Highland Shapeshifter

by Clover Autrey

  Highland Shapeshifter

  By Clover Autrey

  Copyright 2012 Clover Autrey

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Red Rover Books

  Cover art by Pat Autrey

  Highland Shapeshifter

  Seattle, Washington, Present Day

  Ogres stink.

  There’s no getting around the odor. Even with the astringent scent of white spearmint oil Lenore had dabbed beneath her nose, the bar reeked. She’d probably have to burn these clothes.

  High tones from an elfish lyre lilted out from the scratchy speaker system, an airy enchantment squashed instantly by the musty dark atmosphere of the pub.

  “In back.” Gainy, Starch’s right hand man, well, ogre, canted his bulbous head, displacing swirls of smoke with the movement. “Been waiting on you, Little Pix.”

  Lenore rolled her eyes and tucked the wayward strands of her white-blond bangs back beneath her knitted cap. “I bet he has. The shipment came early then?”

  “Not exactly. Starch has something better.”

  “What?” Lenore whirled on the fidgety ogre, her head barely topping near his protruding ribcage. She jabbed a finger at him. She needed this shipment. Like yesterday. The vamps wouldn’t be able to hold off the blood addiction without the crimson tear and she didn’t even want to think about how the Ifrits had been managing to keep from randomly combusting into cinders without larkspur this long. She was surprised fires hadn’t been breaking out throughout the city

  She’d left in the middle of the night at Starch’s first call, prepared with more than extra in payment to get her hands on the underground supplies.

  “What the hell is this, Gainy? I don’t need something better. I need what I arranged for.” See, she could swear and act all tough when she had to, and in this environment, she had to. Lenore sidestepped between big bad Gainy and a ghoul who was exhaling blue smoke through a clear straw, shoved up a piggish snout. In her dealings with the ogres, she’d learned to not let them play her. Be decisive and only leave with what she asked for. And pay in cash. For all their gruff and burly natures, they were the slickest salesmen on the planet and she didn’t want to owe them. Don Corleone had nothing on Starch.

  Horse’s head, phew. Try waking up to the severed head of a phooka in your bed. Of course, that had never happened to her because she always played it straight with the godfather of warts and slime. But she’d heard…

  “Tell Starch to contact me when my stuff gets here. He knows I don’t want anything to do with his other dealings.”

  Gainy grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Oh, you’ll want to see this.”

  Lenore glanced at the meaty brown hand encircling her entire upper arm, before pointedly glaring straight up into Gainy’s triple-pupiled eyes. She had a can of wasp spray in her messenger bag, hanging by her hip, but doubted she’d need it with him. Intimidation worked just fine. She narrowed her eyes, going for the toughest facial expression she could muster. Okay, yeah, she knew she didn’t have the build for threatening anyone twice her size, let alone an ogre, but she could bluff.

  He immediately let go, lifting his palms outward in the sign of surrender. They stared in a non-verbal stand-off, while the graceful notes of the lyre flowed around them.

  Gainy blinked first, and Lenore felt a smug moment of triumph until his warty lip twitched. “It involves your sister.”

  Everything went cold. And hard.

  In a flash, her fists were bunched in Gainy’s collar and she’d pulled his fat head down to her level. “My sister has nothing to do with our arrangements,” she hissed in his face. All the occupants in the bar went quiet. That anger was not a bluff.

  Lenore kept Charity in the dark. Her sister had no idea where Lenore got the more hard-to-get ingredients for their herbal shop. She’d be furious if she ever found out about the risks Lenore had been taking. After laughing her butt off that her little sister who’d rather be in a library surrounded by books was getting away with it.

  “Easy.” Gainy pried her hands away.

  He was a lackey anyway. Fists balled, Lenore strode to the back room, and yanked open the door.

  Starch had his broad lumpy back to her, taking inventory of whatever was in several large crates on the scuffed work table. He turned toward her, the protruding hairless brow bone lifted above his too-small reading glasses. “Ah, Little Pixie, excellent timing.”

  She wasn’t in a tolerant mood. “I thought we were friends.” Okay, that was pushing it. “Yet you have Gainy threatening my sister?”

  “I did no such thing.” Starch had the audacity to look put upon. His gaze swept beyond her shoulder where Gainy had come into the storeroom behind her.

  Lenore shifted to the side to keep both ogres in sight.

  Starch put down the clipboard he’d been marking inventory on. “If anything, I’m looking out for you and your sister. Got a shipment in I think you’ll find interesting.”

  She tilted her head. “I’m listening.” Her instincts screamed get out, get out now. Something was terribly off, but she couldn’t back down, not if she wanted to find out what was going on.

  Starch snorted. “Suspicious little healer, aren’t we?”

  She responded with a raised finger, reeling inside. She’d never flipped anyone off in her life. This faux life of crime was really hauling her out of her comfort zone.

  The ogre cackled in throaty glee. “Come on, then. It’s back here.”

  She followed him to the rear of the storeroom, pushing past stacked crates and covered bundles that Starch had to squeeze his bulk sideways between. Gainy came up behind them.

  He brought her to a lumpy tarp on the floor, wedged up between a rickety shelf and the building’s water pipe that ran from floor to ceiling.

  “So where is it?” she asked and something beneath the tarp moved at the sound of her voice.

  Lenore flinched back. Dang it. So much for being too tough to react to a little movement. Covering, she whirled on the ogres. “What is that?” She knew Starch’s business stretched into unsavory areas, but, as yet, she’d never seen any evidence that he was blatantly involved in the trafficking of magical and mythical creatures.

  Her heart slammed against her rib cage. Backing away, she shook her head. Playing the bad chick to help otherworldly folk was one thing, but getting involved in anything seedier... Nope, she wasn’t going to go there. “I’m out.”

  The creature, whatever it was beneath the tarp, jerked again, followed by a quiet moan that shot straight to her gut.

  “No one’s stopping you,” Starch said. His round eyes blinked. He knew he had her.

  Damn her healer’s heart. It was the sole reason she did business with Starch in the first place. To get the supplies necessary to help magic wielders who couldn’t get help anywhere else. Another curse word slipped out quite naturally to her subconscious. She was on a roll.

  She needed to know what all this had to do with Charity.

  Resolved, she edged forward and dragged the heavy tarp off the creature underneath.

  And stared.

  It was just a man.

  He sat against the sewage pipe, arms pulled behind him, either tied or handcuffed. His head hung forward, dark hair obscuring his face. His jeans were ripped and loose, as was his dirty T-shirt, splattered with blood and mud. Cuts and abrasions speckled his arms and she’d guess there were more under his shirt and on his face. Anger at his harsh mistreatment rose up in her.

  “You’re into traffick
ing humans now?”

  “Ha!” Starch flung his large hands up. “Hardly human. Shapeshifter. And a powerful one at that. Took three ghouls and a troll to subdue him and that was after they tranqed him.”

  “Is he still drugged?” She crouched down beside the guy, squeezing her hands into fists to hide the anger. This wasn’t right. “What’d you give him?”

  She touched his arm and he flinched. Her heart went out to him. He looked young and innocent. A year or so younger than her, maybe eighteen or nineteen. Too young to be caught up in whatever mess this was. Her instinct was to soothe, but she couldn’t show any softness here. Grabbing his chin, she lifted his head.

  And the world narrowed down to a pair of mossy green eyes.

  Energy shot into her, buzzing strangely across her skin in a lightning rapid pulse. An instant familiarity burned through her, as if she knew him, though she was certain she’d never seen him before, but there was something. Staring into his battered face, a connection rippled between them, tangent and swift and then was gone as quickly as it came.

  Stranger still, she wanted that connection back.

  Lenore blinked.

  The telltale sign of drugs dilated his pupils.

  She swallowed, shaking off the odd feeling. “I asked what you gave him.”

  “Tanglewort.”

  She inwardly winced. Geez, if he tried to shift with that in his system…

  “How much and when was his last dose?” She glared at the ogres.

  “Less than an hour ago. Seven cc’s.” Gainy shuffled from foot to foot. Lenore quickly calculated. It usually took at least nine hours for tanglewort to clear a person’s system, a little less if the user was large and though he appeared lean, this guy was plenty big.

  “Don’t get all pissy with me,” Starch growled. “I’m doing you a favor. Him here was out in Portland, sniffing around about a Charity Greves of Seattle.”

  Lenore stiffened at that, listening intently as she looked over the poor guy for bruises or any cuts large enough they’d need to be taken care of right away. Not that she wanted to use any healing magic in front of the ogres and make herself vulnerable.

  “One of my guys caught wind of it.” Starch didn’t filter the smugness from his voice. “So I had them bottle him up and ship him out here. Figured you didn’t need the trouble of any unsavories asking about your innocent sister.”

  No, she definitely did not. “Because you’re a true humanitarian. You couldn’t have asked him to come along nicely? Geez, Starch, he’s just a kid.”

  “A kid with teeth, so as it turns out, no. Seemed the kid didn’t like our terms. Shifted into a real wild cat. Literally.”

  Not to mention there’d be nothing in it for Starch.

  She stood and craned her neck way up to face the ogre. “Okay. So what do you want?”

  “Three Gs. Up front tonight and you can have him. Another two in the morning.”

  “Five thousand?”

  “I know of three other buyers right now who will give me twice that for a shifter of his caliber. He’s not only powerful, but pretty. A real lucrative combination.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have hit his face.”

  “Like I said, he didn’t come easily and as I also said, I’m doing you a favor. Are you hard of hearing all of a sudden? You interested or not?”

  Ah man. There was no way the guy could take much more tanglewort and not shift. He couldn’t take being with Starch much longer. He’d feel an irrational need to shift and when he did, under the drug’s influence, he’d have no control over the transformation. Best case scenario, he’d shift into something harmless. Worst case, he’d fall into the moment between shifts when he was pure energy and simply dissipate himself right out of existence.

  “You know I wouldn’t walk in here with that kind of cash on me.” She’d brought two thousand dollars for the supplies, more than enough. “One thousand now and three in the morning. I have it stashed, don’t even need to do a bank run.”

  Starch’s nostrils twitched. He was greedy, but in his line of work, cash on the table always outweighed a future promise of a sale.

  “Fifteen hundred now,” he countered.

  Gainy’s front pocket lit up. The burr of a cell phone vibrated.

  “Fine. Deal.” Lenore held out her hand.

  “Uh, boss.” The thin cell phone looked incongruous against Gainy’s fleshy ear. “Another interested party just showed. Lan’s got them out front.”

  “Really?” Starch swiveled in the small space, clearly surprised. “What’s the offer?”

  Gainy turned away, speaking into the phone.

  Lenore glanced back at the man. She couldn’t let this happen. “Hold up a minute. We have a deal.”

  “Not yet.” Distracted, Starch watched Gainy.

  The ogre held his hand over the phone. “He says triple what anyone else will offer.”

  “Triple?” What could only be described as delight lit Starch’s features. “Tell Lan to bring them back.”

  “Wait, no. Starch, you can’t.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. I can.”

  “I raise my offer.” This would deplete her emergency funds.

  Starch was already squeezing back out between the crates. “Yes, do that. That will make the buyer up his price. A bidding war. Come along.”

  “No, Starch. My sister…”

  He stopped and looked back, brow bones lowered. “Here’s what I’ll do. For one G, I’ll give you an hour to get answers out of him. I’ll even have my guys work him over to make it easier for you.” His lips spread in a parody of a smile meant to placate.

  Seriously? Dread knotted her belly, even as she felt herself nod. “One hour.”

  “Done.”

  Starch inclined his head and walked past the crates into the open area of the storeroom where Gainy waited.

  Lenore leaned against one of the crates, suddenly shaky, her mind running through scenarios of wealthy buyers dragging the shapeshifter off to do who knows what with him. Geez, why should she even care? He was nothing to her. She didn’t even know for sure what the other buyers wanted with him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. She internally rolled her eyes at how bad she was at trying to rationalize and looked back to where the shifter slumped against the bonds on his arms, her heart squeezing at that sudden flash of whatever it was that had passed between them. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t just get her answers and walk away.

  Damn it to hell. That sentiment spilled out without any coaxing. Look at her mouthy mind go.

  She swallowed. This was going to cost her. If not her entire savings, then in her underground supply contacts. Too bad, she actually kind of liked Starch and he always came through with the rare supplies.

  She moved to the end of the crates to see who her competitors for the shifter were. The door from the main bar room swung inward and another ogre, Starch’s bouncer Lan—like a bar full of ogres needed a specified bouncer—ducked through, followed by two men and a woman.

  They wore expensive leather and jeans, each young and attractive. They looked like a yuppie biker group, out to buy an exotic shapeshifter with daddy’s money. She instantly disliked them, not to mention if their attire was anything to go by, they could outbid her a hundred times over.

  “We want him,” one of the men got right to it.

  “Slow down,” Starch said. “I like new acquaintances. I’m a friendly sort after all, but first we need to verify the color of your money. And none of those Canadian monopoly bills.”

  Lenore eased back between the crates, and slid to her knees beside the shifter.

  She touched his arm and again that current of electricity jolted between them.

  His head snapped up and he tried to focus on her with red-rimmed eyes beneath long sweaty bangs.

  “Shh, easy. I’m going to get you out of here.” She pressed him forward to look at how he was bound. His wrists were clamped together behind the pipe with a plastic zip tie instead of cuffs
or rope. Good. Easy peasy.

  She pulled her pocket knife from inside her boot and clicked it open.

  A thud banged loudly. A pulse of energy ripped across Lenore’s flesh, raising the tiny hairs on her arms. Some freakish sort of blue light flashed across the ceiling. The crates rocked, one tipping and crashed with a cloud of dust lifting off the floor.

  What was that?

  She slashed through the zip tie, releasing the guy.

  Shouts and growls echoed through the store room, followed by staccato bangs. That sound she recognized. Gunfire. Starch must not have liked the yuppie buyers’ offer.

  In a motion more fluid than his drugged state should have allowed, the shifter was on his feet. Light shimmered across his skin in a build-up of magic.

  “Hey!” Lenore swung around to his front and jabbed a finger up in his face. He was taller than she’d expected. “You’re doped up! No shifting.”

  Blurry eyes blinked down at her. She couldn’t tell if he was coherent enough to understand until finally he nodded and the shimmer around him dimmed.

  Gainy sailed back into the crates. Wood and glass flew everywhere, boxes spilling across the floor. More shots rang out. Resilient, the ogre shook it off and rushed back into the fray.

  Lenore grabbed the shifter’s wrist. “We got to get out of here.” She glanced around. She’d never been back this far in the storeroom before.

  “He’s here!” One of the yuppies, a blond guy, came around a tarped crate. He was carrying some weird kind of wide-butted gun.

  “Not that way.” Scrabbling at the shifter’s shirt, her fingers catching in the tears already there, she pulled, dodging behind more crates. The material of his shirt ripped, even as he kept close behind her.

  Shots whined around them, ricocheting off the cinder-block walls and impacting wood. The blue glowing streaks whirled in the air. Whatever the yuppies wanted the shifter for they weren’t concerned about leaving holes in him. Then again, the ray guns hadn’t opened up any of the ogres either.

  They came to a dead-end, cornered between walls and heavy shelves. They spun at the quiet snick of a boot on cement.