by Lisa Ladew
Growler looked up in the moonlight. The stars said dawn would come in three hours. The forget-me-nots of the forest center waved from one side of him. He’d crushed hundreds of them as he’d lain caught and unconscious in the bear trap for so long. They were not springing back up. Vampire magic should not have so much power against a shifter.
Sir Dewey stood and kicked at the bear trap the vampires had set and hidden. With that much magic it had to have been a Fatherborne who had set it. Vant. Vant was the one who hammered them relentlessly, breaking through their magic and raiding the cosh again and again.
The moonlight revealed that Growler’s clothes were perfect, not even a wrinkle. Even though he’d been almost chewed through by a bear trap. He turned away from the flowers, back into the woods, setting off at a fast pace toward the cosh, staying human so he could talk to Sir Dewey. “You shouldn’t have left the girls,” he growled harshly.
“It was a pleasure to save your sorry arse,” Sir Dewey rasped back, following Growler. Sir Dewey was one wily bear. The best kind of bear.
Growler only growled his thanks. Sir Dewey spoke pleasantly, as if he were remarking on the sunshine all week, his earlier terror gone. “They aren’t girls, you vagabond. You simple, simple bear.” Sir Dewey laughed properly and Growler’s lips twitched. The male thought he was funny. Sir Dewey caught up to Growler’s pace on his left, the two of them abreast in the forest, knocking over small trees in their path, skimming around bigger ones, sometimes hooking in with paws and claws and flinging their bodies around, as bears with lots of energy or something to show off were wont to do, even bears of their age. Growler would show off even when his muzzle went silver if there was a pretty girl to impress or a young cub to school.
Sir Dewey spoke again, ignoring the crack of a sapling under his boot. “Not girls. Grown women. Grown women with needs and wants we are forced to leave unfilled.” He growled in easy imitation of Growler. There. That simple statement was the most they would ever speak out loud against one as magic as Antimony. They were not scared of Antimony, but both valued their place in the cosh, and both knew Antimony was the only one with the power to take that from them. Only Antimony could kick a shifter out of the cosh. Or Fate. But it was good to officially know where Sir Dewey stood.
Growler said nothing in response. He only shifted to his strong and alpha bear and lumbered away from the bear trap that held no bear in the meadow of flowers that should not be there. He picked up speed slowly, but steadily, thick paws digging heavy divots into the ground. Growler hit his top speed quickly, then settled in for the run to the cosh.
He needed to see that his Anna was fine with his own eyes. Needed to get back to her.
16 – Vampires Attack the Cosh
Growler’s bear ran hard. He was part of the man, but not the man. Also named Growler. He ran to Anna. Loved Anna. Would kill for Anna. Anna smelled good. Anna scratched him behind his ears and called him, “adorable,” and “gorgeous,” and, “such a good protector.” Vampires were fun to kill. Tasted bad. So easy to scare. Could not kill them, but hurt them? Disable them? Hold them for his Anna to kill? All day long.
Growler growled into the night as he ran, just for show. Watch me, Sir Dewey, you overgrown and undermuscled bear cub. Watch me growl and roll and still show you up. For two days, I sat locked in the man’s mind, his legs chewed to meat, his body uncallable, and still I am stronger than you. Will lock my jaws around your throat if you come close. Will grind for blood.
Lightning flashed. Growler lifted his nose. No rain in the air. Paws slipped in mud on the path. Dig in. Muscles roll, lumbering. Run through everything. A fallen, dead log, massive, too big. Sir Dewey steered in. Smart. Growler steered in, the two massive bears hit the log together with leading shoulders. Crash and crack. Splintering wood flying everywhere. Satisfying.
More lightning struck. Closer. Blue lightning. Swan. The human pulled at Growler, demanded to be let back in front, exerted that surprisingly strong demand that Growler could not resist for long. Growler let go… waited… Human took over…
Growler skidded to a walk and shifted, unfolding into an upright stance with the practiced ease of a born bear shifter, all compaction and menace and nasty attitude till he was soothed. Here I come, Anna.
Sir Dewey shifted also, as Growler knew he would. Growler was alpha. To refuse to stop when Growler had stopped would have been challenging the alpha.
Sir Dewey came up abreast of Growler. “Swan is ascrying from the crow’s nest.”
“For Vant?”
Sir Dewey nodded. “The Vampire Vant. Aye. Swan sees him coming. Bringing an army of vampires. Setting traps to ensnare forest bears.” His proper British voice held no hint of mockery, even though his words dripped with it. Growler shook his head in admiration. The bear was a beast. A proper, refined beast.
Growler held his voice steady. No laughter. He would hand over no weakness, not even humor. Only his Anna got to see his soft sides. “When?”
Sir Dewey shrugged. “She still can’t say.”
Neither of them was glowing, so none of their switches were in trouble, so it wasn’t right now. Growler caught his breath, thinking hard while he was still in his human form, and could form complex thoughts. He spoke as he walked. “She can’t ascry till for long.” Ascrying, using magic to see things that were far away, took a lot of strength and could not be done continuously.”
Sir Dewey nodded tightly. “Anna helped her earlier. Now Anna is… recovering. They’ve decided they can go a week straight like that. Swan says if Vant hasn’t come in a week, they’ll figure something else out.”
Growler growled his displeasure. Anna would lend Swan her magic, let Swan drain her of enough Bond magic so that Swan didn’t have to sleep for a week straight? Anna would do it for her, falling in a heap for whatever time she was allotted, then wake and pour all of her hard-won energy into her sister. Growler hated when she did it. It put hollows in her cheeks and black marks under her eyes. He would tell her…
He was about to shift again, and take off at a run. He suddenly needed very badly to be inside the cosh before the twilight of dawn arrived. And he was still many miles off. But Sir Dewey still had more to say.
“There was an Undoing during your… nap. Antimony denied entry to our switches.” He looked off into the forest to finish his thought. “... but not our shifters.”
Growled growled. Unacceptable. Antimony was trying to divide them as an element. And there was nothing any of them could do.
Sir Dewey cleared his throat quietly, which let Growler know he was about to say something important. “Why do you think she would do such a thing?”
Growler swallowed. So they were gonna discuss it, were they? Antimony must have taken off. To wherever she went when she disappeared for weeks at a time.
“You’ve heard the legends?” Growler said.
“Antimony has lived for a thousand years? Antimony is one of the original five switches? Aye, I’ve heard them.” Growler waited for the question from Sir Dewey. It came. “Are they true?” he asked. The cosh was tight-lipped to newcomers.
Growler didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. “She’s wild enough. Strong enough.”
“She is.”
“It would explain a lot.”
“It would.”
Blue lightning detonated a tree to their left, the strike of electrical fire searing the hair on Growler’s head. He grew new hair exactly as his Anna liked it, and raised a hand to deflect a flying tree branch, then opened the palm to Swan. She’d be able to see him for several seconds after her lightning retracted. Growler liked Swan. Swan understood Anna’s need for closeness, for talk, for bonding, for holding the life of those around you in your hands. Anyone who made Anna’s life sweeter was Growler’s friend.
Growler shifted and ran. Sir Dewey followed.
***
Growler and Sir Dewey entered the cosh through a rough wooden door closest to the end of the long house, the area that bond elemen
t fought hard to keep. Their walls were gone, torn down by their sisters or the children of the cosh whenever whim hit them. Growler longed to put up walls so thick no one could tear them down, not even the strongest bone shifter. They needed to have their own space. A place where Anna could put down those roots she longed for. A place to “spill her magicks.”
If his Anna needed a place to spill her magicks, it was his duty to provide it. A place that was hers alone, but still strong with her sisters’ presence and acceptance. A…. something…. Something new and different where they could steal a mite more time with each other. His mind worked it over, remembering the center of the forest.
Growler stepped over sleeping roll after sleeping roll, Sir Dewey doing the same behind him. The Blood switch children (all girls) were having a sleepover with the Breath switch girls and all of them were laid out in a spiral, pillows placed next to pillows, sweet, child hands clasping the hands of their cosh sisters. For now. When they reached the age of maturity, all of them would be cast out with the winds, sent to seek their Fate and enough exceptionality of spirit that Fate would call them back to be a member of the cosh.
The cosh was dark, sunrise still far off. There had been a watch, but he and Sir Dewey hadn’t been challenged. There was no shifter who would be on watch at the cosh who wouldn’t know Growler and Sir Dewey on scent, so they’d pushed inside quietly, scenting the watch and ignoring it. Snores and sleep grunts filtered through the very long longhouse. Fifteen switches and thirty-six shifters, plus twelve children lived in the cosh.
Blood element had a shuttered maze of walls right in the middle of the longhouse that led to rooms, one for each Blood switch, and two for the Blood shifters. Growler headed to the north end of the cosh, where Bond element laid their beds, among others. He saw his Anna immediately, sleeping on the floor next to her bed. Punishing herself. His heart tore in half. Theresa’s bed was empty but he barely noticed.
Growler rushed to Anna, picked her up, placed her gently on the bed and pulled the blankets around her. Her hair was still braided for battle and he picked at it, torn between relaxing it so she could sleep more comfortably, and leaving it braided in case the vampires found them that night.
She had not even undressed. She still wore her heavy dress that covered hips and legs but spilled cleavage out for Growler to mentally devour every time he saw her. Especially when she was fighting. By the Bear, he loved to watch her fight, had almost let a vampire too close to her once while watching and lusting over his fierce and beautiful warrior witch but not paying enough attention to the enemies.
He pulled at the silk of one braid, lying on the pillow behind Anna and longed to have a real room, with four walls, a place where to woo her, to whisper words of longing and lust in her ears, until she used her warrior body and her magicks to cleave him to her, to strip his clothes from his back, strip him proud and bare under her wandering, seeking fingers. Until she let him know who was in charge that time, how exactly she wanted what he wanted to give her. Growler longed to have the right to seek such a thing. To even want such a thing.
A searing, crackling noise rocked the cosh as lightning struck too close, then Growler’s body lit up, spilling orange light over his still sleeping Anna. Along the cosh, shifters eyes lit up, as they opened them. An ingrav glowed green in the palm of a Breath switch in her bed. Growler could just see the soft glow from that way. Switches and shifters down the long house sat up together, then all jumped to their feet, even the children, and all the shifters glowed.
This was not practice. They were under attack, each and every cosh switch in imminent danger. It would be a massive, swarming attack that none of them were likely to survive.
Vant had found them.
Growler shifted mindsets at once. If they were that likely to die, the fighting was for fun. Just so, then. Growler vowed to bathe in vampire blood before he let a one of them touch his Anna.
His Anna’s eyes popped opened, glowing orange and looking dazed, and he scooped her out of the bed and ran for their post, as males and females quietly scrambled around them to do the same. To the roof he would take her, to the crow’s nest, where the magic switches of the cosh would lay down magical fire as the smart and strong switches outthought and outran the vampires, until the last vampire had been magically slain. Banding together, sister with sister, with shifter and shifter was their biggest strength, as well as their greatest weakness. They could never keep the vampires from their door forever. And here it was, not even light on no special day at all, and they were under attack. All of them. Ducks in the pond floating too close to shore as they slept.
But how disadvantaged were they? How much lead time did they have? Could it be enough to survive through the night, through this fight? To live one more day on the same earth as his Anna? She stirred in his arms. Exhausted and giving in to sleep. “Magicks,” he growled at her, rubbing her back to roust her. “Ready thy magicks.”
He rounded a corner and grasped his Anna tighter, then grabbed the heavy-duty wood ladder that stood there, pulling them both up it with one hand and his powerful legs. The cosh was still eerily quiet. No vampires swarmed the door, busting them down with their sheer numbers. Vampires bred indiscriminately, filling the world with their spawn, but these numerous vampires were weak. Good for little but meat swords. Switches could dispatch them easily, as long as there weren’t too many of them. Which was why Growler expected a lot of vampires. This felt like it would be a battle to be recorded in the history book the White Wolf carried around, the Keeper’s book.
He climbed, keeping his breath steady, listening for the swarm he knew was coming. The only noises he heard in the cosh were the breathing of switches and shifters in their scramble for weapons and readiness. Growler breached the top of the ladder, pushing out onto the roof, the stars exploding overhead in the vast sky.
“Anna,” he growled as he moved toward the crow’s nest on the center of the roof. He could see it up there, still small, glowing with Anna’s sisters’ magicks. Anna snuffled in his arms. “Wake up, Anna,” he said. He kept his voice hard, his words distant. She would feel what was in his heart, and he would whisper it to her later as she prowled. It would be just the two of them. He would see to that. Would hold her tight and let her struggle against him till she worked out every bit of magical killing energy that had built inside her body. He would run with her, hold her down, fight her but not really, contain her, or fuck her. Or all of them if that was what she needed to come down, to regain herself. Whatever she decided. She knew best what her body needed. And he knew best how to give that to her.
Growler leaned his weight inward and scrambled across the slanted roof, Anna over his shoulder. All the other magic switches were already there in the crow’s nest with Swan, their magicks leaking out of the windows, the cool night air swirling the powders and amorphous colors around the roof, bringing it to twirl around Growler’s ankles.
No, not all of the rest of the switches with the strongest magic, like his Anna, were in the crow’s nest. Antimony wasn’t there. No pink magicks pulsed and overtook the other colors like bully made of smoke. Antimony would show up when she damn well pleased, no matter how strong her ingrav glowed.
Anna pushed at Growler, waking finally, maybe it was the cool air, maybe a feeling. “Vampires,” she said, pushing at Growler’s chest until he put her down with a growl.
She leaned into the roof, knowing why they were up there, but taking a moment to look out at the uneven meadow that extended around the cosh for only five or six feet until the giant evergreens claimed the ground, then the river wound past, dividing the trees in a winding, twisting line. They had last built the cosh here, on this site, next to the river, not because they cared that vampires couldn’t cross running water. Who stopped to build a raft when they could phaze, anyway? No, the cosh had been put so close to the water because Growler’s predecessors, the shifters who had built the cosh a hundred years ago, when the switches had transitioned from a nomadic
life to gathering and living in Five Hills, had loved a good game of drown-the-vampire. Vampires hated being submerged in running water. It couldn’t kill them but it mussed their hair or something.
Growler pulled at Anna, tucking her into his side, pulling her across the roof toward the crow’s nest. It sat up high. If none of the sisters looked out and saw them, they could sneak a moment or two in the shadows next to it.
Anna should never run through a battle without him. Vampires had magic. Vampires could phaze. Vampires were sneaky little weasels and Anna was soft and vulnerable. She was hard and invincible, too, but he’d seen her hurt by vampires too many times over the years. Growler growled and plucked at Anna’s skirts as they crouched into the roof, moving to the very center. Anna knew exactly what he wanted and she reached into whatever secrets women hid in their skirts and pulled out her dagger, looking around questioningly, ready. Growler growled. Not yet, but keep it out.
They drew next to the Crow’s nest. Growler didn’t have to tell Anna to be quiet. She always was. Growler heard a few words of the magical switches in the crow’s nest, Swan talking the most. North edge. 500 strong. Most can phaze. Some are being phazed in.
Growler shook his head. They really did have no hope against 500 vampires. He saw his death clearly. He would make the Great Bear proud… He was ready for what came next. But if it was their time, there was something he had to tell his Anna...
He turned to her, tucking a curl that had escaped a braid behind her ear. Anna’s eyes went wide and she glanced up, as if a sister’s face would appear at the window of the crow’s nest and crane down to see them.
Growler couldn’t be brought to care anymore. He wanted everyone to know. Wanted his Anna to carry his mark at her throat and everyone to know that she was his and his alone. If they made it through the night, mayhap…? He growled as softly as he could and his fangs grew in his mouth. He licked one, staring at that hollow, that little notch at shoulder and neck where muscle met muscle, close enough to the throat, close enough to where he wanted to hold her with his teeth while she bucked underneath him.
