Death Magic, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
Teaser chapter
EILEEN WILKS
Books by Eileen Wilks
“Eileen Wilks writes what I like to read.”
—Linda Howard, New York Times bestselling author
PRAISE FOR EILEEN WILKS’S NOVELS OF THE LUPI
BLOOD CHALLENGE
“Action packed . . . [An] exciting, twisting thriller.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
“Full of intrigue, danger, and romance . . . The Lupi series is one of the best Were series I have ever read.”
—Fresh Fiction
BLOOD MAGIC
“An intense and suspenseful tale. For anyone who enjoys werewolves and romance, Blood Magic is a must-read . . . Eileen Wilks is a truly gifted writer. Her newest novel is truly a work of art as her words paint a picture of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.”
—Romance Junkies
“Wilks’s storytelling style is so densely layered with plot complexities and well-defined characters that it quickly immerses readers in this fascinating world. There is no better way to escape reality than with a Wilks adventure!”
—RT Book Reviews
“Another great addition to the Lupi series, Eileen Wilks’s Blood Magic is an engaging paranormal tale full of action and adventure that should not be missed!”
—Romance Reviews Today
MORTAL SINS
“Filled with drama and action . . . This story is number five in the World of the Lupi series and is just as good as the first.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Ms. Wilks has a skill with description and narrative that truly brings a world and its characters alive.”
—Errant Dreams Reviews
“Fabulous . . . The plot just sucked me in and didn’t let me go until the end . . . Another great addition to the World of Lupi series.” —Literary Escapism
NIGHT SEASON
“A captivating world.”
—The Romance Reader
“Filled with action and plenty of twists.”
—Midwest Book Review
BLOOD LINES
“Another winner from Eileen Wilks.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“The magic seems plausible, the demons real, and the return of enigmatic Cynna, along with the sorcerer, hook fans journeying the fantasy realm of Eileen Wilks.”
—The Best Reviews
“Intriguing . . . Surprises abound in Blood Lines . . . A masterful pen and sharp wit hone this third book in the Moon Children series into a work of art. Enjoy!”
—A Romance Review
“Quite enjoyable, and sure to entertain . . . A fast-paced story with plenty of danger and intrigue.”
—The Green Man Review
MORTAL DANGER
“Grabs you on the first page and never lets go. Strong characters, believable world-building, and terrific storytelling . . . I really, really loved this book.”
—Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“As intense as it is sophisticated, a wonderful novel of strange magic, fantastic realms, and murderous vengeance that blend together to test the limits of fate-bound lovers.”
—Lynn Viehl, New York Times bestselling author of the Darkyn series
“[A] complex, intriguing, paranormal world . . . Fans of the paranormal genre will love this one!”
—Love Romances
FURTHER PRAISE FOR EILEEN WILKS AND HER NOVELS
“I remember Eileen Wilks’s characters long after the last page is turned.”
—Kay Hooper, New York Times bestselling author
“Fantastic . . . Fabulous pairing . . . Ms. Wilks takes a chance and readers are the winners.”
—The Best Reviews
“Exciting, fascinating paranormal suspense that will have you on the edge of your seat. With a mesmerizing tale of an imaginative world and characters that will keep you spellbound as you read each page, Ms. Wilks proves once again what a wonderful writer she is with one great imagination for her characters and the world they live in.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“Fun [and] very entertaining!”
—The Romance Reader
“Should appeal to fans of Nora Roberts.”
—Booklist
“Eileen Wilks [has] remarkable skill. With a deft touch she combines romance and danger.”
—Midwest Book Review
Books by Eileen Wilks
TEMPTING DANGER
MORTAL DANGER
BLOOD LINES
NIGHT SEASON
MORTAL SINS
BLOOD MAGIC
BLOOD CHALLENGE
DEATH MAGIC
Anthologies
CHARMED
(with Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle,
Julie Beard, and Lori Foster)
LOVER BEWARE
(with Christine Feehan, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Fiona Brand)
CRAVINGS
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, and Rebecca York)
ON THE PROWL
(with Patricia Briggs, Karen Chance, and Sunny)
INKED
(with Karen Chance, Marjorie M. Liu, and Yasmine Galenorn)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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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 author’s imagination 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.
DEATH MAGIC
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / November 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Eileen Wilks.
Excerpt from Mortal Ties by Eileen Wilks copyright © by Eileen Wilks.
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 author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN : 978-1-101-54552-2
BERKLEY SENSATION®
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
http://us.penguingroup.com
This book is joyfully dedicated to
my daughter Katie
and her wonderful fiancé, Matt.
I couldn’t be more delighted.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Typically writers use this space to acknowledge the help others provided. I’m using it to offer an apology. There are inconsistencies between what we call the real world and some of the details in my fictional world that may disconcert some readers. A female presid
What can I say? The realm Lily and Rule live in isn’t ours. For some reason, they elected a female president a couple years ago. We didn’t. The architect of the FBI building there had a slightly different plan than ours did. And they have lupi. And dragons . . .
ONE
LILY Yu was at the shooting range at FBI Headquarters when she saw the ghost.
Her ears were warm beneath the headgear. Her bare arms were chilly, with her left arm out and steady; the right one ached and trembled. She’d fired a few clips right-handed before switching, which was dumb. Should have started with the left so her bad arm wouldn’t be bitching so much. To bring her new Glock in line with her dominant eye while keeping her stance and grip neutral, she had to twist her right arm in a way that her damaged bicep objected to.
It objected to a lot of things. The humerus might be healed, the skin grown back nice and smooth over the entry wound, but the exit wound was bigger, bumpier, and dented. Lost muscle didn’t regrow.
Except that Lily’s was. Slowly, but it was returning.
A whiff of sulfur hung in the air. Sound slapped at her ears through the protective muffs as her neighbor to the right fired steadily on the other side of the divider. The fur-and-pine tickle in her gut—the reason her shattered bone had knit so quickly, the cause of her muscle’s gradual, impossible regeneration—made her feel as if she should burp.
Fifty feet away, a drift of otherness obscured the paper target she’d been putting holes in.
It was white. Maybe that’s why she immediately thought ghost. It drifted on a diagonal like three-dimensional rice paper—translucent, not transparent, its edges too clearly defined for smoke, shaped right for a human, but faceless. Even as it floated closer on a steady, nonexistent air current, it remained out of focus—four limbs and a trunk in human proportions, the details blurred like a smeared chalk-drawing.
It was coming straight at her. The quick clamp of fear stiffened Lily’s spine and widened her eyes.
As the faceless thing floated closer it stretched out one hand—and yes, that was clearly a hand. For all the vagueness of the rest of the form, that milky hand was painstakingly vivid, as if an artist had etched in every minute detail from the mound at the base of the thumb to the lines crossing the palm to the wrinkles at the joints. There was a ring on the third finger of that hand.
A gold ring. Glowing. On the left hand, palm up. Beseeching.
Lily’s heart raced and ached under the weight of a terrible pity.
The filmy shape drifted to a stop. As if it were, after all, only smoke, it began to tatter in an ethereal breeze, wisping away into nothing.
TWO
AMERICA was not a classless society.
No place was, of course. Not if that place counted humans among its residents. Humans were every bit as hierarchical as werewolves, from what Lily could tell. Just less honest about it. The official line was that the United States was a meritocracy: the talented, the dedicated, the extraordinary would rise to the top.
Maybe so, if you were willing to stipulate that money equals competence. Lily wasn’t. That tidy metric also didn’t account for another American preoccupation that fed into class: beauty. A woman who had both, she reflected as she zipped her jeans, might come across as cold because she felt isolated and wary of other women. Or she might be a stuck-up bitch.
Maybe today she’d figure out which was true of her boss’s wife. Their one encounter last spring inclined Lily toward the “bitch” summary, but it had been a very brief meeting. Maybe she was wrong. After all, Ruben had picked Deborah and stayed with her, and the woman did teach seventh grade, so . . .
“You’re sure it was a ghost?”
“Of course not.” Lily saw red for a moment—the red of the stretchy sweater she tugged over her head. Then it was down and she saw the gray walls and pale wood of the bedroom, and the man she shared that bedroom with. “How can I be sure? I’m no medium.”
“But it looked like a ghost.” Rule sat on the bed to pull on his shoes. With his head bent, his mink brown hair fell forward, hiding his face. Rule had been overdue for a haircut even by his standards when he got the subcommittee’s request for “clarification of your expert testimony from last March.” He’d promptly cancelled his hair appointment.
That was stubbornness, not lack of time. The request had come from an überconservative senator pursuing sound bites for his base. He’d wanted to ask Rule annoying questions to get them on the record, and Rule refused to look as if he’d raced out to trim himself to fit conservative notions of grooming.
“White and filmy. Floating. Yeah, it looked like a ghost.” The remembered ache of pity closed Lily’s throat. It had wanted something from her. Needed something.
Ghosts, she told herself firmly, were not people. She’d been told that by an expert. Whatever that fragment of ectoplasm wanted, it had come to the wrong place. She didn’t have any answers.
Lily turned to check herself in the full-length mirror. She could see Rule behind her. The aging athletic shoes—no socks—he was tying suited the worn-to-white jeans with a hole in one knee. Oddly enough, they also went great with the whisper-light black cashmere sweater that had probably cost as much as one of the car payments Lily had finally finished making on her Toyota. “I know Ruben said casual, but—”
“You think the jeans are too casual?”
“No, not you. You’re fine.” Rule could pair ragged jeans with cashmere and look like a film star. Lily couldn’t. First, she didn’t own cashmere. Second, a sane woman who wanted to stay that way didn’t compare herself to Rule Turner. He could make Bubble Wrap look good.
He stood up. His grin flashed white in a way that still sliced right through her. “You are not wearing one of your work jackets to a backyard barbecue, Lily.”
“That would be stuffy.”
“Which means you can’t wear your shoulder harness.”
“I know that.”
“You’re wearing your ankle holster, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” It held a little snub-nosed Beretta that had started out as a loaner from Rule’s father. When Isen wanted to gift her with it, she hadn’t argued. Range and accuracy were no more than you’d expect from a snub-nose, but it had good stopping power. It made an excellent clutch piece.
The Glock she’d been practicing with earlier was now her main weapon. It had a comfortable grip, which was always a factor when you had small hands. It had range, too, and accuracy, and kick-ass stopping power with the right ammo. But it was not her SIG. That was back in California, buried beneath a few tons of earth and rock. She missed it.
But she would not have carried it to her boss’s barbecue anyway, she reminded herself, so that didn’t matter now. She gave her reflection a frowning study. This was the first time she’d been invited to the Brookses’ place socially, and she wanted to get it right.
The jeans looked okay. The sweater . . . something wasn’t right. Red was a good color for her, so that wasn’t it. The material was stretchy, but not too snug for her boss’s party. Nor was the scoop neckline too low. It showed just enough skin to say “social” instead of “on duty.” But that skin looked awfully bare.
