Magic Bleeds (35 page)

I twisted my neck. Red eyes stared at me with slit pupils. Below the eyes enormous jaws protruded, long and studded with triangular teeth. Olive scales fractured the skin. A shapeshifter? Shapeshifters didn’t change into reptiles. My arms were clamped. I couldn’t even cough.

“What the hell are you doing? I had her!”

The jaws gaped open. A deep female voice growled at me. “No. You can’t fight her.”

“Drop me!”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

The roof rushed at us. The edge loomed, and then we were airborne. We hit the next roof and she dashed across it.

“Put me down.”

“Soon enough.”

The creature leaped again. The ruined city streamed by.

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s my job. He tasked me to protect you.”

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“Who? Who told you to protect me?”

A familiar building swung into my view—Jim’s safe house.

Jim had put a babysitter on me. I would kill him.

We landed on a roof with a thud. A man lunged at us. She rammed him, knocking him off the roof, and drove her clawed hand into the shingles. Wood screeched. She tossed a piece of the roof aside and dropped into the hole. We fell and landed on the dining table, knocking the dishes aside. Faces stared at me: Jim, Dali, other people I didn’t know . . .

The creature let go of me. A deep roar rolled from her mouth. “Take care of her.”

She whipped about. A heavy tail swung over me, and she leaped, vanishing through the hole in the roof.

JIM STARED AT ME. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

“You tell me.” I rolled off the table, shook the stars out of my head, and staggered toward the doorway, where a hallway promised access to the door. I had to get out of there.

“She’s bleeding,” someone barked.

Green rolled over Jim’s eyes. “Dali, get Doolittle.”

Dali dashed out.

Jim clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Who was she?”

The building swayed around me. “I don’t know.”

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Jim pointed past me. “You, you, and you—quarter-mile perimeter. You don’t know them, they don’t get in. You—roof, find Carlos. Brenna, Kate doesn’t leave. Sit on her if you have to. If I’m not back in half an hour, evacuate to the Southeast office.”

He tensed and leaped up and to the right, bounced off the wall through the hole onto the roof. A blink and he was gone.

A woman gripped me in a bear hug. I peered at her face, trying to bring it into focus. Short hair cut in a bob, reddish brown hair, green eyes, freckles . . . Brenna. One of the wolves working for Jim as a tracker. Last time we met, I’d put a silver needle into her throat and she bit my leg. She held my right arm and some blond woman I didn’t know held my left.

I fixed my stare on Brenna. Her face was smudged. “Let go.”

“I can’t do that.” She shook her head.

“Brenna, take your hands off me or I’ll hurt you.” If only the room stopped spinning, I’d be all set.

“That’s fine, Kate. I think I can take it.”

Everybody was a smart-ass.

Dali ran into the room. A black man in his fifties followed, wiping his hands with a towel. Doolittle.

“And what have you done to yourself now?”

His face crawled sideways. My stomach clenched into a tight ball and I vomited on the floor.

“Let her go,” Doolittle snarled.

The wolves released me. That’s right. Never piss off a werebadger.

Doolittle leaned over me. “Dizzy?”

I nodded. Pain rolled inside my head like a lead ball.

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He touched my face and I jerked back.

“Easy, easy now.” Doolittle’s fingers pressed on my skin, holding my left eye open. “Uneven dilation.

Blurred vision?”

I knew the signs. I had a concussion, but it didn’t seem important. Slowly it sank in: Erra was gone. I’d lost my shot at her. “I almost had her. I could’ve taken her.”

“Lay her down on her back, gently. Gently now.”

Hands clamped me and lowered me to the floor.

“I almost had her,” I told Doolittle.

“I know you did, child. I know.”

I wanted to get up, but I wasn’t sure which way up was and something told me I wouldn’t figure it out anytime soon either. “I have a concussion.”

“Yes, you do.” Doolittle cut through my sweatshirt. “Brenna, put your hands on her head and keep her from moving.”

“I almost had her. I could’ve taken her.”

Someone, probably Brenna, pressed her hands on the sides of my face. “Why does she keep saying that?”

“That’s just a little perseveration. People with head injuries do that. Nothing to worry about.” Doolittle peeled my T-shirt from my body. Draft chilled my skin.

“That’s your reassuring voice,” I told him. “That means I’m seriously fucked up.”

“No foul language now. Who patched you up?”

“A rabbi at the Temple.”

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“He did a good job.”

“I almost had her. Did I tell you that?”

“Yes, you did. Hush now.” Doolittle began to chant. Magic stirred in me, slow and thick. He kept whispering, pouring power into the words. Slowly, like melting wax, magic grew liquid and warm and spread through me, flowing out from my chest all the way into my skull and toes.

“That’s nice,” I said.

“He said to hush.” Brenna’s hand brushed my lips.

“I almost—”

“—had her, we know,” Brenna murmured. “You have to be quiet, Kate. Shhhh.”

I closed my eyes. It felt like floating in a warm sea. Tiny hot needles stabbed my wound and danced inside my scalp. My side itched.

“I need to talk to her,” Jim’s voice said through Doolittle’s chant.

A sharp screech, halfway between roar and chatter, cut him off. It sounded either like a giant pissed-off squirrel or a small but equally pissed-off bear. The hair on the back of my arms rose. There was a word for that . . .

“Bloodcurdling.” I heard my own voice. It sounded slurred.

“If something is coming for her, I need to know what it is,” Jim said.

“Make it quick,” Doolittle said.

Jim leaned over me, his face a fuzzy smudge. That’s right, get closer so I can give you a piece of my mind.

“Who brought you here?” Jim asked.

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“I almost had her.”

“Here we go again,” Brenna muttered.

I grabbed his shirt and pulled myself up.

“Shit!” Brenna clamped her fingers on my cheeks.

“I almost had her,” I squeezed out through my teeth. “I was a second from a strike and your babysitter grabbed me and dragged me up a building. You cost me my kill. Now all of you are fucked.”

“Damn it, Jim.” Doolittle grabbed my shoulders, pushing me down. “Keep her head stabilized.”

Jim’s fingers clenched my fist. “She wasn’t mine.”

“Bullshit. She was a shapeshifter and she brought me to your safe house.”

“Did you tell her where the house was?”

Jim squeezed my hand, but I was too pissed off.

“I told her to drop me. She said it was her job to protect me. Who else would order a shapeshifter to guard me?

How would she find your place? Did you put a sign above the door—SECRET PACK HOUSE HERE, STRANGE SHAPESHIFTERS BRING A HUMAN SNACK?”

Doolittle pressed a point just below my wrist, cutting off the circulation to my hand. My fingers went numb.

Jim pulled free. “We’re clearing out.”

Doolittle pushed me back down. “She can’t be moved.”

“An unknown shapeshifter punched a hole through the roof and took off before I could catch her. The house is compromised. How much time do you need to stabilize her?”

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“Ten minutes.”

“You have them, then we move.”

Doolittle bent over me and began to chant.

Ten minutes later Doolittle clamped my neck into a brace and Brenna picked me up. She carried me down the stairs like I was a child. The stairs were impossibly high and swirling, like a spiral. I squirmed, trying to get away, but Brenna only gripped me tighter. “Don’t worry, Kate. I won’t drop you.”

She loaded me into a small sled. People from Jim’s crew moved around us. Doolittle strapped me to the sled, Brenna took the reins, and we were off.

I LAY IN THE BED, STRIPPED DOWN TO MY BRA and underwear, and watched the bag of O-negative empty into my veins. My attempt to explain that my head had cleared and I didn’t need extra attention, and definitely not the extra blood, bounced from Doolittle like dried peas from the wall. He pointed out that he had pulled me from the brink of certain death three times, and he apparently had given me blood transfusions before and he might be just an ignorant doctor, but as far as he could tell, I was still breathing and it would make his day if we could save some time and assume that he knew what he was doing. His life would be much easier if suicidal hardcases would take that into account, thank you very much.

My ribs still hurt, but instead of sharp stabbing jolts that made me growl, the pain fused into a solid heavy pressure.

Doolittle walked around my bed. “You will be the death of me.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll die before you do, Doc.”

“That I don’t doubt.”

He picked up a mirror from the table and held it up to me. I looked.

Most of me was pale and a bit green looking. A dark purple patina covered the corner of my jaw, promising to develop into a spectacular bruise. The second stain covered my midsection, where my aunt had kicked me. I’d flexed my stomach, so my innards didn’t turn into mush, and the abdominal muscles took the brunt of the punishment.

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“Green and purple, a stunning combination.”

Doolittle shook his head, unplugged me from the empty blood bag, and handed me a glass filled with brown liquid, resembling iced tea. “You look like you’ve had an unfortunate encounter with one of the gangs from the Warren.”

“You should see the other”—guy, no, wait, girl, woman—“person.” Somehow that didn’t quite deliver the snappy impact I had originally planned.

Doolittle fixed me with a stare. “Bed rest for the next twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t do that, Doc.” Knowing him, he’d try to sedate me. So far he hadn’t—I had watched my IV

like a hawk. If I had things my way, I’d be up and running. Right now Erra was injured and at her weakest. It was a good time to hit her, but the chances of finding her, even armed with shapeshifters, were nil. My aunt was psychotic but not stupid.

Doolittle sighed. “Drink your tea.”

I looked at my glass. I’d had Doolittle’s iced tea before, and exercising extreme caution was in order. I sipped a tiny bit. Sugar overload. I waited to see if my teeth instantly disintegrated from shock. Nothing.

My mouth was stronger than I gave it credit for.

Doolittle sat down in a chair and looked at me, and for once his eyes were empty of their usual humor.

His voice was soft. “You can’t keep doing this, Kate. You think you’re going to live forever. But sooner or later we all have to pay the piper. One day you’ll laugh and joke and roll out of your bed, and you’ll fall. And then it won’t be three days of bed rest. It will be three months.”

I reached over and touched his hand. “Thank you for fixing me up. I don’t mean to cause you grief.”

He grimaced. “Drink. You need fluids.”

Someone knocked.

“It’s me,” Jim’s voice said.

Doolittle offered me a sweatshirt. I pulled it on and he let Jim in. Jim looked like he’d chewed bricks and spat out gravel.

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He grabbed a chair, set it by my bed, sat down, and looked at me.

I looked back at him. “Sorry I put my hands on you. Won’t happen again.”

“It’s cool. You weren’t yourself. You better now?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s try this again, then. Tell me about the fight.”

“Did Dali tell you about Erra?”

“She did.”

I sketched the fight for him, leaving our family connection out of it, and described my rescue.

“Scales,” Jim said.

“Yep.”

I knew what he was thinking—shapeshifters resulting from infection by Lyc-V were mammals. There were several cases of humans turning into reptiles or birds, but all of those happened because of outside magical factors, not Lyc-V infection, and none of those transformations had an in-between stage. The shapeshifter who grabbed me was in a warrior form. Half-human, half-something scaled.

“What sort of eyes did she have?” Doolittle asked.

“Olive iris, slit pupil. Reddish glow.”

“Glow isn’t a good indicator,” Doolittle said. “Hyena eyes reflect light in any number of colors, yet bouda eyes always glow red. But the slit pupil is interesting.” He glanced at Jim.

“There was a man on the roof,” I said. “She knocked him off. Is he okay?”

Jim nodded. “He says the same thing: scales, red eyes, tail. I’ve smelled a similar scent before.”

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“What was it?”

Jim grimaced. “A croc.”

Shapeshifter crocodiles. What was the world coming to?

“Stranger things have happened.” Doolittle pointed at my glass. “Drink.”

I showed the glass to Jim. “The good doctor put a spoon of tea into my honey.”

“You’re drinking tea a honey badger made,” Jim said. “What did you expect?”

Doolittle snorted and began packing gauze and instruments into his medical bag.

“If you didn’t put her on me, then who did?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said.

It wasn’t Curran. Security was Jim’s territory; if Curran felt I needed a bodyguard, he would have asked Jim to take care of it.