CHAPTER 4

Bell Recovery was headquartered in a sturdy brick building on the edge of a large industrial yard on the southwest side of Atlanta, all ugly ruins surrounded by bright green growth. Nature waged a relentless assault on the city. People burned it and cut it, and still it came back, fed by magic and growing faster than ever.

Ascanio parked and didn’t bother shutting off the engine. It would take too much chanting to start it back up and considering the Pack’s paw stenciled on its door and the fact that I exited it flashing my claws and teeth, there wouldn’t be anyone dumb enough to try to steal it.

Ascanio and I marched through the front doors.

A harried receptionist raised her head from the papers on her desk and jumped a little in her seat. She was middle-aged and her hair had been dyed an unnaturally red color.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling.

She pushed her chair as far back as it would go.

“We’re here on behalf of the Pack to chat with Kyle Bell.”

“He’s on site,” the receptionist said. Her eyes told me she would answer any question just to get us out of her office.

“Where would that be?”

She swallowed. “The east end of Inman Yard.”

You don’t say. “At the Glass Menagerie?”

The receptionist nodded. “Yes.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am.”

We headed back out to our Jeep.

“Kyle Bell is either really ballsy or really stupid. Probably both.”

“Why?” Ascanio asked.

“Because doing any sort of reclamation at the Glass Menagerie is suicidal. Especially with the magic up. It’s also illegal. And now we have to drive through the Burnout to get there. I hate the Burnout. It’s depressing.”

We got back into our Jeep.

“Take the right, then another right. We need to get on Hollowell Parkway and make a left there.”

“What’s the Glass Menagerie?” Ascanio asked, steering the Jeep out of the parking lot.

As far as I knew the Glass Menagerie was off-limits to adventurous Pack persons below eighteen. For a good reason, too. “You’ll see.”

As the road climbed north, the landscape changed. The ruins of warehouses and the greenery remained behind. Around us old husks of burned-out houses crouched, accented by an occasional spot of green.

Being stuck holding the fort at the Order left me with a lot of free time, so I had read guidebooks and familiarized myself with the city maps. In my spare time I’d jogged through random Atlanta neighborhoods on the off chance I might have to visit them in my professional capacity. My guidebooks mentioned that years ago a devastating fire had swept through the western section of Atlanta, taking out the older residential neighborhoods north of 402. The fire had burned with an intense, unnatural orange and raged for almost a week despite heavy rains and many attempts to put it out. When it was finally over, the land had lost its ability to support plant life. In other parts of Atlanta, any spot of clear ground was immediately claimed by vegetation that grew like it was on steroids. The Burnout remained weed-free for a decade. The plants were finally coming back—kudzu draped a crumbling wall here and there and bright yellow dandelions and crimson bloody dandies, the dandelion’s magic-altered cousins, poked out between the fallen bricks.

A few months ago, during Indian summer, Raphael and I had a picnic under a giant oak in a field outside the city. I had always wanted to have one of those movie picnics with a red-and-white checkered cloth and a wicker basket. We ate take-out fried chicken, washed it down with root beer and cream soda, and lay about on our tablecloth. I had picked a bunch of dandelions and bloody dandies and made two flower crowns.

It seemed so stupid now. What the hell did I do that for? Like some besotted silly ten-year-old.

“Why didn’t you just fight Rebecca?” Ascanio asked. “You’d win.”

“Of course I would win. Even if she spat frag grenades and sweated bullets, I’d win. She’s a human. I’m a shapeshifter with ten years of combat experience and some of the best martial education you can get.”

“In nature you have to fight off your competition.”

In nature, huh? I’d heard that one before. “In nature, hyena cubs are born with open eyes and a full set of teeth. They start fighting from the moment they come out of their mother. They dig tunnels in the den, too small for adults to get through, and they fight there. About a quarter of them don’t grow up. So if this was nature and you were a twin, you’d have to murder your newborn sister or brother. Should we dump all of the bouda babies into a playpen and let them starve until they start killing each other?”

Ascanio frowned. “Well, no…”

“Why not? It’s natural selection. Just like nature.” I wrinkled my nose. “Boudas love this argument, because it gives them an excuse to do all the wrong things. ‘I’m sorry I screwed your sister and got my penis stuck in your German shepherd. It’s in my nature. I just couldn’t help myself.’”

Ascanio snorted.

“Don’t be that guy,” I told him. “It’s bullshit reasoning. We are not animals. We are people. And a good thing too, because it wasn’t hyenas who conquered the world. And yes, I know it’s ironic as hell, given that I’m all fur and claws right this second, but the human part of me is still in the driver’s seat. We all know what happens when the animal side starts running the show.”

“We go loup,” Ascanio said.

“Exactly.”

Loupism was a constant threat. It claimed fifteen percent of shapeshifter children, some at birth, some in adolescence, forcing the Pack to humanely terminate them. For boudas, the number was even higher—almost a quarter. Both of Raphael’s brothers had gone loup and Aunt B had had to kill them. That’s why any surviving adolescent in the bouda clan was treated like a treasure.

If I ever had babies with Ra…The thought twisted in me like a knife in the wound. There would be no little bouda babies. No Raphael. That door slammed shut and I needed to put him out of my mind. In this life you’re lucky if you get one shot at happiness, and I had missed mine. The fact that it was a joint screwup just hurt more.

Water under the bridge.

“But she is stupid,” Ascanio said. “She insulted Aunt B!”

“And for that we should rip her throat out?” I glanced at him.

“Well, no.”

“Suppose I did beat the snot out of her. What would it accomplish? In nature animals fight to demonstrate superiority. The more powerful you are, the better your genetic material is. Stronger animal, stronger babies, a better chance of survival for the species. Raphael already knows I’m a better fighter and he chose her over me anyway. That’s a lesson for you—when you get a chance to be happy, you take it and you treat the other person the way they deserve to be treated. Don’t take things for granted.”

Giving advice was easy. Living by it was much harder.

We took a right at the fork, heading farther north. The charred houses continued. To the right, a large sign nailed to an old telephone post shouted DANGER in huge red letters. Underneath in crisp black letters was written:

IM-1: Infectious Magic Area
Do Not Enter
Authorized Personnel Only

A second smaller sign under the first one, written on a piece of plastic with permanent marker, read:

Keep out, stupid.

“We aren’t going to keep out, are we?” Ascanio asked.

“No.”

“Awesome.”

We rolled by another blackened home. To the left a large blue-green shard protruded from the ground at an angle. To the right, by the metal carcass of a fire-stripped truck, another sliver, pale blue, waited to bloody someone’s ankle. The first signs of the Menagerie.

Here and there more shards punctured the soil, and in the distance, far to the right, a jagged iceberg rose at a steep angle twenty feet high, glowing with translucent green and blue in the morning sun.

Ascanio squinted. “What is that?”

“Glass,” I answered.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Where did it come from?”

Ahead more icebergs crowded in, forming a glacier. “Some of it is from Hollowell Station. Before the Shift, Inman Yard used to be Norfolk Southern’s train yard. It was huge. Over sixty-five tracks in the bowl alone. Not only that, but CSX’s Tilford train yard was right next to it. Together they handled over a hundred trains per day. Then they built the Hollowell Station. It was supposed to be a new, super-modern terminal and most of it was glass. Guess what happened when the magic waves started hitting?”

Ascanio grinned. “It crashed.”

“Yes, it did. There were hills of glass everywhere. The magic waves kept causing train crashes, but the railroad hung in there. Over the next few months some railroad employees started to get the idea that the glass hills were multiplying. Nobody else paid much attention to it. Then during the second flare, creatures popped out of the glass and killed half of the railroad workers.”

“What kind of creatures?” Raphael asked.

“Nobody knows.”

Flares—intense, terrible magic waves—came once every seven years. Things that were impossible during normal magic waves became reality during a flare. The flare’s magic held for three days straight and then disappeared for a long while, but its consequences were often deadly.

“Eventually the military came back to reclaim the yard. There were roughly two hundred trains in there, and some of them were full of goods. The soldiers found that the glass had expanded and encased the trains. When they tried to chip it off, they were attacked by creatures. Nobody ever figured out what the creatures were, but they caused multiple casualties. Finally the MSDU gave up and cordoned off the Inman Yard with barbed wire. The glass never stopped growing. Helicopters were still flying once in a while back then, so one of the reporters looked at the place from above and dubbed it the Glass Menagerie.”

Ahead two glass icebergs met above the road, fused into a massive arch. We passed under it and into the labyrinth of glass. Peaks of green, blue, and white towered above us, some connected, some standing apart, some curving, others perfectly sheer. The light turned turquoise, as if we were underwater. The glass cliffs crowded the crumbling road, painting the ground with colored shadows.

The back of my head itched, the nerves prickling, as if some invisible sniper had sighted me from the scope of his rifle. Someone was watching us from the icy depths. Ascanio fell silent, focused and tense. He’d sensed it, too.

The road in front of us glittered.

“Stop,” I said.

The Jeep came to a stop.

A sheer ridge of glass crossed the road. A few yards before it reached the asphalt, it had shattered into a heap of shards. An identical heap marked the other side. Bell Recovery must’ve blasted through it. Kyle Bell was trying to reclaim the trains. The metal alone would be worth a fortune, not to mention the contents of the cars. Once reclaimed, he would have to transport the metal out and he needed a road in decent repair. Except now there was broken glass all over it.

I got out of the vehicle and padded forward, careful not to step on anything too sharp. My paw-feet were calloused, and Lyc-V would seal any cuts the moment they were made, but it would still hurt. Ascanio followed me.

The shards littered the asphalt, large slivers of glass at the edges, and smaller crushed glass dust in the center. I crouched for a better perspective. Crushed glass ran in two parallel rows.

“Track vehicle,” I said. “They’re using a tractor or a bulldozer.” The glass would slice our tires into shreds. “Park the Jeep. We’re going on foot.”

We hid the Jeep behind a glass mountain and shut off the engine. The sudden silence made my ears ring. I took a crossbow and a longbow out of the vehicle.

“Why two bows, mistress?” Ascanio asked, sinking a sudden English accent into his words.

“The crossbow has more power but takes longer to reload.” I strung the longbow. “Sometimes you have to shoot fast. And can you go ten minutes without being a smartass?” I grabbed the quiver.

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried, mistress.” He shook his head. “But arrows bounce from monsters.”

“These don’t.” I pulled one out and showed him the incantation written on the arrowhead. One of the Military Supernatural Defense Unit’s mages wasn’t averse to moonlighting. He was expensive but worth it. “But if you have doubts, why don’t you go stand over there. I’ll shoot you and we’ll find out if it hurts.”

“No thanks.”

I picked up the spare bow and the second quiver and handed it to him. “Then shut up and carry this.”

I started forward at an easy jog, skirting the road. Ascanio followed a couple feet behind. The glass swallowed all footsteps and we glided like two shadows.

A flicker of movement appeared in the corner of my eye. Something crouched atop the glass ridge to the left. Something with a long tail that hid in the shadows. I kept running, pretending I didn’t see it. It didn’t follow.

A muted roar announced water engines being put to good use. We passed under another glass overhang, running parallel to the road. Ahead the ribbon of asphalt turned, rolling through the opening between the glass peaks into the sunlight. I slowed and padded on silent feet to the nearest iceberg ledge, about fifteen feet off the ground. Too smooth to climb. I gathered myself into a tight clump and jumped. My hands caught the glass edge, and I pulled myself up. Ascanio bounced up next to me. We crawled along the ledge to the opening.

A clearing stretched in front of us, about half a football field long. To the right the ground climbed up slightly, the slope studded with pale green glass boulders. A large construction shelter perched on top of the raised ground, its durable fabric stretched over an aluminum frame. To the left a mess of glass bristling with shards curved away, deeper into the glass labyrinth. The tail end of an overturned railroad car stuck out of shards.

An enchanted water engine sat nearby, powering up a massive jackhammer that two construction workers with hardhats and full facial shields pointed at the glass encrusting the train car. Eight other workers, wrapped in similar protective gear, pounded away at the glass with hammers and mining picks.

Three guards milled about the perimeter, each armed with a machete. The nearest to us, a tall, broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties, looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to use his. With the magic up, guns wouldn’t fire, but the security seemed too light for a reclamation in the Glass Menagerie. They must’ve had something else up their sleeves.

“You see what they’re doing?” I murmured to Ascanio.

“They’re trying to salvage that railcar,” he said.

“Why is it illegal?”

He thought about it. “It doesn’t belong to them?”

“Technically the railroad has gone out of business, so this is abandoned property. Try again.”

“I don’t know.”

“What are we sitting on?”

He looked down at the turquoise surface under our feet. “Magic glass.”

“What do we know about it?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Exactly. We don’t know what makes it grow and we don’t know what would make it stop.”

“So anything they take out of that rail car could sprout glass,” Ascanio said.

“Precisely. They’re going to sell whatever they reclaim and they won’t tell the buyer where they got it. And when another Glass Menagerie sprouts someplace, it will be too late.”

“Shouldn’t we do something about it?”

I held up my empty hand. “No badge. We can report it when we get out of here and see if PAD wants to do something about it.” Besides, it wasn’t our job to report it and I was pretty much done with acts of civic responsibility. It wasn’t my problem.

“They have to know that what they’re doing is illegal,” I said. “And this area is dangerous, so they should have more than three bruisers walking about with oversized knives. They have some security we’re not seeing. Be ready for a surprise.”

Ascanio’s eyes lit up with an eerie ruby glow. “Can I shift now?”

“Not yet.” Shifting took a lot of energy. Change your shape twice in rapid succession, and you would have to have some downtime. I needed Ascanio fresh and full of energy, which meant once he shifted, he’d have to stay that way.

We jumped off the ledge and walked down the road straight into the guard. He saw my face and drew back.

“What in the bloody hell are you?”

“Andrea Nash,” I said. “This is my associate, Robin of Loxley.”

Ascanio saluted with the bow. Thankfully no Latin spilled out.

“I’m investigating a murder on behalf of the Pack. I need to talk to Kyle.”

The man stared at me. This was clearly outside of his normal duties.

“You got some sort of ID on you?”

I handed him my ID—a miniature copy of my PI license endorsed by the Georgia Secretary of State with my picture on it.

“How do I know it’s you?” he asked.

“Why would I lie?”

He mulled it over. “Okay, you’ve got something that says you’re from the Pack?”

Ascanio coughed a bit.

I swept the hand from my forehead to my chin, indicating my face. “Do I look like I need to prove I’m from the Pack?”

The guard pondered me. “Okay, fine. Come with me.”

We followed him to the tent. It looked bigger close up, almost forty feet tall. Inside, a middle-aged man pored over some charts next to a taller, thinner man with acne scars on his narrow face. Both wore hardhats.

The middle-aged man looked up. Stocky, well muscled, he might have been quick at some point in his youth, but probably not. He looked like one of those linemen that plant themselves in front of the quarterback, except in his case he’d let himself go a bit and most of his muscle now hid behind a layer of fat. His hair was gray and cropped short, but his dark eyes were sharp. He didn’t look friendly. He looked like the kind of guy who could order a shapeshifter murder.

Kyle gave me a once-over and focused on the guard. “What the hell is this?”

“Some people from the Pack want to talk to you,” the guard said. “About some murder.”

Kyle leaned back, his face sour. “Tony, do you remember that time I told you to just let any asshole in here?”

The guard winced. “No.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember that either. Felipe, you remember that?”

“No,” the taller man said.

“That’s what I thought.”

Tony paused, obviously confused. “So what do I do?”

“Throw them the fuck out. If I want to talk to any ugly bitches or punk kids, I’ll tell you.” Kyle looked back to his papers.

Tony put his hand on my forearm. “Come on.”

“Take your hand off of me, sir.”

The guard pulled me. “Don’t make this hard.”

“Last chance. Take your hand off of me.”

Kyle looked up.

Tony tried to yank me back. I raised my arm up sharply and elbowed him in the face. The blow knocked him back. Tony dropped his machete. It bit into the dirt, handle sticking upright. Blood gushed from his nose, its scent piercing me like a shot of adrenaline.

“Sit on him,” I said.

Ascanio tripped Tony, pulled him to the ground, facedown, and leaned one knee on his back. “Don’t move, sir.”

He remembered. I felt so proud.

Tony tried to push up. “Get off of me!”

“Do not struggle, or I’ll be forced to break your arm.”

Tony shut up.

Kyle looked at me. Behind him, Felipe carefully took a couple of steps back.

“We can talk about the murders now.” I smiled.

“And if I don’t feel like talking?”

“I’ll make you,” I said. “I’ve had an unpleasant day and four of our people are dead. I feel like having some fun.”

“You shapeshifters are getting ballsy,” Kyle said. “You think you can just come in anywhere and screw with regular decent people.”

“As a matter of fact, I can.” I looked at him.

“The boys down at PAD will just love that,” Felipe, the taller man behind Kyle, said.

Ha! He was threatening me with cops. “The boys down at PAD won’t give a shit. This area is designated as IM-1. You are here in violation of two city ordinances, one state and two federal statutes. Anything you reclaim is contaminated with magic of unknown origin. Taking it out of here is punishable by a fine of not more than two hundred thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both. Selling it will get you another dime in a state penitentiary.”

Kyle crossed his arms. “Is that so?”

“Greed is a terrible thing,” I said. “When you extract your metal and sell it to a builder, and then the new school or hospital in the city starts sprouting glass, they will come looking for you. At the moment, it’s not my problem. I’m here to ask questions. Answer them and I’ll thank you and go away. Do keep in mind that if you piss me off, I can slaughter the lot of you and nobody will give a crap.”

And I could. I could just twist his head off and nobody would be the wiser. This was the Glass Menagerie and if he died, the cops would just think he got what was coming to him. Now there was an interesting thought.

A creature walked into the tent, moving on all fours. It used to be human, but all fat had been leeched off it, replaced by hard, knotted muscle and skin stretched so tight, it looked painted on. Its head was bald, like the rest of its repulsive frame and the two eyes, red and feverish with thirst, bore into me like two burning coals. Its oversized jaws protruded, and as it opened its mouth, I glimpsed two curved fangs.

A vampire. The revolting stink of undeath swirled around me, raising my hackles in instinctive disgust. Ew. Well, that explained the light security. They had an undead guarding them. And where there was a vampire, there was a navigator.

Infection by the Immortuus pathogen destroyed a human’s mind. No cognizance remained. Vampires were ruled only by instinct and that instinct screamed, “Feed!” They did not reproduce. They did not think. They hunted flesh. Anything with a pulse was fair game. Their blank minds made perfect vehicles for necromancers. Called navigators, or Masters of the Dead, if they had talent and education, necromancers piloted vampires, driving them around telepathically like remote-controlled cars. They saw through the vampire’s eyes, they heard through its ears, and when an undead opened its mouth, it was the navigator’s words that came out.

Most of the navigators worked for the People. The People and the Pack existed in a state of uneasy truce, hovering on the verge of full-out war. If the People were running security for this site, my life would get a lot more complicated.

A man followed the vampire. He wore ripped jeans, a black T-shirt that said MAKE MY DAY in bloody red letters, and sported a dozen rings in various parts of his facial features. He could’ve been one of the People’s journeymen, but it was highly unlikely. Strike one, he followed his vampire instead of sitting somewhere outside being inconspicuous, pulling the undead’s strings with his mind. Strike two, the People’s journeymen looked like they just emerged from arguing a case before the Supreme Court. They wore suits, had good shoes, and were impeccably groomed.

No, this knucklehead had to be a freelancer, which meant I could kill him without diplomatic consequences, if he didn’t kill me first.

“Where the hell have you been, Envy?” Kyle said.

I looked at him. “Envy?”

Ascanio chortled.

“Around,” Envy said.

“I want them gone,” Kyle said. “Do your fucking job.”

The vamp hissed. Envy smiled, showing bad teeth.

Ascanio gathered himself. “Can I shift now?”

“No.” I turned, stepping closer to the machete Tony had dropped on the ground and looked at the navigator. “You have a chance to walk away. Take it.”

“Can I kill them?” Envy asked.

“You can do whatever you want,” Kyle told him.

I had to do this fast. Getting into a hand-to-hand brawl with a vampire would end badly. I would’ve preferred to wrestle an enraged mama grizzly. “Walk away. Last chance.”

Envy grinned. “Pray, bitch.”

“Are you affiliated with the People?” I asked.

“Fuck, no.”

“Wrong answer.”

Outside, glass shattered. A scream tore through the quiet, the raw painful scream of a man experiencing sheer terror. Two more followed.

“What the hell now?” Kyle growled.

We piled out of the tent.

The rail car had split open at the top, like a can of bad beans, and creatures poured out, climbing onto its roof. Thick pale-gray hide covered their squat, barrel-chested bodies, supported by six muscled bearlike legs. Hand-paws tipped each limb, and their long dexterous fingers carried short but thick ivory claws. A narrow carapace ran along their backs and when one of the creatures reared, I saw an identical bony shield guarding its stomach and chest. The carapace terminated in a long, segmented tail with a scorpion stinger. They had large round heads with feline jaws and twin rows of tiny eyes, sitting deep in their sockets. The eyes stared to the front, not to the side. That usually meant a predator.

The beasts scuttled across the sleek surface, sticking to the glass as if they had glue on the pads of the paws. The largest of them was about six feet long and had to push three hundred pounds. The smallest was about the size of a large dog. That meant some of them were babies. Hungry, hungry babies.

The workers backed away, brandishing their tools. Only one exit led out of this glass bowl and it lay on the opposite side, almost directly behind the train car and the creatures.

The horde focused on the people, watching them with the intense attention of hungry predators who were trying to decide if something was food. The larger of the creatures raised its head. Its wide jaws parted, revealing a small forest of crooked fangs. Meat-eater. Of course.

The workers stopped moving.

The largest beast stared at the people below, turning left, right, left…Muscles bunched on his shoulders.

“Back away,” Kyle called out. “Don’t provoke it. Envy, get in there.”

“In a minute,” the navigator said.

The beast leaped, aiming for the center of the crowd. People scattered, splitting into two groups—the eight people closest to us ran toward the tent, while twice as many sprinted away in the opposite direction, toward the glass wall.

The beast chased after the farther, larger group. One of the guards, a large dark-skinned man, charged at it. The beast hooted, like a colossal owl, and snapped its teeth. The guard dodged, swung, and chopped at the beast’s neck. The machete cut bone and gristle like a meat cleaver.

The beast’s head drooped to the side, half severed. The scent of blood hit me, bitter and revolting. My predatory instincts backpedaled—whatever that thing was, it wasn’t good to eat.

The creature staggered and crashed down. Dark blood, thick and rust-brown, spilled onto the glass.

The horde broke out in alarmed hoots.

“Not so tough,” Felipe told Kyle, the relief plain in his voice.

The ground trembled. The walls of the railcar burst. A behemoth spilled out, huge, grotesquely muscled, its forelimbs like tree trunks. I’d once seen a dog as big as a house. This was larger. It was taller than the construction tent. How the hell did it even fit under there?

Kyle swore.

The beast sighted the dead offspring, opened its maw, and bellowed. She looked just like her babies, except for the bone carapace that sheathed most of her upper face as if someone had pulled her skull out and clamped it over her ugly mug. Her four eyes were barely the size of Ping-Pong balls. Trying to shoot them with an arrow would be a pain in the ass.

“Okay,” Envy said. “I’m out.”

Kyle’s eyes bulged. “I paid you, you maggot!”

“Not enough,” Envy said.

The vamp grabbed him, swinging the navigator over its back, and dashed away, leaping over people and dodging beasts. A moment and it vanished into the glass forest.

Kyle’s face turned purple in a fit of sudden rage. He struggled to say something.

Spurned by their parent’s roar, the creatures slunk toward the larger group.

Felipe grabbed my arm. “Help us!”

“Why?” I was done with the civil servant bit. It was no longer my job to save every idiot from the consequences of their own stupidity. They walked into the Glass Menagerie on their own, knowing the risks. Why should I put my life in danger for the people who tried to sic a vamp on me? I owed them nothing. I just had to get the information I needed from Kyle and make sure that Ascanio and I got out of there in one piece.

The beasts circled the larger group. The workers hugged the glass wall. It wouldn’t be long now before one of the creatures got brave enough.

“Please!” Felipe’s eyes were desperate. “My son is down there.”

So what? Everyone was somebody’s husband, wife, somebody’s son, somebody’s Baby Rory…

Aw, shit.

I looked at Felipe’s face and saw Nick there. Their features were nothing alike, but that’s exactly what Nick must’ve looked like when told his wife was dead. Felipe stared at me with wide-open eyes, desperate and terrified, his face sharpened, as if he were about to wince in pain and cry out. Every wrinkle gouged his skin like a scar. All of the rules society imposed on men, all of the obligations to be the brave one, to never panic, to handle themselves with stony dignity, all of them were wiped away, because he was about to lose his son. He was helpless. He begged me for his child’s life and I knew that he would trade places with his boy without a moment’s hesitation.

I couldn’t just stand there and watch him as his son was eaten alive. It was not in me. The person who would walk away from that man wasn’t who I was or wanted to be.

I slipped the scabbard off my arm and handed it to Ascanio. “Arrow!”

He yanked an arrow out and put in my palm. I notched it. “I’ll be shooting fast. Have the next arrow ready.”

I drew the bow.

The bravest beast jumped, aiming for the nearest worker.

The bow string and the arrow sang together in a vicious happy duet. The arrowhead sliced into the creature’s throat. The first beast fell, hissing, trying to swipe at the shaft with its paw. The arrow whined. A blue light sparked at the wound and the beast exploded.

I held my hand out and Ascanio put another arrow into it.

The second beast followed the first. A moment later, the second explosion hurled chunks of flesh and bone into the pack. I didn’t have time to watch. I kept shooting, fast, precise, filling the air with arrows.

The beasts panicked. They dashed to and fro amidst their exploding siblings, biting and clawing at each other. The Mother Beast roared, snapping massive jaws at random, unable to figure out what was killing her babies.

“Run!” I screamed.

The workers dashed toward us, running along the wall. The beasts chased them. The air whistled in a nonstop deadly chorus, as my arrows found targets.

Felipe grabbed a pickaxe out of another man’s hands and ran toward the group. A woman to my left charged in after him, and so did Tony—the guard—and two others.

One of the workers, a small woman, stumbled, fell, and slid down the glass slope. Two beasts fell on her, ripping into the woman with wet, gurgling growls. I sank two arrows into them, but it was too late. The woman screamed, a short guttural cry, cut off in mid-note. Blood drenched the glass. A moment later the arrow detonated and human and beast rained over the glass in a bloody deluge.

The first runner made it to the tent and collapsed behind me. The rest followed. Finally Felipe and the dark-skinned guard made it in, both splattered with gore.

The Mother Beast spun toward us. Finally found the enemy, did you?

“Form a perimeter!” I barked. “Time to fight for your lives! Use whatever you got.”

The workers scrambled to form a line.

The monster ducked her head, and I saw a narrow slit in her carapace, located high between her eyes. Soft pink tissue expanded and contracted, filling the foot-wide slit and then retracting. Hello, target.

The beast swung her head again and bellowed in my direction. The wave of sound hit me like the roar of a tornado. I’d have to take the mother out or none of us would get out alive.

“Can I shift now?” Ascanio asked.

“Yes. Now.”

Ascanio’s skin ruptured. Powerful muscle wound about his skeleton, skin sheathed it, and pale brownish-gray fur sprouted through it. A dark mane grew on his head and dripped down the back of his neck, over his spine. Pale stripes sliced his forelimbs, ending in five-inch claws. His face, like his body, became a meld of human and striped hyena. His eyes flashed with red.

The Mother Beast lifted one colossal front paw and took a step forward. The ground shook.

The bouda opened his mouth and roared back, breaking into bloodcurdling hyena laughter. My hackles rose. There’s my pretty boy.

“Keep her occupied!” I barked. “Make her face this way.”

Ascanio leaped over the workers’ heads and dashed down to the monster. He swatted a smallish beast out of the way. It yelped and the behemoth swung in his direction.

I drew my bow. Not yet.

Ascanio backhanded another creature.

Not yet. I had time.

The behemoth ducked down, snarling.

Not yet…

The huge teeth snapped at Ascanio. He ducked, escaping by a couple of inches.

I let the arrow go. It sliced through the air, propelled as much by the bowstring as by my will, and sliced straight into the unprotected area of her head. Yes! Nailed it!

The arrow whined and exploded. Blood shot out of the behemoth’s nostrils. She shook her head…and charged Ascanio. He leaped up and left, bounced off the glass, and jumped behind her, slicing the behemoth’s leg with his claws on the way.

Damn it. It didn’t even faze her.

Ascanio and my arrows weren’t doing enough damage. Neither would machetes. We could hack at her all day, and we’d do no good.

The behemoth chased Ascanio. The boy jumped back and forth, dashing like some mad rabbit. He couldn’t keep this up forever.

If only we had something, some weapon, something…

The monster swung her tail, right over the heavy jackhammer laying abandoned on the glass. It was still attached to the tank by the hose that pumped enchanted water into it. The hose was way too short to reach the beast.

I spun to Felipe. “Will it work without the hose?”

It took him a second. “Yes!” He jerked his hand up, fingers spread. “Five minutes.”

I threw down my bow and sprinted to the jackhammer. My paws slipped on the glass, slick with beast blood. I slid, jumped, landed by the jackhammer, and heaved it off the ground. A heavy bastard.

A tree-trunk-sized monster leg loomed in front of me. I leaped and clawed my way up the beast to the top, hauling the jackhammer with me. The freaking thing must’ve weighed three hundred pounds, and I had to drag it one-handed. My right arm felt like it would wrench out of the socket. I pulled myself up, digging into the monster’s hide with my left hand and my hind claws.

The creature moved, chasing Ascanio. Her muscles bulged under me. I clung to her, like a flea, and scrambled up.

I made it over the shoulder and ran toward her head. She roared again and I planted the jackhammer right at the base of her neck, the only spot unprotected by the carapace.

I flipped the jackhammer’s ON switch.

Nothing.

Below people were yelling something. I flicked my ears.

“Chant! Chant it to start!”

Aaaargh. I chanted, praying it would start faster than our cars did.

Ascanio dashed around the work site, buying me time. Below, the smaller monsters attacked the line of workers.

Work, I willed, chanting. Work, you blasted stupid tool.

Work.

Work.

The jackhammer shuddered in my hands. I dug my foot claws into the beast’s back and plunged the jackhammer deep into the behemoth’s flesh. The chisel pounded into the creature’s muscle. Hot blood drenched my feet.

The beast howled in agony, deafening me with the sound of her torture. The jackhammer ate its way down, into her body, and I clung to it, sinking in.

The behemoth shook like a wet dog. I gripped the jackhammer and drove it deeper and deeper. It pulled me in. My arms sank into wet flesh. I took a deep breath and then my nose and my face connected with bloody mush. Pressure ground me. I heard a dull rhythmic sound and realized it was the beast’s heart beating next to me.

Suddenly the full weight of the jackhammer hit my arms. I fell.

The jackhammer hit the ground, dead, and I landed on top of it, its handle conveniently impacting with my rib cage.

Ow. That’s a cracked rib for sure.

Above me the beast stumbled, a red hole in her chest dripping blood and liquefied flesh.

I sprinted away, running for my life.

The creature teetered, blocking out the sun, and crashed down with a deafening thud. The glass floor of the clearing shattered from the impact. Fractures raced from her body up into the translucent glass icebergs. For a fraction of a second nothing moved, and then giant chunks of glass slid from the walls and plummeted down, exploding into razor-sharp shrapnel.

I threw myself behind the enchanted water tank.

All around me glass fell with thunderous blasts, as if I were crouched in the middle of an artillery salvo. Shards slashed at my hide, stinging me like a swarm of bees. I smelled my own blood. The ground shook.

Gradually the bursts slowed. Silence claimed the clearing. I straightened.

Where is the boy?

The tent lay in shambles, crushed beneath a chunk of amber glass the size of an SUV. A man was crying, his leg sliced open. People were slowly rising from hiding. I scanned the survivors. Felipe was hugging a young man. At least his son had survived.

No Ascanio.

Please be alive.

A loud hyena cackle rang through the clearing. I turned. He stood on top of the beast. Blood drenched his fur. His monster-mouth split in a happy, psychotic grin.

I exhaled.

Gradually it sank in. The Mother Beast was dead. I had killed her. The taste of her blood burned in my mouth. Behind her, a deep black hole bore into the ground beneath the remnants of the railroad car. It must’ve been her underground lair. She had raised her brood there, safe and far away from everyone, until Kyle’s crew invaded her den.

Such an awful waste. None of this was necessary. At least one person died, many others were injured, and this great magnificent beast and her brood lost their lives all because Kyle Bell wanted to make a quick buck on the side. He stood by the remnants of the tent now, arms crossed, barking orders.

I marched over to Kyle. He saw me, opened his mouth, and I backhanded him. The blow knocked him to the ground. “This is your fault. You brought these people here. You knew this place was dangerous.” I pulled him upright and spun him toward the dead beast. “Look! People died because of you. Do you understand that? If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have had to murder her. She was just protecting her children.”

“She tried to kill us!”

I backhanded him again. “She tried to kill you because you broke into her house.”

The workers stood around us, their faces grim. Nobody made any move to help their boss.

I looked at them. “Anything you reclaim here is contaminated. Being here is a crime. Taking anything out of this zone is a crime. You need to know this.”

Kyle stayed down, until I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him up, his face two inches from mine. “I will ask this only once. What was in the vault under the Blue Heron?”

“What vault?”

“You answer her,” Felipe said. “You tell her everything now.”

“I don’t know what the hell this bitch is talking about.”

“If you don’t answer me, I’ll kill you.” I shook him, my bloody claws staining his shirt with the behemoth’s gore. “What was in the vault?”

“I don’t know!” he screamed. “I don’t know anything about any vault! I swear!”

“Did you have something to do with the murders at the Blue Heron site? Answer me!”

His pupils dilated and he was hanging in my hands, completely limp, paralyzed by fear. He wasn’t lying. People in a state of complete panic freeze or run. Mother Nature turns off their mental faculties, so her favorite children don’t think themselves to death. Kyle was too terrified to formulate a lie. He truly had no idea what I was talking about.

I dropped him and looked at his crew. “He’s all yours. You need to clear out. I’m reporting this site to the first cop I see.”

I found my bow and quiver and walked away. Ascanio jumped off the beast and joined me. His voice was a deep growl, shredded by his teeth. “It. Wash. Aweshome.”

“This was a tragedy.” People came before animals. I knew that, but when you turn into an animal, your perspective is a little different.

“Yesh. But aweshome.”

He was a boy. What did he know?

“Sho, we didn’t learrrn anyshing?”

“That’s not true. We established that Kyle Bell had nothing to do with the murders. We can eliminate him from our suspect pool. Are you hungry?”

“Shhtarrrving.”

“Good. Let’s go find something to eat.”