A white form drifted in front of Lily—Drummond was back. “Come on!” he rasped. “I found him. The bastard with the kill-switch, the master control—whatever the hell you call it. He’s at the other end of this mess.”
“Who is he? What does he look like?”
“Tall, blond, prissy mouth ...” Drummond’s mouth kept moving, but without sound.
“You faded out again!” Behind him she saw Scott and Rule weaving and dodging, keeping the demon wolf busy but unable to stop it.
Drummond’s scowl deepened as if he was concentrating. He spoke slowly. “Four rings. One here, one at each rally. The master controls them all. Powers them. You have to . . .” His voice faded out again.
Should she trust him? He’d claimed not to know about death magic, but all of a sudden he knew about the rings and the master control—or whatever the hell it was. Did she have any damn reason to believe him? Drummond had died to save Mullins. That didn’t mean he wasn’t rooting for the demons at this party.
But if she didn’t go and he was telling the truth . . . what else was she going to do? If they didn’t destroy the amulet, they couldn’t stop the demon-possessed dopplegängers. Who wouldn’t die without a dose of mage fire, which Cullen couldn’t provide until he stopped seeing double.
“Rule!” she called “I think Chittenden’s here”—the description could fit Friar’s lieutenant—“and has the amulet! I’m going after him!”
He flung his head up. “No!” And the demon wolf charged him. He threw himself aside, rolled, and sprang to his feet.
Lily holstered her gun, which was no damn use whatsoever against creatures who considered a broken neck an inconvenience. And turned away from the man she loved while he battled for his life. Turned and ran.
Within seconds, Scott caught up with her. He didn’t say a word.
Rule must have sent him. Her eyes burned.
The field was clearing out faster than she would have thought possible, but it was far from empty. There were living people still fleeing. And there were bodies. A woman huddled next to one of those bodies, a man whose face and chest were so saturated with blood it was hard to see the ruin of his throat. It was horrible to do nothing. Horrible to keep running, but Lily did, chasing a white shape as vaguely formed as when she’d first seen it at the shooting range. A shape that was always a few yards ahead of her.
She ran. And ran. Scott kept pace beside her. They passed three clusters of fighting—lupi in both their forms, but mostly wolves, keeping demon wolves busy so they wouldn’t kill the humans who’d assembled here to root for an end to lupi.
As they drew near the Washington Monument, her ghostly guide suddenly veered to the left, toward a huddled mob of twenty or thirty people being circled by a pair of wolves. She followed, focusing on her breathing, on the even rise and fall of her legs, so she wouldn’t arrive too winded to do anything. And wondering what the hell she was supposed to do to save those people.
Wait a minute. She recognized one of the wolves. It was José. And he and the large gray wolf weren’t circling the people—they were patrolling, keeping one of the demon wolves away.
Stupid—she hadn’t noticed till just now, but the demon wolves were all alike. Of course they were. They’d all been made from blood or tissue from Brian’s wolf-form, so they were identical.
The ground shook.
Lily staggered, her stride broken. Someone screamed. The ground gave a second, harder shimmy, and she had to stop. Scott took her arm, steadying her.
A huge something rose from the ground. It was brownish gray and long, really long, and seemed to grow itself out of the earth, absorbing grass and dirt and rocks into itself as it became . No eyes, no legs, not much of anything but body . . . a segmented body three or four feet thick. Like an earthworm.
This time when the earth shook, Lily fell to her knees. So did Scott. And it kept on shaking.
Another form emerged, this one breaking and absorbing bits of Madison Street as it reared itself out of the earth . . . out and up, one end questing in the air as if seeking a scent. This one was even bigger, and it pulled itself together faster than the first one had.