Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

so he could’ve been in his seventies, for all I knew. The skin on his forehead was olive, a warm shade particular to those from the Indian subcontinent. That was the only patch of exposed skin left undamaged. Large blisters swelled everywhere else on his cheeks, neck, and arms, the skin peeling up from muscle, stretched taut and completely black.
    Another Polaroid.
    “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Stefan said.
    I had. “Has the ME been through here?”
    “Yeah. But we chased them off.”
    That’s right, even if Pack members died outside of the Pack’s territory, the Pack still had the right to claim their bodies. And technically the building was Pack property, since Raphael had bought it. I should’ve remembered that. Getting rusty, Ms. Nash. Getting rusty.
    I handed him the Polaroid camera. “Could you hold on to this for a second?”
    He took the camera. I pulled a knife from my belt and sliced the man’s shirt straight down his chest. The thin fabric parted easily. I made a cut through each sleeve and gently turned the body on its side. A large swelling marked the top of the left shoulder, just above the clavicle. I flicked the knifeacross the bottom edge of the blister. Body fluids gushed out, black and streaked with blood. The stench hit me instantly, the foul, putrid reek of rotten flesh.
    Stefan cursed and spun away.
    “If you’re going to puke, kindly do it in the tunnel.”
    He bent double and shook his head. “No, I’m good. I’m good.”
    I stretched the deflated skin down. Two ragged punctures marked the man’s back, close to the top of the shoulder near the neck. The swelling had hidden them before.
    “What is that?”
    “A snakebite.”
    “Aren’t we immune to snake venom?”
    I shook my head. “Nope.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    “No, I’m not. Shapeshifters don’t exactly advertise this fact, for obvious reasons, but yeah, a copperhead bites you, you’ll feel it.”
    Stefan blinked at me. “We regenerate broken bones, and we’re immune to disease and poison.”
    “We’re very resistant to poison but not immune. Remember Erra?”
    Stefan’s eyes darkened. “Yeah. I remember.”
    Erra was Kate’s aunt and her secret. Kate’s family was magic, the kind of magic that leveled cities and altered the course of ancient civilizations. Her aunt had slept for thousands of years, but the onset of magic had awakened her, and she came to Atlanta looking for trouble and nearly destroyed the city. One of her creations, which she named Venom, broke into one of Clan Wolf’s houses in the city and poisoned everyone within. They died in agony. It was a wakeup call to the Pack. The shapeshifters could be poisoned, if the poison was strong enough.
    “Most diseases are viral or bacterial in nature,” I said. “Lyc-V is a jealous virus, so it terminates these other invaders. Ingested poison is localized to the stomach. The second it tries to enter the bloodstream, Lyc-V will shut it down. A snakebite is another story.”
    I rose, pulled a rag from my pocket, and wiped my hands. “The snake injects toxins directly into the body, and thesetoxins are biological: enzymes, coagulants, and so on. Some just attack the area of the bite, but some attack the nervous system, and Lyc-V doesn’t recognize them as a threat until the damage starts to spread.”
    “So what’s this one?”
    “Hemotoxic. Probably from a viper. The moment the venom enters the victim, it begins to coagulate blood and clot the blood vessels. Lyc-V exists in all tissues, but most of it is in the bloodstream. Clog the arteries and the virus can’t get to the venom fast enough to destroy it. I once knew a werebuffalo who fell into a nest of rattlesnakes. Looked just like that when we pulled his corpse out.”
    Stefan peered at the body. “How did a snake manage to bite him on his back? He wouldn’t have been lying down in the dirt. Sitting, maybe.”
    Shapeshifters took personal hygiene seriously. “Filthy animal” was a common insult people hurled our way. The guards wouldn’t have been lying down in loose soil unless they absolutely had to.
    “I don’t know.” I took a ruler from my bag and held it up to the bite marks. Three and three-eighths of an inch. Two inches would mean a big snake. Two and a half inches meant a fifteen-foot rattler. Three and three-eighths was crazy.
    “I can tell you that if I was an intelligent snake, this is the place I’d bite,” I said. “If you cause