Round one ripped a hole five inches across in that black chest. Round two tore flesh from his ribs. There was no round three. Cerberus staggered a step back… Jesus Christ, one lousy step… then he dropped me. I could carry my weapon with me all the way down or I could let it go and try to save my life. I let it go. Four stories down. In retrospect, I should've held on to it and said the hell with the whole gravity-sudden death issue, because after the momentarily sickening sensation of free fall, I caught the edge of the roof. My shoulders creaked in protest as they worked to halt my fall.
The metal under my fingers was as cool as the metal of the Calabassa had been. There was the rip and pull of the stitches in my arm popping free as I kicked my feet, trying to find purchase on the brick shell of the warehouse. I managed to snag one foot on something, a cracked brick maybe, and pushed up. Cerberus kindly helped me the rest of the way. One giant misshapen hand on each of my arms, he lifted me up high. Then, like an evil-minded child with a struggling fly, he started to pull. The pressure increased instantly to an unbearable scream of muscles and tendons pushed far past their limits. He was going to rip me apart as he'd done to the revenant, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.
But someone else could.
A pale blur hit Cerberus from the side, bowling us both over. Teeth flashed yellow in the moonlight and buried themselves in the black throat closest to it. Blood surged free, turning Flay's white coat to wine. Landing on my side, I watched as an unlikely ally fought a creature even more monstrous than himself. Just as he couldn't turn fully human, neither could Flay become completely wolf. Instead, he became a rangy man-wolf, upright but crouched, covered with fur yet retaining vaguely human hands and feet. The shoulder-length hair had changed to a bristling mane, but the eyes were the same. As murder red as the hatred he was visiting upon Cerberus.
"Not stupid." The white head rose, then fell again, fangs ripping. "Not stupid."
It seemed Flay's Alpha had underestimated him once too often. I wasn't going to make the same mistake. But I also wasn't going to assume Snowball could take Cerberus. He wasn't a match for the two-headed wolf. Not alone.
Good thing he wasn't alone.
The familiar grip of my knife pulled from my calf sheath grounded me as I pushed up and ran across the roof. Unlike Flay, Cerberus had gone all wolf. Pure in form, infinite in rage, immense, implacable, and scary as fucking shit. Rolling on top of Flay, the black wolf planted all four paws on the ground and dived at the white throat with one pair of snapping jaws. The other head turned to gaze at me over the slope of its shoulder. Dilated pupils turned orange to ebon. Black holes sucked me in for an endless moment in time, found me wanting, then spit me back out. The head turned back and joined in the attempt to rip Flay's head from his shoulders. Part Auphe I might be, but Cerberus still considered me too human to be any threat. With soft flesh, fragile bones, no claws or fangs, and useless human weapons, what could I possibly do to him?
He was about to find out.
Throwing myself onto the broad back, I held on to the black fur with a one-handed death grip. The other hand had designs of its own. The serrated blade lodged in Cerberus's spine just above the bunch and swell of his back legs. Wolves were durable as hell, but a parted spinal cord would still give one second thoughts. Speaking of second, that was hardly my only knife. I planted the next one midway up the back. With no idea where the spinal column split off, I was more than willing to work my way up. And with more time I would have, but the split second of surprise that had frozen Cerberus passed and I was tossed off in an explosion of muscle, fur, and madness.
My plan hadn't worked; at least not completely. I hadn't sliced the cord, only nicked it, and I had my doubts that was going to do the job. Now, with one back leg hanging uselessly, Cerberus turned his attention from Flay to me. I barely saw the motion that took me down. I wasn't stupid enough to shove my arm in either mouth of this wolf. With Boaz, I'd ended up with a mauling bite and a possibly cracked bone. With Cerberus I'd end up armless. Instead, I put my faith, such as it was, in my last blade. Cerberus landed on me, his weight driving that blade into one neck. Blood immediately frothed forth in a pulsing arc. I'd hit a carotid artery. From one bubbling throat to another, I yanked the knife free and sliced again. I couldn't tell if I hit the artery that time. Already awash in blood and crushed beneath five hundred pounds of lycanthrope, I continued to slash blindly. Abruptly, the weight increased and what little air I had in my lungs was forced out. I fought against the choking bands of suffocation, tasting Cerberus's blood as it fell onto my face and lips. Slashing again with the knife, I heard through ringing ears what sounded like an entire pack of wolves snarling over me. Flay was still in the game. Subtract the added suffocation and that could've been a good thing. Then weight on me suddenly vanished and I could breathe again. I could see the sky again. I could also see the familiar face that moved into my field of vision.
"I believe you dropped this." Niko held out the Magnum and clucked a disapproving tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Very careless of you."
I let the knife fall beside me and closed a slippery hand around the butt of the gun. Dragging air back into my lungs, I coughed a few times, then sat up. "Better down there…" I said hoarsely, standing, "than where it almost ended up." But I was speaking to empty air. Niko had joined the rolling pile of bestial violence. Sure feet balanced on the slope of a shaggy back, he swung his sword high and Cerberus became as singular as he'd always considered himself to be. One heavy head was impaled, the metal length punching through skull, brain, and jaw and into the roof below. Flay used the opportunity to wriggle from beneath Cerberus. This time the blood on him was his own. Staggering several feet away, the white wolf fell, then curled into an unmoving ball. Snowball was down for the count. Cerberus… Cerberus was not.
The Alpha reared up, ripping the sword that pinned the head of his deceased twin free from the tar. The glitter of silver piercing the dangling head was brighter than the rapidly dulling eyes. Blood and brain matter dripped from the loll of dead tongue. Cerberus was dead. Long live Cerberus… but how exactly long was long? Not only was his back leg still useless, but the front one on the same side had stopped moving as well. What I'd started with my knife, Niko had added to with his sword. Each head controlled its side of the body, and now half that body was dead.
The solitary howl of pain and loss was followed by one of unadulterated murderous fury. What remained of the wolf might not have much time left to him, but he was going to make the most of it. He spun on one back leg and propelled his mass toward us. It was an unbalanced rush, but powerful as a freight train just the same. Nik, who had landed lightly beside me after being bucked free of Cerberus, murmured matter-of-factly, "Do him the mercy."
It would be an act of mercy. Did he deserve mercy?
Doubtful, very goddamn doubtful. It didn't matter; I gave it to him anyway.
I emptied the remaining four rounds into his skull. It was amazing what you could accomplish with the luxury of aim and a handheld cannon sturdy enough to survive a four-story fall. Bone disintegrated, flesh peeled away in chunks, and a giant fell. A look of incomprehension flickered in swirls of black and copper and then died along with Cerberus. He changed back. That part of the legend was true. A nude heap sprawled in a tangle of muscular limbs and cold metal. He was still larger than life, but the misdirection of size didn't change the fact that now he looked human. Odd, yeah, but human. An unsettling quirk of chance had caused the two ruined heads to roll toward each other, and rest forehead to shattered forehead. Brothers. I tightened my jaw and slid my gaze away, focusing on Niko. "You want your sword back?"