Magic Burns

by Ilona Andrews

  “Weaker. Pale purple.”

  Purple was the color of undeath. If the creature was indeed undead somehow, she had no consciousness. Someone had to control her, the way Masters of the Dead controlled the vampires.

  “Julie, you have to come out. I can’t protect you if you’re here hugging the toilet. Get up.”

  “She’ll get in. She’ll kill me. I don’t want to die.”

  “You will die if you stay here.” I held out my hand. “Come on.”

  She sobbed.

  “Come on, Julie! Show that bitch you have some backbone.”

  She bit her lip and took my hand. I pulled her up.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Use it. It will keep you sharp. In the Honeycomb, why didn’t the magic grab you?”

  It took her a second to shift gears. “I blended. I made it think I was the same as it was.”

  “Blend with me, then.” Mimicking a different type of magic would camouflage Julie’s mind, forcing the creature to concentrate on the magic object instead. Like hiding a weak light in the flare of a strong one. That thing couldn’t target her mind if it couldn’t sense it.

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve tried already. Your magic’s too strange.”

  Shit. Another side effect of my screwed-up heritage. It wasn’t enough that I had to burn my bloody bandages so nobody could identify me, but now I couldn’t even shield a little kid. What did I have that she could blend with? There were a half dozen enchanted artifacts in Greg’s collection but nothing that exuded enough magic to hide her.

  Slayer.

  “Stay here.”

  I dashed to the kitchen, swiped Slayer off the table, and sprinted back to the bathroom. Julie’s face had gone blank. I thrust Slayer into her hands and barked, “Blend!”

  Awareness snapped back into her eyes. I felt the magic creep to the blade. Julie’s breath came out in ragged gasps.

  A barely perceptible change took place within the magic field. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  The creature screeched in frustration.

  I hugged Julie to me. Physical danger I could deal with, but having Julie turned into a zombie would’ve screwed things up beyond repair. As long as we could keep that bitch out of my kid’s head, we had a chance. She clamped the sword with both hands, face pinched, concentrating on the blade.

  I steered her to the doorway. “Let’s go.”

  We stepped from the bathroom. The creature’s lavender eyes focused on Julie. It licked the ward, burned its tongue on the crimson, and recoiled.

  I tried the phone. Dead. Why me?

  “Giiirl. Want, want, need…”

  “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  The magic crashed. I took Slayer from Julie and tried the phone again. Still dead. Fuck me.

  The creature’s hair fell lifelessly about her. She clutched onto the bars to keep from falling. Yeah! Choke on tech, you piece of crap. No tentacle hair for you.

  The creature thrust her legs against the wall and heaved. The bars bent with a long, tortured screech.

  Julie darted into the bedroom. Now wasn’t a good time to hide. First rule of bodyguard detail: know where your “body” is at all times.

  The creature heaved again. The bars parted.

  I stepped into the kitchen. First I’d deal with my lovely new window ornament and then I’d go and dig Julie out from under the bed.

  Julie reappeared with her knife in her hand. Her fingers shook, making the point of the dagger dance. She planted herself behind me and bit her lip.

  They would not get this girl. Not today. Not ever.

  Boom!

  Something hit the door with a solid thump. Julie jumped.

  “Steady. The door’s solid. It’ll hold.” At least for a few minutes. I stepped deeper into the kitchen and moved a chair out of my way, giving myself space to work.

  At the window, the creature tasted the air with her tongue like a snake and thrust her head into the gap.

  Boom!

  I jumped onto the table and sliced her head off in a classic executioner stroke.

  The head thudded on the table and rolled to the floor. The body froze halfway through the bars. Thick reddish slime slid from the stump of the neck in a slow gush. An oily stench of rotten fish and bitter, stale seawater spread through the room.

  I picked up the head by the tangle of hair and stuck Slayer’s point into the left cheek. The flesh sagged a little, liquefied by the saber’s magic. Nothing as obvious as what the blade would do to a vampire, but Slayer’s magic affected it. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the saber’s blade. Julie was right. Definitely an undead, but not as undead as a vampire. Perhaps, she was just mostly undead. Could you even be mostly undead?

  Boom!

  The door splintered, vomiting chunks of wood onto the hallway carpet. I dropped the head, grabbed Julie by the shoulder, and shoved her to the left, behind the wall.

  The last of the wood fell from the frame. A twin to the creature I had just shortened by a head stepped into my apartment, half-hidden by the black hair drooping to her ankles.

  The magic surged back up, banishing technology. My spell flared shut, two seconds behind the monster. Life wasn’t fair.

  Pale silvery fire ran down the creature’s hair. The glossy strands shivered, stretched…

  I shifted my grip on Slayer.

  Coils thrust, catching the door to the bathroom. Slowly the hair parted, revealing flesh that glowed like a beacon. Feeble radiance shimmered along the creature’s skin, elusive yet hypnotic, like a swamp light, like a glimpse of a mermaid beneath the waves. She held out her hands. The glow rippled down her ankles and spread in a ghostly, gossamer semblance of a fish tail.

  “Girl?” Her voice floated. “Girl?”

  “No girl! Get out of my house, you crazy bitch.”

  The creature leaned forward, her arms ready for an embrace, her lavender eyes full of cold amethyst fire. Thin, flexible…Ten to one, I had pulled Bran’s bolts out of her sister’s skeleton.

  A dirty stream of liquid wet the table under my feet. I chanced a glance at the body behind me. Only a puddle left. I’ve never seen that before. I knew my sword—it made vampiric flesh into goo, but not that quickly.

  The creature spread her hands. Curved claws slid from her knuckles, dripping red slime. Claws that would make long gashes, just like the ones on Red’s neck. He must’ve gotten a mere brush, because judging by the size of those claws, she could rip my heart out with one swipe. The hair grabbed, the claws shredded, and rows of needle teeth finished the job. She was a complete package.

  The creature advanced, slowly, taking her time. Why not? I was cornered. Nowhere to go except outside to a three-story drop. I took a step back and bumped my elbow on the wall, near the fridge.

  The hair snapped like a whip and caught my thigh. I sliced it, severing the strands, swiped the jug of kerosene off the top of the fridge, and sloshed it over her.

  The creature hissed. I dropped the sword and brought my arms together. The hair clamped me and pulled, off the table, across the kitchen, closer and closer to the claws. She didn’t notice the matches in my fingers until a whiff of sulfur announced a fire being born. The hair whipped in panic, lassoing me in crushing coils. I dropped the burning match into its depth.

  It caught all at once. The fire surged, bright orange and hot. I tore myself free.

  The creature screeched and flailed within the inferno. Something popped with the dry hiss of lard dripping into a fire. She stumbled back, crashed against the bathroom door, splintering the wood, and threw herself across the hallway into a mirror. She smashed into it again and again, breaking the glass into smaller and smaller pieces, until at last they showered from the frame.

  I picked up Slayer. Stand still for a moment, and I’ll cure all your problems.

  The blaze belched a cloud of smoke, and the greasy stench of cooked fat filled the room. I gagged. The wealth of the creature
’s hair burned to ash, and gray flecks rained on the carpet and swirled around me, caught in the draft from the doorway. The creature convulsed, a lunatic sparkler about to go out.

  Julie lunged from the kitchen, a knife in hand, and dived into the flames, burying her blade in the creature’s stomach. Oblivious, the monster shook, gripped by a wave of spasms. Julie hacked, swinging wildly, carving chunks from the still burning body. All remnants of restraint fled from her eyes.

  I grabbed her and pulled her to me, away from the fire. “Enough!”

  Julie heaved, swallowing air in shuddering gasps.

  The creature slammed one last time against a wall. Its back snapped like a broken twig. Rivulets of gray liquid burst under the charred husk of her corpse. The puddle spread and started shrinking. I ripped a drawer open, pulled a specimen vial from it, and scooped some filthy liquid. I corked the vial—about a third full and there were ash flakes floating in it. Probably contaminated worse than the city sewer. This was not my day.

  I put my contaminated evidence on the table next to my saber and turned to Julie. “Let me see your hands. What were you thinking?”

  I knew exactly what she was thinking: you or me. That creature had terrorized her. She didn’t run. She didn’t hide. She made a conscious decision to fight it. That was good. Except that Julie fighting a monster of this power was like trying to stop a trained Doberman with a flyswatter.

  Julie’s fingers had turned red where the fire had licked them. Probably minor burns. Could’ve been worse. “There is a tub of A&D ointment in the fridge. Put some on your hands…”

  The magic blinked: gone for a second and up the next. I glanced at the doorway to check if anything came through. A tall figure stood behind my ward. Tall, slightly stooped, it wore a thin white habit. The deep hood hung over its face almost to its chest. Like a corpse, wrapped in white linen and ready for burial.

  A male voice emanated from under the hood, cold, grating, dry like the sound of seashells crushed under a heavy foot. “Give me the child, human.”

  I had met and killed the puppets and the puppeteer decided to make an appearance. How flattering. I pointed Julie back to the left wall, out of his sight.

  “What do you offer for the child?”

  “Life.”

  “Does that come with a possibility of parole?”

  That threw him off track but only for a moment. “Surrender the child.”

  “Life, huh? That’s not a very good offer. Shouldn’t you at least throw in some riches and a pile of handsome men?”

  “Give me the girl,” the whispery voice commanded. “You’re nothing, human. You’re no threat. My reeves shall grate the meat from your bones.”

  So the hair ladies had a name. I bared my teeth. “Then why waste time talking. Take off that hoodie, and let’s go.”

  He leaned back and thrust his arms up. Bulges rolled under the cloth, spiraling around his chest and sliding over his arms. A phantom wind stirred his habit. The cloth parted and within its depth I glimpsed an abomination of a face: a narrow fanged muzzle the color of old bruises, two huge round eyes, dead, cold, and alien like the eyes of a squid, and above them in the middle of the forehead, a soft pale green bump, palpitating like some grotesque heart. Twin streaks of gray ichor leaked from the bump, carving wet paths between the cruel eyes.

  Tangles of green burst from the sleeves of the habit and split into tentacles that fastened above the door and raised Hood off the floor. He hung suspended in the tentacle net. The bump pulsated faster. His whisper flooded the apartment, so strong it soiled my skin. “Asssiiissssst…”

  The magic burst from him in a cannon blast. The ward on my door tore like tissue paper and the blast smashed into me and out of the kitchen window. If the magic had substance, it would’ve shattered the walls. Shocked by the power, my mind took a second to comprehend that wards no longer shielded the door or the window behind my back.

  A coil of black hair grabbed my waist and jerked me back with awesome force, pulling me to the broken window. I smashed into the twisted bars. Fiery pain raked my back and bit deep. I cried out.

  A strand of black hair whipped my arm. Julie froze, her eyes wide in panic. The hair pulled me harder and harder, constraining my chest. I couldn’t shift a muscle. A steel band crushed my lungs. I would pass out and it would get Julie.

  “Kiill…” Hood rasped. Teeth bit into my shoulder and let go. The reeve screeched, burned by my blood.

  She was undead. Pilot her like a vampire. I reached for her mind and hit a wall of Hood’s defense. Impenetrable.

  The hair squeezed. Out of options.

  The pain slashed my back. I strained and let out a single word. “Amehe.” Obey.

  The power word tore from me in a flash of agony as if my insides were suddenly ripped from my stomach. The wall shielding the reeve’s mind shattered. Hood howled in his tentacle net.

  The gaping pit that was the reeve’s mind opened before me. I took it into my fist and squeezed. The hair noose loosened. The hair still held me, but the crushing pressure had vanished.

  I looked through the reeve’s eyes and through my own. Through this strange double vision, I saw Julie curled on the floor in a tiny fetal ball. Hood stared at me. I sensed him waiting in the deep recesses of the reeve’s mind. He brimmed with hate, not just for who I was but for what I was. He seethed, his rage barely contained, a malignant terrible creature who wished the end of humankind. Disgust swelled in me, an instinctual xenophobic response, so strong, it threatened to overwhelm all reason.

  I forced the hair to unwind. It let me go slowly, hesitantly. Even with a power word, I wouldn’t be able to hold the reeve for long. The moment I fumbled, Hood would seize control.

  I stepped aside and pulled the reeve through the bars, through the window, into the kitchen.

  Watch this, you sonovabitch.

  Obeying my unspoken command, the reeve rammed the wall head-on.

  Hit. The drywall crumbled, exposing the hard brick.

  Hit. A red stain spread.

  Hit. Her skull cracked like a dropped egg.

  You won’t get my kid, you hear me?

  The reeve drew back for a final blow, red and gray slime spilling from her head. Hood’s presence fled. A second later I sent her into motion and bailed too, before the dying mind could drag me under.

  Hit.

  A flood of filthy liquid washed the wall.

  My back burned as though molten glass was poured into the wound. The room wavered slightly. I clenched my teeth and raised my sword.

  Hood waited in the doorway. The way was clear. No magic walls separated us.

  I smiled slowly, showing him my teeth. “Three down. One to go. Come.”

  The tentacles contracted, drawing the net tighter. I leaned forward a little, light on my toes, ready to charge.

  The tentacles detached, rolled into the sleeves and under the hem of the robe, and Hood fled, as if swept from the doorway by a gust of wind.

  I looked down in time to see Julie’s legs disappear under the table.

  CHAPTER 10

  I DUCKED UNDER THE TABLE AND ALMOST TOOK A dive. My head swam. Purple circles flared in my eyes, blocking the view of the house, as sharp pain seared my back. Not good.

  “Julie, we have to go.”

  She hit the wall with her back. “You’re like them. Like the People.”

  “No. Completely different.” Exactly like the People. I’m so like the People, that if you knew, you’d run away screaming. “We have to go, Julie. We can’t stay here. There might be more of these things out there and we have a busted door and a busted ward on the window. We’ve got to go.”

  She shook her head.

  The pain sliced my spine in half, wringing tears from my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time something had hurt so much. I forced my voice to go soft. “Julie, I’m still me. I swear to you I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. But now we have to run, before he comes back with more of those reeve things.
Come on, sweetheart. Come on out. Please.”

  She swallowed and took my hand. I helped her from under the table.

  “That’s my girl. Come.”

  “What kind of magic was that?”

  “The forbidden kind. You can never tell anyone I used it or I’ll be in trouble.” The power words commanded the magic itself. They were primal words. It wasn’t enough to know them, one had to own them and there were no do-overs: one conquered them or died. The most accomplished mages had two or three. I had six and I didn’t want to explain why. They were my weapon of last resort.

  “Your back…”

  “I know.”

  There was only one place within reach that offered stronger protection than my apartment: the Order. Under the Order lay the vault. Its wards were impenetrable, and its armored door would take a focused fire from a howitzer to break.

  I tried the phone. Still out. There would be no pickup for us from the Order.

  A fifteen-minute run separated us from the Order’s building. Twenty with the kid in tow. Piece of cake. I could do this. I just needed something to dull the pain. Just for a little bit. And then I’d be fine.

  There was a regeneration kit in the bathroom. I took a step toward the door. A streak of heat ran up my spine and exploded into a jagged hot pain in the base of my neck. It ripped at my bones, twisted my tendons, and dragged me down to my knees. I hit the floor hard, dug my saber into the wood, and clung to it, struggling to stay upright. I had a kid to protect.

  The room melted out of focus. The walls sprouted fuzz and bent, like waves threatening to drown me. I smelled my own blood. Julie grabbed my arm and sobbed. “You gotta get up. Come on! Don’t you die! Don’t die!”

  “It will be okay,” I whispered. “It will be okay.”

  The magic drained from the world. The tech flared, bringing with it a new burst of pain.

  I had to guard the door. It was all I could do.

  I WAS DRIFTING IN AND OUT, CLAWING MY WAY through the fog into consciousness, when I felt someone approach. I slashed on instinct and missed.

  “You’re a fucking mess,” Curran’s voice said.

  Rescued by the Beast Lord. Oh the irony.