“She can’t even free her beast. It’s trapped inside her human body,” Haven said.
“Her beast is real. It rose above us like a bonfire of magic and power.”
“I smelled her lioness last night,” Rosamond said, and I understood enough about wereanimals to know that meant that something was real. If they could smell it, it was real. She came to stand beside Kelly.
“A pride is supposed to be a family,” Kelly said. “You’ve made it into an armed camp.”
“Do you really think I can’t defeat you all?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I’m willing to find out.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never had anyone come to my side of the fence like this; I was always the only girl with all the men, with rare exceptions like Claudia. What did I say to the two women who I barely knew?
“It’s good not to be the only girl in the fight for once,” I said.
Kelly gave me a fierce grin, more a baring of teeth, and it reminded me of a snarl, but that was okay; it was what we needed right now.
“This is Kelly’s idea of female bonding,” Rosamond said.
Kelly nodded and shrugged, but the shrug turned into her loosening her shoulders. I readjusted my stance because you couldn’t hold any one stance forever, and besides, I had to make room for her being next to me. It was a different kind of fighting, knowing there were people on your side who would help.
“Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?” Claudia walked out of the hallway dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. She lived here part time, so she had clothes. Her long black hair was back in a wet ponytail. She was taller than Haven by inches, and broader through the shoulders. I realized that even her biceps were bigger, as they strained against the T-shirt.
“This is lion business,” Haven growled, but he made sure to keep an eye on her as she moved around him. It meant that he saw her as a more of a threat individually than any of the rest of us. I think I was insulted.
“I’m Anita’s bodyguard. I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I let you hurt her, would I?” Just the tone of her voice let me know that she liked Haven even less than she liked Richard.
“You think together you can beat me?” he asked.
I’d never seen Kelly fight, and Rosamond was going to be less than useful, but Claudia I knew. I said, “I think we can.”
“Maybe, but I’ll fuck you up before I go down.”
“Knock your bad self out.”
“What?” he said.
I felt myself smile, and it wasn’t a nice smile. It was a cold, anticipatory smile. It went with what I said next. “You think you can win this fight, then come over here and prove it.”
One moment he was just standing there, and the next he was a blur of movement. I had time for one thought—
He’s too fast!
—and then the fight was on.
ROSAMOND WENT DOWN in the first few blows. She lay on the ground bleeding and dazed. I sliced Haven twice before one of his long legs swept mine out from under me and I hit the floor. With the knives in my hands I couldn’t slap the floor and take the energy of the fall. I had to just fall. There’s always something about hitting a surface abruptly that dazes you for a heartbeat. I didn’t have a heartbeat to spare. He was above me and then he wasn’t. It was like a magic trick, so fast, so powerful, but not his power. Claudia had kicked him away from me and into the fireplace. The force of it shook the room. I got a glimpse of her long jean-clad legs as she sailed over me, still moving from the momentum of her own kick.
I rolled to my feet in time to see Haven block her next kick and trap her leg with his arm, his elbow coming down toward her leg. She dropped to the ground, leaving him holding her entire weight. He could hold it, but it took him a second to keep his balance. She used that second to kick out with her free leg, so that it started to form a circle to connect with his face. He couldn’t block it and break her leg. He blocked it, but now he had both hands controlling her legs. She was trapped, but we weren’t.
Kelly moved in a blur to his right, and I was moving in on his left, switching the big knife to a point hold so I’d have enough reach to stab him while he couldn’t block with his arms. I didn’t really expect to be fast enough to land the blow, but the knife tip was just suddenly sinking in between his ribs and training took over. You hit someone there from a downward angle; you push up and go for the heart.
I knew Kelly was doing something from her side, but I didn’t have time to see it. Then Haven used Claudia like a club and threw her into me. We ended in a heap on the floor with her on top of me. It was all I could do to hold on to both knives and keep them from cutting Claudia. At least this time an unconscious body broke my fall. But Claudia on top of me meant I wasn’t getting up right away.
She rolled off me and got to her feet. I was slower, but I got up. Kelly and Haven were trading blows, each of them fast enough to block the other, in blurring movements that my eyes could barely follow. But she was my size and he kept her back from him with those long, long legs. She kept trying to get inside that punishing swing of legs, but couldn’t. Neither of them could land the blow they wanted, but they were landing plenty of blows on each other’s arms and legs. Whoever tired first, or whoever could break someone’s arm or leg by sheer repetitive strength, would decide the fight, if it was just between Kelly and Haven.
Claudia moved in from his other side. He kicked out one last time, Kelly blocked with her arm, and I heard the sharp pencil snap of bone breaking. She had a moment where the pain and shock of the injury took her focus. His other foot snapped around and hit the side of her face. She went down and didn’t get back up.
Claudia had her stance, arms and fists up ready to block, long legs loose and ready, almost bouncing in place.
His arms were up, his feet planted. The two shallow slashes I’d gotten in early were dripping scarlet down his stomach and one arm. The last deep blow over the rib cage was narrow but bleeding freely. The more he moved, the faster he’d bleed. Then I saw it, a tiny bubbling of blood at the wound. Had I nicked a lung?
Haven’s voice was breathy as he said, “No woman can beat me one on one. That’s why I’m king, and you have to cheat.”
“I underestimated you; I won’t do it again,” she said.
“You think you can take me?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Claudia,” I said, “don’t make this about some macho guy crap.”
“I’ve wanted to beat the shit out of a couple of men in your life for a while now, Anita. It’s not macho crap. It’s a relief.”
“Bring it, bitch,” he said.
“Claudia . . . ,” I started to say.
She brought it.
I HADN’T REALLY understood that it wasn’t just me being a girl that kept me from volunteering for slugfests with wereanimals and vampires. It was that I was a small girl. Claudia wasn’t.
She was taller than Haven. Her legs were longer. His arms were longer, but the legs are what give you reach in martial arts. She had the reach. She used it to force him to block again and again. The only way I was able to be certain which blow belonged to which was that her arms and legs were darker and his were paler, their skin tones turned into a visual Doppler effect by the unbelievable speed.
I climbed back over the fallen couch to get farther away from the fight. Keeping an eye on them so I didn’t get someone else thrown on top of me made me trip. I fell into a little heap of clothes and found the only hard metal to land on in all that softness. I put the wrist-sheath blade back in its sheath as I dug another stray gun out from under me. It was a .357 Magnum. Who the hell was big enough to carry that concealed?
Nathaniel and Travis were kneeling by Rosamond and Kelly. Kelly was just unconscious, but Rosamond should have gotten up by now. Could a wereanimal die of a broken neck, or a cracked skull? I’d have said no, but I really didn’t know. I was so used to the really powerful shifters who could survive nearly anything that I just didn’t know about someone at Rosamond’s lower power level. I didn’t know where Noel was, but as long as he was far away from Haven, it had to be better.
There was a moment of clarity in the fight. A moment where I saw Claudia’s foot connect with Haven’s body and he was airborne. I felt the air as he went past. The sound of him hitting the far wall was a thick, meaty crash. Claudia rushed past me over the ruins of the couch to finish it.
A gunshot thundered through the room, echoing off the bare stone walls. I was turning toward the sound, the .357 in my hand. I had time to see Haven crumpled against the wall coughing blood. Claudia was on the ground. Her left arm hung useless; blood was pulsing out. It was one of those moments where the world slows down as if everything is caught in crystal. Things are hard-edged, as if your eyes will cut the images into your brain forever. Haven brought the gun up again to aim at Claudia on the floor. I was aiming at him but didn’t have the shot yet. I screamed his name: “Haven!”
It made him hesitate for a fraction of a second. His eyes flicked to me, and then the world sped up and everything happened at once. He pulled the trigger and so did I. The force of the big gun’s recoil made me end up pointing it at the ceiling before I could bring it back down to aim again.
His chest had a hole in it, but he was still bringing his gun around to aim at me. Whoever shot first would win. I didn’t even have time to be scared or worried; all my concentration narrowed down to aiming, breath held, and I pulled the trigger. His gun exploded just behind mine. I heard the whine of the bullet and flinched as it hit the couch next to my head. Haven’s chest blossomed crimson like an evil flower. Incredibly, his arm came back around one more time to point at me. I wasn’t going to be able to aim the .357 again, not in time. I let the recoil of the gun take me up, come back down, and was trying to aim, even as I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough.
His gun fired wide and I got off that third shot, but my shoulder went numb, and I thought,
Oh, I’m hit
, but I made my shot and other guns echoed mine. I didn’t bother to turn around. If they were shooting at me, I was dead; if they were shooting at Haven, great. I focused on making my shot count. My shoulder wasn’t working quite right, but I could use it. I’d worry about it later.
Haven’s body jerked as bullets hit him. I wasn’t sure which hit was mine and which wasn’t. We all aimed at center body, and that beautiful muscled chest and stomach became a red ruin.
I couldn’t hear anything. My ears were ringing from all the shots. When someone touched my shoulder I jumped and started to bring the gun around. Wicked pinned my arm and the gun in his big hand. His mouth was moving. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but when he took the gun out of my hand, I let him do it.
I looked at my left shoulder but there was no blood. It hurt, but I couldn’t see a wound. Wicked was still talking to me, and I still couldn’t understand him, as he helped me to my feet. There were people rushing past us with drawn guns, headed toward Haven. Fredo was kneeling by Claudia. I asked, “Claudia—is she all right?” I had no idea how loud or soft I was talking. I couldn’t tell.
Wicked shook his head, his wet blond hair clinging to his face as if he hadn’t bothered to dry it. He was dressed. He was turning me away from Claudia, and I fought his grip to go check on her, but he tightened his grip. Did he not want me to see her? How bad was she hurt? Then he turned me enough for me to see that Noel was lying on his back, his chest covered in blood. I started forward, and then the crowd moved enough for me to realize they were kneeling by another body. Long auburn hair trailed out from between them. I knew now why my shoulder hurt, but there was no wound.
I was moving forward, shaking Wicked’s hand away. In that moment if someone had wanted to shoot me, they could have, because I forgot everything but Nathaniel.
I PUSHED THROUGH the kneeling people, not even seeing who was there, to fall to my knees beside him. He looked up at me, lavender eyes wide. Jason was holding his hand. Lisandro was putting pressure on the wound in his shoulder. I touched my shoulder, where it hurt exactly where his wound was, but I’d felt pain when Richard and Jean-Claude had been hurt and that had been worse. This wasn’t bad. I’d seen him survive worse. I knew that, but I still needed to touch him. I was crying and hadn’t meant to, but Jason was crying, too, so I didn’t feel so bad.
I touched Nathaniel’s face and he smiled at me. My hearing was coming back in pieces. I heard yelling. “He’s gone! He’s gone!” I turned to find Jesse and Kelly kneeling on either side of Noel. I could feel their energy, their lions reaching out. “Go,” Nathaniel said, “help Noel.”
I laid my hand over his heart, as if I needed to feel the thick beat of it before I left him, and then I moved the few feet to Noel. It was Kelly who was yelling at Jesse, “He’s gone! It’s too late!” She was cradling her arm.
I looked down at Noel, and the moment I saw him I knew she was right. Brains don’t belong on the outside. I stared down at the inside of his head spilling out into the floor. He’d been getting his master’s in literature. All that studying, all that effort, was leaking out of his broken head and spreading in a thick, bloody mass on the floor. Even a powerful wereanimal couldn’t have healed that. Almost everything else, but not this.
Truth was there, his hair black from the shower. “He was hiding in the hallway. We were running for the sound of fighting, and then he darted out. He tackled Nathaniel, saved him. We would all have been too late.”
I knelt beside the body, because that’s what it was now. It wasn’t Noel anymore, it was his body, and that was it. There’d be no miracle to save him this time.
I heard yelling from the far side of the room. I said, “Claudia?”
“She’ll live,” Wicked said. He’d come back from that direction. “And looks like so will your Rex.”
I stared up at him and Truth. “What?” I asked.
“He’s healing the damage. The doctor thinks he’ll pull through,” Wicked said.
Jesse said, “Haven is just that strong.”
I shook my head and stood up from Noel’s body. I walked toward the guards clustered around Haven. Wicked and Truth trailed me. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to keep me safe, or if they’d try and stop me. Dr. Lillian, our main medic, was kneeling over Haven. She must have come while I was in the shower. But it was a distant thought; I didn’t really care when she’d come or how she’d known we needed her.
I moved up through the guards. I heard myself say, “It’s okay, Lillian, you don’t have to do anything for him.”
“He’s more badly hurt than Claudia. I need to stabilize him,” she said.
“Will he live?” I asked.
“I think so.”
“No,” I said.
Lillian looked up at me, and I saw something in her face, her eyes. “Anita, you don’t have to do this.”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
She tried to stop me, and I said, “Get her out of here. Let her save someone else.”
Hands pulled her away. Haven looked up at me, his eyes terribly, amazingly blue against the blood on his lower mouth. Fresh blood poured out of his mouth as he tried to say something.
I aimed the .357 at his face. He stared up at me with those eyes. His voice was thick with things that shouldn’t be in a living person’s throat. He coughed, spraying blood, and said, “I’ll heal.”
I shook my head. “No, you won’t.”
“Did I kill your leopard?” he asked.
“Did you aim for him?” I asked.
He smiled, his teeth red with his own blood. “Yes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you love them all more than you love me.” He coughed so hard that something thick and meaty fell onto the floor as if he’d coughed up some lung. Anyone who could heal from this much silver damage was so very powerful.
“Good-bye, Haven.”
He snarled up at me and started to shapeshift. His power washed over my skin in a wash of electric heat. My lioness snarled. His blue eyes filled with lion amber. I pulled the trigger. The amber slid away and I pulled the trigger the second time, staring into the same blue eyes I’d watched in bed above me more than once. The second shot made it impossible to look into his eyes. I dropped to my knees and put the barrel against his face for the third shot. At such close range, it blew the back of his head out. Like Noel, just like Noel. I was left blinking blood and thicker things out of my eyes. Too close. Blowback, it was blowback.
I dry-fired twice before I realized the revolver was empty. I got to my feet and let the empty gun fall to the floor. Without bullets it was just a heavy rock, and that wouldn’t help me against anyone in this room.
Everyone moved out of my way. No one tried to touch me, or comfort me, or talk to me. They just moved and watched me. I walked back to Nathaniel. Micah was there now, holding his hand. Nathaniel smiled up at me. I smiled back.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” I said.
Micah took my hand, but I shook my head and got to my feet. I told him, “Stay with Nathaniel.”
“He didn’t leave you a choice,” Micah said.
I nodded. “I know.” Then I started walking back toward the hallway. I just kept walking. I had a vague idea I needed to clean up again. I kept walking. Jason was in the hallway with J.J. She stared at me with wide eyes. Jason tried to get her back in his bedroom, away from all the blood and death.
I walked until I found the new showers that Jean-Claude had put in when we realized just how many people were living in the underground of the Circus. It was a big open shower like at a gym. I turned on the nearest shower head and stepped under it. I hadn’t taken off any clothes, that seemed wrong, but I just grabbed for the soap in the wall dispensers. I washed Nathaniel’s blood off my hands. I washed Haven’s blood out of my hair and off my face. Noel’s blood had soaked into my jeans from the knee down and was all over my shoes. I couldn’t get it out. I took off the jogging shoes and threw them across the room. I took off the pants and tried to scrub the knees clean.
“Anita, Anita.”
I kept scrubbing at my jeans. “I can’t get it out. I can’t get the blood out.”
“Anita!” Richard grabbed my arms, turned me to look at him while the water poured down my face and onto the front of his body. He was tall enough that the water didn’t touch higher than his chest. His brown eyes held pity, sorrow, things I couldn’t decipher.
I held the jeans up to him. “I can’t get the blood out.”
He took the jeans out of my hands. “It’s okay,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s not.”
He drew me in against his chest while the water beat on my back. “No, it’s not. I’m so sorry, Anita, so sorry.”
I was stiff in his arms, and he just kept holding me tight and close, and gradually my arms unclenched and I wrapped them around his waist. I buried my face against the wet T-shirt and the muscled strength of his chest. He was just the right height so that my ear was against his chest. I held on to him, listening to the thick, strong beat of his heart.
He stroked my hair and murmured, “I’m here, I’m here. I’m so sorry, but I’m here.”
I managed to say, “I’m glad you’re here.” And then I was crying. I cried until my legs fell out from under me and he had to catch me. He lifted me up into his arms, holding me close, putting his face against mine and whispering, “I’m here, I’m here.” And sometimes, that’s all you can say. Sometimes that’s all the comfort you have to offer and all you can expect.