51

KARMA’S A BITCH

Gabriel was dead by the time I made it down the hall with my machete in one hand and my silver steel knife in the other, wolves pouring around Gabriel and the two corpses he had killed. If they surrounded me, I was dead, and I couldn’t back into a corner without exposing Sig.

I swung the machete just to force the first wolf back on its rear legs, then drove the silver steel knife into its left eye socket and spun away, which was all good, except that the wolf’s dying body weight tore the knife out of my hands.

I gripped the machete two-handed and pretended to swing low at the next wolf, but when the wolf tried to leap over the blade I was ready for it, whirling crazily and swinging the machete upward with all of my weight and unnatural strength behind it.

The wolf’s head came off, and so did the handle of the machete. The tang of the blade flew off violently, and another wolf came at me from above by leaping over the stair rail. I came up from under the wolf’s jawline, grabbed it by the throat and threw it into the side of the doorway even while its claws scored my upper arms. Somewhere between its momentum and the force I’d used and its weight distribution and the unnatural angle of the impact, the werewolf’s spine broke.

I had a few seconds then, and I used them to throw a side kick into the thick wooden spindles of the stairway railing, breaking one and grabbing it before another wolf came at me from around the landing. I swung the spindle like a baseball bat and shattered the wolf’s teeth, knocking it sideways and bringing the spindle down again while its legs were scrambling for footing on the blood-slick floor, driving the broken end of the spindle through the top of its skull and into its brain like a spear.

It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t attacking anyone else anytime soon.

A hybrid came at me then, a half-wolf half-man, and it tore the hell out of my left forearm with its talons when I blocked its swing, but I headbutted its front fangs out of its mouth when it lunged forward. It reeled back in shock and I punched my hand through its thoracic cavity, got a grip on its heart, and ripped it out of its chest like we were in a kung fu movie.

And then I was standing alone. The hybrid’s teeth hadn’t bitten into my head, but skin had still torn. I shook my head like trying to fling water out of my hair and wiped a forearm over my eyes. When I could see again, I was facing Bernard.

He was on the stairs, naked except for the big-bored double-barreled shotgun that he was holding. Bernard had moved down under the cover of the noise his followers and I had been making, and he was pointing the shotgun at me over the railing.

He pulled both triggers.

There was a deafening explosion, and then silver shot swerved violently and tore into the walls on either side of me.

I was wearing Mila Apraxin’s magnetic charm.

What, I was just going to leave a defensive weapon like that lying on the floor? It was the reason my knife and machete had flown out of my hands. I’d barely been able to hold on to them before they started impacting with muscle and bone. It was also the reason I hadn’t taken Sig’s gun with me. Like an idiot, I had put the magnetic charm on first, and Sig’s handgun had skidded away from me when I tried to grab it afterward, and there hadn’t been time to negotiate matters any further.

Bernard stared at me as I stood there, the barrels of his shotgun still smoking. “Well. This is awkward.”

“I don’t think I ever saw this situation covered in a Miss Manners column,” I agreed, rubbing blood out of my eyes again. “Why don’t you come down here and we’ll figure out the proper way to handle it.”

I was swaying on my feet.

The bastard actually laughed. “What’s the matter, John? Is it poison or fatigue?”

“We’re not going to do that whole speech thing, are we?” I asked. “Because I’ll be honest, Bernard; I’ve heard of enough of your bullshit.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, tossing the shotgun behind him. “But can I say one thing before we start? I’ve been wanting to tell you ever since I met you.”

“Sure,” I said, wiping my forehead before blood could spill over my eyebrows yet again.

He smiled then, and I saw the real Bernard for the first time. It was a cruel, sadistic, vicious smile. I would call it something other than a smile, actually, if I could think of another word for expressions that show satisfaction by exposing teeth and pulling the corners of the mouth up. “The wolves who bit your mother? The ones who did it so your dying father would know that she wouldn’t survive childbirth? Did it so that his last thought was that his child was being turned into an abomination inside his wife’s womb while he lay there bleeding out? I was leading them. That was my idea.”

It might have even been true.

I nodded. “Can I say one last thing to you?”

Fur began to emerge through Bernard’s skin and he continued smiling, more to allow fangs to jut outward from his extending jaw than because he was happy. He remained mostly human, though, and he spoke, something I’d never heard a hybrid do, though his voice vibrated so much that it was a little hard to understand. “Of course.”

I stepped casually to the side as if walking toward the stair landing, and Mayte… I mean, Catherine… I mean, Cat… fired four shots from Virgil’s handgun from where she was lying on the floor in the classroom behind me. The bullets were hollow-points with silver tips, and after the first one hit Bernard’s chest, he didn’t have the power to do anything except fall backward against the wall.

Catherine kept firing, and one of the bullets hit his face while the rest tore hell and plaster out of the stairway wall.

“Fuck off,” I told Bernard’s corpse after the firing had stopped. He was human again, if you can call him that. I guess you’d have to. No other animal could be that cruel.

I could hear Catherine slowly pulling herself up to her feet behind me. Whatever they’d injected her with was still messing with her.

I called out, “You going to be all right?”

She emerged into the hall, bracing herself against the frame of the doorway. She was still holding Virgil’s gun in one hand, not that I blamed her. “No.”

I pointed toward the two wolves I had crippled. Their whimpering had helped disguise the click when Bernard’s mate had cocked Virgil’s gun. I’d barely heard it myself. “Would you mind shooting them?”

“Not at all,” she said, and proved it.

“So,” I said while vibrations from the gunshots still made the air seem charged. “Catherine Flores, huh? I think I liked Mayte Reyes better.”

She sighed. “It’s Cat. And so did I.”

I began shuffling down the hallway toward the woman who hadn’t lied to me. “So, what was the deal? Bernard wanted you to seduce me?”

“Remember how he and the others met you in the woods after you ran away from me? He was supposed to interrupt us after I started something.”

I didn’t look back. “What about the second time?”

“That was my idea. I don’t know if I wanted to see if he’d get jealous, or if I just liked you. He and I didn’t have a passionate marriage.” Catherine… I mean… I guess I’d better start calling her Cat… hadn’t moved.

A werewolf named Cat. That sounded like something a brother would come up with, and Gabriel was lying in shreds at Cat’s feet. Maybe the drugs in her system weren’t the only reason she was so pale and out of it.

“I was Bernard’s believer, not his beloved,” Cat said tonelessly.

That sounded like a line she’d used before. Maybe it was something she’d told herself a lot.

“Bernard slept with anything that moved,” Cat added. “I think he had something going with Nikolai.”

I didn’t look back, but only because I was still wearing Mila’s charm. If she tried to kill me, she was in for a surprise. “And the knight raid on the paws? You really think he arranged that?”

“He admitted it after I was his prisoner.” Her voice trembled. “He sacrificed our paw because he was counting on it turning you against the knights for good. He needed you to teach us how to fight them.”

“It worked,” I said, and I knelt down and smoothed Sig’s hair out of the way so I could check her pulse. It was fast, but it was strong. “You worked. I really liked you.”

“I really cared about you too.” Her voice trembled. “It wasn’t hard, pretending. You made it easy.”

I slumped down against the wall, next to Sig. “Glad I could help.”

“Bernard had a way of getting you to do things you never thought you’d do,” Cat said. “A little step at a time. He could make anything sound reasonable.”

“I know,” I admitted.

I pulled Sig’s head onto my lap. She wasn’t dead. She was just sleeping. I know fairy tales are bullshit; believe me, I know it better than anyone. But I kissed her then. You know. Just in case.

“Right.” Cat shuffled away. Maybe Gabriel had told her that Ben Lafontaine and his tribe were out there somewhere, clearing the woods of Bernard’s most fanatical followers, the keepers of his secrets. Maybe not. Whatever. Tula didn’t shoot Cat when she walked out of the building.

And Sig didn’t die.