Ilona Andrews - Magic Rises

A door swung open behind us. Doolittle stepped into the room.

“Doolittle knows, too.” I told her. “There are some books in my room. I’ll make you a list of what you need to read . . .”

Maddie stirred. A bulge rolled across her chest, like a tennis ball sliding just under her skin.

“Involuntary movements,” Doolittle said. “Nothing to worry about.”

I realized my hand was holding Slayer’s hilt and let go. If Maddie went loup and lunged out of that tank at Julie, I would cut her down with no hesitation. That thought made my insides churn.

Julie’s eyes were huge on her face.

“It will be okay,” I told her.

“I don’t think it will,” Julie said. “Nothing is okay. Nothing will be okay.”

She stood up.

“Julie . . .”

I watched her walk out. The door clanged shut. That didn’t go the way I’d wanted it to. I wanted a do-over, but in life you rarely get those.

Doolittle was looking at me. “It’s good you told her.”

It didn’t feel good. It felt downright crappy. “I need a favor.”

“If it is within my power,” he said.

“Curran and I have both written our wills. If I don’t come back, Meredith will take care of Julie. I’ve already spoken to her. But if I don’t come back, at some point, Julie may come to you for answers. I’d like you to have my blood. Studying it might help.” He’d already done some analysis on it once. He would be the best person to study it more.

Doolittle rubbed his face, hesitated—as if deciding—and finally said, “This trip is a foolish endeavor.”

“There is a chance we will succeed.”

“A very small chance. We can’t trust these people. They don’t intend to honor their promises.”

“I’ll force them to honor them, if I have to. I can’t sit by Maddie and watch her die a little bit every day. It’s not in me, Doc.”

“It is not in me either,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re drawing it out. Delaying the inevitable only leads to more suffering. That’s why death must be quick and painless.”

“You told me once that we don’t have a choice in what we are. We do have a choice in who we are. I’m the person who must get on that boat or I won’t be able to ever look Maddie’s mother in the eye. Will you please draw my blood?”

Doolittle sighed. “Of course I will.”

“Kate?”

Curran’s voice slipped through my dream. Mmmm . . . I smiled and opened my eyes, still half-asleep. Curran leaned over me. My handsome psycho. When I came back from speaking with Julie, I crawled into bed. I awoke a couple of hours later when he slid into bed next to me. He pulled me close, his body so warm against mine. We made love and I fell asleep on his chest.

“Kate?” Curran repeated. “Baby?”

I reached over and touched his cheek just to make sure he was really there. “You should stay in bed with me.”

“I’d love to,” he said. “But I just spoke with Barabas.”

“Mm-hm.” He really was ridiculously handsome in a gruff, kill-anything-that-moves way. Exactly how I liked it. “What did he say?”

“Saiman is waiting for us in a conference room. He says he owes you a favor and Barabas called him to invite him to the Keep on your behalf.” Gold flared in Curran’s eyes. “Would you care to explain this, because I’m all ears?”

Ten minutes later Curran and I marched down the hallway toward the conference room. When you live in a building with excellent acoustics populated by people with supernatural hearing, you learn to argue under your breath, which was precisely what we were doing.

A month ago I’d gotten a late-night call from the Mercenary Guild informing me that Saiman had been kidnapped. An information broker and a magic expert, Saiman was a shrewd businessman who had his fingers in all sorts of pies, from illegal gladiatorial combat to a shady import/export business. He charged exorbitant prices for his services, but because I amused him, he had offered me a discount in the past. I had consulted him a few times, but he kept trying to entice me into his bed to prove a philosophical point. I’d put up with it until he had the stupidity to parade our connection in front of Curran. The Beast Lord and I had been in a rough spot in our relationship, and Curran didn’t take that exhibition well, which he expressed by turning a warehouse full of luxury cars Saiman had slipped past customs into crushed Coke cans. Since then, Saiman, who feared physical pain above all else, lived in mortal fear of Curran.

Saiman maintained a VIP account at the Mercenary Guild for times when he needed to use brute force, so when some thugs decided it would be a good idea to hold him for ransom, his accountant put the call in to the Guild, which in turn called me. I’d dealt with the kidnappers and rescued Saiman. In return he owed me a favor. Yesterday I’d called him and told him that I would like to collect.

I had successfully managed to hide the incident from Curran precisely because I knew he would go ballistic. Explaining all this now proved a little complicated.

“The clerk called and said Saiman was kidnapped. What the hell was I supposed to do, leave him there?”

“Let me think . . . Yes!”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“He doesn’t care about you. If you died saving him, he wouldn’t give a shit. Nobody even knew where you went.”

“Jim knew where I went.” Aaand I shouldn’t have said that.

Curran stopped and stared at me.

“I took backup,” I told him.

“Like who?”

“Grendel and Derek.”

Curran’s eyebrows came together. He realized that Derek knew and hadn’t snitched. I shouldn’t have said that either.

The best defense is a vigorous offense. “You’re overreacting.”

“You left in the middle of the night to rescue a man without any shred of conscience who cares nothing about your safety, who schemed and manipulated to seduce you, and when he found he couldn’t, acted like a coward and put you in danger. How am I supposed to react?”

“Last time I checked, I was a big girl, all grown up and able to put on my shoes and swing my sword all by myself. You don’t have to like it.”

“Kate!”

“He owes us a favor. A big favor.”

“I don’t need any favors from him,” Curran snarled.

“Yes, you do. Do you remember that warehouse of luxury cars you demolished?”

Curran just looked at me.

“How did those expensive foreign cars get into the country?”

The realization hit Curran like a ton of bricks. His scowl vanished. “He shipped them in.” He started down the hallway, accelerating.

“Exactly.” I matched his stride.

“And he avoided customs because they came in on his vessel. He owns a fleet.”

“Bingo.”

We turned the corner. A shapeshifter heading in our direction saw our faces and tried to abruptly reverse her course. Curran pointed at her. “Get Jim for me, please.”

She broke into a jog.

“We don’t even know if his ships go to the Mediterranean,” Curran said.

“Yes, we do. During the Midnight Games he brought in a minotaur from Greece.”

We reached the door and I opened it.

A beautiful Asian woman waited for us in the North Conference Room. She was on the cusp of thirty, of average height and flawless build, with a slender, delicately curved waist and long legs. A dark green sweater dress, complete with a draped cowl and a sash, hugged her figure, showcasing her beautiful dark hair.

A male shapeshifter was watching her the way one would watch a rabid dog cornered in an alley.

Curran didn’t miss a bit. “Saiman, you look lovely. Thank you for dressing up.”

The woman looked up and I saw the familiar air of disdain in her eyes.