Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

The mage spun in front of me, her ribbons flying. I caught a glimpse of her eyes under the fringe, cold and dark, and then she stopped and spat fire.

A swirling cone of flames shot at me. I dropped to one knee and thrust the shield in front of me. The fire roared overhead, splitting around me. I held my breath.

She didn’t build it or shape it the way firebugs did. She spat it out.

The air turned to scalding soup and burned my face. A little more. I just had to wait a little longer…

The fire died.

My turn.

I surged up, turning as I rose, and struck. She jabbed her staff at me, but I was faster. The staff slid by me, and I hacked at her right arm. Sarrat’s blood edge cut through muscle and bone with ridiculous ease. Her right arm fell, severed just below the elbow, and the staff fell with it. She reeled back, screaming, and I beheaded her with a single vicious cut.

Her head flew off her shoulders. Her body toppled to the ground. I looked over my shoulder. Across the killing ground, the shapeshifters attacked the rhino. It chased them, bellowing its rage, and swung its giant head, trying to gore them. The birds dashed around it, taking potshots at the shapeshifters. A bouda in warrior form hounded them. As I watched, she caught up with one and slapped its head. The bird went tumbling across the grass.

The fringe mage was dead, but the rhino didn’t disappear. Fuck.

I spun back and saw the skull mage charging at me. He screamed something—it sounded like words—and broke into black mist. The dark smoke streaked around me, bouncing from spot to spot in a random pattern.

What is this fresh hell?

One of the hunters jabbed at me with his spear. I batted it aside and kicked him in the groin. He went down like a log.

The smoke raked my back with ghostly black claws. Pain burned across my shoulder blades.

I turned, trying to keep it in view, but it was too fast. It zipped back and forth, like some ground-bound lightning.

The black smoke pounced around me, striking, each cut of the ghostly claws like a strike of a whip made of pure pain. Left thigh. Right shoulder. Back again. You fucker.

I shattered the shield into dust—it was getting in the way—and turned slowly. The smoke clawed my right thigh. If he got me with that across the neck, I was done.

He had to become solid to strike.

I spun left, then immediately right. The black smoke bounced where my back would’ve been, and suddenly we were face-to-face, me and the loose column of swirling dark mist.

I thrust my left hand into it. My fingers locked around flesh. I gripped and yanked the skull mage out of the mist by his neck. He locked his hands around my wrist, but I was pissed off and stronger. I dug my fingers into his throat and impaled him on my sword. Sarrat slid into his gut with a soft whisper, through the abdomen, through the intestines, all the way to his back. The blood edge severed his spine and broke, its power exhausted.

The skull mage went limp.

I freed my blade with a tug and thrust it into his heart. The light went out of his eyes.

I pulled Sarrat out, dropped the corpse I was holding, and turned to the hunters.

They gripped their spears, their faces shocked. The spears, the faces, the collars of unpolished gold.

I pointed at the woods. “Go.”

They didn’t move.

“Go!” I took a step forward, raising Sarrat.

The hunters dashed to pick up their spears and fled, melting into the trees.

Across the grass, the seven-and-a-half-foot nightmare that was my husband in warrior form ripped the rhino’s horn off and jabbed it into its neck. Dark, almost purple blood gushed. The great beast collapsed, sending a cloud of shadowy magic into the air. The shapeshifters swarmed it.

Curran walked away from it, making a beeline for me. I started toward him.

Behind me, the hunters darted from the woods, grabbed the mages’ bodies, and carried them off. Fine. I already told them they could go, and I didn’t feel like chasing them. Right now nothing mattered except getting to Curran.

We met halfway. His gray fur was stained with blood. A deep cut across his stomach was knitting itself closed.

He hugged me to him. “You didn’t wait for me.”

“Things were hectic. How deep is that gash?”

“Nothing to worry about. Got caught by a spike. Looks worse than it is.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist. Everything was fine. We were both okay. It was fine.

His monster hand patted my shoulders, my back, my head…

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Checking for broken bits.” He pulled a strand of my hair. It came apart in his claws, breaking into ash. “You smell like blood and burned hair.”

Damn it. “How much hair is left?”

“Enough,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

Keelan climbed up onto the dying creature and drove his claymore into its neck. The tortured beast let out a long breath and became still.

“He stopped hurting,” I said.

“Yes,” Curran said.

“It’s not a summon,” I told him. “It’s an actual creature.”

“I know. I smelled it dying.”

“Someone did that to it to create a living battering ram. It was custom-made for us.” The cruelty of it was staggering.

Curran squeezed me to him. His eyes were pure gold. “I wasn’t angry until today.”