“How many siggies?” I asked.
“Forty-seven,” Sabina said.
I huffed an irritated breath and took up the pen. Started signing. It took a while.
When I was done, I checked with Alex. His head was bent over his tablet. “Update on Dominique and the shielded witch?”
He shook his head, curls bouncing, and stood. “Male driver. Facial rec program in progress. Dominique in the passenger seat. Others in the car, faces unrecognizable. Wove through the streets and got on I-10, headed east. I’ll update when I find them again.”
“Good.”
“Plate issued to Mithran Council Chambers,” he said. “I’m running a search for anyone who might be missing. Someone let them into the chambers and into the library.” What he didn’t add was that it had to be someone from inside, likely a member of the security team. Crap.
Gee held out his arm the way a game show model would and I walked toward him, aware of the others behind me, following in a single line as we left the Mithran Council Chambers and headed down the hall toward the elevator, silent. I was deeply, profoundly aware of the people at my back. Of the names I had spoken when I created my clan. Of the weirdness of it all. I had walked out of the mountain woods when I was twelve years old, naked, scarred, scared, with no language, no social skills, a wildling, with nothing at all except a gold nugget clasped in my hand.
Now I had a clan of people who had sworn to me, people I needed to protect. And there would be more. Maybe lots more. A cold chill skittered down my spine at the thought of keeping them all safe and cared for. Gee stopped and asked Eli for his headset. I leaned my back against the wall so I could see up and down it, the cold chills growing worse. Eli leaned against the other side, pulling his brother to his left, into the safest place, though the Kid was tapping into his cell, head down, oblivious. Eli’s hands went to his weapons, his face taking on that still, expressionless mask of the warrior, watching me for clues that might explain my foreboding. I searched up and down, sniffing. I couldn’t see a reason for Eli’s disquiet, for my feeling that something wasn’t right. Trying to keep the scree of sound silent, I sucked the air in through my mouth and over my tongue but detected nothing out of the ordinary.
The elevator door opened and though it was going down before we could go up, we filed in. Gee said, “I have sent word to the people who were invited into Clan Yellowrock. We expect replies and vows soon.”
Or not. I heard the unspoken words. I knew most of my potential clan members wouldn’t be able to swear face-to-face due to distance and time constraints, but I figured most would become my people. Holy crap. My people. The biggest part of me wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over my eyes. The smallest part told me to pull up my big-girl panties and act like a war woman. Not that war women traditionally wore panties.
The elevator door closed and dropped. Came to a stop. And began to open.
Screams clawed down the hallway, high-pitched squeals and low-voiced growling.
My hands shot out and rammed the doors open. I dashed into the hallway. Catching a glimpse of Eli and Gee pulling weapons, racing after me. The scent of the gym hallway was mold and old sweat and traces of old blood, some of it mine, shampoo and deodorant and locker rooms. I blew through the gym doors.
The stench of wrongness hit me just as Leo himself caught me around the waist. Time stuttered. Leo grabbed me again. Time stuttered. Leo grabbed me again. Leo, holding me. Together we fluttered in and out of time.
Time went flat and still. Returned to normal. My momentum nearly threw us both to the floor, but his vamp strength twisted us until we swung around one last time. He caught our balance and stopped us, like an ungainly dance move as my feet touched down. “My Jane?” Leo breathed. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. Magic?” I lied. But I did know. Time had done something funky. My head spiked with pain, so bad I wanted to close my eyes.
Larry, Leo’s personal manservant, looked at us oddly.
I stopped. Took my own weight and pushed away from Leo. Shifted to the side. Eli and the others stopped too, studying the room, securing weapons. I swept my eyes around the gym.
Three werecats were fighting vamps. A sparring match. Bodies were flying, falling, rolling, and leaping back to the bare-handed/bare-pawed/bare-clawed fight. I caught my breath, watching as they sparred.
The door behind us opened. The smell of lemons swept in, but no one was there. The anomaly. The witch was here.
Before I could shout a warning, a werelion in half-form looked Leo’s way, Asad in half-form. He roared. It was a chuffing, reverberating thunder that stole all other sound from the air. The hairs on my arms and back of my neck stood up in some primal horror that said I was about to die horribly. To Eli I said, “Lemons.”
“I smell them. Searching.”
“Ditto,” Alex said, fingers dancing over his tablet.
The stench of lemons increased and the burn of magic boiled into the wide room. The werelion chuffed, twisted his head on his thick neck, and shook himself. Magic, familiar, somehow. Asad turned. Picked up a vamp. And threw her across the room. She screamed in surprise, hit, bounced, rolled, and lay still. Blood pooled beneath her head. Leo tensed.
The werelion roared again, clawed paw-hands in the air. Asad whipped his whole body to the doorway, his nasal folds opening and closing with each breath. He hadn’t seen me when he looked this way, his eyes on Leo then. This time he saw me. Our gazes met and stuck together like glue.
He threw back his head and roared, this time in unquestioned challenge, fangs white and massive. Beast ripped into the front of my brain. Predator! By instinct, my muscles bunched and my hand found a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh. I pulled it free of its hidden sheath. I was still in half-form. Fighting form. Beast snarled, showing killing teeth.
Kem was closer to our group than the other weres. Pulled a blade that was strapped to his human thigh, screaming a leopard cry. Kem was supposed to be tamed. What had happened to him? Magic . . . Growing heavy, hard to breathe. A staged sparring match had suddenly become real. Kemnebi screamed a challenge.
Leo’s swords swept up. He shouted, “You dare!”
I smelled the bloodlust on Kem-cat. “Predator!” Beast screamed again, this time from my/our throat. Beast gathered control of my body, taking over. She stepped to the side of Leo, protecting her alpha from Kem’s attack. I scrabbled for control as she screamed a cat challenge.
Kemnebi screamed, mouth open wide, snout back in snarl, fangs white. Shifting fast, into a partial half-form. Raced to Jane/Beast. Raised steel claw.
Beast shoved down on Jane.
Ducked under Kemnebi blade. Fell to floor. Stabbed up, into Kem belly. Tore up and side to side. Kem’s belly opened. Blood sprayed. Beast rolled beyond wounded cat. Up to back paws. Standing like Jane. But Kem, wounded, turned on Leo, reaching with leopard claws. Fully cat. Larry jumped in front of Master of the City. Protecting him.
Jane/Beast stabbed Kem in back. Kem dropped to floor. Trying to shift back from leopard form to human, to heal. But blade that struck him had been silvered and had sliced into spine. Kem was trapped in cat form. Was dying.
Larry was on floor. Bleeding. Most of throat gone. Leo was bending over Larry, cutting own fingers to heal human. Thought at Jane, Do not understand.
Thoughts raced through Jane’s mind. Betrayal. Magic, Jane thought. No grindylow anywhere. And Larry tried to save Leo. He might have were-taint.
Beast screamed challenge. Hate pack hunters! Kill pack hunters!
Jane pushed Beast back from control. Fought for alpha position. Beast screamed, Will not be beta to Jane alpha!
Stop! Jane thought. Stop fighting me. I don’t know what’s happening, but this isn’t over. I’m a better fighter with a sword.
Beast let Jane take over. Pushed power into half-Beast/half-Jane form. Screamed challenge. Asad and Nantale, in half-lion fighting form, attacked, each of them spinning two swords. Eli stepped in front of me, raised a gun, and shot Nantale. She dropped and writhed on the floor. I smelled silver and were blood.
Asad roared, grief and fury in his tone. And the smell of lemons flared brighter. Asad, golden eyes gleaming, attacked. Eli fired. Edmund and I moved around him and engaged the werelion. Asad, king of the Fulani, an alpha male and experienced fighter, took us both on. Edmund ripped him to shreds in seconds. I sliced Asad’s throat. Asad slowed. Blinked. Looked down at his swords as if puzzled. The leader of the Party of African Weres tripped, stumbled, slid to the floor. And died.