Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns by authors_sort Page B

Can I use it?”
    I put it on her. She kicked the blanket off and wrapped herself in the afghan, like a little mouse nesting. “It’s soft,” she said and fell asleep.
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    A VOICE SPREAD THROUGH THE APARTMENT, PURE like a crystal bell, sweet like honey, soft like velvet. “Girl…Want girl.”
    I opened my eyes. The magic was up, setting the bars on the windows aglow with ethereal bluish light. I saw Julie slip into the hallway, a ghostly, silent shape in the darkness of the night-drenched apartment.
    â€œGirl…” It was coming from the outside.
    My fingers found Slayer’s textured hilt. I took it, rose, and followed her.
    â€œNeed girl…Girl…Want girl…”
    Outside the kitchen window, a pale shade floated an inch from the glass and my ward. Female, with a delicate, almost elven face and a heartbreaking body, she looked into my house with lavender eyes. Her skin glowed with a faint silver radiance. Improbably thick, long hair streamed from her head, coiling like tentacles. “Giiiirl,” the creature sang, stretching her arms to the window. “Neeed…where, where?”
    Hi. And what kind of screwed-up beastie would you be?
    On my kitchen table, crouched atop a crumpled curtain, sat Julie. She had worked the window latch open and was trying to pry the mechanism securing the iron grate.
    I put Slayer down and took Julie by her waist. She clutched at the bars.
    The creature hissed. Her jaws unhinged with reptilian flexibility, baring rows of anglerfish teeth in a black mouth. A strand of her hair whipped at the window, aiming for the kid. The ward reacted with a pulse of angry carmine. The creature jerked in pain.
    I pulled on Julie. “Julie. Let go.”
    Julie snarled something wordless and charged with fury. I dug my heels in and pulled harder, throwing all of my strength and weight into it. Julie’s fingers slipped and I almost crashed to the floor. She kicked, struggling like a pissed-off cat. I dragged her off into the bathroom, dumped her into the tub, and slammed the door shut behind us. With a howl, Julie launched herself at me. Her nails raked my arm. I grasped her by the back of the neck, forcing her down into the tub, and opened the cold water tap. She writhed under my hand, spitting and biting. I dunked her under the stream and held her there.
    Gradually her convulsions subsided. She whimpered and went limp.
    I shut off the water to a trickle. Julie drew a long shuddering breath and sobbed. Slowly tension leaked from her muscles. “I’m okay,” she gasped. “I’m okay.”
    I pulled her from the bathtub and put a towel on her head. She trembled and hugged herself.
    I opened the door and glanced out. The lavender-eyed thing hovered by the kitchen window, her eyes fixed on the door. She saw me and hissed again.
    â€œGirl…Come…Want…”
    Julie sank to the tile, squeezing into the narrow space between the toilet and the bathtub, chopstick legs sticking out. “She was in my head. She’s trying to get back in right now.”
    â€œTry to shut her out. We’re safe behind the wards.”
    â€œWhat if the magic falls?” Julie’s eyes widened in pure panic.
    â€œThen I’ll cut her head off.” Easier said than done. That hair would grab me like a noose. It’s hard to cut hair unless it’s held taut.
    â€œGirl?”
    â€œShut the hell up!”
    Why Julie? Why now? Was that thing her mother, turned into something by the coven’s magic?
    â€œJulie, does that thing look like your mother?”
    She shook her head, locked her arms over her knees and began to rock. She could only move an inch or two squeezed into that narrow space. “Gray. Muddy, sliding, shifting, nasty purple gray.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGray like the skeleton. Nasty…”
    â€œJulie, what’s gray?”
    She looked at me with haunted eyes. “Her magic. Her