Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels 8)

The news crews arrived next in a rabidly excited flood. With the Internet dead and TV erratic, most of our news came via newspapers, but a couple of TV crews appeared anyway and promptly surrounded Lago. He had been standing there with a charming self-deprecating smile for the last twenty minutes.

“Are you hurt?” one of the reporters asked, a little too loud.

“Nothing serious, but yes, my legs are going to be hurting.” Lago winked. “I’m not as young as I used to be. I don’t heal as fast, but sometimes even an old dog has to step up to protect his home.”

I sat on a chunk of the fallen debris in front of the Guild’s doors. My head hurt so much. It felt like someone kept hitting me with a hammer in the back of the head. Every time one of the hits landed, the wave of pain drowned me and my skull threatened to split open, and then for a moment, as the pain receded, an overwhelming relief came until the next blow. I realized that the blows coincided with my heartbeats. Something was wrong with me, with my blood. The magic in it felt like it had been boiling. Every blood vessel in my body had been burned from the inside out. There was nothing I could do. I just had to sit here and wait it out. Once I was done, I would go and see Doolittle. Retired from the Pack or no, he would treat me. Except I was barred from the Keep for the next thirty days. Shit.

The corpse of the giant sprawled about sixty yards in front of me. He had fallen over the far end of the Guild’s large parking lot and now lay on his side, his left arm stretching toward Phoenix Drive, his feet pointing toward the Guild. Most of the law enforcement had camped out to my right, in the street. Random spectators gawked at the giant and wandered through the parking lot despite the PAD’s valiant attempts to keep them out. A few mercs stood here and there, pondering the damage to their vehicles. Alix Simos, whose souped-up Lexus had ended up directly under the giant’s thigh, looked like he had lost a family member.

As I watched, a group of teenage boys ranging in age from twelve to about sixteen approached the giant’s body. One of them, a skinny blond kid, was carrying a long branch.

“Hey!” a female cop barked. “Get the hell out of here!”

The skinny kid jabbed the corpse with a branch.

The female cop started toward them with a look of holy wrath on her face. The kids jabbed the giant again and fled, jumping over debris.

Hey, here is the corpse of something big, scary, and magic that used to eat people when it was alive. I think I’ll go over and poke it with a stick. That would be awesome. I sighed. Teenagers. Some things even post-Shift Atlanta couldn’t change.

A horse-shaped black-and-white creature emerged from the side street, casually clopped her way right past the mercs, police, and soldiers, and nudged me with her nose.

“Hey, you,” I said.

Cuddles nudged me again. I reached into her small saddlebag, pulled out a carrot, and offered it to her. Cuddles swiped it off my hand and chewed with a happy crunch. I petted her cheek. The nausea squirmed inside me, refusing to go away.

I tried to think short, simple thoughts. It hurt less. Curran wasn’t in the Guild. Julie wasn’t in the Guild either. I had no idea where either of them was. I would give the PAD another five minutes and then I’d tell them I was leaving the damn scene whether they liked it or not. If they had a problem with it, I’d sic Barabas on them.

Juke came walking up to me, with Ken next to her. I did a double take. Juke’s face was paler than usual, her features sharpened by adrenaline. She looked pissed off. Ken seemed his normal unperturbed self.

“You’re not dead,” I said. “I thought I saw him bite you in half.”

Juke screwed up her face. “It wasn’t me. That was Roger.”

“Oh.” I had only met Roger in passing. Young skinny guy, dark hair.

“How can you stand it?” Juke waved her arms in Lago’s direction. “He’s pretending to be a fucking hero!”

I shrugged.

“Seriously? That’s bullshit!” She stabbed her finger at Lago smiling for the reporters. “You killed it and he’s taking all the credit.”

“I didn’t do it for the credit.”

Juke stared at me for a second, cursed, and walked away, into the Guild through the dented doors.

“Thank you for the flies,” I told Ken.

Ken paused. He rationed words like they were water and he was in the middle of the Sahara. “You’re welcome,” he said finally. He glanced at Juke, who stalked off, kicking chunks of brick out of her way. “She’s young.”

He’d sunk a world of meaning into that word. Juke was impulsive and brave to the point of being rash, and she wanted to prove herself. To her, Lago’s being in the spotlight was a great injustice. To me it was a convenient relief. The last thing I wanted was to be mobbed by the reporters. If Lago didn’t mention my name at all, I’d be thrilled.