Magic Strikes

CHAPTER 1

SOME DAYS MY JOB WAS HARDER THAN OTHERS.

I tapped the ladder with my hand. "See? It's very sturdy, Mrs. McSweeney. You can come down now."

Mrs. McSweeney looked at me from the top of the tele­phone pole, having obvious doubts about the ladder's and my reliability. Thin, bird boned, she had to be past seventy. The wind stirred the nimbus of ne white hair around her head and blew open her nightgown, presenting me with sights better left unseen.

"Mrs. McSweeney, I wish you would come down."

She arched her back and sucked in a deep breath. Not again. I sat on the ground and clamped my hands over my ears.

The wail cut through the stillness of the night, sharp like a knife. It hammered the windows of the apartment build­ings, wringing a high pitched hum from the glass. Down the street, dogs yowled as one, matching the cry with un­natural harmony. The lament built, swelling like an avalanche, until I could hear nothing but its complex, layered chorus: the lonely howl of a wolf, the forlorn shriek of a bird, the heart wrenching cry of a child. She wailed and wailed, as if her heart were being torn out of her chest, lling me with despair.

The magic wave ended. One moment it saturated the world, giving potency to Mrs. McSweeney's cry, and the next it vanished without warning, gone like a line drawn in the sand just before the surf licked it. The technology reasserted itself. The blue feylantern hanging from the top of the pole went dark, as the magic charged air lost its potency. Electric lights came on in the apartment building.

It was called post Shift resonance: magic drowned the world in a wave, snufng out anything complex and technological, smothering car engines, jamming automatic weapons, and eroding tall buildings. Mages red ice bolts, skyscrapers fell, and wards ared into life, keeping undesirables from my house. And then, just like that, the magic would vanish, leaving monsters in its

Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team, Gordon and Ilona. They currently reside in Texas with their two children and numerous dogs and cats. The couple are the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors of the Kate Daniels and Kate Daniels World novels as well as The Edge and Hidden Legacy series. They also write the Innkeeper Chronicles series, which they post as a free weekly serial. For a complete list of their books, fun extras, and Innkeeper installments, please visit their website at www.ilona-andrews.com.

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