the kill, and chased after Ugad.
Four beasts darted from the mist, snapping and biting at Ugad’s legs. A wolf let out a short snarl.
Huge hands thrust through the reeves and tore them aside. Curran emerged. Red gashes marked his fur. Now I understood the plan: he had expected a double cross and chose to bear the bulk of the assault, buying time for the shapeshifters to retrieve Julie.
The reeves scrambled back to him. He grasped one, tore it in two, and hurled the twitching remnants to the ground. The reeve went liquid. The puddle of its slime twisted upward in a corkscrew and solidified into the reeve. She was once again whole.
“Why isn’t she dying?”
“The cauldron’s too close,” Bran said through clenched teeth.
They couldn’t win. The best they could do was to break away.
Curran swiped at another reeve, crushing her head like an eggshell. She went liquid too and re-formed within seconds.
“Stop killing, dimwit! Maim! Maim them, you son of a whore!” Bran yelled.
Two dozen yards away Ugad stomped and spun about, raking at the shapeshifters with his enormous fists. They lunged at his feet, driving him forward, into the metal spikes. Ugad spun. The huge barbed tail swung like a club and smashed a shaggy body. The shapeshifter flew through the air and bounced off the metal shell of a ruined car. The beast crashed to the ground, stunned.
Ugad jumped. As if in a nightmare, I saw his huge foot stomp onto the prone beast and heard the crunch of broken bones. Blood sprayed. The monster turned, leaving a nude human body broken on the ground. I saw the shock of electric-blue hair stained with bright red spray. I clenched my fists. I could do nothing. I couldn’t make it stop. I just watched, helpless.
The jaguar leaped onto Ugad’s head. The giant hurled the cross aside to pummel at the new threat. The cross spun on its base, teetered, plunged, Julie hanging limp like a ragdoll, about to be crushed. A slight, sand- colored shape leaped forward and caught the cross inches from jagged iron. Andrea ripped Julie off the cross.
A whip of green tentacles struck her, ripping fur and skin from her thigh. Raw muscle, red and wet, glared through the wound. The Shepherd hissed. He was once again whole, his rags flaring about his thin body. Andrea ran. Tentacles slapped her. She cried out. I winced. Andrea kept going.
One step.
Two.
She fell.
Her hand clawed the ground, as she clutched Julie to her, crawling away.
The tentacles scoured her again and again. Andrea curled into a ball, trying to shield Julie with her body.
The wolves broke from Ugad and rushed the Shepherd. Tentacles flailed like green ribbons echoed by startled yelps of pain.
Ugad pummeled at his head, trying to knock the jaguar off, but hit his own horns. The huge cat hung on, his claws wedged. Watery blood drenched Ugad’s massive forehead. Jim dug deeper, clawing at the eyes. Ugad charged in a mad rush, crushing the iron under his feet, straight into the forest of metal spikes.
Jim leaped straight up.
The monster’s huge body hit a spike.
Jim landed awkwardly, slipped, and slid, rolling down the sheet of corrugated metal. His fur left a long red smear. He tried to rise, but his feet slipped out from under him.
Metal emerged from Ugad’s back, awash with crimson. He strained and pushed himself off the spike. Ugad turned, oblivious to the hole in his torso, stomped over to Andrea’s prone form, and kicked her. She flew from the impact and crashed into the refuse. Ugad scooped Julie off the ground, an odd, imbecilic expression of satisfaction on his ugly face…and found himself looking at Curran.
Little by little, fighting for every inch, bleeding from wounds, the Beast Lord had gained ground. Curran thrust his clawed hand into the hole in Ugad’s torso and ripped a red clump out.
To the right, the Shepherd stretched his arms. His robes tore, revealing his thin, awkward body. Tentacles swirled around his shoulders and snapped forward to catch metal spikes. The tentacles contracted and the Shepherd flew past the wolves and clutched at Curran’s back. As one, the reeves clumped onto Curran’s limbs, exposing the necklace wrapped around his forearm. The Shepherd’s icy eyes flared with hungry fire. His mouth unhinged and serrated teeth bit into Curran’s arm and the monisto wrapped around Curran’s wrist. Coins went flying as the cord snapped under the Shepherd’s teeth.
Curran screamed and I screamed with him.
“Idiot!” Bran hit his head with the heel of his hand.
Tentacles whipped. A bloody hole gaped in Curran’s arm. The Shepherd withdrew, back toward the hangar. Three of the reeves followed in a gaggle, swiping Julie out of Ugad’s arms, while the rest of the reeves clamped onto Curran’s feet. The giant stared at Curran stupidly, turned and ran to the hangar, blood spraying from his body.
The wolves fell upon the reeves. Curran shook like a dog flinging water from his fur.
Ugad’s body punched through the thin metal wall and through the gaping hole I caught a glimpse of the pile of crates.
“No!” Bran’s mouth gaped open.
Ugad hit the crates head-on. Shards flew, revealing a metal cauldron as tall as me. Bran swore, biting off words like a pissed off dog.
Magic hit in a huge choking tide. The witches went down to their knees. The vision wavered and the dome quaked.
“The flare…” the youngest Oracle whispered. “It’s here…”
The magic crashed into me, and my body drank it in, more and more and more. No head rush this time. No pause. Just power, pure power streaming through me.
The Shepherd hovered over the cauldron. His body doubled over and a gush of liquid spilled from his mouth, carrying a glittering spark with it. The spark hit the cauldron and expanded into an enormous lid. He must have bit it off the monisto and swallowed it.
Curran was almost to them, a trail of broken reeve bodies in his wake.
Ugad gripped the lid and leaned back. His thick arms bulged. With a guttural snarl, he tore the lid free of the cauldron, opening the gate to the Otherworld.
Like a storm cloud with a mind of its own, a blotch of darkness mushroomed above the cauldron. Within that shadow, a deeper darkness appeared, hinting at a humanoid form, huge and misshapen. Two hands thrust from the gloom as if welcoming an ovation. Feet in black boots solidified on the cauldron’s rim. Thick forearms emerged into the light, their bulging muscle crisscrossed by shiny strips of scar tissue and dotted with warts. The darkness slunk back, an eager-to-please pet, revealing first a chest in a scalemail enameled black, and then a pale face.
His nose protruded forward, too long, too flat, like the carapace of a horse skull, like an enormous beak, sheathed in a meager layer of flesh and tapering to a sharp, horn-tipped point. Below the nose a massive jaw supported two rows of oversized teeth. One of the incisors jutted like a boar tusk falling just short of touching the left cheek. His eyes, small and white, sat deep under Neanderthal eyebrows. Between the eyes cartilage broke through the skin to form a thin, sharp ridge that vanished into his fleshy forehead.
It was as if the skulls of a horse and a human had somehow been blended into a horrid whole. A human face stretched over the meld, with barely enough meat and skin to cover the bone. This thing could not be man.
Behind him the darkness slithered and gained shape, solidifying into long black hair and a thousand crow feathers, streaming like a mantle behind him.
Morfran.
He raised his hand and spoke a word.
A gray bubble popped into existence by his fingers and began to expand. It swallowed his hand, then his head, then his feet. Instinctively I knew I didn’t want the bubble touching Curran.
The Beast Lord hesitated.
“Run, Curran!” The words left me even though I knew he couldn’t hear.
The bubble gulped the cauldron.
