River of No Return

by Annie Bellet

  “What’s up?” I figured something was up if he was calling instead of texting.

  “Trouble,” Alek said. “Can you come to Vivian’s?”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “I can watch the shop.” Standing next to me, Harper could hear the phone call with her super shifter ears.

  “Council trouble. Thank you, Harper,” Alek said.

  “On my way,” I said. Alek hung up, not even saying goodbye. Tension made my teeth hurt and my skin prickle.

  “Call me.” Harper gave me a quick hug. “I got the shop sorted. Be safe.”

  “I’ll let you know what it is when I know,” I said, pushing away my frustration at Alek for not giving more details. But he didn’t like to share things over the phone and it was probably smart anyway.

  “Oh, shit, can you call Perky for me and warn her I might need a lawyer?” I added as I grabbed my keys.

  “Consider it done. Just promise you won’t go bust some heads without me if that’s what has to get done.”

  “Promise, furball,” I said. My mind was already racing across town to the vet and secret shifter doctor Vivian’s office and home. If she was involved, someone was probably hurt.

  I hated that my next thought was that if someone was hurt, someone was responsible. And if someone was responsible, there was someone to fight. Finally.

  Vivian’s clinic was in a large house on the other side of town from my store. She had a closed sign up on the window which was unusual for this time of day but spoke to how serious the situation inside must be. Alek opened the door even before I’d made it onto the porch.

  “Better you come in,” he said, seeing my questioning expression.

  I squeezed his hand and followed him through the reception area into the back, all the way back to Vivian’s large personal office. Alek had once almost died on the floor there and I repressed a shiver as we entered the crowded room. I’d watched him almost die too many times.

  Vivian was hovering near a dark-haired Asian woman who was stretched out on a cot, propped up with paper-covered pillows. The woman was the only person I didn’t know in the room. She looked somewhere in her thirties but given shifter aging, I knew she was likely much older. Her eyes were striking, light brown on the inside of the irises merging to dark grey rings. She squeezed them shut as Vivian did something hidden from me by the vet’s body.

  Levi and Junebug had positioned themselves against the back wall by the rear door. Levi gave me a half-wave and Junebug a strained smile as I nodded to them in greeting. The rest of the space was taken up by Carlos, Alek’s Justice mentor and friend. The huge black lion-shifter stood up from where he was leaning against a desk that looked like it might give up under his weight.

  “Fix her,” Carlos all but growled at me.

  “Carlos,” the woman on the cot said as she opened her eyes. Her tone was admonishing but gentle, the way one might speak to someone they knew well. Or loved. “I am May Cheung,” she said, her gaze moving to meet mine.

  “May was a prime Justice to the Council of Nine,” Alek said.

  “Hi,” I said, looking back at the woman. Her smile was pained. Vivian moved and I saw the thick white bandaging around May’s chest and belly. “I don’t know what a prime Justice is,” I added, glancing up at Alek. “And I’m not a healer.”

  It was May who answered me. “Justices assigned to directly assist Council members. And to train to take their place, to take on the mantle once the burden grew too great.”

  “Okay, back up even further here. What mantle?” I blinked at her. Alek had always been tight-lipped about the Council of Nine and I hadn’t pressed too much. I knew they had some kind of foresight or visions that they imparted to their Justices to stop crimes, but it seemed like there was more to it.

  “Is there time for this?” Carlos asked. “You are hurt, we need…”

  “The Council could stop crimes, could send us to punish the guilty, because they were given the gift of seeing the future, or at least possible futures, by the Fates,” May spoke over Carlos, her voice low but strong. “Seeing the future is a difficult thing. It can drive you mad. It did drive the First mad. That is why we are here.”

  “Don’t move,” Vivian said as May struggled to sit up more. “You’ll start bleeding again.”

  “The First, the one who sent those wolves to threaten the Alpha of Alphas? Is he the one who tried to kill you and Alek in New Orleans?” I leaned into Alek, trying to put the pieces together.

  Carlos nodded. His expression was tight with worry but his lips pressed together in resignation as he accepted that explanations were coming before action. I didn’t know how to explain that I couldn’t take action when I didn’t know what was going on. And I wasn’t some cleric who magically handed out health potions. I didn’t even know what May’s wound looked like under all that bandaging.

  “The First has killed all the other Council Members. Mine was unable to pass the mantle to me before he got her. He did this to me,” May added, wincing as she moved her arm to gesture to the bandaging. “Wounds that won’t heal.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself as a shiver worked its way down my spine. Wolf, my spirit guardian, had given Samir a wound that didn’t heal. It was the only time I’d heard of anything like that happening.

  “Who is the First?” I said, then I shook my head. “No, what is the First?”

  There was no way we were dealing with a normal shifter, not if a room full of capable, powerful shifters looked this freaked out. Levi was uncharacteristically silent, just standing against the wall with his arm over Junebug’s shoulders. I wondered why they were here, how they were connected to this, but it didn’t feel like the right time to ask.

  May, Alek, and Carlos all exchanged looks that likely meant more than I could read into them. It was Alek who spoke.

  “As far as anyone knows, he is the oldest shifter alive. He has powers, magical abilities, that no other shifter has ever had. It was he who would grant or take away Justice powers.”

  “I assume he’s revoked all of your powers?” I asked, looking at the three Justices in turn.

  Carlos and May nodded. I looked up at Alek again.

  “Not mine,” he said softly.

  “He wants Alek for some reason,” May said. “Before he killed…” she trailed off and took a couple shallow breaths. “He was clear that he has a plan for Alek. Alek was proposed as his successor, years ago.”

  So we had a murderous super powerful shifter with the ability to see the future and undefined magical abilities who apparently wanted everyone in this room dead except for my lover who he had a special probably awful plan for. Oh, and if the warning given to Freyda was any indication, he was also forming an army of shifters.

  Sounded like a job for Jade Crow, murderer of evil peeps who want to kill awesome peeps she loves as well as other peeps who are probably also cool.

  I was going to have to work on a better super hero job title.

  “So he can give you guys extra powers like making shifters, uh, shift. And he can see the future. Anything else I should know before I go kick his ass?” I tried on a smile. It was more pressing my lips to my teeth but I went with it.

  “She’s serious?” May said to Alek.

  “Most of the time.” His arm was strong and warm as he wrapped it around my shoulders.

  “He can take over minds,” Carlos said. The grim tone of his words took what little levity was left in the room. “He has to be close enough for you to hear his voice, but once he has control, it is almost impossible to break without putting a great distance between him and the affected.”

  “Just shifter minds?” I asked. I had enough voices in my head, I didn’t want to fight someone who would add another.

  “Most likely?” May said. “I’ve never seen him do it to anyone else. And not all shifters are susceptible. He was unable to do it to the other Council members, for example.”

  “So there’s a future-seeing, mind
-controlling powerful shifter dude with maybe other magical powers raising a shifter army and coming for my boyfriend? Is that all?” I’d wanted a fight but should have remembered that whole careful what you wish for phrase. The Universe is a bitch sometimes.

  “That’s the gist,” Carlos said. “We should not stay in Wylde. They’ll be hunting us.”

  “Can you look at these wounds?” Vivian asked me.

  “I’m not a healer,” I said again. But I couldn’t resist their desperate eyes so I moved out from under Alek’s arm and toward May. “I’m way better at killing people than making them whole again.”

  “I’m dying,” May said. “I cannot shift. It won’t let me, the pain knocks me out if I even consider it. You can hardly make it worse.”

  Oh, ye of little faith, I thought but held my tongue as I knelt beside her. I summoned magic and held my hands over the bandages. I couldn’t see what the wounds looked like, but I decided to start with a simple kind of detect magic spell.

  I wasn’t expecting to find much. Shifter powers are very different from sorcery or even human magics. Magic doesn’t affect them as well and sorcerers can’t eat their hearts and gain anything but a stomachache. But wounds that don’t heal sounded magical to me and it was the only thing I could think to start with.

  Power, raw twisting raging red power slammed into my seeking magic and physically knocked me onto my ass as I threw up a shield. The magic to my internal senses was like a pissed off lava snake, coiled and burning everything it touched.

  The smell of the foreign magic was sulfurous, hot, tinged with the acrid bite of burning hair. It was different from my magic, but in the way that Samir’s was different. Or Tess. But it told me something we hadn’t known before. This spell revealed the First to me. Only… it was not possible.

  “Sorcery,” I said. “This is sorcery. Like from a sorcerer.”

  “The First has many abilities,” May said with a gasp as the snake reacted to my prodding.

  “He’s a sorcerer,” I said aloud. “How the fuck is that possible?”

  “A shifter and a sorcerer?” Levi spoke up. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m staring at sorcery right now,” I said through gritted teeth as I examined the burning snake thing. May was right, she was dying. This spell had to be removed.

  “You are a sorceress born to shifters,” Alek said. “Perhaps the First is the same, somehow.”

  “What’s his shifter form?” I asked. I was technically a shifter, if you counted being able to turn into a dragon as shifting. Except I couldn’t shift into a dragon on this plane cause of some magical seals keeping the world from being overrun by magical critters.

  “He has three,” May said. “Snake, eagle, tiger.”

  “Chimaera,” Levi said with a low whistle. “I thought they were myth.”

  “So did I,” Carlos said, eyes narrowing. Apparently May hadn’t told him everything.

  But hey, not a dragon. So that was a plus. I kept the relief to myself since only a few people in this room knew I was a dragon.

  “So he’s a shifter and a sorcerer,” I said. “We’ll deal with it.” I sounded a lot more sure than I felt. But what choice did we have? I wasn’t going to let him take Alek or hurt anyone else if I could help it.

  “Can you fix me?” May asked, her brown-grey eyes reflecting dim hope.

  “I might kill you trying,” I said, sensing this was a woman who appreciated honesty.

  “Do it,” she said.

  “May,” Carlos started to say but May shook her head even though it was clear the gesture pained her.

  “Get out, all of you,” she said. “Just Jade.”

  I didn’t argue. I had no idea what the spell snake thing would do once I started really poking it. Alek squeezed my shoulder and led everyone out of the room. Carlos went last. He shot me a look that was half warning, half desperation. I gave him what I hoped was a competent, assured nod.

  After the door closed behind them, I caught May’s gaze and held it.

  “Seriously, this might kill you.”

  She nodded, closed her eyes, and slowly let out her breath. Her entire body relaxed into the cot.

  “Begin,” she murmured.

  I concentrated on the lava snake. The magic was coiled around her torso like a constrictor. Magic doesn’t last forever unless it is fixed to a source or an object. I wasn’t good with magical objects, that was Samir’s strength. But I knew enough to know that this spell had to be anchored somehow. I followed the coils of the snake, using my own magic to shield me from the burning, sulfurous tendrils of power that tried to latch onto me.

  There. The tail of the snake was attached to a glowing orange-red ember. A physical thing.

  “What did he attack you with?” I asked, fighting to maintain concentration and magical sight on the ember.

  “A sword with many whip-like blades. Urumi, it’s called.” May’s voice sounded as though she was speaking through thick cloth.

  Urumi. So the First had an exotic weapon proficiency. I wished Levi or Harper were there so I could make the joke aloud. I filed it away for telling them later.

  “Was it unusual in any way?” I asked instead. “Pieces on the ends?”

  “It glittered,” she said. “I remember that.”

  My best guess was that the urumi was bespelled so that any wounds created would end up with particles of ensorcelled metal, spawning the lava snake currently killing the Justice. Death by glitter.

  “Okay, this is going to suck,” I muttered.

  May didn’t answer but she was still breathing so I figured she was ready as she was going to get.

  I shaped my magic with my will, pushing it into tongs. I pictured them like dry ice, pure cold, a cold so freezing it would burn. The coils reacted before I even touched them, drawing back, away from the chill of my magic. May screamed.

  I thrust the tongs into the heart of the lava snake, reaching for the ember there. For a glorious moment I had it clutched in my power, turning dark and cold from the bitter bite of my icy spell.

  Then it slipped free, worming its way deeper as though alive, propelled by the First’s sorcery.

  “Fuck.” I pushed after it but the heat grew, overwhelming my power. I fed more and more into my ice tongs, forming them sharper as I dug into the lava trying to destroy my spell.

  There. The ember, burning brighter, glowing almost white. I smashed icy magic into it, wrapping it up like an unwanted gift before yanking it toward me, free of the coils.

  May screamed a final time and went silent.

  The burning coils turned to ash and the sudden lack of heat made me shiver as I reeled back onto my heels. A tiny piece of silver metal rested in my hand.

  There was blood everywhere and May wasn’t moving. Shit.

  “May,” I said, reaching to shake her. Her bloody bandages squished beneath my hand, almost too hot to touch. “You have to shift.”

  “I am tired, my love,” she whispered in Spanish.

  “You must change shape,” I replied in the same language, using the formal imperative. I softened it by saying, “Please. Live.”

  Her brown-grey eyes flew open. Then she was no longer a blood-covered woman but a silver and black snow leopard. She twisted to her side and then flopped as though that was the maximum effort she could give. Her eyes were bluer in this form but still with a ring of brown at the iris. She blinked slowly at me before closing them with a long sigh.

  I walked out of the room in an exhausted daze. Fighting the First’s spell had required two things I’m not good at—precision, and ice. I’m much more a fireball kind of girl. But I’d saved her. Maybe. I stared down at the metal in my bloody hand.

  I’d wanted a fight, a name to put on this impending storm.

  “Is she?” Carlos asked me as I walked into the tense air of the reception area. He looked ready to pounce, his eyes narrowing as he saw the blood on me.

  “She’s shifted, and is alive,” I said, holding up the bit of
metal. “I think I got what was killing her.”

  Carlos pushed past me. Vivian nodded at me with a small smile and followed Carlos to the office to check on May.

  “Why are you here?” I asked Levi. “Wait, that sounded harsh, sorry.”

  “Nah,” Levi said. He tugged on a lip piercing and looked at Junebug.

  “I’m pregnant,” Junebug said.

  When humans say that, I always wondered if I should offer congrats. With shifters, given how hard it is for them to conceive, I never had to wonder.

  “Shit, congrats!” I found I could still smile after all.

  “We were going to wait and tell everyone once Ezee got back, cause he’ll kill me for not telling him first,” Levi said.

  “My lips are sealed.” I closed my fist. The little scrap of silvery metal dug into my palm.

  Alek came up behind me and pulled me against his chest. I let myself sag into him with my eyes closed. I’d move and wash off May’s blood in a minute. For now it felt good to be held.

  “How fucked are we?” Levi said after a long, awkward moment.

  I opened my eyes again and made a face. “Maybe you should get out of town for a while,” I said, knowing it was pointless. Knowing even with a baby on the way, neither of them were going to do the smart thing and go.

  “We’re going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Junebug said. If she’d been in her owl form her feathers would have ruffled right up.

  My clean hand found my talisman and Samir’s heart.

  “We’ll fight,” I said.

  “Together,” Levi said.

  “Always.” I looked up at Alek and he pressed his lips to my forehead.

  Which is how Sheriff Lee found us when she walked into the clinic wearing an expression that said our already exhausting day was about to get worse.

  Stonebrook Hunting Lodge was its official, human world name, but everyone just called it The Den. The Den was the seat of Freyda, the Alpha of Alphas, the top wolf-shifter in the western Hemisphere, and someone I had come to consider a friend. Alek drove us up the long, winding road through pristine old-growth forest as I sat with a growing knot in my stomach.