Blood Heir Read online

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “Didn’t matter,” she breathed. “I was dead already.”

  Damn it.

  I heaved her onto my back and ran to the front door, grabbing Dakkan on the way. She was trembling like a leaf. Lyc-V generated a lot of heat. Her body should’ve been burning up, but it was cold and clammy. The virus was losing the battle.

  “Where is the closest safe house? Is it still on Durham Street?”

  “Too far.” She clutched my arm with her hand. There was no strength in her fingers. “Just take me out of here. Don’t want to die in this shithole.”

  I reached the front door and almost collided with Derek. He saw the shapeshifter on my shoulders.

  “Put her down.”

  There was an unmistakable authority in his voice. I dropped my spear and swung the girl to the floor.

  Derek knelt by her and looked into her eyes. “Look at me.”

  She did. Her tremors stopped. Suddenly she was completely focused on him.

  Derek pulled out a knife. “I’m going to flood your lungs with blood. It will pick up the dust. You’ll need to push it out.”

  All of the Pack’s shapeshifters went through silver-extraction training. Their flesh shrank from it, and it required a great effort of will to force it out of their bodies. But that training was designed for bullets and arrowheads, not silver dust.

  “It will hurt,” Derek said. “It will be hard to breathe. Listen to my voice. Look at me. Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not,” she squeezed out.

  “Good.” He split her shirt down the middle and stabbed between her ribs, once, twice, a third time. Oh gods. She shuddered, but her gaze never left his face. Five, six.

  “You’re going to kill her.”

  He ignored me. “Push,” he ordered.

  The girl strained. Black blood oozed from the wounds in her chest. Convulsions gripped her.

  “Hold her down,” he told me.

  I pinned her shoulders to the floor.

  “Push.” His voice turned deep, commanding, as if woven from pure magic. There was something primal about it, not primitive but ancient. It caught the girl like a lasso and anchored her to life. He ordered her to live, and she obeyed.

  “Push.”

  The girl gasped. Dark blood poured out of her.

  “Good,” he told her. “Push harder.”

  More blood, thick like tar.

  The girl’s feet drummed the ground. She shuddered and went still.

  We’d lost her. We’d lost her, and she’d died right here in my arms.

  It felt like I’d fallen off a cliff. I was falling and falling and couldn’t find the bottom.

  Derek gripped the girl’s sides. I felt magic move and slid into my sensate vision. Derek’s hands glowed with mint green.

  “You need to breathe for her,” he told me. “Start CPR.”

  I put my hands on her bloody chest and pushed. More blood poured out, drenching my fingers. I counted to thirty and breathed two slow breaths into her mouth.

  She didn’t move. Nothing. The mint green wrapped her whole body now.

  One, two, three, four… Thirty.

  Two more breaths.

  The girl jerked. Blood spilled out of her chest wounds, black, then grey, then red. She sucked in a deep breath and coughed, spraying grey blood on my face. Awareness came back into her eyes. She saw Derek and smiled. Her voice was a soft whisper.

  “Did I make it?”

  “Yes.” Derek let go of her.

  “Oh good. I’m so happy right now.”

  Her eyes closed. Shit.

  I shook her. Derek caught my wrist.

  “It’s fine now. Let her sleep.”

  He’d saved her. She was going to die right here, in my hands, and he’d saved her.

  I sat on my ass and looked at my hands, stained with dark blood. It smelled like rust. Across from me, Derek wiped his knife on the shreds of the girl’s shirt. He looked haggard, as if he’d packed an entire rough night into the last five minutes.

  Shapeshifters didn’t do magic. They were magic. The few exceptions I’d met had magic abilities because of their origin, like Dali Shrapshire, the Beast Lord’s mate, who was a mystical white tiger.

  I pointed to the girl. “What was that?”

  “An acute case of silver dust poisoning.”

  “I know that…”

  He shrugged, his face impassive. “Congratulations, Ms. Ryder. She was dying, and you saved her life through the wonder of CPR.”

  What?

  Derek straightened.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move in the hallway, a crossbow in their hands. I swiped Dakkan off the floor and hurled it. The spear punched the shadow in the chest. The crossbow bolt went wide, sinking into the wall three feet to Derek’s right. A woman. Her crossbow clattered to the ground.

  “Look at you. Two for two. Saving lives left and right.” Derek turned and walked deeper into the house.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To wash my hands. They itch.”

  Thirty seconds later he was back, and ten seconds after that I was in the bathroom lathering up my fingers with lavender-scented soap. My brain finally processed what I’d seen and decided it made no sense. I wiped my hands on a towel and went back into the hallway.

  Derek had the girl in his arms and was waiting for me by the door. We walked out of the house. He strode down the driveway, carrying her like she weighed less than a feather pillow. His jaw muscles were locked. Derek was pissed off.

  “You didn’t wait for me,” he said, his voice casual. “We had a deal.”

  “Douglas had a stroke. He might not make it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He sounded like he really was. We walked down in silence.

  He had magic. It was mint green.

  “This one will make it,” Derek said.

  No thanks to me.

  We reached the end of the driveway. The gate was open, and Ponytail sprawled on the ground. A hoof-sized hole gaped in his skull, and black flies crawled on his bloody hair. Next to him Tulip waited with a docile expression, looking like the picture of equine innocence.

  Derek raised his eyebrows.

  Tulip saw us and started forward.

  “We both know it wasn’t CPR,” I said.

  He ignored me and loaded the girl onto Tulip’s saddle.

  “Did you get anything useful from Rudolph?” he asked.

  “Yes. He—”

  Rudolph’s house exploded. A ball of fire bulged and roared upward, blooming like a mushroom cloud. Heat smashed us with a scorching fist. A meteor shower of burning debris shot into the air and rained down all around us.

  Derek snarled.

  I yanked Dakkan out.

  Zahar leaped out of the tree to the right and dropped by Derek.

  A chunk of the roof landed in front of me, sending sparks skittering over the pavement. Fire shot out of it and snapped into a familiar tattered wraith. The ma’avir spread his hands, tipped with fiery claws.

  The sound of ritual drums echoed through my mind, faint and weaker than before, when the high priest came to me in Professor Walton’s office. The enticing scent of the sacrificial smoke was a mere hint. This was a messenger, a lesser.

  “We know where you have been.” His voice was like the hissing of wet wood in a fire. “We know where you are going. Nothing you do is secret from us. We could have burned you inside that dwelling, yet we have spared you to remind you that he is waiting. Cease your pitiful attempts to prevent the inevitable. Accept your fate. Go to him now and all will be forgiven…”

  I stabbed Dakkan into his chest. Bones broke with a dry crunch like twigs. The ma’avir shrieked and flailed, fire raging around him. I thrust the spear deeper, carving through him.

  “Die, worm.”

  He howled, trying to form a prayer. I heaved the spear and drove him in an arc over my head into the ground. His robes tor
e, flames spiraling out, revealing the burned, desiccated husk that was his body. I yanked Dakkan free, reversed it, and drove the butt of the spear into the priest’s skull. Bone crunched. I hammered his ugly face again and again, pounding his skull with the butt of the spear into dust.

  “Die and tell your god I sent you to the afterlife!”

  The flames wailed like a living creature. The ma’avir jerked and exploded.

  Soot drifted through the air. I took a deep breath and looked up.

  Derek rose from the ground. Next to him, Zahar, still prone, stared at me with eyes as big as saucers. In the distance, all the way across the road, Tulip pinched some grass off the ground and chewed, unconcerned, while the bouda girl lay limp across her saddle.

  Derek’s eyes went gold. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

  “We need to go to the pirogi stand. Right now.”

  He stared at me.

  “We need to get there before they do!”

  “Zahar,” Derek said. “Take the girl to the Pack safe house. There is one on Durham Street. Leave her there. If they try to detain you, use my old name. Pull everyone in. Where is this pirogi stand?”

  “On the corner of 15th and Peachtree, by my house.”

  “Bring everyone there.”

  “Yes, Alpha.” Zahar took off at a run, swept the girl into his arms, and dashed up the street.

  Derek turned to me. “Get on your horse. You will explain this to me on the way. All of it.”

  16

  The pirogi stall was on fire.

  I swung off Tulip’s back and sprinted to it. Pieces of the stall smoldered, sending greasy smoke into the air. I tried to peer inside the gutted structure. Behind me Derek inhaled.

  I had told him the bare minimum about Moloch. Mentioning Kate would give me away, so I explained that a person close to me was Moloch’s target, and that he and I “had a score to settle.” I also told him that Moloch wanted the divine beast’s heart so he could glimpse the future.

  I wasn’t sure if he bought it, but for now it would have to do.

  “I don’t smell any burned corpses,” Derek said. “Did they take the owner hostage?”

  “It’s not their style. They must’ve missed him and burned the stall to make sure I miss him, too.”

  Come to think of it, it was a weird location for the stall. Too close to Unicorn Lane. The area was poor, the foot traffic light. I had never seen any other customers there. I was keeping them afloat all by my lonesome.

  Derek stopped and inhaled. He was staring at the raggedy blanket where my friend the beggar spent his days.

  Derek shook his head and inhaled again.

  “What is it?”

  “There is no fucking way.”

  “What does that mean?”

  For a second his flat expression slipped. “I smell a dead man.”

  “I don’t see a corpse…”

  “I saw the corpse. I saw it eight years ago. I carried his coffin at his funeral.”

  The fractured pieces in front of me snapped together. A female broker who disappears into thin air and whom nobody can find. A pirogi stall on the edge of Unicorn Lane that isn’t doing any business except collecting the phone numbers for the broker. The beggar who watches it.

  I blinked. The magic trails blossomed in front of me. The filthy blanket where the beggar had sat turned into a dazzling mix of clear human blue and silver shot through with gold.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Can you track him?”

  Derek started forward. “Oh yes. And when I get my hands on him, he’ll wish he fucking stayed dead.”

  We jogged down Peachtree Circle, Tulip gleefully keeping pace with us.

  “Did other shapeshifters know him?”

  “Everyone knew him,” Derek growled.

  “Ascanio Ferara had to have walked by his blanket when he came to see me.”

  “His blanket is soaked in piss. When you get close, all you can smell is ammonia and mothballs. Most people will take a whiff and give him all the space he needs.”

  We rounded a collapsed building and emerged onto my street. My house was a hundred yards ahead.

  “He went into Unicorn Lane,” Derek growled.

  I slipped back into the sensate vision. The beggar’s trail was a mere wisp, dissipating with every second. Beyond it, Unicorn Lane was a psychedelic rainbow soup of magic, clashing, mixing, boiling.

  Derek stopped. I stopped too.

  Ahead of us Ascanio walked out from behind my house and gave us a friendly wave.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Wait here,” Derek said. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Will you?” Ascanio asked. “Is that a fact?”

  He strolled toward us, leisurely, one foot in front of the other. You could almost see the hyena in his movement. Behind him, shapeshifters stepped into the open, from behind my house, from the abandoned building across the street on our right, from the fallen ruin on our left. Nine boudas total, with Ascanio. Crap.

  “Mr. Gaunt and I are old friends,” Ascanio purred.

  “You don’t have friends, Ascanio,” Derek said. “You have people who are useful to you and people who are not.”

  “Awww. You’re trying to hurt my feelings.” A ruby light rolled over Ascanio’s irises. “And I was so looking forward to our reunion.”

  Derek raised his hand and flicked his fingers. Five shapeshifters materialized from the buildings on the right, three men and two women. Wolves, all of them, except Zahar, who perched on the heap of rubble directly behind us. Our eyes met, and he winked at me. With Derek, that made six against Ascanio’s nine.

  “You’re outnumbered,” Derek said.

  Ascanio laughed. “You haven’t changed.”

  The two groups fanned out behind their leaders, each shapeshifter sizing up their opponents and picking out targets. This was now bigger than the two of them. If they fought, it would be a bloodbath.

  “Walk away, both of you,” I said. “This accomplishes nothing. What are you hoping to win?”

  “This isn’t about winning,” Ascanio said. His face took on a savage edge. A deranged light played in his eyes, the bouda crazy spilling out. “You should have stayed gone.”

  Derek looked impassive, as if he were attending a boring lecture and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

  No intelligent life on either side. I tried again. “You do this, and the Pack goes to war.”

  “Cherry,” Ascanio said. “Remove the knight and keep her safe.”

  A larger female bouda on the right stepped toward me.

  Right. “Cherry, I am a Knight of the Order. Put your hands on me, and you’ll be hauling rocks for weeks.”

  Cherry halted, unsure. The Pack was a big believer in redemption through hard labor.

  I turned to Ascanio. “If you give them an illegal order, they will still be punished. Your authority won’t shield them. Is that the kind of beta you are?”

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Ascanio snapped. “Stay out of Pack business, human.”

  The front door of my house burst open, and Namtur stormed out in all his tunic and sandals glory. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Behind him Marten snuck out onto the porch and gave me a little wave.

  I slapped my hand over my face. Why, Fate? Why? What did I do?

  The shapeshifters froze, momentarily perplexed by the appearance of an indignant old man in their midst. Ascanio blinked. Derek raised his eyebrows.

  Namtur pointed at the two boudas standing too close to my house. “You there! Get off this land.”

  One of the boudas cackled.

  “Great Uncle,” I growled.

  He stabbed his finger at me. “You! You come over here. It is unseemly! It is beneath you to brawl in the street.”

  Ascanio shook his head. “Somebody, pick up grandpa and put him back in the house before he gets hurt.”

  Namtur’s eyes bulged.

  “Uh oh,” Marten said.r />
  “Insolent worm,” the Royal Assassin hissed. “I’ll skin you, weakling, and wear shoes made of your mangy pelt.”

  Derek looked at me. “Interesting relatives you have.”

  Ascanio pivoted to Namtur. “Mangy?”

  Of all the things he could have taken offense to.

  “Yes, carrion-eater. Slink away. It’s what your kind does best.”

  Ascanio sighed and waved his hand. The female bouda on his left started toward Namtur.

  Namtur smiled. There was no warmth in it.

  “No killing!” I called out. “No—”

  Namtur bent his right leg and raised it up, resting his ankle on his left leg, toes flexed out. His left arm came up to his chest, bent at the elbow. His right elbow rested on his left wrist, the forearm pointing straight up, his palm parallel to the ground, fingers pointing at the female bouda. Python’s coil.

  Well, it could’ve been worse.

  The female bouda covered the last six feet and reached for him.

  Magic struck out of Namtur in a purple cloud filled with the coils of a phantom serpent. It splayed through the street, like a blast wave, and vanished. Translucent purple chains gripped every shapeshifter, locking them in place. The top ring of the chain clamped their mouths, gagging them.

  The shapeshifters strained. Muscles bulged. Faces turned red. Nobody moved. Ascanio’s eyes burned with murderous fire. If looks could kill, Namtur would have two smoking holes in his head.

  “Ooh,” Marten said. “You could steal all their things.”

  Namtur smiled at the child. “I told you, there is no thief in this world equal to me.”

  My life was a circus. A circus full of thieves, and stupid shapeshifters, and small children executing evasive maneuvers.

  “How long will it last?” Marten asked.

  Namtur shrugged. “In my day, the People of the Fur were valiant and mighty. Great men and terrible beasts, a wonder to behold and a challenge to fight.” He waved his hand. “These… Meh.”

  Derek flexed his shoulders. The chains shattered and melted into thin air.

  Wow. He hadn’t even strained.

  Namtur’s eyes narrowed. “Except that one. Go inside, child.” He pulled a long, curved knife out of his robes.

  Okay, that was enough. The words of the old language came naturally, as if I was born to it. “Release them and take the child inside. Please.”