only three miles from me. Three years ago, if someone had told me I would be running there for a safe haven, I would’ve laughed in their face. They had been the enemy for as long as I could remember. Life was an ironic bitch.

  I stepped on the gas.

  CHAPTER

  9

  I WALKED INTO the Casino covered in blood and carrying my son. To the left of me a vast gaming floor offered card tables and slot machines, reconfigured to run during magic. Men and women fed tokens into the machines amid flashing lights; the ball rolled around the roulette wheel; cards fell on purple velvet, all under the watchful eyes of Casino staff, most of them apprenticed to the People, dressed in black pants and purple vests. To the right lay the bar and the patrons drowning their sorrows or celebrating an unexpected win. They might as well have been deaf and blind. Straight ahead was the house counter flanking the stairway leading up and down.

  A cacophony of noises hung in the air, a shroud of sound that drowned out voices and footsteps. For a brief moment nobody noticed me. Then the young journeyman at the counter looked up. His name popped into my head—Javier. I’d met him before, during my visits to the Casino. Ghastek had found him in Puerto Rico.

  The journeyman’s gaze connected with mine. Javier mashed something on his console.

  Shutters lowered, shielding the windows. Behind me the massive doors clanged closed. Nobody paid it any attention. A panel in the ceiling slid open, and four vampires dropped through. Gaunt, hairless, little more than skeletons wrapped in dry muscle and tight skin, they surrounded me on four sides, padding in their odd jerky gait in time with my steps. Their minds, each ridden by a navigator, burned in my head like four sharp red points of light. If they wanted to contain me, they’d need a hell of a lot more bloodsuckers.

  The vamps moved into formation, one in front of me, its back to me, one behind, and two at my flanks. The light dawned. They weren’t there to contain me. They were my bodyguards.

  Javier accelerated t
oward me. “May I escort you to the infirmary, In-Shinar?”

  “I don’t have time for the infirmary. I need to see Ghastek.”

  “Please follow me.” He headed toward the staircase, murmuring. “Belay medic at the main floor. I need medic at Legatus. In-Shinar and the heir are en route.”

  A rapid staccato of heels clicking on marble came from the staircase. Rowena burst onto the scene. Her fiery hair fell in a long artful cascade down her back. Her dress, the deep brown of smoky quartz, hugged her perfect figure, staying just a hair on the right side of the line between professional and seductive. Her heels were four inches high. Her skirt was narrow. She was ten years older than me, and she ran down the stairs like a gazelle who’d spotted a lion in the tall savanna grass.

  “Thank goodness. I was so worried.”

  She rushed to me, green eyes opened wide, grabbed Conlan out of my bloody hands, and cooed. “There, there. Aunt Rowena has you now. You are all safe.” She turned and hurried down the staircase, carrying my son into the bowels of the Casino.

  I looked at my bloody hands for a second, then glanced at Javier. “It’s good she was worried about me. We are distant cousins. You can see the family love.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the journeyman said.

  At least he didn’t “lady ma’am” me. Thank goodness for small favors.

  I hurried to catch up with Rowena. We went down the staircase, through the labyrinth of twisted, branching hallways, and into a cavernous room. Rows and rows of vampire holding cells filled the floor, set in widening sections radiating from the round platform at the center of the room. The bloodsuckers, secured by thick chains, snapped at us as we walked by, their eyes glowing, their foul magic polluting my mind like dirty smears on a window.

  Ahead Rowena stopped, holding Conlan. My son sniffed at the vampires and grimaced.

  “Daa phhhf!” Conlan declared.

  Yep, phhhf is right.

  We followed Rowena up the staircase to a room raised above the floor. Two-thirds of it was tinted glass. It served as Ghastek’s office, and from there he could survey his entire vampire stable. His predecessor had sat on a golden throne in the cupola of the Casino, but Ghastek was a scientist at heart. He never strayed too far from his subjects.