Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

don’t do anything for you, do I? Kind of like my friend doesn’t do anything for me.”
    He stared. “Why would you think that?”
    â€œA feeling I get. Like you’re trying to get into my pants because I’m a woman and you don’t know what else to do with me. You don’t think I’m all that.”
    He sighed and looked at me. Really looked at me. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve got a nice body and all. I wouldn’t turn you down if you wanted to spread your legs, but yeah I’ve bedded better.”
    I nodded. “I thought so.”
    â€œWhat gave me away?”
    â€œThe kiss.”
    He reared back. “I kiss like a madman!”
    â€œIt was a kiss of a frustrated man with injured pride. There was no fire in it.” I handed him another twig. “Just talk to me. Pretend I’m a traveler who stopped by your fire. I bet you don’t get many visitors. You stay in the mist all the time?”
    â€œI come out to play during the flares.” He encompassed the lake and forest with a wide wave of his hand. “I fish, I hunt. Never run out of game. It’s the good life.”
    â€œSo you don’t get to enter the real world unless the flare is up?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œBut the flare only comes every seven years or so. In between years, you’re here, by yourself, with no company?”
    He whistled. A shaggy shape trotted from the dark and flopped at his feet. A huge, black dog. “Got Conri here.”
    The dog raised his paws into the air, turning to get his belly scratched. Bran obliged. “If I get bored, I sleep. For years sometimes, until she wakes me up.”
    I offered my bone to the dog. He took it out of my hands very gently and settled to gnaw it at my feet. I thought I was alone. At least I could go out and talk to other people. “You must’ve been here awhile, but you speak with no accent.”
    â€œThe Gift of Gab. One of three gifts she gave me. Gift of Gab: I speak any language I wish. Gift of Health: my wounds are healed fast. And Gift of Aim: I hit what I see. The fourth gift is my own. I was born with it.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œAdmit it was the best kiss you’ve ever had and I’ll tell you.”
    â€œSorry, I can think of a couple better.” Or at least one…
    â€œThen why do I waste time with you?”
    I shook my head. He wasn’t a real person. Just a shadow of one with no memories, no ties, nothing but a sex drive, good aim, and wild eyes.
    â€œWhere are you from?”
    He shrugged. “Don’t remember.”
    â€œOkay, when are you from? How long have you been here?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    I grappled for something, some sort of marker that any person would know. “What’s your mother’s name?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    I looked at the stars. This mission was doomed to failure from the start. Who was I kidding?
    â€œBlathin,” he said. “Her name was Blathin.”
    He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come! I’m going to show you something.”
    We ran along the edge of the lake into the trees. Ahead a wooden cabin rose, nestled among the greenery, connected to the lake by a long dock. Bran dragged me inside.
    A fire burned in the fireplace. To the right a simple bed stood against the wall, to the left a row of chests sat. Carvings decorated the walls: a tree, runes, and warriors. Many, many fighters twisted by the battle spasm and carved with exquisite detail. Under them on the table lay a scroll, depicting a man with a long staff wearing a monk’s cassock. He sat on a rock. Beside him mermaids played in sea waves. The Shepherd…
    Bran grabbed my hand, pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest.
    â€œOh God.”
    He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. “All of them are mine.”
    This was officially the weirdest version of “come down to my place and I’ll show you some etchings” I’ve ever been hit with.
    He threw open another chest. I saw a World War I Kaiser helm next to a black motorcycle helmet splashed with painted flames. How old was he, exactly?
    The third chest: blades. Turkish yataghan, a katana, a marine officer’s saber with Semper