So . . . yes.
The jackaltooth wasn’t a monster sent by the Bard to finish what the Smiths had started. It was Luvic.
“Change back,” I said.
Luvic growled and then he tossed me into the air like a dog throwing a dead squirrel, and I dropped onto his back. He started running so quickly all I could do was crouch over his back and dig my fingers into his bristled fur.
He raced through the sewers, charging south. Sometimes, I swear I saw people in the dark, but they fled into the shadows. There had always been people who lived under the city, but there were creatures that did too.
Luvic avoided both. He ran like a greyhound, his body flexing with fluid, powerful strides. We leaped across the underground river flowing beneath the New York Athletic Club on 59th Street. He sprinted though the arched and strangely beautiful brick sewers built in the 1800s. He ran past rats and cockroaches, raw sewage splashing us as the tunnels narrowed.
Long minutes passed. I was bruised and aching, my lungs still burning—now from sewage fumes—when Luvic finally slowed. The sewer was so old that Luvic dropped down, crawling on his belly. The brick looked hundreds of years old, and perhaps it was, because a figment sat next to the wall, spreading mortar and laying brick. By his clothing, I’d say he was from the early 1800s.
When Luvic passed through the narrowest section, we came to a clog in the sewer where trash had clumped together in an underground jetty. Luvic jumped over it and landed cat-paw-quiet in front of a metal door.
He tilted a shoulder, and I slid off, landing stiff-legged on the ground.
He stared pointedly at the door. I tried the handle. Locked.
Luvic blew out a breath as if to ask why I wasn’t picking the lock.
Well.
I carefully walked back to the pile of trash and found a piece of thin metal. Then, heading back, I jimmied the lock and thrust the door open. Luvic pushed in front of me, and I followed, closing the door behind us.
It was a small room. There were old tools here, rusted now, and a three-legged wooden stool. There were rat bones in the corner and a few cockroaches scuttling under a rotten old shelf. This must’ve been where sanitary workers stored their tools and took breaks, but I don’t think it had been used for that purpose for decades. Instead, there was a relatively new lock and the diffuse blue glow of battery-powered automatic lighting.
I frowned at Luvic. “Is this a hidey-hole?”
He made a noise and then sat with his back to the door, staring at me.
“Can you change back?”
The corner of his mouth lifted with a snarl, and his teeth glistened.
I bit my bottom lip. “You changed to save me, didn’t you?”
His orange eyes narrowed. They glowed like a flame, catching the blue light.
“Thank you. I would’ve died if you hadn’t . . .” I took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling, then I looked back at Luvic. “It was the Smiths. Did you know that? You’re probably wondering what Hell Gate did to make them so angry.” I smiled. “Then again, maybe not. You were there when I killed him.”
Luvic growled, and I shrugged.
“It’s true. I did.”
I walked toward Luvic, but when I was a foot away, he made a warning rattle in his throat. I stayed back and focused inward. I clung to the river of power flowing through me and everything that made me a Ward. I clasped onto everything that cut through illusion.
Then I spoke with all the power and authority I had. “You’re a man. You’re Luvic. Change back. Now.”
Luvic shuddered. His muscles rippled under his fur, and his tendons twisted. He snarled and yelped. Whatever was happening hurt. But it didn’t work. After thirty seconds, the spasms and twisting stopped, and Luvic collapsed to the floor. He lay on his side, his ribs rising and falling with each heaving breath.
I crouched down. “Luvic?”
He made a small, rattling noise.
“I’m going to try again.”
He closed his eyes.
