by Laken Cane
“Take care of that, Jack. I’ll bring them out as soon as they’re ready.”
He hesitated.
She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Every time you’re left alone you get hurt or stolen.” But he grinned down at her. “I’ll be in the next room. Yell if you need me.”
She glared at his retreating back. “You do the same. Smart ass.”
His laugh floated back over his shoulder.
The shifters finished dressing themselves in the ugly jumpsuits and stood silent and almost too still.
“Let’s go, guys,” Rune said. “We’ll get you some food after we get you checked out by the doctor.”
The shifters went nuts.
Had they not been controlled by the silver bars of the cell, she had no doubt they would have shifted. They began screaming and threw themselves against the wall, fingernails snapping as they dug and clawed at the rough brick.
“Shit,” Rune yelled, and shot out her claws. “What the fuck?”
Cops ran into the cell, holding silver loops on long metal rods. They dropped the loops over the shifters’ heads and jerked on the rods, bringing the shifters choking and gasping to their knees.
Rune retracted her claws and went for the deputies. “Get those fucking loops off them.”
“No way,” one of the deputies said. “We’re marching them out of here with these in place. Once they’re in your vehicle, we’ll take them off.”
Jack strode back into the hallway. “Rune?”
“Let’s get them out of this place,” Rune said, and followed the deputies from the cell.
The shifters were controlled once again. They clawed at the silver collars burning their necks as they were forced from the building.
She opened the back door of her SUV.
“Do you want me to take a couple of them?” Jack asked.
“No, I don’t want to separate them.” She gestured at the cops and watched as they pushed the confused prisoners into the backseat. They lifted the loops from the shifters’ necks and backed away from the car.
“They’re all yours,” one of them said, his relief obvious.
“I’m going with you,” Jack said. “I can catch a ride back here to get my truck.”
She nodded. “Hop in.”
“What happened?” he asked, when they were on their way to RISC. The shifters sat silently in the backseat, and it was as though their hysterical outburst had never happened.
“They freaked out,” she told Jack. “I’ll tell you later what I said to set them off.”
He nodded and turned in his seat to look at the shifters. “Any of you ready to talk?”
Through her mirror, Rune watched the man behind her as Jack spoke. The shifter’s stare was downcast, and he never said a word.
“What the fuck,” she murmured.
Jack shook his head. “Something has messed with them in a big way. Once the doc—”
“No,” she interrupted. “Don’t say that word.”
“Ah,” he said. “Got it.”
Her cell rang, showing Elizabeth’s number on the display. “Yeah,” Rune said, still darting glances through her mirror. The sheriff had been right—those shifters were freaky.
“Rune, we got some DNA results back from the murdered bird shifter found nailed to the slaughterhouse.”
“What did it give us?”
“At least one COS member tortured and killed the bird.”
She frowned. “COS? The birds were hiding COS. Why would the church kill a bird?”
“I don’t know. But a partial print and skin under her nails matched a COS member in the system.”
“Let Strad know,” Rune said. “If he has anything helpful to say, give me a call back.”
“Will do,” Elizabeth said, and ended the call.
Rune repeated to Jack what Elizabeth had said.
He grunted. “Be interesting to see if the birds retaliate once they find out.”
“If they don’t already know. I never trusted those psychopathic fucks.”
“Maybe they wanted rid of the bird but couldn’t kill her themselves, so…”
“So they get COS to do the dirty deed.”
“Could be. The birds don’t strike me as the most logical of Others.”
“I can see COS as mercenaries. I can also see them nailing the bodies to walls to thumb their noses at the world. But I can’t really see them working for Others.”
Jack shrugged. “I think COS would do pretty much anything for enough money. And they were living with Others on Spikemoss Mountain.”
She sighed. Damn COS and their never-ending streams of trouble. “It’s a mystery.”
“Yeah.” He nodded his head toward their eerie passengers. “So are they.”
One of the shifters picked that moment to speak. He leaned forward slightly and tapped Rune’s shoulder. “The girl,” he said. “They want the girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jack reached back and grabbed the shifter by the shoulder of his jumpsuit. “What girl? Lex?”
“I don’t know,” the shifter whispered. “But I have been repeating that phrase ever since I came out of the fog. They want the girl.”
Jack shook him. “You have to know something. Tell me everything.”
“That’s all I know.” The shifter met Rune’s gaze in the mirror, his own dark and full of shadows. “That’s all I remember.”
“Jack,” Rune said. “Let go of him.”
The shifter sat back in his seat, staring once more at his hands.
“What’s your name?” Rune asked.
“I don’t know.”
“When I stood in the cell with you, something I said upset you all. Why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember.” He looked up then, his face paler than normal. “I barely remember being in the cell. What did you say?”
But she didn’t want to repeat it until they were safely behind glass in a RISC holding room, where they couldn’t hurt anyone.
Their long term memory seemed pretty much gone, and their short term memory was getting worse.
Except somehow, the shifter had held on to one phrase. “They want the girl.”
What girl? And who the hell were they?
“Is there anything else you can tell us? Scents, impressions, anything?”
His voice was hollow. “Nothing.”
They were all silent the rest of the way to RISC. The shifters, she was pretty sure, were lost in the vast emptiness of their minds.
When they arrived at RISC, she opened the car door and urged them out. “You’ll be safe here,” she told them. “We’re the good guys.”
Kinda.
“Rune,” Jack said, standing beside her.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding.”
“What the fuck?” She glanced down at the blood blossoming in a bright, splotchy pattern on her shirt. “Well that’s weird.”
“How are you feeling?” He didn’t take her arm or fuss over her, just waited to see what she needed.
“I’m fine.” The stake wounds always ached and plagued her like a throbbing toothache might, but she’d thought she was past the bleeding stage. “I’ll bandage it when I get time.”
He nodded. “Let’s get these three inside to Elizabeth.” But he eyed her gravely, his tone solemn.
She tossed him a grin. “I’m good, Jack.”
They urged the three shifters inside the building and to a holding room. “Elizabeth Peel and Bill Rice run this place,” Rune told them. “You can trust them.”
“You can trust no one,” the male shifter said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you remembering something?”
“No.” His smile was slight, and sad. “I suppose it’s a nugget of truth I picked up along the way.” He tapped his chest. “I feel something in here. I…I miss something.” Then he once again dropped his gaze and went silent.
“Maybe if they shift, they’ll heal?” Jack asked.
“Maybe.” But she wasn’t hopeful.
Jack took the shifters to a holding room while Rune went to give Elizabeth the meager bit of information she had.
“Their memories are wiped,” she said, as she walked with Elizabeth back to the shifters. “They can’t remember their names or where they came from. One of the men somehow kept a phrase inside his head, and he repeated it to me on the ride over.”
“What phrase?” Elizabeth was still too pale, and dark circles, though less prominent, lay like bruises under her eyes.
“They want the girl.”
“They? And what girl?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Rice was waiting outside the holding room, talking with Jack. Raze and Owen stood there as well, staring through the window at the shifters.
“Anyone else think this has something to do with COS?” Raze asked.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Elizabeth answered.
None of them would have been surprised. When bad shit happened in River County, COS always managed to be part of it. Or the cause of it.
Rune’s cell rang. She pulled it from her pocket, then blew out a shaky breath. “Berserker,” she said. And though she tried to sound normal, she knew her voice was cold.
“I need you to come back to the nest, Rune.”
She pressed her hand against the seeping stake wound. “Why?”
“The scepters are taking Cree’s wings and banishing her for bringing you to the mountain. They’re still interrogating her, but so far she refuses to say why she took you for COS.”
“All the fucking birds knew I was there, Strad. They knew the twins were there.”
“The scepters didn’t know about you until you were already there. They were discussing what to do about you when you escaped.”
“They ran when I escaped,” she said. “If they’re so fucking bad, why’d they run away?”
“They went to a secondary nest. They didn’t want to lend a hand to COS or fight you. They wanted to be gone in case human law enforcement came up the mountain.” He sounded calm, patiently explaining the birds’ motives.
“And for hiding the twins?”
“I will make them pay for everything they were part of.” His voice hardened. “They will get away with nothing. But you need to let me handle it.”
She disagreed. Strad might think he needed to take the birds out slowly and sneakily for fear they’d kill the crew, but Rune wasn’t that patient. Or that forgiving.
And she wasn’t scared of the fucking birds.
She’d go to that mountain, and she was kicking scepter ass.
“I’m bringing the crew. I’ll need someone to have my back.” Her voice dripped with angry sarcasm, but she didn’t care.
“Rune—”
She clicked off. “Let’s go, boys. We have to visit the birds.”
“Lex?” Raze asked.
Rune hesitated, then nodded. “Call her and give her the choice. If she wants to come, pick her up and meet us there. I’ll ride with Jack.” She looked at Owen. “Ride with us?”
“Yes.”
Her hand shook as she pushed her cell back into her pocket. Then, surrounded by her crew, she strode from the building.
She might not be able to annihilate COS just yet, but the scepters were the next best thing.
With or without Strad Matheson, she and the crew would make sure the birds paid for what they’d helped COS do to her and twins.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jack and Owen talked all the way up the mountain, but Rune stayed silent. She stared out her window and watched the scenery flash by.
Too many emotions vied for attention inside her mind, so she shut them all out. Except for the anger. She let that stay.
Her stomach was in knots and she noticed suddenly that she was chewing the inside of her mouth. She stopped.
She was acting like an old lady. A human one.
And she was a monster. “It’s all about attitude,” she murmured.
“What, Rune?” Jack asked.
“Somewhere along the way, I lost myself.”
“Lost your humanity?”
“No. I think I lost part of my monster.”
Owen leaned closer to the front seat. “Then get him the fuck back.”
She grinned. “Count on it, baby.”
When they pulled into the nest, there were two male birds waiting for them. Jack stopped the truck and let down his window, and the birds leaned down to look inside.
Rune’s body stiffened and she dug her nails into her thighs.
The two birds glanced into the backseat at Owen, peered at Rune, then did a double take and backed away from the truck. “You’re to go two miles down this road,” one of them told Jack. “Take the left at Ruined Oaks and go a quarter mile. You’ll know when you’ve reached your destination.”
“Another truck will be coming this way,” Jack said. “Wait for it.”
“All right.” Then he and his friend turned and melted back into the trees lining the road.
“You okay?” Jack asked her, as he drove on.
“Yeah.” She wished people would stop asking her that question.
The male had been right. They knew when they reached their destination. Every bird in the nest was gathered in a clearing off the side of the road.
The birds were noisy, and the atmosphere was similar to that of a county fair. Lawn chairs and blankets dotted the ground, occupied by laughing, chatting people. Birds.
“Freaks,” Jack growled.
The crew climbed from the truck and watched for a moment. They were loaded down with weapons, and not one of them expected the encounter to end well. Not for the birds, anyway.
“Look at that,” Owen said.
Rune shaded her eyes. “What the hell is it?”
A large platform stood around twelve feet off the ground. It held a large, thick pole, from which thin bits of silver gleamed in the sunlight.
“I don’t know,” Owen said.
“Here comes Strad.” Jack glanced at Rune but said nothing more.
The berserker stopped when he was six feet from the truck. He didn’t look at Jack or Owen. His stare was all for Rune.
“They’re waiting for you,” he told her.
“Why?”
“They want to redeem themselves by allowing you to take Cree’s wings.” His eyes were dark but noncommittal, his voice without inflection. His gaze did not waver from hers.
Yet she knew what it cost him.
“They think,” she said, “if they offer me Cree, I’ll let it go.”
“Yes. That’s what they think.” Then he lowered his voice further. “Today is not the day to take them on, Rune.”
He was afraid the birds would kill her. Her. A monster. But the berserker would never think of her that way. To him, she was always going to be the woman he was afraid of losing. The woman he wanted to protect.
He needed her to feed his addiction.
She saw it in the slight tremor of his fingers when he brushed the hilt of a blade, in the knot that bulged in his jaw when he clenched his teeth. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face, and there was a weary shine to his eyes.
“Take me to them,” she said.
She, Jack, and Owen followed the berserker as he walked them through the midst of the abruptly silent birds.
She was shocked by the number of children present, and when she finally stood before the row of seated scepters, she had one non-negotiable request.
“Send the children away.”
The scepters sat on a carved, wooden bench, hands folded, faces serene. Seven of them, all huge and somehow alien.
One of the women in the middle leaned forward a tiny bit. “Don’t worry after our children, Rune Alexander. They are accustomed to brutal sights.”
“Send them away.”
“Or what?” one of the male scepters asked. “You will decline to rip the wings from one o
f our people?”
“I’d rather they didn’t get hurt.”
The female in the middle smiled. It wasn’t even close to being a real smile. “They won’t.”
“They need to see the punishment of the traitor,” the male said.
Rune snarled at him, shaking the berserker’s fingers from her arm. “You’re all a bunch of traitorous fucks and life is about to get real dangerous for your kind.” She bent forward until she was nose to nose with the male. “So get those kids the fuck out of here.”
The birds behind her, spread across the grounds and ready for a good show, didn’t wait for their scepters to make up their minds. Mothers gathered up children and fled.
And that evened the odds just a little more.
The male stared up at her, his face pale. “We offer you Cree Stark. After you’ve taken her wings we’ll exile her.”
One of the other scepters, an older but very large woman with sharp features and a wide mouth, stood. “Do you know what banishment means to our kind?” She didn’t wait for Rune to answer. “Of course you don’t. We would rather face death than to lose our wings and be ostracized from our group. Unless Cree eventually kills herself, which she will most likely do, her life from this day forth will be an unimaginable horror.”
Rune crossed her arms. “Yet you seem to have no problem sending her into that horror.”
The bird shrugged. “It’s our way.”
And finally she understood why the berserker was so careful. Why Rice was so afraid. The birds were like automatons. They had no conscience. No guilt, no apathy, no remorse.
Along with their talons, size, and ability to fly, they were sociopathic monsters. They were dangerous.
The other scepters rose to stand behind the one who’d spoken.
“Bring her out,” the scepter said to Strad.
He hesitated. “Loraine. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Bring the traitor out,” the bird said. She didn’t shout, didn’t change her facial expression. But her voice was steel. “You agreed.”
Strad blew out a hard breath and walked away.
Loraine gave Rune a curt nod. “Come with me.”
They walked to the platform, the other scepters and Rune’s crew at their backs. Once they reached the strange wooden contraption, Loraine pointed. “We’ve placed a ladder for you.”
