Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

residents, armed with clubs, axes, and blades. I counted four dog handlers, holding their metallic charges on the arm-thick chains and two cheiroballistas beyond them before the path took me eastward. Should any demons make it up the trash-and spike-studded slope, they would regret it in a hurry.
    The shapeshifters had cleared the floor of the Gap enough to make it serviceable. All the sharp trash had been thrown against the bubble. It would slow the Fomorians down.
    We descended into the Gap. The Pack formed ranks about a hundred yards from the bubble. The shapeshifters stood apart, giving each other room to work. A group of women strode past me, led by a familiar witch: one of the Morrigan coven leaders. They wore leather and chain mail, carried bows and swords, and their faces were painted blue. With a look of grim determination, they elbowed their way to Curran. They spoke for a few minutes and the witches climbed up the walls, taking position among the refuse above the battle.
    It was my turn. I walked up to Curran. “Fifteen seconds.”
    His eyes shone. “I remember. Try not to die.”
    â€œI’ll survive just so I can kill you.”
    â€œSee you in the morning, then.”
    I moved aside. Behind me Derek had a wide smile plastered on his face.
    â€œAre you babysitting me for the fight?”
    He nodded, his smile even wider.
    Marvelous.
    A chunk of pale gray, like dirty ice, broke from the top of the bubble. With an eerie whistle, it plunged and bit deep into the bottom of the Gap, punching through the rusty garbage. The gray hissed and fizzled, evaporating into thin air. A hush fell upon the field. The shapeshifters trembled in anticipation.
    Curran’s voice carried over our heads. “We have a job to do. Today we avenge our own! They came here, onto our land. They tortured a child. They killed our Pack mates. Nobody hurts the Pack!”
    â€œNobody!” answered a ragged chorus.
    He pointed at the bubble. “They are not men. There is no human flesh on their bones.”
    Where was he going with this?
    â€œWhat happens here, stays here. Today there is no Code. Today you can let go.”
    They lived the Code. They followed it with fanatical discipline. Obey, perform, account for yourself. Ever diligent. Always in control. Never let go. Curran had promised them the one thing they could never have. One by one their eyes lit amber, then flared blood-red.
    â€œRemember: it’s not your job to die for your Pack! It’s your job to make the other bastards die for theirs. Together we kill!”
    â€œKill!” breathed the field.
    â€œWin!”
    â€œWin!”
    â€œGo home!”
    â€œGo home!”
    â€œKill! Win! Go home!”
    â€œKill, win, go home! Kill, win, go home!” They chanted it over and over, their voices merging them into a unified avalanche of sound.
    Another fraction of the dome tumbled to the grass. As one, the shapeshifters stripped off their clothes. Around me people gripped their weapons. I smelled sweat and sun-warmed metal.
    With the ear-splitting roar of a crumbling ice flat, the gray dome fell apart revealing the sea of Fomorians. They shifted forward a few steps and stood silent, a chaotic mass dappled with green, turquoise, and orange, monstrous like an old painting of hell.
    â€œTurn!” Curran roared.
    Fur burst along the shapeshifter ranks like a fire running down the detonation cord. Beasts and monsters shrugged their shoulders and bit the air. Curran snarled and rose above his troops, an eight-foot-tall bestial nightmare.
    Behind the Fomorian horde, Morfran stood on a small knoll of garbage. He thrust an enormous, double-edged axe to the sky.
    The Fomorians bellowed.
    A hundred roars answered them from thick furry throats: wolves snarled and howled, jackals yipped, hyenas laughed, cats growled, rats screeched, all at once, and through it all, unstoppable and overwhelming, came the lion roar.
    The Fomorians hesitated, unsure.
    Morfran thrust his axe straight up. He pretty much seemed to have one sign for everything: poke a hole in the sky.
    The front ranks of the horde started forward, first slowly, trudging, then faster and faster. A stretch of trash-strewn ground as long as a football field separated them from us. The ground shook from the pounding of many feet.
    â€œHold!” Curran snarled.
    A low chant of female voices rose behind us. The magic moved and shifted, obedient to the power within the