Gunmetal Magic(132)
Behind him I saw Anapa stagger to his feet.
Eyes lit up in the swamp. I saw them with shocking clarity, hundreds of eyes.
A flood of furry bodies poured from the underbrush. Jackals. Dozens upon dozens of them, and in the lead were the huge, muscled shapes of shapeshifters in their warrior form. Clan Jackal had arrived.
They circled Anapa.
“We will take the child now,” a gray shapeshifter in a warrior shape said.
“Give us the child.”
Anapa smiled a lopsided grin that bared his teeth and thrust his arms up. Magic flowed from him in a slow wave.
The Jackals pushed against it.
The enormous alpha in front howled. Hundreds of voices answered in a chorus of howls, barks, and yips.
Anapa pushed.
Clan Jackal gained a foot. Another foot.
Anapa clenched his teeth. There were too many of them and he was too weakened.
“Give us the child,” snarling voices demanded.
“Return the child.”
“Return!”
“Stop!” Magic pulsed, knocking the first few Jackals back. Others took their place. He didn’t have enough juice to disappear. I had been inside him, and I knew. He’d spent everything on that fight.
“Here!” He spat. “Have her.”
A little girl materialized in the middle of the Jackal pack. One of the warriors snatched her and ran toward us. The Jackals kept moving, step by step, tightening the ring.
“I gave you what you wanted!”
The Jackals closed in, one step at a time, eyes on fire, fangs gleaming.
“Stop!”
They swarmed him. He screamed, but not for very long.
I sat on a muddy log. My heart was beating inside me. Doolittle had mended it through a gaping hole in my chest, while I screamed, and then he’d repaired my rib cage, and then he had sealed my wounds. He sat next to me now, wiping my blood off his hands with a wet rag. His eyes were red. He had a terrible look on his face.
Raphael knelt by him. “Thank you.”
Doolittle shook his head. “I didn’t hear that. What did you say?”
Raphael leaned closer. “I said, thank—”
Doolittle grabbed his throat and smashed his head into Raphael’s face. It was the most vicious head butt I had ever seen. Raphael fell back. Doolittle snarled something under his breath and walked away.
Raphael shook his head. Blood gushed from his broken nose.
“I think he’s mad at you,” I told him.
“He’ll get over it.” Raphael grinned at me.
“How did you know I wouldn’t die?”
“I didn’t.”
“Took a chance, huh?”
He nodded. “We had nothing to lose.”
Behind him the Jackals had dismantled one of the huts and dragged Anapa’s dismembered corpse onto a pile of wood. Two shapeshifters in warrior form dumped fuel onto the boards and set it on fire.
“How did you know Anapa would panic?” I asked.
“When you told me he had started as a shapeshifter, I went to the Jackals looking for their research on Anubis’s weaknesses. They took it very seriously. Half of the Clan was digging up information. They said that in ancient Egypt, when Anubis was still human, silver was virtually unknown. The Egyptians started getting it later, through imports, and even then it was highly prized. There was no reason he would know how silver affected shapeshifters from personal experience. Roman said that he would likely retreat to the old Anapa body if he was threatened. Clan Jackal trailed us. His ego was so colossal, he didn’t view them as a threat.”
“He didn’t even notice them,” I told him.
“The hardest part was talking Doolittle into that emergency open-heart surgery. He really didn’t want to do it. We argued for hours. He thought you wouldn’t survive.” Raphael swallowed. He looked sick.
“What’s the matter with you? Is it the poison?”
“I just realized you died on me twice.” Raphael rolled to his feet and staggered off.
“Where are you going?”
“I need a minute.”
He stumbled into the bushes and I heard him vomit.
A shadow came over me. Roman sat on a log next to me. He was carrying something long and wrapped in plastic.
“Nice guy,” Roman said. “An asshole, but he loves you.”
“I love him, too.” I petted his hand. “Thank you for everything. I had fun.”
“I had fun, too.” He grinned. “Look what I got.” He pulled the plastic back. The Bone Staff.
“You got it?”
He nodded. “Spent an hour digging through that clay. Worth every minute.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you around. You call if you need anything, yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “You call me, too. I owe you some help. As long as I don’t have to sacrifice any babies, I’ll be there.”