Shadows of Rebellion

by L. M. French

  Before anyone could speak the sky rumbled and lightning crackled.

  This was not happening. It couldn’t.

  As my brain said no way, no how a fat raindrop cut through the trees to land on my boot.

  Bay and the others stood braced against another tremor. Their stance told me my face was sending all sorts of ‘oh fuck’ signals. There was a threat, but they didn’t know what. That wouldn’t last long.

  Another drop splattered across my boot unfreezing my mouth. “We have to get out of here. NOW!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Veda

  To give them their credit, when I ran, they ran. No hesitation whatsoever. Jericho did call out. “What are we running from?”

  I yelled back. “The sap’s poison. Don’t let it touch your skin.”

  Everyone seemed to run harder.

  I was grateful for the quick response cause having to explain before fleeing would’ve been a bummer.

  All the same it was an interesting look at mass hysteria on a small scale. I’d always wondered at the people in movies who stood still in the midst of hordes running in opposite directions.

  Me, I’d run.

  Why?

  Cause no one with any survival instincts or one iota of self-preservation stayed when everyone else was running.

  Not great cinema but I bet I’d be alive to see the whole film.

  As we ran, I heard cursing and knew they felt what I felt. Rain coming down faster, sliding down my face and neck. We were so screwed if we didn’t reach Ena.

  We leapt fallen trees, jumped ravines and crashed through the brush into the clearing beyond where Ena had erected a small but impressive cabin. Agas did good woodwork.

  It would have been more impressive if I didn’t want to find a tree, any tree and rub myself on it. As I turned back around, I ran smack into Bay whose face and neck showed angry red streaks from the poison. Without missing a step, he boosted me over his shoulder and kept running.

  Over his shoulder I saw Ozias and Phin dragging Jericho into the clearing with them. He did not seem to appreciate their efforts, punching and kicking and, oh boy, biting when they wouldn’t let him loose. Emerick filled out the group staggering behind the trio.

  My body was aflame with the need to go back even as my brain pounded the clutch trying to jump start my compromised synapses.

  I suddenly crashed to the ground with a thump and pain ricocheted through my shoulder. Rolling onto my back I found Bay on one knee. His head hung down as his eyes clinched and the muscles in his jaw flexed. He planted his fists into the dirt as if trying to ground himself.

  I could hear Ozias cursing as Phin lost his hold on Jericho who was deep down the rabbit hole. Emerick quickly leapt on top of him to prevent him from running.

  A cool hand touched my face, and it was sublime. I turned towards that touch, and it took all my focus to put a name to the face.

  Red hair, dark and fierce. Strong bones, sharp jaw. And her eyes, milky white and surrounded by jagged scars. It was as if lightning had poured from her eyes and left its mark so all would know: This woman had power.

  Ena.

  It was Ena. We had made it. She held a wooden flask to my lips pouring once then twice. She pulled it away and I chased it like someone long left in the desert with no water.

  She pushed me down none too gently. “There’s only enough for you six and just barely. Two swallows are plenty to counteract the poison.”

  She stood and moved to Bay. He drank his two swallows without opening his eyes. Ozias and Emerick held Jericho down for his dose before taking their own.

  We lay there for what felt like hours, the rain still falling but no longer the danger it was under the forest canopy. Ena had dispensed her antidote and then left us like fallen soldiers in front of her cottage as she returned inside without a backwards glance.

  One by one we pulled ourselves to our knees then our feet before shambling single file towards the short red door of the cottage. I was the only one who didn’t need to stoop to get in.

  Bay stopped me as I crossed the threshold. “Has she ever indicated she’s a threat to us?”

  I wanted to say, “Dude she’s a witch” but I checked it before it made it to my mouth. I wasn’t worried about Bay though; it was the witch that concerned me. I didn’t want her to hear me and take umbrage.

  I spoke so quietly even a whisper wouldn’t hear me. “Depends on what she wants.”

  “Exactly, and the only contingent she’s voiced thus far is you. Why?”

  “I was their mediator- a kind of go between-”

  “You think she wants you to mediate?” he asked in disbelief.

  I wanted to punch him in his well-defined jaw. “That’s my job. I’m a mediator. I mediate.”

  He leaned down and put his mouth at my ear. “Ozias believes more than your seal has changed. Where you were a whisper now, you’re a roar. You’re faster than you were- shifter fast. Did you know you glow, Veda?”

  I shook my head, the movement almost imperceptible. I felt his breath on my neck and my blood throbbed in time with it.

  “What are you hiding, Sentinel?”

  I pulled back in annoyance, my mouth opening I prepared to do my level best to insult him the way he habitually insulted me. Sentinel. He said it the way some people said herpes.

  As words unfiltered prepared to spring like gymnasts from my lips, Ena’s voice cut in.

  “If you’re going to continue to bicker like children you’ve wasted a trip and a good antidote. I don’t have all day.”

  Ozias and Phineas watched the witch, and only the witch, distrust evident despite her handy flask. Jericho and Emerick stared at Bay like he’d grown an extra head.

  I sighed. “Ena we’re here-”

  “She knows why we’re here.” Bay cut in, his eyes locked on Ena with the same barely veiled distrust as Ozias and Phin.

  Ena was a witch and more, she was a seer. Past, present, and future could be seen from her eyes. Some say she blinded herself in a fit of madness, sadly a lot of seers parted ways with reality eventually. Others claimed a long-ago king blinded her to protect himself from her prophecies. Seemed like a man thing to do and I’d buy it if she were actually blind. But her eyes were really a shade of blue so light they seemed translucent.

  But Bay was right, Ena would know why we were there. I didn’t think it was any reason to be rude, but I refrained from giving Bay a lesson in etiquette. I don’t like to waste all my time.

  Ena had no such qualms. “Watch your tone with me, boy. You’re old, but I’m older and haven’t gotten to be by being weak or without means to put you in your place.”

  Without missing a beat, she turned to me and held out both hands. “Come, little one, your wolf, however ill-tongued, was correct. I know why you’re here.”

  I placed my hands in hers and allowed her to lead me to the large table that sat in the center of the great room. The cottage had a bedroom and a bathroom but all else was in the space before us.

  On the table was a bowl and a knife. She squeezed my hands in hers and I knew she spoke only to me. “Your king has gone too long outside his own vessel. The power to return him must be significant and as it goes so must be the price. Will you pay it?”

  “Yes.” It was out before I felt my lips move. Ozias jerked forward as if to stop me. It didn’t, matter whatever she wanted I’d give her. Ena smiled serenely as she turned my left hand over and scored it with the knife from the table. Freaky. I hadn’t seen her grab it.

  She held the small ceramic bowl under my hand and waited as my blood seeped into it. I felt Bay’s gaze burning a hole in the back of my head and wished I could turn around and stick my tongue out at him. I managed to keep my eyes on the bowl that now held more than my share of blood.

  Moving with grace and efficiency she pulled the bowl away and lapped a towel in my hand. Carrying the bowl, she moved to a hearth big enough to roast a hog. She held the bowl over the cauldron and poured my
blood into the bubbling contents. Cauldrons were the witches equivalent to the swiss army knife. Every witch had one.

  Ozias appeared at my side, and he stared down at the towel I pressed against the small wound. “Do you know what you agreed to?” he asked softly.

  I couldn’t very well lie since he watched the whole situation evolve. He knew damn good and well I had no clue. I shrugged. “Does it matter if she can help us find Sai?”

  He nodded and watched with the rest of us as the cauldron bubbled. “Some things are worth dying for.”

  I was going to agree when his eyes darkened to their natural ruby color. A gift from his mother. “But death is the least of your worries.”

  I swallowed the tension in my throat but the anxiety from earlier flared to life. Everyone had an ominous prediction these days.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Veda

  We’d all been standing like statues as steam billowed off the hearth. Don’t get me wrong, Bay with his mouth shut was a nice change of pace but after a half an hour of standing sentry over a pot I was getting restless. Ena drank her tea as if she’d all the time in the world, which I suppose she did, but it rankled.

  The rain had petered off and the antidote she’d given us would take care of any residual poison we encountered provided it didn’t outright rain again on our return through the forest. Turns out Sai had taken care of that predicament in the past but Ena, true to form, had made no allowances for her peculiar environment.

  I was eager to get whatever magical fix she provided and go find Sai.

  Ena snorted softly into her cup and spoke. “Finding Sai will not be as easy as you think, little star. To track the essence of a being as powerful as he is not done. Ever.”

  Bay, brave man that he was, broke in. “That’s why we came to you.”

  Steam poured out of her ears. “Quiet, wolf.”

  I tried; I swear I tried not to laugh but it rolled out unbidden as Bay’s mouth snapped shut. Immortal ass-kicking wolf or not, he was wary of the witch.

  Ena rose from the table and went to retrieve the cauldron. Removing it from its hook to the squat stone table in front of it. She gestured me over to the opposite side. I obliged and found myself staring at her through a screen of steam and smoke.

  I glanced into the pot, oops, cauldron and saw a syrupy mess at the bottom.

  Suddenly she was speaking, low and fast at me. “You can find him but no one else will know the way. But beware, you must find that which does not want to be found. It will not be easy, maybe impossible, and your time is limited. Two, maybe three days.”

  My mind raced as my mind processed her words, but one thing made no sense. “Why would he not want to be found?”

  “To be as old as Sailas is, you find you become numb to things as simple as pleasure, companionship and fulfillment. Centuries pass and apathy takes hold. Nothing malicious of course, but nonetheless dangerous for one such as Sai.”

  “Sai wouldn’t abandon his throne for a fleeting human experience.” Bay sneered, his whole-body tense. “We didn’t come to you to decipher his motives. We came for that.” He jabbed a finger towards the cauldron.

  Without acknowledging Bay, she scraped the contents of the cauldron into another shallow bowl and continued with her theory. “For Sailas, being able to take dominion over others seemed to be a way to refresh himself, to experience anew.”

  “But?” I was sure there was a but. And I was sure it was important.

  “But it was becoming addictive. The more he did it the more he wanted to do it. And the less likely he is to return freely now.”

  I could feel the tension building in the room, and I couldn’t really blame them. She was essentially calling their beloved king a metaphysical junkie that risked his kingdom and immortal life for a fix.

  She passed the bowl to me as an internal panic attack wreaked havoc on my mind. That I managed to find a coherent thought in chaos she’d induced with her theory was a minor miracle. “Does this have anything to do with why you won’t let him come here?”

  Her face contorted in anger and... grief? “He can take most vessels from afar with no actual contact.”

  I waited. Cause there was more. I felt it.

  Ena’s eyes drifted beyond me to the men behind me as if wary of their reaction. Cupping my hands where they held the bowl she leaned in close.

  “Power allows him to possess his vessels because they are simple creatures. No spark in them to fan to flame.”

  I nodded. Humans were void of magic- nonconductors if you will. No amount with our energy could change theirs. The only exceptions were vampires and shifters. Many kinds of preternatural could be turned by a vampire. Like Ivory, witch turned vampire equals Reaver. Honestly not sure what the Gods were thinking sometimes. Then there were the Daenali Wolves. Their unique bloodline made them a step beyond other shifter groups, even other wolves. Like vampires the Daenali could change preternatural as well as alter humans.

  But this is where mindless wolf-men and slaughtering vampire stories originate. Humans aren’t metaphysically capable of the change. The transition would run rampant through them like a self-destruct sequence only they tended to do a lot of damage on their way out. Some people believed this was why halflings became unstable.

  Unlike the vampires, the Daenali strictly regulated the petition process in their pack and the transition of humans was outlawed. However, where the vampires cared considerably less than wolves, there were rebels in every crowd and every so often someone had a bad idea.

  Ena continued. “To possess a preternatural vessel is trickier.”

  She urged the bowl towards my lips, but I moved my head back a fraction. “Tricky how?”

  She thrust the bowl forward and it was drink the potion or eat the bowl. I acquiesced and she continued. “Power attracts power.” I swallowed the syrupy contents, the residue bitter and warm, coated my tongue and teeth.

  I pulled a face and set the bowl away from me dragging my shirt sleeve across my mouth to remove any lingering trace there. My taste buds had a decent chance at survival, and I didn’t want any setbacks.

  I studied Ena’s eyes as the warmth from the potion moved through me. “So, Sai’s power would affect yours or vice versa?” Attraction wasn’t so bad.

  She stood and scooped up the discarded bowl and flung it at Jericho who ducked with a “Fuck.” The bowl bounced off the cabinets behind him and flipped into the sink below. Rounding the table, she came to stand next to me while Phin snickered, and Jericho cursed and muttered about eating senile sorcerers. Bay was so tense he seemed to turn to stone. Ozias however had stepped closer to me his eyes watchful and mildly disapproving. He didn’t like the potion plan.

  “Power doesn’t understand sharing. In a single vessel one is robbed or robs.” Ena’s words sucked the air out of the room. I guess the revelation that Sai could absorb another’s preternatural powers was news to them too.

  “So, you didn’t trust Sai not to take you over and steal your power. Got it.” I smacked my hand on the table as I stood. “So that explains the last ten years of my life.”

  Ozias interrupted this time. “As fascinating as I’m sure this information is, shouldn’t that potion be doing something to help us find him?” He waved a hand towards me.

  Ena tsked. “I don’t brew a once in a lifetime potion for no reason.”

  Bay’s eyebrows rose and he scraped his jaw with his knuckles. “So, when will it start working? Sooner rather than later? Or does the sentinel need to eat a meal with her dose?”

  Ena’s eyes narrowed before she glanced down at me. Her expression turned sheepish. “Oops.”

  My eyes widened. “Oops?” What did she mean-

  She flicked hard in the center of my forehead and said “Téigh.” Go.

  Colors streaked past my eyes and my axis tipped like a tilt-a-whirl and I was gone.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Veda

  I lifted my head from where it rested, and I reali
zed I had fallen asleep on Frank’s desk. And I’d drooled on his mouse pad. Ewww.

  Looking at the screen saver I groaned when it read half past two am. Age-old question- stay up and get on with my day or pretend I wasn’t going to oversleep if I lay back down?

  I sat up and spun the chair around to survey the empty room. Eyeballing the coffee pot I figured ‘screw it’. As I made my way to the counter, I heard a rustling in the next room. A small bang followed by a muttered curse revealed the identity of the rustler.

  “Frank?” I called out.

  I moved through the door and found Frank sitting at reception. His mammoth frame dwarfed the small desk chair where he sat moving things around in search of some elusive object. I gave the door jamb a little knock to get his attention, yet his gaze never strayed from his search. Cereal boxes were laid out before him alongside an empty roll of tape.

  “Yo, earth to Frank.” I teased.

  The playful smile fell from my face as I watched my friend huff and sit back as if exhausted from his efforts. I walked over as he rubbed his hands along the smooth skin of his scalp. His skirt sleeves were rolled back as if he’d been there awhile. His trademark hat and coat were mysteriously absent.

  I came up next to the desk and tapped the top with my fingers. He sighed again before spinning the chair away and standing.

  “Frank?” I waved my hands. “Is this a joke? Hel-loo?” Nothing. He moved to the filing cabinet to rifle through its contents presumably in pursuit of more crafting items.

  What. The. Hell.

  It was like I was invisible. The thought had me turning towards the front windows. Whew. Yep, there I was. My bewilderment clearly reflected in the glass.

  The scene outside the window registered and I stopped worrying about being invisible and started worrying about being crazy.

  I’d woken up at Frank’s desk well after two a.m.- when the sky should’ve been pitch and the streets quiet. And yet.