Familiar Territory

by Sam Cheever

  I wanted to rage...to scream...but was unable to do either.

  Pain lanced through my skull and I think I cried out. My fingers tightened on the surface of the floor as the pain cut through my brain. My eyes rolled back and I thought I was going to pass out. Nausea blossomed again. My mouth watered but I fought it.

  Something danced across my mind. It felt like icy fingertips walking across the tender cells.

  I broke into a cold sweat, instinctively fighting the invasion. But the harder I fought it, the more it hurt.

  A deep voice said my name and I blinked, twitching from the pain and surprise. Shaking my head, I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut as the fingers danced down my spine. The voice didn’t come back, but I had a sense of someone lurking just beyond my awareness.

  Suddenly I knew who it was. And I knew what I needed to do.

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I allowed my resistance to fade. My heart pounding with terror, I felt him take hold, his magic wrapping itself around mine.

  Heat flared. Healing heat that warmed and strengthened my limbs. Strength returned and I shoved off the floor. Too fast. The world spun as energy whipped through me, spinning silver light in a whirlwind that blocked every other awareness. I forced my eyes open against the dizzying sight and embraced it, opening myself fully to the hungry magic. My claws started to emerge, my fangs to lengthen, and my back arched under the change.

  Gritting my teeth, I fought to contain the shift. I wanted my human form, with all its emotional energy to give me power over whatever was stalking me. I pushed to my feet as his voice growled softly through my mind. Are you okay?

  Yes. I started to run, heading for the spot where I’d seen the flare of light.

  Send me a picture of where you are. Mandy and I are on our way.

  I did as Deg asked, realizing I’d taken a step I’d later regret. I’d accepted his energy into my core, embraced it in an effort to cast off the oily evil that had taken hold of me.

  I felt ten times stronger than I ever had before. And at the same time there was an additional weight to my soul.

  Like I was carrying around another human being.

  But as the hanging forms around me popped away, one by one, like the mirages they were, I smiled. I might have succumbed to despair at the hand of a truly evil Witch. But the fears that had taken me to my knees were based in reality.

  I’d seen the light.

  If I could only get my family back, I’d try to be more open to clan business. I’d try to embrace my fate.

  After all, I pretty much had to, since I’d let myself become bonded to the Witch whom, I was truly terrified to realize, was my destiny.

  And speaking of said Witch...

  A door appeared in front of me and opened as I screeched to a halt, leery of what might come through.

  Fortunately for me, the person who stepped through the door was tall, dark-haired and handsome, with worried silver eyes. “Oh thank the gods,” Deg said, hurrying toward me. “We were so worried.” He pulled me into a hug before I realized what he was going to do. Shock ping-ponged through me as I slammed up against a truly stupendous pair of pecs and a decidedly wash-boardy stomach.

  My lungs locked and I forgot to breathe. Then I remembered I was naked and discomfort made me stiffen. Normally shifters are very comfortable in our skin. But I hadn’t known the Witch long enough to know if my nakedness would bother or entice.

  I wasn’t ready to deal with either result.

  The door swung wide again and Mandy fixed me with a hostile glare, her gaze moving over us with obvious unhappiness. She handed me a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and I slipped them on, grateful to her for her thoughtfulness. “Thanks.”

  Deg stepped away to allow me to dress. I felt his loss like a snap to the solar plexis. I might have even gasped softly as he turned away. “She’s okay,” Deg told Mandy with obvious relief.

  Mandy’s glower made it pretty clear she didn’t really care. “I see that.”

  I dropped my hands to my sides and took a long, bracing breath, trying to slow my heartbeat. A soft mewling sound drew my gaze downward. Mable looked up at me, giving me soft eyes, and wound around my ankles. “You brought the kitten into this place?” I quickly scooped her up and buried my face in her sweet-smelling fur.

  “Not exactly,” Deg told me. When I glanced his way I saw the secret look that passed between them. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “It’s not safe for her here,” I told Mandy.

  She lifted her hands out to the sides as if she were helpless.

  I didn’t believe that for a minute.

  “She kind of hitchhiked,” Deg told me. “I’m not sure exactly how she got here.” He frowned at the purring baby in my arms. “Or how she got into this building.”

  “She’s a tricky little devil,” Mandy said tightly. “If you ask me, there’s more to her than meets the eye.”

  But I hadn’t...asked her. Then I remembered Posh. I grabbed Deg’s arm, only a tiny part of my brain taking note of the firm, slightly bulging muscles beneath my fingertips. I quickly dropped my hand so I wouldn’t test the delicious firmness like a Summer melon. “I came with a friend. Her name’s Posh...” I frowned, realizing she could be in her human form. “Or my mother’s receptionist.”

  Mandy arched a brow. “Her name is My Mother’s Receptionist?”

  I was filled with sudden shame as I realized I still hadn’t asked her name. “I don’t actually know what her name is. But she was a fa...erm...fluffy cat with multi-colored eyes and strange polka dots in her fur when I last saw her.”

  Deg’s handsome face showed worry again. He and Mandy shared another look. That glance was the last straw for me.

  “Okay, tell me what’s going on.”

  Deg shook his head but I didn’t give him the chance to lie to me.

  “Stop! I saw the looks. Just tell me.”

  He glanced Mandy’s way again and she shrugged. “You might as well tell her.”

  Deg sighed, stepping closer, and reaching out to squeeze my arm. “It’s not good, LA...”

  And with those words, the world tilted violently under my feet again. But this time, I wasn’t the cause of it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I STUMBLED SIDEWAYS as the floor slanted out from under me. Deg made a grab for my hand but the floorboards swayed violently underneath him and he hit the wall, crashing to the ground.

  Mabel’s angry yowl filled the air but I couldn’t get to her. The floor had shifted again, rolling like ocean waves during a hurricane. I let myself slide to the floor because it was impossible to keep standing. Deg rolled past me, his expression focused and his hands weaving magic upon the air.

  I hoped he could come up with something to stop the room from roiling beneath us. Because I was pretty sure I was turning green from all the movement. Horking up my last meal was becoming a real possibility.

  I’d never been very good on water. After all, I was as much cat as human wasn’t I? Everyone knew how cats felt about water.

  A horrendous cracking sound preceded the walls starting to spin. I groaned, sliding across the floor with my hands and feet out to keep from crashing head or shoulder first into anything. Vertigo slapped me hard as the walls spun and the floor rolled. The dizziness made the nausea worse and my muscles turned to mush under the multi-pronged assault.

  I cast my gaze hopefully around the room, looking for Deg. I couldn’t see him and panic flared. Mandy wasn’t rolling around with me either. What if they’d been overcome? Fear for them clashed with fear for myself at the thought. Was I alone in that horror show of a place? Even as my stomach twisted with terror I chastised myself. After all, hadn’t I spent my life fighting for independence, declaring I didn’t need anybody else’s help?

  Tears burned my eyes and I angrily shoved them away with one hand. My shoulder slammed against a wooden wave, pain radiating out from the spot and leaving a burning sensation behind. Warm blood ran down my arm as the wor
ld continued to pitch and boil.

  I finally found Mandy when a particularly violent floorboard wave slammed into me and sent me sprawling to my back. Even as I struggled to find something to anchor to, my gaze slid skyward because...well...I had no choice.

  That was when I saw her, hovering above the floor with a wriggling Mabel in her arms.

  The kitten was agitated, her sweet gaze fixed on me as I fought to keep from being sent to the bottom of the wooden ocean.

  I glowered at the Witch as best I could as I skidded beneath her, barely missing a metal post that, amazingly, stood tall and unmoving amidst the chaos.

  She smiled back.

  A deep voice called my name. I looked up to find Deg standing on the ceiling, his arm outstretched. “Grab my hand!”

  I could barely hear him beneath the thunderous crashing sounds and the spinning walls were making me so dizzy he’d become a blur. But I flung my hand upward, missing his fingers by inches as the middle of the room dropped several feet.

  I crashed into the wood-lined sinkhole and hit the bottom, agony shearing through me. I couldn’t breathe from the impact and the bones in my back cracked painfully.

  I took a beat to draw air into my lungs and then scrambled to my knees and tried to jump from the hole.

  Looking up, I realized the walls stretched twelve feet above my head. To make things worse, they were as smooth as glass and I couldn’t get a grip.

  “LA!” Deg’s voice came to me muffled, as if from the end of a long tunnel. I glanced up and responded. “Down here! I can’t get out.”

  “Use your magic,” a much higher pitched voice called out. Even when giving me advice to save my life, Mandy’s tone was smug and disinterested.

  When I reached for the energy within my core, I couldn’t find it. Something seemed to be blocking my magic. I envisioned my cat form, with the idea that I might be able to climb the sheer walls if I was wearing a set of nice, sharp claws.

  Nothing happened.

  “Hang on, LA. I’m coming down,” Deg told me. And sure enough, the hole high above my head darkened with his fine form. But even as his fingers danced upon the air, building a shimmering silver web that descended quickly in my direction, I realized there wouldn’t be time.

  With a sense of horror I recognized that the hole was closing. “Get out, Deg. You’ll be trapped!”

  His fingers worked feverishly and, to his credit, his magical rescue rope was growing rapidly. I almost thought he might get it done. But the hole was touching his sides and, even from a distance I saw the look of panic on his handsome face as it tightened around him.

  “Leave me!” I yelled, tears sliding down my cheeks. Suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of his dying. I barely knew the man, but I knew that his safety was more important than mine. The world needed Deggart Kincaide in it much more than it needed a selfish, self-involved Familiar wearing my name.

  The hole squeezed more tightly around Deg, his shoulders contorting under the pressure, but still he wove on.

  The rope dangled a couple of feet above me when blood started to stain the walls of the hole around Deg’s frantically working form. The bright red blood trickled downward in a vivid stream, a living taunt that because of me someone special would die.

  Another someone special.

  I screamed his name as the walls began to squeeze me too, splinters of the manic wood piercing me like knives.

  “Hang on, LA!” His face was gray, his jaw tight, and I knew it was only a matter of seconds before he was crushed by the deadly magic.

  “Dammit, Deg! Leave me!”

  But he shook his head. “Jump, LA. Grab the rope.”

  I realized in that moment we would either live or die together. The thought terrified me because I was pretty sure I was a goner. As the hole above closed, the sides had pinched in just as fast, until I had very little room to move and almost no space to work up to the jump I needed to reach the rope.

  But I had to try. Or Deg was going to die trying to save me. I couldn’t live with that.

  Even if I died too.

  I lifted my hands and flexed my thighs, thrusting off my toes with everything I had. I missed the rope by inches. To make things worse, I didn’t fall back to the ground. The sides of the hole grabbed hold and held me, feet kicking in desperation, off the ground. I couldn’t jump again.

  Above me, Deg surrendered a pain-filled scream but I couldn’t look up, the wood-lined chasm wedged against my head, holding it at a painful angle and squeezing it like a vise. Agony filled me. Terror made my eyes bulge.

  Tears slipped down my face but I didn’t even have the air to sob as I died. I was being crushed, ruthlessly, compressed inside a contracting tube of half rotted wood.

  The world started to blacken at the edges as my body fought for air that wouldn’t come.

  The blackness spread, broken only by pinpoints of bright light as my brain died. I felt a final burst of regret for all my mistakes as I started to pass out.

  If only I’d done things differently, maybe I wouldn’t have died trying to save the people I cared most about in my life...and failed so miserably.

  Numbness took away the pain. Resignation sapped me of my fear. The charcoal wash of oblivion called me into its arms and I let it pull me down.

  I sank into blessed nothingness, glad to finally be done fighting.

  Alas, it wasn’t to be.

  A bright pair of eyes flashed through my mind. A soft growl scolded me. Guilt found a way into my consciousness. I couldn’t just give up. Could I? Too many people were waiting for me to help them.

  Deg!

  The thought of his death had my fingers stretching upward one last time. With a painful jolt they hit a sizzling pulse of energy. I jerked under its power and silvery light exploded around me, cutting ruthlessly through my delicious oblivion.

  I shot out of the hole, my body on fire, and landed screaming and disoriented on the grimy floor of the once roiling room.

  I lay there, feeling as if all my limbs had been ripped from their sockets and used to bludgeon me.

  I was afraid to open my eyes.

  Then something silky and warm rubbed against my arm. Mabel climbed onto my belly and sat there purring, her short tail beating softly against me.

  I opened my eyes and groaned.

  The room looked perfectly normal. As if nothing had happened.

  But I didn’t trust it. I pushed slowly and painfully against the floor, managing to get to my knees with a lot of pain-laced groaning.

  I scooped the tiny kitten against my chest and kissed the top of her fuzzy head. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  Then I remembered. Deg! My head shot up and I found him, lying on the floor a few feet away. I scurried over to him. “Deg! Are you okay?”

  He groaned too but his eyes fluttered slowly open. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

  “Me too.” I gave him a hand up and we stood there, wobbling a little as we found our sea legs again.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said, pointing toward a distant door.

  I nodded. “Where’s Mandy?”

  He blinked. We shared a look. And we both looked around.

  Deg’s eyes darkened with worry as he looked down at the floor.

  “I’m sure she didn’t get sucked under,” I told him. “When I saw her she was floating above it.”

  His frown deepened. “God forbid she give us a hand.”

  I chewed my lip. I’d had a similar thought. But then it occurred to me that somebody had to have reversed the evil magic that almost succeeded in killing us. “Maybe she did.”

  He sighed. “Right. Well, she’s always been really good at protecting herself so, I’m guessing she got out of here. Let’s go find her.”

  “And Posh,” I said, nodding.

  His sexy lips tightened into a thin line. “About that, LA...”

  I shook my head. “Let’s just get out of here. We can talk after we’ve saved my family.”<
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  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  AS WE RAN THROUGH SEEMINGLY endless hallways, bursting through a boundless array of doors that seemed to lead nowhere at all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the goal I was seeking was very close. Closer than it seemed. The occasional glance at Deg told me he was feeling the same. His handsome face held a perplexed frown and his head swiveled continually, clearly looking for the punchline to the horrendous joke we found ourselves mired in.

  I thought of Posh, wondering if she was dead. And Mandy...I suspected it would take more than a floorboard tsunami to kill that Witch. And even Brock. Had the monstrous snake had sexy Demon kibble for a midnight snack?

  I kept my missing family’s fate firmly locked away from my dire thoughts. I couldn’t succumb to the deadly collapse of fearing the worst.

  There would be time later to mourn them if I discovered they’d shared Tabby’s fate.

  At the thought, my pulse spiked and something tried to rise up in my memory. Her last words to me, so confusing and seemingly unfocused, suddenly took root in my brain. I jerked to a stop, reaching to grab Deg’s wrist as he continued on past.

  He dug in his heels and turned, giving me a thoughtful look.

  My mind swirled. My head pounded. And memory after seemingly disconnected memory assailed me. I wasn’t aware Deg had spoken my name for long moments. It wasn’t until he reached out and touched my chin with a warm finger that I snapped out of my reverie.

  I blinked up at him. “We’re going about this the wrong way.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean all magic has become a web now. We’ve been locked in make-believe inside the web. Fighting our own fears and, unless I miss my guess, our memories of things we’ve seen or read about. The Witch is using our imaginations against us.”

  He gave his head a shake, looking around.

  We stood in a dank subterranean passageway with dried, black blood staining the walls. The sour stench of burning oil filled the place, thick with the smoke of burning torches jutting from rings embedded in the rock.