Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

He swore, turned around, his fingers locked around my wrist, and started back the way he came, pulling me with him.

“You’re the best husband ever,” I told him.

“No more fucking roofs, Kate. I mean it.”

Troy and Rimush followed us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gene, who had finally made it down the stairs, appear in the doorway of the courthouse. He watched us with an odd expression on his face. I’d freaked out Mayor Gene. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. There would be fallout.

That was fine. Better freaked out and alive than calm and dead.

“I met Conlan at Dad’s,” I said. “He identified Isaac’s weird elephant critter. It’s a Cuvieronius hyodon, a species of gomphotheres, which are loosely related to modern elephants.”

“Mhm,” he said.

“They’ve been extinct for twelve thousand years.”

Curran stopped and looked at me.

“According to my father, it is possible for a living creature to survive in a magically induced coma from the Ice Age until now, although he doesn’t recommend it. This explains the unusually furry manticores and the abnormally large lupine shapeshifters. They are not Canis lupus. They are Aenocyon dirus. Dire wolf shapeshifters.”

He was still looking at me and not saying anything.

“Also, I think I might have killed a were-sabertooth tiger. I did wonder why her fangs were so long.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Ice Age or not, we’re going in there and clearing that place out. That’s all there is to it.”

“I told Conlan he could come.”

“Good,” Curran said. “He’s earned it.”





Curran





The cleanup of the manticore bodies took a good two hours. There was some discussion about burning them, but we’d been traumatized by the awful sooty smoke that had risen from the rhino when it was burned. The stench had been indescribable. I could still smell traces of it.

A decision was made to dump the bodies into a conveniently available trench that had been dug out by the town previously because it needed dirt for some municipal reasons. Kate had assured me that unlike the rhino, the manticores were magically inert. That the chances of them springing out of the ground as something dangerous were relatively low. I trusted her on it.

We dragged the manticore bodies to the trench, and then Kate caused a tiny earthquake, collapsing the pit walls to bury the corpses. I knew she was already pretty tired from the claiming, and spending any more magic would probably knock her off her feet. There would be no going into the woods today. She’d need a day to recover, and I wanted my people to rest a little. They’d earned it.

We needed to discuss Conlan’s theory, so I decided we’d have lunch on the edge of the woods, where we wouldn’t be overheard. Keelan’s shapeshifters brought out food, drinks, and blankets to sit on. The day was warm. The sun shone bright from the blue sky, and a light breeze kept things refreshing. It felt almost cheerful: a cozy little picnic, just us and some friends, eating by the scary woods, across from a mass grave and a burning pit filled with corrupted, toxic ashes. I’d need to do something about that before I left Penderton to its own devices.

Kate explained the Ice Age theory and passed the paleontology book around. They took it better than expected.

“Explains the rocks and the spears,” Da-Eun said. “I’ve been wondering why they didn’t deploy archers. They probably don’t have the technology.”

“They might not have needed to develop it,” Troy said. “Their throwing skills are above and beyond.”

“What about the spearheads?” Hakeem asked. “Bronze?”

“Bone,” Kate told him.

We’d managed to retrieve only one spear, the first one the hunters had thrown at her. They had picked up the rest. I hadn’t looked at it until today.

“So I’ve killed a Smilodon,” Keelan said.

Kate took a sip of her iced tea. “Probably.”

He’d be insufferable now. We’d never hear the end of this.

Andre turned the book around, showing off an illustration of a huge bear. “Bulldog bear. Fastest bear that ever lived. Five feet at the shoulder on all fours, twelve feet when standing on hind legs. Runs at forty miles per hour and weighs one thousand five hundred pounds.”

Jynx whistled. “Fun.”

Andre grinned, nodded, and passed the book to Owen. The werebison flipped through it.

“I don’t see my rhino.”

His rhino.

“Look under Elasmotherium,” Kate told him.

“Look under things that kicked my ass,” Troy muttered.

Owen ignored him and flipped the pages. “It says that they were native to Eurasia. Also, mine was a lot larger.”

“We only have a fossil record and it’s not exactly complete,” Troy said. “We can’t say that there wasn’t a rhino of this size in North America. We can only say that we haven’t found any bones that would indicate the presence of such species.”

“So the shapeshifters are one species of human,” Hakeem said. “The hunters are another?”

“Possibly,” Troy said.

“And they fell asleep during the Ice Age and just now woke up? Why now? Why not when the Shift happened?”