Ashes of Honor

The reverberating “bong” of metal meeting bone was still audible as I dropped to my knees, no longer interested in focusing on much of anything beyond the shooting pain in my head. Tybalt snarled, a sound as inhuman as it’s possible for a mostly human throat to make, and May yelped. I managed to twist around, squinting past the tears in my eyes, to see Tybalt holding her off the floor by her throat. May was scrabbling uselessly at his fingers, trying to pry them away. Jazz was in the hall behind her, face pale, eyes wide and terrified. The smell of their mingled blood hit me a split second later, washing the scene in red.

It was the blood that gave me the strength to speak, focusing past the pain as I said, “Put her down, Tybalt.” I swallowed, tasting the air, and added, “It’s May. Not an impostor. She bleeds right.” A wave of nausea washed over me, and I stopped speaking. I really hate head injuries.

“She hit you,” snarled Tybalt.

“She thought you were that man again!” shouted Jazz. There was a harsh note under her normally soft voice, like a raven’s shriek. She was a skinshifter, not a shapeshifter—she’d need her cloak of feathers to transform—but some aspects of her avian nature were bleeding through. “Put her down!”

May didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Talking would have required air. She just went limp in Tybalt’s hand.

Tybalt sighed, looking clearly unhappy as he lowered May back to her feet and took his hand away from her throat. Livid red bruises shaped like his fingers remained behind, striping her skin. May took a hasty step backward, out of his reach. Jazz was right there to catch her, putting her left hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder and glaring murder in Tybalt’s direction.

The room was still spinning, and I was pretty sure that getting up was a terrible idea. I did it anyway, forcing myself first to my knees, and then to an unsteady standing position. Another wave of nausea hit me. I wobbled. “Wow, May,” I said. “I think maybe you cracked my skull. Please don’t do that again.”

Tybalt growled, low and deep in his throat.

“Chill,” I said. Moving as slowly as I could to avoid setting off any more alarm bells in my head, I looked around the living room. It wasn’t just cluttered, which would have been normal; it was destroyed.

The coffee table was shattered, as if something had been dropped on it from a considerable height. One of the legs protruded from the broken remains of the television set. Pictures and knick-knacks, some of which I hadn’t even known we owned, were shattered on the floor, amid the confetti remains of May’s gossip magazines and several of my books. Even the cat beds were shredded, bits of cloth and puffs of cotton filling scattered everywhere.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked.

“Why do you think I hit you with a bat?” May asked.

I turned to see her glaring at me. Jazz was doing the same, with a considerably more pained look in her eyes. Her right arm was dangling at her side, with a sharp new bend below the elbow. There were fingermarks on her throat, too, and I knew they weren’t from Tybalt.

“It was one of your people,” spat Jazz, that harsh croak still underlining her words. Her eyes flicked from me to Tybalt as she spoke, making it plain whose people she was referring to. “Gray hair. Green eyes. Tried to kill us both.”

“Samson,” said Tybalt, eyes narrowing. “He should not have done that.”

“Raj’s father,” I explained, for Jazz and May’s benefit. “He tried to kill us a little while ago. Actually, he nearly succeeded.”

“Well, when he failed, I guess he decided to take out his anger on something a little more defenseless,” said May. For the first time, I noticed the blood streaking the back of her blouse. May saw me looking. Her expression hardened. “He was a little surprised when I didn’t die. I guess no one told him Fetches are indestructible.”

“Lucky us,” I said quietly.

Spike slunk out from under the nearest couch, thorns rattling like bones in the wind. It stayed low to the ground as it crept to press itself against my feet. The pain in my head was abating, or at least that’s what I told myself as I stooped to gather my rose goblin’s thorny body into my arms. It promptly plastered itself into my chest, making small whimpering noises. I gritted my teeth and let it nestle. The thorns hurt when they broke my skin. That was nothing compared to what I’d already been through, and the day wasn’t over yet.

“Why did Raj’s father come here and try to kill us?” demanded May. “Why did he try to kill you? Dammit, Toby, what the hell is going on? You disappear all day, you don’t call, you don’t tell me what’s going on, and then a man I’ve never met before is here slamming my girlfriend into walls! Why is this happening?”