Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

should’ve shifted forms the moment they jumped him, but he didn’t. How is that possible?”
    “We don’t know,” Jim said.
    He leaned against the doorframe like a bleak shadow knitted from anger. I hadn’t heard him approach.
    “Regeneration and change of shape are irrevocably linked.” Doolittle drank his tea. “There are things that can be done to induce a change in one of us. We’ve tried them all, trying to break him from the coma. Something is blocking him.”
    They were so calm about it. “Why aren’t you surprised?”
    Doolittle sighed.
    “He isn’t the first,” Jim said.
     
     
    THE FIRST PICTURE SHOWED A CORPSE OF A MAN. His face was crushed, the skull indented with such tremendous force, his head resembled a shovel. His chest bone had been cut out of his body. His ribs jutted from the wet mush, the pale cage of bone slick with dark blood.
    The black-and-white photograph looked absurdly out of place on a red-and-white-plaid tablecloth. Like a hole into some horrific gray world.
    Jim drank a bit of his tea. “Doc, this stuff is pure honey.”
    “A little sweet never hurt nobody.” Doolittle looked offended and poured more syrup into my glass.
    Jim shook his head. “The Midnight Games. Sixteen years ago a championship fight went all to shit. A big dumb sonovabitch of a bear lost his way and went wild. Killed a crowd of civilians.”
    I didn’t interrupt. He was talking and I didn’t want to do anything to make him stop.
    “A lot of people should’ve stepped up to bring the bear down and didn’t. Curran took ownership of it and got it done. That’s what an alpha does. It was damn clear after that who was in charge.”
    Jim leaned forward, his arms on the table. “An alpha’s first law must be solid. It shows what the alpha stands for. No matter what other shit happens, the alpha has got to uphold that law, because once he lets somebody question it, his whole rule comes into doubt. Curran’s first law is ‘Don’t touch the Games.’ ”
    “It’s a good law,” Jim continued. “We don’t need to be messing around with a place that’s interested in making us dead in a pretty way. Even the People stay the hell away from it since it’s gone underground.”
    He fell silent. Like Curran, Jim mostly hid his emotions, but his eyes betrayed him this time. Dark and troubled, they brimmed with anxiety. He was keeping it in check, but I could sense it. Jim was uneasy. Haunted.
    “So what made you mess with the Games, Jim?” I prompted.
    “They’re importing shapeshifters. Some are on the level. They brought a mountain cat out from Missouri a few months ago. A decent female. But some are scum. They come in to scope our territory. They’re a threat. That’s a security issue, and that makes it mine.”
    Pieces clicked together in my head. “You put a mole into the Games. And you didn’t tell Curran because you didn’t think he would be reasonable about it.” Jim took it upon himself to make a decision only the Beast Lord could’ve made. It wasn’t just a Bad Idea. It was a Sure to Get You Killed in a Hurry Idea.
    Jim pushed the photograph toward me. “Garabed. Good, strong cat. Armenian. Found him like this a block from the Northern Office.”
    Now I saw it. Jim had a dead shapeshifter and he couldn’t tell Curran about it. Knowing Curran, he would shut down the whole operation at the root. The Beast Lord had to uphold his laws. But now that one of his people was lost, Jim couldn’t let it go. He had to find and punish the guilty. First, to avenge the death, and second, because his crew would abandon him if he didn’t. The first duty of an alpha was to protect his clan, and Jim’s crew was his clan for the time being.
    “Garabed showed no signs of shifting shape?” I asked.
    “None.”
    If I were Jim, I’d put somebody back into the Games. Somebody vicious, smart, and skilled. Somebody hard to take down . . .
    “You brought Derek in.”
    Jim nodded. “He’s the best covert agent I have. He looks”—words caught in his throat—“ looked like a brainless pretty boy. Nobody pays him any mind. But he misses nothing.”
    “What happened?”
    Jim grimaced. “He went there for a month and came back with this weird-ass story about the Reapers. It’s the name of a team. They came out of nowhere a few weeks ago and landed with a lot of noise. Half of them m-scanned as human, but Derek said they weren’t. Didn’t smell right. He thought they had some sort of beef