Wild Things

Chapter Four GHASTLY, GRIM, AND ANCIENT

They looked like the harpies of Greek and Roman mythology. Bodies of pale, thin women. Massive wings, the feathers so deeply black they gleamed like velvet. They were naked but for their long hair—straight and black, with thin braids tied throughout—and their silver, crested helmets. Supernatural battle armor, I feared, as they spun above us like a supernatural tornado, blotting out the stars, the magic that accompanied them fierce and unfriendly.

“Ethan,” I yelled over the rising din, adrenaline beginning to rush through me. “Nobody told me harpies existed!”

“I imagine nobody knew it until today,” he said, pulling a dagger from his boot and gesturing for me to do the same.

When the dagger was in hand, I looked for Gabriel. He stood a few yards away, shouting orders and sending his own sentinels in various directions. He and Mallory exchanged a glance, and I saw him weigh the choices, the decision.

He made the call and nodded at her and, I guessed, authorized her use of that magic he’d been so careful to train up. Catcher had no such hesitation. He’d gone to Mallory, grabbed her hand, was already pointing into the air, discussing what looked like strategy.

Gabriel unleashed a bloodcurdling yell, a call to arms. Light erupted across the clearing as shifters changed into their animal forms, the transition as stirringly magical as their ceremony had been. Changing into animal form was rough on clothes, so some shifters disrobed before they shifted, leaving shirts and pants in piles on the ground, ready and waiting for when it was time to shift back.

The smaller creatures, pairs of sleek red foxes and coyotes, ran quickly for the shelter of the woods. The larger animals prepared to fight: the Brecks—big cats; the Keenes—big wolves. I recognized Gabriel’s great gray form as he sprung into existence.

Jeff, a shockingly large white tiger with deep gray stripes, appeared beside him and roared with fury enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck. Fallon stayed in human form, a hand on Jeff’s back, perhaps to remind both of them that they fought together.

Ethan was beside me, dagger in hand, poised for action. I had the urge to drag him into the trees to keep him safe. But he tossed the dagger back and forth in his hands, his history as a soldier peeking through his eyes, which were fixed on the harpies and flat with concentration. He wasn’t leaving now.

The swarm of creatures descended, growing larger as it sunk toward us. I watched them fly for a moment, circling around the meadow but avoiding the trees—and the torches that lined them.

Suddenly, they let out a horrific scream as sharp as nails on a chalkboard and dive-bombed the clearing like dogfighting World War II planes.

What had been a celebration . . . became an unexpected battlefield.

The shifters who remained on the field weren’t afraid of battle, and many of them leaped, meeting the harpies in the air. The human portions of their bodies might have been thin, but harpies were strong. Some overbalanced, hitting the ground in a tumble of fur and feathers that shook the earth; others batted away the shifters with a dip of wings that sent wolves flying.

A harpy spied us, the only vampires on the field, dropped her head, and dove toward us.

“I’m open to suggestions,” I yelled to Ethan over the din.

“Stay alive!” he offered back, blading his body toward the harpy, limiting her access to vital organs. I did the same, moving closer beside him so we were a combined vampiric weapon, immortal and strong, although my heart raced like life was a delicate and fragile thing.

And wasn’t it?

“I don’t suppose you know anything about harpy anatomy?”

“Not a lick, Sentinel. But they look like ladies to me!”

A lot of help he was.

The sound was ferocious now, the beat of her wings as loud as a jet plane, sending gusts of air across the field. She was close enough that I could have seen the whites of her eyes, if she’d had any. Her eyes were solid black; regardless the shape of her body, they carried no visible trace of thought or humanity.

She extended her arms and scratched out her claws, their tips aimed at our necks. We dropped to the ground, her smell—pungent and sour—streaming past as she flew above us.

“She did not get perfume for Valentine’s Day,” Ethan surmised, spinning to watch her bank and turn back for a second shot. The width of the harpies’ wingspan helped them rise and fall quickly, but their turn radius was substantial. It took seconds for her to spin back in our direction, but only a moment for her to dip again. She’d learned the mistake of her first effort and, instead of swiping at us on the move, came straight for us and didn’t veer.

We hit the ground, rolling away in different directions to avoid the claws on her feet, which were as black and sharp as those on her hands.

She decided to follow me. I was on the ground, a few feet away from the spot where she’d fallen to earth, and it wasn’t far enough. She followed and scratched, talons raking at my arms and abdomen with vicious effectiveness.

The claws had looked pointy and sharp, but they were jagged like serrated knives, and they tore at flesh instead of slicing through it. They were weapons of destruction. She scraped my face, and the skin burned like fire beneath her nails.

Fear turned to fury, but it took me a moment to remember the dagger in my hand, and I thrust it upward again and again, the knife bouncing off bones I couldn’t see, hitting no true target but causing enough of a painful nuisance that she backed off.

“Here!” Ethan yelled, pivoting back and forth behind her to let me get to my feet.

I stood, adrenaline numbing the cuts I’d already received, and wiped the dagger’s handle, slippery with the harpy’s wine-dark blood, on my pants. The smell of it was just as pungent as the rest of her body, more like vinegar than the penny scent of human blood. Even for a vampire, there was nothing appealing about it.

She turned on Ethan and flapped forward only a few feet off the ground.

That, I thought, was my chance. If flying was her advantage, I’d have to take it away from her. And I only needed gravity for that.

Distract her! I silently told Ethan. He obeyed, weaving back and forth as she tried to follow him, her wings too large for quick maneuvers.

While she focused on him, I dropped . . . and lunged for her ankles.

She screamed out, bobbing in the air as she fought off my weight, kicking at the vampire who’d become her uninvited (and literal) hanger-on. But I held tight, sinking my face into the curl of my arm to avoid the barbs at the tips of her wings, which were as jagged and sharp as her nails.

Gravity won, and the harpy pitched forward, taking me with her. I hit the ground, rolling quickly to avoid her frantically beating wings, but she kicked out and hit me square on the left cheekbone, which cracked and sang with pain strong enough to bring tears to my eyes.

As she rose again, I uttered a curse that would have had my prickly mother swatting my bottom in horror, and tried to climb to my feet but found the ground swayed a little. I made it to my knees, nearly retching from the sudden vertigo.

The harpy slammed to the ground beside me, her black eyes open, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, and a bloody wound across her neck, pale sinew and bone peeking through skin.

The sight didn’t help my dizziness, and I sat firmly on the ground again. I looked up to find Ethan standing over her, hands and dagger bloodied, eyes green and fierce. There were streaks of blood and scratches across his face, and worse across his shirt.

He crouched in front of me, looked over my face. “You’re all right, Sentinel?”

I blinked. “I’ll be fine. She got my cheek.”

“The bruise is already showing,” he said, offering a hand and helping me to my feet. “You’ll heal.”

“That’s what they say. But it doesn’t make the punch feel any better.”

A voice rose behind us. “Little help here!”

We glanced across the meadow, found Catcher and Mallory twenty feet away, lobbing blue orbs of light at a pair of harpies who easily avoided them, swiping at their heads as they bobbed overhead. The sorcerers looked tired; their font of magic wasn’t endless, but required recharging. They both looked wan and sweaty, like they’d need the recharging soon.

“I’ll help,” Ethan said. “Stay here until you’re balanced again.”

I’d have argued if I could have, but he was already on his way to Mallory and Catcher.

Before I could join him, a wolf was beside me, nudging my leg. I glanced down. It was Gabriel, his wolf form enormous, his haunches nearly reaching my waist. And although he was undeniably animal—from thick fur to the tang of musk—there was something very human in his eyes.

Fear.

He nudged my hand again. Odd, because it wasn’t like Gabriel to turn his back on a fight. And why would he be afraid?

The thought struck me with cold dread. Tanya, also a wolf, could have shifted. But Connor was only an infant; I wasn’t entirely sure if infants could shift. And in any case, she’d have to carry him away.

“Tanya and Connor,” I said, and he yipped in agreement.

We ducked to avoid the tips of claws and wings.

“I’ll get them out of here and into the woods,” I promised. “Keep Ethan out of trouble.”

I’m going to find Tanya and Connor, I warned Ethan, who’d already reached Mallory and Catcher and was joining his dagger to their efforts. Please keep yourself safe.

I . . . intend . . . to, he haltingly responded, between his own evasive maneuvers.

I ducked and ran to the highest point in the meadow, a spot near the tree line on what I guessed was the southern side of the field, in order to scan the battlefield. Most of the shifters had actually shifted, but there were still some who I guessed found it easier to fight this particular enemy in human form. Tents were crumpled to the ground and fluttering wings obscured the view. If I was going to find them, I was going to have to run for it.

It was like an obstacle course, but instead of paintballs, giant naked women dropped from the sky with daggerlike claws. That wasn’t nearly as romantic as it sounded. I darted from one tent to the next, looking for any sign of the queen of the Pack and the heir to the throne. But I found nothing.

I made it to a tree stump, dropped beside it as I scanned the part of the field closest to me. I saw nothing but fighting, harpies apparently intent on wiping out the Pack in one fell swoop. And I’d traversed only a third of the meadow.

“This isn’t working,” I murmured, cupping my hands around my mouth and screaming into the night, “Tanya!”

I strained to hear a response but heard only the yips of injured shifters and the squeals of pissed-off harpies.

“Tanya!” I tried again. And this time, I heard an answering call.

“Merit!”

The cry was too low to be close, but it was enough to signal her direction. I ran to the next obstacle, then the next, and finally found her crouched on the ground beside the totem, which now lay on its side in the middle of the clearing, sheltering her son with her body.

There was no fear in the magic that swirled around her, just a sense of determination. She was a mother, and she would protect her son, regardless the cost.

I ran toward her, put the dagger back in my boot, and extended a hand. “Long time no see.”

She smiled just a little. “I don’t think this is quite the party Gabriel had in mind.”

“I would hope not,” I said, “or he’s a horrible planner. Are you okay?”

“I think I twisted my ankle. Tripped over something in the field.”

I nodded. “I’ll help you get to the woods. The harpies can’t fly through the trees.”

Tanya nestled Connor in the crook of one arm, nodded, and grabbed my hand with her free one to pull herself upright. She bobbled a bit on her left foot but stayed upright.

My arm around her back, I scanned the sky, gauged the distance between the shelter and the trees, and prepared to run. If I could just wait for them to begin the rotation away from the woods, we’d have a few seconds to make a run for it.

A metallic screech rang out above us. We crouched as a harpy flew only a foot above our heads, sending Connor into a fit of tears.

“Ready,” I told her, trying to drown out the noise and the fire and the scent of blood and the snow of molted black feathers that fell from the sky.

The harpy banked and turned and gave us our chance.

“Run!” I yelled, and we took off at our stumbling pace.

She made it ten awkward yards before stumbling forward, nearly pulling me down with her. But I managed to stay on my feet and keep an iron grip on her waist. I kept her upright and she found her balance again, but her ankle wobbled beneath her. Shifting into her wolf form would allow her to heal, but we didn’t have time for that.

The piercing scream rose behind us, and I risked a glance over our shoulders. The harpy had seen us, and she’d turned our way.

Tanya tried to release my grip. “Take Connor. Run for the woods. Keep him safe.”

A nervous laugh bubbled up. “Are you kidding me? I’m not going to leave you here for the world’s angriest chickens. We do this together.” I pulled her free arm around my shoulder and put my arm back around her waist, tilting my body to take more of the weight off her ankle. Together, the sound of thwushing wings behind us growing louder with each step we took, we hobbled to the tree line.

The hair rose on the back of my neck. Gods, but this is going to be close.

“Faster!” I said, sucking in oxygen as we raced the last twenty yards, then ten, pulling her toward the trees with all the strength I could muster.

The harpy dipped, and time seemed to slow. Visions passed before my eyes, of friendships, of my nieces and nephews, of Ethan, and of the green-eyed child Gabriel had once hinted was in my future. Green eyes I wouldn’t get a chance to see if we didn’t make it.

I pushed harder, calling up every spare ounce of effort I could find, that same determination that had driven me through all-nighters in grad school and endless hours of ballet practice. It didn’t feel good, but that was irrelevant. You don’t stop until the job is done, my father was fond of saying.

Tanya wasn’t yet safe; my job wasn’t done.

We reached the stand of winter-bare trees, and the harpy banked, wings swatting the trees on the edge of the wood, black feathers ripped out by branches floating to the ground.

I helped Tanya sit down on a fallen tree, Connor now crying fitfully. Other shifters who’d taken shelter in the woods turned back into their human forms and looked out on the battle with horror.

I knelt down in front of Tanya, who tried to calm her son.

“What’s this about?” I asked, when her gaze met mine.

She shook her head, her eyes still wide with shock. “I don’t know. I don’t even—what are they?”

“Harpies, I think. Is this a fight with the Pack? Did the Pack piss someone off?” Perhaps by inviting vampires to his woods? I silently wondered, hoping this wasn’t because of us.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know. This is so horrible, Merit. So awful.”

The bare limbs above us shook as harpies circled overhead, looking for a place to dive into the undergrowth. I pulled the dagger from my boot and stood up again.

“You’re going back.”

I nodded. “The Pack still needs help, and Ethan’s still out there. I don’t quit until he’s safe.”

There was bravado in my voice—the kind of bluffing I actually could manage—and it masked the fear. My allies were engaged in battles of their own, and I had only a slim and slender dagger to take down a woman-bird with an attitude problem.

But Tanya smiled at me like I’d seen Gabriel smile before. Knowingly. Wisely. And with utter calm. “You can do this, Merit of House Cadogan. Go save your man.”

I nodded, somehow buoyed by the sentiment, and left Tanya and her subjects in the trees. Flipping the dagger nervously in my hand, I walked back to the tree line and peered into the darkness.

She dropped to the ground in front of me, torchlight flickering across her naked body.

She seemed, somehow, even larger on the ground. At least six feet tall, with a twenty-foot wingspan. Her eyes were solidly black, hair blowing wildly in the wind, revealing small breasts and a web of battle scars across her abdomen.

She tucked her wings behind her and moved forward, knees bent, the motion bouncy and unnatural. Harpies clearly weren’t meant to run; they were meant to fly.

She opened her mouth and screamed. I winced at the aural assault and resorted to my standard defense mechanism. Sarcasm.

“You are not going to Hollywood with pitch like that,” I advised her.

Her dark eyes flicked back and forth like a bird’s, but it didn’t appear she actually understood what I’d said. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Or finely grained sarcasm.

Regardless, she understood battle. She attacked, vaulting forward, teeth bared.

For a moment, I was too transfixed to move. She looked like a creature from an ancient time, a warrior from an era when gods and goddesses reigned in gauzy robes and gold laurel crowns. If The Ride of the Valkyries had begun to play, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I kicked, trying like I had before to get her off her feet. She avoided the shot by taking to the air, then gave back better than I had, kicking forward and hitting me square in the chest, sending me flying.

I hit the ground on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I clutched at the grass at my sides, gasping for air, as the ground rumbled beneath my feet.

“Up, Merit!” yelled Tanya behind me, and I reared back, then hopped to my feet, as if her words had been an order instead of a frightened suggestion. I was tiring, still healing and dizzy from my last round, adrenaline beginning to fade, and I was beginning to react on autopilot. Fortunately, I’d been trained to fight beyond fear, beyond exhaustion.

Standing again, I bounced on my feet. The harpy’s eyes narrowed and she moved forward again. I looked for a target, recalled how ineffective my dagger had been against the other harpy’s abdomen, and picked a new target.

If I couldn’t beat the human, I’d go for the bird.

I beckoned her forward, and she windmilled her claws as she moved toward me again, looking for purchase and a soft bit of flesh to tear. I swerved to the left, and she followed. Her legs moved awkwardly, and her wings provided just enough drag to make me faster than her. I dodged back to the right, and she moved back again, but slower this time . . . giving me just enough time to make my move.

Her wing brushed me as she sought to move again, and I grabbed the top of it, a long rib beneath a covering of slick and oily feathers, and stuck with my dagger.

She screamed in distress, reared back, and swung at me, but I leaped backward, flipping to avoid the shot. Her wing hung limply on one side, and I was struck with pity. I’d winged my enemy but hadn’t brought her down.

And she was pissed.

Faster than she’d moved before, she bent her knees and jumped forward. She was on me before I could move, heavy and awkward, her mouth wide and pointed teeth aimed for my face, apparently intent on taking a bite.

“Ethan will not like that,” I muttered, humor my last weapon against fear and exhaustion. I watched for the right moment and, when her head darted up to strike, pushed the dagger through her neck.

She arched back, screaming, hands at her throat, and pulled out the dagger, which hit the ground some feet away. I watched it roll, afraid she’d come back for a second round and I’d have no recourse, no protection. But blood and worse gushed from her wound, and she staggered and fell, shaking the earth beneath.

I wiped fresh traces of blood from my face, thinking, just as I’d promised Ethan, that I’d heal. The harpy, unfortunately, would have no such luck.

• • •

When I’d gotten to my feet again, grabbed up my dagger, and scrubbed off blood and dirt, I took a look at the rest of the battle. Harpies still circled the sky—a dozen maybe—but the attack was clearly on the wane. And it would leave death and destruction in its wake.

Some shifters fought; others lay on the ground, unmoving, the scents of untimely deaths moving across the field, thrown into the air by the flap of wings. Shifters could heal themselves, but only if they shifted, and they had to be awake and conscious to do that. For some of them, it was clearly too late.

So much death, I thought, staring blankly at the carnage, trying to process it. I’d fought battles before, and seen death. But rarely this much, and never all at once.

“Merit.”

I looked over, found Ethan a few feet away. He was dirty and blood smeared, but all limbs were intact. I nearly sagged with relief.

“Tanya and Connor?” he asked, moving quickly nearer and looking me over.

“The woods,” I said. “I got them to the woods, then dealt with her.” I gestured to the harpy, who looked scrawny and pitiful there on the ground, her wings folded in death.

“This is a miserable thing,” he said, no little pity in his voice. “Let’s get back in there.”

We walked back into the clearing as Gabriel finished off a harpy with a vicious bite to the neck, and we ran to his position at the edge of the battle.

Light exploded, and Gabriel burst back into human form, naked as the day he was born. There were a few scratches on his body, a result of the weird magic of shape-shifting. Although changing from human to shifter would heal injuries received as a human, it didn’t work in reverse.

“Everyone is tiring,” Ethan said.

Gabriel nodded. Jeff ran up, hastily clothed, pointing at Catcher and Mallory.

“They think this is a magical attack,” he said, “and they think they know how to finish it with the magic they have left. But it will be big magic.”

Catcher and Mallory knelt together on the ground in the center of the meadow, near the fallen totem. They held their left hands together, palms flat, and their right hands flat against the earth, as if testing it for weakness, or pulling strength from it.

“Mallory won’t do it without your go-ahead.”

Gabriel looked at her for a moment. “Will it hurt the Pack?”

Jeff shook his head. “It will be targeted at the magic itself. It shouldn’t touch anyone else.”

Gabriel wet his lips, nodded. “If they think they can end it, they should. Just tell us what to do.”

“Get down,” he said, then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Go!” he yelled across the clearing.

As Catcher nodded at Mallory, Ethan grabbed my hand and pulled me down into a crouch.

I couldn’t see the magic around Catcher and Mallory, not with my eyes, but I could feel it ramping up, like the supercharged atmosphere before a storm, the air suddenly heavy and smelling of ozone.

A bubble of magic emerged from the earth, quickly encompassing the two of them, growing until it was ten feet tall, and then suddenly exploding, pulsing, like a wave through the sky.

The magic hit the birds like a bomb. They exploded into swirls of acrid black smoke. Like it was a living thing, the smoke rose into a giant, swirling column over the clearing, a cyclone of magic. It screamed with noise—like the squeals of a thousand harpies together—and blew tents and leaves and the rest of the bonfire to the ground in an explosion of noise.

It spun faster and faster, debris winding around and around like a children’s toy, narrowing and rising farther and farther into the sky until, with a final scream of sound that made me clap my hands over my ears, the column broke apart, sending black tentacles of smoke into the sky.

The night went silent, and the smoke began to dissipate, revealing the stars once again.

We all rose again. Gabriel looked at Ethan. “Get back to the house. And Catcher and Mallory, as well.”

“Back to the house?” Ethan asked, his magic and body suddenly tense, making all my spidey senses tingle uncomfortably.

“We were just attacked, and you’re the odd ones out.”

We weren’t shifters, he meant.

We were different.

We were suspects.