by Eileen Wilks
Lily heard Beth’s cry of pain and flung open her door. “Okay, okay. Here I am. Now let Beth go.” That was the deal—she and Benedict would get out, expose themselves to his little army of gangbangers, and he’d turn Beth loose.
She didn’t expect him to keep it. How much longer? Five minutes? More? Less?
Rule was close now. Close and coming their way.
“I don’t think so.” Harlowe moved forward, the staff in his hand making him look like he belonged in a Christmas pageant playing one of the shepherds. But this staff didn’t have a crook at the top. It was simply a long length of wood the color of coal.
From behind the wall of gangbangers Beth cried out, “Lily, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she said, standing in front of her car with her hands held out slightly at her sides—see, I’m not drawing a weapon. No need to shoot anyone. “Harlowe’s staff has you hocus-pocused. You can’t help—” She stopped, staring. “What the hell is that?‘
That was pale, about as tall as Harlowe’s hip, and looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a really weird nightmare.
“Hey, she sees me!” It jiggled on those oversize haunches, excited, its voice squeaky-high. “She can see me!”
“Of course she sees you, you cretin,” Harlowe muttered. “She’s a sensitive.”
“I thought that was just for spells, but she can really see me, even though I’m dshatu.”
“I can hear you, too,” Lily said.
“Who or what are you talking to?” Benedict asked very low.
She started. It’d moved up on her right side so silently she hadn’t known it was there. She answered softly. “The demon, I think. You can’t hear it?” It, he, she… those were definitely breasts high on the naked chest, but the genitals, though small, were the dangly sort.
“No. Neither can anyone else, I think.”
“Harlowe does.” She raised her voice. “Are you a demon? Did you knock me out?”
“Yes, and I can hardly wait to—”
Harlowe rapped the demon on the head with his staff. “Try to be a little less stupid. And now,” he said to Lily, “it’s time to let my boys have your weapons.”
She wrenched her attention away from the bizarre creature standing next to Harlowe. “Uh-uh. It’s time for you to tell Mr. Muscles there to let Beth go.”
Harlowe giggled. “Make me.”
“All right,” Benedict said.
She’d never seen anyone move so fast, not even Rule. She had the barest glimpse of something flashing out from his far hand—then a blow on her back knocked her to the ground.
Caught by surprise, she fell hard even as shots rang out, a rolling thunder that seemed to come from everywhere. She rolled onto her side, spitting out dirt, scrambling to get her weapon.
Screaming. More shots. The acrid bite of gunpowder in her nostrils and the feel of her gun in her hand.
And howling.
Huge, eerie, beautiful—howls bursting from the throats of enormous wolves. Two, three, half a dozen of them shot across the yard like streaks of moon-touched night in their mottled coats, straight at the gangbangers firing at them.
Those of the gang who remained, that is. Several were missing—fled or fallen, Lily couldn’t tell in the darkness and confusion. And it was hard to see past the strong, furry body that had landed, legs spread, in a crouch over her.
“Rule!” Dammit, he was playing shield. She shoved at his belly—that’s about all she could see—his belly, legs, and chest. “I can’t see to fire. I can’t see what happened to Beth.” Or Benedict—was he down?
Harlowe yelled, “No, no! Stop it! Stop!”
Rule didn’t budge. He faced out at the battle, growling.
Giving up, Lily flattened herself—prone position, arms out, weapon gripped in her right hand with her left to steady it.
The young giant was gone, but Beth wasn’t free. Harlowe had her. She was fighting him, but she was so much smaller, untrained in any kind of combat. He pinned her with one arm. With the other, he used the staff. Where he pointed, agony followed.
He was indiscriminate. Wolves and men alike collapsed, screaming and writhing. Sometimes blood spattered. Sometimes it didn’t. Harlowe kept yelling, “No, no” over and over, striking almost at random. And he was advanc ing toward Lily with that damned kangaroo-demon hopping along at his side.
She couldn’t get a clear shot. “Beth, hold still!” she yelled over the screaming and gunshots.
“Grab her hand,” Harlowe yelled. “Get her, grab her!”
“Get rid of the wolf! How’m I going to grab anything if he bites my hand off?”
“How?” It was a shriek. “It isn’t working! He’s supposed to love me, follow me—”
“You don’t smell like a wolf, dummy! Careful—no, no!” The creature grabbed Harlowe’s arm as he swung the staff toward Rule. “Don’t hurt her body! I need that body! Get closer, get closer!”
The bizarre pair shifted, trying to come at her and Rule from the side. Rule shifted with them, his growl a steady thunder above Lily, and she squirmed around, trying desperately to get a bead on some critical part of Harlowe, terrified of hitting her sister.
A head shot. She’d have to try for a head shot. That should have been easy at this distance, but he kept moving and her own motion was limited by a damned stubborn hero of a wolf.
“Hurry!” the demon squealed. “The wolves are winning!”
“Shut up! And split up—he can’t cover both of us!”
She wiggled to the right, tracking Harlowe as the demon went in the other direction. She bumped against Rule’s leg, and there he was—yes, hold still, you bastard, stay just like that. She squeezed the trigger just as Harlowe darted aside again, damn him, damn him. Where—?
Faster than she could react, Rule spun—but the staff flashed down just as he whirled to face it.
It grazed his shoulder. His whole body spasmed and collapsed.
The world blanked out. There was only a sudden, vertiginous drop into terror and guilt. My fault, it’s my fault—first Beth, now Rule, hurt because of me…
Then rage flooded in, giving her the strength to shove him off her upper body so she could twist around, bring up her weapon—but a hot, dry hand clamped around her wrist, stopping her as surely as if it were made of iron.
It felt orange. Orange, like her shoulder.
“I’ve got her! Hurry, hurry!”
Harlowe flung Beth away. She fell to the ground and didn’t move. Lily wrenched violently at her hand, but there was no budging the demon, so she tried to roll over, to get her weapon into her other hand, but her legs were still pinned by Rule’s heavy body. She couldn’t quite reach.
His face a mask of maniacal glee, Harlowe smacked the staff across her belly.
Foulness spurted over her like slime, breaking up into dozens of scrambling bits that hardened as they scuttled over her body, bits that clawed at her skin, ripping at her in ways indescribable while that hot orange hand held her and something pushed and pushed at her in a place nothing should have been able to reach—
She screamed.
A ball of black fire, eerie and terrible, erupted around Harlowe’s head like an obscene halo and fled down his arm to the staff.
Pain struck, a sharp, clean knife sundering her world, sending her spinning, spinning… into nothing.
EIGHTEEN
Weariness. Pain. Sounds…
“… except Rikard. Damned staff severed his neck. He was gone before he had a chance to heal.”
“Hellfire. He went out in style, though. He’d be glad of that. He’s the only other one?”
She knew the second voice, but memory was a slippery fish, freeing itself before she could claim it. She almost drifted away again, but the body’s pain insisted on dragging her back from that beckoning dimness.
It felt as if a burning brand rested just below her belly button, throbbing along with her heartbeat. But there are worse pains than the p
hysical. Floating between here and not-here, she was aware of loss so huge that her mind skittered away, refusing to close around the thought.
“… got all the wounded away now, so I’ll be going. The cops will be here any minute. You’d better clear out, too.”
“And let her wake up to this?” The familiar voice was bitter.
“Her sister should wake up soon. She can…”
Her sister. Beth. Yes. She’d come to… to… all at once memory plopped in her lap, writhing and ugly. And incomplete.
She had to know.
When she forced her eyes open it was still dark. Dark and fuzzy, as if she’d forgotten how to make her eyes focus. The air stank of gunpowder, blood, and charred meat. Her mind flashed back to fire—uncanny fire, black at the center, flickering into blue at the fringes. Black fire haloing Harlowe, speeding down his staff… which had rested on her belly.
She’d been burned, then. Burned by mage fire. Maybe she would have fried along with Harlowe if not for her Gift… which wasn’t quite the complete protection she’d always believed.
The dimly seen shapes resolved. Overhead, sky too smoggy for stars, glowing with the city’s reflected light. And kneeling next to her, though he was looking away… that was Cullen, she realized, naked from the waist up. He was listening to someone standing beside him.
“If you aren’t leaving, you might as well make yourself useful,” the other man said. She had a vague impression of even features, pale skin, and light-colored hair, but darkness hid the details. “Her burn needs tending.”
“I’m no healer.”
“You never did pay attention to anything that couldn’t be done sorcerously. Cold water will cool it so the flesh doesn’t continue to cook.”
“You have any?”
Enough of that. She didn’t need to hear about herself. Lily licked her lips and found her voice. “Rule?”
The other man slipped away into the darkness so quickly and silently she might have imagined him. Slowly Cullen looked down at her. His eyes were weary beyond words. “I’m sorry, Lily. He’s gone.”
* * *
WEARINESS. Pain. Sounds…
Sounds without meaning, a babble of words she didn’t know. Awareness flickered. Nothing in that babble drew her… yet something did.
Anger. Beneath the babble, powering it, lay anger. Someone was having a major hissy fit.
It might have been a sense of danger that kept her from slipping back into unknowing. It might have been curiosity. Once she’d lingered beyond that first heartbeat, though, she knew something was wrong. She hurt, and that was part of it… as if a fiery brand lay across her stomach, she hurt from some wounding. But there was more to the wrongness than that. Worse.
She had to know…
Confusion, vast and powerful as pain, startled her eyes open.
She saw sky—sky the color of tarnished brass, glowing like the embers of a dying fire. Glowing all over, with no sign of the sun. Beneath her the ground was stony. Pebbles dug into the skin of her back and butt… the bare skin of her back and butt.
She was naked. That bothered her. She tried to think of what she should do about it, but her mind felt heavy, as if thoughts had weight and she lacked the strength to push and lift and arrange them. But she was lying naked on the ground beneath a brassy sky. That wasn’t right, but… where was she supposed to be?
At least she wasn’t cold. Neither cold nor hot, actually, except for her legs. They were very warm. Something heavy lay across her legs, warming them.
Oh…
An impulse stronger than pain or weakness moved her to stretch out one hand. She touched fur… fur that lifted slowly with a breath.
That was all right, then.
Her breath sighed out, her eyes closing once more.
DIZZINESS seized Lily, as if the world had tipped into some new, impossible angle. She stared up at Cullen’s weary face, adrift.
No, she realized. The world wasn’t askew. It was the gap that made it seem so—the gap between reality and what she’d been told. “No. He isn’t.”
“Lily…” Cullen’s expression softened into something she’d never seen there before. Pity.
That irked her. “Not if you’re using ‘gone’ as a euphemism for ‘dead.’ He isn’t even that far away. Less than a mile.” She’d tested the mate bond enough to be confident about the distance. “I can find him easily enough, though you might have to help me move.”
He just shook his head, looking so wretched she didn’t know if she should shake him or pat his hand. Her lips thinned, but she went on to her next question. “My sister. Harlowe knocked her down. Is she—”
“She’s okay,” he said quickly. “Knocked out, but Stephen said her breathing and heartbeat are fine, so she should come around soon. He moved her to the porch so she doesn’t wake up next to what’s left of Harlowe.”
“Okay, that’s good. Was Stephen the one you were… never mind.” That could wait. They didn’t have much time. “We need to find Rule.”
He winced. “Lily—”
“Look, I don’t know where he is, but he was hurt, not killed. Give me a hand. I need to sit up.”
Cullen shook his head, bafflement mixing with his weariness. “No, you don’t. You’ve been hurt.”
“No kidding. But I lack authority when I’m flat on my back, and those sirens are getting close. You’re going to need all the official weight I can muster to keep from being arrested and executed for using sorcery to fry Harlowe.” And she had to find Rule.
He sighed. “Wait a minute. Let me try something. I don’t have much juice left, but…” He pulled out the little diamond he’d taken to wearing around his neck.
“What’s that for?”
“Think of it as a storage battery. Mage fire takes a lot of power, so I’ve been gathering it for a while.”
At her apartment… when he’d been playing with the sorcéri, had he really been tucking them away for later? “I thought the how-to for that sort of thing was lost during the Purge.”
“I’m fucking brilliant, aren’t I?” His voice was as light as his face was bleak. He held the little diamond in one hand, held the other over her stomach, muttered something, and then pointed away.
A small flame burst where he’d pointed and then died. And a wave of wonderful cold sucked much of the heat from her stomach.
“I moved the heat around. Instant chill on your tummy. Better?”
“Yes. Thanks. Now help me up.” She held out her hand.
Instead of taking it, he bent, slid an arm beneath her shoulders, and then lifted. It hurt, but the world didn’t wink out. Once she caught her breath she did a quick scan of the area.
They were alone except for the dead.
There were a lot of them, dimly seen heaps crumpled here and there all over the small yard. And one mound near her feet—that would be Harlowe, or what was left of him. She wasn’t eager for the police spots to reveal the details.
They’d be here soon. Sirens warbled their alarm from only blocks away. “Benedict?”
“Damned hero.” He shook his head. “Timed things a little too close.”
Something lurched in her chest. “He’s dead, then.”
“Hell, no. Full of holes, but he didn’t even have the decency to pass out. Made us go get his knife back before he’d let himself be taken away. If he makes it through the night he’ll be fine—though even he will take a while to heal.”
“The others…” Whoever they were, and she had plenty of questions about that. “They took him away in spite of his injuries?”
“Can’t leave anyone behind. Your compatriots would arrest them. The dead, though…” He hesitated. “Traditionally, they serve a final time by taking the blame for any dead humans. There are a number of them tonight.”
“Not Rule,” she said firmly. “You won’t be pinning anything on him. He’s not dead, and I can swear that he didn’t kill anyone. He was with me.”
“Lily.” He looked hagga
rd. “The staff exploded, then vanished. Rule went with it.”
Two cop cars screeched around a corner, lights flashing, sirens howling.
“Argue with me later,” she said quickly. “Here’s the deal. Don’t answer questions from anyone but me. Lawyer up if you have to. I’ll say I think Harlowe burned himself up trying to kill me. I didn’t see you, after all, so I can’t testify about what you did or didn’t do. And magic’s dangerous stuff, right? Using the staff on a sensitive could have made it backfire on him.”
“It’s as good a story as any.” He sounded indifferent.
He’s grieving, she realized. He doesn’t believe me about Rule, and grief is making him numb to his own fate. “Cullen,” she said, and reached out to rest her hand on his bare arm… and froze.
Because it wasn’t there. The buzz, the hum, the indefinable texture of magic she should have felt the second she touched his skin… it was gone.
* * *
SHE came awake all at once, jolted by fear. In her mind there lingered the echo of an eerie howl. Something about that sound…
She didn’t hear it now, though—just the same angry, high-pitched babble as before. The same brassy sky glared down. No clouds, no sun. The same terrible pain throbbed on her stomach.
The weight on her legs was gone.
Her breath sucked in. Need gave her the strength to raise up on one elbow.
A huge wolf stood at her feet. He was beautiful—his coat black and silver, his proportions elegant. He was also angry, his lip lifted in a snarl that advertised the long, wicked teeth.
He was growling at the source of the babbling—a creature like nothing she could have imagined. It was a bright, greasy orange. And naked. And at least halfway male.
Aside from the small, soft genitals, the creature’s lower half resembled a kangaroo or a child’s toy dinosaur with its oversize haunches and spiked tail. Big feet. No belly button. The chest was muscular but decorated by a pair of very female breasts tipped by olive green nipples the size of half dollars. In contrast, the arms and shoulders looked almost human.
No hair. Neither around the genitals nor on the round head. A wide slit of a mouth crowded with teeth every bit as pointy as the wolf’s, but not as long. The eyes were large and heavily lashed, absurdly pretty in that face. They were set too far apart above a pair of sphincters that she supposed were nostrils.