Magic Bites kd-1 Page 15

  I brought out a shallow glass pan, the kind used for baking lasagna, put it in front of the platter and slightly under, and dumped two quarts of glycerin into it. The clear viscous liquid filled the pan and settled.

  I took one of my throwing daggers from my sheath. Crest grinned at the black blade.

  “Fancy.”

  “Yeah.”

  This wasn’t going to be pleasant and it wasn’t the kind of magic I did often. Something in me rebelled at it, something born of my father’s instruction and my own view of the world and where I stood in it.

  The head rested on the herbs. In half an hour it would be useless.

  I pricked my finger with the point of the dagger. A drop of bright blood swelled on the skin. Power pulsed in it and I touched the blood to the herbs. The bloodmagic inundated them, acting like a catalyst, fusing, shaping, molding the natural force of the dried plants. It surged upward, through the stump of the neck, spreading through the capillaries in the face, engulfing the brain, saturating the dead flesh. I guided it, helped it along, until the entire head sat suffused with magic. My finger touched the thick skin of the vamp’s forehead, leaving a bloody smudge and sending a shock of power through the undead flesh.

  “Wake!”

  The dead eyes snapped open. The horrid mouth opened and closed soundlessly, contorting with impossible elasticity.

  Crest fell off his chair.

  The vamp’s eyes stared wide at me, unblinking.

  “Where is your master? Show me your master.”

  Dark magic boiled from the head, drowning the room. It swelled, vicious and furious, like an enraged animal ready to strike. In the corner Crest drew a sharp, loud breath.

  A tremor rippled through the head. The eyeballs bulged from their sockets. The black tongue, long and flat, hung from between the reptilian lips and the sickle teeth bit into it, drawing no blood. Impaled on the teeth, the tongue jerked obscenely. I pushed harder, bringing the weight of my power upon the resilient necromagic.

  “Show me your master!”

  Red drowned the whites of the vampire’s eyes. Two thick streaks of dark blood poured from what had once been tear ducts. The streams carved their path down the face and into the herbs, mixing with a torrent of blood from the stump of the neck. The foul flood swept the dried herbs, falling into the glycerin and spreading in uneven angry stain upon its surface. The blood darkened until it was almost black, and in it I saw a distorted but unmistakable image of a gutted skyscraper with a round Coca-Cola logo half-buried in rubble.

  Unicorn Lane. Always Unicorn Lane.

  The head jerked. The bones of the skull cracked like a broken nutshell. The flesh peeled off the vamp’s face, curving in long slabs to the herbs. The exposed jellied mass of the brain glared through the fractured skull. The stench of putrescence filled the kitchen. I threw a plastic trash bag over the head and inverted the tray, sending the head and the herbs into the bag. I tied the bag and set it into the corner. The blood in the glycerin had clotted into an ugly rotting mass. I dumped it down the drain.

  Crest rubbed his face.

  “I did warn you.”

  He nodded.

  I washed my hands and my arms up to the elbow with fresh-smelling soap and went into the living room, pausing on the way to check on Derek. He was sleeping like a baby. I sat on the couch, leaned back, and closed my eyes. This was the point when most men ran for cover.

  I sat and rested. The desire for intimacy had passed and my longing now appeared unreal, ethereal like a half-forgotten dream.

  I heard Crest walk into the room. He sat next to me.

  “So that’s what you do?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  We sat silent for a few breaths.

  “I can live with it,” he said.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. He shrugged. “I’m not going to watch again, but I can live with it.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Have you ever met someone and felt . . . I don’t know how to describe it, felt a chance at having something that eluded you? I don’t know . . . Forget I said anything.”

  I knew what he meant. He was describing that moment when you realize that you are lonely. For a time you can be alone and doing fine and never give a thought to living any other way and then you meet someone and suddenly you become lonely. It stabs at you, almost like a physical pain, and you feel both deprived and angry, deprived because you wish to be with that person and angry, because their absence brings you misery. It’s a strange feeling, akin to desperation, a feeling that makes you wait by the phone even though you know that the call is an hour away. I was not going to lose my balance. Not yet.

  I moved closer to him and leaned against his shoulder. We both knew that sex was out of the question.

  “Do you mind if I stay anyway?” he asked.

  “No.”

  I fell asleep leaning on him.

  CHAPTER 6

  I AWOKE BECAUSE SOMEONE WAS WATCHING ME.

  “Don’t you know it’s not polite to stare, boy wonder?”

  Derek gave Crest a derisive glance. The boy wonder was wearing sweats I didn’t recognize. They didn’t come from Greg’s wardrobe. He must’ve gone out. Where exactly did he go?

  During the night we had moved into a somewhat reclining position and I was lying on Crest’s chest. I sat straight. “You disapprove?”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t my place.”

  “You don’t like him all the same, though.”

  “He and you . . .” he made a put-together motion with his hands, fingers spread coming together but not quite touching. “You don’t look right together.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re harder than he is.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “The man’s supposed to be harder. So he can protect.”

  “Do you think I’m in need of protection?” The threatening overtone crept into my voice without intention.

  “He will never tell you no,” Derek said.

  I stared at him until he lowered his gaze.

  “Very few people tell me no,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s your leg?”

  “Fine.”

  “Did you go out while I slept?”

  “Yeah. Just a short jog.”

  “Maybe you should go for another one.”

  He left without saying a word. I woke Crest. “Time to go.”

  He rubbed his face with his palms. “Did I oversleep?”

  “It’s six thirty.”

  “Time enough to get home and change clothes. When will I see you again?”

  I thought of the Coca-Cola logo half-buried in rubble and a two-hundred-year-old vampire. Maybe never.

  “How about on Friday? Gives us a couple of days to cool off.”

  “It’s Friday then.”

  He left. He didn’t kiss me again.

  I PRIED OPEN THE PAPER CONTAINER OF GENERAL Tso’s chicken and touched a piece with my finger. It was room temperature. The thought of dumping it into a pan and warming it to an edible temperature crossed my mind, but heating it on the stove would make the vegetables mushy and I hated overcooked vegetables. My father, a great believer in the nutritional properties of boiled vegetables and meat broth, had cooked hearty, hot soups. The memory of him watching in distress as I gagged on soft cabbage and half-dissolved onion flashed before my eyes. I smiled at the carton and extracted a fork from the kitchen drawer. Hot food was overrated anyway.

  I speared a piece of chicken with my fork, carefully avoiding the lump of green pepper. Suddenly I was ravenous.

  Someone knocked.

  I paused, the chicken halfway to my mouth, and glared at the door. The knocking persisted. It wasn’t Derek. His knock would be careful, almost apologetic. This bastard knocked like he was doing me a favor.

  I looked at the chicken, glanced to the door, stuffed a whole piece into my mouth, and went to see who dared to make demands on my time.


  The door swung open, revealing Curran. He wore old jeans and a green sweatshirt and carried a brown paper sack. He raised his face and sucked air in through his nostrils in the manner of shapechangers. “Tso’s, seafood delight, and fried rice,” he said. “You’re going to share?”

  I leaned against the wall. The door was open but the ward still blocked his entrance, affording me a bit of leisure. “Oh, it’s you.” I dug in the container with my fork. “I thought it was somebody important.”

  Curran stepped forward, brushing against the ward. A flash of carmine rippled through the magic barrier and the lord of shapechangers withdrew.

  “A ward,” he said.

  “A good one.”

  He put his palm against the ward and pushed. Red pulsed from his fingers, spreading through the ward like waves from a pebble tossed into a quiet pond.

  “I can break it,” Curran said.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Be my guest.”

  Shapechangers had a natural resistance to wards, so his promise had some substance. Still, I had reinforced all of Greg’s wards. If Curran did break it, the resonance from the collapse would give me one hell of a migraine, but I doubted he could. It was a good ward.

  He considered it. I could see it in his eyes, and for a moment I thought he would try it. Then he shrugged. “I could break it, or we can be civil and you can let me in.”

  Getting tired of power demonstrations, are we, Your Majesty? I unlocked the ward. A wave of silver rolled from the top of the doorframe to dissipate on the floor. “Come on in.”

  He strode toward the kitchen and stopped halfway, his face a snarl. “What the hell do you have in your pantry, a dead vampire?”

  “No. Only the head of one.” I had double-bagged the head, sealing it in plastic, and still he smelled it.

  I perched on the edge of the table and nodded toward the gathering of white cartons. “Help yourself. There’s fried rice in there somewhere.”

  He put his paper bag on the floor, picked a carton indistinguishable from any other, took the spoon I offered him, and popped the carton open. “Peas,” he said with disgust. “Why the hell do they always put peas in it?”

  “So what brought you here so bright and early?”

  He used his spoon to pick out the peas with great care, depositing them into the trash. “Heard that you got something.”

  “Boy wonder snitched on me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When? This morning?”

  Curran nodded. “It’s the blood oath. For example, if he were to get his leg ripped to shreds, it’s his duty to warn us that he can no longer guard you to the best of his ability. Someone had to come and assess the situation.”

  “Since when is ‘someone’ you? Don’t you have plenty of flunkies to run your errands?”

  He shrugged. “Just checking on the kid.”

  “Last night his leg looked like it went through a shredder. He won’t let me look at it, but I think the bone is intact.” A shapechanger’s body healed the flesh wounds within a couple of days. Mending bones took much longer.

  Curran swallowed a mouthful of rice. “Figures. He’s young. It’s important to be stoic when you’re a young guy. You didn’t fuss over him, did you?”

  “No. He should be limping in pretty soon.”

  “You’re going to show me what screwed up his leg?”

  “After I’m done eating.”

  “Weak stomach?”

  “No. It’s a pain in the ass to wrap it back up.”

  A careful, measured knock interrupted us. I went to open the door and let Derek inside. He saw Curran and stopped. He wasn’t exactly at attention, but he came close.

  Curran waved him in, and Derek took a chair out of the way. I looked at Curran. “Any more rice in there?”

  He chose another container and gave it to me. I opened it and pushed it toward Derek. “Eat.”

  He waited.

  He had to be ravenous. The amount of calories his body burned to repair itself ensured that the mere hint of food filled his mouth with drool.

  “Derek, eat,” I said.

  He smiled and sat still.

  Something was wrong here. I glanced at Curran and put two and two together.

  “This is my house.”

  They both looked at me with the patient expression Japanese traditionalists adopt when silly gajin ask them why they go through all that trouble just to drink a cup of tea.

  “He doesn’t eat until I tell him or until I’m done,” Curran said. “Doesn’t matter whose house it is.”

  I set my chicken on the table and crossed my arms. I could argue the point with them until I turned purple in the face and neither would relent. The low-ranking wolves didn’t feed before their Pack King. It was the way of the Code. They lived by its rules or they lost their humanity.

  Curran put another spoonful into his mouth. Time stretched as he chewed the food. Derek sat still. The urge to slap Curran was almost too much for me.

  The Beast Lord scraped the bottom of his container, licked the spoon, reached over the table and took away Derek’s rice, replacing it with the brown paper sack he had brought. Derek glanced into the sack and retrieved a bundle of waxed paper tied with a cord. He snapped the cord and unwrapped the bundle. A five-pound shoulder roast looked back at him.

  Curran jerked his head toward the hallway. “Don’t make a spectacle of yourself.”

  Derek rose, gathering the roast, and disappeared into the depths of the apartment. I glared at Curran.

  “I like fried rice,” he said with a shrug. He slid the spoon under the paper flaps of the other small paper box, forced them open, and proceeded to pick out the peas.

  The low rumble of a predator feeding came from within the apartment.

  “Keep it down,” Curran said without raising his voice.

  The snarling died.

  “So what do you have?”

  I sketched it out for him, concluding with the vamp’s head. The undead flesh had liquefied over night, turning into putrid black goo. The stench of rot was so strong that by the time I opened the second trash-bag both the Beast Lord and I were gagging in the most undignified manner. Curran took one look at the distorted skull and tied the bag shut.

  “Should’ve done it before we ate,” he observed when we managed to secure the head.

  “Yeah.” I opened the window, letting a gust of cold wind into the kitchen.

  “So you’re planning on taking this on by yourself? No backup?”

  “No.”

  “Going to notify the cops?”

  I grimaced. It had nagged at me since I awoke. To go to the cops would mean bringing in the Paranormal Activity Division, and as soon as the Division gave the MSDU their mandatory notification, the military would try to step in and eat the whole pie by themselves. The Division would cry jurisdiction and the whole thing could stretch for several days. By then my friendly nemesis could be gone or worse, he could have gained leadership of the People. The fact that I had a lot of assumptions and a strange skull wouldn’t exactly make the authorities abandon the departmental rivalry and hurry on my account.

  The Guild would offer no assistance. There was no money involved, and if I as much as squeaked to the Order that some asshole tried to start a war between the Pack and the People and herded two-hundred-year-old vampires to do it, Ted would take me off the case faster than I could exhale. On the other hand, trying to confront a rogue Master of the Dead by myself was suicide. I was homicidal but not stupid.

  I became aware that Curran was watching me. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I can solve that problem for you,” he said. He was offering the Pack’s resources. I would be crazy not to take him up on that offer.

  I bent an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

  “Because I have sixty-three rats who buried their alpha three days ago. They’ve been howling for blood, while I’ve been sitting around with my thumb up my ass.”

  “That’s a big risk to take just
for the sake of appearances.”

  He shrugged. “Power is all about appearances. Besides, who knows? It did snow in May once, so even you could be right.”

  I let the barb go. “And if I’m not?”

  “Then at least I’ve tried.”

  It made sense in an odd way. “Who’ll come?”

  “A few people.”

  “Jim?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because someone from the Council has to stay behind to hold the Pack together if I die. The alpha-wolf has hurt himself, and Mahon stayed behind the last time. The new alpha-rat doesn’t have enough experience.”

  “What happened to the alpha-wolf?”

  “LEGOs.”

  “Legos?” It sounded Greek but I couldn’t recall anything mythological with that name. Wasn’t it an island?

  “He was carrying a load of laundry into the basement and tripped on the old set of LEGOs his kids left on the stairs. Broke two ribs and an ankle. He’ll be out of commission for two weeks.” Curran shook his head. “He picked a hell of a time. If I didn’t need him, I’d kill him.”

  I ARRIVED AT THE COCA-COLA BUILDING UNMOLESTED and hid in the shadowy alcove of an abandoned phone booth, half a block from the ruined skyscraper. The logo lay partially buried in the remains of what must have been a magnificent building in its time—even now its skeleton covered the entire block. It had been only ten years old when the flair, a freakishly strong magic fluctuation, took it down.

  The shapechangers were nowhere in sight. Across the street a ravaged building careened amidst waist-tall heaps of dusty broken glass. Good place to hide. It took me a minute to find a gap in the crumbling wall. I squeezed through and found fiery eyes glaring at me.

  They were battle ready. Pink and black tongues licked mismatched jaws and huge teeth, and long claws made faint scraping noises on the concrete floor. Eight pairs of eyes sought prey, fueled by hunger. The primitive savage of my subconscious howled and yelped in terror.