Claws grabbed him from behind and yanked him into the cold muddy water. He went under.
A body rushed at him through the coffee-colored water, long, pale green, clawed hands outstretched, a fish mouth on a human head gaping. A white light exploded in his head. The chain of will and restraint imposed by human part of him creaked, and he let himself off it. A knife was in his hand, and as she came at him, he locked his hand on the rough lip of that gaping toothed mouth and stabbed his knife into her side. He yanked the blade free and stabbed her again and again, driving the knife in with controlled frenzy. She clawed at him. He ignored the sharp flashes of pain and kept stabbing. Her side turned into raw butchered wound. She jerked now, trying desperately to break free, but there was no hiding from his knife or the white burning rage inside him.
Circles swam before his eyes. He realized his body was telling him it was running out of air. The creature floated limp, the right side of her chest a bloody hole. He thrust his hand into it, felt the deflated sack of the dead heart, and tore it out. Never leave things unfinished.
His chest hurt as if a red-hot band squeezed it. The first pangs of drowning panic scraped at his insides.
Darker shapes streaked toward him. Fish, he realized. Narrow and long, as long as his arm, with big mouths studded with teeth. They swarmed the body. He let go of the heart and kicked himself up.
He broke the surface and took a huge, lung-expanding breath. The air tasted so good.
Ten feet away, Julie spun like a dervish, her tomahawks slicing. She rammed the butt of her left axe under the third fish-woman’s chin. The blow snapped the woman’s chin up. Julie buried her right tomahawk in the creature’s exposed chest. Blood gushed.
He pulled himself out of the hole.
The fish woman swung at Julie. The girl leaned back. The claws raked the air inches from her nose. She chopped at the woman’s right side with her left tomahawk. Ribs cracked. The fish-creature dropped to her knees. Julie cleaved her neck. He heard the steel slice through the vertebrae. It sounded sweet.
The thin mist turned red again.
A shadow appeared behind Julie, rushing at her from the fog. He ran, picking up momentum, and leaped over Julie and the prone fish-woman. He rammed into the charging creature and tore into her. She broke like a rag doll in his hands, and he laughed. He snapped her arm, wrenching it out of the socket, her leg, her neck, her other arm, happy to finally release the rage he kept carefully pent up inside him.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. “I get that this was terribly exciting, but she is dead. We killed everybody.”
He snapped his teeth at her, playing, and broke the woman’s forearm with a dry snap.
“De-rek,” she said, turning his name into a song. “Come back to me.”
Not yet.
“Look up,” she whispered. “Look up!”
Fine. He raised his gaze. The moon looked back at him, cool and calm, glowing, serene. It washed over him, sinking deep into his soul, soothing the old scars and closing the new ones as it rolled through him. He felt the hot rush of fury receding, dropped the corpse, and stood up.
She handed him his knife. He must’ve dropped it during the jump. The parking lot spread before them, the mist a mere memory above the dark holes. He inhaled deeply and caught a trace of familiar blood.
“How bad?”
She lifted her shirt, exposing her side. A long scratch marked her ribs, swelling with angry red.
He opened his mouth.
The water exploded out of the holes, shooting up in filthy geysers. Julie swiped her backpack from the pavement. He grabbed her hand and sprinted to the pillar. They dashed, zigzagging between the water. The evil dark fish churned within the geysers. Dirty water chased them, flooding before them. He picked Julie up and ran. Pillar Rock loomed before them, and he leapt onto it. He ran all the way to the apex and lowered Julie next to him.
Below them, the parking lot became a lake. Long sinuous bodies writhed in the shallow water, feeding or panicking, he couldn’t tell. He and Julie watched them quietly.
“Looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a few minutes,” she said, then gave him an odd look.
“Yes?”
She raised her backpack. “I have food.”
He laughed.
NO MATTER HOW HARD KATE tried to remind him that he was first and foremost human, Derek knew himself to be separate. He was a shapeshifter. He never forgot it, and if he had, things like watching Julie wince as she smeared antibiotic ointment over her scratch reminded him. He could vaguely remember when he was human too, but that memory felt false, almost as if it had happened to someone else. Between it and his current reality lay things he didn’t want to remember. If he reached down to stir them up, like old ghosts, he would recall them, but he didn’t want to.
“Okay,” she said.
He unrolled the long sticky strip of adhesive bandage and carefully placed it over her skin. The ointment would keep it from sticking to the wound itself.
Her ribs were no longer sticking out. He remembered when she was so skinny, he was worried she would walk into a lamppost by accident and break something.
She pulled her shirt back down and rummaged in her backpack. A plastic bag came out, with the second bag inside it filled with jerky, a bag of nuts and granola, and cheese. His mouth watered. He’d burned too many calories, and now he was ravenous.
She passed him the bags. Julie always had food. And she always wrapped it so it was hard to smell. It came from living on the street.
He snagged a long piece of jerky and chewed, reveling in the taste.
“You skipped the hunt again,” she said, snagging a piece of cheese and a cracker.
The monthly hunts in the Wood, a big forest sprawling north of Atlanta, were a pleasant diversion for most shapeshifters. A way to blow off some steam. For him it was a necessity. He needed the wilderness. Without it the rage grew too fast. It would always be with him. Curran had told him there was no cure, and he was right. It was the price Derek paid for not turning loup like his father.
“Maybe,” he said.
“What was so important?”
He shrugged. “Work.”
She chewed her little sandwich, taking small bites out of it. She ate like a human too—a shapeshifter would’ve stuffed the whole thing in her mouth and would’ve been on her third sandwich by now. It was a test, he knew. She ate slowly to prove to herself that she could, that there was enough food and no need to rush because she wasn’t starving.
“Lobasti,” she said.
“Mhm?”
“The women. I think they were lobasti. Mermaids.”
“Mermaids?” Somehow they didn’t seem hot enough.
“Evil mermaids,” she said. “I was so glad when that head rolled out. I thought I was fighting a pregnant woman. If I’m right, they only attack at night.”
“Makes sense. The plan was to have those idiots recover the rock and bring it here. The mermaids would kill them, and then Caleb Adams would come in the morning, pick up the rock, and go home, his hands clean.”
“That wereleopard doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
He won’t feel lucky when he wakes up. He laughed quietly under his breath.
He was on his fourth piece of jerky. The burning fire in his stomach was subsiding. He would eat a big breakfast when they were done. Pancakes and sausage and bacon, and then he would sleep. . . .
“If we find out why the Iveses died over that rock, I’ll make you all the bacon you want.”
He startled.
Julie shrugged and bit her jerky. “I can always tell when you’re thinking about food. You forget to be the Serious Wolf, and you get this dreamy look in your eyes. You know, most people would think you were thinking about a girl. They have no idea that her name is bacon.”
“Dreamy look?”
“Mhm. Lighten up.”
“I’m light enough.”
He lay down on his back and looked at the moon, a strip of jerky between his teeth like a cigar. He slowly chewed on it.
“Thanks for the food.”
“You’re welcome. You used to joke more.”