“You never answered,” he said quietly.
“Never answered what?”
“If you would be the cat alpha with me.”
He was asking me . . . “I didn’t know it was a question.”
He pulled away and met my gaze. “It is.”
“Yes,” I said in a small voice.
Jim smiled.
We walked up to the door. Jim tried the handle. It turned in his hand. He swung the door open. We sniffed the air in unison. Steven was home. No other human smells troubled the house. What in the world did he do with his daughter? Maybe she didn’t live with him?
Jim walked through the door. I followed him on soft feet, tracking the scent. The inside of the house was almost completely empty. No knickknacks. No furniture for the knickknacks to rest on. No pictures on the walls. The house was stripped bare. Only the curtains remained, blocking out the bright light of summer.
I smelled blood and alcohol. Never a good combination.
We turned left into a vast room and stopped.
Steven Graham, completely nude, sat cross-legged in a circle of salt in the corner of the room. His right foot stuck out. It looked wrong, deformed, and it took me a moment to figure out that it was missing all of its toes except for the big one. A small plate sat in front of him, next to a box of matches. On the plate, soaked in some sort of clear liquid, lay a bloody nub of flesh.
I squinted. A severed hairy toe. Ew.
He’d been cutting pieces off himself for his sacrifice. Ew. Ew. Ew.
The salt was probably a ward, a defensive spell. I tried to reach for it with my magic. Yes, a ward and a strong one.
“John Abbot?” I asked.
“I used to be John Abbot Junior,” Steven said. “I changed my name to Steven Graham a long time ago.”
Oh. Now this made sense. John Abbot was his father.
“What’s the deal with the strip club?” Jim said.
“My old man was a lawyer,” Steven said. “I worked for his firm. Most people would’ve made me a partner, but no, my old man made me into a junior associate. When Chad Toole got indicted, he was low on money, so he turned the strip club over to my dad. In its heyday owning that place was like printing money. Magic wiped out the Internet. All online porn was gone. Video was gone. Live girls were the only option. I wanted that club. I’ve always wanted one. I like women. Owning a strip club like Dirty Martini is like a fucking paradise. All that pussy and it’s all yours. No strings, no guilt, just go for it and indulge.”
Okay, there was something more disgusting than chopped-off toes.
“The old bastard wouldn’t give it to me. Said he wasn’t in the titty-bar business. I fucking hated my father. All my life he’s been screwing me over. He treated me like slave labor. I worked for him and that damn law firm for almost nothing, then he’d complain I was billing too many hours.
“Then, money went missing from an escrow account. Turns out my father, the famous John Abbot, had been stealing money from his clients. Suddenly he needed someone to take the rap for him. Suddenly it was all ‘son’ and ‘my boy’ and ‘will you go to prison for me.’ I told him I’d take the blame for his stealing, but he had to sign the club over to me. I got it in writing. I confessed to taking the money, got disbarred, and served two years in prison.”
Steven leaned forward. “I was soft. Weak. You have no idea what that place did to me. What it was like. It was hell. I sat in that damn cage for two years, beaten, raped, abused, and I kept thinking: When I get out, I’ll have my club. It kept me going. I’d live like a king once I was out. All the booze, women, and money I wanted waiting for me.”
Steven gave a harsh laugh. “I come out of prison and find out my father remodeled the place and sold it off one chunk at a time. See, there was a loophole in the paperwork he signed. He couldn’t sell the place completely, because I owned a chunk of it, but he could divide it into parts and sell those as long as I got one. One office. The fucker. I gave him two years of my life. I ruined my career for him and he screwed me over again.”
His eyes glinted in the light. He looked deranged. He must’ve sat for two years behind bars and thought every day about that stupid club. It was supposed to be his big reward when he got out, and his father betrayed him. All of his hatred for his father had somehow tied into that club. Now I understood. Steven had to have it. He would do anything to own Dirty Martini. He would hurt anyone, kill anyone, just so he could walk through its doors.
“I couldn’t wait for my father to die,” Steven said. “I would’ve killed him years ago, except he had a provision in the will that if he died a violent death, I’d get nothing. So I had to go on and put my life together. I changed my name. I got this dinky little business. All the while, he was still breathing. It was torture, that’s what that was. I killed him every day in my head.”
Okay, he was insane. Clinically insane.
Steven pointed at the walls with a sweep of his hand. “He finally died, the bastard. I’ve got his ‘palace.’ I’ve sold everything he owned. There is not a trace of him left.”
“I get all that,” Jim said. “I don’t get why you’re chopping off your toes.”
“They’ve got a new policy now,” Steven ground out. “Use it or lose it. As of this year, only active establishments that pass inspection will get a liquor license. For years I’ve been giving them money and they had no issue with it and suddenly now they want to inspect the club. I had to get the people out or I’d miss my window. The permits and license never lapsed, the ownership of the building was never interrupted, since I still own a part of it, and I’ve got enough seed money to open doors in a couple of months. When it came time to renew, I’d be golden. Except those fuckers wouldn’t sell to me. I offered them a fortune for their crummy little spaces and they said no.”
“You’re killing people to start a strip club,” I said. “Doesn’t that seem extreme to you?”
He looked at me. Like looking into the eyes of a chicken. There was no intelligent life there. He’d become so focused on that club, it consumed him.
“You know what your problem is?” he asked. “You don’t know what your mouth is for. After I’m done with your boyfriend here, I’ll fix that.”
Great. “Is that how you talk to your daughter, too?”
“I would, if I had one,” he said.
So he lied about that, too.
Steven struck a match and sat the toe on the plate on fire. “Let’s see what the two of you are afraid of. The way this works, the one with the strongest fear wins. Good luck, lovebirds.”
A darkness spun in a tight knot against the opposite wall, a twisted chaotic mess, shot through with streaks of violent red, and spat out a shapeshifter in a warrior form. He stood eight feet tall. Monstrous muscle bulged all over his frame, some of it sheathed in gold fur with black rosettes and the rest covered with dark human skin. He looked like he could rip a person in half with his hands. His shoulders were huge. His legs were like tree trunks. Claws thrust from his oversize hands. His jaws, studded with razor-sharp teeth longer than my fingers, didn’t quite fit together. Long streaks of drool stretched from the gaps between his teeth, dripping to the floor.
A hot, furious scent sliced across my senses like a knife, familiar, but revolting. It was like stuffing your mouth full of copper pennies. It was the scent of rape, murder, and terror, the horrible stench of human and animal gone catastrophically wrong. My nose said, “Jim,” and then it screamed, “Run!” This is what madness smelled like.
The beast opened his mouth, staring at us with glowing green eyes, and snapped his nightmarish teeth.
“Oh, this is just wonderful,” Steven said. “You cost me five toes. I’ll enjoy this and after it’s over, I’ll go get my strip club. I bet they’ll sell now.”
“Jim,” I said. “I’m afraid of rejection. What exactly are you afraid of?”
Jim’s face was grim. “Of going loup.”
That’s why this abomination smelled familiar. It was Jim. Except he was bigger, faster, and stronger than my Jim. Loups were more powerful than shapeshifters, shockingly so. Jim would have to fight the better version of himself and he had only me for backup. The loup Jim was a shapeshifter. None of my curses would work against him.
“Dali,” my Jim said. “Focus. Help me kick his ass.”
The loup Jim snarled.
My Jim went furry. One second he was there and the next his clothes ripped and a half man, half jaguar spilled out, seven feet tall, corded with muscle and ready to fight.
I had to change shape. At worst I had about a minute of disorientation, at best fifteen seconds. I didn’t have fifteen seconds. Jim was in danger. I grabbed onto that thought and chanted it in my mind, trying to dedicate everything inside me to that one idea. Jim was in danger. Jim was in danger . . .
The world dissolved into a thousand bokeh, blurry, colorful points of light. They swirled and melted, chased away by a revolting scent.
. . . in danger. Jim was in danger. Jim was in danger.
There was a loup in the middle of the room. He smelled like Jim, but he wasn’t Jim, because Jim was in danger. Sharp spikes of adrenaline shot through me. My legs trembled in fear. I was small and weak and I . . .
The loup lunged. He was going straight for Jim. He didn’t think I was a threat.
Complete commitment. I charged and rammed the loup. My shoulder smashed into him. The loup went flying and bounced off the ward. Jim flashed by me and carved at the loup’s midsection with his claws. Blood spattered on the floor. The loup spun and kicked Jim. I heard bone crunch. Jim flew past me, knocked backward.
I had to keep this thing occupied. I charged the loup again. He sidestepped me, so fast, and raked my spine, from the hackles to the tail.
Oh my gods, that hurt. That hurt so much. He’d ripped me open. I smelled my own blood.
Don’t you faint. Think! Use your brain. I whipped around and roared at him so loud, the windows shook. It was the kind of challenge no cat would ignore.
The loup turned to me and roared back. Jim seized the opening and lunged at him, his claws like blades, slicing and cutting. They rolled across the floor. I chased them, trying to get in a bite or a claw, but they were moving so fast, they were almost a blur. The loup whipped around, matching Jim blow for blow, and raked its talons across Jim’s chest. Blood drenched the fur. Jim roared, pissed off and hurting. I lunged for the loup’s leg. He spun and kicked me in the face, right on the nose. Blood drenched my eyes, as his claws tore my skin. I still lunged, missed, and ran into a wall. Ow. Everything hurt now. My wounds were burning.
I shook my head, flinging the blood from me and willing my skin to seal, and spun around.
The loup got ahold of Jim’s arm, bent it back, exposing his chest, and thrust his claws into it.
No!
I charged, roaring.
He let go of Jim and whirled to face me. I put myself between Jim and him. The loup lunged at me, sinking claws into my fur. Pain burst in me. I didn’t think I could hurt that much. I snapped at him and sank my teeth into his thigh. The hot burst of blood on my tongue was the most disgusting thing I ever tasted. I locked my big teeth on his leg and flung him from me.
The loup rolled to his feet. He was hurt, but we were hurt worse. The floor in front of me was wet with blood. Everywhere. Jim was outmatched. He fought so well and tried so hard, but that thing was so big.
Jim landed next to me, bloody, his eyes glowing so bright they looked on fire. “Remember what I told you in the car?”
He told me a lot of things! I scrambled to remember. Blah blah blah, strength, weaknesses, sit on him? Sit on him? What kind of battle strategy is that?
Jim roared. It was the rolling, coughing jaguar roar. The loup was a male jaguar. He wouldn’t be able to resist.
I made a move forward.
“No!” Jim barked.
What? What was he thinking? He didn’t want me to help?
Jim roared again. The loup leaped across the room. They ripped and clawed at each other.
Jim wanted my help. Some men tried to do it all on their own, but Jim didn’t have that kind of ego. Jim cared only about results and objectives. It had to be a diversion. What would he need a diversion for? For me to sneak up close.
I padded forward on soft paws, circling, carefully staying out of the loup’s field of vision. I was getting light-headed and I couldn’t even figure out if it was my body going into overdrive trying to repair me or if I was finally going to pass out from all the blood fumes that were making me sick. The memory of pain flashed through me. I was so scared to get hurt again.
None of it mattered. I couldn’t allow this thing to emerge into the world. It would kill and rape and devour and it would cut a path of destruction through the city before it could be stopped.
I couldn’t let Jim die. I loved him. He was my everything.
I was directly behind the loup. Jim saw me. The loup had him in a death grip, his arms around Jim, his claws digging into his back.
I braced myself.
With a roar knitted of fury and pain, Jim tore out of the loup’s grip, leaving shreds of his flesh on the abomination’s claws. Jim jumped and kicked the loup in the chest with both legs. The loup’s body hit me, and he fell over me, landing on the floor.
I jumped on top of him and dug my claws into the wooden floorboards.
The loup strained, trying to push me off, and carved my back with its claws. It burned like fire.
I just had to hold on for a few seconds.
The loup clawed me again. It hurt. It hurt so badly. I didn’t know I could hurt any worse. I was wrong.
The loup howled and bit my shoulder. My bone crunched under the pressure of his teeth.
I just had to hold on.
Jim landed next to me. His enormous jaguar jaws gaped open, wide, wider, wider . . . His bite was twice as powerful as that of a lion. He could crack a turtle shell with his teeth.
The loup reared his head.
Jim bit down, his massive fangs piercing the temporal bones of the loup’s skull, just in front of his ears. The bones crackled like eggshells. Jim’s teeth sank into the loup’s brain. The abomination screamed. His claws raked my back one last time and went limp. Jim squeezed harder. The head broke apart in his mouth and he spat the pieces onto the floor and crushed the sickening remains with his foot.
I crawled off the body. Every cell in me ached. Wounds gaped across Jim’s frame. He was torn up all over.
Jim landed next to me, leaned over, and gently licked my bloody face with his jaguar tongue. I whined and rolled my big head against him. He kissed me again, cleaning my cuts, his touch gentle and tender. I love you, too, Jim. I love you so much. Guess what? We won. It was worth it.
“You can’t get me,” Steven said. His voice shook a little. “I’m in the ward.”
We turned and looked at him with our glowing eyes. Silly man. We have faced our worst fear. There was nothing he could do to us now.
“We’re cats,” Jim said, his voice a rough growl. “We can wait hours for the mouse to leave the mouse hole. And when the magic wave ends, your mouse hole will collapse.”
Steven’s face turned white as a sheet.
“Squeak, little mouse,” Jim said, his voice raising my hackles. “Squeak while we wait.”
• • •
“DO I look okay?”
“Yes,” Jim said. “You look gorgeous.”
“Is my lipstick too bright?”
“No.”
“I should’ve braided my hair.”
“I like your hair.”
I turned to him. We were sitting in a Pack Jeep in front of a large house. The air smelled of wood smoke, cooked meat,
and people.
“Don’t be a chicken,” Jim said.
“What if they don’t like me?”
“They will like you, but if they don’t, I won’t care.” Jim got out of the car, walked over to the passenger door, and opened it for me. I stepped out. I was wearing a cute little dress and a sun hat. My back was a little scarred and Jim was limping and careful with his right side, but that couldn’t be helped. In a month or two, even the scars would dissolve. Steven wouldn’t be so lucky. The world was better without him in it.
Jim was ringing the doorbell.
Help. Help me.
“Don’t say anything up front,” I murmured. “We can just let them sort of come to terms with it . . .”
The door swung open. An older African-American woman stood in the doorway. She wore an apron, and she had big dark eyes, just like Jim.
“Dali, this is my mother,” Jim said. “Mom, this is Dali. She’s my mate.”
Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next Kate Daniels novel
MAGIC BINDS
Coming September 2016 from Ace
The skull glared at me out of empty eye sockets. Odd runes marked its forehead, carved into the yellowed bone and filled with black ink. Its thick bottom jaw supported a row of conical fangs, long and sharp like the teeth of a crocodile. The skull sat on top of an old STOP sign. Someone had painted the surface of the octagon white and written KEEP OUT across it in large jagged letters. A reddish-brown splatter stained the bottom edge, looking suspiciously like dried blood. I leaned closer. Yep, blood. Some hair, too. Human hair.
Curran frowned at the sign. “Do you think he’s trying to tell us something?”
“I don’t know. He’s being so subtle about it.”
I looked past the sign. About a hundred yards back, a large two-story house waited. It was clearly built post-Shift, out of solid timber and brown stone laid by hand to ensure it would survive the magic waves. But instead of the usual simple square or rectangular box of most post-Shift buildings, this house had all the pre-Shift bells and whistles of a modern prairie home: rows of big windows, sweeping horizontal lines, and a spacious layout. Except prairie-style homes usually had long flat roofs and little ornamentation, while this place sported pitched roofs with elaborate carved gables, beautiful bargeboards, and ornate wooden windows.