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CHAPTER 16

I was no longer in the room of stone. The altar, my team, and the werewolves were gone.

Knife extended, I spun around, trying to figure out where I was. Somehow, I was in a dark, steaming hot jungle. Unseen animals hooted and insects chirped. Sweat immediately formed on my brow.

It was as if the magic knife had sliced through reality, and I’d fallen out the other side. It felt like I’d been instantaneously transported to another continent, except this had to be the hag’s domain. Though it didn’t really have the right feel of belonging to her.

My team needed me, only I couldn’t find my way back. It was like the slash through reality had sealed up behind me. Swinging the little magic knife at it again did nothing.

Surrounded by gigantic trees and thick leaves, I didn’t see or hear any immediate threats, so I crouched down and tried to get my bearings, still breathing hard from the werewolf fight. “This is really weird,” I muttered and frowned, because the words sounded wrong in my ear, flat and hollow. It was as though someone had slapped earmuffs over me and then dumped me into the water. Everything about the place was off.

This place was real, but not right. There was no other way to explain it.

Gradually, I realized the problems. There were stars overhead, millions of them. It was more like they’d been painted on the inside of some kind of dome. The plants were alive, but they didn’t feel vibrant and natural, more like they’d been planted like a garden. It was so hot that I’d immediately begun sweating, but it felt more like I was under a heat lamp than the natural humidity of a jungle. Listening carefully, the animal noises seemed to be on a repeating pattern. Everything was fake.

This wasn’t a jungle. It was a terrarium.

The nagualii was crouched in the back of my mind as usual, only in this place it was almost as if I could see it there waiting, like a heavy black smoke floating just outside the edge of my peripheral vision.

I could hear water flowing nearby. Looking around, I spotted the culprit. A stream cut through the bushes, so I got up and followed it up to a rocky cliff, where it turned into a shimmering waterfall. Below was a lake and a tiny valley. It was scenic and hauntingly beautiful. In other circumstances I might find it charming. However, if killing the hag meant burning it all to the ground and salting the earth to ensure her demise, then so be it. I just needed to find some gasoline and a lighter.

I checked to see what equipment I had left. I’d lost my rifle, but my Browning Hi-Power was holstered on my belt, along with four extra mags. I wished that I had packed some hand grenades. I still had the Black Heart of Suffering, so I returned it to the sheath. Carefully, because I really didn’t want to cut myself with a magic knife that looked that scary unnatural. It couldn’t be good for you.

With my nagualii eyes I continuously scanned for any sign of the hag as I climbed down toward the clearing. There appeared to be some kind of mound or structure in the middle, so I figured that was as good a destination as any.

I found a trail along the waterfall heading in that direction. There were footprints in the dirt. Something flickered at the very edge of my eyesight. Turning quickly, I thought I saw movement between the trees.

“You are not supposed to be here.” The voice sounded close, but the way things were twisted in here it could have come from anywhere.

You’re telling me . . . “Show yourself.”

A thing leapt out of the bushes to land in the dirt, kicking up quite an impressive cloud of dust for something as short as it was. I was at least a foot taller, but it was twice as wide as I was. Whatever the creature was, it was ugly. It was sort of human shaped, but with spiky fur, a pig snout, and gnarly tusks. He was wearing armor made out of animal hide and carrying a spear that ended in an obsidian shard. I caught a whiff of a very musky odor.

“You dare carry devices made from cold iron into this place?” I could tell he was sizing me up the same way I had him.

He must have been talking about my gun. The aversion to metal meant this thing was probably Fey, just like the hag. I didn’t know if he was an ally, enemy, or neutral. Despite looking like a bipedal javelina, the armor appeared to be in good shape and that little spear looked remarkably dangerous.

“I need these tools because I’m here to destroy a hag.”

His pig snout nostrils snuffled as he got my scent. “You should not be here, Daughter of Tezcatlipoca.”

“Where is here?”

“A place long forgotten beneath Ilhuicatl-Nanatzcayan, where an heir of Camazotz has been condemned to spend eternity for her crimes. What is your name, Child of the North?”

“Yeah, no way.” Names had power with the Fey. There was no way I was about to let Pigface know what my real name was. I wasn’t taking any chances with this.

“You are not allowed here, Yah-Noway, heir of Tezcatlipoca.”

Unimaginative. Definitely Fey of some kind. “Where’s the hag?”

“She is wandering her prison like a proper little inmate. Why would a nagualii such as yourself want her? Your kind and hers have no quarrel.”

You have no idea just how wrong you are, I thought. “She’s not been condemned here for eternity very well if she’s been sneaking into my world and causing trouble.”

“Impossible. It is inescapable.” Pigface seemed immensely proud of this declaration because he puffed his chest out and grinned, which was a horrific sight.

“Yeah, so was Alcatraz,” I muttered, looking around.

“Your kind doesn’t belong here.” Pigface said, frowned around his massive tusks. “You must leave.”

“Can’t,” I half apologized. “I need to kill the hag first.”

“The ch’aglessi is not yours to kill.” He angrily snorted. “She is to remain imprisoned here. She must serve her sentence in full.”

“She’s going to escape!”

“There is no escape.”

“Are you stupid?” Now I was getting angry. “Have you even heard a word I’ve said? She’s already been sneaking out, she’s going to escape into my world permanently soon, if I don’t stop her. Help me kill her or get out of my way.”

“Then those shall be your final words,” Pigface said and hurled his spear at me.

I barely had time to lean to the side as the spear flew through the air where my head had just been.

Pigface let out a furious terrible screech. I wasn’t about to give him a second chance at killing me, so I drew my handgun and squeezed the trigger.

Luckily, ammunition still worked inside the pocket-dimension terrarium. The round smacked into the pig-guard’s armor and bright purple blood flew out. He snorted in surprise and pain, then staggered and fell face-first into the dirt.

The single gunshot echoed across the area, seeming to be far louder than it should have. Somewhere in the distance, there was another pig shriek. And another, and another calling out in reply. The screams were distorted and twisted, a haunting sound designed to strike fear into the heart of man. The rest of the guard force had been alerted to my presence and were probably on their way to skewer and skin, then after they were done with all of that, go ahead and kill me.

Pigface was lying there, perfectly still. He was still breathing, though.

“Are you dead?”

“I am wounded,” the guard growled. “I will heal and return to duty. Eventually.”

“Good!” I meant it too. Even though he’d tried to kill me, I had no ill will toward Pigface. He was just trying to do his job. “I only want to kill the hag.”

“You do not understand this place, Yah-Noway. There is no death here. The lords of death have forsaken this realm so that the suffering of those banished here may be eternal. All who dwell inside are forever beyond the grasp of Mictlan.”

That put an all new spin on the concept of life without parole.

The pig shrieks were getting closer. “So your friends aren’t going to murder me?”

“They cannot.”

“Oh, good.”

“Instead they will rip you apart and scatter your bits so you will spend eternity in endless disassembled suffering.”

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“Tell that to the others,” Pigface muttered as a dozen more guards appeared atop the waterfall. The squat little javelina men began angrily shaking their spears over their heads when they saw me.

I squeezed off shots as fast as I could and pig guards started going down. One little guy went tumbling over the waterfall. I’m no Annie Oakley, or Lizz for that matter. Normally, I’m at best a decent shot. However, in that moment every bullet I sent hit exactly where I meant it to. It was like I couldn’t miss.

But there were a whole lot of angry guards coming this way fast, and as if to prove what the first one had claimed was true, no matter how many of them I dropped, they were absolutely fearless and not worried about dying. Some of the little bastards jumped off the waterfall just because it was faster. And there were more coming! I was going to run out of bullets long before they ran out of bodies.

There were pig men right behind me, and it turned out that they dropped to all fours when they ran, and they were fast. More of them jumped out of the bushes ahead of me, wielding wooden clubs embedded with obsidian chips. I gunned them down too. The Browning’s slide locked back empty, so I dropped the spent mag and shoved a new one in.

And for the first time, I saw something that really scared them.

One of the guards chasing me screamed in terror when it saw the empty magazine on the ground, and threw on the brakes, skidding on its rear end, trying desperately to stop, but its momentum caused it to bump into the mag.

The steel magazine.

There was a sizzling pop, the smell of burning bacon, and that pig guard reacted like a human being catching 220 volts, jerking and twitching until he broke contact, and then he squealed and ran for his life.

It was said different kinds of Fey were vulnerable to iron to various degrees. Steel was an alloy of iron and carbon. Apparently that was close enough for this particular Court.

Despite that one getting fried—and it apparently being a whole lot worse sensation than lethal gunshot wounds—the rest of the guards were too dedicated to give up. Spears were flying all around me. There was grunting and thrashing in the bushes as they ran after me on all fours, only to pop up and take swings at me with their razor clubs.

Somehow I stayed ahead of them. This place was affecting me. Making me faster. Or maybe it wasn’t the place itself, but rather who owned it. This was closer to my father’s realm than I’d ever been, and I was stronger because of it. I sensed a spear flying for my back, turned, snatched it out of midair, and, still spinning, used the shaft to smack a leaping pig man ten feet in the opposite direction. Instead of throwing it back, I kept this one. It might come in handy.

Only they didn’t care who I was or how many of their asses I kicked, they were going to keep at it until I was in pieces. Until, that is, I reached the center of the realm, jumped over a row of low stones, and ran into the clearing. Then the shrieking, grunting, and spear throwing suddenly stopped.

It was sticky hot, and I was out of breath, so I was glad they’d given up—but why? Spear in one hand, pistol in the other, I turned back to the pig mob, and gasped, “You done?”

One approached the edge of the clearing but stopped just shy of the stones. The creatures were pretty much identical looking, but from the position of the bullet hole in this one’s armor and the purple bloodstains on his spiky fur, I was pretty sure he was the first one I’d met.

“We do not enter the prisoner’s lair.”

“How come?”

He pointed his stubby little fingers toward the mound, which actually turned out to be a low stone building that was just overgrown with moss and vines. Only it wasn’t the structure he was gesturing at, but the piles of gnawed-on bones. From the size, shape, and tusks, these had once been other pig guards.

“I thought you said nothing could die here.”

“They are devoured. Not dead.”

That took a second for me to process. “Oh . . . damn.” That was a grim way to spend eternity.

“You are fierce, Yah-Noway, Daughter of Tezcatlipoca. You understand now you cannot slay her in this place, so we will allow you to leave in peace. Go now, before her attention is drawn.”

“Tempting as that offer is, piggy, she’s sneaking into my world somehow, and you guys can’t seem to keep her locked up, so I’ve got to find a way to stop her before she escapes once and for all.”

“You think you can stop me, nagualii?” a haunting voice called out from somewhere nearby. Every single hair on the back of my neck stood up. “I am old blood. You are new. Your kind is nothing to me.”

The pig guards all squealed in fear and disappeared back into the jungle. They sure talked a big game about handling their prisoner, until she was actually present.

“Whatever you say,” I replied as I looked around the clearing. There was no sign of the hag anywhere, but I could feel an evil presence.

Well, it was more like multiple evil presences, because the nagualii spirit was poking around at the edges of my mind, as if coaxing, Let me out. This is beyond you. Let me handle this.

I told that wicked part of myself to shut up and back off. I had this under control.

In the dirt in front of the stone house was a fire pit, which suddenly erupted into a massive bonfire, making the already miserable heat even worse.

There was a shadow crouched inside the stone house, so dark that even my eyes couldn’t make it out.

“It took centuries clawing at the mortar of this prison before I discovered a crack, and decades more scratching away until my voice could be heard on the other side. I found minions, and then I found a mighty ally. Weary, I rested my bloody nails, and let them chip away the prison walls from the other side for me.” She reached one hand out of the shadows to scratch the floor, and it was the gnarliest claw I’d ever seen: six-fingered, with hooked talons long enough to butcher a cow. “I have enjoyed my small measure of freedom. I am eager to return in full. Your world is soft and ripe to feed upon.”

Goading a Fey wasn’t ever a smart thing to do, but I was out of options. “Your jailers claim nothing can die here, but what do you say me and you test that out?”

“Why do you wish to be my enemy, Daughter of Tezcatlipoca? We are both outcasts, forsaken by the Court of Feathers. They abandoned us. Made us less than we could be. Cut our horns and snapped off our fangs. They are gods no more . . . yet, we could be.”

The hag slid out of the shadows and into the firelight, bat-like and twisted, even more disgusting than she had been the first time I spotted her outside the club with the MCB chief. Only now, even hunched over inside the house, she had to be seven feet tall.

“Pandora has offered me my own Court, with dominion over your city of angels. Join it.”

“Pandora?”

“A different kind of goddess,” the hag whispered. “She who denies hope, and brings sickness, perversion, and evil into your world.”

“Is she another refugee from the Court of Feathers too?”

The hag scoffed. “Pandora is of no Court. She is of Earth, but older than the conquistadors’ cross god. She was there when your desert church members were still slaves to the Court of Ra. I have pledged fealty to her.”

The Herald had warned me that she was coming, and I’d taken that to mean the hag . . . “You mean, there’s something out there worse than you?”

The hag had to duck to get out of the doorway, but then she drew herself up to her full impressive height, and spread her tattered wings, towering over the bonfire. “Am I not sufficient, cousin?”

I had my pistol up and was firing before she had finished speaking. Bullets punched into her bloated, disgusting body. She rushed me, straight through the bonfire, so fast I was barely able to recognize she was attacking before she was on me.

She struck at my gun, and when the steel touched her arm, flesh sizzled and cracked, but she still managed to knock it away, and the Browning went bouncing through the dirt. I thrust the obsidian spear into her hairy side, and from her reaction, the reason the pig men were armed with obsidian was that it actually hurt her.

This realm made me faster, but apparently that worked on her too, and she’d been here a whole lot longer. Her wings beat around my head, slamming into and disorienting me. Something cracked painfully in my chest and I flew backward. On Earth that hit would’ve sent me tumbling, but here, I instinctively twisted my body and landed on my hands and knees, still ready to fight.

The shaft of the pig spear was really narrow to suit their stubby little fingers, but the wood seemed incredibly dense, and I thrust it at her bat face, slicing open her wide nose. She swatted the spear away, and it clattered against her stone house.

The hag launched herself at me like a missile, engulfing me in her terrible embrace, sinking her claws into my flak jacket, and then her wings spread wide and we were soaring upward at a dizzying speed. We were a hundred feet up in a few heartbeats, heading straight for the illusion of stars.

The bitch intended to drop me!

This does not seem like being in control to me, the nagualii spirit whispered.

“Shut up!”

This high up I could see the entire dimension, and that it was a circular bowl of jungle, with absolutely nothing on the outside. I struggled to reach my magic knife, but that arm was pinned. My other hand was free, though, so I jammed my thumb into her eye and ground it deep, trying to pop it.

She let go of me.

Instead of dropping, I got two handfuls of bat fur and held on for dear life.

Off-balance, the hag flapped and spiraled downward.

Her joints bent unnaturally to allow one of her legs to reach up and slash my hip with her toe claws. When one of my hands let go, she screeched in triumph.

Only I wasn’t slipping. I’d needed that hand to draw the Black Heart of Suffering. I pulled myself upward and slashed wildly at one of her beating wings.

If the obsidian had stung her, the mystery blade rocked her fucking world.

The hag screamed as her wing was sliced in half and then both of us were twirling toward the ground. She slashed me across the back. I stabbed her in the gut. Then we hit the dirt.

It hurt unbelievably. No cat was landing on its feet after that trip.

I would have, the nagualii insisted.

Gagging, I tried to sit up, only to have a gnarled, hairy foot kick me in the face.

My head snapped back from the blow. I stabbed with the knife, but she caught me by the wrist, and jerked it back so hard my elbow popped. I cried out in pain and lost the knife. She sank her claws through my flak far enough to split skin, picked me up, and threw me against the stone house. I bounced off and ate dirt.

Her hot, rank breath washed over my face as she leaned in close to me. I could hear the hunger in her tone as she began whispering in my ear. “Pork flesh is bland. It’s been far too long since I’ve eaten something exotic like a nagualii. Your kind are a delicacy. I do crave something . . . different. I will eat you piece by piece, leaving your brain for last, so you can have understanding of the entire experience.”

We can be stronger together, the nagualii spirit begged. I do not want to rule, merely help.

“No!”

A rough, sandpaper-like tongue licked my bloodied face. “Delicious!”

I tried to roll away but she pinned me down with her knee, grinding my broken ribs. I screamed. She laughed.

Time seemed to slow down. The nagualii was desperate. She didn’t want to die either. I was scared to death and there was no one else here to hurt, so instead of fighting the power in my blood, I could let it run free.

But there had to be rules!

The nagualii understood.

Surprisingly, it was as if in this place outside of the real world, the nagualii and I could actually understand each other for the very first time.

I warned her not to break the rules.

Agreed.

A blood oath was made.

I felt my limbs lengthen and gain strength as the change came over me.

The previous times I’d let the nagualii take hold of me, I’d lost all sense of control. I’d just been along for the ride. My thinking mind got shoved to the back as the predator went into full monster mode. However, this place was so different that, as I changed, I remained me. I became the monster but stayed human. For the first time I saw her face, and she saw mine.

She was glossy fur and savage fangs. Everything about her was sleek and dangerous.

You are stronger than you think, the monster whispered.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared of her. The nagualii would either respect me, or be locked away, forever.

We can be stronger, together.

“We only fight evil. We never hurt innocents again.”

The hag was confused when I said that. “What?”

Let’s kill the evil, then.

When the hag went to lick the other side of my face, I was ready, and grabbed her gigantic, forked tongue, crushing it in one fist with unexpected strength.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

The hag’s eyes widened as she tried to pull back, and as soon as her weight was off me, I spun my body, but kept hold of her tongue, and kicked her with both boots, ripping her nasty tongue right out of her head.

As the hag vomited black blood all over the clearing, I got up and tore off my flak. The heavy, awkward thing was just slowing me down. Then I sprang toward the magic knife. It had landed twenty feet away, but I reached it in one bound and snatched it from the dirt.

The hag was reeling in circles, both of her hands pressed against her ruined mouth, so she never even knew I was coming until I’d landed on her back, wrapped one arm around her neck, and went to stabbing with my long claws.

She threw me off and fell on her hands and knees, scrambling to flee. She made it a few feet before I bit her on the calf and dragged her violently back so I could stab her some more. Her unbroken wing flew up and smacked me away.

I landed on my feet and immediately circled, looking for an angle to pounce.

The hag surged upright and realized that she was no longer fighting a human with some extraordinary abilities, but the living daughter of a blood-soaked war god. She tried to speak, to beguile me with her cunning words, but I’d already taken her lying tongue. Served her right.

Determined, she came at me again, claws extended. I cut her wrist, spun beneath her arms to slash open her belly, rolled between her legs, splitting one tendon along the way, and then rose behind her to strike at her remaining wing. The magic knife ate through the hag’s flesh like it was hungry.

The hag swung wildly for me, but I ducked under it, jaguar quick, and the knife rose with me, opening her from pelvis to throat. Unspeakable things came squirting out.

That should have killed her, but nothing could die in this place. She staggered back, reaching for me, and I struck off her hand. It went flying into the jungle. When her other hand reflexively flew to the stump, I sliced that one off at the elbow.

Things might not die here, but I could make sure they were never in any danger of escaping ever again, and I would make certain that it hurt along the way.

I don’t know if the hag could read minds, or maybe it was the savage, fanged grin that split my jaguar face that enabled her to guess what I was planning to do, but she fled in a panic then. She made it all the way back to her hut before I picked up the pig spear and hurled it with nagualii strength. It struck her through the heart and slammed her back against the wall, pinning her to the stone.

I pounced onto her a moment later, hitting so furiously that the entire house collapsed around us.

Picking myself up out of the dusty wreckage, I found the hag still pinned by the spear like an insect in a collection. The spawn of Camazotz didn’t give up easily. She tried to claw me with her toes. In response I lopped both of her legs off at the knees.

In my defense, even a cooperative nagualii is incredibly bloodthirsty.

Slowly, things seemed to return to normal. My savage half, gleeful at being able to let loose, was happy to subside. I felt my body weaken, and, laws of physics be damned, become smaller and lighter. Within a few seconds I was just Chloe Mendoza again, except covered in hag blood and missing most of my clothes. All the aches and pains of the beating I’d taken before the change returned as well, which was some agonizing bullshit.

The hag was alive, but broken and limbless. There wasn’t any part of her that hadn’t been ripped by the magic knife. Except she couldn’t die, and for all I knew, she might still somehow be able to recover from this and threaten Earth again.

“Hey, guards!”

A moment later, there was some grunting and snuffling in the brush, and the stubby pig men appeared, approaching the border warily. They were a whole lot more deferential now.

“You summon us, Princess Yah-Noway?”

“Earlier, you threatened to pull me apart and scatter the living parts across this realm.”

I’m pretty sure the speaker was the original I’d met, and he seemed a little bashful about that threat now. “Apologies. That was before I knew how pure the blood of the Drought Bringer was within you.”

“I just need to know if that would actually work on her, and if they all stay alive. They’re not going to grow new ones like a gecko’s tail, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Good.” I gestured at the limbs I’d severed. “Then scatter these.”

The pig men seemed confused by that request, snuffling at each other, but then they oinked excitedly as they realized what I was doing. “The witch will continue to live. Our purpose remains.”

“Yeah, she just won’t be hunting any more of you for sport without her arms and legs. You’re welcome.” I scooped my Browning off the ground, dusted it off, and went over to where the hag was still struggling against the skinny spear she was impaled on.

She glared at me with unbelievable fury and tried to curse me with a mouth that couldn’t operate properly. It was difficult to decipher the sounds now, but I was pretty sure she was telling me that we weren’t done, and she’d find a way back to the real world, mark my words, and so on.

“Oh, you thought I was done. I might have called this good enough, only you sent those fiends to try to murder Alex.” I held up the steel pistol, so she’d get a good look at it. “That makes this personal.”

When the hideous bat thing realized what was happening, she started to thrash even harder, but it was too late. I slid the end of the spear shaft through the Browning’s trigger guard, and let the pistol drop onto her chest. When the metal hit, flesh sizzled, and the hag convulsed, pinned beneath it.

And it would stay like that until the steel rusted away, which I guessed in this realm would take a very long time. She wouldn’t be trying to invade Earth again anytime soon.

Exhausted, wheezing, and in terrible pain, I walked back over to the guards.

“You’re not going to try to stop me from leaving, are you, Pigface?”

“I will show you the way back to your home, Princess,” he replied. “Please do not tell your father of my earlier rudeness.”

* * *

I found myself back in the secret chamber beneath the nightclub, standing a few feet from the statue of Camazotz. The first thing I heard was the death whine of a werewolf, far more high-pitched than a regular human could hear.

Since I’d appeared out of thin air, I damn near got shot by my justifiably jumpy teammates. Multiple guns swung my way, but cooler heads started shouting, “Whoa! Whoa!” or “Hold your fire!”

Melanie lowered her rifle. “Chloe! You just vanished. We thought you were dead.” Then she saw the sorry state I was in. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.” The sudden temperature drop from the artificial heat of the pocket dimension caused me to shiver uncontrollably. “I was sent to the prison.”

Rhino was lying on the floor next to a nearly headless werewolf. “Is it over?”

“The hag isn’t coming through anymore,” I said, dodging the question slightly. What I’d done to that monster was worse than death. It was torture—constant, unending. I didn’t know if they would approve of what I’d done, but they hadn’t been there.

I looked around and counted five very dead werewolves in various states of dismemberment. Everybody on my team looked beat up, but they were all here and alive. They should have been triumphant. Why’d everyone look so melancholy?

“What’s wrong?”

“Guys? I think . . . I need your help,” Lizz muttered as she limped slowly my way.

She was looking down at her arm. Justin shined his flashlight that way so we could see better. A large chunk of skin and meat was missing from Lizz’s bicep. It was a horrific mess, but worse, embedded deep in the exposed muscle was a single, razor-sharp tooth that had broken off sometime during the fight.

My heart began hammering in my chest.

Poor, sweet Lizz had been bitten by the werewolf.

“Oh no . . . ” I covered my mouth, horrified. “No.”

The entire team was staggered. Even Tom the new guy understood what this meant, because we’d explained it before our hunt at Lake Arrowhead. Werewolf clawings were hit or miss, but if you were bitten, their saliva was in the wound, you were infected, period.

“Nope, not gonna be a werewolf,” Lizz muttered as she stumbled over to me.

I reached out and caught her in my arms, and held her as she gently slumped to the floor. I cradled her head on my lap and wept. Lizz was my friend.

Despite Justin sticking her with the morphine from his med kit, her pain was obvious. The claws of the werewolf had punctured through her flak jacket multiple times, and the heavy vest was probably the only thing holding her insides in the right place. Her arm had nearly been torn off at the elbow. She was in agony, only it would all be healed. She would be fine, but everyone else would be in danger. She would become the very thing she hated.

Leroy approached, squatted next to her, and put one gentle hand on her shoulder. “You might be able to handle it.”

“We know that ain’t gonna happen.”

“It’s been done before.”

“I know. One out of how many?”

Leroy nodded sadly. “Yeah . . . There’s that.”

“Fuck that. I ain’t gonna hurt innocent people.”

“I’m sorry, Lizz,” I whispered, tears in my eyes. “What . . . what do you want me to do?”

“Take care of it now before I go crazy.” Lizz’s unusual accent was thicker than normal as she started to drift off. “Let me go out while I’m still me.”

“I can’t kill . . . no. There has to be another way.”

“There’s not. Smarter folks than us have looked,” Lizz reminded me.

It was true. The curse of the werewolf was passed through the bite. Even if we’d cut her arm off one second after it happened, it was too late. The next full moon she would change into a feral killing machine.

“Suicides go to hell. I need you to do it for me. I can’t.”

“I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

“Lapsed.”

“Ah.”

“Yup.” Then she winced. We could all see Lizz was in terrible pain. It was a tough choice for her but she was unyielding. My team member was proving once more how much stronger she was than I was. So much potential there to be more than just a teammate. Given enough time, we could have been as close as sisters. Now? I’d never get to know. Everyone was gathered around, devastated, either staring at Lizz, or off into space.

“I’m not big on long goodbyes. Could y’all give me and Chloe some space?” she asked.

Rhino nodded solemnly. “You heard her.” And he began herding everyone else toward the exit. Melanie broke down sobbing.

Kimpton held out his .45 for me.

“Better be silver bullets in there,” Lizz muttered. “Don’t wanna be coming back.”

“No, ma’am, you taught us too well for that,” Kimpton said. “Bye, Lizz.”

I hesitantly took the pistol from him.

“Love you kids,” Lizz called after them. She waited until she was sure they were gone like she’d ordered. “Quit being a wimp, Chloe.”

“I—”

“Do it!”

I kissed her bloodied forehead. “I’ll make sure Ray puts your plaque up on the wall.”

“Damn right you will.”

There was a fever in Los Angeles. A poison had been spreading, hidden in the shadows. Our job was to fight the darkness, and casualties were expected. I’d just never thought it would be Lizz. She had been steady as a rock the entire time.

I didn’t look in her eyes. I couldn’t. Everything was blurry. Stupid tears. I wiped my eyes. My soul protested, crying out in anguish for me to show compassion. Only this is compassion, the nagualii assured me.

Sic transit gloria mundi, Lizz,” I whispered to her, then pulled the trigger.

* * *

The world was oblivious to what we’d just done for them.

Somewhere out in the City of Angels a creature older than Judea was on the prowl. It was my job to kill this thing with extreme prejudice, but part of me wanted to walk away, to let the party boys, the club goers, and C-list Hollywood stars be dinner to the monsters they unknowingly worshipped. And for the first time, I really understood why the Boss and Earl were nervous about my returning. They feared I’d grow to hate and resent the people I was supposed to protect.

It wasn’t their fault. The powers that be kept them ignorant, supposedly for their own safety. My duty was to keep the bad things so scared of people like me they’d remain in the dark.

I might be a monster, but I wasn’t an evil one.

The vision of this city in flames stuck with me, and I knew that fate was still a possibility.

There was one lead. Thanks to the hag, I had a name.

Pandora.

Nobody had said anything about Lizz as I’d walked out of the club. There were no words that could make me feel better. I felt defeated and wondered if it was worth it. The fighting, the struggle. Losing loved ones. Justin had carried her body. He’d said she didn’t weigh hardly a thing.

Half of us had to go to the hospital for something. Rhino would be lucky to not lose his hand. Deputy Tom went home, but I doubted he’d stay there for long. You couldn’t just go back to work in the normal world after what he’d seen. Leroy had declared he’d be sticking around for a bit, as it looked like we could use the help.

At the hospital, Alex was still unconscious. The doctors were unsure of the prognosis, but he was a tough kid, and I had faith he’d pull through. As soon as he was awake, I was going to start picking that big old brain of his, because we had a new monster to find.

Hope wasn’t lost. I wasn’t just a human woman, but nagualii. For the first time ever, my two halves had worked together . . . and honestly, it felt good. I didn’t know if I could replicate that in the real world, but I couldn’t live my life in fear. My kind existed to cause fear. Nagualii were older than written language. There were pictographs of creatures like me in ancient caverns warning man of how dangerous we were, long before he’d invented the wheel.

Pandora. Pretentious bitch, wannabe Greek poseur. I might only be a half-breed, but my father had been worshipped as a god. I wasn’t just going to track her down to protect this thankless city, or to pay her back for Lizz and Alex, I intended to hurt her so bad that my blood-soaked ancestors would smile in approval, and the lesser ones tremble in terror.

I was really looking forward to that day.


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Framed