Ilona Andrews: Hex Appeal

It flooded the world in waves now, unpredictable and moody, coming back and disappearing on its own mysterious schedule. Slowly but surely, it tore down the tall buildings, feeding on the carcass of technology and molding humanity in its own image. Adam smiled. He took to it better than most.

The latest magic shift took place about half an hour ago, just before he got jumped. While unpredictable, the magic waves rarely lasted less than twelve hours. He was in for a long, magic-filled night.

The bridge split into four different branches. He took the second to the left. It brought him deep into the heart of the city, past the ruins, to the older streets. He cleared the next couple of intersections and turned into the courtyard of a large Georgian-style mansion, a redbrick box, rectangular in shape and three stories high. Anything taller didn’t survive in the new Philadelphia unless it was really old. The POM Mansion, as the house came to be known, had been built at the end of the eighteenth century. Its age and the simplicity of its construction afforded it some immunity against magic.

Adam jogged to the doors. Pressure clutched him for a brief moment, then released him—the defensive spell on the building recognizing his right to enter. Adam stepped through the doors and walked into the foyer. Luxurious by any standards, after his run through the ruined city, the inside of the building looked almost surreal. A hand-knotted blue Persian rug rested on the floor of polished marble. Cream-colored walls were adorned by graceful glass bells of fey lanterns, glowing pale blue as the charged air inside their tubes reacted with magic. A marble staircase veered left and up, leading to the second floor.

Adam paused for a moment to admire the rug. He’d once survived in a cave in the woods for half a year. Luxury or poverty made little difference to him. Luxury tended to be cleaner and more comfortable, but that was about it. Still, he liked the rug—it was beautiful.

The secretary sitting behind a massive redwood desk looked up at his approach. She was slender, young, and dark-skinned. Large brown eyes glanced at him from behind the wide lenses of her glasses. Her name was May, and in the three years of his employment with POM, he’d never managed to surprise her.

“Good evening, Mr. Talford.”

“Good evening.” He could never figure out if she had been there and done that and was too jaded, or if she was simply too well trained.

“Will you require a change of clothes?”

“Yes, please.”

May held out a leather file. His reason for being called into the office. He took it. Priority Two. It overrode all of his cases. Interesting. Adam nodded at her and headed up the stairs.

The heavy door of the office slid open under the pressure of Adam’s hand. When he joined the ranks of POM Insurance Adjusters three years ago, someone asked him how he wanted his office to look. He told him, “Like the cabin of a pirate captain,” and that was exactly what he got. Cypress paneling lined every inch of the floor, walls, and ceiling, imitating the inside of a wooden ship. The antique-reproduction desk, bolted to the floor for sheer authenticity, supported a sextant, a chronometer, and a bottle of Bombay Blue Sapphire. Behind the desk, an enormous map drawn in ink on yellowed paper took up most of the wall. To the left, bookshelves stretched, next to a large bed sunken into a sturdy wooden frame, so it looked like it was cut into the wall. The bed’s dark blue curtain hung open.

His nostrils caught a hint of faint spice. He inhaled it, savoring the scent. Siroun.

“You smell like blood,” Siroun’s smooth voice said behind him.

Ah. There she is. He turned slightly and watched her circle him, scrutinizing his body. She moved like a lean panther: silent, flexible, graceful. Deadly. Her hair, cropped short into a ragged, messy halo, framed her face like a pale red cloud. She tilted her head. Two dark eyes looked at him.

“You fought with three people, and you let them break your watch?” Her voice was quiet and soothing, and deep for a woman’s. He’d heard her sing once, a strange song of murmured words. It had stayed with him.

“I was tracking Morowitz,” he told her.

“Into Firefern?”

“Yes.”

“We agreed you would wait for me if his trail led into Firefern.”

“I did. I called it in to the office, waited, then followed him.”

“The office is about four miles from Firefern.”

“Yes.”

“How long did you wait?”

He frowned, thinking. “I’d say about two minutes.”

“And that struck you as the appropriate length of time?”

He grinned at her. “Yes.”

A bright orange sheen rolled over her irises, like fire over coals, and vanished. She clearly failed to see the humor in this situation.

Post-Shift Philadelphia housed many people with something extra in their blood, including shapeshifters, a small, sad pack of humans stuck on the crossroads between man and beast. Occasionally, they went insane and had to be put down, but most persevered through strict discipline. Their eyes glowed just like that.

Adjusters worked in pairs, and he and Siroun had been partnered with each other from the beginning. After all this time together, working with her and observing her, he was sure that Siroun wasn’t a shapeshifter. At least not any kind he had ever encountered. When she dropped her mask, he sensed something in her, a faint touch of ancient magic, buried deep, hidden like a fossil under the sediment of civilization. He sensed this same primal magic within himself. Siroun wasn’t of his kind, but she was like him, and she drew him like a magnet.

Siroun pulled the leather file out of Adam’s fingers and sat on the bed, curling around a large pillow.

Adam was possibly the smartest man she had ever known. And also the biggest idiot. In his mind, big and strong equaled invincible. It would only take one bullet to the head in the right spot, one cut of the right blade in the right place, and none of his regeneration would matter.

He went into Firefern by himself. Didn’t wait. Didn’t tell her. And by the time she’d found out, it was too late—he was already on his way to the office, so she paced back and forth, like a caged tiger until she heard his steps in the hallway.

Adam sat behind his desk, sinking into an oversized leather chair. It groaned, accepting his weight. He cocked his head to the side and moved the bottle of Bombay Sapphire a quarter of an inch to the left. The bright blue liquid caught the light of the fey lantern on the wall and sparkled with all the fire of the real gem.

She pretended to read the file while watching him through the curtain of her eyelashes. For sixteen years, her life was full of chaos, dominated by violence and desperation. Then came the prison; and then, then there was POM and Adam. In her crazed, blood-drenched world, Adam was a granite island of calm. When the turbulent storms rocked her inner world, until she was no longer sure where reality ended and the hungry madness inside her began, she clung to that island and weathered the storm. He had no idea how much she needed this shelter. The thought of losing it nearly drove her out of her mind, what little was left of it.

Adam frowned. A stack of neatly folded clothes sat on the corner of the desk, delivered moments before he walked through the door, together with a small package now waiting for his attention. She’d looked through it: T-shirt, pants, camo suit, all large enough to accommodate his giant body. Adam checked the clothes and pulled the package close. She’d glanced at it—the return address label had one word: Saiman.

“Who is he?” Siroun asked.

“My cousin. He lives in the South.” Adam tore the paper and pulled out a leather-bound book. He chuckled and showed her the cover. Robert E. Howard: The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and Other Stories.