“Nothing.” Blake scowled.
Chogan gave a half-smile. “Now why do I not believe that?”
AUTUMN COULD BARELY believe she’d just seen herself on television. And for them to say Blake had killed someone… Well, she knew the report was untrue. Chogan had been the one who killed a man.
“I need to let my dad know I’m safe,” she said. “And Mia, my roommate. They’ll be so worried if they see the news.” With a deep-rooted sadness, she realized she didn’t have many other people in her life who would be worried about her. She’d spent so much time focused on her work, she’d not spent any on cultivating new friendships, or relationships even. In fact, it had been a long time since she’d been in a hotel room with any man, never mind two.
“You can’t contact anyone,” said Blake. “Dumas will probably have people stationed close to your family and home. It’ll be the first place he’ll think you’ll go.”
Chogan butted in. “And why is the government so interested in her again?”
Blake ignored him. “We’ll be safe here for the time being. We need to consider our next move.”
“Our next move is going and getting those shifters out,” said his cousin.
Blake shook his head. “It’s not so simple.”
“Sounds simple to me.”
“I can’t risk taking Autumn back there.”
“Why not?”
“She might get hurt.”
Chogan locked a hand in his long hair and gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine, we’ll leave her here. I still don’t understand why you’ve dragged her along anyway.”
Blake scowled. “She was involved. I couldn’t just abandon her.”
“No, but you can leave her now.”
“That’s a government facility, Chogan. Do you really think they’re going to let you waltz in and set three shifters free after what Dumas has done to them? There’s security on every door, cameras in every corner.”
“I thought you were supposed to be part of that security?”
“I am. And I know the place better than anyone. You’re not getting in there right now. Anyway, I can’t leave Autumn on her own.”
Chogan appraised her, his eyes roving up and down her body. She didn’t think much of the way the two men were having a discussion around her instead of with her. She thinned her lips and did her best to hold herself back from punching him in the head.
He smirked. “Why not? She looks like a big girl. I’m sure she can take care of herself.”
Autumn straightened, her eyebrows cocked. “I am here, you know!” she snapped. She didn’t know who to be madder at, but she turned to Blake. “He’s right. I can.”
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving you here alone. You’re too … important ...” He stumbled over his words.
She noted the color in his cheeks and the way he glanced away from her, and felt sure he’d been about to say something else.
“Well, I’m not hanging around here,” said Chogan, heading for the door. “You two hide away here, but I’m going to find out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Thirteen
CHOGAN STEPPED FROM the hotel and paused to assess his surroundings. The government building was located on the other side of the city, but he didn’t intend to catch a cab. One of his strengths was being able to run—even in human form—and he enjoyed doing so. Besides, being on foot would give him time to think. Something wasn’t quite right with his cousin’s story about the blonde scientist, though he couldn’t figure out what part was off. The woman wasn’t one of them, he knew that much, but at the same time, there seemed to be something else about her. She gave off a kind of radiance he found himself drawn to, and, by the look of things, Blake reacted to her in the same way.
It wouldn’t be the first time the two of them had been interested in the same woman, and the situation hadn’t worked out well the last time. In fact, things couldn’t have ended any worse. The memory still managed to invoke a fresh stab of pain. The events of almost ten years ago had been the final straw for Blake, the thing that had finally caused him to turn his back on their family and leave for good. He’d initially joined the army, which led him to his role now.
He was aware that Blake held him to blame about what happened all those years ago, and in a way he couldn’t blame him. But, whatever Blake believed, Chogan couldn’t help but feel like his cousin should never have turned his back on his own.
As he ran through the streets, people gave him strange glances. Not often did they see a six-foot-tall Native American with long hair running through the city.
Having his cousin’s face plastered all over the news didn’t help matters. People might catch a glimpse of him and perhaps confuse him with Blake. Even though they were distinctly different in body size and temperament, people who’d only ever caught Blake’s face on television might get them confused.
Chogan focused into himself and connected with his wolf; a big, ferocious animal, always quick to react, ready to shift whenever needed. His wolf liked him to be in wolf form, wanted to be at one with the rest of the world. Chogan sensed being in spirit form frustrated the animal, and sometimes he had to mentally hold his wolf off from forcing him to shift.
Being on the reservation, though surrounded by forest and animals to hunt, the wolf grew restless with the lack of new stimulation. Even though they were surrounded by concrete now, he got the sense his spirit guide was enjoying the challenge of this new hunt.
The wolf ran ahead.
Only a block from the government building, Chogan drew to a stop. His wolf placed several images in his head—a group of people standing outside the building, surrounding the steps leading up to the unmarked blacked-out glass doors. On top of the steps stood a man with silvery-white hair who wore an expensive suit and a grim expression. Several flashes of bright light made Chogan blink and raise his hand to shield his eyes, as though the action would make a difference. The bright lights he saw were inside his head.
Reporters. He guessed they were present for the apparent kidnapping of the scientist his cousin was now holed up with in his hotel room.
Damn. With all those people hanging around, he wouldn’t be able to get close to the building. He’d need to send his wolf inside, though the farther his wolf travelled from him, the weaker their connection became.
Still, he decided, getting some idea of the layout of the building would be better than having none at all.
Go, he instructed his guide. Into the building and down to the lowest level.
His wolf growled and leapt forward, passing, unnoticed by the crowd of people, through the door.
Chogan received information in a reel of images in his head. More security stood on the inside. An elevator, a set of doors, a corridor, more people in suits hurrying as though the weight of the world was on their shoulders.
Go down.
His wolf was still tied to the real world, it couldn’t fly or dive beneath water for long periods of time. Though able to pass through walls and doors as if they didn’t exist, it couldn’t jump down an elevator shaft of several stories. There had to be another way to the bottom level.
His wolf slowed its pace. It walked with its nose close to the floor, searching for another way down, but, as Blake had said, the only way seemed to be via the elevator.
The wolf lifted its head and whined as someone approached. Long, authoritative strides, suit jacket flapping with the man’s motion. The wolf sent Chogan the image of the same man who’d been stood on the steps. Was this the one Blake had mentioned about being linked to the capture and torture of the other shifters? Dumas?
The man entered the elevator and pressed his finger to a screen on the right of the keypad.
Go! Chogan willed.
He sensed the wolf’s reluctance, but it followed, and the elevator headed down. The doors opened and the man walked out, unaware of the wolf hot on his heels.
They passed into a room filled with a panel of computers. A couple of people at the panel monitor
ing something beyond turned to nod at Dumas as he walked in. The wolf rose on its haunches, front paws placed on the panel to see over the top. A glass screen divided the computers and men from what lay beyond. Three people were held captive. His wolf growled and, in unison, all of the shifters lifted their heads.
Chogan wished he could hear what was being said. The men were obviously talking to one another, but due to the distance between him and his wolf, he was unable to pick up their words.
The state of the captives made him furious. Each of them sported blackened eyes and abrasions, and the woman had each of her arms and legs bound in thick support bandages. They were no longer tied, but instead each huddled in a corner of their own personal cell. A metal chair stood in the center of each of the cells. The source of the electroshock treatment, he assumed.
How had his cousin been a part of this? How could he stand by and do nothing while these people were being hurt?
Anger boiled up inside him. Blake had always made out like he was the injured party, the one who always played the good guy to his bad, but now here were people who he’d allowed to be harmed.
Using all his mental strength to keep the bond with his wolf strong, even at hundreds of feet through the earth, he urged his wolf forward, through the panels of glass and into the individual glass cells with the captive shifters. Though his wolf could do nothing physical, he placed a wet nose into each captive’s hands in turn, nuzzling with hot wolf-breath, trying to offer just a little comfort.
I’ll get you out, he promised them silently. However many of these sons of bitches I need to kill to do it.
BLAKE PACED AROUND the hotel room, his fists clenched at his sides.
“Will you sit down?” said Autumn. “You’re making me anxious.”
“You should be anxious. Dumas won’t have any qualms about picking you up off the street, faking your death—probably blaming it on me at the same time in order to get me out of the picture—and then holding you captive for the rest of your life. Is that really what you want?”
She looked at him in alarm. “No! Of course not, but I still don’t understand why he’d want me.”
“I thought I’d explained this to you already? I thought you understood.”
She held her hands out either side of her body and arched her eyebrows. “Obviously not.”
He sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, only a foot of air separating their bodies.
“There are things you need to know about shifters, Autumn. My kind are extremely secretive, and we go out of our way not to interact with each other. By not gathering as a group, we remain unnoticed.”
“Until now,” she said.
He nodded. “Until now.”
“So how does it work if you all stay apart from each other? How are more spirit shifters born?”
“You misunderstand. Our gift—or curse—isn’t something that can be passed down from generation to generation. Instead, our spirits choose us.”
She frowned. “They choose you? How?”
“When a new soul is born in the world, the spirit will recognize the one it is supposed to be with. Sometimes, like in my case, this happens at birth. My spirit guide was already waiting for me and we became joined as soon as I was born. Of course, the strengths, like my ability to shift into the form of my spirit guide—in my case, a wolf—didn’t come until we grew stronger together and learned how to work together. Others aren’t chosen until later in life, and those shifters are much weaker, but they are still stronger and faster and have abilities far greater than a regular human.”
Autumn could barely believe she was going to ask this, especially with her own dubious religious views, but she had to know. “Does having a guide mean you’re somehow connected to God?”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Not at all. There’s no higher power working here other than spirituality. Not organized religion, just the power of nature.”
“But if the spirits choose the person they bind to, then surely that person must be some kind of spiritual soul. They must have goodness at their hearts.”
“Not always. Not all spirits are good, just as not all people are good. Evil exists in all planes of our world.”
“I don’t understand. Those who are chosen at birth … how would a spirit know when a newborn is going to turn out to be a bad adult?”
“A soul is a soul and will always be who they are, regardless of outside forces. Why do you think people who are brought up in exactly the same situation can grow up acting in two completely different ways? Take two children who grow up in abusive families. One child might grow up to be abusive himself, while the other grows up working for organizations to try to prevent such a thing happening to others. If someone has evil at their core, they’ll be that person, no matter what.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Well, that’s an ongoing debate—nurture versus nature. Most people put it down to genetics, not the person’s soul.”
A small smile played on his lips. “I wouldn’t expect you to say anything else. For the most part, you’d be right, but not always.”
“So, where do I come into this?”
“When our spirit guides bind to us, something changes about our molecular make-up. As a human, our genetics are human, but when we start to shift, our genes change too.”
“Your genetic sequences rearrange,” Autumn said, her understanding slotting into place. “Dumas is trying to replicate a shifter’s genes from human DNA.”
Blake nodded. “All shifters—even in human form—have better senses than any human alive. Plus, we’re faster, stronger, and heal more quickly. But that’s not all. Those who are well-synched with their spirit guides can view the world through their eyes, even when in human form. I can send my wolf ahead of me for several miles, and though he’s invisible to everyone else, I’m able to see what he’s seeing.”
She looked at him in wonder. “That’s amazing. So can you see something else right now?”
“Let’s not get distracted by what I can and can’t do. We need to worry about what Dumas wants with spirit shifters, and, because of what you did, what he now wants with you.”
“Dumas wants to be able to create shifters from regular humans, but why?”
“I thought you were smart, Autumn.”
She briefly closed her eyes, putting the final pieces of the puzzle together. “He wants spirit shifter strengths.”
“Yes, though not for himself. Imagine an army who can not only move faster and are stronger than their enemies, and whose injuries heal within hours, but who can also send eyes and ears into enemy territory without anyone ever knowing they’re there.”
“An army of spirit shifters?”
He nodded. “No one has ever been able to achieve what you have, Autumn. Many have tried—not that the other scientists survived their failures.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “What do you mean?”
“Accidents, if you can call them that. When previous scientists failed to get any further in their research, or perhaps they’d learned too much, they tended to meet with unfortunate accidents.”
“Like who?” she demanded. “Who were these scientists?”
“Before you was an older professor called Cordell.”
“William Cordell?”
He nodded.
“William Cordell suffered a heart attack. He died in his sleep. The news was well-circulated in the scientific community.”
“Certain drugs have the ability to induce a heart attack and make it appear natural.”
“Who else?”
“Before him was Doctor Laurence Holt.”
Autumn thought for a moment, trying to place a face with the name. Then she remembered who Blake was talking about. She’d met with him briefly at a conference in New York.
“I wasn’t aware he’d died.”
Blake nodded. “Car accident. Not very original, but they happen all the time.”
She paused before asking the question burning at her he
art. She didn’t want to insult him, but considering his position, she needed to know. “Were you involved in their deaths?”
He held her gaze. “No, Autumn, I wasn’t. Though I wonder if I should have done more to try to save them.”
“Like you’re doing with me now?”
“You’re different.”
“Am I?”
Tension buzzed between them. He spoke softly. “You know you are.”
“The ability to change the DNA might not be specific to my blood. Blood in general might cause the DNA to shift?”
Blake shook his head. “No, I’m sure those tests would already have been done. If we still had access to the files and could get back into the lab, we might be able to find out. I’m certain Dumas won’t destroy the research.”
Autumn considered this. “Okay, say the test with blood has already been done, how can we be sure some other outside influence, some other contaminant, didn’t affect the results?”
He studied her face and she shifted uncomfortably under his intense, dark stare. “There’s something special about you, Autumn. I noticed from the first moment I saw you. Don’t tell me you’ve gone through life feeling like everyone else?”
Her cheeks colored. Of course she hadn’t. Her mom had died when she was young, she had a reclusive scientist, who had no idea how to handle teenage girls, for a father, and she’d grown up smarter than any of the kids in her class. No one liked the class geek. Even being moved up a year hadn’t helped. Then, she even made the other geeks look bad. As for boys ... well … She shuddered at the memory. Her following the boys she liked around like some lost puppy. Them, always older than her, looking down at her—at least in the metaphorical sense, she’d been tall and gangly even back then—and laughing.
She broke the moment, not answering the question. “Surely there is something else we can do? Go to the press or something?”
“And tell them what? You’d look like a crazy person. Plus, the government owns everyone. No one would dare expose them for having people murdered, but what they would do is expose the existence of my kind. If the world knew about us, we’d be turned into freaks or monsters. Vigilante groups would try to hunt us down. We’d be locked up in far more science labs than what Dumas and his team have done.”
Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One Page 10