Shadow's Messenger: An Aileen Travers Novel

by T. A. White

  “That was hours ago.”

  Bullshit. For him to have time to set up patrols and actually deploy them meant he would have had to act shortly after my call. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already been on the move when I called him.

  It didn’t matter. It was what it was and no amount of recrimination would change that. He acted, and we now had to deal with the situation as it was.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “I figured out who’s behind all this. Do you know a witch named Angela?”

  He looked down, frowning thoughtfully. It looked like he didn’t. That might make convincing him a little more difficult.

  “She’s friendly with one of your wolves. The one named Victor. He’s the guy who threw a fit in the middle of our conversation in your kitchen and accused me of setting all this up.”

  A growl so low and vicious that it was almost inaudible came from the wolf standing behind Brax. My eyes fixed on Brax. His face had gone grim and still at the sound of Victor’s name. His eyes slid to the right.

  I followed them, my breath catching at the sight of a pair of milky eyes peering out at us from the shadow of a tree.

  Trap.

  “Draugr?” I mouthed.

  Brax’s head tilted down once. Yes.

  Suddenly I was less glad to have happened on Brax. Instead of a possible savior, he was probably going to be the reason I had a one way ticket to that great light in the sky.

  The figure near the tree remained motionless. Now that I knew he was there, I could smell the stench of rot. He must have been masking it. I’d been so focused on Brax that I had forgotten to watch my surroundings.

  The wolf behind Brax crept forward, the fur on its belly dragging against the grass.

  We were at a disadvantage with Brax in human form. How long would it take him to shift back to wolf? Too long if the icy expression on his face was any indication. If he tried to turn back to wolf the draugr would be on him before he could complete the transformation.

  I was next to useless in a fight. I didn’t even have my knives on me. From the last fight I’d seen between Brax and Liam, I knew I was seriously outclassed. That left running.

  I tilted my head in the opposite direction of the draugr.

  Brax’s mouth tightened, but he nodded.

  Like someone had yelled ‘play’, the wolf sprang forward, and I took off to my right, leaping over headstone after headstone.

  There was a yelp then guttural snarls and a roar of pain. I chanced a glance behind me. The stupid man hadn’t run, instead turning to face the wolf. He was trying to give me time to get away.

  I slid to a stop. Damn it, I really wished he’d run.

  He grasped the wolf’s shoulders, his arms bulging as he prevented it from latching onto anything vital. The wolf shredded his forearms with teeth and claws, but mostly snapped at the air.

  I ran back, bending to pick up a rock the size of my fist as I moved.

  Brax tossed the wolf away. It crashed into a tombstone, cracking the marker in two. Victor’s wolf stood and shook itself, blood and saliva flying.

  There were still twenty feet between me and it. I’d covered much more ground than I thought in my sprint.

  I put on a burst of speed as it crouched. Ten feet. It leapt for Brax, paws outstretched and lips curled back from its fangs.

  Brax waited, crouched with arms spread.

  The wolf landed on him, knocking him back a step. Then I was there, swinging with everything I had, knocking the wolf off him. Victor sailed much further than I’d intended, his pained yelp echoing in the night.

  Ha. Not so defenseless after all.

  “You were supposed to run,” Brax growled.

  I gaped at him. Really? That’s what he wanted to say after I saved his ass? You were supposed to run? Who said that to someone who had been kind enough to rescue them?

  An arrogant asshole convinced of his invincibility, that’s who.

  My mouth snapped shut, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Why thank you Aileen for taking your life into your hands to help me,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re welcome, Brax. It was what anybody would do.”

  He bared his teeth and growled. Actually growled at me. After I’d saved him.

  “That’s not the point. You should have run.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You’re an arrogant asshole. Most people would thank me for what I just did.”

  “Thank you? I had it handled. I didn’t need you pulling any misguided heroic stunts.”

  While we talked, Victor’s wolf form receded, leaving a human male behind. His transformation wasn’t as clean or quick as Brax’s. The snap and crack of bones as his body shifted and changed, his paws becoming hands and his spine twisting as it became a human’s made me cringe. It looked and sounded painful.

  Brax gave him a lethal glance. I wouldn’t want to be Victor once his alpha got hold of him. He probably wouldn’t survive the night if Brax’s quiet rage was any indication.

  My eyes shot to the figure by the tree. The shadows were empty.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  Brax didn’t respond, striding forward to grab and jerk Victor up by his shoulder.

  I glanced around, turning in circles. No sign of the draugr lurked amid the field of headstones. Why would he run off when his controller was in trouble?

  Maybe he didn’t recognize Victor while he was in wolf form. I certainly hadn’t.

  Brax had Victor by the throat and had hauled him close.

  “What have you done?” Brax growled.

  “Brax.” This was making me uneasy. The draugr shouldn’t have disappeared like that.

  “You’ve killed so many and your actions may have started another war.”

  His words were accompanied by another bone rattling shake. Victor’s face was turning purple. Brax’s grip was so tight he couldn’t breathe let alone speak.

  “Brax.”

  I’d feel a lot better if we got out of here. A bad feeling was starting to creep along my skin. I’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. Bad things always ensued when I didn’t.

  “This isn’t our way. You challenge for Alpha. You don’t sneak around like a thief in the night. You are the basest of cowards.”

  “Brax,” I yelled. He turned on me, the wolf overlaying his face for just a moment. “That’s enough. Either kill him or bring him with us, but we need to go. The draugr is still around, and we’re not prepared to fight him.”

  The wolf stared out of his eyes, the icy blue of his iris holding an alien intelligence. Not beastlike but definitely not subject to human mores and values. He could kill me as easy as look at me. It wouldn’t bother him a bit, even if I had saved him moments before. I wasn’t pack and therefore he owed me none of the courtesy and affection they were afforded.

  I waited, refusing to drop my eyes. It was a definite challenge to his authority, but I was tired of playing games. If he didn’t come and come now, I was leaving him behind. He could face the draugr on his own.

  The wolf receded, leaving a pissed Brax glaring at me. He released Victor and shoved him in front of him. I released my breath on a shaky exhale. For all my bravado, every muscle in my body had been tensed to flee if Brax had made good on the promise of violence living in his eyes.

  Victor coughed and gasped for breath. His shoulders shook. Was he crying? No. A rough chuckle reached my ears. He was laughing.

  I took a step back. It was never good when the bad guy gave an evil villain laugh.

  Brax stepped forward.

  Victor kept his head down, shielding his face. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

  I took another step back. I agreed with him.

  Victor lifted his head and turned it to the side. The draugr stepped out of the shadows, his eyes staring blindly at our trio.

  “Jackson Miller, you don’t have to listen to anything he says,” I said.

  This wasn’t
good. This was very, very bad.

  I was beginning to think I should have listened to Brax and kept running.

  Brax stepped forward grabbing for Victor and missing when the other wolf ducked away.

  “Kill them,” Victor screamed.

  “Jackson,” I said. “I know where your keepsakes are. Just stay over there, and I’ll get them for you.”

  “She’s lying. She and the wolf have been in on it together the entire time.”

  The creature who used to be Jackson Miller gaze jumped between us like a spectator at a tennis match.

  I held out a hand hoping to keep him calm and reasonable. I didn’t want another episode like the house.

  “Your name is Jackson Miller, and your wife was Eva Miller. You were a doctor in the civil war.”

  The draugr’s chest heaved at my words, recognition of who he once was seeping into his dead fish stare. Good. Maybe I could turn him against Victor after all.

  “Kill her,” Victor growled. “How do you think she knows all this? Because she stole your keepsakes.”

  Brax backed towards me, keeping Victor and the draugr in sight. He herded me back a few steps.

  The draugr’s eyes turned toward me, the brief moment of sanity fading as madness took its place. I’d lost him. He was hearing, but he wasn’t listening. Still I had to try.

  “No, he’s the one who’s lying. He has your stuff and is using it to manipulate you into doing his dirty work.”

  The draugr screamed, the sound piercing like a thousand needles in your mind. Brax staggered beside me, raising his hands to clutch at his ears.

  Whatever was happening affected his balance, and he fell to his knees. He convulsed on the ground, fur crawling over his skin and his limbs and back bulging as the bones ran like water underneath the surface. This wasn’t the easy shift of before. This was hideous and painful, torture of a kind I wouldn’t wish on anybody.

  The draugr’s voice faded but Brax’s body continued to twist in the throes of the shift. Victor watched with a twisted grin, relishing his alpha’s pain.

  A gray and white wolf lay on the ground panting in Brax’s place. He was a gorgeous specimen, bigger than anything found in the wild, with a luxurious coat and paws the size of dinner plates.

  It was tempting to hope that his wolf was enough to turn the tide against our attackers, but I had a feeling things wouldn’t be that easy as he staggered to his feet.

  “I know what we should do,” the draugr sang in a high pitched voice. He giggled and leapt to crouch on one of the headstones, cocking his head like an oversized bird. One whose features were rotting off its body.

  The draugr’s skin was in worse shape than it had been in his victim’s house. Giant patches were missing, showing bone and tendon. Half his nose was gone, leaving strings of flesh and cartilage. A yellow substance, pus perhaps, oozed out of raised boils on his hands and neck.

  He looked fragile, but I knew his outward appearance belied the strength resting in his body. The victims showed he was capable of tearing bodies apart. Even those of werewolves in their prime. He’d probably tear through me like tissue paper if I let him get hold of me.

  “We’ll play a game,” the draugr sang, baring a mouth full of decayed or missing teeth in a smile. “Whoever survives will be eaten by me.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” I said, taking another step back.

  Brax seemed pretty out of it still, his great head hanging and his tail scraping the ground. I tried to catch his eyes. I needed him to run this time, not attack.

  “I think the wolf will play.” The draugr’s head bobbed in a sinuous motion almost like it had no bones constricting its movements. “Yes. Yes. I think he will be most willing.”

  The low growl focused my attention back on Brax. His teeth were bared as that growl came again. He edged forward on one paw.

  “Brax, you don’t want to do this,” I warned.

  The draugr must have messed with his mind. It’s the only thing I could think of for him to suddenly turn on me like this.

  “I think he does.” The draugr giggled and clapped his hands, popping one of the pustules. The yellow liquid slid down his arms and soaked into his coat.

  “Brax, you are an alpha werewolf. You can fight this. I know you can.”

  I backed up, the wolf shadowing me. My foot wobbled on the uneven surface of a grave as his slinking movement brought him even closer.

  Victor watched us, his eyes catching and reflecting the light to glow briefly.

  I wanted to run. My feet practically itched to take flight. But even if I ran as fast and gracefully as a gazelle through a cemetery strewn with headstones and uneven graves, I would never outrun Brax. He was faster than me. He’d overtake me in a few steps.

  My eyes landed on the draugr. He was the source of this. I needed to take him out if I wanted to have even a little bit of a chance.

  First though, I needed to create a window of opportunity with Brax.

  The wolf’s eyes were slightly deranged as they glared at me, his growls getting throatier and strings of saliva hanging from his fangs. His head lowered as he circled to the left of me.

  I searched his eyes for some spark of the person he was. I needed him to fight, even if it was only for a few seconds.

  I let my attention drift to the draugr for a brief moment, hoping he got the message.

  There. A spark. His growl faltered before continuing.

  He shook his head, as if to deter a pesky mosquito.

  I sprinted forward, using every ounce of whatever vampire speed I might have. There was an enraged snarl and then the thud of paws behind me.

  Faster. Faster.

  I eked out another two yards.

  Victor caught on to my plan and ran forward. I kept my eyes trained on my target.

  Come on. Everything you’ve got. Move.

  I flew over the last few yards, before tackling the draugr in as beautiful a leap as any seen on a football field.

  The draugr’s hysterical laughter was cut short with a grunt as we collided.

  I landed on top of him, grabbed him by the throat and banged his head against the ground.

  A furry body flew past me, sailing over another headstone and bounding past another. Brax’s wolf disappeared into the darkness.

  Good. Mission accomplished.

  Now I needed to follow him.

  I dug a knee into the monster’s chest and rose.

  A weight bowled into me from the side, slamming me into a headstone.

  It cracked under my weight and sent pain screaming through my chest.

  My ribs were broken. Again.

  Blood bubbled up from my lips as I fought to rise.

  Victor sneered down at me, before one bare foot came crashing down on my head.

  Darkness sucked me under. Again.

  Water dripped onto my face. I flinched and then wished I hadn’t. It felt like I’d been run over by a truck. This whole getting knocked out business was turning into a bad habit.

  Memories of the events leading up to my loss of consciousness rose. I opened my eyes without turning my head. Where was I, and why wasn’t I dead?

  A dirt floor greeted my eyes. Cement blocks were only a few feet away from me. Basement. Probably an older house. Another drop of water hit the back of my neck. Probably one with a leak.

  I carefully turned my head. Looked like I was alone for now. I stifled a groan as I tried to sit and found I couldn’t. Chains were wrapped around my chest and hooked to an old pipe. I gave an experimental yank. The pipe groaned but didn’t budge. Just great.

  I felt a little nauseous, like I used to when I hadn’t eaten. It could also be a sign of concussion, if vampires got concussions. It could be the effect of injury compounded by not getting enough blood in the past twenty four hours.

  I forced myself to take stock of my situation.

  There was a small window above me. It was glass and not any of the frosted stuff so popular on basement windows. This was the r
eal stuff and looked like it might be original to the house. There was a furnace and water heater in the corner. The rest of the basement just contained boxes of junk, all on shelves.

  “Looks like our guest is awake,” the draugr said from his position at the top of the stairs. “We had a bet going over whether you would wake up before the sun rose. I thought you’d remain dead to the world.” He turned and said over his shoulder, “Looks like you win, as always.”

  A pair of boots appeared next to the draugr then descended. Victor, wearing clothes this time, came into view.

  “You’ve cost me quite a bit, fang face.”

  I didn’t see Brax anywhere. He must have gotten away.

  Not going to lie, wish it had been me to make the escape, but at least Brax knew the whole story. He could round up support and come searching. I just needed to survive until he and his backup got here.

  “Did you hear me?” Victor said, kicking my leg.

  Pain pulsed up my body. I must have done some damage to the leg and just hadn’t noticed with all the other injuries.

  He crouched down and grabbed my hair, hauling my face up to his.

  “I’ve been planning this for years, and you’ve managed to nearly ruin everything.”

  “What do you want me to say? I’ve got a knack for throwing a wrench in things.”

  One thumb caressed my cheek as he crooned at me, “Don’t worry. I’m sure we can think of something as payback.

  He tapped my rib. I swallowed the pained sound, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood. He got off on my pain. I wasn’t giving him any more than I had to. He pressed harder, the pain like a band around my chest, tightening and tightening until a small sound escaped me.

  He dropped my head, stepping back. I glared at his boots as I panted. A cold sweat broke out over my skin.

  Bastard.

  “I don’t get you,” I said. “Why do all this? Why go through the trouble of attacking the dryad and the vampire, if you just wanted to take Brax out?”

  “Not many can grasp the genius of my plan,” Victor said. “I’ve been laying the groundwork for years. The wolves never even suspected the person responsible for everything was one of their own.”