“Where is the Firestarter?” I asked Storm.
“She is preparing to throw fire at the bad place.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Dang.”
“Do you wish my sisters to put out her fires?”
“Yes.” Behind us, I saw a flash of fire. Another. Another. But the spots went dark instantly.
Storm laughed, the sound like bells and wind instruments. “Pearl and Opal enjoy this game. The creature thinks you have found new magic and have stopped her. We will not tell her the error of her ways or show who we are unless she attacks again.”
“Okay. Where is the eater of souls?”
Storm tilted her head, frowning. I could have sworn the lights in her hair twinkled. “One is at the bad place.” She hesitated. “One is above us, on the air. She is angry.”
I craned my head up, seeing a cloudy, dark gray sky. It was nearly dawn. A vamp was driving the SUV. That might not end well. We needed to be undercover soon. And then it hit me. Eaters of souls. One at the warehouse, one above us. Grandmother? As an owl?
I fished my cell out of my pocket and dialed Ayatas.
“FireWind.”
“The Firestarter is at or in the warehouse. Gramma is a bird flying over my SUV.”
Aya cursed and disconnected.
“You have bad cell phone habits,” I said to my dark screen.
Thema spun the wheel, maneuvering the vehicle down one-way streets the wrong way. I held on as she took an alley, knocking over big plastic garbage bins, nearly hitting an Uber vehicle, taking back ways I knew from riding Bitsa and roaming as Beast.
She braked hard in front of the freebie house. The SUV rocked. Steel shutters I hadn’t even noticed had been cranked shut over the house windows.
Aya was standing on the second-story porch, buck naked except for a thong around his neck strung with tiny bones. He was staring at the sky, a nimbus of skinwalkermagic over his body. Already halfway to a shift. Holding his power still. Waiting.
Two guards ripped open the driver’s side doors, one grabbing each of us. Thema and me. Jerking us from the vehicle, standing us on the sidewalk. In a fast exchange, they took off in the SUV. Quint sped to my side.
A light glimmered. Storm, who had been on the passenger side of the vehicle, was standing beside me.
Other guards grabbed us to sweep us inside.
I smelled liver-eater. Heard the flap of wings overhead. Aya leaped into the air, shifting as he did. The sidewalk a story beneath him, only feet from us, cracked and broke, throwing shards into the air as he shed mass. Thema hissed in pain as concrete flew. I smelled her blood. She had stepped in front of me.
I stared. Aya had shifted in middrop. That wasn’t even possible. He was a huge bird, a nine-foot wingspan sweeping the sidewalk as he took flight. Not aBubobubo, but maybe a condor of some kind.
As Aya reached the height of the peaked roofs, an owl hurtled down from the clouds, straight at me. Aya’s bird screamed, a screeching roar with elephantine overtones. He whipped his wings and reached for Grandmother. He wouldn’t be in time. Thema raised a weapon.
I hit the sidewalk hard. Face-plant. Fire whooshed through my nerves, muscles, skin. For a moment I thought I had been hit by a fireball. The pain sliced and cut, burned and froze. Muscles tore. Bones popped.
When the burning pain eased, I lifted my head and looked along my body. I realized that Beast had ripped through our realities and used my own skinwalker power all on her own. Again. She had added mass to my half-form, taking mass from the concrete sidewalk.
Screams echoed. Gunshots. More SUVs arriving. The putter of Bitsa. Scent of Tex, Koun, Kojo, Thema. My first breath was agony. I whispered a curse.
My cheek was against the broken sidewalk. I stared across the street. Lightning cracked across the sky above me. A momentary brilliance. The stink of ozone and storm. And magic. When the glare cleared, standing on the sidewalk was Adan Bouvier. One arm was up to the sky,lightning still glowing on his fingertips. A cold wind swept down the street. Lightning cracked again, the magic of a weather-witch vamp. Familiar as old, painful memories. A brilliant flash hit the sidewalk at his feet.
No. It hit the body beside him on the sidewalk. It spasmed, curled, and died. The stink of human flesh, cooked and dead.
Two arcenciels dove at Adan, dragon form, slashing claws, tails whipping.
Unexpected strength thrust through me like a fist of might. I shoved upright. Eye to eye with Ka, standing in the shadows across the street. Naked, as she would be after shifting from an animal. Yellow eyes. Black hair. Fierce scowl. A blade in her hand. Then she shifted so fast I couldn’t follow it. Still with black hair and eyes, but pale, olive-toned skin. The stench of liver-eater whooshed from her.U’tlun’ta’. I knew this one too.
