Magic Triumphs

CHAPTER 6

I CROUCHED BY Yu Fong’s body. The bruises on his face had turned bright red, the gashes closing and smoothing over so fast, I could actually see his flesh moving. The fingers of his right hand jutted at an odd angle. Broken. His clothes hadn’t burned off. He’d fallen from a catastrophic height, so hot he melted the asphalt, but his faded jeans and gray T-shirt weren’t even singed.

Curran came running around the corner and sprinted to me. Sweat soaked his hair and forehead. He hadn’t bothered with the car. I straightened. He almost skidded to a stop and grabbed me, squeezing me to him. My bones groaned.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I squeaked. “Conlan?”

He let me go, kissed me, and looked me over, as if he didn’t believe me. “Teddy Jo has him. He’s locked himself in the office.”

Oh good. It would take a tank to break into Cutting Edge.

“Look.” I pointed to Yu Fong.

Curran’s eyes narrowed. “I know this kid.”

“Yes. He’s been to the house. Used to go to school with Julie.”

“What is he?”

“I have no idea,” I told him. “But he’s something.”

Distant water engines roared.

“Are the kids okay?”

“They’re fine.”

People began to emerge from surrounding office buildings. The morgue at the eastern end of the square glowed pale blue. Its wards must’ve activated, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Anyone with a crumb of magic in a three-mile radius would’ve felt that explosion. Being directly under it was like standing inside one of those ancient church bells while the priests pulled on the ropes. It had rattled through my skull, and I had better defenses than most of the people in Atlanta. PAD would be here soon, and then we’d have uncomfortable questions we couldn’t answer. It would eat a day, maybe more, and we didn’t have a day to spare.

We had to move Yu Fong. He’d fallen from the clouds, so jostling him wouldn’t exactly make it worse.

Our two Jeeps rolled into the square and stopped. Just in time.

Julie jumped out of the first one, and Derek followed her from the second.

“Honey?” I asked.

Curran reached over, grasped Yu Fong by his T-shirt and jeans, and lifted him out of the warm asphalt. I caught the body for a brief second, and Curran picked him up into his arms, as if Yu Fong were a child, and carried him to the nearest Jeep.

“Yu Fong!” Julie ran over. “Is he okay?”

“He just fell from those clouds,” I said. “How is he still alive?”

“He is a Suanni.”

I blinked. According to Chinese myths, the dragon had nine sons, each with a female of a different species. A Suanni was the hybrid of a lion and the dragon, a being of fire. That made Yu Fong the closest thing to a dragon to be found in Atlanta.

“Julie. He’s been to the house. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She waved her hands. “It didn’t come up.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t come up?” Curran growled.

Damn it. “The next time you bring a half-dragon to the house, I want to know about it. That’s the kind of essential information I should have.”

“He’s just a guy I went to school with. We don’t make a big deal about it.”

Argh. “Can he regenerate?”

“I don’t know. I never asked. I think so. Dali would know. They’ve met before. He calls her White Tiger like it’s her name.”

“Does he shapeshift?” Curran gently loaded Yu Fong into the backseat.

“Sort of. I’ve never seen him go all the way. He usually doesn’t need to. He makes fire. Fire’s usually enough.”

“Can he fly?”

“I don’t know!” Julie spread her arms.

Argh.

I climbed into the Jeep. Curran got behind the wheel and stepped on the gas. We rolled toward Cutting Edge. Behind us, Derek and Julie jumped into the other vehicle.

I gripped Sarrat. Thin tendrils of smoke stretched from the blade, licking the air.

“Talk to me,” Curran said.

“They killed Mr. Tucker.”

“They’ll pay,” Curran said.

“He never did anything to anyone.”

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

The Jeep jumped over a bump in the pavement.

“Have you ever smelled anything like that?” I asked. “Have you seen one of those assholes before?”

“No.”

But I had. The memory stabbed me, cold and sharp. Sarrat hissed.

Curran glanced at me. “Tell me.”

“Did my aunt ever tell you how my family died?” I asked.

“She mentioned a war.”

“An army invaded them. They came from the sea. They had powerful magic unlike anything she had seen before, and they brought a horde of creatures with them. While my father and Erra were gone to a summit with other kings, they were betrayed. When my aunt and my father returned, they found their brothers and sisters murdered and creatures gnawing on their bodies. When I shared my memories with Erra, she shared hers with me.”

The vision of a creature clutching the headless body of a child and gnawing on the red stump of his neck flashed before me. “They looked like that. Similar.”

“Similar but not the same?” Curran asked.

“Erra’s creatures were gray and hairless. These were brown and had fur. But they felt the same. Like corruption. Like something that had to be undone.”

“Something that smells like a loup and shouldn’t exist.”

“Yes.”

“We need to save one for her,” he said. “I want her to look at it. What else did she tell you about them?”

“They came from the Western Sea, the Mediterranean. Shinar never feared an invasion from the sea before.”

“Why?” Curran asked.

“Sidonians,” I told him. “Ancient Phoenicians. The way Erra tells it, they called the sea their father and sailed it to raid and to sell their purple dyes. The Sidonians built walled cities inland, farther in the hinterlands, to give invaders a target. When the attacking army disembarked, the Sidonians would melt into the highlands and cut at the enemy as it marched toward the nearest city, slicing a piece there and a piece here, and vanish back into the wilderness.”

“They bled them out,” Curran said.

“Yep. By the time the army got to the city, their morale was in tatters. If any invaders managed to survive and make it back to the sea, they’d find their ships had new owners. The Sidon had one main port, Tyre, a big merchant city. Huge walls, guarded harbor, with chains across its entrance and sea beasts guarding the waters. A fortress. Impregnable.”

I paused. “My aunt told me that she met a man who’d escaped from Tyre. He told her that they had gone to bed with clear seas, and when they woke up, they couldn’t see the water because the harbor was filled with sails. The ships rained monsters. The invaders weren’t an army; they were a horde. They had magic creatures that stank of corruption, unkillable soldiers, and they burned what they took to the ground. Nothing was left standing. It was all ash.”

“Like the box,” he said.

“Like the box.”

We drove in silence.

“He wants an answer,” I ground out.

Gold flashed in Curran’s eyes. He bared his teeth. “Oh, we’ll answer. It won’t be vague, and he won’t like it, I promise you that.”

Good.

Curran steered the Jeep onto Jeremiah Street. Carnage spread across the asphalt in front of Cutting Edge. Grotesque bodies, torn and mangled, strewn on the pavement wet with blood. Mr. Tucker lay crumpled on the street, small and somehow almost lost in all the gore. In the middle of it all a man-shaped pillar of pale-gray ash rose.

“Did he ever stop smiling?” I asked.

“No. Held it until his eyes cooked in his head.”

This was above my pay grade. I had no idea how to deal with this sort of magic. That was okay. I was a quick learner.

BILL HORN CAME out of his tinker shop as we parked. Bill repaired pots, silverware, and anything that was made of metal. He also sharpened knives, and he was carrying a bowie knife large enough to kill a bear. He was short, broad-shouldered, bald, and he looked like he’d be difficult to move if he braced himself.

He walked over to where I crouched by Mr. Tucker’s body. It used to be a man. He’d said hi to us. I’d brought him iced tea. Now it was just a corpse. A split second and a life ended.

“Not your fault,” Bill said.

“Yeah, it is. I could’ve yelled at him to not come close when he first stumbled onto the street.”

“He wouldn’t have listened. The man had no goddamned sense. It’s not you. It’s this.” He indicated the bloody street with a slow sweep of his hand. “It’s the Shift.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He was a nut,” Bill told me gently.

“Yes, but he was our nut.”

Curran came up and rested his hand on my shoulder. Bill looked at Mr. Tucker’s corpse, looked at the slaughter, then looked back at Curran. “You folks need any help?”

“We got it,” Curran told him. “Thanks. Sorry about the mess.”

Bill nodded again. “I was thinking of visiting my daughter up in Gainesville.”

“Good fishing up there,” Curran said.

“Yeah,” Bill said. “My son-in-law told me he pulled a thirty-pound striped bass out of Lake Lanier. Can’t let him beat my record, you know.”

“Might be a good time to visit,” Curran said.

“You reckon about two weeks ought to do it?”

“Sounds about right.”

Bill nodded and went to his shop.

I straightened. “The neighbors are running for the hills.”

“In the four years you’ve had your office here, nobody broke into any of their shops,” Curran said. “None of them ever got hurt by any of the magical crap. We protected the street. Now they can give us a break by clearing out while we get this sorted.”

“Help me get him off the street?” I asked.

He picked up Mr. Tucker and carried him to the sidewalk in front of Cutting Edge.

I knocked on the door of my office. Teddy Jo swung it open, a very human Conlan in his arms. I took him. My son yawned and groggily smacked my face with his hand. I hugged him to me, went inside the office, and sat in a chair. I just needed thirty seconds to steady myself.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Teddy Jo leaned over the table.

“Someone sent me a wooden box full of ash with a rose and a knife in it. Apparently, he wants a response.”

Derek walked into the office and went to the supply cage where we kept bleach, gasoline, and other fun things we used for cleanup.

“Who sent it? Why? What does the box mean?” Teddy Jo asked.

“It probably means war.”

“Are we getting invaded?”

“Maybe.”

“Who’s invading us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you must have some idea.”

“If I did, I would be doing something about it. In your experience, do I typically sit on my hands when someone is threatening the city?”

“Can you at least tell me what kind of magic this is?”

“Why do you think I would know?”

Teddy Jo pointed in the direction of the Unnamed Square. “Because that was an elder power. When someone has a problem with an elder power, they come to you. You’re an expert on evil old shit.”

“I’m trying to decide if I should be flattered or insulted.”

“If they sent you a message, they must think you would understand it. If you don’t get it, ask somebody. The city is going to hell. People are getting boiled, people are being burned alive, and you’re sitting here. You’re the In-Shinar! Do something!”

Curran loomed next to Teddy Jo. His eyes had gone completely gold. I hadn’t even heard him come in.

“Uh-oh,” Conlan offered.

Teddy Jo realized that now would be a very good time to stop talking and clamped his mouth shut.

Curran stared at him with a singular predatory focus. Teddy Jo straightened and took a step away from the table.

“I am the In-Shinar,” I told him. “I’m not omniscient or omnipotent. I’m not a god. If we want to get technical, that’s your department.”

He didn’t say anything.

I took a piece of paper and drew the sign from the box on it. “What does that look like to you?”

“A bra?” Teddy Jo said.

“That’s our only clue as to who sent the box. Have at it.”

He blinked at the sign for a bit, folded the paper in half, then again, and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

“Do you still have the corpse bus?” I asked. Teddy Jo ran a mortuary. It catered to a specific clientele, most of them Greek neo-pagans, and a lot of his income came through his side business: making and selling human freezers, autopsy tables, and body-transporting cars. He scoured junkyards, customized his equipment, and rented it out to the city and the surrounding counties.

Teddy Jo grimaced. “It’s not a corpse bus. It’s a Multiple Recently Deceased Efficient Removal vehicle.”

“You do realize that spells MURDER?” Derek asked.

Teddy Jo gave him a look. “Yes, I do. That’s the point.”

Angel of death humor, what would we do without it? “It would really help if you could get the MURDER bus, load these bodies up, and deliver them.”

Teddy Jo’s eyebrows rose. “Where?”

“Everywhere. Drop a couple at Biohazard, one to the Pack, one to the Casino, one to the Witches. Anyone who should reasonably be made aware that these things exist. Give one to the Order too, what the hell.”

“What do you want me to tell them?” Teddy Jo asked.

“Tell them that these things attacked us. There is something wrong with them, and we need to know where they came from. You want to help? Do this, please.”

“I’ll get the bus,” he said.

MIRACULOUSLY THE PHONE worked for Curran and he got through to the Pack on the first try. Dali promised to be right there, and she was bringing Doolittle with her. His next call was to the Guild. He called the medmage and insisted on her coming to Cutting Edge to patch me up. Curran and I had reached an understanding. He didn’t protest when I ran headfirst into danger, and I didn’t argue when he then unleashed a crew of medmages on my wounds. The medmage arrived half an hour later, chanted my wounds closed, warned me to take it easy, which we both knew I would ignore, and left.

Dali was still in transit, which wasn’t surprising. “Right there” in post-Shift Atlanta meant about an hour, maybe two. We used the time to gather the bodies, chain them together in case they rose after death, sweep the ash into an airtight plastic bin, and feed Conlan his second breakfast. I tried to give him cereal. He flipped the bowl and put it on his head. We made the fatal mistake of laughing, and he decided the bowl was an essential accessory and refused to give it up. He also decided that cereal was clearly beneath him and spat it out in various creative ways. Derek ran down the street and came back with a smoked turkey leg from a vendor. Faced with two options, hungry Conlan or Conlan full of turkey meat, I went with the latter.

Teddy Jo returned with the bus. Curran, Derek, and I started loading the bodies, while Julie purified the street. When we were down to three corpses, a Pack van turned around the corner and came to a stop near us. Dali jumped out from the driver’s side, swung the rear doors open, took out a folded wheelchair, then picked up Doolittle. For a moment, they made a slightly comical figure, a tiny Indonesian woman with thick glasses carrying a middle-aged black man about twice her size. Then she set him gently into his chair and Doolittle surveyed us.

Curran and Derek were holding two furry bodies. Teddy Jo and I were locking manacles on their feet. Julie had doused the street with gasoline and set it on fire, holding the hose ready in case it got out of control. And Conlan presided over it all from his high chair in the doorway of the office, completely naked, with a half-eaten turkey leg in his hand and a plastic bowl on his head. He saw Doolittle and waved the turkey leg at him.

“Baddadda!”

Why me?

Dali didn’t blink an eye. “Where is Yu Fong?”

“He’s inside,” Julie said. “I’ll come with you.”

She gave me the hose and they hurried into the office.

“Bada!” Conlan squirmed in his chair.

“Stay,” I told him.

“Dadbadaa!”

“Don’t talk back to your mother,” Curran told him.

After the fire burned itself out, we loaded the last body, except for the one wrapped in chains in our Jeep and the spare I’d stashed, chained into our office body freezer. Teddy Jo drove off, and I went inside.

Yu Fong looked about the same.

“What’s the prognosis?” I asked.

Doolittle turned to me. “He’s stable. He’s in a healing coma.”

“How long will it last?”

“I don’t know,” Doolittle said. “An hour, a day, a century. He might wake up when our grandchildren are old.”

Great. “Is there any way to wake him up?”

“Yes,” Doolittle said. “We can drown or suffocate him. He might wake up or he might die. If he does wake up, his healing process may be irrevocably interrupted, and he may still die.”

“Is there any scenario in which he won’t die?” Julie asked.

“Yes,” Doolittle said. “Let him sleep.”

I rubbed my face. My only witness was doing a version of Sleeping Beauty. Maybe I could scrounge up a Prince Charming to kiss him awake.

“There is something inside him,” Doolittle said.

“What do you mean?”

“There is a foreign object inside him. He might have been stabbed with it or perhaps it’s something he has put inside his own body for safekeeping.”

Shapeshifters occasionally took advantage of their rapid regeneration in weird ways. Before Andrea accepted her true nature, she’d had an amulet that blocked her power embedded in her body. Yu Fong might have done the same.

“Could it be keeping him in a coma?”

“Possibly,” Doolittle said.

“Should we get it out?”

“Not unless you want to risk his life.”

Argh.

“You’re not waking him up,” Dali declared. It sounded a lot like an order.

I looked at her. She stared straight at me, her eyes unblinking behind her glasses. A green sheen rolled over her irises. Trying to dominate. Two years as Beast Lady had taken their toll.

I stared back. “Let me know.”

“What?”

“When you remember that I’m not a Pack member. You’re not my alpha, Dali. Turn the headlights down.”

She glared at me. I waited. I lived with a former Beast Lord. My husband hit me with the alpha stare just this morning, after I told him that I was throwing his old T-shirt away. Apparently, as long as it had an intact collar, he considered it a usable garment, no matter how many holes it had.

“You’re not waking him up,” she repeated, this time softer.

“No, we’re not.” Although I’d have given a year of my life to figure out what he was fighting in the clouds, risking his life for it wasn’t worth it. “Does he have any family? Anyone we should call?”

“His family let him rot in a poacher’s cage for years, while they sliced pieces off him to sell on the black market. I doubt they will give a damn. We’ll take care of him at the Keep,” Dali said.

“No,” Julie said.

Dali ignored her. “We’re best equipped to handle this.”

“I don’t think so,” I told her.

“I don’t need your permission,” Dali said.

“You have no grounds to take him. First, he isn’t a member of the Pack, Dali. You would be kidnapping a citizen of Atlanta. Second, Yu Fong fell and made that lovely crater because he was fighting something in the clouds. Something ancient and magic that was aware of the boundaries and of my power, because once I showed up and shifted magic to shield us, it took off. It will come back to finish the job. Sheltering Yu Fong will make the Keep a target, and you don’t have the power to oppose it. Jim won’t let you keep him.”

She opened her mouth.

“Third, Doolittle just said that there is nothing he can do for him. Am I right?”

The medmage nodded. “We can only make him comfortable.”

“So, there is no pressing need to take him to the Keep.”

Dali pushed her glasses back up her nose. “I really hate you sometimes.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“He is special,” she said. “Sacred.”

Yes, in the same way she was. “I’m aware of that. That’s why I’m taking him home with us.”

Where I had wards and friendly homicidal neighbors to back me up.

“You’re welcome to visit any time you like, but you’re not taking him to the Keep, because you’d call me less than an hour after you got there and ask me to come pick him up. Let’s not move him more than necessary. He’s under a lot of stress as it is.”

She thought about it. “Who’s going to be watching him?”

“Adora.”

Dali wrinkled her nose. “Is she capable of watching him? You know how she is. What if she sees a butterfly?”

“I’ll pay her.”

A few months ago, Adora had figured out that when she did a job for the Guild, she earned money, which she could then spend however she pleased. After she’d repeatedly shown the money to me, and I confirmed several times that it was, indeed, her own money, she went out shopping for the first time and we got to find out what $1,200 of candy looked like. She ate candy for three days straight, then spent the remainder of the week on our couch with a stomachache. Now she worked as a merc, with the highest job completion ratio in the Guild. She took her gigs absurdly seriously. Through rain, shine, sleet, and hail, purple corrosive slime bubbling up from the sewers, or mysterious black snow that sparked when it hit metal, Adora would get it done. Dali knew that.

“Okay,” Dali said. Her tone told me she didn’t like it.

That was okay. I didn’t like a great many things, but the universe didn’t give a crap, so I didn’t see why it should bend on Dali’s account.

“You will take the best care of him, right?”

“No, I’ll drop him into the nearest sewer and throw dirt on his head.”

She sighed. “I’ve got almost two thousand smart-asses to manage every night. Just tell me you’ll take care of him, Kate.”

“He went to school with Julie. He’s been to our house. He isn’t a stranger. Of course I’ll take care of him.” I would’ve taken care of him even if he was a stranger, but she seemed like she needed more reassurance.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said.

“You should growl a bit to let me know you mean business,” I told her. “Just in case you think I might miss the point.”

She flipped me off.

“Love you, too.” I turned to Doolittle. “Can you please take a look at Conlan?”

Doolittle gave me a look. “I saw him on the way in. He appeared to be in perfect health.”

“I know, but—”

Doolittle held up his hand. “Kate, the last time you brought him in was because he fell off his feet.”

“He had a bump on his head.”

“The time before that you mistook heat rash for chicken pox.”

“I understand, but something happened—”

“Something always happens. Your son is a healthy, active toddler. He is supposed to run, fall, climb, and occasionally try to eat things he shouldn’t. Your job is to keep him from the worst of it. It would do you and him a great deal of good if you just let him be a child and stop wasting my time.” He turned to Dali. “I’m ready to go.”

Dali stuck her nose in the air and opened the door. Doolittle wheeled himself out. Curran and Conlan watched them go.

“Thanks for the backup with Doolittle,” I told Curran, as the van pulled away.

He grinned at me.

Something crunched. I turned. Conlan spat half a turkey femur out of his mouth.

“Told you,” my husband said. “Cooked bones splinter.”

Argh.