by Faith Hunter
As Aya reached the height of the peaked roofs, an owl hurtled down from the clouds, straight at me. Aya’s bird screamed, a screeching roar with elephantine overtones. He whipped his wings and reached for Grandmother. He wouldn’t be in time. Thema raised a weapon.
I hit the sidewalk hard. Face-plant. Fire whooshed through my nerves, muscles, skin. For a moment I thought I had been hit by a fireball. The pain sliced and cut, burned and froze. Muscles tore. Bones popped.
When the burning pain eased, I lifted my head and looked along my body. I realized that Beast had ripped through our realities and used my own skinwalker power all on her own. Again. She had added mass to my half-form, taking mass from the concrete sidewalk.
Screams echoed. Gunshots. More SUVs arriving. The putter of Bitsa. Scent of Tex, Koun, Kojo, Thema. My first breath was agony. I whispered a curse.
My cheek was against the broken sidewalk. I stared across the street. Lightning cracked across the sky above me. A momentary brilliance. The stink of ozone and storm. And magic. When the glare cleared, standing on the sidewalk was Adan Bouvier. One arm was up to the sky, lightning still glowing on his fingertips. A cold wind swept down the street. Lightning cracked again, the magic of a weather-witch vamp. Familiar as old, painful memories. A brilliant flash hit the sidewalk at his feet.
No. It hit the body beside him on the sidewalk. It spasmed, curled, and died. The stink of human flesh, cooked and dead.
Two arcenciels dove at Adan, dragon form, slashing claws, tails whipping.
Unexpected strength thrust through me like a fist of might. I shoved upright. Eye to eye with Ka, standing in the shadows across the street. Naked, as she would be after shifting from an animal. Yellow eyes. Black hair. Fierce scowl. A blade in her hand. Then she shifted so fast I couldn’t follow it. Still with black hair and eyes, but pale, olive-toned skin. The stench of liver-eater whooshed from her. U’tlun’ta’. I knew this one too.
Ka had taken the body and mind and gifts of Aurelia Flamma Scintilla, the Firestarter. Aurelia was—had been—a senza onore, a dark Onorio. Ka, a skinwalker, had eaten her while she was alive and taken her power, her memories, and her form. The need for others to fulfill the Rule of Three for Onorio now made sense. Ka/Aurelia raised her hand, and fire began to gather there.
Fury slammed through me. I pulled a nine-mil and a vamp-killer. The world slowed down. From the far end of the street, a vamp strode, walking in the near dawn, his chest naked. The first time in all these days that I had seen him in person.
Shaun MacLaughlinn.
He carried two swords.
All my enemies in one spot.
Not a coincidence.
“Jane Yellowrock,” Shaun shouted. “I have challenged you to a blood duel for the rights of this city. We will fight here. Now!”
Kojo and Koun blocked his way, each holding swords high and low. “You will not break parley,” Koun shouted.
Ka/Aurelia reared back to throw.
Thema darted in front of me.
My vision, my awareness fractured.
Above us, a dragon screamed. Storm, burning dragon form, dove at Ka. Slow, slow, slow.
The fireball flew from Ka/Aurelia’s hand.
Right at Thema. She was a flammable vampire standing in the near-dawn.
Storm’s magic reached for the fireball. Her claws slashed at Ka. I tackled Thema and rolled to the side. Avoiding the sidewalk where Aya had left mass. We landed hard.
Thema’s arm was on fire. I rolled us into the dirt to the side of the house where large-leafed plants grew and the garbage bins stayed. I crushed her skin into the dirt, smothering the fire. Two other fireballs were extinguished out front. Storm’s magic.
I heard a sound like a church bell cracking, a disharmonious, broken gong.
Beneath the broken bell, Ka bellowed in fury.
Gunshots and screams rang out. Fighting sounded from the back of the house too.
“Get inside before the sun takes you out, you stupid vamp,” I demanded of Thema. I leaped to my feet. I wasn’t wearing the Benelli. It was in the floor of the SUV. I was still holding the nine-mil and a vamp-killer. I sprinted at Ka. Half-form but bigger. Stronger.
I took it all in. A single glance.
Ka was Ka-shaped again. Storm was dragon-form, the coils of her snake body wrapped around Ka. Her dragon fangs buried in Ka’s neck.
Ka was holding a blade. In the brighter light, I could see it wasn’t steel but cold iron. I was halfway across the street when she stabbed Storm.
Iron was the only thing that could kill an arcenciel.
Storm screamed in agony and coiled away, her liquid-light blood gushing into the street. Ka raised the blade to strike her again. She collected Storm’s blood in a cup.
I screamed in rage. Half-form lion scream.
Ka stopped, whirled in Storm’s loosening coils. She saw me. I leaped. Midair, I saw Ka’s mouth open. Her body shifted into a red-head Caucasian with blue eyes, the shift allowing her to slide from Storm’s coils. Fangs clicked down. Vampire fangs. Three inches of vampire strength. Her eyes bled black. Her mouth was aimed at my neck.
I whipped my arms and twisted as if in flight. Leaning back. A move Eli had taught me.
Caught Ka with my silvered blade in her side.
Her iron blade passed above me in the air. Still whirling, I rammed the nine-mil into the side of her head. She fell. I landed as she hit the sidewalk. Found my feet. I kicked her head, making sure she was down and out. Her body rolled into the street, her head at an angle that let me know I had broken her neck. The stench of liver-eater was powerful: scorched flesh and rot.
I had probably screwed up the sights and aim of the gun. It was stupid to use a handgun as a club.
I kicked Ka again.
Looked for Shaun. He, Kojo, and Koun were fighting, my two warriors against one, dueling swords flashing too fast to follow. And Shaun was winning.
A rifle cracked. One of my security team fell. Human. Unmoving. We had a sniper. I ducked behind a car, scanning the rooftops. A second shot. A second human fell.
I spotted the sniper behind partial cover. I’d never make that shot.
An enemy human pulled Ka away. And took the blood cup too.
I searched the air for Grandmother and Aya. They were fighting, claws, beaks, beating wings. But Aya was holding back. He was trying not to hurt his Grandmother. Childhood memories, decades of relationship constraining him.
She wasn’t holding back. She was trying to kill him.
Eli was suddenly beside me, breathing fast. He stretched across the side and hood of a parked car. A long rifle in his arms. He sighted. Blew out a partial breath. Held it. Aiming. He fired. The enemy shooter disappeared.
Eli rotated and aimed up into the sky. Waiting. Aya took a claw slash across his chest. A beak peck in his right eye. He dropped, plummeting in the air. Away from Grandmother. Eli fired. Grandmother tumbled, fluttered. Fell. She disappeared behind the house across the street. Aya landed on the hood of an SUV with a deep thump I heard over the battle-deafness.
Eli aimed up the street, the weapon balanced on the car hood. Softly he said, “Koun. Down.”
On the far end of the street, Koun dropped to his knees in front of Shaun. Eli fired. Shaun staggered. His people closed in on him and carried him away. Koun stood, watching their retreat. He was bloody. He had been injured. He was breathing hard. And it was near dawn.
Eli said, “Take care of Aya. I’ll take out the other target.” He meant Grandmother. He sprinted away, weaponed up like an assassin.
Storm was wounded, lying in the street, bleeding but still moving.
The fight was over. We had . . . lost? Holy crap.
The maid-servant, Quint, appeared at my side. We raced to Aya, his bird body lying on the pavement. One of our humans was aiming a weapon at him.
The guard looked up at me and took a step back. Moving his weapon to me. I’d been wrong. This human was not mine.
Two shots sounded. The human fell.
Quint had taken him down. And missed me. Good shot. Maybe as good as Eli. I leaned across to my brother. Aya’s wings fluttered. One was broken. One eye was gone. His jaw hung open. His chest was scored, but I had no idea how deep. Bloody feathers all across his chest. I holstered my weapon and sheathed the bloody blade. No extra DNA needed to be around him.
“Cover me,” I instructed Quint. Without looking her way, I slid my hands beneath Aya. His bird weighed about thirty pounds. He had lost a lot of mass transitioning to this condor. He needed to shift before he died in this form, before he lost the ability to remember he was human. I carried him to the busted sidewalk where he had left mass, and placed him on the center of the gelatinous, rocky, hard, rubberlike goo. I waited. He tried to get to his bird feet. His head was wobbly on his neck. Panicked. Dying. He wasn’t going to change in time. I didn’t have my crown. All I had was the Glob. It didn’t give power for workings, it stole power, sucking it away.
I looked at Quint. “Can you get my crown out of its protective hedge?”
Quint bent toward me and extended a finger. She wiped the corner of my mouth. Muzzle. I was heavily cat-faced. Her finger came away bloody. I had been injured fighting Ka. “Alex and I can.” Almost vamp-fast, she was gone, through the front door, which was still open.
I cradled the wounded and dying bird in my knobby hands, crooning to it, stroking it, keeping my own blood away from it.
Seconds later Quint and Alex were back, kneeling near me but away from the rubbery, rocky mass.
I accepted my crown from Quint. She wiped her bloody finger off on my clothes, giving me back my unused blood. But I smelled burned flesh. She had injured herself getting my crown. I slapped le breloque onto my head. Instantly it sized to fit me. Went hot enough to blister my flesh. The Glob heated in my pocket.
I drew on my skinwalker magics. The silver mist of power rose from my half-form. I had healed vampires before. I had healed myself before. I could do this.
Right. I could also kill Aya trying.
I didn’t have time for fear.
I envisioned Aya in his human form. I pushed at the power that was mine. But instead of directing it at the bird, I directed it at Aya’s mass on the ground. Somewhere in that stuff was Aya’s perfect DNA. And maybe most of his skinwalker magics. Crap. Did I leave behind my magic when I lost mass? I didn’t know.
I closed my eyes. Eased my power into the rubbery mass, feeling/scenting/knowing chemicals I had no names for. Scenting proteins, things that sizzled with power, things that felt inert but were alive. Felt through them until an electric power met mine. Skinwalker power.
The Glob sought to pull the energies away. I reined the weapon in but kept it ready. I drew on le breloque, directing its might into the skinwalker energies. And shoved it toward the dying bird.
Aya, I thought. Ayatas Nvgitsvle, named for the Nantahala Panther of the Panther Clan. Come to your true form. Nothing happened. Time passed. Too long. I pushed more skinwalker and le breloque power into him, trying the words in the half-remembered Cherokee of his introduction to me, the first time he appeared at my door. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi, Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi of Ani Gilogi. Seek the form of Aya. Come back to yourself. Your battle is neither won nor lost. You must be human-form. Come back to yourself.
Inside me, something like longing woke. Something that might have been the memory of abandonment combined with the memory of loss, loss of family. The memory of our father dying. I pushed harder. Do not make me become a beloved woman to fight in my brother’s stead. Alone. I have been alone for too long, without my kin. Without my clan. Come back to me! I lay across the mass of my brother, cradling his bird.
Come back to me.
God? You can’t take this away. You can’t take him away. You can’t. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!
I was sobbing, shoving my magic into Aya. Tears and snot dripped down my chin. I wiped them on my shoulder to keep from contaminating his mass with my DNA. I hadn’t even let myself get to know him. I hadn’t tried. I had pushed him away like a kid, out of anger and spite. I had been so damn stupid. “Come back,” I demanded. And then it hit me. Rule of Three. My voice hoarse and shaking, I said, “Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Return to your human form.”
Something tingled and quivered beneath my arms. I eased back just a bit. Wiping my face again. Through the trembling sheen of my tears, I watched as Aya’s skinwalker energies lifted out of the pile of my brother’s mass. I eased back farther. The concrete of the sidewalk cracked and broke again, the mortar used in the construction shattering as the magic tightened, the energies growing thicker, black motes whirling like tornadoes in the midst.
My magic never looked like this.
The mass on the sidewalk drew together. I pulled away from the shape-change, watching, feeling the energies through le breloque. A human form began to coalesce out of the rubbery pile and the dying bird and the energies. I crab-walked back, bumping into human legs that gave way for me. A palm rested on my shoulder, fingers warm. Eli. Comforting. I lay my cheek on his hand. Alex was on the other side, hand on my shoulder.
Slowly. Painfully Aya reformed. Solidified out of the boiling energies.
His body was quaking, shuddering, muscles vibrating, curled in a fetal position. And pale, so very pale. I pulled back all my skinwalker energies, the energies of le breloque, and shoved down hard on the Glob. Locking it down.
Aya took a breath. I knew that sound. That sound meant his lungs had been in shutdown, and the instinct to breathe had forced his chest to expand.
I stood, leaning on Eli. “He’ll be hungry.”
“Oatmeal cooked but in the fridge. Three pounds of sliced beef. Twelve boiled eggs. All cold as sin but calories ready to eat. I’ve lived with you long enough to know what’s needed, Janie.” His voice was kind, telling me he had my back.
I nodded. “I have to check on Storm.”
Eli tensed. “It isn’t good.”
I shook my head, thinking, When is it ever?
“I’ve called Soul,” he added.
Without checking for traffic, knowing without looking that my people had blocked off both ends of the block, I walked into the street and across. Opal and Pearl were in human form, holding Storm in their arms. Storm was unmoving, her dragon form coiled and still. Her sisters hissed as I approached. I ignored them and knelt at Storm’s side.
The one thing I knew for certain about le breloque was that at some point, one of the two rings that make the crown had belonged to the arcenciels. I drew on the crown again and placed a hand on Storm’s frilled face. I had no idea if arcenciels had hearts or pulses or lungs. I moved my hand over her horns and tusks and the delicate skin that frilled out around her head. I moved down her body, touching, shoving with my magic. Nothing was happening. The tears that hadn’t dried were dripping down my cheeks, landing on Storm’s body. I was sobbing. Tears and snot and boohooing like a child who had been kicked as grief wracked through me. I wrapped my arms around her body and hugged her, praying for my god to heal her, praying for her goddess, if she had one in her world, to heal her. Nothing happened. Nothing helped. Her coils were lifeless. The magic I tried to push into her went sluggish just beneath her snake skin. I reached for the horrible wound. The flesh there was blackened and smelled of hot iron. The magic I shoved there swirled into the wound and bounced back. Knocking me off my feet to my butt. My knuckles scraped the pavement. Ripping off skin to the bone. I rolled to my side, ready to try again with Storm.
And I got a look at the human-shaped body lying nearby. Curled on its side. Burned and blackened where the lightning had struck it. Facing me. Adan’s lightning victim.
<
br /> Bloodied and scarred. Vamp fangs had torn through his throat. His eyes were open and cooked where the lightning had burned him. Derek.
Derek. My friend.
Storm.
I raised my face into the dawn. I screamed. Grief shriek. Battle cry. The sound of loss and fury echoing off the brick walls and into the sky. My entire body heated and tore. My joints and bones popped. I sucked in a breath of rage and I roared.
I couldn’t fix Storm. I couldn’t fix Derek.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I never had.
Around me, the pavement erupted. Cracking and bubbling and dusting into its component parts. Tarry shards and concrete shot upward. At me. Into me.
The pavement smashed me in the head.
* * *
* * *
I woke, lying on my side, on Bruiser’s fancy rug beside my bed. My face was on his pillow, my body swaddled in blankets. Bruiser was behind me, cradling me. I had been here long enough for someone to wipe the tears and the snot off my face.
Exhaustion weighed me down like lead in my veins. Breathing hurt. Bruiser stroked my hair—which felt different, but I couldn’t say why—and down along my shoulder. He knew I was awake. My tears started all over again.
When I could talk I asked, “Eli? Did he shoot Grandmother?”
“No, my love. She got away.”
“Aya?”
“He is well.” Bruiser kissed my fingertips.
“Storm? Derek?”
Gently, he said, “Gone.” When I didn’t open my eyes, he added, “Derek’s body has been taken by honor guard to the funeral home. His men have gone to tell his mother that her son is gone. Storm was collected by Pearl, Opal, and Soul. I understand that they are taking her to the rift and placing her into it so that her energies can return through it.”
“Adan?”
“Vanished when Opal and Pearl attacked.”
“Why?” I meant why did Adan kill Derek, and Bruiser seemed to know that.
“We think he’s the one who stole Derek from HQ. We think it was a test of the security system, someone to question, and a challenge.”