by Scott, Amber
The checkout machine blipped and beeped at her like she was any ordinary person. She felt people staring at her. She wanted to yell out at someone. As though everyone was in on an elaborate joke. At least the scanner wasn't in on it. It took her money, spit out a receipt and thanked her.
“Sadie, wait.” Elijah's voice, soft and somewhere in the distance. Sadie ignored it. She scanned the store for glimpses of dark hair, his signature dark jacket, deep slits up the back.
Longing for the sight of his face swelled through her.
The only black was a magazine rack. Gum was on sale. She left, grateful for the concealing growing darkness. The autumn air smelled like rain. Sadie breathed it in, fighting to steady her rabid heartbeat. It must be raining somewhere close. Arizona storms moved with unpredictable force, a life of their own. Perhaps the rain would follow her and wash away her fears.
She twisted the bag dangling from her wrist and walked. Heading south, she had three blocks to cover in her sister's quiet suburban neighborhood. Tree lined streets, gas lamp style lampposts. Not a cactus or palm tree in sight. She felt transported. How oddly lucky that the bus route brought her so close. Heather and Remy’s last home, an apartment, had to be driven to. Heather would pick her up, drop her off.
The darkening night cloaked her, making her feel free and invisible. Normal people took for granted how freeing blending in could be. Sadie certainly had back then, two years, which now felt like a lifetime, ago. Sometimes, she doubted her memories of before were real. Graduating high school, going to clubs with Jen, cramming for a test an hour before class, all seemed like fantasies now.
And Elijah seemed real.
She had lived through seven days without seeing him. She couldn’t be certain if he had or had not been there on any of her scheduled days. Progress. Soon, it would get easier. If it didn’t, well, she doubted she had more than a handful of months to suffer getting past her crush.
Once again, the question loomed: If she didn't have much time left of this near normal, what was it she meant to make of it?
One thing for certain, she would take Jen up on her next offer for any normal social function, be it coffee and donuts or a rave. She would keep her sister in the dark for as long as possible, she would buy new clothes and cut her hair. She would do the things she missed most about the normal days.
Somewhere nearby, a dog barked. Sadie jerked, hurrying across the empty street. She inhaled the scent of wetness in the air, closed her eyes against the breeze so she could feel it on her eyelids. Let there be rain.
Tonight’s dinner would be nice. She would do everything she could to make sure of it. No arguing, no defensiveness. Eat, chat, laugh. Like everything was going to be just fine.
Another bark startled her enough that she jumped. She peered at the darkness, searching the nighttime shadows. Trepidation returned, pricking her skin. “Don’t panic. It’s just a dog.”
She increased her pace, nearly jogging. Two more blocks and she would reach Heather’s. She considered cutting across the wide expanse of park, but the playground equipment and trees’ looming shadows turned her stomach. A howl this time, closer. Sadie gulped, trotting faster.
The wind picked up, fingering through her hair, chilling her bare arms. A growling sound. Sadie glanced furtively around her, behind her. Someone was following her. Something, somewhere in those shadows, stalked her. She gained another block but her feet couldn’t move fast enough.
She heard a snarl, sharp and gnashing.
Her panic vibrated in her throat, shook her hands. Fear.
“Sadie, wait,” the voice hissed and seemed so close, louder and him, but not him and real, but not real. Not possible. She didn’t know what to trust, what was real and what was imagined.
Her throat tightened as she rounded the final block. A fresh round of vicious barking snarling threw her into a run. She wasn’t going to make it. The dog was close. The collar jangled, she could hear his claws scraping the concrete for traction. She was a moving target and Heather’s house was too far away.
She looked back. Nothing was there. But she felt it and heard it and kept running.
She swung the bagged ice cream behind her as she fought to run faster. The tub thudded to the ground. The snarling changed. It quieted. In its place, a low giggle chipped at her senses. Her panic shot into terror. A scream clogged her throat, threatening to suffocate her. Heather’s house stood like a beacon forty yards away. Her vision zeroed on the door.
She had to make it to the door before the thing got her.
A sob choked out of her, a scream building, pressing on her chest. Her legs moved woodenly, clumsily. Her mind’s eye created a vision of gleaming pointy teeth gnashing closer, glowing yellow eyes, a dog that was no dog. She was so close. Only a few more yards.
Then her breath knocked out of her chest and her body propelled forward. Within a blink, she found herself staring at Heather’s door. She spun about, stunned to see nothing but quiet homes and empty street. Silence. A shudder swept over her, of relief or of despair, she couldn’t be sure.
Whatever had been there, imagined or not, was gone. She was safe. In the low lamplight, her white grocery bag shone, stark against the asphalt where she’d thrown it. Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurd sight she must have been. How ridiculous. A grown woman, afraid of the dark.
The white bag ruffled under the soft wind. So much for not showing up empty handed. Imagined or not, the expanse of street may as well have been lava. No way in hell was she going back for it.
Was she losing her mind?
Thankfully, Remy answered the door. “Hey, you. Come on in. I think you beat the storm.”
Her brother-in-law’s warm smiles made it that much easier to breathe and pretend the scare away.
“You’re early,” Heather said brightly and took her by the hand to the kitchen. “I am making the best meatballs ever! Here, I’ll show you how.”
No mention of last week’s appointment. No agendas.
One thing for sure, if her mind was going, Sadie didn’t know how much time she would have left and that meant no time to waste. In between salad and pasta, Sadie texted Jen: “Still want company tonight?”
She didn’t need to see the reply to know Jen had said yes. Her cousin had been hounding her for weeks to come out and play. So she would. Tonight.
*
Elijah released his hold on the shifter and pushed off, putting yards of empty desert between them. A cloud of pale dust rose under her boots as she whipped about, facing him.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded. “State your purpose, seeker.”
Elijah stalked forward, ready to unleash his fury. The shifter stumbled, righted herself and squared her shoulders. She visibly gauged both his visage and her new surroundings, a flat stretch of sagebrush-scabbed Nevada dessert.
Elijah chuckled. “My purpose?” He’d give her this much; being propelled into a new place by a winged stranger wasn’t phasing her. Most immortals preferred more traditional means of travel. “Try again. How about we start with why you’re hunting an innocent human?”
She kept her stance wide but her limbs loose, ready for battle. “Either you’re an Enforcer, or trying hard to act like one. My guess is the latter,” she spat.
Judging by her antics, following Sadie, then chasing her in wolf form, he seriously doubted she’d sensed him all week. Hell, she looked too young to have enough sense to. The hint of lilac in her coloring marked her as different from any shifters he’d ever known. And she nearly glittered with malevolence.
“No Enforcer here. But I’ll be happy to take you to one.”
“Why? I didn’t hurt her. And I wouldn’t have, either.” She flexed her fingers, remaining battle-ready despite her blasé tone.
Elijah advanced on her, ready to pounce. “Oh? I suppose those fangs were meant to tickle her. Hunting this side of realm lines, you’re flirting with more than the law.”
If she was hunting, it was
highly unlikely she’d hunt alone. Shifters willing to hunt mortals—likely to farm out their blood—would need protection in numbers.
He didn’t take her for a vampire, though. She lacked the telltale signs of blood addiction. No wild eyes. Vampires emanated a signal so loud and painful it was unmistakable. Following his gut, he’d stayed close to Sadie and waited. This one had shown up, dipping in and out of his radar for days.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said at last. “But I was testing her.”
“Right. Testing a human for what? To see how fast she can run?” Following Sadie himself for a week, he’d yet to see what Holly did. Now this shifter had gone and interfered.
Which changed everything.
What if other immortals suspected Sadie’s potential?
The shifter straightened. Her ashy white hair swished against her shoulders. Her dark eyes darted from his hands to his legs to his face. “Why are you guarding her?” she asked, looking like she had her own conclusions about Sadie.
Elijah narrowed his gaze on her, feeling unreasonably possessive of Sadie. The shifter dropped to a crouch, as if she would spring on him. He had no intention of hurting her. But she didn’t need to know that. Not yet. “What do you know about her?”
“Enough.”
“Do better than that or I’ll transport you into High Council itself here and now,” he said, iciness making his words sharp.
“She’s a changeling,” she spoke again, her voice crisp in the quiet hum of the barren landscape. “I hoped if I pushed her, she’d be forced to shift, or fight back. I just want to know what kind she is.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. Changeling? Holly had never used the term changeling. She’d implied a half-breed who didn’t know. Never changeling. “She’s not a changeling.”
But as he said the words, the feeling in his gut changed and he knew the shifter was right. But it shouldn’t be possible. Immortals sometimes bred with mortals despite realm lines and strict laws, but humans did not become immortals.
“She is.”
Humans couldn’t change. Changelings were nothing but myth, immortal fairytales. A chill ran over him despite his logic. Mortals weren’t genetically equipped to withstand the necessary evolution. Elijah closed the distance between them. “What do you know of it,” he hissed.
The shifter stepped several feet back but didn’t back down. Her gaze dared him. “I know plenty.”
Had this shifter sensed something in Sadie? The fact incensed further hope in him and Holly’s first words echoed through his mind. I think she’s a messenger, or could be, somehow.
If Sadie was a human changeling, becoming a messenger…Crusoe could be found. If she could be fully transformed, taught to see…. The Illeautians might be stopped before it was too late. But if humans could or were evolving—no. Impossible. That would be too close to the very prophecy that had supposedly inspired the Illeautians in the first place.
The lost verses of the Book of Sorrows predicted the marriage of the mortal and immortal realms, once cleaved in two to protect each race. The missing pages supposedly foretold of the collapse of realm lines.
Elijah’s mouth went dry as his neck flushed with sweat. His gut felt hollowed out.
He couldn’t believe it.
The shifter was just lying to get free. “Who ordered you to watch her?”
“What? No one. I found her. No one else.”
Liar. Elijah paced a slow circle around the girl. A faint coyote howl pierced the silence. The bitter scent of the brush prickled in his nose. It masked the shifter’s scent but she wasn’t cloaking her signal.
“Okay, okay,” she said, fidgeting under his scrutiny, showing him her palms. “What do I know? She’s not a changeling. Happy? I’ll leave her alone”
If other immortals discovered what Sadie potentially was, be it half-breed or changeling, she would be in danger. If a single Illeautian found even a trace of evidence that the prophecy was true, Elijah couldn’t begin to appreciate the consequences.
Would they push the collapse of realm lines and annihilate mortals completely? Or settle for enslaving them? Use them like cattle for their blood and energy, breeding with those who could?
What would they do with a changeling? Particularly a potential messenger?
He wouldn’t let it happen. He’d hide Sadie in the epicenter of the most remote vortex forever before he’d let an Illeautian have her. “I don’t believe you. Last chance, shifter.”
“You don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t make it a lie, though.”
It was all he could do not to grab her by the throat. She’d done nothing provably wrong, though, outside of antics. Elijah snapped the space between them closed.
She stumbled back. “How’d you do that?”
He cocked his head, wary but curious. Did she not know what he was? He grabbed a fistful of her billowing shirt, unfurled his wings and launched skyward.
She screamed, kicking, holding tightly to his arm.
“Tell me who sent you after Sadie now or I transport, shifter.”
Fear thrummed a beat he could hear. She clawed at his hand and arm, her eyes wide on the scabbed ground far below them. “Uh…uh…the Illipticals, er, Illeautians. Okay? Please, just put us down, okay?”
Liar. He could hear it in her. “Why don’t you know what I am?”
She balked but kept quiet, gripping his arm with both hands. “I do know. You’re immortal. You’ve got wings and do the whole blip into space thing.”
What game was this? Elijah spun their bodies higher.
“Okay, stop! I swear to you on my life, I’ll leave her alone. I’ll forget she exists entirely.”
“Why did she spark your interest? Looking for blood? Why hers?”
“Ew, no! Look, I had my reasons. Purely personal. Completely forgotten now.” She wriggled in the air. “I’m not what you think I am. I’m not some derelict shifter. I don’t get off on scaring humans.”
“Return to your brethren,” he said, alighting back down to the hard, crackled ground. “Before you find enforcement on your heels.”
Elijah released her.
Stepping back from him, she gave him a long, measuring look. “I have no brethren.”
His temper flared. “Then find some.”
One side of her mouth quirked up. She laughed humorlessly. “That’s what I was doing. Looking for others like me.” With each sarcastic word, she retreated another step. “But, like you said, leave her alone. Can’t have any unwanted attention, can we?”
Elijah considered transporting her again, but he itched to return to Sadie, to verify she was safe.
The smile reached the other side of her mouth, lending a wicked quality to her delicate features. She crouched down to the dirt. “Just so you know, flyboy, I’m not a shifter. And next time, try not to jump to conclusions. I may be able to help you one day. She’s a changeling and she will want to know others like her.”
Elijah’s rage unleashed. A blink before he could snap through the few feet between them, though, the girl vanished.
He stopped, spun right, left, scanning the sparse landscape for signs of her. None. His mind boggled. Never had he witnessed such a thing from any being. Had she transported so fast he couldn’t detect the thick reverberation?
He couldn’t hear or sense her at all.
Elijah yanked at the compass around his neck, fumbling to read it for signs of a trace. Nothing! If she were fast enough to leave undetectable—“Sadie,” he whispered, dread fingering up his spine. With one last penetrating scan, hearing not the faintest tick of sound, he leapt back to Sadie’s last location.
He landed outside the house he’d shoved Sadie toward, his best guess as her destination before. He gathered in his wings and energy. The sodden ground squished under his steps as he strode to the rear of the stucco home. Soundlessly hopping over a cinderblock wall, he honed in on Sadie’s sound. Finding it easily enough, he switched to a peripheral search for any immo
rtal traces. From its perch on the window screen, a scorpion pointed its stinger. Elijah flicked the thing away and peered through. He could sense her, but needed to see her face.
Safe.
Had the changeling made it here first? Had she come back at all?
Again, his mind wound around the potential consequences of what the creature claimed. If Sadie was a changeling messenger…if others knew or found out…Elijah’s chances of keeping her a secret seemed nil. What would he do if he were the hunter and Sadie his prey?
Peering against the cold glass he saw her, a glimpse, only for a moment, but his fears quieted.
What had he been thinking transporting the shif—changeling? He should have seen there was no real danger. Now, someone else knew Sadie held some significance. Looking for other changelings or not, he couldn’t dismiss his suspicions that there was more.
Who else knew? Holly, Lyric.
Holly wouldn’t betray him for the world. Or risk any chance of finding Crusoe.
Hell, even Lyric could be counted on for Crusoe’s sake.
How much more time before someone else got to her?
He should have let Lyric get a feed off of her from the start. Why had he waited? It didn’t matter now. What mattered now was Sadie. If the shifter changeling was near, she hadn’t shown herself.
Elijah’s heart rate slowed. The pendulum of his indecision fell still. A strange relief snuck through him. He had no other choice, no other answer. He had to interfere, not for Crusoe’s sake. For hers. He couldn’t leave her vulnerable to forces that would exploit her.
He watched through the window as she faked a smile over a meal. Though not visible from his standpoint, he could still recall the exact pale blue of her eyes. The shape of her mouth as it formed an oh. Recalling how strongly he’d repelled her, a fresh layer of guilt came to the fore
Now, he’d have to do more than watch and wait. He had to keep her safe.
More than that. If Lyric found Holly was right, Elijah would have to step into her life and upturn it entirely.
Only one question remained. Could he ease the butterfly from her cocoon without breaking her?