“Angel,” Leo whispered. “Never have I thought to see such a being again.”
In my vision, I was female but dressed as a warrior ofmy tribe and clan—leggings, long tunic to my thighs, long belt wrapped around my waist. I wore my father’s medicine bag on a thong around my neck. “How do I save Eli?” I asked of Hayyel.
“Open the wound,” the angel’s voice said. The dulcet tones reverberated around the stone room, and Hayyel appeared in front of me. Like a few other times, he was in winged form, but this time his wings were closed over him, hiding his body.
Leo fell to his face on the stone floor. Brute stretched out, belly and head down. Beast chuffed.
“Place your stone of office within his flesh. Pour your blood and all of your power over it. This may heal him,” Hayyel said. “Your strongest Mithrans must feed him. Leo, you must use your magic, though it will call to your master. Hurry. And then find where I am. You don’t have much time to free me. Your real enemies are close.”
“Huh?” I said.
Hayyel looked like he did when I first saw him, black skin, darker than the night sky, and golden eyes. He opened his golden wings, the brown and red spots among the feathers seeming to catch the light. He was wearing a white tunic, golden brown robe, and sandals
Around his waist was a silver chain, bright and glistening and studded with bits of dark iron. Instantly I knew the iron was formed from ingots of the Spike of Golgotha. Somebody had chained an angel.
“Go,” he said, snapping his wings over his body.
I was back in the kitchen. “Feed him,” I screamed. I yanked the Glob from my pocket and pulled back the avulsed flesh, the heavy part of Eli’s thigh. I shoved the Glob inside. I was still holding the small knife and I sliced lengthwise along my arm, as Leo had done to his own with his teeth. My blood pulsed out into the wound. It pulsed and pulsed. All over and into Eli’s wound. Hands tried to pull me away. Tried to bind my wound. “No.” I stabbed the little knife at the hands. They withdrew. Quickly.
My blood pulsed. Again and again. And nothing happened.
When the world started to go dim, I fell back. “Okay,” I said, laying on my side in Eli’s blood. I allowed the handsto wrap a bandage on my arm and apply pressure. Other hands wrapped Eli’s leg with more gauze, the Glob still inside.
I was laying on the floor with Eli, in his blood. I couldn’t hear Eli’s heartbeat flutter. His skin was that deep ashen of the dead. I heard ambulances out front, sirens wailing.
Koun landed beside me. He flipped Eli over. Ripped his own flesh with his fangs and fed Eli, massaging his throat. Florence was still bleeding over Eli’s bound wound. Leo knelt on Eli’s other side, vamped out. He gently bit into Eli’s neck. Blue magic flashed out from Leo’s fangs, from his hands on Eli’s chest. It was a rhythmic cadenced magic, not vamp magic, not the magic of thegather. It was like and yet unlike any magic I had ever seen.
The closest parallel was outclan magic. Like when Bethany changed Bruiser from primo to Onorio.
When he appeared, Leo had said he was outclan.
How did that even happen. What the heck did it even mean?
I felt something happen inside Eli. The Glob did... something.Le breloquedid something too, burning my head. Eli’s body jerked the tiniest bit. Leo withdrew his fangs. Koun and Leo turned Eli to his side and Koun slapped his back three times. Blood drained out of Eli’s lifeless lips. They laid him face up. Leo bit in again and Koun ripped his own flesh again, feeding Eli, forcing down the blood, his fingers near Leo’s fangs.
It wasn’t going to be enough. I knew it. I was a breath away from telling Koun to change him.
But I reached up and put both hands onle breloque, bloody and sticky and cold with all the blood mixed there. I thought about the Glob, its power warm and unexpectedly open and giving, inside Eli. Inside my brother of choice. And I called Eli with all my magic. With everything I had. All that bright and shining power. All that I was. And all that I may ever be. I gave to Eli.
Come back to me. Come back. You willlive.Live. Your heart will beat. Beat. Beat.I willed him to live, willed his heart to beat along with mine.Beat. Beat. Live. Live. Live!
Inside me, the new magic rose, bright and glowing. DarkQueen magics. Wrapping around my own skinwalker magics, prism-bright, shining like rainbows, echoing like brass gongs and cathedral bells ringing, brilliant as light through scarlet glass. Warm, sweet smelling, soft as silk yarn. Harder than steel. Blazing forge hot. I focused all that magic, all my own power, and all that power of the Dark Queen onto Eli.
“Live,” I whispered.
I heard a heart thump. A long time later, I heard another. More. Eli’s heart began beating steadily.
Tears gathered but no longer fell. Couldn’t. I didn’t have enough fluid left in me to cry, not even for joy. I was empty of blood, cold enough to be dead myself, and exhausted. So tired I could scarcely hold myself off the floor. I didn’t have to look up. My power crawled out, snaking into every creature in the building, knowing them all—who lived and who had died.
In the other room were dozens of dead and dying vamps. Some were mine.
“Shaun?” I asked.
Koun said, “His own people turned against him, My Queen. They left their blades in his body, yet he still has his head.” Koun pointed to the body against the wall near the bottom of the stairs. It was pinned there by a couple dozen blades. Koun asked, “Will you take his head or shall I, as your champion?”
Bleary, I looked around the room again. The cameras were still rolling, this crazy scene going out to the vamp world and showing us our own actions on the big screen. I had to make this count. For Eli. For all the people who had died here tonight.Beast?I thought.
Beast is here,she thought back.The I/we of Beast is here. Still has some strength.
