Death's Rival

As if they had rehearsed it, they stood and stepped away, leaving Bruiser and me on the floor. Our hips touched, my arm stretched around underneath him. I was gasping, trying to catch my breath, trying to slow my heart. Not succeeding. I pulled my arm from him. The simple movement sent jagged pain through my nerves from my neck to my fingertips. I wiped my tears away. I felt pelt on my cheeks and a misshapen jaw. My hand came away bloody with vamp-blood that had missed my mouth. I sat up, moving with pain. My hair had come down, and it slithered loose around me.

Leo, dressed all in black, was across the room, perched on a stool, one forearm on the bar. A candle burned near his elbow, and a dusty bottle of red wine with a curling, crinkled label sat near. He lifted the bottle and poured the wine into crystal goblets. Katie walked to him. She was wearing champagne-colored silk pants and a flowing vest; the cloth caught the light, glistening. Sabina, the priestess, dressed in her ubiquitous starched white robes, stepped close to them. Leo held out his hand. “George.”

Bruiser pulled a leg under him and stood, leaving me there, going to his master, his eyes averted. Cold steel touched my throat from behind, the Mercy Blade’s sword, his scent distinctive, and so I stayed on my butt, in submission. The three vamps drank the wine, like a toast or a pledge, as Bruiser stood there, looking away. I tried to slow my heart and find my breath, weight balanced on my hands, the floor cold beneath me.

This is a great gift I have given you, the sharing of my blood and favor, Leo said.

I started to reply when I realized that he hadn’t spoken aloud. He was talking into my mind. Well, crap.

He smiled, just a bare curl of lips, his fangs hidden away. Beware when you claim a position of power in my territory, little Enforcer. With power comes both responsibility and cost. And sometimes sacrifice. By your own works and your own choices, you are mine.

Have you used the bones? another voice murmured into my head. I recognized the dulcet, accented tones of Sabina, speaking of the sabertooth lion bones hidden in my garden. I tried to shake my head, tried to lie, but the pain in my throat stopped me. Your enemy will know you by your scent, she thought. I had no idea what she meant.

“What is she?” Katie asked Leo. “She is delicious. I like it.”

“Unknown. Something cat, of course, though not were-cat. They stink. She is elegant, like this wine”—he tilted the glass, and I could see the ruby fluid coat the crystal—“rich and earthy and heavy with the tannins of aged oak.” I knew that Sabina could have answered Leo’s question. Instead, she looked at me over her shoulder, no expression on her face.

I reached up and pushed away the sword at my throat. Gee DiMercy must have considered me no threat now, for he stepped back. Any movement hurt all over, and I thought I might fall, but I pulled myself to my feet, unsteady. Bruiser rushed back and reached out to stabilize me. I growled at him and he stopped as if a puppet master had wrenched his strings. When I spoke, the words were slurred, my cat-mouth not meant for speaking human sounds. “I’ no’ a vintage,” I said, my vocal cords tight and aching, my voice rough with pain and with Beast’s nearness. “This was no gift. It was my punishmen’ for claiming to be your Enforcer.”

“You transgressed,” Leo said. “That transgression bent the law and forced us into this war. Now we can rectify the problems you have created and turn the balance of the war in our favor. You will assist us in this endeavor.”

I felt the pull of his will, his pressure of his commands, and I said, “I’ll fulfill my . . . responsibilities.”

Leo’s brows went up in surprise. “Of course you will.” And I felt his compulsion caress me like a huge hand smoothing my pelt.

“I would have fulfilled them anyway. Without . . . this.” My voice broke and I struggled to find my breath. “I’ll do my duty. But if you ever t-t-t-try to drink me down again, I’ll shhtake you and cut off your head.” And eat his heart, Beast added. Leo went still at that, as if he could hear her promise.

I turned and walked to the sliding door and extended my hand. At the end of the palm was a golden-furred paw/finger, human shaped, but bigger, knobbier, with a retractable claw at the tip. My index finger found the button that made the door rise. It whirred up and I walked under it and into the night. It closed behind me. I made it to my bike. Pulled my sleeve down over my aching inner elbow. Straddled Bitsa. On the third try, my fingers folded around the handlebars, mostly human-shaped again. I managed to kick-start her. And I rode away.

Tears flew from my eyes, snaking with the wind across my face, into my hairline. I wasn’t wearing my helmet. My loose hair blew out behind me as if the wind ran fingers through it, unbraiding and tangling. I could still feel Leo’s fangs at my throat. Katie’s against my arm. Still feel my own fangs in my mouth, sharp against my tongue, and knew my jaw and lower face were still misshapen. If a cop stopped me for riding without a helmet, I’d scare the crap outta him.

I sobbed with misery and what might have been despairing laughter. I had been delusional, thinking I could work for vamps and not get bitten, not be forced to drink from them. Delusional and stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

* * *

I dropped the bike on the far side of the Mississippi. Just pulled off the narrow, unmarked road into nowhere, into the brush beside the road, and propped her against a tree. I stripped off my shirt, the stench of vamp and my own blood strong in my nose. So much had happened in the converted warehouse. I had learned so much. And lost so much.

Have you used the bones? Sabina knew what I was. She knew I was a skinwalker.

“What is she?” Katie had asked Leo. He had replied, “Unknown.” I hadn’t realized it at that time, but he had scented of the truth. So Sabina hadn’t told the Master of the City about me. Why not?

I stepped away from the bike into the woods. Briars tore at me. As I walked, I dropped my clothes and boots, leaving them where they fell.

I had clawed Katie. My face had transformed. They knew I was something. Something cat. Leo and Sabina had talked into my brain, something gained from the magic ceremony, the taking of my blood, and force feeding. Compulsion that bound me to Leo. Even here, out of the city, miles away, I could feel him inside me like a ghost crouching in the corner of my brain, like a demon’s dark shadow, waiting to command me.

Something splashed my legs, wet and cool. I stopped. I had walked a long way into the woods. Yet I knew where I was, at Beast’s hunting grounds, the swampy water where deer and other prey came to drink, where gators slept in the heat and hunted in the night. Something splashed nearby, landing heavily in the water. Mosquitoes buzzed me, biting. Sweat was slick on my body. The water moved slowly, stirred from beneath, the moonlight rippling on the surface. I touched my neck, the tissue swollen and tacky with half-dried blood. Time seemed to bend around me, a languorous pain.

I sobbed into the night, the sound raucous, ripping from me like a scream of torture. I had been . . . dominated. Controlled. Beaten. I wrapped my misshapen hands around my aching throat, the gold necklace I always wore now crusted with my blood, and let the tears fall. Ten minutes, I thought. I’d allow myself to grieve for ten minutes. The tears fell, scalding across my cheeks, through my pelt and dripping onto my hands. I had been prey. Bruiser had betrayed me. Another sob ripped from my injured throat, the sound spreading out over the water, settling into the swampy ground. Ten minutes. Then I’d get on with living.

Beast rose, fast, powerful, and demanded, Shift. Now! Beast is not beaten. Beast is not prey!

I let my half-human-shaped hands fall away from my throat, closed my eyes on the moonlit water. Pain, physical pain swatted me down. I fell forward, toward the water. Cutting, burning, slicing pain. Gray light filled with black motes of energy shot into the darkness. I screamed.

* * *

I leaped onto the shore. Shook swamp water from my pelt. Screamed into the night. I am Beast! This is my land. My territory. I hunt. I am not beaten! In the water, something long and dark moved. Alligators. Worthy prey. But not in water. Would hunt gator someday, on land. I screamed challenge again. Things