Page 166
past the houses crowding the street—“all of them are dead. We travel through the city of the dead men.
All because that son of a whore was trying to save a beggar child.”
She was my beggar child. I would’ve risked a horde of demons to save her, too.
The gates of the Pack Keep opened at our approach. A clump of shapeshifters waited for us in the inner yard. I searched for the familiar figure.
Please. Please make it.
And then I saw him. His hair fell on his back in a mane. I had missed it, because it was no longer blond, but gray, the gray of his fur in beast-form.
Bran jumped off his horse and strode into the yard, his face twisted. “You! You fucking whoreson!”
Oh shit. “Curran, don’t kill him! He’s Morrigan’s Hound. We need him to work the cauldron!”
I jumped off the horse and chased Bran.
The shapeshifters parted, giving Curran room. A white bandage covered his arm. That was a first.
Bran shoved Curran, but the Beast Lord didn’t move.
“You gave it to them! For what? A scrawny street kid! Nobody cares if she lives or dies! You’ve killed hundreds for her. Why?”
Curran’s eyes had gone gold. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He raised his hand and shoved Bran back. Bran stumbled a couple of steps.
I caught him. “Don’t do this. You’ll get hurt.”
Bran pushed free of me and lunged at Curran. Curran snarled, grabbed Bran by his arm, and threw him across the yard.
Morrigan’s Hound leaped upright. An inhuman, terrifying bellow erupted from his throat and slammed my ears with an air fist.
Bran’s flesh boiled. Muscles swelled to obscene proportions, veins bulged like ropes, tendons knotted in apple-sized clumps. He grew, stretching upward, his elbows and knees sinking into engorged muscle.
With boneless flexibility, his body twisted back, distended, flowed, melted, and finally snapped into an asymmetric aberration. Bumps slid across his torso like small cars colliding under his skin. His left eye bulged; his right sank; his face stretched back, baring his teeth and a huge, cavernous mouth. Drool sagged from his uneven lips. The one visible eye swiveled in its socket.
Warp spasm. Of course. The fourth gift he was born with. He was a warp-warrior, just like Cú Chulainn. I should’ve seen it.
“Let’s play, little man!” Bran charged Curran.
The Beast Lord twisted out of the way and hammered a punch into Bran’s misshapen gut. Bran grabbed his wrist and tossed him at the wall like a kitten.