A dull thud resonated through the square. Two shapes walked out into the open, their backs to me. Both male, broad-shouldered, heavily built, and wearing identical T-shirts and pants. Jim spat and growled, making a ruckus. Neither heard me moving in behind them.
The forefront man tore off his T-shirt. The skin of his back split down the middle. Shaggy black fur spilled through the gap. The creature ripped the human flesh off its left shoulder, revealing a deformed clavicle.
His hands clutched at the remainder of the human skin and jerked it off his body like a paper hospital gown. He kicked the shreds aside, swelling in size, until he stood seven feet tall. Dense black fur striped with orange sheathed his frame in a reversal of a tiger pelt. He raised his arms to the side and I realized what was wrong with his clavicle: a second set of shoulders branched from his spine, set parallel, side by side with the first. Four muscular arms flexed, clawing the air.
His buddy gave out a long, hoarse sigh and shed his own skin suit. He was shaped like a human, with the appropriate set of limbs—thank God for small favors—but his skin was blood-red and layered with a pattern of tiny scales.
I had expected a welcoming committee, but nobody had mentioned a free striptease.
Jim snarled. The four-armed freak took a deep breath and leaned forward. A deafening roar washed over me, the deep, primeval sound of a huge predator hunting for its prey in darkness. It drowned Jim’s snarls and he took a small step back.
The creature roared louder, taking Jim’s retreat as his due and promising no mercy. He was larger than Jim and at least a hundred pounds heavier. Jim hissed. The four arms motioned to him:
Jim leapt onto the four-armed creature. The moment they clashed in a whirlwind of teeth and claws, I sank Slayer into the back of its red-scaled friend. The blade bit deep, severed the spinal column, and came out in a small spray of crimson. The Reaper whipped around, but his legs failed him. As he went down, I saw his face: human and impossibly beautiful.
Wood groaned. A lean shape sailed over me and landed in a crouch on the stones. A female creature. Her mint-green body was furry on the stomach and chest and studded with foot-long needles like a porcupine’s on her back. Black claws the length of my hand tipped her fingers. She glared at me with yellow eyes and charged.
Her clawed hand swiped at me, too fast. I dodged left, but she caught me. Pain sliced down my side. She dashed, trying to get behind me. I let her, reversed my blade, and stabbed backward into the soft green gut just under her rib cage. Slayer sliced into flesh, meeting elastic resistance, and I withdrew.
The creature raked at me with its left hand, oblivious to the blood gushing from its stomach. I spun and threw myself back, dancing away. Claws whistled past my face. I kept dodging. Strike, strike, strike. No finesse, no special training. Like a cat fighting: clawing straight ahead. Just like the fellow in the parking lot.
I dropped under the claws and sliced across her inner thigh. It cost me another singe of pain along my back, and I rolled clear.
Strike, strike, strike. Keep dancing with me, baby.
Red stained the creature’s fur with her every step. Her strikes lost their lethal speed. Her chest heaved. She stumbled, swayed forward, and I caught her and pulled her onto my sword. Slayer sliced into her chest and emerged from her back, bright with arterial blood.
Across the clearing, the four-armed freak tore away from Jim, sprinted to the trees, leaping to an inhuman height, and fled into the branches. With a snarl, Jim chased him and vanished into the jungle. Going after them would be a waste of time. I couldn’t match Jim’s speed, and a jaguar needed no help hunting through the trees.
I slid the inert body off my saber.
The red-scaled man lay prone on the ground, swallowing air in rapid, shallow gulps. Beyond him, the door to the building gaped, a rectangle of solid black. I flicked my blade, flinging the blood from it, and walked into the house.
It took me less than a minute to clear the three vast, gloomy rooms. Empty.
I went back outside and crouched by the scaled man. The wound in his back was deep. I had removed a section of his spine with my strike, and even with accelerated regeneration, he wouldn’t be walking anytime soon.
“A week ago a young werewolf tried to take a girl from you,” I said. “You beat him, tortured him, and dumped him by the shapeshifters’ house, but you let him live. Why?” Here’s hoping he understood English.
The scaled lips stretched in a grimace that could’ve been a smile, revealing snake fangs. “To send . . . a message.”
“What’s the message?”
“We are stronger. We shall triumph over half-breeds.”
Alrighty, then. “Who are the half-breeds? Are they shapeshifters?”
“Half-man, half-animal . . . Two base races become one. Scum of the world . . . We shall overtake. Overcome. We shall . . .” He coughed.
“Any hope for peace?”
The creature strained to raise its head off the ground. Diamond pupils gazed at me. “We . . . don’t do peace,” he said in a hoarse voice. “We don’t make . . . treaties. We kill. Kill and burn. Eat the meat. Celebrate. Rule in half- breeds’ stand . . .”
“So you want the Pack’s territory?”
He strained to say something else. I leaned toward him. He focused on me. “Rape,” he promised. “Many, many times. Until you bleed . . .”
“I’m so flattered.”
He raised his hand and traced a short line over my chest. “Carve out your heart . . . won’t cook it in the fire . . . eat it raw when all half-breeds are dead.”
We weren’t getting anywhere. “What are you?”
“Warriors . . . supreme.”
Hard to be supreme with your spine cut. “What are you called? Do you have a name?”
He rolled his eyes to the sky. “Glorious . . . army . . . blood like a red flower blooming . . . Soon. Very soon. We shall have the jewel. We shall honor the promise to the Sultan of Death and destroy the half-breeds . . . We shall take their place, grow stronger, and when our time comes . . . we shall . . . teach the Sultan of Death humility.”
“Who is the Sultan of Death?”
The Reaper’s eyes glinted with stubborn denial.
I reached into my belt and pulled out a canteen of lighter fluid and matches. “This liquid likes fire. It burns very hot for a long time. Tell me how to reverse the magic you put on the shapeshifter, and I won’t pour it on your chest and set you on fire.”
“Human . . . I’m beyond . . . you.”
“You’re not beyond pain.” I twisted the cap off the canteen.
He smiled at me and gulped. No words came out. His eyes rolled into his skull. Short, abrupt moans erupted from him as if he suddenly went dumb. He shuddered, clawed at his throat . . .
He was choking.
I thrust Slayer between his teeth.
CHAPTER 19
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, GUTTURAL COUGHS ANNOUNCED Jim’s return. I waited for him by the scaled man’s corpse. He leapt off the tree and dropped a limp body onto the grass. Bulging dead eyes glared at me from a face that wasn’t even remotely human. A cross between a tiger and a Chinese temple dog might have looked like that.
“Shapeshifter?” I asked.
“No. Doesn’t smell right.”
