Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(78)

We strolled up the driveway, taking our time, me on the right side and him on the left. The protective shell I’d been growing around my consciousness was almost complete. My mind floated in a tightly wrapped ball of vines spun from my magic. I’d begun building it the moment we decided on this trip. Maintaining it sapped my strength, but I had magic to spare.

Alessandro stopped and put his arm in front of me.

A creature perched at the top of the fountain, gripping its spire with oversize clawed fingers. Seven feet tall, it resembled an ape, slabbed with thick muscle under long nasty black fur. Its face was a horrifying meld of a baboon and a lion with a simian nose, massive jaws, and tiny eyes sunken deep into its skull. Sharp black quills thrust from its back, bristling like the needles of some nightmarish porcupine.

Revulsion hit me.

The beast stared at us. The quills on his back snapped upright.

Nausea swirled deep in the pit of my stomach and blossomed into fear. The urge to run gripped me, overwhelming my common sense. My body knew on a basic animal level that this thing was wrong and awful and the only way to survive was to run as fast and as far as I could.

Prime Nathan Sanders. A metamorphosis mage out of Alberta. Powerful, experienced, and nasty in a fight.

We had fought a metamorphosis mage before. Her name was Celia. Neither my magic, nor the bullets from the handguns Alessandro had summoned, worked on Celia after she’d transformed. My memory served up Alessandro splattered with blood, slicing a beast in half with a chainsaw. It had taken that chainsaw, a sword, and the world’s most powerful hunting revolver shot into her mouth to take her down. Later we found that Celia happened to be Nathan’s cousin.

A low growl sounded from my right. A larger version of the baboon lion waited under a tall oak. This one on all fours, bigger, thicker, with paws the size of dinner plates and claws like steak knives.

A third beast perched in the branches of the oak to Alessandro’s left, smaller than the largest monster but larger than the one on the fountain. Its fur was a dark, dirty red mottled with black, its face more cat than baboon, its body completely quadrupedal. It gripped the branch of the tree with all four feet, its black claws hooked into the bark like sickles. A reddish mane framed its head and thick neck. If it had the ability to transform into a human shape, no signs of that remained.

Luke and Gabin. Sanders had brought his sons.

Alessandro slid the screen off his shoulder and unfolded it calmly. I sent my magic twisting to Nathan on the fountain. His mind was completely opaque, inert without any humanity left. The lights were on, but nobody human was home. Nothing I did to this consciousness would have any effect. House Sanders were holos-metamorphs. Once they changed shape, only the prey drive remained. They locked on a target as if their life depended on it, pursued their prey with single-minded ferocity, and didn’t stop until they ripped them apart.

The beast on the fountain opened his mouth, showing us huge conical fangs.

I flicked my sword. The blade unfolded, snapping into shape. The sword generated its own null field. It would cut through anything as long as you fed it magic, but it burned through your power reserve in seconds. I had to use it sparingly.

The muscles on Luke, the largest beast, bunched. He gathered himself like a lion before a sprint. On the other side, catlike Gabin rose on the branch. The red mass around his neck, which I had mistaken for a mane, snapped upright like the hood of some crimson cobra.

Alessandro dropped the unfolded screen to the ground in front of me. I sent a pulse of magic through the blade. The organometallic inlay sucked it in, glowing, feeding off my power like a leech.

“I love you,” Alessandro said.

“I love you, too. Take the sword.”

“Keep it.”

Nathan flexed and leaped off the fountain, a veiny, flesh-colored membrane popping open along his arms. Alessandro lunged left, while I dodged right. Orange sparks burst above Alessandro’s hands, coalescing into a shotgun. The Mossberg thundered in a three-shot burst.

Boom-boom-boom!

The slugs hit the simian beast in midair. Nathan screeched, dropping, his trajectory aborted.

Luke charged toward us from my right.

I lunged into his path, feeding a wallop of magic into my null blade.

Alessandro spun toward Gabin still perched in the tree on the left and fired again.

Boom-boom-boom!

Luke barreled at me, fast, eyes shining with malice. I spun out of the way half a second before he would’ve hit me and sliced at his side as he tore past me. The null sword carved through ribs, muscle, and gristle like they weren’t even there. The beast screamed, an eerily human sound coming from an animal’s throat, and kept running, ignoring me.

Boom-boom-boom!

Alessandro sank a three-round burst into Nathan as he twitched on the ground, spun, fired toward Luke, and dashed to the side, as Gabin pounced on him. Alessandro backed away, dodging the claws like he knew where Gabin would strike before he even aimed. The cat’s shoulder bled. Alessandro must have grazed it with that second burst.

Luke missed Alessandro and clumsily turned around. I had wrecked his insides with my slash. Even with the insane healing powers of the metamorphosis mages, it would slow him down.

Pain tore at my mind. The flexible shell of my magic blocked most of it, but what filtered through slashed me like a white-hot buzz saw. Kaylee.

I cut off the magic flow to the sword and strained, sending more vines to wrap around my mind. Her range was longer than mine. I could barely sense her to my right, somewhere in the house. I needed a boost to take her on. The mat was four feet away.