Shifters in the Shadows

by Deveaux, Poppy

  Which is in a fortnight, Blue said telepathically. She and her mistress shared a bond the others didn’t possess. Yet all of them could communicate through thought.

  “If anything gets out of my control, rally the pack. Tell everyone,” her mistress paused. “Go.”

  Blue ran to join the others on the watch, hurt. She wanted to be remembered by her human name, not her animal one. Learning the man they were ordered to find was safe, was enough for her, for now. The man she saw at the bar tonight was more than she was able to think about, now. Besides, how could she explain what had happened to her if they ever met when she was in her human form?

  *****

  Seemed the winery next to the mill had many routes to the surface as it did veins of gold.

  Heading down a dimly lit tunnel, the woman in the red dress descended the steps to an underground chamber. She’d seen her share of the metallic luster but there were greater concerns. Like the creature that was pinned to stone in the old miners’ cave, directly below her.

  Taking a pendant from her neck, she unfolded the backing and took out a key. She slid it into the keyhole in the stone and the entrance to the cave unlocked.

  The half beast she had heard screech yanked at his restraints as she crossed the cavern and stood within a hair’s breadth.

  “Is that how you behave after I rescued you from a possible lynching?” The 10-foot tall creature pulled at the binds with its gnarled hands. Part animal and almost human. The pain of the transformation taking its toll, while she watched his nails stretch into claw-like talons.

  “A little longer,” she said, her sultry voice soothing. “You’ll soon obtain the breadth of your power when the moon waxes full.” The long-haired man beast eyed her, wary. “There, there. This is what you said you wanted,” she whispered. Ruby red lips parted near to his newly drooling fangs. So close they could almost touch. “Then you will be mine, my pet. If, you survive.”

  He scowled as she enjoyed him pleading as his back grew and his leg bones turned into hind legs. He wailed from the pain and she smiled. It seemed her conquest would survive to see his first blood moon. She would have enjoyed him not poking around, spying on her and she would have told him everything he wanted to know. He’d seen her change without her knowing it. “If you didn’t want to learn what happens when you’re scratched by my kind of bear, we could have just shared a glass a wine.”

  They locked stares and she gave him a soft, wet kiss.

  The half beast cried as his eyes bulged, his heart pounding, as the blood she gave him following their union roiled in his veins. Yes, she knew the feeling. It was such sweet torture.

  “I’ll bring you your favorite vintage,” she went to the entrance. The beast howled loudly. “I know,” she replied without looking at him. “I could always change you back,” peeked over her bare shoulder. “Or perhaps I’ll find another. He’s here, too, you know.”

  She regarded him coolly through a carved window in the wall. The anguish in the creature’s eyes betraying the lust she could smell in mere reaching distance. “Soon, my pet. Soon.”

  Closing the walled cavern she saw the second creature she’d chained beside him try to free itself. When the man next to the man beast screamed.

  He lunged at her and his binds affixed to the stone loosened. She hurried to twist the key when he broke the binding and rushed at the front wall. The stone gave and he thrust his mammoth paws, pushing the wall as he flew by her. His body growing to a height greater than his fellow captive. Screeching louder as his own fingers lengthened into claws. Hair spread across his chest and belly as his face colored dark as his skin, his metamorphosis changing him into a raging beast.

  The woman crawled from under the fallen stone, weakened, but her regenerative strength easily returned.

  Sniffing the cavern, the beast growled then he lumbered down a tunnel.

  She had to stop him. She had to allow him to complete his transformation before he became a threat to himself and everything in the outside world.

  Checking the restraints of the nearly-transformed spy she’d captured, she whispered. “You were better off protecting the city than coming after me. The other still has a chance. On the other hand,” she said as she left him howling and screeching, no longer human, but a dragon-like skeleton. “You will have the deepest pits of hell awaiting you and any more of your murderous, soul-eating kind, if the salve I’ve given to you hasn’t taken effect.”

  She licked the side of his face as he shrilled in pain.

  “Come the next moonrise.”

  Chapter Five

  The bar crowd murmured. Ridge overheard one side of a conversation, ‘When were they going to cast lots’?

  Trees on the other side of the highway shook. Their branches trembling like a stampede was pushing through them hard and wide.

  A patron ran to the exit and Gus threw an arm in front of him. “Be still.”

  One of the bikers grabbed a bottleneck. She smashed the mouth against the wooden wall making it jagged.

  The runt biker whistled low. “Something wicked this way comes,” he giggled. The biker leader shoved the squirt out of his way.

  Ridge started for the doors when Gus blocked his path. He touched a plump finger to his lips. “Never be the first that gets served,” he shook his head.

  Ridge stared. He was here to work with Griff. Do the rehab and the renovations, and take his share so he could try and begin living life again. He’d let the pain of his loss consume him and he couldn’t stay trapped in the past.

  The owner called over his shoulder to Brad. “Get my baby.” Ridge noticed the kid scramble sporting a toothy smile.

  Gus leaned close and out of the bikers’ earshot. “Baby is my sawed-off shotgun,” he said as if he had read Ridge’s mind. “It can riddle anything from a rascally rabbit to a full-grown grizzly, guaranteed.”

  The runt of the biker gang glanced at Gus and Ridge then he turned back to his gang.

  Gus whispered. “You picked a hell of night, arriving in the middle of what the town thinks may be an infestation.”

  “An ‘infestation’,” Ridge repeated, syllable by syllable.

  “Don’t gimme that look,” Gus said.

  Okay, Ridge thought to himself, wary. “Of, what?”

  The lead biker hollered and the gang walked backward into the bar. An enormous beast broke through the trees and plowed across the road. It rampaged onto the parking lot grunting straight for the saloon. Cars in the lot twisted under his weight as he crushed them aside, barreling down and at the double swinging doors like a 2-story tall bull.

  “Good golly,” the biker leader gasped.

  Gus took the ‘Baby’ from Brad. He took another one from him and handed it to Ridge. “Know how to use one of these?”

  Ridge bobbed his head as everything around him ground to slow motion.

  “Good. That means you ain’t one of them.”

  One of ‘them’. One of what? Ridge noticed the bar people breaking bottlenecks and picking up cue sticks and pool balls from the billiard tables. Gus told him to cock his gun.

  “You ready?”

  It was a regular shotgun, aside from the modification. Like target practice on the gunnery range, thought Ridge. Except he couldn’t see the bulls eye.

  The creature slammed its head into swinging doors. Ridge saw its skull and it appeared half-formed. The fur on its body was matted like it hadn’t fully grown. Its gargantuan head and throat spanned almost the entire width of the lintel. “Is that a, Sasquatch?”

  “Whatever it is, it picked the wrong saloon,” Gus pointed his gun at the beast.

  “It looks like, a ginormous bear,” Brad wheezed.

  The giant beast swung at the bikers and its gnarled paws swiped the leader against the wall. Knocking him cold.

  A couple of bikers grabbed a chair and charged at the thing. The creature swooped them up and smashed them to splinters.

  Gus aimed and fired.

  Yowling th
e creature cupped its shoulder. A dark ooze seeped from its neck.

  “Ooh-wee,” that got him. Gus knocked Ridge with his elbow. “Are you gonna use that thing you’re holding or play jerk-off with it?” Gus fired another round.

  In the haze of gun sprays and beer glass, Ridge hefted his weapon. His memory of combat training ramping to full-throttle. He worked the weapon like he was on another tour with the Marines.

  When he saw the bloodshot red of the beast’s eyes.

  *****

  Edging closer, from the woods, Blue howled to brothers and sisters as they neared the saloon.

  Ridge froze, gun pointing at the snarling beast.

  It was like he felt something was familiar about the creature.

  The beast looked at Ridge and stopped its attack. It glared and the next moment, its eyes softened. Slowly, it approached him.

  Ridge felt the shotgun slip from his grasp as the bar turned eerily still. Everyone inside heard a crescendo of howls that wailed from every direction.

  The creature grunted, then spun and exited the nearly shattered swinging doors. He skirted to stop in front of a pack of wolves. The one with the blue eyes snipped at him, clearly the fiercest of them. She lunged and the pack attacked. The beast swung his arms at the four-legged animals. Watching from the saloon, Gus cocked his gun.

  He fired again and he struck the creature’s middle. The beast teetered and then roared, fleeing into the darkness, the wolves running in vicious pursuit.

  Ridge found his coat, the odor of alcohol and gunshot flooding his nostrils. Gus met him in front of the saloon. People milled around the cars, tipping them right side up as Brad worked a broom around the shards of glass and stains from what appeared to be blood.

  His leg seemed better now. Maybe the assault of mammoth monster had sobered him faster than any meds or treatment could.

  Phoning Griff, he left his umpteenth message.

  “Yo, it’s Ridge. I made it and you’ve got some major explaining to do. You won’t believe what just went down in this sleepy little town of yours. Ring me and let’s get a coffee and you can show me around and I can fill you in before we get cracking on the rehabbing you need me for. Griff?” Ridge’s head filled with memories of him and his brother being estranged for so long. “Can’t wait to see you, bro.”

  He spotted the bikers standing the Harleys and they were talking about taking the ‘beast’ down. The lead biker brushed into him with a cold gaze. Followed by Gus.

  “This ain’t over,” the biker said. “We’re gonna get that freak of nature and kill him. And anyone who gets in our way,” he eyed Ridge.

  “Gus stood between them. “There ain’t gonna be nothing but you leaving my bar and if you show your sorry britches here again, you better back it with cash. You got me, Orion?”

  The tall biker reached inside his leather jacket and his face strained when he held his side. He pulled out a money clip and tossed the bills at the owner. “Don’t need jack piss from you, old man. You’re probably in it with the freaks that have come to this city. That’s right, I outta know,” he glanced at a trio of stragglers outside the bar. “What the hell you looking at?” He stomped his boot and the patrons ran. He looked at Gus. “I meant what I said. Get in my way and I’ll end you. All of you,” he pushed Ridge.

  Ridge shoved him back.

  Orion raised his fist and Ridge noticed the tattoo before he clenched his hand. Shaped like a hexagram.

  A shell casing dropped to the ground.

  Ridge, Orion, and Gus saw themselves staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

  “You get your coke head friends out of here,” Brad aimed at Orion’s gut.

  “Yeah, sure,” the biker scoffed and he got his bike. “You got until the next full moon before we get that bear and the witch. Then, it’s torturing time.” The biker sped onto the highway with the gang giving the bar ‘the finger’ as they drove into the blackening night.

  The moon had arced to the western edge of the coast. Ridge thought he could see the ocean rolling at a break between the cliffs lining the city’s southern edge, feeling the sting from the cold.

  “Unseasonably chilly this year,” Gus noted. Brad went to the bar as people drove from the parking lot.

  Ridge heard the murmurs there was going to be a town meeting. “Want to tell me what’s going on for real,” Ridge said at his truck that had twirled 180 degrees pointing south next to Gus’ vehicle.

  “You know as much as us,” the bar owner said. “Not an auspicious start to the holiday, but a rush, just the same,” the laughter rippling Gus’s belly echoed in the early hours of morning making Ridge smile.

  The guy’s optimism was catching, “Yeah, Smugglers’ Cove is a real hootenanny.”

  Gus’ face scrunched as his stomach rumbled. “Hootenanny,” the bar owner laughed hard. “That’s a rip.”

  Gus gave him the places where he could score himself some warmer clothes and maybe a mechanic. He’d need one who could give his pickup a decent shakedown.

  “Thanks. For the hospitality, if you could call it that, and the directions,” Ridge paused. “Seem to be saying that a lot this morning,” Ridge and Gus pumped a handshake.

  “My pleasure. Oh, and Ridge?

  Ridge eyed the white-bearded man who kept reminding him of St. Nick.

  “Welcome to Smugglers’ Cove.”

  He paused before he got into his truck to drive to the B&B the bar owner mentioned.

  Chapter Six

  Ridge woke up on top of a duvet in a cold sweat.

  A brawl and a monstrous beast replayed in his mind as he pressed himself against a paisley covered wall. His mind unfogged as he remembered it wasn’t a dream.

  Seeing his room, the armoire and a vanity topped with a ceramic wash pan and a water pitcher, jolted him back to the present. The night before started after a beast of a drive. Ridge stood, sweating by the big brass bed.

  Beast.

  The old mining charm of Smugglers’ Cove didn’t make a big as an impression as much as its secrets and from what he’d seen so far, it had plenty.

  Ridge opened the double windows in the room wider and inhaled the sea air. He could just make out the coast from the third story window. He needed to find Griff.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Ridge unplugged his phone charger from an outlet. “Ring me when you get this.”

  He used the pitcher and bowl in the basin and was pleasantly surprised the room had running water. Aside from the old mining milieu, he wondered if the Cove was as modern as he’d been led to believe.

  He always slept nude and after getting some shuteye, he was feeling majorly chipper. Surprised too, to see that nearly all of the snow had melted, after the night pretty much had been freezing. The room he’d rented had a busted shower and when he’d called the front desk, he was promptly informed his was the last available room. Ridge noticed the cars that filled the streets from the window. “Visitors to the city,” the manager had said. Seemed everyone who heard the reports of a Big Foot terrorizing the coast had to come and see the locals firsthand.

  Terrific. Everyone was around except his big brother.

  Rubbing his hands with some liquid body wash that came with the room, Ridge worked it into a lather. He spread it over his chest and arms, using a towel to soap himself. The scent of the suds brought memories of the redhead in the slinky dress and big breasts who’d looked into his soul. He hadn’t felt that connected to someone since—rubbing the towel over his six-pack and across the trail of fur inching below his navel, he tried to remember when he’d last had a date.

  He’d grieved losing his wife-to-be so long, he knew he’d mostly forgotten what it was to feel alive.

  He certainly didn’t have to worry about it when he was in Smugglers’ Cove. Since he’d shown up he’d been nearly run off the road, thrown from his pickup into a ravine and made into a snack by what could have been the town’s ‘Sasquatch’.

  Not the mention a wolf, if that was what he’d run i
nto last night.

  If he didn’t feel alive now, he probably never would.

  Ridge splashed cold water on his face and dry patted his body. Checking himself in the full-length mirror hanging on the armoire, he touched the scar forming and his right leg and tensed. Yeah, I’m alive.

  Here’s the bite that proves it. The marks had started to heal and he was glad the bar owner had looked at it since the city didn’t have a doc.

  Or a sheriff, according to Gus. He was a character. Ridge ran the towel through his shock of hair, the dark roots glinting in the haze of sunlight. He checked his temple. The bump had gone, but it was the lock of pale blond that got to him. The impact from the accident followed by the attack by the wolf after he had slipped into the ravine must have affected more than he’d thought.