“For the last time, where is the flash drive?” Renard asked. His cruel face belied the calm words.
“Produce my sister,” Ula snarled. “I’ll be damned if I let a triumvirate of greedy liars dictate to me.”
* * *
Killian wanted to sigh with admiration as he listened to his mate’s fierce words. Ula had balls bigger than brass church bells. If they could learn to live together, then it was going to be one hell of a good time. As it turned out, he didn’t think living in Canada was going to be a hardship nor was convincing Ula’s father he was a friend. But there was the insignificant matter of surviving the Council first.
Oh, those pesky details.
The three members of the Council studied Ula with varying degrees of surprise. Ula Bennett appeared like she might be blown away in a strong wind, but they hadn’t seen her cut off Pitch’s limb, and they hadn’t seen her face down some huge were in a seedy bar filled with other weres who were nearly as threatening. I didn’t see that one either, but I got to see the aftermath. And I’ve got a damned good imagination.
“I like movies,” Killian said as if he was discussing the weather.
“What?” Ula snapped.
“Classics right now. I just watched Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant on the plane over from Canada. Damn fine movie. Mr. Grant’s got a touch of the Irish in him. Do you like classic movies?”
Ula turned her eyes to him, the pale blue color a shade away from going fully wolf and bursting with incredulity. “I don’t think Cary Grant was Irish,” she muttered.
“Surely you’ve seen North by Northwest,” he said. “Best chase scene ever. Planes, corn fields, oversized sculptures of dead presidents.”
Ula shook her head. “Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Best chase scene ever. I couldn’t get my father to buy me a vintage Mustang. Damn shame.”
Killian slowly grinned.
“How would you like to see Orson Welles’ A Touch of Evil?” he asked. “There’s a director’s edition that’s to die for. Well, not really to die for. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”
That was the moment that the Council had had enough.
“Kill the werecat,” Renard said.
“Kill him,” Scarlotte echoed.
Quincy nodded in agreement.
Ula stiffened and she said, “No.”
Killian stuffed Ula behind him. That didn’t really help. Ula wasn’t the stuff-behind-him kind of were girl.
Scarlotte motioned with her hand, and Killian recalled what he knew about the petite wererat. She wasn’t just a were; black magicks ran in the family. Despite her appearance, she’d already had four husbands, all of whom had eventually vanished. Evidently the were didn’t believe in divorce. But she did believe in monsters. One of the many doors scraped open with a loud screech, and out stumbled a thing that made Pitch’s other form look like Sally Field in The Flying Nun on a windy day.
Dimly, Killian perceived that the guards in the room were retreating toward the walls, palpable in their attempts to keep out of the way of the thing that Scarlotte was directing. He risked a brief glance at the werebear and saw the huge were leaning forward slightly with a massive frown on his face.
But it was the monster dragging toward Killian that most drew his attention. It was fully seven feet tall and constructed from the bones that had filled the Catacombs under Paris’s streets. A thin sheet of dried skin held the bones together and barely covered stringy cartilage and graying, ropy muscles. Some places had been stitched in place with barbed wire. The skull was some kind of were that had saber teeth protruding upward. Its massive chest was constructed of dozens of ribs from who knew how many human beings. Various claws from several weres made its viciously hooked hands. Its eyes were red-rimmed black marbles that glittered in the blue lights of the room. Alive, but not alive, it lurched unerringly toward them and Killian nearly sighed.
Timing. Timing. Timing.
Killian roared and charged the inhuman beast.
* * *
Ula stumbled as she perceived what was coming for Killian. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a magicked puppy with a penchant for piddling outside the edge of the newspaper. It was something out of the darkest nightmare of a raving lunatic. She thought Pitch’s alternate form was frightening, but this was pulled from the most horrendous hell.
Killian leaped away from a swinging arm, and he neatly grasped it from behind, yanking as he threw his body’s weight in a curving arc. The arm joint popped away from the rest, and the skin ripped. The sound was like shredding paper. The wererat shrieked with anger as the action was performed, as if it was happening to her personally.
Ula dove forward to help her mate. The anger deep within her was like burning fire searing her soul. No one was going to touch Killian if she had a say in the matter.
Hands caught her from behind and yanked her backwards. Ula twisted frantically, trying to hit and kick. It was the huge werebear, Shade, who held her, locking one beefy arm around her body so that she could barely move. He deftly avoided her actions as he muttered, “Killian can handle the beast. He just needs a little time.”
Ula couldn’t process the message. Too full of fury, she continued to struggle in his arms as he dragged her rearward. Finally, she leaned down and bit Shade’s forearm.
Shade abruptly released her, and Ula went down in a mess of splayed limbs. Killian glanced at her in stark concern, and the skeletal beast got in a slapping hit that knocked him across the room.
Jumping to her good leg, Ula dove in between the beast and Killian. The horrifying creature reeled to a stop, and its blazing, little, wrinkle-lidded eyes stared at her with alarmingly perceptive avarice. It reached for her and stopped, with bones rattling loudly under the skin. For a moment it was frozen in place. Muscles, bones, and desiccated flesh shuddered as it fought against something Ula didn’t understand.
Ula looked at the little wererat. Scarlotte still sat in the chair studying the situation as if she was a chess grandmaster considering her next move and the five following it. Her hands were held slightly up, moving in conjunction with the monster.
Then it slapped Ula aside, the magickal strength more powerful that she could have realized. The air rushed against her face, and she hit the cobbled floor hard, sliding until she came to a stop against something just as hard as the floor. Fuzzily, she stared upward and saw the little wererat cast an amused glance down at her. It was an expression of triumph and evil and everything warped wrapped all around it.
Ula had come to a rampant stop at the side of the Council’s chairs. One arm and leg were sprawled over the edge of the platform. Scarlotte’s attention suddenly returned to Killian as he let out another angry roar. The wererat clearly dismissed Ula as insignificant.
Ula tilted her head to see Killian’s charge of the creature. He couldn’t know that Ula wasn’t mortally injured. It didn’t take a psychic connection to understand he had just lost it completely. His face was an agonized mask of combined fury and despair. He would fight the thing until one of them wasn’t moving anymore.
Chapter 11
But satisfaction brought it back.
– Folk Saying
~
Now
Ula’s eyes were glued to the creature constructed with bones. It moved with alien grace, closing in on Killian for the kill. She hadn’t noticed the blackened stains on its claws before, but they were now brutally apparent. It was hardly the first time it had killed for the Council. After all, why bother with getting one’s own hands filthy when one had an avatar to do the dirty work?
Killian leaped for it, reaching for the neck, trying to break the monster apart. It could be hurt. The tearing of its ligatures and gray skin had revealed that. The reason it had been reinforced with barbed wire was evident. It was a thing made of other dead things, and Scarlotte wanted it to hold together while it terrorized those beneath the Council’s heels.
Killian grasped its neck while the creature grasped the werecat in tur
n. The tremendous array of claws dug into her mate’s sides, slicing the skin away in turn. The other skeletal arm dangled by a single strand of barbed wire, motionless because of what Killian had done previously.
Bracing himself on the barrel chest of the beast, Killian raked across its neck and got a better grip on the head. The thing screamed with rage, an odd noise because it had no vocal cords, and the sound reverberated through its bones.
Killian used his body weight to pull. More skin tore and bones cracked audibly, but it held firm, wire twisting the bones of its neck together.
Ula’s eyes rolled toward Scarlotte. It finally dawned on Ula what was happening. She reached up to her head. One hand on each pick, she pulled them out. Her black hair spilled away.
Scarlotte shot Ula another sharp look, and the little wererat’s lips quirked in an abnormal smile. She thinks she’s winning, Ula realized. She’s played this scenario before. She’s witnessed hundreds of deaths in this room and this is merely one more.
Ula didn’t waste any more time. She twisted and bent her body, forcing herself up in a convulsive movement. Bruises and broken ribs made themselves known to her, but she didn’t concern herself with them. She landed on her good leg and bent slightly to one side to compensate.
“You can’t defeat the creature,” Scarlotte said to Ula with her French accent emphasizing the disdain she obviously felt. She looked toward Killian and the beast. The pair rolled onto the floor, and Killian was attempting to kick in the ribs, aiming for any part of the monster’s body that he could reach.
Killian ripped an entire section of ribcage away with an exultant roar. Barbed wire trailed away.
Ula smiled grimly.
The thing swung its good arm at Killian and connected. Blood sprayed the wall from Killian’s mouth.
“I don’t intend to,” Ula said and with another graceful movement that belied the agony springing from her body, she straddled the wererat’s seat, trapping Scarlotte there. The picks from Ula’s hair were held in each hand, sharpened ends descending. For a second the picks reflected the odd blue lights, and Scarlotte’s eyes automatically went up to the glimmer. Horror and alarm shone from her wide-open eyes. She began to struggle in earnest.
Ula stabbed downward before Scarlotte could get a hand free. Both picks went into Scarlotte’s heart. The next moment, Ula heard bones scattering on the cobblestones, and Killian bellowing in exultation as the skeletal monster crumpled like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.
The Elderly One, Renard, was springing toward Ula, when she yanked the picks out of Scarlotte’s body and stopped them a hairsbreadth away from his throat. He froze into place as she murmured, “Silver picks. You know, the family has a certain immunity to silver. My father has it, too.”
The third member of the Council turned to escape, but was blocked by Shade. He pressed a knife against Quincy’s throat and he backed him into the oversized seat until he could go no further.
Ula pressed harder against Renard’s throat, and the silver sizzled against his skin. “Sit down,” she commanded, carefully following him with the picks as he slowly moved back into position. Both picks pressed into his jugular, and she listened to his flesh sputter.
Ula smelled Killian before she felt his hand at her shoulder. She risked a glance and saw several of the guards wavering on their responsibilities. She understood what was happening. Shade had turned against the Council. Some of his acquaintances had gone with him. A few others clearly weren’t in on the new plans.
Renard growled, “What makes you think you’ll walk from these chambers?”
Killian put his hand over one of Ula’s and pulled one hand with the silver pick away from Renard’s throat. She hesitated for a moment with the other pick, letting the Council member know what she could do if properly motivated. Then she slowly pulled back. Renard rubbed the spots with one hand and glared.
Abruptly, the doors burst open. One door hit the wall with a bang. The hinges on one side gave way, and the bone-covered wood collapsed onto the floor. More bones fell across the floor in an appalling mess of fibulas and tibias. Ula wasn’t looking at the bones. She couldn’t quite believe her eyes.
“What makes you think we came alone?” Killian asked with cocky certainty.
“The plan was to wait until we showed up,” the Bloodletter boomed.
Ula’s father stood in the doorway, holding a huge double-edged axe that dripped with blood. His chest was heaving as if he had done battle, and Ula suspected that he had done just that. In fact, she suspected that the entire Council was under a concentrated, orchestrated attack. Even more surprisingly, her mother stood beside him, a great broadsword held ably in her tiny hands. Other weres streamed past, ready to corral all the weres still loyal to the Council.
Killian pulled Ula back from Renard even while Braydon Bennett’s weres efficiently put Renard and Quincy into silver chains. Ula recognized many of them from the pack. Some grinned at her and nodded politely. Others she knew from the night the Wyoming facility had been hit with the clans. These were members of Killian’s clan.
“Things got a little out of hand,” Killian said to Braydon. He motioned at the bones strewn across the cobbled floor. “The wererat brought out the creature instead of just threatening us for a while. I don’t think she had much of a sense of humor.”
“I told you Scarlotte wouldn’t put up with all of that smartass shit,” Shade said.
Killian shrugged. “I can’t be helping who I am.”
Braydon studied the bones and then looked at Scarlotte’s body sitting in the chair. “I suppose that’s one way of stopping it.”
“Wasn’t me,” Killian said as he wrapped his arms gently around Ula. She took a moment to rearrange her hair back into an impromptu bun. She wiped her picks off on her shirt and used them to pin the hair into place.
“Ula,” Braydon said doubtfully.
“Of course it was Ula,” Sonja said forcefully. “She’s a Bennett.”
Ula turned in Killian’s arms and used his own shirt to dab at the slices on his face. She glanced at his sides and sighed. “We should clean these. God knows what was on those bones.” She smiled tentatively. It wasn’t unlike baring her teeth. “I looked up what you said to me. Tá tú go hálainn. It took me a while to get the spelling right.” It meant that he thought she was beautiful. It was probably the nicest compliment she’d ever gotten but then Killian had a lot of innate charm in him.
“You are,” Killian said, ignoring everything else. “And there was a certain promise to keep, as well.”
Renard took the opportunity to swear vehemently at Braydon. “Traitor! Conspirator! You can’t do this to the Council!”
Braydon smiled gently at his daughter as he approached. Then he turned his attention to Renard. “You were right, Renard. I was conspiring against the Council. In fact, I was here when my daughter was rescued by that were over there. His name is Killian. He’s a damned fine were, even if he is a cougar. I’ll try not to hold it against him.”
Ula glanced at her father. “You were here when the human’s compound was invaded by the American clans! That’s why you didn’t come!”
Braydon looked at the ground for a moment. “I thought I could persuade the Council to let the two of you go. It didn’t work very well. They’d lost their minds. Scarlotte was the worst of all of them. She wanted to tear into me and rip me to bits but only after she did awful things to my family.”
“She wasn’t a very nice were, dear,” Sonja said.
“You think?” Ula said.
“I said I went and talked to your parents,” Killian said to Ula.
“You didn’t say anything about them coming with you,” she said. She ripped off the shreds of shirt and used them to bind the slashes on his sides.
“You didn’t say anything about having silver picks in your hair or having an immunity to silver,” Killian said right back, but there wasn’t any displeasure in his tone.
Ula nodded and tugged h
is head down so she could kiss his good cheek. “Hold that thought for a moment.” She turned toward a group of weres and took a limping step. She paused to punch Micah in the face.
Killian yanked her arm back. “I know what Micah said,” he said quickly, “but he told Wheeler the first day he joined the Clan. He was just here to protect you.”
“He tied me up in Wyoming,” Ula hissed. “He deserved it.”
Killian shrugged. He glanced at Micah, who was cradling his jaw. “I canna argue with that, boyo.”
She tugged away from his hold and approached the two remaining Council members. Her father was issuing orders to Shade. “Release all the nonviolent prisoners, especially the ones who are here because of political crimes.”
“Not Whitfield Dyson,” Ula interjected.
“Or anyone like him,” Shade said to himself. “We’ll have to review the records. Some of the prisoners have been in the Catacombs for a long, long time.”
Ula bent to Renard’s level. “Tell me where my sister is,” she said.
The rest of the room went silent.
“She escaped,” someone answered. It was Shade who had spoken.
Shade looked down at Ula. “Claire Bennett freed herself and escaped into the Catacombs.” He didn’t look happy. “It happened during the time you were freed in Wyoming. They brought her here to help persuade your father to do certain things in the were world. They didn’t want to kill the Bloodletter. They wanted him to be an example. So they took the daughters and hid them in the human facility. The humans were instructed not to kill either one of you, but anything else went. When Braydon came here,” he paused, “they wanted leverage. I didn’t tell the Council that Claire had escaped. They thought she was still locked up below with all the other prisoners.”
“They didn’t want the Bloodletter to become a martyr,” Ula said. “Was that the last straw for you, bear?”
“No, that straw had been broken a long time ago,” he answered heavily. Shade turned away, and Braydon took a moment to converse quietly with him.
Crescent Moon Page 11