Magic Binds

CHAPTER 5

WE WENT DOWNSTAIRS and split up. Curran went to catch up with old friends, while I went to the guard station and asked to use their phone. They let me into an empty conference room and closed the door.

I dialed Sienna’s number. She picked up on the first ring.

“Yes?”

“Look into my future.”

Silence.

Sienna’s ragged whisper filled the phone, distant. I couldn’t make it out.

She gasped. “He’s coming . . . Fly higher, horse. Higher! The bridge . . . Don’t let go, Kate . . .”

The phone went silent. A flying horse. Was I riding a flying horse? I sure hoped not. Heights weren’t my favorite. There was a bridge in Mishmar . . .

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“It’s not what I did. It’s what I decided to do. Does the city burn?”

“Kate, this is a path of sacrifice . . .”

“Sienna, does the city burn?”

“It may. But it may not. You’ve made the future murky.”

I would take murky. Murky was great. “Good.”

“Kate, wait. As I’m looking into your future, so is Roland. It makes no sense that he wouldn’t. I don’t know if he does it himself or if he has someone do it for him, but either way, your father will know very shortly that things have shifted and are uncertain.”

And he will likely do his best to knock me back on the course most convenient to him. “So keep going and watch out for my father. Got it.”

“In one of the flashes I caught, I saw you die tomorrow. The head may cause a problem. Be very careful.”

The head? What head? I almost asked her and stopped myself. I’d gone down this twisted path a few times. Knowing too much about the future made things more complicated, not less.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck, In-Shinar.”

She hung up. I hung up too and stared at the phone. Shinar was the name of my father’s old kingdom, the one that started it all. And I had zero clue what Sienna meant by that. Asking her would only lead to more trouble. Oracles never explained things. You asked them a question and they gave you an oddly shaped piece of a puzzle that didn’t fit anywhere and explained nothing until it was too late.

I didn’t have time to sit here and puzzle things out. I had to talk to Jim and convince him to go along with my plan. He would just love that talk.

DURING HIS TIME as Beast Lord, Curran never kept a formal office. He had a space nominally assigned to be his office, but he was never in it and avoided any attempt to enter it like the plague. When he had a backlog of paperwork to go through, he’d spread out at some table, preferably in close proximity to food. Jim kept an actual office at the end of the eighth floor. As I approached, I saw him through the wide open doors sitting at the desk, reading something from a manila folder.

A pair of guards were posted by the doors. I stopped and nodded at both of them. They used to be Curran’s and my guards.

“Let her in,” Jim called without looking up from his reading.

I walked past the guards into the office and sat in the chair in front of him. It was a nice office, spacious, with a plain wooden floor and its own private balcony. The sunlight streaming through the large windows made the severe stone feel airy. Shelves lined the walls, the books and files neatly arranged. Jim’s massive desk was organized with military precision. Unlike most people, Jim clearly didn’t have the compulsion to fill every horizontal surface with things he might one day need and papers he should throw away.

“Yes?” Jim asked.

“I need to have a private conversation.”

He glanced up. “John, Ramona, go grab something to eat.”

The two guards left without saying a word.

“Roland has Saiman.”

Jim smiled, showing me sharp white teeth. Saiman was on Jim’s kill when not needed anymore list. Saiman might have managed to secure Friend of the Pack status for himself, but the moment he did something to piss off the Pack, he’d feel Jim’s claws around his spine and Jim’s fangs on his throat.

“He’s a resident of Atlanta, so Curran and I will retrieve him.”

“You and Curran can do whatever you like. The Pack won’t get involved. There is no benefit for us. If this is what you came to talk about, this will be a short conversation.”

Ass. “No, I’m laying the groundwork. I went to see my father, as you know.”

“You pissed him off.” Jim studied me.

Yep, the scout had reported to him already.

“Yes. He refuses to return Saiman, which forces me to act. He can’t handle the fact that I’m here and I have autonomy. He’s unable to deal with another authority, especially because I’m his daughter.”

“I’m still waiting to hear how any of this concerns me.”

“The Witch Oracle has been looking into the future repeatedly, over the past month. They predict a war. It will go one of two ways. One, my father kills Curran, the Pack is slaughtered, the city burns, the witches die.”

His face betrayed no emotion.

“Two, my father kills my son. Impales him on a spear. The Pack is slaughtered, the city burns, the witches die. I saw the visions. Hell on Earth is coming.” I leaned back. “We have four weeks before the first possibility might come to pass.”

Silence lay between us, heavy like a brick.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked.

“Yes. I need my aunt’s blood and bones.”

“Why?”

“So I can take them to Mishmar.”

He stared at me. A muscle jerked in his temple. Oh no. I’ve given the Beast Lord apoplexy. That seemed to be my calling in life.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m trying to decide if I really heard what you said or if somehow my brain quit on me and I hallucinated.”

“Take your time.”

“Mishmar. Your father’s hellish prison he cobbled together from the remains of office buildings from Omaha, which he destroyed. The Mishmar that’s stuffed to the brink with mutated vampires. That Mishmar.”

“Yes.”

“You barely got out alive from Mishmar the last time, and you had Curran, me, two alphas, one of the best fighters in the Pack, the best Master of the Dead in Atlanta, and Nasrin, the miracle-working medmage. You even had a guide. We still barely escaped.”

“I’m not going in deep. Only to my grandmother’s body.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

“I’m going to bring my aunt’s remains to my grandmother and beg for her help.” Every convincing lie had some truth to it.

“You told us your grandmother is an entity beyond this world. She is filled with grief and rage and you want to take your aunt’s bones there. Did you forget that you killed your aunt? You stabbed her in the eye. What is your grandmother going to say about that? Are you expecting a warm family reunion?”

“Jim, my aunt was the City Eater. She was larger than me, stronger than me, and a magical powerhouse. She wanted to die with honor and she let me take her life. It was her choice. I was a conveniently honed tool in the right place at the right time.”

“And you think the insane thing that’s your grandmother will understand all that?”

“Yes.” No, but it didn’t matter. If I told him my actual plan, he would think I was insane.

“Did you run any of this by Curran?”

“I told him I was about to do something idiotic and dangerous, and he told me to go ahead and let him know if he could help in any way.”

“I don’t understand your relationship.”

“You don’t have to. Jim, I’m desperate. I can’t protect the city. I can’t even protect the man I love or our child, if the visions are true. Today, right now, this is our chance to make sure Atlanta doesn’t become another Omaha. Or we can move. Every time Roland gets near, we’ll scoot a little farther west, until we end up in San Francisco.”

Jim grimaced. When you’re hitting home, keep going. I plowed on ahead.

“We both know that empires are built on trade routes and good logistics. Right now he’s landlocked in the Midwest. He wants access to a port. He can’t go west, because he’d have to clear mountains and a desert. He can’t go down to Mississippi. Nobody wants to mess with Louisiana, because the native magic is too strong there and because his ships would have to clear the gulf, which is full of ship-eating things. That leaves him with the Eastern Seaboard. If he swings north, he will have to fight the federal government and he isn’t ready for it. His only logical choice is Atlanta. It’s the key to the entire South. He can’t have this city. He will drain it dry and I don’t mean financially. I mean magically. If he claims it, he’ll feed on it like a leech to boost his own power. You remember the Lighthouse Keepers. You know what happens when someone’s magic is completely drained. Help me to keep this from happening.”

He sighed. “What do you need?”

“The Pack has my aunt’s body and blood. I’ll need to pick it up so I can transport it to Mishmar.”

“I couldn’t keep you from taking it anyway,” Jim said. “You’re next of kin.”

“I know.” Georgia’s legal code specifically stated that the bodies of all shapeshifters had to be returned to their families. The Pack had lobbied for this law to be passed. Curran had wanted it in place to make sure that no shapeshifter organs were sold on the black market. Because the law had originated from him, the Pack also codified and honored it, extending it to all Pack members rather than only shapeshifters. At the time I stabbed my aunt in the eye, I was a member of the Pack.

“I wanted you to know why.”

Jim’s face was grim. “And the Oracle thinks the battle is inevitable?”

“Yes.”

His expression turned darker. I knew what he was thinking. To evacuate or not to evacuate. He’d have to make a decision regarding sending the children out of the Keep. He’d have to decide if he should pull in his forces to fight or scatter them to keep the casualties low. I’ve been in that precise spot before. The weight of every decision was enough to crush your spine.

“If I go to the Witch Oracle, will they show me the vision?” he asked.

“You can ask. There is no harm in it. All they can do is say no. Will you have the remains in some sort of portable form?”

“I’ll look into it. Kate, don’t think that it’s you against him. That’s how you talk about it, but it’s not true. He’s by himself, but you have all of us. We’re in it together and we’ll stand against him together. You have a lot of goodwill in this city.”

“Thanks, Jim.” That was unexpected.

“And if you ever turn into your father and feed on this city like a leech, I will kill you.”

Really? Not even in your wildest dreams. “If I ever turn into my father, you will kneel and pledge yourself to me, Jim. And you will be happy doing it.”

His expression turned flat.

I winked at him, got up, and left. That wasn’t the smartest thing to say, but I was getting sick of people threatening me and he had no room to talk. Let him chew on that reality check.

OUR HOUSE WAS dark. No lights on except for a feylantern. I gave it the evil eye.

“Julie’s avoiding me.”

“Can you blame her?” Curran asked. “She knows she’s in trouble. She’s hoping you’ll cool off.”

“Avoiding me makes me more pissed off. Eventually, I’ll go and find her, and she won’t like it.”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “You’re too busy with—what was it again you were going to do?”

“Ha. Ha. Nice try.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

The door in the house across from us opened. The place used to belong to my human nemesis, but she and her husband decided that we had poisoned their entire neighborhood and moved out. George and Eduardo snapped up their house. Curran had offered them one of the spare homes he had purchased, and initially they moved into the place next to Barabas. But once our neighbors put their house on the market, George and Eduardo walked through it and had to have it. I never asked where the money to buy it came from, but Mahon and Martha visited them often and Eduardo let it slip that they had no mortgage.

George stepped out onto the porch and waved at us. “Hey you, we have dinner!”

Curran’s eyes lit up. “They have dinner.”

I laughed and followed him out of the car to the house. The magic was so strong tonight. I could’ve stayed here on the street so I could feel it spread through my land and sense all the things within my borders soak it in.

The inside was bright and warm. The scent of roasted meat, fresh bread, and honey swirled around me. My mouth watered.

A big table had been set in the dining room, crammed to the brink with food. And Mahon and Martha sat at the table. Oy.

“Tam-tam-da-dam!” Natalie, George’s younger sister, waved her arms. She looked a lot like George and her other older sister, Marion—same wild curly hair, same dusky skin, same bright big eyes. Natalie was seventeen and squeezing every last moment out of her childhood.

“Is that death march for me or for him?” I asked.

“For both.”

“What are all of you doing here?” Curran settled into the seat next to Eduardo.

“Roof needs fixing,” Eduardo said. “They came to help.”

“And you didn’t invite me?” Curran loaded his plate.

I sat next to him and George put a plate in front of me. “Eat.”

I grabbed a big roll out of the basket, speared a chunk of roasted venison, and dug in. Mmm, food.

“There is plenty of work left for tomorrow,” Mahon said. “Besides, you’re busy with your Guild, aren’t you?”

“I’m sure I can find an hour or two somewhere,” Curran said.

“Has anyone seen Julie?” I asked.

“We’ve seen her,” George said. “We’re supposed to tell you that she’s not dead, but she is staying over at the office tonight.”

I’d growl, but I was too hungry.

For a few minutes nobody spoke. Shapeshifters worshipped food with a singular devotion and I was too starved to make conversation. We chewed, got more food, and chewed some more.

If I ate another bite, I would explode. I sighed, decided I did not need another roll, and drank some iced tea.

Martha was smiling at me across the table. Older, plump, with medium brown skin, she looked a lot like her daughters. She usually said little, at least to me, but I had watched her knit several sweaters and shawls during the Pack Council sessions.

She smiled brighter. “You’re getting married.”

Mahon grinned next to her. “Three out of four.”

Reminding him that he was adamantly opposed to Curran and me getting married would ruin the mood.

“Now if only we could find a nice boy and marry that hellion off . . .” Mahon said.

The hellion stuck her tongue out. “Maybe I’ll marry a girl.”

“That will be fine,” Mahon said. “As long as she loves you.”

Natalie rolled her eyes.

“Are you thinking of children?” Martha asked.

“Mom!” George and Natalie said in the same voice.

“No,” Curran said.

“Yes,” I said at the same time.

He turned to look at me.

“Thinking,” I said. Please don’t ask me anything else about children.

Martha grinned even wider. If we turned off the lights, she and Mahon would probably glow.

“Are you thinking of children?” Mahon asked George.

Eduardo choked on a piece of bread and coughed quietly.

“Dad, keep your paws out of my marriage,” George said.

Curran frowned. “I’ll be right back.”

He got up, brushed my shoulder with his hand in passing, and went outside.

“Someone’s pulled up to your house,” Eduardo told me.

Shapeshifters and their hearing.

“While he’s gone,” Martha said. “Come with me.”

I followed her into the back room. She took a small box from the night table and gave it to me.

“Something old.”

Something old? Oh! The rhyme. Something old, something new, something I didn’t remember and then there was blue in it somewhere . . . I opened the box. A dark chain lay inside.

“Go on,” Martha said.

I picked it up. Heavy for its size. The chain kept going and suddenly a bright green gemstone emerged, about an inch and a half wide. I held it to the light. A bear, carved with painstaking precision, down to the fur.

“When Mahon and I met, there wasn’t a lot of him left,” Martha said. “Even when he was human, he was full of bear rage. But I knew there was a man in there somewhere, so I went and found him. Before we got married, he gave me a set of jewelry: a ring, earrings, bracelet, and a pendant. He said it was because I was the stronger bear.” She smiled. “Back then we didn’t have the fancy shapeshifter-safe alloys, so it’s steel. But the stone is the real thing, peridot. I want you to have it.”

Oh my God. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. I gave one to each of my girls when their weddings were coming up. Marion has the ring, George has the earrings, and Natalie is getting the bracelet. I want you to have the pendant. You don’t want Curran to wear it instead of you, do you?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I opened my mouth.

“Yes?”

“Mahon doesn’t even like me. He barely tolerates me.”

“Of course he likes you. I like you, too. Now, he didn’t always think you were a suitable wife for his special son, but he always liked you.”

Could’ve fooled me. “What changed?”

“We saw you carry the djinn,” Martha said. “We were both there and we saw you give it up and hand it to Curran and then we saw him give it back to you. What the two of you have is a rare thing. We don’t love Curran like a son. He is our son, one of our children. Mahon may be an old stubborn bear, but he isn’t blind or stupid. He knows Curran won’t do better. We are lucky to have you for a daughter-in-law.”

It was the stupidest thing, but I felt like crying.

She took the chain and put it into my hand. “You wear it. I want you to.”

THE CHAIN FELT nice around my neck. I liked the weight of it. I helped with the dishes. Curran came back in at some point and helped me put the plates away. Then we said our good-byes and stepped outside.

If I could’ve hugged this evening, I would’ve, and I wasn’t the huggy type.

“Who came to visit?” I asked as we crossed the road to our lawn.

“Jim.”

I knew that tone of voice. That was his Beast Lord voice, neutral and calm right up to the point when it exploded into a roar.

“What did Jim say?”

“What did you say to him?”

Careful. Thin ice, proceed with caution. The last thing I needed to do was explain to him why I wanted to take Erra’s bones out of storage or what I would be doing with them. “About what?”

He stopped in front of our house. “Don’t play with me. What did you say to him about us getting married?”

“Nothing. We didn’t discuss it.”

“You said something, because he dropped everything and drove all this way to tell me not to marry you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because he’s concerned my feelings might not be my own.”

Jim, you jackass. I knew he was paranoid, but this was completely crazy. “Whose feelings does he think you’re having?”

“He thinks I’m being influenced by your magic.”

“Oh. Good to know. The magic that I’ve never been able to use on anyone else to make my life infinitely easier? That magic?”

Gold rolled over his eyes. “What did you say?”

Oh, so the lights came on. Someone was fussy that his best friend came over all worried. “Such concern for Jim. So touching.”

And we have a full-on alpha stare. Good to know where I stood on his ladder of important people.

I moved, circling Curran. My magic trailed me like a mantle in the night.

“He told me that he would kill me if I decided to use my power for my own gain. I told him the truth.”

Curran moved with me. Anger flared in his eyes. He was still giving me the alpha stare. So it’s like that, huh? Alright. Let’s play.

“I told him that if I decided to use my power for myself, he would pledge his allegiance to me and he would like it. He would trip over his own feet to proclaim his devotion.”

“Why the hell would you say that to him? He’s the Beast Lord.”

Oh noes. I paused. “Yes, how could I forget? What was I thinking? What do you suppose he will do?”

The magic waited, all around me. As if the entire ocean of life that was my land had taken a breath in anticipation.

“Do you think Jim might punish us? Or do you think I would kill him and laugh afterward?”

He raised his hand and motioned to me. “Okay. Come back to me from wherever you just went.”

“I remember one time Jim and I did a job and he left me in the middle of a cage of live wire because the Pack needed him. I sat in there for eight hours, until the magic wave ended.”

My own power was out now, fully on display. Curran shifted his weight on his feet. He felt it. He was ready to pounce.

“Oh, another thing I remember, when the rakshasas poured molten metal on Derek’s face and Jim didn’t know what to do, I stuck my neck out for him and he let his crew rip into me. And when I asked him how could he do this after he and I worked together for years, he told me I wasn’t a shapeshifter. I would never be good enough.”

“Jim has issues.”

I smiled at Curran, my voice almost singsong. “Do you know why my father has problems with the shapeshifters? Because their magic is so old. It’s primal. It predates even his. You have a special connection to the land. You are a native power.”

He didn’t answer, but he watched me like a hawk.

“But now I have a special connection with the land, too. I can feel the life within it. I can feel its heart beating. Like this.”

I touched the surface of the ocean. It pulsed. Curran jumped backward a full fifteen feet.

Now that felt interesting. I touched it again. Another pulse.

“Every time I use my magic, everybody gets so concerned. I defend them, I bleed for them, and the moment the immediate danger passes, they let me know how much they disapprove. As if their fucking disapproval matters. As if I should ask their permission, like a servant, to do what is in my power.”

“Kate,” he said. “I know you’re in there. Stop.”

I brushed the ocean, giving it a hint of my power. The feylanterns flashed brighter on all the houses down the street.

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if I stopped listening to every pathetic creature who thought that they had a right to weigh in on my decisions? Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to ask permission for something that’s already yours? What’s the point of having power if you never use it?”

I slapped it again and again, faster, picking up rhythm. Thump, thump, thump.

“I can crush all of them, but I won’t. That would be wasteful and I’m not wasteful. I’ll use my magic and turn them into willing happy slaves.”

“No,” Curran said. “You won’t.”

“Don’t you love me, Curran? Don’t you want me to bear your children? Can you imagine how powerful they will be?”

I pulled on my magic a tiny bit. It warmed me from within and I let it out. It felt like I was glowing, but I could see my arms and no glow seemed to be shining out.

Curran froze.

“Take my hand, Curran. You know you want to.”

“No. This isn’t you.”

“Of course, it is. Jim told you so. Take my hand, baby. Be with me eternally. Rule with me. All you have to do is love me and I will give you all the power and immortality you could ever want.”

The door of George’s house swung open and Eduardo stepped out.

“Is everything okay?”

Aw. He ruined it. Well, it was fun while it lasted. I let go of the magic. “Everything is fine. Curran and I are having a married moment.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Eduardo turned and went back inside.

Curran looked like a flying magic fish had popped into existence in front of him and slapped his face with its tail.

“You should see your face!” I snickered.

He snarled. “Damn it, Kate!”

That’s right. You’ve been had.

“Do you think this shit is funny?”

I kept laughing.

He swore.

“Woo-woo!” I waved my fingers at him in between bouts of laughter. “You and Jim are two idiots. Maybe you should marry each other. You can rule the Pack together.”

“Why the hell would you do this to me?”

“Because you deserved it. Jim came to you with this nonsense and you got all concerned.”

“I told Jim to go to hell. I also told him that if he ever told me that my wife is a ‘potential threat’ again, I would become a real and immediate threat.”

I laughed and opened my arms. “My hero.”

“You’re an asshole,” he told me.

“You knew that before you asked me to marry you. What, no hug?”

“You know how paranoid Jim is. You know what he does to potential threats. He is proactive. Why did you have to screw with him?”

“Because he sat there, all self-important, and announced that he would kill me if I stepped out of his lines. Hey, I winked after I said it. It’s not my fault he has no sense of humor.”

He shook his head.

I dropped my arms. “Okay, why are you so freaked out?”

“Because you did that thing your father does.”

“What thing?”

“The one where you smiled and it was like being blessed.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“I can handle your father, because I despise him.” His gray eyes were hard. “But I love you. Don’t do that to me again.”

I was turning into my father.

I turned away from him before he saw my face. He moved behind me and then his arms closed around me. He’d seen it anyway.

“What did it feel like?” I asked, my voice quiet.

“It felt like a god noticed me,” he said. “Warm and welcoming. Like the sun broke through the clouds.”

The warmth of his arms shielded me. Curran would shield me from everything, except myself. That one was on me.

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone,” he said. “But I don’t want a new sun or a goddess. I want you. A partner.”

“I know.” I pulled away from him and went to our house.

He followed me.

I took off my shoes and went upstairs, to our bedroom. He followed me and said nothing. I took off Sarrat’s harness and put the saber in its usual place on the night table by my side of the bed.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“There is nothing to tell. The magic is changing me, Curran, and I’m not always aware of it. You should bail while you can, before it all goes to hell.”

“No.”

“This might be your last chance to get out.” I pulled off my pants and my shirt. I wanted to soak in the tub and wash the day off.

“I’m not going anywhere. Besides, hell is when you and I are at our best.”

I stopped and looked at him.

“You know where my line is,” he said.

I knew. We had both drawn them. If he ever pulled another stunt like he did at the Black Sea, pretending to be interested in another woman because he was trying to “keep me safe,” I was done. And if I ever made another Julie by letting my blood burn away another person’s will, he was done. He drew the line at slavery. That was a reasonable line.

I walked into the bathroom and started the water in the tub.

He stopped in the doorway, leaning against it, his arms crossed.

I tossed some Epsom salts into the bathtub. “I’m not sure if I will even be me at the end of it.”

A warm hand rested on my back. He’d snuck up behind me.

I straightened. His arm caught my waist, pinning me to him.

“I’ll be here,” he said. “I’ll fight for you. We’ll beat this. We’ve beaten everything else.”

Doolittle once told me that he wasn’t afraid of me. He was afraid of what I might become in spite of myself. His fears were coming true.

“Power is a drug,” Curran said. “Some people try it and can’t wait to stop. Other people take it and want more and more, until nothing is left except getting more power.”

“You know that’s not me.”

“I know. You’re the least power-hungry person I’ve ever met. You’re also the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. Disrespectful. Mouthy.”

“You mean independent and proactive in taking initiative.”

“That, too. Also infuriating. And strong. You won’t let anyone take your freedom, Kate.”

He was right. I was damned if I would let magic dictate what I did or thought.

Curran had power. He had hundreds of people who waited with bated breath for him to tell them to do something, and he had walked away from it—for me. It could be done. He’d done it. I had to fight this one decision at a time.

It wouldn’t change me. It wouldn’t rule me. Not happening.

“Were you tempted, Your Furriness?” I asked.

“By your evil?” His voice was a hot, deep whisper near my ear.

“Yes.”

“No. If you and I ruled forever, I would never have you all to myself. We tried that, remember?”

“So you’re greedy?”

His voice raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. “You have no idea.”

I was playing with fire. “How greedy are you?”

He spun me around, his eyes full of gold sparks and predatory excitement. “Let me show you.”

We made it to the tub eventually. It took a lot longer than planned.