Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

Jeep screeched to a stop.
    Two skeletally thin vampires sat at the front of the restaurant, tethered to the horse rail with chains looped over their heads. Pale, hairless, dried like leathery jerky, the undead stared at us with mad glowing eyes. Death had robbed them of their cognizance and will, leaving behind mindless shells driven only by bloodlust. On their own, the bloodsuckers would slaughter anything alive and keep killing until nothing breathing remained. But their empty minds made a perfect vehicle for necromancers, who telepathically navigated them like remote-controlled cars.
    Curran glared at the undead through the windshield. Ninety percent of the vampires belonged to the People, a weird hybrid of a corporation and a research institute. We both despised the People and everything they stood for.
    I couldn’t resist. “I thought you said this was a nice place.”
    He leaned back, gripped the steering wheel, and let out a long growling, “Argh.”
    I chuckled.
    “Who the hell stops at a restaurant in the middle of navigating undead?” Curran squeezed the wheel a little. It made a groaning noise.
    I shrugged. “Maybe the navigators got hungry.”
    He gave me an odd look. “This far away from the Casino means they’re out on patrol. What, did they suddenly get the munchies?”
    “Curran, ignore the damn bloodsuckers. Let’s go and have a date anyway.”
    He looked like he wanted to kill somebody.
    The world blinked. Magic flooded us like an invisible tsunami. The neon sign above the restaurant winked out and a larger brilliant blue sign ignited above it, made from handblown glass and filled with charged air.
    I reached over and squeezed Curran’s hand. “Come on, you, me, a platter of barely seared meat…it’ll be great. If we see the necromancers, we can make fun of the way they hold their forks.”
    We got out of the car and headed inside. The bloodsuckers glanced at us in unison, their eyes like two smoldering coals buried beneath the ash of a dying fire. I felt their minds, twin hot pinpoints of pain, restrained securely by the navigators’ wills. One slipup and those coals would ignite into an all-consuming flame. Vampires never knew satiation. They never got full, they never stopped killing, and if let loose, they would drown the world in blood and die of starvation when there was nothing left to kill.
    The chains wouldn’t hold them—the links were an eighth of an inch thick at best, good for restraining a large dog. A vamp would snap it and not even notice, but the general public felt better if the bloodsuckers were chained, and so the navigators obliged.
    We passed the vampires and entered the restaurant.
    The inside of Arirang was dim. Feylanterns glowed with soft light on the walls, as the charged air inside their colored glass tubes reacted with magic. Each feylantern had been handblown into a beautiful shape: a bright blue dragon, an emerald tortoise, a purple fish, a turquoise stocky dog with a unicorn horn…Booths lined the walls, their tables plain rectangles of wood. In the center of the floor four larger round tables sported built-in charcoal grills under metal hoods.
    The restaurant was about half full. The two booths to our right were occupied, the first by a young couple, a dark-haired man and a blond woman in their twenties, and the second by two middle-aged men. The younger couple chatted quietly. Good clothes, relaxed, casual, well groomed. Ten to one these were the navigators who had parked the bloodsuckers out front. The People’s headquarters, known as the Casino, had seven Masters of the Dead and I knew them all by sight. I didn’t recognize either the man or the woman. Either these two were visiting from out of town or they were upper-level journeymen.
    Both of the older guys in the next booth were armed. The closer one carried a short sword, which he had put on the seat next to him. As his friend reached for the salt shaker, his sweatshirt hugged the gun in his side holster.
    Past the men in the far right corner, four women in their thirties laughed too loud—probably tipsy. On the other side afamily with two teenage daughters cooked their food on the grill. The older girl looked a bit like Julie, my ward. Two businesswomen, another family with a toddler, and an older couple rounded off the patrons. No threats.
    The air swirled with the delicious aroma of meat cooked over an open fire, sautéed garlic, and sweet spices. My mouth watered. I hadn’t eaten