Ilona Andrews - Magic Bleeds

He knelt by the trunk. It was a large, rectangular trunk, made of old scarred wood reinforced with strips of metal. Saiman flicked his fingers and produced a piece of chalk with the buttery grace of a trained magician. He drew a complex symbol on top of the trunk. A dry metallic click sounded from the inside. Slowly and with great care, Saiman lifted the lid and took out a bowling ball. Blue and green, swirled with a gold marbleized pattern, the ball had seen some wear and tear.

“Have you ever heard of David Miller, Kate?” Saiman asked.

“No.”

Saiman reached into the trunk and retrieved a plastic pitcher tinted with hunter green. “David Miller was the magic equivalent of an idiot savant. All tests showed that he had an unparalleled magic power. He constantly emanated it the way an electric lamp emanates heat.” He set the pitcher next to the bowling ball. “However, despite numerous attempts to train him, Miller never learned to use his gift. He led a perfectly ordinary life and died a perfectly average death from heart failure at the age of sixty-seven. After he had passed on, it was discovered that the objects he had handled most during his life had gained a magic significance. By manipulating them, their owner can achieve a rather surprising and occasionally useful effect.”

Interesting. “Let me guess, you hunted the objects down and acquired them?”

“Not all of them,” Saiman said. “Miller’s descendants made a concerted effort to scatter the objects, selling them to different buyers. They had agreed that concentrating all of that power in the hands of a single person was foolhardy. But I will collect them all, eventually.”

“If they were worried, why sell the objects at all?” Mark asked.

Saiman smiled. “The lack of money is the root of all evil, Mr. Meadows.”

Mark blinked. My guess was, nobody ever called him by his last name. “I thought it was ‘the love’ of money.”

“Spoken like a man who never went hungry,” Ivera said.

“Besides,” Saiman continued, “the family had concerns for their safety. They were afraid they would be robbed and murdered by enterprising parties interested in Miller’s collection. Considering the worth of the objects, their worries were quite valid.”

He extracted a key chain from the trunk and carefully closed it. “I’ll need a pitcher of water and five glasses, please.”

A couple of mercs brought over a full glass pitcher from the cafeteria and five glasses. Saiman surveyed the floor and headed to the front door, chalk in hand. He drew a semicircle about ten feet from the doorway, the curve facing the center of the room and chalked an odd symbol into it. Then he crossed to the spot of Solomon’s death, drew another larger semicircle, straight side flush against the elevator shaft, and filled it with perfectly round circles. I counted. Ten.

“Bowling pins?” I asked.

“Precisely.”

Saiman returned to the table, freed the keys from the chain, and handed each of the five keys to the Four Horsemen and Mark. “Hold them between your hands and try to recall the event in your mind. What did you see? What did you hear? What smells floated in the air?”

Saiman poured the water from the glass pitcher into Miller’s plastic one.

Ken, the Hungarian mage, studied the key. “What sort of magic is this?”

“Modern magic,” Saiman said. “Each age has its own magic traditions. This is ours. It’s unlikely that most of you will see a repetition of this ritual in your lifetime. This magic is extremely rare and very taxing. I only perform it for very special clients.” He smiled at me.

Oh good. He just made everyone involved think we were sleeping together.

I smiled back. “I’ll be sure to inform the knight-protector that he should be very generous in his compensation.” Right back at you. Let them scrub the image of a naked Ted Moynohan out of their brains.

After half a minute, he collected the keys, slipped them back onto the keychain, and dropped it into the pitcher. The keys sank to the bottom. Magic pulsed from the pitcher, breaking against me. It felt like someone had clamped a furry soft paw over my eyes and ears, then vanished.

Saiman poured an inch of water into each glass and glanced at the eyewitnesses. “Drink, please.”

Juke grimaced. “That shit ain’t sanitary.”

“I’m sure you’ve swallowed much worse, Amelia,” Saiman said.

“Amelia,” I said. “What a lovely name, Juke.”

She scowled at me. “Drop dead.”

“Drink the water,” I told her.

She skewed her face. “I already told you everything I saw.”

“Our memory is much more detailed than our recall,” Saiman said. “You might be surprised how much you do remember.”

Juke gulped it down.

Bob drank his with a stoic expression. Ivera peered into hers and drained it. Mark tossed his down like it was whiskey. Ken was the last. He drank his water very slowly, in sips, holding each swallow in his mouth, probably trying to glean some sort of knowledge from it.

Saiman picked up the bowling ball. “Please remain sitting through the event. Don’t interfere with the illusion in any manner. Kate, you may move if you wish; however, don’t intersect the image. Is everyone clear?”

An assortment of affirmative noises answered him. He strode to the first semicircle, held the ball at his chest for a long moment, bent, and sent it hurtling across the hall’s floor. As the ball rolled, a different reality bloomed in its wake, as if someone had pulled a zipper on the world, revealing the past. Solomon’s murder took place in the afternoon, and the light slanted at a different angle from the present midmorning sun, clearly marking the edges of the illusion: an oval about thirty feet at its widest stretching through the hall.

The ball smashed into the second semicircle, scattering the imaginary pins. It would’ve been a perfect strike.

Two men dropped from above into the oval. One was Solomon, his eyes bulging, his face bright red. He landed badly, on his back, but jumped to his feet.

His opponent landed in a crouch. A spear fell next to him. The Steel Mary straightened to six and a half feet. A cloak hung about his shoulders. His hood was up. From where I stood, I could only see the dark fabric.

I ran along the illusion’s edge toward the elevator shaft.

Solomon hammered a vicious kick at the Steel Mary’s side. The Steel Mary leaned out of the way, his cloak flaring about him. Solomon’s foot passed within a hair of his face. Solomon spun for a back kick, and the Steel Mary backhanded him. Solomon flew through the air, crashing against the elevator shaft just as I braked next to him, at the edge of the illusion.

The Steel Mary picked up the spear and walked to us, each step a deliberate point, like the toll of a funeral bell. The hood shifted back and I caught a glimpse of large eyes, dark, almost black, framed in the thick velvet of long eyelashes and brimming with power.

A woman.

I froze. There was something so hauntingly familiar about those eyes. If I just stood still, I could figure it out.

The Steel Mary opened her mouth. Words poured forth, resonating through me. “I offer you godhood, imbecile. Accept it with grace.”

Perfect English. No accent. No clue to nationality. Damn.

The Steel Mary grasped Solomon’s shirt with her left hand, jerked him up against the elevator shaft, and thrust. The spear head sliced through Solomon’s windpipe. Blood gushed. Solomon screamed, writhing on the spear. Crimson spurted from his mouth.

The Steel Mary raised her right hand, fingers rigid like talons, and thrust it into Solomon’s chest. “Hessad.” Mine.

The power word clutched at Solomon. His body strained, his back arching. He screamed again, a terrible hoarse bellow of pure pain. Blood burst from his chest and collapsed back, sucked inward into the wound. A long exhausted sigh broke from Solomon’s lips. He sagged. His eyes rolled back into his head. His body shook once and became still.