“I’m working,” she said.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Dressed like what?”
“That.”
“There is nothing wrong with the way she’s dressed.” The cat smirked, flashing white teeth. “I like it.”
Laugh it up while you can. “Shut up. If I decide to ask for your opinion, I’ll say, ‘Hey dickhead,’ so you don’t get confused.”
The cat snarled back. “What the hell makes you think you can tell me what to do?”
Julie sighed. “Look, I don’t have time for one of your man things, where you stand around and insult each other. The city has a Guardian, and I’m her Herald. I have a task, and you’re between me and my destination. Clear your asses out of here or be destroyed.”
“What the actual fuck is going on here?” the jackal asked.
That was about enough of it. Derek stepped forward, moving out of the shadows into the moonlight.
The cat’s eyebrows crept up. “What the hell happened to your face?”
“Oh shit.” The wolf raised his hands, backed away, and sat down on the ground. “I submit. I meant no offense. Tell Curran I meant no offense.”
The cat and the jackal stared at him.
“What’s your problem?” the jackal asked.
“That’s the Beast Lord’s Wolf.” The wolf raised his hands palms out. “And that’s the Beast Lord’s daughter. I’m out.”
“I’ve seen the Beast Lord,” the cat said. “He’s black, his mate is Asian, and they don’t have kids.”
“Not that Beast Lord, you moron,” the wolf said. “The first one. The ex-Beast Lord.”
“Wait,” the jackal said. “There is another Beast Lord?”
They were idiots. He was about to fight two idiots.
“You can’t challenge him,” the wolf said.
“The hell I can’t.” The cat bared his teeth.
“If you fight him, it’s to the death,” the wolf warned.
“I don’t care.”
“Tooooooday.” Julie drew the word out.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” the cat declared. “I’ll rip your throat out and feed it to you.”
Yes, he’d never heard that one before.
Julie sighed again and glanced at him. “This is taking way too long. That was a declaration of murderous intent. We’re clear. The big one is yours; I’ll take the ginger.”
They moved at the same time. He was a shapeshifter and she was human, so he won the race. But, he reflected, sprinting toward the cat as one of her tomahawks hurtled through the air and sliced into the jackal’s chest, the gap between their reaction time was getting uncomfortably short, and not because he was slowing down.
In front of him, the cat’s human skin tore. The cascade of pheromones hit Derek, the chemical catastrophe of magic that signaled the change from human to an animal. The cat hopped back, buying time as his body split, bones shooting up, flesh spiraling up the new bigger, thicker limbs, and golden fur sprouted over it, packed with dense dark rosettes. A leopard. That’s why all the smirking. A big cat against a wolf was usually a done deal. Especially a big cat who could maintain the warrior form, a meld of beast and human.
The wereleopard landed upright on huge paws, claws out, hulking. Big jaws. At least a hundred and fifty pounds heavier, and that weight was muscle and bone. Stupid stance, though, arms out. Very little or no training. Probably relied on his strength, speed, and size. It wouldn’t be enough this time.
He was well within his rights to kill the leopard. Derek belonged to Curran, who had formally retired from the Pack, taking his people with him, which put him outside of Pack structure. He had no position within the Pack’s hierarchy. The only thing Derek could be challenged for was his life, and Pack law said he could end his attacker without fear of retribution.
The cat swiped at him. Derek ducked under the slice, but the claws grazed his shoulder in a burning flash of pain. The scent of his own blood lashed him. Fast bastard. Derek carved a long gash across the cat’s ribs as he darted under, spun around, and sank a solid kick into the small of the cat’s back. The cat’s spine crunched. The wereleopard leapt away and spun around, golden eyes glowing.
If he killed the leopard, the relationship between the newcomers and the Pack would be strained. Jim would be pissed. He needed a few seconds to figure out if he gave a damn.
On the left the jackal launched himself into a spectacular jump, aiming for Julie on her horse. He hurtled through the air, eyes wide, mouth open. She tossed a handful of yellow powder into his face. The reek of wolfsbane streaked through the street. His eyes watered. The jackal collapsed on the ground.
The cat leaped at Derek, going high, claws of his right paw raised for the kill. Once you were airborne, there was no way to change the direction.
Derek let go of the knife, sidestepped to the left, grabbed the cat’s right forearm with his right hand as the wereleopard flew by, and drove his left hand into the cat’s right thigh, channeling all the power and momentum of the wereleopard’s leap into a flip. The cat practically flipped himself. The wereleopard’s back slapped the ground. The air burst out of his lungs. Derek dropped down, swiped his knife off the pavement, and buried it in the cat’s gut. Sour stench wafted up into his nostrils.
The cat snarled and swiped at him. The big claws tore at his chest, shredding his T-shirt. Derek broke free. The cat jerked up, lighting quick, and turned into a whirlwind of claws. Derek dodged, backing away, noting each graze that stung his shoulders. The leopard chased him, eyes mad, pupils so wide the gold of his irises had shrunk to a thin ring. When the cats snapped like this, there was no fighting them. You had to block what you could until you got some distance.
“I kirrl you!” the cat yowled.
Speaking in warrior form indicated real talent. That’s why the small pack had been allowed to join. Jim had plans for the leopard.
A cut. The cat was swinging wildly, his response sharpened by the wound in his stomach. Derek had been like that, too, years ago, until he learned to register the pain without it feeding his anger.
If he killed the cat, Jim would be pissed off, but more importantly, Curran would regret the waste of talent. The Pack still mattered to him, even if he said it didn’t.
Another cut stung his left shoulder. The cat had little training but good instincts. The trouble with instincts is that they can be used against you.
Derek rolled down onto his back, bending his knees and bringing up his feet. The leopard lunged at him without thinking, reacting to the falling prey. Derek kicked, ramming his feet into the cat’s furry stomach, reopening the freshly sealed gash. The big shapeshifter hurtled over his head. Derek flipped onto his stomach and into a crouch, the movement practiced so many times, he didn’t even have to think about it. The cat was scrambling to his feet. He was fast, but nobody had taught him how to fall. It cost him a precious half a second.
You could do a lot with half a second. Derek spun, picking up power, and snapped a roundhouse kick to the leopard’s head just as the big cat finally rose. His lower shin connected, the powerful muscles of his thigh delivering hundreds of pounds of force to the leopard’s ear and temple. It would’ve burst the eardrum and cracked the skull of a human, causing an incapacitating concussion.
The leopard swayed, still snarling, his swipes sluggish.
Derek lunged forward, dodged the claws, and smashed the heel of his right hand into the leopard’s left shoulder, shoving him back just as he kicked the leopard’s calves, sweeping his legs from under him. The big cat crashed down, his head bouncing off the pavement. Derek followed, hammering punches onto the cat’s face. One, two, three. He’d broken baseball bats with a punch before.
Five, six.
“You’re going to kill him,” Julie warned.
“No.” But he won’t be smiling at any girls for the next three months.
“Derek?”
“Yes?” One more.
Sudd
enly he was aware of her standing next to him. A metal chain dangled in his view.
The cat’s body deflated. The fur melted back into human skin. His face looked like raw hamburger. By morning the skin would be back to normal. The broken jaw and the three teeth he’d knocked out would take a couple of months to heal and grow back.
Julie shook the handcuffs at him.
“Fine.”
He took the handcuffs, flipped the woozy cat over, pulled his arms over, and locked them on the cat’s now-human wrists. The handcuffs were a shapeshifter edition: Each band was lined with silver spikes. Trying to snap the chain by pulling the cuffs apart drove the spikes into the skin. Silver burned like fire. He was sure the cat would stay put.
Derek tilted his head. The jackal lay on his back in a puddle of his own blood, trussed up like a hog, wrists and ankles tied together. The wound on his chest looked deep, but Julie had missed the heart. Knowing her, on purpose. He would heal.
Derek tilted his head and looked at the remaining wolf. He knew his eyes glowed, reflecting the moonlight.
“We were at a bar,” the wolf said. “Eli and Nathan are new to the city, so I took them to the Steel Horse. A guy came up to us and asked if we were up for making a quick five hundred bucks.”
There was no such thing as a quick $500, especially not in Atlanta after dark.
“He gave us the address of this house. We’re supposed to go in and sniff out a rock.” The wolf lifted his hands, holding them apart, fingers almost touching. “About this big. Glows in the moonlight. We went into the house and smelled the blood. We were trying to decide what to do when you showed up.”
“Four hours ago someone killed the human family who lived in this house for that rock,” Derek said. “Husband, wife, two kids.”
“I didn’t know,” the wolf said, his voice pleading. “I swear I didn’t know. You’ve got to believe me.”
Julie squinted at the house. “Is that the Iveses’ house?”
He’d hoped she wouldn’t recognize it, but she had just been there two weeks ago, buying a knife with Kate. He nodded. There was nothing else to do.
Her eyes went wide. “All of them?”
He nodded again.
She clamped her hand over her mouth. He put his arm around her before he knew he’d done it. She stuck her face into his shredded T-shirt.
He hugged her gently and wished he could make it better.
The world was a fucked-up place. A girl like Julie shouldn’t know people who had been violently murdered. He shouldn’t know them. Instead they met in front of a slaughterhouse. He’d killed five people tonight, and she’d opened a man’s chest with her tomahawk.
“What were you supposed to do with the rock?” he asked, still holding Julie.
“Take it to Pillar Rock,” the wolf said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go down this street until you run into Manticore. Turn left, go two blocks. You’ll see a white building with a green roof. That’s the Pack safe house for this quadrant of the city. Tell them what happened and call your alpha.”
“Should I call their alphas, too?” he asked.
“No. Just call Desandra. She’ll handle it. Tell her I consider the matter closed.” Knowing Desandra, she would enjoy informing the other alphas that their new members had stepped in it.
The wolf exhaled, turned, and sprinted down the street at fifty miles per hour. In ten minutes the pickup team would swarm the area.
Julie pulled away from him. Her eyes were red. She never sobbed when she cried. She used to, but something had happened in the last year, and now she cried like that, without moving or making a sound. It was worse somehow.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Did you find out who killed the Iveses?”
He nodded again.
“Are they dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said, sudden viciousness in her voice. She sidestepped him and went into the house.
He knew this was it, all of the grief she would show. He’d seen her go through things like that before. Julie had spent three years on the street, where people lived by animal rules, and she’d learned them well: Never show a weakness; never show pain. The vulnerable get eaten. She would break down later when she was alone, but neither he nor anyone else would ever see it.
Yellow crime tape was too expensive to produce in the world that hated factories and plastics, and the cops rarely used it anymore. A single white sticker, slapped across the door and frame, barred entry to the house, and the shapeshifters had already cut it. The door stood wide open, and she went inside. He followed her.
Before the Shift, the processing of a murder scene could take days. Now it took three hours, because murders were plentiful and cops were stretched thin. It was all the time they could spare.
Julie walked straight to the built-in bookcase in the living room, took several books off the shelf, picking them up together, and set them on the floor. Behind the books, a single narrow slit indicated a hidden niche. She pried at it with her nails, and a small section of the wall fell forward, revealing a dark opening and a plastic box inside. Julie pulled it out and popped the lid.
They stared at the rock. A little larger than a softball, it resembled pyrite, fool’s gold, except it was bluish white and glowed gently with a cold, dispassionate light. Most of it was rounded, but on one side the stone ended sharply, as if a part had broken off. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He couldn’t explain why, but something about that rock made him wary. If he were in his wolf form, he would’ve circled it on careful paws and left it where it lay.
“Do you see anything?”
Julie frowned. Sensates like her saw the magic in an array of colors, something other people tried to duplicate by building m-scanners.
“Pale bluish silver glow.”
“Divine?” Divine objects and creatures glowed with silver.
“No, not divine. White and blue. Different kind of white.”
“What registers this kind of white?”
“Elemental magic.” She looked at him, her eyes bottomless. “They killed the Iveses for this?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head and peered at the rock. “What are you?”
He half expected the rock to answer, but it stayed silent, glowing weakly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Someone jumped Luther,” she said.
“Luther? The Biohazard wizard?”
“Yep. Kate is out with Curran, so I took the call. They didn’t kill him, probably because they knew he worked for Biohazard, and they didn’t want a whole gaggle of mages hunting them down, so they hit him over the head as he was stepping out of his car. He doesn’t remember it. He remembers parking and then waking up on the ground with a headache and a bloody head. That afternoon someone brought him a rock. They claimed it fell from the sky and glowed under moonlight, and they wanted a thousand dollars for it. The magic was down by the time the rock got to Luther, so he bargained them down to three hundred bucks. He tried to get a sample to analyze, but he couldn’t cut it at his lab—nothing worked—so he took it to the Mage College, where they managed to slice a small flake from it. He was bringing the rock back to Biohazard when he was attacked.”
She reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out a small plastic vial. Inside, a tiny crumb of the rock glowed. “Luther is down with a concussion, so he couldn’t go look for it.”
And he wouldn’t ask his colleagues for help, because they’d ask why the hell he’d taken a possibly magic rock out of the Biohazard building. She probably hadn’t told him she would be the one doing the job. Most likely Luther thought Kate was on it. He would’ve done the same in her place. Why worry the client? As long as the job gets done, it doesn’t matter who does it.
“So I went to the place where the rock was found, climbed the building, and waited for the magic to hit.” She tapped the contai
ner. “The rock’s magic shines like a tiny star. If you know what to look for, you can see it from miles away.”
Which meant that if Caleb could see it, he would know exactly where they were at all times. “Any way to hide it?”
She shook her head. “It’s magic, Derek. I saw it through the house. Your turn. Why are you here?”
He started with a call from Curran and coming to the house where Hope, Melissa Ives’ sister, frantically rocked herself, crying hysterically. Curran and Kate patronized that shop. It was a well-known fact, and when she found the bodies, she called 911 first and Curran second. Curran, in turn, had called him. His orders simple: Find the people responsible and make sure they never do it again. How exactly he went about it was up to him. He made sure to have Melissa Ives’ sister sign the contract hiring him and Kate and Curran’s firm to investigate the murder. Anything he did in the pursuit of the investigation gave him a blanket umbrella of self-defense. After speaking to the overworked detective at the scene, he doubted he’d need it, but Kate liked to keep things legal, and he respected her wishes.
He glossed over finding the bodies. He did tell her about Caleb Adams, the rock that broke in three parts, and the dead men in the bar. Her face got tighter and tighter as he spoke.
“I hate people,” she said when he finished.
He wasn’t a fan of people either.
“What does it do?” he asked, looking at the rock.
“I don’t know.”
Whatever it was, people were willing to kill for it. The mission parameters had changed, he decided. He would still punish Adams for killing the Iveses. But he would have to recover the rock as well. It was too dangerous to be left uncontained.
A light noise came from the outside. He inhaled. Patricia, one of Jim’s shapeshifter agents; Nicolas; and two others whose scents he knew well. They’d come to pick up the injured. They’d smell him and Julie. If they had any questions, they’d look them up.
Julie tilted her head, giving him an appraising look. “So, Pillar Rock or Caleb Adams?”
She wouldn’t let go of this, and he wasn’t fool enough to try to convince her otherwise. Once Julie got a case, she was like a wolf with a bone. A dog would give up a treat for his human; a wolf surrendered it to no one. She could see the rock’s magic, and he couldn’t. He could either work with her and get this done faster and safer, or he could go off on his own. The latter brought no benefits, and he would wonder where she was and what she was doing the entire time.