I closed my eyes. Eased my power into the rubbery mass, feeling/scenting/knowing chemicals I had no names for. Scenting proteins, things that sizzled with power, things that felt inert but were alive. Felt through them until an electric power met mine. Skinwalker power.
The Glob sought to pull the energies away. I reined the weapon in but kept it ready. I drew onle breloque, directing its might into the skinwalker energies. And shoved it toward the dying bird.
Aya,I thought.Ayatas Nvgitsvle, named for the Nantahala Panther of the Panther Clan. Come to your true form.Nothing happened. Time passed. Too long. I pushed more skinwalker andle breloquepower into him, trying the words in the half-remembered Cherokee of his introduction to me, the first time he appeared at my door.Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi, Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi of Ani Gilogi. Seek the form of Aya. Come back to yourself. Your battle is neither won nor lost. You must be human-form. Come back to yourself.
Inside me, something like longing woke. Something that might have been the memory of abandonment combined with the memory of loss, loss of family. The memory of our father dying. I pushed harder.Do not make me become a beloved woman to fight in my brother’s stead. Alone. I have been alone for too long, without my kin. Without my clan. Come back to me!I lay across the mass of my brother, cradling his bird.
Come back to me.
God? You can’t take this away. You can’t takehimaway. You can’t. You can’t, you can’t, youcan’t!
I was sobbing, shoving my magic into Aya. Tears and snot dripped down my chin. I wiped them on my shoulder to keep from contaminating his mass with my DNA. I hadn’t even let myself get to know him. I hadn’t tried. I had pushed him away like a kid, out of anger and spite. I had been sodamnstupid. “Come back,” I demanded. And then it hit me.Rule of Three.My voice hoarse and shaking, I said, “Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Return to your human form.”
Something tingled and quivered beneath my arms. I eased back just a bit. Wiping my face again. Through the trembling sheen of my tears, I watched as Aya’s skinwalker energies lifted out of the pile of my brother’s mass. I eased back farther. The concrete of the sidewalk cracked and broke again, the mortar used in the construction shattering as the magic tightened, the energies growing thicker, black motes whirling like tornadoes in the midst.
My magic never looked like this.
The mass on the sidewalk drew together. I pulled away from the shape-change, watching, feeling the energies throughle breloque. A human form began to coalesce out of the rubbery pile and the dying bird and the energies. I crab-walked back, bumping into human legs that gave way for me. A palm rested on my shoulder, fingers warm. Eli. Comforting. I lay my cheek on his hand. Alex was on the other side, hand on my shoulder.
Slowly. Painfully Aya reformed. Solidified out of the boiling energies.
His body was quaking, shuddering, muscles vibrating, curled in a fetal position. And pale, so very pale. I pulled back all my skinwalker energies, the energies ofle breloque, and shoved down hard on the Glob. Locking it down.
Aya took a breath. I knew that sound. That sound meant his lungs had been in shutdown, and the instinct to breathe had forced his chest to expand.
I stood, leaning on Eli. “He’ll be hungry.”
“Oatmeal cooked but in the fridge. Three pounds of sliced beef. Twelve boiled eggs. All cold as sin but calories ready to eat. I’ve lived with you long enough to know what’s needed, Janie.” His voice was kind, telling me he had my back.
I nodded. “I have to check on Storm.”
Eli tensed. “It isn’t good.”
I shook my head, thinking,When is it ever?
“I’ve called Soul,” he added.
Without checking for traffic, knowing without looking that my people had blocked off both ends of the block, I walked into the street and across. Opal and Pearl were in human form, holding Storm in their arms. Storm was unmoving, her dragon form coiled and still. Her sisters hissed as I approached. I ignored them and knelt at Storm’s side.
The one thing I knew for certain aboutle breloquewas that at some point, one of the two rings that make the crown had belonged to the arcenciels. I drew on the crown again and placed a hand on Storm’s frilled face. I had no idea if arcenciels had hearts or pulses or lungs. I moved my hand over her horns and tusks and the delicate skin that frilled out around her head. I moved down her body, touching, shoving with my magic. Nothing was happening. The tears that hadn’t dried were dripping down my cheeks, landing on Storm’s body. I was sobbing. Tears and snot and boohooing like a child who had been kicked as grief wracked through me. I wrapped my arms around her body and hugged her, praying for my god to heal her, praying for her goddess, if she had one in her world, to heal her. Nothing happened. Nothing helped. Her coils were lifeless. The magic I tried to push into her went sluggish just beneath her snakeskin. I reached for the horrible wound. The flesh there was blackened and smelled of hot iron. The magic I shoved there swirled into the wound and bounced back. Knocking me off my feet to my butt. My knuckles scraped the pavement. Ripping off skin to the bone. I rolled to my side, ready to try again with Storm.
And I got a look at the human-shaped body lying nearby. Curled on its side. Burned and blackened where the lightning had struck it. Facing me. Adan’s lightning victim.
Bloodied and scarred. Vamp fangs had torn through his throat. His eyes were open and cooked where the lightning had burned him.Derek.
Derek. My friend.
Storm.
I raised my face into the dawn. I screamed. Grief shriek. Battle cry. The sound of loss and fury echoing off the brick walls and into the sky. My entire body heated and tore. My joints and bones popped. I sucked in a breath of rage and Iroared.
I couldn’t fix Storm. I couldn’t fix Derek.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I never had.
Around me, the pavement erupted. Cracking and bubbling and dusting into its component parts. Tarry shards and concrete shot upward. At me. Into me.
The pavement smashed me in the head.
