by Kyle Shultz
Whitlock shook his mane. “All right,” he roared, “that did it.” He crouched and sprang toward Cordelia.
I leapt forward and slammed into Whitlock’s shoulder, knocking him back into the fireplace. Sparks flew and smoke billowed, but the creature’s fur wasn’t even singed. He rolled back into his feet, his eyes flashing with fury.
I crouched protectively in front of Cordelia, who had begun working to unravel the runes surrounding the Rose. I tried to force my will on Whitlock, as I had done with the other Beasts.
It didn’t work, of course.
Whitlock stared at me in disbelief. “What the devil are you trying to do, you little cretin?”
I shrugged. “Worth a try.”
Whitlock threw his head back and gave an eerie, shrieking howl. Instinctively, I knew that it was a call for aid.
“Cordelia, hurry!” I cried.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Sweat beaded on her brow as her fingers flew, pulling apart the tangled threads of the enchantment. “Clever,” she murmured, apparently speaking to the Rose. “But not quite clever enough.”
The Rose twitched and writhed in the center of the swarm of runes. The vines on the floor suddenly sprang to life, coiling around Cordelia’s legs.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Crispin, his eyes flashing with red fire as he shot magic at the vines. They shriveled and blackened, collapsing into dust. He continued to fight them off as more rose to the challenge.
Whitlock took advantage of my distraction and swiped at me. I saw him move out of the corner of my eye, but was too late to stop him. His claws tore through my coat and dug deep into my flesh, leaving five long, parallel wounds in my chest. Agony blazed through me. Crying out, I fell to my knees. It seemed that unlike bullets, the claws of a fellow Beast could hurt me.
“No!” Crispin flung out his hands, sending a massive blast of magic directly into Whitlock’s face. The Beast staggered back with a shriek. Before I could stop him, he struck with his tail, plunging the barb into Crispin’s shoulder.
“Crispin!” I ran to him, catching him just as he collapsed. I tore back the fabric of his shirt to reveal green veins radiating from a gaping wound.
“I’ll be fine,” he said hoarsely, pulling his shirt back over it to hide it from me. “Just get him.”
“You’re not fine,” I said, my voice cracking. “I have to—”
He shoved me away with surprising strength. “Hurry!” Still clutching his wound, he fired magic at another vine with his free hand.
I turned on Whitlock, clenching my fists. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“It’s over,” said Whitlock. Blood trickled from his eyes and nose thanks to Crispin’s attack. He wiped it away with a brawny arm, his face a mask of rage. “The rest of my army is here.”
Even as he spoke, the doors swung back, and nearly a dozen Beasts came swarming into the room, surrounding all of us. The light of the shining runes glinted off their bared fangs as they all bowed low before Lord Whitlock.
“Kill the mongrel and the whelp,” he told them. “I’ll deal with my—”
“I’ve got it!” Cordelia suddenly cried out in excitement.
Whitlock blinked. “What?”
“What?” I echoed, staring at her. This didn’t strike me as a time to be pleased about anything.
“The spell,” she explained. “Or at least, the part of it that drives the Rose to spread out and transform every creature it comes across. Watch.” She touched three of the runes, and they shattered like glass.
“Stop!” Whitlock bellowed.
I could have told him that wouldn’t work on Cordelia.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, all across the room, the vines began to dissolve into ash. A wave of decay swept from the furthest corners of the room toward the center, rapidly approaching the Rose itself. At the same time, the Beasts surrounding us convulsed and fell, groaning in pain as they began to change. We watched in amazement as claws shrank and fur melted away. Their horrible faces slowly began to look more and more human.
“They’re naked,” Crispin pointed out feebly.
As every last vine crumbled, the Rose fell on its side on the table. The petals still glowed with life, but the single flower was all that was left. A significantly smaller cloud of runes swirled around it.
“How dare you?!” Whitlock boomed. To my dismay, he showed no signs of returning to his human self. I grappled with him as he reached for Cordelia, his claws raking the air.
“Why isn’t he changing back?” I shouted over my shoulder to Cordelia.
“Because I haven’t broken the enchantment completely yet! It’s still fighting me!”
My mind raced. I gave Whitlock a hard shove and sent him tumbling toward the nearest window. With an angry shriek, he smashed through the glass and plummeted from the sill.
I spun toward Cordelia. “Get out of here.”
“What?”
“Take the Rose and run. I’ll hold him off.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. “Be careful,” she said, snatching up the Rose and hurrying to the corridor. But just as she stepped through the doorway, the ceiling of the hall leading to the staircase collapsed, blocking her exit.
I cursed under my breath. “All those vines in the woodwork must have made the house unstable.”
She turned to look down the hallway in the other direction. “I can get to the roof,” she said.
“You’ll be trapped up there!” I protested. “And if I can climb walls, so can he!”
“Not if you keep him down in the courtyard. Go.” She pointed to the window. “Hold him off, and wish me luck.”
“Cordelia!” I shouted. But she was already gone.
“You two are a good match,” said Crispin, his voice barely audible.
I cringed as I noticed how pale he was. “Just hang on,” I said. “I’ll come back for you.”
“I know you will,” he said. “Now hurry up and stop that—”
“Language,” I warned, before he could finish the sentence. I ran to the window and leapt through, plunging into the rainy darkness.
I wasn’t sure how much cat was in me, but apparently it wasn’t enough for me to land on my feet. My left elbow hit the cobblestones first. Fortunately, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I had expected. I jumped up, ready to resume the battle. The rain pelted down around me so heavily that I could barely see. I pushed the dripping strands of my mane out of my eyes, struggling to locate Whitlock in the darkness.
I didn’t find him in time. He sprang on me from behind, slamming me to the ground. The fall hadn’t been enough to break my bones, but I felt my ribs crack now as he slammed his fists into them. His tail struck at me, but I caught the barb just as it was about to pierce my hide. I wrenched it sharply and heard something snap. My stomach churned at the sound.
With a shriek of pain, Whitlock jerked his injured tail free from my grip and punched me squarely in the throat, leaving me struggling for breath.
“Stay down,” he growled. “Killing you completely will take too long - the Rose does its work far too well; even in half-measures. But I’ll be back for you once I stop Cordelia.”
As he turned away, rain streaming from his fur, I finally managed to draw in a ragged breath. Instincts took over. I didn’t even try to stop them. Lunging after him, I sank my fangs into his neck.
He tasted terrible.
Bellowing in pain, Whitlock threw back an arm to dislodge me, then slammed his elbow into my face, sending me sprawling to the ground. At that moment, we both spotted a flicker of red from the roof of the house. Quick as a flash, Whitlock sprinted to the wall and began climbing it.
So much for keeping him on the ground.
I spat out a broken fang, wondering briefly if I’d get back all my teeth once I changed back into a human. I felt ominous cracks and stabbing pains all through my body as I loped toward the wall, adopting a four-footed gait again for more speed.
; I reached the rooftop seconds after Whitlock. He was already advancing on Cordelia, who was standing in the middle of the roof, struggling to keep from being blown over by the violent storm winds. The Rose floated in front of her, in the middle of a crackling halo of runes. It clearly had no intention of giving up without a fight - the runes spun and danced, resisting her efforts to pull them apart. She looked like a fencing master in the middle of a duel, parrying and thrusting as the powerful spell kept finding new ways to evade her.
“No more, Cordelia,” Whitlock shouted above the howling wind. “You can’t stop this.”
“Oh, shut up!” I could feel my injuries healing with remarkable speed, but Whitlock had done so much damage that I’d waste precious time if I paused to recover. I slashed at him with my claws, barely making a dent but distracting him enough to get his focus off Cordelia. I wasn’t about to let him stop her now. Not when we were so close. I lost myself to my own fury, allowing the monster inside me to take control.
“Yes!” I heard Cordelia exclaim triumphantly, just as my fangs closed on Whitlock’s left ear.
We both froze in mid-fight, watching as the Rose shriveled and turned black. It fell from the cloud of runes and crumbled to dust.
“What have you done?” Whitlock roared.
“It’s over,” said Cordelia, her face flushed with exertion. “The spell is broken.”
I glanced down at my hands. The fur on them didn’t seem to be going anywhere. “Er - Cordelia, if the spell’s broken, than why am I not changing back?”
At that moment, I felt something squirming in my pocket. I plunged my hand in and pulled out the Thorn. It had turned bright green, and was rapidly putting out tendrils as it grew longer. A bud formed at one end, getting larger every second.
“What a shame,” said Whitlock, with a hideous grin. “Looks like you didn’t destroy the Rose completely after all.”
Time slowed to a crawl all around me as I came to a crushing realization.
Cordelia was the only one who could disenchant the thorn. That would finally break the spell and change me back.
But she was on the other end of the roof, and Whitlock was between me and her.
My injuries were healing, but not fast enough. Whitlock would easily be able to overpower me if he tried to take the thorn away from me.
And once the thorn grew back into a Rose, Cordelia might not have a chance to disenchant it before Whitlock killed us all.
If the thorn became a Rose. Right now, it was still a weak, wriggling spawn, fighting for rebirth.
I racked my brains for another solution. There had to be something else I could do…
…but there wasn’t.
I closed my fist around the Thorn and squeezed.
Whitlock let out an unearthly shriek.
“Nick, no!” Cordelia shouted.
But it was already too late. I opened my fingers to reveal nothing but withered fragments. A small wisp of red light flickered, then died away as even the remaining pieces of the thorn turned to dust.
Whitlock moved like lightning, slamming me to the ground. I felt his claws digging into my throat, crushing the life out of me just as I had done to the thorn. “I should leave you alive as a monster, just to punish you. But I really don’t think I can keep myself from killing you.”
I tried to pry his hands loose, but to no avail. Black spots swam at the edges of my vision, but I was still able to see spinning bands of runes appear around Lord Whitlock. He was too occupied with murdering me to notice.
Then he suddenly cried out and recoiled from me as the runes around him whirled in a chaotic dance, abandoning their precise patterns. “What’s happening?” he shouted.
He turned to see Cordelia standing behind him, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said. “But I won’t let you hurt anyone I care about. Not ever again.”
“You fool!” he screamed. “What did you do to me?”
Even as he spoke, his form blurred and warped, like a photograph exposed to water. He clawed wildly at the air with misshapen fingers, fighting for life as his body slowly dissolved. Then something moved in the puddle of rain at his feet. Transparent, ethereal hands reached up from it, grabbing his ankles and pulling him down. Impossibly, he began to vanish into the water. He screamed and struggled, but was soon lost beneath the surface.
I dragged myself over to the puddle and stared down into it, poking at it with a claw. It appeared to be perfectly normal. “All right,” I said slowly. “What just happened?”
Cordelia hurried over and dropped to her knees beside me, examining my wounds. “Remember what I said about how spells needed to be broken very, very carefully, or else reality itself would fracture?”
“I think so.”
“Well, I didn’t break that one carefully. I was in too much of a hurry to stop him.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked her, looking at her with concern.
“No.”
Then she slapped me across the face.
“Oi!” I raised a hand to my cheek, even though the slap hadn’t hurt in the slightest. “What did you do that for?”
“You blithering idiot!” she shouted. “What did you destroy the thorn for? We could have found another way!”
I gave a dry chuckle. “With our luck? Not likely.”
“But you—”
“Crispin.” I scrambled to my feet, my claws slipping a little on the wet concrete. “We have to help him.”
“Nick, wait,” said Cordelia. “Listen to me. That was the only—”
“Later,” I said. “Please. We’ll talk about it later.”
The truth was, I never wanted to talk about it. As I strode across the rooftop, I kept my gaze averted from my reflection in the puddles at my feet.
I didn’t need any more reminders that I was going to look like this forever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lady Beaumont and Mr. Beasley
The convenient thing about magical venom (Cordelia explained to me later) is that when the creature who made it dies, its effects are quickly reversed. We found Crispin looking chipper again, if a little exhausted. The former Beasts littering the room were only just beginning to regain consciousness; we looked away from them respectfully. I shushed Crispin before he had a chance to ask any awkward questions. Neither Cordelia nor I was ready to discuss the terrible things we’d had to do on that rooftop.
We fled from the townhouse just before the police arrived. It was so badly damaged by the Rose that it nearly tumbled down around our ears before we could get away. Madame Levesque was nowhere to be seen, and Cordelia didn’t appear concerned about her, so I decided not to bring her up. In fact, talking to Cordelia about anything seemed like a bad idea at the moment. There was an angry glint in her eyes, and I kept catching her casting withering glares in my direction.
We fled through the shrinking shadows of the early morning. The whole city was abuzz with what had happened, and it was difficult to keep out of sight. Everyone, it seemed, was on the lookout for monsters.
“I guess the secret’s out now,” I remarked, as we ducked down a side street. In the distance, we could hear a newsboy bellowing, “Read all about it! ‘Orrible monster terrorizes Talesend!”
Cordelia shrugged. “You know how often the newspapers talk about magic and monsters. There’s always somebody around to dismiss it all as a hoax or a hallucination.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but that somebody was usually me.”
“Where are we going, anyway?” asked Crispin, stumbling over a pile of discarded, rotting vegetables.
“There’s an abandoned library at the edge of the city,” said Cordelia. “The Resistance used it for their headquarters. We’ll be safe there for a while.”
“For a while?” Crispin echoed.
“Then what?” I asked.
“I don’t know!” she snapped, turning on both of us.
Crispin jumped backwards in surprise. “Sorry.”
Embarrassment f
lashed across Cordelia’s face, and she sighed. “Never mind. Let’s just hurry and get there before it’s broad daylight.”
Our circuitous route brought us to the library just as the sun rose fully above the horizon. It was not the only abandoned place of business on the quiet, lonely street. The whole area was silent as a tomb. The buildings weren’t just dilapidated - they were badly damaged, as if they had been struck by a natural disaster. Or possibly an unnatural one. A large crater in the pavement just outside the library bore an uncanny resemblance to a huge reptilian footprint.
“What is this place?” I wondered out loud, sniffing the air. There were odd scents in it that I couldn’t identify, and which made the fur on the back of my neck stand on end. “I’ve never been here before.”
“There are a lot of places in this city where you’ve never been,” said Cordelia. She pushed through the library’s front door. It creaked loudly and broke free from its hinges, crashing to the floor.
“Nice place,” said Crispin.
He was joking, of course. The interior of the library looked even worse than the outside. The place was full of books, but very few of them were on shelves. Most of them were strewn throughout the room, lying open with their pages torn and dirty. I winced as I recognized several rare editions of old volumes on sorcery and mythology among the damaged books. I couldn’t help but think of my own library at home; smaller but immaculate. I wondered if I would ever see it again.
The bookshelves were all smashed to bits. Oddly, the debris was arranged in a spiral pattern around a charred area in the center of the floor, as if the destruction had been created by some fiery whirlwind.
I glanced at Cordelia. “Do I want to know—”
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
“I do,” said Crispin.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Crispin, I’d like to talk to Cordelia in private for a minute.”
He frowned. “Why?”
I gave him a stern look. “Because.”
Cordelia smiled kindly at him. “Why don’t you go upstairs and practice your magic?” She tilted her head in the direction of a spiral staircase near the back of the library.
