"Hunger" - her voice sounded lost - "you have the sword. Where is my Sliver if you have his Hunger?"
She kept talking, but she'd forgotten to breathe, and I couldn't see her mouth, just feel her jaw moving against my arm. She could have been cursing me or telling me she loved me for all that I understood. I bet on the first rather than the last.
As she tried to say something, I'd realized that the strange double image I was seeing wasn't the result of a concussion. I was seeing her ghost, almost completely severed from her body but still connected to the dead body with greasy ties.
My left arm was busy keeping her off me; my right, holding the sword, was stuck between us. Since she wasn't doing anything immediately violent - and because I really was more afraid of Zee's sword than I was afraid of her - I wiggled my left arm down and tried not to pay attention to her cold, rotting flesh moving against my bare cheek as she vainly tried to talk. I also attempted to breathe shallowly, but it didn't help the smell much.
My left hand found the pocket of my jeans where I'd shoved the necklace. The jeans were wet and fought me, but I managed to snag the chain of my necklace with the tips of my fingers. The jeans had the last laugh, though. The lamb snagged on my pocket, and I gave it a hard pull. The jeans released the necklace, but my icy-numbed clumsy fingers lost their hold. The necklace flew with the force of my pull, and I heard it land well out of reach.
I tried to move, but as soon as the sword wiggled, her arms and legs began to twitch again. "Okay, Hunger," I told it. "Can't you do something about this?"
I tried it in German because, after all, it was Zee's sword. "Also, Hunger. Konnen Sie nicht etwas tun?"
I felt it listening to me. Goose bumps broke out on my skin, and magic thrummed in my chest and along my body where the dead woman's flesh pressed against mine.
In my hands, the pommel of the sword warmed. Spice's body began to vibrate about the time the warmth became heat.
I had a terrible thought. What if the sword liked the dead fae better than the live coyote and chose to switch allegiance? I'd been warned about Hunger's reputation for deserting its wielder. So I held on to the sword past the point where the heat became pain.
If the pommel was hot, though, it was nothing compared to the sword. The fae's body turned to ash on top of me between one moment and the next, mingling with the ash of the winery fire and the wet ice. I rolled and scrambled frantically to my feet, dropping the sword as I did.
There was nothing left of the zombie fae woman. I tried to wipe her ash off my coat and jeans, but I was so wet it just smeared. When I dropped it, the sword had burned down through the thin layer of ice on the ground, but it had cooled rapidly to the point where it was gaining another coat of ice from the freezing rain. It lay there in the muck, and the magic it had sent spinning through me was gone.
I didn't want to touch it - but I wanted even less to leave it here, where one of the vampires would get ahold of it. When I touched the hilt, it was so cold it burned my blistered and reddened hands again.
It fought me when I tried to shrink it down. That's why it was still in my hands when Frost hit me and knocked me a dozen feet away. I rolled to my feet and used the sword the way I'd practiced once a month for years when Sensei chose to have us work on weapon forms. Adrenaline meant the ache of my cheek and knee, the misery of being wet, cold, and afraid, was no more than a shadow upon my awareness. All the rest of me was caught in the blade and the dance of martial combat.
I'm not strong by vampire or werewolf standards, but I am fast, and armed with a sword, I fought with as much speed as I could summon. I didn't manage to hit him - but he couldn't get close enough to hit me, either. I was focused on him, but I caught a glimpse of the rest of the building here and there.
Marsilia was down. Her body was too broken for her to stand although she was trying to keep her promise because she was crawling toward our battleground.
Wulfe was down as well. He lay in the sludge, covered with ice, not too far from our dance, and I took care not to end up too close to him.
Hao and Shamus were somewhere behind me. I could hear them fighting, but I couldn't see them.
Stefan had a wrestler's hold on Asil, and he was yelling at him. "Stand down. Stand down, wolf. I don't want to have to kill you." Honey just watched my battle with yellow eyes.
But all of this, like my accumulated aches and pains, was peripheral to the rhythm of the battle dance. Frost couldn't afford to let the sharp edge touch him, and I was a hair faster than he was. The reach of the sword meant that he couldn't get close enough to use his strength against me. I was slowly, slowly backing the damned vampire across the floor.
I leaped sideways, and the edge of the sword caught on the vampire, then it broke free. When I landed, Frost was bleeding from his arm. It was a shallow cut. But it made me smile anyway.
I attacked again, but a noise distracted me - a wolf's howl in the distance - and I landed badly. It was enough to give Frost an opening, and he hit me with his body, like a linebacker. I folded over his shoulder and tried to roll, but he grabbed my wrist and flipped me to the ground and pinned me. I still had the sword in my hand, but it was useless because I couldn't move my wrist.
"If you had cost me this fight," Frost told me, his face pressed to mine like a lover's, "I would make your death slow." He slid his cheek against mine in a caress as he pressed his body against mine. "But Marsilia underestimated me - she has grown old since she was the Lord of Night's Bright Blade."
I changed to a coyote and bit his face. My teeth slid against bone, and he screamed. I opened my mouth again and caught his eye, ripping it away. Still howling, he retreated, and I changed to human before my clothes became an issue. I did not want to chance slowing myself down - or worse, let the vampire get his hands on Zee's sword.
I grabbed the sword again as I staggered to my feet. By instinct and training, I pulled the sword up as Frost leaped toward me. The blade slid through ribs as though they were cheese and lodged in his heart.
He started to say something, and my brain caught up with my senses just about the time a dark wolf hit him and ripped out his throat. The wolf looked at me, once, then went back to the slaughter.
I sat down on the ice-covered ground because I was too tired to move. Beside me, Adam ripped into Frost's rib cage with his front claws and his fangs. The sword had freed itself from the vampire when I sat down. I turned my head and watched Adam tug and wrench until the vampire's heart fell on the ground beside me. Vampires taste bad - very old flesh and blood just tastes wrong. I wiped my mouth hastily with the bottom of Kyle's shirt - I hoped it wasn't a favorite.