Crossed (37 page)

While I watched her eyes, she responded with a savage knee to my abdomen. My mouth dropped open as she jerked the stake from my chest, but the thought of being staked brought me past the pain. Talbot had once tried to explain to me that since I’d gone through PMS (postmortem stress), my body was an interface for my essence. Supposedly, once I got better at it, I’d be able to shut off pain more efficiently. I wasn’t good enough yet, but I was still a Vlad.

I caught the stake, my hand closing on hers with such rapidity that I could have sworn I saw admiration in her eyes. The snap, crackle, and pop of finger and hand bones breaking and giving way sounded beneath my fingertips.

“How do you like that, bitch?”

Her other arm shot up, and I snagged her wrist. She smiled through the pain. “I’ve had better.”

I never saw the stake coming. James rammed it in from behind. Bloodied, but unsplintered, the tip of his custom stake jutted out at an angle between my breasts. Aarika had maneuvered me into position, arms wide, completely preoccupied with kicking her scrawny ass. It was a good tactic.

“Sorry about that.” Eric’s war buddy shifted me around, using the stake as a handle to move me as he wanted. “Normally this is not how I treat the wife of a friend.” He locked eyes with me and I felt a connection, not unlike the one forged when vampires locked eyes with each other or with humans, but I couldn’t push my will across it.

“Damn it.” My lips didn’t move, but I heard myself say it.

“Who did Eric bring for backup?” James’s lips didn’t move either. “Who’s out there fighting Christian?”

Telepathy. Real telepathy, not push-me-pull-me mental dominance. I laughed, the sound ringing loud in my mind and James’s. Before I convinced Eric to turn me, I’d believed becoming a vampire would let us have some sort of lovers’ telepathy. I heard the crack of a gun, and the side of James’s head vanished in a spray of gore.

“Somebody grab the fucking thrall.” James’s voice was clear in my head even though his body was already falling to one side. With no one to support me, I fell. On my way to the floor, I caught a glimpse of Beatrice, holding one of James’s guns in both hands, like someone in a cop show. Aarika was on one knee, flexing her fingers to get Bea’s attention while reaching for a boot knife with her right hand.

“Put the gun down, thrall.” Aarika snarled the words. “Do you wish to see how quickly you heal from a broken neck?”

“Enough!”

It rang through my head, vibrating my skull, a jet plane
roar of communication before the doors exploded inward, the bodies of the immortals who had rushed off to reinforce Christian flying in after the pieces of the ruined doors.

It was a wolf—not a werewolf, but a wolf wolf, a giant one with black fur and blazing eyes. It stood easily as high at the shoulder as Eric, if not higher. Werewolves with Celtic patterns shaved into their fur walked with it, three on either side.

All of the combatants scattered save for Eric and Ji. Beatrice let the gun tumble from her hands, and it seemed to take forever to hit the ground. She might have moved to unstake me, but either the wolf terrified her in some primal way or else it did something to her, because she collapsed as it drew near. Frost covered its nose as it padded closer to Eric, out of my range of vision. As my anger turned to curiosity and fear, sleep took me, and my last thought was from a terrible movie Eric had made me watch—something about a wolfman and ’nards.

    36    

ERIC:

LA BêTE GARNIER

Anvils of pressure landed on my chest. Ribs cracked, and I heard the Asian kid grunt. He had a giant black-furred paw on his chest, the well-trimmed claws digging into his pectorals. You’d have expected a musky scent, but the fur had a nice clean shampoo smell. I looked up and saw nothing but dark black fur. There was a wolf the size of a Clydesdale standing on top of me. Its paw covered my chest, restraining my shoulders, and all I could think was:
When the hell did that thing get here? And wasn’t I all ghosted up just a minute ago?

I tried to ghost myself, but got a bodywide electric shock instead, which numbed my teeth and crossed my eyes. The wolf’s tremendous head bent low. Clean white teeth the size of small countries filled its mouth, and a wave of mint assailed me.

“Stay put, vampire.” I couldn’t help but make a comparison to James Earl Jones. This guy sounded just like him, but the delivery was much more “This is CNN” than “Luke, I am your father.”

Pressure eased on my chest. My ribs healed as the massive
paw lifted, but Asian Guy winced at the unavoidable pressure increase that resulted.

“You smell nice for a big dog.” I rubbed my chest, but made no move to rise.

“Garnier,” he answered. “Now be quiet.”

Deacon stood to the wolf’s left in balls-out werewolf fashion. Even so, he looked cowed. The surviving Apostles were with him (two on his side of Megawolf and three on the other side).

“Master Ji.” Megawolf lifted his paw, and an unrestrained wheeze escaped the man’s throat. “Explain.”

“The vampire charged the Head of Scrythax.” He coughed, but it was a spark of energy, not blood, that escaped his lips. “We couldn’t let him take it.”

“I was only talking to the damn thing—”

A gargantuan wolf paw to the chest shut me up. “Why are you speaking? I asked Ji.”

“Impossible.” Master Ji was looking better by the second. His ribs had healed, shifting back into place without any outside assistance. Neat trick. “We did not hear it speak. Scrythax is all but dead; he could not have—”

“And yet”—Megawolf didn’t actually have to stomp Ji to get him to quiet down again; a simple shift of the leg was all it took to make Ji’s mouth slam tight—“I believe him.”

The wolf shifted its gaze to the other immortals, who were slowly regrouping near the pedestal. “Oddvar!”

The old, morbidly obese immortal stepped forward.
“Oui, la Bête?”

“Convey my apologies to Isaac. I ingested his paladin.”

The fat man cringed. “Did you—?”

“Soul-battle? No.” The wolf chuffed. “He will re-form. Digestive processing is unpleasant for immortals, but survivable. Ask Master Ji.”

“This thing ate you once?” I tentatively moved to rise, making it a slow, deliberate motion. I do understand the idea of respecting power, and as far as I could tell, this thing had single-pawedly slapped me down in full-blown raging blackout uber-vamp mode, and I really didn’t want to make it mad. I would if I had to, because I’m me, but still . . .

“Twice.” Ji looked away, face blanched. The tang of fear rose off him in waves, and the Megawolf loosed a barking noise that could have been a laugh.

“Unnecessary fear, Ji.” Gripping the immortal gently with his fangs, the wolf pulled Master Ji into a standing position and gave him one brief lick on the face. “No need to repeat the lesson. You understood on the second pass.”

“Merci, la Bête.”
Ji bowed low.

“What’s a soul battle?” Beatrice asked that one. The immortals flinched.

Aarika opened her mouth to explain, but Megawolf’s response silenced her.

“No.” He held his head high, puffing himself up in a way. “My time is not for wasting.” He turned his head to Luc, who was in the midst of reattaching his own head.
La Bête
waited while the flesh melted together and the wound healed. “Explain.”

“Explain?” Luc asked, rubbing his throat and testing the mobility of his newly healed neck.

“Oui.”

“Explain what,
la Bête
?”

I’d compared Megawolf’s roar to a thunderclap, but the rumble was reminiscent of an earthquake. It shook the walls. “Idiots!” The creature’s teeth receded painfully, blood flowing from its open mouth in a thick stream. Bones cracked and reknit themselves, filling the room with a sound like oaks creaking in a hurricane. He roared again as its hair withdrew in random patches. Its muzzle shortened and its digits both grew
proportionately longer and shrank, bulging awkwardly as the claws receded, forcing the skin to stretch to accommodate it and only then shrinking.

When it was done, a male in human form knelt where the wolf had been. He rose, revealing himself to be quite tall, close to seven feet. Nude at first, he covered himself as an afterthought, summoning what looked like some sort of historical hunter’s attire, all leathers and fur, the same way I’d seen other immortals produce arms and armor. There was still a wrongness. In the same way that normal werewolves look fake, he felt wrong. It took three seconds for me to find the source of the problem. His shadow wasn’t human. It still matched the size, proportions, and shape of his Megawolf self.

Deacon and the other Apostles averted their gazes.

“Do I have to wear your form”—the words came from his mouth this time—normal words, yet accompanied by a telepathic echo of the voice I’d heard before—“and speak with this?” He gestured to himself with obvious disgust. “Must I draw out my meaning and make puzzles in your minds so that you can comprehend what should be obvious?”

“Mea culpa, la Bête,”
Luc began.

“The next man who names me, I will eat.” Megawolf crossed the room and seized Luc by the throat. “I feel it when you name me. It touches my spirit. I will not be defined by words. I am not words. I am form and spirit and hunt. Do you understand, Luc?”

“Oui.”
He barely caught the
“la Bête”
but he kept it in.

“Now. In words that will pass these ears”—he tapped the side of Luc’s head with an index finger—“and be understood, here”—he thumped Luc’s forehead. “Why did you allow an Emperor vampire to enter Paris?”

“You do not wish him to remain?” That was Aarika. “We’ll remove him at once—”

Megawolf cut her off with a look.

“I expressed no such opinion.” His gaze shot to me and then back to Luc. “I already know why
I
allowed it. Now, I want to know why
you
did and why you brought him to your beloved demon-god.”

“He has a right to be in Paris.”

“No.” Megawolf’s spoken words were soft, but the matching telepathic message was a shout. “No more Emperors. I said as much when Lisette was accepted. Did you think my mind had changed because a few thousand moons had passed?”

“But he wants to kill Lisette,” Luc protested. “Surely that—”

“Close.” Megawolf grinned and the expression overstretched the natural boundaries of his lips. “If you had said you did it because he is kin, because of your family curse, Luc, then I would have understood.”

“Family? Curse?” True bewilderment touched Luc’s eyes. He really didn’t know. “He’s no relation of mine. The seventh generation of Courtneys would have died off years ago.”

“You are a poor ancestor, Luc,” he snarled, “and a blind one. Can you not see the touch of Scrythax on his spirit? What magic is as old and pure as the curse of an Infernatti? Do you not see the piece of Scrythax which blazes in his heart?” Megawolf paused. “I see that you do not. Ah, you swore on the demon’s head. It has altered your senses. Of course it would.”

“Can you go back to being all shut the fuck up and eatin’ people?” I shook my head, struggling to stand, “‘cause I was interested when you were a Megawolf. But the Tall Hairy Guy who runs his mouth and acts all pissy is just annoying.”

Maybe it’s that I’ve never been the tallest guy in the class. Maybe that’s where my mouth came from. Could be that I was just too brain-addled to keep my mouth shut. A trickle of cool went through my body, leaving traces of warmth in its wake, and it didn’t feel like Rachel’s magic. It was cold and pure. Scrythax. The stupid demon was trying to calm me down, but that had been my problem all along. Sober, I overthink things.
I worry about details. But buzzed—altered—I might do damn near anything.

“I’m talking to the immortals, vampire.” Tall Hairy Guy gave a dismissive wave as if he were flicking me away with his hand, which put him just within arm’s reach.

“Round two.” I had no vampire speed, no red-eye glow. It wouldn’t come. But my strength is always there. I grabbed his wrist and yanked him off balance with a good solid tug. Eyes wide, Tall Hairy Guy gave me a satisfying “oof” as I folded him over my knee with a sharp knee spike to the stomach. I rammed the knee home once, twice, three times, my strength giving me the power to overcome his larger shape.