Broken Soul: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (10 page)

I pulled on Beast and she shoved me aside, sliding down my arms and legs in a move that was painful beyond anything I could remember, my flesh feeling as if it had turned inside out and spat my bones to the floor.
So fast.
A burning-cutting-boiling pain arced into the air, stole my breath, and shredded my skin. Eli yelped and leaped away. I screamed, the half-human, half-cat scream splitting the air. Everything around me slowed to a crawl as the gray of my skinwalker magics erupted from inside me. This was the battle timing that many soldiers report, where their senses go into overdrive and everything happens with an intensity and speed that isn’t part of the normal human experience.

My arms sprouted tawny pelt; my fingers flashed with pain as they altered shape and claws pierced through the tips. Beast claws. My head whipped back, my face exploding outward, bones cracking.

A gray haze of energies whipped around me like a burning wind, a storm of power, just like the phase of unreality that the
dragon operated in; blue and green and black motes of power swirled hotly in the place of the change. And I realized that I didn’t enter the gray place—it originated from inside
me
. Had I noticed that before? The thought and the questions melted in the face of my agony. And then it was gone. But the light-dragon was looking at me, meeting my eyes, as if it saw me fully for the first time.

I stepped toward Bruiser, time still slightly out of sync. But moving through it all, the light-creature dodged me, dodged Bruiser, whipping so fast it was a rush of light and shadow, all teeth and snakelike tongue and spattered rainbows.

Time slammed back onto me, though I was still close to the gray energies, cold on my skin. Leo stabbed the creature, a single hard thrust, up through its belly, angled toward its head, his feet following as the thing rippled and tried to lash away.

Gee, still bleeding, fell to his backside, legs sprawled. In the same instant, Leo stabbed directly overhead with his short sword, into the creature’s side, both blades buried in it. Something like liquid glass flooded down over Leo, and he murmured words that sounded like, “Lepree lumyear. Larcencel. Larcencel.”

Faster than my eyes could follow, even in the gray place of the change, the creature curled back on itself, descended onto Leo, mouth open, teeth flashing. Striking. Biting. I could smell Leo’s blood and something bitter as ashes and horehound ground together.

Leo went limp. I darted forward, Bruiser stepping into my magics, a shocking wash of electricity that burned my skin and prickled across my scalp, hot as flaming cactus. Together, we stabbed up at the thing. It released Leo, snapping jaws and clacking teeth. The creature shot up to the roof. Around us, everyone, everything, flowed into a blur, speeding up, or perhaps
we
sped up, our time matching with the time and the speed of the thing overhead.

As if we were suddenly the only things visible to it, the light-being focused on us, its eyes flashing like light through a stained-glass window. It curled tightly, its tail lashing into a coil, its wings snapping into a half furl. I slammed my back to Bruiser’s, standing as he and Leo had stood only moments before. The thing dove at us.

Around us, everything vanished and we stood in the gray place of energy, Bruiser, the creature, and me. I screamed
again, the sound more cat now than human. My toes dug into a mat beneath us, nails piercing the rubber.

Bruiser slid into the movements of La Destreza
.
My shoulders were against his, my backside just below his. My sword shadowed his; my feet mirrored his, following his lead. The swordplay was easy now, as Beast shared her power, her strength, and Bruiser led the way into the Spanish Circle of flashing, stabbing swords. A dance. I had always loved dancing with Bruiser.

Our blades connected with the creature. Bruiser’s sword, sharp, not the blunted sword I had been given, sliced it, slashing up through its scaled hide, along its side, lifting as he rose to his toes. Light blasted out of the wound. More of the liquid glass spurted toward us, but the gray energies of the change repelled it, and it slid away, to puddle on the floor.

Pulling on Beast’s strength, I rammed my blunt sword point up, beside Bruiser’s, into the glare of light, through the scales of the light-dragon.

The creature screamed. It arched high and thrashed its tail. From the corner of my eye, I saw a wash of light and darkness. Heard a
pop
of displaced air, the sound a vamp makes when it rushes from one place to another. It was Bethany, red dress swirling around her legs, vamped out. She was scary in human guise; terrifying vamped out. She screamed words from a language I had never heard and leaped into the air. Her magics shot out and surrounded the creature like a net of power. She wrapped her arms around the light-dragon and latched on, as if to ride it.

The dragon-creature pulled itself free of our weapons. It knotted into a coil again, bucked to remove Bethany, who held on tighter. It flapped its wings once, and dove away, crashing through the closed door at the back of the practice room, breaking it into splinters as if the dragon was more than light.

And suddenly it was gone. Bethany landed on the floor and bounded back up. She raced to Bruiser’s side and ran her hands up and down his body. Then she disappeared again with that little
pop
of air. I growled, the vibration filling the air in the gray place of the change with warning.

For a moment, Bruiser and I leaned against each other, our backs supporting our weight. Moving slowly, he stood and stepped away, pulling himself out of the gray energies that
surrounded me, stepping with a shudder that looked like he’d been tased. Bruiser was breathing hard, dripping with sweat.

I/we sniffed him to check his health, nostrils spreading and puffing. Bruiser dropped to his knees near me, his image flickering and smudged on the other side of my magics. I/we watched him, waiting, not knowing what to do. He breathed, his motions smoother. He looked up at me and his mouth moved. “Jane. Come back.”

I/we stared at him, brow furrowed, not understanding. He pointed at my hands. “Come back.”

I/we looked down and saw my hands, still holding the weapons. My wrists, hands, and fingers were pelted and tawny, my knuckles large and rounded, stronger than anything human, nails curled and sharp. Looked lower and saw pelted and clawed feet, paw-like, except that they were far larger than Beast’s—six inches across, claws extended and gripping the wood floor. Splinters came up around my Beast toes. Rubber gobbets from the practice mat littered the floor around me. I pulled into myself with an electric snap that tingled through me, and felt myself separate from Beast at some mental, almost spiritual level.

I dropped the practice sword and the vamp-killer and touched my face. The lower half of my face was outthrust. I had fangs, like small tusks at both my upper and lower jaw. My forehead and nose were human, or humanish. The pads of my fingers were thick and it was hard to feel, but I was pelted all over my face and down my neck. I pulled out my shirt and looked down. The pelt paled to cream and ended just above my breasts and my slim waist of solid muscle. The pelt ran down under my arms and across my shoulders, all the way to my fingers. I bent to my pants and pulled the ankles up. Pelt as far as I could pull the spandex. Bulky cat feet with huge knees and thighs. No way was I looking into my waistband.
Crap
. I was half-formed. Half Beast and half me. Without a mass change, my weight had been redistributed, my body cast in horror-movie mode.

But at least I was starting to think again, starting to think like a human, not the half-and-half I’d become. The first fully coherent thought was,
I’m a monster
. I managed a sound that might have been chuffing laughter. Even in the Party City of the South, I couldn’t go outside without a mask or a deep hood to hide behind. I’d scare the locals.

Close to the front of my mind I heard Beast rumble,
Jane and big-cat are more than Jane and big-cat. I/we are Beast.

She sounded contented and determined and satisfied. As if she wanted to stay this way. And I had no idea what to do about that.

You Want Me to . . . Wash Your Back?

What strength and energy I had left drained out in a rush and I landed on my knees on the ruined floor.
Houston,
I thought.
We have a problem.

What is Houston?
Beast thought at me.

Never mind. Are we stuck like this? Last time it went away naturally. And fast. But it’s worse this time. It feels . . . I don’t know. Permanent?

Jane likes half-Beast form. Jane hurt light-predator-snake-that-flies.

I thought about that for a moment.
So I’m keeping myself like this?
I’m
doing it?

I/we are Beast. I/we like this form too.

So, that’s a yes.
I thought about my human form, my Jane form. I reached deep inside of me into the memory of my human self, searching for the snake at the center of me, the double helix of DNA that made me both human and skinwalker. Instead, I found a jumbled mess.

My oddly shaped knees gave way and I sat hard on the splintered floor. It was cool beneath my backside. My peculiar-shaped hands folded, flaccid, in my lap, dangling from my too-big thighs. Hunger and weakness stabbed at me, striking deep into my middle, then twisting and clawing like the hand of a fanghead, talons extended. I groaned and gasped, panting to get enough air. But there wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
Holy crap . . .

I pushed past the pain and studied the mess that was my
current DNA. It no longer had just a double strand. It now had a triple strand in places, branching out and back in like a suspension bridge of weirdness. On the odd strands, the genes were doubled and tripled in places, genes totally missing in others.

“Jane.” I heard a voice from far away. I waved a hand to show I’d heard but was a little busy just now. Then I flapped it to indicate I should be left alone.

It wasn’t all the cells. Like, maybe half. Only half of my cells were cat. Made sense. My arms folded like a human, my feet like a cat. My flesh was half-pelted, half not. Feet were some weird paw shape; hands were more humanish. I zeroed in on one batch of cells, human cells, that made up my hip joints. All of that part of me was human. Totally human.

I exhaled in a rush, the panting growing faster. It had been a while since I’d needed to meditate to drop into the place of the change, to find the cellular structure and physiology that made me, me. Fortunately, I was halfway there.

Breathing deeply, holding the breath, I tried to calm my rapid heartbeat, tried to relax, to let the tension out of my shoulders and neck. Dropped my head and bowed my spine. Stretched back up, sitting straight, into a half lotus, funky hands on knobby knees. I released my breath until my lungs were empty. Fought the fear and the need to hyperventilate. Filled my chest with air slowly, exhaled, inhaled, breathing until my body was full of oxygen but the panic was under control. I exhaled one final time and let myself fall into the genetic structure that made me what I was. I had not left the gray place of the change completely and so, instantly, I felt my body twist and reshape. Bones snapping and popping.

Painpainpain!
Beast screamed.

I opened my mouth on a breathless cry, one I hadn’t planned on needing. And then the gray energies slid back into me. I was lying on the ruined floor, face on something smooth and hard, about the size of my hand. I slid a hand under my jaw, gripped the thing I was lying on, and pushed myself upright, legs splayed as vertigo whirled the room around me. I held the rounded thing as I forced my eyes open and focused on my hands. Normal. Human. Mine. I touched my face. Ditto. Looked down my shirt. No fur. I sniffed the thing I’d found on the floor; it had a scent like fish and water plants and the smoke from burning herbs. It was clear, like glass, but slightly
pliable like plastic. Rounded on one side and torn-looking on the straight side.
Fingernail?
The thought intruded.
Maybe, but a big honking one, if so
. And then I knew what it was. A scale from the dragon’s body. I pushed the scale into my shirt and bra, securing it. Though I had no idea why I’d need to hide it. Probably a leftover big-cat thought, but it just seemed right. And then the pain hit, that gripping, tearing agony, as if something inside me were being ripped apart.

I wrapped an arm around my middle as if to hold my guts in, but my outer flesh felt fine. The damage was inside and I pressed into my stomach to try to still the torture. The muscles there were rigid and tangled, and I pressed hard until the spasm eased and at least I could catch a breath. And
great
. Now I had done a half shift on multiple security cameras.

I looked around the room. The bleachers were empty. Quiet. But my hearing was still Beast-sharp and from behind me I heard breathing and the heartbeats of two people. I turned my head and saw Eli and Bruiser. And Grégoire. Yeah. Two heartbeats: two humans and one undead blood-sucker. Witnesses in addition to the footage.

“Hey, guys,” I managed, my mouth drier than desert sands. “What’s cooking?”

Eli released a breath. It was only slightly more pent than a normal one, but for him that meant he’d been really worried. I’d seen him fight off a werewolf with less change in his breathing. Bruiser moved to me and held down a hand. I let him pull me to my feet and held on as the room did a nauseating roll and spin. And then the hunger hit me, blossoming out from the pain in my stomach. My abdomen clenched and curled in on itself like a steel hand was kneading a batch of raw bread dough inside my gut. I gagged, a dry heave that left the room spinning. Okay, this was weird.

Bent in two, I got a glimpse of the floor and the workout mats and the coagulating blood and drying dragon gunk. It was crystallizing as it dried. On the edges there was nothing left but dust. A girl in hospital greens and sterile gloves was gathering some of the crystal dust into a sterile tube.
Good
. I croaked, “For workup in Leo’s lab?”

She met my eyes and then dropped hers back to the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Get it messengered tonight.” I tried to find a drop of moisture in my mouth, but there was nothing. I went on anyway, my
voice raspy. “Full workup and DNA—if the gunk has any. Fast as you can.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she repeated.

Eli placed an open bottle of water in my hand and when I could breathe and stand upright at the same time, I drained it. Not sure I swallowed it, exactly, but the bottle was empty. Then another. And another. By the time I’d emptied four bottles, I could force my knees straight. “Steak?” Eli asked.

“Oatmeal,” I grunted around the twisting in my guts. “It’s faster to get into me.”

Grégoire made a small motion to someone out of sight and Bruiser slid his arm around me, supporting me—okay, half carrying me—out of the gym and to the hallway. Grégoire fell in beside me and his scent wrapped around me, a near synesthesia I sometimes found when Beast was very close to the front of me—a pale green, the honey gold of spring flowers, a scent I’d always thought was luscious. The vamp smiled, not that slow smile they do when they’re trying to charm, the one that transforms their faces into angelic beauty, but an uncertain one, which made him seem almost human. He took my arm, above the elbow, as if I was about to fall. And with the floor moving up and down like waves, and around like the water in a toilet bowl, maybe I was.

The four of us made it into the elevator before I threw up, all over the elevator floor, at least ninety percent of the water I’d guzzled. Grégoire stepped back quickly to protect his shoes, which were a wine-colored patent leather. If I hadn’t been tossing my cookies, I’d have giggled. Eli was still in the hallway, out of the line of fire. Bruiser didn’t react at all except to give me a clean hanky to wipe my mouth. “Sorry about your shoes,” I croaked.

“They’re just shoes, Jane,” Bruiser replied. And the spare phrase made something turn over inside me.
Just shoes
. Not important. As if I was more important than the shoes.

The others stepped inside, onto a clean patch of floor, and the doors closed, leaving me in a tiny little cage that reeked of vamp scent, human scent, the heated warmth of Bruiser’s sweat, which was no longer human but wasn’t vamp either, and my own stink, both on my clothes and on the floor. Grégoire, holding something lacy to his nose, palmed the display with his other hand and activated the button panel on the elevator. It
lurched gently into motion as Eli offered me another bottle of water. “Try it slow this time.”

“Hindsight,” I said, sounding more human. I sipped the water and looked up at the lights on the display. And I dropped the water, jerking my weapons out of Eli’s arms. Once again he didn’t question, just followed my lead.

“Jane?” Bruiser asked, warning in his voice. Beside him Grégoire vamped out at the sight of the guns and blades.

“We’re going down. Way down,” I said. I’d been so sick I hadn’t noticed.

Grégoire hissed. Placed his hand over the biometric handprint reader and pressed a button. The elevator came to an abrupt stop, so fast I lost my precarious balance—still not back to normal. But Bruiser’s arm tightened around me, and I let myself lean against him. Just a little. And then the lights in the elevator flickered, browned down to a dull glow, and went out, leaving us in the darkness. I think I growled, just enough of Beast left in me to manage that with a human throat.

The lightless interval didn’t last long. Maybe five seconds. But it was enough time to make me see monsters in the dark. Which made me titter with a laugh because I
was
a monster. And I was in an elevator, stuck between floors, with another monster, one all vamped out and smelling of something sweet and flowery. And watery vomit. My life was so weird.

The lights came back on. Grégoire stood with his back to a corner, pupils black in bloody orbs, fangs snapped down, holding blades in both hands, talons extended. A monster. He hissed, his eyes on me. It was as if Grégoire had never been human.

“Grégoire. My friend,” Bruiser added softly. “We are well. There is no need of battle. Jane, Eli, please put away the weapons.”

“There’s—”
A dark room with something in it. A monster.
Another
monster
. Right. Not saying that. I thumbed the safety back on and gave the gun to Eli. “There’s one in the chamber.” I remembered chambering a round when I grabbed the gun, but I wasn’t sure how because I’d still held the open bottle of water. The elevator quivered, dropped an inch, and then started up again. Grégoire’s eyes bled back to human so fast I would have missed it if I’d blinked.

No one spoke until the doors opened on the main floor, at
which point I pushed away from Bruiser, standing on my own two feet in my own vomit.
Ick
. But I needed to clear something up. To Grégoire, I asked, “You know about the dark room at the bottom of the elevator shaft?”

“There is no such room,” Grégoire said stiffly. He sheathed his blades, yanked on the lace cuffs sticking out of the sleeves of his velvet coat—wine colored to match his shoes—and stalked off the elevator.
Liar, liar, pants on fire,
I thought. His
liar
pants were velvet too, which made me smile, though from the expression on Eli’s face, it was more a grimace. And I had to wonder when Grégoire had found time to change out of his fighting leathers.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “right.” I stood as straight as I could with the clamped fist in my gut and thought over the last few minutes. To Eli I said, “I want every camera angle from the workout room downloaded, all the footage from the doorway where that dragon thing came into the room and back up to any surface opening or any subbasement opening. I want to know how it got in. Get Alex on it, and secure the footage. I don’t want it appearing on YouTube.” I meant footage of me changing but he seemed to know that too. He was Mr. Mind Reader tonight.

Eli nodded and pulled his cell to call Alex. To Bruiser, I said, “Food? And someone to clean the elevator?” My gut clenched again and I doubled over.

“I’ll send housecleaning,” Bruiser said, scooping me up in his arms like some oversized fairy-tale princess. He carried me to the green room just off the foyer, and dropped me on the couch, the door still open behind us for the guest cart I could hear squeaking down the hallway. The cart was stocked with guest goody bags for just such occasions—though usually for a vamp in need of a good sunscreen or a casket to sleep in. Not that I’d ever insult a sane vamp by suggesting aloud that he might really sleep in one. That was an old wives’ tale and a terrible offense to suggest.

In short order I had brushed my teeth in the tiny unisex restroom and was drinking milk and eating oatmeal, or what passed for oatmeal in vamp central. It was instant, not stone ground, and had been cooked in such a way that the starch was activated. The oats had turned into a mushy gruel. It was topped with cinnamon and butter and brown sugar.
Gag
. Not the way I cooked oatmeal. I’d have to have a word with the
cook, a thought that made me laugh like a madwoman deep inside, but not close to the surface where anyone could see or hear. I ate the vile stuff anyway, for the calories I’d used half shifting and fighting and then half shifting again. And I drank the milk, which was full fat and ice-cold and delicious.

As I ate, the room filled with security types, and the pain in my gut eased. I studied the room. Someone had rearranged and redecorated the odd room, and a mirror that used to hang on the end wall was gone, exposing the cracked and bowed plaster from the settling of the building and the constant humidity. It was cracked in the shape of a doorway. Huh. I looked up at the ceiling, putting the floor plan together in my mind.
I wondered whether one of Leo’s secret stairways, or maybe even an elevator, was behind the wall, a useless bit of trivia I’d never need.

When I was done, I flopped back on the couch and looked at the people in the room, all men, all armed, all staring at me. And caught a strong whiff of myself. My clothes stank of sweat and blood and lillilend slime and ticked-off cat. And vomit.
Ick.
My nose wrinkled. But before I could take care of my stench, I had to know other stuff. “How’s Leo and Gee?”