Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

flesh and tapering to a sharp, horn-tipped point. Below the nose a massive jaw supported two rows of oversized teeth. One of the incisors jutted like a boar tusk falling just short of touching the left cheek. His eyes, small and white, sat deep under Neanderthal eyebrows. Between the eyes cartilage broke through the skin to form a thin, sharp ridge that vanished into his fleshy forehead.
    It was as if the skulls of a horse and a human had somehow been blended into a horrid whole. A human face stretched over the meld, with barely enough meat and skin to cover the bone. This thing could not be man.
    Behind him the darkness slithered and gained shape, solidifying into long black hair and a thousand crow feathers, streaming like a mantle behind him.
    Morfran.
    He raised his hand and spoke a word.
    A gray bubble popped into existence by his fingers and began to expand. It swallowed his hand, then his head, then his feet. Instinctively I knew I didn’t want the bubble touching Curran.
    The Beast Lord hesitated.
    â€œRun, Curran!” The words left me even though I knew he couldn’t hear.
    The bubble gulped the cauldron.
    My heart clenched. “Run!”
    Curran turned on his heel and ran, swiping Jim’s body off the ground.
    â€œAndrea!” I screamed, but he couldn’t hear me.
    The bubble hid the Shepherd and the vision faded.

CHAPTER 23
    THREE HOURS LATER BRAN AND I RODE UP TO THE pack keep. The witches had lent us the horses and we had ridden them until they were soaked in sweat. Bran seethed. He cursed me for not giving him the lid in time. He cursed Curran for losing the lid. He cursed Morrigan for denying him the mist as a punishment for his failure. He cursed the Fomorians by name, reaching for stronger and stronger words until his curses no longer made sense. I said nothing.
    After a half hour of cursing, Bran wore out his voice and lapsed into silence. “The gray bubble we saw is a ward,” he said finally. “The Fomorians can only crawl out of the cauldron one at a time. Morfran is buying time to build his army.”
    â€œCan we break the ward?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “Cú Chulainn himself couldn’t break through it. In fifteen hours it will fall and your city will drown in blood. We are riding through the Otherworld because all of them”—he swept his hand past the houses crowding the street—“all of them are dead. We travel through the city of the dead men. All because that son of a whore was trying to save a beggar child.”
    She was my beggar child. I would’ve risked a horde of demons to save her, too.
    The gates of the Pack Keep opened at our approach. A clump of shapeshifters waited for us in the inner yard. I searched for the familiar figure.
    Please. Please make it.
    And then I saw him. His hair fell on his back in a mane. I had missed it, because it was no longer blond, but gray, the gray of his fur in beast-form.
    Bran jumped off his horse and strode into the yard, his face twisted. “You! You fucking whoreson!”
    Oh shit. “Curran, don’t kill him! He’s Morrigan’s Hound. We need him to work the cauldron!”
    I jumped off the horse and chased Bran.
    The shapeshifters parted, giving Curran room. A white bandage covered his arm. That was a first.
    Bran shoved Curran, but the Beast Lord didn’t move.
    â€œYou gave it to them! For what? A scrawny street kid! Nobody cares if she lives or dies! You’ve killed hundreds for her. Why?”
    Curran’s eyes had gone gold. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He raised his hand and shoved Bran back. Bran stumbled a couple of steps.
    I caught him. “Don’t do this. You’ll get hurt.”
    Bran pushed free of me and lunged at Curran. Curran snarled, grabbed Bran by his arm, and threw him across the yard.
    Morrigan’s Hound leaped upright. An inhuman, terrifying bellow erupted from his throat and slammed my ears with an air fist.
    Bran’s flesh boiled. Muscles swelled to obscene proportions, veins bulged like ropes, tendons knotted in apple-sized clumps. He grew, stretching upward, his elbows and knees sinking into engorged muscle. With boneless flexibility, his body twisted back, distended, flowed, melted, and finally snapped into an asymmetric aberration. Bumps slid across his torso like small cars colliding under his skin. His left eye bulged; his right sank; his face stretched back, baring his