Kate Daniels 01 - Magic Bites

Strike so I can kill you.
    The pressure fell abruptly and I was hurled back from a long black tunnel into the real world. Nataraja backed off, sensing the danger. Damn it.
    I glanced at Derek. His face looked bloodless. His hands clenched into fists.
    Nataraja was once again playing an amused host. “I see you brought a pet,” he said. “He talks like you.” One day , his face promised. One day we’ll settle this.
    “My bad habits rubbing off.” Any time.
    A whisper announced a new arrival. Ghastek came through the arched doors, carrying a briefcase and wearing khaki pants and a black T-neck sweater. He looked so absurd against the backdrop of Nataraja’s vulgar throne room that I almost laughed.
    Ghastek nodded to me and came to stand by his master’s throne. Both men were of slight build, but where Nate was slender, Ghastek was thin. A diet of steaks and lots of hours in the weight room could make him lean and sinewy, but I doubted he ever looked at a dumbbell, let alone handled one. He was beginning to bald and the receding hairline added height to his forehead. His face was plain, saved from unremarkable only by dark eyes betraying his intellect and that slight touch of distance particular to people who spend their time immersed in thought.
    “Ahh, Ghastek,” Nataraja said as if greeting a favorite pet. “I was just pondering Kate’s new amusement. He would be her . . .”
    I indulged him. “Apprentice.”
    “Apprentice.” Nataraja rolled the word in his mouth, tasting it. “How modest. Considering his age, it’s actually appropriate, although out of character.”
    “I hate to disappoint you, but our relationship is strictly professional.”
    Nataraja’s laugh polluted the air. “Of course,” he said, as if humoring a small child. “How insensitive of me.”
    I smiled at him. “Indeed. Now that we’ve established that you have appallingly poor taste, would you like a chance to chat with me as a representative of the Order or shall I make my exit?”
    “Suddenly you’re all business. Very well.” Nataraja leaned back. “I’m dissatisfied with the direction your investigation has taken you.”
    I bared my teeth at him. “I find that amusing. I don’t answer to you.”
    He didn’t say anything, so I elaborated. “I work for the Order and the last time I checked the Order didn’t report to Roland.”
    It was amusing to see the effect of the name. Both men jerked, as if shocked with a live wire.
    “As you can see, gentlemen, I have access to the Order’s database.” Which was a blatant lie but they had no way of knowing it. Roland’s name short-circuited their logic. If they realized how I knew the name of their leader, they both would suffer an instant apoplexy.
    “Here is what I know, and please, correct me if I’m wrong. Ghastek’s shadow vampire was tailing Greg Feldman. It was killed suddenly and you haven’t been able to extract an image of the killer from the mind of the journeyman who had been piloting it. You’ve made no effort to disclose this information to the Order, which is understandable since you’d have to explain why your vampire was following the knight-diviner. What I don’t understand is why you have been making so much noise over a single vamp.”
    A long pause stretched and then Nataraja jerked his wrist in a kind of “tell her” gesture and looked aside, seemingly losing all interest in our conversation. Rowena remained tranquil, her hand on the snake’s head. I wondered what went through her mind.
    “We’ve lost more than one vampire,” Ghastek said.
    “You have proof?”
    Ghastek opened the briefcase and extracted a stack of photographs. Déjà vu. He walked forward to give the stack to me. Derek stepped between us, wordlessly took the pictures from his hand, and delivered them to mine.
    I looked at a black-and-white image of a deceased vampire. The bloodsucker lay in a crumpled heap, its wiry body pitifully broken. Thick dark blood stained its pallid hide. The vamp was coated in it, as if someone had dipped his hand into the blood and smeared it all over its taut skin the way one would rub oil over the skin of a chicken to prepare it for roasting. The bloodsucker’s bald cranium had been neatly cracked and wet emptiness glared at me where the brain had been.
    The second photograph. The same vampire, this time placed on its back to better display a long gash that split its torso from the genitals to midchest. Yellowish ribs protruded from