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DEREK FAVORED HIS LEFT SIDE. HIS HORSE REFUSEDto bear him. I couldn’t blame the horse. I wouldn’t want his demonic, undead-blood-smeared, wolf-smelling ass riding me, either. But it made us slow.
Three blocks away I commandeered a rickety buggy from an old woman. Commandeered was too strong a word—I flashed my ID and promised her far more money then I had at my disposal.
Considering that I still had my sword out and my hair and face were decorated a lovely brown shade of drying blood, she decided arguing too much wasn’t in her best interests. In fact, she told me I could have the buggy if I didn’t hurt her.
I told her to bill the Order, packed Derek into the buggy, hitched the horses to the back, and drove the big dappled draft horse to the Order.
Within five minutes Derek fell asleep. His skin split, shivered, and a huge gray wolf lay in his place. The beast-form took a lot of concentration to maintain. Left to its own devices, a shapeshifter’s body went either man or animal in a hurry. I guess with the flare, the animal must’ve taken less energy. And that was the trouble with shapeshifters. They were psychotic, fanatically loyal to the Pack, and they needed a nap or a dinner every time they exerted themselves.
But then if I went up against an aged vampire gone berserk, I’d want a nap, too. He killed a vampire. By himself. No help, no magic, just his teeth, and claws, and raw determination. Bloody amazing. I had the next wolf alpha in my buggy. Here’s hoping he’d remember me when he made it into the big leagues.
The sunset burned down to nothing. The magic crashed again, hard. Not a trace of it remained, yet the city knew it was there, waiting like a hungry predator in the night, ready to pounce.
My head pounded. My ribs ached with every breath, but nothing seemed to be broken. Thank the Universe for small favors.
Gradually my brain started up, at first slowly, like a rusted watermill, then faster, trying to sort through the nonsense the Shepherd spouted. He had said something about the Great Crow leading the host. A host of reeves could do a lot of damage. I didn’t want to dwell on the full implication of that mental picture.
So a host of reeves with the Great Crow in the lead. The Great Crow could stand for Morrigan, except that Bran turned a reeve by the pit into a porcupine, and Bran served Morrigan. Only a man worried about offending his patron goddess would’ve balked like he did at the idea of swearing by her name.
So Morrigan and Bran on one side, and the Fomorians and the Great Crow on the other. So far we had stayed strongly in the realm of Celtic mythology. I couldn’t recall any Great Crows in Irish mythology other than Morrigan. Esmeralda had all those books in her trailer…maybe one of them would mention this Great Crow.
It would only take fifteen minutes to detour to my apartment. Derek’s breathing was even, he wasn’t bleeding, and he didn’t seem in distress. I wanted to check on Julie, but fifteen minutes wouldn’t make that much difference.
Why did the Fomorians attack me in the first place? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
First they attacked Red, who had stumbled onto them, or at least so he claimed. Then they attacked Julie. Now they attacked me. Why? What would make them risk a confrontation with a vampire and a werewolf, not taking into account the fact that I had already made three reeves into wet and smelly spots.