Magic Bleeds kd-4 Page 24

“You like the lion.”

  “I can’t stand him. He’s an arrogant ass.”

  “Your bed is rumpled and there are claw marks on your windowsill and the inside door frame. Are you rutting with him?”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms. “What’s it to you?”

  “Are you a slut?”

  I stared at her.

  “Not a slut, then. Good.” Erra nodded. “Our blood’s too precious to rut with every pretty man you see. Besides, that’s just asking for heartbreak. You have to guard yourself or you will never survive your first century. The pain other people cause you will tear you apart.”

  “Thanks for the lecture.”

  “About your half-breed. They are great fun in bed, little squirrel, but they always want children and family. Family is not for you.”

  I arched my eyebrows. Decided for me, did she? “How do you know what’s for me?”

  She laughed. “You know what you are? You’re a pale imitation of me. Weaker, slower, smaller. You dress like me, you talk like me, and you think like me. I saw you fight. You love to kill. Just like me. You attack when you’re scared, and right now you wonder if you could’ve shattered the ward on your door the way I did. I know you, because I know myself. And I am a terrible mother.”

  I petted Slayer on my lap. “I’m not you.”

  “Yes. And that will be your undoing. The key to survival is moderation. You haven’t learned that and now you never will.”

  Getting a lecture on restraint from the woman who threw a hissy fit and blew up Babylon. That’s rich. “Speaking of moderation, the Casino belongs to the People. Does my father know you attacked one of his bases?”

  Erra shrugged. “Im would approve. It’s so . . .” She frowned, obviously searching for a word. “Gaudy. It’s everything I dislike about this age: too loud, too bright, too flashy. Nobody even notices the beauty of the building behind all the colored light and banners. The music sounds like there is a band of monkeys inside beating on cooking pots.”

  “They reported it to the authorities.”

  Erra’s eyes widened. “They did? Pussies.”

  Ghastek didn’t know what she was but Nataraja might have been close enough to Roland to have met her and know she was erratic enough to reduce the Casino to dust on a whim. He didn’t want to take any chances.

  Erra erratic. God, maybe the word was invented to describe my aunt. That would be crazy. “What did the Guild do to offend you?”

  Erra rolled her eyes. “Is this my day to give lessons?”

  “How often do you get to teach?”

  She chuckled again. “Very well. When you want to take over an army, you walk up to them and say, ‘Send your strongest man.’ They do, and you kill him while they watch. You make it fast and brutal, preferably by hand. And while they’re reeling from it, you shoot the small guy with a big mouth who heckled you when you first approached. That shows that you could’ve shot the big man, but you chose not to.”

  I nodded. Sounded reasonable.

  “When you want to take over a city, you have to destroy the illusion of safety it provides. You have to hit the large well-protected establishments, find the powerful people who run them and are viewed as invincible, and kill them. You want to destroy the morale first. Once the people’s resolve is gone and everyone is scared for their own skin, the city is yours. The Guild is full of little people who think they’re strong. I could’ve killed their leader in his rooms, but instead I dragged him down and murdered him before their eyes. Not only will they not oppose me now, but they’ll spread panic every time they open their mouths. And then, of course, the First wandered into the place as I was pulling my boys out. It was too tempting not to take a shot.”

  So Solomon’s shapeshifter status was a coincidence. She’d targeted him because he was the head of the Guild, not because he turned furry. “But then you made Tremor look like Solomon. Why?”

  Erra rolled her eyes. “Your father makes weapons and armor. I can do that as well, but mostly I make flesh golems. But a golem must be infused with blood fuel before it can move. When blood is introduced to the body, it takes on the visage of the blood donor. The stronger the magic, the better the golem moves and the more it resembles the donor. The first seven I’d made lasted for a couple of centuries, because I’d used my children. Now I have to rely on found talent, and pickings have been slim.”

  I choked a bit on my tea. “Let me see if I have it straight: you killed your children and piloted their undead bodies.”

  “Yes. Does that shock you?”

  “No. You’re a psychopath.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I got up and brought her a dictionary. She read the definition. “That sums it up well, yes. The idea of social rules is false at the core. There is only one rule in this world: if you’re strong enough to do it, you have the right to do it. Everything else is an artificial defense the majority of the weak set up to shield themselves from the strong. I understand their fear, but it leaves me cold.”

  She was what Voron wanted me to be. No regret, no hesitation, no attachments.

  I smiled at her. She smiled back. “Why the big grin?”

  “I’m happy I’m not you.”

  “Your mother was very powerful, from what I’ve heard.” Erra added more honey to her cup. “But her spirit was weak. What sort of woman gets herself killed and leaves her child to fend for itself?”

  Nice. “Testing me for sore spots?”

  “Must be hard to grow up without a mother.”

  “It helps to know your father killed her.” I drank my cold tea. “Keeps you motivated.”

  Erra peered at me from above the rim of her cup. “I kept fish as a child. They were these bright beautiful fish with vivid fins delivered especially for me from far away. I loved them. My first one was blue. He only lived two years. When he died, I cried for days. Then I got another one. Yellow, I think. My memory is fuzzy. He also died a few months later. Then I got another one. In the end, when my fish died, it became routine. I’d feel a pang of sadness, burn their little bodies with incense, and get a new one when I felt like it.”

  “Is there a point to this sob story?”

  Erra leaned forward. “People are fish to us, child. Your mother’s death hurts, because she was your mother and Im robbed your childhood of security and happiness. You’re justified in your revenge. But to him, she was only a fish. We live a long time and they don’t. Don’t make his crime bigger than it is.”

  “I will kill him.”

  Erra’s eyebrows rose. “You’d have to go through me first.”

  I shrugged. “I have to do something for a warm-up.”

  She laughed softly. “That’s the spirit. I do think you might be my favorite niece.”

  “It warms my heart.”

  “Enjoy the feeling while you still have one. I’m going to enjoy your books after you die. You bred true by pure chance, and no matter what you do, you’re weaker than me. If you see your mother on the other side, slap her for me for thinking she could bear a child to our family.”

  That’s just about enough of that. I stared right into her eyes. “You’ll lose.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You have no discipline. All you do is tear shit down. My father is a bastard, but at least he builds things. You turn cities into smoking ruins and blunder about like some hyper child, smashing anything you see. And then you sit here and wonder, ‘Why did all of my children turn out to be violent idiots? It’s a mystery of nature.’ ”

  We rose at the same time, swords in hand. Grendel rammed the bathroom door, barking in a hysterical frenzy.

  Power swirled around Erra, like a cloak of magic. “Alright. Let’s see what you have.”

  I pointed to the door. “Age before beauty.”

  “Pearls before swine.” She strode out and I followed her. Pearls before swine. Blah-blah-blah.

  We headed out of the apartment and down the stairs. My side hurt like hell.<
br />
  We strode out into the snow-strewn parking lot. I swung my sword, warming up.

  “How’s your wound?” she asked. “Does it hurt?”

  I stretched my neck left, then right, popping it. “Every time I cut Solomon, he grunted in your voice like a stuck pig. It hurts you when the seven are wounded, doesn’t it? Oh, yes, I do apologize. Not seven. Five.”

  “Make your peace.” She waved me on.

  “Are we going to do this, or will you keep talking?”

  My aunt came across the snow, sword raised. Fast. Too fast. A woman that large should’ve been slower.

  Her blade thrust. Quick. I dodged and struck at her side. She parried. Our swords connected. Shock punched my arm. And strong like a bull.

  Erra sliced at my shoulder, I blocked, letting her blade slide off my saber, spun, and kicked at her. She leaped back. We broke apart.

  My aunt tossed her leather jacket into the snow and motioned to me with her fingers.

  “I’m sorry, am I supposed to bring it?”

  “What?”

  I charged and thrust. She parried, twisting. I hooked her leg with mine and sank the knuckles of my left hand into her ribs. Bone crunched. She rammed her elbow, aiming for my ribs. I turned with the blow and the jab barely grazed me. Pain ripped through my insides. We broke off again.

  Liquid heat drenched my side. She tore the wound open. Great.

  I saw the muscles on her legs tense and met her halfway. We clashed. Strike, strike, parry, strike, left, right, left, up. I danced across the snow, matching my movements to her rhythm and going faster, forcing her to follow mine. My side burned. Every small movement stabbed a white-hot needle into my liver. I clenched my teeth and fought through it. She was strong and inhumanly fast, but I was a hair faster.

  We dashed back and forth. She struck again and again. I dodged what I could and parried the rest. Blocking her was like trying to hold back a bear. She nicked my shoulder. I ducked under her reach, slashed her thigh, and withdrew.

  Erra raised her blade straight up. A drop of red slid down the blade. She touched it. “You know a lot of tricks.”

  “You don’t.” She was skilled, but all her attacks were straightforward. Then again, she didn’t have to rely on tricks. Not when she hit like a sledgehammer. “You learned to fight when magic was a certainty, so you rely on it to help you in a fight. I learned to fight when technology still had the upper hand and I rely on speed and technique. Without your spells and magic, you can’t beat me.”

  You aren’t better than me, nyah-nyah-nyah. Take the bait, Erra. Take the bait.

  “Clever, clever little squirrel. Fine. I’ll cut you to pieces by hand, without using my power. After all, you are family and one must make allowances for blood relatives.”

  We clashed again. Snow flew, steel flashed. I cut and diced, putting everything I had into my speed. She defended too well for a good body wound, so I went for her arms. If she couldn’t hold a sword, she couldn’t fight.

  Her knee caught me. The blow knocked me back. Pretty stars blocked my vision. I flew and hit the snow. Get up, get up, get up. I clawed on to consciousness and rolled to my feet, just in time to block her blade.

  Erra bled from a half-dozen cuts. Her sleeve dripped red into the snow. She pushed me back, grinding her blade against Slayer. My feet slid.

  “Where is your blood armor, little mongrel child? Where is your blood sword? I keep waiting for your power to show up, but it never does.”

  “I don’t need my blood to kill you.”

  “You’re bleeding.” She nodded at my side. My shirt stuck to my body, soaked with quickly cooling heat. I’d left a trail of red across the snow. “We both know how this will end. You’re better skilled, but you’re wounded. I’ll beat on you until the bleeding slows you down and then kill you.”

  Good plan. Right now it seemed very plausible.

  Erra nodded at the blood trail. “Use your blood while you still can so at least I’ll know you were worth something.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “You can’t do it, can you? You don’t know how to work the blood. You foolish, foolish child. And you think you can beat me?”

  I dropped my guard and twisted to the side. She took a tiny step forward, off balance, and I knocked her left arm up and thrust. Erra jerked back. Slayer slid into her left armpit, quick as the kiss of a snake, and withdrew. She screamed. Blood streamed, but not fast. Not deep enough. Damn. I backed away.

  She laughed, baring her teeth, her hair falling about her face. Her lips moved, whispering. A healing chant. Fine, two could play that game. I murmured the incantation under my breath, chanting my side into regeneration.

  “I like you. You’re dumb but brave. If you run now, I’ll give you a head start,” she said. “Two days. Maybe three.”

  “You’d use the time to murder everyone I ever knew and then rub it in my face.”

  “Ha! You must be my child.”

  I bared my teeth. “If I was your child, I would’ve strangled myself in the womb with the cord.”

  She laughed. “I’ll kill your pretty lion and wear his skull as a hat when I return to your father.”

  “Don’t bring the lion into this. It’s about you and me.”

  She attacked. I parried, and she drove me back across the snow.

  Hit.

  Hit.

  Hit.

  My arm was going numb.

  She backhanded me. The apartment building jerked, dancing around me. The force of the blow spun me about. I staggered back, tasting blood in my mouth, and spat red into the snow.

  Erra growled. Her left arm hung limp. Finally bled out enough to cause some damage.

  “Pain is a bitch, huh?” I laughed. “That’s the trouble with being on top too long—you lose your tolerance.” The world teetered around me. My head rang. I couldn’t take much more. She was wearing me down and I bled like there was no tomorrow.

  Might as well use it. I swayed and let Slayer slip a bit in my fingers. Given that a pint of my blood decorated the snow in a pretty red pattern, swaying didn’t prove hard.

  Erra raised her sword. “Shake it off and take your last look around.”

  Anyone can kill anyone, as long as you don’t care if you live or die. Erra cared very much if she lived. I did, too, but pain didn’t scare me the way it scared her. I was better. If I timed it right, I might even live through it. I just needed to get a good strike and conserve my strength enough to deliver it. Let her do most of the work.

  “Talk, talk, talk. You prattle on and on, like a senile old woman. Are you slipping into your dotage?”

  She charged me. I saw her crystal clear, running through the snow, eyes wild, sword raised for the kill. Drop down, thrust up under the ribs. The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach. If I sliced through her heart, she wouldn’t shake it off. She might be my aunt, but she was mortal, damn it.

  The world shrank to my aunt and the point of my sword.

  Curran, I wish we had more time.

  Julie, I love you.

  She came at me. The sword arm was too high. If I lunged under that first strike, she was mine.

  Something hit me from the left. Breath left my lungs in a single painful burst. I gasped, trying to inhale, and saw the ground vanish down below. Something clamped me in a steel grip and dragged me up the building.

  A bellow of pure rage chased us. “Come back here!”

  I managed to suck some air in my lungs.

  The arm that clenched me had scales on it.

  I twisted my neck. Red eyes stared at me with slit pupils. Below the eyes enormous jaws protruded, long and studded with triangular teeth. Olive scales fractured the skin. A shapeshifter? Shapeshifters didn’t change into reptiles. My arms were clamped. I couldn’t even cough.

  “What the hell are you doing? I had her!”

  The jaws gaped open. A deep female voice growled at me. “No. You can’t fight her.”

  “Drop me!”
/>   “No.”

  “Who are you?”

  The roof rushed at us. The edge loomed, and then we were airborne. We hit the next roof and she dashed across it.

  “Put me down.”

  “Soon enough.”

  The creature leaped again. The ruined city streamed by.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s my job. He tasked me to protect you.”

  “Who? Who told you to protect me?”

  A familiar building swung into my view—Jim’s safe house.

  Jim had put a babysitter on me. I would kill him.

  We landed on a roof with a thud. A man lunged at us. She rammed him, knocking him off the roof, and drove her clawed hand into the shingles. Wood screeched. She tossed a piece of the roof aside and dropped into the hole. We fell and landed on the dining table, knocking the dishes aside. Faces stared at me: Jim, Dali, other people I didn’t know . . .

  The creature let go of me. A deep roar rolled from her mouth. “Take care of her.”

  She whipped about. A heavy tail swung over me, and she leaped, vanishing through the hole in the roof.

  CHAPTER 22

  JIM STARED AT ME. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

  “You tell me.” I rolled off the table, shook the stars out of my head, and staggered toward the doorway, where a hallway promised access to the door. I had to get out of there.

  “She’s bleeding,” someone barked.

  Green rolled over Jim’s eyes. “Dali, get Doolittle.”

  Dali dashed out.

  Jim clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Who was she?”

  The building swayed around me. “I don’t know.”

  Jim pointed past me. “You, you, and you—quarter-mile perimeter. You don’t know them, they don’t get in. You—roof, find Carlos. Brenna, Kate doesn’t leave. Sit on her if you have to. If I’m not back in half an hour, evacuate to the Southeast office.”

  He tensed and leaped up and to the right, bounced off the wall through the hole onto the roof. A blink and he was gone.

  A woman gripped me in a bear hug. I peered at her face, trying to bring it into focus. Short hair cut in a bob, reddish brown hair, green eyes, freckles . . . Brenna. One of the wolves working for Jim as a tracker. Last time we met, I’d put a silver needle into her throat and she bit my leg. She held my right arm and some blond woman I didn’t know held my left.