INVISIBLE PRISON (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Mary Buckham

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” I replied, aware of Vaughn’s quick look and cautious smile.

  As team leader she had to think not about her own skin but the rest of us answering to her. Not a spot I’d like to be in with Stone being cagey.

  As if waiting for the tension to get to a level between high-alert and run-like-hell, Stone finally nodded toward a set of other doors to the gym, those leading from the hallway.

  “Come on in, guys,” he shouted, causing us all to straighten to attention.

  The minute the first guy stepped in through the doorway, and before the woman behind him followed, I knew what we’d be facing. Shifters.

  I could smell them, knew the way they moved, braced myself even though they were still across the room and acting as casual as a shifter can. Which wasn’t very.

  If you’ve ever been around a bunch of military personnel waiting for or looking for trouble, you know what I mean. Testosterone radiated from them, muscles flexed, ready to spring into action, body language screaming bring it on.

  The guy coming to a halt on Stone’s left side wasn’t as tall as I was, but his rangy build meant speed, strength, and trouble. The woman was broader, as if she had Viking forebearers, wide across the shoulders, big boned. and ice blue eyes. Running full tilt into her would be like smacking into a concrete wall.

  Stone glanced at Vaughn and Reyes, then swept his gaze so it touched on every recruit before speaking. “We’re here to fight the good fight,” he said, adding, “With a twist.”

  He glanced to his newest instructors. “Up until now we’ve been learning how to physically take down the bad guys. Human ones. Today we’re taking the game up a notch.”

  He smiled, waiting for the low murmur sweeping through the group to subside. Wariness and fear. It wasn’t that every one of us recruits wasn’t different in some way, but possessing some abilities didn’t mean all of us had come up against non-humans. Besides we hadn’t practiced, or even acknowledged publicly what else we could do. Were we supposed to start here?

  Being different growing up meant most of us hid our true natures so revealing them, even in an environment that theoretically appeared safe, was not easy. It was one thing to admit you were fae or a Were, and a whole other to morph into what humans considered a monster.

  So what was Stone up to?

  “Rolf and Bitsi are here to help us learn what it means to go up against beings stronger and more dangerous than the average human. They’re shifters.”

  Bitsi? That’d be enough reason to be a ball-buster. Since shifters were born, not changed like many Weres could be, her parents must have thought giving her a foo-foo name might disguise her true nature. That’d be like giving a buffalo a poodle’s haircut and expecting folks not to notice they were being charged by an enormous shaggy beast.

  So focused on the unlikely shifter’s unlikely name, I missed the first part of Stone’s next comment but caught the end. “… so if the leaders want to—”

  “I think we should get Bitsi,” Dyslexia shouted, earning the swivel of everyone’s attention to her. She glanced around our team saying in a lower voice, “What? She’s a woman. She’ll be easier to fight.”

  “She’s a shifter,” I snapped back, not caring who heard. And since shifters had better hearing than humans, Bitsi already was listening in on everything being said. “There’s no ‘easy’ in fighting any shifter.”

  Stone gave me a small nod and I swear I heard Rolf snort under his breath. But he wasn’t the most immediate problem, being saddled with an idiot with attitude was.

  Dyslexia thrust her hands on her hips, lowering her head to protect her vulnerable neck and rocked forward on her feet. “You don’t care about the team,” she snarled back. “You don’t care if we’re all torn to pieces.”

  Kelly stepped forward to diffuse the tension, but I thrust my hand out and held her back, not glancing at her but staring instead at the woman itching to take a bite out of me.

  “You’re wrong.” I swung my gaze to intersect with Vaughn, then the rest of my team. “No human wins going one-on-one with a shifter. We have to fight as a team or go down. Doesn’t matter if we get Bitsi,” I stumbled a little over the name, “Or Rolf, or Paris Hilton.”

  Not that I thought Paris Hilton was a shifter, fae maybe, but she fit the point I was making. “And if you think the sex, or name, or outward appearance of a shifter is going to make fighting one easier than another, you’re on your way to a quick grave.”

  “Says you,” Dyslexia almost spit the words. “Are you a shifter?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know squat. You’re—”

  “The sister of four shifter brothers,” I ground out, earning a quick step back from most of my teammates, all except Kelly and Vaughn. Even Dyslexia hesitated as fear washed over her face. Fear of the unknown. And since most shifters never advertised what they were, the fact I’d lived among them marked me as different and frightening. Nice way to paint a neon sign on my head. The first to come out. The group might not know what I was, but they sure as heck knew I was related to non-humans.

  I stepped forward, closer to Dyslexia so she was very clear I wasn’t afraid of her stupidity, even if it could get us killed. “Vaughn’s team leader. She chooses. Not you.”

  Not that Vaughn had a lot of choice at this point. If she chose Rolf the whole group, including Stone, would assume it was because Dyslexia forced her into a no-win situation. Right now the tail was wagging the dog.

  Vaughn glanced at me, gave a what-the-hell shrug and cut her gaze to Stone, not the shifters, as she said. “Makes no difference to me. I’ve got a strong team. We’ll fight any shifter you have.”

  Nice face saving move. We were still going to get trounced, but it looked like we could do so in style.

  I gave Vaughn a thumbs up, moving the circle in for a huddle. Yeah, that was Vaughn’s call, but I had a few things to share before all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER 10

  “What do we need to know?” Vaughn whispered, our heads so close it might be hard for the shifters to hear us. Hard but not impossible.

  There were a hundred things I could say but no time, and I doubted that everyone in the group would listen so I cut to the chase. “Hit them with everything we’ve got. No holds barred. Two at a time, wave after wave, and—” I looked straight at Vaughn for this next part. “Fight as if you’ll die if you don’t win.”

  Vaughn nodded, her expression all business. Beside me I could feel Kelly quiver, but she didn’t say anything as Stone announced. “Bitsi, you get Team Princess. Rolf, Team Reyes.”

  That a-hole. The female shifter was just told we were lightweights. Compared to Chiquita’s group maybe but don’t count us out. Not yet. But we’d also dissed Bitsi to the group at large so now she had something to prove.

  Vaughn directed us into groups of two. Kelly was paired with Dyslexia, who didn’t like the combo. Neither did I but for different reasons. Dyslexia would watch out for herself and sacrifice Kelly without a pause.

  I started to say something but Vaughn caught my eye. She had a plan. I didn’t know what it was, but I could trust her or waste precious minutes publicly second guessing her.

  So I bit the inside of my lip and nodded.

  But if she was wrong and Kelly got hurt, Vaughn would pay for it.

  Her look told me she knew exactly what I was thinking. Good. We understood each other.

  Stone was calling both groups to attention. “Monroe, your team to the south end of the gym. Reyes, you take the north end. If you hear my whistle you stop fighting. If you don’t, you fight until your shifter sparring partner is pinned to the floor, both shoulders down for a count of twenty seconds.”

  I noticed he didn’t say immobilized.

  Bitsi swaggered toward us, taking her time, a smirk playing on her thin lips, her hands loose at her sides.

  Nerves scampered up my spine like a horde of ants at a picnic. I’d been initially teamed with two w
omen I didn’t know well. One was Skylock and the other Brianna or Brie something. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Skylock’s skin slip a little, telling me she was non-human, and didn’t have a lot of control over her otherness.

  Not good news. Most of us revert to our base instincts when we get truly scared. If that baseness was non-human, a fight could quickly turn ugly. Think bar fight with everyone amped up on PCP or any other drug that made the fighters forget that there was a world of difference between broken bones and heads torn off.

  Stone hadn’t given us any parameters of what we could or could not do. For me that meant the fall back position was ask forgiveness not permission.

  If Bitsi badass here got out of line and stopped holding her punches, then I’d let loose with a few of my own. As soon as I could remember them. That was the other side effect of an adrenaline spike—a frozen memory.

  Vaughn shouted directions for where we should stand. Seven didn’t divvy up into three groups evenly so Vaughn made me a roving member. We’d attack two at a time. If one of the team went down, I’d jump in. If two went down the next team would charge. That way Bitsi might eventually be worn down enough to take down.

  I’d start three on one, then slip into my roving role. If we were lucky, we’d take down the shifter early.

  It was a shaky plan.

  A quick glance over my shoulder showed me the Reyes’ group was taking a different approach. Every team member was circling Rolf, a dog pile approach. Given their group had more weight and strength, their course just might work.

  My team of three stepped toward Bitsi. We were first wave. I swallowed, deeply, knowing my two mates were just as scared, just as panicked as I was, but they were here. Good start.

  “Come on, fur ball,” Skylock taunted, another part of our strategy. Most shifters had easily pressed hot buttons. A pissed person, human or non-human, reacted rather than acted. They might be the aggressor for a short burst, but emotional fighting used up resources faster. Once your anger waned, the levelheaded defenders became the bigger threat. The ones who could keep their cool the longest tended to survive.

  Skylock stepped closer, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  None of us had any idea what Bitsi became when she shifted. Could be a cat-like creature but there was a huge difference between an enraged alley cat and an enraged tiger.

  In a triangular formation across from Skylock I tried to get Skylock’s attention to tone it down a bit, but she was either totally focused on Bitsi or ignoring me.

  “Or are you a bitch?” Skylock threw out, dancing way too close to the threat. “Here, Fido. Catch a bone.”

  Bitsi lunged forward, so fast she was just a blur, swiping one meaty still-human paw toward Skylock and sending her ass over teakettle through the air even though I’d seen Bitsi pull her punch. I could feel the thud of Skylock landing on the gym floor through my own body. She didn’t move either.

  “Now,” I shouted at my other teammate and jumped toward Bitsi’s back.

  Bri remained frozen in place.

  So there I was, arms wrapped around Bitsi’s neck, legs sandwiched around her waist, hanging on for dear life. Alone.

  My dad had raised a few saddle-broncs for the rodeo and had always warned me to stay clear of them. Now I knew why.

  Bitsi reared back, then forward, then sideways, her arms over her head, grabbing for my neck, doing everything possible to dislodge me. But I was Idaho-born and we didn’t dislodge easily.

  Vaughn shouted something and Kelly and Dyslexia attacked. Or at least Kelly did. She head butted Bitsi in the solar plexus.

  Smart move—low and hard.

  The shifter oomphed and grabbed her middle which toppled us both over backwards.

  Not so nice.

  Dyslexia kept tap dancing just outside arm’s-length of the two of us, being as useful as a Band-Aid on an arterial bleed.

  Kelly leaped on Bitsi’s legs, the three of us rolling across the hard floor like pigs in a blanket on speed.

  If…we...could…just...hold...her…down.

  But Bitsi wasn’t a lightweight shifter. With a roar that sounded part wart hog, part buffalo, she rocketed to her knees and threw me off.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kelly still holding on for dear life.

  Then she disappeared.

  CHAPTER 11

  I blinked, wiping sweat out of my eye. What had just happened? Where was Kelly? Had someone evaporated her?

  I didn’t feel magic, but one second she was there, then she was gone.

  But I didn’t have time to think as Bri turned tail and ran, escaping by the closest door leading outside. Dyslexia remained stock still, not attacking, not helping, and sure as hell not watching out for her team.

  Bitsi lunged to her feet, releasing a bellow and leaving me sprawled on the floor.

  Vaughn threw herself forward in a rolling dive, aiming for the shifter’s legs, but Bitsi was too quick, side stepping our team leader and leaping toward Vaughn’s partner who skittered backwards. Toward me.

  I was scrambling to my feet, getting out of the way of the train wreck barreling down on me when Bitsi stumbled and tripped, face planting forward across the gym floor, fetching up right in front of me.

  Thank the Great Spirits for small favors. I dived for her back; the goal to immobilize her. That’s all. If I could hold on and press down she might be out of the fray.

  But even as I clawed for a good handhold I felt it. Magic flew across me, raining down, jamming my movements, as if I’d suddenly lost all muscle control.

  Bitsi twisted, flipping me on my back, smashing her elbow into my gut, snarling inches from my face.

  I could see the magic was impacting her, too. Like a rain dousing everyone in the vicinity, only Bitsi’s response was to shift. White rimmed her eyes as her nose started to morph, her hands lengthening, her bones crunching.

  And I was beneath her.

  Every instinct screamed flee, but she had me pinned down so well escape wasn’t an option. Neither was doing nothing. So what was a third option?

  Through a bone-dry mouth I started chanting a wolfbane spell. The only protection spell that came to mind.

  “Protection bring, guide, and hold. Moon called and cursed, evil and threat cease. Protect from harm and bane, cast off dark of night to light of day.”

  But it wasn’t working. First no muscle-control, now no spell ability? What the hell was going on?

  Slobber dripped from Bitsi’s snarling mouth, her nose elongating into a snout, her teeth growing jagged.

  Shifting was not easy and pain brought disorientation. Someone was forcing her to change and if she completed the transformation, we were all dead.

  Only very well trained or very old and experienced shifters could retain enough of their humanity once they became their base animals not to be an immediate threat to humans. All other shifters became hunters, with humans as the prey.

  If I couldn’t protect myself from her, maybe I could block the waves of magic sweeping over us.

  I had no charms, no herbs, no salt, but I had my words.

  “Heed and hail, gifts of the witch. Come hither! Come hither! Bind and bound, cease and wither. Go forth! Go forth! Swirl and sweep as wind to night. Be gone! Be gone!”

  The magic stuttered, not gone but slowed.

  Whomever was casting was strong or had extra help. Plus I could taste that they were practicing black magic. To counter it I needed black magic.

  But last time I’d used that power I’d killed a man. Not intentionally. Here? I could kill Vaughn, or Kelly, if she was still around.

  Shoulders biting into the floor, fear-driven sweat soaked my skin.

  Vaughn shouted orders for the rest of my team to pounce, but I raised my hand, stopping her. If the other teammates attacked we’d all die. Bitsi was struggling against the magic, but if rushed her shifter self would respond.

  I closed my eyes, the easier to concentrate on what I needed to do. Biting my lip to cut
back the scream I knew was to come, I thrust my left hand deep into Bitsi’s gaping jaws.

  She snapped, lowering her jaw. Hyenas were known as bone-crushers for a reason, but as long as I could keep my fist and arm angled straight on into her mouth and acting as a wedge in her throat I hoped to minimize the carnage. If my arm shifted, I’d lose my hand in a heartbeat.

  My whole body arched as teeth ripped into my flesh, pain roaring through me.

  But I got what I wanted. Blood. Human blood.

  With my other hand I gripped beneath Bitsi’s neck, causing her to shake her head to end my pinching her throat muscles. The goal was to get her to release my hand.

  The taste of my blood in her mouth worked against me. Like teasing a wild animal with the drippings from raw steak, she wouldn’t be satisfied until she gorged herself on fresh meat. And what were humans except raw meat?

  It felt like a million years before I could yank my raw and mangled hand free.

  I only had seconds to do what I hoped would counter the magic pulsing around all of us.

  Sweeping my mangled hand above my head to touch the floor and in as wide an arc as possible, I smeared my blood against the floor.

  A full circle would work better, but I couldn’t reach that far. As it was pain whipped through me, draining me as I needed all my focus on survival. If I didn’t live, the others would die.

  Bitsi’s eyes went red.

  Blood lust.

  I started the chant, my voice so wobbly it was almost indistinguishable from a whimper.

  “Blood to blood,”

  I brushed my bleeding hand against the floor, blind to whether the move was working or not.

  “I call thee forth. Heed and hail, gifts of the witch.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement, but ignored it. Ignored also the screams coming from Chiquita’s team.

  Rolf must be shifting, too.

  I started again.