Ilona Andrews - Magic Bleeds

“Show me your master.”

The stain swirled. Faint glimpses of a face appeared in its depths.

“Show me!”

The magic raged and boiled. The image flared, fuzzy but clear enough to recognize. My own face stared back at me from the stain.

What in the world . . .

I scrutinized the ghostly image. It was distorted, but I saw the matching skin tone, long dark hair, and dark eyes. Me.

I let go. The magic collapsed on itself.

I leaned my elbow on the table, rested my chin on my fist, and looked at the head. I’d done the ritual six times in my life. Always with vampires. It never failed.

Why did it show me?

The head stared at me with unseeing eyes. The surge of magic during the ritual cooked the Vampirus immortuus pathogen, and once it vanished, the vampire heads decomposed in minutes. This one looked no worse for wear. I needed someone with more expertise. I got up and tried the phone. No dial tone. Argh.

Enthusiastic barking echoed from under my bed. A moment later someone knocked.

“Who is it?”

“Kate?” Andrea’s voice called. “You’re home?”

“Nope.” I opened the door.

Andrea grinned at me while tapping a manila envelope against her palm. “I suppose I walked into that. What is that stench?”

“Something I have in the kitchen.” I stepped aside, motioning her in. “Don’t land in the dog vomit.” Which I now had no excuse not to clean up.

She stepped over the attack poodle’s offering to the digestive gods and saw the head and the herbs sitting on the platter in the kitchen. Her face stretched. “That’s just not right. What is that stuff it’s lying on?”

“Herbs. Rosemary, coriander—”

Andrea’s blue eyes went wide as saucers. “If you’re going to cook it, I’ll barf next to the dog.”

“Why would I cook it?”

“Well, it’s lying like a turkey on a roaster and you have herbs under it.”

I marched into the kitchen, grabbed the head, and stuffed it back into the plastic bag. The bag went into the fridge, the rest went into the garbage. “Better?”

“Yes.”

I went to clean up puke, while she set the water for tea on the kerosene stove. Magic robbed us of electricity, but kerosene still burned and I kept a camper burner in my apartment for small jobs. It once saved my life and Julie’s.

As soon as the offending evidence of his disgrace had been removed, the attack poodle deemed the area safe. He emerged from under the bed and licked Andrea’s hand.

“He looks good with his hair off,” she said.

“He thinks so.”

The poodle licked her hand again. Andrea smiled. “You don’t mind my scent, do you, dogface? Maybe he was raised around shapeshifters.”

“You’re not a regular shapeshifter.”

She shrugged. “I still smell like my father.”

Given that Andrea’s father was a hyena, the poodle was showing remarkable restraint.

We went into the kitchen, where I poured us some tea. “Before we do anything else, let me tell you about my guy in a cloak.”

Fifteen minutes later she frowned at me. “So male shapeshifters go berserk.”

I nodded.

“What about the female shapeshifters?”

“I don’t know.”

She tapped the edge of the table with the envelope. “So there is a good chance that the other me will make an appearance. Clearly my life hasn’t been complicated enough.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

Don’t let Ted put you on this, if I fail. Her eyes told me that if I said that, she’d suggest I stick my opinion where the sun didn’t shine.

Andrea suppressed the part of her that was beastkin. She’d made it through the Academy, earned knighthood, served with distinction for five years. She carried a handful of medals and the Iron Gauntlet, the fourth highest decoration the Order could award to its knights. A year ago she was well on her way to take the step up from knight-defender to master-at-arms, firearm. To earn the designation of a master in a weapon or magic use was a great achievement.

All of it came crashing down one night when Andrea and another knight had gone out to check the report of a loup sighting. The trip left several loups dead, including Andrea’s partner, who caught Lyc-V and tried to turn Andrea’s stomach into an “all you can eat” buffet. Standard procedure after an encounter with loups mandated comprehensive tests to confirm your humanity. Andrea passed the m-scan and tests. She did it by means of an amulet embedded in her skull and a silver ring under the skin of her shoulder, which had almost cost her her arm. She was pronounced free of the shapeshifter virus and fit for active duty, and then her Chapter shipped her off to Atlanta to ease the trauma.

In Atlanta, she ran into a brick wall called Ted Moynohan. Ted knew there was something wrong with her. He felt it in his gut but he lacked proof, so he assigned her to “support.” She had no office, no active cases, and the only time she saw action was when nobody else could get there in time.

Despite it all, she was determined to serve. Pointing out that if the Steel Mary showed up, she should abandon her knighthood and run the other way would only get my head bitten off. So I clamped my mouth shut and said nothing.

I kept her secret and she kept mine. Only two people besides me knew my ancestry and Andrea was one of them. If I had a choice, I would’ve kept it from her, but she had figured it out on her own.

“Thank you for the warning.” Andrea handed me the manila envelope. “My turn.”

Unsealing the tape took a moment, and then a stack of papers slid into my hand. A photograph occupied half of the first sheet. It showed a tall, powerfully built man, standing next to a roan horse, one hand on the mane.

He had handsome, very masculine features, roughly cut, with a heavy jaw and slightly dimpled chin. His nose was broad and straight; his mouth wide; his long hair almost blue black. His was an attractive face, honest and strong, the kind that would inspire confidence and convince you to follow him into the breach. The few times I’d seen him, he wore a pleasant, affable expression that made him appear approachable.

He must’ve sensed the photographer and turned toward him just as the shot was taken, because the camera caught him with his mask down. He stared directly into the lens. His eyes, shockingly blue under the straight slashes of black eyebrows, radiated arrogant power. It was a look that snarled a warning. The glare of a predator whose rest had been disturbed. Indignant, he demanded to know who dared and he looked as if he was committing your face to memory, so if you met again by chance, he would remember to kill you.

I sat into my chair. The blue eyes stared at me.

Hugh d’Ambray. Preceptor of the Order of the Iron Dogs, head of Roland’s personal guard. Warlord of Roland’s armies. My stepfather’s greatest pupil.

The paper bore a copy of the Order’s classified stamp—a mace crossed with the polearm on a shield. These papers were well above Andrea’s clearance, let alone mine. I leafed through the rest of the sheets. They were filled with facts of Hugh’s life. A condensed summary of everything the Order knew about Roland’s Warlord. “How did you get this?”

Andrea gave me a smug smile.

If Ted found out she’d accessed the Order’s database to get this information, he would boil her alive. “You shouldn’t have done this on my account.”

She crossed her arms. “Oh, thank you, Andrea! You’re the best! What would I do without you? I know how much you worked to obtain these papers, vital to my survival.”

“You’re already on Ted’s shit list. If he gets a whiff of this—”

“He won’t,” she said. “I was very careful. The administrators at the Midnight Games kept very detailed records. The name of every patron was recorded. I was doing my write-up and came across Hugh. Hugh’s name was mentioned very frequently during my advanced security briefing. Things made total sense: the rakshasas had to have gotten Roland’s sword from somewhere, and who better to give it to them than Roland’s Warlord, Hugh? I put two and two together and started digging and I took the long way around, which is why it took me so long to get this stuff. Did you know who Hugh was before we went into that pit?”