by Oxford, Rain
“Mom, you wouldn’t.”
“You’re still young enough.”
“I’m eleven.” I had just buttoned the jeans when everything shook violently. “Mom?!”
“It’s okay! It’s an earthquake! Get under–”
I reached for the lock, but the shaking started again. I fell and busted my elbow on the bench seat. There was screaming from outside the stall when the lights went out, but I couldn’t hear my mother. I imagined terrible things that could have happened. Before I could get up, I heard a loud snap and part of the ceiling collapsed on top of me. It didn’t hurt, but it did pin me down.
When the door opened, it wasn’t my mother who pulled me out from the rubble but a policeman, and he was dragging me out of the dressing room. I tried desperately to squirm out of his grip to find my mother, but he was too strong. Unfortunately, he wasn’t strong enough to hold on when the floor collapsed. I fell through the dark, screaming.
I must have passed out for a while, because it was quiet when I felt a presence behind me. Although there was no light, I didn’t feel like I was in danger. When fire suddenly erupted from the floor, I tried to get away from it, but my ankle was sprained so I had to crawl. A thin line of fire followed me faster than I could get away from until it closed, forming a circle around me… and turned blue.
The man I sensed became visible. ”You’re the man from the science museum!” I said.
He put his finger to his lips to shush me. “This will protect you for the moment, but the dog has your scent.” His voice was low, though not a whisper, and thick with an English accent, like I heard on television.
I glanced at the blue flame, wondering how fire could possibly protect me from anything. “The dog?” I whispered. I wasn’t afraid of dogs.
“He’s not after you; you were just unfortunate enough to get caught in his game. Unfortunately for him, I have use of you. I’m going to drive him off, so don’t leave the circle until I can return for you.”
“It’s fire. What if it spreads and kills me?”
He stepped through the flames, completely unaffected by it, and crouched in front of me. “I know this is confusing to you. You have no idea how much power runs through your veins, nor the enemies you attract. Nothing about magic is so simple as that. This looks like a regular circle, but it is one of the most powerful forces of protection. The energy in the circle turns the flame blue. This is to prevent your enemies from listening in. You have to be able to see through the dog’s illusion. You have to remember this.”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped before I recognized her presence. Relieved, I turned and hugged Astrid. “How are you here? How did you find me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where we are or how.”
I let her go. “What’s this?” I asked, wiping the blood off her chin before I realized what it was. “Blood? What happened? Are you hurt?” I glanced back to ask the man to get help, but he was gone.
“I don’t remember,” Astrid said.
* * *
Thursday’s classes were subdued, since everyone was worried about the sickness. Even the pranks seemed to have stopped for the moment. The wolf shifters, however, were very restless. Some of them would growl at me as they passed me in the halls, while others would look down and go out of their way to show respect. Darwin suggested it was because they weren’t sure yet who the new alpha was.
I had the feeling when I went to bed that night that something was going to happen. I thought at first that I was watching a badly done, black and white horror movie. Color was vague at best. The contrast was what made it so unclear; light didn’t reflect normally. Dark spots were unfocused, like I was seeing them from my peripheral vision, while brighter spots were too bright and ultra-focused. Movement on the concrete floor demanded my full attention, even though I knew it was caused by the moonlight streaming in through a small window and leaves beating against the glass. Only when I looked across the room and saw thick metal bars did I realize what this was.
I was having a vision of Henry.
“Why are you in my head?” his voice asked in my mind.
I gaped… at least mentally. “No one has been able to see or feel me in my visions. Are you awake or is this a dream?” Despite the oddness of the vision, or possibly because of it, this seemed too real to be a dream. I could make out the bars that made up one wall of the cage and the large cinderblocks that made up the other three walls, as well as the cot he was sitting on.
“I am awake.”
“I’m not here on purpose. I just went to sleep. I’m not even wearing the damn ring. The only visions I have without the ring seem to be life-or-death now.”
“The council does take their arrests seriously; they plan to execute me on Monday. Don’t worry about me, though. I can escape at any time.”
“You don’t think the council has measures in place for paranormals?”
“You mean, like thermal imaging cameras, sun lamps, and explosion shields? If they had any clue what I was, I wouldn’t be in this cage. They might be able to hold me against my will in a concrete vault with silver-coated restraints and drugs. Unless I shifted.”
“Well, then I will look for your parents in the meantime. Do you have any idea what might have happened to them?” My phrasing must have activated his memories, because his mind suddenly flooded with images of blood and flesh tearing. It was extremely graphic and more of a smattering of disorganized clips than a coherent memory.
Henry forced the memories away and replaced them with the memory of the Grand Canyon during a lightning storm. “That was a dream. It never happened,” he promised.
Unfortunately, I knew that wasn’t true.
* * *
It was unnaturally quiet in the dining room on Friday morning, morose even. I told Darwin what I saw and he considered it for a while. “So we’re back to thinking Henry did kill his parents?”
“I don’t know. When he got here, he was beaten up, had missing memories, and was dreaming about killing them. If he’s innocent, which is still more likely, I’m betting Gale set him up to get the amulet. We need to at least figure it out so we can clear Henry’s name.”
“What about the sick students?”
“Dr. Martin is doing them more good than we can. We’ll ask Astrid to spy on Langril and Jackson.” Astrid hadn’t come back Thursday night, so I assumed she was still very caught up in her vampire traitor case. “If Gale did frame Henry, he might come after the amulet as soon as we leave. Do you have a good place to hide it?”
“Yeah.”
After our classes were over, I found out that Darwin had given the amulet to Hunt for safe keeping. He also got Henry’s home address from the student records. Although Hunt said he couldn’t help us at the moment, he did let us borrow his SUV.
* * *
It was only a three hour drive to the small fishing town Henry lived in and with the address, his house wasn’t difficult to find. It was small and had the same moderate amount of water damage the rest of town had. There was nothing particularly note-worthy on the outside.
The inside, however, was a different story. The lock was broken, as was just about everything inside. Every bit of fabric, from his clothes to his couch was shredded by a serrated weapon, every window and mirror was smashed, and there was a large blood stain on the living room floor.
Darwin knelt beside it and sniffed it. He looked sick. “It’s Henry’s.”
My instincts kicked in and I had the sudden and peculiar desire for ice-cream. This wasn’t how my instincts normally worked, but I went to the kitchen anyway.
“Is this really the right time for a snack?” Darwin asked as I opened the freezer.
“If you’re hiding something from someone who has an extremely acute sense of smell, where would you hide it?”
“Oh right, because of the ice.”
I pulled out a small, white box of frozen burger patties and set them on the counter. The second I took my hand off of it, I
sensed it. I shut the freezer door and opened the box of patties. Instead of meat, there was a sketchbook, a silver cross, and a fake I.D. with Henry’s face on it.
The sketchbook and I.D. I could understand, but crosses were not Henry’s thing. Just like in the jail cell, I found myself pulling out my vision ring. “I have an idea. With the ring, I can induce visions using objects that are personal to someone. I did it with a playing card and Langril’s ball one time.” I flipped through the sketchbook as I made my way to the couch, which was torn up. I sat down.
“What’s in it?”
“Pictures of a woman and sunset beaches,” I answered.
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Okay, I don’t know if this will work or how strong it’ll be, so try not to make any odd noises that could wake me up.” I slipped the ring on and my vision instantly grew black.
Chapter 7
Everything was blurry. I expected some distortion, but not like this. Henry saw something move and his eyes locked onto it. Knowing I couldn’t figure anything out this way, I pushed my power outward. What was weird was that it felt like I was in two places and times at once. I felt Darwin’s mind as well as the minds of two strangers in front of Henry.
However, instead of invading another person’s head, I was forcefully expelled from Henry’s. For a moment, I had no senses whatsoever. I opened my eyes, surprised to see Darwin.
“What happened?” he asked.
“It didn’t work.” I barely managed to get the words out before I was thrown back into it. My vision was clear this time. I was standing in a cage with a large tree, large flat rocks, a small stream, and an artificial den made of plastic tubing. One wall of the cage was glass.
Outside the cage was a man, quickly joined by a second man. They were both conniving, greedy bastards, but the first was worse. I could feel their minds without trying. “Is that the infant?” the second man asked.
He was talking about one of two jaguars inside the enclosure. One of them was sprawled out on the ground beside the stream. Her left shoulder was poorly bandaged, allowing blood to seep out. She panted, not allowing herself to look at the two humans staring at her. She knew she would die without treatment and she accepted it, as long as she could create a diversion for her son to escape. Unfortunately for her, the tiny cub nestled against her chest would never voluntarily abandon his mother.
The cub had no real thoughts yet, only the instinct to fight for his food source. He was curious of these moving creatures, which was pretty shocking to me because Darwin had said jaguar cubs were born blind.
“Is the infant sick? It isn’t moving much,” the second man said.
The first man wore a tan uniform displaying the name of the nature reserve. “The mother was malnourished and had to have help with the delivery. The sedatives won’t wear off for another few minutes. The mother actually recovered too quickly and attacked one of the handlers who was taking the infant to the enclosure.”
“Is that normal for jaguars?”
“You really think that’s a jaguar? How many jaguars do you know have fangs that long? Joe and Connie found the female last night out beside the highway. She had been hit by a car. Joe said when he tried to give her a sedative for transportation, he was struck by her wing.”
“Wing?!”
“Apparently. X-rays were inconclusive, but he swore she had bat-like wings that vanished when he got her into the truck. We’re going to put her with our other female jaguar.”
The mother didn’t understand the words, only that they wanted to take her son from her.
* * *
My vision changed again to show a baby crying in a cage that was no more than a dog crate. The cage was opened and the baby was wrapped in a blue blanket. He didn’t stop crying. “They’re going to catch us,” a man said, half growling. The baby cried harder and the woman held him to her chest, trying to quiet him without smothering him.
Both the man and woman were athletically built with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and natural tans. The woman shushed the baby. “If you don’t stop crying, they’ll find us.”
“Leave him,” the man said when the baby didn’t immediately stop.
“Absolutely not. He’s ours now.”
* * *
The scene jumped ahead about seven years. Henry was with his mother in the crowded streets of London in the mid-1990s. He was frustrated, tired, and confused. He never understood why he disliked being around people. A fit of defiance made him stop in the middle of the street. “Why did we have to leave home?”
His mother stopped, instantly fed-up with his disobedience. She put on her false smile and took his hand. “The bad men found us, honey. We’ll be able to go home soon, though.”
Henry knew the bad men were the police. He also knew it was his parents that were bad, but he didn’t know what to do about it. “Why do they always find us?”
“Because you’re not normal.”
He gave in and followed her. They often told him he was a freak, but he didn’t understand why. His parents were jaguars too, so he didn’t know what was so wrong with him. Having let his hand go, Luana didn’t notice that her son had stopped again. This time, however, self-doubt warred with the sense of confinement. Luana was out of sight before he took off for the more deserted streets.
Henry knew better than to shift; people tried to kill him when he took his beast form. He ran all day. While he wasn’t the most coordinated person in his two-legged form, years of ridicule and punishments just for being him pushed him to run further.
After several days, hunger called for a new strategy. Fortunately, he picked up begging well and was just young enough to pull it off. He targeted young women who gave off mothering vibes. Since his own mother was so uncaring, Henry seemed to be able to detect the mothering instinct in others and naturally gravitated towards them. One thing he swore off the moment Luana Lycosa was out of sight was stealing.
And he found he didn’t have to. Many women on the streets were happy to spend a few minutes mothering him. For them, it was no more a commitment than petting a lost puppy and offering him a treat. For Henry, it was life or death, because he was nothing if not stubborn. He wasn’t the only one on the streets and the others all gladly resorted to stealing. Henry decided he would starve to death before he followed in his parents’ footsteps.
It wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. Within two weeks, the figurative well of generous women had run dry. He moved from street to street, relying on his feline nature to keep him out of danger. Several times, he resorted to trash and leftovers, but never outright stealing. He would die proud of himself, at least.
Then one morning, everything changed. Snow blanketed all of London, which meant there were few people enjoying street food and those who did eat outside were not of the charitable nature. He was walking, just trying to keep warm. His clothes had been top notch, for his parents told him appearance was critical in keeping the bad guys away. “If you look like a bum, people treat you like one.” For this reason, he tried to wash his clothes in rainwater, rather unsuccessfully, and managed to be more embarrassed about the poor state of his attire than his begging.
A man stopped suddenly in front of him, blocking his path and startling him out of his daydreaming. He froze, thankful he hadn’t bumped into the man. “Sorry,” he said quickly, not looking up at the man’s face. His father was not as big as this man, but he could still break bones with a simple smack, so it stood to reason that the bigger stranger could break him just with a glare.
“Are you hungry, son?” the man said, startling Henry again.
Henry managed to drag his eyes up to the huge man’s face. Obviously the man was confused; Henry wasn’t his son. Since he could smell lies, telling them was unnatural and physically uncomfortable for him, so he just shook his head and turned away.
The man grabbed his arm, not tightly enough to hurt, but firmly enough that Henry was forced to stop. He tensed up, prepared for a blow. His father
always started low unless he fought back. If Henry resisted, Matheus went for his head and throat. He couldn’t have been more shocked when he felt the stranger’s heavily muscled arms close around him gently. “You’re freezing.” The stranger’s tone was gentle, as if he was talking to a scared puppy instead of a jaguar shifter who could take off his arm. “What’s your name?”
Henry just shook his head, causing the man to laugh. The man thought Henry was just being stubborn, but fear had closed the child’s throat.
“I’m Scott Morgan.” He picked Henry up.
Henry balled up as best as he could, happy to be warm for the moment even as he expected to be brutally beaten and murdered after he was set down.
But he wasn’t beaten. Scott brought him into a warm apartment, set him down at the dining room table, and placed a plate in front of him with Christmas dinner. Scott’s wife was not happy. She glared at Henry until he couldn’t even reach for the food he was starving for.
“You are not eating at this table like that.”
Before Henry could bolt, Scott picked him back up, carried him away from the food, and made him a bath. He set Henry in the water and frowned. “Are you old enough to wash yourself?”
“I’m ten,” Henry lied.
Scott nodded to himself. “I will lay some clothes out for you on the bed. Once you’re clean, get dressed and come eat.”
Left alone, Henry wasted no time in scrubbing the last two weeks off of himself and enjoying the soap while he had the chance. Hunger and the cooling water drove him out and he found a bedroom right across from the bathroom. It was a simple bedroom with a computer, a brown dresser, and a full-sized bed. The posters on the walls of cars were the only sign of personal effects. On the bed, Henry found a white t-shirt and jeans, which he dressed in quickly before heading back to the dining room.
Sitting at the table was Scott, his wife, and a teenaged girl.