Page 110 of Junk Magic

“There’s a switch that activates the spell! For the torches, I mean. That’s a good sign, right? That somebody’s turned the lights back on?”

“Sure,” Caleb said, and sank down onto his haunches, letting his head sag between his knees. “Heart attack,” he added, and it said something that I wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not.

I gave him a moment, not least because I could use one myself, and watched the Were father motioning everybody over to the safer side of the hall.

The initial charge hadn’t lasted long, but it had gotten the crowd moving. They kept streaming past us in clumps, with many prowling along on all fours or dragging wounded limbs behind them, having stayed in wolf form for the added strength it gave. Others were back in human skin, clothed only in rippling torchlight, and splattered with blood and wounds and sweat and tears.

They should have looked pitiful, but they didn’t.

They didn’t.

Some were carrying the dead or wounded along with them. One old woman had a gangly young man draped over her shoulders, who was so tall that his legs dragged the ground as she walked. Even untransformed, Weres are powerful, but she was old and hunched and I wasn’t surprised when another Were, a large man, tried to take him from her.

And received a snarl so savage in return, that he jerked his hand away and cowered back.

“My grandson,” she said. “He fought like a demon! Like a demon, you hear? He died a hero!”

“He died a hero,” a nearby woman said. “But he fought like a Were.”

She walked alongside the grieving older woman, but did not try to take her burden.

No one did.

I felt something in my chest as I watched them, something primal and fierce and angry, but also very, very proud. They’d done amazingly well for people who weren’t even trained as fighters. They were shop keepers and cooks, electric linemen and beauticians, bartenders and nurses. They were regular people who should never have had to face this, but they had, and they’d done better than anybody could have expected.

But next time? Or the one after that? Where could they go that the war couldn’t find them?

When even Wolf’s Head was vulnerable, what was left?

The answer was that we were left; Sebastian, the Clan Council, and the Corps. We were supposed to be their bulwark when everything else failed, the wall that protected them and their children. And yes, the Corps wasn’t technically supposed to intervene in Were business, but now that the war had spilled over into their world?

That made it our responsibility, didn’t it?

“Don’t,” Caleb said, without lifting his head.

“Don’t what?”

“What you always do. We did our best, Lia. It’s enough.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then it damned well isn’t!” he said, looking up with the same pain on his face that I was feeling.

We were supposed to be the protectors, but right now, we were probably among the weakest here. Even a wounded Were was dangerous—maybe especially a wounded Were. But we were currently no better than garden variety humans.

And bleeding, damaged, bruised up humans at that.

I got an arm around his waist. “C’mon old man. We’re nearly there.”

A hand with a surprisingly strong grip caught my wrist. “I meant it.”

“Meant what?”

Dark eyes met mine and they were deadly serious. “Don’t do anything stupid. Promise me.”

I looked at him in confusion. “What do you think I’m going to do? I can barely stand up.”

“Don’t know. But we’re done, you understand? Getting yourself killed does nobody any good. Remember your training: walk away and save an asset. We can’t afford to lose anybody else—”

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