Ten feet.
Eight.
Seven.
It didn’t feel right. I halted.
The cage snapped upright, unfolding like a flower. The bars flexed. Metal flowed like water, turning into insectoid legs armed with razor-sharp claws. A dark body sheathed in black bristle burst from the refuse and leapt at us, bar-legs outstretched, claws poised for the kill.
I ducked into its leap and thrust my sword into its dark gut.
I CROUCHED IN THE SHADOWY ENTRANCE TO THE underbelly of a ruined building. Behind me Jim stood wrapped in the gloom like a cloak. He fished a small vial from his pocket. I reached behind me, grabbed my shirt, and pulled it up to expose my back. Wetness brushed the aching cut on my spine and singed me with the sharp burn of disinfectant. I heard the faint hiss of medical tape being torn. Jim slapped the gauze on my cut and taped it up. The last thing I needed was to bleed all over Unicorn Lane. Considering my screwed-up heritage, my blood would probably blow up.
In the half hour since we’d entered Unicorn, we’d been attacked four times, all by things for which I had no names. Jim’s shirt hung in shreds. His body had repaired the damage, but the blood on the tatters of his shirt testified that the integrity of his mighty form had been sorely compromised.
I dropped my shirt and looked up. Directly ahead of us stood a wide building. Not a hotel or an office—those tended to stretch up, and when they fell, they either toppled like logs or crumbled from the top down, story by story chewed to dust by magic. No, this structure was long and relatively squat. A mall maybe? One of those giant department stores, which no longer survived, like Sears or Belks?
The building, still showing tan stucco, sat right in the middle of the block. Its roof and upper story were missing, eaten away by magic. Twisted steel beams jutted from the drywall like the bones of some half-rotten carcass. Green shimmered through the gaps in the building’s framework. I looked to Jim. He nodded. The Reaper base. Had to be.
We squatted down.
Five minutes.
Another five. The night had brightened to a muted gray glow that usually signified the sun rising. In the predawn light the green shroud behind the building gained crystal clarity: trees. To my knowledge, there were no parks in the middle of Unicorn Lane. Where did the trees come from?
Going into the trees with the Reapers waiting on the other side would be reaching for new heights of stupidity. I wasn’t that ambitious. The wall was a far better bet. Climb, gain high ground, survey the playing field.
We sat. Listening. Watching. Waiting.
No movement. No noise. I touched my nose. Jim shook his head. No useful scents either.
The magic hit us in a choking tide. Violent power roiled through Unicorn. It spiked, stealing my breath, and settled into deceptive placidity. Not so good.
A low thunder boomed through the silence.
Jim hissed.
Another blast erupted from the building, as if an enormous trumpet attempted to play a fanfare but succeeded in belching only a single powerful note, so charged with magic, it slid along my skin like a physical touch. The sound of a muted tornado rolled through the stillness of predawn. I had heard this sound a dozen times in my life—all from a movie screen. It was the sound of a plane engine.
I dashed across the street. Jim sprinted past me, leapt up on the wall, and scrambled up like a gecko. It’s good to be a werejaguar. I hit the wall and began climbing, finding holds on the crumbling stucco and exposed steel framework.
Jim reached the top of the building, where the wall had crumbled, and cried out in a short, pain-charged snarl. His arms jerked back, his spine arched, and his feet left the ground. He hung in midair, convulsing.
I scrambled up. My fingers hooked the top of the wall. Stucco fell apart under the pressure of my hands. I slid, caught an iron rod, and pulled myself back up and onto the building.
An eerie nipping sensation rolled across my skin, as if a rough, sandpaper tongue had scraped a layer of cells from every single inch of my body. It peeled a little from my face, from my body hidden under my clothes, from between my toes, from the inside of my ears, from my nostrils, from my eyes.
A ward. The Reapers had booby-trapped the top of the building. Cleverly done. I hadn’t sensed its presence, and we had blundered straight into it.
Pain lanced through me, setting every millimeter of my skin on fire and lifting me off the ground. I cried out, then clamped my mouth shut as the fire scorched the inside of my mouth. The thudding of my heart filled my ears with a freakishly loud, rapid beat. I felt myself unraveling, consumed cell by cell. Unable to do anything but jerk and thrash, I rotated on an invisible spit. Beside me, Jim’s clothes tore and a werejaguar spilled forth.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. I spat a power word. “Dair.” Release.
The magic tore from me in a blinding burst of agony as if I’d thrust my hand into my stomach and ripped a clump of entrails out. I saw black and tasted blood.
The ward split and vanished. My feet hit the solid reality of the wall and I froze, blind and afraid to move. The after-shocks rocked through me. During the flare, using power words had been easy. Now, with the magic so low, if I used one more without resting, I risked passing out.
Something landed next to me. Hard hands grasped me, steadying me, the tips of claws scratching my skin. Jim.
The darkness blocking my vision dissolved and I saw two green eyes peering into mine. Jim turned and pointed away to the trees. I looked in the direction of his claw and gasped.
A wide, wooded valley gently sloped down before rolling to the blue peaks of mountains beyond. Moss-tinted rocks punctured the greenery with their gray spines. Between them, towering spires of trees rose to dizzying heights, their branches tinseled with vines that dripped cream and yellow blossoms. Birds perched among the foliage like glittering jewels. The wind smelled of flowers and water.
I looked back over my shoulder. Urban graveyard. Looked to the front: fairy-tale jungle. You could pack three Atlantas into that valley.
I crouched on the wall. Was this some sort of alternate dimension, a pocket of magic-infused reality? Was this a portal to someplace far away? If the Reapers felt the need to protect it with a magical trap that would snare and kill any intruders, it must be valuable to them. Perhaps it was their home.
Next to me, Jim stretched his neck and inhaled the breeze, the way shapeshifters did when they wanted to sample the scents. An imperceptible change came over him. The lines of his body shifted, flowing, subtly reshaped by the breath of the jungle. Usually awkward in warrior form, he became sleek and elegant, like a finely wrought dagger, his human and beast sides in perfect balance. His coat gained a vivid golden tint, against which coils of rosettes stood out like black velvet. He opened his mouth and a soft, coughing roar spilled forth, almost like a purr—if great cats could have made such a sound.
It was silenced by a peal of thunder.
A gleaming golden structure punctured the jungle in the east, rising slowly through the trees. Square in shape, its corners punctuated by stocky towers tipped with silver cupolas, it resembled a palace. The first floor was solid wall, a wealth of sculpture and textures shiny with metallic luster. Atop the wall sat a pillared halclass="underline" huge, airy arches, defined by slender columns and guarded by a low latticed rail. Above it, on the roof of the building, a garden bloomed, an exotic riot that made even the verdant jungle barren in comparison. Bizarre trees spread their branches, tinseled with blood-red garlands of vines. Thousands of flowers bloomed, interrupted by ornate ponds.
The hum swelled. The metal palace rumbled and crept up, higher and higher above the treetops, above us, into the sky. A cloud of steam billowed from its fundament and coalesced into a dense curtain of fog. In a moment the palace disappeared from view and the sky gained a small cloud.