Magic Dreams Read Free Page B

forearm. Blood swelled. The scent hit my nostrils, sending goose bumps over my arms. As I watched, the cut knitted itself back together, the skin and muscle flowing to repair the damage. Jim wiped the blood from his skin and showed me his forearm. The thin line of the scar was already fading.
    “I’m not sick and my virus is working. Whatever this is, it’s magic. Four of our people are missing, and you’re the only magic user I have. I can’t just leave them in there.”
    “They might be dead.”
    “If they’re dead, we need to know.” He leaned forward, his brown eyes looking straight into mine. “Help me, Dali.”
    He had no idea, but when he looked at me like that, I would’ve done anything for him. Anything at all.
    I got up. “Let me get my kit. We need to go see that house.”
    *

    THE NORTHEASTERN OFFICE of the Pack sat on Chamblee Dunwoody Road, well back from the road behind a carefully cut lawn. Tall pines framed it on three sides, with four picturesque trees shading its parking lot. To the right, another copse of pines bordered a large open field converted into pasture. To the left, behind the buffer of greenery and a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire, rose short stubby apartments. The guard at the gate gave us a nasty look as we thundered on by and clutched at his crossbow just in case. Silly man.
    I steered the Prowler up the curving drive to the office’s lot, parked, and shut off the vehicle. The enchanted water engine took at least fifteen minutes to warm up, but leaving it running made no sense. The engine made so much noise I had trouble thinking. Besides, Pooki’s top speed during magic barely scraped fifty miles per hour, and if we had to bail, both Jim and I could run much faster than that.
    We stepped out into the night. Painted an ugly olive color, the office looked like two separate buildings had been jammed together: The left half resembled a ranch house while the right was a two-story Queen Anne with green shutters.
    The wind brought with it a salty metallic scent that burned my tongue. Blood. Jim bared his teeth at the building.
    I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to sense the magic. In my head, the house turned dark. Long translucent tentacles of magic slivered from inside it, sliding back and forth over the walls, out the windows, over the roof, clutching at the siding and tiles.
    I pushed a tiny step farther. The closest tentacle rose, hovered above the roof for a long moment, and snaked over to us. Magic lashed at me in an icy wave, fetid, terrible magic. I didn’t know what it was, but every cell in my body shrank from it. My eyes snapped open and I jerked back.
    Jim caught me from behind. “What is it?”
    The house looked mundane again, just a drab olive building. I swallowed. “We’re going to need protection. Lots of protection.”
    I set my wooden box on Pooki’s hood and flipped it open. Jim peered at the calligraphy set inside. Most shapeshifters didn’t do magic, because we were magic enough as it was, and most didn’t trust magic. I totally understood why. Magic was iffy, but claws and fangs produced the same result every time. However, I was born to a long line of magic users, so concerned with tradition that they passed on their knowledge and rituals even when technology was at its strongest and almost no evidence of magic remained. My family took my education very seriously.
    Half of the time my magic didn’t even work, but Jim had seen me pull it off once or twice. It’s not that he was impressed—he was far too cool for that—but Jim treated my talent with respect. He was in trouble and he trusted me to get him out of it. I had to step it up.
    Jim nodded at the house. A pale yellow light appeared in one of the upper-floor windows, as if someone held a candle up to the glass.
    “Isn’t it cute,” I murmured. “It’s saying hello.”
    Jim smiled at the light. The only time a jaguar showed you his teeth was when he was about to sink