After dinner, Gabriel climbed up into his hammock and rolled himself up in the heavy blanket. For the first time in weeks, he actually felt good. His body was tired and his mind was completely out of focus, but he felt healthy. He felt like he’d had a good hard day of work instead of a long day of grueling punishment. There was a difference, and that was something he hadn’t known before.
Now, staring up at the sky and stretching his tired limbs, Gabriel knew the truth. Good hard work was a reward in itself. It made him feel good, healthy. It made him want to get up the next day and learn more so he could do even better…
Gabriel quickly drifted into sleep. His dreams were pleasant at first, fueled by his sense of accomplishment and the beauty of the woods around him. But then they changed. He began to see flashes of Black Mountain and terrible images of fire and explosions. He saw Reeves and Pete fighting shadowcreatures alongside Starling, and then he saw Jodi. She looked strange. She had fangs like a wolf and brilliant yellow eyes that looked frighteningly dangerous. Jodi was fighting too, and she was calling out to him, but Gabriel was too far away to reach her.
He began running in his dream, trying to get back to them. As he ran, the ground under his feet turned to mud. Gabriel found himself sinking down to his knees. The mud sucked at him, slowing him down to a crawl. Meanwhile, the battle of Black Mountain raged on, terrible things happening right in front of him, but he was powerless to help.
Gabriel awoke with a start. His heart was pounding and it took a moment to catch his breath. He couldn’t have been asleep long. It was still just as dark as before, and the stars overhead had only moved slightly. He felt terrible recalling the dream, as if he had abandoned his friends when they needed him most.
Deep down inside, he felt that somehow the dream was true, even if much of it hadn’t made sense. Reeves fighting alongside Starling for example. Reeves was thousands of miles away. He didn’t even know Starling had taken the children to Black Mountain. And where was Julia? Why had Reeves been in Gabriel’s dream, but not her? And then there was Jodi… Gabriel shivered as he thought of those wild, lupine eyes staring back at him.
Despite all that, Gabriel was sure that there was some truth in the dream. He was convinced that his friends truly were in danger. Because of that, it was impossible to sleep. Silently, he crept down the tree and settled down in front of the fire pit. The logs were gone now, reduced to glowing red embers that sent a warm glow across his skin.
“You see many things,” Mayzhl’s voice said behind him.
Gabriel twisted around and saw her standing halfway between her hut and the village circle. He wondered what she had been doing. “I didn’t hear you,” he said. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Mayzhl smiled slightly as she sauntered up next to him. “Dreams guide us,” she said, settling down next to him. “They show truth, and fear.”
Gabriel nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. “I saw my friends,” he said. “They needed me. They were being attacked by the Shadow.”
“Yes,” said Mayzhl. “So it shall be.”
“But I’ve got to help them,” Gabriel said. “If it’s true, then I have to leave.”
Mayzhl eyed him. “You not ready.”
“I know.” Gabriel’s eyes fell. He stared into the warm, glowing embers. “I know I’m not, but they need me.”
“Why?”
Gabriel twisted his head, a look of confusion washing across his face. “Why?” he echoed. “Because they’re being attacked. They are in danger.”
“Why are they in danger?”
Gabriel thought about it. “Because of the statues. Because of the machine. The Shadow wants the machine.”
“Let them have,” Mayzhl said flatly. Gabriel looked at her like she was crazy.
“Just like that?” he said. “We can’t just let them take it!”
“Why?”
“Because they want it, that’s why!”
As he heard his words, Gabriel realized that something there wasn’t right. He thought it over. “because they’ll use the machine to do something bad,” he added. “Aldron will use the machine to reunite the worlds, and then he’ll turn us all into his slaves.”
“Slaves bad,” Mayzhl agreed. Then she said something that blew Gabriel’s mind. “Machine good.”
Gabriel’s jaw dropped. “What do you mean? How can the machine be good? It will bring everything back together… it will set the shadowcreatures loose in my world!”
“You fight Shadow,” Mayzhl said. “Slaves no fight.”
Gabriel took a moment to digest that. Eventually, he realized what she was saying. “Your people don’t fight the Shadow, do they?” he said. “They’re afraid.”
Mayzhl nodded, a sad look on her face. She took a deep breath and pointed to the sky. “You understand,” she said. “Moon, moon. Darkness. No sun. No light.”
Gabriel frowned. “Moon, moon?” he said. “You don’t have a moon… just that planet, Niburu.”
“Yes. Niburu, moon. No light.”
Gabriel pondered that. There was no moon in the Shadow world. The moon was in the real world, Gabriel’s world. However, if the two worlds were combined, then both objects would be in the sky. “Aldron wants to block out the sun,” he said, remembering Aldron’s speech. “He’ll bring the worlds together at just the right time so that Niburu will block out the sun. Then the Shadowlords will be able to rule the entire world.”
“Yes. Aldron bad. Slaves bad.”
“But you still think the machine is good?”
“Yes. Machine free slaves. Machine make world whole.”
“That’s wrong,” Gabriel said. “I know you want the slaves to be freed, but that would destroy my world.”
“Humans stupid,” Mayzhl said bluntly. “Come, we walk.” Then, leaning against her cane like an old woman moving through a shopping center, Mayzhl hobbled down the trail and into the deep, dark forest.
Chapter 31
When Jodi’s eyes fluttered open the next morning, she didn’t remember becoming a wolf and running and hunting with her pack all through the long night. It took a moment. She was lying on her back in the dewy grass and she stretched and smiled, feeling that she’d just had the best sleep of her entire life. Then she realized where she was, and the memories of the hunt came flooding over her. Jodi bolted upright. A few of her new brothers and sisters yawned and watched her with sleepy eyes as she rose to her feet and went to the stream. Other than that, they took no notice. To them, Jodi wasn’t a human. She ran with them, hunted with them. She smelled like them. The fact that she looked different at times was of no consequence whatsoever. She was one of the pack.
Jodi splashed cool water on her face and then gazed down at her reflection. The first thing she noticed was her tank-top, which was now so badly stained and discolored that she hardly recognized it. Then she saw her eyes.
Jodi gasped and stumbled back, her hands going to cover her mouth. Hesitantly, she took a few steps forward and gazed down at her reflection again, hardly believing what she was seeing. Jodi’s eyes were supposed to be brown. They had always been brown, just like her father’s. But today, they were gold. They were bright yellow, flecked at the edges with dark amber colors, shimmering with the intelligence and ferocity of a wild animal. They weren’t Jodi’s eyes. They were the eyes of a wolf.
It was only then that Jodi realized how much she had already changed. She thought back to Mr. Oglesby, remembered how riveting his bright blue eyes had always been. He tried to cover them beneath a pair of glasses that made him look old and somewhat silly, but anyone who bothered to look could see that his eyes were special. Now Jodi looked like that. Only her eyes weren’t blue, they were gold. She didn’t even look human. How was she going to cover them?
“Contact lenses,” she muttered.
Ridgerunner, the old black alpha male yawned and stretched. Hide nothing, he said inside her mind. You are wolf-sister
Jodi looked at him, and suddenly her heart ached.
Ridgerunner and the others had already accepted her into their family. She was part of them now, part of the pack. I can’t stay, she thought. I have other friends… they need me. They need my help.
Friends in the mountain? Ridgerunner said.
Yes.
Do not go back there. Not safe for wolf-sister.
I have to, Jodi thought. I know it’s not safe. The place is full of liars…
Not humans, Ridgerunner said. Others. Not safe there.
Jodi narrowed her eyes. “What others?” she said aloud.
Jodi reeled as a barrage of images assaulted her. She saw flashes of shadow moving in darkness. She saw a tall thin human with pale skin and dark, sunken eyes. She smelled the unnatural scent of the Shadow.
Shadowfriends? she thought. Then she put the images together and understood. There’s a Shadowlord in the mountain?
Ridgerunner yawned and rolled over on his back. You stay, he said. Scratch my belly.
Jodi almost laughed at the silly old wolf, but she was too distressed. “If there’s a Shadowlord in the base, then I’ve got to get back there,” she said. “The orphans are there. Pete and Gabriel… Ridgerunner, will you show me the way back?”
He snorted and rolled lazily onto his belly. Later. Sleep now. Hunt later.
Jodi scanned her surroundings. Deep forest rose up in every direction. In the distance, steep, snow-capped peaks spanned from horizon to horizon. There was no way to tell which, if any of them, was Black Mountain. For all Jodi new, she could be dozens of miles away from the base, maybe even hundreds of miles.
Ridgerunner, please? I must get back to the base!
Ridgerunner didn’t respond. He was either asleep or ignoring her. Either way, Jodi was stuck. She knew that if she tried to get back to the base on her own, she’d just get herself even more lost. And she didn’t even want to imagine what could happen to her out there in the wilderness.
Jodi glanced up the slope towards the rest of the pack, and noticed Mr. Oglesby’s cane dangling from the lower branches of a nearby tree. No, it wasn’t Oglesby’s cane anymore, it was Jodi’s. And she couldn’t get rid of the thing. Now she understood why it had always seemed to vanish and reappear around Mr. Oglesby. The thing was magic. Somehow, it followed her everywhere she went, even if she didn’t consciously bring it with her. She sighed. All of this was going to take some getting used to.
It was nearly dark when Jodi finally hit the trail with Ridgerunner and the rest of the wolf pack. Ridgerunner’s brother, a younger wolf with gray markings and white paws for which they called him Frostpaw, was the scout. He ran ahead making sure the path was clear and seeking out danger to warn the pack ahead of time. Jodi could hear his thoughts now and then in her head, and she could tell that he was growing more distant by the minute. In fact, even the young and elderly pack members were gaining on her. Jodi’s human legs couldn’t match their endurance.
I need to rest soon, she thought.
Change, Ridgerunner said in her head.
“What do you mean?” she said aloud. She still wasn’t used to this talking in her head thing. It didn’t always work, and half the time she forgot to try.
Humans are weak… become a wolf, little sister.
Jodi thought about it. I don’t know how.
Ridgerunner’s response sounded a lot like laughter. He rushed ahead and disappeared into the darkness of the woods. If you run with the wolves, you must be a wolf… he called, his voice fading into the distance.
Jodi found herself alone. The woods were still and dark. She heard nary a sound, save for the distant creak of a branch in the wind or the clicking sound of falling pine needles. She stopped running, suddenly unsure of the way. Goosebumps rose on her flesh and she rubbed her arms, trying to warm them. She had never been this alone before. Fear welled up inside of her, and tears quickly followed.
Jodi began to wonder how she’d ended up in this odd situation. She didn’t remember the incident with Mr. Oglesby because she’d been unconscious at the time. Apparently, the boys had failed to tell her all that had happened. Why? Had they been afraid to tell her? Or were they just too absent minded to even remember?
“How could they be so selfish?” she whispered into the darkness. “How could they let this happen to me?”
All of Jodi’s worries flooded over her. Julia and Reeves gone. Gabriel was falling apart. Pete was completely distracted by that nerdy Tech Sector, which was exactly what the sinister Ms. Starling had planned, and even Jodi had fallen into her devious snare. Jodi had known it when it was happening, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. The Academy was so cool; it was exactly what she’d wanted all her life. And then there was Byron. Could he possibly have been cuter? No… Starling knew exactly what she was doing when she introduced Jodi to Byron.
And what had gotten into Gabriel? He was like a man possessed, disappearing all the time, always moody and distant. It was like he had a whole different life, like he was becoming a different person. What was happening to them? How had everything gotten so bad? They were falling apart. Somehow, everything had changed and she had a feeling in her gut that things would never be the same.
Don’t cry, little sister. I’m right in front of you.
Jodi raised her eyes and saw Ridgerunner there, his eyes shimmering in the starlight. His dark fur made him almost invisible in the shadows of the forest. We are your family now, he said. He came up to her, pressing against her and nuzzling her with his long snout. Jodi wrapped her arms around him, stroking his thick fur, and broke into tears.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
I’ll show you, Ridgerunner said in her mind. You will learn.
Several hours later, they stood on a ridge looking down at the Academy campus. It seemed different from this vantage. Somehow, it wasn’t as impressive as before. Jodi still admired the tall, ancient buildings and the vast, manicured lawns, but there was something off about the place. Something synthetic. Something human.
Previously, she had loved the way that the trees all grew in straight, orderly lines and the lawns were square and perfect. Now she looked at them and thought, There’s nowhere to hide in that place. How do they survive?
You tell me, Ridgerunner said. She sensed mockery in his voice.
It’s all different now, she thought. I don’t think I’d be comfortable there…
Because you’re not one of them, Frostpaw said. He appeared at the edge of the woods. Go now, little sister, he said. Go do what you must. We will not follow you into this place.
Jodi sighed. She was grateful for all that they had done. With their help, she had learned to change shape back and forth. She wasn’t great at it yet, but she could sense the wolf in her and she knew how to let it go when she wanted to.
“Thanks for coming this far,” she said quietly. She wished she had more time with them. The wolves were sly, cynical creatures, but she understood them better now. They weren’t that different from humans… simpler perhaps, but it would never occur to a wolf to betray her family. Not for power, not for money, not anything. Greed and selfishness were not part of their logic.
Jodi left them with an aching in her heart. She tried not to look back as she jogged down the slope and climbed the fence at the edge of the campus. Eventually, she did steal a glance over her shoulder and saw nothing but trees and darkness. Even if the wolves were there, they would have been invisible in the darkness. She was tempted to reach out to them with her mind, to try to find out where they were, but she resisted. It would hurt too much to reach out and find them gone. Jodi had left them, and she was their only reason for being in this place at all. They hated it here. There was no reason for them to hang around now.
Jodi quietly crossed the field and approached the main building. The place was quiet and dark and she doubted anyone would be there that late. She stepped onto the sidewalk, strolling past the main building, and made her way to the ivy canopy where the teleporter was located.
A whiff of s
omething familiar crossed her path and caused Jodi to pause mid-step. She glanced around nervously. She knew that scent. It was the Shadow. The hair rose on the back of her neck as Jodi’s mind flashed back to the day she’d been attacked. What if the Shadowlord was still here? Had he been waiting for her, all this time? Her eyes scanned the darkness. She saw nothing unusual, just buildings and trees and grass. Perhaps the Shadowlord’s scent remained long after he’d gone. That wouldn’t be surprising.
Jodi resumed her journey at an accelerated pace. Finally, she reached the small building and stepped under the shelter of the covered doorway. She was about to hit the switch on the wall when a sound behind her made her jump. She spun around, baring her teeth, her eyes flashing lupine yellow in the darkness.
“Whoa, it’s just me!” Byron said. He took a step back.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” Jodi said. “You caught me by surprise. I nearly jumped out of my skin!”
“Me too,” Byron said. “I, um… you look different.”
Jodi winced. She’d been planning to find some contact lenses to cover up her wild-looking eyes. She’d almost forgotten about them. Byron’s reaction was a painful reminder of how her life had suddenly changed. She skirted the subject. “I was just going back to the base,” she said nervously.
“Oh, right. I’ll go with you.” Byron stepped into the doorway and Jodi was instantly overwhelmed by the scent of Shadow. She took a step back, eying him cautiously. “What’s the matter, Jodi?” he said. For a moment, Byron’s face seemed to change. It elongated, and his skin grew pale. His eyes became dark and sunken. Then the image vanished, and he was just Byron again. “Is something wrong?” he said. He smiled, revealing sharp canine teeth.
“You!” Jodi said. She made a move to step around him, but Byron reached out and grabbed her throat.
Shadow Rising (Shadow Born Trilogy Book 2) Page 16