The Wild Harmonic

by Beth W. Patterson

  Some animal energies begin to surface. A woman down the hall calls out in an indiscernible tongue, then resumes the song. I can feel her swan energy in her raised voice, even as she is dying.

  I reach out to the Chimera’s angels, even the one who punched me so long ago, and unbind their addictions. Most of them had drugs as their vices, but a few clung to sex and food. One was simply mislead and afraid to break away … Troy.

  I splice the spell binding us all as easily as wielding a razor blade. I go even deeper and reach for the subtle microtones of the music. Mental chains begin to slip away.

  The gate swings open. Troy reaches his hand to me but does not meet my eyes. “You, Birch! The Chimera wants to see you at once!” I don’t think he realizes he’s called me by name.

  He does not see Petit Puce suddenly standing behind him in human form. I desperately want to believe that he pretends not to notice my tiny ally stealing the keys from his back pocket. As we hurry down the tunnel, he does not hear the clank of metal on metal as Petit Puce unlocks the first cell.

  The queen is not amused. She takes the form of a red-eyed hawk, save her human face. Perched in the rafters, she spreads her wings, and feathers begin to drop off.

  “What is this treachery you are sowing, little worm? It has to be you, with your musical witchcraft! Metatron, kill her!”

  Troy glances at her with no comprehension in his eyes. She grabs him by the face and turns his head, forcing him to look at her, hissing, “I know you didn’t hear me, so read my lips. I have endowed you with a blade. Now prove to me that you know how to use it.”

  He takes a step toward me, extends his knife arm, and opens his hand in defiance. I don’t doubt that even he can hear the clatter of his blade onto the floor. “No,” he simply states.

  “As you wish.” She glides off her perch, stoops and strikes. Nabbing the knife, she slits his throat as calmly as if peeling an apple. I have seen enough death already, but the bright red geyser spewing from the arterial wound is too much for me to bear. He falls to the floor like a feather unable to remain aloft by itself. His eyes stare sightlessly at the oculus, hopefully reading some divine poetry of mercy from above.

  She ignores the blood that has just sprayed her from face to talons. “Fine then. Like teeth in a shark’s mouth, I always have another one ready to take its place. Ariel!”

  The new second in command angel called Ariel turns out to be the lab technician who drew my blood and tore out my hair. Still wearing her white coat, she peels off her mask and goggles, slithering to the leader’s side with liquid grace. I am so taken aback by the presence of my tormentor that it takes me a moment to realize that Ariel is Naj Copperhead. As she locks gazes with me, her blue eyes are smug, as if she’s beaten me in a card game.

  “Ariel, kill this piece of shit.” The Chimera tries to extend human arms from her hawk form, but something goes wrong. The stumps of flesh shrink back into her core, like time-lapsed footage of a new plant in reverse.

  I hum one of the DNA melodies, unbinding the Chimera’s form. This time, her arms extend, but her wings fall off. She can no longer be a six-limbed creature without being an insect.

  Another wave of vibrations plays my body like a string. My wolf self begins to reintegrate. I feel the energies of prisoners escaping below, of newcomers rushing to join us.

  “Boss, all you have to do is eat her!” cajoles Naj. The insane polyshifter suddenly swells to become a dragon. She tries to sprout wings, but her fire vanishes. She roars in outrage, then finally sacrifices the extra limbs for the flames. They are weak, but still hot enough to really hurt, and my nose is scorched with the stench of burning hair—most likely my own.

  I search my jacket for any sort of weapon and feel something in my pocket: the tiny lead soldier. So simple. Bellerophon!

  I fight fire with fire. I am fire, and I am in my element.

  Her maw widens, ready to consume me whole, and in that hungry mouth I see a ceaseless craving for domination and the pain of others. A flashback shakes me: the little dead mockingbird that was Alma, who had never hurt a soul. The cries of the prisoners, the false promises to the lackeys she called angels, the sightless eyes of Troy, the terror of each and every shifter just trying to survive … and Rowan. My Rowan. I’m starving, bleeding, dirty, stinking, and one angry werewolf. A voice snarls, “Why don’t you take on this shape, you monstrous bitch?” It only registers after I hear it that the words are my own.

  With all the fury of my being I fling the lead toy down her throat, sending my little soldier on a kamikaze mission. There is sizzling sound like meat on a grill amplified a hundred times, and a volcanic sulfur stench. Weakened by the unbinding, the lead poisoning hits her almost instantaneously.

  The Chimera wraps her short, scaly limbs around her belly. She writhes and screeches, and the various forms of her captive DNA flicker to the surface as they are freed. I watch the specters of horses, raptors, peacocks, felines, spiders, and dozens of other creatures rise from her shrinking body and disappear into the air. At last she simply dissipates … into a mist. Nothing remains but a small hissing puddle of molten lead.

  My soldier died an honorable death. In the midst of this turmoil, I feel a pang of animism for the poor little guy.

  Naj beams at me. “See, Buzz? I got her to open her gob. I was on your side the whole time!”

  “I’m serious, Ariel. Shut. The fuck. Up.”

  And she does, because just then all hell breaks loose.

  CHAPTER

  14

  SIGNAL FLOW

  Now that the queen is dead, the spell is broken, and the shifters regain their abilities. Stripped of its warding, the compound has collapsed like a kicked anthill, a colony of people, beasts, and different stages in between—all running amok. Newly freed captives regain their abilities to shift, and press forward in a wall of talons, hooves, and claws. Guards, prisoners, and rescuers fight hand to hand and in clusters. In their animal forms, I can’t tell who is on whose side, although the more emaciated and beaten creatures seem to be the ones in need of rescue. It’s like the Shifter’s Ball in reverse. Weak and disoriented, I abandon the idea of joining in and look for any exit I can find. The main entrance to the throne room is blocked. Think, think, think, why can’t I think?

  My fangs come out even before I have hackles to raise. I switch to a lupine body so fast my clothes tear from me as I make my escape, too terrified to feel the familiar relief of my old wolf form back. My new limbs tremble from the exertion and malnourishment … I stagger in a dizzy headrush.

  And Azrael comes charging at me through the fray, dead-eyed and determined. Something is wrapped around his wrist and trailing behind him. It’s some sort of cast net—I recognize it from my childhood days of fishing in the bayous. This man who first caught me is either going to try to kill or reclaim me, and I don’t intend to let him do either.

  Fast approaching footsteps drive me in the opposite direction as I weave my way through the twisting, bloody clumps of combatants. The vibrations on the marble floor get stronger, and Azrael’s salty scent pushes me into overdrive. I find a low side door that has been blown ajar. There’s no telling if it’s a garbage chute or a secret passage, but I manage to wriggle through it, bruising my unpadded ribs in my panic. Fresh air lies beyond, and that’s all that matters. There is the shock of intense cold, and the first sunlight I have seen in forever stabs at my eyes. Rolling and tumbling, I thrash and skid until I find footing in snow. I inhale a scent map into my mind and stumble away from the destruction. Since my abduction in Mississippi, I have no idea how far I was transported, but the dry winter weather tells me that we are not in the Deep South. The leaning shed through which I first entered squats in the distance, so I stagger toward it, hoping to retrace my steps to civilization.

  Bursting from another direction, Azrael cuts me off at the path and throws the net. It drops in a perfect circle around me, tightens around my body as easily as a snake, and snatches me off my feet. I
thrash my legs to find an opening between the weights, which have become attached to each other. Dammit, he’s got magnetized weights. He uses this for more than just fishing, my thoughts scream. My eyes roll back hard enough to see my captor twist some sort of clamp, and the grid-like fibers constrict me harder, as if trying to wring me out like a wet mop. I gasp though my nose in desperation, filling my lungs as much as my ribs will let them expand. Even a well-fed lion is no match for a net, and my teeth are useless while I am bound so tightly that I can’t even open my jaws.

  The assertive thud of heavy boots on the frozen ground gets louder as he approaches, and in an instant his face is next to mine, separated only by the nylon grid that binds my muzzle. His beady eyes are triumphant. “This little contraption makes it easy for me to snack on dolphins whenever I want to swim in the deep and enjoy the best of both forms,” he gloats. “But you … you will be much more useful that a temporary snack!” And then only his boots are in view again. With a vicious tug, my woven pod and I begin to move across the icy ground, through the shed’s door, and then back into the compound as we slide along the marble. The sudden wall of battle sounds hurts my ears: shrieks, roars, and terrified human screams. The air is thick with scent of blood, fear, sweat, and offal—acrid and metallic. Back into the war zone, back toward the passage that leads to the prisons. “It’s every man for himself,” he snarls down at me. “All the other angels are taking what they can from this place, but I know where some of the Chimera’s assets lie, and believe me, it’s a better location than this stinking shit-hole!”

  He drops his voice to silky condescension. “You’re working for me now. You have two choices. You can cooperate and enjoy a fulfilling life recruiting new shifters from a swanky Indonesian resort. Or else you can struggle, and I will have your pack killed. I strongly suggest that you choose the former, for I can assure you that I did my research while I was in New Orleans! If you do work with me, you will be famous, you know. My new army of shifters will submit to the woman who took down the Chimera.”

  A screech from the rafters right above us makes Azrael pause in his tracks. A vaguely familiar voice shouts in a massive crescendo, “Drop beeeeeeaaaaaarrrr …!” The impact of a large koala suddenly upon me knocks the breath out of my lungs, but I recognize Wally’s scent and within moments the net begins to loosen as the werekoala severs the fibers with his sharp claws. I gasp lungfuls of air, my jaws free and my ribs no longer constricted, and gather up some fresh strength.

  Wriggling through the widening hole, I can turn my head just in time to see Wally suddenly launch himself onto Azrael’s face. One furry fist slams itself into the man’s mouth, then the claws begin shredding at the thick jaw. Azrael staggers backward, but his furry cannonball has only a limited time before the shark man delivers a vicious blow with his right arm. Wally is hurled from his perch with such force he sails a good twenty feet before hitting a wall.

  Azrael slowly turns to face me again, bloody and hyper-focused, and pulls a slow rictus. One front tooth is missing from Wally’s punch, and to my horror, another neatly slides into place. His human mouth is unfit for biting, but he draws a pistol. Unable to change into his shark form on dry land, he is nonetheless a dangerous foe, especially to a half-starved werewolf. Silver or otherwise, I am invincible to no bullet if it hits me in the wrong place.

  My legs won’t support me. Exhaustion brings about delirium, for it feels as if my whole pack is near me again. Their energies resonate in my bones, the sounds of their arrival thrum at the base of my skull. I raise my head, and the apparition of Rowan in wolf form looks so real, I can even smell him. Only I have never seen him so angry or ferocious.

  He knocks me down and pins me to the floor, and a split second the gun goes off, the bullet whining right above my head. Then it hits me that this is no hallucination. My mate! My pack!

  And Rowan is circling Azrael now, while Teddy and Sylvia appear at my side. Whimpering, they nose me to my feet. I glace backward to look for Raúl, who is fighting three minions at once.

  Another wolf staggers into view, and her scent floods my memory. Aydan. Her eyes are sunken, her hip bones jut out at a painful looking angle, ribs protruding through her patchy black coat. A ragged shell of her former glory, there is still a terrible beauty in her resilience. She has eyes only for Azrael right now, and the gentle musician reveals herself to be the powerful lycan that she really is. Her rage smells acrid, her energy is smoldering. Nose bunched backward to reveal wicked fangs, she emits a guttural snarl of deadly intentions. And then she speaks as clearly as a human.

  “You killed my brother, you might kill me now, but you will never get away without a fight!” Her jet-black hackles run down her back like spines. Wally begins a broken crawl back toward the so-called angel of death, dragging one hind leg. Eyes glowing red, his slitted pupils are trained on the back of Azrael’s neck.

  Before Rowan can dive in to assist, something slithers into view. I have no choice but to tune out the frenzied sounds of combat coming from the cluster that is Wally, Aydan, and Azrael and heed this new threat approaching us. Cal appears walking upright, but his slippery movements alert me that he is about to change.

  Like water blasting from a hose, he goes serpentine so quickly that neither my mate nor I have time to react. He winds himself around Rowan’s legs, tripping him and yanking him off of his feet. Rowan pins his ears, thrashes his legs, and flips himself back onto his feet. Dancing around the twisting coils, he punches his head out and strikes with his fangs more quickly than I knew was possible for a wolf to move. His teeth get a secure death grip on Cal’s tail, and my tormentor’s skin merely slides away, leaving fresh skin that is lacerated but nonetheless free.

  Cal cranes his neck this way and that, finally pinning me with his gaze. His smile never reaches his eyes as he addresses me, “You see, you’re about to find out what happens when you don’t do as you’re told, you stupid little bitch. Biting back has its consequences!”

  And as four limbs sprout from Calvin’s sides, a new horror grips me. I recall Teddy telling me that werewolves are the only shape-shifters that can transmit their abilities through a bite, and how I’d fought back and bitten Cal so long ago. Now as the new wolf stands over the weakened Rowan, I drag myself over to defend my mate in spite of my exhausted state. Self-preservation is not an option, not even when Rowan gives me a warning growl to stay back. Even still, I am too weak to keep up with the action unfolding before me.

  Cal launches himself at Rowan so hard, I feel the impact. I don’t understand why Rowan isn’t fighting back. “I don’t even need to be in my primary form to take you down. I will be known as the wolf that defeated one of the most powerful musical Alphas.”

  Rowan continues to simply sidestep Cal’s attacks. The naga-werewolf polyshifter becomes increasingly frustrated, and frustration begins to show in his attacks. His strikes begin to miss, for he is clearly not accustomed to his secondary wolf body.

  But Cal is showing off. In lycan form he lacks the natural wolf instincts, and is still no match for Rowan. Cal raises his head as if to flare a hood like a cobra, and Rowan chooses that perfect moment to fight back. Lupine to the core, the Alpha strikes Cal’s jugular faster than any snake. The spray of blood drenches us both, and something primal sings in my veins.

  The lesser wolf gives a high, hissing yelp, twisting his body in a desperate attempt to shift again. But it’s too late, and his legs convulse before the death rattle hisses out of his lungs like a guttering steam engine. And the man who tormented me for so many years slumps to the ground in a lump of dead meat and fur. His eyes are frozen wide open in a serpentine stare of shock. I want to tear Cal’s body to shreds, but I can’t afford to be distracted.

  If I couldn’t be the one to kill him, I’m glad it was Rowan. And I sense that Rowan was glad to be the one to kill him too. My mate sidles up to be, gives me a quick nuzzle, then bolts into the melee to defend other innocents. I try to follow, take a few shaky steps, and fall
to my haunches. All I can do is watch and hope that I can lend whatever remains of my energy.

  Surveying the room with a cursory glance, recognition of a dozen or so prisoners fighting for their lives gives me another surge of determination. Sweet, friendly Teddy has his jaws locked around the throat of the madman Ramiel, who draws in final gasps that still sound like maniacal laughter in his spotted hyena form. A snarling Sylvia is protecting Lapin and Petit Puce, who are have remained in their less vulnerable human forms, but are still no match for the large gray lizard circling them. I wonder if she gravitated toward them because they probably smell like me. My best friend darts and snaps, always eluding the reptile’s whip-like attacks. She gets a few decent bites into the creature’s back before it lashes its tail at her again.

  I lose track of the score as Naj appears before me in human form, hissing in my face. Her blue eyes are fever-bright, but her mouth is stretched into a rictus, fangs exposed. Like a switch being flipped, she suddenly brightens as another person joins us: Lydia King. Naj begins, “Lydia! Thank the gods you’re here! With Cal gone, I was afraid I’d be the only naga …”

  Lydia’s eyes are ruthless as she replies, “I’ve wanted to do this since our very first gig together, bitch!” She whips out a pistol, and shoots Naj in the temple, the report deafening me for one awful moment. The assault on my sensitive ears sends me reeling so hard that I almost miss the horror of having to witness the spray of blood and brains. It doesn’t even register in my mind until Naj falls to the floor like a cold coil of meat, her eyes bugged in two directions, even in death unsure whose side to be on.

  The hall is clearing. All that remain are the dead. The scent of so much blood makes me gag, even for a predator, for it is tainted with fear, desperation, and cruelty. Azrael lies in the center of the room, disemboweled. Cal’s serpent body still lies on the floor like a length of giant intestine. Scores more of unidentified slain litter the room. There is no telling where the survivors have gone. Perhaps they have been recaptured, although I would like to think that they somehow escaped. Among the dead, there are no signs of Aydan, Lapin, or Petit Puce, only the residual scent of their adrenaline.