Magic Breaks

“Move,” Derek roared behind me.

I rolled to the side. A rusted truck blocked the sky. Derek turned it and hurled it into the hole, hood first. The vehicle slid in a couple of feet and stopped, wedged. A frantic scratching sliced against the truck—Nick’s vines scouring the metal.

I exhaled. My ribs hurt. Small cuts on my shoulders and sides stung as if burned.

“And stay there!” Desandra snarled.

I turned to Derek. “Let me see your hand.”

He thrust his left hand at me. The cuts from the thorns hadn’t closed. The skin around them turned dark. Blood streaked with gray oozed from the wounds. The toxin was killing the Lyc-V inside his body. The scratches on Desandra’s furry arms were still bleeding, too.

“I’m fine,” Derek said.

“Yes. We’re fine,” Desandra added.

There was nothing to be done. The best we could do was to get through to the crime scene and get back to the Keep, where Doolittle could treat them.

Ascanio sniffed at Derek’s hand. “Smells wrong. I think we should chop it off. Here, hold it steady.”

Derek pantomimed squeezing Ascanio’s throat with his other hand.

In the distance the two vampire minds stopped pacing and moved toward us. Shit.

“We have to go.” I jumped to my feet. “Now!”

• • •

CUDDLES GALLOPED THROUGH the streets. No need or time for stealth now. We had to get to the crime scene and get the hell out.

We swung onto Jonesboro and Cuddles pounded down the street. The Fox Den loomed before us, alternating apartment buildings of red brick and yellow stucco fused together into one giant complex. Finally.

The stucco had seen better days. Graffiti marked the crumbling walls. Trash sat in piles in the corners. If you saw the place in daylight, you’d steer clear of it. The night made it even grimmer. It looked like the kind of place that would shelter a rough crowd, driven to desperation by human predators and poverty. The type of people who’d see you being stabbed to death on the landing and shut their doors while you screamed for help.

“I smell Mulradin.” Robert turned right and sprinted toward the entrance to one of the brick buildings. I jumped off Cuddles, tossed her reins over a hook driven into the wall for that purpose, and followed Robert up the stairs. In his warrior form, he didn’t just run, he scurried, so fast, his paws might as well have been greased. I pushed myself to keep up.

One flight. Two, three.

Blood on the stairs. Faint smudges, getting bigger as we moved higher.

A door swung open above us.

I ran across the landing and up just in time to see Robert tear a crossbow out of a man’s hands. He looked about my age, Hispanic, and rough.

“Go inside,” Robert told him.

The man ducked into the apartment. The deadbolt clicked, sliding in place. Robert charged up the stairs and I followed. We cleared the third floor, another landing . . .

Robert stopped. I almost collided with his tail.

“A ward,” he said and stepped aside.

I walked up to the door. An invisible wall of magic enveloped the door.

“Can we get in from the outside?” Derek asked behind me. Next to him Ascanio and Desandra moved to watch the stairs.

I shook my head. Hugh would’ve warded the windows as well.

I pulled Slayer out of the sheath and tested the ward. Magic nipped at the saber’s point and the sword stopped, unable to go any farther. Usually wards had an elastic resistance, like trying to puncture a basketball that had gone a little soft. This ward was completely solid. I’d come across only one type of ward that was both invisible and solid like this.

I crouched and leaned forward, searching the grimy floor. There it was, a barely noticeable dark smudge. Hugh had sealed the place with his own blood.

“It’s a blood ward.” I straightened.

“Can you break it?” Robert asked.

When Julie had caught Lyc-V months ago, I had performed a ritual to cleanse her blood with mine. She retained some of my magic as a result. My father had used the same ritual or one very much like it to bind Hugh to him. My father’s blood was in that ward, which would make breaking it easier for me. But the power of Hugh’s own magic was in it too, and Hugh had a crapload of magic.

“If I break this, the backlash will be a bitch. I’ll be out of commission for a while.” And while I was trying not to pass out, whatever was inside the apartment would grab me. Nicely played, Hugh. One trap after another.

“For how long?” Derek asked.

“I don’t know. Could be seconds, could be minutes. Can you smell anything from here? Anyone inside?”

The four of them stood very still.

“No,” Robert said. “It’s like a wall.”

“That’s some messed-up crap,” Desandra said.

I knelt on the floor and examined the door. Several scratches marked the lock, all old. It had probably been picked, and more than once. Expected, considering the location of the door. The door itself didn’t look forced. Not much to go on. For all I knew, the apartment behind the door lay empty or it contained a giant fire-breathing terrestrial octopus in a bad mood. No way to tell. I had to break the ward.

“Hugh likes magic and traps. Once we’re in, don’t touch anything. Get ready to defend my deadweight.”

“Go for it,” Derek said.

I pulled my left sleeve up and sliced Slayer across my skin, just enough to draw blood. Curls of vapor slithered from the opaque saber. I turned the blade upside down, letting the blood wash over it, raised it, bracing myself, and pushed it into the ward.

The magic buckled, kicking at the blade like a wild horse.

I leaned into it. Slow and steady. My blood hissed on the blade, boiling. I fed my magic into the blade.

The ward didn’t budge.

Come on. I pushed harder.

Slayer stopped as if I were trying to thrust it into solid rock. If I pushed any more, the blade might snap. If I’d had time, I would have just sat there for the next fifteen minutes, keeping constant pressure on the sword, until the ward gave. But we had no time.

“Not working?” Robert asked.

“It’s a game to him.” I pulled Slayer free and slipped it into my left hand. The best way to break a ward was to slowly, methodically push through it. Slowly and methodically had failed, which left me with brute force. If it broke too quick, the repercussion from the magic would be very sharp and severe. This wasn’t my brightest move, but we had to get into the apartment and time was short. “Okay, fine. I’ll play. Stand back a bit. This could go really wrong.”

I squeezed the cut on my left arm, smearing the blood over my fingers, and thrust my hand into the ward. The magic snapped taut, trapping my hand. A hundred tiny needles of magic pierced my skin, tasted my blood, and recoiled. Bright red cracks split the empty air, radiating from my hand.

I pushed.

Thunder cracked in my head, slapping my brain. The ward broke and fluttered to the ground, melting as it fell. The world swam around me, the edges turning fuzzy. I shook my head, fighting to keep upright.

Robert pushed the door open and slipped in. Desandra followed. Derek and Ascanio hovered next to me.

I should probably go in. If I could only stop my ears from ringing . . .

“Clear,” Robert called.

I shook my head. Ow. That only made the pain worse. The doorway wavered in front of me. I had to get into the apartment. Okay, the door had to be at least three feet wide. If I just aimed myself in the right direction, I’d get through. I clenched my teeth. Step. Step. Another step. I was in. Kick-ass. Now I just had to remain conscious and not fall down on my face.

I squinted: an old couch, a threadbare rug, and a stripper pole. A long trail of blood led from the living room through the narrow hallway. Someone had dragged a bleeding body out.

“Oh, this is rich.” Robert laughed, his voice dry.

Derek grimaced.

“Yeah.” Ascanio rolled his eyes.

“Clue the human in,” I said.

“Dorie Davis,” Derek said. “Otherwise known as Double D.”

“Her scent is all over this apartment.” Robert went down the hallway.

“Oh!” Desandra snapped her fingers. “So that’s who it is.”

I followed them down the hallway to the bedroom. The stench of blood clogged my nose, so strong I almost choked on it. A giant bed occupied most of the bedroom, equipped with a padded bench at the foot of the bed and a steel rack above it with several metal rings attached to the wall. The red sheet lay crumpled in a knot, drenched in darker red, the same red that stained the exposed mattress. Mulradin was killed here, no doubt about it. A human body had only so much blood, and most of it had remained in this room.

Derek turned right. Robert turned left. Desandra inhaled deeply, making a slow circle around the bed. They stalked through the room, pausing by objects at random, sampling the scents. Ascanio paused at the entrance to the room, so he could see the front door. “Ripe.”

My legs decided to take a vacation and the room crawled sideways. I really needed a wall to prop myself up on, but touching anything here wasn’t a good idea. “Double D, is that supposed to tell me something?”

“She’s a sofie,” Derek said, the same way one would say She’s a child molester.

“I can tell by your voice it’s bad, but I have no idea what it is.”

“Most shapeshifters don’t have sex in animal form,” he said.

“That’s not strictly true,” Robert said. “Most shapeshifters have sex in animal form, but only once. It’s not that great. It doesn’t last long, it’s awkward, and there’s no communication. Let’s just say, you don’t appreciate having hands until they’re gone.”

“No shit,” Desandra volunteered.

“The exception being the boudas,” Derek said.

Ascanio raised his eyebrows. If looks were knives, Derek would be bleeding.

“The Repressed One is trying to tell you that some people like to screw shapeshifters in animal form while they themselves stay human,” Ascanio said. “They’re called sofies. Skin on fur.”

Robert rolled his eyes and dropped down to the floor to smell the carpet.

“Okay,” I said. “I wish I didn’t know that.”

“Welcome to the Pack,” Robert said. “This is one of those gray areas. Technically, it’s not forbidden. What two consenting adults do on their own time is their business.”

“But it’s bestiality,” I said.

“Yes,” Robert said. “Which is why it’s strongly discouraged.”

Desandra leaned over the bed and swallowed. “The smells here are giving me a sour stomach.”

“Not just you,” Derek said.

“And for the record, I like women,” Ascanio said. “Maybe some wolves out there get turned on by the fur, but I like skin.”

“Oh, will you two quit it,” Desandra said. “It’s kinky forbidden sex. Some wolves do it, some boudas do it, some humans do it. Everybody’s equally f**ked up.”

“We get enough flack from normal humans as it is,” Robert said. “Three years ago there was a campaign to ban wererats from restaurants because we’re disease-ridden rodents. The petition had three thousand signatures before we killed it. A year before, Clan Wolf was sued by a farming cooperative who claimed they would be hunting their livestock. The chief argument was that wolves can’t fight their natural urge to hunt and run prey to ground. If this stuff got out, there would be no end of public outcry. We don’t want to be accused of running a petting zoo for perverts.”

“Dorie is a pay-to-play sofie,” Derek said. “She charges for her services.”

“She doesn’t have to prostitute herself,” Robert said. “She’s an accountant with a decent salary. She does it because she’s decided that it’s an easy way to earn money on the side and because she’s got some sort of itch and this scratches it for her. When Jennifer’s husband was alive, he made a couple of attempts to get her into counseling, but she never went. She is a consenting adult and how she has sex is her own business.”

“She’s one of the only two shapeshifters to date who managed to catch an STD,” Ascanio said. “The other one was a male panther she was with. They caught it together at a, ahem, group event.”

Okay, that would take some doing. Lyc-V exterminated all invaders into its territory with extreme prejudice.

Derek winced. “An STD?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear about that?” Ascanio asked. “They got some kind of magical rabies.”

Derek opened his mouth and closed it. “How did they . . . ? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“I don’t either.” It was best to put that out there before they decided to enlighten me.

“We’re broadening your horizons, Consort.” Desandra grinned.

“My horizons are broad enough, thanks.” Now if only they would stop wobbling, I’d be all set. “I get how Robert and Desandra know about Double D. I want to know how the two of you know.”

Derek and Ascanio made valiant attempts to look casual.

“Everybody knows,” Ascanio said.

“Then why didn’t Desandra identify the scent?”

“When Double D showed up in Doolittle’s medward with the STD, he read her the riot act about safe sexual practices,” Robert said. “She didn’t like it, so she avoids him like the plague. Which is ironic, really, because the plague is exactly what she didn’t avoid.”

“I didn’t quite get that,” Desandra said. “Was it supposed to be funny?”