by Melle Amade
“But you have lied to every other clan there is,” I say. “You’ve worked to destroy half of all the shifters in the world.”
“They have destroyed themselves. Do you know who hunted the silver bears of Mexico and killed them all? You have never thought to ask. You wonder why we kill the Passiefs, yet you never asked who the Passiefs killed.”
My gaze flies to Darko, but he stares at El Oso, his face impassive and dark, eerie in the green light. He said they had been in hiding in caves…
“The vampires wanted to take over Muirderkring South when they were chased out of Muirderkring West by the Eagles and the Ravensgaard,” El Oso says. “Know your history if you want to have an opinion. In great droves, they moved to the south and tried to destroy my people. The only way we got them out was by building an alliance of all the Berzerken. But even then, I knew it would not be enough for these people. These vampire bats live in the night and in the dark and while we love the caves we like daylight, too. The vampires only come out for blood.”
I keep my gaze away from Darko. He has been a friend to us and I don’t want him to see the shock on my face. The truth is, I know nothing of the vampires of this world.
“So, I built a stronger alliance,” El Oso continues. “I took control of Muiderkring West and East.”
“You can’t control everyone,” I say. “You can’t control the world.”
“Why not?” El Oso says. “Who is going to stop me? You?”
With a flick of his wrist, he sends a bolt of green energy at me. It slams me in the left shoulder, knocking me down. The crowd of bears roars in delight as El Oso takes another step towards me.
“You can’t win.” He says. “You never could. Why do you think I was willing to let your father go? Because I didn’t need him.”
“The spell calls for a dove,” I say. I need to show him I’m not as ignorant as he thinks I am.
“And you think your father or even your brother are the only doves in the world?” He asks. “It only shows what a small world you live in. The Hunters got to the clan in Australia before I did. They have known for years I need the blood of the dove to gain power. It is the Hunters who have been killing your people.”
“No,” I breathe.
“Yes,” El Oso smiles. “But I will live a long, long time. And I will find another dove. I have all the pieces now.” He walks over to the floor where I suddenly realize Darko has dropped a jewel from the Ravensgaard queen’s crown. He picks it up and put it back on the altar as I slowly stand up.
“I will not waste these artifacts on you, Nuverling. Your mixed blood will only provide a small amount of the energy needed to transform all of my Berzerken. But you are stubborn and meddlesome and I will not put up with you any longer.”
He blasts another bolt of green energy, hitting me in the right shoulder. I have fire power, but even in this place I need to think carefully about how to use it. About how to make the most impact. How to save Callum and Darko and Roman and my brother.
A commotion at the door causes all the Berzerken to look over. Out of the corner of my eye I see two Berzerken escorting Roman and my brother. It looks like Roman has taking a couple of punches. His eyes are black, blue and swollen. Blood trickles down his cheek. He looks at me apologetically, but I don’t have time to worry about it.
This is the only chance I’m ever going to have.
I send a blast of fire at El Oso but I don’t stop at just a ball. I send an entire fire stream at him, burning his hair and his chest. He lets out a massive roar and drops a green shield of energy between us, keeping the fire off him.
I stop the stream of fire coming from my hands and jump in the air to shift. I want to shift into a dove and let him know who he’s dealing with, but it’s smarter to be a raven in the dark recesses of the cave. As I’m shifting, I blast fire out of my hands in quick succession at the bears holding Callum and Darko. Both are freed and transform just as quickly into their animal selves. We aim for the entry tunnel.
Roman screams at Henry “Shift!”
I swoop down and grab Henry’s shoulder with my talons and tug forward. He turns into a dove just as one of the bears tries tightens his grip. But Callum lands on the Berzerken and sinks his talons and his beak into the beast until the Berzerken howls and jumps back. Roman is midair and shifting when he lands on Darko’s back. The three of us fly as fast as possible out the tunnel pursued by all the shifting Berzerken. They rip and tear at each other in their effort to be the first ones to capture us. But the loudest roar of all comes from the giant silver bear, who barrels over his own people with every massive leap forward as he races through the tunnel to crush our desperate flight.
27
There is no escape. We get to the end of the tunnel and it opens over the sea in a huge cliff. I have no idea how the Berzerken even made it in this way. As birds it would be easy. We could fly off out over the ocean. But as we get to the mouth of the cave we are almost blown back into it. Wind and rain storm around us. I drop down, shifting into my human form and grab Henry under my arm. I drag him forward through the wind as it blows us back. As birds, we are too light to withstand the storm. But as humans we stand a slightly better chance.
Roman, Callum and Darko climb forward on the ground next to us pulling forward trying to get to the edge of the tunnel. The wind and rain have slowed even El Oso. But with their massive frame the Berzerken will be able to get to us faster than we can get away.
“The stairway,” Callum screams over the wind. He’s managed to get to the edge of the tunnel and he’s pointing up the side where I can see narrow stairs leading up to the higher ground, but it’s completely open to the ocean and wind.
“Where the hurricane coming from?” Roman yells.
“It has to be Aiden,” I say. “It must have been the only way he could stop the fire from killing everyone.”
“It’s a little of control,” Roman said. “Maybe he should’ve tried his power out on something a little more low-key. Like maybe a rain shower.”
“Just shut up and get my brother to safety,” I yell. But even I don’t know where that is. As it stands, Henry clutches behind me, clinging to my waist, trying not to be ripped out into the heaving sea.
Darko is pressed up against the wall, assessing the situation as El Oso turns the corner. I blast fire down the tunnel towards them as Callum and Roman pull my brother off me.
“We’ve got to get you to safety,” Callum says.
“I’m not leaving my sister,” Henry insists.
“But we are so much cooler to hang out with,” Roman tugs at his arms.
“Just go with them right now. I’ll keep him back.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” Henry cries.
“Here,” Darko yells at me. He’s clinging to the ceiling of the tunnel, his fingers pressed into a fissure in the rock. “Blast right here.”
I keep one hand trained down the tunnel, sending a stream of fire towards the oncoming Berzerken. With the other hand, I aim at the fissure in the top of the tunnel Darko has found. I blast the crack until the stone explodes and rocks rain down blocking the tunnel.
Callum and Roman are dragging Henry up the staircase. He turns back, seeing the rocks fall.
“Come with us!” He cries back to me.
“I will soon,” I insist. But I keep the heat trained on the crevice, trying to get more rocks falling into the cavern. I know what we’ve done so far is not enough to keep El Oso trapped. And I also know something I don’t dare tell Henry. If this is going to end, El Oso must die.
“Take Henry up the stairs!” Callum yells at Roman.
“No!” I say. “Both of you take him! He has to make it. You have to bring him to my mother.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you!” Callum bellows.
“You have to!” I insist. “You need to get my brother out of here to safety. It’s too dangerous if just one of you take him up the stairway.”
Callum clamps his mouth shut
and turns to Roman, who is gripping onto the side of the cliff and holding one arm around Henry as the rain whips around them.
“Shae,” Callum says. “You better live through this.”
“You just make sure my brother lives through this.”
“I need you,” he says, leaning forward and kissing me quickly on the mouth. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Callum.” The words jolt out of my mouth. But they are true, they are so true. And I only hope I will see him again.
Roman’s feet are sure but Henry misses a step and rocks slide down the side of the cliff.
“Go help them!” I push Callum away and in seconds he’s at my brother’s side, gripping his waist and supporting his back as they move up the stairs.
Callum and Roman disappear up the stairs with Henry.
The pile of rocks separating El Oso from Darko and I rumble. Rocks start to fly past me and well beyond the mouth of the cave, tumbling into the wind and water.
“How did you kill them back then?” I ask Darko. “How did you destroy the rest of his family?” If he’s got any tricks up his sleeve, now would be the time to share them with me.
“We bled them,” he says.
Right. He’s a vampire.
“While they slept.”
He’s a sneaky-ass vampire.
“Don’t you have any magic powers to put them instantly to sleep or something?” I ask.
He shakes his head, his expression serious. “But I will stand by your side,” he says. “As promised.” The determination that infuses his face give me no doubt as to what he thinks the end of this will be.
We’re going to die.
And as he speaks, the pile of boulders bursts open, crumbling to the ground and the Berzerken come pouring down the black tunnel flying at us full of rage and teeth and claws and roaring louder than the hurricane that whips at our back.
We don’t stand a chance.
El Oso barrels towards us, swiping Darko away with the flick of his paw, flinging him into the rock where his head makes a resounding crack against the wall. He falls limp and lifeless to the ground.
El Oso throws his massive weight on me but he is so full of anger and rage, consumed by the desire to annihilate me, that he cannot stop. We’re thrown off the cliff into the hurricane, plummeting into the wind that spins us around and flings us out into the churning waters of the sea. But El Oso does not lose sight of me. We tumble, head over heels, into the freezing cold water, black, soundless, and tumultuous.
The other Berzerken don’t stop at the cave either. They’re falling all around us into the water, but El Oso transforms into his human form and grabs my ankle, pulling me down with him. I struggle to break free, but we descend faster and faster beneath the roiling ocean until we are in the quiet deep dark bottom of the sea. I can just make out El Oso’s shape as he holds me underwater. And I know his plan is to sit down here and watch me drown. He’s three times my size and his lung capacity is greater than mine. He’ll be able to watch me die and still return for air. I hold out my hand, but there are no flames underwater.
I cannot make fire here.
The magic flame I control is no match for the ocean.
To my surprise, as I’m staring at El Oso knowing I am about to die, he moves his hand in a circle and suddenly a green shield of energy forms around us, pushing the ocean back until we are surrounded by air.
We drop onto the bottom of the sea.
I’m on my knees and gasping for breath.
The ocean floats above and around us, kept away by his green energy shield. How can it be possible? A few fish caught in our bubble of air lie on the floor of the sea, flipping around and suffocating. A rope of green energy flies out of his hands and wraps itself around my body. It holds me and keeps my hands pinned my side.
“Why? Do you want to gloat?” I ask. “One last time before I die?”
“No,” El Oso says. “Despite your belief I am a monster. Despite your belief I am evil. I wish only, like anyone else, for survival. I am like any other shifter. And there’s one thing I have noticed about you. You are fearless. You are fearless and determined and will stop at nothing. It seems such a waste to watch you die.”
I struggle to try and free myself from the binding green energy, but I can’t move.
“I know you freed Lady Heather,” he says. “I am in need of someone like you.”
“I will never wear the collar and be your slave,” I hiss.
“If you do not, I will rise from here and I will murder your entire family. But I will not stop at that, I will murder Aiden and Callum and everyone you have ever held dear.”
My heart skips at his words, because I know without a doubt he’s capable of exactly this. But am I capable of binding myself to him?
“Join me,” El Oso says. “I will take you at your word and free you and we will rise. With the magic of the artifact spell I can give you more power than you even know exists.”
“On the blood of my brother!” I shout at him.
“No!” El Oso insists. “You fool, it doesn’t have to be on the blood of your brother. We can find another dove.”
The electric bonds are sapping my power, but I reach deep inside of myself. I can touch the Earth and I ask desperately for help. I suddenly feel all of the power of the Earth coming up inside me, and I burst forth in flames from the center of my being, snapping the energy binds off of me. I only have a split second. I shift into a dove and fly above El Oso’s head while he’s still stunned and looking up at me.
Hovering for an instant, I shift again into human form, grabbing the blade from where it’s strapped to my leg, and I drive it into the space between his neck and his shoulder, pressing it down as far as I possibly can into his heart. The green energy sphere around us crackles and disappears and the sea dumps like a tsunami over us.
28
I tumble and turn, desperately thrashing for any kind of purchase as salt water fills my nose, my mouth, my ears. I have no idea which way is up or down as the water plunges over me. My chest tightens and burns as I’m tossed by the churning waters, unable to move against the power of Earth’s fury.
Unable to breathe.
But it is done. I saw the blood. I felt the blade pierce his heart, I saw the green energy extinguished, I saw him fall to his knees and the water crash over him. He made not even a final attempt to grab me and keep me at the bottom of the sea with him. My body goes limp and I close my eyes, letting the water numb me and throw me around. My brother will live.
I imagine the doves, my family, laying out his corpse on the red desert of Australia. Killed by El Oso and finally avenged. Now I will join them, here in the dark recesses of the sea. They will come and release me from the strange yet beautiful body I was born into. This transformative being of dove and raven and fire.
“Live.” A voice comes somewhere inside of me. But it is not my voice.
“Rise and live.” The voice is crystal clear.
But more than that, though my eyes are closed, I see it, a burning flame moving endlessly in a circle. The flame is yellow, orange, and red and it spins in front of me, full of heat and joy and light and hope.
It is the light energy of my father’s family. My family.
A massacred dove.
It is a being of fire and light and it shows me the essence of what I am too as it moves before me in the deep, dark, angry waters of the Earth.
“Are you just going to lie here all day and let it end?” A sunny, warm voice like my father’s but not my father’s fills my heart with joy and happiness, lightening my spirit. And just like that, the light flies up like a shooting flame, and darts away.
My eyes fly open and black, dirty salt water fills them. But I claw my way after the light, inch by inch, my fingers tear at the water above me and I pull myself through it. Through every rocking churn of the water turning me this way and then that, I grip the water above me and pull myself up. Even though my lungs are tight and it feels like
there is no end to the freezing sea. Until suddenly my fingers break the surface and cold whipping winds of the hurricane rip at them.
With one final push, I tilt my head back and cold, delicious air plunges against my face. I open my mouth and cough out briny water before dragging in deep gasping breaths filling in my lungs with air.
They sear with pain, sharp like a knife.
I rest my upper body against the rocky surface of the water. Salt wetness splashes against my skin into my nose and mouth. But so does air.
I am going to live. The flame of my ancestor is gone, but I will live.
I stretch my arms out to the side, pointing my palms towards the surface. I click the nails of both hands together, letting the fire come to heat my body and light the way. Two flames of light shoot up from my hands. The wind whips at them and pushes them and scatters sparks into the dark, but the cold cannot extinguish my fire. I kick my legs hard and lift my head, holding one hand above and allowing the flame to engulf my entire hand.
And the shore is just there. I swim towards it on my side, one arm raised with the burning flame, the other stretching into the water and pulling against it.
Until finally I touch the soft sandy bottom of the Earth, and step-by-step I make myself stagger up the beach. I crawl behind a rock under the shelter of the cave and curl up in a ball, waiting for the hurricane to pass.
***
The wind is still howling when a warm hand yanks me to my feet.
“Callum.” I press against him, shivering despite my internal heat.
He grips me tight, squeezing the breath out of me, his arms wrap around my body and I bury my face in his shoulder. The wind whips at us but it can’t pull us apart. His breath as warm as he groans against my ear.