Ilona Andrews - Magic Slays

Babycakes. Asshole. “Good hunting, sugar woogums.”

I jumped into the driver’s seat. Andrea pulled a rifle from under the passenger seat and hopped in to ride shotgun.

Curran dashed into the field, powerful muscles carrying him off. The shapeshifters followed him in a silent flood. I turned the key and the gasoline-burning motor purred in response. No magic. Right.

I made a wide circle around the bodies and stepped on the gas. The vehicle shot forward, picking up speed.

“Whoa.” Andrea rubbed her face. “It’s like somebody put a bag over my head. I can’t hear that well. I can’t smell anything either.”

“What happened to your face?”

“She made me leave,” Andrea said through clenched teeth.

I glanced at her.

“Aunt B. We needed to have the talk. Oh no, she couldn’t wait to have that talk. She had to have it right away, so she could explain to me in detail how I needed to become one of her girls. I shouldn’t have gone, but I wanted to avoid a fight in front of the children. We sat at Mona’s and ate pie, while the render tore the kids apart, so her ego would be satisfied. I told her this. You know what she said? She said it was my fault because if I had run over like a good little bouda when she first called me, we wouldn’t be in this mess. So I slapped her.”

“What?”

“When we got to the Keep and I found out about Julie, I walked up and slapped Aunt B in the face. In front of everyone.”

Holy crap. “Have you lost your mind?”

“You should’ve seen the look on her. It was worth it.” Andrea threw me a defiant glance. “Then her face went all psycho. The old bitch backhanded me. I don’t actually remember being hit. I just remember rolling down the stairs. I guess she knocked me off the landing. She is fucking strong.” A crazy light sparked in Andrea’s eyes. “I’d do it again. I’ll make it my mission in life to take her down.”

And people said I was nuts.

Andrea raised her hand. “This is the hand that slapped Aunt B.”

“Maybe you should have it gold-plated.”

“Here, you can touch it, since you’re my best friend.”

“Is your hand connected to your brain at all? Are you going to keep attacking her until she kills you?”

Andrea shrugged. “I might kill her instead.”

“And run the bouda clan?”

She blinked. “No.”

“And how do you think Raphael would take it? I know you still love him. You think he’ll be happy his mother is dead?”

Andrea let her breath out in a long sigh. “Listen, me and Raphael . . .”

“Your master plan has holes big enough to drive a truck through.”

“Now look, you . . .”

The trees ended abruptly as the road shot us into the center of the town. Words died on Andrea’s lips.

Bodies lay in the streets. Laborers. Mothers with their children. A group of men armed with crossbows, probably just passing through. A cop, a short blond woman, her uniform pristine, lying face down on the pavement two steps away from her police horse.

Oh my God . . . We drove through it all, surrounded by death on both sides, as if gliding through Armageddon.

On the far right, a man stumbled, walking through the street, with a lost look on his face, trying to come to terms with his world ending. A child cried in the distance, a thin uncertain sound.

This wasn’t just bad. It wasn’t just criminal, or cruel; it was so deeply inhuman, my mind had trouble comprehending it. I’ve seen death and mass murder, I’ve seen people slaughtered out of bloodlust, but this had no emotion behind it. Just a cold clinical calculation.

Another howl broke the silence. Closer this time and to the east. Andrea swiped the map off her lap. “They’re probably hitting Fayetteville Road. Turn left at the next intersection. Church Street.”

I made a hard left at the next intersection. In front of us a crumbling overpass barred the way. I steered the Jeep on the side, over the overgrown hill, praying the tires didn’t blow up, and rolled over the hill. The vehicle plunged down, its seat springs squeaked, and we landed back on the road. I stepped on the gas. The Jeep hurtled forward.

A subdivision popped up on our right side. I stared straight ahead. I’d seen as much of the dead as I could take. Now I just wanted to make some of my own.

The road veered left, cutting through a dense patch of forest. I took the turn. Something black and large lay in the road.

“Look out!” Andrea yelled.

I swerved, catching a glimpse of a massive equine body. A mad amber eye glared at nothing, now dull, from a head crowned with a single sharp horn.

The woods ended, jerked away suddenly like a green silk scarf pulled out of place. A ribbon of straight road unrolled in front of us, before diving into the woods again in the distance. On the left side, two giant open A-frames covered by tin roofs housed rows of flea market stalls. The stalls lay deserted. Half of their owners had fled. The few who remained sprawled in the dirt, their eyes dull and lifeless.

A group of riders emerged from the woods in the distance, pushing their horses hard. Behind them a pair of bays pulled a wagon. At least ten people. The forest on both sides of the road was too dense for the wagon to pass through. They were heading away from the magic and toward us, back into the blast zone.

I turned the Jeep sideways, blocking the road. Andrea eyed the nearest A-frame. It would give her a good vantage point. But the moment she started shooting, they’d turn back. We had to keep that cart from moving.

I held my hand out. “Give me a grenade.”

Andrea pulled open her backpack and slid a grenade into my palm. “Wait until they start shooting the Jeep. Boom comes first, shrapnel flies second. Count to ten before you run in there. And don’t blow the device up.”

“Yes, Mother. It’s not my first time.”

“That’s the thanks I get for trying to keep you alive, Your Highness.”

I slipped out of the Jeep and dashed down through the undergrowth on the right side of the road. Andrea leaped six feet in the air, caught the edge of the tin roof, and pulled herself up.

Twigs and branches slapped me. I kept moving, light on my toes. If Curran had been there, he would’ve chewed me out for making more noise than a drunken hippo in a china shop, but with the thudding of hooves the riders wouldn’t hear me. Ahead the ground leveled off, the undergrowth of fuzzy pines thick enough to provide good cover but thin enough to power through in a hurry. About a hundred yards from the Jeep. Far enough. I dropped into a crouch.

The lead horseman rode past us and stopped a dozen yards ahead. The rest of the riders halted, forming two loose lines along the road, staggering themselves to minimize the target area. The cart came to a stop with a creak right across from me. A large canvas bundle bulged in the middle of it, secured with ropes. Wooden partitions protected the device from the back and front. Perfect.

“Miss Cray,” the lead rider said. “Please remove the obstruction.”

A woman rode up to the leader. “Sir?”

“Ride down to the vehicle, shift it into neutral, and push it off the road. Burgess, go with her. Santos, cover them. If things look suspicious, shout.”

The three riders advanced toward the Jeep, two ahead, one lagging behind, his rifle ready. I waited until they cleared half of the stretch, pulled the firing pin, and lobbed the grenade behind the cart. The metal clanged on the asphalt two hundred feet away from the cart. Far enough. Heads turned. I dropped down and pressed into the forest floor.

The explosion shook the trees. Horses shied, panicking. The device showed no intention of exploding.

“Protect the machine!” the leader screamed. “Form—” His head jerked. Andrea’s bullet took him in the back of the skull and came out just under his eyes, disintegrating his face into a mush of bone and bloody flesh.