Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

Violent power roiled through Unicorn. It spiked, stealing my breath, and settled into deceptive placidity. Not so good.
    A low thunder boomed through the silence.
    Jim hissed.
    Another blast erupted from the building, as if an enormous trumpet attempted to play a fanfare but succeeded in belching only a single powerful note, so charged with magic, it slid along my skin like a physical touch. The sound of a muted tornado rolled through the stillness of predawn. I had heard this sound a dozen times in my life—all from a movie screen. It was the sound of a plane engine.
    I dashed across the street. Jim sprinted past me, leapt up on the wall, and scrambled up like a gecko. It’s good to be a werejaguar. I hit the wall and began climbing, finding holds on the crumbling stucco and exposed steel framework.
    Jim reached the top of the building, where the wall had crumbled, and cried out in a short, pain-charged snarl. His arms jerked back, his spine arched, and his feet left the ground. He hung in midair, convulsing.
    I scrambled up. My fingers hooked the top of the wall. Stucco fell apart under the pressure of my hands. I slid, caught an iron rod, and pulled myself back up and onto the building.
    An eerie nipping sensation rolled across my skin, as if a rough, sandpaper tongue had scraped a layer of cells from every single inch of my body. It peeled a little from my face, from my body hidden under my clothes, from between my toes, from the inside of my ears, from my nostrils, from my eyes.
    A ward. The Reapers had booby-trapped the top of the building. Cleverly done. I hadn’t sensed its presence, and we had blundered straight into it.
    Pain lanced through me, setting every millimeter of my skin on fire and lifting me off the ground. I cried out, then clamped my mouth shut as the fire scorched the inside of my mouth. The thudding of my heart filled my ears with a freakishly loud, rapid beat. I felt myself unraveling, consumed cell by cell. Unable to do anything but jerk and thrash, I rotated on an invisible spit. Beside me, Jim’s clothes tore and a werejaguar spilled forth.
    Desperate times called for desperate measures. I spat a power word. “Dair.” Release.
    The magic tore from me in a blinding burst of agony as if I’d thrust my hand into my stomach and ripped a clump of entrails out. I saw black and tasted blood.
    The ward split and vanished. My feet hit the solid reality of the wall and I froze, blind and afraid to move. The after-shocks rocked through me. During the flare, using power words had been easy. Now, with the magic so low, if I used one more without resting, I risked passing out.
    Something landed next to me. Hard hands grasped me, steadying me, the tips of claws scratching my skin. Jim.
    The darkness blocking my vision dissolved and I saw two green eyes peering into mine. Jim turned and pointed away to the trees. I looked in the direction of his claw and gasped.
    A wide, wooded valley gently sloped down before rolling to the blue peaks of mountains beyond. Moss-tinted rocks punctured the greenery with their gray spines. Between them, towering spires of trees rose to dizzying heights, their branches tinseled with vines that dripped cream and yellow blossoms. Birds perched among the foliage like glittering jewels. The wind smelled of flowers and water.
    I looked back over my shoulder. Urban graveyard. Looked to the front: fairy-tale jungle. You could pack three Atlantas into that valley.
    I crouched on the wall. Was this some sort of alternate dimension, a pocket of magic-infused reality? Was this a portal to someplace far away? If the Reapers felt the need to protect it with a magical trap that would snare and kill any intruders, it must be valuable to them. Perhaps it was their home.
    Next to me, Jim stretched his neck and inhaled the breeze, the way shapeshifters did when they wanted to sample the scents. An imperceptible change came over him. The lines of his body shifted, flowing, subtly reshaped by the breath of the jungle. Usually awkward in warrior form, he became sleek and elegant, like a finely wrought dagger, his human and beast sides in perfect balance. His coat gained a vivid golden tint, against which coils of rosettes stood out like black velvet. He opened his mouth and a soft, coughing roar spilled forth, almost like a purr—if great cats could have made such a sound.
    It was silenced by a peal of thunder.
    A gleaming golden structure punctured the jungle in the east, rising slowly