Ilona Andrews: Magic Bites

He leaped from the porch, racing into the night, and his brood followed him.

I leaned my head against the wall. The booze made it hard to think. He didn’t die. I hadn’t expected him to. One who can weave the power words into sentences wouldn’t die from a single word.

The cat? He said he’d kill the cat. Was he talking about Jim? No, Curran, it had to be Curran. Jim wasn’t strong enough to threaten my ward. Curran was. All shapechangers had a natural resistance to warding spells. It had to do with the animal part of their nature. Curran’s resistance was the strongest. I could call Jim and warn him.

Who would believe me?

“ ‘And men my prophet wail deride!’ ” I mumbled and dragged myself to my feet.

I called Jim anyway. He didn’t answer the call and the answering machine did not pick up.

THE JOLT OF A WARD BREAKING RIPPED THROUGH my skull. My headache exploded and sleep fled.

Someone was in my house.

I slipped my hand under the pillow, found the handle of a throwing dagger, and pulled the blade free.

I lay awake, breathing quietly. Silence and dark filled the rooms. There was no need to go hunting. Whoever it was would come to me.

A man-sized shadow loomed in the hallway, a deeper darkness against the wall. It hesitated for a breath and approached. I closed my eyes, watching it through my eyelashes.

Six yards. Breathe in and breathe out.

Five.

Four. Close enough.

I hurled the dagger. The black blade spun through the air and bit into the shadow’s shoulder. Crap. Missed.

The shadow lunged for me. I went for Slayer, but the bastard was too fast. I kicked, both feet hard. The shadow swatted my kick aside and grabbed my right wrist. Steel fingers squeezed, and my hand went numb. I hit the shadow in the throat with my left hand. It growled and I found myself staring into yellow eyes.

“Let go of my hand, asshole!”

Curran let go, and I rubbed my wrist. “Damn it, don’t you know how to talk?”

He stared at me, uncomprehending. I reached for the lamp, remembered that the magic was up, and took a candle from the night table instead. I struck a match. The narrow blade of a candle flame flared into existence. Curran stood before me, his eyes wide, unblinking. Tiny red marks covered his face and hands, blending into a uniform coat of crimson. I reached out and touched his palm. Magic stung my fingertips. Blood. Curran was covered with blood, miniscule drops of it swelling from every pore. He had broken through my ward and it had exerted a price.

“Curran?”

He gave no indication of hearing me. He must be dazed from shattering the spell.

The headache pounded at my skull like a hammer. Gaining my feet, I took Curran by the hand, led him to the bathroom, and nudged him into the shower. I turned on the cold water and let the icy cascade splash on his face.

Lowering the toilet cover, I sat down and rested my head on my hands. The water poured. I would’ve killed for an aspirin.

Curran drew a sharp ragged breath and exhaled. Awareness crept into his eyes. “Cold,” he said. Shuddering, he shut off the water and shook himself. The drops extinguished the candle and darkness swallowed us.

I reached blindly and threw a towel at him. Finding the door, I started toward the kitchen. Halfway through the short hallway something fell onto my head. I leaped to the side and grabbed at it. My fingers held a twig.

What the hell?

I looked up and saw the night sky. A large, irregular-shaped hole gaped in my roof. Curran had picked the highest point of the building, where the ward would be the weakest and punched through the ward and the roof with it.

I ground my teeth, went into the kitchen, and found a feylantern. With a little coaxing, it ignited, its gentle blue flame spreading soft light. Curran appeared in the doorway.

“You broke my roof,” I told him.

“It was easier than the door,” he said. “I knocked. You didn’t answer.”

I rubbed my temples. From now on, no more wine.

Something clanked. I looked up. Curran put my dagger on the table.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Sore,” he said.

Telling him that I had been aiming for his throat wasn’t in my best interest.

“You were right,” he said. “It’s not over.”

“I know,” I said softly.

“There is an upir.”

“I know.”

“He has Derek.”

I stared at him.

“I sent Derek and Corwin to the Wood,” Curran said. “He attacked them at the pickup point and took Derek. The last Corwin remembers, the kid had a broken leg, but was alive.”

“What about Corwin?”

“He’s hurt,” Curran said.

“How bad?”

“He’s dying.”

“THIRD TREE FROM THE LEFT,” CURRAN SAID.

We stood on the porch, shoulder to shoulder, the night stretching before us.

“I see him.” A reptilian-looking thing crouched in the branches of the poplar, its long scaly tail wrapped around a tree limb. The watcher Bono had left to keep an eye on me.

“We can’t kill it. Bono thinks I’ll sit in the house and hide behind my wards. If we kill it, he’s going to know. He has some sort of telepathic bond with them.”

Curran strode to the tree. The thing watched him with huge round eyes. Curran jumped, caught a low branch, and pulled himself onto it. The reptilian monster hissed. I went to the shed and brought back a coil of cable wire. Curran grabbed the thing by the neck. It squealed and let go of the branch. He hurled it down and I stepped on it and tied the wire around its neck. Its skin was translucent and colored pale olive, glistening with transparent scales. Curran jumped down and we tied the other end around the tree.

We headed toward the ley line.

WE SAT ON A NARROW WOODEN PLATFORM, hastily thrown together from bits of discarded lumber. They were called ley taxis, cheap wooden constructs that lay in stacks near every ley point. Nothing living could ride the ley line without having some sort of support under its feet. If you were foolish enough to try, the magic current would sever your legs just above the knee.

The ley line dragged us north toward Atlanta at nearly ninety miles an hour. Magic held the taxi completely immobile, so much so that it appeared the rough wooden platform hung still, while the planet merrily rotated past it.

“Explain the bone ward to me again,” Curran said quietly.

“He killed the vampires and fed on them. The flesh he consumed created the bond between their bones and him. By bringing the bones inside and binding them to the stone foundation and the walls, I forced him to fight against himself. It’s nearly impossible to break this kind of ward. I had also dropped the ward-markers all around the yard so he would have a clear passage to my porch. He was too happy to see me to notice.”

“You baited him?”

“Yes.”

“So the bone ward can be reversed, but blood wards can be overcome by a person of similar blood?”

“Apples and oranges,” I said dully. I felt tired and restless at the same time. “The blood ward draws its power directly from the blood, while the Rock-Wood-Bone ward is an environmental ward. It draws power from the magic itself. The presence of bones just defines it, similar to a lens that allows only light of a certain color to pass. He can’t enter my house when magic is up. And since he is magic, he must be too weak to try during tech.”

I watched the planet rotate by, the darkness-drowned valleys and hills rolling on both sides of us. Poor Derek. I clenched my teeth.

“Don’t,” Curran said.

“I should’ve found somebody to listen.” We didn’t look at each other, choosing instead to stare into the night’s face.