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A hint of a smile brightened the youngest Oracle's face, highlighting her fragility. At first I thought she was laughing at the absurdity of Bran's order, but her eyes glazed over, gazing somewhere far, past us, into the horizon only she could see, and I realized that using her gift filled her with joy. She leaned forward, focused, smiling wider and wider, until she laughed. The music of her voice filled the dome, exuberant and sweet. "Found him."
The dome quaked. Steam rose and the far wall faded into early dawn. Under the gray sky, mist drifted, caught on familiar steel spikes that thrust from the ground littered with metal refuse. A Stymphalean bird perched on a twisted spire of railroad rails, crushed and knotted together, as if some giant had tried to tie them in an angler's knot. The Honeycomb Gap.
The mist parted and I saw Bolgor the Shepherd perched on a mound of rusty barrels. A faint breeze stirred the cloth of his monk's habit. A huge hulking silhouette towered behind him, still shrouded in mist, holding a cross. Ugad, fully regenerated. How nice, I could kill him again.
A tall form strode through the mist. The metal refuse crunched and groaned, protesting the weight, and a monster stepped into the clearing. Tall, broad shouldered, wrapped in steel-hard muscle and clothed in gray fur, striped with slashes of darker gray.
Curran.
What the hell was he doing?
"You first," he said. His jaws were big enough to enclose my skull, his fangs were longer than my fingers, but his diction was perfect.
Behind the Shepherd, Ugad shifted the cross forward, setting it down with a heavy thud. I saw a small, thin body stretched on the pole, legs tied, arms spread wide on a cross-piece. Julie. Oh God.
I grabbed Bran by his shirt and dragged him to me. "Take me there now!"
"I can't!" he snapped.
My heart tried to break through my chest. Slayer smoked. Julie's eyes were closed, her color so pale she might have been dead already.
I would have given my right arm to be there now.
Curran raised his hand, displaying charms and coins dangling from his claws.
Bran howled. "What's he doing? Stop, you whoreson! No!"
"The child for the necklace. As agreed," Curran said.
The Shepherd's whisper raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. "You shouldn't have come alone, beast."
Reeves burst out from under the metal scrap. They swarmed Curran, falling onto each other. In a blink he was covered with a mound of squirming bodies.
I clenched my fists, expecting him to break out. Fight, Curran. Fight back. Any moment the bodies would come flying and he'd burst free from the pile of flesh. Any moment...My neck constricted as if caught by a garrote. The reeves screeched.
"No, no, no! Damn you, sonovabitch, do something!" Bran hurled his crossbow into the vision. It pierced the image and shattered against the wall.
A jaguar crashed into the Shepherd. He gave no warning, no snarl, no sound at all. Huge fangs flashed and the Shepherd's head drooped to his chest from the broken neck. Jim paused for the briefest of moments, reveling in the kill, and chased after Ugad.
Four beasts darted from the mist, snapping and biting at Ugad's legs. A wolf let out a short snarl.
Huge hands thrust through the reeves and tore them aside. Curran emerged. Red gashes marked his fur. Now I understood the plan: he had expected a double cross and chose to bear the bulk of the assault, buying time for the shapeshifters to retrieve Julie.
The reeves scrambled back to him. He grasped one, tore it in two, and hurled the twitching remnants to the ground. The reeve went liquid. The puddle of its slime twisted upward in a corkscrew and solidified into the reeve. She was once again whole.
"Why isn't she dying?"
"The cauldron's too close," Bran said through clenched teeth.
They couldn't win. The best they could do was to break away.
Curran swiped at another reeve, crushing her head like an eggshell. She went liquid too and re-formed within seconds.
"Stop killing, dimwit! Maim! Maim them, you son of a whore!" Bran yelled.
Two dozen yards away Ugad stomped and spun about, raking at the shapeshifters with his enormous fists. They lunged at his feet, driving him forward, into the metal spikes. Ugad spun. The huge barbed tail swung like a club and smashed a shaggy body. The shapeshifter flew through the air and bounced off the metal shell of a ruined car. The beast crashed to the ground, stunned.
Ugad jumped. As if in a nightmare, I saw his huge foot stomp onto the prone beast and heard the crunch of broken bones. Blood sprayed. The monster turned, leaving a nude human body broken on the ground. I saw the shock of electric-blue hair stained with bright red spray. I clenched my fists. I could do nothing. I couldn't make it stop. I just watched, helpless.
The jaguar leaped onto Ugad's head. The giant hurled the cross aside to pummel at the new threat. The cross spun on its base, teetered, plunged, Julie hanging limp like a ragdoll, about to be crushed. A slight, sand-colored shape leaped forward and caught the cross inches from jagged iron. Andrea ripped Julie off the cross.
A whip of green tentacles struck her, ripping fur and skin from her thigh. Raw muscle, red and wet, glared through the wound. The Shepherd hissed. He was once again whole, his rags flaring about his thin body. Andrea ran. Tentacles slapped her. She cried out. I winced. Andrea kept going.
One step.
Two.
She fell.
Her hand clawed the ground, as she clutched Julie to her, crawling away.
The tentacles scoured her again and again. Andrea curled into a ball, trying to shield Julie with her body.
The wolves broke from Ugad and rushed the Shepherd. Tentacles flailed like green ribbons echoed by startled yelps of pain.
Ugad pummeled at his head, trying to knock the jaguar off, but hit his own horns. The huge cat hung on, his claws wedged. Watery blood drenched Ugad's massive forehead. Jim dug deeper, clawing at the eyes. Ugad charged in a mad rush, crushing the iron under his feet, straight into the forest of metal spikes.
Jim leaped straight up.
The monster's huge body hit a spike.
Jim landed awkwardly, slipped, and slid, rolling down the sheet of corrugated metal. His fur left a long red smear. He tried to rise, but his feet slipped out from under him.
Metal emerged from Ugad's back, awash with crimson. He strained and pushed himself off the spike. Ugad turned, oblivious to the hole in his torso, stomped over to Andrea's prone form, and kicked her. She flew from the impact and crashed into the refuse. Ugad scooped Julie off the ground, an odd, imbecilic expression of satisfaction on his ugly face...and found himself looking at Curran.
Little by little, fighting for every inch, bleeding from wounds, the Beast Lord had gained ground. Curran thrust his clawed hand into the hole in Ugad's torso and ripped a red clump out.
