A coyote woman from Clarion’s pack leaned over me. “What happened? Garlic? They couldn’t have gotten their hands on holy water. Could they?”
“I don’t know,” Clarion said. “He’s coming around, though. Must be leaving his system. Where’s Lonely?”
“Set up with launcher-one in the oak by the road,” she said.
“Call him down. See what he can do. If the prophecy’s right, we’re not going to get anywhere without Tough.”
“What about you?”
Clarion glanced toward the mansion. “They’re just kids.”
The woman exhaled a puff of breath. She leaned over my body and bit Clarion on the cheek. He turned his head hard and kind of knocked into her with his face. She smiled at him, then he took off.
Clarion’s girlfriend moved to my peripheral and started shooting, probably covering her boyfriend. Without missing a shot, she whistled again, three staccato notes.
A few seconds later, Lonely swooped down in front of me and shifted.
“Clare said you might be able to help him,” the female coyote said, still firing on the Dark Mansion.
Lonely grinned sideways at me. “You sleep at night?”
If you say anything about entertainment, I’ll shoot your dick off as soon as I can move again.
“Don’t shoot.” He raised black-gloved hands and chuckled. “Ah ha, you are such a fuckup. Come here.” Lonely jerked one of his gloves off and planted his fist on my chest, over my heart. “Huh.”
What?
“Warm. You’re going the wrong direction, tarnished one.” Lonely pulled his fist back, screeched a high-pitched crow screech, then punched me so hard that I felt my breastbone crack.
Icy blue lightning shot down my arms and legs. All my muscles spasmed at once. My lungs sucked in a breath and my heart stuttered like it was trying to make up for the last few days’ worth of missed beats. That fuck-you cold poured back into my bones.
I sat up, shivering and shaking so bad I was almost vibrating.
“Better than cocaine,” Lonely said, grinning.
Get me a gun, I told him.
Tempie
Are they here? I asked.
Yes. For a moment, Kathan pulled back his protective barrier and let me listen to the confusion of shooting and yelling and running boots. An acrid smell like burning plastic flooded my senses.
I felt a tear slip down my cheek. It’s time, then.
He wiped away the tear-track, swept the wet hair out of my eyes, and kissed my forehead. If I could keep you with me always, Temperance, just like this—
I know you would.
Outside the protective barrier, I heard foot soldiers yelling to their leader. Alphas and enforcers, looking to their commander for orders, saying something about another wave of troops.
Your body is safe here, Kathan told me as he left to join them. Stay.
I didn’t answer him. It was time.
There was a trick to staying separate and sovereign like Kathan did, but that was something I’d never been able to figure out. My pieces couldn’t move perfectly independent of one another. What my right hand did, my left hand knew all about.
One part of me screamed for Kathan. It begged and gibbered and whimpered for me to stay right where he’d told me to. It dug in its heels, trying to hold the other part of me back.
You need him. You can’t do what you’re trying to do. You’ve already ruined so much, now you’re going to ruin the one good thing that’s ever happened to us? What about tomorrow? What about next week? What are you going to do then? When you have to live with yourself and who you are and everything you let happen? Without him, there’ll be no one to shut off your brain. Every single second, every single minute of every single day, you’ll be stuck in here, stuck with yourself.
The worst thing was, that screaming junkie part of me was right. I did need Kathan. Without him, there wouldn’t be any escape from the thing I hated most in the world—myself.
At the edges of the junkie’s shrieking, I could feel the bowstring stretching. My mind wobbled and tried to slip. But if I let go now, I would never make it to the basement.
Kathan’s essence was right there, so close, so strong. The junkie howled, dying for the peace of nothingness, needing to be obliterated by his love and shattered by his too-intense way of looking at the world.
We could die in him and none of this would matter anymore! she wailed.
She was right. Oh no, she was right. The essence was right there, sweet, beautiful black fire to burn away all the pieces of me.
The bowstring wavered and I almost let go.
Don’t think about the essence. Don’t think about what it can do. Don’t think about how it makes you feel. Don’t think about tomorrow or next week or two seconds from now. There’s just right now. There’s just walking. Just keep walking.
The bowstring stretched tight again.
Go back, the junkie screamed. Go back! Please!
We can’t, I told her. It’s too late. It’ll never be like it was. Johnny went marching off to war.
The junkie shrieked.
The other piece of me kept walking.
The bow shook at full draw.
I only had to stay separate for a little bit longer. Just a couple more minutes. If the effort destroyed what was left of my brain, I wasn’t going to spend much time crying over it.
Desty
I felt like I’d just woken up from the deepest and most restful sleep of my life, then chugged a gallon of coffee. I was strong. My muscle fibers were twisting and snapping with electricity.
Power, Tempie had said. But she thought the power came from Kathan. That was the lie he’d wanted us to believe—that we needed him to become the Destroyer. But “bound as one” didn’t mean
