Rise of the Poison Moon by MaryJanice Davidson

only presume, that includes knowledge of how to end it.”
    He jumped down from the scaffolding and pushed past the police officers. He was almost touching the barrier now, and his glaring brown eyes tried to burn a hole through.
    “Tell me,” he continued through the bullhorn. “Would you like to demonstrate that power now, to save one of your own? Would you dare show the secrets of your sorcery, in front of our eyes, so that we may judge how powerful you truly are?”
    When they didn’t answer, he smiled grimly and extended the hand that held the bullhorn. It plunged into the barrier before Skip’s face, and then doubled back above Hank’s own arm, pointed at the crowd now. To someone unfamiliar with how the dome worked, it would almost appear as if Skip himself was holding the bullhorn.
    “Come on,” Hank encouraged them quietly with a wink. “Speak up. Share the secret of this barrier, and we will honor your aunt with a quick death. We can be merciful, even toward our enemies.”
    “Can you?” Skip didn’t sound worried, or upset, or anxious. Merely curious. For some reason, that made Andi more nervous than anything else that had happened in the last ten minutes.
    “Skip!” Tavia called out from the gallows, before a guard punched her in the stomach. The older woman doubled over, retching—as was the guard’s intention and besides that, as had been Hank’s intention.
    Andi didn’t dare touch Skip. She was certain he was going to go through, and was trying to decide how she would react when he did—defend him to the death, or retreat into the safety of the woods—when Skip actually laughed. Laughed.
    “Go ahead and kill her, Blacktooth. She doesn’t mean shit to me.”
    Hank frowned and withdrew the bullhorn. “I doubt that. She raised you.”
    “My mother raised me, you strutting, bullying dumb-ass. I’ve known my aunt for all of a year. She’s a clueless, whining, overbearing loser who needs to wax. A lot. Torture her, kill her, snap her bra strap, see if I care. I have better things to do.”
    Skip turned and walked away. Andi shuffled back, unsure once again of what to do.
    “Jannsen!”
    One of the two guards pulled out a bastard sword, held it high behind Tavia with the point straight down, and shoved it down her spine before withdrawing quickly.
    The woman collapsed, screaming. Andi grabbed Skip, who had already turned at the sound.
    Hank never took his eyes off them. “Again, Jannsen!”
    The sword came down a second time, this time cork-screwing through the nerve bundles it had already violated. The sound of metal scraping bone made Andi gasp.
    “Again!”
    Again the blade came down, and Tavia fell forward. The second guard grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back to her knees, so the hobbling could continue.
    The sword continued to rape her spine, eliciting a shriek with each plunge. Maybe there were still nerves tough enough to survive the first few thrusts; maybe Jannsen was finding new angles; maybe she was simply still screaming from the first stroke.
    Andi began to sob, but Skip stood like a statue. He and Hank stared at each other through the barrier with no facial movement, no signal that anything around them affected them at all.
    Skip was not upset about his aunt, and Hank was not enjoying the reaction he was getting from Andi. Not at all.
    Finally, the bullhorn came back up. “The rally is over, folks. Let’s put her back in her cell. Once the crescent moon is up, she’ll start feeling it again. That’s when we’ll start pulling those pretty feet and hands off.”

CHAPTER 9

    Jennifer

    Jennifer Scales, born of two bloodlines—dragon and beaststalker—flicked back to her human shape while banking in to land on the hospital parking lot. She dropped the fifteen or so feet, caught the impact by flexing her knees, then walked through the front door, acknowledging the armed sentries flanking the west entrance.
    It was a measure of how much had changed in the last