Highland Shapeshifter

by Clover Autrey

  “You won’t believe what happened.” Charity raced down the hall, a disheveled whirlwind of dark hair. “This guy just—“ She spun back to face her and threw out her hands. “—just appeared in my kitchen, completely naked, was just all of a sudden there.”

  “What?” Lenore’s heart dropped. Had the yuppies found Charity instead of her? Why would they get naked? “Someone broke in? Are you okay?”

  “No. Yes, yes, I’m okay. No, he didn’t break in. I’m telling you he just materialized in my apartment. Before my eyes. Out of thin air.” Charity’s shoulders went up and down in her frantic excitement.

  The walls seemed to tilt sideways as Lenore tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “What?” Because really, what?

  Charity’s laugh held a touch of hysteria. She grabbed Lenore’s arms to pull her into the library-slash-dining nook. “A sorcerer, Lenore. From the past. One strong enough to open a time rift and seek out a healer.”

  Lenore sank down into a chair at the little table, processing as Charity chattered about witches and dungeons, broken bones and her healing abilities enhanced times thousands. Old magic from centuries past. Pure unadulterated magic of light. A wounded Highland sorcerer who traveled through time for a respite from the tortures he was even now enduring—well, in his time—at a witch’s hand. A witch he could not escape without placing his siblings and clan and the magic they guarded at a higher risk.

  And she had a name.

  Toren Limont.

  Lenore flinched in her seat. She knew that name. Had heard of the last High Sorcerer. But it couldn’t be possible.

  She spun out of the chair to quickly search the bookshelves. Where was it? Where was it? Her flea-market shelves were crammed with old texts, even scrolls, anything she could get her hands on. The art of healing fascinated her.

  “I can’t believe it. One of the fabled sorcerers of Limont came to you. In the flesh.”

  Her body hummed with the possibility of this being true. Ah, there. She tugged the large tome from among others on the second highest shelf.

  “In nothing but his flesh.” Charity grabbed the other side of the old book and together they brought it to the table.

  “You sure it’s in here?”

  “Oh yeah, I remember reading about it when I first convinced mom to let me look at the book.” It was impossible. The name had to be a coincidence. No way had the High Sorcerer of Limont time-traveled into Charity’s apartment. Things like that didn’t happen anymore. Not on days when she had a mysterious man of her own to figure out. One looking for Charity.

  “You were ten.”

  Huh? Oh. Lenore shrugged a shoulder. “It was a romantic story, an entire clan, every individual gifted with some form of magic as long as they remained the protectors of man… And then all of them vanished. Poof.” It was an incredible story, like a fairy tale. “The village must have fallen to ruin because no one knows where it once was.”

  She took her gloves from the little carved box on the table. The pages were too old to let the oils in her fingers damage them.

  “That’s so weird.” Charity plunked down beside her. “What does that even mean? Protectors of man?”

  “Got me. Something about the innate balance of magic. As long as the Limonts kept the dark side of magic from overtaking the good, the entire land would prosper.”

  The writing was Gaelic. Their grandmother insisted they learn a bit of many ancient runes and symbols so they could pick out healing spells and incantations. Although they weren’t witches, sometimes reciting the words enhanced the little they could do with their natural abilities.

  “Magic would remain abundant and the flip side of magic, like the dark fairies, ghouls, and vampires wouldn’t get much of a foothold in the world. Here it is.” Lenore grabbed her reading glasses and slipped them on. She found what she’d been looking for. Genealogical records.

  “Toren Limont,” Charity whispered, her head next to Lenore’s as they read. “High Sorcerer of Limont, born in Crunfathy. Have you ever heard of Crunfathy?”

  “No. Never.” Lenore’s pulse thundered. What was going on? A shiver of dread swept along the back of her neck. She moved her gloved fingers across Charity’s. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Charity’s eyes were huge. The tips of her dark hair swished over the velum page and Lenore didn’t have the energy to worry about what that could do to the pages. “It’s just weird, you know?”

  “Do you want to stop?” Please stop. Whatever was going on, they weren’t a part of it. Not anymore. The sorcerer was back in the past where he belonged. They had more important concerns. On any other day, she’d be all over this, but her priority had to center on finding out what a shifter from Oregon wanted with her sister. And at the same time, keep Charity unaware of her extracurricular activity in procuring needed substances for their seedier clientele.

  Tomorrow. She’d help Charity figure this all out tomorrow. They could have a sister’s night of it, order Chinese, turn up the tunes, and dig through every book or scroll she had on the ancient Highland clan. Studying, uncovering buried truths, now that was a good time.

  If Clan Limont really was the balance that kept dark magic from overtaking the light, they’d done a terrible job of it.

  Creatures of dark magic were everywhere.

  “No, I want to know what happened.” Charity got that stubborn jut to her chin. There’d be no stopping her, which meant simply diverting her for a while.

  “All right.” She’d get her sister her answers and let her stew on it all day while she rushed to take care of everything else. She twisted her hair into a knot and jammed a pencil in it to keep it on top of her head away from the precious pages. “Your Toren was the last known sorcerer before the clan vanished for good. You see these other names below his?”

  Charity squinted.

  Lenore traced the names with the tip of the glove.

  Toren Limont

  Shaw Limont

  Edeen Limont

  Col Limont

  Edeen?

  Blinking rapidly, the runes blurred. She shook her head to settle her vision, waiting for the room to quit tilting and stared at the names.

  She steadied her breathing. She had things to attend to. “He had two brothers and a sister. It looks like that together the four siblings kept their people safe and the balance of magic in check. They also…” She had to admit, this next part was cool. It was cool when she’d read about it at ten and it was still cool now. “They also each had their own unique brand of magic. The sister was an empath.”

  “She could tap into other people’s emotions,” Charity supplied.

  “Yes, but back then when magic was part of everyday existence and so much stronger, an empath would have been able to do way more than feel emotions. We’re talking the ability to really get into people’s heads, dive into memories they don’t even know about if she wanted to.”

  The room suddenly grew warmer, remembering the similar experience she’d had in the wee hours last night. She hadn’t experienced the shifter’s memories or anything like that, but she’d felt him, everything he was, and…was perspiration coating her forehead? She barely heard what Charity said.

  “…touched one of us, she’d see everything we know?”

  Yeah, uh, right. “Yes. Can you imagine our healing potential if we lived back then?” She hoped she was on the same topic as Charity, but her sister was so rattled by her own evening’s encounter she hadn’t yet noticed how tense Lenore was. “Magic was in everything, as simple as plucking it from the air.” She smiled. That really would be awesome. She imagined how much more successfully she’d be able to help those who needed her. With that strength of magic she would have been able to draw the tanglewort right out of the shapeshifter instead of her magic barely sufficing as a bandaide while watching—feeling— him suffer.

  “So your Toren was the sorcerer, Edeen an empath. The youngest brother Col, was a shapeshifter…” She swallowed past the lump in he
r paper-dry throat. An unexpected worry needled at her.

  Just what she didn’t need, another shapeshifter to worry about.

  Everything was off, happening all at once. She’d had a harried night. That was all. Hardly any sleep.

  “And Shaw: moon sifter.”

  Her glasses slipped down her nose.

  “Which is?” Charity’s nose wrinkled.

  “I have no idea.” But as soon as she had some time, she was going to hit the books and find out. Kay, Charity had her answers. Time to get her out of here and go take care of business. The shifter could have awakened by now. No calls from Gabe yet, so maybe not.

  She slipped off her gloves. “So now you know. Your visitor really was a Highland Sorcerer, last of his line before the entire Clan Limont vanished and magic hasn’t been as potent on the earth since. It’s all pretty amazing when you think about it.”

  “Yeah.” Charity sighed. “Amazing.”

  It was. It really was. If Lenore wasn’t up to her eyeballs in her own problems, she’d be grilling Charity for more specifics. “Hey.” She pushed stray strands of her sister’s hair behind her ear. “It is amazing. It’s not every day things like this happen.”

  “I know.”

  “You did what you could for him. And you got to feel incredible power flow through you, more than either of us could generate in these days. That had to feel awesome, right? I know it’s hard when you heal someone. You feel like you’re responsible for them, but there’s nothing more you can do. It’s not like you can travel back through time and check on him.”

  She didn’t like the look on her sister’s face. “We have time-travel spells. Grandma’s done it.”

  No way. What was Charity thinking? It wouldn’t matter anyway. Sorcerers were the only ones who could once open time rifts and there hadn’t been any around with enough magic to do that for a couple of centuries anyway. Sure, a talented healer or witch could recite a specific incantation to travel back a few hours, a day maybe, but that didn’t have anything to do with messing around with a time rift. Whatever Charity had considered on the spur of the moment wouldn’t work anyway. There was nothing to get antsy over.

  Lenore eased back in her seat and took her glasses off. “She went back half a day to stop Uncle Frank from getting in that car accident that took his leg. Even if you could pull it off, what would be the point in going back to last night and your Highlander? You’ve already done what you can for him.” She was rambling now, her nerves and emotions fried. “It’s not like we have the ability or spells to travel across centuries. Not even the sorcerers of today have the juice to do that anymore.”

  Charity frowned at the page.

  “I’m sorry,” Lenore said. “I get it, but it’s not possible so there’s no use in worrying about him anymore. Whatever happens—happened—to Toren Limont is out of your hands. You got to just let it go.”

  Charity stood and pulled their grandmother’s pink book of spells from the lower shelf. “I know, okay. I’m going to take this home, all right?”

  The book had the time-travel incantation their grandmother had once used.

  Lenore puckered her lips. There wasn’t much Charity could do about a sorcerer who’d gone back to the past. Charity was headstrong to a fault, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d come to that conclusion on her own and pouring through grandma’s book of spells would keep her busy.

  “Sure,” Lenore said. “Just don’t…you know.”

  Charity frowned. “Like you said, no one has the juice to travel back that far anyway.”

  Why didn’t that make Lenore feel any better?

  Chapter Six

  Col floated in a sludge pool of misery and disorientation. He knew he dreamed, his mind and body lethargic, caught in the snare of whatever substance they kept pumping into his arm. Nothing made sense since he’d been flung through the time rift that had opened with the ill-conjured unleashing of magics between the witch Aldreth and his brother Shaw while they’d battled upon Crunfathy Hill.

  That rift had been unnatural, felt wrong, pulling him apart at his most basic essence before spitting him out in this cold distant time.

  He’d nearly lost himself to the ether, had barely gathered his particles and solidified, a naked, weak husk, shivering in the dark alley of what he’d surmised at first to be a large keep, but learned in this age of man ‘twas a gutted warehouse. Everything was strange and dark, a noisy rain-soaked land brimming with people who’d lost the joy of simply being, and monsters who cavorted with the unsuspecting mortals like wolves moving downwind among sheep.

  The magic of the earth had grown dark. The air quivered with the tainted imbalance, thrumming deep and heavy against Col’s essence.

  They had failed.

  His family had failed.

  Whatever had transpired in his time, he knew his family—the guardians of the Fae’s magic—had failed to keep the balance between light and dark magics.

  He had to get back home. Mayhap right this.

  Which meant finding a sorcerer to create a time rift for him.

  Finding garments to clothe himself had been far easier. When he stumbled out of the alley, the first person he came upon lifted a maiden’s thin dining dagger to his throat. What could the man possibly have wanted from him in his current state of undress? ‘Twas apparent he had nothing of value. More to the point, he had nothing. By the rood, these people of the future were suspicious.

  Col divested him of his blouse and strange trews instead.

  ‘Twas when he rounded the corner into lighted night, and carriages miraculously pulled without livestock, whirring past, his stomach rose like gore to his throat.

  He had traveled far, far beyond his time.

  Weeks passed in this new world. He learned to survive in this new age by wit and brawn, scrabbling among the darkest dregs of creatures that had ever been spat from the wombs of magic kind. The odd job for scraps of food and a place to sleep off the cold streets for a night, a brawl for wagerers’ entertainment. He moved from city to city, always asking, always searching for an elusive sorcerer, unwilling to believe when all laughed, saying sorcerers no longer had magic.

  He couldn’t believe that.

  He had to get back. Charity had managed it.

  Charity. Just like that a new plan was conceived. He wasn’t certain of an exact time. He could be decades or centuries off, but he had a name and he had a place, connecting with the lass’s unfathomable tale of his brother opening a rift and traveling to the Twenty-first Century to seek a healer for a short respite from the witch Aldreth’s tortures.

  Toren was coming here. A sorcerer powerful enough to get him home. If, in fact, his brother hadn’t already made the journey.

  He had to find Charity Greves of Seattle.

  That was the plan and how it had all run afoul, Col was yet to make sense of it. ‘Twas all a murky blur. He’d gone to a run-down tavern. Seems in any era, pubs and taverns were the place to seek information. He’d barely asked the barkeep of anyone who might know of a healer, specifically one Charity Greves when ghouls set upon him. He’d fought, of course, transformed into one of the large cats of the Highland cliffs and was making a good accounting among the dozen or so wiry beasts, until the troll set his ale down and unfortunately took up the defense of the ghouls. Who would have thought they’d be mercenaries for the same coin? Certainly not him, though by then ‘twas too late to sort any sense from it.

  Everything had gone to shite after that, fuzzy and muddled. A sharp pain stabbed him and with it a fiery burn that dragged into his veins. They’d given him something. Some potion. He felt it crawl sluggishly through his blood, making his reactions clumsy. It had taken the ghouls moments to overcome him.

  Then there’d been darkness and waking times where he’d bounced in the back of an untethered wagon, glimpsing spots of overcast sky through a slanted pane of glass as the carriage carried him away from his search. There’d been harsh voices and harsher treatment, more of the burnin
g potion that turned his thoughts to porridge and a soft voice offering help with a singular burst of energy that pierced his essence with the first moment of clarity he’d had in days.

  Then…what?

  If the memories before the woman were a haze, everything afterwards reeked of nightmares. Exquisite pain, heat and blistering chills, his body wrenched so tight he couldn’t breathe. He could hardly distinguish dream from reality anymore.

  Mayhap ‘twas all nightmare.

  He fought to consciousness, clawing through the shadowy haze that did not want to recede.

  He had to get to Charity before Toren came. ‘Twas his only hope of returning home and leaving this thrice-cursed century behind.

  He drifted upward, expecting to struggle through the lethargy shrouding him.

  Movement fluttered near. The padding of feet across a hard floor. He flexed a finger, testing, relieved when his hand obeyed.

  Whatever he was laying on shifted beneath another’s weight.

  Col strained to open his eyes. What new circumstance would he find himself in now? Whatever ‘twas, he’d rather not greet it defenseless on his back.

  His lashes fluttered, revealing patches of subdued light. A wet cloth slapped upon his chest and started trailing water down his stomach.

  “That’s it,” a male voice muttered. “You can wake up any time. I’m bored. Or does the slumbering prince require a kiss?”

  Everything inside Col went on alert. What depth of blackness had he been cast into now?

  The dripping cloth circled back up and Col concentrated everything he had to open his eyes. His blurry gaze opened to curious brown eyes staring down on him.

  “Hey there.” The man grinned beneath wild locks of hair hanging around a lean face. “You back with?”

  Col angled upward against protesting muscles and rolled off the other side of the bed, coming up into a defensive stance. A dozen hammers banged inside his skull.

  The man flung his palms up, showing he bore no arms, just the wet cloth that fell from lax fingers to plop on the mattress. “Whoa, dude. You look kind of green. You probably shouldn’t move so fast.”