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I didn’t call my power—there was no time. I became my power. It flowed up, through me, instantly, spilled into my hands. I touched one hand to the furred arm that held me, then blocked his other arm as it swept down towards me in a blur of motion. Blocked the blow and swept my free hand up over Chimera’s arm, so that both my hands touched his arms. The moment enough of me touched enough of him, I called the power I’d learned in New Mexico. When I raised a zombie I put energy into the corpse, helped what lay in the grave to be solid and real. This was the reverse of that. I took energy out, sucked it away, made the lion man less real, less alive.

The fur flowed under my hands until I touched human skin. It was Orlando King’s body that collapsed to its knees in front of me. Orlando’s eyes that raised horrified gray to search my face, to beseech me, maybe. But he never asked me to stop, and truthfully I wasn’t sure I knew how to stop.

He started to scream just before his skin began to run with fine lines, like watching decades catch up with him in one fell swoop. I fed on him, fed on his essence, fed on what he was. It rushed through my body, thrilling along my skin, singing through my bones, cascading in a rush of joy through every fiber of my being, and beyond. I felt the energy flow outward to Micah, down that link that made me want to touch him every time we were close. The power found Richard and made him breathe. It spilled outward to all the wolves, and they were no longer dependent on Richard’s broken will, they had mine, and I wanted to live. I wanted us all to live. We would live. We would live, and our enemies would die. I willed it so. I made it so. I used Orlando King’s life to fill my leopards, my wolves, and distantly, my vampires, with will. Will to live, to fight, to survive.

And through all of it, Orlando King shrieked. He screamed as his body drained away into my hands. His skin was like dirty tissue paper on skeleton sticks when I finally let him go. He collapsed on his side, that large body turned to something light as air, but still he screamed. One ragged horror of a sound after another, and I felt no pity. I felt only the rush of power like a flight of bird wings inside my head.

Micah was beside me in black, furred leopard man form. The center of his body was whole, healed, only partially due to his shifting. A huge spotted leopard the size of a pony stalked around us, hissing at what was left of Orlando. Cherry was whole in her furred coat, not even bloody.

I must have stood there longer than I knew, draining Orlando King’s life away. Long enough for them to tear the chains off, long enough for them to shapeshift and heal. The hanging men were changing form, too. And with the change, they broke their chains, healed most of the damage that had been done to them, and dropped to the ground in spotted fur and claws. They sniffed around what was left of Orlando. They gave strange barking sounds as the thing continued to scream.

Micah’s voice came furry, rough with his new shape. “Your eyes are like a night-filled sky with stars in it.”

I didn’t need to see a mirror to know what he meant. My eyes were black, swimming and dark with the distant glow of stars in that darkness. Obsidian Butterfly’s eyes had been like that, and my eyes had mirrored hers after she touched me with her power.

The far door opened and the wolves poured in. Shang-Da and Jamil were holding Richard between them. He was still in human form, still refusing to shift and help the power heal him.

The wolves, some in human form, some not, came to touch me, lick me, abase themselves before me. They growled and snapped at the dried thing that still screamed on the floor.

Jamil and Shang-Da helped Richard around the room until he stood facing me and Micah. It was only when he was that close that I realized his eyes were black with the play of cold stars in them, too. I wondered if Jean-Claude’s eyes looked the same, and a thought let me know that it was so. Jean-Claude was basking in the rush of power. Richard stared