If we got Beau’s deputy injured, we could kiss the sheriff’s cooperation good-bye.
I moved toward the light, walking nice and slow, careful where I put my feet. The two shapeshifters glided on both sides of me. I could barely hear Holland behind me. It wasn’t his first time in the woods either.
The trees parted. A clearing spread before us, unnaturally circular, as if some giant had dropped a huge coin in the middle of the woods and forgotten about it for a decade or two. The grass covered the ground, but no trees had managed to encroach on the clearing. The growth around us was new too, the trees tall but thinner than those half a mile back by the river. Must’ve been a fire a few years back.
I walked to the edge of the clearing. An old woman stood in the light with her right side to me. She wore a pair of beige pants, a white collared blouse with matching beige polka dots, and a white knitted cardigan. It had to be ninety-five degrees, I was sweating like a pig, and here she was, wrapped in wool.
Holland shouldered his way to the front. “Mrs. Boudreaux? I’m Deputy Holland. I need you to come with me.”
No reaction.
“Mrs. Boudreaux!”
She didn’t even turn.
I walked toward her, sword in hand. Holland caught up to me, while Ascanio and Derek fanned out to the sides.
“Mrs. Boudreaux?” I asked.
She turned to me. The whites of her eyes had yellowed and the red veins stood out, fat with blood. She stared at me.
Holland smiled at her. “Mrs. Boudreaux, it’s me, Robby Holland. I’m Gladys Holland’s son. You used to knit together, remember?”
She peered at him, swiveling her neck at an angle, like a puzzled dog.
“We were all very worried when you walked off. You didn’t even say where you were going.” His voice was slightly chiding. “And it’s hot out here. Let’s get you off this mountain and into some nice cool shade. What do you say?”
Jene opened her mouth. “Little prick.”
Nice.
“There is no cause for strong language,” Holland said. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to insist you come with me.”
The old lady turned to me. “You’re her. You’re his bitch daughter.”
Thanks for the reputation bump, Dad. “Yes, I am.”
She stared at me, her gaze unsettling.
Try me and see how bitchy I can be.
“I could serve you,” she said. “I’m powerful. I have magic. I can blight things. Look, I made this.” She pointed to the clearing. “Ten years and nothing except grass grows. I’m quiet and hard to kill.”
Wow.
She was trying to peer at me over Holland’s shoulder and her eyes, wide open and unblinking, made her face deranged. A darker yellow, like the color of a rotten citrus, was flooding her irises.
“I can do things for you. Magic things. But I need food. You feed me and I do things for you.” She nodded. “Bring me children. The poor ones. Nobody cares about the poor ones.”
Next to me Derek tensed. Holland stared at her, openmouthed.
“How many?” I asked.
“Not many. One or two a month. Children are easier. Soft bones.”
“Alpha?” Ascanio’s voice held a note of warning.
“Have you eaten many children?” I asked. “I need to know if their parents will cause problems.”
“Only two,” she said. “Years ago. No problems. I threw the bones in the trash. You own the land. I’m the land’s creature, so I will serve you and you’ll bring me food and guard me from the bigger creatures. It’s a good bargain.”
“No,” I told her.
Derek pulled off his shoes. On the other side of me Ascanio did the same.
I shook my head. “You’re an evil thing that eats children. There is no place for you here.”
“You can’t pick and choose,” she said. “I’m part of the land. I was born here. All my people were born here, many generations. I belong here.”
“You should’ve stuck to birds,” I said.
“You can’t have the good without the bad,” she said. “Some creatures eat grass and some creatures eat the grass eaters. We are all born for a reason. You must have monsters to protect your land, and I will protect it well. If you need something, I will do it. I won’t even eat humans, only the ones you bring me.”
“No.”
“You must have servants to do things for you. I can be one. It’s a good bargain. This is your land and I’m your creature.”
A part of me, the deep dark part that felt the magic pulse last night, puzzled over it and decided that she wasn’t unreasonable. The land spawned this monster and I guarded the land, so she was one of mine, too. They were all mine and I could use her.
There it was. Small decisions. Kate Daniels, Queen of the Monsters.
“You are right. You are mine. If you hadn’t harmed anyone, I could have let you find a place of your own away from everyone. But you’ve eaten human children and you want to do it again. There are rules in my lands and you broke them. I’m not here to make bargains. I’m here to punish.”
She stared at me, unblinking. Hatred twisted her face.
“You think you can stop him. You can’t. All of you will die.”
I flicked Sarrat, warming up my wrist. I’d promised Beau I’d let his deputy make the call, and I would keep my word. “Holland, I need that go-ahead.”
“I can take you in,” Holland said. “She’ll kill you, but Milton County will protect you. There is due process.”
She was past saving, but I had to give it to him, he did try.
Bulges rolled under Jene’s skin, like billiard balls moving through her body.
Ascanio pulled two vicious-looking knives from the sheaths on his belt.
“Holland!” Damn it.
She swayed, an eerie sad smile on her face, reached out, and brushed Holland’s face with her fingertips, caressing his skin with gentle tenderness.
“Gladys’s son.”
“That’s right.” Holland nodded. “Come with me. Let me take you in . . .”
“When he comes through with his soldiers and fire, I’ll follow him.”
She took several steps back. “And I’ll feed. I’ll wait until he kills you, Gladys’s son, and then I’ll suck your bones dry.”
Her whole body jerked and shot upward. Her clothes ruptured, and a huge body spilled out, growing bigger and bigger. She fell straight down and gripped the dirt with her hands, her elbows up, as if she were about to do a push-up.
“What the hell . . .” Holland breathed out.
Her legs turned within their sockets with a vomit-inducing crunch, until her knees stuck straight up, like the legs of a spider. Her neck lengthened, thickening, the skin dripping down to form a pouch on her throat. Her white hair fell loose around her giant head, her wrinkled breasts sagged to the forest floor, and a thin strip of gray fur sprouted on her spine. Yellowed claws curved from her fingers and toes. She was the size of a bus.
“Hungry!” She screeched, clicking sharp conical teeth. “I’m hungry!”
Beau could take his instructions and shove them where the sun didn’t shine. “Hit her!”
The two shapeshifters charged in from the sides. The thing that was Jene Boudreaux dashed forward with cockroach quickness, straight at me.
I shoved Holland aside and sliced across her face with my sword. A bloody line swelled across her skin, severing her lip. She slapped me. I flew back, landed on the grass, and rolled to my feet in time to see her kick Derek with her right foot. He hurtled through the air and vanished into the brush. She must’ve knocked him down the slope.
I sprinted to her.
Ascanio sank both of his knives into her side. She howled and rolled sideways, right over him. He went down, pinned under her massive body.
I slashed at her shoulder. Move off my bouda, you bitch.
She snapped her teeth at me, trying to bat me aside with her giant clawed hand, and dug in, crushing Ascanio beneath her bulk. I sliced at her hand, carving at it with precise strikes. She screeched in pain.
Lots of nerves in the hand. Hurts like hell, doesn’t it? Get off the boy.
A dark gray shape burst out of the brush and landed on the creature’s back. Derek thrust his claws into her spine. Jene rolled the other way, trying to pin him with her weight. He jumped off and landed on my right. Ascanio darted over to us, free. His body twisted into a nightmarish blend of hyena and human. His hackles rose and he cackled.
Jene rolled to her feet and hands. Her side bled, carved like a side of beef—Ascanio had been busy with his knife.
I flicked the blood off my sword.
Jene glanced at the three of us on her right and the stretch of woods to the left, and dashed toward freedom. Holland thrust himself into her path and swung his sword. She jerked her head up, quick like a snake, dove, and gulped him down whole.
Dear gods, she ate Beau’s deputy.
A bulge landed in her throat sac and flailed, kicking. She sprinted through the woods, heading west, blindingly fast, scrambling through the forest like some monstrous pallid lizard.
Holland had seconds to live. We’d never catch up and kill her in time. We had to make her turn toward us. To the right, a slope dropped toward the river. When you fled, you naturally ran downhill.
“Derek, herd her! Make her turn southeast along the river.”
Derek’s eyes flashed yellow. He raised his head and let out a long wolf howl announcing the hunt. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The werewolf and werehyena shot into the woods.
I dashed down the south slope and almost ran into a narrow tree. Nice going. Maybe I’d break my neck and save everyone the trouble.
To the left of me Derek howled nonstop, Ascanio’s eerie laughter a bloodcurdling drumbeat to the wolf song.
I caught myself on a tree and paused, surveying the woods. The river lay to my right. A couple hundred yards behind me, a bridge spanned the deep water. In front of me, an old bike path, overgrown but still visible, snaked through the woods, playing hide-and-seek with the shore. If she came from the west, she’d take it.
A huge oak towered to the left of the path. Perfect.
I pressed my back against the bark. I’d only get one shot at this.
The sounds of snapping wood and brush came from the west.
I held my breath.
Closer.
Closer.
A sapling snapped with a loud crack.
Now. I lunged out from behind the tree just as she passed me and sliced across her gullet.
The skin pouch tore open under Sarrat’s merciless edge. Holland tumbled out, covered in slime, and drew a hoarse breath.
I had no time to check if he was in one piece. I reversed the blade and thrust it deep between her ribs. Sarrat slid into her flesh with a satisfying hiss, its blade smoking. I twisted sharply to the right. Blood gushed from the wound around the blade.
The monster screamed, her fury shaking the brush.
I pulled my saber free.
The monster whipped around, the skin on her throat hanging like a punctured balloon, and snapped her teeth, trying to bite me in half. I danced back, behind the tree. She followed, crawling up the side of the oak with sickening quickness, her teeth snapping like a bear trap closing. I backpedaled through the brush, trying not to trip on the forest floor. If her insides matched a human’s, I’d sliced her liver and cut the hepatic vein or artery, likely both. If I ran her around enough, she would bleed out.
Ascanio burst out of the woods, speeding up toward us.
The old lady grabbed at me. I sliced at her fingers. She kept coming, oblivious to pain, her face an ugly mask. She was hurting, but killing me was all that mattered.
Ascanio tore into her side, but she ignored him, her gaze fastened on me. I sliced again and again. A moment too slow and she’d grip me into her clawed fist. Strike, strike, strike. This was too much fun.
Derek landed onto Jene’s back and thrust a young tree through her. The old lady thrashed, like a pinned bug. Derek ripped into her from above, while Ascanio tore at her from the side.
I ducked in as she thrashed. Her arm passed over me, clawed fingers stretched, and I sliced the inside of her biceps and moved back. One arm down. One to go. Patience is a virtue . . .
With a howl, Holland burst from the brush, charged past me, and buried his blade in her neck. She tried to jerk away but the stake held her fast. He hacked at her neck like she was a tree, his sword rising and falling in swift frenzy. Her head sagged to the side, lolled, hanging for a moment by a thread of skin and muscle, then fell and rolled clear. The body crashed into the brush, blood pouring from the stump.
Okay. That’s one way to do it.
Holland stared at me, his eyes wild, his body dripping slime and blood.
“You’re okay,” I told him. “You’re cool. Everything is okay.”
“I quit.”
“You’re okay. It’s shock.”
“No. I’m done.” He waved his sword at me. “She swallowed me! I was inside her!”
Ascanio cracked up, showing way too many hyena teeth. I gave him the look of death and he clamped his mouth shut.
“I quit!” Holland threw his sword down.
“Okay,” Derek said.
“Look, be reasonable,” Ascanio said. “We’ve all been there. One time there was this hungry wendigo . . .”
“Redundant,” Derek said.
Ascanio rolled his eyes. “The point is, weird shit happened. Weird shit happens a lot. It’s traumatic. Look, she rolled onto me. You don’t even want to know what gross things were pressed against my face.”
Holland’s face jerked.
“Too soon,” Derek said. “The man says he quits, let him quit. Here, I’ll carry your sword for you.”
“What are you doing?” Ascanio said. “He’s clearly in shock. Beau assigned him to babysit us. We are difficult to babysit, so Beau must have a lot of respect for the deputy, which in turn means Deputy Holland is good at his job.”
“So?” Derek asked.
The magic wave hit, flooding us. The two shapeshifters paused for a moment, acknowledging it, and kept going.
Ascanio shook his furry head. “His entire identity is probably wrapped up in being a deputy. You can’t let one incident destroy his sense of self. He needs to be talked off this cliff.”
Holland stared at the werewolf, then at the bouda.
Ascanio’s mother, Martina, was one of the Pack’s counselors. I had no idea he’d picked up that much from her.
“You’re not doing a good job of it,” Derek said.
“I’d be doing a lot better if you’d stop helping him take the plunge.”
I felt a tendril of magic reaching through the woods, delicate, hesitant, searching for something, probing. The magic brushed me and withdrew with elastic quickness.
Hello, there. And who would you be?
“Derek, shut up for a second.” Ascanio turned to Holland. “Deputy Holland, weird awful crap happened to us today. Because you endured it, that weird awful crap won’t be happening to anyone else. Nobody will get eaten. You swore an oath, you upheld your oath. That was a noble thing.”
“I don’t care,” Holland said.
I studied the woods across the river. Where are you . . . ?
“It doesn’t matter.” Derek picked up the old woman’s head by the hair and hoisted it up. It was nearly four feet high from chin to the hairline. “Let’s talk about this later. We need to take the head to Beau before it starts to smell.”
“Why?” Ascanio said.
“She was part of the communit
y,” I said without turning. “We need to show proof that we had no choice but to kill her.”
A woman stepped out of the woods on the other side of the river, a gauzy dark purple scarf wrapped around her head, hiding the bottom half of her face. She pulled it off slowly, so it hung from her shoulder. About my size and my age, with dark eyes and dark hair pulled into a high ponytail. She wore black pants, soft black boots, and a black coat trimmed with purple and split in the center to allow for quick movement. A black leather gorget shielded her neck, extending into a chest plate of supple black leather that covered her left breast. The chest plate wouldn’t stop a sword thrust. It wasn’t meant to. It existed to provide her just enough protection so that if she miscalculated by half an inch when she avoided a cut, the graze of the opponent’s blade wouldn’t draw blood. A katana hung from her belt.
Black and purple again. At least no human leather this time.
The woman looked directly at me and walked to the bridge.
Ah. I see.
Ascanio opened his mouth.
“Quiet,” Derek told him.
I strode through the grass toward the bridge, Sarrat in my hand.
We stepped onto the boards at the same time.
The woman stopped. So did I.
She bowed, keeping her eyes on my face.
“The scent from the old lady’s house,” Derek said behind me.
The scent he’d smelled in Roland’s castle and then again in Jene’s backyard. Figured.
“I’ve come for the head,” she said, her voice colored with an accent I couldn’t place.
Sienna’s words came back to me. The head is important.
I pondered for a moment. My father wanted the head. Why? It was completely inert. I felt no magic emanating from it.
“No,” Holland said.
I glanced over my shoulder. He drew himself straight. “That head is evidence in an ongoing investigation by Milton County. It belongs to the people of Milton County.”
I turned back to the woman. “You heard the deputy.”