by Melle Amade
Our vehicle joins a long line of cars going towards the manor. It’s a pristine Dutch colonial mansion set on a precipice overlooking the ocean. It’s well-lit and stunning. If my little brother wasn’t held in there and about to be killed in a ritual sacrifice, it would make the most dashing event to attend. But all I want to do is scream, burn the car down, and run into the house, setting everything on fire to rescue my brother.
Every second the vehicle inches slower and slower towards the entrance I chew on the side of my mouth and click at my fingernails. Darko reaches over and covers my hand with his. Roman has joined us, but he is not glamoured. He is tucked as a frog under my hair on my shoulder. Apparently, the glamour is hard to hold and it takes a lot of energy. Darko is hoping he can hold it long enough for us to ascertain where my brother and the ritual artifacts are.
We all know at some point the illustrious evening is going to disintegrate.
But not right now.
Roman tucks away a strand of my hair, which is down and fluttering on the back of my neck. I’ve grown a bit used to him being there. I suggested he ride in my purse, but none of us know what level of searching they’re going to do, so this was the safest option.
It was a good decision.
As we walk into the mansion, handbags and purses are opened and inspected. The line doesn’t take too long though, because apparently shifters don’t need to carry many things. The men’s pockets get patted down and the women’s purses get opened, but that’s all we have.
And no one touches the women.
That’s an oversight on their part.
The entrance of the mansion immediately opens up into a large foyer, sweeping staircases leading to the upper levels. In front of us are four massive doors, wide open with gentlemen standing at the front, holding welcoming drinks. Darko takes two of the drinks and hands me one. I don’t want to drink but he gives me an eye, letting me know I have to make an effort to show I am one of them. I have to act like it’s normal for me to be at a party and have a drink.
There’s a platform in the corner with a local band playing thriving Caribbean music. Everybody is jovial, moving around the room, laughing and chatting as if this is some great event with a big announcement being made by El Oso. It doesn’t take us long to spot Aiden, Callum, and Iona. Iona has her arm looped around Callum’s. Which makes sense. They’re going to want to cause as few issues as possible. They’re going to want to make it look like they’re following the normal order. There’s no reason to draw attention to their relationship or to Iona’s preferences. I’ve seen enough in the way of the organized shifter world to believe they have no room for tolerance.
I want to run to Callum and hug him. I’m so relieved he’s here. But they’re talking to another group of shifters. As we approach, the conversation breaks for a moment as Callum and Aiden both nod curtly at us. Darko bows, but neither of us says a word. I’m not here to make polite conversation, I’m here to find my brother and get rid of El Oso. The only problem is, as I scan the room looking for any sign of them, I see nothing. In fact, there’s something drastically missing.
I lean over to Zan. “Where are the Berzerken?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” she says.
“How long have you been here?”
“About thirty minutes. And not a single bear.” Her eyes rove the room to double check in case she happened to miss one.
“You want to go to the powder room?” I ask.
She nods and side-by-side we turn to look for where the restroom might be. But as we survey the parameters of the room, we realize the four doors leading into the entry hall are now closed, and in fact the only door out of this hall is on the opposite side.
“Is Roman with you?” She asks.
I nod and Callum glances at me. I shift my eyes towards the door where Zan and I are headed and he gives a single short nod. He’s noticed there’s only one door, too. And I’m one hundred percent sure he’s noted the lack of Berzerken at this event.
Where are they?
His fingers do a swift motion from himself towards the door, letting me know he’s going to follow us. Staying in the company of the Heir to Muirderkring West only means that any eyes in the hall watching, will see me. Aiden understands his role is to act as a decoy while the rest of us do the dirty work. Knowing him, that will drive him crazy.
We move over to the hallway, trying to identify who in the room is actually watching everyone. The Berzerken wouldn’t have just left us here without anybody. Then I see them. Each door is guarded by two men, lean, dark and regally dressed in white. They look as if they come from the island. They all look very strong. These are not people I want to fight. Not at all. But I can tell they are doing their job to watch the guests and make sure nothing untoward happens. They are here to keep us in place.
“Tigers.” Zan leans over to whisper. “From Muirderkring East.”
“What are they doing here?” I ask.
“There are people from all three Muirderkrings here,” Zan says.
“They were all kidnapped?”
“No, neither were we technically,” she shrugs. “We were ‘invited’ to be El Oso’s guests. But the tigers, are hired mercenaries. They’re from deep on the Indian peninsula. We group them with Muirderkring East because it is where they fall on our map. But they are a lawless band who sell their services.”
“How can everybody just stay in there laughing and talking?” I ask. “Isn’t it obvious something is wrong?”
“No,” Zan says. “Not to most people. They came out for a party hosted by the Berzerken. They have no idea about the ritual El Oso is planning.”
We’re standing outside the bathroom doors, when Callum and Darko catch up.
“We have to figure out where the Berzerken are,” I say. “Because it’s not here and they’re not going to be here.”
But suddenly I can see by the look on Zan’s face, like a lightbulb has gone off. Something she’s only just remembered, or just connected the dots.
“What is it?” I ask.
“That piece I translated, of the spell. The bit that says, ‘to gain great power requires great sacrifice.’”
“My brother,” I say.
“Your brother is the blood of the spell,” Zan says. “Your brother, he is not the sacrifice.”
At the same time, all our eyes return to the open door in the hallway.
“Everyone in that room is the sacrifice,” Zan breathes.
“Aiden,” Callum and I say at the same time but Callum is faster and he’s moving towards it. But Darko beats him to the door, putting his hand on his arm.
“We need you to help find El Oso and stop the ritual. From the beginning.”
“My job is to protect the Heir. To protect Muirderkring West. That is where I should be.” His eyes look to where Aiden is animatedly talking with Iona at his side.
“Trust her,” Darko insists. “Trust her with your honor, trust her with your task. Trust her with the life of the Heir. There’s no one who can fight the Berzerken as well as you two.” His gaze moves from Callum to me.
“Zan, how are they going to sacrifice everybody in this room?” But the idea comes to us at exactly the same time and we start to look around at the wood and realizing how dry and brittle this old house actually is.
“Come on,” Darko says, as his glamour fades and has white hair comes back. “I can’t keep up the glamour and be of any use to you.” I look down at my own hair and I see it fades from black to reddish brown. We are back to ourselves and we will be hunted if we are seen.
“Darko, you said there are caves near here, like the one where we parked the ship. How far away are they?” I ask.
“They are all over the island,” he says as two tigers move towards the doors.
“You need to come in. The ceremony is about to begin,” a tiger says, motioning us to enter the room. But we know exactly what they’ll do. They will lock us in there.
“I don’
t think so,” Darko says, raising his hand to one of the tigers, who immediately faints and collapses. Callum clips the other one with a tight punch and pulls him behind the door.
“Somebody has to tell Aiden to start getting people out of there,” I say.
“I’ll do it,” Zan says. “You, Callum, and Darko go and find the Berzerken. Find El Oso.”
“The four of us stop the Berzerken,” I mumble, my stomach reeling.
“Find your brother and bring him to safety,” Zan says, giving me a swift hug before she walks back into the room.
We go to the door at the far end, past the powder rooms. The door’s locked, but Darko reaches over and grips it strongly, ripping the handle out of the door. Roman leaps off my shoulder and shifts back into his normal self. He glances back at Zan and Aiden who are even now slowly moving through the room and trying to encourage a few people here and there trickle towards us and out the door. But I can see, even out of the corner of my eye that the tigers are starting to realize people are moving this direction.
“We have to go,” Callum says, grabbing my hand and drawing my attention just as I see one of the tigers go to the center of the room to where a large caldron of wood sites. I thought it was a decorative piece, but he fiddles with something and suddenly flames shoot down through the bottom of the container and out along the floor. People scream as the flames race around the room. Conversations stop and fire divides groups of people as the floor burns and immediately catches on drapes, on dresses, on anything it can touch.
“Come!” Darko roars.
“You can’t fight fire with fire,” Callum says seeing the look on my face and how much I want to race back into the room. “Let’s go.”
I sprint after them down the hallway. Darko knows the house amazingly well. He leads us quickly down the side corridor and out the back door until we are on the back terrace. I look back and I want to cry out, because the house is already burning. But then I realize, if they have started the sacrifice, then they will be starting the ritual, the ritual that will end my brother’s life.
“This way.” Darko rushes us along until we’re down the side of the garden where there’s a rocky outcropping. He sneaks around behind their stairs leading down into what looks like an ocean grotto. But along the back there is another dark cave. We move along stealthily, as quickly as we can, but trying to make as little noise as possible, which is almost impossible.
The tunnel opens up high at the top of the cave. A small dark opening in the shadows. I peer over the edge at the cave beneath us and I almost scream out, but Callum puts a hand over my mouth.
On a stone altar in the center of the cave amongst the stalactites and stalagmites are all the artifacts of the spell. A gilded chain connects the iron cage to the chalice. And from where we are perched at the top of the cave I can see the shining jewels from the crown of the Ravensgaard queen. But all of those I see in an instant, almost barely noticing them. Because what they have captured in the iron cage is most precious to me of all. Inside the iron cage is a small pure white dove.
My brother.
On his leg shines a gold band. Zan sees it when I do.
“That holds them in his shifter form. He will have no chance to become human, he will stay a dove until we get him out of there.”
“Let’s go,” I say and I’m about to shift and fly at the face of the Berzerken. But Callum grabs my wrist.
“Wait.” He says and he uses his commanding voice. One he never uses on me. I have to obey. I want to slap him in the face but I can’t do that either.
“We have one shot at this,” he says. And his gaze is taking in the perimeter of the room and determining how we’re going to proceed.
“Fine. Hurry up. That’s my brother down there. My little brother.” Callum of all people should understand exactly what that means. He’s the one who lost his brother to the infighting in the beginning.
But as we survey the room, I suddenly realize it is full of Berzerken. Every shifter bear on the planet must be here in this cave. A hundred of them.
Flying in to attack them isn’t going to be the hard part.
It’s going to be impossible to get out.
And from the looks of it, there’s only one other entrance besides the one we’re crouched in. It’s a large gaping maw on the other side of the cave. All the Berzerken are in their human form. But we are absolutely no match for them.
Even with my firepower.
“I’m going to him,” I say.
I don’t care what happens. If my brother is going to die, he’s not going to die alone, and I’m certainly not going to stand here and watch him be bled to death.
26
The massive cave is lit by torches, but it’s dim. Only a few of them line the walls around the cave. The Berzerken are hulking dark shadows. The only thing that casts light in the center is the massive jewel from the crown of the Ravensgaard queen. It casts an eerie pale blue glow on El Oso.
Callum holds my wrist still even though he knows I’m about to shift into the cave.
“Is there any other way out of this cave?” He asks Darko.
“No,” Darko says. “Just where we stand and down there. There aren’t even any air vents or small channels that even Roman could fit through.”
Polaris stands in front of my brother. El Oso is speaking low, chanting some spell as Polaris starts to reach in the cage and my brother huddles back against the far side. But there’s no escaping Polaris’s massive hand as he grips Henry. He could just as easily snap my brother’s neck.
I leap off the ledge, screaming as I dive into the air. A flicker out of the corner of my eye tells me Roman has shifted at the same time and as black feathers form all over my body, I make sure I’m in a space where he can land right behind my wings. I swoop down as the chamber fills with the angry roar of a hundred Berzerken. I am just a small black shadow flying straight to the center of the room.
But Polaris and El Oso both have the same reaction.
Not a roar or a growl. They don’t shift like many of their brethren. All they do, as I fly cawing through the air, is stand there…laughing.
Polaris holds up my brother by his neck, squeezed between a humongous thumb and forefinger.
“One more move and I snap his neck!” He calls to me. Henry’s dark dove eyes spring wide with terror.
I pull my wings back, holding them out like a parachute trying to break and stop and get away. And even as I do so I feel Roman leap off my shoulders. I veer right to get everybody’s attention to one side, hoping that Roman will be able to disappear in the dark amongst the Berzerken.
“There’s another one,” a Berzerken shouts as Callum flies from the side, but he’s not flying to the center. He circles the room, landing on each torch in turn and extinguishing the flames. The room descends into darkness. A huge black cave full of roaring black bears, all scrambling over each other to try to stop the madness that has entered their sacred cave.
But one voice screams louder than the rest. My eyes zone in on Polaris. His face is twisted and writhing in pain as his fingers open and he drops my brother. Roman is settled on to the back of his palm as the massive beast reaches over with his hand to smash down on him, but Roman leaps out of the way and down onto the altar where my brother lays. Roman grabs my brother’s leg and I dive down, clutching Henry by the back of the neck as El Oso screams. In the dark, I see his hand light up with green energy. But this time I’m expecting it, this time I know he’s about to smack at me with some ungodly magic power. I bank sharply right, barely missing a charging green bolt that flies past me and ricochets off the wall. It must land on some bear down in the writhing mass of beasts, because I hear a bellowing yelp come up from below.
This is going to get ugly.
As I twist again to move out of the way, I see a black flying creature with a massive wingspan. It’s definitely not Callum, who is still causing a distraction and trying to attack the back of El Oso’s head.
It’s
Darko in his bat form. He’s going after the artifacts in the center of the altar. I dodge another green burst of energy and realize this isn’t going to work. I can’t survive inside this cave dodging forever. The weight of Roman and my brother is making it hard to maneuver.
Suddenly a loud scream and a dark claw smashes out of the blackness, hitting me in the face and throwing me even more off-balance. I spiral sharply to the left, aiming as best I can for the cave entrance we came through. I hurl my brother and Roman towards it. But I can’t see in the dark cave if they have made it or not. I’ve lost altitude and another bear paw slams into me, hooking my talons and pulling me down. The beast’s mouth comes towards me, the stench of its rotten breath wafting over me in waves as I start to tumble backwards and into the fury of the Berzerken.
Suddenly, the entire cave lights up with a shock of green electric light and the bears all draw back as El Oso’s booming voice fills the cavern.
“Leave her!” He says. “She is mine.”
He raises his hand and green energy bolts fly out of him and light up every torch that Callum has just put out. He nails Darko and Callum at the same time. They fall to the ground, immediately shifting into their human forms as they are pulled up by hulking Berzerken.
“I should’ve done this a long time ago,” El Oso growls, his voice low as he points a single finger towards me. The bears have all stepped aside, giving El Oso a straight shot at me. I stare at him grimly.
He is more experienced, more powerful, and deadlier than I may ever be. But I will stand my ground.
“Block the exit.” He waves his hand at the small cave where I threw Roman and Henry. “Stop those two from escaping.”
“There is nowhere to go, little Nuverling,” he says to me. “I will have you and I will have your brother. And I will take all the power to create magic for my people.”
“We were all your people,” I say. “Every last one of us.”
El Oso raises back his head and his laughter rumbles through the cavern, loosening some rocks on the side that skitter down the walls. “Young and so naïve,” he says. “You have no idea of the world you are in. Do you think I enjoy killing? Do you think I enjoy making laws to help stupid shifters who can’t understand how to take care of themselves? Have you ever wondered why I do that? I have worked to create an impenetrable barrier. To protect my people. the Berzerken!”
