by JK Cooper
Shelby spun and saw Sean and his coven moving their hands, drawing wards in the air. Their eyes blazed a pearlescent blue. Something beneath her surged with power, something in the earth itself.
Take the Isluxua, Thyra! Eira shouted in her mind. Take it!
Shelby shifted to human and grabbed the book from the wet soil. A feeling of familiarity ran through her as she hefted the ancient tome. She opened it and smelled the scent of ancient paper.
What am I looking for?
The first key, Eira said. Fen Drüaid ilm Bayndoari.
Shelby flipped through the pages of alien words and symbols. I can’t read this.
Use my eyes, Thyra.
Shelby’s eyes watered as the now-familiar sting rose in them. Through Eira’s eyes, the words became plain to her. The book seemed to respond to her mind, and she found the page quickly.
Fen Drüaid ilm Bayndoari. Of the Druid and the Bandruí.
The ground shuddered beneath her.
Agent Desmond fired her Glock 21 pistol from one knee, moving from one target to the next. They’re no more than shadows! She cursed in frustration. Ejecting her spent magazine, she thrust a fresh one with silver rounds into the magwell and released the slide with practiced efficiency. She drew greedily upon the rich ley lines in the ground and focused her magic, and the world seemed to slow to half speed, all except her. She lined up the targets on an Advent wolf and fired. It went down with a yelp.
Then she saw something, just a flicker of familiarity. A human was walking among the Advent pack, eyeing her with amber eyes. She felt the blood drain from her face.
“Riley?”
She stood, releasing her hold on the ley lines and the world sped back up to normal. The chaos of battle—screams, gunfire, snarls, growls, and howls—surrounded her.
A werewolf lunged for her, but the Goddess warned her. She pivoted down to one knee and fired three shots into the beast’s gaping maw. It turned human as it hit the ground.
Then Riley was there, standing before her.
“Riley? How? I thought you were dead.”
The young agent grinned, sheepishly. “I thought the same of you.”
Moisture welled up in her eyes. “They turned you?”
He nodded. “Long ago, Bryanne. Long ago.”
“How . . . long ago?”
He saw her expression change. He sneered. “You were supposed to die. We didn’t know the town was a Hunter training ground, or you would have.”
She was speechless. He’d fooled her for so long. She hadn’t sensed a trace of wolf in him, but she did now. “Lovell?”
He shrugged. “Turned on the Hunters beside me when they least suspected it. Light work.”
“How?” Bryanne asked. “Why infiltrate the CIA?”
“We suspected you were more than you appeared. You cleared too many cases to be human. I went months without shifting. Do you know how painful that is? Do you know how sickening it was to smile at you and get your coffee? Straight black? Seriously shoulda known you weren’t human right away.” He darkened. “We found your Bandruí sister—Ava, I think?—at MI5, so you know. It . . . wasn’t pretty. We found another in the FBI. Not many Druids left, I imagine.”
He raised a hand in front of him, half-shifting it to his wolf paw, admiring it. “You know what the hardest part is?” Claws extended from his fingertips. “Killing the sexy one—”
Bryanne shot him in the head. She had raised her gun before she could think twice and pulled the trigger. Riley’s body fell backwards as she slumped to her knees. Something inside her broke.
Oh, Goddess, why did you send us to this world to die? Why did you allow yourself to die? Is death all we are? Is that why we were born with a scythe in one hand?
And Ava. Oh, how she wished Riley hadn’t told her. An energy pulsed beneath her in the ley lines. She traced the direction of the current and found her eyes on a naked girl holding the Isluxua.
Eira-mit-Thyra.
The Bandruí sensed the shifting of the air, in the taste of the rain.
Oh Goddess. The first key. She’s unlocking it. Bryanne prepared herself to do what she must.
Bubba had run out of food, but he was pissed. Seeing Mr. Copeland lying dead enraged him. Now who was going to help him with his business plan? He PK’d the silver ball bearings at the Advent wolves with terminal velocity. Well, he thought they were the Advent wolves. They all kind of blended together in the rain and mud and blood and . . . gore.
Ain’t my fault all y’all look alike!
Wait, was that racist of him? He’d have to think about that a little. If he survived.
I really shoulda brought more food.
His rippled physique had degraded as he drew upon his muscle mass with his fat all used up. His skin hung loosely on him, flapping on his arms. Then, a ball bearing bounced off one of his targets, causing it to merely jump in surprise. The werewolf turned toward him, licking its chops.
“Hell no!”
He focused and sent another silver ball streaming through the air. It took the wolf in the head and it went down, turning back to human. He recognized the body of Miranda Kenzie, Tommy and Karina’s mother. He tried to blink away the guilt, shaking his head, but it stubbornly remained. He felt the skin on his neck flap like turkey snoods and his stomach cramped something fierce.
A Hunter sprinted past him, rifle at his shoulder.
“Hey,” Bubba yelled, trying to raise his voice above the gunfire all around. He could barely hear himself. “Hey!”
The Hunter dropped to a knee, took aim, and fired at something.
Ignore me? I don’t think so.
Bubba PK’d a stick into the Hunter’s back. He spun fast with eyes wide, rifle at the ready.
“Eh! Don’t shoot, mofo!”
“What are you doing?”
“You got something to eat?” Bubba asked, knowing he looked like a frail old man. He had pushed himself this far before just to see how far he could before he croaked. The hunger, not the craziness of his experiment, had made him stop.
The Hunter lowered his rifle a few inches. “What?”
“Do. You. Have. Something. To. Eat?”
“You have to be kidding me!”
“Help a playa killa out!” Bubba said. “Just like a protein bar or something. I know you gotta have something!”
The man reached into a front pocket of his vest and tossed Bubba something. Bubba smiled with relief as he opened the Muscle Milk bar. “That’s what I’m talking—”
A Lycan tore into the Hunter’s back. The man screamed and went down, firing a shot from his rifle in reflex, as fate would have it, right at Bubba. He felt a sheen of ball sweat as he reached out with his mind to catch the round, then flung it into the werewolf’s head.
“Save the werewolves, kill the Hunters? Nah, that’s so two weeks ago. Kill some of the werewolves and save Hunters.” Bubba shook his head. He couldn’t keep this up. He had chicken orders to fill.
A light caught his attention. Shelby’s naked backside stood perhaps twenty feet in front of him and to his right. She looked like was reading something, but that wasn’t the craziest thing. He took another bite of the Muscle Milk bar.
Do fine looking werewolves normally glow when they read books?
Athena sprang for Shelby. I am the only Summer Omega this world will know. Her flight was cut short as two wolves collided with her. She rolled through sagebrush then scampered to her feet to face her attackers. Chenoa and Dakota. Good. She needed a warm up fight.
They circled each other. Athena pushed out her interference, clouding the pack link that Chenoa and Dakota shared. Dakota pawed at his snout, as if something had snagged it. Chenoa shook her head.
That’s right, Athena smirked to herself. Harder to fight when you can’t speak to each other, isn’t it? She turned up the intensity, and Chenoa rolled on her back, pawing at her ears. My father has told me much about you, Jaenu-mit-Narya. Chenoa whimpered. Athena pressed her attack, interferi
ng with nerve endings, shooting pain through her. He told me how you tried to protect the Goddess after her imperfection was made bare.
Dakota pushed through for a moment, trying to reach her, but his legs turned wobbly. Athena felt the blood begin to come from her nose with the effort of producing this much interference to the neurosystems, especially after snapping Skotha and Eira’s bond, but it would be worth it.
Dakota hit the ground, shifted back to human, and covered his ears as his mouth went wide with a silent scream. Athena opened her mouth, saliva dripping from her fangs.
Hot pain shot through her body, and she yelped. More pain, like being struck by lightning.
Silver!
Vision blurring, she turned to see Shelby’s dad advancing on her with a rifle. He squeezed the trigger and another three-burst jolt of pain ripped through her. Using the last threads of her Omega influence, she called members of her pack to protect her. She knew they would come. She was their Omega.
Grant drew a blade from a sheath at his waist.
Kale backed away from Mareus, limping and bleeding from his side and shoulder. The healing took effect, but the pain still ripped through his body. He knew if it had not been for his stature, he would have died within seconds of Mareus’s attack.
I can’t beat him, Kale said. He’s toying with me. Never once in his life had Kale Copeland felt like prey.
You are not fighting Mareus, Skotha answered.
Kale stared into the cold golden eyes of the Lycan blocking his retreat. What does that mean?
Jonas Abbot, full in his wolf, lunged into Mareus, clawing and tearing at the Alpha Prime’s back.
Jonas, no! Kale bellowed.
Mareus growled as Jonas sank his teeth into his back, then half shifted back to human and rose on two legs. He reached around and grabbed Jonas with a clawed hand, pulling him from his back like a mere puppy. Jonas’s eyes went wide as Mareus’s claws sank into him, holding him in the air with one hand.
“You chose poorly,” Mareus said, and slammed Jonas to the ground. Still half-shifted, Mareus buried his fangs into Jonas’s neck and tore. Jonas became human again, and still.
Kale roared with the loss of one of his pack, the first time he had ever felt that loss as an Alpha. He knew the pain and rage his father had felt just two weeks earlier when the Hunters attacked. Mareus fell back into his wolf.
His thoughts turned to Shelby, wishing he could feel her presence with him again, within him. She was reading the Isluxua . . . and glowing.
Thyra cannot help you, Skotha said. You must understand who you are fighting, Daeglan.
Mareus pranced back and forth before Kale, taunting him.
I don’t know what you mean! Kale said.
That is not Mareus.
Kale looked into his enemy’s eyes and saw not one shred of humanity. No, he saw the ferocious, savage gleam of absolute wickedness. Something in Kale’s long forgotten past seemed to beckon to him, from the time when he was Daeglan of the Sköllaer on Alsvoira.
Viersin. Mareus had disappeared.
How? He partial shifted. I saw Mareus just a moment ago.
You saw his body, Skotha said. A pause. Then, We gave you our sovereignty.
The price of the union, I know. You showed me.
We gave it to you. You can give it back.
Kale’s mind understood. From behind some mental door that only he controlled, he unleashed Skotha, the first Alpha of the Immortal Wolves.
Skotha stretched into his old body, feeling it for the first time in centuries. He tasted the air of this world, sniffed the scents. Death smelled the same on any world, it seemed.
Viersin’s eyes narrowed. He could sense the change. Skotha saw it.
I will finish the punishment I levied upon you on Alsvoira, Skotha said through the ancient Alsvoiran pack link.
Viersin bared his fangs. I see the boy let you out of your kennel.
Skotha felt strength pulsing through him as he became reacquainted with his body in seconds. Come and meet your judgment.
I was the First! You had no right!
The light around Shelby intensified, and Skotha squinted.
The first key, Viersin said. Athena is not ready.
He turned to sprint for Shelby but Skotha did not give him the chance. He slammed into his old packmate, rolling him into the muddy creek bed. And then, the light around Eira-mit-Thyra became like unto a star.
Grant stepped back from Athena as five werewolves encircled her. She bled heavily but was moving. He sheathed the knife he had intended to end her with and brought his rifle back to bear. A narrow geyser of fire erupted in the creek bed not two feet from him, scathing a wolf who had tried to sneak up on him. Thank you, Wiccans. Dakota and Chenoa found their feet, recovering from whatever Athena had done to them. They backed away from the new arrivals, snapping and barking but not attacking.
They know each other, Grant realized.
One of the five that encircled Athena shifted. Joe McKinney, the gray-haired preacher, stood before Grant, hands out in a placating gesture.
“Go, Mr. Brooks,” he said. “Go now.”
Grant held the holographic red dot of his optical site on Joe’s forehead, not answering.
“This is not easy, Grant. We don’t need to kill each other.”
“I don’t recall being the one who attacked first!”
“Elias lost. Kale defied our laws. It was not—”
Joe McKinney’s head snapped backward as a bullet hit him square in the forehead. Grant flinched. He had not fired. Joe fell, and two werewolves, no doubt Abigail and Anson, sniffed the body then howled.
“Grant!”
He spun to see Agent Desmond, then turned back to the wolves, not letting them out of his sight. He, Dakota, and Chenoa backed away toward Bryanne.
“Look at your daughter!” Bryanne shouted. Gales of warm wind blew the rain sideways, flecking Grant’s face. When he reached their side of the creek bed, he pivoted to see Shelby. She stood naked, her hair covering her breasts, with the Isluxua in her hand. The gales seemed to be emanating from her. Rain blew away from her in all directions, mud and soil on the ground streamed outward at her feet, overlapping rivulets forming and intricate pattern of sedimentary petals. The pattern . . . it was not random. No, some geometric shape sprawled out from his daughter’s feet in the earth.
“What’s happening?” Grant shouted.
“She’s unlocking the first key of Ascension! The ley lines are thrumming like I’ve never felt before, like I’ve never imagined they could.”
Chenoa, now human, stepped to Grant’s side. “When the one who is born into the late hour and blossoms late in the season rises in the world, she will carry the desert winds upon her lips and the fire upon her feet.”
At Shelby’s feet, the petals of mud smoked as tiny blue flames danced upon the ground.
“Fires of wrath,” Dakota said on Grant’s other side, also now human, “she shall use the fires of wrath to flood the earth with tears of mercy.”
A stocky man strode purposefully toward Shelby’s glowing form, pistol drawn, a fatalistic determination across his face.
Jack Wilstead, the Master Prelate of the Western Hemisphere for the Hunter order, had sworn himself to put humanity before all other concerns. The Lord’s Errand required difficult decisions at times, like this one. Grant’s daughter had an Immortal Wolf inside her, and she was going supernova as she read the Isluxua. His order had searched for the ancient record for centuries, risking assets and lives in that pursuit—but the Alpha Prime had obviously beat them to it, causing the Advent to rise directly beneath them. They had been so blind.
And now, right before his eyes and in fulfillment of Lycan prophecy, Shelby Brooks appeared to be rising as the dreaded Summer Omega. He marched straight to the luminescent miscreant and put the barrel of his pistol to the base of her skull. Gusts of wind pushed out from her, as if she were the center of an invisible but terrible storm.
He mo
ved his finger to the trigger, then froze. Something hard and cold pressed against his temple. Looking sidelong, he saw Grant standing 90º to his left.
“Don’t,” Grant said, voice tight.
“I have to, Iron Ice. You know I do.”
“You don’t.”
Jack gritted his teeth and started squeezing the trigger. “Fidelium hom—” He felt the dull ache of something striking the back of his head as darkness closed in around his vision.
Grant pistol whipped Jack with the butt of his Glock and the man fell to the ground unconscious. “Next time you try to justify killing my daughter, try remembering my motto. Familia super omnia. Family above all, bastard.”
He stepped next his daughter, her attention intensely upon the Isluxua, holding down the page she read with a finger as she moved it beneath lines of foreign words. Her hair whipped in the supernatural wind that shot out from her presence.
“Shel?” he whispered.
She continued to read, mouthing words silently. He raised a hand to touch her shoulder but hesitated.
“Shelby.”
She turned her head to him, and he stepped backwards in reflex to what he saw. His daughter’s eyes blazed, not the amber of a Lycan, but the fiery orange and red of a volcano.
Shelby felt the bitter cold seep deeply into her bones as she used Eira’s eyes to translate the Isluxua. Memories from when she was Thyra poured into her, not visions from Eira, but her own memories, piercing whatever veil the crystal portal had placed over her when she traversed to Earth.
The Immortal Wolves protected the secrets of Ascension contained in the Isluxua. The Sköllaer, her beloved people on Alsvoira, had made a connection with the Immortal Wolves and vowed to bring Ascension to pass, that the fractured might be made whole again.