by C. J. Parker
“Prophecy?” Omeda laughed until tears filled her eyes. “You still believe those silly stories we were told as children. Bobbie, the elders used them to scare us into being good.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “Grow up. The warriors are dead. No one, not even your death monger friend can bring them back. There are no monsters in the closet.” She walked to the center of the room.
Bobbie tilted her head as she studied her old friend. She regretted the loss of Omeda’s friendship, but maybe it was for the best. She was trouble during their childhood and apparently hadn’t changed. “Wait. How do you know about Tabatha?”
“I just know.” She smiled as if she held some deep dark secret Bobbie didn’t.
She was never your friend. Send her away. The Spirit Warrior’s whisper filled her head.
“Kangee is mine, Robertina. Your return means nothing. You’re a momentary distraction.”
“Tell me, has he taken you to his bed? Has he made love to you?” Bobbie had to ask, though the answer might tear her apart.
Omeda paused, held her head high and smiled. “Yes.”
A deafening roar filled the room. The mystic warriors gathered in front of Omeda, and an unseen wind picked her up and pushed her out the door. She fought frantically to reenter but to no avail. “Let me in, Bobbie. You have no right to keep me out.”
“I didn’t toss you out, Omeda, and I don’t deny you entry now. You lied in the presence of the holy council.” The blood from a cut on Omeda’s forehead caused Bobbie’s stomach to twist into a cramp.
She wanted to help her old friend just for old time’s sake but knew Omeda wouldn’t accept help from her. “Whether I’m here or not, you will forever be barred. Only by Kangee’s request are you allowed to stay in the village.”
“Because he loves me.” Omeda smiled as if she’d won this round. “He wouldn’t let you send me away because he loves me, not you. He only pretends to want you so he can become king.”
“Do you realize how pathetic that sounds?” Bobbie stood from the chair and strolled down the aisle. The warriors parted to let her pass. “You’re saying the lure of power is stronger than his love for you.”
“No!” Omeda swung her fists in an effort to fight her way past the transparent warriors standing between the entrance and Bobbie. Each time Omeda managed to get her arms into the doorway, the warriors raked their fingers from her elbow to the wrist. She came away covered with more and more blood from their scratches. “Come out of there, you cowardly bitch. Fight me for what you claim is yours.”
“Omeda, stop!” Bobbie rushed toward her but invisible hands pushed Bobbie back. “They’ll kill you.”
“They who?” Omeda stopped to look within the room. “No one is here but you and me, and I’ll kill you before I let you take him. You were a fool to leave, Bobbie.”
Bobbie had to give her that one. She had been a fool for not taking Kangee with her. He would have gone if she’d asked. Bobbie released the pity she felt for Omeda tightening within her chest and stepped through the shield of power that had kept Omeda out of the council building. The Spirit Warriors grasped Bobbie’s arms as if to deny her freedom from their realm. She turned to face them and bowed slowly. “Release me.” When she turned and stepped away from them, they released her and she careened out the doorway from the momentum and fell to her knees in the dirt.
“No.” Omeda stumbled backward, tripped over the uneven ground, landed on her backside and did a crab-crawl to get away. “You’ve got the mark of the beast.”
From a few feet away, a gasp sounded. “No. It’s the prophecy.” Agnes turned to face the village square. “Everyone come. Something has happened.”
The villagers within earshot kicked up dust as they ran toward Bobbie.
Tabatha and Rhonda worked their way through the crowd to Agnes’ side. Bobbie took in all their shocked expressions. “What the hell are you staring at?”
“What’s going on, Bobbie?” Rhonda’s eyes widened. “You’re glowing like a hundred watt bulb.”
“She’s covered in blood. Kangee!” Tabatha knelt beside her. “Where are you hurt, Bobbie?” Tabatha turned to face the crowd. “You.” She pointed to the boy standing nearby. “Give me your T-shirt.”
“No!” an elderly man shouted. “Don’t touch her. She hasn’t completed the transformation. Can’t you see? Robertina glimmers with the spirit’s touch.”
As if his words had power of their own, the light seeped into her skin, and Bobbie heard their final words.
You have been sanctioned. Do not fail us, Queen Moran.
With a whimper and a slow breath of tension, the last of her strength drained from her body as she slumped against Tabatha.
The boy tore the shirt from his chest and handed it to Tabatha.
Looking up, Bobbie gazed into her friend’s blue eyes as Tabatha wiped the blood from her upper arms with the T-shirt. Tabatha constantly folded the soiled cloth inward leaving clean areas to use. Her touch was gentle and caring. Bobbie smiled. “Dr. Tabatha Gray, always the caregiver.”
“So far, so good. No wounds.” Tabatha shook her head in what she assumed was confusion. “Is this your blood or Omeda’s?”
“I didn’t touch her.” Bobbie inhaled, exhaled several times trying to clear her thoughts.
The boy raced away and returned with a bucket of water. “You might need this.” He reached out to touch Bobbie’s arms but must have thought better of it and drew his hand away.
Tabatha glanced at him. “You’re Snowman, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Stephen. But some people call me Snowman. It’s the white hair.” He grimaced ruefully and nodded toward Bobbie. “Is she going to be all right?”
“I’m right here, Stephen, and I’m fine.” Bobbie tried to lift her arms, but it proved to be more than she could manage.
The boy knelt and took her hands in his, holding her arms out as Tabatha poured water over them.
She smiled her thanks and leaned on him, drawing strength from his youthful power.
Tabatha nodded. “Yes. I think she…holy…how did you get these tattoos?” She leaned down touching Bobbie’s arms examining them, then glanced past her into the Council House. “I’ve never seen anything like them, and working the emergency room, I’ve seen plenty.”
Tabatha ran her fingers gently down Bobbie’s arms once more.
Fear gripped Bobbie as her gaze followed Tabatha’s finger movements. Shock stole her ability to think clearly. Two ruby-eyed dragons, with sharp, jagged teeth and long slender bodies in jewel-like shades of jade and emerald scales, snaked down from her elbows until they wrapped the tips of their tails around her palms.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to fit in just perfectly now. No one will notice the tattooed woman. Who will care? Bullshit. This is all bullshit. Why do I give a damn?
With that realization, she regained her composure. “Forget about me.” Bobbie gently shoved Tab away. “Check Omeda. The warriors nearly tore her to pieces.”
Tabatha nodded and stood.
“Keep your filthy hands off me, Outsider.” Omeda picked herself up from the ground and backed away.
“I only want to see to your injuries.” Tabatha held her hand out, fingers spread wide. “I’m really am a doctor. I can help you.”
Omeda bared her teeth in a snarl. “I don’t want your help, Karepey.”
Bobbie turned her attention from the tattoos and opened her mouth to scold Omeda but saw Kangee and Lexie break free of the tree line and rush forward.
They stopped at the front of crowd, but neither came any closer. Kangee wore a strange pinched expression on his face. “You couldn’t wait until I was here? You had to do it on your own?”
“You couldn’t have entered, Kangee. This was something I had to do. Me. Not us. I can’t promise I won’t have to do things without you again.” She leaned her head back against the shed. How could she make him understand everything was different now, her duties came above all. “It doesn’t mean I’m shutt
ing you out, only that some things I’ll have to do alone.”
Cuda appeared from around the shed and shoved his way past Kangee. “It’s a trick. No king has ever been marked like that.”
“It is the prophecy.” Agnes’ whisper carried around on the wind. She bowed her head.
“Campfire stories to scare children,” Omeda shrieked.
“A king has always led us.” Cuda paced between Bobbie and the crowd. “I won’t accept a queen.” His complexion reddened when the villagers lowered their heads in submission to Bobbie. “Are all of you simpletons and fools?”
Kangee bowed his head, his eyes lowered to the ground as he knelt before her, the clan’s manner of showing allegiance for a leader.
A surge of heat shot through Bobbie’s gut. She stood and moved to stand beside Kangee. She knew how much this must bruise his pride to kneel in subjugation.
She grasped his forearm forcing Kangee to straighten, and she slipped her fingers beneath his chin, lifting his gaze to hers. Her respect grew with his willingness to show such loyalty in front of the others.
“You are my mate, Kangee. You do not serve me.”
Aetheria appeared in a swirl of mist and sat at Bobbie and Kangee’s feet facing the villagers. “I give you Queen Moran, Bobbie Luckman. I am Aetheria, Watcher of the Queen. Those who align with us, come stand behind your queen.”
Feet shuffled through the pine needles that carpeted the wet ground as the villagers congregated behind Bobbie and her court. With trepidation, she counted each person walking toward her.
When silence returned, seventy-two shifters stood behind her. She didn’t want to lose anyone. There hadn’t been a Civil War among shifters in over three hundred years, and she didn’t want one now, but respected their decision.
Bobbie glanced at Omeda. “You have one more chance to remain with your people. Please. Rethink what you’re about to do. We were friends once, we can be again.” She glanced at the others gathered around Cuda. “All of you. Do you know what you’re doing? Do you care so little about your homes, your people? Leave if you must, but give it clear thought. Is it worth it?”
“I have made my choice. I will not serve you. You will be the downfall of our people.” Omeda stood at Cuda’s side, looked pleadingly at Kangee. “Kangee, come with us. You don’t belong with her.”
He slowly shook his head. “It will never happen, Omeda.”
Omeda snapped her attention to her Aunt Agnes, now dressed in cut off shorts and a T-shirt. “You would betray me?”
Agnes turned her back to her niece. “You betray yourself, girl.”
Cuda snarled. “This is a war you can’t win. I’ll destroy you.”
Bobbie closed her hands into tight fists. “The war isn’t between the clan member, it’s between the Guardians and our people. We need to stay together, keep our strengths whole.”
Cuda inched closer. “Guardians? Who are these Guardians you keep ranting about? You are wrong. The war is between us.”
Four hundred Spirit Warriors appeared between her and Cuda’s band of would-be soldiers, so all could see. Their bodies wavered like a wake from a passing boat in the water. With a simple sweeping motion of the warriors’ hands, the wind grew to near hurricane strength pummeling Cuda and his followers with debris and pushing them roughly past the village’s border.
Aetheria’s voice rose with the wind, as ethereal as it was elemental.
“The coyote and the panther will battle.
Their blood will flow.
The world will hear but a rattle,
With the final blow.”
Eyes wide, Cuda’s gaze reflected emotions Bobbie didn’t understand as Aetheria recited his doom from the prophecy.
Omeda pulled at the coyote’s arm as debris from the woodpile hammered them. All twenty-nine people ran from the village. Her heart ripped as she watched them shift and leave the only life they’d known. Bears, wolves, bobcats and snakes, the ragtag group left their homes and families.
Stephen tilted his head to the side and watched them go. “Okay, someone explain to me where they’re going and why.”
Lexie patted him on the arm. “They chose sides, not ours. Where? No idea. Some will come to their senses.”
Cuda’s howl bounced from tree to tree and slithered around the village as if it were a living presence in their midst. Reminding her that she had more than one battle to contend with.
“The words have been spoken.” Kangee closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Nothing can stop the prophecy from being fulfilled now.”
Chapter Five
He crept through the woodland, following his next target. The Guardians had christened him The Speculator because he had a tendency to think things out before jumping in with both feet. But what he was about to do took little thought.
Quickly slipping behind a tree when she stopped, he watched the woman shift. His stomach soured at the sight. The old monster’s wrinkled skin gave way to golden hair streaked with hints of gray, a bobcat.
The old cat’s muscles were loose, and her movements clumsy and slow. The Speculator rubbed his wet palms on his jeans. He was downwind of her and the village. She wouldn’t detect him nor would the others catch a whiff of his kill before he got away. He was nothing if not efficient. Sometimes, though, he wished for a better fight.
She wouldn’t be his first, nor would she be a hard kill. He’d taken down a woman and man as they walked the shoreline with nothing more than a scratch on his face as payback. They had been young. This cat was old and slow.
He ran his forefinger over the scars that stretched from his temple to the center of his cheek as the fleeting memory of the woman striking out moments before the knife sliced the soft white skin of her throat.
No, this one wouldn’t be a conquest, just a number to add to his résumé. The more numerous his kills, the higher he would climb in rank with the Guardians. The Guardians claimed they had a spy in the clan, who confirmed his count, but he always took proof—a trinket or skin patch—just in case.
His attention jerked back to the cat when she jumped on a rabbit and skinned it with very little effort. Little did the woman know she’d picked her own method of death.
He moved slowly out of the shadow of the trees and stepped up behind her. She turned in a crouch, bared her sharp feline teeth and hissed. The setting sun lit her eyes but cataracts nearly blinded her. She stood her ground and swung her claw outward. She was quicker than he anticipated, striking his leg, tearing his pant leg and taking a piece of his leg with it. He swung the six-inch blade, slicing her throat with one swift swing of the knife.
Her dying breath gurgled out from the slit dribbling red froth. Her green eyes remained open in death, her stare fixed on him.
Slowly, her body changed, taking back the form God intended her to have—human, normal.
The Speculator knelt beside her and sliced expertly from her throat to her groin. And with no thought of being caught, he peeled away her skin as efficiently as she had the rabbit. Her blood coagulated thinly on the layer of fat and muscle just below the surface and glistened in the dappled sun filtering though the tree tops.
He straightened and wiped away the sweat trickling down his face with the back of his forearm, then rolled her over onto her stomach and worked the skin from her shoulders and back. With the skin now pulled away from her torso, he held it up and considered rolling it up and taking it with him. He deserved a trophy for his work. But the Speculator thought better of it and cut away the skin from her arm and upper hand. He stretched the rest of the skin out on the grass beside the body.
He wiped his knife on the grass, stood, and strolled away to the boat waiting for him thirty feet away. He washed the blood from his hands and arms with the water from his canteen, shucked his bloody clothing, shoving them inside the fishing tackle box then redressed in the spare jeans and shirt he’d placed under the seat. Satisfied that he looked presentable, he started the motor and skimmed over the outlet, leaving beh
ind nothing to identify him.
He’d gotten away with it again.
Chapter Six
The sun setting over the Gulf of Mexico beckoned the end of the eventful day. Kangee stretched out on the couch in Aetheria’s Tree house and released a long, exasperated sigh. “I know you’re here, Mom. I think you owe me an explanation, don’t you?”
Aetheria stepped from behind the dark blue curtain separating the sleeping area and the living room. She sat at his side and cupped his cheek with the palm of her hand. “What’s to explain? All your life I’ve told you Robertina was special. Your Grandpa Dutetre predicted when you first became friends with her that you would have a part in the prophecy. Why should you be surprised by any of this?” He’d grown up with stories of the prophecy. As he grew older, he’d brushed them off as childhood stories. Now, he was being slapped in the face with it full force. He tried to remember what his grandfather had told him—Cain, Abel, forgiveness, and a final battle all jumbled together in his brain.
He pulled his head away from her touch and clenched his jaw. “What’s the meaning of those tattoos? What have you done?”
“You give me way too much credit, boy.” She sprang to her feet and paced the length of the room. “I have no power over the Spirit Council. Long before I was born, it was foretold there would be one chosen leader to end the Curse of Cain. Nowhere in the prophecy is there mention that the leader would be a woman or that she would be painted in any way.”
Kangee pushed himself upright. He stared at his mother and wished he could read her thoughts. He’d not asked the question that had haunted him since he’d been told she was his birth mother. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“Why would you ask me something like that?” She stopped pacing and stood staring at him.
For the first time in his life, he’d managed to shock his mother. Her face paled, and her lips parted letting a sudden intake of air hiss over her teeth.
“You are my son, everything to me.”
“Then why have I always had to hide who I am?” Kangee’s chest tightened in preparation of her answer. He’d grown up not knowing who his real family was. Always being told he would know when the time was right and thinking there must be something shameful in his past if they thought him too young to understand. But the truth had been much more shocking.
