Page 26 of Reaper
Not for long, though.He immediately went into a half-shift, growing another foot and packing on even more muscle, if that’s possible.His face elongated, and his nostrils grew even larger, another thing that stretched credulity.I stopped worrying about his nose at that point and focused on his throat instead.
Namely, I focused on putting my fist in it, wrapping my right hand in a glowing shield and punching Yannis right in his Adam’s apple with magically enhanced might.That kind of explosion of pain in the middle of a transformation does one of two things to a were—it either reverse their shift entirely, leaving them curled up in agony for several moments in their human form, or it pushes the shift all the way to their full animal form, where they lose all sense of humanity and become a snapping, snarling death machine with no real sentient thought, only knowledge of pain and hunger.It’s a lot like throwing a lycanthrope back to their first turn, and it’s really mean.But either a helpless human or a mindless wolf is better than dealing with a fully focused half-wolf, who has the best traits of both human and animal.And hey, I might get lucky and punch Yannis back into a sobbing human curled up on the floor choking and blowing snot all over the place.
Spoiler Alert: I did not get lucky.
Second Spoiler Alert: Yannis was a really goddamnedbigwolf.Like, he was aGame of Thronesdire wolf-looking son of a bitch.And now he was right in front of me, with a sore throat, a bad attitude, a lot of fucking teeth, and one enemy in his sights: Quincy Fucking Harker.
I looked for Anthony, but he was ten feet away, brandishing one of the legs of the picnic table at a trio of fighters who didn’t look all that enthused about attacking me in the first place.“I’ll hold these guys off, Murray!You take care of Yannis.I got your back, buddy!”
Great.He had my back.I wasn’t worried about my back.I was worried about the giant fucking wolf in front of me.Until it wasn’t in front of me anymore.Suddenly, faster than even I could see, Yannis sprang at me, knocking me flat on my back and sending me skidding across the floor of the mess.I was going to need another shower and a change of clothes if I lived through this.
I got my shield-wrapped left arm between Yannis’s jaws and my throat, then pressed my right palm against his chest.“Forzare!”I said, pushing my will out through my hand and sending the wolf flying off me.
Well, it would have sent the wolf flying off me.Except he had a death grip on my left forearm, and a wolf has the grip strength of your average shop vise.So he flew, but I flew with him.Right about the peak of our arc, Yannis opened his mouth enough for me to wrest my arm free, which let me control my fall just a tiny bit.
Okay, that was bullshit.I wasn’t in control of a goddamned thing, but I got lucky enough that when Yannis landed on another picnic table, crushing it like a Budweiser can against a frat boy’s forehead, I happened to land on his big fuzzy belly instead of any of the aluminum shrapnel around us.This was not the time to see if the good boy wanted belly rubs, and besides, as I’ve recently learned, I’m a cat person, so I put both hands on his midsection and repeated the spell, this time sending myself into the air on purpose, and flipping over to make an almost perfect superhero landing.
And I swear I would have stuck that landing if my back foot hadn’t landed in somebody’s discarded yogurt, sending me skidding across the floor on my knee and making me think about parfait again.I still managed to get to my feet before Yannis, who was wriggling around in a twisted heap of metal trying to get free.
I stalked over to my downed foe, planning on knocking him unconscious with one good punch and leaving him to shift automatically and then heal, when someone blurred into motion to stand between me and my quarry.
Maris.The vampire who had beaten Yannis and sent him down to Tier Three.“I cannot allow you to kill him while he is in this condition.It would be uncivilized.”
I was confused.Like, sincerely confused.Here was the guy who’d beaten this shifter to within an inch of his life less than twelve hours before, telling me that killing him would be uncivilized?Ignoring the fact that I didn’t plan on killing Yannis, who wasthisasshole to tell me about being civilized?I was willing to take that shit from Luke because he was actual nobility and, despite his odd diet, one of the most well-mannered beings I’d ever encountered, and that includes all the Archangels.But this prick?
“We’re indentured servants forced to fight for the amusement of a bunch of rich pricks.What’s so goddamned civilized about that?”I asked.“I mean, seriously, it’s like we’re in a low-budget remake ofGladiator,only this sequel could use more Pedro Pascal.”
Maris cocked his head at me, a gesture so familiar I almost laughed out loud.Luke does that same shit to me all the time.That thought made my blood freeze.If he had Luke’s mannerisms, and I didn’t know him, then he might be an old vampire.
Like,reallyold.Like before Luke met my parents, old.Like, from back in the old days in Eastern Europe old.Like, old enough to be powerful beyond all fucking recognition old.If this guy was more than a couple centuries old, he might be able to take out everybody in the room without breaking an ever-so-slightly bloody sweat.
“Nevertheless,” Maris said.“I will not allow you to murder Yannis while he is senseless.He is an honorable fighter, for a dog.”And the way he said it, it made sense.Yannis couldn’t help that he was never going to be able to beat Maris, because he was a lesser species.Just like me.
Yeah, that didn’t fly so well with me.I’d been there for a pompous little asshole talking about a whole chunk of humanity being a lesser species before, and it didn’t end well for him.But not before he and his asshole friends killed something like eight million of those “lesser” humans all across Europe.I hate that kind of racist bullshit when it comes from humans, and I hate it even more when it’s speciesist bullshit coming from guys who have lived long enough to know better.
There was still too much of a restriction on my power to summon my soulblade, and that would give away too much of my power anyway, but I had more than enough juice stored up to make my eyes glow red, wrap my fists in glowing orbs of power, and give Maris a really impressive death glare as I said, “I’m not planning on killing him, just knocking him out so he’ll shift and I can go get a shower.But there’s not a goddamned thing keeping me from changing my plans and adding vampire to the menu.So why don’t you put your aristocratic nose back where it belongs—out of my fucking business.”
I didn’t even see the slap that sent me flying backward, but I definitely felt it.And I sure as fuck felt the impact as I slammed against the far wall, impacting the concrete with my shoulders first, then my stupid, stupid head.I tried to reach out to Becks and apologize for not letting her be the one to kill me, but the doors burst open and a dozen guards streamed in, including a very annoyed-looking Pete, all holding some kind of remote control in each hand.
“That’s enough!”Pete yelled, holding his right hand over his head, finger on a red button.“You all know that if we press these buttons, your collars explode.There might be one of you that can survive with your head separated from your body, but we will make sure that your survival is very short-lived, and very painful.So stand the fuck down!”
Shit.Now I really needed to remember the name of that Rutger Hauer movie.
20
Concussions suck.Even if you’re really strong, and even if you recover way faster than a normal human, smacking your head into a cinderblock wall after flying across a room rings your bell like a motherfucker.And I got the whole damn menu of symptoms—nausea, dizziness, light sensitivity, difficulty focusing, more nausea, crippling headaches, and worse, inability to use my magic.
Not that it mattered much because the guards dialed up my collar until I could barely heal and sense Becks, much less cast anything.So I basically lay in my bunk for a couple days, getting off every once in a while to crawl over to the toilet and puke, then curl up in the floor of a shower in a futile attempt to make my head feel better.Anthony brought me plates from meals after the first day, once I could keep a little bit of solid food down, but I didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of Pete until Saturday morning when he slammed my door open and flipped on all the lights, making me groan in pain and setting my guts a-roiling all over again.
“Rise and shine, pookie bear!”he called out at the top of his lungs.If I could have moved, I would have murdered his freckled ass.
“Fuck off,” I croaked, pulling a pillow over my face.
“Time to heal up, dickhead.You’ve got a fight tonight.”
“I’ve got a concussion, you asshole,” I muttered.
“Not for long,” Pete said.I heard a softclick, and in half a heartbeat, all my magic came rushing back.And I meanallmy juice.For the first time since I woke up in this place, I could not only touch all the magic around me, but there were no restrictions on how I used it.I could feel Becks like she was in the next room, and as I tentatively poked at my abilities, I could feel my soulblade hanging out in the ether beside me, just waiting to be formed into three feet of flaming retribution.I briefly considered summoning it and shoving it up Pete’s ass, but not only would that not get me the answers I was looking for, I still had a blinding headache and a gut that felt like I’d spent the last week drinking well drinks at a Tijuana dive bar.
