Page 162
“I can’t!” he snapped.
My heart tried to break through my chest. Slayer smoked. Julie’s eyes were closed, her color so pale she might have been dead already.
I would have given my right arm to be there now.
Curran raised his hand, displaying charms and coins dangling from his claws.
Bran howled. “What’s he doing? Stop, you whoreson! No!”
“The child for the necklace. As agreed,” Curran said.
The Shepherd’s whisper raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. “You shouldn’t have come alone, beast.”
Reeves burst out from under the metal scrap. They swarmed Curran, falling onto each other. In a blink he was covered with a mound of squirming bodies.
I clenched my fists, expecting him to break out. Fight, Curran. Fight back. Any moment the bodies would come flying and he’d burst free from the pile of flesh. Any moment…My neck constricted as if caught by a garrote. The reeves screeched.
“No, no, no! Damn you, sonovabitch, do something!” Bran hurled his crossbow into the vision. It pierced the image and shattered against the wall.
A jaguar crashed into the Shepherd. He gave no warning, no snarl, no sound at all. Huge fangs flashed and the Shepherd’s head drooped to his chest from the broken neck. Jim paused for the briefest of moments, reveling in the kill, and chased after Ugad.
Four beasts darted from the mist, snapping and biting at Ugad’s legs. A wolf let out a short snarl.
Huge hands thrust through the reeves and tore them aside. Curran emerged. Red gashes marked his fur.
Now I understood the plan: he had expected a double cross and chose to bear the bulk of the assault, buying time for the shapeshifters to retrieve Julie.
The reeves scrambled back to him. He grasped one, tore it in two, and hurled the twitching remnants to the ground. The reeve went liquid. The puddle of its slime twisted upward in a corkscrew and solidified into the reeve. She was once again whole.
“Why isn’t she dying?”
“The cauldron’s too close,” Bran said through clenched teeth.
They couldn’t win. The best they could do was to break away.
Curran swiped at another reeve, crushing her head like an eggshell. She went liquid too and re-formed within seconds.
“Stop killing, dimwit! Maim! Maim them, you son of a whore!” Bran yelled.