Carefully, making sure I didn’t move quickly enough to accidentally alter time in any of the time-drops, I ducked beneath the sword strike.
Beast is best ambush hunter.Beast reached out for a droplet of rain. In it was the immediate past. The image of Titus’s sword striking Leo’s neck.
I stopped her. Thinking. Trying to see what might happen if we took that small part of time. The droplet beyond it was an image of Titus’s people attacking the Onorios. The droplet beyond that was an image of his people attacking the witches, a sword thrust through Molly’s belly, killing her and her daughter. Lachish dead in the rain, magical implements on the sand. Ailis dead. Koun and Tex dead. The droplet beyond that showed a bomb landing on the beach, another on the beach house. Titus’s ship exploding. Everyone dead. And worse beyond that. A pathway running with blood.
Every time-drop near the death of Leo showed only destruction and devastation. If I went back in time and saved Leo, far worse would happen. I studied the drops. Praying for that one, looking for that one, single drop that might show me another path. But... every drop, each and every one, displayed the beginnings of a war between the Europeans and the American vamps. Further back were images of humans drained and dead in the streets. Humans hanging from streetlights in the French Quarter. Bombs dropping on New Orleans. Soldiers and tanks in the streets. Vamps at war with the United States.
Eli and Alex dead on the floor of our home.
Edmund lying back-to-back with Gee, both dead, beheaded.
All because I saved Leo. The pain in my head grew worse. I fought to keep my gorge down, swallowing the sickness there.
Heart aching, I said aloud, “We’ve messed up too much as it is. We can’t fix this by timewalking.”
Beast is best ambush hunter. Beast can save Leo.
No. We’ll screw up things. Mess up people’s lives. If we save Leo, that will change something that may have been supposed to happen. No.
Beast/Jane screamed, the sound lost in the vibration of thunder. And then Titus moved. He stepped into the time bubble with me. His sword swinging down. I caught it on the curved Mughal blade and stepped close, ramming up. Hit him in the jaw with an uppercut. The Glob sliced his chin and busted his lips. It sucked his poweraway. A sudden scalding burst of might I felt in my paw/fist.
Titus threw back his head and screamed. I tossed the Glob high, where it left the bubble of time, hanging in the air, and, Beast-fast, pulled a vamp-killer. Thrust with the vamp-killer, through his chin and up into his skull. Ripped out the knife, twisting. Titus shivered, shook, seizing as if the lightning had hit him. I slung back the arm and took Titus’s head.
I pushed the headless body out of the bubble of time, leaving him half falling and headless.
Speared his head from out of time on the Mughal blade. Pulled it to me. Sheathed the vamp-killer. With a claw, I lifted the thin chain that still rested on the emperor’s chest. Inside was a tiny quartz crystal with a miniature arcenciel inside. She was purple and gold and shimmering with fury. This explained why Soul had stuck around. One last arcenciel caught in crystal, a slave to a vamp who wanted to rule time. I tucked the crystal into my pocket. Reached for the Glob.
Carrying the head and my weapons, I left Titus’s body standing headless in the stationary raindrops. And I padded on my massive paws away from the fight. Into the storm, under the low trees. I dropped the head and fell beside it. I cried until my guts hurt. Until my body felt broken and scoured and bleeding.
Time still stopped, I pulled the crystal and said to the trapped dragon, “I can’t trust you not to bite me. So I’m going to make sure you’re freed when I’m not nearby.” I placed the crystal on a shell and left it there, in normal time. I picked up another shell and held it directly above the crystal. And dropped it. The shell fell from twisted time and hung suspended above the arcenciel. The moment it hit, the slave to time would be free. But Leo... Leo would still be dead.
I moved away from her, carrying the weapons and the head of the emperor. A strange amalgamation of odors were caught on the heavy, salty wind—Leo’s paper-and-ink-scented blood, a strong fragrance of fresh-cutlemons, and surf-wet werewolves. I looked out into the gulf to see the forms, unmoving, caught in time as they rushed ashore through the dark. Clan Des Citrons. Wet rogue werewolves were behind them, and two grindylows were closing in from the water and the storm-drenched beach.
I looked to the side. Eli was closing in. Firing. Caught in a sprint, angling into a safe line of fire. Derek raced beside him. Leo’s vampires rushed to attack, swords and bare-handed. Dacy Mooney, Del’s mother, was in the lead, her sword arching back to take a Des Citrons vamp’s head. The smell/sight/sound of Molly’s earth magic, red, blue, vibrant, tearing into the night. The sight of the Bighorn Pack, one dropping his camera, racing to the battle. Overhead, three arcenciels were in real time, dropping from the clouds, glistening in the night.
And then there were Aya and Rick, rising from the water, Benelli shotguns at the shoulder. One had fired, the low, hollow thrum of shotguns, the shot hanging in the air. Slightly farther back, two Navy SEALs were rising out of the water, picking off the emperor’s vamps and humans. When time returned, the wolves would howl. The vampires would scream. The stench of silver fléchette rounds tearing through flesh, and the reek of poisoned blood, would taint the air.
My not-so-secret last-ditch defense to protect our people and to keep the military from accidentally taking us all out. Because of my phone call, Gee had made sure that Ayatas FireWind and all the might he could call upon were a presence in the dark, in case Titus pulled a fast one and his people attacked. All of Leo’s merged paranormals were here, fighting together. Finally. But too late to save the Master of the City.
I should be out there. I needed to be there. I tensed to move. Pain slashed through me. I fell to the sand, hands and knees catching me. Gasping. Pain like a thousand snakes in my gut, biting me all at once. I screamed. Boneless, I landed on the sand.
Beast padded into the forefront of my brain. She pressed down on me, sending me to sleep.
• • •
Beast looked inside at Jane’s snake. The snake that was at the heart of all beings was twisted, knotted, frayed. It had four strands, not the two strands it was supposed to have. It was broken, like the body of prey that raced away and fell off a ledge into a deep place.
Beast looked into Jane’s belly. There were dark places there. Sickness. Growing fast. Jane was dying. But... Beast was best ambush hunter.
Beast found own form and shed mass into sand on beach. Stepped into form ofPuma concolor, mountain lion. Shifted. Beast’s snake in heart of all things was healthy. Was strong.
Time returned, storm throwing cold rain and lightning to ground. Arcenciels dove to earth. Trapped arcenciel leaped for sky. Rain beat into pelt. Lightning flashed, hitting water.Hate storms. Hate rain.
Struggled out of Jane clothes. Shook pelt. Did not help. Rain still fell, cold and wet. Beast looked out at storm. At dark forms fighting in curling water. Eli and Derek and Tequila boys, fighting. Rick and Ayatas firing on vampires arising from water. Other humans with them. Hunters Jane called military. Smelled lemons and silver and blood. Smelled human blood and vampire blood. Smelled much death. Bruiser stood on sand, watching fighting. Seeing Leo body. Tears leaked down his face.
Bruiser shed tears for friend.
Fighting slowed. Tequila boys carried bodies to shore. Vampire bodies smelling of Titus and of lemons. More fighting on ship out in curling water. Derek had sent Bruiser’s boat to attack emperor’s boat. Was good Enforcer. Derek did not need Jane now.
