Chapter 25

“Tiny, why don’t you take Sara somewhere safe—” I started to say, but Sara cut me off.

“No. I’m coming with you guys.” That didn’t sound like a good idea. She looked like a stiff wind would knock her on her ass. She lifted her fist, giving me a fierce glare in return for my dubious look. “You can’t keep me out of this fight. If the necromancer has been following us through me, then it doesn’t matter where I go. He’ll find me again, and I’ll end up leading him right into one of the White Hats’ hideouts.”

Devon rubbed his temples. “This is too complicated. So we need to help the necromancer kill Clyde, but then we have to wait just long enough for one of you two to ask him for help removing those runes—and then we have to try to kill him? How are we supposed to know the right time to get involved? It’s not like he’s going to be an easy kill, even after he’s worn down from the fight with Clyde. Not if the mess up there is anything to go by.” He gestured at the freeway, encompassing the sounds of gunfire and screams, punctuated by the occasional roar from the shifted werewolf, only a few hundred feet away.

That gave me an idea. I could have kissed him if it wouldn’t have sent the wrong message about my intentions.

“Follow me!”

Devon helped support Sara. Tiny wasn’t too quick on his feet, but he was able to follow without much trouble.

I led them around the fence and up the freeway off-ramp, thrusting the gun into Devon’s outstretched hand. Better not to face the Were while armed. Didn’t want an unspoken threat to piss off our one shot at turning the tables on the necromancer and both vampires right off the bat. Werewolves were so touchy about those visual cues.

The Goliath was still rampaging across the freeway, gallumphing its way from one clump of zombies to the next. Most of the people who had stayed in their cars were watching with their hands and faces pressed to their windows, only withdrawing when a zombie came too close.

Earlier, I hadn’t noticed, but the Goliath was making a sincere effort not to damage any of the vehicles around it. It moved its great body gracefully considering all of the many places its skin was torn and bleeding, chunks taken out in human-sized bites. Every now and again it bumped into one of the stopped cars, but it never knocked any over or even scratched the paint. It had developed a system for killing the zombies still coming after it, getting up on its hind legs to grab a torso with one paw, and using a foreclaw from the other to pop the head off.

What was left of each zombie flopped bonelessly to the ground once the Goliath let it go. It was a pretty efficient, if disgusting, system.

There weren’t too many left. I scrambled on top of one of the nearby cars, some expensive luxury sedan with a long, low-slung front end, ignoring the owner’s indignant shouts as I got up on the roof. Sara, Tiny, and Devon crouched behind it, all three of them hissing variants of “Get down! Are you crazy?”

Why, yes, I was feeling a bit on edge at the moment.

A quick glance farther along the freeway gave me a glimpse of flashing red and blue police lights, and a better view of the helicopters hovering overhead. One had “LAPD” on it and seemed to be more focused on the jam ahead, but it looked like the rest were from news stations. A handful of them were closer to this end of the jam, probably videoing the Goliath melting zombie faces.

“Hey! Hey, you . . . werewolf!” I waved my arms over my head, shouting at the Were. It growled as one of the walking dead grabbed at its hind leg, shaking the cadaver off and then pinning it with that foot, before looking at me. “I need to talk to you!”

The Were lifted its lip, turning its attention back to the remaining zombies. I stomped my foot, making the roof of the car make a hollow sound that didn’t do anything to get the Were’s attention, other than making it flick its ears back. The guy inside yelled again, but I ignored him.

“C’mon, you asshole! I haven’t got all day!”

This time it looked at me over its shoulder, hackles raised and pearlescent fangs gleaming as it turned narrowed, golden eyes on me. Finally. A hand was grabbing at my ankle—Devon or Tiny, I was sure—tugging at my pants leg for attention. I couldn’t listen to them right then. I had hundreds of pounds of pissed off werewolf leaning meaningfully in my direction.

“Listen to me, and listen good,” I said, adopting as dangerous a tone as I could muster. It must have worked, because the Were was paying attention, even if it was still bristling at me, meeting my challenging stare. There was something to be said for the lessons Chaz had imparted about what kind of dominant behavior a Were deferred to. My asshole ex hadn’t been good for much, but the lessons I’d learned, I’d taken to heart. “You want to stop what’s controlling all of these things? Find your alpha and tell him to bring the rest of his pack to Clyde Seabreeze’s place. Help me, and I’ll help you. Santa Monica. Midnight. Tonight. Got it?”

It flicked its ears in my direction, then went back to tearing apart the few remaining walking dead. I hoped that meant yes. If not, I had no idea how we were going to stop the necromancer. That was assuming Gideon could destroy Clyde’s retinue and heal Sara before then.

Maybe it made me a cold, heartless bitch—too much like the vampires I hated, calculating and cruel like Max, Fabian, and Clyde—but I wasn’t going to leave any loose ends. If Gideon could remove Sara’s curse, I’d find some way to distract the Goliath werewolves once they showed up until he was done. Possibly by setting them after Fabian. If Gideon couldn’t deactivate the runes, heaven help him, because I would do everything in my power and use every resource at my disposal to see that he was hunted to the ends of the earth for hurting her like he had.

In many ways, it might have made me as monstrous as the thing I had feared turning into, but there wasn’t even the slightest twinge of my conscience when I saw the way Sara’s skin was stretched tight over the bones of her hands and face as she looked up from her crouched position behind the car. The dark circles under her eyes had worsened, and if I hadn’t known better, I might have thought she’d been bitten by a vampire given how weak and parchment pale she’d become.

Hopping down from on top of the car, I shrugged off Tiny and Devon’s hands, flexing and then clenching my fingers until my knuckles gave a satisfying crack.

“Let’s get back to the car.”

It would take a little while for the gridlock to clear up, but we still had a couple of hours before sundown. If we couldn’t use the freeway, hopefully there would be another way to get across town in time to reach Clyde’s place before Fabian and Gideon attacked. Perhaps Gideon would be too distracted by the fight and the number of zombies he had to control to notice we were coming.

“Shia, this is crazy. What the heck are you trying to do?”

I paused so Sara could catch up, hooking an arm through hers and slowing my pace to help her the rest of the way back to the car. “Trust me. I’ve got a plan.”

Devon’s hand was heavy on my shoulder as he fell into step on my other side. “We deserve to know. Especially if you expect the rest of the White Hats to help.”

“Fine. First, we’re going to help Fabian and Gideon take down Clyde.”

All three of the others shot me horrified looks.

“Then we’re going to let Gideon fix those marks on Sara. If he can’t fix it before the Goliaths arrive, we’ll set them after Fabian. If he does fix it, once he’s done, we’ll let the werewolves mop up what’s left of the vampires and get rid of Gideon.”

“Shia.” Sara’s voice was hushed, strained. “Shia, no. You can’t—”

“Can’t what? Can’t fix this?”

“Can’t treat them like pawns. This isn’t your fight, and it’s not like you can fix what’s been done to me.”

Hissing a breath between my teeth, I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and stomped forward, half-dragging Sara with me. The sound of mixed fear and pain she made was enough to jolt me out of my anger.

I stopped, setting my hands on her upper arms, both to keep her on her feet and from pulling away. It gave me a good view of the engorged, blackened veins pulsing under my skin, further drawing me out of my rage and reminding me that I needed to stay calm. Something was trying to break its way free of this flimsy cage of flesh. If I couldn’t stay focused, couldn’t keep my emotions under control, who knew what kind of monster I might turn into.

“Listen,” I said, noting that my voice was unnaturally deep—still wasn’t totally in control yet, had to focus. “Listen. I’m not going to let you suffer the consequences for my mistakes. We’re going to make that damned necromancer try to fix this. You hear me? I’m not leaving this goddamned town until I know for sure if he can make this right. And I’m not going to abandon Devon and Tiny and Analie’s family to deal with him by themselves when it’s over. Give me a chance. This can work. We just have to time it right.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

I turned a flat stare on Devon. He didn’t give an inch.

“What’s plan B? What if Clyde wins? What if the werewolves decide to attack before midnight, or don’t show at all?”

Fear as much as rage threatened to overwhelm my better sense. I wanted to do something physically violent to make the questions stop—which meant there was far more wrong with me than I had originally thought.

Closing my eyes and counting to ten didn’t do much to help, but I gave it a shot anyway. The others were looking at me expectantly when I opened my eyes again, as were a few of the nearby people who had remained in their cars.

The sense of something dark and hungry compelling me to lash out was new, but not entirely unfamiliar. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the desire for vampire blood that had coursed through me when I was bound by blood to Royce and Max. The unnatural hunger to absorb some part of them and keep myself in their power at one point had had me literally begging Royce to keep me bound to him. Anything to stop the pain.

Whatever this was, it bore the same flavor of compulsion. I wasn’t going to give in to the need to lash out or act irrationally. No matter what. I wasn’t a monster. Not in that sense, anyway. I was stronger than this. Had to be stronger than it. Whatever it was.

The words came slowly, thick, like there was cotton stuffing in my mouth.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said.

Devon arched a brow, and I pulled away from Sara to face him. He wore an expression of wary concern. Whatever signs of change I was exhibiting, he hadn’t quite caught on to them yet. Good.

“Maybe Clyde will win. If he does, you still want him taken out, right? So the werewolves can take care of that. Same thing with Fabian. No matter what, the vampires need to be destroyed. Gideon is dangerous, but without Fabian driving him to go after Clyde, or if both vampires are dead, he has no reason to stay here. This isn’t his city or his fight. If he chooses to stay, there’s no way the Goliath pack will tolerate it. Even if you can’t set them after him, isn’t there a local mage coven? You can set the local magi after him, too.”

Tiny spoke up, his deep voice threaded with apprehension. “We’ll never be able to get there before the fighting starts. Not without a car. Not in this mess.”

Good. They were starting to see things my way. “That’s fine. We don’t have to be there when the fight starts. We just have to get there before it’s over. If I can find Gideon after, I can get him to see to Sara, and we can take it from there.”

“Are you sure he’ll fix it?”

“No.” I bit my lower lip, glancing at Sara as a tingle of foreboding squeezed around my heart with cold fingers. “We can’t trust him—but he’s the closest thing we have to a shot at disabling whatever that sorcerer did to her.”

Privately, I vowed to myself that I would make the time to study the different branches of magework and learn enough to protect us both against something like this ever happening again once this mess was behind us.

“I don’t think this is going to work, Shia. If Arnold couldn’t fix it, what makes you think that Gideon can?”

I gave Sara’s arm a reassuring squeeze, though I was nowhere near as confident as I forced myself to sound. “Arnold doesn’t deal in the dark arts. This guy does. What he knows is closer to what David was doing than the magic Arnold uses. Gideon’s the best chance we’ve got.”

And damn whatever fates were responsible for making that the sorry truth.