“They found me on the street and offered me a job I couldn’t refuse. I was too hungry to say no at the time,” he said. “Didn’t know they wanted to slice and dice on me. If I’d wanted to sell parts of myself on the black-market, I would have done it without them and saved all the cash for myself instead of giving it to them.”
I didn’t hear that right, I thought, focusing my attention back on the peephole in the wall. “What do you mean ‘slice and dice?’”
“I’ve been in here for a few days, and someone comes in like clockwork every morning to take blood. I ain’t talking just a beaker or two, either. For some reason, they didn’t come this morning. I think they might have been busy with you. I guess they’re figuring out my blood type, and setting up for the ones buying my organs,” he explained. “Why else would they want blood?”
Opening the shields on the forest had taken my blood, not Victor’s. Was it possible they needed the blood of a shifter in order to get him inside so he could get me out?
Since he had a name like Toad, I decided to go out on a limb and ask. “You wouldn’t happen to be a shapeshifter, would you?”
Complete silence met me for a long second before he replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So you are. That’s why they wanted you. That’s why they took your blood.” I was talking more to myself than to him, though.
“You’re telling me the reason they’ve been hacking on my arms is because I can turn into a mouse when the mood suits me?”
A mouse, not a toad. I would have lost that bet.
I straightened, headache forgotten. “You can still shift?”
“Yeah. How else do you think I got this handy little hole? It took me days to chew through to your room. Normally, it wouldn’t have taken so long, but I’ve been really weak. Leave it to me to pick the wrong wall. I knew the back one might be either concrete or brick, and I wasn’t brave enough to try the front, so I picked one of the sides,” he said glumly. “Your room is much nicer than mine, by the way.”
When he spoke again, his voice was wary. “Do you mind telling me why they want my blood?”
“The blood of shapeshifters holds magic,” I explained, thinking of the pen that had cut into the fingers of my parents as they signed my brother and me into Imperium. That same pen had pressed its barbs into my own fingers when I had turned eighteen. An oath made in blood by a shapeshifter was unbreakable. At least I hadn’t had to sign a contract here…yet.
“What do you mean ‘magic’? Like white rabbits appearing out of thin air and stuff?” Toad demanded.
“No, shifter magic is the ability to change to that of your animal spirit. You’re a woodland, or what we’d call an earth, shifter.”
“I’m not following why anyone would want my blood,” he said with a sigh.
“There is a forest protected by a magic shield. They used blood to get me out of it. My guess is that blood was yours.”
Complete silence met me as he put the pieces of what I said together. My head was thumping again, and I wondered if my words made any sense at all.
“So they have you now. They won’t need me anymore,” he said, coming to a conclusion I hadn’t even arrived at yet. “I wonder when they’ll be in here to finish me off?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I wanted to say something uplifting…or even lie and tell him the people holding us hostage wouldn’t do something like that.
But I couldn’t make myself do it. I’d seen the Dark Watch kill, and I knew that they’d do it again if it served their purpose.
“You say you chewed this in a few days?” I asked, sticking two of my fingers in the hole.
“Yeah,” he answered quietly.
“You could do it again, couldn’t you?”
“I was working on the spot by your door before they brought you in this morning.”
I turned and looked. Sure enough, a small hole was chewed at the bottom.
“Can you come over here?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” he replied.
A few seconds later, a tiny brown mouse popped his head out of the wall and peered at me. He hopped from the wall to the floor, then shifted back.
The kid who stared up at me was much younger than I’d thought. At most, he was eleven. He had a thatch of wild brown hair that seemed to defy gravity, sticking up in every possible direction, and his clothes were ratted and torn.
“Nice to meet you, Toad,” I said with a smile, instantly wanting to protect him. He was way too young to be mixed up in this mess, however he’d managed to get involved.
“Yeah, you too,” he said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. It shouldn’t take much more to get through that wall. Another day at the most and you’ll make your way through it. As long as you stay in your mouse form, you should be able to sneak out of here,” I suggested.
“What if they come back while I’m over here? They’ll get you, too,” he said, eyes wide.
“They’ve already got me, kid. But with any luck, you should be able to make it out of here.” I walked over and kicked the small hole near the door once, hard.
“You don’t want to do that,” Toad warned in a hiss. “They aren’t that far away. They’ll hear you, and then they’ll come.”
Sure enough, I heard footsteps approach. The boy shifted, scurried up the bedpost, and went through the hole in the wall at a speed that would have made the professors at Imperium proud.
“Whatever happens, I want you to get out of here. All right, kid?” I whispered.
Then I heard keys rattle, and the bolt on the door slid open.
“Come on out,” a burly man said as he opened the door for me. “And don’t try anything funny.” He held a gun in his free hand, pointed straight at me.
The Dark Watch never attacked Imperium with guns, only silver blades. Why a gun now? Do they think I’m only human? I wondered.
“Out,” he repeated with a snarl, moving his gun in an impatient gesture from me toward the hallway.
I did as he asked, deliberately leaving the door standing open in hopes he’d leave it that way.
No such luck. The instant I was past him, he shut it and I heard the lock click into place.
“Walk,” came the next grumbling order, followed by the hard barrel of the gun shoved into the small of my back.
I walked, passing door after door that looked exactly like the one I had come out of. Toad was right; this was some sort of hospital. From the looks of the dirt and grime on the floor, it hadn’t been used in a long time.
Where was I? Still in the city…or somewhere else? How far was I from Imperium? I looked at the floors, ceilings, and every door I passed, searching for some small bit of information that would give me a clue. Other than the occasional fire extinguisher there wasn’t anything marking the walls.
“Where am I?” I asked, deciding to try my luck by asking the guy with the gun.
I didn’t anticipate any goodwill on his part, because, let’s face it, when someone held a gun on you, they were likely to be less than hospitable.
“Somewhere you don’t want to be,” he grumbled, proving me right.
“Okay, how about where we’re going? Will I like it there any better?” I asked as the gun was shoved harder into my back.
“No.”
Well. Alrighty then. So much for small talk, I decided.
Just as I began to contemplate my odds of survival if I fought my way free and made a run for it, we rounded a corner into a large room. A map was on the far wall and I recognized Imperium and its grounds, as well as the edge of the forest, which had been marked with different colored pushpins. There was a circle of chairs facing the map, as if the Watch had been studying it, searching and planning their next move.
My stomach clenched when I noticed one of the dorms had a circle around it. Earth House. What did they want there?
Whatever…no. Whoever it was they were after,
I wouldn’t be helping the Watch get them. I spotted Victor leaning against the edge of the map, arms crossed over his chest. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind he’d sold out and told the Watch everything they had asked. Probably more.
“That will be all, Roger,” came a voice from one of the chairs. “We’ll manage fine. He won’t be going anywhere for a while. We’re going to have a little…chat.”
The gun was removed from my back, and I heard footsteps as the man retreated.
“I do apologize.” The man who rose from his seat gave me a warm smile, as if we’d just met in a grocery store and he’d accidentally knocked into me. “Roger doesn’t quite trust you or the cure, I’m afraid. It will take him a while to warm up to the idea that you are as harmless as Victor here.”
He nodded to my archenemy, who replied with a smirk.
“My name is Christopher, and I’m the one in charge of this establishment. It is nice to finally meet you, Logan.”
“What cure?” I asked, ignoring both Victor and this sleaze’s fake introduction. I was determined to figure out as much as I could. I didn’t trust this guy who had all the charm of a used-car salesman, but information was information. And at this point, I’d take what I could get.
“The one that makes you as human as the rest of us.” Christopher gave a dismissive wave of his hand. It was clear my magic wasn’t high on his list of priorities, now that it was supposedly gone.
Little do you know, I resisted saying. With time—and more than a little coaxing—I was hoping like crazy my dragon would wake up. Then we’d set some priorities straight. But for now? I didn’t have a choice. I’d have to play along.
“So where did you get this cure? I feel…different.” Something told me the junk they’d made me drink wasn’t something they’d picked up at the local pharmacy.
That question struck a chord, and his eyes narrowed. “Witches.”
I hadn’t seen that coming, but I should have. Only magic could take away magic. It made perfect sense. The coven protected Imperium for a price. The Watch had decided to use the same tactic, and apparently had their own witches on payroll.
Luckily for us, they aren’t the same ones, or Shifter’s would be in one heck of a mess, I thought. Goal one, get out of here and make it to Claire. Goal two, make a trip to see Hadley and let her know there are witches out there playing for the wrong team.
“Now it’s our turn for some questions. How…” He was cut off by a slight movement from someone in one of the chairs. A small, feminine hand barely raised from the armrest, and that, seemingly, was enough to change the direction of his questioning.
A muscle twitched in Christopher’s jaw as it clenched. He paused for a full second before speaking again. When he did, his voice had completely lost the charm and cool it had exhibited earlier. “Did you see anyone else in the forest while you were there?”
“Huh?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then repeated his question. “Did you see anyone else in the forest?”
“I saw Victor,” I replied, stating the obvious. Who else did he think I saw? To my knowledge, no one had been banished but the two of us.
“He saw the shadow,” Victor spoke up. “It was there when I went back in. I could see it moving amongst the trees.”
The woman spoke, so soft it was a near whisper. “The same one?”
“Yes,” Victor replied.
I’m missing something important. I looked from the guy in front of me, to Victor, to the unseen woman in the chair. It was obvious Christopher wanted to know something completely different than the woman did—but he wasn’t the one in charge, even though he apparently wanted to be.
“And nothing else?” she prodded.
“What else would there be?” I asked, dumbfounded. “One of those things feeding off me was more than enough.”
At that, she moved her hand. The chair completely blocked her from view. This must have been the motion to continue the other line of questioning, because the man wasted no time in resuming what I figured was the real reason for my being here.
“We’ve been told that in addition to being one of the school’s main defenses, you have knowledge on how to breach the shields.”
I nearly laughed when he said I was one of the school’s main defenses. The headmistress would have loved to have heard that. But the other half was true, unfortunately. Due to my time with the packmaster and his constant trips around the perimeter to check on the crystals, I knew more than I should have about the protection around the school.
“I don’t know anything about that. I am…I was…a student there. Nothing more.”
“He’s lying,” Victor hissed. I half-expected to see his face change shape, as it would have under normal circumstances when his serpent came to the surface. “He knows where every one of the crystals are.”
Christopher gave me a handful of blue stick pins and gestured to the map. “You’ve agreed to join us. Prove it. Show us the location of each one.”
I walked to the map, taking in each detail. There were a few pins scattered, but none remotely close to where the crystals were. I stuck a couple at various spots in the forest, then a few on the hiking trails. Hiding a snicker, I marked the front steps, then a few more points here and there.
I had completely gone through my box of pushpins, making a nice star shape on the map that didn’t even cover all the university’s grounds, before they figured out I was just screwing around and making holes in the paper.
I couldn’t keep the grin off my face when understanding dawned in Christopher’s eyes. “Will that be all?” I asked, my smart-assed attitude completely ruining any politeness on my part.
“Not quite.” He jerked his head to Victor and Roger, who had come back without me noticing. “Show him what the consequences are.”
The first punch hit me squarely in the face. I wasn’t sure who had dealt it, but it was strong enough that it knocked me backward and made my vision double, giving me not two thugs but four to try to keep my focus on.
My dragon gives me more strength than I thought, I realized as hit after hit found its mark, and I had yet to manage to land a single one. What was in that spell they made me drink?
The last punch was thrown by Victor. The final thought that ran through my head was it was a shame that his face would be the last I would see.
“We’re already a lot closer to figuring out something with this book than with the last one,” Lacy said. She watched me turn to the first pages that outlined the new parameters of Imperium University, which clearly stated the need to keep the existence of shapeshifters secret from the human race. It was a complete opposite of the journal we’d read earlier.
“The headmistress didn’t write this. The handwriting is completely different.” Something had to have happened between Imperium’s opening and when this entry was logged. Something that had completely changed the school’s purpose.
“She probably couldn’t bring herself to write it,” Lacy replied.
I kept reading the passages, finding more and more information on the inner workings of the school, including the signing of new contracts with oaths of blood for current and new students and their parents.
“Oaths of blood?” I pointed to the paragraph, and Lacy read it.
“You made one before the headmistress let you in. That funky pen that lets you sign in blood? Yeah, that’s a blood oath. Everyone has to do one, or it’s a no-go. If you have parents, they have to do it, too, if they want you enrolled in Imperium.”
I had another question, but it was overruled by a different one as I continued reading. “Information about those who dishonor their oath will be turned over to the council to be dealt with by whatever manner the council chooses…who is the council?”
Lacy was still. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to figure out how to explain it to me or what, so I looked up at her and waited. “The council is the judge, jury, and executioners for our kind, though th
ey tend to be mostly the last one. If word gets to them there is a shifter who is a danger to us as a whole, they go in and…take care of things…before it gets out of hand. They’d been on the verge of getting me when the headmistress found me and brought me here, so I know for a fact they exist.”
I fought the urge to tell her she was crazy. If ever there was someone who wasn’t exactly the type to draw attention to herself, it was Lacy. She’d be the last person on anyone’s hit list, even if she did get riled up over weird subjects like fairy godmothers on occasion. I decided to hear her out before deciding if this was another of those subjects.
“I don’t know anything about myself besides the last couple of years. The first thing I remember was waking up on the beach and not knowing where I was, or why I was there. I didn’t even know I was a mermaid until I let the water touch my feet. It’s true sirens truly don’t care a bit for humans when they are in their mermaid form—at least, I know I didn’t. Several days went by. I spent most of it in the water, enchanting the ones on the boats going out to sea.”
She finally stopped for breath, then gave me a rueful smile. “Seeing their eyes glaze over when I sang gave me a sense of power that chased away the fear I’d felt ever since I woke up on the sand. I began messing around with them, having them sail in circles sometimes just so they could catch a glimpse of me. Then a sailboat that only had a couple of men on it capsized against some of the rocks, and I suddenly got a reputation. I went from being a beautiful, mysterious mermaid who sang to the sailors to a siren bent on killing everyone who dared to enter the water.
“One night shortly after, I ventured up to the beach and laid down to look at the stars. There hadn’t been anyone there in days, and I’d gotten bored. I didn’t even hear the guy come up behind me until it was too late. He grabbed a handful of my hair and had a knife to my throat before I could even blink. Then I saw a griffin appear behind him, which was honestly even more surprising than having someone try to kill you. Until that moment, I hadn’t known there was anyone else out there who wasn’t human. It was the headmistress. She talked him into letting me have a second chance, if I came to one of the shifter schools. That’s another reason I’m not that anxious to leave here. I still don’t know anything about myself, but I do know if you mess up out there, it can cost your life. I’ve heard stories of the council wiping out entire families to be sure of getting the one they were after. I was lucky once; I might not be the next time.”
Shifter's University 2: Forest of Lost Souls Page 5
