Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) - Page 5
BETSI WOULD NOT START. A WERERAT MECHANIC took one look under the hood, mumbled something about the alternator, and pointed me toward the stables.
Before we left, I popped Betsi's trunk, untied the strings holding the long oiled-leather roll and pulled it open, displaying swords and daggers secured in leather loops. The moonlight silvered the blades.
"Wow," Derek said.
Men and swords. My father said that if you put any able-bodied man, no matter how peaceful, into a room with a sword and a practice dummy and leave him alone, eventually the man would pick up the sword and try to stab the dummy. It is human nature. This young wolf was no different.
"Choose a weapon."
"Whatever I want?"
"Whatever you want."
He examined the row of cutlery, his face thoughtful. I thought he'd go for a leaf blade, but he ignored it and his fingers strayed toward Bor instead. It was a good sword, especially for a beginner, with a thirty-two-inch blade and an ash-sheathed hilt just under eight inches long. It had a straight steel guard with sharp tips pointing downward and a no-nonsense steel pommel. Like all weapons I owned, it had a superb balance.
Derek held it upright.
"It's light!" he said. "I went to a sword fair once, and the swords there were way heavier."
"There is a difference between a sword and a swordlike object," I said. "What you saw at the sword fair were mostly reasonable imitations. They are pretty and heavy and they make you slower than a slug on vacation. This one only weighs two pounds."
Derek swung the sword in a practice slash.
"It's a working sword," I said. "It won't break and it doesn't send a lot of vibration back to your hand when you strike a target."
"I like it," he said.
"It's yours."
"Thanks."
I grabbed my utility bag and we were ready to go. Derek made some sniffing noises at the bag. "I smell gasoline."
"You smell right," I told him and left it at that. Explaining that I carried a large canteen filled with gasoline in my bag in case I spilled some of my blood and had to clean it up in a hurry would've been too complicated.
THE PACK LENT ME A MARE. HER NAME WAS FRAU. The stable master swore that while she wasn't the swiftest beast in the stables, she was obedient, strong, and steady as the rock of Gibraltar. So far, I had no reason to doubt him.
Derek's dun gelding was perfectly content to let Frau take the lead. The kid rode with the stiffness of a moderately trained rider who had never got quite comfortable with horses. Some shapechangers rode like they were centaurs. Derek wasn't one of them.
Neither of us had spoken since we left the shapechanger keep fifty minutes ago.
If I were to work with him, we had to at least be able to talk. I dropped back, drawing side by side with him. The sounds of hoofbeats echoed on the deserted street.
"Why the arm?" Derek asked.
He was looking at my burn. The custom called for a hand to be thrust into the flame.
"Because I don't heal as quickly as you do. I need my hand to hold my sword."
"Oh. That was a dumb question." He looked away toward the city. Atlanta sprawled, looking relieved to be free of magic and yet also apprehensive, knowing its reprieve would be short-lived.
The moon shone on the sable of the night sky, a pale sliver of a face behind a veil of shadows. Its delicate radiance, a tangle of light and darkness, was all but lost, held at bay by bright street lamps. Electric lights, like the sun, offer no compromises. There are no shadows mixed with their glow, no duality, no promise of hidden depth and mystery, nothing but light, pure and simple.
"Have you ever noticed how some things work during magic and some don't?" he asked.
"For instance?"
"For instance, phones. Sometimes they work during magic and sometimes they don't."
He wanted to talk. Probably looking for some common ground. I'd be an asshole if I didn't oblige. "There are a couple of theories on that. One says that the intensity of the magic wave determines to what extent technology will fail."
"And the other one?"
I grimaced. "Magic is a fluid thing. It's not a strict system set in stone. Every one of us filters it through ourselves and our thoughts and perceptions shape and change it. You've heard how powerful Pope is?"
"Yes."
"He derives his power solely from the faith of his congregation. Thousands and thousands of people believe he can heal the sick and so he can. Now let's take a car. How does it work?"
Derek frowned. "I'm not sure. There is an engine, which burns gasoline and turns it into gas. Gas expands and pushes something, a valve of some sort, which makes the wheels turn. Something like that."
I nodded. "Okay, now how does the phone work?"
He looked at me. "Ummm, your voice makes the wires vibrate?"
"Yes, but how does dialing a number translate into reaching the right person? And what if a bird sits on a wire? Does it still vibrate?"
Derek shrugged. "I have no idea."
"I don't either. And most other people don't. They never had to stop and think about how the phone works. It just does. Cars are a different matter. They require more maintenance and break down more often man a phone, and the repairs are a good deal more expensive, so any car owner will educate himself about his car's inner workings at least to some degree."
"To keep from being ripped off," Derek said.
"Yes. The theory is that since so many people are ignorant of the basic mechanical principles involved in making the phone work, to them it might just as well be magic. They believe blindly that it will work and it does. On the other hand, cars are viewed as the sum of mechanical parts which are prone to failure, therefore when magic hits, they fail."
"That's a cool theory," he said.
"Unfortunately, it makes my job that much harder."
The magic fluctuation crashed into us. The electric lamps went out and absolute darkness drenched the city. Just when my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, we turned the corner and were greeted by a row of feylanterns. One more turn and we'd reach Casino.
"Do you know where we're going?" I asked.
"To the People's shithole."
I shook my head, waving good-bye to any hopes of preserving my neutrality with him at my side. "I want this to be very clear. No matter what happens, I don't want you to change form unless you have no choice. They can't smell you, since you've showered. Unless you go furry, they have no way of knowing that you belong to the Pack and I'd like to keep it that way."
"Why?"
"One, I want to keep my cooperation with the Pack out of the spotlight. It creates an appearance of impropriety."
"The People wouldn't be thrilled to know you have a wolfman with you."
"Yeah." Ted wouldn't be thrilled either. "And two, once you turn and fight, you'll have to be fed and given a peaceful spot to sleep it off. I don't always have a peaceful spot handy."
"Got it."
"Good."
The city, caught in the light and shadow web of the triumphant moon, lay empty and silent. Maybe the boy wonder would manage to keep his human skin on in the Casino. I certainly hoped so.
THE MAGIC HAD A SELECTIVE APPETITE. WHEN IT came to buildings, it gnawed on the sky scrapers first, from the top down and then it pounced on anything large, complex, and new. The Bank of America Plaza went down first, followed by the SunTrust skyscraper. One Atlantic Center, the Peachtree Plaza, even the new Coca-Cola building took a pe. The Georgia Dome crashed before the proverbial dust cleared, and the rest of the monuments to the engineering might of man raced to commit seppuku in the face of the magic onslaught. So when one day the Georgia World Congress Center rumbled, quaked like a milk tooth about to come out, and collapsed in a huge dust cloud, the locals didn't even bat an eye.
Few expected the People to purchase the lot. Nobody expected them to clear it and raise their own private Taj Mahal in the ruin's place within five years. And when the ornate doors of the magic palace opened and the public saw gleaming rows of slot machines within, well, the city that had seen everything had to stop and stare. The shock lasted only until the first fool realized he had a few bucks in his pocket. Now the Casino was just one of the seven wonders of Atlanta, sucking in the crowds eager to pay the stupid tax. Fortunately for Derek and I, it was late even by the standards of degenerate gamblers and we didn't have to fight the human currents as we closed in on Nataraja's little nest.
I've seen the Casino many times, and yet again, it caught me by surprise. Like an ethereal castle born from a mirage among the shifting desert sands, the People's HQ towered above the city. Alabaster-white in daytime, at night its walls glowed with gold and indigo, illuminated by powerful electric lamps or feylanterns.
The People had made some modifications. A total of eight slim minarets, instead of the original four, flanked the central domed building. High walls enclosed the complex, punctuated by blocky guard towers, equipped with howitzers and sorcerous ballistae. Solemn guards and occasional vampires patrolled the textured parapets. The place oozed necromantic magic.
We made our way between the brass statues of strange gods, poised above the waters of long, rectangular fountains. I recognized a few, but Hindu mythology was never my strong suit.
The largest of the statues stood in a circular fountain of its own just before the entrance. A strange figure, caught in the whirlwind of a fiery dance, balanced on one foot atop an ugly demon. Two pairs of arms protruded from its shoulders. One hand held a flame, the second beat a drum, the third pointed to the raised foot, and the fourth offered a blessing. A cosmic dancer, trampling the ignorance of the world, his body on fire, his face serene. Shiva as Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance.
Derek studied the statue, as I slowed before it, and scowled at the castle. "So he named himself after a god?"
"Yeah."
In this age it took a particular kind of nerve to take the name of a deity for yourself. Nerve was something the owner of the Casino had in abundance, but if Shiva was what he aspired to, he had a long way to go.
Nataraja served as the local lord of the People. The People styled themselves to be a new breed of human or a really old one, depending on whom you talked to. Like the Order, they had domains throughout the country, but unlike the Order, they appeared concerned with accumulating wealth to fund their research into the "mysteries of life and death," as their brochures put it. They had proficiency in a variety of both technological and magical fields; most showed a slant toward necromancy and necronavigation – the raising, studying, and caring for the dead.
The People had power in abundance. Dangerous as hell, they had raised necromancy to the level of art, demonstrating a high degree of professionalism in everything they did, which I admired. It didn't keep me from despising them.
The entrance to the Casino was open to the public. We tied our horses to the rails outside and walked in past the twin sentries wearing black cloaks over chainmail and brandishing scimitars. The scimitars had a worn look about them, the kind that originates from repeated sharpening after being dulled on something hard.
We entered the main floor. I hated casinos. The lure of easy money brought out the worst in people. The air smelled of greed, disappointment, and desperation.
Derek and I marched past the slot machines reconditioned to be run manually. Lost to the world in their concentration to feed more money into the machines, the slot players looked undead, going through the motions with the monotony of automatons. A woman won, jumping frantically as a waterfall of coins spilled, filling the receptacle of her machine. Her face, illuminated by delight, looked berserk, almost mad.
We passed the card tables, turned to a small service entrance, strode through it and found ourselves in a small room opening into a staircase. A pair of lean guards, dressed in the same garb as the sentries outside, flanked the stairs. Almost immediately, as if on cue, a woman stepped into our view.
She stood a couple of inches above five feet, about half a foot shorter than me. Her emerald green dress left no aspect of her figure to the imagination. She was neither slender nor willowy. When writers of sappy romances ranted about "glorious curves tapering to a small waist" and "soft flesh that begged to be explored," they had her in mind. All in all, her body was a far cry from my own. I wasn't jealous. My body served me fine; it was strong, resilient, and equipped with quick reflexes, which let me kill things before they killed me.
I did envy her hair. Fiery red, it fell in curls and ringlets shining with red gold all the way to her hips. Derek's face split into a first-class leer. Rowena smiled as if he had just read her a poem.
"Kate! How pleasant to see you again." Her smile could launch a spaceship into orbit. Coupled with a contralto, tinted with a soft Polish accent, that smile made men lose the last remnants of their self-respect.
I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn't melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena's chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy.
"Sorry we're late."
"Not a problem. Please follow me."
We did, climbing the staircase up the long hallway.
"You've been here before?" Derek asked, his gaze firmly fixed on Rowena's ass shifting under the shimmering green silk a few steps above us.
"Wiggles," I told him.
He blinked, then realized I wasn't referring to Rowena's backside. "Wiggles?"
"She's about fourteen feet long, triangular head, gray and blue scales…"
He was clearly drawing a blank. "Nataraja's pet snake," I explained. "It bolted a few weeks ago. I found it for him at the request of the Guild." Mentioning that I spent four solid days camped out in a swamp, covered in peat and muck, without a change of clothes, would have completely cramped my style.
An icy feeling came over me. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose. We rounded the bend and saw a vampire. It scuttled along the ceiling, heading in the opposite direction, ropy muscles working under the tightly stretched skin, probably dark during life, but now bluish purple. Rowena glanced at it and waved the way people in more technological times must've waved at the security cameras. I felt a particular magic flow from her in a sluggish wave. My stomach lurched and I swallowed, trying not to retch.
The undead sat unnaturally still. The urge to kill it almost overwhelmed me. My hand itched to touch Slayer, resting in its leather sheath on my back. I looked into the empty dead eyes and wondered what it would be like to slide my blade into one, scrambling the brain behind it. I would have liked to kill the man that piloted it even more.
The vampire shifted, springing into motion all at once, and moved on. "This way please," Rowena said, favoring us with another dazzling smile. And we had no choice but to follow while the vampire disappeared behind the turn of the corridor.
The hallway terminated in a huge arched door. It opened at our approach, splitting down the middle. Beyond, Nataraja's pentagonal throne room stretched like a hashish dream stolen from the mind of an ancient teller of The Arabian Nights. Graceful statues stood bathed in the glow of magic lamps that mixed with the gentle reflected radiance of Nataraja's gold throne. Velvet pillows dotted the Italian tile floor and priceless pieces of art struggled to add a touch of refinement to the shocking opulence. Nataraja himself reclined on his throne, like a sultan of legend.
The asshole wore white as he always did and his outfit looked to be worth my six months' salary. It's good to be the sultan.
His throne looked gold. It probably was gold, but my mind couldn't accept that such a concentration of wealth could be wasted on supporting someone's backside. Shaped like an egg set on its wide end and cut in half lengthwise, the throne reached the height of six feet. Stylized exotic animals, at one time considered mythical and now only extremely dangerous, covered the entire surface of the egg, both inside and out, and the precious gems that served as their eyes sparkled in the light of numerous lamps.
Nataraja rested on the throne, half-sitting, half-reclining on his elbow on a plush white cushion. His age was hard to determine. Judging by his features alone, he could not have been much older than forty but visual impressions didn't mean anything anymore. He felt old, much older than me. Two hundred years, maybe three, maybe more. A few years ago I would have said such longevity wasn't possible, since even a hundred years ago technology flowed full force, but my years as a merc had taught me to be very careful with words like "never" and "impossible."
Nataraja looked at me, slightly amused by my presence on his home turf. Olive-skinned and slight in build, he radiated power the way some men radiate strength. His hair, coal black and straight, framed an angular face, with a wide, high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and a weak chin, hidden by a carefully cut, ultra-short beard. His eyes, very dark and piercing, had a magnetic effect. When he stared, he appeared to look deep inside you, discovering the hidden thoughts and secreted ideas and taking them for his own. His gaze made it nearly impossible to lie to him. I still managed.
Wiggles hissed as I crossed the floor toward the throne. She fixed me with her empty hateful eyes and smelled the air, her long tongue shivering through the slit of the lipless mouth. Nice to see you too, sweetheart. Remember my cattle prod?
Rowena strode to the snake, her hand settling on the huge triangular head. Weighing nearly two hundred pounds, Wiggles could not be picked up and carried away, and snakes cannot be trained, since most of the time they assume that humans are warm walking trees. Wiggles, however, was a freak born of magic and genetic manipulation. She was still dumb by mammalian standards, but she knew that a hand on her head meant pain if she moved, so she settled into long languid coils at Rowena's feet.
Nataraja's voice came like a whisper of scales on rough stone. "Kate."
"Nate."
He grimaced. "I'm not in the mood to be disrespected."
"No wonder. It's quite late for a man of your age. Ever thought about retirement?" You know you will do it and I know you will do it. Let's get it over with. Test me, you sonovabitch, so I can fight you off once again and then we'll talk.
His power slammed into me, pressing, pushing me to the floor. His eyes grew into bottomless pits, commanding, all-powerful, sucking me into their awful depth, promising slavery and pain.
I clenched my teeth and held him, trying to shield Derek.
Nataraja pushed harder, his power welling like an avalanche, distorting the world, overwhelming it until nothing was left but his will and mine, locked against each other. A painful shudder pulsed through me. His face twisted and he bit his lip.
"Temper, temper," I said through my teeth.
"Aren't mood swings a sign of early senility?" Derek's strained voice said from beyond.
The awesome pressure ebbed for an instant and I gathered my magic, summoning every reserve I had. Strike against the kid, Nate. Strike so I can kill you.
The pressure fell abruptly and I was hurled back from a long black tunnel into the real world. Nataraja backed off, sensing the danger. Damn it.
I glanced at Derek. His face looked bloodless. His hands clenched into fists.
Nataraja was once again playing an amused host. "I see you brought a pet," he said. "He talks like you." One day, his face promised. One day we'll settle this.
"My bad habits rubbing off." Any time.
A whisper announced a new arrival. Ghastek came through the arched doors, carrying a briefcase and wearing khaki pants and a black T-neck sweater. He looked so absurd against the backdrop of Nataraja's vulgar throne room that I almost laughed.
Ghastek nodded to me and came to stand by his master's throne. Both men were of slight build, but where Nate was slender, Ghastek was thin. A diet of steaks and lots of hours in the weight room could make him lean and sinewy, but I doubted he ever looked at a dumbbell, let alone handled one. He was beginning to bald and the receding hairline added height to his forehead. His face was plain, saved from unremarkable only by dark eyes betraying his intellect and that slight touch of distance particular to people who spend their time immersed in thought.
"Ahh, Ghastek," Nataraja said as if greeting a favorite pet. "I was just pondering Kate's new amusement. He would be her…"
I indulged him. "Apprentice."
"Apprentice." Nataraja rolled the word in his mouth, tasting it. "How modest. Considering his age, it's actually appropriate, although out of character."
"I hate to disappoint you, but our relationship is strictly professional."
Nataraja's laugh polluted the air. "Of course," he said, as if humoring a small child. "How insensitive of me."
I smiled at him. "Indeed. Now that we've established that you have appallingly poor taste, would you like a chance to chat with me as a representative of the Order or shall I make my exit?"
"Suddenly you're all business. Very well." Nataraja leaned back. "I'm dissatisfied with the direction your investigation has taken you."
I bared my teeth at him. "I find that amusing. I don't answer to you."
He didn't say anything, so I elaborated. "I work for the Order and the last time I checked the Order didn't report to Roland."
It was amusing to see the effect of the name. Both men jerked, as if shocked with a live wire.
"As you can see, gentlemen, I have access to the Order's database." Which was a blatant lie but they had no way of knowing it. Roland's name short-circuited their logic. If they realized how I knew the name of their leader, they both would suffer an instant apoplexy.
"Here is what I know, and please, correct me if I'm wrong. Ghastek's shadow vampire was tailing Greg Feldman. It was killed suddenly and you haven't been able to extract an image of the killer from the mind of the journeyman who had been piloting it. You've made no effort to disclose this information to the Order, which is understandable since you'd have to explain why your vampire was following the knight-piner. What I don't understand is why you have been making so much noise over a single vamp."
A long pause stretched and then Nataraja jerked his wrist in a kind of "tell her" gesture and looked aside, seemingly losing all interest in our conversation. Rowena remained tranquil, her hand on the snake's head. I wondered what went through her mind.
"We've lost more than one vampire," Ghastek said.
"You have proof?"
Ghastek opened the briefcase and extracted a stack of photographs. Deja vu. He walked forward to give the stack to me. Derek stepped between us, wordlessly took the pictures from his hand, and delivered them to mine.
I looked at a black-and-white image of a deceased vampire. The bloodsucker lay in a crumpled heap, its wiry body pitifully broken. Thick dark blood stained its pallid hide. The vamp was coated in it, as if someone had dipped his hand into the blood and smeared it all over its taut skin the way one would rub oil over the skin of a chicken to prepare it for roasting. The bloodsucker's bald cranium had been neatly cracked and wet emptiness glared at me where the brain had been.
The second photograph. The same vampire, this time placed on its back to better display a long gash that split its torso from the genitals to midchest. Yellowish ribs protruded from the blackness of bloody tissue. Someone had used a very sharp knife to cleave the cartilage of several ribs on the left side, separating them from the sternum, not sawing but slicing in a single motion with awful force. The vamp must have been turned on its side to allow the stringy clot of its nearly atrophied intestines to fall out. There was no fat attached to the intestines, so the killer didn't have to bother with cutting it. Same with the bladder and colon; both organs had atrophied within weeks of undeath, so he didn't have to deal with the mess.
The diaphragm was neatly slit, both to remove the remaining intestines and to gain access to the esophagus. He must have peeled back the diaphragm and worked his hand up the chest cavity until he could grab the esophagus and cut it. Then he simply had to pull the esophagus out through the hole, and the blood-soaked, useless lungs and bulging heart would come out with it. I've seen this before. That's how you gutted a deer.
"He took the brain, the heart, the lungs, what was left of the liver and kidneys, but discarded the intestines," Ghastek said.
I raised an eyebrow, since I didn't see the intestines, and he murmured, "The next photograph."
I looked and saw the ugly wet clump of innards in a puddle of blood. Unused, they had shrunk until they resembled tough twine.
"Admirable skill," Ghastek said dryly. "The cuts were made with almost surgical precision. He has an excellent knowledge of the vampiric physiology."
"Any chance of it being an inside job?"
Ghastek looked at me as if I had accused him of devouring small children.
"We are not stupid," he said, meaning I'm not stupid. "All of our people with that degree of skill are accounted for."
"Besides this one and the shadow, how many did you lose?" I asked.
"Four."
"Four? Four vampires?"
Ghastek shifted uncomfortably, looking as if he had tasted something slimy and sour. "We aren't happy about the situation."
"Where are the other photos?"
"We have none. The others were taken. We were not able to recover the bodies."
"What do you mean, taken?"
"Something killed them instantly, severing the link between their minds and the navigators who piloted them. Then their bodies were removed before our field team was able to recover them." He produced a piece of paper covered with neat typescript. "Here's the list of the locations, dates, and times."
Derek took the list from him and gave it to me. I glanced at it and put it in my pocket. Six vampires and seven shapechangers. Someone was trying to start a war between the Pack and the People and was doing a damn good job of it. Who would benefit from it?
"You're out six vampires and you can account for only two of the bodies. Are you positive that the other four aren't active?" The idea of four unpiloted vamps running around the city made me hurt with dread.
"They are deceased, Kate!" Nataraja snapped out of his reverie. "Why don't you ask Curran and his pet lympago what was done to our property?"
A lympago was an inaccurate term to use for Corwin but Nate seemed so happy to have found it that I let him wallow in his own ignorance.
"I spoke to the Pack," I said. "I've been able to clear Corwin to my satisfaction."
"That's not good enough for me," Nataraja said.
"It'll have to do." All of this verbal fencing strained my patience. "His m-scan didn't match."
"I saw the m-scan of the crime scene," Ghastek said, coming to life like a shark sensing blood in the water. "There was no power print except for our vampire and the piner."
Shit. Me and my big mouth. I should carry a banner with a big sign, "Confidential Information Given Away Free!" At least it would let people know upfront who they were dealing with.
"You must not have been looking at the right m-scan. The one I saw had a clear power record of the murderer."
I could almost feel that formidable brain working behind Ghastek's eyes. "Would you be willing to provide us with a copy of this other m-scan?"
"Would you be willing to tell me why the hell your shadow vampire was tailing Feldman?"
"Perhaps we merely wanted to keep an eye on the piner," Nataraja said.
I pretended to consider it. "No. I don't buy it. Keeping a vamp in the field is too expensive for casual surveillance."
"We have nothing further to discuss," Nataraja said.
"A pleasure seeing you, too," I said.
"Ghastek, escort the Order representative out of our territory." Nataraja grimaced. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to her. I simply couldn't bear it."
Ghastek gave me an odd look and walked out with us, leaving Rowena and Nataraja behind.
As soon as we were out of Nate's earshot, I stopped. "You don't really have to escort me."
"But I do."
"In that case I have a question."
Ghastek looked at me.
"If I were to taint a living animal with necromantic magic, how would I do it?"
"By taint you mean… ?"
There was no way out of this question without giving myself away. I was too stupid for this job.
"A sufficient amount of necromantic magic to produce a blended power print."
"What color?"
I strained to keep from gritting my teeth. "Pale orange."
He thought about it. "Well, the most obvious answer would be to feed an animal on necro-infused flesh. If a rat gorged itself on the flesh of a vampire, the necromantic magic would show up in its stomach contents. Some of it would make its way into the blood stream. But, since it's obvious, it's also wrong. I've scanned animals that fed on undead flesh before and the power print showed a pure necromantic arch."
"The magic of the undead flesh overwhelmed the magic of the animal?"
Ghastek nodded. "Yes. To produce a blended power print, the influence of the necromantic magic would have to be very subtle. In theory – and this is only in theory – it would have to involve reproduction."
"I don't understand."
"If you ask me nicely, I might explain," Ghastek said.
"Could you please explain this to me? It's important and I would very much appreciate it."
Ghastek allowed himself a smile. It touched his lips