Magic Bites (16 page)

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.

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"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
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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 dive. 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.