The Guardian. Connie Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ fate. She backed toward the front doors, her eyes never leaving Tumseneha’s werewolf face.

      Suddenly the SWAT team burst through the front doors, knocking her out of the way.

      She cursed and hit the ground, covering her head.

      “What the hell is that?” one of the team members yelled.

      “Damned if I know.”

      Their M-16s sprayed bullets at the lycanthrope. It sounded like the practice range at the academy, the reports deafening her.

      Fala lifted her head enough to peer over her arm. Tumseneha staggered from the overwhelming rounds of lead hitting him, but Fala knew this was only a temporary obstacle.

      His scarlet, burning eyes found her; a final farewell that made her skin crawl, then he turned and bolted for the fire escape. “Get it!”

      The SWAT team sped past her.

      “Don’t get too close,” she yelled after them, and hoped they listened.

      She leaped to her feet and glanced at the stairwell door, then at Joe. Help Joe? Or go after Tumseneha? The SWAT team at least had him on the run. She felt certain they had enough firepower between them to stay safe, so she ran to Joe’s side.

      Blood covered him. He’d been bitten in the shoulder, neck, side and thigh. She could hear his heart, weak, thready, barely discernible to her hypersensitive ears. Any moment she’d lose him.

      “No, Joe. Stay with me.” She grabbed his arms, glanced up the hall and made sure no one saw her, then she pulled him into the fire escape.

      He couldn’t die. He was family. The closest thing she’d ever have to a brother. Tumseneha couldn’t steal Joe’s life. She wouldn’t let it happen. She knew there were consequences for interfering with fate, but she wasn’t going to let Joe die at the hands of her enemy.

      She rolled Joe on his side, then laid down next to him, spooning her body tight to his. His small-boned physique was a head shorter than hers, and she easily covered the length of him. His wife’s perfume still clung to his shirt from where Camilla had kissed him goodbye; it mingled with the scent of the new baby and the sweet metallic odor of his own blood.

      “You’re gonna raise Josephine. Hear me? You’re gonna be okay,” she spoke in Patomani.

      She chanted softly in his ear, invoking the power of the bear. She felt it rising from within her, building inside her. A spiritual current coursed through her veins, and it took all of her self-control to harness it. Her whole body burned as energy flowed into her arms and legs, into her center. She rolled Joe on his back and kissed him, opening her mouth and exhaling a ball of writhing power into his lungs.

      His spine buckled as if he’d just been electrocuted. Their bodies melded into one and she went inside him, her spirit pushing at the male boundaries of his body, searing its way through him. She could feel the healing energy fusing together the torn, bitten flesh, regenerating new skin and muscle, starting his heart again.

      Her power reached its zenith and she inhaled the healing energy back into her own body.

      For a moment she couldn’t move. Once the life force left her body, she was vulnerable until it fully returned. After a moment, she looked down at Joe. Blood had burned away from the healed wounds. His color brightened and he breathed normally again.

      “You’re fine now.” She chanted an ancient spell in his ear that would take away his memory of what had happened, but parts of his subconscious would still leak it into his dreams. Some things her magic couldn’t totally cleanse; the human mind was one of them.

      She held him until his body relaxed, then she rolled him on his side.

      He lay there, calm, still, looking as if he were napping. The torn places in his shirt couldn’t be helped. She could repair living flesh, but forget synthetic material.

      Fala felt her body still humming from the healing exchange. Energy sizzled along her skin, raised the hairs at the back of her neck. Current crackled in her hair, and her braid clung to her sweater. The transfer had popped off the buttons on her leather jacket, and she scrambled to pick them up. Sirens sounded in the distance—a lot of them.

      The door flew open and Brower almost tripped over her and Joe. The big guy looked as if he’d been running from an earthquake and the earth had opened up directly in front of him. He stood there, trembling, staring down at Fala, then Joe. The cloud of fear melted from his eyes and he realized Joe was lying in the stairwell.

      “Sorry, I, uh— What happened to him?” Brower pointed a beefy finger at Joe.

      Fala stood up. “He had a run-in with a wild dog.”

      Brower’s forehead wrinkled on his bulldog face. “That was no freakin’ wild dog, Fala. Good God, if you could see what it did…” His words trailed off as if he were remembering the attack. He glanced down at the dark urine spot on his pants. He grew self-conscious and turned sideways out of Fala’s direct view.

      “I saw.” Fala heard the sirens surround the building. “The cavalry has arrived. You’ve got to get yourself together.”

      “I’m trying.” He gripped his fists to make them stop shaking.

      “The captain is going to be down our throats for letting an animal overtake the station.”

      “What could we do?” Brower shrugged his tree-trunk-size shoulders. “It took us by surprise. Bullets didn’t stop it.”

      “Save that one for Internal Affairs and the tabloids.”

      Brower shook his square head like a lost bull. “You’re right. No one will ever believe that story. But that thing, that god-awful thing.” His face twisted. “It tore people apart. I just let that thing back me into a corner. If you hadn’t lured it away from me…” His voice broke with self-recrimination.

      Fala couldn’t help but feel pity for him. A full frontal with a demon wolf would give anyone nightmares for years. She knew from experience. She’d faced her first one at twelve and had bite marks on her right thigh to prove it. “You were traumatized,” she said. “No one saw what happened in there but you and me. Let’s stick to the story of a rabid animal.”

      “I don’t know.” He rubbed his wide forehead with indecision.

      She could tell him the truth that the werewolf was an evil sorcerer who was trying to kill her before she became the Guardian. Nope, that would blow his mind. And she couldn’t trust anyone with the truth about being a shape-shifter. Heck, it would be easier just to erase his memory of Tumseneha’s attack. It wouldn’t be the first human memory she’d erased.

      She reached over and touched his beefy shoulder. Power flowed down her arm and into him. She watched as the look in his eyes turned blank and she spoke in a low hypnotizing tone, “Listen to me, Brower. It was a pack of pit bulls that attacked the station. Strays roam the city all the time. Now what was it?”

      “Pit bulls,” he answered in a vacant, parroted tone.

      Fala dropped her arm and knew she’d have to wipe away the memories of the SWAT team guys and anyone else still alive. Mortals tended to think along concrete references, a small little СКАЧАТЬ