He was sitting on the floor of his cage, nibbling on the smaller werewolf, beak tearing and ripping flesh. I was pretty sure the were was dead, as there was more blood sloshing in the circle than there was inside of him. What skin he still wore over his muscles and viscera was bluish. The man was missing both arms and most of one leg. What is it about supernatural creatures needing to eat humans when they go to the dark side?
The larger werewolf, the one I called Fire Truck, looked as if he’d lost a third of his considerable body weight. His ribs were clearly visible beneath his thin skin and thick body hair, breathing, smiling, eyes closed, apparently napping in the congealing blood of his wolf-buddy.
The demon stood as I entered, wings half spread as if to cover and protect his dinner. His similarity to an anzu was marked, yet wrong somehow, as if an anzu had mated with a shadow and given birth to this monstrosity. His beak opened and he trilled softly, as if pleased to see me.
Molly stopped at the foot of the stairs, her eyes wide. Carmen stopped behind her, mumbling air witch curses damning storms and fire winds. Behind them, one twin was crying, the other was red-faced with anger. The angry one said, “Evangelina should be whipped for this. Cast out.”
Cia said, “Evangelina should go to jail for this.”
I hadn’t told them about the body rolled in the rug upstairs. But eventually I’d have to report it to the police. Even if he’d died of natural causes, I rather doubted he’d rolled himself in the carpet and tucked it behind the couch first. So the cops were in Evangelina’s future one way or another.
“Come to me,” the trapped demon said to Molly. “I will show you true freedom, true power.”
“Don’t talk to that thing,” Carmen warned.
“Your sister has found freedom and power with me,” he said.
Molly whispered, to her sisters, not to the demon, “Our sister has been cursed. Not freed.” To me she said, “Where is the vampire?”
I walked around the room until I could see the back of the hedge of thorns. Lincoln Shaddock lay on the black-painted floor—sleeping the sleep of the undead, or maybe really dead—against the wall that led into the kennel. I nudged him with my foot, but he didn’t react. He didn’t look so good; he looked true dead, pasty, shriveled, and maybe a little blue. I bent over him and took a sniff. The usual vamp smell of dry herbs, bark, flowers, and earth was missing. But so was the smell of death. He smelled like . . . nothing. Part of the room.
I walked back to the other side and realized that the sisters were already sitting on the floor at the points of the pentagram that was painted inside the hedge, their talismans in laps or around necks. “Molly?” I asked, alarmed.
“Black magic works best at night and is weakest with the sun overhead.” She checked her watch. “We hope to bind the demon and send him back to the place he came from.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“No idea,” Molly said. I didn’t know much about witch power, but I did know about evil, and you didn’t go up against pure evil, absolute not-of-this-world evil, alone. You needed help, big help. Better-than-human help. They needed faith and a full coven.
“Some things we don’t need to know,” one of the twins said.
“Don’t want to know,” the other twin said.
Carmen Miranda pulled a silver cross from her shirt and dangled it over her chest in the necklace of feathers and leaves. “It’s someplace without air and warmth. Someplace without light. Without the sun. Without the breath of life. Without God.”
With the last word, the demon threw himself at the hedge. Light exploded out, bloody, and cloudy, murky black. A boom sounded, slapping off the walls. I jumped back, hitting the white wall. A mushroom cloud of heat blossomed out. A painting fell, dislodged by the concussion of sound and my body. I reached out, Beast-fast. Caught the corner of the frame as it tilted out into the room. Toward the hedge.
I dropped my body and shoved upward, high, hard. I landed on the floor with a dull thud, stabilizing the painting in both hands. Balancing. Lifting even as I rolled beneath it. Gingerly, I set the painting against the wall, where it couldn’t break the circle. The room was hot and stank of a sulfur compound.
I twitched my head around, my hair scraping on the floor, and met Molly’s horrified eyes. There was a red place on her cheek, as if she had been burned. Carmen was worse off, blisters rising on her skin. The twins were out of place, standing in the corner, holding hands. Fire Truck, inside with the demon, was shifting into his wolf, reddish hairs sprouting, bones sliding with sickening cracks and pops. Eyes open, he screamed. A crack, black and sooty ran down the sides of the dome of the hedge. The demon had damaged it.
“Get out of here,” I whispered.
The demon threw himself at the hedge of thorns again. The crack spread, a dirty, dull crack in the energies that caged him. A widening fracture filled with darkness, a dripping blackness. The sound was a sonic boom, tearing air from the room. Heat crazed along my flesh, burning. Scalding. Branding. The scent of burning sulfur ballooned out. I screamed. My spine bowed, lifting me from the floor, only my head and feet touching down. “Get out!” I screamed to the witches. “Get out!” They ran up the stairs, feet pounding.
My bones slid. Skin abraded, splitting. The gray light of the change slid over me, sparking with black lights. But mine sparked like black diamonds reflecting the sun, my own bright magic called forth. Pelt spilled out. Killing teeth erupted from my gums. The magics of the hedge seared and singed pelt and skin. I screamed. Pushed out of my clothes, claws ripping cloth. Still shifting, I leaped free.
My Beast magic shoved back at the rift in the hedge’s energies. Bright and cool as a mountain stream. Beast filled my mind.
Beast is better than Jane, better than big-cat. Beast knows what to do. Spread claws. Swiped a paw down Lincoln Shaddock’s arm, drawing vampire blood. Not two-natured. But powerful.
I/we threw undead blood at crack in hedge of thorns. It landed like spats of water on hot stone. Black light blew out. Beast was thrown like kit swiped by mother’s paw. Into air. White light shot out. Pulled crack in ward together. Beast hit wall. Paintings fell. Frames cracking. But none fell into hedge. None broke circle.
Demon inside circle threw back beak and screamed. I shook head and snarled. Gathered feet under body and backed away, pawpawpaw, silent. Good hunter. Backed to stairs. Stood and studied demon. Studied reddish wolf in ward of hedge. Sleeping wolf. Skinny with hunger.
How did you know? Jane asked. Fear filled her mind. Kit fear, afraid of shadows, leaping at leaves as if at prey. How did you know how to stop the hedge breaking? How did you know when I didn’t? And why aren’t you being pulled toward that thing?
I backed up stairs. Whirled, to face up stairs, tail spinning slow for balance. Landed facing away from trapped death. Raced up fast. Hunger tore at belly. Need to hunt! I raced through Evangelina’s house. Out open door. Into light. Eyes blinked against sun, dazzling in garden.
Witches were standing in garden, staring at house. Staring at Beast. Hands out, fingers spread like killing claws. Power built in their hands. Against Beast. Black storm cloud in Carmen’s hands. Cold air gusted through garden, around her, into her hands. Leaves and trees talked with leaf sounds. I chuffed. Warning.