by H B Lyne
Scribe lifted the knife and stepped back. He indicated for the others to do the same. Stalker wiped her face and took her place in the circle.
'We bury four shifters from varying traditions and paths tonight, and ask that Anubis guide each of them carefully to their chosen destination. Flames goes to the Underworld to greet Osiris, Shadow to Valhalla and the hall of Odin. Stone and Fortune return to source, to mother Artemis's belly and Sol's guiding light. We bury them all in accordance with shifter tradition, by sending their burning bodies to the ground.'
Scribe used his candle to set fire to the box, Echoes did likewise and the Lightning Lords each stepped forward to add their flames to the fire. They stepped back quickly as the box burst into a bright blaze, and Stalker felt the heat on her face, drying her tears. Scribe raised his hands to one side and swept them across his body. A huge hole appeared in the ground and swallowed the box, burying it instantly. Stalker was shocked and looked at the ground for evidence of the burial, but there was none.
'The Blue Moon now rest in Hepethia and will be protected there,' Echoes said softly. 'There will be no marking of their grave, for their own protection.'
Stalker knew that there was great power in shifters, and even in death that power could be used. It made sense that shifters would not mark the graves of their loved ones, in case anyone wanted to steal the remains and use that power. It made her sick to think about it, and she firmly swept the notion aside.
'Thank you Osiris and Anubis for your guidance and protection. Farewell.' Scribe crouched down and placed his hands on the grass. He stood slowly, raising his hands and as he did so, and the blue dome was gradually lifted from around them, disappearing into a point above his head.
'The circle is closed,' Echoes said, and a sigh seemed to ripple through the park. It made Stalker shiver slightly.
Weaver moved over to Scribe and spoke softly to him. Eyes and Wind Talker approached one another for a brotherly hug. Stalker went over to Echoes, who was staring absently up at the night sky.
'Thank you for this,' Stalker whispered.
'Not at all,' Echoes replied softly. 'It's our role, it's what we do. Are you all right?'
There was true concern in her voice and she made eye contact with Stalker for the first time.
'Not really,' Stalker replied. 'But I will be.'
'Wind Talker,' Scribe said, a little more loudly. 'We have something for you, in the van. Shall we all go up now?'
A few nods and murmurs of agreement went around and the six shifters set off up the hill back to the entrance of Crescent Park. Scribe unlocked the van and threw open the back doors. Stalker peered between him and Wind Talker and saw a coffin-sized wooden box.
'Is that the body of the dead Phoenix Guard?' Wind Talker asked.
'Yes,' Scribe replied. What shall we do with it?'
'It will fit in my car if I put the back seats down,' Eyes offered, quietly. They all helped to move the box to his car. Stalker felt deeply uncomfortable handling the box, like touching it made her dirty. It contained the remains of an unseen enemy that she hated. She didn't want to know what Wind Talker wanted it for. That thought made her feel unsettled as well.
When they had finished they bid farewell to the two Scroll Keepers. Last-Breath-Echoes climbed up into the driver's seat of the van and set off back to Fenstoke, the territory of her pack, The Hand of God.
'I'm heading in the opposite direction,' Scribe said, pointing towards the river.
'Which is your pack?' Eyes asked, his voice full of curiosity.
'The Hellsclaws,' Scribe replied. 'Over in South Stoke.'
Stalker had never heard of them before, South Stoke was on the other side of the city from St. Mark's and she had never had a reason to go there. Eyes gave a small nod of acknowledgement but said nothing.
'Thank you,' Weaver said and approached Scribe for a hug.
'No problem,' he replied. He turned and set off at a brisk walk.
'I have room for one passenger,' Eyes said, pointing at his car. 'Wind Talker? Do you want to accompany the box?'
'Yes, please, if no one minds?' he replied.
Stalker and Weaver agreed and the two of them set off walking towards China Town as Eyes and Wind Talker got into the car and set off.
'That was emotional,' Stalker said quietly as they walked.
'Yeah,' Weaver replied. They hardly spoke all the way back and dawn was approaching by the time they arrived at Grove Street. Eyes and Wind Talker were asleep when the women arrived. They shifted into their animal forms and curled up; exhaustion took over and Stalker slept deeply right through the morning.
Chapter Fifteen
Stalker woke around lunch time. Eyes had slipped away early to work and the others were still sleeping. She went to the kitchen and put a pot of coffee on. Weaver's sketches lay strewn all over the table and Stalker leafed through them. The plague doctor featured over and over again and she decided this needed their undivided attention now. The last time Weaver's visions had been this focused on one thing, the Phoenix Guard had invaded their territory and slaughtered their pack.
As she was pouring herself some freshly brewed coffee, Stalker heard the television in the front room come on. She had never known the others to turn it on and wondered who had done so. She took her coffee back to the front room and found Weaver and Wind Talker just waking up and stretching out their animal bodies. She felt their confusion, obviously neither of them had switched the TV on.
Stalker felt a slight hint of static through the veil and the television started changing channels rapidly.
'It must be Unchained Lightning,' she said. Weaver and Wind Talker shifted form and the three of them watched the screen attentively. It finally settled on a news broadcast. A distressed-looking correspondent was standing in front of police tape and behind him was a gaping hole in the middle of a road.
'Hey! I know that street, it's not far from here,' Wind Talker said, and he leaned forward and turned up the volume.
'Everyone here is surprised at the discovery. Routine road works don't usually unearth ancient burial sites,' the correspondent was saying. 'We're waiting now for experts to finish their initial investigation, but I heard from one of them just now that preliminary thoughts are that the site may date back to the plague of the seventeenth century.'
Stalker felt a sickly sinking sensation inside her, and she looked over at Weaver, who was sitting with her head in her hands.
'The Plague Doctor,' Weaver whimpered.
'We need to go and investigate.' Wind Talker was already pulling on his boots.
'Let me call Eyes first.' Stalker pulled out her phone and quickly found the Alpha's number. It rang for what seemed like an age before she gave up and ended the call. 'Okay, we investigate but let's try to avoid a conflict, shall we?'
Wind Talker gave a curt nod and Weaver murmured her agreement. The three of them set off for the nearby street. Stalker felt a painful jerk as they rounded a corner to find police tape strung across the road and a gaping hole in the tarmac. It was too familiar.
'Focus on the road works,' Weaver whispered, patting Stalker on the shoulder.
Stalker swallowed the lump in her throat and did as Weaver suggested. She looked at the cones, diggers and tools that lay abandoned around the work site. The hole was neatly dug, not the result of a massive explosion. There were people everywhere; a crowd of onlookers, the media and workmen, all jumbled together, bumping into one another and chattering loudly.
The three shifters approached cautiously, edging through the crowd, towards the plastic barrier around the pit. As she peered into it, Stalker saw layers of rock and earth, pipes and tubes and wires scattered throughout, and just visible, deep down, were bones. The shifters walked along the edge of the hole, following the course that the forensic experts had been digging after the initial discovery of the remains. They had already uncovered several bodies, there were scraps of shrouds preserved and layers upon layers of the dead.
&nbs
p; 'This is horrible,' Stalker whispered.
'I believe it was common during outbreaks of the plague,' Wind Talker whispered back. 'So many died and people were so afraid of contact with the bodies, that they just piled the dead into these great pits, rather than taking the time to make individual graves.'
'It's like the pictures you see of the concentration camps,' Weaver said, her voice tinged with sadness. 'Something has been unearthed. Can't you feel it? There is something missing here.' Weaver looked around anxiously. 'It must have fled quickly.'
'Or was taken,' Stalker mused. 'The demon won't have been buried here in the human world, maybe this didn't unearth him, maybe he was around already. Couldn't the Plague Doctor be responsible for the humans finding this site in the first place? Maybe he was here waiting when they found it and was able to take what he needed as soon as it was found.'
She felt a shudder go right through her and felt eyes watching them. She looked around, her vision sharp, but saw nothing distinct in the sea of faceless people. 'We need to get out of here,' she whispered.
'Agreed,' said Wind Talker and the three of them moved quickly back through the crowd and jogged back to the house.
'What do we do about this?' Stalker asked when they got back. 'Something has been dug up on our territory and there is a demon of the plague on the loose. How do we even begin to deal with this, or find out what was stolen and why?'
She couldn't disguise the panic in her voice and Weaver stepped over to give her a reassuring hug.
'We will figure it out. Artemis sent me the vision for a reason, there must be something in it to help us. We didn't manage to stop it from happening, but that might not have been the point of the vision.' Weaver patted Stalker gently on the back and released her. Stalker felt calmer. Her pack sister had the unique ability to say just the right thing.
'I have to work soon and then there's a meeting of Odin's Warriors tonight. Will you two keep working on this and come up with a plan?'
'Of course,' Weaver replied.
They hurriedly prepared some food and Stalker dashed out of the door with toast in her mouth.
Work was just as difficult as it had been the previous day, with Stalker having to hold back in order to avoid hurting her students. She hadn't fully appreciated that her new abilities gave her such added strength even in her human form, and if she wasn't careful her supernatural nature would be exposed. Her students expected a trained martial artist to be strong, of course, but not so strong that she could easily throw one of them right across the room.
She finished work feeling exhausted and questioning whether it was even going to be possible to keep her job. She retrieved her dha from her locker and strung them across her back, where they disappeared from human sight, blending into her body until such time that she might need them. With a meeting of Berserkers, you never knew when weapons might be drawn.
She set off through the chilly night, there was a clear sky and the stars were just about visible through the dull orange glow from the street lamps. Stalker walked south out of St. Mark's and into China Town. The streets were bustling. Stalker loved the vibe of this part of Caerton, it was always busy and little stalls lined many of the streets. She stopped on her way to pick up something to eat and tried to enjoy the walk through the markets.
She remembered what Fortune and Shadow's Step had said about China Town, it was something of a mystery to Caerton's shifter population. No one knew who claimed it, no one had ever encountered signs of any shifters here, but it was not out of control in Hepethia like St. Catherine's was. She and Weaver had walked through China Town after the funeral in the early hours of the morning, and had had no trouble. If anyone did claim the area, they clearly didn't object to other shifters moving through it. She glanced around cautiously, suddenly wondering if she was being watched. She quickly shrugged away the feeling and went on her way.
It was approaching 9pm when Stalker reached Crescent Park. It was as dark as it had been the previous night, but not so quiet. Cars sped past on the main road and a few people walked hurriedly past the entrance to the park. There was no through route, so no random, passing humans entered the place that was so sacred to shifter-kind at this time of night. It was likely that teenagers and the homeless would find their way into the park, but Stalker suspected that the odd feeling of the place was a fairly effective deterrent.
She walked in through the wrought iron gates and set off down the path towards the lawn. She tried not to dwell on the reason for her previous visit, and as she neared the bottom she heard loud voices and sensed the shifters gathering just out of sight. She heard footsteps on the path behind her and glanced over her shoulder. A dark figure waved and she paused to see who it was. As the figure entered a pool of light from one of the few street lamps along the path, she recognised Fire Talon, the young father from her first meeting with Odin's Warriors. He had shoulder length, blond hair and wore a long leather coat. His footsteps were heavy and as he drew close to her she saw dark circles under his eyes.
'Hi,' he greeted her warmly. 'How are you doing?' There was genuine sympathy in his voice and she knew at once that he was referring to the loss of her pack.
'As well as can be expected,' she replied. 'How's fatherhood treating you?'
'It's challenging,' he said. There was something sad about his smile, but Stalker didn't feel she could probe further. They resumed their course down to the waiting gathering and walked in silence.
It looked like most of the Berserkers were already assembled. Ragged Edge and Red Scythe stood in the centre of the group, and she saw First Strike and Crimson too among the gathered shifters. As they reached the lawn someone pushed past Stalker from behind; her hackles immediately rose and she saw that it was Fury, her rival from the Wrecking Crew. Stalker let a snarl escape her curled lips. This was the first time she had seen a member of the Wrecking Crew since they had made a grab for more territory on the northern border in Redfield, the night that the Blue Moon were killed.
Fury turned and grinned at her, walking backwards into the group and disappearing amongst them. More than anything, in that moment Stalker wanted Shadow's Step at her side to stop her from reacting to the provocation. It was Fire Talon who placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
'Not now,' he whispered.
Stalker nodded in agreement. She would have her moment with Fury, but it was not now.
The last stragglers arrived and Red Scythe called them all to order.
'We will be moving on to a secure location in just a few moments.'
'You can feel the oddness of the place, right?' Fire Talon asked in a whisper, taking her arm and leading her gently towards the middle of the crescent-shaped lawn. She nodded. 'Plant your feet, feel the earth beneath and feel everything else. All worlds pour into this one place, like a drain. If you focus carefully you can even see the other realms, you can see into Asgard.'
She looked at him in alarm. He had an expression of awe upon his face.
'Why does nothing spill through?' Stalker looked up, as if something might fall out of the sky at any moment.
'It's a perfect still point. Although there is no veil here and everything could just cross between realms, somehow they don't. We don't know why.'
Stalker took a few seconds to feel her feet pressing into the grass; she looked down at them and allowed her eyes to slip out of focus. She lifted her head slowly and let her eyes see beyond the human world. She saw Hepethia before her, and it was perfect, undisturbed crystal with jagged forms jutting up from the ground. As she stared into space it was as if she could see further, like a telescope refocusing on something more distant. She saw fire and shadow, chaos and death. The world was ablaze and demons bigger than anything she had encountered before romped across the volcanic landscape.
With a gasp she shook her head and her vision cleared. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but Fire Talon grasped her shoulders and shook her firmly back into the human world. 'Are you all right?'
'
Yes,' she said, nodding. 'That wasn't Asgard.'
'Did you see Muspelheim, the fire realm?'
Stalker nodded, still feeling shocked and shaken.
'I wasn't trying to, I didn't know what I would see.'
'Your mind was on the demons, you were worried about them being able to cross into this world, so that was what your mind showed you when you looked out.' Fire Talon released her shoulders and gave her a small smile.
'It was awful,' Stalker said with a shudder.
'We're moving on now,' Red Scythe called out. 'We're convening at The Station, just a short walk from here. Please try not to be too conspicuous, travel in small groups, keep the noise down.'
'It's like being on a school trip,' Stalker whispered as she and Fire Talon set off up the path behind a few others. He chuckled.
The column of Berserkers filed out of Crescent Park and drifted apart for the short walk into the city centre. The Station was once a fire station, but it had been sold and converted into a night club about ten years previously. On the weekends it was a thriving hub for young clubbers, but mid week it was dark and empty. It stood on a quiet back street, a short distance from where most of Caerton's busiest night spots were jumping every night of the week.
As they approached the huge block of a building, Red Scythe was already there, and holding the small side door open for the pairs and small groups as they arrived. Fire Talon held his hand out for Stalker to enter ahead of him. The door opened into a dark, narrow corridor. There were posters lining the walls and the floor was concrete. A light was hanging from the ceiling towards the end of the corridor, and Stalker followed a dark figure towards it.
