Page 115 of Junk Magic

His lip curled, and it was almost a human expression. He didn’t even bother to answer, as if I wasn’t enough of a threat for that, something that made my beast thrash and howl. She wanted his blood and she wanted it now.

Sienna looked down at me, as if she felt some of my inner turmoil, but her undamaged paw came to rest on my chest. As if to say, let me handle this. My human brain was all about that, but my beast—

I didn’t know if I could control her anymore.

And then I knew I couldn’t, when I heard Jen’s terrified shriek. “Lia!”

I looked up to see what I’d expected, which was that the creatures Jen had raised to defend her lay shredded on the stairs, turning them into a waterfall of blood and gore. A few body parts still twitched here or there, but the only creatures still active were in a single line right around the two terrified children. A line which collapsed as I watched.

“No!”

The horrified cry rang out over the arena, not human, not wolf, not anything like either of them. And it didn’t need magical amplification to be heard. It surged over the sands, echoed off the walls, and bounced back, over and over again. But unlike most echoes it didn’t fade in intensity but seemed to get stronger and louder with every pass, until people were holding their ears and wolves were howling in pain.

And then, suddenly, there were no wolves.

I’d barely had time to register that the sound had come from me, before every wolf in the arena shivered all over, all at once. And I saw a sight that I’d never seen before, that no one had ever seen before, except for some who still remembered the war. And the battles in which hundreds of wolves had suddenly Changed together, only this time it was without warning or preparation.

It left naked, bloody people sprawled on the benches, stunned and slip sliding in the blood their human feet couldn’t grip through. It had others tumbling downward, as if the benches were stairs, Changing halfway through a lunge and then hitting hard and rolling. Still others were slumping on rock or sand, unable to move with the dazed feeling that follows a forced Change catching them off guard.

And that included Whirlwind, who hit the ground and stayed there, stunned and cursing, his power deserting him along with his wolf.

Leaving an arena full of people staring at each other in confusion, and then slowly, almost as one, turning to stare at me instead.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I finally got my wish and passed the hell out. At least, I guessed so, since I woke up back in HQ. I could tell by the feel of the wards wrapping around me, even before I opened my eyes. Familiar and powerful, they were like a security blanket I hadn’t known I needed.

I wanted to grab them and pull them closer, but couldn’t. That sort of thing would set off a couple dozen alarms, even if I had the stamina to attempt it right now, which I didn’t. My body felt like a limp noodle, except for the headache pounding behind my eyes.

Or maybe that was something else.

Pound, pound, pound. It was a rhythm, but not like a machine with a perfect, measured tempo. More organic, as if a very determined toddler was whacking the hell out of something with a toy.

It was just on the edge of my hearing, distant but persistent, and very annoying. So much so that I finally groaned and sat up. And opened my eyes expecting to find myself in the infirmary with Sedgewick standing over me.

But he wasn’t there.

Nobody was.

And yet, I wasn’t alone.

I stopped dead, my body halfway through a slide off of the exam table that I’d woken up on, with the hospital gown I was wearing riding up a thigh. It was an awkward pose that didn’t do my back any good, which felt like somebody had been going at it with a baseball bat. Or my side, which had been bandaged up but hurt like a bitch. And all of those small crashes in the car might have given me whiplash, because turning my neck was also really painful.

But right now, my physical state was the least of my problems.

The room in front of me wasn’t the expected infirmary, although it was large, tile floored, and bright. But it was also crammed with display cases full of . . . things. Things I couldn’t name. Things that my eyes didn’t want to focus on, despite my telling them to.

And then my blurry vision cleared up, and I really wished it hadn’t.

I finished the slide, the shock of cold tile on my bare feet a distant sensation, because I was too focused on the nearest case. It was suspended from the ceiling on cables as many of them were, as if it was a frame containing a piece of modern art. But instead, it boasted a severed forearm with a hand attached, but not a human one.

It also wasn’t Were or vampire or anything else I’d ever encountered. I didn’t know what it was, just that it was muscular, to an almost absurd degree, like something off a comic book hero. And scaley, with interlocking gray green plates that flooded down to the wrist, where they became smaller and finer before cascading onto the elongated, webbed hand.

I took another few steps, fascination warring with disgust, and the whole overridden with a sense of unreality. I’d just been in the arena, surrounded by every conceivable kind of gore, but this was worse. I didn’t know why, but it turned my stomach into knots even while pulling me closer, although all I wanted was to get the hell out of here.

I ended up nose to glass instead, staring at the hand, which was something else. It had talons that curved like exotic daggers and were absurdly large. They started off black as sin near the nail bed, but shaded into an ombre of gray as they progressed, and finally into white, with an almost translucent color at the tips.

From start to end, they were almost as long as the forearm, which was itself ridiculously oversized. Making me wonder how big the creature had been that it was taken from. And then to decide that I didn’t want to know.

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