Magic Shifts
Page 69

I would kill him. “Just so I get it right, Jim calls you and says, ‘Hey, we found a horde of ghouls in the MARTA tunnels,’ and your first thought was, ‘Great, I’ll take the kids’?”
“They had fun.” A careful note crept into his voice. Curran saw the shark fin in the water but wasn’t sure where the bite would be coming from.
“You even took the dog.”
Grendel chose that moment to try to shove past me. I shoved him back into the Guild and he began running back and forth behind us, growling.
“He had fun, too. Look at him. He’s still excited.”
Grendel stopped, shook, flinging blood from his fur, and resumed his orbit around us.
“I thought you had a poodle!” Juke said.
“He is a poodle.”
“That is not a poodle.”
“He transforms.” In times of crisis Grendel turned into an enormous black hound. Unfortunately, the transformation was governed by his strange canine brain, and sometimes he decided that the proper course of action in battle was to pee and roll in dead things instead.
A black lizard squeezed through the bodies and died before it could open its mouth, Alix’s arrow in its throat.
“Okay,” Juke said. “Your horse is a donkey, your poodle is a giant wolf breed, and your boyfriend is whatever the hell he is. You have problems.”
“Shut up,” I told her.
“He got to roll on some ghoul corpses,” Curran said. “He had a good time.”
That was hardly surprising. Grendel had a warped sense of personal hygiene.
“You’re an inconsiderate irresponsible ass.”
“Me?” Curran tore a lizard in half.
“You.”
Juke grinned.
“You wanted to make it personal. I made it personal. You want to talk about irresponsible?” Curran’s eyes sparked with gold. “You saw a giant ripping up a building and you ran into the building. And then you climbed onto the giant so you could poke him with your sword. What was the plan to get down off him? Did you learn to fly and didn’t tell me?”
“Don’t change the subject. I got a call from Seven Star Academy saying Julie didn’t make it to school. I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t find you.”
Juke snickered. “Shouldn’t have taken the kids with you, huh?”
“Stay out of this,” I told her, and pulled Sarrat out of a lizard’s body. “You made all these preparations and never once thought what would happen when I couldn’t find you or Julie. Would it have killed you to leave a note?”
Juke blinked, suddenly surprised.
“It takes twenty seconds. ‘Hi, Kate, taking the kids to fight some ghouls, be back by lunch.’” I waved my arms. “I thought you might be trapped in the Guild with Julie.”
“Why the hell would I be in the Guild with Julie?”
“Because you were supposed to go by here this morning and because I thought I heard her on the phone screaming for help.”
Curran spared me half a second of his hard stare. “Even if you thought I was in the Guild, what did you think I was doing while the giant was tearing it up? Did you think I was sitting on my hands?”
“I thought you might be injured.”
He looked at me. “We’ve met, you and I?”
I deliberately took a big step back.
“What?” he growled.
“I’m making room for your ego.”
“Fine. I should’ve left a note!”
“You should’ve.”
“Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?”
“She ran toward it,” Juke quipped.
“He was biting people in half.”
“I rest my case,” Curran said. “A note wouldn’t have made any difference.”
Note or not, I didn’t care. I was just happy he was alive.
The magic wave ended. The lizards fell as one.
The headache exploded in my skull as if someone had poured gasoline on my brain and set it on fire inside my head. Wetness slid from my ears and I realized it was blood.
“Kate?” Curran turned human in a blink.
“My head hurts.”
“I can’t understand you.” His face turned frantic. “What’s wrong?”
“My head hurts.” I knew I was saying it. I could hear my voice, I just couldn’t make out the words.
“Medic!” Curran roared.
The agony in my head drowned out all else. I sank to my knees and slid to the ground. The world went silent except for the pounding of my own pulse.