When the dagger was in hand, I looked for Gabriel. He stood a few yards away, shouting orders and sending his own sentinels in various directions. He and Mallory exchanged a glance, and I saw him weigh the choices, the decision.
He made the call and nodded at her and, I guessed, authorized her use of that magic he’d been so careful to train up. Catcher had no such hesitation. He’d gone to Mallory, grabbed her hand, was already pointing into the air, discussing what looked like strategy.
Gabriel unleashed a bloodcurdling yell, a call to arms. Light erupted across the clearing as shifters changed into their animal forms, the transition as stirringly magical as their ceremony had been. Changing into animal form was rough on clothes, so some shifters disrobed before they shifted, leaving shirts and pants in piles on the ground, ready and waiting for when it was time to shift back.
The smaller creatures, pairs of sleek red foxes and coyotes, ran quickly for the shelter of the woods. The larger animals prepared to fight: the Brecks—big cats; the Keenes—big wolves. I recognized Gabriel’s great gray form as he sprung into existence.
Jeff, a shockingly large white tiger with deep gray stripes, appeared beside him and roared with fury enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck. Fallon stayed in human form, a hand on Jeff’s back, perhaps to remind both of them that they fought together.
Ethan was beside me, dagger in hand, poised for action. I had the urge to drag him into the trees to keep him safe. But he tossed the dagger back and forth in his hands, his history as a soldier peeking through his eyes, which were fixed on the harpies and flat with concentration. He wasn’t leaving now.
The swarm of creatures descended, growing larger as it sunk toward us. I watched them fly for a moment, circling around the meadow but avoiding the trees—and the torches that lined them.
Suddenly, they let out a horrific scream as sharp as nails on a chalkboard and dive-bombed the clearing like dogfighting World War II planes.
What had been a celebration . . . became an unexpected battlefield.
The shifters who remained on the field weren’t afraid of battle, and many of them leaped, meeting the harpies in the air. The human portions of their bodies might have been thin, but harpies were strong. Some overbalanced, hitting the ground in a tumble of fur and feathers that shook the earth; others batted away the shifters with a dip of wings that sent wolves flying.
A harpy spied us, the only vampires on the field, dropped her head, and dove toward us.
“I’m open to suggestions,” I yelled to Ethan over the din.
“Stay alive!” he offered back, blading his body toward the harpy, limiting her access to vital organs. I did the same, moving closer beside him so we were a combined vampiric weapon, immortal and strong, although my heart raced like life was a delicate and fragile thing.
And wasn’t it?
“I don’t suppose you know anything about harpy anatomy?”
“Not a lick, Sentinel. But they look like ladies to me!”
A lot of help he was.
The sound was ferocious now, the beat of her wings as loud as a jet plane, sending gusts of air across the field. She was close enough that I could have seen the whites of her eyes, if she’d had any. Her eyes were solid black; regardless the shape of her body, they carried no visible trace of thought or humanity.
She extended her arms and scratched out her claws, their tips aimed at our necks. We dropped to the ground, her smell—pungent and sour—streaming past as she flew above us.
“She did not get perfume for Valentine’s Day,” Ethan surmised, spinning to watch her bank and turn back for a second shot. The width of the harpies’ wingspan helped them rise and fall quickly, but their turn radius was substantial. It took seconds for her to spin back in our direction, but only a moment for her to dip again. She’d learned the mistake of her first effort and, instead of swiping at us on the move, came straight for us and didn’t veer.
We hit the ground, rolling away in different directions to avoid the claws on her feet, which were as black and sharp as those on her hands.
She decided to follow me. I was on the ground, a few feet away from the spot where she’d fallen to earth, and it wasn’t far enough. She followed and scratched, talons raking at my arms and abdomen with vicious effectiveness.
The claws had looked pointy and sharp, but they were jagged like serrated knives, and they tore at flesh instead of slicing through it. They were weapons of destruction. She scraped my face, and the skin burned like fire beneath her nails.
Fear turned to fury, but it took me a moment to remember the dagger in my hand, and I thrust it upward again and again, the knife bouncing off bones I couldn’t see, hitting no true target but causing enough of a painful nuisance that she backed off.
“Here!” Ethan yelled, pivoting back and forth behind her to let me get to my feet.
I stood, adrenaline numbing the cuts I’d already received, and wiped the dagger’s handle, slippery with the harpy’s wine-dark blood, on my pants. The smell of it was just as pungent as the rest of her body, more like vinegar than the penny scent of human blood. Even for a vampire, there was nothing appealing about it.
She turned on Ethan and flapped forward only a few feet off the ground.
That, I thought, was my chance. If flying was her advantage, I’d have to take it away from her. And I only needed gravity for that.
Distract her! I silently told Ethan. He obeyed, weaving back and forth as she tried to follow him, her wings too large for quick maneuvers.
While she focused on him, I dropped . . . and lunged for her ankles.
She screamed out, bobbing in the air as she fought off my weight, kicking at the vampire who’d become her uninvited (and literal) hanger-on. But I held tight, sinking my face into the curl of my arm to avoid the barbs at the tips of her wings, which were as jagged and sharp as her nails.
Gravity won, and the harpy pitched forward, taking me with her. I hit the ground, rolling quickly to avoid her frantically beating wings, but she kicked out and hit me square on the left cheekbone, which cracked and sang with pain strong enough to bring tears to my eyes.
As she rose again, I uttered a curse that would have had my prickly mother swatting my bottom in horror, and tried to climb to my feet but found the ground swayed a little. I made it to my knees, nearly retching from the sudden vertigo.
The harpy slammed to the ground beside me, her black eyes open, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, and a bloody wound across her neck, pale sinew and bone peeking through skin.