15. Cheribelle #2
The edges of my vision began to grow static as his hands squeezed tighter, so I tried going for his eyes again. Clearly, he’d learned from the first time, because he leaned out of my range without loosening the pressure on my throat.
So, this is how I go, huh?
For some reason I had assumed my death would involve pyrotechnics. Or perhaps an overdose of caffeine.
Still, I wasn’t wanting to give up, even when the odds were stacked against me, so I brought my legs up around his arm and squeezed with my thighs, using my own grip to attempt a sort of armbar that would work against his elbow joint.
It was about as successful as one would expect, but I tried with whatever strength I had left. Even as the world went darker, and darker, and darker...
“ Cherry! ”
Had I actually heard that? Or was it just my imagination? I had no idea, but what I did know was that suddenly the pressure on my neck was gone as two dark shapes took turns knocking the assassin back.
I sat up, coughing, tears streaming out my eyes.
Two wolves—I was sure they were Chris and Paul—commanded the assassin’s attention.
They didn’t falter until the giant of a man roared something.
But then, the two other wolves that had fought even when everyone else had been immobilized joined in as well.
It was an impressive display, and one I knew to back away from. My interference had been a Hail Mary more than anything else, and if I wanted to survive, I needed to back off. It was a miracle I was alive, and I wasn’t about to press my luck.
Still, it was incredible to watch the four drive the assassin back, and I realized he actually needed the retreat. Relief flooded me, and for a moment, I thought we might be able to capture him and find out who the hell had started this whole goddamn nightmare.
Pride did always come before a fall.
Just when I was sure that he was outnumbered, multiple bleeding wounds closing just to receive more from the four huge wolves working together and proving why packs were so lethal, the assassin pitched forward. Steam erupted from where he had been.
Before today, I’d only ever seen a handful of people shift, and all those instances had been in the market.
Now though, I was now more than familiar with the process.
So, I got what was happening and dived to the side in time for the biggest wolf I’d ever seen to go barreling past me and out an open door.
The security there was still pressed to the ground in what I assumed was submission.
His run was scattered and uneven, but that was probably because he only had three legs.
“Ew! Ew! Ew! It’s still moving!”
I was surprised by the young and very much human voice that jerked my attention in its direction, and I saw the smallest wolf that had been fighting had shifted back into her human form, revealing a petite young woman.
“That’s fucking gross! ”
I followed her finger to see a glint of metal. The assassin’s beat-up metal arm. Like something out of a mecha version of the Addams Family , it was slowly crawling across the floor by its fingers, occasionally patting here and there as if it were looking for something.
Creepy.
“We… we should probably grab that,” I rasped out.
“Put it in a bag or something.” That last part was hardly intelligible, because as I sat up, pain jolted through my ribs.
Either I’d really hurt myself with my dive to the side, or all the adrenaline of battle had stopped me from noticing I was injured.
Adrenaline could do some funny things to the human body.
“I’ve got it,” Jackson said. Although I hadn’t seen him fighting, his expression was grim, his face white, and his eyes were red as if he had been crying.
Maybe that transferred between forms. “I... That couldn’t have been him, could it?
Like, that’s not even possible, right? I thought all necromancy magic was lost in the great transition to the new world. ”
“Who is him ?” I asked. My entire body was aching, and I felt like someone had a crowbar between a couple of my ribs and was trying to separate them.
“He looked familiar...” I was almost certain it was Luther, as impossible as that was, but I wanted someone else to confirm that I wasn’t fucking insane.
Chris spoke next, and he looked even worse than Jackson.
He was shaking, and although it didn’t seem like he had any injuries, his eyes were also red, and all the color had drained from his face.
There was a storm of emotions behind him, which was as intimidating as it was impressive and very, very sad.
“That couldn’t have been Luther! There’s no way our brother would have betrayed us! There’s just... It’s not him! It can’t be!”
“As horrific as this is,” another man said.
I recognized him as one of the children of the three big shifter families on the East Coast. I remember glancing at his picture while researching the VanMarches.
His wolf had been all black, and quite impressive, which didn’t fit his rather milquetoast appearance.
Shifters were funny like that. “I don’t think you can deny that this was your brother.
He used his alpha voice on all of you. He shifted.
He was as strong as an alpha, and you have no open casket. ”
Chris whirled on the man, and I saw the murky, turbulent storm of emotions behind him all transition to an angry, violent red that loomed all the way up to the ceiling.
“Are you accusing us of something?”
“Perhaps I am. I don’t want to, but it seems particularly strange that you would arrange a meeting to get all our families here in a vulnerable position and have your supposedly dead brother show up and start swinging a weapon no shifter should even be able to touch!”
Well, that explains the need for the metal arm.
The limb that was left behind was to throw us off the trail.
Along with whatever flesh the forensic team had been able to pick out .
And with a metal limb, he could use a silver weapon .
But does that mean that he cut off his arm before he killed his father with that silver blade?
“Tadgh.” The petite woman who’d been screaming about the arm gently laid a hand on the much taller shifter’s shoulder.
“If this was a setup for all of us, I don’t think the assassin’s first act would have been to try to kill Penelope.
And you notice he never attacked us unless we directly went for him.
His target was his own siblings.” She looked at Chris, who was still radiating a nuclear level of scarlet hatred and anger.
“You had a changeling pretending to be your sister, so you knew, or you hoped, something was going to happen here, right?”
“You’re perceptive,” Penelope said, limping forward. I got to see in real time as her shoulder rearranged itself in its socket and her arm snapped into the proper place. “Any chance you’re studying law?”
If it was him, that explains how he was able to get so close.
There was never a breach in the mansion because he was already in the mansion!
But why would a man cut off his own arm?
He’d have to be insanely unhappy. Or angry!
And why doesn’t he have any emotions?
Also, what’s with the magic?
I’m pretty sure those spells weren’t inherently from him.
Which meant someone enchanted that blade and made the supplies.
But who?
All the biggest suspects were here and in danger!
There’s something else going on here.
A middleman.
“I apologize. You’ve been dragged into our family turmoil,” Paul said, getting to his feet.
And while he didn’t look quite as rattled as his two brothers, I could see how distraught he was.
I liked to think I’d notice that even without my empathic powers.
“We realize we owe you an explanation, but right now, we ask that you check in with your families and any civilians who were hurt while we regroup and take care of our own wounded.”
“I...” Tadgh let out a sigh as his shoulders slumped. “Of course. I don’t envy you whatever is going on here. I’m going to go check on my parents.”
“I should get back to my family too,” the young woman said. “I hope whatever is going on here resolves itself.”
From her mouth to God’s ears.
There was a long length of silence as the various security members and civilians of the VanMarche pack slowly rose from what I guessed was the alpha command Tadgh had mentioned, and the siblings spread out to help.
I knew they wanted to reconvene and discuss what happened, but they were putting the needs of others first. I admired that so much about them.
I didn’t expect Paul to immediately come to me, but he did, kneeling at my side and holding my face in his hands. His warmth seeped into me, and I knew I was going to feel like I’d been jumbled around like a box of rocks in the morning.
“You should have run,” he said, and God, there was such heartbreak in his voice. He sounded so defeated, but at the same time, so earnest. The last time someone had been so concerned with my well-being it had been…
Well, it had been my mother.
“That’s a funny way of saying thank you,” I murmured, heart in my throat.
I was well aware that I had a tendency to look before I leaped, but if we were in the same situation for a second time and I was the only distraction available, I’d do the exact same thing—give or take an improvised weapon or two.
He huffed something that might have been a laugh.
“Thank you, Cherry, really. If it weren’t for you, we would have never stood a chance. If it weren’t for the Whisper…”
Oh right! I thought I’d seen her. But the fact that the funeral hadn’t immediately erupted into a fight had made me think that I was mistaken.
Apparently, I wasn’t.
“The Whisper? Where is she?”
He pointed over his shoulder, and I saw a writhing mass of vines that looked more like swarming snakes than anything else, only the occasional bit of burnt flesh visible. “I think she’s healing. She got burned pretty badly. But we’re getting medical professionals here soon enough.”
That had alarm lancing through me. “Just… make sure you trust them. It wouldn’t be the wildest thing to injure us in a mass casualty event, then have a bought-healer poison or infect everyone in the aftermath.”
Paul’s face somehow grew even more grim, his eyebrows shooting up. “I did not think about that. I owe you again.”
I shrugged, desperately craving the praise considering how badly I felt I’d fucked up, but uncertain of what to do with it. Maybe I could unravel that another time, after I had a few painkillers.
And a nap.
“Just doing my job.”
“I think we can both agree you’ve gone above and beyond this.”
I shook my head. “Not until I figure out what’s happened to your brother and who made him kill your father.”
“It’s probably one of the many enemies our pack made before we were even born. Or maybe from early in my father’s life. We’ve grown soft and slack after sixty years of declining violence and forty years of peace.”
“If it’s one of them, we’ll find them,” I said, determination rising up despite my utter exhaustion. “And if it’s someone new, we’ll find them. I promise.”
That was my mission, and I wasn’t going to give up or slow down until it was done and dusted.
I may not have been born a shifter, but I was the only daughter of Annie “Ophelia” Donmoue, a gifted precognitive. And I had my own oracle gift. It was about time I started acting like it.
Starting with that fucking arm.