I looked at her, peering out through the cloud of smoldering rage that had descended upon me.
Her eyes flashed their natural color for just a fraction of a moment, while the rest of her body stayed the same. She stroked my cheek and pressed her weird, somehow normal-feeling phantom body against mine.
“They hurt you,” I growled. “I’m going to kill the motherfuckers. Every last one of them.”
“I know, babe. I know you will. But losing it right now isn’t going to help, okay? It’s not going to help us get out of here. Okay?”
I breathed heavily through my nose, trying to control my emotions and keep them in check. She was right. The last thing I needed right now was to fly off the handle and do what I really wanted, because storming the front gates of Burton’s Folly was stupid, plain and simple.
But even if I went down when it all happened, I’d take as many of those bastards with me as possible.
“Peter,” she said, her voice quiet and soothing as she pressed a finger to my lips, “listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to shoot a flare off in the middle of town. Okay?”
“Why?”
“You think you’re the only questioning whether or not you’re going crazy? I’m lying in a queen-sized bed at the top of a castle tower outside a small town in Colorado while I’m projecting myself into my lover’s mind.”
“I see your point,” I conceded. “Okay. Right now?”
“Give it a few minutes.”
“Well, tell you what, then. Since you need me to do something for you, how about you do something for me?”
“What’s that?” she asked, that little half-smile of hers forming. “What can little old me do for a big old Peter Frost?”
And so I told her.
Still smiling, she nodded after hearing out my request. “Alright, but you have to shoot the flare first. No way I’m doing that without seeing a flash of light in the sky.”
Unfortunately, what I wanted from her turned out to be a very bad idea.
Chapter Thirty-two – Vanessa
“There it is!” Jessica shrieked, clapping her hands together like some kind of cheerleader. “Oh my God, Vanessa! It worked!”
Laughing, we both hugged each other tightly just as, slightly below us, a streak of burning light rose up from Enchanted Rock’s Main Street, burning through the air like some erstwhile lost boy had lit Tinkerbell’s butt on fire. I could practically smell the phosphorous from here, as the flare Peter had promised in my dream became reality just minutes after I’d woken up. I had my fingers crossed so tightly I was surprised they didn’t snap under the pressure or the expectations.
Oh my God, it was real. It was really real. I was a shifter, and I was still amazed at how strange of a world I was living in. What would happen next? Would the Kool-Aid man be busting me and Jessica out of our tower jail?
“Okay, okay,” I said, releasing her and pulling back. “Okay, it’s real. It worked.”
“What now?” she asked excitedly, her eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. I knew she was just as excited to confirm that Richard was safe and sound, and that everyone else was okay, too. This vision quest thing just meant everything was real, that I wasn’t just seeing stuff under some sort of psychic break. “What do we do now?”
“Now,” I said as I turned away from her and began to unbutton my blouse. “We send back our own signal. Open the window, if you don’t mind.”
“Whoa, Vanessa. I, uh…oh, you’re shifting, aren’t you? Sorry, even after a year with Richard, I’m still not used to this. I’ll just, um, turn around.”
I put myself through the process of shifting, which is not one that was easy or enjoyable. My body stretched, my breasts reduced, my hips thinned, even as my arms and legs lengthened. I groaned in mild pain as my muscles reworked themselves and my knees changed the ways they bent. For all the benefits being a shifter gives me, and as much as I love being in my wolf form, I’ve never really looked forward to this part of life.
The whole process probably took three minutes, which wasn’t long in the grand scheme of things, but an eon when it came to tight timeframes.
Now, though, as my claws were clicking on the tile of the bedroom floor and I stretched and shook out my fur, I could instantly remember why I loved being a shifter so much—the freedom, the power in my limbs. I smacked my jaws together, yawning a little as I whimpered at Jessica’s back.
She jumped a little at the sound of my wolfish noises. “Oh, right.” She went over to the window, flipped the lock, and slid up the window frame, exclaiming in a singing voice, “A whole new world!”
She looked back at me as the Colorado wind gusted in, ruffling the comforters on the bed and sending the cloth napkins flying right off the little table and onto the floor. “What? I’ve always wanted to do that.”
I just buried my snout in my paws, embarrassed enough for the both of us.
“Got something better?”
I did, in fact. I dug my nose up from between my paws and stalked across the room. My claws clacked with every step, reminding me that I really needed to get them trimmed. I stopped just below the window and jumped up a little, high enough so that my front paws could catch the wall in front of me.
Back at the door, I could hear shuffling of the men and footsteps rushing down the hallway.
“You let her shift? Get that goddamn door open!” shouted Finney’s distinctively clipped British voice. “Now!”
Shit. They were here. They really must have had the room bugged. Distantly, I wondered how much of what we’d said or done could translate to information for them. But there was nothing to do for it now. If anything, they probably thought it was all as ridiculous as the shifters of Frost Security had before Peter and I managed to convince them.
It was now or never, though. I needed to send my own signal so Peter would know he wasn’t losing all his marbles. After all, he’d done the same for me.
My paws on the windowsill, I threw my head back and let loose a low, mournful howl. It was the kind of howl a lone wolf gives in the wild when she can’t find her pack, when no food is around, when the land is thirsty for rain and there’s no water, when her mate is far away. I howled for all of us that had lived under this scourge of Jaeger-Tech. I howled for the shifters who had been orphaned.
But mostly, I howled for me and Peter. So he would know I was alive and not just in his head.
As my saddened cry carried out over the Colorado mountains and echoed through the valleys and trees and over the brush land, the door behind us came flying open.
“Get her down from there,” Mr. Finney said. And just by the tone of his voice, I knew he was pointing an outstretched finger at my wayward shifter form. “Now!”
I spun, my teeth bared.
The guards from our door came at me, batons in hand again.
In my hindbrain, a memory of what kind of pain those sticks caused sprang to vivid life like an impressionist painting fully formed. These were bad men. Evil men. The world wouldn’t miss them.
To my left, Jessica backed away from us.
“Nice little bitch,” said the man on the right, his face unshaven and grizzled. He was a veteran, clearly, and had been doing this awhile.
“Yeah,” said the other, an Irishmen from the sound of his accent. He wore a full beard that covered his face almost entirely, but did nothing to hide a jagged scar that stretched across his cheek like a shooting star. It looked like it had come from a glass bottle or a broken pint, not from a knife. “Easy there, girl. You play nice, we play nice, ya hear?”
I leaped at the one on the left—the one who’d called me a bitch. Because why not? My teeth flashed sharp and white as I bounded on top of him, my paws at his shoulders.
He screamed as, together, we toppled onto the tiled floor. His head sounded like a melon as I heard a sickening crack
as it hit the floor.
My teeth flashed again as I went for the kill.
He screamed as I tore into him, his hands grasping at my fur, trying to grab hold. Within seconds, though, he was losing strength as his lifeblood began to spread over the tile.
The blood from his throat was hot but acrid. Growling, my snout slathered in blood, I leaped from the man’s chest and went for the Irishman.
He tried to backpedal away from me, dropping his baton in the process.
I pinned him to the tile, my teeth flashing again as I went for the kill.
“No, Ms. Springer!” Mr. Finney yelled as my fangs were inches from the Irishmen’s neck. “Kill him, I kill her!”
My wolf nostrils flared. I could smell fear in the air. Not just fear of the man beneath me or the man I’d just slain, but Jessica’s as well. A member of my pack. She was in danger. Teeth locked together, I growled, itching to take the kill.
“Vanessa!” Jessica cried. “Just do it! Kill the bastard, don’t worry–”
“Quiet, Mrs. Murdoch!” Finney shouted again, cutting her off. “I know you can hear me. Back away from my man or I will put a bullet in her head. I swear it. I swear I’ll do it, Vanessa.”
No. I couldn’t do it, as much as I wanted to. She was a member of my pack. I needed to protect her with my life, if necessary. I backed off and let the man scurry away backwards like a crab.
“Good,” Finney said. He stood there, arm outstretched as he held a big, black automatic pistol to Jessica’s head. In his other hand was a steel apparatus of some sort. It caught the dying light from the window, reflecting it back in its shining surface. “Back in the corner.”
I backed up slowly from the man, growling still.
“Now, you,” he barked at the man who was now clamoring to his feet, “give her the injection.”
My heart sped up, my hackles rose. Injection? What the hell?
The man went over, took the piece of medical-looking equipment from Finney, almost like one of those spray attachments for the end of a garden hose, and warily eased himself over to me. “That’s a good girl,” he said as he slowly shuffled forward.
“She’s not a fucking dog!” Mr. Finney snapped. “Give her the goddamn injection! If you move, Ms. Springer, or even take a little nip at my man here, I’ll be forced to do the unspeakable. You know that.”
I weighed my options. Whatever was in that injection, I knew it wasn’t good for me. Maybe it was a drug? Something meant to sedate me? Maybe even some kind of poison? Perhaps I was getting too difficult to control and Finney had changed his mind about keeping me around. I could strike now, kill the man who was slowly coming towards me, hands outstretched like he was placating a feral Rottweiler, and then go after Finney. If I did that, though, Jessica would be dead before I could do anything to Finney.
How could I look Richard in the face after that? Or myself in the mirror? My duty was to my pack, to keep them alive and well. Not to myself, or even to Peter. No, whatever was in that shot, I had to take it like a woman. Like an alpha. I had to accept the hand fate had given me. If they drugged me, they drugged me. At the very least, I’d be asleep and would be able to speak to Peter.
I whined a little as I dropped my head to the ground, my snout almost touching the tiled floor.
“See?” Finney purred. “Is that not better, Ms. Springer? Keep cooperating with us just like that, and it will make this process easier.”
The man approached me and stopped by my shoulder. He didn’t have to stoop down or crouch to get me, considering that I was about the size of a small pony. He pressed the tip the tool to my shoulder and pulled down on the lever.
It was like a hard punch in the shoulder from Mike Tyson or Evander Holyfield as, with a hiss of air, it shot whatever chemical concoction into my shoulder. The smell of some herb filled the air, a thick, noxious smell that I recognized from somewhere.
My shoulder went numb and I yelped, bolting away from the man. What was in that? And where did I recognize that smell from?
“Good,” Mr. Finney said with an easy smile. “Now that that’s settled, we will leave you two ladies in peace.”
The world began to darken around me and my limbs began to lose their strength. I whimpered as my legs shook, my paws shuffling to keep me upright.
I vaguely heard footsteps as the man picked up his partner who was still bleeding all over the floor. With Jessica still on the other side of the room from me, he began to drag his buddy from our cell.
I swayed on my paws and finally sat down on my haunches as I tried to look around. A cloud, like a dark miasma, had settled over my eyes. I blinked, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Vanessa?” Jessica asked as the cell door shut and the lock went back into place. “Vanessa, can you hear me?”
I felt hot and feverish. Panting heavily, I lowered my snout to the ground, saliva overflowing from my mouth. I whined, the sound pitiful even to my ears.
Arms went around my shoulders, struggling to hold me up. “Vanessa? Why don’t you just lie down?”
Following her advice, I slumped over onto my side. The cool tiles felt amazing against my hot, thick fur.
She rubbed my side. “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered. “Everything’s gonna be all right.”
No, I wanted to say, nothing’s going to be all right. What had been in that injection? What had they given me? As I lay there, I felt my body begin to change back, to return to my human form. I’d never had it happen on its own this way, and my heart began to speed up as panic gripped me. It was like when you go for a checkup and the doctor taps your knee to test your reflexes, but worse because this was my whole body responding to something foreign and unwarranted.
My legs began to change, my fur began to recede into my skin, my teeth shortened, and my jaw readjusted itself. The tile was soon cold against my fevered, sweaty skin. I shivered uncontrollably, trying to swallow the saliva in my mouth before I drooled all over the floor.
Jessica disappeared for a moment.
“What’s h-h-happening to me?” I asked as she returned, draping a comforter from off of one of the beds over my naked form. I shivered despite the layer, despite the fever gripping me, unable to get control myself.
Jessica stroked my hair and felt my forehead. “You’re burning up. Maybe we need to get you in the bath and cool you off.”
But then, just like that, the shivers stopped. I felt myself begin to cool almost instantly as the fever broke.
“Whoa,” Jessica said, the back of her hand against my cheek. I could feel the wedding band Richard had given her, felt the diamond setting as it scraped the barest amount over my skin.
“Think you can sit up?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s try.”
I tried, but it was like all my muscles were fatigued. Like I’d just finished a marathon or a weeklong crossfit course compressed into one day. I was as weak as a newborn pup.
“Come on,” Jessica said soothingly, her arm hooked beneath my body, the comforter swaddled around me like a burrito. Slowly and gently, she raised me into a sitting position. “Think you can get to the bed now?”
“Maybe. Just…give me a second.”
“Okay,” she said soothingly. “Take your time. While we wait, let’s look you over, alright?” She came around to face me.
I peered at her face, shocked by how flat she suddenly looked. Like all the finer points of her were gone, missing, all the details washed away.
She looked into my eyes, keenly observing any changes. “Eyes are a little bloodshot. Pupils slightly dilated. If they drugged you with something, it wasn’t too severe.”
I nodded, licking my dry lips. I sighed and sniffed deeply. Maybe, if I could catch a bit of that herbal smell, I could remember where I’d detected it before. Perhaps I’d get some idea of what we were dealing with.
I got nothing, though.
I sniffed deeply again.
My eyes opened and I let out a low
, terrified groan.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked, stroking my hair again. “Everything okay?”
“I can’t smell anything,” I said, my voice quiet but frantic. “I can’t smell…anything.”
She gave me a look like I’d lost my mind. I always forgot that humans didn’t have our keen sense of smell.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I can’t smell you. I can’t smell Richard on you. I can’t smell the trees outside or the lunch we ate. I can’t smell anything.”
“Well, that’s okay. Maybe it’s just a side effect of whatever they gave you, like it clogged you up or something.”
Pointing to my nose, I took a deep, exaggerated sniff to prove that my sinuses weren’t blocked.
“Well, that doesn’t…”
I looked around the room, frantically searching. All the colors seemed somehow muted, like there were less shades of blue and green. Even outside, the colors of the darkening sky seemed dull and too uniform. And I couldn’t see the details of the world. It wasn’t just on Jessica’s face, it was everywhere.
“I think,” I began, carefully trying to choose my words, but failing. It was too difficult to say out loud.
“You think what?”
“I think…I’m not a shifter anymore.”
Chapter Thirty-three – Peter
“Anything else from Vanessa?” Mary asked quietly as she came up behind me.
It had been a couple hours since my latest vision of Vanessa, and the sun was already behind the western mountains that our targets were sitting. From the front gallery, there was no the rhythmic sound of a hammer driving nails into plywood as Zeke Rogers boarded up the front window. He’d come over to check on his niece Rebecca, but had left quickly after to get supplies to start repairing the shop. Zeke was good like that. He always had to be doing something.
I was doing a final check of all our gear before we made our run up to Burton’s Folly. You could never be too sure things had been checked, double-checked, triple-checked, or quadruple…well, you get the idea. In my book, it was better to be safe than it was to be sorry. Especially when you were about to go on a mission like this, and people you cared about would be in the line of fire.
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