Page 139 of Junk Magic

“Oh, I sold some. I had to, to keep them flush and happy. But some of each batch I saved. Gave a little to my boys, the strongest ones, the ones who got it. They didn’t go to Jenkins.”

“But they did go to Cyrus,” I said. “So you did, too.”

“Some of their friends were already there. They said he was different.” He shrugged. “Maybe they’re even right. But soon, he won’t have to be.”

He turned on me suddenly, and quick as a blink, was in my face. But not to hurt me. His eyes were feverish, almost fanatical; he wanted me to understand.

“You remember that trip to the desert, where Colin used some of the stuff he’d swiped from one of my boys and you had to put him down?”

I stared at him. “Of course.”

“Well, a question was asked that night. Allow me to answer it. Colin wanted to know where Weres came from. If he’d lived, I’d have eventually told him: we were made by the gods to be an elite fighting force, the best army of the ancient world. No, it’s true,” he insisted, seeing my face. “Jenkins told me himself. He saw the info in a secret Circle memo, with very restricted access, over a year ago.

“The Circle leadership found out from some vamp operative and had it confirmed by the fey. The gods were always fighting, and needed help to tilt their wars one way or the other. They experimented on humans, turning some into vamps, others in Weres, and still more into things that haven’t always survived.

“That’s where Jenkins got the idea for his private army. He was already playing god; it was the logical next step. But it told me something else, something more. We were special then, all of us. There were no vargulfs, just soldiers. Everyone was valued, everyone mattered, everyone was important.

“But now, it’s all politics, designed to favor the higher clans to the exclusion of everyone else. They keep the lower ones in line with threats of making them outcastes, so nothing ever changes. And nothing ever will, until they do—the bastards who did this to us, to me, to the boys, to you.”

“Change . . . into what?” I asked carefully.

“Into what they already are—monsters. Let them look on the outside the way they do on the inside, the way they did on the day they condemned an old man to death for seeking a little help. And after I turn them into creatures out of a nightmare, and watch them savage each other in a bloodbath for the ages, I’ll get to watch the other clans turn their backs on them. Just like they did to us. Just like they did to him. Then we’ll have a return to the real tradition, to the old ways, when we’re all the same.

“Then we’ll finally have justice.”

I stared at him, caught completely flatfooted in spite of myself. “No, you won’t. You won’t get what you want, not like this.”

“Lia,” he said, shaking his head. “Beautiful, courageous, smart—who nonetheless doesn’t get it. I already have.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I didn’t have to ask what he meant. The screams from below, which had been rising and falling as the fight progressed, abruptly reached a crescendo. That could be a result of somebody winning, but I doubted it.

Because Danny was laughing like a fiend, and then grabbing me in order to clap a hand over my mouth. I didn’t understand why for a second, and then I got it: he didn’t want me using my gift to stop this. The one that Cyrus had talked about, and that the potion had apparently brought out in me.

He wanted to keep me silent.

I had been letting him talk in order to get the full story while I looked for a chance to take him out. But he had been stalling for this, to make sure that I wouldn’t be able to interfere when his plan went down. And I’d let him play me!

I started struggling, and I wasn’t holding back.

But despite that, and despite the Corps’ training, which was not kind and gentle, I went nowhere. He was stronger than any opponent I’d ever fought, and while he wasn’t as well trained as I was in hand to hand, he wasn’t a slouch, either. I guessed living on the streets taught you something.

But he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He still wanted me to see what he’d done, what he’d managed to accomplish. He kept trying to drag me closer to the pyramid, to let me look, and I kept fighting to break away.

And then stopped abruptly, and falling limp, as if the choke hold he’d had me in had done its work. He loosened his grip to check on me, a rookie mistake. And as soon as he did so, I broke away, whirled around, and slugged him with every ounce of strength I had, all while screaming my fucking head off.

It was the same scream I’d used at Wolf’s Head, but it had a very different result. Namely none. Maybe because the people below hadn’t Changed yet, although a number of them were writhing on the floor, decorum forgotten.

Or maybe because the glass between us was too thick, and had muffled the sound.

I started to use my elbow to break it, but got punched in the gut before I could, with a blow that should have ended things, right freaking there. Because Danny was no longer playing. Whatever had been happening before, whether it was respect for someone who’d helped others like him, or just a desire for an audience, was gone.

I was suddenly in a fight for my life.

He hit me again, but not before I’d gotten a guard up—which did exactly no good at all. He punched right through it, and almost punched through me, but I’d jerked back at the last second and lessened the blow. It still left my ears ringing, like my stomach felt like it might have collapsed in on itself from his previous strike, and I didn’t seem to be able to breathe properly.

Not that I was complaining. I should have been dead, but I seemed more resilient than I should have been. A lot more, although not nearly as much as him.

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