Magic Slays (Kate Daniels 5)

"Daniels and Nash," Andrea said.

The master sergeant checked a small piece of paper. "Code?"

"Thirty-seven twenty-eight," I said.

"Name is Henderson. Don't let the `master sergeant' muddle your thinking. I work for my living. You're clear to proceed. Park at the top of the driveway."

We got back into the Jeep and I pulled up to the house. Henderson trotted behind us and up to the doors.

I stepped out of the vehicle. "Where is de Harven's body?"

"In the workshop."

We followed Henderson behind the house.

The workshop occupied a wooden shed large enough to contain a small apartment. The garage-sized wooden gate stood ajar.

Henderson halted. "In there."

I stepped inside.

Counters ran along the wall, filled with tools and metal junk. Plastic bins filled with screws rose in towers next to boxes of lug nuts, bolts, and assorted metal trash that would've been more at home in a metal jungle lining the bottom of the Honeycomb Gap. On the left counter, delicate glass tools of unknown purpose vied for space with a jeweler's loupe and tiny pliers. On the right, metalworking tools were spread out: angle grinders of assorted sizes for cutting metal, shears, hammers, saws, a large lathe with a metal cylinder still fixed on it. A delicate pattern of glyphs decorated the left end of the cylinder--someone, probably Kamen, had begun to apply the complex metallic lattice but hadn't finished.

A nude male body hung from the rafters in the middle of the shop, suspended by a thick chain, likely attached to a hook that bit into the corpse's back. His head drooped to the side. Long dark hair spilled from his scalp down onto his chest, framing a face frozen by death into a contorted mask. Light gray eyes bulged from their sockets. The man's mouth gaped open, the bloodless lips baring his teeth. Panic and surprise rolled into one. Hello, Laurent.

I dropped my backpack and pulled a Polaroid camera from it. Magic had a way of screwing up digital cameras. Sometimes it wiped the memory cards clean, sometimes you would get noise, and occasionally the pictures came out perfect. I wasn't willing to play Russian roulette with my evidence. The Polaroid was hideously expensive, but the pictures were instant.

Andrea raised her eyebrows. "Look at you, all high-speed."

"Yeah, you'd think I was a detective or something."

Andrea held her hand out. "You'll jinx it."

I put the camera into her hand and crouched, trying to get a look at the floor under the body.

"No drip?" Andrea asked.

"Nope. You smell anything? Decomp, blood ..."

She wrinkled her nose. "Cayenne pepper. The place reeks of it. It drowns out everything else."

Odd.

I dropped to all fours and bent lower. A faint line of rusty powder crossed the floorboards. I leaned over, trying to get a better look. The line ran into the counter on the right and touched the wall on the left. A telltale spatter stain marked the wall boards.

I pointed at it. "Urine."

Andrea craned her neck and raised the camera. "Such glamorous jobs we have. Taking pictures of pee stains."

I turned my head. An identical stain marked the other wall, exactly across from the first one. "That's why we do it. For the glamour."

"A shaman?" Andrea asked.

"Possibly." All living things generated magic, and humans were no exception. The magic was in the blood, in the saliva, in tears, and in urine. Body liquids could be used in any number of ways. I sealed wards with my blood. Roland made weapons and armor out of his. But urine usually pointed to a more primal magic. Shamans, witches, and some neo-pagan cult practitioners all used urine. People who considered themselves close to nature. It tied in with animals marking their territory and a number of other primal things.

The cayenne line looked like some sort of ward to me, and the presence of urine confirmed it. Someone had marked a boundary on the floor and sealed it with their body fluid, probably to contain something. What was anybody's guess at this point. With the magic down I sensed nothing, not a drop of power.

I stepped over the cayenne line and padded forward, pulling Slayer from the back sheath and staying to the right to give Andrea a clear shot.

The camera clicked. A moment and the Polaroid slid from it with a faint whirr. "One more ..." Andrea murmured.

"All that glassware and the delicate instruments on the counters and nothing is broken. You'd think with all his training Laurent would've put up a fight."

"Maybe he knew his attacker and didn't view him as a threat until it was too late."

That would make Adam Kamen or another guard the prime suspect. A bodyguard wouldn't expect to be assaulted by a man he guarded or his own buddies. Everybody else would've been met with violence.

Laurent's corpse showed no wounds except for a long black scar that cut his body from his chest down to his groin: a vertical line that split into three at the navel, like an upside-down imprint of a crow foot or like some perverse peace symbol torn out of its circle. Unusual cut. Looked almost like a rune.

The camera clicked, flashing, once, twice ...

The magic hit, rolling over us like an invisible tsunami. Andrea raised the camera and pushed the button. No flash. Not even a click. She glanced at the camera in disgust. "Damn it."

The black scar shivered.

I took a step back.

A faint shudder ran through the body. The black line trembled, its edges rising, and boiled into movement. Oh shit.

"Kate!"

"I see it."

The body swayed. The chains creaked, louder and louder. Power swelled, straining within the corpse. I backed away to the ward.

The corpse's stomach bulged, the black line swelling.

I stepped over the cayenne pepper line. Magic sparked on my skin.

The black scar burst.

Tiny bodies shot at us and fell harmlessly on the other side of the line, drenching the floor in a dark torrent. Not a single speck of black made it over to us.

Behind us, Henderson exhaled. "What the hell is that?"

"Ants," I said.

The black flood swirled, twisting, slower and slower. One by one the small bodies stopped moving. A moment and the floor was completely still.

Dead ants. A five-gallon bucket full of them strewn all over the floor.

The body rocked back and forth. All of the man's flesh had vanished. His skeleton was stripped bare and the skin hung on the bone frame like a deflated balloon.

"Oookay," Andrea said. "That's one of the freakiest things I've ever seen."

WHEN FACED WITH THE FREAKIEST THING YOU'VE ever seen, the best strategy is to pide and conquer. Andrea decided to m-scan the scene, while I took the enviable task of interviewing Henderson. He didn't look pleased.