Magic Breaks

“If I break this, the backlash will be a bitch. I’ll be out of commission for a while.” And while I was trying not to pass out, whatever was inside the apartment would grab me. Nicely played, Hugh. One trap after another.

“For how long?” Derek asked.

“I don’t know. Could be seconds, could be minutes. Can you smell anything from here? Anyone inside?”

The four of them stood very still.

“No,” Robert said. “It’s like a wall.”

“That’s some messed-up crap,” Desandra said.

I knelt on the floor and examined the door. Several scratches marked the lock, all old. It had probably been picked, and more than once. Expected, considering the location of the door. The door itself didn’t look forced. Not much to go on. For all I knew, the apartment behind the door lay empty or it contained a giant fire-breathing terrestrial octopus in a bad mood. No way to tell. I had to break the ward.

“Hugh likes magic and traps. Once we’re in, don’t touch anything. Get ready to defend my deadweight.”

“Go for it,” Derek said.

I pulled my left sleeve up and sliced Slayer across my skin, just enough to draw blood. Curls of vapor slithered from the opaque saber. I turned the blade upside down, letting the blood wash over it, raised it, bracing myself, and pushed it into the ward.

The magic buckled, kicking at the blade like a wild horse.

I leaned into it. Slow and steady. My blood hissed on the blade, boiling. I fed my magic into the blade.

The ward didn’t budge.

Come on. I pushed harder.

Slayer stopped as if I were trying to thrust it into solid rock. If I pushed any more, the blade might snap. If I’d had time, I would have just sat there for the next fifteen minutes, keeping constant pressure on the sword, until the ward gave. But we had no time.

“Not working?” Robert asked.

“It’s a game to him.” I pulled Slayer free and slipped it into my left hand. The best way to break a ward was to slowly, methodically push through it. Slowly and methodically had failed, which left me with brute force. If it broke too quick, the repercussion from the magic would be very sharp and severe. This wasn’t my brightest move, but we had to get into the apartment and time was short. “Okay, fine. I’ll play. Stand back a bit. This could go really wrong.”

I squeezed the cut on my left arm, smearing the blood over my fingers, and thrust my hand into the ward. The magic snapped taut, trapping my hand. A hundred tiny needles of magic pierced my skin, tasted my blood, and recoiled. Bright red cracks split the empty air, radiating from my hand.

I pushed.

Thunder cracked in my head, slapping my brain. The ward broke and fluttered to the ground, melting as it fell. The world swam around me, the edges turning fuzzy. I shook my head, fighting to keep upright.

Robert pushed the door open and slipped in. Desandra followed. Derek and Ascanio hovered next to me.

I should probably go in. If I could only stop my ears from ringing . . .

“Clear,” Robert called.

I shook my head. Ow. That only made the pain worse. The doorway wavered in front of me. I had to get into the apartment. Okay, the door had to be at least three feet wide. If I just aimed myself in the right direction, I’d get through. I clenched my teeth. Step. Step. Another step. I was in. Kick-ass. Now I just had to remain conscious and not fall down on my face.

I squinted: an old couch, a threadbare rug, and a stripper pole. A long trail of blood led from the living room through the narrow hallway. Someone had dragged a bleeding body out.

“Oh, this is rich.” Robert laughed, his voice dry.

Derek grimaced.

“Yeah.” Ascanio rolled his eyes.

“Clue the human in,” I said.

“Dorie Davis,” Derek said. “Otherwise known as Double D.”

“Her scent is all over this apartment.” Robert went down the hallway.

“Oh!” Desandra snapped her fingers. “So that’s who it is.”

I followed them down the hallway to the bedroom. The stench of blood clogged my nose, so strong I almost choked on it. A giant bed occupied most of the bedroom, equipped with a padded bench at the foot of the bed and a steel rack above it with several metal rings attached to the wall. The red sheet lay crumpled in a knot, drenched in darker red, the same red that stained the exposed mattress. Mulradin was killed here, no doubt about it. A human body had only so much blood, and most of it had remained in this room.

Derek turned right. Robert turned left. Desandra inhaled deeply, making a slow circle around the bed. They stalked through the room, pausing by objects at random, sampling the scents. Ascanio paused at the entrance to the room, so he could see the front door. “Ripe.”

My legs decided to take a vacation and the room crawled sideways. I really needed a wall to prop myself up on, but touching anything here wasn’t a good idea. “Double D, is that supposed to tell me something?”

“She’s a sofie,” Derek said, the same way one would say She’s a child molester.

“I can tell by your voice it’s bad, but I have no idea what it is.”

“Most shapeshifters don’t have sex in animal form,” he said.

“That’s not strictly true,” Robert said. “Most shapeshifters have sex in animal form, but only once. It’s not that great. It doesn’t last long, it’s awkward, and there’s no communication. Let’s just say, you don’t appreciate having hands until they’re gone.”

“No shit,” Desandra volunteered.

“The exception being the boudas,” Derek said.

Ascanio raised his eyebrows. If looks were knives, Derek would be bleeding.

“The Repressed One is trying to tell you that some people like to screw shapeshifters in animal form while they themselves stay human,” Ascanio said. “They’re called sofies. Skin on fur.”

Robert rolled his eyes and dropped down to the floor to smell the carpet.

“Okay,” I said. “I wish I didn’t know that.”

“Welcome to the Pack,” Robert said. “This is one of those gray areas. Technically, it’s not forbidden. What two consenting adults do on their own time is their business.”

“But it’s bestiality,” I said.

“Yes,” Robert said. “Which is why it’s strongly discouraged.”

Desandra leaned over the bed and swallowed. “The smells here are giving me a sour stomach.”

“Not just you,” Derek said.

“And for the record, I like women,” Ascanio said. “Maybe some wolves out there get turned on by the fur, but I like skin.”

“Oh, will you two quit it,” Desandra said. “It’s kinky forbidden sex. Some wolves do it, some boudas do it, some humans do it. Everybody’s equally f**ked up.”

“We get enough flack from normal humans as it is,” Robert said. “Three years ago there was a campaign to ban wererats from restaurants because we’re disease-ridden rodents. The petition had three thousand signatures before we killed it. A year before, Clan Wolf was sued by a farming cooperative who claimed they would be hunting their livestock. The chief argument was that wolves can’t fight their natural urge to hunt and run prey to ground. If this stuff got out, there would be no end of public outcry. We don’t want to be accused of running a petting zoo for perverts.”

“Dorie is a pay-to-play sofie,” Derek said. “She charges for her services.”

“She doesn’t have to prostitute herself,” Robert said. “She’s an accountant with a decent salary. She does it because she’s decided that it’s an easy way to earn money on the side and because she’s got some sort of itch and this scratches it for her. When Jennifer’s husband was alive, he made a couple of attempts to get her into counseling, but she never went. She is a consenting adult and how she has sex is her own business.”

“She’s one of the only two shapeshifters to date who managed to catch an STD,” Ascanio said. “The other one was a male panther she was with. They caught it together at a, ahem, group event.”

Okay, that would take some doing. Lyc-V exterminated all invaders into its territory with extreme prejudice.

Derek winced. “An STD?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear about that?” Ascanio asked. “They got some kind of magical rabies.”

Derek opened his mouth and closed it. “How did they . . . ? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“I don’t either.” It was best to put that out there before they decided to enlighten me.

“We’re broadening your horizons, Consort.” Desandra grinned.

“My horizons are broad enough, thanks.” Now if only they would stop wobbling, I’d be all set. “I get how Robert and Desandra know about Double D. I want to know how the two of you know.”

Derek and Ascanio made valiant attempts to look casual.

“Everybody knows,” Ascanio said.

“Then why didn’t Desandra identify the scent?”

“When Double D showed up in Doolittle’s medward with the STD, he read her the riot act about safe sexual practices,” Robert said. “She didn’t like it, so she avoids him like the plague. Which is ironic, really, because the plague is exactly what she didn’t avoid.”

“I didn’t quite get that,” Desandra said. “Was it supposed to be funny?”

Robert frowned. “Never mind. I was going somewhere clever with that, but I managed to bungle it up. The point is, Double D doesn’t feel exactly welcome at the Keep.”

“She isn’t often at Wolf House either,” Desandra said. “I’ve seen her once, I think. Jennifer hates her guts. The last time her name came up, our illustrious alpha called her a ‘filthy immoral creature.’”

“In front of witnesses?” Robert asked.

“A room full of people,” Desandra said.

Great. There was a hierarchy of insults you could level at a shapeshifter. Telling them they smelled bad was probably one of the worst. But calling one of them “a creature” took it to another level. It implied a shapeshifter wasn’t human. A loup was a creature. Jennifer should never have said that, not about one of her own people.

Robert’s lips rose, wrinkling his muzzle and baring sharp teeth. He made a short angry noise, halfway between a deep growl and a grunt.

“I know, I know . . .” Desandra said.

“We may not approve,” Robert said, his voice precise and cold. “We may find it revolting and we may roar and snarl at our people in private, but we may not single out our people and make them an object of public shaming. It just isn’t done. Jennifer made her a target. Now anyone within the Clan Wolf who shows a drop of kindness to Dorie does so against their alpha’s wishes.”

“I agree,” I told him. “We can deal with it later. We’re short on time. We have to move on.”

“There are no other shapeshifter smells in the room,” Robert said. “Only Double D and humans.”

“I got Mulradin, Double D, Hugh, and a few others who are probably Hugh’s people,” Derek confirmed.

I tried to concentrate. It was proving tricky. My magic-stunned brain still wanted to float off into the shocked haze. “Can you tell what happened?”

“Dorie came in first,” Robert said. “Mulradin arrived about half an hour later. They had sex, once on the bench, once in the corner over there.” He pointed to the left of the bed, where a chain fell to the floor. One end of it was attached to the ring in the wall, the other to a spiked collar.

“Then Dorie killed Mulradin on the bed,” Desandra said.

Shit. “Are you sure?”

Derek nodded. “Once you get accustomed to the smell of blood, it’s very clear. Her scent is on the bed and the linens, and her fur is stuck to Mulradin’s blood. No other scents on the bed.”