CHAPTER 14

The horses clopped down the dirt path. According to Kate the creature that had our scale-shield lived deep in the lands of Norse Heritage. The neo-Viking territory. The neo-Vikings didn’t care for technology within their borders.

Unlike several other Scandinavian organizations, the Norse Heritage wasn’t interested in the preservation of Scandinavian culture. They were interested in perpetuating the Viking myth: they wore furs, braided their hair, waved around oversized weapons, started fights with wild abandon, and generally acted in a manner appropriate to people embracing the spirit of a pirating and pillaging barbarian horde. They took in anyone and everyone, regardless of ancestry and criminal history, as long as they demonstrated the “Viking spirit,” which apparently amounted to liking violent brawls and drinking lots and lots of beer.

The Norse Heritage Hall was located a good way out of the city. Our small band clopped its way down the road, Kate and I up front, Ascanio driving a wagon with a bound deer on it, and Raphael and Roman bringing up the rear. The two men carried on a quiet conversation, which sounded surprisingly civil.

I patted my horse’s neck. Her name was Sugar and she had come from the Keep stables. She was a Tennessee Walker, smart and calm, with high endurance. I liked her color too—she was a red roan of such a pale gentle shade, she almost looked pink.

Kate smirked.

“What?”

“Your horse looks pink.”

“So?”

“If you paste some stars on her butt, you’ll be riding My Little Pony.”

“Bugger off.” I patted the mare’s neck. “Don’t listen to her, Sugar. You are the cutest horsey ever. The correct name for her color is strawberry roan, by the way.”

“Strawberry shortcake, more like it. Does Strawberry Shortcake know you stole her horse? She will be berry, berry angry with you.”

I looked at her from under half-lowered eyelids. “I can shoot you right here, on this road, and nobody will ever find your body.”

Behind us Ascanio chortled.

The road curved, caught between dense, dark forest on the left and an open, low, grass-sheathed hill on the right. Outcroppings of pale rock marked the hills. Norse Heritage Hall sat on the west side of Gainesville, about fifty miles northeast of Atlanta. The massive spread of the Chattahoochee Forest had long ago swallowed Gainesville, turning it into an isolated town, like a small island in a sea of trees.

Kate was riding a dark, nasty-looking gray roan that looked like it couldn’t wait to stomp something to death.

“So, do you miss Marygold?”

Marygold used to be her Order mule.

“My aunt killed her,” Kate said.

Crap. “I’m so sorry.” She had really loved that mule.

Ahead, the top of the largest rock pile shifted. A thick humanoid body pushed from the crest. Its head was wide and equipped with dinosaur jaws armed with narrow teeth. Gray scales shielded its body, protruding from the flesh as if the creature had rolled in gravel. Long strands of emerald-green moss dripped from its back and shoulders. The sun tore through the clouds. A stray ray caught the creature’s side and the beast sparkled as if dipped in diamond dust.

“What the hell is that?”

“That’s a landvættir,” Kate said. “They’re land spirits that pop up around neo-Norse settlements. He won’t bother us unless we turn off the path.”

We rode past the creature.

Raphael urged his horse forward and rode up between the two of us. “Anapa. Powerful enough to snatch a child from the Keep.”

“Yes?” I murmured.

“And this is really important to him?”

“Yes?”

“Why doesn’t he do it himself?” Raphael grimaced. “Why doesn’t he help us? Why keep the Pack out of it?”

I had asked myself these same questions before, so I told him the only answer I could come up with. “I don’t know.”

He glanced at Kate. She shrugged. “Beats me.”

“I asked your volhv,” Raphael said to me.

My volhv, huh? “And what did the Russian sugar bear tell you?”

Kate made a strangled noise. Raphael clenched his jaw, then unclenched it.

“He said that Anapa is a god and gods are weird. What kind of a demented answer is that? Isn’t he supposed to be some sort of expert on this whole thing, which is why we’re bringing him along?”

Gods are vicious, selfish assholes. I shrugged. “Roman is an expert and he gave you his expert opinion. Gods are weird.”

“I can hear you,” Roman called from behind us. “I’m not deaf.”

Raphael shook his head and dropped back.

Anapa wasn’t just weird. No, he had a plan. And all his good humor and funny smiles were calculated. They masked his true essence the way soft fur covered a cat’s claws. And I would keep his plan to myself. If I told Raphael, he would do something rash to save me. If I told it to Kate, she would worry and try to fix it. There was no way to fix it. It was what it was.

The road turned, forking into two paths ahead. The larger road, marked by an old birch, curved up the hill. The smaller, less traveled path veered right, into some woods.

A man walked out from behind the tree and barred the path. Six and a half feet tall and hulking, he resembled a man-sized tank draped in chain mail. He wore a dramatic cloak of black fur and a polished war helm and carried an enormous single axe on a long wooden handle.

“Good to see you again, Gunnar,” Kate said. “We’re going to the glade.”

The bottom half of Gunnar’s face paled. “Again?”

Kate nodded.

“You’ve been once. You can’t go again.”

“I’ve got no choice.”

Gunnar rubbed his face. “He’s got your scent now. You know what happens to people who go to see him twice.”

“I know. I still have to go.”

He shook his head and stepped aside. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

Kate touched the reins and our small procession rolled on.

“What exactly happens to the people who go to see him twice?” I asked.

“He eats them,” Kate said.

The old road narrowed, slicing its way into the forest. Tall trees crowded the road, as if protesting its intrusion in their midst. The air smelled of forest: pine sap, the earthy odor of moist soil, the faint harshness of bobcat mark somewhere to the left, and the slightly oily squirrel musk. A bluish fog hung between the trees, obscuring the ground. Spooky.

We came to a stone arch made by tall pillars of gray stone, bound together by vines.

Kate hopped off her horse. “We hoof it now. Raphael, will you take the deer?”

“Sure.”

I took the tripod framework out of the cart and pulled it apart into a mount, sighting the path past the pillars. I planted the tripod into the ground and took my huge crossbow off the cart. Dark letters ran along the stock of the bow: THUNDERHAWK.

“This is new,” Kate said.

I snapped the crossbow into the top of the mount, took a canvas bundle from the cart, and unrolled it. Crossbow bolts, tipped with the Galahad warheads.

“This is my baby.” I petted the stock.

“You have a strange relationship with your weapons,” Roman said.

“You have no idea,” Raphael told him.

“This from a man with a living staff and a man who once drove four hours both ways for a sword he then put on his wall,” I murmured.

“It was an Angus Trim,” Raphael said.

“It’s a sharpened strip of metal.”

“You have an Angus Trim sword?” Kate’s eyes lit up.

“Bought it at an estate auction,” Raphael said. “If we get out of this alive, you are invited to come to my house and play with it.”

It was good that Curran wasn’t here and I was secure in our relationship, because that totally could be taken the wrong way.

I grabbed my backpack. Raphael slung the deer over his shoulder. Kate pulled a leather bundle from the cart. It had a bead pattern along the side that looked very familiar. I’d seen similar designs before on an Oklahoma Cherokee reservation—it was Indian scrollwork.

“Is that a Cherokee design?”

Kate nodded. “I bought this from the Cherokee medicine woman.”

I motioned Ascanio over. “Aim like this.” I swiveled the tripod, moving the bow. “Sight through here. To fire, flip this lever and squeeze the trigger. Slowly. Don’t jerk it.”

“Even if he jerks it, he’ll hit, trust me,” Kate said. “He’ll have a large target.”

“Don’t listen to her, she can’t shoot an elephant from ten feet away. She would bash him with her bow and then try to cut his throat with her sword.”

Kate chuckled.

“Your turn.” I nodded at the bow.

“Aim, sight, flip lever, squeeze the trigger slowly,” Ascanio said. “Try not to panic and cry like a little girl.”

“Good man.” We followed Kate single file up the path, leaving him at the cart.

The forest grew grimmer, the trees growing darker, more twisted, still full of leaves but somehow dead, as if frozen in time. The fog thickened into soup. The usual scents faded. Not even squirrels ventured here, as if life itself was forbidden. These were some screwed-up woods.

I smelled carrion. Strong and recent, butter-sweet.

We came to a clearing—a small stretch of mossy ground slightly larger than a basketball court, bordered by massive trees. In the center of the clearing rose a big stone, tall and flat like a table. A hollowed-out space had been carved into the stone and stained with red. I sniffed. Blood. Only a couple of days old.

“The deer goes on the rock,” Kate said.

“So what brought you here the first time?” I asked.

“A dying child,” Kate said. “It was me, Curran, and some vampires. He and I were the only ones to get out in one piece. Still time to leave.”

“Leave?” Roman rubbed his hands together. “And miss this? Are you fucking crazy?”

He wasn’t swearing because he was freaked. He was swearing because he was excited. Wow. For once, I had no words.

“Are you sure about this?” Kate asked me.

I had the most important job in this awesome plan of ours. “Will you get on with it already?”

“She will be fine,” Raphael said. “She’s the fastest.”

To the left some creature screeched, loud and desperate. Another joined it. I fought a shiver.

“The draugr was once a Viking named Håkon from Vinland,” Kate said. “The Vikings living there traded with local tribes, who told them that Cherokees were soft. They said that the Southern tribes were farmers, not warriors, and had a lot of gold. So Håkon sailed down on two ships to rape, plunder, and pillage. Except that the Cherokees had good arrows and strong magic. He died in the skirmish. Nobody stopped to bury him, and he was so pissed off by that, that he rose from the dead as a draugr, chased down his remaining men, and ate them.”

“Literally?” Roman asked.

Kate nodded. “The Cherokees found him gnawing on their bones. He was too powerful and they couldn’t kill him, so they locked him on this hill with their wards to keep him from running loose.”

The light gained an odd bluish tint. Somehow the forest had gotten darker.

“This is a bad place,” the black volhv said. “We shouldn’t be here. Well, I should. But you shouldn’t. You see, my god holds dominion over dead things, but this creature belongs to a different pantheon, so I have some protection here, but not too much. Not enough to kill the draugr. Just enough to bind him and survive.”

“You’re doing wonders for my confidence,” I told him.

Kate put the bundle with the Cherokee beadwork on the ground, knelt by it, and untied its cord. Inside lay four sharpened sticks, each about three feet long. She picked the first one up, found a rock and pounded it into the ground by the beginning of the path. That was the way I’d run when it came time to get the hell out of there. The second stick went to the left side of the clearing, the third to the right, and the final exactly opposite the first.

“These are our defenses. They will delay him a little bit. Don’t fight him. Just run.”

Kate got a pipe out of a box and began smoking it. The tobacco hit her and she coughed.

“Lightweight.”

“Whatever.” She circled the clearing, waving her pipe around.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Roman said. “It’s very difficult to witness Native American rituals these days. So much has been lost due to assimilation and lack of written records. Exciting stuff!”

“Well, so glad we could indulge your intellectual curiosity, Professor,” Raphael told him.

“I’m probably making a hash job of it, but the tribe refuses to approach this hill, so I’m all you’ve got,” Kate said.

She completed the circle, sat down, and started pulling things out of her bag: a plastic honey bear, a metal canteen, and a little bag.

I blinked and the forest was full of eyes. Elongated, solid yellow, they peeked at us from under the boulders, from the darkness by the roots of the trees, from the branches…

I bared my teeth. “What are these?”

“I’m not sure.” Kate kept her voice low. “They came out last time, too. I think they might be uldra. Ghastek said they’re nature spirits from Lapland. They didn’t attack us the last time.”

To my right, one of the uldra crawled up on the end of the fallen tree trunk, just feet away. An inch or two over a foot tall, it perched on the tree bark, gripping it with avian feet. Dense dark fur covered its humanoid body. Its face vaguely resembled a baboon.

The uldra found its spot, moving with slothlike slowness, and froze, oversized hands with long, large-knuckled fingers folded in front of it. Its mouth gaped open, displaying a forest of long, deep-water fish teeth.

“It’s just some small nechist,” Roman said next to me.

“Nechist?” I asked.

“Yes. Unclean thing. They’re harmless.” He dug in his bag. “Hang on…Here.” Roman pulled out a small pack of crackers and shook one out. “Here, you want a cracker?” He offered the cracker to the creature.

“Roman…” A warning crept into my voice. Those teeth didn’t look good.

“No worries,” he told me. “Here.” He clicked his tongue. “Come get a cracker.”

The uldra’s pale eyes focused on the cracker. Slowly it reached for it and plucked the small square from Roman’s fingers. The uldra took a bite.

“Good, huh?” Roman clicked his tongue some more. “Come on. Come.”

The uldra crawled onto his forearm and climbed up the black sleeve to sit on his shoulder.

“Jesus,” Raphael said.

Roman made smoochy lips at the uldra. “Who’s so good? Want another cracker?”

A second uldra made its way out of the bushes and sat by Roman’s boot, funky arms folded, waiting for a handout. Roman tossed another cracker on the ground. A couple of smaller creatures trudged over and tugged on the hem of his robe.

“There are plenty of crackers for everyone,” Roman reassured them.

Raphael leaned forward. The uldra bared their teeth. He growled at them.

“No need to bully them.” Roman petted the nearest beastie.

The first uldra finished its meal and rubbed its head against Roman’s cheek.

A low unearthly moan came from the trees. The uldra fled. One second they were there and then whoosh, only half-eaten crackers were left.

“Here we go.” Kate walked up to the stone and the sedated deer lying on it.

The plan was simple. Once the draugr showed up and we obtained the scale, I would take off. Normally I would only have to make it to the stone pillars, which marked the beginning of the Cherokee defenses. But Kate was worried that carrying the scale past the pillars meant we’d be moving a piece of the creature’s stash behind the ward line, which may or may not cancel the spells. We had to stop it at those pillars.

“Are you sure you can bind it?” I asked Roman.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

Suddenly, I was really worried.

Kate opened the pouch, took out rune stones—small squares of worn bone, each with a rune etched on it in black—and tossed them into the basin. They scattered and clinked on the stone, like dice in a plastic cup. She emptied the canteen onto the runes, and I smelled hops and barley. Beer. Kate squeezed the honey bear, squirting a stream of amber-colored honey onto the runes.

Roman leaned toward me. “Those are Norse runes.”

I looked at him.

“Not Slavic ones,” Roman said. “Just thought I’d point it out.”

He looked like he could barely contain all of the excitement.

“Now,” Kate said.

I took a deep breath, grabbed the deer by the head, and pulled his throat toward the hollowed out receptacle in the rock. The deer gave me a panicked look. “Sorry, boy.” Kate raised her knife and cut its throat. The deer kicked, but I clamped it down. The scent of blood, hot and fresh, washed over me, kicking my senses into high gear.

Kate shook the runes, holding them loosely in her hand, and I saw tiny bursts of lightning between her fingers.

“I call you out, Håkon. Come from your grave. Come taste the blood ale.”

A sibilant sound came, made of old bones crunching underfoot, leathery mummified muscles creaking, and eerie evil whisper. I smelled the sickening stench of decomposition, the earth, the dust, and the liquefying flesh, as if someone had thrust my head into a grave. Magic washed over us, dragging freezing cold in its wake. Frost slicked the ground by my feet.

Out from beyond the clearing, the mist streamed at us, thickening as it came. It moaned, like a living thing, its voice full of torment, flowed into a manlike shape, and faded, leaving a thing in its wake.

Six feet tall, it was made of dried gristle and that particular, leathery flesh one usually saw on vampires, except his was tinted with blue-gray. Not a cell of fat could be found on its sparse frame. It wore chain mail and metal pauldrons, and neither fit him well—they hung off him, slightly askew, obviously made for a much thicker body. The draugr raised his head and looked at me. Its face could’ve been used as an anatomy model—each muscle in it so clearly drawn under the thin layer of skin, it looked revoltingly alien. Its cold eyes stared at me, pupil-less and flat.

The undead lowered its head and started licking the blood and beer mixture.

Nausea jerked my stomach. There was something so wrong about this unnatural undead thing sucking up the blood of a creature that had been alive a few moments ago.

“You’re done for now,” Kate said.

The undead raised his head, its face bloody. His mouth moved, and I saw the leathery cords of his facial muscles slide and contract. Ugh.

Its voice was chilling, hoarse, and ancient. “I know you. I know your scent.”

Kate stared it straight in his face. “I brought you blood ale for a boon.”

“Foolish meat. Foolish, foolish meat.”

The draugr went down for the ale.

“No,” Kate snapped.

The draugr leaned on the stone. “I’m Håkon, son of a jarl, scourge of the seas, devourer of flesh. What is it you want, meager meat?”

“I want to see your shield,” Kate said.

The draugr turned his head. “My shield?”

“The shield you bore when you sailed here from Vinland to take the gold from the Southern Tribes.”

“The skrælingar,” the draugr said.

“Yes. The skrælingar. You took two ships and came looking for it, remember?”

“I remember…” The draugr’s voice carried. “I remember everything. Birds with wings that covered half the sky. I remember skrælingar magic. I remember the arrow in my back. I remember my corpse left to rot.”

“Do you remember your shield?” Kate insisted.

The draugr dipped his head toward the ale.

Kate clenched the runes. “If you want the ale, you will let me see your shield.”

An evil cold fire flared in the draugr’s eyes and dripped from his face in burning tears. “I will devour you. I will lick your bones clean and crush them between my teeth. I will suck the marrow…”

“That’s nice,” Kate said. “The shield.”

“Fine, meat. Here it is.”

The earth by the stone bulged upward, split, belching roots and smaller rocks. A curved wooden edge emerged, rising higher and higher, until the entire round shield broke free of the ground. In the middle of it sat an oblong, ridged yellow scale, pinned to the wood by metal bars. It was two feet long.

Two feet. What kind of snake had two-foot-long scales?

“Here is my shield, meat.”

“Do you remember how I came to you with an honest bargain last time and you broke it?” Kate asked.

The draugr laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound.

“Turnabout is fair play,” Kate said.

I grabbed the shield and ran.

The draugr howled, shaking the forest. Roman’s voice barked something in Russian. Raphael snarled.

Mist chased me, snaking its way down the mountain, trying to catch my ankles. I flew down the path.

Magic punched my back. I flew a few feet, hit the ground in a tight ball, rolled to my feet, and kept running. Just aftershocks. Kate must’ve used a power word, her own special brand of magic. It nearly wiped her out—they were her last resort.

You won’t escape me, an icy voice whispered in my ear. Run all you want, meat. Run faster.

Every hair on my body stood on end.

I leaped over a root. The mist snapped like a whip and wound around my neck in a noose. It jerked me off my feet. I flew back, clawing at the tentacle of magic with one hand, clenching the shield with my right. I hit the ground on my back and the magic pulled me, scraping my skin over the roots.

Oh no, you don’t. I growled and grabbed a branch with my left hand.

The magic yanked me backward, crushing my throat. Black circles swam before my eyes.

I planted my feet and forced myself up. Every muscle in my body strained.

The magic pulled.

I pushed forward. Step. Another step. No asshole undead would drag me back. No. Not happening.

The magic tore.

I pitched forward and rolled, head over feet, curving my body around the shield, hitting every obstacle with soft parts of me, as if someone had stuck me into a dryer with a bag of rocks.

I crashed into a tree. The world swam a bit. I scrambled up. The shield lay in shambles at my feet, all except for the scale, which didn’t have a scratch on it.

A dark icy shadow fell on the trees next to me.

I grabbed the scale and spun around. Something white was falling, so I thrust the scale up in front of it and crouched underneath.

Foot-long spikes of ice sank into the ground around me, hammering the scale. I held the scale until the impacts stopped and dashed down the slope. Magic exploded all around me in cold bursts, rattling the teeth in my skull. The harsh stench of rot filled my mouth. Around me the trees groaned, as if pulled upright by an invisible hand. My throat burned.

I shot out onto the road.

The stone pillars loomed far in the distance to my right. I sprinted to them. My ribs were screaming in pain.

The trees creaked behind me. The draugr had made it onto the road.

My feet barely touched the ground. The draugr’s magic iced my back.

Something whistled through the air and a body hit the road in front of me, hurled by a supernatural force. Roman. The volhv wasn’t moving. I guess the binding didn’t work after all.

Between the pillars Ascanio swiveled the crossbow on the tripod, squeezed the trigger, and fired. The oversized bolt sliced through the air above me. Thank you, kid.

The world exploded with green. The blast wave slapped my back. I squeezed the last burst of speed from my exhausted body and cleared the pillars. I skidded to a stop and turned around. On the road the draugr stomped forward, an enormous monstrosity, dwarfing the trees, impossibly big. His magic swirled about him in a stormy cloud.

Raphael dashed out of the trees like a fur-sheathed nightmare and charged the giant, ripping into undead flesh.

I pushed Ascanio from the tripod and reloaded.

The undead tried to stomp on him, but Raphael darted back and forth, too fast, stripping dried muscle and gristle from the giant’s left leg.

Kate burst from the undergrowth and thrust her sword into the draugr’s right foot. I yanked the crossbow up and sighted on Håkon. Eat this, you undead piece of shit.

“Hit the deck!” I screamed.

Raphael and Kate dashed away. I fired. The bolt took the undead below the chest, burning it with emerald flames, and exploded. Undead flesh rained, but the draugr remained upright.

Roman staggered to his feet, his face contorted by anger. He screamed something. A flock of crows fell on the giant, ripping rotting flesh from its bones.

“Help the alpha!” I barked, reloading. Ascanio dashed to the draugr.

Raphael picked Kate up and threw her. She sank her sword into the side of the draugr’s leg. Magic snapped, and then a car-hood-sized kneecap crashed onto the road. Kate jumped clear. The draugr teetered and dropped to its knees.

“Fire in the hole!” I fired another shot. For half a second the arrowhead buzzed, lodged between the undead’s ribs, then it exploded, splashing emerald fire over desiccated flesh. The blast wrenched the draugr’s ribs wide open and through it I saw the shriveled sack of its heart.

The crows hurtled into the hole and out of the draugr’s back, dragging chunks of bone and tissue with them.

I saw the ravaged remains of the heart and fired. The arrow pierced the tough muscle. Bull’s-eye.

The explosion shook the ground. Chunks of rotting corpse pelted the ground and Håkon crashed like a falling skyscraper. His chin hit the dirt, his entire skull reverberating from the impact.

Ha. We killed an unkillable giant. Eat your heart out, Beast Lord.

Kate got up and limped toward us.

Her knee. She had an old injury that kept flaring up. I had completely forgot. Damn it. “Is your knee okay?”

“It’s not the knee.” Kate limped past the pillar and sagged against the cart. “He backhanded me, the sonovabitch. I hit a tree trunk with my hip. I swear this leg is cursed.”

Roman spat on the ground. His face was mournful. “Such a waste. One-of-a-kind and we had to kill it.”

It almost tore us to pieces and he had regrets. Wow.

Raphael strode to me. His eyes were on fire.

“Nice shot,” he said.

“Thank you. You were…” Awesome, brave, fast, amazing. “…not so bad yourself.”

Roman shook his head. “Such a waste.”

“I’ll split the teeth with you,” Kate said. “If you want them.”

He turned to her. “Of course I want the teeth. And the hair.”

The two of them started for the head, looking like two starved dogs who had just found a fresh juicy carcass.

Raphael grabbed me into a bear hug. I grinned at him. This wasn’t so hard after all.

Ascanio trotted up. “Why are they pulling his teeth out?”

“They’re magic,” I said.

“Do you want me to help them?”

“Yes,” Raphael said.

The kid went off to the giant corpse, where Kate and Roman argued over the teeth.

The draugr’s head moved.

“Watch out!” I screamed.

Kate looked at me.

I ran.

The eyes flared with green fire, the great jaws gaped, baring thick teeth. Kate whipped about, slicing with her sword.

I was six feet away when magic erupted out of the draugr’s mouth, wound about Kate, and dragged her into the maw, crushing her between those stumpy teeth.

I leaped onto the skull, pulled my knife, and sliced into the tendons holding it together. Let go of my friend, you fucker!

The jaws mauled Kate, trying to crack her like a nut.

Grisly flesh tore under my fingers. I caught a glimpse of Kate—she’d curled into a ball, keeping away from the teeth.

The tendons I had severed snapped right back together. I needed to cut faster.

We were rising. I glanced down. The draugr had pulled himself up.

“Raphael!” I yelled, slicing across the flesh. “He’s regenerating!” Where was he?

Slayer’s blade sliced through the flesh right in the corner of the joint where the mandible fit into the upper jaw. Slayer’s blade smoked. Kate was trying to cut her way out.

The draugr chewed, trying to work his massive tongue to shift Kate toward his teeth.

Flies blanketed the undead, turning into maggots, eating his flesh. I sliced and diced, the maggots ate, but the more damage we did, the faster its flesh grew back.

Kate groaned. I had to get her out now.

I went furry. Shreds of my clothes fluttered to the ground. I took a short running start up the draugr’s bony shoulder and kicked the temporomandibular joint. The bone popped with a dry crunch, announcing a dislocated jaw. The draugr’s mouth fell open and Kate dropped out.

A huge hand swept me off the shoulder and clenched me, squeezing. I snarled and bit. Pressure ground me. My bones whined. He was crushing me as if I were a rag and he were trying to squeeze all the squishy red stuff out.

The scent of gasoline slapped me.

The pain was unbearable now. My eyes watered from pain and fury.

The draugr gripped me harder.

My shoulder gave and I screamed when my arm snapped like a toothpick.

Something sparked. Through my tears I saw the flare of fire and Raphael, his beast face furious, climbing up the draugr a hair above the flames. Raphael leaped up, clawed his way onto the creature’s face, and tore an undead eye out of the left socket.

The draugr screamed and dropped me, slapping himself, trying to grab Raphael.

I fell. I tumbled down and suddenly something caught me. I saw Ascanio’s face. He dropped me to my feet. Next to me Roman stood, his hands clawing the air, his staff screeching.

Above us the draugr was a pillar of flame.

A furry form jumped off the draugr, hit the tree, and dropped down. Yes! Go, Raphael!

The draugr roared and turned toward us.

Roman strained.

The undead took a slow step toward us. Then another.

“He’s not burning up,” Roman screamed. “I can’t hold him.”

The flame coated the undead’s body, but none of the flesh actually charred. Damn it. Couldn’t he just die?

Roman’s feet slid backward. Raphael landed next to him.

Kate pulled herself upright. “What do we do?”

“We must break him apart and bury him. He is of the Earth, he belongs to it. The Earth will hold him.”

“I can break him if you anchor him for a second,” Kate ground out. “But that’s all I’ve got. No more magic left after.”

The draugr took another step.

Roman bent backward. His eyes rolled back in his head. Chains coated in dark smoke burst from the ground and bound the draugr’s feet and wrists.

Kate opened her mouth and said a word. The magic burst from her in a torrent and smashed into the draugr, barely touching me. Panic splashed me. My fur stood on end and a hysterical hyena cackle tore out of me, echoing Raphael’s lunatic laugh and Ascanio’s high-pitched giggle.

The draugr jerked back, trying to run, the chains snapped taut, and his body fell apart like a toy coming to pieces at the seams.

Behind me Kate fell to the ground. Roman sobbed once and crashed next to her. It was up to the three of us now.

We ran. I grabbed an enormous arm and pulled it with all my might, into the forest, away from the road, and dug into the soil, yanking the roots out and slicing my furry fingers on jagged rocks. My arms spiked with pain. I ignored it. I dug and dug, throwing fountains of earth, until finally I pushed the piece of the arm into the hole and covered it with dirt. Then I dashed to the road, grabbed the next chunk, and did it again.

The five of us were lying on cots in the Keep’s medical wing. When we had limped our way into the Keep with the scale, filthy, covered in blood and dirt, and wearing the delightful perfume of carrion mixed with gasoline and smoke, Doolittle had nearly had an aneurysm.

We had been strong-armed into the hospital wing and made to lie down in our beds. Even Ascanio, who had gotten off scot-free. Doolittle and his assistants examined us and quickly determined that Raphael had second-degree burns, I had a fractured humerus, Roman was dehydrated and had suffered a concussion, and Kate had two cracked ribs, a bruised hip, and her knee had gone out again. And then Curran walked through the doorway.

The rage of the Beast Lord was a terrible thing to behold. Some people stormed, some punched things, but Curran slipped into this icy, bone-chilling calm. His face hardened into a flat mask, and his eyes turned into a molten inferno of pure gold. If you looked at it for longer than two seconds, your muscles locked, your knees shook, and you had to fight to keep from cringing. It was easier to look at the floor, but I didn’t. Besides, he wasn’t angry with me. He wasn’t even angry with Kate. He was angry with Anapa. I had no doubt that if he could’ve gotten a hold of the god at that moment, he would’ve broken him in half.

“It’s only ribs,” Kate told him. “And they’re not even broken. They are fractured.”

“And the hip,” Doolittle said. “And the knee.”

There you go. Don’t expect mercy from a honeybadger.

“How long do you need to keep her?” Curran looked to Doolittle.

“She can go to her quarters, provided she doesn’t leave them,” Doolittle said. “I can’t do anything else with the magic down. She must stay down until I can patch her up.”

“She will.” Curran reached for Kate. “Hey, baby. Ready?”

She nodded. Curran slid his hands under her and picked her up, gently, as if she weighed nothing.

“Good?” he asked.

She put her arm around him. “Never better.”

And he took her away.

“So young lady, how did you break your arm?” Doolittle asked me.

“She was trying to keep Kate from being crushed,” Raphael said.

“A worthy cause.” Dolittle peered at me. I waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Did you know your arm was broken?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And did you, by any chance, put said arm into a sling or make an effort to keep it still?”

Oh Christ. “No. I was busy.”

“What did you do with said arm?” Doolittle asked.

“I dug.” And it hurt like hell, but at that point killing the draugr was more important.

“Were you under stress?” Doolittle asked.

“I was trying to bury pieces of an undead giant to prevent it from rampaging through the countryside and eating any random humans he encountered. This would go a lot easier if you would just tell me where you are heading with this instead of taking the long way around.”

Doolittle nodded to one of his assistants. The short, slight woman approached Roman’s cot. “We’re going to put you in your own private room.”

“Is this a code for killing me?” Roman asked. “Because I won’t be easy to take down.”

She giggled and wheeled his bed out with him on it.

The medmage looked at Ascanio. “You may go, too.”

The boy jumped off the bed and took off like he was on fire.

Doolittle pulled up the chair and sat next to me. His face was so gentle. “I once treated a boy,” he said. “He was a wererat, abused by his family. His father beat him repeatedly. He was a hateful waste of a human being and the boy’s shapeshifting gave him an excuse to rage.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Mhm.”

“Lyc-V is a very adaptive virus,” Doolittle said. “If the body is injured the same way repeatedly, it responds. Shapeshifters in colder climates grow denser fur. Shapeshifters in climates with frequent sun exposure develop melanin at accelerated rate.”

“Yes.” I knew all this.

Doolittle leaned a little toward me. “The boy I mentioned developed his own coping mechanism: his bones healed extremely quickly. His body kept trying to give him tools to run away from the next beating.”

“What happened to the boy?” I asked.

“We’re not going to worry about it right now,” Doolittle said. “I’m going to ask some private questions. Would you like Raphael to stay or to go? Say the word and I will throw him out.”

Raphael bared his teeth.

“He can stay,” I said.

“Was there physical abuse in your childhood, Andrea?” Doolittle asked gently.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Over some period of some time?”

“Eleven years.”

Doolittle took my hand and squeezed a little. “Your bones heal very rapidly under stress. The body joins them as fast as it can without any regard for whether or not they are aligned. It’s simply trying to make you operational again.”

I looked at my shoulder. It didn’t feel quite right. “You have to rebreak my arm.”

“I’m so sorry,” Doolittle said. “The arm is crooked. Try raising it all the way.”

I lifted my arm. Sharp pain shot through my shoulder right in the center of the bone.

“The longer we delay, the harder it will be to set it right,” Doolittle said.

A female shapeshifter wheeled in a cart filled with instruments.

“You’re going to use a mallet?” I asked. In my head Doolittle put a crowbar over my shoulder and hit it with a hammer.

“No. I’ll use a narrow power saw. You will have to be sedated. I promise you’ll feel nothing.”

“Okay.” What else was there to say?

The waters of the Nile lapped at my ankles. I strode out of the tepid water onto the shore. The wind brought the razor-sharp stench of blood. A fresh kill waited somewhere nearby.

The dark green bushes rustled. The Jackal walked out, dragging a dead bull by its neck. The Jackal had grown larger since we had last met. It was taller than a horse now, with a massive head and amber eyes the size of dessert plates.

The Jackal dropped the bull in front of me. “Eat.”

“No.” Food held significance to shapeshifters. Lovers gave it to each other and alphas gave it to their clans. An offer of food was sometimes a declaration of love, but more often an offer of protection in exchange for loyalty, and I wouldn’t be accepting any handouts from him.

“Suit yourself.” The Jackal bit the bull’s soft belly.

“We’re helping you. Why not let the child go?”

The Jackal raised its bloody snout from the kill. “Why would I surrender my hostage? She has served me so well.”

I sat in the grass. The sun was setting again and the still waters shimmered with faint vapor. The wet sloppy sounds of the large predator eating behind me ruined the beauty of the landscape.

“Why do you do this?” I asked finally.

“Mmm?”

“Why do you play little games? You could’ve helped us with the draugr, but you didn’t. You could’ve let the Pack join us. It’s in your best interests to win.”

“No. It’s in my best interests to regain my godhood.” The Jackal padded over and lay down next to me, a hill of fur and darkness. “Do you know how godhood begins?”

“No.”

“With a myth.” The Jackal sighed. “It begins with a legend told by the fire. A story of magical deeds and glorious victory over evil. I was there when it began for me, over six thousand years ago. I remember.”

“Who were you?” I asked.

“A tribal chief,” he said. “I had a wife and many children. Once I saved a litter of jackal pups from a flood and they followed me everywhere I went. They brought others of their kind to the settlement. I was never bitten. I cut my leg while hunting and the pack licked it. It was a true gift.”

Pieces clicked in my head. “You were a shapeshifter?”

“I was a First,” he said. “The first recipient of the gift, its power undiluted within me. We, the humans, were different then. We were magic. It flowed through us, through our blood, through our bones. We were born soaked in it.”

“How did you become a god?”

The Jackal shrugged. “Those memories are murky. My deeds were told in front of the evening fires, my victories, my adventures. They kept me alive. My descendants made me a shrine of bone and stone and prayed for my guidance. My tribe prospered and the more they prayed, the more power I gained, until finally I came to be again.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. People plead for help to things that are more powerful. They beg the sky for rain year after year, they make a shrine to a mage who once brought about rain or to an engineer who irrigated their fields decades ago, and if they pray hard enough, their new deity comes to life and grows in power.”

The Jackal gazed at the river. “This new age, it has a saying, ‘History is written by the victors.’ It is true. Look at the story of Apep. Set, who was there with us fighting as valiantly as any one of us, became the visage of darkness. Bastet was diminished to a vermin killer. And I? I became the tender of corpses, revered, worshipped, but hardly as powerful. Even my brother Sobek, the lord of crocodiles, was more feared than I was. I hate him for that and Sobek reviles me for my knowledge and the reverence it brought. When the time of my people came to its sunset, the Greeks came. They jeered at us. They called me the Barker. The joke was on them—I endured through their time and then through the Romans, but I’ve never forgotten the insult.”

He fell silent.

“The Pack,” I prompted.

“Let me tell you how my new myth will go,” the Jackal said. “In the new age of magic, when it was young, a vile serpent emerged, threatening the sanity of all people. Mighty God Inepu and his faceless retainers battled him, and slew him, and triumphed. All those who do not wish to be devoured by the serpent of madness give thanks to the mighty Inepu. Ask for his blessing. Ask for his wisdom. Offer your prayers to him so he may shield you with his might. He is the mighty warrior, the awe-inspiring slayer.”

“That is an ambitious plan.” So I was to be a faceless minion and he was to become a warrior god.

The Jackal looked at me. “Don’t mock me, pup. Godhood is like a drug; once you taste it, there is no turning back.”

“I still don’t understand why you won’t let the Pack assist.”

“Because they are led by a First,” the Jackal said.

“Curran?”

The Jackal nodded. “It is how I began, as a First. What is more impressive, a jackal or a lion? Which would you fear more? To whom would you offer your prayers?”

I blinked. “You’re afraid Curran will steal your godhood?”

“Afraid is a strong word. I fear nothing.” The Jackal laid his head on his front paws and twitched his ear.

“Except being forgotten,” I said.

“There is that.”

“And how does my body fit into your scheme? Wouldn’t you be changing gender?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “A god or a goddess, as long as I grow in power.”

“One small problem,” I told him. “For this plan to work, Apep has to resurrect, and we’ve got his scale.”

“The scale isn’t necessary to his resurrection.”

“What? So we’ve done all of this for nothing?”

The Jackal raised his head. “Of course not. The scale is his armor. Without it, he will be easier to kill. He will be softer.”

“Where? Where are they resurrecting him?”

The Jackal laughed under his breath.

I grabbed his ear and sank my nails into the flesh. “Where are they going to resurrect him? When?”

“I don’t know.” The Jackal whirled and bit me, taking half of my body into his huge mouth from the side. Teeth pierced my stomach and my back. “You’re the detective. Figure it out.”

The world snapped back at me in a rush of blinding pain, and I saw Doolittle’s eyes above a surgical mask. Agony gripped my arm. Raphael snarled, “She’s bleeding!”

“It will be fine,” Doolittle said, his voice calm and steady.

Some female shapeshifter I didn’t know pulled the sheet down from me. A curved row of bloody teeth marks gaped in my stomach.

“I’m good,” I ground out. “Keep going.”

Raphael took my hand in his. I squeezed it and watched the teeth marks knit themselves closed as Doolittle finished sawing through my bone.

Finally Doolittle finished. It didn’t hurt once the bone was cut, or at least it didn’t hurt too much. Roman sat on my bed for a while and told me funny jokes while everyone cleaned up.

Finally they all left. Darkness had fallen—I had asked for the lights to be turned off, and only moonlight remained. It spilled all around me and I felt completely and utterly alone.

I let out a long breath. It sounded more like a sob.

A shadow detached itself from the bathroom doorway and crossed the floor to me. His scent reached me first, that taunting, comforting, infuriating scent. Raphael knelt on my bed, resting one arm on the headboard, and leaned over me until our eyes were level. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. What makes you think there is something going on with me?”

His blue eyes scrutinized me. “You came out of sedation with bite marks on your stomach and mud on your feet.”

“Many shapeshifters come out of sedation early.”

He shook his head. “This is Doolittle’s sedation we’re talking about. What’s going on?”

I clenched my teeth to keep the words from getting out.

“Andi, I’m right here. Look at me.” He leaned closer. “Look at me.”

Looking at him was a fatal mistake. The words made a break for it and I couldn’t keep them down any longer. I put my arms, the good one and the one in a cast, around him. My cheek brushed his, his skin against mine, and I kissed him. I kissed him with as much tenderness and love as I could, because one way or another I would lose him.

“He wants my body,” I whispered into Raphael’s ear. “He wants to use it instead of his, because I have better shapeshifter magic.”

His arms tightened around me.

“I have to volunteer.”

“And if you don’t?” he whispered.

“Bad things will happen.” I kissed him again, my arms gripping him. “I’ll fight him. I’ll fight him with everything I have, but if it comes to that, whatever I do once he takes me over, whatever I say, it’s not me.” I whispered, my voice so quiet, I wasn’t sure he heard it. “No matter what happens, I love you. You will always be my mate. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry we ran out of time.”

Raphael squeezed me, pressing me to him. “You listen to me.” His whisper was a fierce promise. “He won’t have you. We will kill him together. Trust me. I won’t let go.”

“You may have to,” I told him. “You have to promise me that if he gets my body, you will walk away, Raphael. You’ll go on, you’ll find someone to love, you’ll have children…”

“Shut up,” he told me.

“Promise me.”

“I’m not promising shit,” he said. “I would die before I lost you.”

“Raphael!”

“No.”

He slid in the bed next to me, holding me in his arms. His scent enveloped me, and I held on to him, until I fell asleep.