this. I was an idiot. There had always been two Sons of Darkness. Two sons of Ioudas Issachar—Judas Iscariot—two fathers of all vamps, two black witches who had used the wood and iron spikes of Golgotha to bring their father back from the dead, and who had been the first blood drinkers. No way was I going to be allowed to avoid him. Shimon Bar-Judas. Holy crap.
“ICE and PsyLED believe an upper-level vamp came ashore in Florida, but they don’t know who they’re looking for or where he is,” Alex said, fingers clacking keys. “Every alphabet agency in the U.S. is a week behind. Looks like they’re acting on the assumption that the fangheads are headed to New Orleans. If they’re right, that gives us time to prepare and to warn your people.”
I remembered Sabina, the outclan priestess of the U.S. Mithrans, saying, once, of the elder Son of Darkness—Shimon’s older brother—Joseph Santana, aka Joses Bar-Judas, aka Yosace Bar-Ioudas, “He cannot be brought to true-death, Jane Yellowrock. He is all that we have to bargain with. He is all that we have to keep his brother, Shimon Bar-Judas, at bay. And Shimon has always been the more dangerous of the two.”
So of course I beheaded Joseph and fed his true-dead head and body to Brute. In hindsight? Crap. I’d do it again.
I needed to be human. It was night, dark enough for me to shift. I could shift into Beast day or night, but shifting back to my human form was a problem until after dark.
Beast wants cow. Beast hungers.
Later. I stood and trotted up the stairs and along the hallway to the suite I shared with Bruiser, through the soothing tall-ceilinged bedroom, decorated in cream and stone and soft green, into the cream-and-stone bath and the doorless shower. Sat. And thought about being human.
Pain sliced along my bones like obsidian knives. Shifting was never the same way twice. Sometimes more pain. Sometimes less pain. Either way, it wasn’t a piece of cake. Bones snapped and joints tore. I screamed.
* * *
* * *
I woke on the cool tile of the shower. Naked. Clean. Dying.
All the strength and energy I’d experienced as Beast were gone, leaving me exhausted and in pain. My skin was pale, my bloodless fingers almost white on the gray tile instead of their previous golden tones. I pressed on my middle, feeling the hard, pointed ends of the tumor in my belly. It was star-shaped, like my own, new, blended power. And like the new magics, it was deadly. The tumor was stealing all my circulation, using all my muscle protein to feed itself. My hair was a black tangle of lusterless shadow. I was a mess.
The only positive thing in all this was that while I was in Beast shape—which was healthy—the tumor didn’t grow. Beast’s body was just dandy. Staying Puma concolor gave my clan time to search for cures that might work on a two-souled Cherokee skinwalker. Chemo was out. Traditional and tribal forms of medicine hadn’t worked so far. The tumor was magic-based, and my pals the Everhart-Trueblood clan were compiling possibilities. But so far? Nada. Nothing. Zip. The star-shaped magic constantly fed the tumor it had created, and it was growing as if it was on steroids.
I pushed myself to my knees and pulled up on the tiled half wall until I was standing. Woozy. Weak. I straightened my spine, forced air in and out of my lungs, and went to the sink and the small tray where the CBD oil and hemp oil were kept. Both oils came from the cannabis plant, but the hemp oil was made from seeds and the CBD oil was made from a single strain of flowers and leaves. Eli had found a supplier who was top-notch, and the quality of the oils was too, making it the most expensive body oil I’d ever used. I took a CBD dose orally—a little bitter, a hint of turpentine—and rubbed more CBD oil on my body, applying it to my belly and the bottoms of my feet to decrease pain. I used the hemp oil on the parts of my back I could reach, shoulders, arms, and legs, to combat dry skin.
I moved out of the frigid bathroom and pulled on warm velour sweats and wool socks. The clothing was baggy and hid some of my weight loss. Having cancer sucked.
I took a peek in the tall mirror and saw a skinny, sick woman whose odd