Page 140 of Junk Magic

I landed punches and kicks, half a dozen in quick succession, because I had to find one that worked. But unlike the two Lobizon members, who’d been knocked out with a single hit, the blows hardly seemed to register. And then he shoved me into the glass, his hand found the back of my neck, and he repeatedly slammed my face into the heavy panes, until one shattered and my field of vision turned into a sea of blood.

I’m getting my ass kicked, I thought, and tried to channel my inner trainer, but Danny wasn’t giving me time to think. He wasn’t giving me time to do anything, include breathe, which took shouting off the table. Or living, if I didn’t come up with something soon.

But nothing I did worked, and while I finally did manage to draw in a breath, it was shallow and quickly knocked right out of me again. My vision, what I had left past all the blood, started to go dark, and only a wash of pure fury kept me conscious. I wasn’t going out like this. Not like this, goddamn you!

Except that he wasn’t giving me a choice. He hadn’t even Changed, so why couldn’t I beat him? We’d had the same drug. Think, Lia!

But I wasn’t thinking. The choke hold was back, and this time, I couldn’t break it. I scrabbled against it, tried every trick in the book, my hands wet with blood that I was pretty sure was all mine.

But things were getting darker and I was out of time.

I felt myself sag in his grip, and this time, it wasn’t fake. The scene in front of me grayed out, and all I could hear was my heartbeat. And I wasn’t close enough to the ground to grab a shard of glass as I had in the lab, and try to free myself that way, if I could even have found one because I couldn’t see it.

I couldn’t see anything.

Except for a pair of demon red eyes, glowing in the haze in front of me. Huge and terrible in color, but not narrowed in anger. They were oddly kind, and in that moment, I felt a completely incongruous wave of peace flow over me, as if someone was saying, this will be all right.

Although how it was, I didn’t know, because I couldn’t see and I couldn’t breathe, and now my mind was failing, too. At least I assumed that was why it felt like my body was melting in his arms, twisting and shifting, the muscles and bones and everything suddenly out of place. Like plastic that gets too near a flame, it didn’t feel like I was holding shape.

Or maybe, like I was suddenly holding another.

He abruptly released me and stepped back, and I hit the ground, but not on two feet.

I landed on four, and not the normal kind. They were huge, with massive paws, and were covered in fur that was as black as night. And which flowed up into heavily muscled limbs covered in that same fur, and a body that—

That I’d never seen before, except in a dream.

I couldn’t see any more of myself, but I didn’t need to. And a series of memories, flashing across my vision, provided all of the context I needed: Farkas being surprised that I had a bite but hadn’t turned at Wolf’s Head, because serious danger to a Were almost always prompts a Change; my wolf straining against her bonds when meeting Cyrus’s beast for the first time, awake and aware and wanting OUT; and Jenkins, goddamn him, bending over me, pleased that his brew had worked to bring out a single, lost gift. “It seems that Neuri can’t block everything, doesn’t it?” he’d said cheerfully. “Or maybe the magnitude of the dose opened up a crack in its protection and something slipped through.”

Yeah, I thought, crouching low to the ground. Maybe it had. And maybe the second dose had shattered Neuri’s hold altogether, and let my true self out into the world for the first time.

Let’s find out, I decided, and leapt, going straight for the throat of my opponent, huge teeth bared and tearing into him.

Blood spurted, he screamed, and the body I bore to the ground turned and twisted. I felt him Change underneath me, even as I kept my hold on his jugular. But unlike the last wolf I’d tried that with, this one didn’t care. He wrenched away from me, an arc of his own blood shining in the light, his neck gushing with it.

And then healing over a second later as he lunged for me, the hideous Relic form greatly overshadowing mine in size and ferocity, even in this guise.

But he never touched me. Because three more fell creatures caught him halfway through the attack, and those he didn’t counter so easily. Those, he didn’t counter at all.

I scrambled back, a little unsure on my new legs, and watched a sight that mortals are rarely gifted to see. Jen’s starving, captured shades tearing into the thing that had been Danny, looking for the life energy that they believed to be in there somewhere. But I guessed in their frenzy they had forgotten a simple fact: Weres aren’t made like humans.

Our souls do not make ghosts, for they are bound to our bodies, and do not leave it until the body has completely disintegrated. It was why we were cremated at death, to speed up that process. And why the starving shades found no sustenance to sustain them.

They screamed, a terrible sound, ripping and tearing at him in their frustration. Only to find a tiny, tiny thread of spiritual energy floating free, due to the amount of damage they were inflicting. One of them spotted it, consumed it, and shrieked the information to the others.

Who immediately realized what it meant. They had to literally rip him to shreds to feed. And they had to do it fast enough that he couldn’t heal through it.

So, they did.

“I thought you said they were weak!” Sophie yelled, crouching down with her hands over her head as blood and meat and viscera started flying.

“Even starving animals find strength when confronted by a meal,” Jen said, and remained standing, her voice completely neutral as she watched her creatures at work.

“You know, you’re fucking scary sometimes!” Sophie raged, staring up at her.

“Thank you.”

The four combatants staggered back a moment later, and fell off the side of the building, with the shades, or ghosts as they were slowly becoming, clinging to the disintegrating body like remoras to the sides of a whale.

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