Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels 3)

I'm in so much trouble.

"I like the hair," he said.

In the spirit of an off-duty Friday, I wore my hair down. I mostly braided it or curled it into a bun to keep it out of the way, but today it just sort of hung there, a long dark brown wall shifting in the breeze on both sides of my face.

I flexed my wrist, popping a long silver needle into my palm from the leather wrist guard, grabbed my hair, twisted it into a bun, stuck the needle into it to hold it in place, and showed him my teeth in a little smile. There.

He laughed. "Cute. You ever get tired of pretending to be a hard-ass?"

Cute. I think I would prefer to be stabbed in the eye rather than be called cute. "To what do I owe the pleasure of Your Majesty's company?" And the ruination of my lunch.

"I just wanted some peaches." He smiled.

Since when did a death in the Pack result in such good cheer?

"Is there any particular reason you were asking about the Midnight Games?" he asked.

"I have a passing interest in history." I was on shaky ground. I had no clue if he knew about Derek or not. I needed to cut this conversation short. "Does the Pack require my services as an employee of the Order?"

"Not at the moment." He leaned back, picked up the plate with Andrea's peaches, and offered it to me. "Peach?"

My smile got sharper. During the flare, Curran offered me some soup and I ate it. Later the boudas' alpha, Aunt B, explained the facts of life to me: shapeshifters offered food to their prospective mates. He was at once declaring himself my protector, implying that I was weaker than him, and propositioning me. And I took it. It had amused him to no end. Had I known what the soup meant, I would've eaten it anyway - I was half-dead at the time.

I crossed my arms on my chest. "No, thanks. I'm not accepting any more food from you."

"Ah." He took a slice, broke the fruit in half, and tossed it into his mouth. "Who clued you in?

Raphael?"

"Does it matter?"

His eyes flashed with gold sparks. "No."

Liar. The last thing I wanted was to cause Raphael difficulties because he'd ruined Curran's private joke. "I read it in Greg's notes." I took a couple of bucks out of my pocket, folded them, and stuck the bills between the salt and pepper shakers.

"Leaving?" he asked.

Your powers of deduction are truly marvelous, Mr. Holmes. "Since you have no need of my professional persona, I'm going to return to my duties."

"You're off today."

And how did he know that?

He ate another peach. "The Order has a sixteen-hour shift limit when the magic is down. One of our rats saw you late last night getting an old lady off of a telephone pole. Apparently it was a hilarious affair all around."

"I live to amuse." I rose.

Curran struck at my wrist. His fingers were cat-quick, but I had spent my life honing my reflexes, and he missed.

"Well, look at that." I studied my free wrist. "Denied. Good-bye, Your Majesty. Please pass my condolences to the family."

I headed to the door.

"Kate?" His sudden change of tone made me turn. All humor had drained from Curran's face.

"Whose family?"

Chapter 6

BEFORE THE SHIFT, THE STREET OF PONCE DE LEON had channeled the massive flow of traffic from Stone Mountain through Decatur and Druid Hills past City Hall East all the way to the skyscrapers of Midtown. The Bell-South Tower, Bank of America, and the Renaissance Hotel were little more than heaps of rubble now, but City Hall East still stood. It might have held on because it wasn't all that tall - only nine stories high. Its age probably played a part. Steeped in history, the building had evolved through the years, from the 1926

Sears depot to a government hub to a community of condos, shops, and restaurants sheltering a couple of acres of green. But there was a third, much more compelling reason for its continued existence. About twenty years ago Atlanta's University of Arcane Arts had purchased the massive two-million-square-foot monster. It now housed faculty, students, libraries, laboratories, research facilities . . . If anybody could keep a building standing, four hundred mages ought to be it.

The presence of mages - and mage students who, like all college students, were rather impulsive in their purchases -  had revived Ponce de Leon. It was a bustling street now, full of shops, stalls, and eateries.

Dead Cat Street was a sorry narrow affair by comparison. It wound its way between the newly rebuilt two- and three-story apartment buildings to a small plaza containing a convenience store and a grocery. Curran and I stood on the edge of the narrow sidewalk, looking at Dead Cat Street, as the horse carts and passersby traversed Ponce de Leon to our right. The body had been found a couple dozen yards from the corner. The scene was clean. No smudges of blood on the pavement. No signs of struggle. No nothing. If I hadn't come through here last night, I wouldn't have known anything untoward had taken place.

Curran stood very still, breathing deeply. Minutes stretched into the past. Suddenly his upper lip rose, baring his teeth. A precursor of a growl shivered just beneath his teeth. His eyes flashed with gold.

"Curran?"

A lion glared at me though gray human eyes and vanished, replaced by Curran's neutral face.

"Nice, thorough job."

I arched my eyebrows at him.

"They salted the scene with wolfsbane. The stems are dried out, ground into powder, and mixed with some base. Dry detergent works well. Borax. Baking soda. Not as effective as a wolfsbane paste, but enough of it will overwhelm the scent trail. Jim's crew dumped about a gallon of it here."

I filed that tidbit away for future reference. "So the sniff test is a bust?"

Curran smiled. "You can't salt the air. Even here, with all the traffic and draft, the scents linger above the ground. Tell me what you saw and we'll compare notes."

I hesitated. Talking to Curran was like walking through a minefield. You never knew when something would set him off, and Jim, screwed-up asshole though he might be, was my former partner. "Why don't you ask Jim instead? He would probably want a chance to tell you himself."

Curran shook his head. His face was grim. "When one of ours dies, I get a call. No matter the hour. I was in the Keep last night and didn't get one. I saw Jim this morning and he said nothing to me about this."

"He must have a compelling reason for withholding the information."

"Kate, did you extend an offer of cooperation to the Pack on behalf of the Order?"

Oh, bite me. "Yes, I did. It was declined."