by Mindy Klasky
David had shivered then, frozen with the brutes who watched from the sidelines. He’d expected bloodshed and enough residual bad feelings that the entire mission would founder.
But attacks that looked savage to a warder were commonplace to wolves. Ultimately, the alphas knew they had a common enemy. The salamanders melded all the shifters into a new pack, one that was stronger and infinitely more determined than the Washington Pack could ever be on its own.
Three times, David traveled down to the lake, seeking out Bourne so she could coordinate her attack with the wolves. The sprite, however, was nowhere to be found even though the lake seemed to be flourishing. In addition to healthy grasses at the edge, David saw two great blue herons and a flock of ducks wintering overnight. But Bourne had vanished.
David had no choice but to return his attention on the wolves. And so it was that two dozen men gathered in the shadows of the National Mall on a cold October night. That many shifters could never have traveled in wolf form—they’d be exposed long before they got to the abandoned parking garage beneath the Air and Space Museum.
Instead, the men hunched human shoulders against the cold. They’d worn the fewest clothes possible—over-dyed stovepipe jeans and tight-fitting black T-shirts, anything to make them disappear in the shadows. As they waited, their breath fogged on the air. Traffic slowed on nearby Independence Avenue. Washington was as close to sleep as the capital ever got.
But the wolves weren’t the only shadowy creatures on the Mall.
Connor saw the salamanders first. His eyes and ears were sharper than David’s. The alpha whined softly, immediately commanding the undiluted attention of every wolf beneath the elm trees.
David squinted into the darkness. He knew what he should see—slender men clad head to toe in black, with leather jackets skimming their narrow waists and pointed-toe shoes streamlining their feet. Just as the wolves dared not shift in full view of the public, no salamander would travel in imperial form.
Concentrating on the shadows closest to the abandoned garage entrance, David finally made out a leather-clad human. Security bollards blocked the ramp that led underground. The massive concrete blocks were designed to keep a truck from delivering an explosive payload beneath the most visited museum in the United States. Nevertheless, a standard-size door was cut into the articulated steel gate beyond the concrete barriers.
As David watched, the metal door opened. The darkness inside was so intense that he almost missed the shadow of a salamander slipping past. Connor tensed beside him. The shifter still held his human form, but his face was frozen in the lupine intensity of a hunter.
David returned his attention to the garage door as another salamander slipped into the garage. No. Two entered, followed rapidly by another three men. David couldn’t say for sure how many salamanders had now entered the underground facility; his eyes weren’t strong enough to pick out every shape in the darkness.
Somewhere on Capitol Hill, a bell tolled. David counted off the tones in his head. Ten…Eleven…Twelve.
The shifters behind him vibrated with scarce-restrained energy. Feet shuffled on gravel. Denim whispered against lean legs.
Another shadow glided to the door. Apolline Fournier.
The salamander queen moved like a box office diva on the red carpet at the Oscars. She wore the same black leather as her minions, but her jacket was double-breasted and cinched tight at her waist, with tails hanging almost to the backs of her knees. Despite her stiletto heels, her ankles were rock-steady in her thigh-high boots.
She paused on the threshold, glancing over her shoulder as if someone had called her name. Her heart-shaped face was pale in the moonlight, framed with a sleek black bob so perfect it looked like a wig. Her lips glistened, probably painted scarlet, but looking dark as pitch in the moonlight.
Behind David, Connor whined, a sound of pure animal need. Knowing they only had one chance to make this attack work, David caught his friend’s wrist in iron fingers. Connor shrugged himself free, but he mastered his keening.
A shadow appeared beside Apolline, a cloud of black with a shock of silver hair that could only be Brule, speaking to his mistress. David held his breath, but he could not hear the salamander lieutenant across the distance. Apolline inclined her head like a goddess granting absolution. She listened, and then she nodded once. With one last look at the Mall behind her, she glided through the door into the abandoned garage.
Something was different about the door after she passed. David squinted, trying to make sense of what he saw in the darkness. The concrete bollards remained unmoved. The steel gate stayed the same.
But the shape of the doorway was different.
Not the shape. The shadow. Someone—it had to be Brule—had left the door ajar.
Connor noticed it too. He held up one hand, index finger high, to get the attention of his men. When he bent his wrist to point to the door, David felt the undivided attention of two dozen deadly predators shift to the entrance.
Having alerted his pack to their prey, Connor lost no time preparing for the hunt. He stripped off his clothes with remarkable speed, folding the garments with tight, controlled gestures. The other wolves followed suit, stashing their clothes beneath benches, in the shadows of the elm tree roots, and under the edge of a massive steel-reinforced trashcan.
This was the moment they were most vulnerable, more than a score of naked men loitering in a public park. Connor tossed his head back and summoned his shift. David’s belly turned as it always did when he watched the transition; he imagined the torque on his own muscles, his own bones, his own flesh.
The other wolves followed Connor, completing their changes with speed and precision. Crouching in the trees’ shadows, they were nearly invisible, only their eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Connor pressed his snout under David’s hand. Then, he issued one short bark and led his pack into battle. David ran with them, his two feet making more noise on the gravel path than all their paws combined.
The door gaped open a few inches. Connor used his snout to pry it wider before shouldering the door back on its hinges. He took care to keep the steel doorknob from crashing against the wall behind it. The wolves surged through the passage two abreast.
Entering last, David paused on the threshold, looking out at the deserted Mall. Even now, he expected Bourne to appear, gliding toward the garage ramp in a coordinated outfit of black or navy or the nameless color of dusty urban tree trunks. But the sprite was nowhere in sight, and David could not afford to wait.
He pulled the door closed behind him, leaving only a hairsbreadth gap to speed the shifters’ escape. The last thing they needed was some heroic night watchman spotting the open door on a routine tour of the property.
Catching his breath, David peered into the gloom. The wolves huddled on a grooved ramp that curved away into darkness. They stayed clear of a glass-walled booth, domain of a long-absent parking attendant. A jagged piece of wood indicated where a yellow- and silver-painted arm had once regulated traffic; the plank had broken off some time in the past.
At first, David thought the only light in the space was the narrow sliver of grey that marked the barely-open door. But as his eyes adjusted, he realized that an orange glow rose from the bottom of the ramp. The color fluctuated, shading to crimson and dropping back to gold.
Someone had lit a fire inside the garage.
Now that he’d identified the source of the light, he could smell something burning—wood, maybe, or paper. The smoke dominated other odors—the musky scent of the wolves, a more pronounced funk of mildew, and the overarching stench of decay. The reek of gasoline was sharp and sweet beneath all the old garage’s other smells, like the ghost of tourist dreams held over for decades.
David’s ears carried information as well. Voices hummed beyond the bend, rising and falling in the normal buzz of conversation. Water dripped nearby, the steady ping of drop after drop striking a metal surface. The wolves panted, their rapid breat
hing almost in unison.
Connor glanced over his shoulder, surveying his pack’s readiness. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, the huge brindled alpha led the way down the ramp. He placed his paws precisely, taking care to preserve the element of surprise.
The other wolves followed. Not a growl echoed off the high ceiling. Not a whine escaped to be heard.
David brought up the rear.
Looking down, he realized he’d pulled Rosefire from the ether, automatically dampening the steely ward-fire that flickered along the sword’s edges. The weight of the weapon was reassuring as he dropped back two full paces to give himself room to swing without harming any of his lupine allies.
Each wolf rounding the bend in the ramp sank to his belly, minimizing his silhouette for the enemy. David approached the same curve with caution, turning sideways to present a smaller target.
The garage stretched out like a cathedral. Concrete support columns carved out a nave. The ghosts of white lines marked parking spaces across the floor, like massive flagstones in a church without pews.
Water glistened on the floor, puddles that had accumulated from the spiderweb of cracks along the columns and across the ceiling. White minerals had built up beside some of the breaks, drawing a stony roadmap into the past.
A maw gaped against the right wall, a dark too deep for fire to penetrate. Common sense said the hole led to another level of parking, but David’s skin crawled as he imagined a direct ramp to Hell.
The salamanders were gathered in front of that pit. There had to be three dozen of them, maybe more. They stood in a tight clump, bodies swaying, arms stretched overhead. Here, in the echo chamber of the garage, David could make out a new sound. The salamanders hissed, their sibilant breath rising and falling in rhythm as they pulsed toward their leader.
Apolline Fournier stood on a concrete riser, the base of the spiral ramp that led to the parking level below. As David watched, she raised her arms above her head, her slender body echoing the swirl of poured concrete behind her. She rotated her hips, then rolled her torso and her neck. When the ripple reached the top of her head, she stiffened her fingers and pointed to the ceiling that was lost in shadow.
“Let the Salamander Congress be joined,” she proclaimed, a whisper of a French accent beneath the words. Her voice was throaty and low, like a dirty joke told in a dark room. The fire-lizards hissed their approval, surging to and fro in a paroxysm of ecstasy. David watched the wolves crouch even lower, tails extending like rudders.
“Well-met, my nestlings,” Apolline crooned, frothing up an even stronger response among her followers. “May the flames grow ever higher.”
“May the flames grow ever higher,” chanted all the salamanders in response.
As the congress chanted, “higher,” a great blaze rose behind Apolline. It surged toward the ceiling in shades of pomegranate and tangerine and lemon, individual flames woven into an incendiary curtain.
The wolves flinched. Two or three broke out of their crouches, scrambling back toward David and the safety of the garage entrance. But Connor quickly glided forward half a dozen steps, rallying his pack.
David followed the wolves, taking refuge behind one of the garage’s support columns. He eased around the barrier just far enough to glimpse Apolline’s writhing figure.
“I stand before you, loyal nestlings, avec un cadeau. A gift to mark your loyal service.” She nodded once as she finished her proclamation, directing her obsidian gaze toward a single salamander in the crowd.
John Brule pulled himself onto the riser beside his queen, a striking figure in his expertly tailored suit of black wool. Raising his hands high above his head, he let an iron necklace cascade from his fingertips. Each individual link captured the firelight, tossing back glints to the ecstatic salamanders. Brule cast his gaze beyond his queen and the dancing fire-lizards, all the way to the wolves.
For a heartbeat, everything was still—Apolline on her dais, Brule by her side, the crowd of salamanders gathered for their prize. Then, Brule tucked his chin, inclining his head just a hair.
Connor took that as a signal. The alpha wolf leaped into action, crossing the mottled floor with the speed of an avalanche bearing down on an unsuspecting elk. The rest of the pack was one pace behind, each furred missile directed to one target—the Collar.
The wolves were strangely silent as they ran, wasting no breath to howl. Instead, they launched themselves into the air, ready to rain down fury on the thieves who had stolen their most valuable possession. David swept behind them, Rosefire at the ready.
The wolves might have been silent, but the salamanders were not. Apolline issued a hissing screech of wordless fury as she cast her hands high into the air. Bolts of fire shot from her fingernails, jagged arcs of pure vermilion.
The nest reacted as one, whirling to face the wolves. The fastest among the fire-lizards raised their hands, summoning their own flames before they were battered by teeth and claws and the force of fur-covered muscles hurtling at all-out speed.
The salamander queen rallied her troops from the top of the curved concrete wall. “To me, loyal nestlings!” she shouted. “To me!”
Fire-lizards surged toward their queen. Wolves yelped as bolts of fire hit home. Salamanders hissed as razor-sharp teeth slashed through leather.
Connor broke free of the pack to focus on John Brule and the Collar. The tall salamander had fallen to his knees after triggering the wolves’ attack. He crouched at Apolline’s feet, shoulders curved over his iron treasure.
Connor threw back his head and howled, loud enough and long enough that David’s blood ran cold. As the echoes of that primal challenge bounced off the walls, salamanders froze. Most covered their ears. A few collapsed to the floor. Only a handful closest to the queen continued their fire-maddened dance, lobbing grenades of pure flame into the tangle of wolves.
David swung Rosefire like a scythe, determined to reach Connor’s side. One step. Another. But then his feet slipped—on water or blood or worse—and he came down hard on one knee. Before he let himself feel the pain, he lunged at Brule, flashing a command to Rosefire.
Ward-fire surged.
A royal bodyguard leaped in front of Apolline and Brule, but David swept his flaming sword toward the warrior. Ward-fire kindled the golden crown embroidered on the guard’s leather jacket, spreading rapidly to his slick black hair. The salamander bellowed and whirled, toppling sideways into the abyss behind his queen.
Connor was snapping at Brule, jaws slavering. The fire-lizard’s eyes flickered in the reflected light of salamander flames and the steely glow of ward-fire. David poured more energy into Rosefire, extending his burning reach as far as he dared with Connor so close.
Brule raised his hands, cradling the Collar like a treasure. He might be offering it to Connor. He might be pulling it away. Apolline cried out: “Now, nestlings! Now!”
Fire exploded—a perfect ring that stretched all the way to the ceiling, forbidding escape. David and the wolves were surrounded, along with dozens of salamanders. David was knocked back by the blast, thrown to the center of the blazing circle. Connor howled in dismay as his wolves yelped in pain. Salamanders writhed around them, drawing in the fire, dancing through the flames.
Apolline snatched the Collar from Brule and dropped it over her head, ignoring the sizzle as shimmering iron links seared her chest. Slithering to the edge of her concrete platform, she arched backward, tumbling like an acrobat into the hell of the garage’s lower level.
Within seconds, every living salamander followed her into the abyss.
David bellowed his frustration, but he couldn’t fight his way through the terrified wolves to the confining wall of salamander fire. His throat was clogged with the stench of burned fur. Shifters howled in pain and fear.
He could reach himself free of the conflagration. He could even take a wolf or two with him, dragging their dead weight across the astral plane. But there was no way he could save everyone. He’d never get
to Connor, at the edge of the fiery pen.
He wanted to stay and fight. He needed to leave and live.
Hating himself for failing, David sheathed Rosefire and clutched at the nearest wolf. Closing his eyes, he fumbled for his steel-grey guide wire to the ether.
Before he could grab hold, a massive explosion knocked him to his knees.
28
Noise.
Then dust.
Then a flood of water—tumbling, roaring, rushing into the depths of the garage.
David shook his head, trying to get his ears to clear. He was kneeling in a blackened circle, waist-deep in roiling brown water. He tried to get his legs under him, but the garage was tilting like a child’s top.
Salamanders. He had to get the salamanders. But they were gone now, vanished into the garage’s lower level.
Wolves then. He had to help the pack. Furry bodies lay on the floor around him. Some animals were pinned against the garage’s uprights, snapping and snarling at the flood that poured against them. Others had transformed back into men, fighting to stand tall, to help their brothers.
A wall of water rose before him, twisting and spinning. David fought to grab a breath, bracing himself for a new deluge. But then he saw that the wall had tentacles, long fleshy streamers that twined with lavender hair and washed over sapphire lips.
“Bourne!” he gasped.
“Montroseson.”
“I thought… When you weren’t at the farm… When you didn’t come to the Mall…”
“I rode the Falling Water,” Bourne said, burbling with laughter. “The Falling Water to the Lake of Tides.”
David grasped for meaning. The sprite had journeyed from the lake at the farm, tumbling over Great Falls to the north of DC. She’d ridden the current down the Potomac, to the Tidal Basin that curled around Washington’s great monuments. “But how did you…” He trailed off. He wasn’t even sure what she’d done.
