by Rider, C. P.
I whisked over his thoughts, catching the tail end of his best guess, which was that he'd seen the star on other psychokinetics, but he was perplexed by the moon, which he'd only seen on alpha shifters who wished to contain their animal's darker sides in order to remain in human form for longer stretches of time. Interesting. He himself had worked with dangerous…
His thoughts cut off after that. Frustrating. I would have spiked him for the rest, but the mystic straightened his shoulders and thrust out the haladie.
"Press your palms to the underside of the blades. Gently. They are very sharp and do not require pressure to cut deeply."
Amir appeared in front of me, doing his job as Lucas's fourth, making sure I wasn't harmed—as best he could, given the situation. I can't say it was easy to put my hand on that blade knowing that the intended result was to slice it open, but it was easier with Amir near. His presence comforted me. A small piece of home.
Barney set a stone goblet on the floor between Juan and me. There were herbs in the bottom, and a tiny pile of ashes—probably the bee. We were told to go to our knees after the cut and let our blood flow into the cup, remaining silent the entire time. The silence was important.
I put my hand on the blade. Juan did the same. Barney did some sort of quick movement and the knife disappeared, leaving behind a cut across the center of my palm. Juan and I immediately dropped to our knees, holding our bleeding hands over the goblet. Worried I'd cry out at the flash of pain, I'd pressed my lips together to stifle myself, but I needn't have. I didn't feel a thing. That haladie was sharp.
Juan's hand healed. Mine continued to bleed. I took a cloth from Gert and wrapped it around my wound as Barney began chanting and whisked away the goblet. The man had been slow and heavy on his feet earlier, but the second the magic kicked in, he moved like a man fifty years younger. He didn't even need to use his cane.
Eyes closed, Barney held a charm above the goblet and began to chant. While he chanted and everyone stayed silent, I stared down at the charm with the heart on it. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I cupped my hurt hand around it.
Warmth spread through my hand and fingers, my wrist, up my arm and into my chest. It was over so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it.
Slowly, so as not to draw too much attention, I unwrapped the towel.
The cut was gone.
"The spell has been cast," Barney said.
"Mi familia." Juan turned, addressed his wolves. The alpha power in his voice had a few of his wolves showing throat. "Tonight we find Gil and bring him home. We do anything we have to do to make certain that happens."
The wolves howled their assent, their voices blending into a united battle cry. A shiver broke over me at the sound.
Juan howled once, and then repeated, "Anything."
Chapter Twenty
At eight p.m., we drove two full-sized trucks with camper shells on the back down a narrow farm road outside of Manor, Texas. Each camper contained five enormous Texas red wolves, and each truck held no fewer than six people in front. All Martinez wolf alphas. Only Amir, Barney, and I were the exceptions.
Barney had worn the charm this far, guiding Gert and Juan, the drivers, to what looked to be an abandoned series of fields. Amir and I rode over with Juan, while Barney rode with Gert. After we'd all pulled to the side of the road, Amir shifted to his animal form—golden brown feathers ruffling over golden-brown flesh, sturdy wings emerging where muscled arms used to be, manicured nails sharpening into curved talons.
Although watching humans shift into animals had been commonplace to me for most of my life, there was something about watching a majestic golden eagle emerge from Amir's flesh that gave me chills every time I witnessed it.
Barney set the charm over the eagle's head. "We've gone as far as we can in vehicles. Amir will lead you the rest of the way."
It had been predetermined that Barney would remain with the trucks, as he would only slow the wolves down. So would I, but I was a necessary part of the plan and Juan had an idea to get me there faster. An idea to which I had reluctantly agreed after Amir assured me there was no better way.
A shirtless Juan released the wolves from the campers and shifted to hybrid wolf. His body grew, filling out in chest, shoulders, and neck, and dark fur covered his body. He was larger than I recalled from the last time I'd seen him as a wolf at the sanctuary. Or maybe it was only that he'd looked so much smaller next to Lucas in Smilodon form.
When everyone was shifted and ready, including Gert, Juan went down on one knee in front of me and I climbed onto his back. I wrapped my arms around his thickly muscled neck and my legs around his solid waist, then hooked my ankles to keep from sliding off, and pressed my face into his furred back so I didn't eat any bugs along the way. I'd done this with Lucas before. Bugs are not tasty.
Amir cawed. He was a mile ahead of us and circling.
Juan let out a howl that probably woke every dog within a twenty-mile radius, and took off like a shot across the field with me trying like hell to hold on. Wind whipped my hair and clothing, and beat at my back. We followed Amir's lead, leaping over fallen branches and holes. By the time we stopped, my limbs were locked in place and Juan had to unhook my ankles for me.
He held me steady for a minute while I wiggled the blood back into my extremities. "Where are we?" I whispered. "Is that a house?"
In the darkness, I could just make out the lines of what looked to be a white farmhouse. Glass from a broken window on the second floor caught the glint of foggy moonlight. The wind made the trees surrounding the house creak, the rain gutter squeak, and the porch screen door slam.
"Looks like Tío Chuy and Tía Norma's old place," one of the other wolves said. Most were fully shifted, but some had changed to hybrid and walked upright.
Juan lifted his head, surveyed the area surrounding us. "One of my uncles used to own this land. Probably still does, but his family hasn't done anything with the property since his passing, as you can see." He glanced over his shoulder at the wolf who'd spoken before. "Primo, is the house in good shape?"
"Structurally, it should be fine." Juan's cousin eyed the eagle circling above our heads. "Must be where Guillermo is hiding."
Juan faced his shifters. "You know what our kind can do. Every wolf here has been trained on how to handle him or herself in the event of a dire wolf attack."
A chorus of growls followed. I assumed they were in agreement.
"Guillermo is a strong wolf. He's an even stronger dire wolf. If he can get inside your head, he will. He may not recognize you as family, so do not drop your guard. Do not attack unless instructed to by me. Auntie Gert and I are going to come at him with illusions from both sides, pushing as hard as we can. This isn't something either of us have done before. There maybe be spillover. You may end up caught in the illusion. Remember your training."
"What is the spiker's plan?" The wolf who'd spoken before, Juan's primo, asked. His tone was on the sharp side of accusatory without actually crossing over. Shifters, especially alphas, were very good at walking that line. "Is she going to kill him?"
"Not unless there's no other choice, Jaime. Guillermo is our kin. His blood is our blood. His soul is fused with ours. We will do anything to avoid killing him, but I won't stand by and let him kill any of you. As your alpha leader, I cannot allow that."
"Yes, Alpha." Jaime shifted back to wolf form and went silent.
The way Juan protected his shifters reminded me of Lucas. I now understood why they were friends. They were two prehistorics cut from the same cloth.
"Neely, would you explain your role in this to my pack, please?" Juan asked.
I looked out among the milling wolves. Their furred bodies moved sinuously through the overgrown grass in the field. "I'm going to spike into Guillermo's head and put him to sleep so that you can grab him. This is a delicate spike and requires concentration. I need wolves between me and Guillermo in case he decides to attack me physically." I peered into the sets of glowin
g eyes I could see. "I'm not sure what will happen to me in the process. No matter what you see, it's important that you do not stop me."
"Is there any sign you want to give me to let me know that you've had enough?" Juan asked.
"No. When I've had enough, it will either be over, or I'll collapse." Our gazes met and held. "I won't stop as long as I have energy in my body."
The look he gave me was equal parts gratitude and fear.
Amir swooped down in front of me and shifted to hybrid. He took off the charm and placed it over Gert's head. As the senior alpha wolf, and eldest dire wolf, she would lead the others to Guillermo.
"He's inside the house," Amir said.
"Then you can bet he knows we're here, and you can be damn sure he's ready. Martinez boys are as tough as they come," Gert replied. Her red wolf hybrid form impressed me. She was massive, ferocious, and beautiful.
"I see no reason to keep him waiting," Juan said.
They shifted fully, and together we walked to the house, a line of shifters in front of us, another line behind. Amir stayed on my left, Juan on my right. I'd drawn energy from the wolves in the truck with us on the ride over, taking care not to draw too much and so weaken them. When we'd arrived at the field, I'd drawn more from the wolves in the other truck. And I'd drawn from Juan on the piggyback ride here.
I was filled with energy, bursting with it. Every cell in my body was lit up like Christmas lights, and I was as eager as a kid who knew a shiny bike was waiting under the tree. One way or another, it would all be over tonight.
I looped my elbow with Amir's and closed my eyes, allowing him to lead me. It was important that I separate smart moves from ones that simply felt good. When my body was filled with power like this, it was hard to tell the difference between the two.
There was a single brain inside the old farmhouse. An active, furious brain. A brain on the offensive.
"Be ready," I whispered.
Juan must have given a wordless signal to his wolves, because I felt a whoosh of movement as seventeen Texas red wolves broke out of their lines. I opened my eyes in time to see them race across the yard, some behind the house, some in front, and some along the sides.
My grip on Amir's arm tightened. It took seconds to lock onto Guillermo's brain energy, and precious seconds more to match them to mine. The dire wolf howled, loud and long, and a couple of the shifters howled, too. Then the bees crowded in, filling my head with their terrible buzzing.
I drove deeper.
The insects flew into my nose and ears, stung my face. They filled my lungs, packed my trachea, and crammed into my mouth.
I drove deeper.
There was no room in my lungs for air, no passageway for the air to move through. Yet I could breathe, and I could swallow, and that was how I knew it was an illusion—and a weak one at that. Whatever Juan and Gert were doing to Guillermo, it was distracting him.
I drove deeper.
For a half-breath, the insects waned, long enough for me to detect a flicker of light, a spark at the end of a dark hallway. Then the bees crowded in, pushing against me with the force of a raging tide. Stingers like hypodermic needles plunged into my skin and my stomach burned. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn't open my mouth.
I zeroed in on the spark and threw all the energy I had at it. It was a messy spike, but I wasn't aiming to kill, only to gain entrance. Once I was inside his head, I would delicately, with the precision of a surgeon, push energy into his brain.
My energy waning, I drew from the shifters closest to me. In the far distance, I heard Amir say, "Neely, stop. You've got to—hurry, she's draining us dry," but it was so far away, and besides, I needed the power. They wanted me to get past the bees to save the wolf, didn't they? If that's what they wanted, they were going to have to give me more power, not less.
A pop, like the sound of a muffled explosion, echoed through the dire wolf's skull. The bees went silent. As one, they dropped to the ground around my bare feet, and I was left standing in a darkened room. I reached out, felt for my boundaries. The ceiling was too high to touch, the walls were far enough apart that I could only touch one at a time, and the floor was solid and cold under my bare feet. There was an artificial chill to the room, and the scent of alcohol and disinfectant hung in the air. A hospital monitor beeped at regular intervals.
Some brains were easy to enter. Lock on, spike. And some, like Guillermo's, were a minotaur's maze of twists and turns, complicated by false starts, booby traps, and brick wall dead ends. Though I was sorely tempted, instead of running headfirst into the maze, I slowed to a stop and listened.
A single pale light blinked into existence, illuminating the room. A man lay in a hospital bed, arms and legs wasted, his face a swollen mass of tissue. A tube ran down his throat—I assumed it was pumping oxygen into his lungs, since they rose and fell with machine-like regularity. There was a woman in the room with him. She manifested in the shape of a wilted red rose, her face shaded by drooping petals, her body the stem, her arms and hands curling green leaves.
"Stop protecting me, Gil. I have accepted my fate. I can't watch them hurt you anymore."
As I could believe nothing inside the dire wolf's head, I didn't take the scene as a truth. His aunt and brother were pushing illusions into him, and for all I knew, this could be one of them. Still, it didn't feel illusory. It felt like a memory.
A silver-haired elderly man stormed into the room, passing through my incorporeal body as he rushed to the bedside. He picked up the flower woman by what I imagined was meant to be her throat. The man in the bed made a grunting, pleading noise. The elderly man shook his head. The bedridden man reached out, but was thwarted by padded restraints that locked him to the bedframe. Staring into the eyes of the helpless bedridden patient, the elderly man ripped the rosebud from the stem, which I took to be a representation of the woman's head from her body, and threw it aside.
"The woman is dead, and your family has abandoned you. You have no one to worry about now. Fear not, for Elijah will pick up the broken shards of your soul and remake you. No one will ever harm you again. You will be immune to pain and suffering. You will be a true warrior."
In a spectacularly creepy move, the man rotated to face me. He shouldn't have known I was there. I hadn't been part of this scene when it happened, only a bystander watching the memory play out as if on a movie screen. But he was looking at me, not through me.
"You will not have him." The man's eyes were lit from within with red flames. "But we will have you. We have so many now. Won't you join us?"
"Are you part of Legion, too? Are you Elijah?" My voice ricocheted off the cold, windowless walls.
"His will is my will. His cause is my cause."
Wow, that really cleared things up. "Okay, so is your name Elijah?"
"All the flowers in the world belong to him." The man's mouth twisted into a cruel, maniacal smile. His eyes were flat and empty, his teeth clamped together, lips thinned. "The bees sing his songs. He holds the keys to the kingdom of humanity in his hands."
"Humanity? What you've done to Guillermo is barbaric."
"It is for the good of all. The prophet will ascend on his fiery chariot when our work here is complete, and all will be saved."
"I am going to kill you," I said through gritted teeth. "You are going to pay for this evil, you son of a bastard."
He sniffed. "Who are you? Only a paranormal, an inhuman creature of demonic origin bent on annihilating the human race."
"Take a look around, pal. It's not the paranormals doing all the annihilating."
"You are nothing. A perversion. You pale in comparison to the glory that is our mission."
Maybe I should have been more afraid, but I simply wasn't. After spending the last year facing down power-hungry delusional wolf alpha leaders, I was over it.
"Make up your mind." I smirked. "Am I nothing or am I a perversion?"
He strode up to me, jabbed my chest with his index finger—and damned if
I didn't feel it. "Abomination."
If Elijah could treat this illusion/memory as a living scene, then I could, too. As I had with the witch who had infested Lucas's head, I traced the magic back to the origin. With the witch, it had been about unraveling the knot. With this man, it was a matter of reaching the root of his fanaticism. There is tremendous power in people with a slavish adherence to dogma of any sort, but particularly when coupled with religion or politics.
True believers put off a lot of energy.
I locked onto his brainwaves, tuning into the discordant vibrations of the man's sick and twisted mind. This was not going to be a sleepy-time spike. My intention was not to allow the man to limp away and hurt someone else. This was retribution for the murder of the rose woman and the torture of the man lying in that hospital bed. This was fate coming to call.
This was a spike.
I drilled into his head, poring over his thoughts to ensure I had the right brain, that I wasn't accidentally spiking into Juan, Gert, Amir, or one the wolves. Once I was certain that I'd sifted through enough of his repulsive memories, I arrowed straight to the center of his consciousness. I wanted to draw it out, to dance to the music of his pain, but that took energy and I needed mine for the next spike—the one that would free Guillermo Martinez.
A spike, when done like this, is intoxicating. The power is like a fine wine—a few sips, and it is easy to set down the glass. Too many, and my common sense flies out the window along with my self-control. This meant that Elijah's death would be faster than he deserved.
He screamed—a high-pitched mouse-like sound that eeped out of him a half-second before he hit the floor and disappeared from the illusion. I was instantly thrown from his brain. I remained inside Guillermo's, and breathed through the urge to spike him, too. My mind was torn between wanting to protect and needing to spike.
I padded across the cold floor to the hospital bed, from which a terrified wolf peered up at me through swollen, half-shut eyes. Guillermo. Fisting his hands, he tore through his restraints and ripped the tube from his throat, coughing and hacking. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.
