Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PRAISE FOR THE KATE DANIELS NOVELS

  MAGIC BLEEDS

  “At times I felt like I needed to take a break from the book due to [its] just being too engrossing, too brilliant for my little heart, like when you gorge yourself on Belgian chocolate. Magic Bleeds is the best yet of this series!”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Ilona Andrews is one of the few authors whose books just keep getting better . . . It’s books like Magic Bleeds that make television and movies seem like an inferior form of entertainment.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “I have read and reread this book, and it’s perfect. The action, the romance, the plot and suspense . . . I cannot wait for the fifth in the series.”

  —Smexy Books

  “Having an already-exceptional series exceed your expectations is a rare and wonderful thing, but Andrews unquestionably pulls it off with this astonishing read . . . Balancing petrifying danger with biting humor is an Andrews specialty, leaving readers both grinning and gasping. Put this on your auto-buy list immediately!”

  —Romantic Times

  “These books are here to stay. They only get better. I don’t ever want them to end.”

  —Lurv a la Mode

  “The world-building is, in a word, fantastic . . . The story is a fast-paced and exciting read.”

  —Mrs Giggles

  “Delivers on the promise of ‘One hell of a good read.’ You will not be disappointed!”

  —ParaNormal Romance.org

  MAGIC STRIKES

  “Andrews’s crisp dialogue and layered characterization make the gut-wrenching action of this first-person thrill ride all the more intense . . . mesmerizing.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “Andrews blends action-packed fantasy with myth and legend, keeping readers enthralled. Magic Strikes introduces fascinating characters, provides a plethora of paranormal skirmishes, and teases fans with romantic chemistry.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Ilona Andrews’s best novel to date, cranking up the action, danger, and magic . . . Gritty, sword-clashing action and flawless characterizations will bewitch fans, old and new alike.”

  —Sacramento Book Review

  “Doses of humor serve to lighten the suspense and taut action of this vividly drawn, kick-butt series.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “From the first page to the last, Magic Strikes was a riveting, heart-pounding ride. Story lines advance, truths are admitted, intriguing characters are introduced, and the romance between Kate and Curran develops a sweetness that is simply delightful.”

  —Dear Author

  “An engrossing, superbly written urban fantasy series.”

  —Lurv a la Mode

  “Write faster . . . I absolutely love the relationship between Curran and Kate—I laugh out loud with the witty sarcasm and one-liners, and the sexual tension building between the couples drives me to my knees, knowing I’ll have to wait for another book.”

  —SFRevu

  MAGIC BURNS

  “Fans of Carrie Vaughn and Patricia Briggs will appreciate this fast-paced, action-packed urban fantasy full of magic, vampires, werebeasties, and things that go bump in the night.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “With all her problems, secrets, and prowess both martial and magical, Kate is a great kick-ass heroine, a tough girl with a heart, and her adventures . . . are definitely worth checking out.”

  —Locus

  “[Magic Burns] hooked me completely. With a fascinating, compelling plot, a witty, intelligent heroine, a demonic villain, and clever, wry humor throughout, this story has it all.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A new take on the urban fantasy genre, the world Kate inhabits is a blend of gritty magic and dangerous mystery.”

  —The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

  “The sexual tension Kate emits has me gritting my teeth.”

  —SFRevu

  “If you enjoy Laurell K. Hamilton’s early Anita Blake or the works of Patricia Briggs and Kim Harrison, you need to add Ilona Andrews to your reading list.”

  —LoveVampires

  “Andrews . . . demonstrates her mastery at balancing dark humor, clever mystery, and supernatural jeopardy. Andrews is the total package!”

  —Romantic Times

  MAGIC BITES

  “Treat yourself to a splendid new urban fantasy . . . I am looking forward to the next book in the series or anything else Ilona Andrews writes.”

  —Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of

  River Marked

  “Andrews shows a great deal of promise. Readers fond of Laurell K. Hamilton and Patricia Briggs may find her work a new source of reading pleasure.”

  —SFRevu

  “Andrews’s edgy series stands apart from similar fantasies . . . owing to its complex world-building and skilled characterizations.”

  —Library Journal

  “Fans of urban fantasy will delight in Ilona Andrews’s alternateuniverse Atlanta.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A perfectly paced supernatural mystery with bits of dark humor and—if you’ll forgive the pun—a fair amount of bite.”

  —Rambles.net

  “The strong story line coupled with a complex alternative history . . . will have readers hoping for more.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  Ace Books by Ilona Andrews

  The Kate Daniels Novels

  MAGIC BITES

  MAGIC BURNS

  MAGIC STRIKES

  MAGIC BLEEDS

  MAGIC SLAYS

  The Edge Novels

  ON THE EDGE

  BAYOU MOON

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  MAGIC SLAYS

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Ilona Andrews, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / June 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Andrew Gordon and Ilona Gordon.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 9781101515259

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Version_4

  To Helen Kirk.

  Thank you for reading our books.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book, like most books, took a lot more time and effort than first anticipated. Many people have helped us along the way. We’d like to thank the following people for their help, patience, and expertise:Anne Sowards, our editor—thank you for having faith in us, despite all evidence to the contr
ary;

  Nancy Yost, our agent, for unwavering support and vicious fighting on our behalf;

  Michelle Kasper, the production editor, and Andromeda Macri, the assistant production editor—thank you for transforming our manuscript into a book and for not psychically destroying us with your great mind powers because we missed deadlines;

  Judith Murello Lagerman, the art director; Annette Fiore DeFex, the cover designer; and Chad Michael Ward, the artist, for creating a spectacular cover;

  Amy J. Schneider, the copy editor, for her mad copyediting skills;

  thank you very much to Kat Sherbo, Anne’s editorial assistant—the e-mails do not lie, we actually are crazy;

  and thank you to Rosanne Romanello, the publicist, for always promoting our work.

  We are also grateful to Skye and Aubrey, the best legal team the Pack ever had, for help with the shapeshifter real estate laws, and to Noa Rubenstein for assistance with interpretation of Roland’s fable. As always, our thanks go to our intrepid beta readers for their generosity and great suggestions despite being repeatedly tortured with half-baked drafts. Thank you, Beatrix Kaser, Ying Chumnongsaksarp, Reece Notley, Hasna Saadani, Jeanine Rachau, Michael Finn, and Chrissy Peterson.

  Thank you to Jeaniene Frost and Jill Myles. You are great friends.

  Thank you to Peter Honingstock for saving us a great deal of frustration by always helping us find the right resource books in record time.

  Finally, we would like to thank each other for not murdering ourselves along the way, and A&E programming—when we get really depressed about our skills in our chosen profession, you always show us something even more depressing.

  PROLOGUE

  THE RINGING OF THE PHONE JERKED ME FROM MY sleep. I clawed my eyes open and rolled off my bed. For some reason, someone had moved the floor several feet lower than I had expected, and I fell and crashed with a thud.

  Ow.

  A blond head popped over the side of the bed, and a familiar male voice asked, “Are you okay down there?”

  Curran. The Beast Lord was in my bed. No, wait a minute. I didn’t have a bed, because my insane aunt had destroyed my apartment. I was mated to the Beast Lord, which meant I was in the Keep, in Curran’s rooms, and in his bed. Our bed. Which was four feet high. Right.

  “Kate?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Would you like me to install one of those child playground slides for you?”

  I flipped him off and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Good morning, Consort,” a female voice said.

  Consort? That was new. Usually the shapeshifters called me Alpha or Lady, and occasionally Mate. Being called Mate ranked somewhere between drinking sour milk and getting a root canal on my list of Things I Hated, so most people had learned to avoid that one.

  “I have Assistant Principal Parker on the line. He says it’s urgent.”

  Julie. “I’ll take it.”

  Julie was my ward. Nine months ago she “hired” me to find her missing mother. We found her mother’s body instead, being eaten by Celtic sea demons who had decided to pop up in the middle of Atlanta and resurrect a wannabe god. It didn’t go well for the demons. It didn’t go well for Julie either, and I took her in, the way Greg, my now deceased guardian, had taken me in years ago, when my father passed away.

  People around me died, usually in horrible and bloody ways, so I’d sent Julie to the best boarding school I could find. Trouble was, Julie hated the school with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. She’d run away three times in the past six months. The last time Assistant Principal Parker called, a girl in the school’s locker room had accused Julie of being a whore during the two years she’d spent on the street. My kid took exception to that and decided to communicate that by applying a chair to the offending party’s head. I’d told her to go for the gut next time—it left less evidence.

  If Parker was calling, Julie was in trouble again, and since he was calling at six o’clock in the morning, that trouble had a capital T attached to it. Julie rarely did anything halfway.

  Around me the room lay steeped in gloom. We were on the top floor of the Keep. To my left a window offered a view of the Pack land: an endless dark sky, still untouched by dawn, and below it dark woods rolling into the night. In the distance the half-ruined city stained the horizon. The magic was in full swing—we were lucky it hadn’t taken out the phone lines—and the distant industrial-strength feylanterns glowed like tiny blue stars among the crumbling buildings. A ward shielded the window, and when the moonlight hit it just right, the entire scene shimmered with pale silver, as if hidden behind a translucent gauzy curtain.

  The female voice came back online. “Consort?”

  “Yes?”

  “He put me on hold.”

  “So he calls because it’s urgent and puts you on hold?”

  “Yes.”

  Jackass.

  “Should I hang up?” she asked.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll hold.”

  The world’s pulse skipped a beat. The ward guarding the window vanished. Something buzzed in the wall and the electric floor lamp on the left blinked and snapped into life, illuminating the night table with a warm yellow glow. I reached over and turned it off.

  In the distance, the blue feylantern stars winked out of existence. For a breath, the city was dark. A bright flash sparked with white among the ruins, blossoming into an explosion of light and fire. A moment later a thunderclap rolled through the night. Probably a transformer exploding after the magic wave receded. A weak red glow illuminated the horizon. You’d think it was the sunrise, but the last time I’d checked, the sun rose in the east, not the southwest. I squinted at the red light. Yep, Atlanta was burning. Again.

  Magic had drained from the world and technology had once again gained the upper hand. People called it the post-Shift resonance. Magic came and went as it pleased, flooding the world like a tsunami, dragging bizarre monsters into our reality, stalling engines, jamming guns, eating tall buildings, and vanishing again without warning. Nobody knew when it would assault us or how long each wave would last. Eventually magic would win this war, but for now technology was putting up a hell of a fight, and we were stuck in the middle of the chaos, struggling to rebuild a half-ruined world according to new rules.

  The phone clicked and Parker’s baritone filled my ear. “Good morning, Ms. Daniels. I’m calling to inform you that Julie has left our premises.”

  Not again.

  Curran’s arms closed around me and he hugged me to him. I leaned back against him. “How?”

  “She mailed herself.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Parker cleared his throat. “As you know, all of our students are required to perform two hours of school service a day. Julie worked in the mail room. We viewed it as the best location, because she was under near-constant supervision and had no opportunities to leave the building. Apparently, she obtained a large crate, falsified a shipping label, and mailed herself inside it.”

  Curran chuckled into my ear.

  I turned and bumped my head against his chest a few times. It was the nearest hard surface.

  “We found the crate near the ley line.”

  Well, at least she was smart enough to get out of the crate before it was pushed into the magic current. With my luck, she’d end up getting shipped to Cape Horn.