Free Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews

shrugged the chain loop from his arm. The links hit the dirt with a thud.
    The dog charged.
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    I moved, pulling Slayer from its sheath. I slammed its pommel into Bryce’s throat, while hooking his left leg with my right. He toppled. Before he hit the ground, I spun, clamping the metal feather with my fingers and jerking it from the knife sheath. It cost me a fraction of a second—I couldn’t afford to cut myself, not with the Honeycomb’s magic swirling around us—and I caught the dog in midleap. I stabbed the feather shaft into his vicious beryl eye, twisted past him, and hammered a kick into Jeremiah’s gut. He tried to pitch forward, but I swept behind him and caught his throat against Slayer’s blade.
    Everything stopped.
    The dog let out a long surprised whine and went down with the jangle of carelessly tossed coins. Bryce squirmed on the ground, clawing the dirt, trying to breathe. Mory stared at me, his mouth open. Jeremiah gulped, Slayer’s blade sliding a little on his Adam’a apple. On the trailer’s porch Julie stood petrified, face slack like a melted rubber mask.
    “What the fuck?” Mory said, bewildered. “What the fuck happened?”
    “What happened is the three of you made me kill a dog for no reason.”
    A drop of sweat slid from Jeremiah’s dark hair and rolled down his unshaven neck. A two-millimeter change in the angle, and the enchanted saber would bridge the distance between him and his wings. I was pissed as hell and keeping my hand steady proved an effort.
    “I paid my fee, and you, greedy assholes, decided to shake me down a second time. And threaten my kid, while you were at it. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you at all human or did this place leech all decency out of you?” My voice was low and growling. I knew I was wasting my breath talking.
    Bryce finally sucked in a breath and moaned.
    “You killed my dog,” Jeremiah said, his voice high with disbelief. “You killed my baby. Jesus Christ.
    You killed my dog.”
    They were done. I took my blade from his throat. Jeremiah sank in the dirt. His face stretched. He put his hand over his eyes. I walked past him to the dead dog. It lay in a glistening metal heap, great paws unmoving, ruined eye bleeding crimson. What a waste.
    Bryce got to his knees and stood up shakily.
    I pulled a piece of gauze from my pocket and wiped Slayer’s blade. “I’m going to break into this trailer so I can find this little girl’s mother and Esmeralda, or whatever her real name is. While I’m doing that, why don’t you go and get some help. However many you think it will take to get the job done, and then you can have a do-over. I’ll be right here. But this time, I’ll cut to kill human, not dog. And I’ll enjoy it. In fact, you would be doing me a favor.”
    He took a step back.
    I glanced at Julie. “Come.”
    She scurried in front of me to the door. I walked up the metal stair and hammered a kick to the lock.
    The frame splintered with a sharp crack and the door flew open.
    Julie ducked inside and I followed her into the gloomy house of the head witch.
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CHAPTER 7
    THE PLACE STANK OF ROTTING CITRUS AND OLDsocks. Julie clamped her nose. “What stinks?”
    “Valerian extract.” I pointed to the dark stain on the wall. Glass shards studded the floor below—looked like Esmeralda hurled the vial against the wall. “Our head witch had trouble sleeping.”
    Narrow to the point of inducing claustrophobia, the trailer lay steeped in gloom. Blood-red tattered drapes hid the windows. Julie picked up a flyswatter off the narrow counter separating the tiny kitchen from the rest of the space and used it to push the curtains open. Smart kid. Who knows what the hell was on those curtains.
    In the light of the afternoon, the trailer looked even sadder. A beat-up fridge took up most of the cooking area. I opened the fridge. Years ago I had bought a perpetually cold egglike object, which the seller had called an ice sprite egg. I