Magic Triumphs (Kate Daniels, #10)

by Ilona Andrews

My luck with women named Jennifer wasn’t exactly great,

“You are a power in Atlanta.” “The.” He blinked. “I’m the power in Atlanta,” I told him.

“I already have a relationship of mutual understanding with the Order.” “Really?” Norwood asked. “Yes. Nick thinks I’m fruit from the poisoned tree and hates my family, and I tolerate his assholeness because occasionally I need the Order’s help. Nick and I understand each other very well.”

The world faded to the vivid precision of battle. Every moment mattered. Every step counted. There was no other place like it. This was my calling. This was what I did, and I danced through the battlefield, through the spray of blood and boiling magic, the sword of my grandmother’s bones singing a song as it bridged life and death. I cut them to pieces. I disemboweled and maimed. They would never again scare my son. The last sahanu collapsed. The ground at my feet was bloody. Pieces of human bodies littered it. I turned around. The knights stood on the street, their faces wearing identical expressions: eyebrows raised, eyes wide open, mouth a tense half-open slash across the face. Fear.

Beside me Javier’s vamp looked to the left, looked to the right, and unhinged its jaws. “The first generation of the sahanu is dead. The second generation of the sahanu is dead. The Order of Sahanu is dead. Everybody is dead.” Javier paused. “Praise be to In-Shinar, the Merciful.” “Stop it,” I growled at him. “Right,” the team leader said. “Team One Leader to Mother, fourteen bandits down, no pulse, scene hot, the Dove and Chick are secure. Advise?” The dove? Kate Lennart, the Dove? Just when exactly had I ever done anything remotely dovelike?

The leading Jeep slid to a halt. A single man jumped out and sprinted to the boar. I would know that sprint anywhere. Hi, honey, we’re over here, but please ignore us and run at the magic boar all by yourself. It’s only a giant enraged animal god. No need to worry. Nothing bad ever happens in situations like this. “Curran!” He ran past us at breakneck speed. As if we weren’t even there. “Damn it.” I unsheathed Sarrat. “Idiot,” Ghastek volunteered.

He smiled at me again. “The sahanu were growing troublesome.” I stared at him, speechless. “Wow. Just wow. You used me to clean up your cult.” He shrugged. “You used me to rescue a woman who betrayed me. I’d say we’re even. Besides, my grandson was never in danger. You are my daughter, Blossom. One of a kind.”

“Shut up!” Rowena snapped at him. “He has a point,” Phillip yelled. “There is no evidence of this supposed dragon. It is a magical impossibility. In fact, I wrote a paper—” “Your paper was hogwash,” Luther cut in. “Precisely,” Saiman added. “I am the Grand Magus. I won’t be spoken to like this!” The table erupted in screams. “I’ll speak to you however I please!” Luther shot back. “You’re a loose cannon, Luther!” Phillip shook his finger at him. “It’s Dr. Loose Cannon to you!” “Evidence!” Nick raised his voice, trying to out scream the others. “You have no evidence, no armor from these warriors, no scales, no evidence!” “Tell them!” Grigorii pointed at Drest. “Tell them what?” Drest asked. “You know what,” Grigorii yelled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Drest shouted. “Coward!” Grigorii spat. “Senile fool!” The druids and the volhvs banged their staffs on the floor, glaring at each other. “We need to wake Yu Fong!” Phillip yelled. “He has actually seen the creature. We can ask him directly.” “Over my dead body!” Dali snapped. Everyone on the Pack side looked outraged. On one side, Evdokia sighed and rolled her eyes. At the other end, Desandra clapped her hands over the cacophony, chanting, “Fight, fight, fight . . .” I turned to Curran. “Do the roar thing.” He shook his head. “Not yet. Let them scream themselves out.” The front door burst open. Hugh d’Ambray strode inside, huge in a cloak and the black armor of the Iron Dogs.

I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t dump a rotting corpse on us. The table went completely silent. “I’ve come to help you with your dragon problem,” he said. Nick turned the color of an eggplant. Next to me, Curran had gone completely still. “Well?” Hugh grinned. “Don’t all of you thank me at once.”

Behind me, Hugh murmured, “That went well.” “Give them time,” Elara said. “Steed,” Hugh said. I stopped. One wrong word to Christopher and I would murder him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Barabas. His eyes had gone bright red. “You’ve survived,” Christopher said. “You know what they say about me. Hard to kill. I have some things to apologize for.” “Come by the house,” Christopher said. “303 Forest Lane. We’ll talk.”

“Have you ever wondered how I survived two months in a cage with no food or water?” he asked. “Why I didn’t go into organ failure? Why I had no sores, despite sitting in my own filth?” “Hugh fed you,” I guessed. Christopher nodded. “At night. He talked to me.” I threw my hands up. “He shouldn’t have kept you in the cage in the first place.” “He kept me alive.” Barabas sighed. Christopher’s expression sharpened, growing somehow more fragile. “The two of you only remember the man in the cage. Before that I was the Legatus of the Golden Legion. I murdered my way to the top. I committed atrocities. And unlike Hugh, I have nobody to blame but myself. I own everything I’ve done. I did it because I wanted power. I must live with it. Hugh lives with his memories. It will be his choice to atone for what he has done, or not. But I’ve forgiven Hugh, because if I don’t forgive him, there is no hope for forgiveness for someone like me.” He rose and went upstairs. Barabas went after him, and I let myself out.

I can always kill him later.” His Furriness, the Long-term Planner.

I KNEW MY aunt had recovered, because she exploded into our bedroom and roared, “The child is missing!” I sat bolt upright on the bed. Curran groaned. I realized I was naked and pulled a blanket over my chest. “Knocking,” I told her. “Privacy.” She glared at us. “This is no time to have sex! Your son is missing! I can’t feel him.” Kill me, somebody. “He isn’t missing. He’s across the street with his grandmother. You can’t feel him because I strengthened the ward on George’s house to mask his presence.” She squinted at me. “Are you sure?” “Yes. I went there to check on him late last night and I saw him sleeping. Grendel is with him. There are enough werebears in that house to hold off an army.” Erra considered it. “Very well. Also, your father’s attack dog, what’s his name? Hugh. Hugh and some blond woman are in a car in your driveway, talking.” She turned and swept down the hallway, right past the remnants of the door she’d broken. I turned over and bumped my head on Curran’s chest a few times. “Why me?” “I don’t know.” He stroked my back. “I suppose we need to get dressed.” “Ugh.” “If I have to murder Hugh, I don’t want to do it naked,” he said. “It would be weird.”

“We’re having a private argument,” Hugh said. “Do you mind?” I pictured myself reaching past Elara and punching him in the jaw. Nope, didn’t have the reach.

I’d just invited Hugh d’Ambray for breakfast. The world was going crazy. Nothing left to do but hold on and yell “Wheee!” at strategic moments.

Curran descended the stairs. “What do they want?” “They’re having a private argument. I invited them to breakfast.” He shrugged in a fatalistic way.

Hugh leaned against the wall, big, dark, the happy-to-kill-you psychopath I remembered. I handed him a stack of plates. “Make yourself useful.” He winked at me. I swiped a knife off the island and threw it. It sprouted from the wall an inch from his nose. “You’ll need cutlery,”

“We already settled that,” Elara said. “You did?” Curran asked. “Yes. Raphael is the dark-haired one in leather?” “Looks like sex on a stick,” I told her. “Yes. With the eyes.” She waved her fingers to imitate fluttering eyelashes. “That’s him.” Curran looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “He came to see us last fall,” Elara said. “He has a short blond wife.” What? “Did you talk to her?” “I did.” “Excuse me.” I got up, walked to the phone, and dialed the Bouda House. A chirpy bouda answered. “Clan Bouda’s residence.” “Please tell the alpha that her former best friend is calling.” “She warned us you would call.” There was a click and then Andrea’s voice came on the line. “Hey.” “You didn’t tell me.” “Nope, I didn’t.” “Why?” “Because you were pregnant at the time and had enough shit to deal with.” I forced the words out. “Why didn’t you tell me after?” “Because I watched Hugh let Raphael cut him to ribbons. If I’d told you, you’d have dropped everything and went there too, and then Hugh would’ve let you kill him, and then you’d be filled with self-loathing and I’d have to take care of your mopey ass. I have a clan to run, a husband to satisfy, and a daughter to take care of. Call me when you cool off.” She hung up. Society frowned on killing your best friend. In this case, it would just have to make an exception.

“Do people just walk into your house like they own the place?” Hugh asked Curran. “You have no idea,” Curran told him.

I took my coffee cup off the table and moved out of the way. This should be interesting. Dali’s eyes lit up. “You listen to me—” “You barged into the house of the closest person I have to a sister and you interrupted my breakfast.” Dali reached to grab him. Elara’s fingers brushed her. Dali jerked back, a look of pure horror on her face. “If you touch my husband again, I’ll eat your soul, tiger,” Elara said, and drank her cold tea. “Aww, honey.” Hugh smiled at her. “You shouldn’t have.”

Hugh kept eating. Elara looked at him. He shrugged. “It’s not my problem.” “Please answer her,” she asked. “You feel bad, but I don’t,” he said. “For me,” she asked. “You know my price,” he told her. Elara leaned back and crossed her arms, her face iced over. “Really?” “The whole thing. You’ll put it in your mouth and you’ll swallow.” What? “The whole thing?” “I mean it, Elara. You will eat the entire chicken.” “I can’t possibly eat the whole chicken. It’s too much.” Hugh’s voice was merciless. “Do it over the course of the day.” “Do you expect me to eat the bones, too?” “Now you’re being childish.” “I just want to have the terms of this agreement clear,” she told him. “You don’t have to eat the bones,” he said. “You will consume the meat and skin of the chicken. Possibly some cartilage if you feel like it. All the parts of the chicken normally eaten by human beings.” “You’re a bully,” she told him. “You knew I was an asshole when you married me.” “Fine. I will eat the damn chicken. Help her, please.”

“ARE YOU HARD OF HEARING, SHARRIM? ANSWER ME! SHARRIM?” It dawned on me that he expected me to make some sort of sound. “No.”

“Did you set a blood ward around us, so you could scream at me uninterrupted?” “YES!” Of course he did. “Carry on then.” I lay flat on the grass. It was nice and soft.

My father slapped his hand over his face. “Why, gods? Why me? What have I done to deserve this punishment?” “Conquered, pillaged, manipulated, imposed your will on others . . .” “Murdered your children,” my aunt’s icy voice said behind us.

My father sneered. It was almost as impressive as when my aunt did it. Apparently, it ran in the family.

My father clenched his fists. Light exploded in the dome, hiding him from view. It faded, revealing my aunt, her arms crossed on her chest. She rolled her eyes and said something. My father spun away, throwing up his arms. “I stand corrected,” my husband said. “There is another person who can drive your father as crazy as you.”

He sat at our kitchen table while Hugh, Curran, and Erra tried to explain things to him in two languages. At one point he declared that we were making it too complicated, and then Hugh drew stick figures on pieces of paper, trying to explain it. My father had gotten the strategy by the end, but whether he would stick to it was anyone’s guess.

To the left Barabas looked at Christopher, then at the lines of soldiers. Christopher’s face was calm, but the muscles on his bare arms were bunched up, tense. “Will you marry me?” Barabas asked, still looking at the army flooding the field. “Yes,” Christopher said. Barabas turned to him. Christopher leaned in and they kissed.

Nick marched up the hill and stopped next to me. “I take it back,” he said. “Which part?” “You didn’t exaggerate the threat.” “Be still my heart. Does that mean you’re ready to believe there is a dragon?” “I’ll believe it when I see it.” “You are such an asshole.” “Takes one to know one. Try not to die, Daniels,” he said. “You, too. Who would I fight with if you weren’t here?”