Shadow of Nevermore

by Lilly Black

  "I'll find you one. What animal is it?" Liana offered hopefully.

  "It's the most rare creature in these hills," she said. "And unfortunately, my dear, they're all gone; there's only one way now."

  "Name it."

  "You must..." the witch paused as Liana waited anxiously for the answer. "You must become the creature yourself."

  "So, you would turn me into an animal, harvest what you need, then turn me back?"

  "Oh, wouldn't the world be lovely if it were that simple?" the witch asked, giggling like the tinkling of a bell. "I'm afraid it isn't, but you won't have to stay a beast. You'll be a metamorthrope. You can choose whether to be human or beast most of the time."

  "Most of the time?" Liana asked, but the witch avoided the question.

  "The silver lining is that you won't even need the potion anymore. You can transform, and when you turn back into yourself, you can control what returns. You can make your scars disappear. You can even make signs of age disappear." When she said this, Liana's interest was piqued, but she knew there had to be a downside.

  "So, what's the catch?" she demanded.

  "It's nothing, really. There will just be one night every month or so where you will have to spend time as the beast whether you like it or not. That's the only price." And for the payoff, it didn't really sound that high.

  "But what's your price?" Liana asked.

  "I'll have access to the ingredients I need for my potions. That's all I ask in return. In fact, if you'd like to avoid using this nasty paste altogether, we could go ahead with the ritual right now."

  Liana thought about it for a moment, but she really didn't have time. She had left her phone outside the shack and had already heard it vibrating several times as they called her from the Deadfall wondering why she wasn't with her team preparing to leave for their mission.

  "I need some time to think about it," she said. "But I appreciate the potion, and if there's anything else I can bring you..."

  "I have all I need," the witch assured her. "I'll see you soon."

  As the sun lit up her smirking face, Liana left the shack, grabbed her phone, and hurried back down the mountain to meet her team, her mind reeling all the while. Though she already knew that within fifty-six days' time, she'd be back, what she didn't know was what she would become when she did. The witch had ignored her when she asked what kind of beast she was talking about, but if the smell of the paste was any indicator, it was a skunk.

  Liana's Journal

  Day 132

  It's been nine weeks since the Sinner claimed dominion over the Deadfall, and it's almost time to initiate Olivia's plan. Tobias is her bitch at this point. He can't get the primo meth we produce anywhere else because we have perfected the recipe. Besides, all of the antihistamines we send to the Sinner are weak. Rena made a mold so we could crush up the real pills, cut them with inert ingredients, then make them look like they came from a pharmacy. We stole blank labels from various pharmacies so we could claim to be getting the prescriptions out of medicine cabinets since we can't very well seal our fake pills back in the factory produced packaging, and we're able to keep two thirds of everything we bring in for our own meth. I don't know what their other sources are, but the hardcore methheads like Tobias are just not satisfied with the Sinner's product. Soon, we'll take it away, blame it on his boss, and see how quickly he turns. I think we're close to being done with the Sinner, and once we take over his compound, Aiden and I plan to move there and manage it even though I just don't like the idea of moving so far away from the witch up the mountain. I've already used the two potions she gave me, and tomorrow my scars return. I need to go see her today, and apparently that means she's going to turn me into some sort of animal. Wish me luck.

  Liana's Journal, second entry

  Day 132

  Oh, my God! I didn't know what that witch meant when she said beast, but she fucking meant BEAST! I've never felt so powerful in my life! I was eight feet tall and bulletproof! I feel a little sick now that I'm human again, but the witch said it would get better as my body got used to making the transformation. She said a lot of things before she cast the spell, and I'm glad I listened because honestly, I thought I was just going to be some kind of rodent or something that I would rarely if ever choose to become on my own, not that I cared. The end result would be worth it, but I guess I should have known based on my experience with magic so far that it wasn't going to be something simple. Want the man of your dreams? Okay, but you gotta live in the zombie apocalypse. Want your scars gone? Okay, but you have to become a giant, metamorthropic beast.

  But I didn't consider any of that going into it. The witch wouldn't say what I would become, and I had deluded myself into thinking I'd just be a cute, little flying squirrel or, worst case scenario, an eastern cougar. They were very rare in these hills. It didn't matter. I was on the verge of achieving my lifelong goal of being rid of these scars and blemishes. I had tunnel vision.

  "You will be able to transform at will any time you like," she told me after explaining the sickness I would experience at first. "However on the one night every twenty-eight days, you will have no control over it. As the moon pushes and pulls the tides, so will it work with the magic in your blood. As it nears the apex of its cycle, you will feel the urge to let go of your human form and with it your humanity, and on the night that the full moon rides in the sky, your body will make the transformation against your will, locking you in your animal form until the moon sets."

  Whatever, I thought, deluding myself. So, I have to spend eight hours shitting in the woods once a month. That's easier than a period. Then I realized that I could now eliminate my period using transmogrification, which made the deal even sweeter since I doubted my IUD was going to survive this magic.

  "Sounds fine," I told the witch.

  "You will not be yourself during this time, General Navarro. You will be only the beast with the thoughts of the beast and the desires of the beast. You won't even know your own child."

  No big deal. I'll hop around the Deadfall eating nuts and avoiding Evil. I got this.

  "Do you understand?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Are you ready?"

  "Yes."

  With a mortar and pestle, she mixed the ingredients for the spell as she chanted in a language I didn't understand, then she stood facing me in front of her roaring fireplace. She dipped a finger in the bowl and spread a black powder in a crescent across my forehead, then she threw the rest into the fire. It made a loud crackling sound, then a sphere of light started to form amid the flames. It was yellow like the fire at first, then the colors - all of the colors - started swirling through it until it settled into a ball of silver light with a pale halo like the full moon.

  The witch reached into the flames and picked it up, and as it hovered over her palm, I felt the energy emanating from it. Then she shouted in the strange foreign tongue and shoved the ball into my chest. It felt like it was burning through the skin, but the pain seemed to cause ecstasy instead of agony. As it disappeared beneath the surface, I glowed from within, the light spreading as if it traveled through my veins until it shot out of me - my fingertips, my eyes, my mouth - flooding the room with such brightness, for a moment, everything went stark white.

  As the light began to dissipate, falling to the ground like glitter that vanished upon contact with the floor, the witch's face came into focus. She was smiling at me, but she wasn't at eye level anymore. She was lower by a couple of feet. I looked down at her, not understanding until she held up a mirror to show me what I had become. I wasn't human anymore, but I wasn't an animal either, at least not any animal I'd ever seen in reality. I was a hybrid - a human and a wolf. I was a werewolf, and I looked completely badassed as I stood on hind legs that were built to allow both upright and four-legged locomotion. My arms were long, and my claws were terrifying. But they were nothing compared to my teeth.

  "Ay dios mio!" I cried, but only a growl came out.
>
  "When you want to be yourself again, just think it," the witch said. "Try it now."

  I did as she commanded, and the transformation began. It was painful, but again, the pain manifested as a strange sort of pleasure as my body shrunk back to human form. I found myself standing in a pile of my shredded clothing, and when I felt between my thighs, the scars weren't there.

  "They're gone," I breathed.

  "They were gone from the potion before your first transformation, so this is your default now, but if there is anything else you wish to eliminate, even signs of aging, you only have to think about it as you become yourself again."

  "What's the downside?"

  "The full moon. Never forget it, Liana," she warned me with a stern look. "You must be chained or locked up or you could even kill your own child."

  "What if I get loose? Can't they just shoot me if they have to?"

  "Only one thing can stop the wolf," she said.

  "The zombies?" I asked. She said the beast I had to become was extinct now, so I had assumed zombies had been responsible.

  "I have to admit to you that I don't know about the dead. One or two, even ten may be no match for you now, but I cannot say what a herd could do. Otherwise, I suppose a silver bullet..."

  "Seriously?" I asked, incredulous.

  "I'm fucking with you," she said with a roll of her eyes. "The wolf is a creature of flesh and blood just like you. I imagine a silver bullet would do the same thing as a real bullet if properly aimed...unless, of course, you're immortal."

  The witch looked at me with a knowing stare, making ne wonder if she somehow knew about Madam Levinia's spell, but I didn't want to be the one to bring it up. I glared back suspiciously, and she grinned, crinkling her nose at me as she offered me a shift dress and some slippers to wear home since my clothes were destroyed. I took them, but as soon as I left her cabin, I set them down and transformed to run through the woods on all fours and check out my new, amazing second life. The entire time, I could feel freedom coursing through my veins, and all of the stresses of living in this hellscape of a reality seemed to fade away. I also knew that now, if I had to, I could take out Tobias and his entire team single handedly. I was that strong. It made me wonder what chains could hold me when the moon was full.

  Thankfully, Olivia tracked the moon phases for some agricultural reason. After I retrieved the clothes the witch loaned me and returned to the Deadfall, I found that I would have eleven days to figure out how to keep myself from killing people when the full moon rises. Maybe I'll just go so far away, I can't make it back here before the moon sets, or maybe I could try my chances at the Sinner's compound. Regardless, I have to think of something. I don't like the idea of not being in control.

  The Full Moon

  Day 143

  Olivia would be leaving the Deadfall tonight with a team for a recon mission at the Sinner's compound. For nearly three months, she had been working on Tobias, and now it was time to use him to kill the Sinner and takeover his operation. She was taking Reid and Alek both with her this time, and though the three of them had never been on a mission together since she didn't want to risk the lives of all of Savannah's parental figures at the same time, after Aiden cheated death, she firmly believed that they were invincible.

  The grey cloud to that silver lining was that Reid and Alek had become more adversarial than ever since Amina's death. Alek had let Reid take his place in Olivia's bed right after it happened, but it was not a permanent situation. Within a few days, he wanted her back, and Reid had a hard time leaving. Olivia wished he would just find another lover to balance things out again, but the morning of their mission when Olivia brought it up with Alek, not ready to discuss it with a still grieving Reid, he didn't want another woman.

  "I'd rather be alone when I'm not with you because you're all I want in this world," he said.

  "But I can't say the same to you, Alek. He's my husband, and I love him. So, what does that make me?"

  "Lucky," he said with a laugh. "I understand the situation, and I can live with it."

  "Can you live with it forever?" she asked.

  "If that's what it takes to be with you," he said, and she smiled a sad smile.

  "Jag älskar dig, Alek," she said.

  "I love you, too, baby."

  He kissed her then left the office. He was going out with Aiden and Reid on a run Liana scheduled to look for a few last minute things they were going to need for tonight's mission, and as he left, Liana came in. She had been waiting outside, hoping Olivia would have a solution she badly needed.

  Tonight the full moon would be rising, and she had yet to figure out what she was going to do. When she went on missions to scavenge antihistamines for Tobias, she had passed some seriously overrun areas, but knowing how fast she could move in wolf form, she was afraid that she would wipe out the dead and make her way back to the Deadfall on instinct. Plus, there was no way to be certain that she would have any interest in killing zombies when the wolf took her over completely. They wouldn't smell like food, and they probably wouldn't taste very good. Besides, now that they were in the middle of winter in the mountains, the dead had become slower, sluggish, and at times, even frozen in their tracks.

  The witch had suggested strong chains and lots of them. Unfortunately, the witch could not control the wolf itself.

  Olivia was her hail Mary.

  "Did you say that you raised bear cubs once?" Liana asked Olivia out of the blue, moving away from the desk in Olivia's office to sit on the couch against the wall. They had been going over the plan for tonight's mission when Liana realized she couldn't wait any longer to tell Olivia her secret.

  "Yeah," she said. "Their mother was killed, and I raised two female cubs. They're probably still on the mountain somewhere, though I haven't seen them since last spring. Why?"

  "I was wondering if you had a cage you kept them in, something large enough that a grown bear couldn't break out of," she said.

  "They never needed cages, but we do have a large room that we had built for Evil in the bunker. It has concrete walls on three sides and bars across the front," she said. "Why?"

  "Why aren't we using it as a jail cell?" Liana asked.

  "Because I don't want people knowing about the bunker. It's where our children hid when the Sinner came, and if someone like Porter had been aware of it..."

  "Gotcha."

  "So, why do you need a bear-sized cage?" Olivia asked again, and Liana looked away, wringing her hands in her lap because even though she knew she had no choice, she was still not comfortable telling her friend - or anyone! - what she had done. But the full moon would be rising tonight, and she had no choice. As Olivia waited, Liana opened her mouth to begin several times with no words coming out, and Olivia sat down on the couch with her, gently grasping her wrist. "What's the matter, Lilo?"

  "You're going to think I'm crazy."

  "I already think you're crazy," Olivia joked, and Liana laughed nervously.

  "No, seriously, Liv. You won't believe me when I tell you, then when I show you, you'll think I'm crazy for making the choices that led me here, but you have to understand that I did what I felt was necessary. And now I need your help."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "From the time the moon rises, I need to be locked up in that cage and guarded until it sets," Liana said, and Olivia looked at her incredulously.

  "What are you? A werewolf?" Olivia joked, and Liana stared back at her with an apologetic grin on her face, gritting her teeth. "Oh, bullshit, Liana."

  "Nah, you guessed it," she said.

  "You're not a fucking werewolf," Olivia disputed, getting irritated, but instead of going round and round with her friend over it when time was short, Liana decided to show her, allowing only her head to morph briefly into her lupine form. Olivia sat stunned as she stared at Liana's face, still trying to reconcile what she had just seen.

  "How...? Why...?" she asked.

  "It's a long story, but the im
portant part is that while the full moon is above me, I won't be able to stop myself from transforming, and when I do, I will be completely wolf until the moon sets. I will not be in control of my actions, and I don't want to risk killing someone."

  "Jesus! This is the last fucking thing I need right now. Even if I was inclined to be your armed guard tonight, I can't. I'm leaving for the recon mission to the Sinner's compound in a few hours," Olivia said. "Can't you just get Aiden to do it?"

  "Aiden doesn't know."

  "Of course, he doesn't," she said, rolling her eyes. "Have you told Dani?"

  "No. You're the only person who knows," Liana admitted, and Olivia picked up her phone, calling Dani to join them.

  "She's on her way, so you may as well wait until she gets here to explain this shit so you don't have to repeat yourself."

  "Why are you so angry?"

  "Why am I angry? Some asshole came and took our guns and is forcing us to loot for him or he'll shoot our people, and I'm assuming that for some reason related to your dysfunctional relationship, you went to the witch up the mountain and had her turn you into a fucking werewolf. First of all, why couldn't you have gone with something useful to us like a vampire or a, I don't know, a forty-foot, fire-breathing golem that could have gone in and killed the Sinner, but instead you decide that a glorified puppy dog is the way to go. And secondly, look at what happened the last time we messed with magic? We ended up with zombies sea to shining fucking sea, so I kind of thought we had all agreed that trifling with witches wasn't for us!"

  "So, now you believe that we're responsible for the apocalypse?" Liana asked.

  "I don't know what I believe, Liana. I just know that I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, and the last goddamn thing I want to do tonight is have to put one of my best friends on rabies watch when I really needed her to be guarding the Deadfall in my absence!"

  "I'm sorry," Liana said, tears in her eyes because now she was even more ashamed to tell Olivia why she made the choice. "I should have just gone straight to Dani because I knew you wouldn't understand!"