So that was what Darkness meant. Fear. All-consuming, overwhelming fear, so powerful that it tore you from your life and threw you into the void, alone and blind.
Rage reared inside me. I grabbed it like a crutch and pulled myself up, back to reality. My vision returned. I shook myself like a wet dog.
“Is that all? I thought it would be something powerful.”
She raised her arm, showing off the segmented gauntlet. “Where is your blood armor, whelp? Why don’t you cut your wrist and grow a blade? What’s the matter? You can’t do it, can you? You don’t know the secret of molding the blood. I do. All you do is talk and run.”
My family was full of overpowered assholes. I kept walking. We were four blocks from the Mole Hole now. I had no idea what her range was. “No matter what you do or how hard you try, you will never surpass your brother. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
Magic splayed from Darkness in dark translucent streams, bending back, flooding the Mole Hole behind him and stretching farther and farther, to the decrepit buildings, to the hundreds of people packed like sardines into the concrete shells of the ruins. The enormity of his power shook me.
“Watch,” Erra called out.
The Darkness brought his arms together. No, God damn it, no . . .
A wild howl pierced the night. Another voice joined, another, more . . .
A torrent of people burst from the ruins behind Erra.
Fucking shit.
People streamed toward me, eyes mad, mouths gaping open, running like crazed cattle. I ducked behind a car. The human stampede thundered past me. Bodies thudded into the metal, making it shudder. Screams filled the air and above it all Erra’s laughter floated, like the toll of a funeral bell.
A blast of magic ripped from Darkness. Reality fractured and I floated among the pieces, unsure who I was or where I came from. Thoughts and words swirled around me, round and round, in a glowing cascade. Darkness beckoned just beyond the chaos. I reached into the cloud and pulled a word out.
“Dair.” Release.
Magic bit at me with needle jaws. I shuddered, shaking, the shock of the pain tearing the haze.
A body landed next to me, shaggy with fur. Mad eyes glared from a face that was neither beast nor human. A female shapeshifter. Her body snapped, twisted, jerked, and a coyote stood before me. She leapt up and dashed down the street, galloping after the herd of terrified people.
He didn’t send them after the undead? Not yet. We’d agreed. I jerked upright and saw Erra in the middle of the street, the undead behind her, no shapeshifters in sight. The lone shapeshifter must’ve been hit with a stray blast of power.
Every inch of me hurt from magic spent too quickly.
You’re the distraction. Get up and do the distracting.
I got up and walked into the open, Slayer bare.
She started toward me, and I backed away. Half a block to go. Close enough to the Casino, far enough from the Mole Hole, the perfect distance for the shapeshifters to strike.
“Again you run.”
“Not my fault you walk too slowly to catch me.” Up close her armor resembled scale mail: bloodred scales, some large, some small, overlapping over her frame. Now why couldn’t I do that? What was I missing?
I crossed over the manhole cover. The last of the stragglers dashed by. The street was empty except for me and her, and her three corpses.
She charged. The world ground to a screeching halt. I heard myself breathe, my chest rising slowly, as if underwater.
In the three seconds it took her to cover the distance between us, I heard Voron’s voice from my memories. It said, “If it bleeds, you can kill it.”
She bled—her armor testified to it—and I was better.
Erra smashed into me. I leaned back, letting her axe swing past me, ducked, thrust, and sliced under her arm. Slayer glanced off. She whipped around, but I danced away. She lunged, I ducked and jumped clear.
“You can’t win,” Erra snarled.
Behind her, dark shadows lined the roof. Of the fifty Curran had brought, only half were left. Here’s hoping it would be enough.
“I’m not trying to win,” I told her.
“What are you trying to do?”
Keep you occupied.
The shapeshifters dropped off the roof like clawed ghosts.
A seven-foot-tall scaled monster hit Beast. They clashed in a mess of fur and claws. The primeval deep roar of an enraged crocodile rolled through the street.
I launched a whirlwind of strikes. My sword became a whip, cutting, slashing, dicing, left, right, left. Focus on me. Focus on me, damn you. As long as I kept her busy, she would have trouble coordinating the movements of all three undead at once and keeping me at bay.
Over Erra’s shoulder, Gale rose into the air, clutching Darkness in his arms.
The shapeshifters had missed them. Damn it.
Erra’s axe ground against Slayer. She drove me back.
Gale soared above the street twenty feet in the air, wrapped in a cone of wind. Foul magic pulsed from Darkness.
A chorus of enraged snarls and howls answered, punctuated by an eerie slice of hyena laughter.
Erra kept pushing me back. I veered from the wall and danced back, toward Gale. I ducked and dodged, trying to turn her, but she barreled at me like a freight train.
To the left of me an enormous werewolf crouched on the pavement. She hooked the manhole cover with her clawed fingers, did a 360, and hurled it at Gale. The metal disk cut like a knife through the whirlwind surrounding Gale and smashed into Darkness.
A deep female voice yelled, “Noboru! Sekasu kodomotachi! Noboru! Noboru!”
Red-furred shapeshifters surged up the walls of the buildings—the foxes of Clan Nimble.
Erra elbowed me. I flew back and rolled into a crouch, just in time to swipe her legs from under her. She fell. I struck her twice on the way down and withdrew.
Dark slashes scored her armor, like the strikes of a whip—places where Slayer connected. None looked deep enough to do any damage. Voron had promised me that the saber would slice through blood armor, given enough time, but so far Slayer wasn’t cutting it. If she’d been wearing regular armor, she would have been bleeding like a stuck pig. If wishes were money, the world would have no beggars.
Still something looked different about her. Something . . .
The spikes on her armor were gone.
I backed away. Where the hell did the spikes go?
Erra hefted her axe, her face demonic in its fury. Her chest heaved. My arms ached like they were about to fall off. A slow pain gnawed on my back, and when I turned the wrong way, something stabbed my left side with a hot spike. Probably a broken rib. That was okay. I was still on my feet.
The werefoxes launched themselves at Gale from the roof. They clung to him, biting and clawing. The fox on the left ripped out an arm.
Erra snarled. Gale dropped Darkness, shuddered, and plummeted to the ground, banging into the buildings as he fell, the foxes still clinging to him. Gale bounced once off the pavement and the rest of shapeshifters swarmed him.
Erra looked no worse for wear.
When out of options, mouth off. I nodded at Darkness, lying only twenty feet away. “Whoopsie. Did that hurt? Now there is only one.”
“One will be enough.” Erra grinned.
A small chunk of her armor broke from her shoulder and fell to the asphalt, turning liquid. I watched it sink into the snow. A tiny streak of vapor escaped and then it vanished into the white.
A crumb of her armor. Her blood. A drop of her blood.
Behind us, the snow churned by our feet marked our trail—we’d drawn a circle in the street and all the while we beat on each other, she’d been dripping blood from her armor.
A dark shadow loomed on the roof behind Erra. Curran.
“No!” I lunged at her, but it was too late.
He dived off the roof. Erra dodged at the last moment, but Curran’s paw connected to her skul
l. The blow took her off her feet. She flew, nearly plowing into me.
“Run!” I lunged at her prone body and stabbed with all my strength, again and again. “Run, Curran!”
Erra roared. Slayer’s blade kept glancing off.
A wall of red flames surged up from the snow, sealing the four of us from the shapeshifters. She’d locked us in a blood ward.
Erra rolled, knocking my legs from under me. I stumbled back and she jumped to her feet. Blood dripped from her cheekbone and poured from her mouth. The left side of her head was caved in, dented by Curran’s blow.
I lunged at her and ran right into the spike topping her axe. It took me in the stomach, just below my ribs. Pain exploded. I jerked free and she kicked me, driving me back into the snow. The axe jabbed through my left side. I screamed. She’d pinned me to the ground.
Erra spat blood and teeth and swung, as if throwing a baseball. Spikes shot from her armor, falling in a ragged line between Curran and me. The blood ward snapped up just as he charged and he crashed into it at full speed.
She’d halved the circle: her and me on one side, Darkness and Curran on the other.
“You want to rut with a half-breed,” she snarled. “Watch. I’ll show you exactly what he is.”
Curran spun toward the undead.
A torrent of magic burst from Darkness, tearing at Curran. The blood ward cut us off and I felt nothing—Curran got the full dose. He stumbled, shook once, as if flinging water from himself. His body shifted, growing leaner, slicker. Fur sprouted along his back.
This was it, the Darkness’s power. It would make Curran go wild.
I writhed under the axe, trying to break free. The Beast Lord took a step forward.
Erra’s hand clawed the air. Darkness vomited another torrent of crippling fear. Curran shuddered. His hands thickened, growing longer claws.
Another blast of magic. He kept walking.
Another blast.
“Look!” Erra leaned into the axe, grinding it into me.
Curran crouched in the middle of the street. Dense fur sheathed him, flaring into an enormous mane on his back and disproportionately huge head. No trace of a human or lion remained—his body was seamless and whole, a nightmarish mutated blend that was neither. Long limbs supported a broad, muscled body, striped with dark gray. His eyes glowed yellow, so bright and pale, almost white. I looked into their depths and saw no rational thought. No intelligence or comprehension.
He raised his head, unhinging his enormous jaws, and roared, shaking the street, all teeth and fur.
Curran had gone mad.
I wouldn’t lose him. I would not lose him on this dark, cold street. It wouldn’t happen.
The beast that used to be Curran leapt at the undead. Huge hands grasped Darkness, pulling him up. Muscles bulged and Curran tore him to pieces, dismembering his body as if it were a rag doll. Blood gushed from the savaged body, drenching the snow.
Erra’s hands shook on her axe, but her weight kept me down.
Curran smashed into the blood ward. Magic boomed. He hit again, the impact of his body shaking the red wall and the street beneath. His eyes blazed white. The fur on his arms smoked from the contact with Erra’s blood ward.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Cracks formed in the blood ward.
Erra stared, her face slapped with shock.
Curran rammed the ward.
The red wall cracked and fell apart. He burst through it, roaring, his fur on fire, and crashed into the snow. Magic tore at me, like a typhoon wild in it fury. I screamed and Erra echoed me, doubling over in pain over me, her hair falling like a dark curtain.
I grabbed her hair and jerked her down with all my strength straight onto my sword.
Slayer slid into her eye. I felt it pierce the bone and drove it in all the way.
Erra vomited blood. It drenched me like fire, my magic mixing with my aunt’s lifeblood leaking from her body. I felt the magic in it, the way I’d felt it in the rakshasas’ golden cage.
I smeared our mixed blood onto her face, pushed, and saw a forest of needles burst through her skin.
She screamed and laid on the axe, and I screamed as the spike ripped my innards. The needles crumbled and melted into her skin.
“You will not take me down,” Erra ground out. “You will not . . .”
Her legs failed and she crashed to her knees.
“It’s over,” I whispered to her with bloody lips.
Desperation claimed her broken face. She clawed at the spear, trying to pull herself upright. Our blood painted the snow a bright rich scarlet.
“Die,” I told her.
She fell on all fours next to me. Her one good eye stared into mine. “Live . . . long, child,” she whispered. “Live long enough to see everyone you love die. Suffer . . . like me.”
Her words clamped on to me like a curse. She collapsed in the snow. Her chest rose for the last time. A single breath escaped with a soft whisper and the life faded from her eye.
I looked at her and saw myself, dead in the snow.
The smoking ruin that was Curran raised his bloody head.
“Curran,” I whispered. “Look at me.”
The burns blotching his monstrous face melted. Fur sprouted, running along his frame, hiding the wounds. His eyes were still pure white.
He strode to me, swiped at the axe, and plucked it out of me like a toothpick. Clawed hands picked me up.
“Talk to me.” I peered into his eyes and saw nothing. “Talk to me, Curran.”
A low growl reverberated in his throat.
No. No, no, no.
Emaciated twisted shapes dashed by the ward—the first vampiric scouts. They’d watched the battle until they figured out the winner. Curran saw the vampires. A horrible sound broke from his mouth, halfway between a roar and a scream. He lunged at the ward. In the split second before we hit the scarlet flames, I thrust my bloody hand into Erra’s defensive spell. Magic shot from me. The red collapsed, and everything went black.
CHAPTER 27
EVERYTHING HURT.
“Don’t move.” Urgency filled Jim’s quiet voice.
I lay absolutely still, my eyes closed. The magic was down. The air smelled of blood.
Something fanned my face. I opened my eyes just enough to glimpse a clawed foot passing out of my field of vision.
“You’re on the floor,” Jim said. “I’m at the door directly in front of you. When I say, run to me.”
My eyes snapped open.
Jim crouched in the doorway, Doolittle next to him. Derek stood to the left, his face white. Beyond them I saw Mahon looming like a mountain.
Jim’s eyes shone with green.
“She doesn’t understand,” Doolittle murmured.
Jim leaned an inch forward. “You’re in the Keep. Curran brought you here three hours ago. He’s pacing back and forth around you. He attacks anyone who tries to enter. He isn’t talking. He doesn’t recognize me or anyone else.” He paused, waiting for it sink in. “Kate, he may have gone loup. You must get out of here, before he kills you. If you run, we’ll shut the door as soon as you make it out. We’ve got enough people to hold it.”
Three hours. He hasn’t spoken in three hours.
I sat up. A dark bloody stain slicked the floor under me. I must’ve bled. I turned and saw a furry gray back at the far wall and above it a tangled, bloodstained mane. Curran.
“Kate!” Jim hissed.
The beast that used to be Curran whipped around. White eyes glared at me.
I stood up.
He leaped across the room, covering the distance between us in a single bound. His hands clamped my ribs. He jerked me up to a mouth full of teeth.
“Hey, baby,” I said into his maw, breathing out to let him inhale my scent.
White eyes peered into mine. A deep growl rolled from him.
“Very scary,” I told him softly. “I’m terribly impressed.”
He snarled
. Teeth clicked a hair from my throat.
“Curran,” I whispered. “Remember me.”
He inhaled my scent. His ears twitched. He was listening to the shapeshifters at the door.
“Close the door, Jim.”
Jim hesitated.
“I’m his mate. Close the door.”
A moment later the door clicked shut.
I put my arms around his neck. “You’re mine. You can’t let her win. She can’t have you.”
He was listening but not hearing.
“I love you,” I told him. “You said you would always come for me. I need you now. Come back to me. Please, come back to me.”
I put my head against Curran’s mane.
“Come back to me. I know you’re in there. You brought me here. You didn’t kill me. You must know who I am.”
Fur slid under my fingers. He stood rigid.
“If you come back to me, I’ll never leave you,” I whispered into the furry ear. “I’ll make you all the pies you could ever eat.”
All of the magic I had, all of the power of my blood, all of it was useless with the magic down. He was slipping away, farther and farther, with each passing second. “Come back to me. Please. Remember you wanted me to say please. I’m saying it now. Please come back to me.”
Nothing.
“Who’ll protect me from myself if you’re gone? Who’ll fight with me? I will be all by myself. You can’t abandon me, Curran. You can’t orphan the Pack. You just can’t.”
He clenched me to him. Pain exploded and I cried out.
Curran snarled and gripped me tighter.
He didn’t remember me. Curran was lost. She took him from me. She ripped him right out of my life with her dying breath. The world broke to pieces and caved in on me. I couldn’t even breathe.
My eyes grew hot. Something inside me broke and I cried. I hugged his thick neck and cried and cried, because he was dying second by second and I could do nothing.
“Come back to me. Don’t leave me all alone. Don’t die on me, you stupid sonovabitch. You goddamn fucking idiot. I told you to stay out of the damn fight! Why the hell don’t you ever listen? I fucking hate you. I hate you, you hear me? Don’t you dare die on me, because I need to kill you with my bare hands.”
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