Book excerpt: BLOOD AND MAGIC… …rage in the streets of Seattle. The shift of a few blocks of gang turf costs lives, innocent and guilty, silenced forever and then forgotten in the city's deepest shadows. Lone Star, Seattle's contracted police force, fights a losing battle against the city's newest conquerors—the gangs. From his years of undercover work, Lone Star officer Rick Larson thinks he knows the score. The gangs rule their territories by guns and spells, force and intimidation, and it's the most capricious of balances that keeps things from exploding into all-out warfare. Inside the Cutters, one of the city’s most dangerous gangs, Larson is in a prime position to watch the balance, react to it, and report to his superiors. But when the balance begins to shift unexpectedly, Larson finds himself not only on the wrong side of the fight, but on the wrong side of the law as well…