Ilona Andrews - Magic Rises

“You really don’t know?”

“No.”

It had to be a lie. Roland would’ve told him. “Why don’t you ask him ?”

“Because it hurts Roland.”

Let’s poke a wasp’s nest with a stick and see what comes out. “Afraid your commander and chief will do away with you?”

Hugh leaned forward. “No. I don’t want to cause him more pain.”

Was that genuine or was he playing me? Fine. Let’s play, Hugh.

I came closer and sat sideways in the smaller throne, my back against the armrest. “How much do you know about my mother’s magic?”

“Not much,” Hugh said. “Roland was unpredictable when it came to Kalina. We all maintained some distance.”

Funny how he kept calling my father Roland. He knew his real name, but he wasn’t sure if I did, so he was being careful.

“She was a really powerful enchantress in the classic sense of the word. Power of love and suggestion. If she wanted you to love her, you did. You would do anything to make her happy. I think Roland was immune, which probably made him really special to her.”

Hugh frowned. “Are you saying . . .”

“I spoke to some people who knew them both. The description was, and I quote, ‘She fried him. She had time to do it, and she cooked him so hard, he left Roland for her.’”

Hugh stared at me. Right now he was likely wondering if I had my mother’s power and if I could fry him the way she’d fried Voron. Now we were both off-balance. There you go. Two can play that game.

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know. I wish Voron were around so I could get his take on it, but some asshole showed up at my house and killed him.”

A long, lingering howl came from the ravine. The high-pitched song of a wolf on the hunt rolled above the treetops. I stood up on the throne. I couldn’t see jack shit. Only the trees.

“Leave them to it,” Hugh said. “They’re animals; it’s what they do. They chase, hunt, and kill.”

And just like that the lord of the castle was back.

“Why the hell did you even drag us on this hunt?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you, and they hover around you like bees around a patch of flowers. What do you see in Lennart? Is it power? Or is it safety in numbers? Trying to gather enough bodies to protect yourself?”

“He loves me.”

Hugh leaned back and laughed.

I wondered if I was fast enough to stab him. Probably. But the stab would put me very close to him and he would retaliate.

“He is an animal,” Hugh said. “Stronger, faster, more capable than most of his kind, but at the core still an animal. I work with them. I know them very well. They are tools to be used. They have emotions, sure, but their urges always override their stunted feelings. Why do you think they make all these complex rules for themselves? Stand this close but not six inches closer or you’ll get your throat ripped. Eat after the alpha starts eating, but don’t get up when he walks into the room. We don’t have these bullshit rules. We don’t need them. You know what we have? We have common courtesy. The shapeshifters mimic human behavior much like students mimic a master artist, but they confuse complicated for civilized.”

Blah-blah-blah. Please, tell me more about shapeshifters, Grandpa Hugh, because I just have no idea how they think. It’s not like I live with five hundred of them and end up sorting through their personal problems every Wednesday at the Pack court hearings.

“For a moment I thought you might be a real human being, but you proved me wrong. Thanks. It will make it so much easier to kill you.”

Hugh leaned forward. A strange light danced in his eyes. “Want to give it a shot?”

Anytime. “Why, you want to show me what you’ve learned?”

“Ooo.” Hugh sucked the air in, narrowing his eyes. “Mean. I like mean.”

A strange low roar cascaded through the mountains, dying down to an odd note, almost like bleating if the goat making it were predatory and the size of a tiger.

“Damn it.” Hugh stood up on his throne. “I told them to stay the hell out of the ravine.”

I stood up. To the left the trees shook. Something galloped up the mountain slope straight for us.

“What is it?”

“Ochokochi. Big, vicious, carnivorous, long claws. They like to impale people with their chests.”

“They what?”

“They grab you and impale you on their chest. The shapeshifters spooked the herd. Stupid sonsabitches. I asked one thing—one damn thing—and they couldn’t do it right. The herd is heading for us. Normally I’d move out of their way.”

“But we have the horses.” Then I remembered—the path up to the meeting place was narrow and steep. We had seven horses, and getting them out and down the path in time to escape was impossible.

“Exactly. When the ochokochi go mad like this, they slaughter everything with a pulse.”

A dull thudding came from below, the sound of many feet stomping in unison. How many of them were there?

Hugh jumped off the throne to the ground. “They’re coming straight for us.”

I moved left, putting myself between the woods and the corral with the horses. The sound of thudding feet grew, like the roar of a distant waterfall. The horses neighed and paced in the enclosure, testing their tethers.

The trees shuddered.

“Don’t let them grab you.” Hugh grinned at me. “Ready?”

“No time like the present.” I unbuckled the spare saber at my waist, unsheathed it, and dropped the sheath on the grass.

The blackberry bushes at the edge of the clearing tore, and the woods spat a beast into the open. It stood about five feet tall, half-upright like a gorilla or a kangaroo, resting the full weight of its body on two massive hind legs. Long reddish fur reminiscent of chamois dripped from its flanks. Its front limbs, muscular and almost simian in shape, bore long black claws. Its head was goatlike, with a wide forehead and small eyes, but instead of the narrow muzzle, its face ended in powerful predatory jaws designed to shear rather than grind.

What the bloody hell was that thing?

The beast saw us and rocked back, opening its limbs as if for a hug. A sharp, hatchetlike ridge of bone protruded from its chest. Bits of dried crud clung to it, and they looked suspiciously like bloody shreds of someone’s flesh.

Go to the Black Sea, meet new people, see beautiful places, get killed by a mutant carnivorous kangaroo goat. One item off my bucket list.

I pulled Slayer from the back sheath. Hugh raised his eyebrows at the two swords but didn’t say anything. That’s right. Hold any comments and questions till the end.

The creature opened its mouth, baring sharp teeth, and yowled. The terrible sound rolled through the clearing, neither roar nor grunt, but a deep bellow of a creature without power of speech driven by fear and bloodlust.

I swung my sabers, warming up my wrists. Hugh unsheathed his sword. It was a plain European long sword, with a thirty-five-and-a-half-inch blade, a simple cross-guard, and a leather-wrapped hilt. The hilt was long enough for one-handed or two-handed use. The beveled blade shone with a satin finish.

The bushes broke. More ochokochi burst into the open. The leader bellowed again.

Hugh laughed.

The monsters dropped to all fours and charged.

We stepped forward and swung at the same time. I moved left, dodging the charge, and sliced the beast’s shoulder. The creature screamed and swiped at me with its claws. I leaned back just enough to avoid it and spun the swords in a practiced butterfly pattern. The bottom blade caught the beast’s side; the top sliced at the side of its head. Blood sprayed. The ochokochi reared and crashed down, its legs jerking in violent spasms.