That was a given. Col narrowed his gaze. Searching the man’s scant attire of some sort of thin short breeches for anyplace to conceal blades, he didn’t see any. He wondered what clan the tartan design designated. “Who are ye? What do ye want?” And where was the honey-voiced lass who slashed through his bonds and spirited him away within the cramped belly of her wee carriage? Car, they called them cars.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his pounding head, trying to make the man’s suddenly blurry image solidify. Surely the lass hadn’t been a conjuring of his potion-addled mind. He’d felt her. Bone-deep somehow. Experienced the vibrancy of her magic, her desire to help him. She was very real. He’d wager on it.
The man shifted back off the bed, wisely keeping his hands in sight. “Easy. I’m Gabe. This is my house. We’ve been taking care of you. You’ve had a rough night. Withdrawals. Spasms. So just take it easy, fella. No one here’s out to hurt you.”
Thus far, everyone in this century seemed out to harm him in one form or another. Snatches of overheard conversations slashed into his thoughts, ugly words of vile intentions. His gaze flicked to the bed.
Gabe crossed his arms. A light brow arched. “Trust me. Don’t trust me. It’s been a long night and I need coffee.” He turned and stalked out the door, rounding back a second later. “Once you get over yourself, you’re welcome to some.” And flounced away on a chuff.
Col blinked. He’d apparently wounded his captor’s feelings.
Yet…he studied the room, the rumpled bedclothes and a bowl of water and cloths on the bed. His body ached like he’d worked the fields from sunrise to sundown, yet the lethargy he’d lived with from the potions they’d shot directly into his flesh from some alchemist’s wicked instrument was gone. He was tired, aye, his head ready to splinter, yet he felt more himself than he had in a while.
Mayhap he had, indeed, been freed and this man had helped him at his most vulnerable.
Cautiously, Col went to the doorway. The man, Gabe, sat at a small round table, slunk in his chair, long legs stretched out and hands clasped comfortably on his stomach, facing the bedroom doorway.
A strong aroma lifted with the steam from two mugs set before him.
The man motioned for him to sit in the second chair, all traces of hurt forgotten. “Cappuccino?”
Col lowered into the chair, still wary and tense and eyed the frothy brew dubiously. Another potion? His stomach rumbled.
Gabe lifted his own cup and took a sip, watching Col over the brim. “Hmmm. I make a fine cup. Not a coffee man? I have juice or pop.” He lowered his cup, pursing his lips. “Your stomach queasy after all that puking? I should have asked Nory what’s safe for you to eat before she left. How about toast? That should be bland enough.” Gabe got up and turned to the long worktable that housed a small watering trough.
She? He hadn’t imagined her then. She’d rescued him, unbound his wrists and spirited him away within her wee car. He liked cars. Col flattened his palms on the table and leaned forward. “Where is the fair lass who gave me aid?”
Gabe half-turned, his features momentarily frozen until a grin melted the coolness. “Fair lass?” He pulled an already sliced wedge of bread from a transparent satchel and plopped it in a strange metal square. “Seriously. Do all shapeshifters talk like that?”
Col frowned. “What’s wrong with my speech?”
“For starters…?”
Col leaned forward, curious. He hadn’t done a fair job of maneuvering unconsciously through this century. Mayhap in large part due to the strangeness of his dialect. He’d have to do better, mimic what he heard.
The bread popped up from the metal device and Col lunged out of the chair, sweeping a small glass plate up and breaking it against the table to defend himself. ‘Twould saw through skin as well as any blade given enough pressure behind it.
Gabe flinched back, hands up again in a placating gesture, his jaw unhinged, dropping like a stone. They stared at each other until Gabe slowly shook his head. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” He backed up against the counter, giving Col farther space. “Look. I swear whatever happened to you, whatever you’ve been through, isn’t going to happen here. You’re safe, I promise. Take a seat. You look like you’re about to keel over.”
His weakness was too obvious. Col lowered into the chair again before his legs gave out. Gabe turned back to the counter and slathered butter across the warmed bread, took out a plate and brought it over.
When Col just looked at it, Gabe rolled his eyes and broke off a piece and popped it in his own mouth.
Col’s mouth watered. His stomach groaned at the smell of bread. He needed to regain his strength. If the man had wished him harm, he’d had ample opportunity while he’d been unconscious. He set the broken plate down and took a tentative bite of the bread. ‘Twas warm and crunchy. He finished it off in three bites and turned his attention to the steaming mug. One eye closed of its own accord at the strong, yet sweet flavor.
Gabe barely masked his grin behind his own cup. “It’s good, right?”
Col nodded curtly, allowing the warmth of the brew to soothe the tension within his chest.
“So, shapeshifter, huh?” Gabe leaned closer over the table. “What’s it like?”
Col scrunched his nose, not understanding the inquiry.
“Shifting. Does it hurt? Is it difficult? When you’re in the shape of, say a cow, do you retain human thoughts? Or are you like ‘hey look at me. I’m chewing cud?’”
A cow. Col hid his smile behind the mug. A cow. He’d never once shifted into something as mundane as livestock. Gabe kept firing questions at him. Apparently, he’d restrained himself until they’d broken bread together and now his dam had burst and flooded the village.
“…the biggest creature you’ve shifted into and for how long? Have you ever—you know—boinked in animal form?”
Col choked on the liquid.
A dozen soft paper squares were shoved into his hand, which Col assumed were meant to wipe his mouth with. He stared at Gabe, who shrugged as unconcerned as the cat eyeing the laird’s falcon.
“Too much too soon?”
Too much ever.
Boinked. He stored the new word away, doubting he’d have need of it in conversation, but, again he smiled, thinking of how using the amusing new word would annoy Shaw to distraction.
Col pushed Gabe’s odd questions aside. “The woman who helped me. Where is she?”
A flash of fairy bright hair and wide violet eyes flicked to his mind. In his hazy state, he’d thought her one of the Fae come to claim him. Or come to punish him for allowing the scale of magic to tip so profoundly.
“Nory? She left a while ago. Did what she could as far as healing and skedaddled.”
Ske-what? A healer then. Col nodded on a flood of relief that a Healer Sorceress had found him. And felt profoundly saddened that she hadn’t remained long enough to accept his gratitude.
Nay, he was saddened that she simply hadn’t remained. Gratitude or no. His lips quirked downward at the unbidden thought. Nory.
He pushed it away to brood on later. Or never. There were graver things that needed his attention. His captivity had taken days from him. Days in which Toren may have already traveled the rift, come, and then gone.
He pushed up from the chair a little too fast. Pain flared inside his head and the colors in the room faded. He braced his hands on the table and let it pass. By the rood, he felt wretched.
His head felt like it was wrapped in fabric, heavy and disorienting. He had no idea of what to do next or where to look for a sorcerer or Charity. For that matter he had no inkling of where he was.
Gabe was looking at him in concern a little too closely. “I—Which village is this?”
Gabe’s lips twisted. “I wouldn’t exactly call Seattle a village.”
Everything in Col tensed, then just as swiftly loosened. “Seattle? This is Seattle?” That was the best piece of fortune he’d had since bein
g thrust into this nightmare future.
His mind was swimming with possibilities. Gabe was acquainted with at least one Sorceress Healer, mayhap he also knew…”Charity Greves. Do ye know the lass?” His knuckles ground against the table as he leaned forward.
“Yeah, sure.” Gabe set his mug down. “I know Charity.”
Chapter Seven
Col leaned harder on the table, weak with sudden relief. “Ye must take me to her at once. Is she still here?” This was the first person who claimed to know aught of the lass. He could reach Charity. He could go home.
Gabe lunged out of his seat, eyes narrowed as he stared at him across the small table. “What exactly does that mean—still here?”
“It means I need to get to her forthwith. Please.”
“No. No way. Lenore will have my sac in a—“
The window beside them shattered, spraying them and the table in glass shards. A dark leathery creature crashed through the frame, dragging Gabe to the floor. Col grabbed the broken plate and stabbed it into the beast’s shoulder since its shoulder was right there, and pulled the monster off, thrusting it away as more creatures surged through every window. Breaking glass and heavy thumps came from the other rooms.
Wrinkled bloated faces, more suited for drowned corpses, followed them. Puckered skin flowed over the hollow space of the eye sockets like translucent veined scar tissue poorly healed. Whether they were blind or nay, it didn’t slow them. They could just as easily detect them by scent through the upturned nostrils. The creature Col had knocked off Gabe scrambled up onto the counter, screeching. Two more edged toward them, long curved black glistening toenails scratching the floor.
Grabbing Gabe’s arm, Col pulled him up off the floor. The monsters snarled in unison, transparent bloodless lips rippled back over braces of sharply pointed pewter gray teeth. It did not require much imagination to know what those teeth were for. “I need a sword.”
“Sorry, all out.” To his credit, Gabe’s voice remained steady. “Butcher knives?” He canted his head toward short hilts of varying sizes protruding from a block of wood on the work counter near the water trough. Unfortunately, the creature was nearly on top of it.
More beasts showed up from the other rooms, hedging Col and Gabe into a tight space. Col watched the shifting of their long claw-tipped hands, the way their heads tracked toward the one near the knives. The leader. Awaiting its signal.
In all his life, he’d never seen creatures such as these. And he had known many of the otherworldly. They appeared smaller, sleeker, than they actually were, with shoulders hunched inward and rounding their spinal columns. Should they stand up straight, Col guessed they’d tower over him and Gabe. Even their hairless heads covered in moist bloated skin, hung below the curved line of their shoulders like gruesome cowls.
Vile, disgusting, slavering beasts didn’t describe them by half. Most noticeable was the wave of stink emanating off them. It stained the air like oily smears. If evil ever were to acquire a smell, this was it. Copper tang of old blood and decaying graveyards.
Col edged toward the leader, watching for any telltale sign of the order to attack and nudged his shoulder slightly in front of Gabe. He longed for the familiar presence of his brothers beside him, in fact, usually finding himself the one nudged back as they were always so recklessly ready to shield him, the youngest among them.
The creature launched. All the beasts flew at them. Col dodged, shoving Gabe down. Claws dragged across the top of his hair. He dove toward the wood block, and whirled back around, blades in both hands and slashed a silver edge across the creature’s muscled clavicle as it pounced back at him.
Sticky pale gray blood spurted across his face. The stink alone would do him in. Another creature leapt onto his back. Going to a knee, Col curled forward and let the beast’s own weight carry it over his shoulder where it tumbled into Gabe who’d found his own short knife and stabbed upward, coating his arms in noxious ropey excrement that slurped out into a steaming pile on the floor. Gabe’s eyes rounded. At least the hell-spawns had the decency to sport skin that parted easily enough. Though their wounds didn’t seem to slow them. Parchment skin, leather hard insides. ‘Twas not a favorable composition for putting them down. Their numbers alone would eventually overwhelm them.
They slashed and gouged, yet the beasts kept coming. ‘Twas the close quarters that gave he and Gabe any leeway, keeping the horde from swarming over them completely. They fought side by side, yet in the fray, Col noticed the monsters’ intent was fastened solely on getting at him. They certainly did not oppose swiping at Gabe; yet he appeared to be more of an obstacle to getting at him.
Gabe cried out, bone crunching, his leg buckling beneath him. A beast had dived in, breaking his naked thigh between his long hands like a twig, sending Gabe down. A vulnerable target, yet instead of going for the kill, the monster scurried over Gabe to dive at him.
He spun quickly away, hearing the pleasing thud of the beast slamming into the work counter.
“Get under the table!” Col roared, pulling away and dragging several hellions with him.
Every head swiveled to him, scrabbling along the counters and up the walls to get at him, squealing and hissing as he kicked and stabbed, dislodging two, three, while more clamored over him. He’d been right. They had no interest in Gabe.
Claws bit deep, cutting his skin. ‘Twas time to take flight. Literally.
He went down in a jumble of foul-smelling flesh, slick with greasy blood, his and theirs.
Gathering his essence into his core, he let it loose, allowing the whole of his magic to pour through him. Focused, he brought the image of the bear he’d hunted last fall to mind, became pure bright humming energy that instantly parted into an agony of shifting muscle and bone.
He came up growling, teeth, fur, lethal claws, and furious.
Monsters somersaulted through the air.
Gabe popped his head out from beneath the table, mouth forming something akin to, “Blessed shite.”
Only momentarily put off, hissing, teeth gnashing, the creatures regrouped, and surged over Col. Giving into the primitive nature of the bear, he ripped into them, knives forgotten, fighting with his new weapons of nature, jaws and claws. Noxious gore filled his mouth, dripped down his throat.
He had to draw the beasts out of here, but he didn’t know the way out for this behemoth form.
He gutted another creature, throwing it into the wall, where it smacked and slid down in a trail of milky gray entrails, scattering beasts beneath it. Col abruptly found himself without opponents.
Only a handful remained, edging along the walls and counter, hissing and spiting at him.
Gabe pushed up, favoring his leg, little knife out front, his attention focused on him.
The remaining monsters were a little more wary, snapping and goading each other to make a move at the towering bear. Not wasting the momentary lapse, Col shifted again, slicing into brilliant energy and coming out the other side in full flight, flapping wings as a hawk and streaked out the broken window.
He wasn’t above a little goading himself. Shrieking, he back-flapped, hovering in the air, taunting the beasts to follow him.
They did not disappoint, catapulting after him, clambering out the windows, down the walls, and launching through the air to clasp upon tall poles topped with the strange glowing lanterns.
Col darted low, keeping himself in easy sight to lead them on a merry chase.
Chapter Eight
Something wasn’t right. Lenore was halfway to Starch’s rendezvous, when she turned the corvette back toward Gabe’s. Her stomach clenched on nauseous roiling foreboding, the kind that grips you so hard you’ll choke before it can be ignored.
She pulled onto the curb in front of his townhouse and spilled out of the door. Everything looked fine. Scratch that. The blue blinds billowed out of the living room window, clanking against the iron sill. Every window in the townhouse was shattered.
Gabe. Oh no. Sh
e’d brought this to him. She ran up the steps and tried the door. Locked. “Gabe!” She pounded on the lacquered wood and poured on the bell. Not waiting, she ran down the steps, jerked open his car and yanked the garage remote from the visor, running and pressing the button at the same time. She ducked under the rumbling garage door while it was still lifting and ran up the stairs.
“Gabe!” She flung the door open so hard it smacked the wall. “Gabe!”
“In here.”
Relief smacked her upside the head, making her suddenly woozy. She ran into the kitchen and stopped short.
A powerful stink assaulted her.
Gabe was on the floor, trying to right an overturned chair and push himself up. Trails of thick mucousy gray goo coated everything, including Gabe. His hair was plastered to his head with it and it ran down his face. He grinned up at her like a five-year-old caught licking icing off the cake. The angle of his leg was wrong, clearly broken.
“What happened?” She ducked inside his bedroom, heart plunging at the rumpled empty bed and glass from the broken window covering it. “He’s gone?”
“Flew out the window as a little bird.” Gabe fluttered his fingers in the air and snorted. “He became a bird.”
“A bird?”
Lenore pulled a handful of dish cloths from the drawer and knelt in front of Gabe. Sticky smelly whatever soaked into the knees of her denim. She gave the cloths to Gabe and turned her attention to his leg.
He flinched. “Ow.”
“It’s broken.”
“I’ll file that in my no shit folder.”
She glanced up at him. He was gray-faced, literally from all the crap on him, but stoic and she felt guilty as crap for dragging him into this. “Gabe, what happened? What is this stuff?” The pile of ropey gray matter beside them looked uncannily like sausage. She doubted she’d ever be able to eat a good bratwurst again.
Leaning forward, he grabbed her shoulders. “I’m not sure even you would believe it. Monsters, Nor, hand-to-God monsters crashed through the windows. It was incredible.”
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