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Magic Shifts

(The eighth book in the Kate Daniels series)

A novel by Ilona Andrews

Acknowledgments

Telling this story wouldn’t have been possible without the editorial input and guidance of Anne Sowards. Thank you so much for your advice and friendship. We would also like to thank Nancy Yost, our agent, for her endless oceans of patience and willingness to deal with a seemingly never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, and crises.

As always, we are grateful to all of the people who have worked on making this manuscript into a book. The managing editor, Michelle Kasper, and the assistant production editor, Julia Quinlan. Judith Lagerman, the art director; Juliana Kolesova, the artist responsible for the image on the cover; and Jason Gill, the cover designer.

We would also like to thank our beta readers, who selflessly endure the tortures of proofreading a half-baked manuscript. They are, in no particular order: Ying Dallimore, Laura Hobbs, María Isabel Amoretti de Pagano, Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar, Kelly Brooke, Beatrix Kaser, Olivia Toune, Nicole Joury, Christian, and especially Shannon Daigle. Thank you to Vibha Patel, Lisa Rigdon, JeNoelle Flom, Liz Semkiu, Olga Zmijewska-Kaczor, and Bambi Parfan for help with medical issues. All errors are ours and ours alone.

Finally, thank you to all of you for sticking with us thus far. We hope you enjoy the book.

CHAPTER 1

I RODE THROUGH the night-drenched streets of Atlanta on a mammoth donkey. The donkey’s name was Cuddles. She was ten feet tall, including the ears, and her black-and-white hide suggested she might have held up a Holstein cow in some dark alley and was now wearing her clothes. My own blood-spattered outfit suggested I’d had an interesting night. Most mounts would’ve been nervous about letting a woman covered with that much blood on their back, but Cuddles didn’t seem to mind. Either it didn’t bother her or she was a pragmatist who knew where her carrots were coming from.

The city lay in front of me, deserted, quiet, and steeped in magic, unfurling its streets to the starlight like a moonlit flower.

Magic ran deep through Atlanta tonight, like a current of some phantom river, slipping into the shadowy places and waking hungry things with needle-long teeth and glowing eyes. Anyone with a drop of common sense hid behind reinforced doors and barred windows after dark. Unfortunately for me, common sense was never among my virtues. As Cuddles quietly clopped her way down the streets, the sounds of her hoofbeats unnaturally loud, the night shadows watched us and I watched them back. Let’s play who can be a better killer. My sword and I love this game.

None of the monsters took the bait. It might have been because of me, but most likely it was because one of them was moving parallel to my route. They smelled him, and they hid and hoped he would pass them by.

It was almost midnight. I’d had a long day. My back ached, my clothes smelled of fetid blood, and a hot shower sounded heavenly. I had made two apple pies last night, and I was pretty sure that at least one piece would be left for me. I could have it tonight with my tea before I went to bed .  .  .