Ilona Andrews - Magic Bleeds

“Clerk?” I yelled.

“Hey!” The Clerk’s head appeared above the third-story balcony rail. A moment later more heads joined it. That’s the Guild for you. Would it have killed one of them to shoot the damn bastard with a bow? I didn’t say it out loud. They would’ve laughed. People inclined to help others ended up in PAD or the Order. These guys were exactly where they wanted to be. Unless money or their hide was involved, they didn’t give a damn. They weren’t getting paid, so why bother?

“You all okay up there?”

“We’re fine,” Juke called back. “Touched you care.”

Slayer hissed. I tapped the saber with the tip of my index finger. It careened to the side. The edges of the wound drooped, as if the man’s flesh were heated wax. I pinched the muscle near the wound and watched a telltale burgundy fluid seep from the cut.

Curran inhaled next to me, sampling the scent. A grimace troubled his nightmarish face. “Undead.”

“Yep.”

Just like the two undead mages who had attacked the Casino with elemental magic. It would be a miracle if they weren’t connected.

There were things I could do with an undead body that I couldn’t do with any other corpse. I had to hurry. I’d need magic and herbs for this. The herbs waited in my apartment and there was no telling how long the magic wave would last.

I looked up at the Clerk. “What happened?”

“He came in through the front,” the Clerk shouted. “I saw he was naked and cleared out. He busted the pipe and went after you.”

Except it wasn’t me he was after. True, the People hired me to investigate the attack, but I hadn’t had a chance to do anything warranting this sort of retaliation. No, he went right after Curran. He and Jim were the primary targets. I was a bystander.

“Get the firebugs to torch the floor and call PAD.”

“Who’ll pay for the torching?” Mark called out.

“The Guild will, Mark, unless you’d like us to keep walking around in undead blood.”

If Mark had any other objections, he decided to keep them to himself. There were at least a few pyro-talented mercs, and once they were done with the floor, all traces of the undeath and of my blood would be gone.

I raised Slayer and sliced across the corpse’s neck. It only took one cut—Curran had broken his neck and tore the muscle, leaving only skin for me to sever. I grasped the head by the hair and got up to my feet.

“The Order accepts the offer of aid from the Pack,” I said quietly. We had an audience and this wasn’t something I wanted them to hear. I was about to force Curran into a corner, and while he might come to terms with it in private, in public he would immediately refuse. “With the understanding that the Order is in the position of authority and our agreement can be terminated at will. This is mine.” I showed the head to Curran. “The rest is yours. We compare results later.”

“Changed your mind?” Gold rolled over Curran’s eyes, but he kept his voice low. To the peanut gallery above, we appeared to be having a pleasant conversation.

“I can now take this to Ted. It’s hard to refute eyewitnesses. If I fight hard enough, he’ll let it stand. Let Jim know what Doolittle finds out about the body.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Jim’s better.”

Curran leaned to me. Bones crawled under his skin. His jaws shrank, his muzzle shortened, his claws receded. Gray fur flowed, melting into human skin. In a blink, he stood nude in front of me. A month ago I would’ve needed a moment to cope. Today I just looked straight at his face.

“I’ll call you,” he repeated.

“If you call me, I won’t pick up the phone.”

“You will wait by the phone for my call, and when it rings, you will pick it up and you will speak to me in a civil manner. If you don’t know how, ask someone.”

That did it. I pivoted to him. My voice came out quiet and cold. “Do you need me to draw you a chart? You stood me up. You made me think there was something between us. You made me want things, things I thought I could never have, and then you crushed it. Don’t come near me, Curran. Don’t call. We’re done.”

I turned and walked away, heading to the Guild changing room, where I still kept clothes in a locker. I had to strip off my soggy rags, seal my cuts, and drag the head home. I needed to ask it some questions.

THE WEATHER DECIDED IT WASN’T UGLY ENOUGH. Usually our winters ran to rainy and dreary. Once in a while it would snow, but mostly it wouldn’t stick. For some reason, for the last few years winter in Atlanta had decided to play Russian roulette: three times out of four we’d get the usual sludge, but about a quarter of the time it hit hard with snow and deep freeze. Some said it was because of magic; some said it was the side effect of global warming. Whatever caused it, I didn’t like it. By the time I arrived at my apartment, every inch of me was frozen.

I dragged myself up the stairs and reached for the door. The ward spell licked my skin and drained down in a wave of blue, letting me in. I opened the door and saw a huge slimy pile of dog puke cooling in the middle of my hallway carpet. The attack poodle sat nearby, an expression of perfect innocence on his narrow mug.

I pointed at the puke. “That was a dick move.”

The attack poodle wagged his tail.

I stepped over the vomit and headed to the kitchen. The magic still held but the wave could end at any moment. If the magic fell, I could as well play soccer with the head for all the good it would do me.

I pulled out a large silver platter from the cabinet, set it in the middle of the table, and collected the herbs. I’d premixed most of them, but some things had to be combined on the spot or their effect would have worn off with time.

Seeing Curran again hurt. The rock in my chest just got heavier and heavier. A bastard and a liar.

I came to you with broken bones . . .

In ten minutes I spread the herb mixture on the platter, retrieved the head, and set it onto the aromatic mix, stump down. Necromantic magic came naturally to me. It repulsed me, but still I gravitated toward it, as if it were an itch I had to scratch. My revulsion might have been nature, but most of it was nurture. Voron did his best to suppress this part of me, since I was a baby. Strange that I found myself needing to shrug off his training more and more often.

I slid a shallow baking pan under the platter and poured an inch of glycerin into it. The attack poodle watched me with a very focused expression. “Watch out,” I told him. “It’s about to get ugly.”

I nicked my thumb with the point of a throwing knife and let a drop of my blood fall onto the herbs. Magic surged through the dried grasses, like fire along a detonation cord, and exploded into the head. The undead flesh shivered, revived by the burst of power. I touched my thumb to the undead forehead, driving a spike of magic into the brain. “Wake.”

The head’s eyes snapped open, focusing on me. Its mouth gaped, contorting. Foul magic flared about it in a swirling storm of malice, furious and hungry.

The poodle bolted like the road runner from an ancient cartoon. I waited for a second to see if the carpet would catch on fire in his wake. Fortunately, no ACME fire extinguishing equipment needed to be used.

I leaned to the head. “Show me your master.”

The words weren’t necessary. The old Arabic woman who taught me the ritual when I was eleven said they helped one concentrate, so I said them all the same.

The magic convulsed. A foul stench rose from the herbs. The head shuddered. Thick burgundy blood slid from the tear ducts, dripping down the cheeks into the herbs, then into the pan, spreading on the glycerin in a thick dark stain.