to find the prisoner. The other werewolves and vampires who formed our party had already thrown themselves into the fight, evening up the numbers and giving heart to our besieged Family. I decided I had to risk the Change myself and hope that Ken-san’s healing had helped patch me up.
To my vast relief, the Change came quickly, and as it always did, with a thrilling sensation of power and goodness and enough adrenaline or endorphins or pixie dust to blot out the rapid and radical metamorphosis of my bones and musculature. I was still upright, still dressed like Zoe, but now covered in a wolf’s pelt, with upright ears and a jaw line that was more canine than human. I reveled in the feel of my claws lengthening and teeth growing, and the thought of a fight made me shiver with delight. For the past few hours, I’d been confused, scared, and weak. Now I felt like a purposeful demigod.
I gave into my baser instincts and howled, loving that I had a cause to fight for. I howled again, reveling in the way my war cry reverberated against the walled compound and was audible over the rain and wind and waves.
This also had the effect of attracting attention, which was all to the good. I dodged an overhand attack from an Order goon swinging a blaster; he’d probably run out of the chemicals they used to weaken us. On my way back upright, I slashed at his thigh and caught him across the femoral artery. Dark blood splashed against the already rain-soaked gravel and he went down screaming.
A shout from Rose. “In the back building, by the cliff! That’s where our Cousin is!” She ducked a blow and slashed at the calf of the Order soldier who’d missed. He went down, and as he did so, a werewolf twisted his neck for him. The werewolf nodded her thanks to Rose and found another combatant. The Family redoubled its combined efforts to break through the Order ranks.
I circled around, hoping to find a hole in the ranks that I could sneak through. I managed to kick one Order soldier in the back, giving a vampire the chance to sink his teeth into the guy’s neck. Then more shouts, and a scream. Rose was attacked by the Fellborn, who’d scrambled away from its assailants. She fought well with her knife, but the thing was single-minded in its brutality. I’d communicated with one of the Mark Twos briefly in Boston just . . . could it only have been hours ago? I learned that even they craved nothing but food and Fangborn corpses. I pulled it off her and bit deep into its neck. The blood was foul and black and, with the Fellborn weakened by its first attackers, soon stopped flowing.
Rose was bleeding badly. Oracles don’t heal as quickly as shapeshifters and she could barely walk. I picked her up, slung her over my shoulder, and pelted back to the vehicles, the gravel crunching and shifting under my feet. I didn’t dare try to heal Rose myself—that was a vampire power, not one werewolves ordinarily had. But her siblings, who apparently knew their share of battle first aid, were ready and waiting. They got to work on her.
“That was quick,” Ivy said. “Told you I was a better fighter.”
“But I found the captured oracle,” Rose retorted. Then she grimaced as Ash began to clean the wound on her arm.
“And so that’s why you were the one to go,” he said, working steadily.
“You guys okay?” I asked.
Three nodded responses. I ran back to the gate. I decided to cut through the first building, hoping to find a way around the Order.
I’d vaguely been wondering why there were two Fangborn safe houses so close together, and now I knew. This wasn’t a house at all so much as it was a museum.
I entered a long hall, the interior walls of which had traditional paper screens I recognized from samurai films as shoji. The light in the room was low but far better than the rainy night outside. Along the walls on both sides were tables covered in arms and armor from all over the world. Filing cabinets and notebooks and other recording information, even a photography stand, were scattered about in a makeshift lab space.
The weapons all had one thing in common: They were bladed. One in particular spoke to me—a long, slightly curved Japanese sword of Tamahagane steel on a table at the