Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

at the owner of the voice and recognized her face.
    â€œKate,” she said pitifully. “Please say something.”
    I felt so hollow, I couldn’t find my voice.
    â€œAre you real?” I asked her.
    Julie nodded.
    â€œHow did you get here?”
    â€œBran brought me,” she said. “I awoke in a lake. There were bodies everywhere and a woman. He pulled me out and gave me a knife and he brought me over there.” She pointed back to where we had originally formed our lines. “I fought.” She showed me her bloody knife.
    â€œStupid girl,” I said. I couldn’t muster any anger and my voice was flat. “So many people died to save you, and you ran right back into the slaughter.”
    â€œI saw the reeves eating my mom’s body. I had to.” She sat next to me. “I had to, Kate.”
    I heard a faint jingle of chains. Then a crunch of metal under someone’s feet. A tall figure came through the smoke.
    Nude, except for a harness of leather belts and silver hooks, her hair falling around her in black dreads, she stood smeared with fresh blood. The dark red rivulets mixed with blue runes tattooed on her skin. Her presence slapped me: glacial, hard, cruel, terrifying like a wolf’s howl heard at night on a lonely road.
    â€œIt’s her,” Julie whispered. “The woman by the lake.”
    Her eyes glowed, streaked with radiant sparks. The sparks erupted into amber irises, suddenly as big as a house, all consuming, overpowering…The black bottomless pupil loomed before me and I knew I could sink into it and be forever lost.
    So that’s what the eye of a goddess looks like.
    She looked past us and raised her hand to point over my shoulder. Chains clanked. “Come!” I recognized the voice: I had heard her in my head.
    Red peeled himself from the pile of trash. I had known he was there for a while. He had crept in when the fight was almost over, followed me, and waited there in the garbage, while I sat by Bran, numb. Probably biding his time for a good chance to stab me in the back.
    Julie startled. “Red!”
    I caught her by the shoulder and kept her put.
    â€œYou desire power…”
    Red swallowed. “Yes.”
    â€œServe me and I will give you all the power you want.”
    He trembled.
    â€œDo you accept the bargain?”
    â€œYes!”
    â€œRed, what about me?” Julie broke free of my grip. I didn’t hold her too hard. This was her last chance to be cured.
    â€œI love you! Don’t leave me.”
    He held his hand out, blocking her. “She has everything I want. You have nothing.”
    He stepped over Bran’s legs and trotted to Morrigan’s side like the dog he was. It had come full circle: from the ancestor who had broken free of Morrigan, through countless generations, to the descendant, who willingly put on her collar.
    Bran’s body had barely cooled. She showed no signs of grief.
    I looked at her. “You recognize me.”
    Chains jingled in agreement.
    â€œWe meet again, and I’ll kill him.”
    â€œFuck off. She’s too powerful for you. She’ll protect me,” Red said.
    â€œThe blood that flows through me was old when she was but a vague idea. Look into her eyes, if you don’t believe me.”
    â€œWe won’t meet again,” Morrigan promised.
    Behind her, mist swirled in a solid wall. It slunk along the ground, licked at Morrigan’s feet, wound about Red, and swallowed them whole.
    The tech hit, crushing the magic under its foot. Julie stood alone in the field of dead bodies and iron, her face numb with shock.

EPILOGUE
    IN THE MORNING, WHEN THE WITCHES CAME FOR Bran’s body, they found it sprawled among white flowers. Blazing like small white stars, with centers as black as his eyes, the flowers grew overnight, sending a spicy scent into the air. By the time the day was over, the flowers had been christened Morgan’s Bells and a rumor floated person to person that Morrigan was so distraught over her champion’s death, she had wept and the flowers sprang forth from her tears.
    Bullshit. I was there and the bitch didn’t shed a tear.
    The witches buried Bran in Centennial Park and built a cairn over his grave. I was told I was welcome to visit him anytime.
    The next two days were spent next to Andrea bent over the reports to the Order. We’d plugged every hole, smoothed every bump, and routed out every