CHAPTER 13
Curran flung the door open and charged into the hallway. I slammed the door shut behind him, just as Derek tried to run after Curran. The boy wonder spun on his foot at the last moment, avoiding the collision. Desandra was our first priority. If she died, Maddie and our chance at the panacea died with her.
“What’s going on?” Desandra rolled off the bed.
I barred the door and pulled Slayer free. Derek yanked off his clothes. Fur dashed up his frame.
In the hallway a chorus of vicious snarls broke into yelps of pain and deep growls. Something howled. The hair on the back of my neck rose. I flipped the light switch. Bright yellow light flooded the bedroom.
“What’s going on?” Desandra yelled.
“I don’t know. Get behind me.”
Something smashed into the door with a loud thud. The boards creaked.
Another thud hammered the door.
I backed away, Slayer ready. Next to me Derek bared his monster teeth.
The door boards snapped with a sharp crack, the sound of splintering wood like a gunshot. Two bodies tumbled into the room, one gray, one gold. Curran landed on his back, a scaled yellow beast on top of him. The beast raised its feline head and snarled at me, stretching two enormous wings. Two green eyes stared at me with a hot, terrible hatred.
Curran’s mouth gaped. He jerked the beast down and bit into its shoulder. The giant lion fangs cut into the flesh like scissors. Thick red blood wet the scales.
The beast howled in pain and raked Curran’s side with its hind claws, trying to rip his stomach open. Blood drenched the gray fur. The two cats rolled, clawing and snarling.
The balcony door exploded in a glittering cascade of shards. A second amber beast shot into the dark room.
“Down!” Andrea barked from the doorway.
I shoved Desandra into the corner. Andrea’s gun barked, spitting thunder and bullets. Boom! Boom!
The beast jerked, each shot knocking it back.
Boom! Boom!
She kept firing. The bullet tore through the creature’s flesh.
The magic wave crashed into us in an invisible flood. Tech vanished from the world in an instant. Lights went out, the sudden darkness pitch-black and blinding. Andrea’s gun choked on the bullets.
The lavender feylanterns flared into life, spilling eerie purple-tinted light into the room.
Andrea spun to the side, and a spotted bouda shot past her and leaped onto the creature, tearing into it with a yowl. Raphael.
The beast shook, an amber blur, and batted Raphael aside with a clawed paw. The bouda landed in a roll and ran back at the beast.
I lunged at the orange monster. Claws raked my thigh, ripping my jeans and skin in a hot flash of agony. I ignored it, thrust, sinking Slayer deep between its ribs, and withdrew. Derek jumped, clearing the wings, and clung to the beast’s back, clawing into its spine. The creature howled and spun, its wings straight out. I ducked under the wing and the massive tail took me off my feet. My back hit the wall. Ow. The world swam.
No. No, you sonovabitch, you won’t kill a pregnant woman today. Not on my fucking watch.
I bounced onto my feet and slashed across the creature’s flank. The beast shook, trying to throw Derek off its back. Derek hung on. On the other side Raphael snarled, biting and clawing.
Desandra lunged at the beast, grabbed a wing, and wrenched it to the side. Bone snapped.
The beast spun again. I dropped, ducked under, and sliced a deep cut along the beast’s gut. Innards spilled out in a hot bloody mess. I stabbed the scaled flank again and again, trying to cause damage. Die. Die already.
A massive shaggy shape shot into the room and a thousand pounds of furious Kodiak crashed into the beast like a runaway train. The impact drove the creature back into the bed. The heavy piece of furniture flew, knocked aside by their bodies. The beast crashed against the wall. The Kodiak’s enormous paw rose like a hammer. The thick bones of the beast’s skull crunched, an egg dropped on the pavement. Wet mush splattered the wall.
The Kodiak moved, and I saw Curran rise at the opposite wall, his arms locked on the winged creature. Covered in blood, his eyes glowing, he looked demonic. The Beast Lord strained. A rough growl ripped out of his mouth. The left arm and a part of the orange creature’s chest moved away from the right side and its head, the bones wrenched apart. Blood gushed from the gap studded with broken bones.
The beast flailed, screaming. Curran bit into its exposed throat, grabbed its head, and ripped it off the body, hurling it to the floor.
The Kodiak melted into a human shape. My brain took a second to process that it was female and not Mahon. George’s wide eyes stared at me. She grabbed my hand. “Doolittle is hurt!”
*
“Go,” Andrea yelled at me. “Go, we got this!”
I ran after George into the hallway. My right side and thigh screamed. Blood soaked my jeans, most of it my own.
Chunks of orange corpses littered the floor: a wing, a scaled leg. I never understood why a dead shapeshifter turned human, but chunks of him torn in a fight stayed in the animal shape. “What happened?”
“Aunt B and Dad,” George yelled over her shoulder. “Faster, Kate.”
I chased her, slid on gore, and half stumbled, half ran into Doolittle’s room. A werejaguar blocked my way and snarled in my face, big teeth snapping.
“It’s me!” I yelled into her open maw.
Keira shook her furry head and half stepped, half swayed aside. Blood soaked her left side.
The furniture lay in shambles. Broken glass littered the floor. In the corner Eduardo slumped, breathing in shallow gasps, his human body slick with blood. Jagged gashes crossed his chest and stomach. Red muscle crawled in the wounds—the Lyc-V was scrambling to repair the damage. I crouched by him. Good strong pulse.
George grabbed my arm and pulled me to the corner. A huge honey badger the size of a pony lay on the floor, his head twisted at an odd angle. Oh no.
I dropped by the body and searched for a pulse on his neck. A vein fluttered under my fingertips, weak, so weak. My hand came away red. He was bleeding and with all the damn fur, I didn’t even know where.
I began to chant, pulling the magic to me. Whatever little healing I could do was better than nothing. Come on. Come on!
Doolittle lay unmoving. He hadn’t turned, which meant he was still alive. It also meant Lyc-V didn’t have enough juice to change his shape. He was dying.
No, no, God damn it. I chanted, putting all of my magic into the healing. Without knowing what the injury was, all I could do was hold on to him. I wasn’t a medmage, but I had raw power.
George stood next to me, tears running down her face. “Save him. You have to save him.”
I chanted, focused on the body and the fragile weak shiver of life inside it. It pulled me in, drawing me deeper and deeper, until it was just me and the weak fragile spark of Doolittle’s life. I cradled it with my magic, trying to anchor it.
Magic boiled inside me, sucked into Doolittle’s body in a painful whirlpool. It felt like my flesh was ripping off my bones.
“How is he?” Aunt B asked, far away.
A shadow loomed over us. I caught a glimpse of dark fur—Mahon towered by me.
Doolittle’s body shuddered. A tremor shook his limbs. Slowly the fur melted. The medmage drew a hoarse breath. Blood slipped from his bruised lips.
Doolittle’s kind eyes stared at me, bloodshot and glassy. “Broken spine.” His breath came out whistling. His voice was weak and hoarse, barely a whisper.
Shit. Shapeshifters healed broken limbs, but a broken spine was a different story. “Don’t talk. Did you bring any tank powder with you, Doctor?” It was the same powder used for the solution in which Maddie rested back home.
Doolittle smiled, a weak sad smile. My heart broke.
“Yes.”
“Get the tank.”
“What?” George bent over me.
“Find the powder for the healing solution and get the tank ready.”
“We don’t have a tank!”
“Use whatever you can find.” It wasn’t the tank that mattered, but the solution inside it.
I heard her tear through the room, throwing debris out of the way.
“It won’t help. C2 and C3 are fractured.”