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Chapter Thirty-one

CISCO AND PETER both had their guns out I&039;d have loved to go for a gun or a knife, but wrestling the weretiger took boththat hard to close on my throat, and the hand at my belly was almost immobile except for the fact that the hooked claws she&039;d conjured from her skin had pierced my side

She called to the boys, "Don&039;t yell for help or she&039;s dead I don&039;t want her dead Just let me leave with her and I won&039;t hurt her"

"You&039;ve already hurt her, I can sun was very steady on us, but she&039;d taken all his kill shots If they only wounded her, she would have time to kill me before they could kill her

"A little prick, that&039;s all She likes pricks, don&039;t you, Anita?"

My voice was a little strained fro her hand fro as they seee because the huer claw But they were plenty big enough to tear out ut wound, but the throat would be fatal Ito kill me, do it, but don&039;t hed, a throaty sound Her power flared, hot, so hot, al Hot liquid burst over ht was blood, but I knew better It was that clear liquid that shifters lost when they changed When the change was smooth it was like heated water; when it wasn&039;t selatinous and chunky This flowed like water She never hesitated, or stumbled, as her body re-formed around me Fur and muscle flowed underinsects, so o? She had the wrong girl for panic I kept o even as ainst me Jesus, the control she had, to be able to shift this s so It would have been i how close her new fangs were tocolor She was striped pale lee and black? If I lived, I&039;d ask someone

"You&039;re one of the Harlequin&039;s anirowled, "Yes"

"You&039;ll never make it out of here if you hurt Anita," Cisco said

"She knohere my mistress rests in the day; I can&039;t let her share that knowledge, can I, Cisco?"

He flinched at her using his name Always harder to kill someone you know

"Because if your un at the floor, as if he knew he didn&039;t have a shot he could take Rehest scores on the gun range of any guard I was about to bet my life on his skill

Her hand strained towardit off Her ar to Mercia," I said

"No," she growled, and eased a few sliding steps backward Cisco and Peter moved the same space forward It was like an aard dance

"Nivia," I said

"How do you know the names?"

"Does it matter?" I asked

"Yes," she whispered "Tell me who&039;s talked to you"

"Jesus, Soledad, don&039;t make me do this," Cisco said

Soledad stopped whispering to ood shot, Cisco, but are you that good? Are you sure you&039;re that good?"

It was plain on his face that in that uess I wouldn&039;t have been either I&039;d have given a great deal for Edward in that moment Or Remus, or Claudia

Peter said, "What&039;s the rule?"

Cisco allanced at hiun steady, but he didn&039;t have a killing shot and he knew it Soledad began to back down the hallith me in her arms Just a few steps, but slow and steady

Cisco and Peter un pointed, but frankly he was as likely to hit un was still pointed at the floor He didn&039;t seem to knohat to do

Peter said, "The rule is that if they have a weapon and want to take you someplace else, it&039;s so they can kill you slower" His voice was alht I understood what he e hiht, Peter," I said

He looked up His eyes met mine Cisco said, "God" I threwhair to cover her eyes for a second Peter dropped to one knee and shot at her legs The shots reverberated in the hallway Soledad dropped abruptly to her knees, but claws curled deeper insidefor o of the wrist atoutShe clawed at my side and stomach It felt like she&039;d hit e, like a blow It stole my breath, or I&039;d have screa over us There still wasn&039;t a clear shot She tried to crawl backward on her wounded legs, while I held on to her hand, and held it a fraction away fro to find a shot Peter threw hiround with her underneath us She stopped trying forto wrestle her hand away from him instead of me Her hand wasn&039;t onhurt But I kept her off his throat It was all I could do I had a unshots exploded just behind rip on her as the inside of unfire beside it Her body jerked, and still she tried for ht have nicked ; his gun round in a breathless, deaf heap He was up on one arun still shoved into her face Peter&039;s T-shirt was in rags over his sto, but I couldn&039;t hear hiun out and pointed before my back hit the wall, before I could truly see as happening

Soledad&039;s head was a redall over the floor, her brains Even for a weretiger, this was dead Peter was still over the body, his gun pu by now, but I couldn&039;t hear well enough to say Cisco knelt beside hi, but I couldn&039;tinto the body, then tried to ease Peter off her Peter let him ease hiazine out, put it in his left jacket pocket, got a spare clip out of his right-hand pocket, and reloaded His stock was pretty high with her Maybe ouldn&039;t get hiet him to stand up and move away from the body I think Cisco orried about how Peter would react when the shock wore off It s happened at once I couldn&039;t hear it, but I must have seen movement out of the corner of my eye, because I turned to see Edward and couns drawn The door to Richard&039;s roo in it His beautiful chest was a mass of scars on one side He was pale as death, and looked as if the only thing keeping hiht was the doorway The scars shohere the bullets had taken a chunk out of all that nice , but I still couldn&039;t hear anything but the ringing silence in my own head Gunshot too close to the ear I&039;d be lucky if ed

I felt movement nearer to me, and turned, but I was slow I think Peter wasn&039;t the only one in shock Cisco was pulling Peter to his feet by the collar of his jacket Cisco was shouting so I couldn&039;t see what the proble but Soledad&039;s body Then I looked at the body and realized that she was still in tiger form Her body hadn&039;t reverted to human form Dead shapeshifters always revert to huun and had it ai up and threw itself at Peter and Cisco

Chapter Thirty-two

CISCO FOULED PETER&039;S shot by throwing his body in the way of the claws I got off two shots before the faceless body brought the the sa to find a place to fire into that fur that wouldn&039;t hit the two boys underneath it They had saved ht, Boys

Claudia and Reot there first, because you just can&039;t outrun a shapeshifter Edward and Olaf were close behind, but they didn&039;t get there first It was Claudia and Reun fired up through the tiger&039;s chest Claudia actually pushed ainst the wall Too erous to us as Soledad

Whoever was shooting was trying to h her chest Her body jerked and juered to her feet I swear that I could see the hallway through the hole in her lower chest But even as I watched, theShit It was Peter who had shot a hole through her Cisco was trying to breathe through a throat that wasn&039;t there anymore

Edward and Olaf were beside each other, firing into Soledad&039;s body like they were on a shooting range So cool, so professional, so accurate It was a little hard to one to their knees around Edward, Olaf, Re so they wouldn&039;t get in each other&039;s way, a very organized slaughter The tiger&039;s body ju puppet But she didn&039;t go down I fired from the here Claudia had thrown me I emptied my clip into Soledad and watched her body and fur flow over the wounds It was fucking silver and she was treating it like it was ordinary bullets I&039;d never seen a shapeshifter able to do that Even fairies, once you opened a hole in the, didn&039;t heal like this I emptied my clip and did almost exactly what Peter had done earlier, except thatlike a wereanything She was acting like a rotting vampire, that special kind of undead that were rare in the United States Of course, herwas co, distantly, as if they weren&039;t all standing right next tosilence I yelled, "Fire, we need to set her on fire!" I must have yelled it too loud because they all looked atback down the corridor Seeing hih that I juain I turned back to the action, and found the body up and aping wound Her lungs had to be gone, but shearcs that ht I fired at that blur until un and went for a blade, and knew I&039;d never make it

A second blur was in front of h that I saw stars before I realized that the second blur was Claudia She&039;d thrown her body in the way, and was slugging it out hand to claw She must have been out of ammo, too Those claws sliced up her chest, and she went into a defensive crouch, protecting herself as well as she could The tiger screamed, or roared at us, and then turned and ran the other way It was almost funny, because for a breath we all just stood there Then almost as a mass we ran after her My stoe, as if the ht It made me stumble, then I found my feet, and I ran If I could run, I couldn&039;t be that hurt, right? I could feel blood flowing down the front of ht move the vamps, or warn someone, or set up an ambush We had to stop her, had to But we couldn&039;t run like the shapeshifters ran Re still

They bayed her at the double glass doors They bayed her within sight of the parking lot, in sight of freedom Remus was cut up now, too They formed a circle around her, double thick in front of the doors She crouched in the center of that circle, snarling at the I could still see that she was beautiful Graceful in that way that the cat lycanthropes seery

Edward popped a fresh azine home He pulled the slide back and put one in the chamber The sound echoed around the circle Not everyone had h of them did that it was eerie and businesslike

Soledad snarled with her tiger fangs "My death will not stop the Harlequin fro you My mistress&039;s death will not protect you fro"