“I will miss my father and brother terribly, and the scars of their loss cannot be erased with our shifter healing. That loss is a wound in our pack as well, and the ripples of this will no doubt stretch over multiple states. Even with their flaws, even with all the choices and triumphs stolen from them, they will remain in our hearts.
“And I am happy to keep them there.”
There was a smattering of funeral-appropriate applause as I wrapped up. I was surprised by the sense of closure starting to creep into me. It wasn’t complete, and it wouldn’t be as long as the murderer was at large. But it was a microdose I appreciated very much.
I sat, and Penelope patted my hand before standing and marching to the podium, wobbling a bit in her heels.
“Fellow shifters,” she started, and I grimaced a little. I’d heard Penelope practice many disputes or opening arguments on the debate team, and that was much stiffer than her usual demeanor. However, it was a funeral and not a mock trial, so there was probably one or two differences between that.
Like, for instance, the dead people.
“We are gathered here today?—”
That was as far as she got before the world imploded.
One moment my sister’s face was drawn in a contrite but subdued expression of mourning, the next, the stained-glass dome of the roof above her shattered, raining rainbow shards everywhere.
People yelped, and we were all on our feet. But not before a cloaked figure dropped down and ran Penelope through with a silver sword.
“Now!” I cried, lunging forward to shift.
About a thousand and one things happened in the same moment.
Now largelyeveryonewas screaming as they rushed out of their seats, most going for the doors but some moving forward toward us, and some even locked in place. Those with children were herding the young ones out, and our security team at the doors rushed to help them.
However, our other security, the ones well-versed in close quarters combat, began pouring in from all the side doors thatdidn’t lead to an exit. The non-shifters among them were armed with various weapons for different supernatural entities, and all the shifters already beginning to take their animal forms.
The assassin, wrapped in cloaks and heavy robes, tried to jerk the sword out of Penelope. But her now-stony hands came up to grip the blade, holding it in place as her head turned all the way around.
“Bet you thought this was gonna go another way,” she said before blowing a raspberry.
The changeling we’d hired had a flare for drama. Probably a theater kid.
However, that theater kid knew when to get the hell out of Dodge, because when the assassin jerked back in surprise, the changeling let go of Penelope’s form like sidewalk chalk rushing away in the rain, returning to its somewhat gelatinous, eggy-colored neutral body and bending over backward to scuttle off and take another form.
It was far freakier than I had anticipated.
But I didn’t let that stop me. Even before my last bone shifted into place, I was already racing forward, teeth bared. Although I didn’t often battle in my wolf form, something had awakened within me during our escapade in the criminal bazaar. I felt more connected to my wolf than ever, and I was ready to finally avenge my fallen brother and father.
I wasn’t alone, either. Chris and the real Penelope had already shifted and were bounding forward, jaws snapping, along with the eldest son of the McElroys and the Chevaliers’ niece.
And…the Whisper?
It was almost enough to make me miss a step, but I managed to catch my stride and keep racing forward.
I wasn’t the first one on the assassin. One of the security members got there first, but he didn’t so much as land a singlepaw beside the podium before the assassin swung their sword and actuallightninglanced out of it, slamming into the hired wolf and sending him flying.
But it wasn’t just him.
Those same bolts of electricity spread to five of our closest staff around them, and they all collapsed into twitching piles.
“Watch out! A sorcerer!”I yelled out in shifter-speak. It could have been some other powerful magic user. I wasn’t exactly an expert.
While I knew quite a few magic wielders on a professional level, I didn’t know any without emotions. Perhaps they used a spell to mask them. If that was a possibility, it felt like Cherry would know about it. And there was no reason an assassin-sorcerer would pre-emptively hide their emotions with a spell because who in the world could possibly predict that I would end up hiring a?—
Well, a real psychic, but as far as I knew, we were fresh out of those.
Although I didn’t have a lot of experience fighting them, I knew that the key to fighting those who were adept at magic was to get them in close quarters and hit them with unrelenting physical attacks. So, I homed in, aiming for their blind spot as they focused on our rushing security detail and Chris.