Half a mile later Raphael stopped. “The magic is up,” he said softly. “I know.” “You’re slower in this form.” I had run as fast as I could. When we were both in human form, I was faster. But in warrior form, he beat me. “You can’t keep up.” I realized what he was saying. “No.” “Andrea . . .” “No!” “We’re short on time,” he said. “There’s a little boy out there with at least two vampires. We don’t even know if he’s alive.” My heart hammered in my chest. “You don’t understand. I lose control when I’m her.” “Andrea, please,” he said. “We’re losing time.” I closed my eyes. He was right. We had to save the boy. We had to get the apples away from Lynn. I had to . . . I stripped off my clothes and reached to the beast living inside me. She smiled and leapt out, flowing over my arms, my legs, my back, giving me her strength. My bones stretched, my muscles swelled, and there I stood, revealed and naked. The shapeshifters got a choice: human, warrior form, or animal. I had only two: the human me and the secret me. Raphael’s eyes shone with red. He ran. I swiped up my crossbow and then dropped it. My claws were too long. I wouldn’t be able to work it. I’d have to fight with my claws and teeth. I grabbed the little toy car and hid it in my fist. Raphael was a mere shadow in the distance. I burst into a run. It felt like flying, light and easy. My muscles welcomed the exertion and I sprinted, catching him with ease. Together we dashed through the woods, two humanoid nightmares, fast and slick, our voices faint whispers on the draft. “I can’t see you.” “I don’t want you to see me.” I purposely picked my way so he caught only the mere flashes of me. “Don’t hide from me,” he asked. I ignored him. Suddenly he burst through the brush. I had no chance to hide. He saw all of me: my limbs, my face that was neither animal nor beast, my breasts . . . “You’re lovely,” he whispered as he passed me in a burst of speed. “You’re sick,” I told him. “You’ve a perfect union of human and animal: proportionate and elegant and strong. Your form is what we aspire to. How’s that sick?” “I’m a human!” “So am I. You don’t have to hide from me, Andrea. I think you are beautiful.” Nobody, not human, not shapeshifter, not even my mother had ever told me that the beast form was beautiful. Inside me, the human me put her hands on her face and cried. Miles flashed by. We passed a house in a blur of speed. Trees parted, underbrush snapped, and we burst into a clearing. A ward ignited with gold, barring our way in a translucent wall. Inside the ward, a dark-haired boy crouched on the ground, hugging his knees. Past him a dead vampire lay broken on the grass, its skull shattered. To the left, an unnaturally large snake was dying on the grass, a second vampire caught in its coils. The vamp’s neck was broken, its vertebrae crushed. Blood drenched the snake’s coils. With each new squeeze, more blood washed the scales. Past them, a ring of colonnades carved of pure white stone guarded a narrow apple sapling. Four yellow apples hung from the branches. The fifth apple, with a small piece bitten off, lay on the grass, by the hand of a dark-haired woman. She slumped on the grass. Her horribly distended stomach had ripped through her tailored slacks. Oh no. She ate it. We were too late. “Now look what you did.” A man walked up to us, his eyes fixed on Spider Lynn. “I done told you to leave the apples alone.” Raphael snarled. The fur on his back rose. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, built with strength in mind. Dark stubble peppered his face. He wore a white T-shirt, a pair of old jeans, and yellow work boots. A flannel shirt hung from his blocky shoulders. He looked like a good old boy in search of a porch with a rocking chair and a glass of iced tea. He turned to us and said, “Hi.” This was surreal. “Who are you?” I asked. “I’m Teddy Jo.” “You’re the man who called me about Raphael running from Cerberus?” “I called Kate,” he said. “You answered the phone. Do you have the bracelet?” “What?” “Doulos’s bracelet. You have it?” He saw the bracelet on Raphael’s arm. “Oh good then. We’re in business.” Lynn squirmed on the grass and began to cry. “What is happening to me?” Teddy Jo glanced at her. “You’ve brought this on yourself.” Raphael lunged at him. His clawed fingers closed about Teddy Jo’s throat, the bracelet glinting with steel on his forearm. “What are you doing here?” “Well now, you might want to rethink that,” Teddy Jo said, raising his arm. His sleeve fell back, revealing an identical bracelet, but made of gold. “Given as we’re on the same side.” Magic slammed my senses. Teddy Jo’s eyes turned solid black. The flannel shirt ripped on his back and two colossal black wings thrust into the night. Fire ran from his bracelet down into his hand and snapped into a flaming blade. “Thanatos,” Lynn squeaked. The angel of death clamped Raphael’s wrist and squeezed. Raphael bared his teeth and crushed Thanatos’s throat. Lynn’s stomach twisted. She howled as if cut. Alex’s nephew jerked. “Stop!” I barked at the two men. “There’s a kid in shock sitting behind that ward, locked with whatever is about to crawl out of Lynn’s gut! Raphael, break the damn ward. Teddy Jo, I swear, you don’t let go of him this instant, I’ll rip your wings off!” The two of them stared at me. “Do it!” Teddy Jo let go. Raphael thrust his arm into the ward and the wall of gold drained down, revealing the shrine. I leapt inside and swept the boy up into my arms. “Listen to me.” He stared at me with empty eyes. To him I was a monster. I opened my hand and showed him the car. He touched it gently and I handed it to him. “I won’t hurt you. Uncle Alex’s house, do you know where it is?” He nodded. “I want you to run to it and not look back. Okay?” He clutched the car in his fist. I set him down and he ran. Raphael snarled at Teddy Jo. “What the hell are you doing here?” Teddy Jo shrugged his massive wings. “I’m here to set things right. I serve Hades just like Doulos, except that he was a priest and I’m something other.” “Where were you until now?” “Look, fella, I follow the rules. I would have liked to come down earlier and start chopping people’s heads off, but I have to sit on my hands and wait until someone bites the damn apple. I’m the emergency brake here. That’s what makes me the good guy.” Lynn screamed. “And there she goes,” Teddy Jo said. Lynn’s stomach tore. A slithering green mass spilled forth, and as it boiled out, Lynn was sucked in, almost as if her body had turned inside out. The mass grew larger and larger, bigger than a house, bigger than Cerberus. Scales formed on its surface. Magic roiled inside it, whipping my senses into overdrive. The mass flexed and uncoiled. An enormous reptilian body thrust across the clearing. Three dragon heads snapped at the air with wicked teeth, jerking on long necks. The dragon tasted the night and roared. Teddy Jo shot straight up and hovered, his sword a beacon of light. “I’ll take the center head. You two do as you please.” Lynn the dragon whipped about and I saw her eyes: cold and green, devoid of any humanity or feeling. Something inside me snapped. Fury drowned the world, flushing the rational thought. I was very angry. She had stolen the body of a man, denying his mate her mourning. She had tortured that man. She had kidnapped and terrorized a child. She deserved to die. Teddy Jo swept at the dragon. The flaming sword carved through her neck like it was butter. The head tumbled down in a whiff of scorched meat. Then the stump quivered and split in half, and two new heads sprouted in its place and lunged for Teddy Jo. “A hydra! Gods damn it!” Teddy Jo veered out of the way. I smelled her flesh, waiting for me just beneath her scales. My fingers flexed. My tongue licked my fangs. Rage warmed me from the inside, hot and sharp and so very welcome. Andrea, the knight of the Order, would have to sleep through tonight. Tonight I was beastkin, the daughter of a hyena. The dragon’s flesh beckoned, elastic and smooth, coiling before me, begging for a taste. The world went red. I charged.