Highland Shapeshifter

by Clover Autrey

  “No more games. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Glaring, Bekah shoved back but Lenore was taking none of that and pushed back.

  “My sister is gone and I just watched a man be eaten alive.”

  Bekah eyes blazed. “He was my friend.” The steam deflated her and she went flaccid beneath Lenore’s arm, her voice quiet. “He was my friend.”

  Lenore swallowed, and eased up just a fraction. She felt Col’s presence standing behind her.

  “Spill it.”

  “Matthew. He had a name. Matthew. Get off me and I’ll tell you everything. It’s what we were trying to do in the first place.” Rain flattened her short hair to her scalp.

  Lenore let her up and glanced at Col and did a double-take. Somewhere during their flight through the alleys he’d picked up a ratty old blanket and now had it swathed around his waist and the end flipped over his shoulder like the fashionable little Scotsman he was. Good gravy, the blanket was even plaid.

  Lenore nudged Bekah to get moving. She could talk as they walked because staying in one place while Morlocks/Sifts were around wasn’t an option.

  “Well?”

  “Where to begin?” Bekah looked skyward between the buildings.

  “You said these horrible monsters could be exterminated. Sifts. What are Sifts? Start there.”

  “How about I start with his brother.” She stabbed a finger toward Col. “The man who made it possible for creatures such as these to exist in the first place? By destroying the balance of all magic, Shaw Limont decided the near extinction of the human race. How about I start with that?”

  “Shaw?” Col shook his head. “Nay. In my time there were never creatures such as these.”

  “No,” Bekah said. They rounded a corner and ended up in an area Lenore recognized, close to Starch’s bar. “It will take nearly a millennia for dark magic to produce the Sifts, but when it finally does, it’s the beginning of the end. They reproduce like maggots and eat their weight in pounds every day. The human race will become little more than cattle. You just saw that right?”

  Saw it, heard it, smelled it. It was forever seared behind her eyelids. “How do you know this?”

  Bekah spun back, amber eyes glinting. “I’m from the year 2083 where that—” She pointed back the way they’d come. “Is everyday prime time reality.”

  ~~~

  Lenore and Col stared at Bekah, stunned. Col squinted and ran a hand down his wet hair, sluicing away rain water. “Are ye sorcerers then? Ye have the power to open time rifts. Ye could send me back.”

  “No.”

  Lenore steered them out onto a main street where a few people were out, giving them a wide berth and uncertain looks beneath umbrellas. Not every day a half-naked blanket-swaddled Highland warrior steps out of an alleyway.

  “No?” Col stopped in the middle of the street, arms folded over his wide glistening chest.

  A car honked, splashing water onto them.

  Lenore grabbed his arm, pulling him onto the sidewalk.

  “So, the future gets bad, end of the human race bad,” Lenore repeated, trying to make sense of it all. “Because my sister goes to the thirteenth century, making it possible for a crazy witch to capture and turn Shaw to the dark side. Magic goes out-of-whack. Endgame is that the monsters gobble up the human race. That about the gist of it?”

  Bekah sloshed through a puddle. “Crude, but accurate. Yes.”

  Lenore didn’t mean to be unfeeling, but, geez, the entire human race reduced to sheep? She didn’t know whether to be snarky or run off a cliff howling. Everyone had their own coping skills. “You obviously traveled through time, so why here? Why not go all the way to the beginning and take out the witch?”

  “Because we can’t. We don’t have the ability to travel more than a hundred years into the past.”

  That explained why the yuppies were here, but not why they had done their best to stop Col. It seems they were after the same goal. To stop Charity. And why the Sifts wanted to make sure Charity made it. Without Charity’s involvement there was a great possibility that the Morlocks would never exist. She could live with that, she really could. She told Bekah as much.

  Except Charity was already gone. Back to yesterday to catch a ride on the High Sorcerer’s time rift.

  “Because Charity Greves had to go. She had to.”

  “Why?” Lenore and Col said at the same time.

  The rain lashed out harder and they ducked beneath a storefront awning. “Because…” Bekah blinked water droplets from her lashes. “Charity comes back. A few years from now. With child.”

  “Toren’s child?” Little frown lines bracketed Col’s mouth.

  ‘Yes, your brother’s son. And this man is crazy freaky intelligent. A sorcerer in his own right, the only one left and he has an understanding of magic and science beyond…” Bekah’s hands dropped. “We think the Sifts are also of your family’s magic, moon sifters, like your other brother Shaw. Probably created somehow from his dark tainted magic.”

  “Why?” Col’s face hardened. “Why would you make that leap?”

  “Because like a moon sifter, they too can open time rifts. Though not as far into the past as a true rift born of a sorcerer.” She pressed slender fingers against her temple. “Charity Greve’s son figured it out, learned how to harness the DNA, the essence from a Sift and send us back—to this time. It’s our only hope.”

  “To stop Col from stopping Charity.” Lenore rubbed the back of her throbbing head, felt the lump beneath her matted hair. “Why bother if nothing will change?”

  Bekah’s eyes slanted up to Col and dread bubbled within Lenore’s belly. “We were just going to stop him long enough.”

  “You meant to talk to him first,” Lenore said.

  Col’s eyes went hard as flint. “Why Bekah? Now that Charity is beyond my reach, what do ye have need of me for?” He sighed and lowered his head so that his chin nearly touched his chest. “Ye meant to send me on my way back to my rightful time after ye told me all of this. Ye want me to stop my brother. Ye need me to stop Shaw from being coerced by the witch.”

  Bekah nodded. “Yes. By whatever means you can. Yes.”

  Col spun away, out into the rain, his back to them. “Stop him from turning to dark magic. And if I couldn’t? Couldn’t stop him?”

  Bekah’s tone was steel. “Then you would have to kill him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Col couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Kill his brother? Kill Shaw? His brother.

  Nay.

  They could not ask that of him. He’d missed the opportunity to ride back on Toren’s sorcerer time rift anyway. Charity had already used her little healer’s spell to go back to two days in her past… Healer’s spell.

  He swung back around to face the women. Charity was not the only healer in her family.

  “Can ye perform this same spell? Get me to the night Toren came?”

  Lenore’s face puckered. “Yes, but it won’t do any good. Unlike a rift, the spell zings you back into your own body in whatever place and condition you were at then. You’ll be transported back to Starch’s storeroom, tied to a pipe and drugged to your gills. Sure, you’ll remember everything that has happened til now, but how is that going to help when you can barely think or move? I don’t think you remember how bad you were out of it. There’s nothing we can do.” She grimaced, pressing her hand to the back of her head. Her beautiful eyes shimmered. “I’ve lost her, Col. I’ve lost my sister.”

  It took two strides to go to her and wrap her in his arms. Gently he cradled the back of her head and found the roughened rise of skin. Poor brave wounded lass.

  He felt her sorrow and loss. He’d lost his family as well and counted Charity as a friend. Yet she would return, with Toren’s son, his nephew. That made Charity his family too. All he had left.

  If the solution was lost to them, he’d vow to at least take care of Charity and her son, mayhap discover a way to root out the Sifts befor
e they can be created and overtake humankind, from this here and this now. They were monster of this future, were they not?

  He could do that. He would. With Lenore.

  His heart clenched on that, the one sunny spot of this entire mess.

  He was keeping her, would make her his. For he already belonged to her.

  “I can get you back two days,” Bekah said it so quietly, he wasn’t certain he heard her correctly.

  Lenore pulled back from him, staring hard at the woman of the terrible future.

  Bekah swallowed, water dripping from her hair and clothes. “I can get you back. I can get us all back.”

  ~~~

  They had to find the other man. Since the Sifts had taken everything off Bekah, her weapons and the scientific device that would allow her to travel to an exact point in time. As long as it wasn’t more than one hundred or so years beyond her own time.

  It sounded like dangerous alchemy to him. She said the man—Luke—had one as well, barring he hadn’t also been captured or eaten on the spot.

  Col’s stomach roiled. He’d seen gruesome things during his lifetime, but, by the rood…

  These monsters had to be dealt with. One way or another.

  Lenore’s little box she used to talk to people out of the air was also gone, and he, well he’d come out of the shift naked as the day he was born so now all he had was an old tartan and this cursed band burning his neck. He couldn’t shift, couldn’t as easily protect the women.

  His palms itched for the weight of a broadsword.

  “How are we going to find him?” Lenore snapped, rubbing her head with more force.

  “First motel in the yellow pages that begins with K. That’s where he’ll be, if he’s still alive.” Bekah pushed dripping bangs out of her eyes.

  ~~~

  King and Castle Motel. ‘Twas not too far to travel on foot, within the same rundown section of town. It took Lenore less than a moment to sidle up to the desk clerk, flutter her large luminous eyes and the boy was ready to give her any information she asked of him.

  Though partly amused at how quick the male fell to her feminine charms, Col found he was also vastly annoyed, wanting her smiles and sly glances turned only toward him. He didn’t like that at all, never felt so possessive of a woman.

  But Lenore wasn’t any woman.

  And he would soon be leaving her. Discomfort erupted in his chest, a little remorseful twitch. He did not wish to leave her. As simple as that.

  They filed into the small room, following the man, Luke, toward the back window. He also looked worse for wear, though at least dry. Bekah immediately embraced him, light head to his dark, drawing back to ask him about weapons and something they referred to as a Squid.

  What a sea creature had to do with situation he knew not.

  Lenore went immediately to the little table between the beds, lifted a strange smooth rod to the side of her face and began pressing buttons on the boxy part still on the table. Her fingers tapped nervously before her face brightened. “Gabe.”

  Col raised his brows in understanding. Ah. ‘Twas another of the talking boxes of this time. More of the strange magic of these times, though fascinating. To be able to speak with someone leagues away. Were it possible he would like to bring this magic home.

  “Yes, I’m fine. He’s fine, too.” Lenore shook her head. “I need your help. I know. Again. You’re right. Were at the King and Castle on Mulberry. Room Eight.” She paused, listening. “The ‘vettes fine. Relatively. A few windows. I had to ditch it though.” Col could hear the man’s voice raise in pitch. His lips twitched in amusement. The white car thus far had been his favorite of all the steel carriages. It rumbled like a true beast, galloping quick and low to the ground.

  Glancing up at him, Lenore shook her head. “I promise, it’s not bad. Outside of Charity’s complex, but I think my grandma called in for it to be towed. I don’t know where. Um, you’ll need a set of spare keys. Yes. Okay, just stop about the car already. It’s insured, right?” There was more yelling. That wasn’t taken well at all. “I need you to bring any kind of weapon you have.” More talking spilled out. “The whole butcher’s block then. And clothes… Ah, geez, Gabe. Yes, he shifted again and he’s naked. I am not going there.”

  Lenore’s gaze slid down Col’s torso, then danced back up, meeting his eyes and her cheeks quickly pinked. She spun her back to him and Col grinned.

  “And clothes for me and another woman as well. I’ll tell you when you get here. Please just hurry. Oh, and cinnamon. As much as you have. Yeah, all right. See you in a few.”

  She placed the talking rod back upon the other half and sank down on the bed.

  She looked frail and weary. Lowering beside her, Col drew her against his side, pleased when she rested her head on his shoulder.

  She felt right next to him as though she fit him perfectly, was molded just for him.

  “Good news.” Bekah stood in front of them holding out what he could only describe as a jellyfish taken from the ocean—without the long trailing tentacles. “Luke managed to get away with his Squid intact.”

  Lenore leaned forward, eyeing the jellyfish skeptically. “That’s the time-travel device? You call it a Squid?”

  “What’s wrong with Squid?” Bekah eyed the bloated blob.

  “Part of the time-travel device, yes,” the guy spoke up behind Bekah. He had a bruise on his cheek and dark blood stains down the torn sleeve of his shirt. “Unfortunately the key ingredient is missing.”

  “Which is?” Col asked, fearing he already knew. He may be from centuries in the past and everything in this era was strange and confusing, but he could keep up with the workings of a conversation. Mostly. Bekah said it earlier. Toren’s son melded magic with this new alchemy—science. The missing ingredient came from the monsters themselves.

  “Sift DNA.” Bekah folded her arms.

  Col stood. He was weary and ready to let this be done. If he had to give up Lenore, better to do not prolong the heartache. For either of them. “Let us go get this Dee-un-aye.”

  Lenore latched onto his wrist. “Easy, big guy. Gabe will be here soon. I want that thing off your neck before we do anything.”

  Softening, Col looked down at her, touched. She worried for him, wanted him to have the advantage of shifting while facing the beasts.

  Blinking, Lenore looked away, stabbing a finger at the Squid. Upon closer inspection, it really didn’t look like anything that could live in the ocean. “How exactly does that work?”

  Bekah shrugged. “Ask your nephew when you meet him. I have no idea. It absorbs the Sift DNA, changes color and…we ingest it.”

  “Ingest it? Eat troglodyte DNA? That’s disgusting.” Lenore’s nose wrinkled.

  Bekah frowned. “Tastes worse than you can imagine.”

  “It’s the smell and gristly texture that gets to me,” Luke replied unhelpfully.

  Col grinned, beginning to like this guy.

  Bekah signed wearily and slunk down into the one chair in the room, flipping a leg over its arm. “But it works.”

  “Wait.” Lenore’s eyes tracked back and forth across the floor. “If this is the last one and we use it to get Col back to Toren and Charity, how do you plan on getting back to your time?”

  Luke and Bekah shared a knowing glance.

  “They won’t be able to,” Col supplied.

  “We knew before we volunteered that it was a possibility we might not make it back. We were each able to bring one Squid so we had two chances to get it right and one chance to go home.” A small line appeared above Bekah’s nose. “Unlike a sorcerer’s true rifts, with the Squid, material items can pass through. Limited, calculated weight. Clothing, a weapon, and another Squid for us each.”

  “And there’s only one left,” Luke said.

  “We get one shot at this.” Bekah swung her leg off the chair, stomping her feet on the carpet. “One shot. We go back to two nights ago and you, Highlander, dive into the sorcerer’s rif
t and go find your moon sifter brother and stop him from destroying our world.

  Col nodded. He’d stop Shaw, he would. But he would not kill him. His brother. Not Shaw. He would never do that.

  Silence strained between them, coating the air in thick hues.

  Lenore lifted the talking rod again. “I need to tell Grandma what’s going on.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lenore propelled herself against Gabe the moment he walked through the door, never in her life so happy to see him. He lifted two stacked pizza boxes out of the way, teetering back on crutches while she wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Yes, I know, I have that effect on people. Can’t keep their hands off me.”

  “Shut up,” she said without heat and took the pizza boxes from him and placed them on the bed. They smelled incredible. Her mouth was watering before she opened the lids.

  “Pizza? Is that pizza?” Bekah practically squealed. “I loooove pizza.” Guess Italian pies were a little hard to come by in frickin happy future Morlock-world. Which was a sad statement about how things had gone. Troglodytes trying to eat you aside, a person should be able to order out for a decent meal when they wanted. That was no way for the human race to suffer.

  Everyone, but Gabe, dove into the pizza with gusto. Two large with the works gone in five minutes flat.

  “Well hello.” Gabe looked Bekah up and down, lip curling appreciatively. “I’m Gabe. Fighter of monsters.” He tapped the long cast on his leg. “I saved the shapeshifter’s bacon. Perhaps they filled you in?”

  “No.” Bekah flicked her gaze over him, sizing him up above the cheesy slice stuffed halfway inside her mouth.

  Hobbling closer, he ran his free hand up the back of her short hair. “I could tell you all about it.” Lenore had the feeling he would have earned more points if he’d brought more than two pizzas. Maybe thrown in some wings.