Faded Steel Heat

48

Max surprised us all. Horrible news piled atop horrible news prodded him back to life instead of finishing him. Maybe the pain was just too big to encompass. Or maybe he was too long in the habit of meeting Fate head-on. He glared at our captives but did not touch. He would take a practical, businesslike approach to revenge.

Both changers still twitched and flopped. They would've screamed if not for their gags.

Gilbey left to divert Ty and Lance.

Marengo North English, Belinda, and Nicks had been asked to step out. Max didn't want to share this with them.

Lance followed Ty into the study. Ty was on crutches. You didn't see that much. He was pale and angry. "Fuck up again, Garrett?"

"Be quiet," Max said. His voice was calm and flat and cold. Ty responded instantly. "Sit down."

Ty sat. Likely he hadn't heard that voice in a decade.

"This isn't Garrett's fault. He wanted me to be more careful. Somebody meant to murder us all tonight. Who knows why? We've stymied them. Because we let Garrett do a little. Blame the mess on me. We did capture five shapeshifters." He hadn't been surprised to hear that the secret police were watching the house. "Manvil. What about the other one?"

Gilbey nodded. He must have been up to something.

"Five?" Ty croaked. He stared at the two squirming in front of the fire. That had burned down some now but still put out a lot of heat. The changers didn't like that.

"Garrett dealt with three more outside the house." He didn't mention Tom or Kittyjo. Yet. He looked at me. "We'll get their story?"

"If it can be gotten."

"There's another one here in the house, Ty," Weider said. "I expect to deal with it momentarily."

So Gilbey had been up to something. I should've warned him that the creatures could feel one another's distress.

"That we know about," I reminded. "Changers are almost mythical around here. We don't know anything about them. We see the giant meat-eating thunder lizards more often." It was a bad time for thunder lizards, though. "Worst case I know of, and that's probably a fairy tale, involved a family of changers that operated in the forest north of town during the last century. I didn't figure out what was going on here just because changers are so rare. I wouldn't have thought of them at all if weird stuff didn't happen to me all the time."

I headed for the door. Weider frowned but understood when I leaned against the wall where I'd be out of sight when the door opened.

My timing was impeccable. The pseudo-Kittyjo walked in barely a minute later, insufficiently suspicious of a summons from the Old Man. That surprised me.

She didn't seem to sense the distress of the two we had collected already. Was the silver responsible?

Gilbey stepped over to hold the door. When it swung shut there were two of us behind her. She didn't understand till she got a look at me.

Ty broke the hard silence. "What's going on, Dad?"

"This isn't your sister. It's something that murdered her and took her shape."

"Dad?"

"Kittyjo is dead, Ty. Believe it. Tom is dead. Lucas Vloclaw is dead. They were murdered. They were replaced by these monsters." He indicated the roasting shapechangers.

I had my little crossbow ready. I let the changer have a look.

"What did you things want?" Weider demanded.

Ty didn't get it. "Jo, what is this crap?" He did see that there was something strange about her, though.

She seemed stranger by the second.

She was changing! She was maintaining the outward appearance of Kittyjo Weider but inside she was doing something that would, probably, improve her chance of escape. Or, if she was bloody-minded enough, she was becoming something fast and deadly.

I said, "It's changing, people."

The Kittyjo thing glared at me. Gilbey moved. The changer turned his way. I poked it. Felt like I'd slammed my fist into a leather bag full of rocks, too.

The shapechanger didn't go down. It just turned on me. Evidence was accumulating: Shapeshifters were not overly endowed with intelligence.

I ducked a blow like a lightning bolt. Gilbey applied a couple of kidney punches. Neither had much effect. He barked in pain. His knuckles leaked blood.

Ty hollered something about leaving Jo alone.

I plinked the thing with my crossbow, in the throat. My bolt penetrated barely an inch. The changer stopped to fiddle with it.

Gilbey was nearer the weapons collection. He seized a ferocious antique mace, topped the changer a few times. I readied another quarrel. The shifter decided it didn't want to play anymore. It left. Without bothering to open the door.

I loosed another bolt. It struck the small of the creature's back, right in its spine.

The changer sprawled forward, fingertips dangling over the brink of the grand stair. I told Gilbey, "I used to be pretty good with one of these things."

"So I see."

The shifter couldn't get up. It tried pulling itself forward. That worked. It tumbled ass over appetite all the way to the ballroom floor.

I galloped after it.

It looked nothing like Kittyjo now. In fact, it had a distinct thunder-lizard look. Developing armor plates clashed with Kittyjo's dress. A nub of a tail wiggled under the red cloth.

People shrieked. The orchestra stopped playing. A crowd collected. Lance joined me over the changer, shaking. I told him, "She was probably the first one replaced. She would have been the easiest."

Ty joined us, having come down by clinging to the stair rail. He wanted to hurt somebody. He stared at the thing that had replaced his sister and maybe grew up a little. He put his anger aside, found the hidden Weider steel. "I apologize, Garrett. I was out of line."

"That's all right. It's tough."

"This is too big for us to squabble amongst ourselves."

"I'll buy that."

Ty nodded. He scanned the crowd. "That spine shot was all that stopped it."

Worth remembering. "Still only looks temporary." This looked like one of those nightmares where the monster keeps getting up and coming.

Ty said, "Lance, Giorgi went up to Mother's room. Alyx is up there, too. They'll need some support."

I added, "Tinnie should be there, too." I wondered where Belinda was. And somebody needed to watch the changers in Weider's study.