• • •
With Beast vision, the hedge ward was fiery in the early dawn light. I tried to measure the size of the hole I needed to fall through while I pulled off my boots and stored them in the second go-bag. If I shifted in the harness, I needed to be mostly clothes free to allow me to fall and catch myself with my claws. Beast thought it looked like fun. I thought it looked risky and potentially deadly, no matter my seventy percent claim.
I had brought shoes with a grabby sole, loose pants, and an oversized tee, and I quickly stripped, putting my leathers into the bag with the boots.
While I changed, I also checked the stability of the zip line, which was attached to the highest point on the roof—the fake fourth-story wall. I had taken a mountain-climbing class a year or so after high school, and the line was wrapped around the entire wall instead of attached with gear into the mortar, which was smart. The height on this side allowed the line a slight angle across the chasm of the hedge to the building on the other side, where it was secured, out of sight.
I didn’t think I would have done anything different had I set it all up myself, and I wondered who had arranged the gear, Rick or Bruiser. I was betting on Bruiser, not the boy from the Deep South.
By the time I could hear the others climbing to the roof, I was shivering in the cold, dressed and wearing sneakers, all my gear stored in three different bags, watching the sky brighten prior to sunrise.
Bruiser appeared first, Soul right behind him, and I looked over the MOC’s primo. He was dressed all in leather in his Enforcer clothes, but unlike mine, his duds had been custom made and fit him like a glove. Leather pants, leather boots, and a leather coat over what had to be a silk shirt. Bristling with weapons. His dark hair slicked back.
“Nice gear,” I said grudgingly, as he looked me over.
The morning breeze spun by, blowing my clothes against my limbs. His smile widened, making him look lean, mean, and dangerous. “Beautiful woman,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say to that, but felt a flush spread through me, just as Rick stepped from the fire escape. He was carrying standard cop weapons, except for the earpieces and the small wire trailing to his jacket pocket, the sound of tinny music coming from it, a pair of nice vamp-killers strapped to his thighs, and the feral greenish glow of his eyes. All that was nonstandard issue. He had pulled his hair back in a queue, and I was reminded of the way Leo Pellissier wore his hair. Rick stalked across the flat roof, moving like a cat, his eyes on Bruiser.
I stepped between them. “If you can’t keep it together, you can go back to the street,” I said to Rick.
“I’ll keep it together. As long as he keeps his hands off you.”
Anger pumped through me, part embarrassment, part something else that I didn’t take the time to identify. “Just so you know. Jealousy is not a turn-on.” I swiveled on a heel and stepped into the zip-line harness, ignoring the two men.
From behind me, Brute snarled as if he were an attack dog defending his master. He was showing his teeth, which left me confused until Beast pressed in on my brain again and sent me a mental picture of her scratching the wolf’s nose. I/we snarled back, and I growled, “Nice doggie.”
His growl deepened at the insult and his ruff stood up. And while I was itching for a fight, it wasn’t with a wolf. I’d rather hit Rick. Or Bruiser. Or both. But Beast didn’t want to let it go and sent her claws deeper into my brain. “So far I/we have broken your nose two times, little doggie,” she said through me, her voice low. “Scratched you. Are you stupid, dog?”
Brute tensed, but quieted when Soul put a hand into his fur and scratched. Pea scolded the wolf with a burst of chitter. Rick stepped between us. Bruiser chuckled, the sound goading. The wolf turned angry eyes to the primo. For a moment more we tottered on the edge of violence. I pushed back on Beast, knowing this wasn’t helping to create a team. I took a calming breath. “Sorry. It’s the full moon. My Beast is . . . difficult. Come on, Soul. I’ll get you into the harness.”
“I have never done this before,” she said, leaving her team. As she walked, a sense of peace spread outward, and I knew we were being manipulated by her personal magics, but I let it happen anyway. We needed to be calm. We needed a sense of coherence. Or her percentages might become real and half of us could die.
Wolf should die, Beast thought at me. Thief of meat. Stupid pack hunter.
“No problem,” I said to Soul. But it was. Her dress made it difficult to get her into the harness in such a way that she could release the harness and fall without catching the clothing on the gear and maybe hanging her.
Finally we were in position, me in front with a zip-line steering trolley, her behind me in an abbreviated mountain-climbing harness, attached to the line with sturdy carabiners. I showed her how to release it so she could fall. Her scent changed as I spoke, and she tied the end of a scarf to a loop on my pants. Her magics began to rise.
When we were ready, I leaned down to see Eli staring up at me. He raised a thumb and melted into the shadows. The explosive devices were in place.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this. Soul, let the harness take your weight, and put your feet against the roof wall to hold you still.” When she was secure, I pulled on gloves, eased down on the line, and hooked my carabiner to the zip-line trolley.
“We have to be close,” she said, her voice shaky, “for the death spell to start. I need to put my legs around you and hold you to me.”
I nodded, and Soul wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me in close. It was a lot closer than my Beast liked. Her idea of personal space was something like miles away, unless it was a kit or a mate.
She said, “Are you ready? This may feel . . . odd.”
I nodded, and Soul took a deep breath and said, “The die is cast.”
Which made no sense at all. For a moment.
CHAPTER 22
“Thank You,” the Corpse Croaked
The scent of the grave surrounded me first, followed almost instantly by the visual transformation. Soul rotted before my eyes. Her body fluids melted into my clothes, her face sagged, the fluids and blood pooling with gravity while her eyes dried out. I looked at my hand and saw the same level of decomp. Ick. Eww. I was gross.
“Hurry,” she said, the croak sounding like the dead. The stench of her breath made my eyes water, and I pushed off the false wall with a thrust of my legs, out into the air and over the buzzing magics of the augmented hedge of thorns.
While the purpose of zip-lining is to gain speed on a downward-sloped line, one can adjust speed with the gloved hand behind the trolley and one’s body position. In our case, the line was too gently sloped and I expected that I’d have to pull us along with my hands. That was before my body reacted to being embraced by a ten-day-old corpse. My shove off the wall was too hard, and I had to brake, one gloved hand on the line, dragging behind the corpse’s carabiner, my other hand atop the trolley, holding us stable. I was so busy working on the braking that I almost missed the energies passing over us as we reached the small hole over the top of the hedge.
When I felt the faint burst of magics, I adjusted our position carefully. The opening was only five feet below us, but the distance to the house roof was three feet more, making it a difficult leap and landing. Ankle breaking. And nowhere to roll afterward, just drop, hit, and stop. Hard.