by H B Lyne
'You want us to try something that those nutters did?' Fortune snapped.
'They went insane and turned cannibal. I can't see the win here,' Stone said softly, still steadily counting the money.
'I don't think this ritual had anything to do with that,' Flames said, shaking his head. 'It was a long time before that happened.'
'What did they do?' Shadow asked. He had stacks of fifties clasped in both hands and had long since lost count.
'They split a construct in two. It was trapped in the construct realm, Nidavellir, presumably held captive. When they tried to summon it only a part of it arrived through the veil, just its conscious mind. Like it astral projected from its own realm. They were in Hepethia at the time, not here. That might be the key. Hepethia is like a doorway between all of the realms, it connects everywhere. It's rare to be able to open the veil to realms other than Hepethia from here, that's why we make special doorways to the other realms, that we can open whenever we need to.'
'What happened?' Shadow asked, half rising from his chair without realising what he was doing.
'Well, it didn't end well, in truth.' Flames blushed bright crimson and averted his eyes.
'What happened?' Stone pressed, raising her eyes and pausing the count.
'The aspect they summoned tried to kill them and fled. It was insane. They tracked it and found it embedded in a demon. It went on to become the Barron-of-Blooded-Shards.'
'Ah,' Stone said, going back to her accounting.
'But they did it, they didn't do it on purpose, so they didn't know what to do with it once they had it. If we were in control of the situation it's possible that we could draw out her conscious mind and she could tell us where she was being held and by whom.'
'Make it happen,' Fortune instructed, thrusting the notes back into Flames' hands. He nearly dropped his books as he grabbed hold of them. Shadow had rarely seen Flames so animated, which showed him just how urgently Flames needed to find their lost ally.
'It might be a good idea if I had some help!' Flames snapped at Fortune's retreating back. The Alpha stopped in the door to the hall and looked back over his shoulder.
'You want to bring the Old Man into this?' Fortune asked, his lip curling.
'He's the most accomplished ritualist I've ever known, and you know what it takes for me to say that.'
'No,' snapped Fortune. 'No outsiders on this, especially not him.' He stalked off into the house, leaving the others staring after him.
'He has a point,' Shadow said softly, taking the books from Flames and helping him stack everything into a more manageable pile.
'I suppose,' Flames grudgingly admitted.
'You don't know for certain we can trust him,' Stone said as she bagged up the piles of cash.
'I do. I trust him as much as any of you.'
'You haven't seen him in five years,' Stone said, her voice perfectly steady.
Flames cast her a sideways glance that Shadow saw as plain as day. He caught Flames' arm and wheeled him around to face him.
'You haven't seen him? Have you?'
'No, no of course not. But we've corresponded. He's exiled, not dead.' Flames tugged his arm free and spun away from Shadow, following Fortune into the house. Shadow looked at Stone and they held each other's gaze for a few seconds.
'Is he mad?' Shadow whispered at last.
'No, well, no more than he was yesterday.' Stone stood up and packed the last of the money away into the safe.
'He wouldn't share sensitive information outside the pack, would he? They have a long history.'
'I don't think so,' Stone said slowly. The wary look in her eyes put Shadow on edge.
'We never did really find out whose side he was on.'
'I think Father Ash has only ever been on his own side, Shadow,' Stone said softly. She locked the safe and swept past Shadow after the others. Shadow stood in the silence of the betting shop and stared at the bare walls. It had been months since Caeruleum Lunulam had disappeared from their lives. She was their closest ally, their guide and confidant. She had founded their pack and given them their name long before Shadow's Step had joined them. Her disappearance had haunted Flames ever since. Fortune was a stubborn enough shifter to not be willing to let her go easily and was indulging Flames' obsession. Shadow locked the door between the betting shop floor and back office, before heading into the house after the rest of the pack.
The narrow passage that led from the shop to the kitchen was dark, the paint peeling from the grey walls. He passed the little door down into the basement, it was slightly ajar with dim light shining from the crack around it. He could hear Flames talking to himself and bustling around at the bottom of the stairs. Shadow moved on and pushed open the kitchen door in front of him. Fortune and Stone were standing by the oven, preparing food in tense silence. The kitchen was substantially proportioned, taking up the back half of the property. A large, pine table filled the centre of the room, with matching chairs surrounding it. An old but well-maintained double oven dominated one side of the room, the heart of their home.
Shadow moved into the room and dragged a chair out to sit down.
'Actually,' Fortune said suddenly, turning to face his pack mate. 'Could you patrol before dinner? Check that nothing's twitching tonight.'
'Sure,' Shadow replied, his hand still on the back of the chair. He slid it back under the table and stalked out through the back door into the pitch black yard. He shifted form and sprinted out into the cobbled back street.
3
November arrived in Caerton. The constant drizzle left its sheen on the streets, and fog clung to the air day and night. Shadow hardly saw Flames. He was forever in the basement or off somewhere else, researching his ritual. He had become feverish with excitement over it. Fortune wasn't much better. He barked orders and was spending more and more time in Hepethia, as if trying to commune with the place. Shadow's Step diligently helped Stone to keep their home and business ticking over.
'We have to do it at the full moon,' Flames declared one evening. He burst into the kitchen as the others were eating dinner. Shadow hadn't seen him for two days, but had heard him moving about in the basement. 'Two days' time. I can be ready.'
'Okay,' Fortune said, nodding resolutely. 'Where?'
'In Hepethia. Out on the open plains.'
'Should we clear it first?' Stone asked, not looking up from her meal.
'Yes,' Flames said, as he sat down and ladled out some stew into a bowl. 'There can't be any interruptions.'
'Right. We'll do that tomorrow and make sure we arrive early on the full moon too, in case anything creeps back afterwards.' Fortune returned to his food as if nothing had happened.
Shadow caught Stone's ever-cautious eye. An anxious knot formed in his gut and twisted around his food. He trusted his pack mates on almost all things, but something about this situation didn't feel right. Fortune was a hothead, it was in his blood, as it was in most shifters who changed under a full moon. But he was never usually reckless. He would never have survived as Alpha of their pack for so long if he were.
Flames-First-Guardian had become erratic and feverish since Caeruleum Lunulam had vanished. His normal stoicism had been overridden by his deep passion. Sometimes Shadow felt he hardly knew his brother these days.
*
'Ready?' Fortune asked as he glowered at Flames.
'Yes. Are you?'
'Let's get over there and do this.' Fortune took a step and vanished from the kitchen. Shadow and Stone exchanged troubled glances for about the hundredth time that week, then followed their Alpha.
Crossing the veil between the human world and the shifter world, Hepethia, was like missing a step on a steep staircase. There was a moment where one's heart leaped into the throat, and the stomach, or its contents, got left behind, only to emerge on the other side as if nothing but an ordinary step had taken place. Shadow's Step had crossed the veil thousands of times in his considerable life, so now it didn't feel much different t
o any other step.
On the other side, in Hepethia, there was a near perfect reflection of the kitchen, and of the whole house. The kitchen was warm and inviting, filled with the smell of cooking. The only way it was possible to tell that this was Hepethia, was the way the shadows seemed to stretch and twitch of their own accord.
Shadow glanced around at the others, then followed Fortune as he led them out through the back door and into the narrow, pitch black street. Here it really was black, there were no street lights and the sky above was as dull as slate. The ground was lined with cobblestones and a scuttling sound betrayed the presence of something fleeing in the dark.
The Blue Moon walked swiftly along the street, their footsteps echoing off the darkened buildings on either side. Shadow felt the darkness pressing in on them, but wasn't afraid; the shadows were his allies.
The streets of St. Mark's were built on a neat grid in the human world, but in Hepethia they were a twisted, tangled maze designed to ensnare enemies of the pack that claimed it. Shadow had been new to the Blue Moon when they built it, it was one of his first projects. It had taken months of hard work, shaping the rough crystal landscape into these red brick terraced houses. It was a special gift of their kind, to will their home realm to take any shape they wished. Hepethia was as much a shape shifter as any flesh and blood being that bore that description.
The pack made their way swiftly through the maze, every twist and turn memorised; and headed north into the very heart of their territory. They emerged from a narrow street onto an open plain, where Hepethia had barely been touched by them or any shifters who came before them. In the daylight, the clear crystal quartz shone so bright you could hardly look at it, but at night it soaked up the black and amplified it. There were no shadows, just dull, flat nothing.
Flames opened his palm and a little yellow flame flickered to life in it. He tossed it into the air, where it became a spinning ball of fire that hovered over their heads, casting long, dark shadows out from them.
'Is it still clear?' Fortune asked, squinting out across the dark plain.
Shadow looked all around them, searching the dark for a sign of life. He could see better in the dark than any of them, with the possible exception of Stone when she took to the sky.
'I think so. Stone, you should take a look, just in case.'
Stone nodded and leaped up from the ground, bursting from her human form into that of a brown and white speckled tawny owl. She swooped up above the light and soared out of sight. Shadow searched the sky for her, but she had blended into the black. A few seconds later she returned, shifting form smoothly to land on her human feet.
'All clear.'
'Let's do this,' Fortune said, his voice sharp and eager.
The four of them spread out to form a circle around the little flame overheard. Flames wiped his hands anxiously on his long coat and cleared his throat. Shadow took a deep breath and looked out of the circle into the black beyond.
Flames reached into the inside pocket of his coat and fished around for something. He pulled out a deep blue candle and lit it with a snap of his fingers. He set off walking around the circle, a low hum rumbling from his deep chest. As he passed behind Shadow, a cool breeze fluttered past and a ripple of energy spread out from the ground where Shadow stood. He picked up the hum and began patting a beat with his hand against his thigh. It was a well-practised ritual for casting a circle, one they had performed together hundreds of times. Tap, tap-tap; tap, tap-tap. The others picked up the rhythm and the hum too and the field of energy radiated out from them, sending ripples out across the plain.
Flames placed the candle on the floor in the centre of the circle, then made his way back to his place. A light blue line appeared where he had walked. It glowed faintly in the dark and slowly rose up, forming a protective dome over the pack.
'Luna, give us your guidance. We gather here to continue our search for your dear daughter, Caeruleum Lunulam, Blue Moon. She is lost but not gone and we wish to find her.' Flames' voice held steady and calm, though Shadow knew how fast his heart was pounding, he could feel it within himself through the special bond that connected them as pack mates.
A breeze ran around the circle and Shadow looked up expectantly.
'Bright Luna, we entreat you, please help your daughter come back to us from wherever she is being held. Let us hear her voice, let her guide us to her.' Flames' voice trembled slightly as the breeze that had fluttered past them picked up into a swirling wind around him. The little ball of flame bobbing above them went out, plunging them into near darkness but for the low glow of the protective dome.
The wind died down and Shadow felt his pulse settle to normal from the pounding that it had elevated to. The blue glow around them grew brighter and a dazzling column appeared at the centre of the circle. Shadow had to shield his eyes and turn away. He caught sight of Flames, who had dropped his hands to his sides and was staring intently at the blazing light. The glare settled down, leaving them bathed in soft, silvery light. Shadow dropped his hand and stared into the glow. A woman stood there, tall and slender, draped in sheer blue fabric that floated around her body.
'She cannot come,' the woman said. Her voice was soft and distant, and far deeper than Shadow had been expecting. 'I am Nicaea, maiden of Artemis. What you are attempting to do is dangerous and you will fail. I have been sent to intervene.'
'Nicaea, greetings,' Stone said. Her voice echoed slightly, reverberating off the protective dome around them. 'Please, where is our patron?'
'Gone. Taken. She is no longer in this realm. I cannot sense precisely where she is, but I do know who took her.'
'Who?' Fortune and Flames asked together.
'A pack of Furies called The Witches,' Nicaea replied softly. 'I urge you not to invite war with them. Caeruleum Lunulam is gone. Even if you could return her to this realm she would likely be changed, no longer your loving patron, but altered by her captivity.'
'We can't just leave her,' Flames said hotly.
'You must. Her fate is not yours. You can still turn back from this course.' With that, the water nymph disappeared.
4
'I won't accept it,' Fortune barked.
'With respect, Alpha,' Shadow said as they marched back to the betting shop, 'you have no choice. We have to move on. We have work to do and we can do it without her. We can find another patron if we choose to, although we don't necessarily need one.'
Fortune glared at him without slowing down.
'Find Grins-Too-Widely. I want him to find out all he can on these Witches.'
'Really? I mean I know he would probably help, if we can find him, but I strongly urge you to reconsider.'
Fortune let out a huff and Shadow knew the conversation was over. He fell back, walking alongside Stone. She touched his arm and he glanced at her. She wore the same concerned expression she had for most of the previous week.
'We'll talk him around,' she whispered.
'I hope so,' Shadow replied. 'Isn't it Lily's thirteenth birthday next week?'
'Yes. She's been frightfully moody recently. It could be the first change approaching. I changed in puberty, so she may too.'
'Maybe, but it could be all that normal human stuff.' He wrinkled his nose. Female adolescence wasn't discussed in his culture. It had taken many hours in meditation in order for him to be able to shed the notion that menstruating females were somehow unclean. But he still didn't like to think about it all. Besides, Lily was Stone's little sister and practically his own sibling to boot. He had known her all her life. The idea of her growing into a young woman was decidedly unsettling. Although it would be helpful not to have to worry about her vulnerability so much.
When they arrived back at the betting shop, Shadow's Step didn't go inside with the rest. At the back of the building was a black metal fire escape that wound its way up all three floors to the roof. He scaled it easily and stood on the sloping roof just below the skylight into the building. Looking out over the te
rritory, Shadow felt the darkness of Hepethia gathering around him. The gnarled streets twisted away into the distance and shapes moved against the dark sky.
Somewhere out there was their old Alpha, the shifter that used to lead the Blue Moon. He had been born of a fox's moon, just like Shadow. The wily old fox had danced with the dark and felt it in his heart, but had taken one too many journeys into the shadows and not been able to return. Grins-Too-Widely had shifted into his fox form and run off into Hepethia. His bond to the pack broke, his feelings disappeared from their empathic bond, and yet they knew he hadn't died. From time to time Shadow would see the elusive fox disappearing down an alley, or sense him watching them as they went about their business. Once he had seen the fox watching them from the shadows during a ritual.
Flames had told them it was rare, but known to happen that shifters lost themselves to their animal side and lost their humanity. Sometimes it was an affinity that claimed them, sometimes they simply got too powerful for their human bodies to contain them. However it happened, it was extraordinary every time. There were records of it happening to only a small handful of shifters in Caerton in all of recorded history. In general, shifters lived fairly brutal lives, many died young. Others, like Shadow and Fortune, lived for many decades. No shifter, as far as Shadow knew, had ever died of old age. Unless you could honestly count age as the reason for that crucial moment in a fight where the enemy got the upper hand and finally took the ageing shifter down.
Shadow tried not to think about the end of his life, but the maudlin thoughts caught up with him now, on that rooftop staring into the dark. It could happen at any time. It wasn't likely to be illness or infirmity. It would likely be sudden and painful. Maybe if he was very lucky, it would be at the merciful hands of someone he knew, a friend even. Maybe he would get to say goodbye to someone. He had once cradled a pack mate as she slipped away from her injuries. That wouldn't be so bad either.
A breeze brushed his skin and wrenched him from his thoughts. Shadow strode to the edge of the roof and leapt off it. He shifted form as he fell towards the rough pavement. Bones stretching, muscles contorting, a huge snout erupting on his face. He landed with a heavy thud on his two huge hind feet, his knees flexing smoothly to take the landing. He stood up straight; a seven-foot tall beast covered in thick fur, his heavy breaths catching the cold air and turning to smoky curls. His hands had grown sharp, black claws in place of nails, and his palms bore leathery pads, just as his feet did. There was something bear-like about his appearance; the Agrius shape that all shifters could take, so named for the legendary beast from Greek myth who was half human and half bear.