Seeds of Autumn: A Dark Shapeshifter Urban Fantasy (Echoes of the Past Book 1)

by H B Lyne

  'Honestly, I haven't had time yet to even think about it. I guess, now you mention it, it is weird. I understand a bit about the shifter trait in our blood and that some of us change and some don't, so my biological family must have a history of it and yes, I would like to learn about that. I never used to think it was important, but my views have changed recently.'

  'Well then,' said Ragged Edge, standing up. 'Come with Shadow to the gathering tomorrow and meet the others. You have promise, Ariana, and I think you will be accepted should you choose to join.'

  Ariana stood up with the others, confusion filling her as Ragged Edge shook her hand again.

  'I'm sorry, but join what?' she asked cautiously.

  Ragged Edge looked quickly between her and Shadow and then smiled warmly.

  'Why, Odin's Warriors, of course.'

  The elder shifter placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and gave her one last long look, like he was studying her, reading her. She thought of the ability Shadow had taught her and became uncomfortable under Ragged Edge's careful consideration, wondering if he was doing that to her. She wondered what he would glean from her soul.

  First Strike opened the door and the four of them filed out through the club, drawing the wary attention of the other members, who looked up from their strong liquor and stalled their conversations to watch these four strange characters stride through the stuffy lounge.

  Ariana thought it a very odd place for shifters to meet, but supposed there must be reasons for it. Ragged Edge could easily have been a member of the club for decades.

  They stepped out into the cold night and said their goodbyes. Ragged Edge set off one way up the dark, tree-lined street and First Strike walked with Ariana and Shadow to the other end of the street before taking a right where they turned left.

  Ariana and Shadow moved quickly through the streets of Old Town. Ariana's head was still spinning from the bizarre meeting with Shadow's friends. She was annoyed that he hadn't told her anything about them or why they were meeting them and resented being assessed like that without her knowledge. What if she didn't want to join this group? She knew nothing about them. Shadow had promised to talk to her about it when they got back to the betting shop, so for now Ariana was silently stewing over it.

  When they arrived back at the shop the rest of the Blue Moon were busy with their own tasks. Shadow took Ariana to the kitchen and started to get food out to cook for the pack. Ariana stood and watched him as he started chopping meat and vegetables. She leaned against the tall freezer and crossed her arms over her chest.

  'Well? Are you going to tell me what that was all about?' she asked him, a touch impatiently.

  'What is there to say?' he asked, not looking up from his work. He tossed her an onion and she grudgingly joined him at the worktop and began chopping.

  'What if I don't want to join Odin's Warriors?' she mumbled.

  'You will,' he chuckled and they glanced at each other, Ariana reluctantly smiled back. 'You won't be able to resist now you know they exist. The fight will call to you, from your very blood and you'll be drawn to others who feel the same.'

  Ariana watched him carefully for a long moment. She thought of the way Eyes had been drawn into his thoughts when they talked about fighting.

  'Is Eyes a member? Or will he be?'

  'Maybe. That's for him and Fortune to talk about. I suspect Fortune has other ideas for Eyes though,' he said softly, throwing chunks of beef into a pan. Ariana frowned but didn't say anything. It wasn't the first time she had felt that each of the older Blue Moon members were steering their protégés toward something. Maybe that was normal among their kind though, there were a lot of things about their society that were different from what she was used to and every day she was sacrificing a little of her old life and her old expectations. She wasn't in control of her own destiny, but she realised now that she never had been. Her whole life had been steering towards this change and this life. She didn't know what she was meant for now but she felt it was something important.

  'I need you to tell me more about them. I think I know what you mean about being drawn in a certain direction, but I am still a rational being and I still need information to base my decisions on, Shadow. I can't promise I will always follow you, I might want different things to you.'

  He stopped chopping and looked at her.

  'I know,' he sighed. 'Just as in human society, shifters each have their own interests and talents. Some of it is in our blood. Weaver was born a prophetess and she can't change that, but that's not all she is. You were born to fight, you've always known that, so was Eyes but you won't necessarily both feel it pulling you in the same direction. You're drawn to the dark places, to the silent kill. Eyes is, well, he is a born leader. Like Fortune. Odin's Warriors attracts both kinds and everything else in between, but we're spiritual at heart. I can't really tell you much more, you have to see for yourself.'

  Ariana was intrigued. One of the things about her martial arts that had always called to her was the inner peace and stillness it gave her, the focus she had learned from years of meditation and the ability to listen to her spirit. It wasn't something she really talked about much, but it had always been present in her life and it was something she had applied to other areas of her life too.

  She was a no nonsense kind of person, she didn't articulate herself that well all of the time and she didn't think this was something she could or should share with anyone. Had someone else tried to tell her they felt those things before she might even have dismissed it as hippy crap, despite sharing those feelings herself. But Shadow telling her this now made so much sense and different cogs of her life suddenly clicked into place and were finally turning together.

  'Ariana? Ariana?' he was saying her name softly and she realised that she had drifted into her own little world for a moment.

  'Hmm?' She slipped back into the present moment and took a deep breath. 'I was just thinking about how that made sense. The spiritual thing. Are there other groups then?'

  'Well, not really in the same sense, not organised groups as such, but we each have other friends among our kind.'

  'Who are the Scroll Keepers?' Ariana asked, going back to her chopping.

  'They're record keepers, basically, they do a lot of research into bloodlines and shifter history. There aren't many of them now though, there doesn't seem to be as much appeal in that course for many young shifters,' he said with a sad sort of smile. 'Flames is one of them, though. We'll talk to him about looking up your line.'

  Ariana stifled a snort of surprise, causing Shadow to look up from the cooking.

  'Sorry,' she said, trying not to laugh. 'That just caught me off guard. But I suppose it makes sense. I guess it's a fairly solitary calling?'

  'Yes, mostly.' He was trying not to smile but the corners of his mouth betrayed him and soon they were both laughing as they finished frying the meat and onions.

  'Ariana,' Shadow broke the laughter with a return to his quiet and serious voice. Ariana stopped laughing. 'The pack comes first. We may have other contacts and friendships outside of the pack, but we're family and we always come first.'

  'I know,' she put her hand over his and looked into his eyes. 'I know that. I feel it.' She smiled and to her relief he returned it with a smile of his own.

  'Well that's okay then.'

  The pack assembled briefly for a meal and Ariana told Weaver all about meeting Ragged Edge and First Strike. Weaver had never met them and listened with interest. All too soon Stone was whisking Weaver off, Fortune left with Eyes and Flames took Wind Talker out. Ariana sighed, longing for a time when their training would ease off and the youngsters could all spend some more time together.

  Chapter Nineteen

  25th November

  It was gone midnight and Ariana was starting to get tired, having spent the day training and an evening out across the city. But her mind was buzzing and she slunk out through the back door for some peace and quiet in the still night before tu
rning in. She climbed the fire escape and went onto the roof to look out over the city.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and she looked over the territory, pausing to peer into dark corners and the shadows between cars. It was as though she were automatically tuning in to the territory, the way Shadow had been teaching her to.

  A movement half a block away caught her eye. Just a glimpse of a shift in the shadows, but it had her attention. It was the same shifting in the corner of her eye that she had been experiencing for a few days. Stepping to the edge of the roof and peering over she tried to focus on the movement, but her dull senses weren't up to the task and with a sigh of frustration she shifted into the form of a wolf. She ran along the edge of the roof, just above the guttering, all the way to the end of the terrace and leaped down onto a garage roof and down to the ground. She set off running after the mysterious shadow.

  She caught the scent of an intruding shifter. For a split second she contemplated going back to alert Fortune, but knew that she had one chance to track down the intruder. So she put her nose to the ground and set off. The trail was incredibly hard to follow, it was a much lighter scent than she was used to and she lost it a few times, only picking it up again when the wind made subtle shifts in her favour. It was male, so it couldn't be one of the Witches and it wasn't a familiar scent from the Wrecking Crew either.

  The trail led her to the southern edge of St Mark's and the boundary of Blue Moon territory, but it didn't cross the border into China Town. She followed it up a dark alley to another fire escape like the one at the betting shop. She shifted silently into her human form and climbed the ladder deftly. She came out onto a flat rooftop with high walls and a small cabin in the centre with a door into the building. Deep shadows were thrown across the roof by the orange street lamps just below roof height. She could feel the presence of the one she had been following, though she could no longer smell him in her human form.

  Her heart hammered in her chest but she summoned her courage and called out.

  'Hey. Who's there?'

  A movement behind the cabin got her attention and a slick, dark grey wolf padded out, his nose to the floor in submission. He shifted before her into a tall, slender young man with long black hair tied in a loose ponytail, his clothes were dark and loose and he wore a pendant on a leather strap around his neck. He raised his hands and stepped into the light.

  'Hi. I'm sorry to alarm you. I crossed into your territory in pursuit of...' He stopped and looked at her hard for a moment, a small smile of wonder crept onto his face. 'Huh.' He dropped his hands and cocked his head.

  Ariana took a defensive stance and watched him carefully, she felt a strange sense of connection to him, a glimmer of trust and warmth, but she didn't entirely trust the new feeling.

  'What?' she snapped at him, narrowing her eyes.

  'She's called to you,' he whispered, stepping closer to her again. 'You're on the path.'

  Ariana twitched, confused, to say the least.

  'What are you talking about?' she hissed at him.

  'Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude, she's called to you, hasn't she?' He smiled, but faltered seeing her confused expression. 'Oh. You haven't answered the call yet.'

  Ariana planted her hands on her hips and scowled at him. She did not appreciate being spoken to in riddles.

  'Look. You can't just run across other people's territory,' she huffed at him, impatiently.

  'I know. Fortune knows me, he gave me permission to cross your territory when I need to. Check with him. I swear. You must be new to the Blue Moon. My name's Hunter.' He took another step towards her and Ariana twitched nervously. He held up the pendant around his neck so she could see it in the light. It was a circle with a hole in the middle and there were small runes carved into the metal. She squinted to see them clearly, cursing herself for not having paid enough attention to the runes Flames-First-Guardian was always using in rituals. It was the written language of their kind, but there had been no time yet for her to study them.

  Deciding to save face rather than admit she couldn't understand his apparent free pass, she relaxed.

  'Okay. So what is this Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude?'

  Hunter smiled and Ariana couldn't help but smile too.

  'I think she'll be making that clear to you soon.'

  Ariana flung her arms up in exasperation.

  'You aren't going to give me a straight answer are you?'

  Hunter burst into a warm laugh.

  'No.' He looked down in mock sheepishness with surprising schoolboy charm. 'It's against the rules. I can't show you the path, you have to find it for yourself. But I can tell you've been called. You feel it too don't you? We're on the same journey, you just haven't let yourself follow the path yet.'

  Her conversation with Shadow rang in her ears, about being called by her blood and suddenly she wasn't sure she was meant for Odin's Warriors, but that didn't feel right either. Did it have to be one thing or another? Could she have two things calling her? Something else tugged at her memory too, Grins-Too-Widely had spoken to her about her path. He'd used that word, path, just as Hunter had.

  'Are you all right?' Hunter asked softly, he took a few steps towards her. She startled a little but quickly regained her composure.

  'Yes, fine, thank you.' She didn't know where to look.

  'You know what I'm talking about now, don't you?' he whispered. She nodded and closed her eyes as the pieces began to fall into place in her memory. 'Good,' he whispered in her ear.

  Then he was gone and she opened her eyes with a start, just in time to see him disappear over the side of the building. She ran forward and leaped up onto the high wall with ease, but by the time she had got her balance and leaned over to look down into the street he was lost into the shadows.

  She searched the street below for him but he was gone. Ariana jumped back down onto the roof, propped her elbows on the wall and stared out at the night. The shadows she had seen in her dreams and those demons that had disappeared suddenly on her catching sight of them now felt as though they were taunting her, inviting her to follow. In Hepethia a darkness demon had even grabbed her, perhaps to drag her into the chase, or possibly just to claim her as its own. She wasn't sure, but she did know now that it wasn't all coincidence.

  As if on cue, movement caught her eye a few car lengths away and the shadows seemed to blend and shift around something. It was Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude. She knew it. She felt the elusive being calling to her, begging her down from the roof. It was three storeys, she was not about to jump as Hunter had. She ran for the fire escape, descended swiftly and shifted back into her wolf form in the dark alley, before sprinting out into the street.

  Hunter's scent was gone already, Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude left no scent either, but she felt her call and followed it. The shadows seemed to dance before her, teasing her and she pursued the spirit relentlessly across St Mark's, unsure whether it was a demon or fae. It took her all over her territory, past her flat just a few blocks away from where she had started, up alongside the river and into Northgate where the factories churned and hissed. The shadows here were deep and dark and Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude led her right into them. Ariana felt the shadows clinging to her, hiding her from prying human eyes, she knew her scent would be light, almost impossible to track, just as Hunter's had been.

  The chase took her east into Redfield and then south, past the looming telecoms tower and back into St. Mark's. She was led down back streets, through gardens and through the underpass that enabled pedestrians to cross the huge roundabout where the two dual carriageways that crossed north Caerton met. The lights in the underpass were out and it was pitch black. Ariana raced through, soaking up the darkness and when she emerged on the other side her fur had absorbed it and turned a darker shade of grey.

  Ariana knew that she wouldn't ever catch the spirit, that wasn't the point, the point was the chase, the quest, embracing the darkness and running in the night. It was thrillin
g and everything she had been excited about since she first knew what she truly was.

  Eventually it led her home to the back yard of the betting shop, where Shadow's Step was sat waiting for her on the step in front of the back door. He smiled as she strode into the yard, resuming her human form with a wild grin on her face.

  She could feel the most important words of her new life pulsing through her. She felt the call of the night, Pursuit-of-Midnight-Solitude had spoken to her as she ran and called her by her true name.

  'Are you all right?' Shadow asked, still smiling knowingly.

  She nodded, breathless from her run.

  'Yes,' she managed to say at last. 'I met someone.' She threw her head back and looked at the cloudy sky. Light rain fell on her face.

  'You've changed.' Shadow stood up and stepped towards her. She looked at him with a broad grin that wouldn't go away. She felt something brush against her legs and looked down to see Grins-Too-Widely slinking past them. He sat down and looked at them, they returned his gaze.

  'Did you enjoy your run, Stalker-of-Night's-Shadow?' he asked and she laughed.

  'Yes. How did you know?'

  'I know your spirit,' he seemed to shrug before twisting and disappearing back across the veil.

  'Stalker-of-Night's-Shadow?' Shadow raised an eyebrow.

  'Yes. That's my true name.' She felt warmth spread from inside her and her skin glowed suddenly in the darkness of the back yard. She looked at her hands in amazement and then lifted them carefully to her face. She felt the runes flare up on her skin, they faded just as quickly as they had appeared. The marks would be invisible, but they were there on her spirit, the runes that represented her true name. Stalker smiled, finally she felt whole.

  Chapter Twenty

  That night Stalker-of-Night's-Shadow slept with the pack, though Stone and Flames weren't there. Beside her, Weaver was restless all night and Stalker got flashes of images of her nightmares through the pack telepathy, though by morning she couldn't remember anything about them.