Free Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews

as quick as the other two but I got the impression he could carry me and my mule both. Spoke with a touch of an accent, Aussie or New Zealand. Favored his left arm a bit. Might have been hurt recently. You want me to describe the clothes?”
    Curran shook his head. “How long were you here?”
    “About a minute and a half, maybe two.” I crossed the street over to where I saw Brenna yelp. “Brenna found an arm right here. I think perhaps a female arm, because the sleeve was pale and shimmered a bit.
    Some kind of metallic fabric, an evening gown or blouse, not the type a man would typically wear unless he was very flamboyant.”
    “Tell me about Jim.”
    “He materialized out of thin air right here. Very dramatic.” I raised my head. “Ah. Probably jumped off this balcony.” I recounted the conversation. “That’s all I got. Didn’t see the body. Didn’t get any details.”
    Curran’s face took on this odd look. It looked almost like admiration. “Not bad. Natural recall or something the Order taught you?”
    I shrugged. “Not the Order. My father. And it’s not perfect. I typically forget the most important item on my shopping list. But I’m trained to evaluate the situation for possible dangers, and seven shapeshifters packing away a dead body in the middle of the night on a deserted road is a lot of danger. Your turn to

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    share.”
    “A deal is a deal.” Curran stepped into the road with me. “She wasn’t killed here. The scent of blood is faint and the ground isn’t stained, but still dirty so nobody rinsed the pavement off. The body had been cut into at least six pieces. This is a dump site, chosen because one of our offices is only eight blocks away. That’s the closest they could get to our territory without being stopped by a patrol. There were at least three of them, and they don’t smell human. I don’t know what they are, but I don’t like their scent.”
    Better and better.
    “Can’t tell you much more than that, except that Jim had his best cleanup crew with him. I know every person you described. They’re very good at what they do.”
    And none of them had said anything to him about it. The million-dollar question was why?
    “Once accepted, the assistance of the Order can’t be declined,” I told him. “I’m now part of this investigation. That means I’ll have to come into your territory and ask uncomfortable questions.”
    “I have some questions to ask as well.” Liquid gold drowned Curran’s eyes. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on their ends. I really didn’t want to be Jim right now.
    “I’ll contact you to schedule time for the interviews.” He turned and walked away, leaving me in the middle of the street. Beast Lord, a man beyond mundane niceties like good-bye and thank you.
    As I walked back to civilization, I realized that for the first time in the six months I had known Curran, we had managed to have a conversation and part ways without wanting to kill each other. I found that fact deeply troubling.

CHAPTER 7
    A SMALL BROWN-PAPER PARCEL WAITED FOR ME by the door of my apartment. I stopped and pondered why in the world it hadn’t been stolen. The apartment, which I had inherited from Greg, wasn’t in the worst part of town but not in the best one either. My guardian hadn’t been concerned with security; he’d bought the apartment because it was close to the Order.
    I frowned at the parcel. It lay on the grimy landing before my new door—the old one had to be replaced when a demon burst through it. I’d built a bit of a reputation in the neighborhood as that crazy bitch with a sword who lives in 32B, an image I carefully cultivated, but even so, an unattended parcel should have been pilfered within seconds of hitting the ground.
    Maybe it was booby-trapped.
    I pulled out Slayer. The light filtering through the grimy window above me caught the opaque, nearly white