by Rider, C. P.
He placed a twenty on the bar. "We'll start with this and see where the night takes us."
"Sounds good."
Chandra had a system for a running tab, and someday I might learn it. For now, I just put the twenty on the shelf below the register with an upside-down shot glass on top to hold it in place.
The man picked up his beer and leaned against the counter, his back to me. "Cool mural. I'm partial to the desert myself."
"One of our locals painted it. She's done several around town."
"She did a good job on the wolves. There's even a pup with them."
I smiled. Margaret had included Carter and Imogen Reid in the mural, along with their baby, ReAnne. It was a nice gesture, especially coming from her. Margaret wasn't always welcoming of new people. Or maybe it was just me she hadn't welcomed.
"Does the jukebox work?"
"It did the last time I was here," I said, silently hoping he didn't play Lucas's and my sex theme. If he did, I'd blush and then feel stupidly compelled to explain why, which would culminate in more blushing and a lot of nervous fast talking. Sometimes I was so damn awkward.
He left his beer on the bar and strolled to the jukebox. After a minute's deliberation, he selected an old country song. Seven Year Ache by Rosanne Cash. Great song. I hadn't realized it was on there, but now that I did, I'd have to play it once in a while.
The healers took no notice of him, though they did all glance up at the jukebox once it started playing. As a group, they shrugged and returned their focus to their drinks. An odd reaction, but little about this night felt normal, so it fit right in.
"You've got some good music on the jukebox," he said, after he returned to the bar. "Lots of oldies. Good drinking music." As if to prove his point, he downed half the beer. "What's your name?"
"Neely. What's yours?" I already knew it, but I let him tell me anyway. No sense advertising that I was a telepath if he didn't already know.
"Guillermo. Nice to meet you, Neely." He finished his beer and I refilled it.
"You know, if you're driving…" I trailed off and let him fill in the rest.
"Don't worry. I metabolize alcohol very quickly. It's my animal nature, I think." He winked and took another drink. "It's been a while since I've had a good beer."
So, he was a shifter. I wondered why I hadn't picked up on that in his thoughts? I supposed it was possible that he simply hadn't been thinking about it. Unusual. Most shifters were aware of their animals all the time. They had to be, or some unwitting human might sneak up behind them as a joke and end up with half a face as a punchline.
I pushed a bit deeper into Guillermo's thoughts, the way I had with the healers when they walked in. His thoughts were mostly focused on travel—where to stop for the night, where to fill his gas tank, where he might grab a bite to eat. Harmless.
The thing was, he didn't feel harmless. There was a hauntingly compelling quality to him, compulsion limned with repulsion, something about the man that pulled even as it pushed.
I was so focused on the difference between how he felt to me and his actual thoughts, that I blurted, "If you're hungry, we have some barbacoa sliders left from lunch. I'd be happy to heat up an order of them for you."
His eyes sparkled and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth, taking him from good-looking all the way to sinfully sexy. "How did you know I was hungry? Did you read my mind or something?"
Uh, actually… "I heard your stomach growl," I lied.
"Is that right?" He stared hard at me, obviously not buying my reasoning.
"Yep."
His responding smile didn't include his eyes. "Well, that's embarrassing."
"Not at all." I stared right back at him. He was thinking that I had cute freckles on my nose. The man had to be a shifter, then, because my freckles were so light in winter I had to use a double magnification mirror in a brightly lit bathroom to see them. Only a shifter could spot them in a darkened bar.
"I apologize for my rudeness."
"None required. It’s not as if it's something you can help. So, would you like an order of sliders?"
"Yes. Two orders if you've got 'em." He finally broke the stare, picked up his beer and took a drink. "It's been a long journey."
"I'll see what we've got." I went into the kitchen behind the bar and headed for the temporary fridge in the back. Chandra and Earp had plans to install a walk-in, climate-controlled cooler similar to mine, but for now Chandra was using the previous owner's old fridge to store food.
It's been a long journey. The words poked at my brain.
Journey. Not trip. A trip implied going from point A to point B, whereas a journey implied, at least to me, a personal change. I went on a trip to Ensenada. I went on a journey to find myself.
Maybe I was reading too much into it.
I opened the fridge, took out the salsa and leftover meat, set both on the prep counter, then went to look for my mini bolillo rolls and some chips to put with it. The pantry was under construction and boxes were stacked all over the kitchen. I'm sure the setup made perfect sense to Chandra and Earp, but I couldn't see the organization in the disorder.
"Neely."
I spun, and Guillermo was there, looming over me. His face had changed—it was now harshly angled and obscured by shadows, though the kitchen was well lit.
"You have a destiny to fulfill," he whispered, his voice growing huskier with each syllable. His mouth widened, teeth bristling out of the opening—too many teeth. "You have been chosen to be broken and remade."
"No."
He growled, low and … inviting? How could that be?
"You don't even know what you are, do you?"
Although I wanted to run, I held my ground. "I'm a spiker, something you'd better be very afraid of, wolf."
Fur bristled at the edges of his face. He was shifting in inches, a slow rollout of his animal. Another growl trickled out of his mouth and my chest rose, head tipped back in response. Why was I reacting to his wolf? It made no sense.
"But I'm not afraid. Do you know why?" His voice rumbled inside my head as well as outside. Was the wolf a trancer, too? I shuddered. My experiences with hypnotic suggestions were not good ones. "I'm not afraid of you because we're two of a kind." He stroked his knuckles over my cheek. "Once you're remade, you'll understand."
At his cold touch, a scream caught in my throat. I couldn't push it out, nor could I speak. My voice was stuck—not frozen but blocked. I coughed and the blockage moved higher, blocking my airway. I coughed again, coughed until my eyes watered and my nose ran, until my chest caught fire on the inside, until my lungs wilted and shriveled in my chest. I went to my knees at his feet. Boots. Western boots.
Then the boots were gone, replaced by enormous furred paws with claws that dragged against the tiled floor with a sound like metal scratching against metal.
"Neely."
I coughed until my eyes bugged out of my head and the edges of my vision bled black. One last cough propelled the blockage into my mouth. I spat it out on the floor and breathed, taking great gulping gasps of fresh, sweet air.
A bee.
"What are you?" I croaked.
He didn't answer my question. Didn't appear to hear it. "My name is Legion: for we are many."
I drove into Legion/Guillermo's head, past the fake thoughts he'd presented to my telepathy, into the buzzing nothing that was his brain. I drove deep, searching for anything I could use. Light, energy, life.
But he was so very empty. Filled to overflowing with a buzzing, lonely nothingness. It was a paradox, yet entirely true.
"We will have you. With us, you will be made whole."
I tried again, spiking into his life-force. Of all the nuances of my ability, this was by far the most invasive and the most painful. It took a tremendous amount of energy to do it, and I had nothing to draw from. My own energy was nearly gone, and for some reason I was unable to pull any from either the healers or the creature that was Guillermo/Legion. The buzzing
in his/its brain filled my mind until I wanted to bang my head against a wall.
Desperation sank its claws into me. I began to vacillate between the need to fight and the need to give in. I racked my brain for a way to escape.
I needed to survive. I needed to spike.
I needed power.
The bees buzzed. The bees buzzed louder, and still I searched.
The bees buzzed so loudly I knew they were no longer only in his/its head, but also in mine. We were connected, and while that was terrifying, the thing about connections is, they are two-way streets.
Something wriggled on my tongue. I spat another bee onto the floor.
It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.
When my strength was nearly gone, I spotted a flash in the creature's brain, a speck of glitter at the bottom of a coal mine. A spark of energy.
I pulled on the spark as hard as I dared, then poured that energy into my ability and spiked into his brain.
The thing that called itself Guillermo let out a guttural cry and backed away from me, knocking over boxes in his haste to reach the back door. I spiked harder, but I couldn’t reach the center of his brain, surrounded as it was by the incessant buzzing. I could, however, cause a great deal of pain to the part of his brain I was able to reach.
"Stop." Legion/Guillermo growled, punched his own head, slapped at his eyes and ears.
"Get out," I rasped.
"Not … over."
This time I didn't respond. I couldn't. I had nothing left.
"We will … be back." He fled out the back door, knocking over Chandra's carefully stacked boxes.
The muscles in my arms and legs quivered as if I'd run a marathon, and I was drenched in sweat. Using the counter next to me, I pulled myself to my feet. Through the window that looked out of the kitchen and into the bar, I saw the healers at the table, drinking their beer. The mugs were topped off, as if I'd just served them their drinks. The stools in front of the bar were empty. The beer I'd served Guillermo was gone.
I looked at the sandwich meat and salsa I'd set on the counter. Gone.
I looked around my feet for the bees I'd spat out. Gone.
I looked behind me at the boxes the creature had overturned in his haste to get away from me. They were there. Neatly stacked, the way they'd been before I had entered the kitchen.
"Lucas." I shambled into the main room. Found my cell phone behind the bar and tapped on the screen. My head was heavy and filled with the sounds of bees. "No. Not Lucas. Busy. Amir."
One of the healers—not the perv—glanced over his shoulder, shock registering on his face. "What happened to you, miss?" The others caught sight of me and appeared equally shocked.
"Amir here."
I had the phone pressed to my ear, but the eagle shifter's voice sounded far away. The buzzing inside the head of the creature who called itself Legion had flooded into mine until it stole my hearing, dimmed my sight, and snatched my voice.
After opening and closing my mouth several times, I finally got a word out. "Abejas."
The phone dropped out of my hand. My knees hit the tile floor hard and I pitched sideways, slamming my head against the counter. The pain didn't even register.
Was it a dream? Had the man Guillermo been here? Or had it been a nightmare daydream, a vision induced by the presence of the dire wolf, as the witches had said?
My breathing grew sluggish and my eyelids drooped. Before they closed completely, I caught sight of the shot glass beneath the register.
Pinned beneath it was a twenty-dollar bill.
The monster was real.
And I was going to have to kill it.
Chapter Seven
"Neely, wake up."
Amir's quiet voice called to me like a beacon in the darkness. I didn't know how long I'd been there, drifting in oblivion, but it felt like a while. The sensation wasn't pleasant, but neither was it unpleasant. It was what I imagined floating in a sensory deprivation chamber would be like. Warm, dark, and mildly claustrophobic.
I blinked several times, the overhead lights hurting my eyes. "I'm okay."
"You're far from that." Twin Amirs leaned over me. I closed an eye and saw only one. His eyes carried the new penny color of his golden eagle, though he appeared completely human—and naked except for a pair of very thin black nylon shorts.
"We tried to awaken her." One of the healers, the nice one at the table who had chided the pervert when he was being suggestive to me, was blotting my face with a damp, bloodstained bar towel. "There was no reaching her. When she hit the underside of the bar, she cut a gash in her temple. We were able to heal that, her bruised kneecaps, and the ensuing concussion, but unable to wake her."
One of the other healers, the pervert, frowned. "She kept mumbling the word 'abejas.' None of us speak Spanish, but we looked it up on our cell phones. It means—"
"Bees," I said.
"Yeah." The nice one stared at me kindly. "Was that what you meant?"
"Yes. There was another man here," I said. "He ordered a drink."
"We didn't see anyone, and we've been here for an hour," one of the healers said.
"Who was the man, Neely?" Amir asked. "Did he tell you his name?"
"Yes. I … I can't remember. He p-played a song on the jukebox." I forced both eyes open and stared at the spinning ceiling for a moment before lowering my gaze to the group gathered around me.
"Maybe it's the concussion," the perv said.
Amir studied the healers. There were seven of them, which I could count if I closed one eye. They all shook their heads, but the nice one said, "We didn't see anyone, though something odd happened with the jukebox while she was in the back room. At least, we thought it was odd."
"Help me up, will you?" I asked Amir.
"I'm not sure you should be up," he replied.
"I told everyone I thought it was pre-programmed or something," another healer said.
"Yeah sure, I've seen some that do that," yet another healer said.
"You thought what was pre-programmed?" Amir asked as he helped me to my feet. An awkward task, as my head was spinning like I'd just gotten off a merry-go-round, and I kept listing to the right.
The nice one answered, "The jukebox. At one point it switched on and played a song. None of us had put money into it. No one was even near it. I'm not ashamed to say, it gave us a bit of a scare."
"I wasn't scared." The perv rolled his eyes, huffed.
"We were all a little weirded out," one of the other healers said. "It played an old country song. I've heard it before, but I can't recall the name."
"Seven Year Ache," one of the other healers said.
"That's the one. It played once, and then the jukebox shut down again."
"The man played the song," I croaked. My throat was dry, and it hurt. I stumbled to the refrigerated cabinet beneath the bar and grabbed a cold bottle of water. I took a drink and choked, spraying water all over the place.
Amir whacked my back. "Go slow."
I sipped, and this time it went down. Slowly, I built up to a full drink, then a gulp. It was heaven on my sore, dry throat. "Thanks for coming."
"How could I refuse?" Amir smiled, and I noticed he had fine black feathers weaved into his hair. In eagle form, they were shades of brown and gold, but in his hybrid form, they sometimes blended with his hair. "You sounded pretty bad on the phone."
"You didn't tell Lucas, did you?"
"I couldn't. He is fully occupied at the moment." Amir shooed the healers back to their table and told them their bar tab was taken care of, but to drink fast because we'd be closing soon.
"Occupied with what? The convocation? Is someone in trouble?"
"Not in trouble." He lowered his voice. "Since it's in progress, I don't see any harm in telling you. Are you sure you want to hear about this now? You still have blood on your face."
Yes. I wanted to think about anything other than what I'd just experienced. "Tell me, Amir."
"Carter Reid challenged Dan for third alpha tonight."
"Not to the death?" My heart stuttered in my chest. Carter was a good friend, and I hated the idea of him being in danger, especially since he'd recently become a father for the first time.
"No. Although Dan suggested it. He has his friends in the group, and most were calling for a mortal challenge. But Alpha rules, and he said there was no way he was going to let either of them kill a new father. You know Farrah's pregnant, right?"
"She mentioned it, yes." Among other things. "So, they're fighting right now?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
The healers waved to me on their way out the door. I waved back, thanking them and promising to buy them a drink the next time they were in town.
Amir waited until the door closed behind the men to respond. "All night, since they can't kill each other. As strange as that sounds, a non-lethal alpha challenge takes longer than a mortal one."
"Because someone has to tap out." I held onto the bar as I walked to a stool with my water. "No alpha ever wants to give up. I've learned that much about you all."
"Exactly. The fight starts deep in the mountains, around one of Earp's hideouts, and works its way back to Alpha's place. It takes a lot of alphas to referee a fight like this, not only to keep the shifters from killing one another, but also because the contenders tend to fall into a fighting rage and don't know where they are at any given time. The alpha refs, including Alpha Blacke, keep them from getting too close to humans."
"What are Carter's chances?"
"As good as Dan's, I'd say. Carter is younger, but Dan's more experienced. They're both strong alphas and good fighters. Both of a similar temperament. Dan's desperate to hold onto his position, and that might give him the edge if Carter isn't as desperate to have it."
"I didn't even know Carter was interested in Dan's position."
"An alpha as strong as he is needs a solid position in the group. Carter is smart, circumspect, and rational. He'd be a nice counterpoint to Chandra and me." Amir sat on the barstool next to mine. "Like Dan used to be."
I took another drink of my water. I could not get the taste of insect out of my mouth. Illusion or not, my brain was reacting to what I’d seen.
