“My mother took off two years after I was born,” Desandra said. “A nice American woman looked after me. My father hired her so I would learn the language. He said it would be useful. He wouldn’t let me take Angela with me when I got married. He threw her out of the pack. I haven’t seen her since.”
I didn’t like Desandra. I didn’t know her and she would prove difficult to guard, but I felt sorry for her.
Ahead of me an intersection waited. “Which way?”
“Left.”
We turned the corner. Another long deserted hallway lit with yellow feylanterns. No danger. No guards either. Hmm.
“Finally,” Desandra breathed. “Stupid pregnancy. Stupid babies. Can’t sit for more than two minutes without running to the bathroom. I swear if that little bastard, whichever one he is, kicks me in the bladder one more time, I’ll punch him.”
And my sympathy evaporated. “If you try to punch your unborn children, we will restrain you.”
“Cool your tits,” Desandra said. “I’m not going to punch myself. I just want these kids to be superachievers and get out of me already. Here. This door.”
Thank you, Universe.
I swung the door open. A typical bathroom: three stalls, a long stone vanity with two sinks. Solid floor, solid ceiling, a small ventilation window near the ceiling, six feet long, six inches wide. Steel bars guarded the window.
I checked the stalls one by one. Empty. I stepped out into the hallway. “Clear.”
“Oh, good. Can I pee now? Sometime in this century would be nice.”
Metal clanged against metal behind us. I spun around. A section of the floor to our right slid aside, and a metal grate dropped from the ceiling and sank into the floor, sealing the hallway and us inside it.
“That never happened before,” Desandra said.
To the far left, something growled, a rough, ugly sound, like gravel being crushed.
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
A creature turned the corner, huge, bright amber. The roar rolled forth, pulsing, threatening.
I pulled Slayer from the sheath and stepped into the center of the hallway.
Andrea punched the bathroom door open, grabbed Desandra, shoved her into the bathroom, rushed after her, and slammed the door shut. Working with Andrea was effortless. We didn’t even need to talk. First, it would have to go through me, then through the door, then through Andrea. Desandra would be at the very end of that very long trip.
The beast took a step toward me. Hello, varmint. And what mythology did you jump out of?
In the bathroom, metal whined followed by a thud. Andrea was ripping the doors off the stalls and barricading the door.
The beast took up most of the width of the hallway, standing at least four feet tall at the shoulder. Powerful legs, almost feline and corded with hard ropes of muscle, supported a sleek body with a broad chest that flowed into a thick, long, but mobile neck. Its head was feline too, round, armed with jaguarlike jaws, but strangely wide. Two folds rose behind its shoulders. I couldn’t get a good look at them because it faced me straight on.
From this angle they looked like wings. Deformed, but still wings.
What the hell are you? It wasn’t a manticore. I’d seen manticores before, and they were smaller, and the outline of the body was completely different. Manticores were built like giant stocky boxer dogs, square, with every muscle defined under smooth brown hide. This creature was more catlike, built with agility and dexterity in mind.
As if hearing my words, the beast took another step forward and grinned at me, displaying a forest of eight-inch teeth.
My, my. Scary.
I zeroed in on the way it raised its paws. Living with shapeshifters had given me some pointers. In hunting, the chief difference between cats and dogs came down to the length and shape of arm bones. Cats could turn their paws palm up, while dog paws were fixed permanently downward, a fact that shapeshifter instructors drilled into their students when they trained for the warrior form. Rotating the paw gave cats greater capacity to suppress their prey after they rushed it. It meant the difference between an ambush predator and a pack hunter. This beast was an ambush predator. It would claw and swipe, and those teeth and jaws meant it could bite through my skull. I had to treat it like a jaguar.
Luckily I had practice fighting with jaguars.
The monster took another step. As its paw touched the ground, the orange fur suddenly turned jagged. Now what?
Another step.
It wasn’t fur. The creature was covered with sharp orange scales and it’d just raised them, like a dog raised its hackles. They looked thick too, like mussel shells. So it was big, it had wings, it was catlike, and it was armored. My list of probable targets just shrunk. With my luck it would spit fire next.
Was it a dragon? Some kind of drake? Somehow it seemed too feline for that. Not that I had come across many dragons. The only one I’d seen was undead and rotting, but it was the size of a large T. rex and its head had the trademark reptilian lines. This was a mammal.
No power words. No heavy-duty magic. Not with Hugh less than two hundred yards away. He knew I could use a sword, but the extent of my magic was a mystery to him and I had to keep it that way as long as possible. There could come a time when the surprise of my magic could mean the difference between living and dying.
The creature’s bright blue eyes fixed on me. A cold steady fire burned inside its irises. The beast looked hungry. Not hungry for food but hungry for violence. This thing was no scavenger. It hunted the living and it enjoyed the hell out of it.
Let’s see how smart you are. “Can we speed this up? I have a dinner to get back to.”
The beast tucked its deformed wings to its body and charged.
It understood me. Never a good sign.
The creature came toward me, picking up speed, fangs bared, eyes glowing, gulping the distance in short leaps.
Every animal instinct in my body screamed, Run! I stood my ground. It was a cat. It would pounce at the end.
Leap, leap, leap.
Pounce.
It was a glorious jump, propelled by the steel-hard muscles of the beast’s legs. It came at me, claws out, paws raised for the kill.
I dove forward, turning as I fell, and slid under it. The bulk of the beast’s body landed on me and I sank Slayer deep into its groin. Hot blood sprayed my face and mouth. The beast screamed.
I clamped its left leg to me, trying to keep it from disemboweling me, clung to it, and ripped Slayer through its insides. The creature yowled and raked at my side with its right hind leg, trying to rip me open. Claws shredded the dress. Pain lashed my side. Argh. It hurt like a sonovabitch. Next time they told me to wear a dress instead of leather, I’d shove it up their asses.
I stabbed again, driving Slayer deeper. More blood gushed in a sticky hot flood. The beast should be going down. It wasn’t. It struck at me and I scrambled its insides again and again. Die already.
Magic burned my side, as if someone had grabbed a handful of ice and thrust it straight into the cut. My blood recognized an invader and reacted, purging it from me. Lyc-V. This fucking thing was a shapeshifter.
Its regeneration meant it wouldn’t bleed out. I wasn’t causing enough damage. I had to get to its vital organs.
I slashed the ligament on its left leg.
The beast charged forward, dragging me with it. I slashed it again trying to cripple it, let go, and rolled to my feet. For half a second its back was still to me, and I jumped on it, right between the wings, grabbed its neck, and slashed its throat. Slayer’s blade slid from the scales, barely drawing blood. Shit. It would have to do. The beast braked. I yanked the necklace off my neck, looped it over its throat, and slid Slayer into the loops.
The beast reared as silver pressed against the cut. Choke on that, why don’t you?
I turned Slayer, twisting the necklace into a makeshift garrote. My side felt like someone was trying to cook me alive.
The
beast shook, gurgling as the necklace bit deeper into the gash. I hung on with everything I had. To fall was to die. It veered left. I jerked my leg up a fraction of a moment before it slammed into the wall. I turned Slayer another half a turn, praying my bloody fingers wouldn’t slip.
The creature shook again. My arms shuddered from the effort.
It flipped. There was nothing I could’ve done. The beast’s weight pinned me in place. A crushing pressure ground at my chest. It rolled on me. My bones whined and I cried out.
One more twist of the garrote. Just a quarter turn.
Don’t black out, don’t black out.
Just a quarter turn.
I held on. My breath was coming in shallow tortured gasps. The beast convulsed on top of me.
I couldn’t feel my fingers.
The big body went rigid on top of me. A long hissing breath escaped it, and it went limp.
Get up, get up, get up. This alone wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t dead. It had just passed out. I could lie here all day, choking it, and Lyc-V would keep it alive.
I crawled, pushing the weight off my legs, and rolled to my knees. The necklace had bitten deep into the beast’s throat. It had likely cut its windpipe. I pulled on Slayer. Stuck. I grunted, lifting the beast’s head, and turned Slayer counterclockwise. Little more. Little more . . .
The chain of the necklace began to loosen.
Little more . . .
The beast’s eyes snapped open, a hot infuriated blue. I yanked Slayer free and chopped down, straight into the wound. Bone crunched under magic steel. The head rolled free from the stump of the neck.
I slid against the wall, trying to catch my breath. I’d just rest here, for a second. My chest hurt with every breath. Ow.
The beast lay still.
I spat blood out of my mouth. “Clear!”
Thuds came from the bathroom. The door burst open and Andrea stepped into the hallway. “Holy shit.”
I tried to wipe the blood from my face, but since my hands were bloody, I just smeared some more gore on myself. Great thinking there.
Desandra peeked over Andrea’s shoulder. Her eyes widened. “What the hell is that?”
“Ever see one before?” I asked.
“No.”
She sounded sincere to me. I’d seen all kinds of odd things, but I’d never seen one of these either.
The body shuddered. Andrea jerked her crossbow up. I jumped to my feet.
The golden scales boiled, viscous like molten metal, and shrank. A beheaded human torso sprawled in the hallway. I nudged the now-human head so I could see the face. A man in his forties. Brown hair, brown beard. Never saw him before.
Andrea swore.
I leaned over, trying not to wince as my chest protested, picked up the head by the hair, and showed the face to Desandra.
She shook her head.
“Maybe someone in the hall knows. Why don’t we go and ask?”
Andrea nodded at the floor. “Any of the blood yours?”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Hugh had me here in the castle. He went through a hell of a lot of trouble to get me here. He wouldn’t have done it if he weren’t certain of the only thing my blood would tell him: I was his boss’s daughter.
“I suppose it doesn’t,” Andrea said.
We went down the hallway, away from the grate.
“What are we going to do about Hugh?” Andrea asked.
“Nothing, until we know what his plan is.”
“Who’s Hugh?” Desandra asked.
“Someone we both know,” Andrea said. We turned the corner, crossed another hallway. The noise of the hall was getting closer.
Suddenly Desandra stopped. She covered her stomach with her hands. Her expression went slack.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Somebody just tried to kill my babies.” Desandra blinked and vomited on the floor.
CHAPTER 8
I walked into the great hall, carrying my sword in one hand and a severed head in another. As one, people stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me. Nostrils flared, sampling the blood stench. The conversation died.
Hugh saw me and froze. Either he was one hell of an actor or he had no idea what had happened.
Curran half rose in his seat. I knew exactly what he saw. Twenty minutes ago I’d left for the bathroom. Now torn shreds of my dress hung from my side, drenched in red. Blood stained my face and hands. Behind me Andrea supported Desandra, who was pale as a sheet.
I raised the head. “Who does this belong to?”
You could hear a pin drop.
“Who owns this man?”
No answer.
“He turns into a feline creature with wings. Someone has to know him.”
A sound of slow, measured clapping broke the silence. Jarek Kral grinned at me. “Nice joke. Very funny.”
I would kill that man before this was over.
“Do you know this man?”
Jarek spread his arms. “Nobody knows this man. You bring this to us and tell us this wild story and we’re supposed to do what with it?”
“It was a monster,” Andrea said.
“We are all monsters here. Or did you forget?” Jarek chuckled. His shapeshifters grinned.
Desandra screamed something in a language I didn’t understand. Jarek barked a derisive reply.
“This could be a servant’s head for all we know.” Jarek leaned over and looked at Curran. “Perhaps you should tell your pet human to stop hacking heads from castle staff or we might not get any wine.”
People laughed.
Gray fur dashed down Curran’s arms and melted.
“What?” Jarek rose. “What, boy? Are you going to do something?”
Curran locked his hands on the table. It was an enormous table. It had to weigh over two thousand pounds.
The table creaked and left the ground.
The snickering died. People stared, slack-faced.
Curran held the table a foot off the ground for a long second. His face didn’t look strained.
Someone made a choking noise.
Curran set the table down, pushing it sideways, toward Jarek’s side.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “I think we’re done eating for the day.”
He stepped down. Our people rose. He led them across the hall, then wrapped his arm around me, and we walked the hell out of there.
* * *
“What did it look like?” Mahon asked.
We’d dropped Desandra off in her rooms. Aunt B and George decided to spend the night there. The rest of us gathered in our room. The moment Doolittle saw me, I had to submit to having my side examined. Then I was poked, my wounds were rinsed, and now he was chanting them into magical healing under his breath.
“About sixty-five inches at the shoulder, definitely feline, covered in amber scales. The scales were really thick and translucent, with sharp edges. It had wings.” I shook my head. “I have no idea what it is. What he is.”
Mahon looked at Andrea. “And you saw it?”
“Are you calling Kate a liar?” Barabas asked, his voice dry.
“Yes, I saw it,” Andrea said. “She sawed through his neck with a silver chain. It wasn’t a hallucination.”
Doolittle finished chanting. A welcome, soothing coolness spread through my side. “Good as new.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
The edges of the wounds had stuck together. Without Doolittle, I would’ve needed stitches.
“Wings?” Doolittle asked.
“Wings.”
“Feathered?”
“Sort of,” Andrea told him. “The feathers weren’t fully formed. Each was like a simple filament with a little bit of fuzz on it.”
Doolittle frowned. “The scales, you see, they would add weight . . .”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I told him. “I know. But this is what I killed.”
“Just because it has wings doesn’t mean it can fly,” Mah
on said. “They can be vestigial.”
“They definitely didn’t look right,” I said.
Doolittle nodded. “I’ll test the head.”
Mahon glanced at Curran. “I spoke to the Volkodavi and Belve Ravennati at dinner. Both are convinced Jarek wants to kill his daughter. When he originally promised the pass, it was one of the four ways through the mountains. They’ve had some natural disasters since then. Now it’s one of two. He’ll do anything to hold on to it.”
“Too obvious for Jarek,” Barabas countered. “I studied him and he likes to pin the blame on someone else. He would’ve used a lynx or a wolf, so he could finger one of the other packs. Two birds with one stone. Instead they used something nobody has ever seen before.”
“The question is why?” Keira said. “Jarek is still the only one with the obvious motive. If Desandra dies, he doesn’t have to give up the pass.”
“If she dies, he can kiss his shot at grandkids good-bye,” Barabas said.
“The other two packs hate him,” Mahon said. “If Desandra gives birth, they won’t let him have the children. He may value retaining the pass more.”
“Enough,” Curran said.
They fell silent.
“We’re on full alert,” he said. “Move in groups. Lock your doors. Nobody goes or stays anywhere alone. You have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you wake everyone up and you go together.”
“We need to have a meeting in the morning,” I told them. “We need to set the guard shifts and work out a schedule. Let’s meet at Doolittle’s room at eight.”
“Nine.” Curran said. “Now she needs rest.”
People filed out of the room. He barred it and crouched by me. “Shower?”
“Please.”
He disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of running water was like a whisper of heaven. I was suddenly so tired. I dragged myself to my feet and into the bathroom. A shower waited for me, a tiled stall, half-hidden by a purple curtain on a curved rod. Steam rose from the tile. I tugged on the zipper of my dress. Stuck.
Curran reached over. His careful hands touched my shoulders. The sound of ripping fabric screeched and the shreds of the dress fluttered down.
“Thank you.”
I slid off my ruined underwear, unhooked my bra, dropped them to the floor, and stepped into the shower. The hot spray washed over me. Red water swirled by my feet. I closed my eyes and stood under the water. Inhale, exhale. The fight was over. Everyone had survived. The war was just beginning.
Magic Rises kd-6 Page 13
