This Broken Wondrous World (24 page)

“Except when she saw Celebrity Edition Boy,” muttered Sophie.

“You're not jealous of La Perricholi, too?”

“A bit hard not to be when she's bloody undressing you with her eyes right in front of me.”

“It's not
me
she likes.” I looked down at my smooth, tanned arms and hands. “It's the glamour.”

“No, Boy. You don't actually look much different. The stitches tend to distract humans a bit, but you've always been hot.” She raised one thin eyebrow. “Do you honestly think I'd date someone who wasn't?”

“Well—”

“But what if now that she's seen you like this, when the glamour fades, the stitches won't be so distracting? What if she fancies you?”

I cupped her pale, heart-shaped face in my hands. “She and Henri can pine together then.”

“Hmmm,” she said, a slight smile forming on her lips.

“Feel better?”

“Nearly. I think I might need a kiss to seal the deal.”

So we kissed, with the ocean at our side, wind blowing through our hair and pulling at our clothes. Her lips were still so soft and sweet to me even after all this time. Sure, a hostile army lurked in the distance ready to descend on us at any time,
and my cousin had mysteriously disappeared yet again. But that just made this moment feel all the more important. I wasn't sure when we'd have another like it.

SOPHIE AND I
waited for hours, lounging on the hood of the car and staring out across the glittering water as the fat red sun began to slide below the horizon. But Henri never came back. I was about to suggest we go look for him when Sophie suddenly sat up.

“Shite, there, do you see it?” she said, her voice hushed.

It took me a moment, squinting against the glare of the setting sun, but then I saw little boats spilling out of the ship like ants escaping from a flooding nest.

“How many do you think there are?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Fifty or so? It's hard to make out. The sun is right in my eyes.”

“Red sky at night, sailor's delight,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind. We better call it in. Vi?”

“Already on it,” said Vi. “Mozart says they're on their way.”

“What are the five of us going to do against all of
that
?” asked Sophie, her eyes wide.

I took her hand in mine. “Sophie . . . maybe you should, uh, let Claire handle this part.”

She looked up at me and the fear in her eyes was suddenly swept away by a strange sadness. “Oh. Right. Sure.”

“I mean, I was just thinking—”

“No, no. You're spot-on. Just . . . uh . . .” She gave me a sudden, oddly uncertain look. “One last kiss, then?”

“Of course,” I said.

She smiled brightly then, all sadness gone. “You're a prince.”

She tilted her head up and I leaned down and pressed my lips gently against hers. She ran her cool fingers through my hair and leaned into me. I felt her mouth begin to change as her body shifted and lengthened. Then, suddenly, she grabbed a fistful of my hair and kissed me hard, pushing me back against the car windshield.

“God damn it, you look good,” Claire said huskily against my neck as she pressed down on me. “Do you think we have time for a quickie before the others get here?”

“Probably not.”

“You're probably right.” She grabbed my head with both hands and pressed one last kiss before releasing me.

“Uh, hi,” I said, grinning.

After a moment, she smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to apologize for.”

“Something must be wrong with me. This whole situation . . .” She gestured toward the slowly advancing boats. “It's got me all worked up for some reason.”

“It's not wrong if it keeps us alive today,” I said.

She grinned fiercely. “You can bloody well count on it. Because I'm taking a rain check on that quickie, and I plan to collect.”

So we waited, ready to take on whatever came out of those boats. But it was hard to keep ourselves pumped up and ready to fight. The boats were so slow sometimes I wasn't sure if they were making any progress at all. When Maria, La Perricholi, Mozart, and Laurellen arrived twenty minutes later, the boats hadn't even made it halfway to the coast.

“Where's Henri?” asked Maria.

“No idea,” I said. “He was gone when we got here.”

She shook her head. “That boy . . . Well, we can't go looking
for him now.”

We stared out at the small fleet of boats creeping closer.

“How many do you suppose are in each boat?” asked Claire.

La Perricholi frowned as she looked through the binoculars. “I can't tell exactly
what
is on the boats. They're packed in so tight all I can see are the tops of their helmets. But it looks to be about twenty to a boat.”

“How are we going to hold back that many?” I asked.

“Ruthven is on his way,” said Mozart. “With what he described as ‘formidable firepower.' So we only have to hold them back for a little while.”

“Even still,” said Claire. “We're looking at six against hundreds. Not great odds.”

“I brought a few things that will help,” said La Perricholi. She opened the back of the van and pulled out a couple of big gas cans. “Pour these along the waterline. When they disembark, we'll light them up so they'll have to charge through a wall of fire.”

“Wow,” I said, hefting a gas can.

“That's not the wow.” La Perricholi climbed into the back of the van. There was a harsh grating sound, like metal scraping against metal. “When they get through the wall of fire,” she called, “we take them down with this.” She dragged out a massive machine gun.

“Okay, yeah, that's the wow,” said Claire.

We poured the gas, mounted the machine gun on top of the van, and spread ourselves along the beachline. Maria took the machine-gun station, with Laurellen feeding the belt. La Perricholi had her pistols, and Mozart had shifted into wolf. La Perricholi asked me and Claire if we wanted weapons. Claire accepted a gun, but I'd said no. I'd never used a gun and this
didn't seem like an ideal time to try something new.

So then we waited some more.

“This is just excruciating,” observed Laurellen as we watched the boats crawl slowly closer.

“You'd think they'd fan out more,” I said. “Instead of staying all jammed together like that. Take advantage of their numbers.”

“It is strange,” admitted La Perricholi. “Either whoever is leading them isn't very smart—”

“Or there's another, less obvious plan in motion,” said Maria.

Hot and cold flashes started traveling though my body. One moment I was sweating, the next I was shivering. At first I had no idea what was going on, but then I glanced down and saw flickers of stitches. The extra stress of waiting was burning up the last of the glamour. That was fine. I wanted to be my full size when I met this enemy. I wanted to look like myself. And by the time the boats hit the shore, I did.

I still couldn't tell what we were up against. It was dark now, and they were jammed so tight in their boats all I could see was a squirming mass of white, brown, and black fur dressed in army green.

“Fire!” shouted Maria.

La Perricholi shot a flare gun at the pooled gas by the water and the wall of fire lit up the night. I could hear animal shrieks on the other side. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Maria ready at the machine gun, waiting for the first ones to cross the line.

Except they didn't. I could just make out shapes climbing over each other to get away from the fire. But more boats were coming in behind them, pressing forward, knocking the ones in front back toward the flames. The air was filled with the shrill shrieks, but they didn't sound like battle cries. They sounded like terrified
animals.

“Something's not right,” Maria called over the noise. “Everyone hold your fire and stay back.”

We waited as the fire slowly burned itself out. Finally, I could see them. They were about the size and shape of humans, but squashed under their army helmets were twitching little noses, long floppy ears, and innocent eyes. Rabbit people.

“What the hell . . .” said Claire. “Are they dangerous?”

“They don't look it,” said La Perricholi.

“Perhaps this was all an elaborate ruse,” said Maria. “But to distract us from what?”

The rabbit people started to cautiously emerge from the boats and shuffle onto the beach. They looked around timidly, shivering. They were not armed. They didn't speak. In fact, it seemed like they weren't any more intelligent than regular rabbits.

Mozart, still in wolf form, slunk closer to the large clump of confused-looking rabbit people, his belly low to the ground as he sniffed carefully.

Then his lips peeled back in a snarl and he growled low.

Stephen Hyde burst up from the cluster of rabbit people and grabbed Mozart by the throat.

Mozart growled but it was cut short as Stephen squeezed, a manic grin spread across his face.

The rabbit people started moving in all directions, falling over each other so that they piled up, making it hard to see Stephen and Mozart.

“I can't get a precise shot with this!” yelled Maria. “I might hit Mozart! Camilla!”

La Perricholi nodded and took careful aim with her pistol, but a fleeing rabbit person bumped into her arm as she fired and her shot went wide. At the same time, Claire and I were trying to
reach him, but the gunshot made the rabbit people panic even more. They swarmed the beach and we had to shove our way through a wall of fur and wide, frightened eyes.

“You've been sniffing around too much, wolf,” said Stephen as he squeezed Mozart's throat. “Best put an end to that!”

Stephen held up a thin silver spike. Maria's scream drowned out the squeaks of the panicking rabbit people and the sound of Stephen's laughter as he plunged the silver stake into Mozart's chest.

We all hit the ground when Maria started to unload the machine gun, her face contorted with rage. Blood and fur sprayed everywhere as rabbit people fell. Stephen used one for a shield as he lifted Mozart's limp body, now shifting from wolf to man, and hurled Mozart at her. His naked body crashed into the machine gun, knocking it off its stand and sending Laurellen and Maria over the side of the van. Laurellen landed flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. But Maria landed on her feet in a crouch and drew knives from her boots as she stood up.

“You will not live to see the sunrise!” she hissed between clenched teeth.

“No, Maria!” shouted La Perricholi. She had been taking aim at Stephen, but now Maria was in the line of fire. “Fall back!”

But Maria was past falling back, past hearing, maybe past thinking. She lunged for Stephen. He dodged her knife, then came in and playfully slapped her face so hard she reeled back for a moment. But she lunged in again.

Claire and I struggled to get out from under the pile of dead and dying rabbit people. La Perricholi cursed, threw her guns to one side, and jumped into the fight to help Maria.

“Ladies, I am honored!” said Stephen. “Two generations of La Perricholi? I will snuff out the entire stinking order in one fight!”

As they fought it looked pretty clear that they'd need our help to take down Stephen. I saw now how much he had been holding back during our first fight. Not only was he faster, stronger, and more brutal, he seemed not to feel any pain. He let Maria stab him just so he could break her arm. As he twisted it, he twisted the knife in his own gut. He was about to tear her head off with his bare hands, but La Perricholi took advantage of the moment to come in with a roundhouse kick to his face. He only laughed as blood and teeth sprayed from his mouth, snatching her foot out of the air and flinging her across the beach to smash into the car windshield.

Claire and I were free of the rabbit people by then and charged in. I got there first and took a swing at his head as hard as I could. He took it full in the face, and I could feel his entire sinus cavity cave under my knuckles. But he didn't even stumble. Instead, he just balled up his fist and hit me in the gut so hard I threw up.

I dropped to my knees, gasping for air, and Claire leapfrogged over me and took a swing at Stephen. This time he dodged, grabbed her wrist, and twisted it behind her back.

“Here we are again, sweet sister,” he said from the broken mess of his face. “You know you can't beat me. Because you refuse to do what I did. To take the strength from that useless Jekyll inside you.”

Claire gasped and her eyes went wide. Then her body grew slightly bigger.

“Oh, isn't that cute?” said Stephen. “She's
giving
it to you. How noble!” He laughed and blood sprayed out. “Yeah, Soph, do it! Make this fight a little more interesting for me!”

“Sophie, stop!” screamed Claire. “Stop! I won't take it! I won't!”