Shifter's University 2: Forest of Lost Souls

by K. R. Thompson

  “It’s impenetrable,” Arrica said, shaking her mane of wild red hair as she shifted back to human. Only seconds before I had been staring into the brilliant golden eyes of an eagle as it landed on the railing in front of me.

  When she’d met me at the overlook, I’d been ecstatic that it was Logan’s best friend’s sister who had come to my aid.

  The first thing she’d asked me was how she could help. When I explained my theory on the shields, she’d nodded, then immediately launched into the sky. She’d seemed a little more hopeful then.

  Now? Not so much.

  Arrica hopped down from her perch to the ground, her boots making a soft thump as she landed. She looked pensive as she stared up at the sky she had just left. “The shield is like a bubble,” she explained. “Rounded. The magic barely clears the treetops at the edges where it slopes down, then it arches upward at the center to cover the mountain.” She nodded at the peak in the distance, barely visible through the fog. “If you can find a way in, that’s where he’ll be. I know he’s classified as a flame shifter, technically, but he’s also air. He’ll be wanting to get as close to the sky as he can. He’ll be on Purgatory.”

  She rolled one of her shoulders and stretched, as if she’d pulled a muscle. It was then I noticed the singed marks on her clothes that mirrored my own. With the way she was moving, no doubt the burns had made it through to her skin too. She saw me watching her and shrugged as she smiled. “I wanted to see if I could find a way in. It does seem weaker at the top, but not enough to go through. I’m sorry, Claire. There isn’t a way in up there either.”

  “It’s all right.” It wasn’t, really, but I didn’t know what else to say. I was frustrated beyond belief. I’d actually managed to trust a few people enough to let them in on my plans of getting Logan out, and it hadn’t helped at all.

  I’d literally made no progress whatsoever.

  The Yokai in me wanted to pull off Arrica’s magic and fly up to force my way inside the shields, regardless of how strong they must still be up there. But the human part of me knew it was impossible. While I had enough energy now to shift, I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to fly far enough to even get to the edge of the forest.

  “I’m just afraid that he doesn’t have much longer in there,” I said finally. “And I don’t know what else to do.”

  Arrica was still for a moment, then she reached out and patted my shoulder. “My mother has a saying that she’s fond of. ‘Whenever you are at your lowest and feel like giving in, remember that hope is a light that will always chase the darkness away.’ Don’t give up hope, Claire. Sometimes the solution to a problem can be closer than you think.”

  “The shields in the woods are solid. If there are any weak spots, I can’t find them,” I told Lacy, showing her my singed t-shirt. “Tell me you had some luck on your end.”

  I hadn’t really paid attention to her face when I’d come in. I’d been so frustrated at how things had turned out after I left the overlook, I’d started talking the instant I came into our room, and she had yet to say a single word.

  Her eyes were sad, I noticed now. She hadn’t been crying, but something was worrying her. My gut told me it didn’t particularly have anything to do with the shields surrounding the Forest of Lost Souls.

  “There aren’t any weak spots near the road either,” she said finally.

  “What’s wrong, Lacy?” I pulled the chair out next to her bed and sat down, waiting.

  “It’s just…” She shook her head. “It’s nothing important.”

  “If you’re worried about it, it’s important,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can help.”

  “It’s Blake. I thought he liked me, but I ran into him today. He looked disgusted, as if the very sight of me made him sick.” Now the tears came.

  “Oh.” Not precisely an adequate response by any means, but it was all I could come up with at the moment. I knew my brother did indeed like Lacy, but I hadn’t realized the feeling was mutual until now. “It wasn’t you,” I said confidently. “He looked at Hadley and me the same way this morning. I think he must have been having a bad day. Whatever look he had, it wasn’t meant for any of us.”

  “No, it was definitely meant for me,” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “I asked him if he’d like to go out sometime, and he nearly bit my head off. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead with a shifter.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” I said, confused. “I’ll have to have a talk with him. Something doesn’t add up. If he wasn’t interested in going out, he would have been polite about it. I know for a fact he likes you, so something else has gotten under his skin. I don’t know what it is, but he’ll pay for treating you that way.”

  “No, don’t say anything,” she pleaded. “Just let it be. I shouldn’t have put him on the spot like that. Please don’t say anything to him, Claire…please?”

  I sighed. “All right, but for the record, I don’t like it. I won’t say anything this time, but you have to promise you’ll tell me if he so much as grunts sideways at you again, okay?”

  She nodded. Picking up Quinn’s book from the table beside the bed, she began flipping through it, obviously ready to get my attention off the subject of my brother’s needed attitude adjustment. “I didn’t find any weak spots near the road, but I did have an idea while I was at the lake. There is a cavern we’ve been warned to never enter because of a sinkhole that’s inside. The undercurrent can drag you in, and you’d be stuck at the bottom of it.” Her finger was tracing the map in the back of the book. “See this point where the shields are? The mouth of that cavern isn’t far from there.”

  Excited, I snatched the book from her. “Hadley told me that the shields would be strongest at ground level. What if they don’t extend below the ground, much less under water? That could be our way in!”

  “That is if the cavern opens somehow on the other side. I think it must because there’s this small pond on the inside of the forest here, see? If we’re lucky, it might be fed by the water from the lake via the cavern.”

  “We’ve got to try it,” I said, flipping the book shut.

  Lacy nodded. “Okay, but now comes the fun question. You’re a Yokai, so you’ll be able to pull from my magic and swim back out should we manage to actually get into the forest. But how are we going to get Logan out? Unless he can hold his breath for an insane amount of time, there’s no way he’ll be able to come with us.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was right. All this time, I’d been operating under the assumption we’d find a weak spot in the shields on land. Never had I accounted for the possibility of discovering one in the water.

  “Well,” I said finally. “I guess we could just see if the shields actually extend that far. If we can get in that way at all first, then we can go from there.”

  But the wheels were still turning in Lacy’s eyes. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “I know. I spotted Irin’s scuba gear in the boathouse the other day. He’s been hiding it beneath a pile of other junk.”

  “Irin scuba dives?” In addition to being Logan’s roommate, he was a lion shifter, and never had I pegged him for being one to like the water. Always in my head I thought cats and water didn’t mix. Apparently, that myth was wrong, or he was the exception.

  Lacy nodded. “He sneaks out at night sometimes and dives. If it turns out we can get through, we can borrow his gear and get Logan out with it if the oxygen tank is full.” She grinned at me. “So when do you want to be a mermaid?”

  Hope welled in my chest. We were close to saving him now…so close.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to use my magic to borrow Lacy’s so soon. That was the only thing that kept me from dragging her out the door at this very moment to the lake. I told her about the time I’d spent as a lioness jumping around in the trees and how the magic left me so fast.

  She nodded. “The last thing we need is for that to happen at the bottom of the lake. You need t
o rest up tonight.” She grinned at the expression on my face. The last thing I wanted to do was lay there all night and wait for my “battery” to recharge.

  “Okay,” I conceded, knowing she was right. “Let’s go first thing in the morning!”

  The sun had just started to rise when we arrived at the lake the next morning. We made a quick detour to the boathouse, finding Irin’s scuba gear hidden beneath a tangle of fishing poles in the corner.

  “Told you,” Lacy said triumphantly. “And we’re in luck. It has a full tank.”

  “Not luck,” I replied. “It was meant to be. I have a really good feeling about this.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right to do this?” Lacy asked, uncertain, as we took the gear and made our way to the shore. “Shift, I mean.”

  “Positive.” And it wasn’t a lie. The instant I woke, I knew my magic had been recharged and ready to go. That knowledge had excitement and adrenaline running rampant through me.

  Everything inside of me told me that today we would make it through the shields somehow.

  Lacy stripped down to her swimsuit and I did the same, then she strapped the scuba gear onto her back and I followed her into the chilly water.

  When the water was up to her chest, she stopped. “Okay. Are you ready?”

  “Definitely,” I nodded.

  Her magic was different than anyone else’s I’d encountered. I actually saw her shift before I felt her magic come alive. It began in her eyes as her pupils changed shape, widening just the slightest bit, then I noticed the light blue scales that began at the top of her chest, no doubt covering her body past the surface of the water.

  She smiled, and held up a hand, splaying her fingers to show me the webs between them. Then she laughed and it was such a pretty, musical sound that I understood how humans would fall to her charms so easily.

  Once I managed to tear my attention away from her, I was able to concentrate on the subtle pull of her magic around me.

  “You’ve done it,” she said, knowing even before I did that my shifting to her form had been a success.

  I looked at my own skin, shimmering with silver scales and lifted a hand experimentally to check out my own webbed fingers.

  “Who knows how long you’ll last. We’d better go below and get started,” she suggested, then dropped under the surface and out of sight.

  I took a deep breath, then let myself sink.

  Being under the water was magical. More so than I ever would have imagined. The first rays from the sun played on the surface, making it glimmer and shake—a magical portal that separated the world above from the one below. Everything around me seemed to be painted in shimmering shades of blue and green. The plants that rose from the shallow edge were the most illuminated by the sun, a green so pretty it made me wonder why I hadn’t tried to do this before.

  I knew the reason I saw everything so differently now was because of Lacy. Her magic seemed subtle above the water, but it was pulsing around me in waves down here. While the lake had seemed muddy and dull before, I was now seeing it through the eyes of a mermaid.

  Lacy swam in front of me, then turned slowly, motioning to the gills on her back that showed on either side of the scuba gear.

  Breathe, I noted. Don’t forget to breathe. I’d been holding my breath since the second my head went under the water. With that thought, I opened my mouth on instinct, only to feel the rush of water as it poured in. This place was indeed magical, but it was also lethal. Is it possible for a mermaid to drown? At the rate this was going, I was going to find out soon if I didn’t start doggy paddling my way up to the surface.

  I closed my eyes, willing myself to be calm and not freak out. This was our last shot of getting into the forest. I was pulling from her magic. I concentrated on it, feeling it become my own, stronger with each second.

  My gills flared to life. I took a deep breath through the small slits and opened my eyes, forcing the air back through my lips, chasing out the water and sending thousands of sparkling bubbles up at the same time.

  Lacy was smiling at me, happy I’d managed to figure out the breathing part of this adventure, then lifted her eyebrows, a question. Was I ready to go further?

  Yes. Let’s do this. I nodded. She turned, swimming slowly as she demonstrated the ways to move, swimming first upward, then down. We practiced for a moment or two, then I noticed she was taking me deeper into the lake. The greens and blues changed color, becoming deeper and darker as she led me into a cavern that ran beneath the land.

  The water had been warm before, but the farther we went, the colder it became and the harder it was to swim. It was dark. Had I been human, I wouldn’t have been able to see my hand in front of my face.

  Thank goodness mermaids have an advantage in darkness.

  While it wasn’t exactly easy to see, I could make out the contour of the sides of the cavern and a few rocks that jutted up into the water.

  I could also catch glimpses of pearly white skin and blue scales ahead of me every now and then. Lacy was slowing down, too. The water wasn’t just becoming colder, it was becoming heavier.

  The shield did extend farther than I’d hoped, and we were getting closer to it.

  I sent up a little wish for luck and pushed harder, trying to catch up to my friend.

  When she dodged to the right, I assumed she knew I was coming up beside her, but that hadn’t been the reason.

  The sinkhole she’d warned me about was near a large boulder. While she’d seen it at the last possible second and managed to swim a safe enough distance out, I hadn’t—and now it was pulling me toward the gaping hole in the ground.

  I shrieked. The water filled with a noise unlike anything I’d ever heard before—a mermaid’s scream. As the current sucked me down, Lacy swam with it, coming to my rescue.

  Don’t do it, I wanted to tell her. I tried, but the only thing that left my lips was more of a siren’s high-pitched cries. You’ll only die, too.

  I expected her to reach for my hand. Instead, right before I would have disappeared into the fissure, she spun, smacking me with her tail with such force it knocked us both out of the current.

  The last thing I saw was Lacy crumpled next to the boulder, a stream of something dark coming from her head. The force of the blow had sent me in the opposite direction, with such speed I plowed straight into the shield we’d been down here to find. As I felt the power separating me from the forest, Lacy’s magic began to fade away. I struggled to hold onto it, but it was gone—the only part left of her to reach me was the dark cloud of blood that floated toward me in the water.

  Claire…wake up.

  You have to wake up now, Claire… You have to get out of the water…

  I wasn’t sure if I was actually hearing the voice or if I was imagining it in my head, especially when I woke to see only darkness. Hadn’t I just been in the lake with Lacy, searching for a way into the forest?

  Was I dreaming? I blinked, and the darkness moved away, as if it had only been a passing shadow. I could make out the stretching branches of a tree overhead, then I felt the coldness of the water on my face, very near my nose and mouth. I sat up, every trace of the mermaid I’d been gone, and found myself in the shallows.

  “I made it through the shield,” I mumbled, awestruck. Excitement set in, and I struggled to my feet, water sloshing around my legs. “We made it in! Lacy…” I spun around, searching for any evidence she was close by, but then I remembered. Somehow, I’d managed to make it inside, but she was still at the bottom of the lake.

  I dove back in, trying to make it back to the shields, but only managed to inhale half the water around me. While I’d been swimming well as a mermaid, my skills as a human totally sucked. I struggled back to the surface and tried to draw on Lacy’s magic.

  But there wasn’t any for me to draw on. Nothing that would make me a mermaid.

  I’ve got to find Logan…and Victor if he’s still around, I decided. If I could find a way in, surely I coul
d find my way out again. Being able to pull on a water serpent’s power would definitely give me an advantage in getting Lacy out of the lake.

  If she’s even alive.

  “No, she’s a mermaid,” I told myself firmly as I scrambled up the bank and out of the water, scuffing my knees on loose rocks as I climbed. “She just got knocked out. She’ll be there when I get back, and everything will be okay.

  I refused to think about the blood that clouded the water or the way she lay on the dirt at the bottom of the lake, the fins of her tail moving with the current of the sinkhole that had threatened to pull us under.

  “Find Logan, find Logan,” I chanted, knowing I would likely appear insane if anyone saw me at this exact moment, but I didn’t care.

  I spotted the mountain ahead of me, the place Arrica had been certain Logan would be. Dragons are like any other creature of the sky. We are only whole when we feel we can touch the stars.

  He would be on Purgatory. I only had to find him.

  Luckily, the mountain peak was easy enough to locate as it loomed in front of me, a short distance away. I spotted a rock facing near the top, and imagined a dragon holding to it with his claws, wings spread. I could imagine it so clearly that I was more than disappointed I wasn’t seeing him there in reality.

  Surely he wasn’t far away.

  “Logan,” I called as loudly as I could.

  I kept walking and shouting for the next few minutes. Something dark darted in front of me and I got a solid push, as if I’d just walked into some sort of invisible force field.

  For a split second, I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t made it through the shield after all, but then the shadow moved and I was able to continue.

  Don’t go…please…

  The same haunting whisper as before echoed in my ears, though this time it sounded much quieter.

  I made it to the base of the mountain before the shadow darted in front of me again, giving me another solid push. It didn’t last nearly as long this time. I shoved back, determined to make my way up whether it wanted me to go or not.