Magic Claims (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years, #2; Kate Daniels, #10.6)

He bowed his head.

I followed Conlan down the stairs and took my place next to Curran at the head of our little formation. We’d arranged our forces into a column. Curran and I were in the lead. Owen was directly behind us, carrying the big tent we borrowed from Penderton and two gallons of undead blood, which I would need for my blood armor. Behind Owen were Conlan, Darin, and Jushur, followed by Heather and her archers, two per row.

The shapeshifters formed a loose protective envelope around the column, starting with Keelan behind Curran to his left, and Rimush, who technically wasn’t a shapeshifter, behind me and on my right. The rest of the Wilmington Pack formed up behind those two, on the flanks, keeping the archers and the kids between them. Da-Eun, Jynx, and Andre brought up the rear. With those three, nothing would surprise us from behind.

Ned came up to us, with Mayor Gene trailing him. They’d been chatting off to the side, and judging by their body language, neither man felt uneasy. They must’ve patched things up.

“This is it then,” Ned said.

“Yes,” Curran said.

“I won’t say goodbye,” Ned said. “I will say, see you soon.”

“See you soon, Ned,” I told him.

“Good luck!” Mayor Gene told us. He looked past the shapeshifters to the archers. “Penderton is proud of you! All of us are proud of you! Don’t take stupid chances. Come back in one piece.”

The gates swung open, and we started across the killing field toward the green flag. All the things that had to be said had been said.

We crossed the grass to the flag. The sun hadn’t broken above the horizon yet, although the sunrise wasn’t far off, and in the early light, the flag looked more gray than green. Gray was the Pack color. I decided to take it as a good omen.

The beginning of NC-53 stretched in front of us, the asphalt crumbled at the edges and crowded by trees, but still solid.

I stepped forward and gathered my magic. It strummed inside me, like a heartbeat reverberating through my entire body. I plunged Sarrat into the ground.

A beam of magic shot out of me, straight as an arrow, dashing along NC-53, claiming a strip of land fifty feet wide. I pushed it for three miles, to where NC-53 made a slight turn and cut it short. I’d carved a path through the forest’s territory. A safe zone. I would need to do this again when we reached its end.

I slid my sword into the sheath on my back. Curran reached out, took my hand, and squeezed. I squeezed back.

He raised his voice. “Walk behind me and Kate and stay in formation. No straggling, no running off. You are in a fifty-foot-wide safe zone. Do not leave it.”

A chorus of “Yes, Alpha” answered him.

Curran grinned, his eyes sparking with feral gold light. “Time to hunt!”





Keelan stopped. Curran stopped too, half a second later. The entire column halted in the middle of the battered, crumbling road and stared at the woods beyond the pavement.

I listened.

Around us the forest was full of life. Leaves and pine needles shivered in the breeze, stretching over the road to grab every bit of light. Squirrels chased each other through the branches. A feral cat trailed them, sneaking by the tree roots. A faint whiff of old skunk musk lingered, emanating from somewhere to our left. Birds sang and chirped in the canopy.

No visible threat. No strange noises.

I glanced at Keelan. What?

He inhaled, sucking the air into his nostrils, then turned and leaned, looking down the length of the column.

“Come out slowly,” Curran said.

A shape emerged from the brush on our left, just behind the rear guard, their fatigues perfectly blending with the forest.

Da-Eun swore.

The person stepped into the light filtering through the gap in the branches and onto the old road.

Isaac. I should have known.

“The Order’s pathfinder,” I murmured.

We’d been walking for over two hours. About thirty minutes ago, we’d passed the remains of an old gas station swallowed up by magically boosted trees and made the turn onto US-421 North. I’d performed the claiming for the third time, taking over a chunk of that road. By now we were probably ten miles in.

Isaac had managed to sneak up on a pack of shapeshifters, and he had even evaded Keelan’s nose, which put most werewolves to shame. Had he followed us all the way from Penderton? No, probably not. If I were him, I would’ve waited for us at that gas station and then tagged along behind the column, keeping downwind.

“Don’t you think you’d do more good in the front?” Curran asked.

Isaac shrugged. “Not my party. I’m just tagging along. If you want me on point, though, I can do that.”

Curran waved him forward. The pathfinder nodded and moved through the column, completely silent. He took point and we kept moving.

That third claiming took a bit out of me. My body ached, fatigue adding a phantom weight to my legs.

The forest should have attacked us by this point, but so far Isaac was the only human we’d seen. Although, there was a hawk hanging above us. Hawks were territorial, and their range was about two square miles. This one had been with us since we left Penderton. I had noticed it when we set out and then again after the second claiming, and Curran and I had been watching it since.

He saw me looking.

“They’re letting us in,” I said. “We are vulnerable on the road, but they haven’t made a move.”

He nodded. “You took away their trump card by creating a safe zone for us. The priest-mages are powerful, but they take a while to cast their spells. Their spear-throwers would be at a disadvantage in the forest. Even if they managed to ambush us, which isn’t likely, they might get one volley off before we went in and took them apart. If they want to attack us on the way, they’d have to use their shapeshifters, and they must not have enough of them to overwhelm us with numbers. They attacked four shapeshifters and a human with a pack of seven and they lost. They would want a significant numerical advantage.”

“You think they have a spot picked out ahead? Somewhere with open ground?”

“I think they will let us walk all the way to their base. They can deploy the hunters and priest-mages in addition to the shapeshifters they have left. They’re counting on having more people than us and the home field advantage. All the better if we’re worn out by the time we reach them.”

“So it’s a last stand?”

“Looks that way. They are marshaling all their forces in one spot rather than risking losing them piecemeal by attacking us along the way.” Curran grinned. “Also, I think your claiming really freaked them out.”

He had a point. Whoever was in charge of the forest must have been accustomed to their claiming being the final word. Their ultimate move. Chances were that nobody had ever challenged them after that. Claiming gave you control and advance warning. It made you feel safe. It allowed you to kill your own people with fucked-up smoke.

When I took Penderton away from them, it must have been a shock. And my claiming was much stronger and more uniform. It would be like having the best knife in the world and realizing your opponent held a sword.

And now they were sitting in their base and feeling me carve my way straight through their territory. One narrow strip of forest at a time. And they could do nothing about it. They had to watch and wait, helpless.

“I think we should freak them out a bit more,” I said.

Curran smiled and it wasn’t pretty. “Darin, drop that hawk.”

The merman raised his bow and fired in one smooth motion, taking no time to aim. The hawk fell from the sky and landed on the road, an arrow in its chest. Coils of black smoke curled up from it, and the hawk melted into nothing.

Keelan chuckled.

We kept moving.