In the mud, small things knelt. I felt the first stirring of devotion, the delicious addictive splashes of their faith.
Worship me. Feed me.
The pliant flesh in my mouth turned to clay. The serpent’s body crumbled and I released it. It crashed into the mud in chunks of clay. I howled, announcing my victory.
The small things fled. No matter. They would remember me. Soon, when I recovered, I would find them and add them to my worshippers. The current of faith would flow.
I stood there, exhausted, exhilarated, intoxicated by my power. Invincible.
I was a god.
Weakness flooded me, slowly. The last of my magic was spent. I staggered to their former god’s ruined temple. I let go of my form and assumed my new human shape. Healthy. Beautiful. Full of magic and so blissfully easy to heal.
I studied my perfectly formed fingers, my arms, my long, muscled legs.
I was beautiful.
A man walked toward me through the mud. What was the name…
Raphael.
Raphael!
I crushed the small voice inside me, smothering it.
The man kept walking. He had a strange look on his face. Humans are curious creatures. This one was…angry? No…grieving, perhaps, but no, that wasn’t quite right either.
Perhaps I should kill—
The magic jerked me back. I had forgotten. I had made the bargain. I had promised he would live.
The human was close now. Determination. That was it. I needed to retreat, to fold myself into the limit of the human mind, but not yet. Not yet. I had just vanquished my enemy. I deserved this, deserved the worship, the taste of power to come.
Perhaps he was coming to kill me. But then any damage he could do, I would heal.
I raised my arms. “What do you think of my body?”
The human attacked. I saw it, saw the glove on his hand with long pale metal claws, and I willed my magic to shield me, but too little was left.
He thrust his metal claws into my chest and scoured my heart.
It burned! It burned like fire. Pain writhed through me, tearing me apart. I’d never felt an agony like this, an all-consuming, terrible pain. I shoved him back, but the pain didn’t stop.
The claws had broken off. They ripped my heart apart. My magic streamed past it, unable to remove them. I couldn’t heal the damage.
I was dying.
I screamed, and the trees shook from my howl.
I flailed, trying to rip the metal out of me.
No. No, I would not die today. I tore myself from my new form and fled, into the mud, into the sludge, where my old form slumped, discarded.
The world slammed into me in an explosion of pain. Silver burned in my heart.
“I got you,” Raphael was holding me. “I’ve got you.”
I was dying.
Suddenly Doolittle was there with the scalpel.
Where had he even come from? Was I hallucinating before death?
“It’s okay,” Raphael crooned in my ear.
Doolittle sliced my chest open. “Expel this silver if you want to live!”
“Do it, Andrea!” Raphael snarled.
I pushed against the burning points of pain. Doolittle dug in my open chest with forceps. I screamed.
“Expel!”
I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire, and the unbearable, terrible pain burned inside me like an inferno.
The first shard slid out of me. Doolittle plucked it out with forceps.
The world dimmed, as if someone was blowing out its candles one by one. Doolittle raised his hand. I caught a glimpse of a syringe. Doolittle plunged it down. The needle bit me in the heart.
The darkness tore in a blinding flash of light and adrenaline.
“Silver!” Raphael screamed at me. “Get it out!”
I strained. Another shard slid free.
“Do it, Andrea!” Raphael growled.
“Expel,” Doolittle commanded.
It hurt and I was so tired.
Another shard left me.
“Last one,” Doolittle barked.
The world went black.
It was so cold and quiet. Can I please stay here…
I opened my eyes to agony and Doolittle massaging my heart with his fingers.
I screamed, but my voice was just a hoarse croak.
The last point of agony slid out of me. Raphael laid me flat. Doolittle knelt over me. His hands were bloody. He was holding some sort of surgical instrument. A woman handed him gauze. A cooling sensation spread through my insides. I was going numb.
Behind him I saw Anapa stagger to his feet.
Eyes lit up in the swamp. I saw them with shocking clarity, hundreds of eyes.
A flood of furry bodies poured from the underbrush. Jackals. Dozens upon dozens of them, and in the lead were the huge, muscled shapes of shapeshifters in their warrior form. Clan Jackal had arrived.
They circled Anapa.
“We will take the child now,” a gray shapeshifter in a warrior shape said.
“Give us the child.”
Anapa smiled a lopsided grin that bared his teeth and thrust his arms up. Magic flowed from him in a slow wave.
The Jackals pushed against it.
The enormous alpha in front howled. Hundreds of voices answered in a chorus of howls, barks, and yips.
Anapa pushed.
Clan Jackal gained a foot. Another foot.
Anapa clenched his teeth. There were too many of them and he was too weakened.
“Give us the child,” snarling voices demanded.
“Return the child.”
“Return!”