Blood Heir

by Ilona Andrews

  Now I would give anything to avoid him.

  There was no reason for us to interact again. Sooner or later Ascanio would catch up to him and his motley crew of shapeshifter badasses. Derek would have other things to worry about and leave me in peace.

  We had arrived at the building with the phone line. I finished my pie in one bite, jumped off Tulip’s back, and headed up the ruined stairs. The phone line was back on the pole. They had repaired it again. I loved it when a plan came together.

  I took off my cloak and climbed the pole. I was two-thirds up, when a familiar raspy voice asked, “What are you doing?”

  I had excellent reflexes, which was why I didn’t fall off the pole and land on my ass.

  Son of a bitch. Fuck, shit, fuck.

  Derek leaned against a crumbling wall. He wore khaki work pants, stained with cement dust and rust, a green long-sleeve Henley, and a robin-hood, a hood that fit over the shoulders and came with a face mask that covered the nose and mouth. The reclamation crews wore them to keep the dust out of their lungs and sun out of their face. He looked like he had just walked off one of the salvage crews from Ted Turner Drive. I couldn’t even see his face, let alone his scars.

  Why was he here? Why, why, why, why…

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “You haven’t finished sharing. You seem like the kind of person who will be bothered by leaving things unfinished, so I saved you the trouble of tracking me down.”

  Stay civil. “How magnanimous of you.”

  “I can be. I can be a good friend or a terrible enemy.”

  “So, you’re saying you’re not very good at being an enemy?”

  He shrugged. “Well, you could ask my opponents for references, but none of them are around anymore.”

  Right. I resumed my climb, keeping my face calm. “We had a deal. We traded information. You got yours. Go away.”

  “You kept things from me. Important things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the boy in the St. Luke’s hospital and the girl the Gilliams are guarding.”

  And how the hell did he find this out? “That’s none of your business.”

  His eyes flashed. “That’s very much my business.”

  He didn’t snarl, his tone was calm, but his voice had an undercurrent of menace that wasn’t wholly human. You could feel the wolf in him, watching, waiting, biding his time, separated from the world only by a thin layer of human skin.

  My hands slid. They had greased the top third of the pole with WD-40. Assholes.

  He watched me trying to scramble up. “Every time we meet, Ms. Ryder, you try to get away from me. Is there something about me that makes you uncomfortable?”

  Everything about him made me uncomfortable.

  I slid again. Damn it.

  Derek jumped up fifteen feet in the air and sliced through the phone line in a blur.

  I slid off the pole and landed by it, turning so my back was to the wood. And he was right there, a foot away. His hood was down, and his eyes were on fire.

  “What’s the deal with the pole?”

  “I like climbing poles in my spare time.”

  “Yesterday someone killed an iron hound a mile and a half from St. Luke’s Church and called it into Biohazard.”

  If you killed a weird magical thing in Atlanta’s city limits, you had to let Biohazard know so they could pick up the corpse and quarantine it on the off-chance it decided to sprout twelve legs and a mouth lined with teeth and went off looking for human snacks. I had called it in from the hospital’s reception desk.

  “The Honeycomb is the only place near Atlanta that spawns iron hounds.” Derek’s voice was dangerously intimate. If he really hated someone, he would speak to them in that tone just before he killed them. “Now you’re here, cutting a cable leading into the Honeycomb. Is that a phone line?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I’m waiting,” he prompted.

  “For what?”

  “A confirmation.”

  “Do you really need me to add anything? You’re doing well on your own.”

  His flat demeanor broke and frustration spilled forth. “Damn, you test my patience.”

  Alarm shot my senses into hyperdrive. “You gave me a vague description of a box. You didn’t tell me what the box does, what it’s made of, or who has it. Considering how little you offered me, what I told you is more than fair. Stop following me around. Can’t you take a hint?”

  His eyes ignited. “Not this time!”

  A vibration pulsed into my back through the pole. Another. A little aftershock shivered through my feet. Something shook the building.

  Derek clamped his mouth shut.

  I held still, listening.

  A deep rumble announced rocks falling to the right, where the Honeycomb Gap dropped off into a chasm.

  He pulled off his hood. I grabbed Dakkan out of my sheath and screwed it together.

  A thick pungent stench rolled over us in a viscous cloud. It smelled like wet fur, swamp, and rotten fish, perfumed with a spritz of skunk.

  I gagged.

  Next to me Derek locked his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw stand out. Strong smells and sounds hit shapeshifters much harder, and this reek was beyond revolting. It stuck to you, coating the inside of your mouth.

  The building trembled slightly. A dry scratching noise came from the wall that faced the Gap, a crunching of weakened concrete under claws. The dry sound moved to the left and we pivoted with it.

  Crunch.

  Crunch. Like some enormous lizard crawling around the building, climbing the walls in a lazy spiral.

  Crunch. Tiny chunks of concrete shivered on the floor. We’d made a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, following it. Now we faced the street.

  Crunch.

  Silence.

  We waited.

  Above, ragged clouds crept across the sky. A Stymphalian bird shrieked, gliding on the air currents. A wasp landed on the concrete next to me and crawled around on segmented legs.

  Derek looked up.

  A frog-like head, five feet wide and shaggy with long dark green fur, stared at us from above the wall with big red eyes. Two yellowed horns, stained with dried blood, curved from the sides of its head, pointing up. Two saber fangs, almost the same size, protruded from the enormous maw studded with conical teeth. The teeth fit together with unnatural precision, like a bear trap. If this thing caught you in its mouth, it would cut you in two.

  Thank the universe I brought lemon juice. The next time I saw Sienna, I would bring her all the marzipan ever.

  The hodag sniffed the air with a flat, black dog nose the size of a basketball. A gob of mucus slid out of his left nostril. Ewww. I had seen one of these before, years ago. They were native to Wisconsin. The Honeycomb was the last place I would’ve expected to find it. And such a big one too. There was only one way for a hodag to grow that big.

  Derek shifted his weight.

  “Don’t bite it,” I murmured. “It’s poisonous, even to you.”

  The hodag leaned forward. The wall shook as it dug into it from the outside. It arched its back, showing off a crest of horns protruding from its spine. Its thick body rode low on four powerful legs, each armed with absurdly long claws. A long dinosaur tail swung to the right, giving it leverage for a leap.

  The world slowed down, turning sharp and clear.

  The hodag sprung from the wall, aiming straight for us.

  Derek leaped to the side. I jumped back, stabbing with Dakkan, and the beast went after me, swiping at the spear with its claws. Fast bastard. I whipped Dakkan around and smashed it on the creature’s nose. It bellowed like an angry bull gator and charged me.

  On the left, Derek pulled off his shirt.

  I dodged left. The hodag spun about, lashing its fat tail. The spikes rent the air six inches from my stomach.

  Derek pulled off his boots. You’ve got to be kidding me.

  I dashed left and leaped ov
er the hole in the floor. The concrete gave under my feet, and I almost fell through the floor. Behind me the hodag pitched into the hole, caught itself, jerked back, and came after me like some giant mutant gecko chasing after a cricket. I leaped back and forth, dodging its swipes.

  Derek had removed his jeans, folded them in half, and was carefully placing them on top of his boots.

  I would strangle him. I would hit him in that smug handsome face with a brick. You think you got scars, buddy? Just you wait.

  The hodag reared, trying to pin me with its bulk. I threw myself into a roll, sprang to my feet, and stabbed Dakkan between the beast’s fat toes. The hodag howled.

  Derek gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Dead!” I danced back, avoiding the hodag’s strikes.

  “What?”

  “You’re a dead man!”

  He held out his hand. “Tag me in.”

  “Eat dirt.”

  I raced around the gap, hodag on my heels, and threw myself left, toward Derek. The enraged beast barreled past us.

  Derek waved his hand at me. “Anytime.”

  The hodag braked and turned, impossibly limber. Red eyes locked on me. A deep rumble gurgled in its throat. Oh please no.

  The beast inhaled, sucking in the mucus.

  I dashed to the side.

  The hodag spat. A gob of mucus the size of a basketball flew through the air. Derek jumped straight up. The poisonous spitball splattered under him, splashing on concrete. He landed next to the puddle and glanced at his clothes. A fat drop of hodag spit rolled off his folded jeans and dripped to the floor.

  I gave Derek a thumbs-up.

  A hot werewolf glow sparked in his eyes. He opened his mouth and growled. It began as a human sound, and as it left his mouth, his body exploded. Bones grew in a blink, building a new oversized frame. Muscle spiraled up the new skeleton, and dense silver fur chased it, covering the monstrous body. Claws the size of my fingers burst from his new hands. Long lupine jaws jutted from his head, filled with fangs, and the final notes of that eerie growl announced an apex predator entering the field.

  The hodag opened its huge maw and roared.

  Derek’s black lips rose, and he snarled, wrinkling his muzzle, like a wolf in the woods defending its kill.

  The hodag charged. Time stretched, impossibly slow, and I saw it all in excruciating detail: the hodag barreling forward, mouth gaping, eyes bulging, claws ready to tear and rip and Derek making no effort to move aside.

  I moved without realizing it. I was five feet too far when the hodag reached him. Smoothly, almost casually, Derek swayed out of the beast’s path and thrust his left hand out. The awful claws ripped through the matted fur like it was tissue paper. Blood and alien guts spilled through the ragged wound. He’d split it from front shoulder to groin.

  The hodag kept running, unable to stop, trailing its insides, and smashed into the wall. Chunks of concrete flew. The wall quaked, wobbling like a loose tooth, and collapsed, taking the hodag with it.

  Derek sprinted past me and jumped after it.

  I leaned over the edge and looked down. The broken body of the hodag sprawled on the rubble three floors below, where a ruined house was slowly sliding into the Gap. The nightmarish blend of human and wolf that was Derek crouched by its head, methodically carving through the hodag’s neck.

  He had killed the hodag with one swipe of his claws. Even if it hadn’t fallen, it would be dead. The hodag had bigger teeth and longer claws and outweighed him ten to one, and none of it mattered. Of the two, Derek was the better monster.

  There was something so beautiful in that combination of precision, speed, and strength. When I saw that strike, it shot electric needles through my skin. For a brief moment, I was both terrified and caught in admiration.

  Derek grasped the hodag’s head and tore it free with a wet crunch. It was the size of a truck cab, and he was holding it with one hand.

  What in the world happened to you, Derek?

  He looked up. Our gazes met.

  “What are you doing?” I called down.

  He opened his mouth. Most shapeshifters had trouble maintaining their warrior form, and fewer still could speak in it. Their jaws didn’t fit together quite right, or their tongues were too long. Derek could speak, but his words sounded ragged. Combined with his permanently damaged vocal cords, he sounded like gravel being crushed, but he had no trouble carrying on a conversation.

  “Making things clear.”

  I almost did a double take. The voice that came out was deep and powerful, and his diction was perfect.

  “To whom?”

  “To anyone who’s watching.”

  He took a running start, leaped, and climbed the wall, dragging the head with him. In a moment, he made it over the edge and landed next to me. He walked over to the pole, jumped up, caught it with his free hand, pulled himself up, and impaled the hodag head on top of it. Gore dripped down, falling on his fur.

  Above us, thunder rumbled. I looked up. The sky churned with thick dark clouds.

  Derek hopped down to the floor. He was the biggest werewolf I had ever seen. I stood five feet six inches tall, and he had two feet on me, at least. He was almost as tall as Curran in warrior form, but leaner, with longer limbs, powerful but not quite as bulky. Curran was stronger, but Derek would be faster.

  He walked toward me, flinging hodag blood off his clawed hands. Oh joy.

  “It smells worse dead than alive.”

  “Did any of the blood get in your mouth?”

  He was standing way too close, and I had to look up.

  “Why?”

  “It’s highly poisonous. Even to shapeshifters. I have the antidote.” I lifted a small vial I had fished out from the pocket on my belt.

  He raised his bloody hand to his snout, sniffed the blood, grimaced, and gave it a long lick.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I thrust the vial into his hand. “Drink this!”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Tingles a bit.”

  Argh.

  “Tastes like shit, too. Like a pig crossed with a gator.”

  “Drink the antidote.”

  He flicked his ears. “Or what?”

  “Or I use the Order to file a formal complaint with the Pack.”

  He pried the cork off with the tips of his claws and gulped the contents. “Lemon juice?”

  “Lemon juice is the only known hodag antidote.”

  “You do realize that makes no sense?”

  “Nothing about the hodag makes sense.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are modern Americana mythos. In the 1890’s Eugene Shepard, who was a land surveyor from Rhinelander, a town in Wisconsin, claimed to have caught a hodag. He described a ferocious battle with a fearsome beast with the head of a frog, the face of an elephant, the back of a dinosaur, and the tail of a gator. It had horns on its head and along its spine, sabretooth fangs, and improbably long claws. He claimed the hodags prowled the swamps of upper Wisconsin, feeding on mud turtles, water snakes, and oxen, but their favorite food was white bulldogs. It could be killed only with dynamite, chloroform, or lemons.”

  He reached out and put his fingers on my forehead. I jerked back.

  “You don’t feel warm,” he said. “Did you get any of the blood in your mouth?”

  “Why am I even talking to you?”

  I turned, and he moved to block my way.

  “How did it go from Eugene Shepard to that?” He pointed at the head.

  “Shepard paid a taxidermist to stuff the ‘hodag’ and paraded it at county fairs for the next several decades. The Smithsonian scientists called him on it, and he had to admit that the whole thing was a hoax, but he didn’t stop displaying it, and people didn’t stop paying to see it.”

  “Aha. What was he displaying exactly?”

  “I have no idea. I saw a picture of it, and it looked like a large bulldog with horns glued to its head.”

  I walked to the edge of the building and
looked down at the hodag corpse.

  “So it was a fun local legend. Then what?”

  Why did he keep asking me about the stupid hodag? “Then the logging business died out, and the town shifted to hodag tourism instead. A hundred years later, they had a Hodag Country Festival, Hodag Park, Hodag BMX Club, Hodag Honda… The high school mascot was a hodag. They even built a giant statue of the creature in front of city hall. Tourists used to take pictures with it.”

  “Let me guess, the Shift hit, and the creature came to life.”

  “Something like that. Locals might not have believed in the hodag, but the kids did, and some of the tourists too. At some point, all that accumulated faith gained critical mass, and a pack of hodags ran out of the woods and came after the crowd at the Hodag County Fair. Rhinelander is a walled town now. Bad news, hodags lay twenty-five eggs at a time. Good news, their leather and fur fetch a good price. So, the woods are back, but they’re full of hodags.”

  “Someone sold the Honeycombers a black-market hodag egg,” he said.

  “Probably.”

  “Why would Honeycombers send a hodag after you?”

  “Because that’s the third time I cut their phone line. I need to find out who hired Jasper…”

  I stopped and pivoted to him.

  He smiled, showing me a forest of fangs that would give any sane person nightmares for life.

  “Nice,” I told him.

  “Who’s Jasper?”

  “Nobody.”

  I pulled a rag from my pocket and wiped Dakkan’s blade. The stench made my eyes water.

  “Let’s work together.”

  “Let’s not.”

  He moved to stand in front of me again. “You and I carried on a civil adult conversation for the last five minutes.”

  I blinked at him. “I fail to see your point.”

  “You were distracted, and amazingly you didn’t demand that I leave, and you didn’t try to run away from me. Clearly, you can control yourself in my presence.”

  “Trust me, I’m doing a superb job controlling myself right now. When I lose control, you’ll know about it.”

  “Let’s join forces. The faster we find Pastor Haywood’s killer, the sooner I will leave this city, and your life again will be blissfully free of me, just as you like it.”