Fate Succumbs

by Tammy Blackwell

“We’re open twice a week. All the important information is kept behind a locked door, but the harmless stuff is made available to anyone willing to get a library card. It makes it easier to operate. No one looks too closely at a tiny special collections library, and we get tax money.”

  “So, that place is some sort of Shifter library?” Which would explain all the crazy books on werewolf mythology. It didn’t really explain why there was a whole shelf devoted to Stephenie Meyer books, though.

  As we barreled down the street, Rachel and Liam gave me the rundown on the whole Archives thing. Instead of being a single library, it’s like a whole library system, with one branch on every continent except Antarctica. The main purpose of the Archives is to keep a record of the whole of Seer and Shifter history (although I somehow doubt the part about killing baby girl Shifters made it in), along with every book, scholarly paper, journal article, etc. that can be linked to Seers or Shifters in any way, including all those sexy paranormal books I like so much.

  What really interested me was Rachel’s role in The Archives. As the Bibliothecary (which is just a fancy word for librarian) she no longer exists within the normal Shifter and Seer social structure. Her job requires her to be an impartial party, collecting and recording what happens in our world without bias. Rachel said it was so the information would always be accurate and complete, no matter who served as Alpha. Liam suggested we not be so naive and asserted the Bibliothecaries were nothing more than the Alphas’ lapdogs, especially since they were once in line to be Alphas themselves.

  Yeah. That’s right. Sweet little old Aunt Rachel could have been the Queen of Evil. No wonder Liam still looked like he was ready to bolt at the first hint of an ambush.

  After fifteen minutes in the Car of Doom we found ourselves parking behind a big southern style house with all the wrap-around, screened-in porches and such. Even though it looked completely out of place against the Minnesota backdrop, it made me feel like I was home in Kentucky.

  “That’s the Safe House?” I would certainly feel safe there. Safe and very comfortable.

  “Yes, this is where I raised my daughter, but once she was gone it was simply too much house for one woman. I moved into an apartment in town and make this place available to any Seer or Shifter needing shelter,” Rachel said, opening her car door. I quickly grabbed the walker and dashed out of the car. She smiled as she accepted my assistance. “You sure are a sweet girl, Scout. I’m half tempted to keep you.”

  “Ummm… Thanks?” Knowing she was a potential Alpha I worried about what “keeping me” might entail. Probably chains. And whips. And maybe a dog collar.

  And now I was going to have to live with scary Fifty Shades Aunt Rachel pictures living in my head for all time.

  It took more than a few minutes to get Rachel up the steps. The whole way I could smell a potpourri of different Shifters imbedded in the wood of the porch and wafting out from the open windows. None of the smells were current, but some were fresh enough to have been there in the past two or three months. Others were old and faint, barely a whisper of scent.

  “How many Shifters have you housed here?” I couldn’t pull out each individual scent, but there were a lot.

  “Not as many as I thought would come,” she said, throwing open the door. The smell of garlic and Italian seasonings made my mouth water instantly. “But even one is too many. No one should live in fear or be shut out from what is known and safe.”

  She was so freaking sincere it hurt.

  “You would have made a wonderful Alpha,” I told her.

  “Oh no, dear, I am far too tender hearted for such a task, which is why I am here, and not in Romania with the other Matrons.”

  The step to get into the actual house was both steep and narrow. When it became obvious Rachel couldn’t navigate it on her own, Liam swooped her into his arms and carried her across the threshold.

  “Oh my!” Rachel clutched onto his shoulders, her dimples flashing. “I haven’t done that since my honeymoon.”

  Liam’s face turned shades of red I didn’t know existed. “Sorry. I should have asked first.”

  “It was perfectly wonderful.” She gave me an apologetic look as he sat her down. “Although I do suppose we should have asked you if it was okay first. I know how mates are in the beginning. The whole touching other people thing can be grounds for a fight, even if it’s their old aunt.”

  “She’s not my mate,” Liam said before I could.

  Rachel clucked her tongue. “Don’t be silly. Of course you are.”

  Now my face was attempting to match the color of Liam’s. “No, really. No Declarations. No ceremony. We’ve never even…” We got close. Very, very, very close, but then, when things started getting really serious, Liam bolted. He was there one minute, all lips and hands and tongues, and the next he was walking out the door. Once I finally got my wits about me, and some clothes on, I went outside to search for him. I found the wolf instead. Neither of us had spoken of it since, although from the look on Liam’s face, we were both thinking about it now.

  Rachel kindly ignored both of our shame-filled faces. “Declarations and ceremonies are bureaucratic nonsense based on human customs. Mating is something more primitive and magical.” She narrowed her eyes and laid a hand on each of our cheeks. I felt the power of her Sight crashing through my body. “Yes, I’m quite right.” Her face lit up as she patted the cheeks she had been holding on to. “You have chosen each other. It’s done. You’re mates.”

  While I stood there in dumb shock, two girls rounded the corner from the direction of the heavenly smell. “We thought we heard voices,” said the one with a riot of curls bouncing around her face. “Hey, Grandmother.” She turned to Liam and me. “Tall scary man. Girl whose face I know from somewhere but can’t remember where," she said to us in acknowledgement.

  “Chick in a Super-Man shirt and cardigan,” I acknowledged back.

  The other girl, the one who looked almost identical to the first but sported decidedly more adult-like attire and had tamed her hair with a twisty-ponytail thing, held out a hand. “I’m Michelle,” she said. “Please ignore Marie. No one ever bothered to teach her manners.”

  “Scout,” I said, my hand still down at my side. “Sorry, but I don’t shake hands with Seers whose powers I don’t know.” Speaking of Seers whose powers I didn’t know, I really needed to find out what Rachel was packing. I hoped it was something like the right answers to those word quizzes in the Reader’s Digest or how to put a computer together. Anything other than whether or not two people were mates.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Rachel said. “Michelle is latent.”

  “And I See need, which doesn’t require contact.” Marie tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. “Scout… Scout…” Her eyebrows shot up. “The senator’s granddaughter! I knew I knew you from somewhere!”

  Of all the things for me to forget, why did it have to be that whole long lost senator’s granddaughter thing? How could it have been that whole long lost senator’s granddaughter thing? I mean, I know I had this whole Challenging the Alpha Female thing going on, and I spent half a year playing Survival of the Fittest in the Canadian wilderness, but you would think I could remember I was one of America’s Most Wanted Amber Alerts or whatever.

  “I’m not really--”

  “You know, you’re much more attractive in person than that picture they kept flashing on MSNBC. I think someone there must hate you.” Marie turned and started back down the hall. Since it was towards the direction of food, I followed. “So, you like killed some Stratego and almost killed the Alpha Male?”

  My heart skipped a beat, but Liam replied in his normal bored tone. “It was a group effort.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of Marie. If Rachel had spouted off knowledge of what went down at the lake last summer I would have been uncomfortable, but it would have made sense. But having this girl who had a Post-It note stuck to her butt casually mention something which marked us as her
enemy bothered me.

  “You can relax,” Michelle said from behind me. “We’re not exactly Team Alpha around here. I think Marie did a little cheer and dance when we got the call that Stefan was in the hospital and not expected to live through the night.”

  “What have you got against our supreme rulers?” Liam asked.

  Michelle looked up into his hard face and didn’t even flinch. “They kill female Shifters.”

  I stopped so quickly Rachel clipped my leg with her walker. “You know?”

  “Of course I know,” Rachel said, clomping around me. “Why do you think I left the Den?”

  “You know, but you don’t do anything?”

  This time it was Rachel who stopped abruptly. “I’m a seventy-nine year old woman with two fake knees and a bad hip. What exactly is it you think I can do, Miss Donovan?”

  “I don’t know, but something. Something other than just sit here and let it happen.” I could feel Wolf Scout pushing to the surface as my anger level rose. How on earth could someone let that happen? How could Rachel? Nicole was her niece.

  Rachel straightened her back as much as she could. “I have done something. I’ve given those who oppose the Alpha Pack a place to stay when they need it. I keep records of things they would rather be hidden. And I’ve waited here for her return, for the day…” A surge of Seer power so strong it almost knocked me off my feet. “I’ve waited for you. Now, the question is, what are you going to do, Lilith?”

  ***

  I couldn’t believe we were back to this again.

  “Listen, I really appreciate your opinion and all, but I’m not the first Seer or whatever it is you think I am.” I sat at a dainty looking table while Michelle filled my plate with a ginormous heaping mound of the best smelling spaghetti my nose ever encountered. The bread, whose timer had beeped just as Rachel was throwing out the L-name, smelled even better.

  “What I believe is the truth,” Rachel said, her British accent making it sound extra haughty. “It’s all I am allowed to believe.”

  Since my mouth was stuffed full of noodles and meat sauce, I raised my eyebrows at Liam, requesting a translation.

  “Aunt Rachel Sees truth,” he explained around a mouth full of bread.

  Truth Seer. I knew there had to be one of those out there.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t full-on crazy, which I quickly started to suspect.

  “And the truth as I See it is this: You, Harper Lee ‘Scout’ Donovan are Lilith, the first Shifter." Didn't she mean Seer? "The Daughter of the Creator. Artemis. The moon, sent to watch over the night.” I started to protest, but she cut me off with a look that said there would be sever repercussions should I open my mouth. “Do you wish to hear the truth of your story?”

  I wished to hear her say she was just kidding.

  “Scout is the moon.” Liam’s tone said he also found Rachel’s mental stability suspect.

  “And God’s daughter,” I added helpfully.

  Rachel didn’t seem fazed by our sarcasm. “He goes by many names. God is merely the most popular.”

  “I’m Southern Baptist. Let’s stick with ‘God’.”

  “Well, then, when God created the earth, he left its care to his children. His son resided over the day, bringing brightness and warmth to all those who lived beneath. Later, that son would go on to make his own choices which would lead to the Thaumaturgics and Immortals, but in the early days, he was nothing more than a light unto his people. His sister, on the other hand, protected the creatures of the night, looking after each of them with warmth and compassion.”

  “Especially a wolf,” I said, figuring this was how her story matched up with the one I already knew.

  “Yes,” Rachel said. “Every thirty days she would leave her heavenly home and walk amongst her people upon the earth. Wolf, the first of his kind and the most fierce of the night’s creatures, walked with her on each visit. Over the years, their affection for one another grew, until they could no longer bear to be apart those other twenty-nine days. That is when they petitioned The Creator, your God, for a chance to be together forever.”

  “Oh wait. I do know this story.” Marie gestured with a whisk she was using to make some sort of batter. “The Creator said they could be together, but there was a price to pay. Lilith could never return to her place in heaven, giving up the care of the night to her brother. Both of them were made humans, except on the one night when her brother was allowed to rest. On that night, they Changed into wolves so they could watch over the land.” Marie spooned a bite of batter into her mouth and broke into a huge grin, obviously pleased with both her knowledge and whatever it was she was making.

  “You forgot the part where they both became mortal,” Michelle added. “But their spirit was supposed to live on. They would be reborn over and over again, becoming the eternal leaders of a new race of people.”

  This was so not the story Talley told me.

  “That’s great and all, but I’m not Lilith. And anyway, I thought she was the first Seer. What is this crazy first Shifter business?”

  “What sense would it make to have a woman become the first Shifter if no female Shifters exist?” The way she asked made me feel like I was being taken to task by a stern British headmaster who believed strongly in corporal punishment.

  “They changed it? Turned the first Shifter into the first Seer to keep the power tipped in the Alpha Female’s direction?”

  “What do you think?”

  I thought it would take a lot of effort to change a hand-me-down story. “If Lilith was the first Shifter, where did Seers come from? Are they dusk and dawn personified?”

  “The servants of the night, which shone on high with the Moon, were sent to Earth to keep her company and protect her.”

  The servants of the night, which shone on high… “So, you’re a star?”

  Rachel smiled. “Yes, or I suppose you and your fellow Southern Baptists might call us fallen angels.”

  A pair of grey eyes met mine from across the table. I expected to see more of this-lady-is-batshit-crazy, but it was replaced with thoughtfulness and…

  Crap.

  “You don’t seriously buy into all of this, do you?”

  “It makes sense.”

  “In what crazy, topsy-turvy world does this make sense? Bizzaro-Shifterland?”

  “The one where a girl who shouldn’t be a Shifter, is. The crazy world where that girl Shifter can Change at will and hold her wolf form for an infinite amount of time.”

  I wanted to pound my head against the table. Why was I the only one to realize how stupid this all sounded? I wasn’t the reincarnated anything, let alone God’s daughter. I mean, God doesn’t even have a daughter.

  “I suppose there is no use in me pointing out that you can also Change at will and hold your wolf form for an infinite amount of time?”

  “Of course he can,” Rachel answered. “He is Wolf. He bares the mark on his hip.”

  “The only thing on his hip is that stupid paw print tattoo.”

  Rachel’s face was smug. “It’s not a tattoo.”

  “Yes, it is.” I looked at Liam. “Tell her.”

  His non-response said everything.

  “You told me it was a tattoo.”

  Liam put down his fork and leaned onto his elbows. Most people would have looked comfortable and compliant in the same pose, but not Liam. Maybe it was muscles which had always been massive, but became more clearly defined over the winter as he chopped down half the forest and trained with unwavering focus. Maybe it was the set of his jaw or firmness of his mouth. Or maybe it was the intensity of his stare. Whatever it was, there was no doubt Liam was the exact opposite of comfortable and compliant. “I never said that. You assumed, and I let you.”

  “So… what? You’ve always known you were going to grow up to be the Alpha Male some day?”

  “What I’ve always known is my life isn’t mine to live.” He dismissed me and my million questions by turni
ng to his elderly aunt. “You know what we intend to do?” he asked her.

  There was absolutely no apprehension coming from the old lady who once could have been an Alpha herself. “You’re going to right what has been wrong for far too many years.”

  That sounded so much better than “kill them”.

  Liam nodded. “There may be others coming here in the coming weeks. Can you promise their location and identities are kept from The Den?”

  “I will continue as I always have, providing shelter and safety for those who seek it.”

  Something in my chest clenched at the realization that this was it. This was where we would make our last stand and fight for the future of Shifters and Seers the world over against unbeatable odds.

  This is where I would sacrifice my life so no one else would have to pointlessly die.

  Liam’s thoughts must have gone to the same place. “Will we win?”

  “Fate is on your side,” Rachel said. “How could you not?”

  Chapter 25

  There were no mirrors in Canada. Well, of course there are mirrors in the country of Canada, but there weren’t any in our tiny cabin. Maybe if there had been, if I had seen the changes come over me slowly, I wouldn’t have quite so frightened by the person looking back at me from above the sink in one of the Safe House’s many bathrooms.

  The basics of what make Scout Scout were still there - the silvery blond hair (which had grown out into a rather wretched Friar Tuck hairstyle); the pale skin (although the forty-five minute shower had managed to put a little color in my cheeks); and the ice blue (bloodshot) eyes - but the rest of me was different. The lack of proper nutrition left me sharp and angular while the nonstop training corded my arms and legs with muscles. I never considered myself soft and feminine before, but compared to the hard and hungry warrior in the mirror, high school Scout was a Disney Princess.

  I leaned in closer, fascinated by the dark circles under my eyes. How did they get there? What was the dark stuff? Skin discoloration? Bruises? The dark parts of my soul coming to the surface?