by Chant, Zoe
There was no answer to her call.
Maybe I imagined it after all, she thought, holding her breath.
But no – there, again, was the same long, low groan; the sound of something clearly in pain.
Swallowing, Delilah retrieved her phone from her pocket, turning on the assistive light and shining it around. The alleyway wasn’t that dark, but she still couldn’t see whoever or whatever was making that noise, and she wanted to know exactly what she was dealing with before she took another step closer.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then she saw it.
Oh – oh no –
A crumpled shape that was very definitely a human body was lying by the side of the alley. They were curled up over themselves, face hidden, but Delilah could tell from their clothes that it was a man – well, or a woman dressed in men’s clothing.
“Are you okay?” she called out, creeping cautiously closer. Were they drunk? Sick? Had they been mugged? Were the muggers still here –
Delilah’s whirring thoughts were cut off as the person groaned again.
Definitely a man – that was too deep to be a woman, Delilah thought.
“Hey – can you hear me? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
No answer. She crept a little closer. Whoever they were, they weren’t moving.
“Yeah, I’m gonna call you an ambulance,” Delilah muttered, juggling her gelati in one hand and her phone in the other, getting ready to dial 000.
“Nnn-nooo. No ambulance.”
Delilah paused, her finger hovering over her phone. If this guy was in the middle of an overdose it made sense he wouldn’t want an ambulance – but she couldn’t just leave him there to die.
“Sorry, I’ve got no choice,” she said, dialing the first two 0s – before suddenly, she felt an iron grip around her wrist.
Delilah let out a shocked gasp of horror, trying to pull her hand away, but it was no good.
“Let me go – I just want to help you –” she started to say, before she raised her eyes, and gasped again.
The man looking down at her, his hand still clamped around her wrist, didn’t look like any junkie she’d ever seen before.
Ice blue eyes bored down into hers. Waves of golden hair rippled over his shoulders. His skin was snow white, and somehow seemed to glow with a pale, unearthly light.
Delilah opened her mouth again, but found she couldn’t speak.
“Please – don’t call an ambulance.”
The man’s voice was low and taut, as if he was holding back a huge amount of pain. She could see it in his face, too – despite the pale, luminescent skin, she could see lines of agony carving their way across his face.
But how had he moved so fast? She’d been careful to keep her distance – she’d been at least a couple of meters from where he lay –
“I – I have to call you an ambulance,” Delilah said, finally finding her voice again. “You’re… you’re sick. You need help.”
“I am afraid I am beyond your help now,” the man said, his voice low and grinding. “It is too late for me.”
Delilah shook her head, fear crawling up her throat. “No, I’m sure it’s not – come on, let’s get you out to the street – come on, you’ll be fine if you let me –”
“I am sorry to do this.” The man’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper, and he closed his eyes, grimacing in pain. “Please know if I had any other choice, I would not take this course.”
The fear that had been writhing around inside Delilah’s stomach now took full flight. Panic burst through her chest. She tried to jerk her hand back, but his grip was like steel circling her wrist.
If he had any other choice? What the hell does he mean?!
“Wait – wait – whatever it is you’re saying you have to do, you don’t have to – please just listen to me –” Delilah could hear the high note of terror in her voice. “Please –”
“Please do not be afraid,” the man said. “I would explain, but I – I do not have much ti—”
His face contorted in pain as he doubled over, but his grip on Delilah’s wrist didn’t ease at all.
“I will – I will show you what I can. I am afraid you may not understand it all.”
“Wait – what are you –” Delilah only got halfway through her sentence before she felt a warm wave of… something… washing over her. It was just as disorienting as the times at the beach as a child when she’d been swept off her feet by a sudden wave that was stronger than she’d been expecting, her head plunged beneath the water and her body rolled over and over until she couldn’t tell which way was up.
It felt like static electricity fizzling through her brain – warm and crackly, but not painful, per se. It was just… weird.
Delilah couldn’t think through the strange sensation that was coursing through her – there was only the fizzle of electricity, the man’s cold, hard grasp of her wrist… and then nothing.
The sensation fell away, subsiding suddenly, and leaving Delilah feeling weak and breathless.
What the hell – what the hell was that?!
“I am sorry, human,” the man said, his voice weak. He finally released her arm, and began sinking to the cobbled path. “That has taken the last of my strength – I cannot explain more. You must… you must remember what I have passed to you. And find them. Find…”
Delilah stared down at him, eyes wide, mouth open. “You’re not making any sense. What do you mean? Who should I find? Is there someone I can call?” she said, knowing she was babbling, but utterly at a loss as to what to do or say. What the hell was he talking about? And what had been that weird… thing… just now?! Purely out of instinct, she reached down, putting her arms around the man’s shoulders.
“Promise me you’ll find them,” the man whispered, his eyes sliding shut. “Find… the Agency. Tell – tell them –”
He might have said something more, but by now, his voice was no more than a breath leaving his lips. To Delilah’s horror, he began to go slack in her arms, his head falling back, arms going limp. He slipped out of her arms and fell to the ground.
“Hey – hey now, no, don’t – oh my God –”
Delilah shook him a little, but got no response.
Oh shit, oh shit – no, no way, he can’t have –
It might not be too late. Lifting her phone with a shaking hand, Delilah prepared to dial the final ‘0’ – but as she did so, a sudden glow began to emanate from the man’s body. Delilah stared as he was lit from the inside out, a golden pulsing of light rising from his heart, flowing through his whole body.
What – what the –
The light flashed brilliantly for one moment, and Delilah gasped, raising her hand to cover her eyes – and by the time she lowered it again, the man was gone.
He – he vanished?!
All that was left to suggest he had ever been there at all was the hundreds upon thousands of tiny motes of light that were twinkling all around her now, descending slowly through the air like particles of dust.
Delilah took one moment to stare, open-mouthed, at them floating through the air – and then, she turned and fled.
Chapter 2
Euan Hawkins had started his day the same way he’d started every day for the last year: jerking awake in a cold sweat, the sound of voices screaming in terror echoing through his mind, and desperately reaching after a part of himself that was no longer there.
It always took him several minutes to slow his breathing, to hear something other than the thudding of his heart in his ears. He tried to do what the Agency psychologist had taught him: to center himself, steady his breathing, and remind himself that he was here in his room, that there was no danger, and that he was still himself.
Except I’m not, Euan thought now as he went for his evening jog, the echoes of what had happened when he woke this morning still haunting him. I’m not myself, and I never will be again.
He would never be his whole self again. The place in
his chest where his shifter animal should reside was empty – a dark, hollow space within him, as if someone had carved out a chunk of his living flesh. But instead of leaving behind scar tissue, there was simply… nothing. It was a wound that would never close, never be healed.
And he would never be who he used to be again.
I can’t even do my job ever again, he thought bitterly, glancing briefly up at the night sky, the stars obscured by the bright lights of the city.
He’d trained for years to become a field agent for the Agency, the small, incredibly selective law enforcement organization that focused exclusively on stopping the shifter criminals that human law enforcement couldn’t deal with. He’d made it through the tough selection criteria when just about every other candidate in his class had been eliminated, and worked hard in the field...
For nothing. All for nothing.
If he couldn’t shift, he couldn’t work as a field agent. His shifter animal – the massive, dew-clawed, sharp-fanged marsupial lion – was gone.
And it’s my fault it’s gone. I couldn’t control it. I was too weak. I couldn’t –
Euan shook his head, clenching his fists even as they pumped by his sides as he jogged through the nighttime city.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it…
Euan shook his head. He felt self-centered at times like these. Even if he’d lost his lion, he’d been the lucky one. At least he was still alive.
Unlike Sam.
Sam, his partner in the field – but more than that, his friend.
Euan might have lost his lion on that one disastrous mission, but Sam had lost his life. Even when Euan was at his lowest, he had to tell himself that no matter what happened to him, he needed to remember that he should be grateful to still be breathing.
The pain at the memory of Sam sliced through his chest. Maybe the loss of his lion would have been easier to bear, if losing it had meant Sam had survived. But he hadn’t, and the loss had been for nothing. Both Sam and his lion were gone, and would never return.
The psychologist had told him that looking to blame someone – either himself or other people – wouldn’t help. She was right and Euan knew it, but there were some days when the bitterness in his heart at what he’d lost was too overwhelming for anything else.
Days – and nights – like these ones.
He’d been cooped up in the Agency’s offices all day, pushing papers, analyzing statistics, planning missions that other agents would undertake. The artificial lighting had buzzed in his ears, the computer screen’s harsh glare making him squint after spending several hours staring at it.
It was exactly the kind of life he’d never wanted: stuck inside, behind a desk. His lion would never have allowed it. After a few hours it would have been frantic, growling and screeching, its claws scrabbling, wanting to get out into the fresh air, into the land it was born in and was designed to run free through.
But as annoying as his shifter animal had sometimes been during those times when he’d had to be stuck in an office, its utter absence now was worse. He’d listen to its insistent complaints that it wanted to be amongst the trees and the plains of the countryside, for a thousand years if it meant getting it back. Anything would be better than this deafening silence inside him.
Euan puffed out a long breath as he swerved around a group of kids walking together on the footpath, laughing and shouting. The sun had only just gone down, and it was a little crowded for a jog, but Euan had known that if he hadn’t gotten outside, he would’ve gone mad. Jogging through the city streets was just about the only outside exercise he got these days, unless he made time to drive out into the mountains on a weekend. The untamed, mountainous wilderness still called to his blood, but being there was bittersweet: he couldn’t tear through the underbrush or scale trees, leaping between branches the way he had in his lion form.
While his human senses were sharper than most, they couldn’t compare to the lion’s. Being there as a human tended to remind him of everything he’d lost, even as his soul felt more at home there than stuck in the confines of the city streets.
Feeling a surge of frustration, Euan pushed himself onwards, forcing his legs to work harder, his lungs burning. Come on. Faster. Go.
It was as a burst of new energy pulsed through him that Euan felt it – a tingling in his chest he hadn’t felt in a year. He sucked in a shocked breath.
I know that feeling.
He would recognize it anywhere, even after all this time. It was the feeling of adrenaline shooting through him, of his muscles readying themselves to fight – of his shifter senses warning him of danger.
I don’t have those senses anymore, Euan thought viciously, shoving the feeling down inside him. He hadn’t had those senses for a year now. They were gone, like a limb that had been hacked off. There was no reason they’d suddenly come back now.
But the feeling wouldn’t subside. Tiny needles prickled over his skin, his gut turning over. Somewhere deep inside his brain, his instincts were warning him of danger.
Euan shook his head to clear it.
I’m in the middle of the city. There’re kids out and about. I’m jogging! Nothing’s going on.
But the feeling wouldn’t stop gnawing at him, like a tiny drill carving its way through his brain. It couldn’t be ignored – which was the point, Euan supposed, even as frustration boiled in his gut.
Gritting his teeth, he took a turn away from the crowded street, toward some lonelier, smaller alleyways. Maybe he was just feeling claustrophobic amongst the press of bodies here. His lion had never liked crowds.
Even that thought sent a shard of pain through his chest. Euan couldn’t allow himself to hope that whatever he felt was some kind of return of his shifter senses. He’d spent the first six months of his shifterless existence straining after any quiver, any sign of the return of his animal or its senses.
But there’d never been anything. Eventually, he’d given up even trying.
But I can’t ignore it. What if it really is –
A sudden sharp cry to his left jerked his head around, all the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
It came from down there –!
He turned, tensing, just as a dark, shadowy figure darted out of the mouth of a small alley between two of the towering sandstone buildings that lined the street. Euan pulled up sharply, but still not in enough time to avoid a collision, and they smacked into each other, him pivoting to avoid hitting them too hard, the smaller figure who’d run into him staggering on their feet.
They’re running from something, Euan thought, in the split second it took him to regain his balance. In the darkness, he couldn’t see their face – he could only make out shaggy hair and wide, wild eyes, as they raised their hands toward him –
“Are you all r—” he started to ask, but that was as far as he got.
In the next moment, everything had gone white. A brilliant, shockingly bright surge of light that made him close his eyes and lift his hands to cover his face washed over him. Euan grunted in pain, his brain feeling frozen, every muscle in his body seizing up.
Forcing himself to move, Euan turned away, managing to draw in a painful, gasping breath.
What the – what the hell –
But as quickly as it had come, the light faded away. Euan stood, feeling as though he’d been hit by a ten-ton truck – or an iceberg. Or a ten-ton truck towing an iceberg.
He’d never felt anything like it before in his life.
He’d come up against some pretty shady people during his time with the Agency – shifters who turned into animals and mythical creatures he’d never even heard of, who had powers beyond anything he’d ever imagined – but never anything like this.
He didn’t know how, but the person who’d run out of the alleyway had clearly clocked him as an agent, and had blasted him with whatever the hell that was in order to get away from him, fleeing from whatever they’d been doing in that alley.
Hi
s chest still felt freezing cold – but perhaps that was where he’d taken the full force of the blow of whatever bizarre power they’d struck him with.
I have to move. I have to –
Gritting his teeth and wrenching his muscles into action, Euan turned, focusing his eyes with effort.
He expected to see the person – the shifter – who’d run into him disappearing into the distance, making good their escape while he’d been recovering from their attack. But to his surprise, they were simply standing where they were, staring down at their hands as if they’d never seen them before, eyes still wide, hair falling over their face.
“Don’t move,” he said, crouching, readying himself for action in case they wanted a fight. He might not have his shifted form anymore, but he wasn’t completely useless. If there was a rogue shifter on the loose, running around blasting people with weird powers, Euan was determined to take them in, come hell or high water. “You stay where you are.”
The figure – a woman, short, with black hair and wearing a baggy jumper over some track pants – seemed to jerk awake at the sound of his voice, staring at him. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
She didn’t feel like a shifter – but that was one other thing Euan had had to get used to about having lost his shifter senses. He could no longer sense other shifters. He only knew they were any different from humans if they told him. But there was no human in the world who could do what this woman had just done.
“I –” the woman stuttered, blinking at him.
“Don’t try to run,” he warned her again. “Who’s in the alley? Who was that screaming?” He felt something cold and sticky slide down the front of his chest, and before he could stop himself he glanced down, for the first time seeing the wet, dark stain on the front of his shirt.
He sucked in a shocked breath – he felt no pain at all. But he’d heard stories like that – of agents horrifically wounded in the field, who hadn’t felt the pain of their injuries until later, or even until their fast shifter healing had kicked in and started to knit their flesh and bones back together.