Shifters Gone Wild; Collection

by Skye MacKinnon

  Huh. We were less than a mile from Boudreau Manor. Yeah, color me surprised. Not.

  I wanted to call Sin and let him know I was okay, but the phone was password locked. Instead, I drove to the corner store about two blocks away and used the last payphone in Belle Cove and called collect.

  As soon as the voice announced my name, Sin was yelling into the phone. “If you’re fucking with me again, you sonovabitch, I’ll rip…”

  “Sin…SIN…it’s me. Sid.”

  “Oh, thank gods. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I stole Angiers’ car and am at Jojo’s store.”

  “Wipe it down and leave it there. I’m about five minutes away. I’ve got your bag and phone. It was left in the locker room.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to grab some snacks here. I’m starving and shaking, but I’ve got Angiers’ wallet with some cash. I’ll leave that in the glove box of his car.”

  “No, just leave his ID, but bring the rest. We need to figure out what he’s been doing and with who. I’m almost there, sis. Get moving.”

  The call disconnected, but I felt a lot better. I bought some wet wipes, a couple of electrolyte drinks and some food, then went out to wipe things down and lock the car. It had one of those auto-locking trunks, so I pulled the key fob for the car off the ring, wiped it off and tossed it in the trunk before shutting it down. One last wipe and I went to sit on a bench in the shadows and inhale my snacks and drinks. By about the third protein bar, the shaking had slowed. After two electrolyte drinks, I was much better.

  Sin pulled up and I slid into the front passenger’s seat and into his hug before I could buckle up.

  “Don’t scare me like that,” he said – half teasing, half serious.

  “I wasn’t planning on it. Let’s get out of here, huh? And stop at the drive-thru on the way home? My tank’s a little low. I burned a lot of healing and magic.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got hit with a drugged dart and woke up in a dirt floor cinder block bunker, cable tied to a chair.”

  “Where’s Angiers now?”

  “I left him tied up and hog-tied to a pole in the bunker.” I slid the thumb drive out of my pocket. “I also got all of the videos and info off his laptop before I wiped it of everything, including the OS.”

  Sin started to laugh, then pulled into the drive-thru. “You’re awesome, Sid. Now, what do you want?”

  “Two bacon double cheeseburgers, two large fries, chicken tenders, and a large double chocolate shake.” Hey, don’t think that of me. Sometimes a girl just needs her chocolate and bacon. Sin ordered almost the same, but only one of the fries, no chicken, and a strawberry shake. We parked just past the drive-thru and ate. There wasn’t a lot of talk, just stuffing our faces.

  I wiped my mouth and settled back with my shake, letting the food finish rejuvenating my body while my brain processed everything.

  “He said I was bait for you and Sett. He never mentioned Dad or Grampa Walsh, so I think they’re still a hidden entity in all of this.”

  “That’s some good news, I guess,” Sin said and reached out to take my free hand in his. He squeezed my hand a bit and swallowed hard. “I could feel fear, and then anger, but still fear underneath. I couldn’t tell if it was you or me or both of us. I wanted to puke a few times.”

  “Well, that was all me,” I told Sin. “You rarely puke.” I slurped the end of my milkshake. Loudly.

  “Yeah, I think the last time was after the bar-crawl for our birthday,” Sin said. “I’m glad we still have our connection, Sid.”

  “Me too. I knew, somehow, no matter what happened, you were in it with me.”

  “I am. Never alone, Sid.”

  “Never alone. Let’s go find the Commander and Auntie Sett to fill them in on everything. I also need my laptop so I can figure out what’s on this thumb drive.”

  I felt more in control of things than I had in a while. Scary concept, considering I didn’t know how to get us out of this mess.

  Sin

  Grampa Walsh called a friend of his, a medic, to come check out Sid and make sure she wasn’t suffering any aftereffects of the kidnapping and drugging. By the time Sid was done with all of that, we agreed to get some sleep. Better to come at this fresh in the morning.

  Now it was morning and Sid had one hand wrapped around her coffee mug, the other scrolling through documents on the screen. She didn’t even hear me pour coffee for myself.

  “Sid, what do you want for breakfast?” I asked three times before she finally heard me.

  “Oh, uh, whatever you feel like making,” Sid said, gaze still locked on the computer screen.

  “What are you working on?” I asked as I got out the stuff to make omelets.

  “Going through the stuff on that thumb drive. I guess it was Angiers’ work laptop because there are a bunch of scanned school papers and crap mixed in with some interesting stuff. There are recruitment documents – I don’t know what else you’d call them – for about twenty different cadets at the Academy. Species, grades, rankings, scores – they’re all listed for each one. It looks like there are six shifters, seven witches, and seven with notations I don’t understand.”

  Grampa Walsh came into the room then and poured himself some coffee. “What kinds of notations?”

  Apparently, he’d heard the tail end of the conversation.

  “Five are marked as AS and two as M,” Sid said.

  “Five Aos Sí, or sidhe, and two mythics,” Grampa said.

  “What are ‘shee’ or mythics?” I asked as I paused in sautéing mushrooms in the pan.

  “Sidhe, it’s Gaelic for ‘people of the mounds’ but, along with Aos Sí, is another term for the fae. Mythics are those descendants of so-called mythical creatures. Griffins, minotaurs, merfolk, gnomes, and so on,” Grampa explained as he sipped his coffee.

  Sid’s mug thumped against the table as she stared at Grampa. I was staring as well. Sid spoke first because I didn’t want to burn breakfast, but you can bet I listened hard.

  “Wait, what do you mean fae and mythics? There are other things besides shifters and witches? Why are we only hearing about this now? Are there many of them or are they rare?” Sid rattled off her questions while Grampa took another sip of coffee.

  “Sin, I’d like an omelet and some toast if you’ve got some time to whip me up one too,” Grampa asked.

  “Of course, Grampa. But, what about Sid’s questions? Why haven’t we ever heard about them before?”

  “Well, they are somewhat less common around here. Fae are more common than mythics overall. To have them listing two mythics in the documentation is surprising. Most mythics pass as shifters and most fae pass as witches.”

  “So, we could know mythics and fae, and have no idea what they really are? Woah,” Sid said.

  “Do we know any who we’ve thought were shifters or witches, Grampa?” I asked.

  Grampa sipped his coffee and stayed silent. Well, hell. That means yes. I slid an omelet onto a plate, added toast and brought it over to him, then headed back into the kitchen to make the next one.

  “Grampa…” Sid said, watching him. She wasn’t going to let him go without answering this.

  “Sidonie…” Grampa said back as he quirked a brow at her.

  “Who do we know that is a mythic or a fae?” Sid said.

  Grampa took a few moments to eat some of his breakfast, then put down his fork. “Have you two ever heard the Herne and Danu prophecy?”

  “The one carved into that wooden plaque that used to hang over our fireplace?” I asked as I put the last two plates down on the table and joined them.

  “Yes, it has been passed down through the original families that came from the Isles. We were taught it as children, as a counting rhyme for jumping rope or bouncing balls,” Grampa said.

  Sid ate a few bites of her food, then nodded. “Mom used to sing it to us while we were pushed on the swings.”

  A few minutes of quiet eating before Gra
mpa spoke again. “Sid, give me that notebook and a pen, please.”

  She slid the items over to Grampa and he wrote quickly, then started to speak.

  “Herne, oh horn-ed one

  Hunter, watcher, hoof, and horn

  Sun and moon shall be reborn

  Two of two that act as one

  Danu, mother of us all

  Bring all that is, into the two

  Gifting them with all that lies

  In magic under seas and skies.”

  He put the pen down and slid it back to Sid. “It is a true prophecy, and most in the family believe it is about the two of you.”

  “A what?” I said.

  “About us?” Sid said.

  Grampa raised a hand to silence us. “You’re the first male-female twins born in the shifter line, and the first twins born in the witch line as far back as recorded time.”

  We stared at him for a minute, then Sid and I looked at each other. She pulled the written copy close, read it a couple of times, then pushed it over to me. I read it through, then looked back at Grampa. “What has this got to do with if we know mythics or fae?” I asked.

  “Bring all that is, into the two – Gifting them with all…” Grampa cleared his throat, then continued. “That means two that have aspects of all the species.”

  “How can we have more than just what Mom and Dad brought to the table, Grampa? I’m a pre-med student. I know how genetics works,” I said.

  “Unless Mom is not a pure witch and Dad is not a pure shifter,” Sid said.

  Grampa picked up his toast and ate it, not speaking. Heh. Great. He was doing the ‘figure it out for yourselves’ game.

  “Grampa, I get what you’re doing, but we don’t know which one, or how they both could be anything but what they’ve told us. We’ve not seen Dad shift into anything exotic, nor have we seen Mom do any unusual magic, so you sitting there, silent, is not helping,” I said.

  “Your parents do not know they are not pure,” Grampa finally said. “My Bridie was a Mythic from a clan of Sylphs. Your great-grandmother, Margaret Fraser Fortin, was Fae.”

  “Sylphs. Air elementals, right?” Sid said.

  “Yes. She was exceedingly gifted with the element. Maggie was an incredibly talented witch with the enhanced power of the fae.”

  “What kinds of power do fae have?” I asked as I started to clean up the dishes.

  “They have a connection to the earth stronger than any other beings. They draw their power from all of the elements around them,” Grampa said. “Have you ever noticed that your magic is more powerful when you’re standing outside, surrounded by plants and trees?”

  “Well, yeah, but that’s part of being a shifter,” Sid said.

  “Yes, it is part of being a shifter, but it is the essence of being fae. You two probably didn’t notice that it was different, because you two are different.”

  He had a point. We wouldn’t know just how different we were because there weren’t any others like us that we had ever met. It was one of the reasons Sid and I were so close. No one else understood what it was like to be us as well as we did.

  “Well, shit,” Sid said.

  “If the prophecy is such a big deal, how come Mom and Dad didn’t know they were more than a shifter or a witch, particularly when Mom was pregnant with us? Or even when we were little kids and you all knew we were going to survive?” I asked.

  “Marcel and I, and our wives, thought it would be safer for you kids – and your parents – if we kept that silent until we saw what the two of you developed into and became capable of doing.”

  “But then Marcel died, you and Grandma Bridie were killed. Well, you know what I mean,” Sid said.

  “I was more interested in finding out who had been behind blowing up the plane. I got hyper-focused and that isn’t a good thing. I failed you two and your parents. I’m so sorry.”

  “No, Grampa. You didn’t fail us. Priorities change over time, and you’re here for us now,” I said, a hand rested on his shoulder and squeezed.

  “Okay, so now we have all of this information,” Sid said. “What do we do with it?”

  “Do we go after Lord James?” I said.

  “Who is Lord James?” Grampa asked.

  “Oh, that’s what we call Grandpa Boudreau,” Sid said.

  Grampa laughed for a bit, then leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands folded together. “We’re going to see if we can get Lord James to implicate himself. He has quite the following and we don’t need to turn him into a martyr.”

  “Yeah, that would suck,” Sid said.

  “I’m thinking you have a plan?” I said.

  “I do. You two have your graduation ceremony tomorrow, correct?”

  We both nodded.

  “You will be the loving grandchildren of the current Academy director, something he can be so visibly proud of since they’re graduating top of the class. Then you’ll all go celebrate with food and drinks. I’ll give you something to put in his drink that will lessen his inhibitions.”

  “It won’t hurt him, right?” Sin said.

  “No, not at all. But it’ll make recording the conversation a whole lot easier. I’m going to show up after you let me know you gave him the drink.”

  “Hopefully that won’t give him a freakin’ heart attack, Grampa. He’s an old man, remember?”

  “I’m older than he is, Sin. He’ll be fine. Until we can throw his ass in jail.”

  “So, we need to make sure that it’s just the three of us at this celebratory dinner, or you’ll spend the whole time dealing with family freaking out that you’re back from the dead,” Sid said.

  “We’ll tell him we’re turning over a new leaf,” I said. “That we want him to respect us as graduates and fellow SPD officers, not just as his grandchildren. We’ve proven ourselves to the whole Academy, we don’t need to prove ourselves to him any longer.”

  “And I’ll be as patient as I can be with his misogynistic bullshit. It won’t matter that I got the highest scores in decades and am a graduate of the Academy. He’ll still find a way to make me out to be less,” Sid said.

  “His words don’t mean anything, Sid. You know this. Don’t let the old bastard get into your head like this,” I said.

  “In this, Sidonie, your brother is right.”

  “She’s also an excellent actress. As long as she keeps her heart out of it, we’ll be good,” I said.

  “I can do that,” Sid said. “I have to, so I will.”

  “I’ll have the potion for you tomorrow morning at breakfast. Press your uniforms and be ready for tomorrow,” Grampa said as he rose from the table and put his dishes in the sink.

  I looked at Sid as he left and let out a slow breath. “Well, fuck.”

  Sid

  The auditorium was packed with proud families and nervous graduates. I sat beside Sin, my white gloves curled in one hand, my polished boots tapping on the carpeted floor. Sin, on the other hand, was calm as fuck and it annoyed me a little bit. Okay, a lot a bit. The very last thing I wanted to do was deal with Lord James and pretend I still cared. Then again, it wouldn’t be pretending. I cared. Even though I had parents, other grandparents, even a brother who loved and admired me – I wanted Grandpa B to see me clearly and respect me. I knew the likelihood of that was slim to none, but the little girl in me wanted her Grandpa to smile at her just once and mean it. It was stupid and I knew it, but it is what it is.

  The place was growing quiet as people found their seats and the lights flickered to tell everyone that the ceremony was about to start. I pulled my white gloves on and made sure my hair was smooth and neat in the bun under my cap. Under the uniform jacket, the crisp white uniform shirt and the camisole worn over my bra - hung the charm Mom had given me. As always, it lay against my skin. A glance towards Sin and I saw his bracelet outlined under the cuff of his white dress shirt. At least they weren’t going into this dinner with Lord James without protection.

  Each row rose and wa
lked to the side steps of the stage. As each name was called, the cadet walked up to James Boudreau, Director of the Belle Cove Supernatural Police Academy, shook his hand, accepted their certificate, saluted the director, saluted the officials in the seats on the stage, then walked down the other side and back to their seat. I made my way up the steps, shook my grandfather’s hand, took the certificate, saluted, saluted, headed down the stairs, then waved to my Mom, Grandma Fortin, Auntie Sett and the rest of them all seated a couple of rows back. They had cheered for me and were now cheering for Sin. As he got down the steps to me, he slapped me on the back and our family cheered even louder.

  “We did it, Sid,” Sin said, then leaned in and whispered, “I’m so fucking glad we’re done with this place.”

  I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing and followed him back to our seats. Once we sat back down, I opened the stiff padded folder to read the certificate and sighed. “They spelled my name wrong. Again. I am not Sedona. You’d think my own grandfather would have made sure my name was spelled right.”