Caged, page 30
I didn’t get a chance to celebrate my success. A chill raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and I spun around to find myself face to face with the spinner again. A poppet flanked her on each side this time, past victims with their mouths and eyes stitched shut, their hands outstretched as their mistress willed them to grab me. I had a split second to register the needle in her upraised hand before it stabbed down.
I twisted to the side, and the needle snagged the sleeve of my shirt, but missed my flesh. I raised a hand. Before I could attack, a woman slid behind the spinner, her arms banding around the deceptively frail woman.
I froze, staring at the stranger who’d come to my aid. Dark hair shorn close to her head, uneven and haphazard, black eyes like piles of coal dust. Her body was thick with muscle, but there was an underfed quality to her, something feral. She looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place her.
The woman held my eyes, and I saw her lips move.
“Hurry,” she whispered, the sound so low, so hoarse I almost didn’t hear it.
The poppets stood frozen with indecision, but the spinner snarled and they lurched forward, arms held out, fingers grasping for the woman holding their master. I raised a hand and pointed at them, ready to use magic to force them off. The woman holding the spinner snarled and shook her head.
“Hurry,” she rasped again. “Go.”
I couldn’t leave her. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t close my third eye, couldn’t leave this plane, leave her alone with these monsters. I shook my head and took a step forward. The woman’s dark eyes flashed and she let out a sound that wasn’t human, a cry that was too shrill, too raw.
Then she sank her teeth into the spinner’s neck.
The ghoulish figure collapsed. She didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. Just collapsed. The savage woman stared at me with something in her eyes very like anger, almost hatred, her mouth stained with the brackish liquid that passed for the spinner’s blood. Without looking away from me, she grabbed the poppet on her right, one hand on either side of its head. She twisted and jerked, ripping its head off like tearing an ear of rotting corn off the stalk. The poppet fell to the ground in a pile of limbs that bent the wrong way. Goo oozed out of its neck.
She grabbed the second one, but I didn’t wait to watch it die. I understood now. She didn’t need my help.
Definitely didn’t want it.
And there was something in those dark eyes that told me if I didn’t leave, then when that second poppet was dead, she may still be in the mood to dismember something. Someone.
I shut my third eye, bracing myself for the sensation of falling as my spirit anchored itself back inside my body. Peasblossom was out of the pouch, clinging to my neck and screaming at me. I jerked to awareness and shook my head.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!” I stumbled as I tried to look around, tried to take in the current state of affairs. “What’s happening?”
The dragon was gone. I didn’t know if the summoning spell had ended, if Kristine had dismissed it, or if the beast had died and returned to its own plane. All I saw was the carnage left behind.
Blake and Sonar were both lying on the floor. Andy and Sam were tending them, assessing injuries, keeping them close as they watched for the arrival of any new threats. Andy met my eyes, and I swallowed hard before glancing down at Blake. Andy looked at Sam, and the guard glanced up at me and nodded. My shoulders slumped. Still alive.
Edwin knelt on the ground, bloody but still breathing. I watched him close his eyes, then slowly rise to his feet. One muscle at a time, he drew himself up until he stood facing Liam. A soldier standing to attention. Awaiting orders.
Liam stared at Kristine. I saw his intention before he moved, but I wouldn’t be in time to stop it. He surged forward, murder in his eyes. He stopped less than a foot away, and his face twisted as if it physically hurt to restrain himself, to keep from tearing into Kristine with all the fury that had been building inside him these past few days.
“Why?” he rasped finally. “Why did you do this?”
Kristine glared at him from her prison inside the coil of the headless serpent, her small face so cold it could have been carved from ice. That cold, dead stare unnerved me, and when I felt Scath approach my side, I gestured for her to flank Kristine as I circled in the other direction. Something more was coming.
“Because I hate you,” she whispered. “Because I wanted you to suffer. I wanted you to lose everything.”
Liam stared at her. For just a second, confusion fought for dominance and his brows drew together. “Why?”
Kristine snapped her mouth shut, glaring at him in stubborn silence.
“It’s over, Kristine,” Liam said calmly. “You’ve lost. Tell me why you did this. Give me a reason to—”
Kristine barked out a laugh. “I’ve lost? Have I?” She shook her head. “No, you’ve lost. You failed your pack in every way imaginable. Shifters who came to you for help are trapped in beast form, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The other alphas will find out, and they’ll see you as weak. Shifters won’t come here for help anymore, because they’ll know you can’t protect them. New Moon is finished, and so are you. If you have any decency at all, you’ll leave the wolves with their new owners, let them care for them.”
Despite the venom she spewed in her speech, Kristine made no move to extricate herself from my spell. Unease coiled in my stomach. I’d hoped the creature would hold her long enough to give the others time to deal with the dragon, but I hadn’t expected it to work this well. Kristine should have been able to escape. Definitely before now.
Which meant she wasn’t trying.
Panic sizzled over my nerves, sensitizing them to the point of pain. I could feel her gathering her energy, could see it in the minute contractions of the muscles in her arms, the stiffening of her spine. She was getting ready for something.
“We welcomed you from the moment Brad brought you here,” Liam said. “We accepted you as part of our pack. How could you betray us like this?”
“It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Kristine said. Some of the anger leached from her voice, and she sounded almost thoughtful. “You are powerful, Liam. One of the most powerful alphas I’ve ever known. But you can’t help your sister. You can’t help any of them. They will remain as I left them, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The people you love, the people who need you, who depended on you, are for most intents and purposes gone, and you can’t get them back.”
Liam’s hands tightened into fists. “I will find a way to change them back.”
“They’ll fight you,” Kristine said simply. “I found them a place they belong, a place they know they’re needed. A place where there is no alpha telling them what to do, making decisions about what’s best for them. They’re happier because of me.”
“Not Brenna,” Liam growled. “She doesn’t want to be part of this. Change her back.”
Kristine stared into space, as if she were no longer seeing Liam. “I can hear the pain in your voice. It feels familiar. You sound the way I must have when Stephanie died.” Her eyes clouded over. “I could kill all of you,” she said softly. “I have the power. I could have killed you at any time. All of you. It’s a curse, you know. Power. It’s impossible not to feel responsible. Not to feel like you should have been able to protect the person who relied on you. Trusted you.”
“You couldn’t save Stephanie,” Liam said. “You couldn’t choose sobriety for her.”
Hatred darkened Kristine’s face. “She just needed help, just a little extra help on that day. Brad could have watched her, he could have been there in that one moment. I knew it would be hard for her, and I knew her brother would make her use with him again.”
Liam stared at her as if she’d slipped into another language, gibberish he couldn’t understand. “You know that’s not true. Listen to yourself. No one makes an addict use. And no one can stop them if that’s what they decide to do.”
“It was just one day!” she screamed. “One day! But you couldn’t let me have even that. Brad wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t go against his precious alpha’s orders. Now he’ll spend the rest of his life making up for his failure, and so will you.”
My eyes widened as I realized what she intended to do. I knew why she hadn’t escaped the coil. Why she’d seemed to be holding back this entire time. “No one attack her,” I shouted. “Don’t touch her.”
“What’s happening?” Liam demanded.
“She’s building a death curse. That’s how she’s going to punish you. She’s going to use her death to fuel the curse.”
Liam looked at Kristine. “You don’t have to die. It’s not too late to stop this, all of this. You can turn them back, you can help them come back from the edge.”
Tears poured down Kristine’s face. “You know why I hate you?” she whispered. “Because I don’t recognize myself anymore. Because hating you has twisted me into a monster. I can’t sleep. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Stephanie, that I don’t think of how she would still be alive if my husband hadn’t chosen to serve you instead. If you hadn’t been so cold and unfeeling.”
No one argued with her. There was no point. Kristine knew it wasn’t Liam’s fault, and she’d always known. But grief wasn’t logical, and she’d fixated on Liam. Blamed Liam because it had to be someone’s fault.
“We’re going to get you help,” Liam said quietly.
Kristine gritted her teeth. “No. I will die here. And if you won’t do it, then I’ll summon something that will.”
Too late, I felt the magic coalescing. She was summoning something else, something lethal. And I couldn’t stop her.
Before anyone could move, Scath shot forward. My eyes widened, and I threw out a hand, knowing I couldn’t stop her. Scath’s mouth closed around Kristine’s throat. The spell exploded—
And died.
No, not died. Disappeared.
Into Scath.
I stared in shock as Scath…ate Kristine’s magic. Swallowed the spell, and then kept going. Drinking down the witch’s power. Kristine gurgled and choked on her own blood as the monstrous cat sith closed her jaws, crushing the life out of the kitchen witch even as she drank down the magic that would have been her death curse. Scath swallowed it all, along with mouthfuls of Kristine’s blood. She held the witch’s limp body for a long minute after she’d stopped moving. I released my spell, letting the serpent coil fall back into the ether, letting Kristine’s body collapse on the floor.
I stared at Scath.
“What are you?” I whispered.
Chapter 27
“Eating a witch seems to agree with her.”
Morning sunlight nearly blinded me as I turned to scowl at Andy, and that moment of eye-searing pain cost me. I tripped on the curb leading from the parking lot to the walkway that led to New Moon’s front doors, my heart leaping into my throat as I anticipated a collision with the cement.
Andy grabbed my arm. He pulled me back so suddenly my feet nearly left the ground, and I gaped at him for a second before regaining my composure.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I should have taken the time for a second cup of coffee. My need to get back to New Moon had obviously overridden my common sense. I lifted my chin and glared at Andy—facing away from the sun this time. “But that’s not funny.”
I paused for a moment, thinking of Scath lying on the bed back at my apartment. She hadn’t acknowledged what she’d done yesterday at all. I don’t know what I expected her to do, but it just seemed like she should be different somehow.
“I don’t think you understand how weird that was,” I said, half to myself. “She… She ate Kristine’s death curse.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. She was walking better. And her eyes didn’t look clouded. Whatever she did, it helped.”
I hesitated. He wasn’t wrong. Scath did seem better, better than she’d been since the iron poisoning. And I was happy she felt better, truly I was. I was just a little nervous about what else eating all that magic may have done. What other boosts the cat sith may have gotten. I already had a kitten soaked with enough energy to detonate a building, I didn’t need another one. A bigger one.
“So do you have any idea how to change the shifters back?” Andy asked, changing the subject as he held the door open for me.
Unease rolled through me, washing away all thoughts of the cat sith. After the battle with Kristine last night, Liam had sent everyone who wasn’t pack away so they could tend their injured and assess the damage. They also needed to round up the other shifters, something that was possible now that he knew the information at May’s house was accurate. She’d been suspicious of May’s true motives, and she’d kept her own secret record.
He’d told me to come back today, and I knew he’d planned to try and turn the shifters back, now that Kristine was dead. And I knew I was his plan B.
I had my own plan B. But I didn’t like it. And I didn’t think Liam would either.
I straightened my spine, trying to keep the dread out of my voice. “I have an idea of how to change them back.”
Sam was back at the security desk. They didn’t look any the worse for wear after the fight, but then I supposed that staying in human form and using a gun had helped. I don’t know if I’d expected a little more camaraderie after fighting side by side, but if I had, that’s not what I got. In fact, Sam stared harder at us when we entered, and insisted on checking our badges with the attention to detail one would give if expecting corporate espionage.
I didn’t take it personally, and neither did Andy. Finding out a trusted member of the pack had been sabotaging the backbone of New Moon could do a number on a person’s sense of trust.
“He’s in his office.”
I could tell by their voice that nothing had changed. Sam didn’t sound like a wolf celebrating their alpha’s victory over a kitchen witch’s spells. They sounded like someone who wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. And wasn’t hopeful.
Andy and I were silent as we made our way toward Liam’s office. There were still shifters milling around, examining the floor where the beithir had destroyed it, and checking that no supports had been damaged. The blinds had been drawn, so I couldn’t see what was happening in Liam’s office through the large plate glass. My brain offered a thousand images of what might be going on inside, what state Liam might be in.
The door swung open just as we rounded the corner. Kylie exited the office and closed the door behind her. She made it a full five steps before she registered my presence and came to an abrupt halt, her grey eyes widening for a split second before she regained her calm. She nodded to me, polite, but quick.
“How is he?” I asked.
The half-ghoul pressed her lips together. “I gave him a sedative along with the cure last night, so he slept at least six hours. He’s not happy about the sedative, but he’s parasite free and well rested, so he’s opted not to complain.”
“Good. I assume he’s eaten?”
Kylie snorted. “Half a breakfast buffet.”
An awkward pause rose as I remained where I was, blocking the hallway so she couldn’t leave. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, and Kylie frowned.
“Are you all right?” she asked finally.
“I’m fine, yes, I’m fine.” I cleared my throat. “So, he’s in a reasonably good mood?”
The small blonde’s eyes narrowed slightly. “As good as one could expect, all things considered. Planning on giving him some bad news?”
“No, just…” I shook my head. “Nevermind.”
A small mechanical click preceded the launch of Peasblossom’s grappling hook. It latched onto Andy’s coat pocket and Kylie lurched back as Peasblossom sailed through the air to land with her feet braced against his chest before scurrying up to sit in said pocket.
“Come on, I want to see what’s going on, and she’s just going to keep dragging her feet. Let’s go!”
Andy muffled a sigh, but he did move into Liam’s office.
Kylie waited for him to enter the room before turning back to me. “You helped him save his pack,” she said calmly, almost gently. “Whatever you’re worried about, you have to know that’s going to count for a lot.”
“We’ll see,” I whispered.
Kylie nodded, then turned to leave.
“Wait,” I blurted out.
She paused. “Is there something else?”
“If this does go… Well, if it doesn’t fall to pieces,” I started, already tripping over my own words. “Then we’re going to be working together a lot in the future.”
The half-ghoul’s expression shut down, every muscle smoothing into an unreadable blank mask. “I told you—”
“I know you don’t want to be friends. You don’t want to be close. If it’s because of what I did, the position I put you in, then I’m sorry. I’m sorry, and if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll try to make it up to you.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Normally, that would mean an apology gift, but I thought—”
“That would definitely look like bribery. Please don’t send me anything.”
“I won’t.” I toyed with the hem of my T-shirt, needing something to do with my hands. “But I do want to make it up to you somehow. If you think of something, please let me know.”
Some of the frost melted from her pale eyes. “I wasn’t kidding. What I said earlier.”
“I know. But believe me when I say, I’ll keep my word. I’ll do what you asked.” I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat. “I’ll do it, but you should know, keeping me at arm’s length won’t make it any easier. Whatever you think of me, I have nothing but respect for you. And when the time comes, and I fulfill my promise, no amount of animosity between us—forced or not—will make it any easier.”
This time she looked away before I could see if her expression changed. But when she spoke, her voice sounded thicker than it had before.
