Flux of Skin Read online

  Ladon rolled to the side. The pain in his ribs etched itself into his mind as a perfect map of his insides, each spot separate and precisely connected to as many nerves as possible, to cause as much pain as possible.

  Some injuries he could ignore. Some pain he could breathe through. But what wafted off Rysa fanned everything he perceived—the shadows outside and the scents of fear and determination lifting from Derek. And his own body.

  Rysa sat up so fast he couldn’t stop her—but he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her to his chest.

  She yanked away and jumped toward the center of the RV.

  “Rysa!” he called.

  Her seers rolled off her in long, drawn-out waves, low and pounding—not musical, as they should be. They throbbed in Ladon’s head—not pulsing like they had before, but undulating as if a separate, living creature had stepped out of her mind. It filled the RV with its tentacles, writhing and waving and waiting to rip whoever attacked them into tiny, salty pieces.

  It was the part of her she called her “nasty.” The part that was as much Shifter as Fate. It writhed over him and Derek, sensing.

  Protecting.

  “Oh—” Derek looked between him and Rysa.

  Ladon wondered if his brother-in-law felt her seers. Normals usually couldn’t sense anything, but the power rolling off Rysa right now almost blinded Ladon.

  She tilted her head as she stared out the front of the RV. “Leave me alone!” A deep growl rolled from her—she growled like him. Like Dragon.

  She stepped toward the windshield.

  “Bozhe moy,” Derek whispered. “Oh my God.”

  A shocking level of heat rose off Rysa’s skin. She didn’t acknowledge his touch—her hand didn’t curl around his, nor did her body react at all. He didn’t think she even knew he was there. She focused outside.

  Her other hand draped over the pistol. She didn’t look at him or the gun, but aimed it at one of the RV’s windows above their heads. The tentacles of her nasty tensed.

  Seer-sense snapped onto his mind. Ladon’s body felt odd, unglued, as if he could move joints and reform muscles. His ribs wanted to knit, even if they didn’t know how, and pull themselves back to right and solid. And his throat tingled as if something new wanted out. Something tasting like ‘control.’ Something enthralling.

  Shifters. Rysa’s seers were pushing Shifter into his mind.

  Rysa leaned against Ladon’s chest with her attention and her abilities all pointed outward, toward the desert. Her inhales and exhales felt shallow and sounded, to his ears, forced.

  She gripped his forearm. Her seer tentacles snapped outward—two Shifters ran for the RV. They moved too fast and would hit the vehicle before the dragons could catch them.

  Rysa backed against his chest. Her respirations slowed and matched his.

  He picked up something he hadn’t expected—‘synchronize.’

  Multiple bangs smashed into the undercarriage of the RV. The two Shifters climbed the axels.

  Sister’s boots thumped above Ladon’s head and down the length of the vehicle. She and a Shifter flew off the front. They landed, Sister on top, and she raised her arms in a double-fisted punch.

  A bullet grazed her side and she snapped backward, off the Shifter.

  “Anna!” Derek yelled.

  A dragon-burst hit Ladon’s thoughts—Flesh wound. Blood only.

  “She’s okay!” Ladon pushed Derek back onto the cabinets. With his blood disorder, any wound would likely kill him.

  Rysa’s nasty solidified in front of Ladon again, manifesting in the air in a way similar to Dragon’s shimmer right before the beast dropped out of mimicry. She mapped what-was-is-will-be. He saw it, smelled it, and felt it like bumps under his fingers. And he knew what to do.

  Ladon pulled his pistol up and alongside Rysa’s hip and she twisted with him, keeping the skin of his forearm touching the skin of her waist.

  The Shifter in front of the RV coughed and came up to a crouch. He focused on Sister and not on Ladon and Rysa inside the RV. Sister sat up as well, her hand holding her side and her face wrinkled in agony. The Shifter tilted his head.

  He pulled a knife.

  Rysa’s seers froze again. Move! screamed in Ladon’s head.

  He pulled her to the side.

  Derek fired his rifle. The Shifter’s head snapped back.

  “Did not see that coming, did you, you son of a bitch!” Derek yelled.

  More thumps above and the second Shifter kicked in the window over their heads. Ladon caught trajectory from Rysa’s abilities—and dart. Rysa moved his hand, and pointed his gun. Neither of them looked up, both still watching Sister and the other Shifter.

  “Fire,” Rysa whispered.

  Ladon knew as she said it. They rotated again as a dart hit the floor, and fired.

  The bullet gouged the Shifter’s shoulder. The Shifter howled but managed to hold it together enough to aim again. The sense of mapping increased and the preciseness of Rysa’s seers’ calculations of probability pinpointed, and if Ladon moved a fraction to the—

  The tentacles of power curling from Rysa’s body ruptured. The visor of her seers snapped off Ladon’s mind and the world suddenly flattened into its rightful three dimensions. All the focus they’d shared, all the direction and connection, vanished into the universe like the dissipation of mist after a burst bubble.

  Sister-Dragon dropped off the embankment onto the RV. The wounded Shifter’s arm vanished from the window.

  The Shifter flew off the RV into the desert.

  “Leave me alone!” Rysa yelled. “Leave me alone…”

  Her eyes rolled back into her head. She twitched, and her breathing rasped in and out unevenly. Her skin scorched—her temperature must have risen to 104, maybe 105. She felt like an ember in his arms.

  This was much worse than either of her activation fevers. Worse than any of her blackouts. And these Shifters had caused it.

  The fear stopped cold. No more dancing with her nasty, no more waves of idiotic distractions. It stopped and it solidified like a chrysalis around a butterfly.

  He knew what was about to emerge. He’d walked with it clinging to his shoulders like some venomous creature many times over his centuries. The chaotic rage—the need to slice and destroy—welled up from a part of him that was neither instinct nor thought.

  “Get down!” Derek yanked him onto the cabinets.

  Bullets ripped by their heads and the back window shattered.

  “Ladon!” Derek cocked his rifle. “You froze!” He nodded to Rysa. “Her issues are affecting you.”

  The rage sloshed into Ladon’s stomach like a fat balloon full of indignation. Rysa’s attention problems were not the issue here.

  A thud reverberated through the RV as Sister vaulted to the top.

  “We need to leave.” Derek pushed his hat down onto his head as he nodded toward the rear window.

  Ladon grabbed the edge of the cabinet and kicked the sides of the window. The frame burst from the casing and the entire mounting—steel and broken glass—embedded itself in the dirt of the embankment three feet behind the RV.

  “Do not speak ill of Rysa.” Ladon cradled her head as he pulled her toward the window.

  Derek grabbed Ladon’s arm. “Calm down! Do you want Brother-Dragon to flip out? Run for the highway or get shot? How would that be good for any of us? Or her?”

  Calming down wouldn’t stop the Shifter attack. Calming—

  A snap pulsed through the tight constraints Dragon had locked onto their energy. Out! Now!

  Tires churned in the dirt. A spotlight illuminated the interior of the RV with blinding glare.

  Sister flipped between the RV and the embankment, one foot propped on the dirt and the other on the vehicle, and reached inside. “Hurry!”

  Derek dove for the window. Sister yanked him through as Ladon lifted Rysa. The bite on his shoulder burned and his rib screamed again, but he handed her over. Derek curled an arm under her
shoulders and pulled her along the embankment, away from the RV.

  Alarm pulsed from Sister-Dragon and Sister yanked hard on Ladon’s shirt. He dove through the window, twisting as she pulled, and landed in a crouch next to his sister.

  In front of Ladon, Derek moved fast but steady with his rifle up and his eyes on the desert behind them. Sister, gun also up, stepped between him and Rysa and the approaching vehicle.

  Derek steadied her as best he could with one arm, his rifle in his other, but he squinted against the glare of the spotlight—

  Ladon eyes registered a glint at the edge of the embankment—a knife aimed at his shoulder. He twisted, his arm and hand spinning with his movement, and caught the hilt.

  A very specific pain cut into his chest as if the blade had met its target. A pain sharp enough to slice lines into his vision and valleys into the taste of the air. One of the fractures strained. The bone must have pulled apart.

  Vengeance roared up from his ribcage and out of his mouth as a bellow so loud it echoed between the embankments.

  The glare of the spotlight, centered on Derek and Rysa, contracted into a single uniform wash of light. Two Shifters in night camouflage rounded a boulder. One lifted a pistol. The other flicked a second blade.

  The blade flickered past Ladon’s face. He tossed up the knife he held at the same time, flipped the hilt around, and whipped it at the first Shifter’s gun arm. The man screamed and dropped the semi-automatic, and his good hand pawed at the blade slicing his bicep.

  The other blade clinked against the trunk of the source of the spotlight—a big, dark-colored sedan with opaque windows. The vehicle looked reinforced and bullet-proofed.

  The knife dropped into the dirt by the rear left tire.

  By the boulders, the second Shifter pushed his companion aside and swung an assault rifle toward Derek and Rysa.

  The glare hampered Derek’s aim. Ladon stood between the Shifters and Sister, his own gun on the ground next to the RV. The Shifter could easily kill Rysa or Derek before Ladon reached his gun.

  The Shifter slammed against the embankment and flipped into the air so fast his spine cracked. He flew toward the spotlight blasting from the front of the sedan.

  Bullets ripped into the dirt across the front of the embankment aimed at where a dragon should be. But the beasts had come from behind, staying low, and had moved behind the rocks again.

  Don’t come out! The damned Shifters were now firing at random open spaces, hoping to hit one of the dragons.

  “You are all dead!” Sister fired a round at the moaning Shifter in front of the sedan and two more into the floodlights.

  The spots blinked off and the desert vanished into shadows. Ladon willed his eyes to adjust.

  Another bullet whizzed by and buried itself in the underside of the RV.

  They were going to shoot Rysa. If they nicked Derek, he would die. And he and Sister were more vulnerable than the dragons.

  Ladon raised his hands. “Stop firing!”

  “Lay down the gun, Dracas,” boomed a female voice from a loudspeaker somewhere on the car. “You as well, Tsar.”

  Sister stepped back, but didn’t lower her weapon.

  More bullets hit the underside of the RV.

  “Sister!”

  She glanced over her shoulder. Ladon had seen the mask of cold hate on her face many times over the centuries, but this fight might get her husband killed. She set her gun on the ground.

  Derek set his rifle next to his feet and Rysa slumped like a ragdoll against his side. The waves of heat radiating off her crashed over Ladon’s mind and boiled away all his control.

  He reached for her.

  “Do not move!” The voice boomed from the car again. “Stay exactly where you are, Dracos! Not even a flinch. Do you understand?”

  He’d pull this Shifter’s tongue from her head. “This will not end well, do you understand, little Shifter? We will find you.”

  “Hunt you,” Sister growled.

  “Morpher, enthraller, healer, it doesn’t matter,” Ladon yelled.

  “We know how to kill you.”

  Derek shuffled under Rysa’s weight. “She needs medical attention.” He dropped to the ground with Rysa against his shoulder. “Let us go so we can get her help.”

  By the gods, Ladon felt it—the fever made her ill but her joints ached and her muscles wanted to seize. Her nasty didn’t know what to do. It called to him and to Dragon, pleading for help.

  She needed them and they couldn’t respond.

  “Tell the dragons to show themselves. Now! Or we shoot the Tsar.”

  Nausea heaved into Ladon’s chest, flowing as much from Rysa’s pain as his own, and his legs began to buckle. He fought it, fought his own body’s betrayal, but he dropped to his knees anyway.

  “We told you to hold still!”

  “You came after me in ’84,” Derek yelled. “Shooting me is not the best course of action.” He jostled Rysa, doing his best to hold her head up.

  “They’re not here for you, Derek,” Ladon said. No, they were here for Rysa.

  Chapter Five

  A line of crackling energy ran from the tip of Sister-Dragon’s snout, down the ridges of her back, and to the end of her tail. Her growl vibrated through the ground more than moved through the air, and a tight, pointed plume of fire erupted from her mouth.

  She stepped over Derek then Rysa.

  His dragon also growled and his talons ground into the dirt just to the side of the embankment. He pulsed requests to his sister.

  Another plume erupted from Sister-Dragon, but she picked up Rysa’s still body.

  “Give us the Fate,” the Shifter woman’s voice said. No one exited the sedan, no windows rolled down, just a voice rolling from a hidden speaker.

  Rysa twitched. A burst of startled light flashed from Sister-Dragon and washed over Ladon and Sister, and then the glossy exterior of the sedan.

  The trunk opened with a hiss, and the lid lifted with a slow, hydraulic push.

  The pain sawing at Ladon’s strained ribs and the bite on his shoulder fueled an all-too-familiar fury. He could still cut free the anger. His consciousness would float away, and the rage would chew these little Shifters into gristle.

  But his sister was looking for an excuse, and if he mirrored back what poured from her, she’d hunt. They might get Rysa and Derek out but every Shifter on the planet would end up with a bullet in the head.

  Sister-Dragon held Rysa against her chest. Her hide oscillated between wild flares and mimicking the night.

  Ladon peered sideways into the completely empty cavern of the open trunk. It was a coffin awaiting Rysa’s overheating body.

  “Put the Fate in the trunk or you all die.” The voice echoed between the hill and the car.

  There were probably two inside, and they likely had other snipers.

  “Put her in the trunk. Now.”

  Ladon stepped toward Sister-Dragon. He lifted his wounded arm, testing his range of motion, and touched the dragon’s snout. The pain ricocheted, but at least the fury hadn’t made his body rigid.

  The dragon twisted her head and looked down at Rysa. I do not trust these Shifters, she pushed.

  Ladon nodded. “I know.” He took Rysa from Sister-Dragon, carefully cradling her head as he moved her into his arms.

  He placed one arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees, and he felt for her pulse. She twitched, still hot, and her heartbeat was too fast.

  A few paces away, Sister nodded.

  Rysa opened her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breath wheezed in and out, and her body tensed.

  “I’m sorry,” she rasped.

  Heat wafted off her like he’d picked up a cinder.

  He moved behind the sedan and held her up. The strain from his shoulder worked its way up his neck to his jaw as well as down, and amplified the pain in his rib. “Trust me,” he whispered. Then he kissed her forehead.

  His fury spread into his v
oice like flame from Dragon’s mouth. “You have healers. You swear you will help her?” he yelled at the Shifters. They probably didn’t have a healer who could stop Rysa’s fever. Class-one healers were extremely rare. But they might have someone who could slow it.

  “Yes.” A hint of crackle tainted the disembodied voice. This close to the sedan, Ladon felt the loudspeaker as much as heard it. They’d mounted it somewhere on the front of the car, probably in the grill—like a police vehicle.

  Ladon nodded and bent over, below the top of the trunk lid, as if he was about to place Rysa inside.

  His pressed his lips against her cheek.

  Let go, he mouthed, no vocalizations, just his lips against her skin.

  Rysa grinned. She went limp, and her arms slumped away from his neck.

  Ladon dropped her straight down into Dragon’s invisible hands.

  He leaned forward first. His damaged side screamed for him to stop but he swept the arm he’d had under Rysa’s shoulders down toward the knife by the tire.

  Rysa landed in Dragon’s waiting hands. The beast laid her on the dirt and immediately gripped the sides of the trunk. She rolled toward Dragon just as Ladon lifted himself onto the beast’s elbows.

  Ladon kicked into the trunk.

  The entire force of his movement erupted through his boots onto the back seat of the sedan.

  Outside, Dragon dropped and rolled around Rysa, and she vanished, too. Ladon’s connection to the beast stretched—he moved fast away from the vehicle with Rysa safe in his dragon arms.

  Ladon knocked down the back of the seat and whipped the knife into the passenger compartment of the car. It hit true, puncturing the shoulder of one Shifter as he turned. He yelped and thumped backward into the dash.

  Ladon kicked the driver in the head. The Shifter smacked against the window, and his entire body bounced back toward Ladon’s foot.

  Ladon kicked again, this time smashing the driver’s head hard enough against the door that the glass cracked. Shrill snapping and new refractions of light filled the interior. Another twist and Ladon pulled himself between the front seats.

  The Shifter with the knife in his shoulder opened his mouth to yell, but the heel of Ladon’s boot cracked his jaw.