Jim would come for me. He wouldn’t fall asleep. He wouldn’t let them kill him.
I kicked and jerked with all the shapeshifter strength I had.
“Don’t make this harder on yourself,” Red Hat told me.
We were almost to the cage. “How can you do this?”
“Your uncle kept a lot of people from feeding their families.” Red Hat shoved me the final five feet. “We have mouths to feed. I don’t have a problem doing this.”
I thrust my legs at the cage and braced myself. “Jim! Come get me!”
The man in the other cage moaned a wordless scream and rammed the bars.
Red Hat jerked me down. “Nobody’s coming for you.”
No! No, I will not be put into a fucking cage. I kicked against the cage, pitching myself backward. My head smashed into Red Hat’s face. He dropped me. My feet touched the ground. Yes! I scrambled left.
Something smashed against my temple. Pain exploded between my ears. I spun. The woman behind me swung again and the bat took me straight in the face. The world shivered and I tasted blood on my lips.
Red Hat clamped me and muscled me forward. The man in the other cage let out a long desperate wail.
It was over. Jim fell asleep. Nobody was coming for me.
RED HAT WAS dragging me to the cage. The blond woman leaned over and swung open the door.
A man flew through the curtain and slid across the floor, knocking the tables and benches out of the way until he hit the wall. I caught a glimpse of long dark hair. He clenched his hands to his throat. A thin red spray shot from between his fingers. He gurgled, his eyes huge with sharp fear.
The curtain fell, revealing Jim, drenched in blood. His eyes glowed green and his face was terrible.
He came! Oh my gods, he came for me. It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
A stocky man lunged at Jim from the left, swinging a machete. Jim grabbed him. His knife flashed, and the man crumpled down, his machete slick with his own blood.
Red Hat threw me aside. I crashed into the cage and thrust the snail into the pocket of my jeans.
The blond woman by the cage screamed and swung her baseball bat at me. I ripped it out of her hands and bashed her with it. The bat snapped with a sharp wooden crunch. The blow knocked the woman across the room. That’s right, fuck you!
A man fired a crossbow at Jim. Jim swayed out of the way, leapt, clearing the tables, and struck. The crossbowman fell like a lifeless doll. More people streamed from the back doorway.
Jim looked at me and smiled.
Red Hat shrugged his jacket off. A dark pattern swirled along his skin, like the whorls of wood grain. He headed toward Jim. A table got in his way, and he knocked it out of the way. The table splintered. Oh shit.
In the corner the old man waved his arms. Angry magic streaked through the air.
Jim was cutting his way toward me, his knife sending arcs of blood left and right. People screamed, wood crashed, Jim snarled. The scent of blood made me dizzy.
The prisoner moaned at me. The empty cage blocked his door. I pushed it. It didn’t move. I wedged myself between the wall and the cage, planting my feet on its base, and pushed, pushed as hard as I could. Wood creaked, and the cage slid out of the way. I dropped to my knees. A long knotted cord bound the door, the knots holding coins. I grabbed it. Magic scorched my fingers and I jerked back, wincing.
The prisoner screamed, hitting the bars.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I can do this. Just hold on one second.”
Red Hat smashed into Jim.
Everything slowed down as if we were all underwater.
Jim’s knife sliced, across, down, across the other way, still so fast, like lightning. The blade glanced off Red Hat’s new wooden skin. Red Hat bared his teeth and swung his giant fist. Jim leaned out of the way, lean and graceful, and thrust. The knife bit deep into Red Hat’s left eye. The big man bellowed like a bull.
Jim vaulted over him.
The caged man moaned. I’d need a week to figure how to break the seal without hurting myself. I didn’t have a week.
Outside the window people screamed. More poachers coming in.
I grabbed the magic cord and jerked. It broke, leaving dark stripes of burned flesh across my hands. Pain lashed me, but I was too busy. I jerked the door open, grabbed the man by his shoulders, and pulled him out of there. He crashed on his side.
A hand caught my shoulder and pulled me up. “Time to go,” Jim breathed.
“No!” I pointed to the prisoner. “I can’t leave him. Help me.”
Red Hat spun toward us, screaming, the knife still in the socket of his eye.
Jim cut, once, twice, and the prisoner’s hands came free. Another cut took the mask from his head, and I stared at the face of the most stunning Asian man I had ever seen. He was like a celestial being from a Chinese watercolor—absolutely flawless.
The eyes of purest turquoise stared at me and within their depth I saw a spiral of fire.
Oh no.
The prisoner surged to his feet. Magic unfurled from him like a mantle in splashes of red and gold, forming the translucent outline of a scaled beast on four sturdy muscled legs.
Jim pushed me behind him and raised his knife.
Transparent claws the size of my hands dug into the wood. The head of a dragon formed upon the massive shoulders. The prisoner stood within the beast, still clearly visible. His hair had broken free of the bandages and it streamed down his back in a long dark wave.
Red Hat froze in midstep.
The old man howled a curse and clawed the air. A serpent of bright crimson launched itself from his fingers and bit at the translucent beast. The prisoner waved his arm, and the serpent sparked and melted into ash.
A Suanmi.
People burst through the door.
The Suanmi looked at them. The magic beast’s maw gaped open.
Red Hat turned and started running.
Fire burst from the beast’s mouth, roaring like an enraged animal. It caught the old man first, jerked him upright, and swept by, leaving a charred ruin of a body. The smoking corpse took two steps toward us and fell.
Jim clamped me to him, trying to shield me.
The men at the door scrambled to get out, but the fire fanned hot, all-powerful. Screams filled my ears. I shut my eyes and stuck my face into Jim’s chest.
The screaming went on forever.
Finally the roar stopped. I pulled my head away from Jim.
The man within the dragon turned and looked at us. Jim growled, and his clothes exploded off his body. His skin ripped, releasing muscle underneath. Bones thrust, growing, muscle formed new powerful limbs, and a new skin sheathed it, showing the coils of black rosettes against a thin golden pelt. A new creature stood in Jim’s place: half man, half monster. A werejaguar in the warrior form.
Jim snarled, his black lips framing enormous fangs, and stepped between me and the prisoner.
The Suanmi opened his mouth. Words flowed in English. “There is no need to fear me.”
There was every need to fear him. He had dragon blood in his veins. I swallowed. “We mean no harm to you.”
“I know.” The Suanmi looked at the cage. “I’d come here, sick and helpless. My family had been slaughtered and I was hurt. I came looking for medicine, but I lost consciousness and I awoke here. Nine months. I spent my eighteenth birthday in this cage while they carved pieces of my body to make themselves stronger. Healing the damage and waiting to be cut again. Nine months. Felt like forever.”
“It was a bad dream,” I told him. “It’s over now.”
“For me, yes.” The man smiled. The transparent beast stretched his maw, mimicking the smile, baring enormous teeth. “For them, the nightmare is only beginning.”