Ilona Andrews - Magic Slays

To the left, a squat building flew by, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge boar rushing at us, mouth open, tusks ready to gore. He looked as big as a house. Vicious eyes glared at me.

I sprinted, squeezing every last drop out of my muscles.

The boar loomed, closer and closer.

Twenty-five yards. The boar was on top of us. We wouldn’t make it.

Jennifer spun toward the pig, baring her teeth. Daniel’s clawed hand closed on her shoulder. He shoved her aside and flung himself at the boar. The werewolf’s claws raked across the pig’s head, gouging the left eye. The boar squealed in mad fury. His tusk caught Daniel in the stomach. The boar shot forward, half-blind, and smashed into the ward. Daniel’s blond head hit the pale glow. The back of his skull exploded, his face still intact, his blue eyes staring straight at us, and then both the werewolf and the boar disintegrated in a flash of blinding white.

Ten yards.

Jennifer screamed a single hoarse howl of pain, ripped straight from her heart.

I sliced Slayer across my forearm, coating the blade with my blood, and rammed the ward, sinking all of my magic into the power word. “Hesaad.” Mine.

Agony ripped through me in a fiery cascade.

The ward shuddered. Veins of pure, intense red shot through the magic barrier. It shattered and the shapeshifters burst through it, smashing into the tower.

I stumbled forward, trying to hold on to reality. Don’t pass out, don’t pass out . . .

Derek ripped the tower’s door off its hinges. A man raised a crossbow, blocking our way. Jennifer lunged at him. The bolt took her in the thigh. She ripped the man’s head off, pulled the bolt out, and bounded inside, where more shooters waited on the stairway.

We climbed the tower, step by step. For the first couple of minutes Jennifer was in front venting her fury, and then she took off into the side corridor raging, and someone else took point. We killed and killed and climbed, and the stairs behind us ran red with blood.

A door loomed ahead. The shapeshifters crashed through it, drunk on blood fumes and anger. People spun to us, a familiar face among them. Shane. I lunged and disemboweled him with one precise strike. He clutched at his stomach, trying to hold the slippery ribbons of his intestines inside. I sliced across his chest and neck and kicked him to the ground. He crashed at my feet, bleeding to death.

The device loomed in front of me, a cylinder of gleaming metal, encrusted with gems and inlaid with glyphs and patterns, spinning magic from its top in feathery glowing strands. A control console rose next to it, bristling with levers. Three gauges, long narrow rectangles half-filled with pale light, glowed above the console.

Around the cylinder, the shapeshifters tore into the Keepers like sharks into baby seals. I pulled Kamen’s instructions from the pocket of my jeans and unfolded them, careful to keep my bloody fingerprints off the text. According to Kamen, shutting down the machine required pushing the levers in a precise sequence. He said it would take anywhere from three to ten minutes. I had no idea how many minutes I had left.

Don’t think about it; just do it.

I pushed the first lever. The gauge on the left turned blue. If it turned bright green, the device would become unstable and we’d all vanish in an explosion of magic. I jerked my hand back.

The gauge glowed with blue, slowly growing lighter and lighter.

Seconds ticked by. Come on. If I ever commissioned a world-destroying device, it would have a two-second shutoff: turn the key and that’s it.

Come on.

The gauge turned white. I pushed the second lever. The third gauge shot into blue-green. I held my breath.

The light shone, holding at the almost-green mark.

Turn white. Turn white, damn you.

Behind me someone snarled.

White. Turn white.

The gauge paled, sliding into pale gray. Good enough.

I pulled the first lever again. All three gauges remained steadily pale.

Third lever.

Second lever.

Third lever again. When this was over, I would screw Kamen’s head off his shoulders like a cap off a beer bottle. First lever.

All three gauges turned green.

Fuck.

The top of the device slid open, magic curving around it like veils of white smoke, nipping at my skin.

Don’t blow up. Just don’t blow up.

The gauges slid into blue. Wait for it.

My hands shook. I clenched them into fists.

Wait for it.

Wait.

Wait.

The gauges turned white. I pushed the final lever.

Nothing.

What the hell?

I had done it right, I’d memorized the instructions, they were in my hand . . . Maybe Kamen had lied. Maybe he wanted the device to activate . . .

Something clanged within the machine. The gauges drained, the glow vanishing. The veils of magic dissipated, dissolving into nothing. The last sparks of power melted from the device and it sat inert, just a hunk of metal, dull and harmless.

I slumped on the floor. Around me shapeshifters moved. Someone threw a body out the window.

We’d won. Somehow we’d won.

My gaze snagged on Shane, sprawled on the floor in the mess of his innards. He stared at me, his eyes wild.

“We won,” I told him.

He glared at me with eyes full of hate.

Behind him Curran loomed in the doorway. He was human and smeared with blood. He stepped over Shane and crouched by me. I put my arms around his neck and we kissed, both covered in gore and neither one caring. We kissed while around us, the soldiers of the Pack tossed the bodies out the windows, stepping over Shane as he lay dying slowly, bleeding his life out, watching his intestines contract and shiver on the floor in front of him.

THE KEEPERS WERE DEAD. THE MAGIC ELITE OF Atlanta celebrated, right outside the fallen MSDU headquarters. Food appeared as if out of thin air, bonfires flared here and there, and a couple of Calydonian boars had been carved into chunks for a barbecue. Mages, the People, witches, and shapeshifters reveled in the simple glory of being alive. We all knew that the next morning the alliance would fracture and old rivalries would rear their heads, but for one evening, we celebrated and watched the cops and the MSDU from neighboring cities try to sort out the wreckage. The law enforcement agencies were none too happy with our impromptu cookout, but given that we had just cracked their best fortress like a walnut, they didn’t make any waves.

The Keepers had brought as many of their members as they could muster. The MSDU lost forty people; the rest had been herded into an underground bunker—the Keepers didn’t want to waste the ammunition. The rats found them and let them out. Andrea’s friend didn’t make it.

I wandered past the tables. Smiling faces, lots of food, the hum of excited conversation. Ghastek came walking toward me, carrying a plate. “Humans are fickle creatures,” he said. “Three days ago I bet none of these people would have found a cause to throw a party. Here we are celebrating, when all we’ve done is return things to normal.”

“Nothing like a great tragedy to make you appreciate life,” I told him.

“Indeed. You aren’t celebrating, Kate.”

Hard to celebrate when visions of your kid in a hospital bed keep floating through your head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m thrilled.”

“Rowena came to visit you this morning,” Ghastek said. “Why?”

Ha! “Remember how I asked you to get the information from that navigator who fainted and you blew me off? Go screw yourself.”

I walked away.

A lone figure sat away from the bonfires, hugging her knees. I came closer and saw pale hair. Jennifer. I came to sit by her. She stared straight ahead. I wasn’t sure she even knew I was there.