Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

tab. If you die on me, it will be hard to collect and I’m too cheap to get stuck with the bill. Let’s go.”
    Andrea’s head jerked back, slamming into Raphael’s chest. She cried out. Flesh flowed along her frame, reshaping, molding into a new body, a lean, long-legged creature covered in short fur. Her face flowed into a mix of human and hyena. Unlike the bouda shapeshifters, whose form too often was a horrific mishmash of mismatched parts, Andrea was a proportional, beautiful, elegant being. Too bad she didn’t see herself that way.
    Doolittle probed her abdomen with the fingers of his left hand, a scalpel in his right. “Now when I cut, you push. Nice and easy, just like you trained.”
    “Trained?” Andrea choked.
    “The silver-extraction training,” Doolittle told her.
    “I haven’t trained!”
    Of course she hadn’t trained. She pretended she wasn’t a shapeshifter. “She doesn’t know how,” I told him.
    Andrea convulsed. Raphael clamped her still. His face had gone bloodless.
    “The silver burns. Your flesh tries to shrink from it and it burrows deeper and deeper into your body. You must fight it,” Doolittle said. “It goes against all your instincts, but when I cut, you must strain and push against it to force it out of your body.”
    “I can’t,” Andrea gasped.
    “You can,” Raphael told her. “Everyone learns how to do it. Children are trained to do it. You’re a knight of the Order. You can push a fucking needle out of your body. Stop crying and feeling sorry for yourself.”
    “I hate you,” she snarled.
    Doolittle positioned the scalpel above the largest gray spot. “Ready?”
    He sliced without waiting for an answer. Black blood gushed from the wound. Andrea crushed my hand, screamed, straining, and a silver needle slid onto her stomach.
    Doolittle swiped the silver-fouled blood from her skin with gauze. “Good girl. Very good. Now we do it again.”
     
     
    WHEN IT WAS DONE, RAPHAEL CARRIED ANDREA to the shower, murmuring soothing endearments into her ear. My part in it was finished. I went to the bedroom to find Dali slicing Derek’s back to get out the needles. Unlike Andrea, Derek had training and his progress was much faster. He joked while Dali cut him, mangling the words with his monstrous jaws, snarled with a pretended rage, and dramatically promised to “kirrrl youraaalll for this!” Curran chuckled. Dali was giggling. Even Jim smiled, for once lingering in the room instead of watching the fights.
    I couldn’t stay. I wanted to be alone, by myself. I should go and watch the fights instead. Some other people dying for the sake of the greedy crowd. That would fix me right up. There was nowhere else I could go.
    It wasn’t until I was out in the hallway that the after-shock of the fight hit me. Little painful sparks danced along my skin and melted first into relief, then into electric anxiety.
    At the far end of the hallway a woman in a flowing sari was heading toward me between two Red Guards. She carried an ornate metal box.
    I retreated to our quarters and blocked the doorway.
    The woman and the guards stopped before me. She smiled at me. “A gift. For the man with the shattered face.”
    I took the box. “I’ll be sure that he gets it.”
    She smiled wider.
    “That’s a beautiful skin you’re wearing,” I told her. “I’m sure its owner screamed very loud before you killed her for it.”
    The Guards reached for their weapons.
    “You will scream too, when I take yours,” she said.
    I smiled back at her. “I’ll cut your heart out and make you eat it. Or you can save me the trouble and swallow your tongue like your scaled friend.”
    Her smile got sharper. She inclined her head and took off. The Guards escorting her followed, relieved.
    I brought the box into the bedroom and explained where it came from.
    Derek reached over and opened it without a word. Inside lay a wealth of human hair. He scooped it with his claws and lifted it out. No blood. Just dark hair, gathered into a horse tail and chopped off. His upper lip rose, revealing his fangs. Livie’s hair.
    “Was this done to disfigure her?” I asked.
    Dali shook her head. “Widows cut their hair. They’re taunting him. If she’s his bride, then he’s as good as dead.”

CHAPTER 27

    I AWOKE AROUND FIVE. GYM, STRETCH, LIGHT workout, shower, breakfast. Routine. Except for all us monsters gathered around the table. The shapeshifters loved to eat. It was a wonder the table didn’t