Magic Bites (kate Daniels, #1)

The first installment in the Kate Daniels series is set in a version of Atlanta where magic and technology rise and fall in unpredictable waves. When magic surges, spells work and cars fail; when technology returns, electricity flows and enchantments go dormant. Kate Daniels works as a mercenary in this volatile world, taking on supernatural problems through the Mercenary Guild. Three factions shape the city: the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, a quasi-religious organization of powerful warriors; the People, a necromantic organization that controls vampires (mindless undead piloted telepathically by navigators called Masters of the Dead); and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers led by the Beast Lord.

Kate learns that her guardian, Greg Feldman, has been murdered. Greg served as the Order's knight-diviner, an investigator who uses divination magic, and was the closest thing to family Kate had left. A vampire controlled by Ghastek, one of the People's Masters of the Dead, breaches her home near Savannah and asks when she last saw Greg, arousing her suspicion. Kate confirms Greg's death through the Order and drives to Atlanta to investigate.

At the Order's Atlanta Chapter, Kate meets Ted, the knight-protector who oversees investigations. Ted tests Kate with insults before granting her access to Greg's office and case file. In Greg's sealed office, Kate finds a letter inscribed with four ancient words of power written in Greg's blood. She absorbs them through a violent magical ordeal, adding to two her late father taught her. These power words are primal commands over raw magic; using even one leaves the caster near exhaustion. Kate's blood itself carries potent magic, a legacy of her mysterious parentage that she guards closely.

The case file reveals that Greg's body was mauled beyond recognition, with a beheaded vampire beside him. It includes a list of four women's names with no explanation. At the city morgue, Kate discovers the vampire's ownership brand surgically concealed, identifying it as Ghastek's covert surveillance vampire. She also obtains a restricted m-scan (a magic-scanner reading) showing Greg's magic signature, the vampire's, and faint yellow lines of unknown origin. Kate pressures Bono, one of Ghastek's journeyman necromancers, who reveals the surveillance vampire was tailing Greg when both were killed and that the navigator piloting it suffered death-shock and is now comatose. Bono gives Kate a name, Corwin, a Pack shapechanger, as a possible suspect, and an article about a type of undead creature called an upir.

Jim, a werejaguar and Kate's occasional partner from the Guild, arranges a meeting with Curran, the Beast Lord, in Unicorn Lane, a magically saturated stretch of dangerous ruins. Curran reveals himself as an enormous lion with smoky stripes, then shifts to human form with startling speed. After tense verbal sparring, he shows Kate photographs of seven murdered Pack members and reveals that Greg was secretly investigating these killings on the Pack's behalf. Kate shares the feline-derivative hairs and yellow m-scan lines, and they agree to exchange information.

Kate consults Saiman, a shapeshifting information broker, who identifies the yellow lines as animal magic tainted by necromantic influence, a blend requiring animals bred across generations on undead flesh. The killer is neither standard shapechanger nor zombie. Kate also realizes Ted's true motive for granting her the case: The Order assigned a Crusader, a covert elite hunter who works independently, to handle the real investigation, while Kate serves as a visible lightning rod to draw attention away from the Crusader.

Kate discovers that three of the four women on Greg's list are missing, with locating spells blocked in each case. She begins a tentative relationship with Dr. Crest, a charming plastic surgeon she met at the morgue, and receives summons from both the Pack and the People.

At the Pack's Keep, a massive stone fortress, Kate walks into a test orchestrated by Curran. When a young werewolf named Derek touches her, she uses a power word to compel him to shift and attack his own packmate. After proving her self-control by passing her arm through a ceremonial flame, Kate faces Curran's ultimatum: Take Derek as her bodyguard or watch Curran kill him for disobedience. She reluctantly agrees.

Kate visits the Casino, the People's opulent Atlanta headquarters. Nataraja, the People's leader in Atlanta, attempts to crush Kate with his power, but she resists. Ghastek reveals the People have lost six vampires total. Kate deduces that someone is staging killings at the border between Pack and People territories to provoke a war. She drops the name Roland, the People's legendary ancient leader, startling both Nataraja and Ghastek.

After the Casino visit, an ancient vampire attacks Kate and Derek, leaving both badly wounded. Kate beheads it and uses her own magically potent blood to perform a ritual on the severed head, producing a vision of the ruined Coca-Cola building in Unicorn Lane. She interviews Corwin at the Keep and clears him when his m-scan does not match the crime scene evidence.

The case breaks open when Kate finds a severed head in her yard, later identified as one of the missing women. Bones arranged in a ward circle around her property turn out to be the remains of murdered shapechangers and vampires. That night, Bono appears in his true form: the upir, a 300-year-old creature from ancient fertility cults who produces monstrous hybrid offspring by mating with animals, immune to metal, wood, tooth, and claw. He reveals he killed Greg, orchestrated the murders to provoke war between the Pack and the People, and targeted Kate because he knows her true bloodline. Kate's biological father is an ancient, powerful being who once hunted upiri, and Bono intends to force her to bear his heir. Kate attacks him with a broken bottle and a power word, but he regenerates and flees, vowing to kill Curran and absorb his magic.

Curran arrives at Kate's home and reports that Bono captured Derek. At the Keep, circumstantial evidence briefly points to Crest, but a blood scan clears him. Crest ends their relationship, devastated by Kate's willingness to kill him. Nick, the Crusader Kate first glimpsed disguised as a vagrant at the Order, reveals the upir's sole weakness: bone. Kate helps Nick escape the Keep to retrieve bone blades, enraging Curran. Bono calls to taunt them, killing a captive woman over the phone, and issues a challenge.

Kate, Curran, and Nick follow Bono's monstrous offspring to Red Point, an abandoned prison saturated with dark magic. Bono waits in the yard armed with a silver-tipped spear, with captive women in the windows and a massive bonedragon, a zombie construct piloted by navigators, rising behind him. Nick fights the bonedragon. Curran engages Bono directly. Kate is surrounded by Bono's offspring, which Bono restrains telepathically to contain her rather than kill her. She kills them to break Bono's divided concentration, then channels fire magic through her blood to destroy the bonedragon. Curran takes Bono's spear through his own stomach to close the distance and tears the upir in half. When Bono begins regenerating, Kate drives a bone blade into his heart. His power bleeds away and he dies.

Kate wakes in her own home, tended by Nick, who survived. Sixteen women were found alive at Red Point, seven dead, and Derek was recovered with broken legs. Kate spends over a week recovering alone, reflecting on the investigation's cost. Detective Gray from the Paranormal Activity Division offers her a position as liaison between the Guild and the Order. Curran and Derek arrive to repair the hole Curran made in Kate's roof. Kate accepts the job.