Shifters of the Wellsprings: The Complete Paranormal Collection

by Leela Ash

  “Lips are zipped,” she promised.

  “Last chance to bow out and do the safe thing.”

  And abandon Judith’s family? No way. Maya shook her head.

  “Fine. Your choice. Why should I care if you walk back into danger?” Jamie winced and rubbed his shoulder. Damn, that guy needed a massage in the worst way.

  He pulled out his phone, dialed, and waited.

  “Fowler? Wolfe here. You’ve got a problem.”

  Slick, cool… not a second of hesitation. Jamie Wolfe was a spectacular liar. A thought that unnerved her.

  Let’s hope he’s telling me the truth…

  “I’m in trouble? How’s that?” Jamie caught her eye and winked. Was he… enjoying this?

  “Well, how was I supposed to know they were your thugs? I thought someone made a move on one of your assets and I stopped them. No.” Pained patience stained his words (though Maya didn’t believe it for one moment). “I know the First Flight doesn’t kidnap people. But it is standard operating procedure for the Fangs of Apophis.”

  Apophis? Maya’s eyes widened. American Prehistoric Ethnography Project. APEP. Or ‘Apep’ – another name for the Egyptian snake-god Apophis. Somebody had a very esoteric sense of humor.

  “Oh, so another Worm would never snipe your researcher? We’re all good buddies in the Fangs these days?”

  There was a pause as Fowler considered that. Jamie brushed some dirt off his jeans. “Yeah, I was putting her in the Jefferson Motel. That’s why I called.”

  Fowler’s voice buzzed like an angry hornet.

  “Well, I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who responds well to intimidation. I mean, if you want her dead, the soil’s still loose over that Hare. Wouldn’t be tough to toss on another body.”

  ‘Hare’? Did he mean Judith? What an odd thing to call her!

  “Okay, that’s what I thought. Look, if she’s doing important stuff, why don’t you let me talk to her? See if I can’t get her back on track.”

  The buzz grew louder, madder. “My special skill?” Jamie laughed, an obnoxious, arrogant chuckle. “I don’t know if you noticed or not, but that chick seriously has the hots for me. Trust me, I can lick her into shape. So to speak.”

  Outrage lit her face. Burning even hotter because of her memories of that haunting, vexing dream.

  More frat-boy chortling. Even the hornet was laughing now. “Right. I’ll stop by in a few hours. Let you know how it goes.”

  When he hung up, he didn’t look at her. Just kept staring out at the seedy people lounging outside the strip motel. “Sorry about that. Crude language for crude people.”

  True. It still stung, though. Once again, Maya cursed that dream. She couldn’t be rational around this damned man. He was wrapped in memories of things that had never happened. She couldn’t look at him without scraps of dream casting a rosy glow across her thoughts. The feel of him between her thighs, the taste of his lips...

  All fake. All false.

  I don’t know Jamie Wolfe. At all. I need to remember that.

  “So, what now?”

  “Well, unless you’re really excited by the prospect of sleeping with bed bugs…” He waved at the decrepit motel and its flickering lights. “I suggest I take you home. Fowler just wanted to scare you.”

  ‘Just’? That was a pretty big offense in her book!

  “I’ll head back to the office in a couple hours and let him know you’re being ‘reasonable.’”

  “After midnight? On a Sunday?”

  “No rest for the wicked. You can decide when you want to go back to work. Or if. Again, you don’t need to do this.”

  Wrong. But there was no point arguing about it. “So, Agent Wolfe, are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “Nope.”

  And, true to his word, he didn’t say anything useful after that.

  Chapter 9

  Walking into work the next morning was the hardest thing Maya had ever done. At every step, she winced, expecting to be grabbed and dragged off. But nothing happened. Security nodded blankly at her ID. Workers flitted past her in the hall, eyes down. No one in the elevator looked at her (or at each other – how had she ever thought APEP’s culture of silence was normal?). She reached her office without saying a word to anyone.

  Reaching her floor, where no one else worked, gave her a flash of false security. Until she reminded herself that her office was bugged. Probably had a hidden camera too. The worst part was that she couldn’t even look for it. If she showed up and immediately acted suspicious, Fowler would know Jamie hadn’t really ‘managed’ her.

  Instinct urged her to hurry. People were in danger! Judith’s family! Any delay could kill them! Despite that, Maya forced herself to sit, quietly, and pour over her Beverwyck maps. Let Fowler think she was still dedicated to his project, not to saving his victims.

  An hour later, she gathered a half dozen books. Three about New Amsterdam… and three early accounts of French fur trading.

  Just before lunch, she found her first clue: a reference to an island, far off the coast of Maine, covered in sea birds who screeched continually. The fishermen called it ‘Ile de la Cri’ and claimed an island near it had a safe harbor.

  A haven? Criehaven?

  Joy filled Maya, the triumph she felt when her spade revealed the first shard of pottery at a dig. This was it!

  Now came the hard part. No modern maps had an Ile de la Cri off Maine. How could she figure out what it was called now?

  Using her own laptop, Maya began a series of online searches. Islands out of sight of the coast of Maine. There were several – but either they didn’t have harbors or people lived on them. And it seemed safe to guess that any secret concentration camp would have to be, well, secret. No outsiders allowed. Searching for large bird colonies didn’t help either. Oh, there were several. And you could book sight-seeing tours to all of them.

  Not the sort of thing the Fangs of Apophis would allow…

  Private islands off Maine? Nothing matched her criteria. Resort islands? Nothing.

  By lunch time, the truth became plain: old maps were her only hope.

  If her office was truly being watched, though, how could she do that? No great ideas came to her as she ate her salad.

  Only one lousy plan: people were creatures of habit. When she worked, she always faced the elevator. Any camera would take that into consideration, right? They’d plant it facing her, so that she never blocked its view. If she stood someplace different… say with her back to the elevator… maybe she’d block their view?

  A sad, meager hope. What else did she have, though? Other than praying that they’d gotten tired of watching her after only three hours.

  Feeling naked and exposed, Maya selected four maps. Two were of Upstate New York. Those she placed on the sides of the table. Two were early maps of Maine. These went in the center of the table. The part blocked by her body.

  If the camera was where she thought it was.

  Big if…

  The first hour crawled by at an agonizing, glacial pace. Every moment, she expected to hear the chime of the elevator door, announcing the arrival of gunmen. Fear clouded her mind, made it hard to concentrate. Maya found herself scanning the same section of map, over and over, blindly. Listening for the ‘ding’ that would spell disaster.

  It never came. And the longer she worked, the calmer she grew. They hadn’t noticed. Heck, maybe there wasn’t even a camera!

  Close to five, she finally struck gold. At the bottom of a faded map, near the edge where the paper curled, she spotted a faded, almost illegible notation.

  “Ile de la Cri.”

  Yes! Maya choked back a yell of triumph, but her spirits soared. She had it! All she needed to do was to match this map fragment to modern maps! Then the location of APEP’s secret base, and Judith’s family, would be revealed!

  Four hours later, her eyes nearly crossed from fatigue, Maya scowled at her desk. Everyone else had long sinc
e gone home. Only she lingered, frustrated.

  Old maps were wildly inaccurate – and her fragment was no exception. After hours of work, she’d finally figured out what part of the Maine coast the ham-handed map maker was trying to draw. Then she hit the real problem.

  Ile de la Cri didn’t exist.

  She had the finest topographical and sea maps available to modern researchers. Using them, she could locate most places on her old fishing map. But Ile de la Cri? Nothing. An island that could hold a couple hundred people, year round, had to be big.

  Nothing like that existed.

  Tears burned her eyes, born of strain and disappointment. She had it. This had to be the answer. Yet, hours of banging her head against a brick wall uncovered nothing. No more clues. No path forward. Maya slumped into her chair and stared at her useless maps. Criehaven wasn’t there.

  Unless…

  Her shoulders straightened as the answer came to her.

  Unless it wasn’t on any maps.

  How tough would it be to remove an island from official topo maps? Not simple, maybe. But for an organization that kidnapped families? Probably child’s play.

  So, while she couldn’t see Criehaven, she knew who could.

  Jamie Wolfe.

  He hadn’t actually confessed that he was an FBI agent – but he obviously worked for the government. No one else did Witness Protection. Surely then, he had contacts in the NSA or CIA? If she could tell them where, roughly, to look, they could find Criehaven with spy satellites.

  Despite her exhaustion, Maya smiled. She’d done it. Or, well, everything she could do. The next bit was up to Jamie and the government.

  Professional pride made her put away the maps. They were antiques, priceless, and she couldn’t leave them lying about. As she finished, she heard the sound she’d dreaded all day.

  ‘Ding.’

  Out of the elevator stepped Ronan Burke, the hulking head of APEP’s security. He looked more like a mob enforcer than a chief of security to her.

  “Mr. Burke! You’re here late.” Not a single quaver shook her words, she was proud to note.

  “Mr. Fowler wants a word with you.”

  “Is he still here too? Wow!”

  Burke didn’t even pretend to care. Arms folded across his chest, he waited by the elevator.

  What should she do? Run for the stairs? Burke might be big, but she bet he was in better shape than her. Call the police? And say what? That security was escorting her to talk to her boss? They’d just laugh.

  No, time to pray this really was just talk. Meekly, Maya gathered her purse and joined Burke in the elevator.

  Up and up it glided. Past offices, past the banquet hall… and past the executive offices too.

  Ping. Roof top.

  “I th-thought you said Mr. Fowler wanted to see me.” Now, her voice did shake.

  “Chopper’s taking him out to Long Island.”

  Well, that was good, wasn’t it? Meant it would be a short talk… and he couldn’t do something disgusting like hit on her.

  Her relief only lasted a minute. Long enough to walk through the waiting room and out onto the roof.

  Where neither Fowler nor a helicopter waited.

  Maya spun and darted back for the elevator. Burke’s hand closed on her wrist and jerked her to a stop, like a dog hitting the end of its leash. With steady, unhurried steps, he stalked toward the edge of the roof.

  “Wait! What are you doing? Stop! I don’t understand.” She fought, clawing at his fingers and planting her feet. But it was pointless. Like trying to stop a bulldozer. Nothing she did even slowed the big man.

  “Criehaven’s none of your business, lady.”

  “I’ll stop! I promise!” Good God, he really was heading for the roof edge!

  “Yep. You will.” He chuckled, as if that was some kind of joke.

  Drawing a deep breath, Maya shrieked at the top of her lungs.

  Burke whipped around and clamped a hand across her mouth, stifling her. Half-carrying her, he hauled her the last few feet to the low stone wall that circled the helipad.

  Wind whipped through her hair as she stared in horror at the street, thirty floors below.

  Then he tossed her over the edge.

  Maya screamed as she plummeted through the air. Windows whipped past, the ground rushed toward her. She was flailing, spinning, falling…

  And then the sky plunged down.

  No, not the night sky. A creature, black as night.

  A Dragon.

  It stooped like a hunting hawk, skimming down the side of the high rise. As it passed the roof, its long, sinuous tail lashed out. A man screamed… and Maya caught a glimpse of Burke’s bulky form pinwheeling through the air above her.

  Then the sky disappeared. All she could see was scales, and wings, and a pair of luminous green eyes that made her think, foolishly, of Jamie Wolfe.

  Claws closed around her, delicately wrapping her body in their steely grip. Wings as large as buses unfurled. Gravity clawed at her, greedy to drag her to her death. But those wings were stronger. They banked, beat… and suddenly, she was soaring up. The shrill wail of Burke’s dying scream trailed past as the Dragon rose into the sky.

  Safe in its grasp, Maya sailed into the night. New York dwindled. Scraps of cloud whipped around them as her Dragon savior climbed in the night sky.

  She took one last look at the buildings so far below…

  And then Maya fainted.

  Chapter 10

  The scent of wood smoke woke her. The pop and crackle of a fire, cushions beneath her head, scratchy and musty.

  Gasping, Maya sat bolt upright.

  She lay on a couch in a shabby cabin. It boasted a nice stone fireplace, where a crackling blaze burned. Across from her, Judith Little sat in a tattered chair, legs drawn up beneath her.

  “Judith!”

  With a sad, weak smile, her friend rose. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “You’re alive! You’re okay!”

  “Yes.” Strangely, Judith didn’t seem excited about that. She hugged her and was shocked at how weak her friend seemed.

  “There was… there was…”

  “Hush. You’re safe now.”

  Footsteps behind her. Maya flinched – as Jamie appeared, carrying a steaming mug.

  “Coffee?”

  Those eyes. Emerald green, deep as the sea. Shining when he beat up her kidnapper. Lit from within, like the eyes of that… of that…

  “You’re a Dragon!”

  Judith froze. And, oddly, her nose began to twitch. Jamie just laughed. “That drug must not be out of your system yet.”

  “I wasn’t drugged! I got thrown off a roof and you saved me. A Dragon saved me!”

  “Uh huh. Drink the coffee.” His smile was warm and indulgent. Judith continued to sniff and stare.

  “It was you! Just like in my dream!”

  At that, her friend squealed. “Dream? Oh my God, she’s your Mate?”

  “No!” Jamie snapped. At the exact moment that Maya exclaimed, “Yes!”

  With a hiss of pain, Jamie doubled over, clutching at his shoulder. What on Earth was wrong with him?

  Judith pursed her lips. “You deserved to be bitten for that.”

  “Dammit.” He groaned and dropped into a chair, eyes closed.

  “He’s a Dragon!”

  “I know.”

  Her friend… agreed with her? Maya wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not. And she’d used that strange, enchanting word from her dream: Mate.

  “Judith!” Jamie yelled. “You know better than to…”

  This time, the timid woman wasn’t backing down. “She’s your Mate, Wolfe! It’s not like you can keep this secret from her!”

  “Keep what a secret?” A weird, eerie calm settled over Maya as people seemed to accept her ‘insane’ theory.

  “We’re Shifters. Wolfe and me. Shape-shifters. He’s a Dragon. I’m a Hare.”

  That was right. That’s wh
at Jamie called her when he spoke to Fowler. “And our boss?”

  “A Worm. A fallen Dragon who’s chewed his own wings off. He works for the Fangs of Apophis, a vile group of Shifters.”

  “So, things like werewolves exist?”

  Why aren’t I freaking out more?

  Well, the answer was obvious: she’d seen a Dragon. Kind of hard to ignore that.

  Besides, Judith’s demeanor, her nonchalance, calmed her. Like they were talking about something as mundane as dinner. “Yes. Wolves, Bears, Rats, Dragons, and Hares.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone notice? I mean, a Dragon just snatched me out of the air over Central Park. How can nobody have seen that?”

  The slender woman shrugged. “Most people won’t see what they don’t believe. They’ll panic… forget it… or invent some ‘sane’ explanation like UFOs or gas leaks.”

  “Speaking of which,” Jamie grumbled, “why can she remember me?”

  The Hare shot him a disgusted look. “Did you forget, she’s your Mate?” He glowered back at her.

  “You keep using that word. What does it mean?”

  “It means you two need to have a long talk.” Judith rose to her feet. “And you don’t need me here for it.”

  “Wait!” Between being saved by a Dragon and finding out about Shifters, she’d almost forgotten the most important thing! “I found out where Criehaven is!”

  Quickly, she spelled out what she’d learned from her maps. “I don’t know exactly where it is, but I can get you close. With satellite imagery…”

  “Don’t need it,” Jamie replied. “Dragons have astounding eyesight. A few hours of flying across the ocean should do it. This is fantastic!”

  Then why wasn’t Judith excited? The Hare stood, drained and dejected, untouched by the news.

  “Don’t you understand? We can get your family!”

  “It’s too late for them already,” she murmured.

  “I can leave now,” Jamie protested. “Be there in a couple hours and…”

  “And save other innocent people.” Judith drifted toward the door, her back to the two of them. “It’s already been a day. It’s too late for my children. But you’ll save others. It’s good… Excuse me. You two should talk.” Tears choking her voice, she slipped out of the cabin.