Magic Mourns by Ilona Andrews

Magic Mourns is one of 4 short stories in the anthology Must Love Hellhounds. It follows Andrea covering for her best friend Kate Daniels at work while Kate recuperates from the events of the end of Magic Strikes.

Andrea receives a call from a guy who knows Kate saying a giant three headed dog is chasing a shapeshifter, who's tail is literally on fire. Andrea jumps at the chance to go shoot something and heads out there. What she finds is Raphael, the werehyena who's been after her romantically for six months, is the one being chased by this dog, who's the size of a small house and Raphael's a little out of his league. But as they escape from the hellhound long enough for Andrea to find out what's going on, she realises it's a lot more complicated than them simply needing to eliminate the dog.

Andrea is a lot like Kate in many ways, just with different issues and specialities. But like Kate, she's got a lot of deep and buried issues and a hidden past she wants to remain that way. Not to mention a super sexy shifter fighting for her love.

I liked this short story, but it didn't have the punch of other short works I've read by Ms. Andrews. I don't really know why, but it just didn't for me. Still, it was a good story and seeing more of Andrea and Raphael was really good, they're two of my favourite secondary characters, of any series. A couple interesting tidbits about Kate and Curran from other people too, which I'm hoping will be explored more in the 4th Kate book, Magic Bleeds. Still, good short story. 4/5