Unless it was permeable to other things besides air. Maybe not branches or stems or rain or humans or skinwalkers or weres. But the Flayer had gotten in. Maybe... I studied it closer. The shield wasn’t a modernhedge of thorns. In Anzu vision, the energies were orange and blue, netlike, with ropes of power, thicker in some places than others. Shields were created to let in and keep out specific things. Maybe it would let in vamps. Maybe it would also let in creatures like me. Like an Anzu. But Anzus had weaknesses, for instance, a lethal allergy to being cut by iron and iron based metals.
I couldn’t see anything made of metal in the cave, no steel or silver, no athame for a sacrifice. But Shimon had his own weapons—talons and teeth. If he was here, and if there was a rift in the possession of the EuroVamps, then he had to know what the pool at the bottom of the crevasse was. And he might know that arcenciels came through rifts. And it was likely the Flayer wanted to capture rainbow dragons. Arcenciels, to old vamps, were like chocolate and diamonds were to humans—there could never be too many. My thoughts and Beast’s came fast, overlapping.
Had an arcenciel come through the rift and flown by the vamps Eli had arrow-shot and alerted them? Had Shimon put the presence of rainbow dragons and metogether and begun looking for the rift? If he could timewalk, then he could have followed me here the first time I came in Beast form, found the rift, prepared the cave, gone into the future (or the past?) to the Regal, left himself a message of the location, and then returned to his own time and place. Somehow or some-when, he had gotten all these people and supplies here. I hadn’t seen a car anywhere when I flew in. Or maybe the Flayer could do thatStar Trekthing and transport, using magical energy and his mind instead of tech. The possibilities and dangers made my head spin.
I tilted, falling, wings flailing. I leaped back to the other side and settled on the tree.
Only one thing mattered. Shimon Bar-Judas, the Flayer of Mithrans, the Son of Shadows, was at a rift, was going to sacrifice EJ for some purpose, maybe to gather power for a new time circle. He was going to capture a dragon, and with captured arcenciels, he could do anything, even perhaps keep the arcenciels from killing him and his bloodline two thousand years ago.
Maybe.
It was as a good a guess as any other for a magic that had been created and refined for two thousand years.
The first time I ever saw vampire witches was in a witch circle with a sacrifice. With EJ and Angie Baby. Back then the witch-vamps had been trying to bring back the long-chained. Or... Or they had been going to timewalk? Maybe change the past to somehowsavethe long-chained? Do something special to make their scions’ transition through the devoveo work?
It was important and equally immaterial. I didn’t have time on my side. What I had was the memory of beingBubo bubo, owl, but bigger and far more formidable. And I had my own timewalking magic.
Beast?
Beast is best ambush hunter. Beast bird is best ambush hunter from sky. Beast will save kit.
Dang skippy.
Will save skippy too.
I made atockof laughing agreement that echoedsoftly in the crevasse. The sound reverberated into silence. Across the way, the Flayer of Mithrans bent to pick up EJ.We need to timewalk. Now!
Yesss.Beast tore through the Gray Between. My skinwalker energies burst out and, just as fast, merged back inside, sliding into the star-shaped magics, the scarlet star in my abdomen, visible even in Anzu form. I reached into the Gray Between and bubbled time. Inside the shield, everything stopped: the Flayer had half lifted EJ and was now frozen, unmoving. I had done it!
Pain sliced through me. My bird heart beat fast, too fast, a pounding, racing agony. My wings drooped. My breath strained, not enough to fill my lungs. “Crap,” I whispered. I’d been in Anzu form all day, adding Anzu magic to my own, and therefore to any remnants of Dudley. The pain spiked.
Beast dropped time. Inside the shield, the Flayer repositioned EJ on the stone floor.
Jane is sick even in Anzu?
Looks like it. Holy crap on a cracker. This makes it a lot harder.
My skinwalker energies misting around me like a silver veil, I thrust off the tree and flapped my exhausted wings, gaining altitude, banked in a tight circle. Set my eyes on the Flayer of Mithrans. Before reason could suggest I stop, I bent time and folded my wings tight to me. Aimed my beak at the back of the Flayer’s head. And dove toward the cave.
Pierced the shield. It shocked across and through me. A blinding glare as if lightning had hit me again, sparking and flashing. Sizzling along my beak and face. Pulling on my feathers in hot tugs of power. Pain like a spear through my middle. And then I was through. Dropping fast. From above.
I dropped the bubbled time.
Slammed into the Flayer of Mithrans. Beak rammed into the back of his neck. At the base of his skull. Perfect raptor kill.
Still moving forward, my wings went out, claws swungup. Gripped his head. Crushed down. Sweeping him forward. Wings spreading.
I crashed him against the back of the cave. Back-winging, sweeping hard, I hammered his head into the stone. Crushing his skull in claws and rock.
Dropping, I slid down the uneven stone wall, taking him down with me. I landed on the stone floor on top of Shimon Bar-Judas, his body a bloody heap beneath me. Twitching. Still alive. Healing even as I looked. Because the Flayer of Mithrans was truly immortal.
I settled beside him, wings folding, claws holding him steady. Setting my beak in the middle of his neck, I ripped off his head, tossed it high, and caught it in my beak, holding him by one ear. Blood pulsed hard from the ragged stump just above the exoskeleton shoulders, slashing across the cave wall, painting swathes that almost glowed to my Anzu eyes. The body twitched, the hands clenching and unclenching, the feet pointing like a ballerina’s. The pulsing slowed and stopped.
I tossed the head against the far wall. Gray matter was visible in the openings I’d made in the crushed skull. The body kept twitching but there was no control, no intent behind the movements. It was like a decapitated snake twitching its tail. I figured it would take a long time for the Flayer’s head to heal and figure out what had happened, and—horror movies aside—since his head wasn’t attached to his body, I didn’t think his parts could go independently searching for each other and put himself back in place.
Hopping around, I checked out the skinned vampire and the witch. The vamp was familiar. I stared at the skinless, unbreathing, but undead corpse. It was Tex. I stopped. Tex had been missing, taken from New Orleans before Shiloh, probably by Legolas-Melker. I hadn’t even thought about him, neither him nor Roland, also taken. I needed to find out the whereabouts and condition of all my people. I was a terrible clan leader. I sucked. Later. I’d be a better person later.
The witch was an unknown.
