Then he gasped and his hand slid to his gun as Wolf chose to become visible. She was all black, the size of a pony, with a wolf’s head and ears, a body like a tiger’s, giant paws with retractable claws like a lynx’s, and the long thick tail of a snow leopard. Her eyes were the black of a perfect night sky with no moon, their depths endless and full of tiny stars.
“Undying,” he murmured and for a moment I thought he might bow or something. “She is with you?” He looked at me with something like awe on his face.
Wolf was a spirit guardian, what some called the Undying. The legend went that they were the guards of the beings that had become the human’s gods. I don’t really know about that, since Wolf doesn’t talk to me and certainly doesn’t share any secrets of the universe with me.
“I guess so. My cousins dropped me down a mine shaft as a bad joke when I was four. I was hurt and terrified, but then Wolf showed up. She stopped the pain and carried me out. Been with me ever since.” I stood up and went to her. “But that isn’t what I wanted you to see.” I touched her belly where a stark white line of scar tissue broke up the perfect darkness of her fur.
“Samir, the sorcerer after me, he did that to her last time I ran from him.”
“He scarred an Undying?” Alek gave a low whistle.
“He’s been gathering power and eating the hearts of any rivals since back when a guy named Jesus told the meek they’d inherit the earth,” I said. “Now do you see? You want me to help you stop the magical equivalent of a drunk driver while I’m telling you I need to get the hell out of here before I bring down a world-ending meteor on our heads.”
Wolf butted me with her head and then disappeared. No idea what she meant by that gesture, as usual. I chose to ignore the feeling of unhappiness I got from it.
“So you will keep running from him.” Alek’s tone made it clear that wasn’t a question. “Until when?” That was probably rhetorical.
I ignored his tone. “Until I’m strong enough to fight him.”
“And you grow stronger while you run away?” Alek said in a tone I was starting to really hate.
“I don’t know. He’s evil, Alek, and he hates me with an obsessive rage. He hunted me down after I failed to kill him the first time, used my family to lure me out. He would have killed all of us if I hadn’t run.” Tears sprang to my eyes and I curled my hands into fists. “He killed them. Because of me.”
Technically, they’d killed themselves after he’d captured and tortured them and then hooked them up to a bomb. I could still hear Ji-hoon’s last words telling me not to come, telling me to flee as far and as fast as I could. Could hear the sound of the bomb as the four of them decided they would rather give their lives by setting the device off than let Samir take me as well.
“You tried to kill him?”
“Dammit. Yes. I found out he wasn’t really my lover or my friend. He was using me, fattening up my magic by training me and helping me be more powerful so he could make a tastier meal of me later. So yeah, I tried to kill him. I failed, okay? Twice. And now, this is my life. I run away so that I can live. So that my friends here can live.”
“I understand,” he said. His voice had gone cold and quiet. “I will go stop this warlock myself.”
He turned and walked to the door, throwing it open as he dropped his sound-proofing ward. Then he hesitated and looked back at me.
“You survive,” he said. “Not live. You are not living, Jade Crow.”
“Fuck you,” I yelled after him. I didn’t need his judgment. Anger would have been better than the disappointment in his face. Better than those words, words so close to the ones my own heart whispered to me in the dead hours of the night sometimes.
I stumbled into the bathroom and saw the medallion sitting on the counter where I’d apparently forgotten it the night before. Angrily I shoved it into a drawer. I turned the water on as hot as I could stand and scrubbed at my hands until no more blood stained them. Then I splashed water on my face until I could look into the mirror and pretend I didn’t look like a mess.
Levi and Harper were still in the shop, alone. I let out my breath with a huff of relief. At least Alek had made them stay here.
“That guy told us the truth,” Levi said. “His name really is Bernard Barnes and he’s a professor of Religious Studies at Juniper.”
“Well, I guess that’s good,” I said. My brain was already inventorying the place, trying to decide what I would take with me and what I would leave. I’d have to leave most of it.