ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection)

by C. J. Ayers

  “Was any of it real?” she asked.

  Killian stroked her hair. “We don’t really know, actually. The technology was developed a long time ago and the people who made it left us no clues as to how it works. We know how to start it and how to stop it, but we can’t control what happens when you are inside.”

  “That girl, Jenna, was she another shadow walker like me, or was she just an illusion?”

  Killian sighed deeply. “She was real. There were three of you left when the simulation started. You are the only one who made it out. I knew you would be.”

  Karyn wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit things and throw things. Instead she just looked into Killian eyes. “What now?” she asked him.

  “Well, he replied, that’s entirely up to you. You could stay here and become a member of the department, or you can go home, back to your job and your friends and your life. But, you will never again see the world the same way. You are a true shadow walker, Karyn, and that is a rare thing indeed.”

  “Can I take a few days to think it over?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Killian said, “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  Karyn stopped dead in her tracks. “That’s what you said before.”

  Killian looked confused. “What do you mean before? When?”

  “In the simulation,” she said. “That’s what you told me right before the werewolf attacked. You said it just like that.”

  Killian pulled away. “Wait a second. I was in your simulation?”

  Karyn shuddered. “Yes, and you wouldn’t help. You were just put on the phones. You said that you were in trouble and couldn’t disobey anymore. You gave me your gun to go chase the werewolf alone.”

  Killian jumped and grabbed Ben by the throat. “What did you do to her? What she’s saying is impossible. There is no way for her to know that I got put on phone duty. You are the only person I told. How did you manipulate the simulation?”

  Ben couldn’t breathe, and Karyn couldn’t move. How had she known? Then, she saw it clear as day. She had been in the room with the door in the floor. She had been drugged and she thought she was dreaming, but she could see through the wall. Killian had come in and talked to Ben. Karyn had forgotten until just now.

  She put her hand on Killian’s arm. “Let him go, he didn’t do it. I did.”

  Killian looked between her and Ben and finally released his grip. Ben was furious. “Look vamp, that’s twice in one day you’ve attacked me without cause.” Ben lunged at Killian and the two were rolling around on the floor punching and kicking where they could.

  A strange tingling sensation made Karyn turn towards the door. As Killian and Ben continued to fight around her, all she could do was stare at the monstrous creature in front of her. The thing stood at least seven feet tall and was black as night. its fingers were stretched out with long protruding nails that had been filed to points and its legs looked like they had been bent backwards at the knees. on top of its massive head stood a single blood red horn that curved and twisted down the thing’s head, neck, and body. At the tip of the horn, coming out of the thing’s chest, was the mighty head of a serpent.

  As it closed in upon her, Karyn knew without a doubt that she was staring at a demon.

  part 3

  MIND GAMES

  There was no question that the hideous creature in front of her was a demon. Glaring into the creature’s eyes was like staring into an endless black reflective void, completely empty of any traces of love or compassion. The creature was evil incarnate. Karyn’s hands began to shake as the demon took one heavy step in her direction. The ground shook. Karyn wondered about how painful it would be to die by this monster’s hand. Surely, there was no escaping death this time. The terrible beast’s legs were bent backwards at the knees, and a horrifying horn ran down the beast’s chest. The demon’s gaping fanged mouth somehow increased the sense of doom within the pit of Karyn’s stomach. She felt the strange sensation of horror slowly gripping her entire body. Her hands shook, and she struggled to remain upright. The creature looked like ancient biblical accounts of the devil. When the creature exhaled, white smoke billowed from its dark wide nostrils. Karyn’s knees quivered. The creature advanced, stomping forward, and Karyn quickly took two steps backwards, stumbling over her own feet, and almost collapsing onto the floor.

  The beast raised one giant clawed fist into the air. Karyn flinched back, preparing to die. She closed her eyes against her impending doom; her last thoughts lingered on Killian’s grey eyes. Suddenly from behind her, she heard a low growl. Karyn opened her eyes just as Killian’s body flew through the air towards the demon. He seemed to have no fear as he tackled the huge vile creature, which clattered to the floor with a loud thump. From the other side of the room came a searing white light that just barely missed Karyn’s head.

  Moments before, Killian and Ben had been rolling around on the floor oblivious to the world around them, punching at one another. Now, their attention was fixed solely on the singular threat before them. The demon flinched back from the blinding light and Killian wasted no time. He lunged directly at the demon’s chest and began punching at the horned monster.

  “Run Karyn! Get out of here!” Killian screamed as he tried to subdue the demon. The creature bellowed and wailed, his long arms grabbing hold of Killian and squeezing like a python. “Ben, more light!” Killian screamed.

  Ben stood in the corner blasting white light towards the demon’s twisted face. It was enough for the demon to loosen his grip. Killian quickly latched onto the creature’s muscular body with his legs—wrapping his calves partway around the creature’s trunk. As the demon thrashed on the floor, Killian rode the violent angry demon like a bull.

  Karyn wanted nothing more than to flee. She couldn’t take much more of this. Her body filled with adrenaline and was ready to run, but she simply couldn’t find the will to leave Killian behind. Karyn had no idea of how dangerous the demon was. It would do more than take her life; it would take her soul. She took one step forward toward the door and then turned back. Even in the midst of his deadly fight, Killian saw Karyn hesitate and began to curse under his breath.

  “Get out of here!” Killian yelled—his voice sounded a bit more pleading this time. The sound of Killian’s voice made up Karyn’s mind for her.

  “No!” Karyn Yelled back. “I’m going to help you!” Killian rolled his eyes and turned back to the demon, continuing to punch the creature on the side of its gigantic head. The monster grimaced, bearing razor sharp teeth. It suddenly began to chomp at the air while twisting its head, trying to bite down on Killian’s hands. As Killian dodged the onslaught of bites, he seemed to grow increasingly tired.

  Somehow, the creature sensed that Killian’s guard was down somewhat. In less than a second, the demon had wiggled his way out from beneath Killian’s body and had scampered into the corner, where it stood hunched down—looking as if it were ready to pounce. The demon roared and Karyn could feel the heat from the roar ripple across the sensitive smooth skin of her cheeks. The demon’s breath was hot and deadly. Killian retreated backwards until he was standing beside Karyn.

  “Damn-it, I told you to get out of here. Why don’t you ever listen to me?” He asked, seeming a bit worried now. Karyn bit down on her lip and looked over at Killian. The demon growled and seemed to smile. Before Karyn had time to think or react, the creature flew through the air and grabbed her by the back of her shirt. It quickly soared up to the top of the ceiling where it hovered, cackling wildly above Killian’s head.

  “I’ve got your mistress now!” The demon laughed and hissed. Karyn reached up and tried to pry the creature’s thick sharp claws from around her shirt.

  “I am not his mistress, thank you very much!” Karyn screamed, enraged. She flung her body around, and kicked her legs—trying to find invisible footing. Killian stood up straight and started to brush himself off, a little too nonchalantly. Even in the grip of the demon, Karyn could see the shift
in Killian. Her only thought was-- oh no.

  Killian rolled his eyes and seemed to shrug indifferently. “I get it…you’re supposed to be playing the part of Mr. Evil. It took me a minute, because at first I thought you might be some kind of deformed lizard, but the luke-warm smoke from your nose kind of gave it away. Ohh…don’t steam me to death!” The demon’s eyes narrowed on Killian. “Puff..puff the little magic dragon..” Killian started to sing. The demon was enraged now. Killian was openly mocking him with the hopes of drawing the demon’s attention from Karyn. It worked a little too well, and the demon flung Karyn across the room like a rag doll, her body slamming into the wall and falling limp to the ground. Killian instinctively began to run towards Karyn but the demon was faster as the creature swooped down over Killian’s head.

  Karyn was unclear about what happened next. When the demon threw her across the room, she hit her head on a nearby wall and blacked out for a few moments. When she came to, the demon was on fire and black smoke was billowing upwards from its charred body.

  “Too bad we don’t have marshmallows and graham crackers,” Killian joked, as Karyn’s eyes rolled back into her head again.

  The next thing Karyn knew, Killian was wiping at her head with a small damp cloth, and the flaming corpse was no longer that of a demon, but of a small charred toddler. Killian’s expression was pained, and he seemed both genuinely worried for her safety and horrified that they had mistaken a shifter child for a demon. They were murderers. Ben stood over the tiny charred body looking with pain-filled eyes as the young boy breathed his last breath.

  When Karyn and Killian arrived back at Department 99’s conference room, more chaos ensued. The phones were ringing wildly, and the alarms were sounding off so frequently that the maintenance staff had removed the buzzers. For some reason, shifters were losing control all over the city. An urgent call came in from the Kansas City zoo—a man had jumped into the lion den display and then had immediately shifted into some kind of dragon. The lions had been ripped to shreds in front of horrified tourists, and Department 99 was struggling to come up with a viable cover story. There were also reports of a hawk trapped in a nearby mall. Witnesses were swearing that the hawk had been in the shape of an elderly little woman wearing pink house slippers only moments before. What the hell was going on?

  The phones continued to ring. Almost on impulse, Karyn snatched up the sleek heavy receiver.

  “Hello? Hello?” She asked. The woman’s voice on the other line of the phone was familiar.

  “Is this 911?” The woman asked.

  “Yes,” Karyn lied, “What is your emergency?”

  “I… I think I’m going insane,” the voice spoke in a hushed tone. “I work at the hospital and we recently suffered a tornado. I think I have some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder because I just watched my newborn baby turn into a…a hog.” Karyn could hear loud snorting in the background.

  “It’s okay ma’am. You aren’t going insane.” Karyn almost choked on her own words, “Is the baby—I mean hog…is the hog behaving aggressively?”

  The woman on the other line paused. “No. It’s sitting in my baby’s crib licking at the bottle of breast-milk I just put in there.” The hog squealed in the background.

  “I’ll send someone right over.” Karyn took down the woman’s address and pushed a note over to Killian’s desk with the details scrawled on the small piece of paper.

  The phone rang again. This time, Karyn couldn’t make out what was being said. All she could hear were blood-chilling screams and the faraway sounds of gunshots.

  Something was making the shifters lose control. Karyn racked her brain. The phenomenon was so widespread. Perhaps it was a virus? A virus would have some kind of incubation period though, and it seemed that virtually all of the shifters in Kansas City were losing control at that very moment. Maybe they were exposed to some kind of environmental contaminant. Karyn thought hard. A doctor would be able to figure this out. She was no doctor. She was just a former nurse, shadow-walker, and captive/employee of Department 99.

  The phone in front of Karyn rang again. This time the voice on the other end of the line was husky and dark. He sounded much like what the human version of a grizzly bear might sound like. Karyn swallowed as she listened to the man.

  “I killed my wife this morning. I shifted into a bear and I killed her and the family dog. I don’t know why this happened. I’m so sorry.” A loud gunshot rang out on the other end of the line. The line went dead.

  Karyn stood up. Her determination was renewed. It seemed that the shifters were somehow innocent in this. They were accidentally killing the people that they cared about. The man on the call seemed full of regret. Something was causing this to happen to these individuals against their will. Doctor or not, Karyn was going to get to the bottom of this mess.

  As she stood in the conference room, staring off into space, for some reason the crinkled map on the opposite end of the wall caught her attention. Her hospital had been located on the western end of Excelsior Springs. Karyn looked down, quickly checking the caller ID. The last call from the grizzly-sounding man had come from the outskirts of Grain Valley, near interstate 70. Karyn scanned back through the call log. The lady whose baby had turned into a hog had been located near Liberty. It might have seemed like all of the shifters of the world were losing control, but suddenly a pattern seemed evident to Karyn. The attacks seemed to be all located in Liberty, Grain Valley, or Excelsior Springs. What did those three places have in common? What could it be?

  Karyn looked over to Killian who was lost in deep conversation with someone on the phone who seemed in the midst of a terrible crisis. “Where are they calling from?” Karyn mouthed. Killian shrugged. “Where are they calling from?” Karyn repeated, more abrasively. Killian looked down at the caller ID and pointed his long slender finger at the name, which had popped up. Liberty.

  What if it was some kind of message? Maybe whoever was responsible for this mess saw themselves as some kind of liberator. Freeing the shifters from their human form or something crazy like that, perhaps? Karyn rushed over to Jack’s desk. A man named Jimmy was perched at Jack’s desk—trying to help someone hide from a bull shifter in a basement over the telephone. Karyn looked down at the caller ID. The person was calling from Liberty. What could Liberty and Excelsior Springs have in common?

  Karyn thought hard. She frowned deeply as she thought, pushing every other image out of her mind. Suddenly, the answer came to her. New York City. Lady Liberty was in New York, and “Excelsior” was almost certainly the city’s official motto. New York City had to be the commonality between the two places. But that still didn’t explain the attacks in Grain Valley. Then the answer hit Karyn like a bolt of lightning. Whoever was responsible for the attacks was trying to send a message—maybe a message about the next location for more shifter attacks—New York.

  Karyn began ripping the desk in front of her apart, searching for a piece of paper. After finding one, she wrote the words Grain Valley across the top. Then, she quickly began to rearrange the letters. Grain Valley was an anagram; she was certain of it. When Karyn rearranged the letters of the township’s name she was able to make a sentence, “I rang LaLevy.” Could that be a message?

  Karyn quickly jumped up from her desk and ran over to Killian who was now engaged in another heated telephone conversation. “Do you know a person by the name of LaLevy?” Karyn asked eagerly, almost in a panic. Killian’s brow scrunched up. He placed his cold large hand over the phone’s speaker.

  “How the hell do you know about that?”

  Karyn snatched the phone out of Killian’s hand and slammed it down. “You had better tell me what the hell is going on, Killian. Who is LaLevy?” Karyn’s eyes were on fire with rage.

  Killian swallowed in earnest. “LaLevy isn’t a person, Karyn—it’s an alarm. It’s a threat alert system that Department 99 put into place many years ago, and it only goes off when…when death to a large percentage of the hum
an population is imminent.”

  Karyn almost dropped to her knees. She began to tremble. “I tracked the attacks, Killian. I thought that the attacks in Liberty and Excelsior were meant to send someone a message. The only thing that Liberty and Excelsior have in common is that they both relate to the name of a place—New York.”

  Killian stared tight-lipped at her. Karyn pressed on. “The other attacks were in Grain Valley, so I was trying to figure out what that meant. Grain Valley is an anagram. When I re-arranged the letters in the name Grain Valley, I came up with the sentence ‘I rang LaLevy’ it was the only thing that made any sense.”

  Killian looked as if he had seen a ghost. His complexion was already pale white, but seemed to turn a deathly shade of blue. Then, before Karyn could react, Killian was screaming across the room to his supervisors. Whoever was creating this mess was planning an attack on New York, and LaLevy had been rung, which meant that this was an inside job. No one but Department 99 agents even knew about LaLevy’s existence. Their criminal was a member of Department 99. The culprit was one of them. There was a traitor in their midst.

  The next few moments passed by in a haze. Killian guided Karyn into his car and peeled out of the parking lot.

  “You’re not bringing Jack?” Karyn asked, confused.

  “No,” Killian spat back. “We’re going to St. Peter’s hospital. The LaLevy alarm is located inside, beneath the morgue.”

  Karyn knew St. Peter’s Hospital well. She had worked there briefly, when they had suffered a shortage of nursing staff, but had quit because the establishment simply cut too many corners for her. After watching staff make a particularly gruesome medical mistake, she had walked out and vowed never to return. Their weasel-like Human Resources manager had called her later that afternoon, threatening a lawsuit for breach of contract. Karyn told the woman that if they sued, she would expose them to the media, and the woman had simply coughed and quietly hung up the phone.