Gunmetal Magic (61 page)

Something had happened. Something really bad.

I looked at Curran. “I guess we’d better go back to the office.”

I walked through the office doors carrying a vampire’s head smeared in green sunblock. I had picked it up after the draugr had punted it out of the ward zone. It was beginning to smell and needed to be buried in ice ASAP.

Andrea sat at her desk. She was wearing her beastkin shape, a perfect meld of human and hyena. It was a shape that could get her killed. Andrea’s father was a hyenawere, an animal who turned into a human. That made her beastkin, and many older shapeshifters would want to murder her on sight.

“Want” being the operative word. Andrea could take care of herself. On top of that, I would help her, and Curran had made it plain that this was a prejudice he would not tolerate. He was waiting outside now in a parking lot a block away. I had asked him to give us a few minutes.

Andrea’s feet were on the table. Her T-shirt was torn, her pants were in tatters, and a mess of blood and tissue stained both. She wiggled her clawed toes at me.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Andrea raised her hand. There was a bottle in it. She was drinking.

I went into the kitchen, got a ceramic dish from under the sink, and deposited my vampire head inside the fridge. Then I came back, shrugged out of my sword sheath, and sat in the chair.

“What are you drinking?”

“Georgia Peach Iced Tea. Want some?” Andrea shook the bottle at me.

“Sure.” I sipped it. FIRE. “What the hell is in this?”

“Vodka, gin, rum, sweet and sour, and peach schnapps. Lots of peach schnapps.”

I’d never seen her drink before. “Do you actually get a buzz from this?”

“Sort of. It lasts for about thirty seconds or so and then I need another gulp.”

I tried to think. Derek was back at the Keep, but I was pretty sure Ascanio should have reported to the office this morning. “Where is the bane of my existence?”

“In the shower, freshening up.”

Damn it all to hell. “Oh God, who did Ascanio screw now?”

“No, no, he’s covered in blood.”

“Oh good.” Wait a minute. “The kid is covered in blood and we’re relieved. There is something wrong with us.”

“Tell me about it.” Andrea eyed me. “Not going to mention my beastkin appearance?”

“I like it. The torn pants and gore-stained T-shirt is a nice touch.”

She pointed her foot at me. “I was thinking of painting my claws a nice shade of pink.”

Those claws were three inches long. “That would take a lot of nail polish. What about some golden hoops in your ears instead?”

Andrea grinned, baring a row of sharp fangs. “It’s a definite possibility.”

Okay, you know what, screw this.
“What happened?”

“I saw Raphael this morning. I’d called him last night, because Jim put me on some shapeshifter murders and I needed to interview him. I wanted a chance to apologize.”

Raphael, you spoiled moron, what the hell did you do?

I took her bottle and drank from it. I needed some alcohol for the next part. It tasted vile. I swallowed it down anyway. “How did it go?”

“He replaced me.”

“He what?”

“He found another girl. She is seven feet tall, with breasts the size of honeydew melons, legs that start at her neck, bleached blond hair down to her ass, and her waist is this big around.” She touched her claws together. “They are engaged to be engaged.”

Of all the stupid, idiotic things…“He brought her
here
?”

“She sat in that chair right there.” She pointed at a chair. “I’m thinking of burning it.”

Andrea loved Raphael the way birds loved the sky, and until a minute ago I would’ve sworn that he would have run into fire for her. “Did you punch him?”

“Nope.” Andrea shook her head. “After he told me that his new sweetheart’s best quality is that she isn’t me, it didn’t seem like it would make any difference.”

“Is she a shapeshifter?”

“A human. Not a fighter. Not that bright either.” The false cheer evaporated from her voice. “I know what you’ll say—it’s my own fault.”

I wish I knew the right words to say. “Well, you did check out of his life. You checked out of my life for a while.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Andrea looked away.

Raphael was spoiled. He was handsome, and treasured by both his mother and Clan Bouda in general, but he was never known for being mean or cruel. He was also the male alpha of Clan Bouda. He had to have known exactly what sort of risks he faced by bringing another woman and shoving her at Andrea. He had to have done it to provoke a reaction. The next time we met I’d pound his face into ground beef.

Still…I couldn’t believe that there was no method to his madness. He’d chased Andrea for months and he’d won her, then lost her. Perhaps this was some sort of stupid attempt to make her chase him.

“Are you going to fight for him?”

Andrea stared at me like I was crazy. “What?”

“Are you going to fight for him, or are you going to roll over on your back and take it?”

“Look who’s talking. How long did it take you and Curran to have a conversation after that whole dinner mess? Was it three weeks or more like a month?”

I arched my eyebrow at her. “That’s different. That was a misunderstanding.”

“Aha.”

“He brought his new main squeeze here after you called him with a peace offering. That’s a slap in the face.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know.” Andrea growled.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I wasn’t sure she felt Raphael was worth fighting for. But once, when I was in a really bad place, Andrea had told me that she felt like being with Raphael had healed her. She’d said he was picking up broken pieces of her and putting them back together. Well, all the pieces had fallen again, and Andrea was trying to reassemble herself on her own.

I’d seen Andrea fight. I’d seen her in unguarded moments, taken over by bloodlust and rage. Raphael would have to tread very carefully, because whether she decided that she wanted him or revenge, nothing would stop her.

I tried to pick my words carefully. “Nothing is free. If you want it, you have to fight for it.”

“I’m thinking about it,” she said. “How did your day go?”

“I got some head. It was vamp, but still.”

“That good, huh.”

“Yup.”

“I have a glass monster corpse for you. It’s in the freezer.”

I gave her a nice smile. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s a bribe for putting up with my psychotic break.”

The car motor started up. Curran had gotten tired of waiting.

“That’s my ride,” I said.

The door swung open, and Curran walked in. I held my breath. Having Andrea and him at each other’s throats would be more than I could take.

Andrea rose to her feet.

A show of respect for the Beast Lord. I decided that breathing was a good thing.

Curran nodded to Andrea. I got up too, walked over to him, and kissed him, just in case he was entertaining any violent thoughts. He winked at me.

“Hold on, let me grab the vamp head.” I went to the back and got my head.

When I came out, carrying the head in a plastic bag, Andrea and Curran were still in one piece and had been joined by a freshly washed Ascanio.

I waved at Andrea, and Curran and I went to the car. Ascanio tried to linger behind, but Curran looked at him, and the kid decided he’d better follow us.

We got into the car and pulled away.

“And how did your day go?” I asked Ascanio.

He turned to me, a dreamy look on his pretty face. “We killed things. There was blood. Fountains of blood. And then we had barbecue.”

Why me?

When we walked through the doors of the Keep, Doolittle was waiting for us. Roderick’s necklace had turned the color of white gold. He was having trouble breathing. The next magic wave could be his last.

Ten minutes later we rode out of the Keep in a Pack vehicle. Curran drove. I sat in the passenger seat, holding a bowl of jewelry and bullets for our offering. Doolittle and the boy sat in the back. Roderick whistled with every breath, and Curran drove like a maniac to the north leyline, his hands locked on the wheel, his face a grim mask. We reached the leypoint in record time and he didn’t slow down as he drove the Jeep off the ramp into the invisible magic current. The magic clutched the car and dragged it north to the mountains. Whether magic or technology was in ascendance, the leylines always flowed and I was damn grateful for their existence.

The current carried us to Franklin, spitting us out at a remote leypoint, and from there we drove up a winding road to the Highlands. It used to be a ritzy destination, beautiful lakes and waterfalls wrapped in emerald-green forests that spilled from the sheer cliffs. Million-dollar homes, leisure boats, play ranches with pampered horses…But the magic had wrecked the infrastructure and the residents quickly learned that the mountains in winter are much less fun without electricity and takeout. Now the homes lay abandoned or taken over by die-hard locals. Little villages sprang up here and there, small remote communities whose residents peered suspiciously at us as we drove by.

Cliffside Lake was beautiful, but we had no time for
sightseeing. Eight hours after we had left the Keep, we stood by a mountain scoured with white lightning whip marks.

I had expected an altar, or some sort of mark to show the right spot, but there was nothing. Just a cliff.

I dumped a bowl full of jewelry and bullets onto the rocks. They scattered, clinking. “Ivar?”

Nothing happened.

Doolittle’s face fell.

“Ivar, let us in!”

The mountains were silent. Only Roderick’s hoarse breathing broke the quiet.

We should’ve gotten here sooner. Maybe the offering worked only during a magic wave, but as soon as magic hit, the necklace would snap Roderick’s neck.

“Let us in!” I yelled.

No answer.

“Let us in, you fucking sonovabitch.” I hit the mountain with the bowl. “Let us in!”

“Kate,” Curran said softly. “We’re out of time, baby.”

Doolittle sat down on a rock and smiled at Roderick, that patient calming smile. “Come sit with me.”

The boy walked over and scooted onto the rock.

I sagged against the mountain wall.
It didn’t work. All this and it didn’t work.

“It’s pretty up here,” Roderick said.

It wasn’t fair. He was only a boy…I buried my face in Curran’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Can you hear the birds?” Doolittle asked.

“Yes,” Roderick said.

“Very peaceful,” Doolittle said.

I felt Curran tense and looked up.

A man walked up the path. Broad and muscular, built like he wrestled bears for a living, he had a wide face, lined with wrinkles and framed with a short dark beard and long brown hair. He wore a pair of soot-stained jeans and a tunic.

His gaze fell on Roderick and the necklace. Thick hairy eyebrows crept up above his pale blue eyes.

“What are you guys doing up here?” he asked.

“We’re looking for Ivar,” Curran said.

“I’ll take you.” The man looked at Roderick and held out his hand. “Come, little one.”

Roderick hopped off the rock and walked over. The dark-haired man took his hand. Together they walked up the steep mountain path. We followed.

The path turned behind the cliff, and I saw a narrow gap in the mountain, its walls completely sheer, as if someone had sliced through the rock with a colossal sword. We walked into it, stepping over gravel and rocks.

“Where are you folks from?” the man asked.

“Atlanta,” I said.

“Big city,” he said.

“Yes.” None of us mentioned the necklace choking the boy’s throat.

Ahead the sun shone through the gap. A moment and we passed through and stepped into the light. A valley lay in front of us, the ground gently sloping to the waters of a narrow lake. A watermill turned and creaked on the far shore. To the right a two-story house sat on the lawn of green grass. A few dozen yards to the side a smithy rose and behind it a garden stretched up the slope, enclosed by a chain-link fence. Further still, pale horses ran in a pasture.

The necklace clicked and fell off Roderick’s neck. The dark-haired man caught it and snapped it in half. “I’ll take that, then.”

Roderick drew a breath. Tiny red dots swelled on his neck, where the necklace had punctured skin.

“No worries,” the man said. “It will heal in the next magic wave.”

A shaggy gray dog trotted up to us, spat a tennis ball out of his mouth, and pondered Roderick with big eyes.

“That’s Ruckus,” the man said. “He’d like it if you threw the ball for him.”

Roderick picked up the tennis ball, looked at it for a moment, and then tossed it down the slope. The dog took off after it. The boy turned to us.

“Go ahead,” Doolittle told him.

Roderick dashed down the slope.

“So you’re Ivar,” I said.

“I am.”

It finally sank in. The necklace was gone. Roderick was safe. My legs gave a little bit and I leaned against the nearest tree.

Ivar studied me. “Oh now, that’s not good. Why don’t y’all come down to the house? Trisha was making iced tea before I left. It should be about done.”

As if in a dream I followed him down to the house. We sat on a covered porch, and Ivar brought a pitcher of tea and some glasses.

“Why make a necklace that would strangle a child?” Curran asked.

“It’s a long story.” Ivar sighed. “I take it you know what I am?”

“A dvergr,” I said.

“That’s right.” Ivar looked at his hands. They were large, out of proportion to his body. “I work with metal. As long as I can remember, the metal spoke to me. Some things I make are harmless. Plows, horseshoes, nails. Some are not. I have made a blade or two in my time. The thing is, once the blade is out of your hands, you can’t control what it’s used for. I try.”

“Like with Dagfinn?” I guessed.

Ivar nodded. “How is that boy doing?”

“Well,” Curran said.

“Good to hear. He had a bit of a temper, that one.” Ivar looked out at the river’s shore where Roderick and Ruckus chased each other. “Trisha is my second wife. My first one, Lisa, well, she was…The best I can figure, she was elfin. No way to know for sure, of course. She showed up on my doorstep one day and stayed. She was beautiful. We had a daughter, but the valley life wasn’t for Lisa, so one morning I woke up and she was gone. Left the baby with me. I did my best to raise her. She had hair like gold, my Aurellia. But I must have done a lousy job raising her. There was never any warmth in her, no empathy. I don’t know why. She was fully grown when a young man came down to the valley. He said he wanted to apprentice himself to me. To learn about smithing. I don’t take apprentices, but the boy had talent, so he and I made a bargain. He would stay with me for a decade.”